Blurry day

Today was a real blur--finally slowed down about 5:30.  A couple of meetings, lots of phone calls, running many errands.  Whew, I felt like a hamster in a cage spinning at full speed.  Tomorrow's going to seem real low key compared to today.

Mea culpa: Yesterday I wrote a political tirade on the Arizona Snowbirds blog.  This morning I deleted it.  I'm not going to let politics intrude into any of my blogs, regardless of their topic.  Yesterday's post was an aberration.  Sorry 'bout that.  There are enough political commentators in this country alone to fill a fleet of Titanics. I have no need to add my name to the list.  Enough!  So, worry to not, LBR's, we will never let a hint of political commentary ooze into this or any other blog ever again!

Everyone here is talking about the changing seasons.  The river is almost entirely thawed out now.  That's a "major marker" for the local folks.  They are all wagging their tongues about how early this is for the river to thaw.  The evening temp is 30 degrees here and it sure feels like the harsh mid-winter temps are gone.
Soon, we will enter what everyone calls "Wind Season."  That's when the wind blows a million miles an hour every day all the time for weeks and weeks.  Hopefully, we will be in Arizona before it begins and return after it ends.  It's actually quite annoying.

As you know, we're really pushing hard to tie up our loose ends before heading south.  Tidying loose ends takes gobs of time.  The nice thing, though, is that one a loose end has been tied up and finished--it's done--and the list shrinks by one.  Eventually each one crossed off the list grows and now the list looks so much smaller than it did when we first prepared it.

Here's a story.  I went to the post office last week and they told me the various offices can now communicate with each other via the internet.  Novel idea, eh?  I even commented about it in a blog post that day.  OK, well, today I went back to go to the correct window to "deal with it."  I politely asked the lady to tell the Sedona Post Office to stop forwarding our mail.  She asked, "What are you talking about?"  I politely said, "Well that gentleman over there behind YOUR counter here in THIS post office told me that YOU could send an email to the Sedona Post Office to stop our forwarding."  She said, "He said WHAT?  That's ridiculous!  We can't do that!"  Then she pulled out an old fashioned forwarding card and said, "This is how we do it here."  I rolled my eyes and said Thanks but no thanks and split.

Meanwhile, I went home and called up the Sedona Post Office and, luckily, got the manager.  I told him my story and he laughed this great big belly laugh and then said, "Oh, just give me your names and box numbers and I will take care of it right now."  What can I say?

Go figure.

Luckily, all my other errands were far more productive than the local post office.  We triple checked the procedure to shut off our water and electricity and got yet another conflicting answer.  Luckily, we also got a DEFINITIVE answer so that case is closed and we really DO know the correct procedure.  I really believe that it's worth the time and trouble to double and triple check various procedures.  if we wait until the last minute and find out we've been given incorrect information, where does that leave us?  Stranded.  That's where.

Here's another goofy story.  Last week, I opened an internet banking account--the kind that says "Open in Minutes."  OK, so I opened the account in minutes, just like they said--except for one small detail--the signature card.  See, you really CANNOT open the account in minutes because it takes them one freaking WEEK to mail you the signature card and it's not a valid account until you fill out the hard copy and mail it BACK to them or hand deliver it to a branch.  This is NOT an account you can "open in minutes."  HA!

As you can easily see, there's a whole lot more details going on behind the scenes when it comes to making a seasonal move such as our upcoming trip to Arizona.  Someday, maybe we will get all this stuff wired.  This time around, running all these errands and solving all these puzzles makes any given day one giant blur.

Cheers, jp