Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Signal boost: international calls from T-Mobile

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 23:07:14 GMT

I just found out, in online chat, that during the pandemic T-Mobile is offering free international calls to a large number of countries, though not all (and sometimes only to landline numbers). This isn't something T-Mobile bothered to tell us about; I happened to be talking to someone else who lives in the US and has family in Britain. I have emailed my mother to let her know that if she sees my number as incoming, it doesn't mean there's a crisis worth paying $3/minute to call her rather than emailing and asking her to call me (which is cheap).

Their website has a list of countries this offer applies to.

ETA: My informant says that they got a text from T-Mobile saying that they are being billed for their recent call but also will be credited for it, so fingers crossed.

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Memo to self/QOTD

Wed, 23 Jan 2019 13:28:34 GMT

"it works, but I don’t love it. So I really appreciate you pointing this out and allowing me to flip the script – I don’t have to love it, because it works." — JMegan, commenting on a Captain Awkward thread

(The specific context here was communication styles in a relationship.)

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DSL problems

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:35:01 GMT

ETA: DSL is back, at least for now.

I am going to be mostly offline for an unknown amount of time. We have a second phone line that we use for DSL and faxing, and for a while it was just DSL because I could fax from my office; we got a new fax machine a couple of days ago, installed it, and found that we had no dial tone. (The DSL has been a little spotty for a while, but mostly okay.) We tried some stuff ourselves, like replacing an old phone wire, and then I called the phone company. They tested the line, and then asked me to try unplugging the phone for 15 minutes, letting the line reset, and then checking.

Doing that got me from DSL but no dial tone, to neither DSL nor a dial tone. The person on the phone moved my repair from Friday the 17th to "ASAP" and promised to send me text message with any updates. That was a few hours ago, and I've had no text messages.

I'm typing this from my laptop (which is my usual machine, but with the nice big monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. unplugged) in the cafe downstairs. That worked for checking and answering email, and catching up on DW/LJ, but I won't be randomly on IM, or able to look up things that occur to me, for a bit.

The main phone line is still working, as is my cell phone, and I'm mostly happy to talk to people. (If not, I won't answer.) But I suspect it's going to be a weird and slightly antsy weekend.

ETA: So, we're back where we were before I called Verizon: DSL, but no dial tone on that line. Not sure what to do next, and may wait to consult Cattitude.

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London: two arguments

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:44:52 GMT

The visit to Mom was mostly good (though sad), but I did get into two brief but heated arguments, one of them with her.

[Mom, you don't have to read this.]

Dramatis personae: Ralph and Liz are Simon's children (my mother's stepchildren, and incidentally my third cousins). Jenny is married to Ralph, and Peter is married to Liz. Liz and Peter live in Australia.

The first argument was, I think, the day before Simon died. Peter was talking about weight loss, and wondering whether he could believe the scale at Ralph and Jenny's house. My mother got the bright idea of using her scale, but trying to calibrate it. She didn't make that clear, she just said "Vicki, do you know how much you weigh?" I said "yes," meaning I have a rough idea. (For years I tried not to; I'm more relaxed about this now. But more relaxed does not mean entirely relaxed or calm.) Mom then suggested I go weigh myself on her scale, so I could report back on whether it was accurate.

I said no. She asked again, starting to explain why. I said "No!" She asked a third time, and I said "No! We are not having this conversation!" and walked out. I sat in the guest room and did puzzles until I felt a bit better. After a while, Mom came in, and we sort of smoothed things over. But that was more about why it wouldn't have worked anyway (the inaccuracy of scales meets random variation in almost anyone's body weight, certainly a pre-menopausal woman's, and I don't track it that closely) than about why I really don't want to be pushed on that subject. And certainly not by her.

The other argument was with Ralph, not long before we were going to be leaving Mom's house to go to the cemetery for the funeral.* I don't know all the back story on this, but Mom started to say that Ralph tends to dominate conversations (I think she said he did 90% of the talking), and please let her and other people have a chance to talk too. He interrupted her in mid-sentence, saying "You have to raise your hand."

I interrupted back, pointing out what he had done—refused to let someone talk about the fact that he wasn't letting her talk. He seized on the fact that I had also interrupted. Before it could go much further, Mom asked me to stop and led me into the living room.

I understand her, or anyone, not wanting a noisy argument the day after her beloved husband has died. I did tell her that Ralph had pushed a button there. (I didn't mention the feminist aspects of this, or that I think it was a "protect Mom" button.)

That led, a little later, to Mom saying, surprised, that I seemed to have a lot of buttons (the weight thing being another), and me saying that I guessed she hadn't been pushing many of them. A piece of that, in turn, is that I don't normally see her when we're under that kind of stress, and that everyone present was under stress there. I wasn't anywhere near as close to Simon as my mother, or his children, were. But I was short on sleep from the travel, and I was sitting with Mom during those last couple of days of his life. adrian_turtle also said that being present for a death is a strain, even a quiet one.

I know we were all under stress, so I am cutting Ralph some slack and hoping that he is usually a bit more willing to let other people—and specifically women—talk.

*Customs differ. In the U.S., we'd have gone to a funeral home for a service, and then out to the cemetery. In London, the eulogy and prayers are in a building at the cemetery, and then the mourners walk to the graveside.

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