More Skateboarding and Complaining

Remember the skateboarding fox? I only posted a picture of one of them, and several readers asked to see the other two. So yesterday I walked back to the Mill Lane Bridge and got a few more shots. Above is the entire painting by Kira Latini (age 9), and below are close-ups of the other critters.

(I think this is actually a squirrel.)

Yesterday we stayed home, intentionally, because we were due to be visited by an engineer for the renovation company and by someone to fix the clogged downspout. I'm sure you can predict, based on my recent experiences with customer service, that neither of these things actually happened.

The downspout guy at least showed up -- at 1 p.m., so we were definitely NOT the first call of the day -- but he took one look at the situation and said he is not the man for the job. He said it would require a two-man crew with a ladder and possibly a cherry picker blah blah blah, and the landlord's home care policy probably doesn't cover that work anyway, and he would get back to them to say so. Despite being assured by several people on the phone that the work is covered and his company could do it, I somehow fully expected him to say that. So I'm kicking it back to the management company. It's not my building, and not my gutter.

As for the renovators, he hadn't shown up by 2 p.m. so I called the main office.

"Oh, he called in sick today," said the woman who answered the phone. "We'll have to reschedule that."

Would it be too freakin' hard to PICK UP THE PHONE and call me to tell me that, so I don't sit around all day for no reason? Thank goodness I didn't take another day off work. In fact, I told her she would have to arrange to get keys from the property managers, because we couldn't spend another day waiting around.

Another panel on Mill Lane Bridge. Is that boy looking at his phone?!

I've heard nothing more about my new bank card since calling the bank on Tuesday and being told it would come within three business days. (Granted, they still have through tomorrow to get it to me.) Last time the bank sent me a text when they mailed it, but this time, nada. Unless it hasn't been mailed yet. Which is entirely possible.

To make matters more interesting, we haven't received any mail this week. The newspaper recently carried a story about problems at a local sorting facility that residents said were delaying the mail by weeks. The Royal Mail absurdly claimed: "No customers should experience delays for more than one day." Well, we didn't get mail for about four weeks, and it looks like we're in another dry spell. Anyway, I have a debit card from my American bank as well as a credit card so I won't die if my bank card doesn't come through once again.

I honestly didn't mean to turn this into another customer-service bitchfest. But that IS my life lately, it seems.

To end on a more positive note, let's take a look at a REAL fox (not on a skateboard) that wandered through our garden yesterday morning. I eventually opened the back door to scare it off because I was afraid it might get familiar -- in one unsavory way or another -- with Olga's bed, which was lying outside on the grass. This fox didn't look as fluffy as the others we've seen. Maybe he/she is younger or older, or maybe just damp.