Hey, I think I’ve just solved a long-term problem! Mad Scientist hates that nickname, and he’s been campaigning for something less childish. He suggested Lego-something. Snore! But I just thought of something better. He’s discovered a real gift for computer animation,* so from now on Mad Scientist is — the Animator. 

As I was saying, I warned the Animator that I don’t have a car. Because he’s feeling so stressed at school, we’ve given him a cell phone to carry and permission to call at any time and I’ll come and get him. I haven’t actually had to go get him yet, but he has called a time or two.

We talked while I fixed breakfast. I reminded him of a few stress-management tips and told him to feel free to call just to talk. And I told him in a real emergency, Mars could come and get him, though it would take forty-five minutes at least.

“Don’t forget to take the phone,” I said as he headed upstairs after breakfast.

Bet you know where this going, don’t you? Ah, but the winding road through the valley is worth it, just for the aesthetics. And so that you can be grateful my life is not your life.

Girly Girl came down fully dressed — right down to her backpack and snow boots. But it’s -29°C (-20°F), and she doesn’t have snow pants. So I sent her back up to put on long johns.

The Animator had been suspiciously quiet for some time, so I hollered up to ask if he was about ready. His answer was a burst of furious activity, which probably confirms my suspicion that he’d gone back to bed.

At 7:25, we headed toward the garage door to put on snow clothes. As I always do, I said, “Do you have your lunch?”

The Animator gasped. “I forgot my lunch.” He ran back, and I heard the refrigerator door open. Then he gasped again, a much bigger sound. “I FORGOT TO PACK UP MY COMPUTER!”

My heart dropped. Things are so precarious at school, and having his laptop seems to make an enormous difference. I am afraid to send him to school without it. Heck, he left it in the car Friday, and I chased down the school bus with my van to make sure he got it.

“Go ahead and get it,” I said as calmly as I could. “But you’ll have to hurry.”

He headed back toward the kitchen while I dug through Girly Girl’s cubby. I grabbed a pair of thick, snow mittens and yanked off the brown fleece gloves she’d been wearing. “Here, wear these.”

Next, I looked for a warm scarf. None there. I made a mental note to knit her a warm scarf, grabbed one of mine from my cubby, and wrapped it around her face, making sure her nose was covered.

The animator returned, and I pointed toward his sister. “Here’s how you have to wear your scarf.”

He nodded and grabbed his boots with a glum look on his face.

“Did you get your computer?” I asked. He shrugged.

I left him putting on his boots and hurried into the kitchen where I packed up his computer. It took longer than I expected, and I began to worry about missing the bus.

I ran back to the kids. Animator was standing right where I left him, wearing snow boots and a scarf wrapped around his face. No hat. No gloves.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Daydreaming.” He leaped into action.

I told Girly Girl to go on out to the bus. But when she opened the door, Cookie darted out.

Cookie loves walking out to the bus with us, but with temps nearing minus 30, her paws will freeze in two minutes. Last time she went out in bitter cold weather, she laid down in the snow about ten feet from the house and refused to move. I finally picked her up and zipped her into my jacket, but even so, she shivered violently until we got back to the house.

Plus, she wasn’t on a leash, and she is coyote bait. Heck, to coyotes, she’s freshly broiled scallops wrapped in bacon. One delicious, juicy bite.

I hollered “No!” at Cookie. Good dog that she is, she dropped immediately into the submissive stance my family calls “dominant down” (though when I google “dominant down,” it refers to forcing dogs into that posture to try to assume alpha status — which seems crazy to me). In fact, she was so busy trying to convince me she wouldn’t challenge my authority that she wouldn’t come back in. I had to go out and carry her back in.

By then the Animator was headed out the door, muffler wrapped around face, hat in place — but no gloves.

“Animator, you have to have gloves.”

“I can’t find them!”

I yanked open his cubby and pulled out a pair. He couldn’t get them on. I unhooked the velco that holds the wrists closed, but he still couldn’t get them on. I grabbed another pair. Same result. None of the gloves in his cubby fit, though we bought them all in September.

I gave him the fleece pair I’d take from Girly Girl, and headed up the stairs to the door.

He wasn’t behind me. I looked back to find him wearing one glove — and frantically scanning the ground. I went back down and helped him look. The other brown glove was gone.

I looked at him and shrugged, making a “What now?” gesture with my hands. He was distracted by the motion, and grabbed at something in my left hand. It was the missing glove.

He pulled it on, and we hurried out to the bus. I hadn’t taken the time to button my top button, so I had to hold my collar closed, but we made it. As the bus drove into sight down the street, I hugged the Animator and said, laughing, “We did it! Good for us!”

They climbed on the bus, and I came back inside, with a sigh of relief — only to find the Animator’s cell phone sitting on the counter.

*Susan, thank you so much for Alice! What a great piece of software!

Edited to fix a major typo: Addofio pointed out that I switched from “Animator” to “Alienator.” Thanks! I hadn’t even noticed. Do you suppose there some Freudian meaning in there?

But he was wonderful. He treated me like a human being. Funny, how far that goes!

Oh, and they didn’t turn off my phone again, so I wasn’t a frothing, raving lunatic* without internet.

Turns out the additional charges were two calls to my son James, still in the States (OK, fair enough) and a reconnection fee for turning my phone back on in December (not fair enough).

I told him whole sordid saga: the credit limit, the tethering, the Smart Hub, the signal booster … every detail. Very calmly (hey, I was calm! This time). And he listened (funny how that works — people listen when you speak calmly).

I owned my mistakes (I misunderstood three little details about how my plan worked). I admitted that the reconnection fee was mine. But I asked him to remove the fee as a gesture of good will since 1) my phone was only disconnected because I was using it to access a service I was already paying Telus for but not receiving, and since 2) I didn’t have computer access at all for two weeks because they goofed when they reconnected and didn’t reconnect my data access.

He agreed. In fact, he not only removed the reconnection fee, he also removed the data overage charge.

I told him that wasn’t necessary, that I had run over my data limit, that I did it knowingly. That charge was not a surprise, nor was it excessive.

His reply? “Hey, don’t try to stop me. I’m on a roll now!” I had to laugh at that.

Yep, the customer service rep from Telus made me laugh (which also goes a very long way).

So … it’s been a long rocky road to this point, but I have to say, they did make it right yesterday. Thanks, Telus.

*Why is “lunatic” not a derogatory word, like the “r” word? Is it because people with mental illness don’t have the kind of advocacy people with cognitive disabilities have? Should we be campaigning against the “l” word? Do I need to stop using it? Hmmm. I’ll have to think about that. I wasn’t thinking of people with mental illness when I said “frothing, raving lunatic” — I was thinking about rabid dogs. I certainly didn’t intend to slam people with mental illness. But then, I think folks who use the “r” word aren’t usually trying to slam people with lower-than-average IQs either. What do you think? Do I need to rewrite “frothing, raving lunatic?”

I tried to take pictures with my phone, but it just wasn’t up to the job. So today I took a better camera and a tripod out with me.

Beautiful, no?

It was even prettier yesterday because the moon was completely full, and the sky was cloudless. But you get the idea.

Good thing that Christmas cheer crap is over, eh? Otherwise, I’d have to stuff all this infuriation into Mom’s Christmas Cake Cookies and my sister’s Frosted Eggnog Cookies and my friend’s Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies, and then I’d never be able to fit into my adorable clothes.

I just got a text from Telus saying I have almost reached my credit limit* (again!) and need to “make a full payment now” or they’ll shut off my phone.

Frankly, this makes no sense. Since the last time they shut off my phone, I’ve been religiously watching my usage, and as of yesterday, I’d used about 2.75 GBs (I’m allowed five per month), with an overage charge of $40-something.

So I’m naturally wondering how the heck I used 2.25 GBs and spent $160 overnight – especially since I haven’t been able to get on the internet for the past two days.

I called their “customer service” (in quotes because that’s what they call it, though personally I think “customer f***ers” is a more apt description).

He assured me they weren’t going to shut off my phone because my balance owed was zero (which matches what their website shows), and it sounded like he was about to hang up.

“Wait!” I said. “Why did I get the text message if I don’t owe anything?”

He didn’t know. It didn’t make sense. He’d have to look into it.

Turns out, I don’t owe zero (despite what their website and their “customer service” guy say). I owe $175.

He kindly broke it down for me. $55 for my basic plan, $18 for add-ons (Caller ID and International texting), about $10 for taxes, and $40-something for data overages.

None of this was a surprise – though it does gall me to pay the data overage charge since the reason I go over is because I’m tethering my laptop to my phone to access the internet specifically because my internet service (also through Telus) doesn’t work — despite the fact that I’m paying $45 a month for it, talking to their tech support guys several times a week, and have purchased a $400 machine that was supposed to fix the problem but didn’t.

So … yeah. Because my Telus service, for which I pay $45, doesn’t work, I have to pay Telus an extra $40-something.

But … whatever. I already knew about that. I can let that go.

… Or …

Yanno what? No, I can’t let that go. I have to point out one thing.

You remember last month when I didn’t have internet service at all for two weeks, despite the fact that I paid for it? Paid for it twice? Once through the Smart Hub and once through the phone?

Turned out that was a mistake. When they turned my phone back on, they should have also turned my data. But … oops! They didn’t.

So, OK, fine. Somebody goofed somewhere. That’s not the part I’m pissed about.

What I’m pissed about is that they charged me for data access for those two weeks. Yanno, the two weeks I didn’t have data access.

I tried to convince the customer service guy (not in quotes because that guy really did try to help) to credit me for two weeks of data usage, but he said he couldn’t.

He did search for what he could do for me – and the best he could do was give us unlimited data usage for two months on the Smart Hub.

What a great deal, right?! For the first time ever, I can stream movies and preview music on iTunes and listen to NPR online, and maybe even Pandora and RadioIO, though I imagine the skips that come from the reduced signal will drive me crazy. Still, what a great deal, right?! Unlimited cruising!

Except … you may remember, the house internet doesn’t work. At all. Even though we’ve spent an extra four hundred dollars on a signal booster. So what we got was … wait for it! … a big, fat nothing.

BUT! That wasn’t the surprise. I already knew about all those times I got screwed over by Telus.

The surprise was that the math doesn’t add up. $55 + $18 + $10 + $40 = $123. Not $175. I asked what the remaining charges were.

His response? “Air time.”

Air time? Really? I never talk on this phone.

He tried to convince me it was because I haven’t set up my favorite ten numbers — except … hello! … I don’t talk to ten people because I don’t have ten friends in Canada. And I talk to my US friends on either the US phone or the landline.

I could not built up that much in excess air time. Unless thy’re charging me air time for using the Hot Spot, which is basically charging me twice since they also charge for my data usage.

They wouldn’t double-charge me, the “customer service” guy said. Maybe it’s something else. He continued, clearly thinking aloud. “It can’t be texting. You have unlimited texts.”

Finally he admitted he didn’t know. The bill was just “printed,” so it won’t be available for four days.

Wait! What?! If I don’t pay my bill immediately, you’ll turn off my phone, but you can’t tell me what the excess charges were for?

At that point, I went into a tirade, and he didn’t handle it well. He said he’d call back in four days, when he could access the bill, and we’d figure it out. And he ordered me not to call again in the intervening four days.

I went into an even bigger tirade, after which he said (clearly meaning it to be a rhetorical question), “You were clearly upset. What could I have said to calm you down?”

I said (and yes, my voice was pitched a little higher than usual), “You could have said, ‘I’m sorry!’”

And he said (thus proving himself to be a man because any woman would have known better), “I couldn’t say I’m sorry. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

At which point, my pressure cock blew, and there was no stopping the tirade eloquent and insightful statement of emotion that followed.

“Yes, you could,” I said. “Saying ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t necessarily imply fault. Sometimes it’s just a way of connecting, one human to another. What you could have said was, ‘Wow. Sounds like you’ve really had a tough time. I’m so sorry you’ve had to deal with that. I want to help fix it, but unfortunately, I can’t even see what the charges are for, not for four days. But I’ll call you in four days, and we’ll figure this thing out, OK?’ That is what you could have said instead of saying, ‘It’s obvious you’re pissed, and I don’t want to have to deal with you, so I’ll call you in four days, but don’t call me.’”

At that point, he apologized very sweetly, and I (as sweetly as possible, but less sweetly than he) accepted it, and now I have to wait four days before I can figure out why they’ve charged me so much.

What do you wanna bet they turn off my phone tomorrow?

*You may remember that my credit limit is based on that fact that I have no credit in Canada — nor any status. More and more, I just don’t think the country wants me here.

See, it’s unseasonably warm. I mean warm warm. One day last week, it was 45°F in Edmonton — as warm as it was in Chehalis!

The problem is, the warm spell came after a slight snowfall. Slight enough that most people (including us) didn’t bother to plow their driveways. What’s an inch of snow, after all, when you have X-Ice tires? Then it poured rain. And every night it cooled back down, below freezing.

All of which equals ice. Thick rinks of ice on all surfaces.

This is the road in front of our house. It’s actually not too bad because it was plowed after the snow, and kept sanded. But in the sunshine, you can clearly see the sheen of ice.

The ice is everywhere.

Last week, I took Mad Scientist to the psychologist, and as I drove around the parking lot I realized I had absolutely no control over my vehicle. I was surprisingly calm about it.

Driveways are the worst. With a couple of exceptions, all the driveways in our development are thick sheets of ice, and many of them are very steep.

People are parking at the top (or the bottom) and walking to their homes, but walking is hazardous too. I spoke with one woman who keeps horses, and she’s having to keep the horses in the barn because the ice is too dangerous for them. She’s fallen three times this week, carrying feed to them.

This is our driveway. You can’t see the sheen as well as you can on the road because sunlight doesn’t hit our drive this time of year. But the ice is there, much, much worse than the road.

Ironically, I got a call on my cell phone this week. It was a little garbled at first, but I heard a guy clearly say, “The first truckload of deicer is on its way.” Then I lost the call before I could tell him he had a wrong number.

Now I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have called him back. I could have used a truckload of deicer!

Tomorrow morning, I have to walk down that sheet of ice to put my kids on the bus.

It’s a good metaphor for how I’m feeling about sending Mad Scientist back to school. It’s a slippery, treacherous world, and I’m not at all sure he will be safe.

But I’m a big believer in taking reasonable precautions — and reasonable risks.

So we’ll cover the driveway with sand this afternoon. We’re talking to the psychologist and the teachers. We’ve talked to Mad Scientist. He knows he can call home at any time, and I’ll come and get him.

And tomorrow morning, I’ll walk down that icy drive, placing each foot with care, and put him on the bus.

We took down the Christmas tree, cleaned up the pine needles, and put away the gifts. Now I can be grouchy again.

Oh, it was probably good for me to try to keep up the Christmas cheer for twelve days. Certainly the kids and I (and Mars when he could) had a blast.

But I’m ready to get back into a more normal routine. I’m ready to be done with the holidays. Heck, I’m ready to face 2012. I’m looking forward, not back. And I’m filled with optimism.

That and a furious determination that it sure as hell isn’t going to be as bad as 2011.

I think there must be an Amish or Luddite ghost haunting our house, making sure modern technology doesn’t pollute the property.

If you want the gory, boring details, they’re below the cut.

Xplorernet

When we moved in, we had satellite internet via Xplorernet (which contracts through Hughesnet, something we didn’t know, or we would never have accepted it — seriously, do not sign up for Hughesnet without talking to me first).

It worked great for about thirty days. A little research on the web shows that’s fairly typical. Everyone loves the service for about thirty days, at which point it seems to tank, and it doesn’t ever work well again.

I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact that you have thirty days to get out of your contract without paying a stiff penalty. Nothing at all.

We paid the penalty and dropped the contract after two or three months of being unable to use the service (we could get email, but that was it, and even email came in twelve to twenty hours late).

Tethering Through the iPhone

I went to Starview Communications to get a Telus Smart Hub. Mars has a Telus Internet Key, and it usually works at our house. Plus, I’ve never had any trouble getting a signal through my phone (except when they turn it off), so I figured the Smart Hub was the obvious fix. But the girl there convinced me instead to just tether through my phone, that is, create a Personal HotSpot on my iPhone.

That worked really well for several weeks. Really well! I was seriously thrilled with it.

Then I ran up against a data usage limit I didn’t know I had (I tried to check it on Telus’s website, but the specific plan the girl at Starview put me on isn’t available anymore, so it wasn’t described). My plan is a Flex plan — you sign up for 1 Gb of usage per month, but if you use more, it automatically switches to 5 Gb. That much I knew, but I thought it switched again at 5 Gb, and it doesn’t. They just charge punitive rates.

I wasn’t worried about it because I also thought they would text me when I neared 5 Gb (as they do when I hit 1 Gb — every single month). But I was wrong, and I ran up $230 in charges in about three days (I did say punitive rates), and since I’m only trusted to owe them $200, they turned off my phone.

I spent three days cut off completely, and another two weeks without data usage.

Telus’ Smart Hub

Obviously, Katrina without the internet is a scary thing. So Mars (who happened to be at the mall) went to The Source and bought a Telus Smart Hub ($100 plus a three-year contract to pay at least $45 a month for data usage).

He hooked it up after I went to bed that night, and he tells me he worked really well. He was thrilled.

I have to take his word for it though because I’ve never seen it. I have been able to load a webpage twice (I think it was twice, maybe it was just once) in the month since we bought the device. But it’s only worked three times (counting that mythical first time, which frankly, I seriously doubt occurred), and never for more than a few minutes.

We’ve been on the phone with their service people many times. In fact, there’s a “ticket” with our address on it, which I understand is a very good thing despite the fact that 1) you only get a ticket because the tech support people simply cannot figure out why the heck it doesn’t work, and 2) having a “ticket” doesn’t appear to actually get you anything. We’ve had a ticket twice now. For the past two weeks or more. We did have someone call once, “because (we) have a ticket,” but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong either.

I suppose the good news here is that for the next three years we’ll never have to pay more than the minimum $45 per month since we’ll never use more than three GBs.

Heck, we’ll never use one.

Telus’ Signal Booster

The tech support guy finally said the only thing he knew to try was a signal booster. So I went back to Starview and bought a Wilson directional antenna ($400). “Plug and play,” it said on the box, though the girl at Starview said it might not work mounted on the window. “Be sure to try it outside,” she said.

We plugged. We didn’t play.

We moved it outside. We plugged. We didn’t play.

We tried pointing it in every direction since we’ve no idea where our tower is (the Telus guy wouldn’t tell us where it was because he insists it makes no difference even though the instructional manual for the antenna says to point it directly toward the tower).

We plugged. We didn’t play.

We’re going to try one more time. We’ll call tech support once more, but that’s it. Then we’re done.

Neither of us are very optimistic.

Back to Tethering on the iPhone

In the short term, though, I wasn’t too worried because I knew I could continue tethering to the phone while we figured out the home wi-fi, as long as I tracked our usage.

But the “Personal Hotspot” option disappeared from my phone. Apparently this isn’t unusual.

In fact, it happened once before while I was on the phone with Apple’s tech support, and the guy told me very confidently, “Oh, don’t worry. That happens all the time. You just need to do a factory reset.”

“Won’t I lose all my data?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” he said. “You’ve backed it up, right?”

So I did the factory reset on the phone, and it completely killed the phone. It wouldn’t even turn on. Sadly, by then I’d hung up, thinking I knew how to finish the job. I plugged it into the computer and completely reset the phone from there.

That worked — sorta. The phone turned back on, and everything worked. Except it wouldn’t sync with my computer. I didn’t have my contacts, my calendar, my email, etc. It was like a brand new phone — except with a brand new phone, you can tell the computer to make it just like the last one.

I had to make an appointment at the Genius Bar to fix it — and spend part of our West Ed vacation in the crowded Apple store, getting my phone fixed.

I’m not willing to go through that again. So for now, I’m visiting the library every day I want to access the internet.

Our Only Hope

The Ticket guy was supposed to call me back the next day, and I’m supposed to ask for the GPS coordinates of the tower. Then we’ll point the antenna directly toward the tower.

He didn’t call. Mars is foolishly optimistic that he still will. Otherwise, we’ll call tech support again, go through two levels of techies again, and get yet another ticket. When that ticket guy calls, I’ll ask where the tower is.

If that doesn’t work, our last hope is Broadband Surfer, a company a friend recommended who can put up a tower as tall as seventy or eighty feet.

I’m seriously considering dialup. At least then I could check my mail.

Of course, that’s assuming ghosts can only disturb the ethernet. If they can stop information traveling on phone wires, I’m toast.

Edited to Add: I just walked through the steps in the article I linked to above, and now the Personal Hotpot is back on my phone. Woot for the short-term fix, anyway!

1. Titanic artifacts were preserved for posterity, but the ship itself is still at the bottom of the ocean, being eaten by iron bacteria. They estimate the ship will collapse and disappear in forty to ninety years. Do you suppose Iron Out and bleach could rescue the Titantic like they rescued my towels? Yeah, yeah, I know … the environment.

2. Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when her family got on the Titanic. They were supposed to have traveled on a different White Star liner, but a coal strike left it docked. Her mother and older brother survived, but her father was lost. She did not know she’d been on the Titanic for many years. When she died at age 96 in 2009, she was the last remaining Titanic survivor.

3. First class passengers ate peaches in chartreuse jelly. I’d kill to taste that dish. I would not, however get on the Titanic to taste it.

4. Third class passengers also ate well, though they missed the chartreuse jelly. They had roast beef and gravy, potatoes, sweet corn, biscuits and plum pudding. And they slept on real mattresses, not straw, like steerage passengers on other lines. Didn’t keep ‘em alive though. Unlike airplane seats, the mattresses could not be used as floatation devices.

5. Other than servers in the dining rooms, the crew was rarely seen by passengers. They even had separate hallways and staircases.

But I was delighted to Mad Scientist swimming laps, back and forth across the pool. Just ten days ago, he bailed on a class swimming trip because he was afraid he’d be teased because he “can’t swim.” And for a solid hour, Girly Girl did surface dives to grab a diving ring, despite the fact that she insisted she couldn’t go under the water.

The good news is that we’re almost done with this Christmas cheer crap, and then we can return to our regularly scheduled programming of gripes and grouses.

Not just yet though. The kids and I are headed to the Telus World of Science Friday, so I’m going to make the “12 Days” of Christmas a baker’s dozen.

As a result, I thought I would have trouble coming up with eleven special somethings today … but then Mary Jane Alm posted a Facebook link to an amazing song called, “Let the Wind Chase You.”

I didn’t catch the title or the singer before I clicked on it, but I recognized the voice immediately. Trisha Yearwood. She’s one of my favorite singers (and one of my favorites karaoke artists too), but somehow I’d missed this song.

It stopped me cold — reminded me of a Postsecret I saw last month on the Postsecret app (sadly now defunct). I was going to link to the secret, but apparently the entire website has been shut down, not just the app. But it was about investing your heart in the wrong people.

Of course I had to have the song, so I clicked over to iTunes.

There are thirteen songs on the album, but since I already had two of them … bingo! Eleven songs downloaded.

I’ve been listening to them over and over as I write critiques for my group, and they’re just getting better with every listen (though “Let the Wind Chase You” is still my favorite).

In fact, this might be my favorite Trisha Yearwood album, by far.