Telephone Games

In the last job that I held, I managed a hair salon.  The phone rang all day long there.  At the time, it was something that I enjoyed very much.  I loved being able to talk to all sorts of different people all day long.  Granted, when I came home at night, I pretty much wanted nothing to do with the phone at all.  I had pretty much had enough of it after eight hours. 

With my current job, working from home as a transcriptionist, life is almost totally silent.  My job is done entirely through e-mail, so I have no need for work phone calls.  I hear from my boss on the phone maybe once a month.  If the phone is in use, it’s almost always an outgoing call, not an incoming call.

The fact that things are so quiet around the house and the house phone almost never rings makes things that much more stressful on Thursdays and Fridays when it does ring first thing in the morning.  The rest of the week, it pretty much doesn’t faze me in the least.  Our agency does have a liaison in the Philippines, though, and we are always able to get news first thing in the morning.  In the past, we have been able to get it immediately – Thursdays or Fridays. 

So the point is this, I guess.  Telemarketers:  Here’s a reminder.  We are on the “Do not call list.”  If you really want to push that button, don’t do it on a Thursday or a Friday before noon again, or next time you’re going to get an earful. I promise you that.  To the nurse from our doctor’s office who called this morning:  I know we needed to hear from you, but boy, I wish you had called later in the day.  I almost needed to stop back for another visit for the palpitations your call at 9:15 this morning caused me.   

I’m certain that at 26+ months there will no longer be a point where I’m not expecting the call to come.  Even though it feels like it could keep dragging out forever, it would be nice not to have the instinct to dive for the phone saying “is this it?!?” every Thursday and Friday when it rings before noon.   

26 months - Three times, now

It looks like my gut feeling about a referral at the end of April was off.  How far off, of course, still remains to be seen.  Today we hit our 26^th month of waiting (and waiting, and waiting some more). (The majority of voters voted for a tie between April 30 and Father's Day.  Since April 30 didn't work out for a referral, I'm hoping Gregg has a nice Father's Day this year!)

If there’s one thing I can say about the month of April, it’s that it sure was rainy and very busy.  I had such high hopes of getting my flower beds taken care of, but every time the weekend rolled around it was either raining or we had somewhere else to be.  Not too conducive to getting outdoor work done.  I finally got all the old growth pulled out of the beds on May 1, though, and now it will just be a matter of bringing in dirt and transplanting flowers.  (Easier said than done when it comes to me, Mrs. Black Thumb.)  On April 30, Gregg’s little league team played their first game and did really well.  He’s so proud of them.  I didn’t get to see that game (I’ll be at the next one, though!)  That day I was in New York City with my parents seeing Catch Me if You Can on Broadway.  I had gotten tickets from my neighbor, and they came with me for a day in the City to celebrate Mother’s Day/Father’s Day early, as the actual days have been difficult to observe.  (Hey, Hallmark, I’m sure one of these days I’ll be OK with your commercials again, but right now I’ve had it up to HERE with the sappy Mother’s Day commercials.  Just saying.)

Earlier in April, we received a lovely packet of information in the mail from our agency telling us that our I-800A will be expiring in July.  In order to prepare for this, we need to have an updated homestudy (#2!) and do all of the terrific stuff that goes with it – doctor appointments, fingerprinting, criminal/child abuse checks, notarizing all sorts of fun documents.  Currently, I’m just waiting on the child abuse clearances to arrive in the mail and we need to make a stop at the bank to have some documents notarized.  Then we wait (some more).  This is the third time we are undertaking this project.  The first two times I was very happy to get it done as soon as it showed up in the mail.  This time?  Not so much.  It was really just a heartbreaking reminder that we have been waiting so much longer than we ever thought we would.  So, hopefully next week I’ll be driving the paperwork down to the office and waiting for an appointment to go to Philadelphia to get fingerprinted (again, for the third time).  What is it they say about the third time being the charm?  Because – seriously?  If I have to do this FOUR times?  Oh.  My.

Here’s hoping for some beautiful sunshine and those May flowers we’re promised after all that April rain!