Okee doke .... after a perfectly wonderful visit with the Budds ("Wait for me, parents" my favorite parting Ellen quote) I landed in Atlanta only to find that there was a funny clicking in my car. I opened and shut the door an additional time (for a reason known only to the deep recesses of my brain) and the clicking went away. Turned the key and ....you got it ... nothing. Luckily I had lots of options.... I could call Saturn roadside assistance, or AAA or voila how about the guy in the yellow security jacket riding around the parking lot on a Segway. I flagged him down (he was having a very important conversation with another parking lot guard which must have been very important indeed, since he didn't seem immediately inclined to zip toward my waving arms until I walked within 10 feet of him- after which time he was very helpful) Anyway he called the free airport 'we will jump your car dude' and after an hour he showed up and gave me a jump.... so about an hour after I landed I was on my way home.
Just as I turned into my driveway, I hear the ding ding ding of the you are seriously close to being out of gas noise. I knew it was going to hit, but was afraid to stop because I wasn't sure the car would start again. That was a good decision because once I got into the garage and turned the car off, I tried restarting it and tada!!!! nothing....
Ok... so about 7:15 am this morning I call the Saturn dealership to warn them that my car is coming in... even though they open at 7 am they were still on their message machine mode so I left a message. I then called Saturn roadside assistance and they hooked me up with a company to come tow my car for free to the Saturn dealer in Marietta.... about 30 minutes away. Ok.... so about an hour later I get a call back from Saturn roadside asking if the towing company had contacted me yet.... nope.... hmmm... let me call them again.... okay about 20 minutes later I get a call from the towing dude, gave him directions and he told me he was about 20 minutes away. Hmmm.... about 40 minutes later.... Saturn calls again to see if they have arrived. I say no... she calls them again.... 10 minutes later the very nice and competent towing dudes show up... tow truck at the bottom of the driveway. So the plan is to push the car out the garage and then let it coast down the drive way. He has me back it out the driveway and then put the brake on. Lucky for all of us he took it down the drive way and lucky for him he was good at it and even though he was going pretty fast by the time he got to the bottom he was able to turn it out which took it up hill a little and then we pushed it up to the truck and then pulled it on to the platform. Then he tells me they really haven't had a chance to grab breakfast yet so they were going to do so before they took my car to the Saturn Dealer. WHAT!!!!!!! I think.... but don't say anything.
Ok, so about 11:30 I haven't heard from the Saturn dealer so I call them to make sure they received my car. Noooope they say not here. Yikes and cowabunga.... have these guys gone to Florida or Tennessee with my car!!!!!!!
I call Saturn Roadside and punch through a bunch of buttons before I finally get to the message " We will now connect you to a live agent" WHAT!!!! as opposed to dead????? but at least it gave me a chuckle. So she calls the tow dudes and they are really on the road and on the way to the Saturn dealer. They arrive with the car at 12:30!!!! Yes I complained to Saturn roadside... but I am not sure if she understood my comment about hiring people that work on Hawaiian time.
Ok so my car is at the Saturn dealer and I ask them if they have shuttle service. "Yes ma'am we do" Great ! I say I live in Cartersville. He says, " it is only good for 45 miles" I say wonderful I am within 45 miles. "No, ma'am , I said 4 to 5 miles" . So now I wait for Wood to come home tomorrow so I can go get my car. Hmmmph. By the way it was a battery and although I have a 5 year extended warranty, it doesn't cover the battery, so they replaced mine for $165 dollars. Yikes that is one expensive battery!!!!!
Ok so that wasn't all for the day. My computer wouldn't hit the internet... so after about an hour of randomly getting some websites but not others, I come downstairs and reset the router. Ok... now it works better, but I have conference calls up the yazooo all morning and stuff that I thought I could work on during the con calls, but it turns out I actually had to pay attention (imagine that) so couldn't work on the stuff with deadlines looming over my head like a huge dark cloud with ping pong size balls of hail.
Okay so I have to go through citrix to access some of our sites on the intranet to complete some forms that were due today. Very very slow and tedious process of cutting and pasting from the cool word document that I actually did the work in to the very old and slooooooooow form that I have to submit. I go to print the doc and zounds all I can hit are network printers in Atlanta or DC.... not my wonderful trusty printer that is two feet away from me. So I decide I will print to a file and then save it where I can get to it off line.... sneaky me.... but it didn't work and I tried every way possible. Finally I copied the doc from its very silly and slowwwwwwww web form into a word doc and although it didn't look exactly the way it was supposed to I printed it out and was able to sign it and then await the fax number from my boss so I could send it in.
Next , after a document review where I had difficulty communicating why it needed to be simplified and bulleted so folks could see quickly what was in this 3 page document, one of 5 or 6 we have peppered them with in the last several days, I had another con call and then decided to tackle our new travel system so I could complete a voucher and get paid for the trip that is already charged to my credit card from 2 weeks ago.
One hour and a half later I completed a document that usually takes about 10 minutes to do. And I even went to the training for this new system..... 2 months ago.... okay so my 'short' term memory is bad :-). There is a 239 page online doc that tells how to use the new system though, so I decided I better download it and actually read the section that would help me not charge the government for money I didn't spend. Good thinking on my part, I'd say.
To end on a positive note. ... this evening I went for a delightful walk in my neighborhood. The leaves are starting to change colors, weather was gorgeous, there is a huge full moon out tonight... and I think I only picked up one new mosquito bite on my walk :-)
We took Wood's mom to see Barnsley Gardens on Friday. It was built in the late 1800's by a wealthy cotton purveyor as a cool refreshing spread away from Savannah. Since we are about 5 hours from Savannah, I'd say they really wanted their distance. Now it is a really fancy resort with golfing, horseback riding and fancy restaurants.
Normally the gardens are gorgeous and we saw great promise for a beautiful spring but right now they were in their winter slumber. So we toured the ruins of the house.
The view from the "only covered portion of the Appalachian trail :-)
And a special treat, when we returned home and went for a walk at Red Top Mountain we were greeted with a great foggy cold morning and gorgeous views of fog on the lake and leaves changing colors.
