Well, here it is, August!
August came in with a big thunderstorm and downpour this afternoon. It was most welcome, and I could almost hear the sighs of relief from the flora and fauna. The rain started just as Attila arrived home from work, finding me in the garage listening to the rain on the new metal roof, enjoying the dryness of it all.
July was a month where the humidex reached from 30C to 35C almost every day. It looks like August will be more of the same. It isn’t my favourite kind of weather. The humidity is so cloying.
Tonight’s dinner was a quick and easy Instant Pot Tuna Noodle Casserole. This recipe has grated cheese stirred in after cooking, it was very nice. Attila loved it. There isn’t much I love since I am eating such a low sodium diet, nice is as good as it gets.
When I was shopping earlier in the week, I bought a bag of beautiful looking grapefruit. We have been eating them in the evenings as a snack. I love grapefruit, and for years I could not have it because it was contraindicated by my medication. The medication changed and now I can eat grapefruit again. A small, but welcome, mercy.
Attila’s cell phone is pay as you go, and needed to be topped up. Since he uses his cell phone a lot more than I use mine, mostly to call me here at home, his minutes disappear a lot more quickly. Therefore the cheapest 100 minute prepaid plan seemed a viable solution, with a monthly fee which annually adds up to about the same price as the current pay per use.
I felt sorry for the people I dealt with today, sorting out the cell phone account. I asked a few simple questions, but because the call center people are not from Canada, the nuances of our culture are not familiar to them. The simple questions ended up taking almost three hours to work through, and the unfortunate last fellow I spoke with, I spoke to three different people, was downright discouraged by the end of the call. He was polite to the end though. We got the job done, in the end, the cell phone works and in a few months I will go back into the account and set up automatic updates.
Cell phones are getting increasingly expensive to operate, the options are narrowing, masked as improvements, which they aren’t. My cell phone service provider recently sent me a text message informing me that my pay per use plan was no longer available, and that I would be automatically transferred to a much more expensive plan. I spent an entire morning on the telephone with them as well, and I can’t say they enjoyed my company. We got the job done.
Where we once spent $200 annually on cell phones, we now spend $300 to $400 annually. At our income level this is a significant incursion on available funds.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
26°C
Date: 6:00 PM EDT Wednesday 1 August 2018
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.2 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 25.8°C
Dew point: 22.1°C
Humidity: 80%
Wind: SW 16 km/h
Humidex: 35
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.”
Henry Van Dyke
1852 – 1933
