ProtusMose.com

Especially after 2 weeks. Things have started looking up a little bit. Here’s a rundown of the updates. The possum did manage to climb out using the board the morning following the last post. We heard him clanging around 4:00 am and haven’t seen him since. We called Nebraska Furniture Mart back after the last e-mail. This time, the lady who answered knew all about it: “Yeah, we’ve just been telling everyone to bring those back.” So, we took it back and got credit for it. We decided to go with a name brand this time. It cost us more money we don’t have, but hopefully it’s an investment for the future.

Christmas went well. It was great to see my parents. Got plenty of nice presents. My wife outdid herself with a trifecta: a weight bench, a fitted size 7 7/8 NU hat (yes, my skull is huge), and she surprised me with an iPod shuffle.

The iPod’s been giving me crap since day 1. I’ll give it one more day to get its act straight before exchanging.
All in all, things, while not necessarily looking up, have leveled off. Disaster has been averted. Again. God is good. He’s got this bad habit of helping me put things in perspective and saving me from myself In an act of intense originality, I will again close this one out with someone else’s words. My eyes have been opened.

Comatose – John Cooper
I hate feeling like this
I’m so tired of trying to fight this
I’m asleep and all I dream of is waking to You

Tell me that You will listen
Your touch is what I’m missing
And the more I hide I realize I’m slowly losing You

Comatose
I’ll never wake up without an overdose of You
I don’t wanna live
I don’t wanna breathe
‘less I feel You next to me
You take the pain I feel
I don’t wanna sleep
I don’t wanna dream
’cause my dreams don’t comfort me
The way You make me feel

I hate living without You
Dead wrong to ever doubt You
But my demons lay in waiting
Tempting me away
Oh how I adore You
Oh how I thirst for You
Oh how I need You

The possum is here to stay; for the night anyway.

Let’s tally up the week, shall we?

• Found out I didn’t get the big promotion (insult to injury, they actually had two positions and I didn’t get either).
• The Christmas lights I spent all weekend putting up to make my 2 year old happy have died. Three different strands. It’s dark when I get home from work, so it will be Saturday before I can even think about putting new ones up.
• Our one year old $300 TV is dead and there’s no one I can talk to but two people in Hong Kong who can’t speak English and have yet to reply to e-mail.
• Our 4 year old dryer inexplicably dies. The rusted washer sitting right next to it keeps plugging away, though.
• Got a letter from my insurance company stating they’ve decided I can’t get my epilepsy medication anymore without paying a higher premium. Oddly enough, they left out what that higher premium would be.
• When I got home from work today, the dog had pooped all over the living room. (Bad Dog!)
• With the way things are going, we’re going to have to cancel cable and Internet to pay bills and for Christmas. (Say goodbye to ingraldi.us and protusmose.com[not that either were ever of much use to anyone but myself anyway]).

Score as of Wednesday night:

: 7 : 0

I’m still managing to hold out hope somehow. I’m not sure how much I’ve got left, though. I applied for two great jobs with another company earlier this week. If I can land one of those, it will signal a chance to maybe get ahead for once, or, at least, stop the downward spiral we’ve been careening down for the last year and a half. I’m smart enough and more than qualified to be great in either position. I’ve just got to get them to see that.
Wish me luck.

More like a monsoon.

Went to dry some towels this evening and the dryer has died. It runs and makes the normal noises. Alas, no heat. I’ve got 3 loads of laundry to do and no way to dry them.

As I was typing this, I heard a rustling over my head. There’s a possum in my window well. I’ll have to finish this lament after I figure out how to get a possum out of a confined space without contracting rabies.

Things aren’t going so well right now. Our TV (less than a year old) just died. We were able to afford a slightly “better” TV by going with a Panasonic (I think) subsidiary called Smartvision. Two days ago, the picture froze with diagonal lines all over. Wouldn’t even power off until I unplugged it. Today, it just blipped out. Won’t turn on. If you try, the indicator light on the front just flashes.

No big deal, right? We purchased the extended warranty, so we’re covered, right? So, we called the store where we bought it and were advised we bought the manufacturer’s extended warranty and we would have to contact them. I look at the back of the User Manual. The only phone numbers are in Hong Kong. This cannot be good. I had to wait until after 9:00 AM Hong Kong time to get anyone on the phone. As suspected, they spoke very little English and were entirely incapable of helping me. (This is NOT good.) I ended up writing everything up in an e-mail, with translations into both traditional and simplified Chinese for good measure. We’ll see how far this goes.

Somehow I doubt it will go towards a working television.