Of All Days!

My son (and all his pets) left this morning. He starts back to school on Tuesday and was having "the guys" over for watching football and catching up after break. I did some cleaning (and my handyman came around noon to fix my dryer; as it turns out, I had done a fine job of changing out the element, but the dryer also needed a new thermostat) and then decided to kick back with TV and crochet. At first, my television was stuck on some Star Trek movie. Finally I was able to change the channel, but the reception was going in and out, halting and jumping the sound and the picture. I turned it off and waited a while. I turned it back on. Same issue. I called Comcast and was given the recorded message that there was an outage in my area, and that if it wasn't resolved within twenty-four hours I should call back. Twenty-four hours?! Are you kidding. Okay, on to Netflix.

It turned out Netflix didn't work either, so I tried to go to the Xfinity website to get information about other outages. No internet. I called Comcast again, this time to report internet outage in addition to cable outage, and I got the same recorded message. It's been in and out (it's in right now, so I'm striking while the iron is hot), dropping down to one bar then going back to six. This is bad. I'm scheduled to retake my scoring test for the other program tomorrow, and part of the problem last time was that my internet service dropped for a few hours. It does that sometimes, but it's never been out this long (nearly six hours). Tomorrow's shift is my last chance to test into the program. It isn't a catastrophe if I don't make it, but passing the test would open up a few additional work opportunities for me.

Apart from concerns about the test, I really needed a distraction today. The phrase, "Please don't go," ran through my head as my son was packing up, but of course he needs to go, to get back to his studies and his grown-up life. It was wonderful to have him here for so long, and I feel fortunate that he wanted to stay all that time. However, knowing all of that doesn't make it easier to see him leave. On the plus side, his cats aren't here anymore, shedding and knocking things off tables. Although they did leave a few clumps of hair (which I'll vacuum up tomorrow) to remember them by, and my pets are having a nice relaxing nap.