I keep reading about this Pay It Forward thing, so I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon. Here’s the general idea:

I will send a handmade gift to 3 people who leave a comment on this post. I don’t know what that gift will be yet, and you might not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

I can guarantee that you won’t receive my handmade whatever today or tomorrow. And I have no idea what that handmade thing might be. Most of the blogs I’ve seen this on have been craft-oriented, but I might not be up to sending out my experimental sewing projects just yet. And seeing as that’s the only crafting I’ve been doing lately, you could be in for something like cookies! Or brownies!

Today’s been a pip. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but it seems like we’ve been saving up all of our Let’s Deal With Irritations chips for today. And so I’m turning into Ranty McRanterson, just for this post.

1. Our e-mail was down for a good part of yesterday and then again this morning. I’d sent in a support request yesterday afternoon. When I looked at the “ticket history” this morning, though, it said that no one had even looked at the request. So I called the support call center. I was on hold for 40 minutes before they (“they” being either the support center or my cell provider) dropped my call. Oh, I was not pleased.

   After I’d showered and had breakfast, I called again and was only on hold for about 20 minutes. And they found the problem and fixed it pretty quickly. Everything was blue skies and bunny rabbits again.

   Until …

2. First, a little background: A few weeks ago, around 9:30pm, our floor started to shake. I’m pretty sure we’re not on a fault line here. And even if we were, I don’t think earthquakes are accompanied by any sort of kickin’ guitar riffs. So after about 20 minutes, I went downstairs to ask the neighbors to turn down their stereo. The response wasn’t, “Sorry about that; we’ll turn it down.” Which was sort of what I’d expected. Instead, the girl said, “Oh, are you the one with the little girl? She was running around all morning, and it was really loud.”

   I was a little irritated then, and I’ve been irritated a couple of times when they’ve cranked up the tunes since then. But today, I think steam actually came out my ears.

   One of the downstairs neighbor dropped by this afternoon to say that Poppy “or your dogs or whatever” had been running around for two hours and it was disturbing him. He said he had talked to the property manager about it (I’m not sure when, and I don’t know why he didn’t come up here first) and she told him we were moving out soon. But, he said, he “just couldn’t take it anymore.” Rockford told him he was sorry, but there wasn’t much we could do about it, seeing as we live on the third floor in an apartment with wooden floors. And we have a toddler. To which he responded, “When I was little, I wasn’t allowed to run in the house.”

   I’m glad we’ll be moving soon, because I really don’t know how to respond to such complaints. I’m thinking about suggesting to the property manager that they don’t rent this unit to anyone with children after we leave. I don’t know. What do you think? For now, I’m just chanting “Only two more weeks … two more weeks.”

3. Rockford had a buy-one, get-one-free coupon for Starbucks that he tried to redeem today. The cashier said he couldn’t use it because he wasn’t ordering two of the same item. Rockford said, “You’re kidding me,” and the girl went to get her manager. “Can you deal with these people?” she asked. “I just can’t take this.”

We must be putting off some very strange and intolerable vibes today.

Chris‘ participation in the Wordless Wednesday circle inspired me to find a similar project for today. I like the idea of Wordless Wednesday, but I’m not sure I could stick to the “wordless” part of the equation.

I also haven’t been taking many new pictures lately, which makes Throwback Thursday a good fit for now.

This week’s theme is Summer Vacation Memories. I would’ve liked to share the picture of the very cranky, child-hating Uncle Sam we met in New York (Really. He was wearing a button that said “I hate kids.”) or some photos from our ill-timed camping-and-Disney trip to Florida (in July). But the only thing I had scanned in that fit the theme was this one, from our trip to Georgian Bay in Ontario.

So here they are, a few memories from our adventure in Canada: