I’m typing at my Captain’s Chair for the first time in literally years. At the moment I’m using my laptop for my Main Computer, and it looks like the smaller-than-ideal screen isn’t going to be an issue, at least not for a while. I have dreams of getting, like, y’know, a 30″ all-in-one screen/computer thingy like a Mac whatever-they’re-called, although I’ve been using Windows for so long at this point that the idea of actually getting a Mac is pretty strange. Also very expensive, but I don’t even know if they make big all-in-one Windows machine/screens like that, so either way I’m sure it’s not on the list of things to do right away.

We’re still without internet. :p Basically there’s a law or regulation in Ireland that says if there’s an open phone/internet (and perhaps other utilities, IDK) account at the house you’re in, they can’t just switch it over to your name. The account either has to be closed by the original holder or you have to send in a copy of your lease agreement to prove you’re now living at the house, which takes up to four weeks to process.

So I called to open a new account at the beginning of July, when we moved in, and I was told the above. I didn’t have a signed copy of the lease yet, but I asked the letting agent for one and wrote down the address to which I was supposed to send it. Then Indy got chicken pox and by the time I got back to it, I had no idea what the address I’d written down was *for*, so I called the service provider more or less to find out, and was reminded of all of that. I contacted the letting agent again to see where a copy of the lease was and it turned out the landlord was on holiday and hadn’t been able to sign it yet, but the letting agent offered to (and did) send a letter verifying we were now at this address.

I emailed that to the nice young man I’d spoken to on the phone at the service provider, who had invited me to email the lease agreement so he could forward it on in hopes of expediting the lease-verification process. I never heard back from him. After three days or so I called again and that time found out that the PHONE account was not held by the service provider to whom I was speaking, and that they thought the internet service here had been cancelled in August of 2013. Then they gave me the wrong number to find out who my service provider was, and after trying that several times I asked the letting agent if she could ask the landlords, who were 1. very (very, very) surprised to hear there was an active account of any kind at the house and 2. had differing opinions on who held the account.

I called the first provider that Landlord A thought held the account, and was given a very similar but different number to call to find out who …

…look, this is unbelieveably long and I could type it all out in exhaustive detail but I can’t imagine you’re that interested. I’m pretty sure you already get the idea. Wind it out, ad infinitum. The (it’s too late to be) short version is that there are/were still open accounts held by other people at this address and the latest thing I was told was that the broadband account (which was separate from the phone account, in the end) had been closed but I needed yet another magic number to verify something, at which point the letting agent said, and I quote, “What the !!! Leave it with me!” which was yesterday (Tuesday; I’m sure I won’t be posting this until Saturday when I have net access at my parents’).

Before anybody asks: no, it wouldn’t help to call another provider. They’re all bound by the same rules and regulations. And whenever it’s finally verified that the account is closed and I can open a new one, it’ll apparently take 7 days to have a technician come out and perform an arcane ritual of transferance, which I assume must be part of the process, because we have both a modem and a line that will support the kind of access we want so I can imagine no other reason it would require an Actual Technician. And yes, when I get to the point of actually being able to order broadband, I *will* be asking why it is exactly that the arcane ritual is necessary when we already have etc etc etc.

In the meantime we’ve read a lot of books.

Um. Let’s see. Monday evening I got to go out to dinner with several writer friends, which was, as it always is, a lovely treat, even if I did shock them by being American. (We’d asked for a dessert menu. The waiter said of course and went away and never returned. A while later another one asked if we’d like to see a dessert menu. I said, “Yes. In fact, we asked for one some time ago,” and my friends’ eyes bugged and when the man went away (after verifying he was not the waiter of whom we’d previously requested the menu), they said, in shock, “Catie! We’re Irish! We don’t say things like that!” I said, “I’m AMERICAN! We DO!” :))

In other news…I don’t really have a lot of other news. Apparently there are things going on in the world; I know nothing of them. And now I have to go do something about dinner, because I still haven’t learned to have one big Cooking Day a week or month so I don’t have to deal with it the rest of the time. I wish I would learn to do that.

Okay, well. I’ve typed about a thousand words on this now and it’s obviously going to work, which means I really do need to start…working. I’m so far behind I could cry. Although at least Kat Richardson and I got Spite House, our Greywalker/Walker Papers crossover story, in to the editor, so that’s not hanging over our heads anymore.