BUT. D YELLED at her for the first time ever and also told her for the first time that the problems inherent in this parenting relationship stem almost 100% from her actions and overreactions, which is true. I was so proud of him.

YAY FOR HIM! Ugh, what makes some people so craxxy?

Plei, my co-worker just asked me a gardening type question (no idea what she was thinking there), which I could research, or she could, but... well, you know. And you probably know.

She wants to know if jasmine will do well here during the summer -- we're in Philadelphia which, apparently "falls in the northern periphery of the humid subtropical climate zone."

Oh, hell. I probably could've googled the answer by now. Let me see..

Jen - I haven't seen much jasmine growing around here, fwiw.

Why would the bank NOT allow you to make payments? That is so confusing. Was it a partial payment thing, and they wanted all or nothing?

All or nothing was exactly it. I don't want anyone to think it was one payment; we were several behind. In addition to the past due payments they slapped a $12k insurance charge for insurance that was not required in our mortgage making catching up in a lump sum even more difficult. We may have been able to solve it then, but they insisted we do the modification thing which delayed a few more months, spiral, spiral. Now after 6 modification attempts we are at this point. We will keep fighting, and we will prevail.

But she made a tactical error, because now I KNOW she is scared stiff of me. And the petty side of me, which I am trying to supress, is very, very pleased by that.

I'm pretty pleased by that too! It is rotten for the adults, but the poor kid is in such a powerless position. It is good that D is standing up to her now.

The Margarita cultivar of Carolina jessamine is hardy to zone 6 and there are some reports of its survival in 5A. Most cultivars are only hardy to zone 7.

Ginger, did you hear back about getting an earlier appointment?

Thanks Ginger... I think I understand how all the words go together. Now I need to figure out what kind of zone we're in. This is turning out to be sort of fun. I'm going to time me.

Look at that, I found a zone map. We appear to be Zone 6a. Score!

I have achieved and paid for home insurance today. And the best part? Our car insurance is going down so much because we are moving out of the city that it more than pays for the house insurance.

Excellent news, sj!

That's great, sj!

Filed under "things I didn't expect to do this morning," I just had to fix my kitchen faucet, twice. At least I think it's fixed? And now to eat lunch and get ready for work. Oy, so much for everything else I needed to do today.