Today I received my THIRD gas bill for the month of April, complete with missing meter dates, unexplained extra charges (apparently there was a 6-day period for which the meter was read but no actual statement compiled), and a second and third initial sign-up fee added. Much of the math didn't add up, and after quite a long time on the phone with a CSR I think we got everything straightened out but the final amount I owed matched none of the totals on any of the paper and e-statements.

Now that daytime temperatures are rising above my thermostat setting my gas usage should plummet. But if billing in future months is as much of a boondoggle as the last three have been I'm going to buy tankless water heaters for my bathroom, kitchen, and laundry room and switch to space heaters, blankets, and feline heating pads before next winter.

That sounds very frustrating and like a bery bad way to run a utility company.

I am packed. Ish. I was sorting through the laundry we just did and was separating out what I am going to take into a laundry basket. The plan was to then put it in my suitcase but I was looking at it and thinking about the extra work and now I'm just going to put the laundry basket in the car and call that packed. I mean I may change my mind but we aren't going to hotel.

friends of mine used to drop off their clothes at a place that would wash & fold for $1 a bag (like big paper bags from the grocery store but very well packed!) and then pick them up on their way out of town and call it luggage.

My mom called it Bohemian matched luggage. Now I'm thinking I should probably google and find out how racist she was being

edit: OK apparently it's an Irish immigrant thing because (allegedly) Bohemian immigrants were treated better than Irish ones so Bohemian jokes evolved as a way of punching up at people they thought were getting an unfair advantage in the US.

Utility companies do seem to make a real effort to make billing incomprehensible.

yes I feel like inaccessibility is baked in to public utilities

Our state's attorney general brought a class action suit against this particular company on behalf of price-gouged customers, and LOTS of people have complaints about how poorly they're run. Though I do have a little more patience with them now that they're footing $3400 or so of my plumbing bill.

OK, I've got my third load of laundry and bread in the oven, I think I'm fully back from vacation. A week later, ha!

sometimes you need a vacation to recover from your vacation

Seriously!

NB, the laundry is not in the oven!

I'm awake! Kind of. Ate a fancy thing from Eggslut and am now working my way through a raspberry croissant, which is like a raspberry jelly donut but so fancy it will ruin all actual raspberry jelly donuts forever.

The one thing I really yearn for, with all the lolling and napping, is my cats. Toby and Matilda would have draped themselves all over me and kept purring, drowsing company with me all the livelong day.

Pix, I am so very sorry. That's too much grief to have to weather in one week.

Packing~ma to askye as you work your way from packed-ish to Packed.

Cheers to Matt for conquering a public utility!

Ugh, laura, that looks so miserable. Floods, hurricanes and tornadoes are definitely some of the factors that have kept me from ever thinking about leaving my home state. We have earthquakes and wildfires, but they're occasional and capricious, not absolutely regular things to contend with and possibly be ruined by every single year without fail. I'm sorry you're contending with it all (but so glad it's just contending with).

And now I have tired myself out writing to a bare handful of all the Buffistas I should be writing to. I apologize for the oncoming nap.