.- quantum uncertainty -.

So, my grandmother has been having phone issues for the last couple of weeks. Occasionally, she has no signal and everyone else gets a busy signal. The last time this happened, it went on for a day and a half, and I had to go upstairs and knock on her door, fearing the worst, since we didn't know there was a weird line issue. She was fine. :) Today, my mom calls me to tell me that I need to go knock on her door again.

So I do, but she loses a signal again, later, and asks me to call Bell on her behalf. I do, I schedule an appointment for tomorrow and they tell me that if it's outside of the apartment building, it's no charge, but that it's $80 if it's inside. :P So you can pay $6/month for insurance against this... so I said I'd call back, explained it to my grandmother, and she's like, yes, do the $6 thing. Again, I'll call them and now (and only now) they demand proof that I'm her granddaughter. So the lady puts me on hold, calls up my grandmother, verifies me, etc, and we get the $6 a month insurance.

Now, during the afternoon, my computer sort of died. In that, it worked... but I wasn't getting power. I figured it was the warm weather or something, so I shut it all down and played Super Mario brothers, of all things. Come back an hour later to a cool computer and power adapter... and get nothing.

Eventually, I call up Future Shop and explain the situation and they tell me to bring it in for a quick test to see which part of the computer isn't working -- the laptop or the adapter.

Haul ass down to the store, fervently praying the whole time that it's the adapter... and then it is. WHEW. So I bought a universal adapter and my computer is a happy camper once again.

Throughout this, I've been emailing with a woman whom I vaguely know from six years ago (we were potentially going to be co-workers in what we discovered was a very sketchy operation) and work with now, about work stuff and how we knew each other.

Reading it over, it doesn't sound like much. But it felt like a lot! Lots of ups and downs and concerns. This is probably why I feel exhausted. That, or the fact that it feels like 31 degrees Celsius outside.

Italy for two weeks as of this Saturday. A week in Milan, then off to Venice for a couple days. To the beach for a couple more. Off to Florence for a couple more, then back to Milan for the last night before our flight.

With my parents. <insert bright grin here> Assuming my mother and I don't kill each other, it should be quite pleasant.

I bought my travel health insurance yesterday (online = lovely) and when prompted for an emergency contact name and number, I started typing in my dad's name and went "no, wait, he's coming with me... and so's Mom..."

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, my baby brother is my emergency contact. (Okay, he's 24, but still.) This still amuses me, and should anything tragic befall me in Italy, I will still chuckle at the thought that the Blue Cross will be calling my brother to inform him of the situation. No matter how much pain I'm in.

I have a stupid amount of things to do -- gotta go downtown and buy a new pair of jeans, buy a backpack, get all kinds of toiletries for two weeks, do laundry and empty out my fridge so that the things inside it do not form a revolution and attempt to take over the world while I'm away.

And yet, I am slug, hear me... well, whatever noise a slug makes.

In other news, today is the day that drsnicket graduates from her residency program! Congratulations! (This, of course, does not mean she is finished working for her residency, I was informed yesterday. But anyways.)

Oh, I nearly forgot, if you want a postcard from somewhere in Italy, let me know -- send me a mail to my primary gmail address (which many of you know is the nickname shiningmoon gave me [at] gmail [dot] com) or to brinshannara [at] gmail [dot] com.

A secondary goal of mine while in Italy will be to see if I can get the hockey scores in under 12 hours from when the games were played, unlike last time, two summers ago, when I was conscious for over 8 hours without knowing who had won the Stanley Cup. GRR. Go Edmonton, for what it's worth.