Annoyances big and small...

I've had to prevent myself from posting after a rather nasty Thursday morning at work. For the better part of my waking hours since then, I've been silently - and occasionally not so silently - fuming about it. I'll be going into detail more with the notify list because some of it's probably not good to post on my journal. I'm planning on beginning the search very quickly for a new job. I'm just... done. Sick of the bullshit. Just... done.

The only thing right now that I'm waiting to do is to book a date and place for my wedding. Once that's set, my focus will go to job hunting. If I try to do both at once, my brain will explode and I won't get either done. So pacing is the key. All of the other wedding stuff (flowers, dress, etc.) will fall into place fairly quickly because I've had wedding on the brain in some form for 18 months now.

Another large annoyance lately has been the damned commuter rail trains. While the trains are never all that great, the last two weeks have been downright shitty with the train schedules. Last Tuesday, Erich and I were catching the 7:50 a.m. train from South Attleboro into Boston, and wound up having a 2 hour, 45 minute train ride as our train was instructed to become a rescue train for the 7:10 train from Providence that apparently died on the track and had been sitting there for about 30 minutes. It took over 40 minutes just to hook up to the broken train. And then, with the train being 14 cars long (and twice as long as the stations), we had to make two stops at every station.

Add to that the issue of air-conditioning on the trains... or the lack of it lately. Metal frame trains running all day in the blazing sun = vicious discomfort in 85+ degree heat. The air circulators are blasting hot air into some of the cars, making them intolerable to stay in for more than five minutes. One day last week, we just wanted to sit down and dealt with it. By the time we got home, we regretted the decision. Any complaints to the MBTA are ignored.

This evening, I arrived to South Station in Boston (where I always meet Erich) to find a horde of people just standing around... never a good sign. All of the trains were running late. At about the time the 6:10 train to Providence is supposed to be leaving, they finally announce that it's boarding... on track 4. Erich and I scoot out there, get on the train, and celebrate that we found a seat on a car with air-conditioning... something that has become extremely rare on the commuter trains.

About five minutes later, a couple guys get on the train and say to no one in particular "are you guys going to Providence? Because they switched the train... it's now on track 6. This one is going to Worcester." Mind you-- we're physically on the train. In fact, the train's about 3/4 full at this point. No MBTA official has bothered to announce this TO the people sitting on the train, so no one has a clue. Erich and I scoot off, and he sees a conductor standing over on Track 6. He yells over to verify that Providence is in fact leaving on Track 6.. yes. It is. We have to walk all the way back down the boarding platform, go around the bend, and get on the NEXT platform to walk all the way back down to catch this new train. And it's immediately a winceable situation. Not only is the train short one car, but we're now being stuffed onto an entirely single-level car train (the other was all double-deckers) which is entirely too small for the line we take home. And as we get on the train? No A/C. For two cars out of five.

We don't get a seat now-- we get to stand. For a while. And as people pack on the train over the next two stops, it gets so crowded that the doors can't shut. People are turned away from the train. Just to add insult to injury, the train is CREAKING about as slowly as it can possibly go and still be moving most of the way home. We finally get home at 8 p.m.-- significantly later than should have happened.

The kicker on this is that any complaints to the MBTA are met with silence. They claim they're fixing the trains. They claim that due to the horrible accident in the Big Dig tunnels a couple weeks ago, they've added additional trains to help divert commute traffic. No-- they haven't. Maybe they've added some buses, but no trains. In fact, I'd argue that the trains are shorter these days and therefore much more packed.

And as of January, they want to raise my monthly pass fee to $250 a month. A full 25% increase. Yeah... because I see the value of adding that much money to my commute. For what? Shitty trains that neither work nor run on time? And of course... there's the parking fees on top of that. Gee, what a value.

Screw that. Yet another reason to find a new job.

A slightly smaller annoyances from work... Erich and I have both caught the latest incarnation of the commuter train plague. It's yet another cold-- continuing my streak of not being healthy for a single month this year. Once again, Halls drops have become my lifeline to not looking like an idiot as I cough myself to death. I haven't had a full night sleep in three nights due to this damn thing. I envy Erich, who seems to be able to sleep all night. I think I'm running on 3 days of 4 hour sleep intervals now.

On an even smaller annoyance scale: We're dealing with an infestation of teeny tiny ants in the kitchen. So far, the infestation has been limited- they're bee-lining straight for the cats' canned food plate. *sigh* So for the time being, the cat food has been removed from the kitchen and moved clear across the house into the sun room in clean bowls fresh from the dishwasher. I wiped the area with vinegar tonight to eliminate the scent trail. This weekend I'm going to scrub the entire kitchen floor with a one part bleach to ten parts water mix. We'll also need to hit Lowes or Home Depot to pick up some stuff to spray on the outside of the house. Any recommendations?

But in trying to end this entry on a good note... I think I found the place for the wedding. I've mentioned it before in my journal as a possibility, I think- Mount Hope Farm. I absolutely loved it. It's not yet booked. I'm going to look at a couple more places first... but by the end of August, I will officially have a date (gasp!). My mother needs to physically be here to put her credit card down as the holding deposit due to both Erich and I being extremely po'. After talking with her tonight, she's going to try to get up here during the latter half of August for a couple days to go see Mount Hope and possibly another couple places before we make a final decision.

I need another vacation.