Of course, I’ve only been to two practices so far and I’m really struggling to build up the strength necessary to acquire the skills. The women in my league are excellent teachers, players and all-around great people to know. They’re really motivating…just watching what they can do makes me want to work even harder. But right now everything is new and my attitude and spirits are good and high. It’s going to get harder and harder, more difficult than I’m sure I can even imagine right now, but I’m in it to give it my all.

Freakgirl writes beautifully about her experiences in roller derby here, and it’s well worth the read.

Also, my league is being showcased in a documentary series called DerbyGirls. The production followed and filmed a few of the women over the previous season and the show tells their personal stories. Please watch the trailer here, and if you can help promote this show in ANY way, please do. The production is working very hard to get this series picked up.

I’ve finally gotten over myself and bought a bathing suit. We’ve been swimming as often as we can.

Another thing I’ve done is get myself a pair of ice skates. I took figure skating as a kid and have been thinking about it nonstop for the past little while. Yesterday I made my first trip to an ice rink in something like 20 years and realized that I have NO IDEA how to balance anymore! The last time I did this I had minimal boobage and no ass. Now I’m all T&A and my center of balance is MIA. It took me fifteen minutes to go twice around the rink, and after that I could do no more. The last time I did this it was second nature and while my legs still want to take long strides, my lack of balance won’t allow it. I guess I’ll just have to re-learn! Tonight I plan to go at least three times around the rink.

Also on the agenda is roller skating! I have an awesome pair of skates that I bought years ago and never really used. I found a roller rink in our general area and it’s open for public skating every Sunday. I wanted to try it out this weekend but our schedule doesn’t permit it. I’ll have to wait another couple of weeks because we’re taking our vacation next weekend! We’re off to Freakgirl, NJ and while we’re there we’re going to catch some roller derby at the Jersey shore! Woot woot!

If you don’t watch Seinfeld, the title of my post is in reference to an episode where George talks nonstop about all the things he’s going to do over the summer but ends up doing nothing at all. I have had many Summers of George, but this summer is different.

We’ve joined thousands of people in being treated horribly by Bell Canada to the point where we are trying to CANCEL our internet service with them and they’ve CANCELLED our CANCELLATION. And somehow, we are not allowed to cancel our own service again, because the Bell Executive Office has forbidden this.

Oh, I’m not joking.

We’ve experienced such horrible service by Bell which included being hung up on repeatedly while trying to enforce them to charge us the correct amount of money. Then we’d decided we’d had it so we cancelled our telephone landline service, which they attempted to prevent by insisting we’ve agreed to a 12-month contract last September. NOT TO OUR KNOWLEDGE.

Finally they agreed to waive the cancellation charge of their bogus contract, $75, and our phone line was cancelled that night. BUT THEY TOOK OUR DSL WITH IT. We did not ask to cancel our DSL; apparently when you don’t have a landline Bell must create something called a “dry loop” physically at your property, so that you can continue to receive the DSL signal. This happened late Thursday night. By the time I got ahold of anyone on Friday, the department I needed was closed for the weekend.

My husband telecommutes regularly and sometimes this means working on the weekend, but not this past weekend. Ha ha, except for it being totally not funny.

Speaking to Bell on Monday morning, we wanted someone to fix this right away because it was 1) their mistake, and 2) ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? We were told no one could come out sooner than Wednesday. Ms. Anouska Fabian at the Bell Exec. Offices just could not make that happen sooner. So we CANCELLED our internet service, effective July 21, as we must give them 30 days’ notice.

Last night unbeknownst to us, Bell gave us our dry loop. But they NEVER ONCE announced their presence to us. So, they were skulking around our property after 9pm last night without us knowing about it at all.

Now, because our internet was reconnected, Ms. Anouska Fabian of Bell’s Exec Offices decided then to CANCEL our CANCELLATION, because she presumably assumed we MUST be pleased. Of course we weren’t pleased, and we’d ALREADY made arrangements for a different provider, the other awful company we have access to, and they’re coming out on Friday.

In any case, Ms. Fabian left messages on my cell that she needed to know if we wanted to keep our service or not, so we called back and left a very clear message. I didn’t feel good enough about it, so we also called Bell’s regular service number to make sure and learned that our confirmed, verified, 30-days-in-advance cancellation had been cancelled by Ms. Fabian and that the Bell Exec. Office had left instruction that our account was NOT to be cancelled, so they wouldn’t do it. THEY WOULDN’T DO IT. More phone calls to Ms. Fabian.

Finally, I’ve written her the following letter, which I also forwarded to Ellen Roseman (who has already gotten back to me while Bell has NOT).

Dear Ms Anouska Fabian,

Since you don’t like to answer your own phone, hopefully this email will be helpful to you. We DO INDEED still wish to cancel our internet service. We wish for our request from yesterday, June 21, 2010 to STAND AS IS. This means we expect cancellation, as well as no charge for our final month, promised to us by your employee Lisa #XXXXX under confirmation #XXX-XXX-XXX.

You had no right to attempt to circumvent our cancellation. We are UNHAPPY with your service, help, and treatment. The only reason we are keeping our TV account is because we prefer the Bell interface to Rogers.

Please let us reiterate so there is no confusion: CANCEL OUR INTERNET SERVICE, with the 30 DAYS NOTICE we provided to you YESTERDAY. PLEASE.

Jeremy and Margaret Simser

Now we’ll see. I’m sick and tired of fighting with Bell, but not tired enough yet to stop. And I still have enough energy to go hang with my knitting chicas tonight. Now, what to knit?

EDITED TO ADD: We had additional communication with the Bell Exec Office, which I summed up in an email to Ms. Roseman, along with my thanks.

Ms. Fabian got back to us and left us a message that suddenly ANOTHER 12-month contract, this time pertaining to our internet service, has materialized in their “system,” and are we sure we want to cancel, because if so we’ll be billed for a $100 cancellation fee. We called back and expressed our intention to involve the CCTS and even seek legal council because if things weren’t already incredibly ridiculous and abusive yet, they certainly were now. Appalling.

She then backpedalled and told us she was, “for our trouble,” waiving all fees and charges. The truth is that I got very upset and begged her to stop explaining, to please just take care of it, send me copies of everything via email and post; that we don’t need any apologies…all we want is to get back to our lives and never hear from her again. We also asked that if the Bell Executive Office needs to contact us, it must be via someone else. She agreed to all of this, and promised there would be no charges on our next bill other than our regular and appropriate television charges. Can’t wait to see!

Please, please let this be over.

Jeremy surprised me with these this morning. They’ll be hung in the kitchen when it’s ready. I love them.

It’s coming together. I like it. The chair rail is going to be white, too, but not tonight!

Work is getting done, albeit at a slower pace than I’d like. I thought we had white semi-gloss paint in the basement but we didn’t, and it can’t be bought until Friday. I wanted to have had the door and trim painted first, but you gotta work with what you have. So, we painted the walls instead. Wanna see?

The first coat is done (I’ve since cut in the corners) but now that it’s dry, I can’t tell what I think because it’s dark out and because that horrible green painter’s tape throws me right off. I’m happy with how dark the colour is, but I’m not sure I’m thrilled with how bright it is. I guess I won’t know until it’s all done. I don’t want to have to tone down the colour, but if I can’t live with it, I can’t live with it. We’ll have to try again.

The second coat goes on tomorrow morning, then while Jeremy’s at work I’m going to take my fancy non-shrinking glue (which I prefer a thousand times over wood filler) and use it to clean up seams and fill in corners and edges before we paint the wainscot and door on Friday. Then it’s chair rail time! Ain’t no party like my nana’s chair rail partay! HAY. HO.

Today is my father’s birthday! He’s 66 and officially an old fart. Look at that soup strainer! He wanted moustache wax last fall so he could make handlebars. I got him some for Christmas, but he hasn’t used it yet. I don’t know what he’s waiting for, but I’m getting pictures when he does! The blonde chick is my mom. We celebrated yesterday at my parents’ house. Yes, that is a great big zero on his cake…no one remembered to buy candles so we decided to use the number that best represented the number of times my dad has gone bungee jumping.

Seriously. Look at that soup strainer!

Oh, and by the way, my grandmother knit that tablecloth without a pattern. She just made it up as she went along. It’s a shame I didn’t pick up on the fibre arts before she passed away.

We live in a pretty small renovated cottage. So small that we don’t have a dedicated dining room. Not only that, but our eat-in area is the same area as our foyer. When we first moved in five years ago, I had no idea what I wanted to do in there, so we just painted the walls and the ugly fake-wood panelling on the bottom half of the wall. The void that you see at the top of the photo used to be a hideously homemade shelf with hooks for coats, and we ripped it out about two or three years ago in favour of a big wardrobe from Ikea. The wardrobe was nice, but it was too big and I needed a change…something brighter. So, we’re going from this…

…to this!

Jeremy put this together in Photoshop and we’re finally making it happen! I had some drywalling to do on the other side of the room first, but we’re finally at the stage where we are installing the wainscot and then we get to paint. I’ve been in love with shades of teal and turquoise for years now, so that’s what we’re putting on the walls. As for kitchen furniture, we’ve been using basically a utility table…a rectangular, unfinished pine table. I hope soon to be able to put a white, circular pedestal table in there with some country-looking white wooden chairs…but we can’t do everything at once so there’s time to shop around and find something just right, even if I have to paint them white myself.

The closet in our laundry room is going to be the official coat closet, and the rack we’re putting up is for light stuff and guests’ coats. And top hats, apparently (Jeremy’s touch).

We’re at this stage now. Tonight, there will be paint!

I have taken no photos lately, so here’s one from a short while ago. Cocoa continues to want to make biscuits and nurse, but much less often. I think she’ll give it up eventually, but I’m honestly surprised she’s been doing it this long! One of her favourite things is when I beat her in the face with her own tail. She thinks it’s the best game ever. I have no idea if she knows it’s her tail she’s biting or not. She’s really social and likes to be very close to the other animals.

Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of hosting a little overnight party with my friends Michelle and Erica. I spun very little and drank very much! We had a great time and I didn’t pull my camera out for ANY of it! I can’t wait to do it again. Shop talk (fibre) is the best talk.

In other news, we’ve refinanced our home. This has been a scary experience since it’s the first time we’ve done it, but we got approved (whew!) at a really low interest rate (woohoo!). This is our first house and we were already in over our heads when we bought it…becoming homeowners is hard work! Over the past five years emergency expenses almost ruined us (mould in the basement – gone now. Carpenter ants in the office – gone now. Income tax snafu – unsnaffed…I could go on), but we managed to maintain our credit rating through it all, and we’re actually coming out of this, dare I say it? In the black. I think the next five years are going to be great and bring a lot of changes about for us.

I may even be able to save up some dough to attend Rhinebeck this fall! I’ve never been and I’ve wanted to go for years, but it’s never been in the budget. This fall I want to make that happen.