The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

My weekend definitely had a little bit of everything. First the good. Friday night Jeffro and I dinner at Matuba, our favorite local sushi restaurant. Saturday we went blueberry picking with Lady Brett at Butler's Orchard and came home with 5 lbs. of blueberries. Then we went to lunch at this cool Amish market in Germantown. Saturday night I went to a party at the Old Dominion Boat Club and had a pretty fun time dancing to the music of DC Motors. A good friend was there that I hadn't seen in a while, so I hung out with her and we got ice cream on our way back home. Today I have a doggy playdate (hopefully it won't be too hot) and then dinner with my neighbor. These are all good things.

However, the weekend has definitely had its share of aggravation. Friday night while trying to park at Matuba, someone who works for a competing restaurant next door was trying to block access to the parking lot, saying that only people eating at his restaurant were allowed to park there. Being a long-time customer, I knew this wasn't true, but others believed this guy and tried to find someplace else to park. Since parking was tight that night, he was essentially turning Matuba customers away. I confirmed with Matuba that this guy shouldn't be claiming the lot was only for his restaurant, and got in a yelling match with the parking Nazi. Yes we did wind up parking there anyway, even though he tried not to let our car in. I called the police, who said unfortunately it's private property and they have no jurisdiction.

Saturday I received a copy of the proposed budget for my condo association for the next year, which includes a proposed 7% increase in condo fees. With this increase, my fees have increased more than $75 over the past 6 years. The reason for the increase is unacceptable: they're saying that it's due to all the "unexpected flooding" recently. I don't know how the flooding could be unexpected when they have known for many years that the same units keep flooding over and over again. There are structural problems to the buildings which they are not fixing. I call it irresponsible management of money and I'm prepared to go to the budget meeting this week and give some remarks to that effect.

This morning started with a call at 8:30 a.m. from my prescription drug company. They called and didn't get an answer, so they called back. Since it was 8:30 on a weekend, I thought it must be some sort of emergency and picked up the phone. Instead it was my drug company processing my prescription and needing to verify my address. This had to be done at 8:30 on a Sunday? Were their computers broken and they couldn't find my address? I yelled at this woman and asked why she was calling so early. She told me she was authorized to call anytime after 8 a.m., and I asked who authorized her. Anyway, it was all ugly and unpleasant and not the way to start a Sunday morning. Needless to say, I called the company back and asked for a manager to put in a complaint about their policy of calling between 8 and 9 a.m. on the weekends. Luckily the woman was nice and understanding, and didn't realize this was going on .

I don't know if any of this fighting back will change anything, but quite frankly I'm sick of just taking everyone's crap and accepting everyone else's policies and decisions without saying anything. I'm also hoping for some peace and quiet the rest of today.