Seaweed, Unamused

Expect:  To look forward to, as to something that is believed to be about to happen or come.   

Thoughts, here and there.

I continue in my low-grade suffering malaise.  I wonder at the human spirit and it's relation to the spiritual world.  I know I got to be in the room with my father as he died of alcoholism.  I know that he's dead.  I know that a deep, deep connection to a city was lost, sparked out.  I know that there is a lengthening of relationships after several years of absence.  I know all of this and I expected a different reaction.

I'd suggest not putting yourself in a box when it comes to your reaction to what life throws at you.  It may not come out how you expected.

God, as jokester.

The big financial organization that has put together a brilliant playbook to drive me completely insane cycled back up to the top of my shit list today.  Over the last two weeks I waited patiently . . . patiently . . . not so patiently . . . gritting my teeth . . . and then I picked up the phone because today was my day to be trapped inside a Kafkaesque wormhole.  Against all odds I was hopeful but resigned.  I had an idea what was coming.  

You might recall that GWPMO helped me fill out a dizzying array of financial forms which he was supposed to forward to the Home Office.  These were the people I called, the Home Office people, the shadowy, shadowy Home Office people, accountable to no one, man or beast.  So . . . out of 6 forms the first guy I talked to had 3 of them and all was well.  Form number 4 required an additional form that had to be notarized.  He emailed me this form which, when opened, informed me that I needed to "Please wait for the form to populate."  It never populated.  No population appeared.  The form had no people.  I took my 3 out of 4 and moved on.

Forms 5 and 6 were being handled by scriveners at a different division or arm or leg of this malevolent organization and these scriveners were at a different address.  They had received zero of the two forms.  They offered to help me fill out the forms which I had already filled out. They couldn't explain why four of the forms mailed by the same office arrived and two did not.

"Here's the thing," I remarked.  "Let's say I fill out this set of forms and then you find the original set of forms.  What happens then?"

"By the way," I said.  "These are complicated forms.  That's why I went somewhere so someone could help me fill them out.  I don't really want to fill them out again."

"Exactly," he said.  "That's what we recommend people do."

He was good, this one, as a tormentor.  I spoke to Tony, Sandy, and Travis today but I have lost track as to which one this guy was.  I lost my temper a couple of times and there may have been some voice raising but no yelling and absolutely no profanity.

I was disconnected from Tony.  Poor Sandy answered when I called back and she took the brunt of my pique.

I called the GWPMO and told them that the Home Office didn't have the forms.

"Well, they're wrong," he said.  "They just called me a few minutes ago asking for clarification on one of the forms we sent in."

I was two hours in at this point and I waved my white flag of capitulation.  I don't mean to suggest that the war is over, only that today the battle was bloody and fought to a draw.

I went out and got the mail today and found two checks from The Organization.  If I had waited two hours all of this could have been avoided.  God is amused, Seaweed is not.

Patience, Seaweed, patience.