No Refund; My Fault

I had eating discipline yesterday. On Monday, I did not, so it felt good to be back in form. I don’t worry about my indulgence days because even at their worst, they are nothing like the days of a bazillion calories that were once my every day. I’m definitely not rebounding into bad habits.

On the foot front, my right foot is slowly getting better. Yesterday, I took the bandage off painlessly and there was no gushing of blood. However, the wound still looks raw and nasty, so I spent much of yesterday with my right pant leg rolled up and my sock rolled down so that the wound could get some fresh air. I think fresh air is good for healing.

My left foot is never going to feel better. Bone spurs don’t get better on their own, they get worse as the spurs grow, so I must just suck it up when it comes to walking with bone spurs. I hope to see Jennifer, my nurse practitioner, on January 13^th. I have an appointment at the clinic for pneumonia and shingles vaccines, but I’m not certain that it will be Jennifer giving me the shots. But if it is her, I’ll be asking about the corticosteroid shot for my heel.

Her Highness and I went for a short morning walk and then I came home to chill until lunch time. After everyone was fed, it wasn’t long until it was time to video chat with Issam, the manager of my bank. What a guy! He is so wonderful, I cannot do justice in words to express my feelings for him. He is so gracious and helpful. I am so lucky and grateful to him for giving Kris his business card so that he can help me with banking problems. (I cannot use the phone to call Vanity’s help line.)

He returned my access to online banking, he’s sending me a new member’s card and he’s expediting it himself, and he explained to me why I will likely be held responsible for my loss of four grand. I was so grateful to him for yesterday and all the times he has helped me, I wrote a letter praising him and I mailed it to Vancity’s CEO, Chief Member Experience Officer, Chief People Officer, and Executive VP, Inclusive Banking and Sustainable Wealth.

I was glad to have a series on Acorn to watch last night. I was thrilled to not have to search for something to watch. I needed the escape of a good story so as not to think about losing four grand.

Today is dull and cool, but we’ll walk with our friends and once we get walking it will be wonderful to be out and about in the forest. The rest of the day will unfold, hopefully, without a crisis: I don’t need to hear from another scammer, and I don’t want another power failure. I just want to be warm and cosy in the house all day. 

My Bank Manager is Helping Me

 We walked with our friends and their dogs Monday morning, and it was rather nice. I was warmly dressed, it wasn’t raining, and there were long periods of sunshine that made the walk positively uplifting. And when we were done, I raced home to see if there was an email or a call from the bank. There wasn’t.

Soo, I wrote to Issam. Issam is the manager of my branch. Kris went to meet him a couple of years ago, to ask for help for me in managing my online banking. Calling the Vancity customer service line was too difficult for me to navigate with my bad speech. Issam gave Kris his card and told her to have me contact him with any problems.

I wrote to him about what happened and closed my email asking him if my debit card would work. It won’t, so I have no way of accessing my money. Regina lent me $200, but I am likely to need more than that before my new VISA card comes. He answered quite quickly and he’s set up a video chat with me for today at 1:15. This was wonderful news for me. He is helping me navigate all that is required of me so that I don’t have to deal with calls from their fraud department and customer services.

We went into town to pick up a parcel at the post office. It was my new rug for the hallway to the guest rooms. It looks lovely and makes the whole guest ‘wing’ look much more welcoming and comforting. I also picked up the new rain jacket that I bought for Sheba who hates walking in the rain. We’re set for the rest of our wet season now.

We walked in the 707 for our afternoon walk. It was short as we’d stopped for a short walk in Rollo Park on the way home from the village. It was cool and cloudy, but there was no rain. The day seemed to fly by. I spent a lot of the day going over the scammer conversation and thinking about how I’m going to function without access to my money.

The evening was the usual. Thank God for movies to distract me from thinking about the scam. And I imagine that today will be much like yesterday, except at 13:15 I will be talking with the manager of my bank, and I may find out how long it will be before I can access my account. I suspect it’s going to be a while because I will have to wait for a new debit card to arrive and my new VISA card takes ten days to get here.

We’ll walk and I’ll stew over the scam today. I’ll be keeping the fire going. It’s predicted to be sunny for the coming days and that means cold nights. But it also means we’ll enjoy walking in fine weather and bright light.

L. C. Tiffany stained glass window.

I've Been Scammed

My Zoom session with my fellow BC stutterers was cancelled. It shouldn’t have been cancelled because one person, our convenor, was sick. We have two leaders so that this needn’t happen. I am going to be (gently) bitching about the cancellation. 

However, the cancellation led me decide to make bread instead, and I tried some new things. I used half milk and half water instead of all water, I added some cooled melted butter into the dough and after the first rest and rise, I flattened the dough into two 9” X 12” rectangles, and then I rolled the dough up into the loaf shape. Also, for the first time, I brushed my risen loaves with butter to get a brown crust.

While the bread was resting for the second time, I fed the brood and then I put the loaves into the oven. Once it was done, we headed into the village to do some shopping and on the way home, we stopped at Rollo Park for another walk. Once back home, I had some chillin’ time to watch an episode of Grand Designs.

I felt very good all day because I was back in control of my eating. I am killing it when it comes to not rebounding back into fatness. I knew I was going to be successful from the get-go, but now I’ve been living my new dietary pattern for five months and I’ve not regained any weight. And I’m never hungry.

The bread rose well during the second rest. This bread is better than my last batch and more like the first batch I made which was my best. But I still need to practice more. I love the smell of yeast in the house, and I love having a slice of freshly cooked bread when it comes out of the oven. As time passes, I will get better at savory baking.

Fuck. Just fuck. I got a call late in the afternoon. The caller said that he was calling from Vanity, my bank. He said that there were suspected fraudulent transactions and he began to ask me questions. I was extremely reluctant to answer him. I thought he was a fraudster, so I asked him to call back, and I could see Vancity and I trusted him. However, I was wrong.

We were on the phone for over half an hour ‘cancelling’ scheduled payments for cryptocurrency totalling just over four grand. But in fact, he was putting them all through. So, then I called Vancity and that’s how I found out the guy was a fraud—a fraudster who could make the word “Vancity” show up when he called me and who could send me emails from Vanity.com.

I was on the phone for almost an hour with the person I called and who was truly a Vancity customer service agent. My VISA account has been cancelled, and I am locked out of my bank account. I can’t make transfers or pay bills, and all my automatic payments will fail until I can give them all my new VISA card number. The new card will be here in ten days.

Now, I wait. I wait for a ‘secure’ email from Vanity wherein I can write out what happened and I can attach all the emails sent to me. This is part of an appeal process to restore my four grand. I feel dirty. My Day was ruined.

The secure email never arrived. Perhaps it will come today. Perhaps a Vancity fraud person will call. Perhaps I will feel better tomorrow because I still feel dirty about been scammed. But life goes on. I’ve been trying to understand how I feel, and it seems that I am bothered more about having talked with, and duped by, an immoral asshole than I am about losing money.

Today is a new day. Sheba and I shall likely walk with our friends and time will reveal what will happen at Pinecone Park today. I may write to my bank manager to let him know what is going on because I dread having to talk to people on the phone.

Fuck. Just fuck!

A Great Dinner Out

It was f’ing cold yesterday morning, like 2°, and the dampness made it feel even colder. I was up before 5:00 to light the fire in a cold house, and to feed the pets. I did dishes and some tidying until Paula rose at 7:30. It was nice to have some time to just sit and chat while she had her tea, before taking her to Silva Bay to fetch the plane back to Vancouver.

It felt good to come home to the heat of the fire, and to do chores. I did a couple of loads of laundry and a good vacuuming of the whole house. There was blue sky to the west, but when we got home it felt dark outside and so the house lights were on. Ah, Winter!

I Zoomed with Steve, and had a short nap in the early afternoon, and I watched one edition of Grand Designs, and then Her Highness and I went for our afternoon walk. It was still bloody cold, so I walked quickly as I could with two sore feet. And then I came home to build up the fire, feed the pets and then Eoin and François came to pick me up and to take me to The Surf for dinner.

We had a supremely good time at dinner. I am so grateful and happy that I met Eoin and François. They are wonderful friends and terrific people. We were thrilled last night when, after making our choices about dinner from what is, essentially, a pub menu, the waitress brought a menu of the specials. And what a menu it was! We all chose dishes from the specials, and we had a very fine dinner together.

When it was time to leave, we headed to the car—they picked me up and drove me home—it was snowing! It snowed the entire drive home and there was snow sticking to the ground, so when I rose this morning, I was expecting the worst of weathers. But no. There is not a flake to be seen. 

I have eaten so much food these past few days. Today, I take back control; I will return to small servings. And I am very excited about having all My Day to myself. I Zoom with my fellow BC stutterers, but I haven’t a single other appointment or social engagement this entire week. Hurrah!

And I have another reason to be happy. Finally, after a week of pain, my right foot is healing. It’s less painful to walk on that foot today, so I am very happy. My left foot will never feel better, but I am used to the pain now. Plus, I take breaks and get off it during the day.

I need to bake bread today, but I don’t want to bake. I want to do nothing today, and that’s what I’ll do. The house is vacuumed, there are no dishes in the sink, the cattery is clean and tidy, and the recycling is sorted. I have nothing but a clear schedule ahead.