Friday Five

1. I've started taking a yoga class. I've been practicing at home for a few years, but I really had gotten into a rut---the same 15-minute sequence in the mornings. So I signed up for a trial period at a studio near my condo. The first class I tried was Power Flow.

Oh. Dear. Lord.

I had a bad feeling about the class from the moment I walked in (late because finding the entrance to the parking lot was a bit challenging). All the other students were hardcore, advanced practitioners devoid of any body fat. While I panted and wobbled and flopped, they moved effortlessly through the series.

I made it through the class, but I couldn't lift my arms above my shoulders for the next three days.

Last night, I tried a Bikram class. I wasn't the only newbie in the room and a few of the women looked like they had been in the vicinity of a sandwich at some point in their lives, so I felt a little more comfortable (or did until the instructor admonished me rather loudly for not bringing a bottle of water). I still struggled with several of the positions, especially the balance ones, but I think I fared better than I did in the Power Flow class. And I'm planning to go back next week. The hot room will take some getting used to, though. By the end of the class, I looked like I had just jumped into a lake fully clothed. I don't think I've ever sweat that much.

2. So, Sarah Palin. Seriously?

3. Classes have started. I'm two weeks in and about two months behind. All the work I was going to do before classes began---writing grant proposals, typing my fieldnotes, transcribing interviews, revising a paper? Yeah, none of that actually got done.

A nice, long stay in a padded room with large doses of strong medication seems like a really great option right now.

4. I have a fruit fly infestation. Any time I keep any fresh fruit at home for more than 15 seconds, I get fruit flies. Anyone have any suggestions for preventing/eliminating them? Other than never having fresh fruit at home?

5. I am convinced that Bank of America has an entire division dedicated to finding new ways to fuck up my credit.

A few months ago, I set up an automatic payment for my credit card so that I wouldn't miss my payments while I was in Malawi. I set the payment for a little more than my monthly minimum payment (which was a consistent amount because I hadn't used the card for more than a year; I was just paying down the balance).

No sooner did I get on a plane to a place where I'd have very limited Internet access (and no secure access), then Bank of America increased my minimum payment. So about a week after I get back, I get a call from a customer service representative telling me that I'm late on my payments because my automatic payment was insufficient. I explained that I was out of the country and unable to check my account and the representative said that she would remove the late fees and that if I adjusted my automatic payment amount online for the new amount I'd be fine. So as soon as I got off the phone with her, I went online and changed my payment amount.

Several weeks later . . . I go to the Bank of America Web site to check my account. And, yes, the late fees were taken off. But now there's a new late fee. So I call the customer service line. Apparently when I made the change to the payment amount, I did it after 3.30 p.m. EST, so I missed the payment that was due on the day that I talked to the representative. Do you think the representative could have told me while I was on the phone with her that I had a payment due that day and that I needed to make the payment for the new amount by phone to avoid another late fee? Apparently not. Because that would have violated the protocol for fucking up my credit.

So after some snarking and crying, a different representative "offered" to remove the new late fee "as a courtesy," a phrase that she insisted on repeating---with emphasis---several times to make sure I clearly understood that she was violating the fuck-up-my-credit protocol and that providing customer service was outside her responsibilities as a customer service representative.

Bank of America is evil.