Erieversible

How times change.  Around 2001 (maybe 2002), while we were visiting Erie, a certain Mr. Spongebob Squarepants visited Millcreek Mall.  We were strolling around the mall with our then 3-year old (maybe 4-year old) son.  When he saw this ‘yellow thing’ he asked who the “big cheese man” was.  That was the extent of our exposure and knowledge as a family about Spongebob.

Oh come on…from a distance, not having any awareness of the character, he could look like a big yellow Swiss cheese.  And that’s just as likely as a sponge!

Fast forward to 2008 and I understand Spongebob is visiting Millcreek Mall again, in early December.  At least, so I am reliably informed by our 5-year old daughter who already has plans for the occasion.  In the years in-between our family has been invaded by this yellow peril.  Why?  I don’t know.  Anyone in their right mind can see that the character is pathetic.  Patrick should have the lead role

Our opening offer on the house we are after was rejected.  That was expected.  They’d have been silly to accept that first offer.  They have come back with a counter-offer which we have accepted.  It was a lower counter-offer than we were expecting, and to negotiate further would only be for small change and would probably create bad feeling.  So, we accepted.  Being a weekend, and the weekend after Thanksgiving, it is almost impossible to get things done so it looks like the next set of paperwork in the process will take place on Monday.

We spent Thanksgiving round at family, so we didn’t cook.  yesterday in Wegmans we saw free-range, top notch fresh turkeys at 99c a pound.  So guess what we had for a meal today?  We invited some family round and recreated Thursday.  I used local (US) stuffing.  We’ve got some Paxo stuffing hidden away but I’m saving that for Christmas!

So, slow progress, but progress.  Inch by inch we are moving towards settling in a family home.

A call from the bank today, asking me to verify transactions made yesterday on my credit card.  In Spain.  Of course, it wasn’t me.  It wasn’t even my credit card, which was sitting snug in my wallet all day yesterday.  Some naughty little imp has been spending as much as they can on the card, including a plane ticket and some information services.  

Occasionally (twice, I think) I have been embarrassed by legitimate transactions on my cards being blocked as being suspicious.  In each case the embarrassment has been caused by having the transaction rejected and having to explain to the seller that I really do have the funds.  Honest.  Really.  

Today the bank’s fraud detection software was right.  That’s 1 out of 3 correct.  Is that a good ratio?  I think so.  By erring on the side of caution this latest, real fraud was spotted very quickly and although it took a trip to the bank this afternoon to complete all the paperwork it should now all be dealt with.  Minimal inconvenience to me.  I’d rather have the odd false alarm than not have fraud spotted quickly.

So, all I have to do now is remember all the online merchants that have that particular card held in their databases so I can place orders with ease (!) and go round them all changing the details.  What a fun time!