Grrr....

I've had one of those cultural days where I've just been plain grumpy and it seems like the more grumpy I am, the more stuff stops working...  hmmm..  

(not gonna analyze that because it will probably make me come to the realization that I need to CHOOSE joy even when I don't FEEL joy, and well, I'm kind of in the middle of choosing to be grumpy today, thank you very much...)

So anyway.  Can I vent?  Just a little I promise.  

First of all, I get that when you are a king of a country you can kind of do what you want.  But can I just say that you can't choose to not observe daylight savings time when you are already ON daylight savings time.  You have to first get OFF of it and then not get back ON it in the spring.  Good grief.  My brain cannot function at the capacity that will help me figure out what this means for our light hours in the coming months (let's just say that Jason and I had about a 10 minute discussion about what time we should set our alarms for when we were at a meeting last week in a country that was falling back and at the end of the discussion I was so totally and utterly confused that I couldn't think straight- thank goodness for phones that reset themselves...).  Anyway,  I know that somehow not going off of daylight savings time is going to mess something up and therefore it is making me grumpy.  It's also making me grumpy because it's making my husband grumpy.  Something about all the electronic devices he has not syncing properly now- this calendar doesn't match that calendar and this iPad doesn't match that iPhone.  Whatever.  All I know is he sat in front of his computer forever last night because he had a skype call with people in 3 different countries and he originally thought it was at 9.  Then he thought it was at 8.  Nope, then he thought 9 again.  Wrong again!  It was at 10...  See the rest of the world is falling back and all of our iWhatevers think that we are too, therefore they are changing times that don't need to be changed all because the king said so!  

Moving on...

Thing #2 that I am grumpy about...  And let me preface this one by saying that this is one of those "pot meet kettle" moments that we all face (usually as parents I think).   I mean how many times have I said to my kids, "life is NOT fair and not only that but I am not TRYING to be fair"...   The funny thing is, I have a pretty intense sense of fairness and things just being RIGHT.  Possibly why I get so incredibly annoyed by the complete lack of observance of lines over here.  That, after all, is not fair.  Anyway, back to thing #2. 

Electricity bills.

We live in a place where electricity is VERY expensive.  And randomly so.  Which is why we hold our breaths every month before the bill comes.  The hard part is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.  At least some of the time.  Thankfully we are in the less expensive time of the year as far as electricity goes.  It's still warm enough to hang out the clothes so I don't use the dryer.  It's warm enough that we don't have to run any heaters which really sends it soaring.   The last few months we've been coasting with our electricity bill- very doable.  Which is a good thing because we are needing to save for the incredibly expensive winter electricity bills.  So yesterday when we got our bill and it was 3X what it was last month and we have done NOTHING different, well, let's just say it wasn't pretty.  So Jason headed downstairs to talk to our landlord to see if he could figure out what in the world had happened.   Our landlord explained how electricity is priced based on usage.  Let me break it down for you.  Hypothetically if you use between 0-100 (watts? volts?  whatever...) it's a certain low price, if you use 101- 300ish it's a bit more, if you use 301-600ish a bit more all the way up through if you go over 1000 then the price per watt/volt/whatever random unit it is almost triples.   So.  Here's what happened.  Since the last week of the month (when they usually come and read the meter) was during a major holiday here, they didn't come and read the meter until a week later, therefore making this pay period over 5 weeks instead of the usual 4.  SOOO, we went over the 1000 mark (BECAUSE THEY WAITED TO READ THE METER!!!) thus almost tripling our bill.  

NOT FAIR!  NOT FAIR!  NOT FAIR!  

(and in case you are wondering, NO!!!  There is no such thing as customer service here therefore no one I can call and express my "it's not fair" feelings to, and I'm pretty sure if there was such a line to call whoever I talked to would respond very nicely, "it's not a problem.  don't worry, don't worry." and then do NOTHING...)

Thing #3 that I'm grumpy about.  My house is out to get me!  I'm convinced.  And it is all this country's fault.  (simply because I need someone to blame that is NOT my husband for the sanity of my family, because let me assure you there have been far too many times that I have blamed my sweet man  because I need a scapegoat)  Not gonna do that this time.  I'm totally blaming Jordan.  How, you may ask, is it Jordan's fault that my stove lighting mechanism AND my washing machine AND our water pump that pumps water to the tank on our roof thus providing water to our home all stopped working TODAY?  Well, it just is.  It is Jordan's fault because all of those things are HERE in the country of Jordan.  Along with no daylight savings time and stupid electricity bills.   And you would be wise not to judge the sanity of such a statement as my husband just did or I might just shift the blame!  I'm pretty sure he was fairly close to launching into a logical explanation as to WHY it could NOT be Jordan's fault that the stove we bought 8 years ago in Lebanon would stop working today.  He changed his mind.  He knows there are times that logic and I don't get along...

So, I'll end with this.  There are plenty of things that I'm currently grumpy about in regards to my current country of residence.  However, I've decided I'm forgiving the good kingdom of Jordan.  

Because of this...

They are bringing me an IKEA....