Good Lord could the day end without me getting any dumber?

[lunabee34]

1. esteefee made me a beautiful, pottery bowl! It is the most gorgeous shade of blue and big enough to hold a whole pint of raspberries. I loves it! Thank you so much. :) It now has pride of place in the china cabinet!

2.

Next of Kin by Joanna Trollope

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This book is well written. It has a great sense of place, and I feel like it is probably describing very accurately the culture of a close-knit, hard scrabble farming community in England.

The problem is that I don't find any of the characters likable. They're all emotionally stunted, incapable of meaningful communication, holding everything close to the vest, stoic, reserved--doers, not sayers. And I think this is, again, probably very true to those sorts of communities, but it's tedious to read. I find empathizing with and sympathizing with them very difficult and so couldn't get into the book at all.





View all my reviews


3. And this post was interrupted by me falling for a fraud scam. *headdesk* I'd like to say that it was brilliant and clever and that I was duped by the best, but the truth is that I was an idiot and fell for it. *sigh* Fortunately, when I suggested, "Hey, this doesn't seem right. Is this a scam?" the dude responded by hanging up on me, so I was immediately able to contact Verizon and get it all sorted out (which took less than 20 minutes on the phone, I might add; it's clear that they deal with these scams and this kind of fraud so frequently that they've got it down to a science). So the guy changed my email and shipping address and tried to buy three $1200 i-phones, but they nipped that shit in the bud and everything is right as rain. I am so grateful that every time someone has tried to defraud me or steal from me, it's been instantly detected and instantly dealt with. I am very lucky. But also, I am a dumbass.

Comments

[china_shop]

Ugh, I hate that scams make people feel that expecting-other-people-to-act-in-good-faith is stupid!! >:-(

Anyway, I'm so glad you caught it in time and everything is sorted out.

*hugs*

[lunabee34]

Me too!

And now I just can't shake that paranoid feeling like I missed something. *sigh* It's better than it was yesterday, so it should fade soon.

[slightweasel]

Gahh, so much sympathy for item 3. I've been caught in the crosshairs of a couple scams in the last few years too. All they have to do is catch you at the right (wrong) moment and...but I'm glad you were able to get it sorted out quickly. ❤️

[lunabee34]

*hugs*

I hate how prevalent these scams have become. Bleck.

I hope we will both avoid being targeted in future.

[chelseagirl]

I tried to read a Joanna Trollope and had a similar experience. Much prefer her ancestor, Anthony.

[lunabee34]

Oh, is she related to him? That's kinda neat.

I wonder if I would like a different book from her; I saw the goodreads reviews and some of them had similar reactions to mine and suggested other books instead. I don't care enough to find out LOL but the writing was competent at least.

[chelseagirl]

FWIW, I read a different one, but had a similar reaction.

It is neat that they're related. I've also got a Frances Trollope novel somewhere in my TBR mountain that I will read someday, as well as her book laughing at Americans!

[lunabee34]

Yeah, that doesn't make me feel like I need to go hunt up another of her books just to be sure. I'm not a huge romance novel fan anyway (not modern ones anyway; I eat the Victorian ones up with a spoon).

I don't know Frances Trollope.

[chelseagirl]

Frances Trollope was Anthony's mother. She was a novelist, though much less prolific than her son -- but then, everyone except Agatha Christie was less prolific than her son, I think. (And Agatha Christie's books were a lot shorter!)

But her most famous work was Domestic Manners of the Americans, 1832, which was about her travels through the young United States and her foray into shopkeeping in Cincinnati, which was still a frontier town at the time. She makes fun of us as only a Brit can. The excerpts I've read from it are tremendous fun, and eventually I will read the whole thing.

[lunabee34]

Ahahhahahha, no shit. That dude was a workhorse for sure.

That sounds quite up my alley. I shall add it to my list!

[notasupervillain]

Hugs. You're obviously a trusting person, which should be a good trait.

[lunabee34]

*hugs*

Mostly, I just think the exhaustion and brain fog from whatever is going on with me is making me really dumb. LOL

[notasupervillain]

Hugs. That's very fair.

I was listening to a BBC program where they sum up what happened in Parliament the previous day, and they had a segment on government regulations around bank fraud. The House of Lords (like the Senate, but only Peers are eligible, I think) was discussing who should be liable when consumers are defrauded.

And one Lord was like "A few days ago my bank called me up out of the blue and started asking me all sorts of personal questions about my account. I don't think that should be allowed! They should have to let you know in advance if they're going to call!"

So, um, even the UK's most powerful people can fall for bank fraud. Even if it's their literal job to know about it.

[lunabee34]

Heeeeeeee. I'm at least as competent as a government official. :)

[notasupervillain]

A Lord at that!

[torachan]

Yikes! Glad you got it sorted.

[lunabee34]

Me too! That would have sucked.

[independence1776]

I'm glad you caught it and everything was quickly fixed.

[lunabee34]

Me too!

Now if I could just stop feeling anxious and paranoid, that would be awesome. LOL

[amejisuto]

I'm so sorry you were scammed. I'm glad you caught it before too much got charged.

[lunabee34]

Me too! Mostly I just feel really dumb. And grateful. But dumb.

[ponders_life]

::hug:: Being scammed is awful. I've been there and done that -- what a feeling of helplessness and anger at being taken advantage of. I'm glad Verizon was able to respond so quickly!

My husband likes to string along the scammers over the phone, but I don't have the patience for that. What I do now -- and what I've taught my elderly mother to do -- is to tell the caller "I don't do financial transactions over the phone" or, if they claim to be a representative of a company that I do have a business relationship with, is to tell them I can't talk now and ask for a number I can reach them at, then Google the number to see whether it's legit, and block them if it isn't.

It's sad that people who are kind and generous have to learn to be suspicious :(.

[lunabee34]

*nods*

That's my new policy. "Let me call you back, and we'll go from there."

I hate how common these types of things are but am so glad that we have good mechanisms in place for catching them.

[archersangel]

glad that verizon straightened tings out.

icon refers to my feelings towards scammers.

[lunabee34]

Ha! I love it. That's exactly how I feel.