Happy Summer

It is all fun and games unless I can't use my phone.  
Before I begin with the flowers, I want to tell you about my problems with my new Android Eris phone.

It is trying my patience.

This is my second Eris phone. The first phone was destroyed by a drunk girl at the Mexican restaurant before she drank a margarita.  Ruined my evening. Cost me my deductible. I never got my margarita. 

So here it goes.  The phone screen turns to black when I make a call.  This occurs pretty consistently.  I am grieved to consider that this is a function of the phone software.
If this is true, I would like to have a chat with the focus group that determined this was a good idea.

I would like to ask the group to meet me back in 1981.  Back to the time when we used push buttons phones and we never were absolutely sure who we called until we heard "hello" on the receiver.

Cuz that is what it is like to have the phone's screen blacken after I dial it.  Sometimes, it will reappear if I take the phone away from my face.  Not all the time.  If I have mis-dial or forget who I called, I have to wait for the call to connect to the receiver.  Why is that a good idea?
Calling my bank or any voicemail based customer service system is maddening with an intermittently darkened screen. 
Sometimes, the phone does not reappear and I do not see my screen until the call disconnects.

That leads me to another problem I have with the functioning of this phone.
 

Two out of three times and after a call the phone prompts me for my password.  The call could be one minute or 20 and the stupid thing will ask for my password.
If this is a function of the software, I would very much like to meet the focus group that suggested this function at a pay phone in 1990.  I will give each one of them four quarters and tell them to make five calls.

Exactly.

That is how annoying it is for me to input my password after almost every call that I make.

I called the 888 number and the person understood my outrage but could not help me.  I have to take the phone into the service center and demand some explanations.

The applications are nice and all but if I can't use the phone AS A PHONE, I don't need the grief.  
At least it is the summer time.  I like the summer. 
I especially like 1/2 half off sushi at Sakura's.  

dI

It will be another summer of sushi Saturday nights.   It should get quieter, too.  After the 4th the neighbors will have no reason to continue igniting fireworks and sending the damn cats scrambling all over the house.  The cats are really jittery right now. They should be used to the loud sounds. It happens every year.  Hell, I am used to it.


Finally, the allium. I have two varieties.  A spring bloom and a summer bloom. 

One shasta daisy.  I am excited.  This is the first year that they did not die after I planted them.

The pincushion plant is so lovely contrasting with the yellow blooms of the sedum.

And my final, albeit unintentional garden, the gutters.  Someone really needs to do something about the maple trees growing off my roof. 

I will try calling Dude about that on Tuesday.