But I did. On Friday, I was curious as to how much I had used because this year we had a scorching week of over 100 F. for seven days. Sure enough, I had used 15 kwh more this year than last. Oh well, at least I wasn't physically sick from the heat.
However, I kept reading. My largest "new charge" was Delivery Services. Now, that gave me pause. What am I supposed to do -- drive by the electric company and get a bucket of electricity? Of course they need to deliver it! So that made me turn over the page. For the weak of heart: Don't ever turn over the page to view the details. The whole thing was so outrageous, I can't even edit it down.
Customer Chrg (they charged me $6.00 to be a customer!)
Transmission Chrg
Res Assist Adj Clause (huh?)
Pension/PBOP Adj Mechn PPAM (again, huh?)
Basic Srvc Cost Adj (this was only 13 cents, so I guess that was an accounting goof that they fixed)
Net metering recovery surcharge (really, now)
Solar Program Cost Adjustment (did they REALLY charge me for them to SAVE money??)
Energy Conservation Chg (didn't they just charge me for that?)
Energy Efficiency Program Chrg (sigh)
Renewable Energy Chrg (I give up)
There are more, but I will stop here: Atty Genl consultant exp adj <-- I can only say WTF???
So I can only come to the conclusion that the actual electricity costs $2.00, but all of the other blankety blank charges brought my bill up to $190.21. Bah humbug.
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So I went to visit Margot and Bob yesterday. She and I have been friends for a long time and a couple of years ago, I went to visit her on Martha's Vineyard when she had a thriving tye dyeing business. She was also a practicing attorney at the time. Now she's retired and I would say an amazing Gentlewoman Farmer in Athol, Mass. She shared some of her hard won garden bounty giving me some herbs and kale. I was so amazed at the size of the kale (it took a saw to harvest the stalk), that I took a picture of it. It's a little droopy due to the one hour drive back plus about an hour of grocery shopping. But you get the idea. (I used the car to give you a size comparison.)
The leaves themselves are very beautiful, although I truly admired the purple stalk.
The pictures are a bit washed out -- I thought I had corrected that, so I apologize. But I am too lazy to go and re-edit.
Anyway ... I have two soups/stews in the making. While shopping, I bought some linguica. You guessed it: Portuguese stew is on the way. (There's some new show on TV where the winner gets to market their food product and one woman was making her family recipe of Portuguese soup. I couldn't believe that she wouldn't take the expert's advice and cut down on the meat because the soup had 976 mg of sodium! I'll bet she eventually did cut down on it because the focus group all said it was too salty. She didn't want to change her grandmother's recipe.)
And since it was so successful last time, I bought more beef neck bones. Throw in some kale, swiss chard, onions and beef bullion -- it was yummy! I'm not sure if that really is meneste, but it tasted like it!
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So I just talked to Ann in Adirondacks. It's 62 F. there. Brrrrrr ... can you imagine? Long sleeve weather in August. Wow.
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So I read in the news (yes, every once in a while, I read the news -- usually online) that some poor guy was awarded $4 Million because he had been left in a jail cell for four days (two of them in complete darkness) because he had been forgotten. It's lucky he didn't die, but he did have kidney damage.
How could this happen? My theory is that it happened because nobody took responsibility to see that the cells were empty. (It was a temporary holding cell.) Nobody took responsibility to count "10 people in, 10 people out."
Taking responsibility is something we do less and less. I witnessed someone complaining that something hadn't happened which was supposed to happen a year ago. This person neglected the fact that she was the one who was supposed to initiate the action a year ago. The third time it was pointed out to her that it was her responsibility, and she still wasn't getting it, we were all glad to see evidence that it had happened despite her refusing to take responsibility for the task.
I deal with people every day (who shall remain nameless) who refuse to take responsibility for parts of their job which they must attend to because nobody else can do it. I spent months being passed from department to department like a ping pong ball, knowing exactly which department should work on which part of my problem. It took over an hour on the phone with a techie from the parent company of the Town's financial software and a scathing memo from my boss to their bosses to get them to work on their area of expertise. What gives? It was easier for them to say, 'Tina doesn't know what she's doing, everything's o.k.'
What about the guy who rolls through a stop sign that has fallen down? He says, 'It's not fault, there was no sign.' Give me a break. You know there should be a stop sign there. But he refuses to take responsibility for using common sense.
Last night, I watched, "Good Night and Good Luck" for the first time. It's a wonderful movie (2005)! It points out that Edward R. Murrow felt responsible as a journalist to let the country know how awful Joe McCarthy was. He risked his career and the fate of the whole network (CBS) because he felt responsible for informing the American public of a massive injustice that was being perpetrated by McCarthy. Now there's an example I hope I can follow: Take responsibility.
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