Happy 4th of July!

It’s been a pretty quiet day for me, although not so much for the neighborhood. It’s kind of a war zone out there. There are some SERIOUSLY loud explosions. I may not need to go anywhere for fireworks tonight. (I was going to make a joke about PTSD here, but decided not to. PTSD is not funny. – Thanks EH Mental Health Awareness Club, I hope you are more active next year than this year, because your mission is a job that needs doing.)

One thing my trip to Chicago has taught me: I am surrounded by an electronic net of protection. That could be a new addition to the next version of Dungeons and Dragons. For about the first week I was here, every time I logged in to my Google account, it asked me for some additional piece of information to prove I am me: what city do I usually log in from, what is the email address of my recovery account, what is my maiden name, you know, stuff like that.

Then today, I tried to make a 1-click purchase from Amazon. I was signed into my account and ordered a digital book to help me with the ART/Science collaboration paper I am writing. I figured the $20 for the book would save me enough time to be worth it. Only, no such thing. I asked for it to be sent to my Kindle app but it didn’t show up. I’ve ordered this way several times before, and always had my instant gratification button pressed. This time, no go. I went back to my account, looked up the order, and the status was “Pending”. Pending what, I don’t know. I tried a bunch of things, like reordering it updating my credit card information and the like. Nothing.

Then I check my email this afternoon, after an unsuccessful mission to find ribs (RibFest was this weekend, but apparently not today [sad faced emoticon with no barbecue sauce on it]), (I’m never sure where to put the comma around a triply nested parenthetical phrase – writer problems), to find this (excerpt):

We believe that an unauthorized party may have accessed your account. To protect your information, we have:

— Disabled the password to your account.

— Reversed any changes made by this party.

— Canceled any pending orders.

Amazon wrapped it sweet loving arms of protection around me and protected me from myself. It took so long to get the book (or not get it) that I wrote around the problem, and I don’t need the book. Now let’s hope what they said is true, and the orders were cancelled, because it doesn’t say that yet in my account.