Mercury opposed to Mars...

...Sun conjunct Chiron and Mars trine Saturn - 11:00 am this morning to 10:00 pm tonight, almost as I'm writing this.

Mercury opposed to Mars was bad news for the businessman holding the Dish network franchise in Silver. I'd called him last week to say I'd lost satellite service on one of the TVs (ah, America!), and could he send a technician out as I'd exhausted all the trouble-shooting options offered. I got a long story about Dish charging $95 for a service visit and my records having been falsified by a previous franchise owner to give my address as 41, Village Road (instead of 14, Village road) because there had been a previous Dish client at this address and that was the only way they could continue to give me service, or something, all complete fabrication. (John had put service in his name only when we co-owned the house, and when I wanted to switch to my name after buying him out, the only way to do it was by closing his account and opening a completely new account in my name, which we did, using the correct address, 14 Village Road.)

Dish franchise man's solution to this totally made-up problem was to have me switch providers to DirectTV, the service John and I had had before we switched to Dish, presumably because he (franchise man) would then collect a commission for the switch. It would be much cheaper, he said, $30 a month less than what I'm paying for the similar service from Dish, and when could he come out to install the new equipment, of course all completely free of charge?

I had a house guest at the time, as well as being totally turned off by the lies Dish franchise man was telling me, and told him to call me back at a more convenient time. Blah blah blah, and this morning, with Mercury opposed to Mars, at the urging of a true friend, called Dish Network directly - or rather, had an online chat with someone representing Dish Network - and have a technician coming out tomorrow at the cost of $15 to check out why I can't get reception on TV #2.
Mr. Dish Franchise, after calling twice a day for the past few days, has become suddenly silent.

Sun conjunct Chiron: Somehow I was able to sit here and make corrections to an editing job I've been working on for literally months and send them back to the client and then - Mars trine Saturn - with a clear conscience I got myself into the *garden* and continued the let's-make-at-least-one-half-acre-of-this-property-look-cared-for project. In true Mars (iron) fashion, I went back to cutting rebar with the hacksaw lent me by a friend, and thanks to last night's rain was able to whack the rebar into the wet earth hard enough to hold back the logs I'm trying to do erosion control with. I was also able to hold in place the corrugated iron I dragged up from the barn yesterday, which I hope will give me yet another terrace on the triangle I'm trying to landscape. As for the weeding, there's only one way to do it - do it, duh - and once again last night's downpour helped. It's all a long way from the Upper East Side.