Dear Asshole,

Was it really necessary to egg my brand new car last night to celebrate your graduation or some other anticlimactic event? I haven't even made a payment on it yet. I've never owned a brand new car before. Finding several eggs glued to the side this morning...lets just say you're lucky I don't know who you are. Even better, I had two appointments that kept me from getting the nasty mess removed until this afternoon. As the weather is warming up, the eggs had solidified and bonded to the paint by the time I got to the carwash.

Ah, the carwash. I don't know where there is a hand wash in Tacoma, so I had to take it the Pink Elephant. My brand new car got to travel through the car washing tunnel. If you've ever had a new car, which I doubt, you'll know that the car wash tunnel scratches the hell out of the clear coat finish on a new car. In addition to the big scratches where the eggs met car, the finish is now marred. You may not be able to see it, but I can. Oh--and the guy who dried off the car? He used a RAZOR to pick the stuck-on eggshells off, resulting in some great gouges in the paint. So, again, thanks for that!

You are a total asshole and I hope that bad car karma follows you the rest of your days. May everything you own be a lemon and should you ever have a brand new car, I hope some dickwad eggs the hell out of it.

Fuck you,

Ensie

Posted by: Ensie at 07:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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There are benefits to sleeping in. I learned this on Friday. Somehow I had fallen asleep again after the alarm went off and rushed into the shower at 8:30 instead of 7:30. While hurriedly drying off and getting dressed I noticed a small red mark on the carpet. Thinking it was an old stain I touched it. My finger came away red and wet.

Immediately I flew into action, thinking that one of the cats had gotten too enthusiastic while playing or someone had torn a claw open. While checking PercyÂ’s feet in the kitchen I glanced at The Jeffrey standing behind me and saw several red drops underneath his body. Quickly, I asked The Jeffrey to sit and lie down and began to examine him for an injury. Finally I found the source. The Jeffrey appeared to be bleeding from hisÂ…penis?

Great. Fantastic. What a way to get to know my brand new (awesome) vet I had seen once with Clyde. Fortunately, the receptionist was understanding and professional, and asked me to bring him in within the hour. I flew around the house grabbing a towel to cover a seat in the new car, rushing to the bedroom to grab socks, then back to The Jeffrey to mop up more blood. Before leaving I let both dogs out to pee and all systems appeared go.

As the vet’s (lets just call her Dr. Awesome from now on) office is only five minutes from our house and the trip was quick and non-eventful. Upon entering the office we were ushered into an examination room to speak with the vet-tech. I asked that The Jeffrey be muzzled, as his past experiences with veterinarians in San Diego always involved a lot of growling and threatening behavior. The tech offered him liver treats instead and proclaimed him, “Sweet!â€� I was told that most dogs seem very relaxed in this particular office for some reason, and she was right. For safety’s sake we did muzzle him for the exam, which was quick and again lacked any sort of growling or posturing. Either The Jeffrey was really hurting, or this office really did soothe the savage beast.

The JeffreyÂ’s diagnosis? Bladder stones. A big one moving down the urethra was causing the bleeding and minor surgery under anesthesia would be required for removal. A catheter would then be inserted to check for more stones that had moved out of the bladder and several blood and urine tests would need to be done. I didnÂ’t look at the estimate but told Dr. Awesome to do whatever needed to be done, no matter the cost. The Jeffrey was scheduled for surgery a couple of hours later and I left him in a cozy kennel promising to return soon. I warned the staff again to be careful as he had a history of aggression with strangers, walked out to the car, and proceeded to cry for a good five minutes before driving home. Leaving any vetÂ’s office with an unattached leash is an awful feeling.

The afternoon passed slowly and far too quietly without regular interruptions of barking at every single person who dare walk down our street. Phone calls flew every half hour between Frinklin, trapped at work in downtown Seattle, and my Mom in San Diego. Dr. Awesome had promised to call should anything go wrong and when the caller ID flashed “Dr. Awesomeâ€� twenty minutes into the scheduled surgery the blood rushing in my ears made it hard to hear. No emergency, just a check to see if I wanted to have some regular vaccinations done. I could hear again.

At four I returned to Dr. Awesome’s to pick up my pup, a little worse for wear. He was still tired from the drugs, but before leaving the receptionist shared some pictures they had taken before the surgery. There was my man-eater, shaking hands and rolling over on command. And here he is with Dr. Awesome hugging him! And here’s me hugging him! And here’s the vet tech! They played with The Jeffrey for 15 minutes before putting him under to “make sure his experience here is a good one.â€� I was complimented on his obedience training and “obviousâ€� effort put into such a great dog. Maybe they had given me the wrong dog? Or maybe when he’s lunging and foaming at the mouth when strangers walk by he’s really wanting to cuddle them?

Dr. Awesome walked me through the next steps and when we should know more (next week). I saw the nasty, now crushed, bladder stone that had caused all the drama. Such a small thing, but jagged and sharp in every direction. The Doc believes that he has at least a couple more stones that she was able to move back into the bladder from the urethra. I was plied with a 23-day supply of antibiotics and plenty of doggie aspirin to keep The Jeffrey comfortable. He slept on the drive home and only barked when Frinklin arrived from work. A small, slowly eaten meal capped off the evening and he snuggled on the bed with us for the rest of the night.

(On a side note I was far more frazzled than the dog and forgot my wallet at home as well as locking both doors to the house when retrieving him. Dr. AwesomeÂ’s receptionist kindly told me to call or stop in within the next few days to pay and fortunately the Toothless-Wonder kept the house safe.)

This morning The Jeffrey appeared to be back to normal outwardly. He had his first “puppy freakoutâ€� in several days and is happily peeing blood free. Frinklin and I were both surprised when Dr. Awesome called at noon to tell us the preliminary results of the tests as her office is closed on Saturday. Now you see why we call her Dr. Awesome. Both The Jeffrey’s kidneys and liver appear to be functioning abnormally and his thyroid measurements are rather low, which may be what has been contributing to his seeming inability to lose weight. We approved without knowledge of costs the sending of the removed stone to Minnesota for further examination and more blood-work. Results should be back on Tuesday or Wednesday with luck.

The Jeffrey is currently relaxing on his brand new bed and enjoying a brand new rawhide bone. Pray for good news next week.

more...

Posted by: Ensie at 10:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Jeffrey has turned into a killer.

A few weeks ago he scared the crap out of Frinklin by attacking a full-grown opossum that happened to be in our backyard when he went outside before bed. Frinklin told the story here. Fortunately(?) the opossum survived and after playing dead for ten minutes it wandered away. We haven't seen it since.

Despite the fact that word must have spread by now throughout the oppossum community that ours is a house of death, we are still seeing baby oppossums regularly. Unfortunately, we are only seeing them dead. Yesterday while I filled out paperwork for the new car Frinklin ran home to pick up the title for our trade-in. He let The Jeffrey out for just over a minute which is apparently all the time it takes to maul a small opossum.

I've double checked with the vet to make sure that The Jeffrey's rabies vaccine is up to date. Fortunately rabies is not a problem with opossums in the area, only with birds and bats. I really can't take anymore bodies in the backyard though.

Posted by: Ensie at 06:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Cool.

Posted by: Ensie at 09:35 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Find your own pose!

The real reason we sleep this way:

Posted by: Ensie at 04:36 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Hahahahaha! I know exactly how that is. Put two kids in the middle and yeah, that's our bed.

Posted by: eden at April 21, 2006 08:19 PM (M2PUd)

2 LOVE this quiz... I am a bubble blower! D'oh!

Posted by: Jennifer at April 23, 2006 06:22 PM (2sS6X)

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I've developed a quirk and it's starting to worry me. I've begun eating a bowl of Honey Nut Shredded Wheat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I do mix it up at work and have a latte in the morning and yogurt and granola for lunch, but only because I don't have access to ceral and organic nonfat milk.

I haven't eaten much else in the last several weeks. I just can't be bothered to cook and I don't have any desire to eat anything else, in fact, other things don't taste good. Is my body craving fiber or something?

My therapist didn't seem to worried when I brought it up a couple of weeks ago. She instructed me to "lighten up, it's only cereal." When does it become more than cereal? After a month? Six weeks? Six months? I'm now shopping at several different grocery stores each week in order to keep up the supply of my preferred cereal. It seems to spook the checkers when I buy more than 2 or 3 boxes at a time.

Special Extra Credit: I hate all other types of shredded wheat.

Extra Special Extra Credit: a review of Honey Nut Shredded Wheat

Posted by: Ensie at 06:32 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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My dad is an electrical engineer. Because of this, I've had a computer in my house since the day I was born. The original machine took up a six-foot banquet table in my parent's bedroom sending simple documents to a dot-matrix printer that screeched like a dying banshee. I often lay awake at night listening to the tortured ink scraping onto the page.

Being an insider in the world of computers gave my Dad access to all sorts of prototype games. These were the most primitive graphics imaginable. I would hunch over the black and green screen for hours shooting asterisks from my X-O-X X-Wing Fighter at Darth Vader's ><-O-><� Tie-Fighter. Atari was light years away. Heck, Pong was several steps up in the technological world.

One of the games I had access to early on was a Beta version of a text game that I played obsessively. The 9-inch floppy disks would slide into the computer and Adventure (aka Colossal Cave) would begin. Oh how I loved Adventure. No images to slow you down--your imagination ran wild as you played. Being only 6 or 7 years old, I never progressed very far, but would play the same half hour introduction for hours at a time. I never thought to purchase the finished version of Adventure, but I’ve played it a couple of times online since—still only progressing only about a half hour into the game.

This great parody of Adventure really killed me. I nearly fell out of my seat with laughter and glee. Frinklin has consistantly mocked me when I try to describe playing a game that played like a “Choose Your Own Adventureâ€� book. The fact that over 250 people commented on his "Xyzzy" (*poof*) post confirms that my nostalgic memories aren't just fluff, but are the same as numerous other devoted Adventure players.

A sampling:

> GIVE CONTRACTS
Who do you want to give the contracts to?

> HALLIBURTON
What kind of contracts do you wish to give to Halliburton?

> NO-BID
You give the no-bid contracts to Halliburton.

> STAY COURSE
The situation in Iraq remains unchanged.

> STAY COURSE
The situation in Iraq remains unchanged.

> WEAR FLIGHTSUIT
You put on the flightsuit.

> SAY "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"
"Mission accomplished."

> EXAMINE MISSION
The mission is not accomplished.

> STAY COURSE
The situation in Iraq remains unchanged.

Some insurgents arrive.

> STAY COURSE
The situation in Iraq deteriorates.

> STAY COURSE
The situation in Iraq deteriorates.

Some insurgents arrive.
There is a small number of insurgents here.

Genius!

Posted by: Ensie at 11:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Where the hell to they sell Suave Naturals deoderant and antiperspirant around here?

Posted by: Ensie at 07:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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After dealing with Young America and T-Mobile the other day, I figured I'd have an uphill battle when I actually got ahold of one of them in person on the phone. Not so. They were surprisingly helpful once we figured out what the problem was.

It turns out that the entire problem stems from Jorge F. Jorge is a high school student working at some crappy mall kiosk selling phone. When we decided to uprade Frinklin's phone on February when his original one-year contract was up, we decided to go to that crappy mall kiosk to do our upgrading. That was obviously a mistake.

Jorge was helpful at the time, and I certainly trusted him, however, he really fucked everything up. While pondering the phone upgrade Jorge informed me that although the phone we wanted was usually $200, they would knock off $50 automatically, making it's cost only $150. Then, we would receive a $100 upgrade rebate, making the phone only $50. After that, we would finally get a $25 credit on the T-Mobile bill, which would show up within a couple of months. We decided to go for it, after all it's a $200 phone for only $25. We had to pay $150 up front, and Jorge helped us fill out the rebate paperwork.

Upon arriving home later that day, I finished the rebate paperwork and noticed that it stated that the rebate was only $50, not $100. I figured it must have been a hearing issue on my part, even though "fifty" and "one hundred" sound completely different. The required barcodes and receipts went into an envelope, and the envelope went off to be processed (please allow 8 - 10 weeks for processing).

Six weeks later I checked the T-Mobile website to view the status of my expected rebate. I got what I expected "Your rebate is still being processed." While on the website, I also verified the available upgrade rebates available at the time we got the new phone and lo and behold--we were eligibe for a $100 rebate! I e-mailed T-Mobile, asking why we had only been given the $50 rebate paperwork. The reply I received had some vague reasoning that the $50 rebate is the one we should have received, so stop complaining! We don't like you! Go away!" [italics added by me, obviously]

I continued to wait, patiently, for my $50. Instead, the letter rejection letter discussed in the previous post arrived. It took four phone calls, but Young America, at last, figured out the reason our rebate was kicked out of the system. It turns out Jorge had given me a "new account" rebate as opposed to the "upgrade" rebate. I also found out that the rebate should have been $100, another paperwork error of Jorge's. After much discussion, the ($100!) rebate request has been resubmitted and a check should be issued within four weeks.

In other "upgrade" feature news; I've left two messages with Jorge about the $25 credit we still haven't received. His supervisor has yet to called me back. I'm wondering if it's worth another round of phone calls and arguing...

Posted by: Ensie at 05:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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All nine boxes arrived from the Bob's Hogs and Weiner Pigs Free Schlock Party (aka the Vendor Expo) today. Whee! See the pictures. Be frightened of how much crap we can unload in 10 minutes: more...

Posted by: Ensie at 08:55 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Did someone say eBay?

Posted by: Richard at April 18, 2005 10:29 PM (iN3tV)

2 Oh my gosh. You need help! : )

Posted by: violet at April 19, 2005 06:12 AM (6krEN)

3 *gasp* *gape* I covet your library! That's amazing. And good luck on the BH&WP Seattle job. That would be nifty.

Posted by: eden at April 19, 2005 07:24 AM (M2PUd)

4 Richard, Funny that you should mention that, as I picked up a book on starting an eBay store. Actually, I picked it up for Eden, as she has been wondering about that topic. Violet, We do need help. Remember, you offered to help us move! You're actually in luck, as you would likely be a driver, not a mover. We are so hiring a moving company this time. Eden, Glad to see someone is impressed by it. It's mostly a big mess. We desperately need more bookshelves. I'm such a book whore. I'll send your books out to you on Friday most likely.

Posted by: ensie at April 19, 2005 03:26 PM (4k5pf)

5 You can load up on bookcases at the Ikea(s) in Seattle

Posted by: eden at April 20, 2005 04:02 PM (M2PUd)

6 That's where most of our current cases came from! (Well, from Ikea, not from the Ikea in Seattle. I even looked for one when we visited in December. Found it! It's in Renton.)

Posted by: ensie at April 20, 2005 09:05 PM (4k5pf)

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Frinklin, sister Katie, and myself attended the 19th annual Fallbrook Avocado Festival yesterday. Just in case you though that guacamole was the only way to eat avocados, let me assure you--you are wrong:

The best guac I've ever eaten

Like avocado tempura, crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside. Served with ranch dressing as dip

What we searched for all day...

Behold! The avocado ice cream!

DELICIOUS. It tasted exta creamy and smelled like ripe avocados. Just what you would expect from avocado ice cream. Now I must convince Ben and Jerry's to pick it up.

Posted by: Ensie at 08:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I love doing my taxes. I'm fully aware that refunds are really a bad thing, because that money that was already mine was taken away when it shouldn't have been. There're all sorts of accountant types who will explain that big refunds are not the best way to manage your money.

However, I still like tax refunds. I like looking forward to that "magic" money showing up in my bank account. When my W-2 doesn't show up exactly on time my annoyance is obvious.

I mailed my tax paperwork in on February 10th, and received my federal refund, via direct deposit to my checking account, on March 4th. I usually e-file, but my tax status made me inelligible for that 3 day refund this year. I was still comfortable with the idea of 3 - 4 weeks for a tax refund.

Now I'm waiting for my state taxes. I've been waiting since they received them on February 14th; I know that because I've called the state tax board, twice, to ask when I can expect my money to show up in my bank account.

My first conversation with the California tax board didn't go well. They claimed not to know who I was. Apparently they have no record of my married name change which occurred 8 months ago. Once I had transferred twice and informed them that no, I would not be faxing my social security card anywhere to anyone and they would change it over the phone goddamn it, I was informed that my refund was "in process" and would take 8 - 10 weeks.

It has been 7 weeks as of today. It will be 8 weeks on Monday.

Currently the score is Federal tax board 1, CA state tax board 0.

Posted by: Ensie at 07:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Earlier today a discussion about the 80s Volkswagon Vanogon (story for another blog entry) that my parents owned when I was younger spawed another fond memory of mine--the first time my dad tried to make s'mores.

My mother had given him strict instructions for our picnic dessert as we left the house, "Eat the graham cracker square, the chocolate, and the marshmallow together after it's toasted on the grill. They're fun to make and so good."

Simple, no?

No.

My dad valiantly tried to balance the graham cracker sqares on the grill, but they kept falling in, or blackening under the extreme heat. The chocolate and marshmallow didn't even have time to get warm before grahams were inedible. I tried one, but my mother had obviously lied about her fond s'more memories.

When we returned home, disappointed, my dad explained that he tried, but the graham crackers wouldn't cooperate. My mom stared at him before beginning to shake, until that shake turned into tears and whooping laughter.

I think this must have become a sore spot, as I don't remember having s'mores again until I was a Girl Scout counselor at age 17--10 years later.

Posted by: Ensie at 08:20 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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My friend Adriane gave me sushi bandaids recently.

We have a sushi theme, as we always made sure we ate sushi together when we hung out.

I gave her these sushi candles last year:

I'm debating between the sushi clock and the sushi candy for my next gift.

Posted by: Ensie at 09:06 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This past two weeks has been a lesson in patience for me. Every time I feel as though I've got some sort of idea of what the next 6 months will hold for the husband and I, something new comes along and tosses that plan out the window.

We had finally settled on waiting for 6 months to a year to move to Tacoma. Then a possible job opportunity appeared for me, so I applied. IÂ’ve had two interviews and am waiting to schedule the third. I've been waiting two weeks. I've inquired with the Human Resources Department about the delay and was told that interviewing is taking longer than expected and that I will be notified of my status ASAP.

Two weeks and no idea where I stand.

We're getting pressure from our families to shit or get off the pot when it comes to making moving plans. Since we're relying on their assistance to purchase a house I can't tell my Dad to leave me alone. There is no easy way to say, "Butt out and give me $15,000!" It just doesn't come across well.

This week Frinklin and I argued over spaghetti. A good half hour fight that is too stupid to repeat here. There were tears and yelling and dogs freaking out that their parents might separate over having spaghetti for dinner or not. WeÂ’re still together, and the spaghetti issue was resolved, but I canÂ’t take much more of this.

Posted by: Ensie at 08:39 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I had to leave Bob's Hogs yesterday for an offsite sale. An offsite sale involves loading up my car with books, taking them, um, offsite, and selling them. It's a nice way to spend time out of the store.

Being the safe driver that I am, when I merged onto the freeway I noticed that there was a fire engine with light blazing just a few hundred yards behind me. I couldn't pull over to the right, as no one else was stopping and the right lane was an "exit only" lane. I decided to take the next exit, then get back on the freeway immediately, allowing the fire engine to pull ahead of me.

Red light at the cross street intersection.

As I waited to travel from the exit ramp to the on-ramp, I fiddled with my cell phone. I had good news about Frinklin's new job and needed to tell someone.

Mom's phone...no answer.

Sister's phone...no answer.

Dad's phone...doh! The light has been green all this time!

I barely touched my toes to the gas pedal when, from the left, a small greenish sedan ran the red light crossing the intersection. The driver slammed on his brakes after realizing what he had done. I took a moment more to recover, sitting through another round of yellow-red-green before feeling comfortable enough to continue on. All I could think was, my cell phone just saved me!

Posted by: Ensie at 06:38 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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When I visited Washington a few weeks ago, we visited Kitz Camera in Puyallup. It was great. I had to print some wedding reception photos from CDs and went on Christmas Eve. I was really pleased with the Kitz experience. The sales staff was friendly and helpful and the prices seemed relatively reasonable. I walked out with a bunch of great photos printed on matte paper (this is important, because I like it), which made great Christmas gifts for a few family members.

Since then, I've been trying to find time to get to Ritz Camera (different name, same company) here in San Diego to duplicate my CD to photo printing experience. Today, I finally made it, but I was far from pleased, and returned home today without any printed pictures.

I started out by packing up 6 CDs of both the trip to Seattle and my wedding reception photos. I have two photo albums that I want to fill with these pictures, and I needed a couple to put into frames for the 'rents. When I got to Ritz, I loaded all my photos into the machine, selected what I wanted, and took my paper printouts of what I ordered to the sales associate. I was then told that my 63 4X6 prints would be 29 cents each, but my 50 5X7 prints would be $2.99 EACH. I asked him why a 4-sqare inch increase in size was a 10 time increase in price and received the following answer, "I don't set the prices. I just work here."

Um, I know. I tried to be polite, but the guy was just an asshole. I asked if each store set their own prices, as these were higher than they were in Washington. I was rewarded with the "duh" expression and, "Every store is different."

OK. I didn't want to adjust my order as I had spent 20 minutes picking the images I wanted and I needed those prints. I live an hour away from their store, so I was promised my pictures in an hour and went on my way. I skipped a couple of more costly errands, as it now appeared that my expected $30 pictures would now be running me approximately $180, ate some lunch, and ran to the grocery store. I hustled back to pick up my prints as my groceries defrosted in the trunk of the car.

I watched the same clerk ring up my $183.97 (!!) pictures as I opened the envelope he handed to me. I only looked at the first print before I noticed a problem.

"Are these all glossy?" I asked, apparently stupidly.

"Yes," he sighed. "That's our default."

"So that's different in all your stores as well? I have to specifiy? Why didn't you ask what I wanted?"

"So you don't want them? We can reprint them but it will take another hour."

Unexpectedly, he had given me an out.

"No, I have groceries in the car and an hour drive home. I can't wait."

As pissed as I am that I don't have my photos (which I'll be printing all in the 4X6 size and on specified matte paper when I find another Ritz Camera store), I'm quite pleased that I managed to skip the most expensive photo printing EVER. I'm still mystified as to the lack of standard processing in each store. I don't have a degree in marketing, but isn't one of the big rules of retail that customers like consistency between locations?

I'm sure they immediately removed a photo of me, circled my face with red ink, and wrote "DO NOT ACCEPT ORDERS FROM THIS WOMAN!" on it.

Posted by: Ensie at 10:15 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Nothing scares the crap out of you like sitting in your office totally alone as you read your email when out of nowhere the theme to The Exorcist starts playing.

After I finished changing into some dry undies I found the owner of that cell phone and punched her.

Posted by: Ensie at 07:33 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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