The Suck-tastic Summer

Back on June 1st, I was pretty excited for summer's start.  Yes, we all needed this break from the work world to reset ourselves and the possible summer activities were endless. After the first week and a half,  summer changed.

I walked over to my car only to find that it had been broken into. I was a bit amazed at how the thief opened the car since there were no broken windows, doors or keyholes. Odd, but I'm sure there are plenty of ways that lowlives do their work without any visible damage. Yes, he took some things of value, but the objects he took mean nothing to me. Stuff is stuff and unimportant. I'm glad my car wasn't stolen or damaged in any way. I'm glad I (or anyone else) wasn't in the car when it happened. That's the important part. I did have to call the police though. They came, were nice, CSI did their thing and the report was done. I have no expectations that whoever did this will be caught. It's a car break in...surely not high on the investigation priority list. Other elements about this bother me. Those things lead to an insecure feeling and insomnia.

Those two feed off of each other for sure. I've dealt with insomnia before so I know I can handle it, but it does change your mood. The car-insurance ordeal is still not complete and it won't for a bit.

After that summer opener event, I had to dog/house sit for my parents. I've done this plenty of times and it's not a bother. While dog/house sitting, I made plans with a friend to watch World War Z on a Saturday. That morning I get a call telling me that I have to go to some neighborhood assembly meeting in the place of my father. WHAT? So I had traded in movie time to drive an hour away and sit at a meeting where all people wanted to do was argue. I was stuck there for three hours and left with a headache. I had of course moved my plans to Sunday.

I heard something kind of odd Sunday morning. I heard a drop of water. Sometimes when it rains a lot, a bit of water will drip through the air conditioner. That's what I thought it was since it hasn't stopped raining all summer. When I open my eyes, the whole room is flooded. I got up to check if it was coming from the bathroom. Nope. I opened the door and the whole hallway was covered in water. My parent's and brother's rooms all flooded. Water was cascading down the stairs to the first floor. The dining room and sitting room, flooded. I could hear water running, but didn't know where it was coming from until I went into the hallway bathroom. The culprit? The plastic screw on the toilet hose had broken off. Water everywhere. I turned off the water valve, but there was still some coming out. I couldn't get it all the way shut....old house...old valves. So I had to go outside and turn the main water valve off. There was also drops of water coming down from the kitchen, laundry and garage roofs.

I called for help. Four mops, one squeegee, one wet vac, four people and six hours later, the house was dry. We also moved everything that had gotten wet to other places and the actual clean up began. After a week of cleaning and throwing away water damaged items, we're still not done. That's a testament to my parent's "hoarding". So much stuff.

I'm hoping mid and end of July will make up for how suck-tastic the summer has been.

In Search Of: Tile Top Coffee Table

I found the coffee table I want. It's a tile top chrome coffee table.

Well, I thought I'd found it. The first time I saw this design was around 3 months ago. It was on some random site listed as "sold". These types of tables are from around the 1960's and 1970's. They're from Europe, mainly Danish, French or Italian. I've seen various other similar tables and know the wooden shelf isn't original. That was definitely added on later by a previous owner. Even so, it's a nice table and I didn't think I would find another, but a couple of days before the new year, I did. I was all happy and was emailing the owners about it. Then on New Year's Eve, I get an email saying, "Thought we should let you know straight away - the Coffee Table has been sold! Sorry about that".

Excuse me?! Here I am thinking I'm closing the deal waiting for them to get back to me about the final costs, and they sold it to someone else. WTF?! I mean, I'd really like things to start going my way for once. This company posted the availability of the table in November. So it was sitting in their store for a month before I saw it. And then as I'm almost about to buy it someone walks in from the street and buys it.

Sooooo close, yet so far. Story of my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will continue to keep an eye out for this specific design, but the chances of actually finding it I know aren't in my favor (what else is new!). So I put this out there in cyberspace. If anyone comes across this table, or you are actually an owner getting rid of it, don't be shy and leave me a message.

The search continues.

Summer 2011

Summer is here.

I have no big plans for the summer. No trips around the world, no boating excursions and no extreme adventures. I'm keeping it simple (not that I have the money to do anything grand anyway, but that's besides the point). My summer plans include:

1. Sleep as much as I can

2. Video games

3. Movies/Friends

4. Exercise

5. Read

So far I think I've been keeping true to my summer goals. It's pretty easy when it rains every day making you want to stay in.

I finally finished The Force Unleashed 2. I had gotten stuck on a hanger bay fight a couple of months ago and completely abandoned the game, till now. Now that that's done, I'm focusing on Super Mario Bros. I've had this game forever now and I'm only on world 3. Pathetic I know, but I will finish it. After Mario, I have Ghostbusters which I never played and Damnation.

As far as my reading goal, that one has been lacking. I started reading "Nine Kinds of Naked" and even though I was really interested in it, I fell asleep allowing me to accomplish more of my 1st goal :) Movies? Those are coming up. Exercising? I just went for a run this morning :)

We'll see what I really end up doing with my summer vacation.

A Bee

A friend gave me a small stuffed animal in college, a bee. I’m not sure when I decided this bee carried luck, but I started placing it on my desk while I studied. I figured that since the word “bee” started with a “B”, it would help me get at least a “B” on my tests. Of course the next logical step was to have the bee present during my exams. It worked and that bee went to every college exam and final I had for 3 years.

At first I kept it in my coat pocket. I didn’t want to seem like a weirdo, but part of the bee’s luck was that it had to be ON the desk. When I realized that, it went from my pocket to the desk and stayed there. Yes I received strange looks, but I didn’t care. In all that time, only one professor picked it up and asked me, “For good luck?” I said yes and he smiled in amusement. I still have the bee and it still lives on my desk.

Spring Break

Yes it's that time of year again. I'm on vacation. I haven't had the desire to do much besides sleep.

I woke up today, put on my running clothes and promptly went back to bed. I do want to go running, but sleeping is more comfy. I have had this nagging cough for the past week as well. The problem is that it gets worse at night which forces me to take medicine and that makes me drowsy in the mornings so I don't go running. This cough needs to go away already.

Until then, I will sleep which is fine by me :)

I Miss My Gamu

It's been almost a month since my dog Gamu(za) died. How do I feel? At times I'm still quite sad about it. It creeps up and overwhelms me.

I've had pets almost my entire life, so of course I've gone through similar situations. This one feels different though. Gamu was a dog who found her way to me by chance. She was an older dog to begin with and her previous home was about to get rid of her. She slept inbetween greasy mechanic car parts and they just couldn't take care of her anymore. When Gamu arrived at my house, my mother didn't want to keep her. She might claim otherwise now, but at the time she wanted Gamu returned to sender. I walked to my room, Gamu followed me and that was that.

She was a bit scary looking when she first arrived. They had pretty much shaved her fur off because it was all knotted. She looked like a rat. But her dog hair grew back, long and beautiful. The one thing everyone always noticed about her was her tongue....it stuck out because she was missing all, but 2 teeth. She also had a bad ear infection, pseudomona all over her back, was blind, arthritic and pooped blood (which we would find out 3 years later was caused by foreign objects in her intestine). To say this dog had gone through a lot is an understatement. But she was taken care of , loved and had a good life with me for 4 years.

What saddens me is the way she died, my out-of-characer reaction and my inability to have done anything about it. I don't like thinking about it and try my best to bury it. But like I said, it creeps up on me. I understand that my reaction was not typical because of insomnia and I shouldn't beat myself up about having thought and said things. Even so, my irrational side carries guilt over it. I'm human and have guilt. And Gamu didn't deserve the end she had.

I miss you Gamu and I'm sorry. RIP

Going retro?

Why is Captain Crunch going back to old logos?