and that someone would be me.

Thankfully all of you lovely readers are nice enough to not point out to me yesterday that my title indicated that there might be updates and/or addendums. And really, there weren’t any. But I had every intention, but was dumb and hit “Publish” instead of “Save” and ran out the door to bring the car into the shop. By the time I came back I was so tired, hot (holy crap it was still 90 degrees at 6:30pm!), hungry, and stunned from a near-miss with a potential car repair, that I had forgotten that I didn’t actually finish the post and just went about the rest of my evening. Read comments from folks, replied to some of those comments, all the while completely oblivious of my error. I wasn’t aware until my internet service came back up this afternoon and saw my article on my reader (hatred from Comcast’s ineptitude may or may not be forthcoming. You know, if I remember).

So, now will be your REAL updates and addendums:

First off, I came back from getting the car checked and it is the catalytic converter. Good news is that the issue won’t affect the actual runability of the car…it will keep running. The bad part is that I won’t be able to pass the emissions because the catalytic converter is not getting the correct ration of oxygen to fuel or some mess like that, and is polluting a little more. The worse part is that my emissions is due later this summer and failure to pass means the state won’t renew my plates unless I pay to repair it. The worsest part is that the estimate I got was $700 for repair, which even if it didn’t fully fix the issue, I’d at least get a waiver on my emissions because I spent over $600. Yeah.

So do I get a “pass” now for writing like an idiot? I mean, most of you would probably have a little heart failure, or at least would bat an eyelash at a potential $700 car repair, right?

Well, the garage cleared the error (check-engine light) and did some other diagnostics to make sure there weren’t any other underlying issues. This just seems to be an issue of a 7-1/2 year old car with nearly 100,000 miles on it. He also told me that if the light stays off to still go ahead and try to see if I’d pass the emissions…because if I do, I don’t need to worry about the catalytic converter again for 2 more years. By then we’re hoping to replace it.

More updates….This morning I get up, start getting ready for work, check on Cooper and he still feels feverish. Crap. He had a low temp, but was physically warm enough to alert the teachers in his class if I was so rotten as to bring him in. Crap-crap.

I get out the Elmo videos and some of Cooper’s favorite toys and some of Gavin’s most coveted-from-Cooper toys, start up my work lap-top and can’t.get.on.the.VPN. What? I putz around with a few settings and try again. No dice. Just as I’m about to get beligerant, Justin calls asking if the internet is down because he can’t hit the server. One check of the modem validates our suspicions. Two power-cycles assures us I need to call Comcast. Thirty minutes on hold to talk to one underinformed Comcast rep (albeit he was very nice), two more power-cycles, and a reset confirm that there is an outage in our area. Crap-crap-crap.
However, my rep tells me “for some reason a lot of modems in {my town, my zipcode} are just going ‘offline’.”
Me: “A lot of offline modems in one area sounds like an outage to me.”
Rep: “well, that’s not really an outage.”
Me: “huh. That’s funny. The telecom company I work for usually considers this same sort of situation an outage. Why else would a bunch of random modems in a concentrated area go offline?”
Rep: “well, it’s still not an ‘outage’.”
Me: “ok, whatever. How soon till it’s back up?”
Rep: “we need to dispatch a technician…soonest we can get is Tuesday morning.”
Me: “what? You know it’s Friday, right? I have blogging work to do.”
Rep: “yeah, I know. I’m sorry. You could try calling tomorrow to get an earlier date.”
Me: “why can’t you give it to me now?”
Rep: “well, I just mean there might be an earlier one available tomorrow.”
Me: “that makes no sense. Okay. I’ll call back tomorrow.”

But it came up on it’s own later in the day. Like it has a hundred other times. Stupid Comcast.

On a much more fun update, Marmarbug over at My Life as Momma, gave me this lovely award!!!

Isn’t it cute??? I think I’m going to pass it along to a few folks who I don’t think have gotten it yet…so to Tootsie Farklepants and Precarious Tomato because they both make me laugh till I scream, to Caramama because she’s so open-minded and doesn’t mind my rather conservative leanings in our email discussions, to Burgh for letting me be a PITA and harrass her all the time (or rather, she tolerates me), and to Karen for propositioning me last week…that totally made my summer, lady! Oh, and also to Justin, and not because he’s my husband. But because he found a petition community group on Facebook that is trying to get Facebook to adjust their rules on considering photographs of breastfeeding to be offensive. Apparently 26,000 people have joined. And I might just join Facebook so I can join the petition as well. We’ll see.

By the way…tonight is the last night for the silent auction and fundraiser to support the Victims of the Midwest Floods.

Apparently about 1.3 inches of rainfall is too much for Comcast because our internet was down most of the day (read: playing catch-up on blog-reading/commenting). Actually, 1.3 inches is pushing it, since that is what the approximate rainfall total is as of 9:30pm…it was probably only at 0.5-0.75 inches at the point the service went down earlier today. Losers. Can you tell I don’t like them? I can’t wait for FiOS to come…obviously Justin and I are nearly foaming at the mouth, waiting for service to be extended to our area. But even for those folks who are too stupid, short-sighted, gluttons for poor internet service and worse customer service, excited to have their rates raised every month, not interested in changing providers should theoretically see a reduction in their rates (or at least a slow-down in the crazy rate hikes). Competition for consumer services is always a good thing.

Since Earth Day is in a few days, folks have been getting all “green” and the cable networks have “green” programming, and there’s ads with a representative from the Left and the Right talking about how they’re coming together for the Earth (my fave is the Al Sharpton/Pat Robertson pairing…goes back to my Religious Studies background, I guess). I recycle…in fact, I force Justin to recycle (although he likes to vex me with tossing stuff in the trash). We’re lucky that our area recycles nearly everything and it gets picked up on trash day. What’s killing me is the conversion from incandescents to fluorescents. I am soooooooo cheap that it is hard to want to pull out a working bulb and replace it with a fluorescent. I went and bought a bunch of the compact fluorescents when they were on sale for the multi-packs, so in the next few days I will be replacing working bulbs (inner monologue: I can do it, I can do it, I can do it). Maybe I’ll just have Justin remove the working bulbs so that all I’m doing is putting a new bulb where we’re missing one. But that’s not my biggest problem…my biggest problem is that we have at least 7 “builders special” lighting fixtures that each contain three decorator bulbs with the tiny candelabra bases (I didn’t build this house so I refuse to take responsibility for those brass atrocities). Each of those bulbs costs $9. Each light fixture will cost $27 to replace the bulbs…times six equates to about $189 (before tax…add like $9.49 more!). Really, people..that’s just crazy! So in light of my resistance to invest an obscene amount into lights I don’t particularly care for, I’m now on the hunt for replacement fixtures that have standard bases. It seems the only light fixtures with chrome/nickel/silver tone that are below $30 are either the ones you find in your grandma’s bathroom, or those fixtures that look like nipples. I just can’t put nipples up on my ceilings. I already have a complex about my magical shrinking breasts…I don’t need large breasts taunting me from above. Does anyone have any reasonably-priced flushmount fixtures with a silver tone from this millenium that will not give me mammary nightmares?

As I’ve mentioned, Justin has been working out for a good 4 or 6 weeks. I’m very proud of him…it’s not easy getting up close to 2 hours earlier than normal to go work out, or to turn away favorite foods, and eat those funky protein bars. Despite all that, he’s been doing well and chugging along, and the results have shown on his body and on the scale. What has been driving me crazy is the friggin’ abandoned water bottles (usually in some state of not-quite-empty) ALL over the house. I tend to leave them because I figure he’ll come back to it. But by the end of the day, I’ll often find several all over the house. Since it’s late, I usually dump them in the plant (can’t make myself dump it in the sink), and leave them on the counter above the kitchen trash can (my recycling staging area). By morning, they are gone, and each time I naively think hope he put them in the recycling bin on his way out. Nope! I pop open the kitchen trash and there they are! It makes me crazy to pick them up; it makes me crazy to dump out the undrunk water; it make me crazy to dig them out of the smelly trash (often from under the old coffee grounds) to put them in the recycling! Crazy. REALLY CRAZY! Like I’m-gritting-my-teeth-typing-about-it-now kind of crazy. And know what? His parents recycle…like really really REALLY recycle…like break-down-the-cereal-boxes-and-toss-in-the-toilet-paper-rolls kind of recycling. HARD CORE! His mom has composted eligible food garbage as long as I’ve known her…yet her own flesh-and-blood can’t put his twelve-hundred-bazillion partially-drank water bottles into the well-marked recycle bin. OMG, people, we don’t even have to separate our recyclables…nope…just toss them all in and they’re separated at the center. Maybe I should go all Ed Begley on him for a week or two so that when I go back to normal, he’ll be so relieved that he’ll comply. And before you ask, I did buy him a reusable water bottle, especially since most bottled water lacks fluoride and doesn’t have the same standards imposed on it as drinking water. He refuses to use it. Says it’s easier to grab a bottle out of the fridge; he refills the bottle a few times during the day (so has 1 bottle of bottled water and like 3 bottles of filtered tap water). But I think he refuses to use the reusable bottle just so he can watch my head explode each morning.

Know what else? PMS is a bitch (as I sit panting in the corner like Animal from all my ranting).

Alright…two major gripes.  I tried to just suck it up, but these are BOTHERING me a lot.

The famed DC-area Eye Center with Dr. Boutros:  I received LASIK surgery in January 2001 and loved it.  LOVED IT!  I told everyone I knew to get LASIK.  EVERYONE.  After my surgery and the initial follow-up appointments, I tried to go every year…mostly because I was still in the habit of going yearly after wearing glasses and contacts for ten or twelve years.  I asked one of the optometrists a few years ago if I still needed to go yearly, since my vision was great, and she told me every 18 months would be fine.  That was December 2004.  Meanwhile, Life happened, and as in most cases, I forgot to make my appointment for June 2006.  In fact, I didn’t remember to make an appointment until a few weeks ago when I started having trouble seeing well while driving at night.  I go in, and sure enough, my vision changed (although I had both the technician AND the optometrist tell me that it might be because I was still nursing Cooper…don’t know how, but whatever).  The doctor tells me that it’s a minor change, but not really enough to warrant corrective lenses (hello, is she the one driving at night after many hours of staring at a computer screen?).  I asked her how bad it had to be before they’d do surgery again, since my vision is guaranteed, and she told me that since it had been so long since I had last been in, that my warranty was void.  WHAT?!?!?!  Supposedly I was supposed to come yearly for check-ups as part of keeping the warranty on my eyes.  People, I honestly do not recall that stipulation…if I had, I would’ve had all sorts of reminders all over the place.  And, if that’s the case, how come I was told by a doctor that every 18 months would suffice?  Or why hadn’t I received a single reminder card EVER in the 7 years I had been attending that practice?  I truly think that they didn’t send reminder cards to help allow people to naturally forget about their yearly check-ups so that they can minimize their chances of paying for someone’s additional corrective surgeries. 

VPI Pet Insurance:  Ginger needs a new hip…or at least a weird sort of corrective surgery that actually removes the ball of the femur to create a false joint somehow (yeah, don’t pretend to understand human medicine, let alone veterinary medicine).  The vet told me it would run somewhere around $800-$1,200.   Yeah, that’s dollars, not pesos.  *sigh*  So I called our pet insurance to see about how much they would reimburse us for the surgery and was told they do not cover hip dysplasia…at all.  I asked the rep on the phone to repeat himself.  No, I had heard correctly.  They will cover all sorts of thing, but not hip dysplasia.  He went on and on about how it’s congenital in many breeds, etc., and I interrupted, hopeful, “but she’s a Boston Terrier…they aren’t susceptible to hip dysplasia, just luxating patellas”.  He said it didn’t matter, and that they don’t cover luxating patellas, either.  So to all of you who have dog breeds where hip dysplasia and/or luxating patellas are prevalent, do NOT get VPI Pet Insurance.  Go somewhere else.  I actually found one company that does cover it, but they won’t cover it for pre-existing conditions (which would be the case for Ginger).  I can’t say that I blame them for having that stipulation.  But I cannot believe that a pet insurance company would not cover one of the most prevalent issues with large dogs.  Obviously if one of the parents has hip dysplasia, the puppies would have a large chance of having hip dysplasia, too.  But hip dysplasia can happen to a puppy that has healthy-hipped parents, just like other birth defects can sometimes spontaneously occur, which is most likely Ginger’s case.  But VPI doesn’t care that my poor pup has arthritis severe enough that she will walk on only her three good legs, and cries when she can’t get up on a couch or bed to be near one of us.  She’s on pain killers right now to help her manage the pain and get her leg muscle built up again, but she’s only 2-1/2 years old and has many many years of life ahead of her.    So shame on VPI, and here’s praying that the vet will allow us to pay them in installments.

Okay…thanks for letting me gripe and complain.