Category Archives: Whining

more money drama

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Yesterday was the official 3rd business day since my checking account got looted, so I checked my balance online, and sure enough, I still didn’t have my money put back in my account. So I called the bank. The customer service girl told me that I had been misinformed; that actually, it would be 2 or 3 business days until I got an affidavit in the mail stating that the transactions were unauthorized. Then, I have to sign the affadavit, mail it back, it will take them ten business days to process it, and only after that will I get my money back. I proceeded to flip the hell out on the customer service lady. I started crying and I yelled at her, “Do you realize this is the first of the month? Do you realize my rent was due yesterday? What the hell are people supposed to do when this type of thing happens to them? How am I supposed to live with no money for 2 weeks?!?!!” I finally realized that I was borderline hysterical and this conversation was going nowhere, so I just hung up on her. I called my mom – she was willing to lend me the money, but it wouldn’t get here before the 5th (my landlord has a 5-day grace period), but she offered to overnight a check. Dave also offered to lend me the money. I decided that would be easier, since there’s no postal service involved, and we decided that he’d give me the check today so I could deposit it and still get my rent check in on time.

Then, this morning, I got online again to check my bank balance – it’s sort of become a habit over the past few days. Lo and behold, my money is back in my account. It’s listed as “provisional credit”, so I think that means that it’s just a loan until they get the affadavit processed. But still, thank God. The customer service chick told me it would take 10 days just to get the damn provisional credit, so I guess she was either confused or just an idiot. Either way, all is well now.

In other news, Dave’s mom left on Thursday. We had a little going-away dinner on Wednesday night, which was fun. I’m kind of sad that she’s gone, I had a lot of fun spending time with her over the past couple of weeks. At the same time, it’s nice to have Dave all to myself again. Speaking of which, I plan on wrapping up with work sometime in the next couple of hours, and then Teenie and I are going to pack up & head over for a weekend in Duvall. Maybe we’ll get a Christmas tree. Yay!

people suck

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Yesterday afternoon, I got a phone call from my bank. I saw the name on the caller ID and almost didn’t answer – I figured they were just going to try to sell me a mortgage or something. (One thing I’ve noticed about working from home is that I get a lot of telemarketing calls during the day.) I did answer, and it was someone from my bank’s fraud prevention department, calling to verify some recent transactions. I have no credit cards, and I pretty much live on my debit card, so this didn’t strike me as too strange. The lady from the bank asked me if I had done a balance inquiry from an ATM on Saturday. Um, no. I never do balance inquiries at ATM’s. If I want to know how much is in my account, I use the bank’s website. So by now, I was kind of alarmed. She then asked me when the last time was that I used my debit card. I racked my brain and the last time I could think of was Wednesday, when I went to the grocery store shortly before my parents arrived. Then she asks, “So you haven’t made any ATM withdrawals today?” Um, NO!! Panic was starting to set in by this point, I could feel the tears rising up.

Basically, it looks like someone managed to get ahold of both my debit card number and my PIN, which is crazy because I’m always very careful about protecting that when I have to enter it, and I haven’t lost my card. Plus, my PIN isn’t even something easy to guess like my birthday, it’s the one that was randomly generated by the bank. So this person did the balance inquiry to find out how much was in my account on Saturday, and then yesterday, they took out 3 separate $500 ATM withdrawals. In one day. My checking account is now overdrafted to all hell. The good news is that I’ll get my money back, and they won’t charge me the overdraft fees. The sucky part is that it will take 2 to 3 business days to get the money back, and in the meantime, my debit card has been cancelled and they’ll have to send me a new one. So I just have to pray that no expenses come up this week that require more than the $20 I have in cash. Oh, and did I mention that rent is due tomorrow? Hooray! I’m more pissed than anything, to know that some stupid piece of shit got away with $1500 scot-free and there’s nothing that anyone can do about it. That’s just infuriating.

And a quick retraction: My sister pointed out that every time I’ve talked about Dave’s guest room, I’ve called the color lavendar, and the word is actually spelled lavender. I looked it up and she was right. Dammit. I hate it when I misspell words. The funny thing is that every time I read it with the -er, I thought someone had made a typo. Oh well.

This is very, very bad

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From the “holy shit, what will become of us over the next 4 years?” department (thanks to Adam at Tattoodles for posting this on one of his message boards).

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President Bush has announced his plan to select Dr. W. David Hager to head up the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. The committee has not met for more than two years, during which time its charter lapsed. As a result, the Bush Administration is tasked with filling all eleven positions with new members. This position does not require Congressional approval.

The FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee makes crucial decisions on matters relating to drugs used in the practice of obstetrics, gynecology and related specialties, including hormone therapy, contraception, treatment for infertility, and medical alternatives to surgical procedures for sterilization and pregnancy termination.

Dr. Hager, the author of “As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now.” The book blends biblical accounts of Christ healing Women with case studies from Hager’s practice. His views of reproductive health care are far outside the mainstream for reproductive technology. Dr. Hager is a practicing OB/GYN who describes himself as “pro-life” and refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women.

In the book Dr. Hager wrote with his wife, entitled “Stress and the Woman’s Body,” he suggests that women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome should seek help from reading the bible and praying. As an editor and contributing author of “The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality Reproductive Technologies and the Family,” Dr. Hager appears to have endorsed the medically inaccurate assertion that the common birth control pill is an abortifacient.

We are concerned that Dr. Hager’s strong religious beliefs may color his assessment of technologies that are necessary to protect women’s lives or to preserve and promote women’s health. Hager’s track record of using religious beliefs to guide his medical decision-making makes him a dangerous and inappropriate candidate to serve as chair of this committee. Critical drug public policy and research must not be held hostage by antiabortion politics. Members of this important panel should be appointed on the basis of science and medicine, rather than politics and religion. American women deserve no less.
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I read this and hoped it was a joke. I googled the guy’s name and came up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,800 hits. Time/CNN have run an article about him on both of their websites recently, and so has Planned Parenthood. This is absolutely terrifying to me. Anyone who says to use prayer as a remedy for any medical condition is the equivalent of a witch doctor in my book. And not prescribing contraceptives to unmarried women is beyond asinine. Are we suddenly living in the middle east? What’s next, is someone going to show up at my front door, take away my driver’s license, and force me to wear a burqa? Wait, isn’t that what we’re supposed to be saving the rest of the world from?

Heaven help us all.

gym gripes, etc.

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Monday, when I went to the noon yoga class, it had been cancelled because the instructor had some sort of family emergency. I found out later that her grandmother was sick and she had to leave for Oregon suddenly, and didn’t have time to find a replacement. Sure, it’s annoying since I drove all the way there before I found out, but I think that’s an acceptable excuse to cancel a class. Besides, there was another yoga class at 5:30 that evening, so I went to that and it was fine. Then last night, I was all psyched for Cardio Funk, everyone was in the room ready to go promptly at 8:00… only there was no instructor. Some of the class regulars said that the teacher was on a 2-week vacation, but there was supposed to be a fill-in instructor. Nope. I guess the gym management never got off their (perfectly toned) ass and found someone else to teach it, so class was cancelled. Again. Is it totally unreasonable for me to be pissed about this? It’s such a pain to get myself motivated to go to the gym, get dressed, drive there, park in the horribly constructed parking garage (why make rows & rows of “compact” parking spaces when you know that the vast majority of the people in this area drive huge-ass SUV’s and take up 1 1/2 spaces? Seriously, why?), and then it’s all for nothing. Grrr. Since I was already there, I jogged on the treadmill for a while, and even though I had my brace on, my knee hurts today, so it looks like I’m going to have to take a day off from working out. Which is fine, I need to clean my apartment, and that’s reasonably good exercise.

In other news:
* I found this link on Fred’s site that predicts the results of the election based on current polls. It changes daily, so I can’t stop looking at it. A few days ago, it had Bush in the lead. Right now, it has Kerry as the predicted winner. It’s making me nuts.

* Has anyone seen the movie “Signs”? It happened to be on TV this morning while I was eating breakfast so I watched the second half of it. I didn’t even see the first hour, and still I screamed out loud twice. I wasn’t expecting it to freak me out quite so much, but I’m glad I watched it in the morning rather than at night. Yeesh.

* Dave finally updated his blog! Hooray! He almost made it a whole month.

* My brother got the job that he interviewed for, which is great news, because he’s been completely miserable at his current job for a long time now. He’s going to be working for Dillard’s department store, although I’m not exactly sure what his job title is. Something to do with men’s clothing, I believe, but he’s planning on eventually working into more of a store manager role. So yay for Chris! However, this does mean that he won’t be able to come to Seattle for Thanksgiving, since he’ll be working in retail, and the Friday after is the biggest shopping day of the year. But that’s ok, we’ll see him at Christmas.

stuff and things

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I’ve worked out the past 2 days in a row. I’ve come to realize that there’s really no reason why I can’t work out in the morning or the middle of the day when I’m working from home. It’s not like I have to immediately shower and get myself all dolled up afterward, and if I’m only gone for 1 to 1-1/2 hours during the day, no one really pays much attention to it. So I’m trying. Really, I am. I haven’t been seriously dedicated to a workout regime in over a year, I’ve just done a workout or two here & there, and it’s so hard to force myself back into the habit of doing it every day. Plus, I just found out that if I go to my gym from 8-5 during the day, it costs me $7 to park my car in the gym’s garage. The gym is located in an office building downtown, and I imagine that this is to discourage folks from taking up space in the garage during the workday. But if it’s after business hours, parking is free. Go figure. So I’m a bit annoyed. My entire gym membership only costs $16 a month, so $7 for parking seems a bit exorbitant to me. It looks like I have 2 choices: Work out at a different time of day (which I’ll most likely do), or take the bus to and from the gym (which would only be $2.50 round trip). But the thought of getting on the bus when I’m all sore and sweaty kind of grosses me out. Anyway, Cardio Funk class is tomorrow night, and I used to love that, so I’m going to try to go to that, rather than the noon pilates/yoga class. I think yoga would probably be better for me, but since Cardio Funk is free, that’s probably what I’ll do.

Other random items:
* Teenie’s ear spot appears to be healing nicely. Might take a while for the fur to grow back, but it’s not quite as horror movie-esque anymore.

* My parents’ move to high-speed Internet access has increased my tech-support call volume by 1,000%. I get calls almost every day now. My mom even called while Dave and I were at dinner on Saturday night. (I told her I’d call her back after we left the restaurant, she sounded very annoyed that I wasn’t immediately available.) I have this idea about building them a new computer from scratch, so I’ll know everything that’s on it. And it’d be Windows XP, so I won’t have to try to dig up Windows 98 information from the dark recesses of my brain anymore. Hmm… Could make a good Christmas gift.

* Dave is apparently getting a pet goat (or two) so he won’t have to mow his lawn anymore. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Sure, goats are cute and all, but they also eat everything in sight, head butt, plus I think I might be allergic to them. (I had some weird sinus stuff happen after I pet a couple of goats at the fair last month.) On the other hand, goats are pretty low maintenance on the barnyard animal scale. And goat poo is supposedly much tidier and easier to clean up than, say, horse poo. So I suppose that’s a plus. Still, a real live goat? I don’t know.

* Sibling update: My sister is in Italy (again) visiting friends. I’m jealous. My brother, meanwhile, has a job interview in Kentucky today. I’m not so jealous of that.

* Dave & I had our 5-month-iversary on Sunday. How long do you suppose you have to be dating someone before you stop counting the number of months? Maybe it’s just because this is a record for me, I feel the need to keep track of it. Anyway, we celebrated by going to Home Depot to buy drywall filler and paint, because that’s what we do. It was fun.

replace the achey head with a fuzzy one

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Warning: Prepare yourselves for a rambling stream-of-consciousness blog post, I’m seriously medicated today.

By the time Friday rolled around and I was on day 4 of this headache, I left work early and went to the doctor. My usual (female) doctor was out, so I went to someone else in her group just so I could see someone right then. I’m not particularly comfortable with male doctors, and this guy didn’t really help my impression of them much. He was a little too touchy-feely for me. I’m sure he was just trying to be friendly and reassuring, but he actually patted the side of my face after he was done talking to me. That seemed like an awfully intimate gesture for someone that I’d only met 5 minutes ago. My mom told me I was overreacting and that he was probably just trying to be comforting like a father figure type, but the guy was less than 10 years older than me, so I’m sorry, that’s just weird.

Anyway, he told me that what I’m experiencing is not a classic migraine (which usually last a day or two at the most), it’s what they call a “cluster headache” because it can last from anywhere from 3-8 days. Whee! So he gave me some migraine medication, plus more of my favorite mild narcotic painkiller, and sent me on my way. The drugs seem to have worked, although I still have a headache in the morning before I take the pills. And I think mood swings must be a side-effect, because I’ve been uncharacteristically weepy this weekend. Yesterday at brunch, Dave and I were talking about cartoons and movies we watched when we were kids, and I started telling the story of “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and I just started crying in my omelet. Then we talked about “Dumbo” and I cried some more. Dave laughed at me – I think our waitress was really confused. Then I was repeating this exchange to Kris on the phone last night, and when I was trying to explain to her why the story of “Puff the Magic Dragon” made me cry, I started crying *again*. What the hell?? (And no, this has nothing to do with hormones. Trust me.) Then today, when I saw that Christopher Reeve died yesterday, I got all misty-eyed at my desk.

Otherwise, this weekend was pretty fun. Saturday night, Dave and I met up with his friend/ex-brother-in-law (long story, don’t ask) Michael, which was… umm… interesting. Dave got drunker than I have ever seen him, which was highly amusing for me because I’ve never had to baby-sit him before, it’s usually the other way around. But drinking didn’t strike me as a good idea with my headache (and the medication I was taking for the headache), so I volunteered to be designated driver. I don’t think it was quantity of alcohol that Dave consumed, because he didn’t actually have *that* much, I think it was the combination of things he drank – spiced rum & diet coke at home, sake at the sushi restaurant where we had dinner, then beer at the bar where we met up with his friend. Bad idea. The poor guy was a tad bit under the weather after that. We’ll leave out the gruesome details. Otherwise it was a good night, though. Michael is the first friend of Dave’s that I’ve met, so I was kind of nervous beforehand, but it was fun. Strange, but fun.

So today I’m at work trying to concentrate on the two tasks that I need to complete, which is unbelievably challenging in my current foggy-headed state of mind. I’m not completely stoned, everything just seems to be moving kind of slowly. Oh, and I think one of my co-workers likes me. He’s just a little too friendly – like he remembered my cat’s name, which I told him 2 weeks ago, and he compliments me on random things – today it was my necklace, he asked me what kind of stone was it was. [Aside to Dave: it’s the gray one that you like.] I told him it was whatever stone was on clearance for $7. You fellas reading this might disagree with me on this, but in my experience, it seems like guys typically don’t comment on little details like that unless they’re interested in a girl. He invited me to lunch today, I used the “oh, I brought a sandwich with me” excuse (which is true). I’m trying to figure out a way to drop the words “my boyfriend” into a conversation without making it seem too obvious. Oh well.

achey heads, etc.

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I feel like I should write something, but there’s not much going on. Here’s the summary of my week thus far:
* Monday – I don’t remember anything specific, so obviously nothing too important happened.

* Tuesday – Got up early and went to Dave’s to sit & wait for the furniture delivery guys, because Dave had meetings to go to. I brought my laptop so I could work from his house, and I got more accomplished in 3 hours there than I usually get done in an entire day when I’m working from my apartment. Maybe it’s because my apartment has too many distractions – although Beaumont wanting to drool all over my iPod while I was trying to work didn’t really help matters. Damn cat. Anyway, the furniture arrived (and yes, it is gorgeous; pictures of the remodeled living room will be posted as soon as we finish the floors), then I went to meet Dave at a really gross, smoky dive of a pub for lunch, which happened to have excellent food. I went home, worked a little more, and developed a monstrous headache. Went to bed early.

* Wednesday – Monstrous headache, day 2. Worked from home until about 1:00, then I took one of my big-time super-duper painkillers (mild narcotic), which knocked me out for the rest of the afternoon. When I woke up, my head still hurt, plus I was shaky and sweaty, in spite of the fact that my apartment was cold and the fans were on. (It was about 60 degrees outside, and all my windows were open.) I called my mom, she told me to go to the emergency room. I decided that was silly, so just in case this had something to do with malnutrition (I hadn’t eaten much all day), I took an iron pill, drank a protein shake, and sat in front of the open sliding glass door to cool off. The shaky/sweaty phase passed, although my head still hurt. I went to bed early again.

* Thursday (today) – Day 3 of the Headache That Won’t Die. When Kris (Mickie-G) was here, she left a bottle of muscle relaxers that her doctor had given her for migraines, so I took one. Yes, I know it’s wrong to take other people’s prescriptions, but I was desparate, dammit. Anyway, it worked – the headache went away, although it made me feel kind of stoned. Not really sleepy or groggy, everything just seemed… soft. It was enough that I could finally stand the light in my bathroom long enough to put my make-up on, and I walked to the office. (I figured driving was a bad idea, and besides, I need the exercise.) I’ve been surprisingly productive this afternoon, considering my chemically-induced state of mind. But now the muscle relaxer is starting to wear off and I can feel the headache starting up again in the back of my head. This is getting old really fast, I’m starting to wonder if I have a tumor. (Every time I think of that word, I think of Arnold in Kindergarten Cop: “It’s not a tu-mah!”) Does anyone know what the hell would cause a 3-day headache? I really don’t want to make a doctor’s appointment about a headache, but it’s getting to the point where I think I might have to.

Also, this is off the subject, but what gives with my peeps not updating their blogs? Write, people!! I need stuff to read during my downtime at work. It doesn’t have to be interesting – look at the boring junk that I post here. Just write SOMETHING.