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Normally, a tropical storm heading right for Texas doesn't scare me. Usually, we just have some rain and that's about it. But this one seemed to be moving unusually slowly and the eye passed right over Bexar county. Really, by the time it got to Bexar county, I didn't expect it to have an eye anymore, but there you go. And for anyone not in this area, it's pronounced like "Bayer", not the actual Bex-Ahr, like it's spelled. Like you didn't already think Texans are weird. Anyway, so I manage to make it to the pharmacy to drop off my prescriptions, but the way to the pharmacy isn't a route that floods. I had no idea how bad it was in the rest of the city until I turned on the news later. Apparently, there was heavy flooding all over town, including some normally dry creeks that overflowed and covered the roadways, washing away cars and SUVs. Many of the highways also flooded and had to be closed, making traffic an absolute nightmare. Causing accidents all over town, including some with fatalities and serious injuries. Causing high-water rescues to be so frequent that the emergency crews couldn't keep up. The winds were so high that some tornadoes were spawned north of here and west, too, I believe.
So, you'd think we're safe living on the 3rd floor and on a hill, right? Well, I'll admit there were no injuries. But Mom heard some water and thought it was her imagination until she heard a gush and some debris falling and...
Crash. This pic doesn't include the debris on the floor, of course, but it's a mess. Mom called the apartment office right away and they said they'd send someone, but no one came. You can tell how seriously they take us. You'd think that for $1000 a month we'd get some better service. AND they still haven't fixed the floodlights that are on our building. All of them are out and it's been a few weeks now. They even sent out a memo telling us how seriously they take the residents safety and security. It's DARK out there at night. I just hate to walk the dog out there, but what can I do? He's gotta go sometime. He can't hold it all night.
Anyway, if I have to I'll call them again. I don't want to be the "bitchy resident", but it isn't safe out there or in here either. Leaking water can be a health hazard, you know? It can lead to mold and even further damage, and if we get any more rain...I don't want to think about it.
Really, he must be the best vet in town. He has an encyclopedic memory. Every time I see him he remembers all kinds of stuff I told him from ages ago, and I know it's not in my file. It would be a book if it covered everything. Plus, he just instinctually knows stuff. I don't know how he does it, but often he doesn't need to do tests or anything because he knows what it is already. He's always right, too. So, I take Bucky in, and Bucky takes an immediate dislike to this Westie that's in the waiting room. I don't know what it was about the dog, but Bucky didn't like him. Other people came in later with other pets and he was fine with them. He just didn't like the Westie. Anyway, we get called in and Bucky is absolutely perfect. He doesn't growl or bite or even cry out when they give him his shots. Really, that's not what I expected after his last vet trip. He let them draw his blood for the heartworm test. He let the vet look at his teeth. He let them weigh him (4.14 pounds). He was just wonderfully well-behaved. I mentioned his teeth because I was concerned that I'd seen some brown stuff on them and I didn't want that to lead to any health problems. He hasn't been chewing on anything and he doesn't let me brush his teeth (really, he's as slippery as an eel---you try restraining him). So the vet thought immediately of this stuff that we can add to his water. It acts as a dental rinse, but it's safe for the dogs to drink. It cleans their teeth and will even help break down the stuff that's already there over time. GREAT! Perfect. Thank you! Although he did say that papillons are the poster dogs for periodontal disease, so Bucky is lucky his teeth aren't worse than they are. The vet thought they looked pretty good, but it's always good to do preventative care. I don't want it to lead to heart disease or anything. And the Heartguard stuff made him throw up, so they suggested this other thing called Iverheart that's a chewable pill, but it should be easier to take. He got his Advantage. He's all set.
I gave him the Iverheart the next day, because I didn't know if it would upset his stomach and I didn't want to give it to him the same day he had the nervous experience of the vet's office and shots. Still, he took it just fine. He even seemed to like the flavor. Great. The water additive seems to have no flavor or scent at all. They drink the water normally and didn't even sniff it like it smelled funny or anything. Great. Great.
Today it's just chore day. I started off with a mammoth laundry experience. Pretty much everything I own got thrown in there. Then, I vacuumed at that seemed to wear my shoulders out. Mom got this old-type vacuum that's the kind you roll around on the ground, but doesn't need attachments. While the not needing attachments part sounds great, the problem is that you have to hold the tube part out at a specific angle to get it to roll forward and now my shoulders are killing me from hunching over. Yes, even I, at 4'9", had to hunch over. I miss our old upright vacuum, even if I had to use attachments. It's a small price to pay for no sore shoulders, you know? I was going to clean the bathroom, but maybe I'll do that tomorrow. I don't think my back can take any more punishment today.
Anyway, that's about it. I'm glad Mocha Momma got her blog back up and running. I don't have a link to her site, but I'll have to add it on my list. For a while she was saying she wasn't going to blog anymore, so I thought I didn't need it, but now, if she's back, I'll have to add the link. She's pretty cool. : )
Okay, on top of it being always down or not available, today I couldn't print an e-mail. Sounds simple enough, right. I've done it before plenty of times. But today IP forwarded a copy of the airline itinerary and confirmation to me. I wanted to print it so I could give a copy to whomever takes me to the airport and picks me up. It will probably be Mom, but we'll see. Plus, I want the confirmation number so that I can do the online check-in. Really cool. Anyway, so I'm trying to print it, and it fits on 2 pages, but only one page will print. So I had 2 sheets of paper with page 1 on it. Page 2 would not print. So I try hitting "print" again and just selecting page 2 to print and not page 1. This despite the fact that "all" had been clicked to begin with and it still only printed page 1. Well, that froze up the browser. So I tried not using Hotmail's print feature and just using the one on the browser. That didn't work either, because Hotmail kept saying I had to wait until the page finished loading and it wouldn't finish loading. It just kept saying it was transferring data. I had the e-mail in front of me and it was all loaded! It froze up the browser again. I tried a few more times and that didn't work. It froze up the browser each time I tried something different. So, I gave up on Hotmail and just copied the e-mail and pasted it into a Word document. That printed. So, this just seems like the last straw with Hotmail. I'm so sick of them. I'm sick of the delays. I'm sick of it being down. I'm sick of it never working right. I haven't had this many problems with an e-mail address since I had dial-up internet. I just don't know if I go somewhere else, will it be the same? I mean, are there any good ones out there? I've had problems when I tried to get a Yahoo account. It never let me log in. I mean, I might even still have the account if they didn't cancel it. I never used it because I was never able to log in. Anyway, I don't know where to go. If anyone has any recommendations for a good, trouble-free e-mail provider, I'd appreciate it.
I don't know if I ever mentioned this on this blog. I probably didn't. Sometimes I think I blogged about something and I actually only wrote about it in my journal. But I like to collect foreign currency. No rare coins or anything, although I'm sure that would be cool. I just can't afford it. But occasionally foreign currency ends up mixed in our own currency and I keep the foreign coins. I used to have one from China, but sis M kept stealing it when she was little and it got lost. Anyway, I just recently pulled out a coin, thinking it was a dime and it turns out it was an Arabic coin. I'm sure it came from one of our many military personnel living here, but I think it's pretty cool-looking. I obviously can't read Arabic, so I don't know where it's from exactly. But the script is really pretty and it has flowery lines all around and pretty pictures, too. It's just a really pretty coin. Most of my coins aren't really from very far away, usually Canada or Mexico. I don't do enough traveling to collect very many on my own, although I do have some French Francs from a trip to Paris a long time ago. I just like it when I get one that's from somewhere far away. I think I got some from Norway from my pen pal in high school, but those got lost, too. I mean, I thought I had them safe, but I haven't been able to find them, so obviously I'm not as good at keeping stuff as I thought I was.
I had my psychiatrist appointment today. He apparently didn't think my symptoms from a couple of months ago warranted changing the dosage of my Trileptal. Oh well. I thought so, but maybe not. He just said I will get an episode every once in a while and no medication can prevent them altogether. I guess I knew that, but I was hoping he could do something about it since it was a particularly long episode for me. AND I've been feeling a little off, but maybe not off enough to change the dosage. I don't know. Anyway, I guess it's better that way, because I doubt I could afford to take 4 of those 300 mg pills, or even to buy the more expensive 600 mg pills and take 2 of those instead. It's more expensive either way, and I didn't notice much difference in price if I did one rather than the other. It's expensive enough on the dose I'm on now. As it is, I buy the generic from Canada and that's not cheap either.
Poor Bucky has a vet's appointment on Monday. He's overdue for some shots and I was trying to get the money. S sent me $40 from England just so that I could get the exam with his rabies shot, but Mom says he needs more than that because he'll need the heartworm test, too. I mean, that would be more expensive if he ended up with heartworms, so I guess the test is cheaper. Plus, he'll need probably a parvo shot in addition to the rabies on and maybe something else, too. Living in apartments, I kind of need to keep his shots up-to-date in case he bites someone. Knowing my dog, he would if he could, too. But, I don't want them to take him away because he doesn't have his shots and Mom doesn't want that to happen either. So, she's going to charge the rest on her credit card. I mean, it's sweet of her. I just wish she didn't have to put it on the credit card, but she doesn't have the money to do it otherwise. How spoiled we are having dogs. I just can't imagine life without him.
Anyway, I guess I'm getting ready to go to NJ. Getting more excited about it all the time and I know IP can't wait to see me. I will hate all the airport security mess, etc., and I will hate being away from Bucky that long. I know I'll cry myself to sleep every night not having him with me. But I should still have a good time and it will be great to hang out with IP as we haven't been able to do that in years. And I always wanted her kids to know me, but it's been ages since I've seen them, too. Her little boy was an infant the last time I saw him and I think he's 5 years old now. Well, I guess that's it for now.
The interview wasn't FOR Jim's, but that's where the interview was because the store isn't finished out yet. So, I got to the Jim's and it's one of those weird, retro type restaurants down near downtown. Nothing fancy, but there was a coffee bar near the entrance that I wouldn't have minded trying except no one was standing there to take my order. I waited, but no one came. Oh well...
I got to the restaurant and went inside, thinking the man who was going to meet me would check to see if I arrived, but he didn't. So, I looked at my phone and there was a call from him around 2 pm when I'd been in the shower and I'd missed it. OMG! I was afraid he was calling to cancel, so I called him back, even though it was now almost 4 and time for my interview. He didn't answer his cell, so I was afraid something had happened and I'd blown my chances somehow. But he called back almost immediately and said he was in the back of the restaurant. Okay. Deep breath. I go back there and he was really good-natured about it, saying it was just a call to confirm the appointment anyway and not to worry. The interview went well, I think. He seemed genuinely interested, although I'd rather not get my hopes up too high. But I think part of the reason they're interested is that I don't have any experience really and they wouldn't have to pay me as much. That might have something to do with it. Anyway, the listing didn't say experience was required.
The drive home went fine, even though it was fairly long. It wasn't yet 5:00, so there wasn't much traffic. I don't know where to send the "Thank You" card, but maybe the store in Austin. Don't know if he'll get it or not. I can try.
I guess I don't have anything else to report. If I did get the job, I probably wouldn't start until I got back from NJ, which is good. The store won't open until the beginning of September. Hopefully they wouldn't need anything from me before then, but you never know. Right now, I'd really rather get the job and worry about anything else later. I just need a job. That's pretty much all I can think about at the moment, although I am getting more and more excited about going to NJ and seeing IP and the fam. I haven't seen them in ages and the last time I saw them I didn't really get to talk to them very much because I was shooting pictures for R's wedding and generally being distracted. It will be good to take some time away from job hunting and maybe blow off some steam. Wish I could take Bucky with me, but I know he'd hate being around the other dogs. Oh well. : (
Well, I guess that's it for now. Wish I had better blog entries to write, but I'm sort of in a block right now and can't think of much else.
I had to call the bank because I hadn't gotten my new bank card and the old one was just about to expire. So I call and they say they sent it, but I never got it. So since it was so close to being the end of the month, they were going to overnight one to me. I never got the overnighted one either. So I called again. Turns out, they did send the overnighted one and someone activated it. I was shocked, first of all, that that was even possible. I mean, don't you have to give out information to verify your identity? Shouldn't calling from the home phone number mean that you can't activate the card if you call from a different phone number? Apparently not. I just received the second overnighted card and activated it a moment ago. All I had to do was enter the card number (easy enough, it was right in front of me) then enter a new PIN. That's it. No verification procedures, nothing. I can't help but to think this isn't very secure. Normally, I love my bank. They're fantastic. But I can't believe it was that easy for someone to take my card and activate it. The good thing was that I was waiting for the card and called the bank right away when I didn't get it. They were able to cancel that card before any charges had been made on it. But really, there should be some way of making sure no one can use it but me. I'm shocked and disappointed.
Anyway, in other news, I had to get a haircut. I hated that my hair was so long and it was getting tangled all the time. It was nearly impossible to brush it out. I just ended up with wads of hair being pulled out. I've been to places and had really good haircuts and been to them when I had a really awful haircut. So I didn't want to go to a really cheap place figuring the people that work there aren't as experienced. So I went and got a $30 haircut. Not too expensive (except for me, because that was all the money I had--but I'm sure employed people could swing it fairly easily), but not too cheap either. Normally I'd want a senior stylist or a master stylist to do my hair, but $30 was about all I could afford. They saw me right away and the woman who cut my hair seemed to be distracted or something. The way she cut my hair (long layers and just below my shoulders in length) didn't seem to be the way most people cut layers. She just picked at it and cut some parts shorter than other parts. It looked like a mess! I mean, my hair was wet when I left (can't afford a blow-dry, too), so I hoped it would look better when it dried, although I doubted it. But the dryer it got the worse it looked. It didn't look layered at all. It was just chopped up. AND it was way shorter than I wanted it. I did NOT want short hair. I actually cried when I got home it was so awful. So I called the salon to see if I could speak to a manager, but apparently there doesn't need to be a manager on duty at a salon as there has to be in retail because there wasn't going to be a manager in until the next day. Weird. So I'm thinking I'll go in in the morning when the manager gets there and see if they can redo my hair. As it was, I knew there was nothing they could do about the length as it was already too short, which was bad enough. The next day, I wake up and go straight down there. I got there a little after they opened, around 10:30 when they opened at 10:00. They tell me she isn't going to be in until 11:30. Well, on the phone, they'd told me she'd be in at 10:00. I was MAD. But I didn't have anything to do and it would take me too long to get home to wait at home. So I wait there. She didn't get there until noon! I told her what was wrong with my hair and she said she didn't know why I waited because anyone could have helped me. Well, how would I know that I didn't need to see her first, you know? But the guy that cut my hair seemed to know what he was doing. It doesn't look fantastic or anything, but I'll admit it's an improvement. I just wish it had looked as good as it's been in the past when I got the same haircut. I still cried when I got home because I was so mad and it was way too short. I mean, he didn't cut off much to do the layers, but it was already short from when the other lady cut it. I can't help but to be really disappointed in how it came out. It's not what I wanted at all. I mean, it's layered, but it doesn't look really "good", just "okay" or "not too bad". But I don't want to have someone else take a shot at it if it's already as short as it is and have even more cut off. I'm just not happy with it.
Also, I had to buy some jeans. I don't know if it will be cool in NJ or not at the end of August, but it might be. I don't know. So, I wanted to have some jeans, but the only ones I had from last year were size 4. I went all over the place looking for a size 2 with a 27" inseam. It's nearly impossible. I mean, I found these Lauren Jeans ones but they were $70. They looked fantastic on, but they'd better for $70, you know? But really there's no way I could spend that much. I tried on jeans at the Gap, remembering I used to buy jeans there when I was younger, but after I tried them on, they didn't fit great, but they fit. I looked at the price and they were $50! OMG! I remember when I was younger and they were only $35. Crazy. So, I just really didn't want to spend that much. I went to Burlington because they were having a huge sale, but couldn't find any that had the 27" inseam. That's really the hardest part. Then, I went to the mall and went into just about every store there, looking at jeans. Most of the stores there had juniors sizes, which don't fit me (for one thing, I have a butt and it won't fit in an ultra-low rise jean). I went to the department stores, but even then, there weren't any that had a 27" inseam AND the size 2. Really, even in the petite section, most of them were size 14 or else the smallest size they carried was a 4. Eventually, I caved and went to the Gap again. I told the saleswoman what I wanted since she approached me right as I came in and she pulled out the classic fit size 2 ankle-length, and it was too long! What? That's what I'd tried on in the other store that fit. The other styles it fit too long. So this other guy comes over and he says that the new classic fit ankle length is going to be longer than the old stock. So, if I was lucky a store still had the old stock still in and that would fit. But the new stock is going to be longer. Stupid. Luckily they had ONE pair left of the old stock that was a 2, so I got those. Now I don't know where I'll find jeans if I can't even get ripped off at the Gap. There's no way I can afford the $70 Lauren Jeans. $50 was bad enough. Maybe I'll try the factory stores in San Marcos. Don't know.
Well, that's it I suppose. Not much going on. Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the blog. I haven't had much to blog about, though. I have one job interview tomorrow. Hope it goes well. We'll see. The only thing I'm really nervous about is getting home in rush hour traffic because the interview is near downtown at 4pm. The only other slot they had was at 8am, and I'm NOT a morning person. Plus, trying to get there by 8 in rush hour traffic sounded much more difficult than if I went later. Getting home isn't time-sensitive, you know? Anyway, I'll let everyone know how it goes, not that it's all that interesting to blog about, I'm sure. But if I get an offer on the spot I'd be thrilled. Don't think that happens in real life, though. : )
