After some sleep, and getting some serial numbers, and a day or two to chill out and get over this a bit, I’m feeling a bit better. I still don’t expect to ever see the laptop or camera again, and I’m still fucking pissed and sad about all the pictures that were on the laptop and nowhere else, but like Greg has been telling me repeatedly: shit happens. I’m still mad at myself for not locking that damn door the moment I noticed it was unlocked before we left, but whatever. Shit happens. Or, in this case, shit *has* happened, and there’s not much to do about it now. I will say that the Ram Shop at UNC is awesome (for still having a record of the laptop’s serial number years after Greg purchased it), and Pentax is awesome (for including a serial number card with the camera’s manual and shit, so now we know the camera’s serial number, too), and the Durham police have got their customer service down pat. They seem pretty organized, too – apparently there’s one detective who deals with all the pawn shops, and so he’s on it, and if they show up in a pawn shop he’ll get them back to us. I still don’t expect to see either of them again (do thieves really go to pawn shops these days? especially when the cops seem to be onto that?), but it helps. It doesn’t help my anxiety (which is going to be insane in terms of needing to double- and triple-check that we locked all the doors, and probably pestering Greg alot about whether he locked doors or the car or whatever), and it’s not going to help my tendency to want to stay home instead of going anywhere. Which is ridiculous, since the thief didn’t break in, just walked in, but whatever. Greg’s going back up to New York in July for another show, and I wasn’t planning on going to the show, but I was planning on going back up to New York with him. Now I don’t know. We’ll see. Anyway.
So, New York. Sorry this is without pictures, y’all.
Sunday, we got up, I ran by Harris Teeter for mustard for Lance and Angelique, and then we took Dara and Tiffianna to Jade Palace for lunch. It was delicious. Came home, finished packing real quick, and left for Binghamton. It was about a ten-hour drive, and we took turns, with me handling the last leg (thank you, five hour energy drink), and we pulled in around one in the morning. Unloaded at Lance and Angelique’s (in Vestal, actually, but close to Binghamton), and went to sleep.
Monday, we slept in. If I recall correctly, Angelique made french toast that morning (it was either Monday or Tuesday, I think Monday), and it was fucking delicious. We went to the Binghamton Zoo, which was pretty cool. I think the tamarins were my favorite. Drake mentioned that he didn’t get to see the penguins the last time he was there – I think they couldn’t find them or something. Anyway, I made the mistake of promising him we’d find the penguins this time – and of course, while we did find where the penguins normally are, the penguins weren’t there, since it was too cold for them to be outside. (Seriously? Penguins? But Lance says they were African Penguins, so maybe it was too cold for them. All I know is, at our zoo, the penguins stay in this indoor habitat and it is always fucking freezing, way colder than Binghamton was, although it was on the chilly side while we were there.) We went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch, and it was delicious. When we got back, we played some games, and then I was tired so I took a nap, while everyone else played some more games. We got Chinese for dinner, and it was yummy! Then we hung out, and then it was bedtime!
Tuesday, we slept in again. Breakfast was bagels, and then we went into Binghamton. We toured the Phelps Mansion, which was pretty neat, but no pictures allowed, so I don’t have much to show you. The third floor is also just a facade – they took it down during World War II (if I remember correctly) because it needed repairs but they couldn’t get building materials to repair it with, so they just took it completely off. Later, the Monday Afternoon Club restored the house, but couldn’t afford to rebuild the third floor, so they just put the facade up. Boo. I bet that third floor was cool as hell. After the Phelps Mansion, we ran by Lance’s work so he could get a file or something, and we got to hang out there for a while. It was neat. Downtown Binghamton is very pretty. We went to Whole in the Wall for lunch, and it was alright, but I wouldn’t go back. The food was okay, not stellar, and I thought it was a smidge overpriced for “okay but not stellar,” and the service was pretty abysmal. It’s a place I’d go once to say I’d been, and now I’ve been. (Lance and Angelique hadn’t been before either, but had asked a vegetarian for recommendations on where to take us, and Whole in the Wall was highly recommended. I feel kind of bad about it, since they probably wouldn’t have gone there on their own. But whatever. We were all slightly disgruntled, but we were all slightly disgruntled *together*, and that’s what counts. Plus we got to eat, so that was good, too. It’s good not to be ravenous.) Tuesday evening, we did something we used to do regularly when Lance and Angelique lived down here, but haven’t done in a while: ate french fries and watched UFC (specifically, the Ultimate Fighter). It was awesome, and I totally pigged out on the french fries.
Wednesday morning…I think we actually set an alarm, but we didn’t have to leave until about 2:00pm, so we still got to sleep in a bit. Lance made pancakes, and we watched a little more Ultimate Fighter, then packed up and got ready to drive into the city. Drake didn’t want us to leave, because he wanted to keep playing with us (I think probably Greg more so than me, since I don’t really roughhouse), and said he was coming with us – that was pretty cute. But we promised to come visit again, and told him they’d have to come visit *us* some time, and that seemed to cheer him up. (The last time we saw them in NC, Drake was about one, and the cats were absolutely terrified of him. I should add that Drake was extremely well-behaved and calm around the cats, especially considering he was one, and they just freaked out. I think it was his size, but I’m not sure why. Apparently this is not uncommon, for cats to be terrified of small children, and even of the small children that aren’t running shrieking after the cats to pull their tails. Drake falls into that last group, of course.)
Anyway, so we drove into the city (or should I say, “The City”), which was a three-hour trip that entailed leaving New York, driving through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and then re-entering New York. Awesome. It was a nice drive, for the most part, and it rained several times, but not too torrentially, so I was happy. I was not so happy when we got to the Holland Tunnel – it went from six lanes to two in a matter of a couple feet, and this NYC bus on our right just pushed on over even though there was no room, and we came REALLY close to getting hit by that bus. I mean, it would have been a slow collision, but still, I’m not trying to have to stop right in front of the goddamn Holland Tunnel and try to get the bus driver to stop so we can work out insurance and shit. I also understand that apparently this is how drivers normally behave up there, but just because it’s the norm doesn’t mean I have to like it. Of course Greg was driving at this point. Of course. And he was fine with it, which is why he was driving and I was not, because he is a more aggressive driver than I am, and can handle tons of other drivers driving like dicks all around him. (I mean, there were some reasonable drivers, but of course the ones that stick out in my mind were the dicks. Like that bus driver. Greg was all, “She has a sideview mirror, she knows we’re here.” And I was all, “Um, yes, she is LOOKING RIGHT AT US SITTING HERE WITH NOWHERE TO GO while she prepares to ram into us. Gently ram into us, but ram into us nonetheless.” I was not becalmed by her having sideview mirrors.)
Also, did you know it’s against the law to change lanes in the Holland Tunnel? It is. It says so on huge unmissable signs leading up to the entrance, at the entrance, in the tunnel – and it’s even printed on the fucking lanes themselves. Did that stop plenty of cars with New York and New Jersey plates from changing lanes several times in the Tunnel? Of course not. There was some indignant yelling on my part. I wasn’t scared, but honestly, I get that you’re tired of waiting in the non-moving lane and you want to change to the slightly-less-non-moving lane. But the reason the lanes are backed up? Is because douchebags like you are cutting in and out of lanes up ahead. Stay in your fucking lane, and we’ll all be able to go faster. Christ.
When we got out of the Tunnel, we couldn’t turn down a road on our directions because cops had blocked it off, for no reason we could discern other than maybe they felt like it? I don’t know. I could see down it a ways, and I didn’t see a wreck, or an ambulance, or even other cops, or anything. Just empty street. Whatevs. We drove around for a while, maybe fifteen minutes, and finally figured out an alternate route. Oh – because also? It’s illegal to talk on your cellphone in the car in New York (or so we’ve been led to believe, and we don’t know if it’s only the driver or the passenger, too, but we weren’t taking chances since the cops were right there), so we couldn’t just call up a bitch and say “Shit, Beach is blocked off, how the fuck do we get to Canal.” I think those were the street names, but if they weren’t, you still know what I mean.
Anyway, we rolled up to Brian and Carol’s apartment in Fort Greene, because Danny and Michel (who we originally planned to stay with) were both at work and wouldn’t be back before the show, and we didn’t really want to leave our shit in the car. So Brian and Carol graciously let us crash at their place, and we unpacked, and then Brian led us to the Progressive Nation show at Terminal 5. It was fucking awesome. We missed Between the Buried and Me, which Brian had hoped to catch, but they went on earlier then we expected. (We also missed 3, but none of us were really interested in seeing them, and they were opening, so it was pretty sure we’d miss them.) We saw Opeth, and they were awesome, and we saw Dream Theater, and they were even more awesome. And instead of a drum solo, Mike Portnoy had this huge setup that could seat two drummers, so all the drummers from the other bands came out and drummed with him, and at the end they were all up there, drumming and shit. I also had two margaritas, and they were the best margaritas I’ve ever had. Also, on the way home, I’m pretty sure we passed Lauren Utter from America’s Next Top Model (the most recent season, 10) in the subway. (It was mildly interesting. Greg didn’t care, of course, or know who she was, but he did ask why I didn’t say anything, and the answer is, I didn’t really care enough to, either, but happened to know who it was we had just passed, thanks to fourfour recaps, and I wasn’t all starstruck. If we’d passed Jorge Garcia, then I would have totally nerded out and gone up to him to tell him how much I love Hurley. Speaking of which, our friend Kenny and his lovely girlfriend Haley stayed with us the Thursday before we left on vacation – and Kenny told us about how he was in Hawaii not too long ago, and was in line at a convenience store behind “a big Samoan” and the clerks were geeking out, and the “big Samoan” was really nice, but Kenny didn’t know who he was, but felt like it had to be someone famous? It was Jorge Garcia. And there was another Lost-sighting in New York, but not by me.)
Well, that’s the first half of the trip. More later.
There will be no pictures from the New York trip, ever, and there won’t be a post about it any time soon.
We accidentally left the front door unlocked, and while we were at the movie tonight, someone came in our house and took Greg’s laptop, which was sitting on the table, and its powercord, and the camera Greg gave me, which was right next to the laptop.
I’m fucking mad as hell, and I feel sick, and I don’t know when I’ll feel like blogging again, so don’t pester me in the meantime.
GAGG: 163.56 miles Thanks to walking around Binghamton and New York City (especially NYC).
I’m not quite ready to blog about our trip (which was fucking awesome, by the way) – I’m still settling back in at home, and just feel like mooching around tonight and watching Dark Shadows and working on my scrapghan. But I wanted to update the GAGG mileage, and also to report that – what the fuck have I gotten myself into? – I just signed up for a gym membership at the Peak Fitness down the street from us. It’s a little more expensive per month than the Student Resource Center on campus, but since Peak Fitness 1-isn’t on campus and 2-is so very close to us, it’s more likely that I’ll actually use that membership regularly. (Greg signed up, too. In fact, it was his idea.)
I intended to make some ice cream tonight, but I forgot to put the ice cream maker tub thingy in the freezer last night, so looks like I can’t make ice cream til tomorrow. Oh well. I’m making a batch of peach ice cream for me, and a batch of chocolate for Greg (since he thought peach sounded gross). And tomorrow night we’re going to go see the premiere of some friends’ film: Sick and the Dead! I can’t fucking wait. I’ve been avidly looking forward to it since we saw a brief bit of it a month or two ago.
More later. I’ve got to go get started on the highly important task of vegging out.
Well, the car was fixed before 9:00am, because we fixed it. Go us!
I called Geico, and the tow truck was not going to be anywhere near as prompt as it has been in the past: I called at 6:30, the tow truck guy was on the phone around ten minutes later, and located in Durham, but it would be about an hour and a half to two hours before he could send someone out to us. So, not “you’ll be arriving at the dealership around 8:00 or 8:30″ but “someone will be leaving from here to go get you and your car at around 8:00 or 8:30.” The Geico lady (who, apparently, was having a loud party in the background – it was a little hard to hear/understand her) had him “confirm” the time right before she ended the call, and at 7:00am, he was still saying 1.5-2 hours. So, I talked it over with Greg, we realized most likely we would get to the dealership at 9:00am at the absolute earliest, and that’s a generous estimate, so probably closer to ten. At that point, the dealership can very easily have all the customers they can fit in on a Saturday and be turning people away, so I called Geico back and told them to cancel the tow truck. There’s no point in waiting around to get towed out to the dealership, have the tow truck leave while we’re finding out they can’t work us in, and then call Geico back, arrange another tow back to the house, and wait around for that. Plus – Geico tends to get rather pissy if you arrange too many (ie, more than one) tow in a short amount of time. Back when my Taurus was dying, I had to get it towed to a mechanic’s to find out what was wrong, then a couple days later I had to get it towed back home since it wasn’t worth fixing and the mechanic wanted it off his lot, understandably, and about a week later I got a nasty letter from Geico informing me that, while I paid for their emergency roadside service, their rates were based on an estimated usage, and I was using it more than they had estimated, and if I didn’t cut it out, they wouldn’t be able to extend the emergency roadside service to me anymore. I thought that was pretty fucking uncalled-for, unsympathetic, and unrealistic. I mean, my car was dying, it’s not like I was *trying* to dick Geico around and make them tow me all over town. I was just trying to get my car fixed if it was feasible, and it was only two tows. That’s really my only beef ever with Geico, they’ve been the bomb otherwise. I’m just saying, when you only have one car, and it has to go to and from a mechanic’s and it can’t do that on its own…You’re going to need a tow or two. And for most of the time I owned that car, it didn’t need to get towed. It broke down once right after I got it, on the way back from the zoo. And I think that was it until it died. So, three tows over a couple years? I think is reasonable. Especially since the way I see it, I pay for the roadside service every 6 months, so I should at least be entitled to one tow every 6 months, or one roadside service call (be it tow, jumpstart, unlocking, whatever). And we almost never use it. Anyway. And we didn’t use it today, because there was no point.
So what did we do? We walked down to Firestone, a good 30 minute walk, and bought a new battery. Greg had called ahead to make sure they had what we needed in stock, but they kind of forgot to mention that they were 1-pretty much assuming we would be bringing the car down there and they would be changing the battery out for us, and 2-they definitely wanted the old battery. So when we got there, the dude that was helping us at first said he couldn’t do it, and I pretty much lost about half my shit. I mean, I wasn’t too nasty, but I was a little stank about it. But I think I can be excused because I didn’t cuss, and I was operating on three and a half hours of sleep and stress over the trip and a couple upsets already anyway. Luckily for me, Greg was there, and much more level-headed, and it occurred to him to ask if the guy would sell us the battery if, after we installed it, we drove the old battery back, and he decided he could do that. Which as far as I’m concerned, was a lifesaver. Also, after I was cheered up, I asked him about their waits on Saturdays, and found out they weren’t very busy at all. I didn’t get into specifics, but he also didn’t seem put off by the fact that we have a hybrid, so in the future, Firestone might be a viable alternative to the dealership, if they’re not afraid to, like, change our oil (seriously – Jiffylube won’t fucking do it, it was like, “Oh, you have a hybrid? Oh hell no.”) and they’re not anywhere near as brutal to get into as the dealership.
However, there is no reason to go to either place to get the battery changed, because we have now successfully changed our own battery, and it was pretty fucking easy. (Although the dealership charges a flat fee for labor per hour, so a battery change there is like $150 – at Firestone it would be around $100 for the battery and labor, since they charge $15 for the labor to change a battery. Which is way more reasonable than…let’s see, about $65 for labor at the dealership, since it takes about 15 minutes to change the battery out.) The walk back from Firestone wasn’t so awesome, because we were carrying a 30 pound battery, and it’s kind of unwieldy. We took turns carrying it, but I’m pretty sure Greg’s turns were longer than mine. I thought I’d be able to carry it more easily, since I used to carry Sarah around when she was like 40 pounds, and it was no big thing. I wasn’t realizing that 1-I was younger and probably (okay, definitely, but shut up) in better shape back then, and 2-she’s shaped very differently from a battery, and could also hold onto me, which helped me carry her. But we made it back, and installed the battery, and the car started right up, and hell fucking yeah.
We returned to Firestone to drop off the old battery, then went to Bruegger’s for a celebratory breakfast (since we were both too tired to cook). Then, more awesomeness! Whenever the stereo in the car is disconnected from the power (ie, the battery dies, or whatever else), it locks itself and needs a code to turn back on. We bought the hybrid used, so we do not have the code, and last summer when we had the battery replaced, we forgot to ask the guys at the dealership to tell us the code (since it’s on the back of the stereo, so you have to take that shit out and look on the back to get the code). They entered the code before we picked the car up, but we forgot to ask for it, so we didn’t have it after switching out the battery today. And neither of us was looking forward to a ten-hour drive with no stereo. Greg called the dealership – and they didn’t have the code in our records, but the guy on the phone (Kelly) managed to work some magic and figure it out for us, without us taking the car in or having to take the stereo out ourselves. Fucking AWESOME!
Greg has a show tonight in Raleigh, that I wanted to go to, but it was better for me to stay home and get shit done in preparation for leaving tomorrow, so that’s what I’m doing. Mainly packing and laundry, so we don’t have to come home to the ridiculous pile of clothes I hadn’t washed yet. Getting that shit done tonight means I will be less stressed over it sooner, rather than later, and also means I don’t have to run around frantically getting shit done tomorrow morning. So hopefully I can sleep in a bit tomorrow morning, run by Harris Teeter to get Lance & Angelique some mustard they can’t get up there that they miss, have sushi for lunch with Dara and Tiffianna (who are very, very, VERY kindly cat-sitting for us), and then we leave for NEW YORK!
I’m so excited! I’m so looking forward to this! A whole week off from work, a trip to New York, and getting to see some friends we haven’t seen in a while! We’ve got a working car, and a working stereo, and a couple Wodehouse audiobooks for the drives up and down, and I’m almost packed (just waiting on some laundry to get done), and yay, yay, yay! I just need to figure out what knitting to take, and I will be set.
So, I’ve been awake since 5:30. I got to sleep last night around 2:00. Just dumb old nervousness.
Greg was sick yesterday, so around 12:30, he asked me to drive him home. We get home just fine. I’ve got a game with some friends that I need to leave around 5:00 for, so 5:00 rolls around and I go out to leave, only it looks like the car’s battery is dead. Which is fucking awesome, since we’re supposed to leave Sunday morning for New York (end sarcasm). The dealership’s open until seven on Fridays, so Greg calls to try and make an appointment for this morning, or at least let them know we’re coming, but doesn’t get an answer, so he leaves a message and doesn’t hear back. I go to my game, get home later than I was expecting – around 1:00, and then of course I’m hungry so it’s closer to 2:00 when I finally roll up into bed to get to sleep.
Goddammit – I just fed the cats, and Chalupa ate a little bit, and now she’s run into the living room to puke on some of the blankets on the couch. (We had guests stay over Thursday night – that was fun, but I’ll blog about it later.) Just about the only instance in which Skeeter is much smarter than Chalupa is puking – he seems to realize that I much prefer him to puke on the wood floors, as they’re easier to clean, so if he’s on the bed or something, he’ll jump down. Or maybe *he* just prefers to puke on the floors. Anyway, Chalupa will puke wherever she is – even if she’s sitting on me while I’m sleeping, I’ll wake up and have to give her a few shoves to get her to move. Or roll over and pick her up off me, since I sleep on my stomach-ish it’s hard to reach around and pick her up without rolling over. Anyway, cat puke, yay.
So, back to the car. Since the car is not starting, it has to get towed into the dealership. The service center there is first come, first serve, of course, and so I need to get there early, before they open, basically, to be sure that they’ll be able to fit us in today. Since they’re not open tomorrow, and not getting this fixed today is going to severely fuck with our plans for the New York trip. (I mean, I guess we’d just end up getting a battery somewhere, and trying to replace it ourselves without deploying the air bags. Oh yeah, Jerry came to give me a ride to Eric’s game last night, and we tried jumping the car in the hopes that we could recharge the battery, and no dice.) So I have to call Geico pretty fucking early (ie, in about ten minutes at 6:30) to make sure there’s plenty of time for the tow truck to show up, so that I can be at the dealership by eight, and actually hopefully before then. Killing time outside the dealership before they open is going to suck, especially if the tow truck guy is as prompt as he’s been in the past. Then I could be looking at killing a fucking hour.
On top of all this, service there is first come, first serve, but since the car has to be towed in, I really don’t think there’s any way to get it “in line” in front of the service center’s entry bays, and I’m a little worried that I might have trouble convincing the service center peeps that I really was there that early if there’s a line of cars lined up in front of the entry bay doors, and those people don’t want to wait to be seen or whatever, and won’t back me up that I was there first. I wouldn’t normally assume that there aren’t crazier people than me, and who wants to get up THAT early and wait THAT long at the dealership before it opens if they don’t have to, but trying to get worked in on a Saturday can be brutal, so, yeah, by the time they open I’m thinking there could easily be ten, twenty cars in line, and I’ll just be chilling at the door, with the car put wherever the tow truck can get it, so… I don’t know, I’m just worried, of course, since that’s one of the things I excel at.
Although, I guess on the plus side, I’ve had extremely little sleep all week, and even more so last night, so I’m very cranky, and my stomach is upset as fuck (I seriously hope the tow shows up not too early, so that my time away from an accessible bathroom is minimized), and I’m super stressed out about whether the car will be fixed by tomorrow – so, if some people decide to be jerks and claim they got there before me when they didn’t, I’ll probably burst into tears on the spot, and that might help convince some other people that I’m not lying. Or they might just think I’m a crazy hysterical crying bitch. Who knows.
Also, the dealership’s shuttle service doesn’t run today (or if it does it’s only between the mall and the dealership), so I have to be there until the car is fixed (or until they close, which, if the car isn’t fixed, would suck some more, and probably require another tow truck, and then Geico would be pissy AND we’d have to figure out what to do about the battery). Oh yeah, I probably should have mentioned: this battery was put in new last summer, and was supposed to last around seven years, maybe eight, so…yeah. Maybe if I’m lucky, it’ll get replaced for free. That would be cool. But right now I just want it fucking replaced today. Especially since I still need to go run some errands (that need a car to be run) before the New York trip.
Ai yi yi. So, I’m going to take some deep breaths, try to chill the fuck out (but I’m not hopeful about that), and go call Geico. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Actually, you’re probably sleeping right now, but that’s cool. You’d cross your fingers if you were awake, right, so that’s got to be worth something even though you’re not.
GAGG: 149.56 miles
Damn. Why does mowing the front yard suck so much? Especially the parts near the driveway and the street?
I’m starting to think we should just pave our entire yard. I mean, not really really, but yeah, kind of.
Also? Greg took me out to dinner (Sitar) and a movie (Iron Man) Saturday night, and both were fucking awesome!
Well, like a dodo, I forgot to pick up some more batteries today for the camera, so I have no pictures to share. But I finished refashioning that white dress with the border print, and it’s pretty cute. I also picked up a sort of Hawaiian print dress I was working on about a year ago, and the top is indecently loose, so I started ripping seams to tighten it up a bit. Ripping the seams on it is not easy going, because I was pretty confident it would turn out alright, at least up top, so I sewed it pretty securely. If anything, I was worried it would be a bit too snug, so I thought I’d be smart to give myself a little extra ease – not so much. Anyway.
I’m feeling much better than I was, although my left leg was kind of a bitch on the way home from work tonight, and the knee is cranky. (Luckily my right knee is much better, so I can use the bandage on the left one. Yeesh. But I don’t anticipate it being painful and cranky for as long as the right knee was.)
I can’t believe I forgot to mention this, but two weekends ago I took over mowing the lawn from Greg. Mowing the lawn used to be one of his chores – goddammit, Chalupa just puked. Hang on. – Okay, so we kind of split up chores around the house, and Greg used to mow the lawn, but it fucked up his allergies something awful. Actually, I don’t know why he started mowing the lawn, since I used to mow it when we lived at the house on 15-501, for the very reason that he has bad allergies and I generally don’t. After 15-501, we lived in an apartment complex in Carrboro, and didn’t have a yard *to* mow. Then we bought this place, and Greg mowed. Anyway, last time he mowed, his allergies went fucking nuts for about a week, so I decided I should take over mowing. Which I did two weekends ago, and it was pretty grueling, since it’d been a little while since the last time Greg had mowed. I also mowed this past weekend – I’ve still got some of the front yard to finish, though, but it rained Sunday and it looked like rain tonight, so I didn’t mow. Anyway, it was hard work, and I sure did walk back and forth enough, so I’m counting it for GAGG.
And tonight, after dinner, we went for a walk in the neighborhood, but down a couple streets we haven’t been done before. It was very pretty, and we met the cutest bearded schnauzer – she started barking at us at first, but there was a little sign that said to say her name and she’d stop barking, and I did, and she did. So polite and cute!
Anyway, so that brings it to about GAGG: 148.56 miles
