Merry, Merry Madness

Once, several years ago, the mother sent me to a local mall on Christmas Eve for a last-minute gift. It took me three times as long to get in the mall lot, find a parking space, and then get off the mall parking lot as it did to dash in and get the solo gift, I vowed never to do it again.

I’ve kept my word. In fact, in the week or so before the holiday, I still don’t go near a mall. I try to not go in any stores at all during those final, frazzled days. So it was with much dismay that I realized a shopping trip was inevitable. Not at the mall, thank God, but worse still, the grocery store and Wal-Mart. The mother has been eating and drinking cleaning supplies, so I had to get more as we start to approach the home stretch. The groceries? I needed to get ingredients for the mock soufflé for Christmas with the family – away, that my pure genius forgot about Thursday night. And, I got some more things for post-Christmas with family friends – home, the visit that has touched off this mad bout of cleaning.

I also had to pick up more Christmas cards at Walgreens which I’d ordered online. I thought I’d have enough, but apparently Ozzie is a more popular dude on YorkieTalk.com than I gave him credit for. (He continues to get all kinds of cards from all over the country – even the world – daily. Three more came yesterday.) I’ll apologize now for the tardiness of this last batch which includes some of my local, real-life pals. I figured those would only need a day or so at most to arrive so I saved some of those for last.

Wal-Mart was the insane asylum one would expect it to be with less than two days left for shopping. I was glad to escape it. The soundtrack of screaming children put my teeth on edge. I stopped off at Walgreens to get my cards but they weren’t ready yet. The machine had broken down so I was about sixth in the queue. Great.

I went grocery shopping. Almost as maddening as Wal-Mart, but not quite. The most frustrating thing? Some of the key things I went for couldn’t be found. So, off to the grocery at the other end of the street. Things were only a little better there, but at least it wasn’t as busy.

I grabbed some fast food (pot pies at KFC) and back to Walgreens. Success! The cards were done. It was buzzing in there, too, so I was glad to make a relatively quick exit. Once in the car, I opened the box. Thank God I did. This wasn’t the design I had used before. And wait. Who ARE these people? My card doesn’t even have people. It’s a pic of Ozzie and Toby. Sh*t!

I looked at the box. Wasn’t even MY name on the box. I dashed back inside where the girl in photo apologized profusely. She’d just grabbed the wrong box. (They only had about 30 of them on the counter. Clearly, I wasn’t the only last-minute card purchaser. And, of course, they now have 10-cent prints going on. You know I’ll be all over that this week.)

The moral of this little adventure is this: It’s NOT a pretty sight out there. Get what you have to get – and only what you have to get – NOW. I suspect it’s going to get a whole lot crazier really fast.

Calendar Dog

WARNING: If you aren't in the mood for cute, cuddly, and adorable, stop reading now. And don't look at the photos!

My friends at YorkieTalk are putting together their 2009 calendar. So, they've asked their donating members to submit some photos for consideration. I think they're choosing five photos per month to use. So, I have to send in some of Ozzie. I know I'm biased but I think he's one of the cutest things ever on four legs.

You can submit up to three. Well, here's TWO that I know I'm going to send. Haven't worked out a third one yet.

Sorry for the dripping in cuteness entry. Couldn't help myself. They'll get thousands of entries, no doubt, because Yorkies are, too adorable. But whether he gets chosen or not, I think he's calendar material.

Mail Call!

I may be a newly converted computer geek, but I still love to get mail. Real, physical, take-it-out-of-the-mailbox, mail. Sadly, 95 percent of such correspondence is a bill, a solicitation for a donation, or addressed to "resident" or "occupant."

But Saturday was different. I actually got three pieces of bonafide mail, two of which were NOT in one of the above categories. Because I was zealously beginning the porch project, I barely looked at my mail until Saturday night and I didn't even read most of it until last night. But it was thrilling.

First, there was a birthday card from a family friend. Mom saw it first, noted the return address, and quizzically asked: "Did Chris send you a birthday card?" Ummm, haven't opened it, so I don't know. But yes, it was indeed a birthday card, with a Lowe's gift card to boot. (Does she know me or what?) There's just one problem: It's not my birthday. Well, not yet.

Apparently, Chris got June and July confused this year. But hey, five weeks early is better than five weeks late, right? I'll try not to kid her too much. Maybe this means I get a birthday season. Hmmm. Interesting concept.

Second, I got my copy of YorkieTalk Cooks, the official YT cookbook. I was so surprised by the quality. Much more than I anticipated. A really darling compilation of stuff I may have to try. (And Betty Crocker, I ain't.) Good food, cute Yorkie pictures, and something I had a small hand in helping to produce. (I did some recipe editing.) It will get favored status on ye old bookshelf.

Last, but certainly not least, I got the EOB from the insurance company. So, here it is in black and white, the final analysis of just how much the injured midigit will cost me. I opened the envelope slowly, pulled out the thick stack of paperwork, winced, and then jumped in to see the damage.

As I suspected, there were some pretty hefty "in-network discounts" applied, cutting the $1,800+ total by more than half. A little quick math going on before I continued to assess the page: 20 percent of $900 is $180. OK. Lots better than $475.

But wait. As I pan across the grid for each charge it says I have no charges that weren't covered. Good. I have no deductible. Right. That was the thing I liked best about this plan and why I pay a few bucks more each payday for it. Coinsurance, 0, copayment, $50. OK. The $50 I knew because I paid that at the ER before I left. Then, the bottom line kicker is the summary line.

YOUR TOTAL RESPONSIBILITY TO YOUR PROVIDER: $50. Translation: All I owe is the copay -- which is paid!

My insurance plan is even better than I thought. While I'm happy that I now owe nothing, it still doesn't change my initial thought that our healthcare system needs a lot of fixing.

Just don't send it to the ER.

Props to OPB & the People Who Love Them

For a person that a year ago had all but abandoned her own, it's been other people's blogs -- or the OPB -- that have fed what is now an addiction for me.

Previously, I alluded to finding a "whole new world" of individuals through This D*mn House. Early on, that included Ann at Velvet Lava. Ann has a blogful of mouth-watering goodies. Her posts are littered with eye-popping dessert photos and to-die-for recipes, all part of her love affair with chocolate. She also has an acerbic wit and a sense of humor that parallel my own.

I "met" Ann at YorkieTalk last year. (She has two darling fur babies, one of whom has the best name in dogdom.) I was delighted to find that there was indeed a fellow blogger among my YT pals. I am not a cook or baker by any stretch of the imagination, but I love to eat, so I am always awestruck by Ann's concoctions -- when I'm not wallowing in the cuteness of Wylie and Marcel Verdel Purcell, whom I still maintain has the best name in dogdom.

I stumbled upon Vicki at Not So SAHM very recently and quite by accident. I found her, by all things, through a search I did on self-propelled lawnmowers, having recently "inherited" one of my own. I laughed at her account of mowing the lawn. I laughed even harder when I read one of the comments left by one of her regulars: I’ve mowed the lawn twice in the 9 years I’ve been married ... Ours had that self-propel thing on it, too… it self-propelled me right into the side of a car the first time I used it. (Boy, could I relate to that! My first experience nearly took my shoulder of out its socket while simultaneously hurling me down the driveway.) While I neither stay at home or am a mom, I'm vicariously enjoying the wholesome adventures of Vicki and her two young daughters, particularly the vivacious toddler that is Ashlyn. You just never know what is going to happen next! I also like to peek in on whatever Vicki is creating for her online business SewPetit. I marvel at her talents because I struggle with simple buttons and hems.

Very, very recently, I got my first issue of This Old House magazine and discovered HouseBlogs.net. That has brought me into contact with hundreds of other perpetual home renovators (read: crazy DIYers).Talk about some beautiful places. And some of the jobs people are doing put me to shame. I am so glad that some of them have found me, too. (I don't know who most of you are, just that you're coming from HouseBlogs.) But some folks have left me comments like Jennifer at Tiny Old House, C&C at Adventures on Willow, and Mike at Rural Renovators, so I'll try to keep up with their progress, too. There are a lot of others I'm following, so I'll be updating Sites I Like real soon.

The person to whom primary blogging credit/blame goes to though is my colleague, KayO. I've been reading her blog for years, a great source of inspiration when I started. I love reading about her travels, taking in her varied performance and book reviews, and just soaking up some of the ever eclectic Kayness. Hey, how many people do you know that can successfully combine Pan, Buddha, Krusty the Klown, and Jerry Garcia in their office, much less in a single blog post? I'm proud to say I know one.

But for all the OPBs, they'd be mere soliloquoys without the PWLT or People Who Love Them. Monkeygirl and CD, two regular commenters of mine, and two of the "Excellent Eight," my circle of high school friends, are very loyal followers. You couldn't ask for a better or more supportive audience. Love ya, ladies!

My friends have come to regard our individual friends outside the immediate circle as "bonus friends." That aptly describes how I feel about some of the OPB readers. Because some of the OPBs like KayO and Ann and Vicki have been so good to me, their peeps are visiting, too. Many of those visitors are bloggers as well.

And so the circle expands ...