September 2006 Archives

We finally made it out to Leavenworth, WA, aka the Bavarian Village. It was more strip mall with a theme than quaint quasi-Alpine village. After two hours of driving, it really seemed like kind of a waste, though seeing signs for absolutely everything in Oktoberfest font was entertaining. Ye Old Safeway, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, 76 gas, Subway, McDonalds, and last but certainly not least: Starbucks. On the bright side, I know where I don't want to spend my birthday :)

So after being nonplussed and disappointed by Leavenworth, we continued on to Cashmere, home of Liberty Orchards (the aplets and cotlets people). Since it was Sunday, the factory wasn't running, so we skipped the "view the machinery" tour, and instead stocked up on some locoum of various flavors. Cashmere was almost completely dead on a Sunday afternoon too, but I kind of expected that. On the way back through Leavenworth, we stopped at the Bavarian Bakery and I picked up three loaves of bread: cinnamon for french toast today, German rye which sadly has no seeds -- I guess it's Russian rye that I like, and German white, which was neither German, nor white. Discuss.

All complaining aside, we were lucky to take in such gorgeous scenery. Washington is so amazingly beautiful from the mountains to the trees to the winding rivers of actual clear clean water. Maybe some day soon we'll actually get off our asses and go camping.

We came home and rearranged furniture in the bedroom (a continuation of my master reorganization plans from last month). I tackled more kitchen cleaning while Richard tackled more bedroom and living room cleaning. Together we got to bask in the glow of accomplishment for the weekend. Oh yeah, and watch the beginning of The Amazing Race! I'm so very pleased that both The Amazing Race and Survivor have come back this season stronger and far more interesting than the last few lackluster seasons. It's been quite a while since the first episode of either one really bothered to reach out and grab my attention, so I'm giddy with anticipation for the rest of the season!

After not being able to sleep well last night, I got up to call AmEx once again bright and early in the morning. Spoke to someone, explained the situation (again), got transferred (again), got told this time that no one would be able to help me until MONDAY. And no one would be able to do anything until the charges posted to my account.

Whore number 1 was all snippy about my normal and authorized charges, trying to tell me that there'd be a hold on the account until I paid the $2k balance there. Yeah. Well the cycle doesn't even close until the 20th, you fucking whore. Transferred to another dude who can't help me this glorious morning. Who instead, gives me a NON-TOLLFREE number to contact the fraud department on Monday.

So. AmEx, after being my go-to card and provider for the past two and a half years, is now on my consumer shitlist. Number of representatives spoken with: 6. Number of times I've been assisted in any way: 1. This is not a good ratio.

My Amex got declined tonight, which is pretty odd for a no-limit card that's got a 100% clean account history and is fully paid off. I called Amex, got someone in India, he checked my account, and said that there were charges in the amount of $5000 and $9995 today and the finance review department would like to speak to me. Oh. But they are closed. Call back tomorrow.

Umm, I did not make those charges, transfer me to fraud. Oh fraud couldn't do anything about it without going through finance review. Transfer me to your supervisor.

Transfer to American woman. She reviews the account. States the charges again, and says they are still pending, but call back finance review tomorrow. No, transfer me to YOUR supervisor.

Transfer to another Indian man. He reviews the account, says that finance review would like to speak to me, but they aren't open right now. I said that I'll be sure to note their hours as the reason I cancel my Amex account. Transfer me to someone in fraud prevention now.

Transfer me to another American woman. She takes a moment to review, says the charges are from some phone place in Florida, and I said I didn't make the charges, please cancel the account immediately. She said that since the charges were pending, they couldn't open a fraud case yet, but they are declining further charges on the card, and she cancelled it immediately. 7 to 10 business days for a new card, new account number, etc. And, I can call back as soon as I see the charges hit the account. I marveled at the finance review department actually approving these charges, and yet! not notifying me in any way. Not phone, not email, nothing.

She apologized, I felt slightly better and hung up the phone. The only way that FOUR different cards could have been hit in the past year is someone skimming my accounts. Somewhere. Is it fast food places? I know the Chase one was never used for that, and I don't think the Citibank was. Capital One was used for that on occasion, and Amex, all the time.

I suspect Arbys. I'm highly, highly annoyed by this, but hopefully with charges THIS FREAKING LARGE, finally someone will track down the pigfuckers doing this.

Thanks to Adam for explaining what I'd done with the site :) Apparently I had this set to show only the past 7 *days* instead of the past 7 entries. My slackitude as of late became glaring. So, back on track, and a promise of more frequent updates.

I finally finished Oblivion -- there are still a few side quests that I'm probably going to tackle before I send it back to Gamefly, but all of the achievements have been unlocked. If I'd paid $60 for the game, I still think it would have been worth the money given the amount of play time I got out of it, but I'm just as happy to see it going back to the GameFly in exchange for something new.

My Dad's 59th birthday is next week, so I called my mom to ask what he wanted. The usual, so I picked out something mailorder that he liked last time :) They're still thinking of coming out in November, and I'm getting more used to that idea. Having them here while Richard is gone would probably only add to my stress rather than allay it.

In other news, we're on track for my sanity break beginning Friday. Gbic is booked at puppy camp from Friday through Tuesday morning. After we drop Gbic off, we'll take the car in to get various maintenance type activities done. Saturday we're leaving the world behind (-ish) and heading up to Leavenworth, WA, aka The Bavarian Village. We'll play some mini-golf and have a bavarian good time, or something. Maybe we'll detour up to Cashmere and see Liberty Orchards, woo! At some point in my life, I'd actually like to go up and see Vancouver or Victoria, BC, but an overnight trip isn't in the cards right now.

Speaking of trips, in a few months, my 35th birthday is looming. Fortunately it looms on a Saturday, yay! We'll have to figure out something fun, exciting, and yet reasonable to celebrate my joining the 35 to 49 bracket. Eww, ewww, and ewww!

What the hell just ate my front page?

That pretty much sums up the end of August. Thanks to some changes on the part of one of our vendors, the past two weeks have been inordinately frustrating. They've completely forgotten what customer service is, and frankly I no longer have any hope that they can turn the corner on this. I'm no longer willing to help them or be understanding while they work through these trying times. Understanding is for friends, not for an entity you pay tens of thousands of dollars to each month.

Speaking of friends, Leslie had her tonsils out on 8/23, and as expected, it was not a pleasant experience. I did a lot of cooking during a very hot weekend last week when she was finally ready to start adding in more semi-solid foods to her diet. I learned how to make Cream of Broccoli soup and Corn Chowder. I also made baked beans and cajun rice for Adam. All were appreciated, and it felt good to cook again. I'm still working my way back into that groove, but as we head into fall, it will be a lot easier. No A/C on the lower level makes for some very miserable kitchen experiences if the outside temp is above 80.

Leslie also finally made me sign up for GameFly, and I got my first game: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. That has sucked down over 100 hours of my time in the past two weeks or so. Very well done game, but I think I'm starting to get tired of it. I need to re-examine my queue there and then return Oblivion and get something else.

On the 18th, the menagerie had their annual checkups. Mustard's heart murmur is no more. The vet explained that holding the chest cavity too tightly can cause a mechanical murmur, and given that 3 of the 4 vets who diagnosed or confirmed the murmur were men, I think that's a highly plausible explanation. He's never had any symptoms either, so I think I worried about him for the past year for nothing :) Mustard was 15lbs on the nose, and Mayo was a whopping 21lbs 6oz. He's a big boy! So, the vet recommended a new diet regime since obviously the past 3 years of them being on the Iams weight control food has done nothing but make them fatter. The darlings are now on a wet kitten food diet, supplemented with tartar control treats. They're enjoying it, even though I'm not quite sure how much that's adding to the food bill. Gbic was up to 42lbs so, we all need to start walking again.

Mike and Lori brought little Kaelyn into the world on 8/20 and everyone's doing well! I can only hope that Mike sings her to sleep at night with "The Joy Of Cola" :)

My dad is retiring at the end of October and is generally being a bitch about coming out to visit while Richard's gone for a week and a half at the beginning of October. He wants to come out with Mom and visit the first week of November. I have informed them that the beginning of October was already pushing it as far as the start of the rainy season, but as I've learned in the past nearly 35 years, reasoning with them is next to impossible.

And last but not least, Bob found and lost the love of his life in less than a week's time. He's taking it pretty hard, but I think he also understands that you can learn lessons from even the most painful experiences sometimes.

Tomorrow my end of the month task needs to be completed, but I'm just going to try to get a good night's sleep.