CafeChatNoir

In theory, this video should work – if not, I can’t figure out embedding, but there is video -  it is at Facebook, and should be available for all to see.

OK, Facebook’s definition of “everyone” is limited to the FB world, so here it is on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHNPEwt1BIs

Cause that’s when these two darlings will be coming home:

and

The picture quality isn’t spectacular cause it’s a scan off the adoption contract, their pics have already been taken off the website.

For the moment, their names are San Diego and Sylvia – but we’ll be watching and seeing what they name themselves.  (Even the shelter folks said, “You don’t have to keep the names!” and agreed that they do tend to name themselves.)  They are about 2 months old and were bottle-fed fosters and are totally socialized and even like dogs already.  And Sylvia doesn’t look as angry as she does in her picture.

I realized that I was well beyond ready for cats again and to the point of NEEDING them around the house – it’s been over a year since Target went off to his great kitty reward.  So the other day I headed over to the Fairfax County Animal Shelter and started looking.  I wanted young cats since I figured they’d have a better chance at adapting to a dog, and I wanted two of them – I really figured this would take a while, cause they had lots of singles, or “doesn’t like other cats” or “doesn’t like dogs”.  But when I walked in on Tuesday, there was a sign on one of the kitty condos for the volunteers to keep it empty since there would be four fosters coming in on Wednesday.  Went in yesterday and they hadn’t arrived yet.  Damn!  Checked the website last night and they had been added.  You can bet I was there today at noon sharp when they opened.

Went in and saw they were there and fussed all over them and went back to the desk and filled out the “I live here and don’t have a landlord” slip so I could play with them loose in the visit room.  The volunteer had some fun with me when I came back in and said,
“You’re on the ball and so are others – two are already gone!”
*blink*blink*
“You’re kidding!”
“I am, I already put two in the visiting room and getting the other two so you can all play.”

OMG, talk about cute overload.  They were a little wary at first coming out of their cozy condo into the big visiting room.  (Let’s face it, when you’re 2 pounds anything bigger than a bathroom is HUGE.)  But they were quick to explore and start playing and next thing I know San Diego is sitting in my lap looking up at me as if to say, “OK, when are we going home?”  Well, one decision made.

Sylvia wasn’t quite as quick in sensing a sucker when she saw one but decided after not very long that I was OK and came over for scratches and pettings every time I called, and was quite happy to play with the feather-on-a-stick game with me, and headbutt me for attention.  Shirley and Skyler are both awesome, too, and will be snapped up soon if they haven’t been already.  They’re on the website, and it’s updated every hour.

Off to sign adoption papers!  Things have changed a bit since the last time I got a cat from the county shelter.  (1992-ish?)  It used to be that you paid some kind of spay deposit that I think either turned into a discount depending on the vet you used, or you got a refund when you brought the spay certificate in.  But you took the cat home that day and it was up to you to get them fixed when they were old enough.

Well, it seems that too many people can’t be trusted to actually go get it done.  (Which doesn’t shock me.)  Now, they go from the shelter to the vet they use and get their heath checkup and spay and you pick them up from the vet.  So, Sunday night they’ll head over to the vet, Monday is the surgery and Tuesday I can go get them!

I’m going to be a basketcase this weekend.

The dull headache that has been plaguing me most of the day is finally dying down.

What kills me about this crap is that as my grandmother’s obsession with her finances took a hard right turn for the insanely paranoid, we at least had the rallying cry of “It’s on autopay” when it came to her bills and that would sort of settle her nerves.  It was completely true and hasn’t posed any problems.  Then this.  (And at least it wasn’t my fault – lord knows my grandmother thinks I’m a moron as it is.)

As it stands right now, I’m fairly certain my grandmother doesn’t even realize what happened other than she got a phone call from someone at some financial institution.  And Sharyn & I aren’t going to tell her any different – it would just send her into another nervous breakdown and accomplish nothing, so we’re going with the stock phrase of, “Everything is fine, we double checked and it’s fine.”

I hate lying to her, but she no longer can stay calm about anything that involves her finances.  It’s not healthy for her, or the people around her – and her checkbook meltdowns tend to make the people around her want to drive her to the Grand Canyon and toss her in.

All I can say is Thank God for online account access and the power of attorney so I can just fix this shit on my end and we can go on with our happy little delusional dance of “Everything is fine” and she will continue to insist that she needs no help living alone.  And yeah, I’ve done nothing but enable that delusion.  (Brilliant, I know.)

I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if this was 25 years ago when the internet wasn’t in every house and long distance phone calls cost an arm and a leg…  I suspect someone from her bank would have already called Social Services on her when they realized she was ordering 6 copies of the same cancelled check and they would have done some arm twisting to get her to get real in home assistance.  And sometimes I wonder if that wouldn’t have been better.

OK, Citicard’s MasterCard division either has had a pretty impressive programming screwup, or they have found a great way to gouge customers that pay in full each month and generate no fees for them.

Went back and looked at a couple older statements.  Payment was due on the 11th, and the next statement was generated on the 17th.  So, when the system kicks over to 12:01AM on the 17th, all payments have been posted and processed, etc, etc.

The last statement, the payment was due on the 17th – and the next statement was also generated on the 17th.  So, yesterday at 12:01AM the system looked, saw no payment, triggered a late fee and a finance charge.  And none of the later activity from the 17th is taken into account.  It’s brilliant.  They still get their payment and get to tack on a $39 fee and a finance charge.  BECAUSE YOU CAN’T PICK THE DAY THEY AUTO-DEBIT – it’s always the due date.

And even better, looking at the statement that was generated yesterday – the next payment is due on October 16.  And the next statement will be generated October 16.  And if Citi can’t fix the autopay date, we’ll have this whole goatrope all over again.  (I’ll just cancel autopay before that happens, but sheesh.)

I’m still waiting to hear back from Citi on this nonsense.

Stranger?  My two Citi accounts don’t have this problem – my due dates are still a week before the statement date.  (Which is why I can admit a programming screwup is within the realm of possibility.)

Last November, something went awry with my grandmother’s MasterCard and she had to get a replacement card.  (I never was able to get the actual details of what happened.)  7 days of calls 24/7 because she was sure they wouldn’t send her a new one…  It was not a pleasant week, and I suspect if I go back and look at that week in Quicken, my bar tabs were probably twice as high as usual.

All has been well since then.  Until today.  I get a call from Sharyn, apparently my grandmother received a call from “the bank” (she was sure it was Wells Fargo) about “a discrepancy”…  Oh lord.  I quickly get online and all bank accounts look perfectly fine.  Nothing out of the ordinary. Wells Fargo is fine.  Wachovia is fine.  Sharyn then went to work getting my grandmother unscrewed from the ceiling – we both decided it was probably some damn marketing call.  (It is impossible to get a straight answer out of her when these types of things happen, because she doesn’t remember and then just fills in the blanks with things that help support her case for freaking out.)

Then I looked at what had downloaded into Quicken for her MasterCard account.  It had a due date of 9/17, and that payment had come out of the bank account on 9/17.  However, it was not reflected in the MasterCard balance *and* she was hit with a late fee and finance charge…

Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

This account has been setup for autopay for 15+ years – full balance due each month.  Never a problem.  The statement would say, “It’s coming out of the bank account on day X of the month.” and it did and all was fine, and the date was usually right around a week before the actual due date.  So….why the hell did it debit so late?  And trigger a late charge to boot?  Seriously, WTF?

I get online and look at the payment history.  It is showing a payment, on 9/17, for the full amount.  Then a phone payment.  Today.  For $20.  From the Wells Fargo checking account.  Apparently the “call from the bank” was MasterCard calling about the payment and then she made a phone payment.  And then it became “the bank called about a discrepancy…”

Then I also realized that Citi has changed the autodebit date to the due date.  They pick the date – there is no way to pick it yourself.  And because of how things are processed, I have to assume it “arrived” after 5PM, and then was considered “late” and then triggered this phone call which sent my grandmother into a complete tizzy.

Fan-fucking-tastic.  I’ve got an email into Citi cards to find out why if it shows a posted payment on 9/17 that there was a late charge and finance charge.  And what can be done to move that payment date so it’s actually *before* the due date like it used to be.

If not, then I have to cancel the autopay and do a manual online payment each month when the statement cycles, cause there is no way on God’s Green Earth I am going through this nonsense of her autopay being “late” every frigging month.

And I need to now sit down and figure out what the real balance is for the payment due in October, because there are 2 payments that aren’t showing on that statement and let Sharyn know cause when the paper statement hits the house, it’s not going to be right… (The autopay comes out of an account that I haven’t been able to wrestle away from my grandmother just yet…  The damn thing only pays the MasterCard and the power bill and still causes drama.)

*headdesk*

Not that I don’t love dogs like crazy.  I won’t even go so far as to say I’m not a dog person – I just suspect that I wasn’t built to be a dog *owner*…  (When we had dogs as kids, the first line responsibility belonged to our parents.  Our job was to love them and play with them.)

And yet, I have a dog.

For 10+ years, I was the primary owner of cats.  As much as some may say that cats are complicated, they’re actually quite simple.  If they want to be petted, they will stand on top of you.  If they want to be left alone, they will go to the other room.  If they are hungry, they will stand on top of you and yell at you.  If they’re ticked off at you, they will sit with their back to you for a while, and then go hork up a hairball in your favorite pair of shoes or on top of a freshly laundered sweater.  It’s really quite simple.

But dogs?  Dogs are actually complicated.  They want to make you happy all the time and they don’t get mad at you – they just get hurt at your actions.  Combine these qualities with my relative inexperience with dog ownership and insecurities over my abilities as an effective dog owner, and you have someone who will dump a ton of money at PetsMart, PetCo, and my favorite critter boutique, Outer Barks down at the beach.  (Hey, they have a yappy hour!)

Today, the awesomedog Moxley benefited yet again from my inexperience and insecurity.  The past couple days he’s been licking his paw, and I THOROUGLY inspected his paw pads for rocks, pebbles, twigs, cuts and any other thing that could be stuck in his foot.  Then I finally figured out it was because his thumbnail (dew claw?  I thought they were higher on the leg, but I don’t know…) had not only gotten fairly long, but the little guy had snagged it on something and it had a crack in it.  A quick inspection of his other nails showed it was time for a trimming.  (Sooner than usual because neither one of us has gotten the exercise we should have, and he’s not gotten the benefit of the natural nail file of sidewalks.)

So, given that I have NO confidence in my canine-nail-trimming abilities, and even if I got it right, Mox would know I was freaked out and it would freak him out, so we went out on a grand adventure that I simply told him was, “Hey, we’re going to PETCO!!!!!!!!!”

Which was actually a bit of a bait and switch to say the least.  First, we had to swing by the vet’s office for a rabies certificate (the office is in the same shopping center as the PetCo) because I discovered that the empty S hook on his collar *used to* hold his most recent rabies tag, and of course I couldn’t find the piece of paper certifying that he’d had the shot.  Despite the fact that nothing bad has happned to him at the vet, and they ADORE him (and I suspect they think I’m a moron) he was still not pleased to be standing around in that waiting room.  But we got our piece of paper and headed off to PetCo for a nail session.

While I have heard some horror stories about PetCo with grooming, when I called they said I could just bring him in and they do it right then and there.  My feeling is, if you’re willing to trim nails with the owner front and center, you are probably good at it.  When we walked in, Mox was already not happy cause we were NOT in “fun, games and treats” part of the store.  The lady that trimmed his nails was wonderful, didn’t drag him back behind the swing door/table and just did his nails while he was on the big carpeted welcome mat, so his spoiled backside didn’t even have to touch the tile floor.

And yet, despite the lack of actual trauma, I kept getting the “Why are you doing this to me??!?!?” look.  And of course, we were going to go get treats in the main store anyway.  But, because I had injured him so much by making him sit in the waiting room of the vet, and then getting his nails trimmed by a lovely lady who did nothing but tell him how handsome he was and how GOOD he was…  For a $10 nail trim (worth every penny), I spent $41 in PetCo.

But Moxley now has a lovely stuffed squeaky lamb, a bag of “Mellow Mutt” dried chicken strips (cage free, no less!) a Dingo bone (his favorite), a peanut butter/carob bone shaped treat, and a $5 donation to local rescue efforts.  And nicely trimmed nails.  And repeated praise from me about what a GOOD dog he is.

I’m either really good at this, or that dog has suckered me six ways from Sunday.  You decide.

So, yet another icon of my childhood has shuffled off this mortal coil.  Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary has passed away.

I’ll admit it – I always thought “Puff the Magic Dragon” was a dumb song.  Other than that one, their songs were played many a time in our house as we grew up.  My favorite was (and still is) “Leaving On A Jet Plane” – I suppose it could have had something to do with the fact that my Dad had to go jetting (or sailing) off for the Navy on many an occasion which made me identify with it.  Or I just liked the melody and the sentiment.  It could go either way.

I remember when we got our orders to Japan and on the way over there we stopped in Cali to basically “pickup” one of the LTs* and his wife who were also stationed to the squadron.  While we were having dinner “Leaving On A Jet Plane” came on the radio and I started singing along, cause I liked it and knew the words.  I was asked, “How do you know this song??!?”  I replied, “I don’t know, but my Mom and Dad like it.”  Despite my parents somewhat righter stance in life, they kept music out of it. :)  (This might have killed my Dad’s right credibility with the LT, but he was a good guy and didn’t hold his daughter’s statements against him.)

I don’t know why, but this really bummed me out.  I suppose it should be something I need to get used to given that I’m over 30, but I guess I’m just not ready for yet another person that I identified with as a child to be kicking off.  Damn.

*Mark Johnson, to whom I will forever be indebted for my knowledge of knowing that 12×12 = 144.

Tonight when I left the pool hall, I definitely felt something not quite right with my little world.*  Could have simply been the ozone in the air from the earlier storms, but seriously, I could smell something very wrong in the air.  I definitely know how ridiculous it sounds, but there was something very, very wrong in the air this evening, and I don’t know what it is, but I strongly suspect it can’t be good.

I can’t be the only one that has had one of these little odd incidents…  (Seriously, someone agree with me so I don’t get a paid 5150 vacation at InNova Medical.)  Perhaps it’s just remnants of typhoons when we lived overseas, but something just ain’t right.

Time will tell, as with all things.  But still, something is quite off-kilter somewhere.

* I am not a full on new-agey-crystal-hugging-hippie.  I’m still working hard to get to that level, but I’m not there just yet.  My “one step right of Attila the Hun” status from high school brings forth extra barriers.

Hit the pool for the dog day again this year and a good time was had by all.  Mox is not even slightly interested in the water, but there’s grass to run on and his adoring fan base of kids was there.

The kids, they do love Moxley.

I am embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know Jeff’s last name.  He was a regular at the pool hall, and we talked on as many occasions as possible.

I can’t say that Jeff’s life was necessarily an easy one.  From what I gathered, he was living on Social Security and some form of disability.  Some might say that he was an alcoholic who could not be rehabilitated, but I suspect they were not taking in all the issues in life he ran into that would (or would not) have been helped by any form of counsel or rehabilitation that was only directed at alcohol abstience.  Things had definitely not gone spectacularly for him, but he managed to find some things in life that brought him some measure of joy, and part of that was having some beers at the pool hall.  I’ll admit I first took notice of him as he had a slight passing resemblance to the angel in “Saving Grace” and I thought, “You do not ignore or fuck with one of God’s Minions.”  It didn’t hurt that he had a kind face by any means.

What I can say about this gentleman was that he was a kind person with a good heart and he cared.  When I would stop and ask him how things were going, he always turned it to how things were going for me, and if my brother was doing well.  I remember a few months back how happy he was that he was going to be spending time with his brother (who unfortunately passed away in the past month) and he SO enjoyed to talking about it afterwards.

When I heard tonight that he had passed, it was like someone had kicked me right in the gut.  For whatever reason, I expected that I would be able to stop and talk to Jeff, well, forever.

Jeff, I am sorry that life stomped on you so much.  But I thank you for the fact that every time I saw you and we talked, that you reminded me that there are just good, kind, caring people in the universe that still remember to ask about how others are doing despite their own situation.

I hope that wherever you are now, you find the peace and happiness that we all deserve.