Monthly Archives: August 2004

Today I went through my last photo download — over 240 photos including about 200 of the Orleans trip. (How cool is digital photography?!?!?!) I finally figured out how to change that HIDEOUS music that iPhoto has for its default and slide-showed (sorry, made up word) the whole kaboodle and wow, I got some fun shots. I have been trying to upgrade my web-skills and you can view my latest efforts here, at the Orleans 04 pages.

I have a couple of good quotes. This morning we met Priscilla, Uncle Marvin and Aunt Margaret for breakfast and Bob met them at the farmers’ market yesterday while I had my writers’ group. (I made a coconut cream pie and hey, I’d like to see Ginger and Maryanne’s recipe — it was a lot of steps and basically heart-attack in a pie pan, but YUMMY.) They got a bunch of seafood at the market and this morning Bob asked Marvin if he ate his oysters raw and Marvin said, “Nope, I don’t eat bait.”

The other quote is from Freaks and Geeks (please, drop whatever you are doing right now and run out and rent these DVDs, you will LOVE them). Nick wanted the freaks to go see Laser Floyd (as in Pink Floyd) at the Laser Dome and he says, “Come on, Laser Floyd isn’t going to be there forever.” Wah!

Part I Stupid Procedures

Remember I had this illegal charge on my VISA and I tried to call the company? Well (big surprise) they never called me back and I put off dealing with it and then when we got back from Orleans I saw a 2nd illegal charge. All together the illegal charges are only $67 but I called the Cred Union today and they blocked the cards but said I had to go in to order new ones. Well I need my credit card so I dropped everything and ran to the credit union. First I had to stand there almost 1/2 hour while we went through all these hoops. Their procedure has changed. Now if you want to dispute a charge you have to copiously document everything you did to try to resolve it — who you called, when, what time, etc. One of the charges said London on it, no phone number. How am I supposed to try to resolve that?

[ASIDE: if credit card fraud is such a big problem shouldn’t there be come sort of legal requirement for how credit card charges are recorded for your bill? An internet URL or working phone number? Wouldn’t this go a long way in helping to stop fraud? And why legal requirement? Why wouldn’t companies voluntarily do more to prevent fraud?]

After I filled out the form, it turned out to be the wrong form and now I have to fill out a different form and my spouse has to fill it out too and it has to be notarized and these ladies know jack about notarization since they said we had to do it at the same time and we had to do it there. Um, I’m a notary in the state of Oregon and my understanding is that a notarization is a legal verification of a signature — it shouldn’t matter who does it when and where as long as the signature is legally verified. But here’s the kicker: I have to attach a copy of the police report. Yes, I have to call the police and report $67 in illegal charges on my credit card bill.

So now I have two visits to the credit union by me, plus a visit by my husband, and wrangling the police report — how much time do I have to invest to get my $67? I’m seriously considering just paying it and screw them. I understand if they made it easy everyone would buy plane tickets to France and then dispute the charges — but this seems like an excessive pain in the ass for $67.

Part II Payback

This year I went to High Sierra Music Festival which is not my thing — it’s my husband’s thing and I was a reasonably good sport about it. But I used my scare vacation time to do something I really didn’t want to do and I’ve gone to tons of shows that I was lukewarm about and listened to tons of cds on car trips that I didn’t want to listen to and the reason I’m saying all this is that I don’t think my spouse has spent a fraction of the time that I have doing things he didn’t want to do to be a good sport for me. He did have to go see Ratt which probably should count double. I read in the paper today that Warrant is going to be in town (Berbati’s Pan … last time I saw them was at the Universal Amphitheater) and this would be the ultimate payback. Except I’m not too enthusiastic because Jani Lane isn’t with them – it’s Jamie St. James and some people at Metal Sludge said the show was majorly lame. (sorry can’t provide more specific link … can’t find it right now.) So perhaps payback will have to wait.

Today’s my 8th wedding anniversary. I’d love to write you a sappy story or post a sappy photo … but I’m running out the door, late already, to a work related conference on the coast.

I just previewed my freshly written post and hit the wrong button and now it’s gone. ARGH!

Here’s the synopsis: my f-ing Safari is on the fritz but fortunately browser slut so used Camino which promptly ate my post after I bragged about it.

My review of Spiderman: 3 1/2 stars but not 4. Tobey Maguire: yes. Trailers: stupid.

Remodeled bio page but want to do more, hopefully soon.

Incredibly busy next two weeks so not sure how much I’ll be here. See you when I see you.

I finally found a bathing suit. I haven’t bought one in 2 years and finding the one I bought 2 years ago was an ordeal, too. Can’t there be 2 piece bathing suits that offer ample coverage of all the parts I’d like covered? Are the choices, skimpy nothing or massive coverage? I gave up the notion that I would choose a color or design that I liked a long time ago. Also price doesn’t matter. Just finding something that fits. I’ve already looked a few times earlier in the summer without success so this was the desperation trip. I would have settled for anything if I had to. Of course this is the PAC NW so bathing suit season is only about 10 weeks so not like they have that much to begin with.

I checked the clearance rack at M&F in Vancouver and tried on everything in my size — my size varies so amazingly depending on what I’m buying and where I shop — clothing industry: PLEASE STANDARDIZE. Struck out there so headed to Nordstrom which also had a dismal selection. The nice young lady asked if I needed help and I said, “I want a 2-piece bathing suit that covers my ass crack and supports my breasts.”

“Yeah,” she said and nodded, agreeing that such a beast would be a nice thing to find. Unfortunately, hardly anyone makes bathing suits with underwires. Earlier this year I was told that hardly anyone was making bathing suits with high waists. She had ONE style with underwires and there was ONE piece in my size and the bottoms had a nice high waist and there was ONE piece in my size. And the color was decent. So hallelujah, I have something to wear to the river and I don’t have to worry about buying another bathing suit for awhile.

Later we went to see The Manchurian Candidate which I cannot recommend. The run time is just over two hours and it felt like longer. The acting is good and the story is somewhat compelling. It just went on and on and layer upon layer of intrigue and secret this and undercover that – it didn’t hold my interest. I have Love Actually from Netflix and way back last year when we saw the trailer Bob moaned and groaned about how dreadful it looked. I’m thinking he should have to sit through it with me for pay back. (Except that his moaning and groaning would detract from my enjoyment.) There was a trailer for Alexander (Oliver Stone) with Colin Farrell as Alexander. I loved The Persian Boy by Mary Renault when I read it a few years ago but how can I look at Farrell in that Bon Jovi hair and not want to laugh? Did NO ONE on the set see that and think maybe his look should be re-thought?

Today I’m going to rearrange the furniture in my room. When I got the computer cart I stuck in the only place it would fit which means now my back is to the door and I don’t like that. Not sure how I’m going to do this. Maybe I’ll take before and after photos.

I was going to write about seeing Chronicles of Riddick on Saturday but maybe later.

It’s like the Universe sat down and made a list of a zillion wildly frustrating problems for me and decided to throw them all at me now. I have this stupid disputed charge on my health insurance and I just noticed an unauthorized charge on our visa bill and the whole thing-that-happened-over the weekend debacle. I don’t understand why this is all happening right now.

Things you can do on Sunday when you aren’t working your ass off on a terrible screenplay: sleep in, start reading The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey that you got for xmas, and read a story called “Winky” in a collection by George Saunders called Pastoralia. Do the reading before you even get out of bed. Go to the Heathman in Vancouver for breakfast, read 3 back Sunday New York Times plus today’s Times and Oregonian. Work in the garden including cleaning up the Dahlias that the storm knocked down. Wash the sheets, vacuum and dust. Start watching a movie called S.W.A.T. with Colin Farrell because you had it mixed up with The Recruit with Colin Farrell. Quit the movie after 15 minutes because it’s dreadful and start Army of Darkness because it’s Sam Raimi and it’s the director’s cut but give up after about 30 minutes because you aren’t into the camp today. Check the live feeds at the Big Brother house almost every hour. Review the problem with your health insurance (crooks! Possibly more on this story later) and then stop after becoming totally agitated. Start to clean up the pile of pages from the screenplay and consider recycling them all (violently) then reconsidering and putting in a pile in a box in the garage in the off chance that you will feel like looking at it again after the sting wears off. Clean out the refrigerator, cook beets from the garden and enjoy kitchen time as soon as you’re done updating your blog.