Author Archives: Pamela

Back at the office. It’s always a little surreal to return to the desk after having been gone a few days. I had a phone message that I first heard, “Hello Pam” and went on to say that she’d seen my gospel play on TV and wanted copies of it for her family and left me her name, phone number and address in Florida. I sat here, agog, trying to figure out why this message came to me, gave it some practical joke consideration and generally tried to figure out a logical explanation for the mistake.

When I listened the second time I realized she said, “Hello ma’am.” Must have inverted some digits and got my direct line by mistake.

Then there’s some weird and greatly entertaining mail here which I would love to share but I don’t think that’s cool. You have no idea how hard it is, sometimes, to resist the urge to talk about work stuff.

The other day when I was rushing around doing errands I had to do a quick brake and my right arm shot out to protect that stuff on the passenger seat from flying off.

Remember back in the days before seatbelts when that was how Mom kept us on front seat when she had to punch the brakes in a hurry? That was the exact image that came into my head. I have a very distinct memory of riding in the car, probably on the way home from preschool, with Scotty and Stacy’s Mom. I was in the backseat. In those days the front seat was a bench and there were probably 2 or 3 kids sitting there and as we made the left turn from Balboa onto Burbank, one of the kids opened the car door.

Joyce had to hold kids in the car (because we didn’t have to wear seatbelts!) AND close the car door and bitch the kid out all while making a left turn. Ah, those were the good old days.

Yamhill and Taylor
Bob had a little medical procedure this morning. We left the house at 6:30a. He was the one with the preparation work but I was the one that couldn’t sleep most of the night. And now, after all these years, I’ve finally seen the inside of his colon. Via photos. I didn’t witness the procedure. So nice to have this level of intimacy with a fellow human being.

Everything looked good. Another good day for preventative health care.

On the way home we had to stop and buy a new shower-head. This isn’t the first time I tried some plumbing thing and made it worse when I tried to fix it. We’ll omit the details but there was no saving the old thing. Plastic piece broken. I gamely reattached it anyway and showered my entire bathroom. It was finished.

We didn’t go to World of Plumbing store. We went to the hardware store on our way home and it had a wide array (about 5 options) of cheap plastic shower-heads to choose from. I opted for their most luxury model which cost a whopping $13.99. The packaging said a lot about how much water it would save and to be honest, this isn’t my goal. I hate stepping into a hotel shower with a shower-head that delivers a fine mist so that you go home with shampoo still glistening in your hair.

I save water by only showering every other day. On shower day, I want to feel the hot water drumming into my head. We’ll see how this thing works. At least I can take a real shower again and not stand under a spout like a garden hose.

http://pamrentz.blogspot.com so if this site doesn’t change, maybe my three loyal readers could follow me over there for a week.

Last year I recieved a gift card for a store with a single location in the metro-area and not terribly convenient for me and not a place I love to shop so I’ve been sitting on it. Over the past year this company acquired another company with a couple more stores in the metro-area with some locations slightly more convenient but still, not places I love to shop.

I need a large quantity of an expensive item so I figured I’d drive across town and get it at one of the recently acquired stores and while I was there burn through the entire gift card.

But first I thought I’d check and make sure they would accept the card. I phoned the gift card helpline and had my first experience with outsourced India call center. I explained my question and this very nice and polite person didn’t have the slightest idea what I was talking about.

I planned out all my errands and I phoned the store and asked about the gift card. I was assured without hesitation that there would be no problem. So I drove across town show up at the store and they don’t even have the expensive item I need. An item that I can get at Safeway, about 1 mile from my house. So now I’m there, I want to use the gift card up so I cruise the aisles grabbing random stuff that I’d ordinarily never buy and I get to check out and guess what? The gift card won’t work in their system.

“I called before I came out here.”

“Did you call this store?”

“Yes. I called this store.”

“Do you know who you talked to?”

Really, because how does that help? They were actually nice and apologetic and tried to work around the system to take the card but they couldn’t make it work. Meanwhile, the line is stretching across the store.

So I took one item that I actually wanted. They had to credit back all the other crap. I still have a gift card plus they gave me a gift card for my trouble.

Today I got rid of an entire trunkload (TRUNKLOAD!) of crap. I’m giddy. I keep running out to the garage and looking at the huge empty space where that worthless junk used to be and then rubbing my hands together and giggling. I love getting rid of things.

I’ve had a giant box that was once the home of a brand new eMac (not one of my better computers). I’ve been throwing Goodwill stuff into it plus I had two giant bags of clothes. All this stuff has been sitting here forever. Plus I had a big stack of books for the Friends of the Library (I’d link to it but they still address their mailings by hand, I’m not even going to look for a website) that I dropped off for donation and I had a small stack of books to trade in. So I did bring some books home, but not as many as I got rid of.

Oh. I forgot to tell the part about how the giant box wouldn’t fit into the trunk or the backseat. Not even close and I tried and many bad words were said. I stomped back into the garage and found a giant box cutter that I bought during the whole home improvement project (It starts at May 7 and goes on forever.) Violently cut the box down to size. Tossed the trimmings into recycling. Cut new “handles” into the new box and chucked it into the trunk.

Of course the entire area around Goodwill was a sea of orange cones and people in orange vests with signs that said “Stop” or Slow” and then when it was finally your turn, they waved at your urgently, as though you were competing for fabulous cash and prizes.

But I got it all done. Now I’m apparently going to some sort of art lecture. When I said, “Sure that sounds fun,” I thought I was agreeing to an art exhibit. The driver is waiting … .

I feel like I’m more tired than I ought to be. Huge pile of work is stacked up here. After our meetings yesterday I said, “For everything we did, we have about 100 new things.” That’s not complaining. I like these clients a lot and I like the work we do, it was just funny how so many new things came up.

Last night the plane got in around 7:50pm and I took the shuttle bus out to economy parking. My car was covered in mist (or whatever you call it) and I couldn’t find my little towel I used to keep in there for just such occasions. Knowing me I probably took it out to wash it.

I sat in the car with the engine running, wondering what to do. I don’t enjoy driving when I can’t see anything. I went through a mental check list of what was in my bags that I could use and finally decided to use my pajama bottoms, which need replacing anyway, and I swabbed the windows clear and was on my way.

Last time I was in the economy lot they had just installed self-serve ticket payment that you do with your debit card. That time it was a Sunday night and it was a major clusterfork gridlock and I think it took over a half hour to get out of the lot.

When I pulled in this time I had this in mind so I was looking for a spot: near a bus shelter, near an overhead light and that would be easy to jump into the payment line. And miraculously succeeded. Of course there was no line last night and twenty minutes after I got in my car I was at home with a glass of wine and my Google Reader.

I have 88 posts left. I kept choosing items and thinking, “Hey, I can probably clear through these quickly,” and then there would be something I wanted to comment on or read more closely so plenty left for later.

View from my room, Kootenai River Inn, Bonners Ferry, Idaho

I think the legality of yesterday’s post is in question. Co-worker handed over his laptop and I was logged-in to the wireless network for at least 3 minutes before it spit me out. I assumed this was a random glitch and I could jump back on.

I was wrong.

I wrestled with the thing for about 15 minutes and then typed my post out into WordPad so I could quickly cut, paste and publish once I got on again. I couldn’t get back on the wireless network to save my life. I’m not a Windoze person and my usual wireless connection is at home where I just turn on the computer and it’s there. I don’t know how to troubleshoot (or troubleshat as I was thinking of it) a wireless connection but none of my best guesses would work. My popup window said, “We see tons of wireless connections, pick the one you want.” And I’d pick one and then we’d grind awhile and then it would say, “Oh, we couldn’t connect.” Then the entire process would repeat itself.

The hotel directions were worthless which I could have figured out when I saw that Macintosh looked like “MacIntosh” (serif typeface in italics with capital I?). I read it about 5 times before I figured out what that was supposed to mean. I fought with it another half hour before calling my husband in a snit.

“Log on to blogger. Here, I’ll dictate.” So he was to publish my post which for some reason didn’t work right.

When I got home it was sitting there and I published again and I think it’s up. I don’t care whether it counts or not, my intention was there and I’m not doing this for a prize.

In other news, I have 303 posts in my reader. I hope there’s a bunch of stuff I can easily “mark as read” with minimal guilt.

The trip was fabulous but super busy. My one chunk of non-scheduled time was used up on the wireless problem.

Many more photos to come.