You're Doing It Wrong

Last night we went to the Candlelight Tour at Fort Vancouver. It’s only about 7 minutes from our house but I’ve never seen it. (I’ve seen the Fort, but only during the day.) The whole place is lit only in candlelight and there are tons of volunteers dressed in period costumes who act like it’s late 1800’s and you can watch them in the carpentry shop or at the blacksmith’s or baling up the furs and counting them for sale. You don’t interact with them but there are other volunteers around to offer more details and you can ask them questions. The night was clear and a little bit cool – it was the first time I’ve had my sweatshirt out since Spring. I was impressed that they had so many people who wanted to spend their weekend evenings dressed in those costumes talking about the British and fur traders in the low light. Didn’t see any Indians though. Where were they?

Yesterday I went to talk to a guy about my dog phobia. I can’t remember how much I’ve blogged about this. I do remember writing about the inciting incident. The gist of it is, in December 02 I was walking by myself in my neighborhood and this dog ran out of nowhere and bit me. It didn’t happen all at once but gradually I grew afraid to walk around my neighborhood, you know, part of my exercise routine, because I was afraid a dog would run out and bite me. I know this sounds funny, it’s funny to me too, but it’s also real and sort of a pain in the ass. I’m not afraid of dogs that I know or dogs on a leash or really small dogs although if they run out and surprise me barking, it does make me feel like I’m having a cardiac episode. Usually I’m not too afraid if Bob is with me. I’m a tiny bit uneasy around dogs that I know but I don’t have to leave the room or anything.

Here’s the thing. My rational mind totally gets it. I realize dogs haven’t changed, just the way I think about them. I see all kinds of people including elderly ladies looking like a strong breeze would wipe them out, all walking alone in my neighborhood, not being knocked over or bitten by dogs. But that hasn’t changed my anxiety about walking around my neighborhood.

I finally called this guy who deals with phobias and I honestly didn’t expect much but was willing to try anything. I’m thinking what can this guy do? It’s not like he has a magic wand or some sort of magic voodoo and I’m going to miraculously be cured of my dog fear. So I met with him yesterday and you know what? It was exactly like magic voodoo.

I’m having a hard time believing it myself. We visited a short time about the origin of the fear. He helped me realize that I’m not really afraid of dogs, I’m afraid of walking around my neighborhood by myself because a dog might come out and bite me. Then we went through a series of visualizations where I pictured exactly what happened, then I pictured it happening backwards really fast. Then I pictured it like a movie of myself, slightly in the future walking around my neighborhood totally relaxed and worry-free and then I pictured it as if I was in the movie, as this person in the future, walking around the neighborhood totally relaxed and worry-free. This is a simplified version but by the time we went through all this (about 1/2 hour), I didn’t feel so anxious when I thought about it.

When I got home I walked around the neighborhood by myself — and not the short easy walk, I went on the long scary walk and I wasn’t scared at all. I kept checking in, thinking, “come on, aren’t you still scared?” and I totally wasn’t.

Magic voodoo.

Today I finally went to pick up the police report I had to make for the fraudulent charges on my VISA. I originally went there on Tuesday but I didn’t have my case # with me so that didn’t work. I would be tempted to complain except these are all new buildings and I’ve never been down there (I never saw the old one either). When I made the report she told me I could pick it up, “next to the Courthouse,” and I don’t know why I was too embarrassed to ask for a more detailed explanation … I assumed I’d figure it out when I was down there. I did have to walk around a bit. I saw the Clark County Public Services building and the Clark County Juvenile Court building and then I saw the Law Enforcement building and that looked promising so I went over there.

I entered on an upper level that had a lot of signs talking about visiting hours and what visitors needed to do which didn’t seem right but I figured someone there could tell me where to go. I found a sort-of information desk and eventually a guy in uniform, who was probably born after I graduated from high school, wearing plastic gloves, pointed me down the stairs and there I found a huge sign that said “Police Reports” so I figured I was in the right place. I was supposed to take a number, (which reminded me of going to Baskin Robbins in the Valley on the way home from Zuma beach 100 years ago when I was a small child – my favorite flavor was bubble gum) which I didn’t do because I saw the form I was supposed to fill out and there was only 1 other guy there so I grabbed one of those and used a small desk with a computer terminal that said something about sex offender check in. (“What an adventure,” I thought.)

I filled out my sheet and by this time another guy with a handle bar mustache and wearing a suit had arrived and taken a number so I had to wait until after him. Apparently he was picking up someone to be released that way because he was informed that it probably wouldn’t happen until after 6pm (It was about Noon). He took it like a man. Oh, and the man before him, also with handlebar mustache and Harley-Davidson shirt had to talk about getting his papers for his parole officer and there was some snafu and he was trying to do the right thing and it looked like it was not going well.

When it was finally my turn the lady said, “Oh good, you have your case number,” and quickly found what I needed. She was very nice and suggested I keep copies as credit card fraud things can come back to haunt you. (Hopefully worst case scenario.) I told her I was having quite the adventure and at first she thought I meant the credit card fraud but I said, “I’ve never been down here before,” and she announced very professionally: “You’re in the basement of the jail.”

It’s only Sept 3 and already Sinead, Maria De and Brian have had a birthday and I haven’t sent a note to any of them. I’m getting ready for an extra long weekend, including company for a couple of days, and trying to figure out what exactly I want to accomplish. The garden is a must. Criminally neglected. A branch on the apple tree broke — too many apples and then lots of rain and then a big crack and now I’ve got a major project out there. I’ve also got house cleaning, grocery shopping and cooking/baking type things to do. Ideally I’d like to sweep out the garage and clean out the shop. Also vacuum my car. Then a bunch of fun project type things like reading through articles I’ve collected and finishing books in my pile, and maybe doing some ink painting and story writing and working with those Photoshop books. This is the story of my life — coming up with some impossible list of things to accomplish and creating an agitated mental state when they don’t all get done. So I’m trying to go at this reasonably. I forgot to mention also going to the movies: Harry Potter is still at the Kiggins and there are several films in the downtown theater (Hero, Bourne Supremacy) that I wouldn’t mind seeing.

Also we’ve lost a Pyrex. How do you lose something like that? It’s the big one too. The first idea was that we’d made something for a get together and forgotten the pan. Except I can’t think of a get together I went to where I brought that pan. I can’t think of the last thing I made in that pan although I suspect brownies and those were consumed under our roof (didn’t take long either.) The second idea is that it was put in the wrong place. But I’ve looked in every single cupboard in the kitchen and didn’t see it. I’m going to buy another one. Not like it’s a big ticket item and if the other shows up I’m sure we can use it. But where did that pan go?

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.