Yes, this is my job & I'm laughing
On the list of stupid teenage guy stuff:
Fact one: Today a student brought a jar of habanera peppers to school.
Fact two: He started daring other guys to show their manliness by eating them.
Fact three: Not wanting to be unmanly, many students ate them.
Fact four: Being egalitarian, the girls had joined in and were showing their manliness by second hour.
Fact five: By fifth hour three students had gone to the office for treatment from the chemical burns inflicted by the habaneras.
Fact six: A student got pulled from my class to go talk to the EMTs about the girl who ingested the other half of the one he ate at lunch and had to be taken for a ride in the ambulance. Cops were here too.
Thought for the day: Do you really want children?
The bride and groom.
Us out there.
View from the balcony of the hotel
Easter--We all played independent whiffleball. I don't know when I've had so much fun. Good family:)
Me be home
Whew! So I’ve been a (continuingly) very busy girl. I apologize to those I’ve frustrated by not answering my phone this weekend (I left the charger at home). I was in Oceanside, CA with David for his college roommate’s wedding. How close were they really you ask? Well, one guy introduced himself and then said they always referred to Dave as Rudi’s first wife they lived together so long. It was wonderful and beautiful and very hard to come back and I feel like it’s only 7am although it’s really ten which means it feels like I got up at two and I’ll post pictures later.
What else have I been up to? Let’s see:
*The rental car smelled just like concord grapes.
*We saw whales and dolphins and garibaldi and sea lions and surfers…
*We went kayaking and kayaked into a cave.
*The wedding was tiny and very nice. Less than 40 people were there total.
*Torrey Pines is an excellent preserve.
*The Longboarder in Oceanside has excellent breakfasts and Pizza Port in Carlsbad has excellent pizza and beer and if I like the beer then you know it has to be good!
*CB is playing this weekend and David is planning to come up so look for us at church on Sunday and at the play Saturday night.
*All the flowers are blooming in my yard! But I must mow what’s left of the grass. Or we shall be fined.
*I am now excited about all the weddings coming along. I want to find unique, pretty and meaningful gifts for couples! I want to shop! (This is highly unusual. Mark it on your calendars).
*Some days the only reason I can get myself to go to Meijers is the promise of a mini-cherry pie from the Grand Traverse Pie Company.
*I had a birthday. I am 30 which feels a lot like 29 and I suppose will feel like 31 eventually. I was in Cincinnati with David and we had a delightful dinner out and a hail storm and he signed on his house. Then I met his parents the next day. They were nice.
*Easter was fun, I was down in Cincinnati with the extended family. David’s dad had a heart thing and he went into the hospital (he’s ok) and so the larger family did not meet him. Sigh. It would have been so convenient.
And now I am home and tired and must prepare for 4th-6th hour:)
All That Jazz
Well, I’m back from Chicago. And I think perhaps Chicago and I are lovers never meant to meet again. I adore the Magnificent Mile. The Art Museum makes my heart flutter and I remain in awe of the Museum of Science & Industry. So why do I question our fit? Well, quite honestly that city seems to inspire small disasters for me; I did nearly $5000 of damage to my car coming back last year, I got pick-pocketed on Saturday night.
Don’t worry, I’m pretty much over it.
It happened during the wait for dinner. I was nearly asleep on my feet waiting FOREVER for a bowl of pasta and a salad at Portillo’s and someone apparently took advantage of my un-alert self, reached into my bag and got my lovely green wallet. Sigh. Emily says she didn’t even see anyone around me. They were
veeeeery sneaky. Those sneaky-sneaky bastards.
Once I got over the disbelief, I kicked into damage control-mode. I called credit card companies like mad. It’s odd. I usually only have one card and a debit card on me, but I have been doing the Menard’s thing for the plays and was switching away from Chase (they have hideous customer service, so I was switching myself to Citibank. Don’t believe me on the customer service? Just wait.) so my wallet had a surprising amount of stuff in it. I’d also just moved the card I’d been using, my driver’s license and $25 from other locations into the wallet. Sigh. I’m an idjit.
Anyway, I was fine in damage control-mode until I called David to have him get online and look up a few companies’ numbers for me. I started sobbing. It was pathetic. I kept talking about my healthcare card and how I liked my driver’s license picture. But he was comforting, got me laughing and looked up most of the numbers. I did have one I couldn’t get so I called a few other folk. Thanks Pete and Mark for trying.
So here’s the deal: in the time between me losing the wallet and starting to call, $648 was spent at Bed Bath & Beyond. A tank of gas was filled on my MasterCard. My debit card was used and eaten by a machine in Skokie (they tried to use the little slip of paper in my wallet with my four-digit school lunch code on it and the machine said no. Teh-heh.). After I started calling, Citibank immediately stopped all transactions and said comforting things and asked if I needed to figure out a wire transfer. Chase put me on hold for twenty minutes, told me their computers were down, lost me while transferring me, took down my info when I called back and only cancelled one card when their computers did come back up. The thieves charged nearly $3000 on the second card the next morning. As you can imagine, that was a fun follow-up phone call. MSUFCU canceled my debit card through their partner company (they don’t have their own fraud line outside of business hours), but didn’t do my Visa until Monday morning ($60 at Amoco?). Menard’s/Speedway didn’t answer the phone until Sunday afternoon, but the card hadn’t been used. I’m not bitter, nobody is charging me for this stuff, but think about it for yourself.
So really, I’m over it. I guess at this point I figure when you travel as much as I do, it’s just something that happens every once in a while (Emily claims this attitude is grounds for serious professional intervention). Really, this is by far the easiest loss I've had to deal with. Non-violent, it didn’t occur at home, I was traveling with someone who could spot me cash and pray with me. I didn’t lose my camera or keys or antibiotics. Heck, the final cost will only be a wallet, $50, and whatever fees and hassle there are to replace everything. I could (almost) easily cancel all my stuff with the aid of the boyfriend and the internet.
But also don’t think I just let this go by. There was some serious thought about what I would do if I lived in a time and place where thievery was punished by the removal of a hand. Would I want the whole hand? Just an opposable thumb? Index and ring fingers? Right from the start I knew I wouldn’t want the whole hand. I’m down now to just wanting a pinky for my mantle. I’m praying I’ll quit wanting blood soon.
Past the robbery, the trip was a howling success. I shall tell about such success after I replace my driver’s license. Wonder where my birth certificate is...hmmm. Ah, sh*t. This S**KS!
