New Things

Hi, folks.

I haven't written here in a long time, but that's okay -- I've been waiting for something good, something new to happen that I could share with all of you. Well, several of those things have happened, and since I'm a total procrastinator (and also very busy during any given week) I've been putting off writing about them here.

Oh, believe me, I've thought about it multiple times: hm, I should really document that in the blog, or ooh, this will be fun to write about, but I kept putting it off as there was always something more important or something more pressing to do.

Now, here I sit with an hour or so to kill before I have to go to work, freshly showered and shaved with clean clothing on and a cat at my feet, and I began thinking to myself well, now's as good a time as any. So let's begin.

This past week, I celebrated my first anniversary with my wife, who I have always referred to in this blog as Daisy, and Daisy has changed my life in many ways during the almost three years we've now been together (with, of course, more than a year of being married under our belts now), but I've seen the most changes -- most of them upgrades, actually -- in that past year. No marriage is perfect, of course -- everyone fights and bickers at times, everyone has little things about their partner that drives them up the wall (I'm sure Daisy has a long and detailed list of those things for me), but the good far, far outweighs the bumpy spots by about a 95% / 5% ratio, and there's not many ways I could be happier in my marriage. I'm also pretty sure I speak for both of us when I say this, as well.

We celebrated our wedding anniversary in a rather low-key fashion -- we went out to eat at Uncle Maddio's, and then played games at the Dave & Buster's next door for a few hours. Daisy got a stuffed monkey, and I got two new nerdy coffee mugs and a t-shirt from all of our ticket winnings. Then we came home and went to bed.

This is the smallest, however, of things that have been going on as of late.

Daisy has, throughout the course of our relationship, done everything she can to keep me healthy. That's not just the vegan foods, of course, but in general. Over the course of the past three months or so, I have been to three different types of doctors/specialists for various things, when previously I hadn't been to the doctor for anything since before she and I were a couple.

I'm not a fan of doctors or medical environments, generally speaking -- I don't like being around sick people, I don't like leaving the house and taking some of my downtime to go off and do something I don't see as absolutely essential, and until I got my current job, I had terrible health insurance (or none at all), so visiting any sort of doctors for any ailment would have cleaned out my bank account.

Anyway, in the past three months I have been to the doctor's office once (when I had a nasty case of Influenza-B in March), the dentist twice, and the eye doctor twice -- and I am much better for all of those visits, even if they were/are still expensive even with our insurance.

I got my teeth cleaned at the dentist for the first time since the late '90s. Two weeks later I had two small fillings done, and was told that aside from my broken wisdom teeth (which aren't causing me any pain), my mouth is healthy and in good shape -- especially for someone who hasn't gone to the dentist in close to twenty years. I will have to go back in and get the wisdom teeth taken care of this fall at some point, once I have more PTO at work -- the aforementioned flu wiped me out of about 80% of it.

Two weeks or so after the fillings were done, I was eating a piece of pizza at work and one of those aforementioned wisdom teeth fell out of my goddamned head. It came out in two or three pieces, the largest of which I still keep in my desk at work (as it's interesting to look at). The root of the tooth is still in there, below my gumline, and there was no pain involved -- still no pain involved even now. As the dentist said there was no need for concern unless it abscessed or started causing me pain, and that getting said teeth taken out would be on my own time, as with the way they're situated in my mouth and how they came in (i.e., straight, not causing any other issues) is good, I'll get around to it.

I have still not been billed for my dentist visits, however, even though I got my insurance statement for it. I will have to call the office on Monday to see if they just didn't send me one, or if it got lost in the mail, or what. I meant to do that yesterday, but, y'know, always busy with something.

[Edit: I just sent them an email this afternoon, and will call Monday if I hear nothing back from them by then. Their office is closed now.]

[Further edit: No bill, everything's paid off -- they got back to me quickly.]

After the dentist visits, our next task was to schedule eye appointments.

If you know me, you may already know that my eyes have been bad for years, and have been slowly getting worse. I've worn reading glasses off and on since I was in college, and last summer when I registered the Monte Carlo in Nebraska and switched my Kansas license to a Nebraska license, I barely passed the eye exam in the DMV office -- I was told that I should get to an eye doctor soon.

So, in classic Brandon fashion, I waited a year until my wife dragged me there.

To be fair, I'm not the only one with eye issues -- Daisy's eyesight was getting progressively worse as well, worse to the point where she couldn't read the episode descriptions for series on Netflix when she was sitting 3-5 feet closer to the TV than I was. Daisy has never had eye issues until the past year or two, and as she told me, it was getting to the point where she really couldn't see much of anything clearly. As she drives a lot more than I do (since, y'know, destroyed and junked Monte Carlo and all that), we made it a priority to go get eye appointments/exams together on the day after Memorial Day, as both of us had the day off work.

Both of us needed glasses. Daisy needed them badly. While I can see just fine without mine, reading things across the room and whatnot, Daisy's eyesight was bad enough to the point where I can't imagine what she was actually seeing (or not seeing, as the case may be). The eye doctor told me I'm farsighted with slight astigmatism, and told Daisy that she's nearsighted and that her astigmatism is worse. So, with our new prescriptions for glasses in hand, we picked out frames. The result? Well, here's mine (I'm not sure if she'd want me to post a picture of her in hers, so I'm just showing mine):

Not bad, right?

I opted for light, rounded metal frames instead of the big, bulky plastic ones I had before for my reading glasses, mainly because I wanted something comfortable that wouldn't easily break and wouldn't fuck up my peripheral vision or give me headaches (as the plastic frames sometimes did). These glasses are comfortable, and I wear them about 80% of the time now -- especially at work. I don't need them all the time (I rarely wear them when I'm just here at home bumming around the house), but there is a night-and-day difference in clarity when I'm wearing them versus when I'm not. Daisy, on the other hand, does need hers all the time and she does wear them all the time, since she can actually see now when she has hers on.

So there's that.

However, I've saved the most significant -- well, to me, anyway -- news until last.

About two months ago (give or take), we were informed that our brother-in-law (not the one who performed the ceremony at our wedding, but the other one) had gotten into seminary school. This is his life's calling, and therefore it's important to him and the family, so more power to him, we're happy for him. However, with this came the not-so-great news -- for the family, anyway -- that said seminary school is in Vancouver.

No, not some little town named Vancouver out here in the midwest somewhere, the actual Vancouver. The one in British Columbia. As in, way west and into the great white north of Canada.

O, Canadaaaaa....my home and native laaaaand.....

Ahem.

I know I've written about Daisy's sister's family here a long time ago, and touched on them briefly at best then. Of the three daughters in the family, this one was the middle daughter -- Daisy is the youngest. She also married first, married young, and became deeply religious after marriage. I don't know if she was deeply religious before marriage or not, as I didn't know her then, but suffice to say, she (as well as the rest of the family) is now. She had four children over the span of nine years, all of whom are wonderful little kids -- if a bit rowdy -- and she homeschools them, while her husband (the aforementioned seminary schooler) works in an IT job, I think for hospitals or something. Actually, it's never occurred to me to ask him exactly where he works. It won't matter soon enough anyway, as he'll be the proverbial preacher man.

Because this is a rather sudden development, and because they have four kids, own their house, and own (up until recently) four vehicles, one of which is a huge Suburban, they've had to make some tough decisions on what needs to be kept and gotten rid of, but basically it boils down to "whatever doesn't fit in the truck and the trailer either needs to be put into storage, sold, or otherwise gotten rid of."

This includes the house, of course -- a huge, spacious house with a massive garage and downstairs apartment in a nice neighborhood out in the country about two hours north of here. Believe me, if I wanted to drive back and forth four hours every day for work, I would've already made an offer on it.

So, a few weeks ago, I got a call from my brother-in-law. Actually, all of us did -- me, Daisy, and even Rae -- trying to reach me. I was at work at the time (and he'd had Rae's number from the organization of my bachelor party before the wedding), so I didn't know what was going on. He messaged me on Facebook the next day asking me to call him, so I did.

One of the four vehicles they have/had is a 2002 Chevy Silverado. It's white, banged up, with a lot of miles on it -- it used to be a city works truck before my brother-in-law's father purchased it as a daily driver. Since then, my brother-in-law has been using it as his own daily driver, using it to get him to/from work every day. With the Suburban, they can't take it with them. They wanted to know if I wanted it.

"Yeah, of course I do," I said, jumping at the opportunity. "What sort of work does it need done to it?"

"Not a lot," my brother-in-law said. "It had some engine valve gunk in it a while back, but I think we got that mostly cleared up. Still runs a little rough, though. It has some dents, some rust, the driver-side mirror is broken and bent in -- but it runs and drives, doesn't leak or burn oil, and it's a good little truck. Doesn't have many bells and whistles on it since it was a city truck, but the radio does get AM and FM. I'll get it worked on and tuned up for the little stuff before I turn it over to you."

Truth be told, a truck that's thirteen years old is going to have a lot of little cosmetic things like that wrong with it anyway. Am I concerned about dents, rust, and a broken mirror? Hell no. My Monte Carlo had rust and dents, as well as a host of other things wrong with it. Does the truck start up and run? And it'll get me back and forth to/from work every day somewhat reliably? Sold. No questions, just sold.

"How much do you want for it?" I asked.

"Eh, it's between family," he said. "I'm not going to charge you anything for it. It's not reliable enough for that."

He drives this truck to/from work every day, I thought. That's all I'll be using it for, too.

"I'll at least give you a few hundred bucks for it, if nothing else," I said.

"If you were to pay us for it and then have some major part blow on it in a month or two, I'd feel really guilty. Don't worry about it. Again, it's between family."

"Fair enough," I said, stunned. "I get that."

I really couldn't come up with any other real response. It's not every day I'm offered a free truck.

"Good," he replied. "I'd rather someone get some use out of it, or get something out of it for as long as they can instead of selling it, and I know what happened to your car, so I thought I'd check with you."

"Well I'm glad you did," I said. "I'm very grateful. Thank you."

This entire exchange was at least a month ago now, probably longer. I talked to Daisy about it that night as well:

"I don't feel right not giving him anything for the truck," I said. "I mean, I absolutely understand his logic here, but he's going to take it in for servicing before he turns it over to me. I'm going to at least offer to pay for that, since that'll be a few hundred bucks, more than likely.

"That's fair," Daisy said.

It's a full half-ton Silverado; it's not like it's a little truck like an S-10 or Ranger. Servicing said truck probably won't be cheap. On the plus side, there are a million of those trucks on the roads, some of them much older than this one -- so if anything does blow up on it, parts should be readily available.

The next week, I not only got to see it, but I got to drive it:

(license plate covered for privacy's sake, duh.)

Our brother-in-law made it sound like it was falling apart, and/or wasn't reliable. It's actually in really good shape for a work truck that was a city work truck before it fell into private ownership. You can, however, see the broken driver-side mirror and the dented front quarterpanel right below that. That does look worse in person, but as Daisy replaced the mirror on her Sonata all by herself a few years ago, it shouldn't be that difficult to replace one on a truck.

We'd gone up to their house on Memorial Day weekend in order to help them clean up and pack, help them put stuff in storage, and repaint/tear up the carpet in their master bedroom. During the day of work, myself and the brother-in-law took the truck over to the storage area where they were putting some of their larger stuff that wasn't coming with them. The storage area was maybe three miles away, so it was the perfect opportunity for me to test-drive the truck.

There's just one thing: I'd never driven a truck before.

Cars, yes. Speedy cars, yes. Vans, yes. Never a truck.

Well, no, let me correct myself on that -- the only time I've ever driven a truck, I crashed it into my house in Newton. Backwards.

Yeah.

So, needless to say, I was fairly nervous....

And it drove like a car. No, seriously, a car. The shifter is on the column, which I'll have to get used to, but it handles really easily and mostly smoothly, and it seems just fine (at least when I drove it that day, anyway).

Now for the troubling things I noticed...

The "service engine soon" light was occasionally flashing even in the three miles to the storage unit and the three back. That means there's a misfire, usually caused by at least one bad spark plug or wire. As long as the engine in that truck isn't dumbassedly backward as the one in my Monte Carlo was, that's more than likely a pretty easy/inexpensive fix.

I noticed the battery light was on too -- I don't know if it power-cycles through all of the lights when it fires up or if there's a genuine battery problem, but even if there is one, that's maybe $150 at the most to fix.

The brakes are a little loose -- loose as in, they're not touchy and you have to put the pedal down pretty hard. I don't know if that's a truck thing or if I was just spoiled by the Monte Carlo and Daisy's Sonata. Or if the brakes/pads will need replaced soon. Take your pick, right?

Acceleration from a slow speed to a fast speed, quickly, is really slow and jumpy -- I noticed this when I was trying to make it through the yellow light before it turned red, so I put the hammer down...and there was at least a one-second delay before it recognized it and revved up. That could be attributed to the spark plug problem as well, or the gunked engine valves (also something I can clean out fairly easily).

Aside from that? It's all good. Shit, that's nothing. Free truck. I put up with a lot more from the Monte Carlo over all the years I drove her.

"It's definitely an upgrade," I told the brother-in-law. "Keep in mind I am coming from a car whose radio didn't work, I couldn't lock the doors, I had to push and pull the windows up and down, only had a 25% or so chance of firing up on the first try, no air conditioning, a heater that wouldn't get warm until I drove 20 or so miles, bad defroster, transmission slips, no anti-lock brakes, tires that couldn't keep air, and burned oil and coolant as quickly as if I were pouring said fluids directly into a fire."

The last part is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

"I thought you said you never wanted a white vehicle," Daisy said coolly.

"[Daisy]," I said, "Free. FREE. It could be hot pink and I'd drive it if it were still free."

And this is true. I can be sure nobody would steal it or break into it to steal it, that's for damn sure.

All of this being said, I do not have the truck yet. I won't get it for at least another three weeks or so, as that's around the time they're leaving for the great white north. We'll get to see them and spend some time with them first, obviously, but the clock is ticking.

So, that's about all for now. I've been working on this post off and on for many days, so I'm putting it up. I do, however, have more to share, so I'll get on that soon as well...

65 Questions

In lieu of anything else, as I don't really have much time anymore, here's a survey thing. I did it once before, but all (okay, most) of my answers are different now.

Here are the 65 Questions You've Probably Never Been Asked...




1. First thing you wash in the shower?
Uh, usually my chest, I guess?

2. What color is your favorite hoodie?
It's a toss-up; I have a gray Shockers hoodie I really like, but I also have my red Huskers hoodie too. Eh, either one.

3. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?
As that person is my wife, yes.

4. Do you plan outfits?
Almost religiously.

5. How are you feeling right now?
Full of coffee and dread for another Friday at work.

6. What’s the closest thing to you that's red?
My Adventure Time t-shirt, which is sitting next to me as it's part of my outfit I've planned for tomorrow (again, see question #4).

7. Tell me about the last dream you remember having?
I dreamed I was driving my Monte Carlo. I dream about this a lot. I miss it.

8. Did you meet anybody new today?
Nope; I haven't left the house yet. Unless you count drinking coffee and smoking outside on the porch.

9. What are you craving right now?
A dead-quiet Friday at work, as we're shortstaffed.

10. Do you floss?
When I need to, yes.

11. What comes to mind when I say cabbage?
Vile weed.

12. Are you emotional?
When the situation calls for it, sure.

13. Have you ever counted to 1,000?
I've done this multiple times on the nights I had insomnia.

14. Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it?
As I generally eat it out of a tub or carton, it's more of a spooning-into-my-face-hole thing.

15. Do you like your hair?
Yes, and I condition and care for it meticulously.

16. Do you like yourself?
No; I am a thoroughly terrible person.

17. Would you go out to eat with George W. Bush?
The man's interesting, I'll give him that. History has been a little kinder to him since he was president.

18. What are you listening to right now?
The hum of my computer and my fingers typing these keystrokes?

19. Are your parents strict?
My mother is, yes; however, I haven't had to worry about parents being strict in nine years now, so....

20. Would you go sky diving?
I absolutely plan to one day.

21. Do you like cottage cheese?
It's one of my favorite foods of all time.

22. Have you ever met a celebrity?
I've met certain people who are famous in certain circles, and have talked to a few famous people over the phone from time to time. I've also messaged back and forth with a few big-name celebrities on Twitter, so if that counts, then yes.

3. Do you rent movies often?
I haven't rented a movie in at least six or seven years. The concept of Netflix and the whole, y'know, actually being able to afford to go see a movie in the theater helps with that.

24. Is there anything sparkly in the room you're in?
Well, my wife's wedding dress is still in here -- across the room from me on her own desk -- but other than that? Nope.

25. How many countries have you visited?
Including this one? One.

26. Have you made a prank phone call?
Many times as a child. Am I proud of this? A little.

27. Ever been on a train?
Many times.

28. Brown or white eggs?
I don't really eat eggs by themselves.

29.Do you have a cell-phone?
Yes, I do.

30. Do you use chap stick?
Only when necessary.

31. Do you own a gun?
Yes.

32. Can you use chopsticks?
Yes. In a sense, anyway.

33. Who are you going to be with tonight?
A bunch of coworkers, in the office, until 11PM.

34. Are you too forgiving?
Not anymore.

35. Ever been in love?
Yes.

36. What is your friend(s) doing tomorrow?
Living their lives, much as I live my own? I haven't a clue.

37. Ever have cream puffs?
Yes.

38. Last time you cried?
It's been months. Probably during a movie. Yes, I know. Shut up.

39. What was the last question you asked?
"Why won't the kid upstairs stop. fucking. screaming?" Seriously, that baby doesn't just "cry," no. It screams like they're beating the kid to death.

40. Favorite time of the year?
Any time where it's about 70, overcast, with a light breeze.

42. Are you sarcastic?
It's one of my best attributes.

43. Have you ever seen The Butterfly Effect?
I own the Blu-ray.

44. Ever walked into a mall?
No. Walked through one while shopping? Yes.

45. Favorite color?
Black.

46. Have you ever slapped someone?
Yes. There are many, many people who need a good hard slap in the face or upside the head. If I were running for president, this would be my platform.

47. Is your hair curly?
I prefer to describe it as "sexually wavy."

48. What was the last CD you bought?
I bought the Breakfast Club soundtrack at Walgreens about a year ago for $3 or so. That counts, right?

49. Do looks matter?
Not as much as you'd think, but yes.

50. Could you ever forgive a cheater?
No. And I never have.

51. Is your phone bill sky high?
For unlimited talk/text/data on my iPhone, through Sprint, it's pretty reasonable.

52. Do you like your life right now?
Not really. I love being married and I love the relationship I have with my wife and her/our family. Everything else can go suck it.

53. Do you sleep with the TV on?
Not anymore, as I no longer have a TV in the bedroom.

54. Can you handle the truth?
Yes.

55. Do you have good vision?
I used to, but not really anymore. I can tell how much my vision has deteriorated just over the past two or three years.

56. Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people?
Oh hell yes. There's probably a twenty (or thirty, being realistic) person list.

57. How often do you talk on the phone?
Every day at work. In my personal life, on my own phone? Mostly only when I have to.

58. The last person you held hands with?
My wife, yesterday, and this is not an unusual occurrence.

59. What are you wearing?
A black and white plaid shirt, blue socks, blue boxers, black jeans, and black dress shoes. Work clothes.

60.What is your favorite animal?
Ron Swanson is my spirit animal. Does that count?

61. Where was your default picture taken?
Default picture? Like, profile picture? I have a different one for every social networking site I use, and they've all been taken at different times/places. The one I use here on Blogger was taken in my old house in Kansas, circa 2011, and edited with my photo editor.

62. Can you hula hoop?
Wouldn't know; I've never tried.

63. Do you have a job?
Yes, I do. And I wish I didn't need it as much as I do.

64. What was the most recent thing you bought?
Last night I gave my coworker a $20 so he could pick me up some Burger King when he walked down there (it's literally next door) to get lunch.

65. Have you ever crawled through a window?
Not in recent memory, but I'm sure I have.


Okay. More updates coming eventually. Maybe. I am really busy and almost never turn on my computer anymore unless absolutely necessary.

Before and After

We got our first big snowstorm this past weekend in Omaha, Winter Storm Linus. I could talk about it, or I could just show you the pictures:

January 31st, around noon-ish:

This is just as the snow was beginning to fall. I call this the "before" picture.


Now, check out February 1, the next morning:

Yeah.

Yeah. That happened.

By the time it was all said and done on Sunday night (shortly before dark), we had pretty close to a foot on the ground. The temperature was low single digits with a 25mph or so wind, as well, so we also got drifting -- significant drifting in a lot of places, actually. I watched no fewer than three people get stuck on the road in front of our place, and very nearly watched a guy in a truck take out a snowbank at the end of our driveway. Of course, it was Super Bowl Sunday, so people were hell-bent on getting their beer and wings. At least, that was my assumption.

As an aside, I didn't watch more than about twenty seconds of the game. No, literally, I watched about twenty seconds of the game. Because of the snow and the poor antenna reception I get for that particular channel, I'd get a few seconds of the game and then the TV would tell me "No Signal" for five minutes. Repeat. After about twenty minutes of this, I just turned off the TV.

Now, two days later, most of the snow remains, yes, but the roads are clear-ish. They're just wet with a little slush on them in places. This is due, in part, to repeated plowings/scrapings/treatings by the Omaha road crews, but it's also because today the sun actually came out for a bit, and it's no longer in the single digits (it's in the mid-20s now). Snow is melting off the roof and falling in big piles on the ground every few minutes, so even when the temperature is actually below freezing by a bit, it's still melting off somewhat.

However, tonight (late night) we're expected to get another 1-3 inches, and tomorrow during the day we're expected to get the same, which is going to snarl everything again. It also won't help that the low temperature tomorrow night is supposed to reach -10. That's ten degrees below zero, and forty-two degrees below the freezing point. I'm not looking forward to it, especially since both Daisy and I have to work the rest of the week -- me starting today (in about an hour), her tomorrow.

Yeah. So I'll keep you posted on what happens, I suppose...

Onward

Life goes on, as life does.

The past few weeks in general have been quiet and (mostly) uneventful. Work has been steady; we'll have our busy days as well as our really quiet ones, and some in-between. The good news for the past week or so is that it's been really unseasonably warm in Omaha -- yesterday the temperature reached 58, and right now it's 50.

The bad news? Well, I'm not sure it can really be classified as bad, but more of the unknown at this point -- our company is being sold to another company, who bought out our contract with our real employer (and not just the building who we work as contractors for -- yeah, it's complicated).

What does this mean for us and our jobs? Well, at the moment, not a whole lot that we can tell. Seniority and pay will roll over into the new company. Our hours will remain the same, our schedules and reporting managers/directors will remain the same, and the job itself that we do every day will remain exactly the same as it is now. As for paid time off and insurance plans/benefits? Yeah, we don't know that yet, but as the company who paid for us won't want to lose a large number of its new employees out of the gate, I'm guessing that it'll remain the same or better. So, really, when the entire process is completed by the end of March, it looks like the only noticeable change we may have to endure is getting new keycards/name badges with our new company name on them.

Personally, I'm in the camp of folks who aren't really worried at all about this transition. I'm also in the camp of folks who would like to see the current dress code disappear (as it's not like we physically see any of the customers we work with, ever). I hate having to actually dress professionally every day for no good reason, and want to be able to wear my normal wardrobe to work. I'd also like to get more holidays off per year -- for example, I want everyone to have Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Black Friday, MLK Day, President's Day, Columbus Day, etc, off. Currently, those are all days we work. We've already been told that since our benefits package is basically the federally-mandated minimum, those can't get any worse (yeah, I know, right?), but past that there's not a whole lot of further information coming down the pipe.

There are, of course, people who are nervous and are using this interim time to either jump ship or move to a different part of the company. One of our second shift coworkers worked his last day with us yesterday, and another put in his two-week notice as he's accepted another position someplace else. A third will more than likely be switching shifts, a fourth and fifth will be leaving soon as well, and a sixth already switched to another shift. My six months at the job is a month from tomorrow, and it's only after that point when I can apply for, and move around freely within, the company itself -- getting promotions, applying for different positions, etc. Most people there, the ones who care about the job and don't mind the work (even on the stressful days) stay the course, and they are the backbone of our office. Daisy's shift on overnights tends to keep people longer than second shift does, as well, so they're an even stronger backbone and deserve more credit than they get for what they do.

Anyway, so there's that. I will, of course, keep you updated as much as I can on anything that happens within the job, but again, we're really not that concerned. Well, I'm not, anyway.

In other news, no, I do not have a new car yet. I more than likely won't for a while. Daisy and I are saving our money for the time being, and we're attempting to pay down our credit cards as much as possible over the next few months. On the plus side I will be able to pay off one of my cards (my Citi Card) completely by this time next month, and the others are following suit slowly but surely. Daisy is doing the same as much as she can afford to as well, and we're keeping a close eye on our finances since we're obviously trying not to put anything more on those cards than necessary when we're trying to pay them off. Meanwhile, I haven't even cashed the check yet for the Monte Carlo, and won't be able to this weekend when I'm off as banks are closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King holiday. I'm also hoping that as a lot of places are closed on Monday, today at work will be quiet.

But no, no car for me yet. I don't exactly know what I want anyway, and to get something reliable that's relatively new-ish, it will be way out of our price range for a while. Daisy's car is reliable, but even with it being six years old, it would still be about $8k or so used. I don't want to pay even half that for a car. I'd like to pay about a quarter of that, max, for something that will run and has locking doors, a working radio, and heat. That's really all that matters. And an automatic transmission, of course, as I'm not driving stick in this town. Anything we'll be able to afford for me will be at least ten years old unless I get some crazy deal from someone.

On that note, I do have to go wake the wife now, as I start work soon. Cheers, folks.

The Death of the Monte Carlo

The Monte Carlo is no more.

Well, I'm sure it exists. Somewhere, at least. Pieces of her, anyway. Sitting in a lot somewhere as pieces are pulled off, re-sold, re-distributed until there's not much left but a shell.

It is a sad, depressing ending for such a beautiful, powerful vehicle, isn't it?

These are the last photos I have of her, taken on December 31 when the U Pull It truck came to haul her away, writing me a check on the spot for $300. It was more than I was expecting them to offer and more than the scrap metal value of the car (we checked), even though aside from the ignition, that car was far from scrap.

Some of you may be confused, especially any new readers I may have here -- this was my car. My first real car -- paid off, name on the title, insured, and well taken-care-of as much as I reasonably could afford. I bought this car in 2011 for the last $500 of my 2010 tax return when I posted an ad on Craigslist in Newton, Kansas, asking if anyone had a car that would work as a daily driver on trips between Newton and Wichita, had to be an automatic transmission (while I can drive stick, I have not done so in over fifteen years) in decent mechanical shape, and I had $500 to offer. I was contacted by the wife of a family there in town a few miles from my house, who said she had a Monte Carlo that had been in storage for over two years, but her husband had taken it out, fixed it up, and had driven it back from Kansas City (so she knew it was in decent shape).

I made an appointment and went over that afternoon, taking the car for a test drive. I really liked it. My ex, who I was with at the time, told me I probably wasn't going to get a better deal for $500 on something that would actually run and be worth owning, so I bought the car then and there, drove it the two or three miles to get it home, and put plates/insurance on it over the course of the next few days, and customized it to make it my own in the weeks afterwards -- I put two Decepticon stickers on it (one large one on the hood, and a second smaller one on the back glass) as well as an Imperial logo on the opposite side of the back glass, scraping off the obnoxious "Cowgirl Up" sticker that was there when I bought the car.

Mind you, the car wasn't flawless. It'd had at least two previous owners, if not more -- I know this because I purchased it from one of them, and there was a worn-out "Payless Auto Sales, Emporia KS" decal on the trunk, so it was well-used. When I bought it, it had 217,000 miles on it. It had two bad spark plugs and one bad plug wire. The "Service Engine Soon" and "Low Coolant" lights rarely, if ever, went off. The anti-lock brake controller was burned out, so the car itself had normal brakes (something which I absolutely loved, compared to the anti-lock brakes in Daisy's car). It liked to burn off, and occasionally leak, oil -- sometimes to the tune of a quart every three weeks or so. In the hot Kansas summers, the thermostat in the car would get stuck, and it would leak coolant out of the overflow valve onto the pavement (or, just like the oil, slowly burn it off). The radio didn't work for 90% of the time I had the car. The power windows did work (at least the motors for them did), but both windows were off-track. The power locks, while they worked flawlessly, could never be used as I didn't have a door key for the car -- just a key for the ignition. The inside driver-side door handle was broken and would not open the door. The air conditioner, though it did blow cool air, needed a freon recharge when I bought the car, and stopped blowing cool air completely after the first month or two I owned and drove the car. These were just a handful of the small problems the car had, and as you can see, most of them are cosmetic or did not affect the car's daily-driver status, which I put it into almost immediately after purchase.

The following April, the serpentine belt and belt tensioner blew out on me while driving home from work on the interstate at 10:30 PM. That was about $350 to fix, and when it blew out my back tires were dangerously dryrotted as well, so I had those replaced also. That fall, during the middle of the semester, the remaining spark plugs (all but one) blew out, dropping my gas mileage to about eight miles per gallon and slowing the car's acceleration to a crawl -- yet it still ran. I had to drive it like that for a few days before I could get it fixed, as I couldn't just up and not drive back and forth to/from school -- my schedule was hectic. That was another $1100 fix (thank you, student loan money), but the mechanics were able to get the radio working again (for a while; it stopped working again shortly before I moved up here) as well. After that, the car never needed any further service until about two months ago when I replaced the other tires and got another oil change. I made 50-mile-plus round trips in it three to four days a week to teach and attend my classes when I was in grad school, and continued that trend afterwards when I continued to teach for another year. Even in the hottest weather or most bitter cold, the car fired up every time, shifted smoothly, accelerated and decelerated wonderfully, and gave me about 20-22 miles per gallon. Yes, she was occasionally old and whiny. Yes, she did occasionally stall out on me when I pulled into a parking space or if it was muggy/humid and I was in stop-and-go traffic, but even with all of her flaws otherwise, she was a very good car.

I drove the car up here to Omaha from Newton the day after my teaching job had ended in May, in order to move it up here without having to worry about towing it behind a U-Haul. I was quite worried that it would blow a major part on the trip, that driving the car for over five hours straight with the only stops being for gas would finally kill it. It did not; the car gave me a record 23-25 miles per gallon (based on my rough estimates then) and purred like a kitten the entire time, driving as if it were new. It didn't even get close to hot/overheating until I was within a few miles of the parents' house in stop-and-go stoplight rush hour traffic, when it started to warm up a little. Air-cooled, naturally-aspirated engine; can't do much about that when there's no air rushing through it.

I registered the car in Nebraska shortly after the wedding, in June. The Kansas license plate I had on it since 2011 was removed, washed off very well, and hung on the wall in our living room as a reminded of not only the independence that car had given me, but as a symbol of knowing my roots, and knowing all of the places that plate had gone while attached to the back of the car.

Shortly thereafter, during my two weeks of training for my current job, someone broke into the car in our apartment parking lot and stole my old, near-useless GPS out of it. They tried to rip out my (by then) non-working stereo as well, though they weren't able to get it out. I was pissed off as the car is about ten yards from the front door of our building in a relatively well-lit parking lot. No further damage was done, of course, and because of that I didn't really care as much as most people might.

Then, of course, the week before Thanksgiving, the car got broken into in our parking lot at work. In doing so, the thieves not only successfully stole the non-working radio, but tore up the rest of the inside of the car, including bashing open my glove box, destroying the interior lights/controls/rearview mirror, and (the most egregious of all) tearing out my ignition in an attempt to steal the vehicle. Once the wire was cut on the ignition switch, the car wasn't going anywhere as that -- and its key -- is the anti-theft system. As I mentioned when it happened, the first part that they cut off was the key-reader system, as the key has a chip in it. See below:

Without the car's ability to read that security chip, it will not start no matter what. 

That key is also the only actual piece of the car I have left. It now hangs on the wall in the living room under the car's Kansas license plate as a shrine to my lost baby.

Anyway.

With the car rendered undriveable, the next day I had it towed back to our apartment complex, duct-taped the glove box shut so that the light inside wouldn't stay on and drain the battery, and there it sat. For over a month. In that time we got a quote from the best steering column mechanic in town (as the damage was so extensive the entire column and wheel would have to be replaced to render the car driveable again), and the quote was between $300 and $500. The steering column, ignition, and wheel were easy enough to fix and parts were readily available for them, but the problem was that because of that car's security key (again, see above), if we couldn't find a steering column and ignition switch with its own key as well, the car would have to be completely re-keyed -- adding another $150 or so to the repair total.

Even though this car was wonderful, and I viewed it as an extension of myself or like my child, I just couldn't do it. We had the money; we have a savings account for emergencies or unforeseen expenses, but it just wasn't worth it. I paid $500 for the car to begin with, and in the years I owned her, taking care of her cost me another two grand or so just to keep her running and safely on the road. And there was no guarantee that if I paid that much and fixed the car up, the same sort of break in wouldn't happen again or that another major, expensive part (like the transmission, fuel pump, etc) wouldn't blow out the next day, week, or month. I made the very emotional decision to let it go and to sell it for, basically, whatever I could get out of it. I put in for quotes from U Pull It twice, and even paid a month's worth of insurance on it when it was sitting in the parking lot undriveable, but it was Daisy who finally arranged the car's pick up from them on the 30th, while I was at work. On the afternoon of the 31st, in the bitter cold, they came to take away my baby, winching her up onto the flatbed truck you see in the pictures at the top of the page, and hauling her away.

I couldn't watch as they took the car out of the parking lot -- it was bad enough watching the guy pull her up onto the truck, forcefully. He asked me if I had the keys to the car, and I replied I did, but it wouldn't do him any good. I wanted to keep the key anyhow, because (again) it's the only piece of the car I have left. It's like cutting a lock of hair off your dead child to keep forever. At least, it is in my mind.

A few days ago I called Geico to cancel the insurance on the car, since (obviously) I'm not going to keep it ongoing. It was done over the phone in about five minutes, and I was informed that within fourteen days, I'd get a refund check for the amount of insurance I'd paid on but had not used (since I'd re-upped it last month). Said refund is something like $28; I don't remember the exact amount.

The Nebraska plates stayed on the car and went with her; they're useless now anyway, and as I may not have another car before June anyhow (when I'd renew them), it's not like I'd bother to transfer them or to try to get a refund on my registration. It's not worth it. I've also not yet deposited the $300 check from U Pull It that they gave me for the car. It'll go directly into our savings account anyway, because I would somehow, for some reason, be really angry with myself if I put it into our normal bank account and the money for my car went to paying bills or getting groceries.

So, what are our next steps here? Well...

The plan is to pay down all of our credit card bills over the next few months, enough to where we would qualify for a (hopefully small) low interest auto loan, and then to get me a car that's newer and more reliable, safer and possibly big enough to use for child transport (as we will, eventually, have children). That narrows down my selections quite a bit, but I've made it a point to tell Daisy that even though I will take every suggestion and recommendation into consideration, ultimately I and I alone will be the one who selects my next vehicle -- whatever it ends up being. From a security and reliability standpoint, basically anything newer with doors that lock, windows that work, and a good heater is a step up from the Monte Carlo. From a stylistic standpoint, it will be a tough car to beat -- and Daisy knows that as well. That car was basically a vehicular version of me: heavy, old, somewhat dirty and broken in places, covered in nerdy designs, but a workhorse with a heart of gold and a fast engine, always ready for the next challenge. It's going to be very difficult for me to find another vehicle with that much... soul.

So that's where we stand now. I've been working on this post for a few days now, trying to get it right, trying to fill in all of the gaps and make it a fitting tribute. We can resume our normal blogs now, as we did before. And I will be sure to keep everyone updated on my car hunt.

The Christmas and New Year Aftermath

I realize it's been well over a week since I last wrote here, but that's mostly because the past week and a half or so has been fucking nuts, and when you have a job that doesn't actually give you any time off but the days of the actual holidays (Christmas Day and New Year's Day), not only do you have very little time to do anything but work, but your work/sleep cycles and patterns get majorly fucked up as well.

Plus, of course, it's the holidays, so there's all sorts of holiday-ish shit to do.

Ahem. Anyway. Happy New Year, folks. 2015 marks the eighth year that this blog has been in existence, as I started it in August 2007. And 2014 was a strange year for me, with lots of good and lots of bad. It was a year of change and upheaval, as well as a year of many, many stresses. I am not sad to see it go, nor am I (for once) happy to see it go, either. It was simply average for the most part, with the good balancing out the bad.

I'd originally planned to write a further recap of Christmas here in the blog, and tried to several times over the course of this past week, but I never had the time to really do so. I've barely touched my computer in the past week, to be honest with you. If I'm not at work being bored or stressed (you know, depending on the day and all) I'm at home spending time with Daisy or sleeping. There aren't enough waking hours in the day to do everything I want (or need) to do, and as a result, work around the house is piling up and I'm constantly tired.

Of course, this could've been avoided had our workplace actually given us more than the two actual holidays off, y'know, like a lot of companies who care about their workers do.

Anyway. Again.

Christmas was very nice and very quiet; Daisy woke up at 4AM and called the rest of us "lazy bums" (in a joking way, of course) for daring to wake up at 6 or 7. We had breakfast, we had presents, it was nice. Even now, as we go into January, there are still two of Daisy's gifts and one gift for Mama that have not yet arrived. I may have mentioned earlier that I received a postcard from the company I ordered said gifts from telling me that two of them had been backordered and would not be available for 4-6 more weeks. However, the third gift hasn't gotten here yet either, and there are still several more things I've ordered that are still on the way as well. We came home on Christmas night by 6PM, and since Daisy had gotten up so early, she almost immediately went to bed. I spent a few hours completely zoning out playing on my phone and/or 2DS before I joined her, as both of us had to work the next day.

Work, even though it's work, has been really quiet since around my birthday. This is (obviously) due to the holidays, and now that the holidays are over, we should expect a ramped up number of issues again -- probably close to our normal numbers and steadily increasing until we plateau at those normal numbers. Today, I'm working 1-10 instead of my normal shift of 3-12 or 2-11, because I'm gatekeeping this afternoon. This means I woke up early this morning, will be getting a shower soon, and will have to wake the wife by a little after noon so that I can get to work on time.

New Year's Eve was fine, though there's a bigger story behind the events of that day that I'm saving for my next post here. We both had to work on Wednesday night, as we usually do, though as the offices were closed all day yesterday for the 1st, we all got off at midnight. Because of this, our overnight staff worked 2nd shift hours with the rest of us, so we had fifteen people there when, normally, we have about eight to ten. We were so quiet that people who had PTO and wanted to use it were going home early just because there was really nothing to do. I had all of my work actually finished by 8:30, and sat on it for a while in the case that anything would come back to us before we all left (as if anything came back, well, they were SOL until this morning, pretty much). I had a live stream webcam of Times Square running in the background on my work computer, which allowed me to watch the ball drop live and in real time (at 11PM central time, of course). When midnight hit, the power went out in our building as someone on the hill above us quite obviously hit a transformer/power line with one of the thousands of fireworks which were being shot off at midnight. Power was out behind our building and on the other side of the street for a good stretch, but the good thing about our workplace is that it has backup generators.

After that, of course, I don't know what else happened; we came home, ate dinner, and watched Gilmore Girls before going to bed around 3.

In other news, I didn't mention earlier (though I probably should have at some point) that one of my closest friends, Rae, moved to Omaha last week. For those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time, you know that I went to grad school with Rae and the two of us are very close -- I have always regarded the woman as family, as a sister, and she was even in my wedding (in the groom's party, of course). Rae moved here because her boyfriend is here in Omaha and works for the university here, and the distance between them was too great. The plans for her move had been set in motion for many months, almost since our wedding. She solidified those plans earlier in the fall, and she finally made it out here last week -- with her dog in tow, and in a brand new car.

As an aside, at this point I can't help but be a little jealous of anyone with a new car, for obvious reasons.

So she made it to town safely and has spent the past several days unpacking/setting everything up here in Omaha, and yesterday we had lunch with her and her beau (partially to celebrate the new year, partially because we were all off work, but mostly because I missed the hell out of that woman). She seems to be settling in fine and getting used to the Omaha landscape, and it's very nice to finally have one of my own friends here in town with me. If you've never left your hometown, or you otherwise live in reasonably close vicinity of most of your friends and family, it's probably difficult for you to fully understand how hard it is to live in a town/city (or several of them over the course of the past nine years, for me) where you know -- and have no connection with -- anyone. Part of why I was a hermit for so long was choice, yes, but a larger part of it was because I knew virtually nobody in the towns in which I lived after moving here to the midwest. The only friends I've ever had in said towns were people I worked with, and after I would leave said job(s) I would very quickly fall out of contact with those people most of the time and for the most part. Rae is one of the few friends I've kept in regular contact with over the past five years or so now, and one of the closest friends I've ever had. She and Daisy love each other as well, so it's a huge comfort that she's here in town. I don't feel so alone anymore.

In other news, the cold and snow -- with the exception of yesterday and today -- has been unrelenting. It's not so much the snow as it is the cold; the high temperature earlier this week was 5. Five degrees. The low was well below zero. This pattern is supposed to repeat again this weekend as well, with the possibility of more snow tomorrow/tomorrow night. As you probably know, I hate winter and everything about winter, and desperately wish it would go away more quickly so that I can break out the t-shirts and flip-flops again. As it's only January 2, I have serious doubts of that happening anytime soon.

We return to work today, as mentioned before, and our normal work schedules of five days a week continues from now through...Memorial Day? Something like that? I don't think we have any other days off work until then, which is really goddamned depressing. We don't even get Martin Luther King Day off as far as I know, though as it's a Monday neither myself nor Daisy would have to work it anyway.

The Birthday/Christmas Rundown, Part V

Ahem. Anyway.

Work yesterday was relatively quiet. It wasn't dead quiet (we're expecting that for most of the weekend), but it was quiet enough. We had all the help we needed, and each of us had about five or six issues to work on. Compared with double that (or more) on our busy days, yesterday was nice. The building/company is still open today, though Daisy and I are off -- along with probably about half of the daytime employees and four or five of our 2nd and 3rd shifters. Again, I'll remind you that Daisy and I are off only because we took PTO for today, just like we did for my birthday. If I ran a company, I'd never have my employees work on Christmas Eve. But I don't run a company, so....

Last night I came home and ate dinner while Daisy holed herself up in our bedroom to wrap all of the presents she had to wrap -- all of mine (of which, looking under the tree, is an ungodly amount), and the parents' gifts from her/us that I didn't already wrap -- so this morning, I walked out into the living room to see this:

If you don't think that's a lot, consider the fact that we have a seven-foot Christmas tree and note the size of the ornaments on the tree for scale. I...yeah. I don't know what's in about 80% of those packages, as the ones I wrapped are stuffed so far behind them that you can only see one in the picture -- the gift bag on the far right. How we're getting all of these over to the parents' this afternoon is beyond me. It's going to take several trips up and down to even get the stuff loaded into her car -- and that doesn't even take into account the two pies she made last night for tonight's dessert.

Anyway, while she wrapped the gifts, I absolutely passed the fuck out on the chair in the living room. I awoke sometime around 3AM -- when she was still baking pies, mind you -- and shuffled to the bedroom, where I woke up this morning shortly after 8...as she was coming to bed herself. Yeah, the woman stayed up all night baking pies and wrapping presents, and that's after she spent all day yesterday cleaning the house. Completely cleaning it, as in steam-cleaning the carpet in every room and scrubbing down the bathrooms, even. I don't know where she gets the energy for any of that.

I've been told that Daisy needs to be awakened by 2:30 so that we can load everything up and get it over to the parents' before we go to the Christmas Eve church service at 4:30. We did this last year as well, though I'm not sure if I wrote about it here. It was nice, non-denominational, very laid-back and all-accepting. That's the only reason I agreed to it last year, and ended up enjoying it. I'm sure the parents know that I'm a lifelong atheist, but it's not something they ever bring up in conversation (probably because Daisy, at one point, told them not to). But they do know that I put value in family and togetherness, peace and love, above pretty much all other things -- so I'm sure that supersedes any opinions about my views of religion. So, that's our plan for tonight -- get Daisy up in a little more than two hours, load the stuff into the car, drive over to the parents', go to church, come home and eat, and then bed.

My mother seemed surprised when, on the phone yesterday, I told her we'd be spending the night at the parents' so we could get up there on Christmas morning -- until I reminded her that I'm no longer six hours away, but about six minutes (traffic permitting).

Tonight for dinner we're skewing non-traditional, as apparently we're making taco pizza as well as snacky-like foods. I don't know what, however. Tomorrow I don't think we're doing anything special at all food-wise, and of course Daisy and I have to return to work on Friday, so by tomorrow evening we'll be back home anyway. Because we don't want to be anywhere near any sort of retail establishment on Christmas Eve or Day, we stopped at Walmart last night on my way home from work to get a few tiny essentials we needed (cat litter, cigarettes, parsley for cooking today, etc). Anything else can wait until at least Sunday or Monday before we go get it.

The Birthday/Christmas Rundown, Part IV

As mentioned in my scheduling post last weekend, we've now gotten the two big family-interaction days out of the way, and yesterday was our "day of rest." And rest we did, really -- as mentioned before, Daisy has spent most of the past 24-36 hours sleeping (her own count, as of yesterday afternoon, was sixteen hours). I can't say I blame her, really. She never gets the chance to be off work for an extended amount of time, and even gets less of a chance to sleep as much as she wants or needs to.

In between her sleep/wake cycles, my own day yesterday was also restful -- and I was able to get a lot of necessary work done in that time. I wrapped all of the presents I had for her and for the parents, with the exception of her stocking-stuffer things (which I'll put in the actual stocking tomorrow night, I'm guessing). Last night and this morning has been a day to take stock of pretty much everything that's left, which isn't a whole lot:

• All of my/our Christmas cards have been mailed; the last one I sent was to my parents on Friday. We've gotten about four or five in return, and I received one birthday card from my grandmother, but no one else. Which I'm fine with -- most other friends/relatives stopped sending me birthday cards around the time I graduated high school. I know there are at least two or three Christmas cards still on the way from friends and family who have told me they're sending some.
• I was able to do all of the laundry we had in the house; I'll have another load to wash/dry before tomorrow night as I plan to take my bathrobe with me to the parents (it's the warmest garment of clothing I have, and it shields me from the wind and snow when I go smoke outside).
• As mentioned above, all of my presents are wrapped; however, there are at least two gifts for Daisy and one for Mama that has not arrived yet. I checked my log -- two of them I ordered on November 9, and the third I ordered on November 26. Generally my orders come within three weeks or so, but apparently not these ones. One of the gifts for the kids was on backorder over three weeks ago as well, and it's still not here yet either. At this point I have absolutely lost hope that any of them will be here before Christmas -- I have no idea what's taking them so long. 
• I have to work this afternoon. I leave in about forty minutes. I'm waiting to wake up Daisy as, since it's a Tuesday and I'm relatively sure it will be quiet, I don't want to spend any more time there than necessary tonight. In, do my work, take a lunch, do more work, get the hell out. 

However.

I did get the best early Christmas present of my life last night (and no, it wasn't a new car, though that would rank up there pretty close as well). No, my best early Christmas present was that I got an email from my student loan servicer telling me that my paperwork had been processed and that I have officially been granted forbearance on my loans for another year. The forbearance ends on the same day it ended this year, December 10. I also received the paper version in the mail as well to verify. Why is this the best early Christmas present of my life? Well, as my monthly loan payment would have been $524.40, it just saved me about $6300 (a huge chunk of my yearly income) that I can actually put towards things like food and a new car over the course of this next year, and, y'know, actually see something come of that money instead of giving it away.

Some of you may be saying "you'll have to pay it back eventually, Brandon," and to that I say yes, probably, but until I can afford to, those fuckers are getting the middle finger from me. Merry Christmas.

Of course, that confirmation comes way too late now compared to when I needed said confirmation much earlier this month, as if I'd gotten the forbearance when I'd applied for it instead of almost a month later, I'd probably have another car now (of some sort) or I would've been able to get Daisy the present I actually wanted to get her for Christmas -- a new laptop. Which I couldn't get, primarily, because a) the one I was planning to get for her doubled in price on the day I was going to order it, but b) because I had to budget for that loan bullshit.

On that note? Time to go to work.

The Birthday/Christmas Rundown, Part III

We knew Sunday would be hectic and busy; we didn't know how much. Y'see, Daisy's sister (the middle one, the one with four kids) has to operate around her husband's work schedule and doesn't like overnighting if it can be helped, as one of her sons is allergic to everything and being outside his environment for any longer than he has to be ups his chances of finding something that will make him ill. Therefore, for them to come down on Saturday night for my birthday, and then stay until Sunday evening, it was a big deal. I fully understand and appreciate the time and effort that went into their trip to Omaha, and know how important it was to Daisy's sister that she was there for my birthday. Keep in mind that plans were changed for that -- they were originally going to come down on Sunday morning, do the presents/dinner thing, and then turn around and go home, so yeah -- they added about sixteen hours to their schedule just for us.

Anyway. We were told before leaving the house on Saturday night that we needed to go back over early in the day, as everyone would go to church at either 9 or 10:30, then we'd do presents, then we'd eat. My response to that? "I don't think either of us will be conscious before 9 or 10:30." And really, I was about half right -- I woke up after 10, and I woke Daisy at 11. I don't know what church service they went to or where, but we weren't awake for it.

Once we'd gotten up and I'd showered/gotten just enough caffeine and nicotine in me to be somewhat mobile, we left for the parents'. I will state that one of the things that our nephew is highly allergic to is smoke, specifically cigarette/cigar smoke. This means I can't smoke at all when they're around because even the smell or the smoke particles on my clothing afterwards will send him into an asthmatic fit. I'm generally fine with this -- I don't want to hurt the kid, after all -- but I usually take my vapor pen with me when they're around as none of that will hurt anyone in the family. Well, my vapor pen is leaking -- the new tank I put on it drips down onto the heating element and kills the vaporizer whenever I use it, so I need to get another tank and probably another battery. We weren't going to have time for that on Sunday morning, so I smoked what I could and left it behind here at the house.

So we went over to the house after 11AM or so to help cook the dinner, as our sister with the four kids had to leave that afternoon to get back home. We did this so that Mama wouldn't have to make everything two days in a row (we love Mama greatly, but she is old and after having double-knee-replacement surgery last year, she still has a lot of daily pain -- especially when there are six grandkids running around). Dad already had the turkey in the oven, and between all of us older kids we helped cook, set the table, and got everything else we could ready for another thirteen-person dinner.

Before that, though -- and almost immediately after arrival at the house -- we gave in and let the kids have their "Christmas morning" of sorts by opening all of their presents. We also opened the presents from the siblings as well, and they opened theirs. This took over an hour, but it was fun -- even though the living room looked like a tornado had hit it afterwards. The kids loved their gifts and toys, and from our sisters/families we got gift cards, glass ornaments for our tree, and a stove-top popcorn maker (which Daisy used last night to make three large bowls of popcorn for us).

Then it was dinner time. We had a very basic Christmas dinner (due to the kids' allergies) of turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, and corn, along with a few other little things like cranberry sauce and the like. Dinner was very nice, though more quiet and subdued than the birthday dinner the night before. Afterwards, we cleaned up and helped the sister with all of the kids get ready to leave, which she did probably two hours at the most after dinner was over. Daisy and I stuck around so that we could clean up everything we could, including doing the dishes and sweeping the floors -- and we played air hockey on the tabletop air hockey game I'd gotten at work as my Secret Santa gift with our oldest nephew before going home shortly after dark.

Finally, the big family Christmas was over -- and after two days of everything, Daisy and I were pretty drained. We came home and she almost immediately went to bed -- where she would spend much of the next 24 hours sleeping as much as she could -- and I watched the majority of Batman Returns (hey, it's a Christmas movie) on Netflix, as well as the BoJack Horseman Christmas Special before she got back up for a while and I went to bed for the night.

The Birthday/Christmas Rundown, Part II

Hoo boy.

This was one hell of a weekend, that's for sure.

So. As planned, on Saturday (read: my birthday) we got off work and went to bed sometime around 2AM after getting home from work. I was exhausted on Friday night; it wasn't because we'd been busy (compared to most Fridays at work it was really tame, to be honest with you), but because I just wanted to get out of there, I hadn't slept well the night before, and because I really wanted my extended weekend to start.

"I can't wait to give you your presents," Daisy told me in the car on the way home.

"Presents? Ohhh, presents," I said. I was genuinely surprised.

Look, I lived alone for a long time, folks. I was functionally a hermit for several years, only leaving the house to teach or take my classes, and to go two miles away to the local Walmart before turning the Monte Carlo around and coming home again. Therefore, the concept of getting birthday presents from people -- even my wife -- was something I didn't even really think of. Normal people get and give birthday presents, riiiiight. I'd completely forgotten about it and the thought never even crossed my mind, truly. I don't know what that says about me as a person or about my personality and self-esteem levels right now.

Of course, part of it was probably that I was just tired, too.

When I woke up on Saturday morning, again, it was really just another day for me. I let Daisy sleep because I knew she needed it, and was told that we didn't really have a set schedule except for dinner at 5:30. I woke Daisy around noon, as she told me she wanted to be awake and spend as much of my birthday with me as possible, and she called the parents at some point while I was on the porch smoking.

Here's where everything gets a little hectic -- Daisy informed me that her other sister and our brother-in-law, who lives a few hours north of here and has four kids -- didn't know it was my birthday and they wanted to come down a day early to celebrate it with me. I mean, since they'd be here on Sunday anyway, another night wasn't a big deal.

I was fine with this, of course -- the more the merrier, and obviously I love everyone in the family and couldn't wait to see and spend time with the kids. The kids (all six of them) have become a highlight of our big family gatherings, especially as they're getting older and thus are more fun to talk to, play with, and interact with. I'm a huge fan of babies under 1, and I love kids old enough to talk to and have conversations with -- it's that grey area in-between where most of the time I'll get frustrated with being around children or don't know how to respond/interact with them because they speak gibberish, run around screaming, or don't listen. I will also say that for the most part, our nieces and nephews are very sane, well-behaved children. This is because (obviously) not only have I gotten used to being around them a lot in the two and a half years that Daisy and I have been together, but because they've gotten older in that time as well. Kids mature, kids grow up, kids settle down somewhat. But, honestly, it's probably that I'm a little more at ease and more used to being around children all the time now.

So, anyway, instead of setting a table for seven (the parents, me, Daisy, and Daisy's sister/her two boys), we were setting a table -- and making a dinner for -- thirteen people. Again, would've been fourteen had our other brother-in-law been able to come to town for our family get-togethers this weekend. And because the rest of them were coming in early, we were doing this two days in a row.

"So does that mean we're going to do everything today and just get it all done and out of the way?" I asked Daisy, since I didn't know what our overall plans were.

"No, we're doing your birthday dinner tonight and then we're going back over tomorrow for the family Christmas," she replied.

Okay. Whatever works. It's the holidays, we don't see the family much as both sets of them live waaaaay out of town, and I was off work for three days in a row. I really didn't mind anything as I'm a go-with-the-flow sort of person when it comes to family stuff most of the time (mainly because I'm going to be along for the ride for most of it anyhow). The entire family hasn't been together all in one place since our wedding back in May, so even having most of them here in Omaha is a rather big event that only tends to happen, at most, twice a year or so. I mean, us adults work or have kids or both, drive times are long for everyone but us, sleeping and dietary/allergy arrangements in the house have to be made when everyone's here, etc etc. It's a big deal, a big production.

So we had my birthday dinner -- poutine -- with everyone there. I got several more presents from the family as well as a few cards. The presents were very nice; a few tin signs to hang on the wall, signs which were relief-stamped and painted with old comic book covers from the 30s through the 60s, as well as a bag of the new Starbucks Christmas blend coffee (which I have yet to grind and drink, actually). It was a nice night, with a nice dinner -- supplemented by the fact that Dad opened a big bottle of champagne that I'm sure I drank about half of.

Daisy's gifts were incredibly nerdy and took the cake, though -- and there's a backstory to them. Well over a month ago (I'm guessing long before Thanksgiving, even) I showed her a link to one of ThinkGeek's newest products, their Star Trek hoodies. I just thought they were neat, and didn't think much else of it -- in fact, I promptly forgot about it. Little did I know that even before I'd shown her the hoodie, she'd already ordered it for me in command red, in my size, and threw in the combadge as well. The result? Well...

Possibly the nerdiest birthday present I've ever received. Now I feel clothed enough to attend conventions without getting the stinkeye.

Ahem. She also got me a tabletop card game we'd been meaning to get for a long time called Dominion, which we played with our sister and brother-in-law for more than an hour that night (until we were so tired we needed to go home). When we actually got home I wasn't awake too long before I promptly passed out until Sunday morning.

How did Sunday go? Well, that's a story for the next post.

The Birthday/Christmas Rundown, Part I

We've mostly solidified our Christmas plans now, from what I know. I say mostly because I'm sort of out of the loop for a lot of it, and along for the ride with the family get-togethers and whatnot. Here's what I do know, or what I've been told by the wife thus far:


Saturday, December 20: My 32nd birthday. Our plans are to go to the parents' and spend the evening with them, Daisy's sister, and her two boys for the traditional birthday dinner and/or celebrations. Mama already knows (without even asking) that she's making poutine for me as my birthday dinner, as the "kids" who participate in this sort of thing (namely me and Daisy) get whatever they want for dinner on birthday night. Because it's a Saturday when Daisy and I would normally be working, we both requested the day off far in advance with PTO. Should be a fun night, though to me it's really just another day. My birthday doesn't really hold much significance to me personally.

Sunday, December 21st: Wrap whatever gifts need to be wrapped in the morning, because we'll be returning to the parents' for our massive family Christmas gathering, where everyone who is available will be coming to the parents' house for dinner and presents. Everyone will be there except for our brother-in-law (who married us, actually, in our ceremony -- the husband of Daisy's sister mentioned in my birthday post above), as he has to work. This means that all together, there will be thirteen people in the house, six of them children under ten. We're cooking dinner and doing presents with the kids because none of them will be available for actual Christmas. This will be a very long, very exhausting day for all of the adults involved, but it should be fun overall.

Monday, December 22nd: Rest. For fuck's sake, rest. Finish up everything we need to do around the house and wrap whatever gifts need to be wrapped for each other and for the parents, as on Sunday's celebratory day, the people getting/unwrapping gifts will be mostly the children and the gifts to/from our family members who won't be here for actual Christmas. Hopefully by this time all of the other gifts I've been waiting for in the mail have actually arrived, because otherwise I don't know when we'll have the time to get them all together and take stock before wrapping them up. Will probably make a short trip grocery shopping if necessary to get necessities like cat litter, almond milk, cigarettes, bread, etc.

Tuesday, December 23rd: I work. Yep. I work. Daisy has the day off still as it's a Tuesday, so she'll more than likely finish up whatever didn't get done on Monday while I'm at the office until 11PM. I expect it to be dead, since it'll be two days before Christmas and many companies we'd work with normally on any other given Tuesday night won't have people in their offices from Christmas Eve forward, I'm guessing. So I'll work my shift, wish everyone well, come home, and go to bed.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day: Daisy and I are both off of work on Christmas Eve, as we took PTO for that day as well. Since nobody else is in town, we're planning our Christmas Eve/Day with the parents, just the four of us, where we'll exchange our own gifts for one another and have our own quiet Christmas dinner together. This is the plan, anyhow. We return to work as per the usual on the 26th and 27th, days I also expect to be incredibly dead in the office due to most people in most offices, again, being out for a long, long weekend after Christmas.


It's not actually as hectic as some years and some Christmases I've had in the past (such as when I was in high school and college), but compared to the last, eh, five years or so, where the only two "busy" Christmases I've had were in 2012 (when I flew home to visit my parents) and last year, when I came up here to Omaha for a few days, it's a lot to take in. Being married now and having all sorts of plans that are metered out and scheduled is quite interesting compared to having, well, basically none before. So, we'll see how it goes. I'll keep everyone posted.

Tightness, Part III

Today is payday. Finally.

This didn't help me yesterday, however, when I had to drain half of our savings account to pay my first student loan bill.

Look, nothing can be done about it right now. I know this because I pored over the entire servicer's website, reading all of their details and fine print. Here's what it boiled down to, basically:

• Even though I've applied for forbearance, until the forms are received and processed, I still need to pay the entirety of the bill before or when it's due.
• If I don't, it goes into delinquency and then collections/default, all of which is really, really bad.
• To change your payment plan, it's not a simple click -- no, you have to apply for it, and it doesn't end there -- it's a process just like anything else that you have to be approved for.
• In changing my payment plan -- which I can't do yet -- it would only cut my payments down to about 2/3 of what they are now, and would skyrocket my interest. Oh yes, I looked. There's something like a 200% increase on my interest over the course of repayment if I do that.
• If I were to change my payment plan, I can't do it before the forbearance forms are received and processed, as they base it on what your payment is every month. They'd see that I was on a different payment plan that would no longer qualify me for forbearance and would deny it instantly. 
• I have not even received the confirmation that the forms were received and have been sent for processing, which tells me that a) either the fax machine at work didn't actually send them even though it told me it did, or b) the processing people don't even have them yet because they're so backlogged.
• As we're still within the ten business days required for a response/receipt of the forms, my hands are tied.

So, I had to transfer money from our savings account into our checking account and pay the damn bill. I was exceedingly, seethingly angry about this, but it's done now. I retrieved the forms from work last night, stuck them into an envelope this morning with a new letter saying, basically, "hey, did you receive these when I faxed them to you? Well, if not, here they are again with proof that I faxed them and I still need this done." I mailed it out earlier this afternoon. I no longer trust the fax machine at work as it took nowhere near this long last year to get this shit done once I faxed it in from the university.

Ten business days from today is the 26th, accounting for Christmas Eve/Christmas that adds two more since they'll be closed, and adding in another four days (giving leeway for the postal service here to mail an envelope to Pennsylvania) would be Friday the 2nd (or Monday the 5th at latest, given New Year's as well). Even accounting for holidays there's still a month between now and when my next bill is due for them to process this shit, so for now this saga comes to a close until I hear something back within the next month one way or the other.

Daisy, of course, ever the pragmatist who wants to solve unsolvable problems, basically told me that I need to take control of this situation as she knows how much it's stressing me out. At this point I've really done everything I can to take control of it. Without confirmation of the receipt of my application, I could call them day and night and they'd be like "who are you? Oh, we still need those forms to come through. Buhbye."

She also mentioned that she wants me to take control of the situation with my car as well, which she also knows is greatly stressing me out. I told her that I'm not going to be the person who, just like the callers we deal with at work, call to berate someone for not doing their job. I shouldn't have to, and I'm not the person that gets aggressive with someone who obviously doesn't care about my business or want it -- I have requested the U Pull It people to call me twice now with any sort of offer (or even acknowledgement that they care about people trying to contact them), and I'm now done with them. I told her she could call if she wants to; otherwise this weekend I will more than likely just list the car on Craigslist and sell it to the first person who can haul it away and pay in cash.

Because today is payday, I was able to pay the stack of bills I had sitting next to my desk this morning, mostly invoices for Christmas gifts I've ordered for the family from Publisher's Clearing House over the past month or so. I was also able to finish Christmas shopping for Daisy, using Amazon as my greatest tool/weapon of choice there, and within an hour of ordering her gifts, one of them had already shipped. I am now completely done shopping for Daisy unless I find one or more little things while we're out over the next two weeks or so. I'm pretty sure she's done for me as well, so all we have left now is to get whatever we're getting for my parents and finish up whatever she has left for hers.

Oh, and wait for the other stuff I ordered to arrive in the mail, because I have orders from November 7, 8, 9, and the 26th that haven't arrived yet. One contains gifts for the nieces/nephews (who we won't even see on Christmas anyway, so it's okay if it's slow, I guess), one for Daisy, one for Mama, and another for Daisy. As I'm beginning to lose hope that they'll arrive before Christmas with the large volume of mail orders that come in around this time of year, I doubled down today for Daisy and got her six different things, with a seventh that both of us can enjoy. The first shipment arrives on Sunday. No, seriously, on Sunday. Amazon is doing Sunday deliveries now.

Since I've now gone through more than an entire book of stamps in sending out the first...oh, third or so of my Christmas cards to friends and family, I also ordered two more books of Rudolph stamps (because why not?) this afternoon, and was told point blank on the USPS website that it would take them at least two business days longer to process because of high mail volume this time of year. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me, really. Hopefully they will ship them quickly and I'll be able to use some of them on the actual Christmas cards I'm sending out. I do have to mail bills too, you know. There's at least three or four bills every month (not counting the orders I have to pay for) that we still have to write checks for.

In a short while, I shall go to work to face what I call "the wrath of Friday." Fridays are historically bad there as we tend to get slammed with lots of issues that need to be taken care of before the weekend.

Tightness, Part II

Shit, I'm so going to need some more stamps.

Total card count thus far: fifteen. Not anywhere even close to halfway done. My digital address book is eight pages long, in twelve-point font. Granted, not all of those people are getting cards (for one, many of the addresses are outdated, more than likely) but it's still a daunting task to go through it and keep track of everything and everyone who's getting a card. Right now I'm still on the "five a day" plan, but as tomorrow is two weeks until Christmas and most of the people I'm sending cards to live on one end of the country or the other, well...I may have to up that count as the days go on more just to make sure everyone who's getting one is getting one.

I bit the bullet this morning and paid my first quarterly installment of my car insurance through Geico, on the card I usually pay it on, as it's due on Friday and I don't want to get a cancellation notice. It just looks bad, you know? Normally I pay the entirety of the insurance all at once, but as I don't know if I'm ever going to drive the damn car again, why would I do that? The status of the car is still up in the air; I can't get the U Pull It people to call me back, and I can't drive it as it is (obviously), so for the moment it just has to sit there in the parking lot. I do not have the time to otherwise fuck with it until who knows when.

Still nothing from the loans people on my status for forbearance, either; tomorrow is the day the loans come due and there's nothing I can do about that -- they haven't even yet told me they've received, much less are processing, my request for further forbearance, even though I got the confirmation sheet from the fax machine that said the document was successfully sent. That was over a week ago now, and yes, I checked the number -- it was the correct fax number. There's really nothing else I can do; if the systems let me log in tomorrow and I can actually change my payment plan (as it won't let me do so while I'm in forbearance), then I will do that and will have to make a payment, with money we don't have, on loans I shouldn't have to pay back yet in the first place. If it won't let me change my payment plan for the first month, then our savings account will immediately be cut in half -- because it's not like we're flush with cash or anything like that. These last two months have been terrible financially, with so many things happening all at once, bad things, that require money to fix -- money that we don't have or otherwise can't afford to spend.

Last year, the day I faxed the application for forbearance in, I immediately got a response in my email that said they'd received it. However, I'd also faxed it three times by that point and had mailed a paper copy of it to them as well, so I'm guessing they got the paper copy and sent the confirmation of that -- as I don't remember getting confirmations via email from the other faxes. I mean, shit, there's really nothing else I can do right now. There's just not. If I have to pay on it tomorrow, I have to pay on it tomorrow, and re-send the forms again via fax and probably mail to get these people to do their fucking jobs in a timely fashion. The entire situation really, really pisses me off.

Anyway.

The group at work is doing a Secret Santa drawing, as our Christmas potluck is a week from tonight. I'm already done, of course, with getting the gift for my person (who knows I got her in the drawing, so it's not exactly secret), but I have no clue who got my name or what they'll get for me. Again, everything looming over my head since before Thanksgiving is really putting a damper on the Christmas season for me this year. Even more so than usual. There are about ten or so checks I have to write out and mail away once we get paid on Friday, for bills that need to be paid and/or otherwise taken care of. I just got the email that said my Citi Card statement was on its way as well, so that'll be here by the weekend and I'll need to pay it down too. And, of course, there's the matter of Daisy's presents that I still need to get for her either in stores or online, and get it all shipped here if online. We only have the one car now, so it's not like I can sneak off without her to go shopping. Well, I could, but I hate doing that unless it can't be avoided. I don't even like going to Walmart without her unless I'm picking up cigarettes and not much else.

I tend to repeat myself here in this blog almost with every post. I realize this, of course. It's because the things that bother me don't go away. If they do, I stop writing about them, because after that, what's the point?

So now we wait and wait some more.