11-15-07

* * * I would tell y’all that it makes me very, very sad that so many of you didn’t know that the Dyson filter needs to be cleaned regularly, except that I think I had mine for about a year and a half before I realized it. There’s a decent little movie here on how to take your filter out, and even how to check for clogs. The guy doesn’t actually show you how to clean the filter, but you just take it out of the hard case and rinse it until the water runs clear. He mentions soap and water, but I don’t believe I’ve ever used soap, just very warm water. I think there are actually written instructions on the hard case on how to clean the filter and case. Just be very careful that everything is completely dry before you put it back together and vacuum. You don’t want a wet or even slightly damp filter in your Dyson, because I imagine that would cause some serious issues. Happy vacuuming!

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Yesterday I turned on the TV and the DVR to watch those crazy Real Housewives bitches, and after I watched that (and I’ll admit I did feel sorry for Lauri because Josh moving in with George’s ex-wife clearly has her all torn up, but that kid is fucking BRILLIANT. He couldn’t have hurt her more if he’d taken away all her plastic surgery money.) I decided to go delete Nip/Tuck from the recording schedule, which is when I realized that another episode had recorded, so I went to delete that, and the summary of the show had me wondering “Huh. Who the fuck is Eden, aside from a Bad Girl, because I think that if you name your child Eden, you are clearly sentencing her to a life of slutty hussyhood.”, and so I had to watch the episode to see what the fuck was going on. All this is to ask you – why the HELL would a plastic surgeon do examination after examination of an 18 year-old’s sensitive areas without a NURSE present? I’ve never been to a plastic surgeon, but I plan to visit one in the next few months, and given that I am a female who will be mostly nekkid and the surgeon will be squeezing my flab, I expect that there will be a nurse present. Because it’s just GOOD BUSINESS PRACTICE. JESUS. And back to the Real Housewives, when I heard that Vicki and her husband are downsizing from a 5,000 square foot home to a 4,000 square foot home, my heart broke for her. They’ll be all bumping into each other all the time. How can they stand to have such a TINY house? And spending $250,000 dollars (JANE) on the pool area, what the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK? That is some crazy-ass shit. Lastly, Jeana can just shut up with her “I don’t dare to leave Colton alone because he’ll get into trouble!” one second, then the next “We’re off to Berkley! Buh-bye!” and leaving Colton home all alone the next. Please.
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Over the weekend, I – with much help from Fred – put together this year’s Christmas card and uploaded it to VistaPrint (they have, far and away, the best price on photo cards. I hope like hell that they’re good quality card.). After dithering about it for a few more days, I decided to go ahead and order them last night. I looked to see how many cards I sent out last year (330), and decided to order 350. But unfortunately, that’s not one of the quantities VistaPrint offers. You can buy 250, but the next higher quantity is 500. I decided to buy 250 and then 100, and though I tried my best, I couldn’t figure out how to have both in my virtual shopping cart, so I decided to place the orders separately. I had placed the order for 250, and I was about to go back to the front page, when I noticed that VistaPrint was offering me – if I ordered them in the next ten minutes – a 10% discount on another 250 cards. I didn’t need that many but I thought that clicking on the “Order them now!” button would at least take me to a “Finalize your order” page, and then I could change the quantity to 100 without having to go through the whole process again. Hey. Guess what clicking on the “Order them now!” button does? Why, oddly enough, it orders them now. Without you having to go through the process of finalizing anything else. You click the button, they’re ordered. Ta daaaa! Hooray. Now, I get a few more card requests every year, but not anything like 170 more. I explained the issue to Fred, and he said “Just save the extras and send them out next year!” “I can’t do that. That’s tacky! I’m not sending the same damn card out two years in a row!” “You could cross-reference the Christmas card lists, and whoever doesn’t request a card this year but does next, you could send them this year’s card next year!” “Oh, right! That sounds like something GUARANTEED to put me into the Christmas spirit!” I went to the VistaPrint page and started looking for a way to contact customer service. After a few minutes of looking, I was horrified to find that the only way to contact customer service was to CALL them. I think I might have mentioned that I do not enjoy talking on the phone, especially to strangers, and ESPECIALLY especially to strangers who would surely be located in another country and who would surely speak with an accent, and I would feel like an idiot asking them to repeat themselves. (Last time I had to talk to someone in another country on the phone, it was a woman in India who had to make changes to my Expedia itinerary before I went to Maine in August, and when I asked her to repeat herself for the third time in our five-minute conversation, bitch GAVE ME ATTITUDE. It gripes me that you have to fucking call and talk to a person to accept changes in your itinerary. How ’bout you just give me the option of clicking a “Yeah, whatever, just GIVE ME MY GODDAMN TICKETS” button, Expedia? How about that?) I begged Fred to call them for me, and groaning and moaning and bitching (but mostly kidding), Fred called them for me. He was on the phone for about ten minutes, and first they tried to convince him that the 500 cards was an AMAZING price, and I’m sure it is, but it’s also 150 more cards than we need, and what the fuck do you do with 150 extra cards? Once he repeated three times that he was positive he didn’t want 500 cards, they tried to tell him that they couldn’t change the order, and when he asked if he could just cancel the order and place it again, there was some bullshit like they couldn’t hear him. Finally – surprisingly – they were able to cancel the first order, then he had to go through some automated system to place the correct order, and now we’re all set. Or maybe we’re not. I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised to find 850 cards on the front doorstep in a few days.
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“Hey you GUYS, it’s snackin’ time!” **************************** “You come here, and I will bite your head off. OFF! RIGHT OFF YOUR BODY!” “Okay, no, wait. You have a little shmutz right here. Let me take care of that…” “Halp! I am being eaten alive by a fearsome, cruel monster!” “HALP, I SAY!”
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Previously 2006: When I thought of how crappy the doors would look, he gave me a long-suffering look and said in his “Look how patient and long-suffering I am” voice, “I’ll paint them.” 2005: “Fascinating.” 2004: All your frog are belong to us. 2003: No entry. 2002: I am freezing to death. 2001: I think I need to get a life… 2000: In other words, Robyn is a total spaz about her eyes, comprende? 1999: On the way into work, and the whole time I worked today, I reconsidered that reconsideration.]]>

23 thoughts on “11-15-07”

  1. Now I’m really looking forward to this year’s card after all the hoopla to order them! I know what you mean about calling people like that. I had to call yesterday and cancel a magazine subscription and give them my name, address etc in order to get a refund. I must have spelt out my name 3 times and I’m certain it’ll be wrong when the cheque gets here.

  2. Oh and I have a question too, I forgot in the excitement of being first to comment. I am giving my cat some wet cat food, about half a can a day or I may start giving him half in the morning and half at night. Anyway he won’t eat the kind that comes in the really small, I suppose you might call them single serving, cans so I end up opening a larger can, scooping out half and putting the openned can in a plastic sandwich baggie into the fridge as the can says it should be refridgerated after opening. The thing is that I don’t think my cat is overly crazy about wet, cold cat food and I can’t say as I blame him. Can I just leave the can on the counter in the baggie during the day, as long as it isn’t in the sun or getting really hot will it be okay for several hours? I wouldn’t leave it overnight though if I’m not going to give him the rest later on the same day. OR should I put the cat food in the fridge and microwave it a litte to get the chill out when I give it to him the next time? Does anyone do this? Doesn’t it sound gross to put cat food in the microwave???

  3. Boy I am hogging the comment section today, I also give my cat dry food, don’t think I am starving him on half a can of cat food a day. He seems to need more moisture in his diet because his bowel movements have been really dry and constipated.

  4. Question for tomorrow: What, if anything, did you do for comfort/consolation after Tubby died and Fancypants disappeared? Our beloved kitty died this week, and I could use some ideas.
    I’m excited to see this year’s card too! Totally with you on the phone thing — mr. d usually has to be the one calling in the pizza or chinese takeout order, because I haaaaaaaate using the phone. I’ll talk your ear off in person, but on the phone?! Eeeek!

  5. 1.) Have you ever broken any bones? If so, what and when?
    2.) Our cat Daisy seems to be not eating as much and when she does eat, she barfs it back up. She has a vet appointment for later today but do you know of any reason why this could be occuring? I know you’re not a vet but you have had enough experience with cats that you might have had this happen before.

  6. Hi Robyn! I have a question about WLS. I am considering getting the lap-band & I would love to know your opinion. When you were deciding about your surgery did you have the option of the lapband? Why did you choose gastric bypass over lap band? I am leaning towards the band for 2 reasons: 1)cost, I am self-pay & it will cost approx. $12,000 which is much less than gastric bypass surgery and 2)it can be adjusted if I ever want to have another child. I am sure you did extensive research on all the WLS options and I would love to hear your thoughts on the lap-band. Thanks!

  7. How serendipitous! I totally spent a few hours preparing and my own holiday cards on Vistaprint last night! That’s so strange…
    But, 350 cards!? I couldn’t imaging sending that many out… I’ll probably have trouble sending 50 out!
    ….I hope I can just order 50, now you’ve got me worried.

  8. Ok, here’s a question, have you written your giving-birth-experience on here? I’m due in 8 days and would love to read about it.
    It was super easy right? And not painful at all right? And just generally wonderful right?
    That river in Egypt is where I’m living right now 😉

  9. My cats will regularly turn up their noses at the cold winter wet cat food, but will happily chow down 10 seconds later after the plate has been in the micro for 5-10 seconds. I suggest 5 seconds initially, as each microwave seems to be different.

  10. Robyn,
    What would we do with out you? You sure take good care of use poor Dyson owners. I figured I’d push buttons until I found the filter. Now I know exactly what I need to do – lucky for the kitties. Their ears will be saved from the row of curse words that were bound to come out of my month – loudly. 😉 THANK YOU!

  12. Jen ~ I have a handicapped cat that I have to hand feed wet food to twice a day. I put open cans in the refrigerator and when it comes time to feed him, I’ll put the food in a dish and then microwave it for 10 seconds or so–just enough to warm it up.

  14. You are right, Vista has great prices and a good quality card (we used ours through them last year — well, one of the 4 we sent out…long story) but Customer Service BITES (his head OFF! OFF his body). Someone should do something about that, says the woman who just placed an order with them last week.
    What? I get points through mypoints.com with them and, well, that pays for Christmas and Hannukah gifts!

  18. Here’s my question. Do farm raised eggs, where the chickens are fed fresh veggies and strawberry pie, have less cholesterol than store bought eggs?

  19. I know you’ve answered this question before to some degree, but in your experience, what is the best way to introduce a new cat to the household, particularly if the new cat is a a male and the current resident cat is a skittish female?
    Do your female cats get squicked out if the male cats use the same litter boxes that they do? Do the male cats gobble all the food?
    My husband and I are getting ready to get a male kitty and we already have the skittish female kitty I mentioned. My sister works at a vet’s office, and they’ve got me totally worried about keeping the cats separate and all that stuff, but I’d like a more practical point of view from someone who knows cats, and you fit that bill! Thanks!

  20. Forgot to ask this yesterday…what did you think of Eat, Pray, Love? I read the Eat part, just skimmed the Pray part and haven’t read further. Found it just too tiresome.

  21. Hey, Hulda? I’m not Robyn, but I can answer you. 🙂
    I had my son with no drugs – no epidural, no demerol, no nothin’. Not even an IV. YES, it was… uncomfortable. But really, it wasn’t worse than that. Even at the peak of contractions, there’s a waxing and waning, so the maximum pain doesn’t last long. I’ve experienced root canal and dry socket, and childbirth’s got nothin’ on either of them, I’ll tell you that! (OTOH, I would’ve welcomed pain meds AFTER childbirth, when the doctor was in up to his elbows “inspecting” for placental fragments.)
    The best advice I have for you is to RELAX! I’m convinced a big part of the reason why I was able to forego the meds is because I really, truly was not afraid, and I knew I could do it.
    Of course, my labor was 10.5 hours TOTAL, and I slept on and off for the first four hours before going to the hospital I’m sure that, had I been in hard labor for 18 hours, I’d have been begging for morphine. 🙂
    Good luck! (Sorry to hijack your comments, Robyn)

  22. How would I go about getting on the christmas card list? I just love getting something in the mail that isn’t junk or a bill. I would also be happy to reciprocate if you are interested.

  23. Jen: I feed my kitty half a can in the a.m. and half a can in the p.m. but I leave it out on the counter and it’s fine. Also you might want to pick up one of those plastic canned cat food covers they have at PetSmart or Petco. They are cheap and work well!

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