ALIT - new stuff...

ok - i got some funny/OMG stuff and some I can't believe they are so selfish kind of stuff...

I guess i'll start with the selfish cuz it's always fun to end on a LAFF/OMG moment.

So - My cousin P's son D needs to have his adenoids removed. She only had a few options for scheduling, 2 in august. one was beginning of aug and the other was on her 10 year anniversary. Guess which one she picked? :) Anyways she calls my aunt M (D's grandmother) to tell her that her grandson is gonna have surgery. Aunt M starts going off on her "how could you pick that date?!" P is confused. Apparently it's the suka's Due date, and doesn't she want to be in NY for her Sister in law's birth, the birth of her first nephew etc.... P is thinking, a) my son's health takes precedence, and b) why do I need to be there for the birth? Especially when 2 weeks later they are going to have the naming. They are thinking it's nothing for her to go to NY from MD for the birth and then 2 weeks later for the naming. pretty ridiculous. No one offered to go down for D's surgery or even gave a thought or care to it...Then P told Aunt M that she didn't want to get a call from her brother A haranging her for not going to the birth. her mother said "well you'll just have to tell him that your son takes precedence and that's all there is to it." P is thinking "why couldn't she just take that attitude to being with???" Apparently aunt M also pulled the "your brother's came down when you gave birth to D." Few differences though....1) neither brother was married 2) first birth of new generation 3) incredibly difficult and dangerous birth. P was allergic to the baby. They had to induce the birth early and before her body was anywhere close to ready b/c of the health dangers. Well yeah, then i'd expect immediate family to be there...

On the OMG notes... the Suka asked P if she had "hand painted knobs" for her baby furniture for david. P said "yes, I went to AC Moore and bought paint and painted the knobs." The suka's reply... "Oh, well we had a Couture designer come in and paint the knobs for our furniture." (eye roll) what a waste of money...and the true OMG moment...

Suka and hubby bought convertible furniture for the baby, so crib becomes youth bed etc. P says well that was silly. If you are having more kids, why not just buy a youth bed when it's time, and use the nice crib for the new babies as they arrive? Their answer: "*GASP* none of OUR children will ever use a USED crib?!"

True OMG moment!

thursday...

It's almost a holiday weekend.

The evil user from hell is all gone. And all it was, was a stupid mouse setting. She had it set too fast so couldn't keep the mouse still long enough to double click. (sigh)

Bathfitters called, and we are getting our new shower at the end of next week. YAY! I think i'll need to finally pick a shower curtain. :)

Then once that's done - we can do ALL the floors, ALL at once. :) wheeeeeee. This also means I get to work from home next week.

And yes mary, carpet and dogs really just don't go well together which is why i'm doing the laminate flooring. And i'm having it GLUED at the seams so it's water (and whatever else) proof. I have all kinds of interesting colors on my carpet now. :) Of course my husband is looking forward to the new floor because then he can watch the dogs go sliding all over the place. :) hehehehehe. He has a slightly cruel streak sometimes. :) although uncoordinated dogs can be amusing...

Umm - this has been a very rambling disoriented post...but - it's been one of those days. Oh well.

if i forget to post tomorrow due to the holiday weekend i hope everyone has a good holiday weekend. I"ll be going to baby showers (making presents for said babyshower) and going to parties, and practicing for my kung fu test, and setting up my computer set up in the office now that I"ll have all of my components. Specially since monitor is supposed to be delivered today, (assuming I don't have issues with UPS)

see you all next week (if i don't show up tomorrow with a new story... :))

I'm sleepy...

Trying to stay awake, so what better than to post to the blog for the day. :)

So i'm sitting at home working at my kitchen table, with star trek on in the background ( yes i am a geek ) while the doggies chew on their rawhides. :)

it's been a day of calls back and forth, trying to figure out all kind of interesting things. My brother was trying to find out what car he should get... and he finally settled back on what i originally suggested. Just one of those things that you have to come to find for yourself. So he's getting that this afternoon. I'm trying to budget and determine if I can afford all the flooring I want to do in my house. You see a couple of weeks ago, Mister had a few accidents. Not his fault i guess, he probably ate something or got a bug that just wouldn't let him hold things appropriately. So when he sounded off early in the morning as he tends to do, we ignored it for a bit and that was our mistake. the second time I was at work, and the third I was in the shower. (that's the day I stepped in it... literally) So the carpet is very stained where I couldn't get it clean. An dthne of course Zoe threw up one night, and she threw up grass, then reate it, so all that was left was grass dyed liquid.. hence cleaning that up makes it look like kermit the frog got run over on my carpet. :) But hey - it's builder's grade cheap, no stain resistence type carpet. In light beige, put in basically to sell the house. I knew it was gonna hvae to be replaced eventually and I figure it increases resale on the house. The key was determining if i could afford to do the bedroom too which also has some bad stains... I guess we'll figure it out. :)

and that's about it - I haven't heard anything more in the As Long Island Turns saga so i'll update that when I hear more about it. I think we are planning to go to NY and my grandmother's house to see what we want to take so the house can be put up on the market etc. I'll probably have more then. :)

I *HATE* dell.....

It's a shame too... being a Tech, i'm in a good position to recommend computers to people. And it's really a shame that so many people who don't know computers get sucked in to DELLHELL by the very attractive prices that they offer. But their service is horrible. YOu can't even get an american SALES person let alone for tehcnical support.

It started with sunday and ordering my monitor. I purchased a Lenovo/IBM computer rtecently, but I wanted an LCD monitor. Dell unfortunately has THE best price for a REALLY good monitor. (they are still made by sony I believe) So for a monitor, I figured i'd get it. Well 30 minutes later i *FINALLY* finished the damned phone call. The lady wouldn't place the damned order. IT was "did you want to use dell financing?" and I would say no. then "but you can get a discount on your next purchase." no "but it's low monthly payments." how many times do i have to say - I HAVE THE MONEY I DO NOT WANT TO FINANCE! Then she looks up the monitor and i get, "Well ma'am, this is a rather large monitor, did you want to upgrade your video card at this time?" At this point i'm pretty pissed, cuz if I wasn't a tech and didn't know any better, they could be selling and convincing and pushing someone who would fall for it. this isnt fair to the average home user. This is where they are making their money since they offer their systems so cheap.... So I finally convince her to finallky place the order and i get "well, did you want to buy a Dell Printer today? no? how about a dell digital camera?" etc . . . i was offered like 5 products, and then she finally started to finish the order and kept PUSHING and saying "did want anythign else today?" constantly. This order should have taken 5 minutes, maybe 10 if they were waiting on the full CC authorization etc. it was RIDICULOUS!

So yesterday, i had not yet received the order confirmation email. So i called in. The monitor the salesperson said would ship on wed 5/24, has supposedly already shipped sunday evening. (course UPS doesn't work on sunday but we'll let that go.) So i call in and ask for the conf email. i Go through 10 minutes on the phone with yet another person in Bangalore (after 5 mintues getting through menus) and he told me he's send me the UPS shipping info etc...and then all I get are two copies of the "this is your case # for this call. Please respond if you have any further questions." I wrote back twice and got no response from their "case manager."

So I called back today! Tracking number they gave me still does not show in UPS's system, but it's supposedly been in transit since sunday according to dell but really monday cuz nothing REALLY ships on sunday even though they'll list a ship date of sunday. Their email says that one should not that it could take up to 3 days (i.e. the shipping time) for the package to show up in UPS' system. I called UPS and they said, that's not normal but "dell has their own way of doing things." I doin't understand, how hard is it to ship a package? really? it's not even a computer that first has to be built and tested...just a monitor... prepackaged...

needless to say, (not that i planned to anyway) i'm never buying anything from Dell ever again... it's Pathetic the way that their customer service has been sacrificed to the gods of more $$ and offshoring. They used to be known for the best customer service out there. Take it from someone who works in Tech support, they SUCK now. Hell, they used to have the 3 year warranty standard - it was what made them so great, and now the way they give you the cheap price, is they offer a 90 day warranty by default on the really cheap systems. Oh yeah, that gives me a LOT of faith in your product.

My last 2 laptops were Toshiba and now IBM/Lenovo - and both times i'll say, their customer service has been great primarily. IBM even still brags that their support is all at one call center and it's in Georgia... (the US one not the russian one.) IT's a beautiful thing when you can get customer service in your own country, rather than from a script in a foreign country where the support personell are happy to get $300 a month....

*end of rant*

Monday monday . . .

So mondays can really suck. :) it started off with me panicking b/c i'd forgotten a customer was coming to see me friday and I left early, and then she left her computer on my chair for the weekend for me. then called to try and find out if i'd gotten it cuz she was afraid it would get stolen. well DUH!. thankfully it was still there when I got to work. then my system blue screened on me while I was booting up.

ON the flip side, I had a half hour massage at lunch. Going to go once a week for a while to try and get myself into better shape so I don't have to go all the time and/or so it's not so painful when I do go. todays' was nice though still somewhat painful. That's the price to get those kinks worked out I guess...

Testing is coming up at the kung fu school. Starts the week of june 4th. course, we haven't even learned section 5 of the empty hand form or 6 of the weapons form. (and 6 is one of the longest sections) plus the school is closed for memorial day as well. So i've scheduled at least 2 private sessions to make sure I can learn it reasonably well to take the test. it sucks to pay $400+ for the 3 months only to have 'nothing' to show for it at the end ya know? And then I also start my photography class on june 3 so there's a bit of overlap there to worry about. I don't think i'll continue with the kung fu for now. Not getting enough of a workout and I think I need the weights and stretching I do with the trainer to keep my back in better shape. so i may go back to that, and maybe take some aerobics and/or some yoga. Who knows we'll see how it goes I guess. :)

NOthing really new on the ALIT front. I'm still laughing about saving up for the baby's nose job and the baby isn't even born yet. :) That and my aunt asking the lawyer she is trying to REMOVE as trustee for more money to pay for the lawyers she is hiring to REMOVE him... :) gotta love it!

Beyond that - some amusing pictures at my other blog: http://moblog.co.uk/blog/ilanna puppies and cars and kids etc... (not my kids though - i don't have any yet)

ah well.. tomorrow's another day . . . . :)

NADA...

So there isn't a whole lot going on today, but I wanted to post anyway to keep up on my weekday posting. :)

Lucky me though, I get to work from home this afternoon. yay! let the doggies romp and play and maybe i'll get my new potting bench built.
I really like it, but it's not an easy modular build. I have to screw it all together and stuff - so it's been sitting in my living room waiting for me. And of course I have some repotting that I need to do so I'll try to get it built.

I also bought a Serger this week (for sewing) which makes some nifty seams and stuff. Something i've wanted for years but couldn't justify. So now i have it, so i'll have to set IT up and play with it and see if i can get it to work nice and then use it to make a few things I have lined up :)

and that's about all for today. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Whoops...

I got distracted yesterday and forgot to post. I"m trying to post regularly. :) oh well one missed day won't hurt anything.

So i Know i've told some locals this...this is very entertaining.

My aunt, the crazy one - has already blown through her monthly alottment of $5k+ since she got it at the beginning of May. So she's called the Exec 3 times in one day to say she needs more money. Understandably he asked her why she needs more, what she spent it all on and to justify what she needs more for. So she told him! She needs it to pay her lawyer... you know.. the one that she hired to get the exec removed? :) too funny.

In other news.. umm not much other news. :) My other aunt opened the bank box and found the other good jewelry. her son (the suka's husband) suggested she give a piece to A's (her other son) girlfriend (whom it looks like he will marry) since A hasn't asked for anything from the estate. and Finally she stood up a bit and said "E has her own mother. She can get stuff from her. I have a daughter, sisters, and neices." Which basically blew away any set up he was trying to do to get that real jewelry for the suka, whom if you recall after seeing some of the good stuff when my grandmother showed it to her, commented out of Grandmother's hearing, "when that jewelry is mine I won't keep it locked away, i'll wear it!" right... because that jewelry will EVER become yours.... I think not.

apparently she's double dipping too... MY aunt is supposedly buying her an entire Layette (set of baby clothes for those who don't know {Grin}) possibly from Saks 5th ave. Her mother apparently already bought her an entire set from some high end stores down in Fl. and no one has told EITHer mother about the other's purchases...Gotta love it!

Expensive

Doggies are expensive. :)

Mister's tummy was doing some funky things so I took him to the Vet. $113 i'm told well his tummy is off, but can't find anything wrong. here's an antibiotic just in case. another $40 as well to have zoe's ears checked cuz she'd been scratching a lot lately. Nothing there either - perfectly clean ears.

Ahh well. Good to know the puppies are healthy. and of course we get home and they are hyper and just running all over the place. :)

Nothing knew on the ALIT front... i guess things can't happen every day. :) (I'm still giggling over the nose job deal. :)

and My mom got laid off yesterday. Just in time for summer! :) actually, they said it's a real lay off that they want her back as soon as they can afford it and even told her they might hire her on a contract basic for things as they come up. it's really a sham they can't afford payroll though what with the CFO's new porsche, and those new marketing guys they hired (that are probably getting 6 figures.) But oh well, they are just shooting themselves in the foot when they no longer have the appropriate personell to do the work the marketing guys drum up for them...

and that's all that's new on this front... well that and I ate way too much for lunch and it's not sitting well. ICK! I should know better... Oh well...

ALIT - The legend continues...

So i got some more goodies this weekend. MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHA :) some are funny and others well.. we'll see.

So first off, i found out the the Aunt (the crazy one) is not suing the estate per se for more money. SHe is suing to get the executor removed as the administrator of her Trust. See she isn't necessarily competent to handle her own money. (as evidenced by the 10K a month thing.) SO her share of the inheritence is going into a trust, and the executor will handle doling it out as appropriate. Which means she would need to toe the line on expenditures and she knows it. So she wants to sue to get him removed and someone she can control in place. Of course she isn't thinking long term. She could live easily another 20 years, and the $$ won't last that long. We're talking MAYBE 1.2 million. (doesn't go as far today as it used to sadly.) The way it's set up it should earn her a divident of about 3-4K a month. Should be COMPLETELy livable. but of course in her mind it is not. So that's what she is trying to do. ANd if she succeeds, fine let her enjoy. But mom and the other aunt will be making it clear that they will not schtup her any more money or support her in any way when she runs out. If she ends up in jail or a state funded home because of it. Oh well...

There have been way too many secrets going on. A month or so ago, Executor (E) asked my mom if she thought my Grandmother (G) would have given the same disbersement to the Suka's unborn child. Well truth is, if she'd lived longer the kid would have been born, and so yeah, she would have set aside the $$ and given it to the child. In trust of course, not in control of the parents. Of course no one told anyone else about it, so as people find out in various ways (namely E asking crazy aunt since all 3 sisters would have to agree to do it) they then use that information to cause conflicts and stir everyone up.

I also found out that apparently Suka and hubby are kind of afraid of my brother. This is very entertaining. We always knew they were afraid of my mom cuz well, she's smarter and can't be manipulated and they know it! but they made comments to their sister saying "don't you think he's mean? He's scary looking and always seems so mean and nasty!" and of course P responds "he's always been lovely to me and my son I don't know why you'd think that. He responds "well Suka's leery of him, kind of scared of him and he always seems and dresses so nastily that we're steering clear." My guess is they are trying to garner support to one side or another against others. It's a shame really. But I look at it is - I'll never have to go to NY again once this is all settled. :)

Now for the entertainment portion of our post.

The suka is a little nutso herself. I mean heck, they donated $10K to some rabbi or something in israel to insure a healthy baby. If it were me, i'd put that in an emergency medical fund and or college fun ya know? But i digress. So a while back around when she was 5 months pregnant or so, she SWORE that she could see the baby's nose in the sonogram and started yelling at her husband for giving the baby his big ugly hooked nose, instead of letting her have the suka's cute little Shiksa nose. (these are paraphrased quotes btw.. ) SO i found out this week that....(this is SO good!)

She is already starting to Save $$ to pay for the child's nose job to fix the problem! the child is not even BORN yet. :) I find this HIGHLY entertaining. . .

comment at your leisure...

Clarification on ALIT :)

Thought i might clarify something.

My aunt trying to get "more than her fair share..." Well in her mind it *IS* her fair share. You see she is mentally disabled at this point. She used to be functional but has always been messed up. Her breast cancer really turned her psycho though.

So anyways, my grandmother and other aunt really fed into this unfortunately. When my grandfather passed away, the 3 daughters each got X amount of $$. Well while my mother and Aunt M used their $$ as they needed it and gave some to their kids for things etc, aunt R never had to touch hers. My grandmother paid for everything out of her funds. So she paid rent on the apartment and gave her a $5k montly allowance to pay bills, the companion, and whatever other living expenses. Except usually within 2 weeks, she'd used up the $5k and so she'd get another 5. So she was going through something like $10K a month. And so now she realizes that funds will be limited and wants the estate to pay for her to live so she doesn't have to touch her own money. (the original X is now 1.5 times X since Suka's husband has been investing it for her)

Add to this the pychosis that since she has no husband or boyfriend, no job, no children (that she has custody of or sees very often) and now has lost my grandmother, she deserves more to compensate her for her lack of social life.

While I feel for her that she has driven away all of her friends and now has lost the one person who was willing to put up with her for any length of time, that does not mean she deserves more than what was dictated in the will. Which is an even distribution. She is in her own little world and there is no breaking her out of it. And unfortunately she is rational and manipulative enough that she can convince a lawyer that she is in the right and that they can win a case. All that will really accomplish is the drain the estate with legal fees. Keep your fingers crossed that this gets headded off before it gets too bad.

In the mean time, i'm spending this weekend with the Mother person. :) Haven't done that in quite a while so i'm looking forward to the visit. :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend! And Sangroncito, i think it's GREAT that you get to do all this travelling and STILL can respond to my blog while you are there. :)

System Board #4

Ok - so we are going on our third replacement which means total of 4 system boards. Apparently there is a problem with the installation instructions that cause the switch to break when the computer is put back together. They are rewriting the instructions and HOPEFULLY will be sending the new ones out with the new system board this time. I hope this fixes it because a) I won't be in the office tomorrow and b) i'm killing my neck and shoulder carrying this monster back and forth to work. :) I bought a heavy machine KNOWING that I would not be carrying it very often.

So... knitting news. I have been knitting this:
It's mostly done. I had one ear left to knit when I ran out of yarn and had to buy another skein of this $6 for all of 54 yards type of yarn. Here's hoping I have enough left to make a small baby hat or something. But I ran into trouble. Apparently you are supposed to knit it in such a way that the head is open at the top so it can be stuffed and sewn shut. Well something was wrong with the instructions and they didn't make the change needed for the opposite direction, so it was sealed at the top. Then, i undid it and reknit it so it would not be sealed. It looked good on the needles, and then when I took it off according to instruction, it's one again sealed. I think I need to take it to build a bear and see if I can borrow their stuffing machine. Stick the "needle" through one of the holes, and stuff it in an instant. :) Don't think they'll let me do that though do you? :) oh well. I'm bringing it and one or two other projects to my mom's this weekend so she can show me how to finish stuff off and maybe crochet some borders so the presents will be "gift worthy".

On the frustration front. Mister's tummy has not been well. Saturday morning he um... "exploded." He did the same thing while I was at work yesterday. 45 minutes of clean up. I had to drag his entire crate(this is a crate sized for a dog up to 90 lbs) outside so I could hose the whole thing down. that was SOOO much fun. HOpefully this does not reoccur.

ALIT (As Long Island Turns...) MY aunt is now trying to raise money to pay the lawyer to sue the estate so she can try to get more than her fair share. the suka, of course to aid her in this endeavor found her a buyer for an original Andy Warhol painting that she has. All this so she can sue the estate, and drain it with legal costs so there's nothing left for anyone at the end of the day. Are we having fun yet? Sukah's husband (SH) wants my grandmother's car. it's not worth much, maybe $1500. And in all honesty none of us could really care less about it. The executor though wants him to pay for the car. I can understand this. The car is not like a table or a chair that is a personal item within the house hold. The car is something that is titled and has paperwork and assessed value to the estate. You can't avoid that really. So if SH get's the car for nothing, then everyone else is due an extra $1500 cuz he is getting more than his fair monetary share as dictated by the will. WOuld be the same as if he was able to buy the house for cheaper since he's a family member. So of course in his mother's world (aunt1) we're trying to block things because we don't like them etc etc etc. Meanwhile, SH is the man who, donated $10,000 to an israeli organization to guarantee a healthy baby, but is letting his mother pay all of his unpaid parking tickets, since they happened on her car and it would affect her credit (and arrest record. NYC doesn't mess around with that.) Sickening ain't it?? Stay tuned for more . . .

HUmp day...

So. . . I would have posted yesterday (keeping up to my weekday daily schedule that i've started here) but Blogger was down and giving me fits. Ah well.

So IBM came out yesterday and they put the palm rest back on right, but turns out the switch is part of the motherboard, and apparently was broken off of the NEW motherboard they installed on friday. Don't know if it came that way, or if it was broken by the tech who messed up in the first place or what... it's a new model so maybe the techs aren't trained on how the casing for this one works. :) Anyways, they are coming out wiht yet ANOTHER system board today. This should be interesting. THis is why I *ALWAYS* pay for onsite service and don't buy computers from places like best buy.

This weekend I am going to visit my mom for mother's day. Also gonna shop. There's some camera stuff I want to get, before I start the photography class i'm going to take this summer. And mom owes me $ so she'll pay for that stuff in exchange for paying me back. It all works out well. I just have to figure out what to get HER for mother's day. :)

On the As Long Island Turns front... let's see. MY Aunt is retaining a lawyer to keep the executor "honest." What that really means is that he has her number and won't play her games or give her whatever she wants and so she doesn't want him as executor. The only other family members who dont' like him are . . . you guessed it The SUka's Husband. (and probably the Suka) That's because he has THEIR number as well, and knows that they are greedy and manipulative, and won't play their games either. Personally I think he's great. :) My aunt (who used to be a great litigator mainly cuz she is so manipulative) is losing her touch. SHe's nuts. I mean that literally. She has to have a companion, and her funds have to be doled out in a trust because she can't take care of herself. Well she also wants to sue the rehab facility my grandmother is in - not for negligence (which would be valid) but for misrepresenting themselves as a rehab facility and that they were really a nursing home. Truth is they are rehab, nursing home, and hospital in 3 different buildings. She is claiming they billed themselves as an acute rehab and they weren't and never were. Family decided against acute rehab cuz my grandmother never would have put up with it and done what was needed. Negligence I could see because she took her tubes out at 4am and no one noticed until it was too late. BUt honestly, I don't blame the facility because my grandmother made her choice. It was a very deliberate action on her part. That's the latest interesting tidbit on that.

ANd of course - *complaint time*. Why do people who need tech support call in when they aren't near their computer?!?!?!? I have a customer who's been calling me every day for 3 or 4 days to ask if we can do her install. I keep telling her we have to wait for her id file. she finally gets the ID file and calls me and I said ok lets do it now. "Oh no, i need 10 more minutes." why? "well i'm not at the computer and I have to get there and start it up. I told her I couldn't do it in 10 minutes that i had a conflict. she didn't listen. So of course now i'm on the phone with her. (sigh)

Oh well - welcome to Hump day!

Blech.. monday

So my computer seems to be mostly fixed. Took me all of friday afternoon and evening to reset up all the software and transfer the data. Only two things are missing. my firefox bookmarks and the adobe creative suite. Adobe is when it started blue screening the first time, so I"ll need to be careful when i load it PLUS i'll have to call adobe probably to get the activation released.

Also - I had to call IBM again, b/c the case wasn't reassembled properly. I don't really blame the tech though. IT's a new model and hasn't been out long, they may not have had as thorough training on it as necessary. So there's a bulge in the palm rest, and the wireless switch doesn't work any more. it's loose, not connected to anything. (i have a manual switch that I can use to turn wireless on and off). Oh well. Hopefully someone will be out tomorrow to take care of those minor issues.

The weekend was relatively quiet. Saturday after kung fu, i ran some errands and went to "free COmic book day" for a little while. THen went home and relaxed for a bit. Worked on some knitting that afternoon and ALMOST finished the project, when I realised I was *1* bunny ear away from finishing. SO i had to go and spend $6 on a single skein of this yarn so I could finish the bunny. Which i did mostly last night EXCEPT, there's an error in the pattern that my mom (who found it a few weeks ago) forgot to tell me about. So now i'll have to try and pull out a couple of rows to fix it. Ahh well - it's cute though, and I bought different (cheaper) yarn to try and make another one later.

One of my errands was to complete the mission of finding a collar my dog couldn't destroy. He's good at chewing collars. The first time, it was Zoe's collar. The next 2 times, were his OWN. Not sure how he got them off, but he thoroughly destoyed them. The second one was a brand that is Guaranteed even against chewing. That lasted 2 days. and was dangerous too! it ended up all stringy like a nylon buddha bone, and who knows how much string he ingested! i'm still finding it around the house. SO i bought a choke chain. I *hate* these things. they get abused way too easily, and they don't have a stop on them so they can just keep tightening. SO I bought one the EXACT circumference of his neck. Then i bought some "quick links." These things look like a link from a chain, but have a barrel on them that screws to open or close the link. so I use a quick link to connect the two ends of the choker together. So now it's just a chain collar. :) I think it works well - we'll see how long it lasts.. I've heard him trying to chew on it - but i should think it would be a little harder to destroy. Well see! :)

now, Seing as i'm pretty much just rambling on, I think i'll cut things short around here. :) but i'll try to post this week some more of "as Long island turns."

Later Taters!

Friday...

It's friday . . . YAY!!!!

My computer is being fixed... i guess this is a YAY :) it was blue screening on me. The nice tech support people said "ok we'll just send you a new system board and harddrive." umm OK. :) Helps that i'm a desktop technician and they believe me when I report symptoms. :) So the tech is here now and has my new baby all TAKEN apart... it's kind of cool and freaky ALL at the same time. Soon as he is done, then I will put my software back on and hopefully be up and running by this afternoon, all happy and ready to go. :) WHEEEEEEEEE. . . .

I got an apology email from the paralegal, telling me she's sorry all the names were spelled wrong. She has corrected it in the files, but all the corrections I did are acceptable legally so no more paperwork to do. Hopefully, now that that is done, i'll have a check in my hands soon. (which is good cuz one credit card has jumped to 30% interest!!!!!!! they jump on the LEAST excuses i tell ya... needless to say that card is being cancelled the minute i pay it off)

NOt much else going on right now - not sure i'm in the mood to tell another tale of As Long Island Turns . . . there's all kinds of interesting stuff but I have to remember which piece goes with which first... :)

have a great weekend folks!

Shiva? But it's not cold....

So wow... three posts, three days in a row. Weird huh? :)

Well I promised to tell you all what happened at the shiva back in march and so I shall. This will also set up background for MORE of "as long island turns."

For some further back story - you might want to go and read the first big post i made on here... all about a wedding. :) My cousin and the Suka.

So we all head up to NY on saturday (from the DE and MD areas.) ANd check into the hotel. And we of course go out to dinner to one of our old favorite italian restaurants. Now the Suka is pregnant yet again. to add to the Politics of the situation, cousin's Sister (P) has been trying for years to get pregnant again, and is unable to after thousands of $$ of treatments. So when we were at my aunt's house saturday evening, the "fun" began. The Suka apparently started in with "so how much did YOUR bellini furniture cost. Oh, only $1700. Mine cost $5000!" and going on and on about the baby. The woman at this point is all of 4 months pregnant. Looks like she swallowed a pea. But she is walking around the house arching her back and sticking her belly out, hand on back, hand on belly to show how Pregnant she is. she complains about all the swelling problems and how tired she is. (sleeps til noon then goes back to bed at 830) basically playing it to the hilt. She even has a PHOTO album, for her sonograms, which she is getting every 2 weeks because of the previous miscarriage.

So the next morning we all meet at my grandmother's house for the funeral. Once again, she is exagerating things. However, my mother (gods bless her {grin}) remembered an old jewish superstition that if you are pregnant you shouldn't go to a funeral or the baby might get "the evil eye" or something along those lines. So she didn't come to the funeral which is good. Especially as my grandmother hated her. The Shiva officially started when we got back.

The days were pretty much the same, mom and I would beat the hotel, get up - start to work form the hotel room for a couple of hours, get breakfast, and show up there around lunch time. Where we'd make do with whatever food we could find there that we could eat. Then dinner we'd leave get our own meal at our favorite italian place ;) and then go back for the evening. The food is problematic... catered kosher food is horrible. It's incredibly salty, doesn't taste very good, and tends to do real numbers on our stomachs. MOm and I have some dietary issues. At the time I was being tested for Celiac so we were trying to keep the wheat levels down. (and before you ask, the italian place we had chicken and soup, no pasta.) But b/c of these dietary issues, we were the butt of much criticism and commentary. People who supposedly loved us, did nothing but insinuate and make cracks about the problems. (I did find out i'm not Celiac, but my mother and I both - mom worse than I - have a Wheat intolerance. Can only handle certain levels and certain types within reason.) THey would literally gang up.

The suka spent her time doing the "ugh, i'm too pregnant" routine. Wouldn't even hold her dog properly, just carried her around like a foot ball.. couldn't carry in front cuz she was TOO pregnant.

Basically - the way this all has ended is in a familial split. The folks who are in NY and the folks who aren't. Those who aren't are my immediate family and P's family. Apparently we are pariahs. There were any number of guilt trips they laid on us for no longer living in NY. the "oy you don't know how it is! you haven't been here..." etc.

The jockying for financial position began the DAY OF THE FUNERAL! family members would pull the executor to the side and try to set up position not 2 HOURS after she was buried. absolutely ridiculous!

A friend of mine said... "Nothing tears a family part worse then death and an estate to divide up. . . ." Greed rears it's ugly head.

more stories to come. . . .

What's in a name?

So - for those of you who don't know, my grandmother passed away back in March. (i'll have to post about the Shiva at some point because it was ummm... interesting - my husband calls all of the family drama "as long island turns" :) )

So anyways, her estate is being handled by a good Estate lawyer out of Florida. He is good, but apparently there is no quality control on his paralegals, who were apparently rushing to get the paperwork out.

SO I finally receive the paperwork to sign, so I can receive my inheritence. first of all, my First name and my Married name are spelled wrong on EVERY document. In addition, I have to remove my Married name from the doc (I hyphenate) because I haven't changed my name on anything - Including my social security card. So any official doc that requires my SS# needs to be in my maiden name. SO I go through and change everything to my Maiden name, with the correct spelling of my first name, Initial and sign everything. Then i'm rereading one document which then says "I also hereby confirm that Anothony's SS# and our current address to be as follows:" Umm.. my name isn't anthony. Anthony is my MINOR cousin. So i'm not even sure this document is the right one, but I made corrections and initialed and I'm going to mail them all in. But it's frustrating... how hard is it really? you verify the name, type it in correctly once, and then cut and paste to all the other documents. MY cousin Pam's paperwork had her last name spelled wrong throughout.

My mother got a call from the paralegal last week, saying "do you know who mr & mrs X are?" X is my mom's new married name. She was trying to reconcile the check book and saw the check made out to my mom and her husband as a wedding present. I have no patience for idiocy anymore... :)

an UPDATE OMG!!! :)

Ok - so i guess it's not that astounding, but Minijaxter did ask if I was going to be updating regularly, and I figured I should try to post again.

So, I never gave any info about the anti-seder.

Background -

I guess the first bit of background that most people need would be the fact that I am, in theory, Jewish. :) Mom and I usually refer to ourselves as Pagan jews. We tend to have a rather irreverent outlook on religion. The truth is, we are jewish by culture more than any thing else (having grown up in a 60% jewish community/area on Long Island, there's a lot of "culture.) We tend not to go in for formal or oganized religions choosing our own spirituality. But the truth is, when you are raised jewish and most of your family is conservative or conservadox, there's culture you just can't escape.

So Background part 2. :) Last year around passover we had been trying to figure out if we were going to NY for the big family seder. Well with weather being what it was, and my grandmother being very happy in Florida, we suggested they stay there (along with my aunt and uncle) and we would host our own seder. (we of course at this point we had no intention of having our own seder.) My Husband, being Episcopalean light (which is very light {grin}) made the following suggestion: "hey, why don't have have a kind of Anit-Seder. We can make that free ham we got from Acme for the main course..." I of course started running with an expanding this idea. He meant it as a COMPLETE joke. I told my mother, who loved it and ran with it further. And so the ***-annual anti-seder was born.

Last year, we had a rip roaring time with jokes and amusements and Echrai drinking a juice glass filled with vodka. :)

So this year's Anti-seder (forever now known as the AS cuz i'm tired of typing anti-seder) was a full house. We had 12 and then later 13 people come and join in. We had as much non kosher food as we could have. Spiral cut honey ham, roast leg of lamb(more on that later) corn dumplings instead of matzoh balls (corn is not kosher for passover, i've heard various reasons why) rice, green beans (with butter :) ), and so forth. We did do the horseradish and the Charoset (apples and walnuts in wine) though. Gotta have some tradition there. The wine flowed, the puns were made, and the evening progressed.

When we got to the part with the 4 questions, my mother decided that rather than 4 questions, everyone at the table would ask *me* a question. :) so that was 11. :) one person asked if she could pass while she thought and we said "nope, that was your question. Next?"

Another question was "what level of hell was going on outside on the deck." Apparently the grill got rather aggressive with the roast lamb. The temp guage which maxed at 700, had pegged a 1/4" past 700 and the dials were too hot to touch. Interestingly enough, a good portion of the lamb though charred on the outside, was still medium rare on the inside. :)

There were a lot of wonderful one liners and puns, and a good time was had by all. :) We will definitely do this again next year.... though if word spreads I might have to find more than 12 chairs. As it is I went to staples to buy a 4 pack of folding chairs, used the 2 others that I had, and we still had to pull over an armchair from the living room for the late comer.

All in all a good AS though. :) The dogs were rather tired out. (we had put them in day care that day so they wouldn't be too hyper with all the people and then all the people tired them out.) And something spooked zoe, because all day easter she was afraid to go into the living room. It MIGHT have been the string maze my husband had laid out. Apparently tradition in his family is to twist string around all over the place and follow it to where your easter basket is hidden. So this year he did a string for me and a string for my mom... :) That might have scared her a bit. But she is easily scared. :) we had the hose on the deck the other day and she woudlnt' go back out on the deck for a little while. Mister could care less. :)

Not much else going on in recent days... my brother's bday is tomorrow and he's feeling all "blah, it's a non day, no one is doing anything is mid week and blah blah blah. " Which of courseI shouldn't make fun of cuz i get the same way. :) but i'm pretty sure his friend has something planned.

THere's all kinds of new dramas in the NY front with my grandmother's estate but i think i'll make that a different post.......