I’m so glad my sister Karen was able to help you obtain your new dog from California, a sweet blue Queensland heeler.

After paying $200 to the breeder/trainer in California, I can see how the idea of paying another $600 to have the dog transported up to you in Bend would have been rather daunting. So lucky Karen was heading back to Idaho from Central California so you could save some money!

I must admit, I worked Karen rather hard down here. Our 84 year old mother has been ill so I moved her in with me and Karen and I spent a week and a half clearing out her house. Three dumpsters, many truck loads back and forth to my house, and a giant pile o’ garage sales items later, we had it done. Then came the washing of the kitchen items we were keeping, laundering of mom’s stored clothing, and organizing my garage and house so everything would have a place. Whew!

Karen had a lot to take back with her after clearing out mom’s house, so we strategically packed her car to the gills. Even so, she had to leave some things behind to make room for your dog but the gas money from you would help defray some of the cost of the trip so it was a sacrifice she was willing to make.

Imagine her surprise when the “gas money” you gave her was a mere $10. TEN DOLLARS. For transporting a dog, in the back seat of her car, over 500 miles from Modesto, CA to Bend, OR at a total of over 9 hours.

She saved you $600 in transport fees – or the alternative of having to spend your personal time and money to drive down to California and return home with the dog – and all you thought it was worth was $10? 500 miles at the IRS standard mileage rate of $0.51 equals $255. AND you were disgruntled you had to drive 15 extra miles to meet her at your mutual friend’s house rather than CostCo because, after all, she had only just driven ten and a half hours with two dogs and a car full of childhood memories so what would another 15 miles have been (plus another 15 to get back to the friend’s house?)

You live in Bend, OR so you are financially well off. Poor people don’t live in Bend. Neither do they spend $200 for a dog nor contemplate spending $600 to transport it. Your ungracious behavior in this matter and disrespectful treatment of your fellow human being is appalling. Shame on you!

At the very least, please immediately send Karen a check for $190 which, combined with the $10 “gas money” you gave her, amounts to the same fee you paid for the dog. That would be fair and right and still save you $400 in transport fees.

If you choose not to do so, please explain how you came up with a figure of $10 as equitable compensation for the service Karen provided for you. She was too nice – and too tired – to argue with you. Also kind of hard to do so from the shower since you showed up while she was washing the travel away and couldn’t be bothered to wait for her to get out to introduce yourself and properly thank her.

Do the right thing. Or prove the unwashed 99% masses right. Your choice.

Regards,

Sheila Livingston

All I had left to do was lightly sand the living room cabinet doors and apply a third coat of paint. I’ve had the drop cloth down and the painting tools ready all this time but just couldn’t get my butt in gear.

So today I did get them sanded but more paint came off in some places than I expected and it all just became TOO HARD.

So I cleaned and reorganized the garage instead. Here is what it looked like before:

Well, sort of before. The boxes were stacked all askew on the right but I broke them down and threw them in the center of the floor before going to town with my Skil Power Cutter.

Best. Tool. Ever.

See the giant box on the right? I kept it on its side like that and shoved it full of a bunch of stuff I don’t use but can’t get rid of yet for various reasons AND I can use it as a sort of table.

You can’t see the giant box-table very well due to the avalanche of cardboard I have yet to cut up because the recycling bin is inadequate when you put off cutting up your cardboard for…a while.

Look at all the empty shelves on the other wall!

Most of what was there is in the giant box, which I am also using as Donation Station to stash all the things I need to donate but, uh, haven’t.

But perhaps most importantly:

It’s a beautiful thing. Except for all the filth on my car. Yuck. I’d wash it myself but I’m a delicate flower. I see a visit to the detailer in my future.

Ow. My feet hurt. And my shoulders. And my back. Ow.

Discovered cockroaches in my kitchen. HORROR.

Eradicated said cockroaches. Turns out they were holed up in the battery compartment of my automatic dry kitty food dispenser. I got the bug man out here to spray and set traps just in case but haven’t seen or caught a one since I overhauled the food dispenser. Apparently shrieking while playing Whack-A-Roach with the nearest thing at hand (my sandal) did the trick.

Discovered a mouse in my office as it made a mad dash across the room headed for who knows where. I’m certain the cockroaches in my kitchen told the mice where I work, but I have no proof.

Eradicated said mouse, sort of. I cleaned out my snack drawer (sad day, sad day) and Buff Kahuna humored me by getting a no-kill trap. After a few days of the trap not being sprung, I took a look inside to discover the peanut butter bait was gone. We reconfigured it so it would work properly and I set the little bugger free outside the next day. (Stupid, I know!) We reset the trap and caught a second mouse, or maybe it was the first who made his way back into the building. Who knows? I haven’t had any more mouse droppings in my area but others in the office have so they brought out the big (aka poison) guns. No sign of dead mice yet but I’m sure we’ll smell them when they crawl off and die in the walls or something. Blech.

Got mom all fixed up! She had cataract/glaucoma surgery on her second eye, got her final shot of rooster stuff in her bad knee, and just got a shot of cortisone in her left hip. As my sis Karen says, we’re pretending she’s a racehorse and just going to keep numbing things until we figure out where the problem is. So far so good. Much of her pain is at bay.

Got a new haircut. My gays would dub it another “angry-lesbian” look but I’m hiding from them so they haven’t seen it. It’s not the most flattering but I DON’T CARE. It’s super easy and I love it!

Had a Mary Kay party. I am now hooked on the TimeWise system...and I wear mascara to work every day…and I was my face EVERY NIGHT. As my rep and friend Deb Coburn says, she’s ruined me.

I’m sure there’s more but it will have to wait because  I have to go to work now, on a Saturday. The October 15th final extension deadline for 2010 individual taxpayers looms and I’m taking a week of vacation the 10th through the 14th. Whoops! Didn’t really think that one through and the airfare is nonrefundable.

Here’s hoping I don’t find any mouse poop or worse when I get to the office.

I do not mock other states who complain about a few weeks of swelter we deal with ALL SUMMER LONG.

No, because, one day, it’s going to snow in Central California and we’ll be all:

• OMG! How are we supposed to drive in this slippery stuff?
• Breaking news: “Tragic deaths in Central California: people too stupid to get inside where it’s warm.”
• Eek! All this moisture makes my hair frizz!

When that happens and someone who lives with snow all the time makes fun of us, I will have the moral high ground and no compunction about punching them in the face.

I decided to try Bigelow French Vanilla for a change of pace but here's the thing: black tea already has a flavor. It is downright blasphemous to muck it up with new-agey herbs and flowers and whatnot. Save that for the hippie herb teas, dammit.

Guess I’ll have to start mail-ordering my Darjeeling again. But don’t worry about me, I bought some English Breakfast to tide me over. Not the same, though…not the same.

Here is what it looked like after I dropped it on my tile entryway floor (which will be ripped out as soon as possible because I’ve always hated it and now have a genuine reason to perform tile genocide):

You can’t see it very well, but the worst of the damage is at the lower left edge. It looks kind of blue, eh, from left edge to about halfway across? If you tilt your screen away from you and look at it from “below” you may be able to see that entire area is a mass of shattered glass. Clearly that’s the edge that hit first. I kept using it for a bit that morning and suffered “tiny shards of glass in my index finger” syndrome.

Because sometimes I’m not too bright.

It was chaos when I arrived at the Apple Store. CHAOS. TIP: If you’re going to the Apple Store, don’t go on Saturday. I’d never been to one of their brick and mortar stores before, having bought my iPad2 online, so was unprepared for the melee.

I thought making an appointment online worked like it does at DMV where you  jump ahead of everyone who is too stupid to make an appointment. It does, sort of, but either they drastically overbooked or the standard 10-15 minute appointments took longer than expected because I wandered around the store for 30 minutes before my “genius” came to greet me.

BTW, if you’re new to the Apple Store and have an appointment, be sure to check in with any of the worker bees walking around with iPads. I wasted 5 precious minutes standing at the Genius Bar waiting for someone to acknowledge me so I could check in. I finally interrupted one of the “Geniuses” and was cheerily told to find anyone walking around with a tablet and check in there.

Then he laughed behind my back as I walked away and called me an Apple Virgin.

Not really, but I did feel the teensiest bit humiliated that I was DOING IT WRONG. I had, in fact, read the instructions online that said to check in that way but thought doing so at the Bar itself would be faster. VIRGIN.

My genius’s name was Estavan and I should have taken his picture because he was ADORABLE. Also 12 years old, or thereabouts. He began by telling me the warranty only covers hardware failure, likening it to a car warranty. If your engine falls out due to mechanical failure, that’s probably covered. If you crash into something, that’s what you have insurance for and there is no insurance for you iPad.

He said they don’t replace the screens on the iPad2, either, and a new unit would cost $499 (the original price) but he could offer me a replacement for just $279 AT THAT STORE ONLY (Modesto’s Vintage Faire Mall.) It sucked, but I said okay because I take my iPad2 to bed with me every night and can’t imagine life without it.

As he processed the paperwork and got my new iPad2, I chatted with the girls next to me who were there to replace an iPhone but couldn’t get the case off. Their male Genius couldn’t get it off either. My Estevan tried and only got half of it off. Then a female Genius picked it up and – boom – case off! The males declared they “loosened it” for her, of course.

So I go to sign the paperwork and Estevan says he’s going to take care of me today and I think, yes, yes, you’re giving me a brand new iPad2 for almost half price, but it’s still almost $300 so don’t get cocky. But then he makes sure I am looking him in the eye when he says, “so I’m giving it to you for free.”

“Uh…what?” I almost climbed across the Genius Bar and kissed his adorable little cheeks. Free. FREE. One of my Facebook Friends says they have a “one drop” replacement policy, which my Genius didn’t tell me, but I don’t care if it’s true or not. I’m just happy to have my brand new replacement:

Isn’t it beautiful? *sniff*

So I waited 30 minutes past my appointment time but walked out 15 minutes later a satisfied Apple customer. Apple’s customer service ROCKS.

Not that I have actually used it to start exercising regularly and eating healthy. Don’t be ridiculous!

But it’s brilliant for getting your butt in gear when you have a not-so-fun task to do and no one around to motivate you to actually do it.

Enter: my living room entertainment center painting project.

My BFF Tania came down from Sacramento last weekend at the beginning of July and helped me get it done, along with decking out my master closet. The world needs more friends like Tania. (Love you, girl!)

I let everything dry about a week before putting the shelves back in and promptly peeled paint off left and right getting them in. THE HORROR. On closer inspection of my paint job on the base unit and uprights (Tania did the doors and shelves and they are perfectly lovely) I decided it needed a third coat of paint anyway so I would do that and add a few coats of shellac for protection.

Of course this involves taking the shelves back out and removing the doors, followed by lightly sanding the monstrosity so coat #3 will adhere and wiping/vacuuming/tack clothing away every miniscule bit of sanding residue, before the equally monumental task of actually painting begins. Followed by repeating the entire process multiple times depending on how many coats of shellac you think it needs.

Dear god, I was not looking forward to it.

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While it was only a couple of carriage returns for you, that was two hours away from the keyboard for me, during which I actually did get the 3rd coat of paint on the living room shelving unit base cabinets and uprights. This post was going to be all about activation energy and how awesome it is and how much I got done because of it.

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That was on July 10th, exactly 4 weeks ago. I just got the 3rd coat of paint on ONE side of the shelf inserts today, and don’t even ask me about the cabinet doors.

To put things in perspective, here are things that got done during that 4 weeks I wasn’t painting the shelves:

1. Had my annual review at work;
2. Had my annual mammogram;
3. Had DirecTV out to fix the TV connection in my guest room in preparation for mom staying with me before and after her eye surgery;
4. My sister Karen had major abdominal surgery and is already half way through her recovery period;
5. Took Mom for cataract and glaucoma surgery in one eye, to 3 follow up appointments so far, and she is back to her regular activities pending upcoming surgery on the other eye;
6. Found myself – to my horror – working along side the Tea Party (It turned not to be that horrifying after the initial shock but that’s a whole other post);
7. Took mom to Fresno 3 times for injections in her knee of something that originally came from a rooster’s comb to cushion the joint where the cartilage has worn down to the bone, aka arthritis. One more injection to go and, if it works, she’ll be pain-free for 6-12 months;
8. Got my nails done (another trip to Fresno);
9. Got my hair done;
10. Fed and watered a friend’s critters while she was out of town one weekend;

In retrospect, it sounds like I had a lot going on but, truthfully, I sat on my butt every evening when I could have been painting and sat around drinking tea during the cool hours of the weekend mornings. I used the excuse that it averaged 100 degrees for the last month, but still…

I think perfection-itis was holding me back. I opted to sand only (not prime) before the first coat of paint, thinking the raw wood would suck up the paint and apply a good bond. It certainly did suck up the paint but I’m not so sure about the good bond part. Maybe that’s why it peeled off when I put the shelf inserts back in. I decided I don’t give a crap anymore and just want it DONE. The cabinet top is holding up nicely where I have had the cable box and DVR sitting so maybe the third coat will do the trick. I plan to let the shelves dry for a good month before putting anything on them, like books and chotchkies. And I have decided To Hell with applying shellac, though I did buy some should I change my mind.

Then maybe I’ll get around to finishing the caulking on the baseboards in my master closet.

I need handy friends and family who live closer and will work for food and/or alcohol.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

HOW WE GOT IT DONE:

I owe Tania a big BIG THANK YOU for helping me with this. I never would have gotten it accomplished without your help, my friend.

I LOVE the way my living room looks now. I’ll wait a week or so before reloading the shelves, to make sure the paint has a chance to dry thoroughly. We don’t want a repeat of the time I painted my mom’s bookshelves and loaded the books on too soon. NOT. PRETTY.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go sit on my sofa and stare at my beautiful new wall o’ shelves, to be interrupted only by running down the hall to stare at my newly revamped master closet.

See this post for the Before, Empty, and Oh-Dear-God-Demolition-Is-Hard photos. As a refresher, here is a basic shot of what I faced every morning:

Depressing, isn’t it? The top shelf ran the full perimeter of the closet. Yes, even over the door. (You can see the bottom of the shelf and a bit of the brim of a straw hat peeking over the edge.) There are single poles running along each side for hanging clothes. I replaced the door with a sheer curtain because it opened inward and, while the left side of the closet is 24” deep the right side is only 12”, so the hangers stuck out and the door couldn’t open all the way.

WHO DESIGNED THIS THING?

Here is what it looks like now:

Doesn’t it look eleventy billion times bigger?

I still have a few things to do, like install new baseboards (painted and ready to be sacrificed for the greater good) and fill the wall on the right above the double-decker shoe condo. I was initially going to get a third shoe condo but have decided to put two 24” wide shelves there instead, where I will put baskets filled with delicate girly things and, hey!, maybe I’ll be able to get rid of one of my three – count ‘em, THREE – dressers.

Yeah, I’m liking that idea more and more.

Please notice the light fixture in the ceiling. Lest you think it is boring and unremarkable, know that the original fixture was a bare bulb with no way to attach a globe of any kind. Great for aggressive questioning in a small, otherwise dark room by men in black. Not so good for making you feel pretty in the morning.

BTW, the closet wasn’t the only thing Tania and I got accomplished during the 48 hours she was here but I’ll have to tell you about it later. Now I must go become prone.

This is my old tool box along with my cordless drill with two batteries (in the black bag,) two drill/driver bit sets, a set ratchet set,and my handy tape measure.

Relatively compact but it still takes two trips if I need to, say, drill and hammer something.

Behold my magical new bag:

And my pink toenails. (It is in fact possible to get regular manicures and operate power tools.) Also note the small green and black bag. It was an old one I had lying around that is perfect for all the loose crap, like electrical tape, plumbers tape, replacement blades for the utility knife, glue sticks for the hot glue gun (yes, every tool box should have a hot glue gun – so handy), staples for the staple gun, etc. I just toss it on top inside before I zip up the main bag.

And look at all the exterior pockets!

Front and right-facing side above, back and left-facing side below.

They even have two little places on the back there to clip things, like a tape measure.

And the best part? IT ROLLS. Just like a rolling suitcase.

It’s pretty heavy with all that stuff in there but it rolls quite easily. I don’t really need everything I have in there at present. I could probably leave out the ratchet set and a few other task-specific tools but it’s nice to know it all fits with room to spare. I can even stack things on top and bungee them to the handle if I need to go mobile.

BTW, if you’re wondering why the three screw drivers in front have pink ends, I dabbed pink fingernail polish on them to identify them as the Phillips heads. Pink starts with “P” as does Phillips. You know, in case someone uses my tools and – GOD FORBID – puts them back in the wrong pocket, I will still be able to easily locate a Phillips when I need it.