I love my doctor

Not only has Dr. Bunin always been absolutely phenomenal, honest, and helpful — answering questions over the phone at odd times on top of keeping track (somehow!) of everything, and acknowledging exactly how much Aspirin, Ibuprofen, and Acetaminophen is actually safe to take in any block of time (useful when you manage to hurt yourself while you have a headache, trust me), I just called to make Mandrina an appointment so that she can hopefully get some pain meds for her knee before we go to my brother’s wedding. Mandrina, who hates doctors, is okay with Dr. Bunin.

I call, and speak to the receptionist (Jean). She pulls up Mandrina’s super-thin folder (Mandrina’d been in once for a post-accident check a year and a half ago), and says that she doesn’t have any new-patient appointments any time soon… Is Friday okay?

It’s Wednesday at 2:30. They were apologizing that they couldn’t see Mandrina (someone they have no existing relationship with) until Friday afternoon.

I love my doctor.

Looking for a Honeymoon

Trying to find a Honeymoon location has been a hassle.

Originally, Mandrina wanted to go to Vienna, Austria. I wasn’t thrilled with that, but I came up with a wonderful compromise — three or four nights in Vienna, an overnight train to Switzerland (I want to open a Swiss Bank account!), then another train to Belgium — which is for my stomach — Gauffres, Belgian Chocolate, and Frites, baby!

Then someone realized that a March wedding would lead to a March honeymoon would lead to Vienna in March which would lead to dealing with 30 degree temperatures. Mandrina wants a warm honeymoon (“Bare shoulders!”).

So I suddenly have to deal with coming up with a new destination.

Mandrina wanted Egypt. A Nile River cruise, Pyramids, Cairo. I agreed it would be neat. Then I spoke to a friend, Egyptian parents, who advised me that it probably wouldn’t be too safe to go to Egypt. Doh.

NEXT!

Australia wasn’t too popular, nor was New Zealand. Peru (Machu Picchu!) met with similar issues — actually, the primary one was the lack of options for going to see Machu Picchu — it appears to always require a tour.

NEXT!

Casablanca was the most recent idea (our first dance is likely to be to “As Time Goes By”). Morocco isn’t necessarily unsafe (I don’t know yet), but the cost to travel from New Orleans or Atlanta (nearest two major airports) to Casablanca is rather high.

NEXT!

Nile River Cruise, train to Casablanca. Whoops. I’d have to cross Libya, which I seem to recall is a terrorism supporter. That’s not so good…

NEXT!

Um.

I don’t have a “Next” yet. Hrm…

KNOCK, damnit!

Over this past weekend, I bought four pounds of M&Ms. I couldn’t find the dark chocolate ones, and I wasn’t about to sacrifice the one dark chocolate bag I have at home, so I settled for the kinds I like, peanut and mostly chocolate.

Mind you, I’m not actually allowed to eat any of them (damn you, Atkins!), but I brought them in to celebrate my four year anniversary at work. It’s a thing.

But why, oh why, when my office door is CLOSED, did one of my @#$#$%@# coworkers just OPEN IT to talk to me WITHOUT KNOCKING???????

*grumble*

Anti-Bitch about Amazon

I was planning on writing a post about how Amazon.com has changed their gift certificate policy, and screwed me out of over one hundred dollars.

It used to be that gift certificates had expiration dates, but you could add them to your account, and they would last indefinitely.

At some point in the last year or so, this policy has changed. Now the original expiration date is still valid; and it’s even harder to find, as you just have a gift certificate “balance.”

I noticed my account balance was low when checking it on a whim, and emailed Amazon, furious that that change had come by, and I was given no information that I had an account balance that was due to expire. This annoyed me.

I just got an email response saying they had checked, and my gift certificates had qualified under the old rules. My gift certificate balance was reestablished, and was flagged to last indefinitely.

Now, THAT’s customer service.

Fast food destruction!

Mandrina suckered me into the Atkins diet for the next week or two (I know, a real healthy way to diet). I didn’t have any warning, so I didn’t stock up on chocolate, or his close friend chocolate-chip-cookie, prior to starting this diet that says I can’t have a single cookie. (Mandrina refers to my typical mode of dieting as the “Salad and chocolate” diet. Much catchier than “Atkins” if you ask me…)

So I got “convinced” to be on this diet with Mandrina, and we started Friday night (I’m down two-three pounds in three days, so… *shrug*). On Saturday, we had a panic with Pixel’s health — he spent 24 hours at the emergency clinic under observation, but he’s fine now, thanks for asking — and I ended up going to work with Mandrina for a few hours.

Unfortunately, there was some degree of hunger involved, so we stopped at MacDonald’s. Have you ever tried to eat a hamburger without eating the bun? While driving on the freeway? This Atkins fad strikes me as a fast way to an accident. Which is not the cause for the title of the post.

This is: Mandrina and I spent the day Saturday on the road, and got home late. We went out grocery shopping yesterday, and got Pixel from the vet. We also went to Old Navy so I had enough clothes for our upcoming trip. In all these trips, our hands were rather full coming home. So we never took out the near-empty soda cups from McDs on Saturday.

Apparently, Diet Coke + ice => a substance that can dissolve within two days whatever material those McD’s soda cups are made of. So now I have sticky soda-water on my car’s center console. I’m not too happy. I think next time, we’ll go to Arby’s.

Avoiding buying a new laptop…

I am getting really tired of some of the… idiosyncracies of my wonderful current laptop… that is now 5.5 years old. Tarot has some issues (Not the Tarot you’re thinking of, unless you know why my desktop is named Ghostwheel, and my other desktop Logrus…). He’s just been abused for several years.

I want a new laptop. I just can’t convince myself to spend the money — or that I necessarily have the money to spend. However, I could be wrong. I could use a laptop, I’m certain. At the same time, I know that there’s always new and better technology coming down the pipe, and in a year I could probably buy a laptop that will actually run Windows Vista. It might not be out in a year, but at least I could upgrade…

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