Falling Apart
It seems everything around here is falling apart. My computer has been giving me fits for weeks, and finally bit the dust last week. Our A/C suddenly stopped working–thank the lords of Kobol that this is an unseasonably cool August. I am sitting in my living room with all the windows open and thinking I need to put on some warmer clothing (or maybe shut the windows). Mike and I both had root canals a couple of weeks ago. All these things are making us bleed money, so I am probably not going to be able to put both kids in a gymnastics class this fall. Not that they have time, anyway! I don’t want to overschedule my child, but there is just so. much. to. do.
My computer? Still not exactly fixed. The computer guy replaced the motherboard and I still had the black screen of doom so he told me he couldn’t fix it and I’d have to send it off to the depot. I was about to cry. I do not have time for this! Ain’t nobody got time for this!
Two minutes later he was handing me my computer, with my user icon showing, mentioning something about F2.
I was thrilled, of course, and worked my big ol’ behind off, trying to get some of these documents completed.
Then the computer started slowing down. I re-booted and BAM! Black screen of doom!
I had a huge freakout that included stomping my feet and slamming doors, because I am the very picture of maturity.
I came back and hit F2 and managed to get the computer working again. I still have no idea what I did in those secret parts of the computer that non-geeks like me aren’t even supposed to know about. I don’t really care what I did, either. It somehow worked and I am going to try to limp along with this bad boy until I have all my docs created and have some time to send it off to the depot.
I am trying to get Erik’s birthday party set up, but the party venue is thwarting me. I found a brochure that said our local regional park offers birthday parties on their pontoon boat, with a naturalist on board to give interesting information about the lake. Erik was all over this idea and so was I (it’s a lot cheaper than most party venues). I immediately contacted the park to get things set up and the lady started giving me the run around. Eventually she told me I should come out and look at the party space (for cake) because I would probably not want to really host a party there.
I’ve been meaning to go out there for two weeks and finally found a little time in my schedule last week. We went out and it was fine. Nothing spectacular, but it’s a room. It has a table and chairs. It would be a perfectly acceptable place to eat cake.
The lady I talked to on the phone was there and she started giving me all kinds of “suggestions.” I could just buy tickets for the pontoon boat and have cake at a picnic shelter! If it’s raining I could take all the kids to a restaurant for cake after the boat ride! Do I really think kids would want to ride a boat in the middle of October? They would probably need to wear coats! Think of the children!
Yes, lady, by golly we ARE going to have a party there and we ARE going to have cake at your pitiful little table and the kids ARE going to wear coats if it is cold and it is going to be fun. So stuff that in your pipe and smoke it!
Honestly, I am pretty nervous about having a party out there if this is the attitude we are going to get. We had a party at one of their sister parks a few years ago and it was fabulous. I was expecting the same thing from this park, but my expectations are not being met. She still has not answered my last e-mail about paying for the damned thing.
In other news, I got rookie-dooed into babysitting hermit crabs and a hamster for the week. First the lady just asked if I could babysit the hermit crabs, which I thought was pretty weird since they don’t need much care. After I said yes, she chimed in with “Oh, and can we bring the hamster over too?”
So now my house smells like rodent. It’s so nasty. The creature has not even been here 24 hours and the whole house reeks.
Thankfully Erik has decided he doesn’t want a hamster. They brought its mobile ball along with it, so the kids wanted to put it in the ball yesterday. Mike was trying to calm the hamster down and slowly reach into the cage to pick it up and put it in the ball. All of a sudden Erik’s little hand darted in and grabbed the hamster. The hamster bit him, he screamed and declared he never wanted a hamster. There was blood. There was crying. There was much declaring “I never want a hamster!” There was much shaking of heads and asking “why on earth did you do that???”
Speaking of animals, our hermit crabs are such cannibals! Hermit crabs are actually social creatures so you’re supposed to have a minimum of three crabs in a tank. We’ve had up to six at a time, but they are not the most sturdy creatures. I do everything correctly as far as I know, but we still have occasional hermit crab deaths. I thought we had three crabs, but a couple of weeks ago I noticed that Whiskers was no longer in his shell. We needed to re-do the whole tank anyway, so we carefully sifted through all the dirt and everything and never did find a trace of poor Whiskers. We can only conclude that Speedy and Sunny had a feast.
I knew we needed a new crab, but the pet store never did have any that looked lively. Finally they had one single crab that moved when put in the water, so we bought it. It just happened to be painted with Rolie Polie Olie, a cartoon character Elsa discovered last week. She was thrilled because it was her very own crab.
Oh dear.
The poor thing didn’t last two days. I found it’s body parts strewn across the tank yesterday, so that was fun. Elsa still doesn’t know. We just let her think it burrowed into the substrate and will come out later.
Ok, now I have worker guys putting in my windows and Erik jabbering in my ear about repairing a Wii game. I get on their cases constantly about treating DVDs and games with care, but no one listens. He’s finally reaping what he’s sown with a game that won’t work and I’m just about to stick this game where the sun don’t shine. He thinks if I just try hard enough I can fix it. This is going to be a looooonnnnnngggggg day.