Spazzmanda

So, I was having a chat today with my friend Jerry. Not to drop names or anything, but I mean THE Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead fame.

Well, anyways, I said to Jerry, “Jerry, you seem a bit down. Is there something bothering you?”

Jerry says, “You know, all this rain is just getting to me. Chilling me to the very center of my being.” (Jerry is very, very deep.)

I say, “I  know, the rain really sucks and I really wish it would stop. I saw these earthworms flailing on the pavement today and it realy grossed me out and made me feel so sorry for them.” (I tend to babble when I’m around Jerry or anyone else for that matter.) “I hate to see you so depressed, is there anything I can do?”

Jerry says, “Well, I would like to see the world!”

I got excited because, I, happened to be able to oblige immediately.

“Seeeeee my world, Jerry? Get it, it’s a globe and it lights up and I showed it to you.” Tee hee.

He gave me a look. I knew he was in no mood for my corny sense of humor. He hadn’t had his cocktail yet apparently and didn’t see how dang funny I was being. You see, Jerry can be pretty humerous at times, there was this one time we had a bottle of Jagermeister and a chicken that had fallen off the chicken truck. You see the chicken wasn’t hurt or anything, but then Jerry poured him some of the Jagermeister… needless to say I never drank Jager again after that night. But I guess you had to be there.

Anyways, right now, he was calling me out on my stupid little joke.

Jerry said “I was thinking a change of scenery, like somewhere more warm and near the ocean. Like somewhere in California…”

I then sighed and poured a glass of wine. I knew this day would come. Jerry, you see, wasn’t meant to stay with me forever.

He took a little sip of my wine. (He’s a terrible flirt, but I don’t mind.) I gave his foot an affectionate squeeze.

I say to Jerry, “How does San Francisco sound to you?”

He smiles and squints his eyes, “Groovy.”

I’ll take him to the bus stop this weekend.

For those of you that want to know, pattern: Stitch and Bitch Nation -Henry Rollins torso, Joey Ramone head arms and legs and about 8 hours with some fun fur (don’t  ask.) yarn: total stash bust, but washable so YAY. Going to the arms of a sweet baby girl- the daughter of an old, dear, friend (a hippie who will appreciate the humor of this creation) and his lovely wife whom I have not yet been fortunate enough to meet!

Warning, crude language and misuse of quality curses:

This morning I started the complaint process with a vendor that misrepresented a download of a probably pirated textbook. I’m cheap, and trying to go green and it is an accounting book for a class I’m merely auditing, I thought a digital copy would be, I don’t know, convenient?

Me:

I thought that this was going to be the textbook, (Textbook Title Here.)

Instead, this was the powerpoint presentation for the chapters, which is not entirely useful to me.

I would like a refund please.

Sincerely,

Moi

Them:

hi,you bought the files is not powerpoint presentation for the chapters,it is solution manual or test bank for textbook.

Me:

I understand that now, but it was presented as the textbook.

Am I going to get a refund or am I going to have to take it up with Pay Pal?

Them:

This files is consistent with the description, the product description said it is solution manual or test bank, not textbook,you should see the description before buying, so you agree the describe before you purchase, my file is correct and complete. What you are saying is just an excuse.

Me:

Ok, so insulting your customers is the way you do business and customer satisfaction is not important to you at all.

I will take it up with paypal or my credit card company if necessary (you see, I’ve been a good customer to both organizations and they DO care about how merchants treat me.)

Thank you for being absolutely NO help at all, and have a lovely day.

(Opens PayPal dispute)

Them:

i know you are liar,you steal my files.fuck your mother,watever asshole.

and:

i know you are liar,you steal my files.fuck your mother,watever asshole. i will win,I strongly do not refund, you are an idiot.go away,fuck.

Me:

I didn’t steal your files, they are readily available online.

Also, sir, you may want to be aware that the publisher of this book has no idea you are selling these files.

You should watch yourself. This is no way to do business.

And if you have to resort to cursing and name calling, I’ve already won.

Have a lovely day.

Them:

You are an idiot, the world is on you this idiot, you are a bastard, well, I will give you a refund within 24 hours, you are an idiot. I am a smart person.

I’m comforted that I’m dealing with a smart person here. This would have been a real nightmare otherwise.

Turns out that PayPal does not protect buyers of “Virtual Goods” so I’m most likely out the money  anyways unless CitiCards saves the day or by some miracle the choad actually refunds my money.

Lesson learned.

This came in yesterday:

Then my grandpa sent me 4 emails this morning on how to get rid of wrinkles.

Is someone trying to tell me something?

I know that I have established that I may be a little old lady already, but seriously? AA-frickin-R-P?

I can’t believe I’ve never told this story before. Probably because I didn’t want to change the names to protect the guilty.

Well, once upon a time I worked for someone that provided a service that rhymes with art restoration as an apprentice/assistant. I won’t delve into that too deeply, it was a year of my life I’ll never get back but ultimately great real world experience that has brought me to the place that I am today… hmmm. Food for later thought.

Anyways, Ms. Harmon had an object d’arte that required the services of my employer. He took a very,very long time before finally shopped it out. (This, I was to find out, was most typical of the way he did things, hence the me leaving after a year.) Meanwhile, I’m answering email and doing other assistant-like things for near minimum wage and she emails me. I think, oh -my-god-Angie-Harmon’s-emailing-me! But ultimately I end up having to stall for more time. I remember specifically saying to her that the object would be shipped “presently.” (Who talks like that? I must have thought it sounded professional and confident.)

Then the unthinkable happened and the subcontractor broke the damn thing in delivery.

Smacks forehead. We were at square one again. And I just couldn’t tell Angie Harmon what had happened. Damn.

Angie was displeased. Angie chewed me out. Angie wanted to know on what planet “presently” meant another month.

Ultimately, she did get her item. She was pleased with the work.

But every time I see her on television, I remember that she’s out there and she hates me.

That’s all.

This is one of the funniest sites I’ve seen in a while.

www.engrish.com

Enjoy today and have a laugh, keep warm tonight a blizzard is apparently heading to North Georgia.

No?

It’s not a blizzard?

Then why, exactly, is everyone FREAKING OUT?

So I bought myself a present for Christmas.

A brand new concert flute.

You may naturally be asking why.  I will attempt to formulate an adequate response for such an odd impulse purchase. You may not know that the  Spazz played the flute from grade school through high school. And I didn’t totally suck either, my junior year I made it all the way to fourth chair before I started losing interest and nearing the finish line of my high school career. I maintained a not too shabby front line of the second string, but alas, my instrument was stolen during my senior year over 14 years ago. (I know, who would steal a flute, right?)  I stumbled upon a moderately priced concert flute this weekend at Tuesday Morning of all places. (Don’t you just LOVE Tuesday Morning?)

Long story long, I snapped it up after very little persuasion from mom. Turns out, much to my surprise and the amusement of both Jeff and my mother, I can play a B flat scale AND arpeggio.

Thaaaaaat’s about all folks.  But I look forward to practicing and re-learning what I can so I can bust out  some wicked “rock flute” at a future gathering. I’m thinking some “Smoke on the Water” or “Stairway to Heaven” or even “Enter Sandman” would be nice to add to my repertoire.

I need to work on my posture. And clean some junk off the fridge while I’m at it. (Yes I voted for Obama and yes, I’m currently a little disappointed even though I didn’t like that other guy much either.)

In other news, I finished a cupcake hat. Well, actually, I finished five cupcake hats. There are too many delicious little girls that needed warm heads this winter. Because I am wildly impatient and couldn’t wait until official gifting time, not to mention the fact that this little nugget was hat less on Saturday evening (shame, shame Ole) I have already gifted one hat.

I’ve got it baaaaaaaad for this little one. She’s both my weakness and endless delight. In short, she’s my pwecssssssousssssesssss. Yes, she has red eyebrows .  RED eyebrows I tell you. Be still my beating heart I almost can’t stand it and want to gobble her up every time I see her. The empty womb is apparently knocking. (Don’t worry, I’ve hit snooze.)

I’m on the fence about this one, you guys be the judge.

Spotted multiple  in classified ads in the local paper recently:

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE

“We met briefly at the (insert festival, city and date here to protect the innocent). On the back of your shirt it said (again, city specific.) While your escort was talking to another man you told me that your husband of 30 years had died of cancer. My wife died of cancer. I gave you my business card and asked you to call me. Why haven’t you called? I will spend the rest of my life making you happy. (phone number)”

The bitter loneliness here makes my heart ache for this man, in a perfect world this would be the beginning or happy ending of a Lifetime Movie starring Kevin Costner and Robin Wright-Penn.

However, I get caught on the presumptive “rest of your life” and almost ominous “you know who you are” that are both, in this day and age, a tad frightening. Or maybe I’m just hyper-sensitive.

Ah, the Classifieds, along with the scary restaurant cleanliness ratings are why I still read the paper.

Any thoughts?

Pretty low-key this year for Halloween, we hung with friends, went trick-or-treating with the framily, ate at Moe’s and went out around Gainesvegas. My man and I won the costume contest at a local bar! He got first place, $100, and I won second $50- I was totally robbed! I guess his Geiko Caveman was pretty sweet, but all night long I heard some hushed comments as I’d walk away of how much I looked like Flo the Progressive Lady. We had a blast.

(you can see all the photos here.)

“HELLO ATLANTA!  YOU wanted the BEST and YOU GOT THE BEST…!!!”

I was taken for a ride on the wild side on Monday night.

The Magic Man took me to see KISS.

In concert.

On the 7th row of the Philips Arena.

Let me tell you friends, I’ll NEVER be the same again.

By far, the most amazing live show I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I take back EVERY single snarky thing I’ve ever said about this band (like “I don’t get them” or “all their songs sound the same”.)

Surprisingly, I knew most of the songs they performed and retained about 75% of the factoids about the band I was ever told. (See darlin’, I listen!)

Makes me appreciate the Lil’ Gene I made  four years ago that much more… thank you Jeff for sharing this experience with me, I’ve been such a fool.

Next up, Lil’ Paul…  I love you Paul Stanley! (He doesn’t know it, but we share a deep and meaningful relationship.)

I am a newly converted uber-fan of KISS.

Here is the face:

Yeah, my throat hurts.

I came, I saw, I conquered and I left with a bag load of yarn, glorious yarn.  I had a BLAST  with my fine group of fiber friends fiends at SAFF in Asheville this year. Best of all, I took this as an opportunity to take a long overdue trip out of town with my mother, another newly-converted fiber-a-holic. Here is most of the crew (some had class/had to leave/could not sit still)

All photos from the trip HERE.

I didn’t take any classes this year, it was overwhelming enough just being in a huge showroom with yarns and fibers that I didn’t even know existed. I will take an inventory and blog about my precious purchases later, but for now I’ll focus on the trip itself. We left bright and early on Friday morning and met up with a crowd at Waffle House. I had a pecan waffle and it rocked. I don’t normally do sweets or carbs at breakfast so this was a real treat.

Susan was positively gleeful from the discovery $85 in her SAFF purse from LAST year, and I was soon to discover why.  It only took us about 2 hours to get there. Not a bad road trip and I was antsy. I was finishing up the neverending 3/4 sleeves from my diminishing rib cardi and was lamenting the amount of space it was taking up in my bag. I also vowed not to purchase anything on day one, no, I would be mindful and wait until at least day 2.

I bought a beautiful sterling shawl pin and a sweater’s worth of yarn before lunchtime.

I was absolutely high from the spending and had to sit down for a while to recover.  We ate at Carrabas that night and I committed carbicide with gnocchi and sausage and bread and calamari. On to the Hampton Inn to laugh and knit, and laugh (we’re a loud bunch) talking about homosexual gorillas and exchanging recipes. I learned what qiviut was and how yummy it was to behold and how pretty Janet worked it up and how dangerously decadant an expense it could be.  I shopped and knitted my Saturday away, and since it was no longer raining we went and looked at the animals (probably mom’s favorite part of the trip)

I also bough sock yarn for me, it might not end up being socks as I got this KEWL beaded scarf pattern too. Come to think of it, I bought a lot of stuff for beading yarn. Go figure.

Me and my yarn will be VERY happy together thankyouverymuch.

I drove mom’s golfcart all weekend (the Prius) and didn’t like it one bit in the rain but converted after I figured out what all the buttons were for. There’s a lot of buttons to push in this car and no key!

All in all it was PERFECTION and we’re already scheming about next year. Like I’m bringing much smaller projects and making this and some of these and bringing much more cash. Anyone want to give me some of their unwanted cash for SAFF next year?