25 Things About Me: Thing 1

Dear Internets,

My weekend was lovely. Achilles and I spent Saturday afternoon getting barbecue at Black's BBQ in Lockhart. The deer heads on the wall of the restaurant were decorated with pink balloons and garlands made out of hearts. The food was delicious. It was delightful. Sunday, Achilles made me dinner (lobster pasta) and I gave him his Valentine's present*.

***

In other news, over the weekend I got tagged several times for that "25 Things About Me" post on Facebook. I'm a little too disorganized to keep up with blogs in two places, so I thought I'd just write my list over here. So without further ado:

1. I am easily distracted. (I know, shocker, right?) As much as I love listmaking, I have little patience for reading lists 25 items long, let alone writing them.

Given the sad reality of item #1, I'm going to break this list into multiple posts, and spend a little (but not a lot) more time on each item. (I apologize to anyone whose attention span is longer than mine.)

I hope you'll decide to stick with me, Internets.

Love always,
Jane

*Achilles' Valentine's gift: I got a little bowl from Target (confidential to readers: on sale!)(confidential to Achilles: I'm thrifty. That's OK, right?), and filled it with Hershey's Kisses. I replaced all the white tags with unique things I like about Achilles, like "You let me have the last Diet Pepsi" and "You don't complain when I ask you to carry heavy grocery baskets, even though you suggested we just get a cart in the first place." I think he liked the gift. (I came up with the list of 75 or so things about a month ago, but didn't know exactly what type of Valentine's gift I was going to incorporate the list into. Thanks to J-Money for the inspiration!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Dear Internets,

I thought I'd take a break from the rant-iness of the past week to wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day.

I made you a Valentine just for the occasion:



It's a conversation heart, get it? (Of course you do. You Internets are pretty smart.)

I love conversation hearts. In high school, my French teacher always gave us a handful of conversation hearts for Valentine's Day. After we translated them into French, we got to eat them. I think she gave me the hard ones on purpose.



Despite the fact that I'm generally a grumpy ogre, I really do like Valentine's Day. I think it's the color scheme. Or maybe the candy... I am a fan of candy-centric holidays. (I don't buy candy until after Valentine's Day, though, because I like to feel like I'm getting a deal on my sugar fix.) Instead, tomorrow Achilles and I are going to focus on eating delicious food. We're going to Lockhart to get barbecue, because Lockhart is the BBQ Capital of Texas and Achilles has never been (sacrilege!).



I am trying my hardest to feel less grumpy about the shady car dealership and the appliance delivery people. I made them a special Valentine to show them my desire to make amends:



Maybe it needs some work.

Happy Valentine's Day, Internets!

Love,
Jane

P.S. Dear Universe,

I didn't forget about you.



XOXO,
Jane

It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you

Dear Internets,

I took Lola the Corolla in today for routine maintenance (oil change, inspection). I figured that since she recently passed her 40,000 mile milestone, I'd take her to the dealership and get their 28-point inspection while I was at it.

A couple of hours later, the dealership called. Lola needed about $1200 worth of work done. Would I like them to go ahead and do it?

Um, no. Please give me a written estimate. Thx.

When I picked Lola up this evening, I looked at the estimate. According to the dealership, I needed to spend $200 for a new battery*, $65 for a new air filter, and over $600 in transmission, power steering, and cooling system "flushes" among other things.**

That sounded unreasonable (to say the least), so I looked up prices for parts online when I got home. A battery and an air filter for a Corolla (parts that are not THAT difficult to replace yourself) cost about $70 and $12 respectively**. The other services weren't even recommended for a car around Lola's age and mileage. The dealership is pretty much guilty of attempted highway robbery (hardy har).

Never again, Internets. Car dealerships are the devil.

Love,
Jane

*I thought you were supposed to replace batteries when they died?
**Since one has to assume that the auto parts store would be making a profit selling the parts at those prices, the dealership's price is extra ridiculous.

P.S. I am officially DONE with anything that involves the word "maintenance" or "service" or "call center" for the next several months at least. This is just getting ridiculous.

My smug problem

Dear Internets,

Shortly after I posted my rant about the washer/dryer delivery people, I had a revelation:

I live in Texas. Approximately 893 (give or take a few) of my closest friends drive trucks.

While normally I quietly judge my truck-driving friends for their unnecessarily large eco-footprints, there comes a time when a gal has to swallow her pride and admit that trucks come in handy sometimes. Interestingly enough, that time comes when the gal needs large pieces of furniture delivered to her house.*

I called the Sears Home Delivery people to see if I could go by the distribution center to pick up my washer and dryer, and less than 24 hours later I was helping watching Achilles and his brother carry my new appliances into my condo. It was magical, really.

So Internets, I learned a lesson. Sometimes the best way to tackle a problem is not to whine about it to the Internets, but to use your brain to figure out a solution. Who knew?

Love always,
Jane

*Sometimes that time also comes when you need to move and are too lazy/broke/neurotic to hire movers.