Has It Really Been 23 Days????

Sorry folks, I have no excuse. But would it help to tell you that my life has been upside-down crazy, hella-awful??? I thought I would come on here last week and just let off some steam, but I chose to wait.


Bad idea....


Things just got worse. Should I also tell you that I've been harassed by my Sis that it's been over THREE WEEKS since I blogged. Well, since I'm usually a once a week blogger, that aint too bad, eh???



Since I don't want to bore the snot outta you completely, I'll just do my best to curtail some of the details. But this is long....so hang on to your eyeballs and grab a handful of patience!




Yesterday, I just shelled out $500 BIG ONES!!! Yep, that's right!! FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!! For what? You ask? A nice Louis Vuitton purse? Oh no! Perhaps a sporty new designer leather jacket....Nosireebob! Not this chickadee....Let me just share a lil sumpin' sumpin'....My blood is beginning to boil and this is fresh in my head, but it's all comin' back to me now!!!! This was two weeks ago...

I woke up one (not so lovely) Saturday morning to find this:



Now, before I go on any further, I must say this: If you haven't read my intro you might not know that we have an Au Pair from Germany. Of course, I've never mentioned him really until now anyway so..... Patrick is his name and he is a part of our family and takes care of the boys while the Hero and myself are away. Since he is from Germany, you might notice how smoothly his words flow on the paper. He does pretty well for being here 17 mos and learning English as a second language. Sometimes we poke fun at his Germenglish and it's all in good fun. He gets a good laugh out of it too because he knows what he "meant to say" but it just came out wrong. I digress....sorry....


So, I see this note, I text him to let him know that I am downstairs and wide awake. Fearing why he wrote this note, I take a few deep sighs and begin to meditate on the happy place I really want to be right then!

Patrick: Uh, Trieva....Did you see the car?
Me: Uh, no. Was I supposed to go look at it.
Patrick: Well, I thought you might have seen it already.
Me: No. What happened
Patrick: I just show you.

We walk out of the front door, I look in the driveway to see that my freakin passenger window of my 2003 Focus SVT is missing and the side view mirror is broken and hanging on a thick thread of wire. I am immediately screaming on the inside but on the outside, I'm calm, cool and collected. Really....I am. But it doesn't last long.


Me: What in (bleep) happened?
Patrick: I dunno. Some drunk guys, Marines, I guess. People asked me if I had enemies and stuff, but everyone likes me.




Oh Patrick....if you only knew....




Me: I'm thinking that someone was trying to get back at you, this is insane! Where were you and were any other cars vandalized?

Patrick: I was at O'House, and no other cars were damaged, just this one. The guy across the street, your neighbor came to do the report. He left his card. (He hands it to me). And nothing was stolen. My wallet was on the front seat, my backpack was in the back and no one took nothing. If someone hated me, they would have taken everything to try to hurt me that's why I think it was just some drunk guys playing around and they think it's just cool to smash window and stuff.

Me: Greg? Our neighbor was there? When did this happen?
Patrick: Yeah, he took the report and it happened some time between 12 am and 3.

Greg is one of Jacksonville's finest. He is also our neighbor. I was glad to know that he was there to take the report because I knew he'd have our back. I was really sad to think that someone tried to target Patrick or get back at me. See, this car is what I use to drive to work each day, and there aren't too many SVTs in Jax. But, after some bickering, we just concluded that it was an isolated event without any personal meaning. Probably some guys fighting or horsing around in the parking lot and things got outta hand. Nothing was stolen....God was looking out for Patrick.





Patrick was pretty bummed cuz he knew if he hadn't been out, this wouldn't have happened.

I didn't bother to wake the Hero and tell him the news because it wasn't life threatening nor was it any kind of emergency. I called the insurance company, answered a bazillion questions over and over again, then proceeded to discuss with Patrick transportation options for his weekend. He's off during this time and is rarely home.

Skip two days...


I'm at the body shop arranging the appointment for the work to be done. He tells me that i can bring it by on Wednesday and it should be out by Thursday but Friday at the latest. I say that's cool and proceed to call the rental car company they partner with right there in the shop.

Agent: Good Afternoon Thank you for calling Enterprise. How can I help you?

Me: Uh, yes, My car is going in the shop tomorrow or Thursday and I was hoping to get a rental. I have been given a confirmation # but I don't have it with me.

Agent: Well, Ma'am I can look it up by your name: Can I have your name please?

******Blah blah blah...**** a series of questions and answers go by

Agent: Well, Ma'am, we uh...don't have any cars to rent out right now. Maybe if you call back on Thursday, I'm sure we'll have a car for you. Now when is your car going into the shop?

Me: What?? No cars? I'm waiting for the complete estimate, but the service writer said he could take it in tomorrow.

Agent: Well, you're gonna have to call us back after that, because unfortunately, we don't have anything on our lot for you.

Me: Okay, I'll call back!

Click!

OMG!!! You are kidding me right???!!! I'm going to blow up something really fast!! I will make all things go BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!! I shouldn't have such a short fuse...
How can your name be freakin ENTERPRISE with a tag line of "We'll pick you up" and NOT have a (bleep) (bleep) car to rent??!! It's not some (bleep) Ma and Pop little store on the corner it's FREAKIN' ENTERPRISE!!! I need a car today, so I can get this thing in the shop to get fixed. I can't wait two (bleep bleep bleep) days to get a car. It's supposed to rain! And I DO NOT want to be that crazy, low rent, cheap-ass so and so with a freakin garbage bag where the window is supposed to be driving around town like Hey! Look at my new plastic window!! Isn't it nifty?? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?????

So, I was, that cheap-ass (sorry Mom, gotta let it flow) low-rent so and so with tape and plastic where a window should be. It was just fun talking on the phone and hearing people say: What's all that noise I hear in the background. Sounds loud and swishy!

Here ya go- See for yourself...





















This was day one. By day two, I couldn't drive above 39 mph or this would happen...





And this....






Oh, and this was just the beginning of my week of hella-good-fun!!

I am also the volunteer coordinator for the school partnership at our hospital. We're painting a mural for the students in their white walled cinder block cafeteria. Actually, we're painting two murals. One is complete. Check it out!








The artist is actually a reservist in the Navy, Eric Heyworth. He drew this in a little over an hour and he and a bunch of others with absolutely little to NO talent, slapped it up on this wall of an elementary school where children of Marines and Sailors attend on a military base housing complex. I'm sorry Eric if it's not what you had envisioned, we did our best. The teachers and students thought it was awesome and I guess that's what really matters. Again...I digress...




Either way, we were supposed to paint an additional one on an adjacent wall in the cafeteria. We started it in May...it's freakin August and it's STILL NOT DONE!! I've just had the worst time trying to get people over there to help me paint it. It's smaller and much less labor intensive because it doesn't have as many details. So why is it not done??






On this time line....car issue, rental...It's Wednesday and school starts tomorrow. Can't have it incomplete when the kids return. They'll think we're a bunch of morons who can't finish a project! So, I enlist the help of a faithful and gifted partner in crime, Mrs. Dickerson who works in the hospital next to the housing complex to help shortly after work. It's about 8pm and I'm still not at the school. I forgot I had a training session...we meet up with monsters in tow. We paint til almost 11pm. I drop the kids off take a nap and wake up at 2:30am to head back over to the school for a little more painting.







Without going into every detail, let me just say this was the worse evolution of painting and getting things done EVER!! I tried to cut corners on the flag I had to paint but using spray paint on the white stripes. I had picked up some paint at Wal Mart and thought that a $.97 can of paint would cut down some considerable time.




Did I mention that the cafeteria was white? Of course I did. But who-da-thunk that the white in the can would be the EXACT WHITE on the wall?? All of the other white paint I bought was bright white, but NOT THIS STUFF!! I was P-O'd and just livid that I wasted so much time. I ended up painting the white stripes with regular white exterior paint (by hand) and that did the trick. Pictures to follow in future blog. I got most of the painting complete except some fine tuning and some ribbon coloring on the Navy guy's uniform and the E&G on the Marine guy's belt and hat. But I finish just as the kids were coming into breakfast. People are telling me it looks great and I think it looks like butt. Some of the staff ask me, "Have you been here all night?" I just smile and say, "Of course not...that would be silly." Either way, I haven't been back there and it's been a week. Gotta finish....I just got to.







I'm skipping around a bit, on Wednesday, to add insult to injury, I find out that the repairs to the SVT are estimated at $458.00 and my stupid deductible is $500. Screw that mess....I'm changing it like pronto. Whoever thought that was a good idea? This is the third time in 3 1/2 years that I've had to make some sort of claim since I changed the darn thing. I'm going back to the $100 deductible ASAP!! Also, before they can do work on this car, they need me to call the insurance company because they have a order for repairs to a 2008 Ford Focus.

Why do I have two Foci? That's another story altogether. We certainly didn't want to own anything new for at least 8 months. But that's just how it goes sometimes.






Now, I know we (Insurance agent and I) talked about the 2003 Focus but why do they have the claim on the wrong car? Okay, easy fix. Make the phone call. Come to find out later that day, that they cancelled the 2003 Focus order and sent another one for the 2008 Focus. What?? Can you be any more stupid? I'm sick.....just sick.....God help me.

Finally, some dude gets it right. Sent another claim for the right Focus and then the chick behind the counter at the body shop tells me that they can do the work without the order anyway since it's under the cost of the deductible. How about 'dem taters??? I just love karma...I've got some bad mojo going on right about now...


So I'm driving this 2007 Chevy Monte Carlo and it rides like its ten years old. Granted, its a rental so it's been to hell and back, but it shouldn't feel this worn after 33K miles. I hate Chevy anyway, except for the Corvette and the Camaro (don't tell my Mustang friends!) So this POS is not my cup of tea. I just want my little pocket rocket back so I can stop burning up my wallet in gas....this thing aint cheap AND it's gray and kind of ugly.




Skip to next week Wednesday (two days ago). They've had my car a week. Why? They said it could be fixed in two days. Well, they kept ordering the wrong part....twice. They called at 5 minutes to six (when they close) to tell me my car is ready. Tough titties....I'm picking it tomorrow. So, come to find out. The new part in the computer kept defaulting for the SVT was the side mirror and it was the wrong one. Took the geniuses just three days to figure that one out!!





The right one was much more expensive taking my $458 total to $593. No matter, still gotta pay $500 big ones. This sux. It's been raining the past three days, I got some kind of cooties from the monsters and I'm sick now. I've just spent the entire Friday in my pjs and don't give a rat's patootie what people say about it! I've had a hard week and I've only touched on two of the four elements of my bad karma wreaking good time! At least I hope you got a bit of a laugh. Someone should have fun at my expense. That would make this little experience worth it for me.




One more thing.....This is for Patrick




The monsters and I were watching the Olympics much of last week and it was incredible...everything was great! During one event, I believe it was track and field...or swimming or something...


Destry: Mom, come in here you're gonna miss it!
Me: Okay, I'm coming, but it's not the final so I'm not pressed
Destry: Well, you still should come look at it....Oh never mind it's over
Me: Well, who came in first?
Destry: USA...and then England and then, I don't know who that is... And as usual, Germany came in last....(snickers a little)


LOL! I had to laugh because Patrick is very proud and should be. But he still thinks Germany is better at everything than the U.S. Some things, admittedly, he'll concede, but mostly he's all about Germany, and rightly so. I just think it's funny that Thing 1 noticed that Germany brings up the rear at the summer games in a few events but not all. They always kick butt in soccer and at the winter Olympic games..... Woot! That's my shout out for Patrick....the only one he'll get for a while....soak it up. Remember, my wallet is still on fire..........and I'm bitter.








Ciao! whoops! Auf Wiedersehen