iClean

I found out the other day that it might be possible to for me to hook my busted laptop up to my television set. All I need are some cables and maybe an adapter. Which I may already have. This will only work if the problem is in the screen and not the video card. I'm hoping for a $40 fix, instead of a $400 fix.
I think I also found out that I may be a touch OCD. If only in VERY slow cycles. I spent a goodly portion of yesterday clearing out a few drawers and organizing my movies. And my jewelry box. And then I made a schedule of when I'll clean what in the next week or so. I also have this odd desire to start scrapbooking. Something I've never been interested in before. A therapist would likely tell me that all this is some kind of attempt to impose order on my life. What you have to understand is, I hate cleaning. I hate organizing. Dunno why. Just do. The drawers in my room are usually catch-alls for all the random pieces of paper I accumulate. And pens. And cards. And beads etc. etc. (This is also likely some deeply rooted subconscious need being filled in some way.) I only get into organization mode once or twice a year. And usually it's not me who initiates it.
What's amusing to me about this is, this time I've been able to see it. And parse it. And even though I think I know what's going on, I still have the urge to organize. Maybe I should start doing some of this at night, since I'm not really sleeping anyway. Maybe I'll be done in under a week that way! Since getting up this morning I've already cleaned out two more drawers and plan on getting the rest of that set done today/tonight. Next up, the book drawer (under the bed and not in any way part of the drawer set I am currently working on).


--Little Bird is organizing... again

Verizon sucks, part III

It just keeps getting worse. Now they say that there were TWO phones charged to us!! TWO equipment fees!! PLUS late fees and taxes on all of that stuff!!! That's right, taxes on items that we never ordered AND had removed from our bill. They seemed to think we should still pay the tax on the item even though the item did get removed. They say our bill is well over a thousand dollars now. So, Mama Bird had a rather lengthy conversation with someone over at Verizon's offices. We think we have it cleared up. We're still waiting on that bill. And they know for a fact that we will be taking our business elsewhere.
We think the second phone thing is a clerical screw-up due entirely to reporting it. That, or they're trying to get us to pay for as much as they can (real or invented) because they know we're dropping them. Either way, it sucks.
Learn from this fiasco, do NOT sign up with Verizon!!

--Little Bird is tired of it all.

Verizon sucks, part two

So, the fraud department was supposed to take care of the problem and they seemed to do so. I stopped getting texts threatening to shut off my service at least. Until yesterday. I got the text and called Mama Bird. Needless to say she got a little upset and her voice rose a few octaves while we were talking. She called Verizon and lit into them. They had an explanation. Of COURSE they had an explanation. That explanation was in a word LAME. They said that the bill was actually somewhere around $500 because of an "equipment" fee. This is a fee that gets applied when you order a device and don't activate it. But, let's remember... we didn't order any device in the first place. Then they tell us that we have some late fees to deal with. But we STILL haven't gotten our bill!! It turns out that they either didn't change our shipping and billing address back to what it should be, or they did so incorrectly.
We are not going to have to pay any late fees. We did get that cleared up. I think. I hope. And as soon as that bill is paid, we are all getting new phones with a new provider.

There is other stuff going on as well, but nothing I can talk about here really.


--Little Bird anticipates an iPhone (maybe)

Verizon SUCKS!

If you have a Verizon contract, you may be interested to know what has recently transpired in this birds nest. I have been getting phone calls and texts from Verizon, telling me that Mama Bird owes them lots of money. She hasn't been getting the calls, I have. And the person I spoke to wanted me to give them Mama Birds credit card number! As if I would a) have the credit card number and b) give it to ANYONE! As it appears, someone hacked her contract. Someone changed her shipping and billing address and then ordered a blackberry. The blackberry was shipped but never activated. That happened in November. Whoever did this did it via phone. To do this they had to know her account number, and her social. When Mama Bird tried to clear this up (via phone) she was told that she had to come in and show proof of identity, keep in mind whoever did all the changing did it via phone. This was a few days ago when it was FREAKING cold outside. And this little trip to the Verizon store took two hours. And nothing could be done until yesterday because the fraud department was closed for the weekend. Now, the blackberry has been blocked and can never be activated because Verizon did something using the blackberry's serial numbers. BUT the fact remains that the contract itself is not all that safe. My step father's contract and mine are just about up, for us to transfer to a different carrier will cost us nothing. For Mama Bird however, they want to charge her $155 to get out of her contract.
Mama Bird did some research and got the address to which the blackberry was sent. IT'S A VACANT LOT. So if the blackberry did get sent, who received it? And why didn't they activate it in NOVEMBER? We think it's an inside job. They would have access to her info and could do this fairly easily.
Verizon should let her end her contract WITHOUT incurring a fee, since this is an error on their part. We haven't heard back from the fraud department yet. They say it will take at least two weeks to clear up. This is unacceptable. At best we expect to not have to pay for the blackberry and any late fees having to do with unpaid bills, as we never got the damned bills BECAUSE SOMEONE CHANGED THE BILLING ADDRESS!
Needless to say, Mama Bird has been a little upset lately.
On a lighter note, Mama Bird, my stepfather and myself had my birthday dinner this past Sunday evening. We had spicy southwest steak tar-tare, a great big southwest style salad, guacamole and chips. It was delicious! I was given an apron from a restaurant in Santa Fe, Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and another cookbook titled "How to Cook Everything". That last book has 2,000 recipes in it. I think I'll be set for some time now!

--Little Bird is going to be cooking up a storm

Satisfaction, I Got Some

It's a bright sun shiny first day of the new year! Also, it's cold. Really cold. There's ice on the lake cold.
Last night was a nice quiet evening spent inside watching movies. And opening birthday gifts. My birthday is tomorrow, but Rooster thought I should open them last night. Season one of "True Blood", a collector's edition of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", a set of salt and pepper shakers (green glass George Washington busts) and a CD from Starbucks (covered with thousands of teeny tiny birds). I'm very close to starting the "True Blood" marathon, and will now have to go find season two so I can stay current.
My father sent me a gift too. This is nothing short of amazing since we don't have the best of relationships. Mama Bird can attest to that being the understatement of the century. Anyway, my father sent me a set of Melmac (trademarked) cafeteria style (think 50's or 60's) tea/coffee cups, saucers, and dessert plates with a sugar bowl and creamer. It's all this great shade of lime green that will actually go perfectly with all my orange stuff. It's really cute and I love it!
I don't have any resolutions, I would likely break them in a week anyway. But I can say that already, this year is better than the last. Last year this time, I was alone. Last year this time I was depressed. This year I have someone to share time with, someone to watch movies with. Someone to just BE with. It's nice.
Last year's depression had little to do with being alone, and everything to do with being dissatisfied. Dissatisfied in general. The last part of this past year has been great, and it looks to only get better.
So I hope that everyone had a great New Year's, and that the coming year is the best one yet for everyone.

--Little Bird is satisfied

Bonfire, Bonfire, BONFIRE!

Greetings from the high desert! I am writing this from Abiquiu New Mexico and it is COLD here. The train ride here was blessedly uneventful and the scenery (while it was light out) was pleasant. It snowed almost the whole way here. Or at least, there was snow on the ground almost the whole way here. The peanut butter filled pretzels were just right.
Mama Bird and I came to a deal last night. I won't make disparaging comments about her buying expensive, well made items ($40 socks, for example), and she won't make fun of how I tend to over prepare for travel. And the reason she won't make fun of my preparedness is we had to stay in Santa Fe the night my train came in. See, it snowed here. A lot. And the roads were horribly bad. She didn't want to be driving in that PLUS it would be dark before we go to the cabin. But, she hadn't planned on staying in Santa Fe, so she didn't have things like a toothbrush and toothpaste. Or lotion. I had all those things. Plus a few more (I also had a wine key that came in handy last night). I won't be making any more disparaging comments about her expensive well made things because I realized that I too tend to spend a lot for things that are worth it (I want a $30 garlic press).
Last night was one of the best Christmas eves I've ever had. It was cozy, we had good food, we sat around and sang Christmas songs. The church across the plaza from us has a bonfire every year. A great huge thing that has to be visible for miles. We had never been to it so we figured we would go this year. Midnight Mass was at 10, and so we kept peeking out the window, and sometimes walking over to the church to see if there was anything to see. Nope. So we finally figured that the fire would be lit after Midnight Mass, and we settled down in the living room to reminisce. Mama Bird got up to get something out of the kitchen and all of the sudden I heard her say "bonfire". I had to ask her what she meant and she said "bonfire, bonfire BONFIRE!" What we hadn't noticed was the piles of wood in front of the churches fence/wall. Quite a few of them in fact. And now they were all lit. It looked like the church itself was aflame. People were gathering and going in, and the processional was getting ready to go in. We were outside to watch them all go in to the church and watched the fires for a bit, but we didn't think we could stay up another hour to go see the big bonfire. We walked back to our cabin under a cloudless sky filled with all the stars you can't see when you live in a city. It was perfect.

I have just been informed that next year for Christmas, Mama Bird wants an axe.


--Little Bird is prepared for this

ORANGE!!!

Christmas came to my nest early this year. My grandfather sent me a HUGE check, and that really helped me finish purchasing all the rest of the gifts I needed to buy for others (of course, now I am committed to go to a family reunion in the summer). I didn't manage to finish Roosters "craft gift" (a cross stitched throw pillow with his favorite Star Trek quote) and he already knows what it is as we have already exchanged gifts.
For Rooster I bought a leather messenger bag, it sorta has an Indiana Jones vibe to it and looks as if it will last forever. He also received the movie "Inglorious Basterds" and two tiny books - one of dirty limericks and another of weird factoids - both for the bathroom.
From Rooster I received the first season of "The French Chef" with Julia Child (!) and two sets of salt and pepper shakers, and then he blew me away with the totally perfect dove stick pin! It's a prop replica from the movie "For Your Eyes Only", and when we watched the movie, I saw it and told him I would love to find one of those because of this blog and my failblog name. AND HE FOUND ONE!!!! He totally gets brownie points for being so thoughtful!

For my step-father I picked up a stainless steel liquid soap pump. He had this ugly plastic bottle on his bathroom counter. He has very good taste in the things he chooses to surround himself with so I thought that maybe he'd appreciate something a little less... fugly. I also got him a jigger for when he and Mama Bird make martinis, and some black gum. He always gets something black from me, it's a long standing gag with us. But I don't think I'll ever top the year we found black toilet paper!
To Mama Bird I gave a set of black micro-fleece base layers. Basically long underwear, but slightly nicer than that. She too, will get a cross stitched pillow. She has requested the quote from Alice Roosevelt Longworth -- If you don't have something nice to say about someone, sit right here by me. Yes, she already knows, and we looked up the quote together so it would be right.
FROM my parents, I received a 6 piece set of Le Crueset cookware!!!! A stock pot, a sauce pan, and a 4(?) quart french oven!! Each one has a lid (and the lids count as three of the pieces). And they are ORANGE!!!!!! I can finally throw away my old, beat up, no-longer-teflon-coated pots and pans!!! And the new pieces look so pretty in my kitchen with all my other orange stuff. I haven't cooked anything in them yet, but I will tonight.
Gift giving was done early this year with Rooster because I will be out of town on Christmas proper, and I wanted to share that moment with him. My family and I exchanged gifts early because no one wanted to lug a 6 piece set of enameled cast iron across the country, and some of the items might not have made it through airport security.

So now it's just one more day to go, and then it's onto a train and one week of quiet, crisp New Mexico mountains. I think I'll take fried chicken to eat, and I picked up peanut butter filled pretzels for snacking. Along with the soda, beer and propel packets. Maybe I'll find some candy of some sort to also bring along.
I've been packed for two days already because it's one of my little quirks, I want to be prepared. I don't want to forget anything. I always forget something anyway. Also, this train will be ridiculously packed, and I need to make sure I have what I need to have a pleasant train ride. Here's hoping I don't get stuck sitting next to a creep. Also, here's hoping I can get a window seat.

--Little Bird has achieved cookware nirvana