About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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April 1, 2008
He may not have had the pronounced “overbite” that she has now, but boy howdy, does she look like a Gomer with the spoiler removed from the front bumper.
I took her back to the shop for another estimate, and the guys were nice enough to put her on a lift and give me a synopsis of the damage. They rattled off a laundry list of dinged parts: framerail, muffler, shields, bumper, spoiler, etc. They didn’t even produce an estimate after all that because they said that it was going to cost too much to pay out of pocket as I’d planned; they strongly suggest I make an insurance claim.
Now, I’m not sure if I can just take their word for it since they ARE in the business to make money, and my not repairing possibly minor damage means less revenue for them. I’m asking my friend’s brother to take a look at it and let me know what his personal assessment is. He’s not a mechanic by trade, but he’s very mechanically inclined and his dad is on hand for advice as well.
At the very least, I’ll feel more comfortable getting an unbiased second opinion before throwing down another insurance claim and a thousand dollars.
Little of Column A, little of Column B.
Once again, any lingering regrets that I didn’t handle the tax return myself have been dispelled. PaDucky has the forms so I haven’t inspected his work with a finetooth comb yet, but it sounds to me like he’s more than earned his keep. The man has not only magicked the forms to produce a federal tax bill of $1290, approximately one third the total of my own margin-scribbles math, but he offset that with a state refund of $998. Throw in the tax rebate to hit my checking account on May 9th, and you have one happy happy ‘ducky.
Until the taxes have been paid, and the money I’m expecting is in my virtual, grubby hands, I probably won’t believe it. I know that’s weird, there’s no reason to doubt, but I also didn’t have a possible “windfall” to look forward to in the form of my dedicated savings account for taxes. Assuming those numbers are right, I’ll not only have an extra $300 after everything’s shaken out, I’ll have my ENTIRE tax savings account left over. I’ve not only been putting away money to pay taxes in there, I’ve been salting away any little money I’ve gotten, interest money from loans and the like, to keep safer than safe since I knew I wouldn’t touch that account for anything until April 15th.
Now I’ve got a little gremlin in my mind saying, pssst! That’s all windfall, ‘ducky! What’re you gonna DO with it?? I’m pret-ty excited…. so I’ll definitely take a few days to decide how this will be divvied up. E-fund? Mini e-fund? Car fund?
**I was putting this post together before the car thing. Talk about counting your ducklings ….**
March 31, 2008
I just rescued my baby from the auto body shop on Saturday, and was getting mentally geared up to sell off the truck. It was really finally gonna happen! So what do I do? I went out last night to Pinkberry to see my friend, freshly back from New York, and had to drop him off at his sister’s afterward.
It was dark, unfamiliar territory, and I was a bit distracted trying to see what streets were in front of me … in the middle of a left turn. And I went over part of a divider just enough so that the underside of my bumper was scraping along the ground. *sigh* I was so very angry with myself, how could I be SO careless?? She was literally just liberated the day before, and I had to go and wreck another part.
That’s what I get for being careless. I don’t even know what the cost will be, but part of me just wants to rip off that bottom part that’s dragging and keeps getting scuffed up anyway.
Friend told me that it was because I’d gotten her war wounds repaired, and she doesn’t want to be a prissy girly car. (Yes, my car’s a girl.) GAH.
It seems that, in a stroke of irony akin to your pet goldfish dying the day after you clean his bowl, I killed our microwave when I cleaned it last weekend.
My first impulse was to go look at newer and better models that aren’t liable to self-destruct upon contact with soap and water, but that enthusiasm petered out as I contemplated the scads of bills coming up. I decided to wait a while to do some research and try to purchase a model from a store for which I can get gift cards (via Thank You points, more than likely). Possibly from MyPoints.com, but I’m only halfway to a $50 gift card there. My choices seem to be Linens’n’Things or Macys since I only want to redeem in increments of 10,000 points for a $100 GC.
Meanwhile, we’ve been a microwave-free household for the better part of a week, and while it’s not convenient, I’m not terribly put out, either. My dinners tend to be lukewarm since my schedule is either inconsistent or incompatible with Ma&PaDucky’s, but I can live with that, for a while longer.
March 27, 2008
BoyDucky and I discovered this weirdly cute toy a few years ago at his first foray into my Mecca (San Diego Comic Convention). He was smitten, and promptly bought hundreds of them as gifts for his family and friends. It was probably his most memorable discovery from that Con and validated my insistence that he should give Con a chance because it was not ALL about comic books, manga and anime.
We’ve been on their mailing list ever since, and still fondly read emails about new colors and characters being introduced to the UglyDoll pantheon as a doting aunt and uncle might read family newsletters.
The UglyDolls have quickly spread from Con to specialty stores, and then to mainstream stores. I felt such sentimental pride when I saw an UglyDoll in a SanRio store: awww … they’re making it in the real world! And a dash of, “I remember when they were just a booth at Con.” Today I read an article about UglyDolls extolling their appeal to boys, and was surprised to realize that it’s an article in the New York Times. How’s that for validation? Good on you, creators of UglyDolls!
I love them because they’re soft and squishy, and practically stuffed animals but they’re not the usual bear or bunny. And real dolls creep me out. Something about their eyes. There’s nothing creepy about the rakish, sewn on, XXs for eyes these dudes have.
Celebrations:
C1 has a birthday today, and she’s invited the ‘mates to a karaoke bar for the evening. She has Friday off, however, and we don’t, so that could be a touch dodgy for us toilers. Or painful. Transportation’s always iffy when it comes to weeknight partying as well. The car’s still in the shop, and I hate to drive the gas guzzlers more than 10 miles, given the hundreds I’m already shelling out for gas. Still and all. It’s her birthday. As she’s reminded us every day: she’s “getting old.” Maybe I’ll gift her some Centrum Silver and wish her well on the kar-a-o-k-e-ing. 🙂 Lord knows I just want to giggle at the drunken karaokiers, singing in public’s a no-go for me. I know it’s “just one night” but that’s one night after a few outings this month. The car shop said they’d call me if the car was ready earlier than Friday. Must … decide ….
Free Stuff:
Boy Coworker normally picks up my train pass for me as the transit lady knows us, and will send our ticket with whomever to save me a trip. Sweet, but it also gets me out of a walk, so I told him not to ask for it, but take it if she offered. No need to be rude, after all. He turned it down when she offered anyway, because they’re doing a giveaway for people who fill out their survey and buy a transit pass for the month of April, but that means you have to go over to her office. Whee! I grabbed pouting C1 (“but, what about me? I buy a yearly!”) immediately and we trotted on over to get our free $15 Starbucks gift cards. We both got our $15 gift cards with nary a problem, and now I have a Starbucks cushion for when coffee drinkers or friends want to meet for coffee. As I don’t love Starbucks and don’t love coffee, I always grimace at the idea of giving them my own, real money.
I didn’t bring lunch yesterday, but we had leftovers from ordering in last week, and I’d still a bit from the weekend. Today, we’ll be having birthday lunch so I didn’t have to pack anything last night, and Friday’ll be leftovers again. I love having free lunches that I don’t have to think about.
Frugal Eats:
Oh! And my grocery shopping last weekend saved dinner last night. I’d picked up a few packets of Indian food from Trader Joe’s, but left it in the cupboard since we still had fresh groceries. Since I walked home from the station, PaDucky didn’t come home to make dinner until after I’d already cooked a new pot of rice. He walked in, stumped about what to cook, whereupon I produced the two packets of yellowfin tuna curry and a potato and vegetable mixture, the name of which escapes me, and voila! Dinner! Dinner for about $5 and in about twenty minutes, all told. PaDucky usually doesn’t like what I pick for dinner, preferring to cook some sort of Chinese or Vietnamese food, but he actually seemed amenable to my selections this time.
The night might have been marred by the discussion with my brother but rescuing dinner, as I so rarely do, redeemed it. It’s really the little things in life, folks.
March 26, 2008
I think I should tell my brother that that’s what’s going to happen every time he puts his hand out and asks for something else.
The latest request: to let him use the truck, sans insurance, for a month if he brings me the equivalent of a car payment. Oh, and uh, he could help ferry MaDucky around whenever needed, if he could use a car. It’s just that his former manager’s promised him a job, and he needs a car, and and and and …..
*SMACK!*
Do I even need to count how many ways this is a bad idea? After paying two sets of deductibles for car repairs? And cancelling his insurance because I can’t afford it? And having paid thousands in car payments by now so as to spare my credit? Really, dangling the carrot of “I’ll actually help the family out” in front of me? That’s just playing dirty.
I’d just walked home from the train station so I was tired, grumpy and a little sweaty, and startled to find him sitting in my house when I got home as I’d been pesty-guest-free for about two or three weeks now. That makes me grumpier. Rather than biting his head off, I told him that I was tired and needed to think about it. But … in the words of Bill Engvall: Nooooooooooo…..!!
*sigh* If he actually was reliable, if he was actually trustworthy, if I had the energy to worry about one more stinkin’ thing, maybe. But bejeebers, already!
I will offer this: I will help him save his money for his own car by holding cash for him, if he wants. But I’ve already taken too many risks and taken too many falls for them, collectively, to stick my neck out one more time. Nu-uh.
