A For Sale sign just went up on our lawn.

I am not pleased.

This is in addition to the realtor who just walked right into our house last week, yipping about taking pictures of the outside from the inside… and did she call first, as I was TOLD they would?

No, no she did not.

This does not bode well.

So let’s see, what’s happened…

I botched the Porkchop’s haircut. I clipped too high over his ear (I dunno, I think I was tired or something, lol) and then thought it would make sense to use the neck clipper bit to clip down the hair that was left. Um. So now one side is just too high, but still has some hair above his ear and the other side has essentially a bald patch above his ear.

He’s thrilled. And using it to get out of ever leaving the house, lol. With encouragement I’m sure he’ll send me a picture to post here… 😀 😀

We watched Chuck (season premieres all week, whee!) last night and I love it. It’s smart and funny and oddly endearing. It’s also right before Heroes, so those are two great hours on a Monday night. 🙂 Journeyman wasn’t bad, it reminds me alot of The Time Traveler’s Wife, but I’m not sure it’ll keep an audience.

I found the perfect house, of course, and it’s cheaper, bigger, has a huge fence yard and oh, did I mention, on Cape Cod? Unfortunately, our landlord (whom I now despise) won’t let us out of our lease. No discussion, just “no.” Although if it sells, we can “talk about it.”

We haven’t seen a realtor yet, no sign has gone up, etc., so perhaps she’s realizing now is a bad time to sell? I don’t know, but at least now she realizes she burned this bridge and we won’t be staying come May, even if she does still own the place.

So now I’m a little sad that my perfect Cape house isn’t going to work out. It was yellow. Had a huge, fenced yard, an upstairs loft with great skylights, six rooms, a fireplace… OK, I’m stopping now.

I’m still a bit itchy, so that’s fun as well, and it was getting colder, but today is supposed to be high 80s and tomorrow 90s, so WTF is with this weather?

I need a vacation.

Here’s what I don’t get. I’m a nice person. I pay my rent on time. I leave the places I’ve rented cleaner than when I first moved in. I handle the problems that arise WITHOUT bothering the landlord.

So what exactly have I done to make ANOTHER landlord decide to sell the house that I am living in?

Fortunately we get first dibs, and she’s assured me that our lease supercedes whatever sales agreement she makes.

However, our lease is up in May next year and if we don’t decide to buy it we have to be prepared (though she’ll give me a few hours’ notice) to have people come through and look at the place.

WHAT DID I DO IN MY LIFE? Was I previously a Nazi war criminal or something? Did I starve puppies and kick babies?

For added fun I get to go to see the specialist again today, whereupon he will tell me a) we don’t know what’s wrong with you (surprise, surprise), b) let’s run more tests (whee!) and c) we might never know.

Dandy.

We got my results back today and surprise, surprise, I have a perfect liver! Bollocks.

The doc said all the biopsies came back clear, no sign of necrosis, etc., yada yada. Great, that’s dandy… except now that means we are back to square one and no one knows what’s wrong with me.

Which means that I’m pissed AND that I think I should be allowed to drink now. 😀 I mean seriously, my liver looks fine and I can deal with feeling like shit tomorrow if I get to feel niiiiice tonight, lol.

Right before my parents come to town I always get my car detailed. And it’s especially important now that Regina thinks cars are the best things in the world.

I got a call from the dealership I took it to about an hour ago. They wanted to put some emissions tags or something on it and I said, yes, please. Then they called me back. Did I know my tags were expired? They couldn’t put the emissions tags on it until I fixed that.

Confused, I got online looking for registration renewal in my state.

OK, online it says registration is good for two years, so since I got the car in ’05, I should be only a few months behind. Damn, why didn’t they contact me?

I go to renew online, and lo and behold, since it’s over three months expired, I’m not allowed.

So I call the DMV, whereupon I am directed to four separate automated lists (press 10 should be the suicide hotline). When I finally do get a person, she tells me that my registration did expire in May… of FREAKING 2006.

Shit, I think, wtf?

She tells me that in this state (which I now loathe and think should die) the registration renewal is sent to the town you live in, not you (already I’m thinking this is the stupidest thing ever) so that you can pay your taxes before you get your new tags.

Taxes? ‘Scuse me? I’m fucking moving to my own island with no damn taxes, is all I’m thinking at this point.

So I sigh, and call the town hall of where I lived last year.

And the tax lady tells me I owe $387 and it needs to be in cash and I should come today because interest is assessed at 18%. What. the. fuck.

You have to be kidding, I say to her.

No, we don’t take personal checks. [Figures I get a joker.]

Well, I said, I never received notice so I would like to know how to fight the interest. I will pay whatever the tax is, but I should not have to pay interest.

Oh you can’t fight that, everyone always pays the interest. And we did send out a notice.

To where? I never received one.

She reads off the address of my first apartment in Warren. The one I moved from in June of ’05.

I don’t live there anymore, I say. I haven’t lived there in years! (All the while fuming at the mean woman below me who, upon buying the house from her dad who loved me, kicked me out to move in her good-for-nothing nephew. Now the house is purple-not kidding-and his stupid giant truck is perpetually parked in the yard. Yeah, real keeper.)

Well that is the address we have on file and you have to pay this or you can’t get registration for your car. It’s not our fault you didn’t notify us when you moved.

I didn’t know I had too. I don’t even know what you people do. Why do I have to pay taxes to a town FOR A CAR?!

This conversation was not going anywhere, and at this point I was in tears.

The woman was now telling me that I should call my new town because I probably owe taxes there, too.

Great, I say. Thanks, bye.

And I hung up.

And proceeded to slam my fist into a wall. Good times all around.

Fortunately I owe the new town nothing… yet. I’ll get a notice in June. What the hell kind of sadistic practice is this to tax people when they get a new car?! Shouldn’t we be encouraging the economy, not penalizing people? What the hell?

So I did what everyone does in this situation (primarily everyone who can’t drink or smoke or do anything that makes it all go away)—I called my mom.

And through my tears raged about the government and how I didn’t want this car and I want my old one and oh my god, no WONDER people go into debt, what the hell!

Because the sum total of what I will be shelling out? Right around $500. For the taxes and the new registration, which won’t come for a month and if I get a ticket, I’ll have to pay that too.

How I haven’t gotten pulled over before this is beyond me. I almost wish I had, because then I would’ve had less interest.

Because they do interest like this: let’s say it was originally $50. And then I don’t pay for a month, so that’s $9 at 18% interest now that I owe. But then it gets more fun, because the interest isn’t on the original amount, oh no, it’s on the total due. So now it’s $59 plus 18% interest, so that’s $69.62.

.. So I just spent 10 minutes on an Excel sheet and I think it originally cost $35. THIRTY-FIVE FREAKING DOLLARS.

And now i owe $387.

That. is. bullshit.

Update: Apparently it was originally $245 and the tax lady was wrong about how interest was assessed.

Whatever, I still owe a ridiculous amount.

My being sick, as it turns out, has brought to light the fact that I (apparently) never really got better from last year.

Why? Because they ran a liver panel yesterday and surprise, surprise, my numbers are up again. Whee! Aside from the itching and a general drowsiness, I haven’t really noticed anything really amiss, so while it’s not a huge surprise, it definitely wasn’t something I was expecting.

On a fun note, Ben and Jerry’s is putting out a limited edition Beer and Donuts flavored ice cream for the Simpsons premiere in Vermont. Is it just me, or does that sound just a little bit tasty?

Also, the countdown to my-best-friend-since-childhood’s wedding is rapidly nearing the single digits, and I’m stuck. I have the perfect gift (a welcome-to-sex-virgin-girl! kit that I put together, involving lubes and vibes and books, etc.), but I want to write a little list of some kind. As in, The Top 10 Reasons Being Married is Awesome, or something along those lines.

So, to all of you people who are married (and preferably happy :P), list some reasons in the comments. I have a couple, but they are mainly along the lines of “Because you can have sex and not get in trouble with your religious parents” and “Because your problems are now his problems.” Hehe.

My mom called the other day (granted, my mom calls almost every day, so it’s really nothing special) to let me know that my dad wasn’t feeling well (ANYONE who knows my dad… aka, sister, cousin, don’t mention this to him! or her!).

OK, so, my dad wasn’t feeling well, he got up out of bed around 3AM, and didn’t come back to bed from the bathroom. My mom goes in there and he’s bent over and thinking he might be having appendicitis or diverticulitis (which you get if you don’t eat enough fiber and oh my god, my dad is the King of Fiber, fiber at every meal, here have some more bran on your cereal, so that idea was a surprise to me), so she gets in the shower so they can go to the hospital (in particular, I LOVE that part).

Anyway, the extreme pain subsides and he decides to try and get back to bed (he’s been on call and he has to go back to the hospital in a few hours anyway, so yeah, obviously going back to bed when you think you might have appendicitis is the BEST plan here).

The next day, after he does his consults, he goes and gets some labs done (I really love that he doctored himself, because you know, doctors don’t need other doctors… ever).

At this point I’ve been calling my mom every few hours to see if they have figured out what’s wrong, and his diagnosis (of himself, you know) is that now it’s probably not appendicitis and it might not be diverticulitis and it might be… eh, he doesn’t know. He’s waiting on labs.

Somewhere in this waiting on labs, etc., my mom (the one without the MD) suggests that possibly, just maybe, he could have a kidney stone? Because he’s been working out a lot recently and might not be getting enough water? And my dad, being in pain and the one with the MD, scoffs a bit at her suggestion. But my mom, being the Ruler of Her House (and if you don’t believe me I just dare you to cross her), insists that he check that too.

And so he does, just because she said so and really, if she’s right and he didn’t check it, he would NEVER live it down. (I love my mom, lol.)

Now we’re waiting on more tests. It apparently doesn’t look like a stone, but it could be some sludge, or something else altogether.

But it’s cool, because he’s a doctor and he will doctor himself, thank you very much.

And no, you don’t need to inform the girls, I am just fine, yada, yada, yada.

Obviously what I’d love to do is call him and kick his ass for not actually going to see a doctor.. a doctor who is not him, perhaps a doctor who will give him a check up? On everything? Like his heart, etc.?

Because I swear to god, he hasn’t had a check up since he became a doctor that he didn’t do himself and I’m telling you right now, if he gets really sick because he didn’t go see somebody I will personally fly home and kick his ass.

(Also, seriously, sis/cuz, don’t tell them I wrote this, lol! You can talk to mom, but not dad. 😀 )

My laptop has died.. we have no real idea what the fuck happened, except that a four-legged, wagging creature knocked it off the couch to the floor when I was in bed. It won’t turn on. That’s it’s only flaw. No damage apparent, it just won’t turn on.

I took it to Apple store yesterday and signed off on a $1400 Tier 4 Damage repair job.

Aside from my side hurts, I’m nauseated, I keep getting tension headaches that I can’t take meds for, I can’t drink liquor or caffeine, I just had to pay $750 to have all of my brake pads and rotors replaced (my mother and her dealership are positive I got swindled so they are looking into it.. expect to hear more later) and I may or may not be paying $1400 for my laptop to be fixed, I’m doing dandy.

How’re y’all?

My friend King’s dad died this weekend. He’d had a heart attack a few weeks ago, but according to King had been doing just fine.

It always sucks when someone you know, someone who is relatively close in age to yourself, loses a parent. Particularly for someone like him, who lost his mom years ago. Now he and his brother are all that’s left of his family unit.

I also know that this means he’s really going to quit (this is my friend from work) and move down South, because now he really has nothing at all keeping him up here. That’s sad. 🙁

The wake is on Wednesday. He really hates this job, and only likes three of us who work there, but my boss sent an email that said, “I asked him if he was open to having some office visitors at the wake and he said we were welcome, but shouldn’t feel obligated,” and I really don’t know what to do.

On one hand, I hate it when people go to those things just for show, and I swear that is what half of these people would be doing. And also, he hates this job, why, on such a day, would he want to be reminded of these people, this job?

I really am not super close to him.. at what level of knowing someone do you go to a funeral? I don’t want to be one of those people who goes there for show.

What do y’all think?

I know, I know, I’m slacking again. Thing is, I’ve been really sick for the past week and a half and I really haven’t been motivated to do anything.

The fun thing is that I’ve done all the blood tests and the abdominal ultrasound that I did last time I was sick, and this time, only one of my liver stats was slightly elevated.

We’re waiting for one test to come back to see if I have a virus that’s possibly caused a stomach ulcer (yeah, dandy huh) and if that comes back negative, my dad has decided that I have some sort of weird virus that they’ve never seen. And that I’ve had it since I was sick last year.

Which means, ironically, that I might not be allergic to birth control.

But I doubt it, lol.

Anyway, I’m on three different kinds of meds now and so I’m functioning.. the down side is that I can’t have liquor or caffeine.

Yeah. My life blood. It’s been taken from me. :((

Also, the Porkchop is sitting next to me having a drink and oh my god, that’s painful. The ass, lol.