I took a vacation day today.
Spent it as I usually spend vacation days – doing a million errands and activities. First, I had a service call to repair one of my freezers (fortunately, still under warranty). The repairman couldn’t help but notice the three freezers, filled with raw pet food – so that led to a long discussion, okay a speech, on the evils of dry cat food.
The furnace service call had to be rescheduled for late this afternoon.
I attended an all-staff meeting at the shelter. I also wanted to drop off some supplies and donations, and ask the veterinarian about an interesting case.
Went to the horrific post office on the way home. I HATE this post office. It’s the slowest post office in the universe, but the other one is west of my house (the shelter is east…) I was in line for about an hour, though it was middle of a weekday. Woman ahead of me finally gave up. Poor lady.
At one point, there were literally NO staff at the desk. NONE. For about 10-15 minutes, no one there – they’d all wandered off wherever. Plus, there’s one woman there that is SO SLOW, it’s unbelievable. The guy ahead of me just wanted to send a letter. She had to ask which method, of course… but then she won’t take your word for it, she has to try and talk you into something more expensive… then she wanted to know if he wanted tracking or something, and he kept saying no, and she kept going on and on about “Are these papers important to you?” OMG, just take his letter! She always has to offer to show you all the new postage stamps as well.
Luckily, perhaps she recognized me from my great post office rampage of 2006 (holiday season) where I literally began screaming – she accepted my word for it I wanted my two packages sent Parcel Post, and other than finding one to be taped unacceptably and insisting we fix it… it was okay. All told, about an hour and a half to mail two packages.
Stopped off at Staples and picked up a few office supplies.
The HVAC guys showed up for their rescheduled service call… then it landed up not being my furnace ignitor at all, as I was originally told. This repair guy, when he heard the basement had flooded, said the minute he got here he didn’t understand how it could be the ignitor… he thought it was the circuit board… well, that’s what it was.
So, they’re going to get me a quote on the circuit board… probably $400 or more… and it’s probably just time to bite the bullet and replace my 15-year-old furnace. Unfortunately, I somehow already spent my insurance proceeds.
I was telling the HVAC guy that I just got my circuit board replaced recently… I remember because it made sense to replace the furnace then, but it was FREEZING cold, so I made the repair guy go out and get me a new board ASAP even though it cost me more. I was trying to remember when that was, and was thinking aloud:
“Hmm… I remember it was really cold, and I had Elsinore and wrapped her in an electric blanket with me…”
He started laughing and said “you remember dates by what cats you had?”
“Um, yes, I guess I do.”
I also made a cat food making video. It turned out pretty bad. I had trouble holding the camera and making at the same time, so I kept having to set the camera down and then you can’t see what I’m doing… and I’m super messy and spill stuff everywhere…. and ramble on and on, and at the end get distracted with showing how cute my cats are… Plus, I should have cleaned off my counters first, as you can see my kitchen counters are piled high with cat pills & junk.
Then I did some things with my website. All in all, I didn’t get all I wanted done, but it was a pretty productive (though not particularly fun) vacation day.
Life of the Lintee Bean 