A few things not worth mentioning...

Thing the First: My oven caught on fire last night. It was kind of a dramatic moment as I had just turned the oven on, and suddenly it made this horrible buzzing sound and then a loud POP, which produced some good size flames. I was able to turn it immediately off, which stopped the flames, but then produced some impressive billows of smoke. So then of course I opened every window in my apartment to air it out, which promptly made my apartment FREEZING (but not smelling like smoke). So now I have no oven, and while it's perhaps safe to use the stove burners, I'm disinclined to do so. Now I'm waiting for my apartment manager to see if it's reparable. But for now I have to eat things cold or things that are microwavable. Bummer, dude.

Thing the Second: I have been having some trippy-ass dreams lately. First, I had a dream that I was a reporter covering the Blagojevich impeachment, and Mr. Pipo was called as a character witness, which horrified me. He came over to talk to me, bringing Mr. Blagojevich, who promptly decided to hit on me, so I ran away. As I was running, it turned in to me doing a marathon, and my iPod wouldn't work. I also have dreams fairly frequently where my teeth are falling out. Then last night I had a dream where I was invisible to everyone but children. Googling the themes of my dreams would lead one to believe I must have serious issues I'm unaware of, including worrying too much about how I look, thinking I'm not important, trying to remove myself from society, and putting my faith in man over God. Whatever that means. Really I think it just provides me entertainment the next morning when I remember them. Except the teeth falling out one. YUCK!

Thing the Third: Why does our mayor have to be scandalous? I mean, I'm feeling good politically, my President was elected, he's officially in office and Bush is puttin' his boots up on a coffee table in Podunk, Texas, and he can't send us to war again. But then the day before Inauguration, Portland's mayor has to go scandalize himself with an inappropriate relationship. I mean come ON. So I have decided to pay as little attention as possible to the whole shebang, even if I am technically a city employee. Whatev! Evidently in Portland, 18-year-olds can enjoy Sam Adams. Ba-dum kshhhh!

Tales of my airheadedness

So my passenger side window in my car decided to stop working several weeks ago. It had been pretty slow to go up and down since I bought the car, but it worked so it was all good.

One day, it just didn’t want to go down anymore.

I figure the motor is dead and I need to replace it.

And that is spendy.

So I haven’t been able to afford to take her to Honda to get it fixed yet, which isn’t a big deal because the driver’s side window and the sunroof work, and that’s all that really matters. :)

::: :::

So I have Bridezilla and her husband in my car on Saturday, and he tries to roll the window down.

“Sorry, it’s broken.”

He looks over at me. “Well, your button is off.”

“What?”

“Your button. You need to turn it on.”

At this point I have zero idea what he’s talking about. He points at a switch on my door that says “MAIN” and then “on” and “off.”

I flip it to the “on” position.

Bzzzzzzzzzzst. Window goes down.

What. The. Hell.

I don’t even know what that switch did, not to mention how on earth I turned it off! I swear I could not stop laughing for like 20 minutes. I guess I hit it on my way out the door? Who knows.

But now we know that “childproof” windows also mean Junniper Proof.

All I have to say is…I’m glad I was saved the embarrassment of showing up at Honda for them to flip the switch for me.

Why do I feel sheepish? ;)

A Rush of Blood

Have you ever had a dream about someone that was kind of…naughty? And then you see them the next day and you can’t really look them in the eye because you’re having graphic flashbacks from your dream?

Yeah, I’m having that problem today. And I’m not even interested in him that way (not to mention he’s only 21—no offense to you youngins out there). But he’s a cute guy, and we chat fairly regularly…but not like that. And it’s making me flustered. And it’s not helping that he keeps coming in my office. Damn dreams.




ANYWAY, what’s new? My blogging seems to have slowed, but then others have been slowing, too. Is it just that time of year?

I went and saw Children of Men on Friday and h-o-l-y s-h-i-t. That movie is intense. My friends and I were sitting there tense the whole time and then even after the movie we were so stricken and horrified that we had to go down the street and get some gelato. Wow. Great movie. I think I might buy that one.



And A/B, I had to laugh at your comment on my previous post because I did go shoe shopping! Haha! I only bought one pair, though. Just ONE. But then again…Spring Break’s not over yet…


So I donated blood on Friday, which was lovely because I haven’t been able to go in a long time. I was on antibiotics for most of the last year because of the Sinus Fiasco, so I couldn’t donate. Not to mention I wasn’t healthy so they wouldn’t have wanted my O-Positive Lovelyness anyway.

But there’s a new system called Double-Red Cell Donation, where instead of donating a pint of whole blood, they hook you up to an apheresis machine and take just your red blood cells. Red blood cells are the part most often needed in blood transfusions for sick people, so in theory, you can help two people from one donation instead of just one.

The apheresis machine separates the red blood cells from the plasma using a centrifuge that rotates at like a bazillion rpms. It was really fascinating. You can actually watch your plasma go into a bag as it spins! Then the red blood cells collected go into another bag, and the plasma is put back in your body with some saline. Then they do it again to get the other half of the red blood cells.

The plasma was pretty cool. It’s like a clearish liquid—she said mine was a good color and that she could tell I “didn’t eat cheesecake the night before, and that I have low cholesterol.” This was funny, actually, because I had eaten cheesecake the night before! Haha! It also had a very faint green tinge to it, to which she said, “you must be on hormones—birth control?” It was crazy that you can tell that much about a person by their blood’s plasma!

Anyway, the procedure did take a while, and it’s not without slight complications. When the saline/plasma goes back into your body, it makes your whole arm cold. It was weird. By the second time that they did it, I got really cold and actually had to sit with a blanket for a while. The other thing that happens is that you can become calcium deficient, and your lips go numb! They fix this by giving you Tums (yes, the antacid stuff) because they have calcium in them.

It was pretty damn cool.

And I saved two lives. So there!

Adventures in Vehicle Land

My poor little car had a rough weekend.



She’s an older lady so she has a tendency to burn oil. On Sunday I was giving her a quart when my friend decided to be helpful. After I put the oil cap back on, I went to the trunk to put the leftover oil and my funnel back, and she decided to go ahead and shut my hood.

“Ouch!” said my car.

Turns out my friend put the hood prop back in the wrong place.

So instead of putting it in the pretty little prop nook, she put it behind my headlight, which as you can see from the sad car photograph above, is a pop-up headlight (so retro, I know). So the prop gets jammed behind my headlight so it will no longer go up or down and I cannot shut my hood. I tried to get the beotch out of there, but it’s wedged behind a screw that I cannot remove.
Shit.

So I called Honda yesterday because they very conveniently have a service department right by my apartment, and we set an appointment for 3:30 today to get the prop out.

WELL. My little car was pissed off and decided to have a dead battery this morning! Oh hip hip hooray!

I figure that it’s dead because my car thinks the headlight is up so it’s drained the battery. Of course at 8am, I don’t have anyone around to give me a jump so I hopped on the bus to work.

At lunch, my coworker takes me home to give me a jump. She didn’t know anything about jumping a car, so much to my dismay she was not aware that her battery is in the trunk of her car, latched down by big serious bolts that are impossible to get out (&@*$ Volvo). By now I’m really annoyed because if I don’t get my car started, I can’t get it to Honda, they can’t fix it, and I can’t get to school tomorrow.

So I suck it up and call my boss and she comes to my rescue. She didn’t know anything about jumping cars, either (what's the deal there? I thought everyone knew how), so they both stood around watching me (which lemme tell you is interesting when you can’t prop your hood up because your prop is stuck in your headlight). I hook up the cables [that spark that happens when you connect the negative clamp to the engine was funny—they both started freaking out], and let the good battery charge mine up for about 20 minutes. I let out a little “yippee” when she started, and I got her to Honda without a problem.

Imagine my surprise at the bizarre coincidence when they tell me the dead battery and the headlight problem were not related! I just had a bad battery whose time had run out. I was a little skeptical at first, but seeing that it is a licensed Honda shop, they can’t screw me over, and he explained that they ran all the necessary diagnostic tests to make sure. So I was a little miffed at having to buy a new car battery, but I lucked out because the prop didn’t damage my headlight motor.

So all in all, it’s a satisfying result.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t be breakin out the wine tonight.

Oh, snap.

Dear Ms. K______;
The Registrar's Office has deleted your records from our information system at your request.
Thank you for your inquiry.


Sincerely,

Timothy J. Ebner, Registrar
University of Utah

Hyphens

I’m still popping the champagne today after the decimation of snarling elephants yesterday. Yippee!

But I have a story for you. And I swear to Buddha, I am not making this up. And I don’t mean to get into a Nancy-Kerrigan-“why-me” mode, but seriously: Why does the weird shit always happen to me??

So I get home from work tomorrow, run in to use the bathroom and grab my school stuff to go study in the library. So I head downstairs to the throne room and
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Wait for it
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WTF?!!?


A DEAD GODDAMN RAT IN MY TOILET. A RAT! A RAT, PEOPLE! WHY ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH IS THERE A MOTHER-LOVING RAT IN MY TOILET??



Needless to say, the floating carcass nearly scared me half to death, but I am proud to say there was no yelling, fainting, or swearing involved at the time. I just slammed down the toilet seat and ran upstairs to call my landlord.

“Uh, William? This is Jennifer in #____. I have an…unusual situation.”

“Okaaaay…”

“There is a huge dead rat in my toilet.”

“WHAT? Oh my God, I’ll be down in five minutes.”

This is apparently not that rare. Rats will make their way up sewer pipes and out people’s toilets. If you’re really lucky, they’ll still be alive when they emerge, and if your lid’s open, they’ll jump out and terrorize you! Isn’t that fun!? Luckily, my lid was down, so the little bastard drowned.

Five minutes more of holding my bladder as I stand trying to shake off the heebie-jeebie disgustingness of the situation, he knocks on my door, rubber gloves and bucket in hand.

We head down to the bathroom where he peeks in the lid, slams it down and shouts “Oh my lord!
….
….
….
Um, did you try flushing it?”

“Uh, no.”

“K, I’m going to try flushing it.”

“What if it gets stuck??”

“Well…theoretically, if it came up, it should go back down, right?”

“Um, I guess so…well, the plunger’s next to the toilet if you need it.”

*flush*

Little bastard didn’t go down.

*flush*

Still won’t go down.

Admitting defeat, William looks at me, sighs, and says “I’m going in.”

“Do you want like a paper towel or something?”

“No, I just need some scotch.”

So he reaches his gloved hand in, picks it up by it’s tail, and drops its bloated little mongrel body in the bucket.

Seriously. Why? I do not understand why the weird stuff always happens to me.

And now it’s not just the weird stuff, it’s the horror-movie, Twilight-Zone, can’t-sleep-because-you-think-you-hear-a-rat-scratching-the-bottom-of-the-bowl disgusting stuff.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On a completely related note, I have to have surgery on my sinuses.

This does not make me happy. I went back to the doctor today, and he compared last month’s CAT Scan to this month’s CAT Scan, and although I’m feeling considerably better, my sinuses (especially in the back of my head) are actually worse.

So now I have to have put-you-under 3-hour endoscopic we’ll-try-not-to-sever-your-optic-nerve surgery. Some lovely you’ll-need-about-a-week-to-recover surgery. Basically, some I-really-don’t-have-the-time-to-deal-with-this-BS-surgery.

But alas, I’m going to do it. I don’t know when, but hopefully in December when I’m between terms for school. They’ll probably call tomorrow to schedule it.

Memo to myself: stop googling Sinus Surgery because you’ll end up reading scary stories like this. Or this.

I need a cocktail.

My brush with fame

See, Tristan, I'm excited about it!

Apparently I made the front page of Digg with my stupid parking ticket story! I'm sure I'm not savvy enough to know how cool it really is, but I'm quite flattered that I'm on there.

I'm on the page for Offbeat News.

And you can see my entry here.

And even if they called me a dude (HELLO, it says Jennifer in the story), it's still pretty badass. :)

It's because I got mad at the NetZero lady, huh?

God got me.

My dad calls last night. “So how’s my little felon? Still on the lam?”

“Huh?”

“Have you checked your email?”

“No…”

“Well, I scanned a postcard you got in the mail today—you might want to check it out.”

Naturally, first thing this morning I check my email. I have a postcard from the University of Utah for a $22 parking ticket I got on my Toyota on October 3.

Whazzat?

1. I’ve never been to the University of Utah.
2. I have no affiliation whatsoever with the University of Utah.
3. I do not drive a Toyota.
4. I was definitely not in Utah on October 3.

This smells like trouble. Not only was my correct name on the card, but my address (well, my dad’s address). How on earth, praytell, could this have happened?

So I call Commuter Services in Utah this morning.

“Hi, I got a parking ticket notification in the mail, but I have no affiliation with the University and I wasn’t in Utah.”

“Oh…OK. Do you have the ticket number?”

I give him the ticket number.

“Yeah, that ticket was issued to you on October 3rd. It’s attached to your parking permit, you were parking in a no-parking zone.”

“No, no. You’re not listening to me. That wasn’t me. I’m not even in Utah. I’m in Oregon. I have no affiliation with your university. I don’t even drive a Toyota.”

“You don’t drive a Toyota?”

“No.”

“And you don’t go here?”

“No.”

“Have you ever registered or like, taken online classes? That could be why.”

“No, I. Am. In. Oregon.”

“OK, well my boss says she can take the ticket off your record and erase the permit.”

“That’s great, thanks, but the bigger issue here is how you have gotten my name in the first place?”

“Well, the ticket is attached to your account.”

“WHY do I have an account, that is what I’m asking you.”

“I don’t know, I can transfer you over to the registrar.”

“Wait, did you look me up and I am actually in your system?”

“Yeah, your student ID is ######.”

What. The. Hell.

So I get on the phone with the registar, whose phones, irritatingly enough, aren’t working properly today. They must have hung up on me about 3 times.

I replay the situation.

“So you got a parking ticket that shouldn’t have gone to you?”

“Right.”

“Well, let me transfer you to Commuter Services.”

“NO NO NO, I need to find out how your school even has me in your system. I’m worried that someone has stolen my identity.”

“It may just be someone with your name.”

“No, dear, you not only have my name, but you have my address. And my name is not common. I highly doubt there is another Jennifer _____ out there.”

“Oh. Hold on.”

[this is where they hang up on me a few times]

“OK, it appears that this record was created in 1999.”

What. The. Hell.

1999? 1999…..…. OH…1999.

That’s about when I would have been college hunting. And filling out eleventy jillion college info cards at college fairs. And ten’ll get you twenty that I must have filled one out for the University of Utah (NO idea why I would do such a thing—really, I filled them out for just about anywhere).

“OK, I may have filled out a card at a college fair.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll bet that’s why.”

“But I never even applied there, why would I go into your system?”

“Oh, we put everyone in the system.”

Mmmmkay…

“Well, can you take me out? I mean, it’s been 7 years, and I have no interest in the University of Utah.”
“No, we don’t delete people.”

“You’re telling me that the record was created 7 years ago, there has been zero activity with that account, and you won’t delete it?”

“Sorry, we can’t do that.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No, sorry.”

“Can you guarantee that I will not be contacted by the University or have any other random ass parking tickets sent to me?”

“Well, someone probably just accidentally registered their permit using your ID number instead of their own.”

“Why are you calling it my ID number? It’s not mine. I have no desire for it to be mine.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Yeah, tell your school administrators that they’re a bunch of retards.” *

“What was that?”

“Bye.”


* No, I didn't really say that.

ZERO.

Why must this be such a hassle?

I finally decided that I needed a real internet connection at home. For several months I was using NetZero (which is horrible, by the way) since I wasn’t regularly using the net. I mean, why pay mucho moolah for something I don’t really need? [No comments about my shoe-buying problem, please] Anyway, so I order Qwest DSL.

I ordered the service on Thursday. It said it would be available today. So I look at my Netzero account, and my next billing cycle would also start today. So I went ahead and called on Thursday to cancel my account, figuring I wouldn’t really need shitty internet for the weekend, anyway.

“Thank you for calling NetZero, I understand you want to cancel this great service, may I please have the reason?”

Uh….I should not tell her it’s because it’s shitty because she’ll go into some tirade and transfer me to the “help” department instead of just canceling the blasted thing. “Yeah, I’m getting free wireless in my building, so I don’t need dial-up anymore.”

This is actually partly true. I do have access to free wireless in my building, but it’s about as good as NetZero. Plus, it’s regulated so any website that has words like “breast” or “sex” or “anal stimulation” (ok I made that last one up) won’t load. I seriously couldn’t get the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure (for breast cancer) page loaded.

“Oh…OK. So you want to cancel the service?”

“Yes” (haven’t we gone through this?)

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, I’m going to sign you up for three months of free wireless service!”

“No, I don’t need wireless service. I already have wireless service. I just want to cancel my account.”

“Well, you can just have it for three months and then cancel it, you don’t have to keep it.”

“No, I already have wireless. Why would I need two wireless services?”

“Is your wireless available right now?”

“Yes!”

“Oh. Well for $4.95 you can keep your NetZero email address!”

“NO, I don’t use that address anyway. Although that doesn’t stop me from getting 17 ‘delivery failed’ email message every day. How do you suppose I get failed deliveries if I’m not even sending anything?”

Silence………. “Yes, I’ve heard that’s a glitch.”

Lovely.

“I can let you use the email address for 3 more months free if you like.”

“Please just cancel my account, I don’t want anything further from NetZero.”

“You know, we are the least expensive provider out there. Are you sure you don’t want to take a day or two to think it over?”

“No. And I know a cheaper provider. It’s called my apartment building and the cost is Zero dollars. You know Zero, like in your name, Net Zero?”

“Yes.”

“Please cancel my account.”

“OK, just hold on a moment while I get your confirmation number.”

“Alright.” …………………………………………….

…………………………………………………………

“Sorry it’s taking so long, our system is really busy today.”

“MMMKay…”

So basically what she’s saying is that everyone thinks NetZero is the shitter of internet services, and no one wants it anymore!

“Ma’am, I can sign you up for three months of free wireless service.”

PMS kicks in: “I. Do. Not. Want. Anything. From. NetZero. Anymore. No free wireless, no email address. No pretty pony with the NetZero logo painted on its side. Nothing. Please cancel it.”

“You don’t want your email address?”

[NO LADY, I DON’T WANT YOUR @&%^*@# SERVICE ANYMORE, CANCEL THE GODDAMN ACCOUNT! ]

“No, thank you.”

“OK, your confirmation number is ######. Have a nice day.”

I think I took a wrong turn to Negative Town

The man upstairs is picking on me.

First off, I feel like shiznit. I’m playing in the bitter barn.

Then I get a missed call on my cell phone from 999-999-9999.

So, naturally, I Google it.

THE PHONE CALL OF DEATH!

Yeah….that’s just great.

Thank goodness I didn’t call the number back!

But this guy did, and apparently it was just Blockbuster calling to remind him to return a movie. This can make me breathe a sigh of relief because yes, Blockbuster, I do have a movie still out. But you know what?! Don’t advertise NO LATE FEES if you don’t want people returning videos late. I wanted to watch United 93 again, OK?? Get off my back or I’ll bust a cap!

Yeah that’s right – I’m a gangsta.


<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

In other news, my weekend class was BOOOOOOOOOORING. It was AGONY. It was 11 flipping hours of repeated mumbo jumbo and asinine stories. And not even good asinine stories!

Remember that teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Yeah, that’s the guy.



11 hours people.

I keep chanting to myself: I’m 1/3 done, I’m 1/3 done…

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

I’m in a bad mood today. I think it’s a culmination of irritation and I can’t laugh it off anymore. So you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to go home, cook me a lovely catfish dinner, pop open a bottle of wine, make myself some brownies and watch Anne of Green Gables. Because you know what? I can.

I’ll be a much happy camper tomorrow.

The Idiot Criminal of the Day Award goes to:

Whatever moron broke into my car last night.

First of all, though, I am thankful he didn't break my window--the nice police man said he probably used a shaved Honda key and that since my car is so old, he could get in that way.

So Idiot Criminal gets into my car to steal my stereo. Correction: my non-working stereo.

Furthermore he saw the face plate and probably thought, "cool, a CD player." Then my car said "Not! I'm just a tape player! Neener neener."

Then Idiot Criminal took my portable CD player (that I hooked up to my tape player) that is almost as old as my little brother. I bought it in 1995.

He did not, however, choose to take any of my CD's. I'm not sure if I should take this as an insult...does this mean he didn't like my music?

He also, as a last resort I might guess, got into my trunk to see perhaps if I had the CD player back there.

D'oh! Nothin but jumper cables and a first aid kit...which I think made him mad because he made quite a mess back there.

So in the end, boys and girls, crime [quite literally] doesn't pay.

I've been wanting a new stereo... I guess now's the time! :)

What the hell?

Okay............so I have zero idea what happened to my blog.

Apparently, it was eaten by the Internet. No joke.

Adam was lovely enough to send me an email warning, and sho 'nough when I went to junniper.blogspot.com, there was nothing there but some girl licking a cell phone!!

I signed into blogger, and there is no trace of my old Caprichosa. Seriously.

I'm going to email the blogger kids, but at this point, I have no idea what's going on. It's like it was deleted, and I didn't delete it. But it wouldn't let me use my old URL, so I had to change it a little and put a hyphen in there.

It's a mystery!! :(


Update:
So Adam is my hero and found out that the old Caprichosa has probably been hijacked, although I have no idea why anyone would want to hijack it, really.
I sent Blogger a message letting them know, but I got a canned message back with them pretty much telling me it's gone and they probably won't respond to my message anyway, since they get so many.

So I guess here it is: Caprichosa, Part Deux.