Paper or cardboard?

DAMNIT! I wrote a whole post, and then the freakin puter froze up... HATE. I'll try to recreate...

So, Monday is our first anniversary, unbelievably... it's gone by totally quickly (cliche, but true, so shaddup). We have reservations tonight to go to Zoot, which I'm really excited about -- it's going to be our first real fine dining experience, and I think the first time in my life I'll get to order a tasting menu! They even have a vegetarian tasting menu for Mr. Pants, which is apparently pretty unusual in Austin restaurants.

This is probably going to be my last post until Tuesday, because the in-laws are coming in tomorrow... this means frantic cleaning in the morning, which means getting out of bed early. Crap. I'm still excited about their coming into town... we always have such a great time with them. Plus, they want to go babyshopping for the nephlet, so we get to look at teeny pants, which is always adorable and hysterical. Mr. Pants thinks I have horrible taste in baby clothes... I tend to gravitate towards the Urkel side of the spectrum, because I think sweater vests are hysterical on bebes. The best EVER baby t-shirts, though? Are here.

Let's see... we rented the best movie last night! It was a Japanese animated kid's movie (shut up, it RULED) called Spirited Away. (Linked to the Aussie website, cause it's good.) It was sweet, beautiful to watch, and had a really engrossing storyline. I highly, highly recommend it... but I will say, them japanese can be strange sometimes. But really, go rent that movie, if you haven't seen it already!

I think that's about it for now... getting really close to 3:45, which is when we close today for the holiday weekend. wooo. Not to bitch, but it would have been really nice to get out around lunchtime today... half of the office wasn't here, and we were getting barely any calls. Oh well... it was quiet, and we got paid, so I should pretty much just shut the hell up, right?

Right.

Have a happy holiday weekend! Think of the soldiers while you're shopping... they're doing something I could never in a million billion years imagine myself doing, and I appreciate them for it. (But I won't put a stupid magnet on my car to show that I think of them more than you do, on account of I'm not a self-righteous snootypants. Check out the new item in my sidebar -- isn't that GREAT?)

Me and my Pimpala

So, it looks like the body shop is going to have to hold on to my car for at least 5 business days; one week, in other words. Until I get her back, I'm ridin' high in a pimpala, which drives very smoothly but has gigantic blind spots (not fun for a girl who just got hit after an aborted merge) and a really high ass. I don't like the styling.
Whine, whine. F@rmers is going to pay for the entire rental period, which would be costing us like $27/day, so I can't really complain. Plus, now we have this nice car for the weekend while the in-laws are in town.
Yup, in-laws. I have to say that I really lucked out in the in-law department... Mr. Pants' folks are totally wonderful people, who have really accepted me into the family. This doesn't make me feel like I have to clean any less, however. If only I could train the cats to clean! Then I'd be in the money.
So, the Final Adjustor called yesterday to tell Mr. Pants how much the estimate is for fixing the car.


Guess.




Nope.




$1500, if all they have to do is replace the bumper and quarter panel and do an alignment and balance/rotate the tires. If they find anything else wrong once they get the panels off, that estimate could jump considerably... so it's still possible my car might be totalled. Let's continue to hope not.

An interesting note... the adjustor told Mr. Pants that he could see evidence of "rubber feathering" around my tires, which apparently isn't something to freak out about (not that that's going to stop me) but is in fact evidence that I was telling the truth when I said that we spun out on the highway. Huh. The tricks you learn when you adjust insurance. Or something.

My apologies if I'm sounding a little disjointed this morning... it's time for work's annual membership renewal, and I spent an hour this morning stuffing envelopes with most of the rest of the office. I never feel like my brain's working right after envelope-stuffing.

Happy Towel Day!

Sorry! In all the vehicular excitement, I almost missed this.
So, Happy Towel Day!

Now THAT'S what I'm TALKIN' bout!

So like 20 minutes after I posted this morning, Mr. Pants called me at work and told me that the adjustor had called the house and was on his way over to take a look at my car! And that they'd take care of transferring over the rental car and the whole amount would be taken care of! Wooo! Now I'm just hangin' out, waiting to hear whatall's wrong with the car. Yay!

Dance, too much booty in the pants!

YAY! I just got off the phone with F@rmers, and they said that their insured was found 100% (not 92, not 37.8) responsible for the accident, and they're accepting all liability. Man! I feel like I just took about 2 Valiums (Valia?) and a Soma. (Except I'm not asleep. Or puking.) Talk about restoring my faith in humanity. She didn't lie!
Now the only question is whether they'll cover the entire cost of the rental Imp@la (without 20 inch rims), which I've had since Monday. They should, since we rented the car after we took my little jellybean into the shop, but there is some question since we're unsure whether my car is driveable.
Unfortunately, I suppose, I'm not allowed to be the judge of whether my car's driveable. To me, the fact that it spun around at something like 60 miles an hour means it should probably be checked out before I go making any sudden moves in it; plus, the wheel well is kinda jammed down pretty close to the tire (which you can sort of see in last night's pictures). But it's possible that F@rmer's might say "You're such a fraidy-cat" and refuse to pay for the rental except during the time my car's actually being worked on. I mean, it would be terrific if the only things that need doing are a tire-balancing and a bumper-popping-out, but what if there's an alignment problem that could be made much worse if I go traipsing around town in it? I think if I feel unsafe in my car because of something their insured did, then it's their job to pay for my replacement transportation until my vehicle's fixed.
Darn tootin'.
So now I have to hang around and wait for the final adjustor (sounds like what a cult of actuaries would call god) to call me and set up an appointment to go take a peek at my car. That should be by Friday, with any luck. I'll keep friedpants here updated.
Woo! Dance Dance Dance!

My poor car!

Well, I've sort of figured out how to do pictures. Check out some images of the damage to my car.


From the side


I think the tire looks like it's sticking out.
The mechanic told Mr. Pants I could drive it, but I'm really not so sure.

HiHo, HiHo, We Lost Pinnochio

I hate being here at work when all I can think about is whether TWWHM (see yesterday's post) is lying to her insurance company RIGHT THIS MINUTE. I've realized that it's in her best interest to lie to he insurance company, which isn't a feeling that's settling really well. She hasn't called her insurance folks yet to give her recorded statement.
I always thought that when you called the cops out to the site of an accident, they were supposed to take down what happened, assess blame, and write tickets. Our cops didn't do that. In fact, they kept telling us that we should have just gotten our cars off the interstate, but then they'd look at me and say "well, of course yours was facing the wrong way, that's dangerous." But all in all, they acted like they weren't even sure why we called them. All they did was give us little sheets of paper on which to fill out our information. They did give us one of their badge numbers, I guess if we need to look them up later?
Since there weren't any witnesses, or at least weren't any that pulled over to let us know that they saw what happened, it's pretty much a case of her word vs. mine. I've been told that it's good for me that my car was damaged in the rear and hers in the front, because in general that looks like it was her fault. But I don't know. She could say that she was already in the lane, or something, and then I'd be SOL.
Since she lives in the same complex as me, I think I'll give her one more day to call her folks and then I'll go camp out in front of her door. I hate this. I mean, aren't I having a great time?

The Three CoinciTenors

Actually coincidences. Though CoinciTenors would be a good band name. Or not.

There were three strange coincidences around the accident described below.

1. The woman who hit me (TWWHM) has the same name as my birth mother and was born in the same year.
2. TWWHM lives in the same apartment complex I do -- her building is only 4 away from mine. The accident was 6 miles away from our house, so not particularly close.
   
3. TWWHM and I were wearing matching outfits yesterday; we were both in black T-shirts and jeans.

do dee do do do dee do do (imagine a .wav file playing the Twilight Zone music. I can't do everything around here, people -- work with me!)

Her insurance person still hasn't called me back. Beyotch.

everybody's working for the weekend?

So, I had a really nutso weekend. It would have been crazy enough with trekking out to the lavender festival in Blanco this weekend; even just going to the Mitch Hedburg tribute show last night at the Capitol City Comedy Club would have been pretty eventful (more so than most weekends around our house). I'll have to write about those later, though, because yesterday I got into a high-speed car crash on one of our elevated state highways.
Yeah, you heard right. I actually was involved in a tire-squealing, car-spinning, facing-oncoming-traffic crash. I was in the right-hand lane of a three-lane road, and just as I made the move to merge into the center lane, a woman in a Honda Civic in the left-hand lane decided she wanted to try to share the middle lane with me. I moved back into the right lane, thinking she'd move back left and we'd be ok, but she jerked her wheel hard left, heading right for the retaining wall at probably 70 miles per hour. Then, she cut the wheel hard right to avoid the retaining wall, and headed right back across two lanes of traffic right for me. I looked out my window, saw her bearing down on my driver's side door, and slammed on the gas to try to avoid her, hoping she'd go behind me. Alas, my little four-banger just didn't have the pickup in the 60-70 mph zone to make it, and the woman hit my car right behind the left rear tire, executing a picture-perfect fishtail maneuver, just like you see on World's Wildest Police Videos. (Not that I watch that... ummm...)
I spun around (I think) at least one and a half times, trying the whole time to steer into the spin like I'm pretty sure they tell you in driver's ed, my life not in fact flashing before my very eyes, and finally came to a stop in the right-hand lane facing oncoming traffic. Luckily, my car was still drivable and I pulled onto the shoulder and called 911.
Oh my god -- it could have been so much worse. It was 3 PM on a Sunday, so there weren't that many other cars around to hit us while we were spinning. Neither of us hit the retaining wall, and the damage on both of our cars appears pretty superficial. If there had been a semi on that road, or if we had hit the retaining wall, this could have been an entirely different ending.
I feel like I should go volunteer or something.
Anyway, I'm not even all that sore today -- a little cramped, but nothing serious. I was shaking for hours after I got home yesterday, though. Now it's just trying to deal with the insurance and all that -- trying to get Farmer's to accept liability. My agent told me that this sounds like she's liable, as long as the other lady's story jibes with mine. Of course, when we were standing around on the highway yesterdy waiting for the police to show up so we could turn my car around (thanks, APD -- you guys were terrific) the woman told me that she had no idea what had happened and she thought she hit the wall... so lord knows what she told her insurance company. My car's at the body shop, because even though the mechanic told Mr. Pants that it's driveable, the wheel well looks a little too close to the tire for me to feel comfortable taking it through rush hour traffic. Mr. Covert Body Shop Mechanic (he'll have to have a nickname) told Mr. Pants that the damage looks pretty minor, and that they should be able to just pop the bumper back out and balance the tires, and I'll be good to go. I hope they're right and that I don't have to pay for it.
I'll try to go by there tomorrow during lunch to take pics of the damage... maybe I can post them here. You won't believe how crazy the accident actually was when you see the tiny scratch on my car, though. It looks like I got hit in a parking lot at very low speeds.
That's quite enough for now... reliving the accident has made me all nervous to go get in Mr. Pants' car to go grab lunch. I would walk to get something, but it's 97 degrees outside today.
Deep breaths... slow down adrenaline...
bye!

The Devil Water

Over the last few months, the Pants household has had some difficulties reconciling our love of technology with our love of water. Over Thanksgiving, our roomie spilled a glass of water on Mr. Pants' laptop, which luckily only necessitated the replacement of the keyboard. We were pretty fortunate on that one... of course, it still cost a pretty penny.
Last week, the Mr. went to the gym (yay!), came home, and threw his workout clothes into the washing machine without taking his cell phone out of the pocket.
A little background may be in order.
We've had problems with these damnhellass Motorola cell phones ever since we got them in September of last year. First off, they don't work in our home worth a shit. Poo, I mean. When I'm talking on my cell phone and heading home, folks can always tell when I get within a block of my house because my freakin' cell phone goes spotty.
Second, there are apparently lots of problems with the mechanisms on the cell phones that cause them to make noise, both when ringing and when allowing you to hear what the people on the other end of the line are saying. (Hearing what other people far away are saying is really the reason we got cell phones in the first place, not that it matters to Motorola.) Mr. Pants and I have the same model; mine has been replaced once because it stopped ringing, and his has been replaced TWICE because the sound kept dropping out in the earpiece and the only way he could hear people was by putting them on speakerphone. This had the potential for extreme embarassment and really pissed off anyone in the vicinity.
So, he finally got a phone that works, has it for about a month and a half, and throws it in the washing machine. Guess what? Now it's not working! And for some reason (can't imagine why), washing your cell phone with the lights isn't covered by the one-year warranty! (Maybe they would have covered the gentle cycle?)
His new theory is that if he had only put it in the dryer to dry it out, maybe it would have come back to life.
So, he's been online this week looking up phones, and of course they all cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars if you don't sign up for a new plan, which stinks. Maybe this time he can get one that works underwater.

Gmail

So, my lovely auntie in DC sent me an invite to Gmail in April, and I signed myself up. I know I'm late on the bandwagon. Anyway, I now heart Gmail. It's totally awesome in it's freeness and level of storage (2200 MB right now, and counting). I converted Mr. Pants as well, and he's now spreading the gospel to everyone we know. (If anyone wants an invite, he's got 49 now... I have zilch. Fuckers.)
The other day, he sent an invite to a good friend of ours, but because he's 12 (not really -- what do you think I am?), he filled in the contact information "Penis [lastname]". That was it.
Anyway, our good friend Penis accepted the invite, and Mr. Pants got this email in his inbox:

Penis [lastname] has accepted your invitation to Gmail and has chosen the brand new address **********@gmail.com. Be one of the first to email Penis at this new Gmail address--just hit reply and send Penis a message. ********@gmail.com has also been automatically added to your contact list so you can stay in touch with Gmail.

Thanks,

The Gmail Team

HAHAHAHAHA! I think that's the most awesome thing I've seen this week.
Yes, I'm 26. Why do you ask?

Yeah, I'm sorry, whatever

I know I've been a bad girl... here I go, starting a blog, and then I can't stir my ass to update it for a week? All one of you must be so pissed at me.
We had a great weekend. Took some pictures, but haven't stirred my ass (what is this obsession with ass-stirring?) to hook up a free image hoster yet, so they'll have to wait. Mr. Pants and I drove out to Marble Falls yesterday -- we actually left the house at 9, which is practically the crack of dawn for us on the weekends. Marble Falls doesn't have a lot going on, but they do have this old-school Texas cafeteria called the Bluebonnet Cafe, which is justifiably famous for its pies. We had a so-so breakfast -- eggs, hash browns, grits, and awesome Texas toast. But then, we got to the pie. Yum! One piece of banana cream, one piece of peanut butter cream... really good, went really well together.
Man, I love pie. I don't get nearly enough of it.

Wine notes

Mr. Pants and I went to Whole Foods on Saturday (not the crazysexycool downtown one, but the older one up by us) to get some stuff for dinner. They were tasting this Faux Frog Chardonnay that was not bad -- and only $7.99 a bottle, so we decided to get it. Got it home and it was corked... Crap. We don't know if this has been happening to us more lately, or if it's just that we can tell now. Of course, it seems so obvious now when the wine's corked -- it smells so stongly of wet cardboard that it's pretty clear -- so it's hard for me to believe that we used to just not know.

Anyway, we took it back to Whole Foods yesterday to exchange it for another one, hopefully uncorked, and explained our predicament to the helpful young'un behind the counter. "We bought this wine yesterday, and it was corked." "Oh," she says, "it was already open?"

....

No. But she let us return it anyway. I don't want to poke much fun, because it's not like she was dumb, just didn't know wine terminology... but it would be pretty funny if we bought a bottle of wine at the store, got home, and noticed "Shit, this here wine's already done been opened! Huh!"

Cinco de Mayo!

WOOOOOOO! Hey, everybody, happy Cinco de Mayo! I just got back from a beer bar, where I worked my way through a couple of Coronas and a Negro Modelo... never let it be said that I'm not in touch with Mexican culture.
Interestingly, I read an article this morning (maybe in the Houston paper online? Yep) which said that Cinco de Mayo is something that is celebrated very quietly south of the border. It's apparently only a crazy drinking/eating orgy of a holiday here in the US -- in Mexico, it's more of an opportunity to say "Hey, we're our own country. Sweet!" It is funny that we've coopted it as this excuse to drink a lot of beer and eat some salsa. It seems like we do that to a lot of holidays -- what can we eat today that will celebrate the heritage of the Irish/Jews/Pilgrims/and today, the Mexicans?
Actually, it's 5/5/5... which makes me feel like I should be doing something extra-special to celebrate. But I won't... I'll just be sad I didn't do anything crazy, just like I felt like I under-celebrated my golden birthday a couple of weeks ago.

Ed Enochs' Theology Page

Oy. Wanna get upset? This has been in the news a lot recently. Something like 48 percent of Americans believe that the Biblical recounting of the creation of the world is the single truth. Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Ed Enochs' Theology Page

Jealousy... da da da da do dee dee

Title with apologies to the killers..
Overall, I've been pretty shitty about keeping in touch with friends from college. I only graduated four years ago, but I think the number of people from school I talk to regularly hovers around 5, and one of those is my husband.
He called me at work today and told me to check out this blog, so I did, because if there's one thing I'm good at it's following directions. I just about fell out of my chair when I saw the picture off to the left... that's Tiffany! We got arrested with her freshman year of college! (That's a story for another time.) I had to go to state-mandated AA, and we went together! (see above.) We used to hang out several times a week in college. After graduation, she moved to Singapore for six months with her then-boyfriend. She came through Austin once, must have been almost three years ago, and we went out for margaritas. Before we got married last year, we tried to track her down, but the closest we got was "She's gone to Japan to teach." So, what a great callback to school.
Man, I'm glad she's doing well (aside from almost chopping off her thumb... but who needs thumbs, anyway?), but I'm so jealous I'm quivering... it's so awesome that she just went for it, you know? SE Asia just seems so different and amazing... I wanna go so bad! (/whine)
Mr. Pants and I have been talking about getting our asses in gear - he wants to apply to cooking schools in Italy. Reading Tiff's blog just makes me want to make that happen that much sooner... if she can do it, we can too! (cue triumphant trumpets.)
So, check her blog out... pretty interesting. Although if you have a weak stomach, you might want to skip past the post about hacking her thumb to bits.