Category: Rants & Observations

Memorial Day Weekend

Posted on

Friday we decided to see X-Men Apocalypse. It was ok, but not as good as Captain America – Civil War. Afterwards we went to Red Robin so I could get my free entree which was expiring on June 1st. I swear none of the people working there ever have any idea how the rewards work. Last time the waitress tried to tell me you had to buy two burgers to get one 50% off which was completely untrue. I had to read her the fine print on the email. This time the waiter told me the free entree never expires. Wrong again! On top of that, I had pulled up my account on the computer at home to make sure the free entree was showing next in line to be redeemed since the 50% off deal would also be in there, but the free entree was the only thing showing. I figured that was because we already took advantage of the 50% off and maybe you can only do it once. Yet once the waiter pulled up my info on the kiosk it was showing the 50% off deal. So while he and the manager tried to figure out how to switch it to the free entree, I logged into the website from my phone and was able to switch the order of the rewards since both were now appearing. Joe is skeptical but I swear they weren’t both there when I checked that morning! In any case, after that I was able to use my reward.

Rant time – Why can’t you adjust which reward you want to use directly from those kiosks? That’s so annoying! And why can’t they train their staff to handle these things? The guy was really nice and thanked me for teaching him something new (when I told him how I logged onto the site and was able to choose my reward) but come on. And lastly, are those kiosks really necessary? I’m supposed to tip someone for taking my order and checking on me once? They don’t bring out the food most times, and they don’t take your payment, so what the heck? Next thing you know there won’t be waiters at all and you’ll just have to get your food yourself. Yet the kiosk suggests I tip 20%. Oh, and I just loooove having to deal with those dirty touchscreens that probably haven’t been cleaned or disinfected ever. Ugh!

Anyway…

Saturday we took a trip to Costco to return the LED bulbs we purchased because it turns out they are too bright and the lighting from them couldn’t be less flattering. I’m not necessarily a fan of gazing at myself in the mirror to begin with but those LEDs really screwed with my self esteem. On top of that they had a low frequency hum that was driving me nuts. For now we’ll just stick with the CFLs.

The main reason for our visit to Costco was to enjoy the free samples. I like going around noon so I don’t have to eat lunch, plus I don’t want to buy anything in bulk there that I haven’t already determined is good, so the samples really help with that decision. People act like such animals, however! I’m standing there waiting for the lady to put out a tray of samples and the second she sets it down there are people behind me reaching over me to grab one. Calm your tits, people, it’s not that serious! I refuse to act like a barbarian just to try some brownies and ice cream. These people should be ashamed of their behavior. It’s why I refuse to go out on Black Friday. We are supposed to be an intelligence civilized species but some of us turn into animals when something is free. It’s disgusting.

Sunday we went to Target to take advantage of the free $10 gift card when you spend $50 on groceries. After dropping the food off at home we went to Savers since clothing and other items were 50% off. I’ve never seen it so busy! We arrived only 10 minutes after it opened and it was already packed. We actually had to stand in line for the dressing rooms, and being the bossy person I am I was directing the people behind me the proper way to form a line so we weren’t blocked foot traffic, or the ability for anyone to look at the row of purses nearby. Joe hates lines and actually suggested we just buy everything we had picked out (even though you can’t return stuff) but I said no way. Glad I did because I brought 8 items in to try on and only purchased 1 of them. He’s much better at picking out clothes; he bought both pairs of shorts he had chosen. I also got two fleece blankets for the rats since they are chewing up the ones I already have.

Sunday afternoon we headed to my parents house to celebrate Memorial Day early. B wasn’t there as he’s in Tennessee with his girlfriend. We mostly chatted but did end up playing Wits & Wagers which is a game I brought over. We left around 9 pm so we could be home by 10 and in bed by 11. I’ve been trying to go to bed at the same time every night even on the weekends which seems to help me sleep.

Monday we did some grocery shopping in the morning and spent the rest of the day sitting on the patio reading, snacking, and playing Disney Tsum Tsum on our devices (yep, I got Joe addicted to it now). Joe put up the big umbrella my mom gave us with the concrete stand which we had to keep re-positioning so we’d remain in the shade. Surprisingly, none of the neighbors had company over for the holiday so we were literally out there for 4-5 hours without being annoyed (if you don’t count the dog next door barking a lot since no one was home).

At one point one of the neighbors came over to gossip, which is amusing, since she’s deaf! She speaks, but it’s a bit difficult to understand her (although I seem to understand her better than Joe does). She also reads lips. It cracks me up that she knows more about what’s going on this neighborhood than we do, but then again we really don’t care either.

We grilled burgers for dinner on the George Forman since we ran out of propane and didn’t feel like running out to get more. We didn’t use buns since I’m trying to cut out unnecessary calories and lose weight. In fact, I had my burger wrapped in lettuce at Red Robin on Friday! I’ve also upped my usual 20 minute elliptical workouts to 30-45 minutes. Unfortunately my back has been bothering me a lot lately and working out makes it worse. I put arch supports in my workout shoes so I’m hoping I can continue to work out without any pain. That being said, today was $1.31 scoops at Baskin Robbins so I have to wrap up this entry to have some ice cream. Diet? What diet?

Panera Gift Card Hacked

Posted on

Yesterday we decided to have lunch at Panera so I grabbed my “new” gift card to pay for it since there was only $8 left on an older card. Imagine my surprise when the cashier told me the $50 card had a $0 balance! WTF? He was going to keep the card but I took it back because I was pretty sure I hadn’t used it and I wanted to look into it further. It’s been sitting with our other unused gift cards in the house because a) I don’t have room in my wallet for all the gift cards we have and b) we don’t eat at very Panera often.

This morning I went online to check the balance and saw that someone used the card within two days of each other last month. It only shows the store # but not the location, and there’s no way to search Panera’s site by store # so I can’t figure out where it was used. I searched several cities around here and even in other states hoping I’d come across the store # (since it’s only listed in the search results) but I couldn’t figure it out.

I called Discover and explained the situation and they were kind enough to reimburse me the $45 in cashback I had used to purchase the card back in 2014. I’m glad we’re not out any money but I’d love to know who stole the # and used it. Unfortunately, it will forever remain a mystery.

I don’t know if I’ll order another Panera card anytime soon since we visit so infrequently (obviously) and I don’t want to let any future gift cards sit around for so long again. I’m guessing whoever hacked their gift card system specifically targeted cards that had been dormant for over a year thinking maybe they were lost and they could get away using them. As it is I have gift cards from Red Robin and Bahama Breeze to use anyway.

Too Much Death

Posted on

An aunt passed away this week and her wake/funeral was on Friday. In case anyone is keeping track, that’s four deaths in less than a year – uncle, aunt, friend, aunt. Is this what I have to look forward to as I grow older – more and more people I know shuffling off this mortal coil? It’s depressing.

The wake was held at a funeral home in Frankfort and my aunt was buried in Chicago, so that made for an hour long funeral procession. I’ve never been in such a time-consuming procession before and it made me nervous, especially since some of the public weren’t paying attention and almost hit a few cars that were continuing through the red lights as one typically does in a funeral procession.

There were more than few bizarre things that happened during this event:

1) The more I reflect on the pastor’s eulogy, the more I dislike the guy. He spoke about how everyone is going to die some day (thanks, bud, I already have a massive fear of dying and do not need any further reminders) but that our spirits will live on in heaven. He also made a big to do about how we shouldn’t forget about my uncle since he has many lonely nights ahead of him, which is true, but insensitive. In addition, the pastor said he just couldn’t imagine losing his wife of 45 years. Uh, rubbing it in much?!?! Nothing this man said was any solace to me, but maybe it helped others. I just don’t buy the whole concept that our spirits live on forever, and I was raised Catholic! All of it rings false to me. Trust me, I would love it if I could get on board with the idea because it would certainly ease my mind about not existing one day. Unfortunately, I think once you die that’s it; you go back to nothing, spiritually and physically. It will be great if it turns out I’m wrong and God doesn’t hold a grudge against me for not believing, though.

2) At the grave site, while the pastor was saying some final words, my uncle was casually leaning against my aunt’s casket with one hand.

3) After the service, as we were leaving the cemetery, I saw my uncle standing by his limo drinking a beer.

4) The place where the luncheon was held had a dove aviary in the front of the building. It was so odd. But what was funny is that I was one of the few, if not only, people who even noticed it immediately as we walked toward the banquet room. Most people didn’t notice it until leaving the restaurant.

Dove Aviary

I don’t know what any of my uncle’s behavior means, or if it even means anything; people grieve in strange ways. He was married to my aunt for 35+ years (his third marriage) but I have no idea what their relationship was like. I rarely spoke to her because we usually saw my uncle at my grandparents’ or parents’ house and he never brought her along. Her heart belonged to animals, not people, from what I knew of her – she worked at a humane society and they had the equivalent of a zoo in their homes. It only grew larger once they moved to their most recent home which had a ton of acreage and a barn. I’ve heard stories about the number of animals living on their property but the last time we were invited over was literally a decade ago, so I don’t know much other than what my cousin has mentioned. Maybe my uncle is one of those people who has a hard time expressing his true feelings. He has always been known as the one who cracks jokes so who knows.

Anyway, it was just a weird day. It was nice to see certain family members but I wish it was under better circumstances.

Hyacinth

Posted on

I love hyacinth and decided last year I wanted to keep some on the patio. But I waited too late in the season and couldn’t find any. So I jumped at the chance last weekend when Home Depot was selling them. We immediately replanted them in a larger pot and were really digging how pretty they smelled.

Hyacinth

It didn’t last. Despite keeping them by the window to get sun and also keeping the soil moderately moist, they started to droop. I kept trying to prop them up and basically decapitated one in the process. On top of that, their smell began to change to something more sickly sweet which made my stomach turn. Today when I got home I was so disgusted by the smell that I put them outside, cold weather be damned. They’re dying inside anyway, so what’s the difference?

Look how pathetic they are now, less than a week later.

HyacinthDeath

That’s the last time I buy them so early in the season. Or maybe I should stick to cactus, although I’d probably kill those too.

Annoyed

Posted on

Today has not gone at all as planned. I had trouble falling back to sleep after Joe’s alarm went off, but after taking a Xanax I was able to get almost two more hours of sleep. Once I got up I did a little decluttering and then called my old college buddy as we planned to catch up. Except she didn’t answer even though she asked me to call at that time. So I decided I’d do some deep cleaning in the kitchen in order to “earn” the ability to spend the rest of the day being lazy and streaming Hot Wives of Orlando (a funny Hulu original series) on Hulu Plus (turns out we get a free two-month subscription for buying the Google Chromecast).

But before that, I called the sleep clinic I’ve been working with to schedule an at-home sleep study to find out whether I have sleep apnea. Except they can’t schedule it until my doctor’s office sends them the information we’ve both been asking them to send since LAST Saturday.

Basically, my doctor initially gave me the order for a facility that kept putting me off and putting me off. I gave them all my info on December 2nd and scheduled an in-facility sleep study for December 18th. I explained to them I wanted to know what my out of pocket cost would be and they told me they’d know once I had my insurance info. So when I dropped it off I asked them again and was told they’d need to call the insurance and get back to me. But they didn’t. So I called the next week and they claimed, again, they’d get back to me. But they didn’t. So I called the Monday before my scheduled sleep study and was told the same thing once more. Finally I got pissed off and asked them exactly when they were planning to call me seeing as how my appointment was mere days away. They said the day before. Except when I called them that mourning they still couldn’t help me.

It wasn’t until 3 o’clock that afternoon they called me and guess what? They told me my insurance denied an in-facility study and I’d have to come down and pick up some equipment and do an at-home study.

At this point I was so annoyed that they took three weeks to figure this out that I decided to do the study through the facility tied to the hospital I see my physician through. I don’t even know why she tried sending me to the other place to begin with.

I spoke with the second facility on Friday December 19th and they told me what they needed from my doctor in ordrer to proceed. Since my doctor doesn’t have hours on Fridays, I sent them a fax explaining how I didn’t want to deal with the other place because they were less than helpful, and to please fax an at-home study order to the new facility along with the physical they were requesting. I called my doctor on Saturday to make sure they got my fax and they said yes.

On Monday I called the facility to see if they got everything, and they told me the doctor hadn’t faxed them anything. So I called my doctor and they claimed they did fax it but would do it again. In the meantime I received a call from the first facility because the idiot doctor sent them my fax where I basically said I didn’t like them; they wanted to know what was going on. So I just told them the other facility is easier to get to for me. I was so mad that my doctor would do something so stupid.

On Tuesday I called back the second facility and asked if they’ve gotten the info from my doctor yet, and they told me just the order, but not the physical. So they faxed my doctor asking for the physical.

As of this morning the doctor hasn’t sent it to them and I’m running out of time to get this done for only $50 as opposed to $300+ (thanks to Joe’s kids always going to the doctor the family deductible has been met this year and I’d only have to pay 15% of the cost whereas if I wait to have the study done next year I will have to pay for it out of pocket in full).

I’ve spent so much time on the phone going back and forth with this that I’m at the point I am going to be screaming at my doctor’s office tomorrow morning when they are back in. I don’t usually get like this but I’ve had it with the office manager (which happens to be my doctor’s husband). This isn’t the first time he has made things difficult for me. I guess I’m going to have to switch doctors after having the same one for over a decade because I’m ready to strangle this guy!

On top of that, I just had the worst experience with Petco. A friend alerted me to a deal they had online where for every $25 eGift card you buy, you get a bonus $5 eGift card. I figured I’d get $50 and a $10 bonus since I buy the rats’ litter from Petco, except when I placed my order I never got the bonus eGift card. When I called I was told that promotion expired at 3 am this morning even though it’s still appearing on their site. When I pointed this out, the guy said he could transfer me to customer service so they could do something to accommodate me, except the guy I spoke to was a total moron. He kept talking over me and not understanding anything I was trying to tell him. I will admit, I lost my patience at one point and yelled, “well maybe if you stopped interrupting me you’d get the confirmation #!” LOL But seriously, WTF? I spent a half hour on the phone with him and received no resolution. He claims someone has to call me back in 24-48 hours but I’m not holding my breath. If they weren’t so incompetent I’d just cancel the order, but I’m afraid they’d deactivate the gift card code but not refund my money. It has really left a sour taste in my mouth in regards to that place, though. Honestly, I’m a bigger fan of Petsmart, but the Petco brand paper paper litter has the best smell, texture, and price compared to Yesterday’s News so I always buy it.

Now I’m just so annoyed I can’t concentrate on the Hot Wives show so I guess I’ll go take a shower since I hadn’t gotten around to that yet today.