I went shopping

and got some fantastic clothes. I didn't get anything at Ikea, though, except this photo:

Hrm. Can I buy the "fun things" at Ikea???

I know, I know...

It's like I dropped off the face of the Earth. I didn't though. I've just been busy. I'm ringing in a couple handbell choirs, joined a book club, joined the community band...you know, fun stuff!

Work is finally picking up and it rocks. I like being busy with things that make me think.

My apartment is wonderful, with two notable exceptions: the upstairs neighbor (see previous post) and the hot water heater. For the last two weeks, the hot water heater has flooded my apartment during hours the office is closed, causing them to rip up my carpet in my master bedroom and replacing the pads...twice. Now the wall has a big stain on it and the baseboards look really crappy. Oh joy, oh rapture.

I take pride in the fact that the maintenance guy hates my neighbor more than I do. I didn't know that was possible.

I need to come home and see everyone...name your date, people!

I'm around and eventually, I get around to posting. I'll try to make it more frequent, but we'll just have to see how it goes.

Plano Balloon Festival

...so I woke up this morning at an OBSCENE hour in order to see all the balloons take off at the balloon festival. It was a nice way to greet the dawn. The launch site was covered in fog, and as several pics show, the haze didn't lift until almost the end.

Enjoy!

Click here to see my photo albums

I'm still trying to figure it out.

Why does BSCUN vacuum? Anyone have ideas? Bueller? Bueller?

AAAAAARGH! (once an hour today...we're up to 4-6 times DAILY)

Please, someone! Stop the madness!

Pre-game fun

Before today's (wonderful) game, I went down to the Farmer's Market. I'd heard it was cool...and it was. Here are the photos.

This is more like it.

I'm sure at some point in your life, you've received, read, or given a Gaelic blessing. Most of them are wonderful expressions of peace and goodwill, and lots of people think they look good painted on random things and hung about the house.

For those of you who are more realistic in the ways of blessings, I give you the following, taken from a comment on Crystal's blog. I want to kiss the author of this work of art. Anyone for making a list before we gather around and bless the hell out of the listees???

May bleeding piles distress him,
May corns adorn his feet.
May crabs as big as horseflies crawl on his balls and eat.
And when he's old and feeble and a psychopathic wreck,
May his spine drop through his asshole and break his fucking neck.

Holy Red Roof Inn Refund, Batman!

It came through! Woot! Apparently someone at Red Roof Inn saw my wee little postings and became concerned. My $50 has been returned, and all is right with the world.

For once, the advertiser is spot on...

For possibly the first time in recorded history, the inappropriate use of quotation marks is completely appropriate. Thank you, Facebook advertiser.

Who said anything about dieting?

I'm not quite sure what the worst part about this is. The murder? Or not being able to do hard time for it because you can't fit through your front door?

An 800-pound woman. Ugh. And you thought that 800-pound gorilla that was always a monkey on your back was bad.

I’ve been sucked in

Those of you who know me well also know that I am NOT a television watcher. Apparently, for a couple weeks at least, that seemingly has changed. I've been sucked in by the Olympics. I don't know why, or how, since I'm also not an avid non-football sports fan, but it is true. I celebrated every race for Michael Phelps. I watched China dominate in the diving competition. I surfed the net to find the U.S. team's synchronized swimming routine. I cheered for Usain Bolt, I agonized with Nastia over her silver, and I celebrated with May-Traynor and Walsh over their gold.

Maybe it's part of the "new leaf." Maybe Clarinazi: Texas watches t.v.

…or maybe I just have too much time on my hands until my normal life pace picks back up.

Either way, you'll find me at 7:00 p.m. local time cheering for whatever sport is important enough to make prime time.

BSCUN at your service

The only apartment gripe so far: my bat shit crazy upstairs neighbor. I'm not sure what her (his?) problem is, but I wish she'd share.

So far, I've been in the apartment for a full week, and every day, BSCUN has vacuumed. Some days, twice. Or three times. Or today, FOUR times. So far.

OCD?
Acute uncleanliness?
Neat freak?

…and did I mention that she does laundry every other day? When she's trekking laundry from the bedroom to the laundry room, for some reason, she stomps. She NEVER stomps across the apartment unless she's carrying laundry. Stomping is always punctuated by the washer running.

I miss my townhouse. Next door is nothing like crazies upstairs. … I shouldn't complain. I really do love my apartment. Starting Monday, I won't know that BSCUN vacuums incessantly and washes laundry way too often for someone living alone. I won't be here except to sleep.

In which I am nothing if not persistent

Remember the Red Roof Inn debacle???

Wellllllll, here's the update:

The following Tuesday, I called the corporate office to see why my refund had not yet been posted. I talked to the COO of Guest Relations, who promised me a refund and a voucher for a free night's stay at any Red Roof Inn. (Oh joy, oh rapture)

I didn't receive my refund within two weeks, so I called the COO on her direct line, and two days later, I was eating my last dinner with GG and received a call from the new temporary manager of the hotel in Plano. He couldn't seem to get the whole story from anyone on the staff there, so he decided to call me to get the scoop. He was adequately astounded by the actions of the crew, and promised me the refund that had yet to appear on my card.

Well, in the meantime, I've gotten a new job, moved, and have mostly settled in. So I decided to give Red Roof another call. I asked for the temp manager, who I found out had gone back to Pittsburg, so I asked for the acting manager. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?

After a slight delay, LaDeana answered the phone. Grrrreat. She then forwarded me to "Scott, a Red Roof manager from Southern Dallas County who is giving me manager lessons." THANK THE GODS AND LITTLE FISHIES! She desperately needs them.

LaDeana said the paperwork had been forwarded but she wasn't sure how long it would take once it hit corporate HQ. Scott admitted that he knew nothing of the problem, but as of July 31, they changed credit processing companies, and my refund may have been backlogged or lost in the shuffle, so if it was in the last couple weeks, I may need to wait a few days...to which I responded that the stay in question was on July 19. He took my information and is going to talk to his friend in accounts payable to see if we can speed the process.

to be continued...hopefully with a refund.

Look out, Big D...I'm here

I'm home, and I adore it!!! My new apartment is way cute and so convenient to, well, everything! I have lost my loathing for grocery shopping (Can I go every day? Please?), and I am surrounded by malls. I'd think I'd have died and gone to heaven if it weren't so damn HOT.

Send an air conditioner for the great outdoors. And a new phone. Thanks.



In other news, this apartment is awesome...except for the idiots that laid my carpet...and cut my phone lines in the process. Oy vey. These poor people don't know what hit them--yet. Give it a week. They'll know me.

Clarinazi has come to town.

One foot in the grave?

What grandmas talk about in the back seat of the car on a long drive:

Grandma 1: "Isn't Wilma dead?"
Grandma 2: "Well, her yard looks awful pretty if she is."
Grandma 1: "I think I read that she died."
Grandma 2: "I saw her yesterday. She's not dead."

--a little later--

Grandma 1: "Isn't the tag agent dead? What was her name?"
Grandma 2: "Jo, and no, she isn't dead. I just saw her too. She's dried up, but not dead."

I just can't compete with this.

Posted by Cranky Prof:

This shit stinks, people. If you took the concepts pain and hell, cooked them down in to a heavy syrup, injected it in to the ass of a gangrene-infected dead skunk and left that rotting corpse in a port-o-let on a busy construction site in Juarez, Mexico for six months -- it would still smell better than this.

A new leaf

Holy cow!!! I officially got the job!!!! I'll no longer be a Government Slug in two weeks from today. It doesn't really seem real, but I'll be moving to Dallas to start my new job (that uses my degree!!!) on Aug. 9.

Taking requests for name changes for the blog!



...in similar but other news, I just received this email (copied verbatim, with spacing, I might add). And he wonders why I didn't reply. *Gigglesnort*

Dear Ms. Clarinazi

Hello

We been waiting for your responding e-mail by July 15 2008.

But we did not get any respond from you.

We are looking for the experienced designer on lingerie, undergarment.

We need a graphic designer who knows about our field.

We do not have any idea, how much you want your salary, when you are available or you have any experience on field.

You did not answer our e-mail.

So we can not hire you.

Again thank you for your resume.

Brian Kim

HANA HOSIERY, INC.

Vignettes from Dallas

brought to you by the letter O, the number 15, Red Roof Inn, and English, the official language of Slugdom.

My choirs performed this weekend in the final concerts of the season. We had a great turnout and everyone seemed very enthusiastic, so I feel pretty good about things. The final concert was in Plano, and the following vignettes are short stories that happened while we were there.

1. The freeway.

GG and the newly-dubbed English (see #4) left the Friday night north-OKC concert to drive to Plano at 11:00 p.m. Close to their destination, around 3 a.m. the following conversation ensues:

English: "Exit Parker."
GG: *crickets*
English: "Exit Parker!"
GG: *crickets*
English: "Exit Parker!!!!"
GG: *crickets*
English: "Get off the freakin' freeway!"
GG: *Saudi sweep*

2. The hotel.

Hotel arrangements have been made since May. We were guaranteed early check-in at the Red Roof Inn, Plano. At least until we got there...

Me: "I need to check in. I have six rooms reserved under the name Clarinazi."
Desk girl: "We don't have any rooms."
Me: "I guaranteed early check in. We have a rehearsal at 3 pm and I was told LAST NIGHT that I could check my people in at 1."
DG: "We don't have any rooms available. I wasn't the one who told you that, so it's not my problem."
(cue ominous soundtrack)
Me: "You work in customer service. When you came to work today, you MADE it your problem. Can I at least have the room numbers we are going to be in to give people keys for when they get here?"
DG: "I don't know the room numbers, so I can't give you keys."
Me: "Can you not find out where your cleaning people are and give me those rooms? Could I talk to your manager?"
DG: "We don't have a manager."
Me: "Are you the CEO of the corporation? If not, you MUST have manager. District? Regional?"
DG: "Well our manager quit a couple weeks ago. Do you want to talk to our acting manager?"
Me: "Well, duh! YES!"
DG: "She's not here now."
Me: "Can you call her?"
DG: "She is at home."
Me: "Is your finger broken?"

DG called the manager. I introduced myself and explained the situation, and the following conversation is an approximate transcript.

Mgr: "We have a whole new staff. There is really nothing we can do. They tell me the hotel was abnormally busy last night, so they are cleaning rooms for you, but it will be 3 pm check-in. We cannot guarantee you early check-in, especially on a Saturday.
Me: "Well, your people DID guarantee it, so I need to get into our rooms."
Mgr: "I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do."
Me: "Do you have the corporate number that I can call to complain?"
Mgr: "I will take care of the problem on Monday."
Me: "I don't think you understand. I need the number to call and file a complaint about YOU."
Mgr: "I don't have the number. I am at home."
Me: "Which brings us to another question. Why are you at home during an abnormally busy weekend with a brand-new staff working for the first time?!?"

This gets me handed back over to the front desk clerk who has miraculously found us six clean rooms. Things go smoothly from this point, and the manager even called back to comp my room for the second night I was staying.

-to be continued...#6-

3. The concert.

The concert went exceptionally well, and I would like to re-create that space here in my home town. Whenever I get the funding that the Raleigh Ringers has and can build my OWN rehearsal/performance space, that's what I'm going to do. It is decided.

4. The language barriers.

After the concert, several of us went to a smallish pub in Plano to unwind. Admittedly, Plano has a large Hispanic population, but I wanted to become boneless and slink under the table at this monologue...

We needed water at the table, and were wearing the waitress out. Attempting to order a pitcher of water, English looks around the room, finds a Hispanic bus boy, and waves him to the table.

She then looks critically at him for a moment, points her Mommy finger at him, and says:

"ENGLISH?"

At his nod she then proceeded to order a pitcher of water, no ice. Riiiiiiiight.

"Agua?"

She resorted to hand signals.

Water. No ice.
"Glass?"
No, pitcher.

Sigh. Now I'm calling her "English" -- it just seems more fitting than appropriate sign language.

5. The great Wi-fi hunt of 2008.

After everyone else had left for the weekend, GG and I decided to hang around and go to dinner on Sunday. I desperately needed to find a Wi-fi connection for my laptop (the one in the hotel was $20) for my meeting on Monday morning. We racked our brains and came up with McDonald's as the most logical choice.

We went to McDonald's, and could connect, but the connection wouldn't work. On anything. Phone, PDA, laptop...nothing. Crap.

Next stop: English's house. She works nights, so she was asleep, and rather than potentially piss off Mr. English, we decided to park across the street and use the Wi-fi that leaked out of her house. We didn't want to be stalkers, so we did the logical thing.

We parked one door down and across the street to look like we were casing the joint instead.

To no avail.

Our next thought was that hotels would have it, so if we parked close to the lobby, we may be able to get service. We cruised over the highway and found a corner that had a Best Western, Ramada, and Holiday Inn Express close together, all with their front doors facing a common parking lot. EXCELLENT! After initial signal reads from GG, we decided that we should park in one of the handicapped spots in the front of the Ramada. It had the best service--from the Best Western. Go figure.

6. The hotel, reprise.

I checked out of the hotel Monday morning, and was asked why Bell Ringer didn't check in. I said I wasn't sure, and that I would find out.

I found out last night--Bell Ringer was told that there were no rooms listed under my name OR her name, so she didn't have a reservation.

Ye ole ears perked up, and Manager got a call this fine morning...

Me: "It's Clarinazi in OKC again. We have another problem."
Mgr: "Oh no."
Me: "Remember the girl who didn't check in? She was told that there was not a room for her under my name or hers, so she ended up driving back to north OKC, a four-hour drive, at midnight on Saturday."
Mgr: "I will credit your card immediately."
Me: "I kind of thought you'd see it my way. Have a nice day!"

I'm back home now, and will be back to scribbling if the muse allows. Glad you hung around waiting!

Confused

Is it just me or is this car a rolling oximoron???


(Note the bumper stickers...I'm sure there are worse things in the world than Longhorns, but I'll have to get back to you on that...)

Tea-Totalers

…or "Served Us Right?"
…or "A Study on Comparison"

This weekend GG and I traversed the well-worn south-bound interstate (no, we did NOT stop and swap food or do a Chinese fire drill or change cars or anything else on the way), and planned to conduct some business on Friday night, then return Saturday night for a fantastic showing of "Swing!" by the local (yokel) musical theater group here.

But the best laid plans…

We left on Friday, with plenty of time to spare before the business appointment. We stopped at The Restaurant of the Gods Genghis Grill for dinner, and got a phone call that the business was canceled. Ever resourceful, we decided to go window shopping since we couldn't check into our (hotel) until after the (hotel)'s owner went to work. Great! SHOPPING!!!

By 9:30 we were tired and hungry again, so we decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory in Allen for dessert. We each ordered our usual poison—their house flavored tea for me and sweet tea for GG. We also decided to splurge, and we each ordered an appetizer. Apparently, this is where fate stepped in. We ended up being at the Cheesecake Fuckuptory (thanks, CB!) for an HOUR AND A HALF.

The following table shows what we ACTUALLY received (and note that the teas were never actually empty, so by the end, GG was drinking a major suicide drink)…

Clarinazi	Gentle Giant
Flavored Tea	Sweet Tea
Flavored Tea	Green Tea
Flavored Tea	Flavored Tea
Warmish Popcorn Shrimp	Cold Chicken Nachos
Flavored Tea	Sweet Tea
Flavored Tea	Flavored Tea
Flavored Tea	Sweet Tea
Hot Popcorn Shrimp	Hot Chicken Nachos
Sweet Tea	Sweet Tea

At the end of the debacle (at 11:00), the waitress walks up to us, hands us each a menu, and says, "These are our special cheesecakes. I'll be back in a minute to take your dessert order."

I wanted to look at her and say, "Are you SURE you weren't just fired from Pearl's in Oklahoma City?!?"
What I actually said, ::astounded glare:: ::crickets:: ::crickets::

When I stopped to think about it, I was also rather taken aback that she didn't offer us DINNER between appetizers and dessert.

Then we came home on Saturday, and the show was so bad we left at intermission. Hrm. Maybe GG and I should stop going places together. We have bad juju.

(Oh, and as an aside, on the way to the (hotel), we found a parking lot carnival just before they closed for the night…see photos in my gallery: www.picasaweb.com/clarinazi.)

Why I do what I do

I can only hope that as I go along, I have half the passion that Benjamin Zander does. It's long, but take the time. It's so very worth it.