wendykh

I'm supposed to be writing a report RIGHT NOW on wolverines, that is due TONIGHT and which I must do now before a dinner I have to go to and before we head out of town for the weekend.

I am bringing procrastination to a new level.

By Wolverine, I mean the cousin of the weasels (it technically is a weasel) and not the hot X-Men character nor the Michigan mascot. I need to write about it.

Once you have photos, video or audio, please include a 500 word written text describing your selected species and the adaptive strategies they employ and discuss what you have learned through your examination. Please properly reference any material that you have sourced.

I had a really draining stupid discussion with Pat last night and a not much better night and nothing better this morning either. This bookshelf next to me which is reminiscent of something out of Hoarders is going to feel the brunt of my grumpiness today. Much will be purged. I would throw the entire shelf out as is I think if I could but I'm sure there's some sort of important paper in there somewhere.

So baseball season ended (they got knocked out of the playoffs in round 2).

Due to enjoying physical fitness my husband has now joined a dodgeball league. I had no idea grownups played dodgeball. I mean I knew they did pick up games but LEAGUES? Really?

Fascinating.

So ever since we got the car back in May, and even before actually, I was all "man this car has shit tires, this car needs new tires." But I didn't insist and I kept meaning to go look (I could feel they were shit from driving) and I never got around to it.

So tonight I drop Pat and his good buddy Chris off at their baseball game (they're in round 2, game 1 of the playoffs) and go pick up the Junior from his Day with Grandma. We head home and about 10 minutes into the 30 minute drive home I hear this awful noise and my left front just drops about several inches and OW the noise and holy crap SPARKS and oh shit clearly I've blown a tire.

I am in the far left lane on the 40 between St. Charles and St. Jean, for you locals. Yeah I got the Loblaws on the right and Petro Canada on my left. I try to steer right knowing if I can get over it's safer but a glance in my rear view says "un uh" and the steering wheel isn't cooperating anyway. I pull to the left and get on the left shoulder, the median.

In retrospect this was actually probably technically safer since that shoulder exposed the (unoccupied) passenger side to traffic as opposed to the (occupied) driver's side. CJ sits right behind the driver.

I breathed for a minute and composed myself, then looked around for the towing signs where they tell you who to call and it depends where you are. I see none, and then I remember I have no cash anyway. Pat is not going to answer, his baseball uniform has no pants pockets so he has no cell phone. I call my in laws and my mother in law sends my father in law.

But there was something lost in translation. They somehow couldn't fathom I was RIGHT IN THE FUCKING MIDDLE OF A HUGE ASS BUSY 6-8 LANE HIGHWAY. So he drove by my 3-4 times looking for me on the right shoulder.

Finally he found me and told me to stay put while he changed my tire.

A tow truck showed up just to check on us and make sure we were okay. He stayed to make sure all was well. A second tow truck showed up since there were two parked cars and only one truck. This ended up being a good thing as one truck blocked traffic and the other helped me and FIL out after we (he) was done with the tire changing.

What a scary dramatic night!

http://montrealtattoo.dreamwidth.org/

:-)

Yes, I have exactly one entry. I have more in mind. And I wanted you all to come see it first!

A while back many of you may have noticed a "post to Facebook or Twitter" button on your comments. This is supposed to be grey unless you activate this feature. I did not activate it and yet it's active for me. I can't assume I'm the only one.

Moreover, I'm displeased there is apparently no way for me to disactivate this feature for any entries I make. Now, I personally trust my friends list people to not be jerks (or stupid) and repost their comments to my locked entries on twitter, but I'm still pissed off the option is available and that I can't turn it off at all, much less make it off by default. And people think Facebook isn't private? At least they never pretended to be. :-/

Due to this, I am going to be systematically deleting all my entries. I have a great deal of very private personal journaling on here which I opened to a few select friends. The idea that they have the option (although again, I do not think anyone on my friends list would do such a thing) to post their comments on my personal thoughts with the mere press of a button (yes I realize they could have just cut and pasted before but this makes it too easy) has really been the final straw in the LJ coffin for me.

I will keep this account to write the occasional public entry, to read my friends' entries, and to comment of course, but I'm not going to be putting "me" stuff here.

That stuff will all be moving over to http://wendykh.dreamwidth.org/

If you want an invite code, let me know.

Or "What I did on My Summer Vacation"
by WENDY

So a few weeks ago I ordered tickets to go from Burlington VT to Omaha through Priceline. We went from VT as opposed to Montreal to save a ton of money. For reasons I don't understand, tickets are always a good $200-$300 PER TICKET more expensive from Montreal. Burlington is about a 2 hour drive from here and parking is $10 a day. Plus the airport, despite being "international", is quite small so there's no hour long walk from one end to another. In fact my high school was larger than this airport, and that is not an exaggeration. It's really a nice place to fly in and out of, especially with kids and/or a ton of luggage.

When ordering these tickets I marked we would have an infant under age two with us. Which means he can sit on our laps and fly free. Yay. (Yes, I know it's safer in a car seat. The price difference for this ticket would mean going or not). A few days before the flight, I called Priceline again to make sure it was noted we'd have an infant in arms with us. This was noted and they said they told Delta as well. I then called Delta to make sure they knew we had an infant in arms coming with us. They made note of this and said they knew.

September 2, 2010. I went to the airport with my family and we checked in. We checked our bags (there really ought to be a law against charging for the first checked bag) and the carseat and the desk clerks cooed over our (present, as in with us) infant in arms. We were issued boarding passes and I then at this time asked "do we need one for him?" to which they replied "oh no you're good to go."

As we had our act together and now had a good hour to kill before the flight, we went to have lunch. Please note from the lunch place to security is a two minute walk, and security to the gate was about a three minute walk. This is a SMALL airport. We were told to by both the Delta clerks AND the airport staff that going through security takes about 5 minutes (again, SMALL airport).

About 25 minutes before our flight we went down to security. Where we were promptly told we had to go back to the Delta check in and get new boarding passes that indicated we had an infant with us. My husband immediately raced back to the desk leaving me with the kids waiting to be admitted to security. There was no one in front of us. I was somewhat nervous but not panicked. I was however, extremely annoyed. There is no reason we should have had to return after they were told four times that we had an infant in arms and asked if he needed anything.

By the time my husband got back TWENTY MINUTES LATER there were 8 or 9 people in front of us. We were paged over the intercom by the gate check clerks. Why the check in clerk did not call them and say "wait, we fucked up, it's our fault, hold the plane five minutes!" I do not know. We told the people in front of us that was us being paged, asking if we could please go ahead, but they stared at us blankly, apparently assuming it was our fault for not getting there in time or something and not realizing it was Delta's fuck up entirely. My husband went through as fast as possible since he had nothing but himself, hoping to catch the plane and tell them to wait. My 11 year old daughter quickly followed him as she had nothing but a personal bag.

I went through and because I had cans of ready made formula that were larger than 3oz for our son with us I got the joy of extra screening. Never mind the clear sign saying baby food was exempt from the "3oz of liquid" nonsense. Yes I realize this is TSA and not Delta but if Delta had not royally and monumentally fucked up this would not have been a problem.

Finally I got through to find my daughter sitting with her bags by the gate. Clearly the husband had failed in his mission. I sat down and glared at the stupid check in cow who was now at the boarding gate and who was essentially entirely at fault for this fuck up of epic proportions.

I realized somehow I had my husband's wallet and passport which meant there was no way he was getting back through security without me, so I left the stuff with my daughter and wheeled the baby in his stroller back out to the check in desks where I found my husband speaking to cops who were asking him how his day was going and assuring him that yes he had every right to be pissed and yes, clearly Delta had royally and completely and entirely fucked up. Yes, Epic Fail would be entirely appropriate to describe this moment indeed.

At this point, I feel it would be useful to explain the one part where I think we maybe were at fault. See this isn't the first time Delta has fucked up with us.

Last year we were flying from Orlando to Omaha via Atlanta. For reasons I don't understand, the plane sat on the ground in Orlando for 45 minutes due to "problems at the Atlanta airport." (Said problems were never explained). I was concerned as we had a one hour connection time and I had never been to the Atlanta airport. We were assured the connecting flights would be held (several of us were in the same boat).

We got to Atlanta and for some reason it took them FOREVER to bring up the gate checked items (we had checked our baby stroller). The CAPTAIN finally came down and told them to move their asses and bring up the baby stroller as that was the ONE remaining item and we'd been waiting a good 10 minutes. Again, my husband had taken off begging them to hold the plane. This time he was semi successful. He got them to hold the plane but I was somewhat lost and had ALL the luggage with me so it was taking me a while. He came to help me and as soon as he left they took off. Leaving us with two kids and no luggage in Atlanta until the next available flight out at 10am the next morning. They gave us a $45 hotel voucher claiming it was our fault (I'm sorry but when the captain comes down and says basically "wtf move your asses these people need to get moving" it's NOT our fault!).

Apparently a lot of people were at fault that night because we went over to the hotel and it took 90 minutes for the shuttle busses to get everyone out of there (and in fact some Holiday Inn driver took pity on us and took us to the hotel Delta had assigned us to because their shuttle was slow and not coming and this guy had kids and he was appalled we were out there at midnight in the rain with two kids). Once we got to the hotel well after midnight, there was a line around the corner of the building to check in. Lots of people at fault that night. We went to Waffle House next door and spent time eating and relaxing and letting the lovely waitresses play with Junior. Luckily the KHBPs are always up for Waffle House. Waffle House is Love.

We left at nearly 2am, to find the line had barely dented. We suspect MORE people were clearly epic fails at getting to their gates on time and had bussed over while we were eating. Finally after 3am we got into a room (there were no porta cribs left so we had to fashion Junior a baby bed of sorts in a drawer on the floor) and slept a few hours until the 10am flight we'd been assigned.

At this time we swore we would never ever fly Delta again. Had they been nice and given us a hotel room and food vouchers for an incident which was, clearly again, totally 100% EPIC FAIL on their part, we might have grumbled and got over it. But no. They acted like $45 off a hotel room was some huge unreasonable request and we should be grateful to have this. So fuck them, other airlines can get our business.

Then came time for my brother's wedding. Due to buying tickets only a week before we wanted the cheapest deal and sadly, the cheapest deal was with Delta. By a long shot. I felt very uneasy agreeing but we decided we'd do everything in our favour to make things work this time. And we did. And they failed AGAIN! Teaches us, I guess.

Back to this trip.

So we were placed on a flight leaving at 4pm (it was now 1pm) heading to Detroit, where we'd be on standby and MAYBE get into Omaha that night OR we were already confirmed for first flight out the following morning. I gritted my teeth and we went to find a place to camp until our flight left. We chased the toddler all over the airport until he fell asleep (I had specifically timed the flights to coincide with the second flight being during his nap time). He woke up as we boarded the flight. The boarding gate clerk (the same desk clerk who had told us we didn't need a thing for him that morning) wouldn't look us in the eye. Dejected, we took our seats, and Junior proceeded to act like a monster for most of the trip.

We arrived in Detroit and went to the gate where the boarding clerk told us honestly and bluntly we were not likely to get on. I reminded my husband this was Delta and surely they'd make sure a good 10 people missed their flight, so not to worry. We went and found some food and came back and waited.

The last of the people got on the plane. I had already prepared everyone to assume we would NOT get on so that we could prepare ourselves and then if we did it would be a happy surprise. I am far more cynical/realist than my family members and I truly did not believe we would get on. Amazingly, the desk clerk looked and said "come on folks, I can't seat you together, but you'll be in Omaha tonight."

Phew. I was genuinely amazed.

I was also scared Junior would be a baby monster, but amazingly he drifted off again right as we took off and didn't wake until we were descending some two hours later. Bliss.

Still, there is NO reason we should have had to go through this. I really, really mean it this time that we are NEVER flying Delta again and I encourage each and every one of you to choose ANY airline but Delta. Don't get left behind!

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/School+teaches+much+English/3344811/story.html

I thought the whole point of private school was you don't have to abide by the language rules?

Also, this whole province needs to re-vamp how they certify teachers. Making people who want to teach phys ed and arts and crafts take a four year (that's one year longer than usual here) education degree is stupid. They need to have a process where you can take a bachelor's degree in anything and then a one year teacher college certification.

So he went out last night and managed to win enough money to pay for my new eye.

Then this morning he had a client over and was going over the file of exhibits for his case and my eye came flying out.

Yes, my husband hid my eye in a file of courtroom exhibits. And has been carrying it around with him in his briefcase everywhere for almost two months now.

Go Pat.

I am making him steak and mushrooms and onions for supper.

This week I joined the [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] Community.

I really recommend you do as well, especially those of you with itchy feet like me!

Some really great stuff there.