Well, actually in the wall.

This morning the Zack Monkey went completely psycho trying to get our attention. He kept yelling and trying to herd us over to an old vent. We of course thought he had just seen a bug so we humored him, moved the chair, and let him investigate.

We were convinced there was nothing there. We put the chair back. Then I heard it.

I freaked. I'm thinking mouse or worse rat. We're on the first floor of a duplex with a crawl space so who the hell knows what could get in there.

Upon closer inspection, we found that the vent is closed off and painted shut---so it can't get in---but there are enough cracks to see that there's an open space in the wall. Of course, all the commotion (which included Boy's obnoxiously bright flashlight) on our side of the wall stirred it up however. We now have a terrified creature fluttering up and down from the vent on the floor to about halfway up the wall.

Needless to say Zack is going nuts.

Hopefully it will find it's way out soon. I think Zack might claw through the wall.

Stupid people frustrate me. Stupid people that think they're smart and clever make me angry---especially when they are completely rude about it.

I'm trying very hard not to be unprofessional and curse and write in all caps. Dude, did you ever read any of our responses in the helpdesk??? We told you we need a remote management tool to reload the OS on your server. You have no remote management. How can we tell the setup what to do if we can't see what it's doing???

Argh!

We finally have an office! We've officially been in the office for a week and I love it! No more slacking around in pjs shuffling around the house from one computer to another. I leave the house in the mornings. It's quite nice actually.

I even took a picture to prove new officeness:



Of course this was taken on my crappy phone so it's a crappy picture. Also it was taken from my dark little corner where I never turn on the lights---but you can still see our fabulous new art that we love next to Jeff's desk.

On a phone note: I will be replacing it soon, really I will.

I have a love hate relationship with cellphones. In the past nine years I have been through seven phones. Six if you don't count the replacement phone. Screens have died, keyboards given out. One refused to connect to the network after a while. One could never send picture messages despite customer service assuring me that it should. My current phone is a T-Mobile Wing. I've only had it since last July and I swear the thing is falling apart.

I haven't posted a list in ages so I thought I would share all the reasons why my phone sucks:

1. The 'r' key has major issues. 95% of the time it doesn't work.
2. Sometimes when I get a text the thing can't stop vibrating unless you pop the battery out.
3. Sometimes the stupid thing won't ring or vibrate at all. (And yes I've checked the volume settings.)
4. Last week it wouldn't connect to the network for three days. On Friday I was flooded with text messages--which of course crashed the phone.
5. Windows Mobile is awful. What was I thinking?
6. Battery life is non-existent.
7. All the paint chipped off the main keys within three months of getting the thing. It looks nasty now.
8. The camera is crap and it frequently crashes the phone.
9. It keeps telling me I have a voicemail---when I don't!
10. I extended my contract for this thing!!! ARGH!!!

I've looked at other phones but I'm addicted to qwerty keyboard and when I can connect the internet browsing is better on my Wing. I stream KEXP on my phone which is sweet. It's also nice to have a phone that I can easily use an ssh client. The touch screen on the Wing is really great for scribbling notes. Thankfully, I have my Blackberry which works perfectly, even though it's three years old. I would switch solely to the Blackberry but I really like having a separate phone for personal use.

When will I find the perfect phone for personal and business use?

So we've been in Florida for nearly three months. There's not much to say. It's Florida. The weather is warm and we have to drive a lot. We survived football season so that's a good thing. I made a promise not to say anything negative for the entire month of January---check back in a few days ;-). We're hoping to escape for at least a few days next month.

We do have a surprising amount of wild life. Zack Monkey spends the warm sunny days chasing lizards and watching the skinny little squirrels. I am completely freaked out by the raccoons and rats that come out during the daytime. That's wrong right?

Anyway, back to Scrabulous...it sucks my life away...

We had a moving pod scheduled to be delivered at 11am this morning. We got permits from the city and had parking enforcement block off spaces in front of our house. Everything is about ready to go. We planned a semi-leisurely pack up this weekend, with movers coming to help Saturday am.

Our plan had been to see the pod off on Monday and start our own drive down in the car on Thursday or Friday. This way we could wrap things up here, pack up the office, and say goodbye to friends.

This morning around 6:30 am Boy gets a call from the pod delivery guy. Guess what? They will only deliver pods to driveways---they will not drop pods off on the street. WTF? Why didn't someone tell us this when we made the reservation over a week ago? It doesn't even matter that we have a permit from the city---the local pod franchise refuses to drop off their pods on the street. The pod people won't even return our calls. After a call to the national office we learn the reservation agent never should've taken our res because it clearly states in their database in bold letters that the local franchise will not deliver pods to streets. Even with permits.

Needless to say we are pissed.

We now have a moving truck and we're going to drive our crap down on Sunday. We have a huge list of crap to do that we thought we would have a week to do and not 36 hours.

To top it all off, the vet was supposed to have a health certificate ready for Zack Monkey this morning. THEY CALLED ME YESTERDAY AND TOLD ME IT WAS READY FOR PICK UP. I run by there this morning and you know what? No certificate. Doctor never signed it. I started this process two weeks ago, and in two weeks that place couldn't get me a signed health certificate??? I did everything they required me to do prior to issuing the stupid certificate and still no freaking cert in two weeks.

I spoke to the girl who printed the certificate. The same girl that called me and told me I could pick it up. I was livid. Livid. I did not raise my voice and I stayed as calm as possible but she knew I was pissed---especially when I told her that it was completely irresponsible of her to call and tell me the certificate was ready when it clearly was not. She was close to tears.

I decided not to completely freak out since we don't actually have to fly with Zack. We have all of his records. We just won't be able to make any plane trips with him until after we get him to a new vet.

F&%k

Dear Super Annoying Junk Salesman,

I walk by you every single day. I've politely turned down your wares every day for the last six months. I've said 'no thank you'. I've tried just ignoring you. You just don't get the hint. I'm thoroughly sick of you harassing me---seriously. Leave me alone! I do not want to buy your shit jewelry, your knock-off handbags or whatever else you have on your stupid little table.

I'm trying very hard not to be rude or sarcastic simply because I do walk by you every single day---since the sidewalk on the other side of the street is closed, I HAVE NO CHOICE. Seriously though, you bug me one more time with your sexist bullshit hawking your crap I may go a little crazy.

Just so you know.

So today I watched a guy smoke a cigarette while riding a bike.

I'm just not quite sure what to think about that.

Oh yeah, and we're moving to Florida. Ick.

Who knew? I put towels in the microwave all the time but apparently you shouldn't but cushy sport socks in because the nylon will catch on fire.

This is only an issue because, for some unknown reason, I did not wear my rain boots today.

Note to self: Self. If you look outside and think you may need to build an ark, wear your rain boots!

I survived my haircut today. Much goodness. I went back to the girl that used to do my hair and she did a fabulous job. The moral of this story? Experimentation with stylists at uber trendy salons is not a good thing. It's shorter than I prefer but we had to chop to get rid of the weird spikey ends.

After salon funness I went shopping! Not for clothes or shoes (shocking I know) but for dishes! My dishes are gorgeous and I love them---which is surprising because Boy picked them out. I now have two more place settings and a platter. I realized recently that August and September are the only months I shop for house things. I think it must be because I sick of summer clothes and it's too hot to buy fall clothes.

Yes that must be it.