Cancun Part 1/3 (March 30-31)

We are enjoying sunny Cancun! The hotel is exquisite. Short of that one night in the super-penthouse at the Rio, this is easily the nicest place we’ve stayed. Pictures of the room and resort are below. On Sunday, we mainly napped and settled in. They do a nightly show here, and we watched the show that night. We had a late dinner at the Lobster house, and it was delicious. It’s so nice staying at a true all-inclusive. Not having to worry about how much anything costs is very nice.

Yesterday, we started the morning with a quick breakfast followed by a step aerobics class. The class turned out to be private, as we were the only people who showed up. Then, we swam for awhile in the giant pool network. DH did beach volleyball with a group of people while I relaxed on our patio with my Kindle. I’m reading Robin Hobb’s Assassin series. Amazon gave the first book in the series away for free, a technique that is very good for drug dealers and book sellers. We swam some more before getting dressed for dinner. Dinner does require dressing up here, although not horribly fancy…just no beachwear or jeans. Packing for this trip was a bear, just because I needed swimwear and cover-ups, workout clothes, daily summery garb, and evening wear. Plus shoes! Last night’s dinner was a group dinner with all the Potawatomi winners. We’ve met a few folks from the casino that we like. DH hung around for the pirate show. I was having a bit of a caffeine withdrawal headache (I’m not drinking soda much at all here…mainly water and libations), so I stayed in the room to read and relax.

Click here for all pictures from this trip.

Not again…

It feels like writing this will make it more real, so I kind of dread writing about it…but I need to get it out of my system, as well as inform the people who read this and thus care.

You know our brand new laundry/mud room? The one I spent all or most of Saturday moving everything back into? Well, my dear husband decided to do laundry today, to do me a favor…it was a very sweet gesture. He made sure the machine started up okay and then he then went into the basement to study. Unfortunately, it seems that the workman who reset the washing machine didn’t seat the output tube fully into the output drain. As such, the pipe fell out as soon as pressure got into it and spewed water all over the floor, which then flooded the carpet. If you look in the picture that I took in my last entry, you can actually see that the pipe isn’t in properly, if you know what to look for. But, we didn’t realize this, and because DH was in the basement, he didn’t realize it was a problem until midway through the cycle. I’m guessing 4-6 gallons of soapy water got dumped.

The ceramic tile did its job. The problem was that it spilled out into the carpeted hallway. And, because the rooms just got done, we hadn’t gotten the carpeting re-attached yet (another contractor, hired by the insurance company, was going to handle re-attaching the carpet and subsequently cleaning it). So, the water may have seeped out of the room, into the carpet, and then back into the laundry room between the tile and the subfloor. If that’s the case, we will have to have the floor all ripped up again and re-done.

::cries::

For now, we have the evil and noisy fans going again, 24-7. It sucks so bad because they slip into my mind unnoticed, until some random moment when I startle and realize that they’re there again. Pancake hates it, too. He’s so upset. He had just transitioned to using his regular litter in his regular place, and he was clearly relieved that things were back how they should be. He had explored all the corners and nooks. He liked the new shelving. Now, things are crazy in his house again, and he is not pleased. He keeps meowing piteously. I brought him upstairs with me and gave him pats and cooed at him until he relaxed, but he’s on edge. Poor kitteh. At least I understand the crazy…he doesn’t know what’s going on and why we keep doing this to him.

We’ll find out on Wednesday what the verdict is…cross your fingers and think happy thoughts for us that the water didn’t seep under the tile, or if it did, only a little that has gotten dried out by the dehumidifiers and fans.

New rooms!

Our bath and laundry/mud rooms are done! They’re so pretty. The laundry room, aside from the improvements to flooring, shelving, and venting, is very similar to before. The blue is slightly different, but it wouldn’t be noticeable unless you had a sample in front of you of what you were comparing against. But, the bathroom looks AMAZING. I’m so happy with it. The green is just a perfect color. Click below for pictures:

The Wrong Reasons

From a Missouri news story, originally read at GamePolitics:

“There is no reason an adult should have this game,” says Andy Anderson, Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force.

Anderson says adults playing “animal crossing” and similar games are likely doing it for the wrong reasons.

Really? I haven’t played AC yet, but I want to play it. I also, as y’all know, play Webkinz, a game targeted at kids. I’m one of at least thirty adults I know of who do. Oh, and by the way, I have no, zero, zip interest in doing anything “wrong” with kids. Andy Anderson needs a reality check.

(By the way, it’s also worth noting that in Animal Crossing for Wii, as in ALL Wii games, you have to have both parties exchange friend codes before you can play together online. You can see mine in the sidebar at right or on the About Me page. That is, just because you have my friend code means nothing. I don’t see that you have my friend code, and I don’t see that you added me unless I also have your friend code and have inputted it. That’s not some arcane privacy setting; that’s how Wii works. On top of that necessary 2-way exchange, AC has a separate code that must be exchanged and set correctly by both parties, and you have to both be online at the same time *and* accept a chat session to be able to freely speak. In short, there’s no way for a predator to target a kid playing Animal Crossing or any Wii game without some serious effort on the part of the kid, not to mention a huge lack of oversight by the parents, considering that parental controls can block every single step in the process if desired.)

It left me in stitches!

I woke up late today. It was nice to sleep so long, but I had a busy day planned. I put on a sports bra and one of my running skorts, and I grabbed some socks. When I got downstairs, I fed Pancake and settled into the couch to have breakfast before going for a run (more walking than running, but that’s what I call it at any rate). After a much too long time had passed, the doorbell rang. It was the postman dropping off a large package, from my aunt. I read the letter, and she was sending our holiday presents along with some things that had been my grandfather’s that she thought I might like. I grabbed one of my knives and cut open the package. The box was full of plastic bags (for cushioning) and items wrapped in some of the bags.

As I was digging through and pulling things out, I reached into the box and grabbed something that felt really sharp, like grabbing a porcupine or knife. I yelled an expletive and dashed over to the sink. I had blood streaming down my hand and arm, dripping on me and the floor. I rinsed off in the sink in cold water, and it looked like it was just a small cut on my finger, so I wrapped it in a paper towel and started cleaning up the mess. I knelt down on the floor and started wiping up blood drips and washing off the drips on me…and it just seemed like there were so many spots! I kept cleaning and cleaning…and then I realized…I was still bleeding. The blood had soaked through the wrapped up paper towel and had drizzled down my hand to form all those drops on the floor.

Eek! So, I rinsed the cut again and realized it was still bleeding profusely. I wrapped it tightly and applied pressure, raising it over my head. I consulted the in-house doctor (aka the internet), and I couldn’t find anything that definitely told me whether I should be really worried. Finally, I found one site that said that if your skin wasn’t staying together on its own, you should go to the emergency room. I looked (which made it bleed profusely again, as soon as I removed the pressure) and the skin was definitely gaping a little.

Right, then. I ran upstairs to get some medical gauze pads. I wrapped one of those around the finger in place of the purple party napkin that I was using at that point. I tried to get a rubber band to hold it in place, but that didn’t work, so I held it tight with my thumb. Then, I tossed on a shirt, and I grabbed my purse and a coat. I’d left my keys in B*’s car last night, so I had to retrieve the spare set. (My DH was at work, so I was home alone.) I awkwardly drove over to the nearby urgent care center.

The attendant at the window gave me a form to fill out, but I had hurt my right hand, so I couldn’t write. She ended up filling out the forms for me, but I still had to sign the waivers. I signed with my left hand, so it was illegible. I might as well have just made an X. She told me that there were 4 people ahead of me and to go wait unless I started feeling faint. At this point, the bleeding had slowed, so I wasn’t too worried. I sat down in the waiting area. A call had come in on my cellphone while we were doing the forms, and it was Ms. Moo. She was in Third Lake (not far from Gurnee) performing in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. This is how the conversation went when I called her back:

Ms Moo: Hey sweetie!
Me: Hello. (pause) What’s up?
Ms. Moo: What’s wrong? Are you okay?

Seriously…three words, and she knew something must be wrong…and I was relatively calm, I thought. I explained what had happened, and she said she was coming to where I was right then, and no protesting on my part could stop her. She rocks.

Granted, I wasn’t spewing blood any more, so I was beginning to feel silly for going in. But, then I soaked through my gauze and had to get more gauze from the desk attendant. (One thing I learned from the internet: don’t remove the gauze or paper towel or whatever if you can help it…just add layers…because every time you remove it, the clotting stuff gets removed along with it. That’s one thing I screwed up at first.) Around an hour and a half later, I finally was taken back to the back. In the interim, Ms. Moo entertained me. We laughed and chatted so much that, aside from me having ten layers of gauze on my finger, you might think nothing was wrong with me.

When I got back, the nurse tutted over the fact that I’d been waiting so long, given that I was actively bleeding. Then, she cleaned up my finger with saline and asked me to rate my pain (1 to 2…it wasn’t hurting too much, just bleeding). I gave a brief medical history, and she put a wet compress on my finger and made me comfy in the little bed.

It was the same bed that my toenail was removed in,back in November, 2003. But, this time, instead of my DH holding my hand, Ms. Moo was holding my hand and keeping me sane. The doctor came in to take a look, and she initially said it was no big deal, no sutures needed…but then she looked a bit closer and got concerned. She said I could get sutured or I could just get glued, but she thought the sutures would do a better job given that the cut was on the fleshy part of my finger and it was fairly deep. I opted for sutures.

They refreshed my tetanus shot, just in case. (My tetanus was 9 years old.) They also positioned my arm in like twenty layers of fabric with a special finger-isolating hole in it. Then, the doctor got me numb. It hurt like bloody hell when the needle went in, but it didn’t take long for it to numb up and stop hurting. I looked at it, and it looked bright white and swollen. It was really freakish looking, but I couldn’t feel anything. Then, she started sewing. I didn’t watch that part. I intentionally looked at Ms. Moo and she talked to me about other, unrelated things to keep me distracted.

I ended up with three stitches. They’re black and look like little bugs. They coated it with neosporin and wrapped my finger in a band-aid. I have to keep it dry for the next two days, then do a checkup, then get the stitches removed in ten days.

Ms. Moo came home with me. She brought me a chicken sandwich and a McDonald’s toy. (It’s a bobble-headed frog!) We watched TV together all afternoon. I should be doing homework right now, but I need to get this story out of my system first. Typing is a bitch. I’m using my other two fingers for what that finger usually does. It’s my birdie-finger, by the way.

It hurts to press on the finger, but aside from that, it’s doing fine. The tetanus shot arm will probably hurt tomorrow, though, and that’s my other arm.

Dominick’s New Shopping Carts

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the length of the cart is about half the size of a normal cart. Instead, it’s got a double-stacked basket. I can actually reach inside both compartments very easily (unlike normal carts, which make me bruise my boobs to get to stuff at the bottom). Also, if you go to the self-checkout lane, the top basket fits right over the little shelf before the scanner (you know, the shelf where you can stack your stuff before you scan it, or set your basket if you’re using a handbasket instead of a cart), so your stuff is perfectly situated to be scanned.

Yay Dominick’s!

Door leaking from the top?

I need the collective brain…

Our front door is leaking…from the top. That is, we have a drip (or rivulet the past few days) of water that forms at the top center of the door and runs down into the house. It seems to form at the top of the wood frame inside the door and then drop onto the door itself and eventually either down the front of the door or the back of the door (inside).

We’ve consulted one handyman, and his diagnosis is that it’s because we don’t have an overhang above our front door (not a full awning, just a small overhang). As such the wood above our door has gotten wet for a long time (i.e., years) and is beginning to rot…and with as much rain as we’ve gotten the past few days, it’s acting like a sponge. My concern with this diagnosis is that…well, it’s not like we took the overhang off. There never was one. Why would any builder build a home without an overhang if this is the result? Wouldn’t everyone in our sub be having the same problem?

So…for the collective brain:

1) Does your front door have an overhang?
2) Have you ever heard of this problem?
3) What do you think the cause is?

Wow, I’m old…and unaccomplished :(

I just picked out my service award gift for 10 years of being with my company. I decided on a dress watch (runners up were necklaces…there were several non-jewelry items on the list, too, but nothing I really wanted).

Still…I’m old. And I feel like only doubling my salary in ten years of work is not so great of an accomplishment. My life plan had me much farther along by now, and in all fairness, my progression has gotten screwed by 3 different things that were all out of my control (one manager leaving during a promotion cycle, the new manager being one I don’t mesh with and couldn’t get to budge, and then a re-org before I could really get going at my next job), which has left me in the same grade level for 4 years. Things as they are, though, I suppose I should be happy I haven’t managed to zero out my salary.

We are the champions!

Last night, Eaten by Delicious (our Rock Band band) gathered at the Harrah’s Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana for the Total Rock, Total Rewards Rock Band challenge, round 1:

We checked the instruments. Then, we diva’d out and insisted on an opening band (one of the gathering crowd that wanted to play). We wanted any technical problems to be worked out before we were being scored, as this competition was purely score-based with no crowd component. We also woo’d and cheered loudly for them, though.

Then, just before we were getting onstage (as they were making sure their equipment was working), we had our VH1 Behind the Band moment. B* realised that the next round of competition is during a bridge tourney out of state. DH and I had already seen this and decided that we’d rather do Rock Band competition than a bridge tourney (even though this particular tourney is reputed to be awesome). Ms. Moo had already checked her calendar. But, B* had not checked on this/had not been told the date and thus told us he couldn’t play. At the last minute. Just before we were about to go on. At which point, I jokingly said, c’mon, it’s not a National…and then I realized he was seriously going to bail on us, and I got *pissed*. We had spent the past four nights practicing, working on this instead of doing other things. I’d left work early on Friday. And then he made the mistake of blaming my dear husband, which led to me biting B*’s head off. I mean, I was ticked anyways, but I also knew the history and felt strongly that this was in B*’s camp to check, not ours, so that just gave me justification to bite his head off.

We begged Mr. Moo to fill in. He’d just gotten Rock Band two weeks earlier, so this was a big ask. He was only there to root for us and take pictures. But, he was a really good sport about it and filled in on bass at medium. I was on guitar on hard (we’d figured out that, as a band, we scored better with me doing 99% on Hard than with me getting a higher individual score at 93% on Expert, due to the multipliers). My DH was on drums. Ms. Moo was singing.

We ended up scoring okay on the song, but not up to our normal level. It is important to note that this was not Mr. Moo’s fault. He did wonderfully, particularly considering that he was relatively new to the game (granted, he’s a very good real guitarist). One problem was that the whole stage rocked whenever DH hit the drum pedal (and Ms. Moo, not realizing the problem, was stomping along with the beat), and thus his drum kit was creeping forward at an angle. The drum kit didn’t have enough weight to hold it in place. Also, there’s the “zOMG we’re on a stage with a crowd cheering!” factor, which meant that I only scored 93% on hard, with a relatively low streak.

Then, there was a promotion at the casino that you could get free buffets pretty easily, so we got free buffets. Mr. Moo went back to the poker game while the “original” EBD went to the buffet. (Technically, the original Eaten By Delicious is me and DH…the band name is a combination of our two Guitar Hero band names, Delicious and Eaten By Wolves. But, B* and Ms. Moo complete us.) While there, B* and I (having had time to cool down) talked and resolved the fighting. So, we were cool.

Then, B*, having had time to think about it more, decided that he wanted to do it after all. So, we registered again, as a different band (because you can swap out one person and be a whole new band). That necessitated a new band name. Thus, we are now known in the competition as Even More Delicious.

Even More Delicious won…with nearly 150% of EBD’s score. Granted, the competition was weak. There were no serious bands there. We could have won without practicing at all, as it turns out. Still, it’s a victory.

In April, we’ll be competing in the local finals, and, if we get past that, we go to regional finals. At regional finals, we each win an XBox 360 and Rock Band 2 (kind of silly since clearly at least some of the winning band will already have it). If we go to and win the national finals, we get to open for the B-52s in Vegas. *That* is a long shot though. We might have a shot at winning the regional finals…but nationals…we’re good, but there are LOTS of people who are MUCH better. Still, it’ll be fun to try.

Pretty nails!

Ms. Moo treated me to a mani/pedi at her salon this past weekend. I love my pretty nails!

Unfortunately, my fingernails are already a bit chipped. That’s what comes from trying to 100% Expert guitar in preparation for this weekend’s Rock Band tournament…