"Admit it," he said, "You've always wanted a hug in the middle of the jury room."

And while it had never occurred to me that I might be hugged in the jury assembly room, I will never decline a hug from my father.  Dad got three times lucky last week when he was summoned for jury duty.  He didn't have to appear on Monday or Tuesday, and while he and I were chatting Wednesday morning, Judge Croce herself came down and dismissed the jurors, saying the defendant had pleaded guilty.

Dad looked very nice on Wednesday, and when I told Mom that, she said "Because I dressed him!" :-D  I am fairly sure, btw, that she meant that she picked out his clothes, not that she put them on him.

Last week at work, Monday and Tuesday were frantic, as I tried to docket everything I could before the automatic hearing date changed.  Wednesday I got to see Dad and Thursday was more frantic reviewing and docketing so I could feel free to take Monday through Wednesday of this week off.  County employees had Friday off for the holiday, and come Monday morning, I'm a-headin' up the lake.

While I'm there, I will spend time with my family, eat my mother's wonderful cooking, visit the Cheese Haven and read a book or two.  So looking forward to it!

Spirit, spoons and shortness

The day after Christmas last year, I bought 150 plastic ornaments with the intention of decorating the two evergreens outside my breezeway.  This year, I dawdled and procrastinated until December 21, when I finally bought ornament hangers and got out in cold and damp and decorated.

I ran out of spoons before I ran out of ornaments, and I knew that climbing up on a ladder at that point was A Bad Idea, so I put everything away.  I took today off work, so this morning after a quick grocery run, I got the ladder out.

Guess what?  Even with a 7-foot ladder, I'm too short to reach the top of the taller tree.  I've got blisters because I'm allergic to evergreens, sore shoulders from reaching over my head, and the decorations aren't quite perfect, but I'm still pleased.

I decorated something for Christmas for probably the first time in seven or eight years!

Snobservations from a VERY long week

Before I start snobserving, if you don't follow me on Google Plus, you might not know that my boss was on the front page of the paper on Thursday, or that my workplace will be featured in a documentary.

That leads me to my first snobservation, that it used to be 15 minutes of fame.  Now, apparently, at least for buildings, it's only 6 minutes. :-(

It was a very long week, in part because Tuesday was Call Day, in which m colleagues and I are frantically busy but don't actually get a ton of work done, and partly because of the looming departure of one of said co-workers.

To the attorney who was upset with me for sending back an insufficiently documented Inventory, I say, "Mister, you can tell me that house is worth a cow and a sackful of magic beans, but if it's not in writing, I can't docket it."

To all of the attorneys who say that's not how they do it in [insert name of other county here], I say, "That's how we do it here, and that's why you should read the damn local rules before you try to file in a new-to-you county."

To the attorneys who ask about the rules of service and wonder when we started doing that, I say, "It's been almost a year, and you should read the damn local rules before you try to file in a court where you haven't practiced in a year."

To paralegals who call me asking how to do something, I say, "Ask your boss, she's the lawyer!"

And to the snooty-ass OSBA-certified paralegal who types things like, "Your welcome" I say, "My welcome says you need to brush up on your basic grammar."

Hmmm

My city has decided to go with fabric recycling.  On the one hand, I am delighted to have an outlet for the pillows which are too manky to give to Goodwill, along with single socks and bras which have quit fighting the good fight.  On the other hand, it's a for-profit company called Simple Recycling doing this, and I don't know how many of my fellow citizens will go to their website and read the details.  

I hope that some, if not all, will, and that Goodwill, the Salvation Army and other charitable organizations will not be hurt.  I know that the scam drop-boxes have cut into donations to those same organizations.  And yes, the drop-boxes for used clothing are almost completely for-profit despite the misleading labeling. 

The one that ticks me off the most, of course, is the book "recycling" boxes.  When I saw a box in the local shopping center, I almost plowed into it with the car when I recognized the name of an online "store" from which I had purchased used books.  I still have not completely discarded the idea of tacking up a sign reading "THESE PEOPLE SELL BOOKS.  YOU'RE NOT DONATING TO ANYTHING BUT THEIR BOTTOM LINE."

I guess in regard to the fabrics, I will give the city the aforementioned manky pillows and donate clothes to Goodwill, but if you're reading this, please, please investigate before you give anything to anyone.  These days, almost anything can be turned for a profit, and that's fine if you know that's what's going to happen.  If that's not what you want, find a reputable charity which will take it.

A matter of taste

So yes, after at least five years of wanting to, this was the year I did this:

When the kits to turn your car into a reindeer first came out, they were at least $30 or so, and I passed.  But last Saturday I was at a local discount store and found this particular set for $3, so of course I grabbed it!

So I posted a picture on G+, and my buddy Rob commented to the effect that he thought I had better taste than to do this.*

Guess what, Rob?  I don't have better taste, I just have iron control over my terrible taste.  The louder, flashier, shinier, gaudier and more ridiculous it is, the better I like it.  But since I'm not going to get very far at work looking like a drag queen exploded in my closet, I pull back.

Way back.

And because I don't have the budget to light up a ghastly fantasy of outdoor lighting in garish colors every year, I skip it.

But the truth is that I have terrible, terrible taste, and for now, antlers on my car.

*The sister of my heart, the lovely Vio, commented that I needed a speaker which played "Gramma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" as I drove.

A long and winding update

Life at Casa de Jammies has been interesting since the end of September.  It's election season and my boss is running this year, so there have been some volunteer things, but there has also been a slew of replacement appliances both small and large.

First up was the coffee maker.  The old one was one of my parents' old coffee makers which had been replaced when they did an upgrade.  That one died early this year, and I used a 4-cup freebie one I'd gotten years ago from Gevalia while I fiddled around and researched and generally put off buying one.  I did have fun reading online reviews which included comments about how some coffee makers "let too much sentiment into the carafe" but it wasn't until mid-September that I finally made up my mind and got a Technivorm MoccaMaster.  It is worth every single penny.  It's quiet, quick, energy-efficient, makes great coffee and I don't even care that it isn't programmable.  You also get to watch the bubbles as the water boils for the coffee!

Next up was the water heater, which was more than 15 years old, and then a new dishwasher, which was just installed today.  The dishwasher was actually delivered a week ago, but the Home Depot installers wouldn't do anything because the water shutoff was in the basement.  I hired an actual plumber and it turned out to be a bigger job than either of us anticipated.  He was here for over three hours, but it's working now and it's lovely.  As a bonus, because he had to turn off the breaker for the back half of the house, I got the guest bedroom neatened up and all the houseplants into the garage because I wasn't sitting in front of the computer.

When the plumber was done today, he asked what I wanted to do with the old dishwasher.  I asked him to take it to the curb, and he expressed a little concern about whether the city would take it.  I told him that if I had to, I'd call for a special pickup and pay for it, but I was pretty sure a picker would find it before Monday.

After he left, I brushed my teeth, tossed the dog in the basement and ran out to do my grocery shopping.  I was on my way in less than 10 minutes, but my driveway was blocked by a giant pickup truck whose driver had just chucked the old dishwasher in the bed.  I told him he'd never back out of my driveway, but if he pulled into the turnaround I could get past him and then he could get turned around and out.  He said thank you and "I just had to have the dishwasher" which made me grin.

So all is well and warm at Casa de Jammies, and I have had more baths in the last 10 days than I think I had in the 10 months prior!

I am mercifully NOT currently perched on Rex's Erection with a water gun in my hand

Mercifully because after three days of "Do this.  No, we don't like this.  Do that.  Ha!  Fooled you--do that, but someplace else" from the miserable troglodytes at Express Scripts, I finally have my Lexapro refill.

Ever since Tuesday, when my nurse practitioner called in a new script to my local grocery store pharmacy, Express Shits has turned down the script twice, not told me until I called them, and then given me directions that turned out also not to work.  Everyone I had face-to-face interactions with was so very nice that I couldn't vent my rage, which just made it harder to cope.

Finally, after a second pharmacy was called and was willing to call the first pharmacy to transfer the prescription (since it had been e-mailed in, not faxed or written on paper) and I'd spent most of my breaks and lunches on hold, I got my Lexapro.  Of course, I had to wait for nearly 45 minutes at the second pharmacy because Express Shits kept asking for more info that they didn't have, but I got it.  I no longer feel like a donkey on the edge, and I am no longer tempted to climb a tower with a Super-Soaker in my hand.

Oh, and stop that, you dirty-minded people, I'm talking about a local landmark. :P

In which your humble correspondent is appalled and distressed

Dear Mr. Mann,

Whilst I understand both your modern need to be inclusive and your desire to keep your readers guessing, the inestimable Mr. S. Holmes would never so mangle the Queen's English as to use a plural pronoun with singular verbs and to do so for several paragraphs.  Frankly, I am shocked at this lapse in an otherwise excellent series.  For shame, sir, for shame.

Very Truly Yours,

Jammies

P.S.  Torturing the language to make it gender-neutral only makes it very clear to the reader that the villain is, in fact, the female character.

Yours, etc.

I'm inclined to say it was ducky.

Both of my nieces and the younger of my nephews are visiting my parents this week, and yesterday I took the day off work and Mom and the kids and I headed to Pittsburgh for the day.  Our drive was largely uneventful, barring a wee bit of a spat towards the end where Mom listened to the end of the directions rather than the whole thing and missed the middle bit, we were parked across the street from Station Square at 11:00 a.m.

We walked through the square and the kids looked at the river for a bit, then walked all the way down it, out the other side and across the street to the Monongahela Incline.  I'd ridden the Dusquene incline in my childhood, but not this one.  Mom of course, had ridden both as a Pittsburgh native.  Super Doughnut was a little nervous for some reason, but everyone enjoyed the ride to the top and the view from Mount Washington.  Then we had a discussion of which three rivers meet in Pittsburgh which ended with me asking the fare-taker if the third was the Allegheny or the Susquehanna.  For the record, the rivers are the Ohio, the Monongahela and the Allegheny.  Then we rode back down, had a nice lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and then lined up for our tour.

The weather was absolutely perfect--warm and sunny but with a nice breeze.  We had an interesting and loud tour through the city, then hit the water.  Literally hit the water, because we took a Just Ducky amphibious tour!  For me, being on the water was the best part, water-loving critter that I am.  I think it was also my niece's best part, because she was one of the kids asked to steer the boat while the guide took a break and the captain talked.  Because she had purple rhinestones on her t-shirt, the captain called her "Captain Sparkle".

After the tour, we walked through the old train station which is now a fancy restaurant, and I forgot to ask Mom if it was still a station when she was a kid.  After some more not-fun with the GPS, we made it back to Mom and Dad's and then I headed home.

By some twist of luck, the first Just Ducky video I found features the same guide we had yesterday, so here's Carol:

Ahh, a nice big thunderstorm!

Nothing like one of those for scouring all the allergens out of my life!

Multiculturism at its best

...was what middle liddle brother said when I told him that I, an American female of mostly British descent and a German last name, was celebrating a French holiday with a day off and a Greek sandwich. :-)

Yesterday was my birthday, but since I'm *gasp* aging, I've decided to celebrate Bastille Day instead.  I did my nails up all fancy, and I got lots of neat presents from The Jay and The Sherri, and Mom and I went shopping.  I found five big grapefruit-scented candles for $1 each, plus birthday presents for my nieces, plus four new tops for me.  Then we went and had lunch at a local chain, and I had a wonderful gyro, followed by coming home to take a nap, and then getting up to feed the dog, eat dinner and make two loaves of dill bread to take to work.  Then I returned middle liddle brother's phone call and then called Mom and Dad picked up to say Happy Birthday Bastille Day.   Plus, Mira Grant's newest Rising short story was released, so I downloaded that.

Good food, presents, books, family and friends--what a perfect day!

Oh, and the dog didn't leave me any dead mice as presents, either. ;-)

Tears at 5 a.m.

Last night, I dreamt that Little Miss Piggie Pie had to go into the vet for something that would take all day and when I dropped her off, the staff asked if I wanted a loaner dog.  I said yes, and a tech came out with my beloved Bigfoot.  I spent a wonderful day with him, and when the vet hospital called to tell me LMPP was ready to be picked up, I said, "You know you're not getting Bigfoot back, right?"  The person on the phone said that was fine, it would only cost me a $45 adoption fee to keep him.

So I went and got LMPP and introduced her to Bigfoot, and had two wonderful dogs and you know how this is going to end, right?

And then I woke up.  And it SUCKED.  And I cried.

I have been very clever

...even if I do say so myself.  The sump pump is no longer running continuously, but it is still running, and I'm astonished by how much water must still be saturating the earth around my foundation!  Today I moved the lighter half of my houseplants outside, and since I didn't water them before I moved them, they were pretty dry.  I was just going to water them when I realized my garden hose is not hooked up to the spigot, but to the sump pump.

So after a moment of thought, I put the hose in a bucket, and emptied it into my houseplants when it filled.  It took three hours and three buckets to get them all, but I was pretty happy.  No wasted water, no wasted electricity, and happy plants.

Now to get the mulch down before the idiot landscapers mow down another lavender or daylily.

Alarums and excursions, the final chapter (I hope!)

Previously, on Curmudgeonette:

Our heroine's garage flooded and she went to work anyway.

Jammies took a day off to clean up the garage and it flooded again.

Then the basement flooded!

Jammies took another vacation day.

We join the story with our heroine discovering that her sump pump wasn't pumping, which was the cause of the flooded basement!

More alarums, more excursions

After driving out to Casa de Senior Jammies and getting a brush, the ozone generator and a squeegie, I came back and worked all day just clearing the garage.  I found at least one dead mouse and a ton of styrofoam peanuts.

Then it flooded again.

Then the basement flooded.

So here I am, taking another vacation day, using every rag in the house to try to mop up the water in the basement, bleaching the garage floor and thanking my lucky stars that I met a scrap metal dealer at court last week who is coming by to pick up all the metal I found whilst cleaning out the garage.  Goodbye, old lawnmower blades, rabbit ears and plant holders.

Now I just have to get the icky, sodden, dog-destroyed armchair out of the basement and wash another load of rags.

Alarums and excursions!

Yesterday was a fairly ordinary work day, even a pretty good work day.  I woke up early enough to be ready in time to leave the house and make a quick stop on the way in for Lemonheads and Raisinettes for my two co-workers who just finished school for the semester, and the day went pretty quickly.  I was pottering around at home last night when Little Miss Piggie Pie started whimpering a bit and then the city tornado sirens went off.

I was just debating whether or not to head for the basement when my dad called.  After asking me how I was, he asked if I was aware of the weather, and then proceeded to read me the entire text of the warning.  I promised him I would keep an eye on the dog and on the radar and went about my evening.  He told me to call him if a tornado was headed for Hudson because he was going to take a nap.  Typical Scary Bear, nothing gets in the way of a nap.

LMPP calmed down and went to sleep, so I went back to working on spreadsheets for Mom while outside it was storming to beat the band.  I took a break when the hail started.  It was so loud I knew what popcorn sounds like from the inside of the popper.  Then the hail stopped and the rain started again, and when I went to look at the lightning, I realized there was standing water in the driveway.

So at 9:30, I was outside in flip-flops and a rain poncho, wading through ankle-deep cold water trying to clear the grate on the driveway drain.  I succeeded, but too late to prevent the garage from flooding.  I came back inside, saw that the tornado warning was over and there was a flash flood warning, washed my feet, set up the coffee and went to bed.

This morning, the garage had a layer of mud and yuck all over the floor, lots of things moved around from the water and was in a general state of disarray.  Unfortunately, because today was call day, I had to go in.  I'll need to be, at minimum, in the hospital before I call off on call day--it's just too hard with only two people in the accounts department.

My drive in was complicated by a detour that meant I had to use the high-traffic route and included the sight of a whole bunch of downed trees and washed-out shoulders.  Lake Morley was full of water, with more dripping from the pipes.  I told my colleagues what had happened, explained that I'd like to take Wednesday off and got permission from the chief clerk to do so.  I then had to tell one of my fellow auditors that yes, I washed my feet after wading in dog-knows-what. :P

Call day was interesting.  For the first time in my experience, we had two people admit, albeit reluctantly, that they weren't just behind in their paperwork, they'd done things they shouldn't have with money that wasn't theirs.  Thankfully, the judge is more interested in helping them fix things than punishing them.

When I got home, the garage had started to stink (it was 90º F today!) and I called dad to make sure he and his couch weren't buried in the remains of my childhood home and to see if I could borrow a floor squeegie and the ionizer.  He was alive and well and said he'd leave everything where I can find it tomorrow morning without waking him.

A big thank you to all of the G+ friends who held my paw last night and sent me dry thoughts. <3 all="" nbsp="" ou="" p="" rock.="">

Somebody gets me!

Five days a week I park my car at the downtown parking garage closest to work.  I pay $65/month for the privilege, and consider it well spent when I don't have to slog through a polar vortex for more than two minutes.  However, I am wondering what the company that operates the garage is doing with my money (and everyone else's).

When it rains or snows heavily, all of the pipes carrying the water away from the flat roof leak and all of the drains back up.  Huge puddles form, great swathes of parking spaces are blocked off, and this spring, the lowest level of the garage had two feet of water in it for almost a week.  The only "maintenance" ABM seems to do is to put out "Wet Floor" signs convenient only for blocking more parking spaces.

Last Wednesday, I got out of my car and stepped right in a puddle.  Fortunately I keep my work shoes at work and I was wearing sneakers, but I was still ticked.  I thought about it all day, and at 4:00, I grabbed a sheet of paper out of the recycling bin and made a little sign.

Welcome to Lake Morley, Cabins and Fishing are in my handwriting.

I taped it on the door to Level 2 and went home.

On Friday night, as I got to the door, I saw that "Kiddie Pool", "High Dive" and "Canoes" had been added, each with their own unique arrows.  As long as it's up, I can start my day happy with the knowledge that even if I don't know them personally, someone in Akron shares my sense of humor.

Spring at Casa de Jammies

Lovely, lovely, slightly damp and gloomy spring!

Lots of pics after the jump. :-)

Died suddenly, at home, 03/25/2014

Funeral services will be performed Friday, March 28, 2014, 7:00 a.m. by the City of Cuyahoga Falls Sanitation Department.  In lieu of flowers, the family requests gift cards to Bed, Bath and Beyond or Target.

R.I.P., Mr. Coffee.  You weren't even three years old and I took care of you--cleaned you regularly, washed your carafe, de-scaled you even though I only used RO-filtered water and 100% Columbian coffee.  Still, you left me on a workday morning when I really needed you.  If there's an afterlife for appliances, I hope you get eaten by a vicious waffle iron.

Today's menu: cranky with a side of I hate DST

One of my least favorite days of the year is the first work day after the ridiculousness that is "Spring Forward".  Seriously, Daylight Savings Time is stupid and harmful and I can complain about it for paragraphs, but I shall spare you.

Add in the fact that tomorrow is Call Day and I have a co-worker who didn't help me put together the list sniping at me over an omission and an attorney whining about how it doesn't fit in his schedule, then add in a brutal sinus headache on a pretty, sunshiny day, and you have a recipe for a grim day.

Right now I am thinking that I'm not going to mend the hem on my blue pants, just tape up the ripped stitches and fix them later.  Maybe next weekend.

Grrrr.