nota bene

So I should refrain from posting when I don't have much to say.

Book is good so far, though I have the feeling it's going to be basically predictable. I don't think Ivy sent the letter. I do think Cassiel is Enzo's father. Etc. The chapter where Mala and Cassiel are in the hotel in Manila is sexy. I think the hotel owner, the Frenchman, is Canopus, the former owner of Junius Samax's home in Nevada. Time and reading will tell whether or not I am correct. With Christopher's books it is not so much the plot as how it's written, how you get there, the beautiful details on the shoulders of the road.

The trunk lid of my car broke last night. I'm supposed to be picking up my new desk and desk chair today, so this is bad news. I need to call L. and see what he's up to.

I ate 4/5 of a box of cherry cordials last night. 8 candies. My mother had two and pronounced them miserable. "Throw these away," she said. "If these satisfy your chocolate cravings, why do I buy you Godiva chocolates on holidays?" They were Russell Stover candies. I prefer Cella cherries, and of course, Godiva. The most obscene thing I've ever eaten is a chocolate-covered strawberry that I bought at the mall when I went with my friend B. this past summer. It cost almost $5 and was as big as my fist. Irresistable.

watch me seethe

This afternoon, I lolled in the Den Of Slack (aka my mother's room since she put a featherbed AND down comforter on her bed, which is what I generally sit on to watch TV), then got ready to go out. I called L. and asked him if he could help me pick up the desk and chair I ordered from JCPenney. They wouldn't ship the desk to the house because it was too heavy for UPS; they were supposed to ship the chair and this little firescreen/candleholder thing my mom wanted to the house. But no, it was all shipped to the local store and I had to pick it up today or it would be sent back tomorrow.

(Edited: Sorry, I tried to leave a link to the desk, but it wasn't working. It's the steel bookshelf desk... go to for the home -> furniture -> home office; it's on the second page somewhere in the middle.)

So, L. came by to pick me up after he got out of work. We went down to his mom's house (where he still maintains a room, even though he has a two-bedroom apartment), & I talked to his mom for a few minutes. She gave me the new Spiegel catalogue and invited my mom to come over and visit her. After that, L. and I went up to Penney's.

When I ordered everything (hereafter referred to as "the stuff") online on 12/30, I paid for it with one of my mom's credit cards, which she gave me just in case I needed to show it to them as confirmation to pick up the order. When I got to the store, the woman insisted that NOTHING had been paid for yet - which isn't true, 2/3 of it was supposed to be shipped to the house, AND we had been charged for shipping even though we had to pick it up at the store. Then, while we were waiting for a porter to bring the desk and chair out front, she refused to take the card (which is the same I had used to pay online) because it was my mother's and not mine. She refused to call my mother at the listed number. She refused to pay attention to a lot of documentation I had with me saying that I had authorization to sign on my mother's cards (which, in fact, I had done). I had her bring out a manager and by the amount of time it took, it's obvious that she told the whole story to the manager, who was similarly rude and unhelpful and basically treated me like a two-year-old. I stalked out. L. stayed a little longer.

L. is very good at saying the most bastardly things in the calmest, most gentlemanly tone you can imagine. It is a quality which has caused me no end of irritation in the past, but when employed in service of a Cause, can be quite amusing (well, if the Cause is yours). He continued giving them a hard time for a few minutes, asking them if they could prove my credit card had not been charged via the online order, and then called later from the carphone as he was taking me home and insinuated to the store manager (not the one I had spoken to) that my mom and I had good cause to pursue action for fraud (for charging the credit card and not releasing the merchandise) and that since their ordering was so screwed up, he was going to tell a contractor's association that they would be a bad choice for home furnishings. I was just chortling the entire time.

I'm peeved because it was $400 worth of stuff and I've been waiting for it to come in for several weeks (obviously).

So what did I do? I drove right the hell down the road to Target and bought the desk I had been considering there, my second choice. As well as a matching little cabinet/cart thing. I'm ordering a chair from Office Depot online tonight, and it will be delivered either tomorrow or the next day. When I write my letter of complaint to Penneys (which hasn't been doing so well the past year or so), I'm going to be sure to include photocopies of those receipts so that they can see the money they would not have lost if their workers had been even remotely helpful.

Lesson? JCPenney.com is NOT ready for e-commerce.

(no subject)

The Pitt Stop, my favorite source of sophomoric absurdist humor, is dead. Long live Dick Blow.

Brought to you courtesy of Plastic.com, which just may be my new favorite website. Yeehaw!