Autumn At Oak Hollow

Remember how my dryer broke a few weeks ago and I was all whiny about having to hang up my clothes to dry?  Do you also remember me mentioning how I really wanted a free fix and signed us up for a service plan through the gas company the day it broke?  If you remember that, you might also remember I actually wound up calling a local guy to repair it because I wasn’t sure I could convince the gas company my dryer broke after I signed up for the service plan (which it didn’t-heh). 

I suck at lying to people, which is part of the reason I abandoned my master plan early on.  The other reason I decided to go the honest route is that I had already blogged about the dryer breaking and thought, perhaps, someone at the gas company might happen upon my blog and read about my scheme to get a complimentary repair.  Besides, paying for the fix ourselves was just easier all around, not to mention I’d get to tumble dry my clothes again sooner rather than later.

Now I may have my moments, but I can tell you that blogging about the broken dryer, revealing my evil little plan of deception here AND following through with the whole thing would have catapulted me into the ranks of the infinitely stupid.  I am not that stupid.  I am an intelligent woman pursuing a master’s degree, one who is by nature pretty honest.  I just want to make that clear to the special visitors from the gas company who I found lurking around my blog today.

So, Gas Company People, you found me through Technorati by searching for your company name, which I happened to mention in my post.  The original visitor, whoever you are (Hello, by the way. Thanks for stopping by) then e-mailed the link to my post to some presumably higher-up muckity muck and that person paid a brief visit.  Perhaps you checked my account to see if I had indeed requested a service call, which I did not.   Maybe you also checked to see if my account was current.  I paid the bill today, thank you.  That doesn’t always happen when it’s supposed to.  Just ask the township about my water bill.

So let’s just recap what we know.  My dryer broke.  I signed up for the service plan.  I called a local guy named Ron (who actually wound up to be Jeff) to fix my dryer at no cost to anyone in the greater Detroit area.  The dryer is fixed and I can still lay claim to being an honest person because I paid for the repair, as I should have.  Let me also add that I am more than happy to keep the service plan if y’all are happy to take my money.  Just don’t try to screw me over the first time something that is covered breaks.  My appliances shouldn’t be held accountable for what I write here.

And just so you know, this whole dishonesty thing really isn’t my style.  I do not endorse thievery of any kind.  Unless you’re talking about taking the Reeses from a three year-old’s stash of Halloween candy.  Then it’s okay.

Read Full Post »

A couple of weeks ago a package was delivered on a day I had taken off from work.  I knew from the Levenger label on the box that it was my birthday gift.  A couple of weeks prior I had shown Nathan the page on the website that held my heart’s desire and he wound up ordering it.  Even though it wasn’t exactly going to be a surprise, he had hoped to surprise me with remembering what I had asked for.

What was delivered was this bag:

Nathan, though disappointed, was kind enough to let me start using it right away and I must say this is the best bag I’ve ever had.  What I wanted to do is take a picture of my actual bag with all the stuff I’ve managed to stuff into it, but I don’t have the time or the ambition to do that today.  Let’s just say it comfortably fits two Jhumpa Lahiri books, an IBM laptop computer, a PDA, a couple of small notepads, my glasses, a travel mug of coffee, an iPod, several pens and highlighters and Lois Tyson’s Critical Theory Today.

Yesterday I brought this bag to the library along with a spare tote for the books I planned on taking back with me.  Since I was already carrying two bags, I left my purse at home and put my driver’s license and a small wallet with credit cards in my back pocket.  This would be the brand new driver’s license the State of Michigan issued to me yesterday.  It was just a piece of paper stapled to my old license, which is why, when my husband decided to be helpful this morning and wash my jeans, the license disintegrated in the wash.  Yeah, I forgot to pull it out of my back pocket.

I told Nathan he should always check the pockets of things before he washes them, which he knew was total BS because I never do that.  Just ask him how many times he’s heard me howl when I realize I’ve left a tube of Blistex in my pants pocket and wind up pulling a load of clothes covered with dark, waxy splotches out of the dryer.

I was told two to four weeks until I get my new license.  The old one is intact, save for the corner that was lopped off to indicate it is no longer valid.  I have my new registration and figure if I find myself in a pickle I should be able to prove that I’m an upstanding citizen with a valid license that’s probably on it’s way to me as we speak.

Oh, and my water didn’t get turned off today.  So that’s good news.  Happy Birthday to me!

Read Full Post »

Somehow the household responsibilities have been split so that I am the one who takes care of the bills.  I’ve done a piss-poor job of it at times, but lately I have been doing a pretty good job in spite of being too busy to keep an actual written tab of what’s going into and what’s coming out of our accounts.  I was relying on my memory, which probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do considering how preoccupied I am with other things.

Right before Halloween I thought I might be missing something.  I went through everything in my mental filing cabinet and came up empty.  Everything that needed to be paid had been paid.  Or so I thought.  Today I received a lovely letter from the township informing me our water will be turned off if we don’t pay our bill within 72 hours of the notice.  Oh right…the water.  Whoops.

At first I felt a twinge of shame that I had let it get this far.  What am I, nineteen?  Then I felt anger at the township for wasting a whole 24 hours of their allotted 72-hour grace period to mail me the dang notice.  Then came the indignation when I realized the 72 hours ended on my birthday.  They want to shut the water off on my birthday.

Since the township offices do not open until Monday, I wound up paying the bill online with a credit card.  I’m hoping that does the trick because I do not want to wake up on my birthday and not be able to take a shower.  Nor do I want to call  my parents up on my birthday and ask to use their facilities because our water got turned off.  Hopefully the township will recognize the payment has been made or else this birthday will go down in the books as one of the best ever.

Have I also mentioned that I have to renew my driver’s license?  I have to go in to the Secretary of State’s office and take the test this year and the only day the local branches are open late is Wednesday, the day I have class  Luckily there is one branch on the other end of town that has Saturday hours, so that’s where I’ll be tomorrow morning, trying not to look like the schmuck who waited until the last very last minute to renew her plates and license.  Which I totally am.

Read Full Post »

My first real job that wasn’t a paper route was at the Village Ice Cream parlor in my hometown.  It was run by a single woman who employed mostly teenagers and paid them less than minimum wage.  I think my starting wage was $2.50/hour, which was bumped up to $2.75/hour when the summer season was in full swing.  I did not mind the small paychecks at all.  The people I worked with were all kids who I’d just spent my first year of high school with.  The owner would let us take a treat home at the end of each shift.  Sometimes I’d pack a pint of Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream into a take-home container for myself, but most of the time I’d make my dad a Tin Roof sundae, his treat for picking me up so I wouldn’t have to walk home in the dark.

Making my own money meant I had more money to spend.  Back then my money was spent on movies.  My passion for the cinema started when I was in junior high.  I’d go to the local multiplex nearly every weekend with the money I made mowing the lawn.  I kept my ticket stubs in a photo album so I could remember which movie I saw when.

The summer I worked at the ice cream parlor happened to be the same summer Dirty Dancing was released (I’ll save you the trip to IMDB-It was 1987).  I really wanted to see that movie.  My friend really wanted to see that movie, but we were both fifteen and weren’t keen on telling our parents we wanted to see a movie called Dirty Dancing.  The TV adverts were a little provocative and that title…yeah, I know.  You’re probably laughing your asses off because Dirty Dancing is about as tame as you can get.  And yet is was so hot.  Who could forget Baby and Johnny making love to Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me”?

So I lied to my dad and told him my friend and I were going to see some other movie.  The thing is I hadn’t thought the plan through enough to realize he’d be looking to pick us up when that other movie ended, which he did.  He wound up waiting a good 40 minutes or so and was quite pissed when we finally showed up for our ride home.  I immediately spilled my guts and he grounded me from the movies for a month.

The year before it was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  I wanted to see that movie so bad I wound up riding my bike to the theater in the midst of busy traffic.  That time it was my mother getting angry with me, though she probably would not have found out about my little stunt had I not stopped by the bank where she worked for a drink of water on the way home.  I’m telling you, I was a really stupid kid.

The reason I’m taking this trip down memory lane is because Studio 28, the multiplex where I saw those two movies, announced today that they’re closing.  After 43 years and thousands of movies, good and bad (I also saw Mannequin there), they’re closing their doors because not enough people are going to the movies anymore. 

I haven’t been there in years.  The screens at the mall theater are much closer for that one trip to the cinema Nathan and I take every year, but I have so many fond memories of Studio 28.  It’s where I fell in love with Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future.  It’s where I learned Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence is not exactly the ideal first date movie.  It’s where I saw all three original Star Wars films back-to-back in a special showing in 1994 and is also where Nathan and I had our first date.  We saw a horrible movie with Alicia Silverstone and Jeff Goldblum.  During one scene in which a couple of characters were kissing, Nathan leaned over to me and said, “I’ve forgotten how do do that.  Can you show me how?”  Oh yeah, he was smooth.  Why do you think I married him?

I remember the anticipation I would feel as I paid for my ticket and presented it to the usher to tear in half.  I remember disliking Theater 1, the oldest and largest of their 20 screens, because the seats were narrower than those in the newer part of the theater.  I remember how the sun would blind me as I stepped out of the cool theater and into a warm summer afternoon.  I remember the best places to park there and which concession counters offered the frozen Mountain Dews.

Studio 28 is closing their doors on November 23rd.  My birthday.  I told Nathan I’d like to go to one more movie there.  I honestly don’t know how I’m going to fit in the time to see a movie right now, but I’m really sorry to see the place go and would like to be able to say goodbye.  I don’t think Hallmark makes a card for an occasion like this.

Read Full Post »