Maybe love just isn't what its cracked up to be

About 10 years ago, I was channel surfing on a Sat night (cuz I was cool like that) and stumbled on a quirky little show called Cupid. And fell in love. It was the first show I can really remember being completely addicted to (well, I guess other than ER but who wasn't addicted to ER at some point or another). I'd avoid going out on Sat nights just because of it . . . obviously I was giving up quite the social life. And I finally even bought a VCR(!) so that I wouldn't miss any episodes. Anyway, the show was about a guy who believed he was Cupid, sent down from Mount Olympus after angering Zeus. I wondered then, and I wonder now, why the Roman god Cupid would be taking orders from the Greeks, and normally this sort of confusion would keep me from ever enjoying a tv show. But in all other ways, the episodes were perfect, so I let it slide.

Cupid was banished to live as a mortal until he could match up 100 couples and go back home. Or so he said. His shrink, a practical self-help guru, definitely did not believe him. And that was pretty much the show -- "Cupid" trying to match people up and his shrink trying to get him to face reality and figure out who he might be. It was smart, funny, and most of the episodes kind of tore at your heart strings a little. I LOVED it, and critics agreed, but it never seemed to gain much of a fan base, despite its very attractive Sat night time slot. Rob Thomas wrote it, who of course went on to write Veronica Mars. Jerry Piven played Cupid. And basically, it rocked for an entire 10 or 11 episodes and then got canned.

I was so crushed that I even emailed Rob Thomas (and he wrote back!)

Now, I guess ABC decided to give it another go. First episode aired at the end of March. And I wish I could encourage everyone to go check it out so that it makes it this time around. But I think its already floundering. Reviews have been so-so. I finally saw the pilot last night, and I think I can see why. First of all, they've changed the actors!!! Jeremy Piven WAS Cupid, dammit. And the chick that played the shrink (Paula Marshall) was awesome too, I don't know why they didn't bring her back. The two of them had awesome chemistry too, I don't really see it here. They changed the setting -- I think the original took place in Chicago. They changed the theme music. And they changed the episodes entirely. Dude, the show was good for a reason. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Of course, I'm going to stick it out to the bitter end. But I have a feeling that I won't be as disappointed when it fails this time around. And the episodes that I go back and watch over and over again will most definitely be from the first run. NO, they're not still sitting around in VHS tapes. Years ago, when I mentioned how much I loved the show to G (years after it ended, I was STILL thinking about it), he found pirated versions online and downloaded them for me.

Flight Encounters

About a month ago, I went to Oregon to see my folks. After a frustrating drive up, a scenic drive around the SFO airport looking for the parking lot I had reserved a spot at, and an angry bout with my stupid GPS, I missed my flight to Eugene. Fortunately, there was a flight to Portland that had been delayed and still at the airport waiting to depart. I raced aross the airport and called my family to rearrange my ride.

Waiting to board, I called Gregg, as I always do when I feel bitchy and whiny and complained about my morning. I'll admit, it was in a fairly loud voice. Of course my voice is always loud, but turns up a few more notches even when I'm excited, if you can believe it. But I was shocked and annoyed to be shushed by nearby passengers. I of course blame the inherent bitchiness of people waiting to get on an airplane that's running over an hour late. Because god forbid that it be my fault. First, I got yelled at by a guy kinda near me to go somewhere else. I snapped back, telling him it was a public place and I can do whatever I want. But then this older couple defended the obnoxious jerk :) and I decided it was probably better left alone. So of course, I lowered my voice and continued complaining to G about what an angry group I had around me.

To be honest, I don't think I was that far off about the general short-temperedness of that particular group, and I'm not just saying it to absolve myself of any responsibility. I'm saying it cuz of this conversation I overheard once on the plane. I use the term "overheard" somewhat facetiously as the entire conversation is voices that were far louder than mine had been.

2 pm -- We receive our "please turn off all electronic devices" warning.

2:15 -- We're still on the runway.

Guy (passenger) sitting across the aisle and one seat in front me says to lady sitting in front of me: Is that your phone still on. You need to turn it off.

Lady: I'm turning it off.

Guy: You were supposed to have turned it off 15 minutes ago.

Lady: You know what sir, you need to mind your own business.

Guy: OK.

Lady: You know, how dare you. My granddaughter was just born. And I'm not there to see it. So if I want to look at new baby pictures of her, that's my business. I'm just sitting here minding my own business, so you need to mind your own business.

Silence.

Lady: Do you work for the airline? I don't see your uniform. So why don't you just sit there and mind your own business?

Silence.

Plane starts going down the runway. Lady turns her phone off.

Lady: See, I turned it off.

Woman sitting directly across the aisle from me and I look at each other, trying to keep from laughing

Guy: Good. Thank you.

Lady: I'm a 45yo woman and an adult. I know when to turn my phone off. And I know when to mind my own business. You apparently have no idea what it means to mind your own business. (Approximately another 2 minutes continuing in a similar vein. For a 45yo woman, she has a fairly limited vocabulary, I must say. )

Sadly, the Guy doesn't ask what I so desperately want to know, which is, is her son/daughter who just had this baby at a freakishly young age as ghetto as she is?

Guy (finally): Look, when I'm on the same flight as you, and you're endangering my life by using electronic devices, that is my business.

Lady: How am I endangering your life? I turned off my phone. Could you please explain to me how I endangered your life? You didn't die, did you?

Silence.

One minute later: I just don't understand how me looking at pictures of my baby granddaughter is your business.

Silence. Woman across the aisle and I exchange another glance and smile, particularly one minute later, when the Lady says again: You know, how old are you, sir? Obviously not old enough to know to mind your own business.

Frustrated passenger sitting in front of them: Lady, you've made your point. Can you please just be quiet now?

Lady: opens mouth, starts to say something, thinks better of it, and is finally, thankfully, silent. Woman across the aisle from me and I, realizing that the show is over, settle into our seats.

I'm thankful that some of the people sitting in front of this argument were the same people who had been around when I had been getting chewed out for speaking too loudly. Hopefully, this more recent farce is the encounter they remember from that particular flight.

My going away committee

I came out of the shower this morning to find 2 out of my 3 kids already making themselves quite comfortable on the furniture. Tucker on our bed, Mia in the spare room. Clearly, my leaving has a huge impact on them.

Skunk'd

Oh great -- I thought our dog drama was over for a while. But apparently not.

First, about mid-week or so last week, Bandit started acting funny. She got a little, um, OCD. Kept rubbing her face on the floor, started trying to chew off her paw. Took her 25 minutes to settle down and find a comfortable spot to sleep Wed night. Then she woke up in the middle of the night and again went thru this whole long pacing ritual. Thurs morning, she didn't eat. So I called the vet thinking I could just talk to the doc and she'd had some ideas. But she was pretty concerned and wanted me to come in. So Thurs morning, I found myself calling work and letting them know I had another pet emergency and would be coming in late. Turns out she's ok - probably OD'd on her meds. The meds inhibit her cortisol production, so it makes sense that if inhibited too much, her stress responses could go a little haywire, resulting in some very anxious behavior. The doc gave her a steroid shot and is having her cut her meds for a few days.

THEN on Sat night, we were walking the dogs when Mia got skunked. She couldn't have been more than a few yards ahead of us, so I'm not sure how it happened. But not only did she get sprayed, it seems like there might have been a little scuffle because she came out with a big gash on her cheek and the skunk seemed to have lost big chunks of black fur. Sigh. Thank goodness she's caught up on her vaccines, cuz G says that skunks wandering around in broad daylight like that are most likely rabid.

Last time Mia got skunked (yes, there was another time -- she's apparently dumb and doesn't learn from her mistakes), we used this stuff called Nature's Miracle. It sort of did the trick, I guess, but Mia was still banished to the kitchen for some time. And it was quite a while before the smell completely wore off.

This time, we'd thought we'd try something different, since my friend swore by tomato sauce. Not sure if it was anymore successful. Fortunately, she didn't get skunked as badly this time, so it wasn't as intolerable to begin with. But Mia looks a little orange now, and I don't know if the cross between skunk juice and tomato sauce is any more flattering to her. She did seem to like the remedy a bit better though, since she got to lick the tomato sauce as I slapped it on her. But overall, her mortification was clear.

And for the rest of the weekend, she ran every time I brought the hose out (often, since we were doing a lot of yard work).

Tucker on the other hand, LOVED the tomato sauce. I'm thinking he would have rated the whole skunking as quite successful. Especially after he managed to clean up all the spillage on the bricks AND on Mia. He started licking Mia every chance he got, pretty much capping her misery, I'm sure.

spring buds

Our garden's officially back, hopefully bigger and better this year. During the last week and a half, all of our little seedlings have begun to sprout. Our cherry tree is blossoming. A lot of our chili pepper plants survived the winter and are starting to produce new little peppers now that G has been trimming away the dead leaves. AND more plants are on the way. G ordered a whole bunch of super hot chili plants (he ordered them online while we were on our honeymoon, believe it or not, and was SO disappointed that they wouldn't ship until April) so we should have even more heat than last year. By the time we're through, our crop this year should include: green beans, zucchini, 3 other other varieties of squash, 3 (?) types of basil, bell peppers, 2 types of eggplant, strawberries, couple of types of tomatoes, chives, cilantro, 6-7 varieties of chili peppers (one of which is supposed to be the hottest pepper in the world), and a bunch of flowers.

Its a bit early, and we've had to do a lot of moving around and covering on cold nights. But they're all looking great, so guess they're handling it all just fine.

Coming into money

So about a week ago, I got a letter from an attorney office in Sacramento. I saw the envelope sitting in our mail slot when I came home for lunch. And curious, I took it back to work with me. Apparently, or so the letter said, the state of California owes me approximately $500 that I've never claimed. This firm, it turns out, specializes in retrieving unclaimed property from the state and would be happy to get my money for me for a small fee . . . a "special" rate even, below their regular fee. How lucky am I? I was still laughing about it as I walked into work and told a few people about it, expecting them to get a kick out of it as I did. Not a bad scam, huh? Pretty clever, actually. If I were an old person, I might have totally fallen for it. AND honestly, they just wanted $25, even I was tempted to just send in the money to see what happened.

But to my surprise, one of our admins ' reaction was, "Oh, why would you pay some one? You can get it yourself!" Turns out that there IS such a thing. Apparently, the state of California does have thousands of dollars go unclaimed each year, and they keep track of it. In my case, I'm due about $589, some of it from a paycheck that I never cashed from a temp agency back when I was just out of undergrad. The rest is from an insurance company. I think it must be from an accident I was in like 10 yrs ago. It wasn't my fault but the other guy kept fighting it, and I never got my deductible from his insurance company. I remember the insurance company writing me for like a year and a half, telling me that my claim was still in arbitration. And eventually, I just forgot about it. I guess they lost track of me after they completed arbitration (who even knows when that might have been), and its been waiting for me this whole time.

Not a bad deal, I got to say. Now, all I have to is find all the info they want from me to claim it (a social security card, proof of old addresses, proof that I used to have that insurance, etc). Sounds like there might be a few hoops involved, but I guess $589 isn't a bad payout for a little bit of digging through old records. We'll see. . .

If you're at all curious to know if you're owed any money, you can run a search of your name on their site. Who knows, maybe you've got millions just waiting to be claimed. :)

Unmentionable predicament

Frankly, I find it surprising that a country that so closely guards its women would think that its ok for strange men to be sizing them up for bras and panties . . .