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.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
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. :)
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. :)
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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 . . .
Friday, March 20, 2009
Our best eats in Thailand
In no particular order this time . . .
An incredible Italian dinner in Bo Phut, Ko Samui, a little corner of the island that was almost Mediterranean, except for the Irish and British pubs dotted around the place. Our cute little bungalow across the street was decorated with fresh orchids everywhere and the French owner helped me practice my super rusty French. All the restaurants in this area of Ko Samui were pretty darn amazing. The curries we had at the Thai place down the street was probably the best curries of the trip -- thick and creamy, not skimping on the coconut milk like a lot of places we went to.
A little hut near Chiang Dao. We were starving. I was po'd about Gregg's comments related to my driving (before the accident) and he decided to pull over at this little shack to eat. The lady who owned the place didn't speak any English and just telling her what we wanted to eat (something veggie for me) was an adventure in itself. She finally came out with plates of rice and mostly just sauteed veggies (Gregg's with chicken, mine without). And seriously it was the best meal ever. Who could have thought something so simple could be so delicious. The lady was so cute, too. She got a huge kick out of me asking "how much" in Thai at the end of the meal.
The Saravana Bhavan -- total trademark rip off a well known Indian restuarant. Not at all the same or as good as the real thing. But not a bad South Indian meal. They're lucky though that I'm not an international patent attorney.
The Night Market in Krabi as we were tooling around, waiting for our flight. The stalls weren't the most inviting -- a sewer paralled the line of stalls on the street. Tables were squished together. Used plates seemed to be piled up in bins in corners. So its not like they'll be winning any sanitation awards anytime soon. But the man sitting next to us (old dude from Pennsylvania who apparently came to Krabi every year when it was too cold to be at home) swore by their tofu, and I gotta agree. I've never had tofu like that before, fresh and soft, I swear they must have made it right there.
An incredible Italian dinner in Bo Phut, Ko Samui, a little corner of the island that was almost Mediterranean, except for the Irish and British pubs dotted around the place. Our cute little bungalow across the street was decorated with fresh orchids everywhere and the French owner helped me practice my super rusty French. All the restaurants in this area of Ko Samui were pretty darn amazing. The curries we had at the Thai place down the street was probably the best curries of the trip -- thick and creamy, not skimping on the coconut milk like a lot of places we went to.
A little hut near Chiang Dao. We were starving. I was po'd about Gregg's comments related to my driving (before the accident) and he decided to pull over at this little shack to eat. The lady who owned the place didn't speak any English and just telling her what we wanted to eat (something veggie for me) was an adventure in itself. She finally came out with plates of rice and mostly just sauteed veggies (Gregg's with chicken, mine without). And seriously it was the best meal ever. Who could have thought something so simple could be so delicious. The lady was so cute, too. She got a huge kick out of me asking "how much" in Thai at the end of the meal.
The Saravana Bhavan -- total trademark rip off a well known Indian restuarant. Not at all the same or as good as the real thing. But not a bad South Indian meal. They're lucky though that I'm not an international patent attorney.
The Sunday Walking street in Chiang Mai where Gregg and I each got an order of pad thai and some spring rolls, all for under $1. A fried banana we picked up a little later on as we were walking through the stalls finished out the meal.
The Night Market in Krabi as we were tooling around, waiting for our flight. The stalls weren't the most inviting -- a sewer paralled the line of stalls on the street. Tables were squished together. Used plates seemed to be piled up in bins in corners. So its not like they'll be winning any sanitation awards anytime soon. But the man sitting next to us (old dude from Pennsylvania who apparently came to Krabi every year when it was too cold to be at home) swore by their tofu, and I gotta agree. I've never had tofu like that before, fresh and soft, I swear they must have made it right there.
Yellow curry at a stall in Ko Phi Phi -- the owner brought out pictures of the tsunami devastation while we waited for our food. Apparently he himself had been a victim and had been rescued by some guy who also later lent him the money to start the cafe.
More Thailand -- this time, the bottom 6
The worst:
2) Wrecking the rental car in Chiang Mai -- Gregg had been complaining about my driving all day, and I was in a pissy mood and SO mad at him, and only driving at all to show him that I could. Well it turns out his fear of me having no depth perception on my left side proved to be founded, damn him. Almost as soon as we left the hotel that evening, a old man decided to stop in front of me on the street (I think to get some oranges), right there in the lane. I waited for a gap in traffic to slide over to the next lane, swung out when I had a quick second and didn't swing out far enough on the left. Rear ended the car in front of me with my left side as I was accelerating into traffic. That made for an awesome evening. Never again will I attempt to drive in traffic in a country that drives on the opposite side of the street. To make matters worse, although we got the insurance and only ended up paying the deductible (about $140 -- not bad for wrecking BOTH cars), we could have gotten even mor coverage and walked away just paying like $12. Damn.
Me driving
Gregg freaking
The other guy's car
Our rental car -- we couldn't even open the passenger side door.
1) The heat.
Dude, it was SO hot that we never saw a dog in the daytime that was actually walking around.
a hat, sunglasses, and a drink and I was still hot.
6) Not speaking the language. I hate to say it, but after 2 and a half weeks of it, I was happy to come home and be able to communicate freely. Especially since our last communication fiasco before leaving the country involved us fighting with a cab driver in Bangkok who came to the address our hotel was supposed to be at but was somehow convinced we were at the wrong place, so he drove us around town for another half hour while the meter kept climbing. Dude, why won't the language phrase books teach you how to say "it was the first damn place you stopped at! Where the hell are we going now?"
5) Good lord -- can there be any more temples, how many can we visit in one trip?
4) Freaking out near the top of the viewpoint in Railay, not wanting to make the steepish looking climb down from there to the lagoon, then seeing these little kids walk past you, practically skipping down the cliff. And THEN, conquering my fear long enough to head down anyway, only to discover that the next leg was a sheer vertical drop down. Needless to say, only Gregg got to actually check out the lagoon.
Not sure if this picture really shows how crazy scary this climb up to the Railay viewpoint was. And lucky me, I was in a skirt and flip flops!!
4) Freaking out near the top of the viewpoint in Railay, not wanting to make the steepish looking climb down from there to the lagoon, then seeing these little kids walk past you, practically skipping down the cliff. And THEN, conquering my fear long enough to head down anyway, only to discover that the next leg was a sheer vertical drop down. Needless to say, only Gregg got to actually check out the lagoon.
Not sure if this picture really shows how crazy scary this climb up to the Railay viewpoint was. And lucky me, I was in a skirt and flip flops!!
3) A long trip from Ko Samui to Railay. The travel agent assured us we would be in Krabi by 1 pm, well before the last ferry left Krabi for the island of Railay. I guess he wasn't that far off, if you think 1pm and 6:30 pm are at all close. The trip involved a mini bus from our bungalow in Ko Samui to the ferry port, a ferry from there to the mainland, a van from the port to a connecting travel agency (where the sole purpose seemed to be to get us to buy lunch), a tuk tuk to the bus station, an hour and half wait on the bus (just sitting there, long after it was supposed to have taken off), then a painful bus ride to Krabi that involved at least one stop every 5 minutes, putting us at Krabi at 6:30 pm. Believe me, if there had been a flight between the 2 places, we would have taken it. What made it worse was that the last ferry to Railay leaves at 6 and the bus station is no where close to the ferry port anyway. But of course we had hotel reservations in Railay, that we had already paid for online. So we let ourselves get worked over for the travel charges and just made our way to Railay anyway. The only silver lining was that we got a pick up from the hotel to get to the island and for some reason they never actually charged us though they quoted something outrageous initially. So ha, take that!
2) Wrecking the rental car in Chiang Mai -- Gregg had been complaining about my driving all day, and I was in a pissy mood and SO mad at him, and only driving at all to show him that I could. Well it turns out his fear of me having no depth perception on my left side proved to be founded, damn him. Almost as soon as we left the hotel that evening, a old man decided to stop in front of me on the street (I think to get some oranges), right there in the lane. I waited for a gap in traffic to slide over to the next lane, swung out when I had a quick second and didn't swing out far enough on the left. Rear ended the car in front of me with my left side as I was accelerating into traffic. That made for an awesome evening. Never again will I attempt to drive in traffic in a country that drives on the opposite side of the street. To make matters worse, although we got the insurance and only ended up paying the deductible (about $140 -- not bad for wrecking BOTH cars), we could have gotten even mor coverage and walked away just paying like $12. Damn.
Me driving
Gregg freaking
The other guy's car
Our rental car -- we couldn't even open the passenger side door.
1) The heat.
Dude, it was SO hot that we never saw a dog in the daytime that was actually walking around.
a hat, sunglasses, and a drink and I was still hot.
Thailand Top 6
The best:
6) Flying business class on the way out! No such luck on the way back, but we did discover that the Tokyo airport has rooms you can rent by the hour to relax and refresh yourself while traveling. So now, we can officially say we've rented a room by the hour before.
Check me out at the red carpet lounge, enjoying a beer. :)
5) Amazing temple architecture -- my parents would have been so proud that I was going to temple so regularly, even if they were Buddhist ones.
4) Wildlife adventures: The elephant conservation camp at Chiang Dao where we spent the morning watching the elephants bathe, do tricks and then got to ride one. The Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi that almost seems to be a tourist farce at first. You pay the ridiculous entrance fee and are then led one by one for photo opportunities with chained tigers too hot and lazy to be threatening. So many of the guides speak English that you might as well be at Marine World or Disney Land. But then you get through the obligatory tourist element and head up the canyon to see little cubs playing in the water and its pretty darn cute.
Elephants Getting Bathed
Apparently we got the PG version of this -- Gregg's friend said he had seen an elephant draw a pic of 2 elephants humping each other.
.
The somewhat scary view from the top of an elephant.
Tourist trap . . . ?
Tiger Cubs!
Near Ko Samui
While putt-putting through Ko Samui
The view from above Railay
2) Thai massage -- this shiatsu-like massage where your fully clothed body is twisted, stretched and pummeled so hard that it hurts but you come out feeling refreshed and kind of like you've had a yoga workout. We had our first at the Sunday Walking Street in Chiang Mai about a week into the the trip and after that, couldn't stop getting them. And at about $5 an hour, there was really no reason not to get them pretty much every day.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
More doggie news
All right, my dog Mia is totally completely nuts. She loves going to her vet. I mean, LOVES it. More than going for walks probably and almost as much as eating (though a trip to the vet almost always includes treats, so . . . ). This is the same vet that's knocked her out and dug into her hips (twice) to try to fix her up. The same vet who pokes and prods her every time we go. The same vet who jostled around her hip joint yesterday to show me how its so loose that you can grind her femur into her pelvic bone and actually feel the bone on bone. Ouch! But there she was, as excited as can be. She lit up in the car when she realized where we were. She practically dragged me into the office and then jumped onto the reception desk, bad hips and all. She then raced straight towards the scale so she could be weighed and stayed until I told her to get off. In the waiting room, she immediately started sniffing the cupboard where the treats are hidden. Then waited, tail wagging, for the vet to come in. I don't know what kind of voodoo operation they're running over there, but it works.
And whatever it is, it seems to work on me too. Or maybe Mia's excitement is contagious. I kinda love going myself. If he weren't all the way out in Santa Cruz, I'd be taking all our dogs there. Everyone there is super nice. And the vet is awesome. Yesterday, during our check up, he cleaned my rings. That's right, you heard me -- its a one stop shop they got over there. While we talked, he cleaned my wedding/engagement rings! It probably would have been a 10 minute appt, but we shot the breeze for 45. They always throw little discounts my way without me asking. And their customer service can't be beat. Granted we've paid them thousands of dollars, but the money does seem to go a little further than at most vets.
Unfortunately, despite all their services, Mia's hips aren't a 100%, though they've improved drastically. On the right, she's hopping around like its perfectly fine. The left is better but not completely. The left is also the hip where the joint is completely disjointed. So I guess it was worse off to begin with. We decided for now, the best option is to just wait and see how it goes, see if exercise and time help. She's bearing weight on both sides now -- and she's jumping on vet desks -- so surgery might be overkill at the moment. I've been given the OK to exercise her normally and see how she does, so I guess I'll slowly start lengthening our walks and taking her back to the dog park.
In other news, Bandit also had her vet appointment yesterday. Her vet is not nearly as cool. Well, she could be but since the only time we've seen her is at the initial appointment, the most I can say is that her nurse seems nice. At one of our visits, I waited in the waiting room while the doc entered notes into the system that the receptionist later read to me. I know Bandit doesn't enjoy her visits as much, though Bandit's no fool. No amount of treats will trick her into liking the poking and prodding. But she has been doing a lot better now that she's getting meds for Cushing's (which are super expensive but beat peeing in the house any day of the week). I just got the call too that her blood work looks awesome and that her med dosage levels are perfect. So hopefully, it'll be smooth sailing from here on out.
What I find somewhat curious is that Mia's vet and Bandit's vet went to school together and are actually good friends. No that's not entirely true, both seem pretty brilliant as far as I'm concerned. And the doc was extremely nice on the phone just now when she called with Bandit's test results. But definitely their interaction with patients is quite a bit different.
And whatever it is, it seems to work on me too. Or maybe Mia's excitement is contagious. I kinda love going myself. If he weren't all the way out in Santa Cruz, I'd be taking all our dogs there. Everyone there is super nice. And the vet is awesome. Yesterday, during our check up, he cleaned my rings. That's right, you heard me -- its a one stop shop they got over there. While we talked, he cleaned my wedding/engagement rings! It probably would have been a 10 minute appt, but we shot the breeze for 45. They always throw little discounts my way without me asking. And their customer service can't be beat. Granted we've paid them thousands of dollars, but the money does seem to go a little further than at most vets.
Unfortunately, despite all their services, Mia's hips aren't a 100%, though they've improved drastically. On the right, she's hopping around like its perfectly fine. The left is better but not completely. The left is also the hip where the joint is completely disjointed. So I guess it was worse off to begin with. We decided for now, the best option is to just wait and see how it goes, see if exercise and time help. She's bearing weight on both sides now -- and she's jumping on vet desks -- so surgery might be overkill at the moment. I've been given the OK to exercise her normally and see how she does, so I guess I'll slowly start lengthening our walks and taking her back to the dog park.
In other news, Bandit also had her vet appointment yesterday. Her vet is not nearly as cool. Well, she could be but since the only time we've seen her is at the initial appointment, the most I can say is that her nurse seems nice. At one of our visits, I waited in the waiting room while the doc entered notes into the system that the receptionist later read to me. I know Bandit doesn't enjoy her visits as much, though Bandit's no fool. No amount of treats will trick her into liking the poking and prodding. But she has been doing a lot better now that she's getting meds for Cushing's (which are super expensive but beat peeing in the house any day of the week). I just got the call too that her blood work looks awesome and that her med dosage levels are perfect. So hopefully, it'll be smooth sailing from here on out.
What I find somewhat curious is that Mia's vet and Bandit's vet went to school together and are actually good friends. No that's not entirely true, both seem pretty brilliant as far as I'm concerned. And the doc was extremely nice on the phone just now when she called with Bandit's test results. But definitely their interaction with patients is quite a bit different.
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