FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER!

How many times in the past three weeks have I left my house without my purse?

A bunch of times.

This never happens, except for the fact that I keep the purse in the kitchen, and right now I don’t have a kitchen.  It’s a $250 dollar ticket if I get stopped and have no driver’s license on me.

I need a battery. Packed away.

I need a Band-aid. Packed away.

I need that tiny little screwdriver to fix my glasses. Packed away.

I’m feeding the dogs in the living room.  I’m watering the kitchen plants in the bathroom. I’m assembling food in the bedroom. The ants have found my microwave and the dirty spoon on top of it.

I have to hand-carry my chicken bones to the garbage can outside every night. And banana peels. Or else the ants strike again.

I am trying to make the best of it, but when I got back from Monterey yesterday there was a hole in my dining room wall the size of the old window, 8 by 4.  Blustery.  Brrr.

Last night I had the furnace back on and was settled in for a movie.  Noises in the kitchen. An animal found a hole and wanted some of my heat.

The cabinets arrive tomorrow, right in the middle of the atmospheric river, a fancy term for lots of rain. The contractor wanted to fill up my living room with cabinets so I’d have no chairs and no TV access for a week. I said no to that.

The garage needs to be cleared out with Rubbermaid tubs moved outdoors to the side yard. But wait, that’s where they piled up ten extra large garbage bags of attic insulation and parked the old non-working oven/warming drawer/microwave combo.  No one showed up today to put back the insulation or to clear out the garage tubs. The cabinets are still coming tomorrow. And I have an appointment with an accountant in the morning to do my sister’s taxes.

Remodeling is stressful, especially when it seems as though I have to act as the general contractor. I guess I won’t worry about it and let the contractor and his helper move stuff in the rain. I can’t move anything with a bad back.

Enough bitching for one day!

On another kitchen–related note, an appliance repair company in Monterey told me their $110.00 service fee would be applied to the repair of my broken oven down there. Then I found out they were going to charge me the $110.00 fee twice plus the $139 part. That’s $359.00 to fix a twenty-year-old oven. I told them to never mind and I’d buy a new one instead, even though I’ve already kissed $110.00 good-bye.

What has happened to integrity with businesses? Why did the appliance guy tell me that and then send me an email and leave a voicemail stating that his fees were standard in the industry? Okay, then why did you tell me something that wasn’t true? I stood there in your shop, and you looked me in the eye and said it.

Not everyone in Monterey is a bazillionaire. I don’t live in Carmel or Pebble Beach. I don’t have money to throw around. I’m lucky that I can scrape up enough money to keep my little beach house.

I just listened to the voicemail. The appliance guy now claims the $110.00 is a diagnostic fee, not what he told me. He did apologize for the confusion but not for the price.

My new oven from Home Depot arrives on Saturday, delivered and installed for $700.00. And it’s not twenty years old.

Woo hoo!

Couldda Wouldda Didda

I guess I bitched some more.