Cmon, people.

Or person, rather. There is someone who apparently thinks she is me, at least as far as my bank is concerned. I once again got an email from my bank saying that I had entered the wrong password three times and so my online account has been shut down until I jump through the hoops to change my password.

Which means I have to find my wallet and then dig out my ATM card and enter that info and give them a bunch of other information --

Don't worry, I do not follow the link from the email, in case it's not legit, but take the long way around of actually typing in the bank's web address --

and then once again set my password and hope I remember it.

I assume it's just some random person who thinks my username is hers, because my user name is not imaginative, and not someone trying to break into my bank account. Which would be a huge effort for little payoff, because this is my secondary account, they could maybe get 700 or 800 bucks at the very most, and we don't have a credit card with this bank.

The part that always makes me go, "umm, sure, but..." is the part where they tell me this message is also in my messages box on the website, which I cannot log into until I read the email and jump through the change the passwords hoops. And then I can access the message that tells me to go do all this shit before I can access that message. Is it me, or does this make no sense at all?

Because really, I have enough emails and messages and things to deal with to not really want to have a message confirming that I had to change my password to access that message.

Right. I know why they send it, I just don't think that they should send the exact same message -- the message on the web site should let you know what happened with the account without telling you how to get back on line. Know what I mean?

I suddenly think that I have accidentally veered back into territory where only people who know me really well will even have a clue as to what the hell I am talking about...

And my family members understood and were amused by my last post. Nice to know that I am still comprehensible to those who HAVE to love me.

Random photo of the day/week/month/millenium/eon...



There are benefits to snow in April. The mountains look all snow-cappy and majestic again.

Still really really tired.

I know this because I was reading a blog of a friend of my son's cousin (my niece, but that is not as convoluted, and because I am reading this blog through this convolution, I convoluted it. Is that convoluted enough for you?)

Any hoo...I was reading this blog written by this kid who is doing a semester abroad in Berlin, and there were photos of these amazing fountains and stuff, that reminded me totally of being in Florence and Rome, man I love Italy, and I thought, "thank God I am not there." Because being in Europe means you have to think and everything is hard. Seriously. That is what I thought about, not all the cool art and how it's so easy to find amazing photographs and how you get really good Italian food, unlike say here, where they don't even have an Olive Garden (not that that is good Italian food, but hey. We don't even have mediocre Italian food. Sorry those of you who love Olive Garden, or Garden Botanika, which is what my family calls it sometimes, because we do wacky things like mix up our names. Seriously. The world would stop dead, start rotating the other direction and centaur ponies would bring each and every one of us a Ben and Jerry's if no one in my family screwed up a name every couple a hours...

Centaur Pony is a Thor thing. Ask him about it. It is way beyond my ability to explain.

What the hell was I talking about? Because I don't think I started out meaning to write about how I am incapable of telling y'all about Thor's centaur ponies...

Right. Olive Garden = Garden Botanika. Which is a lotions and potions* store that doesn't even exist any more. But which we still call Olive Garden sometimes. But not me. Because I don't have a Garden Botanika or an Olive Garden, because I live so far north Santa goes "WT*? Seriously? I have to live way the hell up here because the damn elves are allergic to deciduous trees, but what's your story?"

Further proof I am just tired. This post. Has more tangents than an algebra book. Although I don't know if tangent is even an algebraic thing, but it sounds right.

*"lotions and potions"...shower gel and lotion and stuff. By the time I am eighty, no one outside of my immediate family will understand a thing I say. Guess I better be nice to them, or I will be like that girl that got left behind on the island and by the time anyone found her, everyone else who spoke her language was gone. So it'll be me and some random sad foreign girl in the assisted living center, just jabbering away...

I really feel I should delete all of this and start over, perhaps try to veer into occasional coherence....

So. I was reading this blog, and looking at all these great photos of various awesome and amazing and cool fountains and stuff, and all I could think was that it is really hard to live or travel in Europe, because people insist on speaking their own languages and not becoming EXACTLY like the United States. Although if I were in Berlin, I would totally be going to McDonald's for an eiskaffe, where they brew a cup of really black coffee (because Germans like their coffee like they like their motor oil, strong and black. Right. I DO know that makes no sense, because motor oil is only black at the end, when it needs to be changed.) and put some of that soft serve ice cream in it, so that it sorta melts and it's really good.

I think y'all should feel sorry for the other people at the meeting I have to go to tonight, because I seem to be incapable of staying on track for more than a few words.

Because the universe hates me...

My new adventure begins Tuesday. Tuesday at 1015. That's when Abe gets to see the vet specialists because his right kneecap is now doing the same luxiating thing that his left kneecap did, which required surgery to fix. A luxiating patella. Or at the very least, a something starting with the letter L patella. At least this time I didn't have to feel his kneecap sliding around. Although I am certain I will hear more about bones and shaving and cracking and slicing and gross and stop talking to me about bones and surgery, because that just grosses the hell right outta me.

Because of course I just got our taxes done, and we are getting a really decent refund. Which should nicely cover Abe's next vet bills. I shouldn't complain, I am very happy we have the money to waste on our dog instead of vacation or a new car (the Suburban is 14. And I still haven't fixed the emergency brake release, so that if I accidentally set the parking brake I will have to have the truck towed. Plus I have to get the snow tires removed and the passenger door inside handle replaced, because pretty soon you will have to roll the window down and open the door from the outside. And the leather seats -- which I am certain were a lovely grey leather at some point, are now stained and ripped and slashed in a couple of places. Dogs and old leather seats not an ideal combination.)

Plus I have been driving the Honda whilst Mark is gone, and my IPod connects to it. I have 484 songs at my fingertips. In the Suburban, I am limited to CDs and NPR.

On the other hand, I don't care if the dogs are in the 'Burb, I can throw a dead sawed-up Christmas tree in the back, haul icky recycling or seven kids.

Right I was discussing the dog. He has been limping for a couple of weeks. I was trying to decide if it was just stiffness from his other surgery -- cold mornings in Anchorage are tough on him sometimes -- or if there was something more going on. But he has been tripod dog in the last few days, not putting weight on his right hind leg. So poor Abie is going to go through all that again -- surgery and recovery and limping and being confined and ugh.

There is the great potential for fun drugs for him, though...morphine makes him the calmest and limpest dog I have ever seen. He just lays there, eyes glazed.

So at least I don't have to make a decision about poor Abie based on what we can afford. And I can be very hopeful that surgery will correct things, and he will go back to being cheerful and goofy, although with what seems to me a death wish, considering that he willingly engages in combat with Mojo...