Hit by a car, busted by Siri, abominable customer service = you have to laugh

So today has been slightly challenging, and I have a bitchin' headache. For starters, it feels like we're living on the sun's surface here in DC. It is mofo hot, and you know me and my Louisiana blood: I can stand a lot of hot weather. But the past few days of 90s and skeeters are bringing me down. Did y'all see that recent study showing that increased temperatures caused by climate change are likely to fuel violence in those countries most affected? I get that, man. When it's SO hot for SO long, people feel stretched, their fuses are shorter. Add challenging elements like poverty or unstable electricity provision and you've got an even greater potential for trouble. In any case, after taking Jack to have his palate expander installed -he looks part droid and loves every bit of it; he even loved getting the thing put in; I have to crank it for the next 14 days- I submitted a simple request to Mpix, the online service I always use when I print photographs, for a receipt that showed I'd paid in full. Their email receipts show the charge but not a zero balance, as I'm submitting this receipt to school for reimbursement, I need one that demonstrates proof of payment. My first reply from DanR was a copy of the receipt I already have. I wrote him back, explained the situation and asked for a more complete receipt.

DanR: "Your credit card was charged for the entire order or you would have no way to submit the order."

Me: "I understand, Dan. But the reimbursements aren't usually accepted if the receipt doesn't clearly show a zero balance or PAID. This email receipt does neither. Is there any way you can simply add the word paid to the bottom of my receipt?"

DanR: "Have you taken your bank statement to your school to show them the charges?"

Me, feeling unusually sassy: "You're kidding me, right? This is a pretty basic request. I'll be happy to speak to someone else about this of you can pass me along."

I have since received no response nor can I locate a phone number anywhere on the Mpix site.

Seriously?

Whilst dealing with DanR, I got into my car to go pick up the boys. About 12 feet from my house, a ponytail in a minivan runs into me. WHAM!

Really?

I look into my rear-view and see her flapping her arms like an insane, gesticulating bird. Yes, chacha, I understand that was probably an accident, but still. I pull over, she pulls over, I get out, she leans out of her window, and sings "I'm sure I didn't hit you hard." I was so mad at DanR that I just yelled, "be careful for pete's sakes," got back in my car, my phone dropped into an open cup of water, that managed to activate Siri just as I said "stupid b&*()*^@*&)" (because yes, road rage is a real vice of mine and DanR and Ponytail were throwing me challenges on a day I didn't need them) and Siri says, "that doesn't sound good."

"Oh my god, I've been called out by Siri," I thought and had to chuckle.

As soon as we returned home, I put a bottle of white in the fridge for this evening and planted the kids in front of Busytown Mysteries. We've gotta be somewhere at 5, and when we get home around 6:15, I am puttin' my feet up!

Em-i-lis featured on BlogHer

I'm flattered to have been a featured post on BlogHer today despite it taking the FBI rounding up my sons to do so. ;)

Drosophila melanogaster, cardamomy chicken

One of the few things I learned in high school  that I remember with vivid clarity is the scientific name for fruit flies: Drosophila melanogaster. I wish I remembered something more glamorous or useful but alas, the formal name for these pestilential, red-eyed, breed-like-rabbits bugs remains perhaps the most exact academic memory I have from A.M. Barbe High. The tragedy of that is another story, but for now, let's just say we're under siege from another outbreak of fly repro in our kitchen. They are such useless creatures, so irritating in every way. In Biology II, I did a study on them in which their food source was cow poop. Ah me; just think about a gallon-size pickled jar full of water and manure just stewing away in a second floor lab of a muggy high school building in southwest Louisiana. They ate as if at a feast, I refilled the poop chunks when their levels dipped precipitously and then I studied these buggers. What about them, I neither know nor can remember. And so we're back to the moral of the story: the moniker, Drosophila melanogaster, is possibly my truest intellectual take-away from four years of ugh.

That and typing.

Typing is infinitely more useful these days than knowing a Latin name for a dumb fly. In fact, maybe Ms. Ezell was on to something when she taught aerobics and typing: one will keep you young and the other will make your every day just a bit more efficient. Food for thought.

I also made a delightfully good and flavorful dinner for T and me tonight: cardamom caramelized onions, crispy rice and cardamom-yogurt marinated and pan-roasted chicken. Seriously satisfying and if there were leftovers they'd be great.