A Wedding and a Funeral

After our exciting plane adventure is it any wonder that I got a cold. I have been fighting a cold all week long. It started off as a sore throat and now it is a weird cough.

I was ready to put in the towel and going on a flying hiatus when I got some bad news from home. My great aunt Margaret passed away last Thursday. Aunt Margaret was like a grandma to me.

Here are a few of my favorite things about Aunt Margaret:

She would always say, "Well hell." It was such a classy and poignant way to curse.

She had the scariest statue in her basement, seriously I had to run past that thing. I think it was some Thai cock but it looked like a monster.

She had the best parties! There was always lots of food, warm home, and good times. My favorite was that crab salad with the Parmesan crackers. We still make the grapefruit crab salad but those crackers were dynamite.

No guy was good enough for me. Aunt Margaret was pretty much the ONLY member of my family who encouraged me to wait to get married until I was older. As a result I found the most wonderful husband, served a mission, and got a graduate degree. She was always very protective and loving of us.

She used to take me school shopping every year. She would always let us spend money at ZCMI and "just put it on my card."

She had really cool coats. Seriously, even in her 90s she was wearing snake skin and fur. Who does that? And she got away with it.

She loved us all and was never afraid to speak her mind. Just like a grandma, she would let you know if she thought something needed improvement. And you always knew it was her way of caring.

She was stubborn all her life and never failed to quit caring about her family. She is already missed.

Last weekend I went to Nancy and Robert's wedding. It was a beautiful wedding. The DJ was a good old fashioned ipod and it made my night, even with the cold.

Northwest vs. Southwest

This past weekend we went to Santa Fe for a wedding. My high school friend Heather Novak got married in Santa Fe. It was a beautiful wedding and Santa Fe is an amazing city. We were there for some festival and it was a great time of year to be there.

Seth at the festival.

Sights of Santa Fe

The wedding was beautiful and we had a lot of fun. We ended up leaving around midnight only to wake up to a nightmare...

We caught our flight on Northwest Airlines at 7 am. This meant we had been up since 5 getting five hours of sleep. We sat in our plane for an hour while they fixed the intercom system. Once we got to Minneapolis they ended up switching planes. We sat on that plane for three hours until they finally canceled our flight. After two hours they came to us with a packet which included:new itinerary, hotel room, $13 for dinner, and $35 off a $200 ticket with Northwest. Totally insult to injury.

We were tired and dirty and just wanted to be comfortable. The hotel thet they put us in could have been charged by the hour. It was dirty, unclean, unsafe and the innkeeper reminded me of a weasel. I started tearing and eventually had a complete crying meltdown. We decided this was unacceptable and had the weasel call us a cab. We went to a Marriott and got to see Mall of America for two minutes before it closed. Yes, I have now seen the biggest mall in America.

As far as I can tell the the Mall of America is just like any other mall except it has a water park, aquarium and amusement park. I found the Minnesotans to be a sturdy stock. It was strange because I looked around and noticed that a good part of my genetic material would feel right at home there. They were tall and blondish. I was commenting to Seth about this and pointing to a Heidi-esque looking woman when I heard her tell the server that she was from Utah. Even so, I saw a lot of Sunny looking folks.

They lost our luggage the next day. It was terrible and today I have a cold. I shake my fist at Northwest.

Screwed and tattooed or How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Really Blame Everything on Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart is the Devil by Doug Boehm
Sorry it has taken me so long to post. So much has happened. First, everyone can send their congratulations and checks payable to Seth the Barrister. It is true, Seth is now an official member of the New York State Bar. Even though he passed the bar over two years ago it took him a while to actually fill out the paper work, go through the background check, and get to New York City to have some people interview him and then take an oath in a courtroom.

I didn't go because we decided we would save up our days off to do something exciting for Christmas but I felt like a dirty Marilyn hiding at home instead of a Jackie by his side. He didn't seem to mind, but I wish I could have gone. The point is, Seth can now file any legal action in the state of New York, so watch out suckas.

I am a little bit OCD about certain things: checking my email, turning off lights (although my dad would beg to differ), and checking my bank accounts. When I check my bank account there is hardly ever any surprises but today I found a big surprise. Several $500 charges to Super Wal-Mart. For those who don't know me you need to know that I hate Wal-Mart. Not for ethical reasons but because it is dirty and gross and I feel poor every time I shop there. I feel like I should just leave my shoes at the front and put on show flip flops, a shirt that shows my gut, shorts that are tight and my hair tightly tugged at the top of my head with wisps covering the my freshly bronzed face from the sample bronzer in the cosmetic aisle. As far as I am concerned, it isn't the abuse of their workers, or the squelching of unions that I have a problem with: it is the filth of the store, the dim lights, and the people. The last time I went to Wal-Mart I stepped in gum indoors. It pushed me over the ledge and I won't go back.

When I noticed that there were multiple $500 charges on my bank account I panicked. Had Seth gone crazy and decided to buy a frenzy of goods at discount prices? I immediately called and found him at work. It was fraud. My check card had been stolen and used, and used at Wal-Mart. I felt violated and taken advantage of, and Wal-Mart?!?! They had maxed out our checking account. We immediately called the bank and found out that the charges were pre-authorizations and not actual postings. However, we cannot dispute the charges until they hit our account and we can't stop the pre-authorizations from happening. I was given the visa number to credit our account once the charges hit but until they do I have just sit back. The most terrible thing of all is we have checks out there that will be cashed. Depending on when these charges hit we are stuck. Immediately I went to my trusty savings account to transfer funds, but it takes a while for the savings to get to our checking. To top it off, we are going to Santa Fe, NM tomorrow for a wedding. Wish us luck, I hope we don't starve.

Here is the real icing on the cake...the person that used my card lives in my old apartment. I never got a renewal card and it expires this month. They had my old address at the bank (even though we changed it a year ago). When I told the bank who committed the crime they didn't care, visa cared even less. I was told to call the police. I told them and they said I had to get to a police station and file a report in Arlington....sigh....there is no justice.

Anyhow, wish us luck on getting all of our money back. Next post will have Santa Fe pics.