...And I'm back! - the novel

So the past few weeks have been very eventful. First, I heard my Grandpa's health had deteriorated substantially, so I bought a couple tickets for myself and Apollo and we went up to Oregon to visit him. While we were visiting, he passed away. It was pretty emotional so I'll spare you the details.

Apollo and I didn't go to the funeral since I needed to get back to work. But it was more important that I see him in person and get to have some time to visit so I'm ok with that

The day we were supposed to fly out it snowed and all the major highways were closed due to white out, landslides or fallen tree's. After we got over the shock and disappointment of missing our flight, we went outside and enjoyed the scenery. It was absolutely beautiful! Once I can find my camera, I'll upload some photos.

That night we learned there was another storm coming in and since Aimee had to take a class the next day Or Else, we hopped in her Corolla and drove 10mph down Indian Creek Road and then took a long route through Some Other Town to get to Aimee's place. I'm guessing it was about a five hour drive. We spent the night and the next day managed to get a flight, at an additional fee, to San Diego. Sure, it took over five hours to get home (let's not forget the six hour lay over we had in LA on our way up) but at least we were home!

But when we got home we were in for a big surprise. See, we were supposed to get new carpet on the 8th and when our landlord heard about the storm, he started moving things out of the living room into the dining room. This made us nervous just due to the whole invasion of privacy thing, but we assured him we'd be home in time to clear everything else out. Well, when we got home at 12:30AM on the 8th, we walked in to discover everything had been moved into our dining room and on the patio minus our mattress and cushion-less couch. We couldn't find any blankets (everything was in black garbage bags on the patio) but made do with a sheet. The cats were in shock but happy to see us.

I worked the next day from Starbucks since I didn't have any clean clothes other than those I had worn in the snow and on the plane. I learned some bad news from Faythe and I can't even comfort her since I live so far away. The carpet was installed (apparently our other carpet was rotting from the bottom up) and we've started going through everything in boxes in bags. Happily, we we have consequently thrown out two bags of clothes and more.

Then I noticed something weird. The fish tank is hidden partially behind a dresser, cat tree, TV and some boxes. The light was on and everything seemed to be functioning normally, but I couldn't see any fish swimming. So I moved a box out of the way and saw all but one fish were dead! Their little fishy bodies were draped all over the bottom. I couldn't figure out what happened and thought maybe our landlord had added some city water straight from the tap after moving it. But then, I opened the lid and STEAM CAME OUT! That's right, STEAM!! We tried to turn down the thermostat but it seems to be stuck permanently on high. I'm guessing the thermostat sustained some damage while it was moved by my landlord.

SO. It appears my fish were boiled alive. One seems to have survived, I guess his tolerance to extremely high temperature is a bit higher then all the other fish. He's swimming around right now and I'm sure whatever brain cells he had have seriously been depleted. We'll see how he reacts when we buy him a buddy.

Meanwhile, we lost cable and Internet connection, possibly related to the landlord moving things around. When the cable guy came out to fix it, he left without fixing the Internet problem. After a series of phone calls and appointments that were missed by my cable company, and yet even more phone calls involving myself behaving highly inappropriate and consequently receiving a partial credit towards my account, they finally showed up today and fixed the problem. It seems the Internet problem was caused by the first cable guy failing to remove a protective piece of plastic from the cable cord.

Well, at least now I have access to my class assignments, websites I need to access to complete projects and I can work from home again. And no, Cox Cable, I am not going to upgrade to a business plan just so I can get immediate technical support and yet again pay for something I am not receiving. And yes, I work in customer support and I am on to your games of putting me on hold for 15 minutes when I ask for a supervisor and really, is that a supervisor or a teammate that has worked there longer and has more experience in calming down customers?

Anyway, now I have the blues.