Mr. Pushy

YOU MUST BUY IT ALL

Still no new laptop.  The afternoon reboot took 15 tries before our old laptop came on.  Linda did go this morning to pick up our new one, but of course... the model she wanted was out of stock. It will be shipped from the warehouse tomorrow to the store and she will go get it there.  Every time Linda buys a big purchase item, she always tries to get them to throw some extras in AFTER she closes the deal.  Today, the laptop was marked $150 higher in the location she went to than the same exact store one town over where she first saw it yesterday.  What?  The manager said he forgot to put the sale sticker on it.  Then, Mr. Pushy Sales Guy tried to sell her a bunch of extras, at least 10x over.  Even when she said NO, he never stopped trying to sell the extra warranty, set up, software, leather bag and virus protection kit.  NO, NO, NO she kept saying.  At one point, he actually rang up the virus software on her ticket.  NO!  She said if he wanted her to have extra things, he had to give it to her for free, she wasn't paying one cent more than the lowest price she saw advertised.  He finally got the hint.  Her prizes:  a USB storage thingy and a 30 pack of AA batteries... oh, and another $50 off the computer as his gift to her. 

First Try

I have to chew quick with one eye on the lookout

Of course now that Linda has decided a laptop won't totally break our budget and has picked out the model she wants, this morning our old broken laptop turned on the very first time she tried.  It's like when your car is making a crazy grinding sound and it stops the second the mechanic looks at it.   Or when your chewing your favorite bone and another annoying dog in the house takes it from you.  (OK, maybe it's not the same but I still hate when that happens to me.)  She is still going to go get it this morning since she'll need a lot of help getting it set up, hooked up, installed and all the other techie things she does not know how to do.  If she waits, it will have to be all the way until next Tuesday when its the "Geek" Walker's turn again. 

Squashiflower

Carrot Cake is healthy for dogs too, right?

Linda is hoping she is not coming down with some bug.  Nothing aches, hurts or feels sickly, but she is just so tired.  It's only 8:20 and she is going to bed.  Getting though her 4 classes today was super hard and she's not had any appetite.  Since she knows better than to go a full day without eating, she made herself a real dinner of poached flounder and mashed squashiflower. (That's cooked butternut squash (thanks Erica!) combined with cauliflower all smashed up in the food processor... it's delicious.)  Even her constant craving for a giant slab of carrot cake has been absent today.  She is planning on either baking one or buying one for the Christmas Eve party at Sarah and Taylor's.  She'll eat the slice there and then leave the cake so she does not finish it off when she gets home.  I guess the best thing to do when you just feel tired is to sleep and believe for the best come morning.  She has a ton of stuff to do:  laptop purchasing; cleaning the house; wrapping presents; studying, bill paying and more... all before her afternoon/evening classes.  Oh, and take us for a long walk since she totally flaked out and did not take us today. 

Definitely NICE

Linda did some laptop shopping today between classes.  She found what might work and after she got some recommendations from friends. She will probably buy a 15" Samsung with an Intel Core i7 processor.  That means zippo to me, but she said it will be 10x faster than our current laptop and have more storage space.   It took hours of turning it off and on to get the laptop to work this last time, so she needs to replace it ASAP. Her "office" is at home and she does all her work stuff from her laptop.  (Not to mention, it would be so sad not to post on my blog!!)  She can use the iPhone to check email and FB, but she can't design her brochures or posters on the phone.  A new laptop just in the nick of time.  Merry Christmas to me!

Free Wanda

But I am a deer!

I'm not sure if this is a happy ending for Wanda the baby cow who is back in her barn.  Five months ago, Wanda escaped from her farm in Connecticut.   She'd been on the lam living in some woods (ironically the same exact woods that people used to hide their cattle during the Revolutionary War.)  A group of people have been leaving food out for the wandering baby since July, and Wanda would come every day to eat.  When  they would get close to capturing her, she would flee.  The baby cow was adopted by a herd of deer and when the folks would sneak up to rope her, the deer would hear them coming and stamp their feet to warn her!  Finally, the men built a pen around her food bowl and was able to trap her when she came in to eat.  Poor Wanda bloodied up her face trying to escape.  I feel sorry for the deer who will miss her dearly.  I feel even sorrier for Wanda who will probably end up between two pieces of bun and topped with ketchup.  (This isn't Wanda.  The only picture I could find of her was the one where her face was all bloodied up. I refuse to post that.)

My Debut as Toto

Next Sunday night is my film debut as Toto in the Wizard of Oz.  Linda is so excited!  All she saw was the actually filming, and not the finished product.  Scenes are shot all out of order and on something called a Blue (or Green?) screen so you don't get to see any backgrounds.  I'm sure Linda will be beaming with pride while she watches Tier and I perform.  There will be other films shown too that Tier stars in.   I don't know much about them, but one was shot at a farm, another they shot in summer dresses/shorts when it was in the low 30's and I'm sure at least once, Tier will do her British or Australian accent. 

Also, this might be the last post until Linda gets a new computer.  It was amazing the laptop even came on this morning.  Last night it took a dozen reboots for it to come on.  This morning there wasn't any sounds from the hard drive, totally dead when she pushed the button. So what do you do when electronics don't work?  She unplugged it, shut the top and shook it.  Guess what?  It came on first try!!

You just can't shake it too hard

Next Week

It didn't work out tonight to do the annual family Christmas photos.  Linda was really disappointed, but Taylor suggested next Sunday.  She was able to take a few shots though of Tier.  She always hates standing next to her in pictures because Tier is so beautiful and Linda feels washed-out and bland.  Look at Tier and Em together!  So beautiful.