Follow-up
So here's what happened on Wednesday: Mom got up early and called the car loan people (FYI: CapitalOne finance are BASTARDS). They told her that she'd owe them approx. $1500 to get the car back, plus whatever fees the place holding the car would have. Mom broke down sobbing, explaining that she had only about half of that. The guy took pity on her and said that he could tack the repo fees and one payment onto the back of the note, so she'd only have to pay 2 payments to catch up instead of three plus another $300 in fees. She still had to go out and pawn the last of her gold jewelry in order to be able to have enough to do that and afford food and gas for us for the rest of the week until next Friday when she gets paid again. However, the finance company did make her jump through a whole bunch of red tape hoops in order to have the car released: proof of income, proof of insurance that had her name on it (the car insurance on that car is in Sis' name, and so she had to spend a bunch of time on the phone with her insurance company in order to add Mom's name to the policy so we could get the car back), etc. Mom was able to get all that together and had to go over to one of those UPS stores in order to fax all of this to CapitalOne. After 2 hours, they still hadn't released the car. Mom lucked out and had someone nice who went around to all of her coworker's desks to find the faxed info.
Sis was feeling crummy, so I got five minutes notice to get up and dressed so I could go with Mom to darker northeast Houston (the area is named Greenspoint, but Houstonians refer to it as "Gunspoint" for obvious reasons) and get the car. She had to pay $103.35 - in exact change or no dice - to the bastards who stole our car in order to get it back. It turned out that they rifled through the glove compartment, the armrest compartment, and seem to have stolen a statue of the Virgin Mary, a statue of the Goddess, and the rosary from Sis' rearview mirror. RANDOM, but still... If they did steal only the religious things from the car, I must believe that God, and particularly the Holy Mother, will not look kindly on that at all. I hope they are smitten, hit by lightning, etc. All of the contents were just dumped on the passenger seat. What's strange is that the TomTom, and pay-per-use emergency cell phone were still there. They told Mom that it was important that she pick up the car that day, because the lot had the option of putting the car up for auction after only one day. This forced her to have to call in to work - which she HATES to do - because she wasn't willing to take the risk by waiting until Thursday which was her day off.
At least the car is back. My facebook status from Wednesday night: "Today can be summed up in onomatopoeias: blerg, arg, AAAHHH, phew, clonk." Me groggy, annoyed, frustrated and hot and pissed at the bastards at the car place, relieved that we got the car back, crashing on the couch and passing out. I rarely am so tired that just sitting down on the couch will cause me to fall asleep. Wednesday was that kind of day. I even slept through Mom cooking and Sis making her crushed ice.
Yesterday was spent sleeping. A LOT. I've become basically nocturnal which isn't a good thing for me. I only tend to truly binge when up between 1-6am. I keep trying to gear my schedule back around to days (which, for me, means waking up late morning and going to sleep around 1am), but with no success. I woke up spontaneously at 10:30 this morning, and I have been forcing myself to stay awake so I can fix things tonight.
I did do something productive today: I went and got a library card. I KNOW. The library is actually located at the local community college, which is about 10 minutes away. Sis had to go and register for classes for the fall semester, so I decided to go along and get a library card. The library has an e-book collection that I was interested in exploring. However, the e-book selection seems INCREDIBLY limited. I wasn't expecting to find anything, but after browsing around fiction, I found a book. I danced up to the counter where the nice librarian had signed me up for my card, and said in sing-song, "I found a book!" I swear, I haven't felt this giddy about a book in a long long long time. I think the last time I was this giddy about a book was when Deathly Hallows came out and I scored a copy at midnight (the grocery store nearby had decided to sell them, and Mom just happened to notice. She let me know at about 11:30pm and I ran over to the store and bought #67. I love my Mom.). I don't think I've checked out a book to read from the library since elementary school. I always just bought books at the bookstore, since I'm a book hoarder. One of those people who just has stacks and stacks of books that overflow the bookcases. The thought of not being able to keep a book is weird, but it's certainly more cost-effective. I can read good books for free now. Much better than paying $10 for an e-book that's only 300 pages long. I'm okay with a $15 book that's 1100 pages long, but if the book is only going to take a couple of days to read, $10 isn't worth it. I did encounter a problem (#21stcenturyproblem) however: I'm so used to being able to highlight a word and check it in the embedded dictionary on my Nook, that when I encountered a word I didn't know in my new book, I actually used my finger to try and highlight the word on the paper. Yeah. I realized I was somewhat annoyed that I had to pull out my phone to look up the word. (BTW, it was "glaive" - a European polearm weapon, consisting of a single-edged blade on the end of a pole. Stupid historical fiction, talking about medieval weaponry I have no clue about.) I'm having another dilemma: I've been so absorbed in the world of the A Song of Ice and Fire series that I'm finding it hard to switch back to REAL medieval England, and not heavily-borrowed-from-medieval-England Westeros.
You have to watch this: I didn't think I could love Anderson Cooper any more than I already do, but he's done it.
Now to bathe in the cool breeze from the ceiling fan (again set to decapitate), knit, and watch Torchwood. Which is SO GOOD OMG, btw.
Sis was feeling crummy, so I got five minutes notice to get up and dressed so I could go with Mom to darker northeast Houston (the area is named Greenspoint, but Houstonians refer to it as "Gunspoint" for obvious reasons) and get the car. She had to pay $103.35 - in exact change or no dice - to the bastards who stole our car in order to get it back. It turned out that they rifled through the glove compartment, the armrest compartment, and seem to have stolen a statue of the Virgin Mary, a statue of the Goddess, and the rosary from Sis' rearview mirror. RANDOM, but still... If they did steal only the religious things from the car, I must believe that God, and particularly the Holy Mother, will not look kindly on that at all. I hope they are smitten, hit by lightning, etc. All of the contents were just dumped on the passenger seat. What's strange is that the TomTom, and pay-per-use emergency cell phone were still there. They told Mom that it was important that she pick up the car that day, because the lot had the option of putting the car up for auction after only one day. This forced her to have to call in to work - which she HATES to do - because she wasn't willing to take the risk by waiting until Thursday which was her day off.
At least the car is back. My facebook status from Wednesday night: "Today can be summed up in onomatopoeias: blerg, arg, AAAHHH, phew, clonk." Me groggy, annoyed, frustrated and hot and pissed at the bastards at the car place, relieved that we got the car back, crashing on the couch and passing out. I rarely am so tired that just sitting down on the couch will cause me to fall asleep. Wednesday was that kind of day. I even slept through Mom cooking and Sis making her crushed ice.
Yesterday was spent sleeping. A LOT. I've become basically nocturnal which isn't a good thing for me. I only tend to truly binge when up between 1-6am. I keep trying to gear my schedule back around to days (which, for me, means waking up late morning and going to sleep around 1am), but with no success. I woke up spontaneously at 10:30 this morning, and I have been forcing myself to stay awake so I can fix things tonight.
I did do something productive today: I went and got a library card. I KNOW. The library is actually located at the local community college, which is about 10 minutes away. Sis had to go and register for classes for the fall semester, so I decided to go along and get a library card. The library has an e-book collection that I was interested in exploring. However, the e-book selection seems INCREDIBLY limited. I wasn't expecting to find anything, but after browsing around fiction, I found a book. I danced up to the counter where the nice librarian had signed me up for my card, and said in sing-song, "I found a book!" I swear, I haven't felt this giddy about a book in a long long long time. I think the last time I was this giddy about a book was when Deathly Hallows came out and I scored a copy at midnight (the grocery store nearby had decided to sell them, and Mom just happened to notice. She let me know at about 11:30pm and I ran over to the store and bought #67. I love my Mom.). I don't think I've checked out a book to read from the library since elementary school. I always just bought books at the bookstore, since I'm a book hoarder. One of those people who just has stacks and stacks of books that overflow the bookcases. The thought of not being able to keep a book is weird, but it's certainly more cost-effective. I can read good books for free now. Much better than paying $10 for an e-book that's only 300 pages long. I'm okay with a $15 book that's 1100 pages long, but if the book is only going to take a couple of days to read, $10 isn't worth it. I did encounter a problem (#21stcenturyproblem) however: I'm so used to being able to highlight a word and check it in the embedded dictionary on my Nook, that when I encountered a word I didn't know in my new book, I actually used my finger to try and highlight the word on the paper. Yeah. I realized I was somewhat annoyed that I had to pull out my phone to look up the word. (BTW, it was "glaive" - a European polearm weapon, consisting of a single-edged blade on the end of a pole. Stupid historical fiction, talking about medieval weaponry I have no clue about.) I'm having another dilemma: I've been so absorbed in the world of the A Song of Ice and Fire series that I'm finding it hard to switch back to REAL medieval England, and not heavily-borrowed-from-medieval-England Westeros.
You have to watch this: I didn't think I could love Anderson Cooper any more than I already do, but he's done it.
Now to bathe in the cool breeze from the ceiling fan (again set to decapitate), knit, and watch Torchwood. Which is SO GOOD OMG, btw.