reading: She’s Come Undone.
Finished recently: Spitting Feathers and Sammy’s Hill.
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Someone posted in my comments the other day and left a
link to a quiz to see what breed of dog you are.
My results? I’m a
Keeshond.
Origins
Netherlands. Pronounced “kayshond” this dog has also been known as the Fik, Foxdog, Dutch Barge Dog and even the Overweight Pomeranian in Victorian England. Its modern name comes from the 18th century rebel Dutchman Kees de Gyselaer. Like other spitz, the Keeshond is believed to derive from Arctic dogs but in Holland it became popular as the companion/ watchdog of barges.
Personality
Good natured and long lived; this breed tends to be devoted to one person, acting courageously on their behalf.
I can’t really argue with the results!
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Pet store kitty pics from last Monday are
here. I’m sure the ones from this week will be up sometime this week. Or… maybe next Monday! Who knows?
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Sometimes it pays to be on the notify list. This went out to the notify list on March 25th:
Update on the car situation: We haven’t actually given up on the salesman making this right. Fred thought he’d figured out a loophole: there was a note on the dealership’s page saying that you could return the car within 3 days or 300 miles and they’d fully refund the purchase price of the car. Well, I’ve put 302 (!) miles on the car, so Fred called Salesguy and pointed out the loophole (telling him I’d put less than 300 miles on the car, the liar) and Salesguy sputtered and then Fred started, well, I’d call it needling the guy. Because at this point we’ve got the silver car, we’re making payments on it – what’s Salesguy going to do, come take the car back? Obviously NOT.
And then Fred found Salesguy’s soft spot. Salesguy is (or was, I’m not sure which) the #1 salesman in the country; he even has a plaque stating that in his office. So Fred said “Is this how you became the number one salesman in the country? By dicking over your customers?”
Salesguy lost his shit, sputtering and swearing. Saying he was still trying to make it right, he’d been losing sleep over it, he didn’t know what Fred wanted him to DO, he was doing his best!
“If you want to make it right, eat the cost,” Fred said. “Eat the cost, give us what we want, and make it right.”
Heh. Yeah, it’s a safe bet Salesguy wasn’t going to go for that, right?
Salesguy said “I’ll call you back!” and basically hung up on Fred.
“I’m sure he’ll never call back,” Fred said, and I agreed.
A few hours later, Fred called. “Salesguy called,” he said. “He wanted to know, if he could find a brand-new ’04 yellow hatchback if you’d take that instead. The payment would actually go down a little. I told him I didn’t think so, but I’d check with you.”
And you know what? I said “Actually, I think I would.” See? I can be flexible! (Does anyone else hear Ouiser Boudreaux saying “I AM PLEASANT!”?) Yes, he’d suggested an ’04 hatchback in yellow before, but I actually thought that I was going to get the sedan and have it painted yellow (I just like the back end of the sedan more than the back end of the hatchback, to be honest), so I turned down the hatchback. But now? I’ll take the hatchback.
Fred called Salesguy and said “She said she’d be willing, but we’ll want to test-drive it first.” and Salesguy said “I’ll start looking!”
I know, I know. I’m not holding my breath – chances are good that we’ll never hear from him again, but it could happen. If it does, then I own a yellow car. If it doesn’t, then I own a silver car, and you know what? The spud’s going to be looking for a job when she gets back from Maine at the end of the summer and assuming she gets one, we can refinance the car for long enough that the payment is affordable for her (we’d only make her pay half, actually), and she could have the silver car, and I? I’d get another car.
So it’s all good. And like I’ve been saying to Fred, the car’s starting to grow on me. I still don’t care for the color, but I could add enough yellow touches (I don’t know that I’ll go for flames, though! Heh.) to make it mine.
Anyway, so that’s what’s going on right now. I’ll keep y’all updated on how it’s going.
And then on the 29th, I said:
The news on the car: I went this weekend and drove an ’04 hatchback. On the inside it’s very similar to the sedan, and it drove pretty much the same. I really don’t care for the look of the hatchback – it looks like the car was in a freak accident wherein the back end was chopped off – but it’s the right shade of yellow, and I can learn to like the look of it, I think. Salesguy has located a yellow ’04 with 78 miles on it in Wisconsin. They’re picking it up today and hopefully it will be here in a few days.
I’m still not holding my breath – I won’t really believe it’s going to happen until it actually happens, you know? I’ll be glad to get this done and taken care of one way or the other, though! I have some Hawaiian smiley-face stickers an awesome reader in Hawaii sent me, and I’m dying to stick them to my car!
And then Friday evening, look what Fred brought me home:
The more I look at it, the more I like it. It has a few things that the sedan (the silver car) didn’t have – a windshield wiper on the back, for one, and unlike the silver car, it doesn’t have a hissy fit and start dinging at me if I take my seatbelt off while the car is running. I mean, seriously – I’d be sitting in the driveway with car in park and would take my seatbelt off, and the silver car would have a conniption. This car? He doesn’t so much care.
I think I’m going to name him Edgar. Pronounced “E’gar”, the way the chick from Men in Black pronounced it, when she talked about the alien wearing an E’gar suit.
Can you imagine how much fuss could have been prevented if I’d just agreed to an ’04 yellow hatchback in the first place when Salesguy suggested it way back at the beginning, before he turned into a big liar and said I could get the sedan painted for less than $1000?
But then, what would I have spent the last month bitching about?
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“She’s a lying bitch. I DO NOT spend every moment of the day lickinglickinglicking and driving her flat out of her mind. I don’t!”
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