Sitting at a table at the Golden Gate Chinese restaurant near our house, waiting for our order. There are much better chinese food places, but the food is cheap here…
Today has been a cloud of difficulty, though everything has brightened up as the evening closes in. It seems I always write more when times are difficult. Not really as a cry for help or anything, but more because it’s cathartic is suppose.
Yesterday was much better.
I’ve been sick for the past few days. Bad diarrhea, splitting headache, every muscle aching. I soldiered through it on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but come Sunday morning I was miserable. I couldn’t eat anything. I didn’t want to. And the cramping stomach and migraine was now accompanied with a rasping cough. Flu? Maybe? Without health insurance every ailment just ends up a big question mark until enough of our friends get it that we can guess.
Tamika left me home, and I immediately lost consciousness huddled under the covers. She revived me by driving back during a break in the service and encouraging me to drink more liquids. I slipped away again. My body soaked up sleep like a hungry sponge. I showered, dressed, and slowly made my way downstairs. I did a little bit of work, and then went out in the rain to plead with Apple.
Tamika had gotten her phone stolen at the grocery store on Friday. Our best guess is that she set it down with her wallet while she was at the self checkout, and that someone had snatched it. When she got home, she realized it was gone, and I immediately herded us all into the car to try and track it down. Our phones have a GPS tracking feature on them that allows us to tap in and track it, so following that, I chased the phone all over back roads near our neighborhood trying to find it. The phone, while important, wasn’t my biggest worry. Tamika’s IDs, credit cards… Everything was in that wallet with her phone, and we fly out of the country on the 27th to visit my parents. I didn’t know what kind of hassle the TSA would give us without Tamika’s IDs. It unnerved me even worse because we’re flying separately.
We finally tracked her phone to a pharmacy/rehab center neat St. Agnes Hospital. I jumped out of the car, and immediately started asking everyone if they had seen it. Immediately, 3-4 people looked really suspicious and started skulking off. I tried following one of the guys, but lost him in the alleyways behind the row houses, and came back. The phone jumped around a little bit on the map, but then returned to the pharmacy. A security guard at the place began helping me, listening to people as they came out of the building as I played the Find My iPhone sound over and over.
About an hour went by. Tamika took the kids to Dunkin Donuts to get some food, but the phone still hadn’t moved. Finally, the security guard comes running up to me and ushers me into the pharmacy’s office. One of the drivers for their disabled patients had found the wallet discarded in their parking lot, abandoned by the thief. Apparently the thief had smashed it against the pavement trying to get the noise from the phone to stop.
Fortunately, all Tamika’s cards and even the cash she kept in the Dave Ramsey envelope was left alone! The phone, however, was toast.
So, on Sunday after church, I went out to the Columbia mall on one of the busiest shopping days to see what Apple could do.
The parking was incredible. I ended up parking at a darkened office building across the street from the mall, and as I got closer and closer to the Macy’s entrance, people swarmed tighter and tighter. I actually kind of get a kick out of the electricity that’s in the air when out shopping at Christmastime. I like having my gifts purchased early when time permits, but it’s fun to go out and wade through everything knowing none of the stress affects you.
I made it to the Apple store, which was jammed. Every conceivable space was crowded with people and employees, and stuff was flying off the shelves. I made my way to the back and signed in for my appointment. Somehow, there was a Mac on display that was free, so I got some emails answered as I waited.
When an employee finally did get around to me, they told me that unfortunately, when we had gotten our phones at Best Buy in September, they hadn’t come with any kind of warranty or Apple Care beyond the 30 day, and weren’t eligible to have it added on either.
The guy felt really bad as I explained the situation, however, and was able to cut me a deal to get the phone replaced for really cheap. …If you can call $230 cheap… They don’t sell the iPhone 5 anymore now that the 5c and 5s are out, so he was able cut their regular price in half for me. I checked on Ebay while I waited on the paperwork and confirmed; everything was going for twice that amount. It was worth it; Tamika gets good use out of that phone.
I made my way home, but in the rain, the car lost it’s footing and smacked into a curb. It didn’t do a lot of damage, but knocked the front wheels out of alignment. I’m hoping I can take care of that and a couple other issues when we get back from Vancouver.
When I finally made it home, we wrapped presents, I made popcorn and cookies as the kids watched The Sword in the Stone, and I worked on a t-shirt logo for a singer songwriter from Iowa.
The Tamika and I curled up on the couch and watched The Office until we finished the series.
—Note: Didn’t finish this at the restaurant because the food was ready. It’s now Christmas, in the evening—
What a wonderful Christmas. Kids got up super early, but didn’t wake us until around 9, and we went down in our PJs. Nya lost her first tooth as we brushed our teeth, out of the bottom in the front! She had been telling us it had been wiggling, but we didn’t think it would be so soon! The bigger tooth was already coming in.
This is the first year I feel like the kids got really excited about Christmas. Nya counted down the days on her own, and reminded us daily how many days were left. Arion keeps trying to figure out Santa. He keeps questioning Tamika on it, wondering if it’s real. Tamika doesn’t want to lie to him, so she throws the question back at him. Ultimately, he decided Santa was real, but kept inquiring about the specifics from me (“Nuta; we don’t have a fireplace. How does Santa get in?” I replied: “He bangs on the door. It’s annoying. We have to get up at 3am when you’re finally asleep, open the door, he does his thing, then we let him out and set the alarm.” Arion cracks up at this).
Truthfully, Tamika and I were up pretty late. This Christmas was… I was going to say small, but it really wasn’t… we carefully planned and budgeted all our money, and got the kids some really cool gifts. Plus, they got a TON of presents from Tamika’s Mom, as well as some really cool thoughtful stuff from my parents, from Aunt Chris, and from Beth & Eric. Nick’s presents haven’t gotten here and I think that’s largely my fault… He’s started writing me letters and I need to write back to him still. I’m hoping he’s keeping his in Vancouver for when we get there.
Anyway, we wrapped the presents together, while Christmas music played on the LastFM XBox app. It was nice. We made each other hide as we wrapped presents for each other too. I got Tamika a Yerba Mate set, complete with (all metal) traditional drinking straw and gourd, the new Asa vinyl record, and a really pretty printed Yoga mat. Unfortunately, I think she guessed the mat and the record (she had to check the Amazon purchase history because we thought one of our friends may have used our account incorrectly), so I tried to disguise the Yerba Mate as best I could.
The kids tore into their presents, though we kept some semblance of order and made sure nobody got left out. Nya got a lot of pink things, and Arion got action figures and cars. Their clear favourites were yet to come, though. Tamika and I saved up to get them two big gifts; a wooden put-together Victorian dollhouse for Nya (similar to one my sister had growing up) and a 10-in-1 Hot Wheels racetrack set for Arion.
The clear favourite for both of them, however, was the Lego set my parents got for Arion. It had an ambulance, firetruck, and police motorcycle. Arion had picked it out as his one gift to open on Christmas Eve, and he and I had put together the firetruck. Arion, being sensitive, told Nya to bring me the ambulance while he sorted out the details of his action figures, and her and I put it together. That boy is generous. I see more of my Dad’s personality in him than I see myself; it’s something I strive for, but don’t always achieve.
Nya really does love the pretty pink princess things, but her desire to build and create overcomes that I think. I thought originally that I’d want her to be a tomboy and be out working on the motorcycle with me, but now I’m seeing more and more that she can walk the line and do both…
My gifts were pretty awesome. Tamika got me a beautiful electronic pipe, Ender’s Game (the book) and The Animatrix. My parents also got me a really cool really cool solar powered keyboard (which I’m typing on now!).
We made cinnamon buns for breakfast (Pillsbury; I suck at making cinnamon buns so far), but they were THE BEST PILLSBURY CINNAMON BUNS I’VE MADE YET. 🙂 The rest of the morning, we just kinda lounged around. Arion and I put together the Hot Wheels track (I labeled all the parts and had him help me get it all working) and then Nya and he took turns testing out other cars from my collection on it.
I’m still pretty sick, but I found that smoking the vapour pipe really helped my throat, so I kept it up. Tamika admitted that the flavours had a tiny bit of nicotine in them (she didn’t know I was going for just the flavour) but I’m not sure if it had an effect or not. Either way, it felt calming, which I can always use more of. Unfortunately, as the day wore on, it began to produce less and less vapour. When I first tried it, great clouds of steam surrounded me, but now it barely makes a little puff. It came with two reservoirs that you pour the juice in (which I now know are called “Pipemizers”, an atomizer that also holds liquid), but only one of them produced vapour. I was really worried that Tamika would be disappointed that it wasn’t working, but I’m committed to using it and figuring it out.
Smoking electronic cigarettes is still a fringe activity (even though it’s a lot healthier than smoking tobacco) and so there’s not a whole lot of information about them out there about how they work and how to maintain them. There’s even LESS information about electronic pipes; a subset of that fringe. I’m hoping I can take it with me to LA; it seemed like there were a lot of smoke shops out there. I’m hoping once I’m able to talk to someone who knows what they’re talking about, they’ll be able to set me straight.
Apit came over from next door, and brought us a giant plate of Trinidadian food and a big bottle of one of my favourite drinks; a special beverage she makes out of tamarind. She gave us a giant soda bottle full of it, which I was really surprised at (it’s not terribly easy to make!). She hinted that their Christmas wasn’t going so well, but she was focused on cooking an amazing meal (which it was)Â for her family, and wanted us to have some. I sent a bunch of my chocolate chip cookies home with her.
We headed over to Talisha and Matt’s for Christmas Dinner, meeting up with Matt’s brothers and his Mom. They’re really good company, though the kids went a little crazy (5 kids, all under 6). They had a lot of fun, though.
Tamika and I spent the evening attacking the laundry; trying to get as much done before the trip. We only have 1 day before we leave… not a lot of time! I’m hoping this trip goes smoothly. I hope it’s productive, restful, all these things…
