I knew that would happen!

Note to self: Don’t be lazy. Don’t book a motel through a third-party website that malfunctions and then makes you telephone the third-party (in Bangalore) and they quote you a higher price than the website. Especially when the motel is in your same state, and not Bangalore.

Then, do not let them swipe your card again at the motel, saying you haven’t been charged yet, even if they’re charging the lower price, because you know that you have already been charged.

The guy who checked me in won’t want to see ID, but beware of getting swiped at checkout when you asked for a receipt, which you need to turn in with the expense report. See, it doesn’t matter how much the room costs, because you’re getting reimbursed anyway.

The third-party website will not save you time, because the guy on the other end of the line says, “What would be your last name?” and “What would be the credit card number?” instead of “What is…” And when he misspeaks, he says, “I mean to say,” instead of “I mean,” and this he does every time he speaks.

Finally, it will cost you more time as you shuffle around telephonically, trying to get one of the charges reversed. You would prefer it to be the higher amount, but in the end, you don’t really care.

Now that’s a Sunday

Rob trotted off this morning to be a fight coordinator on a friend’s movie, so I watched Fight Girls on TiVo, then rolled over on the couch Andy Capp-style and napped til 2 p.m. when Rob called to ask me to come visit him on set.

What? And interrupt my busy schedule?

Poor Isis slept on the floor during my endless sleep. Rob’s outside with her now, tossing her the soccer ball. It hailed earlier, but now the sun’s here. Guess I better take Stew out for some Vitamin D therapy.

CSI: K-9

A few weeks ago, I noticed a rectangular piece of white rubber on the floor. I assumed it came off of something of Rob’s, and didn’t think much else about it even when he said he didn’t know what it was from either.

Isis got a hold of the thing and chewed it to bits while I slept on Friday, and still I assumed it just landed on our floor somehow. Did not occur to me that it might be something Isis had detached from somewhere in the house.

This morning when I heard her chomping loudly, I of course assumed she was working on some rawhide. But no, it was a larger piece of the same material, with ridges on the side, like it slid into something. And I still have no idea where it came from. I’ve looked all over the place, at her eye level, to see if rubber thingamabobs are missing from anything. Nothing. And this last piece was clearly broken off its rightful location, so you’d think it would be obvious what it is that is missing its ridged piece of white rubber.

Job satisfaction

I really do love my job. Or else I’m a complete geek, and that’s why I find myself tweaking a PageMaker file at 8 p.m. on a Saturday. Yeah, I said PageMaker. We spent two days learning the finer points of InDesign, but we’re doing one more issue in PageMaker, because my codesigner hasn’t gotten the new software yet.

I installed PageMaker on my laptop and spent almost all day Friday in my home office, with the dog on the bed, designing 7 pages. Such fun!

Maybe I better go see what my boyfriend is doing…

My hair smells like smoke again

In a good way. Not from second-hand cigarette smoke, but from sitting around a fire in a longhouse for several hours today, at a ceremony where I at once felt very welcomed and very much like an outsider.

Wish Rob had gone with me, although he probably would have been itching to leave by the 18th or 19th time we were thanked for coming. By the end, as the numbers grew smaller, we were thanked for continuing to be there. It got so staying to the end seemed like a moral imperative.

Motel living

I may be onto something here. I found it very easy, two days in a row, to wake up when the alarm went off at 7, get dressed and arrive early to an 8:30 training.

At home, it’s nearly impossible to get out of bed on the first try. Even after I’ve gotten up, taken Isis out and eaten a bowl of cereal, I still want to crawl back in bed. Because it’s a snuggly bed, with Isis and Rob in it.

But in a sleazy motel, there’s nothing to entice me to stay in bed. Or even in the room. So if we are to maximize productivity, we should mandate that everyone live alone, with no pets, in tiny, impersonal motel-like rooms, with no company except the TV.

Or, maybe there’s more to life than leaping out of bed and starting one’s day.