a mixed bag
Feb. 15th, 2016 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sleepybadgerWe had to put down one of Zen's cats recently. I didn't really believe that "cat person" and "dog person" were real things until I lived with his cats (my first experience living with cats) and discovered that even though I petted them, fed them, played with them, took care of them, etc, I just had no loving feelings for them whatsoever. His cats are a mom and baby - she showed up on his doorstep pregnant, and he found homes for all her kittens but one (and this was 7 or 8 years ago so he's not a kitten anymore). The mom is very sweet and loving and cuddly, the baby loves me one minute and is hissing and swatting at me the next. The mom had been sick for a while, so rather than let her continue to suffer, we took her to be put down. It turned out I was more attached to her than I thought, I cried the whole way to the vet (and her crying in her carrier in the back seat just made it worse) and the whole way home, and we mourned her together. So now it's just the baby cat left. Due to my allergies, we won't be getting any more pets, so it feels a little weird.
We also got a new (well, new to us) car last week. Zen has been driving a 20+year old Buick for a while now and it's been in the shop on and off for the past three weeks. Finally the shop called him and told him that the part it needs is no longer manufactured, and it's proprietary so it's not like you can use a similar part from other cars, so they couldn't fix it. Zen is working (3 days/week), going to school (2 days/week), and going to his internship (4 days/week) so no vehicle was not an option. We did a quickie search and went to check out a 2013 Chevy Spark at a dealer near us. The plan was that we would get Zen a new(ish) car. He liked it, it was in our price range, and we ended up getting it. A couple days later, he told me it had technology he was never going to use (he doesn't even have a smartphone) so he suggested that he buy my old car from me, I take the new car, and then once he's done with school/internships/etc and gets a job in his field (hopefully this summer) and I decide I want a new car, he'll take over the Spark and I can go get whatever I want. So now I'm doing basically an extended test drive of the Spark. The thing is... had I gone in with the expectation that the new car was going to be *my* car, this is probably not the car I would have chosen. And actually, it's likely I would have wanted to buy a new car, which would have cost a LOT more, so it's kind of a yay and a boo. It's a decent little car, and I will use most of the technology the car has, but there's one thing missing that really irks me. It has no CD player. This is one of the first cars that didn't even have a CD player as an option. I only care because I usually spend my commute listening to books on cd that I get from the library. There's a USB port, but it considers both my phone and my kindle to be unsupported devices. I'm considering finding a usb powered CD player that I can hook up to the port and maybe somehow attach to be within reach. I guess the other option would be to rip the disks and put them on my ipod or a flash drive, but I don't really want to do that. So I'm still trying to decide what to do about that.
This weekend we hosted game night at our house for the first time ever. It is only thanks to Zen that my house looks like human beings live here and not a legion of rabid raccoons. Anyway, one of my friends brought his long-time girlfriend, and that didn't go so well. She actively dislikes one of the other gals in our group, and I have yet to see her do any activity that she didn't seem to hate. She insists on coming to various types of get-togethers, and then spends the whole time complaining and/or apologizing (e.g. insisting on coming out with us when we were going dancing and then refusing to dance, insisting on going with to play pool and then refusing to play, insisting she doesn't care where we go eat and then complaining there's nothing on the menu she likes and then has a half hour long argument with someone about why it's impossible for her to eat healthy, etc). We are an extremely laid back group, most of the games we play are easy, and we're pretty lax about enforcing rules. We play stuff like telestrations, the game of things, catchphrase, cards against humanity, wits and wagers, say anything, etc. Mostly we just laugh and have fun. Some of us love to play scrabble and other word games, but we don't play that type of stuff on game night (unless the only attendees are the ones who enjoy it) because not everyone enjoys word games and no one enjoys losing by 300 points. Even though she's come several times and we play a lot of the same games or games that are very similar, she complained every game that the rules were "too complicated" and she couldn't understand them, she complained that someone's long answer that she had to read out loud was "making something that was supposed to be fun into something that was really stressful", and randomly commented that she was sorry that she was "too stupid" to get this game/play this game/know what the answer was. No matter how many times we helped her, reassured her, or told her she was NOT stupid, she never even cracked a smile, and continued to complain and apologize. She looked pissed off the whole time she was there. She also snapped on the gal that she dislikes, and that gal was so upset she almost walked out of the party. Fortunately, they had to leave early, and it was much more relaxed after they left. I don't really understand why she insists on coming to do stuff that she seems to actively dislike. Her boyfriend told one of our mutual friends later that evening that he thought she'd be OK at the party, but clearly he was wrong, and promised not to bring her again. I feel bad about it, because I know how rotten it feels to have a partner that your friends dislike.
We also got a new (well, new to us) car last week. Zen has been driving a 20+year old Buick for a while now and it's been in the shop on and off for the past three weeks. Finally the shop called him and told him that the part it needs is no longer manufactured, and it's proprietary so it's not like you can use a similar part from other cars, so they couldn't fix it. Zen is working (3 days/week), going to school (2 days/week), and going to his internship (4 days/week) so no vehicle was not an option. We did a quickie search and went to check out a 2013 Chevy Spark at a dealer near us. The plan was that we would get Zen a new(ish) car. He liked it, it was in our price range, and we ended up getting it. A couple days later, he told me it had technology he was never going to use (he doesn't even have a smartphone) so he suggested that he buy my old car from me, I take the new car, and then once he's done with school/internships/etc and gets a job in his field (hopefully this summer) and I decide I want a new car, he'll take over the Spark and I can go get whatever I want. So now I'm doing basically an extended test drive of the Spark. The thing is... had I gone in with the expectation that the new car was going to be *my* car, this is probably not the car I would have chosen. And actually, it's likely I would have wanted to buy a new car, which would have cost a LOT more, so it's kind of a yay and a boo. It's a decent little car, and I will use most of the technology the car has, but there's one thing missing that really irks me. It has no CD player. This is one of the first cars that didn't even have a CD player as an option. I only care because I usually spend my commute listening to books on cd that I get from the library. There's a USB port, but it considers both my phone and my kindle to be unsupported devices. I'm considering finding a usb powered CD player that I can hook up to the port and maybe somehow attach to be within reach. I guess the other option would be to rip the disks and put them on my ipod or a flash drive, but I don't really want to do that. So I'm still trying to decide what to do about that.
This weekend we hosted game night at our house for the first time ever. It is only thanks to Zen that my house looks like human beings live here and not a legion of rabid raccoons. Anyway, one of my friends brought his long-time girlfriend, and that didn't go so well. She actively dislikes one of the other gals in our group, and I have yet to see her do any activity that she didn't seem to hate. She insists on coming to various types of get-togethers, and then spends the whole time complaining and/or apologizing (e.g. insisting on coming out with us when we were going dancing and then refusing to dance, insisting on going with to play pool and then refusing to play, insisting she doesn't care where we go eat and then complaining there's nothing on the menu she likes and then has a half hour long argument with someone about why it's impossible for her to eat healthy, etc). We are an extremely laid back group, most of the games we play are easy, and we're pretty lax about enforcing rules. We play stuff like telestrations, the game of things, catchphrase, cards against humanity, wits and wagers, say anything, etc. Mostly we just laugh and have fun. Some of us love to play scrabble and other word games, but we don't play that type of stuff on game night (unless the only attendees are the ones who enjoy it) because not everyone enjoys word games and no one enjoys losing by 300 points. Even though she's come several times and we play a lot of the same games or games that are very similar, she complained every game that the rules were "too complicated" and she couldn't understand them, she complained that someone's long answer that she had to read out loud was "making something that was supposed to be fun into something that was really stressful", and randomly commented that she was sorry that she was "too stupid" to get this game/play this game/know what the answer was. No matter how many times we helped her, reassured her, or told her she was NOT stupid, she never even cracked a smile, and continued to complain and apologize. She looked pissed off the whole time she was there. She also snapped on the gal that she dislikes, and that gal was so upset she almost walked out of the party. Fortunately, they had to leave early, and it was much more relaxed after they left. I don't really understand why she insists on coming to do stuff that she seems to actively dislike. Her boyfriend told one of our mutual friends later that evening that he thought she'd be OK at the party, but clearly he was wrong, and promised not to bring her again. I feel bad about it, because I know how rotten it feels to have a partner that your friends dislike.
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no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 01:42 am (UTC)cant you go back to the dealership and see about getting something different? i think most dealerships allow you to trade if you end up not liking what you just got.
she sounds like a very unhappy person, intent on spreading her misery.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 03:15 pm (UTC)She is, and it just makes it hard on everyone. It's too bad there's not much you can do when someone is stuck in their ways like that.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 12:10 pm (UTC)Oh, your poor friend! He must have felt terrible afterwards and I bet she chewed him out good on the drive home. Why are people like that?
One of these days, we will get another new car. Right now, we have a 1990 Bronco and a 2004 Buick. They are still working okay, but the writing is on the wall. Enjoy your new car!
no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 03:18 pm (UTC)We were driving a 95 Buick and an 05 Saturn. The Saturn has 125,000 miles on it and is still *knock on wood* going strong, no major issues. Yesterday Zen went to pick up the Buick from the mechanic and they couldn't even get it to start to let him take it home. His sister's neighbor is a mechanic and she's going to check with him to see if there's anything he can do to fix up the car for her daughter, and if not we're going to junk it.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 04:28 pm (UTC)You might have the mechanic check around for the part that the repair folks couldn't get. I can't believe there were no cars to pull it from. Or do you have places like that (Pick and Pull) around you?
no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-17 12:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 04:50 pm (UTC)I think most new(er) cars don't have a CD player anymore ... not sure I like that!
no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 09:43 pm (UTC)I think you're right about the CD players, or at least you have to specifically request one. I wouldn't care if it wasn't for my books on CD. I can borrow some electronically but since the car won't recognize my kindle, that won't work. Plus there's (at least for now) more options on CD than electronically. I probably go through 30+ audiobooks a year.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-19 05:20 am (UTC)