Gonzai Gallery

Except that I swear most of my classmates are coming to class drunk. At the very least, they're coming to class stupid and flaky and determined to stay off-topic and beat dead horses all night, including the dead horses they beat LAST week. I'm exhausted and ill; I don't want to spend the whole night there listening to them whine. I really don't want to listen to the one girl, who is receiving food stamps and student aid, proudly announce she's buying a $4,000 puppy. Gawd.

Started off the weekend with Dave's funeral. Definitely not your usual service: the guess-timated attendance was 600. The church was huge, but still not big enough as the service itself was standing room only, folks squeezed into every corner and the start delayed half an hour so everyone could park and squeeze in. (Arriving early, Bryce and I parked 2 1/2 blocks away and sat in the next to last pew.) Then we had an assortment of music, including bluegrass, Irish, Hawaiian and church traditionals. Then there was a jam session in the church's social hall. We were packed in tight between the high attendance and the truly spectacular spread. Not sure I've ever seen so much food in one place before, but table after table with assortments of repasts plus another 3 tables of desserts. Conversely, one small drink table. They did forget something! We were surprised by both the amazing attendance and how few people there we knew; we were the only people there from Roots Cafe, as far as we could tell, and most of the bands we knew had just one member attending. But still, what a turnout. Dave had quite the following.

Funerals plural, because Sunday I found out my sister-in-law's grandfather, with whom we've shared Thanksgiving the last six years, passed suddenly on Friday. His funeral is tomorrow. Two funerals in 4 days. (I suspect Art's funeral will be a bit smaller than Dave's.)

Football - I think going straight from Dave's service to the Ravens game tempered my mood just enough to keep me merely disappointed by the results, instead of devastated. There's a lot of devastated going around town these days, so in that regard I'm fortunate. The Ravens were also the only game I didn't correctly pick. Perhaps my pick'em touch is back.

Last but not least, computer follies. So the motherboard is dying and with it, the computer. It took much of the weekend but I was finally able to convince Mom that we do have to replace the computer, and she's willing to foot that bill if I pay for all accessories/needed software. (She may be getting the better end of the deal.) I searched about on the net and found what seemed to me to be a good computer at a decent price - ( this Gateway model ). I ran it up the flagpole past the same computer folks who deemed the motherboard failing. Half of them insisted I should get a Mac. Uh, guys, work & netbook computers are PCs, all software is PC, Mom can barely handle the familiar stuff. Not the time to make that big a move. The only opinion offered about the Gateway was negative, and that guy suggested ASUS. My netbook is ASUS and I'm quite fond of it, so I went back to the board. Best I could come up with ( was this ASUS model ), not quite the RAM or rating of the Gateway but comparably priced. So now I'm torn between these two computers, or possibly a door number 3. I definitely want to try to get ahead of the curve for a change, a quad core processor, lots of RAM & hard drive, etc in the hopes I can get 4-5 years out of a computer, but I doubt I can get Mom past $700, if that far. Any suggestions are welcome.

Back to (holiday level) work. That is, nearly none.

After the November craft show, one of the checks I had received was refused by the bank (the writer and I have the same bank, so the bank refused it rather than accept it and then slam me with fees.) No response to numerous phone calls or a letter. Then, 3 weeks later, the woman called me and asked if there were any bad check fees from the incident. And yesterday, I received a written apology and cash, in excess of the amount of the check.

I'm not sure whether to be pleased or stunned.

That is, my mother and I. She can't find her checkbook and I can't find my credit card. Oy.

Which, as always, seems to occur as I'm leaving for work. And, thus, makes me late for same.

Apparently Mom went to the bank yesterday to get some cash, and felt her balance was way too low (and, therefore, someone was stealing her money). Her reasoning was that her bank statement, dated June 4, stated that she had x dollars. But on June 24, the bank said she had y dollars, some $3,000 less, and therefore she decided she'd been robbed. The bank teller, bless her, showed my mother that eight checks had been cashed between June 4 and June 24, equalling the difference between what the June 4 statement said and the balance she had yesterday, and even wrote down the dates, check numbers and amounts. My mother didn't believe her. She flew into a fit with me over it. I did the same thing as the teller - went to her online account and showed her each and every check that had been cashed since June 4, including the nearly $2,200 paid to the air conditioning repairmen. She's still angry - with both me and the bank - because she's convinced that the balance she has on the date of a statement cannot change until the date of the next statement. She thinks it's unfair for the bank to add or subtract amounts between bank statements.

I am really glad I had myself put on the account a few months back and I've been checking her accounts online. It may be time to take away the checkbook.

It appears I've lost my credit card. No charges have been made since the last time I used it, but the restaurant didn't find it and it's not in the house or car. I think I can manage until they send me a new one, but I dread the inevitable months of automatic charges from accounts I forgot were automated being refused.

Pain in the ass.

Back to work today - without the benefit of pain pills. I forgot to take them. My back & shoulders are killing me. Meanwhile, the YMCA promised they would refund the errantly charged fee and it would be returned to me by Thursday, 3/18. Yup. Don't have it yet. Next call won't be as nice. And after a week of wrangling over one of my mother's health care bills, I think I've gotten the barely intelligible Indian guy to agree the insurer isn't involved here. But he insists his company has only billed my mother once, when the bills I'm looking at clearly show she's been billed twice, the second time AFTER she paid the bill. Just faxed him the bills. Fingers crossed he'll see the light. 

Is it bedtime yet? 

ETA - the YMCA says they can't refund a charge made to a credit card or a bank account, so they're sending me a check for the amount they errantly deducted from my checking account. Somehow that seems like the most difficult method of resolving the problem...

And my tax returns have gone. Yes, already. One of my few areas of true organization, I finished my taxes two weeks ago and was just waiting on my W-2, which I received yesterday. I'm hoping I get at least the State refund before Farpoint, it'll make it a much more entertaining weekend!

Re the check forging: We finally got new checks this morning, after raising a full ruckus with the bank over the matter. So today, we finally got paid (with a little extra for the lateness). No word yet from the FBI on whether they'll take the case.

The good ol' federal government, they'll bail out anybody - except Lehman Bros. I'll bet those folks are wondering what they did wrong. Meanwhile we the taxpayers get to foot the bill for money managers mismanaging. Sigh.

Got Pushing Daisies and Torchwood yesterday. Love the PD packaging scheme, and I got it at Target so I got the pie recipe book as well as the set. The boss has already borrowed the DVDs, hopefully I'll get to watch next week. Torchwood looks like the 1st season set, except lighter on the extras. Probably start watching it tonight.

Didn't watch The Fringe a second time after all - we had one ep of Heroes S2 left, and I decided I'd rather watch that. So there. Very impressed with Sarah Connor Chronicles so far - they're pouring serious money into that budget and keeping the storyline up at the same time. I'll keep my fingers crossed for them.

The good news is I haven't been roped into moderating an orphan panel at easternmediacon . But I have, for reasons I can't explain, volunteered to rescue an orphaned workshop. Looks like the Beginner's Art Workshop will now be a tag team effort by 4 artists, myself being one of them. This should be interesting. I may also be 'pimping' some shows, particularly Life, Pushing Daisies & Spooks. Waiting for a confirm on that.

When I arrived at work today, our office manager was in a mood. It was a few hours before she finally let us know what about - seems someone has been forging checks on our business account. It gets better - our manager found more checks that had been forged as the morning went on, and they all came from the same place: my paycheck. Someone had taken my paycheck, replaced my name with theirs via Photoshop, updated the dates as needed and printed out the result on check paper. She then took 3 of these checks to three different cashing places, claimed to be an employee of our office and had her 'paycheck' cashed. On the day I received it, I took that check directly to the bank and deposited it with the teller personally, and only my manager, myself and the teller laid hands on it. So either the teller was in on it, or someone in the bank's check processing unit was, and as that unit is not Maryland and the crook is, it's likely someone in the branch did this. And whoever this person is, has my bank account number as well as the office's. Terrific. Just terrific.

(I have closed that account and ordered new checks, and I'll have to find a different branch to cash my checks. Dammit.)