Happy Birthday to my mom! (If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here…so in some fundamental way, this is all her fault. *grin*)

And of course (using the feminine temporal mysteries of the universe, which are inherently incapable of paradox — and never you mind how that happens!), she is turning 29. (Just like I will on my next birthday in June.) *even bigger grin*

In other news, after spending the last two-ish months freaking out with a great deal of intense anxiety over her next report card and how absolutely awful she was certain it would be, my youngest demonspawn got her report card on Wednesday. Let’s just see how things panned out:

Reading: B
Writing: A
Social Studies: B
Environmental Studies: C (mainly due to missing assignments)
Algebra: C- (her weak grades on tests pulled it down from a B)
Spanish: A (she gets high school credit for this class!)

That means her average for this trimester is a B. And since her previous trimester was a smidgen better, her final average for the year might even make it to a 3.5 on a scale of 4! I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m pretty impressed and pleased!

To celebrate, she dyed her hair again. It was dyed black last time, and that was a while back, so almost 2 inches of dark blond roots were showing. She had me goop her up with (what we presume was) her sister’s leftover punk dye — the “neon stop-sign” (aka “garishly bloody”) shade of red. With fingernails painted black and her new bi-color hair, she looks terribly emo (I’ll try to get pics soon). She mentioned that someone accused her of emotry recently, and she thought that was pretty cool.

Oh. Joy.

But she got good grades, so I really don’t care how emo she looks! Maybe I’m a weird mom or something, but she could dress up every day like Morticia Adams — or Marcia Brady, or Moe from the Stooges — and I wouldn’t care, as long as she stays out of trouble & keeps pulling in those good grades!

I shall go do my happy dance of maternal joy now.

Every time I think there can’t be anything more wrong in the world, I find something that’s more wrong. Like the Mii. All I can say to that is:

Crii-pii.

The problem with spring is, that when you decide to pull open the drapes to let the sunshine in, you notice how long it’s been since you swept the floor. That, and the cats suddenly decide that a jailbreak is in order, because they want to go out into the Really Big Room.

So have a happy equinox, already.

Those creepy Burger King commercials with the plastic-headed king are bad enough, and certainly enough of a reason to avoid giving Burger King your business, but apparently the Burger King corporation is not the least bit interested in keeping the customer happy by providing an easy way to contact them when problems arise with one of their restaurants.

Since there is a Burger King not far from my home, with a 24-hour drive-thru window, Geoffrey & I often stop there on our way home when I pick him up at work. The last handful of times that we’ve gone there, however, we’ve encountered problems. The big problem — the one that generally precipitates consequent problems — is that the person taking orders at the drive-thru window does not speak/understand enough English to actually take an order correctly!

After my third separate experience with attempting to make what should be an extremely fast and basic request, having to phrase my request slightly differently several times (on the off chance that I might hit upon the correct combination of English words that the employee comprehends) and speaking as clearly as possible, the futility of the interaction becomes crystal clear. No one should have to learn to speak Spanish in able to place an order at a fast-food restaurant in the United States!

When the stupidity of encountering this situation repeatedly had annoyed me enough to attempt to contact the corporation through their website, I faced the further annoyance of a slow-loading site which is heavy on fancy graphics and low on actual words. No one should have to attempt to interpret customized corporate hieroglyphics in order to navigate a website!

After finally locating the link to a page that theoretically should help since it claims to be “Customer Service,” I was greeted with several long-distance phone numbers — the only toll-free number was in regards to their gift cards — and a quite unfriendly statement informing those customers who are seeking some sort of customer service that, “Email communication is not accepted.” I see. Clearly, they are not interested in actually providing customer service on their webpage that is identified as “Customer Service!”

Alrighty then. I know which fast-food place I won’t be giving my business to any longer!

So let’s see…what has Angst been up to in Seattle? Well, she has a job in plainclothes loss prevention (she catches shoplifters — caught her first one within 2 hours of starting the job!), she apparently needed another hole in her head because she got her labret re-pierced (and put in a lip ring), and a disaster in attempting to trim her own bangs resulted in her latest hair style…

Mohawk.

My mother is going to have kittens when she sees it. As for me, well…it’s not my favorite look on her, but it’s only hair. It will grow back. And I have to admit she’s ballsy — even at my sassiest, I couldn’t have pulled off that look.

Le sigh. (Click to see le damage.)

And now for something completely TMI…

Yesterday was Pi Day (the date was 3.14), so naturally Anxiety insisted that we make pie! I really don’t understand why people don’t make apple pies instead of baking them — it’s quick & easy, and while homemade pies (at least mine) may not be as aesthetically pleasing as some of the store-bought ones, they sure are tasty! Here’s the official Pi Day 2007 apple pie that we baked last night:

The bearded dragon lizard is getting so big! Within a day or two of finishing a shed, he’s shedding again! Peyo is at least 3 times the size he was when Angst got him — and he does love his Lizard Chow, with canned crickets & mealworms for dessert. He’s got the prettiest markings & colors, definitely more gorgeous than any pic I’ve seen of a bearded dragon lizard! This pic doesn’t show off his lovely orange spots, and the beautiful pattern on his tummy, but it’s the best I could get for the time being:

And today is Anxiety’s Half-Birthday — we don’t exactly celebrate half-birthdays, but we do acknowledge them as a fun thing! (I find it amusing that she was born exactly half a year away from the Ides of March.)

Geoffrey got a phone call from a friend, that one of our online friends has passed away this morning. Jesebelle (LJ…MySpace) will be missed, especially her sweet snarkiness and her noselicks.

If you knew her, go lick someone’s nose in her memory.

Last night, as I was closing down my browser after Geoffrey got home from work, he told me to hold on a minute, and go to Become An M&M. “Become a what?!” was my first reaction…

A few minutes later, me & my deranged sense of humor had produced this:

You’ll notice I chose Stonehenge as a background…someday I’ll be able to actually take a picture of myself there! (And I won’t be wearing an M&M costume, I promise.) The callbox is a tribute to science fiction in general, and the people I’ve known who’ve liked Dr. Who. The anvil about to fall on “my” head is a general statement about life. *wry grin*

I also snapped a new pic for the Annie collection yesterday…

Robert & Claire had the proverbial “good news/bad news” this morning…

Bad news: Their guinea pig died suddenly. He was fine yesterday, and quite the opposite this morning.

Good news: Bun-Bun gets a bigger home, since the guinea pig’s extra-large condo is no longer needed.

Of course I scrubbed it thoroughly before moving Bun-Bun into it! The bunny really seems to like it lots:

In the pic, Bun-Bun is that black fluffy thing way back in the far corner — not because of Michiko, since the bunny is completely unphased by the cats — but probably just because he likes corners. He did that in the old cage, too. (I figure he needs a little hut to hang out in, which we’ll get the next time we’re at the pet superstore.)

Meanwhile, the cats continue to find the bearded dragon lizard the most fascinating thing ever:

Lately it’s seemed like every day another letter from a bill collector comes in the mail, so today I bit the bullet and went to get my credit reports. (I’m chagrined to admit that I’m 37 years old and had never seen my own credit reports before.) My credit has been shaky (at best) for my entire adult life, and I was pretty nervous to see what the total was going to be. So I went to the Annual Credit Report site, where you are eligible for a free annual credit report from all major credit-reporting agencies.

It wasn’t as wince-worthy as I’d feared. Okay, it wasn’t a thrill a minute, either. But it turns out that my outstanding debts total about $1800, and all but $150 of that is medical bills from when I didn’t have health insurance (and I do make monthly payments). So I don’t feel as pathetic as I’d expected.

I also found a website with a metric butt-ton of info on what your rights are, under state & federal laws, and how to repair your credit. It’s Fair Debt Collection.com, and I expect to be spending a lot of time there, in order to patch up my credit report as much as possible. Along with paying the debts, of course…