The refund showed up on my statement today. A voided transaction gets processed as a "refund" so they can hold on to my money for six days.

Grrrr.

War was even better this year, with the feeling of returning to a group of friends, even though we'd only seen Lori and Glenn once since the previous War, House Rittervald welcomed us in, and even fed us. Matt found a beautiful Sghien Dubh (I have to check my spelling) in damascus steel, and I resisted the pull of a norse-style short sword and came home with a hand-thrown pitcher with knotwork on it. We both found braided ribbon trim for our cloaks. Bob was a pirate in sneakers, thus saving himself from the fun of War-dust between his toes.

There was singing around the campfire, two guitar players taking turns and playing together, much sitting around drinking divine coffee drinks courtesy of the Goddess Kaffeina, getting chased away from the sidelines of the heavies fighting by autocrats, being woken up by crows and demented ducks, but no sun burn.

The Saga Of The Pendant Continues

I went back after work on Friday, and the woman who had handed me the empty box was very glad to see me, and had bought a little box of four Godiva chocolates by way of an apology. I had been pondering my purchase all day and in the end decided to change the little filligree heart for a slightly larger heart with daisies engraved on it, and a couple of tiny diamonds. It was more than the other (of course) but it was very much more her.

Granny loved it, and even has some silver earrings to wear with it, she doesn't wear much silvertone stuff because she doesn't own much, not becasue she doesn't like it.

Then, this morning, I checked my credit card balance online. The original charge is still there. The one I asked her to erase and put on a different card. So I have paid for a white gold (with diamonds) pendant on my UK card, and am now expected to pay for a transaction that was (supposedly) cancelled before I even left the store the first time. Human error allowing this is starting ot piss me off.

I'm now wondering what proof I have that the initial transaciton was voided, I didn't ask for a copy of the voided receipt, and I didn't keep a copy of the receipt from the first purchase. All I have is the receipt from when I exchanged the little heart for the larger one, and a printout of my online credit card statement showing the erroneous charge. I just hope it's enough. I don't want to be $50 out of pocket because someone didn't let my credit card know that they cancelled a charge.

Now I know why I don't wear much jewelry

Because, to put it simply, shopping for jewelry is a more frustrating hell than trying to find a bathing suit that doesn't make me feel like a trainee blue whale.

I spent two hours searching the UTC mall for a pendant for my Granny. I saw many things I liked, but most of them were too "funky" looking for my Granny, oddly twisted hearts and some lovely middle-eastern influenced scrollwork and tassled necklaces that my Mum would adore. Plain, simple, understated pendants involving yellow gold and perhaps some pelasant-coloured semi-precious stones? Nope. Not on your nelly. I waded through every department store, two jeweller's and one costume jewelry store where the clerk tried to convince me that my grandmother would just love to own a chunky silver chain with starfish hanging off it. There are very few ways to politely say "no thank you, that's much too gaudy for her" and "can we keep it under $150 please?" and I ran out of tact somewhere between Nordstrom's and Robinson's May.

Eventually I returned to Ben Bridge [>] and went with a little filligree heart in white gold, even though I know she wears yellow gold. It was the only thing that remotely said Suey to me. I was also encouraged by it being half the approximate amount my Mum told me to expect to pay.

Then I managed to pull out the wrong card to pay for it, and didn't realise until it had already been rung up, so I had to get her to void the first transaction and start over. The second card took an inexplicably long time to clear, thus wasting an additional 15 minutes or so.

By this point I was ready for a nap, my eyes were aching from staring at so many sparkly things under bright lights, trying to search for the invisible understated pieces amongst the carbuncles, and I was well overdue for a boost to my blood sugar. I got straight on 805 and headed home. Matt already had dinner ready, bless him.

I pulled out the package to show Matt what I'd wasted two hours looking for, opened the cardboard gift box, then the jewelery box...and proudly displayed to him an empty cream velvet interior.

NYAAAAAARGGGH!

That's right, I walked out of there with a gift box. But no pendant.

I'm going to call them as soon as they open this morning. I am just praying it gets sorted out easily. I'm also very glad that I didn't go for the $200 locket and then have this happen, I would have completely freaked out. As it is I feel I've had a lucky escape from proudly presenting Granny with an empty box. Thank Fate I took it out to show off...

*ahem* If you stop paying attention for a moment you'll turn around and find I've implemented some large change again. The last few months it was limited to rearranging furniture, apart from that whole switching jobs thing that's made such a huge difference to my working life...

Now I'm moving again. Upstairs in fact, to a large two-bedroom (and two full bathrooms!) apartment that just came available. Moving from a studio to a two bedroom and dropping my rent by $100.

Yep, Matt and I are moving in together. To some it's "finally" and to other's it's "already", but to us it's just right.

Getting Back On Form

Last night was a really good class, for the first time in ages I felt as though my legs and arms (but especially my legs) were paying attention and remembered what this whole karate thing was about. I ended up giggling in the middle of warmups, mostly because we were leaping back and forth between back-stances facing opposite directions and my hair flopping side to side made me feel like a karate-muppet unable to make up it's mind where to block. As Miss Piggy holds a firm fighting stance facing off her oponents she hears a movement behind her and switches around only to find an equally large group of attackers on that side too...

This is where the medium of words on a page, or on a screen, completely fails to convey my muppet impersonations. Muppet, fraggle (more when I had the pink hair) or straightforward Tigger, that's the side that doesn't get out much here, because it's mostly in the body language and tone of voice. I asked Matt the other day what animal I'm most like, as he thinks of himself as a golden retreiver, I was expecting cat, or kitten, maybe squirrel (since I'd been told that one before)... Instead of an animal, he came up with "a combination of Pooh and Tigger, with a bit of Roo, because of the mommy thing" this pretty quickly turned itself into me being mostly Tigger. At least it goes to explain why I got on my sister's nerves so much: she's Eyore.

Imagine a moody mid-teen-ager dealing with the strains of advanced classes in high school, first boyfriend, a hereditory tendency towards depression, and all the fear of picking colleges and planning your life, being presented with a bouncy prepubescent smartass of a kid sister. Reicepe for disaster? You got it. Though I'm not sure if Eyore ever tried to throttle Tigger after being bounced into the river.

I'd go out and get the litle fuzzy Tigger to match my toy Eyore, but I think Peppermint the snow leopard is quite enough kitty-shaped toys for this 23-year-old scientist.

Besides, the orange would clash with my comfy chair.