Crap…

…I’m gonna be hungover tomorrow. 2 people shouldnot equal 2 bottles of wine at dinner…

Worst. Luck. Ever.

So, you know how I have a brand new car? Like, my first brand new car ever? Like, so new that it doesn’t even have 3,000 miles on it? Yeah. Well, on Friday I decided to meet some coworker’s at Clinton’s Ditch for a beer at lunch. I wasn’t even going to go, except for that I was having a stressful day (as always) and it was gorgeous out and so sitting on the back patio of the Ditch and enjoying a Sam Summer sounded amazing. I texted Trant to order a beer for me and got in my car and headed down Erie Blvd. I was almost there when I stopped at a red light, just before Liberty. As I was sitting there waiting for the light to turn green a big older GMC Jimmy pulled into the Left Turn lane next to me and as he pulled past me he hit me. Yep, freaking hit my brand new car. He kept making the left and I yelled an obscenity and then pulled into the lane after him and followed him into a parking lot. We got out of our cars and he made a remark that the situation sucked as we looked at the damage on my car. It wasn’t huge - a scrape and small dent - but on my brand new car with less than 3,000 miles, it was devastating.

I started to take down the kid’s insurance information and phone number as he kept telling me how he didn’t want to have to go through insurance and how he had a guy that he saw fix a scrape like that easily and how it could be buffed out. I realized that this kid was a sketchy tool, so I decided that since it was my brand new car, I needed to call the police. It took about ten minutes for a cop to get there and when he did he walked up to us and said, “First of all, I’d like to thank the both of you because I’m supposed to be out writing seat belt tickets and this is much more interesting.” “It is?” I said. “Yeah. Click it or ticket…” he said as he rolled his eyes. He asked us both our versions of the accident and fortunately the kid wasn’t such a tool that he tried to say it wasn’t his fault - he verified for the cop that I was stopped at the light when he drove past me and hit me. The cop looked at the damage and then wrote up the report and told us it’d take 3 days blah blah blah and left. As I left to go back to work, the kid asked again to let him just pay out of pocket. Yeah…

I got back to work and IM’d Dodi right away, as I always do with anything that involves damage to a vehicle. She told me that if I sent her a picture of the damage, her dad could do sort of a preliminary estimate to give me an idea of the cost. A short time later she faxed me an estimate - $1700. It’s a brand new car and they wrote it up to fix it right. I knew that the tooly kid would not have the money to pay that out of his pocket and I didn’t want to haggle with him over costs and shops… I was sure that he’d try and tell me it could just be buffed out. Yeah, no. Not my brand new car. I will not accept anything less than having it fixed right. So, I called his insurance company that night and reported the claim. They called me today and took a recorded statement and sent someone out to look at the car. When the adjuster talked to me earlier today he hadn’t talked to his insured yet and so he didn’t say that they were accepting liability yet (which is exactly what he should have said). Dodi said that the field adjuster said they were good to go when he faxed over his estimate, so I think I should be able to bring it in to get fixed pretty soon - which is good because even though it’s a small booboo it’s still a blemish on my brand new car and that sucks!

Oh - and somehow that kid got my cellphone number (I think that the adjuster gave it to him which is totally obnoxious and I’m not sure if it’s legal…) and he called me today and grumped at me for putting through the insurance company. I was like, “Look - it’s a brand new car. My friend’s dad looked at it and they estimated $1700 to fix it right and my husband freaked out and made me put it through insurance.” Ok. I wussed out and fibbed a little, but whatever. It took me off guard that the tooly kid called me because I’m positive that I didn’t give him my number and the whole point of me calling his insurance company right away was so that I wouldn’t have to have that conversation with him. Oh, and of course he was all like, “it didn’t look like $1700 worth of damage to me.” Whatever, dude. You’re not an appraiser so f- off.

So that pretty much sucked. But get this - Sunday morning, Alex went out to get us breakfast and when he came back to the apartment I could tell by the way he was stomping up the stairs that something was wrong. “Someone hit my car!” “WHAT?!” Yeah. Someone hit Alex’s car sometime Saturday night. Can you believe it?! They hit the back driver’s side of the car, scraping all the way up towards the back door, and then totally obliterated his mirror. And then, apparently, got out of the car and placed his mirror on the hood of his car and then drove off. No note. Probably drunk.

We called the cops and they took a police report. The officer basically said, “Don’t hold your breath” about them finding anyone. Of course we don’t expect that they’ll find anyone - but we had the police report done to cover our bases with the insurance company. What totally blows about a hit and run is we HAVE to go through our own insurance for this claim and even though it’s totally not our fault we’ll probably get a rate hike out of it. Suuuuuuuuuuuucks.

Anyway, so yeah. We pretty much have the worst luck ever. Oh, and it’s totally just fab how everyone likes to say, “they come in threes…” So now I feel like I’m totally waiting for the other shoe to drop. Fingers crossed…

After 2am and I’m still awake…

Thank God it’s the weekend. I can never sleep when Alex isn’t here.

Ali
Sent from my iPhone

Shipping out to Boston

We randomly decided to drive to Boston today. Ended up in the Green
Dragon pub near Quincy Market where I am DRUNK off of a few all Irish
black and tans. Today rocks!

I actually can’t believe…

…how crappy I feel. It came on soooooo quickly. I didn’t feel this
bad even a couple of hours ago. I pretty much can’t get off the sofa
and all I want to do is whine. Alex isn’t here for me to whine to, so
the blog is getting the brunt of the whining, along with the cats (but
they can run away… Damn mobile cats shunning me!). Ugh. Achey.
Waaaaaaaah….

Ali
Sent from my iPhone

Here and having a blast!!

We’re here! We’re here! We’re at Disney World!!

I’m accessing the internet via a computer station at Disney Quest in Downtown Disney. Disney Quest is a giant - five level - arcade full of not only traditional video games but also interactive similators. It’s really cool and really very Disney… The elevators that you board when you first arrive aren’t content to be just elevators… They have a small show with the Genie from Alladin. We’re here at Disney Quest after having just seen Cirque du Soleil - La Nouba next door. It was an absolutely amazing, incredible, beautiful, unbelievable show!! Before the show we had a fabulously decadent dinner at Fulton’s Crab House.

It’s really been an incredible night, and, to tell the truth, I’m a bit tuckered out. After walking around Epcot all day in the heat and then coming here to Downtown Disney and having a huge meal and then sitting in the dark watching a show for over an hour, I’m pretty much ready for bed. But Alex thinks he’s died and gone to heaven in this enourmous arcade, so here I sit, sipping on a diet Coke to try and wake up a bit while I type on an impossibly annoying keyboard to update my page. I am waking up a little, so I think after this place closes at midnight, I’ll be up for walking over to Pleasure Island for some drinks and checking out the clubs.

I’ve had a fabulous time so far! The trip down was pretty much uneventful. We were able to get into the parks pretty early on our arrival day… We were at Epcot by 4:30. We had dinner at Morroco and then viewed the fireworks show (IllumiNations). While watching the show (in the rain in our ultra stylish ponchos) we met an older couple from Philly who’d also just arrived that day. They were also staying at our hotel for a week and were in celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. They were a nice couple and we exchanged polite conversation before saying “see ya around”. And, we did end up seeing them again the next day.

We went to Animal Kingdom during the day and had a great time seeing all the animals, attractions, and shows. Afterwards, we cleaned up at the hotel and then headed over to the Polynesian Resort where we saw the Spirit of Aloha dinner show… and that couple from Philly! We’d just arrived and were directed to go get a picture taken. On our way to get the picture done, we noticed that everyone else had lais, but we didn’t see anyone handing them out. We stood at the picture spot and just before they were about to take the picture, the gentleman from Philly ran over and put his and his wife’s lais around our necks so we’d have them for the picture! The dinner show was amazing - especially the fire dancer guy - and afterwards we walked out to the Polynesian beach and layed on a hammock and decided it was paradise and that next time we came to Disney we were going to stay at the Poly.

Today we finished up Epcot, just in case Ivan decides to come bother us later on this week. Tomorrow we’ll be doing the Magic Kingdom and Monday will be MGM. So, by Monday night at least we’ll have done the major 4 parks and if the weather decides to be a problem and we’re stuck in our hotel room for a day, we’ll at least feel like we didn’t miss out on anything important.

Well, my timer on this internet access computer is running dangerously low, so I’ll finish up and go find Alex. Am having a fabulous time!!!!!!!

People crowding the gate waiting to board the flight to Orlando.

Alex at the Charlotte airport waiting for our Orlando flight.

Little worried about hurricane Ivan though..

We’re in Charlotte waiting to board our flight to Orlando. It’s apparently running late. Sigh. Can’t wait to get there!