At 3 am Doug woke me up to tell me Michael was awake. It took me an hour to get him to go back to sleep. At that point, I was up for good.
It occurred to me around 5 am that Doug WOKE ME UP to tell me that Michael was awake. Couldn't he have just dealt with it?
As an aside, never let me mention how well Michael was sleeping again. It's like saying you have never gotten a speeding ticket. You are totally getting pulled over the next day.
I love politics. One of my majors in college was political science. Doug and I can be up all night talking about politics. I love to watch the State of the Union.
My problem is that I like to pretend that George Bush isn't president. So I started ignoring politics. I haven't watched a State of the Union in 7 years.
But, my favorite part of the State of the Union doesn't require watching Bush. It is the day after when when the Washington Post runs a review. Yep, the Post TV Critic, Tom Shales, reviews the State of the Union like it was just a normal average television show.
Some of my favorite parts of the review:
He did not speak softly, but he carried a big shtick.
The Republicans in the House chamber naturally loved it and interrupted the president with applause more times than even he appeared to expect. There was one dramatic wide shot of the chamber right after Bush demanded renewed funding for the interception of communications among terrorist groups. "The time to act is now," he said, and in the shot one could see precisely half the assemblage -- the Republican half -- rise as if one person, while the Democrats, in the foreground, sat still in their seats.
Bush, who wore the bright blue tie he favors for public appearances, used the word "empower" a lot, as well as several utterances of "must," as in "Congress must" do this and "Congress must" do that. Sometimes the applause was so mechanical and perfunctory that it seemed to say, "We all know you're not going to get that, but we'll go along with the pretense for the sake of the TV audience."
He certainly didn't sprint down that aisle after the speech ended. It was the languid, leisurely walk of a man seemingly at peace with the world -- and one whose approval rating of himself seemingly has never dropped much below 100.
You can find the whole article here.
And I'm sorry to all my Republican readers. I think I may have one or two.
Cross posted on DC Metro Moms.
Guess what, we are taking a break from the United nonsense!
Yep, it's that time again. I need parenting advice. The last time I asked the advice I got was so spot on, I have to do it again. (Since we moved Michael to the big boy bed, he has slept through the night again. In fact, he takes 3 hour naps and sleeps until 8 everyday. I should have done that forever ago). In fact, I'm thinking of using this blog for nothing but parenting advice.
Michael has become a holy terror. The past two weeks he has started hitting, kicking, pushing, pulling hair, throwing toys, name it, he does it. We had a playdate with Amy and Noah today and he beat the crap out of poor Noah. If I was Amy I'd never let him around my child again.
We have tried time outs, taking toys away, privileges away. I don't believe in spanking, and short of beating him, I am running out of ideas.
Please help. I know this is a toddler stage and he will group out of it, but will he grow out of it before he kills another child?
P.S. Don't call CPS, I was kidding about beating him. Really.
Here are my limited pictures from club med. But I make up for it with a video so cute your ovaries will hurt.
Michael getting ready for his boat ride, he needed to finish those fruit loops first.
On our last night at Cub Med, the kids did a show. Since Michael was in the Tiger Club, they dressed up as tigers and jumped through hoops. He is the third tiger to go and they really had to coax him to do it. You will know it's him because you will hear us say yeah, really loudly. I'm so glad we extended because otherwise we would have missed this.
That picture is my screen saver now. I love it so.
Oh come on, you know you want me to blog every minute of this? No? Sorry.
Dear Jodifur,
Thank you for taking the time to visit our website. On behalf of United
Airlines, I sincerely apologize for the dissatisfaction you have
expressed and the negative impression we have created.
Your feedback about our operation is very important as constructive
criticism such as yours lets us know what we need to do to serve you
better in the future.
Please forward the receipts for the purchases made by you while the
baggage was delayed along with your delayed baggage report and ticket
receipt for a claim representative review. Our mailing address is:
United Airlines
Central Baggage Service-HDQLZ
P.O. Box 66140
Chicago, IL 60666
FAX (847) 700-5381
Regards,
Ronalee Malik
I just sent them 13 more pages after the original 10 I sent. They want receipts, I will inundate them with paper. Come on, they can totally look up my airline receipts? Don't give me this form letter crap.
United-It's On!
I don't want to give too many details about someone else's life, but I need help.
My best friend gave birth to twins at 30 weeks. They are in the NICU and will be in for at least a month, probably two. She had a very rough pregnancy and is having a very hard time.
I keep asking what can I do and she tells me nothing. She doesn't want me to to take her to the hospital b/c I'm not allowed in the NICU. I honestly don't care about that. I offered to bring her dinner over and she said no. Normally I would just drive it there but they are about an hour away and live in an apartment so I can't just leave it in the front door.
I don't want to be obnoxious and call all the time, but she is my best friend in the whole world and I don't know what I can do for her.
I can't relate. Yes, I had a bad pregnancy, but at the end of the day, I took a healthy baby home. There are days she can not even hold her babies.
For those of you that have been there, what did you need? What did people do that really helped you? How often can I call without being annoying?
Any good suggestions out there to let her know I'm here?
Come on, you know you do. And on another note, you know who should be so grateful to United? Volkswagon. I've totally forgotten how mad I was at them.
Dear Sir or Madam:
Enclosed are copies of receipts from a recent outrageous experience I had with United baggage.I will also be mailing a hard copy this information.I am disgusted at the way I was treated by United employees
On Jan 20th my family was supposed to fly from Wash. Dulled to Miami on Flight 7563.That flight was delayed more than 5 hours, and we were put on another flight to West Palm Beach, flight 5362.We were assured our bags were taken off the plane and would arrive in palm beach.They did not.
We were assured at 10 pm that our bags were in Miami. Since we were staying 2 hours from Miami, we were assured our luggage would arrive in the middle of the night.I stayed up until 3 am waiting and it did not. The next day I called and was promised at 9 am that our luggage would be there at noon. It was not.At noon I was promised our luggage would be there at 3 pm, then 10 pm, then midnight. It arrived at 3 am, a full 36 hours after we landed in West Palm Beach, which United moved us to because our original flight was delayed.
I need someone to explain how exactly it took 36 hours to drive luggage 2 hours?At all times I was assured that they knew where our luggage was and would be delivering it right away.
Every single baggage representative I spoke to was rude, belligerent, and treated me like an idiot.Spencer Roy, Service Director, told me that he was the most senior person I was allowed to speak to.When I asked him if he was the president of United, he told me that he was the senior most person with knowledge of the issue I would be permitted to speak to.Permitted? I am a paying customer and was lied to over and over again.The way you train your employees on customer service is disgraceful and you should be ashamed of your customer relations.
United ruined the first 2 days of my vacation.I spent a full 36 hours calling United every 3 hours asking about our bags, while I was supposed to be on vacation.
The ironic part of this whole thing is that we were flying on free tickets from the last time United ruined our vacation by canceling our flight to Savannah and leaving us stranded at the airport.Do not send me free tickets. I will never fly United again.
I was told that United would pay me $80 as reimbursement for buying items to replace what was in the luggage.$80 for three people?One of which is a toddler who needs diapers.We all needed personal toiletries and clothes.United left us with nothing.
I expect to be reimbursed for the enclosed receipts.
The totals are-
Old Navy-$354.41
Victoria’s Secret-$82.53
Walgreens-$117.86
I also expect to be reimbursed for the cost of the plane ticket that we did pay for, as well as the $29 a ticket to upgrade to United plus.
10. Sit in the airport for 6 hours watching you flight get delayed and delayed while your husband reminds you that this is why United gave you the free tickets in the first place.
9. Convince the gate agent to put you on a different flight so you could possibly get there before midnight.
8. Have your bags go to your original airport, 2 hours away from where you are. Scream at United for 48 hours because yours bags are 2 hours away and they can't seem to get them to you.
7. Spend $400 replacing items to be told by United that they will give you $80. Not a person, total.
6. Let it all go.
5. Workout, get a massage, drink a bloody Mary, in that order.
4. Watch Michael in the kids club show dressed up as a tiger yell, "Mommy, clap your hands."
3. Convince Doug we can stay an extra day.
2. Convince United to not charge you for changing the tickets.
1. Listening to Michael say, "no, I want to stay here" and realizing a more perfect vacation could not have been had. A place where I can spend time with my family and still have alone time with my husband, I am so on the club med bandwagon.
P.S. Sorry, I have very few pictures, because my camera was in the lost baggage. I will post the ones I have in a few days.
P.S.S. Also, I came home to 250 unread blog posts. I'll read them, I promise. But don't expect my superb level of commenting.
We are leaving for our first family vacation
tomorrow. Well, that's not exactly true, we've gone to my parents
house at the beach plenty, and the Outerbanks with my in-laws, but,
this is our first vacation just the three of us, on an airplane.
Planning it has been stressful enough. But now that it's almost here,
I'm not sure why I thought this was a good idea.
I started planning last summer when Doug and I were given two free United vouchers after the whole Savannah
debacle. (And by given, I mean I had to call and complain, a lot.) And
Doug rightly pointed out that this is like the time we went to the
bad restaurant and our meal was a disaster and they gave us a coupon to
come back and we went back and it was still bad. Why, oh why, are we
flying United again?) But, because I am a stickler for all things free,
I really wanted to use them. (And yes, I wanted a vacation. And yes, I
will be using a lot of parentheses today). He also pointed out we were
spending thousands of dollars just so I could use free tickets. He's a
riot, that husband of mine.
Originally we were planning for last year because the tickets said must use by December 2007. To me, that
means fly by, to United, it means ticket by. Which is good, because
Doug got a new job in August and that pushed our vacation back to January.
Then the
dilemma, where to go with a toddler, that is fun for him and us? And
while I really want to go to Disney, I think he is too young and that
is a huge expense. So I started looking at all inclusive resorts. I
decided on Beaches. United doesn't fly there. Then I decided on Atlantis, United doesn't fly there either.
Then
I thought about a cruise. Most cruises have kids clubs that start at
three, not two. We found one line that has a toddler pool (no swim
diapers in cruise pools, apparently it's a law), and one line that has
a two year old program, and another line that had in cabin babysitting,
maybe. What exactly does when available mean? Will it be available? I
called a travel agent to make heads or tails of this nonsense and they
never called me back. (Nice costumer service). And then I thought about
Michael in a very small cabin. Michael, who does not "sleep like a
baby." (If we walk by his room he wakes up). And I thought, hmmm, maybe
not.
This began my pain stacking Internet search to find
somewhere, anywhere we could go. I googled child family travel and got
this list. And of course I fell in love with the most expensive resort on the list.
In the end, we are headed to Club Med
in Florida. What I find so ridiculous, is my mom told me to go there a
year ago. But, all this week we have gone back and forth on canceling. First, my car imploded.
And then Doug had crises after crises at work last week, and we weren't
100% sure we were going until yesterday. And we leave tomorrow. I need
to pack 3 people, one of which is a toddler, in 24 hours. And instead
I'm blogging. Clearly I have my priorities straight.
I am grateful to be leaving somewhere that is 20 degrees and headed
somewhere that is 80 degrees. But I'm nervous. And am obsessing over
every trip advisor review.
I'm refreshing every ten minutes because someone must have just come
back from Club Med Sandpiper and reviewed it in the last 5 minutes.
Some of the reviews are terrible. What if this sucks?
I'm sure you are all wondering by now how exactly I live my life when I
find it this hard to plan a trip? I don't know either.
Jodifur is going dark, for a week.
No blogging.
We are going on vacation. And the resort does not have internet access. I know, shameless. But, it will be good for me. And my marriage. And my son. Although I will miss my daily Britney Spears updates.
A good week to you. And I'm leaving somewhere very cold and going somewhere very warm.
Please don't forget to come back.
