Fay, we were talking about this at work. One of the electricians is from UK. She was like "I was all for it, until I learned that the girls don't actually bake the cookies. Fuck that!". I guess it was funnier the way she said it. But it was an interesting discussion of Girl Guides vs Girl Scouts.

omnis, I love Gabriel Iglesias! His Comedy Central special is really funny, and I saw him live last year. He does such fantastic voices.

OK, I'm off to bed. Really. Promise.

Fay, this is a Samoa (also called a Caramel deLite in some places): [link]

They KICK ASS. So. Fucking. Good.

I haven't seen any girl scouts this year. I'll have to ask Mom if any of the girls at her school are selling them when she gets back from Florida. I love both thin mints and somoas, can't choose between them.

I honestly don't know if I would be able to forgive someone for doing that to me. I could forgive someone backing out or telling me that they couldn't do it or even forgetting it...but I don't think I could forgive outright lies that led to me missing an opportunity.

I'm struggling with that quite a bit. He's been a great friend in the past; however, this is the 3rd time in a year he's screwed something up. The first 2 times he backed out of something and now he just forgot something extremely important, at least to me it's important. The last few years have been crappy for him (his father died, his wife had an affair, he got divorced). I can't keep making excuses for him, though. This time he really messed up in a major way.

I'm kicking myself. My friend wanted to do this for me. He ASKED me if he could do this! I had several other people I could have asked (ND was one of the tops on the list) and I gave this guy the chance and he might have screwed me over.

Trefoils . . . shortbread . . .

Maybe the Girl Scouts are lurking at the grocery store doors again.

{{{{GG}}}} Yeah, it's a lot to think about. I'm so sorry.

So update on the whole recommendation letter debacle: as of this morning, my colleague has not even opened the email I sent her yesterday (we have a nifty "history" feature on internal emails, so I would be able to see if she had), which tells me that she is gravely ill.

Luckily, my department head was online, so I sent her an email explaining the situation and begging her to save me. She wrote me a rec for something else last year, so she would just have to modify it rather than writing something brand new. It's not ideal since she had already written a rec for the other person in my department applying for this same program, but...I don't know what else to do at this point.

She emailed me right back and said that she understood and would get it to me by Monday. I wish this hadn't happened like this, but at least I still have a chance. I'll just have to run out and priority mail the sucker during the school day. Not perfect, but still a relief.

{{{{{KT}}}}}

I'm glad you were able to find someone else suitable to write the letter; however, it must be so frustrating as the other colleague would offer such a unique perspective.

I was checking the online banking site today, figuring how little we could send to the landlord. All of sudden, there were way too many digits to the left of the decimal point. I looked at the details, and there it was, the Social security lump sum payment.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, your federal government does do things right occasionally. A month after the hearing, we have our settlement. A nice lump sum is now ours for telling various bill collectors to go to hell, to pay back people who have been supremely generous to us when needed help, to send out some good karma instead of us having to draw on it. On top of that, there will be monthly payments pretty sufficient to deal with regular bills in addition to my income.

I'm trying very hard to think "Yes, this is the culmination of years of effort" rather than "oh, great, something good, where's that other shoe," but that's my own neuroses at work. All in all, it's a good day at Chez Neil.

Kristin, I'm glad that you were able to find a solution to the problem.

Connie, it's good to know that the federal government is finally doing the right thing for you and your husband.

TCG's car is in the shop again. They're not positive about what is wrong with it, but they think it might be the water pump. (I think. I suck at remembering car stuff).

Oh, Kristin. How frustrating. I hope it all works out.

Connie, that's great news! Yay!

I'm at study group and have a rare connection. I come check in and you people only have five posts since I left home four hours ago. Crazy slow day.

A little ~ma for Toto would not be amiss. I had to call the vet this morning about something, and she said he needs to be seen before she can see him on Monday morning. So, after study group and picking mom and dad up at the airport I'm gonna take the poor little guy to the ER. Here's to hoping it's just a UTI as we suspect.