Grrr. The company who took the photos from my triathlon were offering a discount based on number of USA gold medals during the olympics. The discount expired yesterday. When I tried to check out the coupon would not work, so I emailed the company for what to do next since. I received this reply today:

I do apologize but the promotion is no longer available and we are no longer able to apply the discount to any orders.

Best Regards, redacted Customer Service

I'm sending this back to them: I am unimpressed with this message. How exactly does "too bad for you" display customer service?

I managed to get the coupon to work at 10 pm last night after all, no thanks to you or your very untimely response.

How are your students this year? Or do you have a couple of days yet before they show up?

Started last Wednesday. Mostly okay, but I have a couple of trouble spots and one overfull class (more students than computers). Which wouldn't be such a problem if I could get a straight answer on when it would be resolved!

Okay, so as I was about to reply to that a new student walked in (I'm on break) to introduce himself and tell me he'd be in my class. I swear to god, it was like a "Who's on First" routine:

Emily: What's your name, o most welcome of new students who, it will occur to me only after you've left, can't have taken the prerequisite?

Student: Smith. Johnson.

Emily: Johnson's your first name?

Student: No. But, I mean, you can call me Johnson.

Emily: So Johnson's not your name but I can call you by it?

Student: Yes. I mean, no. It is my name.

Emily: Johnson's your first name?

Student: No, Smith is my first name.

Emily: But I should call you Johnson?

Student: Sure.

Emily: All my pencils are broken. Come back during class and we'll play this game again!

I think I"m going to wear my Dansko Mary Janes...just to be safe.

Yeah, cute as they are, I don't think those sandals make the office-sandal cut.

Library scuttlebutt tells me that one of my librarians will be resigning, probably today. This is a good thing, and I hope it happens soon because I've now got a bunch of stuff backed up in my to-do box waiting to hear when she'll actually be starting her new duties.

Vortex, this is not good news for you, because if scuttlebutt is correct, she's taking the job for which you applied. Boo!

The student stories make me laugh (and then cry, because these students will someday be in my classes).

Hmm, I discovered the cause of all my whites being gnarled up from the washing machine- it was not the result of bad colorfast, but instead due to a build up of salt, soap, and rust gunk. Any thoughts how to get this out now that the problem has been solved?

An empty hot cycle with a shitton of OxyClean or CLR?

Tips from CLR: WASHING MACHINES: Run empty machine without detergent up to main wash cycle. Stop machine and add one-half cup CLR. Finish cycle. Run one additional full cycle (wash and rinse) with water only to rinse machine fully.

vw, as someone who works in a decently creative field, I would look askance at anyone who showed up for an interview in sandals. Overdressed is always better than underdressed.

That said, I'm wearing jeans and open-toed slides today. But our August is casual, and I know that. Any potential interviewee wouldn't.

I had a dream last night that I adopted a whole bunch of kids, and then they slowly turned into dolls. Like, at first, I was noticing that one kid seemed more giggly than the others, and another seemed more serious, and by the end of the dream, I realized that that was just the way their faces were sewn on.

Shape up, brain!

Seriously, Emily's brain! You can do so much better.

Incidentally, you and your brains were last night under the subject heading: Missing Emily and Her Brains.

Argh. There is this recurring 5AM conference call (8AM on the East Coast) that I do not attend. Because, duh, 5AM. But they were all "everyone should really attend this one it's important there are deadlines coming up blah blah blah". So I hauled my ass out of bed (after waking up twice in the middle of the night with scary shit going on--fire alarm at 1AM, nightmare at 3AM...)...and it SO wasn't important at all.

And then of course, the doctor called at 8AM. And a wrong number called at 9AM. And so on and so forth. Hrmph.