Sound Bites

BAM! A quick quake hit just about the time the 6:00 news came on. I had just watched a documentary on rogue waves on The History Channel, and, for a second, wondered what had hit the house. The sudden jolt felt as if a runaway truck hit the house head on, just for maybe 1-2-3 seconds, with a slight jiggling following the initial impact. Then, it was done. According to the news, 3.4 located 6 miles NE from me.

Let's see, that could be the Mission Creek Fault, the Banning Fault, the Garnet Hill Fault, or the San Andreas Fault, but it's probably the Indio Hills Fault this time. The basin is alive with shifting sand, and today's newspaper had a lead story predicting the "big one" is due any day. Well, I've already experienced a "big one," a 7.5, and I'm sticking with my belief that if I have to fall victim to any natural disaster, I prefer it to be an earthquake. I'll take my chances on moving earth, rather than 90 foot tall rogue waves traveling 150 mph that snap a tanker in half in a heartbeat!

My appointment to discuss energy efficient window replacements for the living room (the victim of the bb gun attack last fall) and the sliding glass door was eye opening. Looks like I'm not going with this vendor as just those 2 replacements will cost me $6k--and that's pretty much replacing like with like. I called this vendor because my friend who lives about a mile away had a total of 7 windows replaced for $7500, including a living room window at least the same size as mine, and she selected the top tier of glass product. I looked at one window and one patio door, mid-range glass product, for $6k?

Something doesn't make sense, and if I think I'm being scammed, I don't do business with the vendor. He did make an offer to go higher level on this and lower on that for the same price, but in my world, the price is the price: if you can sell the product for less, why aren't you? I'm not a contestant on let's make a deal and I don't want my business to be the result of arm twisting and/or my ability to guess the real price.

I desperately want to install a garden/French door instead of any kind of slider, so I'll continue to search other providers and see if I can find what I want for about $2500, which (totally installed) would be reasonable. The sales rep's take on that is sure, you can buy windows at the big box home improvement store, but you'll have crap windows, not prestige energy efficient product. My response: the house made it to almost 20 years with "crap" windows, so I'm willing to spend less to buy myself another 20 years.

My aching arms are throbbing and swollen. I've taken aspirin, ibuprofen, soaked in warm water and applied ice packs. The bottom line is that all the little things I enjoy doing cause me discomfort, so either I sit on the couch and expand my glutinous maximus or I do what I'm going to do and deal with the pain. When the scales tip and the benefit is over-matched by the pain, I'll reconsider my decision.

AARRGGHH! I just went outside to turn on the 2 soaker hoses for the new plantings--and found that Mia has already made 2 huge doggie beds, one in each of the 2 planter boxes. After yelling "bad dog" at her a hundred times (and muttering under my breath), I filled in the holes and warned her that if there are any more holes dug in my new landscaping, she's banished to the dog run. That, of course, means no coming into the air-conditioned house, a bowl of warm water outside, and no couches for her afternoon snooze. She ruined my yard the last time I planted it, and I'm NOT going to allow that again!