Honest to the point of recklessness, self centered to the extreme

The foundations of reality are trembling. I am cutting down on coffee.

Mainly because I couldn't afford both coffee and cat litter this week, and the cat litter won. You can only ask a moggy to shit on shredded newspaper for so long, even if she was sprung on you unexpected.

Also, I was starting to wonder if five pints of black coffee a day might have been sapping my vitality. Sadly, I might have been right. I only had one pint yesterday and I did, actually, feel better.

Bloody 'ell. I'm scared I might find myself giving up smoking if this keeps up.

Jobs for today: finish the pimp entries, redo journal layout, sort out vet paperwork so I can register Cassie with my vet and make an appointment to have her checked out and find out how cheaply I can get her spayed.

Honest to the point of recklessness, self centered to the extreme

The foundations of reality are trembling. I am cutting down on coffee.

Mainly because I couldn't afford both coffee and cat litter this week, and the cat litter won. You can only ask a moggy to shit on shredded newspaper for so long, even if she was sprung on you unexpected.

Also, I was starting to wonder if five pints of black coffee a day might have been sapping my vitality. Sadly, I might have been right. I only had one pint yesterday and I did, actually, feel better.

Bloody 'ell. I'm scared I might find myself giving up smoking if this keeps up.

Jobs for today: finish the pimp entries, redo journal layout, sort out vet paperwork so I can register Cassie with my vet and make an appointment to have her checked out and find out how cheaply I can get her spayed.

God damn them all!!

Just dug today's post out from under my collie, all happy to receive a parcel from wychwood (thank you! yayyy!!!) and old-school Doctor Who DVDs from Blockbuster, and... there's another envelope. It's from Dorset Magistrates' Courts, and the little plastic window in it shows a letter printed in red.

Well, that can never be good. But it's been six years since I broke any laws (or at least, since I last got caught). I'm not scared.

The letter's to tell me that they're issuing a warrant for my arrest and sending bailiffs round to seize my belongings if I don't pay them £482.51 in fines within seven days.

I don't have a font big, red or startled enough to convey the amount of WTF that's going on here. I haven't been ignoring court letters or anything. I haven't had any. In SIX FUCKING YEARS. If there are any unpaid fines, I've gone through the last six years blissfully unaware of their existence, and apparently so has the Magistrates' Court computer system.

Once upon a time I would have panicked and gone into instant denial. Hidden the letter unopened, pretended I hadn't received it and acted all surprised when they issued the warrant for my arrest and turned up to take me and my furniture away. But this is the new, improved, reformed Liz and she does the sensible grown-up thing. She phones the number at the top of the letter, quotes the case number, and gibbers in panic at the nice lady on the other end of the line.

Between us, we found out what had happened. Six years ago I was fined for (among other things) driving without a valid license, or insurance, or something. (Don't expect me to remember. Even if I could remember those days in detail, I really, really don't want to.) The fine was set up to be paid automatically out of my benefits, which is what happens when you don't have any money. Because there were several fines, they were set up to be paid off little by little one after the other.

Except apparently, their hamster died some time between one fine and the next, and the payments that should have happened automatically six years ago never did. I have no idea why. I have even less idea why it took them this long to notice. The good news is that, according to the lady I spoke to on the phone, if I turn up at the Magistrates' Court and point out that the unpaidness of the fine is due to their administrative fuck-up, I should at least be able to pay this off at three quid a week for the next thirty years, and maybe, just maybe a faint possibility of being let off paying it altogether. Court date's May 31st. Don't anyone let me forget.

bloody arseholes.

God damn them all!!

Just dug today's post out from under my collie, all happy to receive a parcel from wychwood (thank you! yayyy!!!) and old-school Doctor Who DVDs from Blockbuster, and... there's another envelope. It's from Dorset Magistrates' Courts, and the little plastic window in it shows a letter printed in red.

Well, that can never be good. But it's been six years since I broke any laws (or at least, since I last got caught). I'm not scared.

The letter's to tell me that they're issuing a warrant for my arrest and sending bailiffs round to seize my belongings if I don't pay them £482.51 in fines within seven days.

I don't have a font big, red or startled enough to convey the amount of WTF that's going on here. I haven't been ignoring court letters or anything. I haven't had any. In SIX FUCKING YEARS. If there are any unpaid fines, I've gone through the last six years blissfully unaware of their existence, and apparently so has the Magistrates' Court computer system.

Once upon a time I would have panicked and gone into instant denial. Hidden the letter unopened, pretended I hadn't received it and acted all surprised when they issued the warrant for my arrest and turned up to take me and my furniture away. But this is the new, improved, reformed Liz and she does the sensible grown-up thing. She phones the number at the top of the letter, quotes the case number, and gibbers in panic at the nice lady on the other end of the line.

Between us, we found out what had happened. Six years ago I was fined for (among other things) driving without a valid license, or insurance, or something. (Don't expect me to remember. Even if I could remember those days in detail, I really, really don't want to.) The fine was set up to be paid automatically out of my benefits, which is what happens when you don't have any money. Because there were several fines, they were set up to be paid off little by little one after the other.

Except apparently, their hamster died some time between one fine and the next, and the payments that should have happened automatically six years ago never did. I have no idea why. I have even less idea why it took them this long to notice. The good news is that, according to the lady I spoke to on the phone, if I turn up at the Magistrates' Court and point out that the unpaidness of the fine is due to their administrative fuck-up, I should at least be able to pay this off at three quid a week for the next thirty years, and maybe, just maybe a faint possibility of being let off paying it altogether. Court date's May 31st. Don't anyone let me forget.

bloody arseholes.

Oh, this is an old story

I AM SURROUNDED BY TEH STUPID.

Remember the idiots with the dogpile and the inability to work out what a leash is for?

Well, I just ran into Puppything on the lam while walking my dogs (fortunately I saw it before Spike did). Being the good neighbour I am, I nipped home to put my dogs away and nipped back out with a leash to take Puppything home. I'm not the only good neighbour round here, because I got back out there just in time to see my friend Mo, the owner of Spike's mini-Border Collie girlfriend Ella, had beat me to it and returned Puppything home already.

Ella's owner has lived across the road from The Idiot Family for some time (and has returned their continually-straying dogs more often than I have) and she was even more ranty about their pet-owning habits than I was.

Turns out they're backyard breeders. Why am I not surprised? Apparently, their last dog was kept only long enough to breed and sell a litter of puppies before they gave her away. Puppything appears to be destined for the same fate - I hadn't realised she was even female (I guess Spike never got close enough to check, because he wouldn't have barked at her if he'd known that) but she's in season already. She's less than a year old. I'm taking bets with myself whether they're going to mate her deliberately - but it's probably academic. Their dogs escape three or four times a week anyway. If their Jack Russells haven't already gotten to her it's a dead cert that something will.

It gets better. They used to have rabbits too. The rabbits had babies - as they tend to do if you don't speuter or separate them. (Who'da THUNK it??)

Guess what they did when they couldn't cope with the rabbit explosion? They set the whole lot of them loose.

Yes, I did hear this second-hand, but I did see a loose rabbit two or three times near the hollow oak tree on Woodbury Avenue back when I first moved here. Of course, this is prime suburban fox country round here, so at least the poor creatures probably had a quick death and benefited some other animal - but still...

Oh, this is an old story

I AM SURROUNDED BY TEH STUPID.

Remember the idiots with the dogpile and the inability to work out what a leash is for?

Well, I just ran into Puppything on the lam while walking my dogs (fortunately I saw it before Spike did). Being the good neighbour I am, I nipped home to put my dogs away and nipped back out with a leash to take Puppything home. I'm not the only good neighbour round here, because I got back out there just in time to see my friend Mo, the owner of Spike's mini-Border Collie girlfriend Ella, had beat me to it and returned Puppything home already.

Ella's owner has lived across the road from The Idiot Family for some time (and has returned their continually-straying dogs more often than I have) and she was even more ranty about their pet-owning habits than I was.

Turns out they're backyard breeders. Why am I not surprised? Apparently, their last dog was kept only long enough to breed and sell a litter of puppies before they gave her away. Puppything appears to be destined for the same fate - I hadn't realised she was even female (I guess Spike never got close enough to check, because he wouldn't have barked at her if he'd known that) but she's in season already. She's less than a year old. I'm taking bets with myself whether they're going to mate her deliberately - but it's probably academic. Their dogs escape three or four times a week anyway. If their Jack Russells haven't already gotten to her it's a dead cert that something will.

It gets better. They used to have rabbits too. The rabbits had babies - as they tend to do if you don't speuter or separate them. (Who'da THUNK it??)

Guess what they did when they couldn't cope with the rabbit explosion? They set the whole lot of them loose.

Yes, I did hear this second-hand, but I did see a loose rabbit two or three times near the hollow oak tree on Woodbury Avenue back when I first moved here. Of course, this is prime suburban fox country round here, so at least the poor creatures probably had a quick death and benefited some other animal - but still...

Deep green eyes and a destiny

( The Random Question Meme! )

Because I need some harmless brain candy after the day I've had.

Deep green eyes and a destiny

( The Random Question Meme! )

Because I need some harmless brain candy after the day I've had.