This was going to be my post about turning 51…but strange things have happened the last couple of days. One of them, kind of amusing and not serious. The other kind of aggravating and hopefully not problematic.
So, the birthday went off without a hitch. Ran around, did some walking, enjoyed a wonderful evening meal, finished getting all the books in the Pantheon folklore collection. All in all, a red letter day.
BUT the day before, I had been bitten by some buffalo gnats. Last year we discovered I was a little allergic to buffalo gnats, and so this year I had a bit of an infection. My birthday started with me going to urgent care to get some bug drugs. Now, I am allergic to penicillin. That, of course, had no effect regarding the prescription of a topical steroid, but how to attack the infection inside. The answer? Sulfa based drugs, which have a strange photochemical reaction in sunlight. So another part of my birthday day was spent with me buying scarves and Invisible Woman outfits. When you see me at 4th Street, you will see me as the person all wrapped up in hat, scarves and gloves until I get inside. I doubt very much I’ll be doing too much leaving the hotel as well. Just think of me as your vampiric friend for the next 9 days. My last day of being photosensitive will be Sunday.
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Then there’s this thing. I went to buy Bryon an iPod on Thursday and our credit card was declined. We did all the calling and verified we made the purchase, but we got a call regarding my card and his card. Given that someone took our platinum Mastercard to Barcelona recently, we were a bit cranky. Well, not as cranky as we were after dinner yesterday, when his debit card was declined again. Why? Well, this time, his debit card went to Houston and spent about $2000.
We have cancelled all our Monday plans, as we must go into the bank and negotiate what this means in terms of fraud, getting our money back, getting new cards and all that. Last night, Bryon’s soliloquy was why didn’t anyone call us about Houston if they call us about Best Buy in Cedar Rapids? Now, this was actually a swiped clone of our card, so I guess they thought it was us, but we usually let people know whenever we’re going anywhere else. Unfortunately, I guess we do not have a dedicated watch dog on our account.
This is pretty much gonna be a first world problem. In the worst case scenario (we are responsible for that money, and this isn’t happening), it would set us back a bit until Friday, and I’d have a couple of bills I couldn’t swoop in and pay all at once. But you know, I really, really wonder how safe our money is. We’ve had fraud twice on the Mastercard, once with the bank account, and several cards replaced because they may have been compromised. I’m thinking keeping my money under my mattress is the way to go.
Sigh.
So, how is 51 so far? Iiiiinnnnntteerrresting. And not in the best of ways.
