My Name is Kimberly!!!

It should be no secret to anyone reading this blog that my name is Kim. Kimberly to be exact. The only people that call me Kim are my family members and close friends. That's it. When I introduce myself to anyone, I say "Hi, I'm Kimberly, " so why is it that when I tell people EXPLICITLY that my name is Kimberly they feel the need to automatically shorten it to Kim. There is nothing in "...my name is Kimberly..." that says I give you permission to call me Kim. That burns me up. I absolutely hate when people take the liberty of calling me Kim. Stop.

I'm Not Really Having A Good Week

My daughter had her first dentist appointment in March of this year. When I got my EOB from my insurance company, they didn't have her as covered by my policy. I was a little tiffed. But I came to work and talked to our employee relations representative to see why my daughter wasn't added when I knew that I applied for all of her insurance coverage right after she was born. The EE rep told me that she was going to call our corporate offices and correct the problem right away.
Well, the EE rep got fired at the beginning of July and when I went to see the employee relations manager, she said nothing was done to my file to get my daughter added in the first place. No wonder the EE rep's fat ass got fired...she never did what she was supposed to do and lied about doing it!!!
So the EE manager called corporate and and they swiftly added coverage for my daughter, postdating all coverage back until 2002. Well, the one hundred odd dollars I paid for my daughter's first dentist visit was already sitting pretty in the dentist office's money bags, as I had already sent in a payment to keep my balance zero. I called, emailed and called again the insurance company requesting a reimbursement for the money I already paid out to the dentist. And, of course, I provided the necessary receipts documenting as much. I requested that my check be sent to me since the dental bill was already paid - makes senses to normal folk, right? That was at the beginning of this month. Well today, I just checked my dental benefits online and the stupid claim had a note that the claim had been paid TO THE DENTAL OFFICE!!! That means Dr. Yankoutmytooth has gotten paid TWICE for my daughter's visit.
I just politely called the dentist office and asked if they had gotten a check for my daughter's visit and Kathy McHappyreceptionist told me that yes, I have a credit of about $100. I clenched my butt cheeks as hard as I could and balled my fist up so that I could somehow get through the call without shouting expletives. Kathy told me that it would take about 3 weeks to get the money processed and a check out to me.
Get this, get this...
...Me and my daughter both have another cleaning and preventive maintanence appointment coming up in...in...THREE WEEKS!!!
Sigh...they can just keep the money. My portion of the services with prolly eat most of that money up.
I am NOT having a good week at all.

After work, I'm going to the medical supply store and then off to Lowes. At the medical supply store I'm going to pick up a medium straitjacket and then its off to Lowes to buy about 12'x14' of padded wall material. Because I am now insane. My family has driven me there. I wish to harm nobody, so over the Labor Day weekend I will install my padded wall material in my room, remove the furniture, don my straitjacket and take it from there.

Yesterday members of my family called me at least 15 times while I was at work, nevermind what the reasons were for, they called me about 15 times. While I was trying to get some work done. Can't work and discuss family matters at the same time. One important fact to let you in on is that my cousin wanted to have a girls night out and wanted me to watch her two kids AND my sister's baby. My cousin usually babysits my nephew while his parents are working. So after I leave a very hard day at work, I go to pick up 3 kids that aren't mine and then go to collect my own daughter from my mother's house. My mother picks my daughter up from school since I am at work when her school gets out. So I go home with FOUR kids.

I am a single mom. A good and responsible single mom. On any given night, me and my child will play outside for maybe 20 minutes, then I'll get dinner ready and while I'm cooking, straightening up and whathaveyou, she will watch tv until dinners ready. After dinner, we'll do her homework or I will read her a story, then its off to bed for her while I get my 45 minutes to 1 hour of unwind-for-the-single-working-homeowner-mom time before I go to sleep. Ding! Day over.

Last night however, none of that happened. All in one afternoon, my daughter lost another tooth, received a package she had been anticipating from her father who is in Hawaii, and had to do spelling word for her homework. Big evening for a four year old. Put on top of that three cousins that are demanding her mother's attention and we've got a recipe for total and utter frustration on my part. Although all the kids ate very well balanced and nutrious meals, I ate nothing. I had no time to fix myself anything to eat between fixing the kids' food and feeding the baby. My daughter had no clean school uniforms but I had no time to do laundry until early this morning because my very sleepy nephew was whiny and cranky and whenever I put him down to sleep, he would instantly wake back up and start crying. I couldn't put him in a high chair, or walker or any other safe baby place, because he doesn't have any of that over my house. The kids eventually went to sleep between 9:30 and 9:45, but the baby did not. I could do nothing because he would not go to sleep.

Today, my phones (home, work and cell) are all off. I don't want to talk to anybody. Nobody. I'm just going to do a little shopping at the medical supply store and Lowes when I get off work.

$10,000 Boots?!?

As I was reading my September 2006 Town & Country magazine, I flipped past a page in the fashion layout section and I saw a Cole Haan shearling duffle coat. I have been a fan of shearling duffle coats since I was in high school and when I saw this I had to stop and look at the rest of stylings in the layout. Well, my stopping led me to two pages over where a woman had on some boots. Ralph Lauren Collection boots. Boots are quite possible my kryptonite. I can see a pair of knee high boots in Nordstrom and consider taking on a second job just to pay for them. Anyway, as I read the shopping information in the back of the magazine, they only listed a NYC phone number for where to buy. I called the number and duh! it was the Ralph Lauren store. But the kicker was that these Ralph Lauren Collection vintage-style crocodile boots was listed at $10,000!!! $10,000? That is nowhere near reasonable for a pair of boots made out of an animal carcass. An animal carcass that according to this website, (what the hell the site is about, I have no idea) a first-grade crocodile skin is worth about $600. I figure that a pair of women's boots made from crocodile skin should take 3, possibly 4 skins. That's only $2400! Why the outrageous $7600 mark-up? I know that Ralph Lauren has master craftsmen crafting his shoes, boot, and purses, but at that rate why not just ask for the buyers first born child?

What else could I buy with $10,000? I have compiled a list of things that I could buy with $10,000 that makes more sense than buying those Ralph Lauren Collection vintage-style crocodile boots

1. Buy a fully loaded computer for everyone in my immediate family
2. Buy a used late model sedan from just about any dealership in this area
3. Buy a 2006 Harley Davidson 1200 cc Sportster/Roadster from the classified section of my local newspaper
4. Getting new windows installed on my house
5. Finishing and waterproofing my basement
6. Setting up some type of interest bearing account for my daughter to use when she goes to college

These are just my first thoughts. What can you come up with?

I try to be a fair person, I really do. But my biggest pet peeve is when people are annoying. Annoying where you are being so bothersome that I will go to any lengths just to avoid you. Unfortunately, most people that I come in contact with daily fall into the catagory of "People who annoy Kim-ist" so I am not always as reasonable as I should be.

A little old lady at the bank today annoyed me. I try not to judge books by their covers, but this old lady exuded Crazy Cat Lady* vibes. She had that quiet, but wild look in her eyes, a hair cut similar to this

and had on a muu muu with socks and loafers. It wasn't her Crazy Cat Ladiness that bothered me it was the barely audible tones that she talked in and the piercing-my-soul glare that she looked at me with that earned her annoying status. Did I mention that she smelled like my grandmother's back porch? My grandmother's porch where her cat lives? Yes, she did.

Anyway, the only way for me to get over my annoyance is to call up my most trusted friend of 25 years and bitch in her ear. She always feels my pain. Everybody annoys her too. Immagrants that work in service jobs that don't speak English? Check. Drivers that cut her off in traffic? Check. Parents that put their children on tethered leashes? Check. People that wear belts with overalls? Check. Well, the overalls thing was relevant in 1991, but it still annoyed the pee outta her. She will always take time to listen to me rant for hours about how my boyfriend will leave his coat on the back of my dining room chair instead of hanging it in my coat closet. She patiently listens when I tell her of my lunches with acquiantances who eat with their mouths' full and how I secretly wish for them to choke on whatever they are eating. And she knows that my two biggest vexations are people that use the word 'conversate' and people that make smacking noises when chewing.


*Oh my, these people actually have a website! Umm, hey, I understand the need to feel empowered, but umm, really, living with 50 cats is not sane...
http://www.crazycatladies.org/