Salad Is Slaughter

Our cactus garden continues to surprise us.  We’ve been in this house for what, three years now?  This year was the first year that this particular cactus flowered.  This picture was taken on June 28, 2008.

We’ve ordered furniture from Woodpeckers Furniture at 942 Blossom Hill Rd in the past. We purchased a nice display case for our glassware as well as the butcher block in the kitchen from Woodpeckers and we were pretty happy with those. We also bought another display case from them that was of lesser quality and we’re not that thrilled with it.

A couple of weeks before we bought our new television we decided to get a nice wooden console for it. We went to Woodpeckers, found something we liked, and ordered. Since we wanted a particular stain we were told it would take 6 to 8 weeks for it to arrive. We paid for our purchase and left, hoping that it would arrive before the parents did so we would have it set up. We didn’t want to take time out while they were here to move furniture around. Little did we know that this wasn’t going to be an issue.

Six weeks go by. No call. Seven weeks go by. We call them and ask if our furniture is in. The guy answering the phone was extremely rude and didn’t bother looking up the status. Just said no.

Eight weeks go by. Nothing. Nine weeks. We call. The extremely rude asshole answers again. Apparently customer interaction isn’t part of their training program.

Ten weeks. Nada.

Eleven weeks. We’re resigned to the fact that these clowns can’t keep their commit dates and start to wonder if we need to file a fraud claim with the credit card company.

Twelve weeks. Zip.

Last week we finally got the Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter called and found out that our furniture had finally arrived.  We were told that they would deliver it Wednesday (yesterday) and would call Tuesday with the delivery window time.  If she hadn’t called, would we still be waiting?

Tuesday comes and goes with no phone call.

They finally called Wednesday morning with a delivery time yesterday afternoon. Surprisingly they showed up with the furniture.

The quality of the furniture is fine, but we’re never going back to Woodpeckers. Their employees are rude, abrasive, confrontational, inconsiderate assholes who have no business being in retail. And lest you think this is an isolated incident, a friend of mine had the exact same experience earlier in the year. He bought a TV stand, it arrived a month after it was promised, and the salespeople he contacted were real pricks. He also will never return to Woodpeckers.

Other complaints about these clowns can be found here and here. I don’t understand how they stay in business. I know they’ve lost us as a customer forever.

The new kitten is almost integrated in to the new family.  She has no fear of the dogs even though each of them outweighs her by a good 50 or 60 pounds.  She also plays well with Peek-a-boo.  Nala is still trying to decide if Georgia is a playmate, a toy, or a meal.

Yesterday I looked at my phone to get an accurate time.  The guy standing next to me did the same thing.  The clocks on our phones were 3 minutes different even though they’re both Verizon phones.  That’s not something I would expect.

The temperature outside on Saturday was over 100F.  I took the windshield shades from the cars and put them in to the skylight and it really made a difference in that part of the house.  I’m going to have to hit the store and find a couple of large sun shades to replace what I’ve got there now.

The Toyota dealer adjusted my XM antenna on the Prius a couple of months ago to try to fix my dropout problem.  It improved somewhat going north but now if I’m just east of south, even with no obscura I get dropouts.  I was told that the antenna lead is too short to move it to the roof.  I consider this a design flaw on Toyota’s part.  For my next servicing I’m going to bitch some more then have them move it back to where it was.

We noticed the clouds building most of the day, and by the time we were ready to leave for dinner (Sinaloa in Morgan Hill) the sky was completely overcast.  While rain isn’t unheard of in June in the Bay Area, it is rare.  As we were driving over to pick up some friends Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter commented that the sky reminded her of our trip to Alaska three years ago.  The smoke from the hundreds of forest fires throughout the state had covered the sky in the same way.  We assumed that the smoke we were seeing was coming from the Martin Fire near Bonny Doon and that it could be getting worse. 

After dinner the clouds had darkened considerably.  We drove back to the friends’ house, played with their dogs for a while, and commented on the sky.  The trip home was in darkness even though the sun hadn’t set.  When we did see the orange sun most of it was blocked by the thick smoke.

I pulled in to the garage and closed the door.  I walked over to the side door in the garage and saw an orange glow outside the window.  I assumed that we had left the light on the side of the house on.  It wasn’t.  The whole side of the house was lit orange.

We walked in side the house and the back yard had the same orange glow everywhere, like someone had left a light on for us.  I guess the clouds of smoke had turned the sunlight orange and given the yard that look.

Most interesting was what the strange light did to the roses.  It made the colors of the rose buds, especially the pink and orange roses “pop.”  I’ve never seen them look like that.  They were beautiful in an other-worldly kind of way.

It turns out that the clouds of smoke weren’t from the local fire as we thought.  They came from the Ventana Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest in Southern Monterey county.  That fire is now at 23,000 acres. 

I’ve started spending the night with George now that she’s slightly bigger.  Last night she decided that midnight was a fine time to wake me up to play with her.

I saw part of the movie Psycho this weekend and say what you will about the Bate’s Motel, at least they don’t use those damned low-flow shower heads.

A couple of years ago I tossed some Bermuda grass seed in to the back yard because it spreads to cover the bare spots that the dogs tear up when running around.  Unfortunately it also spreads to where you don’t want it.  I spent several hours pulling weeds on Saturday.

A 1.5 pound kitten smacking a 60 pound poodle because he got too close is one of the funniest things you’ll ever see.

Watching the same 1.5 pound kitten walk on top of the poodle and a yellow lab comes in second.