4-28-12 Saturday (Carol Anne’s Home)

I’ve been speaking to my Mom just about every other day.  I t had just hit me, she sounds great.  Many a time I’d call and she was in bed or would have the phone off the hook.   My Dad recently changed jobs, took a couple of weeks off, and worked hard at attending doctor’s appointments with my Mom to eliminate as many prescription drugs as possible.  Mom has a laundry list of medical woes including Fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Thyroid this or that, etc.  I complimented my Mom on my realization; she said she felt good too.  This makes me happy.  She used to spend roughly 80% of her day in bed. 

My Dad bought a Kindle for her (she reads a lot).  I thought about getting a cover or pouch for her.  She loves cats and Betty Boop.  I can’t find anything like that through all my searches.  I found one Betty Boop cover on Etsy and it was $35 + shipping which I think is awfully steep.  I realize that Etsy is homemade stuff but still too steep for me.  I’ll continue my search.

Jim bought a bunch of clear wine glasses from TJ Maxx or some where like that.  The problem, they mysteriously cloud.  I have put them in the dishwasher, scrubbed them, used vinegar, and used alcohol, but they clean up real nice and then a month or 2 later I find that they’re cloudy all over again.  I’m sure this house was built on an ancient Indian burial ground and the bodies were never moved.  That would explain a lot.  In the meantime, we give up.  Jim and I saw these wine glasses at Dillards a couple of months ago. 

We love ‘em.  Mikasa.  They were $50 for 4.  Jim kept watching stalking The Dillard’s website and eventually it dropped in price!  It went from $50 to $23.44.  We bought 3 sets.

If you’ve been reading this blog you’d know that I love wildlife.  When I see it I’m absolutely fascinated.  I love the fox and the deer around here.  Naturally I want the deer to come around so I bought some $30 bucket of deer food attractant. 

We’ve had this for about a week but it’s been rainy here lately so perhaps it’s slowing down the attractant?  This bucket was $30 and it had better work or back to Walmart it goes.

Our friend Beth likes the way Jim and I (as in Jim really), accessorized the tops of the kitchen cabinets.  She asked us to help her with hers.  90% of the decorating was Jim’s touch so I stepped out of the way.  He and Beth went shopping all day Saturday.  It’s like he was an interior designer, spending someone else’s money to decorate someone else's home.  Once finished shopping, I joined them at Beth’s home and watched the decorating in progress.

Above: A table full of stuff

Above: A good start.

Above/Below: Finished

The other day Jim noticed a loose shingle.  Ugh, will it ever end?  I added that to the Adams Homes repair list.

4-25-12 Wednesday (Attention Getters)

I interrupt your week to bring you fun photos.  No big stories really.

Above: A few weeks ago I bought rabbit ears and wore them at work and during our Easter hike.  Well I also bought 2 of these hair-on-clip things.  I clipped them to my headset and wear them from time to time.  Attention whore?  Perhaps.  Don’t be jealous of removable hair.  My coworkers think I’m nutty.  I’m OK with that.

Above: I ordered something online.  It arrived.  Jim snapped a photo of it’s final delivery.  Really.  It reminds me of thereifixedit.failblog.org

Above: An elevator inspection certificate at work (I don’t have an elevator in my home, not yet anyway).  The Commissioner of Labor’s name is Cherie Berry.  The inspector’s name is William H William.  Welcome to North Carolina.

4-22-12 Sunday (Trade An RV For A Cruise Ship?)

Saturday: Although I have worked in the automotive industry for years, I simply have no interest in cars.  Jim really wanted to go to the Food Lion AutoFair.  Knowing I’d be miserable and I’d probably whine, he went by himself.  I drove him there, went food shopping and then picked him up when he was done.  The weather was perfect and he enjoyed himself.  Better he than me.

I stopped off at BJs and checked out their cameras.  They had a Canon PowerShot ELPH 310 HS with an 8X optical zoom on clearance for $215.  It’s smaller than the Nikon.  I liked our previous Canon we had on our RV’ing trip that took over 5,000 photos!  Unfortunately their display didn’t provide power to the cameras for me to test them out.  I bought it, took it home, charged the battery and took a bunch of photos to see how it did.  I like it.  It stays.  Now I have a Nikon sitting at the Nikon repair center awaiting my repair authorization for $110.  Should I abandon it?  Should I sell it?  I’m not sure what to do.  It cost $258 back in March 2011.

Although Monro said they’d have no problem having the Jeep done for today, they called us letting us know they needed more time with it.  Eric was worried about rusted bolts not coming out well.  I warned him – “Fine but here’s my expectations.  You need to start it today so that you have enough time to complete for tomorrow.  I must have it back.”

We met up with Beth for dinner at Intermezzo, that Serbian restaurant we’ve eaten at before.  We had dessert at some local ice cream shop. Mmmmmm.

Sunday: We went to the RV this morning.  The plan, give it to Jamie to do some repairs on. The reality, not so much.  It wouldn’t start.  I guess the last time Jim disconnected the battery it was still touching and caused them to be dead.  I checked the tire pressures and found 1 not reading.  It might be flat but we need to be able to pull the jacks up once we can get power.  We said screw it all and went to the breakfast with Ruby and Jamie.  Jim and I have decided to get rid of the RV.  We’ll save $1200 a year.  We can buy a lot of hotel time with that.  This was one of those “that’s it” instances.  I think once we sell it I’ll probably cry.  I almost got emotional telling Jamie about our decision.  There’s so many memories attached to it.  Some not so good but most definitely wonderful.  We’ll miss that TURD. 

Breakfast at Denny’s.  Ya know, I can’t remember Denny’s having so many breakfast choices.  I had their skillet and wasn’t impressed but I won’t write them off just yet.  There’s other things to try.  We talked about selling the RV and putting the money away for a bumper-pull trailer in the future.  Maybe some of it we’ll use for a cruise to Alaska!

I was messing with my new camera, tweaking the settings, reading the manual and saw something about how it operates when using an “Eye-Fi” card.  I was intrigued.  It’s an SD memory card with wi-fi built in.  It will let you upload photos straight from your camera to the internet be it Facebook, blogs or whatever.   Have you seen how small an SD card is?  It’s truly amazing.  It got me thinking about DVD/CD.  How have we evolved into such remarkable stuff and still use CD/DVD’s that scratch or can get a fingerprint on it and cause it to skip?  Every time I have to handle a DVD I think about how delicate it really is.  They should have combined that technology with a 3.5” hard sided floppy.  Or many just use memory cards?

4-20-12 Friday (Walking Calmly To Your Death)

On Sunday Monro called stating they replaced the semi-metallic brake pads with ceramic.  He said something like, “the oil leak is from the rear main seal and definitely something we didn’t replace.”  Very calmly and politely I said, “You might want to review invoice # xxxxx”.  After a minute or two he said, “Oh.  OK.  Well then we’ll be replacing that at no charge.”  We have to bring it back yet again.

We spent a good portion of the day cleaning out the hot tub.  Drain, scrub, fill.  We scrubbed the front and rear patio furniture as well as the grill cover and other patio things.  Jim even cleaned the trashcans. 

On Tuesday I emailed Adams Homes that no subs had called me.  No reply.  On the 19th I email the same person again and her coworkers.  On the 20th I receive:

I am sorry for the delayed response, I have been here I have just had problems with my computer since last Friday.  Dana asked me if I saw this yet and printed a copy for me.  I have sent out new requests this afternoon and have stressed that this needs to be taken care of ASAP.  Sorry again for the delay!

They piss me off.

On Thursday we had a fire drill at work.  We don’t know when a fire drill will occur.  Common sense dictates that we don’t know when a real fire will occur either.  Unless you’re the pyro that started it I guess.  A few thoughts on this: The other day while looking through my scripts database, I saw that My Big Ass Bank has a script to read in the event of an evacuation.  It’s not that it says I must read it or get fired or anything but thoughts do run through my mind pertaining to the absolute humor in it.  “I’m sorry ma’am, could you repeat that?  There’s a fire alarm blaring in the background.” (question repeated) “That’s a great question, could you hold for a moment”.  (reading through database looking for script).  “Ma’am thanks for holsdsadsa.  Pardon me”.  (takes a sip of water, throat gets awfully dry when starting to inhale smoke). “Sorry about that.” (reads scripts pertaining to having to get off the phone, asks for customer’s phone number stating I’ll call back).

My other humorous observation about this fire drill is that we all got up and asked each other if we thought it was still raining.  I grab my umbrella.  I “lock” my computer.  I grab my cell phone which was charging.  I wait for my coworker Ja-Nessa.  Everyone looks perfectly calm and slowly walks to the nearest exit.  Out to the parking lot we go.  What if it had been a fire on the floor below us?  They say people die during emergencies from trampling one another to get out?  Uhhhhh, I think we’d all die dilly-dallying.  I didn’t want to be THAT person that exits nervously asking others to excuse me as I pass them in the stairwell.  People, it’s a fire alarm.  Hello? 

If you’d like to see last year’s fire drill during the Rapture result with humorous commentary, by all means, click here.  I magical new window will open powered by fairy dust.

On Friday after work we dropped the Jeep off to Monro’s for the oil leak repair.  Jim bought a Living Social coupon for $30 at Zada Jane’s Corner Café so we went there for dinner.  The coupon was for 1 appetizer, 2 entrée’s and 1 dessert.  They offered a filet (we think it was 8 oz) as a special so we ordered that.  We got about $70 worth of food for $30.  It was an excellent deal and most importantly delicious.  for the appetizer:

Kool Kip’s Nachos - A Zada Jane’s Favorite!
Organic blue corn chips heaped with grilled veggies,
black beans, roasted corn, pepperjack queso,
layered with chopped lettuce, finished with sour cream, guacamole
and our own delicious salsa !

Holy crap that was tasty.  The filet’s were undercooked so we sent them back.  The staff was so apologetic about it and it was worth the wait.  They had a great flavor.  The deal included one dessert but they all sounded so good we paid for an extra.  We got a chocolate chip pecan pie and a strawberry cake.  They were delish!  When the check arrived we weren’t charged for the other dessert.  I think she missed it.  We pointed it out to the server and she corrected it.  We were already getting a good deal, I wouldn’t want her to get in trouble and karma is a bitch.  We later found out that we weren’t charged for our soft drinks either.   Too late on that one. We’ll go back.  It’s charming, the staff is awesome and the food was great.

Using my annoying proofreading super powers I caught a spelling error on their menu:

Yes, I know my blog entries have errors (Jim catches them… when he actually reads it) but I think in a professional sense it’s more important. 

Lastly, I got my camera mailed in and received an emailed estimate of about $110.  I might just buy a new one.  That one is a little bigger than I would have liked and at times unresponsive during the time I needed the photo NOW.  It also takes too long to do whatever it needs to during start up.  I’ll shop around this weekend.

.

4-14-12 Saturday (Pa Went To PA)

As you may know, I open bank accounts and take credit applications over the phone like one of them there Time Life Operators.

For the record, that’s not me.

I deal with different people all over the country.  I guess that’s an obvious statement since it would be hard to deal with the same people all over the country.  I’ve determined that Pennsylvania is the only state where it’s dwellers refer to the state as “PA”.  MOST people from there just don’t say the full state name.  Why is that?  “Philadelphia, PA”  Can they not pronounce said state?  Others don’t say “CA” or “NY” so what gives?  Perhaps my “PA” friend Joanie can chime in?

Another interesting statewide phenomenon is Massachusetts.   When these people speak their state, they’ll say “mass”.  What’s with that? 

Let’s talk about big boy words versus little boy words?  Frist off, my grandmother on my mom’s side is called “Nanny” by me and the rest of the family.  We don’t call her “granny”, “grandma”, “nanna” or whatever.  BUT when I’m referring to her in a professional sense or even outside of the family, it’s “my grandmother…”.  I spoke with a man from Alabama the other day.  When I see a client’s state come up as “Alabama” I immediately think idiot.  See another example here.  I know that’s wrong.  I’m from NY and everyone thinks “rude”.    It’s like all gays are effeminate and want to be a woman.  It’s a stereotype.  We know the various stereotypes.  Perhaps all people from Alabama are idiots is not a stereotype around the world but rather one I’ve concocted based on the clients I’ve spoken to?  I’m done back peddling I suppose so I’ll share with you what I’ve encountered.  I was taking a home equity application from a man with a big ole Alabama accent.  I asked if he had a mortgage on the property and he went on to say, “no, it’s all been paid for.  It was my Granpappy’s land.  When my Granpappy passed on, he left it to me.”  Granpappy?  Really?   I know, so judgmental.  Maybe just mental even.

OK, I’m done picking on other states… for now.

(Announcer voice) “It’s time for a Tire Kingdom update!”  As you know, we dropped off the BMW Friday evening.  On Saturday Jim had to call them at 1.  The guy said he’d call back in an hour.  As typical, it seemed that no one had looked at the car yet.    At about 3 Jim called them again reminding them that they’ve had the car for hours, it’s a recheck and he wasn’t called back as promised.  They said they were still trying to figure out what’s wrong with it.  Figure out what?  Jim had already pointed out the part that was broken.  Jim called Tire kingdom customer service and gave them an ear full.  A manager would call him in 24-48 business hours.  The local store called back and said they’d order the $30 part and there would be no charge.  We picked up the BMW.  We’ll need to bring it back during the week.

We dropped the Jeep off at Monro.  I told the assistant manager that the brakes squeal on nearly every stop.  He agreed that he heard it the last time we brought it in to have the oil dye added.  I suggested that the brake pads might be inferior since they came with a cheap set of calipers.  I’m basically giving these f-ing people another chance.  Chance number 7 or something.  I just want the oil leak and brakes fixed.  (Deep ass sigh).

4-13-12 Friday (Wasting Time)

So what’s irking you these days?  Uh huh.  I see.  Sure.  Yeah, well thanks for sharing, let’s talk about me.  I hardly ever get to talk about me.

 

1- Monro Muffler/Brake.  Oy.  The Jeep brakes are squealing.  The oil leak has been diagnosed as no problem, then a problem, and then no problem.  We stopped in there last weekend to have them add dye to the oil.  We plan to go in there this weekend and have them rediagnose.  As for the brakes?  I really want a refund on all that we’ve paid.  Then I’m thinking, maybe it’s the brake pads.  They came with the calipers and perhaps they’re not a good quality?  Monro gives me a headache.  Bringing the Jeep back depends on when the car is repaired… see below.

2- Tire Kingdom.  Oy part two.  The BMW has been to that shop many times.  There’s a rubbing creaking noise in the front end on bumps.  We originally brought in for a rattle and paid money to have that fixed.  Apparently the cost for repairs included a free trade in of rattles for creaks.  Recently Jim discovered that the headlights aren’t moving in conjunction to steering like it used to.  I think it’s called adaptive headlights.  Good ole Google to the rescue.  He found that some part that connects to the control arm is what adjusts them.  We looked under the car and it’s either disconnected (was never reconnected during Tire Kingdom’s repair) or broken.  We dropped it off tonight for them to have at it tomorrow.

3- Adams Homes.  Good Lord why do they suck so much?  I emailed them on April 1st:

Misty, a few items.
1-  The tree in our front yard appears dead.  It appeared dead during our final walkthrough.  Ted assured us it was fine.  The tree near the garage has budded but the other has not.  We'd be willing to replace the tree with a magnolia or such that we supply if you'll take care of the labor to plant it?
2-  The garage has light showing at the side door as well as the garage itself.  The side door is the lower side and the garage door looks (when compared to the other side) like the door frame isn't close enough to the garage frame?
3-  The construction barrier (black cloth) was left behind at the back edge of our property.  We'd like to have that removed.
4-  One kitchen cabinet door creaks. We can see the door rubbing against the frame.

She replied on the 3rd:

Hello, I did receive your email and just wanted to touch base with you.  I will send a request to the landscaper that they need to look at the tree and I am sure they would offer to plant a new one if needed.  I will also see if they can remove the black silt fence from the back of the lot, s long as it is not serving any purpose that should be fine.  I will have Pro Build contact you about the garage door going to the house and RCS (?) about the garage door itself.  (Thanks for the pictures, that is very helpful!)  And lastly, Masco will contact you about the cabinet door.  Hope everything else is going well and please let me know if you don’t hear from these subcontractors. 

It’s now the 13th and I’ve not received a call from any subs.  It’s bad enough that I will either need to take time off work or switch with someone at work causing me to work less than desirable hours but then this lack of communication to occur?  Damn.

Between Monro, Tire Kingdom and Adams Homes, they are complete and utter time suckers. 

Thanks for asking, I’ll be sure to update you over the weekend…

4-12-12 Thursday (Squishy Cameras)

Tragedy has befallen me.  Sometime on Saturday, prior to our Easter Sunday outing, I broke my camera.  I can’t have anything nice. 

I had it in the front pocket of my jeans.  I think when I was getting in and out of the car, I squished it.  I’m such a fat ass.  There, I said it.  I’m going to mail it to Nikon and hope for an inexpensive repair.

On Sunday, I used my camera phone and Mike &  Billy’s camera to take pictures.

On Monday night I was standing at the kitchen sink and spotted a fox in the back yard.  He was just on the other side of the fence.  I’m so glad we got chicken wire fencing back there to spot the critters.  Jim and I were able to watch it for about 10 minutes.  I couldn’t get any photos because of my broken camera.  I was bummed.

I ordered and received an egg display stand.  With shipping it was under $6.  I think it might be a little large for the egg or the egg a little small for it.  Either way it looks good so unless I stumble on something better, I’ll keep it as is.  It adds a color to the shelf with our crystal stuff.  Here’s a camera phone photo:

After I post a blog entry, I sometimes view the stats of who/what/when occurred on the blog.  Again, keywords that attract people to the blog are forever amusing.  Here’s 2 recent hits:

“pole dancers for jesus”

What the hell?  Really?  That search came from the United Kingdom.  Next up:

“indian drag queen photos”

I don’t remember what country that came from.  Maybe it was India?  If I hover over the flag it tells me but it was several days ago when I took a snapshot and now finally blogging about it.  That one was particularly funny because it occurred seconds after viewing the first one. 

4-8-12 Sunday (This Blog Post For The Hearing Impaired)

Yeah I know the title clearly states Sunday, however, I must fill you in on Saturday first.  Saturday we stopped by Monro to have them add dye to the oil.  Jim is also hearing the brakes squeal pretty much all the time.  I can’t seem to hear them.  I think it’s the pitch. 

For dinner we went to Piano Man with a Groupon or something that Jim had bought.  Piano Man is a dueling piano sing along bar.  The food?  Well, it was bar food.  The pianists took requests and most of the time were able to accommodate.  Sometimes they didn’t know the lyrics or music and had to pass on it.  I was impressed with their knowledge of songs without sheet music.  We enjoyed ourselves and we’ll be back.

That was Saturday.  See, that wasn’t too bad.

On Sunday (Easter), Mike and Billy met us at our house at about 8ish.  We headed to breakfast at McDonalds.  Before we left I needed to use the rest room.  The men’s room had 1 stall and 1 urinal.  There was a big ole pile of crap in the urinal.  Gross.  I decided to wait until the next pee-pee stop.  Jim did stop at the counter to let them know.  I guess someone had to really go.

We continued on toward Chimney Rock state park.  The last time we were there was in October.  It was nice to do the drive during a different season.  We stopped at an Ingles grocery store and picked up subs.  They weren’t very friendly at the deli.

The drive all in all was about 2 hours.  On the previous visit we had done Chimney Rock itself, this time we were there to see the falls.

Above: Mike, Billy, Jim and Garret

Above: The falls!

Above: Garret and Jim

Above: Jim & Garret

Above: Mike & Billy

We stopped at one of the park’s pavilions and ate our subs.  What a great time, great company and definitely a unique way to spend our holiday!

4-6-12 Friday (Please Smash Here)

So last week while Jim and I shopped Dollar Tree (where everything is a dollar and yet they don’t sell trees (very deceiving)), I picked up head band bunny ears.  I got them for a dollar and they weren’t even on sale!  So I wore them at work every day last week.  I’m a class clown of sorts, without the class.  Hmmm, that’s not how I meant it.  Anyway, I had several people compliment me.  Some ask where my cotton tale was.  Others scoffed (they didn’t think I saw).  Some were ballsy enough to ask if I planned to wear them all week or how long did I plan to wear them.  It was quite an uproar of sorts at work.  My evil plan succeeded.  

Earlier in the week, my cousin’s Aunt Bette was displaying her annual Pysanky creations.    Here’s what she creates.  I swiped these photos off her Facebook page.  Some are prior years.  Some are goose eggs.  I couldn’t stop putting the photos here.  Not all are from this year.  These are just a sliver of what she produced over the years.  Click any photo to biggerize it.

Aren’t they amazing?  As long as I can every remember, my Mom had had 2 or 3 in her curio from Bette. (Update: After speaking with my Mom, she told me she’s got about a dozen displayed in a basket, in her curio)  This year I commented on one that was my favorite from this years batch.  She mailed it to me!  She was so careful in wrapping and mailing it.  Despite the “fragile” warning on the package, it came torn up.  I think “fragile” means “smash here” in some postal language.  Anyway, the egg arrived unscathed.  Gorgeous.  It will go into my curio when I find an appropriate way to display it.  It was suggested to use a shot glass?  I thought museum putty?  What ever I use I want to be invisible to the egg.  Next year I’ll be commenting on her works of art more.  Hint, hint.  Here’s the one I chose as my favorite:

My mom and Aunt Donna have cancelled their trip to see me indefinitely.  Until my mom is fully recovered from the e-coli issue, my Dad had decided to not rebook the flights.  I’m bummed but it’s really not a big deal because she’ll come in the next week or so.  I had bought her (well for her, me and Jim) a big pail of Easter candy that I put into the guest room for her.  Since she’s not coming, all bets are off and Jim and I began the dreaded candy feast.  We ate way too much so I brought it into work to “get rid of it all”.  Of course I ate some there too.  Picture it.  Me, carrying an Easter basket while wearing rabbit ears.  Scary. 

4-2-12 Monday (Don’t PICC Me)

Saturday:

The Monro saga continues.  As you know we dropped off the Jeep on Friday evening.  Saturday has come and gone and not even a call from them.  I even bitched about that sorta thing to the District Manager during our conversation and it still happened again.

An update on my Mom reveals a probable e-coli infection.  Will she board the plane on Thursday?  Hmmmmm.

Jim and I went shopping.  Some great finds at Goodwill.  We also made donations.  We had a chandelier to donate but Goodwill said they didn’t take light fixtures.  A woman who was making donations, piped up and said she could use it so off it went.  Nothing all that exciting. 

We had lunch with a Living Social coupon at Bobbee O's Barbecue.  My review?  The baby back ribs were OK.  The BBQ sauce is very tangy.  The fries were overly seasoned and I didn’t care for them.  The baked beans weren’t all that great and they supplied me with a plain SLICE of bread.  Not Texas Toast, just plain bread.  Strange.  Jim’s was a pulled pork sandwich which he said was pretty good except the BBQ sauce was overly tangy for his taste.  His sweet potato fries were excellent. 

Later in the evening, Mike & Billy came over.  I made some fresh guacamole, we drank wine, ordered a pizza and then walked around the neighborhood looking at some new construction homes. 

Sunday:

Jim went shopping with Billy.  Mike stayed home to study.  Since I don’t really like shopping, I stayed home. 

Monro called at about 11am to say the Jeep needed calipers and brake hoses.  They were going to supply the brakes pads, and rotors and no charge.  The labor portion of this job is $150.  The total will be $520.  I asked if the calipers come “loaded”.  He said yes.  Well then, I’m really paying for the pads then.  I got them to credit me $70 more.   The new total is $450.  I don’t really feel comfortable with their pricing but I think we’re kind of stuck at this point.  The most I saw reman calipers at Napa or Advanced is $50 each.   Maybe $20 a hose.  That’s $140 in parts.  $450 the new total less $150 in labor means $300 of the total is parts.  I came up with $140 in parts so where’s the other $160 coming from?  They’ve just worn me down. 

I complained that I dropped it off on Friday, Saturday had passed and no one bothered to call me with an update.  The assistant manager apologized and blamed it on the store manager.  Go figure.

The last time we’ve been to Monro we asked them to check an oil leak.  They said there was no leak.  This visit we asked them to check again.  He said the rear main seal is leaking.  I remembered a large oil leak repair in the past but he said it was the valve cover gaskets.  Once I got home we checked the receipts and confirmed that on April of last year that work was done.

 

So once again, I called and left a message for the district manager.  The last time no leak, this time a leak? 

Come Monday I spoke with the store manager, Jeremy, at Monro.  He said that he didn’t see any leaks and would like me to come in so we can look at it together.  I suggested adding oil leak detection dye and returning a few days to a week later.  I also couldn’t guarantee that I can get back before the warranty officially runs out since my mom is going to be here during that time frame.  He assured me it would be fine.  Yeah, I feel like I should get something in writing too.

Monday:

Mom called and said she’s out of the hospital but has to delay her trip.  She’s got some sort of port (PICC line) still hooked up to her and requires low dose antibiotics be administered for 10 days through it.