By Beauty Damned

Blood Suckers & Tribulations

Rob and I are up in Portland staying at Darcie's for a couple days. Yesterday I was viciously attacked by mosquitos. I'm using up D's hippie salve that has Calendula, St. John's Wort and Comfrey in it. Good stuff. Makes the itching stop. Evil mosquitos. I hate those bastards. I hope this doesn't become a trend during my vacation. No one else got bitten. Just me. And boy did they get me. On the meatiest parts of my body, if you know what I mean. I must have used some lotion or something that attracted them demon spawn. So that's the situation and it sure ain't pretty.

I've been hit by a stroke of bad luck lately. This is unusual for me. Usually things have a tendency to work out in my favor. But there have been a few bumps in the road recently. My house flooded the day before I left NY to come on vacation. Got home after work Friday and found the kitchen and half the living room soaked. Landlord and handyman came immediately. Plumber and guy with water vac showed up quickly thereafter, but not before I watched as gallons of water poured out of the main line under the kitchen floor and drowned my carpet in about three inches of water. Had to make a dam in the doorways of the bedrooms to prevent destruction of numerous valuable items and carpet. This was the night I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11. When I left the house I had to tiptoe through lots of yucky water and around the plumber who was shoulder deep in the same filth. Poor guy. Wouldn't want his job.

When we returned home from the movie later, the floor had been cleaned to the best of my saviors' ability, and my landlord promised to have the carpet torn out and replaced immediately. I talked to Kat yesterday and she said the new carpet is installed and said it's much prettier than the old carpet. Which is just in time since that old carpet was going to start sprouting flies and maggots at an alarming rate after being deluged by all that filthy water. Groooss. So that happened.

Another weird thing that happened to me was that when I switched planes in Vegas on my way to Oregon, my flight getting in was late and by the time I made it to the next gate, the sign said "Medford: Boarding Closed." The guy informed me that I'd missed the plane and he was very sorry, but I had to see the customer service desk and they would get me on a later flight. I took this in stride because I wasn't about to get all stressed out and cry like this other girl who received the same news about her flight. So I took my time getting to customer service and when I got there they told me that the flight to Medford was still there, but at a different gate, and hadn't even boarded yet due to delays. So I didn't miss my flight after all. Then I got here and my brother appeared to be teetering on the brink of death when I arrived. I also temporarily lost my purse which was found post-Visa cancellation, had my keys stolen (for real) and got savagely, silently, stealthily attacked by mosquitos. Everything that has gone wrong has managed to work itself out though. I guess that's the good news. The bad news is that the mosquito bites on my booty are not going to be resolved so quickly.