Spazzarific: Sometimes this skin becomes too much

Breathing in the dark

Thu, 28 May 2009 20:53:02 GMT

Things are settling down... a bit. We learned on Tuesday morning that my husband's cousin, Paul, died on Monday night. Hence my previous post. Pending further blood tests, the cause of his death is still un-known, a fact that I feel might delay closure for his loved ones.

My husband and his cousin, who would have been 34 on Tuesday, were very close growing up and were more like brothers at times. It's been a hard blow for Ronnie. Currently Ronnie is emotionally withdrawn, which I try my best as an emotional extrovert to not take personally, thankfully he's not physically withdrawn as well. I can't tell if it's because he wants my presence around to make him feel better or if he's trying to make an effort to reach out to me and not withdraw from me completely. I'm grateful either way. I'm also grateful that the last time we saw Paul was at our wedding, and I'm really hoping I'll have some good pictures to give to his mother.

Go call your loved ones up, tell them you love them, appologise for something insignificant if you need to, take the blame if it'll get the lines of communication open if they're closed, don't take them for granted, and just drop a line to say "hello, thinking about you". At the least, it'll make someone's day and sometimes thats all you can do.

My heart is as cold as Atlantic Blue...

Tue, 26 May 2009 23:40:58 GMT

I'm not looking forward to tonight. To sitting in a room, within the same house, in the vicinity of a woman whose son just died. It's the kind of pain no one wants to know, and being near someone who is feeling that kind of a raw aching pain... makes it all the more real. But I know it's not about me, and that's why I'll go and deal with the possible silence, the guaranteed awkward moments and the grief. I'm going to try to keep my mouth shut, and not utter the words I know that will boil to the surface. The stupid, diarrheal words, that will probably make the situation worse. I get super uncomfortable around death and grief, who wouldn't, and since I seem to feel like I always need to say something... I tend to say awkward things. Then I laugh. Cause I'm that person. Trust me, I hate myself as much as everyone else does who has to hear my laughter at a time like that.

Again though, it's not about me, so here's to keeping my mouth shut and trying to offer psychical support over verbal.

I'm so fucked.

hit it with a shovel and it would dance a jig

Tue, 05 May 2009 06:09:41 GMT

Quick wedding teaser:
The wedding day itself was wonderful, there are a few regrets along the usual lines about not spending enough time with so-and-so or getting pictures with my husband(!)'s great-Aunts etc. Despite that, I'm so pleased with the day and it really did go by so quickly. I listened to a lot of advice on staying present during the day which I tried my best but I still felt dragged along for the ride without any sense of what was going on. Here are a few pictures that my dear sweet co-worker took of my father and I before he chauffeured us to the venue in his '60 something classic Chevy: Note, that I could strangle my photographer for not getting these pictures after I asked her to get in the car with my father and I on our way to the venue... instead she hopped in the car with her assistant.

Yay for not having blotting paper! In my defense it was a surprising 80 degrees that day.

Crazy eyes!

Call your lads forever more...

Mon, 04 May 2009 05:11:25 GMT

I'm back from my honeymoon, with a tan, or what could just be a big freckle giving the illusion of a tan, and no Swine Flue to boot! Seriously, a creepy thing to have a so called "pandemic" pop up while you're in a third world country that has invisible borders with the country the "pandemic" originates from. Belize, which is south of Mexico and east of Guatemala on the Caribbean side of Central America, has health clinics that are literally just fold out chairs set up to cafeteria style tables. I'm pretty sure one clinic, Jim's Clinic was next to Jim's Market and Jim's Chinese Restaurant. Seriously. Ha, funny thing is that we came home and found out that the 149 deaths we heard about in Mexico where really 19 confirmed deaths. Killed less people than the normal flu does.

On the plus side, we didn't have to pretend to be from the land of Canadia. Yay! All around it was a great trip. We got to visit two sites of Mayan ruins, tube in the pitch black caves of what the Mayans refered to as the Underworld/hell/Shibalba, snorkel with sting-rays/sharks/giant turtles in the barrier reef, pet a Howler Monkey and get up close to a Spider Monkey with no cages to separate us. Oh, and we had monkey sex... with each other not the monkey's you pervs. There were also a few really interesting things about Belize, like it had two large Mennonite communities that controlled the agriculture and dairy production in Belize. I will post pictures with a better story. =)

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:12:12 GMT

I feel overwhelmed.

Mrs. Muppett sat on her tuffet

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:25:09 GMT

It just started raining that hard pounding rain that makes you want to curl up with a good book/movie, cup of hot coco and peer at the rain from a pile of blankets. Yum. It's been on and off rain on the West Coast for the last two weeks, probably longer. I've never been good with days, they all start to blend for me and I adapt to the situations and no longer remember exactly when it all began.

I'm not dead, I promise. Or drowned in the rain that doesn't get drunk by the rain parched landscape. The last time it rained like this, it was 2006 and it rained from January to April, felt like it was non-stop, and threatened to creep into May before it let off. It was so surprising that newspapers did articles on how teachers could no longer come up with games to occupy their students since every day was a "Rainy Lunch" day. Remember those? I loved "Heads up Seven Up" even though I rarely got picked. Another favorite were the days when the teachers stopped trying to entertain us and let you do us own thing, we used to pile under tables and play games of make-believe.

Here's hoping that the drenching we're getting is enough to fill up all our water resevoirs. Afterall, who is going to keep supplying SoCal with enough water to wash their cars?

Ebay

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:50:45 GMT

I used to love ebay, and now I've decided that I hate it.

Long story short: I ended up buying two wedding dresses but only have the intentions to wear one. The first dress, which was a somewhat impulsive and pressured purchase (don't tell my Step-mom), I am now trying to sell on Ebay with the hopes of somewhat recouping the cost.

At first I tried the auction option, and set a reserve to avoid shipping out a not cheap dress for $25. I'm glad I did that as the only bid I got on it was $20. When relisting the dress I set it instead with a Buy It Now feature and a Best Offer feature. Meaning you can buy it now for the price I listed it at, or offer me a good deal and I might accept it. From personal experience, I wouldn't offer someone under $100 of the Buy It Now price. Within the last twenty-five minutes of the end of the listing, one of the four people watching the dress offers me $20!!! That's HUNDREDS less than the Buy it Now price. I was SO insulted. It's probably some 16 year old with a debit card looking for an "Omg Wedding dress!1!" to dance around in. The shipping will be more than $20 and honestly I'd rather donate the dress to Brides Against Breast Cancer or keep it then sell it to someone for that little. I counter offered, my passive-aggressive version of a bitch slap, with the Buy It Now price and free shipping within the United States. Also added a comment about how much the dress retailed for. Of course it was declined.

I understand why I'm not selling the dress, It's the first thing I've sold on Ebay and I haven't bought anything off there in years. Also, very few brides will want to make their biggest wedding purchase without getting to try it on. Sure if it was a $5,000 designer (Amsale ::swoon::) dress that I was selling for $1,500 it'd be gone in an instant. Please, people just stop with the lame and completely insulting offers.

Frustration

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 04:32:12 GMT

A few weeks ago when my HR Director sent multiple e-mails about how I should investigate ways to save the occasional extra paper when printing up our Time Reports. At first I ignored these e-mails as being a waste of my time and not really plausible as the length of each Time Report varies employee-to-employee and week-by-week. With no way to track it. So she went about figuring how to make it happen on her own, eventually she got it.

... let's figure this, she makes I'd bet at least six figures annually. It took her maybe three hours to get back to me. So that's roughly $145.00 of company money over... I don't know how much paper I've had to double up on. For argument's sake, let's say $10 extra dollars a month, and that's rounding high. I use maybe four or five extra pages, once a week.

So not a big company saving, but whatever makes you feel better. I do want to mention that before she got there, my Time Reports where largely paperless (a method that I came up with). Here's the ridiculous part: Every week she wants a separate Time Report printed on big Blue Bar paper. This report contains a lot of the information that is in my report, just not with descriptions. But the codes are there, and if you knew how to read them you wouldn't need the second report. OR if you took the key that I offered, it would be easy to read. Especially since I offered to calculate the specific hours she was looking for on my Time Reports. but no. It's ok to waste that paper, but not the occasional one or two pages here and there.

Brief commentary on silence

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:30:35 GMT

A few points:

1) shaina_star: Sooo glad you joined me at Ronnie's show last month. I hope you had fun, I was starting to get worried that you wouldn't as all these people I know suddenly showed up and I didn't want you to feel ignored or left out. Also, I'm in desperate need of a mani-pedi.

2) My advice for the day: bring snacks or tampons when registering for gifts, for the male not you. They tend to act like they're menstruating at a point and although it's funny for you other's might fear abuse.

3) You know who you are: don't listen to the semi-washed hippies. You are not polyamorus. Throw some distracting patchouli oil at them next time they try to convince you otherwise.

Mercedes

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:09:54 GMT

Under the cut is something neat I found at my grandmother's house this weekend.

My Great-Grandmother Mercedes on her wedding day (first of three?) to my Great-Grandfather in 1927. Isn't she a bombshell?

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:16:28 GMT

I'm back from Vegas! It was a good trip, and I'll post about it later. Right now I have to take care of that dreaded social responsibility we all call "Jury Duty" ick.

shaina_star: I picked up a little "Weddings in Vegas" booklet for you while I was at a Safeway in Henderson. I haven't looked at it completely, but I saw a few venues that were not casinos. Let me know when and where and I'll pass it onto you. =), and don't feel bad about being busy btw.

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:39:00 GMT

I'm on my way to VEGAS BABY! for Turkey and guilt trips galore. YAY!! =) Normally I'd have an hour to an hour and a half trip to the airport. Horizon Air just opened up at our local small airport, so my commute is now 20 mins. MAX. HAHAHA LOVE IT.

Hope everyone has a good Thanskgiving (if you celebrate it).

The downside

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:47:31 GMT

I started this whole rant about how I'm apposed to the Amnesty law (and the Bail-outs while we're at it) then I realized I might not have my facts wrong and stopped. Basically? I'm an angry, fed-up, American citizen.

I blame White Americans a.k.a The Crackers, yes I'm white, so like gayboys can call each other "bitch" or "fag" I can insult my race and BTW Black people do you know that most White people find Cracker funny? I hope you use it as an insulting compliment, kind of like how super bitchy girls will tell you your skirt is cute when really they think it's hideous, otherwise I think you guys are on the end of the joke. Ok maybe not all white people find cracker funny.. but I do.

Enough with the tangent. Anyways, I blame stupid ass Crackers for causing this Politically Correct epidemic bullshit. I blame us for being so scared and so guilty over slavery (hello, everyone was doing it and though it was very wrong you don't see the British who brought slavery to the States, still paying for it) that we're still using the term "American-Americans" for American citizens who have probably only seen Africa in high school and college text-books. There are more instances of P.C. bullshit, but I can't formulate it into words. Yes I know that there are still racists out there, and that Blacks were treated like second class citizens for almost three quarters of the last century and even now some of them are still treated that way. BUT I think that the more you make racial differences an issue and refer to Blacks as a minority and expect them to be treated with kid-gloves, the more you create racism. I blame Whites for this, current whites and past white for thinking that they were so much better than everyone else.

I blame Democratic Whites for their fear of being labeled Racist, for treating legal American's of Mexican descent (yes I'm making the distinction of legality as illegal Mexican immigrants aren't citizens) as second class citizens back in the... 60's? 70's? Can't remember. Thus now we have DMV booklets in Spanish, PAID Spanish translators to translate for Mexican parents of American citizens when the schools can barely afford art and music programs much less new text-books. I blame the Civil Rights movement for spawning the ACLU, which though good at the time and still good in certain instances of real racism, is now slowly becoming defunct as they start defending non-legal citizens.

I blame White business owners (ok, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians are here too, but let's hate on the WhiteDevil right?) for being so damn selfish and greedy to outsource employees in Foreign Countries. Look, I'm all for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for All, but what happened to Nationalism? It doesn't mean Racism, it just means loving your own country, being proud of it and taking care of it and it's own. We're in an Economic Depression (I said it) it's time to take care of our own here. I'd love to help everyone else, really I would, but we don't have the resources anymore and we're killing ourselves doing it. Think of it this way, if a country can't support it's self how can it be there to help others?

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:23:14 GMT

11/05/2008. Engagement picture with Erica Berger

White mouth patches

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 06:53:32 GMT

My surgery was yesterday, I'm off till next Wednesday to recover. The day started off with me being hungry and then bitter cause I couldn't eat anything. At the moment I'm fantasizing about burgers, Brie on crunchy french bread, and that damn Applebee's commercial with the Spinach and Artichoke dip. Damn you advertising. I told Ronnie that we're going to Applebee's as soon as I can eat real food again, and I mean it!

My super sweet Dad picked me up, took me to the hospital and even waited in the hospital room while they got everything ready. Which is how he came to find out that I have an awkward piercing. If they had a big sign up in the tattoo parlor stating "Surgeons do not like metal in your body during surgery, so getting your nipple pierced could lead to awkward conversations with nurses, anesthesiologists, strangers and possibly within hearing range of your father." I might have reconsidered. He played dumb stating from the other side of my thin curtain "I didn't hear anything!! I know nothing". It sucked too cause neither myself or Ronnie could get it out the night before, probably didn't help that I kept whining and saying "OW!" every time Ronnie tried. The crisis was averted as I managed to get the anesthesiologists approval with my band-aided nipple. I would have preferred a Batman band-aide though rather than the plain one I got.

For about a half hour there was a flurry of nurses that I don't remember, except for a few faces and one name Tracy. I mainly remember her name cause it's my cousins name and she got me a Popsicle after the surgery. I'm shallow and easily plied with cold sweets. After I was dressed in the semi-flimsy hospital gown and hooked up to an IV I was wheeled upstairs to the surgery room. The kind anesthesiologists(Dr. Wong or Dr. Guam I'm not sure) slipped me some drugs while all the nurses and I joked about how my dad now knew of my piercing. They were recounting my "SORRY DADDY!" comment as I watched the ceiling lights start rolling backward, and then I tracked them back to where they really where. It wasn't so much that they were moving, more like I wanted to roll my eyes into the back of my head. They put the mask over my face, I breathed in a few times and the next thing I know I was waking up in the recovery room.

Where they hooked my up to a thing that pumped heat into my gown, and feed some blessed drugs into my IV. .... I do have more to type but I'm tired, sore, and jonesing for my eight Popsicle today. later

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:32:47 GMT

After a third round of layoffs today, Ronnie and I are still (for now) gainfully employed.

As there were two people in my position, one for each department, I knew one of us was going to go. I worried for myself, of course, as the department I'm responsible is so slow that on any given day we have three-four of the seven employees off on workshare. In California, Workshare is where your employer can no longer keep you on the clock for the hours you were hired for so the State pays you unemployment to make up for the lost hours. It's more complicated than that, but the theory is that your work can keep you employed and you wont be as badly affected by the loss in wages. I was also worried, as I have a consistent tardy issue and I know jack-shit about technical stuff or how to quote a job properly without conferring with 10 people.

I was kept around for the following reasons:
~I make $10 less an hour than my co-worker... because he was previously a tech that became injured and moved to Service Adviser (what I do) to avoid a workers comp claim. As a result his wages never got cut down. On that note, yes I'm overdue for a raise and I got my boss to agree to give me one when things stabilize.
~I'm better at the computer and paper work stuff than: the Service Manager, The Operations Manager (directly below Sales Manager and CEO), the Trailer Manager and the Warranty Manager. The only three employees who know our particular system better than I do, used to be our IT people. This isn't me tooting my own horn, I just knew the questions to ask, I'm good at solving problems and I'm really fearless when it comes to screwing around with the program thus meaning I figured out how to do a lot of the stuff without being taught.
~My customer service is a little better: probably better of a kiss ass with the customers.
~Non of the technicians want to kill me... like they did with my co-worker. Who was a douhe bag.

Once my surgery is done... I might start looking for a job. My coworker was one of the main reasons that I didn't like the place so I'll be happier there. But it's not looking like a bright future there. This batch of layoffs cut pretty deep, we're loosing a lot of people and will have a skeleton crew left.

Victory

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:57:37 GMT

I saw the Ear Nose and Throat Doctor today, and I my tonsils are so out of here! On October 23rd, as long as everything goes ok with the insurance, I'll have my tonsils and aphids removed. He says that we're going to focus on my tonsils and then worry about my sinus issues later.

Now that it's actually going to happen, I am a little nervous as I've never had surgery before. But excited to no longer have to worry about enlarged tonsils. As a plus, I might no longer snore once this is over with.

Funky feeling

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:03:02 GMT

For the last three weeks or more I've been under the weather. It started off with a sore throat, which though annoying and makes me whine a bit out of irritation still not sick enough to miss work. Then it progressed into what I'm fairly sure was a sinus infection, to be honest I think I had one from the start it was just sneaky and affected my throat prior to my nose. This lead me to keeping Ronnie up at night for two nights, as I was trying to hack up my left lung. Or my throat as I'm not sure that the mucus actually made it far enough into my lungs though at times my chest felt congested.

Finally I started feeling better last week, till my apparently weak immune system decided to show what a wuss it was. As for the second time in my life (last was July) my right tonsil swelled up significantly larger than the left tonsil. To the point that I could only open my mouth roughly one inch wide, without painfully prying my mouth open farther. Suffice to say, yesterday I stayed home. Waking up on the hour, every hour, had something to do with my decision as does my congested sounding voice. I wasn't able to get into see the doctor, but I did get to spend 20+ minutes on hold trying to get a hold of the doctors office so yay! Then over 35 minutes on hold with the pharmacy trying to see if my doctor had approved a refill on the prescriptions I used last time this happened. It left me very whiny and frustrated to the point of tears, the love of my life of course lacks in the sympathy department. At 6:30ish I got on the phone with the pharmacy and found that not only had my doctor gotten the message and approved the refills, but they were ready to go. YAY! I'm all drugged up and back at work today, feeling a bit better.

I did set up an appointment with an Ear Nose and Throat specialist to see what the cause of my problem is, as well as try and get approved to have my tonsils removed as they're always sore. I'm a little concerned though, the medicine that seems to stop the swelling on my right tonsil both times I've used it is primarily used for allergies. As a previous sufferer of childhood food allergies and sufferer of sinus/seasonal allergies I'm left wondering: "what now?" and "Will removing my tonsils fix everything or make it worse as I won't have forewarning to a series problem?"

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:40:40 GMT

I have some many things to say, so many updates since my last post. I've been fishing, cooking, camping, boating, roller coaster riding, wedding planning, stressing, over-eating, cupcake devouring, cleaning (finally mopped the kitchen floor! Next is the bathroom), mess making, making venison sloppy-joe's.... and so many other things.

Yet I can't formulate it into words. I spend so much time on the computer, at home and work, that by the time I feel my brain ready to type something intelligent... it's time to get off and spend quality time with my SO. Hence why no updates. I'm alive, I'm semi-well, been hacking up a lung for the last two weeks thanks to the sneak attack of bad weather and moody sinuses.

One of my closest friends had her first baby last week, and though I can reach her via text, and see her posts on myspace she's dropped off the face of the earth. But I can't blame her. Another one of my close friends, and Bridesmaid, is moving to Texas in a few months. Oh, and my aunt has
Stage Four intestinal cancer. Awesome. Life goes on, usually while you're sleeping.

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:51:58 GMT

I CAUGHT A FISH!! A FOOT LONG BLUE GILL FISH!! My first time fishing too.

and then i had to watch Ronnie skin and gut the thing while it still tried to breath. Even with it's guts gone, and no meat left, it's fins where still twitching. Creepy. While skinning the fish, it kind of puffed up and then "popped" with a crack like it's bones and broken. Which they hadn't. I was the only one to catch a fish today.

Life.. or something like it

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:51:22 GMT

Is it just me or do you get better at keeping secrets the older you get? When I was younger (read:16, ha!) pretty much everything was considered acceptable to pass onto my other girlfriends. The phrase "Don't tell anyone" could usually translate into: "It's ok to tell as long as the friend your telling doesn't tell me she knows". Of course there were things that were off limits no matter what, and those things tended to stay that way. Out of my group of.. four friends (pathetic) we all pretty much figured that we knew everything anyway.

But now... I just don't divulge secrets. The phrase "Don't tell anyone" really means, "Don't tell anyone". It's so simple that I'm not sure how I didn't get it before. Maybe it's because the older you get, the secrets you keep start to mean more. They're no longer "I have a crush on my friend's boyfriend" now it's "My husband is cheating on me and I don't want anyone to know." or "Sometimes I resent having my daughter"

... or maybe it's because the only person I really want to tell now is my Fiance. Which brings up another topic. Is it safe to assume that once you tell one part of a married couple, the other half will know? That seems to be the rule, but if you say "don't tell your husband." does that make it off limits? Or should you just get over it and know that healthy couples tell each other everything?

Chinese Fire Drill

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:47:05 GMT

When the business is slow, the customer's get to call all the shots. Which has been happening a lot lately at our work, we'll get calls to go pick up trucks from customer's yards and then deliver them later. I'm sorry? Are we a delivery service or a dealership repair shop? These are big rigs, mind you, not ordinary pick-up trucks. Rigs with air-breaks, a massive turning radius, 13-18 gears, and the kind of hood that you can't see your average heighted grandma over. This all translates into needing a special kind of license, which only three of our techs have, and we're short two people each time we need to pick up or deliver a truck. One to drive the rig, and the other to drive the tech to the rig.

This morning I had a situation that was.... blown waaay out of proportion. Every year for the last two years Customer A has purchased close to a million dollars in trucks. The first of the ten trucks Customer A purchased, had some serious troubles... so Customer A has a lot of clout. Well this morning Customer A calls, stating that an Accumulator Bracket had broken on one of his trucks, on a job site and he needed someone to drive down there ASAP. Now we don't offer roadside service, but I realized that with how the accumulator had broken (it was hitting the driveline) he wasn't going to go anywhere. I respond with, Ok I'll make it happen, call you back in a bit.

I handle the situation. I get a tech lined up, find the appropriate repair, and even determine that it can be fixed on the site and the truck doesn't need to make it back here. Thus lowering the downtime, and I think great! Out of nowhere, are Head Salesmen, and right hand man to the CEO, comes into the shop and starts getting really intense.

Head Salesmen: We need to go to Customer A's truck, and fix it. Tomorrow he's going to bring all ten trucks in, and we're doing this repair. I want you to drop everything no matter what, drop it and do these trucks.

Then he proceedes to get my tech all wound up, got me wound up, dragged in my Warranty Manager once he found out that I didn't know what all of the parts that were needed. Which I admitted, but I also said "I'll find out and make it happen, don't worry". He completely took over the situation and told the tech to patch the truck up so it can come into the shop for repairs. Sure, make the tech look like a dumbass with a bunch of zipties when he could look trained doing the repair onsite.

::tears out hair:: FUCK. SO NOT NESSICARY! I had it handled! No need for a Chineese FireDrill! This job is really going to kill me one day. Anyone know of a job opening in the my area? =)

Photographers:

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:53:10 GMT

I need some help picking a photographer. I can't make up my mind.

Tess Marie Photography: I like her slideshows, and it helps that she offers a 20% discount on packages for a Sunday wedding. BUT some of the pictures on the website seem grainy and the colors off on the black and white photos. I'm worried about this as my reception is indoors and I need a good black and white photographer in case the light isn't enough.
Erica Berger Photography : Similar reason as above, some pictures are awesome but some seem a little over-processed almost.
E Heizer Photography: She's the cheapest and has some cute concepts in her photos.
Christina Suwarna
Michelle Hayes Photos
Jeese Cho Her gallery is too small to get a good enough representation of her work.
Tinywater Photography: I really want these people to do the wedding. BUT they're pricer than I think I can come up with. Also there have been two complaints against them with the Better Business Bureau.
Living Faith Photography: They're still young but the talent is there. Only problem is that their travel fees puts them inline with Tinywater, BUT I get an album and full day of coverage compare to... not and eight hours.

If anyone has an opinion I'd really like to hear it. =)

Kirk Cameron and bannas

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:01:42 GMT

Pay extra attention to the "curved perfectly towards the face" comment. It's not gay, really.

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:14:02 GMT

I might be making a mad dash two hours north to "rescue" an antique solid mahogany China Cabinet, my great-grandmother's china, a 1920's wash cabinet and anything else that I can cram into the back of a truck or my friend's SUV. Yay for Northern California burning. =(