Money From Nowhere
Our bank has deposited someone else’s $800 into our checking account. The person it belongs to shares our last name. It’s a common last name.
I expect whoever this fellow is, he’s going to want his $800 back. I hope it wasn’t a transfer intended to take care of a critical need. I’ve notified the bank in two different communications that they need to fix it. I hope they do it quickly.
Sheez. In this day and age of electronic banking, checks and cross-checks, passwords and logins and double-layered security, they’re still screwing this stuff up?
*sigh*
Attending Church at Home
Next week I’ve been tapped to run the lyrics computer for the service, which means I’ll actually have to show up to church. Wearing a mask.
It won’t be the same as attending church at home with a little dog on my lap.
Say Hello to Sampson
This is Sampson.
I was on my way home from the grocery store on May 15 when I came upon a situation. There were two guys trying to get to a cat that was laying in the middle of the road. I figured they were just trying to get the body out of the road. Other drivers weren’t allowing it. I slowed and turned on my flashers. They waved and went to pick the cat up.
When they walked back across the road with him I saw his paws were moving. He was still alive. So of course I pulled over.
Their plan was to “put him out of his misery.” I asked if they were going to shoot him. They glanced at each other and said I didn’t want to be there when it happened. So, something brutal.
While we were talking the cat was trying to crawl away. His mouth was bloody and he had other cuts, but his legs were still working. I told them I wanted to take him to the emergency vet to see if they could help him.
So, that’s what I did. He spent a few days there. They neutered him while they were doing surgery on his other injuries. The only broken bone he had was his lower jaw, which they wired together. For a cat that had been hit by a car, he was in pretty good shape.
He’s here, of course. In his cage, with his food (soft) and water and a litter box. He gets me cleaning his box and changing his food twice a day. Over the weeks he’s gotten more comfortable with me touching him. Now he lets me skritch his head and neck. I’ve discovered he really doesn’t like his tail touched, and also resents when I stop skritching him before he’s finished being skritched. His sutures have been removed, and he’s going in to get the wire removed from his jaw on the 16th. I’ll have him microchipped then also.
And then we’ll see if he adjusts to life inside the house. Obviously he’s used to using a litter box. It’s another question whether he adjusts to all these other cats.
I hope he does. I’d rather he stayed indoors with us. But, if he wants out, he can go. I hope he stays nearby, if being inside isn’t what he wants.
He’s cost us rather a large amount of money so far, but what else could I do? He still had a chance at life. And he’s a sweetie.
That picture above is a few weeks old. I’ll try to get a more recent one. And I did change his bedding out right after taking the picture.
Conforming to This World
A few months ago Beth Moore announced her support for the LGBTQ revolution. It was disappointing, given her stature as a teacher of Biblical truth. She’s been very successful, very popular, made a lot of money.
The title link will take you to an article regarding the departure of a prominent Catholic university from Biblical truth. Villanova University, or more accurately whoever posts to their Twitter account, posted support for the LGBTQ revolution. The student disagreed. She was called in to her advisor’s office and threatened.
My own personal experience with declining to genuflect sufficiently at the altar of alternative lifestyles includes losing a longtime friend.
Here’s the thing. People can do what they want. The Bible is very clear about so-called “alternative lifestyles”, and they’re considered by God to be an abomination.
Does that offend you? Take it up with God. His universe, His rules.
My ex-friend attacked me, and my faith, on Facebook when I posted a link to an article about a school district (can’t remember where, maybe Arizona) where the school board decided that all their students would be shown a video extolling the virtues of alternative lifestyles. The parents were not consulted. When some students came home and told their parents about it, some of the parents were, to put it mildly, unhappy at having their right to determine what their children were ready to hear usurped.
This indoctrination attempt is well outside the purview of the school district. It’s all of a piece with the rest of the leftward lurch the world is taking. That doesn’t mean it’s okay.
The proponents of “alternative lifestyles” have a remarkably limited set of tactics. Chief among them are shrieking “Hater!” at anyone who disagrees with their views. It’s an easily executed maneuver but it’s only successful if you roll over, apologize, grovel or otherwise acquiesce.
Be aware that you will never be forgiven by the secular left for your “heresy.” There is no amount of capitulation that will ever be sufficient.
Romans 12:2 — “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
The world, which is ruled by the enemy (the devil, Satan, in case you weren’t aware) wants the Church to conform to it. That’s not why we’re here. That’s not what God wants us to do. Christians have always been outsiders, odd, peculiar. It’s frequently very difficult to be a Christian in this broken world. We are attacked from all sides by people, groups, organizations that want us to shut up and accept the new. The changes. The “new normal”, whatever that means this week. Our adherence to Scripture seems to them to be foolish, stick-in-mud obstinate stupidity.
Newsflash: We’re not going to be judged by the world. We’re going to be judged by God. We don’t have to meet the world’s criteria and in fact that would be dangerous. We have to meet God’s criteria.
We all get a choice. God gave us free will. He will honor your choice, even if it breaks His heart.
Choose wisely.
As bad as things are, they’re going to get worse. And then even worse. And considering how things are developing in the world, it’s likely to be happening sooner than you think.
I’ve read the end of the Bible. God wins.
Article at the title link.
One wonders what goes through some people’s heads when they laud criminal behavior. The mayor of Seattle, who has demonstrated a remarkable lack of concern for the safety of her constituents, is outraged when the alligators come after her.
Sheez. Did she think she was immune? Probably. She’s wrong, of course. Most of us who have been on the planet longer than 20 minutes understand that there’s no appeasing the mob. There will never be enough capitulation to keep them from consuming their own. It’s how revolutions work. It’s how they have always worked.
Even the revolution that spawned the US. If you get time, look up how the Founding Fathers’ lives turned out. There was no happily-ever-after for them. They created, with God’s considerable help, the greatest nation the world has ever known, but at great cost to themselves. The US is in steep decline these days, but if you’re at all familiar with Scripture this comes as no surprise. A bit disappointing to find ourselves living it, but there it is.
Ah, well. Reality comes for us all, eventually.
Say Hello to Dora
This is Dora.
I was on my way home from work on May 13th when I spotted her standing by the side of the highway. Her little nose was inches away from traffic hurtling past her on the four-lane divided highway at 60 miles per hour. She looked like she was considering crossing. She’d have been obliterated. I hit my flashers, annoying the guy behind me so much he yanked his car over into the other lane and zipped past me. As I was pulling over I could see her in the rear view mirror, racing after my car.
She met me running around the front of the car as soon as I got out. I asked her where she’d come from, but she didn’t say. She sat on my lap all the way home.
How does anyone drop a critter off? And especially, how does anyone drop off something so tiny? She’s a long-haired Chihuahua, I think. She weighs 6 pounds. She was clean and in good condition. She belonged to someone who loved her and took care of her. How did she get there?
Well, I spent two weeks trying to find her people. I got on FaceBook to find lost and found critter sites for the area and put up her pictures. I sent emails to the local humane society, with pictures, and another local rescue. I even sent an email with photos to a local vet office, although there’s no way to know if she was ever seen there.
No answers. No leads. I even drove down a local residential road looking for “lost dog” signs. This little dog, in good shape, loving and playful and someone just… dropped her off?
So, she’s with us now. She’s the smallest critter we have, all the cats are bigger than she is. She’s hit it off the best with Smoky, one of the Project Pawprint kittens I fostered a few years ago that I was supposed to find homes for. We rehomed one, the other five are still here. So it goes, at our house. The dogs don’t seem to mind her. Maxwell tolerates her. Seymour doesn’t seem to care one way or the other.
She’s had her shots. Next appointment will be to get her fixed.
I did a little research on long-haired Chihuahuas. They’re expensive, so someone probably paid a considerable amount of money for her. Only to abandon her. Sheez. Among other characteristics, they’re stubborn and notoriously difficult to house-train. I can confirm this. Oh, well.
The vet says she’s between a year and a year and a half old. Someone had her, took care of her, all that time. I don’t understand people.
She’s very cute. She has an underbite that I’ve tried to get a picture of, without success. She’s loving and very attached to me. She likes my husband too, but seems to prefer me.
Two days after I found her I ended up taking a cat that had been hit by a car to the emergency vet clinic. That’s a story for another day. He’s doing well, by the way. No worries.
Rude Customers
The world seems to be overrun with people who believe the very best way to get what they want is to be rude. Rude, loud, belligerent, abusive.
There are places where this works, obviously, or it wouldn’t continue. If every time someone tried that tactic they got it shoved back down his or her throat, it would stop.
Sidebar: I use proper pronouns here, not mythological ones; get used to it. End sidebar.
Three recent examples. One was a person who called looking for help, service or something. I remembered the name. I remembered the last time this person called and tried being nasty. We helped them anyway, because that’s what we do, but I was tempted to mention their last encounter with us.
The second example is a person who came in to buy charcoal. We sell the natural lump charcoal, not that junk you can buy at Wal-Mart (not all the charcoal you buy at Wal-Mart is junk, by the way, just some of it) and not any of that stuff with the lighter fluid added to it. If you have a kamado-style grill, that stuff will ruin it forever. FYI.
We have a program where we give a customer a charcoal card when they purchase the first time. It’s also good for large bags of pellets. Every bag they buy, the card gets stamped. After 8 bags, the 9th bag is free.
I asked him if he had a charcoal card. He said he did, but he’d lost it. So I offered to start him another. And the tirade began.
He sold his car, apparently the card was in it, he had 7 stamps on it. He wouldn’t lie to us, etc. He works in retail, he knows how it works. Except apparently he doesn’t. I took a new card out of the drawer, stamped it, tried to hand it to him. He refused it, said he’s never coming back. He wouldn’t lie to us, and by the way his wife used to work here. He didn’t even want his receipt, just took his bag of charcoal and stomped out, allegedly never to return.
One of my co-workers knows him. Says he’s a manager at a local CVS. So you’d think he’d know better.
The third example is a person I sold a vent-free box and vent-free gas logs to back in January. He popped up Thursday in a phone call. I saw the name on caller ID and my stomach dropped. I don’t even remember why, I just thought, “Oh, no.” I answered. He was asking about a Green Mountain Daniel Boone pellet grill. We have them. Not many, we’re a small business, and we have little in the way of storage space, but the one he was looking for, we had. He said he would be coming in to purchase it.
He came in Friday, which is my day off during the week. I heard about the episode when I came in Saturday. Apparently he thought if he yelled loudly enough and lied to the salesperson’s face he could get a couple of accessories for free. It didn’t work, but during the course of the conversation he bellowed, waved his arms, and made unspecific threats.
He left without a grill.
One of the owners, after returning from a job helping a local chimney sweep install a wood-burning insert into a friend’s fireplace, called him. He said the guy ranted for ten solid minutes and made no suggestion of how the situation could be resolved. Just yelled. The conversation ended when the owner said it appeared there wasn’t anything we could do to satisfy him, so we’re done.
He called Green Mountain later, left a nasty voicemail. Which our dealer’s rep forwarded to the owner, who played it for us. He called one of our salespeople “the rudest person on the planet.” That’s a pretty high bar. He’s wrong, of course. The person he’s referring to is never rude to customers. To her co-workers, yes. Not to customers. Not even when it’s deserved. He also said he went elsewhere and bought a Traeger pellet grill. We wish him much joy of it.
He’s been tagged in our database as a person we want nothing more to do with, along with two other lunatic customers who are only good for making life miserable. This means that if he ever calls and asks for service on his gas logs, even though our policy is that we provide service for what we sell (not for free, mind you, unless there’s an installation situation that we boogered up), we will not service his logs. Ever. We will provide contact information for other companies that will, but we won’t. We’re done with him.
Here’s a funny thing. The guy’s a business owner himself. He owns a pizza place near us. I’m tempted to say where, but that’s probably not a good idea. We read the reviews. Most of them are complimentary of the food and employees, some are of the “meh” variety. A few are very clear about the food being terrible, the employees rude, and the owner abusive to staff and customers alike. It’s interesting. One of the most interesting pieces of information is a response he actually posted to a customer who complained about a situation during her visit there.
The internet is a wonderful place. Behold screenshots. I’ve concealed identifying information, for obvious reasons.
Customer’s complaint:
Owner’s response (I am not making this up):
People are crazy. Maybe it’s the all-panic-all-the-time over the Corona virus that the media is shilling. Maybe it’s just the enemy working overtime, knowing his time in control of this world is winding down and he’s about to find out what dwelling in the pit is all about. Maybe it’s both.
Jesus could come today. I’d be fine with that. I hope you are too. We are, in fact, running out of time.
Standing Up Again
Well, I’m back. There’s no one here but me, but I’m back.
I sustained the blog for many years, ran out of time, lost interest. Tried to make FaceBook my blog platform, that didn’t turn out well.
I can say what I want to here. FaceBook has a nasty habit of punishing people who say things that are at odds with their view of the world. I’m not interested in tolerating that stuff.
I know I need to post every day. I will try.
Oh, I Wish I Had Time to Write….
Or maybe I should wish for better time management skills. Because if something matters to you, you make time for it.
So, I’m still working at the place where I’d been told it was seasonal and they’d let me go within a few months. First week in October I’ll have been there for two years. Looks like they’re letting me stay.
I like the job. There’s a lot to know. We sell gas logs and fireplaces and grills and wood-burning stoves and inserts (gas- and wood-burning) and glass doors for fireplaces and other accessories for grilling and fireplaces. It might surprise you how much there is to know. I know more than I did 2 years ago (thank you, Jesus, seriously) but I don’t know nearly enough.
I also like the people I work with. Christians all, nice folks, I’m very blessed.
I’m glad to have this job for many reasons, one being that at the beginning of January Hubby got himself fired. Worked for Wal-Mart for 25 years, made a mistake (a large one, but they could have shown him some mercy, and didn’t) and they fired him. He just found another one, working at Staples, part-time. It’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but the financial situation has me concerned. He cashed in an IRA (as did I, when he got fired, so we could eliminate the credit card debt as we were no longer going to be able to afford the payments), and we’re okay for now but the coffers are steadily being drained.
God is in control. There is nothing he cannot do. I have to remember to keep my trust in Him, because He knows what’s going on, and He knows what’s coming, and He knows what we need and when we need it.
*sigh*
This is going to be the only post for now, got to go feed the dogs and issue medication. I’d like to tell you about what happened Friday. It was an interesting day.
Cheers, y’all.
The Religion of Peace Disapproves of Easter
From the article:
Dozens were killed in a brutal terrorist blast near children’s playground swings in Lahore, Pakistan, on Easter Sunday.
Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported that at least 65 people were killed and more than 300 injured in the suicide attack at Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park, where a large number of families were gathered on the holiday evening.
The attack was claimed by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar, a splinter group from the original Pakistani Taliban.
On Saturday, the Afghan Taliban issued a statement complaining that only Islamic holidays can be celebrated in Islamic countries, specifically grousing about Nowruz (Persian New Year) celebrations in Kabul the past week.
The Pakistani Taliban group said it targeted the family park to kill members of the country’s Christian community for celebrating Easter and to send a message to the country’s prime minister that “we will reach you.”
It can happen here. We’ve been very fortunate so far.
More at the title link, if you’re interested.
Oldcontroller's Blog 