The ride home was extra fun because Sox and I got to race home after she picked up Sprout from daycare. I did a good job of keeping pace with the car, but Sox dropped me after the Johnson St Bridge.
That is what I wanted to yell a earlier today.
I had gotten to work late, and my morning was a shambles. I was looking after Sprout while Sox was returning from Vancouver. Sprout was out of sorts, and seemed extremely tired. Looking after himn when he is in that state is taxing and tiring.
I decided to grab a cup of coffee and noticed my mug wasn’t on my desk, meaning that the cleaners had run it through the dishwasher. I went to the cupboard to grab it, and was distracted as I reached for it.
I broke my mug. The cute dog getting himself a snack mug. I loved that mug. I almost want to cry.
It broke when I pulled it off the shelf and another anonymous white mug fell. I tried to stop the anonymous mug but in the process whacked my mug on a shelf, and it broke. Almost in half.
I hate mondays, this one especially. I would much rather be spending the day with Sox and Sprout.
The day progressed, and as I was leaving I noticed a bag of garbage in the parking garage. I didn’t think much more until I stopped at Oak Bay Bikes. As I jumped out of my truck I noticed someone had tossed a bag of tree branches into the back of my truck. Grrr.
I wasn’t paying too much attention when I paid but signed the MC receipt, but grabbed my sausages and took off. A couple days later I was looking at my MC bill online and noticed I had been charged $232 instead of $23.
The very next day I called them and explained what had happened. The staffer was incredulous that it had happened and apologized to me. She said she would talk to her boss and call me later to let me know what they would do. She never called.
A couple days later I walked up from work and explained who I was and why I was there. They knew immediately that their books were out for that day, and that I wasn’t trying to cheat them. I hung around for half an hour while one of the guys tried to figure out how to do a credit. Eventually the guy offered to look it up on the internet, then call me the next day.
I never got the call.
I went back and they said they figured it out, but wanted to wait for the owner to return. They were concerned about messing up the books for him. They requested I wait until he return from Costa Rica in a couple weeks. I said I could wait since the MC bill wasn’t due.
I returned on the day the staff said the owner would be there. The owner had been brought up to speed (thankfully) and was able to do the return to my credit card in less than five minutes. A quick apology and I was out the door, and will never return.
It took at least three weeks to return my money to me when it should have taken 5 minutes. Two broken promises and a couple lame apologies mean I won’t be going back. I was tempted to just call Mastercard and explain what happened and let Mastercard deal with it it, but I didn’t want to do that to a small, locally owned shop like that.
The bumbling cost them a customer, a potential repeat customer.
The sausages were excellent though.
It was called a Golden Mystery Snail. I asked a few questions about it, and learned that it enjoys eating zucchini. Interesting. It also eats algae. Some of the ones in the tank were pretty fast which surprised me quite a bit.
So now my 7 fish have a new tankmate. Hopefully this will last longer than my plecostamus’s did.
I still met up with the guys to ride, and was greeted with sunshine and warm temperatures. It was such a beautiful day to ride that I had to stop a couple times to bask in the sunshine.
The ride itself was really good too. There was a fair amount of climbing, and thankfully this time I remembered my HRM. I pushed as hard as I could, but kept my heart rate under control. It was such a blast to be outside and be warm and dry. I really had a great time.
At the end of the ride I was feeling pretty wiped. The next day my legs were pretty tired. I can only imagine how I would have felt if I had ridden to and from the dump.
There were times during the ride where I was feeling pretty gross though. I was feeling weaker than I would have liked, and my cardio wasn’t what I want it to be. In the back of my mind I was contemplating whether this was because of my lack of conditioning or because of my cold. Either way I wasn’t feeling good and I wanted to.
I noticed the door to the downstairs wasn’t propped open like it normally is. Yoshi could have done this, or maybe Sox or I forgot to set it before leaving.
As I went to go check on the cat, I noticed the gate to upstairs was pushed open. Great. The first thing I noticed was that Yoshi had been sleeping on the futon which has just been furnished with clean sheets for a house guest set to arrive on Thursday. Argh. That dog. Easy to fix, but is still a pain to clean the sheets again.
I then noticed Yoshi had been in Sprouts room. A plastic bowl and lid combo that Sprout had been playing with had been chewed up. Yoshi also chewed the corner of one of Sprouts books too. That dog!
I then followed up with Aphro, and found she had peed on some of my riding clothes that I had planned to use the next day. 2 loads of laundry now. Anybody interested in a neurotic dog and a skittish cat?
The rest of the pics are here.
The rest of the pics are here.
I was planning on leaving work at 4 and taking the long way home. As it was I got pretty involved at work, and wanted to finish a few more things so I never left until just after 5. I had things to do this evening so that meant the short, straight route home.
To liven up the ride a little I pushed myself pretty hard. At one point I glanced at the HRM which was flashing 177. I backed off a little when I saw that, but kept up a pretty brisk pace. Still, I felt a little gross for a while after getting home.