This is the Buddha incense holder Madison got me for my birthday.
I love it and can’t stop watching the smoke come out the top.
I am easily entertained.
I’d been wanting a cone incense holder for a long time and was really surprised when I actually got one because it’s not something I’ve mentioned a whole lot, so it was kind of an obscure item. He came with vanilla and rose incense. I’ve been burning mostly the vanilla because traditionally I don’t like rose, but this stuff’s okay. I’m not burning it during the day though because it makes me sleepy. Wal*Mart doesn’t have cone incense so I’m not sure where I’ll replenish yet but at least I have it to enjoy now! I’m actually thinking of starting an incense burner collection because I’m told there’s a lot of really cool ones out there and that if I was impressed with this one then I ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Someone described to me Chinese dragon incense holders where the smoke comes out their nostrils and I’m very interested in seeing one of those.
So that’s what Madison got me for my birthday and as I said, I love it. And I guess he’s not exactly a “laughing” Buddha, he’s more like a smiling Buddha, but that’s okay. I’m not picky about my Buddhas.
This morning I got an automated call from Visa saying that they needed to go over some charges with me because they thought they might be fraud. I pulled up our Visa statement online and double checked everything, I even called Blake because one I didn’t recognize but it was for his parking so it was okay. We both assumed they were checking up on all of the charges we made when we were in the US since we put pretty much everything on Visa since our bank cards wouldn’t work down there. So I call Visa up and it’s this automated thing that starts telling me someone tried to put a $1500 charge on my card for Google Adwords. Wtf? So I made it give me a real person and he explained that it was a charge from the UK and that this is a pretty common scam where they set up a website that will say something like “you have a virus on your computer and if you don’t give us money right now to fix it, your computer is going to blow up” so people pay them money because of this when in fact, the site does nothing and they use Adwords so the fraudulent site will come up when people search certain keywords pertaining to whatever the site’s about.
They canceled the transaction and are sending me new cards in the mail, which will take about 10 days, but good on them for catching it and alerting me. I have no idea how they would have gotten my credit card number because I don’t even use that card, Blake does, and he doesn’t generally buy things online. He DID buy something from a seller on Amazon last month though, which is a possible suspect but I think Amazon’s pretty good about vetting those people, right? I mean, they’re legit businesses, right?
*I* buy a lot of stuff online, obviously a lot on Etsy and Lush but I use a different Visa from a different bank than the one Blake uses so it’s weird that the one Blake uses had this happen to it.
Speaking of Etsy, I bought THIS last week and I cannot wait until it arrives because I’m absolutely in love with it:
She uses the same paper I use for my girls’ dresses except I use the flat version and she uses the textured versions. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this or not but I’ve been buying a lot of art from Etsy in preparation for my new office if and when we ever move. There’s nowhere to put art in the office I have now because the biggest wall is covered in vinyl siding, but one day I’ll have an office with nice, flat walls and I’ll be able to hang all kinds of stuff. I’ll have a whole house with walls I can hang stuff on! I fully intend to have pictures of my family all over the place, as I told my step-mom on Facebook yesterday. The best part of their birthday gift to me was the card with a photo of my step-mom, Phil and my little sisters which I fully intend to frame, but in this house, there’s nowhere to put framed photos. Our house is so dark that putting things on walls is pointless and we have a distinct lack of non-functional surfaces. But when we have our new house, I plan on having tables and stuff like, in my living room or wherever, that are just for pictures. Pictures of my Muskoka family, my mom and John and Chris, my cousin Haylie, Brooke and Charlie, the Albanians, my kids of course, Ronny and Alex and maybe even my brother if he stops being such a shithead.
Ever since Michigan, family has become a lot more important to me than it was before and I’ve found myself getting kinda bummed out that my brother is such a turd. I downloaded the song “Pretty Fly For a White Guy” by the Offspring, which reminds me of my brother because that’s him to a “T”, the kid in the video even looks like him and I put it on the playlist I’ve been listening to since Monday and I’ve been thinking about him a lot. Here’s the video for my mom, who’s probably never seen it:
You would think that as he got older (he’ll be 26 in July) he’d smarten up and quit being a shit, but he’s still living with his father (who got fired from the job he’d had for like, 15 years) and is more or less unemployed most of the time for no real reason other than, I can only assume, he has a problem dealing with authority (runs in the family) and he doesn’t like waking up with an alarm (runs in the family?). Also, last I checked, he was smoking a fucking ounce of weed every few days. Honestly, I don’t even know, I haven’t talked to the guy since 2005, I only hear snippets from my mom once in a blue moon. When he left my house that day in December, he promised he’d be back and he went on and on about how much Wes and Madison meant to him, but that must have been all horse shit because where is he then? Not even an e-mail? Not even an add on Facebook? I never did a damn thing to him so I don’t know what his deal is.
I mean, it’s not as if we’ve ever been close to begin with, there’s a pretty big age gap between us and we were raised in completely different ways by two completely different people in two different houses. I’m an only child with 3 siblings. But it’s just the fact that he PROMISED that he’d be back and he went on and on and on about how much my kids meant to him that eats at me. Why would he say that shit if he didn’t mean it? And how can he mean it if he’s not here?
I dunno. Most of the time I barely even think about him, it’s just that song that has him on my mind lately. I’m sure it’ll pass and like I said, we’re not close so it doesn’t even really matter. It’s sad that it doesn’t, I suppose, but that’s the hard truth of it. Honestly, we barely even know each other. Not as kids, not as adults.
So that’s where my head’s been the last little while. I need to get back to work.