Yesterday, I took Emily to the movies to see How To Train Your Dragon. I really wanted to see Date Night, but Emily wanted to see this so we went. The theater was surprisingly packed considering how nice it was out. The movie was great. Really great. It would have been more great if I could HEAR all of it. This old hag next to me was coughing the ENTIRE movie. I don’t even know if you could classify it as coughing. It was more hacking. And there was lots of phlegm involved. It was just lovely, really. Thank goodness there was a seat in between us. Hopefully her germs stayed over there.

As if the coughing was not bad enough, her cell phone rang in the middle of the movie. And she didn’t even answer it right away. She was looking at the caller ID as it was ringing. Then she answers it and has a WHOLE CONVERSATION. When the movie ended, I had to climb over her because she obviously wasn’t leaving. She had the nerve to give me a dirty look. Are you kidding me?

Moral of this story: If you are sick, stay home. Don’t bring your germs to a packed movie theater AND ruin the movie for everyone else. Oh, and put your phone on SILENT!

There is this thing….it is an unwritten rule of law between women.  If one girl is interested in a guy, no other friends are to approach him, talk to him, make a move on him, etc. Most respectable women abide by this cardinal rule.  Others, just simply don’t seem to care.  It wasn’t until recently that I came across one of these women, not in real life, but on Twitter (This specific person shall remain nameless, but you know who you are!).

I told her, in a DM, that I was hanging out with a guy who was also on Twitter.  Well, as soon as she found that out, she set her sights on him.  But here’s the thing.  He has become her online obsession.  She DM’d him the day I told her about him, and well, lets face it, is still DMing him constantly even though she lives A PLANE RIDE away from him.   Now, why would she do that?  Of all the guys on Twitter? Why, oh why….would she become obsessed with the one that I started to like?  It is for this reason that I have unfollowed and unlisted her on Twitter.  I know she knows because she DM’d the guy IMMEDIATELY to tell him.  I’m sorry, but I don’t need a friend like that.

For those of you that have followed my blog for a while might remember in March when I went to get a tattoo on my wrist as a tribute to Harry.  I had “designed” it myself, although it was quite simple:  a big bold “lmL” with the words “Forever in my heart 8.11.76-1.22.09″ underneath it.  lmL was something special between Harry, Emily and myself, kind of an “inside family joke” that turned into something so much more.  I get questioned about it ALL the time (understandably so), so here is the story behind it:

Every morning, Harry and I would together walk Emily to the bus stop to send her off to school.  One of our neighbor’s kids used to wave to her Mom from the bus, but not a normal wave, she would use the hand symbol for I love you and wave it until her Mom did it back.  The first few times, I didn’t say anything and it was a few days later that Harry brought it up to me.  He said “do you see that girl waving her hand like that all the time?”  “Yes, I do, it’s funny but very cute.” So we started to do it with Emily on the bus and she loved it.  It went from a goodbye on the bus to our goodbye all the time, no matter where we were.  Anytime we were leaving each other, we would use that hand symbol instead of waving.  Harry and Emily came up with these extensive handshakes that always included the hand symbol.  We even laughed about how our neighbors were probably making fun of us now as we had of them, but we didn’t care.  After a month or two, I realized that when you typed lmL it kind of looked like the hand symbol (the l was the pinky, the m was the middle fingers and the L was your pointy finger and thumb).  So from then on, any text message, e-mail or Facebook comment ended with lmL, in addition to our daily hand gestures.  Since Harry and I kept in contact via text messages all day, lmL was used quite often.  After I spoke at Harry’s funeral, I gave his urn the lmL hand symbol for one last time.  Emily and I still do it to this day.

So, now, that you know the meaning, let’s get back to the tattoo.  You can read the original post about the tattoo here, but I will give you the synopsis: I had attended a funeral that night for a co-worker’s Mom.  I had already drawn out the tattoo and had it in my bag and on my way home, thinking about how precious life really is, decided that I should get it done.  I said out loud: “Harry, if I should get this tattoo tonight, show me a sign!”.  No more than 3 minutes later, I came up on a tattoo shop, Lucky Cat Tattoos, in Miller Place, NY.  I said to myself, “if that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.”  When I walked in, there was one artist who was free at the time, Rob. While he was doing the tattoo, I noticed that he spelled Forever wrong.  He had made it Forover.  At first, he said I was wrong but then realized his mistake and made the o into an e.  At the time, it was not noticeable to anyone who didn’t know about it, but it was something that bothered me since I got it.

After a few months, the o/e started to look obvious and the For in Forever and the 09 had faded out, almost to the point that it looked like they weren’t there.  I had shown this to MANY tattoo enthusiasts who balked and asked where I had gotten it done. They had never seen anything like it, especially in a tattoo that was only a few months old.  I waited another month to make sure it was completely healed before I complained.  I happened to be in the area of Lucky Cat Tattoos one day and thought I would stop in and see what they said.  I saw the store manager.  He said that the fading was “normal” on my wrist. Normal? I had never seen anything like this before. The tattoo artist that had done my tattoo was off that day.  I told the manager, “to be honest, I don’t want that artist touching my wrist again. He spelled Forever wrong!”. His response:  “That is the only way we will fix it for free,” he said.  “If you want a new artist, you will have to pay for another tattoo”.  Considering the guy had spelled something as simple as FOREVER wrong permanently on my body, I was really taken back by this.  However, I’m broke.  I could barely afford to get it done in the first place and couldn’t afford to get it re-done.  I was told when the artist was there and to come back.  Fast forward two months.  I had gotten really busy and I don’t live near the shop anymore.  I called ahead of time and got the artist on the phone.  He couldn’t remember me or the tattoo and denied the spelling mistake. He told me to come in and he would take a look.  As soon as I stopped in, he remembered me, the tattoo and the spelling mistake.  He (and the manager) told me they didn’t want to do it that night, he wanted a picture of it so that they could draw it out and figure out what letters needed to be retraced.  He said he would call me to come in at some point that week.  A week goes by, no call.  I call them and he says, “Oh, yeah, um, just come in whenever you want”.  So, back I go.  He tells me that they decided to just go over the entire tattoo again.  So basically, I could have had it done the week earlier, but had to wait a week for no reason.

I sit down in the chair and he begins.  All went well the the majority of the tattoo, until he gets to the lettering.  He tells me he is going to redraw the F with pen since you can’t really see it.  This makes me feel better but then he changes his mind. “I can see the F fine, I will just go over it again.” WELL…I guess he couldn’t see it that well because he COMPLETELY SCREWED IT UP!!!!  See the pic below of the tattoo as soon as it was finished:

The F is crooked, smaller and not lined up with the rest of the letters.  You can still see where the top of the F used to be.  I was sooooooo mad as soon as I saw it.  After I pointed it out, he realized his mistake… but it was too late.  The manager came over and suggested making all the letters bolder to fix the F.  I said, “you are not touching my skin again”.  He told me to come back in a few weeks and they would try to figure out how to fix it AGAIN.  Basically, he screwed up the ONE THING that I went to get fixed.  I also noticed later that the 1.22 looks like 7.22 now and there is no dot over the i in the word “in” as there was before.I have never, in my life, met a group of more incompetent people.  People have said in the past few days, “it’s not THAT bad”. It’s tattooed on my body, for life.  When you get tattoos, you don’t want them to be BAD at all, only perfect will do, and this is far from it.  If this was just a tattoo that had no meaning, it would be one thing, but this is a tribute to the love of my life and it has turned into a disaster. I’m hoping that the F fades AGAIN and I will go to a tattoo artist that has actual talent to get it fixed, not some 21 year old moron who doesn’t know what he is doing.  (BTW, he has an apprentice. I don’t think he should be one to teach anyone anything).

So, a word of advice: Check out your tattoo parlor before you go.  Don’t just take the artist that is available at the time.  There is probably a reason why every other artist was busy and he wasn’t.

I went out  to lunch on Thursday with a guy, my first “date” since Harry passed away. It just made me realize how much I miss him and how we were perfect together.  I was not looking to be dating yet, but was contacted via Facebook by this guy who I had gone to high school with and who didn’t live here anymore. He was back in town for a few days and wanted to take me to lunch.  As cute as this guy (who will remain nameless) was, I could tell all he wanted was to hook up. First red flag: taking me to a bar and ordering endless drinks.  Now, I can drink with the best of them. But at noon on a Thursday? I don’t know, just not my thing.  Second red flag: Putting the moves on me as soon as we arrive at my apartment after lunch.  When I pushed him away and said I wasn’t ready, this was the conversation:

Me: “I’m sorry, I’m just not there yet. Harry only passed away in January.  I feel like he’s here watching me, upset that I even went out to lunch with you.”

Date: “Don’t you think Harry would want you to be happy?”

Me: “Yes, I know he would want me happy,  but I don’t think he would want me to be hooking up with a random guy 9 months after he died.”

Date: “But aren’t you lonely?”

Me: “Yes, but that doesn’t mean that I will just hook up with someone just to hook up.”

He left soon after this conversation, ran actually, out of my apartment, saying something about dinner with his family.  Funny he never mentioned having to leave before that.  That night, I sent him a text message telling him that I would love to see him again before he leaves, but there will be no hooking up going on, that I just wasn’t like that.  He did not reply.  I then sent him a long e-mail to explain where I was coming from.  Still, nothing.  Fast forward three days later.  I receive a text message from him.  It says:

“I’m leaving tonight.  This is your last opportunity to **** it.”

Seriously??? I ask him if he ever read the e-mail.  He says his e-mail is screwed up and he never got it, and again asks if he can see me. I shouldn’t have even taken the time to write the e-mail.  He obviously wanted one thing.  Just goes to show you.  Men can be thoughtless pigs….no I take that back. Men do think, they just do it with their penis.

This site has been live for 4 months.  I use the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin on WordPress which I believe is working fairly well except for the fact that I still have a Google Page Rank of 0.  Can anyone explain why this may be? Also, it says I need to have a redirect between basicallybecky.com and http://www.basicallybecky.com:

When I tried to do this, it caused the site to not work at all.  When I spoke to GoDaddy, they said that there is no need to do this and the search engines always see it as one site.  Could this be why the Page Rank hasn’t registered?  Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

Image via Newsday / AP

Dear Kanye,

I forgave you when you had a hissy fit at the Grammy’s in 2004 claiming you were robbed of the Best New Artist award. Everyone has a bad day.  I forgave you in 2005 when you said “George Bush doesn’t like black people” during the Katrina Benefit.  Partially because I really disliked George W. Bush.  I forgave you when prior to the 2005 Grammy’s you said there would be a “real problem” if you went away empty handed.  I forgave you in 2007 at the VMA’s when you again had a hissy-fit, not only because you won no awards, but also because you had to perform *gasp* at Hugh Hefner’s Sky Villa at the Palms and not the event.  I also forgave you this year when you dissed Twitter.

But your actions last night are UNFORGIVABLE.  Not only was this Taylor Swift’s first VMA, but Beyonce was also nominated for Video of the Year.  She stated on the red carpet that she really wanted the big award.  Beyonce wasn’t upset losing an award to Taylor, why were you?  I’m glad they kicked you out and glad they cancelled your performance.  It probably wouldn’t have been that exciting anyway.  Let’s face it.  You are known more for your stupid antics then for your music, which isn’t even all that good.

Regards from an ex-fan,

Becky

P.S.  You ended up screwing Beyonce over, since she used up her acceptance speech time to allow Taylor to have her moment.  At least someone has some class.

You’ve all seen the commercials.  They will send you an envelope for you to send back your gold jewelry and you will get a check back for them!  Sounds too good to be true. And according to reports, it is! First of all, why would anyone send expensive jewelry via UPS with insurance of only $500?  As much as I enjoy shopping and connecting with companies online, this is one thing I would rather go to a jeweler in person for.

Since I thought this company was a scam, I recently went to a jeweler with my old gold jewelry and was told that it isn’t gold, since it wasn’t marked. Apparently, she isn’t too swift a jeweler.  I knew for a fact that every piece was gold, and told her so.  She shook her head and said, “I don’t know who told you that, but they were mistaken”.  I put the ziplock bag of jewelry in my purse and left.  I called my Mom, who purchased some of the jewelry for me.  She said, “of course it’s gold!” I have been pretty busy lately and have not had the chance to go to someone else, but perhaps when I’m in need of some quick cash, I will try again.  However, I will certainly not be mailing it off to a company in hopes of getting a few bucks back.

Have any of you used this service? What are your thoughts?

I know this is Wordless Wednesday and all, but I needed to get this off my chest.  I have had MetLife Dental for over a year now.  I pay approximately $20/month through COBRA for coverage.  Since I signed up last June, I have only used a dental service three times.

The first time I went to the dentist through MetLife was August 16, 2008. I remember the date because this was the day AFTER i was prescribed Coumadin for my stroke and a few weeks before I found out I was pregnant.  I told the hematologist that I had a dentist appointment the next day and he said not to start taking it until after my appointment, as I might bleed more.  The next day, I went for a check-up and to speak to them about my impacted bottom wisdom teeth.  They do a cleaning and give me a referral to an oral surgeon to remove the wisdom teeth.  Since they didn’t hurt at the time, I put the card in my wallet.

Fast forward almost one year later.  A lot of crap has happened in my life and the oral surgeon had been put on hold. It is July 28, 2009 and my mouth is KILLING me.  It’s my wisdom tooth, back to haunt me.  I know that I must speak to a dentist first before I do anything, so I make an appointment with my childhood dentist’s office conveniently located down the street from my apartment now.  They take an X-Ray of my mouth and literally 5 minutes later I am back in my car with a referral and a copy of the X-Ray.  I figured they would at least do a cleaning or something, but I am just in too much pain to care.  I am able to get an appointment first thing in the morning the next day for the oral surgeon.  When I go, the surgeon decides to only remove one tooth.  I pay a $50 deductible and an additional $50 for services. I am told that the rest will be covered by the insurance company.

Yesterday, I receive a bill from the Oral Surgeon’s office.  I owe $105 to them because MetLife only payed a partial amount.  So, today, I called MetLife to find out why it says “denied” on some of the line items of the bill.  I get a younger male, chipper, way too happy customer service rep.  The conversation went something like this:

METLIFE CSR: “Well, let’s see here…the consultation fee was denied because you only get one consultation every 6 months and you just had one, oh wow…the day prior.”

ME: “I went the day prior to my dentist who then referred me to an oral surgeon.”

METLIFE CSR: “It doesn’t matter, ma’am, it is still a consultation and you only get one every six months.”

ME: “But you require me to get a referral before seeing a specialist. Do you expect a surgeon to complete surgery without looking at my mouth?”

METLIFE CSR: “It doesn’t matter, ma’am, this is all your insurance covers.”

ME: “I am really baffled by this.  Had I waited 6 months, the referral would have exprired! It was an emergency! Do you have a supervisor?”

METLIFE CSR: “Well you can speak to my supervisor, but that isn’t going to change what is covered by your insurance, ma’am.”

ME: “Just get the supervisor, please.”

METLIFE CSR: “Hold please.”

(3 minutes on hold…getting more pissed off every minute.)

METLIFE CSR: “Ma’am? All of my supervisors are busy, can I have them give you a call back within 24-48 hours?”

ME: *sigh* “That’s fine.”

I won’t be holding my breath.  They also denied the panoramic X-Ray charge because they only cover one every 5 years and the dentist I went to in 2008 had done one. I still need to get my other bottom wisdom tooth removed…I wonder what they’ll charge me for that one?  Thanks for nothing, MetLife.

After I reached a certain number of followers on Twitter, I started to use SocialOomph‘s Auto-DM tool.  I now send this direct message to all new followers:

“Hi! Thanks for following. Are you as twaddicted as me? You can read my story at <blog link>. What’s your story?#stinkytweet“

There are many reasons to send an auto-DM. Spammers see it as a great way to directly send you their link, that is, until you block them. My particular auto-DM is sent with many reasons:

1. I want to thank you for following:  I am honored by the fact that anyone wants to follow me.
2. I want to engage conversation with you: Twitter is all about conversation. Without it, it would be all links.  And let’s face it, that’s just spam. Lots of tweeps send me a link to their blog in return or ask, what’s #stinkytweet? That’s the whole point of the DM.
3. I want to know more about you: Hence, “What’s your story?” I get to hear more about what you do, like, etc.
4. I want to tell you more about me: All relationships are two-way. You can’t learn everything about me in my tweets. My blog is a way for me to speak in more than 140 characters.

Now, with that said, this morning, I checked my DM stream and received this:

I was a bit baffled by this as I was not trying to sell her something.  I also don’t understand why people have to DM you to TELL you they are unfollowing you.  If you want to unfollow me, than just do it.  No need to alert me.  After I received it, I sent a message out to my followers, (since I couldn’t DM her anymore LOL) here is the conversation that followed:

Twitter Etiquette? Is she for real? She then tweeted the link to Chris Brogan’s blog with a post about his “Twitter Rules”.  I am a big fan of Chris and saw him speak at #140Conf.  He is a one of the best Twitter users and for the most part, I abide by all of his “rules” except for the auto-DMing. The great thing about Twitter is that it is for EVERYONE.  Everyone may use it for a different reason and may have different styles. My style: I tweet a lot.  I mean, A LOT. While some may find this annoying, others love it.  You can’t please everyone all the time and this is the perfect example.

Since I don’t believe I am spamming with my auto-DM, I will continue to send it, and if you don’t like it, feel free to unfollow me.  And you don’t need to let me know, just hit that little button.  Really, I won’t be offended.

P.S. Did you know you can opt out of any auto-DM’s sent to you? Just go here. And stop your complaining already.

I had decided last week that I wanted to do something different with my hair. I hadn’t colored it in about 2 years and I needed a cut. Being the frugal one I have become lately, I went to Lemon Tree instead of going to a salon that would charge more than I could afford. Instead of looking up locations, I figured there had to be one on my way home one night and as soon as I started looking, there it was.  I walked in and looked for a pricing sign and saw none.  The receptionist who was also the manager asked what they could do for me.

ME: “I need a color and a cut, but before you start anything can you tell me the price? I want to make sure I have enough.”

MANAGER: “Sure, that will be $45″.

ME: “OK, that’s good, let’s do it.”

She proceeded to show me all the colors and when I picked one (Light Golden Brown, for all those that like all the details), she told me to have a seat.  5 minutes later, she comes out with the bowl of hair color.  Then, this:

MANAGER: “Just a clarification, the $45 is just for the color, it will be an additional $30 for the cut.”

ME: (Nearly falling out of my chair) “I don’t have $75! Forget the color, I will just get the cut.”

MANAGER: (in a raised voice), “No, you WILL do the color, I already mixed it!”

ME:  “No I won’t, unless you don’t want to get paid for it! I can’t afford that much!”

MANAGER: “Well how much CAN you afford? I can’t just throw this out!”

ME: “I can afford $40 but was stretching it to afford $45, which is what you quoted me!”

By this time, everyone in the place has stopped what they were doing and was turned around watching the altercation.  I am about 2 seconds from leaving and have already stood up and grabbed my bag.  In an effort not to waste the already mixed color she tells me she will do the color for $35 which is the price for a touchup and the cut for $18.  She made sure to tell me that this is less than a senior citizen price and I should feel very lucky that I got it.  LUCKY? That I got overcharged and my hair doesn’t even look that good? Well, she certainly didn’t get a tip.  That’s how lucky she was. They tried to get me to try the eyebrow threading too, but I wasn’t letting them near my eyebrows after that debacle!  Maybe had she honored the price she quoted me, in front of at least 5 people, I would be going back there again.  Instead, I write this blog for many to read…that’ll teach Lemon Tree.  Bastards.