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On Saturday afternoon, I took my husband’s Jeep Grand Cherokee to Jiffy Lube for an oil change.  They were just about to close, but they didn’t hesitate to wave me in.  They did a quick oil change, didn’t pressure me too much to do extra services (and even offered to work with me on the prices if I changed my mind), and got me out the door in less than 15 minutes.

All seemed well until the next day.  I got home from the movies and noticed a trail of oil leading from the street all the way to a puddle of oil beneath the Jeep.  My husband had only driven to the computer store and back, but by the time he made it back home, the "low oil" light was on.

As soon as they opened at 7:00 a.m. on Monday, I called Jiffy Lube and told them what was happening.  They suggested I drive the Jeep over, but once I checked the oil level and found the dipstick completely clean, I called back and said I wasn’t comfortable driving it.

Here’s where the customer service portion of this story kicks into high gear.  The guy on the phone got my address and said he’d be right over.  Sure enough, he arrived in about 15 minutes.  I raised the hood of the Jeep so he could have a look and he immediately said, "Just as I suspected, we cracked the oil pressure sender while we were replacing the oil filter."

While I fished the receipt out of the glove box, he made a note of the vehicle’s engine size and said he’d be back with the part and some oil within the hour, apologizing for the inconvenience.  I was so surprised not to have to argue about the whole situation that I didn’t even mind that it was going to make me a little late for work.

He must have returned while I was fixing my hair because he had already replaced the part and topped off the oil before I noticed he was back.  By then, my husband was up and around, so I let him take over, but not before I heard the Jiffy Lube guy apologize again for our inconvenience and offer to degrease the Jeep’s engine and bring over some degreasing solution for our driveway.

I know it shouldn’t be a huge shock when a company takes full responsibility for one of its mistakes and makes amends, but it is.  I’m so used to the idea that a customer has to fight for satisfaction in a situation like this that I hardly knew how to act when everything was handled so satisfactorily.

So, hooray for Jiffy Lube!  Sure, they have at least one careless guy on staff who needs to learn to take it easy with the oil filter wrench, but they clearly have a solid plan in place in case of trouble.  As another Jane would say, "What’s not to like about that?"

I’ve had quite a hectic week and I actually forgot to do a blog entry this morning.  I don’t have an awful lot to say even now, but I’m all hopped up on Red Bull at 10:30 p.m., so I figured it was as good a time as any to just start writing something.

Biggest news flash of the day:  my company has been acquired by a much larger company as of this afternoon.  I’ve been see-sawing between enthusiasm and trepidation ever since I heard this was going to happen, but now that it’s a done deal, I’m feeling calmer.  I think it will end up being a good thing and open up some new opportunities for me.

I’m still fiendishly overscheduling my free time.  Today I made a run to a party store to get paper plates, napkins, cups and plastic utensils for TWO parties tomorrow, one of which I cannot even attend.  The other is Cagey’s baby shower, for which I still need to purchase a gift and probably some other stuff that didn’t cling to my mental shopping list firmly enough.  Oh, and I still need to buy a bottle of wine for a book club gathering tomorrow night.  (Yes, I have read the book.)

I’m not completely unprepared for the shower:  I made a lovely cheesecake the other night.  It should be nicely cured by tomorrow afternoon.  I bought some fresh strawberries as a garnish, but I’m prepared with a can of cherry pie filling in case they end up being too far out of season.

Tonight, I’m babysitting my niece (age 5) and nephew (age 7 months).  The baby went to sleep right at 8 p.m. and my niece finally took a bath at 9 and turned in by about 9:30 once I’d read a pretty darned lengthy version of "Jack and the Beanstalk."  There’s nothing like a tale of cannibalism, theft and murder right before bed, I always say.

On a mostly unrelated subject, November is National Novel Writing Month (a.k.a. NaNoWriMo), and I’m thinking of participating this year.  I don’t necessarily have a story in mind, but it would benefit me to establish the discipline to write 50,000 words in 30 days.  I have a children’s book idea I could run with, but it might be best if I started with something else instead.  I don’t know – I have a month to think about it, I suppose.

Well, that’s all the over-caffeinated rambling you can stand, I’m sure.  Back Monday with my report on "The Corpse Bride" (which I saw last night) and "Serenity" (which I’m determined to see on Sunday).

Now that we’ve sent out the invitations for our annual party on October 22nd, the countdown has begun for readying the house and grounds.  It’s amazing how much work it takes to slap our relatively small house into shape.

Here are the things that absolutely must be done:

• Clean up our office/studio area.  My desk is covered in foot-high stacks of paper, some of which have migrated to the floor around the desk.  The studio is really not that bad, except for the 6-foot long table piled with junk that we established as a temporary place to put stuff while we were cleaning the last time (early this spring, I believe).
• Dredge out our guest room.  We only have two bathrooms and one of them is only accessible through our former guest room, now junk room.  My husband has been filling the room with giant, empty cardboard boxes.  I’ve been dumping piles of mail in there for months instead of shredding them.  Eventually we may find the stratum containing the air mattress that we really should empty and put away when it’s not in use.  Then we’ll have won.
• Clean the windows.  At the very least, I need to clean the insides of all our windows.  There’s something about being able to look outside that really makes a positive impression on guests.  If I’m really feeling gung-ho (read: not a chance in hell), I’ll take down the storm windows and clean them, too.
• Weed the flower beds.  While I’m at it, I think I’ll dig up the rose bush that went feral.  I’m tired of it reaching out and snagging me when I walk by.
• Tidy up the deck.  The furniture is filthy, there are sticks and leaves all over the place, and we’re going to have to clear everything off to set up the band.
• Clean and paint the main bathroom ceiling.  I always say I’m going to do this before we have a lot of people over, and this time I need to actually do it.  "Disgraceful" really doesn’t cover it.

Aside from all that, it wouldn’t hurt for me to tidy the kitchen counters and living room surfaces.  I need to do a massive cleanout of my dressing room, but I can always close that one door during the party, if necessary.  However, our goal is to be able to leave all of our interior doors open and not look like we’re hiding portions of the house, for once.

Tell me again why I plan these parties?

I’ve always been bad about learning people’s names, but lately it seems I’m getting worse.  Major case in point:  my new band.  They all know each other so well and we practice in such a small room that it’s seldom that anyone ever addresses anyone else by name.  Therefore, it took me weeks to finally be certain of which name went with which guy – and there are only three of them! 

My husband is worse than I am.  He’ll run into musicians he’s played with and have no idea who they are.  Then he doesn’t introduce me, which I think seems rude.  I keep telling him he should say, "…and this is my wife."

Then I can say, "Hi, I’m Jane," prompting the person to say, "Hi Jane, I’m Whatever-my-name-is."  Then we’d all know! 

My mom was also bad with names, but she’d just greet everyone whose name she didn’t know with, "Hey babe, how are you?" 

I don’t think I could pull that off.  In fact, I fear it’s staggeringly obvious when I don’t know someone’s name.  Years ago, after I’d already met Cagey on several occasions, she came to my house to play Bunko and I completely blanked on her name right in front of her.  Luckily, she’s a forgiving sort.

I consider it a major triumph that I’ve managed to quickly learn the names of all of my newer co-workers.  Of course, it’s a small company so that helps a lot.  Come to think of it, now that we have a creative director whose name starts with the same letter as mine, everyone keeps calling me by her name.  I guess I’m not the only person with this problem!

I’ll start by mentioning that my red eye has healed completely now.  It looked pretty horrible there for a while, but my main regret was that it didn’t happen at Halloween so I could at least pull off a superior zombie costume.  C’est la vie.

My latest eye problem has nothing to do with how they look and everything about how they feel.  When I last visited my eye doctor, he told me, "You get a new kind of contact lens this time – Acuvue Advance.  They let more oxygen in.  They’re better than your old lenses, but they didn’t make them for your prescription until now."

My vision is 20/800, which means that when I’m not wearing my glasses, I can’t read at all because my nose touches the page before the words come into focus.  With such a strong prescription, it’s not really a surprise that I get all the cool, new stuff last.  I’d been just fine with Acuvue 2 for quite some time, but I’m not one to question the new and improved.

The new contacts were noticeably slimy compared to what I’m used to.  They felt okay in my eyes at first and I didn’t think much about them for a couple of days.  Then, they WENT BAD.  Remember the scene in "Evil Dead 2" where Bruce Campbell’s hand goes bad and he has to cut it off with a chainsaw?  Well, the contacts got so uncomfortable that I had a desperate need to rip them out of my eyes.  If an eyeball happened to come out in the process, I’d have considered it an acceptable loss under the circumstances.

The contacts were sneaky.  They felt fine in the morning and for a while into the afternoon.  By late afternoon, though, they would start to feel kind of dry.  By evening, they felt like they were self-marinating in capsaicin.  My vision was so blurry that I was afraid I was going to wreck my car driving anywhere after dark. 

In case the problem was allergies, I decided to give the first pair the whole two-week wearing period.  They didn’t last that long.  Two days short of the day I would ordinarily put in a new pair, the original pair came out of the case looking kind of squashed and feeling wrong in my eyes no matter which way I turned them.  Grrr.

I called my eye doctor’s office and told them how much I haaated my new contacts.  They were properly apologetic and offered to trade me back for my usual ones.  I have a feeling they won’t be recommending them so enthusiastically for long.  It didn’t take much research to find that I’m not the only person who’s less than thrilled with them.

I’m just relieved that my old contact lenses haven’t been discontinued.  Then what would I do?

With a second hurricane on its way to the U.S. and the cost of living already climbing, my husband and I are starting to prepare ourselves to quickly and drastically scale back our expenses.  I have a feeling that the $300 electric bills I’ve been getting will look like a bargain compared to the gas bills that arrive this winter once we turn on the heat.

It helps a little to have the hybrid car (balanced, unfortunately, by my husband’s gas-guzzling Jeep Cherokee).  I kept yesterday’s $26 fill-up receipt because I predict that it will be a quaint souvenir soon.  Rising fuel costs are bound to have an effect on the price of groceries and other consumer goods, and that’s what really worries me.

On our budgetary chopping block:

• Cable TV
• Twice-monthly housecleaning
• All restaurant meals
• Non-essential purchases (books, music, clothes, etc.)

That’s still not really going to save us all that much.  We’ll need to keep the thermostat tightly controlled, make a point of turning off electrical appliances we’re not using, and probably close off certain rooms of the house.

We’re already delaying all kinds of services that would really come in handy, just because our budget is so tight.  The cats’ shots?  They can wait.  The exterminator?  We’ll make do with a flyswatter.  The plumber?  If you turn the faucet handle just right, the shower only drips a little bit. 

I’m afraid this is only the beginning.  Let’s hope I’m wrong.

There was a time when I would periodically wean myself off caffeine.  I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea, considering all the suffering I put myself through.  I’ve long since accepted my dependence on caffeine, but I mainly confine my consumption to tea and coffee.  I used to drink lots of cola (and in college, Mountain Dew), but I’m pretty much over that phase except for an occasional 8-oz. can of Coke as a treat.

I care a great deal for the canned Starbucks Double Shot Espresso
and Cream, but I wouldn’t recommend drinking one after 3:00
p.m.  At a Starbucks shop, I’ll always go for Cafe Americano in the morning and iced nonfat mocha in the afternoon – on the rare occasions when I can afford a coffee treat.

I like a lot of the flavors of Spark,
but purchasing it is more of an investment than an impulse, so I’ve run
out and haven’t ordered any more.  Spark has the advantage of being
very vitamin-rich, but I have to make sure I don’t drink one after
about noon if I ever hope to get to sleep before 1:00 a.m.

I haven’t made much of a foray into the world of canned energy drinks yet, so I was pleased to see Slate‘s article "Booster Shot," reviewing some of the most popular ones.  I drink a Red Bull now and then (even though it tastes like cough syrup), but I haven’t tried any of the others mentioned in the article.  It may be time for a little experimentation of my own.

Am I missing any great caffeinated drinks?  Iwouldn’twantomissanyopportunitiestodrinkmore!