Har roat mig med att titta på malmöauktionen klicka förbi, live så att säga via nätet på Auktionskompaniet.se. Jag och mamma satt och gissade vad saker skulle gå för och den som kom närmast klubbat pris vann.

Gjorde det mest för att se om mina inropsuppdrag hade en chans, men upptäckte naturligtvis saker jag ville ha. Exempelvis en ursöt liten katt-tekanna!

Jag glömde helt bort att titta på den när jag gick förbi auktionskammaren med Perle igår, så jag vet inte om den var lika söt i verkligheten, men det är bara att gratulera vem det nu var som ropade in den för endast 450 sek.

Det är ju inte det lättaste att ta Perle förbi auktionskompaniet, jag hör mig själv säga "pilla inte sötis" ungefär var tredje sekund, och Perle skulle ju inte vara sämre själv och mopsade upp sig mot en dam som kärleksfullt smekte en fin vas hon funderade på att bjuda på. "Inte pilla!" hojtade Perle strängt och viftade med pekfingret. Man vill ofta sjunka genom jorden som mamma.

Perle spanar gärna efter saker som hon själv vill ha - hennes favorit var denna ljusskrona i nygotisk stil och jag var helt med på noterna tills jag kom på att jag har ingen aning om var den skulle hänga.

Att lämna inropsuppdrag har sina för och nackdelar - jag hade lagt ett uppdrag på 12 ursöta bestick i pärlemor, dessertkniv och gaffel. Någon i lokalen såg väl när det ropades upp och insåg kanske just då att de var ursöta, och fick dem för endast femtio kronor mer än vad jag budat. Aj!
Men jag tycks ha kammat hem ett gäng udda - och mycket vackra - buljongkoppar, mocka-koppar och blandade fat till ett mycket överkomligt pris, så jag är hur nöjd som helst i alla fall. :) Här skall drickas té med lyxig guldkant i höst, trots att jag inte kan hälla upp det ur en söt liten Tjeckoslovakisk katt-kanna.

Poolparty with Sunshine Rabbits rockin' out to "The colour of the fur" - Sunday september 7 in a pool in Höllviken.

The email inviting us was pretty straightforward: "Get dressed up in gear that you may swim in. Crazy shit. Bear suits! Platform shoes!" So we did, and there was silver platform shoes represented, as well as neon pink underwear and day-glo orange nailpolish, eighties sunglasses, two-toned suits made from two suits, potato sack-outfits, glittering blue turbans and men in dresses.

On the count of three, we all had to hop into the pool and rock out. Which we did. High energy hop-hop-hop bunnies! Raah! Holy cow, it was actually quite cold.

I even got Perle - decked out in her fave Hello Kitty suit of course - to join in for a bit. Our over-energetic splashing will end up in the video for Sunshine Rabbits - but don't count on seeing me much, I got way to into it and kept twirling around with my back to the camera. ;)

After everyone was out, I stayed in the cold water to swirl my wee princess around in a giant swan. She dug that. I think she's contemplating world domination here. "No Mr Bond, I expect you to die!"

Jag vet inte vad "Jinx" heter på svenska. Det måste finnas ett ord som betyder ungefär samma sak men jag kommer inte på det just nu. Nå, jag tror benhårt på att man kan "jinxa" nåt om man säger det innan det är klart. Om man säger att arbetsintervjun gick bra och man känner sig positiv till att få jobbet, så får man inte jobbet, typ. Så jag tenderar att vara lite hemlig av mig, inte för att jag inte vill dela med mig, utan för att jag är rädd att jinxa nåt.

En klassisk jinx är att publicera "imorgon är jag med i metro", som jag gjorde häromveckan. Självklart puffas intervjun undan för att ge plats till någon viktigare (I detta fall sprang världens snabbaste man om, klart att man inte klår det!). Men nu blev det i all alla av till slut i alla fall. Metro: "Mamma måste ha tappat mig på huvudet"

Mycket roande att läsa just den här biten i papperstidningen, jag tror minsann att det har tappats några ord på vägen: "Åsk Wäppling driver reklambloggen Dabitch". Hohoho.

Ännu mer roande att spexbilderna från sandlådan. Notera "Kilroy was here" poseringen. Jag måste skärpa mig. Eller, nej, jag vill inte - man kan väl få vara en liten busunge tills man dör?

Innan någon hinner bli upprörd - jag har faktiskt ringt både fotografen och bildredaktionen på Metro och fått OK på den här publiceringen av Kinga Lezanska Sjölins foto och Ann Hagmans (medvetet oläsliga) artikel. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Det är en kass bild men en herrans bra reklam. Smörstekta kantareller - ja, det blir godare. Så sant! Vad skall man annars göra med dem? MMmmm.. Kantareller!

Finally, there's an article in Dagens Industri about Adland. I'd prefer it to be for a good news reason, rather than the sad 'chinagate' affair.

For the record, the photographers name is Miklas Njor - not Miklas Mjor! Also, few people will spot that I'm totally mocking the usual pink paper shots in this photo - I'm wearing my "ties suck" written in binary tie. Tee hee hee.

edit: also posted on adland: Adland is in Dagens Industri today.

Möte med Deeped = urkul, ju.

Holy shit. Cat's dentist appointment bill = pretty damned expensive. Here's my bill for 6106 SEK - 650 odd Euro or if you prefer, 967 USD.

I don't think I'll be going back there any time soon. Not that the doctors or nurses didn't treat my cat well, I'm sure they did (though he looks utterly depressed but who wouldn't be after pulling lots of teeth). It's just when it came time to sort the bill, and I was talking to the cashiers I wanted to let them know how fucked up I found we've been treated, and ask them for a bill.

See, a month ago when my cat clearly has pain, is not eating or drinking much and shows signs of dehydration, and a tooth looking like it was about to fall out I call to make an appointment clearly outlining what he needed to have done ("we need pull his tooth - I can also see that he has massive amounts of tartar!"). They find an appointment open - the very next day hooray - and make it for me. First I will see the vet to check the cat then the vet/dentist - those are the rules. Fine. Old cats like Henry1 (born 1994) need to be checked before being put under sedation.

So we go to do that, and the vet checks the cat and concludes he's not eating or drinking much (no kidding?), and that he needs some IV to get hydrated, and runs a blood test. However the dentist appointment is double booked so we need to go home again, even though the vet sees that he's in real pain and needs that tooth out right now. All she could do was tell me to call back the next day to make an appointment for his teeth, hoping that I could get one within the next day or so. Again that is, since I had already made an appointment to fix his teeth. For this total waste of time we pay ca 1500 SEK. (237 USD / 159 Euro).

I call back the next day and am informed that there are no dentistry appointments until the 11th of August. A MONTH later. They ask me to call other animal hospitals, in other cities, which I did but I have no better luck finding a sooner appointment anywhere else. I call back several times explaining that the cats tooth is literally hanging out of his mouth, and ask if they can't call me if anyone cancels an appointment. No, they can't do that, but I can call back every day if I want to. I also ask what it might cost as I'm still pissed off about going in and paying that first appointment where we didn't get anything done. They tell me that depending on the teeth, we're looking at 2500-300 SEK. aaarrgh.

We wait until August 11. Meanwhile, my cats tooth falls out on it's own, and he is miserable miserable miserable the whole time. I do my best giving him painkillers when he clearly needs some and making him easy eat luxuries like pureed chicken meat.

So we bring him in at eight o'clock yesterday morning. I meet a very nice vet/dentist who promises to take good care of him - I'm very worried about sending an underweight dehydrated and clearly not well old cat in to be sedated as the older they get, the riskier it is. She understands my concerns. I tell her about that first trip to the vet where we had "prepped" him for it by rehydrating the little guy, and what a waste that was since we didn't get an appointment a day later. I tell her that the problem tooth fell out on its own just a few days ago - and she replies that this happens, seemingly not registering my annoyance about that first appointment being a failed one.
I go outside and cry a little because holy shit, the cat could die and I'm deeply in love with my cat who's been with so long and even lived in Amsterdam with me. (First proper Dutch conversation I ever had was "Heb je mijn poesje gezien?" when he ran away and hid in a shoeshop.)

I call back a few times during the day to see how it's going and if I can pick him up. They waited until the end of the day to work on him. I get a call around six that they were going to work on him and what they would have to do. They tell me what this will cost. As I understand it, they had X-rayed him, discovered that he has FORL (a tooth decaying problem) and now needed to pull more than one tooth. It'll be six thousand kronor. I'm floored and say "uh..ok...*gasp*" I call my mom and tell her, she advises me to ask for a bill since that's what she's always done at the animal hospital in Stockholm. We're both stunned at the cost.

Fine. Cat stays over night and when I go to pick him up, as I stand there at the cashier I want to bring up the major fuckup from a month ago, so I begin with telling them about that appointment, how much that cost, all the callbacks to get another one and someone saying it would cost 2500-3000 - to which they respond by getting the nurse. WTF? Now the nurse tells me that she called me yesterday and I had said it was no problem. Way to miss the fucking point people! I didn't want to discuss billing details with the nurse! She's got other things to do. She interrupts me and has that strange way of talking down to me so many Swedish nurses have, which makes me raise my voice - as all I wanted was for someone to get it through their heads that I was pissed off about paying so much (total!) due to that first appointment. Everyone listens in as we speak. I can feel the whole rooms eyes on me, and it's making me angrier. "I told you last night wen I called about the cost and you said OK" the nurse says. Yeah, what did you expect me to say? What would rather have that I said? I wondered and why on earth can't an animal hospital just send a bill? "Nobody does that" she says. Oh really? Nobody? I've gotten bills from the one in Stockholm. And again : Why am I discussing billing with a nurse?

So now I'M the asshole, as witnessed by every dog owner in the room (nothing against dog owners but wow did I ever feel like the odd one out there).

So that's the reason I'm not going back there. It's not that the bills are large, it's the stupid way of not paying attention to what I'm saying. I speak several languages but apparently not veterinary clinic-ese. That's messed up.

Yeah the cat is insured, but Agria doesn't cover this type of dentistry. In fact, every type of insurance I ever get has a small printed clause somewhere stating "won't cover whatever it is that you need help with Åsk."

This weekend we all took a little time off, and our wee family headed out to visit cousins and friends to frolic on beaches in Denmark. I turned off my computer, and Miklas prepared all the doors with oil before putting his tools down and coming with us. Our first time off since forever - just relaxing and reloading batteries.

Monday when he returned to work on the doors he finds that they are thrown about in the basement and all his tools are missing. Cordless electric drills, two different types of electric sanders (one round, and one for corners), his measuring tools, his chisel, his hammer. He can't do any work now since all the vital tools are missing, and we seriously can not afford new ones.

For a moment we think that someone has simply borrowed it. When our neighbor renovated their apartment, their hired handymen from Poland had borrowed a few items as per the neighbors instructions - without telling Miklas that they had. This annoyed Miklas, and I'm kicking myself for not telling him to always bring his tools in the house after that - but hindsight and twenty twenty you know. We're still hoping that someone simply borrowed them - or better yet it's a theif with a conscience - who will give us our tools back because honestly dear theif, we need them pretty damn bad.

Turns out that our next door neighbor Anna had someone break into her basement storage area at the same time, with a broken off crowbar that they left there (likely full of prints). I reported the theft of our items to the Police, who said that they would not stop by to check the footprints in the sawdust nor the prints on the door and broken window that the entered from as "we don't do that, well, maybe for a bigger crime". What? Oh that's right, they weren't interested in checking prints when our car was broken into either. Cops only do those amazing cop-things on TV, never in real life and certainly not in Sweden. Here you simply call in a report. And they file it. What a great counry to be a theif in, it's not as if anyone will ever look for you. The only way they'd come and check the crime scene is if more people would call in about this particular theft they said, so I pushed our neighbor Anna to please report the break in of her storage space.

She hasn't. The phone-queue turned her off she said. In conclusion, I guess neighbors kind of suck too.

ps - insurance totally sucks - expensive tools in a locked basement are not covered.

Happy as can be as we prepared to leave. Her door is now in the basement with no chance of getting finished.

Libresse says they are trying to make your period happier, with design. If that is the case please drop the bloody (pun!) sarcasm, thanks.

Jag försöker lära Perle att hojta "DÅLIG REKLAM" när hon ser sådan. Hon gör det så fort den där larviga Lambi-tösen dyker upp i rutan. Men hur jag än förklarade att ordlekar inte är bra, tyckte Perle att den här grisen var söt och vinkade till den. "Fin ko" sa hon.