Just me

Posts about me, my family and friends (yes I have some), Seymour the Wonder Cat and his not-so-trusty sidekick Norman the Newbie Cat and life in general, both online and offline

Customer service? Pfffft

It’s nearly the end of the year, so it must be time for me to have another rant: this time it’s about a large, long-established local cafe.

Two of us went there the other day for lunch. We looked at the specials sign outside the door and decided the menu looked reasonably appealing (hey, it was mid afternoon and I needed to find some lunch so I could take my heart pills, the offerings weren’t spectacular but they were okay-ish).

After queuing for what seemed like an eternity but what was probably really somewhere between five and 10 minutes, the wee chicky babe at the counter informed us that no, we couldn’t order anything from the menu because the kitchen had closed.

I told her we had only come in because of the items listed on their specials board at the door and, after rolling her eyes, she informed me the sign was no longer there.

Well it was fecking there when we arrived, not our fault we had to wait so long to be served. Anyway, after suggesting they should actually have the time fact the kitchen closes part-way through the afternoon noted on their sign, I said we’d go elsewhere.

But no, we would still have to pay for sandwich and cake my lunch buddy had put on the tray as we made our way along the queue to be served.

I didn’t want anything they had to offer because of health issues: I’m diabetic and have a slightly buggered heart (hence the medication and pending surgery).  I didn’t want a salt-laden ham sandwich or one of the luminous yellow pastry things lurking in their food cabinets. I was hoping to order soup. I tried to order soup. I got an eye roll and attitude in response.

This isn’t the first time I struck this at this same cafe: earlier in the year we went there one Saturday and discovered the kitchen had closed (it was earlier in the day) and once again, there was no indication of this until we got to the end of the counter and tried to order.

And again, I got attitude.

Anyway, I told the cheese-roll jockey serving us that we had come into the cafe only because of the sign outside, which gave no indication the kitchen was already closed. Eventually she went off to see her manager, then came back to the counter and told me we wouldn’t have to pay.

That was something, I suppose. An apology for the rude attitude would have been better.

And before anyone mutters anything about it being close to Christmas, overworked staff etc, shut it! We’re all in the same boat and I’m pretty sure that if I started taking out my pre-Christmas mood on our customers, my boss would be spitting sparks.

Besides, the last time I got bad service and bad attitude there it wasn’t Christmas, it was just a quiet Saturday afternoon.

 

Moggy mail after weather bomb

As anyone who follows me on Facebook will know, Seymour the Wonder Cat had a traumatic weather incident a week or so ago during that sudden wee soggy spell we had.

A few days later, a letter arrived for him:

The front of the envelope that arrived for Seymour
The back of the envelope read: Here’s a new coat and boots so you don’t have to wear that angry face any more

 

The content of the envelopes from Seymour’s mystery benefactor: a plastic bag and four condoms.

He wasn’t keen on the idea of wearing the “boots”, so we might have to revisit that. However, Norman took an interest in the plastic bag “coat”.

And for anyone who missed it, Seymour after being weather bombed. He was not impressed with the whole mud situation, as you can probably tell.

The traveller returns

Our wee trip away was relaxing and reasonably quiet: a few days in the capital, followed by a couple of days in Dunedin, including a visit to the cardiologist.

It’s now confirmed that aside from the dilated cardiomyopathy, I also have a left bundle branch blockage, which means the left side of my heart isn’t working in sync with the right side. The plan is to continue to attack the first problem with drugs (lots of them, taking my daily dose of beta blockers from the current 6mg a day to 50mg a day) in the hope that there will be no further damage to my heart and it will begin to function at a better level. I’m also scheduled to have an angiography done in October and if the bundle branch blockage doesn’t improve fairly quickly, the doc wants to consider cardiac resynchronisation therapy.

Wonder if I can get an iPad dock built in?

Clearing out the tumbleweeds again

It’s been a while. And it’s not so much that I’ve been slacking off, it’s more a case of being sick.

The past few months have been interesting and while finding out I was diabetic a couple of months ago was a bit on the crappy side, the latest diagnosis is certainly more craptastic than the first:  heart failure caused by dilated cardiomyopathy, along with a spot of mitral valve regurgitation for good measure isn’t really something you want to hear.

Guess that explains why I’ve been feeling so knackered.

The new drugs are, um, well, equally crappy (lots of side effects that go ever so nicely with the side effects from the medication I was already on).

Anyway, I’m off to see the cardiologist in Dunedin again this week and for some more tests. At least I can now categorically state that I’m not a heartless bitch … I do have one, even if it doesn’t work properly!

… was that a tumbleweed?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. More than a month, in fact.

I haven’t been avoiding you, my poor little neglected blog, I just haven’t had the time or energy to do anything beyond work and sleep. My health has been kind of crappy over the past couple of months and now that I’ve finally dragged myself off to the doctor to get checked out I at least know I’m not imagining things and after lots of blood test am now popping lots of pills and slowly getting things sorted.

So, apologies my wee blog, I’ll dust off the cob webs and get on with it.

Norman’s big night in

As the smallest person in our bed, Norman the Cat takes up the most space. Most nights I wake up clinging to the side of the bed, wondering how the hell I have ended up very nearly on the floor when we have what most would consider a fairly decent sized bed: a super king.

The above photo has answered my question: the cat likes to stretch out, taking up as much space as us humans will allow. Every time I move even a millimetre, Norman stretches out to take up more space. And she likes to sleep sideways. And upside down. With her feet in the air.

Oh, and if you can see your way clear to giving her a tummy rub while she’s snoozing in the position, she really appreciates it.

I did get the last laugh though: she actually managed to fall out of be herself the other night when she got just a little too relaxed, rolled over and misjudged the distance.

Hunter gatherer

I was full of optimism when Norman the Naughty Cat got her new collar a week or two ago but that optimism was short-lived.

We bought a second collar, this time for Seymour the Wonder Cat, in an effort to stop to make sure Seymour wasn’t feeling left out: he’d taken to walking up to Norman and poking at her new, shiny bell to make it ring.

So now Seymour has a rather fetching yellow/green collar and his very own bell. And Norman no longer has her collar … she managed to remove it last Thursday.

I arrived home from work that night and she positively bounced along the hallway to greet me, squawking excitedly. Then, she turned and bounced into our bedroom at the end of the hallway, stood in front of her favourite window and hopped from foot-to-foot like an excited child (well, in Norman’s case, feet-to-feet). She looked at me. She looked down. She squawked again, then looked at me again, all the while hopping expectantly.

And there it was: a dead bird. Damn.

She was singularly unimpressed when I picked the thing up and disposed of it. However, since then, she’s been giving the birdies a break. Her latest prey seems to be plastic bags.

She “caught” a couple yesterday and dragged ’em in through the cat door : one early in the morning, the other later in the afternoon. Both times she spent about 10 minutes pouncing on them before getting inside them and having a wee nap.

At least a shredded plastic bag is easier to clean up than a shredded bird.

She has also worked out how to open my wardrobe door and had caused devastation in there the past two nights, pulling clothes off hangers and shoes off shelves.

 

Norman has some bling

Norman the catIn an effort to give the local birdies a fighting chance, we’ve bought some jewellery for Norman the Mighty Hunter: a little red collar with a little red (and noisy) bell.

She seems okay with the concept of wearing her new bit of bling but she does seem confused about how it is the birds know she’s coming.

This morning she spent the best part of an hour lurking about on the patio, trying to perfect stealth mode by panther crawling around and launching surprise attacks on anything that happened to stay still long enough to be attacked: me, Seymour, a confused slater, several leaves and another stray sock (yes, another one in her haul of stolen goods).

Norman the cat

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