Templates are not good
seasons change, so should templates
they scream out for help

I don't know if punctuation belongs in a haiku actually, but I felt it did. I also don't know whether or not you are supposed to capitalize the word "haiku". OK, enough about what I don't know.

I had lunch with the lovely ladies of Syska today, also known as Deirdre Kilgallen and Elaine Cruz. We had food court food at Downtown Crossing and then wandered around H&M for a bit, where we were good and didn't buy anything. It was lovely as always to see them.

Well, I started this post on Wednesday but I'm finishing it today, Thursday. Sorry about that. We went out to dinner and the bookstore till late last night so I was pretty pooped when we got home.

On a depressing note, here are some pretty awful human rights violations.

But, on a happy note, I got the nicest Christmas/holiday presents today! First, in the mail at work I got a gift from John Wilson, a partner at the firm who has been out on disability for just about a year due to glaucoma and various eye surgeries. He bought me 2 memberships to the Museum of Fine Arts! One in my name and one as "Guest of Jennifer Martinelli" - so I can bring any guest I want. This is a really great gift, and so thoughtful! I'll have to use my special reserve of "Carte Claire" cards to send him a thank-you card. Then, I met Amy for lunch and she had some gifts to give me from her and Annette for both me and Rob. I opened the ones that were for just me because I can't delay gratification. She embroidered the cutest funniest little handkerchief, and also knit me a beautiful mohair scarf! It's so soft and a beautiful brown, and it's nice and long and so snuggly. Thanks, Amy! Now I am jealous of her crafty abilities and have vowed to learn to knit well and start making things like this for myself and other people. It's so fun and it's so nice to get something homemade as a gift. In fact, when I came back to the office I was showing off my lovely scarf and Priscilla commented that one Christmas she painted small oil paintings of flowers for each of her aunts and framed them and that they loved them and they hang in their kitchens still. I have to admit, oil painting was something that I liked more than I thought I would when I took it one semester at Smith. Even though I got some horrid grade in it like a C+. Oil paints are so malleable and fun to work with. Just for the record, I only got the C because I was overwhelmed that semester and couldn't keep up with the out-of-class work I was supposed to be doing in the painting studio, so basically it was a problem of incomplete work, not bad work. Well, I am all inspired. Plus, I am working on illustrating a story Rob wrote a long time ago - a children's story.

Newsflash... Oh My God, someone totally stole $300 from me. I'm so pissed! Someone somehow used my debit card and bought something at Circuit City or on Circuitcity.com, actually, it looks like, and the cash just came out of my account today. I'm on hold right now with Circuit City so they can tell me what the hell was ordered. If it wasn't shipped, maybe I still have time to cancel the order and get my money back. Otherwise I have to go to my local bank branch and fill out a fraud form and I think I'm totally screwed. I don't know what the repercussions are. Well, I just fell out of love with using my debit card. At least with a real credit card you can dispute the charges. Too bad with a debit card the cash just somes out of your account and then you lose. Well, I hope whoever stole money from me dies a slow and painful death and that they spend eternity rotting in hell. What a nice thing to do to someone. Holy shit.

So, I'm home now. I stayed at work cancelling all my credit cards and requesting new account numbers because I'm paranoid. Nothing had appeared that shouldn't have on any of my other cards. When I got home I called the bank again, called Circuit City again, and I called the bank again, etc. I found out from the bank that there was another pending charge that I didn't make for $224.99 from Footlocker. Oh, I almost exploded when I heard that. And this one was only "pre-authorized" so the bank advised me to call Footlocker and see if I could stop the purchase. I called, they looked up the card, and the woman told me it was already flagged and wasn't going to go through. She said there were actually 2 purchases with the card, but both were being refused. So that was a slight relief. Also, by badgering people somewhat I found out that the person to whom the first thing (a "camcorder") from Circuit City was sent - someone named Shea Thomas in Little Rock, Arkansas. Nice. Also, somehow Rob's name was connected with the purchase, and our old address. It sounds like someone used our old address, Rob's name, my card and ths shipping address in Arkansas. How the hell this could possibly happen is beyond me. Either Circuit City didn't do a good job of checking the info and verifying it with the bank, or the bank somehow let it go through. I have to wait for business hours tomorrow to completely sort it out because I have to go to the bank and fill out an affidavit of fraud and a police report. I'm so mad!!! From the fact that they had our old address and Rob's name makes me think they got a piece of our mail or something, but who the hell knows? It's really creepy.

Word to the wise, everyone check your cards right now and be really careful. Oh, none of my cards were lost or stolen or anything. I had them all in my wallet.  8:57:23 PM