The January Block Lotto-linky party theme is "let's blog about quilting goals" so I guess I will give it a try:
This year I will try very very hard not to throttle anyone because of quilting (thereby making it a quilting goal--see how that works?). I often start the year with this vow & the only reason I have been successful in previous years is most of my quilting contacts are on-line. It is hard to put your hands on people on-line. Also, it is easier to walk away from provocative conversations.
I should clarify that I have never actually punched (or kicked or bit) anyone because of quilting. I am hoping to continue this record, but 2014 is shaping up to be a banner year. A certain amount of agida comes from the Facebook Quilt Block Swap & that is mostly OKay. This is a to-be-expected downside of overseeing a swap group of 200+ people, not all of whom are English speaking & even those that are don't all speak American English (if you think that doesn't matter, tell me quick how many centimeters in an inch?). There are questions frequently asked, & less frequently, but still sometimes asked more than once...or twice by the same person.
Recently, I got a message from a person asking for the THIRD time in six months (we swap every other month so that means for the third straight swap) for my mailing address. She knew she had asked this before & was a little embarrassed so she sent me a private message instead of posting it on the group page (where there is actually a file called Mailing Label). She had asked this question on the group before (her first message said, "I think I have asked this before"), but instead of risking ridicule...or looking up my previous answer, she messaged me privately. Because having to read one more message about something I have already answered & answer it again is not at all annoying. What is particularly sad about this (& anyone who uses Facebook messenger may have spotted this already) is previous conversations are archived together under the name of the person you are messaging. Which means that right there, immediately above her apologies for asking this question is the answer from last time she asked this question. So....agida.
The last message asking for my address actually arrived the day blocks were due, so it was moot & also not a 2014 problem. 2014 problems have been blocks for a swap already done & gone arriving postmarked after the due date (which was in 2013 & not in December by-the-by). When told of the late arrival the swapper blamed the post office for not delivering her woefully under-postaged envelope sooner. I was not aware the post office could travel back in time -the postmark was the Monday following the swap- so even if they tessered it here, it would still have been too late. In another envelope, a different swapper sent blocks for a sign-up only swap for which she was not signed up, which was just as well because she didn't follow the directions anyhow.
Then last week, I had yet another unpleasant encounter with a person claiming to be a representative for a well-known quilt group who was concerned I had used the name of the group erroneously & threatened me with a lawsuit (again). Among the specific quilt requirements she told me I needed to meet were incorrect minimum quilt dimensions (the dimensions she provided were larger than those specified on the group's own website) & that I needed written permission to use the group's name, well, anywhere. The text she had trouble with was "among the groups receiving quilts made from 6th blocks are" insert name of group here, along with the names of four other groups because I am apparently attracted to sets of five. This sentence does not appear in any advertising because we don't do any advertising, it's just a list of groups that have indeed historically received 6th block quilts, some of whom (including this one) have sent thank you notes. I realize this is a too-many-cooks problem, but it is very off-putting. So off-putting that after the last time it happened, I successfully avoided this group's color scheme until two of our members (two of our FOUNDING members) asked if we could do another one. & then I got this Napoleon Syndrome nonsense in my e-mail.
That's three pains in the ass in three weeks. Today is the Monday of week four. I haven't killed anyone so far, but it is not yet noon. & sorry Sophie, this is probably not what you were looking for when you asked for quilting goals, but this is the one at the top of my list right now: no punching & also remember remember remember the just under 200 group members who make it worth while.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Monday, January 27, 2014
Sunday, August 18, 2013
About big brothers
Let me begin by saying I have never watched an episode of "Big Brother". I have never watched any of the not-suitable-for-prime-time videos that are available on-line either. I could not tell you the name of a single "Big Brother" contestant on any incarnation of "Big Brother", past or present. I am fairly confident that even if there should be a new season of "Big Brother" from now until the year after I die, this will always ring true (although I suppose it is possible one of them runs for office somewhere, then I will probably hear about it).
That being said: What The Hell Are Those People Smoking? The last time I heard, not one, not two, but three contestants (on a how many contestant show-unless it is more than 30 we are looking at a 10% sample here) are looking forward to no job when they get out. Actually, they are not looking forward to it as I understand they have zero contact with the outside world & don't know they have already been canned.
It turns out that if you isolate a bunch of people with other similar-minded people, you end up with a bunch of people who have, like water seeking its own level, sunk to the lowest common point. I wonder if we could take a giant step back & maybe apply this to other groups of like-minded people who deliberately cut themselves off from everyone who is not-like & then start misbehaving. Perhaps a group of people, who when caught behaving badly say things like:
I made offhand remarks about killing that religious leader & cannot believe my entourage took me seriously.
So sorry we burned your mother, grand-mother, etc. as a witch. We really thought she must be one because those teenage girls said so.
Of course we want jews to buy our cars, I just meant we want people who hate jews to buy them, too.
Couldn't we go back to the way it was before we picked that fight with you & got our asses handed to us on a plate?
& the immortal, unforgivable: Bring It On.
Maybe when you find too many people agreeing with you, it is time to take your opinions on the road. Just a thought.
& for my final say on the matter, let me take you to the ONLY Big Brother worth looking for on YouTube.
That being said: What The Hell Are Those People Smoking? The last time I heard, not one, not two, but three contestants (on a how many contestant show-unless it is more than 30 we are looking at a 10% sample here) are looking forward to no job when they get out. Actually, they are not looking forward to it as I understand they have zero contact with the outside world & don't know they have already been canned.
It turns out that if you isolate a bunch of people with other similar-minded people, you end up with a bunch of people who have, like water seeking its own level, sunk to the lowest common point. I wonder if we could take a giant step back & maybe apply this to other groups of like-minded people who deliberately cut themselves off from everyone who is not-like & then start misbehaving. Perhaps a group of people, who when caught behaving badly say things like:
I made offhand remarks about killing that religious leader & cannot believe my entourage took me seriously.
So sorry we burned your mother, grand-mother, etc. as a witch. We really thought she must be one because those teenage girls said so.
Of course we want jews to buy our cars, I just meant we want people who hate jews to buy them, too.
Couldn't we go back to the way it was before we picked that fight with you & got our asses handed to us on a plate?
& the immortal, unforgivable: Bring It On.
Maybe when you find too many people agreeing with you, it is time to take your opinions on the road. Just a thought.
& for my final say on the matter, let me take you to the ONLY Big Brother worth looking for on YouTube.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Everybody thinks everybody else is stupid
Not long ago, one of our little dogs died. Don't worry, this isn't a retelling of that but this story starts there. After it was all over, I took the microchip tag from her collar & put it in my keychain. Since then I have lost track of how many people tell me that the tag should be on the dog's collar. Not one of them has been snide. They are all kindly, patient even, obviously trying to help the silly woman who doesn't know how the whole ident-a-chip thing works.
The whole thing puts me in mind of something that happened decades ago. I was in a car; I was not the driver. The driver was cursing & shaking his fist & in general behaving like an idiot because the guy in the car in front of him was going the speed limit i.e. too slow. & I do mean dead on the speed limit, because this was the cause of some of the upset (the posted limit being more of a guideline really & +5 being the actual limit). Eventually we got to a point where this car could be passed & the unhappy driver looked over at the other car & saw a radar detector on the dashboard. He cursed some more, hit the horn, hit the gas & flew on by, actually saying something like "look at that idiot, he even has a radar detector & he is still driving slow".
You probably don't need me to tell you who got pulled over for speeding moments later. What was interesting to me then & interesting to me still was the driver's complete conviction that the other guy was just too stupid to...I don't know what. All the evidence that the other guy might have information he did not was right there. He even acknowledged it & yet he never put together the information the other guy had access to & the way the other guy was behaving & came up with what in retrospect was painfully, expensively obvious.
This has been on my mind lately as I watch the news, & not just the political coverage which is universally asinine (except NPR, I love NPR. & by the by I think Gillian Flynn is supposed to be on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me this weekend so I must set my alarm). Where was I? Right, Idiocy. I guess what I am wondering is if we wouldn't all be better off if instead of seeing some one doing something stupid & immediately jumping up & down with laughter, indignation, pity (& now I really want to see someone jump up & down with pity) maybe we should all stop for a moment & consider maybe there is more to the story. I know it isn't the human way, but it is an option.
Finally, I think I should point out that while the people explaining to me how ident-a-chips work mostly work at the grocery store (it is pretty much the only place I pull out my keys & put them down where they can be seen) & are pretty much teenagers, the driver who got the ticket is a practicing attorney & graduated from a law school that is famously harder to get into than Yale. So you don't have to be stupid to be stupid.
The whole thing puts me in mind of something that happened decades ago. I was in a car; I was not the driver. The driver was cursing & shaking his fist & in general behaving like an idiot because the guy in the car in front of him was going the speed limit i.e. too slow. & I do mean dead on the speed limit, because this was the cause of some of the upset (the posted limit being more of a guideline really & +5 being the actual limit). Eventually we got to a point where this car could be passed & the unhappy driver looked over at the other car & saw a radar detector on the dashboard. He cursed some more, hit the horn, hit the gas & flew on by, actually saying something like "look at that idiot, he even has a radar detector & he is still driving slow".
You probably don't need me to tell you who got pulled over for speeding moments later. What was interesting to me then & interesting to me still was the driver's complete conviction that the other guy was just too stupid to...I don't know what. All the evidence that the other guy might have information he did not was right there. He even acknowledged it & yet he never put together the information the other guy had access to & the way the other guy was behaving & came up with what in retrospect was painfully, expensively obvious.
This has been on my mind lately as I watch the news, & not just the political coverage which is universally asinine (except NPR, I love NPR. & by the by I think Gillian Flynn is supposed to be on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me this weekend so I must set my alarm). Where was I? Right, Idiocy. I guess what I am wondering is if we wouldn't all be better off if instead of seeing some one doing something stupid & immediately jumping up & down with laughter, indignation, pity (& now I really want to see someone jump up & down with pity) maybe we should all stop for a moment & consider maybe there is more to the story. I know it isn't the human way, but it is an option.
Finally, I think I should point out that while the people explaining to me how ident-a-chips work mostly work at the grocery store (it is pretty much the only place I pull out my keys & put them down where they can be seen) & are pretty much teenagers, the driver who got the ticket is a practicing attorney & graduated from a law school that is famously harder to get into than Yale. So you don't have to be stupid to be stupid.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Speaking of trees
I have ranted before (here, in person, on the phone, etc.) about how offensive I find this business of measuring everything by money, cost & savings.
I am not sure the guy with the newest, latest & greatest tv/car/home experiences a better quality of life than the guy who lives in a small house without a tv & rides his bike to work but so much about our society emphasizes the guy doing the most expensive thing is the happiest.
Which brings me to Arbor Day, as last Friday was Arbor Day...in Cambodia. In Alaska & Maine it was the week before, but I wasn't organized enough to get this posted in time. For most of the UStates, Arbor Day is in April or March. Here in Fladidah Arbor Day was in January, but you would not know it Or maybe you would, we have a lot of trees. Not in downtown Miami, but in general, throughout the state. We probably have fewer than we used to, though, but maybe not. new homes sales are still in the toilet here (which I am fine with, actually), so not so much clearing is going on.
So trees. Who doesn't love trees? Well, it turns out lots of bloggers have neighbors who hate trees (just go ahead & Bing it; I think my favorite was this one; it starts slow but that response along the lines of "worry about what your neighbor might do that isn't cutting down a few branches" has possibilities). Mostly neighbors seem to hate the tree next door that sheds in their yard. This is apparently the tree version of that guy who lets his German Shepherd crap at the top of our driveway. If you saw where I lived, you would realize how ridiculous this is. See that photo at the top of the blog...see that little opening in the trees, between "cockatiels" & "chickens". That is the driveway this dog needs to hit. & hit it he does, more than he misses anyhow. Unless they walk by more than once a day.
Where was I? TREES. Trees are good. Trees are great! But don't take my word for it, go ahead & road test this exciting Tree Benefits Calculator. & if it turns out they actually improve the cash value of well, anything, then that's a win-win. If you live nearby & are short of trees give me jingle because our cedars, loquats, redbud -even the magnolia no matter what the experts say- are prolific & it kills me to just mows over them.
I am not sure the guy with the newest, latest & greatest tv/car/home experiences a better quality of life than the guy who lives in a small house without a tv & rides his bike to work but so much about our society emphasizes the guy doing the most expensive thing is the happiest.
Which brings me to Arbor Day, as last Friday was Arbor Day...in Cambodia. In Alaska & Maine it was the week before, but I wasn't organized enough to get this posted in time. For most of the UStates, Arbor Day is in April or March. Here in Fladidah Arbor Day was in January, but you would not know it Or maybe you would, we have a lot of trees. Not in downtown Miami, but in general, throughout the state. We probably have fewer than we used to, though, but maybe not. new homes sales are still in the toilet here (which I am fine with, actually), so not so much clearing is going on.
So trees. Who doesn't love trees? Well, it turns out lots of bloggers have neighbors who hate trees (just go ahead & Bing it; I think my favorite was this one; it starts slow but that response along the lines of "worry about what your neighbor might do that isn't cutting down a few branches" has possibilities). Mostly neighbors seem to hate the tree next door that sheds in their yard. This is apparently the tree version of that guy who lets his German Shepherd crap at the top of our driveway. If you saw where I lived, you would realize how ridiculous this is. See that photo at the top of the blog...see that little opening in the trees, between "cockatiels" & "chickens". That is the driveway this dog needs to hit. & hit it he does, more than he misses anyhow. Unless they walk by more than once a day.
Where was I? TREES. Trees are good. Trees are great! But don't take my word for it, go ahead & road test this exciting Tree Benefits Calculator. & if it turns out they actually improve the cash value of well, anything, then that's a win-win. If you live nearby & are short of trees give me jingle because our cedars, loquats, redbud -even the magnolia no matter what the experts say- are prolific & it kills me to just mows over them.
Monday, February 18, 2013
I just feel tired
This week-end, starting last Friday, has been chockfull of little things that fatigued me. By this morning I was staring at the ceiling & I thought maybe a list would let me get this crap out of my brain & then I could move on. Also, if maybe I am the one that is wrong someone could let me know.
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
Writing this didn't help much after all. I am laughing yes, but I am afraid to leave the house.
Friday:
- went to pick up A's over-the-counter allergy pills at Walgreens. Because of crystal meth mfg this has to be done at the pharmacy, which opens after he leaves for work & closes before he gets home. Waited in-line while apparent shut-in had a good long chat with pharmacist, asking no questions about his meds. I know this because I could not help but hear the whole conversation. Finally my turn, but my purchase needs to be rung up on the special register that scans my drivers license. I then wait again while that pharmacist ass't waits on the ENTIRE drive thru drop-off/pick-up before ringing up my order, which has been sitting on the counter, in front of him while I waited.
- I get back in the truck, I am putting on my seatbelt, plugging the cell phone to charge etc & a guy starts to beep at me & gesture he wants my parking space. The space on either side of me is empty as are more than 1/2 the spaces within my view (maybe even more than 3/4 of the spaces, I swear) & I am not parked all that close to the door. Turns out I am near the redbox video rental thing, but I truly did not register that. Also, as I mentioned, the space on either side of me is perfectly open BUT as I watch this guy park I see he needs 2 adjacent spaces, which there weren't, right there, in front of the red box, until I pulled out.
- As I pull out, I can see the drive-thru line at McDonalds. It wraps around the building. There is a mini-van of people already eating something, waiting in this line.
Saturday:
- I hate SatAM trips to the feed store but Becca gets a specific feed (because of her age, poor health, etc.). They are supposed to get delivery on Thursday but didn't. I could have started this list with Thursday: pointless trip to the feed store. On Saturday they have her feed....but they cannot sell it to me because they are holding it for someone else. I cancel the rest of my order as if I have to drive to Ocala (45minutes to an hour away), I may as well get everything there. They reluctantly agree to sell me 2 bags of feed, like they are doing me a big favor. I do not reinstate the rest of my order, just 2 other bags of what I need ASAP. This does not go over well.
Sunday:
- I go to the library & drop off/pick up the week's books. I also go into the stacks & locate 2 books I returned the previous week that got reshelved without being checked back in. This happens a couple times a month, always when a particular librarian is working when I check in. The other librarians have previously expressed irritation with having to redo her work; they check these books in but save these for her to reshelve. There is quite a pile of books to be reshelved sitting on a cart with her name in it (really, there is a sign, with her name) & they add these.
- I go to CVS (they have this face cream that I really love (SPF 30 BUT it doesn't dry my skin out-this is like the holy grail of face cream & no one else carries it; on the flip side they are always 'out' of A's over-the-counter allergy pills so I have stopped asking; I get to go to 2 drug stores YAY). I am ready to pull out, but I am stopped, at a stop sign (in the parking lot, yes). A minivan makes a right turn off the road & stops as though he also has a stop sign; he does not. His left turn signal is blinking indicating he wants to turn left, yes, but a left would mean a turn away from me. In short, if he wanted to turn into the lane where I am stopped, he should have his right turn signal blinking. He stays stopped. Did I mention he has no stop sign? Did you know that if I go & he hits me it is my fault & that this is a done thing, scamwise? A friend of mine got T-boned (in slow motion, but still went to the ER) & for the privilege, she got to buy the guy a new front end. Finally, the passenger side window rolls down & the passenger asks me if I am stupid as the driver has been waving me through. I reply that I am lacking the super-power that would allow me to see through tinted windows. Those are almost my exact words (OKay I said "hey genius, you have tinted windows, did you forget?"). The passenger actually looks kind of stunned; there is a brief conversation. I get the impression that they often get pissed at people who do not respond to the waving & it had never occurred to them the tinted windows might be a factor. I take this opportunity to point out their left turn signal is blinking. They turn off the signal, roll up the window, drive straight around the building, back onto the road & away.
- I go to Tractor Supply (to get poultry food which I forgot to get Saturday so shot myself in the foot with that one, yes). As I check out, I ask how long the roses will be on sale. The cashier responds "I don't know, I work in the Chiefland store". I ask if the roses there are on sale. She doesn't know, she hasn't been there for a week BUT she does page a person named ?Bethanny?Beverly? There are other employees around, I have seen them, but she summons this particular person. Bethanny/Beverly comes to the register & first girl asks her if the roses in the Chiefland store are on sale. It turns out she has not been in the Chiefland store all week either. Both girls look at me & the first girl shrugs & says "sorry".
Writing this didn't help much after all. I am laughing yes, but I am afraid to leave the house.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
To the person who dumped a litter of kittens at the top of our dirt road, just off a four lane highway
Dear Asshat:
Not sure when you did it, but when I went for my daily run on Friday the 13th we (me & the friend I was running with) found five (5) kittens. Actually, they kind of found us; two of them ran into the street yowling & they all looked emaciated. It took a while but we managed to catch 2 of them, Actually at one point we had 4 of them but a car went by & spooked them; we all have scratches to prove just how spooked they were.
Those 2 kittens came home with me & spent most of the weekend hiding in the dense underbrush around my house. They were frantic to rejoin the others but being over a mile away they could not hear them yowling back & also there was food at my house. I saw 2 of the 3 kittens when I went back later that Friday & again when I ran on Saturday, but by Sunday they seemed to have disappeared.
On Sunday evening the kittens at my house moved into a tree at the front door & kept poor A awake for a good part of the night. Monday morning A***** came by to run again; the kittens hanging in the tree crying for their siblings were hard to miss. We went for our run & on the return trip, we heard them. Just like before 2 of them came out to us but the last kitten hung back. I didn't talk about this with A**** at the time but I knew we could not take the other 2 & leave just 1; it wouldn't survive the night.
I ran for the truck & the pet carrier & cat food while A***** managed to get all 3 of them to follow her almost 1/4 mile back towards my house & away from the highway. By the time we caught all of them I was bleeding COPIOUSLY from several wounds on my right hand & I'm sure A***** had scratches too (I can also tell you she didn't smell all that good in the closed cab of the truck for the ride home; a 2 1/2 mile run + cat food being smeared all over her took a toll). At the house, the 3 were reunited with the 2 & there has hardly been any noise since. What they have been doing for the past 4 days is making up for lost time in the eating & sleeping department. They also made a visit to a vet (very likely the step that made you decide they had to go because it costs money). They were nice & calm & purred through most of the exam.
At this point, I realize you might be thinking this played out just fine for everyone: you didn't have to deal with them & still they are headed for good homes. Think again. Generally cats that draw blood & have no medical record are euthanized. Immediately. & the person who gets bit gets to go through the whole rabies vaccination thing. It hurts. Also it isn't free & even if it is covered by insurance there is a $120 co-pay (guess how I know this). For $45, you could have had their mother spayed.
The euthanizing is merciful compared to the usual end for dumped animals; our vet calls them coyote snack packs. Because ours is a neighborhood of family farms, it is a magnet for heartless slacker pet owners like you. & because so many unwanted animals get dumped here, we have a higher than average coyote population harassing our livestock, killing chickens, turkeys, ducks, etc.
Believe it or not the story I related is the short version. I did not tell you about the family that pulled over with their full horse trailer & tried to help to catch the kittens the first time, or the farmer that saw me when I went back Friday evening & left his work to make sure someone hadn't broken down, or the woman at the house we finally caught the kittens who is caring for her daughter-in-law's 3 dogs each of which was also dumped in their turn at the same intersection.
As revolting as we all find you to be, it is nothing compared to our disgust at how stoopid you are. We all presume you were just too cheap to deal with the kittens ethically. As it happens, you unloaded them in a county with MULTIPLE agencies that would have inoculated them & placed them in foster homes at no charge to you.
So you put a neighborhood to inconvenience & expense for quite literally no reason at all. It is my fondest wish that some day, maybe when you are old & cannot care for yourself, that the people you always thought would help you instead heave you out of the back of a pick-up to die in a ditch by the side of the road. I am only sorry it can only happen once.
Not sure when you did it, but when I went for my daily run on Friday the 13th we (me & the friend I was running with) found five (5) kittens. Actually, they kind of found us; two of them ran into the street yowling & they all looked emaciated. It took a while but we managed to catch 2 of them, Actually at one point we had 4 of them but a car went by & spooked them; we all have scratches to prove just how spooked they were.
Those 2 kittens came home with me & spent most of the weekend hiding in the dense underbrush around my house. They were frantic to rejoin the others but being over a mile away they could not hear them yowling back & also there was food at my house. I saw 2 of the 3 kittens when I went back later that Friday & again when I ran on Saturday, but by Sunday they seemed to have disappeared.
On Sunday evening the kittens at my house moved into a tree at the front door & kept poor A awake for a good part of the night. Monday morning A***** came by to run again; the kittens hanging in the tree crying for their siblings were hard to miss. We went for our run & on the return trip, we heard them. Just like before 2 of them came out to us but the last kitten hung back. I didn't talk about this with A**** at the time but I knew we could not take the other 2 & leave just 1; it wouldn't survive the night.
I ran for the truck & the pet carrier & cat food while A***** managed to get all 3 of them to follow her almost 1/4 mile back towards my house & away from the highway. By the time we caught all of them I was bleeding COPIOUSLY from several wounds on my right hand & I'm sure A***** had scratches too (I can also tell you she didn't smell all that good in the closed cab of the truck for the ride home; a 2 1/2 mile run + cat food being smeared all over her took a toll). At the house, the 3 were reunited with the 2 & there has hardly been any noise since. What they have been doing for the past 4 days is making up for lost time in the eating & sleeping department. They also made a visit to a vet (very likely the step that made you decide they had to go because it costs money). They were nice & calm & purred through most of the exam.
At this point, I realize you might be thinking this played out just fine for everyone: you didn't have to deal with them & still they are headed for good homes. Think again. Generally cats that draw blood & have no medical record are euthanized. Immediately. & the person who gets bit gets to go through the whole rabies vaccination thing. It hurts. Also it isn't free & even if it is covered by insurance there is a $120 co-pay (guess how I know this). For $45, you could have had their mother spayed.
The euthanizing is merciful compared to the usual end for dumped animals; our vet calls them coyote snack packs. Because ours is a neighborhood of family farms, it is a magnet for heartless slacker pet owners like you. & because so many unwanted animals get dumped here, we have a higher than average coyote population harassing our livestock, killing chickens, turkeys, ducks, etc.
Believe it or not the story I related is the short version. I did not tell you about the family that pulled over with their full horse trailer & tried to help to catch the kittens the first time, or the farmer that saw me when I went back Friday evening & left his work to make sure someone hadn't broken down, or the woman at the house we finally caught the kittens who is caring for her daughter-in-law's 3 dogs each of which was also dumped in their turn at the same intersection.
As revolting as we all find you to be, it is nothing compared to our disgust at how stoopid you are. We all presume you were just too cheap to deal with the kittens ethically. As it happens, you unloaded them in a county with MULTIPLE agencies that would have inoculated them & placed them in foster homes at no charge to you.
So you put a neighborhood to inconvenience & expense for quite literally no reason at all. It is my fondest wish that some day, maybe when you are old & cannot care for yourself, that the people you always thought would help you instead heave you out of the back of a pick-up to die in a ditch by the side of the road. I am only sorry it can only happen once.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Jewish Studies thru Zoology
It was graduation weekend here last weekend; we are still recovering. The graduating undergraduate class of the college of liberal arts & sciences is so large that, although the ceremony is held in a largish space, they still have to have to hold two ceremonies. Physics comes in the second wave which begins with Jewish Studies & ends with Zoology. This particular college within the university also has the largest number of non-majors taking classes within it (the cutbacks in public education that have been happening over the past several years means that even the cream of the crop don't have some of what used to be basic college-entry-level skills; the smartest person in the world cannot learn to read if he never sees a book). The average undergraduate here takes five years to get out
In other education news this week, the rule designating the percentage amount to come from an individual teacher's paycheck to a retirement fund over which they have no control, no say & no oversight took effect here in Florida. In our case, this means the man who is part of a team of three faculty members responsible for a lecture, office hours, online homework etc. for 600+ pre-med students per semester, as well as raising through grants & other funding sources enough cash to cover his research (equipment, graduate student salaries, etc.), his own salary if he expects a check during the summer & let's not forget the 40% allocated to the university for administrative support, space, electric, etc. just took a 3% pay cut. I know things are tough all over, but the in this country educators make on average exactly the same amount they made in 2005, no cost of living increases, nada. From 2000 to 2005, teachers were lucky to get cost of living raises which might explain why only one teacher out of every three teaching in 2000 was still teaching in 2005. I could not find stats on those still teaching in 2010, but it is I doubt that many returned to teaching even with the economic downturn.
OH & it is Teacher Appreciation Week. Trust me, they are feeling the love...all the way to another profession. Except for the ones who are taking jobs in other countries. Right now, the single biggest next-employer for former colleagues we know is South Korea. If you think your healthcare is expensive when you are being gouged by US companies, wait until you get the bill when another country holds the patents on your diabetes home test kit, cholesterol medication, etc. As for everything else, most states are already lowering the education requirements for public school teachers. It turns out you cannot require a person to pay $$$ out of pocket for a job that pays less than $. Which means that chances are good that the teacher who stays in teaching is making money someplace else. Maybe it is from a spouse, maybe it is from patent licensing, maybe it is from dealing in crystal meth.
In other education news this week, the rule designating the percentage amount to come from an individual teacher's paycheck to a retirement fund over which they have no control, no say & no oversight took effect here in Florida. In our case, this means the man who is part of a team of three faculty members responsible for a lecture, office hours, online homework etc. for 600+ pre-med students per semester, as well as raising through grants & other funding sources enough cash to cover his research (equipment, graduate student salaries, etc.), his own salary if he expects a check during the summer & let's not forget the 40% allocated to the university for administrative support, space, electric, etc. just took a 3% pay cut. I know things are tough all over, but the in this country educators make on average exactly the same amount they made in 2005, no cost of living increases, nada. From 2000 to 2005, teachers were lucky to get cost of living raises which might explain why only one teacher out of every three teaching in 2000 was still teaching in 2005. I could not find stats on those still teaching in 2010, but it is I doubt that many returned to teaching even with the economic downturn.
OH & it is Teacher Appreciation Week. Trust me, they are feeling the love...all the way to another profession. Except for the ones who are taking jobs in other countries. Right now, the single biggest next-employer for former colleagues we know is South Korea. If you think your healthcare is expensive when you are being gouged by US companies, wait until you get the bill when another country holds the patents on your diabetes home test kit, cholesterol medication, etc. As for everything else, most states are already lowering the education requirements for public school teachers. It turns out you cannot require a person to pay $$$ out of pocket for a job that pays less than $. Which means that chances are good that the teacher who stays in teaching is making money someplace else. Maybe it is from a spouse, maybe it is from patent licensing, maybe it is from dealing in crystal meth.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Hearts-a-mailing
On Wednesday the 2nd the mailing list for the Block Lotto winners was sent. I know S***** felt bad about the delay (usually it goes out right after the drawing, which happened the last day of February), the reason for which seems to be a lone winner who was slow to reply with her info (& I am guessing was difficult to reach). Having recently gone through similar gyrations on the Facebook Quilt Block Swap Group, I feel her pain.
RANT ALERT: not once but TWICE the same meshugeneh signed up for a limited-space swap in the Fb QBSG, missed the first deadline, said "Oops, so sorry I forgot, but I am on track for the next one", confirmed she was on track for the next one until the week before that deadline when she disappeared, & stayed disappeared until she got the notice I was booting her from the group. That's when I got a message that she had a recently dead relative. I'm not saying she didn't; I just don't know how you can be on track seven days before the deadline & then have nothing done seven days after. Flood, fire that would make more sense. & before someone gets excited & posts to tell me how hard it is to get even completed quilt blocks into the mail when such a thing happens, keep in mind blocks need to be in the mail almost a week in advance to make the deadline & she posted she was on-track three days before that.
Sooooo, back to Block Lotto: some new rules are in place & I cannot find a single scrap of one that looks unreasonable. Reading between the lines, though, it looks like she has been getting some behind-the-scenes flak. One of the disadvantages of running a digital group, where you never get to see & know most of the individuals in the group is it is hard not to interpret criticisms as from the whole group instead of recognizing there are one or two fringers with nothing better to do with their time. For a long time I had a criticism from a long-gone swapper taped to my refrigerator; the gist was that I was not a christian & unworthy (I distinctly remember the word "unworthy") of receiving her quilt blocks...or her participation...? It is a bit hazy, the print-out tore over a year ago & I took it down. I do distinctly remember what she why she complained: our swap is send five blocks get five others back. She sent three for which she 1) expected five back, 2) was not happy with the three she got & 3) wanted her original three back.
After that, when anyone complained (& there were not ill-will complaints: mostly blocks that did not meet the requirements slipping thru, & once a person only received four blocks instead of five while I had zero unaccounted for blocks to explain this & no one else coming forward with six instead of five- it turned out to be static cling & the fifth was found among the four), it was hard not to hear that same unreasonable whinging message & lump these in with them, which might have been the death of the group. So I kept it taped up as a reminder that one crazy-bitch-meany does not equal all crazy-bitch-meanies. It sounds goofy, but it helped.
What was this post about again? Oh right, I mailed my heart lotto blocks earlier today. Congrats winners!
RANT ALERT: not once but TWICE the same meshugeneh signed up for a limited-space swap in the Fb QBSG, missed the first deadline, said "Oops, so sorry I forgot, but I am on track for the next one", confirmed she was on track for the next one until the week before that deadline when she disappeared, & stayed disappeared until she got the notice I was booting her from the group. That's when I got a message that she had a recently dead relative. I'm not saying she didn't; I just don't know how you can be on track seven days before the deadline & then have nothing done seven days after. Flood, fire that would make more sense. & before someone gets excited & posts to tell me how hard it is to get even completed quilt blocks into the mail when such a thing happens, keep in mind blocks need to be in the mail almost a week in advance to make the deadline & she posted she was on-track three days before that.
Sooooo, back to Block Lotto: some new rules are in place & I cannot find a single scrap of one that looks unreasonable. Reading between the lines, though, it looks like she has been getting some behind-the-scenes flak. One of the disadvantages of running a digital group, where you never get to see & know most of the individuals in the group is it is hard not to interpret criticisms as from the whole group instead of recognizing there are one or two fringers with nothing better to do with their time. For a long time I had a criticism from a long-gone swapper taped to my refrigerator; the gist was that I was not a christian & unworthy (I distinctly remember the word "unworthy") of receiving her quilt blocks...or her participation...? It is a bit hazy, the print-out tore over a year ago & I took it down. I do distinctly remember what she why she complained: our swap is send five blocks get five others back. She sent three for which she 1) expected five back, 2) was not happy with the three she got & 3) wanted her original three back.
After that, when anyone complained (& there were not ill-will complaints: mostly blocks that did not meet the requirements slipping thru, & once a person only received four blocks instead of five while I had zero unaccounted for blocks to explain this & no one else coming forward with six instead of five- it turned out to be static cling & the fifth was found among the four), it was hard not to hear that same unreasonable whinging message & lump these in with them, which might have been the death of the group. So I kept it taped up as a reminder that one crazy-bitch-meany does not equal all crazy-bitch-meanies. It sounds goofy, but it helped.
What was this post about again? Oh right, I mailed my heart lotto blocks earlier today. Congrats winners!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Ongoing oratory overwhelms observation or This is the time of year I tell my representatives what I think of them
I for one am tired tired tired of people screaming faux facts about healthcare at each other.
While it is true that he who talks loudest talks last, chances are good it is not because he is correct or will even remain uncorrected, but because everyone who wants to have a real conversation has decided to have it in another room.
When that happens, it is no use whining at the door that you want in. Deliberately drowning out other voices loses you that privilege.
I have previously said I believe we have had a form of socialized healthcare for a long time & it has left middle income individuals footing most of the bill. I have also said I actually think it would make small businesses able to compete with their larger counterparts. Now I have written all my representatives outlining my view on healthcare (I am for it: not just for the affluent, not just for the employed). & I am completely confident that they will ignore me; they always have.
Several years ago I wrote to my-then-representative for outlining why I supported the tightening of the Brady Bill. Same rep then went to a press conference to explain why she had voted against it: in all the letters she received from her constituents not one supported it. Huh. I might have given her the benefit of the doubt & said maybe my lone voice got lost in the mail except her office replied to my letter. With a form letter, but a reply of any kind does mean it got there.
This kind of 'perfect score' is no doubt supposed to persuade anyone on the fence what the majority already believes & the inert that the decision is already made. & it probably works to some degree. The catch is, not surprisingly, there is always at least one person who knows it is a lie. & that begs the question: why would a representative lie to the people she represents about what they told her they want? The answer is simple: so there will be no discussion.
I guess I should not give a damn, after all I have healthcare- pretty good, government sponsored healthcare. Not because I am over 65 & not because I am disabled & not because I am a veteran. I am none of those things (though I do hope to be over 65 some day). I have excellent government sponsored healthcare because my husband works for a state university. It turns out that a very large percentage of the work-a-day insured & their insured dependents are in similar health plans: between federal, state & local government entities, the government is already the largest healthcare agency in the country.
The funny thing about this government healthcare is a lot of people the people protesting it want it. I do not just mean those who expect to collect Medicare someday. I know & I know you do, too, at least one person who wanted a city/state/national job because "while the pay is not so good the benefits are great". & finally, in truly amusing news this most conservative state I live in has no problem with public healthcare for....property that might suffer damage because it was built in flood plains or dredged wetlands or along the beaches. Its the people we do not want to take care of.
While it is true that he who talks loudest talks last, chances are good it is not because he is correct or will even remain uncorrected, but because everyone who wants to have a real conversation has decided to have it in another room.
When that happens, it is no use whining at the door that you want in. Deliberately drowning out other voices loses you that privilege.
I have previously said I believe we have had a form of socialized healthcare for a long time & it has left middle income individuals footing most of the bill. I have also said I actually think it would make small businesses able to compete with their larger counterparts. Now I have written all my representatives outlining my view on healthcare (I am for it: not just for the affluent, not just for the employed). & I am completely confident that they will ignore me; they always have.
Several years ago I wrote to my-then-representative for outlining why I supported the tightening of the Brady Bill. Same rep then went to a press conference to explain why she had voted against it: in all the letters she received from her constituents not one supported it. Huh. I might have given her the benefit of the doubt & said maybe my lone voice got lost in the mail except her office replied to my letter. With a form letter, but a reply of any kind does mean it got there.
This kind of 'perfect score' is no doubt supposed to persuade anyone on the fence what the majority already believes & the inert that the decision is already made. & it probably works to some degree. The catch is, not surprisingly, there is always at least one person who knows it is a lie. & that begs the question: why would a representative lie to the people she represents about what they told her they want? The answer is simple: so there will be no discussion.
I guess I should not give a damn, after all I have healthcare- pretty good, government sponsored healthcare. Not because I am over 65 & not because I am disabled & not because I am a veteran. I am none of those things (though I do hope to be over 65 some day). I have excellent government sponsored healthcare because my husband works for a state university. It turns out that a very large percentage of the work-a-day insured & their insured dependents are in similar health plans: between federal, state & local government entities, the government is already the largest healthcare agency in the country.
The funny thing about this government healthcare is a lot of people the people protesting it want it. I do not just mean those who expect to collect Medicare someday. I know & I know you do, too, at least one person who wanted a city/state/national job because "while the pay is not so good the benefits are great". & finally, in truly amusing news this most conservative state I live in has no problem with public healthcare for....property that might suffer damage because it was built in flood plains or dredged wetlands or along the beaches. Its the people we do not want to take care of.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
This is not your living room
A has a story: he was driving in NYC, trying to find the ?Empire State Building?. The details escape me but this part does not: at one point he had become tangled & rerouted & lost track of the building. So he opened the door to step out & see if he could see & a bicyclist slammed into the door. & then the man said these immortal words: "Where do you think you are man, your living room?" & he was right. It is not OKay to get out of a car in the middle of traffic & start looking at the skyline.
You know what else is not your living room: the doctor's waiting area. I was at the dermatologist a couple weeks ago & a woman went in for her exam leaving her elementary-school-age children playing in the waiting room. The crowded, high traffic waiting room. One of the children decided to go look for her mother. No one had actually been paying them much attention, but we all know this because mom came out & had a near nervous breakdown when she could not find her daughter. She screamed at the receptionist & the other child alternately for not having "kept an eye on her". The daughter was escorted back around the same time having barged in on someone else's exam.
This past Saturday, I was in a large chain bookstore, the kind with the chairs sprinkled around for customers to...use the products without purchasing? I am not clear on that one actually. & while it is true they have tried to make it seem like your living room it is not; it is a public space. At this warehouse-of-a-bookstore was a group of kids having a ?Pokemon? card trade negotiation thing (a twice-a-month event posted on the store bulletin board) & they were not loud but not whispering. The old guy a few rows over trying to read his book got up every few minutes to shush them. & then argue with them. & then bring an employee over to throw them out. The employee 1) asked the kids to keep it down & 2) suggested old guy maybe move to another part of the store where it was quieter. The kids kept it down for maybe five minutes but it did not matter because old guy had already left in a huff. Empty handed. That's right, old guy was not reading a book he had bought or even was going to buy. He was treating the bookstore like his living room & got pissed at anyone else doing the exact same thing.
But the big not-your-living-room offender has got to be cell phone addicts. It is not OKay to take phone calls, no matter how important, in the movie theatre. What amazes me is that there are still enough people who do not accept this that I have not been to a movie in which at least one phone did not ring in I do not know how long. In Julie & Julia one person actually took TWO calls. Then the little old lady behind her rose up & started squawking so loud same woman had to leave the theatre...in order to hear what was being said....on the phone! We all know this because she explained it, loudly, to the person on the line as she left.
While I am on the subject of how the movie theatre is not your living room, let me point out it is also not your nursery. I am SICK & TIRED of people bringing infants to the movies: infants start screaming & so person with infant takes baby to the aisle. Really? To walk up & down, trying to calm baby while still in the theatre? I always want to ask: can we have your home address because the rest of the theatre has a lot of noisy, smelly, unpleasant sh*t we need to do somewhere & well, you volunteered.
The grocery store is also not your living room (or bedroom). I got so fed up with a woman having soft-core phone sex while in the grocery store that I started to participate. I got out about two sentences of commentary before she put down her basket & left. I find this actually works quite well in other rude-phone situations & I have taken to lying about it, as in "see that woman with the blue dress on the phone by the Cap'n Crunch/paint roller/oak leaf hydrangea, I think she must be talking to someone she really hates because she keeps rolling her eyes & giving the phone the finger". I did once have one person tell me I was interrupting a 'private conversation'. My answer : "Hey I am just talking loud to my imaginary friend, too, what makes you think it is about you?".
& then there is the last place that is not your living room. That would be MY living room. I think that is actually the root of the problem. Between the computer & the television everyone is so accustomed to traffic thru their own private space that they are having trouble telling the difference between private & public. I guess the only thing for me to do now is stop typing.
You know what else is not your living room: the doctor's waiting area. I was at the dermatologist a couple weeks ago & a woman went in for her exam leaving her elementary-school-age children playing in the waiting room. The crowded, high traffic waiting room. One of the children decided to go look for her mother. No one had actually been paying them much attention, but we all know this because mom came out & had a near nervous breakdown when she could not find her daughter. She screamed at the receptionist & the other child alternately for not having "kept an eye on her". The daughter was escorted back around the same time having barged in on someone else's exam.
This past Saturday, I was in a large chain bookstore, the kind with the chairs sprinkled around for customers to...use the products without purchasing? I am not clear on that one actually. & while it is true they have tried to make it seem like your living room it is not; it is a public space. At this warehouse-of-a-bookstore was a group of kids having a ?Pokemon? card trade negotiation thing (a twice-a-month event posted on the store bulletin board) & they were not loud but not whispering. The old guy a few rows over trying to read his book got up every few minutes to shush them. & then argue with them. & then bring an employee over to throw them out. The employee 1) asked the kids to keep it down & 2) suggested old guy maybe move to another part of the store where it was quieter. The kids kept it down for maybe five minutes but it did not matter because old guy had already left in a huff. Empty handed. That's right, old guy was not reading a book he had bought or even was going to buy. He was treating the bookstore like his living room & got pissed at anyone else doing the exact same thing.
But the big not-your-living-room offender has got to be cell phone addicts. It is not OKay to take phone calls, no matter how important, in the movie theatre. What amazes me is that there are still enough people who do not accept this that I have not been to a movie in which at least one phone did not ring in I do not know how long. In Julie & Julia one person actually took TWO calls. Then the little old lady behind her rose up & started squawking so loud same woman had to leave the theatre...in order to hear what was being said....on the phone! We all know this because she explained it, loudly, to the person on the line as she left.
While I am on the subject of how the movie theatre is not your living room, let me point out it is also not your nursery. I am SICK & TIRED of people bringing infants to the movies: infants start screaming & so person with infant takes baby to the aisle. Really? To walk up & down, trying to calm baby while still in the theatre? I always want to ask: can we have your home address because the rest of the theatre has a lot of noisy, smelly, unpleasant sh*t we need to do somewhere & well, you volunteered.
The grocery store is also not your living room (or bedroom). I got so fed up with a woman having soft-core phone sex while in the grocery store that I started to participate. I got out about two sentences of commentary before she put down her basket & left. I find this actually works quite well in other rude-phone situations & I have taken to lying about it, as in "see that woman with the blue dress on the phone by the Cap'n Crunch/paint roller/oak leaf hydrangea, I think she must be talking to someone she really hates because she keeps rolling her eyes & giving the phone the finger". I did once have one person tell me I was interrupting a 'private conversation'. My answer : "Hey I am just talking loud to my imaginary friend, too, what makes you think it is about you?".
& then there is the last place that is not your living room. That would be MY living room. I think that is actually the root of the problem. Between the computer & the television everyone is so accustomed to traffic thru their own private space that they are having trouble telling the difference between private & public. I guess the only thing for me to do now is stop typing.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Symbionese Liberation Quilt Guild
I used to be a member of one of the local quilt guilds, a very active member. Things changed, some burn out/some bitch out & I left the guild in the ball-park of ?two? years ago. But somehow I cannot get off their radar. Things (e-mails, phone calls) had finally started to quiet down & then I was suddenly being contacted about the every-other-year quilt show.
Previously I had been on the committee to blah-blah-blah but I certainly was not this go-round. But via these message I learned it had been somehow understood that I had agreed to help with this same committee again this year. I had not. When I was approached abut helping my exact words were "I am going to decline". In part because I reasoned it might be confusing if I did this but did not want to rejoin the guild. I actually stated this because, well I did not want to rejoin the guild.
Before you think poor poor pitiful Useless biotching about being popular, let me clarify: all the calls I got up to & including the quilt show ones were complaints. Every d*mn one. The e-mails were mostly questions about the logistics of blah-blah-blah, which of course I did not have. So I ignored them. & one person actually called to complain about that.
That was April. The show was the first week of May. I did not go; I had planned to go but was so turned off on so many people I decided it was not worth the effort of rearranging my time to be there when A could go with me. But when six weeks went by & there were no more messages, I began to think it might be safe to appear locally in a semi-quilty capacity. I was wrong. At the end of July I got a letter telling me an anonymous person (or persons) had PAID MY GUILD DUES & now I was a member of the quilt guild again.
I was irked. Quite irked. I showed the letter to A (while visibly huffing, me not him). He thought it was very funny. His exact words were "Don't they KNOW you are Irish?" & then he said something along the lines of maybe this was their way of guaranteeing I never went back. I do not know what my being Irish has to do with anything, but I have heard him tell people this is why he will not keep a gun in the house. I do not think I should take this crap from a Romanian, but I digress.
The short version is I handled it & I think I am out. I refrained from sending any messages that began "F*uck You, You F*cking F*cktards", which is how I usually address disparaging correspondence. Since the person I contacted was 1)a friend of mine -yes I still have friends & 2)almost certainly not the person who thought this would be a good idea, cussing her out did seem excessive. Completely over the top, even. This is the same reason I have abandoned my plan to find out who did this & make a sizable donation to the charity not-of-her-choice in her name.
As I reread this, I think I might know what A means by "Irish".
Previously I had been on the committee to blah-blah-blah but I certainly was not this go-round. But via these message I learned it had been somehow understood that I had agreed to help with this same committee again this year. I had not. When I was approached abut helping my exact words were "I am going to decline". In part because I reasoned it might be confusing if I did this but did not want to rejoin the guild. I actually stated this because, well I did not want to rejoin the guild.
Before you think poor poor pitiful Useless biotching about being popular, let me clarify: all the calls I got up to & including the quilt show ones were complaints. Every d*mn one. The e-mails were mostly questions about the logistics of blah-blah-blah, which of course I did not have. So I ignored them. & one person actually called to complain about that.
That was April. The show was the first week of May. I did not go; I had planned to go but was so turned off on so many people I decided it was not worth the effort of rearranging my time to be there when A could go with me. But when six weeks went by & there were no more messages, I began to think it might be safe to appear locally in a semi-quilty capacity. I was wrong. At the end of July I got a letter telling me an anonymous person (or persons) had PAID MY GUILD DUES & now I was a member of the quilt guild again.
I was irked. Quite irked. I showed the letter to A (while visibly huffing, me not him). He thought it was very funny. His exact words were "Don't they KNOW you are Irish?" & then he said something along the lines of maybe this was their way of guaranteeing I never went back. I do not know what my being Irish has to do with anything, but I have heard him tell people this is why he will not keep a gun in the house. I do not think I should take this crap from a Romanian, but I digress.
The short version is I handled it & I think I am out. I refrained from sending any messages that began "F*uck You, You F*cking F*cktards", which is how I usually address disparaging correspondence. Since the person I contacted was 1)a friend of mine -yes I still have friends & 2)almost certainly not the person who thought this would be a good idea, cussing her out did seem excessive. Completely over the top, even. This is the same reason I have abandoned my plan to find out who did this & make a sizable donation to the charity not-of-her-choice in her name.
As I reread this, I think I might know what A means by "Irish".
Monday, August 3, 2009
Turn signals
So the other day this thing that happens to me more often than it should happened again. I used to think it was always the other guy's fault but, well, when the same problem keeps repeating a reasonable person starts to wonder if it might not not be the other guy, but instead... Several months ago V** suggested it was probably me.
I am driving down the road. I am coming upon a light. I plan to turn right at the light. There is an emerging right turn only lane before the light. I put on my turn signal & slide into this lane. I am nearly sideswiped by the guy pulling out of the parking lot who apparently thought my turn signal meant I was turning into same lot.
So I am asking: is it me?
I get a lot of signals crossed when I drive. The most frequent is the ubiquitous (down here) confederate flag. I guess some people see it as a way to identify comrades-in-arms...? I find it is a useful way to spot the stoopid people. That's right: if you have a confederate flag anywhere on your vehicle I take whatever I thought your intelligence might have been & cut it right in half. & like it or not, other measures of applied intelligence (high school diplomas for example) are bearing me out. I have lived well below the Mason-Dixon line for 15+ years & I have never, NEVER met a college graduate with such a sticker. On the flip side, the high school dropouts are leading the pack by a margin of 3:1. Yes, I do live in a rural community but the fact it backs up to the largest university in the state should balance that out, right?
In another example, I have a Vote No on 2 sticker on the back of my truck. For those of you who do not know, Florida voted Yes on 2 & it passed, but the sticker is still there. I would take it down, after all when the next campaign comes it will be repeal 2 or whatever, but I am having too much fun watching other people respond to it. At least once a month someone points to my sticker & says the votes are counted, my side lost & I should just get over it. Often these people have McCain/Palin stickers on their own vehicles.
My favorite 'turn signal' though will always be the giant testicles that some men hang from their trailer hitches; I have no hard data but I am pretty sure women do not do this. Usually these charming 'little dick' indicators are made of metal, but there was a ?rubber?plastic? very lifelike anyway pair that was always parked in our local grocery store lot. It was there so often I had kind of figured the truck belonged to an employee & so, apparently did some other people.
I do not spend a lot of my time worrying about how children are impacted by well, anything at all, but I know a lot of people do. I learned that some parents (I am guessing mothers) had complained to the grocery store about this truck (why naked girl silhouettes on mud flaps-another local favorite- were not equally objectionable I never did figure out, but people-&-their-objections are often a mystery to me).
The short version is that despite complaints the store said there was not anything they could do about it, really. So someone took those balls into (her) own hands. I walked out of the store, past same truck & the offending appendages had been neatly sliced from the hitch. Yup, that truck done got hisself gelded.
I seem to have run myself to the end of this particular line & I am still no closer to answering my original questions (is it me?) & now I have another: is it OKay for someone to remove an offending "message" from another persons car?
I am driving down the road. I am coming upon a light. I plan to turn right at the light. There is an emerging right turn only lane before the light. I put on my turn signal & slide into this lane. I am nearly sideswiped by the guy pulling out of the parking lot who apparently thought my turn signal meant I was turning into same lot.
So I am asking: is it me?
I get a lot of signals crossed when I drive. The most frequent is the ubiquitous (down here) confederate flag. I guess some people see it as a way to identify comrades-in-arms...? I find it is a useful way to spot the stoopid people. That's right: if you have a confederate flag anywhere on your vehicle I take whatever I thought your intelligence might have been & cut it right in half. & like it or not, other measures of applied intelligence (high school diplomas for example) are bearing me out. I have lived well below the Mason-Dixon line for 15+ years & I have never, NEVER met a college graduate with such a sticker. On the flip side, the high school dropouts are leading the pack by a margin of 3:1. Yes, I do live in a rural community but the fact it backs up to the largest university in the state should balance that out, right?
In another example, I have a Vote No on 2 sticker on the back of my truck. For those of you who do not know, Florida voted Yes on 2 & it passed, but the sticker is still there. I would take it down, after all when the next campaign comes it will be repeal 2 or whatever, but I am having too much fun watching other people respond to it. At least once a month someone points to my sticker & says the votes are counted, my side lost & I should just get over it. Often these people have McCain/Palin stickers on their own vehicles.
My favorite 'turn signal' though will always be the giant testicles that some men hang from their trailer hitches; I have no hard data but I am pretty sure women do not do this. Usually these charming 'little dick' indicators are made of metal, but there was a ?rubber?plastic? very lifelike anyway pair that was always parked in our local grocery store lot. It was there so often I had kind of figured the truck belonged to an employee & so, apparently did some other people.
I do not spend a lot of my time worrying about how children are impacted by well, anything at all, but I know a lot of people do. I learned that some parents (I am guessing mothers) had complained to the grocery store about this truck (why naked girl silhouettes on mud flaps-another local favorite- were not equally objectionable I never did figure out, but people-&-their-objections are often a mystery to me).
The short version is that despite complaints the store said there was not anything they could do about it, really. So someone took those balls into (her) own hands. I walked out of the store, past same truck & the offending appendages had been neatly sliced from the hitch. Yup, that truck done got hisself gelded.
I seem to have run myself to the end of this particular line & I am still no closer to answering my original questions (is it me?) & now I have another: is it OKay for someone to remove an offending "message" from another persons car?
Friday, July 3, 2009
UPS tracking # 1Z 926 EW6 03 0130 3812
On Monday (I was not home but V** was here), a UPS truck pulled into the driveway. The driver never got out of the truck (that she saw) but left a package in a plastic bag at our front gate. The driver never came to the door to make the delivery, did not even leave the package on the porch where it would have been safe from the weather. When I got home I would have driven right past it if V** had not told me it was there.
On Monday, Wednesday & again today I called UPS & each time it has been the same headache from scratch: they have no record of my previous calls. I am calling because the package is not for us. Although the recipient's last name begins with the same letter as our last name that is where it stops being the same. It is not for anyone on our street; it has a clear address with a different street. It is not for our number on this other street; as with the last names the first number of the four digit street number is the same as ours, but that is it.
Under ordinary circumstances I would say this was a very avoidable stoopid mistake. Wrong street, wrong house, wrong name & any of it could have been avoided if not for the wrong driver. But it actually gets worse: it turns out UPS has no system (or functioning system) for reporting this kind of mistake. Each time I call it is like I have never called before.
In the grand scheme of who has the right to be pissed, it is not me. I am not the shipper nor am I the recipient & I suspect that is exactly what is making it so hard to fix this problem. I am just sick of this pile of garbage (it has been raining on & off over the last four days) waiting for pick-up at my front gate. Last night I dreamed there were kittens in the package which has made me more upset than I should be.
When I take a step back though I notice two things:
1. what do people have against the post office? Sure, they do not have those crazy slick scanning gizmos , but then again this package was delivered to the correct address four days ago according to those same gizmos so what does that matter? Besides, when I go to my local post office, the post-people know me. By name. & they deliver mail to the house almost every day mail is delivered. Want to know how many misdelivered bundles we have had in the past year? Two. If that seems like a lot do the math: 52 weeks x 6 days a week = 312 total delivery days a year & 310 went without a hitch. If UPS made 15 deliveries to my house last year I will be surprised but lets say that they did: 15 deliveries & 14 were OKay. Do I really need to do all the percentage calculations to show who has the better track record?
2. the other bell that kept ringing in my head was the universal health care bell. I am tired tired tired of people complaining that the government will squeeze out private health care providers. If that were true other government institutions would not have private competition (like oh, say the post office). Private firms might have to step up their game. OR they could make like UPS & fake it.
//As I began this post this morning, I did finally get a call from the local UPS office that they had indeed received all my complaints & a driver would be out "shortly". She asked if there was any reason the driver might have trouble finding our house. I said that would depend: if it was the same driver as last time he could not find the front door when he was parked in the driveway. As of the time stamp on this post the package was still out there.
On Monday, Wednesday & again today I called UPS & each time it has been the same headache from scratch: they have no record of my previous calls. I am calling because the package is not for us. Although the recipient's last name begins with the same letter as our last name that is where it stops being the same. It is not for anyone on our street; it has a clear address with a different street. It is not for our number on this other street; as with the last names the first number of the four digit street number is the same as ours, but that is it.
Under ordinary circumstances I would say this was a very avoidable stoopid mistake. Wrong street, wrong house, wrong name & any of it could have been avoided if not for the wrong driver. But it actually gets worse: it turns out UPS has no system (or functioning system) for reporting this kind of mistake. Each time I call it is like I have never called before.
In the grand scheme of who has the right to be pissed, it is not me. I am not the shipper nor am I the recipient & I suspect that is exactly what is making it so hard to fix this problem. I am just sick of this pile of garbage (it has been raining on & off over the last four days) waiting for pick-up at my front gate. Last night I dreamed there were kittens in the package which has made me more upset than I should be.
When I take a step back though I notice two things:
1. what do people have against the post office? Sure, they do not have those crazy slick scanning gizmos , but then again this package was delivered to the correct address four days ago according to those same gizmos so what does that matter? Besides, when I go to my local post office, the post-people know me. By name. & they deliver mail to the house almost every day mail is delivered. Want to know how many misdelivered bundles we have had in the past year? Two. If that seems like a lot do the math: 52 weeks x 6 days a week = 312 total delivery days a year & 310 went without a hitch. If UPS made 15 deliveries to my house last year I will be surprised but lets say that they did: 15 deliveries & 14 were OKay. Do I really need to do all the percentage calculations to show who has the better track record?
2. the other bell that kept ringing in my head was the universal health care bell. I am tired tired tired of people complaining that the government will squeeze out private health care providers. If that were true other government institutions would not have private competition (like oh, say the post office). Private firms might have to step up their game. OR they could make like UPS & fake it.
//As I began this post this morning, I did finally get a call from the local UPS office that they had indeed received all my complaints & a driver would be out "shortly". She asked if there was any reason the driver might have trouble finding our house. I said that would depend: if it was the same driver as last time he could not find the front door when he was parked in the driveway. As of the time stamp on this post the package was still out there.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Three tips for the bride who wants her OWN wedding
I am the last person who should be giving advice on any aspect of wedding planning. This is probably how I happened to work, ever so briefly, as the facilities coordinator (i.e. the booker of weddings) at one of the nicest places around. & in the end I left for reasons that had nothing to do with bridezillas. They really were not that bad. Even more astonishing, if you google my real name, I still come up in connection with this job & it is all good.
While I was in the middle of wedding-central, I could not help but notice that almost everyone had the same wedding over&over&over again. & the dream of every bride was to have her OWN wedding. For those of you who go around calling this 'our' big day, let me burst that bubble. I never laid eyes on the groom of at least half the weddings we booked. Grooms want you to: not spend so much, not drag him into arguments with his mother, not drag him into arguments with your mother, not spend so much & calm down. Also, they would really like it if you could not spend quite so much.
Let me suggest a few small changes that will make your wedding yours without increasing your bottomline:
Ditch the Wagner
For my own wedding, this was never on the table because of that whole anti-semite thing, but frankly everyone of us has also been Handeled up to our eyeballs. I suggested Baby Elephant Walk to a relative & she did not speak to me for a month; I really did not mean anything by it. Also, it was Mom's idea originally, so there! Forget the jumbo implications & just listen to it, it is charming.
A has said he wishes I had told him what I really would have wanted because he would have wanted it, too: the Theme from Peter Gunne. OKay, your heart is set on classical, even though you never listen to it any other time in your life. Fine. Let me suggest the next runner up by Bach. Frankly I have been to plenty of weddings where the best choice would have been Night on Bald Mountain, but brides get very tense when you tell them that. If you want original & traditional (I could not believe how often THAT request would come up) what about Come Haste to the Wedding? Anyway...tip number one: make a musical decision that is your own, not Bride Magazine's, yours.
Ditch the Wagner
For my own wedding, this was never on the table because of that whole anti-semite thing, but frankly everyone of us has also been Handeled up to our eyeballs. I suggested Baby Elephant Walk to a relative & she did not speak to me for a month; I really did not mean anything by it. Also, it was Mom's idea originally, so there! Forget the jumbo implications & just listen to it, it is charming.
A has said he wishes I had told him what I really would have wanted because he would have wanted it, too: the Theme from Peter Gunne. OKay, your heart is set on classical, even though you never listen to it any other time in your life. Fine. Let me suggest the next runner up by Bach. Frankly I have been to plenty of weddings where the best choice would have been Night on Bald Mountain, but brides get very tense when you tell them that. If you want original & traditional (I could not believe how often THAT request would come up) what about Come Haste to the Wedding? Anyway...tip number one: make a musical decision that is your own, not Bride Magazine's, yours.
Lose the dress
That's right you heard me: get off that wedding dress wagon. Instead find a dress you like. That does not highlight your ass (back interest, puh-leeze). A normal dress. Less than 100 years ago it was perfectly acceptable for a bride to wear her dress out for evenings, etc. If you do not believe me take a break from your wedding planning schedule & read some Edith Wharton: she will give you a whole new perspective on married life, regardless which book you choose.
I am not suggesting that you need to go 'theme'; I do not mean get married in jeans or scuba gear or both, unless you want to of course. I just mean $ for a dress you wear once? & then fantasize about passing down to your daughter? Who (maybe) does not exist yet? & may not be speaking to you on her wedding day? Perhaps, because you made such a big stink about her wearing your dress? Here is it...tip number two: a wedding dress is not an investment.
Postpone the honeymoon
It never made any sense to me: get together all the people that are important to you (& a few that almost certainly are not), make a major change in your life that means you will see all of them less & then leave. Why not take this opportunity to spend some time with them? If you think you will get to do this at the reception you are delusional. Besides, after your wedding you will want several days comatose, you can do this at home. A went to work the day after we got married (I was unemployed or I would have, too). We took a vacation later when we knew we would get more out of it. I am not saying never have a honeymoon just that you will enjoy it more if you are still speaking to each other. Or not still mad about the cheese plate (suddenly we are kosher, what got into her?). & so tip number three: take a break before you take a honeymoon.
In the fairness of full disclosure I should tell you I never walked down an aisle. There was no music. A saw my dress before the wedding; he bought it for me as a birthday gift, in a shop in NYC & it was not bride-specific. There were no fancy decorations. We were married by a judge we did not meet with before & have not seen since. There were no friends & family there. Our reception was about two weeks & almost 2K miles later. It still took.
Happy 15th to me & mine.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Innie outie, innie innie, outie outie
My bookclub has just wrapped up Trans-Sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian. It seems that gay was in the air for me generally, as I also just finished Haven Kimmel's The Used World (which I picked because M****** has often recommended the author & it looked like a painted lady on the cover). I found the latter slow but the former grueling in its detail. I do not mean the details of transsexual male-to-female surgery which at least had the grace of being new-to-me details. I mean 2+ pages on which student may or may not have slipped something into a pile of in-class workpapers on the teacher's desk. It was almost more than I could cope with.
But they were both interesting.
Just this past election (& by that I mean March 2009), one town over voted on a re-write that would have disenfranchised a large group of people including gays, transgenders, et al by removing protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The focus of the campaign literature (but by no means the campaign agenda) was drag queens in public restrooms. I do not have to make this sh*t up, people.
& because the re-write progenitors were fond of using children to illustrate their ends, I started breaking it down into sound bytes a child could understand. My take on the re-write adverts was if you CAN pee standing up you MUST pee standing up.
Naturally, all sexuality roads lead to gay marriage. I freely admit to being confused, flummoxed & generally broadsided by the idea that two men or two women being married to each other has anything at all to do with me. Unless they make it mandatory, because to paraphrase Jon Stewart, my husband would not like that. I think I am always so surprised (& I really always am; I am blonde that way) because while sex is important, it is hardly all that makes a marriage. I can only speak for my marriage, but it is about food & television & laundry & bad running inside jokes & so many other things not germane to the in & out bits.
& I am often sucker-punched by the idea that while kids can be trotted out to hold signs & sit at the petition-signature gathering tables, the real reason mommy & daddy are doing this is because they want to keep their children safe from the awareness of gay marriage. After all, what would happen if we had to explain what gay marriage is? It would burst their little brains. Well, I think I might be able to help with that:
While I am part of an innie outie marriage myself, I know people in innie innies & outie outies, too. These three camps are a lot like Trekkies, Lord of the Rings enthusiasts & Star Wars aficionados. Everyone is aware of the other camps & sometimes some of us even visit them, but as we grow up we all realize which sci-fi/fantasy genre is best for us. Oh sure, there are the occasional deviants; those Hitchhikers Guide people are a bit off, but we try to love them anyway. Those outright pervs, the Gormenghastians need to be avoided, though. & Dune! Do not get me started on Dune.
I agree, it needs some work. Also, I have completely left off Red Dwarf & the hero of the transgender: Kryten. & it was from him that I ripped off the whole in&out bits bit. Isn't that just the way these things go?
But they were both interesting.
Just this past election (& by that I mean March 2009), one town over voted on a re-write that would have disenfranchised a large group of people including gays, transgenders, et al by removing protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The focus of the campaign literature (but by no means the campaign agenda) was drag queens in public restrooms. I do not have to make this sh*t up, people.
& because the re-write progenitors were fond of using children to illustrate their ends, I started breaking it down into sound bytes a child could understand. My take on the re-write adverts was if you CAN pee standing up you MUST pee standing up.
Naturally, all sexuality roads lead to gay marriage. I freely admit to being confused, flummoxed & generally broadsided by the idea that two men or two women being married to each other has anything at all to do with me. Unless they make it mandatory, because to paraphrase Jon Stewart, my husband would not like that. I think I am always so surprised (& I really always am; I am blonde that way) because while sex is important, it is hardly all that makes a marriage. I can only speak for my marriage, but it is about food & television & laundry & bad running inside jokes & so many other things not germane to the in & out bits.
& I am often sucker-punched by the idea that while kids can be trotted out to hold signs & sit at the petition-signature gathering tables, the real reason mommy & daddy are doing this is because they want to keep their children safe from the awareness of gay marriage. After all, what would happen if we had to explain what gay marriage is? It would burst their little brains. Well, I think I might be able to help with that:
While I am part of an innie outie marriage myself, I know people in innie innies & outie outies, too. These three camps are a lot like Trekkies, Lord of the Rings enthusiasts & Star Wars aficionados. Everyone is aware of the other camps & sometimes some of us even visit them, but as we grow up we all realize which sci-fi/fantasy genre is best for us. Oh sure, there are the occasional deviants; those Hitchhikers Guide people are a bit off, but we try to love them anyway. Those outright pervs, the Gormenghastians need to be avoided, though. & Dune! Do not get me started on Dune.
I agree, it needs some work. Also, I have completely left off Red Dwarf & the hero of the transgender: Kryten. & it was from him that I ripped off the whole in&out bits bit. Isn't that just the way these things go?
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Guns don't kill people
I do not know what is going on lately but it is shotguns shotguns shotguns all day long. I do not know if it just dawned on some of the neighborhood that hunting season mostly wraps up this month or if B***'s dogs have gotten into W*****'s henhouse again or what but it has been like living in a recreation of the Battle of Gettysburg.
I admit I am not the world's biggest hunting fan, but why would I be? I do not eat much meat. I do not like loud noises. Frankly, I have a limited interest in all sports that involve an armed fat guy drinking way too much beer (yeah, I am not fan a NASCAR either). But I do know enough about deer overpopulation to know that something has to be done, especially if you are going to shoot all their natural predators. I know of at least local two families that eat what they hunt & it makes a big part of their winter diet; they would have trouble making it without this food source. Finally, unlike hunting where I grew up, more historically interesting hunting is also practiced here, bow-hunting & muzzle loading rifles for instance. I still do not want to myself, but I can see there is more to it than buying a gun, buying ammo & shooting at paper targets (why not just play a video game?).
I also know a lot of hunters are feeling marginalized these days. After 9/11, the nearby army base closed their doors to the local hunters they used to invite to week-end shoots (some how the shooting they were doing was not enough to scare away the deer) & canceled most clubshoots (my favorite would have to be the muzzle loading groups, but it might just be that word: muzzle). They have opened back up for a few events, but it is a fraction of what they used to do.
One group of local hunters was very surprised when the new owners of their old hunting buddy's land were not only not going to let them hunt through but would have them arrested for trespassing if they even came on to the property. When A told me about I***'s encounter with his hunting neighbors, I could not help but think of the stories I had been told about Indians, laughing at white-men who bought the land for a few trinkets, after all who can own land, only to see trees come down & fences go up.
My favorite story is one told to me about a neighbor who has since died, so I think I can tell this without hurting anyone's feeling. Many years ago, when she was new to the area , N****'s husband left her home alone to go work his pecan groves some 40 miles away. Hard frost had been forecast & he expected to be out all night. A few of her husband's buddies decided to 'hunt through' their land & either they never mentioned it to him or he forgot to mention it to her. I bet you can see where this is going...
The short version is, N**** was out feeding the livestock they had near the house, heard the rustling of people moving, saw guns, picked up the shotgun they kept for just such emergencies & started blasting away. I was one of the few people on our street N**** really talked with (years later she still hated being a country wife), but I have always thought she warmed to me as quickly as she did because my response to this story was to laugh so hard I had to sit down.
Now of course, there are more people here than ever before. Larger lots have been cut down, some for big housing developments, some for smaller. What was once an ordinary ranch house with a large yard is now three houses with much smaller yards, but very pleasant & welcome families. Some expansions have been less popular: a nearby family (now moved away) added an unzoned trailer home to their property that eventually burned down, catching our back pasture & consuming our entire back fence.
One of the remaining large lots is the blueberry field I have mentioned in previous posts. They are also the source of the recent gunshots (& an air cannon for extra umph). I have learned since I began this post that they have been shooting at Cedar Waxwings, a protected species.
Many of you might ask: is it the same farmer who insisted my hen was a rooster (& that I needed that rooster so my real hens would lay eggs), the same farmer that burned all the old, pressure-treated fencing, releasing poisons into the air, is this the farmer now illegally shooting birds & keeping the neighborhood awake for the past 72 hours. You betcha.
I admit I am not the world's biggest hunting fan, but why would I be? I do not eat much meat. I do not like loud noises. Frankly, I have a limited interest in all sports that involve an armed fat guy drinking way too much beer (yeah, I am not fan a NASCAR either). But I do know enough about deer overpopulation to know that something has to be done, especially if you are going to shoot all their natural predators. I know of at least local two families that eat what they hunt & it makes a big part of their winter diet; they would have trouble making it without this food source. Finally, unlike hunting where I grew up, more historically interesting hunting is also practiced here, bow-hunting & muzzle loading rifles for instance. I still do not want to myself, but I can see there is more to it than buying a gun, buying ammo & shooting at paper targets (why not just play a video game?).
I also know a lot of hunters are feeling marginalized these days. After 9/11, the nearby army base closed their doors to the local hunters they used to invite to week-end shoots (some how the shooting they were doing was not enough to scare away the deer) & canceled most clubshoots (my favorite would have to be the muzzle loading groups, but it might just be that word: muzzle). They have opened back up for a few events, but it is a fraction of what they used to do.
One group of local hunters was very surprised when the new owners of their old hunting buddy's land were not only not going to let them hunt through but would have them arrested for trespassing if they even came on to the property. When A told me about I***'s encounter with his hunting neighbors, I could not help but think of the stories I had been told about Indians, laughing at white-men who bought the land for a few trinkets, after all who can own land, only to see trees come down & fences go up.
My favorite story is one told to me about a neighbor who has since died, so I think I can tell this without hurting anyone's feeling. Many years ago, when she was new to the area , N****'s husband left her home alone to go work his pecan groves some 40 miles away. Hard frost had been forecast & he expected to be out all night. A few of her husband's buddies decided to 'hunt through' their land & either they never mentioned it to him or he forgot to mention it to her. I bet you can see where this is going...
The short version is, N**** was out feeding the livestock they had near the house, heard the rustling of people moving, saw guns, picked up the shotgun they kept for just such emergencies & started blasting away. I was one of the few people on our street N**** really talked with (years later she still hated being a country wife), but I have always thought she warmed to me as quickly as she did because my response to this story was to laugh so hard I had to sit down.
Now of course, there are more people here than ever before. Larger lots have been cut down, some for big housing developments, some for smaller. What was once an ordinary ranch house with a large yard is now three houses with much smaller yards, but very pleasant & welcome families. Some expansions have been less popular: a nearby family (now moved away) added an unzoned trailer home to their property that eventually burned down, catching our back pasture & consuming our entire back fence.
One of the remaining large lots is the blueberry field I have mentioned in previous posts. They are also the source of the recent gunshots (& an air cannon for extra umph). I have learned since I began this post that they have been shooting at Cedar Waxwings, a protected species.
Many of you might ask: is it the same farmer who insisted my hen was a rooster (& that I needed that rooster so my real hens would lay eggs), the same farmer that burned all the old, pressure-treated fencing, releasing poisons into the air, is this the farmer now illegally shooting birds & keeping the neighborhood awake for the past 72 hours. You betcha.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Spoiler alert: I do not have much respect for people who worry about 'my fair share'.
Several weeks ago I received a Facebook flair from that read: Why do politicians who don't pay their taxes get to spend mine?? Most of the time I ignore this kind of stuff. This is hardly the first "keep your government paws off my hard earned dollars" sentiment that has been expressed near me. This one got my particular attention because the person who sent it does not pay taxes, has not had a job in ?years? & is able to collect a (justified) disability check because of all the people who do pay taxes & the programs those taxes allow to exist.
It put me in mind of a conversation I had many years ago with a computer programmer I worked with. He was complaining that his lifestyle was not an improvement on his parents & that this was the first time in our country's history that this had been so (I am guessing parents in the 1920s & their children who were adults in the 1930s would argue, but none of them were in the room at the time). He was measuring success by the square footage & overall opulence of his home & how many years he had to drive his car before he could afford a comparable new one.
& so I asked him a question (which I thought I already knew the answer to, I admit):
when his wife was recently pregnant, an as-far-as-I-knew perfectly normal pregnancy, did she take advantage of the regular visits & services & medications provided for by our insurance? If such a thing had been available to his mother, would she have considered it a ++ in her quality of life? He never did answer, but I am guessing the answer to both was YES. I later learned the pregnancy had not been normal, there had been a major issue & the issue itself had been discovered during a routine ultra-sound. My point is, maybe quality of life should be measured in more than just the room in which a person watches the best TV that person can afford (or finance).
You don't need me to tell you the latest twist on this particular complaint is "why I am paying for that guy's ____; I lived within my means, why shouldn't he"? It has inspired me to compile a list of things we pay for (well, A pays for mostly ) that on the surface anyhow, mostly benefit some other guy:
School taxes - Let me be clear, we are happy to pay these & think they should be higher. We both believe society as a whole benefits when kids are not roaming the streets like packs of wild dogs & even the career grocery-bagger can read. But the fact remains that people with children have the option of moving their children to a private school & redirecting a portion of public school funds away from this general society benefit & we do not.
We cannot decide that we would rather our school taxes were applied to a local homeless shelter that keeps parents & children together & also provides schooling for both the parents & the kids, but our neighbors can & do get back some money from school taxes & pay their church instead (which has a school their children attend). This is actually twice-irksome; as school taxes here are based largely on local property taxes & these neighbors do not own the house they live in. This means they have not paid in as much in school taxes as they are able to redirect away from the school district.
Health care premiums - Under a previous healthcare provider, we, a married couple with no children, paid the family rate. That means our basic monthly cost to have health insurance was exactly the same as the guy down the hall who had five kids (this was a real guy, by the way. In our small office there was one unmarried man, one married man with five kids & two married men with two kids & us. There was also a married woman with no kids & a married woman with one kid, but they were not on our health plan). All of us (all nine of us, from the first part of the example) were in reasonably good health but the fact remains the consumer of 7/9th of the resource paid 50% of the tab. How many times would you split a dinner check that way before you said "Damn it I had a house salad & you had lobster!"
If you decide you want to spread the cost over the whole office, we paid 1/5th of the bill while using 1/9th of the initital resources, but it was actually bigger than that. In the larger group one child was autistic, one spouse had breast cancer & one employee had multiple back surgeries, but we all had the same monthly fee & deductible. In short, we paid the same amount into a basic plan that we did not use nearly as often. I know because I was the one reviewing the bills that pre-natal care was an option our office elected to pay for (increasing the bill to everyone) & allergy shots were not. Guess which one of these would have been more use to me personally.
We have since changed our provider (nothing to do with this discrepancy) & are now in a plan that is structured differently, although it does still favor families with two children; after that it is pay-per-head. I laugh when I hear people balk at the bill for socialized medicine; as far as I am concerned we have been paying for a form of socialized medicine all this time.
Airfare - our combined weight is, well, lets just say less than 320lb. (& the average weight for men & women in the country is 167.2, so apparently we are absolutely normal). I don't know about you, but I have never been on a commercial flight when at least one person did not weigh in the ballpark of 300lb. I guarantee you, that person did not pay more for a ticket because of body weight. & yet that person will certainly use (fractionally) more resources, every time they fly. I know some big people (I am related to some big people, I love & respect some big people), & I know they gamble that there will be an empty seat next to them (or between them) & that they will be able to take up more room without having to buy that second ticket.
On one memorable flight, a very large stranger was very angry with me because I would not let him raise the arm of the seat between us & squeeze over. He had trouble accepting he had gambled & lost (are there really people who are OKay with being plastered to one side of their seat so someone they do not know can press in on them?).
Many airlines also used to let you take a baby under a particular age at no charge on a flight, so long as that baby sits in your lap. There was a time I flew regularly & I dreaded being pinned in the window seat with a parent & lap-passenger; every time this happened I missed my connection waiting for mom (it was always mom) to juggle the baby & their luggage. Before you assume I did not offer to help, ask yourself how many dry cleaning bills have you have offered to pay after your kid gorped all over the suit next to you; no one ever offered to pay mine. Several did, however, complain loudly that the flight attendants could be more helpful or plentiful... Counting either pounds or heads, most of the time the average Joe Flyer is getting the short end of this deal & has more or less accepted it.
This one has been bothering me more lately because I often fly with a little dog. She rides in a carrier at my feet. That carrier counts as a piece of luggage in my total luggage allocation, so my only other bag costs extra on some airlines. I would be OKay with this (I guess) if I was not already paying the airline over $100 extra per flight to fly the little dog in the first place. There is an element of 'luxury tax' here, I understand that. What I cannot fathom is the passenger-with-baby already getting a reduced ticket who thinks everyone should pay more so she can have more help personally.
Clothing - that's right, clothing. I wear a size 6.5/7 shoe (sometime as a 7/7.5 if the toe is really, really pointy). I have a good friend who wears a size 11. Her shoes use more material, weigh more (therefore cost more to ship), but cost the same as mine. Ditto on jeans, dresses, blouses, etc. Even at my chubbiest, I have never worn the national average size: a ladies 14. But generally I pay the same price off-the-rack as a person who wears an 18. Next time you are shopping, line up a size 10 against a size 18. Depending on the garment, it will be a minimum 1/3rd larger & probably more.
Food - we actually spend a lot less on food than most people because I do not cook beef; I just cannot take the smell, & we do not eat pork (meat being the big part of most grocery bills). But we do pay the taxes that pay the subsidies for these foods to be shipped from large feed lots to processing plants to our grocery store. I confess, this is one why-am-I-paying-for-that-I-never-use-it policy I would like to see change & I do make every effort to buy anything I can locally (not just food, but books & anything else I can. After food & books, there is not much we buy, now that I think about it). Still, we are paying part of the bill to ship a lot of other people's food in.
I realize this all seems like small change but it adds up. & 360+ days a year, I do not mind (OKay, I did mind Fatso bitching about the arms of the seat cutting into him & suggested that next time he buy two seats & maybe this flight he would be more comfortable in the toilet). But really, I do not mind. I do wish, though that before people started ranting about not wanting to pay part of someone else's bills, that they would consider there may already be some one out there subsidizing theirs.
& if that is not enough to make you think twice, there is one group of people in this country who routinely pay higher taxes (often because they are in higher income brackets), have far fewer children than average (& thus are not using either the schools or family health care services they are paying for), & are rarely married (& so pay more in living expenses generally, which is a double-factor here where there is no income tax, but there is a sales tax) & often do not qualify for any spousal benefits, even if they are not living alone.
Rarely married outside of Massachusetts, that is. What happens to the rest of us the day the gay community says "you know what, you are right it is not fair that we have to pay your bills. So we are setting up our own financial system to meet only our needs. Tah"?
//For the sake of this entry, I started looking up our actual numbers. Using the per head model for health insurance alone (if we had paid 1/9th of the office's total monthly bill instead of 1/5th), we would have saved at least 2k every year (or the insurance company would have made a lot more off the whole office). As for the nickel&dime stuff, I bought fabric to make myself a skirt recently: 1.75 yards at $11 per yard. The same pattern size 18 called for 3.25 yards. At this point I decided it would be better to stop.
It put me in mind of a conversation I had many years ago with a computer programmer I worked with. He was complaining that his lifestyle was not an improvement on his parents & that this was the first time in our country's history that this had been so (I am guessing parents in the 1920s & their children who were adults in the 1930s would argue, but none of them were in the room at the time). He was measuring success by the square footage & overall opulence of his home & how many years he had to drive his car before he could afford a comparable new one.
& so I asked him a question (which I thought I already knew the answer to, I admit):
when his wife was recently pregnant, an as-far-as-I-knew perfectly normal pregnancy, did she take advantage of the regular visits & services & medications provided for by our insurance? If such a thing had been available to his mother, would she have considered it a ++ in her quality of life? He never did answer, but I am guessing the answer to both was YES. I later learned the pregnancy had not been normal, there had been a major issue & the issue itself had been discovered during a routine ultra-sound. My point is, maybe quality of life should be measured in more than just the room in which a person watches the best TV that person can afford (or finance).
You don't need me to tell you the latest twist on this particular complaint is "why I am paying for that guy's ____; I lived within my means, why shouldn't he"? It has inspired me to compile a list of things we pay for (well, A pays for mostly ) that on the surface anyhow, mostly benefit some other guy:
School taxes - Let me be clear, we are happy to pay these & think they should be higher. We both believe society as a whole benefits when kids are not roaming the streets like packs of wild dogs & even the career grocery-bagger can read. But the fact remains that people with children have the option of moving their children to a private school & redirecting a portion of public school funds away from this general society benefit & we do not.
We cannot decide that we would rather our school taxes were applied to a local homeless shelter that keeps parents & children together & also provides schooling for both the parents & the kids, but our neighbors can & do get back some money from school taxes & pay their church instead (which has a school their children attend). This is actually twice-irksome; as school taxes here are based largely on local property taxes & these neighbors do not own the house they live in. This means they have not paid in as much in school taxes as they are able to redirect away from the school district.
Health care premiums - Under a previous healthcare provider, we, a married couple with no children, paid the family rate. That means our basic monthly cost to have health insurance was exactly the same as the guy down the hall who had five kids (this was a real guy, by the way. In our small office there was one unmarried man, one married man with five kids & two married men with two kids & us. There was also a married woman with no kids & a married woman with one kid, but they were not on our health plan). All of us (all nine of us, from the first part of the example) were in reasonably good health but the fact remains the consumer of 7/9th of the resource paid 50% of the tab. How many times would you split a dinner check that way before you said "Damn it I had a house salad & you had lobster!"
If you decide you want to spread the cost over the whole office, we paid 1/5th of the bill while using 1/9th of the initital resources, but it was actually bigger than that. In the larger group one child was autistic, one spouse had breast cancer & one employee had multiple back surgeries, but we all had the same monthly fee & deductible. In short, we paid the same amount into a basic plan that we did not use nearly as often. I know because I was the one reviewing the bills that pre-natal care was an option our office elected to pay for (increasing the bill to everyone) & allergy shots were not. Guess which one of these would have been more use to me personally.
We have since changed our provider (nothing to do with this discrepancy) & are now in a plan that is structured differently, although it does still favor families with two children; after that it is pay-per-head. I laugh when I hear people balk at the bill for socialized medicine; as far as I am concerned we have been paying for a form of socialized medicine all this time.
Airfare - our combined weight is, well, lets just say less than 320lb. (& the average weight for men & women in the country is 167.2, so apparently we are absolutely normal). I don't know about you, but I have never been on a commercial flight when at least one person did not weigh in the ballpark of 300lb. I guarantee you, that person did not pay more for a ticket because of body weight. & yet that person will certainly use (fractionally) more resources, every time they fly. I know some big people (I am related to some big people, I love & respect some big people), & I know they gamble that there will be an empty seat next to them (or between them) & that they will be able to take up more room without having to buy that second ticket.
On one memorable flight, a very large stranger was very angry with me because I would not let him raise the arm of the seat between us & squeeze over. He had trouble accepting he had gambled & lost (are there really people who are OKay with being plastered to one side of their seat so someone they do not know can press in on them?).
Many airlines also used to let you take a baby under a particular age at no charge on a flight, so long as that baby sits in your lap. There was a time I flew regularly & I dreaded being pinned in the window seat with a parent & lap-passenger; every time this happened I missed my connection waiting for mom (it was always mom) to juggle the baby & their luggage. Before you assume I did not offer to help, ask yourself how many dry cleaning bills have you have offered to pay after your kid gorped all over the suit next to you; no one ever offered to pay mine. Several did, however, complain loudly that the flight attendants could be more helpful or plentiful... Counting either pounds or heads, most of the time the average Joe Flyer is getting the short end of this deal & has more or less accepted it.
This one has been bothering me more lately because I often fly with a little dog. She rides in a carrier at my feet. That carrier counts as a piece of luggage in my total luggage allocation, so my only other bag costs extra on some airlines. I would be OKay with this (I guess) if I was not already paying the airline over $100 extra per flight to fly the little dog in the first place. There is an element of 'luxury tax' here, I understand that. What I cannot fathom is the passenger-with-baby already getting a reduced ticket who thinks everyone should pay more so she can have more help personally.
Clothing - that's right, clothing. I wear a size 6.5/7 shoe (sometime as a 7/7.5 if the toe is really, really pointy). I have a good friend who wears a size 11. Her shoes use more material, weigh more (therefore cost more to ship), but cost the same as mine. Ditto on jeans, dresses, blouses, etc. Even at my chubbiest, I have never worn the national average size: a ladies 14. But generally I pay the same price off-the-rack as a person who wears an 18. Next time you are shopping, line up a size 10 against a size 18. Depending on the garment, it will be a minimum 1/3rd larger & probably more.
Food - we actually spend a lot less on food than most people because I do not cook beef; I just cannot take the smell, & we do not eat pork (meat being the big part of most grocery bills). But we do pay the taxes that pay the subsidies for these foods to be shipped from large feed lots to processing plants to our grocery store. I confess, this is one why-am-I-paying-for-that-I-never-use-it policy I would like to see change & I do make every effort to buy anything I can locally (not just food, but books & anything else I can. After food & books, there is not much we buy, now that I think about it). Still, we are paying part of the bill to ship a lot of other people's food in.
I realize this all seems like small change but it adds up. & 360+ days a year, I do not mind (OKay, I did mind Fatso bitching about the arms of the seat cutting into him & suggested that next time he buy two seats & maybe this flight he would be more comfortable in the toilet). But really, I do not mind. I do wish, though that before people started ranting about not wanting to pay part of someone else's bills, that they would consider there may already be some one out there subsidizing theirs.
& if that is not enough to make you think twice, there is one group of people in this country who routinely pay higher taxes (often because they are in higher income brackets), have far fewer children than average (& thus are not using either the schools or family health care services they are paying for), & are rarely married (& so pay more in living expenses generally, which is a double-factor here where there is no income tax, but there is a sales tax) & often do not qualify for any spousal benefits, even if they are not living alone.
Rarely married outside of Massachusetts, that is. What happens to the rest of us the day the gay community says "you know what, you are right it is not fair that we have to pay your bills. So we are setting up our own financial system to meet only our needs. Tah"?
//For the sake of this entry, I started looking up our actual numbers. Using the per head model for health insurance alone (if we had paid 1/9th of the office's total monthly bill instead of 1/5th), we would have saved at least 2k every year (or the insurance company would have made a lot more off the whole office). As for the nickel&dime stuff, I bought fabric to make myself a skirt recently: 1.75 yards at $11 per yard. The same pattern size 18 called for 3.25 yards. At this point I decided it would be better to stop.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Why I stopped making big family dinners
The thing about my In-Laws is they are from another country. And they are everything that means. They talk funny & eat strange foods & most of all know 1,000 people who all talk like they do & get sentimental about that food.
Food is often a stumbling block for us. It is not that they keep kosher, they do not. I have a suspicion I know the food laws better than they do. If they did wake up one morning & decide to keep kosher, that would be probably easier than the system currently in place.
The first time I made dinner for A's parents & aunt & uncle, I learned his uncle was a diet-controlled diabetic about three hours before they showed up. Apparently it was a secret so no one was permitted to discuss it. Everyone knew, of course, but it did not occur to them that I might not.
When they arrived, I had just returned from the grocery store & was only starting to prepare a second dinner. It turned out not to matter much: I had mentioned in passing that I needed the oil changed on my car & A, being action man, decided that dinner-delay was a perfect opportunity to do that chore. I was just glad I was able to get to the store & back before he began to pull out the filter & oil pan. Sometimes I toy with the idea of telling him some chore that needs doing during sex (telling him during sex, not the other thing), but I am too afraid.
The 2nd-to-last-time I made Thanksgiving dinner, I culled through the menu, eliminating anything that had caused offense previously (sweet potatoes), added what had been demanded when it was missing (bread; I had thought stuffing would be an adequate 'bread course'. It was not) & the only comment on the food I can recall is my father-in-law extolling at length about how much sweet potatoes revolted him. Those of you reading closely might have caught that I did not actually serve sweet potatoes. Their absence though, was not enough. They had been there the previous year & the memory lingered...?
I am sure everyone said thank you. I do not remember it, but they must have; they are not cave-dwellers, after all. They just have no idea how much their complaining makes me want to send them to a soup kitchen next time.
Some of their complaints start innocently enough: A's mother was on a strict heart-healthy for years & unlike his uncle, everyone was allowed to know. This meant, however that a separate portion of many dishes had to be made just for her (it really was that strict). I am still not sure how, but when they saw this, other family members decided that they would have preferred to have been offered a choice as well. Now we take them to restaurants.
In fairness, some of their food completely grosses me out as well. Not just veal (the idea of which repels me, although I did avoid talking about it, I just declined a serving). But also other traditional dishes, like mămăligă. I accept that thousands of people love this dish; I think it looks & tastes like hot vomit. A's mother has a special variation: she stirs in feta making it....hot vomit with cheese. I know A misses it & would love to have some; he can go to his mother's for that. Although, they tend to take us to restaurants as well...
//I have been reading quite a bit of Eudora Welty lately. Does it show?
Food is often a stumbling block for us. It is not that they keep kosher, they do not. I have a suspicion I know the food laws better than they do. If they did wake up one morning & decide to keep kosher, that would be probably easier than the system currently in place.
The first time I made dinner for A's parents & aunt & uncle, I learned his uncle was a diet-controlled diabetic about three hours before they showed up. Apparently it was a secret so no one was permitted to discuss it. Everyone knew, of course, but it did not occur to them that I might not.
When they arrived, I had just returned from the grocery store & was only starting to prepare a second dinner. It turned out not to matter much: I had mentioned in passing that I needed the oil changed on my car & A, being action man, decided that dinner-delay was a perfect opportunity to do that chore. I was just glad I was able to get to the store & back before he began to pull out the filter & oil pan. Sometimes I toy with the idea of telling him some chore that needs doing during sex (telling him during sex, not the other thing), but I am too afraid.
The 2nd-to-last-time I made Thanksgiving dinner, I culled through the menu, eliminating anything that had caused offense previously (sweet potatoes), added what had been demanded when it was missing (bread; I had thought stuffing would be an adequate 'bread course'. It was not) & the only comment on the food I can recall is my father-in-law extolling at length about how much sweet potatoes revolted him. Those of you reading closely might have caught that I did not actually serve sweet potatoes. Their absence though, was not enough. They had been there the previous year & the memory lingered...?
I am sure everyone said thank you. I do not remember it, but they must have; they are not cave-dwellers, after all. They just have no idea how much their complaining makes me want to send them to a soup kitchen next time.
Some of their complaints start innocently enough: A's mother was on a strict heart-healthy for years & unlike his uncle, everyone was allowed to know. This meant, however that a separate portion of many dishes had to be made just for her (it really was that strict). I am still not sure how, but when they saw this, other family members decided that they would have preferred to have been offered a choice as well. Now we take them to restaurants.
In fairness, some of their food completely grosses me out as well. Not just veal (the idea of which repels me, although I did avoid talking about it, I just declined a serving). But also other traditional dishes, like mămăligă. I accept that thousands of people love this dish; I think it looks & tastes like hot vomit. A's mother has a special variation: she stirs in feta making it....hot vomit with cheese. I know A misses it & would love to have some; he can go to his mother's for that. Although, they tend to take us to restaurants as well...
//I have been reading quite a bit of Eudora Welty lately. Does it show?
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