tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-142401122024-03-18T16:15:32.535-04:00Well Behaved Women Rarely Make HistoryThe introspective musings of a 30-something Midwesterner who longs for the bright lights and the big city.
Liberal politics, feminism, the abortion debate and general ranting, combined with wit, sarcasm and a touch of honey.
Low-fat and calorie free.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger629125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-5937237211276603852010-02-04T01:56:00.000-05:002010-02-04T11:58:36.380-05:00Moved<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Hey, y'all, I just wanted you to know that I have set up a new blog on WordPress, although I don't have the privacy stuff worked out yet. Here's the URL:</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">http://lucyswellbehaved.wordpress.com</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">It isn't locked down yet, so feel free to browse away. Getting used to the new dashboard interface will take a minute, so bear with me. I am still writing.</span></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com61tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-12212409921008445922010-01-31T21:06:00.002-05:002010-01-31T21:09:10.173-05:00MovingTo wordpress. Some of you who have asked to be white-listed have wordpress blogs yourselves, so that shouldn't be an issue. If you don't have a wordpress account, please know you're not going to be left behind. I just need some more time to figure it all out. I have your e-mail addresses, so please don't panic. And if you haven't sent me an e-mail, but still want to read, please do so asap. <div><br /></div><div>lucyarinATgmailDOTcom</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-35934635785334496982010-01-28T19:28:00.001-05:002010-01-28T19:28:00.070-05:00Down to the wireAnd have I done the tiniest ittyiest bittiest bit of research about moving to another bloghosting site? No, I have not.<div><br /></div><div>Have I attempted to play with the privacy settings here on Blogger? Yeah, a few months ago. I wasn't satisfied with the results and see no reason to ratchet up my stress level in trying to figure it out all over again.</div><div><br /></div><div>What then, kiddies? I just don't know. What I'd like to do is have my own domain and just have some little login/password thingy to see the posts - not an individualized thing, more like everyone who's whitelisted would have the same password - but then people who use a feeder to read, that wouldn't work, would it? Nope, I don't think so. So perhaps the answer is the abbreviated feed that I see Yarn Harlot and Suburban Bliss and Smitten Kitchen are using with some kind of security-blanket (i.e. relatively un-secure-ish) passcode to see the full post. Or...something. Gah.</div><div><br /></div><div>Too bad I have no fucking clue how to accomplish any of that.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>I married a techie, a geek extraordinary, but he doesn't blog and isn't into html. Fix the computer thingamabob with the whizzy-gizzy? Yes. Design a webpage? No. So I'm on my own for that, and I can do some minor html. On the scale of a whole website? Um: no. Yes, yes, there's software, or you can hire someone, but srsly, c'mon. I'm going to pay someone for what I am sure would be sparkley pretty shiny lovely website so that I can write brain droppings? I can't see the smarts in that, especially since I think it would be expensive. All of this with no research, of course. Impressive, yes? (insert massive eye roll here)</div><div><br /></div><div>I'd like to tell you that I'm working behind the scenes to come up with something, but not so far. I'd <i>love</i> to tell you about the project that has been occupying most of my waking hours and a few of my sleeping ones (dreams about being in jail, in Sweden - dream entirely <i>in Swedish</i> - with the same deadlines/issues hanging over my head...wtf?) for the past couple of weeks, but that's work territory. Let's just say that my OCD manifestations of hyper-organized, planned, color-coded, alphabetized within-an-inch-of-its-life have been soothed by this giant project, and that after work, short of figuring out some dinner, minor keeping the kitchen cleaned up and sleeping, I haven't been doing anything but that project for weeks now. So the blog's housekeeping issues have been back-burnered and I don't know when they won't be on the back burner, but I still plan to lock it down (somehow) by Feb 1.</div><div><br /></div><div>DH is in Cal-ee-forn-eye-aye, and I can't say squat about <i>that</i> either, his reason for being there, that is. I can tell you that I am rather inordinately pleased about having the house to myself for a few days and feeling mildly/moderately guilty about being glad he's away. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps I'll have some time this weekend to get it all sorted. Don't worry, those of you who sent me an e-mail or are Google "followers" will be kept informed whatever I end up doing.</div><div><br /></div><div>What's going on in your world? </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-38046769679752614652010-01-26T20:08:00.000-05:002010-01-26T20:08:00.166-05:00ProvacativeAnd not in a titillating sense, either. <div><br /></div><div>I'm intentionally coy about where I live in Ohio because I'm a paranoid freak. So I don't write about local events without obfuscating the details, or being so general that what I'm talking about could be anywhere in America. Mostly.</div><div><br /></div><div>Last week, an 80 year old woman was murdered here. Sadly, homicide isn't limited to the youthful people on this planet. It is something that knows no real boundaries, color, ethnicity, age, sexuality, gender. Far too many people are murdered every day in the United States. What makes this one unique? Ahh, that opens a Pandora's Box, and requires me to give enough detail for my location to be given away. But I'm feeling particularly strong about this, and hell, going private in a week, so why not.</div><div><br /></div><div>The location of the murder is part of what makes the crime rather heinous, even for someone who possesses no spiritual beliefs. She was shot in the parking lot of her church. Why does that make it worse? As an atheist, I don't think the fact that it was at church is supposed to matter to me. But it does. That bothers me, because would it be any less terrible if she was shot in the parking lot of a grocery store, or her own driveway? No, of course not. Hell no. But it seems "worse" somehow, that it was her church's parking lot, right after mass.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I grew up in a world of devout Catholics, where lots of bubbas (the word means 'old lady' or 'granny,' and is an affectionate term rather than derogatory. Eastern European in origin, but I've only ever heard it used here) go to church every day. Devout Catholics attend Mass daily. Mostly it is the elderly or kids in Catholic school who hold fast to that, but there are wide swaths of the Catholic population who do attend mass more often than just on Sundays. It never really made a lot of sense to me, but even when I was a kid a lot of the religious instructors I had answered my "Why?" questions with "Because it is." or my favorite, "Because God is." (hulp!)</div><div><br /></div><div>This lady was one of those bubbas, attending nearly every mass her church offered, all year long. In that congregation, a pillar. Or as much as women are allowed to be pillars in the Catholic church. (Nope, can't shake that venom over the role of women in Catholicism, even for a second. Sorry.) Most likely, before mass, she had all of $12 in her purse. After the collection plate was passed, she probably had less than 5.</div><div><br /></div><div>You know someone like this, I promise. She's elderly, widowed, kids who are adults now moved away years ago in search of jobs. Her house is spotless, but hasn't changed in 30 years. She's involved in every society and group the church has; altar guild, bible study, and the like. The church is her entire life, all of her socializing stems from it and is related to it. She bemoans the state of "kids today" but is also the first to reach out to hold a baby.</div><div><br /></div><div>Police suspect that robbery was the cause; she was killed for the contents of her purse.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>I joke a lot about my hometown having 2 degrees of separation, rather than the urban legend of 6. And it plays out all the time. This is a small place and everyone seems to know everyone else. For all that, though, I didn't know this woman personally. One of my co-workers did, and he summed up the mood over this act particularly aptly yesterday, saying that he wasn't so sure he wanted to be part of the human race if these are the things we're collectively capable of. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sad, wise, and true words.</div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-91572625996058738982010-01-24T11:09:00.003-05:002010-01-24T11:48:44.023-05:00Wow. Who knew that writing about babies would bring so many to the conversation? Thanks for the validation, y'all. I mean, I know my path is right for me, but I get so much negative feedback in the world outside the computer about being childless that I forget sometimes that there are plenty others who feel as I do.<div><br /></div><div>Last night, I went out to dinner with my in-laws to celebrate DH's birthday. I was thinking about the baby stuff again, because no sooner was our party seated than another large table right next to us was also seated with 3 kids all under the age of two. Baby-baby, a 1 year old, and the oldest wasn't, I think, older than about 18 months. DH and I commenced with the eye-rolling immediately; dinner with his family has its own set of...um.... <i>interesting</i/> fallout, and 3 screaming kids don't add good things to that already awkward ambiance. I ordered a second drink.</div><div><br /></div><div>But my worries were for naught, all of the parents looked after their charges and it was early enough in the evening that no one was falling asleep at the table or having a meltdown because they were hungry. Plus everyone at our table mostly behaved, so that was a good thing too. </div><div><br /></div><div>................</div><div><br /></div><div>What I set out to write about today, though, was a bitching about the weather post. It is January, it is Ohio, it is cold, grey, overcast, and raining. Not news. Also? Bo-ring. I'd rather have the snow, honestly. When it snows, the world is enveloped in white silence, a hush that quiets the traffic and blankets the world with a pretty new coat. Everything looks clean, white-washed. When the snow melts, and it is too warm to snow, we get this super-ugly dingy greyness to everything. No surprise, I don't like it much. I'm thinking of my parents in Florida with envy in my heart; "winter" there means that it might get around 4o at night. Although they did have that long cold snap this year, so perhaps there are places where it is worse to be than grey Ohio at the moment.</div><div><br /></div><div>......................</div><div><br /></div><div>Like, um, Haiti? </div><div><br /></div><div>How incredibly useless it feels to just donate some money to the cause. I've done that, given to both the Red Cross and MSF, but I'd like to do more. Sadly, I don't speak French or Creole, and would therefore be useless as a translator; I have no disaster recovery skills, no search and rescue skills, no medical training, nothing to offer to the relief effort <i>other</i> than money, so that's what I've done.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Yarn Harlot has been keeping track of her readers who have donated to MSF by way of having them send her an e-mail with their donation amount, and I'm astonished to read today that the amount is over 1 million now. Right before the earthquake, it was around 500 or 600K, so that's pretty impressive in a week's time.</div><div><br /></div><div>How sadly arrogant, then, to be whining about the weather and the cold when I have a roof over my head, enough food to eat, and your basic 1st world complaints? Clean water? Turn on the tap at any sink in the house and I've got that. Sanitation? I pay a monthly bill for that, and when the toilet flushes or the washing machine drains, I don't have to think about cleaning up waste water. Food? The mega-mart two miles from my house has more food on its shelves than many will see in their entire lives.</div><div><br /></div><div>You hear that? It's the world's smallest violin playing "my heart cries for you, pampered princess".</div><div><br /></div><div>................................</div><div><br /></div><div>Someone asked recently if I'll be talking about what I do for a living when I take Well-Behaved private next month. I don't know. I'm so afraid to do that; right now for fear that my employer wouldn't like my writings about work (see: Armstrong, Heather: dooced) when this is public. If it goes private, though, theoretically the employer would never see it. The thing is that once something is out on teh intertubes, it is no longer private at all. If you don't want the world to know, what the hell are you doing writing an online journal any way? Along the same line, will I stop writing as Lucy and use my real name? Hm. There's a lot left to decide.</div><div><br /></div><div>.........</div><div><br /></div><div>Right now, though, I've been informed that BBC America is showing a Top Gear marathon this afternoon, so I'm going to drink hot cocoa, sit in front of the telly, knit, and get the laundry done. Such an exciting life.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-149157654874383772010-01-19T20:08:00.002-05:002010-01-20T10:30:04.074-05:00To spawn or not to spawnHas never really been a question for me. I've never wanted children. Even as a little girl, when you might hear a child say that they want to be a mommy, I never did.<div><br /></div><div>My mother remembers with outright glee a telephone call I made to her when I was about 14, whilst babysitting a colicky 18 month old; I couldn't get the kid to stop crying, and it had made me near-hysterical. "No teenage pregnancy for me, Mom," I shouted over the screeching. "I can't handle this!!"</div><div><br /></div><div>(Nevermind that I was positively sure that sex basically equaled death, in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, or that my religion taught that sex outside of marriage equaled HELL...)</div><div><br /></div><div>Not that I waited, but that's not the point here. I decided - definitively - sometime in my late teens that motherhood wasn't for me, and I wasn't interested. DH and I have been together for a loooong time, and there were a few family members (on the Catholic side of the fam, ffs) who pressured us to have kids even before we were married. I met him when I was 19; I could say then, with absolute certainty: "I'm too young to be a mother."</div><div><br /></div><div>But as I've gotten older, more and more people - some outright strangers - apparently think it is OK to question my judgement and badger the living hell out of me about having a child. Let me say this:</div><div><br /></div><div>Does.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not.</div><div><br /></div><div>Want.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now before you tell me, "methinks the lady doth protest too much," please keep in mind that my frustration with this boils over and spills out once a year or once every few years, and today? Is <i>that</i> day.</div><div><br /></div><div>The anger comes from one place; how the bloody living hell is it anyone else's <b>business</b> if I have a child or not? Simply, and truthfully, it isn't. But when you meet someone new, and they ask if you're married (DH and I do not wear wedding rings, so it isn't obvious from the get-go) the very next question is if you have children. When you answer in the negative, it isn't uncommon for the questioner to ask, "Why not?!?" as if it is positively shocking that you don't, because somehow it is your sacred duty to pop out a kid or two if you've bothered to get married.</div><div><br /></div><div>Um: No.</div><div><br /></div><div>Having a child is a major, life-altering decision, one that in my ever-so-humble, ought not be entered into lightly. In fact, I think people ought to think long and hard about ALL of the impacts a child will have on their lives. Financial, emotional, physical....those 3 are the merest tip of the iceberg. But getting pregnant is very easy, and I think it is rare that people think much about it; you grow up, go to school, go to college, get married, have children. Period; that's just how it is done. </div><div><br /></div><div>I belong to a few Childfree or childless by choice groups (aka and hereafter CFBC) and something that those groups point out often is that most people don't really consider the fact that there IS a choice there; married does not need to equal with children.</div><div><br /></div><div>BTW, this isn't about abortion or my usual reproductive rights spiel; or at least, not exactly. "Reproductive rights" to me means - in part - that a woman has the right to choose for herself if she will get pregnant or not, no matter what her religion or social norms expect.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm no longer a member of the Catholic Church, so what the Popes say no longer means much to me other than the fact that their writings usually piss me the hell off. But when I was Catholic, something Pope John Paul II wrote made me sad; by choosing to work outside the home and not have children, the Church thinks that I am "denying" my "essential femininity". Hogwash. To read this outrageous bullshit for yourself, <a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_15081988_mulieris-dignitatem_en.html">click here</a> and start reading at Chapter VI, part 17.</div><div><br /></div><div>So society thinks I'm weird for not having kids. Christianity (and, I'm sure, all of the other major world religions also push for procreation; who will carry the Word and the Truth if there are not new Believers being created constantly?) thinks I ought to be having kids. What <b><i>I</i></b><i></i> think, apparently, is completely immaterial. No matter that I'd be the one going through pregnancy - which, btw, scares the living hell out of me - or that I'd be the one going through labor - also, quite terrifying, tyvm - and no matter at all that the primary caregiver of the new baby would be, again, me. Nope. What you want, little lady, is far less important than what the Church and society expect from you.</div><div><br /></div><div>I like my independence. I like having time to myself. I like sleep. Kiss all of that good-bye the minute a baby enters the picture.</div><div><br /></div><div>What's gotten in to me that has me so all-fired angry? A recent <a href="http://www.drphil.com/slideshows/slideshow/5530/?id=5530&slide=1&showID=1384&preview=&versionID=">episode</a> of Dr. Phil, where he questions a CFBC couple about the fact that they may come to regret not having kids, and that they ought to re-visit the issue every year to make sure that they're still "on the same page," as if the childfree don't know their own minds, and must second-guess themselves at every opportunity.</div><div><br /></div><div>Allow me to repeat myself -</div><div><br /></div><div>Um: no.</div><div><br /></div><div>Isn't it a <i>good</i> thing that I already know - before ever being preggo for even a second - that motherhood is not the path for me? Isn't it a <i>good</i> thing that I'm quite cognizant of the fact that motherhood is something I'd be terrible at, and thus should not attempt? I'm OK with that fact; it doesn't pain me in the least to admit that I'm not motherhood material. In fact, I think that it is a fantastic thing that I'm cognizant of that fact before I even <i>think</i> of contemplating parenthood.</div><div><br /></div><div>Once you have a child, you are then responsible for that child for the rest of your life. Let me say that again. For the rest of your life. To the end of your born days. It isn't like buying a home, or even getting married; once that child is born, there is NO going back. You can't decide to just up not be a parent one day. </div><div><br /></div><div>Should anyone be entering into that lightly? I think not.</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, Lucy, you're thinking. You say nothing of the joys and the love and the wonderful things that children bring to your life. The pain of labor is fleeting; the joy lasts much longer. Perhaps. I don't deny that babies are adorable and smooshable and kissable, and that kids can be an absolute delight. On the contrary; toddlers, in particular, fascinate me. You can SEE them learning every day, watch their language development, see the little wheels turning as they pick up a new word or skill. That's great. But I can experience all of that without being a mother myself, and that's A-OK with me!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-11300623258415011972010-01-16T21:18:00.004-05:002010-01-16T21:36:47.739-05:00Thanks!To those of you that have e-mailed me to let me know you'd like to continue following my exploits. I've been really touched by the compliments too. It means quite a lot to me. I hope this isn't too weird internet-stalker-y, or just plain odd...but I'll probably keep those e-mails for days when I'm rough around the edges, because they really gave me warm fuzzies. And a few new blogs for my blogroll, too. <div><br /></div><div>I've spent a lot of time contemplating exactly how I'm going to manage to do this; and until I spend a bunch of time playing around with a few other blog hosting sites I won't know for sure, but I think I might end up moving to another interface like Typepad or Wordpress or quite possibly my own domain. I dunno.</div><div><br /></div><div>Regardless, the offer still stands. As of Feb 1, 2010, Well Behaved will be private. If you would like to continue to read it, please share your e-mail address with me by sending a message to lucyarinATgmailDOTcom so that you can be white-listed. Thanks.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-80994958417498466712010-01-14T18:49:00.001-05:002010-01-14T18:49:00.105-05:00Pondering changesI've never kept it a secret that I have a blog. I've never shouted it from the rooftops, either. Thus far, this has worked for me.<div><br /></div><div>But things are a-changing, and unfortunately, I'm a-changing too.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you read this blog regularly, and would like to continue to do so, please send an e-mail to lucyarinATgmailDOTcom and let me know. Why? Because as of February 1, Well Behaved will be private. I do not intend to stop writing, and I do not intend to delete the blog, but it can no longer be public. I know that there are readers out there who I know personally, and a great many more that I've never met face-to-face. Whether you know me or not is not the criteria for being given access, though. Interest in what I write about is the key. I'll be happy to grant access to just about anyone who is willing to delurk just enough to tell me that they're here.</div><div><br /></div><div>It saddens me to take this step, because I'd like to believe that some random person out there might read or have read about my struggles with depression and sought help after recognizing themselves in one of my posts. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd like to believe that by being open and honest with the world about my mental illness that I've helped to destigmatize it a little. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd like to believe that my political rantings inspired someone to get involved with the ongoing and difficult struggle for women's reproductive rights and the right to equal pay. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd like to believe that someone was inspired by my writings about exercise and weight loss, inspired enough to get out there and take better care of themselves. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd like to believe that by writing about Sweden, I've piqued someone's interest in the world beyond their backyard. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd also like to believe in leprechauns, unicorns, dragons, fairies, dryads, psychic powers, happily-ever-after, and that everyone I meet is genuine and honest.</div><div><br /></div><div>Lest you think that some personal tragedy has befallen me, or that my blog has somehow gotten me "in trouble," allow me to reassure you on that point. Not at all. There are two forces at work here, and they're both vaguely work-related, so I'm not going into extreme detail. My work forces me to be a public person, someone who is recognizable as a representative of the organization. As I meet more and more people, and the things I get involved in become ever more expansive, I'm faced with the growing realization that I don't really want everyone I meet to be able to read about some of the soul-searing stuff I've written here. The second reason is that to date, there's no "official" policy about social networking and web 2.0 applications, but that day is coming. Do I like it? Not really. But I do like being employed, and I love what I do. That makes the way forward absolutely crystal clear.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-22441669861724230962010-01-13T18:49:00.000-05:002010-01-13T18:49:00.320-05:00Well, well, well<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Color me stunned. The plea I made a few days ago to global cosmetics company Eucerin wasn't just a lament here at Well Behaved, I also sent them an e-mail through their 'contact us' button on their website. And lookee here, they wrote back to me. This popped up in my lucyarinATgmailDOTcom inbox. I've been having technical difficulties of the Blackberry variety with the lucy addy, and so have been trying to remember to log in and check it. 'Course, I don't remember to do that daily. Copied and pasted, here's their response. Please excuse the Swedish in the headers, I'll translate if it seems needed.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><table class="MsoNormalTable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="0" style="width:0in;border-collapse:collapse;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <tbody><tr> <td width="246" nowrap="" valign="top" style="width:184.5pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <table class="MsoNormalTable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="0" style="width:0in;border-collapse:collapse;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <tbody><tr> <td width="10" nowrap="" valign="top" style="width:.1in;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="right" style="text-align:right"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">ifrån</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td width="203" valign="top" style="width:152.25pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" spt="75" preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"> </v:formulas> <v:path extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" connecttype="rect"> <o:lock ext="edit" aspectratio="t"> </v:shapetype><v:shape id="upi" spid="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" style="'width:.75pt;height:.75pt'"> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\MBOWEN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.gif" href="http://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif"> </v:shape><![endif]--><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><img width="1" height="1" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\MBOWEN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.gif" style="border-style:initial;border-color:initial;outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial;outline-color: initial;background-image:initial; background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial;background-position:initial initial" class="de QrVm3d" name="upi" jid="consumerrelations@bdfusa.com" shapes="upi" />consumerrelations@bdfusa.com</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="mso-cell-special:placeholder;border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in" width="32"><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></p></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10" nowrap="" valign="top" style="width:.1in;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"><span style="cursor:auto"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" align="right" style="text-align:right"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">till</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> </span></td> <td width="203" colspan="2" valign="top" style="width:152.25pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="_x0000_i1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" style="'width:.75pt;height:.75pt'"> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\MBOWEN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.gif" href="http://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif"> </v:shape><![endif]--><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><img width="1" height="1" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\MBOWEN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.gif" /></span><span style="border-style:initial;border-color:initial;outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial;outline-color: initial;background-repeat:initial; background-attachment:initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial; background-position:initial initial;float:left" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_Rating1_Rating1_Star_1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> lucyarin<br /></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10" nowrap="" valign="top" style="width:.1in;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"><span style="cursor:auto"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" align="right" style="text-align:right"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">datum</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> </span></td> <td width="203" colspan="2" valign="top" style="width:152.25pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="_x0000_i1027" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" style="'width:.75pt;height:.75pt'"> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\MBOWEN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.gif" href="http://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif"> </v:shape><![endif]--><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><img width="1" height="1" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\MBOWEN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.gif" shapes="_x0000_i1027" />11 januari 2010 11.00</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10" nowrap="" valign="top" style="width:.1in;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"><span style="cursor:auto"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" align="right" style="text-align:right"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">ämne (subject)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> </span></td> <td width="203" colspan="2" valign="top" style="width:152.25pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="_x0000_i1028" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" style="'width:.75pt;height:.75pt'"> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\MBOWEN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.gif" href="http://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif"> </v:shape><![endif]--><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><img width="1" height="1" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\MBOWEN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.gif" shapes="_x0000_i1028" />000643344A Eucerin product</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" style="padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></o:p></p> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td nowrap="" valign="top" style="padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="right" style="text-align:right"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">11 jan (2 dagar sedan)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td nowrap="" valign="top" style="padding:0in 0in 0in 0in"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="right" style="text-align:right"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> (2 days ago) </span></o:p></p> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Hello Lucy,<br /><br />Thank you for your E-mail regarding a Eucerin Lip product. We're sorry to disappoint you, but this product is currently not sold in the </span></span> <st1:country-region><st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">U.S.</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> by Beiersdorf.<br /><br />While Beiersdorf markets a wide assortment of products throughout the world, the products can vary country to country based on consumer preferences and brand development within each country's market.<br /><br />Our products, both in the </span></span> <st1:country-region><st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">U.S.</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> and other countries, are only sold through retail, wholesale and internet retail channels. We do not sell our products directly to consumers at this time.<br /><br />We are aware of </span></span> <st1:country-region><st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">U.S.</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> internet retailers which sell some of the German Beiersdorf products: </span></span><a href="http://www.smallflower.com"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">www.smallflower.com</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">, </span></span><a href="http://www.eurobeautymart.com"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">www.eurobeautymart.com</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> and </span></span><a href="http://www.germandeli.com"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">www.germandeli.com</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">. You may want to check these sites.<br /><br />For more information about Eucerin, please visit our website </span></span> <a href="http://www.EucerinUS.com"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">www.EucerinUS.com</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">.<br /><br />Please call us at 1-800-227-4703 if you have any other questions or comments. Our phone lines are open Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 4:30 pm EST.<br /><br />We appreciate your taking the time to express your interest in this product. Your feedback helps us identify those products most desired by our consumers. Thank you again for your E-mail and your interest in Beiersdorf's products.<br /><br />Cordially,<br /><br />Sam<br />Consumer Relations<br />Beiersdorf Inc.</span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span></o:p></p></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I am really surprised that I got a response. My plea to them wasn't particularly eloquent, just mentioned I'd purchased it in Sweden and want WANT WANT! Of course, none of their 3 suggestions actually sells the stuff, but I did find a Belgian company that sells it at the "right" price. They're even willing to ship to the US; as long as you place a minimum order of 130 </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">€</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> . That's "only" about $200. ($188.62, to be precise.) GAH!</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">So you're wondering, of course, why I don't just harass the fam or good friends in Sweden to hunt me up some? Mostly due to the hassle factor involved. I know, I wouldn't hesitate to ask one of my Yankee or Canadian friends to pick something up for me; and as I pointed out the other day, Swedes have no option BUT Apoteket for prescriptions and some OTC stuff, so it isn't like asking someone to run to Apoteket is going out of their way. But then it needs to be shipped and...and...I'm running out of justifications, aren't I? Hmmm. <i>Du, Maman...kan du gör mej en tjänst?</i> (Oh, Swedish Mama...can you do me a favor?)</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-44162984946956945462010-01-11T21:06:00.000-05:002010-01-12T14:19:54.261-05:00THE City<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">To eclipse all other cities. U2 has a great song about the city on their </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">All That You Can't Leave Behind</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> album that I like to listen to on the train from the airport to my sister's place.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:11px;"><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But you've got an unquenchable thirst for New York<br /><br />New York, New York<br /></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i></i></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></i></span><i><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-family:Arial;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">New York</span></span></span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-family:Arial;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, New York<br /><br />In the stillness of the evening<br />When the sun has had its day<br />I heard your voice a-whispering<br />Come away now<br /><br />New, New York<br />New, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-family:Arial;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">New York</span></span></span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-family:Arial;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Granted, I haven't seen all of the cities that the world has to offer, but NYC is THE city if you ask me, one of those places that I feel like I've come "home" when I get there. It is magical. Really, simply, magic.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I was in New York over the New Year holiday, with my two sisters for a few days. We had a great time. Mere words really aren't adequate for what I felt when the two of them called me and told me that they'd purchased a plane ticket for me for my birthday - stunned, and shocked, those both fit in there somewhere. Happy, excited.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The trip started out with me leaving my home at 3 AM. Yes, 3 AM. {shudder} That's an hour I don't really want to see, no matter if it is when I'm getting up or when I'm going to sleep. I didn't get more than about 5 miles from my house when my Blackberry rang with an automated call from the airline informing me that my flight had been cancelled and that they'd automatically booked me on another flight later in the day. The arrangements they made on my behalf were not satisfactory, and that's not just me being bitchy. The original plan was a direct flight from Pittsburgh, PA, to JFK airport in New York. Straight, uneventful, something I've done many times. The new arrangements had me flying from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, Ohio, and from Cincinnati to New York, landing in NYC at 4PM instead of the 8AM originally planned. A near 300 mile westward detour to go to the east coast. alksdfjl;akfhakjlhg. WHAT? Who thought </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">that</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> was a good idea, really?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">At 3 AM, there aren't too many customer service agents available at the world's largest airline. The first one I got when I called to protest this ridiculous re-arrangement was not helpful, or nice. I ended up telling her I'd have to call back when I was less upset, because she kept telling me that there was NOTHING that could be done, my only option, the ONLY option available was to do this 300 mile, 8 hour detour. C'mon. You're the largest airline </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">in the world</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. That can't be the only option. (You'll note I'm not using the name of the airline here, but I suppose you could figure it out.)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; ">I had stopped my car to talk to them on the telephone. I decided that the smart thing to do was to go to the airport and argue my point with someone face to face rather than on a phone while I was driving. So I did. The ticket agents were far nicer than the phone people, and they solved my problem in a matter of seconds, getting me on a direct flight that arrived in the city only a few hours later than originally scheduled. Deeeeeep breath....</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The funny thing about my observation that the city is magic is that the realization of that usually comes back to me when I am in a subway station. Not the most beautiful places in the world, New York subway stations. Interesting places, yes. Beautiful, no. Not usually. But many of them have been around for a long, long time. Some of them have white tiled walls. White tile; laid by hand once upon a time. The original tunnels were dug </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">by hand</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. Someone, somewhere, planned the routes and conceived the idea for this system, which has grown beyond that concept's wildest dreams. Someone now, today, right this minute is managing the routes the trains take; there are many routes that use the same rails as another route, and do you hear about subway trains crashing in New York City? No, you do not. Because it doesn't happen. Someone else plans the routes the buses take, plans for re-routing the trains when there is construction or a bottleneck. Sure, all of that is math, and some big, BIG brains. But it is also magic.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; ">I've never heard the noise that the trains make anywhere else in the world. I've been on trains; Amtrack here in the states and SJ all over Sweden, even once in France. I've been in subway systems; Washington DC, Stockholm, London, Paris, Budapest, even in Pittsburgh, PA. None of them sound like the MTA. (Metro Transit Authority, the "real" name of the system. Don't believe me? Their website is www.mta.info.) That ka-thunk, ka-thunk sound that the trains make when you're riding in one, the screeeeeeching slowdown and halt at the station or mid-line to let an express train thunder by, the muffled and mostly incomprehensible announcements at each station that end with "Stand clear of the closing doors!", the peculiar smell underground, the relief from the wind in the winter and refreshing cool in the summer when you step on to an air-conditioned train...magic.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What did we do, where did we go? I think for once I'll be circumspect and keep my private life, well, private. I treasured spending the time with my sisters. "Sad" doesn't really describe the feeling when I have to leave them behind. I'm jealous, a very ugly jealous, of the time that the two of them spend together, and again, I'm not getting into detail here, but they get to spend more time with each other than I ever get to spend with each of them, and I'm super-jealous of that. When I say goodbye to them, I don't know when I'll see either of them again. And that? Sucks. *sniff*</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Pity party for one, please.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">OK, since I don't like to end posts on a downward note, I will end with a yarn story. I dragged my non-knitter sisters to <a href="http://www.purlsoho.com/purl">Purl</a>, one of the knitting world's super-star-stores. Not for the size - I think my dining room is bigger than that store - but for the amazing things they make from the yarns they sell (the blog is <a href="http://www.purlbee.com/the-purl-bee/category/knitting">The Purl Bee</a>). I'm working on an <a href="http://www.purlbee.com/april-showers-scarf/2008/3/29/april-showers-scarf-materials.html">April Showers Scarf</a> for myself and genuinely love the pattern (although not all of the stitching...knitting 4 stitches together every 7 rows is a <b><i>MASSIVE</i></b> hassle) and had decided that I wanted to make the same scarf for my sisters, with their choice of yarn color. So on the coldest day of the year (to date - it was January 2) we trudged more than a mile out of our way so that my sisters could sit <i>outside</i> on a bench in front of the super-crowded and VERY tiny store while I hunted down the yarns for their scarves. (<a href="http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/yarndetail/1408">This one</a> and <a href="http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/yarndetail/3846">this one</a> in a lime green for one sister and in an electric blue for the other sister if you're curious.) Near-pneumonia was avoided, however, by immediately hieing ourselves to the closest Indian restaurant in the vicinity for emergency infusions of curry!</span></span></p><p></p></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-58530982362325444902010-01-08T18:00:00.000-05:002010-01-08T18:00:02.740-05:00Lots<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">I spent a long weekend in New York City over the New Year holiday, and there is lots I'd like to write about from that trip, but the posts are still growing from germination of an idea to text. Today, for my first ever-so-auspicious post of 2010, I'd like to rant and rave for a minute about a global cosmetics company.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Not surprisingly, this story has a twist of Sweden in it.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Sweden has social medicine. They figured out the whole health care mess a generation ago, and while their system isn't perfect, it is a damn sight better than the one we're used to. Even if it seems a little odd to a die-hard Yankee capitalist.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">So let's set out a little scenario. Imagine a 24 year old Swedish bloke, let's call him Magnus. (Yep, that really is a common male name. I love it. Were I ever going to have kids {NOT} I'd fight DH long and hard for that name for a boy!) Anyhow, Magnus is playing football with some friends on a sunny Saturday afternoon in the park, and he takes a hard fall and hears an ominous <i>crack</i> when he lands hard on his elbow. His friends bundle him into a car and thence to an emergency room, where he's fixed up with a cast, good as new in 6-8 weeks, and he walks out of the hospital with a <i>prescription</i> for painkillers.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Thus far, it isn't all that different than what we'd do here in the US, right? Except for the fact that it didn't matter if Magnus is independently wealthy, or if Magnus had the money for the ER or not, because he's got health insurance provided by virtue of <b>being a citizen of Sweden.</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Ah, sorry. Getting a little sidetracked.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">So to get his painkillers, Magnus needs to visit a pharmacy - or chemist if you're a Brit - and to do that, he has one and only one option: the state-run pharmacy Apoteket. Every tiny hamlet has its own Apoteket, even if it is only a kiosk inside a grocery store. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">At 17, I stayed the bloody hell out of Apoteket, sure that someone would demand to see my health insurance card and that I'd be "in trouble" for going someplace a non-citizen shouldn't go. Hey, it made sense to me at 17. I didn't want to get sent home for any reason, so I stayed away.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Of course at 35, I have no such compunction, and I've learned well that either by looking like you know what you're doing or playing dumb, you can get away with a lot. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">I was in several of the Apoteket stores this year; the trouble started in a town on Sweden's southeast coast, Ystad. Spring allergies were in full swing, and I think we (part of the team) wandered in there in search of nasal spray or something like it. At the till, I spied several kinds of lip balm and picked up two of them; one made by ACO (Never heard of it? Don't worry, me neither.) and one made by Eucerin.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">I tossed them both in my bag, and I think I used the Eucerin once before leaving Sweden. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">I should have purchased 20 or 50 or 300 of them, however many it would take to last me until I can go back to Sweden, because this is bar none the best lip balm I've ever used. It has NO flavor. None. Not even a whiff. I truly despise cherry or mint or vanilla or wtfever flavors are added to lip balm. Ditto camphor, which seems to be in every single "healing" lip balm. Just no. Leave that stuff out.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">This stuff works fantastically. It doesn't bother my skin. (I've had issues lately with peeling lips from every freaking lipstick I put on, ugh.)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Since I didn't figure out until a month or so after I came home that this stuff was the bee's knees, I didn't start looking for it right away. When I did go a-hunting, imagine my great shock to discover that Eucerin doesn't sell Lip Active in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Ireland, or anyplace else that I could possibly get it from. I can't even find the stuff online with just Google. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">I tried Amazon. No dice. I tried going to Apokteket's website, and just like the Bliw soap I wanted, I can't find a single Swedish vendor who is willing to sell to the US. They're polite, of course, but they explain that due to the US's complete pain in the arse border control, they can't guarantee shipments, ended up refunding a bunch of prior customers' money, and thus they quit doing it when it became no longer cost effective.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">eBay! eBay would have it, right?? They'd have to. There has to be someone, somewhere in the eBay universe that would have a mad desire to sell cosmetics available only in Europe to the rest of the world, right? Indeed, there is. In Sweden, I paid about 25:- SEK, about $3.50 for my tube of Lip Active. On eBay, I can pick up a tube of Lip Active from <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/EUCERIN-Ph5-Sensitive-skin-LIP-active-Protector-Labial_W0QQitemZ310179894639QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item483829956f#ht_3060wt_887">a seller in Thailand</a> who is willing to part with it for merely $11.39 plus shipping, plus insurance.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">Now I understand that a global cosmetics company has a lot more things to think about - like protesters and animal testing, or, um, profits - than what mix of products they offer to which countries, frustrating as that understanding is. They don't care much what <i>I</i> want, one individual consumer me. But dammit, I want more of that stuff before I run out of what I have. I've got at least 3 if not 4 months more of winter here in Ohia, and even when every lipstick I touch ISN'T making my lips peel, they still get chapped a lot in the winter.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">I also understand that paying $11.39 plus shipping, plus insurance, is one hell of a lot cheaper than a plane ticket. I do. I just don't want to part with $11.39 for something that I 'know' costs $3.50.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';">So, Eucerin....what do you say?? Please?? Start selling Lip Active in the US?</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-32334517218422261062009-12-28T18:36:00.000-05:002009-12-28T18:36:00.710-05:00Closer creepingDecember 23....can't remember giving anyone anything.<div><br /></div><div>December 24 (which, incidentally, is my birthday) I gave solid lotions to my relatives on my mom's side of the family. Gave a BIG hug to one of my favorite cousins, who I had not seen in more than a year.</div><div><br /></div><div>December 25 gave presents to my MIL and FIL. As much as I would like to rant about various things that happened on 12/25, I'm giving you all the gift of not ranting. (Or at least not much. Not today.)</div><div><br /></div><div>December 26 gave one unlucky soul a copy of <i>The Catholic's Guide to Marriage</i> at a Yankee Swap; much amusement was shared.</div><div><br /></div><div>December 27 I met up with an old, old friend and bought her a coffee...but more valuable was the time we spent together.</div><div><br /></div><div>December 28...as noted above, I am gifting teh interweb publics by not ranting and raving about people being <i>more than an hour late</i> to a dinner which <i>they had set the time for</i> and then <i>not apologizing for being late</i> and <i>complaining that the food was not at an optimum temperature</i> ....breathe.....breathe....</div><div><br /></div><div>I am also finally giving my niece & nephew their Christmas presents, an event much delayed due to further idiocy that I won't be telling y'all stories about any time soon.....</div><div><br /></div><div>Stay tuned for more entertainment and holiday cheer!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-65456278263349377802009-12-22T04:25:00.000-05:002009-12-22T10:01:34.345-05:00On not quite getting there...horseshoes & hand grenades.A-yup. I didn't <i>quite</i> succeed with NaBloPoMo this time around. Dropped the ball 'round about December 17th (6-ish days ago) and didn't pick it back up.<div><br /></div><div>Let's see if I can stretch my memory back that far for the mitzvahs as they happened.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dec 17; had a hair appointment - gave my hairdresser and my friend who does my nails solid lotions.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dec 18th; ummm....took the day off. Went shopping. Gave various and sundry merchants money. Does that count? Not exactly. This was a special shopping expedition, not someplace I usually go, but it was a planned one.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dec 19th; cleaned my house, did laundry. Oooo, here's one; baked cookies for Joe the magic massotherapist, my hairdresser & manicurist friend.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dec 20th; baked cookies with my niece & nephew. This counts because I know that what I'm giving them by doing this every year is fond memories and good times. (Plus the occasional bellyache...I let them eat as much cookie dough as they want to!)</div><div><br /></div><div>Dec 21; staff holiday party. Gave the big boss a bottle of <a href="http://cherryheering.com/">Cherry Heering</a>, a delightful and Danish liqueur. </div><div><br /></div><div>Dec 22; holiday party for a professional networking group I belong to. Something I am not looking forward to, quite honestly. While the group as a whole is not enjoyable, there are members of the group I like quite well, and I'll end up buying a round of drinks.</div><div><br /></div><div>So indeed, I've managed to mostly keep up the spirit of the mitzvah even whilst not managing to write about it daily. I do like this idea quite a lot, that one ought to give something to someone every day.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-21842452866153500622009-12-16T19:09:00.003-05:002009-12-16T19:26:40.614-05:00The true testI don't know which wise sage said it; but it is true nonetheless. "A person who is nice to you, but is not nice to the waiter, is not a nice person."<div><br /></div><div>I'm skirting a boundary that I don't like to cross here, carefully. And while I'm writing about someone I know now, it applies to any past or future acquaintances, folks who make civilized life possible for the rest of us, as <a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/dirtyjobs/bio/bio.html">Mike Rowe</a> says so cutely. </div><div><br /></div><div>I got stopped in the hallway the other day, and the person who stopped me asked where I'd gotten the 'lip balm' I gave to someone I encounter every workday. "Which one?" I asked, confused. "The red and white one, or the one that I made?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"You <i>made</i> that?" my stopper asked me. "Really?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Not the red & white one," I said, "but the one with the label that won't stay put, <i>those</i> I made. The red & white ones are on my desk; the ones I made are in the car. Which one do you want?"</div><div><br /></div><div>They were asking me about either a lip balm I'd been given by a visiting sales rep or the solid lotion I make; to the uninformed, as I've said, the solid lotion <i>looks</i> like lip balm.</div><div><br /></div><div>This isn't someone I work with, this is someone who works at "menial" tasks in the building where I work. Last year, I made sure that everyone who works on that crew got the same holiday presents as some of my junior staff members. Just because they aren't technically part of my co-workers, that doesn't mean that I should ignore them.</div><div><br /></div><div>So today I handed over both the stuff the sales rep gave me (that I <i>really</i> didn't want in the first place, and thus, to me, does not qualify as a mitzvah) and some of my own solid lotion to a few folks who didn't expect to get it, and I did it happily, joyfully.</div><div><br /></div><div>Spreading some fun and usefulness qualifies, yes? Yes. Indeed.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-83126831379429651242009-12-15T19:41:00.003-05:002009-12-15T20:09:39.468-05:00And one for meSo today's mitzvah isn't one I've given; it is one I've got.<div><br /></div><div>I have some geeky friends (and you know who you are!) and we all enjoy a few BBC programs. DH was exposed to <a href="http://www.topgear.com/uk/">Top Gear</a> last winter, and was as entertained as I've ever seen him by the episode where they try driving across an <a href="http://www.topgear.com/uk/tv-show/series-10/episode-4">African desert</a>...</div><div><br /></div><div>But sadly, our cable system doesn't offer BBC America on its basic tier. I know everyone bitches about their cable system, and I'm not really all that different. Expensive, pain in the rear, "necessity". It could be worse, I know. The cable system at my parent's summertime Ohio res is abysmal, and I'm glad it isn't the cable system I deal with.</div><div><br /></div><div>As an aside; when the bloody hell (to use a proper Brit expression) are the cable companies going to get a clue and offer ala carte cable? Why on earth can you not simply select the channels you want, leave the rest? I'd never have any of the shopping channels, I'd ax a ton of stuff that I never watch; why have 455 channels when you only watch a fraction of them? National Geographic, Discovery, TLC, the Food channel, all of the music channels (naturally), History, History International, <b>BBC</b>, what I consider "the good stuff". What you consider "the good stuff" could be a polar opposite, but wouldn't it be nice just to pick what you would watch?</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, after listening to me kvetch about having to either Netflix or beg someone who does have BBC to be able to watch Top Gear, (among other fun stuff, like, oh, <i><b>DR. WHO</i></b>) DH paid a visit to the cable offices and changed our subscriptions. We now <i>have</i> BBC, along with a whole host of other new HD channels. Too cool.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, if I could just figure out how to work that remote....</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-32812975661046555972009-12-14T23:55:00.000-05:002009-12-15T07:57:27.159-05:00Knit Knight & new friendsSmall mitzvah for 12/14/09:<div><br /></div><div>passed out solid lotion to everyone @ my knitting group. Usually that group is around a dozen; not this time, there were more people there than I've ever seen before. </div><div><br /></div><div>Unexpected, for the people who don't know me; welcome from those who do.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-47140436035298271982009-12-13T18:54:00.003-05:002009-12-13T19:30:21.925-05:00Take the weather with you.I'm all out of cute ideas, happy giving to strangers, finding serendipitous little things along the way. Today was a miserable day, in fact, it was a miserable weekend, complete with an irate "discussion" over the washing machine. Great.<div><br /></div><div>The thing that I hate about Ohio when the temperature is cold is the grey, overcast skies, and the accompanying icy rain, which we had in spades. If it is going to be cold, it might as well snow, right? Freezing rain is the most miserable weather condition on earth, I'm convinced. </div><div><br /></div><div>So after all that gnälling and grousing, where's today's mitzvah?</div><div><br /></div><div>Much earlier this year, I got the idea in my head to make Limoncello. This Italian liqueur is intensely lemony, and until recently, it wasn't easy to find commercially made. If you were to raid the freezers of Italian bubbas along the Amalfi coast of Italy, though, you'd find lots of it.</div><div><br /></div><div>I found recipes for it all over the interwebs, and took the best of all of them to make my own. Problem #1 was that most recipes call for 190 proof grain alcohol, which is not legal in Ohio. But it is legal in other states, and I knew that I'd find it somewhere. I found Everclear in Florida, and broke several federal laws by sending it home to Ohio. (Ooops.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Limoncello takes a very long time to make. Months. It takes lots of lemons, and lots of liquor. Two bottles of Everclear. Two bottles of vodka. 40 lemons. A simple syrup made of sugar and water.</div><div><br /></div><div>I zested the lemons back in July, and the lemon zest sat in the Everclear until just a few weeks ago. It looked like heavy, dark urine when I pulled it out of the dark, cool closet where it was hanging out since July. I was worried, because that certainly wasn't what it looked like in all the pictures I'd seen online. The pictures (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limoncello">Wiki</a> has one) look like a neon yellow, something that wouldn't have been out of place on any 80s fashion plate.</div><div><br /></div><div>So it was with a little bit of trepidation that I started straining out the lemon peels from the Everclear/vodka/lemon zest mixture. Once that was done, I added the cooled simple syrup, and as I stirred that in, the color <i>changed</i> from an unappetizing pee yellow to something that looks like there's a neon light inside of it. Pretty freaking cool.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>For about the past 2 weeks, the limoncello has been sitting on my kitchen countertop, waiting for bottling. Inspiration hasn't struck yet for a bottling solution, although not for lack of looking. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm trying hard to give holiday gifts that are only hand or homemade this year, continuing a trend I started last year. The only exception to that 'rule' is the toys we have for my niece & nephew. I expect it will be a few years before they understand my intention there; but I'm teaching them. We make cookies together every year during the holiday season, and the memories I'm making with them are more precious than anything I will ever buy them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Limoncello. Making my friends and family pleasantly intoxicated; that's a mitzvah, right?</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-73737540956466598172009-12-12T19:19:00.003-05:002009-12-12T19:33:06.767-05:00On dealing with holiday stress gracefully.Oh, have no doubt, my pretties. All of the hassle of the holiday is officially here. The traffic. The lack of parking spaces. The grumbling, grumpy shoppers in my way. I even witnessed a shouting match today, mother vs daughter, mom in a wheelchair. Nice.<div><br /></div><div>So that makes my two small mitzvahs -both car/traffic related - seem inconsequential, but I hope they were helpful. A harried-looking lady in a van was cruising the parking lot at Target, looking for a parking space. I waved at her - party to make her smile and partly so she'd see me heading to my car. She cottoned on quickly, hurried to where my car was, and waved her thanks. </div><div><br /></div><div>The other one was letting someone in front of me at a busy intersection. Little things, small details in a busy day, but perhaps easing someone else's stress.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-19373688209083177182009-12-11T19:27:00.001-05:002009-12-11T19:27:00.994-05:00Love it / am irritated by it.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; ">Every year for about the last 8 or so, I've made a solid lotion that I usually give to people in conjunction with the lavender bath salts. I have to explain what it is to them, because I usually give it to people in tubes that look like lip balm tubes, but are much larger. The manufacturer calls them deodorant tubes, which made no sense to me. Think of a tube of Chapstick. Now imagine said tube of Chapstick with a diameter of 1-1/2 inches (3-1/2 cm) instead of the usual 1/4 inch (1-1/2 cm). Imagine it being about 3-1/2 or 4 inches tall (7-10 cm). So it looks like lip balm, but clearly <i>isn't</i> lip balm, and the idea of a solid moisturizer is odd to most people. Consequently, I get a lot of reactions that sound like this: "Cool! What is it?" </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; ">A sidebar here to note that moisturizer in a solid form is freaking brilliant, because unless you left in a hot car in the summer, it will never spill. Ever. Lots less messy to apply, IMO, as well. Unfortunately, it wasn't my original idea, so I'm not sitting on a million dollar next-big-thing enterprise. I have no plans to sell my solid lotion, no desire to deal with the legalities of trying to sell such a product. And I need to note that I bought the tubes someplace else for a less expensive price this year and they are the <i>exact</i> same size as lip balm tubes. </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; ">Anyway, most years I buy a kit for the solid lotion, add some stuff of my own (that-there's the technical term, 'stuff') pour the liquid into tubes, allow it to cool - room temperature solid, but melts on contact with your skin - put the caps on it, and away we go. When I couldn't find the kit on the website that I usually get it from, I sent the owner of the company an e-mail to see what was going on. She told me she isn't making the kits right now, but doing it on your own is dead easy, and she sent me the links to recipes. (<a id="qr40" href="http://www.soapcrafters.com/node/223" target="_blank" title="love this company"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">Here</span></a> and <a id="e9ij" href="http://www.soapcrafters.com/node/224" target="_blank" title="the sexed-up version"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">here</span></a>.) Fair 'nuff. It isn't rocket science; a wax (such as beeswax) combined with a butter (avocado, mango, shea, cocoa) and oils (olive, apricot kernel, almond, walnut, soy), plus any fragrance and or colorant. She told me I could use any butter, any oils, so the fact that I didn't have mango butter or cocoa butter called for in those two recipes wasn't an issue. No artificial fragrances for me, thanks. I use lavender essential oil, for the aromatherapy benefits as well as liking the scent. Absolutely no colorant. I do put some colorant in the bath salts, but not ever in the lotion.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; ">I have no idea which of those two recipes the kit contained, but I think it was probably the Easy Lotion Bar. I've added shea butter to the kit and the lavender, and that's worked well. Until this year, I've never measured the shea, just added it and tested a tiny bit until I felt it was 'right'. This year, I used the Extra-Rich recipe, using my super-duper kitchen scale to weigh the wax and butter. I measured the oils, added the lavender and when I tested it, it was far too hard and not the silky-yet-slightly-grainy texture I associate with "my" lotion. Hmmm. I'd put some of it into the tubes by then, and was irked that I needed to melt those back down and tinker. Using the smaller tubes seemed like a good idea, but they're difficult to fill. My hands shake quite a lot these days, a nice side-effect of my Wellbutrin. Some days it is bad, some days it is worse, and some days it doesn't happen at all. Filling those little tubes with an eyedropper and shaking hands meant I got that stuff all over the outside of the tubes, making them look like used candles, all over the countertop, and on my scale. Well, not exactly all over the countertop; I had a heavy cutting board out because the beeswax came in one ginormous block and I needed seriously 3 oz of the stuff. So there are dibs and dabs of solid lotion on the (fortunately plastic) cutting board. I think it'll come off in hot water and with a scrubbie.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; ">The shea butter I bought several years ago on eBay. It came in an 'unrefined' state, which meant that there were little twigs and other things in the butter, requiring me to melt it down, and strain it through a cheesecloth. I <i>wanted</i> it that way, refining takes away some of the natural properties of the butter. I had it stored in the freezer in a Tupperware container, and each year I'd pull it out, let it hang out on the countertop a day or so, add it to the kit. Bam! Over, done.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; ">In order to make the extra rich lotion bar recipe seem more like what I've been making all these years, I ended up tripling the amount of butter from 2 oz to 6. That was the very last of the shea butter. Like a complete fool, I had added the lavender before removing a small amount of the mixture for my 10 year-old nephew, who would rather not smell like flowers, thankyouverymuch. Last year or maybe 2 years ago, I made some with sandalwood essential oil specifically for him after spending some time researching less girly scents and an essential oil that wouldn't hurt his skin. He has eczema, and skin that is more sensitive than mine. The shea butter has absolutely amazing properties - like being absorbed easily in to the skin, and it helps with the itching of the eczema - so the solid lotion can be used on his skin with no worries. </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; ">I've given a lot of the solid lotion away already this year, and that's today's mitzvah. That and making the special batch for my nephew; something I really love to do, but it has seemed like work instead of fun this year. I'm doing it anyway because I'm mostly boycotting the over-commercialized gift grab that Christmas has become and am doing my best to give NO gifts that are purchased. Hand-and-homemade, all the way. </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; ">In a token recognition of the season, I leave you with these wise words:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br /></div><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Fear less, hope more.<br />Whine less, breathe more.<br />Talk less, say more.<br />Hate less, love more.<br />And all good things are yours. ~Swedish proverb</span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-39928905939127055772009-12-10T18:25:00.000-05:002009-12-10T18:25:00.214-05:00Grad GiftToday's mitzvah is a book that I know I've written about before, but I am feeling too lazy to hunt for the links. <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hardball-Women-Rev-Pat-Heim/dp/B000BSFQPA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260481297&sr=1-1">Hardball for Women</a></i>, by <a href="http://www.heimgroup.com/meetourteam.asp#Pat">Pat Heim, Ph.D</a>. I don't remember the circumstances surrounding the first time I read this book. It was a few years ago, in my 20's. I still worked for Ye Olde Evile Bank, and hmmmm. Searching. I think maybe I was looking to get a promotion and wondering why the powers that be there never thought of me as a leader, so I started reading all these business books. Or maybe it had something to do with the class I took in college where the textbook was <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Time-Bind-When-Work-Becomes/dp/0805066438/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260481273&sr=8-1">The Time Bind</a></i> by Arlie Russell Hochschild. Aaah, skit samma as we say in Swedish. It doesn't matter when or why I picked it up. What matters is that this book quite literally changed my life.<div><br /></div><div>So over-dramatic, I know. But it is Truth. This book changed the way I thought about:</div><div><br /></div><div>*work </div><div>*interacting with men at work</div><div>*group projects at work</div><div>*working with other women.</div><div><br /></div><div>Quite literally, it changed how I approached any job. It taught me how the boys think, something that had been a mystery up to that point. Not as in boys to date (I was, after all, not married at that time) but as in the boys you work with who spend 20 minutes talking about "last night's game," and you, as the casual eavesdropper, aren't even sure what sport they're talking about or why anyone would care.</div><div><br /></div><div>After I read the book myself, I bought a case of the books from a very bemused Bookseller at Barnes & Noble. I handed that book out to almost every female friend who was a member of the workforce. I've recommended it to probably hundreds of people over the years.</div><div><br /></div><div>Graduating from college is exhilarating, but also terrifying. You're going to have to get a job, J-O-B, real-world stuff. No matter what your degree might be, you're going to find a job (eventually, heh) and you're going to have to work with actual, real human beings, even if it is a minimum wage here-till-I-find-something-real job.</div><div><br /></div><div>Someone close to me is about to get her degree, and I gave her a copy of the book as a grad present today. An excellent grad gift, if I do say so myself.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-15782758770637701412009-12-09T18:01:00.001-05:002009-12-09T18:01:01.463-05:00Yarnie Goodness/GoofinessI went to lunch with a friend; our waitress was someone I've known for a long time, ex-roommate of one of my sisters. My friend and I were happily discussing yarn and looking at <a href="http://www.knitpicks.com/accessories/Knitting_Yarn_Color_Cards__DColorCards.html?Media=SLI0001?medid=SLIMPS">color cards</a>, fondling the new yarn that had just been delivered. The waitress, a yarn fanatic herself, eagerly jumped in to the conversation. I had no idea that she knew how to knit; this urge to pick up sticks might have developed after my sister moved away.<div><br /></div><div>So we told her all about Ravelry. I've scribbled about Rav so much that I don't think I need to write much more here. We told her allllll about Ravelry, and I could see the gleam of yarn fanaticism in her eyes. The math that Rav does for you; the organizational stuff for needles, yarn, and books you own; the way you can find a pattern and look at how everyone else interpreted colors or changes to the design. In other words, we completely geeked out about Ravelry.</div><div><br /></div><div>We told her about some other websites like knittinghelp.com, and she wrote a bunch of things down on her notepad. Love that, love finding someone who shares a passion. I thought she was really cool when my sister lived with her; hypothesis confirmed!</div><div><br /></div><div>So today's mitzvah is all about spreading the yarn love, and it is also a joint mitzvah, because if I hadn't gone out to lunch with my friend, I probably wouldn't have ever talked knitting with the waitress. Happy knitters!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-78392657664342416412009-12-08T13:41:00.001-05:002009-12-08T13:41:35.098-05:00Searching...Recently, my local paper ran an article about gift books (aka coffee table books) for the car enthusiast. One caught my attention that my dad might like. <br /><br />Of course, I threw the paper away without writing down trivial little details like the name of the author or the book's title. Genius!!<br /><br />I went to the paper's website and ran searches on "car" "book" "Corvette" and every combination of those words, getting increasingly frustrated at results that weren't what I was looking for. So I called the newspaper's administrative offices, and some patient soul searched through the paper of the day in question. Eventually, she found it, to my delight. The Corvette Factories.<br /><br />A few days later, I got a very similar call (but I am not going to tell you the who, the what or the why, because I was @ work. Deal.). The person on my call apologized for "wasting" my time profusely, until I told her the story above with the local paper. "Ah!" she said, "one good turn deserves another!" And so it does. So it does.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-78468852844092395822009-12-07T18:44:00.000-05:002009-12-07T18:44:02.939-05:00Sharing da cookiesI made cookies over the weekend for a cookie exchange I'd been invited to. You were supposed to bring 8 dozen; either all 8 of one kind, or 4 dozen each of 2 kinds.<div><br /></div><div>I can't count. So I ended up with more than 4 dozen of each cookie. Instead of taking them and messing up the number of dozens at the exchange - it should all balance out in the end - I left the extras at home. </div><div><br /></div><div>But that means that there are about 10 dozen cookies in my house! Too, too many! So my mitzvah today is both giving and self-serving; I distributed the surplus to my office-mates. No excess of cookies in my house, and happy co-workers on a sugar buzz. Win!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-22914555701401874872009-12-06T20:19:00.002-05:002009-12-06T20:33:01.467-05:00Like a good neighbor......and now you'll have that jingle running through your head. Sorry.<div><br /></div><div>DH and I do a lot of things for our neighbors. DH is the mechanical mind of the neighborhood, and thus he gets called upon to fix all sorts of things. Lately, it is our neighbor's garage door opener. She needs to replace it, but doesn't want to. So he keeps fixing it, without complaint, without exasperation. He's nice that way.</div><div><br /></div><div>We also share our interweb signal with two neighbors, free of charge. That was his idea; personally, I think there ought to be a small charge - <i>we</i> pay for it, after all - but his logic, which I agree with, is that if they paid for it, he'd be called upon to fix connections endlessly. This way, if it doesn't work, he can just tell them that they either deal with it themselves or find another way to get online. But that does save them some money, and is something we're happy to do.</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the things we like about the neighborhood is that it is quiet. Our street is private, and we like the privacy. For all that we're called upon to fix, help, advise, we don't see our neighbors very often. The houses are laid out in such a manner that if we're sitting on our porch, we can't see the neighbor's porch. Intelligent design. OTOH, this means that often we don't see them for weeks at a time, which can be worrisome. So we check on them. That is today's mitzvah - caring for those around us.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14240112.post-4993240809386890002009-12-05T18:54:00.003-05:002009-12-05T19:31:06.295-05:00Who knew?That the mitzvah challenge would be so much <i>fun</i>? Today's happened in seconds, but provided me with a lot of amusement.<div><br /></div><div>I was baking cookies ('tis the season, after all) and I ran out of powdered sugar. Also known as icing sugar. Trying to substitute granulated sugar for powdered sugar in icing recipes results in crunchy icing - never a desirable result. So I <i>needed</i> powdered sugar, but I didn't <i>want</i> to do a grocery store expedition; usually, trips to the grocery store are to a store across town from me, and I'm doing major grocery shopping. It takes a few hours - worse when I'm messing about with coupons.</div><div><br /></div><div>One grocery chain holds a pretty tight monopoly in this region. Stores that aren't SuperAnnyoing MegaMart tend to be small, and lacking a lot of the hoity-toity fussy ingredients I'm usually looking for. As much as I dislike patronizing the super annoying mega mart, trips to the smaller stores usually result in frustration. But there is one of those smaller stores really close to my house, and I know that they're going to have powdered sugar, so off I went.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another reason I don't usually go to the smaller stores is that I end up spending too much time hiking up and down the aisles searching for something. I know the layout of the mega mart. Happily, though, I found a bunch of things that mega-mart doesn't carry and ended up spending about $50 rather than the $2.69 I'd expected. </div><div><br /></div><div>While searching for a soup flavor I know the mega-mart never has, I heard a man and a little girl in the next aisle over having a conversation about why they were in the grocery store. The child sounded like she was perhaps 2. She was having a great time. Daddy, on the other hand, was frustrated. He had been sent to fetch egg noodles. He couldn't find egg noodles. He wasn't sure where to even look for egg noodles. Did he say all that? Not exactly, but you could tell. </div><div><br /></div><div>I happened to be standing in front of a display of all kinds of pasta. I found egg noodles - by this time they were in the same aisle as me - and I handed them over to him with a smile. He thanked me, laughing, and asked if he just looked that lost. No, I told him, I'd heard him, but he did look like a deer in headlights! We had a shared chuckle over his daughter's comment --"Daddy, that's <i>it</i>? That's all we needed?" -- he thanked me again for saving him the hassle of hunting through the entire store, and we went our separate ways. </div><div><br /></div><div>Fun, funny, and helpful to someone. Mitzvah? Check!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0