Started as a ramble, turned into a rant

There were a bunch of things I wanted to ramble about over the course of the week, but I was too late/exhausted by the time I got home. Let me try to remember some of them:

(1) DIY as opt-out. I'd blogged earlier, in reference to Emily Matchar's book, about how cooking can be one manifestation of opting out, i.e., the market is not offering me what I want, or if it is, the price is ridiculous, so I'm going to make it myself. This kind of opt-out is my standard operating procedure; I cook well, easily, and doing so gives me more choices at a much lower price. And it frees up money for the things I don't do as well, such as home repair. I would absolutely DIY more around the house if I were more skilled, but I tend to outsource home repair (and improvement) because of the skills-needs mismatch. This is especially true (the preference to DIY, or more specifically, to opt-out) because my latest bouts of outsourced home repair and improvement created problems as they solved: the drywall repair guys scratched the new bathtub, among other things, and made messes of things. It also took too much reminding on my part to get them to finish every part of the job. Then, the painters scratched the bathtub again, after I'd already had it fixed (they weren't supposed to be in there, so I hadn't warned them, but they ended up cleaning their brushes and rollers in the tub). They also painted over the outlet covers and vent. Really? The floor guys chipped the newly painted walls. And so on. Each of these jobs was necessary and overall worth it, i.e., I couldn't have done it myself, but it made me wary of the hassle of relying on people.

Wednesday evening roundup

Mark Bittman reminds you that factory farms breed bacteria.

You have a source memory and a destination memory.

Behold the (various species of) man-child.

This is an excellent analysis of life in general (with preferred gender pronouns as an example):

But there is something self-defeating about expecting the world to essentially read and sign a disclaimer before engaging with you, especially when the situation is impersonal. Well-meaning people accidentally disrespect one another all the time. Ideally, those unintended slights are gently corrected, and everyone moves on. And though the PGP model is meant to help that process along, it has the potential to transform into a more-progressive-than-thou whip—the crack of which helps no one’s cause.

And if we go to the post that sparked it all, who the f* cares if yoga is a cultural appropriation? Why is cultural appropriation bad? Cultures borrow all the time. I am more interested in the commercialization of yoga, which she only touches on briefly. But if yoga is the "New It Thing," "new" is decades old. I guess I don't understand why it's so bad to take something that's rooted in a given faith but of general value outside that faith, and just go with it. People do it all the time. What if I want to practice yoga without giving a second thought to its Hindu roots? Who the f* cares? Can I have Xmas dinner all while knowing that Jesus, whom, by the way, I do not accept as my savior, was not born on that day? And that that day was chosen to mesh with existing pagan traditions throughout the Holy Roman Empire? Am I allowed to be forgiving, even though it's a lot more New Testament than Old? Who is to be the arbiter of what doesn't belong (exclusively) to a given religion, or any religion? It's actually quite difficult to build a wall between religious and secular in society and in one's daily life (government is a different story). Am I appropriating Buddhism (and/or many other religious traditions) when meditating, and if so, who the f* cares? This may be the stupidest f*ing thing I've ever read (this week):

If I wouldn’t dream of taking Communion at a Catholic Church if I was attending as a guest, why would I practice yoga? Aren’t there lots of explicitly fitness-oriented options for me to choose from that don’t require me to appropriate religious practices from former colonies?

Um, because yoga is a unique thing that's awesome, that happens to be rooted in Hinduism. You can read all you want into it, but you're not seriously suggesting that I forgo my sun salutations because they originally came from a practice rooted in Hinduism?

***
This, and "Clybourne Park" and "Rabbit Hole," is the $hit for which they're giving out Pulitzers?

Evolution hasn't yet perfected human balls.

And now for my ramble

I have a sense of when cell phones went mainstream in the U.S., because when I left for Wales, they were still rare, and when I returned, six months later, they were everywhere. It took me another six months to get one, and only then I did it because it would cost less than getting a home phone, which my roommate at the time didn't want to share. It didn't take me long, once I stepped over to the other side, to love having a cell phone--it made things so much easier. Nonetheless, something bothered me--still does--about walker-and-talkers, as well as some non-walker-but-talkers, and it's the usurpation of public space.

metablog

Ah, the emotions elicited by the idea of kids on planes. I can't believe this family has the audacity to complain or to take money from police officers.

On to other things that at least should be hard to believe, check out the first installment in a New York Times series. This is awesome:
“One of the things that drew a very wealthy woman to see me was that she was an inadequate tennis player,” Dr. Wolfe recalled. “She was very serious about this. She felt that the other wealthy women she played with would think she was an inadequate person. It’s easier for rich patients to take problems like this seriously.”

I mean, I may fret about a bunch of BS, but I am well aware that it's a bunch of BS. Let me tell you about Monday:
7:00am-- a bug flies into my eye on the way to work and stings me. It hurts.
12:45pm-- I am hightailing it back to the office from the Library of Congress when I maneuver around some slow-walking tourists. I wipe out, ripping a gash in my relatively new wool trousers.
3:00pm-- My dentist's receptionist informs me that she misunderstood my insurance and that I'll have to pay an additional $125 for the crown. And oh, by the way, there will be another $200+ for the buildup procedure. This will bring my dental total to just about $3,000.
3:30pm-- My dentist, having removed the temporary filling over the root canal, discovers that she is missing the screws needed to perform the procedure (this, apparently, is the responsibility of the receptionist). Yes, I really like this dentist.
7:00pm-- I come home after all this and the first thing I have to do is clean up a steaming pile of cat poop off the porch.

In addition to all this, I don't play tennis. It's one of those things that my mom tried to have me learn, but I never took to it (or anything else, as she likes to remind me).

Anyway, my point is, I'd had better days, but even in the midst of it, I knew it was all BS, because none of that really matters.

Which makes me wonder-- do people need something to worry about? Do they not know what to do with themselves if they don't have a focus for their angst?

***

In other news, I'm once again part of an official category.

Also: I've always thought these people needed a reality check, but especially in light of the conservation fervency gripping the country, you'd think they could get a grip.

lotus flower

Today has gone less than smoothly (more on that in another post), and less than smooth days mean less than the utmost patience for when what should be a quick errand gets needlessly drawn out.

I finally got a chance to call and report my Banana Republic credit card lost. Yes, I have a Banana Republic credit card; what can I say-- the rewards are good. Anyway.

A.: I'd like to report my card lost.
Customer Service Guy: What's your card number?
A.: I don't know. I lost my card. [and if I'd known it anyway, I would have punched it into the automated system].
CSG: Okay, what's your name?
A.: [I go through and provide my name, address, etc.]
CSG: Okay, what can I do for you?
A.: I would like to report my card lost.
CSG: Where did you lose it?

...
...
...

A., with impressive calm: I don't know.

Eventually, I managed to cancel my card... which is more than I can say for when I thought I'd lost my Bank of America card (I was grandfathered in from MBNA) when I thought I'd lost it... they were too busy to take my call, which really inspired confidence, so much so that I canceled it when I found it. After I cashed in my rewards for a Banana Republic gift card.

Collected Thoughts

Hello again, I know it's been a while. I haven't had a lot of free time, but some did open up when the bike ride I planned on this morning was snagged by my tearing the air stem out of the tube when I pumped my tires this morning, so here I am.

First some mom notes:

-Mom still resents Gracie, partly because she's so attached to our cat that died three years ago that she sees it as a betrayal, but largely because Gracie's adoption was a decision undertaken without consulting her. Almost every time Gracie comes up (my dad will ask about her), my mom will insert a thinly veiled indication of disapproval. For example,

Dad: How's Gracie?
A.: Good, she's sitting on my lap.
Mom: Oh, that must make the intolerable heat even worse.

-Mom continues to not appreciate how busy I am. I would be exaggerating if I followed the previous sentence with, 'based on the way she expects me to deliver stuff to her friends in the D.C. area;' in fact, that's the kind of thing she would say. But she does underestimate the time it would take for me to get to the homes of family friends in the area, especially considering D.C. traffic. Let me back up-- she made Mirella a beautiful amber necklace, and asked me to give it to her. Mirella is my friend as much as my parents' (I know her through a friend of theirs, but she and I are very close), so it is not as if I don't want to see her, but she lives forty minutes' drive in good traffic, and D.C. traffic is rarely good. Occasionally, I have meetings for work that are up by Mirella's house, and the last time this happened, as I left the meeting, it occurred to me to call her and see if I could stop by. Of course, I hadn't brought the necklace. I did tell my parents over the phone that Mirella said 'hi.' This time, I thought to arrange our getting together ahead of time, so I did bring the necklace. She called my mother to thank her. My mother (according to Mirella), uttered something about hadn't we seen each other before this moment and since I had the necklace in my possession. I envisioned a repeat of the boots scenario but realized that since I wasn't in the same car, if mom gave me crap, I could just hang up.

***

Now for some non-Mom related blogging about customer service.

-Ah, Verizon, such the leach. Only a monopoly can be brazen enough to charge people for services they don't want. I mean, it's bad enough that I would have to pay to not be listed in the yellow pages, but it gets worse.

I noticed a few extra dollars on our phone bill, with 'long distance' in the description. Note that our phone is not connected; we have phone service solely to enable our DSL. We never wanted long distance, never asked for it, so I called to complain. That charge was removed from our bill.

The next month, there was a $6 charge, with 'long distance' in the description. I called again.

Turns out, that initial charge was for not using our long distance. Yes, Verizon is charging for not using their long distance service. The second charge? For removing long distance service from our package. Yes, we had to pay to remove a service that we never requested in the first place, so that we would not get charged for not using it.

Up next, Banfield Animal Hospital at PetSmart. Gracie had fleas, so by extension, I had fleas. It was BAD. I was losing the little sleep I had time to get, because I was getting bitten in the middle of the night. I needed both medication for my cat, and spray for the furniture, curtains, etc.

Incidentally, on my way from work the day I planned on getting this stuff, it was pouring down rain. I actually lost control of my car and hydroplaned, just on the highway, but thankfully managed to regain control and keep going. However, I opted to take a busier route that was less likely to be flooded than the rural roads I normally take (yes, I work in the boonies). I knew there was a PetSmart in one of the strip malls along that busier route, pathetically because it was right next to a Babies-R-Us and I've gotten so many baby gifts this year, the year of the babies, that I had no trouble finding the PetSmart. I asked the woman at the Banfield counter for both flea medication and furniture spray. She must have heard me because she gave me directions for using the spray on my furniture. Nonetheless, when I got home, ready to exterminate the blood-sucking little bastards that were making my cat's and my life difficult, I discovered that the spray she'd sold me was also for the cat. I was LIVID. Furthermore, the receipt said they didn't take returns on prescription items, so if I wanted to try to get my $55 back, I'd have to once again return to the same out-of-the-way store to argue my case, my case being that they sold me a product I did not ask for, so they better damn well take it back. More importantly, I had to contend with another night of being flea bait.

The next day, I returned and made my case to a different veterinary nurse behind the counter. As she went back to ask her manager, I heard,

"Excuse me, ma'am... you're standing in dog pee."

Indeed I was. I stepped aside.

The nurse returned and said she could only give me store credit. I said like hell she could (only more politely) and asked her firmly to refund the amount to my credit card. She did. I also told her about the dog pee. She pointed me to the furniture spray, which was in the main part of the store.

-Alexandria Ambulance Service, which was so wonderful when I needed them, is not as great in administrative areas as it is in its first response (better than the other way around, I suppose). My insurance covered a little over half of my ambulance bill, so I received a bill for the rest from the ambulance service. On the stub there was a place for one's credit card number, i.e. sixteen boxes in which you write the digits of your credit card number. So I did, and sent it in, so imagine my surprise when I got another bill last week. I called to determine what the problem was, and was directed to call the same number with 888 rather than 800, as the number had been misprinted on their letterhead. I called, and was told that the problem was that they didn't take credit cards. Apparently, they'd switched companies and the new system was not yet up and running. But instead of actually indicating this on the second bill, they left me to guess. Had this not been the ambulance, I would have been willing to play this by just sending my credit card number every time. As it were, I went home and sent a check. Two days later, I received the same bill, this time, with the phone number printed correctly. But the credit card option was still there.

-Thrift store, at which I bought a skirt and a few books, including a very large hardcover cookbook. The volunteer put my stuff into a paper bag with no handles. I said, "Could I trouble you for a bag with handles?" Although I said it with no trace of sarcasm, etc., she got defensive and said, "we have no bags with handles; if we did, I would have given you one." Luckily, one of the regular salespeople rolled her eyes and said, "give her a bag with handles," and took a plastic bag (that the first woman probably didn't give me because it was too flimsy, not out of spite) and placed the paper bag inside of it.

***

My rules for moviegoers:

-If you are too dumb to independently follow the plot of a movie, wait until it comes out on DVD. DO NOT go to see it in the theatre if you need to constantly (or ever, really) ask your companion what is happening. Even my mother, who likes (but probably does not need) clarification about what's happening in a movie, has the decency to wait until said movie has ended.

-If you are so codependent that you cannot wait until the movie ends to discuss it, wait until it comes out on DVD so that you can discuss it in the privacy of your own home.

-Do not stretch your arms over your head or for any reason create an opaque layer over your head. There are people sitting behind you.