30.9.06

9/06 thanks

28.9.06

Sammers have you seen an extra paw lying around somewhere?

This caused a major doubletake on my part the other day as I went thru the bedroom, but it might not look as supremely strange in the pic as it did in real life. I think sometimes we're enured to what we see in pix nowadays, used as we are to digital enhancements and alterings, but I swear all I did was tweak the lighting a bit.

That can't be comfortable...

Yeah, well, if your leg falls asleep don't say I didn't warn you.

26.9.06

Proof that fall is here



As usual bedroom pix for us are either too bright or too dim but you get the idea... it must be getting cooler if it's time for cat cuddles. :)

25.9.06

La La La La La!!!

So I owe Eric Big Time. He heard thru his choir activities about the English Anthem Ensemble (16th & 17th c., Purcell & Co.) - someone's Master's project in need of volunteer voices for an autumn of rehearsals and a performance in January. He told me about it and I went tonight for the first time.

Holy shit it was great. (npi)

I mean I knew I was missing music all these years but it was really quite indescribably fun and cool and exciting to be Singing again. Also petrifying since my voice is Very Weak Indeed and my sight reading is a bit rusty as well. But in general I think I acquitted myself honorably. I couldn't believe what work it was on the one hand (funny to imagine how all the breath support and vocalization used to be second nature to me) and on the other once I was warmed up and over my bashfulness I was pleasantly surprised with how I sounded, notwithstanding 20 years of virtually no real singing that is.

Of course... just what I needed: one more commitment on the schedule. But this one will give more than it takes I believe. I was like a new woman walking home.

Who was it that talked me out of doing the vocal performance degree at BG again way back when??!! Just kidding... It was me, basically. I knew (and I was right) that I never would have had the discipline to do that. (And that's neither sour grapes nor self-denigration, simply healthy self-knowledge :)

Anyway it's tremendously cool to get back to something so enriching for me.

Eric: Merci bien mon pote.

24.9.06

"Sam is ginger not stupid tawny and he rocks and he is now going to be on Gorgeous Gingers."

Sam made me say that. (But really he is pretty tawny, so there.)

Anyway check out Gorgeous Gingers one of these days when Fat Eric has had a chance to add him. I'll most likely add it to the sidebar soon, too.

20.9.06

This just in...

Sammers' Catster diary was one of the Daily Diary Picks today!! Crazy! If you care to read, here. (Warning: I'm not sure link will work beyond today, so if no go here's his actual page again. With most cats you'd think being picked as one of 5 featured diarists out of 14,487 diary-writin' felines, but I think he'll take it in stride. Is that modesty or conceit or just healthy self-esteem?

oh and PS - I added some more stuff to their meow page linked to my school pages - email me if you want the URL - I'll probably update the pix on there as well pretty soon (stranger things have happened :)

Things I Learned This Evening

  • I still make really rockin' crêpes.
  • A medium-sized human stomach, last fed 6 peanut butter & cheese crackers 4 hours earlier, can comfortably hold appoximately 9 smallish crêpes.
  • Life is much happier when one realizes that crêpe leftovers just aren't meant to be.
  • FYI

    Tasty wee morsel today on a certain teaching blog.

    17.9.06

    why my normally very tidy bed has yet to be made today


    So sure, I look like a slob but, really fun cats and a really fun quilt... what more could I ask for?

    By the way, as usual, "grading" day has produced quite a lot of internet activity here at the Ross Square Catbox...

    Lucy's Catster Page

    Sam's Catster Page

    You're REALLY going to think I've gone round the bend into Crazy Cat Lady Land... but take a gander at a few other pages there and you'll see that I am still quite well within the Safe Zone.

    And hey, while you're there, be a sport and give them some treats.

    Sam's comments on Fat Eric's blog in case you missed them

    Sam said...

    yo Eric,
    I tride to email you with the emailme thing on the ginger page cuz I want to be on there but the email was blank when it cam up. Susan says I mite not be allowed there anyway - she says I am not gingery. She says I am tawny. I don't know what that is but I say Im gingery. That is just warped. Pleas tell me how to email you my pic so then when you accept me I can rub it in her face!
    tks man
    SAM


    Sam said...

    yo Eric,
    Susan says I should give you my email address - it is sammm306@yahoo.com - pleaz let me know how to email you my pic man. I want on that page so badddd.
    tks man
    SAM


    He has since joined the Catster group Brilliant Orange Cats Unite so the bee in his bonnet seems to be sated, for the moment. We can only hope...

    Cyber Sammers - it can only mean trouble

    It seems Sam has been sneaking onto the laptop when I'm not around. Check out the comments for the "Five Discoveries..." entry here. At least he types better than he writes, which Auntie Jessica can attest to.

    He really wants to get his pic on the Gorgeous Gingers site but I don't want him to get his hopes up - he's not a true ginger, you know. He's really sandy-colored. He's pretty determined, tho, so I guess if Eric the webmastercat knows what's good for him he'll let Sammers on there.

    Meanwhile Lucy acts like she's above it all but I know she is secretly hoping there's a tortoise shell club page out there somewhere.

    Knock me over with a feather...

    Closed at the store tonight and had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I would be parking in the yard somewhere on our circle as post-football revelers were sure to be filling all the parking spots... Turned up the drive and there were so many cars everywhere you can't even round the circle; the drive is completely blocked... BUT... wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles... MY space was EMPTY and I could JUST squeeze into it behind one of the cars blocking the drive.

    Seriously there are days when I think I must be doing something right after all. Unless it's just karma fairies messing with my head...

    15.9.06

    Well it's definitely football season again...

    ...and we have a new crop of undergrad beer-guzzling party-throwers in the neighborhood. We were even treated to quite a loud gunshot a little bit ago. Fantastic. It seems much louder to me than in the past, and I can usually tune it out OK. I still probably won't have much trouble sleeping, as long as it stays at the current level anyway.

    Sam is sitting on the bed chirping regularly - about every 1.5 minutes. It's the bedtime snack signal.

    They've been napping, following a mini-session of play with the fun fleece tail plastic wand thingy. New rule re: string-like toys is we must measure them as soon as they enter the house, that way if Sam gets ahold of them by accident we can remeasure, thereby calculating how long a piece he has ingested. The final step is deciding whether a vet trip is in order or if a simple Poop Watch is sufficient.

    Lucy has renewed her habit of bringing me toys in the middle of the night. Sometimes I even wake up. She doesn't try very hard to wake me, tho, truth be told. I can attest to this because at times when I'm just in twilight sleep upon her arrival, basically she jumps up with the string and drops it about 1-2 ft. from me, bats at it 2-3 times --which activity I guess is probably quite audible to her but my human ears find it pretty nigh indistinguishable from the surrounding silence-- gives one quiet albeit rather disgusted Mrrp and then forgets why she's up there in the first place and lies down or leaves.

    I think she thinks I should have some innate sense for when a toy is around awaiting my participation; like my skin should start twitching or something. About every other morning when I go to make the bed lately her blue pajama string, in particular, is between the sheets. Maybe she thinks that if I don't respond she needs to take it under the covers for my cat-toy spidey dermo-sense to kick in.

    I have 4 million things to grade and 300 dishes to do and about 80 things to pick up around the house from this week's worth of life fallout but have been playing online instead. Woo hoo!

    Actually that's not all I've been doing; I've also been grazing pretty much nonstop ever since getting home from school. I think I've contracted munchitis. It's epic, I tell you.

    Faux-journaling! Lucky you!

    New Susan Customer Service Award Winner

    Wow. I'm still completely dumbfounded and oh so pleasantly surprised...

    If anyone has ever taken a gander at Cafepress.com you know that they have the most astounding selection of t-shirts and all things printable. You can search topics you like or you can even find your favorite cartoon strips, like Jessica and I found for a couple of choice Pearls Before Swine a few years ago.

    I had been following the One Red Paperclip blog and happenings for several months and recently noticed they had some wares featured at Cafepress. I ordered a medium t-shirt with the One Red Paperclip image, only to have it arrive quite a bit too small, my newly reclaimed skinnimininess notwithstanding (alas they are like the rest of the country, where t-shirts are specifically sized for Nicole Richie and Kate Bosworth). I immediately contacted Cafepress online for info on doing an exchange.

    Today I got the nicest message from Helen at Cafepress. They're sending me my large but did not include any return info because, Helen said, "There is no need for a return! I don’t want you to incur any additional shipping charges. Please keep the original as our way of saying thanks for shopping at CafePress.com."

    Well, sure, the realists among you are going to point out that overhead on a printed tee is probably about 75¢, but STILL!! Many companies would want that money back in their grubby little paws and wouldn't think twice about making you pay $4 shipping to that end.

    Well don't start bugging them by ordering gobs of stuff in wrong sizes just to see how far their consideration stretches, but do check them out. I already had one t-shirt of theirs & two mugs and Jessica has a t-shirt, too, and we can attest to their very high quality, graphics- and materials-wise, as well as their very reasonable prices. In particular their t-shirts are 100% cotton and always feel great and wash up wonderfully so they become your favorite softillyicious tee in no time.

    Besides comic strips and current pop culture items, they have a gazillion categories and designs if you don't know what to buy someone or just need another little spaghetti-strap bed tee to add to your collection.

    In short, They. Rock. Hard.

    *****
    The blog author received no money for this post. This is a free communiqué.

    8.9.06

    Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.*

    Mine is encumbered with pleasanter fare.

    My Pride & Prejudice sheet music is arrived in today's post. Let Mr. Darcy endeavour to resist me now. It will be for naught once he is tempted by my delightful musical stylings at the pianoforte.




    ...OK might be time to start reining in the fantasy life one of these days.

    Nahhh.


    *Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

    7.9.06

    ARV vaccine found

    Well I now have it on good authority, from Macie no less (she has never been known to pull her punches), that both World Market and Hobby Lobby seem, upon first inspection, to be quite fun and immune to ARV. Of course I will give them both the Susan once-over, most likely before Girls' Steak Night tomorrow, but this bodes solidly well.

    woo hoo!

    Maille dijon and a good yarn selection, that's all I need. (Navin R. Johnson voice, kee)


    (Sept. 10 - opinion confirmed! World Market appears to be immune to all ARV strains!... a ver con Hobby Lobby... fingers crossed :)

    ARV - at least you can't get it from mosquitos, cows, or birds

    Well our World Market is opening today I hear tell. As I’ve spouted to a select few, their stock will probably consist of 4 different wines, one teak patio furniture set, 2 bamboo cooking utensils, some miso soup, 3 batik sarongs and a wok. If we’re really lucky they’ll still have those mini Ghirardellis at the checkout, but only one flavor.

    This theory, which of course I’d love to see disproved, is due to the auburnization of various stores we’ve acquired in the last couple of years. Our Ann Taylor Loft, for instance, seems only to carry the youngster side of their stock, and only in a single color family each season (read: never my best).

    Even our Target was not immune to the Auburn Retail Virus. Clothing? Fagetaboutit. That is, if you’re anywhere in the middle either age or size-wise. They pretty much only have clothes either for anorexic immodest teeny boppers or for people the size of our not-so-esteemed Sec. of State. Housewares are slightly better but still you don’t have the full gamut of selection heretofore enjoyed by this blogger at Targets in Willoughby, Columbus, or Montgomery. They love Kitchenaid, and the Graves designer line, and Oxo; otherwise nevermind. Now mind you, I love Kitchenaid, too, but not enough to have every single item I buy for the kitchen be their wares. The Target bag section here is quite scary indeed although I do acknowledge that bag fashion in general nowadays is not tempting me overmuch. In home furnishings, it’s pretty much the same story as in housewares; if their merch team can attribute either “cute,” “kitsch,” or “expensive” to an item, basically it goes on the list. Consequently the affordable items will only work with your existing décor if you happen to live inside a Johnny Rocket; those rare occasions when you find something tastefully understated, of course it will be roughly the same price as your rent payment. (When did Target stop being for the everyman?) Perhaps the biggest violation of we nesty people’s trust: virtually none of the huge array of fun little affordable picture frames they used to carry (and probably still do in real towns). (As a side note: all of this makes it hard at times to stick to my personal Wal-Mart boycott. If you can’t go buy something Everyday Normal instead of the designer version of a mop, for crying out loud… well I find that so dumbfounding I can’t even finish my sentence. Which, just figure those odds.)

    It’s almost a good thing we didn’t get the rumored Barnes & Noble as it would have just gotten auburnized also. In fact now that I think of it, B&N probably opted out once they discovered that Tiger Town would only let them carry remainders, wedding mags and the LeftBehind series.

    Oh be quiet. I can have fun with a wee hyperbolic (tho based in fact to be sure) diatribe if I feel like it! And I assure you I’ll be the first to admit if I’m wrong about WM – in fact I’ll be delighted since I’m almost out of Maille dijon mustard (kee2) plus that will bode well, in turn, for the new Hobby Lobby, which I haven’t yet dared to ponder. It will be the most devastating of the whole batch of course to Yours Truly if it ends up as tweaked as some of the others.

    This makes it sound like I'm a huge shopper when really, tho I have my moments, I'm firmly ensconced on the lesser end of the consumerism addiction scale. I have a few favorite stores where I used to forage only 2-3 times a year since they required 45-60 minute treks with Hal across the Plains. That's probably the real injustice; this keeps happening to stores which I normally find extra-fun. It wouldn't bug me at all if we got a bunch of hunting or furniture stores and they got auburnized instead. How cruel to make a list of Susanstores, bring them to town and then morph them out of all recognition! It's like all of Tiger Town is some huge mirage. (Altho I can attest to the Petco's being just fine, luckily for me and the kits.)

    Alas. On the bright side, every auburnized store means less temptation and Mission Thrift gets more of my cash. Quite the ganga there this morning, btw: three tops, two sweaters, one fleece jacket, and a teensy silver picture frame which I have since polished up. $26. Bee-yew-tee-full on both counts.


    (Sept. 7 - I stand corrected, quite delightedly...) :)

    6.9.06

    "6 Days, 7 NIghts" movie review - sans spoiler


    This was great even tho I really quite loathe Anne Heche. That is, there were places where my dislike of her was still a little distracting but the fun parts usually overshadowed it. Don't get me wrong; it is pretty standard Harrison Ford fodder (which I mean in a good! way) but its like a good pop fic novel... Sit back and have fun. Plus I love how Harrison Ford somehow keeps finding roles which don't make him out to be a superman younger than his years but just a really great man _of_ his years...

    5.9.06

    Book Tag

    Dang! Tagged by Jessica on this one, which taggage was reinforced by Tracy. You guys know how hard these lists are for me! And no fair finding one about books where you know there's no way I'll be able to resist. I'm taking a page from Tracy (npi, honest) tho and using quite a bit of license with the answers.... My biggest problem with these survey thingies is having to isolate one thing per question. kee.

    Oh! And I added some that I thought should be there. Daggone it, Susan, can't leave well enough alone can you?

    1. Book/s that changed your life:
    I don't think any have ever changed my life with a capital "c". OK, sure, there could be an argument for a certain longstanding addiction to all things Hamlet, not to mention the shelfspace involved therein, but it's not like I've ever gone hungry in order to pay for a fix of a new critical edition or a reprint of an early stage production on DVD or anything... :)

    Lots of books have knocked me over in that way that a really engrossing film does in the movie theater and you come out into the light struggling for a second to figure out which reality is true. For a list see most of the answers for #3.

    Actually I did think of one that changed a bunch of my reading lists and made me uncommonly diligent about reading classics (read: from the classical era, not Great Books) for a while: The Day I Became an Autodidact by Kendall Hailey - it's out of print but if you scrounge a copy and it doesn't hit you at all, just add it to your list of stuff based on my #11 below and we'll talk.

    And I wish that John Robbins' Diet for a New America had changed my life more either of the times I read it, but that's all on me and my beef farm upbringing not on Mr. Robbins.

    2. Book/s that you've read more than once, some way more than once:
  • All of the Austen main group (that is I've read her esser-knowns, too, but only once each)
  • Jane Eyre
  • Wuthering Heights
  • Most of Margaret Atwood's I've done twice, but esp. Surfacing and The Handmaid's Tale and Bluebeard's Egg (stories)
  • Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
  • Tracks by Robyn Davidson
  • The first couple of Diana Gabaldon's time-travel historical fiction tartan smut (sounds like I'm being derogatory but I'm not - quite yummy - Jamie where are you?? Och! I'm waiting, laddie!! -- if you get into her, you really only need the first two - it gets to be a bit too much and yet rather boring at the same time after they go to America)
  • Hamlet of course (I can too count it as a whole book if I want)
  • The English Patient
  • Cold Mountain
  • Mrs. Dalloway & To the Lighthouse
  • Le petit prince

  • ...among others I'm doubtless neglecting here...

    3. Book/s you'd want on a desert island:
    I've long thought all I'd need is Hamlet but lately I think I might want Le petit prince, too, and probably Moby Dick since I still probably won't have read it by then (cf. #10 below).

    4. Book/s that made you laugh:
    The latest ones were Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors and Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle which is going to sound insensitive because they're both memoirs about rather strange and difficult upbringings with emotionally challenged parents. Guess I was in a groove...

    5. Book/s that made you cry:
    Many have made me quite sad, the latest that elicited real tears being Audrey Niffenegger, The Time-Traveller's Wife, but Alice Walker made me sob at length with The Color Purple. The movie is quite a good adaptation but until you've read it you Really don't know the depth of this story. (Of course I was recovering from quite a painful bicycle accident at the time so I might have been a bit emotional anyway, but I don't think that was it, honestly.)

    6. Book/s that you wish had been written:
    No idea. Seems like there are plenty as there is - my reading list certainly isn't going hungry. Guess if I ever think of one I can start my writing career with it! nyernt nyernt

    7. Book/s you wish had never been written:
    I kind of wish none of Robert James Waller's books had ever been written but then again they're so fun to mock, plus Bridges led to one of the most fun Doonesbury sequences ever. Along the same lines (mockability) would be The DaVinci Code... Actually I kinda do wish that one had never been written... along with pretty much anything by V.C. Andrews. In fact, has anyone ever really researched these so-called authors? I think they're both pen names for a gaggle of bored 8th grade nerds in some study hall somewhere.

    8. Book/s you're currently reading:
    Val McDermid, The Torment of Others
    Gabaldon, Drums of Autumn (about to give up actually, cf. above "boring" mention)
    Kim Harrison, Dead Witch Walking (what can I say - it's a freebie from work)
    Jennifer Duncan, Frontier Spirit: The Brave Women of the Klondike
    Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet

    9. Book/s next on your list to read:
    Edward P. Jones, The Known World
    Gretel Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces
    Ondaatje, Coming Through Slaughter
    Atwood, The Penelopiad (pending the Homer below... :)

    10. Book/s you've been meaning to read forever:
    Moby Dick
    Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct ( I know, I know, what self-respecting linguist hasn't read this?!)
    Homer
    Mary McCarthy, The Group
    Great Expectations
    Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
    Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine
    Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety
    Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics

    11. Book/s you've read that you've been meaning to ask someone to decipher:
    House of Mirth is the biggest to come to mind (next time you feel like doing a mini-book report Tracy?), altho I felt the same way about Waiting (the one by Ha Jin, not the restaurant-worker hijinx book) among others...

    12. Book/s you can't seem to get into no matter how many times you try or how desperately you want to read it/them:
    Henry James Portrait of a Lady
    Laurence Sterne Tristram Shandy
    I know there are others and frankly I'd prefer not to try to think of them at the moment or else I'll probably dig them out and have another go, only to put them aside shaking my head in wonderment yet again.

    You're it! Of course there's no one left to be tagged but oh well.

    Mitraillette...

    Which is my oh so continental way of heading yet another machine-gun list of tidbits. And as long as we're being French, here's a pic of the Chartres cathedral from 1986 or so, probably the big cycling trip but my old head can't recall for sure...

    Lots of nostalgia going around here today...

    1
    Tell me again why college-age kids here in super speedy cars drive like grandmas. No self-respecting 20-year-old Tucsonan much less a Clevelander would be caught dead driving a fancy schmancy sports car thru town at 5 miles under the speed limit. I think this might be the surest proof yet that this country is heading downhill as soon as this generation gets into power. Not that I want a bunch of speed-demons in charge of the government and commerce, but at the same time this driving behavior makes me think they're all extraterrestrials. It's just not normal.

    2
    Also, someone please tell Auburn drivers that unless marked otherwise you CAN turn right on red. In particular please tell the people who wait and wait at College and Thach, and then when their light is finally green and I have my little white walking guy, they glare at me like I'm delaying them from their day... even tho they could have turned about 300 minutes earlier!!

    3
    Talladega Nights tonight with Brig and Troy and John C. Pretty standard Ferrell Fodder. At first I laugh my head off and then it just is too over the top tho I do giggle and elicit the periodic guffaw for the rest of the time, and it's certainly not boring. Elf is still my absolute favorite of his movies - I think he still knew how far to go there or something. He's incredible in Winter Passing, too, if you haven't seen it; beware, it is not at all his normal genre.

    Anyway, despite John's impromptu mooching of my popcorn (jk) we had fun because we are all pretty fun people, plus we did ice cream after. kee.

    Which (the ice cream) makes it doubly good I worked out this morning because I had a milkshake from Chick-fil-A this afternoon, too, I just remembered.

    4
    I think I might have food amnesia.

    5
    So Sam’s tastes re: people seem to be becoming less and less discriminating… or else all the new people who have been in the house in the last few months are simply increasingly cool and Sam’s meter is more finely tuned to this than mine… Not that anyone has seemed unworthy at all… Last week Sam was going crazy rubbing all over Mike the cable guy’s legs. Mike assured me it was fine but if the install had taken much longer it might have become embarrassing. Roughly the same treatment he gives Daniel the bug man each month but this time he had a captive subject rather than someone walking briskly thru the apt. Anyway Sam has always been fairly social but now I’m starting to see distinctions. With women he seems mostly to go for feet (although this could be because all the women friends who’ve been in here in the past months have worn sandals which is of course not the case with Daniel and Mike), something which certain people (Lisa and Tiphaine) find unnerving yet delights others (Jessica). Still others he isn’t all that interested in after the first few investigative sniffs and rubs, like a few weeks ago when we had 2.5 new bodies for an impromptu French instructor/neighbor women margarita break. (The .5 was Joanna my new English-instructor neighbor who had been here briefly before.) Or else he was just showing respect for our chillin’ vibe... The other night for our girls' wine & cheese, he went for a few feet but I think he was kind of dazed by the sensory overload of numerous new feet, plus a coffee table laden with goodies, plus the new orange neighbor cat who had the nerve to recline on our stoop without permission.

    Miss Lucy, of course, is just as discriminating as ever. She ventures out after new people have been there a good hour or more as long as it's not too uproarious and as long as everyone stays put instead of walking around.

    6
    So yes, very glad to say that three people-oriented question marks for this fall have turned out to be fairly promising. As I’ve mentioned, my new right-next-door neighbor is Joanna, an ABD English instructor (read: slightly older like us and fairly cool plus extensive time spent in the UK so there’s the basking element…) with 4 super cool cats. Adrienne, our new F/T instructor in my office, is quite fun, ABD also, has 2 big dogs, and is appealingly neurotic like all the best people. Adele, our youngest addition here in the Ross Cat Annex, is a biology grad student with one globe-trotting cat, and is younger than us but very laid back and decidedly not poofy-blond-coed-y. Obviously there’s something to be said for animal people, although of course it won’t hold across the board…

    7
    Thinking about 3 new blog projects: one of my Japan journal from 97-98, one of Mom's memoir stuff that I hand-published as a chapbook in 1996, one of Dad's memoir stuff which is awaiting considerable work still. This plus a couple of other gifties means the fall's creativity options are a tad overflowing, esp. when one factors in school and the store... I'm trying to be philosophical about it tho and just see what gets done instead of getting mad at myself in December... OK yes we'll see about that :) ...I think I'll dig in on the Dad thing either way.

    What really got me thinking about the Dad thing again is I scraped my left ring finger the other day. Most of you know I usually wear Grandma Booth's wedding ring there plus a couple of little important Susanrings. Well it's too sore to have rings on it so the last few days I've been wearing Dad's wedding ring on my middle finger instead. The latest really cool effect of losing weight this summer is that my fingers, esp. with Dad's ring there, really look like Dad's. Hence, Bonjour la nostalgie.

    Anyway there is MAJOR editing/formatting/organizational work entailed in the Dad project. Much more than when I did Mom's. He wrote almost all in caps for one thing with very little punctuation... kind of stream of consciousness, or more accurately, just the way he talked. So there's a lot to chew right there. Add in the fact that even tho he did his on computer, this makes it less organized than Mom's because he duplicated lots of pages everywhere and even duplicated passages of all different sizes (I think partially due to the Parkinson's) so you'll be reading along and realize he's copy/pasted something you read 10 pages earlier into the current paragraph... It's still really cool of course that both my parents left these stories and thoughts behind, so I'll get it done somehow eventually.

    8
    Usually the machine-gun entries aren't so bulky!
    Bai.

    3.9.06

    a problem & a chuckle

    OK the new laptop won't let me do ASCII accents for some reason - it just dings at me as I type in the numbers. This is very distressing indeed, esp. for my French blog. aaargh!

    Guess I have some research ahead of me...

    Here's a funny anyway. Yesterday at the store we took down the display where little kids had been turning in their mini book reports on summer reading. Here's the best review, altho the title was omitted, which is probably the most important thing to remember when doing a book report, but we can't always be picky. Note: this is the review in its entirety, which makes it all the funnier I think...

    "I really like when her thumb got funked out. Its just like my life but no marbles."

    2.9.06

    In which our heroine pontificates at length on the pains and absent virtues of the sales realm

    Blame the heat if this one’s too harsh or too scattered either one.
    The names have been changed to protect the not-at-all innocent.

    The book/music/video-slinging side of my life is holding its own, mostly due to the fact that I have my Real Job (ostensibly) to think about again and due to my spending lots less time in my retail hat now.

    However, this does not prohibit the staff there or the job itself from being just as dorky and messed up as ever. Any sanity I have been able to retain there has wholly been due to mostly working in the book department, thereby being able, usually, to stay on my own working on whatever projects left me by the book manager, and not to deal with the rest of the staff overmuch.

    This is good because the rest of the staff, with very few exceptions, are pretty difficult to deal with, for various reasons.

    Think sullen, almost to a soul.

    Some of them are just completely antisocial and generally pissed-off and surface occasionally to whine about how bad they’ve got it (witness Arnold, the guy who, in the July employee meeting, spouted off about helping in each other’s sections whenever possible, and then walked up to me with a big stack of magazines one day when I was obviously in the middle of a software project [he’s in video and magazines are technically part of the book staff’s job] and just held them out to me with nary a word – I don’t mind being given them to shelve, he might have been busy or whatever, but don’t just hand them to my like I’m today’s serf special for heaven’s sake, Mr. “Oh-We-Should-Be-More-Of-A-Family-And-Help-Each-Other-Out-More”), some of them are exceedingly moody (and you know, MY saying that… well let’s just say that I know what I’m talking about and leave it at that. kee.)

    Of the moody ones, there is one guy I now never say anything to until he makes contact first so I can gauge the waters because he is at once unreadable and completely volatile, possessing two settings: pissy, and amicable but strange. So when he’s pissy you don’t want to talk to him, and when he’s ABS you for a second think “Oh thank goodness he’s not pissy." This is quickly followed by, “Wow I had no idea you had so many opinions on 21st century American pedagogy; how can I gracefully extricate myself from Diatribe City?” (No joke, he went on for about 20 minutes one day about the proper way to teach history to high school students and how the fact that no one knows the correct order of the Presidents means the country is going down the toilet; luckily I was in a project with the scanning gun so could just kind of nod and “Oh! Wow! I never thought of it like that,” once in a while and still get my project done.) This is the person who, on one of his good days when he was open for smalltalk, said that once in high school when a teacher said he should try to enlarge his vocab and avoid using the same words over and over again, he (in all seriousness, even when he refers to it now) decided to avoid a REALLY commonly used word: the, to write an entire story. He spoke of it with such pride, really. He continues such practices today in his writing apparently. Thank goodness he hasn’t brought any in for me to experience first hand… What’s that Emerson (I think) saying about consistency’s being the hobgoblin of little minds?... ('Course I shouldn't make fun - look at Daniel Pennac for crying out loud: fairly well-respected French writer who wrote an entire novel about 10 years ago without using the letter "e".)

    That wouldn’t be bad as a title for an exposé of the mentality of our staff in general in fact. There's a lot of farting around doing precious little aside from strutting here and there trying to look important by certain managers, for example... then they will issue one of those directives which have absolutely nothing to do with Good Service and everything to do with Showing One's Supposed Authority (mostly to oneself) like "Hey, Susan, there are a lot of scuffs on the floor; go around and rub them out." (Absolutely true.)

    Alternatively one of the non-managerial types will, In a Very Serious Voice, remind you "Hey, don't forget the DVD cases have to be stacked THIS direction," or similar.

    There's probably some sociological thing kind of akin to Stockholm Syndrome or something to explain this. Wasn't there some study of rat hierarchy and the peon rats would be constantly chewed on by the one-step-up-from-peon ones, just because the OSUFP rats needed to remind themselves that they were indeed One Step Up?

    Well that's what this is. Luckily I for some reason don't get mad and just chuckle to myself (well, almost always anyway) and let them get their 22-year-old OSUFP rocks off by telling the Old Lady how to stack the frigging DVD cases correctly.

    It's not really just Me, OSUFP's, and managers. kee. Here's the real breakdown, attitude-wise anyway... About 1/3 of the staff are competent and exhibit that competency on a regular basis (of these one or two are holding the store together basically, yet are treated to hearty amounts of spite from the whiny, blame-findy third) but become steadily disillusioned and finally seek other jobs where they will be more appreciated. They have very high expectations for themselves and for others.

    Another third are competent but don’t care much about doing a good job except where it permits them to bitch about all the stuff that’s wrong and to correct others’ shortcomings (cf. whiny blame-finders). They have high expectations of everyone but themselves.

    The last third are pretty incompetent but are well-meaning and friendly, and hide their shortcomings pretty easily amidst the other 2/3. I think the real reason they’re fairly content is they have low expectations, of themselves as well as of others. Probably a lesson in there somewhere. Actually they are the most fun of the 3 types to be around so more power to them, I say.

    The craziest faction is the middle third, who seem to live for correcting or at least pointing out what they believe to be other staff members’ infractions. Mind you, this group is about 50-50 managers and regular staff. Of the managers, there is one new manager who has his Newfound Authority hat on a little too tight. (More of him later.) It shouldn’t surprise me since that’s how their training of new staff works, as I said before. Why tell someone how to do something correctly from the get-go? Much more satisfying to wait til they screw up and then jump down their throat in front of 5 or 6 customers and other staff.

    In fact I guess really the staff has simply internalized this treatment from the training examples and so automatically proceed on the same path as they carry out all their shifts… correcting those around them. Now that I think about it this goes a long way in explaining why people would quite often not give me a straight answer when I asked questions of fellow staff members when I first got there. I was treated to a pretty impressive array of variations on the “I don’t know and I don’t care and why should I help you anyway?” theme. (I can safely say that never in my life have I worked with such unhelpful people, even at Cleveland Antiquarian Books --now defunct so I can name them outright with impunity I trust-- which is saying a lot.) Luckily I had lots of retail know-how to brainstorm with plus I’m smart in general.

    Anyway I am ever astounded by the outsized ratio between many workers’ lack of conscientiousness where their own performance is concerned and their extreme concern for finding fault with others.

    To put it another way, if I were in the French Resistance, and this were 1944, I would have been renounced long ago and there would have been a veritable stampede to the local Gestapo office to get my name on the list. (Meanwhile they're all getting black market beef and hosiery.)

    You want examples?! Well…

    1
    Firstly we are allowed to take one mass market (that’s a pocket book to you non-book industry types) home every week, with the cover stripped off, our name and date on the back of the cover, as long as it’s a title of which we have at least 2 copies total in store. Last night as I was buying a couple of things, I had my latest stripped book with me as well and gave the cover to Cecil (who has been with the store for 1.5 years, and so, WOW, knows Quite A Bit about the ins & outs) at the register to give to the manager…

    “Did Winnie OK that?”
    “Um, not specifically, bu—”
    Interrupting, “She said we can’t take magazines home anymore.”
    “Um, it’s not a magazine.”
    “Well did someone say it was OK?”
    “I didn’t ask. I was told by Emily that it is Policy that we have the right to one MM book per week as long as you leave at least one copy on the shelf, and ever since then I have taken one a week home, with the tacit approval of Mario, Kaylie, and Jed, depending on who was working the various times I’ve taken stripped books home.” Then, slowly and distinctly so he would understand, “It’s a perk.”
    Dubious look at the fairly new (2.5 months) albeit middle-aged and authoritative female coworker, “Since when?”
    “Since forever.”

    Jed the shift manager happened out at that point so I simply took the book cover out of the still apparently stymied and ever doubtful Cecil’s hands and handed it to Jed, who just nodded and put it with the other paperwork he had in his hands to take to the office.

    Yes, Cecil, even you can learn something new once in a while.

    2
    The other day, Adam the newby manager, was at the register when I came in to check my schedule. As I went thru the register line to go back to the breakroom to where the schedules are posted, Adam stops me and says, in all seriousness, “Kinda casual today, huh, Susan?” Eyebrows raised What is wrong with this picture?-style, the way people do with kids when they want the kids to figure out for themselves that there being crayon all over the wall is perhaps not OK after all…

    I said, eyebrows equally elevated, “Too casual for checking the schedule, Adam?”
    “Oh, no, that’s all right then. Go ahead.”
    Don’t mind if I do, Oh Great One.

    Isn't there some theory about respect being earned rather than bestowed automatically?

    I do remember the first time I was a manager, and yes I was already about 18 years older than Adam is now, so it’s easy for me to say how one should be since I don’t know how I would have acted at 22 as a managerial type. Still, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been in any scenario very much like this:...

    3
    Adam’s first day as a manager (yeah, his hypercorrective managerial skills were already in high gear)… I was on schedule for 5pm. I arrived at 4h40, got my badge out of my locker and stashed my bag, etc… Went to the book desk to say Hi to Lacey, one of the book staff, to see what kinds of projects were in progress and where I should pick up various tasks. Lacey left after we gabbed a couple minutes, and I started in on my first project. I finished it around 6h30, and happened up by the registers to check our book bin to see if there were any new arrivals of used titles to shelve. Adam was there and looked at me rather incredulously.

    “How long have you been here?!”
    “What do you mean?”
    “When did you get to work?”
    “About a quarter to 5.”
    “Where were you?”
    What?! “I was in Books.”
    Dubious but forced to believe me, “I didn’t see you.”
    So? “I didn’t see you either.”
    Pre-fess-up hesitation, “Um, well… I guess you should disregard the message I left you at 5 on your cell phone then.”

    Oh joy.

    The message turned out to be 2 messages, both to the tune of “Susan, this is Adam calling from the store. I just wanted to remind you you’re on shift today so if you could come in and work that would be great.” The first one was at 4:59, the second at 5:03.

    After I listened to them and deleted them I decided he was smart enough to learn from his own mistake and in future he would either check with others to see if the employee in question had been seen or he would perhaps think of using the intercom to page the person and see if they answered, or maybe he would even venture to the book desk (being the manager on duty for that shift after all) to see what’s what. I’m confident at least one of these ideas will dawn on him eventually. I mean, Come ON! He's a Go-Getter!

    Again I say, these attitudes might have their place if everyone possessing them were more consistent in their own practices. I also reiterate that I do indeed remember having a bit of that “My shit don’t stink, I’m a manager” outlook at Borders but (A) although my poop can be quite smelly, I did my job and did it well and didn’t lord over anyone, making PDF sure that I was working just as hard or harder than people I asked stuff of, plus of course (B) Borders was infinitely more worthy of managerial self-importance anyhoo. (So sue me; you didn't figure out before now that I'm biased?! :)

    These people can’t even keep the coffee cart supplies ordered or figure out how quickly the store goes thru a box of standard-sized garbage bags for crying out loud. Yet another dubious honor of this store: it's the only place I’ve ever worked where having the requisite standard supplies around was such an overwhelming challenge to the managerial staff. Of course it takes a lot of time and energy to keep watch over everyone else’s transgressions not to mention the subconscious nark training of the staff at large which must be constantly supervised and adjusted. Who has time to make sure they themselves do a good job, much less to see that we have toilet paper in the building?!

    Sigh.

    Whatever. Concentrate on the wee extra moolah, Susan, as well as our book discount of course, which is Not Too Shabby At All (nearly 40%! - music and movie discount is only about 23% for some reason which is why I'm not exactly ready to let my Amazon account waste away any time soon). Plus despite all this it's still an interesting counterpoint to school...

    Crazy.

    I can only say that of course since I'm a plebeian there. Jed actually asked me if I was interested in applying for the open asst. mgr. slot and I gave him a resounding NO. Besides this place's being WAY unworthy of that much Susaneffort and initiative, I can't describe how far I am from any interest in that much investment in retaildom.

    Still kinda cool that he suggested it so I let it stroke my ego for a minute or two all the same.

    nyernt nyernt

    8/06 thanks