Resum(e)ing Life

I'm looking for a new job. I pounded out a long, vitriolic post explaining why between puffs of my ecig while wondering if 1130pm on a work/school night was too late to get into the booze. Then I did the mature, adult, way-less-fun thing and deleted it and am starting again.

So, I'm looking for a new position. Hopefully one that will be engaging and give me a career path to follow once my current main job (Mom) moves out in a couple of years. One that doesn't hold my middle-age or my above average midsection against me.

I'm a little nervous. My mom got laid off when she was roughly the age I am now and it took her 3 years to find a new position. I have a kid going to college soon - 3 years is not an acceptable search period in my world.

Also, I was stuck in the bookstore for three hours tonight because the teen wanted a less distracting environment in which to pound out her first college essay for her dual-credit Comp I class. It seemed a logical use of my time to grab some cover letter and resume books to peruse while she was quietly panicking writing.

I checked the publication dates to make sure I wasn't getting career advice from the 70s. Nope, both books were last updated in 2016. Okay, good to go, right? OMG. No.We were not good to go. The advice in these books?! Ugh. It made me grimace and rant and slam them closed.


A couple of years ago I found myself on the hiring side of the desk for the first time and it was an eye-opening experience. I didn't conduct interviews, but I did create and place ads and I was the first line of defense on the incoming applications.

A fair amount of them never made it past me.

Why? Oh so many reasons, but I'll start with my own personal pet peeve:

• Cover letters
• In my experience, cover letters are mostly just idiot tests. "The ad says send a cover letter and resume. Circular file any that come in without cover letters; they obviously can't follow simple directions." 
• Employers know what applicants want - a job. Applicants  know what employers want - to be impressed with their ability to do that job. 
• A decent resume is a good tool to let an employer know a person is interested, and to let them know whether they think the applicant has sufficient potential to fill the position to justify setting time aside for an interview.
• Therefore, a canned cover letter is a waste of everyone's time. And they are all canned. The only ones I've ever seen that were not obviously built from a template found online or in a career counselor's office were dreadful. Unprofessional. The kind of thing that made you wonder what the hell they were thinking when they wrote it.
• All of this is ignoring the ones that will get your resume trashed as fast as skipping the cover letter. The ones where applicants cut and paste and don't update the company name, person they are addressing, position they are applying for - pretty much any customizable field. Or the ones with unreadable fonts. Or colored paper. Or clip art. Yes, I saw all of these things as recently as 2015. Clip art!
• Long resumes
• Honestly - even if you send me 3 pages of brilliance, I am unlikely to look at anything other than the first page on the first pass. That first page needs to tell me your name, how to get in touch with you, and whether you meet at least some of the qualifications we're looking for in an applicant. If any of that information is unavailable until page 3, your resume probably won't even make it to a decision maker.
• Cute resumes
• Do not print it on non-standard paper to 'make it stand out'. It stands out, but not in a good way. 
• Do not include images other than a head shot (personally I don't think those belong on resumes, either, unless you're an actor or a model). 
• Do not use a 'pretty' or 'macho' font. Acceptable options are pretty much what they were in college - Times New Roman or Arial.

So, that's the peeves. I hated all the things in all the books I looked at and got frustrated and went home, the teen telling me along the way I should write a resume book. Nope. I hate writing those even more than cover letters.

Also, I'm a little scared now.

When I was googling resume images for the picture above I noticed they all look liked damned Facebook profile pages. What the hell?!

Okay, I haven't needed a resume in 3 years, and, if I'm honest, the one I used then was a minor update of the one I used in 2007. So mine is a little out of date. But these social media looking things? No. I hatess its, I doess.

But I need to make one anyway, heaven help me. If I feel extra brave later this week (or give in and break out the booze) I might post a peek of the new one. Probably not, since I like to keep this blog semi-nonymous, but maybe.

Tuesday Tirade: Do Your Duty!

Civic Duty

It's an orphaned ideal in our cynical and paranoid nation.

I'm pretty sure my fondness for the concept stems from some combination of being an LA Law fan back in the day plus reading too many legal thrillers in my twenties with an added dash of the last remnants of my freshman (HS) ambition to be a lawyer.

Curious? I'm talking about that dread bit paper (no, not a speeding ticket; I've gotten much better at not getting caught) -- the jury summons.

Jury Duty by Krin

Jury duty is a PITA.

• It's time consuming. I've been called three times since I was 18. The very first time I was called I served on the jury --  Lawyers: beware 18yo jurors fresh from the AP English ritual that is Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men! The trial was supposed to run 3 days from the first day. It ran 3 1/2 and my boss at the time actually called the courtroom looking for me midday on the 4th day. He didn't believe I was really doing my jury duty! The second and third times I was called  I did not serve on a jury. BUT, I was downtown at the courthouse the day of my summons for over 12 hours the first time due to lengthy voir dire, and almost 12 hours the second time because of... Well, I can't remember the reason now; I just remember making a lot of panicked calls to the person watching my 7yo daughter and a lot of apologizing for not picking up my kid already.
• It's expensive. Gas for the drive into town. Parking fees for a garage or meter. Potential additional childcare expenses. Oh, and that pesky matter of losing your real paycheck and subbing it with $7/day juror fees. That's less than the hourly minimum wage. Take my 12 hour day as an example. Instead of the $11/hour I was making at the time, I made $0.58/hour. If you add in gas, parking, and a meal in the courthouse cafeteria because nothing else was in walking distance, I probably spent $25 that day. PLUS my lost pay. Ouch!
• It's a logistical nightmare. I live and work in the suburbs, and, if I'm honest, Austin is still small town enough that driving down to the courthouse isn't near the logistical nightmare it was when I lived in Katy and had to drive into downtown Houston for jury duty--and of course that was the one where I was on the jury. Still, for most people trekking down to the courthouse is a pain. Finding parking is a nightmare, and constantly having to beg a guard to let you run out and feed your meter? ZOMG. And that assumes you don't have kids. Most single parents are recused in order to care for their children, but two parent households often have complex schedules due to extracurricular activities. Take one car & driver off the schedule and chaos ensues.
• It's boring. This is speaking as someone who has been called three times, went all three times, and endured three voir dires. The majority of stuff people go to court for is paint-peelingly dull. And that's the actual trial. The lead up is even worse with a ton of hurry-up-and-wait.

And those are just the things off the top of my head.

So What?!

Yes, it's a pain.

It's also an honor and a duty. 

My father has told me more than once over the years that if he ever found himself in a situation where a jury might be needed he would waive the right to a jury in exchange for summary judgment. Why?

 "Because it will not be a jury of my peers. It will be a jury of people too stupid to get out of jury duty and those are damned sure not the people I want passing judgment on me!"

In a way he's right. For example, since single parents are often recused, how often does a single parent on trial, whose motives for their actions may be tied strongly to the realities of single parenthood, actually get a jury of their peers? I'm betting not often.

I think I am the only person I know who never tries to get out of jury duty. I think it's too important to blow off. The right to a trial by jury is a right we take for granted in this country that a large portion of the global population does not enjoy. As such, I feel it is my job, as a responsible citizen of the country I am glad to live in (crazy conservatives and all), to be a part of the process.

How about you? If you think jury duty is a waste of time, at least entertain me by telling me what excuse(s) you've used to get out of jury duty.

Tuesday Tirade: Walk much?

*sigh*

I live in Central Texas. Where the climate is, though it pains me to admit it since I really hate the heat, pretty easy to live with year-round.

Don't get me wrong. I hate the heat and, if I'm honest, after living here for the last 27 years I get a bit uncomfortable when things drop below 50, too. But it's all livable.

I don't live somewhere with torrential rains, ice storms (except for the occasional freak one), heavy (or even any) snowfall. Nor do I live somewhere so arid and hot (have you ever been to Death Valley, California? I have. It's pretty much hell on Earth. Literally.) that breathing the air hurts.

So, I ask you: WHY in the hell do perfectly healthy people have someone drop them off at the door to a store?

They are not aged, infirm, or toting a small child--the only three reasons I can think of for this sort of incredibly indolent behavior, given our climate.

So far as I can tell they are just bone lazy. And inconsiderate. The drivers invariably stop in the center of the driving lane, thereby blocking progress through the lot for those of us who know how our legs work. I am *ahem* significantly overweight and my fat butt can walk through the parking to and from my car.

If they had a large load of groceries it would still be aggravating, but slightly understandable. I've had the husband pull up to the store a couple of times when the weather was really nasty and I had a lot of groceries to load in the car.

My issue is with the people who are dropped off at the entrance while the driver goes to hunt for a parking place. Is it really going to make that much of a difference in their day if they take another five minutes to get inside the store? Are they going to drop dead of exhaustion after the 200-foot walk?

WHAT is wrong with these people?!

Photo courtesy of stringberd via Flickr.com

Yes, I had to go shopping this weekend, grocery and other retail outlets and my path was blocked by people doing this every where I went. Literally. *grumble*

Tuesday Tirade: A Shoe In...

~~~Justin: this is NOT for you. Seriously, I'm discussing lower limb issues, you don't want to read. If you decide to, well, I tried to warn you.~~~



Jay has lymphedema. She was born with it, which is known as Milroy's Disease for the curious or bored. I don't talk about it much because it just is what it is and I have a separate blog devoted to the topic at lymphbaby, that I update even less frequently than this one, but I'm peeved, so here goes.

WHY is it so hard to find ~anything~ in this country that is outside the accepted norm of sizes? A few statistics to help my case:

• The incidence of lymphedema in the United States is estimated at 2.5 million, yet more than 100 million people are affected worldwide. (Source)
• If you have developed lymphoedema, you are not alone; it is estimated that well over 100,000 men, women and children in the UK are living with the condition. (Source)
• Geographically speaking, the US is 40 times the size of the UK. (Source)
• The US has 25 times as many lymphedema sufferers as the UK (per data above).

Jay's LE (the accepted abbreviation for lymphedema, which you'll see a LOT because I get tired of typing the word and after 9 yrs blogger.com still tells me I'm spelling it wrong!) is in her feet and toes. To top it off the poor kid has ~my~ feet underneath it all (wide foot, short toes and tiny nails).

In her case the swelling on the top of her foot begins just at the base of her toes and goes to the front of her ankle as well as to the sides and, less severely, to the bottoms of her feet and toes.

I say this because while shopping for 2-3x wide shoes is hard enough in this country, wide is not her only issue. Until I started ordering from a site in the UK a couple of years ago she never owned a pair of properly fitting shoes. In order to get something that would cover the height of the top of her foot (the dorsum---I had to learn all this stuff so I can sound erudite when I explain it to each new specialist) we've had to buy shoes that were 1-2x wide and anywhere from 1/2 to 2 1/2 sizes too big/long so she wouldn't have to go barefoot, since, well, you can't go to school barefoot...

What about custom/prescription footwear?

I tried. When she was about 18 months old I asked her pediatrician (who is, btw, ~awesome~) if we could get a scrip for custom shoes, like they do for kids who need specialized orthopedic shoes. She was uncomfortable writing the Rx since it's a bit wide of her field and recommended we seek a pediatric orthopedist. So I did.

It's been 7+ years and I am STILL angry about that day. I found a specialist, I waited months to get her in, I paid the ridiculous specialist co-pay (2x the norm) and we saw the doctor. A doctor who couldn't seem to wrap his brain around the fact that I wanted a scrip for custom shoes. I needed the prescription because (a) I don't know who to call for custom shoes and (b) custom footwear is waaaay outside our budget.

He was fascinated by her feet. He'd never seen anything like it. We were there three hours and he brought every doctor in the practice, every nurse, and even a couple of pharma and orthopedic supplier reps who were making calls into the exam room to see her feet.

Then refused to write the scrip because, and this is a quote, "I don't see how I can help you. I'm an orthopedist."

============
Fast forward through 4-5 years of over-sized poor fitting shoes that were still a trial to find. Someone on one of the LE listservs I'm a member of sent me a godsend of a URL: www.cosyfeet.com. Go check it out. You can shop for shoes by size (UK shoe sizing being one of many thing on my long list of things I've had to learn since she was diagnosed at about 6 weeks old), by style, by medical condition you need to accommodate.

And I've bought at least one pair of shoes for her from them every year since then.

Then the economy tanked. Last pair I ordered was in January of this year, when the pound was still pretty weak, too. It's not, now, and I discovered Sunday that while I can order her shoes, I'm going to have to budget for it a bit more since the dollar is weak to the pound just now.

Great. I couldn't justify spending 2+ weeks of daycare on a single pair of shoes without at least trying to find a resource in the U.S. Which pretty much ate the rest of my Sunday afternoon and early evening.

Here are some of the things I (fruitlessly) Googled:

• lymphedema shoes U.S.
• extra extra wide shoes
• specialty shoes for medical conditions
• lymphedema shoes

Found lots of sites. Lots of expensive shoes. And while they had wide sizes (less in anything remotely feminine vs. guy shoes and even less when you add an, "extra," or two in front of the word,"wide") none of them had anything addressing shoe height, hence the search for shoes for medical conditions.

Still nada, but ran into a few crappy shoe sites that didn't even let me search by size. What is the point of finding a perfect pair of shoes only to discover it is not made in the size I need---unlike clothing, one cannot diet to get a smaller shoe size (for the most part).

Okay, I will grant you that of the estimated 2.5 million LE sufferers in the US, over half of them are cancer patients, predominantly breast cancer survivors. Meaning their ARMS are affected, not their feet. But, even at 1/3 of 2.5 million that's still a captive audience of 833,333 people in desperate need of a product to fill their need. 8x the total number of people in the UK who have LE. And ~no one~ can step up.

I wish to heaven I had the skills to be a shoe designer. I'd make a fortune (and do it without charging one!).

Tuesday Tirade: You Gave Her a WHAT?!

Parents (NOT grandparents, just 'rents!) you'll feel me.

Childless people, you NEED to pay attention.

Today we are discussing inappropriate gifts for children. Specifically LIVE gifts. Seriously folks, unless the little darlings' parent told you, "Go buy my kid a puppy/kitty/bunny/baby chick/pony," DO NOT DO IT.

Yes, pony. No finger pointing, but someone in our extended family wanted to buy J a horse. A HORSE. Horses are cheap. To buy. It's the care, feeding, and boarding that will convince you the horse has a better life than you do since his monthly roof rent is almost as much as yours. I pointed this out, kindly but vehemently, to the well-meaning relative and that was it.

I would love to be able to own a horse for my horse-crazy girl to enjoy, but it's just not in my budget. I'm struggling now to figure out how to pay for horse camp for the summer as it is...

Not all such bullets have been dodged, unfortunately.

One Easter weekend we went to visit my father and his wife. They were out at the barn where they kept their horses, sheep, and other random urban livestock--they live in Houston--and my dad was mowing the lot/pasture with a riding mower with the heavy duty pull behind mower attachment.

He mowed over a rabbit warren (thankfully BEFORE we got there!) With babies. Cute babies, babies old enough to eat real food. Only one survived the mower, though. TES (that would be The Evil Stepmother) rescued the baby bunny and took it in the barn.

We arrived, let the girlchild uno--this was in the late 90's--pet all the critters, have her pic taken with the horses, etc. I went out to talk to my dad. When I cam back to the barn my girl was proudly holding a cat carrier containing (guess!) and telling us all about her own personal Easter bunny.

She gave my kid a baby rabbit.

Ummm... No.

Guess who had to call the urban animal rescue when we got back to Austin to determine what to feed it, how to care for it, etc.? Yea, NOT the person who gave her the stupid (but yes, cute, fluffy, soft, and scared out of its little tiny mind) bunny that's for sure. Fortunately our bunny was determined to be old enough to be self-sufficient and we picked a favorite park where we like to play that had a lot of wooded trails and plenty of cover and set it free.

Buy me a margarita sometime and I'll tell you the story of how it "mysteriously" (quoting the 3yo here) got out of it's carrier on the way to the park...

My friend, Crystal recently became grandmother to a tarantula in a not dissimilar way, though I suspect her hubs may have colluded on that one since he had big nasty hairy spiders as a kid...

Do not, not, not, not, not give live gifts to other people's kids. Ever. PLEASE.

While I'm thinking about it, ask them before you give their 4yo daughter pink pleather hot pants and real, takes-acetone-to-remove-it-from-the-carpet, nail polish, too.

Healthy (?) Choice

Okay... I am like, the world's WORST dieter.

The only time I kinda even a little stick to a healthy eating plan is at work. I bought a fridge, the office mate contributed an old microwave and I stock frozen meals and Campbell's Select Harvest Light soups. This is what you call dieting by default. It's not so much that I'm making a good choice as it is that I eliminated the unhealthy options. As long as Raidman doesn't call and ask if I want to go to lunch and foil my 'plan.'

I've always been a fan of Healthy Choice, just because their (old) bright green labels made it easy to grab and tell myself I was doing the right thing. I'm even trying, in a very lazy way, to get a little closer to natural foods, lower preservatives, less processed stuff, etc. So I was super excited when I found the Healthy Choice All Natural entrees at HEB a couple weeks ago.

Then I ate one for lunch yesterday. This one, in fact.

It is pretty good. The veggies are tender but still have a little crunch to them (which, I admit, I don't really like, but other people do so I'm mentioning it as a public service) and the ravioli themselves are pretty yummy in spite of the ricotta (ewww) inside. All five of the ravioli that is.

In the spirit of scientific inquiry I measured them. They are all of 2in square and NOT puffy (totally not Chef Boyardee looking!).

Chef Boyardee image courtesy of cfinke via Flickr.com

I know the picture on the HC box is meant to entice, but come on, it has twice the ravioli my box had, easily.

Serving size: 9 oz (255 g)

Umm, yea. I'm pretty sure that weight includes the plastic tray - and that it is 2/3 of the total.

I can easily believe the box's claim that this is 30% of my daily fruit and veg. Problem is, it's mostly fruit and mostly tomato sauce. I didn't count my slices (half slices, technically, since they were half moons and most even smaller than that!) of squash and zucchini, but there were less than a dozen total. And they were all half the size of the ravioli or smaller. I'm pretty sure if I wanted to get that 30% I'd have to dive in and lick the sauce off the plastic.

The sauce itself was, frankly, way too sweet. And I have a sweet tooth that has aided me in getting 100lbs over weight. Do you know how sweet it has to be for me to say it's too sweet?! Yea.

Then there's the thing that puts me over the edge. I'm overweight. I'm medicated for high blood pressure. And my "Healthy Choice" for lunch has TWENTY-FOUR PERCENT of my recommended sodium for the day? In five freakin' ravioli?! Come ON Con-Agra (*shudder* wish I hadn't read the side of the box to find out who makes this now... I've seen Food, Inc.!) If it was really a healthy choice it wouldn't have 8g of sugar (twice what it has in fiber!) and 580mg of sodium.

I want a healthy choice that's really healthy. Is that so much to ask? And, umm... Can it be healthy AND more than 8 bites? I didn't get where I am by eating light.

Side note: Here's a thought! Can someone make freezer meals for the obese that work like nicotine patches... You start out with Hungry Man portions, end up with Healthy Choice ones - gradual steps to retrain your body?

Damn, I'm a freakin' genius

Tuesday Tirade - Brought to you by Thermos

DISCLAIMER: I want to apologize in advance for (ab)using the Thermos (R) brand name, but I've never seen a generic name for this product, though I have seen the generic product, it just never registered.

Having said that...

Did you have a lunchbox when you were a kid? The old school metal ones with a thermos inside that had the built in cup/lid cover? They were cool, weren't they? I mean that literally, too. My kool-aid stayed cold all morning in that puppy. And my chicken noodle soup? You could burn your tongue at lunch if you weren't careful to eat your crackers while the soup cooled to edible temperature in the cup/bowl/lid.

Well, my girl doesn't have that problem. Why? Because some moron kid somewhere dropped a Thermos, the glass liner inside broke, and the idiot didn't notice the shiny silver glass shards or the tinkling noise it made and ate/drank from it anyway. Now they line them with metal.

Which DOES NOT WORK as well. Some days it barely works at all. You can still find a few glass-lined Thermos vacuum bottles, but they are all huge and meant for construction workers or whomever to carry coffee. Way too big for a lunch box.

So now my kid gets cold food. Or warm drinks. Or, my favorite problem with the metal liners... They create such a hard vacuum when you seal in hot food that she can't open it at lunch. Apparently the adult lunch monitors can't either. Yet I always can... (rant for another day)

Meaning my kid gets snacks for lunch and comes home starving crabby. Since the crabby is a semi-given at age 9, I could really do without the starving.

Please, please, BRING BACK GLASS LINED KID THERMOSES*!

(thermoses? thermosii? anyone know the 'correct' plural for this?)

(Thermos image courtesy of kaboodle.com, despite the watermark, lol...)

Tuesday Tirade: The Answer to All Of Your Questions is NO

I moderate a small local moms' group. I joined a few years ago and kind of fell into moderating.

Lately, though, it's been a bit of a chore. Why? The economy, of course.

People are tightening their belts. They're getting more creative with their marketing, and trying to do more while spending less. Social media, whether its the evil FB, I really hate that site, almost as much as I despise MySpace, Twitter, online groups, whatever, is mostly about investing your time and your personality.

So let me be straight up: MY MAMAS ARE NOT A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR CRAP.

We are a small group, under 40 members. Biggest we've ever been was around 90 and that was primarily due to a lazy (guilty as charged!) moderator.

We're small so that people feel safe and comfortable talking about their families, their kids, their nursing problems, sex after babies, whatever the topic du jour is. People who stick around like our rigorous moderation.

When a woman joins -- Yes, it is a MOMS-only group -- we send her a note asking her to tell us more about herself and her family and how she heard about our little group before her membership is approved.

Don't answer the survey, don't get to join.

When she joins she's moderated for a while, either until she:

1. Unsubs after deciding we are not what she was looking for. This sometimes happens immediately, sometimes not til inflammatory topics (the mingling of religion and public education is good for weeding out the wimps) come round.
2. Posts enough that we feel comfortable letting her post without a babysitter.
3. Posts so damn much (that is ok) that it floods my inbox with crap to approve and I unmoderate her just to make it STOP.

We are serious about making our little group a place where moms feel safe and secure. We state upfront that if you are here to market your crap you are not welcome. Not if that's the ONLY reason. We have a lot of WAHM members and they talk about work, but, like everyone else with something to sell (garage sales, craigslist items, etc), are only allowed to actively market their biz one day a week. If you only post to market yourself, we will eventually kick you because that's not why the rest of us are there.

I say all this because the last week or so has seen a rash of service-oriented spam join requests. People with brilliant things to say for themselves (in the initial Yahoo groups form---I'm pretty sure they all gave up hope when they got the follow-up member survey) like:

1. I teach your children music. -- Really? No name? No indication of gender or whether or not you have a family or are just a perve who wants to eyeball our kids in the group photo albums? REJECTED
2. home work -- Are you offering to do it for my kids? Are you a maid service? A tutor? A work-from-home scammer? REJECTED
3. A dental hygienist for a local pediatric dentistry practice. -- This one was nice, but still a solicitation and therefore unwelcome. I'm still debating forwarding her spam to the practice to find out if they stand behind it or she was trying to drum up biz on her own...

That's a week's worth. I don't have time for it, we don't want it, and I guarantee you we will never let you in. We had a member in the past who harvested group emails for her home cosmetics sales gig---she posted normally, too, but we had to electronically smack her around and tell her not to do it again.

Maybe it's time to re-write our splash page? I haven't looked at it in years, but if it will make the spam stop...

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cursedthing/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Can't Rant

I was gonna rant but... (a) I want to do a little research on my topic and (b) I have a shiny new blog background and am finding it hard to be properly rant-ish.

Have no fear though, I am naturally inclined to snark and ranting, so I'm sure there will be some soon!

PS - I also took part in my first "Teaser Tuesday" over on my book blog, if you wanna check it out.

Tuesday Tirade: Lower Price is Not Necessarily a Good Thing

This has been bugging me for a while, and I was thinking I need to post more often...

For a number of health reasons I've been trying to incorporate more natural and high fiber products/complex carbs into my family's diet.

After trying about a jillion (or so it felt) different kinds of bread---and being shocked at the tiny amount of fiber in most whole wheat breads---I found one at HEB my family liked and that I, the occasional and totally random nutrition Nazi, approved. HEB's Glycemic Health bread--a healthy wheat bread with a whopping 2.5g of fiber PER SLICE.

It even, unlike many of the more expensive wheat breads, came in a sandwich-style option. You know, the really square bread with the thinner crusts. Since the girl has taken to pulling the crusts off her sandwiches and throwing them away, thin crust means more of her lunch makes its way into her face.

Lately I haven't been able to find my bread at all. I was upset, and finally decided a couple weeks I was going to stop by the store when I had a few minutes and ask the manager about it. Just to make sure I didn't look like an idiot, I went to check the bread aisle first. And found what I was looking for... sort of:



It had the same name, but a few key differences. It was, indeed, cheaper than the $2.38 I was paying before my bread went away for a revamp. It was also roughly 2/3 the size. The OLD sandwich loaf was 24oz and more slices since it was thinner cut. This little gem is 16oz and has fewer slices because it is no longer a sandwich-style loaf. It's also got the thick crust my kid won't touch with a ten-foot cafeteria spork.

A little math reveals that:

A) It is now more expensive per ounce, the package just has fewer ounces:
$1.59 / 16oz = 9.94 cents per ounce
$2.38 / 24oz= 9.92 cents per ounce

B) The idiot person who created their new shelf tags either lied on purpose or was dyslexic*, because there is no way that I can find that makes a 16oz loaf of bread that costs $1.59 work out to 6.63 cents per ounce. This math does work IF you keep the price and base it off the older, 24oz loaf size.

*I can totally say this --- my baby bro, the AwesomePenguin, is dyslexic, so I am not just making crap up here. It COULD happen.

I know, I know, it's just bread.

And I've watched in horror as coffee sellers have done the same thing for years now.

A coffee can from 1970 is the same size as the one I can buy today---but mine will have 3-5 fewer ounces in it than the one from when I was a kid.

This does not mean it is right. It also means I have to buy TWO loaves of bread for the week.

$3.18 vs $2.38

Somebody at HEB wanna step up and tell me just how that works out to a new lower price?

Yea, I didn't think so.

I Know It's Free, but...

Today's rant topic was up in the air til I got a paperback swap request that inspired me.

Here's the deal: Paperback Swap let's you list your unwanted books. If someone wants it, you mail it to them, paying the postage yourself, and you get a credit to use to order a book you may want from someone else. So, for the cost of postage at (usually) media mail rates--guaranteed to be cheaper than all but the most baseline clearance books at Half Price--you get a book you want to read without paying $5.99+ for it. Pretty sweet, right?

Not sweet enough for some people. I am, frankly, thoroughly tired of people who want me to send them something for free but have a laundry list of conditions the item must meet. Things I've seen people bring up in PB Swap conditions include:

• "I don't accept hardback books without dustjackets." Really? That's too bad---you are very unlikely to ever get to read a book you want from my collection. Dust jackets annoy the crap out of me and 9 out of 10 of them that enter this house on a book I own get recycled. I'm interested in that's between the covers, not what's decorating them.
• I am not willing to accept books that have been withdrawen from libraries" Pet peeve #1 - Do Not Look a Free Book in the Dustjacket and spit on it! #2 - everyone you request a book from will receive a copy of your conditions---take the time to spell your ridiculous demands properly people! #3 - If it's good enough for the library, why isn't it good enough for you? I ~never~ order anything from paperback swap with the thought of adding it to my permanent collection in mind. Why not? Because I never know what I'm gonna get. If I get something I want to add and it happens to be in good shape, yay me! If it's not, I'll read it and pass it on and pay for a permanent collection copy.
• "Books with a strong moldy smell." Yea, cuz I post those a lot. If you have legitimate allergen issues (I always warn people who mention allergy issues that I have had cats near my books in case it is a problem) that's one thing, but statements like the above are just being b1tchy. Even more so since all of these gems came from a SINGLE person.

And I'm sure it will not come as a surprise to anyone that I rarely mail books to people like this. I've learned the hard way that demanding types like the one described above are almost never happy with what they receive (again, for FREE) and I've had one go so far as to deny credit for the book received.

Play nice with the rest of us, people, or take your unwanted books and go somewhere else! I'm sick of you, you paperback primadonnas!

Yes, I am probably overreacting, but I'm crabby and this person's poorly spelled laundry list of book issues just lit my fuse.

Tuesday Tirade: Staycations Don't Work!

I despise and revile the bastard pseudo word "staycation," but I understand its genesis. And I'm here to say it does NOT work.

I had the usual 3-day Memorial Day holiday--more sharply poignant this year after burying my grandfather with military honors in a national cemetery two weeks ago. More on the family drama that accompanied that event another time. I have to say, though, that the folks at the hotel were fantastic when we checked out and had to check back in 4 hours later after my dad collapsed at his dad's funeral.

J has been out of school for the last five days. In all fairness to the school, unlike most of the days mentioned in my previous post, this one was our fault. The small person had minor surgery on Thursday morning relating to complications arising from her lymphedema. It wasn't urgent, but needed to be done and we wanted to handle it before our vacation so she'd have a couple weeks to recover physically. I guess technically I was off that day, too, but I'm pretty sure spending half the day comforting an anxious child and the other half being her slave does NOT count.

Yes, I did sneak out for dinner with my mom posse, but not til I knew MY mom was on her way to rescue Raidman.

He, not incidentally, was sent home to be with his kiddo/family around mid afternoon Thursday and hasn't been into the office since. He DID work from home Thursday afternoon (ok, til about 2am Friday making up for lost time spent with aforementioned kiddo) and part of the day Friday, but he's been here for four and a half days.

All kinds of togetherness and time off, right? Stay home, chill out for the long weekend, return to the world rested and recovered... *snort*

Yea, not so much.

I spent my holiday weekend doing too many loads of laundry to count and loading, running, and unloading the dishwasher over and over again. The unloading, incidentally, is theoretically a J job.

I DID do a fair amount of lying about, finished two books, and got blisters from playing Rock Band 2 with the fam (I am the drummer for Hopelessly Outnumbered, lol). But I also did waay too damn many chores, and, if I'm honest, I'm a bit cranky 'cause I am the ONLY one who did so for 3 days.

Told Raidman when we go on vacation in June I'm going to do NOTHING except lounge about, read, and maybe go play in the sand or go fishing (yes, I like to fish) or something. Since we're staying at a rental not a hotel it probably won't happen, but a girl can dream...

Tuesday Tirade: Off Again!

I've been busting my ass at housework (teh suck!) and not doing much else but the 8-5 gig and watching too much tv trying to get the number of shows on the DVR below half a hundred. What I'm saying is that, aside from being sleep deprived and not having/making time to write, I'm almost content just now. Which makes coming up with a Tirade harder. But, for you, my 2 readers, I'll do it!

I've gotten used to the weird schedule. I don't like it, hate it, in fact, a lot of the time, but I freely acknowledge that Raidman and I chose to put J in a charter school knowing it was on a semi-year-round type schedule and only 4 1/2 days a week. It, like housework, is teh suck, but we knew it going in.

What I ~don't~ understand is what all these extra weird-ass breaks during the school year are for. When I was kid you went to school five days a week except for Thanksgiving (Friday only), Christmas/Winter holiday (1-2 weeks) and Spring Break (1 week in March). Now, though?

The kids are off on Good Friday AND the Monday after Easter. My kid's school has a 2-week Spring Break, so she just went back last week and now she has a 4-day week this week and next week? WTF?! Still, charter school...

Except all the Austin-area school districts are doing the same damn thing!

Apparently they are unfamiliar with the concept of two-income families. Or are unfamiliar with the fact that many families, even with two incomes, can't pay for childcare at all.

Please, please stop screwing with the schedule. These out-of-the-blue holidays are a pain in the ass, and, if they happen to line up with an in-service day at the daycare, leave me screwed, as happened on MLK Day. Bosses have kids, too, but telling them you have to stay home because your kid is out of school and the daycare is closed doesn't really fly.

The school is ~always~ hitting us up for money. How's about not effing with the schedule so I can actually go to work and earn some to give ya, eh?

Tuesday Tirade: This One's for the Girls

(my apologies to Martina McBride for the blatant title theft)

(potty talk alert - sorry ya'll, there's simply no way to avoid it this week)

Yes, it's a gender specific gripe; it's allowed, since I'm railing against my own gender. Hell, it's allowed cuz this is ~my~ blog. :-)

I need to talk about hovering. You hoverers out there, you know who you are... Stop, please, just stop.

For the uninformed, a hoverer is a woman who is obsessed, to the point of paranoia, with the notion of germs on toilet seats in public restrooms. So obsessed that rather than sitting on the toilet she will "hover" over it in some bizarre semi-erect squat and attempt to pee in the bowl without touching the seat with any part of her body.

I gotta tell you: most hover-types have lousy aim.

So women-who-hover, I have to ask. WHY?

• You can't get pregnant from sitting on a toilet seat.
• Unless the skin of your backside is covered in open sores, you can't catch a disease by sitting on a toilet seat.
• The most "eww" things on a toilet seat are deposited there by (you guessed it!) other hovering chicas.

Just sit your butt down ladies!

Failing that, clean up after yourself! If ~you~ don't want to clean up your own urine, why the hell do you think someone else wants to?!

And, and this should go without saying, but I'm going to go there anyway, if you are in the loo to make a more significant deposit, please, please, please, sit down!!!!!!

Anti-Theft Run Amok!

I get that theft is an increasing problem in some types of stores, most notably drugstores. Maybe it's just most noticeable to me there because the draconian loss-prevention seems to have gotten really out of control at my local Walgreens. Well, since it has been that way at all the Walgreens' locations I've patronized in the last six months I suspect its an area-wide thing at least and possibly nationwide.

Drugstores sell a lot of relatively cheap merchandise, presumably with a narrow profit margin. That said, I am just about DONE with these stupid Walgreens! I bought hand lotion there a couple months ago for my desk and I am ~still~ trying to get the little foam sticky dot off the lid (it's a tube, it rests on its lid--the part I have to grab and touch every time I use it!) that was holding the lotion to the shelf in the store. Yes, the merchandise was damn near glued down. Irritating as hell, but I get it--I buy a little bit more expensive than average cream because of allergies and because it lasts me a long time. I assumed this level of ridiculous was being reserved for something a little more expensive, but not so pricy that it was locked up.

Wrong.

I bought a nail polish remover pen last week, one of those things for cleaning up your manicure in a hurry, right? It's packaged in plastic with the plastic glued to a cardboard backing, pretty standard stuff. I finally opened it last night and discovered that the bottom of the pen was glued to the bottom of th plastic overlay with that funky flexi-tac stuff (like they use to hold your ATM card to the letter they mail it to you on). I can't get it off. I got the pen off the plastic but cannot get that damned tacky stuff off the bottom of the pen. Meaning it will collect stray hair and piece of lint and random penny it touches in my purse for the next month (eww!) I assume this sticky bit is to keep people from sliding said pen out the bottom of the package without paying for it, but... Really? It's a $2.99 nail polish pen people! Get a grip.

Scratch that--loosen the grip a little would you? Before I have to go back to buying this stuff at the grocery store--where the packaging doesn't stick to me OR make me feel like a criminal just for picking it up!

Tuesday Tirade: Blinded by the Light(s)

It's dark, it's cold, and you just want to get home.

You see lights ahead of you,..Suddenly, from around the bend in front of you, blinding light!

You can't see the road, you can't see anything, and you're pretty sure you must have missed the signs and drove onto the set of a Close Encounters of the Third Kind re-make.

Then you drive into the rock the road curves around and really DO see the light...
~~~~~~
Extreme? Not really, especially not for anyone who has driven in the Texas Hill Country at night.

I was googling for a pic or a reference for this post and all I was able to find are articles, primarily on auto insurance websites, touting the benefits of upgraded headlight bulbs. No one talks about the down side.

I am light sensitive and tend to wear sunglasses even on overcast days. Driving at night is easier for me because, generally, I see better. Until some dippo with super-bright blue or purple headlights pulls up just far enough behind me that their lights glare into my car via my side mirrors. Or a situation like the above with opposing traffic comes up. I've hated these damned things since they hit the market. Now that I no longer drive a SUV and most headlights are eye-level with me (see previous rant re: trucks and people who don't need them) it's worse.

Sure those lights improve visibility for the driver of the car equipped with them. That's awesome. That way they'll have a nice clear view of the compact car as it runs into them when the driver is blinded by said flippin' super-bright headlights.

Tuesday Tirade ... And Justice For None

I had jury duty yesterday. I didn't want to go, but I did. I didn't meet any of the conditions for WHY they should excuse me, and, well, apparently getting people to show up for JD in Travis county is hard because they've started issuing arrest warrants for no-shows. So I went.

Don't get me wrong. I think jury duty is genuinely important, one of the responsibilities of liberty. It is one of the few opportunities for people who are not lawyers or politicians to be involved in the legal process in this country. I don't believe in summary judgment or that any one person has the right to determine the guilt or innocence of another--too easy to abuse such a system--think dictators and police states! The right to a trial by a jury of our peers is important. Or at least, it should be.

My father always says he would ask the court to decide were he ever in criminal trouble. I asked him why. He told me, "I don't want my fate in the hands of twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty."

image shamelessly borrowed from potbust.com (one of the coolest I found googling "Justice images")

Yea, makes ya all warm and fuzzy inside, don't it?

It's sad, but that seems to be the attitude of many. In the weeks leading up to my jury duty I had people tell me all kinds of opinions about it. Things like (and I wish I was kidding):

• Let people on welfare do jury duty, they're already getting paid by the state.
• Lie and get out of it, that's what everyone else does.
• What a waste of time!

Maybe it's the last vestige of the 8th-grader-who-wanted-to-be-a-lawyer-when-she-grew-up in me, but this response bugged the hell out of me. If I were wrongfully accused of a crime, I want a trial in front of intelligent, hard working people. The problem is intelligent hard-working people don't want to be on juries.

Let's address my number one reason for not wanting to go: If Mama don't go to work, Mama don't get paid.

In a short 2-4 day trial that is an inconvenience, for me, but not a tragedy--now that dh is working too. If mine were the only paycheck feeding the family it would be a different matter altogether. A long case, such as one that may involve the death penalty or life in prison, is a break in pay no one with a job can afford. I've always dreamed of working for one of those rare companies who understand that jury duty is a legal and moral obligation and not a get-out-of-work-free card and pays people while they are out. If more places did this, more responsible, intelligent, hard-working (emphasis on the working part) people would be willing to serve on juries.

I feel bad for the defendant in the case I came four people away from being on the jury for yesterday. The ADA told the jury pool that the jury would most likely come from the first three rows. By the time voir dire was over most of the first FIVE rows had been excused on a litany of thin reasons, like, (yes, someone said this!), "Well, it never happened to me, but my mother's best friend's sister's nephew had it happen to him and I just don't think I could be impartial in this case."

Maybe the decline in the justice system in America isn't all the lawyers' fault. Maybe, just maybe, it's our fault, too.

Tuesday Tirade: Do Ya Really Need a Truck?

I live in Texas. Home of trucks the size of egos, which is to say freakin' huge. I also live in ~urban~ Texas where such things are rarely more than some guy's ridiculously oversize compensatory device.

Yes, I said it.

If you live in town and drive a big truck--especially one jacked up even higher--women, or at least this woman, are going to think you are making up for some shortages south of the border, if ya know what I mean.



Even if you own a boat/trailer/off-road toy, most of the places you will drive to and park to use it are, ummm... paved.

The bulk of people who own these trucks ~never~ need a giant truck in their daily lives--my mother and brother both did this, so I know whereof I speak. My brother never used his truck (not jacked up--he lacked judgment, not taste) as anything other than point A to point B transportation. After a few years of feeding that sucker at the pump and paying the frequently higher-for-trucks insurance he traded in his truck for something still guy-like (the new Charger) but more practical in his daily life.

My mom? She ~loves~ her truck. And ends up helping everyone she knows move their furniture as a result. She also bought her truck when she was living out on an unpaved road and working at decidedly uncivilized construction sites--in other words, she actually needed a truck when she bought one. When she moved into town feeding it got tiresome and she bought herself a little VW that she uses for 90% of her driving.

You know why I really hate all these stupid urban trucks (and let's not even get me started on the Expeditions, Escalades, or, heaven forfend, the stupidest thing ever sold to people who don't need it, the frickin' Hummer!) though?

Because their owners seem to think that driving them gives them the right to be flaming nimrods on wheels, in parking lots, and pretty much anywhere else. You own a truck--it fits in one parking space, there is no good reason to spread it across three--especially somewhere that parking is already limited (like, oh, a school parking lot!)

Nothing pisses off a guy in a ginormous pickup as quick as me and my little Bug not being intimidated by him. Dude, I have friggin' awesome car insurance, a seat belt, and air bags--you don't scare me.

Petroleum is at a premium, exhaust is in excess--really, unless you have a career in a field that requires the blatant consumerism and (looking for another word for excess, gimme a sec) that is a Texas pickup, give it up and get a real car.

Tuesday Tirade: No Butts About It

Woohoo! After a long hiatus to twiddle my thumbs & paint my nails, Tuesday Tirades are baaaack!

Today we're talking butts. No, not the one you sit, the ones you most likely walk on: cigarette butts.

I've been a smoker. Some of my good friends smoke. My parents have all, at one time or another, been smokers.

I don't want to talk about the health implications of tobacco use (it's bad for you, duh!) or the environmental impact of the tobacco industry (*shudder*) or even secondhand smoke. I just want to talk trash.

Smoking is not exactly the most publicly acceptable vice, and many places these days, especially in Austin, don't accommodate smokers. I happen to work someplace that does.

There are pretty color printed signs protected by plastic all down one side of the building that say "Designated Smoking Area." Said area is conveniently in a dead end that no one who does not want to suck nicotine has to walk through to enter or exit the building. Even with all the construction going on around my office they've made an effort to accommodate people's nic fits. There are several picnic tables, all of which are under cover--a rarity in Austin smoking areas.

And there are lots of trash cans. Three very large square bins, two of them the quaint kind with the sand pit in a tray on top--so people have a place to put out their smoke. So... Why the heck do I have to walk through a snowstorm of cigarette butts to exit and enter? How hard is it, really, to rub that puppy out and PUT IT IN THE TRASH!

I walked past a grounds guy one day between Thanksgiving and Christmas on my way into the office. He was on his hands and knees next to one of the previously mentioned trash cans, hand removing each and every butt people hadn't bothered to throw away. They litter the ground all around the smoking area, yet the giant ash trays are almost always empty.

What is wrong with you smokers? Have you just gotten so used to tossing your trash (which incidentally stays in landfills a really long time and requires the deaths of a heckuva lot of trees each year to make the paper that's wrapped around the tobacco) where ever you happen to be when you finish your cigarette that even when you have a place to toss it, you can't be bothered?

Schooled in the School Parking Lot

It's that time of week again. Tuesday Tirade and I am, unsurprisingly, talking school trash, again.

Before I had a child old enough to attend school I used to daydream about having a kid old enough to be in school.

We'd get up in the morning with ease, after all, it wasn't like she hadn't been getting up two hours before I wanted to for years or anything... I'd make a hot breakfast to start her day off right, pack a well-balanced, nutritious lunch, then she'd shoulder her adorable, but not so heavy as to be unhealthy, backpack and we'd stroll down the street to the neighborhood cut through to avoid the car traffic at the school and I, smiling, would hand her over to the person who would take care of her for the next 7 hours while mournfully walking home alone, my duty done til 3pm.

(pausing to allow those of you bent double with laughter time to recover)

The reality is a little different. Okay, a LOT different. For starters, she doesn't go to the neighborhood school. I tried to get her into Pre-K at a charter school (not that I was attempting to shuffle her off to school a year early or anything) and didn't make it.

Then RaidMan made friends with a local guy who told him horror stories about our schools--you know, the schools we'd moved out of Austin to get to? Yea.

We got word, shortly after that, that J's name had come up in the lottery at the Charter School. I liked their numbers (max class size of 16) and dh liked that they weren't the "scary 'hood school" Whatever. I've heard nothing but good about the primary, elementary, and high school. The junior high has been dissed, but, well, it's only 3 years, right? Right?

So we enrolled her there and discovered the joy of taking one of 700 enrolled students to a school with no bus service. How I envied the parents off-loading four kids in the morning--at least they were getting their wait's worth out of it!

Year two of school and J's school expands massively, taking over a school that was previously church-affiliated and hit financial hard times. Woo-hoo, parking!

Not so much. The way the new administration handles morning drop-off is not the same as the way the old one did.

For most of last school year the carryover parents just did the way they always had: Stopping in the middle of the aisle & blocking traffic while they released their kids into the wild, sometimes even getting out of the car to help them with bags or projects. Did I mention this was in the middle of the friggin' parking lot driving lane?

Then these kids were left to find their own way from parking lot to class on a busy open air campus. Yea, cuz that's safe *snort*

My own personal issue, though, I've saved for last.

Just because ~your~ kid is safely in the school does NOT mean you get to drive like MY KID is a traffic cone!

Parents who drop their kids and seem to immediately perceive the parking lot as a road-rage video game drive me mad! (no pun intended, this time) The parking lot, because it was built by the church, has multiple entry points and the school has not enforced any kind of traffic flow standard. There's a whole lot of going in through the out driveway, people coming from all angles, paying little or no attention to the world around them.

Looking from across the street while I decide which driveway is less likely to get me killed, it kind of looks like oversize bumper cars, or a scarily coordinated synchronized event. You know, one where all the participants are precise fractions of seconds away from crashing into each other.

You can always tell the cars that still have kids in them, too. They are between the lines, there is no rubber smoke billowing out of their wheel wells. The drivers, while harried looking trying to make that first bell, are polite. They park far enough away that you can get in and out of your car.

Mom or dad alone? (I hate to say it guys, but Dads definitely seem to be worse about this!) You'd better not leave your car door open too long getting in or you might lose it when they back out of there like a bat outta hell. Actually, I'm pretty sure some of them can drive faster in reverse than a bat can fly...

This is, apparently, a problem for any school that has anything other than a narrow 1 or 2 lane driveway, so I know I'm not alone.

To all you frustrated race car drivers who drop kids at my girl's school:

Would you kick the ass of someone who endangered your kid in the school parking lot? So would I. Remember that the next time you drive around me like I'm a speed bump, or I may be forced to prove it.

PS - anyone know any handy tips re: assault laws in Texas? kthanxbai!