Happy Boxing Day

Posted on December 26, 2013 by A Dreamer

and no, it does not mean you can punch a family member, no matter how much you really might want to.*

I hope everyone out there had a nice Christmas – I know I did.  Lots of books, lots of candy and a new camera.  I only got the memory card for it this afternoon, so I haven’t had a chance to inundate the internet with more photos of my pets just yet.  (But I do have the space for ~4,000 photos, so consider yourself warned.)  The animals are all having a good time with their new toy as well.  (Though it is difficult to explain to the dog that the toys for the cats are just that – the toys for the cats.)

One funny thing about our Christmas (at least to me) is that my brother and I are not morning people, so we have a very leisurely afternoon brunch on Christmas.  I’m usually up long before he is, so I was flipping through Facebook yesterday and everyone’s Christmas was already over – and ours hadn’t even started yet!  Kind of extended Christmas for me.  :)

OK, one quick video from the new camera – don’t worry, there are no cats in it.

ETA: I almost forgot – my brother got stuff for the National Zoo for me, too!  Chilling stone, scratching mat and climbing triangles!

*It’s the day church charity boxes are opened and the proceeds distributed to the needy in the parish.  But I do understand the desire to punch a family member at the holidays and have a special day just for that – but I think it falls during the Festivus Airing of the Grievances.

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Merry Christmas to all.

Posted on December 25, 2013 by A Dreamer

I hope your day was filled with love.

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I wish I knew what was different this year…

Posted on December 24, 2013 by A Dreamer

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m sitting at Beijing Tokyo waiting on my shrimp tempura bento lunch – it’s my reward for braving CVS today for a couple last minute stocking stuffers. Which isn’t really unusual, there are lots of folks out snagging last minute Christmas stuff and having lunch. What’s odd is that it is Christmas Eve and I am sitting here having lunch and I am completely relaxed. I cannot remember the last time that happened at the holidays. I even finished wrapping all the presents last night and today is just getting the stockings sorted out and watching NORAD track Santa.

I thought maybe it was because my finals were early so I had more time to get ready, but that was kind of cancelled out by the fact that I left town for four days after the semester was over. I don’t think I got my shopping started any earlier than normal. Baking weekend was at the normal time and I don’t think I skimped on the baked goods for the neighbors. Things just came together this year, and I don’t know exactly what changed this year, but I sure as hell hope to repeat it next year.

Here’s hoping that your Christmas Eve is as happy and relaxed as mine is.

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Very Quick Williamsburg recap

Posted on December 19, 2013 by A Dreamer

Great time, super nice people and fantastic food.  Also, a shout out to Tim at Christiana Campbell’s Tavern!

More to come over the weekend, must unpack and get ready for Christmas.

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I survived the semester

Posted on December 13, 2013 by A Dreamer

Paper turned in Sunday night, project dropped off Monday.  For all I know I may have to take the damn research seminar over, but I don’t really care, because I am done.

I’ve spent the week reveling in not having any academic responsibilities.  To the point where I’ve continued to ignore other responsibilities, like laundry and Christmas shopping.

I’m even doing it right now.  Today is “get the Christmas tree up” day.  I am at IHOP gleefully dipping my bacon in pancake syrup and seriously enjoying the fact that I am not madly writing an essay or trying to find sources or trying to read a book as fast as I can while still maintaining some level of comprehension.  The laundry and shopping and cleaning and decorating will happen.

Just not in the next hour – I’m very busy doing nothing.

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If this semester doesn’t break me, nothing will.

Posted on December 3, 2013 by A Dreamer

Holy hell, this semester has kicked my ass. Only two classes, but dayum. One has been a real fun class, but it has a group project. Even when you are working with great people, group projects being their own special set of stressors. (Thankfully, I am working with a great group do people. If I had ended up with idiots, I’d likely be in a small room being given many, many medications.)

Then there is the research seminar. The biggest weird challenge I’ve had to deal with in grad school is that the syllabus rarely changes, it’s highly unusual for deadlines to change, and at the end of the semester, the requirements are the same as they were at the beginning of the semester. Basically, the complete opposite of every job I’ve ever had. I was finally getting used to this concept and then I took this class.

Let me say first – I really genuinely like the professor, even if he is contributing to my slowly losing my mind over the past 3 months. He’s obviously incredibly smart, wants the students to do well, and actually has a rather charming personality in a bit of a Columbo kind of way.

But good grief. Changing deadlines. Being pointed into new directions only to spin my wheels for multiple weeks in a row. More changing deadlines. Or brand new ones. With the semester being topped off with presenting abbreviated versions of our papers at his house. (He is providing dinner. I have it on good authority that there will be wine. Sadly, he apparently has no pets, so I can’t hide in a corner with the family cat.)

Then my discovery this week that neither of my classes is actually adhering to the exam schedule hasn’t exactly been a big positive. (It’s far less an issue with the group project than the research seminar, but I feel like I’m being cheated out of some time that could be very useful.)

The good news is that despite all the insanity this semester, I haven’t fallen into a sobbing heap of human jello.

But hey, there are still six days to go!

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I’ll be at home on Thanksgiving

Posted on November 22, 2013 by A Dreamer

I didn’t like it when stores started opening a Midnight for Black Friday. I like this trend of being open all day on Thanksgiving even less.

I’m old. I remember when nothing was open on Thanksgiving besides 7-11 and some restaurants. It was nice when grocery stores started having a shortened day so shoppers could dash out for that last minute missing ingredient. They didn’t even have a full day, just long enough to cover cooking emergencies. Honestly, that was more than enough convenience for me. And I’ll admit, the first year I was responsible for Thanksgivng, I did have to make the mad dash to the market for some critical-yet-forgotten component of the feast.

But actual Christmas shopping/deal hunting on Thanksgiving? Can’t say I ever sat around and wished I could go to Best Buy after the turkey. Or before. Or during. (A bar, maybe, but not Macy’s.) So, it’s not really groundbreaking that I won’t be doing any shopping this Thanksgiving, but there are other reasons.

1. I don’t need to. Seriously, there is absolutely no reason I desperately need to get a one day jump on Christmas shopping.

2. If I’m out shopping, then other people are working don’t get to spend the day with their families. And most of the folks I will encounter in retail situations aren’t making a ton of cash, and it’s not right to make anyone to choose between a really shitty day of pay and their family. (And let’s face it, if they choose family, they aren’t going to just lose a day of pay, they’re going to lose a job.)

3. This is one of the few holidays we have in the country that isn’t religious or particularly easily politicized – it’s really for everybody. Why the hell can’t we ALL enjoy it?

4. For fucks sake, can we have ONE DAY where we set aside Keeping Up With The Joneses as well as the chase for the almighty dollar? Just one day?

I’ll probably avoid Black Friday, cause it’s just too insane, and it’s a good bet that I’ll use Small Business Saturday as a terrific excuse to hit up my local bakery for some elephant ears. The rest of my shopping will be done here and there piecemeal between Black Friday and Christmas. But there is no reason for me to be ruining someone else’s Thanksgiving to get a deal on a PS4.

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Living wages

Posted on November 20, 2013 by A Dreamer

The living wage debate has reared its head again in the wake of revelations that Wal-Mart is having a food drive for their own employees, and McDonald’s is telling employees to sell their stuff and apply for food stamps.  Most of the time these discussions center around retail and food service industries, and I keep seeing people just shrugging their shoulders and having a, “Well, what are you going to do?” attitude about it.

I think we have a tendency to look at these jobs as inherently “temporary” – something you do while you’re hellbent on getting a “better” job and a “career”.  And since it is temporary, there is no need for it to pay well, and if you are in one of these “temporary” jobs for any length of time, there is obviously something wrong with you.  Also, if these “temporary” jobs paid a decent wage, people would just get lazy and complacent and lose all their ambition.  (Because apparently being able to buy groceries without food stamps will just destroy all your ambition.)  It’s almost as if we are telling people, “It’s your own fault you picked this poorly paying job.  Go find a better one.  Until then, this is your punishment.”

But what about the people that aren’t hellbent on a career?  Or don’t have the education to just “go get a better job”?  (Maybe they want to, but it takes time and money.)  Or people who actually like the work that they’re doing?  Why would it be so horrible for people who are in these industries – regardless of whether it is a stop on the way to something else, or something more permanent – to be able to make a wage that they could survive on without their employer telling them to sell their stuff or apply for food stamps?  It isn’t going to destroy their work ethic.

I also keep hearing that if we raise wages for the lowest earners, the inevitable result will be rampant inflation and we’ll all be worse off.  I’m not buying this one.  (I did 15 years as a cost and revenue accountant.)  First, if you raise wages, you’re not raising total costs of whatever it is that you do.  Labor is only part of the equation.  Yes, your costs will go up, and your prices will go up (or profit down) but not to the extent that it will negate everything for everyone.  Getting employees to a point where they’re not needing food stamps or other assistance to survive doesn’t just benefit those employees.  Payroll tax receipts increase.  Drawing on public assistance decreases.  Income tax receipts increase (maybe not by much, but add it to less use of food stamps, etc, it’s a net positive.)  Because the employees have money they can spend, local sales benefit, and sales tax receipts increase.

We can do better for employees in the US.  So, why aren’t we?

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Is it that weird?

Posted on November 14, 2013 by A Dreamer

So, the traffic lights at the intersection next to the pub are messed up. Messed up enough that if you look at the wrong light, you are blowing through a red light and going to t-bone somebody. Having nearly been creamed at this intersection when all the lights were actually working, I felt the need to tell this to someone in a position to fix it. Now, there wasn’t the usual random police officer cruising through the parking lot or doing paperwork that I could flag down and tell, so off to the Googles to find out how to report a potentially dangerously fucked up traffic light.

After being on hold for a very long time (not many folks working e VDOT phones in the middle of the night, I wasn’t surprised) I got through to a very pleasant gentleman who took the report and agreed that having 3 lights doing one thing and a fourth doing the complete opposite was a definitely a problem. He looked and saw that there had been another report as well, and he would see why someone hadn’t been out to tend to it yet. (I was just happy that it wasn’t my imagination.)

What struck me as odd was how appreciative that this gentleman was that I had called in the first place. He wasn’t gushing or anything, but it just didn’t sound like people made much of an effort when these things happen if it isn’t causing them some spectacular inconvienience. To me, it was the most natural thing in the world to make a phone call and be on hold for a while to tell them that “this is broken and could cause real problems.”

Am I wrong in my thinking that it should be a totally normal thing to call *someone* in a situation like this? ( I have also put in web requests for car-eating potholes on side roads as well.) I can’t be that off the wall on this,can I?

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Happy Sunday

Posted on November 3, 2013 by A Dreamer

Most years, I completely squander my extra hour when we go off DST by staying awake for an extra hour and then oversleeping to top it off.

Not this year!  Sure, I did take advantage of the extra hour at the pool hall last night, but I inexplicably woke up *early* this morning, got out the door for a leisurely breakfast, I’m almost finished with the Sunday morning shows and I am ready to go upstairs and get to work on class stuff.

It’s a gorgeous day out there (as long as you’re out of the wind), the Cub Scouts appear to be making their popcorn deliveries (really guys, get to my house!) and the Carmen cat is glued to the back door CatTV watching the leaves go skittering across the deck.

I’ll admit, I’m not excited that sunset is at 5:06 tonight, but right now, it’s a good day.

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