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      Category: Musings (Page 5 of 6)

      What A Week…

      June 13, 2009 /

      Well, that was a doozy of a week. As each day passed, it got more and more brutal, it seemed! We’re doing a software conversion, and there are elements within the software that defy logic. So as I was connecting said software to my department’s software, there were bumps. And granted, I expected a learning curve, and some frustrations – nothing like this is ever smooth – but one particular piece of it just blew my mind, it defied logic so badly. Actually, I finally  had to call the help line, because I was tired of creating work-arounds to make up for the elements not matching (I realize this makes little sense unless you use both of these pieces of software) and the help lady, who is somewhere in the South, drawled, “Oh yes, we tell folks NEVER to delete lines in that before sending it over.” Huh? That’s the whole point of being able to revise things and preserve the data integrity between systems? Classic. Anyway, I had some long days and maddening moments, but the bulk of it’s done, and now the cleanup part will begin next week.

      We did get a fun night in Thursday, tailgating and watching the company kickball team win their game – followed by the final Love Tusk show at the Riot Room. I felt old, though – when their set ended, there was no way we could stay out for any of the other bands. (yawn!) And now it’s Saturday night, I’ve done pretty much nothing with my day, and oh yes, the cops have been by for their regular pilgrimage to Crazy Cat Lady’s home. Who knows what drama is goin’ on over there.  Tomorrow, brace thyselves – it’s Mt. Laundry time. Livin’ the Vida Loca here, as we move past another anniversary, clamber over the army training wall (I mean, software conversion) and when it gets really bad, I just look at the calendar and tell myself….”Cancun. Cancun…..”

      Knit, Knit, Knit….

      February 20, 2009 /

      I finished the Studio Sock Club socks a while, back – Sivia Harding’s “Journey” socks, out of Claudia Handpaints Sportweight in Woodland – these are so warm and cozy, I just love ’em, and the cables are snazzy to boot!

      Journey Socks - Claudia Handpaint (sport)

      journeycloseup

      I also am participating in The Loopy Ewe’s Spring Fling monthly KAL’s – which have been great motivators to finish things, but this month I’m a bit panicked. I finished last month’s project just under the wire, and without fringing or blocking. I made the Crest of the Wave scarf, and then added the Fringe from Hell. It’s gorgeous, but it kills me. KILLS! So much braiding. And then beading. But I love it! This was knit out of Numma Numma Toasty, Black Cherry Jam.

      Crest of the Wave Scarf - Numma Numma sock yarn

      LOOKIT THIS FRINGE. Now look away, before you feel compelled to do it yourself.

      Fringe. Fabulous, yet a PITA.

      Now I’m working on the Boing! scarf pattern by Anne Hanson (sorry, I’m uber-lazy, it’s Friday, I haven’t linked a single thing today). This is knit with Tofutsies, and even on 1’s, it’s still rather open. I’m such a loose knitter.

      Boing! Lace Scarf - Tofutsies sock yarn

      Now, since our KAL ends next Saturday, and I have a lot of work stuff going on (and travel – which is usually a plus for knitting, but still), I realized I’m probably not going to complete this in time, so I’ve pulled out some Aran Rustic Wool, and started whipping out a very pretty Poinsettia neckwarmer, since I still need to make a gift for a friend, and I’ve already done the first set of neck repeats in one evening. That’ll get done, and hopefully, Boing will be right behind it!

      In other randomness, and utterly unrelated, we have continued to have our homeless man problem at the office (staying overnight in the stairwell), and yesterday morning’s stench was almost enough to topple a Marine. I mentioned it to our office manager, who in turn, called the building manager. I noticed when I left that liberal amounts of pine-sol had been used. (which actually didn’t change the situation !) And when I say liberal, I mean, perhaps-an-entire-bottle. So then I wondered, would that actually entice said homeless to sleep there? Would it be like snoozing in a Carolina pine forest? There’s your ponder for the weekend.

      Primordial Ooze…

      February 13, 2009 /

      Wowza. Spend one week flat-out sick, spend the next week flailing and catching up. And discovering that I am still not as jaded as I’d like to believe. What’s up with that? I want to take everything life gives me like Kathleen Turner would, with almond eyes half-shut, gazing unflinching at the bullshit and nodding to myself, “Yep. Saw that coming.” Then I’d toss back a shot of whiskey and laugh.

      My husband  is an amazing judge of character. He has met people and told me later to watch out, or that he got a bad vibe from them, or that he doesn’t trust them. Inevitably, he’s right.  I just realized how self-serving this could sound –  since he decided to marry me, that would mean he’s STUPENDOUS at character assessment, eh? ;) But I envy his unfiltered eye. I find I tend to give people some benefit of the doubt, or I see their association with other people I like and trust and transfer that to them, or I just go off the face value of things, and I don’t make instant determinations or decisions about people.  And sometimes that can really bite you in the ass, because not only is the bad behavior unexpected, but the trust you invested up to that point has been betrayed.

      Not going to bother elaborating, it’s not bloggable anyway, I just know that I can’t trust everyone, and I have to temper my expectations of people. I would prefer to not become cynical in the process! I had lunch yesterday with an old friend of mine, and I was telling her about some of the crazy things that have been going on, and there’s one situation where five of the six people involved are all confused and spending time worrying about it, and me? I’m the freaking poster child for the Tao of Pooh. I shrug. I narrow my eyes. I smile, and toss back a shot of scotch. And laugh. Because I can’t control it or influence it or even predict it, and therefore, I should spend my time minding my knitting, instead!

      It is SO FREEING. To just stop caring about  every single thing. Including the potential things. (Believe you me, I haven’t mastered this, but I’m going to trumpet when I do to remind myself it’s possible!) I have spent a better part of my life in the role of Piglet (if you have read the Tao of Pooh this will make sense… Pooh is the model of Buddhism), racing and worrying and fleeing and running with the balloon and being so frantic he eventually pops the balloon.  And I sure as hell don’t want to be Eeyore, god love him, but that dude’s a goddamned downer.

      Long ago, I toyed with the idea of volunteering at a hospital that was near my apartment. I met with the volunteer co-ordinator, a man, probably 20 years my senior. I’ve never forgotten one observation he made, because it was so wildly inconsistent with my view of myself. He said could see me in the emergency department, because he felt there was a calmness about me, that would be reassuring to families coming in under crisis. I still don’t know if I fully believe him, or if he was just looking for someone to fit a need. But I liked it. My thing is that if I have room to panic, I do. I ruminate, I dwell, I worry. But if someone else is doing it, I tend not to. I fear we’ll all lose our way if someone isn’t minding reality.

      So, discovering someone’s true colors, and the resulting anger and sense of betrayal, well, it’s normal. But today I feel confident and centered. Ten years ago I would have been frothing at the mouth for weeks.  Don’t get me wrong. I love to be agitated, I love sensory input and drama and zombies and things to move at a brisk clip. But I also enjoy – now more than ever – the ability to not be drowned by that wave.

      In some ways, I think, the peace and perspective are results of my father’s death, and the ebbing away of some of my grief. I will cry, be immobilized by my sadness, for moments as short as a minute. Yesterday, for example, I was listening to a story on Morning Edition about Darwin, and how he and his wife were so different philosophically, yet when their daughter Anne died, it brought them even closer together. The author of the biography believes that much of his grief influenced his writings. I’m going to quote the part that really resonated – it’s the author’s viewpoint of Darwin, and it was so beautifully put:

      Darwin is stating what “we now call the existential dilemma,” says Gopnik in his biography. He is saying there are two things that are true:  One is that everything dies, and things die for no reason and to no apparent end. And their death is painful. And, that process of living and dying produces something amazing and beautiful and astonishing.

      The process. Amazing and beautiful and astonishing.  I love when things so profoundly move me, like a sharp twisting of muscle, when they resonate in my core like the vibration from a bass cello.  My own evolution from inexperience and naivete.

      Bruised Orange

      January 27, 2009 /

      Today was a …. “Meh” kind of day. Last night’s sleep was interrupted repeatedly by dogs, and today just was one of those less-than days. Rudeness begot irritation, and it’s like watching a snowball roll down a really big hill. You simply know it’s going to get bigger as it moves ahead, and you feel your powerlessness. There were a couple things in particular that crept under my skin, there were a couple other things that made me laugh heartily, but the undercurrent was always an anchor pulling downward, and if a fork in the road presented itself, I chose the path more irritated.We all have those days….

      One of my favorite singer-songwriters, all the way from childhood, is John Prine. I’ve written about him before, but my devotion to him never wavers. His songs run the gamut, from sarcastic yet cheerful, to plumbing the depths of a depressed mind or situation. So, given the greyness of the day, the general sense of malaise, I wasn’t all that surprised to find myself belting out my go-to song of his on my commute home. I even turned down the radio, so I could hear my voice resonate around me, to be undistracted in my ennui. And, as always, I heard my dad, reminding me of the lesson in the song. “For a heart stained in anger grows weak and grows bitter. You become your own prisoner as you watch yourself sit there” (and I see his eyebrow raise as he looks at me, knowing I know the words by heart, just as he does, knowing that I handle things the way he does, knowing that I need to remember I have a choice…) “wrapped up in a trap of your very own chain of sorrow…”

      So, I guess I need a hacksaw tonight.

      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

      Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)

      My heart’s in the ice house come hill or come valley
      Like a long ago Sunday when I walked through the alley
      On a cold winter’s morning to a church house
      just to shovel some snow.
      I heard sirens on the train track howl naked gettin’ nuder,
      An altar boy’s been hit by a local commuter
      just from walking with his back turned
      to the train that was coming so slow.
      You can gaze out the window get mad and get madder,
      throw your hands in the air, say “What does it matter?”
      but it don’t do no good to get angry,
      so help me I know
      For a heart stained in anger grows weak and grows bitter.
      You become your own prisoner as you watch yourself sit there
      wrapped up in a trap of your very own
      chain of sorrow.
      I been brought down to zero, pulled out and put back there.
      I sat on a park bench, kissed the girl with the black hair
      and my head shouted down to my heart

      “You better look out below!”

      Hey, it ain’t such a long drop don’t stammer don’t stutter
      from the diamonds in the sidewalk to the dirt in the gutter
      and you carry those bruises to remind you wherever you go.

      (P.S. When I was a little kid? I thought the words “Howl naked, gettin’ nuder” were absolutely SCANDALOUS and fabulous all at once. Now I just think they’re brilliant.)

      The Year In Review

      December 31, 2008 /

      For about a month now, I’ve been mentally composing a post. It was roughly titled, “Things I’ve Learned This Year”.  Here are the notables.

      1. Quite a bit of learning happened at work. Since we like to keep our job, we won’t write all that out. But I learned a lot about people, about being a manager, and about what is necessary, even if it isn’t always fun. Kind of like life.

      2. I learned who my friends are. Some walked away, some set the ramparts on fire, some just drifted. That said, many stayed, some new people showed up, and I made some new friends. There was lots of learning. As I discover each year, I love my husband even more than I knew I could.

      3. I finally pulled my shit together and got my own server for my web domain. Oh mah god. Quite the process!  But I really am happy to have my very own spot on the net, and how much the process taught me. The Learning. It is a veritable theme!

      4. I feel like I’ve reached the next level (of which I presume there are countless)  in understanding my grief, understanding the why and what and an acceptance in general that I’ll never fully understand it. I’ve also reached, just recently, a very significant point of understanding in my life, as I look back on the years, the things my parents did and didn’t do, how those choices shaped all of us, but particularly me. Enlightenment is not always easy to climb to, but oh what a view. I also revealed the secret to understanding women.

      5. I lost my post-holiday shopping craze. I didn’t go out the day after Thanksgiving, and I didn’t go out the day after Christmas. I did, however, go to both CostCo and Target today, New Year’s Eve, and thought I was hallucinating by the last leg of that journey. These trips only serve to underscore just how much I love the internets.

      6. I spread my wings and started selling some crafty things – namely, DPN holders through local yarn shops & The Loopy Ewe. I also produced some “knitter” decals, and learned that buying in bulk is great at CostCo, but not always with new business ventures! (Feel free to buy 15 or 20!)

      7. Speaking of wings, I got back in the swing of flying this summer, for work, and most everyone agrees, flying isn’t the most fun thing to do these days, especially as a plusher individual. Another fear faced & conquered!

      8. Discovering the joy of Social Networking. Not only for my job, but as a labeled social butterfly at an early age, I do love Facebook & Plurk & even a little Twitter. I love trying out new things, and yet there is always the need for balance, since all of those little devils will suck your time like nobody’s business. Through Facebook, I also became highly addicted to PackRat, until the devs changed the entire game so they could make a buck off it. On the plus side, I got hours of my life back!

      9. The older I get, the more torqued I become about political things. Between the election and our mayor, my electoral college of nerves reached a frazzling point. I wrote my city council member, I voted, I fought with my husband.  My guy won, but much remains to be resolved here in Kansas City. Grrrrr……

      10. I’ll end with a recent, fantastic experience. I teach a lot of knitting, and always learn something from my students in return. I’ve taught a lot of people to knit over the years, but this week, I had the honor of teaching my dear friend Beth’s daughter Amy how to knit.  She is a bright, quick study, and it was fantastic to see the moment of comprehension, as the movement and process clicked in her head and her hands. I understood two things in that moment – the fleeting but motivating experiences my husband must have as a teacher, and a smidgen of the journey parents experience. Just one tiny slice in time, but richer by far than most.

      FYI, she doesn’t want to stop knitting. We went to lunch and she couldn’t wait to pull her yarn out and continue. (Apologies for the cameraphone pic…)

      amyknits

      Happy New Year.

      Thanks for sticking with me. I love your comments, and I appreciate the kindnesses, shared laughs and understanding you give me.

      May next year bring you learning, wisdom, joy and happiness. If you’re a knitter, may there always be plenty of yarn and other knitters to laugh with you. If you don’t knit, well, you should learn. Learning, it seems,  is what it’s all about. :)

      Knitterventions and the Blue Christmas…..

      December 18, 2008 /

      We have a young designer here at the agency who has only knit scarves. She came to me because she wanted to knit her husband a hat for Christmas (in 9 days), and she was struggling with the yarn she had. I asked her what sort of yarn it was.

      “Alpaca.”

      “Ok, but is it thick? Thin?”

      “I don’t know. I got it from my grandma, and it’s really tangled. I’ve spent four hours trying to untangle it.”

      “Oh, dear. What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?”

      So yesterday, I took her up to the Studio (just a few blocks from work) and encouraged her to look at some bulky-weight yarns, since this was her first time knitting something other than a scarf, she’d be working in the round, and, well, Christmas is next week. Always aim for success when you’re beginning, I say. Before we left, I asked her if she had a budget.  “Five dollars?” She said, hopefully. I looked at her and I said, “Well, that’s gonna be tough.” She moved it up to ten. They’d agreed not to buy each other anything for Christmas. I said we’d do our best to get her something she’d like but wouldn’t break the bank.

      Now, you don’t know her, but imagine a wee wisp of a thing, with black wavy hair, wide eyes, and pale perfect skin. She dressed up in a toga for our Halloween party, and she looked like some sort of mythical wood nymph, straight out of a Homer classic. A veritable doll, quiet and keeps to herself.  I feel quite lumbering, loud and mule-like around her delicateness.  At one point, while she was looking at some Manos, I felt like I’d thrown her into a frat party of yarn. She responded that she’d just never seen so much yarn before in her life. Wow. It took me back to when I first went to Depth of Field in Minneapolis, uh, 20 years ago, and I couldn’t believe how much it all cost.  In the end, we set her up with a $13 skein of a mellow rusty orange Manos, and I volunteered to loan her the needles.

      Before we headed back to work, I zipped over to Wendy’s for a little potato-and-chili to go, and as we were driving there, we talked. It started out with geography of Kansas City – they live far to the North, and she would like to live closer in, and I was telling her how the river and bridges definitely separate worlds, and how a situation of mine had unfolded when a friend had moved. That veered into post-dead-dad stuff, and the angry email I’d gotten, about having changed (“and not for the better!”), and I was talking about grief, and I realized I was talking like a forty-year-old woman. Which, of course, I am.  But I turned to her as I said, “I realize I’m talking to you as though you’ve never lost someone close to you, and that’s a misguided assumption on my part, I don’t mean to speak that way.” With the tiniest glitter in her eyes, she solemnly looked back at me, and said, “I lost my mom when I was 16. Right after Christmas.”

      And our words spilled back and forth – she also graduated at 16, has a strained and difficult relationship with her father, and the similarities and differences sorted themselves into tidy little piles. I hate that it’s a “club”. I hate that no matter how vividly I articulate the pain I’ve felt, and will feel for the rest of my life, still can not fully bring comprehension to those who have not gone through it. So inevitable, so dreadful, so so hard.  The holidays are bittersweet, because they bring memories, and even the good ones have the rind of melancholy. You just get through, you fake it a little bit, withdraw a little bit, and try to be aware if the sand is sinking under your feet. But in odd ways, the Dead Loved One club does prove to be a strange forger of friendships and understanding. Like those shops at an outlet mall, they stand lined up yet alone, facing outward – but they are all interconnected by a passageway a few steps beyond the stockroom.

      Last weekend, I found myself crying a little bit, just sad, just missing my father, and one of my inner voices railed at the sky, crying out “WHY”, why do I have to feel this pain for the rest of my life? And for the first time I heard a response. “Because the pain you feel is in direct proportion to the love you had for him.”  I would never give up that love, and I know that love will stay with me until I die, which is a comfort. So I have to accept this piece that wails and cries and sometimes feels as raw as June 10th, 2006.  Balance. The depths parallel the heights.  Despite my tears, I know I’m not going to be as depressed this year as I was last year, and cognitively, I can see that the next year will most likely be better.

      Ah. Death. What strange and twisted growth you encourage when you prune from our hearts.

      Weeeeee are the champions…. my friend….

      November 22, 2008 /

      So my pal Laura posted this quiz, and while the little floaty-talking lady bugged the crap out of me, her quiz and results felt dead-on. (But then, I always wonder: are there five other results that would also feel dead-on?)

      Jennifer’s Motivational DNA Type is PVE, (Production-Variety-External): The Champion

      Champions enjoy a challenge and love to win. They are charming and enthusiastic leaders. Champions are natural persuaders. They don’t mind being the center of attention and are good at working with others while advancing their own ideas. Champions tend to be engaging and charismatic. They are skilled at getting things done in spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. In fact, obstacles just make tasks more interesting for a Champion. They are quick decision makers and can be impatient with those who are not. As solid negotiators, Champions are willing to compromise to get the job done. Champions have an innate ability to get others to follow their lead.

      PVE Motivators: Challenging assignments, authority, profitability, freedom from supervision and control, opportunities for advancement, contests, public recognition, deadlines, calculated risk and popularity.

      PVE De-Motivators: Strict controls, protracted analysis, “group think,” and deliberation without meaningful action.

      Quick-Start Tips for Goal Achievement:

      1. Your motivational type is always busy. It’s imperative that you create space in your schedule to devote exclusively to doing what is necessary to achieve the goal. The time will not magically appear. You must block off intervals to work on your goal.

      2. Competition and commensurate rewards are powerful motivators for your motivational style. Design a contest with like-minded achievers who have the same goal. The first one to cross the finish line wins the big prize.

      3. Make sure that the process is enjoyable. Invest the time and intentional focus to find fun ways of achieving your goal

      K, so, I had to bold the ‘de-motivators’, because if one sentence could describe the culture of my former employer, that’d be it! I laughed out loud. And yes, while most people will say they don’t like “group-think”, I abhor it. My father instilled in me a deep need to question things, particularly if everyone is going along with it. Probably why I’m skittish about organized religion. And, yeah. All those motivators are spot-on. Money, a deadline & an enormous task? LOVE. I seriously just perked up out of my cold thinking about the prospect of such a challenge.

      Someone should give me a book deal, stat.

      The ol’ Pushme-Pullme.

      October 12, 2008 /

      I’m enclosing today’s Hazelden email below. Sometimes, I get these and they’re – meh. Too much God, too much 12-step, too much addiction, and yet I still stay subscribed, because there are days when they resonate like a clear bell above still water. I’ve grappled off and on internally with some things I don’t feel I can write about so publicly, partly because some people will think it’s about them, others won’t realize it IS about them – ha – and who needs that pressure when you’re already grappling?!  I started subscribing to these about 8 years ago, when my mother nearly died from alcohol poisoning (0.48 is a rather high number, eh?) and my efforts to get her into treatment at Hazelden failed. Wow, just typing that I saw the parallels to when I got my father into Mayo before he died. Sometimes I’m astonished by how much I grew up when I wasn’t paying attention.

      Anyway, her birthday was Friday, and a co-worker was puzzled when I was getting advice on a birthday gift – “You haven’t seen her, you don’t talk, but you still send her gifts for Mother’s Day and her birthday? I don’t get it.”

      I do it for me. There will always be part of me that loves her and wishes things were different. Instead of trying to change it, I’m letting it be. I take the actions that I want to take, send gifts because it’s what I want to do. Cutting someone out of your life is much easier in its definitive-ness; it’s a black & white world, much like rehab. You drink or you don’t, you have a relationship or you don’t. For me, that choice doesn’t work. Unfortunately, that gray area bears a lot of parallels to other friendships – things have changed enormously in two years. People I fought for and defended have turned their backs on me. Others who feel they gave me everything think I turned my back on them.  Because whenever there’s another person involved? Your ability to influence, work on or control things still only equals half.  And when the proportion of effort is out of whack, resentment builds. It gets easier to retreat, draw the line, say fuck-off, go away.  As someone who chooses not to live in a black & white world, I still do love labels and resolution.  But I’ve learned, unlike a moth to the flame, that seeking it doesn’t always work. So I am letting it all just be. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, yet I’m finding there’s peace in letting go. Not seeking.  Not tugging. In standing still, we can actually find and create direction. Peace.

      Today’s thought from Hazelden is:

      Stop playing tug-of-war.

      Letting go can be like a tug-of-war with God.

      Have you ever played tug-of-war with a puppy and an old sock or a toy? He pulls. You pull it out of his mouth. He grabs hold again and shakes and shakes and says grrrrrr. The harder you tug, the harder the puppy tugs. Finally, you just let go. Then he comes right back again, for more.

      I have never successfully treated or solved one problem in my life by obsessing or controlling. I’ve yet to accomplish anything by worrying. And manipulation has not wrought one successful outcome. But I forget that from time to time.

      The best possible outcomes happen when I let go. That doesn’t mean I always get my way. But things work out and, ultimately, the lesson becomes clear. If we want to play tug-of-war, we can, but it’s not an efficient problem-solving skill.

      Sneer All You Like, Monkey Boy…

      October 6, 2008 /

      I have a lot of things to catch up on, one being a huge shout-out (they’re all the rage, homies, y’all can even do it while debating for the second-highest office in the country! /sarcasm) to our friend Amanda, who ever-so-graciously stopped and offered us a ride while we were waiting for the shuttle on Sunday. Actually, before I knew it was her, I could tell from the car slowing down and pulling over that someone was going to stop, and I told JWo, “We don’t accept rides from strangers!” Well, hellz-no, but this wasn’t a stranger! She’d just dropped her fiance’ off for judging, and was nice enough to swing back around & drop us off as well. I swear, this town, it just get smaller & smaller each year!

      So, back to the story, as we were leaving the judging on Saturday, we were once again asked by the local newspaper if we were subscribers.  (We were asked that morning as well, and on hearing we were subscribers, they thanked us for our support.) This time there was someone new, and JWo said, “Yep, matter-of-fact, it’s on our doorstep as we speak.” The representative? Said, “Yeah, riiiiight”, ever-so-sarcastically. Wha? Huh? That was no put-off lie, jackass. James, who RARELY seeks confrontation marched back and asked him to repeat what he’d said. And the guy continued his jack-assery, and sneered his name when asked, wanting to know why we’d want it. “So when I call and cancel our subscription of 9 years, I can give them your name!” I was doing the oh-hell-there’s-gonna-be-a-fight dance watching all this, and the jackass basically said, “FINE! Go ahead and do that.”And continued to make faces and gestures as JWo walked back towards me.

      Customer service at its finest! And as we walked away, all I could think was, “Motherfucker. It’s not over!” Because I’m not a big shot, I’m not fancy pants with city council members at my beck and call, nobody rushes when they hear it’s me on the phone, I don’t qualify for private banking.  But remember that thing about this town getting smaller? I’ve worked at several places, and have connections at most every media outlet in town, including the paper. And I happen to have a salesperson at said paper who takes his job, and his company, VERY seriously, who can zip right through the channels and get to the supervisor of a jackass who decides to mouth off at the husband of a small agency media director. And mind you, I didn’t go about this to try and get the guy fired.  My point was that as someone who places ads, and as a subscriber myself, I WANT people to stay subscribers. Yes, newspaper is berated as a “dying medium” – in some markets, circulation has declined drastically. It’s down about 10% in Kansas City over the past three years. But in many smaller cities, circulation, especially Sunday circulation – is flat or up. The baby boomers that comprise the majority of the population haven’t embraced the internet as their sole source of information. OK, I’m wandering. The essence of my message was simple. Customer service is paramount at all times.  If you want to believe someone’s lying to get out of talking to you about subscribing to the paper, keep your lip buttoned. And for all I knew, they outsourced hiring these people, and if that was the case, they definitely needed to be alerted to the behavior. The last thing they need is someone driving off the people who are already on board!

      Within thirty minutes of sending my email to my rep, I received a call from The Person who supervises the person responsible for our incident. With apologies and reassurance that this was not acceptable behavior, and that it would be addressed.  Hopefully we won’t get a dead rat delivered with the paper tomorrow, but again, at least I know who to call….

      Bodhisattva, Baby.

      September 16, 2008 /

      I’m not saying a whole lot about the years I spent listening to Steely Dan on a regular basis. Let’s just say, they were good times. I was in college. I didn’t really worry too much about my 40’s back in those days.

      And I know they were good, because I’ve had another really stressful day? And after rebooting my *(&^&%$%)__(^&^%%^$$ computer after it precariously froze in Excel once again (with a huge table of numbers teetering in the balance), I scrolled through my iTunes, looking for just the right music to play while I continued to fiddle and work with all this data. Then I found it. Ah. A Decade of Steely Dan.

      I just sailed through the rest of the calculations & am quite excited to start on the next phase. So relaxed.

      And kinda hungry. Good thing hubs is grilling chicken for chef salads tonight.

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