New Year's resolves

At present the only thing I am absolutely set upon involving the course of the near future is the determination to go out to dinner tonight. That may not sound too ambitious, but considering how rarely we eat out, it could be a milestone.

Last year, for some reason (I can only assume we were given a gift card), we went out to Red Lobster on New Year's Eve, which is as good an excuse as any for establishing a tradition. While there, we used a coupon for a free appetizer (still good, by the way) and ended up getting charged $0.50 more than we should have. When I called the manager the next day, she was extremely gracious about it and mailed me a $10 Red Lobster gift card by way of apology. Which brings us around to this year. We have evidently not spent it yet, so I signed up Michael's email address for the Fresh Catch Club and we're going back for second helpings this year.

But you mustn't think that we never eat out at all. Why, just yesterday we actually went to Zaxby's for lunch (although, granted, we didn't spend any money there either, thanks to this). Hmm. In the eccentric spirit of last year's resolution to gain weight in 2007, perhaps a doable New Year's resolution for us would be to spend more money in 2008.

Christmas pics

Home again, home again, jiggity-jog

We're back again. We went to Ohio for Christmas, and I missed posting on the shortest day of the year, so I'll pause here to point out that the days are getting colder and longer now.

The Trip was fun but exhausting, and we remembered anew why we do not like long road trips. Jane was a perfect peach, but Ella the Cheerful One was peevish for much of the 12-hour drive back. Now that we're safely home again, we think we'll stay here forever.

The past few days have been devoted to catching up on laundry, unpacking, and writing thank you notes. Meanwhile I've played about with more kitchen alchemy. Upon my discovery that blue cornmeal is far superior to white or yellow in fiber and protein, I substituted blue cornmeal in this recipe with great success. I also snapped up five gallons of organic milk, which provided the perfect opportunity of trying out queso blanco, which actually worked:

Ten years ago

I have been writing a diary, more or less, for over ten years now. It was sporadic in the beginning, grew into an intense daily regimen for many years, and then, as Michael appeared on the scene and dispelled my superfluous angst, it dwindled away to brief and pragmatic updates at longer and longer intervals.

Recently I pulled an old volume from the shelf, dusted it off (not only has married life mostly dispelled my propensity to write down deep cogitations, it also seems to have removed my fascination with reading and re-reading my entries from the recent or distant past and contemplating whether I've changed much since then), and looked up December 1997, just on a lark, to see where I was ten years ago.

I had just read an article about double dactyls, a recently-invented (well, relatively speaking) poem form with very rigid parameters. I think the strictness of the rules fascinated me, because I popped off with one straight away:

Utterly uppity
Arrogant Aragorn
Knew that his shortcuts would
Never go wrong;

After a fight or a
Dawn he'd alight for a
Post-expeditional
Dinner and song.

Ha, ha! It still strikes me as terribly clever, although my far older and wiser self (who also happens to have access to high-speed internet for quick research purposes) realises that it was really more of a McWhirtle, because of the absence of a nonsense line.

Do they sell bigger ice cream scoops at CVS, too?

Due to a flush of sales and coupons at CVS, we're wallowing in Edy's ice cream this week. It always surprises me to discover that most people don't love ice cream quite as much as I do. No matter how not hungry I am, I will always be happy to spring for ice cream.

After a nice dinner, I got out the ice cream and prepared to shovel out the portions. Michael mentioned that he wasn't that hungry, and would probably just take a couple bites of mine. That would not do, so I offered to serve him a bowl of Small Helpings, to which he acquiesced. When I brought him a very modest portion, he exclaimed, 'That's Small Helpings?'

'Yes,' I explained, and pointed to my bowl: 'That's Regular Helpings.'

'No, my dear,' he told me, 'that's Rose Helpings.'

Can I help it that it was free? Free stuff makes me feel reckless and unrationing. I don't have to make it last because I can always go out and 'buy' more tomorrow.

Pictures and conversations

I have been trying to teach Jane the proper conjugation of verbs recently by phrasing things different ways in conversations with her, like this:

'Jane, did you go to class today? Yes, you went to class.'
'Jane, did you see the squirrel? Yes, you saw the squirrel!'

It makes for a bit of a repetitive monologue on my part, but it seems to help clarify the rules somewhat. Or at least it would, if English weren't so chock full of irregular verbs and exceptions to rules.

Last night I was winding her down for bedtime and asking her questions about her day. She remarked, 'Jane plew with Cate.' That one threw me for a loop, and it was only after further questioning that I figured out that she was applying the blow...blew/throw...threw rule to the word play. I can't say that I blame her.

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Ella, meanwhile, finally cut her third tooth on Monday. She is fond of pulling herself up on furniture and then panicking when she finds herself stuck there - kind of the opposite of the classic 'Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!' After disdaining solid food for months on end, consistently spitting out and spluttering over every single spoonful we tried to feed her, she has decided in the last week or so that she does actually like solids, on her terms. Meaning, she will still automatically spit out anything we try to put in her mouth, but if we put her in the high chair and hand her the goods, she'll dig in with a right good will. Having recently read the Little House books, I am reminded of Laura's comment on trying to teach the calf to drink from a bucket: 'In the end, some of the milk was inside the calf.'

Still scrambling

No matter how ardently I intend to be prepared for the Christmas season, it seems that every year finds me catching my breath and saying, 'Whoa! Is it December already?' I mean to have our tree up the day after Thanksgiving, promptly. I mean to play Christmas music every day, all day long. I mean to light the Advent candles, really and truly, this year, start an unforgettable family tradition and all that. And, most of all, I so want to hang up stockings on the night of December 5th, and have a jolly celebration of St. Nicholas Day, thus cleverly avoiding the whole Santa Clause dilemma once and for all.

Oops. Is it December 7th already? Well, at least I'm thinking about Pearl Harbor.

Still inspired

The kick has lasted all week. Now I want to go out and spend exorbitant amounts of money on real cookware with lifetime warranties. Well, actually, I'd like to find said cookware on craigslist for a modest amount of money, but anyway, either way, it's not happening in the near future. Still, at least I'll stop scoffing at people who put Calphalon on their wedding registries.

I've always despised non-stick pans because you can't use metal utensils (wire whisk? Hello! How else do you propose to make non-lumpy gravy?!) in them, but now I learn that you're not supposed to use metal utensils on cookware at all, period, because metal on metal causes tiny cuts and scrapes that eventually degrade the integrity of the pan. Wow! The answer is rubber, plastic, or reinforced nylon. So now the great question is, Does CVS sell high-quality reinforced nylon cooking utensils?

Cheapskate Gourmet, by Mary Hunt

Here is my book review of a book that I am currently all gaga over. Because this is not a serious blog, I am giving my off-the-cuff, top of the head, completely partial impression of a book I haven't even finished yet. But the parts I've read are so good that I know I'll like the rest of it. I'm already inspired to gather up all my knives and take them off to Kroger for a free sharpening (did you know that most grocery stores' meat departments offer free knife sharpening??)

Well, I started off by reading aloud a quote to Michael on the way home from church, and now he's reading the book to me. We are both thoroughly engrossed by it, the cheapskate bit being the part I like, and the gourmet bit being the part he likes.

I felt particularly moved by the author's account of how she used to dismiss exact measuring by reasoning that 1 cup plus 2 Tbls. flour just meant use a little more than a cup, and how her repeated cooking flops convinced her that following directions precisely was critical. Now, I haven't got a long history of cooking flops, exactly, but I still appreciate the detailed explanations of what can go wrong when the directions are not followed precisely.

Inspired by the call to excellence, I leaped up in the middle of a lemon muffin recipe and dashed to the kitchen to try it out. I even scrupulously followed the part about 1 cup plus 2 Tbls. sugar, going so far as to get the Tbls. measure out to get the job done properly. All was going well until I got to where it said that the 2 Tbls. sugar were for the topping.

Oops. I should also be as enthralled by the instructions to read all recipes thoroughly to the end before beginning.

Serious blogging is not for me

Whenever I leave a comment about a controversial topic on a high-profile blog, I am reminded again and again (yeah, about all four times) why I do not blog for notoriety or pay. The time it takes me to craft my comment, thoroughly editing my work and restructuring my sentences for the utmost clarity and incontrovertibility, and providing ample documentation in the way of links and references, is overwhelmingly intense and somewhat reminiscent of writing a college paper. I just don't need that kind of stress in my life.

I come away from writing such a comment completely exhausted, and for days afterwards I can do nothing but hit the refresh button on the computer to see what came of it, and mope if it was taken ill. (See? See? Grand sweeping generalisations like this one are all well and good on a private blog such as this one, which I can still maintain the illusion that only about ten of my very closest friends ever read, but would be hacked to pieces in a matter of minutes by the sharks circling for fresh blood who will clutch at anything to de-bunk an opposing point of view.) Whew. Not that I'm taking this too seriously or anything.

So I continue to scoff at all the articles on how to make money off of your blog, and how to increase blog traffic and all that. Because that's all well and good for those mercenaries who care more about money than about freedom, but I'd rather live my online life light-hearted and lilting, unfettered by the need for comment moderation, painstaking revision, careful retractions, edits, and updates, and RSS feeds that notoriety demands.

To link or not to link?

When discussing and disparaging items of interest, it occurs to me to wonder whether it would be better form to link directly to the item in question, or not to do so. There seem to be compelling reasons both ways.

Pro:

* Linking enables the reader to check out the source directly, thus circumventing any unintentional slant given by a paraphrase or quote.
* Linking gives the reader direct access to the original writer, with which the reader may check out facts and ask for clarification.
* Linking provides accountability for the linker, who knows he or she may not misrepresent the piece to which he or she is linking, for the sake of making a straw man argument.

Con:

* Linking requires specific finger-pointing, leaving the shelter of vague platitudes for the out-on-a-limbishness of direct confrontation.
* Linking may provide unwarranted attention to a subject which had much better be left to die in peace.
* Linking may lead to the charge of gossip, in that it names names.

Why is this a subject matter of particular interest to me? Because I occasionally stumble across things which irk me, and I wish to point them out for the sake of waxing vexatious thereon. But, of course, I do not wish to gossip or launch personal attacks. But, then again, if I honestly disagree with or disapprove of something, wouldn't it be better to call it out in the open so all could judge for themselves instead of taking my word for it that I am right and the particular instance I am anonymously citing (for the sake of protecting such instance's privacy, of course) is wrong?

Consumer rave - Publix

Here is the why and wherefore of this post.

****************************************

November 15, 2007



Publix Super Markets Corporate Office
ATTN: Consumer Relations
PO Box 407
Lakeland, FL 33802-0407

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is to report on a recent satisfactory exchange with your consumer relations department, and to commend you and your employees on an excellent level of customer service, both at the corporate and at the store level.

To give a bit of background, on a recent shopping trip I found a flyer at my local Publix (Store #xxx) with a great coupon inside. It was the last flyer on the rack, but the coupon, matched with the then-current sale, provided such a good deal that I asked at the customer service desk whether there were any more flyers in the back. The gentleman at the counter could not find any more, but told me that they should be getting more flyers in a week or two. He voluntarily offered to write me a rain check for the sale price, since the coupon, when it arrived, would be valid for several more weeks.

Over the next few weeks, I checked back, but never saw any more flyers in the store. Finally, this past Monday, I returned to the customer service desk and asked whether any more of those particular flyers had come in yet. I was told that the new frozen foods flyers had already arrived, but those were not the ones containing the coupon. It appeared that that flyer had not been replenished.

After I returned home and reviewed my copy of the flyer, I decided to call Publix Consumer Relations and see if they could offer me any assistance in determining whether there were any more copies available. I explained the situation to the representative handling the call, and she took my name and number and told me that she would look into it. I regret that I did not note her name, but she was very gracious and professional.

She was very efficient, too, because I received a message the very next day from Mr. xxx, the manager of my local Publix store. He stated that he had located one copy of the flyer in question, and was attempting to track down more copies from other locations. He left his name and number, asked me to call him if I had any questions, and assured me that he would see that I was informed when and if the other copies became available.

The next day I received a follow-up phone call from xxx at the local Publix. He verified that he had one copy of the flyer in hand, and stated that Mr. xxx had succeeded in locating a shipment of the flyers, which were being sent in from the Florida office and should be in the store the next day. He asked how many I needed, and said that I could come in the next day to pick them up.

I have been extremely impressed with the prompt and exemplary handling of this situation. My inquiry was immediately addressed, and all parties involved went above and beyond what might be considered routine customer service to provide outstanding assistance. The location of the extra flyers and the delivery of those flyers to my local store was an extraordinary courtesy.

This experience only serves to reinforce my positive impression of the level of service and courtesy I have experienced with my local Publix store. In previous interactions with the front desk staff, whether it be over a sale price, a returned item, or a rain check, I have always been met with competence and a sincere willingness to solve the issue at hand.

I write this letter to commend your employees on a good job well done, and to express my appreciation for a company where such a high quality of customer service is valued.

There are some things that money can’t buy. Publix has cemented its good reputation in my mind, and I will continue both to shop there and to recommend it to my family and friends.

Sincerely,



Rose Focht

Consumer rants and raves

And a word spoken in due season, how good is it!

I believe very firmly in speaking one's mind. (Well, aside from the convention of social repression where you don't blurt out your every thought. There are times when I'm a firm believer in the value of keeping your mouth shut.) So when something comes to my attention which demands address, I generally go about addressing it.

If I have a problem with a business or a product, I will take that problem to someone who should be informed, and who might be able to ameliorate the circumstance. I have generally had very good results with this course of action, as most companies have great PR standards and are sensible enough to realise the incalculable value of a satisfied customer.

By the same token, I want to make sure that I am properly acknowledging the brilliant success of Good Business, so I've long made it my habit to point out and commend instances of excellence. This is almost more important to me than the complaints department, and though not so personally lucrative (a concern/complaint about a product/person/situation usually nets me a free replacement/coupon/gift card by way of apology/please-don't-ditch-our-business), it's very emotionally gratifying.

I've read that humans tend to express negative feedback and positive feedback in a ratio of nine to one, and I'm not surprised by that statistic. From working in operations, one of the more thankless lines of duty, I've learned that people don't tend to express the good (mostly because it drops below their radar screen) but they will express the bad. (For instance, you would never get an email gushing about how well the toilets are working today and thanking you for all your hard work on the keeping-toilets-running front, but you sure as anything will get a lot of feedback if one of the toilets isn't working.)

So, to counteract this worldwide conspiracy of negativity, I've made a point to follow through with my opinions, both bad and good. I've always been an avid letter-writer, and the results have usually been satisfactory. And my latest resolve is to post these letters as occasion merits, for two purposes: to punish the evildoer, and to reward the good.

It's really just an expansion of the word-of-mouth principle, where a good reputation is priceless. If something is mishandled, and the situation is not satisfactorily resolved, then I need to carry through with my threat to discredit the foolish, short-sighted, penny-wise-pound-foolish manager who is unwilling to concede the point in order to retain a satisfied customer. And when something is handled exceptionally well, then I want to spread the word so that others can enjoy the same quality of service and satisfaction. Of course, there is no ulterior motive in publishing my experiences, and you may rest assured that I am not getting paid by any product or company to badmouth or compliment. All thoughts and opinions are expressly my own, independently arrived at, etc. etc.

Better eight than never

In which we list (you guessed it! but only because you read the rules on the other blogs already) eight random things:

1) I spent almost an hour online researching the title of this post. I was trying to find the correct spelling for the American pronunciation of the Egyptian number eight. Searches on Arabic numerals led me down some fascinating mathematical rabbit trails, but no closer to a clever title.

2) I can count to ten in Arabic.

3) I flew on the flying trapeze in a real live circus show.

4) The only TV show I ever watched live (well, not actually live, as in the studio: live, as in, when it first aired) was the premier of House (and that only because we had just spotted Bertie in Sense and Sensibility, and were curious to see him in an American role. I hear the series isn't that great, despite being wildly popular with the masses). Every single other TV show I have ever seen was a re-run or the DVD.

5) CVS is my new favourite place to shop.

6) When Jane and I stand on the scales together, we still weigh less, combined, than I did by the end of my pregnancy with her.

7) Michael was always one of my favourite names, but I knew I could never name a son Michael because, well, it kept making the top 10 lists. Falling for MLF was a convenient way to have a legitimate excuse to name a son Michael.

8) I used to like worms, but now I don't. On the other hand, I used to hate onions, and now I don't.

Thanks to the Queen for that little diversion! Due to my late-night lethargy and lacklustre linking skills, this is a self-tagging post, meaning that if you want to join in the fun, then consider yourself tagged by all means.

Cooking for control freaks

Sometimes I amuse myself by reading those tips in various magazines and cookbooks on the proper way to cook and bake, and I can barely repress snickers and sneers at some of the totally impractical suggestions they come up with. For your edification, I provide you with the following silly rules, and the obvious logical reasons why you should disregard them:

- You must gently spoon flour into the measuring cup, and then carefully level it off with the back of a knife, thus getting three implements dirty instead of one. Do not scoop it directly with the measuring cup, or you will compress the flour ever so slightly, causing you to end up with more flour than you need. (When you are scraping the excess flour off with the knife, of course, that will not compress the rest of the flour into the measuring cup quite so erroneously.) Ha! We all know that there are a very few such recipes out there in which a few grains of flour one way or the other makes all the difference in the world as to how the final texture turns out, but most recipes are flexible enough to stand the slight variation that the tiniest bit of compression would allow.

- You must break eggs into a bowl, one by one, before adding them to the melange in the mixing bowl. This will enable you to pick out bits of shell, should they fall in. Ha! And we all know that you can only pick eggshell out of a bowl that has only eggs in it, as opposed to a mixing bowl that has oil and butter and sugar in it as well! Eggshells that fall into mixing bowls instantly sink to the bottom of the batter, while they magically float on the top of raw eggs, thus allowing you to pick them out all the more easily! Right.

- You must melt chocolate in a double boiler. Now we all know that extreme heat does weird things to chocolate. So obviously, you're not going to want to melt chocolate over a boiling hot burner. But if you don't have a double-boiler (which, in my opinion, is one of those specialty items - like escargot forks - with a very narrow range of usefulness - actually, escargot forks probably come out ahead in the narrowness-of-usage-to-difficulty-of-storage/hassle-of accessibility ratio), and you don't want to bother rigging up a pot of boiling water atop which you balance a metal bowl in which to melt the chocolate, then you will find that melting chocolate in the microwave works like a charm. Really, it does.

Time for another post

The house is once again free of guests, and I'm reveling in the free use of the computer once more. You can't just plop down to check email and read blogs when there are guests about, especially when said guest is already at the computer checking his/her email.

Much has been happening around here, which thought I'll put on hold until I have finished pondering the construct of that sentence and why it is that I always fall back on the 'much' approach rather than the 'lots [of]' approach. 'Lots has been happening' or 'lots has happened' works, but only on the presumption that you were going to fill in an indeterminate amount, the implied 'lots of stuff has been happening.' And 'stuff,' especially 'lots' of it, just sounds clunky and uninformed. Or you could pretend that you were going to say 'lots of things have been happening' (ooh! That's helpful and specific!), and then you feel silly for going to all that trouble to spell out the phrase, proving that it works grammatically, and still end up with a vague platitude that needs to be expounded upon.

I have therefore concluded that 'much' just about always sounds more elegant and polished than 'lots,' despite their being pretty well synonymous (unlike 'I' and 'me,' which people insist on believing to be interchangeable, with the vague impression that 'I' has the slight grammatical edge, leading them to use it whenever in doubt of the two). For proof positive of this newfound theory, let's just experiment with a few literary examples:

****

'What do you want with me, Spirit?' asked Scrooge.

'Lots.' It was Marley's voice.

****
For unto whomsoever lots is given, of him shall be lots required: and to whom men have committed lots, of him they will ask the more.

****

The sun is up; why aren't you?
The Jaize A'Castles have lots to do!

****

Yes, quite; just doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it? And that concludes my grammar check. Back to the stuff and things.

So between houseguests last week, and Thanksgiving next week, and babysitting this week, and church and choir practise and play group and trying madly to spend up all the money in our FSA before the end of the year (does ANYone else out there need another free blood glucose monitor? Specifically someone in VA, whom I can send it to by courier next week?), we've been keeping pretty busy. That's all for now. Off to eat more free ice cream and hazelnut chocolates.

A bit of history, a goods and services review, and a diatribe on consumerism

When we traveled to NJ for Eric's wedding in June, we stayed overnight in an hotel. And when I made the reservation, we got some information on a rewards program called Traveler's Advantage, which put us on the mailing list for a few other similar rewards programs.

I am always very cautious about any membership clubs where money changes hands, especially where a free trial is offered to lure me in. I did my homework and discovered that this program (and many others) is run by Trilegiant Corporation (TLC), a company which doesn't seem to have done anything technically illegal, though there have been many complaints filed against it with the Better Business Bureau, mainly to do with deceptive advertising and unscrupulous collections. It seems to be mainly an issue with fine print, where people can very easily get ripped off. I don't blame them for being confused, but neither can I blame TLC for taking advantage of people's forgetfulness and carelessness. After all, that's how manufacturers make money on rebate products: they count on a certain percentage of fallout in the follow-through.

So I agreed to the trial period, and ended up with a complicated set of instructions for gasoline rebates, which I did follow through on, and I did remember to cancel the membership before the free trial period ended. This sort of thing, by the by, is like playing with matches, along the lines of listening to time share pitches with the intention of not buying just to get your free gift: you must have iron determination and nerves of steel or you will get caught. Do not enter into it lightly.

Later, I got another offer for anther one of their fronts, called Great Fun. The premise of this little program is that you sign up (for free, of course), and get a membership card which entitles you to all kinds of discounts on dining and entertainment. Trouble is, once the annual fees start kicking in after your trial period runs out, you'd have to be spending a whole lot of money (and at their participating retailers, too) to justify the membership fee. Five percent off an admission to a particular movie theater bears a striking similarity to using a manufacturer's coupon on a name-brand item: it's probably tricking you into spending more money on something you didn't really need anyway.

After I got all the membership information, I decided that there was no way we could ever come out ahead with this program, and we didn't need any temptations to spend more money on dining and entertainment. I called the company and asked to cancel our membership.

But wait! There's more! After I listened to spiel after spiel about how much money this program could save me, and I insisted again that it wasn't for me, I was offered an extension of the free trial so I could take advantage of one more special offer: a set of rebates totaling up to $40, just for giving Great Fun one more try!

So I waited again, and found that these rebates were even more complicated than the gas forms: there were four $10 rebate forms, to be sent in with any eligible receipt, each one good for only one quarter of the year. So right there, I would have to be a member for the whole year to cash in on this, and not cancel my free membership as soon as I got my payout. Not only that, but the rebate form for this quarter was the entertainment one: I had to send in a receipt over $10 for a movie ticket, video rental, concert, or other cultural event, to receive my $10 rebate.

I thought about that one. I looked up our records in Microsoft Money to verify my suspicion: We have not spent any money in the leisure category for the last three months. No movies, no rentals, no admissions, no tickets. I guess we don't have any fun.

So I called the company back again to cancel in earnest, and explained that it just wasn't the right program for us, because we spend so little on entertainment that the cost of membership wouldn't be justified. When the representative started in with the 'But have you considered all the savings and advantages...?' plea, I replied, 'Let's take the rebate that's valid for this quarter. I don't have any receipts that would qualify. We have not made one single entertainment purchase in three months.'

That stopped him cold, and he quickly canceled my membership for me. He simply had nothing in his notes to counter that scenario.

The first weekend away in two and a half years

On Thursday, my mom drove down and stayed with the girls so that Michael and I could get away for the weekend. It was the first time we've spent a night without kids since Jane arrived.

We attended our choir retreat in the lovely Callaway Gardens, where we spent several sessions learning music for our December Christmas program. This retreat had all the classic elements of a perfect retreat, including good fellowship, wonderful food, plush accommodations, lovely scenery, productive and inspiring sessions, and a very entertaining magic show. During our downtime we walked through parts of the lovely gardens, and took in the live butterfly hothouse and the birds of prey demonstration.

It was so fun to get away, and though we missed the girls, we knew they were in good hands. We must do this every year.

Y'all already know about this, right?

Because free food is a Very Good Thing.

Overheard last week

Me: I am so sorry that I didn't make you any Special K bars today, but I was out of peanut butter.
Michael (solemnly): Thank you.
Me (puzzled): Thank me for what? For not making you a surprise when I wanted to?
Michael: Thank you for not making something when you didn't have all the ingredients. For not saying, 'Oh, peanut butter? I'm sure jelly would work just as well.'

This isn't much of an exaggeration, either. I just typed up a recipe for something I made, in which I realised that '1 cup water' was the only ingredient I actually followed.