Archive for April, 2008

I received a really nice pay raise not long ago. Not a promotion, just a pay raise that got me up into the bracket I should be in doing the job I’m doing.

Since then, I’ve really tried hard to dress the part of the professional I’m supposed to be. Our office dress code is business casual with jeans on Fridays, so I’ve improved my wardrobe by adding nice linen pieces and a couple of suits.

It’s no secret that I’m a weighty woman. Too many years of sedentary life and indulgence in calorie laden foods have swelled my once generous curves to Michelin Man proportions which means that when I shop for clothing, it must be what is euphemistically termed "plus size clothing". So many designers of said clothing tend to take what’s suitable for more proportionately shaped female bodies and make it bigger in all the right places. All too often that makes us look even larger than we are, and in my opinion, sloppy as well. Certainly NOT the image I’m trying to project.

I hate shopping in malls. I love shopping online. That doesn’t always play out well when it’s clothing involved, but I’ve been fairly lucky in that respect. I’ve found a couple of online purveyors of my sized clothing that have stylish, practical and suitable clothing that FITS. Silhouettes is one such place and Blair is another, both carrying clothing that is suitable and has pockets which is a personal must-have as far as I’m concerned.

When I need more formal wear than either of those two have available (usually at Christmas they have a nice selection, but you know and I know that’s not the only time of the year you might need fancy dress), I can shop at Midnight Velvet which always seems to have fancy dress available.

I can say that I’ve only ever returned one item to any of these places and that wasn’t because it didn’t fit, but because it arrived too late for the event I had purchased it for. The company was gracious about the return and promptly credited the purchase to my credit card. All three of these companies have similar return policies, so I don’t think I would have any problem returning items if needed. Blair also has a nice selection of men’s clothing as well as house wear items. My only complaint with Blair is that some of the items I’ve purchased were not wrinkle resistant. I hate ironing, so that’s another requirement for me along with pockets. 

I hope that if you find yourself in a similar situation to mine, that you’ll give one of these fine places a try.

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I  have a Moluccan cockatoo named Taji. Some of you have seen his videos where he chooses contest winners for me. He’s a really neat bird in many ways although he doesn’t talk clearly enough to tell exactly what he’s saying, he does say something that sound suspiciously like "Just WHAT do you think you’re doing!?"

He’s going to be featured in a future video that will be on this site in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for that.

To get back to today’s story, though.

See that beak? That is one strong beak! Taji’s beak will rival any set of air tools on the market for strength. His beak is capable of unscrewing any nut no matter how frozen. AND he loves the challenge, so if you have a nut that’s frozen on something, well, if Taji can get his beak on it, it’s history.

That can make him handy to have around.

It can also make him a hazard both to himself and to us.

See, he doesn’t care if you WANT the nut off or not — if he sees a nut on something, he’s going to unscrew it.

His cage is held together with — you guessed it — nuts and bolts.

I came home the other day to find his door in the floor and him in the process of taking apart Riley’s cage. Poor Riley was on top of the cage looking bewildered and somewhat dismayed at the prospect of his haven of comfort being demolished before his eyes.

It took Ken and I three days to get Taji’s cage put back together in a manner he’s (so far) not been able to take apart again. I feel guilty that it looks more like a Houdini’s box than a bird cage now, but it truly IS for his safety. You see, one other time he got out, he got into a bunch of stuff he shouldn’t have and ended up with zinc poisoning and came pretty close to dying.

Anyway, if you have any nuts that need to be removed, please give us a call. Taji would love the job.

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As if I don’t have enough to do around here!

I went out on the front porch a little bit ago to get the bird feeders refilled and noticed that our outdoor furniture is in a sad state. The table has about 2" of dirt (not dust! DIRT) on it and the lounge chairs aren’t in much better shape! The swing doesn’t look too bad, but since I saw Ken sitting on it the other night, he probably wiped it off before he sat down (or that’s what all the dirt is on those clothes!).

Anyway, cleaning all that stuff — especially as dirty as it is will probably take me all day Saturday! Not what I had in mind for a Saturday let me tell you!

Of course once I get the furniture clean and shiny, the porch itself will look shabby and I’ll be staining it next.

Too much to do and not enough hours in the day!

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Some years ago, I lost my job and had to go on unemployment. Since the country had just enacted NAFTA, a lot of textile jobs were sent to South America and Canada and you could apply to get a year of college along with your unemployment benefits so as to be "retrained" into another, more suitable career. I elected to do that, so essentially, for 9 months (a school year), I didn’t work but went to college.

In many ways, that was a good decision on my part. I learned a lot about computers that I didn’t know and it set me on the path to the job I have today, but the decision wasn’t without cost.

I had two credit cards that were pretty much maxed out and with nothing but unemployment coming in, I couldn’t even make the minimum payments on them.

Also at that time, the radio and TV were saturated with ads for debt counselors or credit card counseling. You hear a lot of that now, too of course, but it was a new thing back then and they promised to get your debt paid off faster and your minimum payments reduced and no harm to your rating  ad infinitum. Well, much like wholesale fashion jewelry, it was fake and not up to the promise of it’s glitter.

Not only was my credit harmed, but I was harassed unmercifully by the credit card companies, called all manner of horrible names ("deadbeat" was a favorite) and the so-called counselor took my money and didn’t pay a dime towards my debt –stating it was a "donation" on my part for their operating expenses.

Well, the chickens have come home to roost as they say. The "counselors" are being tried for mail fraud (they required you to make your payments with postal money orders and sent their contract through the mail to you to sign and return) and all manner of other things. I get to go to New York next week to testify against them.

I know I’ll never see any of my money, but it will give me some satisfaction to know the people who cheated me are finally getting their just rewards.

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