Thoughts de Jour

Today was a day of accomplishments. Not major ones, but things that I've been putting off for a while.

1. a thank you note. this is my worst downfall. I take forever with this sort of thing but I do get around to it.

2. a doctor's appointment (for myself). Obviously I get around to this here and there as all I seem to do lately is write checks out to Fairview Clinic or Hospital. I'm sure they're thrilled to hear the news, more money for them rolling in, constantly AND FOREVER.

3. organization of every book shelf in the house (6 in all, big ones). This took a while.

4. organization of the kids' art bin. (which led to )

5. the finding of the pattern for my pitfall screen grab cross stitch which I someday plan to put on etsy and sell.

no laundry, but hey, I don't work again until Thursday so I'll get to that eventually. Not working=not a good thing right now. Every person at my Starbucks is in danger of losing their healthcare from all this labor-cutting (in addition to having their paychecks basically hacked in half). This is frustrating.

A few other things: my dreams are crazy. Last night I had one that involved me putting some liquid free base crack into my mouth and then somehow allowing Beebins to find it and get into it as well. I have a sneaking suspicion that this all came from a creepy expose article about Amy Winehouse that I read yesterday along with my inner secret paranoia that I'm destined to be an unfit mother (or RABBIT MOTHER as my family likes to call them) for having so many kids.

Unpleasant.

Also. I got rid of a few old film books today when I organized, ones I hadn't picked up since being in school at the U. This got me thinking of how things were in my life then, the year 2003, right around the time the war started.

My brain was exploding then from everything I was reading and learning. I would have class every day, pretty much all day long, with seventeen upper division credits. At St. Scholastica everyone took 18, so this didn't seem to be that big a deal to me, but at the U no one usually took more than 12 or 13. Maybe this is why I flaked out at St. Skanks. oh the money I could have saved. . . .

Every day I would read film theory, foreign film theory (french was the worst, the longest, and the most difficult to understand), film history, cultural studies, comparative literature, American history, and media/literary connections to Goethe's Faust (a fun little 2 credit-er). I would do the crossword puzzle every day and damn near finish it. I would read the newspaper every day and get paranoid about the war. I went to class with people who thought film, art, and literature were the most important things in the world. I went a good two years strong (with the exception of being at work at northwest) without encountering a single republican, let alone a conservative one. I guess that's to be expected when you're in a liberal arts program. I would stress out about how Matt and I were going to pay our $1100 to the government for income tax when we had exactly zero dollars and Matt had no job. Despite the war and our being super broke, it was still a fun time in my life and I remember fondly a lot of those days. I loved my classes, loved my professors to the point of having almost perfect attendance in every one. I made the dean's list every semester which required at least a 3.65 GPA. I lived for caffeine and free food. I walked a mile in each direction, some days in minus 20 degree temperatures just to go to class. I look back on all this now and wonder how I made myself do it; I was a pretty poor student before then. I guess I just had to wait until I found something I could really do and enjoy.

Kudos to Gary Reynolds at MCTC for showing me the way. Had I not randomly taken his film class in the year 2000 I may still have been a phone slave at Northwest, getting screamed at and threatened multiple times each day. Funny how things work out, isn't it?

Work

Laura Innes happened to come into Starbucks tonight (otherwise known as Dr. Weaver from ER). It was very exciting, especially since I very much love the show. . . I was hoping to write something non-threatening and non-attention bringing like, "WE LOVE LAURA INNES" or "LAURA INNES ROCKS" on her cup when she ordered but dammit all, she got a zen tea in a porcelain. She was very nice, very friendly, and extremely thin and petite! They always look so much bigger on camera!

The one thing that has stayed with me through the years was the episode where Romano takes over the ER and the staff actually wants Weaver back so Romano will leave, and when she comes down to check on things someone hides her crutch (so she can't leave). WHICH ONE OF YOU WISE-ASSES STOLE MY CRUTCH?

In other news, the jackass who barked the medium coffee in a double cup order came in again, this time sans awkward racial ramblings on his phone, come to think of it, no phone whatsoever. Which was nice. I was trying to have a conversation with a regular customer that I hadn't seen in a while and so I just thrust his coffee refill at him quickly just to get rid of him and LOW AND BEHOLD, he let me keep the change from his dollar (after the 54cent refill.) Still doesn't excuse his rudeness and social inappropriateness from before. . .

Opposing ends of humanity

Guy who comes in to starbucks, blabbing on his phone, says nothing to me when I greet him but instead just barks MEDIUM COFFEE IN A DOUBLE CUP and then goes back to his convo. As if to confirm this guy is a total douche, the conversation he was having involved doing an racist imitation of some immigrant (I'm guessing, as the accent he was trying to fake has yet to be identified) trying to order something at a restaurant.

Guy was at least 65. Super disgusting and inappropriate.

TIP TO MAINTAIN HUMANITY IN A SUPER SMALL AND EASY WAY: do not speak on your phone when you are ordering a drink at starbucks. Just don't do it. The message you send is that the person (OFTEN ME and the people I work with, so MY FRIENDS) you are ordering from is not worth ending or postponing a call/common courtesy. Ditto this if you are with your child. Your child sees what you are doing and then when your child is 14, they will do the same thing and neglect manners in the same exact way. Your rudeness carries on to the next generation. No wonder the whole world is rude. GET OFF YOUR FUCKING PHONE.



Also:

A cute little family, mom, dad, and daughter (who was probably about 8 or 9) coming in, ordering drinks, sitting at a table and playing cards with each other. I thought this was so lovely and refreshing I about bawled. I'm so happy they came in; people like this give me hope. No ipods, no laptops, NO FUCKING CELL PHONES, just a deck of cards. I love it.

Okay, I've had it.

the McDonald's billboard? $4 IS DUMB?

let's just talk about it, shall we?

1. there are a handful of drinks on the Starbucks menu that are $4 or above. The seasonal drinks, including the peppermint mochas, peppermint white mochas, gingerbread lattes, and eggnog lattes are expensive. They are special holiday drinks that I think many people anticipate and celebrate each year. MANY people say how excited they are for the new drinks or that the holiday drinks are here; that they are special treats I think lets people splurge a little to treat themselves at different times during the year. When I looked on McDonald's website they didn't have anything comparable to these yet.

The other drinks that are not seasonal that happen to be expensive are 20 or 24 ounces, the biggest sizes (AND YES, YOU CAN SAY LARGE AND THEY'LL KNOW WHAT YOU"RE TALKING ABOUT) and frappucinos at that. If you are especially hungry or thirsty or just gluttonous, well, you probably realize you're paying more for more PRODUCT.

2. Hungry, thirsty, and gluttonous people ordering these drinks make it possible for the employees at Starbucks to have healthcare, including part timers, so thank you. McDonalds needs to back off them.

3. I don't think anyone will actually argue that something like SA brand cappuccinos are on the same level an actual cappuccino that someone skilled actually makes in front of you while you watch. Having a machine spit out espresso shots and steam milk is probably a nice luxury and saves time and energy, but you know what else? IT KILLS HUMANITY. When we're all living in the matrix and all coffee gets scraped out of dumpsters and recycled through a machine and given to us as if it's quality, then yes, I'll probably take it or leave it. For right now, you really just have to decide, do you want cheapness or do you want quality? Some people like crap or accept it simply because it's cheap and then assign it some sort of value or novelty.

4. If we're supposed to think that $4 for a coffee is ridiculous, what are we going to say to the people who spend $400 on a pair of shoes or a purse or $600 for a cell phone? Are they dumb too just because they choose not to buy the cheaper, shoddier rip off? Maybe the people who lay their hard earned money down for these things would shoot back that what they are paying for is quality (or image). hmmmm. . . .

possible insight into collections claim. . . .

This just FITS THE BILL. . . .

Matt considered the fact that RYAN FULLER (deck-builder, stoner, a deadbeat, etc.) had not paid his web hosting bill a year or so ago and that perhaps THIS is the reason NCO collections are calling us? Matt currently hosts this dude's website on his, so if dude owes money, they probably just figured it out and that Guerilla Graphics the current host, has now assumed the old debt? Sound par for the course after reading up on this company yesterday.

If they do call back, you can be CERTAIN that I will give all contact information, address, phone, and email to get them to the corrrect person. FRICKING MORON!!!!!

Two things that happened today. . .

1. I realized, for not the first time really, that my happiness and optimism are both totally tied up in food. Is this weird? That if we have something fun for lunch or something awesome to look forward to for dinner my mood soars but if not, the opposite? I wonder if I just really sit down and UNDERSTAND this about myself, my day to day attitude will always be pleasant?

2. We got a call from this place called NCO financial today on the voicemail, stating that a company name Matt has used in the past is being sought for collection of a debt. This freaked me out a lot, since I am the bill payer and I have tried to stay on top of things like that. The only thing anyone would be able to come after us for would be The Good Cook book club to which I owe like $39 for a Martha Stewart cookbook last summer. But I haven't even gotten a bill from THEM yet, so I know they weren't the ones sending us to collections. I wrote this contact information down and called them back but only got a voicemail. Things seemed shady. . . .

So I looked them up online. Seriously, I thank God I had the sense to do this. There are PAGES of comments on this dude's blog http://www.ethannonsequitur.com/nco-financial-systems.html. . . .
Good to know. I'm really glad I didn't even speak to anyone about it, but apparently they buy out your old, outdated, or past statute of limitation debt and then try to collect it from you and hassle you about it 3 to 5 times daily. I should really talk to my friend Erica about this, she is a collection agent for US Bank and would probably know how to deal with it.

ugh.

Good day, otherwise (food and everything:)