Friday, December 30, 2005
It's so predictable. Contractors string you along for months as they sneak off to other jobs and then lie to your face about it. Then towards the end of the job they start grumbling that it is taking longer than they had wanted (translation: I'm not making as much money on this as I wanted). They always blame the other guy (plumber, electrician, carpenter, even the owner) when something gets delayed or goes wrong. That's fine. I can get through all that. We smile and diplomatically tell them to get the damn work done thank you very much.
But a plumber who balks at his own English is pushing it....i.e. I deducted $250 from his bill based on his original proposal that said "There is no labor charge for carpenter or plumber: Carpenter to install roof flange, build wall to accommodate piping and drill holes and patch as needed." I matched up this language to the carpenter's language and voila: $250. The plumber now says that this isn't what he meant and that I have mis-construed the language in the proposal. OK well I might not know what a roof flange is exactly but I don't think the language could be any more clear. So now will come the nit-picking. He is an idiot of course from a marketing and PR perspective. I had just written him a letter that I was pleased that we were able to resolve the problem that got this whole project started in the first place. A smarter plumber would have considered the $250 he wasn't too happy about (mind you I've given this guy about $7000 total) money well invested in a customer who would have said good things about his company. Guess that's why he's a plumber...
But a plumber who balks at his own English is pushing it....i.e. I deducted $250 from his bill based on his original proposal that said "There is no labor charge for carpenter or plumber: Carpenter to install roof flange, build wall to accommodate piping and drill holes and patch as needed." I matched up this language to the carpenter's language and voila: $250. The plumber now says that this isn't what he meant and that I have mis-construed the language in the proposal. OK well I might not know what a roof flange is exactly but I don't think the language could be any more clear. So now will come the nit-picking. He is an idiot of course from a marketing and PR perspective. I had just written him a letter that I was pleased that we were able to resolve the problem that got this whole project started in the first place. A smarter plumber would have considered the $250 he wasn't too happy about (mind you I've given this guy about $7000 total) money well invested in a customer who would have said good things about his company. Guess that's why he's a plumber...
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Snippets:
- What college kids like. Adderall. An amphetamine used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder. Used otherwise, it is perceived as a performance enhancer and a drug of choice amongst college students during finals. "No son, I do not think you have A.D.D. and we are not going to see about getting you an adderall prescription." Any kid who can spend two hours on the phone negotiating for NBA players in a fantasy basketball league he plays with his friends definitely does not have A.D.D. "How about a flu shot instead? Your appointment is at 4..."
- We like Fiona Apple's new CD: "Extraordinary Machine". She has matured a lot as an artist.
- We like Pomegranate Cosmopolitans: 1/4 Pomegranate Juice, 1/4 oz triple sec, 1/4 oz lime juice, 1 1/4 oz citron vodka. Handful of icecubes. Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake. Put a few fresh pomegranates in bottom of chilled martini glass. Strain and serve. Wonderful drink with college kids at home.
- We like friends who put skin in the game. All others will be disbanded in 2006.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Anna's Christmas Eve Present 2006... 
Merry Christmas from Anna Bloviations (far left)
Friday, December 23, 2005
12 cents cheer. Thanks to the elderly woman in Costco for springing the twelve cents I was short for an Italian sausage. The cashier, on the other hand, was showing no holiday generosity to let me off; rather she pointed to where an ATM machine could be found. Thank goodness for that elderly woman too. Anna Bloviations could feel a melt-down coming on. It was 1:30 p.m. after all and hungry we were after having sat four and a half hours at BMW waiting for repairs to be completed on hubby's car. Was he not aware that he could have had a free rental for the day or was it just more fun to request that I go... Turns out BMW would have given me a rental too. Had I had my driver's license on me that is. Probably it was better that I didn't. I would have no doubt driven over to the mall and spent more money on top of the $900 repairs. Instead I caught up on my Atlantic Monthly and Harper's magazines seated in the plush leather chairs BMW provides in the waiting lounge. Total cost of owning German cars for December? $1700....Cost for the best damn Italian sausage with roasted peppers and onions when you're starving? $1.93 (I don't necessarily want to know where the 'Italian sausages' come from...).
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Betwixt the adjustments of college kids at home we have two glimmers of hope on the political front: Judge Jones banished Intelligent Design "Science" out of Dover's schools and the Alaska Wildlife Refuge is safe for another couple of weeks (sneaky how they tried to fold that into the defense budget). Here here. On the home front two suitcases of dirty laundry have been washed and two compromise deals reached with the son who doesn't go to bed before 3 a.m.: he has to wear headphones after 11 p.m. if he is going to watch T.V.... The noise probably wouln't be an issue in a 6,000 sq. foot plus McMansion but in this house it is. Thermostats have to be turned down to 65 degrees after 11 p.m. as well unless the cherubs want to pitch in on the next gas bill.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
In Big, Big Trouble With IT Boy -- a.k.a. hubby.... Let's make some perfectly sexist remarks here for the sake of a story: From mens' perspectives 'women can't drive'. Well I can. To the point of pissing young male drivers off because I out-maneuver them on the road. But computers? Oops. I drive them terribly e.g. constantly visiting sketchy places and downloading stuff from questionable sources, never backing up, and certainly never tuning or maintaining. So the computer crashed Sunday morning. And crashed again. And again. Think Schwarzenegger talking when hubby says with his Austrian accent, "I hate it when you act like a secretary..." (secretary being a highly derogative term he uses toward women he thinks are stupid). IT Boy found a Trojan Horse and an unmentionably 'fragmented' disc. Good thing I can swap sex for IT repairs. I'd sure be broke otherwise....
Saturday, December 17, 2005
This pic from Saturday's NY Times pretty much sums up the reality millions of parents face when the kids come home from college: CHAOS. These big lanky things (e.g. the son) are suddenly at your doorstep after having spent a semester whooping it up till the dawn's early light. Better said they have turned into a species ignorant of the concept of day (one is awake) and night (you go to sleep).
Accompanying them through the door are piles of dirty laundry in tow and cell phones already a-buzz with nocturnal, beer-drenched plans i.e. "Yo, whuz up man?" Then come the milk jugs left on the kitchen counter, caked cereal bowls like stepping stones all over the house, bathrooms in a perpetual state of dampness, and TV's and music set at decibels the hard of hearing would appreciate.
Also through the door come the college kids who never bring dirty laundry (albeit the cell phone is ditto a-buz with plans) but rather a different kind of baggage i.e. the daughter and a suitcase-full of stress and exhaustion from pushing herself so hard at school. Her adrenaline dissipates as the quiet days at home stretch out into weeks; those days give her time to reflect and process which is another way of saying she can be awfully moody... In the meantime the kitchen turns into a Health Nutrition Center with sections of the fridge roped off with special yogurts and vegetables designated just for her. And woe is the stupid brother or clueless father who inadvertently ventures into her territory.
As a mother was quoted in the NY Times on having children home for the holidays, "It's always nice when they come home. And it's always nice when the leave."
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Only One With a Real Job (and it's not I). The party started at 4 p.m. -- a cookie swap of all things but I thought it would be a fun venue for us battle-scared moms of Town X to prepare ourselves for the onslaught of our college kids home for Christmas break. All except one had no problem getting to my house at four which means we have all managed to arrange our lives to an extent that an afternoon party is not an issue. Hmmm. And to think there were eighteen invitees.... The rules of a cookie swap are that everyone is to bring six dozen cookies (preferably home baked) and then at the end of the party you swap with everybody else so that you go home with a basket/tin/plastic bag/whatever of assorted holiday cookies. The dining room table, nearly caving in under the weight of the hundreds of cookies stacked on the table, begged to be attended to so we did our swapping early in order to get down to the real business at hand which was to drink wine, eat cashews, and strategize how to survive the next month. Everyone was duly impressed by my redecorating of the son's room to make it as uninviting to a college senior and soon-to-be graduate as possible. As the last remaining embers of the fire faded in the fireplace the clock struck twelve, my friends tinkled one by one in my almost-completed bathroom, we wished one another luck, and then went to our prospective beds to dream. Oh and the dreams many of these stuck-in-a-rut women must have....
Monday, December 12, 2005
Pushing the Red Button. A woman stumbled and weaved dangerously close to the edge of the subway platform which prompted me to approach her and ask if she were ok. I noticed too she had left her bag sitting on the bench. She was a pretty thirty-ish woman with eyes spinning in her head. "Thanks I'm ok she slurred," but then half fell over. Before I could call for help the train arrived and she boarded. I followed her onto the same car. She promptly dropped her bag onto the floor and slumped into a heap across two seats. The person sitting next to her moved three seats over. The rest of the crowded car stared or purposely looked away. So I got up and pushed the damn red button which doesn't bring the train to a screeching halt but rather puts you in direct contact with the train operator. I told him there was a woman in distress. "What car are you in?" he asked. He repeated the question as I looked around for a number that would identify the car. It was then, finally, that the rest of the people on the train pitched in to help. Almost simultaneously, and with a look of relief on their faces, the passengers called out that we were in the second car. Within a nano-second a plain-clothes security person boarded our car as soon as the train pulled into the next stop. Walkie-talkie in hand, he gently escorted the heroin addict (that would be my guess) off the train. Now is that so hard?
Sunday, December 11, 2005
5 p.m. and still in P.J.'s. So intent were we on our tasks in the kitchen Sunday that we forgot to change... But no matter -- Anna Bloviation's has mango chutney, rum balls, and pecan/date bars to show for it. Hah! Who says Anna can't cook. We also have counterfulls of sticky substances that look like they are going to need a LOT of scrubbing. Do I bother showering and changing or just stay in my pajamas? Better change. We are full of flour we notice and somehow drinking a glass of wine in pajamas just doesn't seem right...
Friday, December 09, 2005
Comical vs. Serious Deaths. It's tragic the six-year-old little boy who was killed by the Southwest airplane that skid off the runway in Chicago. But what a death! And of course what a lawsuit... the lawyer is already pulling on the emotional strings in that little John was apparently singing a Christmas carol when suddenly the super-sized jumbo plane hit his parent's car. And what if another car had been the cause of little John's death? Less tragic? No. Oodles of million dollars less in a lawsuit? Yes.... But seriously folks, you must admit that when you take away the tragedy part of this story (someone's little boy is dead and that right before Christmas), there is a certain comic element to this (in a macabre kind of way of course):
"Here lies John X -- squashed by a Boeing 737".
I don't personally anticipate such a demise but on a perhaps more percentage-wise likely and comical way to go: Given a choice between dying from the bird flu epidemic and mad cow disease I would definitely pick the former. Sounds much more serious. As opposed to: "Here is the urn of Anna Bloviations -- an urn-full of mad cow ashes..."
"Here lies John X -- squashed by a Boeing 737".
I don't personally anticipate such a demise but on a perhaps more percentage-wise likely and comical way to go: Given a choice between dying from the bird flu epidemic and mad cow disease I would definitely pick the former. Sounds much more serious. As opposed to: "Here is the urn of Anna Bloviations -- an urn-full of mad cow ashes..."
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
A Privileged Democrat's six hours: Let hubby ever complain again that I have only a $31K job... Honey I bring home a different kind of bacon...i.e. for six hours straight I ran errands so that we might continue to live the aesthetically pleasing life to which we have become accustomed. And by the way, after dinner I will do the dishes, iron the laundry, wrap his employee's gifts, sew on some buttons on my duvet covers, walk the dog, and then may I please just go to bed to dream... Oh bad Anna. We are making me sound like a martyr. Of the afore-mentioned after-dinner list I will probably just get to the wrapping the presents (because that is fun), walking the dog (because we must), and dreaming... And yes of course (let's not kid ourselves), we acknowledge that the kind of bacon hubby brings home pays for nearly every aspect of the aesthetics. The basics too come to think of it. I would simply be screwed living on $31K a year.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Democratic Committee Losers. Anna Bloviations attended a 'holiday' democratic committee party which brought forth old and new Democrat-diehards to the house of the Rep for whom I work. Great turn out. Great food. Swill undrinkable wine... And utterly lousy candidates running for Lieutenant Governor. They just 'happened' to be at the party and were given live-time to make impromptu speeches. Good god even if this post is just a fake job, is this the best that the Democrats can come up with? If so we are doomed and doomed again I tell you! The one candidate, a woman from Brookline, ranted about jobs in such a way that made it clear that she had a rat's ass clue about the job market in Massachusetts. And I mean rat's ass. The second candidate, a Woody Allen kind of look-alike, was just bizarre. He is a doctor whose anecdotes focus primarily on once having scooped chicken shit off of his grandfather's farm. And your point is? A politician to keep one's eye on is Representative Steven Walsh. Man he can get a crowd fired up and he'll be running for something big at some point (unless his new law degree takes him elsewhere). If he could just learn not to piss a lot of people off at the same time he would be awesome.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Intelligent Design? To the red chunks of the country debunking evolution and trying to shimmy the 'Intelligent Design' theory into our school curriculums I say, "Yeah Right!" This theory, if one can call it such, is that the complexity of the world is so great that something 'bigger' than sheer randomness must have been behind it. Enter God, Jesus, and the works. Well I have a word about that....and that is that my bathroom project debunks the whole notion of 'Intelligent Design.' It is a simple, minimalist bathroom but you'd think we were building a replica Sistine Chapel for as long as it is taking. My theory is that complexity hides mistakes; simplicity is much harder to master. If there were a god, the world would look something akin to a Japanese zen rock garden. There certainly wouldn't be mosquitoes....Friday, December 02, 2005
Hot Tamale from Siberia. Our first selected intern is a young lady from Russia whom we found through Craigslist.org. She will be managing the Reps website for nothing more than a glowing letter of recommendation at some point as she climbs her way up through her new American landscape. Should be easy for her. For one thing the weather is a lot milder here in New England compared to the howling-cold Siberian tundra of her homeland. She is intelligent, skilled, and hungry (as opposed to her American contemporary who is entitled, unskilled, and lazy). We did of course get other inquiries from young people interested in working on the website and all with whom I spoke sounded American and eager. But none stepped up to the plate as quickly (nor as prepared) as Marina.... Come to our shores Russian immigrants! Mafia need not apply.
