About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Read More
March 18, 2013
This should have been written much earlier but in short: February sucked. So that probably be, meh health, no fitness.
The whole of February was positively miserable, starting from the end of the previous month, with a series of aches and pains that clung to me like PigPen’s trail of dust. I remember saying that the pain was only four days long and that was great because: “It really could easily have gone for ten times that long.”
Remind me to knock wood next time I type something that boneheaded, would you? Just quit tempting fate.
Flu-like symptoms alternated with flu-like depression of the immune system (the next step before actually getting sick); back pain, arms pain, neck pain and knees/hips aches … just to name a few. Unfortunately, that meant absolutely NO gym time. Days blended into weeks and the weeks kept slipping on by before I realized I hadn’t done any exercise except a daily Doggle walks. Every time I remembered I was a slacker, PiC had to remind me that there was really a reason for my long layoff because it’d just melded into the back of my mind. Pain, fatigue and forgetfulness? Not cool. No wonder it feels like I’m losing my mind some days!
Most of the worst symptoms seem to have worn down, though. [knock on wood]
Weight Watcher (aka Why Bother?)
Just for kicks, I started weighing myself during the month of February. Almost every night, at about the same time, and sometimes again in the morning, I hopped on the scale.
This was a really interesting experiment. My weight fluctuated up and down on a five pound range nearly every day, even if my habits were pretty much the same: drink a bit, eat a bit, walk a bit, eat a bit. It didn’t make a difference, the weight just roller-coastered regardless.
This does explain why my pants fit so strangely: too big some days, too small others.
Half a lifetime ago, gaining weight was a challenge of unimaginable proportions. Ectomorphic and somewhat perpetually undereating, I was the scrawniest thing you ever saw. For about ten years, I tried as hard as I could to put on weight because it just felt unhealthy to be that skeletal, despite my general all-around fitness. My aim was to put on muscle, not random weight but eating healthy did not a thing for me. About twenty pounds later, that quest has been largely abandoned. Feeling less scrawny, though perhaps not any healthier.
The most annoying things about being the weight I am: not being able to give blood, and having to tailor every darn piece of clothing. Tch.
:: What’ve you done to stay healthy or fit this month?
March 13, 2013
The Ferry Building is one of my favorite places to share with people. It is a tourist-traffic heavy location which isn’t usually my cup of tea but here that’s part of the fun; there’s usually some sort of performance artist(s) out front and the vendor stalls are always fresh, bright and stocked. The poorly lit photos here are down to my impromptu photography.
It’s best enjoyed at a slow meander, picking up a chip of chocolate or a taste of bread dipped in different flavors of olive oil, checking out the cheeses, desserts and fresh oysters on offer.
Food trucks line the pierside, produce and flower stalls interlock the front and back side of the Building.
The piles of fresh produce are positively enticing. Those vendors are no fools: plenty of fresh citrus wedges and apple slices were available for sampling. Even at those prices I still have to talk myself out of spending upwards of $4/lb for a bag of fruit or vegetables. They look so pretty. (Though microgreens for $24/lb? Really?)
There were canning jars that looked like a good deal at $3/jar. They’d be perfect for making ahead two-serving apple pies. If it weren’t for the thought of trying to take them home on BART without breaking them, they would have been mine.
Also, the flowers are so bright and cheerful, nestled in their big bundles, I was thistempted to buy the five bundles for $25 of tulips. Again, not being in the mood to schlep them home was pretty much my saving grace. Otherwise: flowers, jars, random veggies I’m not sure how to cook, even more chocolate…
Edit: I did go back this week to blow $100 on gifts. California honey,3 boxes of made in SF by a small business chocolates, apple butter, and a chunk of triple creme cheese. Just needs some bread and crackers to make a really good picnic. Except I can’t keep it. Drat.
March 11, 2013
I’m a total local library fan from way back. I loved the smell of books, I loved the stacks, I loved the nearly-audible hush when you walked in the sliding doors. The absence of sound creating an echo. It was so Zen.
Then they started letting kids talk, and bring food and drink. Sacrilege!
My neglect of our local one here up North can only be explained by my ridiculously hermity nature. There’s one only a mile down the road and in these three (or so) years, I’ve been there once. (It was closed.)
I blame the really strange business hours. There are a couple days when they open midmorning and stay open until the evening. There’s a couple days (not consecutively) when they open midmorning and close earlyish. There’s a day where they open late and close early. Also a day when they open late and close late.
This is too complicated for my easily combobulated brain – hard enough to recall which day of the week it is, they’ve gone and given it a good scramble for good measure!
Judging by the crowd of people milling around or sitting in their parked cars, when I dropped in for a quick peer-around on my way home from a brunch, this schedule situation is not just a problem for me. We all looked sort of stupid, I guess, but it was still entertaining to watch a man walk through the crowd, bang into the still-locked door with the schedule clearly printed on it and turn to ask the rest of us: “What? Closed? When does it open?”
Well…..
Like the vast SF Library system, the Peninsula Library System has 35 affiliated branches. (I thought it was nine.)
We’ve been to one of the more southerly branches and checked out audiobooks before, but I found their actual book collections to be somewhat lacking.
This branch was small – a single room with medium sized nooks for various sections: Children’s books, “Teen” books (isn’t that supposed to be Young Adult?), a coffee corner, and a rather large selection of DVDs and Fiction/NonFiction. Not definitively large, unfortunately.
The fiction section only housed 1 John Scalzi, 1 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (I will not be judging her books by her website), and 2 Terry Pratchetts. That was disappointing. I didn’t have time to search further, though on my way up and down the aisles I saw two shelves’ worth of Mercedes Lackey and G.R.R.M.’s A Dance with Dragons which I will be back for.
One hopes that Patrick Rothfuss is represented somewhere in there as well because I love both him and his writing but let’s be honest, I’m quite likely to purchase the third book in his series because I will be rereading it to bits. Return? NO.
This is, by the way, how I know I’m “rich”. There was no money to buy books until college, and then it was only if I had earned enough awards from my credit card spending on essentials. Discover’s $25 worth of points translating to $40 of Borders or other bookstore money was a bookworm-saver. 17-18 years of, (ok, 16 years because I didn’t start reading until I was 2 according to the parents) of borrowing books I couldn’t keep and cherish. Now? It’s an option. I AM RICH I TELL YOU.
Ahem.
Right, so the book selection is light, but there are definitely books to read. And dope that I am, I didn’t realize that putting a “hold” on any item in the online catalog is how you request books from other branches to be delivered to your branch. It costs 75 cents per item but that’s still cheaper than driving to some of the further out branches. That’s a reminder, btw, to my cheap arse that less than a dollar to borrow a book is not a bank breaker. I’m so conditioned to think of the library as the place you only pay when you did wrong (late fees and lost books augh!) so a voluntary fee seems weird.
Their new checkout machine so I don’t have to talk to humans? Also amazing! You just stack between 1-3 books on the thingie and it scans all of them. You don’t insert them one by one, lining up the barcodes anymore! I assume it’s magic. This is my excuse for the crazy face I was making at the machine when it all went down.
And! You have the option of printing the receipt for the books or emailing them. When did the library get this crazy progressive technology? (also, could we now spend money on great books please?)
Of course I didn’t use the email function. The receipt is my bookmark and physical reminder of when the books have to go back.
Other things: they hold educational sessions for teens (I think? Teens come in that hulking size, right?) to teach them how to use the library. The librarians sounded pretty helpful to the people who were talking to them. I just assume, anyway, the library visit is, for me, a solitary, almost reverential thing and talking is not part of the game.
Must say, though, their instructions for managing e-books, online or the paper printouts they provide at the more posh branch are pretty crap. They honestly didn’t make any sense and the website had no clear information about the rules around checking out ebooks. One section suggested that ebooks could only be reserved for 24 hour checkouts! In reality the checkout period can be 7, 14, or 21 days. It’s just also unclear what those timeframes apply to.
Also, it always puts me in the happy creative mood even if I don’t have a creative atom in my body. so we’ll end with this Ira Glass piece:
March 5, 2013
Sometimes I think the world needs to hear this a little more often.
This is a bit of a follow-on thought from the Marissa Mayer post, and partly inspired by a comment I absolutely agreed with from Cloud’s post, bold emphasis mine.
Laura Vanderkam said “I get annoyed with the carping at successful women for reasons of privilege, etc. When Donald Trump writes a book on success, no one says “well, that’s easy for him to say because someone else is cleaning his bathrooms” or “of course he’s successful because he can afford a nanny.” People who reach the top often have interesting things to say about what it takes to reach the top. Sometimes it’s helpful to listen or read without judging, and if you decide it’s wrong for you, fine. But if a strategy is wrong for you, that doesn’t make someone who used it, ipso facto, a bad person. Yes, I’m referring to the Sheryl Sandberg backlash, but this mindset is out there a lot.”
This is the thing that underlies my frustration with the tearing down of women in specific and people in general when they’re successful. The whiny, self crippling, justifications of why we can’t possibly be “like that” because we’re not privileged.
Many kinds of privilege exists. Absolutely. And in some places, the privilege is truly crippling, I’m not disputing that.
What I am tired of is that the vast majority of people complaining tend to be at least capable, competent of mind and body, and have access to first world amenities that are potential tools. Instead, they dwell on why that won’t work for them.
It makes me think of a story …
…my dad used to tell me of the poor region where he grew up. He was one of the few privileged back then but he clearly recognized the privations that were the norm for the majority of people as recently as 30 years ago, even 15 years ago. He told us this story many, many times.
“Most of the people were so poor that they had one change of clothing a year. If they made enough money to buy fabric, and could afford a needle and thread to sew, they could make a new pair of pants for themselves. Maybe with pockets. Probably not. But, pants.
Their families didn’t have enough money for three meals a day for everyone, they could have one full meal a day. But they were hungry for education. They couldn’t afford books, paper, pens or pencils. Still, they were determined to learn. And unlike here in the U.S., education was not a right. It was a privilege.
The students were so desperate for the chance to learn that they would walk upwards of ten miles to school, and the classes were so big that the students wouldn’t fit into the classroom. So they opened the doors and windows, and the students would sit outside on the ground and listen. They couldn’t take notes, there was no paper, so they memorized the lectures. They had to review the lessons orally.
They had to study this hard because there was an annual exam to pass each grade. If you didn’t memorize everything, you were dropped out of school. And the exam covered everything that was taught through the year. With the limited resources, there was no such thing as grading on a curve, the students who failed would leave the school and have to figure out how to make a living with a grade school education, or however far they got. This was high stakes.
With no tools, with no aids, many of these students – your mother was among them – managed to learn math, science, reading, writing, language at each progressively more difficult level.
No pens, no paper, no computers. But they found a way to learn anyway. What do you need to learn and prosper?
If those people in our generation can figure out how to learn, progress and make successful lives with literally no resources but a sparing food ration, time during the day, their minds and their motivation, can you honestly say there’s anything you truly can’t do?”
No Dad, I couldn’t say that. If I don’t make something of myself, it sure won’t ever be blamed on a lack of privilege.
I was never the smartest kid around but I could damn well try to be the hardest working. With that kind of heritage, that kind of cultural past, I could hardly cop out by making excuses, could I?
I’ve written about my mom as my motivation more than once. I realized that my dad hasn’t gotten as much airtime. Where Mom was the tower of strength and capability in all things, teaching us language in her “spare time, and demonstrating work ethic alongside Dad, Dad was the storyteller in the family, the one who made the past live again for us, linking us to the family and cultural histories.
What’s your inspiration?
March 4, 2013
I played tourist with some friends a while ago in Japantown… then I realized that I don’t live in Southern California anymore. I really am a tourist! So out came the camera.
There was a festival of some sort going on in the center of the plaza, so people and food stalls lined the walkways, ringing in the entertainment “venue”. There were so many Japanese pastries and treats! And cute little knickknacks that I’d never look at twice if it weren’t for the holidaying atmosphere. I had to stop myself from buying completely unnecessary things like (enormous) stuffed critters for Doggle to snuggle.
For the record: when you forgot to pack your bottled water, in genuine LA heat, cold bottled water for a dollar a bottle is very much not a ripoff.
This is where I got to try revolving belt sushi for the first time. You might think such a thing was terrible or you know, no more than a novelty to entertain children, perhaps, and you’d be half right. I was hugely entertained and it was actually pretty tasty.
The key was probably that they did a brisk business and so the sushi on the belts was constantly turning over. It’s no ridiculously good fancy-schmancy sushi, but it’s more than good enough to fill an empty roving touristy belly with a range of basic sushi options and a few delicacies like snow crab and toro.
Such a lovely way to top off a day with friends.
March 1, 2013
There’s been a lot of hullaballoo over the Marissa Mayer decision to stop telecommuting as a standard rule. I thought I was done with talking about it and hearing about it but there was something that still got under my skin.
My reaction? That sucks from a work-life perspective but what’s the business decision behind it?
We don’t know. We aren’t privy to how productive their workers are, we aren’t privy to the balance sheet, we can’t see what she’s aiming to do.
Mayer’s decision is based on what she thinks is right for the business.
Right or wrong, she is the CEO. Her job is to make those decisions.
Personally, as an uninformed outsider, I would extrapolate that the Yahoo employees are actually not as productive as they could be. Yahoo’s been failing as a business for years, and that’s indicative of a failure on several levels: their business model doesn’t work, the employees aren’t excelling, the managers are not doing their jobs to ensure productivity in the office or from telecommuters.
Evidence?
Look at how far behind Yahoo’s lagged in maintenance on their existing products, on developing innovative products, on not eating their putative competition’s dust. Can anyone compare Yahoo and Google without laughing?
What does Yahoo excel at? As their consumer, I’d say nothing.
I still (shockingly) use them because I can’t be arsed to transition everything but they don’t excel at search, at mail, or at news. What’s left? They needed a big kick in the pants, or five, because they’re mediocre, or subpar. That’s not a business I’d invest in.
It’s not inconceivable that this decision makes the most sense FOR YAHOO RIGHT NOW, taking into consideration where they are and the abuses of the system as noted by this Business Insider article.
Bottom Line: If it were working for them, why the hell would she change the policy? If it isn’t working for them, then it’s her responsibility to change it. She was hired to turn a company around. She’d better be doing what it takes.
I can’t stand the claims that she’s a disappointment to feminists…
….that she was the Great Freaking Women’s Hope and she owes the employees a nursery because she gets a private one, or that she’s setting the company back to the stone ages.
She leads a business that employs people. It can employ people only so long as the business is successful, and of course it needs people in order to be successful. Circle of life.
Within that circle, employers provide jobs that pay a wage. “Life essential” benefits like health care, dental, and time off would be nice, even expected from this type of company. Perks like gyms, free food, free transit, subsidized or conveniently located childcare, flexible schedules, etc., are even nicer. They are, however, the mark of a company that has both the money and the willingness to provide them. A competitive company will. One that is struggling to survive will pick and choose. (BI notes, btw, she is willing to provide some of those other perks.)
At the end of the day, it’s a job, not a belief system. They have the right and responsibility to run their business best they can, all employees have the right and responsibility to make the best decision for their lives.
A, As a feminist, I’m tired of the focus on her decision as a woman and as a businesswoman, I’m tired of the insistence that all telecommuters are productive because they’ve been doing it so long.
It shouldn’t matter if she’s a man, woman, teal, or an elephant. It’s not her responsibility to prop up a policy that doesn’t work so that employees are happy. It’s her responsibility to take the long-view, make the business work, make it productive and profitable otherwise there won’t be a company.
B, It’s called WORK from home. It’s being available for conference calls, contributing to solutions, brainstorming creatively, creating new solutions, completing projects.
It’s not: work while with your kids, work and play with the dog, or work when someone’s paying attention and then run errands, or work while helping kids with their homework. Believe me, those conference calls where someone’s helping with homework or soothe a crier can suck.
Having childcare, flexible schedules and telecommuting are all different things. Great or very necessary, depending on your life, but they cannot be conflated.
Being able to set your work aside for two hours in the day to pick up the kids, run errands or take multiple breaks throughout the day w/o affecting your work, productivity or reputation: flexible scheduling.
Being able to take your child to the doctor, play with them, help them with their homework, feed them: childcare.
Being able to work with your laptop on your sofa or in bed or at the dining room table instead of in the office: working from home.
These are all good things. They are, however, NOT the same thing. Mayer’s nursery (childcare) = your ability to work from home? False equivalence. She has childcare while she’s at work but that’s not the same as being home to take care of your kids while you’re working.
Working from home also doesn’t confer ability to do everything you wanted to do at home AND work, nor the ability to split yourself in two. If PiC has the day off when I don’t, I still can’t talk or hang out: I’m working. Yes, it saves you a commute, but the trade off is the ease of face to face conversations that resolve issues in two minutes.
Related: the assumptions people make about working from home drives me (and Andrea) insane.
No, I don’t have time to sit and chat on the phone for an hour.
No, I can’t just come and have a 2 hour lunch.
NO, I can’t make your travel arrangements because I’m good at it so I must enjoy doing that instead of my work during my work day. I have work to do! It’s like I’m in an office.
I worked from someone’s home with his children and guess what happened? I had a kid crawl in my lap every twenty minutes, every single time that child could sneak past her caretaker (surprisingly frequently) insisting on having me “Look! Watch! Come!”, and I couldn’t kick her out. She wouldn’t STAY out anyway. Bet your tuchus I wasn’t answering emails.
This is not uncommon. I’ve worked with many parents trying to work while they were caretaking and they were always distracted; all the colleague-parents who worked from home routinely arranged childcare during the day because they couldn’t do both at the same time.
When Doggle was sick, I spent a week looking after him from home. when I was trying to juggle him and work, my productivity was at 25%. When they were divided, it was 100% him for 6 hours and 100% work for 3 hours.
This isn’t to say laziness isn’t present in the office – of course it is. I’ve had coworkers who didn’t work more than 2 hours a day in the office and 0 outside of it. It took a manager really willing to do her job to put an end to that.
Bottom line: Working from home is great but not when you’re distracted. You are productive when you’re working, not when you’re taking care of your personal life, no matter where you are. A business can’t stay in business if they aren’t effectively managing problems.
C, What corporate CEO isn’t privileged? Heck, non-corporate, non-profit CEOs can be too. She chose to exercise her privilege on a nursery. CEOs also have luxury travel options, massive salaries, they have assistants, secretaries and a dozen other services at their beck and call. The fact that she has a nursery may feel like a slap but why aren’t people bitching about those luxuries that other CEOs have? Is the childcare arrangement of any other CEO discussed and held up as a Call to Action? Working dad CEOs aren’t being called out to provide X because they have Y.
Her responsibility at Yahoo is to run Yahoo as well as she can. Her calls may be good, they may be bad, but the focus on motherhood, working womanhood, to fuel the mommy wars, basically, zeroing in on the fact that she’s a woman is GROSS. To quote Allison.
As a feminist, who believes in equal opportunities, not gender-based special treatment, I’m disgusted with that angle.
:: Alison at Ask A Manager succinctly sums it up.
February 27, 2013
Our favorite diner isn’t open every night for dinner so when we have the odd BURGER-BURGER-BURGER craving, we needed a back up.
Thanks to @chicago_ted’s endorsement, we decided to give Jack’s Prime a try. PiC had heard of it before, I hadn’t, but I’m willing to try food on a single recommendation.
It’s specifically a burger place so they do more than the basic cheeseburger and hamburgers that we can get from the diner. Less complicated than the wildly popular (so I’m told) Barney’s Gourmet Burgers over here but still more complicated than I really need.
I fail to appreciate the super messy burger with spinach, or swiss cheese and mushrooms, chili and sour cream – they’re all a bit over the top for me. A cheeseburger or a hamburger loaded with fresh veggies (and bacon!) hits the spot, every time. Sometime chicken or turkey but otherwise, basic works just fine.
The Voodoo Fries, though, they sounded pretty awesome.
Their burgers are on the pricey side, in my opinion, starting at $9.00 for your basic burger. We settled on two burgers, side of onion rings for an extra $1.50, a side salad and couple of waters. If I was hungrier, those Voodoo Fries would have been MINE, plus the Rainbow Shake. Our really simple but filling meal ran about $26 after tax and tip.
Their food is pretty great and we’ve gone back again after our first taste test. It’s only not our first choice because their prices are rather hefty ($6 for specialty fries, same again for a shake, burgers start at $9) while their serving sizes are a bit skimpy. I can almost count the fries served up on the side, or the leaves in that side salad up there. I might be petite but my appetite typically isn’t.
Any burger lovers out there?