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
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July 2, 2012
On a recent trip, my scheduled program was so boring that I ditched class. With nothing else to do in the immediate area but eat or shop, and armed with a 30% coupon for one of the nearby stores, I decided to try dowsing for a sale sweater or a jacket.
I came up empty for outerwear but found a cheerful top with decoration along the neckline, and an interesting billowy, elasticized bottom.
One problem. Armholes were too big, the neckline was too low and the sides were too big around my ribcage. Ok, three problems. Normally, I’d just put it back but experimentally, tried to pretend I had a tailor looking at it. What would they do?
My theory: Take the straps just came up a couple inches. That should take up the neckline, tends to reduce the armholes and brings the sides up so that they appear slimmer. I might be able to solve all the fit problems in one go.
With the coupon, the top came to $21 – a bargain if I managed a successful home tailoring job. Less so if it cost $5-10 at the tailor.
The sides were questionable. On a different shirt, just taking up the straps alone might not be enough to slim the sides and I wasn’t sure I’d the skill to hand-slim them, but because it was sort of tulip shaped, it might just fly.
With encouragement and a bit of advice from Kelly of Alterations Needed, I set to work. The decorations were a little tricky – the beads were actually strung on thread together before they were tacked down so I had to be even more careful about how I pulled them out, and preserve enough thread to tie off so the loose end didn’t let loose a torrent of unintended consequences.
Result? Snug!
But as PiC still can’t quite comprehend, I have a fear of commitment and can’t quite bring myself to cut away the taken up material. Not because I might need to let it out again. Just because.
I forgot to take a Before picture and the After picture is nothing to brag about. Awkward self portraits don’t really do justice to the tailoring job.
The first success emboldened me to take on a $5 final sale H&M tank top I’d never worn because the V neck was too revealing. Unfortunately, these alterations weren’t an unmitigated success.
The neckline is now just moderately appropriate but not great. It can’t come up any higher because there’s no more wiggle room in the armholes; any more and I’ll cut off circulation to my arms, and go beyond the acceptable stretch limits of the fabric as indicated by the blue circles. Ah well, win some, sort of do ok with some.
While I certainly won’t be hiring myself out as a tailor any time soon, I can save myself the cost of the odd (very little) job.
Do you do your own alterations or does everything go to the tailor? Do you get everything tailored a la Clinton and Stacy’s advice?
More on Alterations:
My recent purchases that mostly went back because they were big tailoring jobs
The Economics of Being Oddly Shaped
July 1, 2012
June was not a good month for us, cars and getting in trouble via our cars.
Generally, I only talk about me and peripherally PiC here because we haven’t really ironed out the ground rules about what’s ok to share here. But this is one of those best (worst) two out of three sorts of things where we were together for most of them so I think it falls under the “us” category.
1. Out of towner: The car was reparked on the wrong side of the street for less than five minutes so that we could, separately, pay the hotel bill and walk the dog right before loading up and leaving the city after a weekend trip. Parking ticket: $50.
2. Taking the usual route: Busted going around 50 in a 34 MPH zone. What is a 34 MPH zone? Speeding ticket: $XX + Traffic School.**
3. Counter-intuitive Parking Structures: Forgot to pay for parking which you pay once you’ve parked and gotten into the station, right before you go running to get on public transit. Gah. It’s so easy to forget because it requires me to turn the opposite direction I’m going in to find the pay station for the parking booth. It’s even worse when you don’t use the station frequently. $6.50 for him to go back to pay the parking fee but the train was so delayed that it was a futile effort and had to give up. Somehow, didn’t get ticketed.
**I don’t really recall the stories or rules of how traffic school works precisely, whether you pay a whopping couple of hundred dollars and a full soul-sapping day for the school to avoid a point against your license or whether it’s down to a few hours and a lot more money. But at least traffic school is an option against a fat fee, a point against the record and a long-term insurance hike.
June 27, 2012
This is the tax season that may never end.
It was probably between lines 35 and 37, estimating our 2011 taxes. I was writing in another set of numbers. And before the reason fully settled in, I felt the full force of idiocy wave through my system.
My first mistake on my taxes and a whole filing year had passed.
I’d forgotten to claim my brother as a dependent for tax year 2010.
I could blame it on any number of things: Sheer carelessness, rushing through the taxes, not double checking my work, filing in a new home, or just plain being so mad at him he was financially dead to me.
Fact remained, I was an idiot.
And I had to meet Mssrs. 540x and 1040x.
For the record: If you’re not a neurotic fool, *ahem* you will read the instructions first like a normal human and find that it’s not actually all the difficult to fill out a correction. Twice. Once for state and once for federal. Because let’s face it, when you screw up claiming a dependent, you will have screwed it up on both.
In total, if I hadn’t gone back and spent too much time doing it wrong the first pass for three hours fussing over unnecessarily recreating the previous tax form and then taking a second, sane, pass at 30 minutes per form getting it right, I would have forever lost more than $3000.
The I.R.S. has already paid me back with a gentle nudge of a correction because I made a math error but they didn’t hold that against me and cut a check anyway.
The state of California still hasn’t paid ten weeks later, giving me a financial noogie, to rub it in that much more.
Bonus Round
To extend the pain cycle, I couldn’t even finish up our 2011 taxes because: We. Are. Still. Waiting. On. A. Schedule. K.
Hello, Filing for an Extension. For the first time in thirteen years of employed life.
No, I’m not bitter that I’m still not done with filing taxes in July, when I’ve always been done with taxes/FAFSA by February 2nd, why do you ask?
I’ve booked time in August to file the dratted thing. [Long dramatic sigh.]
Welcome to married life! Whereupon you hitch your star to the other guy and you apparently can’t do everything on your own time anymore. Apparently. *chagrined grin* No, obviously I’m not perfect. I just have my thing about getting taxes done by a certain time and we are oh-so-very-late.
June 23, 2012
Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in the Atlantic, Why Women Still Can’t Have It All, comes at a poignant time for me. Warning: long read.
I mentioned that I’m struggling with some increased stresses in life, mainly to do with work, and it’s got my health in the tank. Or my health was in a death spiral and the stress means I can’t pull up out of it. Chicken, egg.
In any case. Slaughter argues that even she eventually, to her surprise, found herself making the choice to give up the high-powered government position to go back to (let’s point out still highly placed) job to be with her family because the juggle, despite the full support of her academic husband, wasn’t sufficient for their needs, in her estimation. So she can’t imagine how, short of being truly superwomen, women would be able maintain powerful positions and families and whatever else they wanted.
I felt a twinge: why does this argument have to be gender specific? Do not men also suffer sacrifices or the loss of being with their families when they’re off pursuing high-powered careers?
Not a few months, my feminist soul would have risen up out of my body in extra-normal outrage at the suggestion women couldn’t have what we wanted. But realistically? I don’t always think everyone and anyone can have this “everything” business if it actually assumes that everything means everything. I think it’s highly unusual for any single person to have a “whole” package unless they are hideously wealthy and genuinely blessed.
On the other hand, “everything” is bandied about very cavalierly as though we all want the same generic packages. Some of us are happy with messy homes, a pack of half mad pets and decent jobs that make us money whilst others need picture perfect roosts, don’t care about the job thing and whatever other combination of pieces and still others, well, just add water.
I did appreciate the fact that she went on to reframe the discussion to view the problem from the sociocultural standpoint: the fact that the (American) workplace isn’t family-friendly, that we don’t respect family or simply life outside of work. That our usual current business practice is the assumption that employees who are childless may be more reliable than (typically newer) parents, but that’s got to be recognized as a red herring. That in our political arena, the euphemism for being fired is to “spend time with the family”, and that is a demonstration of how devalued is the coin of the role of the family.
I always knew when I was in the wrong workplace when it came to these matters, even though I had no intention of becoming a mother any time soon. When employers pried about my plans to have kids, it was really easy to tell when they were simply making conversation or trying to determine whether I was a maternity risk; and their attitudes about performance and merit were equally shoddy.
My truly personal twinges are that I’m already feeling the pains of limitations. We haven’t yet made the decision about whether or not to have a family, and I had far greater ambitions for my career than where I am now. And yet, at this stage, just reaching into what might be called senior management, I find myself burning out.
My health is refusing to cooperate with any grand plans to be a high powered anything.
There are aspects of my job that I do really well and quite enjoy, but the new stresses of the growing pains haven’t settled yet. And even newer stresses that may or may not be permanent changes were recently piled on unexpectedly that ate up all my happy life balance, eating into any ability to take care of myself at a time I desperately need it most.
For all that I work to protect my staff and fight for their work-life balance, their salaries, their promotions, and I win, dammit, I have no shelter of my own in the face of adversity at the moment. And that lack is wearing on me.
I’ve accomplished a few things, in my time here. But it’s just a handful of things. Educated a few people a bit, brought some people up a few ladders, sent some to their next dream. But have I made a difference yet? I really don’t think so.
I find myself wondering: for so many years, I climbed and leapt the ladders and toiled for experience to rise to this level. It feels like I have achieved next to nothing, compared to where I’d really like to be. And now? Will I have to give up now? So far from having accomplished something real?
Is this it for me?
I’m not sure which targets I want to hit in life precisely.
To help. To make a difference. To secure freedom, security. To educate. To improve. To leave things better than I found them. To achieve. To “wear the white hat” if I can quote “Scandal.” To be happy. To live a good and true life. Maybe to have a family, which I would then need to support.
It doesn’t have to be at this job that I do most of those things. I do need to make a living somehow. But right now, it’s feeling like I’m going to be lucky if I can walk to the grocery store most days of the week. And that’s not particularly conducive to having anything at all, much less having it. And All.
—
Cloud of Wandering Scientist has a great discussion going on this very topic.
June 21, 2012
Every time SingleMa tweets travel deals, or StackingPennies finds another awesome trip package, my heart leaps and sinks.
We just had a lovely time in March, aside from catching a horrible bug that lasted nearly three weeks, and already I’m ready for another getaway.
Why?
This is in large part a reaction to the ramped up stresses of other areas of my life. I had high expectations for work-life balance out of the promotion and just when I was digging into the new responsibilities, the position, and the support, a professional hipcheck sent that into a complete tailspin. Thanks.
Not ready to get into all that right now, but the upshot is my brain keeps thinking about places not here. The extra stress has my teeth literally on edge and my body so reactive with nonstop pain that I’m going with it, mentally. Travel is the lie I tell myself for sanity’s sake.
Where to?
At first, I was yearning after an introduction to Barcelona and Paris even though my Spanish is now atrocious and French is non-existent.
Then, Fab Fru-Gal’s jaunt to Italy reignited my love for the country and all the delectable foods.
Katherine’s travels to Tokyo Part 1 and Part 2 and Kyoto booted Japan back into the top Want to Go There Someday List.
When?
Any and all these places would be fantastic but scheduling has become more rather complicated these days. I think we’re going international, at least 3000 miles away, next year for about 4-7 days for a wedding.
A comic convention is still on the table, despite the fact that I may or may not be able to get tickets for SDCC next year (!!) We are still absolutely committed to continuing my tradition of going to a convention because no one wants to see my heart break completely.
Add to those bigger bits the usual routine travels to see the family and vacation budgeting of time and money gets tricky. And call me sentimental but leaving Doggle for too long starts to make me sad too. It helps when we are seeing people with dogs but I much prefer to have our very own pup staring us in the face morning and night. I’m getting a wee bit of an inkling of what it’s like to have a child.
And so, I simply dream.
Where would you go, if you could just GO footloose and fancy-free?
June 18, 2012
I’ve been getting mysterious phone calls from individuals naming themselves employees of Greg Adams and Associates for the last two months. The area code is associated with a Florida area code and they’ve left the following sorts of messages:
“Good afternoon, this is Melanie Steinberg representing the firm of Gregory Adams and Associates. I’m calling in regards to allegations that are being filed out of my office attached to your social security number. At this point in time, you are a person of interest, however, if I do not hear from yourself or some type of representing counsel, I will have to file this out as willful evasion and proceed in favor of the client. My number here is 561-210-4826. Thank you and please govern yourself accordingly.”
Sounds appropriately alarming.
She:
1. Mentions a law firm that can be found on the Better Business Bureau site,
2. Mentions a social security number,
3. And makes a threat to proceed to something that goes against my putative interests.
Except wait – she never once identifies me by name, I’ve never received any official notification of what this matter is about, she never says what this matter is regarding in the message, she doesn’t mention her client’s name, she doesn’t identify herself as a lawyer or a paralegal, and how does she get to determine that I’m willfully evading anything? I do believe that would be up to the judge and court to accuse me of evasion of summons if it got to that, would it not?
When I received the first phone call, I did a Google search on the incoming phone number, which matched the verbally given return phone number and found a list of complaints that other people had received the same sort of phone calls with the same language. It sounded fishy and now it sounded phishy.
Two weeks later, I get a message from the following phone number 954-345-4786:
“Hi yes, this is David Zimmerman with Greg Adams and Associates. This is my second attempt to make contact with you at the number linked to the case in my office. Please contact my office at 561-288-1193 before end of business day today. If I don’t hear from you I have to assume you are evading the matter and will be forced to make decisions on your own behalf without your knowledge. Again this is David Zimmerman at Greg Adams and Associates. Thank you.”
Interesting. They do keep track of their calls enough to know which number they’re on at least, and use appropriately threatening language but assume I don’t know that they actually don’t have power of attorney and aren’t allowed to make any decisions for me without my permission, forget without my knowledge.
Eight days later, 305-222-7826 calls, irritably:
“Yes this is David Zimmerman calling on behalf of the firm Greg Adams and Associates. We’ve been more than accommodating by issuing not only one but two Notice of Intent, uh, your state only requires one to be issued ten business days before we commence with filing in your local county. Not so sure if in fact I have the correct number or not but if I do, I understand that things happen but based on the seriousness of these allegations attached to your social security number it would be advantageous for you to return this call to the firm’s direct office immediately 305-222-7826. Thank you and please govern yourself accordingly.
The cheek! You’re annoyed with ME?
Honestly, these folks haven’t once identified the supposed allegation(s), they haven’t mailed anything directly, they haven’t proven they even know my name. They repeatedly talk about my social security number but if they knew it, they would know how to reach me by other means, not just by phone.
Generally, these phone calls are just annoying because I’m not bothering to return any of them. It would be great to pursue some form of recourse to make them stop because they are disruptive but so long as they’re limited to my cell phone, it’s limited harm done. Still, I would be concerned for anyone who did call back without any skepticism and fell down that rabbit hole – I’m sure they’re looking to nab identities, social security numbers, bank accounts, etc.
Has anyone else received these calls or similar such?
June 13, 2012
With every successive job, the people I work with drink more than the last group.
Socially, generally.
Some, sportingly.
A few, competitively.
I long ago realized I was never going to evolve some genetic mutation that would enhance my alcohol tolerance. Since I never much cared what people thought, I generally order my favorite non alcoholic bevvy when out with friends. I’ll try a glass of wine on the company dime if I’m feeling experimental (if I pick badly, the wine tastes like regret) and call it a night. After two, I’d call it a night in the middle of the day.
But this week has been a week to end all weeks in drinking. Alcohol has happened every single day for business reasons, and I’m grateful that this isn’t my chosen vice. This could add up to some real money if I had a tipple of something every night.
Wine country: some tastings free, a bottle of wine to share: $30
Glass of wine: $10
Glass of sparkling wine: $5 (thanks, Happy Hour)
Cocktail: $13
That’s all before tax and tip, so we’re horking up nearly $70 on beverages mostly for one alone. Then again, I’ve watched those professional drinkers knock back a bottle and a half of wine each so I might be wildly underestimating a normal person’s drinking habits and expenses.
I took PiC out for a really nice dinner for that, and we could have done it on half if it weren’t a restaurant on the Embarcadero.
I’m not saying drinking is bad and therefore choosing to spend on drink is bad, mind. I choose to spend on other things, like ceviche, french fries and oysters, when I do splash out rather than drinking because it’s not something I enjoy nearly as much as food.. Or books.. Or having a few really nice things or trips or money in the bank.
I’d just never done the math on a drinking tab before. And lots of people I know very much enjoy sitting over a few glasses and whining their hearts out. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I sure am glad I can be happy with one drink, and don’t care when someone teases me for “not keeping up”.
Is it your norm to go out for drinks with friends or colleagues when you want to catch up or unwind?
Has it ever been or become a financial issue or does something/anything else get cut first?
