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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May 18, 2008
I don’t wish I were less organized and more rich, no, no, I’d like to retain my level of organization and be richer than that. I know, apples to oranges. But it’d sure make booking last minute fares for a holiday weekend seem less painful/impossible.
I’d rearranged my schedule and wanted to visit BD in June, but it turns out he has to be here for the weekend. That means no us time. Instead, he asked me to see if I could make a Memorial Day weekend trip happen. Compared to the $600+ prices for just a regular, round-trip ticket, the $300 fare plus an unnecessary rental car on Travelocity almost seems like a deal. Uh, I don’t think so, Tim. And with gas prices, driving would cost at least … $120 each way. Eeep! Even with an awesome 400-450 miles per tank average, that’d still be a doozy of a gas bill. Oh, plus over 8 hours of driving each way.
But if I were rich and had $7000 in my travel fund, not just $700, I would probably go ahead and spend up to $350 to go see him for a long weekend.
Phooey. Times like these, I can’t wait to be financially secure and even well-off.
May 16, 2008
Pretty disappointing week for someone who isn’t supposed to spend money on lunch.
Sunday: Groceries – eggs, OJ, brown rice, whole wheat pretzels, grapefruit. $9
Monday: Brought stew, but didn’t buy carbs at Trader Joe’s. š I just can’t find a loaf of bread that doesn’t crumble there. Spent $1.50 on a bagel.
Tuesday: Leftovers, bought another bagel: $1.40
Wednesday: Went to the cafe but was thwarted. They had some jacked up “Visitor’s Cafe” because they were having a Grand Opening celebration for employees only, and I ended up paying way too much for a lump of lasagna and dollop of mixed veggies. $6
Thursday: Picked up a sandwich with a coworker (and asked for extra tomato slices: free!), and got gypped into paying for her sandwich too. $8
Friday: I’m eating my frozen pizza, dangit. I refuse to spend any more lunch money!
Also, I used up all of my cash š See? See what happens when I keep cash in my wallet?
There’s a day I was going to be out on sick leave. I’d finally managed to coordinate three important appointments in a single day because dealing with piecemeal appointments is aggravating and being out of the office for personal business has become taboo due to disintegrating relationships. What happens? Naturally, BB wants his birthday celebration scheduled the very same day.
Of course.
He’s completely unaware of my appointments, as is his wont, but there’s no profit in pointing that out.
In the spirit of learning how to think about all the possible political ramifications of this conflict, I’m weighing the pros and cons of rescheduling all my appointments or refusing to accommodate BB’s whims.
Stand my ground because:
I don’t have to struggle to coordinate three departments’ schedules.
I win personally. Professionally, no win. They don’t care if I have to go through a lot of trouble or not.
I don’t look like a pushover.
I win personally. Professionally, possibly negative. They want me to be cooperative with them. I can stand my ground with other people, just not them.
My presence isn’t that important.
It’s not, but I don’t gain anything by proving it. However, my absence may be remarked upon and I would have no control over the commentary that might ensue.
Change the appointments because:
As above, it’s not my presence that’s as important as my absence would be.
Yes, other colleagues have been absent for other staff members’ birthdays, but this is the Big Boss. It’s different.
It’s not impossible and doesn’t cost me financially to reschedule.
Unless it was a prohibitively expensive trip or appointment, the trade-off would be an intangible benefit to a tangible cost.
LB is all about sacrifice.
And is demonstrably bitter about the appointments of various kinds and trips that he’s chosen to give up. Obviously, they were all choices on his part, but he’s definitely bitter about it, so it doesn’t matter that it was his choice to do so. As long as it looks like sacrifice to him …..
Ultimately, it seems that I have nothing to gain, but potentially could lose a chance to rebuild frayed relationships if I choose to retain my current appointments instead of taking the time to reschedule for a later date. Even if the effort turns out to be futile, ie: they change the date of the celebration, the effort to accommodate them was made. While it could be construed as overly accommodating, or even syncophantic behavior which I’m not noted for, it’s also a concession. And if I concede this battle, knowing what and why I’m conceding, I’ll be more prepared for other battles that may be more important to fight. (ie: Con. I’m not giving that up.)
Rusty though they are, I feel like I’m working out my political chops a bit.
May 15, 2008
I’m ‘fessing up to my $33 outfit transgression today. I’m going to need your *professional* opinions here. A and I were browsing the mall and mostly managed to avoid all shops that I didn’t have gift cards for … except for Papaya. Whoops. Occasionally they have the odd really nice piece on sale, so we checked their clearance racks. As usual, there was a whole lot of nothing, but I turned up this high-waisted, knee length pencil skirt that I couldn’t resist. In the history of pencil skirts, I’m sure I’ve put up better fights.
Sorry the pictures aren’t great; I haven’t figured out how to take better clothing pictures yet, but this is just so you get the idea.
The skirt’s form-fitting, with a few inches of lacing up the back to make it just a bit interesting. I plan to cover up that bit during the day.
(Front waist)
(Back waist)
And the white silky blouse could probably use another button up top to keep the top of the collar closed.
But, blouse tucked into the skirt with black closed-toe pumps and a black jacket to profesh’ it up… what do you think? Did I make a huge mistake here, or is this a viable outfit?
May 14, 2008
I even had a note on my planner that the book would arrive on Friday the 16th, in case it was late, so I was uber-excited to find a fat package in my mailbox three days early.
I’ve already started reading it, and am 100 pages in. I stopped, though, because there’s a lot of good material in there, and I want to absorb and practice some of the thinking that Reardon talks about, in chunks, before moving on to the next chapters. I’ll post about it as I go along.
*excited*
May 13, 2008
There’s got to be a flaw in my planning somewhere here. There’s money in the bank, so why do I feel broke? Because it’s all spoken for? Because I’m shifting money from one account to another to cover the rent check? Probably. I worry that I’ve been reckless and irresponsible somehow, and that’s why I still have to pull together funds, and why I feel so danged broke. Is this my rainy-day version of Bag Lady Syndrome?
I have a certain amount of money that I’m allowed in my expense account per paycheck, and then everything left over goes to rent. I must be sorely underbudgeted in the rent department, because I’m coming up short part way through the month, and the expense account has to make up the difference.
This is me freaking out a little. Again, money is in the bank, but it’s all for real emergencies or upcoming expenses. I’ve got nothing freed up for the here and now. But my planning couldn’t have been that far off. It’s supposed to be really quite close to my actual expenditures, so why the difficulty in pulling it all together?
Hmmm ….. ok, here’re the problems: The bills for the multiple deductibles are all coming due at the same time. The truck still hasn’t been sold. This is the first time I’ve got a surplus set aside for auto insurance, so I’m still feeling the effects of juryrigging that into the system, as the last payment is on the same credit card. And PaDucky was in a tight spot last month and I had to lend him a substantial amount, only 60% of which he’s paid back in time for me to make up the rent.
So, $2120 of the $2227 credit card bill I’m about to pay is on actual bills. Honest-to-goodness, had to pay ’em, BILLS. Another $50 is for medical stuff; I’ll be reimbursed from my FSA. That means I spent $50 on myself. Ten to eat out, seven to treat a friend to Pinkberry, and $33 on an outfit I’m still feeling guilty about and haven’t admitted to buying until now. *oooops!*
*deep breath* So I was only $33 irresponsible. There’s still a juggle, and I’m still going to be struggling to make the ends meet because I’m NOT allowed to delve into other funds for expenses, but at least it wasn’t because I was careless. Silver lining?
May 12, 2008
Sense was right. Even though I was relieved that PaDucky had taken the initiative to request quotes for taking MaDucky off the insurance policy, I couldn’t help myself: I had to look up other quotes because I’d wanted to compare rates anyway.
Geico’s rates were about $150 less, for the same coverage, and even better, the deductibles were only $500 for each car. I was really tempted to switch on over without further ado.
Luckily, I called my repair shop to ask about ease of service and transactions with Geico first. It turns out that while I have the legal right (it’s CA law) to go to any repair facility of my choosing, my preferred repair shop is “not longer a direct provider for Geico” because they had difficulty doing business with them. The guy that usually helps me said that they’d stopped working with Geico a couple years back because they charge premium prices for their work and Geico doesn’t like paying them. I understand the principle of that, obviously, that’s how they pass the savings along to the customer. It’s just ironic because they were the cheapest of three quotes for my car repairs from the accident last year!
I asked him what not being a direct provider meant to me as a customer. He explained that while other insurance companies allow them to take the photos, email them, and proceed with repairs, Geico requires the adjuster to come to the facility to take their own photos, and then to return again when the car is torn down if/when there is more extensive damage. Basically, not being a direct provider means that we’re looking at an extra 50% time premium. Nooo buddy! I don’t think so. If I’m going to have to use their services in the next six months, I want to use my own shop, and not have to wait three weeks instead of two. Aside from being impatient, I also never opt for the rental car benefit, so we’d be down to one car instead of two.
It looks like I’ll be sticking with Mercury for now, even though they’re a bit more expensive.
