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Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
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11:43 pm - :)
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Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it. If you don't celebrate it, just eat too much and watch too much television tomorrow and you'll have the gist of it.
Much love to you all!
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| Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
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12:58 am - Hairy backs, unidentified brown liquid, odors, and insults flying over my head
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So, today was the roughest day I have had at HPB. The entire day was a clusterfuck for just about everyone, but it did calm around 6:00. Brazen shoplifters, insane customers calling for book checks while on the premises ("The call is coming from inside the store."), a customer asking to use the phone for a minute then being offended when 20 minutes later he was forced off our main line (he was calling his cable company), arrogant moms handing us spittle covered books without any sense of shame, people angry about the low-ball offers they received on boxes of VHS financial self-help tapes circa 1985...
My parts of the bad day were this (and WARNING, part of this is gross):
A man I later learned is a regular of the store caused me to nearly crawl out of my skin and puke. He is called "Angora Sweater" because he is a beefy, very hirsute man who wears tank tops year round. We're talking a pelt on the back, y'all. He buys only 25 cent cassette tapes and hounds people constantly, spending way too much time in the store, creeping people out with weird comments. I had never seen him before today but I generally don't work many morning shifts, which is when he generally comes in.
Today he came up to my register with a 25 cent cassette and asked me to hold it. He later returned to the register to pay. He held out his cupped hand and I held my own out to catch the change he was going to pay with (2 dimes and 2 nickles). He turned the four coins into my hand, and they came with some sort of brownish liquid. Liquid. On my hand. This was not a case of sweaty palms, or if it was, he has one hell of a problem. The volume of liquid was such that it trickled from my hand onto the counter, sort of splashing into a small puddle.
Regardless of what it was, he poured his change and mystery liquid into my hand, grabbed the cassette, and said, "Keep the change!" and booked it out of there. I didn't even have a chance to react. That a man renown for his cheapness did not want his change points to him planning to do something really foul, or maybe being so embarrassed because he sweats in volume that causes spatter.
I was stunned. So was the woman behind him who saw the liquid dripping from my hands onto the counter. "Is that urine!" she semi-shrieked. "Oh no, it's just cola," I said. I have no idea where that came from, but I didn't want to upset her or anyone else. I looked around and no one was near the front and I had a line (I later learned that half the store was tracking one of the brazen shoplifters) so I wiped down the coins with Windex, cleaned my counter, used the hand sanitizer twice then resumed. I was sort of... shaken and upset for about 30 minutes then I regained my sense of humor.
I both want to know what the liquid was and don't want to know.
On lunch, a woman was having such... problems in the bathroom that her moans were audible at times in the breakroom area. Laura, one of my coworkers, came into the backroom, appalled. The level of noise subsided, we were all talking about our horrible day, so I forgot about the moaner. Until I went into the bathroom. OMG. OMG^10. The woman was still in there, 40 minutes later, moaning softer, but the smell was unlike anything I have ever encountered. I have had 15 kittens with giardia; my darlings, I am conversant in bad odors, but this smell was a language I did not speak. I had to leave. I brushed my teeth and overhauled my face in the breakroom and later, when I went back in, the odor was still there.
Oh yeah, twice since I have been there someone has smeared crap on the walls in the bathroom. Men's and women's rooms both. The mess I find in the women's bathroom makes me long for a fire hose and harsh penalties for improper disposal of sanitary materials. Also, I walked in on a woman rinsing her menstrual cup. I started to laugh because what else could I do but she looked at me, all offended. But none of that happened today.
Back to today:
Then later, a dude comes up to me and puts his book on the counter. As I ring him up he says, "I bet you make history every day." People say bizarre things to cashiers. I cannot count the number of little weird conversations I have had since I started at HPB and how many I have had in my retail career. I replied some pleasant inanity and went on. He looked at me pointedly at one juncture but I was busy, and I didn't realize he was insulting me.
Until later...
At home, it hit me. Flanking both registers are stacks of A History of Farting.
I make history every day.
Thanks, fella! I get it. Best case scenario he was an idiot who had no idea how what he said sounded, but the real case I fear is that the subtext is that I'm a fat chick so I must squeeze 'em out like I'm getting paid. How witty. How droll. And how wonderful that I didn't get it because he didn't even get the benefit of a calculated but clever response. Bullies hate it when they don't get under your skin.
Everyone had a day like this. At least no one cursed at me. I cannot say the same for my coworker Sarah, or some who worked the buy-counter.
Going to bed now.
I'm exhausted a lot but I'm still around even though I don't post nearly as much as I did. I love you all, it should go without saying.
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| Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
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8:29 pm - Latest oddbooks up - severed heads galore!
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I reviewed Robert Olen Butler's Severance. I quote from my review: "This book has an absolutely lunatic premise. It is said that a decapitated head can remain in a state of consciousness for 90 seconds. In heightened states of emotion or agitation, people can speak at the rate of 160 words per minute. Combine the two and you have the micro stories in this book."
Yeah. It was awesome. Go read my review of it here.
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6:51 pm - What the doc said
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She thinks the plate needs to come out. I agree. It can't happen for another ten to eleven weeks though, until my job is finished. She said an infection would not reduce under ice as my swelling always does, that it is the plate irritating the surrounding tissues. Some of us can tolerate plates, some can't. I'm clearly in the latter category.
She suggested some pain meds. I hated my pain meds, so I'm gonna tough it out, but she did note that my blood pressure has been consistently high. My hands sometimes feel puffy. I am now on a diuretic. Some really good cardio would help but I can't see that happening with the leg and the job as they currently stand. I do well to walk after a shift. Maybe that will improve soon? Who knows? So I need to take the diuretic, stop eating crap and salt, and see what things look like in a month. It will probably help the swelling in my foot as well.
Ugh. I think the anxiety contributes to the hbp, but there's little I can do about that now.
So we'll look into getting the plate removed once things settle a bit.
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| Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
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10:00 pm - And to continue thanking the Universe
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Checked my e-mail. Found this:
"LiveJournal to me Nov 9 (1 day ago)
(the following is an anonymous gift)
12 months of paid account time have been added to your LiveJournal account "awdrey_gore".
I have no idea who was kind enough to do this for me. I had gotten a notice to renew my account but had no moolah with which to do it and just figured I would revert to an unpaid account. Whoever paid for my account for me, thank you. So very, very much. :)
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9:21 pm - When I am not bitching about my ankle...
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...I am looking into alternative teacher certification programs. Never again will our insurance be dependent on the corporate sector. Am waiting for a rep to get back to me. I have a degree on English and Political Science, but am also looking into what I have to do to get accredited as an ESL (or TESOL, as it is increasingly called) teacher. I wanted to learn Spanish anyway, which is not necessarily a requirement, as far as I can see, but cannot hurt given the ESL population I would encounter in Texas. Also bilingual teachers have an edge, period. No idea if I can learn Spanish by next June but I also have no idea if I can't until I try. One of Henry's interesting Russian friends is hooking me up with the Rosetta Stone for Spanish. I think I would be a very good ESL teacher. I think I would be a very good English literature teacher and social studies teacher, too. If I could be accredited in all three, I think I could find a job pretty easily.
My job is nice. It is hard on me physically but I like my coworkers, think I am doing a decent enough job and like most of my customers. I get lots of comments on my glasses. Old men flirt with me. Homeschoolers in Williamson County come to the store a lot. Evidently other places - meaning other book stores - are not as accommodating of the idea that homeschooling makes these women teachers and they appreciate that we don't hassle them over their discounts. I am shocked by the things I know. A customer came in wanting a copy of something called Corruption by some guy named after a gem, like Ruby. Of course she needed Collapse by Jared Diamond. All of us pull things like that out of our heads. It just depends on if you have the weird book girl (me), the music guru, the comic guy, the literature nerd, the mystery genius, etc. in front of you when you say what you need.
I am far less depressed now that I am working. It's almost amazing.
Henry is crash-learning Drupal. Since Drupal is based on PHP, the learning curve is not so horrible for him. He hopes to convert his site and then build razedbycats.com (raisedbycats.com was taken already and the person holding the site, which has been a sole place card for years, doesn't respond to requests to sell it) in Drupal. Not that razedbycats needs to be built in Drupal but it would give him something to add to his portfolio. There's a Drupal conference this Saturday and Sunday and he's attending. Maybe knowing Drupal will give him an edge in getting a job or freelance work. There are certainly Austin companies who need Drupal developers and cannot find them anywhere. Henry's astonishingly smart. So I have no doubt he will know his Drupal stuff in short order.
He's also helping build a new website/client management system for a local food pantry, The Storehouse. Volunteer work is completely resume-able, but the Storehouse does very good work. So he's meeting people and doing good things.
The Universe gave me a job, defeated the idiot ex-friend in the TWC squabble and has blessed the Kitler Tripod with continued health and vigor. We are still waiting to hear back from our mortgage company but that is because the TWC filing and my new job caused our paperwork to change. Fingers crossed they work with us and decide keeping us in the house at a reduced mortgage for a while is better than foreclosing and selling the house for pennies on the dollar.
We are dark at times and sometimes we quarrel but far, far less than most people in our situation. I think had we given into the depression we would be in North Carolina by Christmas, and in divorce court by June. I don't see either happening. I believe more good things will come our way if we work hard and keep our eyes focused beyond us.
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| Saturday, November 7th, 2009
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8:37 pm - Dr. Internet! Calling Dr. Internet!
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| Monday, November 2nd, 2009
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9:52 pm - Trial by fire (or standing on concrete)
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I just had to spend the equivalent of a week's pay on two pairs of orthopedic (yes, orthopedic) shoes. They're cute orthopedic - one is clunky and hipsterish, the other clunky and hippie-ish - but they are definitely very involved, intense shoes. The girl who waited on me at Karavel shoes was extremely friendly and knowledgeable and I wish I could have gotten a blue pair but I am too broke. It hurt to spend what I did but if I hadn't, there would have been no way for me to continue. As it is, I work and spend all my off-time recovering from work. The break, surgery, and my relative inactivity this year as I detoxed means I am weak. I'll build up some endurance but with my left ankle, there is only so much I can do. I guess I exchanged a week's pay so I could get 11 weeks more. On the bright side, these are the sort of shoes that take about a decade to wear out and the insoles can be replaced.
I came home Sunday in so much pain I could not sleep, which has not been a problem lately. I'm so wrecked I sleep pretty well. I stand on concrete at the store a lot - they have pads to stand on when using the register but those pads end and you stand elsewhere when working at the cash wrap, pricing CDs, organizing books, etc. The carpet has little or no padding underneath it. All in all, the floors are rough. Also, since my left ankle hurts so much, I stand with weight on my right leg, which is not my normal stance, and it is affecting my back. The littlest things make us humans so misaligned.
I can sometimes feel the plate in my left leg as I stand. Just... feel it. Like I mentally know where it begins and ends. My ankle also swells so much - my whole leg, really - that the difference between it and my right ankle is visibly astonishing. I come home after each shift, take a hot bath to help my back, then lie with my legs elevated, the left with ice on it, until it is time to go to sleep. I wake the next morning hobbled over, sometimes walking on tiptoes because my Achilles tendons don't seem to want to reach the ground. It works its way out but the pain, throbbing and stabbing, comes back within hours. Sunday night I realized I was crying on the way home because the sensation in my left leg was so bad. Not self-pity crying, but the sort of crying you do reflexively when something hurts or stings really bad. The girl at Karavel, Heather, had some suggestions on how to ice my Achilles tendons and how to stretch them. She actually paid more attention to what I had to say about the functioning of my leg than my physical therapists did.
Ugh. A whole entry on how my ankle/plate/feet hurt. Bear with me. Also I will begin responding to comments again soon. Bleah. :)
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| Friday, October 30th, 2009
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9:40 pm - It's the most wonderful time of the year...
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| Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
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5:12 pm - Your opinion/input needed
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So, what would you wear to an interview at Half-Price Books. Everyone who works there dresses way down - hoodies, t-shirts, Chuck Taylors, jeans. Clearly that is not how one would dress for the interview but my typical interview clothes do not apply here, I think. If you shop there regularly, or if you just know your Austin casual retail interview garb, speak up.
Also, I think we are going to get vaccinated for H1N1 tomorrow. Even if I don't get a job working in retail, the fact is, I was afraid for days after a woman coughed very wetly in my face at the supermarket (the real reason it is called Swine Flu, I think). If you had this vaccine, did you have any problems or issues. Online says it has few side effects, if any, but online says a lot of crap. I always get a fever and injection-site pain when I get regular flu shots, so I just wonder how people have responded to H1N1 shots.
Share please.
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| Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
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10:31 pm - Halloween toys! Adolph, Cicero and Noodle being extra ridiculous!
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12:46 am - Ignore my last, very maudlin post
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"Soundgarden makes all mammals sad," observes Adolph. "I was in the room while it was happening and it sucked the life out of me. My god, someone play Banana Phone. Or Bananarama. Anything."
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| Monday, October 19th, 2009
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11:04 pm - The Daily Adolph
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3:24 pm - So... Join me? Maybe?
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1:52 pm - New oddbooks up
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So, I posted another oddbooks entry, a relatively short one for me. The book is Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens by Susan A. Clancy. Small levels of odd - Harvard researcher looking into weird beliefs, the weird believers themselves - made a nice little odd sandwich. All in all, an interesting, fun little book. You can read my reaction here.
Also, not going to be using Facebook much anymore. I find the interactions mostly uninteresting (nothing against Christians but a shocking number of my former high school classmates, who make up the bulk of my Facebook friends, are born-again and intensely right-wing with it, and I can either block their daily exortations to the Lord and rabid dislike of Obama, or avoid the updates entirely, and if I have to block 3/4 of my f-list, why bother?). I loathe the interface and find it unintuitive and refuse to learn it. I also logged in to find I had 50 million (seriously, maybe more) messages because my high school reunion was last weekend and evidently I missed it. Umm...
Also will probably kill the MySpace for oddbooks, as well. I get no traffic to the site from writing about it on Facebook or MySpace. I get more hits from the book reviews I post on LibraryThing and the occasional Tweet I make about it. So why bother on that front, as well. People sing the praises of marketing on Facebook and MySpace, but I don't see that it works for me and I get little enjoyment otherwise from either site. I get satisfaction from longform blogging (I know, I know, I can use the Notes feature or whatever, or I can blog in a place where blogging is the norm). I can manage Twitter. I love Flickr. I want to start two new sites - one devoted to the cats and another one that is in the thinking stage - and both involve actual writing. Everything else is just cyber noise to me.
Just because it exists does not mean I have to use it. I know LJ is quieter than it was a few years ago but Facebook is no replacement for me.
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12:00 am - Hmm...
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So... Didja watch this evening's "Venture Brothers" season premiere?
And if so, did you find yourself thinking of a certain Kitler-esque, three-legged embodiment of evil?
I think I need to send Jackson Publick an e-mail.
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| Sunday, October 18th, 2009
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10:00 pm - My first ever poll
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Vote, and help me name my upcoming site! And if you have an idea not represented in the little buttons below, leave me a comment.
Poll #1473089 The cat website
Open to: Friends, detailed results viewable to: Friends, participants: 30What should Anita name the site about her numerous cat adventures
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9:26 pm - Halloween makes me happier than any other time of the year
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A little witch and a nifty little Halloween tree. Clementine hates, hates, hates that little witch. That moon on the hat should not be poking out as far as it is. She keeps pulling it out. I often find the witch on the floor after Clemmie has vented her loathing.
Henry is a former sailor and reads Patrick O'Brian novels. Of course his Halloween revolves around haunted lighthouses and pirate ships. When plugged in and filled with the right bizarre substance, both emit fog. Not too crazy about the fog. It smells like vinegary bubble gum. :(
Found a bunch of plastic spiders and some spirit gum in the Halloween decorations tub. Does it count as a costume if you just dress in black and glue a bunch of fake insects on yourself? My vote is yes, especially if you're as freaked out by spiders, even plastic ones, as I am. :twitch:
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| Friday, October 16th, 2009
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5:17 pm - The trickle-down effect
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| Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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10:02 pm - Open entry about why EntirelyPets.com sucks unholy amounts of suckage
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Adolph is in kidney failure. A probiotic called Azodyl caused his creatinine and BUN levels to drop by over 25% each in one month of usage. If you understand the mechanics of kidney failure, then you get the significance of those numbers, but if you don't, just know that such a drop was near-miraculous. We went from being told he would only be around for a few more weeks to the vet telling us he didn't need to see our Fat Cat for three months. Adolph relies on this drug to live and not enough evidence exists to show how cumulative the drug is - i.e. if can he miss a day without negative effects.
He needs two capsules a day and a 30-day supply is almost $60 at the vet. We are having extremely tight times money-wise and Henry found that EntirelyPets.com, selling via Amazon, sold the exact same drug for $27 including shipping. The shipper has lots of feedback and like all enormous retailers, they have some negative, but they have 97% positive feedback. They promised to ship within 48 days of the order and to send the Azodyl in a dry-ice cold pack. Azodyl must be kept at no greater than 38 degrees in order for it to be effective.
Problem 1: Henry ordered on Tuesday of last week. They did not ship it until yesterday. Seven calendar days and four mail days to ship? That's some high-grade nonsense right there.
Okay, Problem 1 is sort of iffy. Adolph ran out of capsules yesterday. No one knows how missing doses will affect him, but he sometimes will make himself puke them up in Fatty Rage. We don't always find the capsule remains immediately when he does this under the bed or in the corner of my closet. So missing a dose here and there may not be an issue but who knows? I do know that on Amazon EntirelyPets.com promised to ship in 48 hours, which when using Priority means that the drug would have been here Saturday. But in their confirmation e-mail for an order placed on 10/7, they placed the estimated delivery at 10/14-10/19. This was not something that popped out until Henry read the novella-length message closely. Pretty shady - why advertise a 48 hour ship using Priority and then fudge the delivery time as taking up to 12 calendar days?
Problem 2: When it arrived today, it was inside a Priority Box, inside a foil envelope. Inside the foil envelope were three completely melted ice packs. Not dry ice. Regular ice. These things had been at room temperature so long that they didn't even have condensation on them. This was mailed on 10/13 and inside a thermal envelope, and even regular ice did not keep it cool for 24 hours? How is that even possible? A leaky cooler in the middle of a field on a Texas 4th of July could do better. Did they package our order last week and then set it on a shelf until the shipping department could get to it? That is the only way I can see how those three ice packs made it to water by the time the package made it to us, and if that is the case, then why bother with the ice at all? Why even go through the pretense of protecting the integrity of the product? Regardless of how they failed so spectacularly, the room temperature Azodyl they sent us is worthless.
Problem 2 is why I am making a public entry about EntirelyPets.com. Yeah, they took too long to mail it. But the fact is, my cat needs this product to live. Had they taken too long to deliver it but at least exercised basic attention to detail and quality control, I could see overlooking the delay in shipping. But they sent me worthless pills.
We managed to get some from the vet today. The vet only has a few animals on this medication and we lucked out because had we been forced to go with another online source, Adolph would have been without Azodyl for up to a week. I'll sell everything I own to make that $60 price tag. I'll cut my hair in Gift of the Magi style. I'll sell my plasma. But none of that will matter if I cannot get the drug into his system in a timely manner. Had our vet not had it, I am unsure what we would have done. Azodyl is still not a method many vets use to manage kidney failure in cats - it is not a substance one can readily get by calling around.
EntirelyPets.com screwed the pooch on this one. I hope they have the decency to give us a refund. Regardless of how they handle the refund issue, we will never use them again. A shady shipping time and a massive shipping failure on our first order does not bode well for a good customer relationship with them. If you rely on them for any sort of product for your pet, take heed.
ETA: Henry called EntirelyPets.com and had a relatively negative experience. The person on the phone told us it was our fault that the package was warm since we did not pay for overnight shipping. This response was idiotic on several levels.
The Amazon page says nothing about overnight shipping. The clerk on the phone argued - actually argued with Henry - that it did. Henry suggested he go look and when he did, he had to admit that Amazon says nothing about overnight. Additionally, Amazon does not let you select from a menu of shipping options. When we placed the order, the only option available was standard. We could not select expedited. Moreover, Priority got it here next day anyway and it was clear that the box had been packed but not shipped for several days, allowing the ice to melt. There is no way it was packaged just before it was mailed. Had they packed it the same day they mailed it, it would have been physically impossible for the ice packs to have melted to room temperature without even a trace of condensation. When this was brought up, the clerk had no response.
They grudgingly gave us clearance to return the pills and said they would refund our shipping. Yeah, don't use EntirelyPets.com for any reason. I wouldn't trust them to mail a cat bed or some jingly toys without a catastrophic problem that they will try to pin on the consumer.
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