Pondering the world

not Kurt Vonnegut's commencement address

I was cleaning out a file the other day and came across a paper copy of "Commencement Address (allegedly) given by Kurt Vonnegut at MIT.  It's a good read and I had thought to post it here. 

Wait...  go find it.  I'm sure it's on the internet somewhere.  I can just point to it and not have to type it out.  So I found it, but it's not by Kurt Vonnegut at all.  Here's the "speech" but you may also want to read the explanation that's referenced as well.

As she says, just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true.

all Christmas'd up

On Sunday we did practically nothing but decorate for Christmas.  With an 8-room bed & breakfast with dining room, parlor, and yard, we have a lot of decorating to do.

Stephanie and I put up the new skinny Christmas tree in the parlor (pre-lit--yay!), garland with lights and bows up the stairwell, small tree at the top of the stairs, Santa or angel dolls in several of the rooms, tabletop trees in a couple of rooms, garland and bows in the dining room, net lights on the arbor outside, and little accent pieces everywhere. 

Our guests from England were no doubt surprised at the end of the day to find Christmas had arrived.

More to come, so stay tuned. 

what I've learned about SuperGlue

1.  A little SuperGlue goes a long way.

2.  If magnets with SuperGlue on them are too close together, they will attract and instantly glue themselves together.  Well, crap.

3.  You can SuperGlue your fingers together.

4.  Nail polish remover can un-SuperGlue your fingers.  Very.  Slowly.

some purchases just make you feel better

It wasn't on my list of things to do yesterday, but I bought a new laptop bag. 

I'm getting ready to go visit my family "back east" (yes, we westerners really do say that).  We were in OfficeMax looking for something else and discussing how Steve's backpack for his laptop will need to be replaced soon before a fraying strap finally breaks, and the conversation meandered into how the bag I've been using has seen better days.  We looked at backpacks and then at the spiffy ones on wheels with an extendable handle, and before I knew it I had bought a new American Tourister bag for the trip.  Lots of pockets and places for my stuff, but--ooh!--those wheels and handle.  I could have bought a backpack that would have lasted me 20 years, but I can't see myself being 70 and still toting around my laptop in a backpack. 

Wait, I can't see myself being 70 at all, but I guess that's another story.

I digress.

The point is that while I sometimes often rant against excessive consumerism, sometimes I really do need something and it feels great when I finally buy it, it works, and it makes my life so much better.

Now I can show it off when I go to my meeting tomorrow.

black shoes have returned home

We had a night off last week and used a gift certificate to stay at the Embassy Suites, which was wonderful.  It's good to know the General Manager.  Mark arranged to have us stay in a really great suite on the 9th floor with balcony, great view, special goodies in the fridge and all that. 

You'd think that with owning a bed & breakfast, we'd know to check the room completely to make sure we had all of our stuff.  However, I was so upset by finding out that our business number had been erroneously published in New Mexico Magazine that I didn't do a thorough check.  Once we returned home and were unpacking, I wondered what happened to my black half-slip.  It wasn't like we had a wild night with underwear flying around the room.  Then I realized I didn't have my black shoes either.  Well, rats.  That was really distressing since it's hard to get plain black flat shoes in my size.  I called right away and they had someone check the room but didn't find them.  So I thought maybe I was just a little distracted and left them in the truck--nope.  At home somewhere?  Nope.  At the B&B?  Nope.  Rats.

It's been a week and we were out and about and Steve said why don't we stop by just in case they turned up.  After all, if someone leaves something at our place, we know right away because it's just us.  At the Embassy Suites, they have dozens of housekeepers.  Sure enough, they had not only my shoes and slip but also the black top I had worn.  I might not have missed that for another few months.  I had probably called them right between the time the housekeeper had removed them from the room and the time they made it to the lost and found bin. 

My faithful black shoes--good for nearly any occasion--are now nicely snuggled in beside a matching pair in navy.

no Black Friday for me

Not only is the insanity continuing, it's getting worse.  I remember when stores were closed the Friday after Thanksgiving.  After all, Thanksgiving was a holiday, lots of people had the Friday off, and they just wanted to stay home.

Somewhere that all changed.  Maybe people have forgotten how to stay home and rest, play games, enjoy each other's company, or talk to each other.  So at some point an enterprising store owner decided to be open that Friday, and somebody with nothing better to do decided to go shopping.  Hey, she got a jump on Christmas shopping, it wasn't crowded, so she told all her friends.  So more people decided to do that.

Then stores that normally opened at 10 a.m. started opening that day at 8 a.m.  Then 6 a.m.  And this year, some stores here opened at 3 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving.  Hoo-ee.

We planned our entire week around not going anywhere on Friday.  Not to the grocery store, Home Depot, and certainly not Costco or the mall.  If you're going to make me go shopping on Black Friday, just shoot me now.

I work 10-12 hours each day, 7 days a week.  I'm sure glad I'm not in retail.

furniture salesmen and used car salesmen

After we bought birdseed at Wild Birds Unlimited the other day, I suggested we stop next door at the furniture place just to see what they had.  We have several things in mind to solve some issues that we have.

We should have known.  At the front entrance were four young salesmen just sitting there waiting for the prey (us) to arrive.  We walked in and immediately headed down an aisle.  The biggest and oldest salesman started following us.  "What are you looking for today?"  Steve replied, "nothing."  The guy continued to follow us and hammer about what we were looking for.

"That's it!" Steve said.  "We're out of here!" and we immediately turned and walked right out of the store.

What is it about furniture salesmen and used car salesmen?  They just can't leave you alone.

another mixed message

The other day we were driving down Coors Blvd. and saw a motorcyclist, one of those bad dudes.  Harley, leather jacket, and a motorcycle helmet like a German Nazi helmet with spikes sticking out all over it.  Then on the back of his motorcycle he had two Christmas candy canes. 

A kind of song went through my head:  "I'm a big bad biker dude but it's okay because I have candy canes, la, la, la, la, la!"

productive day in spite of bizarreness

Here's the background:  Last night we were to have our first night "off" in months.  We blocked off reservations and had decided we were closed.  We had a gift certificate to a free night at the Embassy Suites.  The owner of our favorite restaurant, to which we send a lot of guests, had said for us to make dinner reservations, dinner on the house.

Yesterday and last night:  Our guests checked out in the morning.  Steve had a meeting at 4:00 and we had dinner reservations for 6:00.  However, one of our heaters had died.  The repairman was in and out several times during the day draining the coolant, repairing it and then refilling it.  I couldn't go anywhere as long as he was working, and he didn't leave until 5:00.  Steve's meeting lasted until nearly 6:00 and he called to ask me to change the reservation to 6:30.  He finally showed up and we went to dinner.  The owner was off for the night and our waiter apparently didn't know anything about it.  No free dinner.  We  were both commenting during dinner that we were tired and just wanted to get some sleep.  Went to the Embassy Suites and read until I fell asleep (not long).  Too tired to go in the hot tub.  The bed was hard and I didn't sleep very well.

Today:   Went down to get the free breakfast, which was great, mainly because we didn't have to cook it.   Just as I was getting ready to take a shower, the phone rang.   Someone wanted to know about the Old Town Holiday Stroll.  [what???]   How did she get my number? (and this was our business number, not even my cell number) Because it was published in New Mexico Magazine as the contact number for Holiday Stroll!  100,000 copies!  I was so mad I couldn't see straight.  Who said to use our business number?  Steve called the president of the association, who said she was actually on her way to the Holiday Stroll meeting.  I jumped in the truck and went there myself.  I lost my temper, which I may regret, but I read the committee chair the riot act.  She tried to say that maybe they had used the same number as last year ["our business number has never been used for anything to do with Holiday Stroll!"] and she didn't know who sent that in.  Is she the committee chair or not?  No one approved it.   I spent the entire morning trying to do damage control.  If it was sent out by a press release, that also means that every newspaper and publication that does those community event calendars now has our business phone number as the contact number.  Our solution:  we now have her cell phone number and our response to every single call we get will be "that number was published by mistake--here's the number you need to call."  The only other saving grace is that after December 7th the phone calls will stop.  The bad news is that we could potentially get hundreds of phone calls about this.

The rest of the day was pretty much a waste.  I fixed a dust ruffle, we had guests check in, picked up our food order and spent time talking with other innkeepers (that was a nice break).  Steve had to wait for another guest to check in and picked up a third room night as well.

productive:  When I get really upset, I clean.  So...  I cleaned.  I vacuumed the garage.  We have a finished storage room built into the garage, so I completely emptied it and moved everything around, set up a 6-foot table for cutting and working on projects, moved in my sewing machine and ironing board, hung things up on the walls.  I now have my own work room!

more power to your water!

I've heard a commercial a few times for a carpet cleaning company.  They talk about how after other carpet cleaning companies do your carpet, it still looks dirty.  What is that?  Because they use detergents, which stay in your carpet.

"But not us!  We don't use detergents!  We only use empowered water!"

What??

I think what they mean to say is that they use a machine that forces water in and then sucks it out.  That would make it the power of the machine.... not the water.

I wonder if some of these companies actually listen to their own commercials?  "What?  Did we actually say that?"