My lord's car is a 1997 Honda Civic, and mine is a 1998 Civic hatchback. So we both have been thinking about new cars. Since he now has the great good fortune to be working next door to me, we commute together, so we decided that rather than "his" and "my" cars, we needed a "commuter" car and a "long trip" car (we go on the occasional long drive and always use his car, since it's bigger). We started by looking at the Honda Civic hybrid for a "commute" car, and the Accord or the CR-X (similar in price and mileage) for a "trip" car.

Then we looked at the Prius. It's a Toyota (*gasp!*), but it really holds a LOT of stuff, and it gets better gas mileage than the Honda hybrids. We brought our RevWar camping stuff to the dealership, and were able to get all of it into the back of the Prius with room to spare. (We aren't allowed to bring rope beds, wardrobes, tables, etc. to the RevWar events, especially when my lord is playing a private - alas - so we travel a bit lighter than to SCA events.)

My lord, being 6'4", actually liked the 2009 model Prius better than the 2010, where they "improved" it by adding a big console in between the front seats. This new console, while it doesn't bother me, hits him right in the knee. But after much discussion, and sitting in both the 2009 and 2010 over and over at the dealers last night, we bought a 2010! In blue, OF COURSE. Although the console/knee issue is still troublesome, the other benefits of the 2010 over the 2009 (better gas mileage, a better dashboard arrangement, more cargo room, and - OF COURSE - that we could get it in blue rather than silver-gray [which we both thought was wayyyy too boring]) finally made it the winner.

We recommend Watertown Toyota - they worked hard to try to find us a 2009 Prius in blue, when we thought we were going that way, and waited patiently for us to sit in each car - and then back again in each car - last night while we discussed it intently and made up our minds. We started at Woburn Toyota, but the guy we got there just didn't seem really interested in trying to sell us a car (!! Recession? What recession?), which was also the trouble with Danvers Toyota. Watertown was the first dealer who really made an effort. (Although according to comments on the web, we should stay away from their service department - but we never bring our cars to the dealer for service anyway.)

So now we wait for it to come in, but we should have it in plenty of time to take on this year's long trip to Maryland in October.

Current Mood: accomplished

I went shopping last night with my beloved, who needed new pants. We went to Macy’s, since as a Macy’s credit cardholder, I get half-a-dozen coupons every two weeks (One-day-sale! Save 20% off all your purchases! $20 off any purchase over $50! etc.).

He chose his pants and tried them on. As I was waiting, I noticed several young guys – maybe 18 to 20 years old – also shopping and trying things on. After deciding on several pairs, my lord went off to try to find out how much the pants actually cost, by using one of the floor-pricing machines. As I followed after (more slowly, since I was carrying both our coats and the additional pairs of pants he had chosen), I passed the young guys, now revealed as one guy and his “posse”. I overheard, “They’re expensive. Dude, lend me $10.” “I’m not going to lend you $10.” “But otherwise, I can’t . . .”

I stopped and looked at them. “I have a coupon, if you’re interested.”

Five pairs of eyes focussed on me immediately. “Hey! She has a coupon!”

The lead guy (the shopper) said politely, “But we can’t take your coupon.”

I told him that I had several, and that they would all expire soon. “So – how much does your stuff cost?”

“About $70.”

“Great. Here’s a coupon for $20 off any purchase over $50.”

“AWESOME!!!!!” They were all delighted with this solution to the problem, and thanked me very much. Bearing the coupon in triumph, they went off to the checkout desk. The guy seemed to have not only a pair of dress pants, but a *tie* - I gathered vaguely he was going to a prom or some such.

However, then disaster struck when they tried to actually USE the coupon. The saleslady told them that the coupon was only valid if they had a Macy’s credit card.

One of them nudged the shopper. “Dude! Open an account!”

“I can’t do that . . . mumble mumble . . .”

The saleslady helpfully said that if one of their parents had a Macy’s card, she could input that number. “Really? Okay. Hey dude – lend me your phone.”

“I think my father also has a card.”

“Cool. Call him too.”

Unfortunately, for some reason the mother didn’t want to give her credit card number to her son who was shopping in that store . . . and the conversation with the dad was even shorter. The kids all looked confused and desperate.

I took pity on them. “Look, do you have the cash to pay for your stuff if you use the coupon?”

“Yes, right here.”

“All right – give it to me, and I’ll put your stuff on my credit card so you can use the coupon.”

“Oh! I couldn’t do that . . . “ the young guy said, gazing hopefully at me with large puppy-dog eyes.

“Nonsense,” I said, taking the money and handing the saleslady my card. Unfortunately, she took it upon herself to loudly praise me and Make Sure The Young Men Knew Their Good Fortune. “Well! It’s not often you see such kindness from strangers. I hope you appreciate what the nice lady is doing for you. Now you can’t say that no one does anything good for you” etc. etc. I nobly refrained from telling her to shut her face.

I would have liked to have asked what the dress-up occasion was, and perhaps found out a bit more, but the saleslady had thoroughly embarrassed all of them, and they mumbled their thanks and left. The shopper guy was on his best politeness, though, and was careful to thank me very much. So despite the saleslady, I left with a big grin – and a wistful sigh: I am really getting old if I find 18-year-olds so darn cute and earnest.

Current Mood: amused

I am looking at the Victoria's Secret holiday catalog. The front photo shows a lovely woman (of course) in a red lacy bra and a long full red skirt. Now while I wouldn't necessarily wear that outfit to, say, the office holiday party (I would probably include a blouse over the bra), the skirt itself is absolutely stunning: layers and layers of red chiffon, billowing and floofing down from the model's waist to drag on the floor. I wants it.

So I opened up the catalog to see what kind of pain would be involved in buying the skirt. The "Cover Look" is described as follows:

ANGELS BY VICTORIA'S SECRET

Bra info & prices.

"Thong, not shown."

"Garter belt, not shown."

And no mention of the skirt AT ALL.

*sigh* happy holidays . . .

And now, my little cat Ermine is gone too.

She was 17 years old, too. It sort of seemed that she never really recovered from Sable's absence. I thought she'd be happier to not be bullied (Sable loved to jump on her and bite her neck to make her scream at him - he was really a little-brat-brother type), but she seemed to miss him a lot, and got much frailer when he was gone. She stopped eating (despite all we could do) and lost even more weight (she weighed just over 4 pounds at the end *sigh*). I am certain that she had some sickness, but as with Sable, we opted not to inflict invasive diagnostic procedures on her, as we had decided not to put her through a treatment for any major problem they turned up (cancer, kidney failure, etc.). She had gotten very unfocussed, and was very wobbly on her back legs, although she INSISTED on using the litterbox downstairs. (We had put one upstairs for her, and she used it sometimes, but she preferred the one downstairs which she had used for years, even though it hurt her to get there.)

She didn't have the kind of total system failure that Sable had, so it was harder to know what was the right thing to do. But we finally decided that it would be cruel to her - and to us - to wait until the bitter end. (Sable's end was really very bitter, and we both still feel terrible about that.) So this morning, I brought her to the vet. We sat in the car for a few moments enjoying the sun, and then inside, she sat on my lap quietly and purred and smiled at me while we waited for the vet. She was a bit nervous - it WAS the vet, after all - but not nearly as terrified as Sable had been.

And then she went to sleep.

The house is very empty tonight . . .

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Music: Fur Elise

Mark and I were part of the End Zone Militia at today's football game, and evidently we got some good face-time on network TV. I say "evidently" because this was, of course, the game that Mark forgot to set up the VCR to tape; my brother saw us and left us a message. If anyone taped today's Patriots game, please let me know - I'd love to see the broadcast.

Other than that, it was a *wonderful* day. Many times, it's a very long day (we were up at 7 a.m., on the road at 9 a.m. for a 1 p.m. game, and generally back by 8 or 9, depending upon traffic), and often in horrible weather conditions like cold, or - at worst - heavy rain. (Standing still for four hours wearing wool in a cold heavy rain just sucks.) Today was a lovely temperature, a clear, sunny day, and the Patriots WON - after scaring us half to death in the fourth quarter. And then, all the traffic gods smiled: the traffic was almost non-existent, and we were home by 6 p.m. Amazing.

We hope to be in the game on November 9, but we'll see. And if anyone happens to have a tape of this game . . . .

Some weekends you can really live without.

This weekend’s adventures began two weeks ago, when Mark decided to give notice at The Big Company. He’d been there for 18 years, so this was a big step, and traumatic – especially because he wasn’t going to a new job. He got so frustrated and ground down there that he was headed for a heart attack, and I told him that all the money in the world isn’t worth that (I watched my boss do exactly that. He survived, but it’s not recommended). So Mark is going to take a month off to clear his head, and then begin looking. He’ll probably pick up some consulting, but one of the things he needs to think about is What He Wants To Do Now.

However, the two weeks’ notice time was very stressful for both of us, and we were both looking forward to the Labor Day weekend to relax. Since both his manager and his manager’s manager were going to be out on Friday 8/29, he got that as a Free Day, and the beginning of his time off.

So naturally, that was when our cat Sable got very, very sick. Mark rushed him to the hospital, and I ended up rushing home from my office at the end of the day so that we could both talk to the doctor. Sable was very anemic, and we authorized a blood transfusion and fluids.

Sable is 17, and had arthritis and was getting crotchety. So we didn’t want to put him through chemotherapy or surgery or any majorly invasive procedure, which we felt might extend his life maybe 6 months but make him miserable for all of it. On Saturday, he was better, and was beginning to get grumpy with the vet, which everyone took as a good sign. The hospital kept him overnight until Sunday, to make sure he was better. Sunday morning, though, he was very much worse; the vet called us around 8 a.m. and said, essentially, “Get here fast.”

We threw on clothes and headed out. I had really wanted him to die at home, surrounded by peace and quiet and love, but very unfortunately, it was not to be – he was so sick that it would have hurt him more to move him. So at the hospital, with much emotion, we cuddled him one last time, and told him we loved him, and let him go.

We hadn’t gotten much sleep Friday night for worrying, and the vet woke us Saturday at 8 a.m. for the first update. We did errands and worried all day Saturday, and then didn’t sleep much Saturday night, and then, of course, Sunday was a very distressing day. We had a meeting of our RevWar group that evening, and went out with a couple of friends for a nice dinner at a pub afterward. And then we went home and just collapsed into bed.

And then.

Evidently sometime in the night, a Young Woman who had been at a party decided to go for cigarettes in her SUV. She was later measured to have a blood alcohol level of 1.2%. She came around the corner by our house, drifted right, overcorrected, and swerved onto our lawn. She took out our mailbox, which went bouncing across the lawn and into our neighbor’s car on the driver-side door, leaving a big dent and a cut in the metal. And then her SUV bounced across our lawn, leaving huge ruts, bounced over our neighbor’s block of wood that edged the side of his driveway, flipped, landed in his driveway, and skidded until it hit the embankment of their lawn. At 3:30 a.m., the entire street was covered in police, fire trucks, ambulances, and tow trucks.

Due to our exhaustion, we slept right through all of this, which was probably just as well – it wasn’t like we could have done anything then. The first we knew of this was Monday morning. We were out on the deck enjoying what we thought was going to be a peaceful breakfast, when someone rang our doorbell. It was our neighbor – come to return our mailbox . . .

So Mark now has more things on his To-Do list, to keep him busy (1. Go to police for insurance information. 2. Repair mailbox. 3. Do something about lawn . . .).

Just about everyone I have talked to had absolutely HORRID things happen this Labor Day weekend. I sincerely hope we’ve passed the worst.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: "The Bonnie Earl o'Moray"

Yesterday, our regiment attended the Gore Place Sheepshearing Festival. It was a very nice day, and we all enjoyed it. I was especially pleased to see a number of friends from my *other* hobby come by.

I had signed up to do commissary (make lunch) for the regiment, and had spent the last couple of weeks trying to guess what weather we would have at the event. I was choosing between making Ferd Stew (if it were cold) and Chicken Sallat (if it were warm). Since the weather seemed to be getting a bit warmer, and since the stew would be much more complex to assemble at the event, I finally settled on Chicken Sallat – and then spent the morning worrying that it was too cold.

But the weather warmed up, and it really was a beautiful sunny day. I saw cvirtue and her daughter (who was DEEPLY suspicious of someone dressed in those funny clothes – I had on an 18th century riding habit, complete with plumed tricorn), and both elizabear and dsrtao stopped by our encampment. Frydherich was also about – he chatted with the blacksmith next to our camp, and then I pulled him over to talk in person to one of our guys, who was also a blacksmith (they had emailed but never met). At this point, Waatchu came over to say hello, which really startled Frydherich. Waatchu now goes by his mundane name, and has two children, and is part of our Regiment, so he was in 18th century uniform. Fritz had never seen him look like that.

A big shout-out to Pam for the Chicken Sallat recipe, which once again really wowed the troops. Everyone said how good it was, even the 13-year-old daughter of one of the members. She came up to the lunch table and carefully took a couple of pieces of bread, some cheese, and a slice of summer sausage. I was dishing the Sallat, and asked her if she would like some. She looked at it uncertainly and said, “N-n-n-nooo, I don’t think so.” So I said, “Would you like to try one bite?” She looked at me for a moment, considering, and then said she would. I carefully put one bit of chicken and one bit of apple on her plate, and said she had to eat them together. She did so, and then said, “It’s GOOD!” in tones of great astonishment. So I asked again whether she would like some for lunch, and this time she took a whole spoonful and went off happily.

As far as I can tell, there were *thousands* of children at this event. We had a bunch at the encampment in the afternoon, and handed out our wooden muskets to teach the children to drill. Our soldiers were very good about this, and got everyone to more-or-less do some simple drilling. The drummer set up a beat, and we marched the kids up the hill a bit, turned them around, and marched them back. At the end of the drill, I helped collect our wooden muskets, to the tantrums of some of the kids (who wanted to keep them, of course) and the thank-you’s of their parents (who didn’t). We did this twice, and I think we could have used double the number of muskets we had.

We ended the night at the Watch City Brewery after the event. Seven of us went out in our outfits and had dinner there. There were, of course, comments. My favorite was one guy who was sitting at a table as we went by; he said, “Boy, it looks lik you were really waiting a long time to be served!”

Current Mood: tired

I'm working with our HR department to put together an informal seminar on Managing Your Manager. To start this off, I would like to have some Bad Manager or Bad Work Situation stories to discuss (not just mine - my solutions don't tend to be universal). So - if you have a Bad Manager story (current or past), please tell me!

-- Why is this manager Bad? (micromanager, rude and uncaring, etc.) Please use examples. ("I have to give hourly reports on my progress." "Every time he talked to me, he yelled at me. And then I got criticized for being hard to work with.") How did you deal with this?

-- Or, have you had some horrible interaction with a co-worker? How did you handle it? Did it work?

I would also be interested in stories that ended in "So I left the company" - you don't *have* to have an answer. The best discussions are around the really difficult situations: "This manager hated me and gave me all the scutwork, but I couldn't leave because my spouse just lost his/her job."

Feel free to make up names to protect everyone.

I am particularly interested in stories from people who are less outspoken than I am (which is practically everybody . . .), as that is the audience I'd like to reach. What kind of solutions to these awful situations do YOU feel comfortable with? HR generally says, "Well, just talk to them," but I have seen that most people don't want to do that, given that there is a situation. What else works? I'd like to give people useful advice, and as I said above, my personal solutions don't work for most people ("Well, why *don't* you just talk to them?").

(And I apologize in advance - I'm going away for a few days this weekend, so I won't reply to posts until Tuesday or so. But please post anyway!)

It was great fun to go to the Crossroads event. I got to see a lot of people that I haven’t seen for a very long time, and talk to them for far too short a time. (There were also a number of people I wanted to say hello to and just never got a chance.)

I had brought a couple of friends from our RevWar regiment, as they’d always wanted to go to an SCA event. We dressed the man up in one of Mark’s tunics, and the lady borrowed some of elizabear’s garb, which fit her very well. They had a great time watching the Heavy List and the thrown weapons tournies, shopping at the merchants’, and seeing Royal Court.

For myself, I made a new dress out of some heavy brushed cotton that I’d been wanting to sew with for quite some time. When finished, the dress looked lovely in the sewing room. However, at the event, it proved less than practical, alas. The event, as you all know, should have been in the mid-70’s and sunny all day, with no wind. What we got was a fine New England fall day: rain and wind to start, and then a beautiful clear sunny afternoon, with a cold breze undercutting the sun. So the kirtle with the low neck and the train dragging in the mud was just the wrong thing to wear, and my )*#%^ veil kept slipping – or blowing – off my head. (This will teach me to just anchor it with a circlet – what I really need is some kind of under-chin thing, and a *period* veil setup. Another thing to add to the list. *sigh*) I was quite jealous of msmemory’s outfit, which started with the same kind of kirtle; but she had an underdress (needed for warmth) and a hood to cover the neck (ditto). Ah, well.

I did get to do some heralding of the Heavy List Champions tourney. I heralded one of the lists for several rounds, and then was accorded the privilege of heralding one of the finalists into the list. Since I have been away for some time, I hadn’t yet met His Excellency Valgard Stonecleaver, but he seemed to be a great guy. He faced Tribune Darius in the finals, who was heralded in by Ernst.

Earlier in the day, I had mis-announced in the course of heralding. The ListMistress wanted to run most of the combattants in the losers’ list before running the winners’ list; since this was a double-elimination tourney, there were many more in the losers’ list than the winners’ list. So I loudly announced that all the losers would be fighting fi—“I mean, everyone who has one loss in the tourney will be fighting first.” The fighters were quite jovial about this: “Well, I WAS feeling pretty good about myself, until she said that . . . “

So. When I heralded Sir Valgard into the finals, I started with “Entering from the WINNER’S list” because the Tribune had one loss. I didn’t want to do the standard “Slayer of Evil, Conqueror of Darkness, Hero of the Universe” etc. etc.; His Excellency wasn’t all too enamored of that either. He informed me that both he and Darius were part of Tribe Rotmana, and that Darius was his nephew. Um, okay. So I went with: “Entering from the WINNER’s List, His Excellency Valgard Stonecleaver – Jarl of the West, Viscount of the Mists, and Knight. He is here to protect the Royalty of the East from the attentions of his recalcitrant nephew, whose own lady wife gave His Excellency the Queen’s Order of Courtesy.” (Roxana had given the QOC to Valgard.)

Sir Valgard was quite pleased with that. Unfortunately, he ended up losing, but when I apologized later (Darius was supposed to be turned to stone from fear at hearing all of this), he said no, no, it had been great.

And what made my day was running into Darius after court. He said that he felt I had definitely won the “heralding competition” there – he was laughing so hard at the “recalcitrant nephew” part that he had to delay Ernie going in for a minute so he could regain some focus and not get clobbered. (He did actually lose the first round, but won the next two.) So that was fun.

Court was interesting also. A dozen or so years ago (where *does* the time go?) Gryffith had carried my favor for a time. In the intervening years, I had taken up with Mark, and Gryffith had gotten married. But I was impressed with his court and his kingly bearing, and told him so afterward, which pleased him. He and Aikaterine have had some . . . bumps in their reign. I couldn’t resist – I told Gryffith that when I was reading about the troubles, I could just hear Duke Randall elbowing him in the ribs and saying, “Toldja so. I TOLD you that being King is more difficult than just winning Crown. Toldja. But did you listen? . . . No . . . .” (This did get a smile, but a sort of wry one.)

We didn’t stay for the feast, but ended up driving home and all going out to a restaurant. During the ride home, I was kept busy explaining the significance of all the things that my friends had seen ("So what is a Duke?", but all agreed that we had had a very good time.

I got a call last night from a Media Survey company, doing "a survey for Newsweek," and assented to be questioned. The first few questions were about what I expected: did I approve of the way George Bush was handling the presidency (yeah, right!), did I think the US was winning the war on terrorism, etc. etc.

But then the questions got more interesting. I post here as many as I can remember, because I am embarrassed to admit I didn't know all this stuff off the top of my head. I read TIME magazine religiously (if not NewsWeek), and *thought* I was well informed. hmph.

(Most of these were multiple-choice questions, but I admit I don't remember all the choices exactly - I'll put them as well as I can.)

How many can YOU answer - without recourse to other sources?

-- How much is a barrel of oil now on the world market?
A. $40
B. $60
C. $70
D. $110

-- What is the current level of the Dow Jones stock market?
A. 3,000
B. 7,000
C. 13,000
D. 70,000

-- Who is the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? (no choices given)

-- Who is the president of Russia? (forget the choices)

-- Which of these is the oldest:
A. The American empire
B. The British empire
C. The Ottoman empire
D. The Roman empire

-- Which of these is NOT a country that borders Iraq?
A. Syria
B. Libya
C. Iran
D. Kuwait

-- Who was the first Republican president?
A. Ulysses S. Grant
B. Abraham Lincoln
C. Teddy Roosevelt
D. Rutherford B. Hayes

-- Which is the oldest religion?
A. Christianity
B. Judaism
C. Islam

-- What is the most popular sport in the world? (I forget the choices)


-- Who is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank?
A. Alan Greenspan
B. Paul O’Neill
C. Ben Bernanke


-- Who wrote Pride & Prejudice, Emma, and Northanger Abbey?

-- Who was the latest winner of American Idol? (NOTE: This question came right after the last. I was - of course - able to answer the previous question, and completely UNable to answer this one; I told the guy that anyone who could answer the previous question would probably not be able to answer this one - and vice versa.)

And there were more, but I forget the rest . . .