Saturday, April 02, 2005
The hardest task in the world
Curing cancer? Orchestrating world peace? No; apparently, based on my experiences, it's... making a properly-functioning automated phone system.
Huh? How hard could THAT be? Not very, you'd think, but I've had to make calls to a wide variety of large corporations recently, and there's not a single one of them whose system performs its intended function; to get the caller hooked up with the information they need in some reasonable time frame.
The first part of the problem is that what they're ACTUALLY trying to do these days is prevent you from talking to a human being. I don't care how many functions they've automated, and how much info they have programmed in, it's simply not possible to handle customers effectively, or at all in some cases, if there isn't a way for people to talk to something without chips and wires, and I mean withOUT wasting 10 minutes floundering around in the system first. Is it somehow impossible to provide the ability to get directly to certain kinds of info AND make it so that entering "0" or "#" or whatever gets you to an agent? It sure doesn't seem like it should be, but if it IS possible, why are fewer and fewer companies doing it?
It was bad enough when they made you listen to 500 menu options before FINALLY giving you the code to enter to get to a person, but now there are an alarming # of systems that literally NEVER have a way for you to get directly to a human being... you can only reach one through luck or trickery. I wish that was an exaggeration, but it's not; I just had an incident yesterday where I finally had to admit defeat and hang up, because I'd been all through their system, tried every trick I knew, and couldn't get to a person. And here's where luck kicked in; the phone rang instantly, with that freaky call-back thing some systems do if you hang up at certain points, and I picked it up without speaking, assuming it was the computer, and nearly hung up on what turned out to be, amazingly, a MAN. As you can imagine, I asked him to take down a detailed complaint before handling my business.
Just FYI, the tricks that still get you to a person, sometimes, are: Not pressing ANY buttons once you're connected to the system, so that it thinks you're on a rotary phone and sends you straight to the operator; this rarely works anymore, sadly, because they've apparently decided that there are no rotary phones left in the entire country, or, more to the point, just don't care. Not entering something it asks for, in the hopes that, once it's prompted you several times, it'll assume there's a problem and send you to a person; unfortunately, this one's not working much anymore, either... it'll either keep prompting you forever, or hang you up, as often as not. Pick menu options that would HAVE to take you to a person, because they refer to things that are too complicated to handle with button-pushing; they've made these systems so big and fancy now, though, that they've got automations and elaborate recordings for every topic, and assume that they HAVE handled your most complex problems that way, whether they in fact have or not. Sometimes, they've removed the code to get to an agent from the menus, but if you press 0, # or *, or the # after the # of the last option they give you, it'll still get you to a person; that one's fading fast too, though.
It's not just the ever more clever attempts to keep you away from the customer service staff that messes up these systems; what's almost as bad is that they're losing sight of how someone who's unfamiliar with the system, or confused, or distracted, or who can't find menu options that relate to their problems and has to take wild guesses, can end up in the wrong area... and, when that happens, they MUST have a way to get to somewhere useful withOUT hanging up, calling back, and spending another 15 minutes surfing through menus. Part of the problem is that the menu options are apparently designed by people with no clue as to what the businesses they're making the systems for entail; there are always all sorts of major, obvious issues that don't remotely fit into the offered categories. The other part is that they've started taking out menu options like "return to the previous menu" and "return to the main menu"; if you don't have the option of getting to a person either, all you can do if you stumble into the wrong area is hang up and start all over again... is that the BEST they can do?
Even if you DO break through to a human being, there's one last outrage for you to endure; you can be fairly sure that you were asked to input your 20-digit account #, and the last 4 digits of your social security #, early on in the process, but somehow, through some evil magic, when you finally reach a person, they claim to not have access to what you entered, and you have to give it to them AGAIN. Where do all the #'s you put into the system go after you enter them? What POSSIBLE excuse is there for your having entered your account # to mean ANYTHING other than that whoever the system connects you to will have received that #, and already used it to pull up your account info? Why do you get asked for your account # at a point when nothing is DONE with it? What level of stupidity does it take to NOT have things set up so that you don't enter account info until it's needed, and then don't have to give it again at any other point in the phonecall? How can it be that even ONE company failed to set up their system so that all info entered by the customer is instantly available to the customer service reps, much less that ALL of them have failed to do this... how hard can it be?
This pattern of adding more and more automated services when they haven't even gotten the basics done right, while removing access to agents, and even necessary navigation controls, is NOT acceptable; it's time we ALL started letting them know that. The crucial thing to remember is that the powers that be at these corporations DON'T want to actively drive customers away, and didn't actually plan to have phone systems that would frustrate and upset people; these systems are designed by clueless tech staff, or even more clueless outside companies, so the managers, and the people who actually work in the departments that deal with the public (who DO generally want to help you), usually have little or no idea how badly the systems work, because they've never had to use them... I've yet to find a single person who wasn't astonished at the trouble I had getting through their system to talk to them, and they can't ALL be terrific actors. Ask who complaints of this nature need to get to, and take the time to talk to those folks and tell them very clearly what the problems were, and what the VERY simple solutions are. There's no guarantee that this will ever accomplish anything, but if enough people do it, it might.
That is... unless the ones with the power to make changes can only be reached via phone #'s that lead to automated systems...
Huh? How hard could THAT be? Not very, you'd think, but I've had to make calls to a wide variety of large corporations recently, and there's not a single one of them whose system performs its intended function; to get the caller hooked up with the information they need in some reasonable time frame.
The first part of the problem is that what they're ACTUALLY trying to do these days is prevent you from talking to a human being. I don't care how many functions they've automated, and how much info they have programmed in, it's simply not possible to handle customers effectively, or at all in some cases, if there isn't a way for people to talk to something without chips and wires, and I mean withOUT wasting 10 minutes floundering around in the system first. Is it somehow impossible to provide the ability to get directly to certain kinds of info AND make it so that entering "0" or "#" or whatever gets you to an agent? It sure doesn't seem like it should be, but if it IS possible, why are fewer and fewer companies doing it?
It was bad enough when they made you listen to 500 menu options before FINALLY giving you the code to enter to get to a person, but now there are an alarming # of systems that literally NEVER have a way for you to get directly to a human being... you can only reach one through luck or trickery. I wish that was an exaggeration, but it's not; I just had an incident yesterday where I finally had to admit defeat and hang up, because I'd been all through their system, tried every trick I knew, and couldn't get to a person. And here's where luck kicked in; the phone rang instantly, with that freaky call-back thing some systems do if you hang up at certain points, and I picked it up without speaking, assuming it was the computer, and nearly hung up on what turned out to be, amazingly, a MAN. As you can imagine, I asked him to take down a detailed complaint before handling my business.
Just FYI, the tricks that still get you to a person, sometimes, are: Not pressing ANY buttons once you're connected to the system, so that it thinks you're on a rotary phone and sends you straight to the operator; this rarely works anymore, sadly, because they've apparently decided that there are no rotary phones left in the entire country, or, more to the point, just don't care. Not entering something it asks for, in the hopes that, once it's prompted you several times, it'll assume there's a problem and send you to a person; unfortunately, this one's not working much anymore, either... it'll either keep prompting you forever, or hang you up, as often as not. Pick menu options that would HAVE to take you to a person, because they refer to things that are too complicated to handle with button-pushing; they've made these systems so big and fancy now, though, that they've got automations and elaborate recordings for every topic, and assume that they HAVE handled your most complex problems that way, whether they in fact have or not. Sometimes, they've removed the code to get to an agent from the menus, but if you press 0, # or *, or the # after the # of the last option they give you, it'll still get you to a person; that one's fading fast too, though.
It's not just the ever more clever attempts to keep you away from the customer service staff that messes up these systems; what's almost as bad is that they're losing sight of how someone who's unfamiliar with the system, or confused, or distracted, or who can't find menu options that relate to their problems and has to take wild guesses, can end up in the wrong area... and, when that happens, they MUST have a way to get to somewhere useful withOUT hanging up, calling back, and spending another 15 minutes surfing through menus. Part of the problem is that the menu options are apparently designed by people with no clue as to what the businesses they're making the systems for entail; there are always all sorts of major, obvious issues that don't remotely fit into the offered categories. The other part is that they've started taking out menu options like "return to the previous menu" and "return to the main menu"; if you don't have the option of getting to a person either, all you can do if you stumble into the wrong area is hang up and start all over again... is that the BEST they can do?
Even if you DO break through to a human being, there's one last outrage for you to endure; you can be fairly sure that you were asked to input your 20-digit account #, and the last 4 digits of your social security #, early on in the process, but somehow, through some evil magic, when you finally reach a person, they claim to not have access to what you entered, and you have to give it to them AGAIN. Where do all the #'s you put into the system go after you enter them? What POSSIBLE excuse is there for your having entered your account # to mean ANYTHING other than that whoever the system connects you to will have received that #, and already used it to pull up your account info? Why do you get asked for your account # at a point when nothing is DONE with it? What level of stupidity does it take to NOT have things set up so that you don't enter account info until it's needed, and then don't have to give it again at any other point in the phonecall? How can it be that even ONE company failed to set up their system so that all info entered by the customer is instantly available to the customer service reps, much less that ALL of them have failed to do this... how hard can it be?
This pattern of adding more and more automated services when they haven't even gotten the basics done right, while removing access to agents, and even necessary navigation controls, is NOT acceptable; it's time we ALL started letting them know that. The crucial thing to remember is that the powers that be at these corporations DON'T want to actively drive customers away, and didn't actually plan to have phone systems that would frustrate and upset people; these systems are designed by clueless tech staff, or even more clueless outside companies, so the managers, and the people who actually work in the departments that deal with the public (who DO generally want to help you), usually have little or no idea how badly the systems work, because they've never had to use them... I've yet to find a single person who wasn't astonished at the trouble I had getting through their system to talk to them, and they can't ALL be terrific actors. Ask who complaints of this nature need to get to, and take the time to talk to those folks and tell them very clearly what the problems were, and what the VERY simple solutions are. There's no guarantee that this will ever accomplish anything, but if enough people do it, it might.
That is... unless the ones with the power to make changes can only be reached via phone #'s that lead to automated systems...
Friday, April 01, 2005
What's the thrill of winning?
My husband, and some of my friends, LOVE games; I don't mean video games, I mean elaborate board games, sometimes involving role-playing, that take forever to master and almost forever to play... like I've said, we're geeks, and we know other geeks. I've watched these otherwise lovely people go at the cardboard cutouts and plastic tokens like they actually MEANT something, as if the outcome of the game had some significance to real life; if I'M stuck playing, by contrast, I pretty much just do whatever the minimum motions are for an official turn and make whatever choices there are at random... I'm there with people to socialize, not to struggle to collect cards or fake $ or whatever the silly goal of the game is. I've never been able to understand why anyone would take it any more seriously than that, or what the joy is in engaging in mock battles to take over some section of a board or kill off imaginary characters, or in general why people treat winning ANY game like it's a big deal... because IT'S NOT, hence the common phrase "it's just a game."
It isn't just hard-core gamers who get overly caught up; you can be at a party, and people who haven't played a game in a decade will start in on Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit like their very lives were at stake... and some folks will go beyond trying inexplicably hard to win to being downright nasty about it, as if their honor (and/or manhood) were hanging in the balance.
The passion for winning can become truly frightening with sports; perhaps it's more primal, and the biological drive to prove fitness in order to win mates is involved, but I've seen mild-mannered types turn into virtual psychos when they're playing a close one on the tennis or basketball court. WHY? What difference does it make who wins the golf game or racquetball match? Why is winning such a thrill that even if there's no $ or other prize involved, people will STILL put everything they've got into trying to do it?
This is one of the many areas where I differ from the overwhelming majority of the human race, and just plain can't understand my fellow (wo)man; everyone assures me that games are fun, and winning is really fun, and that fiercely competing against a skillful opponent and coming out on top is REALLY fun... but I don't see it. I don't enjoy games; I don't like to compete, as pitting myself against other people seems adversarial and counterproductive to me, I dislike losing, which I'll nearly always do, and I dislike winning even more, because if *I* win it means that everyone else LOST, and why would THAT be enjoyable?
I sometimes wonder if I'm from another planet...
It isn't just hard-core gamers who get overly caught up; you can be at a party, and people who haven't played a game in a decade will start in on Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit like their very lives were at stake... and some folks will go beyond trying inexplicably hard to win to being downright nasty about it, as if their honor (and/or manhood) were hanging in the balance.
The passion for winning can become truly frightening with sports; perhaps it's more primal, and the biological drive to prove fitness in order to win mates is involved, but I've seen mild-mannered types turn into virtual psychos when they're playing a close one on the tennis or basketball court. WHY? What difference does it make who wins the golf game or racquetball match? Why is winning such a thrill that even if there's no $ or other prize involved, people will STILL put everything they've got into trying to do it?
This is one of the many areas where I differ from the overwhelming majority of the human race, and just plain can't understand my fellow (wo)man; everyone assures me that games are fun, and winning is really fun, and that fiercely competing against a skillful opponent and coming out on top is REALLY fun... but I don't see it. I don't enjoy games; I don't like to compete, as pitting myself against other people seems adversarial and counterproductive to me, I dislike losing, which I'll nearly always do, and I dislike winning even more, because if *I* win it means that everyone else LOST, and why would THAT be enjoyable?
I sometimes wonder if I'm from another planet...
Thursday, March 31, 2005
What's real love like?
How does it feel to have true, deep, lasting love for someone? Not lust, not infatuation, not romantic idealization, not obsession, but REAL love? Most people had at least one early relationship, more likely several, in which they were SURE they were feeling true love, that with hindsight they can see was/were only infatuations, just like the adults in their lives condescendingly told them; more mature love feels very different, but does that means it's real love? Being older isn't insurance against self-delusion, is it? After all, older people have relationships that fail all the time, and if a relationship fails it wasn't real love... yes, I know that many young people, and some older ones too, will howl in dismay about that, but, in the same way that you don't stop loving biological family members, if you get that bone-deep love for a romantic partner, it DOES last your entire life.
A few years ago, I saw a movie in which I heard a line that floored me, which totally explained how I felt about my husband; I repeated the line to him, and he thought it was the most special thing I'd ever said to him, and that it was the perfect description of lasting love, of how, when the euphoric getting-to-know-you phase fades, and life together is mostly doing chores, coexisting, and arguing, with few moments of the intense enjoyment we as a culture are deluded into thinking are what a relationship should be made of, people who truly love each other still would never consider being apart. This is the line I'm talking about:
"My love for X resembles the eternal rocks beneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary."
If you can substitute the name of your partner for "X," congratulations; you've got the relationship brass ring... real love. If this describes how you feel about your partner, then you'd never want to break up with them even during bad times, any more than you'd want to give up your kids when they're putting you through hell; true love endures, whether it's romantic or familial.
The quote is from "Wuthering Heights," and I'll include the extended version here, because it gives the contrast between real love and the fake version that most people are fooled by, and because it'll add a little clarification:
"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods; time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
I don't think I go 5 consecutive minutes without having some sort of thought related to my husband on most days (sometimes I'm insanely busy, of course, but that's the exception); he's so deeply permeated into my life and, as the quote says, my being, that it's unavoidable. I don't rave about him, because he's a flawed human being, and I see him clearly as such, rather than seeing him as "wonderful." He's got all the disgusting male habits, and I don't gloss them over in my mind, and so don't see him as somehow superior to other men. What makes him special is that he's the right person for me; he's my "eternal rocks." When you think about it, doesn't that sound better than the wine and roses our culture programs us to want?
A few years ago, I saw a movie in which I heard a line that floored me, which totally explained how I felt about my husband; I repeated the line to him, and he thought it was the most special thing I'd ever said to him, and that it was the perfect description of lasting love, of how, when the euphoric getting-to-know-you phase fades, and life together is mostly doing chores, coexisting, and arguing, with few moments of the intense enjoyment we as a culture are deluded into thinking are what a relationship should be made of, people who truly love each other still would never consider being apart. This is the line I'm talking about:
"My love for X resembles the eternal rocks beneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary."
If you can substitute the name of your partner for "X," congratulations; you've got the relationship brass ring... real love. If this describes how you feel about your partner, then you'd never want to break up with them even during bad times, any more than you'd want to give up your kids when they're putting you through hell; true love endures, whether it's romantic or familial.
The quote is from "Wuthering Heights," and I'll include the extended version here, because it gives the contrast between real love and the fake version that most people are fooled by, and because it'll add a little clarification:
"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods; time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
I don't think I go 5 consecutive minutes without having some sort of thought related to my husband on most days (sometimes I'm insanely busy, of course, but that's the exception); he's so deeply permeated into my life and, as the quote says, my being, that it's unavoidable. I don't rave about him, because he's a flawed human being, and I see him clearly as such, rather than seeing him as "wonderful." He's got all the disgusting male habits, and I don't gloss them over in my mind, and so don't see him as somehow superior to other men. What makes him special is that he's the right person for me; he's my "eternal rocks." When you think about it, doesn't that sound better than the wine and roses our culture programs us to want?
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
If you were to die today...
... what would your obituary say? Think about it; imagine that you're famous enough that the papers would run a story about you when you died, and then imagine that you died today... what would they write about you? Would they describe all your services to the community, and the grief of your many loved ones, or would they mention only business accomplishments? If they interviewed your family, would they tearfully detail the many wonderful things you did, or would they acknowledge that you were a good provider, because all you did was work? Would the article have to be a long one to list all of the aspects of your well-rounded existence, or would they have to mention your passion for watching TV and eating corn chips to pad it out? Would the paper be able to pick and choose from many people eager to sing your praises, or would they have to beat the bushes looking for anyone with a kind word to say?
Would our fellow bloggers all be posting about what a loss you were to the world, or would they be saying that no fuss should be made over your death because you weren't an admirable person, or even a particularly nice one?
This isn't a very comfortable thing to contemplate, and you probably haven't actually done it, or not done more than assure yourself of how devastated everyone who ever knew you would be upon your passing, but it's a useful exercise, because it can show you something you don't normally ponder... an overview of your life as others see it.
What brought this idea into my mind, and you knew something had to have, was a fascinating bit of trivia I learned recently about Alfred Nobel, the man who invented dynamite as well as endowing the Nobel prizes; when his brother passed away, a French newspaper mistakenly printed an obituary for Alfred, in which he was referred to as the "merchant of death"... and this unpleasant realization of how he'd be remembered spurred him to create the Nobel prizes, so that he'd be remembered for them instead. You can read more about him here:
http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa120202a.htm
The modern world is so intricate and fast-paced that all too often we don't see anything beyond what we're doing right now, much less the big picture; although it's unlikely that any of us have done anything that'd give us the notoriety that Nobel almost died with, we'd all do well to ask ourselves honestly what an objective summation of our lives would be, should the need arise for one.
Would our fellow bloggers all be posting about what a loss you were to the world, or would they be saying that no fuss should be made over your death because you weren't an admirable person, or even a particularly nice one?
This isn't a very comfortable thing to contemplate, and you probably haven't actually done it, or not done more than assure yourself of how devastated everyone who ever knew you would be upon your passing, but it's a useful exercise, because it can show you something you don't normally ponder... an overview of your life as others see it.
What brought this idea into my mind, and you knew something had to have, was a fascinating bit of trivia I learned recently about Alfred Nobel, the man who invented dynamite as well as endowing the Nobel prizes; when his brother passed away, a French newspaper mistakenly printed an obituary for Alfred, in which he was referred to as the "merchant of death"... and this unpleasant realization of how he'd be remembered spurred him to create the Nobel prizes, so that he'd be remembered for them instead. You can read more about him here:
http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa120202a.htm
The modern world is so intricate and fast-paced that all too often we don't see anything beyond what we're doing right now, much less the big picture; although it's unlikely that any of us have done anything that'd give us the notoriety that Nobel almost died with, we'd all do well to ask ourselves honestly what an objective summation of our lives would be, should the need arise for one.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Am I about to become a grandma?
Given that I don't even have any kids (unless you count my husband, lol), how could I ever be a grandmother? I'll grant that it's stretching a point, but:
A tiny squirrel has been hanging out on my property since early last summer; recently, I've been able to hand-feed and even pet him (see my post of 1-24-05), which, since my husband and I love the little darling with all our hearts, has been a big, BIG deal. Squirrels undergo various degrees of hibernation in cold weather, and ours had been emerging 1 or 2 days a week and barricading himself in his burrow the rest of the time; when it warmed up, he started coming out more and eating like a maniac. He started getting bigger. And BIGGER. The formerly-svelte creature got SO big that we were saying, "Gee, if we hadn't seen his little male parts several times, we'd really be wondering if this was a pregnant female."
Our little angel-boy didn't come for several days, and then, when he DID show up, he was MUCH thinner; I got several minutes of footage of him with the camcorder, although he uncharacteristically wouldn't come to the door to get walnuts, and my husband looked at it tonight, and compared it with the next most recent footage... and I'm not imagining it, he IS alot thinner.
I'm trying desperately to not get my hopes up, but the only explanation we can come up with is that what we thought were little male parts in the long fur of the squirrel's nether regions were actually some other form of anatomical protrusions, and thus that the naughty and rambunctious creature that we've always assumed was male is in fact a female who just gave birth within the past few days... and that means we're going to be getting SQUIRREL BABIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ground squirrels typically have about 8 babies, which emerge from the burrow at 6-8 weeks of age, depending on who you believe; I don't know how I'll make it over the next couple of months, not knowing for sure if there are babies, and if so if they're ok. When the time comes, though, if the much-longed-for swarm of itty-bitty squirrelettes shows up on my patio, I'm going to consider myself their grandma, just as pet owners (mostly female ones) often see themselves as the grandparents of their pets' babies.
Will I in fact have the inexpressible joy of loving a bunch of squirrel babies? Stick around and see; we should know for sure by the end of May.
A tiny squirrel has been hanging out on my property since early last summer; recently, I've been able to hand-feed and even pet him (see my post of 1-24-05), which, since my husband and I love the little darling with all our hearts, has been a big, BIG deal. Squirrels undergo various degrees of hibernation in cold weather, and ours had been emerging 1 or 2 days a week and barricading himself in his burrow the rest of the time; when it warmed up, he started coming out more and eating like a maniac. He started getting bigger. And BIGGER. The formerly-svelte creature got SO big that we were saying, "Gee, if we hadn't seen his little male parts several times, we'd really be wondering if this was a pregnant female."
Our little angel-boy didn't come for several days, and then, when he DID show up, he was MUCH thinner; I got several minutes of footage of him with the camcorder, although he uncharacteristically wouldn't come to the door to get walnuts, and my husband looked at it tonight, and compared it with the next most recent footage... and I'm not imagining it, he IS alot thinner.
I'm trying desperately to not get my hopes up, but the only explanation we can come up with is that what we thought were little male parts in the long fur of the squirrel's nether regions were actually some other form of anatomical protrusions, and thus that the naughty and rambunctious creature that we've always assumed was male is in fact a female who just gave birth within the past few days... and that means we're going to be getting SQUIRREL BABIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ground squirrels typically have about 8 babies, which emerge from the burrow at 6-8 weeks of age, depending on who you believe; I don't know how I'll make it over the next couple of months, not knowing for sure if there are babies, and if so if they're ok. When the time comes, though, if the much-longed-for swarm of itty-bitty squirrelettes shows up on my patio, I'm going to consider myself their grandma, just as pet owners (mostly female ones) often see themselves as the grandparents of their pets' babies.
Will I in fact have the inexpressible joy of loving a bunch of squirrel babies? Stick around and see; we should know for sure by the end of May.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Easter
We nearly missed it this year; if a friend hadn't asked me on Friday what we were having for Easter dinner, I think we honestly wouldn't have remembered until my husband tried to go to Home Depot on Sunday and found that it was closed (yes, that actually happened). We DID manage to have a good dinner, thanks to my friend's reminder, but barely; my husband had to hit every grocery store in town to come up with a decent roast... it was a VERY close call, since he didn't find one until this afternoon.
Unfortunately, despite a little advanced warning, our home showed a distinct lack of baskets, bunnies and chicks today; as always, I was held hostage by my husband's refusal to dig the boxes out from the floor-to-ceiling "storage stacks" until the night before a holiday, and, because he ended up going to some worthless punk show at the last minute, and refused to do anything when he got home (don't get me started on that one, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr), I couldn't get my Easter decorations out AGAIN this year. I'm not overly sentimental, but I've got some eggs that date back to when I was a little kid, and they're almost all I have that's that old, so it's dismaying to never get to SEE them.
The REALLY sad thing about today is that we didn't have any Easter candy, because we didn't even think about it until too late; it just didn't feel like Easter without being able to eat anything egg-shaped and sugary. My husband's going to swing by Godiva tomorrow morning and see if they have some leftovers on sale, and they probably will, and there'll probably be other good stuff on sale at the general and drug stores, but... it just won't be the same.
You know you've gotten to be TOO geeky when you can't even keep track of major holidays, lol.
It wasn't that bad of a day, though, because we got alot of the backlog of chores handled, and the roast was really tasty. I discovered several of my husband's singleton socks, which, since he usually has about 20-30 unmated socks at any given time, is always a welcome occurrence, and we dug out a couple of piles of his clothes that had sat out of circulation for so long that he didn't know if they were dirty or clean... I made HIM smell them all, of course, I'm not a masochist. Finding these clothes explained why it used to seem like he had so many spare hangers; I say USED to, because I took all of them as I got new clothes... and now, he has no way to hang up his stuff until we get more. {snicker}
I caught Joel Osteen's Easter sermon; his main theme was that you have unlimited power within you, and all you have to do to tap into it is BELIEVE. Granted, he asserts that God put that power there, and it's God you have to believe IN to access it, but conceptually it's the same idea that keeps coming up this year; if you believe that power can and will come to you, from whatever source, that very belief will bring the power to you. It seems too simple, but there's gotta be a reason that karma keeps sending me this message, so...
Unfortunately, despite a little advanced warning, our home showed a distinct lack of baskets, bunnies and chicks today; as always, I was held hostage by my husband's refusal to dig the boxes out from the floor-to-ceiling "storage stacks" until the night before a holiday, and, because he ended up going to some worthless punk show at the last minute, and refused to do anything when he got home (don't get me started on that one, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr), I couldn't get my Easter decorations out AGAIN this year. I'm not overly sentimental, but I've got some eggs that date back to when I was a little kid, and they're almost all I have that's that old, so it's dismaying to never get to SEE them.
The REALLY sad thing about today is that we didn't have any Easter candy, because we didn't even think about it until too late; it just didn't feel like Easter without being able to eat anything egg-shaped and sugary. My husband's going to swing by Godiva tomorrow morning and see if they have some leftovers on sale, and they probably will, and there'll probably be other good stuff on sale at the general and drug stores, but... it just won't be the same.
You know you've gotten to be TOO geeky when you can't even keep track of major holidays, lol.
It wasn't that bad of a day, though, because we got alot of the backlog of chores handled, and the roast was really tasty. I discovered several of my husband's singleton socks, which, since he usually has about 20-30 unmated socks at any given time, is always a welcome occurrence, and we dug out a couple of piles of his clothes that had sat out of circulation for so long that he didn't know if they were dirty or clean... I made HIM smell them all, of course, I'm not a masochist. Finding these clothes explained why it used to seem like he had so many spare hangers; I say USED to, because I took all of them as I got new clothes... and now, he has no way to hang up his stuff until we get more. {snicker}
I caught Joel Osteen's Easter sermon; his main theme was that you have unlimited power within you, and all you have to do to tap into it is BELIEVE. Granted, he asserts that God put that power there, and it's God you have to believe IN to access it, but conceptually it's the same idea that keeps coming up this year; if you believe that power can and will come to you, from whatever source, that very belief will bring the power to you. It seems too simple, but there's gotta be a reason that karma keeps sending me this message, so...
Sunday, March 27, 2005
An odd new fantasy
I was flipping through a magazine today (they'd sent me a free one, in a failed attempt to get me to subscribe), and something unexpected caught my eye; the word "fossils." This isn't an unfamiliar word to someone who reads science articles, of course, but this was a fashion mag, and the article was about decorating, not paleontology; I read the rest of the paragraph, and discovered that you can, if you're willing to spend enough $, procure tiles made of sandstone that's full of little fossils... REAL fossils. There apparently IS a fake version of this for far less $, but the author of the article said that the fake just wouldn't be the same, and, although I think that most of the frenzy for high-priced original whatevers in decorating is pure snobbery, I think she was right; nothing manmade can compare to sandstone with fossils that are millions of years old.
Just thinking about having some of that gave me CHILLS.
It's not like I've never had access to fossils before; I've spent more than my share of time in museum gift shops, and I've had a rock with a fossil fern imprint since I was a kid and never thought much of it. There was just something about the scale of it, the thought of having a WALL of fossil-bearing rock, that really appealed to me on some weird, deep level. I started thinking about it, at first using the bathroom idea from the article, and imagining going even further to having one of those grotto-type tub setups like you see sometimes in photos of rich people's homes, but I don't take tub baths, and would never want to, so then I started imagining...
A room that would help me get in touch with the primitive part of my brain. A room that would take me back to our ancient oneness with nature. A room that would lift me totally out of my normal life. A room with glass walls and ceiling that would let in sunlight and moonlight, which would be supplemented by hidden fixtures that mimic natural light; ferns and such in hanging planters would make the light dim and green and hide the ceiling, and more plants and little trees would hide the walls. There'd be a water feature starting near the ceiling, zig-zagging over lots of rocks to make plenty of "water noise," and ending up in a little pool, which would have water lilies and fish. I'd want a sound system with speakers all around that could play one of those CD'S with rain forest sounds (exotic birds and such), possibly alternating with Gregorian chants, and certainly recordings of the traditional chants of native peoples if I could find them (the soundtrack to "Koyaanisqatsi" might do in a pinch). And finally, around the pool and partway up one wall, would be the sandstone with the fossils, where I could touch it and lean against it and sit on it and meditate looking at it and... commune with it, how strange of a thought is that?
The thought of being able to escape to this room and absorb the ambience is... well, magical.
Because my husband and I are geeks, if we were really wealthy it wouldn't change our lives much; all we want is a pile of computer equipment and a few basic comforts, and we've already got all of that... sure, I always figured I'd get some furniture that'd be too cool to ever use, some art to put in rooms we wouldn't go into much, etc, but nothing grand. Now though, for reasons that I haven't quite figured out yet, if I ever get rich enough I have something I want that'd be worthy of inclusion in an article in one of those glossy magazines that cater to the constantly-redecorating-with-giant-budgets crowd. Go figure.
Just thinking about having some of that gave me CHILLS.
It's not like I've never had access to fossils before; I've spent more than my share of time in museum gift shops, and I've had a rock with a fossil fern imprint since I was a kid and never thought much of it. There was just something about the scale of it, the thought of having a WALL of fossil-bearing rock, that really appealed to me on some weird, deep level. I started thinking about it, at first using the bathroom idea from the article, and imagining going even further to having one of those grotto-type tub setups like you see sometimes in photos of rich people's homes, but I don't take tub baths, and would never want to, so then I started imagining...
A room that would help me get in touch with the primitive part of my brain. A room that would take me back to our ancient oneness with nature. A room that would lift me totally out of my normal life. A room with glass walls and ceiling that would let in sunlight and moonlight, which would be supplemented by hidden fixtures that mimic natural light; ferns and such in hanging planters would make the light dim and green and hide the ceiling, and more plants and little trees would hide the walls. There'd be a water feature starting near the ceiling, zig-zagging over lots of rocks to make plenty of "water noise," and ending up in a little pool, which would have water lilies and fish. I'd want a sound system with speakers all around that could play one of those CD'S with rain forest sounds (exotic birds and such), possibly alternating with Gregorian chants, and certainly recordings of the traditional chants of native peoples if I could find them (the soundtrack to "Koyaanisqatsi" might do in a pinch). And finally, around the pool and partway up one wall, would be the sandstone with the fossils, where I could touch it and lean against it and sit on it and meditate looking at it and... commune with it, how strange of a thought is that?
The thought of being able to escape to this room and absorb the ambience is... well, magical.
Because my husband and I are geeks, if we were really wealthy it wouldn't change our lives much; all we want is a pile of computer equipment and a few basic comforts, and we've already got all of that... sure, I always figured I'd get some furniture that'd be too cool to ever use, some art to put in rooms we wouldn't go into much, etc, but nothing grand. Now though, for reasons that I haven't quite figured out yet, if I ever get rich enough I have something I want that'd be worthy of inclusion in an article in one of those glossy magazines that cater to the constantly-redecorating-with-giant-budgets crowd. Go figure.
