Monthly Archives: November 2007

Going To the Discotheque A Go Go

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Previously on Poor Impulse Control, someone asked for help:

The following items are of great use to the deployers:

Black/brown t-shirts and black socks
crystal light packets
individual size beef jerky
nuts
energy bars
lip balm
sun screen
foot powder
baby wipes
hand/antibacterial soap
toothbrushes
floss
individually wrapped hard candy
phone cards
blank greeting cards/letter writing materials
sunflower seeds
assorted snack items

You can send some items, all these items, a case of any one kind of item. They will be grateful for what you send, regardless. Also: they especially want hand sanitizer and baby wipes.

Not on the list: I have heard that eye drops are also prized. Books are also great.

My contact with the program, who shall remain charmingly anonymous and not a person I made myself, says also:

We also have a program for our families called Operation Sweet Dreams. In this program the family member sends us a digital photo, we transfer to a pillowcase and the family gives to the deployed member to take with them or is sent to the deployed location. With that we would need plain white pillow cases.

Donations can be dropped off or mailed to:
Airman & Family Readiness Center
706 Washington Ave
Bldg 10122
Vandenberg AFB, CA 93437

Right after that, minstrel and I gabbed about the truffle shop he’s going to open, the sun came out and birds sang. You were overwhelmed with holiday spirit and mailed off a case of sunflower seeds and Crystal Light. I ordered this for my alleged future grandson. What? Thought I wouldn’t? Gabba gabba hey, dude. But that’s all clouds in our coffee when we’ve got storms in the sugar.

Recently, a chain letter circulated asking folks to send cards to “A Recovering American Soldier” at Walter Reed “Home of Warrior Care” Medical Center. That may have been an excellent plan last year but this year: not so much. The Department of Defense apparently does not accept cards addressed to nobody in particular. Here’s their request for other kinds of help.

Thus, I don’t know what to say about Let’s Say Thanks, a project by Xerox. You pick a design drawn and colored by a child, write a message and Xerox sends it off to a serviceman or servicewoman. Perhaps Xerox has a list, we don’t know. No one answered when I wrote to this project’s contact email.

This past week, no one skittering past my cubicle has not complained about how fast Thanksgiving approaches. We are lucky in the sense that each of us has plenty to eat and in-laws to curse, but not everyone is. This year, food banks have struggled. If you can, please help a food bank, an outreach program or a soup kitchen. It’s never too late to set up a paper bag in your kitchen and drop a can into it each time you grocery shop. Your generosity matters. If your budget’s squeezy, you can still lend a hand.

How Quickly I Was Replaced

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Stop & Shop Consumer Affairs

To Whom It Concerns:

I’m not an open letter kind of gal, but your contact form offers few specifics. Let’s pretend this is the New York Times and, since I’m publishing this on a blog, that other people are actually reading it. Isn’t this cozy? Hi, Mom!

I live in a small town on the Raritan River in New Jersey. If you’ve ever been to New Jersey, you know towns butt up against one another and no town can help sniffing what’s only a town over. The Stop & Shop I can walk to is so bad I get in the car and drive to the Stop & Shop two towns away for – well – anything I really want, though sometimes I drive down Route 27 to the Stop & Shop four towns south of here. I’ve taken to calling my local grocery store The Extortion Mart because residents of this proud walking community might as well jog up, tithe and jog away, lest reanimating produce leap out at us. Needless to say, there’s almost nothing in that store I want except cat litter and entertainment.

The other night, my Handsome Prince and I sought baking ingredients. Late last week, I’d picked up a salad and cut fruit for a quick dinner away from home and ended up spitting out rotten grapes at a relatively ballistic velocity so I have become persnickety in the produce aisle. But that tragedy is behind us now! Color us optimistic, we walked the aisles of The Extortion Mart. I had certain ingredients in mind because my co-workers had declared Tuesday, November 13th National Pie Day. I know. National Pie Day is actually observed on January 23rd, and their declaration conflicted with Felix Unger Day, but I admired the joie de vivre. I wanted Philadelphia’s new Cheesecake In a Drum and a graham cracker crumb pie shell but the store did not stock the cheesecake goo. Making real cheesecake might give my co-workers the impression I cared about them, so that was o-u-t out! The baking aisle lacked gelatin leaves for fruit compote topping but stocked instant no-bake cheesecake mixes, so my office situation is still a little tense. Fortunately, the usual mayhem occurred in the checkout line, where I instinctively resorted to belting out Ethel Merman tunes when an employee mumbling to himself cut in front of us. My Handsome Prince wanted to pick up the offending teen by his collar, but can’t resist Anything Goes! And tranquility ensued.

As something of a connoisseur of Stop & Shops, I know how responsive your store managers are to customer suggestions for new products. I could, as I have many times, take a manager aside and ask if, say, baking pans shouldn’t be in the baking aisle but no one wants to be seen as fixating. No, no one does! Yet, it boggles what’s left of my tiny little mind that in 2007, and in the third quarter even, recycled paper products may be found in your stores only after an extensive, coordinated search. In two of the three stores I frequent, recycled toilet paper can be found in a corner, huddled, lonely, like a redheaded stepchild. I’ve been a redheaded stepchild. L’Oreal still makes the best dyes. But the third store doesn’t even carry recycled toilet paper, and none of them carries recycled paper towels. I am perfectly willing to warble No Business Like Show Business if I can find the products I need, and that make sense in this time and place. But – if I may be so bold – this is ridiculous.

You may say that the market creates the situation and if people wanted recycled paper products you would stock them in impressive numbers. That, as you know, is self-perpetuating nonsense. If you display and offer coupons for a variety of recycled products, people will buy them. Some Stop & Shops have green product ghettos. In one such cold case, I found whole milk yogurt. Why were there two yogurt cases? Why shouldn’t green diapers be next to Pampers and Huggies? Why shouldn’t nutritious cereals sit side by side with Cocoa Puffs? Let’s be honest: if customers don’t know they have these options, they’re going to be less and less optional. Customers need them, and you can make money meeting those needs.

Back to the butt-sniffing: while it is true that I will still cautiously shop at The Extortion Mart – and try not to touch anything that looks especially Swamp Thing-y – for small items, the lack of sensible choices sometimes forces me to serenade shoppers at Acme and Pathmark in nearby towns.

I thought you should know.

You Staring Back At Me

Posted by Tata on

It’s 10 A.M. and I haven’t seen my gmail because I got tangled in this how-to tar pit.

How To Be Honest

Hang onto your garters, Martha. This one’s got potential.

It’s been said that honesty is the best policy. It sounds like the simplest thing in the world, but being truly honest, with others and with yourself, can be a real challenge. Political correctness, being sensitive of other people’s feelings, and facing uncomfortable truths about yourself can take lots of thought and work. Steps:

1. Understand the workings of dishonesty. Most of us learned to be dishonest as children, when we realized that saying certain things (and not saying certain things) would garner approval and praise, or the opposite. Along the way, we can lose track of where to draw the line and how dishonesty can negatively affect our lives (see Warnings below). Dishonesty often becomes a tool used to:[1]

* pretend nothing is wrong
* shift the blame to others
* avoid embarrassment
* distract ourselves
* minimize conflict
* avoid responsibility or work

…And your reward is a fulfilling career in a shitty sevice industry – I mean, politics. Somewhere down the to-do list, it all comes undone.

5. Exercise tact. We all know that being literally honest can hurt feelings and turn friendships sour. It can also be misinterpreted as criticism or a lack of support. It’s very tempting to tell a “white lie” when dealing with sensitive loved ones (especially children), but you can still be honest by being creative in how you express the truth.

* Emphasize the positive. Shift the focus away from what, in all honesty, you think is negative. Instead of saying “No, I don’t think you look good in those pants” say “They’re not as flattering as the black dress–that dress really looks amazing on you. Have you tried it on with those stockings you wore to my cousin’s wedding last year?”
* Be vague. When asked a direct question (especially by children) and you know that your honest answer will make the situation worse, be as general as possible, and try to change the subject as soon as you can. If asked whether Santa Claus is real, for example, say “I’ve never met him myself, but just because we don’t see something with our own eyes doesn’t mean it can’t be real. You don’t see air, but you breathe it all the time, right?” Or, turn the question around: “Why do you ask?”
* You have the right to remain silent. If you’re pushed into a corner and don’t know how to respond, say “Can we talk about this another time?” or “I really don’t feel comfortable talking about this. You should really address this with…” Don’t say “I don’t know” if you really do know–it can come back to bite you in the rear later on. The person might catch on and realize that you know something, and they might get pushy. Repeat yourself and leave the conversation as quickly as possible.
* When all else fails, be honest–but gently. Wrap the potentially hurtful truth in appreciation, praise, and, if applicable, affection.

So the high road to honesty is paved with sticky little white lies. Fortunately, in vino one can count on veritas, and thanks to new packaging methods, you too can be soaking in it.

Or macerating, as the case may be. My brother Todd, bartender to the stars, sent along this gem of an AOL recommendation without commenting on its retcherous coding, possibly because he was flabbergasted by the suggestion that a bottle of wine might outlast one commercial break in a house full of blood-related House fans. But I digress.

The Three Thieves site makes visitors promise they’re over 21, so if you’re not, this is an excellent place to practice for your career in honest lying. I mean, what? If you’re under 21 you can’t even read about wine? Now there’s a steamer.

Being socially responsible, the Three Thieves have a section of their website devoted to pointing out that you should enjoy their products responsibly. This page is called Jug Support, and reminded me that one of my uncles got arrested years ago for walking while intoxicated. If only he’d had a dog, he could’ve said he was just following that short, furry guy, honest!

Someone Looking After You

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Courtesy of Mr. Wintle, we find a fantastic new game combining words, hunger-fighting do-goodery and work-related time-wasting. It’s like the Superbowl of I’m Bored vs. This World Could Suck Less – and you’re painted up green!

Here’s the description – For every word you get right we donate 10 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger – and you want that! You can read all about how it works and learn about poverty and add your name to the One Campaign. It’s chic to care, and you’re so stylish I could just peeench you!

You pick the definitions. The advertisers fund the rice. Your boss wonders why your reports are speckled with five-dollar words. Let’s play.

Don’t Forget: You Can Get Off the Conveyor

Posted by Tata on

Last night, Pete and I went to Costco because if one of something is good, I want eight, and Costco has that! It’s great for our care package project. You can participate almost without effort. See?

The following items are of great use to the deployers:

Black/brown t-shirts and black socks
crystal light packets
individual size beef jerky
nuts
energy bars
lip balm
sun screen
foot powder
baby wipes
hand/antibacterial soap
toothbrushes
floss
individually wrapped hard candy
phone cards
blank greeting cards/letter writing materials
sunflower seeds
assorted snack items

You can send some items, all these items, a case of any one kind of item. They will be grateful for what you send, regardless. Also: they especially want hand sanitizer and baby wipes.

Not on the list: I have heard that eye drops are also prized. Books are also great.

My contact with the program, who shall remain charmingly anonymous and not a person I made myself, says also:

We also have a program for our families called Operation Sweet Dreams. In this program the family member sends us a digital photo, we transfer to a pillowcase and the family gives to the deployed member to take with them or is sent to the deployed location. With that we would need plain white pillow cases.

Donations can be dropped off or mailed to:
Airman & Family Readiness Center
706 Washington Ave
Bldg 10122
Vandenberg AFB, CA 93437

Whenever I mention this project, minstrel and I have a charming conversation in comments about his plans to open a truffle shop, and while I’m desperate to hear more about these truffles I’m not yet eating, I can’t help but notice you Poor Impulsives make the crickets! crickets! sound about air-mailing to airmen. My feelings are not hurt! I read the stats, and I can see between 450-700 of you drop by every day for profiteroles at tea time. Maybe you’re just not the fussy “Me, too!” type: good for you! Without a word, you mailed off a six-pack of granola bars. I love you so madly I’d like to test my no-transfer lipstick: MWAH!

So there we were, tooling about the flavored water and juice aisle and Pete seemed restive and distracted.

Tata: So when you’re happy – hooray!
Or sad – Aw!
Or frightened – Eek!
Or mad – Rats!
Or excited – Wow!
Or glad – Hey!
An interjection starts the sentence right!
Pete: What – what are you singing?
Tata: Generally set apart from a sentence
By an exclamation point!
Or by a comma when the feeling’s not as strong!
Pete: You serenade me with punctuation?
Tata: I serenade you with Schoolhouse Rock. It’s the only reason I can multiply.

I pirouetted between the meatcase and the fresh seafood display. Nobody batted an eye.

Tata: See? Three six nine, twelve fifteen eighteen, twenty-one twenty-four twenty-seven, thirty!

Pete giggled as only very secure men and teenage girls can.

Pete: Let’s go look at cookies.

Pretty Dangerous, You’re Looking

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It got a lot tougher to trick family members into doing stuff I wanted after they started reading the blog. I’ve had to get tricker still by assuming a couple of extra aliases and doing – um – things. But back to what I want –

Daria: How was your trip?
Tata: Good! Pete did all the driving. We took an accidental scenic tour of Staunton, Virginia and roasted a chicken for Darla. Then we did what we always do.
Daria: Drink box wine and stay up too late talking?
Tata: Exactly, so getting up in the morning was exciting but less so than you might think. I didn’t notice we’d forgotten to bring in my little suitcase until about 2 AM, so I couldn’t be bothered. It was warm, so I slept in a t-shirt. Pete opened the window for some fresh air. In the middle of the night, I woke up chilly because I was, you know, wearing no pants.
Daria: I can’t remember the last time I did that. Oooh! Tequila. So you got under the covers?
Tata: We were sleeping in Dara’s old room and the blanket only appeared to cover the bed, see, so no matter how close we got the blanket only covered one of us. I was chilly enough that it was a situation but not so chilly that it wasn’t an antic. Eventually, I fell asleep and dreamed about what I wouldn’t do for a Klondike Bar. Hey, did I tell you about Mom’s phone?
Daria: Mom’s phone? What phone? Mom screens every call.
Tata: I was thinking about the last time I was at her house. The phone rang about every fifteen minutes while we were waiting for a call from Grandpa. It was all sales calls. I couldn’t believe it.
Daria: I hate the screening. Mom! Mom! Pick up! I know you’re there! I know you’re running to the phone, you’re just about there and – pick up, Mom!
Tata: She says she hates the sales calls but I swear they make her feel popular. I kept asking why she didn’t do something about it, it’s just so simple. She was all like, “I have to give thinking about that idea further consideration before I ponder it.” I just about swallowed my tongue! So there I am thinking about the holidays, picturing the non-stop ringing of the phone and I did something rash.
Daria: What did you do?
Tata: I added Mom’s home phone number to the National Do Not Call List.
Daria: No, you didn’t!
Tata: Yes, I did, and I’d do it again! – Though I’m sure I just put a cadre of phone operators out of jobs. Alas! I do not increase the Gross National Product! These are the sad, sad consequences of my ruthless prank!
Daria: You’re back at work, right? Did you ever put on some pants?
Tata: Why? You afraid someone’ll look for my union label?

– Certainly, I enjoy seeing something reasonable happen through trickery and outright lying. Siobhan and I share this desire to the bottoms of our pointy shoes. She tricks her father into eating vegetables by pretending to coat them in schmaltz. We call it the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Transfat! Diet. I will someday trick my mother into writing a will while playing Scrabble in front of witnesses. What’ve you got for that double word score, Mom? P-R-O-B-A-T-E?

As You Are, As You Were

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Photo by Pete.

Pete and I drove to Virginia yesterday, collected Dad’s slides and drove back today. We are lumpy things lying on my couch, at great risk of suddenly snoring. We stopped at Charlie Brown’s and fell face-down into gin & tonics and comfort foods. I don’t remember much. It’s all a blur of receipts and unarmed mashed potatoes. Hey, we’re home!

This is a view of and from the driveway at Dad’s and Darla’s house in the Shenandoah Valley. That right there is a shed and a Blue Ridge Mountain, if you wondered. It is one of many. People say things like, “We’re going over the mountain to the Apple Cider Festival. Can I bring you a dozen doughnuts?” to which you must respond, “Yes, thank you.” No. Really.

The cats seem happy to have us home again.

Friday Cat Blogging: Every Mountain Edition

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Here we see the felis overjoyedicus at play on the four-foot ladder. Note that both cats attempt to assume the deceptively placid roaster position. This offers both stability and the opportunity to paw your sister’s head.

As you may have guessed, the humans belonging to these pussycats responded to this week’s cold weather by taking down the bronze organza summer curtains and hanging Grandma’s sturdy, draft-stopping drapes. The cats, covered with fur, tolerated these changes in their environment with great patience.

Crooked pictures in the background? Guess who!

The four-foot ladder has been with me a long time. It has helped me reach things for many years I would otherwise point at and whine, “Ehn ehn ehn!” I love this ladder. It lives in my kitchen because I am too petite to reach above the plate shelf, which raises an interesting question, I guess: people used to be a lot shorter than they are now. When these apartments were built after World War II, adults hadn’t grown up gnawing on beef at every meal as subsequent generations have. There are all kinds of charts and history out there somewhere about this. I looked for them but all I could find were charts about obesity screwing up our manhood, and since I’m not worried about mine, I gave up. Sometimes, when I’m standing in the kitchen with the eight-foot ceiling and cabinets that go all the way up, I wonder how the grandmas of the 1950s coped without stilts. It seems like a dirty trick to play on women especially, though I have no problem climbing on the counter to grab the powdered milk.

Here, Drusy is stalking me. Apparently, I am delicious prey she can nap next to, then chase for a diverting interlude. In the last week or so, Drusy has become enamored of my toes in a new and exciting way: she bats at them as if they might roll away. My toes do not roll, not like the myriad round cat toys littering the living room floor. Half a dozen times a day, I jump up and howl, “Dooo not bite Mama!” Promise, she will not. My toes are delicious! And she cannot resist their yummy allure.

The pussycats are fascinated by Pete’s every move, especially when he’s not making one. Topaz, my little bear cub, rushes to the door when she hears his bicycle outside, and throws herself against the door to keep him from leaving. In between, Topaz spends a good deal of time sitting at his feet, staring at him. It’s like a Sandra Dee movie without a beach. Drusy, meanwhile, discovered that cats enjoy cushiony reclining and that she is, in fact, a cat. So, we’re good there.

Changes Aren’t Permanent But Change Is

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Last night at 10, my phone rang, a highly unusual occurrence on a night where House hasn’t just ended. My underwear said Wednesday, so I was both happy and confused. Tuesday Weld must never share a closet with Wednesday Addams or my cousin Monday, and for crying out loud, my name is Domenica. Who the hell is calling?

Daria and Mom have put the kids to bed and hunkered down with dessert.

Daria: I just wanna tell you I’ve introduced Mom to your friends Ben & Jerry.

I turn to Pete and hiss, “They’re hitting the dairy products pretty hard. This could take awhile.”

Tata: Whadja do?
Daria: Your friends Ben & Jerry make an excellent creme brulee ice cream, which we are mmmmmppphh mmmmmmuph slurrrrrrp eating right now.
Tata: What about my friends pinot & grigio? Cozying up to them, too?
Daria: Absolutely. I made Mom sleep over because it’s still gin & tonic season. Thhhhhhhhhhp! Ahh! Refreshing!

In my mind’s mouth, the combination of tonic and caramelized sugar makes me purse my mental lips, but who am I to judge? I spent the next 20 minutes listening to Daria coax her husband Tyler to have some ice cream with the soothing chant, “…healthy teeth and bones, sweetheart, healthy teeth and bones…” This morning, I went looking for an image of the aforementioned treat and came across a San Diego bulletin board discussion of the product that was so filled with Limbaugh-tinged invective that I felt impelled to mention this important idea: there really are times to just zip it with the pointless and inflammatory rhetoric. I think less of a person who feels that a discussion of new and interesting ice cream products is a fine place to drop an unsolicited and fact-free assessment of MidEast peace prospects, and caramel. Well, maybe not the caramel. But if you’re not going to sample the aforementioned dairy treat because it’s made by people who treat each other decently, well, that’s your decision but do us all a favor and find something to talk about that doesn’t confirm to the bbs-reading public that you are a selfish, ignorant, ill-informed bastard who has never formed an independent opinion and doesn’t give a shit about another human being except Rush. I was interested in the fucking caramel crunch swirl!

But enough about me, what are you doing about holiday cards?

It’s that time of year when people you like and people you can’t remember will send you greeting cards revealing every intimate detail of pottytraining and festive mortgage refi. Let’s save ourselves the stress of trying to figure out how they got our addresses, shall we? If you’re the card-sending type, UNICEF can help with eye-catching cards, easy-to-mail gifts and that warm feeling that comes from knowing distant cousins won’t catch you off-guard again this year! Many items are handmade by collectives that do real good in parts of the world where it would be easy to think little good can be done. Have a look at the catalog and fear no flaunty PTA mom!

Myself, I haven’t bought ice cream in years. After this morning, I believe I might.

Update Yes! I know! That’s why it’s funny.