Freecycle, Redux.

I've posted before about my disgruntlement with my local Freecycle group. But over the last month, I've been pushed just about to my limit. It's probably my strong stubborn streak that's kept me going this long.

A bit of background, first. One of the main Freecycle rules is that you should not ask for high price items. It's a rule broken constantly and with impunity on our list. About six weeks ago, someone posted requesting a riding lawn mower, any condition as long as it runs. Her brother and her sons wanted to tinker with one for some kind of race you wouldn't catch me watching at the county fair. It so happens that I have a disreputable but running mower, and I offered it. Long story short, a week of telling me she'd be there, or her brother would...and I still have the freakin' mower. She claims to be in seriously ill health, her brother got stuck in traffic, yada yada. If she is ill, I'm sorry, and I've told her so...multiple times. Still doesn't mean that she couldn't have contacted me, or leaned on her brother to live up to his word.

Next, a woman posts that her new home only has wood heating. She wants us to donate deadwood to her, and she & her DH will pick it up, even cut down dead trees for the right to the wood. Okay, we have a couple of dead pines that need cleared out, so I emailed her. And heard nothing. One of our employees needed extra money for school, so we paid him to take down the most pressing one. Over five days later the wench writes back and says she THINKS they will take the wood, and she'll probably write to me at the end of the week for directions. I gave her a polite and pithy bit of advice - when someone offers you something, you doggone well have the courtesy to respond right away, and you do not leave them hanging!

Last, within the same month, I offered a lamp. It was too big, might need some wiring work, although it does work. A woman, who has been constantly begging for crap so we can all set her up in business in an ice cream parlour, jumped on it. Could be there the next morning. Fine, I gave her directions. I come home that evening, there it sits on my porch. No word from her, no apology, no nothing. I emailed the next person on the list, and she got it.

Now, we have seen a little more of the moderator than previously...BUT. She only appears when someone complains about an egregious violation of the rules, to scold the complainer! We should rest assured, sez she, that the rule breakers are being scolded off-list, and two strikes and they're out. I might buy that if I didn't see the same people doing the same crud over and over. Yesterday evening, someone had posted a service for hire, strictly verbotten, and several people (not I, I might add) jumped on her. The moderator, true to form, scolds them.

So, among others, I replied to that email today. I point out that if she told people ON the list when they were screwing up, others could take the lesson too, and maybe we'd have less of the violations going on. I also asked if there were something that could be done to cut down on no-shows.

I immediately got emails off list. First, from the tractor no-show, full of self-pity and sniveling that I should forgive her, and she'll buy me lunch. Of course, I really want to go to lunch and have this dingbat ruin my appetite. No thanks. If she were so worried about my forgiveness, she'd have emailed before, but not until I mentioned it to the list do I hear from her. I told her she didn't need me to forgive her; she'd taught me a lesson.

Another person told me that she found the onlist attacks more distressing than the original bad post...fine. Why tell me? I didn't post one! She then implied I was a moderator. Not. Any word over seven letters was misspelled. Having had enough, I informed her I wasn't moderator, I didn't respond to the original post, but simply asked the moderator a couple of questions. And feeling...you guessed it!....snarky, I told her to learn to spell, or to get spell-check.

Next, a woman who has attacked me off the list multiple times now. In fact, I have an auto-response sent up for when she emails me. She took me to task for responding to the moderator's message on the list...which is where it was posted! I did a little research, and pointed out that I wasn't surprised that she disagreed with me. Over the last several months, she has asked for, I kid you not, a set of left-handed golf clubs, if you please, a lawn mower (no relation to the other one), a Game Box, all the supplies to throw her brat a party, and diving equipment!!! And that's only a fraction.

She writes back, full of rationalizations, telling me that she and her DH are volunteer EMT/Firefighters. As my BIL, a professional in those fields, would say, they're probably worth every penny. After maligning my character to a fare-thee-well, and informing me how morally superior they are to me, she finishes up with this (directly copied, so sic ad infinitum)...

"I sure hope you or your loved ones never need medical help from us, transportation to the hospital, are involved in a motor vehicle accident, or heaven forbid your house catches on fire. If only you gave as much as we do....and not materialisticIy.....I wish you continued bitterness....and may all the unhappiness, negativity, and sarcasm you spread come back to ou 2-fold!"

Now, that sounds remarkably like a threat to me, and to anyone with whom I shared it. She better PRAY I never find out what firehouse she is with, because I'll just bet they don't condone that behavior. All because she knows she's a greedy glutton, and worse, knows it's obvious to me, and therefore others.

If karma is real, and I happen to think it is, it's positively frightening what she may have in store for her. While I've let everything else go by, this I reported to the Freecycle moderator. If it were my list, and I run plenty, anyone threatening another member would be gone.

Let's see if she has the cojones to do just that. If not, well, I'm stubborn, but I'm not stupid.

I won!

Now on the happier side of things. ;-)

A little bit ago, a friend of mine had a contest on her blog. Rosemarie was getting close to having 20,000 hits on her site, and decided that whomever that person was, s/he would win a prize package. It took awhile to reach, and the day it got close, well, I was a person obsessed. I'm so damned competitive, and over the smallest things! Or, to put a better spin on it, I'm focussed and goal-oriented. Now doesn't that sound admirable? Does too!

In this case, it paid off. If you visit her blog, you'll see what I won. I loved it all, of course, but was most excited by two things. The first was a knitted silk bookmark with my initials. Here's a pic Rosemarie took of it. Isn't it lovely? So soft, too. The other item that set me drooling was my choice of laceweight yarn. We narrowed it down to my color palette (how pretentious is THAT?) and I selected a TWO POUND cone of heavy-laceweight yarn in raspberry. Rosemarie, being the wise woman she is and given that she was shipping from Canada, removed the cardboard cone to reduce the weight, so I now have a center-pull-mostly-cone-shaped massive amount of wool. The picture makes it look a bit brighter than it is...but not by much.

Isn't it gorgeous? Aren't you jealously gnashing your teeth with envy? Doesn't matter; I can imagine that you are, which makes me feel all the luckier. I'm a happy camper.

Time after Time

As my loyal readers (the check's in the mail) know, the DH and I own a photography studio. Thankfully, since we moved into the new place, a very busy studio, therefore one we run by appointments. Some appointments are made weeks in advance, and of course weddings, months, and sometimes years in advance. June 11, 2011 is already booked, right Becca? :-)

Not too surprisingly, time is important to us. We carefully schedule enough time for the type of appointment it is, whether a sitting for an executive, a full family, a senior, or wedding consultation, or sales...you get it. We make sure we allocate enough time to do a good job for our clients - and we do.

It would be oh, so nice, were the sentiment reciprocated.

As recently as yesterday, we had an athletic director for a major high school call and leave a message that he needed order envelopes - 250 of 'em - on Monday, and wanted to do all the fall sports pictures on Wednesday. Really? Less than five full days notice? We had a senior portrait sales appointment for one o'clock. The mother called at 10 after one and said they would be a bit late. Golly, really? She showed up after FOUR, saying, oh, gee, she couldn't get a ride. Really? You've had weeks to plan this, and it's our problem? Because no, we couldn't fit her in; we were booked up to closing, and even had one appointment scheduled to start at our closing time. One parent walked in, expecting us to drop anything we had going on to show her her kid's pictures, although she had no appointment at all.

We have people showing up over an hour before their appointments, usually with small cranky children in tow. They plant themselves in our reception area, where we have to try to field clients in person and on the phone against the background of their squealing child, or cell phones cranked to the max, or discussing intimate details of their lives to which, frankly, I do not wish to be privy. Always at a level far louder than required.

Then there was the senior whose mother decided they should not show up because it was raining. This in spite of the fact that they were told, both verbally and in written materials, show up no matter the weather, even if you have an outdoor session. May be raining where you are, but not here. May be just a quick summer shower. May be over by the time your indoor stuff is done, and if it isn't, well, we got your indoor work done and can reschedule the other. Much of our outdoor stuff has covering, anyway. But no, didn't show, didn't call, and the following week called to reschedule with not a word of apology. We were out two hours of our time. Thanks awfully, Mumsie.

And one of the most fun...we open at ten. Signs posted on the parking lot side of the building say so, so does one by the front door. We have a rope across the porch steps. All that would pretty much say to you, "Closed until 10," wouldn't it? But we have people brazenly remove the rope, and if the door is locked, hammer on it. A half hour before their appointment! If the door is unlocked (we had a UPS delivery, say) they walk on in, even though all the lights are off and that sign is STILL there.

It all makes me ache for a little common courtesy and common sense. As Mark Twain said, it's the least common sense of all.

Sports Ratings

Watching TV and knitting on the body of my Gaelic Mist sweater today (the sleeves are done!) and of course we're seeing a lot of ads for the upcoming Olympics. I like the games, I watch my favorite sports, and do a little vicarious living, because this hasn't been an athlete's body for a long time.

Which might explain a bit of my green-eyed comments about the uniform of the women's volleyball team. I've owned hankies that are bigger. No kidding, a single diving dig in the wrong direction, and I don't see how they can avoid a 'wardrobe malfunction.' Don't you love the asininity of that phrase?

Anyway, I began to comment to the DH, "If those uniforms got any smaller...." and as I paused for dramatic effect, the DH instantly quipped, "I'd stop watching!!!"

I'm gonna enjoy spending that life insurance money.

My Country 'Tis of Thee

Do you remember when you learned that song as a kid? I do...I sang "My Country Tizzovthee" with no clue what it meant, and I bet you did too. But as I got older, I understood the words, and the sentiment behind them.


I'm an unashamed patriot. I get choked up whenI hear our national anthem, and always have. Makes it tough when the DH and I do the announcing for the local high school football games! Living abroad as an Air Force pilot's wife just reinforced that, while it also gave me a perspective not everyone in the USA is able to obtain, seeing my country through the prism of a foreign eye. I remember after my eldest daughter was born, we went to our embassy in London to get her passport. I rounded the corner into the square where the embassy is located, and saw the huge Bald Eagle over the entry, and our flag, and tears filled my eyes. Of course, she was only a few weeks old so hormones were still askew, but I'm pretty sure it was mostly patriotism. :-)

And you know what? I bet you're a patriot too, whatever your country is. Good for you if you're a functioning, voting member of your society...you have a right to be proud. Which is why I get so angry when I hear people disparaging another's patriotism just because their political beliefs aren't in lockstep with one another.

One side says that you aren't a patriot if you don't support war. Another says you aren't a patriot if you send wo/men off to be killed for another country. I say both sides love their country, and just have different feelings about what that means.

Democrats say Republicans aren't patriotic because they don't want to take care of people. Republicans say Democrats aren't patriotic because they want big government and take choice away from people. I say both sides are patriots and want to do their best, I just agree with one over the other!

So this week when a vicious attack piece against one of the Presidential candidates was posted on one of the knitting lists I moderate, I shut the discussion down immediately and put the poster on moderation, something I do as a second-to-last resort. Not to stifle their freedom of speech, but to prevent a flame war on a forum that has nothing to do with politics. To MY mind - the only one that matters for the sake of this blog! - slandering/libeling a candidate because you disagree with them? Now that is unpatriotic. Tearing down our political process for your own hate-mongering? Unpatriotic. Smearing someone who is willing to serve our country in a largely thankless job that's underpaid and overstressed? Unpatriotic. And I don't care which candidate you treat this way, or what nobles lies you tell yourself to rationalize doing it...you are no patriot.

In this country, in any democracy, we give people a chance to speak, to believe and to act freely until that freedom impinges on the rights of others. To quote Voltaire (later also used by Jefferson) "I disapprove of what you say,but I will defend to the death your right to say it." So people have the right to spread lies and attempt to ruin reputations until it becomes actionable under law. That's the price we pay for living freely. But those of the world who force us to pay that price, to listen to their foulness, do not have the right to wrap themselves in our beautiful flag to do it.

Any person who tried to diminish another human being, for reasons of race, religion or politics...yeah, you got it. Not a patriot. Also not much of a person, in my book.

And after all, this IS my book.

Roped In

I've been quiet because my brain is too fried at the end of the day to give this blog the snarkiness it deserves. I just don't have it. We are doing a LOT of senior pictures, and praise be, the parents are ordering. Some of them big...and that means a lot of work for me. Say a kid is lucky in the complexion department - and let me tell you, at the age of 16 or 17, most aren't that lucky - and say they only have five zits. They order a four pose package, but pay to add a couple poses. They also order an eight picture folio, and a CD with 16 images...and only maybe four or five of the images for each overlap. Well, you do the math on how many blinkin' times I have to clear out those same zits. Wouldn't your brain fry too?

So to maintain what little semblance I have of what I laughingly call sanity, I've been knitting. Multiple things, but very little on my Orkney Pi. I just don't have the cajones for lace right now. What have I been working on, I hear you ask? How kind of you to take an interest.

First, some socks. Only my second pair, made out of Trekking in the Queen Kahuna toe-up on two circs method. Loving these, but I have about 2/3rds of the cuff to go.


Don't you love the color? Since I couldn't care less about these 'matching', I'm just working from both ends of the same ball.

Next is my emergency car knitting. This is the Irish Hiking Scarf, a freebie if you Google for it, and I'm doing it in the Rowan Tapestry I bought from Pat Kirkland at the RT&OF 1st Annual Hoot 'n Holler. Utterly yummy stuff that I'd recommend highly. Very soft but keeps definition.

This will probably be for my beloved Uncle Harry, who has gorgeous blue eyes, and who surprised me at my family reunion last week with a studio warming gift of a double frame set, mounted in a free stand with pivots on each frame. Means the world to me, especially since my grandfather originally harvested the wood from my grandmother's family farm. He knows nada about this, so I'm not under any gun. Oh, and I added a fourth cable for those of you who know the pattern.

Continuing my obsession lately with nice ropey cables, I had to cast on a sweater, my first real attempt at something other than a straight blocky no-sleeve dealy-job. LOL Melanie from Pink Lemon Twist recommended a book called A Fine Fleece, saying that it was a rare book in that she would happily knit most of the sweaters in it. I took a peek, agreed, and bought it. Very classic sweaters that will never go out of style, shown in both handspun and equivalent commercial yarns. I fell utterly in love with a sweater called "Gaelic Mist" - not much of a surprise given my love of all things Celtic. It kept calling to me, and insisted I needed to pull out the Cestari DK 3 ply I'd bought at MDSW (Maryland Sheep and Wool for the uninitiated...and don't ask about the initiation. It involves Elaine, lots of sheep and a Sherpa). I got it in a forest green to match my eyes :::batting same::: and really love it. My swatch was perfectly to gauge, and I cast on both sleeves at once.

I'm THRILLED with this and how it's working up. A bit more VM than you'd expect, but nothing unwieldy, and oh, how lovely the cables are. Yes, I flubbed a couple a bit but you don't have to wear it so shut up about it. I, perfectionist that I am, can live with it and so can you. I've done this much in just about a week....a very busy week...so that's good too. I'm above the elbow now.

The green is a bit lighter than actuality in this photo. The cables repeat like this at the base of the sweater, causing a bit of a natural shaping and peplum effect. Hide a multitude of sins, it will, and I've got 'em to hide. Here's a detail of the cable - yes, one that's exactly right:

I don't mind being tied up if it's for cables like these! Or for the DH, but that's another story. ;->

Epiphany

The third definition of epiphany in the online dictionary I consulted is:

"a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience."

Yeah, dat. I had one yesterday, and I thought I'd share.

First, I've had a just a few true epiphanies in my life. The first time, I'd screwed up pretty well, embarrassing myself and people I cared about. You don't need details (I know you want them, but tough, this isn't True Confessions), yet it definitely was a humbling experience, which I pretty damn well needed.

The second real epiphany came during my first marriage, and it was two-fold. My beloved grandmother had died, and my grandfather was mourning his wife of 55 years. I realized that my then-husband, who had no respect and probably no love for me either, wouldn't mourn if I died. He would be relieved. That opened my eyes enough to start to stand up to his belittling with what to me became a magic mantra..."You saying it doesn't make it so."

Do you see the sheer power of that? After years of being told how worthless I was, I finally rejected being so reduced by his words by the infinite power of my will. Just because this man said it, didn't make it true. The strength of that finally got me out of a lousy marriage that had me continually walking on eggshells.

The next epiphany came when I was dating the DH. Not too surprisingly, I was a pretty defensive person. I've always been an infighter, and that's okay. But it's not okay to assume everyone is out to hurt me, and to build very high walls based on that. Finally, one day after I had jumped in his stuff for imagining he was insulting me, the then BF said he couldn't be with someone so negative. That he never wanted to hurt me, never intended to hurt me or anyone, for that matter, and my always responding to everything the wrong way was painful to him. I knew if I couldn't overcome this sad character flaw, a vestige of the abusive men in my life, I would lose the best thing that ever happened to me. Well, he's the DH, so you know how that ends. :-)

Which brings me to yesterday's epiphany. I was working on sorting out three separate orders from the lab that had come in at once, and was confusing myself. We had a LOT of orders to process last week...thanks St. Veronica! (No, I'm not Catholic, but she's the patron saint of photographers, and I'll take whatever help I can get)... so it was easy to get turned around on what was still out and what had come in.

I found myself saying out loud what that heinous little voice in my head was saying..."Oh, for pity sake, Diana, grow a brain!" or something like that. And the saying it out loud stopped me dead in my tracks.

We all have that little voice. Along with the music always going through my head, there's a running commentary. Sometimes it has my mother's voice, the voice that never yells but tells me I've disappointed it. Mom was great at the skillful manipulation of emotions. Sometimes it's the ex...usually when I've made the serious error of looking at my nude self in the mirror...telling me how fat and sloppy I am. Occasionally, it's a more cheerful voice, which is usually the DH. But most often, it's my own voice. And I scold me. Shamefully, terribly, unendingly. Apparently, very little I do is good enough for me.

So the epiphany? I realized that if another family member, or a friend, had the temerity to speak to me like that, I'd rip off their lips and make them kiss their own ass! So why in the name of all that's holy do I allow ME to do it to myself? I know better. I do. I know garbage in, garbage out. I've listened to the Power of Positive Thinking and found much of the logic in it to be sound. I know I feel better when I think good thoughts. So why am I denigrating myself from within?

The first step in the changes I've spoken of, you, my gentle, intelligent readers (both of you), will have noticed is the insight part of the definition of epiphany. Once we can see, we can change. So, my little voice, you are now on notice. I'm listening with the front part of my mind, and I'm on to you. I will not let you talk to me in a way I wouldn't permit from anyone else. I will change.

One day at a time.