Plain Jane Names and the Wooing of Potential Customers

Whilst watching the news last night we saw a man with the strangest name; his name was Joe Householder. He might as well been named John Doe, James Smith or my favourite... Current Resident.

I'm not sure if the UK-ers get these but in the US we get tons of junk mail addressed to Current Resident. They don't give a rats a** who you are as long as you see this mail-out and buy their product.

I don't know about you, but if these companies want me to spend any hard earned money on their product they had better do a number of things FIRST!

1. They MUST use my proper name. Anything else and they are just not speaking to "me". My name is NOT Bonnie Lassie.
2. Not only do they have to get the name correct, but the SPELLING must also be correct. I don't know who MHN fer Short is, but it ain't ME!
3. Let's have a decent product, shall we??? Don't try to sell me a pack of over priced junk that will just clutter up the house, ok? Let's at least make an effort in selling useful items. Is that too much to ask for? I think not.

Those are for catalog or mail items, now let us see what stores need to do.

They have a slightly easier time of it, afterall, I'm already there, am I not...

1. Now first things first, do not attack me the very second that I cross the threshold. To the hubby and me, that is a HUGE turn-off! We have left stores for that before.
2. Do not "hound" me. Following a person around in the store after they said that they were "just looking" is a rude and obnoxious thing to do. Please, I may not have a lot of money, but I certainly won't STEAL anything! That's why God invented plastic! (Of course, we are trying to get away from using said "plastic", but they don't need to know that, do they?) You will do better by acknowledging me once I've looked about a bit and then leave me to my own devices. Left alone, I might just find something that could be of use in my house or on my person...
3. Don't completely leave the store or go to the back. What if I need help with something that I ACTUALLY want to buy??? Just because I told you that I was "just looking" doesn't mean that I won't find anything that peaks my interest enough to want to touch it or take a closer look. If I put it in my hand, I just might purchase the item. Makes sense, no?

These are a few basic principles that retailers should live by. Most do a pretty decent job and some are better at it than others. I must not be alone in my assessment of these places, otherwise Wal-Mart and Costco wouldn't be so bloody popular...

Sitting At the Machine

Ah, here I am sitting at the machine, cleaning off the desk (a much needed cleaning, mind you) and about to enjoy a fine cup of Jasmine tea. I'm listening to the boy cough a little, but it is not alarming. Last nights' coughing attack was a bit disconcerting to say the least, but today he is better.

Last week or so I was looking through my kitchen cabinets and was asking the hubby, "What the heck happened to ALL of our plastic containers???" I am quite sure that I had bought a few sets at three different times and now they are all gone. We have a plastic container thief among us or is it something else? The quandry...

As I am putting sugar from the large container into a more portable one, I find three different plastic containers full of chocolate chip biscotti that the hubby had made around Christmas time, as an experiment. I wonder why they are not being enjoyed. Looking on the bottom of the container I see why, they are blackened cajun biscotti. I'm sure that he just can't bear to throw away perfectly decent food, albeit burned to a crisp. I will remedy him of this affliction poste haste and toss it in the trash for him. He'll never know the difference and I will get three of my beloved plastic containers back. :-)

While writting this thoroughly tantilising and interesting post, I am also trying to get the boy to finish his lunch so he can have a nice visit with Papa while I go have my new glasses repaired. The very day that I picked them up, I left the store and as soon as they transitioned from indoor to outdoor colour two arched scratches form on the left lense. Strange and annoying. They are fixing them for free, Yippee!

I will have my before and after picture up soon, within a day or two. I want to have that post be my 300th post. I am quite close to the number now and am wanting to do something special with it.

I would wax nostalgic or poetic on this post about #300, but I really should wait until then. :-) So this will have to do until that ever beloved post comes out.

Hope you all are having a great day and I will type to ya later. Be on the lookout for an audio post or a podcast soon.

Much love and affection to you all! m.

Poor Baby Boy...

I really feel for my son today. He's been sick all weekend with a cough and drippy nose and NOW he has PINK EYE! That stuff is the worst non-life threatening infection. Mostly because you are constantly washing your hands or their hands, the sheets, the clothes, etc, just so you don't spread it to the whole family.

Saturday, he was feeling super rotten and I kept having to tell him to wash his hands. He'd come out of the bathroom and touch his eye and I'd tell him to go wash his hands again. He looked at me with tears streaming down his cheeks and yell something indecipherable with a look on his face like, "Why are you doing this to me????" and go back and wash his hands. Poor baby. It was dark and dreary weather around here on Saturday. I think the high was around 58*F and it was wet and rainy. Roo-Bear slept all day, The Boy had his blanket that his cousin made for him and his pillow on the couch. When Dave came home from school it was like a snore fest in the living room. We all curled up and watched Tim Burton's: The Corpse Bride. It was a really cute movie. Of course, we like Tim Burton's sense of humour and darker side. I watched Sleepy Hollow last night. I didn't realise until yesterday how many Tim Burton movies we have. We've got 3 of the Batman movies(vhs), Sleepy Hollow, Nightmare Before Christmas(I love that one!) and Big Fish. Those were just the ones that I remebered off the top of my head.

We're going to the doctor today. I had to tell the mom of the little baby that I watch that he couldn't come today because of the pink eye. She works for an optometrist so she is quite familiar with conjunctivitus.

Right now the weather is 38*F and I'm not looking forward to taking the all important shower, but I better get to it so I can take the boy to the doctor. It's dark and rainy again today and I need to muster up the energy to wash everything associated with the boy and his room. I'll probably get that done and then snuggle with him on the couch for the rest of the day. Really, not a bad way to spend some time...

FFPS

I just signed the boy up for Fun Fair Positive Soccer. We are all really excited. It looks like FUN! We are trying to get his best friend from school on the same team. It starts in April, so we'll have to let you know how it goes. :-D

This is What They Found...

This was an e-mail sent to me by my ever-lovin' hubby. Why oh why does he enjoy torturing me so???? I screamed like a little girl for at least two minutes!

If you'd like to see the photos close up, just click on them and get a closer look. See if YOU don't scream like a little girl too.

btw: it's dead.

Seems a GOAT farmer was puzzled about the disappearance of some GOAT on
his farm. After a few weeks of GOATS disappearing, the farmer decided to
put up an electric fence.

About a week later, this is what he found:

See the bulge in the belly. Can anyone say, "Hey, you ate my GOAT!!!"



We've all heard of people being eaten by snakes and I bet most of us have
said, "If a snake tried to eat me, I'd blah, blah, blah and get away.
Well, this is a Python and they're extremely aggressive and have a few
teeth that they use to hold their prey while they wrap around them and
then constrict.

Could you get away if this one bit you and held on with it's "few teeth?"
Note: the wires are 10 inches apart.

What I Did on my Valentine's Holiday...

I worked. It was no biggie. Roo-Bear's mom got to the house around 6:30pm and I was chopping herbs for the potatoes. The whole house smelled like rosemary. So fresh and nice!

Dave & I put the boy to bed late for a change. But that was ok.

I made David a really nice dinner of surf & turf. Really beautiful NY Strip steaks that rivaled Outback Steakhouse & Lobster tails(about 4oz), with garlic and rosemary roasted potatoes. There was going to be salad, but after the huge steak & lobster and all the bleeding potatoes, I figured we could stop there.

But did we stop there?

NO..........

We shared a bottle of Martini & Rossi Asti Spumanti and some scrumptious strawberries while sitting on the sofa watching Miami Ink.

Now THAT'S true love!

Coming Soon...

Before and after pictures of me in my NEW glasses!

Sniffy would be so proud...

What's Your Summer Ride?

Your Summer Ride is a Mini Cooper

You are all about unique, one of a kind adventures. The only thing predictable about your summer is that it's unpredictable!

What's Your Summer Ride?

I really dig these little cars...

Our First Valentine's Day

It seems like yesterday that David and I came to really love one another. We had our first date on Halloween in 1989. We then had one date a month, either with his friends or my friends, for the next four months.

My closest girl friend and I had liked the same fellow (I had my eye on a few fellas at the time;-D). As soon as I found out that she liked him, I turned my attentions towards David; sure am glad that I did!

By Valentine's day 1990, Dave and I had been on 3-4 dates, but I wasn't sure if he really liked me. My friend had hung out with her guy alot too. We were both in the same situation.

In the Fine Arts Building(FAB), there was music, drama and art. Suprisingly enough, the DRAMA department was selling sing valentines as a fund raiser. Hmmm, you would have thought that the CHOIR would have been doing that instead, but I digress...

She and I bought singing valentines for our prospective "fellas", anonymously of course... I can't remember the song she got for "A". The song I chose for Dave was "Let Me Call You Sweetheart". I think that my cheeks were more red than the hearts on my shirt.

We went to the Valentine's dance together that night and two nights later we went to the college production of "Steel Magnolias". That night Dave asked me to be his girl and I said yes. By the next month we were engaged and married by that December.

Seriously, that was the best year of my life up to that point and is one of the favourite times of my life as well.

So, do you have any Valentine's Day memories you'd like to share?

Tonight

Well, we just had a very nice date that ended at Shaw's Tattoo. I spoke with Aaron Dale. He's a very talented tattoo artist that works at Shaw's. He mocked up a tatt for me of what I wanted. I'm going to sleep on it for a while and see if it's really what I want. If I get it, I'll post a pick of it. Love and affection to you all! The Dreamer.

It Must Be Nice

As I'm cruising through my bedroom this morning putting up my barrettes I look at the cat laying on the flannel sheets that Dave and I made the bed with last night. All I could think was that it must be nice to be a cat.

Truly, it must be so easy to be a cat or at least one of our cats. All you have to do is lay around, eat, sleep, be petted and loved. The only hardship that I could see would be the occasional bout of fleas which we take care of asap. Well, that and having to endure the boy petting and giving unwarrented hugs, but besides that the cat has a pretty good life around here.

Oh how I wish that I could take a nap whenever I wanted and have someone else prepare my meals and clean my bathroom for me without asking. The blasted creature has got it made! Must be nice...

Where HAVE You Been?

When that pops into my head, I hear Mrs. Weasley yelling at the boys after they took the flying car to rescue Harry from the Dursley's in HP#2.

Indeed, where have I been? Eh, I've been around visiting the blogs, but not doing much writing on the blogs per se. Nothing has really caught my attention, nor has anything really pissed me off enough to blog about. Not that the last issue would end up on this one anyway...

I've had some ideas for songs and poems and have bought a couple of journals to keep, one for the purse and one for the office, just in case inspiration strikes; I'd like to be ready.

It never fails, when you don't have access to pen and paper the best most fantastic ideas just flow and flow like a raging river driving itself to the sea.

When you finally have pen and paper at your disposal, you are confronted with the Sahara Desert, nothing but sand and wind as far as the eye can see. You find yourself asking, "Now where did that flipping muse go??? I told her a FIVE minute break, not a month long vacation to the Bahamas or where ever it was she decided to go..."

Such is life...