Sunday, March 28, 2004
Shoes and alternate feet
Today I attended All Souls, Point Loma, as has become my custom. At coffee hour I suddenly found myself being accosted by a petite grey-haired dynamo who must be a CE committee member. She introduced herself to me, and before I quite knew how it happened, I found myself volunteered to help run next Sunday's Easter Crafts event after church. Actually how it happened is she simply told me I would be helping, and when to show up where, and didn't give me a chance to get a "no" in edgewise. She had no idea who I was or what gifts or interests I might or might not have. I was clearly just fresh meat. So now I, the former DCE who spent much of my life recruiting folks for events just such as this, find myself on the receiving end of the recruiting, and will be helping kiddos dye Easter eggs and make grass Easter baskets next Sunday. (And gagging on the idea of doing all of this on *Palm Sunday*, but such is life....) I hope I was never as insistent and arm-twisting as the gal who roped me in today was. In fact I'm reasonably sure I never was--respectful recruiting was one of my highest values. (If any Calvary, Rochester, folks are reading this--take Julie Roenigk's energy and persistence and put them into Marilyn Peck's physique and initialy disarming demeanor and you'll know what I was up against in my encounter with "Rosie" today. :-)
Gertrud Mueller Nelson is the part-time Director of Christian Formation at All Souls.
It is interesting to experience her "events" in person after having had her
book "To Dance With God" on my reference shelf for so long.
Gertrud Mueller Nelson is the part-time Director of Christian Formation at All Souls.
It is interesting to experience her "events" in person after having had her
book "To Dance With God" on my reference shelf for so long.
Sailing
I'm enrolled in an introductory sailing class through my local community college. Today was our first on-the-water lesson, in a 22' keelboat. It's been around 12 years since I've been on a boat. It's sort of like riding a bike--it comes back quickly. It was good to be out on the water, and it was a beautiful day--the first bright sunny day we've had in a few weeks. We sail in Oceanside Harbor.
Monday, March 22, 2004
RIP BabyCar; long live new car
My beloved, trusty, faithful, sturdy BabyCar died a week ago yesterday. Her transmission went kaput, and estimates on repairing it were $3-4,000. Which was at least 2x her Blue Book value.
Last week was a manic time of researching car models, contacting salespeople, and going for test drives. To make a long and stressful story short, I am now the ecstatic owner of a new Mazda 3 sedan, in Moonlight Green, w/ beige interior. I think the color is closer to sea foam green, myself. She's very pretty. She hasn't told me her name yet, but I'm in love.
I am also now very poor! Even with some very generous assistance from my uncle towards the downpayment, this car payment is going to take my budget from "comfortably tight" to "really next to impossible." I've always known that the only reason I could make ends meet is b/c I don't have a car payment. Well, now I do. I'm looking at my budget w/ a microscope to see what I can cut. Lunch will now be a rotation of PB&J, tuna salad, and ramen noodles....
But I do love my new car. And if I'd gone w/ something cheaper, like a truly budget econobox, I'd have been depressed every time I drove it, which would not be good.
BabyCar met a decent fate--I donated her to Father Joe's Villages and get to take her Blue Book value off my taxes. She'll be auctioned off and the proceeds will go to good works. Maybe she'll be bought by some fellow who can replace her transmission on the cheap and she will tool around Mexico or southern SD for a long while yet. I almost cried the day I signed her over and watched them tow her away, though.
Last week was a manic time of researching car models, contacting salespeople, and going for test drives. To make a long and stressful story short, I am now the ecstatic owner of a new Mazda 3 sedan, in Moonlight Green, w/ beige interior. I think the color is closer to sea foam green, myself. She's very pretty. She hasn't told me her name yet, but I'm in love.
I am also now very poor! Even with some very generous assistance from my uncle towards the downpayment, this car payment is going to take my budget from "comfortably tight" to "really next to impossible." I've always known that the only reason I could make ends meet is b/c I don't have a car payment. Well, now I do. I'm looking at my budget w/ a microscope to see what I can cut. Lunch will now be a rotation of PB&J, tuna salad, and ramen noodles....
But I do love my new car. And if I'd gone w/ something cheaper, like a truly budget econobox, I'd have been depressed every time I drove it, which would not be good.
BabyCar met a decent fate--I donated her to Father Joe's Villages and get to take her Blue Book value off my taxes. She'll be auctioned off and the proceeds will go to good works. Maybe she'll be bought by some fellow who can replace her transmission on the cheap and she will tool around Mexico or southern SD for a long while yet. I almost cried the day I signed her over and watched them tow her away, though.
Friday, March 12, 2004
Cars in SoCal....
There is a much wider variety of cars here in SoCal than anywhere else I've lived. Lots of people here seem to have lots of money, especially in this part of the county, so lots of very expensive cars. Every day I see many Jags, at least 1 or 2 Hummers, and of course more BMWs than you can shake a beer stein at. Lots of Porsches, too. The Porsche Boxter is just as cute looking in person as in the car mags. Tons of BMW and Lexus and Merc SUVs. Of course, given the climate, there are lots of convertibles. The New Beetle convertible is very cute. The atty I spend most of my workdays supporting drives a Lexus hardtop convertible (no, that's not an oxymoron--it's the Lexus SC430 or some such) which cost over $60,000. Well, actually he drives his main shag's Lexus convertible some days, and his own Volvo convertible other days. Mazda Miatas are ubiquitous, the poorer person's BMW Z3, I guess. I sat in one at the San Diego Auto Show and decided it was just too low and small to drive on the freeways. Obviously lots of other folks don't share my concern. Speaking of the freeways--outside of rush hour they really move. I routinely average speeds in the low 80s miles per hr; I've topped 90 occasionally. BabyCar likes that.
The building I work in houses several law firms and an investment firm. The parking lot makes for an interesting sociological/economic study. A mix of very expensive late-model cars, and much older shabby econo-boxes. You can easily tell which cars belong to the attys and brokers, versus which ones belong to the administrative assistants!
There is a much wider variety of cars here in SoCal than anywhere else I've lived. Lots of people here seem to have lots of money, especially in this part of the county, so lots of very expensive cars. Every day I see many Jags, at least 1 or 2 Hummers, and of course more BMWs than you can shake a beer stein at. Lots of Porsches, too. The Porsche Boxter is just as cute looking in person as in the car mags. Tons of BMW and Lexus and Merc SUVs. Of course, given the climate, there are lots of convertibles. The New Beetle convertible is very cute. The atty I spend most of my workdays supporting drives a Lexus hardtop convertible (no, that's not an oxymoron--it's the Lexus SC430 or some such) which cost over $60,000. Well, actually he drives his main shag's Lexus convertible some days, and his own Volvo convertible other days. Mazda Miatas are ubiquitous, the poorer person's BMW Z3, I guess. I sat in one at the San Diego Auto Show and decided it was just too low and small to drive on the freeways. Obviously lots of other folks don't share my concern. Speaking of the freeways--outside of rush hour they really move. I routinely average speeds in the low 80s miles per hr; I've topped 90 occasionally. BabyCar likes that.
The building I work in houses several law firms and an investment firm. The parking lot makes for an interesting sociological/economic study. A mix of very expensive late-model cars, and much older shabby econo-boxes. You can easily tell which cars belong to the attys and brokers, versus which ones belong to the administrative assistants!
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
As an assistant to a legal assistant, I am developing a whole new body of expertise. My new knowledge centers on the different types of staplers and staple removers and when to use which one.
You mean your workspace only has one stapler and one staple remover? You are deprived!
For the every-day 2-5 page documents, we use the standard stapler like just about everyone has at their desk, a lightweight plastic-bodied one you can pick up and operate w/ one hand. And to remove the staple, one of the pincher/claw-like standard staple removers. But very little of my stapling and unstapling is of thin documents like that.
A more versatile stapler is a heavier metal-bodied desktop model which can do up to 25 pages easily. Same basic shape but heavier. A document that thick often won't yield to a standard claw staple remover, at least not w/o chewing up the top page. Instead I use one that looks more like some sort of probe or dental instrument, but w/ a wide flat tongue. To get a heavy staple out w/ that remover, you need a good wrist technique. Slip the tongue under the staple and do a pull-and-twist motion.
For documents thicker than 25 pages, we bring out the heavy artillery. At the far end of my workspace I have a lever-arm operated stapler that can probably do 150 pp. More if you flip the document over and do another staple from the reverse. In the workroom we have yet a fourth stapler, to handle docs which are thicker than 25 pp. but don't require something quite as big as the huge stapler. Of course these all require different size staples to refill them. I have 3 different sizes stored in my desk drawer.
When you've stapled a thick document w/ a very heavy-guage staple, there's only one staple remover to use. The one which looks like a pair of doggie nail-clippers. It pulls a heavy staple out cleanly, or at least to the point where you can then carefully pull the document off the staple.
The main reason you need to unstaple such a document is so you can hole-punch it and bind it in some way. And yes, we have different size and type hole-punches, too. Standard wimpy 3-hole punch. Medium-duty 3-hole punch. i wish we had a proper heavy-duty 3-hole punch, but we don't. Then there's the 2-hole punch. I use the 2-hole punch the most, and like it so much I bought one for home, along w/ a box of 2-prong fastener file folders.
You mean your workspace only has one stapler and one staple remover? You are deprived!
For the every-day 2-5 page documents, we use the standard stapler like just about everyone has at their desk, a lightweight plastic-bodied one you can pick up and operate w/ one hand. And to remove the staple, one of the pincher/claw-like standard staple removers. But very little of my stapling and unstapling is of thin documents like that.
A more versatile stapler is a heavier metal-bodied desktop model which can do up to 25 pages easily. Same basic shape but heavier. A document that thick often won't yield to a standard claw staple remover, at least not w/o chewing up the top page. Instead I use one that looks more like some sort of probe or dental instrument, but w/ a wide flat tongue. To get a heavy staple out w/ that remover, you need a good wrist technique. Slip the tongue under the staple and do a pull-and-twist motion.
For documents thicker than 25 pages, we bring out the heavy artillery. At the far end of my workspace I have a lever-arm operated stapler that can probably do 150 pp. More if you flip the document over and do another staple from the reverse. In the workroom we have yet a fourth stapler, to handle docs which are thicker than 25 pp. but don't require something quite as big as the huge stapler. Of course these all require different size staples to refill them. I have 3 different sizes stored in my desk drawer.
When you've stapled a thick document w/ a very heavy-guage staple, there's only one staple remover to use. The one which looks like a pair of doggie nail-clippers. It pulls a heavy staple out cleanly, or at least to the point where you can then carefully pull the document off the staple.
The main reason you need to unstaple such a document is so you can hole-punch it and bind it in some way. And yes, we have different size and type hole-punches, too. Standard wimpy 3-hole punch. Medium-duty 3-hole punch. i wish we had a proper heavy-duty 3-hole punch, but we don't. Then there's the 2-hole punch. I use the 2-hole punch the most, and like it so much I bought one for home, along w/ a box of 2-prong fastener file folders.
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Today at lunch I had to break out the sunglasses, and pull the sunshade out from under the seat and put it up over BabyCar's dash, and leave her windows partway open. Yup, it felt like summer.
Speaking of BabyCar, I'm beginning to scope out different models of cars in case BabyCar develops some terminal illness--she is 13 years old, after all. Right now I'm very enamoured of the Mazda 3--the sport wagon model. But hopefully BabyCar will keep on going for the foreseeable future.
Speaking of BabyCar, I'm beginning to scope out different models of cars in case BabyCar develops some terminal illness--she is 13 years old, after all. Right now I'm very enamoured of the Mazda 3--the sport wagon model. But hopefully BabyCar will keep on going for the foreseeable future.
Monday, March 08, 2004
OK, I think I'm beginning to "go native" here in SoCal.
I've joined a gym and am working out several days a week. It's one of those "chick gyms" as I've heard them called--Curves. I haven't been doing it long enough to see any results yet, but I do have more energy after I've done a session, so that's something. Out here "fitness" isn't optional--everybody works out or does something very athletic.
I've also signed up for a sailing class through the local community college, to brush up on my skills and to learn where one can sail around here if you don't have lots o' $$$.
Today was our first truly summer-like day--set all kinds of temps records--got into the upper 90s in the eastern (hotter) parts of the county. It was just a tease, though--temps will plunge back into the 60s for the rest of the week.
Other signs I'm going native....
--I've bought toe-nail polish and plan on getting a pedicure soon. When you wear sandals for most of the year, good-looking toesies are important....
--I can now handle "medium" salsa as well as the "mild" options....
--I routinely eat fish tacos
--I have eaten fried cactus as an appetizer. It tasted like green bean casserole, IMO. :-)
Signs I'm not totally over the edge yet....
--I have not, and do not intend to, eat/drink any soy products
--I will not be getting a boob job or liposuction
--When a co-worker who happens to have zero sense of tact or boundaries tries to be helpful and tells me I should start working on my diet, my reply was "Why? I *have* a diet, lots of meat and potatoes and pasta...and I like it...!" When she offered tips on "watching my diet," I replied "I watch my diet just fine...else I wouldn't be able to get it from plate to mouth w/o dropping it."
Areas of risk:
--I may try juice smoothies--but no soy or wheatgerm mix-ins, thank you.
--I may try a self-tanner/bronzer
I've joined a gym and am working out several days a week. It's one of those "chick gyms" as I've heard them called--Curves. I haven't been doing it long enough to see any results yet, but I do have more energy after I've done a session, so that's something. Out here "fitness" isn't optional--everybody works out or does something very athletic.
I've also signed up for a sailing class through the local community college, to brush up on my skills and to learn where one can sail around here if you don't have lots o' $$$.
Today was our first truly summer-like day--set all kinds of temps records--got into the upper 90s in the eastern (hotter) parts of the county. It was just a tease, though--temps will plunge back into the 60s for the rest of the week.
Other signs I'm going native....
--I've bought toe-nail polish and plan on getting a pedicure soon. When you wear sandals for most of the year, good-looking toesies are important....
--I can now handle "medium" salsa as well as the "mild" options....
--I routinely eat fish tacos
--I have eaten fried cactus as an appetizer. It tasted like green bean casserole, IMO. :-)
Signs I'm not totally over the edge yet....
--I have not, and do not intend to, eat/drink any soy products
--I will not be getting a boob job or liposuction
--When a co-worker who happens to have zero sense of tact or boundaries tries to be helpful and tells me I should start working on my diet, my reply was "Why? I *have* a diet, lots of meat and potatoes and pasta...and I like it...!" When she offered tips on "watching my diet," I replied "I watch my diet just fine...else I wouldn't be able to get it from plate to mouth w/o dropping it."
Areas of risk:
--I may try juice smoothies--but no soy or wheatgerm mix-ins, thank you.
--I may try a self-tanner/bronzer
