Crappy Customer Service

Welcome to Alberta. We Mix.

Just when I get a little worked up about cultural communities isolating themselves around here, two things happen:

1.  I had about 60 kids trick-or-treating last night.  (This is a very high number for us, resulting from a confluence of a Sunday Hallowe'en and warm weather.)  Among the revelers I saw two little boys, escorted by their mother in a hijab.  They were my first obviously Muslim trick-or-treaters.  And to top that - they visited my Sikh neighbours, who were also giving out candy with their Christmas lights on.  Think about that for a minute.

2.  Mr. W told me a story about a German co-worker translating a recipe for an Arab co-worker.  The German passed my husband the recipe to see if he could guess what it was without translation.  The recipe was for lasagna.

Briefs

• Things are settling in nicely at work, although I am having to get used to not working at a crisis-level breakneck pace; I figure it'll take about a year.

• I bought these Goody Hair Things to try for an up-do decent enough to be seen outside the confines of my yard.

• Don't be scared about the scary scary headlines in your local paper about the deregulation of electricity rates in our province, because most of your bill is fixed delivery rates.

• Hot/cold cycles this spring have made my garden pretty blah by killing the delicate flower buds.

• I am the last person in the world to get an iPod touch...which I managed to finally justify with my bus commute.

Pity, Part III

It was a relatively balmy  -15C last week when I made my way into Mr. W's Rental Company office.  Standing at the counter was a young man wearing a hoodie, long shorts and flip flops.

I stared in openmouthed horror at him for a good five seconds before Mr. W pushed me along.

When I Was Your Age

(Thank you evany, whom I have been reading since year dot.  I think she was probably one of the first bloggers I ever read.)

When I was your age...

We had an old TV with a busted dial.  My dad attached a pair of vice grips to the dial stem and that's how we changed the channel.  The grownups would say which channel they wanted and the kid nearest the TV had to change it (usually my brother because he sat inches away, frying his eyeballs).  And there were only four channels and one was in French.

I'd get on my bike after sunset and ride around for hours, all through and around the edges of town, unaccompanied.  As long as I was back by bedtime no one worried.  I never had a helmet.

I used to be able to sit in Hero Pose with my butt completely on the ground.  It used to freak my parents out.  Needless to say I can't even get close anymore.

I used to write notes to my friends which contained fully formed sentences, written with a pen and paper.  We also did drawings and wrote poems.  Text just wouldn't cover all we had to say to each other.

Can I Roll Around In The Fur Vault?

We do monogramming at The Sporting Company.  One of our semi-regular customers is a furrier.  It's a common practice, when buying a fur coat, to have one's monogram, or even one's full name, embroidered into the lining.  I guess it's done to prevent theft or swappage.

This got me thinking about furs.  Let me start with: No, I never have owned a garment made of real fur, not even rabbit, and I never will.  So now we can all relax.

I do think fondly of the days when fur was common.  It's really fucking cold here sometimes and the 70's were a grand time for a lady to get herself a nice full-length fox fur coat.  Hell, even the men wore them.  Fur was everywhere, common enough that it wasn't remarked on much unless one was wearing a mink or something extremely expensive.  I remember standing with my mom's friends in their furs, surrounding me in warmth and comfort.  My eighth-grade teacher, a big hulk of a man, had a full-length bear coat and we used to huddle around him for warmth on the playground (in the days before this was seen as assault or something weird).

My mom had a bitchin' faux fur, sheared black knee-length with grey and white speckled shawl collar and cuffs.  It had a thick leather belt that could be cinched tight at the waist.  If you went out in that fur today you'd look awesome.  It was soft and lined in satin and I used to steal it and wear it at every opportunity once I was tall enough.  I am now five inches taller than she is, so I guess that day's gone by.

My mom wanted a real fur but we couldn't afford such a luxury.  I think if you offered her one today, she'd give it a good long think before turning it down.  I miss fur - even though it's best that it's gone out of common use.  I guess I miss its decadence and sensual quality.  And it looks like I'm not the only one, judging by the rack of mink and beaver rolling past my office today.

No Trader Joe's, But You Can Choose Your Own Doctor

It must be tough for the cosmopolitan American to move to Canada.  We are way behind on some things.

1.  Canada's been punished extensively over the last five years over our government's refusal to implement and prosecute strict digital rights management laws.  It's a subtle thing but once you start to notice, the conspiracy nut that lives in the corner of everyone's brain begins to giggle.  For instance - there's no Netflix in Canada.  There are other companies providing a similar service but they suck ass.  I think it also has to do with our far-flung populace and the terrible quality of our postal system, which leads me to:

2.  Our shitty postal system.  I am a regular Etsy shopper, Ebay shopper and pro buyer so I spend all damn day shipping things from hither to yon.  I specify on my purchase orders at work to never, ever use Canada Post.   I will pay more for better service from the couriers.  Canada Post is not as good as the US Postal Service and they cost more.  Shipping from the western US to western Canada is way cheaper and more reliable than domestic shipping from any point.  I don't think it's a quality problem on the staff level - our standards just aren't kept as high.

3.  We are so provincial in our choices of stores.  It takes at least 5 years for a good American store to attempt to come to Canada.  Many stores just aren't interested because we have 10% of the population of the US, so no matter what we Canadian customers do our buying power is minimal.  Canadians have been screaming for Target to come up here and end our misery for at least 15 years. 

There's really nothing we can do about these things either.  It's the sacrifice we make to live in (relatively) quiet peace and comfort.  We just have to make grabby hands toward the south once in a while.

Deal-Breakers

Mr. W and I were talking about deal-breakers the other day - you know, the stuff that you can't just overlook in a relationship, aside from the horrors in hygiene and other obvious things.  It all started when I was thinking about men who drive trucks.  I've decided I could never date a man who used a truck as his sole means of transport.  I'm not talking about a guy who hauls a lot of cargo or drives a truck professionally - I'm talking about the douche with chrome wheel wells and truck nuts who drives it solo to work every day.  That's a deal breaker.  Here's my other ones:

• Smoking
• Wears a lot of baseball caps
• Drinks to excess
• Isn't cool with accepting male-pattern baldness - it's inevitable, men, and women know this.  We're over it, so you should be too.

My list eliminates a lot of Albertan men!  Good thing I'm already married.

Mr. W's only deal-breaker was a woman who wasn't interested in a modicum of beauty upkeep.  Not that his standards are that high - I mean, look at me, I'm no gel-nail wearin' diva.  I guess he just isn't interested in dirty hippies.

What are your deal-breakers?

You Can Thank Me For Personally Saving The Earth Later.

Oh, to be a renter.  No!  I didn't just say that.  I never want to rent any domicile ever again.  I fucking loathed every second we had to rent.  It's just that owning a house is really damned hard on the pocketbook. 

It's like owning a car, see.  I know quite a lot of people who don't have a car and they squeal with envy when they see my shiny black hotness.  BUT - they don't see my scheduled maintenance bills and payments and $2000 winter tires and insurance and gas and registration and....$$$ I always tell them it's a money pit and if mass transit was better in this town I'd switch in a minute.  I bet it costs half of my paycheque just to own and maintain our one car.  It's that sad (both the paycheque and the expense).

Yes, owning a house is like that, but much more satisfying.  There is none of the frustration that comes at the end of the car's life when you find out it's worth nothing.  BUT - one day you smell something funny.  You turn to your husband and say, "Do you smell something funny?"  "Nope," he says, not having your bloodhound nose.  An hour later he smells it.  Experience sends us to the furnace room.

Our furnace is the original one in our 26-year-old house.  There was a crack in the heat exchanger when we bought it.  Our home inspector told us we could get another four years out of it, six years ago.  We've been waiting for it to conk out.  When we opened the furnace panel, we could see that the edges of the crack were white-hot.  "It's time," we said.

That funny smell is going to wind up costing us $4500.  We do get a 95% efficient furnace out of it, though, with a two-stage motor that actually keeps the house at an even temp and will lessen our gas and power bills.  I won't be sorry to see the back of that old, inefficient, polluting and underperforming piece of crap that leaves my living room ice-cold.  We also get to claim it on our income taxes next year.

And I will be toastier than ever by next Wednesday!!!

And Yours?

Christmas was well-organized this year, and environmentally friendly too, now that I think of it.  Instead of making two separate trips to Mr. W's parents' and mine, as we did in the past, we just did a big loop.  In earlier days there wasn't actually a road that could be used in the winter between Mr. W's parent's place in Pierceland, SK and my parent's place outside of Lloydminster - even though they are only about 90 minutes apart at highway speed.

Saskatchewan has a reputation for having the poorest roads in the country.  It's a combination of fucked-up infrastructure allotments and harsh weather.  The roads that cross from Alberta into Saskatchewan actually have a dividing line where the money ends and the ruts start.  Also, the road that only recently opened up this path for us spends many miles passing through reservations, which are the last places in Canada the government cares to spend any money.

The one problem with a 2-in-1 trip is getting the gifts home.  Jason Bourne, our Lancer, is awesome to drive, but like all sports cars it's a little short in the cargo department.  We had my brother with us for the last leg too, so we were crammed ceiling-high with gifts & people. 

I also saw some cousins of mine who have reached the age of reason.  It's funny how you can watch people grow up, and when they finally pass through their childhood and puberty you think, hey this guy's pretty awesome - let's go get a beer sometime!  I wonder if anyone thought that of me....