What we’ve got here is a Failure to Communicate

I’m not a big fan of texting.  If there’s something I need to know, call me.  Or email me.  But don’t text me.  Half the time whatever is texted can be read two or three ways (or not at all). 

This weekend, the day before I was to go out for lunch with my friend SB, I receive a text from a local number:

“Hi Lynne. Grandma passed today. Is very sad. Will have to take of a few things tomorrow at lunch. Ok if we rain check?”

Wow, SB’s Grandma or her partner’s Grandma.  I didn’t realize either of them were close to their Grandma.  And since when does SB text?  But the text used my name (sort of), it talked about lunch the next day… who else could it be?

There was a bit of a back and forth as I offer my condolences and she mentioned she looked through photographs all afternoon.  Hmm – that’s odd, considering SB is at the Primrose Hotel.

So I asked “Aren’t you at the Primrose?”

“No. At home.”

Why would she have gone back home?  “This is SB, right?”

“No. Rachel.  Oops, wrong Lynn”

Ah Rachel.  Ok, I know a Rachel – and apparently she had plans with a Lynne the next day.   She asked how I was, then asked how S was – to which I gave detailed answers since Rachel knows us fairly well. 

Then I got the reply ” Hi from us”

Us?  There is no “us” with Rachel.  Then I realized that it was yet another Rachel, one I haven’t talked to in years. 

And that puts the cherry on top of my texting experience.  I truly don’t understand the appeal.  It is the antithesis of “communication”.

Why I’d never make it in politics…

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz is in some hot water for comments he made during the recent Maple Leaf Foods related listeriosis outbreak.  You know, where 17 people have died because of bad sandwich meat.

Here’s what the Star has to say:

Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz was forced to apologize yesterday for “tasteless and completely inappropriate” jokes on an Aug. 30 government conference call during the listeriosis crisis.

“This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts,” Ritz quipped after fretting about the political dangers of the crisis.

Death by a thousand cold cuts.  Ha!  Now that’s funny!  And that’s why I’d never make it in politics.  It’s also why S cringes when she takes me out in public.

Takin’ out the Trash

I ordered my garbage bin from the City of Toronto today.  We got our notice ages ago, and we were trying to decide between a small and a medium.  If we didn’t make a decision, the default would be medium.  A small bin can take 1 bag, a medium can take 1.5 bags  – no explanation of exactly how big these bags are.  Green bags?  Kitchen catchers?.  Usually, we have only 1 large kitchen garbage bag.  Sometimes we have more than one.  But it’s not like we regularly have 1.5.  That said, we hadn’t really taken note of exactly how much garbage we throw away.  The decision due date came and went, so we expected to receive the default medium size.

A few weeks ago, the bins were delivered, but we didn’t receive one.  Instead, we got a letter giving us another chance to select a size.  On the back of the letter, they once again showed the dimensions of each bin, with an indication of how many generic bags it would hold.   Unfortunately, we didn’t realize we had all this time to make note of our garbage patterns – so we still haven’t paid attention to how often we have 2 bags.

Because their estimate of “One bag” wasn’t very illuminating, I checked out the City of Toronto’s website and finally found, buried in the Qs and As, reference to the actual volume of each bin:

How many litres do the Small, Medium, Large and Extra-large Bins hold?
The City felt it was more helpful to reference the number of bags each size holds, thinking the resident could better relate to that form of measurement. For those that are curious, here are the approximate measurements in litres: S=75L, M=120L, L=240L and XL=360L.

We use 13 gallon bags (49.2 litres).  Green bags tend to be 30 -33 gallons (113.5 litres).  So I’m not sure what kind of bag the City of Toronto’s website is using as a guide.  Unless a 30 gallon Glad bag, when tied, ends up holding around 20 gallons. 

So I called to order a small bin, and the person who answered seem to be trying to convince me to get a medium.  She said if I got a bin that was too small and needed to get a larger one, there’d be a $20 charge to switch. 

I explained that most of the time all we throw out is a large kitchen bag, but occasionally we’d throw out more (6x/yr?) and we can buy bag tags for that.  She explained that using bag tags defeated the goal of an automated system.  That may be true,  but I’m not going to pay for a bin that’s too large 80-90% of the time.  Maybe they just want to receive more tax money by encouraging people to get the bigger bins.  Maybe they’ve been getting complaints from people who selected the small bin based on the City’s claim that it could take a very full, presumably regular sized, garbage bag when, in fact, it can’t.

Overall, it seems the rollout of these new bins must be quite expensive.  It makes me wonder how much savings the City will see at the end of the day. 

 

All my relations

I’ve been told that I look intimidating.  If so, why do I get stopped all the time and asked for money or directions by strangers on a regular basis?  Shouldn’t they look at me and decide they may have better luck elsewhere?

Or maybe I just look intimidating for a woman, but all round and soft and approachable for a man.  Last night I was walking home, rounding a corner when someone hailed me with two salvos of “Excuse me” finishing with an “Excuse me, sir”.   So I stopped, figuring this guy was desperate for directions, or maybe I had dropped something and he was trying to get my attention. 

He said “I’m Anishnabe” and then, with a somewhat stricken expression, explained that he needed to get somewhere and needed $2.75 to do it.  I didn’t understand what his being First Nations had to do with the traditional “I need money for the bus” story, but I put my hand in my pocket and came out with $2.26 and handed it over, told him he was almost all the way there.  We parted — he said “Migwetch” and I waved my “you’re welcome”.  

I expect people with the “bus money” story need bus money from every person who seems remotely approachable, and normally I don’t give money to men who flag me down like that on the street.  But he seemed proud of his heritage, and I liked that about his version of the “bus money” story – especially the Migwetch at the end.  And I had just been treated to a belated birthday dinner by M, so why not share the wealth. 

But the initial encounter makes me wonder what kind of man people see when they first make their mistake, especially since I’m built like a woman.

Inconceivable?

Another month, another attempt at conception.  Again, our donor has lots of dancing sperm under the microscope.  But looking at S’s hormone levels, I thought we were doing this a day or two early.   The first insemination was likely wasted because she hadn’t ovulated by the next morning.  But there’s some hope because we inseminated again the next day.  We didn’t check today to see if she ovulated yet – since there’s really nothing we can do (too short notice to get more units shipped)

If the thawed sperm can last for 24 hours, we might be lucky.  Otherwise – the Quest continues.

 

Postscript: I did a little counting – and this will be the 6th try.  The sixth try and the timing was likely off.  I haven’t been keeping a running total, but we must be appraoching $9,000 on the junior creation project by now.

Thanks for the flowers, Loblaws

I received a bouquet of flowers while I was in the basement helping S fold laundry.  Because I couldn’t hear the doorbell, our neighbour accepted delivery and gave us a call, then handed me the flowers over the fence.  “Who would send me flowers?  And why?”, I wondered.

I took a look and they came with a little card that said “Get Well Soon from Loblaws Queen’s Quay”.  Too funny.

I had been emailing Loblaws head office for a while, letting them know about the soup scalding and suggesting they make changes so that it didn’t happen again.  After a number of weeks, they asked for my phone number (they already had my address) so that the store manager could call me.  And a couple of weeks after that,  the day before the flowers came, I received a voicemail from someone at Loblaws Queen’s Quay with his number if I needed to call him.  They seemed to be missing the point – I didn’t need to call anyone.  They need to change the way they serve their superheated soup, and, ideally, need to turn the temperature down to a safer level. 

Thanks for the flowers, Loblaws.  They’re quite attractive, and now my home smells nicely of stargazer lillies.  Although I appreciate the flowers, I think it’s more important that this not happen to other people.  I do hope you put some serious consideration into the way your soup can easily and effectively scald your customers.  Does hot soup have to be dumped onto a child’s face or on Stella Liebeck before changes are made?