how not to win my business

Be one of the two hotels likely to be decent based on brand name that are close to my home. Answer your phone with a mumble. Listen to my explanation about wanting to see a room this afternoon and to possibly put in a block request for a wedding, then transfer me to sales, where I have to repeat my explanation. Tell me that someone else in sales handles those requests and that you’ll transfer me to their extension. Do not mention that said person is out of town and won’t call me back until the next day, even though I clearly stated that I need to deal with this that day. Be unconcerned that the transferer didn’t mention your out-of-townness and failed to handle the request herself or at least hand it off to someone who was physically there. Mention that you checked your messages yesterday afternoon but couldn’t be bothered to call me back until this morning. Validate the pretty bad online reviews of your hotel (which, in retrospect, I should have checked before even calling). Make me glad I didn’t even have a chance to see a room or have to contemplate sending a nice chunk of business your way.

Police, baby!

My super-secret Ticketmaster location has paid off again. I got there at quarter to ten, joined the line with six or seven people in front of me, and left with two mid-priced tickets at 10:10. Had there not been presales for both Best Buy members and Police fan club members, who took all of the good tickets, I probably could have scored some great seats. (Nothing will ever beat the second-row center seats I got for Sting, though — also obtained by standing in line, although not at that particular Ticketmaster.)

Now, if I get in to the St. John Westshore Festival of the Arts, that will make for one hell of a mid-July.

brava

I just love Helen Mirren, and I’m thrilled that she won the Best Actress Oscar. I can only hope to be that lovely and poised when I grow up.

walloped by the storm

Have I mentioned yet how grateful I am that I no longer commute to the East Side?

Dinner with friends last night was cancelled, and my dentist’s office called this morning to reschedule today’s appointment, so I’m enjoying another day of not having to leave the house. I have my turtleneck, my chunky British wool sweater, a fuzzy blanket, unlimited tea, soup for lunch, a great view of the crazy snowdrifts outside, and plenty of projects to keep me busy. Sounds like a good day to me.

owl invasion

I haven’t paid much attention to owls since the Great Owl Incident of 2004, but today they are everywhere: the Smithsonian Store spam, a post on design*sponge, a random Etsy page . . . I only hope that whatever the noise was that woke us up at 3:30 this morning wasn’t owl-related. Once in a lifetime is enough.

see? see?

The next time someone expresses skepticism when I share my story of being attacked by a centipede, I’m going to direct them to this You Tube video. Assuming the centipede I bludgeoned to death in my yard with a garden trowel mere days after the incident was the same one or its brother, my attacker was only an inch or two shorter than the star of this film.

(I think the answer to the untranslatable archive dilemma is to simply repost the “best of” here a little at a time with the appropriate retro timestamp and let the rest retire quietly to CD to play shuffleboard and bore each other to death. I’ll lose the few comments I have, but so be it.)

happiness is . . .

sparkly things

My Etsy shop is now up and running! Look for new items every couple of days — there’s a queue of fun stuff waiting to be photographed and posted, and I’m working on some cool new ideas. Feedback is always appreciated.

still testing

Still trying to figure out this template. A few annoying problems remain: the sidebar is pushed down on permalink pages without comments; I can’t figure out how to get margin around my posted photos without throwing the little icon next to the comment line way out of whack; and for some reason the text is starting at the bottom of the photo instead of wrapping (I do have the text alignment set to “left”). But I’m sick of messing with it for now, so we’ll all just have to live with it until I have time and energy to tackle it again. If you have a suggestion for any of those problems, or any other comments to make, please let me know. For now, I’m just going to bed.

RSS change

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