Am I Alone In Wanting To Be Left Alone?

I was out running an errand tonight and decided to treat myself to some frozen yogurt. So I go into the shop and I’m headed toward the cups when I am accosted by the cashier.

First she welcomes me to the store. Yea, ok fine. I know you’re probably not nearly as cheery and happy as you sound because I also work in food service, but your boss probably requires you to greet the customers so whatever.

Then she asks if I’ve been there before. I had, and I told her that, but why even ask? Why does it matter at all if I’ve been there before?

Lastly, after learning that I’ve bought yogurt from this store before, she thanks me for coming back. Uh… you’re welcome?

Just leave me the hell alone and let me go about my business!! Seriously, am I the only person who actively dislikes all the stupid polite small talk shit that the owners and managers of retail and food service places require their employees to spew at their customers? When I go into a shop of any kind I just want to do my shopping and leave. If I have a question, I will ask.

I don’t need to be greeted, I know you don’t care how my day is and I know you aren’t nearly as happy to be there as you’re pretending to be. So can we just skip that completely pointless interaction? I honestly do not understand why the people who manage these stores seem to think it makes any difference to the customer whether they are greeted when they come in. I have never spoken to someone who was happy with their purchase but wasn’t going to go back to a place because no one said hello when they walked in the door.

I don’t need help. At least not the minute I enter your store. If you’re a retailer, I need to look for the thing I’m there to buy. If you’re a food service establishment, I need to decide what I want to eat. What I do not need is you bothering me before I’m ready to make my purchase. All you’re doing is wasting both our time. Go do something more productive until I’m either ready to leave or I actually do need your help.

I don’t like platitudes, polite small talk or attempts to sell me things. Just leave me alone and let me get what I came for. As long as you’re not rude to me when or if I engage you I will be happy.

Am I alone in this? Do other people actually care whether they’re greeted or like it when a sales person tries to give them a tour or spiel about the products in the store?

No Promises

Eight months. I haven’t written anything substantial in eight months.

And I’m not really writing anything now. But I’ve started to feel the itch again, so I thought I’d pop in here and let anyone who’s interested know that I’m not dead and hopefully neither is this blog.

Hopefully. But I’m not making any promises. That way lies disappointment.

My Boyfriend is Dating Another Girl…

…which is totally OK because I am also dating the same girl.

And it occurred to me when I woke up today that The Keeper and I are in a somewhat unique position. As of right now we’ve been out on one date with a fantastic girl that we both really, REALLY like and there’s a second date in the works probably for next week. The goal of all this (in addition to making an awesome new friend) is to eventually have a threesome and possibly have an ongoing friend with benefits/ BDSM relationship with The Girl. But right now we’re just dating, getting to know one another and trying to determine if we want to get more intimate or not just like any other dating situation. I can’t necessarily speak for The Girl or The Keeper, but I’m having all the same feelings as any other time I’ve been on the cusp of a new romantic relationship. The big difference is that this time I have The Keeper right there with me. I have the excitement of a new relationship while also having the security of my relationship with The Keeper. I get to have all the giddy nerves and the anticipation of a first kiss and the awkward should-I-make-a-move moments WITHOUT the worry that something is going to explode and someone is going to get hurt; because not only are all three of us adults who have been communicating openly about our feelings and expectations from the beginning, but also because each of us has a secure relationship to fall back on if things don’t work out. None of us is in a position where we’ll be alone and hurting if something bad happens.

That is a unique and special place to be. I’m quite enjoying it. And I’m especially happy to be sharing it with The Keeper.

Sickening

There is a video currently getting a lot of attention here on the internet. It was filmed in 2004 by a 16 year old girl with ataxic cerebral palsy. The video is a seven minute long real life portrayal of abuse masquerading as discipline. It is sickening, and may very well contain images which might be a trigger for people who have gone through similar abuse.

 

The girl being beaten in the video is Hillary Adams, the daughter of Judge William Adams. The instance of abuse shown in the video resulted from Hillary downloading software illegally. The description on the original video is as follows:

2004: Aransas County Court-At-Law Judge William Adams took a belt to his own teenage daughter as punishment for using the internet to acquire music and games that were unavailable for legal purchase at the time. She has had ataxic cerebral palsy from birth that led her to a passion for technology, which was strictly forbidden by her father’s backwards views. The judge’s wife was emotionally abused herself and was severely manipulated into assisting the beating and should not be blamed for any content in this video. The judge’s wife has since left the marriage due to the abuse, which continues to this day, and has sincerely apologized and repented for her part and for allowing such a thing, long before this video was even revealed to exist. Judge William Adams is not fit to be anywhere near the law system if he can’t even exercise fit judgement as a parent himself. Do not allow this man to ever be re-elected again. His "judgement" is a giant farce. Signed, Hillary Adams, his daughter.

I have seen people defending William Adams’ actions in comments across the internet. The beating itself does not sicken me as much as all the people who can watch it and not feel that it is wrong and evil to do that to a person, especially a person who is physically helpless. A couple of the comments I’ve seen mention that the girl did not share this video until her father threatened to cut her off financially and take away her car. I have not yet been able to corroborate that piece of information, but lets just assume for a moment that it is true. How the hell does that make the original beating in any way justifiable? I just do not understand.

Unfortunately, this man cannot be held legally accountable for this because the statute of limitations for assault is 5 years and this happened 7 years ago. He could, however, lose his position as a judge in three years if the people in his county vote him out. And I sincerely hope that people remember this in three years so that they can vote him out, because this kind of person is not qualified to make judgments about much of anything.

Tiny Houses & My Unhealthy Addiction To HGTV

Don’t ask me why, because there really is no good reason for it at the moment, but The Keeper and I (more I) have become completely addicted to HGTV. It started with the House Hunters series. Especially House Hunters: International. It was just so cool to see living spaces in other countries. And so cool to see living spaces that we could probably never afford. And so much fun to yell at people being stupid or ridiculous in their expectations or overly picky about things that really should not matter. But it didn’t stop there.

We started watching My First Place, Property Virgins, Holmes Inspection, Room Crashers, Holmes on Homes, Yard Crashers, Curb Appeal, and now All American Handyman. We’ve also watched a couple episodes of Design Stars, though neither of us is really all that interested in it. That one has mostly just been background noise once it gets too late for us to want to switch the channel and get invested in something. However, the most recent episode of Design Star introduced me to something that I think is super fun: Tiny Houses.

 

Apparently, these itty-bitty homes are a new trend among individuals and couples who want to live more of a green, small carbon footprint lifestyle. And they can be SUPER CUTE!

On the aforementioned episode of Design Star, the three remaining contestants each had to design the interior of one of these types of homes. The idea was to see who could use the minuscule space best while also making it aesthetically pleasing. 

They all did a pretty good job, but I realized something tonight when this episode was re-run and I had it on in the background. Every single one of them used the space just above the rafters as a sleeping space. They each had a carpenter assigned to them who could make anything they wanted to put into the space, but all of them chose to put the bed in the rafters. How did this show get down to the final three with such uncreative people?

The rafter space could have been some truly awesome storage. I’m sure they could have figured out some kind of drop down drawer configuration that would have been totally unique. And all of them missed the PERFECT opportunity for using Murphy Beds. They could have made a single person Murphy Bed that had a fold out table on the bottom so when the bed is up, a table could come out. Or, they could have made a two person Murphy Bed in two sections. One section could serve as a couch when the other section is folded up against the wall, and that other section could have the table underneath.

And that is exactly what I’m going to do if The Keeper and I ever decide we want a vacation home.

Super Easy Cheddar Crackers

A while back I happened upon a recipe for Cheese Nip-like cheese crackers. Today I actually tried this recipe out. And they are FANTASTIC.

I’ve included the recipe as I prepared it below, but you can find the recipe without adjustments as well as instructions to make a tiny goldfish shaped cookie cutter on the blog Miss Anthropist’s Kitchen.

 

Cheddar Crackers

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 8 ounces grated extra-sharp Cheddar cheese (around 2 cups). Note: you can experiment with other cheeses.
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon ground pepper 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

1. Pulse the flour,onion powder, salt, pepper, and baking powder together using a food processor.
2. Add the butter and cheese, and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
3. Pulse in 3 to 4 tablespoons of water, 1 tablespoon at a time, and only enough so that the dough forms a ball and rides the blade.
4. Remove dough, wrap in plastic, and chill for 20 minutes or up to 24 hours.
5. Heat oven to 350*F and line 2 or more baking pans with parchment paper, silicone baking mats, or aluminum foil sprayed with cooking spray. Set aside.
6. Roll the dough out to 1/8th-inch thickness, using flour if necessary to prevent stickiness. Cut out as many crackers as possible.
7. Place crackers on the prepared baking pans. Bake until golden and crisp (13-18 minutes). Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
8. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Sporcle

I read a blog post recently about making sure you learn something new every day. It was one of those “keep your mind active”, “exercise your mind” type posts. And it put me in a mood to do one of those timed “name all the _______” quizzes, which is something I do from time to time anyway when I’m bored.

So I did a quick google search and I was soon on Sporcle. I’m not really sure what the name is supposed to mean, but the “games” section is fantastic. Especially with regard to the type of quizzes I was looking for. I started out with the simple “U.S. States” quiz where you have to name all the states in something like 5 minutes. Usually when I haven’t done this in a while I’ll miss one or two of the states I never have cause to think about in my daily life. Like Nebraska. Who thinks about Nebraska? Ya know, unless they live there. Anyhow, I don’t like to do these over and over because when you run out of time the ones you missed are displayed, and I feel it’s kind of cheating to look over the answers and then immediately go and retake the quiz. So I had to find another one to divert my focus before going back to try again.

I chose Countries of Europe.

 

Then, after switching back and forth between the US and Europe, I added South America.

 
Since there are only 12 countries in South America, it didn’t take me long to get them memorized. So I added Africa.

Once I had all 47 countries of Europe, all 12 countries of South America and the majority of Africa memorized, I decided to take on naming all the countries of the world.

I quickly realized that this was going to be more difficult than each of the little regional quizzes, because the world map is so much smaller that once you start naming things the names start to cover up the map and I had been remembering some countries based on their location on the map. I’m not doing too badly though. I can name about 150 of the 196 countries on the World quiz.

How many countries can you name?