So Many Surveys, So Little Improvement

Seems like I get six or seven surveys a day asking how some service I received or product I bought was. Not only do some companies send you one or two e-mail, but my car service department sent me nine different requests to review the same oil change. Hey Ford, if I had a problem you would know it, take my silence as a good sign and stop bugging me.

E-mail is harmless enough and easy to delete, but phone calls to ask me about my service are a line that should not be crossed. Any of my readers certainly know that I have strong opinions and am never shy about letting the appropriate people know when I am very unhappy or very happy.

Today at lunch a group of us got a yummy Nicoise Salad. We thought it should have come with capers, based on our historical knowledge of what a Nicoise salad usually had and the description in the menu. We asked the waitress and she brought us an abundance of capers to add to our lunch, which we greatly appreciated.

She told us that what we got was the chef’s interpretation of the Nicoise Salad. Fine, he can interpret all he wants and I will just order capers on the side. A supervisor later told us that capers were supposed to come on that salad. Since we are regulars at this place and she was new I let her know not to bother trying to sell us any excuses the sous chef wants her to sell us next time. It might not have been the nicest thing in the world to say, but it will save her heartache when she waits on me in the future. I did not need a survey to ask me what was wrong, it was easiest to tell the person I will see regularly how to make sure I am a happy customer.

I like to give feedback so things get better, but what I can’t stand is being asked to spend my time to help someone improve their business and then have them repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Stop asking me ‘cause it is worst that I went to the trouble of telling you and you ignored me.

The world has plenty of ways to give feed back and most of them are public and not nice. Sometimes I read trip advisor reviews and want to have a review of the reviewer. Clearly their standards are not the same as my standards. Sometimes I am more harsh than others just because I am hungry, as was probably the case today according to my friend Carol.

It’s all right to ask for feed back, but please don’t badger customers to death to tell you what they think. They may have been perfectly happy until you started bothering them, take no news as good news.

1950’s Peach and Cottage Cheese Redux

After the drive home from Charlotte with the car full of teenagers I was just wiped out. I started the day by treating myself to a real breakfast this morning which turned out to be more difficult than I thought. There was a very cute French Bistro right near my hotel so since I was working on my Eiffel Tower needlepoint I thought it was the right place for me to go.

I got there well before the post church crowd and was seated at a cafe table outside where I had good strong sun light to stitch by while I waited. And wait I did. A middle aged woman alone is the customer that gets forgotten. I ordered my usual iced tea and scrambled eggs. My tea came quickly, but not my food. No worries I was stitching and enjoying the outdoors.

Long after I had drained my glass a young man who was not my waitress dropped a plate in front of me. Before he could get away I asked for salt and pepper and more tea. The spices arrived quickly which hardly made a difference because the eggs were cold. I eventually flagged down another server and sent my plate back. I was still without any more tea when my second plate of nice hot eggs arrived.

Only the second time I saw my waitress was when I was finished with my meal and needing my check, I never got any more tea. So much for the treat of a real breakfast. I should have stuck to my standard cereal and milk and saved myself the aggregation.

I got home just in time to kiss Russ goodbye before he left for San Francisco. I am hopeful that the earth will be still while he is there this week. I was too tired to go to the grocery and since Carter had sushi available for her dinner I decided just to scrounge something up for myself. I looked at a bowl of perfectly ripe peaches on the counter and decided that I needed to eat them today or tomorrow or lose them all together.
I peeled and sliced two peaches and put them in a bowl. I considered just pouring some milk on the and being done with it when I found a nice container of cottage cheese in the fridge.

How many 1950’s old cookbooks had I seen in my house growing up that had a photo of a lettuce lead with a half a peach and a scoop of cottage cheese topped with half, not a whole one mind you, but half a maraschino cherry? I spooned out a hunk of cottage cheese on my fruit, then turned to my bag of tart dried cherries. After cutting about dozen in half I sprinkled them liberally over the dish and took a bite. Heaven. Sweet, tar, creamy, juicy. Every bit of me was satisfied with these three ingredients. Sometimes they were on to something in the 1950’s and it was so much faster to make it and serve it to myself without aggravation.

Charlotte Three Decades On

I’m writing my blog from the comfort of my Hampton Inn room in Charlotte where I sit alone, needle pointing, watching movies and having major Deja Vu. My purpose for spending a Saturday night alone while Russ and Shay hold down the Durham fort is that I am here solely as a driver. Carter and her 2C Camp Cheerio friends planned a reunion in Charlotte for this weekend.

The overwhelming love of camp and each other made this one-month-out-of-camp get together mandatory. Of course ten fifteen year olds can’t drive themselves so I volunteered to fire up the old Land Cruiser and stuff it full of as many kids from the triangle and Greensboro as I could fit. One generous Charlotte Mom, Melanie offered up her house for the girls to stay at. The plan is that the boys are staying at William’s house, but boy planning is totally different than girl planning so I hope that Mom knows what’s going on.

Hearing girls, hanging out the window of their Mom’s car, scream out “CCCAAARRRTTTEERR,” as they pulled into the meeting spot parking lot made my heart happy. The friendships developed at camp are different than all others so I am happy to act as a bus driver. The bonus is I get a night in Charlotte.

Thirty years ago I used to spend a lot of time here selling mail opening and extracting machines to the growing banking and remittance processing businesses here. North Carolina was the southern most side of my five state territory. I quickly learned that flying to Charlotte on Piedmont Airlines was the way to go, especially since I was trying to rack up enough frequent flyer points to fly to Greece. I miss Piedmont Airlines.

Although Charlotte was always the biggest place in North Carolina it is different now than it was then. Back in the day I used to stay at a Holiday Inn, that was until one morning when the room service clerk delivered my bagel and cream cheese order. Since my job often required me to visit a client’s site very early in the morning I would eat breakfast while doing my hair, it was the 80’s after all and hair was a big production.

This particular morning the clerk brought me blue cheese rather than cream cheese. I called the front desk to let them know of the mistake I discovered after taking a bite. The response of “We don’t have blue cheese,” was an unwelcome discovery. That was when I looked more closely at the small paper cup the odorous cheese had come in. The Holiday Inn did not know they were growing their own blue cheese without a license. I never stayed there again.

Food in Charlotte is much better now than it was then. Beside the mold problem I used to only eat BBQ here. Yes, it was good barbecue, but it was not all that healthy. Today as I pulled into my hotel I noticed than I was surrounded by good restaurants as well as fancy prepared food store Dean and Deluca.

So as Carter and her friends were frolicking at Carowinds in the heat, I was enjoying a yummy lunch of spinach salad and chili lime shrimp at Dean and Deluca – No mold was encountered.

Not Looking at Me Does Not Mean I Won’t Hit You

It’s back to school so it’s back to driving more for everyone so it’s back to local roads being busier than the lazy summer time. No matter if it is a busy time of year or day I have the same routine when I am trying to pullout onto a primary road from a parking lot or secondary place. I look out my side window in the direction opposite I want to go, then I look out the opposing side window and if everything looks good I do a quick recheck of the first side to make sure nothing has changed. Assuming no one is going to come barreling at me I go.

Can someone let me know if the normal rules of the road changed over the summer because today I was almost hit three times by drivers all doing something differently than I do, but all the same way. As I was driving on the primary road at the speed limit I saw a driver in a car stopped on a side street on my side. They looked at me and turned their head and looked the other direction and without turning their head to look back they just pulled out.

If I had been so far away that they had room I guess the third head turn check might have been unnecessary, but that was not the case. Three times today people pulled out either right in front of me heading the same direction or across my lane with not enough room and without looking at me. I began to think my car had donned itself with the cloak of invisibility.

I wish that I had a big loud speaker attached to my car so I could scream out, “Just because you don’t turn back and look at me does not mean I am not here!” as I slammed on the breaks.

This got me thinking about a friend who told me of her sibling who got rid of all the full length mirrors in her house because she did not want to look at her hips since she had put on about fifty pounds. “Just because you are not looking at something does not mean it is not there!”

Gaining 50 pounds is not the worst thing in the world, but if you don’t like it denying it is not going to help. Not looking back at the car barreling towards you does not mean there is room to pull out. People need to pull their head’s out of the sand and face the situation as their reality.

The three drivers that pulled out in to traffic were just lucky I was watching them so carefully. Actually, the second two were lucky the first one did it to me today with more room to spare and made me watch the others more vigilantly. It was hard to believe it happened two more time in a three-hour period.

We all have things we don’t want to face. My friend’s sister has to decide to look in her own mirror. No one can do it for her. But driving affects the rest of the world. So please people, look three times, that last one might save your life.

Proud Mother

Today I went into the non-profit Carter had volunteered at during her Durham time this summer. It was her last day of “working” there having spent over a hundred hours in order to qualify for the Mayor’s Award. Getting actually 104.5 hours of work meant she had to be there everyday she was not at camp or on vacation. Due to her working nine hours or more most days she was able to finish early so she can have three days off before school starts.

I was hands off in this little “job”, but really wanted to see her in action for a few moments so I went in just before five o’clock rather than sitting in the car to wait for her to come out today. Carter was on the phone helping a “client” when I came through the door. The real employees greeted me and I introduced myself as “Carter’s Mom.”

Both women at the front desk jumped up to shake my hand and tell me what a good job Carter had done and how much they were going to miss her. These are the words a mother longs for. I stood at the reception desk and listened to Carter helping the person on the phone. It was like listening to her speak a foreign language.

Kids Carter’s generation don’t talk on the phone much; at least my child does not. If ever she has a need that involves the phone she usually begs me to do the calling. I was thrilled to hear her have such an adult conversation with a stranger.

I know that doing this volunteering was not her first choice of a summer activity, but now that it is done Carter says it was great experience. I am thrilled she learned so much about working for other people and about herself. The worst thing about working is getting that first job. Most jobs want you to have experience before they will give you a job and how do you get experience without having a job? Even non-paid internships often require prior experience.

Kids need to have opportunities to learn how to work for other people they are not related to. A good work ethic is one that is best developed at a young age, but our society has made it virtually impossible for young people to get jobs. Volunteering is great, but not everyone can afford to volunteer. Many young people need to earn money.

If you have any need to hire people please consider creating a job that you can hire a teenager to do. Yes, they take more training and yes it may be harder on you, but you will be doing the world a great service if you can give a young person a job. Also, my Dad always had a great motto about working, “Be nice to the people who work for you, you never know when you will work for them.” You may be training the next Bill Gates.

More Doggone Progress Needed

I love vacations, but I miss our sweet dog Shay Shay when we go away. I am sure we miss Shay more than she misses us since she goes to live with sweet Mary and all the other playmate pups she is caring for while we are gone.

Last night Carter and I stayed at new hotel called EVEN that was very dog friendly. The place had only been open a month and was bright shiny new, but they welcomed guests with their dogs. I met three different dogs in the lobby and the elevator and they made me miss our puppy. I would love to take Shay on a vacation with us since there seem to be more and more hotels for pooches.

The only hole in the dog vacation plan is that restaurants do not let dogs in and I do like to eat while I am away. In England dogs are welcomed everywhere, especially if you have a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, which is considered the royal dog, although I think the queen has corgis. A meal at the pub is always nicer with your best friend at your feet.

I don’t think it is really a health hazard to not allow dogs in restaurants. I think my dog is cleaner than others in my family some of the time. Now that all dogs take flea and tick killing medicine it seems like the pest risk is low. Service dogs are allowed everywhere by law so what’s a few more? We used to have smoking and non-smoking sections; we could have canine and canine free areas for those people who might be allergic. Restaurants could always reserve the right to refuse to allow badly behaved dogs to stay.

I just can’t see traveling with a dog in the summer since you can’t leave your baby in a car for even a few minutes to run in a store and buy something, let alone eat a meal. Being allowed to bring Shay Shay in a restaurant with me is also figure friendly because I am bound to share my meal with her. In fact it probably would be increased revenue for the restaurant because I am more likely to order a steak for her while I get the salad.

So who do I lobby to change the no dogs in restaurants policy? I can bet that the first state to do it will see a major upturn in tourism. Nothing helps get changes faster than the promise of more tax revenue.

I know there is a loophole in the whole system and that is all I need to do is train Shay to be a service dog and have her wear a little yellow vest but that is not the answer for the whole country. If hotels have gotten there it’s time for restaurants to get in the game.

Pay Attention

After the last camp breakfast and hugs good bye we drove off from Washington Maine. Russ was driving for a very short first leg to the Rockland airport where he was flying out of. Thankfully he did not mind sitting at the tiny airport for a few hours watching the old bi and single wing planes flying in and out so Carter and I could get a good start on our drive home.

I took over the driving from there so Carter could spend the car time texting her friends. It turns out that was a good thing since about an hour down the road a girl driving a red SUV in the middle lane decided at the last minute that she needed to take a left hand exit just past the actual exit. Since I was in the left hand lane I was in the direct line of this clueless driver. Thanks to my constant scanning sense for bad drivers doing worse things I was able to slam on the brakes while taking the same left exit as the red SUV and just barley averted a total crash.

It was an incredibly scary moment. The girl in red realized her almost fatal mistake as we passed by her and she mouthed “sorry.” Carter burst into tears. I was shaken up to, but kept the car moving and circled back around to get back on the south bound route. It was a good learning moment for a new driver. Being alert to the dumb stuff other people might do is as important as not doing dumb stuff yourself. I am just thankful that I was driving because we only averted disaster because my reflexes took over. I drove the whole rest of the trip making our half way home hotel without any other incident.

Now that Carter and I are tucked safely in our matching double beds spending our last night sharing a room together for the summer I am having a moment to contemplate how lucky we are. I know that if I had been at all distracted when the girl in red made that bad move we wound have crashed into her going 60 miles an hour. I hope tomorrow’s drive will be much less eventful.

Order of Importance

In the craziness that is my family this is the message I get on my blog today from my Dad.

I saw Forsyth Michie at Wukka’s funeral in Ivey, VA on Saturday. She looked great. She told Mom and me that your blog caused her to lose 50 pounds! Did you know that? She credits it all to you! Isn’t that wonderful? Hope camp is fun….XOO Dad

Back ground for my non-family readers, Wukka is my father’s cousin and Forsyth is his daughter.

First let’s start with what I did not know in order or importance:

1. I did not know that Wukka had passed away

2. Therefore I did not know about the funeral

3. I had no idea that Forsyth had lost 50 pounds

4. And I get none of the credit.

I do know that Forsyth reads my blog so publicly I want to say how sad I am for the loss of your father. He was a first class gentleman and character and a stellar example of what a real Michie is like.

My favorite story about him is when he was a history professor at Salem College and his afternoon class started before “As the world turns” ended thus causing some of his students to be consistently late for class. When he questioned them about their tardiness the girls told him that they were late because they were watching that show.

Wukka, thinking that “As the world turns” must have been a current events news show then told the girls it was fine for them to be late as long as that was what they were doing. During a school break Wukka was home at 1:00 and decided he would tune into this important world events show that so many of his students were watching. It came as quite a shock to him to discover that “As the world turns” was a soap opera.

When the young women returned to class from break he scolded them, but they replied that they had never misrepresented what the show really was. Nonetheless class started on time forever after that with no excused tardiness.

To all my other family members I want you to know in advance that if I miss sending you condolences on the passing of your loved one I am sorry. My sisters and I have have more times than not had similar messages from our parents about some family story and when we asked them where they heard it they tell us it was at someone’s funeral. Somehow the information that someone has passed got lost in translation.

Good Habits Can Easily Fail

For two and a half years I have mostly eaten a healthy diet almost everyday. I basically gave up processed sugar and most white flour even though, given my choice they would be at the top of my “what am I craving?” list. There is no other way for me to have lost 100 pounds and kept it off since my natural state is more balloon like than heroin chic.

I also have been fairly disciplined about working out, not because I like it, but because I like to eat and I know that of at this confirmed stage of menopausal middle aged white lazy ass life if I am not moving constantly I am gaining weight no matter how little I put in my mouth.

Now I am at camp which for most people would be an active-a-rama-thon of running, jumping, swimming and dancing. Well, maybe yesterday when I played SCAG a game of kicking a soccer ball through giant croquet like hoops 100’s of yards apart and scoring it like golf, that’s what the name SCAG stands for, Soccer, Croquet And Golf. Although it is some good walking it is a fairly slow game with lots of standing around waiting for your opponents to kick, so in essence it is not much exercise. Then I went for a two hour hike of the 300 acre camp. Again it was a slow meandering walk with an instructional talk so I hardly broke a sweat. In the afternoon I sailed, well you know how much movement was involved with that. By the end of the day I had gotten only about 18,000 steps, many thanks to the post dinner kickball game. Sounds good until you throw in the eating.

At camp we eat family style. You walk in the dining hall and the food is already sitting at your table. Although there are plenty of healthy vegetables and always a salad made from greens from their own gardens there is also usually a homemade bread and some potatoes and then a yummy and naughty dessert. If I were eating at a restaurant I would have no trouble keeping away from the foods that call my name but somehow at camp I eat what is on the table, even though I mostly stay away from those things without trouble at home.

Perhaps if I had a scale and got on it every morning and saw what was happening to me I might be better at passing the corn bread on to my neighbor. Today I hit an all time low. I ate a blueberry muffin for breakfast, even though there was homemade yogurt that comes from the milk of the camp cow, which I also ate. Then lunch came. Feeling the guilt of my muffin I skipped the bun for the chicken sandwiches and the cole slaw and just put the grilled chicken on my salad. Hooray, my normal-at-home-healthy-guilt-free-lunch.

I needed that since I had hardly moved all day spending morning activities getting a massage, needle pointing at fiber arts and cutting out my cheese board at wood working with an electric scroll saw.

Just as I was feeling like I was under control a large pan of gooey chocolate walnut brownies was placed right in front of me. Next to me sat Ruth from New Castle, England who I have come to learn likes sweets too and across the way was Micheal who said the reason he ran five miles that morning was to counteract his love of sweets. One small brownie led to another and another half and then some finger licking a cup of coffee with real cream and one more bite of brownie. How quickly hard fraught habits can disappear.

Feeling full and slightly sick I forced myself into a swim suit and walked to the lake to paddle boat myself to loon island a good forty five minute bit of work and then swam back and forth to the dock four times. No way I worked off even one small brownie. It’s time to not succumb to the allure of food that is just placed in front of me. God, it’s almost time for dinner.

Just Play Even If It Is Embarrassing

The first time we came to family camp five years ago it was because I was jealous of Carter’s time at Camp Cheerio and I wanted to relive my childhood favorite time of summer camp. Russ found Camp Medomak family camp for us to enjoy together. We have been coming back ever since.

At first it was great for Carter to be able to try activities with fun counselors we did not have at home like sailing, or archery. Russ and I also got to learn new things like paddle boarding without having the investment in equipment.

As the years go on what we do at camp has changed a little. We no longer feel compelled to participate in every activity. Carter may sit on her bed and watch her favorite youtubers and laugh out loud and that is just fine with us. It is her vacation too so she is free to go on and do whatever makes her happy.

One of the benefits I see now as Carter is getting older is her ability to share a cabin with her parents without much complaint. I figure that if she can sleep though her father getting up at six in the morning to go get coffee at the farm house and log on to his computer, or her mother getting up in the middle of the night to walk off a leg cramp and use the bathroom then she is going to do just fine in a dorm in college. No matter how hard we try to embarrass her she still hangs with us and for that I am thankful.

Since I like to participate in activities and Russ does not I am thrilled when Carter pipes up as Russ is saying he is not going to play kick ball after dinner with, “just humor her and play if you want a good night’s sleep.” Nothing makes me happier than my child doing something I like even if it is not her first choice. What is even better is when she finds out she really likes it. Even better than that is that her father joins in and has fun too.

So tonight by the luck of the draw we all were on the same team and played our hearts out. It is not often that a teenage daughter will cheer for her mother running the bases that surely is a sight no one wants to see. We may not have won the game against our opponents, but I feel like we won just for playing together.

Playing Is Everything

I know my daughter is in a good vacation mood when she asks to play a game with me. At dinner tonight Carter announced to the table that I liked games more than her or Daddy. Our friend Warren, who we are staying with a great game lover too who I have been competing with over many games for almost forty years piped in, “Carter, that is not true, games are a close second to you and your Dad.” Warren is right. Husband, daughter, games. Or Carter would prefer, daughter, husband, games.

After a great dinner at Primo’s where they grow lots of what they serve including the yummy yard bird I had and a trip to Dorfman’s for ice cream Carter was in such a good mood that she demanded a Mexican Train Dominio game. So in the corner booth of the HoJo room Warren, Carter and I competed heartily while Russ looked at 1954 hardcover Rockport phone book. He read aloud the copy from the ads in the book deciding he liked the one for Russell’s Funeral Home that boasted “all modern equipment.” When I die I don’t really care what equipment will be used on me, I won’t be there to know.

After a few rounds of the game the magic disappeared and Carter left the game in favor of looking at photos on Russ’ iPad of at least ten years worth of vacations. Carter’s departure left me and Warren to battle out the remainder of the game. We came to the sad realization that this was our last night in Rockport with Warren at the Howard Johnson’s. It’s been a great few days. We walked the breakwater today, rocked in the chairs on the front porch, told stories and cooked at eaten way too much. These are the days that Carter talks about when she reminisces about vacation.

Sad as we will be to leave we are looking forward to family camp. It is best not to over stay our welcome and leave while our host is still having fun with us so we can be invited to come back. Being a good guest is way more important than being a good host. But having such a warm and thoughtful host who plans out all the meals, shops in advance of our arrival, makes the guest rooms the most comfortable and caters to our every whim is hard to beat. You would think I would let him win at dominos as part of my “good guest” plan, but no. Remember games are very important to me. Daughter, husband, games, winning, host, in that order.

Lobstah!

It is no cliche to say that you have to eat Lobster when you come to Maine. I try and get it as often as I can, but I went two lunches and one dinner and a breakfast before I got my first one. It was worth the wait.

Warren has a local place he gets his lobsters from and I have to say it pays to have a friend as a local with a good connection. He took me over to pick up our BIG soft shells and the nice woman who owns the place not only had set aside the ones with the biggest claws, but threw in an extra one for free because it had a small deformity on one claw and she thought she would not be able to sell it. Who says Yankees are not nice?

After snacks on the front porch of the local cheese curd and Maine Blueberry soda for Carter we went to the HoJo’s room to enjoy our dinner. The things were so big I could only eat my lobster and a little zucchini. Warren put on the juke box after dinner and I was so drunk on my lobster that I danced behind the HoJo’s soda fountain singing “last dance” with Donna Summer into the ice cream scoop and embarrassed Carter to no end.

Hey, I need the exercise after my big dinner and there is nothing better than dancing the calories off. Now it’s time for some serious game playing. The perfect end to a great night.