I went to a seminar and dinner last weekend that was put on by my company last weekend.  They hyped it all up as educational for planning retirement strategies, and that it was at a fancy restaurant and we were going to have a gourmet meal.  Well, the fancy restaurant stuck us in the basement which wasn’t fancy at all, and the “gourmet meal” was a piece of chicken cordon bleu that is exactly the same as the Barber brand frozen chicken cordon bleu that I buy for $2.00 at the grocery store.  I swear it was the exact same thing!  I was quite annoyed that they tried to pass that off as a special “gourmet meal.”   Not to say it didn’t taste good, it was terrific - the Barber chicken cordon bleu is one of my favorite “whip up fast and cheap and easy meals” at home.  But that is the point - I know how fast and cheap and easy it is and was annoyed that they tried to convince us that it was a big fancy deal.

Well, I didn’t have time this week to go to the Post Office about that postage due request until today.  I was running some errands and was driving past the Post Office so I swung into the office and went in.  Fortunately for me, the same clerk that waited on me when I brought the letters in to be weighed was the clerk working there today!  So I asked her to please explain how it could happen that they wanted twenty cents extra for the one letter.  She remembered me, and explained that the scales in her office are “light” and that some offices are “heavy” and one of the letters must have gone to a “light” office and one to a “heavy” office.  She took the postage due notice from me and told me not to worry about it.

I have to wonder just how efficient the post office is, for them to weigh the letters more than once!

Well I was quite annoyed today when I got home and discovered a note in my mailbox that I owed the Post office twenty cents for a letter.  Why was I annoyed?  Because I had taken that letter to the Post Office to have them weigh it and paid them with cash the exact amount of money for THEM to put postage on the envelope!

By the time I got home the post office was closed for today, so I will have to go to the Post Office some day next week to ask them why I got this request for more money.  What was so very strange was that I also mailed a 2nd letter at the same time, weighing the exact same amount, but they didn’t request extra money for THAT letter!  The two letters were going to two separate towns, twenty miles apart from each other, in the same state.  Is that weird or what?

I’ve heard of doing stupid things, but having sex on railroad tracks when a train is coming has got to be just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!  I was reading about the incident (that happened in South Africa last Friday) on the BBC website, and it really made me wonder what in the world were these people THINKING? 

I almost have to assume that this was maybe a suicide pact?  Maybe they were both dying from AIDS and wanted to end their lives doing something they really liked? 

Crazy, stupid people!

I just wanted to comment how very concerned that I am about our economy.  The price of gas is way too high, with very little evidence that it will go down anytime soon.  The stock markets around the world are struggling, and the big insurance companies and financial institutions are on the brink of disaster.  This is a tumultuous time.  I’m very concerned about my job security - or lack thereof!  I’m afraid that many businesses are going to be laying off employees, and I’m afraid that I will be one of them!  It is not easy finding a good job in this economy - in fact it’s not easy finding ANY JOB in this economy.  These are scary times!

I was reading a story on today.msnbc.msn.com about how pre-teen girls are getting bikini waxes!  The article was talking about how girls as young as six years old are having hair-removal waxing done, from their faces, backs, and bikini areas.  I think that is way too early for something like that!  What kind of body image problem are these girls going to have as they grow up?  How can a mother be so irresponsible as to encourage this type of thing?  Why are we trying to force our kids to grow up so fast?  This is just plain silliness!

Geez I hate going to the doctor’s office. I call ahead of time to find out if the doctor is “running on time” or “running late” so I won’t go in “on time” and end up waiting for over an hour in the outer office before being called into the “inner sanctum” to wait for another hour! So I called the office right before leaving my office to find out how the appointments were running and they said he was “on time.” So I went to the doctor’s office and ended up waiting for an hour in the outer office before being brought into the inner waiting room. I went to the desk and asked if I should reschedule my appointment because I couldn’t wait much longer and they said “oh no, he’ll be seeing you any minute now.” Well, I ended up waiting another twenty minutes before being ushered into the inner waiting room, and I ended up waiting THERE for another forty five minutes before being seen by the nurse, then another thirty minutes before being seen by the doctor! I was MOST UNHAPPY with that wait time, and I let the doctor know how much I would appreciate it if his staff would not lie to me when I call ahead to ask if they are running on time. If he is running an hour late, they should tell me and then I’d come an hour late or they should let me reschedule my appointment. This is NOT good customer service at all!