The Clam Rampant

Kasia March 31st, 2008

I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I have to impose on your prayer lists again.

First, Jennie over at Far Beyond Pearls has reason to think that her husband, who is over in Iraq, is in more danger than usual. Please pray for them.

Second, and I have to be circumspect about this because I do not want to give away who the person is, I have to ask for prayers for a particular intention of mine. Someone I know is having an extraordinarily difficult time with both personal and professional life (no, it isn’t me; I’d cop to that), and is in need of prayer. I (obviously) can’t give a name, but the Lord knows who it is.

In news from previous prayer requests, my friend with the major medical tests did not have anything conclusive from the tests. I gather she’s got some definite medical issues, but the doctors are taking a “wait and see” attitude. Continued prayers for her are always appreciated.

And finally, my friends whose one income earner has been laid off are still looking for a new job. Prayers are certainly still appreciated there.

Many thanks.

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Kasia March 19th, 2008

I’m just going to say this to get it off of my chest:

WORKING TWO JOBS STINKS.

No, it does. I mean, I’m very grateful for both of them. I am! But I’m beginning to think that the only way one can work two jobs and have it work is for one to have a stay-at-home spouse who will handle the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry, the bill-paying, and otherwise make sure one is taken care of. Doing it all oneself is, to put it simply, nuts.

This has been a public service announcement for anyone who was thinking that getting a second job might be a good idea. Excuse me; I’m going to start snoring now. Even though I’m not asleep.

Lord, thank you for both of my jobs. You know I’m not usually this ungrateful. Please disregard this demonstration of relative ingratitude.

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Kasia March 17th, 2008

Good news from the Loved Sinner!

However, anyone who’s known someone who’s struggled with addiction knows that this will be a long row to hoe. Continued prayers would be appreciated.

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Kasia March 12th, 2008

I have to hand it to Geraldine Ferraro. The woman’s got spine.

What she essentially did was say what a lot of people have been thinking: that one reason (certainly not the only reason, but one of the reasons) that Barack Obama’s campaign for President has caught fire like it has, is that Obama’s black.

It’s not necessarily a criticism. It’s an observation. It doesn’t have to be a slur against Obama’s qualifications or achievements.

Historic “firsts” tend to catch a lot of attention and drum up some support. Ferraro points that out in her own VP nomination, and says directly that her being asked to run for Veep had nothing to do with her qualifications (which one presumes were pretty good, or the Democrats would’ve known they’d be laughed at for running her). I would also point to Joe Lieberman having been the first Jewish Veep candidate, or Colin Powell’s having been the first black Secretary of State (and Condoleezza Rice being the first black female Secretary of State).  I don’t remember anyone questioning whether Lieberman, Powell, or Rice were qualified. These things catch people’s interest, that’s all.

Trouble is, we as a society are apt to use a candidacy as a barometer for how far our society has progressed in a given area. I actually saw a columnist a while back suggest that if one did not vote for Clinton, one was sexist; but if one did not vote for Obama, one was racist. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

So when Johnny Democrat looks at his options, maybe he does think, “Wow, it would be really awesome if the U.S. actually elected a black president!” I know I’ve talked to people who’ve said as much, both American and not. And I’ve talked to people who react similarly to the prospect of a woman president. I even had an ardent feminist friend admit that she’d be in a bit of a quandary if Condoleezza Rice were to be nominated for President, because on the one hand she disagrees with everything Rice stands for. But on the other hand, she’s a black female. I kid you not.

Not that I’m some brilliant political philosopher, or even a brilliant anything, but it seems to me to be pretty cut and dried. If I shared my friend’s politics – which I don’t – it would be a no-brainer to vote against Rice in a Presidential campaign. It’s not because she’s black, or female; it’s because her views are pretty much 100% diametrically opposed to this friend’s. Frankly, even with my own more moderate politics, I would have reservations about voting for Rice. She’s a heck of a smart woman, there’s no question about it, but I have serious reservations about her approach to foreign policy. I’m sure if she did run for President, other things would come out that I’d have trouble with about her. That’s the way things tend to happen.

In any event, I suspect that this may blow up in Obama’s face. Ferraro did the smart thing: she immediately dissociated herself from the Clinton campaign so as to minimize potential damage, but she relentlessly stuck to her guns and is standing by what she said. And I say, kudos and may God bless her for it. There’s no good that can come of allowing oneself to be bullied by the threat of being called racist (or sexist, or whatever). If anyone’s got cred with the older liberal set, it’s Geraldine Ferraro. And I think she’s going to win this particular battle. In any event, it’s bound to be interesting.

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Kasia March 12th, 2008

Honeybaked Ham has been running what  is actually a pretty clever ad campaign for the last couple of months. The theme is “Honeybaked to the rescue,”and billboards feature scenarios like “Nine ham lovers and one vegetarian? Honeybaked Sides to the rescue!” or “First holiday dinner on your own? Honeybaked to the rescue!” Putting aside (for today, anyway) the sociological implications of a culture in which we’ve all but lost the art of cooking for ourselves, and the health and financial issues that raises, it’s kind of cute.

Today I heard a radio ad for Honeybaked. It was a woman calling Honeybaked, panicking because she had only just realized that Easter’s happening in March, and demanding that they postpone it. (Yes. Postpone Easter. As if we reeeeeally needed more Lent. …well, ok, I probably do need it. Shaddap.) The Honeybaked rep puts her on hold for a few seconds, then comes back, tells her that he’s put her down for X, Y and Z (ham and sides, I think), and that he called Rome, but “it seems they’re dead set on March 23rd. But next year Easter is on April thus-and-such, and the following year it’s on April whatever-it-is.” The woman, taken slightly aback, says somewhat hesitantly, “Well – you did all you could.”

No, I’m not even posting to rant about the idea that someone might be so self-centered as to actually try this. I’m sure it came out of some coffee-soaked (or perhaps alcoholic-coffee-soaked) creative department’s brainstorming session, like “Man, can you imagine if someone actually DID this?!”

No. My point is much more tangential. 

I go to CVS quite often on my lunch to buy a pop, since for some inconceivable reason, the Archdiocese doesn’t want to put a vending machine into the Cathedral. And for the past several weeks, I’ve been watching for the card section to change, and for Easter and confirmation cards to appear so I can pick one out for my candidate.

They haven’t.

They’ve had Easter candy out for I don’t even know how long. They’ve had all sorts of spring-and-Easter stuff out. They’ll be putting out Fourth of July stuff by the first of April. But the card section has remained stagnant.

If I were Orthodox, I could understand it, what with their Easter and ours almost never coinciding. Or if I was going to a CVS in a primarily, say, Russian or Armenian neighborhood – figure most of the clientele are going to be Orthodox, so they’ll tailor their selection accordingly. But last I knew, Protestants and Catholics celebrated Easter on the same date. And that date is just over a week away.

Anyone have any idea what’s going on?

Maybe I should call Honeybaked…

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Kasia March 10th, 2008

…to vomit first and cry second? Or vice versa?

That’s the clinic my parish is assigned to pray for by Priests For Life. Let’s keep praying.

I can’t help wondering whether this would have still made the news if medical records hadn’t been involved as well.

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Kasia March 10th, 2008

Loved Sinner Tara and her family need prayers. Please try to send some their way.

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Kasia March 7th, 2008

A while back, I was inspired by Jennie C. to look into raw milk, which got me onto the mailing list of a group called the Healthy Traditions Network. I haven’t been brave enough to try raw milk yet, but I got a very interesting e-mail from them the other day about organic meat.

Apparently, with the beef recall that took place, people have been looking for alternate sources of beef. There’s a meat processing company in Yale, Michigan (near Port Huron) called Roy’s, which has started offering “bundles” of organic beef and pork. “Hmm, interesting,” thought I, “but it’s probably WAY more expensive than my local Kroger.”

But I wondered anyway. So then I put the Canuck on the case. He wasn’t able to compare with my local Kroger (because he doesn’t live with me, and Kroger doesn’t post prices online because of different markets having different prices), but he did compare with some online grocery retailers, trying to get an average price. And you know what? Their organic meat is actually CHEAPER than online grocers! Yes, you have to pay for gas; but the smallest bundle has about 23 lb. of meat, so it’s not like you have to go every week.

Now, I expect that if you always get your meat on super-sale, or you always get it at Costco, or your brother is a butcher, you probably can get it cheaper than this. I’m planning to visit my local Kroger for some pricing comparisons this weekend. But in the meantime, I called Roy’s to get some more information.

You pick up the meat boxed and frozen. They are more than happy to wrap, say, the 3 lb. of farmer’s sausage in 1-lb. units, which is nice – I was anticipating having to have a marathon chopping and dividing session upon getting it home. She said odds are I wouldn’t even need a cooler, even in the summer, unless I had something like a pickup truck or was going a reeeeally long way.

The disadvantages (besides the obvious distance issue) are that you can’t substitute on the bundles, so you pick the best fit and deal with it, and it takes 3 – 3 1/2 weeks to get your meat once you place the order. Basically once you order, they slaughter your meat, hang it to age, then bundle and freeze it and call you to pick it up (which you don’t have to do right away). You pay on pick-up, not on ordering, and they take cash, check, Visa and Mastercard.

I went ahead and ordered the smallest bundle, as well as some boneless chicken breasts. What I want to see is (a) whether the meat is better than I get at Kroger, and (b) whether it’s enough better than the Kroger meat to justify any price disadvantage that Roy’s may have on organic vs. non-organic meat.

I’ll admit that I’m biased in favor of Roy’s. When I was growing up, my mother always got our meat from a local German butcher shop. (Unfortunately, that shop has long since closed.) I’ve been looking halfheartedly for a new meat source for several months anyway, preferably a butcher (as opposed to a Kroger), so this e-mail is fortuitously timed. And anyone who’s read up on practices at corporate farms can tell you that it’s more than a little offputting.

Anyway. If anyone wants to put in an order at Roy’s and share gas with me for driving up there to pick up, or just wants to know more about it, drop me an e-mail at clamrampant at yahoo dot com and I’ll forward you the message.

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Kasia March 3rd, 2008

Tax season does two things to me. First, it stirs up my normally-dormant terror of numbers, and makes my head spin with visions of being financially sodomized by the IRS and sent off to debtors’ prison to break rocks next to Tiny Tim and the bad guys from the Disney Robin Hood movie. I had that more or less under control until I bought a home and started itemizing deductions. Now I’m back to panic attacks; so since my father takes a well-deserved two-month vacation to Florida every February and March (hmm, wonder if the timing is intentional?), I’ve started going to a professional tax preparer, and will for a couple of years or so. Once the baseline is re-established, I might switch back to TurboTax.

The other thing tax season does to me, now that I’m itemizing deductions, is brings out my inner whiner. I do try to keep my inner brat in check most of the time, but what I’ve discovered as I’ve been cross-checking my receipts and digging through my checking account for documentation of things like co-pays and gifts to organizations that didn’t bother to send me a receipt (*cough* you know who you are *cough*), she comes out with a vengeance. I find myself coming up with all sorts of things that SHOULD be deductible, darn it, even if Uncle Sam McStinkypants doesn’t think they should be. WAAAAAHHH!

(Note that my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek. Please don’t think I would necessarily advocate these write-offs as a matter of public policy!)

For example, a few years ago when the OMB decided that credit cards were doing bad things to people by having unreasonably low payments – and I appreciate why that’s bad, mind you – and decided to rectify it by recommending higher payments, I decided that if Uncle Sam reeeeeally wanted to help Joe American get out of credit card debt, there should be a tax incentive for paying down your principal, or some sort of partial interest write-off, or some such. I’m sure with all the brains in Washington, they could come up with something.

Well. Digging through my checking account, I was reminded of that, and I came up with some more:

- Utilities. Come on. With how fuel prices have gone up – and will continue to go up – over the past several years, don’t you think Uncle Sam could give us some kind of break on this? I mean, utilities are quite possibly the most boring – and most ignored – of all basic bills. People who actually pay them, and on time no less, should get some kind of carrot for doing so. (Yes, I mean above and beyond not having them shut off. It’s enough to make me pay them, but it’s not enough to make me like it!)

- On a related note, gas to drive to and from work. We’re up at $3/gallon now, and they’re projecting $4/gallon for the summer. Since I live in Detroit, the belly of the automotive whale, and giving adequate funding to buses (much less building some other public transit network) is tantamount to treason, I think we should get some kind of break. Don’t you?

- Cat litter. For Pete’s sake, Uncle Sam, my cats aren’t smart enough to use the toilet. Doesn’t that count as some kind of disability? Let’s not discriminate against Feline-Americans here! They need SOMEthing to poop in!

- Anything paid to the government, including the ginormous application fee for the Canuck’s K-1 visa application. Is it my fault I fell in love with a foreigner? Don’t discriminate! Give me a write-off!

- Car and home insurance. Yes, they’re good things to have; but the law forces me to have the former, and the mortgage company forces me to have the latter. And that ranks up there with utilities as un-fun things. I think anything un-fun should be at least partially deductible as a matter of principle. Including my condo association fees. Come to think of it, with how useless my association proved to be over the last year or so, I’m thinking those should count as a charitable gift to the management company…

I did warn  you that this was a whiny post. Don’t worry. Once I’ve seen my tax guy, and have found out how much of my money I’m going to get back, I’ll probably snap right back to normal.

On the other hand, if I’m not getting as much back as I think I should, I may end up in a bunker somewhere in Montana, eating cold canned soup and talking to myself…

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