So when she sees me or talks to me, she goes FREAKING OVERBOARD. Seriously, she’ll call me on the phone — like she did tonight, in fact — to touch base on something like the latest in under eye cream for dark circles or to just give me a head’s up on something involving my brothers, and before I know it an hour or more has gone by. She just blathers and bleats on and on and on and on. And it drives me crazy, because our lives are so different that it’s almost ridiculous. Her: nothing to do all day and all day to do it in. Me: 50+ hour work weeks, two young children, husband, home to keep after (don’t get me started on my mother’s “housekeeping”…), a small zoo in terms of pets, etc.

I really wish she’d find some friends. Because seriously, she is really overdoing it in terms of jumping all over me as a damn lifeline.

• Outright refuse to provide customers with the information they’re asking for, unless they agree to make a purchase through you, despite them having a right to know what it is, in the hopes of deterring them from making a purchase from any other source but yours.
• Resign yourself to the fact that customers have a right to shop wherever they want; but make the best of a crappy situation by charging a reasonable fee for the information requested.

Personally, #2 sounds like the better choice. But when it comes to giving out a specific component of an eyeglass prescription, a lot of opticians and opticians’ offices are going for #1. The component is the Pupillary Distance, or PD, number. This number represents the distance, in millimeters, between your pupils, from the center of one pupil to the center of the other. While it is possible to obtain this measurement on your own, with the use of a friend and a ruler, the numbers can be off. Dan and I found this out when he tried to measure my PD so I could purchase a pair of prescription eyeglasses from Zenni Optical.

Fortunately, my old optometrist, the one I haven’t seen in nearly a decade, was more than happy to provide my PD number. I’m glad he did, because the measurements Dan took were close to ten digits off. What’s ironic is that my current optometrist, the one both my husband and I see, the one that between my husband and I we’ve paid over $800 in eye exams, prescription eyeglasses, and contact lenses during the last two years. Go figure.

My theory is that these optometrists think they’ll “win” if they refuse to give out the information, and require customers to come to them for it — and then only if they make a purchase. Personally, I think that if you have or had an exam done by optometrist, they should be obligated to provide you with the FULL details of your prescription. And if you haven’t, I think optometrists should be willing to do a quick PD measurement and charge maybe $10 or $20 for the service. This way, we the consumers get what we want, and the optometrists aren’t at risk of losing a significant portion of their business.

Whew. With all that said, let me just say that I do really like Zenni Optical. I ordered and received a pair of black & lime green eyeglasses within twelve days, and a pair of burgundy & hot pink with white crystal prescription eyeglasses that I ordered on the 18th are setting to ship today or tomorrow. Whoo!

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be going today. It’s a good day for it, as it’s sickly humid, and the sun is out, but I just have too much to do. Mondays are my busy days, and today is no exception. I have several thousands words to write on wedding favors, and then I have a few other tasks to wrap up. By then it’ll be time for dinner, and then time to send the kids off to VBS (vacation bible school) for two hours.

The pool has been open for just about three weeks, and we’ve been there six times already. We have also gone to another pool, one at the local YMCA, that I’d love to go to again, except I don’t have the $272 to get in. See, it’s at the YMCA, which charges $63.98/mo for a family membership. Not a big deal, right? But then there’s the $99 “investment” fee. Oh — and the best BS of all — the outdoor pool (the cool one with the slide and water buckets and umbrellas and really nifty shallow end) isn’t included in a YMCA membership. But if you have a membership, a season pass is “just” $110, as opposed to the non-membership season pass fee of $350.

Crazy, huh? I mean, we’ll go ahead and do it, next paycheck, since we want to go to the YMCA regularly. But it chafes knowing that there’s the kick-ass pool that IS a part of the YMCA complex, run by them and everything, yet it has to be paid for separately. Grrr.

In other news, the stray kitty is a keeper, provided that nobody claims him (I’m going to put up Lost Cat signs, but I won’t post photos or a description, in case someone comes to claim him without actually having a claim on him, know what I mean?) and the vet doesn’t find a microchip. But seeing as how I remember hearing his distinctive meow (note: LOUD, ergh) a few weeks ago, the intact testicles (those bad boys are going ASAP!), the scabs on his ear from where he must have gotten into a fight with another stray, and the dead fleas and flea debris I scrubbed out of him this afternoon (he wasn’t thrilled about getting a bath, but he didn’t fight or try to get away, whew!), I’m 99.9% certain that he is a stray, and doesn’t belong to anyone.

His name? Ares. Dan picked it. ♥

But I don’t think it’s life threatening. I would be more concerned about calling a doctor over the weekend or even going to the ER if it was 104, 105 or definitely if it was 106. But 100, 101, 102 and 103? Not so much. I haven’t called my physician’s office (they have an on-call doctor on the weekends), because I know what they’re going to say: plenty of rest, plenty of fluids, alternate between Tylenol and Ibuprofen every 4-6 hours. I’m doing all that, minus the medication alternating, because 1) I can’t take Ibuprofen (it’s an NSAID, and it can cause stomach irritation — a definite no-no for gastric bypass patients) and 2) even if I could, I don’t have any in liquid form. They’d also tell me to call them first thing Monday morning to get an appointment — now that I definitely DO plan on doing.

Sorry, but I’m not going to drag my sick ass out to the hospital, simply because I’m not sick enough to warrant wasting my time, the time of the hospital, and valuable medical resources. But just because I choose not to avail myself of a hospital does not mean I’m not horribly miserable and wanting to just curl up in an unconscious ball somewhere until I can get seen by someone in a lab coat. It simply means that I’m making the better choice — keeping my sick, cold, miserable self at home, where it’s warm, instead of dragging out in the cold to a hospital that would most likely not bother to admit me anyway. And besides, my car is still blocked in by snow from the back (I think, unless Dan or Matt shoveled it out), and I’d have to take Alyssa and Ryan with me to the hospital. Yeah, I can see that going over really well!

Now, after I took the time to unlock the phone and show her how to use it, she’s decided that she doesn’t want it anymore. Since it is unlocked and on the T-Mobile network, it doesn’t “automatically” find a network to be on. Instead, it’s manually pointed to one. And because she lives in an area that is in a valley and filled with densely packed trees, that manually setup network often drops, and every single time it does the iPhone pops up with a notification message. She’s had to click to confirm that message a dozen or more times before being able to use the phone. Yeah, sucktacular. So now she’s looking at Androids and Blackberrys. WTF? Just get a damn basic Motorola phone and call it a day!

I don’t mean to be disrespectful when I say this, but nine times out of ten, the person I’m talking to do does not have the time, skills, resources, or all three, to do what I do. It’s one thing to write a quick article about conjugated linoleic acid cla (whatever that is), or throw up some random links in a blog entry. Almost anyone can do that. But when it comes to web design, blog maintenance, SEO (search engine optimization), SMO (social media optimization), and the kind of intensive writing I do for a few clients, there’s no way you can just pick it up and do it whenever the mood strikes you. I may work from home, but I invest a hell of a lot of time in doing what I do. I’ll spend hours researching and writing articles for Demand Studios, I’ll spend hours doing the writing work that two of my clients in particular require of me, and I devote a lot of time and effort to web design and the various coding requirements that I’m called upon to live up to on a near daily basis.

One person in particular has three kids under the age of four and a drug habit, and from talking to her, an education that falls short of the high school level (note: I am not bashing high school drops out or those who were unable to complete high school or get a higher education. I’m bashing stupid people.)… there’s no way in hell she’d have the time, skills or ability to do what I do!

Sorry… I just re-read this blog entry and I sound like such a snob. I don’t mean to be. I just hate how people think it’s something so easy and simple and that you can just jump into it. Besides needing time and knowledge and commitment, you also need contacts… these jobs aren’t exactly laying around waiting for you to discover them! With all of my clients, THEY found ME. Not the other way around!