Tripping, Tipping on Tips...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...Too many places online tell you that no matter how shitty the service is that you MUST tip! I don't agree!

If a waiter or waitress wants to keep their customers, keep their job and keep their employer in business they need to do their damn job!

I've gotten really tired of the, "but I'm OWED a Jooooob!" whine by whoever is making the current whine. I've served at counters. I've done my time at fast food. And garnered tips! which is harder than hell! I've served bar at pizza places! I've sold jewelry on commission. I've had some pretty crummy jobs to make ends meet and to help pay my way through college and I get that waiters and waitresses don't get minimum wage. Thus it behooves them to serve their customers.

Because you want to know a secret? Lean closer....MOST CUSTOMERS FEEL DAMN GUILTY IF THEY DON'T TIP! So if we aren't tipping, there is a good reason! And it's not that our panties are in a twist, or that we're in a bad mood! Normally it's that we've gotten such crappy service that we just can't justify laying down any more money we really can't afford to reward such crappy behavior. I don't reward toddlers' crappy behavior; why would I do it with adults? They don't learn from it either.

So here are the rules I learned from my Dad about tipping (this was a while ago, but my income hasn't gone up since 1996, so my tips probably won't either. Your income probably does, so you can adjust for income!)

Excellent service:
20%+
Fair service
10%-15%
Borderline
5%
Maitre de: (bribe for seating)$50+ depending on snoot factor of place and maitre de
Note: doesn't normally work for females, females either have to dress the part, or end up by the kitchen door, or equivalent. just sayin'
Chefs or Bus boys 5%
Bellhops $1-$10
Maids $5-$20 depending on length of stay
Bar waitresses the change from next closest denomination or 10-20% of round
Hairdressers, box people, door men, valets $1-$10 depending on location

VERY BAD SERVICE, so bad you want to tell them you would have tipped, but their service sucked!!  $0.01

But nowadays I always feel like everyone has their hand out for a handout. I'm on a fixed income and I compute a tip into the cost of my meal when I go out. But it also means I go out much less frequently. Those dollars are hard to come by in my life.

So when that time is ruined by shitty service. I don't take it quietly, or lying down. I only have about 4 or 5 restaurants I can even still eat at with my medical conditions anymore since most of them use food with additives or preservatives I can't physically eat. So the few I CAN eat at, I work into my schedule selectively.

I know I'm probably a dinosaur. But this dinosaur has a very limited food supply and a limited budget like the rest of the world is coming to, and gee, maybe if more people valued their pennies and realised that the single penny they saw on the table was actually the message of one MIGHTILY PISSED OFF customer, they might mend their service and keep their restaurant, their job, and the economy going.

I've been told by friends of mine that women are the WORST tippers so they get the worst service. Especially women in SUITS. It always makes me giggle. Because I would probably be one of the better tippers, if I'm treated decently. But when I'm ignored or treated rudely, watch the f* out! I will be in your face. I will take my cane and my drink up to the drink station and fill it. I will tell your manager I had a crappy meal AND I will report it on the website. Because I am just THAT fed UP with SHITTY service. So the next time you think you have this little old lady with the cane in the corner with her book pegged. Think twice! of course, they might be spitting in my food? who knows?

just my 1 or 2 cents of a tip...ped off goddess....

Organizing for a day

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I finally got disgusted with digging through the drawer multiple times and not being able to find what I was looking for. You know the way it goes. You have one drawer that has several types of things in it so you always have to dig through it to find what you want.


So this entire  basket of clothing came out of a 4" deep drawer. That started out started out impossible to find anything

 With a few tools.

 Some cardboard and a little bit of time. About a half hour/s worth and no impact on my budget. I organized the snot out of it and ended up with this.


My kick ass new drawer!         From the Goddess of Organized shit you should all envy!

90% Used Books... something's got to go

...maybe some people?
Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

It's been a long time...It isn't as if I don't have things to say. The world is still turning. I still have teenage children, I'm still married and I'm still facing health issues that have made my life one of challenges from the time I can open my eyes in the morning until I may close my eyes at night.

My daughter has started me on some new loves however.She has taken my old loves of jewelry making, working with metal and wire and beads and glass and pearls and reminded me of just how much I have always LOVED to make jewelry. So that has become something I can maybe concentrate on when the pain gets particularly excruciating so that I can try to block it out for a bit.

I'm also trying to slowly set up her site for her jewelry at: http://fireinspired.blogspot.com/p/kumihimo.html She and her dad are the main forces behind "Fire Inspired Creations."

I'm going to try something a little strange with the extra stuff I have hanging around here. At least 90% seems to be books, but there is the odd knick knack, video, or strange piece of vintage whatever that I may want to get rid of, ....so since quite a few of my books are 2nd hand and library or goodwill or other thrift store finds, that I normally searched long and hard for to fill the gaps in the series. I will be posting small blogs about the books and other stuff  I'm selling and selling it on a blog called, appropriately enough: "Mostly Used Books for Sale" http://puzzledbooks4sale.blogspot.com/ and I'll probably be putting references and info in our librarything listing at: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/sprowett/yourlibrary . My books aren't first editions or anything. And some aren't in great shape. I'll be honest about that when I list them. But some of them were darn hard to find, and still seem to be, and if others are like me, and just want to read the darned story, they won't care as much if the spine is cracked, or if it has some water damage or a bent cover, as long as it's readable. If they care about that, they can look for it at Amazon or elsewhere. Some of these books have traveled hard roads to libraries, goodwills, garage sales and then into my voracious hands. : ) They stood no chance.

After checking into Amazon, Alibris, and Ebay, I just didn't feel like spending that much to get rid of things that are old friends...I may have to do it eventually. But I'll try this stubborn way first. And I didn't want to do Craig's list because I didn't want people coming by, I'm disabled and getting more agoraphobic by the day. And these aren't Free so no FreeCycle. I'd like to trade them for books I haven't read, or need to complete my current authors, or even maybe some older movie or song cd/ or dvd's I'm interested in. I'll see how this goes.

I'm here, just trying to dig out from the 20 years of sedentary life and realize that I've most likely got at least 10, if not 20 more. :D The puzzled goddess wants to be occupied!

My Dear Husband has an agreement with the video stores....

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I swear. He knows when I'm at my weakest and will hit me with the idea of picking up a movie or two.

A movie or two? How about 6 or so? He knows the way my Scots soul works and the internal dialogue I go through....hmmm...it would cost us $40 if we were all to go to the movies and we'd see ONE movie. Maybe even one we wouldn't enjoy. It would be too loud and I'd have to wear my earplugs (so the noise didn't send my head soaring) someone in front of me would have been marinating in their aftershave or some woman would have bathed in her perfume...I don't do well with the fake butter smell on the popcorn and the cigarette smell...you get the idea. And of course there's the, it's only a few movies. We live way out in the stick (too far for them to be multiple sticks) and we'd save the gas and time if we didn't go to the theatre. Just to RENT it would cost more than it would to BUY it and use the gas to have it there and back on time.

My dh, a great tactician, lets this all play through my head for awhile during our time in town while we're running our various bi-weekly or monthly errands. He knows that I always feel the bite of the bugdet during these times, but I also feel guilty for how little enjoyment he and the kids get the rest of the time as they cater to what we can afford, or what I am in shape to do.

So, we normally stop by the movie store. Not for new movies mind you, that would be too expensive, but a few of those pre-watched ones.... (this from a woman who barely watches TV and at that only really the History Channel and Discovery Channel when someone else has them on!)

So our last trip, knowing we couldn't really afford any away trips to SCA events this summer, I gave in to a trip to Blockbuster...we normally go to Hollywood Video, it's closer to our shopping routes.

Here's what we picked up:
One that I really wanted to see, because Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson are such talented actors. And the 2nd National Treasure because the first was a fun action adventure that, while totally imaginary, brought points of our history into use in the script.


Then Jumper and In the Name of the King for my DH. Jumper, because the plot sounded intriguing. In the Name of the King, because we all have enjoyed playing Dungeon Siege together...but only when I can keep my ds and dh from powering through the game. I like time to explore!

My ds wanted Dragon Wars and my dd wanted The Golden Compass.

Out of the six that we bought last week, we've watched 3. Sitting cuddled up on my small queensized bed that barely holds the ancient cat, the doofus lapdog, my dh and I at the best of times. To this, in our infinite wisdom (yeah, that's sarcasm) we add two 'kids' that are both over 5'4" and look like real people. And their snacks! Gods we're dumb. [this is part of the reason my neck's been out for the last week...and getting worse, I just don't want to give up the family time!]

So, we have watched, "The Bucket List," "In the Name of the King," and "Jumper."
The Bucket List lived up to all expectations. We laughed, we cried, we talked about our personal 'bucket lists.' It let us draw closer as a family. Jack Nicholson's character disappointed me a bit, because I felt like it was a character he has played many, many times in movies, but the quirkiness and intelligence of Morgan Freeman's character made up for it. I'm not sure I'll watch it again, because I don't like crying, but it was definitely an 'A' flick.

"In the Name of the King," we watched the next night. And it was about exactly what we expected. The cheese factor was a bit high, the fantasy epic plot was so transparent, the fight scenes were kinda fun...his wife was dressed like a true fantasy heroine throughout the whole movie, but most surprising of all were the number of big names who signed on for bit parts in this. Ron Perlman, John Rhys-Davies, Burt Reynolds? While I'd only rate the film at an A- or B, we had a ball making smart @ssed jokes and allusions to other fantasy movies that I'm sure you all could name. We'll probably watch it again, just to see what new jokes it brings up!

The last of the three we have watched in the past week is, "Jumper." I am so disappointed that I can't get that hour and a half of my time back. They started with a really cool premise, and had some neat history that they barely touched on throughout the film. Add to that some major plot weaknesses, some weak characterization and a lame @ss ending and you have a film that I would have re-written before it EVER hit the shelves. I'll give it a C- (it only gets above an F because the premise was so good, and I could see potential in it that was never realized.) Maybe if it had been 30 minutes to 45 minutes longer they would have actually developed the plot.

That's it from me today...I got books to read and SCA classes to plan for our meeting tonight. And I'm behind because of all my dumb @ss indulging in more than 5 minutes of whining a day and too much sleep!

Blessing and many happy movie hours to you all from
a puzzled goddess