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I'm back from the weekend at Camp. It was a good time. A general movie night, a dinner invitation, a dogs-invited cookout, and a couple of specific movie-marathons (one involving pork chops) are in the works. Two posters, one sweater, and one Spud Trooper were distributed by me. (By myself? A persistent grammatical question.) I took Miley along, as there wasn't really a plan for her care here with all of us out of town, and she did remarkably well. I was impressed and heartened. She made friends with Laura's dog, Harley, as well. I played volleyball, if you accept a loose definition of the word "played." I was pretty awful, but it was fun. Ten or fifteen of us (it was an extremely large group for a staff retreat--probably around thirty) sat around the campfire last night telling "worst date" stories and listening to David play the ukelele that he'd tuned like a banjo. I did have a little trouble not hitting on David this weekend, but I never did crumple inward, and we got along, and I am considering the weekend a success. I also heard that I still may hear back from the massage receptionist job which I had come to consider as water under the bridge. They said they'd call either way by Monday, but here it is Sunday evening and I still haven't gotten a call. Evidently they've been busy. My parents are on their way back from visiting Chloe in Conneticut, and should get in around midnight. I need to find something to eat for dinner, and I need to walk Miley. That seems like so much more of a chore somehow when I'm not walking around outside all the time anyway. At Camp I had to go outside to get from my bed to breakfast, from breakfast to the shower, from the shower back to the dining hall, to the field, to my room, to the bathroom, to anywhere. She got to go outside a lot. Here, obviously, everything is close together and I don't need to go outside--but she needs to run around and use the facilities, as it were.


And hey--people have stopped asking questions on formspring. This was predictable I suppose, particularly considering that I have not (thus far) been using the post-to-facebook nonsense, but still rather disappointing. Ah well. Perhaps it'll bounce back. Perhaps I'll sell out and beg for questions on everyone's favorite social network. Perhaps it'll go to the cyber graveyard of old blogs, pages and profiles I've created over the years, and never be heard from again.


Lastly--this is the second edit I've made in as many minutes--I have to say that I love DSW. Seriously. I ordered those boots from them on Friday (Thursday?), and forgot to put in two codes--one for free shipping and another for 10% off--which would have decreased my total by nearly $15. I emailed DSW customer service explaining what had happened and asking whether anything could be done, and they applied both codes to my order and emailed me back saying so. I am extremely grateful and impressed.

Actually, I've encountered quite a bit of good customer service lately. I emailed Chick-fil-a to ask, politely, why the crap they use styrofoam cups when they seem to care so much about everything except the environment, and I quickly received a personal email explaining that their cups are polystyrene and are recyclable "in some municipalities," and that C-f-a is looking into more recycling options for their cups. I also emailed Badger Balm last week (I've been on the prowl, I guess) asking why a lot of their beeswax comes from India, for heaven's sake, when we have plenty of bees in the states. It seemed incongruous when B.B. is so environmentally conscious that they use both sides of a sheet of paper in their office, and make sure their coffeepots are turned off when no one is using them. The response, which came from the CEO of the company the next day, made sense--B.B.'s products are all USDA certified organic, and that means that their beeswax has to be certified as well. Easy enough (I would guess) for a beekeeper to use organic methods, but bees travel. As I was informed, "The apiary has to be surrounded by enough chemical free forage area to qualify for organic certification. I believe they require, depending upon the certifying agency, a 2-3 mile radius." So that makes sense, though it's unfortunate that none such a situation seems to exist in the United States. And then there was the time I emailed Terry Pratchett's agent about a question I had regarding Making Money, and I received, again, a response the next day. I am floored by these instances, especially the last one--I feel like I almost spoke to a famous person!


The font here is, Blogger swears, the same font that's been used in the rest of the entry: Times, size "normal." However, it is showing up on my blog and on the preview as something which is clearly not Times size normal. I feel like this happens a lot. What the heck, Blogger?