Good news mixed with bad

My sister, Kerry, has been keeping me up-to-date on the strike threat at her place of business in Appleton, WI. She is scared out of her wits about going out on strike when the economy and job situation is so tenuous. The Union reps with whom she speaks and hears in their 'smoking circle' outside seem pretty determined to flex their collective muscles and walk, but hopefully cooler heads will prevail and a satisfactory settlement will be reached. Kerry told me the person who is her rep treats the co-workers like they are idiots, has the attitude of superiority because of her role in the Union. Not having the best interest of those she represents at heart. Remember this the next time the Union elects its officers!

*

Kerry sends me the memos from the Local, some of which I understand and some which I do not, simply because I do not have a contract here to compare the statements. "Item 26" means nothing unless you have it in front of you. One item I cautioned her about the card check provision the Union was trying to achieve and it turned out she had no clue what that was about. After I told her about it, she was glad to know just what was at stake, and this makes me wonder about the rest of her co-workers who might be willing to walk out on their jobs for reasons not totally clear to them. Scary times, in these days of massive unemployment and job losses all around them!

*

The good news is that the employees opted to remain on the job despite having no contract in place, as negotiations continue. Supposedly Kerry has no health insurance since the contract expired and I am not sure how that works once they settle on a deal with the employer. It is not good to have a lapse in coverage in health insurance. I do not like the common misuse of the term "health care" because it is so different from "health insurance". Care is what you get, insurance is how part of it is paid for, two separate issues. Semantics? Perhaps....

*

The markets are down again today so far and ended down at close of trading yesterday. And I was hoping to regain some of my losses in the last six months! Perhaps it is not a trend and we will see some increases yet this week. It had been doing fairly well this past 7 days since the start of the G20 trip. How long can that plane circle??? Today they stopped for a not-so surprising visit to Baghdad before heading back to the USA. On the Fox and Friends show this a.m. a reporter was broadcasting from Istanbul, outside the Blue Mosque and earlier, Hagia Sophia. I was there!!!! First in 2000, and then in 2007!!! I do not regret making that last trip one little bit..........and to have a certain attorney ask me, "Are you still taking those expensive vacations?" INDEED! I get to say what is expensive and what is not! Excuse the rant, please....

I have no clue what this says, but find it simply intriguing. This arch and sign are located inside the Blue Mosque. No flash photography was permitted so not many of my shots turned out. This one did!

This is a view of the Blue Mosque as we drove up on it. Look at the beautiful Agaenan sea behind it.....

*

How can you even begin to put a price on such experiences as these? And what about the wonderful people I have met? Only today I opened an e-mail message from Jim and Beth Humann in the Seattle area, telling me how they attended the funeral service I watched on the Internet yesterday, reporting what a good friend to Evergreen Lutheran High School Curt was. What a small world the WELS finds itself in! Jim and Beth were our hosts for the tour retracing St. Paul's 2nd missionary journey, which we took in July, 2007. It was on this trip I officially became friends with Judy R. which more than pays for my "expensive" vacation!!!

A bit of dirty laundry

Talk about a teaser! Joanne left very early again this a.m. and since came back to retrieve a forgotten bag. The Realtors all must switch their systems to access the MLS, the tool used to list and sell properties industry-wide. They have a special "key" gizmo, more like a small cell phone that opens the lock boxes on the listed properties which then records the name of the agent showing the house, what time it is shown, how often the property is shown, etc. That is what she forgot to take with her this a.m. but it is okay, she managed without it.

*

She is excited because her daughter and granddaughter arrive late tonight which is soooo cool! Most of their time is going to be spent doing "touristy" things but the weather is not in their favor. The cold weather has moved back in, coming out of the north, and of course, has to arrive right at Easter time/spring break, as the case might be. As I told Joanne, even though the weather will stink, they will still be away from work and school in Ohio, and spending time with their mom, grandmom Joanne, and grandpa/great-granddad Clyde in Florida!

*

Joanne had thrown her sheets into the washer before leaving earlier and I offered to put them in the dryer so they are dry when she gets home later on. Besides being a good housemate and friend, I also had a small load to wash. Every time I do my wash I think of two of my in-laws, Barb and David. When it was only me living here, it was only me that made a mess and only me who cleaned it up. That would be to the exclusion of the housekeepers who came once a month, of course. A couple years ago I got a nice tax refund, unexpectedly, because I normally do not lend money to the government interest free. I used part of that overpayment money to replace three of my household appliances, which had come with the Unit. The washer/dryer had seen better days and I was glad to have shiny new ones in my laundry room. I also bought a new fridge with the freezer in a drawer on the bottom, easier to access for a short fat lady!

*

Several decades ago when David was newly out of his family home and living on his own in an apartment, he had washer/dryer privileges from his landlords, who lived on the first floor of the home. Every single time he went to use the machines in the basement, they were draped in covers, sheets perhaps, and he had to remove the covers in order to access the machines. In between loads, he would go down there to switch them over and sure 'nuff, the covers were put back on. It was laughable....and it is not nice to laugh at Polish people who cherish their laundry tools!

*

Well, I am no better! I wipe off my machines, removing the dripped laundry soap from whoever used the machine before me, using the cover of the soap bottle to rinse the inside of the lid and around the rim of the washer to make sure no fuzzies or grunge gathers in my relatively new equipment! I think of David and his covered machinery in the basement where he rented, and how we chuckled about the obsession with keeping them clean. It is me now!!

*

The other day I changed the wash load for Joanne so I could put mine in the dryer and saw that she wears the exact same size and brand of bra that I do. For a fleeting moment, I thought about what would happen if we got them mixed up......fleeting is the key word here, because, for some reason or another, hers were still white! While I am obsessive about keeping the machinery clean and nice, I am totally opposite when it comes to laundry sorting!!!!! It has to stop somewhere, right??? Like you need to know this, my bras take on the color of whatever else is in the load with it, including once when I washed my red shoes.......

*

Whenever I toss in a load of laundry, and when I remove my laundered stuff from the dryer, I think of Barb. When Harv and Barb were visiting here when we lived in Waterford Landing, I came through with the wash basket, about half of which was my nighties. Jokingly I said to Barb that I had to wash a load of nighties and she was just incredulous. "A load of nighties?? How many do you have???" Well, I have oodles of them, like to have a fresh one at least every other day, depending upon the weather, of course. She confessed to having worn her same night shirt, or dorm shirt, for several years, so much as that it had holes in it! I gave her a new nightshirt for her birthday the next year, not a moment too soon. Maybe she has developed a passion for nightwear like my sister, Lynn, and I have, but I do think about Barb nearly every time I take a load of clothes out of the dryer! Lynn likes to wear the more formal nightwear, even making some of the sleep sets herself, but mine are not quite that dressy. I must change clothes before going out for the day.....especially if I have worn the nightie when using the hair color!