Don't fly American Airlines

Worst customer service experience ever!
 
I will NEVER fly American Airlines again after our experience this morning.  When I booked the flight from Bradley International I did not have the choice to fly JetBlue straight to Miami, the only airline with that option was American Airlines.

We got to the airport at 4:45 am and it was already chaos.  It was not clear which line to get into AND we had already checked in online.  After getting in one line which seemed like the right one we were guided to the kiosk line to pay the $25 per checked bag and then got into the LONG line we had just left for dropping our bags.  The belt was broken so after waiting 45 minutes to drop our bags we carried them to the x-ray machine ourselves.

People dropping their bags were going down the middle of the kisosks WITH their bags, bumping into the people WITH bags paying the $25/bag.

Two AA employees "helpers" told us two different lines to get into. The employees were not even clear on the process.  If their process was not soooo broken these employees could have helped out in other areas.

When we complained to the two TSA agents they both said "I blame American"!

 I asked the AA employees at the gate who to talk to in the airport and there was no one, go to AA.com, which I did and got an automatic email.  Empty gesture!

I also tweeted about my horrible experience and got an automatic email back from @AmericanAir.  Empty gesture!

Just now on the flight they interrupted us to try to sell their frequent flyer package to which I burst out laughing. Free bag check, Group 1 boarding, blah blah blah.  JetBlue has free first bag for EVERYONE, individual TV with many options, free wifi, blue chips, friendly flight attendants, and from now on my business!

I have made a point of only flying JetBlue and I will be going back to that practice after today.  Poor service should not be rewarded with repeat business. I cannot that this company is the largest airline.  A Fortune article I just read said they are #11 for the WORST airline experience.  Way to go American Airlunes! Sad that you abuse and treat so many people inadequately.  There are other options people.......

Latest Rant - pulling over for sirens and emergency vehicles

Driving through the center of town today, I heard and then saw a police car behind me so I carefully pulled over to the right to let them pass.  MOST of the other drivers also pulled over.  That was all pleasant and thoughtful.

However, when it came time for us to start driving again, don't you think you would do it in sequential order.  The first car in line pulls out, then the second, then the third?  That is not the case in my home state of Massachusetts.  The most impatient person pulls out first, cutting off the others ahead of her in line.  It causes absolute chaos, and is just plain rude.  

As this happened today I gave the two people the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe they did not think I was ready to drive yet.  My inching forward to try to take my turn getting out since I was in front of her could have been a clue.  Apparently she was in such a hurry, after all we had been stopped for less than 20 seconds.  To me this is just plain courtesy.  I was ahead of you before we pulled over, therefore I get to pull out first.

This behavior really pisses me off.  In my zen state of mind I tried to let it go and let her go in front of me, but I just do not understand it.  I have lived in Massachusetts since 1984 so you would think I would be used to it by now.  

The sirens and lights are a clue folks.  Pay attention, slow down and chillax.  

Getting to the Airport Early Yadda Yadda Yadda

OK, so it is Monday morning, and a busy metropolitan airport, yadda yadda yadda.  This morning, I had a 9:10 am flight out of Dulles to Boston.  I slept at a hotel very near the airport, set the alarm for 6 am, made a cup of coffee and went to the lobby at 6:25.

I just missed the shuttle to the airport while the front desk person checked me out.  Again, I should not be panicking, since I left myself plenty of time.  He said there was another shuttle out there.  15 minutes later the shuttle arrived, yadda yadda yadda.

When I got to the Jet Blue kiosk, I do what I usually do in Boston and check a bag in.  Usually you proceed to the counter and check in the bag.  It usually takes less than 5 minutes.  It took me 30 minutes.  It would have been faster to go to the full service counter. yadda yadda yadda

I then proceeded to TSA.  I am fine once I get through TSA, where I can get my coffee and breakfast, and then get some walking exercise in.  We waited for one of the people movers for about 10 minutes and we were then moved to another screening area.  At that point they made another line for checking boarding pass and identification.  It took 45 minutes to get through that mess.  I must have just hit the time in the morning when everything starts taking much longer but don't they plan for Monday mornings, yadda yadda 

So leaving almost 3 hours from eyes open to take off should be plenty of time but not if almost everything takes much longer than you expect. 

If someone today got to the airport only 1 hour ahead of time they would have missed their flight for sure. 

This is why I get to the airport early, so if everything lands jelly side down, I can still make my flight and often I get my daily exercise in after the TSA screening before the flight.

I am not going to finish these books

Earlier in my life, if I started a book, I finished it, even if I was not enjoying it. This week, I started two books, and half way through both of them I slammed them shut and refused to continue reading them.

I might say that I am too old to waste my time reading books that I am not enjoying. That is not the problem. In both cases, there was a description that led me to think, "this is not going in a direction that I will enjoy". Sometimes in these cases, I might peek at the ending to see if it is a happy one. Not these two books. There was some foreshadowing in both cases, that were clues, which I ignored, but once the description of a scene was too vivid, I was done.

This is different from not being able to get into a book. I started "The Help" twice before I read it to the end, and I had to start "Caleb's Crossing" twice before I could get into it. In those cases, I ended up loving them.

This character flaw is very similar to another post of mine about scary movies. My imagination is too vivid and I will have nightmares about the paragraphs that caused me to slam the books shut. AND, there are too many good books out there that I will enjoy.

BTW, the two books I slammed shut are "Little Bee" and "A Spot of Bother".


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Why have a landline?

I have been experimenting with something recently. I never answer our landline. I then use the *69 feature to see who was calling. Often it is blocked but just as often it is a phishing call or a robocall. I cannot believe how many of these there are. Who actually talks to them? Who actually gives their financial information to them? They must be mildly successful since there are so many of them.

Why have a landline? It is tied up with our internet connection but we can get around that, I think. I have trained most of my family and friends to only use my cell phone. There is a message on the landline to call my mobile to get ahold of me. I also include it at the end of every email you get from me.

I wonder if anyone else has the same experience with the robocalling phishing scammers? Does anyone see a problem with not having a landline? My cell may break, but would that be the worst thing in the world to be detached from a phone for a few days?

When we had the early Halloween snow storm this year, we were without electricity for over 2 days. Our landline died before our cell phones, and we could go somewhere to recharge them, so I think in an emergency the cells might be more effective.

SO help me out here, please! Do you have the same experience with calls? Have you considered dropping your landline? Am I crazy to be contemplating it?


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Sally the Curmudgeon with respect to kids

For those who know me well, this may come as a surprise, but lately kids have really gotten on my nerves, and as I examine what is going on, it is really the caretakers that are the culprit. I don't mean infants. I will still hold any infant, any time of the day which in fact at Star Island this year I did, when the hovering grandmothers were looking the other way.

Two incidents have caused me to reflect on my attitude of being a curmudgeon. The first one was at our health club, where a teen class was occurring. The weights are set up in a circuit, and the intent is to start at one machine and follow the direction of the circuit so that you can flow through your use of the machines. The posted instructions even say that, "Start with the leg extension machine and end with the shoulder press". The instructor for this class was not following this rule and was in fact instructing her class participants to jump around. The way the class was working, I only had three machines left and it would have been 10 minutes before they were done with those three, since all three were rotating between those three and not continuing on the circuit. . . .
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OK Sally, Too many details, hard to follow here, so the bottom line is the instructor was not teaching them to be good citizens and follow the posted rules. When I pointed this out to her she was pretty miffed, and the teens were embarrassed. Embarrassing them was not my intent, I just wanted to finish my circuit, and I would have loved for the instructor to be teaching them etiquette as well as machine use.

The second incident occurred last week on the bike path. There was an introductory roller blade class, and they were strung out across the entire path. I knew they were beginners and I also knew when I said "On your left", that half would go left and half would go right. It was a good thing I was prepared for their movements. One of those fast bike racers would have flattened one of them. I stopped to say "You guys were taking up the entire path!" to which the teacher said "Oh, that is OK you guys." NO IT IS NOT OK. You should be teaching them bike path etiquette as well as roller blading.

I think we have swung too far away from "Children are to be seen and not heard." To "Children run the world!" I don't want to go back to "seen and not heard" but I would love them to be taught some etiquette.


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My thumb injuries and firing my Primary Care Doctor

Wow, how did I forget to let the world know via this blog and FB about my thumb injuries? It could be that this past 2 months have been a flurry of activity. It could be that medical sharing might sound like complaining and who cares anyway?

Two caring individuals (you know who you are) noticed by thumb brace in recently posted FB pictures and asked about the thumb. Multiple people at GA asked me about it.  Here is the update.

In early May, I went to my primary care for painful thumb and tingling in my left leg.

HOLD ON, I must go on this tangent!  She made me wait for 60 minutes. I read 30 magazines in that time, and no one came in to update me.  I was fuming by the time she came in the observation room and yes I did address it with her because she ALWAYS makes me wait at least 30 minutes. I am in the process of firing her for someone who values my time, and at the very least has someone give me updates about the wait time. I understand in our health care situation that PCPs are overworked and only have 15 minutes to try to listen to their patients.  However, I am also firing her because she does not listen to me. I told her I had two things to talk to her about. Gave her the headlines, 1) sore thumb and 2) tingly feeling in my leg.  She failed to talk to me about the tingling in my leg and honestly, I think this is the more worrisome problem. I am seeing a neurologist on Tuesday about that.  I had to say "what about the leg?" as she rose to exit. Obviously the fact that I stood up for myself got her a bit flustered, and her 15 minutes had ended, and she was an hour late already.

I digress! Her diagnosis is that I have arthritis in two of my thumb joints and I have an inflamed tendon which sounds worse by it's official name, De Quervain's tenosynovitis. I left with 4 pages of exercises, and a prescription for PT, after she threatened to go straight to a cortisone shot.  Without trying something else first? My exact words were "We don't do shots without trying other things first!". BTW, I was using the Royal We in case that was not obvious.

She was not going to give me the PT prescription, but I asked if I could have it, just in case the exercises did not work.  She had already said "These probably won't work".  Reasonable request for the PT prescription, and not have to come back to the office?

This post did not start out as a rant, but has become that.  Thanks to all who have asked about the thumb, including perfect strangers at GA and to the two caring individuals on FB who noticed.  Updates to follow. 

Anybody want to help me solve world hunger, right after we improve the medical situation in this country?

Made in China - I am being silly and I know it

Ok, don't ask me what prompted this latest challenge. It could be our green sanctuary efforts at church. It could be that later this month, I am attending General Assembly in Charlotte NC, along with thousands of other Unitarian Universalists. It could be that I like a challenge, and maybe felt that I have not challenged myself enough lately. It could be that I was headed to Vermont, which has some great efforts at locally made and locally run businesses.

It started last Thursday when I went into Home Goods and tried to find something NOT "Made in China". It was nearly impossible. I went next door to TJ Maxx and had the same experience.

Just now I needed some home goods. Need is a strong word  since I realized during the shopping excursion, I can live without them. I was looking for coasters for under the couch legs so I can move it easier to hoover under it, a round rubber disc to cover the drain in the sink so I can use the sink as my mop bucket, Aleve for my inflamed tendon in my thumb and trash bags. The only one I could buy at "Bed, Bath and Beyond" NOT Made in China, was Aleve. It was made in Germany by Bayer. Even the trash bags are Made in China. Almost all the kitchen and bath items are made by OXO.

I went next door to Trader Joes and they don't carry trash bags. The clerk said they carry them next door to which I replied "They are made in china though".

At Coniston this weekend, I tried to buy a can opener because our one Made in China, broke. The one I got for $1.19 did not work so I returned it. I finally got one at an antique store, Made in the USA.

It must have been gradual but I wonder when we stopped making things domestically as a country?

My beloved pointed out that I might not be able to stick with this challenge (ever the optimist, NOT), and his attitude is that we even out the economy by buying from China. I mostly object to using fossil fuels to ship all of these products from China, or to ship food across the country for that matter.  I also am terrified about the economic situation between us and China.  Fear based on media blips, and lack of knowledge mostly.
The challenge is doomed for failure, but I am going to try. The couch may not have the coasters, and I might find a rubber disc at a yard sale that was made in the USA. Market Basket has trash bags made in the USA so they got my business tonight on my shopping excursion. 

Try this challenge yourself, and let me know the results!

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Children's librarians should like children

Rant alert!

Today I went to the library to see Ed Emberley. Who remembers him? I asked his wife when his first book was published. 1961!

While there I witnessed an interaction that makes me sad. The event was for 1-5 grade and one mother had two older children and a 3 year old.

The Children's librarian almost did not let the family in. The three year old tolerated 30 minutes of the hour program. At this point she started getting fidgety, but was making no more noise than other kids, or to be honest, some parents talking.

At this point the Librarian came over and in a loud, not library voice, said "You must take her out now!". I was embarrassed for the mother and child.

I wonder if the mother had been a privileged Caucasian McMansion (yes I am using that as an adjective) mother, whether the Librarian would have confronted the mother.

Some of my good friends are librarians, and they are excluded from this comment. In my experience librarians are rule followers, and many of them appear to not like their job. They appear cranky and angry.

This librarian today was just looking for the 3 year old to be a 3 year old. Does she want this child to enjoy the library and have a positive experience? I think Children's librarians as a pre-requisite should understand and like children, and understand parents and multiple children families. And they should not intentionally embarrass children or parents. Ok, I often live in an ideal world.

Rant over!

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Give it up to the snow!

Rant alert!!!!!

Ok, so there is snow coming down and it has been a mighty winter but would everyone please chill out. We cannot control the weather, unless global warning is in that category, in which case we are controlling it.

As I drove around doing errands just now, YES, it was snowing. But winter is almost done and it is officially spring after all.

As we pulled out of the driveway yesterday and remembered the 5 foot snow bank, I reflected "that was not such a bad winter!". Remember I am an eternal optimist and please don't throw any rotten tomatoes across the Internet at me. I warned you this is a rant.

Maybe the comments made about the weather make it so we don't have to talk about Japan or Libya. Have you ever noticed that small talk is often about the weather. Nice safe topic we can all identify with.

In fact at a lay led service recently the winter weather was a prime topic, but many of us are on the other side of the coin and don't need winter to be over so soon. We are not so tired of the winter weather just yet. We should retire north, and those tired of winter in January, better retire to Florida.

Yes, it is snowing, and yes in 2001 there was an April Fools storm, and yes this weekend it was in the 60s. We cannot control the weather but we can control our reaction to it. Spring is here, the sun will come out and we won't have snow on the ground in May.

Rant over!!!!!


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Hi My name is Sally and I am a Golf Addict

This summer has been amazing for golf.  I play at least twice a week and sometimes a third time.  Monday nights are with my friend E and occasionally a third.  Thursday mornings at 6:06 I play with the Intuit golf league.  Don't forget that I am an early bird when you gasp at the early tee time.  I can get to work by 8:30 by teeing off at 6:06.

Early on in the summer, my two brothers gave me a couple of tips and for the most part they have become a part of my game.  They were: 1) Don't bend your left elbow 2) Hold the club like it is a bird - that gently.   I KNOW that consistency is the name of the game in golf, so playing this often will help with that.

What is really interesting to me, is that my scores have not gone down much this summer but my satisfaction of my game has.  If I could only string together a series of 8 or 9 holes, my score would go down, and someday at this rate that will happen.

The other surprise is that when folks hear I play golf the normal reaction is "You play golf, I did not know that!"  OK, if I were male, this would not be a normal comment, and would not even be a thought or a prejudice. 

Why is it still perceived as a male game?  I know plenty of women who play.  In our family, Murg is the golf widower.  Just another way that I turn the world upside down I suppose.  BTW, I had to add a new label for this post . . . golf.

With some people this is how I act - all joking aside

One of my fellow shoalers this last week comes to Star about every 5 years.  Almost as soon as we step on the boat to travel to the island, we are zinging each other.  This happens with me and certain people.  I am sure there is some Freudian analysis that would explain it.  Maybe he reminds me of my Dad or my brothers.  In any case, on Tuesday, R turned to me and said "Can we stop this?" to which I replied "Yes".  Our efforts to only speak gently and kindly to each other was hysterical, and almost sugar sweet, BUT we made it through most of the week, and BTW, we got to know each other in a different way, a deeper way.  It was nice, and would never have happened unless he said "Can we stop this?"

Another conversation the last morning, was about joking.  I still maintain that all joking has a certain amount of truth, otherwise, why would the joke come to you in the first place?  B and I totally agree on this one, and we are both pretty sensitive so the jokes hit us harder than others.  I have been on this rant for a while at work and at play.   Some joking is funny, and light-hearted but some is down right mean.  How do you walk the fine line between the two?  I cross over that line a lot, particularly with people like R who trigger me.

Pretty funny that I blog about these two topics together.  They are joined in my mind and are room for my personal improvement.

Latest Rant - PST or PDT; EST or EDT

For many years my trigger was being called a "GIRL"! A girl is an immature female species and many men unknowingly in the work place call women, "girl" when she is smart, or aggressive or assertive etc. As I said, they don't realize they are doing this. At Polaroid, a male who worked for me, called me honey and babe, when I gave him less than positive feedback. He also brought his 4 inch thick notebook into his 1-1 and dropped it from 4 feet above the table, onto the table in an effort to intimidate me. It did not work!

Many folks (men and women) have argued with me about this GIRL thing, and I have asked them to just observe. Often they come back and say they also observed it as well. I don't know when this changed but it no longer bugs me as much.

It has been replace with a much tamer trigger/rant.

When people put PST (Pacific Standard Time) and we are actually in PDT (Pacific Daylight Time), this jumps off the page for me. Mind you, details do not usually jump off the page, but this one does. In a conversation just now with a colleague, she puts just PT to get around that.

Am I just older than many people at work? Yes, I am older and I remember when daylight savings time was implemented so the difference between PST and PDT was much more important.

So why has this trigger replace the GIRL trigger? Maybe I have educated enough people around the GIRL issue. Maybe as I get older I don't mind as much being called a GIRL.

I can only store one joke in my memory at a time and tell and retell that joke until I hear the next good one. Maybe rants are the same way and the PDT rant has replace the GIRL rant. I will not promise to raise my eyebrows the next time I hear girl, but I no longer am giving the lecture which starts "A girl is an immature female species . . . "

I like Change - when I am the one initiating it

Our topic this week at the leadership training I am leading was change. I teach 5-6 models of change during this session, and get students to like about past and future change in their work or family lives, Many students said it was the best one yet.

New topic, but not really, you will see the tie in, I promise. I am a co-leader of our Green Team, and one part of Earth Day was making our recycling clearer, through signage and new bins. Two of us have been taking home plastic and Styrofoam to our town recycling for a year now, and we were going to have to get more folks to take stuff home because of the increased recycling. Yesterday was our Earth Day celebration, and employees walked into the new bins and signage. I asked a lot of them what they thought about the changes. Most like the changes, and some did not even notice.

Our facilities folks have been working with the property management company to do more recycling. Today they sent us an email that they are now going to recycle, IN ONE BIN, everything; paper, plastic, Styrofoam, glass bottles etc.

Wait a minute, we just rolled out our new program and one day later you roll out yours was my first thought. Mind you the facilities person has been telling me that the landlord was going to have increased recycling. I did not know it would be only one day after ours.

Obviously, I like that fact that they are recycling, but I did not like that we did not coordinate with them for the roll out. I actually did not like their change at first because I was not in control of it. Most of us, do not like a change when we are not in control and when someone does IT to us.

Life is Not Fair - God are you listening? You messed up down here!

My two facebook posts, said it succinctly because there is a limit to the number of characters but it is now time for a post. In fact, I split a facebook post into two when I encountered the limit this afternoon. That is what cut and paste is for after all.

I have a friend from the late 70s and early 80s, who I have been on and off in touch with since then. We reconnected when she was publishing her first book, I was in her second book and Friday night at Barnes and Noble I just happened to have a neuron fire which said, "I wonder if Susan's third book is out yet?" YES, it is out. The computer said that they had them in stock. I could not find them on the shelf, and the clerk searched high and low to find a copy buried in the stock room. Apparently she involved 5 Barnes and Noble employees in her quest for a copy. The book is not really out yet, since the publication date says May 4, 2010 so I got my hands on a very recently shipped copy, which obviously was not supposed to be out on the shelf yet.

I came home last night, and read 1/3 of the book, and could not sleep this morning past 6am because I wanted to read more. This is what Susan's books do to me. I have to read them all at once, or in a few sessions. She is a great writer, and since I know her, and her story, I am even more intrigued. So this morning, I read another 1/3 before heading out for the day. Just before I left for the day, I emailed Susan that I was loving her book. When I got back from my day, an email from her waited in my inbox. Her husband who she had finally found love with, had died in January of this year. Damnit I said. Life is just not fair. Why couldn't, whoever controls this crap, just leave her alone and let them be happy for a few more years.

She was in her 50s before she met Dennis after her first book "Chosen by a Horse". In fact her second book was about their love affair and was called "Chosen Forever". She deserves someone to love her and to love. She deserves to be happy. It is hard for me right now to be objective and I feel so badly that she had yet another loss in her life.

Life is not fair and if there is a God, she had really made a huge mistake on this one. If only we could give each other some of our happiness, and long lasting love. Must some people be tried and challenged all their life and others seemingly have it easier?

I guess by being in community with each other we do share our souls. We light candles to share joys and sorrows. When someone lights a candle about a past joy or sorrow for us, it helps us move along the journey or grief or pride.

Susan and I are getting together this summer with another friend Barb. We were the dynamic trio in our younger days. We were pretty stupid some days, and we had a lot of fun together. We have a bond from those days such that Susan's pain and sorrow are mine too. Right now I am in the phase of grief that is anger. I am sure Susan is further along the path of grieving.

However, Life is not Fair and for the third time this week, I find myself saying this over and over. These 3 situations on the surface are not about me, but about someone in my web . . . so, in fact, they are about me.

Technology Fails Multiple times

I have written a couple of posts from my iPhone but this time it is because of the title of this post.

I got to the Hilton on sunday night expecting to get a little bit of work done. In retrospect I should have connected to VA's wireless on the flight.

I spent 90 minutes trying to connect to their wireless and by then it was 2am EST. This was after spending 30 minutes with tier 1 and 2 tech support. That did not work so I called the front desk and they sent an engineer to my room with a network cable. They advertise wireless and I wanted wireless. The night ended with me refusing to switch rooms and being rather cranky to the hotel person I called at the front desk. Both technical people said that connectivity was a problem and wireless was dodgy. I believed them over the front desk person who said I was the only room having problems.

When I got to the office, this Intuit office does not have wireless like the other Intuit offices so I moved to an office with a network cable and that office did not have a working phone. That help desk ticket is still open 36 hours later. I could not print since unlike other places at Intuit you cannot install a printer by yourself. IT has to do that. I am near the capacity of rollover minutes on my iPhone so don't want to solely use that.

The kicker is that I could not get to my blog to write this at work since this is not a business site, and gets blocked by big brother at this work site . . . and the hotel wireless is still not working.

iPhone saves the day! And now I will finish this is the business center in the lobby of the hotel not in my PJs in my room, but wish I were.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I will not be thrown off my game by "stealing"/losing

Last weekend, was really strange for identity. Bee's wallet was stolen so we had to cancel our joint credit card, AND I lost my work badge, office key and VPN token (unfortunately they are all on one lanyard, silly me).

I realized at the end of this week that some of my cycles have been spent this week recapturing my identity. Physically my badge, key and token and then the credit card stuff. Technology is supposed to simplify things for us and at the same time it has complicated things for us. It allows another avenue for thieves for instance.

This is the third time in a year that we have had to get a new credit card. There are a lot of people out there "stealing". Bee's wallet and our identity.

Wouldn't it be easier to just have our fingerprint be our "credit card", office access, ignition, anywhere we need to ENTER. Some day but in the mean time we depend on those 2X3 pieces of plastic, that identify us and allow us to buy.

Health insurance reform, oh and BTW solving world hunger

Twice in 24 hours I noticed part of our health care system that are abolutely riduclously broken. The first one is the filling of prescriptions. My doctor gives me the prescriptions for an entire year, but I still have to go back every 30 or 90 days and get them filled. As I sat and waited at Walgreen's, I just fumed. So many little plastic bottles, only 10% full, leaving that register every 30 days. The paper to print the prescription, the paper bag it goes in, the time for the pharmacist. What a waste! It was not like this before the litiguous nature of health care.

The second one was getting my blood taken. I just had my blood taken in December for a series of tests. With technology, did they not know that I had not had blood taken for 18 months for my thryoid medication. Why did they not run that test at the same time? They have my electronic health records. The receptionist lectured me that I have not had my blood taken for 2 years. LIAR, I had it taken at YOUR office in December. You could have seen, if you looked into my records at that time.

OK, there are much bigger parts of our health care that are broken, so these ones are little and remote, but they bugged me this week!

Isn't a Silver Medal still very very good?

We watched that hockey game in the loft of Coniston. M brought a projection system, and we got a rabbit ears signal from Plattsburgh NY. It was a very exciting game to watch with many family members. A variety of Adirondack chairs, camp chairs, and dining room chairs gathered around the TV.

I was obviously disappointed that our boys did not win, but my overwhelming feeling was, "They still did pretty good, silver is a good medal to get." Brother M disagreed. Second place is just not good, nothing to brag about. Really? Only gold medals have bragging rights, second place does not rate at all?

I am not sure whether this is an indication of competitiveness, or cooperation or gender or what. I do know that I have come in second place before and been slightly disappointed but still proud to have second place.

None of the US hockey players were smiling or looked even happy to have second place and a silver medal. OMG, they scored on the Canadians with 24 seconds to go. Wasn't that a feat and something to be proud of? They held them off from scoring a third goal for most of 2 periods. Isn't that something to be proud of?

I guess only gold medals and first place positions have bragging rights. Sad face, and disappointment from Sally.

Sally is a nickname for Sarah - alert the media

Wow, I really did not think I would have to fight this battle, aka educate the entire world that Sally is a nickname for Sarah. In my observation, only Sallys and Sarahs know this little piece of trivia.

At our annual February Star Island Corporation retreat, the opening exercise was to make a name tag with your nickname on it. Being the rebel that I am I put my actual name on it SARAH. Sally is my nickname, but only for one summer, and the 30 hours of the retreat have people actually called me Sarah.

I am a seventh generation Sarah, my Mom is a sixth generation one, and is Sarah Virginia, always called Ginny. I think at birth I was nicknamed Sally.

The battle with officials and authorities continues. I once almost could not board a plane after 9/11 because my passport says Sarah and the ticket said Sally. Yesterday my doctor's office receptionist said "You almost did not get this message because your answering machine says Sally." I get this probably twice a week.

OK, why can Roberts be Bob, even with a different starting letter? Why is William ok to be Bill, also different starting letter? Margaret and Peg? You see where I am going. Sally and Sarah even start with the same letter!

So I am thinking of reclaiming my name of Sarah. It was pretty easy for the 30 hours of the retreat. It would solve all of those "I thought your name was Sally!" from the receptionists and officials.