Health update

Just looked back at my post from June and noticed that I had made mention of my health thing with no follow-up.

I'm on high blood pressure meds now and pending a call to the doc today, probably something for cholesterol as well.  I spent three hours yesterday in the dentist's chair getting an old crown taken out and getting fitted for a new one.  Two hours for that procedure and then another hour when the temporary crown turned out to be ... so temporary as to last only an hour and a half.  It's a good thing that the dentist's office is about 60 feet down the corridor from my cubicle.

I've started working out 3-4 mornings a week at the fitness center provided by our company.  It starts the day out quite well and also saves on hot water at home -- I throw on the exercise stuff at 5:30am or so and shower and dress here at work.  Ever since returning from Thailand last summer, I've been waking up between 5:00 and 5:30 or so every morning anyway, and this beats sitting watching morning news and checking email.

Liz_a VISIT!!!

Liz_a should be showing up on our doorstep sometime this evening on her way back home from Eastern Ontario to visit her dad.  We haven't seen her, her husband, or kids since they visited us in our old home in Minnesota (pre-China, pre-Thailand). 

We're planning on visiting Sprecher's brewery here tomorrow (what else would you visit if you were in Milwaukee, right?)  From what friends have told me, this is a better tour than the tour of Miller's (you may have heard of this brewer?) and what is really nice, the kids get unlimited tasting of Sprecher's soda varieties (this is Wisconsin, sodas here are what we know as "pop" or "soft drinks" almost everywhere else).  And ... this is one brewer that really knows how to make BEER as well as soft drinks!

Dinner tonight will also be traditional Wisconsin -- Klement's bratwurst along with some Sprecher's brew and a beer I've not yet tasted, but just had to try when I saw it in the store yesterday -- Lazy Mutt ale.  Klement's is the company that features the ... famous ... "sausage races" ... at every Milwaukee Brewers home game.  Whee ... At least their sausage is better than the entertainment!  Actually, I prefer Usinger's brats, but didn't have time to get to the store yesterday that sells this brand.

The rest of the plan is ... no plan.  Not sure what we'll do the rest of the time before they leave on Thursday morning.  We should get down to Lake Michigan and show her kids that not ALL the Great Lakes belong partially to Canada, eh?

One thing I'm sure will NOT be on the agenda.  I jokingly said that maybe I should give the keys to my scooter to her son Daniel and let him run around the neighborhood.  Somehow the thought of her oldest son's collarbone situation a couple years ago and my scooter accident (and broken collarbone) in Thailand a year and a half ago sort of made her ... yell ... scream?  I had to put the phone a foot from my ear and my head was ringing for an hour or so.  It's probably good that the phone was away from my ear, because I think a few of those words that I almost heard were not exactly ... ladylike.

Update

For what it's worth, am now again gainfully employed outside the field of education (since the first of the year).  Working for the marketing data analytics department of a large printing firm based in Wisconsin.  Overall money is less than teaching, but the pay per hour is better!

Along with getting back on insurance with the new job, have been having some health tests done.  Some?  A lot.  Will have a sort of summary meeting with the doctor next Monday and will know whether blood pressure med, cholesterol, heart transplant, whatever is needed.

Xanga is sure a lot different than it was "back in the day" when I was actually posting here!

I'm reading Ken Blanchard's "Raving Fans" but ...

I'm a ranting non-fan at the moment ... sent this to the corporate headquarters of the grocery chain here in Milwaukee.

Your store at Midtown Shopping Center on Capitol is the closest grocery store to us and has the largest variety of foods as compared to either Lena’s or Sentry on Lisbon.

It was the store we shopped at almost exclusively since we moved to Milwaukee in the summer of 2007.

It is no longer a store I shop at except to visit the liquor store (and then only because there really is no alternative in the area).

Why?

I have had only one good experience shopping there since we moved – and that was the result of one of your employees actually saying no to a person who went into a 20 items or less aisle with a full cart.  And then that employee was moved off the line and (probably) reprimanded.

I’ve had a few “ok” experiences where nothing happened that made me really happy but nothing stood out as disappointing.

However, the majority of times I’ve visited your store on Capitol, I’ve experienced some of the worst customer service I have ever had in a grocery store, and that includes shopping in them for 40+ years in 6 states and two foreign countries.  Even in China, with a few hundred people in the store at the same time as me and virtually no ability to communicate with a limited amount of knowledge of Mandarin, I was better served and my questions answered better than at Midtown.

Rarely is one able to get through the checkout line in less than 15 minutes.

Rarely is a person helped with bagging groceries, even if there is clearly a backup at the terminal when two customers are bagging groceries and a third is waiting for his/her groceries to be checked.

If a person IS being helped to bag groceries, I have never figured out a rhyme or reason – a woman with an arm in a sling bags her own groceries while another young adult is given personal service, for example.

The employees have always seemed more interested in talking to each other than in doing their jobs.  I have waited 5 minutes at the checkout, groceries and items on the table and ready to be checked, while two employees stand there talking about daycare issues.

May the Lord help anyone who is looking for an item and can’t find it in the store.

You’ve got good prices and quality items, yet I’m now shopping at Sentry on Lisbon.  The choice there is limited in comparison to Pick n Save, and the prices a bit higher.  Produce is not as good quality.  Yet – the employees seem to actually believe that the customers are there to be helped.  I can go in, shop, and leave in the time it generally takes me to wait for a checker at Midtown.  And they bag my groceries. Always.  I’ve never encountered a surly employee there.  They even smile.

I’ve shopped at other Pick N Save stores around the Milwaukee area when in their neighborhoods and it was convenient, and have not yet encountered customer service to compare with that which has stopped me shopping at Midtown.  You guys are doing something right at most of your stores, why not that one?

 Later this afternoon, unless something very drastic ... and positive ... happens, I'm telling the principal he needs to find someone else to fill my classroom.  My last lesson this morning included this quote from W.E.B. DuBois.

Why I came to Blank Schools –

In the fall of 1975, I was teaching at what is now Different School on Blankblank Avenue in Milwaukee.  One of the mothers of my students, Mrs. Roberts, stopped by one day and we were talking.  She said that she didn’t have much time because she was on her way to her second job, cleaning offices after the office day was done, so that she could afford the tuition she was paying to have her children go to the school

She said she hadn’t had any real education – that she left school after sixth grade so that she could take care of her brothers and sisters.  She did continue to read, and she said that she had read almost everything that W. E. B. DuBois had written.  She said she didn’t understand a lot of what he’d said, but that didn’t stop her because each time she read or re-read it, she did understand a little more.

“But,” she said, “I need to get going.  I really wanted to tell you what I want for my son.  I want him to ‘sit with Shakespeare’ like Mr. DuBois said.  I want him to be a man, not just a male old enough to drink liquor and be with women.”

I don’t know what Isiah Roberts became.  I know that one of his classmates is now a pastor in a church in Tempe, Arizona.  I know that another of his classmates is a teacher in Denver, CO.  I heard that another of his classmates owns a string of stores in St. Louis, but I can’t confirm that.  What I do know is that his mother, and the mothers of the other kids in that school, most of them working second and third jobs to pay for their children’s educations before the days of “CHOICE” schools, had deep hopes in their hearts and so much love that they sacrificed a great deal so that their sons and daughters could ‘sit with Shakespeare’.