Category Archives: Ranting

Wherein I can bitch and moan about parenting, wife-ing, work, neighbors, family, mean people, and just life in general.

Come join the fun! It’s Natalie’s New Year’s Pity Party!

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I know you are all sitting around waiting for me to finally get my butt in gear and post the sordid details from Holiday Season 2007. And you know what? So am I. I have most of the photos off my card, and have been loading them onto Flickr, set, by tedious set. However, based on the current reading on the Walston Motivation-o-Meter, a -5 isn’t really going to get you much. At this pace, it is probably going to be St. Patrick’s day before I get around to telling you about the obscene meal Steve concocted for his birthday dinner (hot dogs, wrapped in pastrami, smothered in 100-Island dressing, covered in a slice of cheese and toasted under a broiler), or until I am able to recount the steady stream of gift opening and food digesting that defined Christmas.

But the truth of the matter is that along with recovering from the holiday, and everything that entails, Steve and I both have had a hard time embracing that perky new year’s outlook. For both of us, work has been very emotionally draining, causing us to come home each day and threaten to quit everything and finally open that kitchen store. Neither one of us has been able to get back onto our exercise routine, and our commitment to quality parenting has been marginal, at best. Cereal for dinner, anyone? It hasn’t helped matters that we are now at week 14 waiting for a very expensive new bed frame that was supposed to have been delivered in 6-8 weeks. Follow that up with this little gem from Tuesday, and I guess you could say that although we are 9 days into our new year we are just not yet feeling the 2008 love. And have I mentioned the 7 consecutive days of storms that have knocked out the power twice?

Although we are feeling like we have started the new year with a thud, there have been some moments to help me keep perspective that not being able to return a pair of shoes isn’t exactly the end of the world. Like, finding out that a childhood friend died over the holidays. She was just 35 years old. She had been diagnosed with a partially in-operable brain tumor during the summer between our freshman and sophomore year, and continued to battle with it’s various complications throughout her life. Although we had not maintained a friendship through our adult lives, it was still painful news to hear. I felt especially sad for her mother, who had also recently lost her husband. Parents should not ever have to outlive their children.

Also, for the first time in recent memory, I can recognize and appreciate that all four members of our immediate family are simultaneously illness-free. No colds, no throwing up, no mysterious coughs and/or persistent runny noses, no ear infections, no sinus infections, no croup, no reflux, no antibiotics, no prescription antacids. After spending the last 4 years living with one, then two little germ factories – susceptible to any virus within a 10-mile radius – I realize the true miracle of this phenomenon. Now, if we could just cure The Angry.

I am sure that slowly, we will begin to find our 2008 mojo, and we can begin to focus on the important things, like how I am going to accrue the remaining 6 purse points to buy that yummy brown leather bag I have been eyeing since before Christmas. [You can imagine that this system – devised and scored by Steve – is rife with corruption and irregularity. However, I am confident that I can prevail.]

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it is time for me to go get on the treadmill…which is exactly why I am instead going to get a giant bowl of ice cream and sit on the couch and watch the E! Channel.

Dead to Me

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It is no secret that I have serious issues when it comes to poor customer service. Knowing this, you will not be surprised at my response to this recent interaction – an interaction that literally frustrated me to the point of tears. However, you will be surprised at which business will – after 10 long years – never again see me walk through it’s doors again.

This letter will be going out in tomorrow’s mail:

Hello Beth,

Although you have likely been briefed by your staff on this issue, I feel it is important for you, as the owner, to understand my perspective and the results from this unfortunate situation.

I bought my husband a pair of shoes for Christmas, with the hope that the usual sizing would work. As it turned out, it didn’t. Today, (the 8th) my husband tried exchanging them for the larger size at the Arcata store, only to be told that the return period had expired. Although it does state your 7-day return policy on the receipt, I obviously overlooked it, and incorrectly assumed we had 30 days. It is especially inexcusable considering both the frequency in which I shop at your stores, and how long I have been a customer. But, to be perfectly honest, in all the time I have been shopping at North Soles, it has just never come up as an issue.

After being told no, he dropped them off with me and asked me to inquire again in Eureka. And, although I was informed that they had the exact same shoe style in the size he needed, I was also told no. As I began to question the issue I was then told that it also looked like they had been worn. (They hadn’t)

So, I followed up with the general manager at the Arcata store. Again, but with increasing curtness, I was told that I was trying to return a used pair of shoes and that I should have paid closer attention to the receipt – after all, the grace period had been extended. All I wanted was to be given an equivalent pair of shoes that fit. I wasn’t asking for cash, I wasn’t trying to exchange for a different style, I just wanted to go home with a pair of shoes that my husband could actually wear. Instead, I was left with a useless pair of shoes, and the desire to never shop in your stores again.

I guess the bigger issue, and the reason I am writing this letter at all, is that I was so completely frustrated with how I was treated – basically as though I was trying to cheat you, and that it was repeatedly made clear to me that your inventory policy was far more important than my patronage.

In actuality, I am a customer who has shopped at North Soles for over 10 years, and used to be recognized and greeted by Cynthia, Kate and their staff whenever I’d come in to shop. (Still am, by Kate a couple of doors down). I have continued to shop at your store, even though the personal touches are gone, and although the online experience may be cheaper, I have always had a desire to support local business. Although your staff didn’t know any of this, I would expect fair and reasonable customer service.

I understand that you have these policies for a reason, and that your staff needs to make decisions in support of viable business practices. However, this experience left me frustrated and offended. I am aware that it will most likely be your instinct to defend your staff and your policies, however I do want you to know that because of this experience you have lost my business. I will inform my family and friends to no longer buy me the usual gift certificates, and will no longer bring visiting friends and family in for the usual shopping (my Mom buys at least one pair just about every time she visits). I also will freely share this experience with whoever is interested.

I know it may not seem it, but it really does make me sad that this has transpired. There is a personalized and comfortable experience to shopping the Plaza merchants that I have always enjoyed, and unfortunately, North Soles no longer embodies that for me.

Thanks for your time,

Natalie Walston

Perspective

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If I were to give a brief assessment of the last month, I’d say that we have been moving forward, but in a sort of bumpy and uncomfortable is-anyone-having-any-fun-here? kind of way. Unfortunately, it is this state in which our lives currently exists that prohibits me from being able to write a post without quickly digressing to a boring rant. Although I write this blog as much for myself as for anyone else, even I don’t really feel like coming back to read a sniveling diatribe about how tired, overwhelmed and depressed I am. Booorrriiiinnngggg.

One of the things I have learned in writing these pages however, is that in order for me to write about my life in a way that isn’t whiny and sour, I need a certain amount of perspective. The humor is born from the pain not during, but after. Periodically, I’ll look back through these pages for something and stumble across a post where I didn’t give myself the appropriate emotional recovery time-frame. These are the posts whose subtext reads: GET THIS WOMAN SOME PROZAC.

So here I am, unsure if I have enough perspective, but trying to get something down anyway. I am well aware of the fact that I have gone far too long without posting anything, during a time when there is more going on than ever, and I am compounding my stress by feeling as though I am missing my opportunity to write about some of the really the good things – because even in my spiral towards total insanity, I can see that there are some good things. I know this because they are the reasons that we have not given up entirely and knocked on the door at B Street asking, “Can we just have our house back, please?”

As for our new house, well, if I have to hear myself tell one more person how much POTENTIAL it has, I am going to have to personally tell myself to shut the hell up. Blah, blah di freakin blah. It is this perpetual need to not seem ungrateful and unappreciative that has been so tough. Yes, we are fortunate enough to have two wonderful children that are trying to kill us , and a new house that looks like it was remodeled by a blind person , and yet all I want to do is tell people how insanely overwhelmed I am. This new house of ours? Yeah, it’s kind of like having 10 newborns all at the same time. And, if having children has been any lesson to me, I have learned that the same things that bring you the most joy and happiness in the world can also bring you the most hair-pulling, scream-into-your-pillow, sobbing-on-the-bathroom-floor frustration. So I guess you could say it’s kind of like that.

In between the regular, day-to-day shuffle of kids and house projects that don’t get done, we have been inserting side-trips here and there. Steve’s father turned 70, and we traveled to the booming metropolis of Redding to celebrate in the festivities. Additionally, the season of Eskra has officially been kicked off, beginning with separate bachelor and bachelorette parties in Lake Tahoe that killed not just a handful of brain cells, but entire sectors of our frontal cortex. I think it was the altitude. In all cases, it was nice to get away from here for just the briefest of moments and to alleviate the pounding need to accomplish something.

There are a set of photos that Steve took the day after our offer on this house was officially accepted. For those who have not already seen them, you can flip through to get an idea of where the crazy begins. I have taken only a small handful of photos over the last month. You’ll note that there are no rhyme or reason to the subject, or even the quality for that matter. But for those of you suffering withdrawal, it should get you over the hump.

Now, where’s that Prozac?

Urban Wildlife

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You’d think that by living in the middle of the city that we would be pretty much void of any real animal wildlife. The actuality is that, although from our vantage point there is asphalt as far as the eye can see, we have an active and varied mix of nocturnal mammalian activity within our neighborhood. [I think it is important to clarify at this point that I am NOT referring to the drug dealers, thieves and other misfits that cruise our neighborhood after dark.]

Nevermind that we are overrun with cats aplenty – on any given night of the week we are guaranteed that we will see either a skunk, possum or raccoon. We even have a humming bird that has continued to visit us this winter regardless of how ridiculously awful the weather gets.

So a few months back when all three of us watched a possum skirt the perimiter of our yard we didn’t think much of it. That is, until we watched it continue it’s way over to the house, then disappear underneath it. Now is the point in the story where I reveal just how little I think of possums and their oversized-rat-like selves. Raccoons and skunks are cute. They are both troublemakers – but they get away with it much better because of their ability to have sweet little pointy faces with large waddling bellies, or amazing dexterity that rivals that of a toddler. Possums on the other hand are not cute under any circumstance, and after getting to listen to their horrid screetch-like sound ALL NIGHT LONG I am no more inclined to cut them any slack. It is bad enough that I will occasionally be standing in the shower and hear and/or feel the oh-so-pleasant scratching at the underside of the tub. DO YOU KNOW HOW CREEPY THAT IS? But to be kept awake all night by the sounds of unhappy possum was another thing entirely – especially when the idea popped into my head that the sound I was hearing could quite well have been possum birthing ritual. Ick. Steve said he seems to think that he thought two possums “fighting” in our backyard a couple of nights ago, so I don’t quite know what to make of it all.

All I do know is that we need to hermedically seal the perimiter of our house so as to keep it from turning into an inner-city wildlife sanctuary. And, pronto.

As for my biased opinions on possums, I think the only thing that might – just might – make my cold heart soften a little would be a new installment from Janell Cannon. But I can’t make any promises.

Kids, pets and pee.

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Aside from the fact that we have decided to start this new year by instituting time-outs, banishing all diapers size 5 and up, and rationing water consumption from a bottle (only at sleep time and no more than 4oz), we decided that we needed to really go that extra mile in our new stance on tough love and extend it beyond our child and onto our pets. Why, you might wonder, are they becoming such hard-asses? Well, aside from the regularly discussed issues surrounding the “developmental enhancements” we are nudging along with Stella, there is the fact that in a period of 36 hours last week we found cat spray on the front of the refrigerator, and in two separate places on the kitchen counter. I consider that pretty much a no-brainer.

Although Steve has finally come to the reality of “cats who spray, don’t get to stay,” it has not come easily. I truly admire his compassion and kindness to the animal kingdom and that, along with having to repeatedly play bad-cop with Stella, the decision to banish Rosie like this is just killing him. But rules is rules, and if the greater population of the feline kingdom can live outdoors so can our inflexible, pampered grey cat.

So, Boris now gets to commune with his peeps 24-7 and doesn’t have to worry about informing the whole household of his dominance via urinary measures, and Rosie (who Steve really thinks is behind much of the spraying) is now banished to the outdoors whenever we aren’t here and many times even when we are. The result has been that Boris pretty much gave us the finger entirely and won’t even come around for the occasional snack anymore, and Rosie – well, Rosie has been turned into such a pampered princess by her sugar daddy that she doesn’t quite know how to function when she can’t spend 23.7 hours a day on the couch sleeping. Aside from yowling at the door long enough to actually lose her voice, she managed to get herself stuck under the house today. Not only was I busy trying to negotiate the pre-nap ritual with Stella, but it was pouring rain, and Rosie decide to perform her gutteral cries of a torture victim – right under Stella’s room! So out I went – me and my 7-month pregnant self…in the pouring rain – to free the cat who was single-handedly foiling my one shot at getting Stella down for a nap. Long and ranting story short, I had to dismantle the crawl-space and virtually drag Rosie from under the house while trying to keep the neighbor cat from crawling in, then found Stella wandering the house when I got back. I had to start the whole nap ritual all over again, thereby providing Stella’s 2-year-old bladder with a full 8oz of liquid before sending her off to sleep for 2+ hours. Odds are not good that we are going to continue with our dry streak today.

It just doesn’t get much better.