Last night, we used several items from our car emergency kit including snow chains and a flashlight.
We have a box in the trunk of the car that includes a blanket, bottles of water, antifreeze/coolant, oil, jack, jumper cables, and, of course, tire chains and a flashlight. This was the first time we’ve used the chains.
I also have a bag that travels in my briefcase that has the common safety girl items: toothbrush, toothpaste, deoderant, gum, extra contact lenses, and things I can’t remember at the moment.
What else do you keep in your cars and desks?
Since I’m traveling, I thought I’d point your attention to an extremely useful product, the Safety Girl Roadside Emergency Kit. We’ve heard so much about emergency preparation since 9/11. And now finally a company is offering women emergency contents geared for their special needs.
It contains useful contents such as a nail file and chocolate. And some instructions for changing a tire or jumpstarting a car. But not a jack or jumper cables. Too complicated!
Space® Brand Emergency Blanket
Safety Matches
5 Bandages
2 Antiseptic Wipes
Instructions to Change a Flat Tire
Instructions to Jump Start a Dead Battery
Emergency Contact List
Accident Record
Safety GirlT Pencil
Purified Water
Professional Nail File
Ritter® Sport Chocolate
Zox Breath Freshener
Balm of Gilead Lip Moisturizer
Balm of Gilead Aromatherapy Headache Remedy
OxiClean® Instant Spot Remover Wipe
Dove Anti-perspirant
Speedy Clean Cleansing Wipes
Sight Savers® Eyeglass Lens Cleaning Tissue
3 o.b.® tampons
Emergency Sewing Repair Kit
I realize that smelling bad may be an emergency, but the fact that there are a number of items to help women smell better, but no actual jumper cables is sort of appalling. Because I’d love to smell good when I’m stranded with a dead battery.
Perhaps Safety Girl has confused what many women keep in their desk (deoderant, breath mints, spot remover, pencil) with what they might need for their actual safety (flashlight, jumper cables, jack).
Thanks Safety Girl! You’ve kept me extremely fresh.
Via Girlistic.
It’s nice to see fair-trade coffee served in Silver City, New Mexico at Dos Baristas.
Read more about fair-trade coffee here.
After much travel, I feel it’s clear to say that the worst smell in the West is in a Shell-Subway station in southern Arizona.
I wish to apologize for all the employees because it’s clear to me that they can’t smell it or they couldn’t work there. It is gag-able.
We were desperate enough to consider sandwiches at Shell-Subway, which breaks a policy I have never to a. use Shell gasoline and b. never to eat food near a gas station much less from a gas station. But there seemed to be nothing to eat for hundreds of miles. And so we ventured in.
But then there was the smell. Wine tasting has snottily honed our senses (and made us big drunks, but that’s another story). Jim felt the aroma was of roasted provolone cheese and burnt tires. I thought it definitely had undertones of provolone, but there was a yeasty finish with end notes of vomit. And with that, I gag again.
It reminded me of the second worst meal in the world, in eastern Colorado, in a restaurant populated mainly by flies. Jim claims that he looked at me once during the meal and counted 12 flies on me before shooing them away. The employees there also said this was normal. Let me quote. “Have you ever been to Eastern Colorado before? No? That’s how it is here.”
I find that hard to believe.
Thinking of those moral dilemmas at work? Here’s a quiz about them to start the work week:
I’m way too honest. But I think we already knew that.
I’m on vacation this week, so posting will be sporadic.
Since when did the American people decide to send their manufacturing sector south to exploit people in El Salvador or the Dominican Republic?
We didn’t and nobody ever asked.
That’s a quote from Help Wanted: Independence from the Corporate Global Economy, which redefines economy, not as a market system, but as the diverse activities by which humans generate livelihoods in relation to each other and the Earth.
Consider these economies that are rarely mentioned:
Household economies — how we raise children and teach life skills
Gift economies — how many communities share generosity with volunteer fire departments, food banks, and sharing food
Barter economies — how we trade services with friends and neighbors
Gathering economies — how we fish and forage for food, but also how we recycle and dumpster dive (one of my favorite expressions)
Cooperative economies — how we control resources cooperatively, such as worker-run and owned businesses or intentional communities
Community market economies — how small businesses provide support
We’re often taught that capitalism and the “market economy” is the end all be all of economic existence. It’s not. It doesn’t work that well for most people, particularly those on the bottom. For thousands of years, economies, such as the ones above, existed, which provided services and goods. Consider supporting them.
First, and most importantly, is blogger displaying in German?
This is becoming a tad problematic for me. I can loosely navigate in German (Passwort = Password), but can’t adjust a bunch of settings. I’ve assumed this is a problem with blogger, not me, but it is possible that I changed some setting to German accidentally.
If you happen to know what page has language settings, that might help. 
I think that the fact that I’ve accidentally changed my blog to German is a sign that I am no longer young and hip like the folks described in the New York Times, Cities Compete in Hipness Battle to Attract Young.
If you’re wondering what cities are trying to attract the young and hip, it’s this list:
Portland, Oregon
Las Vegas, Nevada
Austin, Texas
Charlotte, North Carolina
Atlanta, Georgia
The long and the short of the article? Cities such as Los Angeles and New York are losing college-educated people from 25-34 years old. If you want to know why, I’d say that it’s a. the cost of housing, followed by b. the cost of housing and then possibly c. the cost of housing. The article also cites booming arts-scenes in the above mentioned cities, and jobs in those cities.
Apparently once you hit the big thirty-five, you are much less likely to move. Then you’re stuck in your city as you age and become decidedly less hip and try to blog in German.
Hmm
Hopefully you are one of the folks that has four days off in a row and has some free time.
I’ve been investigating making my own cards, so I thought I would post some resources:
Crayola has lots of holiday craft ideas, and I really like crayons. You will need to register and pretend that you have children, if that is not the case. They have Thank You card ideas, but not greeting cards, which I have to suspect may be because they are partnered with Hallmark.
Family Fun has lots of make-your-own card ideas, which are (apparently) intended for children, but seemed like fun.
Create Your Own Christmas Cards has instructions on paper folding for those of us who are not spatially inclined.
The Cartoon Blog has top ten lists of things to say and draw in Christmas cards.
The Telegraph has an article with many links to free Christmas clip art and free e-card sites.
You’re tuckered out from eating. It’s not the time to shop.
Today is National Buy Nothing Day. I didn’t make it up. Someone else did.
That means that you consume nothing with your credit card (You are allowed to eat however, just not financially consume). Why would you choose to do that with 50% off at Kohl’s?
It’s like this. The United States is a geographically small country, but we use most of the resources on earth. Why? We think we’re entitled to. Today is the day you say, “Hello? Consumer culture? Yes, you are I N S A N E. Buying stuff will not make me happy. It will make me broke. It wears down my soul. I will not be a party to a nationally brainwashed culture that believes that the next new item will bring with it great sex, love, and hipness (unless it’s Baby Alive!).”
If you just can’t do it. I mean, you’ve tried, but your fingers are wandering around the keyboard, heading to amazon for some amazing deal on that playstation (Note: all playstations are gone. Just give it up). Your legs are moving toward the car because the mall beckons. You must shop. You absolutely must.
I offer you one way to repent: buy used. That means ebay is mostly fine. Thrift stores are mostly fine.
GhostGirl and I launched a thrifty expedition earlier this week, fighting both traffic and jetlag to shop the fine separated by color thrift stores of the Santa Clarita Valley. We both found clothes for work, though La GhostGirl needs to look more presentable, and found an actual dress. I have purchased a velour jumpsuit, very urban house frau. We produced no consumer waste; we recycled. We’re downright smug about it.
Beliefnet has a Gratitude journal that you can read and post in. Over 4000 posts so far.
Check out the collection of Thanksgiving sermons and Thanksgiving Prayers.
Here’s one of my favorite meal prayers:
Blessed be the Earth for giving birth to this food
Blessed be the Sun for nourishing it
Blessed be the Wind for carrying its seed
Blessed be the Rain for quenching its thirst.
Blessed be the hands that helped to grow this food,
To bring it to our tables
To nourish our minds, bodies, and spirits.
Blessed be our friends, our families, and our loved ones.
Blessed Be.
I’ve had several conversations recently about Thanksgiving on the phone, in cars to and from LAX, and in person while helping hose off an outdoor chair used to seat the twenty-fifth guest. This informal research has led me to think that people fall into generally three camps for Thanksgiving:
1. “I love my family and they’re just about perfect.” I think of this as a form of denial, but that may just be cynicism. I hope this world exists. I hope these families exist. These folks spend Thanksgiving with their families. Often there is a sing-a-long involved. No alienation is involved.
2. “My family is effed up, but I still love them.” These folks also spend Thanksgiving with their families. There isn’t a formal sing-a-long, but, in the car on the way home afterward, there may be a scream-a-long. There is a fair amount of alienation involved.
3. “I’m going to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving.” These folks spend Thanksgiving in an alternative arrangement. It doesn’t need to be Las Vegas. There is a fair amount of alienation involved, but participants decide that this alternative arrangement #3 is less painful/alienating/gut-wrenching than arrangement #2.
I’m not sure what to advise here, or how it has to do with “work,” but know that if you fall into one of those three categories, you are perfectly normal and so is your family. And if there’s a fourth category, feel free to post in comments.
For a more uplifting take on the holiday, check out Patry Francis’s blog, Simply Wait.
Disturbing Pilgrim Art brought to you by Kids Domain.
It’s come to my attention that a large number of people find my blog while searching google for “in love with my boss.”
Welcome to the Spirituality and the Workplace blog. And, yes, I’m the love guru. That sound you hear is me laughing at myself.
Before we begin, here’s my caveat: occasionally great relationships spring out of employer-employee situations. You hope that you can have that.
More often, really painful relationships occur that continue far into death rattles much to the amusement (and disturbance) of coworkers.
Here is the basic problem of being in love with your boss: power inequity. The boss has the power and you do not. Yes, you may be younger, firmer, and more attractive. That’s a certain kind of power. But the boss is the one who may be older, wiser, and most importantly, be able to fire you. Very often this dynamic continues once a romantic relationship begins.
I was told in ministerial training that we only see the positive way that a relationship will go in the begining when we’re attracted to someone. We don’t see how it could possibly go wrong. Now ministers and parishioners have a similar type of power inequity, plus the more explicit presence of God, which apparently some people find sexy. I find it sort of odd. But not sleeping with parishioners was never my particular challenge.
So, if you’re in love with your boss, think deeply about this difference of power. You deserve a partner with whom you are on equal ground.
Resources:
Ask April has some do’s and don’ts.
Ms. Theologian (me!) reflects on the heart and other organs.
I hate diamonds.
I hated the first girl who got a diamond ring and wore it around all hands aflutter. I suppose I was jealous, but also disgusted.
I hate those little jewelry stores in the mall at the holidays and Valentine’s Day with posters suggesting diamonds = true love.
(And now that I type that I’m wondering if “I hate diamonds” and associated rant was possibly the phrase I uttered that terribly offended my sister-in-law several years ago so much that she wasn’t speaking to me.)
In any case, I wasn’t talking about her diamond, which was reset from a ring of my grandmother’s. Just diamonds in particular. They are mined in the most atrocious conditions by the most exploited labor, including children. Then they are slickly marketed as symbols of love. It’s pretty darn sick.
If you must have a diamond, buy it used and have it reset. If you own a diamond, just make sure you educate yourself.
PeaceBang has a Beauty Tip on diamond buying today, Socially Conscious Bling.
It seems to me that one reason human beings tend to get depressed this time of year (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) is the lack of sun. It literally feels like the world around us is dying. And it is, temporarily at least.
Another reason for seasonal blues is the relentless holidays accompanied by our own expectations of how life “should” be and how our families “should be.” And life and family often do not meet our own expectations.
It reminds me of how I would see a toy advertised on TV as a kid and just dream of how perfect life would be with a doll that really peed. Yes, I’m talking about Baby Alive! And I would never get the gift because the fam didn’t buy peeing dolls. But I’d see that doll at a friend’s house, and what a disappointment. She was just a glorified plastic piece of tubing with two holes. In went the water. And then it came out.
That’s how the holidays feel sometimes—like when you realize that a peeing doll isn’t more than plumbing.
For many reasons.
Many of us need to practice a skill that we can’t use in the workplace. Volunteering provides the opportunity to do it. Volunteering is often a way to compliment paid work.
I have a degree in earth science, but do not work as a geologist. Volunteering on the water board helps me use those skills and help the community by ensuring that the water supply is stable and clean. At least I try.
How do you volunteer?
Thinking of volunteering? You might try Volunteer Match or Servenet.
You probably haven’t heard of Om Prakash, but he was just awarded $100,000 as the International Children’s Peace Prize.
Om suffered the fate of millions of children. At the age of five, he was taken away from his parents and for three years he worked in the fields.
He was given two meals a day, was regularly beaten and never paid.
After he was rescued, Om campaigned for free education in his native Rajastan. He then helped to set up a network of what are known as “child friendly villages”.
These are places where children’s rights are respected and child labourers are not allowed.
Om also worked to ensure children are given birth certificates. He says such registration is the first step towards enshrining children’s rights, proving their age, and helping to protect them from slavery, trafficking, forced marriage or serving as a child soldiers.
Read the entire article on BBC News.
Who hasn’t been sucked into Wal-Mart for one item and come out with a cart-load of other crap. And then came Target and the crap was actually hipper crap, crap you might actually want. But where does all the crap come from? It’s imported from places with bad labor conditions and human rights violations.
Enter the L O I S business, a local ownership/import substitution business, as in a long-term wealth generator for your community. Not Wal-Mart, not Target, not K-Mart, not Home Depot, not Lowe’s. I’ve just described most of Santa Clarita.
Consider these suggestions for supporting L O I S businesses from TreeHugger.
Buy less- a self-reliant community needs self-reliant people.
Buy Local (triple crown: locally made goods sold in a locally owned store from locally found inputs.)
Buy local-imperfect choices. It is better to buy local-non-organic produce than it is to buy non-local organic food flown in.
Buy Regional- if you can’t find local.
Buy Bi-Local- if you cannot find what you need in your region, consider helping another, for example developing relationships with other LOIS groups that have what you need.
Buy Fair Trade- if you cannot grow your own coffee and cocoa, support the farmers more directly by buying fair trade.
Read more about the Small Mart Revolution.
Via TreeHugger
When I look at you,
I’m looking into a still blue lake
Seeing a reflection
Not identical to me
Yet, underneath,
The meaning is still the same.
When I look at you,
I’m looking in a mirror,
Or just wishing
That we were more alike.
The words you speak
Are the words I write.
When I look at you,
I see a river
A flowing that never ceases
Spreading love in many branches.
Your silence, your actions,
Have strong undercurrents.
a reflection - lynne milum - universal light
From World Prayers
For the right person, a pair of beer goggles from Urban Spectacles would be a hilarious gift.
That would be recycled beer cans via Make Magazine.
Holiday 911 is a new blog from the Washington Post for…you guessed it….holiday emergency questions.
I’ve already read about vegetarian-oriented restaurants for Thanksgiving, 10-couples for Thanksgiving, museum gift shops, gifts for kids, and gifts without clutter. And pear candles. Can’t beat the pear candles.
It’s hard to know what to do when your sneakers lose their treads and start to smell of cheese. You don’t want to throw them out! They’ll stay in the landfill for thousands of years, no doubt sharing their cheesy smell with diapers, old furniture, and organic waste that could have been composted.
Are you feeling guilty yet? Or simply annoyed? In any case, you can drop off any brand of sneakers without metal parts at Nike’s recycling program, Reuse-a-shoe. Here’s the map of where you can drop the shoes.
You might also check out recycled products on Uncommon Goods, including door mats made from recycled flipflops.
Tips Via Plenty Magazine