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Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

Proposed median changes: a letter to whom it may concern

16 Apr

I’ve been struggling mentally with this for weeks, even more so in the last 24 hours since I finally got a contact name for someone who might actually listen to my concerns. Below is a letter that I just wrote, where I really hope I came out sounding like a rational adult and less like the Crazy Yarn Store Lady OMGPONIESa;slfja;dsfja;ldfskj.

To whom it may concern;

I am writing in regards to the proposed median modifications between NW 43rd Street and NW 41st Street on NW 16th Ave/Blvd. Not only do I live off of 16th Avenue, but I own a business off of 16th Blvd, right in front of two of the proposed median closings; as such, I feel highly invested in this project.

In spite of the fact that “notification of these activities will be given to the public through signs placed on site, press releases, fliers, emails, etc.” I have found it difficult to find information (other people I know who have been given names and phone numbers have found their calls to never be returned, and that the contact person they were given is no longer the contact person); but was recently pointed towards a few pages and PDFs on the Alachua County website. I now feel that I am more familiar with the plan of the project. Many of the points I wholeheartedly agree with; most especially with making the entire corridor more bicycle-friendly and the additions of sidewalks in some locations.

However, I am extremely concerned with the closing of two out of the three left-hand turns into Millhopper Square when heading west on 16th. One of the closings I could support, the closing of the median close to the Kangaroo station. Between the median opening being so close to the light, where people wait to get into the Kangaroo thereby blocking traffic trying to turn South onto 43rd, and the dangerously fast and blind right onto 16th when heading north on 43rd, that is an intersection that does need to be reviewed for safety concerns. But I am extremely concerned that the inability to make a left into Millhopper Square at the median between Fresh Market and Publix is going to put an incredible amount of stress on the very small intersection/light at the corner at the Gainesville Community Playhouse.  Being that I now have to take that light in order to get to work, I can tell you that the length of the turn lane is barely over two car lengths. I have read in your paperwork that traffic studies are being conducted, but many of the business owners in our plaza are wondering if those studies that are being conducted now are taking into account the reduced flow of traffic that we’re seeing due to the Jo-Anne’s closing and the demolition/reconstruction of Publix. Once the new 51,000 square foot Publix reopens in the fall, after the decision has been made to close the medians, the sheer volume of traffic turning at the light – with a turn lane not quite the length of three cars – is going to cause many people trying to continue straight west on 16th to sit through many a light change while cars slowly filter through to the left.

For about a week or so, the big median between Publix and Fresh Market was coned to indicate a “left in/right out” turn; this was fabulous. It negated the dangerous activity of people speeding recklessly across four lanes of traffic to get into the other plaza, but it still left the median open for the flow of east/west traffic to be able to turn into the plaza on the opposite side of the road. Now, from what I understand from reading the documents I found online, the left into the Fresh Market plaza will be allowed, but the left into Publix/Millhopper will be closed. I find this frustrating both as a person who drives into the plaza and as a business owner in the plaza. In order to get into our plaza when coming from the east, customers to the locally owned businesses in our center now have to turn in at Gainesville Community Playhouse, drive down to the Post office, up around the gated Publix construction, and through an almost blind entrance in order to get to our parking lot. Not that a lot of people are using that entrance now that the turn has been closed at the median strip, so I guess that’s one thing to be thankful for.

It would make many of us in Millhopper Square relieved to hear that the plan might be changed to reconsider the closing of the larger of the two medians. The way it was just last week, “left in, right out”, is a permanent solution that we could get behind. We would love to hear about any changes, or updates, or to know if you are interested in feedback at all. I see in your documents that “notification of these activities will be given to the public through signs placed on site, press releases, fliers, emails, etc.” but we in Millhopper Square don’t feel that this is necessarily true. We find things out not through fliers or press releases, but through gossip of our customers; this makes us feel that our ideas, our input, our feedback, and our worries about the future of our businesses aren’t important in the grand scheme of these traffic changes – but we would also love to be proven wrong about that, and hope that letters like mine can help to open up discussion.

Thank you for your time,

Lorena Haldeman

Co-owner of Hanks Yarn and Fiber

Millhopper Square

4127 NW 16th Blvd

(352) 338-7222

hanksyarn@gmail.com;  or personally at haldechick@snarkland.com

 
7 Comments

Posted in Gainesville, Rants

 

Ask me, ask me, ask me! Ask me; I won’t say “no” – how could I?

22 Mar

Anyone? Anyone get the song reference? :crickets: OK… moving on.

You know what? (“turkeys don’t trot. you know why? they never did try!” THANK YOU PAPA. You’ve been dead for 25 years and I still can’t get that annoying phrase out of my head.)

ANYWAY.

I just wrote about a two-page bitchery on my least favorite question, and at the end realized that (1) it seemed way too personal-attacky (2) it was way too bitchy (3) I felt a lot better after writing it and maybe that was the only point.

SO HERE’S THE MEAT OF IT. I (along with Sharon and Ginger, and thus by default our menfolk) am a small business owner. The economy sucks, I think we all know that. Our plaza is getting some major renovations and driving by we all look like we’re closed. We’re about to get some major intersection reworking, including possibly closing the median crossings into our plaza. My husband is still out of work, and I am afraid every single day of where the next meal and the next mortgage payment is going to come from. I have mini panic attacks three or four times a week thinking about money and the future. And I don’t mean “the future two or three years down the road”, I mean “tomorrow”. My hair has gotten more gray in the last six months than it has in the last six years. I can’t remember the last time you couldn’t bounce an axe off the tightness of my shoulders.

Even if you are my very best friend in the whole wide world (you helped me bury a body and then I gave you a kidney)… please stop asking me on the sales floor in front of customers “how business is going”. You are going to get the vague response of “business is fine” no matter what crappy or joyful day we are having. I simply can not tell if you’re asking me for financial information about the shop (which I’m certainly not going to discuss in front of customers), or if you’re concerned about all the plaza changes (which make me alternately rage or panic), or what, really, is being asked. (“How is business?” … “Business has a slight cough and a fever, I think it might be an ear infection but I’m taking it to the doctor later today”) … Blah blah blah words blah blah yeah I think that I still sound kind of bitchy, or possibly just crazy, so please don’t take it personally if you asked me yesterday how business is going. I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the situation.

I think this has been on my mind all weekend because of something another yarn store owner said, and I’m going to paraphrase her and add a couple questions of my own:

The questions they should be asking us are:
When was the last time you went out to dinner with your family and didn’t talk about business too much?
When was the last time you went out to dinner with your family?
Even if you do have enough money this month, are you worried? Are you worried about next month?
How many hours a week do you really work?
How many friends have you lost touch with since the shop opened?
How many times have you been grumped at even though it had nothing to do with you but more with something that happened before they even came in your door?
Are you an honorary therapist by now?
When is the last time you had a clean house, clean laundry, mowed lawn?
Do your family and friends remember what you looked like?
Do you get enough sleep?
When was the last time you had a day off when you didn’t do something having to do with work?
Is this both the most draining and the most rewarding thing you’ve ever done, or what?!

I don’t think I’ve ever not talked about business at a dinner with my family; some time in February; yes; yes; 50-60 in the shop (depending on what classes I’m teaching that week and when they are) and at least another 10 at home; almost all of them; at least once a day; five cents, please; HAHAHAHAH before July 2007 (if even then – I totally can’t blame that one on the yarn store); possibly but only because I sometimes post pictures of myself on the blog; HAHAHAHAH no; when I went to Cincinnati when Uncle Joe was in the hospital (some day off, eh?); hells fucking yes.

Ugh. I am apparently wearing CrankyPants today. Please to be forgiving. I need more coffee. And breakfast. And a shower. And coffee. And maybe a hug.

 
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Posted in Rants

 

When they are good, they are very very good; but when they are bad, my days suck a bag of dicks

24 Feb

I had such plans for yesterday. Part of those plans involved sitting on the couch watching TV on my one day off, while doing laundry in the background… but a good portion of that couch-sitting was also going to be while I had my laptop in front of me, catching up on a variety of things including…

- finishing the Hanks 10Q2 class schedule and getting it emailed out to our teachers for review

- switching out the photos on the front page of the Hanks webshop

- doing some much-delayed maintenance on the Hanks webshop

- uploading some photos to the Hanks Facebook page

- catching up on my regular email, my gmail, and my Ravelry messages

- finally fixing the Sandpiper Studios page (which was a priority as the piece that was scheduled to post yesterday sold already!)

- pre-blogging a few things on both this blog and the Hanks blog

So I started off my morning by plugging the laptop in and setting it on the table in front of the TV, and making coffee. As I was waking up and going through my morning “see what my peeps are up to” routine, I noticed that the little icon down on the bottom right corner of my laptop, the one that looks like a battery, didn’t have the “plugged in” look. I wiggled wires. I plugged and unplugged into three different plugs. I cursed a lot. I yelled at the dog for being underfoot. I determined that even though my power cord had been working PERFECTLY FINE 12 hours previously, it had somehow committed suicide in my bag overnight. Fucker. Didn’t this just happen like TWO MONTHS AGO?! a;dfja;lfja;dljf!!! (Turns out it wasn’t 2 months, it was 5. Whatevs.) Tim has since determined that the way the cord that runs from the battery to the laptop is poorly designed for the way I treat it (a nice way of saying quit bending it, dumbass) by wrapping it up and shoving it in my bag almost daily.

So because there was one thing that I very much needed off my laptop – the Hanks 10Q2 class schedule – we decided to go to Best Buy and check out power cord prices. I had bought one online in September for $20, and was thinking if they had them at that price I would buy two; one for home and one for work and that way I wouldn’t have to wrap them up – I could just leave them lay where they are. We also decided to have lunch while out Butler Hell way, and go to Sweet Dreams. mmmmmm. That would make the trip better! Well… Best Buy was a fail – they had one at $79 and one at $99 and since we have no income right now I am a cheap motherfucker and didn’t want to shell out that much, even for something I really desperately needed. We stopped at the nearby office supply store to see if they had a generic… and they did. For $89. Fuck it. We went to lunch, where I had a margarita as big as my head. While we were eating lunch, I remembered that I had just posted the 10Q2 schedule to Google Wave, for Sharon and Ginger to see – which meant that there was nothing on my laptop that needed emergency power to get to, which meant that I could safely order another $20 battery and cord, even if it took three days to get to me. I could do most everything else on my desktop computer, since the majority of that was internet based. I couldn’t upload recent photos, but I could take care of a lot of other things. We decided to swing by Radio Shack just in case, but same thing – one, at $89. ON TO SWEET DREAMS! We decide the most logical thing to do – the most cost effective – is to buy another $20 battery online. I decide to buy two, so that I can have one at home and one at work. Good news: later that night Tim was able to solder back into place the wires for my first, original dead battery and cord. So it looks like Frankenstein but my laptop now has power.

By the time we got back home, it was close to 3-ish, and I really needed to start laundry. HERE IS WHERE THE DAY SUDDENLY GOT WORSE AGAIN. See, I normally do not put my handknits in my laundry basket. But the last time I wore my Gathered Pullover was Sunday (I love it so much I’ve been wearing it once a week), and last Sunday was the day that at 10:30 at night on the way home from a party, Tim’s car died in the middle of the intersection and we had to start walking home. Jeff was staying with us and I tried calling him, flagging him down as he drove past us, and calling him again… and fortunately he did eventually come and get us but… by the time we got home I was tired and frustrated and tired and amped and a;dja;dflja;dfj. So I got into my pj’s and apparently just threw all my clothes into the hamper. Which yesterday, also being tired and frustrated and off-kilter, I just dumped into the washer. While the laundry was going I decided that I needed to regroup a little, so I sat on the couch and knitted a sock and caught up on two episodes of Ace of Cakes. When the laundry was ready to put in the dryer… guess what I pulled out? Yes. A now-felted Gathered Pullover. QUE THAT PIECE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC THEY ALWAYS PLAY IN HORROR MOVIES LIKE THE OMEN. The thing is? It’s felted… in places. One sleeve is completely felted – so small I can’t even get my arm through it – yet the other sleeve is barely felted at all. One bottom side is now as thick as a rug, as is the opposite shoulder. One bottom side is merely fulled, not felted. It looks like fucking Escher knitted a sweater. I just really want to cry. It’s not necessarily the price of the yarn, it’s not feeling like all those hours were wasted… I mean, it’s partly those two things, but I also really, really loved how it turned out. It fit beautifully, I looked really hot in it, and it was completely the wrong gauge yarn for the project and I still made it work out perfectly! That sweater made me so happy, the four or five times I got to wear it.

Sigh.

At this point I decide the day is a GD wash, and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening knitting and drinking.

And that was my Tuesday. I’d ask how your Tuesday was, but I have to be honest – I don’t really care. I just feel like bitching about mine.

 
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Posted in My Random Life, Rants

 

Too long to twitter

07 Jan

Since this is way more than 140 characters, and probably more potty-mouth than Twitter would like:

To the “ladies” I saw on the news last night saying “you Floridians don’t know cold!”… Respectfully? Actually, not so respectfully at all? FUCK YOU. We DO know cold, and THAT IS WHY WE LIVE IN FLORIDA. Where it is usually NOT SO GODDAMN COLD. So take your high-and-mighty elitism and shove it up your cold snowy asses. And the next time you come down here in the summer and complain about the heat and the humidity I AM GOING TO PUNCH A BABY IN THE FACE. Probably your baby. And then I am going to set you on fire, and say “Oh, you Michigan people just DON’T KNOW HEAT.”

Wow, I seem a little grumpy this morning. Maybe that is because it’s been about 50-degrees INSIDE MY HOUSE for a WEEK, AND I AM INTIMATELY CONNECTED WITH COLD.

That is all.

 
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Posted in Rants

 

The one where Aunt Gay and Uncle Joe save the day

20 Sep

Did you know I’m going to be 40 in a few weeks? I KNOW! How come I still have acne? What’s up with that?

In no particular order, some things that I wanted to do were… go to Walt Disney World and stay in the Animal Kingdom Lodge where I can wake up, throw open balcony doors, and watch giraffes as I’m drinking my morning coffee… or I wanted to… wait, I’m thinking…. no; that was pretty much what I wanted. I’ve been dreaming of doing that for about the last six or seven years. But I knew for certain about six months ago that this wasn’t going to be in the cards. Even before Tim got laid off we couldn’t afford to do this.

So; being realistic, I started thinking… what can we afford to do? And it pretty much boiled down to having a pot luck dinner wherein I try my hardest not to act like a complete cuntbag because there are no giraffes.

But here’s the thing– I don’t really want to have a party. And it’s not some sort of “oh my god my life is over I’m turning forty wahhhhhhhhugh!” thing. I’m really OK with turning 40. All this gray hair is a reward for not dying in some stupid teenage prank. I don’t have a problem with getting older. It’s just that I feel like being quiet; being still; being with just a few people. At one point Tim and I were talking about all the cheap fun things we could do with lots of people (party at our house, party at a park, some sort of bar meetup) and I whined to him “I know it sounds like I’m saying I don’t want to have fun, I just want to be with you but… I really just want to be with you! With family!”. And I know, I know– my stepmother lives here in town (she’s family) and my mother just lives a couple hours south (she’s family) and even Tim’s sister is just a quick car ride away (she’s family). But I just… I don’t know how to describe it. I just want to be near people I don’t have to put on a show for, people I can easily be quiet around if I choose to, people I can trust and let my guard down around.

And a month or two ago I was whining to my ever-patient, ever-fabulous aunt and uncle. Aunt Gay – and by the way, have I mentioned that she and I share our birthday? We’re both October 11th! – asked me was there anything I really, really wanted to happen for my birthday, and my answer was that there’s something I want to *not* happen – I don’t want to do what my dad did and drive somebody’s car into a bank on my 40th birthday. Thanks for the great stories, dad!

She called me the next day with a serious question, and to make a long story short, Tim and I are going to Boston for our birthday! They also brought me to Boston for my sixteenth birthday (holy crap, really? TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO? ADLJA;DFJA;SLDFJ!!! And ooo – I just realized, in doing the math, that my 16th must have also been Aunt Gay’s 40th! Did I know that at the time…?) and again for my eighteenth, although I can’t easily lay my fingers on that photo.

So at 6 in the morning on Wednesday, October 7th, Tim and I will board a big silver bird and fly off into the sunrise for a relaxing, lobster-filled week in Boston. With my loving, wonderful, generous, fabulous family and a few close friends. And my friend Lucy’s yarn shop. Did I mention there will be much relaxing? Also some lobster. AND A ZOO. I am hoping to get near a giraffe.

 
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Posted in My Random Life, Rants

 

I’m still finding it hard to breathe, but Tim’s doing great!

04 Sep

Tim is either the picture of Zen calmness, or he’s putting on a good front for me. BUT THAT’S OK BECAUSE I’M FREAKING OUT ENOUGH FOR THE BOTH OF US. Visions of storing my hardcover signed first editions at the shop, while Tim and I live on the street, sleeping on my yarn stash, and all. My god, we can’t even live on cat food – I’m allergic to chicken and fish! Hrm. Begging from the Krishnas it is, then.

Anyway.

I really, deeply, truly want to thank all of our friends and family who have sent us messages or called – everything, from “thinking of you” to “there’s a job open where I work” to “I brought you Mike’s Hard Lemonade and some Salt & Vinegar Chips” is making my leaden heart a little more buoyant. Thank you!

Funny story: yesterday, Tim was approached to do some consultant work… by the company that let him go on Tuesday. HAHAHAHAHAH! This shit just writes itself, folks.

The down side of that (if he took it) is that he wouldn’t get paid until after they get paid, which is after the work gets done for the client.

And how do I feel about that on his behalf (because it’s all about me and how I feel)? Well. Let me tell you a story. One time, I was dating this guy (he is a story by himself, I tell ya) and one night he broke up with me out of the blue. “Why are you breaking up with me?” I was so confused and hurt, certain that it must have been something I did, even though all I did (mom, skip the next two lines please) was have sex with him constantly and let him send my toilet paper back to his starving relatives in Poland. “I don’t know, it’s just not working,” he said. Er…? I KNOW, RIGHT?! OMGWTFBBQ! So like any confused 20-something, I cried for two days straight. What was wrong with me? Was I broken? Did I not give him enough? And for two days my wonderful friends kept telling me that it wasn’t me, it was him, the guy was an idiot who wouldn’t even speak in complete sentences when he even bothered to be social. I was all, “I know, but my god, he has such great hair!” <– I was young.

Anyway.

After about two days of working on me, I came around to my friends point of view. Dude was a loser. What the fuck? Who breaks up with someone in the middle of the night, just getting up and leaving? For no reason?! Screw him! Or rather, let some other girl screw him, and have her toilet paper disappear faster than she could buy it! And like that *snap* I was over him. Whatever. Greener pastures, fish in the sea, blah blah blah. And do you know what? Within about three days? He started calling me. He called me at home. He called me at work. He left flowers on my porch. He brought me unsolicited lunches. He would leave messages on my phone of love songs. “I’m sorry,” he would cry, “I don’t know what I was thinking. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I was so wrong to break up with you!”. And my attitude? Damn fucking right you were. And I threw out the flowers, didn’t eat the food, and deleted the messages.

That’s how I feel for Tim, about this job. If you wanted him that badly, why the fuck did you let him go? Unless of course you are from that job, and reading this blog post, and in that case, HI! Tim is a great worker! And we love your company! … but seriously. Really? Really…? Gah. Give me a break.

 
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Posted in Rants

 

Have you *seen* the people who knit?!

27 Aug

Some of you who know me know that I’ve been holding onto this one for a while – I keep waiting until I no longer have a twitch in my eye when I think of it; but it’s been months and I’m still twitchy. So I should go ahead and vent about this and then maybe I can let it go.

A few months ago I was asked, and not in a friendly way, “I mean, have you seen the people who knit?!”. And it truly was one of those moments where I was screaming in my head, DO NOT ANSWER THAT. DO NOT SAY ANYTHING OUT LOUD. HUSH YO’ MOUF.

Because yes, duh, I own a yarn store. Of course I have seen the people who knit. I mean, I get what this person meant. I get what they were implying. And I have to choose to believe that this person is just ignorant– because if for a moment I thought this person really was trying to insult my people, was really trying to get a dig in, there would be flaming bags of poo involved in my retaliation.

Because I have seen the people who knit. People who knit are just as wonderful, just as frustrating, just as giving, just as stingy, just as mercurial, just as stubborn, just as joyful, just as afraid, just as beautiful, just as mean, as people who don’t.

People who knit are young. They are college students, high school students, middle school students. They knit because one of their parents knits, they knit because one of their parents doesn’t knit, they knit because they learned in scouts, they knit because they want to make something none of their friends have, they knit because one of their friends does.

People who knit are middle-aged. They knit because a favorite aunt does. They knit because they no longer have a grandmother who does. They knit because it gives them a connection to the small town they miss. They knit because the social aspects of knitting groups gives them an outlet they miss having moved to a big city. They knit because they are having babies. They knit because they lost a baby. They knit because they have a cousin, a sister, a friend who is having a baby. They knit because they need a creative outlet. They knit because the math appeals to their scientific brains.

People who knit are old. They knit because they want to pass something on to their children, to their grandchildren, to their great-grandchildren. They knit because they always said they would when they worked, and now they’ve retired. They knit because it calms them while they’re losing someone they love. They knit because a grandparent taught them and they want to teach someone else. They knit because they want to mark their place in the world. They knit because they have always knit. They knit because all of their friends knit. They knit because it was on their list of things to do and they’ve just now gotten around to it.

People who knit are healthy. They run marathons and come home and knit while resting their feet. They knit at campfires after a long day of kayaking. They knit after a good crew meeting as they ice their legs. They photograph their knitting from the tops of mountains and the sides of lakes. They knit for their sick friends because they have the energy and the love.

People who knit are fighting sickness. They knit when the tiredness from the chemo isn’t too bad. They knit in the waiting rooms of countless doctors. They knit when the arthritis lets them. They knit when the nausea isn’t overwhelming. They knit because it’s good physical therapy. They knit because it’s good cognitive therapy. They knit for their healthy friends because they want to leave a piece of themselves behind when it’s their time to leave the party. They knit because the knitted item will be around for their unseen grandchildren. They knit so that they will be remembered.

And isn’t that what most people want whether they knit or not? To be remembered? To be thought of lovingly? To be missed when not around? Who in their right mind thinks “gosh, I hope I piss people off so much that my last remaining friends have to come behind me and clean up the emotional wreckage I leave in my wake”?! Not too many people I know, that’s for sure.

Anyway. Yes. I have. I have seen the people who knit. I’m proud to be one of them.

You see us as you want to see us… – John Hughes

 
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Posted in Rants