Macaroons are the New Cupcake

We’re on our annual trip to NYC between Christmas and New Year’s. We’ve got the routine down now – this is pure relaxation and exploration. We’ve been to NYC enough that we no longer have to do the “tourist” things – Top of the Rock (although we will wander by to see the tree), Empire State building, Central Park, etc – we’ve got a few friends here and visit them throughout the week, but mostly we eat our way through different neighborhoods and just get recharged.

One of the things we do enjoy when exploring the City, though, is trying to find places (usually food-related) that we’ve seen on television. It also seems like there are always new trends that are popular -- last year cupcakes were the celebrity food. For 2011, it's Macaroons.

This led us to the discovery that La Maison du Macaron was just around the corner at 132 W. 23^rd street.

Finding out that a nifty food place is just around the corner can be a mixed blessing. It’s fun to run into places that you’ve seen on television, so you can claim the “I been there” award, but if it’s good, it’s entirely too convenient to return, especially for treats (as opposed to meals).

I had no idea that this was the latest food craze. I wondered how on earth someone could create a whole shop around those white piles of coconut that we see emerge from kitchens around Christmas (and of which, incidentally, I’m very fond – but a whole shop?)

These aren’t anything like that. They’re more like a soft Oreo in lots and lots of different flavors.

That’s somewhat problematic for me, because when faced with more than 3 choices I tend to become overwhelmed and shut down, or in the alternative I buy two of everything (because you might need a backup).

When these little cookies are $2.50 a throw, that’s a problem. I mean, for $2.50 you can get a whole bag of Oreos!

So we took our hoard of six (all different flavors) home and have been rationing them out, each one carefully divided and shared.

They’re worth $2.50 each, especially when each crumb is savored with a cup of coffee.

It’s a good thing we don’t live here, though, because there were something like 30 flavors in the case when we went there, and since I was picking based on color as much as anything, we’d have to go through several rounds to find the ones that are our “favorites.”

So far, we’ve managed to limit our intake to two a day – total, split with the precision of a diamondcutter and minimize shrinkage due to crumb loss – but our adventures today will take us past the store again.

Resolutions begin tomorrow, not today, right?

Holiday Greetings Gone Awry

The NC Park Service is in deep doo-doo. It seems they sent out a Christmas Greeting to some 47,000 people on their mailing list without disabling the “Reply to all” function. As a result, a platform was suddenly available for a number of off-topic comments to go to people who hadn’t signed up for them.

Understandably, there’s some irritation. In fact, there’s even quite a bit of outrage about the incident, despite the assurances that nobody’s personal information was distributed.

Of course, who knows? We get assurances from the government (and big business) all the time about things that are later proven to be blatantly false, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of accountability. I wouldn’t bet the farm that at least one person among those 47,000 recipients doesn’t have the technical ability to somehow decipher all of the individual email addresses.

Aside from the mistake of leaving “Reply to All” enabled, Park Director Lewis Ledford and Assistant Director Don Reuter miss the point. Reuter’s comment to the Charlotte Observer (12/30/2011) was, “We were wanting to wish people a pleasant time, and we caused some aggravation. That’s unfortunate.”

What both of these civil servants fail to realize is that most of us don’t want Christmas Greetings from the Park Service – or any other branch of the government. It’s better now that we’re not wasting postage and paper, but you are still stealing my time and energy by assaulting me with unwanted advertising.

And let’s acknowledge that this is what it is. I’m not friends with people who send this kind of “greeting” out. I have no personal relationship with the Parks Service, or with my local government, elected officials, the cable company, telephone company, electric company or gas company. Unless there’s a notice of some type of special offer or a coupon in that flyer that comes to my mailbox, it’s going directly into the recycling bin. Rather than thinking more of you for acknowledging the holiday I’m pissed that you’d waste money on this nonsense and then ask for a rate hike.

You want to wish me a Happy Holiday and be my friend? Answer the phone in less than 10 rings, and then let me get transferred through the phone bank without having to repeat my issue 6 times. Develop a scheduling system that lets me know when you’re coming other than “. . . sometime between 8:00 and noon on Tuesday.” Respond to emails that I send with an actual answer, not a canned response that tells me how valuable I am as a customer and that I’ll receive an individual answer within 24 hours – especially when more often than not those responses never come.

Companies – especially utilities and government agencies – seem to think that those of us who do business with them haven’t discovered that we are no longer important to them. Most of us recognize that we are merely the cattle that are driven through their stockyards, to be fattened before we go off to the plant and make them a profit. We are the raw materials consumed in the profit machines of these organizations, and we go either willingly or because we feel there is no alternative.

As consumers, most of us have accepted that the days of reasonable levels of customer service, individualized attention and generally giving a damn about whether we spend our money in their place of business or not is gone. The threat that, “I’ll take my business elsewhere” is meaningless, since there are millions of other consumers all going to the various branches of the big-box in question and the loss of even the largest customer to any particular branch is largely irrelevant.

It would seem that they could recognize that sending a Christmas Card isn’t going to rebuild that relationship.

Sending out 47,000 pieces of spam with the ability for every wack job on that particular mailing list to respond isn’t going to win you any friends, either. It might stimulate business, though, for the tar and feather industry.

More on the Marriage Amendment

Since I last wrote about the proposed Marriage Amendment, there’ve been several changes. I know I said I wasn’t going to do essays about it, but I feel the need to close the loop a bit at least.

I thought I was going to look up all the amendments done to the NC Constitution since it was last re-written (1971ish), and go through each of them to explain what they did. This, however, proved to be a somewhat daunting task because they’re not all attached to the end like they are with the US Constitution. I guess since there were typewriters, if not word processors, in 1971, they just added and deleted rather than hooking it on. It means that it’s hard as the dickens to figure out what the 28 or so amendments are, and the statute books aren’t very user-friendly in helping with the task.

So much for that.

What you’d find out is that the changes are, for the most part, very technical and work to eliminate and define errors in the original product. They don’t look to limit anyone’s rights, other than possibly the one about no one who’s ever been convicted of a felony being able to hold the elected office of Sheriff.

Then I was going to look at the impact on individuals and families in North Carolina, but most of the mainstream press has covered that pretty significantly. Interestingly enough, the legal scholars say it’s a bad idea – not ideologically, necessarily, but because the amendment is so poorly drafted as to be ambiguous. Nobody really knows what the consequences will be, but in a worst case scenario it may well mean that (a) unmarried heterosexual couples may be denied benefits they get now; and (b) the rules may well interfere with private contracts of both straight and gay couples.

Here’s why – although it’s unclear as to exactly what the language will be thanks to either the deceit or the incompetence of our legislature, the overall thought is that it will deny the validity of any contract based upon marriage to individuals other than one man to one woman.

So, suppose someone gets health insurance through a partner’s employer. You think that Blue Cross isn’t going to jump at a chance to say, “Oh, sorry – we didn’t realize your benefits were based on a relationship between people who aren’t legally married, so we can’t pay the $250,000 for your heart transplant. We will give back the $4,328 you paid to us in premiums over the last 16 years, though.”

Does anyone truly think that an insurance company is altruistic enough that they won’t look for ever potential loophole to get out of paying benefits? There’s a reason they pay their lawyers a bazillion dollars – and make huge donations to politicians – to insure that the wording of their contracts strictly comply with the law to allow them to avoid every possible claim and thereby maximize profits.

That’s not an indictment – it’s what private companies are supposed to do – make a profit for their shareholders! The problem is that we will once again see ‘big business’ working to benefit themselves rather than those individuals who legitimately think that they’ve contracted for a specific product.

They will, in effect, save this loophole to use when it benefits them the most. Of course, if you never get a major illness or have a significant claim, you wouldn’t ever know about this because they wouldn’t be looking for a way to avoid paying it. Thus, only those who are truly the most at risk will find themselves uninsured.

Furthermore, I predict that we’ll potentially see an impact on new and expanding businesses in this state, because we have a younger generation of those who will hold the creative and managerial positions.

That is one bright spot. While gay marriage may be a moral issue to those in the 50+ age group, age is a self-limiting affliction. We will die out eventually. On the other hand, those in the 30 and under age group for the most part couldn’t care less about it and surveys show that they tend to think that gay marriage should be allowed. It may take time, but it looks like even a popular vote will eventually win the day, although that’s of little comfort to those of us who live in the here and now.

So how will this amendment impact business? Think about this -- if you have creative companies that hire well-educated individuals who tend to hold jobs that pay in the upper ranges (such as in the Research Triangle Park), I suspect that you’ll find more and more of those young people who are looking at overall quality of life and not only organizations but communities that have ideologies that are compatible with their own beliefs.

These are the same kids that have seen their parents and grandparents laid off from long-term employment with companies where they were hard workers and did a good job for years because it was financially expedient to eliminate them or their positions. Let's not overlook the fact that Mitt Romney made his millions doing exactly that for his company.

This younger generation has come to understand that there is no loyalty from your employer, and it is therefore important that you begin to look out for your own interests -- secure your retirement, invest where you think appropriate, and just assume that your company would just as soon drop you as keep you. In part, this means that they are more demanding with regard to work / life balance and to looking at the quality of life overall rather than just where they spend their employment hours.

They negotiate these points and research them much better than prior generations, and are probably better at cost / benefit analysis than most of us were. As a result, if I’m looking to move my family and take a job, but I find out that my domestic partner isn’t going to be able to tag onto my employer-provided family health insurance, I may think twice (or more) about whether this is really the place I want to be. After all, those people can generally find employment in larger metropolitan areas in states that tend to be a bit more progressive.

If those companies can’t attract the help they want, they’ll either close or move. Either way, ALL the jobs leave - not just the upper echelons and thus a decision on the marriage amendment circles around to impact the wallet people who might otherwise be inclined to sit by and think, “That doesn’t affect me.”

Enough of this rant for today. Can’t guarantee that it’s over yet, but I’ll be looking for something different to talk about as we round out the year.

THE BLOG IS BACK!!

OK, at least 4 people not related to me have asked what was up and why I quit writing the blog. It’s not quite a “hue and cry” for it’s return, but it’s enough that after my respite I’m enthused to start again.

Why did it stop?

A couple of reasons. One was pharmacological. I’m 50, overweight and have lived on a diet of high fat and salt. It should surprise no one that I’ve recently been put on blood pressure meds and been given strict instructions that the gym membership doesn’t work just because you pay for it every month. You have to actually GO to the gym and GET ON the machines and MAKE THEM OPERATE.

I know, I was surprised, too.

Anyhow, this being my first experience with meds that you take for a long period of time, I was surprised to find out that there’s sometimes a balancing that has to take place.

Over weeks, not days.

And the side effects don’t always go away. In this particular case, there were a couple. First, I was exhausted all the time. That was bad, but I could push through it for a while at least.

The side effect I couldn’t get over, though, was how it screwed up my sodium levels and consequently my ability to think and concentrate.

Words escaped me. Names of people I knew were gone and I couldn’t draw them.

Lawyers (or bloggers) who can’t follow timelines or remember details and words are at a significant disadvantage.

Fortunately, living with a medical-type person, we were able to figure it out after just a week or two.

The problem then was that the side effects don’t go away the next day. It took weeks to get that stuff outta my system and get back to semi-normal.

The second reason was that I realized I was trying to make my blog something that it wasn’t. I had grandiose ideas about going through the details about North Carolina’s proposed Constitutional Amendment on marriage.

The problem is, it just wouldn’t flow. I don’t know if I’m too close to it to write objectively, but try as I might the posts didn’t want to come out.

I’m changing the focus back to what I was. I’ll still rant about our politicians, I’m sure – mainly because they’re just too easy a target, especially during a presidential election year.

So I’m starting up again. Maybe not daily, but the goal is to be somewhat regular in my posts.

Anyone got suggestions for topics?