Wednesday: Today in OK, Sure, Fine

I got an email saying I had a new invoice from WM. I had carefully canceled WM well in advance of the end of the current cycle, so I wouldn’t have to pay another invoice, however, WM cleverly delayed their last pickup long enough to confuse their billing system, resulting in a $6.01 charge. Alert readers will recognize that this basically means that WM _can_ prorate if they feel like it. I called, sat on hold for a half hour (while doing stuff in the kitchen and brushing and braiding A.’s hair — which R. also trimmed so it is much more reasonable now), and they very kindly waived that. So, yay. Still — it is basically offensive that I had already sat on hold to cancel -before- this charge would happen, and it was their delay on fulfillment that kicked this charge off.

I in no way regret ending that business relationship.

I have been having a little trouble with Imperfect Foods. I kind of love Imperfect Foods for a variety of reasons, completely unrelated to their nominal mission of Saving Ugly Produce from … whatever. Anyway. They carry Miyoko’s, and if I don’t get the fake cheese from them, as near as I can tell, I have to drive over to Littleton to try to get it from Whole Foods. I am staring at that as an alternative, because Imperfect Foods has been a little trouble lately. Sure, it was really hot, and that’s an issue. And sure, you know, fine, maybe once in a while something gets left out of an order. I long ago figured out not to order anything that was in a hard container (glass or metal or whatever) and more than a few ounces, because it just bounces around like a hard thing in that box destroying all the nice soft produce. Anyway. I have been ordering JUST the cheeses and salami type stuff, and some potatoes, celery, snap peas, ginger, brussel sprouts — stuff that will probably survive getting a little warm for a while, and probably won’t get too damaged.

Well, one box arrived in an enormous plastic bag and packaged in a separate box, apparently by FedEx because it was leaking. Hmmm. I didn’t order anything that might leak? Well, they put a bag of Minestrone in there anyway. It supposedly was 24 ounces, but when I weighed it, it said 12 ounces, and I could smell Minestrone all over the box and bag. *sigh*

Driving over to Whole Foods looks better every week, altho I did get a bunch of fake cheese, so maybe I’ll give this thing another try in two weeks.

ETA: Better than OK, Sure, Fine! I called DVC today. I was planning on moving some stranded points over to RCI, not realizing I had already missed my 45 day window on 38 points (the 100 points I have until the middle of September to xfer, so they are sitting tight because who knows, maybe I’ll take an impulse trip to Florida). Also, I needed to add a couple days to a reservation I had made yesterday, but couldn’t easily make the points join up in one place to do. It was an hour wait to get someone, but once I got her, she was amazing! Pixie dust all over the place. Instead of doing what I proposed (borrow, transfer, add some one time use), her solution involved no borrowing, no one time use, and recovered my stranded 38 points. Woot!

ETA unrelated: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-20/gross-to-contest-neighbor-s-latest-complaint-about-loud-music

If you were sitting around wondering if Bill Gross has stopped being a complete asshole, this might help you answer that question. I mean, you shouldn’t even need to ask, really, but if you were asking, this ought to answer it.

Things that are not in the DSM

Orthorexia is not in the DSM. Wikipedia has an article about it; it’s a pretty interesting frame and one I’ve been thinking about on occasion over the years since I first heard about it.

In the course of poking around at thrifting and whether there was any kind of significant trend there or not (there does seem to be a trend, so I guess this is Gen-Z’s vintage moment, and it’s called Re-Commerce or Cottagecore or whatever) (and wow, the ZPG crowd is strong in this one!), I got to wondering if there was a sustainable fashion version of Orthorexia. I wasn’t sure what to call it, and it won’t ever be in the DSM, but it’s exactly what you would expect it to be be: OCD symptoms run through Today’s Frame.

https://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/0818/ecorexia-are-you-obsessed-with-being-eco-friendly.aspx

That isn’t just about fashion choices, tho. Also, that comment about birdbath water is a real health risk.

In general, I would argue that if you are rooting around in someone else’s garbage, and you are not looking for something you accidentally dropped in there, or something to prosecute, extort, blackmail or scandal them for, you should go see a therapist and get that fixed. Exceptions for people who are actually processing waste and recycling streams for research or commercial purposes, obviously! And you can do research independently.

I’m a big fan of people living their values. On the other hand, I also recognize that I could be happily living my values and trying to run someone else’s life. So there really do have to be some boundaries. We have various institutions and organizations to help us implement things that we can’t do individually, and they reflect our shared values. Also, super awesome — again, do need to have some boundaries!

Lots of voluntary organizations are places where we experiment with new ways of doing things, and new ways of valuing how we do things, before we start scaling those up and making them mandatory. And many, many, many experiments don’t work out super well, have effects that are opposite of what we intended, etc. Voluntary organizations are kinda by their nature … voluntary. They can’t require other people to do things (generally!). This creates a look-for-the-lost-keys-under-the-streetlight impulse, even if you know you dropped them somewhere in the dark shadows.

It feels really good to look at what we do in terms of source reduction and recycling and reuse and so forth and believe that we are making meaningful steps towards mitigating very real problems that we are creating with our climate / ecosphere. This is probably optimistic, and we would likely be better off redirecting (some of) that energy to sponsor less-voluntaristic solutions that actually will make a difference.