Posts made by Aria

@sunny Yeeeeeeup. Their VP of Field Operations was on our site today, and their firm really doesn't want to lose our business after working with us for 35 years and us no longer even going out to bid anymore. When I told him that I called and left a message for their site manager today and didn't hear back at all? He seemed a bit shaken by that. Moreso when I said that at 2PM, after waiting more than half the day, I went to HR about it, so he's probably going to be getting a phone call from the people that hold their contract.

Happily, when the head HR relations rep for our division gets back to me, I will be telling them he handled it well once we sat down. Within an hour of actually getting back to me and hearing me out, he identified the guy, confronted him, and let him go. Then came back and confirmed with me that he's been escorted off-site and doesn't have further access to my building.

Dude just got fired and escorted off our site by the VP of his firm. He was so new, he didn't have his badge yet.

And according to said VP who followed up with me, the guy didn't even try to deny it. Fuck you, guy.

@insomniac7809 said in Critters!:

@auspice @Aria has discouraged me from letting Pavel be ShoulderCat, because her shoulders (being considerably less broad) don't keep him up as well, and when he starts to slide his claws come out for traction. We compromise when I carry him around like a baby.

To be fair, it's not that I mind him being on my shoulders if he settles in. It's that he launches himself onto them from several feet away, then discovers he doesn't have enough space to land, and then rips my shoulders and my back open. Once he did this from the front while I had my hands full of very breakable objects and I ended up with nine pounds of cat dangling from claws he sank into my lip until I was able to bend low enough for his back paws to hit the ground and him to stop panicking. Pasha is an adorable BabyCat. Pasha is also a rampaging asshole.

...It's quarter past six and yes, most of my office has left. But no, dude from the externally contracted telecom installation team, it is not appropriate for you to be loudly recounting your glory days of having your sun-roof open so a girl could be riding you with her tits bouncing in your face. Especially not at a volume I can hear quite clearly from several rooms down the hall.

And as for you, dude who said "I told you" to your coworker after my very calm and polite request to "tone it down a bit because we still have employees here", all of whom I should note happen to be female? If you knew it was inappropriate, you should have told him again because you were the one he was trying to impress with his story. And yeah, bro. Yeah. I noticed you wouldn't look me in the eye, so you're clearly pretty fucking aware you should have done better.

@auspice I also have Batman knickers. They are from Target. So there's a pretty solid chance that on any cold day, I'm sitting in my finance office in my pricey Talbots sweater and my trousers from the stodgy old lady store and..... the Bat signal on my butt. Or the Millenium Falcon. Or Wonder Woman. Or Muppets. It's ridiculous and childish and it makes me laugh. And they never match my bra, and I don't care. Because as I once told the lady in my local Sephora "I'm convinced that women who can do winged eyeliner in one go are like women whose bra and panties match without several days of careful laundry planning. They're not like regular women. They're some kind of witch."

ETA: Speaking of which. HerRoom.com for bras. No store, like, EVER lets you use coupons on the good plus sized bra brands, like Wacoal or Natori or Chantelle. But! If you don't care what color they are, you can filter down to what's on sale or discontinued clearance. And their filter also lets you shop by characteristics like lined/unlined, J-hook closures, style, etc. It's like the Amazon warehouse of boob-holders. Though I also once got an $80 Chantelle bra on Amazon for $21 because apparently no one likes pastel yellow?

@sunny THANK GOD. I like their pants, but every time I go in there, part of my brain is mentally preparing me for some asshole to moo at the fat girl going in.

Sooooo, I recommend the following retailers:

Pennington's & Addition Elle -- same company, shipping out of Canada. Their prices look pretty steep on the web, but remember that you're converting CAD to USD if you're in the US. The shipping sucks ($12.95 CAD) and the return policy is a pain for international customers, so I'd recommend buying just basics that they make in many colors/patterns for your first order, so you can figure out your size. I highly recommend their In Every Story slim fit/ankle pants. They fit as well as the pixie pants at Old Navy do, are actually cheaper after conversion rates (really!), and despite chub rub, have not pilled nearly as badly in the thighs as most of my pants. If you watch for a sale, you can legit get them for as little as $17. Bonus? I have 4 pairs; three have fully functional pockets.

ModCloth -- They were unfortunately bought out by Jet.com, which is owned by Wal-Mart, and specialize in quirky to such a degree it can spill from cute straight over into "What the actual fuck?", but they have a really liberal return policy and will even give you an extra $5 if you accept store credit instead of a refund. I like the Charter School sweaters, but size up if you're plus size. They ran small, then changed manufacturers so they run true to size, but also shrink more in the dryer. Size up.

Talbots Woman -- Insanely pricey, but they regularly have 30% off or 40% off sales, and reliably have discount gift cards on Gift Card Granny. That post I made about getting $600 of stuff for less than $300? All Talbots. I like their Pima cotton tees, which have not faded despite lots of washing, and -- again, combining sales and coupons -- their Audrey cashmere sweater. I think I got mine for $70 down from $169, which is still a splurge, but not at all unreasonable for cashmere.

DressBarn -- Being my size, I hate shopping at a store with "barn" in the name, but their Westport jeans are $36 and do not leave a giant gap in the waist. Also, no bullshit mini pockets that barely fit lipstick. Also, they have BOGO sweater sales every year.

Macy's -- Again with coupons and gift cards. I recommend the Charter Club brand sweaters (the cashmere drops to, like, $49 on Black Friday) and their black dress pants. Real pockets, $34.99 'everyday value' price, though that sadly means no coupons.

JCPenney -- Yeah, really. That JCPenney. The Worthington line has cute work trousers in about six colors and regular/curvy cuts, and short, average, and tall lengths. The pockets fit my giant keys, y'all. They also have a series of 3/4 sleeve button ups that go up to 4X if you've got, to quote Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, "them heavy boobs" and don't want button gap.

eShakti -- All their dresses and skirts have pockets. Seriously, all of them. All of them. For a $10 upcharge, you can also have something cut to your exact measurements, which is nuts. Watch for 30% sales. I recommend going one size up.

Ann Taylor Loft is apparently also going into plus sizes, but I haven't tried them yet. Old Navy has plus size, but I've never had anything I've bought there hold up, so the low price tag us great until I have to replace those pants three times. ASOS Curve and Eloquii also have some nice stuff, but it's usually buried under more pages of shirts with weird sleeves and dresses with odd ruffles and just general garbage than I have patience to scroll through. YMMV.

@tinuviel Real. They're sewn closed, though, and I forgot to rip out the stitches this morning.

ETA: I'm plus sized (1X/2X) and positively loathe the oppressive anti-pocket stance of the women's fashion industry. If you're on MSB, wear ladies' clothing, got some junk in your trunk, and love you some pockets? GURL, I GOT YOU. I have a small list of retailers you can buy not-bullshit office-appropriate clothing from.

@tinuviel It's lined, too, unlike most shitty women's fast fashion. I got it 30% off and am thrilled.

@auspice Fancy vests!

I found a waistcoat cut for people with boobs. Menswear for the win.

Ohh, hey. COOL. It also spilled on literally the only photo that teenage me let my parents take at my high school graduation, which also happens to be of me with a dear friend I never get to see anymore.

AWESOME.

fml.

@auspice Universal Waite, so it's not like they're anything fancy. They're my only deck, though.

I carefully dried them a bit, slid them back into the deck, then shoved it between a flat surface and a heavy book hoping they'll dry flat instead of wrinkling up.

I spilled water all over my Tarot cards and didn't notice in time to keep from fucking some of them up. : (

@cupcake That's where you live now, forever. I recommend locating local delivery services, ASAP.

I am looking for wireless over-the-ear/on-the-ear headphones to wear during many late nights at work, when the quiet drives me crazy. They're more for use with my computer than my phone, so I don't give a shit about "call quality". And no, I don't want to spend $300, thanks every recommendations list ever.

Whatchoo got, interwebs?

Mostly I'm just mad that she's so sweet, we're starting to want to keep her even though we Officially Have Too Many Cats. At least one of whom belonged to a neighbor who refused to take him back after he 'got out' and we tracked her down. Apparently she was moving and he was 'too much trouble'. So this is a thing that has happened before and I was hoping it would go better this time.

On the upside, he is a very handsome man and a snazzy dresser. Here's a cute cat picture to make up for my bitching.

It has been a week. Miss Kitty of the Majestic Ear Tufties has not been claimed, despite the microchipping service and the rescue that chipped her reaching out to her original adopters.

Whoever you are, YOU ARE BAD CAT PARENTS AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD.

So it turns out that Miss PepperPaws, as she's been temporarily dubbed, is in fact microchipped! And unlike the last microchipped cat we took in, this one was actually registered!

Her real name is apparently Emma Stone, and unfortunately her owner's information is listed as private. So now I have to wait and hope that they return the service's call to get my information, even though they probably live in one of the houses whose door I knocked on earlier and got no reply. And also that she actually got loose, rather than having to deal with a neighbor being pissed off that I (accidentally, with good intentions) kidnapped what might be their indoor-outdoor cat. In which case, get her a fucking breakaway collar so I don't have to drag myself out to the emergency vet to find out if she's lost or just hanging around her little kitty 'hood begging for spare petting from the crazy cat lady up the street.

@surreality Ohhh, believe me, I'm aware. At one point we had six cats, because I live in Philly where there are tons and tons of strays. Worse, I live by a golf course, so lots of fuckwits who decide they don't want to keep their cats anymore think that "it seems like a nice place for them to live and hunt with lots of birds!!", not realizing that their indoor house cat has no idea how to survive in the wild.

We briefly had a seventh cat I cared for entirely outdoors due to being FIV+, until I convinced my mom and dad to take him in at their farm, where their barn cats may or may not be exposed to it, anyway.

Of those seven cats, we purposefully took in.... two. I am a dog person, hands down, and yet somehow. Somehow. "Cats happen" has been the story of my life for ten years. Probably because the shelter in our city has a brutally low survival rate, so I never have it in me to call animal control.