Tag: general grumbling

In the past few months rules in the health care and mortgage industry have kicked in and now we get a monthly statement from HomeStreet Bank telling us about our mortgage which is auto deducted.  Plus, after every appointment at Kaiser (I go once weekly for UV therapy for psoriasis) I receive a mailing telling me how much UV therapy supposedly costs.

I have an entire electronic thing set up at Kaiser so I don’t have to get these types of things, so why don’t they come via that?  And HomeStreet, it would be great to opt in to something like that for the mortgage notification.

Um.  Most all of the teenagers I’ve encountered have goals.  I myself had goals for my life when I was a teenager.  Most of them weren’t really realistic and didn’t come to pass, but that doesn’t meant I didn’t have them.  How about giving the upcoming adults some credit?

Text under the picture says, “The Union High School Marching Band takes part in Saturday’s Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade.”

Huh.  I remember band as looking more like people in unisex uniforms carrying instruments and playing and stuff, but I guess things have changed since my day.

(There is half of a flute pictured, on the right side of the picture. Also, picture caption writer, you might tell us from whence the Union High School came.  Because I have no idea.)

Pumping my own gas does not fall under the heading of “personal freedom” in my world. It falls in the category of odious task I’m happy to pay someone to do.  

Seriously! Don’t mess with one of the best quirks about this state.

Recently, three (male) basketball players at the University of Oregon were removed from the team (though they waited until after the playoffs) because they sexually assaulted another UO student.  They maintain it was consensual, the woman says it was not, and the Eugene Police Department declined to prosecute, citing lack of evidence.  Susan Nielsen wrote an opinion piece about the incident. One sentence took my breath away.

Did you catch that? 

 “…treats its athletes like stars and then expresses shock when they behave accordingly.” 

So that’s what stars do?  Rape?

I’d love if we could move rape into something that is assumed will not happen rather than something that is stupidly, insanely, infuriatingly common.

Ah, the profile of real moms.

“It would be a lot harder if she didn’t have so much help at home from her husband…”

Why is what the husband does at home “helping”?  Does he not live there too?  Does he also “babysit” his own children?  

Here I am on the train, reading my paper.

And here I am reading the recipe for Greek-Style Souffleed Omelet.

And here I am having to turn and read over the fold.

In the old, pre-tabloid days, printing a recipe over the fold was no big deal because you could just open the paper and cut the recipe, right over the fold.  But now two parts of the recipe are on two different pieces of the newspaper. Which means taping things together.  Grrr.

Here it is folks!  Transformed indeed.

You still have to pull things apart into sections, but now the fold is only on the left, not down the middle of the paper.

We have our tabloid format, which I’ve already expressed my displeasure about.  And now there is another problem.  Here’s how big the tabloid paper is when folded open.  It’s too big to read on the train that way, so I fold it in half.

Except what the hell am I supposed to do when I get to the middle of the column?

I’m not sure what I did in a previous life to deserve what has become the Oregonian, but I’m very, very sorry.

I can’t tell you the number of articles I’ve read over the years about the subject.  It drives me crazy.  Big muscles are very cool.  Quit trying to be diminutive and tiny.