
Buzz and Fly is now available! It’s a Lasers &…
Posts about RVing and our mobile lifestyle.
A Tip for Future Brides:
If you’re going to have a seating chart/schematic (which you don’t have to do, by the way– most guests at a wedding are grown-ups who can decide for themselves who to sit with), it is perfectly acceptable to have an odd number of guests at a single table. When the caterer tells you that the table “seats 8,” that doesn’t mean that you have to seat 8 people there– you can seat 7, especially if you have 3 pairs of married friends and one single girlfriend who isn’t bringing a date. You can even have the table set with only 7 place settings, so there’s extra room and the single girl doesn’t feel so acutely the lack of a date.
How to Have a Low-Cost Christmas
And a day late for Black Friday, but hopefully not for the rest of the holiday season, I’d like to offer the following suggestions for a low-cost Christmas:
Updated Contact Info
My mailing address, for snowflakes, letters, Christmas Cards, or just any correspondence you need to send to me is now:
Stephanie Bryant
848 N. Rainbow Blvd. #685
Las Vegas, NV 89107
This replaces the South Dakota address. I have no fear putting this on the Internet. It’s my business address, essentially a mail box forwarding place, so nobody stalking me is going to endanger me by going there. Just don’t send flowers, please– they don’t re-mail very well, and we don’t pick up the mail very often.
Yesterday Was Buy Nothing Day
Yesterday, I failed at Buy Nothing Day, but I felt I remained true to the spirit. I went to the local yarn shop and bought yarn (it’s still 2009). I ran out of yarn for some hats I’m making for some of the aforementioned nieces and nephews for the holidays, and there were specific colors I wanted, because I found a great hat for my nephew, who is 16 today). I went out to a LYS (local yarn shop), one I haven’t been to before. The owner was very helpful– really, too helpful; if I’d never knitted before, I would have really appreciated the help and advice, but mostly, I was just looking for a map or some suggestions about how the shop was organized. At one point in the conversation, she suggested that Michael’s might carry the kind of yarn I was looking for (washable wool). I explained that I wasn’t really interested in shopping at Michael’s. I don’t like their selection of yarns.
What I did not say was that Michael’s always smells like tacky plastic to my nose. Everything there is made in China, and it smells like it. I have this same problem at Target.
I did not say that I always feel like they want you to buy uncreative assembly kits rather than actual crafting supplies. They don’t even carry eyes– what kind of crafting store doesn’t have eyes! How am I supposed to make toys without proper safety eyes? Oh, yes, I know. I’m not supposed to. Instead, I’m supposed to buy a doll or teddy bear from Michael’s, and then dress it up in stuff bought at Michael’s. Lame.
I did not point out that if I shop at Michael’s, all but a tiny fraction of my money goes to corporate HQ. If I buy from the local yarn shop, the local yarn shop owner gets my money to spend in the community. I know Las Vegas doesn’t have the same Main Street America problems with our money not staying here, but I think the principle of shopping local is still a valid one. Plus, as overblown and chained-out as Vegas is, people really do come here in part for a unique experience. You can now gamble in most of the United States, so when people go to Las Vegas, they are going for something they don’t get at home. They won’t get that if everything is walmartized.
Also, John bought some butter yesterday. But we needed it for the popcorn.
Edit to add: Germane to this post is this bit of yarn-shopping advice from the Crochet Liberation Front.
It’s becoming more and more common for RV parks to ask us the year//make/model of our rig before accepting our reservation. A large (and growing) number of parks have a “10 year restriction” on RVs, meaning they won’t permit you to camp there if your rig is over 10 years old.
This is, of course, ridiculous. The idea that nobody should keep an RV for more than 10 years is absurd. Considering all the resources that go into making an RV, and the cost of new and newer rigs, such restrictions are environmentally, economically, and socially irresponsible.
Nonetheless, some parks have this restriction, and more and more parks have started adding it. The rationale is that they don’t want to be stuck with a bunch of “trailer trash” rigs, or they don’t want a lot of disabled vehicles on their park. And who could blame them? But having a “must be operational/road-worthy” requirement is not the same as “must be <10 years old.”
It’s also not a sound business strategy. We stayed at a park that used to have an age/cost restriction– only rigs that cost about half a million dollars new had been welcome. After alienating the entire local community, the park owners had gone bankrupt and sold the whole resort for pennies on the dollar. The new ownership was slowly improving things, but the RV park was clearly lowest-priority for getting upgrades. We stayed there for over a month last year and loved it. There was nobody around– it felt “crowded” when one other camper was in the park, and the space rental was dirt cheap.
We checked in this week at an RV park in the middle of a busy city. The park has breed restrictions– no Rottweilers, no Pit bulls, no Dobermans, no wolf hybrids, etc. And “No Vicious Dogs.” I have to wonder, couldn’t all the breed restrictions be removed solely by saying “No vicious/aggressive dogs; no dogs with a history of biting people or other dogs”? I mean, Rottweilers and Dobermans are generally very sweet, loyal dogs. Their loyalty is why they can be trained to be vicious; they are not inherently mean dogs. Pit bulls are usually problem dogs when they’ve been raised by problem people (although I do understand that some pit bull lines, particularly encouraged in dogfighting groups, are more aggressive and harder to train-out than others).
It seems to me that arbitrary “no old rigs allowed/no dobermans allowed” policies are buying into the various “isms” of the world. It’s like saying “no dark-skinned people allowed because most of the U.S.’s prisons have dark-skinned people in them.” It’s a fallacious argument, one that should not stand. Better to target your real goal in the rule: “No non-operational rigs allowed.” Or “No vicious dogs.” Or “No tube tops.”
So far, I haven’t seen any “no vicious cats” signs, and Alladin is grateful because he’d hate to be discriminated against. I am going to be very saddened the day I try to check in to a park and see the “No plastic flamingos” sign, though. Hopefully they’ll have a large enough parking lot where we can do a u-turn to get out of there!
This year I am giving you something nobody else can — another compartment in the RV for yarn stash! The first picture is the hole left when we removed the 19″ tube TV. The second picture is what it will look like when the new door I’m ordering arrives. And the third picture is the door opening and yarn falling out. (Artists conception, projected completion date Sept 2009.) Love, -John
John and I are getting into Portland, Oregon tomorrow, just in time for the Oregon Brewers Festival this weekend.
Will we see you there? We’d love to meetup! Drop a comment, let us know if you’re in the area and can get together! We will be in town until the 12th of August (but very busy from August 5-9).
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