I got home yesterday and Julie had to show off the downstairs bathroom. She’d made a trip to Wal*Mart to try to get some ultra-cheap towels. We have no morals when trying to sell our house.
Sidetrack I actually have no problem with Wal*Mart other than the fact that I’m classist. I realize that Target is just as evil (and possibly more so). I try to fight against my bad impulses. But Wal*Mart has a tendency to remind me that I live in a world were 30% of Americans are obese and 40% of 3 months old watch TV regularly, rather than in hip Austin where everyone is a skinny rock star computer programmer. And I don’t like being reminded of that fact.
The bathroom looks fantastic. We’ve added a large beveled mirror, painted it a nice light brown and added green towels. That look brown to me. Because apparently I have serious color blindness issues. But it looks like something you’d see on a home design show. It’s very basic and I think it would appeal to a lot of people. Julie even has a basket on top of the toilet tank with little towels rolled up. So classy.
After checking out the bathroom, I went out and mowed the lawn which is growing at a pace that makes me wonder if I’ve planted mutant grass. It was over 6 inches tall, and I’d mowed it down to an inch a week ago. This could also be because I’m wasting fantastic amounts of water keeping the lawn green so that it will look nice when we try to sell the house. Again no morals.
Actually, I didn’t water last week. There was plenty of rain. I am not so amoral that I water during the rain. Although I will water if there’s a chance of rain.
Last night we put Stella to bed at 8pm. I double-diapered her, and put on some crazy clown outfit. It was a long sleeved onsey and what looked like boxing shorts. Not boxer shorts. Boxing shorts. Like she was gonna go take on Mr. T’s baby in a 3-match crib throwdown. After seeing her Julie notified me that there were pajamas clean downstairs. Whatever. Bedtime is a perfectly good time to dress crazy.
She went quietly. No crying. Which was especially nice since we were painting the upstairs bathroom with primer and were probably clomping around outside of her bedroom like a heard of horses. I went in and painted all the high stuff, and then Julie came in behind me and painted all the low stuff. We’re working out really well doing this as a team, and we’re knocking out these bathrooms to the tune of about 45 minutes per coat of paint.
We ate a decent dinner of Flank Steak with Mushroom Ragout. It was ok. I don’t understand the fascination that Gourmet has with flank steak. It’s really kind of tough, and they always recommend cook it super rare, which with a chewey meat is a little too cave man for me. But it tasted ok. I’ve saved some for Stella for lunch as well as some of the asparagus we had as a side.
We watched some TV after that while eating the Cubby Hubby ice cream that Andy gave me for my birthday. It was interesting. I could see it growing on me, but it was odd to have a salty ice cream.
If you read Julie’s blog you’d know we weaned Stella Monday night. Last night Stella started crying around 11:45 because she’d thrown all of her pacifiers on the ground. I found 2 additional ones for her and she went back to sleep without a fuss. She then proceeded to sleep until 7:15 this morning. I don’t feel great, because my body keeps waking me up before she does. I have a really good internal alarm clock, and it irritates me to no end. But, I’m excited. Because, I’m hoping my body will learn how to sleep again over time. And Stella’s waking up each morning with an enormous amount of energy, so she’s obviously doing well too. I think Julie’s doing ok too. A good nights sleep can be an effective salve on the emotions.
2007-05-09T23:04:58.000Z
Yeah, at least on the sweatshop front, there’s little difference between the two, at least according to these folks: http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/sweatshops/scorecard.cfm Not sure about domestic employee treatment, but it doesn’t seem right to say it’s okay to treat your foreign workers like crap as long as the locals are treated nice. Still, I just can’t bring myself to go to a Wal-Mart, especially after watching that documentary. Best of luck on getting sold quick.
2007-05-09T23:19:02.000Z
Yeah, it’s hard to say. I can’t really believe that Target treats their employees better than Wal*Mart. Possibly, but I’m guessing if so not a whole lot better. Wal*Mart does bear some responsibility as the 800lb gorilla since if they raised labor standards Target would have to also. I do know that Target is actually the leader in having cities use eminent domain to get them prime shopping space. Which makes them eviler than Wal*Mart. I like what Wal*Mart is doing in regards to the environment. They’re working on promoting CF. Removing excess packaging. Putting solar panels on all their roofs. Sure these things will ultimately make them more money, but I’d prefer that was the way they made more money. Of course I also still hate going there.
2007-05-10T03:08:11.000Z
I think Wal-Mart’s having to raise the standard simply from being in the spotlight so much. Their crappy employee treatment has been documented as being pretty systemic rather than just the random rogue manager, and their record on the environment up to now has been pretty bad. Blech, I hate living in a world of choosing between evils.
2007-05-17T13:54:11.000Z
This looks kinda neato http://feeds.treehugger.com/~r/treehuggersite/~3/117411735/walmart\_hits\_th\_1.php
