Month: February 2024

Organizing for Travel

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Traveling is so much fun. I even love the idea of packing. I have something of an obsession with luggage type items from wallets and pocketbooks to briefcases and satchels, organizing totes and pouches. Some things start out with exciting potential, but the use of them is really, how should I say…useless. Others have worked so well that I’ve used them for years. I wrote a Travel Organizer a number of years ago that sold (and continues to sell) pretty well.

See the organization below the cut:

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Travel – Following in Susan B. Anthony’s Footsteps

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One year, on our way to Canada, we stopped in Rochester, New York. My boys wanted to visit a comic store (of course), and since we were in Rochester, I suggested we visit Susan B. Anthony’s gravesite (Section C, Plot 93). I wanted my daughter to see a symbol of one of the pioneers of suffrage and women’s right to vote. Especially because when I mentioned that she had been on the dollar coin, there was a little confusion and looking up the difference between the Anthony dollar and the Sacajawea one. Driving to Niagara Falls and the Canadian border, west on I-90, there are several signs for women’s history from Seneca Falls, NY (birthplace of women’s rights) to Auburn, NY (home of Harriet Tubman).

I’ve written before about Susan B. Anthony and suffrage. They can be found by searching my tags in the search bar to the left. Below find some places to visit related to Susan B. and women’s rights as well as the surrounding area.

There are no falls in Seneca Falls.

Susan B. Anthony’s gravesite can be found at the Mount Hope Cemetery. Frederick Douglass may also be found in his final resting place here.

National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House

Near her house is the Susan B. Anthony Park.

Women’s Rights National Historical Park

                Things to do there

National Women’s Hall of Fame – reopening in the spring

Spend 48 Hours in Seneca Falls (from the I Love NY site)

Also visit this online, virtual, “museum without walls”: National Women’s History Museum

And this online feature at the New York State Museum: Votes for Women: Celebrating New York’s Suffrage Centennial

Rochester Region Suffrage Timeline

Play Women’s Hall of Fame Solitaire

Finally, use the Freethought Trail to plan your journeys for the following (more available on the website):

                Women’s Rights Sites

                Women’s Suffrage Conventions Trail

     Susan B. Anthony Sites

                Seneca Lake Sites

Tech Rec: Tech Pouch by GForce

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I’ve been using this pouch for a few months now, and it has handled itself beautifully. The link takes you to its sales page on Amazon, but I found it for much less at Marshall’s. It was definitely under $10, and I think it was even $7.99, but I don’t recall exactly.

(c)2024

It folds in thirds for easy packing whether you’re traveling or just carrying it in your laptop bag. Unfolded it has three pockets. Two are zippered, the other folds over itself. As you can see, I use it for my external hard drive, phone and ear buds chargers, SD cards, SD card reader, USB-C adapters, and it can be used for much more.

I highly recommend this. 10/10 would buy again.

Author & Books Rec: Jane Yolen

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Jane Yolen turns 85 today. She is the prolific author and/or editor of over four hundred books for both children and adults. She was born in New York City, and now resides in Massachusetts. The book that I loved as a teacher was Owl Moon. I read this to my young classes all the time, and it cemented Jane Yolen as a favorite author of mine. I also remember reading an anthology that included her when I was in college. Back then, I read nearly anything with the science-fiction/fantasy label.

She’s received numerous awards, including the Nebula, the Caldecott, and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and most recently, the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association.

She is still quite prolific and released three books in 2023 – yes, three books:

Schlemiel Comes to America (illustrated by Oscar Perez)

The Scarlet Circus (introduction by Brandon Sanderson)

Smout and the Lighthouse (with John Patrick Pazdziora; illustrated by Lyndsay Roberts Rayne)

Valuable Links to Check Out:

Jane Yolen (Website)

Bibliography

Writer’s FAQ

For Writers

Happy Birthday, Jane!

Election Connection – Watching Virginia and Maryland

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We are 269 days out from the 2024 Election.

Two races I’d recommend getting involved with are Harry Dunn and Eugene Vindman in Maryland and Virginia, respectively. These two names may seem familiar.

Harry Dunn is a former Capitol Police officer who was at the Capitol the day it was violently attacked by insurrectionists. He has a book out Standing My Ground: A Capitol Police Officer’s Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th, and he is running for Congress in the 3rd District in Maryland.

Eugene Vindman is a retired Army officer targeted for retaliation by the Trump Administration when he and his brother, Alexander, also an Army officer at the time came forward as whistleblowers when the then President Trump extorted the Ukraine government. Eugene is now running for Congress in the 7th District in Virginia.

Harry Dunn
for Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District.
2024
Eugene Vindman
for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.
2024

Please give them whatever support you can.

Fees, Fees, and More Fees

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I have a pet peeve that’s been gnawing at me lately. This has come up before, but then (many years ago) there was a law that prohibited this kind of thing, and apparently that’s not a law anymore, because it’s back.

What is this horrendous affliction that causes a disruption to my peeves?

Fees on a credit card charge.

What the hell?

I’m not talking about late fees, although those are out of hand, and I’m not talking about an automatic 18-20% gratuity added on for large parties, although six is NOT a large party.

I come into your store (or restaurant), and I pay your overpriced prices. And yeah, it doesn’t cost $20 for a cheeseburger and fries. Then tax is added on. If it’s a restaurant, a tip is added on. And then if I use a credit card, I’m charged a percentage of the total. I understand the reason – the business is charged by VISA or whomever for each transaction, but that’s not my problem.

That’s the cost of doing business.

As I said, a cheeseburger and fries are not $20, but I do understand that I’m not just paying for the raw materials of the edible food, I’m also paying for the table and the linens, the waitstaff, and the utilities, and whatever other overhead the restaurant has. Same for a stationery set for $12.99 in a boutique.

The fee charged by the credit card company to the business for the convenience of using a credit card is another expense, just like the electricity, the rent, the cleaning service, delivery and shipping costs, and anything else that costs you money to keep your business in business. I’m already paying for those things. If the lightbulb blows out over my table, will you charge me to replace it? I really hope not, but chances are that no, you wouldn’t because that’s part of the business supplies that you need to buy to run your business, just like the credit card fees (which are tax deductible by the way).

Or…don’t take credit cards. If I’m in a store, and I’m already paying $79, I don’t want to pay more than that. And let’s be honest, I don’t even want to pay that much.

Now, you could say that by offering purchases through a credit card, it is a convenience for me, or that the convenience goes both ways, and that may be true in the semantics, but if you don’t take credit cards, and I have no cash, then I can go somewhere else. It’s much more of a convenience for you to accept them rather than to lose a customer. And with these fees, I’m going to think twice about frequenting your establishment.

If you want more money to cover the cost of fees for you, raise your prices. People annoyingly did it politically by “claiming” to raise prices because they were now required to pay health insurance or when the minimum wage went up even if the business was already paying more than that or when eggs and tomatoes go up in price, they go up on the menu.

If you want to give a cash discount (like they do at the gas station), then offer a 10% cash discount for people paying cash instead of punishing the folks who use their credit/debit card.

/End Rant

My Jewish History, Part Two

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Before I had kids, things seemed so simple. My husband and I combined what we were already doing religiously. On the High Holidays and Passover, he usually went to work, so there was no conflict. At work, he ate what he wanted, and at home, we continued to eat matzo. It was the same when the kids were born. That is, until he began working from home, but we continued to make it work as we blended our two religions with our children.

Our wedding was an interfaith ceremony as well. We were married under a chuppah or canopy. We had a Rabbi and a Priest. We (my spouse) broke the glass, which represents the remembering of the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem. We celebrated Christmas and Easter with my in-laws, and the Jewish holidays and Thanksgiving with my family. This continued after our kids were born.

After we were married, we continued to celebrate the Jewish holidays with my family. We also celebrated Thanksgiving with my family and then went to my husband’s family for Christmas and Easter. Thanksgiving somehow felt Jewish to me. It wasn’t overly religious, especially if your family didn’t go to church. I also felt that it was inclusive of all traditions. No one was left out. Now, I realize today that when I thought that I wasn’t thinking about the Indigenous people who we peripherally celebrate on that day as well, but to me as a Jewish person, it was the one holiday that I wasn’t left out of things. It became a bigger holiday for me, and for my kids.

When my kids were born, I knew that they would be raised in both faiths and celebrating both sets of holidays – Jewish on my side and Catholic on my husband’s side. Even though he and his family weren’t religious, they still celebrated Christmas and Easter in his family, and we continued that with our kids.

We would travel from our home in upstate New York to our families: mine for Thanksgiving, which my in-laws would attend, and his for Christmas. We would still see my parents during that time, but the primary celebration was spending Christmas Eve at my in-laws and spending the night. We didn’t begin to stay at our own home on the holidays until we had a house and wanted the kids to wake up there on Christmas morning.

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