Retail Bingo

Man, those last two months have been crazy! Between school and work and family, I didn't even realize that I hadn't posted since October!! Well, I am back now and hopefully regularly.

My sister and I work in a clothing store, and ever since November first, we have been working our tails off preparing for the holiday season. We have been training new staff, dealing with customers, and trying to keep up our positive energy with anything we can think of.

One of our defense mechanisms on a particularly bad night is to come up with a game of retail BINGO. It helps relieve some of our stress knowing that these things happen all of the time and that we are not alone in our suffering.

In the spirit of the holiday season, I have compiled a game to share with ya'll.

B	I	N	G	O
A customer removes an item from the rack … and leaves the hanger.	There is a line out of the queue… and you are one of three cashiers in the store.	A coworker asks a question over the radio… but doesn’t finish it.	You are shortstaffed on a weekend day.	You get stuck listening to a customer’s sob story.
A customer asks to use your discount.	A Customer gets mad because of a policy you cannot control.	You watch a customer rampage a display you JUST finished carefully constructing.	A customer says nothing to their child that is clearly about to open/break/ mess up something.	Someone tries to go in the out door.
A customer is confused about a perfectly simple concept.	Your boss/ manager nags you about “getting” him/her a credit.	PRICE CHECK	A manager bypasses a company policy for a customer after you told them no.	You have the ability to talk to two customers, the person on the radio, and the person on the phone simutaneously.
You find merchandise “hidden” somewhere.	An elder coworker unloads an unwanted project on you.	You get challenged when asking for back-up. I mean seriously.	A customer asks where the restroom/dressing room/ layaway is and you have to point at the obvious sign.	A customer does not quiet/ leave with their screaming child.
A customer asks what the return policy is.	Somebody breaks something.	A coworker calls out of their closing shift.	A customer asks for a markdown on a perfectly fine item.	A customer makes a joke about a tagless item being free.

Feel free to play at your leisure! I hope you find as much humor in your job as I do in mine. Share your plight in a comment below, and I might make a reader's edition!

The Earliest Cousin

The following is a letter from my Great Uncle Bernard received by my father. My family history has always been fascinating to me, but i have never known as much about my paternal heritage as I do now. I feel that this newfound lineage is something to be quite proud of, and really kind of want to explore the family buildings that are still standing today.

This is from Uncle Bernard:

I started researching our family history about 15 years ago - and it took several years to put the biggest pieces of the puzzle together. Our earliest "Cousin" ancestor came from France. His name was Pierre (1710-1745). Pierre was the son of Antoine Cousin and Marie Dufret. Antoine was born in 1686; Marie was born in 1688. They were married at St. Catherine's church in Lille, Flanders (at the time part of France but now part of Belgium). St. Catherine's church is still standing and is very active. Antoine was a "barister" (lawyer). He apparently died before his son Pierre was born - according to records that I asked someone to dig up for me. That someone, by the way, was Michel Cousin of Lille. We met on the internet. He was happy to help me with the research.

Pierre must have joined the French Navy, then was stationed in N.O. during the early years of French occupation. I found reference to him as being an officer in the French Navy, then later a carpenter. He married Marie Francoise Renard in 1740. They also had a second child named Rene, but that child apparently died at birth. After Pierre died Marie remarried a Swiss Soldier named Joly. When her son Jean Francois reached adulthood she gave him his inheritence, which was about 300 Pesos (Spain owned LA at the time).

At some point the King of Spain started handing out land grants, and Jean Francois stood in line for his. He wound up with over 4400 "arpents" - around 4000 acres - of land on the northshore. His northshore holdings were in three parcels: One along Bayou Liberty/Bonfouca/Paquet (today Western Slidell), another on Bayou Lacombe which stretched westward to Bayou Cane, and a third further to the northeast of land that was owned by Mandeville Marigny. I sent you a picture of the map that outlines his holdings. For what its worth, he also owned land in the French quarter - a block between Royal and Bourbon on Conti - and a warehouse on what is now the corner of Orleans and North Robertson. I have a copy of his will and a copy of the inventory of his property that was taken after his death. He had over 1100 head of cattle, close to 100 slaves and houses in Lacombe, Slidell (still standing and known as Cousin-Lowry), and New Orleans in the French Quarter.

Jean Francois Cousin was the single largest landholder in Louisiana. He owned brick and lumber operations on the northshore. A major fire in N.O. around 1800 prompted a law that required all future buildings in the French Quarter to be made of brick. Jean Francois became very rich as a result, selling his bricks for 1c each.

Jean Francois married twice. The first was to Catherine Peuche Carriere - widow of Jaques Carriere. Their first child was Francois Cousin (I will call him Junior), born in 1786. Their second was Louise Cousin. (Louise married Dominique Rouquette and had 7 children, one of whom was Father Adrien Rouquette (Chahta Ima)). Louise and her husband built their first home at 417 Royal Street (now occupied by Brennan's). If you visit Brennan's you can see the initials "DR" in the wrought iron surrounding the balcony). There was a third child named Celeste.

After Catherine died Jean Francois married Cesaire Ducre. They had 5 children (Terrance, Anatole, Cesaire Adolphe, Eliza and Myrthee. I found Cesaire Ducre's obituary in the archives of the N.O. Public Library, written in French. She died in 1840. Jean Francois died in 1819. I previously sent you a picture of a plaque that is hanging in the back of St. Louis Cathedral that commemorates the early parishoners of that church. Among the names are Cousin, Ducre, and Carriere.

Francois Cousin (Junior) lived like a wilderness man in Lacombe. His house is still standing - just across the street from Sacred Heart church. Its in shambles but it is there. Francois Cousin Junior never married. But he had 11 children, as follows:

a. With Rosaime Yaque half breed daughter of a choctaw and a white man - 5 children: John, Joseph, Delphine, Francois, Louis.

Nemours Cousin behind an unknown man with a shovel

b. With Eugenie Judice, one-fourth choctaw and 2/3rds white - 6 children: Peter, Felix, Octave, Anatole, Marie Rosa and Bazelied.

Louis (paragraph a above) married Mathilde Chastide Bruet and had two sons: Joinville and Nemours. Joinville was Peter Cousin's grandfather. Nemours was your great-grandfather. Peter's choctaw ancestry stems from having Rosaime Yaque as a great great grandmother.

Anatole (paragraph b above) married Margaret Ducre. They had 10 children: Lorante, Camille,

Eugenie Cousin

Amadar, Eugenie, Athenaise, Basilete, Seymour, Blair, Francis and James.



Nemours Cousin, son of Louis Cousin, and Eugenie Cousin, daughter of Anatole Cousin, were married in 1882.



For what its worth, marriages among relatives were quite common and quite acceptable at that time (and still are today in many parts of the world). Our family has a long and rich history in Louisiana - there is so much more to tell. There is a lot to be proud of. There is also a "dark" side from which I think my father and his parents tried to separate...

Many of my closer friends know that I have a great great great(?) grandmother who was black (It's my fiancé's favorite party trick). This is the dark complexioned side to which my uncle was referring. The "dark"side comes from Nemours marriage to Eugenie. Nemours looks more black/Indian than white. Eugenie's brother Peter's son is black. The "s" was added to Cousin (coo-zan) to make it Cousins by my great-grandfather to distance himself from the black side. Uncle Benard told my dad that my great-grandmother requested that he do it so her children who were white would stop getting black put on their birth certificates. 

To think, I never would have found out that I am part Choctaw had my uncle never done this research! I am quite a mix of peoples! I am quite proud of all of the lives listed here, and look forward to making plans to explore the lands outlined here.

Poetry Experimenting

Working Title (Suggestions?)

Twenty four                 hours ago

Hype was high and        the line was low.

Where the promise of freedom from labor

Meant solitude and amity within the same setting

The heat of new and embers of old combined

With the promise of protein and love

One house, four meats,

Four couples, one me. 

Flash to present

Four meats

One me

.

Technological Advancement

a.k.a I have learned some new stuff!

     I have recently been playing around on here trying to troubleshoot some issues. Through trial and error, I have done two things:

• Given non-blogger users the ability to comment
• This can be done by clicking on the link to the post or on the "comments" link at the end of every post or page.
• Added a "page" for my Graze.com entries
• This is located at the top of the blog under the title

     So hopefully everything looks a bit more seamless, and now you can completely ignore the graze entries should you choose to do so.

As I said in my inaugural post, this blog is currently for my own personal pleasure, designed as a public journal or an extended Facebook post, if you will. I write about the things I deem fit for my readers to see or things my mind wants me to communicate. I welcome commentary and discussion and even critique. So talk to me, seriously I won't bite.

Poetry Experimenting

Senioritis Setting In

I feel like I've been doing homework all day.

Close readings, skimming and critical summaries.

Analyzing text and digging for an author's stylistic choices

Finding the figurative language that my teachers want me to.

Spitting back what they've already soaked me in.

How much longer til I get a break?

Just kidding. When I'm not at school, I have to work.

When will I remember I'm twenty-one now?

Breaks are for children

Or maybe adults who have raised theirs already.

Reblog: No Dentist Left Behind (by John Taylor © 2002)

y dentist is great! He sends me reminders so I don't forget checkups. He uses the latest techniques based on research. He never hurts me, and I've got all my teeth, so when I ran into him the other day, I was eager to see if he'd heard about the new state program. I knew he'd think it was great.

"Did you hear about the new state program to measure the effectiveness of dentists with their young patients?" I said.

"No," he said. He didn't seem too thrilled. "How will they do that?"

"It's quite simple," I said. "They will just count the number of cavities each patient has at age 10, 14 and 18 and average that to determine a dentist's rating. Dentists will be rated as Excellent, Good, Average, Below Average and Unsatisfactory. That way parents will know which are the best dentists. It will also encourage the less effective dentists to get better," I said. "Poor dentists who don't improve could lose their licenses to practice in South Carolina."

"That's terrible," he said.

"What? That's not a good attitude," I said. "Don't you think we should try to improve children's dental health in this state?"

"Sure I do," he said, "but that's not a fair way to determine who is practicing good dentistry."

"Why not?" I said. "It makes perfect sense to me."

"Well, it's so obvious," he said. "Don't you see that dentists don't all work with the same clientele; so much depends on things we can't control?

"For example," he said, "I work in a rural area with a high percentage of patients from deprived homes, while some of my colleagues work in upper-middle class neighborhoods. Many of the parents I work with don't bring their children to see me until there is some kind of problem and I don't get to do much preventive work.

"Also," he said, "many of the parents I serve let their kids eat way too much candy from a young age, unlike more educated parents who understand the relationship between sugar and decay.

"To top it all off," he added, "so many of my clients have well water which is untreated and has no fluoride in it. Do you have any idea how much difference early use of fluoride can make?"

"It sounds like you're making excuses," I said. I couldn't believe my dentist would be so defensive. He does a great job.

"I am not!" he said. "My best patients are as good as anyone's, my work is as good as anyone's, but my average cavity count is going to be higher than a lot of other dentists because I chose to work where I am needed most."

"Don't get touchy," I said.

"Touchy?" he said. His face had turned red, and from the way he was clenching and unclenching his jaws, I was afraid he was going to damage his teeth. "Try furious. In a system like this, I will end up being rated average, below average or worse.

"My more educated patients who see these ratings may believe this so-called rating actually is a measure of my ability and proficiency as a dentist. They may leave me, and I'll be left with only the most needy patients. And my cavity average score will get even worse.

"On top of that, how will I attract good dental hygienists and other excellent dentists to my practice if it is labeled below average?"

"I think you're over-reacting," I said. "'Complaining, excuse making and stonewalling won't improve dental health '... I am quoting that from a leading member of the DOC," I noted.

"What's the DOC?" he said.

"It's the Dental Oversight Committee," I said, "a group made up of mostly lay-persons to make sure dentistry in this state gets improved."

"Spare me," he said. "I can't believe this. Reasonable people won't buy it," he said hopefully.

The program sounded reasonable to me, so I asked, "How else would you measure good dentistry?"

"Come watch me work," he said. "Observe my processes."

"That's too complicated and time consuming," I said. "Cavities are the bottom line, and you can't argue with the bottom line. It's an absolute measure."

"That's what I'm afraid my patients and prospective patients will think. This can't be happening," he said despairingly.

"Now, now," I said, "don't despair. The state will help you some."

   "How?" he said.

"If you're rated poorly, they'll send a dentist who is rated excellent to help straighten you out," I said brightly.

"You mean," he said, "they will send a dentist with a wealthy clientele to show me how to work on severe juvenile dental problems with which I have probably had much more experience? Big help."

"There you go again," I said. "You aren't acting professionally at all."

"You don't get it," he said. "Doing this would be like grading schools and teachers on an average score on a test of children's progress without regard to influences outside the school — the home, the community served and stuff like that. Why would they do something so unfair to dentists? No one would ever think of doing that to schools."

I just shook my head sadly, but he had brightened. "I'm going to write my representatives and senator," he said. "I'll use the school analogy — surely they'll see my point."

He walked off with that look of hope mixed with fear and suppressed anger that I see in the mirror so often lately.

Originally titled: "Absolutely the Best Dentists"  

Taken From: http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/no-dentist.html

John Taylor is a retired superintendent of schools for the Lancaster County School District. A graduate of Davidson College with MEd and EdS degrees from USC, he has served as a teacher or administrator in several of South Carolina's most economically challenged school districts, including Allendale, Clarendon, Colleton and Dillon. He also has worked in Richland 2 and Rock Hill and served as an education consultant at the Department of Education.

Poetry Experimenting

Take Me Away 

Take me to the beach

Where life flows easy and free

Where pain and sorrow long since forgotten

And work is a memory of the past

Take me to a park

Bring a picnic lunch and a blanket

Lay me under the sun and tell me a story, sing to me

Let me forget about life and begin to live

Take me to my happy place

Smile and let me enjoy it with you

Take me to my future

And stay there with me always

5 Pro-Tips for Your First Year of College

In honor of everyone moving in today, I thought I'd share a bunch of tips I learned in my first year of school.

1. You do NOT need everything you see at the store/ packed for your dorm.
Girls. Seriously... that bag-thing that attaches to your bed will prove useless if your bed is less than five feet off the floor. Just bring your bedding, basic wardrobe, a few dishes, and your basic beauty products. You won't have time to apply both liquid and powder foundation everyday, and you really won't wear that peplum dress OR your stillettos. Ever. Unless your are rushing a sorority or seriously like getting up at 5 a.m. to primp, leave it at home.
And guys, you don't need your five piece stereo set and surround-sound TV. Your roomate and RA (who fields complaints from the people upstairs) will thank you.

2. Yogurt and fiber bars
At least until your stomach adjusts to the cafeteria food, you will need something to regulate your system. I survived on Activia and Fiber One alone for a week my first run-in with the food on campus.

3. Look into the student discounts in your area
Its college. You are on your own for the first time. Be fiscally responsible. My campus hands out coupon books at textbook rental (which you should look into too, btw). Walmart gives a discount to students for everything except groceries (go figure). Apple and Dell do discounts and/or gift cards. A lot of movie theaters (AMC and Regal) give out student discounts. A lot of restaurants give out discounts too!

4. The College Triangle... it is real.
 I'm not even kidding. My best advice is to find the best possible ratio between these three and stick to it. For example, my friends hang out on Thursdays after the school week has mostly ended (because let's face it... Friday morning classes are kind of a joke). During the week, we pretty much only see each other during dinner. Homework is impossible otherwise.

5. Notice the times of day when the campus shuttle is most active...
 ... and avoid it at the most popular times. Most of the people on my campus start their morning classes at 9:30 a.m., so I avoid the bus between 8:45 and 10:00. The bus gets lazy at 2 p.m., so I walk after that time because otherwise it takes 45 minutes to get anywhere. Walking is sometimes faster than being lazy.

Once again, if you are a seasoned veteran of college, or if you find some of your own pro-tips, please comment down below because I'd love to hear from someone! Thanks for reading! Bye!

My Hair Growing Journey

In January 2011, I decided to chop off all my hair into a pixie cut. For the first two days, I have to admit that I was freaking out. The hair by my ears stuck out in a very unattractive, less than artful fashion and I bobby pinned it down for the first week I had it. After that, I learned how to style my hair and blow dry it in a way so that it didn't stick out at odd angles (Hint: blow dry the hair in the back down, and the top and sides forward. When you part it and brush it back, there will be volume and you will need to do minimal flat ironing) and I began to really love the new cut. It was freeing, having no hair all around my face. I was faced with the issue of becoming myself full on. I couldn't hide behind my bangs anymore because they only hid half of my forehead. I became braver with myself and with makeup and jewelry because I could. I wore lots of hats and scarves because the winters were COLD. But I began to miss my longer hair.

In September of last year, I had decided that I would grow it out again. My hair had developed a very strange sulfur scent (from too much heat and product), and I wanted to see if growing it out, and stopping the heat and product would help with the issue. I began taking Biotin supplements everyday and stopped using any product that wasn't the most basic of shampoos (VO5), and soon found out that that was probably the worse decision that I could have made. My hair became dry and lifeless and STILL smelled bad. By the holidays, I had returned to my original routine minus the gel and other styling products. My boyfriend's father (who does my hair) knew of the problem and was nice enough to give me THIS shampoo and it's matching conditioner for Christmas. The transformation was almost overnight! My hair stopped smelling and healed itself in just days. Using heat and product was still a no-no because it made the problem return, but I was able to find other ways to style my hair heat-less.

By April of this year, my hair had grown past the horrible awkward George Harrison/ Justin Bieber style and had moved on to greater lengths. Trims kept the shape looking good, but still allowed for healthy growth. I started experimenting with up-dos and began really enjoying the length. June brought the discovery of leave-in conditioner and knowledge that the more I hydrate myself and my hair, the more it will shine and like me. I began doing pin curls in my hair overnight and my hair began looking really healthy when I released them in the morning. 

Last month I began occasionally straightening my hair just to change things up a bit, and it doesn't smell anymore! I ran out of the magical Bed Head shampoo and began using this Biotin-infused shampoo and its conditioner instead alongside the leave-in stuff. I have seen no change thus far. When I run out of the NYM's stuff, I am going to try another brand and see what happens.

If you have any questions or would like to share your experience, please comment down below, I'd love to hear from you! 

Inaugural Post: Welcome to My Creative World!

It has been on my mind lately to begin a blog.

I needed a place to express myself creatively. A place where I can clearly and concisely word the thoughts in my brain for all to see. Where I control what I talk about and for how long.Where others can read more if they like what they see, or move on if they don't.

With that though in mind, I went to researching what platform I would use. I have an aunt that blogs, and she was nice enough to be the forerunner of my own adventures in the world of blogging. She even did a comparison of three different blog sites. I did, for a short time consider video blogging on Youtube, but then decided that it would take less time to just write. It also occurred to me that vlogging involved a lot of editing and probably more effort in the primping department than I had time for. Anyway, after reading all her opinions, compiling some of my own research, and remembering the amount of viruses my computer got THE ONE TIME one of my sisters got on my computer to use Tumblr, I settled here. Hopefully to stay.


See My Aunt's Page