Sperari

I've had a few inquiries, so to put this to bed:

The owner of Personal Threads filed a lawsuit against me.

I intend to defend myself against the allegations, and have retained an attorney to that end.

If you wish to follow the proceedings, you may do so, as they are a matter of public record. The case is in the district court, Douglas County, Nebraska, Doc. 1104 No. 235.

On Motivations

After I wrote last week's letter to the owner of Personal Threads Boutique and got it all packed up and ready to go, I posted it here, then popped on over to Ravelry to link to the post on the local group. I did so with the thought that the letter deserved dissemination in those circles having the greatest interest in that store and how it is run. My aim in posting the letter in the first place was twofold:

1. I wanted to save some hypothetical future customer the pain of walking into a store where she might be treated, however subtly, like a less worthwhile customer.
2. I wanted to provide a means by which the owner could be held accountable to whatever changes - of attitude or behavior - he decided to make.

That second reason is important. I have many interactions with businesses large and small, local to international, every day. Some of these are overwhelmingly positive; I make sure that those involved know this is the case, because everybody needs to know when they're doing well. Others are confoundingly negative, and I don't post about all of them. Often a bad experience is indicative only of poor employee training, or a single middle manager with a rotten attitude. I call the 1-800 number. I let the people above know what's going on below. It's how resolution is acheived when you have someone with oversight to implement change.

In the case of Personal Threads, my objection was to the attitude and behavior of the owner. That changes things quite a bit. Yes, there are exceptions, but in general, the owner is the top. The only entity to which the store owner is answerable is the public. I didn't at the time advocate that anyone else stop shopping at Personal Threads - my decision to do so was my own. I wanted to relate what prompted that decision, however - for the two reasons I listed above.

Reactions

Reception to the post on Ravelry was largely unfriendly; it varied from mildly uncomfortable with my having posted the letter before the owner had a chance to receive it and respond to plainly rude, defensive, and accusatory. That's life; I don't feel hurt by the response. The most constructive of the response suggested that I remove the group posting linking to my blog until the owner had a chance to respond to me. I agreed to do so, and said I would update the thread when I received a response or, if I received none, after one month. The owner made an appearance on the thread as well:

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Transcript:

Someone was nice enough to bring to my attention that someone felt that something I did or said was inappropriate. I haven't had the opportunity to read what was written in the original post and I don't know what my infraction was.

First, if I did offend someone, and obviously I did, I sincerely apologize. I truly do regret this incident, whatever it was. Being the older brother to five sisters I've always tried to be considerate of womens feelings and sensitivities.

Second, I find the support given to me and my store a treasure that I didn't know I had. Thank you all so very, very much!

Third, I haven't received the letter yet, but when it comes I will give it my full attention. As far as posts go, I have never quite understood posting something to the world before you say something to the person who offended you. My request to all my wonderful customers is that if anything happens in my store, either by me or my employees or my dog, please say something to me right away or it will become more of an issue. Letting things go just causes it to fester.

I believe the tone of this was intended to evoke the image of a sympathetic, customer-oriented man who would in fact make a real effort to reach out and make the necessary changes for me to be comfortable shopping in his store again - an outcome I very much wanted.

Wednesday, two days later than I intended to send my letter off, I finally put it in the mail. (I have to admit: I don't use postal mail for much, and it's really not in any workflow I have.) Off it went, however. I also received mail Wednesday - a certified mail receipt, as well as a plain letter in my mailbox. Both were from Place Law Office. (I initially mistook the certified mail receipt as a receipt for the letter in my mailbox, causing some confusion - I missed the box that was checked saying my item was being held at the post office. I didn't figure that out until after post office hours Saturday, and so I wasn't able to retrieve the certified mail until today.) The letter in my mailbox and the one I picked up from the post office were identical, and posted in entirety below (with my mailing address obfuscated). The transcript does not include the Cc block or stationery items from the top of the letter.

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Transcript:

RE: The Personal Touch, Inc., Personal Threads Boutique & Mr. Joe Lewis

Dear Ms. Tesla:

Please be advised that this office represents The Personal Touch Inc., Personal Threads Boutique and Mr. Joe Lewis.

I have carefully read and reviewed with Mr. Joe Lewis your letter of February 6, 2010. In addition, I have reviewed the publication of your letter on your internet "Blog" Sperari.com.

Your February 6, 2010 letter is libelous. It is clear that the letter was intended to defame, to shame, to disgrace and to injure the reputation (personal, professional, and business) and character of my client(s) The Personal Touch, Inc., Personal Threads Boutique, and Mr. Joe Lewis.

Demand is hereby made of you to immediately withdraw and "take down" your letter of February 6, 2010 from your controlled internet "Blog".

You are hereby on Notice to CEASE AND DESIST from any activity, of any nature, which would or could jeopardize the business interest(s) of my client(s) in any manner.

I trust that, in light of the foregoing, you will comply with the demands described herein, as well as your legal obligations.

You should be advised that these matters are regarded as harmful to my client(s), and I have been instructed to vigorously pursue all avenues of relief to protect and insure their rights.

I trust you will govern yourself accordingly.

Very truly yours,

//signature//

James R. Place

Before he had even received the physical letter, he got with his lawyer to draft a cease & desist letter. I have received no other correspondence from the store owner. There was an opportunity to recognize and acknowledge the interaction that left me so cold; to apologize; to promise improvement; and to conduct his business accordingly in the public eye. That bar is high, but it is the bar that I set for those with whom I do business. It is also apparently too high for the owner of Personal Threads. Instead, he has accused me of publishing a letter that is libelous; this accusation has no merit, as what I related in my previous post is true, however uncomfortable it might be for the store and its owner.

On Cease & Desist Letters

I feel very strongly about civil liberties. This should be no mystery to those who know me, and likely not to those who've read anything I've written pretty much anywhere. I believe that unfettered public discourse, to include dissent, is a healthy part of a free society. More than that, I believe it is fundamental to a free society.

Cease and desist letters are a funny thing - not quite a legal action in and of themselves, they send the implicit threat of legal action, often to stifle dissenting or unfavorable reportage and opinion. To a consumer, often just an "air of law" is enough to make them believe that they have done something wrong and must comply. To those who know better, the implicit threat is that regardless of the veracity of the accusation, a company will have more resources to invest in a legal process that can be both lengthy and costly. The image of a schoolyard bully is only too appropriate: intimidated by the looming shadow of someone bigger than them, most kids don't know what to do but hand over the lunch money.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed that the genuine impulses that led me to publicly post the letter I sent to Personal Threads would have inspired such a technique. Nor, had I been warned, would I have believed that a local yarn store - long celebrated as a warm, welcoming place for community, friendship, and shared knowledge - would be the type of entity to engage in such a tactic.

My belief is that nobody is so well-equipped to damage a business as those running it - by means of the ways in which they choose to conduct business. Face-to-face interaction is a particularly visible area of insight for customers. The way in which a business handles customer conflict is similarly open. I believe that Personal Threads has failed in these, what I consider to be two of the most important indicators of the quality of a business, and has done so in such an objectionable manner as to be personally unresolvable.

My Recommendation

Due to the response that I have received, I have changed my recommendation. I am no longer shopping at Personal Threads, and I further recommend that others follow suit. I will not do business with a company that conducts itself in the manner descibed above, and that holds both its customers and the truth in such contempt.

I'm mailing this off Monday. I'd comment, but I think the letter is clear enough to stand alone. Cross-posting this to Livejournal and Ravelry.

Joe Lewis
Owner
Personal Threads Boutique
8600 Cass Street
Omaha, NE 68114

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Mr. Lewis,

I've visited your store several times over the last couple of months since I joined Ravelry and discovered we have Omaha-local yarn options other than Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and Wal-mart. I was thrilled! Your inventory is well-considered, beautiful, and extensive - it would be hard to imagine a project for which I could not find the perfect yarn in your store. Your prices are reasonable, and I've found most of your staff to be warm, engaged, helpful, and courteous. All of this is to be applauded.

However, last time I visited Personal Threads, I had a brief conversation with you that deeply discouraged me from patronizing your store. I mentioned that I find it difficult to find patterns that are appropriately sized for my plus-sized body, and you showed me several examples of patterns that are written for sizes to include my own. I appreciated that, and had the conversation ended there, the interaction would have been wholly positive. Instead, you went on to say that you'd decided not to carry one of the recently-published books featuring plus size knitting. Rather than citing shelf space or a lack of interest, you said that some of the people in the book weren't like me (tall and proportionately larger) - they were just fat. I responded that big girls probably want to knit nice things too, and you said that these girls were really fat. It was, you said, ridiculous.

In a business that sells yarn at higher yardages and therefore higher revenue to fat people, there is no logical basis for anti-fat sentiment and action. It is pure aesthetic bigotry. It is also entirely dehumanizing. You've made your feelings clear, and elected not to carry an item that is of interest to part of your customer base; you don't deserve that business. But you've also been inexcusably rude; the fact that your comments were not directed at my physique matters not at all to me. I think you'll find that such rudeness does not serve you well, in commerce or otherwise.

I have no plans to shop at Personal Threads in the future, barring an obvious and explicit change in how the plus-size and fat community is considered and treated. Though I do not intend to expend any effort dissuading others from shopping there, I will be posting a copy of this letter online; I believe that everyone should have access to sufficient information to make their own decisions, particularly when money is changing hands.

Sincerely yours,

Erica Tesla

Apologies for my extended absence (not that I have, you know, anything to apologize for, I suppose). I'm currently trying to decide what place Sperari has in my life. I recently started posting personal-foo over on Livejournal; a critical mass of my friends are over there, so using that has the advantage that they actually know about what's going on in my life. Meanwhile, several topic-specific blogging projects have (or are in the process of being) filtered off into their own sites. More on those when they're live (or something like it).

Anyhow, once I figure out what function Sperari will play, I imagine you'll see more stuff happening here. In the meantime, I tweet frequently, I Livejournal about weekly, and I'm really hoping to graduate in about a week. See you on the other side.

I've been reading a handful of personal finance blogs for the last six months or so and seeing the same advice over and over - clip the damned coupons. In particular, The Simple Dollar (favorite grocery/coupon posts: 1 2 3) and Get Rich Slowly (favorite grocery/coupon posts: 1 2) hit the grocery strategies with some frequency. I decided to pick up the Sunday paper today and find out if the coupons inside would actually save someone like me any money. There are a few factors I considered in this exercise:

I decided to sign up over at Revolution MoneyExchange to nab the $25 sign-up bonus, which they're offering until May 15. The service allows you to email funds back and forth between friends. The sign-up process is quick; there is no hard credit-check against your credit report; they're backed by some serious financial heavies (Citi, Morgan Stanley, etc.). Google around a bit - they're legit. They want you to take this money, because it means another customer for them.

As is pretty easy to see, Sperari has undergone a migration. I switched over from Wordpress to Movable Type Open Source, and I don't really see looking back. This is being posted from the iPhone interface, which is basically sex. (Apologies to anyone who winds up with repeats of posts in feed readers.)

I read this story earlier today - I thought it was a link from one of the autism-spectrum topic blogs I follow, but none of them appear to have been the actual source. The story is about Nate Tseglin, a kid who was apparently a successful, bright, happy kid who happened to have Asperger's. When he ran up against some road blocks in school - inappropriate class offerings, lack of sensitive counseling service, and so on (problems with which I'm only too familiar, even if I don't have Asperger's) - he started having problems with impulsive behaviors. The solutions he devised (such as a system of soft restraints which he would request to use when he felt like scratching himself, approved by his doctor) were unpalatable to the school; a teacher reported them to Child Protective Services.

What happened after is a complete failure of common sense and state restraint. Rather than repost the entirety of the history, I encourage you to go read it at Get Nate Home. Excerpt:

Step one: make enough noise that they can't get away with this. I'll figure out step two when I get that far.

I'm sure it's not news to anyone that Poetry.com - which I won't actually link - is a scam. The idea is a simple appeal to the vanity of the average person. Tons of people have written at least one poem on a whim or for a school assignment. Poetry is also extremely subjective; because it's highly symbolic, in most cases it will have more meaning to the person who wrote it. Even the form of poetry is defined more by what it isn't than by what it is. Some poems rhyme, some have a particular meter or rhythm, some have specific combinations of these things. And then, some don't have any of these features. For the longest time, I thought that poetry was a written work without a factual basis or narrative - but then, I've seen poems with both.

The point of this game of pin-the-definition-on-the-amorphous-blob is that poetry does not really have objective standards to which any particular work can be held. What I think is great poetry might read like third-grade drivel to someone else. I know people who don't like at all any poem that doesn't rhyme.But when a person writes a poem, unless they do so under great duress (i.e., begrudgingly for a school assignment) they're likely to do so in a way that approximates their ideal of what poetry should be. When I though "poem" meant "twenty lines or fewer with a rhyme scheme", that's what I wrote. And in the end, because I wrote to my own definition, I thought I was hot shit.

That's what Poetry.com preys on. Just about everyone has a poem, and who doesn't want to see their poem in print? You submit your poem - under 20 lines, of course - and it goes in for a "review" that never happens. After it's determined that the poem is good enough (read: was submitted), they congratulate you, and tell you it's to be printed in their next anthology. You haven't won any money, but you are getting published, assuming you release them to use the poem. If you'd like to see the poem in print, remit $60 for your leather-bound copy of the book and a certificate. Additional copies can be had for $60 each.Poetry.com is simply extraordinarily expensive vanity publishing. To call it anything else is completely disingenuous.

I follow the writing jobs on Omaha Craigslist in my news reader, and tonight, the following job popped up:

Since I do write both prose and poetry, I followed up on the ad. A few moments later, I received an email, explaining that my name, email, and a brief poetry sample would be required to determine whether or not I was a fit for the site. Fishy - but they weren't asking for the poetry sample yet, so I entered my name and my semi-junky email address. And then there it was: a redirect to Poetry.com.

Why on earth is Poetry.com scamming on Craigslist, I wondered, as I closed the site. Then, up popped a javascript window-in-the-window. The following conversation followed:

• Ashley says: Wait don't go! I'm sure others would like to see what you've written. Please type "Hi" if you see me.
• You: Hi
• Ashley says: Thanks for taking a minute. You really should enter our poetry contest, it's free. Just CLICK HERE to get started.
• You: No thank you
• Ashley says: You're welcome
• You: ...sorry
• Ashley says: It's Ok. CLICK HERE to enter the contest.
• You: You're a robot.
• Ashley says: My name is Ashley and of course I'm not real but wish I were :)
• Ashley says: I can answer most of your questions though.
• You: Why is Poetry.com scamming on Craigslist pretending to be a job?
• Ashley says: I'm sorry, I did not get that.
• You: I bet you didn't.
• Ashley says: Sorry, still didn't get it.
• You: Smile! You're on candid blog-cam. Goodbye!
• Ashley says: I don't think I can help you, you can contact customer service at 410-356-2000 ext 2
• Ashley says: Poetry.com will award over 1,200 awards and prizes totaling over $200,000 to amateur poets in the coming months.
• Ashley says: We have become the definitive source for personal creative expression in the world. CLICK HERE to join us.
• Ashley says: Over 7 million poets worldwide are profiled on our site.
• You: No. Goodbye.
• Ashley says: Sorry I couldn't help. If you change your mind you can CLICK HERE to return to our site.

Emphasis mine. Audacious claim, eh? I thought Livejournal had that one in the bag. Be careful where you invest your time, people.

I'm in New England, again! This visit has been too short, largely because I've slept through so much of it; I had to have unexpected surgery last week to remove my gall bladder, which was apparently the source of many of the stupid-headed ailments I couldn't shake. Here's looking to better health. Anyhow, I've been hopped up on the narcolepsy-inducing wonder-drug Vicodin for a good deal of my trip. I have, however, managed to do some cooking, which is a favorite activity to do when I'm out here. Particularly cooking with fish. It's so jealousy-inducing fresh! Bliss.

So, Will and I visited the grocery store Wednesday evening in search of good food to welcome me to New England for my second visit. Also, because of the aforementioned surgery, I'm on a (lower sodium) diet that's not terribly compatible with a good deal of his pantry. On our trip, we purchased:

• leeks


• asparagus


• white wine (Sauvignon Blanc - cheap stuff)


• red potatoes


• olive oil & black pepper triscuits


• lots and lots of jello


• a bar of dark chocolate (Chocolove Extra Strong Dark 77%)

We also stopped by the seafood counter to ask for fish heads, hoping to find a good bunch to make fish stock. They had none. "Have anything you want to get rid of soon?" I asked.

"Well, if we keep it between you and me..." said the man manning the stand. And so we wound up with four nice looking salmon steaks that were just going to be thrown away about an hour and a half later, for a total of under ten bucks (about half price). Win.

Salmon is not traditionally a choice for making fish stock. It's too fatty. But you know what I say to that? POOEY. I for one am willing to try (and fail) once.

Using four perfectly good salmon steaks just to make fish stock seemed like kind of a waste, or as we say where I'm from, a freaking travesty. So after the stock was suitably stocky, we decided that there would be a salmon salad made afterwards. That's how we roll.

Without further todo:

Leek & Potato Soup with Salmon Stock

Ingredients

• Four salmon steaks


• One bottle cheap Sauvignon Blanc (or other relatively dry white wine)


• Four large red potatoes, cubed to about 1 inch


• Four large leeks, thin-sliced, dark green parts discarded


• About 8 oz portabella mushrooms, finely diced


• 10-12 leaves fresh lemon basil


• extra virgin olive oil


• sea salt


• black pepper

Instructions

1. Heat some extra virgin olive oil (to cover pan bottom) in a large saute pan over medium heat. Bruise lemon basil by rubbing it between clean hands (or however you like to do it); toss in the pan. Stir in with the olive oil to flavor the oil well. Cook until leaves are a little brown but not crispy.


2. Put salmon steaks directly into lemon basil olive oil. Pan will be crowded. Don't worry about it. Let the steaks brown very slightly on one side (about a minute). Turn, allow to brown for a minute, then add a quarter bottle of the wine.


3. Turn down the heat and allow the salmon to gently cook through. This takes a little bit, about 15 minutes.


4. Transfer everything in the pan to a stock pot. Add the rest of the bottle of wine. Crush fish a bit without completely destroying it to release some flavor. Allow to cook another 15-20 minutes.


5. Strain fish stock off using a fine mesh strainer, reserving the fish and other solids. If you don't have one of those, a collander lined with cheesecloth works. In case of utter stock-making fail (i.e., no fine mesh strainer and no cheesecloth), paper towels work for lining the collander, but will absorb some of your fish stock and will also pass the stock very slowly.


6. Back in the stock pot, put the fish stock along with an equal part water, your potatoes, leeks, and portabella mushrooms; allow to cook for an hour on low heat, long enough for potatoes to become tender. (Posterity note that is absolutely not advised: This is the point at which we also added milk. I like milk in my leek/potato soups; it matches well with the mild onion flavors and such. What I had failed to remember is that we had started this culinary adventure with wine, which is acidic enough to (upon addition of heat) make young cheese out of milk. Our milk started foaming after about 30 minutes, and by the time we got the heat turned down, we had a lot of cottage cheese in our pot. I think this soup might well have been very good with paneer in it, but cooking it this way also left all of the whey in our broth, and the cheese was not compact and well-made. We skimmed off and discarded as much as we could.)


7. Season with sea salt and black pepper to taste. Serve with crusty bread - regular old Italian works great.

Sweet Salmon Salad

Ingredients

• Salmon steaks left over from leek & potato soup


• Two medium apples, finely diced


• One heart of celery, thin-sliced


• 1 tbsp nutmeg


• 1 tbsp cinnamon


• mayonnaise to prefered texture

Instructions

1. The salmon steaks, after pulled out of their bath of extra virgin olive oil, lemon basil, and white wine, were still delicious-smelling and ready to be used in another recipe, but somewhat unfortunately still full of bones. We washed our hands well and manually deboned the entire mass of salmon. A number of the bones were soft enough that simply amounted to extra calcium, but some were still firm and pokey, so this step was necessary.


2. Mix apples, celery, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a half cup or so of mayonnaise in with the salmon. You will probably need more mayonnaise to acheive a lumpable salad, but mixing in a half cup at first is more manageable.


3. Serve, either on bread or on crackers. We had ours on Olive Oil & Black Pepper Triscuits, which was optimal - the sweet flavors from the apples and celery played very, very nicely with the savory flavors from the cracker. The salmon flavor was present and well-represented without being overpowering.

Having shared both dishes with self-proclaimed foodies, I can confidently say they were good and it's not just me liking my own cooking. Recipes approved for general release.

P.S. Go Sox!