Bryan and I are taking Maggie the MINI out for a road trip this weekend. We’re going to drive the Olympic Peninsula loop, including the spectacular winding, water’s edge road to Neah Bay, as northwest as we can get and still be in the contiguous US.

Today was a spectacularly sunny day – we’re hoping for more of it tomorrow and Monday. (The forecast is for increasingly cloudy, sprinkly weather by Monday, but weather forecasters have been wrong before.)

Enjoy your long weekend!

Zach took this picture of a gorgeous red poppy (it’s a Lawrence of Livermere oriental poppy – about 5″ in diameter). This has not been photoshopped other than cropping 15% off the perimeter for a closer shot. Click for a full screen shot.

I am spoiled; I’ve had a cleaning service for the last several years. Upon moving down to Poulsbo, we used an online referral service to find a housecleaner and were matched up with a local business called Cathy’s Cleaning Crew.

Like many such services, they started out strong – high quality and reliable. Over the course of a couple of years, that changed.

In the last year, we struggled with both quality and reliability. One of my more important requirements is that the cleaner come on the day scheduled – not move it around in the week for their convenience. Last minute day changes began happening more and more often, and I instituted a policy of “come on your scheduled day – or don’t come at all.”

We also agreed at the start on a list of items to be cleaned every week, and others every month. The every week items slid to monthly, and the monthly were never done. I shouldn’t have to leave notes asking to have my dining room table dusted or my shower cleaned! When I was working at home, the quality was a little better; when I was traveling or over in the Seattle office it was abysmal.

In late December, the proprietress asked that we (along with all of her other customers) start prepaying for service monthly, on the first visit each month, to simplify accounting. I took exception to this because of the reliability problem; requiring them to come on their scheduled day to actually get paid is powerful leverage. Because searching for a new housekeeper is always a painful process, and this service was relatively inexpensive, I made the lazy decision to try the monthly payment.

It did not go well; unreliability continued to be an issue.

This month, they came the first week while I was in Anchorage, did the usual shoddy job and picked up their check. Last week, they called in sick. I was pretty cranky, told them not to come that day, and that I would no longer be prepaying. This week, they didn’t show and didn’t call.

We tried to contact them, and the number was disconnected – both home and cell. Email bounced. The online referral service told us that Cathy’s Cleaning Crew had stopped accepting new leads several months ago. The service is also attempting to track them down.

We are out the prepayment for 3 weeks of cleaning, and our provider appears to have left town.

Honestly – I have only my own stupidity to blame.

Note: usually I would not name names in a post like this. I’m making an exception here – if anyone ever googles Cathy’s Cleaning Crew, I want this post high among the results!

Apparently country-western star Gretchen Wilson has finally completed her GED at 34 years of age.

Wilson has made a name for herself as an up-and-coming country singer/songwriter, winning numerous awards in the last five years – and has a reputation for eschewing the glamor-girl track in favor of a tomboyish, rabble-rousing redneck image. Her most widely known song is “Redneck Woman”:

Well, you might think I’m trashy, a little too hardcore
But in my neck of the woods I’m just the girl next door
I’m a redneck woman
I ain’t no high class broad
I’m just a product of my raising
I say, ‘hey y’all’ and ‘yee-haw’
And I keep my Christmas lights on
On my front porch all year long
And I know all the words to every Tanya Tucker song
So here’s to all my sisters out there keeping it country
Let me get a big ‘hell yeah’ from the redneck girls like me

So, here she is, getting lots of press for her shiny new GED. Perhaps I’m just an elitist snob, but I never considered a high school diploma to be a big achievement, just a milestone on the way for truly preparing myself for life. I’ve also considered a GED to be a less-desirable alternative to actually sticking it out for a diploma. On the other hand, a bachelor’s degree? Worth celebrating. A master’s or PhD? Definitely an achievement – that I haven’t yet earned.

It’s sad that there are still parts of our fairly progressive, well-educated nation where people shrug their shoulders and drop out of school years before finishing. I understand family problems, economic challenges, even academic problems. There are those who struggle with all of those issues and still earn a high school diploma, even go on to college. And there are those who want for very little and still drop out.

Why? Is it a values issue? A character deficiency? A social problem? Are we in America continuing to fail part of the next generation?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing that Wilson earned her GED. And I’m always encouraged by those who earn their success with substance, rather than style – and she seems to belong to that club.

Still and all, I think that the amount of press – carefully worded, non-judgmental press – that she is getting for this relatively minor achievement does our youth a disservice. It trivializes the importance of staying in school, of making a GED a priority, of pursuing the basic educational competency required to function in today’s world.

Send out another press release when she earns a degree, starts a charitable foundation or adopts some worthy cause. I’ll applaud then.

As has already been reported on his blog, I had the opportunity to meet fellow blogger and writer Jim Wright today.

Jim and I are part of a loose circle comprised of blogging acquaintances, writer wannabes and science fiction fans. The group of us – known unofficially as the UCF, and I’m not sure we ever agreed on what that means – met on John Scalzi’s blog and forum, Whatever. Many of us have since encouraged each others’ writing efforts, participated in round robin writing games, and in general entertained and supported each other.

I am a fan of Jim’s writing, both blogging and fiction, so it was fun to get a chance to meet him in person. He is one of those great people who has integrity; he is the same in person as he is online and via email. (Okay, he’s a bit nicer in person, because he he can do an amazing rant online!)

Since his military retirement, he’s turned to writing and fine woodwork as a vocation, and I jumped at the opportunity to buy one of his hand-turned, gallery-quality bowls. It’s unique, super high quality work, and I expect it to be worth a fortune one day when his work is sitting in the MoMA in New York.

It’s a lot of fun to meet online acquaintances – I’ve had great success with making friends all over the world that way. And, of course, my wonderful husband was once an online acquaintance, too.

Next up: lunch in a couple of weeks with the talented, hilarious Beast Mom, founder of the SSBM (Secret Society of Beast Moms)! We’ve met before, I even went on her blogging retreat weekend in Cannon Beach, and I value her wisdom and perspective. She not only writes too, but has been published in various literary magazines and periodicals.