Christmas in Brighton, MA

Every weekend is like Christmas for Mustard. He is just SO PSYCHED that we are there with him... and won't let us rest until we take him to the dog park.

Today after an hour there, we returned home... and he was 'treated' to a bath, and I sloppily quilted him a stocking (on the left):

And then, because I'm obsessed with him, I made him pose in front of the Christmas tree. Let this be an apology to my future children for all the photos I will take of them one day.

 He's not the only one who dressed up for the holidays... ;-)

Update: Mustard by the fire!

A rough life.

Kacy Williams: Felon??

This is definitely the best case of mistaken identity ever. Because it's not just over email. It's real life. As in, I received a letter (addressed to "Kacy Williams"), and am now on the phone with the state police.

They informed me that because I committed a felony, I am required to provide a DNA sample or I will receive a $1,000 fine:

A felony. Me.

Somehow the other Kacy Williams and I have gotten crossed in "the system." Apparently because I have been to court (for a speeding ticket), my name is in "the system," and we have similar birthdays and social security numbers... and something went whacky, so mixed in with the holiday cards and congratulations on engagement was this threatening letter.

I was transferred to CODIS, where Sargent Smith answered the phone. Yes, Smith. I explained the situation, ending with, "I think it's a mix-up, which sometimes happens with common names like Williams or Smith."

After a little record checking - it seems like Kacy Williams perhaps committed some kind of serious crime that is very different than what my record indicates I would do - he explained the following:

"It looks like a case of mistaken identity. Yup. Mistaken identity." - Sargent Smith at State Police Crime Lab.

For those privacy gurus, it may make you feel better to know that only the special DNA testing CODIS unit has access to the DNA records, no one else. 

So I'm all good. Free and clear to be me, and to keep my DNA to myself. Let's just hope there's not more felonious surprises out there for me...

Nestle, I abhor you

Happy Holidays from Our Family to Yours

TheNestleFamily news@mail.nestlefamily.com                                        10:40 PM

 

 

casey  to TheNestleFamily

Dear Nestle,

Why don't you get it???

I didn't sign up for your emails, some silly doppelganger did. But instead of writing you a silly/snarky reply telling you about the whole situ, I just unsubscribed. But then I got more emails, so I unsubscribed again. To all emails. Again.

Yet you persist in contacting me. And yes, it has been more than 10 days. Something is up with your email vendor. Not to mention that a best practice should be sending an email when someone signs up asking them to confirm their email address.

Here are the reasons I am not interested in reading your email:

1. The products featured prominently in this email are sweet. Sickly sweet. Sometimes that is delicious. But when you're trying look look all buff and be healthy for upcoming nuptials, you would be trying to avoid such sweet things.

2. I already get like 1 million emails a day. I'm like, so popular n' stuff. But between personal email and work email, it has to be a pretty special email newsletter to keep me a subscriber. That and 99% of the newsletters I do get (to my personal email), I myself didn't even sign up for, so it makes me even more sensitive to the email and have even higher standards. Most of the newsletters I actually read are for work. And sometimes - just sometimes - I open one of those coupon site emails, or a travel alert email. Usually I trash about 85% of newsletters that I actually signed up for on a given day, nevermind the ones that I had nothing to do with.

3. If you actually did know me, you would know that I have, in the past, purchased Purina ProPlan dog food, part of the Nestle family. My dog loved it. But then I felt guilty (see reasons #4 and #5) and I wanted to support a different brand of dog food that was more natural, so I switched.

4. I rent a ski house in Fryeburg, Maine every year. The water there is whack. And the roads are even worse. And what do you want to do? You (under the brand Poland Springs) want to take water from the aquifer in the Fryeburg area and sell it in bottles, and not pay the town a dime. You'll be running these huge trucks down these country roads in a residential neighborhood 24 hours a day, draining the aquifer, and you want to pay nothing. Because you don't have to, for now. Mostly because our laws are unclear on water rights and corporate obligations in this situation. However, did I mention that you have appealed the court ruling four times and lost every time? Yet you persist, because the world is thirsty for convenient fat-free beverages (i.e. water), and your pockets are deep.

5. Then there's the whole "starving babies in Africa" thing. Yeah, you remember. It was in the 80's, but it was so so sad. It makes me ashamed to be part of a marketing machine myself, though I like to think my clients are a little more moral than you were. Telling poor women that they weren't good moms unless they feed their babiesformula isn't nice when they can't actually afford the formula. Seems like a lose-lose situation for you - they don't buy your product, and you get blasted in the press for being amoral. 

So, Nestle, what i'm going to add to this list is that you won't let me un-subscribe from your emails. The next one I get is going to be marked SPAM, since that's what it is. I'll try unsubscribing AGAIN... but I already gave you two chances. Two chances for something I didn't even ask for. 

Good luck with your marketing, etc.. seems like you need to re-evaluate a few programs.

Best,

Casey Williams