Category opinion

We now have a deep freezer

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

We recently got an old, hand-me-down deep freezer.

And at the same time, the federal government shutdown and Pennsylvania state budget impasse have complicated SNAP benefits for families who have them.

I heard on the news that 1-in-8 Americans have SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition or “food stamps”). I heard one story this morning about an unemployed widow with a 15-year-old son whose soundbite suggested she sent him to school so he could eat breakfast and lunch.

I hope she’s sending him to school for an education, first and foremost.

I consider myself a fiscally-conservative Democrat who believes that education and healthcare should be attainable and fair. I would love to have a Ph.D., but I can’t afford to finish my masters and I refuse to go into debt for it. I also have a disability, and even when I am well-employed I often have to make choices about my medical care.

Right now, I have my own small business. I work a part-time job in the food service industry to provide some reliable income on a steady timeline. I am an adjunct instructor at my local community college, and if you break it down to an hourly rate, I probably make a similar wage at my fast food job (because of the fact that I did not have the money to finish my degrees). And I have freelance writing and editing jobs and a mini author’s assistant job.

And I’m always on the look out for more. Applied for another this morning.

I started my career in public relations, and ended up in print journalism, which led to a long career of lay-offs as newspapers died. I worked in non-profit communications and development, where I learned a massive amount of useful skills like grant writing but also experienced a ridiculous amount of toxic managerial behavior. Some people work in the non-profit sector because they want to make the world a better place, but at the same time, many of those people have either childhood trauma and/or personal insecurities that create some challenging environments in an already difficult field.

I mention all of this because I have experience with unemployment. I have experience with being the single mom with maybe enough resources to survive a month. I was a single mom raising a teenager who lost her job during the pandemic and did not find out if she qualified for unemployment until the weekend after she accepted a new job. I was unemployed for four months and had opened my home to one of my daughter’s friends who didn’t feel safe in her own home.

I applied for public assistance because I was volunteering at a non-profit that provides services for people exiting human trafficking situations and my “boss” suggested it. Because I had no income and I had an official dependent, I received more than $700/month in food stamps. And Medicaid. Which was a great help. Even though I only received food stamps for four months, I rationed them so they lasted almost a year.

I had accepted a job in the warehouse at Stitch Fix. I loved that job, and the company, but after three years they decided to close our warehouse. After three years at a wage where my take-home pay was the same as what I had made as the development manager for a small non-profit with a two-million-dollar annual budget (thanks to the fact that Stitch Fix offered their employees free medical benefits), I found myself laid off again.

And when my unemployment ran out, I once again applied for food stamps. I had gone on multiple interviews, built up my small business, but still struggled with the cost of my medical care– my estranged husband put me on his benefits but my medicine was $50-$100 a month and all my doctor’s appointments I had to pay out of pocket because of the high deductible. So I really hoped I would qualify for Medicaid again. And I did.

I also qualified for $525 in food stamps.

Around this same time, Trump got re-elected and the cheap refrigerator I bought started freezing the food in the refrigerator and not freezing the food in the freezer. But I couldn’t afford a new fridge– and I still can’t– so we started buying only what we could eat in a few days, or foods that could safely thaw and refreeze.

Lettuce is not one of them, if you were curious.

The point of all this is to ask: Regardless of how you feel about who uses food stamps or how the government distributes them or whether or not people try hard enough or work hard enough, why is no one asking why we have a system where 1-in-eight Americans qualifies for food stamps?

I have seen and heard so many things about the system, and I have known people who work in the branches of government that distribute these types of assistance and they are all people who want to help. I have met people afraid to work because they might lose assistance, and I have seen people who need the help lose it because they made too much money. (And, like me, it’s usually people who need medical care.)

I have about $2,300 left on my deductible this year, and I have spent almost an equal amount if you read my EOBs from the insurance company. I’m losing my hearing in one ear and I need a hearing test and a visit with the audiologist. The muscles in my one leg have been spasming 24-hours-a-day for almost a year now and I just blamed it on my cerebral palsy but my neurologist has concerns that previously noted damage to my spine (from all these years of walking crooked) may have caused nerve damage in my lower back. And my one finger has been doing crazy things for about a year.

That’s probably at least $6,000 worth of tests. Do I just try to schedule it all before the end of the year and finance the $2,000+ remaining of the deductible on a credit card? Or Able Pay? or do I wait until I am better off financially?

Back to the deep freezer. A friend of the family was hoping to get a decade-plus year old freezer out of his house. We took it. We took all the stuff from our cheap refrigerator that needed better freezer conditions and piled it in. And I thought– when Trump was elected an I was worried about the future of food stamps, I didn’t have a freezer to fill. I did however invest in every non-perishable food item I could tolerate.

Dried Beans. Plain-old Rice. Canned Fruit. Canned Vegs. Nutritional Yeast. Some condiments. Canned Tuna. Spam. Canned Chicken.

My childhood traumas leave me to ruminate frequently about food scarcity, financial security and general stability. I will probably always behave as if every trip to the grocery store is the last one I can afford. And I have done my grocery shopping at the Dollar Tree and the Grocery Outlet because I only had $20 left to feed us for the week.

The Office of Vocational Rehab considers me the most severely tier of worker, whereas the federal government says I do not qualify for disability because I work so much and at so many jobs. But the federal government doesn’t take into consideration that I have to work that hard to make ends meet. And I don’t always succeed and I often hurt myself doing it. And I just work past it.

But how do you determine an equitable way to decide who deserves help? And I ask a third time: Why does 1-in-eight Americans receive food stamps? What is wrong with our society if 1-in-eight people cannot afford to feed themselves according to the criteria the government sets forth?

Food for thought.

We went for a Real ID and ended up with doughuts

Angel Ackerman 3 Comments

Today, my friend Nancy and I embarked on getting her Real ID here in Pennsylvania.

We have prepared for this for weeks. We went online– at least twice– and checked the document requirements. We checked that the federal shut down wouldn’t impact state services. We reviewed the documents ourselves, provided extra ones where we could, and organized them.

Nancy has never had a Real ID, but she has had state-issued photo identification. It expires at the end of the year, and with the nature of life recently and the talk of needing certain forms of identification to enter federal buildings, Nancy thought a Real ID was smart. Nancy is blind, and should she ever have to turn up at the Social Security Office to straighten out any messes, she might need it.

With the rules in general on travel and proving one’s identity, it seems smart indeed.

I went through all the documents. We had an original birth certificate with raised seal, social security card, tax documents, marriage certificate with raised seal, utility bills for proof of address, and who knows what else we had in that envelope.

We could have gone to the local driver’s license center and had them verify our documents. If we passed their inspection, the next step would have been to apply online for the ID. Then, the state would mail a camera card for us to get the photo taken and the final product issued.

I talked Nan into going to the larger center in Whitehall because theoretically they could do everything all at once.

I was optimistic but also pragmatic.

We got there when it opened. There was three regular spaces and two handicapped spaces left open in the parking lot. I chastised Nan for not bringing her parking pass. The center had at least 10 counters open in a space that resembled a small airport terminal. The line extended out the door. We got inside within three minutes, chuckling at the guy behind us who had to answer the guy behind him about what documents he needed to renew his driver’s license.

And then that person loudly proclaimed, “I can’t stand here in line; I have to get to work.”

Then, why did you even show up if you don’t have the documents you need and you don’t have time. I literally cleared my whole day, just in case the wait was long. I had snacks, too.

We progress toward the end of the rug that lines the floor in front of the door. The man in front of us steps off the rug. A security card tersely tells him to get back on the rug.

The first stop is what might be reception desk where you are issued a number based on what you need to do. Nan states her purpose.

The gatekeeper, like a troll guarding a bridge, asked for her state-issued ID.

Boom.

He follows up with a request for her birth certificate.

Boom.

He then asks for social security card.

Boom.

Next, marriage license. Now, if we ace this, we only have proof of address left. I am nervous about the marriage license because all the married and especially divorced women I know have had problems with this step. Nan is nervous about address because she has moved since her state identification was issued.

The gatekeeper unfolds the paper. The one I studied so carefully because it had a raised seal.

“This is just a church certificate,” he said.

“What else would it be?” Nan asked.

As my heart fell, he said what I expected. “It needs to be the marriage license from the county courthouse. You should be able to walk in and pick it up.”

So we didn’t get to proof of address.

And I felt terrible because I knew they were picky, but I don’t know what the county-issued document looks like. I don’t believe they hand those out. I think the officiant files them and you have to request a copy in order to get one.

On the way home, Nan was apologetic and annoyed. I was upset with myself because I knew better.

But then we both got pissed.

Nan got pissed because this feels like another attempt to further impoverish people. If you have a disability or if you have a certain background that makes paper record-keeping difficult, or if you can’t drive or don’t have a car or reliable public transportation, how do you collect these documents and transport them to a formal government office like this? Especially when such places are typically crowded and require patience and waiting; and they are typically open at hours like 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday when normal people are also working.

I got pissed because look what document tripped us up–

The Marriage License.

Have you ever heard of a man being denied something because of a “discrepancy” with his name? (Actually, yes, I have. Men are much more prone to carry the name of a father or grandfather which can cause problems.)

In this case, Nan was denied a Real ID because we don’t have a county marriage license proving she married and changed her name.

But… Nancy has paid her taxes for 30 years with that name.

She has bank accounts in that name, and you can’t open a bank account without proving you are who you say you are.

Nancy receives her social security disability payments in the name of Nancy Scott.

And you know another thing that ALL THOSE OFFICIAL items have in common? The use her social security number as the factor that connects her to everything.

So what does her marital history have to do with anything? This does NOT have to be part of the process. At first I thought it made sense, because obviously you have to explain the name change. But if you have a track record of DECADES of use of the same name in association with your social security number, I don’t see its necessity.

We went back to her house and she did not have a county-issued document recording her marriage. And trust me, if someone had given Nan such a paper, she would have it.

We could have stopped by the courthouse but we opted to call first and went for a doughnut instead– trying the new shop Bill & Siobhan’s No BS Doughnut Shop.

Day 5 of Omada: Wondering if it’s a scam

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

I feel like I have said a lot of this a lot of times so bear with me as I say it again.

The background

About 10 years ago, I decided to try to lose five-to-ten pounds. Approaching my 40th birthday, I needed to shed some weight before my annual physical. I worked at Target at the time where I walked 14,000 to 17,000 steps a day. I started weight training again, primarily because I had broken my right hand at work and could not untwist the soda fountain nozzles at night. No hand strength left. I worked primarily closing shift and I would get up, do my weights and walk 2-4 miles around my neighborhood. Every day. I counted calories and perfected my macronutrients and I felt invincible.

I lost 30 pounds in less than six weeks– while weight training. I dropped too much too fast and I had to buy a fitbit to make sure I was eating enough.

I worked really hard to regain weight and muscle.

But now, I’m approaching fifty. I have reached an all-time high with my weight– weighing the same thing I did on the day my daughter was induced 20 years ago. I have gained a little more than 30 pounds in the four years since the pandemic and a lot of other personal events.

And as someone with a mobility disability, that weight impacts everything even more than it does for the average person. I went to the gym religiously for three years, but I didn’t have the willpower or the finances to stick with good habits. Because it’s cheaper to eat the $1 McChicken and $1 diet Coke than it is to make your own chicken sandwiches.

The present decision: Omada

I know what to do. I understand nutrition and everything I do wrong. But I need someone to hold me accountable because my personal discipline is gone. Today is my sixth day participating in Omada– a free-to-me program through my medical insurance company– and I went on a small binge last night.

Perhaps my opinions will change, but I think Omada is a scam. And I think the bulk of the program is driven by AI.

But let me summarize the philosophy of the program.

There is no calorie counting. No exercise tracking but steps. So if you want your weight-training to count you have to convert it to steps, which makes no sense. I understand the idea behind tracking meal choices and not calories or macros. The program wants you to study your choices and habits to make meaningful change.

I’m using the Omada app AND MyFitnessPal and I’m still not making good choices or creating positive change. I’ve participated in my group’s discussions. And I’ve sent a long introductory message to my coach. And I reported a tech issue regarding my scale the day I received it.

I remedied the problem with the scale, so I thought they saw that I was using it and that’s why they didn’t get in touch. Turns out, it just took a week.

So I told my coach my history, and after the first day of tracking she mentioned she saw evidence of stress eating in my day’s choices. I thought to myself, “Really?”

Now to me, stress eating is eating a family size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. I reviewed my first day’s food. For lunch I had one leftover slice of pizza because I came home from a meeting extremely hungry, and in the evening I had a small individual bag of vegan gummy bears. My calorie count for the day ended around 1400.

Did she think I ate a whole pizza?

I replied, “It was just a busy day. I had a lot of meetings, but I think I made good choices.”

She asked, “Would you like some strategies for eating on the go?”

And I responded, “I have my strategies, but many of them include food I can’t afford right now like my KIND oatmeal breakfast bars that have 8 grams of protein perfect to tide me, and I don’t eat out because my grocery budget is around $100/month.”

Which if you ever read my posts on grocery shopping, you’ll know that’s true.

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She responded with tips like eating slower and putting my utensils down (which my message to her pointed out that I did not eat before the meeting, came home very hungry and then took the easy way out, which has nothing to do with eating too much at meals) and how to be smarter about eating out (when I said I don’t have the money to eat out). I believe this list of suggestions came from a chat bot who recognized the phrase “meetings” “busy” and “on the go.”)

No mention of the fact that my grocery budget is below poverty level. A person might want to address that first.

The research

My reporter’s instincts kicked in at this point.

I was already perturbed that it gave me a step goal of 7500 a day without any consideration of my health, my current activity level or my goals.

As a person who works at home at my desk for nine to twelve hours a day I get about 4000 steps on an average day. If I walk to do my errands or take a leisurely stroll around the mall, I get 6500 steps. The last time I hit 10,000 steps I spent the next day in painful muscle spasms. My point is– you need to gradually increase your activity level, especially if you have preexisting conditions.

To qualify for Omada, you need to have a weight problem, a heart condition or diabetes (or prediabetes). I am overweight, ended up in the hospital with Afib last year and had gestational diabetes which puts me at risk for prediabetes. AND I have cerebral palsy.

For people with heart conditions or obesity, is it safe to suddenly walk 7500 steps a day?

I looked online. How does Omada get paid?

Insurance companies pay Omada based on how much patients interact with their devices.

So, Omada gets paid every time I step on the scale.

This is bullshit.

And last night, after a day of decent eating, I added on an extra 500 calories of a peanut chew-style candy, gin and juice and freeze-dried fruit that I didn’t put on the app.

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People and Dogs: Come on, where’s the common sense?

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

If you don’t know, my daughter– The Teenager about to turn 20– works in the pet care industry, primarily doing dog walks and in-home pet care visits. She is also a dog trainer, and spends a lot of time and energy studying dogs, observing dog body language and finding solutions to people’s problems with their dogs.

She is the one who encouraged me to apply for a service dog, and although I grew up with dogs, she has taught me so much about dogs and why they do what they do.

Her dog, F. Bean Barker, who, will be four this summer, can be reactive and territorial. The Teenager has worked very hard to decrease her dog’s reactivity and expose the dog to situations to improve her tolerance. Today, we took her to a dog park. The dog park is less than two miles away from our home and off-the-beaten path so it’s not as well-traveled as some other local places. It has a lot of green area to explore even outside of the dog park. So, if the dog park is occupied, there is other stuff to do.

This dog park has two sides, one for dogs 25 pounds and under, the other for dogs larger than 25 pounds. Each side has a double gate system, so you can enter the first enclosed room and make sure your dog is ready to enter the other side without risking releasing any dogs already in the park. (In this dog park, there is also a gate between the two sides.)

Now, if you do not have a dog or if you have a rural dog who has no need of a dog park, you may not understand that dog parks can be extremely dangerous. You never know how other people’s dogs will react, and you can find that certain dogs have behaviors that can unnerve the most calm and pleasant dog. Owners often don’t keep close enough control over their dogs inside the park, believing the environment is contained and safe. But just like two normally well-behaved children can suddenly behave like cold-hearted killers on a public playground, dogs can change in this unfamiliar and potentially unmonitored environment.

We know Bean is a good dog, well-trained with a recall, but that she often has a hard time with other dogs especially if they aren’t appropriately socialized. Now, even if you think your dog is “good with other dogs” or “well-socialized,” you may not understand dog body language or stress signals to know how well your dog is doing in a new situation.

Knowing this, we brought plenty of our dog’s favorite treats, put her in a harness and on a prong collar and tucked a can of “pet corrector” into our gear. When we arrived at the dog park, one adult and one child had two small dogs running the entire expanse of both sides of the dog park. The Teenager decided not to engage and walked the dog around the human passive recreation trails.

The family soon left, taking their two small dogs off leash through the parking lot and leaving every gate in the dog park open— the two entering the small dog park AND the interior. That means if someone had entered the large dog park, appropriately, the large dog could have run into the small dog side and exited into the busy parking lot. Really?

Needless to say, this dog grandmother went through and checked every gate before Bean and The Teenager entered.

I sat under the pavilion and watched while Bean and The Teenager explored.

I was technically lookout, because The Teenager had removed Bean’s leash and if another dog came The Teenager wanted enough time to leash her dog and make sure Bean was under control, or at least, obedient.

I looked up from my book (Hunter’s Shea’s Manrattan which I am enjoying very much) and there was an unattended mastiff with no leash standing outside the gate. The Teenager already had Bean outside the dog park and releashed. So, we left.

The owner of the mastiff strolled leisurely to the gate, while his unleashed dog just had free reign. Why don’t people have common sense???

Dogs in public should be leashed. It’s a law. I don’t care how well-behaved your dog is– if it is attacked or frightened, it will end up in a fight. Even the best dog in the world would defend itself in a fight, so regardless of how the fight starts, both dogs could be injured or killed.

And, as someone on a wait-list for a service dog, it angers me to see how many people don’t understand why certain laws exist regarding where dogs can go and how they should be handled. A dog masquerading as a service dog in a store for example not only might create a bad example for real service dogs, but if it is not trained properly it could attack or spook another animal (or a person or a service dog). A service dog that encounters poorly-managed and badly trained animals in public could be attacked or spooked in such a way that it might not be able to do its job, creating a financial and practical hardship for the disabled person relying on that dog.

So please, leash and control your dogs as the laws ask you to do.

Everything Wrong with America

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I miss my more carefree days– which didn’t seem carefree, until now, when I have several appointments after each 8-hour workday in the warehouse, health issues to sort, a job hunt and debt to pay. Life is never simple or easy for most of us, but 2023 has, for me, felt like eternal optimism and hope while being bludgeoned. I get my proverbial sh*t together, and something outside of my control decides to parachute into my life.

When Stitch Fix announced closing the Bizzy Hizzy, they scheduled all sorts of guests and workshops for us as displaced employees. My separation date is September 15, so I have four more weeks, or two more paychecks, depending how you look at it. One of the workshops Stitch Fix hosted, and paid us to attend, was a visit from the state “Rapid Response” team to explain how unemployment and career services from the state work. They handed us a booklet that told us how to survive our layoff. (Surviving a Layoff: Your Guide to a Soft Landing and a Smooth Re-entry by Harry Dahlstrom. Mr. Dahlstrom, I’m sure you’re a very intelligent and likable person, but your advice is written for middle class Americans with two cars and their own house.)

“Remember that emergency fund with three-months pay stashed away…” Oh, Mr. Dahlstrom. Do you not have a child going to college this fall? Or medical debt? Or a used car that needs constant repairs? Or a teenager whose car insurance costs $500/month because of an accident? That’s just me. Others might have a disabled or unemployed spouse, student loans, bad credit that led to predatory loans for everyday items… or maybe they just recently got this job and had been using their credit cards to survive.

“Reduce your thermostat to 68 degrees.” Oh, Mr. Dahlstrom, mine has been at 64 for two decades.

“Trim your entertainment.” I don’t have cable. I don’t have any streaming services (though the Teenager has Spotify, which she pays for, and she also bought HBO Max and made for the year upfront.) I don’t even have home internet, relying on my phone’s hotspot and public connections. I think the last time I went to a movie was two years ago.

“Prepare a weekly menu” and “put back 10 percent of the things in your [grocery] basket.” Oh, Mr. Dahlstrom. I spend $250 on groceries for myself each month, that does not include the Teenager as she buys her own groceries. And I do get coffee or a donut out, which adds up to about $25 a month, which I consider reasonable as, as you mention, I search for discounts.

Other advice includes: “collect old debts,” “turn unwanted things into cash,” “change your lifestyle,” and “bring in the paying customers” using a talent or skill. Because my half-a-double home that I pay about $900/month for is full of useful items? I haven’t even had a vacation in about five years. And my talent? It brings in about $150/month on a good month.

“Unload the family jewels.” Mr. Dahlstrom, I’m so frugal I wouldn’t even let my husband buy me a diamond for my engagement ring. When we got married, we used Irish claddaghs so all I had to do was switch it to the other hand. I don’t own a single piece of jewelry or any item worth anything. My car is a 2015, my computer is a mid-range model, even my Brooks Brothers suit is 15 years old at this point.

But this is what’s wrong with our country. As a society, we assume everyone “poor” or experiencing financial trouble or unemployment is in that situation because they are irresponsible, stupid or did something wrong. And sometimes that poverty or situational bad luck is due to society’s expectations.

For example, starting with my generation (the GenXers) we insisted that our kids go to college and saddled them with loans to do it. Then, we flooded the market with bachelor’s degrees, which rendered them meaningless, and started pumping up the value of master’s degrees. For those of us associated with the arts or wishing to pursue an academic trajectory, a Ph.D. is now required and some perfectly talented individuals with MFAs are now trapped in a life of eternal adjunct status.

And the poor Millennials also fell victim to this higher education fiasco except the cost has skyrocketed and these poor kids are starting their lives with student loan payments that rival my mortgage and they can’t land a job with a living wage so they work in warehouses with the same people who skipped the education in the first place.

Now, add to that the way the medical system works. In my opinion, and this is just my opinion, more people than ever need some sort of medical support in their life. Whether it be disability, illness, mental health struggles or maintenance medication, it seems like more people than ever spend a ridiculous amount of their income on healthcare.

I have been extremely fortunate that my mathematical brain allowed me to calculate costs and I determined that the free to me high deductible health plan, when you included the employer contribution to my health savings account and a $50 contribution from me to that same HSA each paycheck, paid for most of my medical costs this year (except for my mental health therapist, who for some reason, the medical insurance company likes to pretend doesn’t exist. They just won’t communicate with him or pay him).

Now, before I continue on this rant, I don’t understand why healthcare in this country is primarily connected to employers and employment. Why is it an employer’s responsibility to provide access to healthcare? Eliminating this ridiculous practice might be a good first step to getting healthcare under control. If you meet certain criteria, you can qualify for government-sponsored insurance, which also dictates the level of care you receive, and the open marketplace for healthcare is expensive.

I just don’t understand why everyone isn’t pushed to the open marketplace OR why everyone can’t qualify for government insurance. If everyone went to the open marketplace and insurance companies had to compete for individuals instead of corporations perhaps the access to care would change. In other words– even a company like Stitch Fix– has thousands of employees. If insurance company had to court those individuals and families, they would have to work a lot harder to court them versus convincing one corporation to allow them to insure a large group of individuals.

I missed a month of wages after my hospitalization, which due to the one week waiting period, even with my employer-sponsored short term disability insurance, only provided three weeks of wages at less than 67% of my normal wage, and on top of that the company administering those payments misplaced my paperwork which meant I had to repeating submit paperwork and did not get the last week of those wages until one full month after I returned to work. And my doctor had to submit three sets of paperwork. Which, technically, costs $25 a form for the doctor to submit.

And because I have a congenital and permanent mobility disability, I always need physical therapy. But physical therapy sessions cost hundreds of dollars and insurance companies limit access to them. So I hired a personal trainer and pay him $25 a session (which bless him, he has now reduced his rate to contribute toward my fund to pay for my service dog which is another $5,000) and I bet Mr. Dahlstrom would say I should eliminate that from my budget as an extraneous expense.

But Mr. Dahlstrom, I imagine, does not live with a disability and has probably never experience what it’s like to have a leg that just suddenly stops working or a hip that feels like it’s waving to people from my butt. And since my muscles and my brain literally cannot communicate, I have to physically show them what to do so that movement is reduced to muscle memory and does not have to include the brain.

In closing, I’m going to end this long and winding blog post with a celebration that also highlights everything wrong with America. My friend Southern Candy from Stitch Fix turned 65 yesterday and she asked to go to Shady Maple Smorgasbord. That place was SO BIG, I think my whole d*mn town could have dined together. They had so much food and so many cooking stations I think we could have fed a village from a developing nation for a week.

The staff was amazing. The food was quite good. The gift shop was enormous. And in general, it looked like people were only taking what they could eat. But we all ate too much. I had three dinners and two desserts and spend several hours thinking I might vomit. The cajun catfish and the carrot souffle were my favorite. And I really wanted to punch an old man in the face because as I was reaching for the last piece of coconut custard pie, he snatched it away from me.

And the reality of how much food, how many steaks, how many excess calories we were all consuming filled me with such guilt and shame. Our culture, and you can disagree with me, is so centered on gluttony and selfishness. So while I was happy to spend time with my friend, and take a road trip with her, and laugh with her– I have to ask: how can such a place exist? I’m sure the intent, because Shady Maple started decades ago, was to provide a place where people could dine and have a wide variety of choice and not have to chose, or for families to dine together while pleasing difficult eaters. But this was insane.

Beating the clock and Stitch Fix SNAFUs

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

I’m running out of steam– there are so many things to do and to talk about that I just can’t get to them all. And that’s okay.

I have commitments. I was elected president of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group. I have a child enrolling at Lafayette College in a month. I met with a young editor yesterday after my day job at Stitch Fix and absorbed her energy and hopefully helped her on her journey.

The decorations and the Braille are ready for tomorrow’s Disability Pride Lehigh Valley event.

And I manged to NOT put my underwear on backwards as I did on Wednesday.

Sometimes the little wins mean a lot.

In general my blood pressure and orthostatic hypotension symptoms have improved with the increased salt in my diet. If I get a good eight hours of sleep I feel decent. I have to ask if that’s due to the salt, the rest, or my frequent missing of my calorie goals (the other night I went on an eating binge and ate 500 calories of almonds. Who does that?). It also could be my increased stress levels as I’m losing my job in seven weeks.

Seven weeks.

The first medical bills from my March hospital stay has arrived, which like everything else, makes me wonder what’s to follow. I’ve started applying for full and part-time positions–but I really want to get a part-time position in something that will give me knowledge toward building my own business or to string together writing and editing clients.

But I have no savings to pull this off.

*I have a Substack and an underpromoted, underutilized Patreon if anyone wants to support Parisian Phoenix Publishing in those ways.

Substack: Parisian Phoenix Bookish Babble

Patreon: Parisian Phoenix

(And reviewing my own creator dashboard, I set up Patreon a year ago and didn’t do anything with it. Put that on the list, in addition to updating the web site in general.)

My recent experiences as a Stitch Fix client

I have waited more than a decade to launch into my client experience with Stitch Fix. If you’ve read any of my novels, you can probably imagine why. (More about my novels here.)

I started getting fixes around my birthday, which was in May. I had given my employee discount to a friend for a little more than a year, as I did not have the income for new clothes. If you are a regular here, you’ll know that the pandemic and my recent life and lack of discipline have led to a 30ish pound weight gain on my small frame, so that factored into my decision to postpone my fixes. Why buy new clothes if I’m not healthy and back to normal?

The Teenager told me around the Back-to-School season last year that she felt like she didn’t know her own style, because she didn’t get to buy her own clothes. So, I transferred my discount to her. And an employee discount can only be transferred every six months.

This week my fourth fix came. I can’t believe it’s four as I can only remember three, but these days I’m lucky if I can spell my own name.

So I asked for my fourth fix if my stylist could send suggestions for events related to titles launching at Parisian Phoenix Kink. Edgy, kinky, sexy. I even listed brands and ordered everything vegan leather I could find on Freestyle. Like pants. And a really amazing dress. The pants worked out, but the first dress was too small, and the second I did not order in petite so it was too long and for $250 I lost patience and wiggle room on my American Express to find “just right.” I did however find a dress, that although not vegan leather, fit the aesthetic and allowed room for my expanded-since-weight-gain bust size.

With all of this information of what I’d purchased, what I’d returned and why and so many items I had “saved for later,” the AI algorithm that Katrina Lake has bragged about in every podcast appearance I have heard should be able to show my stylist what I want. It should show me what I want.

And the same week Stitch Fix announced it was closing our Pennsylvania warehouse, Gwyneth Paltrow released an episode of her Goop podcast featuring Katrina, with whom she appears to be friends and retreat buddies, bragging about the algorithm and telling the same stories of Stitch Fix’s origins I’ve heard for three years.

Shipping times across the Stitch Fix network have increased, when the company eliminated its second shift (originally implemented for pandemic social distancing, splitting the warehouse staff in half) and asked us to convert to one of two 4-day, 10-hour cycles, the logic was that operating seven days a week (especially in our region where we can ship to anywhere in the continental US pretty much within 24-48 hours) would allow Freestyle orders to land at clients’ homes quickly.

And in my experience as client and employee, it did. My daughter was using my discount at that time and there was one incident when I ordered earrings on Friday night, coincidentally on Sunday morning around 7 a.m. on packed them, and I received them Tuesday morning.

I wrote a blog post (here). And I also made an unboxing video.

Now it often takes two weeks to receive an item. And we’re not even closed yet!

So, my fix preview comes. And I am very disappointed. I can see why the algorithm has selected certain items based on my past Fix purchases, but it’s like it has completely ignored the pile of things I have ordered from Freestyle since my last Fix.

Are you all still with me? Okay. So, the box arrives and I’m soooooo excited to see what kind of party outfit my stylist picked out. I know there’s a pink dress but everything else is a surprise. I ask The Teenager if she wants to see me open it.

She says, “Sure.”

And she starts the video. I open the material inside, and I see the “first fix” card that goes out to new clients. I am not a new client. I look at the Style Card and the name is not mine, the stylist is not mine and the fix is not mine. Now, despite the fact that I work for Stitch Fix and I fold and prepare 130+ of these fixes a day… despite the fact that this box came from our warehouse… and despite the fact that I also have performed the role of the person who prints, folds and drops the little envelope in the box…

In this moment, I am a client. It’s like all knowledge I have of of the process falls out of my head. (And it’s all on video you can watch it.)

“This is not my fix,” I say, despite the fact that I have already shown the camera a bundle with a pink dress in the middle.

I had glanced at the style card and saw that Becca, the client, had received athletic clothes and sneakers and I clearly had heels in that box.

I shoved the entire fix in the return envelope without even opening it. I was so angry and disappointed.

In my disoriented anger, I did not know that there was only a brief moment before check out that I could see the style card and note from my stylist that accompanied my fix. And I zoomed right by it as I started to realize that they were my clothes. And I recalled seeing some notes from my stylist about how the system wasn’t giving her the types of clothes I wanted so she tried to build some outfits based on what I had. But I had clicked past the note without fully reading it.

And now it’s gone.

Remember, I have waited more than a decade for these fixes. I have no clothes that fit because I gained weight during the pandemic. I am losing my job and I need clothes for interviews, business and launch parties.

I email customer support and ask for a copy of my stylecard.

At 4 a.m. the next morning, as I get dressed for work, I realize: I can peel the sticker off the box, research it and probably find my own damn style card. But we change in-house warehouse management systems so often I can’t remember which app does what I need it to do. I ask a lead– because now I realize one of the people who prints the style card is the one who screwed up my whole experience. She refreshes my memory.

I look up my package and realize my cat-loving friend Tom delivered my shoes to the picker, and that I know the name of the picker who ran around the warehouse on my behalf. The person who QC’ed my package– that’s the same job I normally do– was probably in the line next to mine. And then I see it. The person who handled my package last. It’s someone who is very good at her job and even gave me some tips once we moved to regular day shift.

This person means well, but punctuates her sentences with things like, “it’s not your fault. You second shift people weren’t trained properly.” I didn’t tell her she screwed up my box, and my animosity about the whole experience faded when I saw her name at the end of the line.

And my brain thought to itself, “it figures.”

By then, customer support had emailed me a PDF of my style card. Which I could have printed at work. But they offered to mail me a copy. So I thought, “Why not?”

I thanked the customer support person who took the time to explain to me how the warehouse works (because they always blame the warehouse, no one wants to hear that the beloved algorithm is broken). And I told her, “Yes, please mail me a copy. That would be lovely.”

I haven’t received it yet, but I do keep them. But that’s a blog entry for after my separation date.

I decide that maybe I’ll order one more fix, since I paid for the style pass so I won’t lose any money. And the preview comes… and guys… this one nails it.

It’s due to arrive at the end of the week, so here’s hoping this story has a happy ending.

The fire that proved local news coverage is garbage

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Once upon a time, as the French would say, “il etait une fois…” I was a newspaper reporter. It’s a rare breed of professional that existed before the internet made the job so much easier, before the best news coverage was the team who did it most completely and factually, not the people who got it to their public first. So much “news” is a person standing around reporting what they see, versus doing the research to tell the story. We’ve lost sight of the full story.

This morning, as my alarm went off at 6 a.m., I read some posts on social media that read that people all over the Lehigh Valley were seeing (and posting their views of) a fire in tiny West Easton, a borough nestled among Easton proper, Wilson borough and miniscule Glendon, all part of the 18042 zip code.

I put on my glasses, as dawn threatened to break, and I thought about how bright the sky had seemed when I woke about 40 minutes before my alarm and went back to sleep. With my glasses secure on my face, I saw black smoke and orange glow billowing in the distance.

I walked to my sun porch and surveyed the scene before returning to my lap top to seek reputable news coverage. WFMZ was the only local media outlet who had any coverage of the three alarm fire (which if you know the area, it logically has to be a three alarm fire because West Easton has, depending on the website and the census attributed, about 1200 residents. That’s according to the 2010 census, and other less easily confirmed statistics credited to 2019 don’t seem too different.

So, West Easton has what is common in small communities around Pennsylvania– a volunteer fire department. With fire of this visible magnitude, even without getting the other facts: that it’s an industrial fire, that it might include propane or chemicals, it threatens multiple buildings, it is near the river, etc… (This is also a town that has disbanded and reinstated their police department to save money.) They are obviously going to get assistance from the two professional fire companies near the site.

Both Wilson Borough and Easton City have professional fire stations about a mile away.

This is an expanded version of the original news coverage produced by WFMZ, and they did a decent job. Probably because they are the only local media with a morning show, so they had bodies in the newsroom at 5 a.m. No one else locally does.

Now, I had an 8 a.m. appointment on the other end of the valley. So I called up Google maps to see what businesses were in the area reported by WFMZ. They had mentioned “large warehouse” and “Main Street and Lehigh Drive.” That’s about all the info you need to pinpoint a location in a town as small as West Easton.

The map suggest that the warehouse complex itself contains several businesses: Johnson Motor Lines, Sandt Honey, Lehigh Custom Components and Ferocity Metal. A different map shows Latro Cellular Forensics Lab and Xtreme Custom Coatings.

But the next news “update” was from the new news organization, LehighValleyNews.com, which does not have a print operation, only online, but has recycled many familiar faces from the Valley’s daily print journalism past. I found this post around 7 a.m.– two hours after the fire started– and much of the so-called reporting focused on what casual observers had posted on Facebook and other social media sites.

Speaking of social media sites… There are reports of hazmat crews, exploding propane tanks, air quality issues and, of course, parents terrified to send their kids to school both in the community where the fire is burning (Wilson Area School District) and the one next door (Easton Area School District). There were also unconfirmed reports of fire hydrant failures in West Easton (which, I can’t imagine they have many of them in that general area to start with) and rumors that firefighters had to rely on water from the Lehigh River and pumper trucks from various area fire departments.

From the bevvy of amateur drone and street photography from the fire that I have seen, I have noticed firefighters using river water on the fire, but regardless of the status of the fire hydrants, this makes sense.

Also around 7 a.m., a news helicopter appeared above my house. I assumed, correctly, that it was a news helicopter because 1. it retreated from the smoke instead of going deeper into it to fight the fire. I also guessed it was from Philadelphia, about 60 miles away, because none of our news agencies have the resources for a helicopter. Not in today’s world. It appears that original helicopter was from CBS, followed by two news helicopters for the lunch broadcast. One of which was ABC. Seriously? A fire in a small town in Northampton County warrants this much attention?

The Morning Call, who used to employ me as a print community reporter for its weekly paper and allowed me to freelance for the daily, followed with their piece by 9 a.m. Again, no real news added to the situation, they all appeared to be recycling each others’ coverage.

By the time I returned from my appointment around 9:30 a.m., the view from route 78 suggested that the fire had blanketed the county in a layer of smoke and ash, but the color had already started to pale. In the photo, taken at the route 33 exist, the plume on the right is the smoke, and one can see it traversing the nearby municipalities.

The electricity is out for a wide range of people, creating a lack of traffic lights in busy 25th Street intersections, like by the Aldi and Lidl. It looks like Freemansburg Avenue may be the dividing line for those with power versus those without. And, for the record, the average local driver seems to have forgotten that busy intersections with no signal become a four-way stop. But what I witnessed was a great big game of chicken.

I haven’t called any mayors, or police departments, or fire departments. And I didn’t attempt to get to the scene. Which are all things I would do if I were still a reporter. And I’d call council members if I had to.

And the web reveals that Latro is a lab that helps law enforcement extract data from cell phones. Sandts sells multiple varieties of local honey. According to the Federal Carrier Motor Safety Administration, Johnson carries a little bit of everything and has an unblemished safety record. Ferocity Metal’s Facebook page calls them a metal supplier, though the pictures imply the business is small and specializes in artistic, individualized pieces. Xtreme Custom Coatings is a powder coating business with many positive Google reviews.

It’s now 12:30 p.m. The helicopters have departed and the skies look normal, even if the air does have a strange ash smell to it.

Kudos to the Express-Times for putting a real reporter on the story.

Reflections on Roe vs Wade

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

I spent 15 years of my working life as a print journalist and often I still look at the world stifling my opinions in order to present fairness, equity and facts.

It’s not dissimilar to what some of my small, family-oriented business owning friends say: that you don’t want to alienate those who trust you.

But I grow more and more disheartened by our country every day. With the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade 6 to 3, abortion will be legislated by the States.

“Conservatives” (I say that because America has a long history of not really using the terms conservative and liberal correctly) and pro-Lifers will rejoice. But I am agitated at the illogical rhetoric that our country throws out there when we, as a society, need to tackle important issues. And both sides seem ridiculously unwilling to compromise in any way. Cooperation is a dirty word to our leaders.

All of this is my opinion and here are my lamentations:

  • The logic of changing (and probably eliminating) the right to abortion is usually centered on protecting the unborn. Who is clamoring to take care of all of these unborn? What if the fetus has serious complications? What if the parents are severely impoverished or facing homelessness or addiction? What if the parents are unstable emotionally? We are a society that traditionally does not have the kindest or most efficient or even equitable healthcare, foster care or support for the disabled.
  • So, when we start talking about abortion, it’s an issue of individual rights, isn’t it? And a couple years ago when we started talking about a public health crisis— the pandemic— a lot of people who are probably very keen on pro-life sentiments also balked about the prospect of wearing a mask or mandating mRNA vaccines. Now I still don’t like mRNA technology but I understand my responsibility as the member of society and the philosophical concept of the greater good, so I got the damn “vaccine.” But the same people who say it’s a violation of personal rights and bodily autonomy to wear a mask or force a needle often think it’s perfectly okay to interfere with a woman’s bodily autonomy and health when it comes to abortion— and these same people have no concern or interest about what happens to the woman during pregnancy or to the baby upon birth.
  • This baby, this unborn life, is protected but we live in a land where guns are easily available and shootings are becoming as commonplace as Starbucks. Children can find guns and shoot other children. Teachers die in mass shooters in classrooms. Worshipping people die in churches but we value the sanctity of unborn life. To have a gun is a second amendment right. So protecting life against guns cannot by done, or so they say.
  • The big problem in this country stems from ignorance and poverty. Corporations and politicians, run by those who have financial assets, decide who has opportunity and education. Schools are woefully unequal even a mere mile apart. So while we are taught to work hard and we might achieve anything, it’s just not true.

Exploring my Disability update and Podcast review: Disability After Dark

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I am scheduled for a CT scan of my brain at 1:30 today. The neurologist’s office called at 9 a.m. and warned me that the insurance company has not authorized it yet.

Update: it is now 12:30 p.m. and the neurologist’s office has called and has canceled by CT scan.

I’m disappointed for two reasons: 1. I was excited to have to pay much less for my CT scan because my deductible was met (and do I dare to conspire that maybe the insurance company is dragging their feet so I have to pay for it?) and 2. I want to see my brain.

I would love to see a functional MRI of my brain but that will never happen as I have a dental implant and while that gives me a good structure for my missing tooth, the MRI would rip that metal out of my head.

Cerebral palsy is a condition that occurs when either at birth or after birth the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen and therefore, I am assuming here, dies.

But children are amazing creatures and brains rebuild and rewire as best they can.

In my case, I have hemiplegic cerebral palsy that causes symptoms in my lower body. Quadriplegic cerebral palsy effects both halves.

Cerebral palsy is a static condition, which means it doesn’t get worse or get better. Although, everyday wear and tear on the body can be exacerbated by awkward movements, which causes premature aging.

My neurologist assessed me and came up with some malfunctions, including these:

  • I have spasticity in my legs— specifically in my quads and calves. This means my muscles do not relax. Stretching the muscle groups forces them to move and is as close to relaxing as they get. Stillness often causes stiffness. So literally standing up from my bed and walking after a good nights sleep makes me feel like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.
  • My feet naturally turn inward and I don’t have the range of motion I should have in my ankles. My left foot specifically likes to try and hang out under my right foot when I walk.
  • My feet don’t have the correct temperature sensitivity. This explains why I never feel my feet are cold until they are purple. And why once they are cold, it’s practically impossible to get them warm again.

I’ve been researching everything I can find on cerebral palsy and an interesting podcast is Andrew Gurza’s Disability After Dark. He originally started the podcast as a sex podcast for people with disabilities but, as a disability advocate, has interviewed a wide range of people and covered a wide range of topics. He’s also launching a sex toy line for people with disabilities.

Like any podcast, some episodes are stronger than others based on the guests, but I love his diversity in interviewing people with a broad range of experiences. And he is very honest about his life and brings that same level of truth out of those he features.

The notion of emotional support and work in American society

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

Yesterday left me thinking a lot about the notion of friendship and emotional support. As I continue to navigate the death of my father, the gestures I see from those around me touch my broken heart in ways I never imagined possible.

And recent events, from how Stitch Fix handled the recent shift change to how they handled my father’s death, shows me that successful businesses— even American ones with an international presence and millions of clients— don’t have to be jerks.

The dog and I were sitting on the sunporch yesterday waiting for one of my crazy cat lady friends to stop by. She wanted copies of my novels to give to her sisters for Christmas (and I need more fans) and she once cared for Mars and Minerva while they were on their pet store tour.

(Speaking of Mars— he has the prettiest purr. Check it out here. And maybe adopt him. Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab.)

While Bean and I were waiting, an older man pulled up in front of my house and starting rooting around in the hatch/cargo area of his SUV. And he gets out a big bouquet of flowers.

Did someone send me flowers? Who do I know who is fancy enough to send flowers?

They came in a big glass vase with white roses and baby’s breath, and these lovely periwinkle filler flowers that I know I should know the name of because I did take high school horticulture.

I struggle to unfold the card. And I discover it’s from Stitch Fix. So I know I have a warehouse job. I know I fold clothes with everybody else. I am considered an unskilled worker, over educated for my position.

But I feel like Stitch Fix is the first company I’ve worked for to treat everyone of us like we are people, and not just interchangeable bodies in a process.

My warehouse job has paid the same amount of money as my last professional job— and removed so much stress and feelings of inadequacy from my life.

Professional positions or even common retail positions have controlled my life— constantly making it clear that “they” feel it is my privilege to work for them.

When my cat Opie had cancer I went into the computer system and requested to use some of my accrued paid time off so I could be at home after he got his leg amputated. I was working for Target at the time, about 36 hours a week so of course I didn’t qualify for medical benefits or anything because I was “part-time.” I had worked for Target for almost a decade.

They didn’t know it, but I had already accepted a professional position at a local non profit, but because of Opie’s surgery and other home circumstances, I had asked to start on the first day of the next month.

Now, after Christmas a few months prior, a guest had called the store and accused me of a racist act the day prior. This person of color had gathered all of the remaining food from the cafe, set it aside for 20 minutes, and not paid for it. She spent the entire time on the phone. I finally asked her if she was ready to pay for it and she left the store angry. Her husband called the next day. She never went to a supervisor, never said anything to me, just went home.

And the investigation determined that because I talk with my hands, I was angry and threatening with her. Despite witnesses saying the contrary. Despite almost ten years with the company.

So I got written up. This means if I did anything else wrong in the next year they could fire me. This meant I couldn’t apply for any promotions (despite the fact that my supervisor had left and I had been running my department during fourth quarter).

This is why I finally had enough and looked for a new job. And my marriage was in trouble and I needed to make more than $12 an hour.

I mention this because one of my Target friends just got fired for a similar incident where a customer was clearly out of line, and Target took their side. Even though this employee had been with the company since 2009. Just boom— fired.

And do you know what happened when I requested off? My manager denied it. I was too important to take time off.

But not important enough to pay a living wage.

But not important enough to defend when a customer was out of line.

But not important enough to provide medical insurance.

I went back to the computer and gave my two weeks notice. Except the store manager begged me not to go. And we agreed I could have the time off and I would work Saturdays to help train my new supervisor. Who turned out to have no interest in our department, ignored our breaks and wouldn’t listen to anyone but herself.

And when I called her out on it, because my peers wouldn’t do it because they needed the job, the same manager that denied my time off tried to fire me.

It didn’t work, but I never worked another day at Target, so they “got their way.”

And don’t even get me started on my experiences in “professional” employment.

If you have a job where you like going to work and your boss is a human, treasure it. It’s getting rarer.

So, yes, even though Stitch Fix is metrics driven and can be physically taxing, I have felt more like a person in their employment than I have in years.

More to come on the definition of “friend” later. So many generous acts have happened since my father’s death.