Mishaps and other haps

A few weeks ago, I purchased airline tickets via Travelocity for our trip to Maine in May for Joe’s graduation from Bowdoin.

Late this week, I received an email that there were problems with our schedule and we had an “invalid connection time.”  I tried to call Travelocity on Thursday afternoon and became frustrated with being on hold, so I sent an email expressing my frustration to Travelocity and waited until this morning to call again and speak to a warm body to reschedule.

I have learned two things from this experience:

1) Emailing when frustrated is usually NOT recommended, say, if you’re dealing with an issue at work or an issue with a friend, but it can be VERY effective in scoring better customer service.  However, you must take it upon yourself to be articulate and clear.  Do not do anything inappropriate (using swear words, etc).  Expressing your discontent with poor customer service is valid and you have the right to do so.  It will help alleviate the pain caused by the poor service AND companies need to hear when they are not doing well by their customers.

2) Never, ever, EVER respond to a voice automated system.  If you respond, you will get lost in the system and will never talk to a warm body.  If you keep silent, the system will (usually) transfer you to the first available warm body.

So, I’ve been having eczema flare-ups for the past two or three weeks, for the first time in seven or eight years.

The previous bout of eczema back in 2002 or 2003 was my first experience with this kind of skin irritation and it was frustrating to attempt to figure out what was causing it, what it was, and how to treat it.  After being unable to sleep nights for itching and scratching, I even wondered if the apartment I had moved into the previous Fall was infested with mites or bedbugs!

I ended up seeing a dermatologist, but it took a couple of months to get in to see him.  By the day of my appointment, there was nothing to show.  Eczema is weird in that it flares up in random places, responds to treatment slowly, and then you have to monitor it for a while and continuously guard against irritants (often something as simple as fragrance in soap or detergent) and moisturize.

Now I know what to do to repair the condition and I even suspect that I know the culprit.  Bath and Body Works products (in this case, their shower gels) are the worst.  I somehow forgot how harsh they are and started using them again.  I’m pretty sure they wore my skin down over time and I wasn’t consistently moisturizing to counteract the harm.  My mistake.

So I:

1) Halted use of fragranced soaps.  The dermatologist explained that “unscented” soaps often still have a masking fragrance.  So only soaps that are “fragrance free” will do.

2) Made sure to keep my showers cooler and shorter.  Hot water and long showering times can cause further irritation.

3) Switched to completely fragrance-free detergent for at least a few wash loads (the low-fragrance detergent I have been using for a long time usually isn’t a problem)

4) Started application of Eucerin or Aquaphor at least twice a day to affected areas.  Eucerin is the best brand of lotion I have found for all-purpose use and to treat severely dry skin.  Aquaphor is Eucerin’s amazing super moisturizing ointment.  Use with caution, as it will completely paste your clothes to your skin.

5) Watched the type of fabrics I wore when flare-ups were bad.  Cotton is the most comfortable fabric to wear when skin is irritated, in my experience.  Wools and synthetic fibers are right out.  Even my Smartwool socks were making my legs itch around the ankles.

I think I have the problem under control now.  I am continuing to apply moisturizer after my morning shower and before bedtime and I will continue to use fragrance-free soaps for some time to come (Skin Free is the brand I am using now, but I also have a small stockpile of fragrance-free Dove).

Tom brought over a humidifier to try, in case dryness in our house was contributing, so we have had that in the bedroom a couple of nights, too.

Thinking ahead to St. Patrick’s Day next week, I have pulled out a cookbook I picked up a year or two ago called Celtic Folklore Cooking and am flipping through it with the intention of making a nice loaf of soda bread or scones, or perhaps Oat Bread (there is a quick bread recipe in my cookbook that calls for buttermilk– that should make for a yummy loaf!).

I don’t usually do any special cooking or baking for St. Patrick’s Day.  It seems to sneak up quickly once we reach March and I’m lucky if I remember to leave the house with a bit of green on.  But maybe this year I will start a new tradition.

My cookbook has a breakfast side dish called “Pratie Oaten” that sounds interesting.  It’s a sort of fry bread made of mashed potatoes and oatmeal.  Maybe I’ve been a little too keen on the oatmeal lately.  At some point, I am going to put the oatmeal down slowly and back away, but it’s still what I crave every morning for breakfast (and some evenings for dinner) right now.  The Midwest is cool in March and this week it’s rainy and foggy.  Warmer weather will probably scare us oatmeal devotees into eating cold cereal again.

I picked up a new cookbook this week called Cookies! that focuses on recipes from the British Isles, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.  It looks to be full of very hearty (oatey and/or seedy) cookie recipes that will need to be tested in coming months and years.

Well, I have been thinking about the reasons I haven’t been taking the time to blog much in the past few months.

I realize that a lot of my blogging in 2009 centered on wedding prep stuff, the day itself, and our honeymoon.  I really do try to focus on positive topics when I write and the wedding was a great thing for me to focus attention on.

I feel like I have not really adjusted well to changes in our social life over the past few years and I keep hearkening back (in my mind) to the “golden” period before we bought our house (say, 2004/2005).  I think that was the best social group I have ever fit into in my whole life, overall.  I’ve had closer friends here and there during my life (individuals that I really connected with deeply), but I am not usually as comfortable in groups and that was one time that the group dynamic really worked for me.  I really felt at ease and connected.  Gradually, this group began to change as people moved out and in.  Things change, people change, and the dynamic is different now.

Maybe having a house makes things different.  Michael and I have been adjusting to owning a house together (and with a roommate) and that’s really a big adjustment when you have different personalities, needs for space, hours of business, etc.  It’s been almost four years and I think we are more situated than we were, but still not completely and easily situated.  I am particularly slow to adjust to changes that involve friendship and living space and I think I have upset people along the way.  I’d like to feel that my adjustments haven’t provoked any passive-aggressive behavior or feelings, but I feel that there is some subtle hostility directed toward me sometimes.  I tend to withdraw from social interactions and activities that make me uncomfortable.

A few years ago I felt much more outgoing, social, active, and more self-confident in general than I do at the moment.  I blame it on great social dynamics and a strong friend network because I am the same-old, same-old Lisa I have always been.

So, there’s a lot going on in my head.  I am very sensitive to what is going on around me and a few casually-snide remarks have stuck with me.  It makes me wonder what people think– and when they think these things, do they really think about them?

Ah, social groups.  Well, one thing I have learned is that I enjoy and have fun with groups of people when the dynamics are right, but when those dynamics fall flat, I kind of wish I was elsewhere– like maybe a nice vacation  with my sweetie, preferably somewhere with mountains.