Here's an odd question:

My niece's friend M. will be catsitting for me while I'm out of town this weekend. I've never met her but Sarah recommended her; they both have done petsitting for years for their professors. She's asking $13 per visit. I'm only needing her to come by once a day, for three days. I feel like that's too low - only $39? I was expecting to pay her $150! I'm happy not to pay that much, but what do I do? Just say okay to what she asked for? I wonder if she thought I'd want her more than once a day, and so was expecting to get more like twice that, and won't want to do it for so little. It hardly seems like it would be worth it to her.

Right after Prague, I remember fleeing a Smith's grocery store in Flagstaff

Oh, yeah. Even now I prefer my little hippie co-op, and hate "real" grocery stores.

There are certain things that even now, eight years later, I have a really hard time not saying in Romanian. "Poftim" when I hand someone something, "asa" long and drawn out like "I see..." for two examples.

Oh! I learned "poftim" from BBC's Top Gear! It means, like, "here, have a thing," right?

Right after Prague, I remember fleeing a Smith's grocery store in Flagstaff, simply getting totally overwhelmed by the bread selection and Bright!Lights! and manic energy.

My friend, Sue, had this problem when she came back from two years in the Peace Corps in Senegal. The superabundance seemed grotesque after living through a few famines over there.

Welcome to never feeling like an American, no matter what the paperwork says.

She's asking $13 per visit. I'm only needing her to come by once a day, for three days. I feel like that's too low - only $39? I was expecting to pay her $150! I'm happy not to pay that much, but what do I do? Just say okay to what she asked for?

If she was staying there, sure. But for a once a day visit I think that's fine. Throw her $50 if it makes you feel better.

I just dressed down a Time Warner webchat guy. Never say "with all due respect" to a customer. Just, don't.

It's not the same degree of culture shock, but I always used to thrill at the moment when I knew I was back in the US (from Europe) - when I was confronted with the incredibly NYC-style laydeez who bossed everyone around at the airport shuttle area at JFK. There is nobody like that anywhere in the world but America, and honestly, it's pure New York. (And amusingly, I'd bet that at least half were 1st-generation Americans.)

Zen, now I (ab)use my neighbors' goodwill (and buy them wine or leave cookies and return favors,) but when I had a couple staying at the house when I was in Nepal/Bhutan, I think it was $30/day, and that was you know, staying here and 2 shots a day. I used to pay the kids at my old place $10/day to come over and feed and water and scoop.

I think my vet charged $17/day plus a medication fee for boarding per cat, but that was a couple years ago.

I suspect two monitors would just increase my goofing off by 66%.

Most of the time, one has work stuff and the stupid ancient IE that is still the firm default, and the other has Firefox with gmail, here, and any other personal stuff I am looking at.

I do sometimes have work on both monitors, but not all that often.