Clothes. Good call!

I'm 600 words away from finishing a fic due today, too. Come on, words.

Happy birthday, Ginger!

We only had three small groups of trick or treaters last night: first, a group of high school boys without costumes; then three kids from the family across the street; then four young kids with their parents, not sure where they live. Had an awkward moment with the last group of kids, when I told them all to take two pieces of candy and one girl clearly took three, which I saw and gently reiterated, "Just two," and she put one back. Then when they were leaving and I was asking one of the boys if he'd gotten his two pieces, the girl lingered and said something to her dad, and he said, "Aw, she wouldn't lie," and told her to get another piece of candy. I let her, of course, but still felt weird about it, like maybe the dad thought I was calling his kid a liar...?

Anyway, the second group of kids (from the family across the street) were ADORABLE: one was a ladybug, one was Little Red Riding Hood (without the hood -- difficult to guess!) and then the youngest was Spider-Man. He was very excited to catch a glimpse of our kitties. SO cute, and I was glad to get a chance to talk to the kids for a minute. I see them playing on the street sometimes, riding bikes around, when I get home from work, but we've never exchanged more than a wave and a "Hi." I hope we get a chance to meet their parents soon. It would be great to get to know another family with young kids on our block!

Happy Birthday, Ginger!

Fic harder, Amy!!

So I guess the government passed some law limiting some fees that banks could charge, so B of A decided they were still entitled to make the same amount of money as before, so they just invented a new fee.

As part of the Dodd-Frank Act (the banking act of -- good grief, was it just last year), Congress required the Federal Reserve to enact a rule limiting the interchange fee that banks could charge to merchants for processing each debit card transaction. The Federal Reserve enacted that rule, and the maximum was about half of what banks currently charge.

I'm oversimplifying like mad, but that's the basic course of events. The debit card fee was a response to the limit on the interchange fee.

Happy birthday, Ginger!

I remember reading Netflix lost 800,000 members, but that seems high. Some of them were no doubt due to the increase in fees, not just the proposed split in companies. Which still stands.

BofA was about to lose me to Chase, when it was reported that other banks were backing down and they weren't. That, at least, was easier and more familiar than finding a credit union.

Yeah, I'm still outtie from BofA, but I have to get the stones together to do it.

Happy Birthday, Daniel! How are you healing?

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!

And I'm doing better. I'll be seeing my PCP this Friday.

Also fighting for disability pay that's being withheld.

I got to spend a good chunk of my morning doing research on a company named ppstream.

eta: At least the name got the partner giggling too.

Arrrgggg. Noodle has had a habit of curling up by my neck and licking my cheek with the occasional move to my ear which then sometimes turns into a cat wet willy. Ok, annoying, but I've learned to distract her when she goes for my ear.

Today, she has moved on to my hair. I am not used to having a cat who loved to lick like this.

An interesting article on the legal aspects of how your non-work activities can impact your employment.

As Occupy Wall Street protests lingered in many cities, observers noted that a sizeable portion of employees feared that if they joined the protests and their employers found out, they’d be fired. That rumor piqued our interest in legal and employer responses to an interesting category—legal, off-duty conduct.

Who defines what’s permitted? We learned of a freelance broadcaster who (1) participated in a Washington, DC, protest, and (2) was told by National Public Radio (NPR) that her services were no longer needed. Perhaps NPR feels that all broadcasters should publicly display only a neutral face on political issues. But no wonder protesting employees worry about their employers’ reactions.

We asked Attorney Peter Gillespie, in Fisher and Phillips’s Chicago office, to walk us through some of the implications of off-duty conduct. First, he noted, many state laws specify that off-duty use of tobacco and/or alcohol is a protected right, because both are legal. Off-duty smokers are protected in 29 states, but not in the other 21. And, said Gillespie, eight states—IL, MN, MO, MT, NC, NV, TN, and WI—protect off-duty use of any legal product. Illinois goes further, barring employers from investigating or collecting records of any employee’s legal, off-duty conduct. Louisiana permits legal off-duty political activities.

But most remaining states have no provisions regarding any legal conduct, such as joining a protest march or sit-in, other than smoking. Gillespie notes that many states prohibit employers from including arrest records in prehire background checks. But what about a current employee who’s arrested? Often, in Gillespie’s experience, the worker runs out of PTO time, and/or cannot meet the terms of the employer’s call-in policy for absence. In such cases, the employer can terminate the individual for “abandoning” the job.

And if a state has no protective laws? An employee who feels that he or she was unjustifiably let go because of legal, off-duty conduct can sue for violation of the constitutional right to privacy or to free speech. And, based on the facts, an ex-employee can win such a suit.