vague wave from the Great Not-so-White North

I feel like heading this "Out-of-area woman stares confusedly at screen," probably because I was just looking at Making Light, where people on open threads use "area woman/man does X" to introduce descriptions of events in their lives. And part of why I am vaguely out of context is that I am, literally, out of area right now, meaning among other things without my usual bookmarks and all.

I am lazing quietly about in Montreal. My caffeine intake is all out of sync the last couple of days: not the amount, but the timing. I'm not sure I actually napped this afternoon, but I came close. It's very early spring here (crocuses and the first magnolias), and the Air Canada pilot welcomed us to the Great White North on landing, but the snow melted a while ago and my parka is back in New York.

If I can get my hosts' computer to cooperate, I will be telling the Unemployment Insurance people that I was out of area/unavailable to work two days, and actually worked one, either this week or next (they use Monday-Sunday weeks), instead of unavailable three each. There's no clear definition of my "area" for this, but the person I talked to said mine does not include Quebec. But freelance/self-employment counts as work, and I figure if I proofread for money from Montreal, that's work just as if I did it at home.

Apologies

[cross-posted from a Making Light open thread]

I am starting to think that real and/or effective apologies tend to be brief. Otherwise they go from "I'm sorry for this mistake, I understand how it must have upset you" through "I can't deny that I'd be bothered too" to "While I'd like to attempt to 'explain' how it happened, I understand that a) an explanation won't undo what was done and b) in the end, as the writer and editor of the newsletter's content, the buck must stop with me."

And then several paragraphs of attempting to explain how it happened, including naming someone else who was involved and implying that it was more her fault than his. (That he referred to her as "the young woman who handles data entry" doesn't help.)

Since I can't think of anything useful to say to this person, given that he is no longer involved with the organization in question, I'm posting here rather than try to give him a brief course in how not to apologize.

[On the underlying issue, I am more amused than annoyed: my high school alumnae/i association somehow decided that two alumni with the same surname must be married rather than siblings, and mentioned us in an article about married alumni. It's the sort of thing that makes a person wonder about alumni publications.]

ETA April 17: Yesterday I got an apology from the head of the Alumnae/i Association. Again, she notes that a simple check should have caught the error, and that the problem was probably human error in the original data entry: but it's brief, and doesn't imply that this means she, the editor, or the organization aren't responsible. (I almost didn't read the email, because it was from an unknown name with no subject, but that's a separate issue of How to Do It.)