Brown Thursday? Are you kidding me?

I mean, what makes it brown? The shadiness of forcing minimum wage part timers away fro their families so the rich can get richer? That is shady, to say the least.

It's been a big item in the news and on social media this last week.
Boycott Walmart -- after you start a riot over a tv.
Don't shop K-mart, Target, Big Buy, Best Guy, etc --make sure you bundle up while you wait in line even before Thanksgiving.
Other news stories about how more people than ever will be eating out. Well, they wouldn't/couldn't if the damn restaurants were closed, could they?
Unless they want to line up two frigid nights ahead of time.
Oh, gee, if I want to wait for a meal I can just go "Home" for the holiday and spend it with family!
Silly me.


I would love to blame the media.  Heaven knows they feed the frenzy. Out interviewing the idiots waiting in line on Wednesday. In the stores , with cameras and publicity and regalia and rigmarole on Thursday.
But, in this case, they are doing their job, somewhat. They are reporting on the news.
Not that there is anything "NEW" going on -- this is the fourth or fifth year for this nonsense.

I think they could help.
They don't need to report their precise location when they are broadcasting the Idiot's Lineup.
They don't need to tell everyone which mall they are covering.
They don't need to reveal sale items.

People want to be on tv (and You Tube) and they want to be known for getting good deals.
The stores want all the free publicity they get, and the News Outlets give them that in spades. They don't have to pay a penny.
It's all profit for them.

And that's all you are, if you are foolish enough, or maybe desperate enough (if you happen to be one of the slave wage laborers.)
You are profit.
You are dollar signs.
You are dollars.

You are not a person.
You are not a parent.
You are not a valued ... (customer, consumer, member of the team, part of the staff-- you choose.)

You are profit.

So -- how do you see yourself?

And did you spend your Thanksgiving stuffing your face or stuffing their already bulging wallets?

They Think You're Stupid

One of the worst things about not working has got to be daytime TV.

One of the worst things about daytime TV has got to be the commercials.

Lately, these seem to have gotten worse. Many of them sound like they are talking down to you, some just use bad grammar -- and bad English, too!
There are some, I'm sorry to say, that seem to be actively looking for stupid people as their main source of customers.

This may even be true; I don't know. Maybe that is who they look to for a customer base. How hard can it be to confuse stupid people and get their money,after all?

The worst offender, commercial-wise, is LoanMax. This is a company that makes title loans on cars. Their main clientele, I think, is people who can't get a bank loan, even using their car as collateral. Banks don't want to make small loans, for one thing, and for another, they don't like older cars.
Title loan businesses know two things banks refuse to acknowledge. 1)People will generally pay to keep their car when it's all they have and 2) if it runs, they will likely get their money back at auction, if it should go that far. Maybe not all their (outrageous) interest, but at least the original loan.

The procedure is similar to a bank loan.  You get a loan using the car as collateral. If you ever try to sell the car, you have to pay off the loan/lien first.

Loan Max ads feature a woman who was just so relieved she didn't have to give them her car!  She got to keep her car! Imagine that!
Lady, if you didn't get to keep your car, it would be a/k/a selling your car, NOT a loan. How the blankety-blank did you ever get a car in the first place?

There's also a man who can't keep driving on tires with 'plugs' in them -- I was told 20 years ago they don't make tires you can put plugs in anymore. If that's still true, this man is driving around on excessively old tires, and I don't want to be on the road with him anyway. (I could, however, be wrong and someone somewhere did figure out a way to make plugs for modern tires. In that case, I'm the stupid one.)
There's a woman who doesn't want to drive around on bad rotors. I guess she can't plug her tires anymore and has no wheels.
And there's a guy who got a loan to get tattoo training -- not so bad, but you'd think they might go for something classier in the eyes of society as a means of going into business. And a fellow who buys storage units at auction. Maybe he'll be on TV someday!

There's a lawyer who "Gets answers done." Okay, I want answers, and I want a lawyer who gets things done. I don't want my answers done.

Then there's one of those infernal schools, with one-class-a-month, or one-subject-at-a-time classes. These people are really annoying. It's too bad the schools have no better representations than people who can't speak properly.
These women have their dreams accomplished.
How the hell does that happen?
I (or they) can accomplish a dream, but the dream doesn't accomplish. This person needs to speak with the lawyer who gets answers done.

This woman also talks about how the school 'accomplished' or 'created'  "new dreams for me and new opportunities for mySelf."
Only you can accomplish or create things for yourself.
The school can create or accomplish things only for itself
Only I can do things for myself.

Do intelligent persons want to go to a school that doesn't see basic communication skills as a selling point?

Do you? Will you?

I don't.
I won't.

Not even to get away from the inanity of daytime TV commercials.

Mashed Potatoes: An adventure.

Am I an adventurous eater? I don't know. Most people would say no, because there are a lot of things I haven't eaten and don't want to try. Things like Chinese food (sounds like lots of bits and pieces. If I want leftovers I'll just eat leftovers. I also prefer  to be filled up by my meals, and rmor has it that doesn't happen with Chinese.

I don't like soy sauce or teriyaki or other Oriental seasonings, although I'm not always clear on the country of origin.

I just plain don't like seafood. I have yet to taste anything that does not overwhelmingly taste of vast anounts of stale salt water.

I don't eat Mexican food, either. It is way, way too spicy for me. Hot spicy. I've sampled this, while cooking, but not eaten as a meal or part of one. I don't like the ingredients.

I don't like  hot spices. I want to taste the food. I don't want my taste buds burnt out or overloaded to the point where they don't function. I want to enjoy the taste, to savor the flavor, and to be able to take in all that the food item has to offer.

If that makes me unadventurous, so be it.

I like food. I like to smell it, feel it, taste it, hear it, .and see it. Eating should be a sensual experience. Not all the senses will be used with every offering, of course. Mashed potatoes are pretty quiet.No crisp snap of the fresh potato. No crunch at the first -- or last -- bite.

But they can be cheesy, golden, salty, lightly garlic, smooth, lumpy, snowy white, steamy, dry, peppery, and even food-colored if you have a kid who will only eat green. 

Mashed potatoes are mundane and boring, but they sure can be jazzed up. 

That can be an adventure.

Seasonings and combined ingredients should enhance one another and especially the main ingredient. Too many people  and places do not use balance or moderation. jalapeno flavored should include the taste of jalapeno -- not taste like jalapeno and nothing else. 

So, if my adventures in eating aren't what you expect, I'm sorry.

But let me share with you my cheesy mashed, and maybe you will learn that true adventures start with the familiar.

Shower: A Blessing

One of the many, many things we take for granted these days is the ability to take a shower. Or a daily bath. Try to imagine your life without these amenities.

No big deal, you may think. One can wash in the sink, do a sponge bath, use plenty of deodorant and change clothes several times a day.
Yes, but how long will that be effective for the personal hygienic standards we have for ourselves?  How long before you just feel that these makeshift measures are overwhelmingly inadequate?
Because they are indeed inadequate in the long run.

My bathroom is being remodeled. Actually, the floor is being replaced. Everything had to be taken out, and new floor joists put in, which means the foundation had to be adjusted or braced in a couple of places. Nothing is being done quickly, all is being done thoroughly. In the meantime, the only source of water to eash with is the kitchen sink.

To make it worse, I live in town, with house to the right of me, house to the left of me, houses behind me. There is really little expectation of privacy, even with blankets covering the windows and all the doors locked. One doesn't linger over ablutions in those circumstances.
Can't even put up a camp shower because of too-close neighbors and too many out of school children. They like to inspect and question and look.

I never thought I was a person overly concerned with bathing. All the years I worked in fast food ingrained some things more deeply than I knew. One of those things was bathing regularly.

I'm embarrassed.
I don't want to go out.

My baby-est brother (they are all younger than me) is getting married this weekend. One of the reasons I'm not going is because I don't want to embarrass him (them) by being the most malodorous guest, These days I not only look like an elephant, I feel that I am beginning to smell like one.
I picture myself as Pigpen, with clouds of body-stink emanating from me, instead of good clean dirt.

Now, I know some of this may be exaggerated, but I've had persistent body-odor issues in my life. And I just plain don't, can't,  feel clean.

So, don't take your shower for granted. Hug it, kiss it, thank god for it. Add it to your list of things third world people would like to have, like broccoli. Microwaveable broccoli. Bathe with indulgence, just that you have water and soap, and more water to remove the soap, all the soap.

And, oh yeah, if you encounter someone smelly, spend some time conversing with them. It may not be their fault, and you shouldn't be a snob.

Food

A discussion last night on Facebook about food got me thinking about -- you guessed it, food. The discussion started with an innocent (I assume) question: Do you have any family food stories?
The answers came slowly at first, and were about a word here a misunderstanding there, and then one person's memory sparked something that happened in another family, and the conversation was up and running.

I think everyone has food memories. That's why there is such a thing as comfort food. Every family has food memories, and possibly even food fights. Somebody changed a recipe. To an aunt this change is a delightful discovery; to a sibling it's an act of sacrilege; to an in-law it's a who-cares issue.

Food mobilizes us in a way other things don't. The only other thing as stirring (hee hee) is, in fact, family. Oh, we can get upset over our love life -- or someone else's. We can worry about a roof overhead and room mate issues, even money matters can make us crazy. But not even money has the emotional impact of food and family.

Our first urge is to find food. After the ordeal of being born, we start sucking. We want fed.
And so we go through life. We want our bodies fed, we want our minds fed, we want our sould fed, we want our spirit fed.

While we are feeding our minds we ate milk and cookies, or thought about them. Most churches have communion service on a regular basis. While this is admittedly no great feast for the body, it shows the importance of food. Primitive rituals like breaking bread or sharing salt are important.

As important now, in the land of too much and the time of too many, as when they meant friend or foe.

Nowadays our emphasis is on not eating too much, or too much of the wrong things. It's important to keep in mind, though, that eating is an imperative we are born with. We can't change that.

The Summer Sunday Parade

Wrote this a couple years ago; it's a personal favorite. And while it is Easter weekend this year, not Memorial Day, the brrooomms and bzzzes of the neighborhood, raised voices and banging doors makes this selection seem appropriate for Now. I hope you enjoy reading this.

The Summer Sunday Parade

It's quiet in my part of the world today. A peaceful, storybook Sunday morning. So far. But this weekend is the unofficial first weekend of summer, and the 'parade' has already begun,
Not the parades that will be tomorrow -- those are official things, but along with the unofficial meaning of Memorial Day, comes the unofficial parades.
Every town has not only its own traditions, but also its own little habits. Winchester Ohio has one that I've not seen before.

Like most small Ohio towns, Winchester has one gas station and a half- dozen or so churches. The Sunday morning peacefulness is due in large part to these churches. Parking lots overflow, the curbs are 'fully loaded' yet there are no people anywhere, not even annoying loud-mouths on (or off) their skateboards, standing in the middle of the streets blocking traffic.

On Sunday, even the lawn mowers have a peaceful hum. And everyone knows that, because Sunday afternoon in Winchester is the time to take your lawn mower to the gas station. Not take. Sunday afternoons are when we drive our lawn mowers to the gas station.

Yes, the Summer Sunday parade has begun. Church is out, dinner has been eaten, and it's time to fill up the lawn mower for the week ahead. All afternoon, I can sit on my porch and watch as they trickle by. Even with gas over $4 a gallon, it's easier to take out the lawn mower than take out the gas can, put it in car, drive the car, take gas can out of trunk, fuill it up, put back in trunk, drive home, take can out and empty into mower. Besides, it's much more fun to meander slowly down the road, wave to neighbors, enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.

Impractical, yes.
Energy-concious, not so much.
But, sometimes, life should just be savored, and a Sunday drive on a lawn mower fits that definition just fine.

premiere

Two or three weekends ago, I watched a program, The Tudors, on BBCAmerica. It was ten episodes, One through ten, and it was repeated at least once. During the programs, the commercials were touting the new premiere (there's another kind?) of the series on Wednesday nights. That was interesting. The Tudors, especially wicked old Henry VIII, were interesting people, all five of them. And I was ready to take up the shows where they left off -- shortly after Anne Boleyn's execution.

Come that Wednesday night, imagine my surprise when the "new premiere" was episode 1 of the  exact same series that had been on at least twice that Sunday.

I've observed this before. The Harry Potter movies have had more premieres than they have fans, or so it seems. They have premiered on Pay TV, on cable TV, on network TV, and most recently they have premiered, individually, on this or that channel. Harry Potter has premiered on ABC Family channel about two thousand times. The 'premieres' now include a Wednesday night premiere or Sunday morning premieres.

I checked the most recent online dictionaries. Premiere is still defined as a first time appearance. Not a detailed first time appearance.

Not a synonym for rerun.

I don't watch Wednesday night premieres anymore. I've already seen the show.