Premise number One: Hello! Old people take medicine. Just walk up and down the medications aisle in the grocery store. Just read Part D on a Medicare application.
Just watch an old-people show like Lawrence Welk on television and check out the commercials. No, you don't have to watch the whole show. You can click away from the commercials too if you want to, but just check me out. They advertise Boneva, and Centrum (sounds like “century”) and Celebrex on those shows for a reason which is: old people take medicine.
Premise number Two: Old people can't see. Just hang out at the optometrist's like I do, Just watch the old people shows like I do when I finally get my glasses adjusted. They advertise eye surgeries, eyedrops, and eyeglasses. Yes, the models for eyeglasses are all under the age of ten, but don't worry, they are just faking blindness. They also advertise Centrum for Eyes on those shows.
For some reason those advertisers actually think that their audience can see the commercials. Wait, that is why they also blast the sound on the same commercials—to make sure they can be heard if not seen. (For kids it is “seen and not heard.” For old people it is the other way around.)
Premise number Three: Old ladies cook. The generation of people to the left of center on a pedigree chart does not cook. They occasionally make cake from a box, and soup from a can. That is because their eyes are good enough that they can read the instructions. If it were as much trouble for them to read the labels as it is for old people, they wouldn't do it at all.
Conclusion: Don't you worry, those big companies know their markets well enough to sell their products. Notice that the company designer logo is plenty big enough for anyone to read. But once they get you to buy the medicine or the container of food, they are done with you. When it comes to figuring out how to use your Boneva or your cake mix, you are on your own because the industry standards for labels requires the use of microscopic type.
There must be some directive coming from the Consumer Protection Agency that reads like this: “Whenever designing labels that include instructions for use, drug facts, product ingredients, or nutrition information, do not waste container space by using a typeface that is larger than five points. The average consumer is comfortable with a font of that size or smaller, and lightface is sufficient.”
Okay, if they are selling Legos, or X-box games, maybe. Old people don't use those products anyway unless their grandkids force them to, in which case the kids have to be in the same room to show them how or they couldn't make them anyway.
Once one of my grandkids tried to make me play X-box. (He was in the same room.) Maybe it was War Games. I couldn't even maneuver my guy onto the battlefield. I ended up somewhere in a DMZ where there were high cliffs from which I fell and killed myself all by myself.
But if I walk into the kitchen with the intent of cooking something that requires me to read the instructions on the back of the product, all the grandkids will be gone. They have no desire to help me read the back of a bottle of aspirin either. They think that if I am careless enough to get sick that I will just have to take my medicine.
Well, I have news for the kids. It takes more brains to make cake when you can't read the recipe than it does to play X-box when you can see the controller buttons.
And I have advice for those who market medications and foods that have to be prepared. Discrimination against old people is punishable by law isn't it? I might have read that somewhere, but then the type was awfully small.
Monday, July 12, 2010
It was a grand Fourth of July
How often does the Fourth of July come on a Sunday? Every six years? You may have noticed that the fact that the Fourth was in the middle of the holiday weekend made it possible for a body to celebrate it more than once.
First let me say that at least half of my family members think that Independence Day is the best holiday of the year. They love fireworks, fly-bys, and parades. They love barbecues, car shows and warm weather. And they love this country, so they were happy to celebrate all they could. Imagine that.
This year, the celebrations were all over the weekend. Some towns and cities had their fireworks on Friday, some on Saturday and some on Sunday. It was the same with parades and rodeos and all the rest of it.
By traveling between a couple of different cities and a few other destinations, one of our family members saw fireworks twice, took in a couple of barbecues and a roast beef dinner, golfed, shopped, went fishing, saw a car show, and caught a couple of parades. He wasn't quite fast enough to see the fly-by more than once though.
We all had some good times—some laughs, some proud moments, lots of oohs and aahs, good food, tired kids and family fun.
The city where I spent my weekend doesn't have a traditional parade. Instead they have a huge car show; and after it is over, the cars line up and they all cruise up and down Main Street for as long as they want to. They rev their engines, squeal their tires, honk their horns, and show off their cars in the sense of doing a lot more than just parking them at the fairgrounds.
Everyone else lines the streets and cheers and waves and picks their favorites. (What is more American than a Chevy or a Ford?)
Some of the vehicles are still “peeling out” on the city streets two days later. On Monday afternoon, we were visiting and enjoying the weather outside in the backyard when someone who was still celebrating the car show staged a five-second “burn-out” on the street out front. Even after two days of hearing rumbling engines and screeching tires, we all looked toward the street.
We couldn't see the car from where we were standing, but I pictured a red Pontiac GTX with yellow flames and wide mag wheels. Immediately after the screeching stopped, my ten-year-old grandson came flying around the corner of the house on his foot-powered scooter announcing loudly, “That wasn't me.”
On a more serious note, I have been reading some commentary about the genius of the Declaration of Independence and the incomparable foresight of the men who wrote it, as well as the courage of those who adopted it and signed it. The Constitution of the United States rests in the same category. There has probably been nothing to compare with it in all of history.
What I have concluded is that it was no accident that that many great minds were gathered together in one place and in one time—men of great mental capacity who also had the will, the ability, the tenacity and the courage to craft such a framework for governing a people.
And it doesn't seem as if there has been such a concentration of great minds anywhere in the world since, at least not in government. In some arenas there is just no point in trying to reinvent the wheel. The best legislators are probably those who are smart enough to realize “that wasn't me” and then get over it.
First let me say that at least half of my family members think that Independence Day is the best holiday of the year. They love fireworks, fly-bys, and parades. They love barbecues, car shows and warm weather. And they love this country, so they were happy to celebrate all they could. Imagine that.
This year, the celebrations were all over the weekend. Some towns and cities had their fireworks on Friday, some on Saturday and some on Sunday. It was the same with parades and rodeos and all the rest of it.
By traveling between a couple of different cities and a few other destinations, one of our family members saw fireworks twice, took in a couple of barbecues and a roast beef dinner, golfed, shopped, went fishing, saw a car show, and caught a couple of parades. He wasn't quite fast enough to see the fly-by more than once though.
We all had some good times—some laughs, some proud moments, lots of oohs and aahs, good food, tired kids and family fun.
The city where I spent my weekend doesn't have a traditional parade. Instead they have a huge car show; and after it is over, the cars line up and they all cruise up and down Main Street for as long as they want to. They rev their engines, squeal their tires, honk their horns, and show off their cars in the sense of doing a lot more than just parking them at the fairgrounds.
Everyone else lines the streets and cheers and waves and picks their favorites. (What is more American than a Chevy or a Ford?)
Some of the vehicles are still “peeling out” on the city streets two days later. On Monday afternoon, we were visiting and enjoying the weather outside in the backyard when someone who was still celebrating the car show staged a five-second “burn-out” on the street out front. Even after two days of hearing rumbling engines and screeching tires, we all looked toward the street.
We couldn't see the car from where we were standing, but I pictured a red Pontiac GTX with yellow flames and wide mag wheels. Immediately after the screeching stopped, my ten-year-old grandson came flying around the corner of the house on his foot-powered scooter announcing loudly, “That wasn't me.”
On a more serious note, I have been reading some commentary about the genius of the Declaration of Independence and the incomparable foresight of the men who wrote it, as well as the courage of those who adopted it and signed it. The Constitution of the United States rests in the same category. There has probably been nothing to compare with it in all of history.
What I have concluded is that it was no accident that that many great minds were gathered together in one place and in one time—men of great mental capacity who also had the will, the ability, the tenacity and the courage to craft such a framework for governing a people.
And it doesn't seem as if there has been such a concentration of great minds anywhere in the world since, at least not in government. In some arenas there is just no point in trying to reinvent the wheel. The best legislators are probably those who are smart enough to realize “that wasn't me” and then get over it.
The Basin mosquito surge
Luckily I am one of those people who is usually left unbitten by mosquitoes, so I may be out of line in asking; but there seems to be an over-abundance of them this year, doesn't there?
I have heard an inordinate number of complaints about them, seen an increase of puffy red welts on arms, legs and faces, and noticed that the repellent shelf in the drug store was nearly empty. I know, Sherlock Holmes and all that.
Being receptionist at the mosquito abatement office this week has probably been a challenge. You know we expect to have all of our problems solved and solved quickly in this day and age. Not only that, we expect a government agency to solve them too.
However, I don't know too many people who have a real solution for controlling those pesky (gross understatement) insects. I can't think of any overstatements since mosquitoes are at the top of the dangerous-animal chart and seeing as how they cause, (or is it spread?) deadly diseases. Deadly as in dead.
It's like plugging the hole in the Gulf. No one knows how to do it, and for sure things have been tried.
Repellent isn't much of a solution. Wearing extra clothing doesn't help much if a mosquito really wants to bite you. Citronella candles, Skin So Soft, and eating bananas just makes them more determined. As for mosquito netting, I have never seen any to buy, but I wouldn't want to show up at a barbecue wearing it.
There are instructions for a mosquito trap on line, but I am sure that for every one you trap there are fifty more waiting to take its place. It's not like they have staked out their own backyards and once you clear that area you are safe. They just fly around in a random pattern (nonspecific searching behavior) until they find someone to bite.
There are breakthroughs on the mosquito front though, Apparently what it is that makes the mosquito abort the random pattern and hone in on a certain target is the presence of that much-maligned, of late, carbon dioxide gas.
The carbon dioxide that is exhaled during the normal life processes of a human being and the animals is what attracts the female mosquito who is looking for a shot of blood which will develop the eggs she is getting ready to lay. The males are benign and only eat nectar and plant juices.
The mosquito isn't fussy about which kind of blood she gets. Animal blood is as good as human blood, but a lot of animals are protected by a coat of hair which is too dense for the mosquito's “stinger” to penetrate. Most humans aren't that well protected.
Mr. B. is one of those people who is especially attractive to mosquitoes. He does have a lot of hair on his arms, enough to protect them even though they are usually exposed at this time of year. The hair doesn't extend to his elbows or his knuckles though, which explains the red, raised, dot-matrix pattern on those two parts of his anatomy. He's learning to cover up better though.
People in other areas of the country complain about their mosquitoes, asserting that they are getting bigger and louder every year. Mr. B. complains that this year's mosquitoes are smaller and that he can't hear them coming. That may have something to do with his advancing age, but I might have noticed the same thing.
I have heard an inordinate number of complaints about them, seen an increase of puffy red welts on arms, legs and faces, and noticed that the repellent shelf in the drug store was nearly empty. I know, Sherlock Holmes and all that.
Being receptionist at the mosquito abatement office this week has probably been a challenge. You know we expect to have all of our problems solved and solved quickly in this day and age. Not only that, we expect a government agency to solve them too.
However, I don't know too many people who have a real solution for controlling those pesky (gross understatement) insects. I can't think of any overstatements since mosquitoes are at the top of the dangerous-animal chart and seeing as how they cause, (or is it spread?) deadly diseases. Deadly as in dead.
It's like plugging the hole in the Gulf. No one knows how to do it, and for sure things have been tried.
Repellent isn't much of a solution. Wearing extra clothing doesn't help much if a mosquito really wants to bite you. Citronella candles, Skin So Soft, and eating bananas just makes them more determined. As for mosquito netting, I have never seen any to buy, but I wouldn't want to show up at a barbecue wearing it.
There are instructions for a mosquito trap on line, but I am sure that for every one you trap there are fifty more waiting to take its place. It's not like they have staked out their own backyards and once you clear that area you are safe. They just fly around in a random pattern (nonspecific searching behavior) until they find someone to bite.
There are breakthroughs on the mosquito front though, Apparently what it is that makes the mosquito abort the random pattern and hone in on a certain target is the presence of that much-maligned, of late, carbon dioxide gas.
The carbon dioxide that is exhaled during the normal life processes of a human being and the animals is what attracts the female mosquito who is looking for a shot of blood which will develop the eggs she is getting ready to lay. The males are benign and only eat nectar and plant juices.
The mosquito isn't fussy about which kind of blood she gets. Animal blood is as good as human blood, but a lot of animals are protected by a coat of hair which is too dense for the mosquito's “stinger” to penetrate. Most humans aren't that well protected.
Mr. B. is one of those people who is especially attractive to mosquitoes. He does have a lot of hair on his arms, enough to protect them even though they are usually exposed at this time of year. The hair doesn't extend to his elbows or his knuckles though, which explains the red, raised, dot-matrix pattern on those two parts of his anatomy. He's learning to cover up better though.
People in other areas of the country complain about their mosquitoes, asserting that they are getting bigger and louder every year. Mr. B. complains that this year's mosquitoes are smaller and that he can't hear them coming. That may have something to do with his advancing age, but I might have noticed the same thing.
Birthdays—everybody has one
Perhaps I have already written on the subject that I am going to write about. I'm not sure. If I have and can't remember, I can be fairly sure that you can't either.
There are only so many things that I am qualified or unqualified to write about anyway. Maybe this is one of them.
One of life's greatest mysteries to me, right up there with how do bumblebees fly and where are all the lost socks, is this: why do we make so much fuss over birthdays?
First of all, the individual had nothing to do with getting a birthday. He didn't earn it, buy it, rent it, or study for it. He does nothing and he gets a party. He can't even remember the day he got it. Perhaps it all started with the parents having a party to celebrate a birth. Now they did something to earn a party. Maybe it was so much fun that they kept it up and pretty soon the honor transferred to the birthdayee.
Secondly, everybody has a birthday. We don't usually celebrate or take note of something so common as to be had by everyone. It's like having a foot. Do we celebrate having a foot? No everybody has one or two.
“Ha,” you say, “look at Joe. He lost his foot in the war.” Okay, Joe is different. He doesn't have a foot. Even then he doesn't call for a party—never mind that he most definitely did earn it.
But where's the distinction in having a birthday?
A retirement party I can understand. You worked for 35 years to earn it.
I can live with a housewarming party. You spent megabucks on that celebration.
A funeral I can handle. You probably got gray hair and wrinkles producing relatives to attend it.
A graduation party you suffered and studied hard for.
But you do nothing and you get a birthday party. And people bring presents. Sometimes they sing to you or put your picture in the newspaper.
Find me a guy who doesn't have a birthday, and I will throw him a party. I will send gifts. I will invite the neighbors.
Well, wait a minute. I just happened to remember that some people are shorted in the birthday department. Like my son, for instance. He is like Joe. Well, he has a foot, but he only has a birthday every four years. Now that is a distinction.
I think we may have thrown him a party every year that he didn't have a birthday. On the leap years we might have had a little celebration too. As for the future, we'll see about next leap year when it gets here.
In the meantime, anybody who wants to forget my birthday is perfectly welcome. I keep trying to forget it myself.
There are only so many things that I am qualified or unqualified to write about anyway. Maybe this is one of them.
One of life's greatest mysteries to me, right up there with how do bumblebees fly and where are all the lost socks, is this: why do we make so much fuss over birthdays?
First of all, the individual had nothing to do with getting a birthday. He didn't earn it, buy it, rent it, or study for it. He does nothing and he gets a party. He can't even remember the day he got it. Perhaps it all started with the parents having a party to celebrate a birth. Now they did something to earn a party. Maybe it was so much fun that they kept it up and pretty soon the honor transferred to the birthdayee.
Secondly, everybody has a birthday. We don't usually celebrate or take note of something so common as to be had by everyone. It's like having a foot. Do we celebrate having a foot? No everybody has one or two.
“Ha,” you say, “look at Joe. He lost his foot in the war.” Okay, Joe is different. He doesn't have a foot. Even then he doesn't call for a party—never mind that he most definitely did earn it.
But where's the distinction in having a birthday?
A retirement party I can understand. You worked for 35 years to earn it.
I can live with a housewarming party. You spent megabucks on that celebration.
A funeral I can handle. You probably got gray hair and wrinkles producing relatives to attend it.
A graduation party you suffered and studied hard for.
But you do nothing and you get a birthday party. And people bring presents. Sometimes they sing to you or put your picture in the newspaper.
Find me a guy who doesn't have a birthday, and I will throw him a party. I will send gifts. I will invite the neighbors.
Well, wait a minute. I just happened to remember that some people are shorted in the birthday department. Like my son, for instance. He is like Joe. Well, he has a foot, but he only has a birthday every four years. Now that is a distinction.
I think we may have thrown him a party every year that he didn't have a birthday. On the leap years we might have had a little celebration too. As for the future, we'll see about next leap year when it gets here.
In the meantime, anybody who wants to forget my birthday is perfectly welcome. I keep trying to forget it myself.
Political correctness is a fairy tale
I once read a book of politically correct fairy tales.
Actually I just now found a site that sells the volume on line. The author is James Finn Garner and the title of the book is Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. I know I have the right one because I remember the cover, however I don't remember all of the stories. If I am borrowing from Mr. Garner, I hereby give him credit.
I do think he updated Little Red Riding Hood, being careful not to call the wolf “bad” or any other derogatory names even though it intended to eat a little girl who was clearly on a humanitarian mission. I believe he decided further that he couldn't even call the animal “wolf” as that word has meanings other than that of a big gray carnivorous animal that lives in the forest.
I think he upgraded The Three Little Pigs also, being careful not to cast aspersions on their size or their eating habits.
The Three Bears was probably one of the stories Mr. Garner retold, but Goldilocks already had herself firmly planted in her politically correct feminist role, not being afraid to fight against the establishment for what she thought she deserved.
Mr. Garner's goal in retelling the stories seems to have been to point out that we, whoever we is (and I hope I don't qualify), have gone a bit overboard in our quest to be sensitive above all else—even forsaking clarity in the process. Perhaps that is why the legislation coming out of Washington lately is incomprehensible and over-inflated, as is most of the rhetoric also.
To illustrate my point, consider this example: The Chronologically Advanced Female Person Who Lived in an Unlikely Dwelling for the Extremely Monetarily Challenged. One has to think much harder to decipher the intended meanings, and really The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe is a lot fewer words. I don't even want to think about politically cleaning up the part about she had so many children she didn't know what to do, or what she gave them for supper, not to mention the spankings.
The Duckling That Was Judged on Its Physical Appearance Instead of its Personal Merits is another case in point. Perhaps you can amuse yourself with your own corrected versions of well-known tales. Maybe try fixing Rapunzel.
I would like to point out that no matter what an object is called, it still retains its latent characteristics. Whether you call a dwarf a “dwarf” or a “little person,” he remains the same in height, weight and person. Changing his name does not change him and therefore the label he is given sooner or later acquires the same meaning as the original object and is again no kinder or fairer that the original label. It is usually longer, fuzzier and harder to remember though.
Whether you label someone “lazy” or “motivationally challenged,” it means the same thing, so why not stick with something that is shorter to type?
I wish to point out also, that no matter how many ways you don't keep score at a soccer game, you will have to change the game if there are to be no losers. Maybe everyone could show up at the field (which could be much smaller) with their own ball and then just kick it all the way home. There would be no winners and no losers. There would be no goalies and no forwards. Everyone would feel good, and just think of the fun everyone would have.
There is one bedtime story that I don't remember our author rewriting. Perhaps the reason is that The Grasshopper and the Ants already is flush with liberal correctness and doesn't need much unimprovement.
Actually I just now found a site that sells the volume on line. The author is James Finn Garner and the title of the book is Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. I know I have the right one because I remember the cover, however I don't remember all of the stories. If I am borrowing from Mr. Garner, I hereby give him credit.
I do think he updated Little Red Riding Hood, being careful not to call the wolf “bad” or any other derogatory names even though it intended to eat a little girl who was clearly on a humanitarian mission. I believe he decided further that he couldn't even call the animal “wolf” as that word has meanings other than that of a big gray carnivorous animal that lives in the forest.
I think he upgraded The Three Little Pigs also, being careful not to cast aspersions on their size or their eating habits.
The Three Bears was probably one of the stories Mr. Garner retold, but Goldilocks already had herself firmly planted in her politically correct feminist role, not being afraid to fight against the establishment for what she thought she deserved.
Mr. Garner's goal in retelling the stories seems to have been to point out that we, whoever we is (and I hope I don't qualify), have gone a bit overboard in our quest to be sensitive above all else—even forsaking clarity in the process. Perhaps that is why the legislation coming out of Washington lately is incomprehensible and over-inflated, as is most of the rhetoric also.
To illustrate my point, consider this example: The Chronologically Advanced Female Person Who Lived in an Unlikely Dwelling for the Extremely Monetarily Challenged. One has to think much harder to decipher the intended meanings, and really The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe is a lot fewer words. I don't even want to think about politically cleaning up the part about she had so many children she didn't know what to do, or what she gave them for supper, not to mention the spankings.
The Duckling That Was Judged on Its Physical Appearance Instead of its Personal Merits is another case in point. Perhaps you can amuse yourself with your own corrected versions of well-known tales. Maybe try fixing Rapunzel.
I would like to point out that no matter what an object is called, it still retains its latent characteristics. Whether you call a dwarf a “dwarf” or a “little person,” he remains the same in height, weight and person. Changing his name does not change him and therefore the label he is given sooner or later acquires the same meaning as the original object and is again no kinder or fairer that the original label. It is usually longer, fuzzier and harder to remember though.
Whether you label someone “lazy” or “motivationally challenged,” it means the same thing, so why not stick with something that is shorter to type?
I wish to point out also, that no matter how many ways you don't keep score at a soccer game, you will have to change the game if there are to be no losers. Maybe everyone could show up at the field (which could be much smaller) with their own ball and then just kick it all the way home. There would be no winners and no losers. There would be no goalies and no forwards. Everyone would feel good, and just think of the fun everyone would have.
There is one bedtime story that I don't remember our author rewriting. Perhaps the reason is that The Grasshopper and the Ants already is flush with liberal correctness and doesn't need much unimprovement.
The day the microwave died
There are a couple of things without which I cannot function. One of them is the microwave oven.
Garrison Keillor tells about a Lake Wobegone housewife who kept her microwave oven in the carton under the bed. (She must have had on old-fashioned four-poster into which she climbed with a step stool after putting on her bed jacket and nightcap at sundown.)
My mother-in-law kept hers in the carton in the back room on top of the dryer/
I have had a hard time adjusting to some kinds of new technology, like texting and Facebooking, but when the microwave oven appeared in stores, I was one of the first in line. Microwave energy and I are totally compatible. I have warmed everything from playdough to ear drops in the microwave. Nothing that was still alive though.
We would have died of hypothermia last winter without those rice bags and hot drinks we warmed in the MO.
I was forced to try out deprivation once when our microwave oven died of overuse. Thirty times a day I opened the broken microwave's door, put something inside, and closed it. Not until I tried to set the time and temperature did I remember that this dead oven could not cook no matter how much I believed in resurrection.
After removing the item which would still be in one of several stages of cold, I had to go through a complex readjustment process:
“Okay, this is stupid. How many times am I going to put food in this broken microwave before I finally remember not to?”
After that reprimand, I still had to try to think of some alternate method to thaw, heat or cook the meal.
“Okay, dinner is going to be a little late today.” (Anything after 9:30 p.m. is considered late.)
I had to call up mental pictures of my mother or grandmother cooking certain dishes before I could go on with dinner.
“Now would grandmother have put this in the oven, in a pot on the stove, eaten it raw or just gone out for dinner?”
“Scratch that last option. They never went out for dinner…oh yes, I remember, they ate bread-and-milk on nights like this.”
“Well, scratch that too. No one under the age of 33 has ever heard of bread-and-milk. You could get reported for child abuse.”
Well, I turned into a mediocre cook overnight. There aren't many foods that you can cook on a range when they are frozen solid. And the rest of them take some planning ahead.
I think we mostly ate cold cereal during the three days that it took us to find, buy and set up the new microwave. (We didn't waste too much time deliberating.)
If you think that I was upset at the loss of our main method of cooking, you should have seen the six-year-old when he realized that the microwave could do nothing more than act as a temporary storage unit.
He sank down to the floor and began to cry.
“Now we can't make hot chocolate”
I was trying to think. “Now how did grandmother do that?”
Garrison Keillor tells about a Lake Wobegone housewife who kept her microwave oven in the carton under the bed. (She must have had on old-fashioned four-poster into which she climbed with a step stool after putting on her bed jacket and nightcap at sundown.)
My mother-in-law kept hers in the carton in the back room on top of the dryer/
I have had a hard time adjusting to some kinds of new technology, like texting and Facebooking, but when the microwave oven appeared in stores, I was one of the first in line. Microwave energy and I are totally compatible. I have warmed everything from playdough to ear drops in the microwave. Nothing that was still alive though.
We would have died of hypothermia last winter without those rice bags and hot drinks we warmed in the MO.
I was forced to try out deprivation once when our microwave oven died of overuse. Thirty times a day I opened the broken microwave's door, put something inside, and closed it. Not until I tried to set the time and temperature did I remember that this dead oven could not cook no matter how much I believed in resurrection.
After removing the item which would still be in one of several stages of cold, I had to go through a complex readjustment process:
“Okay, this is stupid. How many times am I going to put food in this broken microwave before I finally remember not to?”
After that reprimand, I still had to try to think of some alternate method to thaw, heat or cook the meal.
“Okay, dinner is going to be a little late today.” (Anything after 9:30 p.m. is considered late.)
I had to call up mental pictures of my mother or grandmother cooking certain dishes before I could go on with dinner.
“Now would grandmother have put this in the oven, in a pot on the stove, eaten it raw or just gone out for dinner?”
“Scratch that last option. They never went out for dinner…oh yes, I remember, they ate bread-and-milk on nights like this.”
“Well, scratch that too. No one under the age of 33 has ever heard of bread-and-milk. You could get reported for child abuse.”
Well, I turned into a mediocre cook overnight. There aren't many foods that you can cook on a range when they are frozen solid. And the rest of them take some planning ahead.
I think we mostly ate cold cereal during the three days that it took us to find, buy and set up the new microwave. (We didn't waste too much time deliberating.)
If you think that I was upset at the loss of our main method of cooking, you should have seen the six-year-old when he realized that the microwave could do nothing more than act as a temporary storage unit.
He sank down to the floor and began to cry.
“Now we can't make hot chocolate”
I was trying to think. “Now how did grandmother do that?”
What isn't getting spread around?
Well, I have figured out why there are 7,000 political writers/bloggers out there waxing daily on every imaginable issue or non-issue. If there isn’t an issue, they will manufacture one. All they have to do is hear about some event, pertinent or not, decide which side of it they want to come down on and start writing. Some political issues are good for six or eight articles or more. Some of them provide never-ending “fodder.”
I don’t seem to have that luxury—without entering the political arena, that is. I run out of themes for columns. Weekly I have to dig so deep to think of a subject that I sometimes end up trapped in a hole or, just as bad, wearing a subject out. However I don’t know why I should worry much about that given the examples that are out there in the media.
Oh-oh, you are thinking, Bertha is going to add her two-cent’s worth to the pile of material written about the Gulf oil spill, or the BP Oil Leak as it has come to be called. What little I have to say about that comes from a Uintah Basin perspective which may not have been addressed yet.
If that well had been drilled on land—say somewhere out south of Ouray—everyone would be hoping mightily for an oil leak. And if there were one, they would just drive up the trucks, load them up and drive them off again. They wouldn’t need a giant concrete bell, panty hose, or a series of pipes. Any amount of oil spilling on dry land really is a non-issue since without the addition of a large body of water to the equation, there isn’t a medium capable of spreading that oil around for miles and miles (as in south of Ouray).
The same thing cannot be said for all of the “information” and “opinion” circulating about it though. It gets a little oily in that medium, too.
Sometimes there is an issue that even I, agreeable Bertha, cannot resist commenting on. Another one of those issues would be one aspect of the Arizona Emigration Law fracas.
First, if Arizonans need to protect their borders and no one else is going to, they should be allowed to try some things, Second, I thought we were the United States, which should mean that we hang together when things are tough.
I think the best comeback on any level or in any arena that I have evcr heard is the one that the State of Arizona had for the city of Los Angeles in response to its boycott against them. It was just a pointed reminder in the form of a letter to the city council reminding them about the large quantities of electric power that their state provides to Los Angeles in the amount of 25% of their total usage. I also seem to remember that that city is particularly susceptible to rolling brownouts, grayouts or some color of outage.
In addition, if if I am not mistaken, a huge amount of water passes through Arizona on its way to somewhere in southern California as well.
Whether or not Arizona could in actuality turn off the lights, doesn’t matter a whole lot right now But it does matter that someone points out that the two states are a bit codependent and that Los Angeles might not want to be too quick to forget that.
Well, if by now you think that Bertha doesn’t know what she is talking about or she has fallen into a deep hole, you may be right; but you can be sure that she is in company with a whole lot of other writers/bloggers just like her.
I don’t seem to have that luxury—without entering the political arena, that is. I run out of themes for columns. Weekly I have to dig so deep to think of a subject that I sometimes end up trapped in a hole or, just as bad, wearing a subject out. However I don’t know why I should worry much about that given the examples that are out there in the media.
Oh-oh, you are thinking, Bertha is going to add her two-cent’s worth to the pile of material written about the Gulf oil spill, or the BP Oil Leak as it has come to be called. What little I have to say about that comes from a Uintah Basin perspective which may not have been addressed yet.
If that well had been drilled on land—say somewhere out south of Ouray—everyone would be hoping mightily for an oil leak. And if there were one, they would just drive up the trucks, load them up and drive them off again. They wouldn’t need a giant concrete bell, panty hose, or a series of pipes. Any amount of oil spilling on dry land really is a non-issue since without the addition of a large body of water to the equation, there isn’t a medium capable of spreading that oil around for miles and miles (as in south of Ouray).
The same thing cannot be said for all of the “information” and “opinion” circulating about it though. It gets a little oily in that medium, too.
Sometimes there is an issue that even I, agreeable Bertha, cannot resist commenting on. Another one of those issues would be one aspect of the Arizona Emigration Law fracas.
First, if Arizonans need to protect their borders and no one else is going to, they should be allowed to try some things, Second, I thought we were the United States, which should mean that we hang together when things are tough.
I think the best comeback on any level or in any arena that I have evcr heard is the one that the State of Arizona had for the city of Los Angeles in response to its boycott against them. It was just a pointed reminder in the form of a letter to the city council reminding them about the large quantities of electric power that their state provides to Los Angeles in the amount of 25% of their total usage. I also seem to remember that that city is particularly susceptible to rolling brownouts, grayouts or some color of outage.
In addition, if if I am not mistaken, a huge amount of water passes through Arizona on its way to somewhere in southern California as well.
Whether or not Arizona could in actuality turn off the lights, doesn’t matter a whole lot right now But it does matter that someone points out that the two states are a bit codependent and that Los Angeles might not want to be too quick to forget that.
Well, if by now you think that Bertha doesn’t know what she is talking about or she has fallen into a deep hole, you may be right; but you can be sure that she is in company with a whole lot of other writers/bloggers just like her.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)