9

You Lost All of It?

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I will admit to being one of the least organized people around. Sadly, one of the best parts of my job is the awful uniform I have to wear. Since they tell me I have to wear one of their shirts, khaki pants, and a blue fleece over the shirt, I never have to get up and spend 10 minutes trying to figure out what to wear. Yes, I know. You’re supposed to pick it out the night before and put it aside so all you have to do is wear it. I could never get motivated enough to do it. So I’d wake up with the “perfect” outfit in mind. Then I couldn’t find the blouse I had in mind. Or any blouse that would work. Or realize that the sweater really didn’t match the skirt. Or the tights were dirty.

I can never find my keys. My husband told me to always leave them in the same place. Silly man. If I could remember to do that, I wouldn’t keep losing them. I’m the sort that comes home on a good day and leaves my purse, gloves, keys, sunglasses, etc. all in one place – preferably on the floor behind my chair in the dining room so I can find them in the morning. If I’ve been shopping, I drop things where I can before I lose the bags I’m carrying. If I’m upset, things end up in whatever room I find someone to complain to (even if it’s the cats). As much as I love my cats, they are not at all helpful in finding lost keys.

My daughter gave me a stuffed Tigger key chain. Tigger is too large to comfortably fit in my coat pocket. Tigger has a bad habit of walking away from where I put him. How else to explain continuing to lose keys that are attached to a stuffed animal? My husband got me one of those electric tracker things. You put a fob on your key chain and the base unit someplace safe. If you can’t find the keys, press the color corresponding to your fob and it will beep. Assuming you remember what color you used. And have some clue where you left the keys.

I recently completed a three-year course in religious studies. I really enjoyed it. Especially when I put the books somewhere obvious so I would remember to do the homework. And remember to take the homework with me. And remember where I put the folder so I could take the homework with me. Luckily, most studying comes easily to me, so I could usually fake it if I couldn’t find what I needed. The strangest part was that as soon as I got home, it would magically reappear.

I tried to do better with the papers that my kids brought home from school. As soon as they would hand it to me, I would sign it and give it back. It worked really well with my daughter. My son, if possible, is even more absent-minded than I am. Between us, we have spent more than a week trying to get something back to school, while my daughter reminds us that the deadline is getting closer. I thought the Internet was supposed to have made us a paperless society by now? Why am I still signing all these forms?

I just found out what happens if this personality trait goes corporate. My mother recently spent a lot of time in hospitals and rehab centers. “Her” hospital normally sent her to rehab facilities somewhere in their general vicinity. This fall, we got lucky and they sent her to a place out here. Unfortunately, she went back in the hospital and was sent to rehab in a very nice neighborhood that isn’t close to either her house or ours.

I should have had some clue there would be a problem when I filled out the inventory of her belongings and they told me they would file it. Not put it in her file. File it. That is the last anyone has seen of the list. It’s not like there was anything too significant on it. But it was all the clothes she was going to wear while she was there.

Mother got pneumonia and had to go to a very nice hospital in the very nice neighborhood. Too bad she was too sick to eat; the food was delicious. Since the rehab center sent Mom over, and she was returning to the rehab center, I didn’t think anything of the clothes in her closet. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

After a few days, Mom returned to rehab. She had no clothes. I called and asked the person answering the phone who I should speak with about the clothes, explaining that Mom wasn’t a new resident. That person didn’t know but said she would forward the message to the social worker. It seemed a little odd that the social worker would have nothing better to do than look after clothes, but who knows? I have no idea what happened next because there was no follow-up at all. I called again and they found the clothes that my mother was wearing before she went into the hospital with the dirty laundry. I guess that makes sense. She’s only been gone a week and a half. What institution does laundry more often than that?

My mother asked the nurses and aides. They have no idea (obviously) but offered to help find out. One of the therapists calls me and told me that no one on the floor can find the clothes, but she will talk to housekeeping. Once again, silence.

In the meantime, I had to buy clothes so Mom could come over for Christmas. A few days after Christmas, I received a call from Housekeeping. No one told them my mother wasn’t a new patient. Her clothing had been in storage the whole time. When I was ready, I should call and they would have the stuff ready.

Last Thursday, the rehab center called and said that Mom would be released on Friday to be taken to a nursing home. I called Housekeeping and told them that my husband would pick up the clothes when he picked up my mother. Fine. They would be in a box in her room.

Guess what? No clothes Friday afternoon. My husband did his best to get them to understand that he wanted the clothes. He said that if they couldn’t find the clothes, he wanted payment. Someone “in charge” said she would find the clothes and send them to us. I had to buy more clothes for the nursing home.

What I can’t figure out is what they would have done with the clothes in the week she was at the hospital. My guess is that someone stole the clothes to resell them. There has got to be a huge market for used polyester pants and white cotton socks.

0

Guess What I Learned!!

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To celebrate the kids going back to school tomorrow (finally) and the truly lovely weather we’ve been having, I have put together a little quiz. You can see whether any of the mind-numbing number of facts “experts” have been giving out have been sticking. We will be using the honor system here, so I trust there will be no cheating. If somehow you are caught cheating, you will be shipped to the Arctic Circle and handcuffed to a polar bear.

1. Which of the following is not something painful that can happen to your body in cold weather? a. Chilblain; b. Creeping Crud; c. Deep Frostbite; d. Frostnip; e. Superficial Frostbite; f. Trench Foot

2. The following are the symptoms of what disease: sore throat, fever, headache, muscle aches, congestion,cough? a. Bronchitis; b. Common Cold; c. Flu; d. Strep Throat; e. Whatever is currently going around that someone has given me; f. Whooping Cough

3. Which of the following is not true of the differences between a cold and the flu? a. Cold symptoms come on more quickly; b. Flu lasts longer than a cold; c. I get more sympathy when I tell someone I have the flu; d. There are many more things that cause a cold

4. Influenza A is the most common type of flu virus. What area has not been identified as a starting point for one of the viruses? a. Asia; b. China; c. The local high school where the kids share everything; d. Russia; e. Spain

5. What species are the only ones susceptible to Influenza B? a. Ferrets; b. Humans; c. People who steal the food and office supplies of sick coworkers; d. Pigs; e. Seals

6. Which of the following cities is not in the top ten in average annual snowfall in the U.S.? a. Amherst, NY; b. Clay, NY; c. Cocnino, AZ; d. Duluth, MN; e. Niagara Falls, NY

7. How many states have an average winter temperature of less than 20 degree fahrenheit? a. Three; b. Five; c. Seven; d. Nine; e. Who cares, I’m tired of slipping on the ice?

8. What sport will finally be ending its television season in February? a. College Football; b. Curling; c. Detroit Pistons basketball; d. Pro Football; e. Southern Hemisphere Beach Volleyball; f. You mean my significant other really hasn’t been watching reruns of the same games since November?

9. How many Olympic Sports require ice skates? a. Three; b. Five; c. Seven; d. Nine; e. You mean it’s already time for the Olympics again?

The answers are below.

1. b (a form of jungle rot); 2. c; 3. a (cold symptoms come on gradually); 4. b; 5. all but d; 6. d.(it’s #15); 7. c (Alaska, N. Dakota; Minnesota; Maine, Wisconsin, Vermont, S. Dakota); 8. d; 9. b (curling, figure skating, ice hockey, short-track speed skating, speed skating).

Scoring (Number Right):

8 – 9: Obviously you have spent too much time in front of the TV/Computer Screen. Go out and learn how to ski jump or snowboard.

4 – 7: You may be obsessed with winter germs/diseases. Go to the mall and practice the safe hygiene tips you have learned.

1 – 3: You may have spent time reading an actual book or interacting socially with other people. Go get your flu shot and start washing your hands more.

0: You have been asleep for the past two months. Return to your hibernation.

2

My Kingdom for a Horse (or a Pair of Oxen)

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You may have seen the car commercial where the man on an airplane clicks a remote at his car as the plane passes over the parking lot. You then see that the car is nice and warm as the family gets off the parking lot shuttle and settles into it. I’m not sure what airport they use for the commercial. Any time I have flown in the winter (or summer), the plane would still have to taxi, park and unload the passengers. The passengers would need to get their luggage (it is a family, not a day-tripper), wait for the shuttle, and actually get to the car.

I picture three more realistic scenarios. First, the heater runs from the battery and the battery is dead after being used for 90 minutes without starting the car. Second, the remote actually starts the car and uses up a quarter tank of gas waiting for the people. The father then says to the family that the next time they can freeze; he isn’t spending $25 because they can’t wait two minutes for the seat warmers to start working. Third, someone sees the car running, takes it, and is gone for an hour before the family even realizes it’s missing.

All of this is crossing my mind on the way to work this morning. Once I was actually on the road this morning. Like many of you, we were hit by the storm yesterday. My husband was proactive and tried to clear things as the day went by. Unfortunately, what he could not foresee was how windy it would be overnight. And the two- or three-foot drifts the wind would create.

I do not own a 4-wheel-drive vehicle. The weather here really isn’t that bad. We are on the “good” side of Lake Huron. The moisture from Lake Michigan gets dumped over the west side of Michigan in storms, so the air is relatively dry by the time it gets here, so we get less wind and snow. We still complain.

After the storms leave here, they cross Lake Huron and get more moisture to dump on Ontario. By the time the storm reaches upstate New York, it has gone over the rest of the Great Lakes and they get the benefit of lots of moisture in the air. Which often means they get a lot of snow. If you watch pro football or hockey from Buffalo, you may have noticed the commentators seem to get a lot of pleasure telling us what bad weather they are surviving. In their heated broadcast booth.

We figured my biggest worry would be whether or not they cleared the road by the time I left at 4a. I got up and went out. The road didn’t look too bad (relatively speaking). I should have known there would be a problem when I went down our steps and sank into snow up to my thighs. I’m short, but not that short. I should have been able to walk through snow that had been shoveled shortly before we went to bed.

Ever the optimist, I went into the garage. Second bad sign: my car had been out for maybe two minutes yesterday while my husband got out the snowblower. I had to brush off the back and side windows. There was no indication whatsoever that it had been inside for more than 12 hours.

The engine turned over, and the heater whined (it really hates cold weather). I backed up to where the hood cleared the garage door. And got stuck. Started swearing. Looked for the shovel and couldn’t find it. Stomped upstairs and woke up my husband. Oh yeah – he keeps it on the inside porch so it will be convenient. Stomp back downstairs. Trip in the drift again.

Shovel out the wheels. Move a little. Shovel under the body. Don’t move. Shovel around the tires. Move a little. Shovel more. Create ice under the tires. Try to rock back and forth. Swear. Shovel. Move a little. I should probably mention that our house is set off the road a ways and the driveway is double width, so I’m not completely incompetent (yet).

Shovel. Can’t move. Straighten wheels. Move a little. See the light in the house. Husband is up for work. Stomp back in. Whine. He comes out (and trips in the drift). Five minutes later the car is on the road and ready to go. I apologize for being evil. He blames the snow. He’s good that way.

On the way, my brain keeps running “Jingle Bells”. ‘Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.’ Yeah. With a wind chill somewhere around zero (it’s gotten worse since). But a horse isn’t a bad idea. One of those big Budweiser horses. It could have pulled my car out of the snow in a couple of minutes.

If you have ever needed road-side assistance in a storm, you know you could starve to death before they get to you.This is not a function of their ineptitude but of demand greatly exceeding supply (finally – a use for my econ class). I bet my son could make money using the horse to help other people. Or he could entertain kids by taking them for rides. I bet parents would pay to get the kids out of the house for a bit on a snow-day. Or their spouses.

I wonder how much it would cost to keep a horse like that. They’re probably expensive. Maybe I’ll try to sell the idea to someone in Buffalo.

3

You! Bubbly! Where’s Your Passport?

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Tuesday was my annual foray into alcohol consumption. It’s the oddest thing – when they treat you for depression, they don’t want you taking things that depress your brain. Go figure.

Prior to college, I did not know that all champagne is sparkling wine, but not all sparking wine is champagne. I probably would have figured it out eventually. The free “champagne” toast the caterer offered at our wedding had no more claim to that title than it did to call itself toast. They should have been cited for wasting water.

Legally, champagne is a sparkling wine from the Champagne region in France (north-east section) created according to specific regulations. The Madrid System, part of an 1891 treaty, defined how a wine meets these criteria. The restrictions were reaffirmed in the Treaty of Versailles. I am sure you are all as relieved as I am that champagne was protected as well as future European security. Actually better, considering what happened next in Europe.

As of today, over 70 countries have adopted this legal protection. You know that it must be important because even the U.S. is participating. Sorta. No new wines can use the name champagne. Wines using the name prior to 2006 may continue to use it with its point of origin noted (e.g., California champagne). Some states completely ban producers in their states from using the word “champagne” in their wine names. So if a winery in Oregon has been making basically the same sparkling wine as a winery in California since 1990, it may be called champagne in California but not in Oregon. One more point for the wine snobs.

The Champagne region has some claim to being elitist (not that the French have ever been portrayed as overly modest). The Romans planted the first known vineyards back when it was their turn to stomp over the indigenous people of Europe. As Christianity spread, monks produced wine for Eucharist. French kings were anointed in Reims and champagne was central to the celebrations. All of which makes me wonder how it survived the French Revolution. It seems that some sort of lowly table wine would have been the required drink of the proletariat.

Did you know Dom Perignon invented sparkling wine? No? Good, because he didn’t. As is the case in many successes, champagne started as a failure. Some Benedictine Monks bottled their wine before the initial fermentation ended. When they opened it, it released the rest of the gases. Mass was probably a little more interesting that year.

Believe it or not, the English made the first improvement to champagne. And the second. In 1531, Dr. Christopher Merret discovered that adding sugar to a finished wine would create a second fermentation. You will note that his discovery occurred several centuries before doctors stopped bleeding patients to release evil spirits. At least they were spending their time on important research. Luckily, his timing coincided with English glass-makers creating glass that could withstand the pressure of the second fermentation. Not so luckily, the English did not possess the means to make actual champagne.

If you are not familiar with the French/English history, it will suffice to say that they have often behaved as siblings. Bratty siblings. They did not care to work cooperatively making champagne. Therefore, the first sparkling champagne in France came about by accident (yes, another one). Because French glass was inferior to English glass, the wine exploded the bottle during the second fermentation. So they had to bottle following the second fermentation. The French were unable to make champagne ferment in the bottle until the 19th century.

Originally, vintners added sugar to their champagne. One day, Perrier-Jouet decided not to sweeten his wine prior to shipping it to London. (He probably shipped the normal stuff to Paris.) The British decided they liked the “drier” taste. In 1876, the drier champagne began being called Brut Champagne. I can’t find a record of what the French thought of the “British” champagne.

The sweetness is determined by the ripeness of the grapes and the amount of sugar added after the second fermentation. The less sugar, the drier the wine. If you are going to try to impress someone with an expensive bottle of sparkling wine, I recommend determining their tolerance for dry wine. If they generally drink Boone’s Farm, forget the champagne.

The following terms are used to describe the sweetness of bottled wine:

  • Brut Zero (no added sugar and less than 6 grams of residual sugar per litre)
  • Extra Brut (less than 6 grams of residual sugar per litre)
  • Brut (less than 12 grams)
  • Extra Dry (between 12 and 17 grams)
  • Sec (between 17 and 32 grams)
  • Demi-sec (between 32 and 50 grams)
  • Doux (50 grams)

Last year we had extra dry champagne. This year we had Brut sparkling wine (from Italy). They were both excellent. I think the only ones you have to fear are the pink ones someone hands you in a plastic glass.

3

Just Askin’

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As the snow piles up, the wind chill drops, and my brain slowly freezes:

Why do I have so much trouble rooting for a team when I don’t like the coach? Last night, I could not convince myself to root for Michigan State over Stanford although they are instate and part of the Big Ten. Mark Dantonio is just one of my least favorite coaches ever (yes, I know he is very successful). I have no trouble at all rooting for the basketball team under Tom Izzo, who I love. (Note to those who don’t know: I’m a Michigan alum.)

Why can’t they seem to clear the roads around here quickly enough to avoid ice on them two or three days later? It’s not like we’re in one of those places getting storm after storm.

Speaking of icy roads – why do people think that if they are behind a timid driver, they can intimidate them into going faster by riding on their bumper?

If the roads are too bad to go to work, why do people feel the need to go shopping?

Why are my feelings hurt by my new hedgehog taking time to socialize? He’s got quills, but I must appear huge to him and probably smell weird too.

Why do I keep asking for books as gifts when I know I don’t have time to read them? Am I the only one who feels guilty about having a pile lying around the house?

Am I the only one who has to ask herself  ‘is someone laying something  or is it lying on its own’ before they feel comfortable with a sentence like the last one?

Why does auto-correct insist it knows better then I do what I want to say? People who understand grammar usually know it’s an incorrect usage and no one else cares. (And it never fixes the lay/lie type issues I do have trouble with.)

Do people set themselves up for failure when they promise to go to the gym/start a new diet January 1? At least half of the country has rotten weather that time of year and it’s dark and/or gloomy the majority of the time. Who really thinks about wearing a bikini? (Men thinking about the SI models do not count.)

Wouldn’t it have been nice if the early Christians had decided to take over Midsummer rather than the Winter Solstice? Then we could just hibernate between December and March. Unless you actually like ice and snow. (Sorry Down Under – this is my fantasy. It probably wouldn’t work so well for you.)

Do I have the only cat who gets cold feet and wants to warm them on me? When we go to bed, she lies in my arms until she gets warm and then she lays on top of the comforter by my feet.

Do stores that run perpetual sales realize that eventually sales stop being an event and become business as usual (as well as a joke to most consumers)?

What’s the correct response when a customer asks whether a product is any good, and I don’t like it? “Yeech” just doesn’t seem appropriate. Maybe “Depends. How well do your tastebuds work?”

Do they really have to direct the smells from the bakery over to my department? Cinnamon rolls and chocolate chip cookies baking always make me hungry.

Why is it the hungrier I get, the less I want to spend time cooking? Delayed gratification is definitely not a strong suit for me.

Finally – why did the (full-size) snow plow decide it would be a good idea to block the road just as I was getting to the intersection this morning? He wasn’t actually plowing, he seemed to be taking a break.

2

First Foot Forward

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New Year’s Eve always reminds me of my grandmother. When I was little, I used to spend the night with her.  My parents always went to a party that night. I don’t remember my brother being at Grandma’s. So I don’t know if the two events were related or not. Of course, maybe I just wrote him out of that memory. Can you do that?

My father would come first thing in the morning. He had to “first foot” the house. Where my grandmother grew up (Scotland), the first person in the house in the new year had to be a dark-haired man. (I think it was also OK to be formerly dark-haired, currently bald, because Grandpa did it before he died.) The man had to enter on his right foot and carry something to eat, something to drink, and something to keep you warm. Dad brought meat pies, Scotch, and either coal or wood. Scotch seems to be an odd choice as a survival drink, but who am I to say?

I honestly believe Grandma would have refused entry to anyone other than the “first footer”. I know my mother (her daughter-in-law) was afraid to find out.

The night before, Grandma would burn down all the candles in the house. (This was before the days of 70-hour candles.) She wanted to burn away all the bad luck of the previous year. Similarly, no calendar could survive the end of the year. She had to sweep all the bad luck out the door as well. Grandma was pretty happy with her life, so all this stuff might have helped. If nothing else, the house looked and smelled good on January 1st. We always sang Auld Lang Syne, but I think that was more tradition than lucky.

I was looking at some other traditions earlier today. The first footing and sweeping seem to be pretty common. It also seems that while you want to sweep on New Year’s Eve, you do not want to sweep on New Year’s Day because you will sweep away the luck that comes with the new year. Apparently every year starts out good; somehow the bad luck seeps in as time goes by. Or leaps out at you when you least expect it. You also do not want to wash dishes, laundry, or your hair in order to not wash any of the good luck down the drain.

Laundry seems to be especially bad. Some traditions equate it with washing a person away, meaning someone will die in the coming year. You really do not need that special shirt for your team to win the big game New Year’s Day. If it was that important, you should have washed it immediately after the previous loss.

So far, we’ve done a lot of work on New Year’s Eve and pretty much nothing on New Year’s Day. Sounds pretty typical. But don’t forget to eat: grapes – 12 of them, one for every month of the year (some sources say you need to stuff one in your mouth at each chime of the midnight clock – no word on what comes after that); pork – because pigs root forward when they eat while chickens scratch backward (and you may remember I told you that bacon was this year’s “in” gift); black eyed peas and lentils – they resemble coins; and greens such as collard greens, chard, cabbage and kale – the folds of the greens resemble money. Actually, if you put all of that together, call me. It sounds delicious.

The key seems to be that whatever you do on New Year’s Day will be an indication of what you will be doing the rest of the year. It is especially important that you bring in before you give out. Don’t spend money you don’t have. Don’t start the year owing anyone (that must have started in the years before mortgages and car payments). Spend time with friends and loved ones. Take care of yourself. I’m not sure what it means if you ate bad crab dip the night before and are in the bathroom all day.

Finally, some words of wisdom if you happen to be traveling next year. (I don’t know how you’ll find it next year when you need it.) :

  • In Spain, wearing red underwear on New Year’s Eve means that you will have prosperity and good luck in the upcoming year. (Note to traditional men: no one will see it if you don’t let them.)
  • In order to chase out the bad luck of the New Year, the Irish bang white bread against the walls. (I’m not sure how old the bread needs to be before it will actually bang.)
  • In Ecuador, it’s customary for each family to burn a scarecrow at midnight. The scarecrow represents the negativity of the previous year, so burning it ensures positive energy and good luck as the new year begins. (Please remember to do this outside or you will not be invited back.)
  • Brazilians jump seven waves for good luck — one jump for each day of the week. (You may want to find a beach first. Or hope that your friends are really drunk.)
  • In Greece, smashing a pomegranate outside one’s door at midnight is said to bring good fortune. The red color and seeds of the pomegranate represent fertility, love, and happiness. (In college, a friend and I got pomegranate juice on my white curtains. Nothing would take out the stains. Just a warning.)
  • If you’re in Germany, touching ashes is the key to good luck in the new year. (Apparently Mary Poppins was on to something.)

I wish you all the best in the new year. Now I have to go see how the candles are doing.

5

Dollar Disappointment

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My family has always exchanged stockings on Christmas morning. When I was little, the goodies always included a red apple, a yellow apple, an orange and a tangerine. I remember being disappointed that Santa was so health conscious. All I’d ever seen him eat were cookies. Years later, my son commented on always receiving shampoo and body wash in his stocking. You never see Santa bathing or changing his clothes either. I’m guessing Mrs. Claus has some influence on what gets included.

At one point, I spent a lot of money on stocking stuffers. (The amount I spend has never had any direct correlation with the amount I have, by the way.) I would wander the malls looking for things that would fit in a stocking. There are more than you might imagine. One day, a friend finally explained to me that the concept behind a stocking was that it was filled with little inexpensive things like candy canes and chocolate Santas. Oh. Like the idea that you break up with someone before you give him the expensive gift. I never was good with money.

Enter the dollar store. My first experience with dollar stores was not positive. It was located in a strip mall where I worked. The neighborhood had seen better days (I hope). It was poorly lit, crowded with merchandise, and not very clean. From what I looked at, the reason it was crowded with merchandise was that no one would take that stuff at any price. I could not understand why everyone was raving about dollar stores. Were my friends really that cheap?

A few years went by. I got another job, and drove past a dollar store every day on the way to work. One day I stopped to look around. It was incredible. There were office supplies, craft supplies, school supplies, candy, wrapping paper, all sorts of things. They even had the metallic pipe cleaners my son used to make rabbits (they look better than they sound). I’m not really a shopper, but I looked at everything. I was totally hooked. At Christmas, I fully stuffed all the stockings for under $50.

My dollar store was not part of a chain, so you can guess what happened next. I drove by one day and the owner had sold the shop. The new owner must have been related to the first shop owner I encountered. I was traumatized. I was not going back to spending $7.95 for a Mylar balloon. I had to find a replacement.

My next stop was what I’ll call a pseudo-dollar store. It’s a national chain. A lot of the stuff was one dollar, but the rest was brand-name at discounted prices. This store was the source of most of the health and beauty supplies I bought for a few years. They even had fashion-name make-up for a dollar. It had to be labeled ‘discontinued color’, but in Michigan who knows the difference? The odds of running into Beyonce wearing last year’s eyeliner are pretty low. Alas, I had just made the full commitment when it disappeared.

They opened a dollar store a few miles away from our house. Coincidentally, it’s the same chain that has a store on my way to work. My daughter wanted to stop by one night. It was great! The candy, the pens, the wrapping paper. All was well in the dollar world again. Last Christmas I even bought some nice wrapping paper at the one close to work.

Things were a little crazy this year getting ready for Christmas. Both my daughter and my mother have been ill, so shopping took a back seat to that. I didn’t get to stocking stuffers until two days before Christmas. No big deal – I’d just stop by the dollar store on the way home and I’d be set. We’d have a few more pens and pads of paper than usual, but it’d be OK.

Imagine the look on my face when I opened the door to find that the only wrapping paper left was covered with Justin Bieber. (I didn’t need paper, but it was still traumatizing.) I moved on to the candy. It was appalling – I could only get chocolate-flavored or chocolatey. There was no actual chocolate! Luckily I did have a back-up plan for that – I had bought some of the family’s favorites at work because I knew I would never find it in the dollar store.

I went to toiletries. No nail clippers. No floss. Icky toothbrushes. No body wash for men. No make-up. Large bottles of lotion from some company I’d never heard of, in a scent I didn’t know. This was totally unacceptable. What was I supposed to do?

I went to office supplies. Very few pens. A few memo pads. I tried to think of where else I might go as I wandered the aisles. I finally found some snacks – trail mix, peanuts, etc. Stain remover pens. Socks (not even from China). Packaged, non-Christmas candy. At the counter I found some lip balm.

When I filled the stockings, all was well (although there was LOTS of candy). I’m already planning to stake out the dollars stores next fall to find the best place to go.

In the meantime, I’m going to size up the fruit.

3

I Don’t Have Time for This

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I will admit up front that I am a Christmas procrastinator. However, I do have a couple of not-bad excuses for it. (Of course I have time to make up excuses – I’m not doing much of anything else.)

I have always preferred to do my wrapping all at once. I’m one of those people who has twenty-five different rolls of paper because I love to have all the different colors under the tree. I probably got the idea from TV in the days before I realized those people don’t actually wrap their own stuff. I should look into getting “people” to do it for me. I make a huge mess. Besides, I have to make sure all my daughter’s presents aren’t wrapped in the same paper, don’t I?

I’m also one of those people who likes to see lots of presents under the tree. So I have been known to wrap a stack of books in several different packages. And I like ribbons and bows. And ribbons really do look better if you get the skinny kind and make some of your bows by hand. But that’s a lot of work, so I can’t do it at the same time as I wrap because I would be too tired to care what things look like at the end and get crabby. And my husband says I get crabby enough as it is.

At one point, I was organized enough to get my shopping done by the end of November. Then I got married, got a real job, had kids, and got medicine for being bipolar. (I spend a lot less money, but around the holidays really miss those days when I could get twice as many things done at once.) All of that took up a lot of time. But the final straw came when Rascal moved in.

Rascal was a sweet, lovable cat with one really annoying habit. She never met a ribbon or bow she didn’t want to eat. She also liked opening presents. For years, every bow we had came with teeth marks. Not only that, cats don’t digest ribbon well. So we’d spend a fair amount of time cleaning up cat vomit.

This house has a sun room we can use to store presents. But the first one was really small. It was either wait to wrap the presents or continually repair things with tape. Eventually nothing could be opened without a knife on Christmas morning. Luckily I come from one of those families where the men don’t feel fully dressed unless they have a pocket knife.

I also like to power-bake over a couple of days. Once again, I make a huge mess and would like to limit the clean-up to one major sand-blasting each year. Besides, we want fresh cookies, right? My mother used to make a lot of pressed cookies (the ones that come out of the thing that looks like a lube/grout gun) and Mexican Wedding/Russian Tea Cake cookies. Those cookies start out so dry, no one can tell how old they are (at least hers did). Mine tend more to the chocolate chip/peanut butter variety which don’t hold up so well.

Bottom line? This was my week-end to prepare for Christmas. On Friday, we had a lot of boxes to unload at work. No big deal; I have a brace to wear at night and can barely tell by the next morning. I’d been having a little trouble with my shoulder, but that wasn’t interfering with anything, so I didn’t even consider that. My plan: I’d get up Saturday morning, get to work, and be ready for Christmas Sunday night.

Wrong. Apparently whatever I strained in my shoulder is connected to whatever I hurt in my hand. (Guess the song’s right about the shoulder bone being connected to the elbow, etc.) By 1a Saturday morning, I couldn’t sleep because of the pain. I finally got up about 7a. I could barely move my hand. I wasn’t sure which was worse, the pain or the constant feeling that my arm was ‘waking up’. I tried all those pain relievers (not all at once) that are supposed to allow you ‘to get on with your life’.  I had always made the assumption that they meant with minimal pain. I guess it just means they won’t kill you.

My husband told me I should go to the doctor. It was probably good advice, but unless the doctor was going to do the baking I didn’t really see it as a short-term solution. So I did the logical thing – took a couple of muscle relaxers (from the last time I hurt my shoulder) and slept most of the day. I didn’t get anything done, but I didn’t care.

So, now it is Sunday morning. My arm feels a lot better, but I have a hang-over from the muscle relaxers. I wonder how the family would feel about having all the presents in a giant box. They could guess which present was meant for which person.

3

What Would Grandma Say?

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[Welcome to my new look. I was getting a little tired of the old one. Besides, I couldn’t resist something called “Choco” – it sounds very close to my favorite food.]

My mom’s mother lived in a retirement community that had a potluck once a month for quite a while. While Grandma really enjoyed the potlucks, she had two complaints. The first was people who brought only enough of their dish for three or four people. On the one hand, she had a valid point; unless you rushed to the table, there were certain dishes you never had a opportunity to try. On the other hand, our family gatherings always had enough food to feed Oliver Twist’s orphanage.

The other complaint was that people brought store-bought food and said they made it. Grandma didn’t have a problem with someone picking up a frozen pie and heating it up or using a cake mix, but she did not consider that home-made. She said that it wasn’t home-made unless you made it from scratch. She baked until she was in her mid-eighties, so she was entitled to her opinion.

As often happens through the generations, my mother used many more convenience foods than her mother, and then the pendulum swung back with me. I am a cooking snob. You cannot tell me that taking frozen hash browns and melting cheese on them makes it a home-made dish. Similarly, cutting up cooking dough from a tube and heating it is not baking home-made cookies. Some of my attitude comes from Grandma, some comes from all the preservatives and additives in prepared foods, and some comes from the cost of ready-made dishes. My attitudes have changed over time; when we were first married, I was a much bigger fan of frozen stuff.

The holidays always highlight the various ways we can decrease our time in the kitchen. A woman caught me off-guard the other day. She asked me where she could find the Rice Krispie treats that were formed into a flat sheet and could be cut out into shapes. I love Rice Krispie treats. They’re so sweet, I can’t resist. I even like the pre-made ones you can take in your lunch.

But I could not imagine buying a sheet of it and using cookie cutters to make shapes. What do you do with the scraps between the shapes? They must be your reward for working so hard. How many sheets would you need to make enough cookies to put on a plate? Sometimes it hard to tell what shape a sugar cookie is (who designs some of those reindeer cutters?). I would imagine that a Rice Krispie star would look an awful lot like a Rice Krispie Christmas tree.

These questions must have even occurred to the Rice Krispie people; the product is no longer available. The woman truly looked crest-fallen. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that she could make her own treats in any thickness she liked and cut them out. I knew that she would tell me that mixing the cereal and the marshmallows together was too messy and too much work.

There are several Christmas displays right across the aisle from where I work. One of them has gingerbread house kits. I can appreciate the idea behind these. I tried to make one from scratch once and discovered that I am not coordinated enough to hold the sides together while they set. Or detail-oriented enough to get all the pieces the same size to actually fit together. I never would have been able to lure Hansel and Gretel. But it did taste good.

A year or two later, I was still fascinated by the idea so I bought a kit. Like most pre-made food, it was considered edible for six months after its holiday. I still had trouble getting it to stay together. Obviously, I am not the one who fixes things around the house. Finally, I got frustrated and walked away. I decided to eat one of the candy decorations. Apparently the emphasis should be on decoration. I almost broke a tooth. I tried the gingerbread; it tasted awful. Not only would I have trouble luring Hansel and Gretel, they probably would have poisoned themselves on the house. And who wants to eat poisoned children?

I noticed that one of this year’s models was larger than the previous ones. It appeared to have a yard as well as the house. It also came with LED lights so you could back-light your house. I was impressed. The company has accepted that the product is inedible and is now trying to sell it based on your being able to have the only gingerbread house in the neighborhood with Christmas lights. Looking into the future, I can see tiny inflatable snowmen and reindeer on the roof. Scout troops can start having competitions as a fund-raiser.

Another lady came up to me and said that she couldn’t find the gingerbread cookies in a tube. I helped her find them. She told me they were so good that she always stocked up at Christmas and stored them in her freezer. That way should could have them year-round. I refrained from telling her that hoarders like her were the reason other people had to do without gingerbread cookies at Christmas.

I think those cookie rolls used to only come in one size. (Even my mother drew the line at cookies in a plastic tube.) It seems like the diameter was somewhere in the 1″-1 1/2″ range. Now you can get that size, but there is also a tube that appears to be about twice that size. I wonder if tubed cookies work the same way as the ones I make. It doesn’t matter what size I make, people generally take two or three.

There are also lots of flavors: chocolate chip, sugar, gingerbread, peppermint, cut-outs in the middle of the round. I’m guessing some are more popular than others. The other morning I came in and was checking my aisle for miscellany left during the night. I found an open tube of cooking dough with a bite out of it. Apparently the person tried it and didn’t like it. I suppose there was no reason to steal it if they weren’t going to enjoy it.

It’s true that my stuff doesn’t look as symmetric as what comes out of a tube. But I can buy the ingredients any time of year. So I don’t have to fill my freezer with tubes of cookie dough that have the potential to fall out, breaking one of my toes.

2

Everybody Talks Too Much

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I once worked for the Wicked Witch of the Great Lakes. She had hired me to work at one of those nationally-known human resources consulting firms. After I was hired, I realized that my job really was to sell people very expensive consulting they didn’t really need and leave before the results actually became apparent. And to suck my soul out of me. Luckily I escaped before I became too bitter. 🙂

Back to my point. One day, we both came to the conclusion that I did not belong there. At the exit interview, Ms. Witch kept asking me if there was anything I wanted to say. There really was no way to explain what was wrong without becoming equally vile, so I kept quiet. For some reason, my silence totally enraged her. I didn’t realize that following the adage “If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all,” could have that type of positive karmic repercussions.

Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people seem to follow the practice. Perhaps “Better to be silent and seem a fool than to speak and remove all doubt” is more appropriate for the present times. I have been trying to think of the last time I heard someone say something nice about someone else at work. I know I’ve complimented people to their face and to the managers (because I’m perfect, remember?), but from the shocked looks I get, I’m guessing it’s not just my perception that it’s a rare thing.

I unload the pallets first thing in the morning with people from another department. Our stuff is all mixed together. so it makes sense to work together. Most of the time, I enjoy working with them. One day last week, things got a little ugly. There are three of us who regularly work together. We were working when a manager came by and asked where a fourth person (Employee X) was. Apparently the load comes in at his “lunch time,” so I had never seen him there. The manager paged him and told him he needed to get to Receiving.

Needless to say, when X returned he was not happy. He told the other two guys that they were not to touch the stock for the week’s sale. They were only allowed to touch the non-sale boxes. The guys were not happy and commenced to complain about X and his need to control everything. Later X complained about the guys’ inability to do their work in an organized manner. I’m never quite sure what to do in these situations. I let them vent, but no one seemed any happier for the opportunity. So the day began.

Then the chickens arrived. I think I’ve talked about the chickens before. Large quantities of them appear (seemingly) at random and take up space in my cooler. I had room for them (more or less) so they stayed. Later, the team leader was complaining to one of the deli stockers (Stocker A) that no on ever told her when there was deli stock in the cheese cooler. It started as a complaint that she had found three ham dinners from Thanksgiving still in the deli cooler. That is the cooler physically in the deli where they keep their meat.

From there, the team leader complained about how the other stocker (Stocker B) wasn’t doing his job. She might have to hire a third stocker. (Or get B to do his job?) The general consensus is that B is lazy. However, one of the deli people (Employee Y) doesn’t like A because he got to come back after quitting with no notice, when one of her friends didn’t. It seems that the friend had also broken down and tried to hurt someone. Y’s friend also doesn’t like A because she thought he was lazy when he was employed previously.

B was not scheduled this day. Earlier in the week he had posted on Facebook that he was scheduled for Friday which would make a long week for him, Friday through Wednesday. He was really unhappy about it and would have to look for another job. When he had found out about working Friday, he refused to talk to anyone. He has been complaining about how hard he has to work and how it isn’t fair.  I think it’s his first job.

Near the end of the day, someone told me that the late shift at the deli has finally been busted for not working. As long as I have worked there, the day shift and the night shift have argued about who is doing less. Recently it has become apparent that we had a winner. Leadership was receiving complaints during the evening shift about not finding anyone in the deli or waiting in line while one person worked and the others talked or used cell phones.

It seems somewhat appropriate that the end came for them when someone took pictures on a cell phone to show what was going on. Of course, there was much talking and wringing of hands. There wasn’t a lot that could actually be done. No manager was there to document the situation. The team leader decided she should work more evenings, which traumatized the entire second shift. She told one employee, and within five minutes everyone knew.

So what does any of this have to do with me? Absolutely nothing. I may have wasted more time that day than I have the entire time I’ve been at the store. The funny customer stories are good for dinner conversation. Who wants to listen to me recount the employees crabbing about each other?

I have looked everywhere on Amazon for a negative energy neutralizer or maybe a black box that would suck it out of the air. So far, no luck. I wonder if spraying the air with ginger or peppermint or lavender or something would work in a space that big?