Tag Archives: Humor

10

Don’t You Trust Me?

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Yesterday at work, a coworker told me that the company had put a new security camera in the deli area. It points at a wall with ready-to-bake pizzas, packaged meats, and ready-to-eat sandwiches (those ones in the triangular boxes that are available in vending machines). It appears to be stationary, but I’m no expert on these things.

Some people think they are directed more at the employees than the customers. I guess employee theft is a problem. But I would hope that someone would risk their job over something better than a week-old egg-salad sandwich on white bread being kept non-lethal by cellophane. I mean, it’s only a few feet from the real meat.

They also have a camera to watch us leave the building. I’m told that one’s a pin-hole camera, so we won’t know we’re being watched. Apparently the people responsible for the camera didn’t realize that telling a couple of people about it meant that all employees would know. And those employees would tell the new employees.

I’m not really sure what they hope to see. Maybe if a big-screen TV goes missing, they check the recording to see if anyone tried to sneak one through the employee door. They would probably want to get rid of that employee anyway. We’re allowed to use any of the doors in the store. It would be pretty stupid to use the one door where even if the camera didn’t get you, everyone else saw you leave with a new TV. A TV you could never afford on the wages you make.

I lead a seriously boring life. I’m a little embarrassed to know that I’m being watched almost everywhere I go. There’s a traffic camera down the road from our house. We live on a “major” two-lane road (it’s paved). The light is at the intersection with another paved two-lane road. It’s a pretty exciting spot. There’s a nursing home on one corner. That’s it. I really don’t know if they’ve caught anyone with it. For all I know, it may not even be connected.

I’m not sure which is creepier: knowing that you’re being watched and not being able to tell how they’re doing it or those cameras that have a screen where you can watch yourself move around a store. The logical part of me knows that there is no one actually watching all of those monitors all the time. But there’s still a part of me that says, “Geez, I don’t remember my butt looking that big the last time I wore these pants. I don’t want people looking at me like this.”

On the other hand, it’s probably not as easy to be a “fashion don’t” as I fear. It seems like every time there is a robbery at a gas station or convenience store, the images are too blurry to make out anything about the person they’re looking for. Apparently if I want to steal a $4 pseudo-sandwich, I should do it at the local Gas Mart.

I’ve been seeing and hearing ads for home security systems that allow you to view what is going on at home from work (or wherever you are with your laptop). Part of me thinks that’s a great idea. You can make sure the house is still in one piece, the kids are still in one piece, and your spouse hasn’t made a playdate with a new friend. On the other hand, do I really want to know that the kids have tie-dyed the rabbit before I have to?

On a local morning show last week, I heard about a guy who put cameras in his bedroom. He was missing some clothes and was sure his roommate was stealing from him. Turns out he had left the clothes at his new girlfriend’s house. Hope he takes down the cameras before he takes the new girlfriend home. Or that she’s open-minded.

I hate the thought of being watched. I guess it’s the modern version of the days when the clerk would come into the store changing rooms to “make sure everything is OK” in an effort to keep people from stealing. But that was creepy too.

Maybe I’ll just go full-cat. They don’t care one way or the other what we think of them.

0

Not Your Father’s Union

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I belong to a union for retail workers. I had never heard of it before going to work at the store. That should have been a clue right off the bat. I have been around unions my entire life and thought I pretty much had them down. Silly me.

I grew up just outside Detroit (as in one mile from the border). Detroit was the ultimate union town. Every company associated with making a car (manufacturers, suppliers, transport) was closed shop. If you didn’t belong to a union and were blue-collar, you probably didn’t have a very good job. The United Auto Workers (UAW) was king, but there were teamsters, electricians, plumbers, metallurgy workers, and an alphabet soup of others. Every fall would see one or more school district closed by teachers’ strikes. Unfortunately our district always signed.

Every three years, the automakers (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) would “pattern-bargain”, so workers at all three companies would get the same pay and benefits. The unions were extremely successful and the workers enjoyed high wages and some of the best healthcare benefits in the country. Unfortunately, it also meant that other companies couldn’t afford to move here. (cue ominous music)

But car sales slumped with oil crises and foreign competition. Did you know that UAW membership is slightly more than one third of what it was in the heyday of the 1970’s? And as Charles Wilson, President of GM said (more or less) in 1953, “As goes GM, so goes the nation.” (the music gets louder)

When I was hired, the company was semi-open. I guess that’s what you call it. It was a stupid system. Even if you didn’t sign up, you had to pay the dues. Since you were paying the dues, the union had to represent you.

Representation is kind of a strong word for what we get from our union. The wages start at minimum wage in each state. They increase by 25 cents for every 700 hours we work to a maximum hourly rate somewhere in the neighborhood of $10. There are a few specialized jobs in the company that earn $1/hour more.

The pay scale has been the same since the union “negotiated” a second tier for new employees several contracts ago. The new tier pays approximately half of what the more senior employees make. I don’t think the company would have been allowed to pay people less than the minimum wage even if we didn’t have the union. Note: our starting pay is less than the big-box store across the street.

Because of the Affordable Care Act, the company was allowed to put in more stringent requirements for part-time employees to be eligible for health-care. Guess the union was too busy to even comment on that.

We are not allowed to strike. I have no idea how the union got the store to agree to that.

The store is closed on Christmas Day. Every other holiday is treated like a regular workday. I work every Thanksgiving because Thursday is part of my schedule. Full-time or part-time is irrelevant. I bet the union had a hard time getting that through too.

The union was nowhere around when the company changed its discipline system to allow all absences and tardies to stay on our record for a year instead of dropping off after 30 days. Discipline issues and absence issues can now be combined to determine whether an employee can be terminated.

Usually a union will get some kind of concession for that type of change. Here’s ours: if we go four months with no absences, our manager stops by and congratulates us (if they remember).

Last year, Michigan became a right-to-work state. Which means we can all opt out of the union if we choose to. In what can only be described as interesting timing, the union raised our dues this week. They are now 2 hours pay + $16 per month with a minimum of $30.08.

Since the dues are taken out weekly, it was almost impossible for some of the people to figure out how much the raise was actually going to be. The calculation [(2 hours +16) x12/52] is a bit complex, particularly since the store is good about hiring mentally challenged employees for many of the rote tasks.

Of course, we can’t get out of the union until the next contract is negotiated in May 2015. The union may not be doing much for us, but it seems to be taking care of itself just fine.

4

Not Really Sure I Get this WordPress Thing

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I’m not really sure how I ended up at this point in the world of blogdom. Last summer I was really bored. And as usual, more money would have been nice. So I went to Elance to see what types of freelancing jobs might be available. I didn’t really find much, except some writing work. I signed up, then realized I no longer had any portfolio of my work.

Yikes! It had been so long since I had done real business writing that if any of it had survived, it would be on a floppy disc. And the computer doesn’t have a floppy drive (and even I know that meant there wouldn’t be anything on the hard drive since it was a different computer). And I didn’t know where any of that stuff would be. And it was really hot. And I didn’t want to root through all of my ultra-unorganized piles.

So I had a brilliant idea. I would polish up my writing skills on a blog and create a new portfolio. One minor problem. I didn’t really know what a blog was. Or how to start one. So I went to Google and found WordPress. I have no idea why I chose it. It’s not at the top of the list. But its little write-up said it was easy to use. Sounded perfect. Did you know that on October 13, 2012, they counted 56.6 million blogs internationally on WordPress?

So I jumped in. Did I want to rent my own domain for greater control? Control of what? That would be a no for the moment.

What theme did I want? Looked through lots of them. It would have been a lot easier if I really knew what I wanted to write about.

What should I write about? Write about what you know. What do I know? Family? No. We’re way too private and not all that interesting. Being bipolar? No. I was stable, so there weren’t any current interesting stories. My religious studies? No. I’d been writing for that for years and it was way to intellectual to help me in the “real” world.

OK. Day-to-day life it was. Rats. Still no themes that struck me. There are not a lot of looks that scream over-educated stocker in retail store. I found something innocuous and went with it. Later I found this chocolate one. It’s a much better match for me.

How often do I write? Some say daily. Some say when inspiration hits you. It’s a discipline. It’s a hobby. Make sure however often you write to do it consistently so your followers can find you.

Followers? Who is going to want to read my attempts to get my writing skills back?

Personal Info? Family won’t want to be mentioned in detail. Nothing really exciting about me. Hmm. I still need to work on that. It’s only been eight months.

Who is my audience? Beats me. Obviously I haven’t thought this through very well. I had just wanted something that would keep track of what I was writing. You know, better than the floppy discs.

What widgets did I want? What’s a widget? I read all the descriptions. They were not particularly helpful.

What social media did I want to interface with? Ummm. Not exactly the queen of social media. Have I mentioned how introverted and private I am? Connected with Facebook and LinkedIn. Not really sure if it’s helping since I never have time to go on either.

OK. Let’s get started. Actually the writing wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be. But then there were new questions.

Who should I follow? How do they determine those “You Might Like” sites? Were the people on the Recommended List better than the others or more popular or did they know someone important?

What is Freshly Pressed? How does that happen?

Why couldn’t I really tell the difference between the “regular” bloggers and the “recommended” and the “freshly pressed”? I wandered around a little and decided to just let randomness happen.

So far, so good. The newest question is: do you want to grow your blog? I have no idea. From what I can tell, number of followers doesn’t really correlate to the quality of the blog. Guess I need to think more about that.

I love following as much as I love writing. I am learning so much.  I have humor, poetry, art, science, and intellectual stuff (and cat pictures of course). Maybe that’s why my “You Might Like” has gotten so eclectic.

By the way, thank you to anyone who’s been reading. If I know who you are, I have been to your site and probably picked up something (useful blog tips, not a disease).

So much for thinking. I need to go take a nap. Or cuddle with the cats. Oh yeah. Dinner for tomorrow.

4

Honey, You Really Shouldn’t Have

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For years my husband tried to convince me that Valentine’s Day was one of those Hallmark holidays that were created to sell candy and flowers. Actually, Chaucer was the first one to associate St. Valentine’s day (yes, there really is a saint behind it) with romantic love in the 14th century. Eighteenth Century England was the first place to give hearts, candy and cards. However, it seems to have taken on a life of it’s own since the mid-twentieth century.

For some reason, men seem to stress out about Valentine’s Day. Apparently there have been enough men over the years who have forgotten the day entirely or missed the  significance of it that we females have been forced to drill its importance into your heads. I mean, seriously, you have phones and computers that coordinate work, personal, and social schedules; you can operate your home security system from the office; you can pay all of your bills automatically. I find it hard to believe that you don’t understand the software that allows you to put important dates into your calendar program and give you a week’s warning.

Yes, you answer, but then we don’t know what to buy. So we put it off. Lucky for you, Valentine’s Day is not like Christmas. The stores don’t close early and they aren’t all jammed at the end of the day. There aren’t any “hot” toys to stand in line for.

One of the best gifts my husband gave me was the handmade card that he decorated with pictures of animals I liked and sweet sayings. I think I speak for most women when I say that what you buy isn’t as important as whether or not you have thought enough about it to buy something you know she will like.

For example, when I was in college a boyfriend sent a singing valentine to where I worked. I was 20 or 21, got embarrassed, but still thought it was sweet. If my husband did that this year, I’d want to kill him. It is not a good gift for an introvert or someone who works in a stuffy office.

If your love hates crowds, don’t plan to take her to the most popular spot in town. It will be a zoo, and she probably won’t enjoy herself as much as she would at a quieter spot. On the other hand, it might be the perfect gift for a more outgoing date. It also depends on whether you actually want to talk to her while you’re eating.

If she has been working really, really hard since the beginning of the year to lose weight or practice healthier eating, this is not the year for the pound of really expensive chocolates. More likely than not, she will wonder whether you’ve been paying any attention at all to the work she’s been doing. “I thought you deserved a treat” might work for dessert, but not for a box of candy that’s constantly calling her name. (My mother used to tell my dad to hide any candy he brought in the house while she was dieting – then complain that he wasn’t sharing.)

If you want to share a nice bottle of wine, make sure you know what type she likes. Dry red wines are very sophisticated, but they also are an acquired taste for a lot of people. Champagne gives some people a headache. Or your partner might be like the young woman I was helping at the store. She asked me to help her select a wine. I asked her what she was looking for, and she said she wanted something that tasted good and would make her drunk. She ended up with a passion-fruit blend of some sort.

Flowers are nice. Unless she’s allergic. Or prefers live plants. Jewelry works. Unless she doesn’t really wear it. Perfume is a good gift. If you know what she wears.

One final bit of advice. The gift is for her, not for you. Unless she has specifically asked for it at some point, do not buy something see-through with feathers or lace. Corsets, garters, and teddies all fall into this same classification. If she wants to look sexy for you, I’m sure she is capable of it by herself. And the odds are she has better taste and knows what looks good on her.

Happy hunting. And if you do put it off until Friday – do not send your assistant to pick out a gift.

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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.

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.

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.