What's In a Name and Much More

I admire anyone who buys Halloween candy NOW with the confidence that it will still be around to hand out to trick-or-treaters. As a resident of a senior community where the old folks don't go out to trick-or-treat (except with grandchildren, and then only to homes which display a sign in their windows inviting them to stop by), I don’t have an excuse to buy candy at all, so I don’t. Usually.

I would like to make it known that yes, I accept all cookies. I’m guessing that doesn’t mean what I want it to mean when I click the box online, does it?

Why do I have to prove that I am a human to some technical entity by looking at out-of-focus pictures of traffic lights? I guess a fake person wouldn’t have the judgment to make the right selections, but the pictures are generally so bad that neither do I!

I always buy striped sheets because the stripes let me know which way they go on my bed. In theory, striped sheets should be easier to fold, but I think everyone knows I am hopeless in that department!

If I put out the trash the night before pick-up day, the garbage truck won’t stop by until 2 pm. But if I DON’T put it out the night before or early the day of the pick-up, the truck will stop while my garbage is still in the garage. Always.

And don’t you hate it when the garbage is out and gone and THEN you spot that chicken from 4 days ago in your refrigerator that you wouldn’t dare eat now – would you? – that you should have put out with the trash?

You know that old song, “You’ll Never Walk Alone?” Between LinkedIn telling me I have invitations to see and the reunion website Classmates asking me if I remember Joe Dokes and want to say something nice about him (I don’t and I don’t), I can never be alone. I’m definitely cancelling the latter right after my 55th high school reunion in October and LinkedIn may not be long for this world, either. I don’t need a job, don’t want to belong to a group and find this service taxing on my brain. Watch me walk alone!

I admire waiters who can reel off today’s specials with barely a look at their cheat sheet. By the time they get to the 4th item, I have already forgotten the first 3. They tell us not only what is supplementing the menu that day, but also how the food is prepared. They really know their stuff, but how would I know if what they told us was wrong?

Word to the wise – if you are a PSEG customer, you should contact them for a FREE energy audit. A nice young man came to my house, replaced 67 light bulbs with more energy efficient, less costly, longer-lasting ones, installed a new shower head and checked everything here that uses energy. I can’t even guess how much 67 light bulbs would have cost, and I can’t even change many of them myself. I hauled the compact fluorescent bulbs off to Lowes for recycling. This is a great service – and did I mention it was FREE?

I am mystified at how and why graffiti artists create art on highway overpasses and bridges. Do they hang upside down while they are painting? Who holds them in place? How can they tell what their art looks like from a precarious position? And why that particular spot to adorn?

My doctor told me I needed to lose weight and exercise more (for this he went to years of medical school?). I told him I go to aqua aerobics 3-4 times a week, and he was pleased, citing the benefits to my joints and cardiovascular system, but he also pointed out that that kind of exercise won’t help me lose weight. “Sure it does,” I replied. “I can’t eat when I am in the pool.” I’ve been going to him for years, and I never heard him laugh before that!

Of course you walk into a room and wonder why you went there, right? Now I find myself opening the refrigerator or a kitchen cabinet and wondering what I am looking for. Please tell me I’m not the only one.

My father used to stand in front of the open refrigerator door and gaze inside for such a long time, obviously looking for something, that my mother used to say, “What are you doing in there, Lester? Watching a movie?” (She said this with much more colorful language than I can write here.) And one of the things he might have found in the fridge were his damp, rolled up dress shirts, waiting to be ironed. Come on, you had that Coke bottle with the cap with holes in it to sprinkle the shirts in your house, too, right?

My friend in NJ adopted a rescue dog who had been abandoned on a street in Puerto Rico. She speaks to the dog entirely in its native tongue, Spanish (it helps that she is a retired Spanish teacher). But when a neighbor heard her tell the dog “basta,” which means “enough,” the neighbor started calling the dog “Pasta.” Just don’t boil the pasta, OK?

You have to admire Jets fans. The team has not even sniffed the Super Bowl since Joe Willie Namath was the toast of Broadway and won SB III in 1969 – my freshman year in college. Countless quarterbacks and coaches later, the Jets finally seemed to have a shot this year by trading for future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers from Green Bay. Then, four plays into game one of the Jets’ season, Rodgers went down with an Achilles injury and has played his last game of the season – and possibly his Jets career – since Achilles injuries generally take a year to heal and rehab. And Rodgers is 39. I’m a Giants fan, but even I feel bad for the Jets.

Speaking of sports, I was at Yankee Stadium for the first time in a long time recently and watched the Yankees go hitless through 10 innings before pulling out a victory in 13. It was a long ride in the rain to get there, the seats were wet (we dried them with napkins) and a bird shit on my shoulder, but I guess that was a sign of good luck since the Yankees won.

Today, September 14 as I write this, the distinctive and distinguished Johnson & Johnson logo that defined the company’s public face for more than 130 years has been replaced in a move that to me is the worst decision since Coca-Cola introduced New Coke. Gone is the iconic, globally-recognized signature, which was based on the actual signature of one of the founders, replaced by a more modern, sans serif font that you can probably find on your keyboard. Why, you ask? The company split out its consumer business into a new, separate, publicly-traded company called Kenvue (again, you might ask, why that name?). Apparently, they wanted to cut all ties with the past. And cursive writing isn’t commonly taught in schools anymore. There are a raft of excuses – I mean reasons – why the company says they made this choice. But as someone whose responsibilities included handling the approved use of the J&J logo, I am broken-hearted. I know life will go on, but I’m not alone in this disappointment. Plenty of long-time J&J employees expressed their views on Facebook and they were not pleased. This is not a decision made lightly, and I’m sure they paid an exorbitant amount of money for the new look, but I don’t like the design or the reasoning. I know a lot of former J&J leaders who are spinning in their graves today.