September Stuff

Is it just me or did summer FLY by? One minute I was waiting for Mother’s Day to plant flowers and now I have to pull them out and replace them with mums. Memorial Day was one minute and July 4th the next, and we barely got a breath before Labor Day showed up. Time flies, so I guess I must be having fun.

I am always reminded of my mother when football season starts. No, she was not a football fan; quite the contrary. She would be very annoyed when the NFL Sunday games would cause a delay in the start of “60 Minutes.” She would put on CBS and find the game instead and say with exasperation, “Again with the football?”

Just so you know, “Permanent Press” isn’t.

Every time I turn on Yacht Rock Radio, they are playing a song by Christopher Cross or Ambrosia. And really, how many songs are there by Christopher Cross (“Between the Moon and New York City”) and Ambrosia (“How Much I Feel?”) The music on this station, which I think is temporary, is so BLAND!

When you get into a cleaning mode, you need to pounce on it. I made one trip to Goodwill last week and now I am prepared to bring another bag of clothes that I don’t need or want – some still with tags. What WON’T be going to Goodwill is a pair of sweatpants from my freshman year at Douglass in 1968. They were a mandatory purchase for my body mechanics class, along with a long-gone leotard. Somehow, they survived 34 years at J&J, 18 years of retirement, 5 moves and countless cleanouts. And I'm not ditching them now!

I have always pronounced the word “vanilla” as vaNELLa. It wasn’t until I bought a box of “Nilla Wafers” that I realized the “Nilla” is short for vanilla and now I’m chagrined at having said it wrong for my whole life. You know, chocolate never posed these kinds of problems to me.

Remember the old, original TV Guide Magazine? It was small (the size of Reader’s Digest) but contained feature articles, the puzzle and the TV listings for the week. Quite a while ago it morphed into a larger size magazine that still contained those elements and a much larger grid to accommodate an increasing number of channels with the advent of cable. They first started publishing “double issues” and now they publish triple issues. What’s next? A monthly? I had stopped subscribing years ago but my sister gave me a subscription one year and now it is again a habit I can’t break. I read about new shows or movies and snap a quick pic so I can save this info to my phone for future reference. Meanwhile, I have an extensive collection of TV Guide Fall Preview Issues that I have compiled over the years that are nostalgic and fun to look at. Now I would love to sell them and have someone else enjoy reading about the introduction of The Mary Tyler Moore Show or M*A*S*H* and see when Good Times aired. Any takers?

My worst fear was realized recently when I bought a spray can that I could not open. Yes, I pushed in the sides of the top as indicated – or at least I tried – but I could not get the thing to budge. I took it back to CVS and the diminutive cashier somehow muscled it off and made it go flying about 20 feet!  This stuff is supposed to help alleviate the pain in my knee, but it has turned out to be a pain in my…

When my mother had trouble opening a jar, she would get “the big knife” and smack it (not with the blade side) against the jar. It worked every time!

In your house, did you have “the big knife” and the “good scissors?”

I don’t mind letting other drivers take the right of way, but I at least expect a nod, a wave or a pantomimed “THANK YOU” in return. And if we are merging on the highway and I let you go, please go! Don’t hang back, just go!

Remember the old car inspection process in New Jersey? You would arrive and get on a very long line and wait an hour. When you finally reached the station, you had to turn on your blinkers, lights, brights and whatever else and then get out of the car so the inspector – who you could only hope was in a good mood that day – could slam on your brakes. And then you prayed that they put the passing sticker on the windshield. Fast forward to 2024, same inspection station. I arrived just before 11 AM and 20 minutes later I was on my way home. No blinkers, no brake slamming, just emissions. And now you only have to go every two years, not every year. Not much has changed for the better, but this process has.

As much as I relish old TV shows, I wonder who is watching a block of comedies from the 1950s that include “Our Miss Brooks,” “The Donna Reed Show,” and “My Three Sons.” These sitcoms aren’t very funny and the people in the shows have no real burning issues or problems. Sure, I liked these shows in the 1950s and 1960s, but my standards have gotten higher in the last 60 years. 

This Al Gorithum guy is not always right. I keep getting emails about Universal Lacrosse, a sport I have never watched or tried. Finally, I realized I could “unsubscribe,” so I did. What took me so long?

In addition to being inept at folding fitted sheets and at parking the car, I have to admit another shortcoming. I cannot tell if a melon is ripe, and now that I have started eating avocados, I have no idea how to buy them. They seem to go from way too hard to way too soft, and I can’t seem to catch them at the perfectly ripe stage.

Hold on to your pets, friends! According to an outlandish claim made by the Republican nominee for President and his running mate, marauding bands of illegal immigrants are kidnapping Fluffy and Fido and eating them. You simply cannot make this stuff up.

August 30th was the last day of work for my sister, Nancy Gordon Tillman, after 46 years at the Middlesex County Board of Social Services. She was the person everyone went to for help, the person who always worked during the holidays so others could spend time with their families, who "donated" time to coworkers for medical or family emergencies, who trained and mentored so many people in the agency and much more. Since the staff could not work from home, she braved the covid epidemic and trudged into the office as soon as the office reopened (within just a few weeks) and worked all through the quarantine. As much as she hates snow, she would go to work as long as the roads were passable. And I can’t imagine how much money she has doled out for co-workers’ showers, weddings and special occasions over the last 46 years. 

Now she will no longer have to worry about whether her driveway will be shoveled out, the traffic jams that mark the beginning of the school year and the buses on the road. She won’t have to pack her lunch for the next day after dinner, worry about the slippery parking lot at the office or bringing the safest shoes.

When her son gets married at the end of October, she won’t have to deal with going back to work after the wedding. She made many sacrifices for a job that served people in the community for 46 years. She will be able to take her long walks before it gets dark at night and after the sun is up in the morning. She won’t have to battle the sun while driving east in the morning and west coming home. 

I'm so proud of her for her devotion to her job and I know that everyone there will miss her as a colleague and friend. I'm lucky, because I'll get to spend more time with her. She has set the standard of excellence as an employee, mother, wife and sister and she deserves a nice long rest and a healthy and happy retirement. Welcome to the club, Nan!