1. The definition of frustration is having a full quart of delicious Talenti gelato in the freezer and not being able to open it. I tried every technique and device I had on hand short of using a chainsaw and could not get it open. This is apparently a problem known by the Talenti folks, so it isn’t just me. Still, when I finally threw that gelato in the trash, I was not a happy girl!
2. A window company recently emailed me to let me know that it is probably time to replace my windows. Their records indicate that my house was built in 1900. What? This house was built in 2015 and I have lived here ever since. Somebody is getting bad information!
3. I’m always perplexed by the people selling windows in ShopRite. Does anyone go there thinking, “quart of milk, loaf of bread, new windows?” My standard response is “My house is new so I don’t need windows yet.” It is actually 11 years old, but I still don’t need windows!
4. At my recent annual ophthalmology appointment, I was asked if I wanted the ophthalmologist to check my vision and glasses. Isn’t that what I am here for, I asked. I was told the doctor is there to examine the health of my eyes, and the vision exam is a separate procedure for which there is a separate charge (luckily, my insurance covers it). I had a feeling my vision had changed a little and the exam confirmed exactly what I suspected. But to be asked whether I wanted to have my vision tested by the eye doctor seemed so strange to me. Marcus Welby would just have done it, no questions asked!
5. I don’t understand Hallmark’s business model. Aside from the TV channel and streaming of shows and corny movies, there are the Hallmark stores with their extensive holiday displays, gifts and great but expensive greeting cards. So why do they have another line of cards that they sell in the Dollar Store at two for a dollar? The cards are nice, and they say Hallmark on the back. The other day I bought a bunch for upcoming birthdays, spending less on six cards than I would have spent on one. Aren’t they competing with themselves? I would have had to buy the cards in a Hallmark store if they didn’t have a less expensive line at the Dollar Store!
6. A friend of mine is so neat and fussy about her home that her son says if the house was on fire, she’d go around and make sure the beds were all made before evacuating.
7. Since when did cream cheese get so fancy? The local bagel store near me offers plain, vegetable, honey walnut, jalapeno, scallion, strawberry, bacon & chives and Oreo. Oreo cream cheese?
8. It’s a little early for Thanksgiving but tell that to the pack of 5 gigantic turkeys who were lounging on my patio and in my backyard the other day. I hollered at them, but they ignored me. I was tempted to show them a Shady Brooks Farm label to taunt them, but then they would have to get too close to read it. I finally started clanging on a pot with a wooden spoon and they eventually got the idea that they were not welcome here and got in a line and ambled over to my neighbor’s yard. Brazen buzzards!
9. Most of us have a box of baking soda in the refrigerator to help eliminate odors. When was the last time you changed yours? There’s a spot on the box where you are supposed to note the date when it was placed in the fridge, but does anyone do that? Can baking soda go bad? What can possibly happen if it is past its expiration date? I wouldn’t recommend using it for baking, but if it is just there to absorb odors, I guess it might be less effective over time. Who thinks about changing that box?
10. The words TREAT and THREAT differ by just one letter, but there’s a big difference.
11. One of my dear friends surprised me this month by sending me a photo of a note she found while sorting through old letters. It was from 1985, sent to her by my mother to congratulate her on her new job in New York. Just to see my mother’s personalized notecard, her precise penmanship, her humor in the note, and the fact that she would take time to celebrate an accomplishment by someone who was NOT her daughter made me so happy and so proud. And the fact that my friend kept it for all this time because it was important to her really moved me. Her family always made me feel like I was one of them, and clearly my mother felt that way, too. We agreed that we were lucky to have such warm and wonderful parents and a friendship that is still going strong after more than 50 years.
12. Since the last time this blog came out, we have lost two women whose lives and influence will live on, making the world a better place. Dolly Parton was a giant in music and had an equally large presence in philanthropy. She wrote 3000 songs, including some of the world’s favorites, and wrote far more than 3000 checks to fund her Imagination Library to give books to children, to fund hospital care and medical research during the Covid crisis, to enable kids to go to college and so much more. She set up her Dollywood amusement park in her native Tennessee to bring joy and jobs to the people in the area. Her gifts will keep on giving for many years to come. In her own way, she was aligned with feminist and activist Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms Magazine and the proponent for equal rights and treatment of women. Steinem’s writing and her magazine were designed to make people – men AND women – think about inequalities and how they could be rectified. Parton’s anthem “9 to 5” was the musical representation of Steinem’s work. As the two of them take over Heaven, we are left here to celebrate and carry on their work.
13. It has been 25 years since the tragedy of September 11, 2001. That is one of the days when everyone who was alive remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the two airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers. I watched several shows recounting the heroic efforts of the NYC Fire and Police Departments as well as other rescuers and accounts by people who had been trapped in the Towers. Even after all of this time, these stories moved me to tears. I listened to the reading of the names of those who were lost in the attack and the moving story of how New Yorkers with boats converged in the harbor to evacuate the survivors who were stranded in lower Manhattan. A story that started with man’s inhumanity to man ended with people joining together on that day and subsequent days to demonstrate the best of mankind. It should not have to take a tragedy for people to come together and show love, kindness and respect for each other. Should it?
