Odds & Ends

I had so many cobwebs on my front porch that it looked like I was decorating for Halloween.

Every time I see one of those awful-looking Tesla trucks, I am sure they are headed into combat or that the apocalypse is here, even when they are just innocently parked in the lot at my gym.

Speaking of cars, remember when you could drive into a parking lot and head for the parking spot nearest the door? Then came handicapped parking, so most of those spots were designated for people who had the plates and needed to be close, which I totally understand. Now, I don’t know where to park. There are parking spots for drivers with young children, places to park and charge your electric vehicle, designated spots for picking up your food order or having someone come out and hand it to you, and who knows what’s next? Oh well, I could use the exercise and extra steps on my smart watch.

By the way, if you want to check out at a variety of car makes & models, stop by my upscale gym anytime. From BMWs to Audis to Mercedes and Porsches, you’ll see them all. But lately, I can’t help but notice the large number of Teslas. I guess if you can afford a couple of hundred dollars a month for a gym membership, a luxury car is not out of the question. 

Nothing that is labeled “easy to open” is ever actually easy to open.

Am I the only person who unplugs appliances around the house? It’s not like I unplug a lamp if I’m not using it, but the hairdryer, toaster oven and other kitchen stuff are only plugged in while I’m using them. If I go away for a few days, I turn off and unplug my computer, too. You can’t be too careful, though I’m not sure of the consequences.

Someone needs to tell the makers of cauliflower rice that they are not fooling us at all. Cauliflower pizza crust, mashed cauliflower “potatoes” and rice are cauliflower, not what we are told they are supposed to be.

I wonder how many actual loads I get out of a jug of laundry detergent vs. what is written on the label.

Why do I sneeze twice? And can it be that as I get older, the sneezes are louder? There are so many times I am glad I live alone!

It is so hard to get an appointment with your doctor. My PCP will book an appointment and then insist after she sees me that I come back in 4 or 8 weeks – why, I’m not sure. But if everyone is getting 2 appointments and one they really don’t need, no wonder I can’t get in for the first time! That’s why the proliferation of Urgent Care has occurred and saved the day. I can ALWAYS book an appointment with the local urgent care place, often on the same day, where I can get checked for routine things like cold and flu. I’m not asking them to resolve the complex stuff, but sometimes you just need an antibiotic and boy, does urgent care come in handy. If I waited for the doctor, I’d be cured by the time I saw her!

One of the (many) nice things about retirement is that you can change your sheets on a Tuesday! You don’t have to cram all of your chores, errands and social engagements into Saturday and Sunday.

Like most people my age, I have my share of aches and pains. So, when I got my flu and Covid vaccines, I couldn’t tell if I was sore and achy from the shots, from my aqua exercise class or just from being 73! I was lucky this time – no chills, fever or swelling.

The other day I tripped over my own feet in my driveway and went down in a heap. Luckily, no real harm was done. I fell on my “bad knee,” (of course) and scraped it up. I also scraped my hands. But it could have been so much worse – a broken hip or wrist, or the ultimate indignity of having a neighbor see me fall! I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes, but I had enough time on the way down to realize, hey, I’m falling and this is going to hurt. Those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercials make much more sense to me now.

I have found tons of video clips from exercise instructors that look perfect for easing me gently into a consistent exercise program. But apparently just watching them is not enough. I have to start doing them!

I am spending way too much time on Facebook and other social media. I’ll find something interesting and then an article on the 25 things to get rid of in your house pops up and I can’t resist reading it (instead of actually getting rid of stuff). I’ll be distracted by a post on the best movies, or new books to read, and then I start looking up information to see where I can watch them. Next thing I know, I’m watching a video on how to burp a baby or watching some guy mow and clean up a lawn or someone changing out light switches – as if I would ever attempt any of those things. The list of distractions is endless and apparently, I have no will power to resist going down the rabbit hole. Go read a book, girl!

I called a friend for her birthday the other day and heard the recording say to leave a message. It must have been generated by artificial intelligence, because the instructions sounded like, “Please REcord” your message instead of “Please RECORD.” Was that too hard to understand? 

We are done with fresh peach season and into apple season, and fresh Jersey tomatoes will give way to hothouse varieties. There is no excuse for a New Jersey restaurant to serve tomatoes that look orange and mealy in the summer when there is an abundant supply of bright red and juicy ones all over the state. You can say what you want about New Jersey, but our tomatoes are a reason to live here! That, and the fact that we still don’t have to pump our own gas!

Campbell’s Soup Company has announced that it is dropping the word “soup” from its company name. They have enough other businesses that just including just SOUP in the branding no longer accurately describes the company. In looking into this, I discovered that my beloved Milano Cookies from Pepperidge Farms are in the Campbell’s product line, as are Goldfish crackers, Swanson, Prego and Rao’s spaghetti sauce, V8 Juice, Pop Secret Popcorn, Snyder’s pretzels and Lance crackers. It’s not just about the soup! You can drop the name but please keep the soup!

Is it just me or do other people use Color Catchers in the laundry to prevent color bleeding? I know not to wash my red Rutgers shirts together with white underwear, but sometimes things that you don’t think will bleed DO bleed. And this stuff works as promised.

Has anyone seen my dryer ball? I use four in the dryer and one has escaped. I hope it wasn’t in the sleeve of something I just donated to Goodwill.

When I bought my townhouse in 1983, a local realtor used to drop off gadgets with her name and number of them to promote her services. There were pasta measuring devices and a strainer, a butter spreader, measuring cups, peelers and lots of other handy-dandy items. That was 40 years ago, and I still have and use my original Laura Sampson collection! I wonder if she is still a realtor!

Basketball season officially starts next month and, as usual, I can hardly wait! The Rutgers Men’s team is ranked #25 even before the season starts, and they have some real superstars on the roster. My beloved Rutgers Women’s Basketball team is not that fortunate, coming off a season in which they won just 8 games. But there is nowhere to go but up, and I’ll be there in my usual seat cheering them on and hoping for better days from this year’s talented group. Let’s go, RU!