Hag.
So we have cable television available in the break room at work. It’s rare that I’ll sit down and watch television during a break with my co-workers for a couple of reasons, one of them being that I don’t really watch that much of what is offered on television these days and secondly, I revel in being a loner. Nevertheless, I do walk in and out throughout the day refilling my water jug or when I discard a banana peel. The TV blares constantly.
Lately the television has been tuned to TLC and has been showing one of those makeover shows during the lunch hour. Said show is pure formula: screaming queen with outrageous hair, check; woman doing her best to look like Pert Kelton as Alice Kramden, check; friends telling the aforementioned screaming queen all that’s wrong with this woman, check. One-liners are peppered in the comments from the peanut gallery: “she’s built like a linebacker” or “she looks like an ugly frat boy.” Apparently the goal of the show is to shame the woman into thinking she needs to look at least 10 years younger and therefore forever shun her haggish, haggard ways.
Give me a break.
Listen, I know everyone is obsessed with looking youthful, which apparently defaults to attractive but I really think that people should be allowed to look their age. Old does not equate bad. People over the age of 40 do not automatically become ugly. Nowhere should anyone be encouraged to wear a paper bag over their face because they’re not as youthful looking as they used to be.
I look in the mirror (often, because I am vain) and I see a man that has earned every crinkle around my eyes, every gray hair in my moustache and every freckle on this 40 year old body. Others have encouraged me to colour the gray streak in my ‘stache so that I look a little younger – I earned that gray streak from worrying about friends and family over the years! So I have a little sugar in my ginger, big deal. Granted, I work out like I’ve never worked out before these days and I constantly watch my diet, but that’s not in any crazy attempt at trying to appear younger, it’s so I live longer and can terrorise those I love with my big mouth for that many more years.
I know there are people walking all over the place that are being nipped, tucked, pinched, squeezed, peeled, loofahed, buffed, spit polished and injected with all sort of things so that they can reclaim what they believe they once had. I say wear your age with pride and donate the money to a worthy cause. Take a few moments and make an investment on what’s inside- in the long run that is much more important. If you look like an old hag on the outside it’s probably because you’re all mean on the inside and sooner or later and despite any amount of money invested, something is going to come untucked, unzipped, unpinched or just plain fall off.
Back to the woman on the television – she was given a boatload of cosmetics, a lot of air in her hair and contact lenses, all things that are superficial and that she’ll never have time to assemble on a daily basis.
But it made for good television.
Addiction.
So in between Superbowl commercials I’ve been watching the game a little bit (usually when Earl yells at the television) but I’ve also been spending the evening playing with Facebook. I swore I would never get addicted to Facebook but I’m finding myself looking up people I haven’t talked to in a couple of decades.
For example, I just sent a message to my first grade teacher. Sure, I haven’t seen her in 35 years or so but there she was on Facebook, over a thousand miles from my hometown but with the same maiden and married name. She was easy to find.
My first grade teacher was the prettiest of my elementary school teachers and had picture perfect handwriting. I remember her being very kind and very patient. She also let us do fun things, such as crank up “Rubberneckin'” by Elvis Presley on the record player usually reserved for “Free To Be You and Me”. I liked her a lot. I told her so in my message today. She probably thinks I’m a freak. I even liked her when she put my name on the “No Play” list on the blackboard for talking too much in class. I didn’t mention that in the message today but I remember the event like it was yesterday.
The other teacher I decided to look up was my second grade teacher, but she isn’t on Facebook. Though my first grade teacher was the prettiest, my second grade teacher was my favorite, probably for my entire school career, for she was the one teacher that “got me”. She didn’t force me to play football with the other boys (I was content to watch), she let me have a disorganised desk and she allowed me to indulge myself in my curious ways about technology; I was the only one in my class that was allowed to run both the Bell and Howell AND the Singer movie projectors and she let me sit in the principal’s office when the repairman from Johnson Controls came to fix the broken master clock which was preventing the classroom clocks and bells from working. Mrs. Hayden was neat.
Yes, I have spent the evening searching and reading throughout Facebook. Of course, there’s this whole big football game going on too, but I’m content to just watch it without screaming.
Superbowl Supper.
Because my husbear is a galloping gourmet, I thought I’d share our Superbowl Supper. That’s “pulled turkey” with asparagus, roasted yams and crackers with cranberry bruchetta.
Grandma Wegman helped out with the yams and the bruchetta.
Creative Leftovers.
Right on schedule, the “mid-winter blahs” made an appearance in my psyche today. I try really hard to fight the annual onset of the blues but sometimes I feel like it’s getting the best of me. To remedy the situation, I gathered up all the returnable pop and beer bottles and took them to the market and then browsed the “Nature’s Way” department, looking for a natural alternative to the crap offered elsewhere on the shelves. The sun peeked out on the ride home, so I took the long way and felt considerably better when I got home.
It’s the classic symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I need to buy one of those light boxes to get an apparently urgent dose of sun-like light.
Earl and I are headed to the House of the Mouse two weeks from today and I’m sure that’ll improve the situation greatly.
When I got home from the market, Earl presented me a tasty salad for lunch, using last night’s leftovers of baked chicken and pasta. He adds roasted red peppers to a good share of his dishes and I must say I always enjoy the added flavour.
Effects.
The effects on iChat are fun! Let’s see your AOL do that!
By the way, that’s a webcam conversation I’m having with greg in Connecticut.
Fear.
I’ve decided that it is at age 40 that one becomes afflicted with the “get those damn kids off my lawn!” syndrome. I find myself thinking angry thoughts about the state of the country today and it has mostly to do with change. I’m not really feeling the vibe of society in general today, moreso than usual, and quite frankly some things are leaving me feeling baffled.
For example, I have mentioned countless times that Earl and I live in Upstate New York. We live downwind of a lake. It’s a really big lake, so big it’s called a “Great Lake”. It’s one of five with such a designation. It’s called Lake Ontario.
Mother Nature, always looking for mischief, decides to bring cold, Arctic air over our friends in Toronto and then shoot it across the lake. This in turn brings moisture from this great lake up into the air and then when the cold air hit land, the water falls in the form of snow. Lots of snow.
It has been this way for hundreds, if not thousands of years, ever since Someone decided that the lake would be great. I have been witness to such an event for 40 winters now. This year it seems like it’s an entirely new phenomenon for some bizarre reason and quite frankly this new attitude is baffling me.
Back in my day (did I really just say that?) it was a rare event for school to close. I grew up in the Lake Ontario Snow Belt, a region known to get the most snow east of the Mississippi (crooked letter, crooked letter). Just like the school districts of today, we were alloted five snow days to last the entire winter. If we used any more than five, they either added more days to the end of the school year or they took some vacation days away from spring break. I can count maybe one or two years where we used more than five snow days during a given winter. During those two years we ended losing a superintendent’s day to make up the difference. I remember getting out of school early on several occasions; those days didn’t count against our snow days. We would always pay close attention to the smells wafting from the cafeteria area. If we couldn’t smell lunch, we were getting out early.
I remember only two occasions where we were snowed into school and didn’t get out until later than usual in the afternoon. That was during the winter of ’77. We had an extra snack of peanut butter and jelly in the cafeteria. I was excited because I saw what the clocks looked like beyond 3:30.
This week is Regents week in the New York State school system. The Regents Exam are a set of standardised test that are required for high school graduation. The same test is administered at the same time across the state. The Regents are a really big deal. Because of the standardisation of the exam, if the test is not given at the right time, it’s not given at all. There are no make ups, if you miss it you wait until the next round. In this case, it’s June.
Many school districts canceled classes today, including Regents exams. The roads were dusted with snow this morning. I took my time and had no problem getting to work. As of this writing, we have received less than a foot of snow. Much of the snow came late this afternoon and this evening. The roads are a bit slick, but if you leave out the crazy hysteria that now grips society whenever the skies are less than sunny and 70 and pay attention to what you’re doing, one is able to get about the area just like we did 20 or 30 years ago when we had technologically inferior cars with rear wheel drive and much more snow on the ground.
I am trying to decide if it’s the constant screams of “Winter Storm Warnings” from the National Weather Service whenever more than six or eight inches of snow is predicted or if it’s the “we are in for a big one, news at 11!” dire warnings from the less than adequate television stations that is scaring the hell out of society. Maybe it’s the litigious nature of society today and every school district is terrified of being sued by a greedy set of parents. Or could it be that union’s are putting undue pressure on administration to make their jobs as easy as possible?
Whatever the reason for the hysteria we now face whenever there are more than 40 snow flakes in the air at once, quite frankly I am sick and tired of it. I will trudge on with confidence in my driving abilities and live life as it was meant to be lived downwind from a great lake. I’ll be annoyed and angry but I’ll deal.
And I’ll spin a tale from the good old days for those that’ll listen.
Stubborn.
“I’m not doing that”, the irate voice said on the phone.
“I’m not doing that either”, she continued.
“Nope.”
It’s always a joy trying to walk a customer through a problem that they are having with their e-mail. Especially when said customer is using an old residential dial-up account to send out mass quantities of e-mail to distribution lists holding hundreds of e-mail addresses.
Here’s the thing. When your computer is screwed up and you call the Technical Assistance Center and then get herded up to “Level II”, I am your god. I know what I am doing and I am going to do everything I can to make sure that your life on the electronic fast lane is a pleasant one. I’ll even help you troubleshoot Outlook Express or Outlook, which isn’t even really my responsibility, but I’m a nice guy.
Most of the time.
Once in a great while we’ll have a customer call in ranting and raving and carrying on like someone set their ugly sweater on fire and then they’ll refuse to do anything that you ask them to do so that you can try to figure out what the hell is wrong with their computer.
“I need you to change…”, I start.
“Nope.”
When did it become socially acceptable to be an utter jackass on the phone? The woman that I was speaking with insisted she knew what the problem was. But she didn’t. She was way off base. She didn’t believe me when I told her that she had typos in her distribution list. She didn’t believe me when I told her Outlook was misconfigured. But she knew what the problem was. So I barked at her.
“Well then YOU fix it!”
Um, that’s probably not the right route to take. I put her on hold and did laps around the cubicles for three minutes. I was hoping she hung up. No, she’s too clever for that. So she listened to an endless loop of really bad marketing messages. I gave her another 60 seconds of advertising bliss before I took her off hold.
“I’ll escalate the trouble to another group and someone will be in touch with you.”
There is no other group. We’re it.
Welcome to the place you never want to go to when you’re in search of technical support.
She has been placed in “The Queue”.
Maybe I’ll call her back someday.
Communication.
It is my first bachelor night of 2009, Earl is in New Jersey for business meetings. For some reason the meetings scheduled for today and tomorrow are near Newark, but he is spending the night in Atlantic City.
Maybe he’ll win big.
Per tradition I had a healthy supper of popcorn, German potato salad and Peppermint Joe Joe cookies. The flavours competed with one another but mingled well once in my stomach. A bizarre combination, I know.
It seems that I have been on the phone a lot tonight: Earl has called a couple of times, I checked in with my mother and my father, I have chatted online with loved ones in various places. My iPhone has rang a few times. The only one I didn’t speak with was my sister and that’s because she lives in Helsinki, there is that whole time zone thing that throws the plan off a bit.
I like saying the word Helsinki. It doesn’t sound quite as amusing or pleasing to me as Mishawaka, Indiana, but it’s in the same ballpark. Just on a different continent.
The schedule dictates that I should have fallen asleep 45 minutes ago. My body screams that it’s time to get up and be adventurous, well, as adventurous as you can be in Upstate New York when it’s five degree fahrenheit outside.
I’m ready for spring.
