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Don’t make me do math

Michael Leave a comment

This weekend we went to our go to restaurant for an early dinner.  We figured we’d run into our share of older diners at the hour we went but we didn’t figure to run into Hostess Stand Controversy.

As we approached the hostess stand we noticed another couple waiting off to the side.  Waiting for others to join them, perhaps parking the car, perhaps coming separately.  Who knew why but there they stood by themselves, not quite with the waiting hostess.  As we got closer the waiting hostess sprang into action and became a hosting hostess.  “How many?” was her question.  “Two,” was our reply.  “Wait just a minute,” came from the gentleman on the side.  “We’ve been waiting here.”

After a bit of “You go,” “No, please you go,” She of We finally convinced them to please go ahead of us. Within a few minutes the hostess was back and we were at our seats also.  Shortly after everyone was seated the gentleman on the side approached She and said he had nothing to say against us, he was upset that they had been ignored.  (Things like that happen when one stands on the side but She wasn’t going to bring that up.)  He then proceeded to explain to She that in all of the 613,000 hours he’d been on this planet he hadn’t ever been ignored like that.

Ok, let’s back up a bit.  613,000 hours.  Actually 613 thousand and some odd other hours.  On this planet.  We thought he wasn’t native.  What is it with the 613,000 hours?  She had said a friend of hers had recently commented on how often people seem to want to establish their ages by calling out how many months old they are.  Once you get past 24 of them, you should be counting in years.  It seems it’s a neat trick for those who are less than certain of what they have to say.  You state your age in months and your listeners then become mental calculators trying to figure out just how old you really are and lose grasp of whatever it is you might have been saying.  You can then feign that you’ve been agreed with or annoyance at not having been paid attention to.  Either way, you win.  You think.

It didn’t work with She.  Once he got to his 613,000 hours on this planet her response was “Don’t make me do math,” and then he lost all interest in continuing the conversation.  Apparently he was so uncertain that months weren’t going to be enough to create the desired mental distraction, not even weeks or days, that he had to go to hours.  Imagine the hours he spends every day figuring out how old he is.  It changes constantly.  Or at least hourly.  As we write this he is 24 hours older.  Do you suppose he’s added his new hours to his new age?  Or does he calculate it only in the morning upon arising?

In case you’re wondering, and to save you from having to do the math, at 8,760 hours per year that makes him about 70 years old.  And now we all know just how old he really is.  Or perhaps how childish.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

Neither snow, nor rain, nor Congress, nor a Polar Vortex, etc., etc.

Michael 1 Comment

It was cold here earlier this week.  No surprise for most of America since it was cold just about everywhere.  Tuesday we hit air temps of 9 to 10 degrees below zero with wind chills around 30 below.  We still got our mail.  He is on a driving route with his mailbox sitting at the street.  But She has her mailed walked to her door by a letter carrier who still marches up and down the street.  It’s not like they were responding to heart attacks or putting out fires.  They were delivering bills and junk mail but were still out there.

Oddly, we were talking about the postal service just a week earlier.  Seems the USPS finally got someone to approve, albeit temporarily and to expire in 2016, their request for a rate hike.  This had been a discussion in the media and in offices in late December when it was approved.  Most of that discussion started with, “Can you believe it? Stamps are going up again!”  Every once in a while Reality finally hold of the reins and pulled that Pony Express carriage to the side of the road.  (Yes we know the Pony Express was an independent hauler and not part of the USPS, not unlike UPS or FedEx today.  We’ll get that in a little while.)  Our typical response was, “But when was the last time you mailed anything other than a Christmas card?”

Here’s the Reality.  That rate hike is going to s 49 cents to pick up a letter, a payment, a birthday card, a get well greeting, Groundhog Day party invitations or whatever you can fit into a 5 to 11-1/2 inches long by 3-1/2 to 6 inches high envelope weighing up to an ounce and deliver it directly to somebody s house anywhere in the United States.  s a deal.

Reality Part 2.  She of We had a package to be delivered some 5 states away, a little over 900 miles.   This was during the rushed, shortened Christmas season of 2013.  That was the one where some people might still be waiting to get their presents delivered.  She mailed her package from the post office for the grand sum of $8.00 on the Saturday before Christmas (December  21) and it got there on Christmas Eve.

Reality Part 3.  Even though the United States Postal Service is a “non-government agency” and receives no tax money, it can only raise rates, change service levels (such as not delivering on Saturdays), or make available certain goods and services (like flat rate shipping) with the approval of Congress.  Congressmen and Senators not being able to explain to their constituents exactly what it is that they do can always make a few extra points with the voters by telling them they kept stamp prices down and everyone will continue to get to get junk mail and bills on Saturdays.  This is like McDonald’s going to Congress to seek approval for a price increase on a Happy Meal.

So is anybody happy about the 3 cent increase in first class postage?  Sure, everybody who hasn’t had his or her identity stolen while trying to pay bills on line, everybody who got their Christmas gifts delivered on time for Christmas, and everyone who actually sent thank you cards for their on-time Christmas gifts know that 49 cents just isn’t that much money to stay whole, to stay happy, or to stay in touch.

We say fool them all and start writing a letter or two!  And don’t forget those Groundhog Day party invitations.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

Did you know?  We’ve added a search feature to the Real Reality Show Blog.  Find it in the right margin, type in a word or two and the system will return all the blogs that have that word.  For example, type in “toast” to find one of our favorites, “How Would You Like Your Toast?”  Happy searching!

 

Year of the Book

Michael Leave a comment

If you are Chinese or eat at a lot of Chinese restaurants then you know that this is the Year of the Horse.  On the other hand, if you like to curl up in a corner next to a crackling fire with one of our favorite pastimes then you know this is the Year of the Book.

 Books are getting to be strange things.  Not the New York Times best sellers, which as far as we can tell is every book that is ever released.   And not the autobiographies of every politician, actor, singer, and fashion designer, which a far as we can tell as long as there are ghost writers willing to be paid for pretending to be someone else there will always be autobiographies of those never heard of before their autobiographies came out.  No, those books aren’t strange.  Well, they are but they have always been so there’s not much new there.

Books are getting to be strange things because they keep on showing up at book stores that the Internet pundits have said would all be disappearing this year for the past five years.  Even among the virtual market flood with e-readers, tablets, and reader apps for smart phones (one has to be pretty desperate to try to read an entire book on a phone), books, real books with actual covers and pages are still being bought enough that there are still bookstores even after the Internet pundits said there shouldn’t be.

When recently asked on a news show, authors and critics alike preferred a real book to read even though those polled had reader devices also.  There is no question that the e-reader is the frequent traveler’s best friend for reading material.  With hundreds of books available on a single unit, one never has to worry what genre to read this evening.  Packing one e-reader is certainly much more convenient than packing a modest 3 or 4 books.  But for sitting in comfy chair next to a crackling fire there is nothing like the feel, the smell, and the heft of a real hard cover book.

Some books you just can’t replace electronically.  The best selling book of all time is still the Bible in all its various versions.  Something you never see is an abridged Bible.  We suppose the Eight Commandments just doesn’t have the same ring as the original.  Though one may not find an abridged Bible they do get smaller and smaller.  Smaller type and thinner pages have taken pounds off the venerable tome.

Everybody should have a couple of classics.  Even if you don’t opt for the leather binding you’ll be hard pressed to really enjoy the art of reading a classic Twain, Poe, or one of the Bronte sisters in an electronic reader.

Other books that aren’t going anywhere electronically are the Idiot’s Guide and the For Dummies series.  These are still going great guns.  We figure it’s because they are easy to hide when company is coming over.  In a reader they are there for all to see.  There are so many of them and more keep coming out every year.  We wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t an Idiot’s Guide to e-Readers.  Soon we expect to see an Idiot’s Guide for Dummies.

One book that seems to have been lost to modern technology is the road atlas.  It wasn’t too many years ago that half of all cars had one shoved under a seat, tucked into a seat back pocket, or tossed into the trunk.  Now with GPS units, GPS phone apps, and turn-by-turn directions from satellite provides the atlas is becoming extinct.  Yet if you just want an idea of a couple different ways to get from New York to Miami it’s difficult to think of a more useful book.

So there you have it, our Year of the Book.  And regardless of what the Internet pundits have to say, we expect many more years to follow.

That’s what we think.  Really.  How ’bout you?

 

Marching Onto the Third Hundred

Michael 2 Comments

On New Year’s Eve we published our 200th post.  The first hundred came quicker than we thought it would.   The second hundred, slowed by He’s Lost Summer took longer.  On average, everything seems to be just right.

When we began we promised to always keep our blog real, exploring real reality.  Like reality itself we are sometimes funny, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes observant, and sometimes a little off-kilter.  It is like us, who we are.

It was tough to pick favorites with just one hundred posts from which to choose.  It’s twice as hard with two hundred.  It’s like asking which is your favorite child, a difficult decision even for parents of only children.

We’re not sure what makes a favorite.  There are some particularly well written, some particularly humorous, some particularly insightful.  We guess it’s whatever you might be looking for at the time.  It could be the brutal honesty of “Weddings Held Hostage” or the joyfulness of “Weddings Gone Wild.”  Maybe it’s the peek into our weekends in “Family Time” that brought a smile to your face.  Or perhaps it was the ramblings of our favorite holiday in “Proper Attire Required” that made you just shake your head for 6 more weeks.

All of these are from our second hundred and there are still plenty from the first hundred that we’re particularly fond of.  “How Would You Like Your Toast?” “Star Polisher,” and the “We’re On Vacation” series come to mind. We even expressed our opinion of those television reality shows in “Unreal” and our opinion of some real show stoppers in “That Play’s The Thing, That Thing They Do” in the first hundred posts.

There might be somebody who has read all of our posts.  We’re not sure why but we bet there is.  If we were going to pick a “best of” list we wouldn’t be able.  Yes, we liked them all but more than that, we liked what they all said about us.  What gets said in the third hundred might be completely different.  But it will still say this is who we are and what we do.  You can figure out the why.  Really.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

Revolving Resolutions

Michael 1 Comment

For the last two years we have explained why we don’t get around to making our New Year’s resolutions until sometime in March.  No, procrastination has nothing to do with it.  Out logic is flawless.  The holiday season stretching all the way back to Halloween is just too hectic during which to make logical, sustaining, life altering decisions.  (See “Be It Resolved,” Jan. 2, 2012 in Life.)

The rule is about to have an exception.  A couple of them even.  She and He have both already resolved at least once for 2014.  He started planning changes for 2014 at the end of October.  She reached her epiphany while doing some between holiday cleaning and verbalized a resolution for next year almost before Christmas was over.  That’s when the light bulb went off, the penny dropped, and realization came into focus.  It’s never the wrong time of the year to improve oneself.

Holy resolutions! What a profound statement.  It’s never the wrong time of the year to improve oneself.  When something significant arises it would be silly to wait until March – or January – to do something about it.  And that’s another reason we’re against New Year’s resolutions at the start of the New Year.  One can’t just pick once a year to start improving.

Now there are always going to be those non-resolution resolutions.  Eat less, exercise more, stay off the couch, don’t nag, don’t drink, lose weight, gain height, avoid sharp objects, don’t insult the boss in public particularly when the boss is part of the public.  Some people just can’t make it through a New Year’s Eve celebration without spouting something seemingly profound in the cloud of champagne and confetti.  Go ahead and make those.  They are the ones that die on January 2 anyway.  (Hopefully at least the one about the boss.)

But real life changing challenges shouldn’t be restricted to one day.  It’s never the wrong time of the year to improve oneself.  Except maybe January 1.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

Happy Boxing Day?

Michael Leave a comment

Happy Boxing Day!

That may be the first time we’ve ever verbalized that sentiment.  The last time we even mentioned Boxing Day was in a post from two years back (On the Second Day of Christmas, Dec. 26, 2011, in Life).  There was no “Happy” with it because it wasn’t a salutation.  It was just a mention.

Just a mention is about as much thought as Boxing Day gets in the U.S.  Other than being a cousin to St. Stephen’s Day, what is Boxing Day?  If you’re one of our regular readers from Canada, England, or Belize you can probably skip ahead a paragraph.  Or not.  That way you tell us how far afield we are.

To us it seems to be a fine example of the Christmas spirit.  Apparently it started out as the rich and powerful, landowners, gentry, or what have you in whatever country you are, planned their Christmas feasts.  They found themselves in need of those to serve said feast along with answering the doors, passing the appetizers, mixing the drinks, preparing accommodations for overnight guests, and other things that would go along with a proper celebration.  Since those doing the serving were thus tied up on Christmas Day, the well to do would give them the following day off to be with their families, often sending them home with boxes of gifts and perhaps even leftovers.  Thus, Boxing Day.

Today, if you were to ask someone in America about this tradition you might get answers like “They got paid for working the holiday, didn’t they?” But that’s just why it’s such a great Christmas story.  Of course they received whatever recompense they would for serving their employers and their employers’ guests.  But in a time when money meant more then than now they also knew that their real pay came in the gratitude of those they served.  The boxes of presents were more tips than payment, more appreciation than obligation, more friendship between those who ask and those who do than charity between those who have and those who don’t.

Boxing Day may be a tradition America could learn from.  We may live in a time and place that great household holiday festivals aren’t the norm even for the very rich.  But there are plenty of people who give up their holiday to serve.  Fireman, police, paramedics, and hospital workers are the essential servants in our time and place.  When their shifts are over on Christmas or any other holiday, they may take home boxes of presents but they do take home our gratitude for being there for us every day.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

Let It Snow

Michael Leave a comment

We’re writing this on December 21.  That’s the first day of winter.  In fact, according to the weather people here it was sometime a bit after 12:30pm that the earth was at its absolute farthest from the sun making that day the shortest, the darkest, and the least absorbing of the sun’s warmth.  It’s going to be 61 degrees today.

Sixty-one degrees might be an ok temperature for Florida for the first day of winter but we’re north of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Our average temperature for this date is 30 degrees.  Three days ago when it was still fall it was 18 degrees during the day, 10 or so at night.  There was also snow.  Lots of snow covering every non-driving surface around.  (What can we say?  We have some decent road crews.)  Today there is only rain and it has melted all of the snow.

The day before the first day of winter the weather people were predicting highs in the 40’s for Christmas Eve and Christmas.  Not nearly cold enough to make for a white Christmas.  And that’s exactly how all of them led off their reports.  “They’ll be no white Christmas this year,” they all said.  One could almost hear the collective wails of every child in the greater metropolitan area.  How will Santa get their booty to them?

Then on the first day of winter, the one with a predicted high in the 60’s, the one on which the local weather people had less than 12 hours earlier declared no white Christmas, the local forecasts now called for temps in the 20’s on Christmas Eve including the possibility of snow and perhaps accumulated snow for Christmas morning.  We think it’s a conspiracy.  Somebody from the North Pole got to those weather people and made them change their forecast.  So what if they turn out wrong.  They usually do!

Actually, what we really think is, does it really matter.  Will the children find the holiday less holiday-ish without snow?  The parents will appreciate being able to drive to church and then to Granma’s on snow-free roads even if their town doesn’t have a crack road crew.  And the road crews will get to enjoy the holiday too.  Speaking of church, even though there was some snow there a few weeks ago, snow isn’t the norm in Bethlehem.  If those on the first Christmas were able to do without the white stuff, we can manage also.

Christmas isn’t about how white it can be, how many presents are under the tree, or how many new cookies were thought up for the year.  It’s a time to be with family and with cherished friends and companions.  It’s a time to unwrap one of the best gifts of all, love.  And it’s a time to wish a very special One happy birthday.  Snow or no.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

Dear Santa

Michael Leave a comment

Dear Santa,

We know it’s late and we’re sorry about that.  We know you’ve been busy yourself getting all the things put together for your big ride coming up next week.  How do you do it year after year?  We’d be exhausted and retired by now.  Anyway, we have a couple of last minute gift requests we’d like to see if you could help with.

We’d like for those televised football games, which are all of them, that consist of four 15 minute quarters to take less than 3 & ½ hours of television time.  That way when we want to watch something on Sunday night we don’t have to guess when our shows are going to start or where they are in the program if we happen across one that’s already on.  It’s getting so bad that the only thing you can count on starting on time is the Sunday night football game.  But who wants to stay up until midnight the day before you have to go to work?  We always have to go to work the next day.

We’d like a ream of parking instruction pamphlets that we can put on the windshields of cars driven by people who still don’t get what the lines drawn in the parking lots are for.  You probably don’t have that problem as late as you come on Christmas Eve but it’s getting ridiculous trying to find a parking space.  Actually, we can find the spaces, they’re just being taken up by these monster SUVs everyone is driving.  They all seem to think that just because they are driving a truck the size of the space shuttle that they can leave it however they put it, even if it is taking up two or sometimes three spaces.

We’d like to work for people who value us.  That might be a tall order but if you could drop something into their eggnog that makes bosses a little more personable, or at least polite, we’d really appreciate it.  And that probably goes for us when we have to take on the boss role every now and then.

We’d like fire-proof outdoor lights.  Unfortunately both of us have had outside Christmas lights that sputtered, sparked, flared, and scared the heck out of us.  We’re fine and nothing too terrible happened.  When He’s went poof he was standing in the doorway looking at it and said to himself, “Did I just see a spark,” and then out loud, “Whoa! I just saw a spark,” just as the pole lamp became a match stick.  She’s mishap happened when a strong north wind blew so hard it rubbed the cord against the house right through the insulation starting a fire at the highest point of her roof.  We don’t want to sound nasty about it but could you keep your north wind to yourself.  You probably are used to dealing with it and know how to secure stuff around your roof better than we do down here.  Anyway, “proof” versus “resistant” sure would put our minds at ease.  Probably Underwriter’s Laboratory has something to do with this too but things sometimes slip through the cracks.

We’d like a little variety in the television ads here in the lower 48.  Do you know that we sometimes have to sit through the same aging singer singing the same two lines of some made up song 10 or 12 times in a half-hour show?  Better yet, how about some commercial free television.  Probably the guys who own the commercial television stations are asking you for more advertising time but maybe you can work out a deal with everybody.  If you were able to find kids who accepted the toys from the Island of Misfits you should be able to mediate something with those misfits.

We’d like calorie free Christmas cookies.  We’ve noticed that every year you make millions of stops delivering presents and most of them have milk and cookies waiting for you.  All of the pictures we’ve ever seen show an empty plate when you leave.  Ok, those pictures are on usually on Christmas cards but if you can’t trust Hallmark, who can you trust?  You eat all those cookies all in one night and even though you are a little portly (we hate to be the ones to say that) you never get any bigger.  You must have some calorie zapper or something that lets you relish in the billions and billions of chocolate chips you consume.  How about sharing that technology?  If it works for everybody we’ll see what we can do about getting you on Shark Tank next year.  You could make a fortune with that!

And before we forget, we’d like peace on earth.  Sorry if we left the hardest one for last.

Merry Christmas,

She and He

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

Seasons Eatings

Michael Leave a comment

Last week the company for which He of We works sent out Christmas presents to the 3,000 and some employees it has across the country – turkeys! Not live turkeys, frozen turkeys. And as such demonstrations of largesse do so often, controversy immediately arose.

The most heard complaint (who complains about free anything?) was “What am I going to do with a turkey after Thanksgiving?” Taking a cue from perhaps the greatest Christmas movie ever released, “A Christmas Story,” the obvious answer would be to have it for Christmas. Now these birds weren’t anywhere near the size of the turkey Ralphie’s father dreams of every yule. A modest 10 or 12 pounds were these. But they were big enough to spark discussions throughout the building.

Apparently almost 40% of those in that building never had, don’t currently have, or will not have plans for turkey for Christmas. What do these people eat? A very informal poll revealed that about half of that group has ham, about half has some cut of roast beef, and about half has lobster, crab, shrimp or some other seafood. Some have sausage. A few have duck. One claimed venison if the hunting season was successful. Nobody has the classic Christmas goose. You will notice that there are well over four halves for that 40%. That’s because almost nobody admitted to only one protein at the Christmas table. Everyone, including the turkey eaters, at the very minimum double dips on the meats at Christmas.

Unlike Thanksgiving where turkey is still the biggest centerpiece on most tables, Christmas food traditions are taking a diverse path. Even the side dishes are more varied than the earlier holiday table sees. Many menus still include sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, corn, squashes, and green beans (although the green bean casserole is losing favor in our area). But next to those traditional offerings will sit root vegetables, pastas, rices, pomegranates, mac and cheese, and even quinoa.

The one consistent thing about the Christmas feast, with or without an accompanying Christmas Eve feast, is that Christmas also ends up with many people in food comas spread across sofas watching old movies and munching on the ever present Christmas cookies.

No matter how you carve it, it’s a wonderful time of the year!

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Reindeer Season

Michael Leave a comment

Not far from She of We there is a garden center that celebrates Christmas in a North Polian way. Among the decorations and the trees and the ciders sits Santa and his reindeer. Maybe, or maybe just antlered deer so common to the area. Doesn’t really matter. What matters is for 30 years parents have brought their children not only to see Santa but to see how he got there, how to feed his team, and how to act around large live animals while those parents picked their trees, selected a few new decorations and spiked their ciders. It was a win, win, win, win.
It was a big win for those deer since the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is also know in our state as antlered deer season. These guys weren’t cavorting in the woods being led to their demise by female deer scents and dodging the ultimate bullet. They had a job. Like us they might not have been wild about their job but it beat being dead.
So that paragraph was all in past tense. Did the garden center close? Nope. Did they lay off Santa and thus Santa had no need for daily transportation? Not that either. Did Santa fall for the TV commercial and trade in his eight tiny reindeer for eight shiny new Mercedes? Uh-uh. PETA (you know them – the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – yeah, right) decided there isn’t enough controversy surrounding Christmas and whether or not to allow crèches where human beings might actually see them and then decided they should, would, and did target this inoffensive family owned garden center as animal haters. You see, the deer were kept behind fences. Sort of keeping them from wandering onto the main highway through that part of town and having to worry now about dodging a Dodge.
PETA won, there are now eight more deer in the woods for the hunters who missed all the others and now Santa has to get to the garden center on public transportation. (He spends all his money giving away toys. He can’t afford a Mercedes!)
Personally, we love our animals. We keep them indoors to protect them from the elements, feed them animal food when they get hungry, and take them to animal doctors when they get sick. And every now and then we like to pretend eight of them actually pull Santa’s sleigh across the world spreading joy where us common people messed up. He seems to be wild about his job and knows darned well it beats being dead.
Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?