Tag Humor

Resonating changes

Michael 12 Comments

In the sports world they call it “a stale message.” The coach or manager is a good coach or manager and will continue to be a good coach or manager, but they have been in one place too long, and their message isn’t resonating with the players. They’ve become stale.

My kitchen was stale. It’s a good kitchen and will continue to be a good kitchen, but its message is no longer resonating with me. Err, that is, its layout is no longer resonating with me. It didn’t need a major overhaul. Just a tweak. I’d have liked to have swapped the refrigerator for the baker’s rack and to be honest, had there been more than just me at the time I thought it, I might have suggested going out for a drink after we’d huffed and puffed a major appliance and a freestanding rack loaded with pots, pans, glassware, and for some reason, a bagel slicer across the kitchen floor. But there was no other person, and I don’t drink, alone or in groups, so I kept my reorg (that’s new young adult speak for reorganization) to just countertop appliances.

Allow me a short trip down a short sidetrack. What’s the deal with the 20-somethings (and the 30 and 40-something’s who want to sound 20ish) shortening perfectly good words that don’t take too long to speak nor a genius to spell. Where we old fogies are perfectly content with dealing with our situations, they all have a sitch. (I’m not even sure how to spell that.) and don’t even ask me if I want to “have a convo” when I’m in the mood to converse with someone. Ugh.

Anyway, my kitchen sitch sorely needed a reorg so I had a convo with myself and got to it. Now, I ask you, how much is too much when it comes to kitchen gadgets.  I realized part of the problem with my counter sitch was the number of ladles (lades?) and turners (spats) that I had. And the number was too many, so those got thinned. The coffee brewer and tea kettle and their requisite accompaniments (go-withs?) took up much too much too much counter space, and the herb garden was monopolizing a perfectly good tea cart. I figured (figged?) if I could harness these three areas, I’d be much happier and believe me, a happier me is easier to live with, and as one who lives alone, believe me, that is crucial! (croosh?)

Well, to make a long story short (and you’re saying why couldn’t I have decided to do that two paragraphs ago), after several attempts I came up with an arrangement I can be happy with. (No, it wasn’t the same one I started with!) Oddly enough, my tea paraphernalia was much too much for the tea cart which then became a perfect spot for a coffee station. And now my kitchen is resonating again!

But just to be sure about things, if you should happen to stop by and visit, don’t be surprised if I ask if you’d like to move a refrigerator. Or at least have a convo about it.

Few times in life do moments of self-care become gifts for others. In this week’s Uplift we talk about how we take the things we enjoy doing and try to add joy to the lives of others with them.

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Brain Drain

Michael 5 Comments

I cleaned out my refrigerator last week and that reminded me that I haven’t cleaned out my brain in a while.

We might as while start at the refrigerator. Is there anybody else in the world who has as many condiments in their refrigerator as I do? Perhaps not so many condiments as condiment containers. Every time I get having just a little in the bottle, instead of fighting with it to get the last drop or just chucking whatever is left down the drain so I can recycle the container, I use the leftovers to make a sauce or my own condiment. Except I never label anything so weeks later I’m left wondering is that bottle the vinaigrette or plain old mustard, and which ketchup bottle is really barbecue sauce. This is why I now have a Sharpee tied to the refrigerator door! Someday I’ll remember to use it.

That just reminded me, sometime last summer, during picnic season when condiments are often on sale, over on the ROAMcare site, we posted, “Life is Like Condiments,” which was a really fun post to write. This isn’t a part of my brain dump but it popped into my head so I thought I’d pop it into yours. You should pop over and read it.

Also last week, my furnace stopped furnacing (which, by the way, spellcheck accepts as a real word – who knew?). Perhaps that’s why I decided to clean the refrigerator. I was already cold, why not go all in! Fortunately last week was full of spring like weather and it was only a day waiting on the part, so I simply supplemented what heat the house held on to with a trusty space heater during the evening hours when the sun stopped streaming through the windows. I’ll often have a space heater running under my desk to keep the toes warm and think nothing of it, but last week I worried greatly for those 3 or 4 hours, what this will do to my electric bill. For some reason, my mind flashed on an old standup bit from the 80s. I can’t recall who the comedian was, someone who often included his family into his routines, like Ray Romano or Jeff Foxworthy. The bit was about leaving the doors open in the summer and air-conditioning the whole neighborhood. “I went out and saw those dials spinning on the meter like a roulette wheel. Somebody please turn something off!!” he shouted, and it just cracked me up. The random things that randomly pop into my head.

Sometime after we crossed into February I noticed the gym is not as crowded as it was in January. Did everyone’s resolutions reach their expiration dates???

Also last week (a lot happened last week), a friend of mine asked if I decided where I will be going on vacation this year. On the surface it seems a reasonable question, except that it came out sounding as though I go somewhere every year. Perhaps once upon a time I would have made an annual trek to somewhere from home, but for the last dozen or so years, there are more that I have gone nowhere than anywhere, and when I had, it often was without planning. I would decide I want to go somewhere, find a good fare to transport me and a decent hotel to lodge me and off I’d go. Naturally though, now that she planted the seed, I felt the need to water it, so my browser history is now filled with vacation spots near and far. And I just know I’ll end up on my patio all summer.

Well, my brain feels much lighter now. Thank you for your patience!

Not always are life’s lessons found in expected settings. Sometimes we discover more behavior we would do well to imitate in unusual learning places. We write about two of these and turning our actions into life assets in this week’s Uplift, Actions Matter.

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Valentine, Oh Valentine, where did you come from

Michael 10 Comments

I had no intention of writing about Valentine, neither Saint nor Day. To tell the truth, my intention was to write about how now that January is behind us, the gym has gotten so less crowded. But a few days ago, I was researching material for an upcoming presentation (itself having nothing to do with Valentine (neither Saint nor Day)), when I ran across something I wrote for this blog in 2013, about Valentine, the Saints. Yes, plural. I said to myself, maybe it’s a sign and I should bring that post back. Val hasn’t changed much in the last eleven years. Oh, but I have. I still liked the idea of bringing him back, so with a fair amount of editing to keep those who might have read it back in an earlier decade from getting bored, here is my Valen-tale.

When you sit across the table from your one and only later this week, you will certainly flash to Saint Valentine, considering it may be Valentine’s Day, and you may, just for a moment, ask yourself, who is this Valentine guy who made greeting card companies, florists, jewelers, and restaurants so much money over the years. You may even ask your one and only what he or she or it or they know about him, assuming that Valentine himself is a one and only. Oh, how wrong you are!

The most common story is that of Valentine, a priest and martyr of third century Rome during the reign of Claudius II, also known as Claudius the Cruel.  He believed that his army was not giving its all because the men were more attached to their wives and families than to their emperor. (Oh, the horror of it all!) To solve that, he banned marriages.  No marriages, no families, strong fighting men. He should have been also known as Claudius the Stupid because as we knew even in the 200s, no marriages and no families eventually leads to no subjects and no empire, and thus no need for an emperor.

Claudius didn’t get a chance to think that far ahead because Valentine continued to perform marriage ceremonies, ban or no ban. Well, old Claude finally caught on to old Val and Valentine was imprisoned and ordered to be executed.  While in prison, Valentine became enamored with the daughter of his jailer and legend goes on to say that on his last day in prison, he wrote her a farewell letter and signed it, “With Love, Your Valentine.”

I like that story.  It has a love interest, a creepy villain, a secret plot twist (priests aren’t supposed to fall in love with women, even in the late 200’s), and a story that would have made a nifty second bill on a Saturday double feature down at the local movie house. And for a little dark side to it, it is St. Valentine’s day of execution, February 14, that we celebrate.

But there are other stories.

There are other stories because there were other Valentines, other Valentines who were priests, and other Valentines who were martyred and became saints. (There was even a Pope Valentine.  He served for only 40 days in 827.)  In all, there are twelve St. Valentines, the most recent, St. Valentine Berrio-Ochoa, a Spaniard who served as bishop in Vietnam until his beheading in 1861, was elevated to sainthood by John Paul II in 1988.

Twelve Valentines, twelve months? Hmm… enough for a Valentine’s Day every month of the year. Hopeless romantic that I am, I am really considering distributing a petition for just so many holidays. But then, that would be twelve times a year instead of just one that rather than celebrating with my one and only, I’d been an one only celebrating alone. [sigh]

I hope you learned something new about love’s favorite holiday. Learning is good. Learning whets your appetite for life! Did you know it also can extend your life? Read how we came to that conclusion in the latest Uplift! Hungry for Learning.

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Newing and Improving

Michael 15 Comments

“New, easier to open!” the package fairly screamed at me, daring me to not be able to open it. Lies!! Lies I tell you! It could have been the breakfast sausage but for that it took me until lunch time to open the ridiculously hermetically sealed “for your safety and for the sake of your waist” packaging. Okay, so that might have been a bit hyperbolic, but it certainly put me off my feed. What was wrong with the old packaging that a slice of the knife turned the innards into outards and breakfast was but a brown and serve away?

Why even the United States Department of Agriculture has gotten into newing and improving. They’ve improved the classic food pyramid right into non-existence. Remember the old “4 basic food groups” (burger, fries, shake, hot apple pie)? Nope, now there are 5 of them. Where did they find a new food group? (Beer?) And now that I’m thinking about it, whatever happened to those luscious, hot as lava apple pies that made the trip to McDonald’s different than to any other fast-food emporium? It’s been over 30 years since they switched from frying to baking, but try to find even a baked version. They are as rare as McRib sandwiches.

To be honest, I’m not sure there is much that was newly introduced in the last 30 years that actually made much improvement. Minicomputers we all walk around with, mistakingly calling them phones? Maybe more convenient than the corded phone hanging off the kitchen wall but we we’re doing fine keeping in touch with each other even in the dark ages of the 1990s.

There are some truly remarkable and truly new things that have come along in my lifetime. Real computers that made intricate calculations and deep data dives things of everyday life. Vaccines that prevented some of the most deadly and debilitating diseases (anyone know anybody who has polio?), medicines that cured or managed the ones we couldn’t prevent (hypertension and diabetes to name a couple), and surgical procedures for the most difficult conditions (who doesn’t know someone who is still living because of a coronary bypass or an organ transplant?). The microwave oven that almost no kitchen of the 21st century is without. Hybrid cars that make the most of the resources we currently have available, and for that matter, automatic transmissions so more people can drive them. Battery powered smoke detectors have saved countless lives and might have saved more if everybody remembered to replace those pesky old and unimproved batteries once a year.

I am sure you can think of more than a handful of things you did not have when you were a kid that is now making your kids’ lives easier. But how many are making them better? Yes, some, but no, not all. Too many “new” aren’t and “improved” don’t. Maybe it’s time we spent some time making the most and the best of what we already have, appreciate the truly new when it comes around, and work on improving our connections with those around us.

And if any of you are in the business that’s responsible for food packaging, stop trying to improve it. You’re messing with my breakfast!

January was a cold one, colder than many and in places where it usually isn’t. The cold took a friend and taught us the value of loyalty and closeness where you’d least expected it. Read how nature taught us about life in the midst of loss in the latest Uplift!

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Ahoy Matey!

Michael 10 Comments

Okay, first things first. Do people really say that? Ever said that? It seemed an appropriate title because this post is about sailing, although sailing is a poor choice of verbs because the boats I am talking about don’t sail. I was on a sailboat once, in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast and it was fun, lots of fun. But even that boat had a motor. I suppose if the winds died, those who paid for the privilege of pretending to be Blackbeard, or Bluebeard, wouldn’t die along with them. I don’t remember if I ever wrote a post for this blog about that experience. That’s the closest, and I’m sure the only time I will be even that close, to a real sailboat. And I dare say, will most everybody I know who has ever gone “sailing.”

But I digress. Let us talk about sailing, and the boats that do, even though they don’t. I have been on only a handful of boats: a 35 foot fishing boat in Lake Erie a few times, always to do battle with the walleye. I’ve been on the sightseeing cruise ships that ply the rivers around my town and a few others, although “cruise” seems as inapt a verb when talking about these vessels as “sail” does when we (eventually) get to the big boats I mean to talk about, which to be honest, really isn’t the real subject of this post but it makes a nice vehicle, or vessel. And then of course there have been the odd human powered boats including, row, outboard motor, canoe, and paddle. Oh and twice on the boating equivalent of public transportation to get from mainland to nearby island (ferry boat?). I guess that actually is four times because I got back each time also.

Now then, about that sailing I had started with, the one that isn’t actually sailing although they always say sail, which is I suppose more attractive sounding that telling someone, “I went dieseling last week,” when you return from a cruise. And now we got to the crux of the matter, or of the vessel. Those big cruise ships. I have never been on a “cruise” (unless you want to call any or all of those other boats cruising which only seems fair since the big cruise boats seem to insist that they sail) and although I honestly don’t believe I have missed anything, I now find myself considering one but a very specific and particular one.

You should have read enough of these posts to know I am close to fanatical when it comes to old movies, as in older than me, which means movies from the 30s, 40s, and some of the 50s. The definitive stops for old movie buffs for routine viewing are television’s Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and The Criterion Channel. Of those, TCM also sweetens the cinephile’s pot with an annual film festival and – drum roll please – a cruise. The cruise alternates coasts and this year it “sails” from Florida. Not in my backyard but at least on the same side of the country.

I have never considered splurging on a TCM festival either on land or on sea, and I started thinking, I should go ahead and splurge on a vacation I would truly enjoy (because if there are old movies involved I will enjoy it) and on something I’ve never done (which is sailing on a diesel powered floating hotel). You know, I’d not be so reticent about big cruise ships if they weren’t so big. What ever happened to the Love Boat? So I thought I should consider it, fear of floating hotels notwithstanding.

Well let me tell you something! I always thought I was one of sufficient means. To paraphrase the dialogue of what I consider to be world’s greatest movie, Casablanca, when Rick tells Sam that Ferrari would pay him twice as much if he were to work for him, I don’t have enough time to spend the money I do have. Then I got a look at what it costs to watch a couple old movies while bopping along the Caribbean Sea and/or Atlantic Ocean. It doesn’t sail until October and already the luxury and not quite that fancy cabins and suites are sold out. The only space left are mostly interior cabins and a few small mid-ship ocean views and they are going at better than 5 grand a cabin! Do you know how many movies I can see at the local theater showing classic films for $5,000? About 500 – with popcorn!

Not to be all Scrooge-like about it, I could still be talked into considering it. If anybody out there would like to “sail” the Caribbean and/or Atlantic and watch some old movies, presumably in swim and vacation wear (I’ll bring my tux for dinner just in case), please let me know in the comments. We can discuss financing.

Can an egoist be redirected to a more sharing and caring lifestyle? We say yes, you, and they can be someone’s sunshine. Read how in the latest Uplift, Out of the Shadow.

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Fit to be untied

Michael 14 Comments

It’s been a year and 2 months, roughly 14 months, almost exactly 1 year, 2 months, and 2 days depending on if you consider the day that you start counting day 1 or day 0. No matter which way you want to count it, it’s been a while since I brought this up here. Why does one shoelace always come untied while you’re walking? Or sometimes even just sitting. Of course, if that happens while you are sitting, I suppose it really matters on how actively you sit that could determine just how often “sometimes” might be. Or is it just me?

Surely you remember the quandary I expressed those 429 days ago (or 428). If not, allow me to summarize. Both feet are going the same place and at the same pace. Both shoes and both laces are made of the same materials. The temperature and humidity at my left foot are pert near identical to those at my right. All things being equal, why aren’t the laces? Why does one shoelace always untie itself? And in my case, it’s always the left shoe. With one exception.

This might be why I started thinking about this all over again. That one exception is with my newest pair of footwear, which actually are slippers. (Is slippers?) (Hmm) Yeah, yeah, go ahead and question it. Why do slippers even have laces? In the world of are you a “shoe person” or a “socks or barefoot person” at home. (Bare feet?) (Bare foot?) (No, barefoot but definitely with no space.) (Whew!) And yes, feel free to question that also, although I can assure you that a detailed examination of this hypothesis revealed that the vast majority (over 50% at least) of those questioned answered one or the other. (Now where was I?) (Oh yes…) In the world of are you a “shoe person” or a “socks or barefoot person” at home, I fall squarely in the center. (Middle?) (Center?) I fall right in between. I am a “slipper person.” (Or “slippers person” if you prefer.)

I have several pairs of slippers. (several pair?) (Whatever!) I have my “nighttime walk around the house when I can’t sleep slippers.” I have my “to and from the shower so I don’t get the carpet all wet slippers.” And now I have my “wear during the day at home but look more like casual shoes but are actually slippers for a little more formal look slippers.” (I see where this post is starting to get a little personal but at least I can say I don’t have any “these are really too racy to discuss in public slippers” so you can be comfortable sticking around for the rest of the story if there are children (or not) about (or around).) And that’s how I came to have slippers with laces. Faux laces because they really don’t do anything but sit there and look lacy. (Not that kind of lacy. I said this post wasn’t racy and if it was racy lacy I wouldn’t have even brought it up.) And those are the exception. If you’ve forgotten what they are the exception to, please feel free to go back and re-read the first, no second paragraph. (I did.)

So among the shoes with laces that untie the left foot (left shoe?) (left foot shoe?) themselves… So among the shoes with laces that all by themselves untie the shoe that goes on the left foot, there is one exception, those slippers, and they untie both left and right foot. (Feet?) It totally defeats the purpose of getting slippers that look like shoes (sort of) when you end up walking around with your slippers (that look like shoes) untied. Like how is that formal? The only thing I can think of that looks less formal is walking around in a tuxedo with your left shoelace untied. (And those little waxed laces they put on shoes they expect you to wear with your tux are the worst! (worse?) (worst!)) (Hahaha. I just thought of something funny. There really are places that expect you in formal wear that let me in! Sometimes even by invitation!!) (Heeheehee)

Anyway, If anybody has any hints as to how you keep your shoelaces from untying themselves, please feel free to comment.

Prior performance may not guarantee future results, but present desire can! Read how we feel determination should be your go to asset in the most recent Uplift!

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Leaping into the New Year

Michael 5 Comments

Last week I moderated a program on of all things, leap year. I didn’t know much about leap year, other than one comes around every 4 years, mostly, and this year is one.  So, I made it my business to learn what I could about this quadrennial event, and now that I have all this knowledge floating around in my head, you’re going to learn what I could too!

To start, do you know that leap year does not happen every 4 years. Unless you are over 124 years old you would not have ever experienced a 4 year cycle without a leap year.  That is because the leap year of 2000 was the exception, not the rule. Although we began leaping years in 46 BCE, it wasn’t until the 16th century that we started leaping them with the rules we now know.  (And if you ask me, but neither Caesar, nor Pope Gregory did, leap year is a misnomer. We aren’t leaping anything, we are adding. Thus the more technical “intercalary year” is also to more accurate description of what we do every 4 years, but also harder to say.) Now, if we add what amounts to 1/4 day a year, over 100 years, we’d be gaining time compared to our actual solar orbit, negating what we have been trying to correct. So the plan was that every 100 years, on the “century year” (1700, 1800, 1900) we would skip the traditional addition to February. But then, “they” figured out we’d be back to losing time if we did that all the time, so every century year that is evenly divisible by 400 (like 2000) gets its February 29.

Not everything I learned about leap years was that dry. There were some truly fun facts too. For example, we might actually know somebody whose birthday is February 29. Before we started making February 29 the extra day, local customs could add a day anywhere in the last 5 days of February, and it would keep the same date! Imagine how confused those people were, but at least they got to celebrate a birthday every year.

We’ve most all have heard of Sadie Hawkins, Al Capp’s cartoon unmarried, 35 year old “old maid.” To make a long story short, Sadie, with the encouragement of her father, set out to literally chase and catch an eligible bachelor. This morphed into the Sadie’s Hawkins days and Sadie Hawkins dances when the women asked the men on dates or to dance. Sadie Hawkins Day has nothing to do with leap year and in fact, began sometime in October 1937, decidedly not a leap year. But did Mr. Capp perhaps get his inspiration from Queen Margaret of Scotland (1503-1513). Legend has it that she enacted a law setting fines for men who turned down marriage proposals from women during a leap year. Because February 29 wasn’t recognized by English law; if the day had no legal status, it was OK to break with convention and a woman could propose. I wonder if Margaret was the inspiration for these Scandinavian leap year customs. In Denmark, a man refusing a woman’s proposal must give her a dozen pairs of gloves, and in Sweden, a gentleman refusing a woman’s proposal must gift her with enough fabric to make a skirt.

A last couple fun and still historical facts. Before Leap Years were inserted into the calendar, all months in the ancient Roman calendar had either 29 or 31 days specifically because they felt even numbers are bad luck (Julius Caesar probably would have argued that point on March 16 had he been given that chance). All this talk about Leap Year is only valid for the Gregorian calendar. Leap Day is a phenomenon specific to solar calendars like the Gregorian Calendar we are most familiar with. Other calendars approach the earth’s inconsistent orbit around the sun differently. Lunar calendars like that used to determine the Asian Spring Festival insert a leap month 7 times every 19 years, not always in the same place, and taking the same name as the previous month. By coincidence, the Chinese lunar calendar leap year is occurring this year and will be placed in what the Gregorian calendar calls February. So, if I have it right, this year, there will be two months of Zhengyue in this Year of the Dragon. I think. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out what the Romans had again even numbers.

Have you broken your resolutions yet? Personal improvement is not a one-time activity. Anytime can be a great time to embrace improvement. We talk about that in the latest Uplift, “New Year Not Required.”

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Non-Wishes for the New Year

Michael 9 Comments

Happy New Year! Did you wash your hair this morning? I do hope that wasn’t too personal. I ask only because if you did, you are pressing your luck. Just as you would be if you swept your floors this morning. Odd superstition those two are. You don’t want to wash away the good luck of the year. Or sweep your good fortunes outside. It’s equally odd “they” have no qualms with vacuuming or taking a shower, presumably while wearing a shower cap. What other bad luck omens should we be avoiding this New Year day?

On the good side of the omens, there are plenty of options for leveraging luck and prosperity. Are you wearing red underwear? Oh darn, there I go again. Too personal. If you have already selected your undergarments and they aren’t of that shade you can still almost guarantee good luck by having lentils for dinner or are you sticking with the old standby of pork and sauerkraut. Whatever you eat be sure to serve pomegranate for fruit course. And don’t forget to roll an empty suitcase around the house if you’re looking to fill the year with travel. Ah, travel. Where would I go? Where would you go?

Good omens, bad omens, good and bad luck. New Year’s, Halloween, and Fridays the Thirteenth have to be the most superstitious days on the calendar. The most superstitious superstition may be the least well known. A wish made exactly at midnight between New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day will surely come true. Most people are too busy looking for someone to kiss and trying to remember the words to Auld Lang Syne to worry about making wishes. The wish making doesn’t happen until hours later when many are wishing they hadn’t opened that last bottle of champagne.

It’s a terrible thing to know you might have had a wish come true and missed your chance. But that chance is a lot chancier than you might think. It must be made right at midnight, the magic moment. It’s the most chancy of good luck omens because nobody knows exactly when midnight is. That’s more obviously true this year than most. This is a leap year so we are more aware that man’s idea of a 24 hour day and a 365 day year are no match for nature’s more exact timing. Even our quadrennial intercalary addition of a spare day in February isn’t enough, hence the random “leap second” inclusions from time to time. The wish grantors aren‘t going to accept man’s claim of when midnight happens. No, it must be the one, true midnight, and even when that happens changes with every westerly taken step.

Perhaps it is just as well. Wishes are no way to go through life. I know. I’ve spent the equivalent of a lifetime wishing for a better life, not knowing then the one I have that was made by hope and faith and hard work, positive energy and prayer and meditation, beats the heck out of one built on wishing. Knowing wishes rarely come true, and never without exacting some price, has been freeing. Among other things, freeing me to find someone to kiss and to remember those darned lyrics.

Happy New Year. May all your wishes never come true.

It’s time to look back at 2023. Will you be wishing for any do overs. In the most recent Uplift we look at the perils of the redo versus the practicality of the refine. Read it here!

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Can I have that in writing

Michael 9 Comments

Last week I bought a set of book ends. Plain acrylic book ends you put on a bookshelf to hold the books that don’t stretch all the way across the shelf. Not fancy. Not decorative. Plain L-shaped hunks of plastic designed to do nothing but hold other things up. Although not patented until 1877, they have certainly been around since there have been books. They are as utilitarian as doorknobs or shoelaces. Things that just are. Why then am I devoting so much space to the humble bookend? It wasn’t the bookends that caught my attention when I first opened the box, aquiver with anticipation that finally I can keep my books from toppling over. It was the piece of paper within the box. The – ahem – instructions for use.

I saw a post on one of the social media sites (which I don’t remember for they are becoming like 1980s era GM cars), “in a 1960s a car’s owners’ manual had instructions on setting the gap on the spark plugs; today’s warns you not to drink the battery acid.” I thought that was cute but it could be accurate. Oh, not the 1960s reference. I do indeed recall those cars. In fact, I remember a time when on the driver’s door post, in addition to the sticker indicating the recommended air pressure, there was one also noting the recommended carburetor fuel flow, the manual including details how to make those adjustments. No, I was certain the reference to not drinking the battery acid had to have been hyperbole. And then I discovered instructions for how to use book ends.

About a month ago I bought a new easel. Artist easels have been around about as long as book ends. Although they have more parts than bookends, and moving parts to boot, there are not many ways to incorrectly stand an easel. In fact, I can think of no way to get it wrong. Yet, when I opened that box, sitting on top of the collapsed wooden frame was a four-page instruction booklet. I poured over those instructions looking for the secret to paint like Rembrandt but all I found was that I should “secure the painting surface securely.” You would think if they were going to go through the trouble of hiring someone to write operating instructions, they could have at least hired someone who knows how to use a thesaurus.

I get it. The people who make car batteries really don’t want you to crack open the battery case and suck out the “juice” no matter how long you’ve been on the side of the road waiting for service and how thirsty you got while waiting. That’s a dumb idea. And I get that somebody somewhere must have gotten exactly that thirsty, or we wouldn’t be discussing ways to discourage people from drinking battery acid. I don’t get it. Even if you used it wrong, what fate would befall you from the incorrect use of a bookend (a plastic bookend!) that would get a personal injury lawyer kicking his lips?

My warning to all of you, check those scissors, tape, ribbons, and bows before you do any gift wrapping this week for instructions. You don’t want to be the first one at the emergency room trying to explain you did what with your ribbon!

So little of this year is left. Was it as you expected or did it take a different turn? We tell a tale of how unexpected things turn out to be most welcome in the latest Uplift! (It’s just a quick 3 minute read.)

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It’s that time again

Michael 12 Comments

It’s that time again. You have one person on your list and after a month’s worth of early holiday sales, you still don’t have anything for her. Or him. Or them. Not even an idea.

Fortunately, you’re in luck. We’ve entered that no man’s land of take no prisoners marketing blitz that falls between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Get ready for it. Every day will bring a new email from some company you bought one thing from 18 years ago before you even had an email address. Your physical mailbox will be bulging with sales flyers for stores around the corner than you thought closed last April. Television and radio will exchange political ads for “The very very last chance at Black Friday savings!” sale ads. And even the grocery stores will line their entrances with poinsettias, wreathes, and 6 foot inflatable Santa and reindeer yard balloons.

Speaking of yards, I was amazed at how many yards were over-the-top decorated for Halloween this year and the number of huge (like 10 foot tall huge) skeletons and Jack Skellington replicas. I am happy to report that many of the people in my neighborhood who spent hundreds of dollars on these monster size monstrosities have repurposed them for Christmas by soliciting their giant skeletons to help string lights across the front of the house. Very festive.

Back to business though, you can also count on your sleepy neighborhood hardware store to fill their parking lot with every Christmas character from Santa and his sleigh to a life size nativity set all in inflatable forms, and a special section inside devoted to “As Seen On TV” leftovers.

Excluding paper routes and summer grass cutting/winter snow shoveling gigs, the first real job I had was working for Gimbels department stores during college semester breaks. Admittedly that was in a different century, way way back in a different century when the day after Thanksgiving was just the day after Thanksgiving, no fancy name to it other than the “official” start of the Christmas season and sales were still four weeks away. You wanted door-busters back then, show up at 7 on the morning of the day after Christmas. Now those were sales! Anyway, I still recall being told I was not only there to run the cash register and suggest our gift wrapping services available at the service desk. I was also there to help, make suggestions, and see that the customer found what he, or she (those were the only choices then) wanted.

If you haven’t had any luck shopping for that elusive perfect present for your special him or her or it while shopping over the previous week’s many iterations of Pre-Black Friday, Every Day is Black Friday, Black Friday, Black Friday Weekend, and Cyber Monday, and toss in Small Business Saturday, you aren’t going to get it now, so don’t bother to look any more. Instead, maybe check out the crafts aisle in the dollar store, spend a ten spot and make something personal for the one person in your list you can never buy anything for.

She or he or they probably won’t like it, but they’ll love you for trying because after all that is what the season is all about. And don’t bother with a gift receipt. It won’t be returned.

Especially during this season, we know we can never say it enough. Read why we say saying thank you for the little things in your life makes a big difference to it. We can never say it enough is our most recent Uplift! article, and did we thank you for reading it yet?

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