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.
Did you notice we shifted time last week? Most of us. If you didn’t notice then you probably picked up on it if you were on social media, read any newspaper editorials, and tuned into a television or radio talk show as we once again took part in the semi-annual “why do we have to change the clock let’s stay on daylight saving time all year long” debate. Apparently in the last five days, traffic accidents have gone up 13%, hearts attacks increased by more than 50%, and two more glaciers have disappeared. I don’t know about the glaciers but the other stuff indeed I’ve read with my own eyes. Personally, I don’t care about whether we do or don’t have daylight saving time (and yes, that is the correct nomenclature regardless of the bazillion people who say daylight savings time). What I don’t understand is why if all these people are invoking that it is not natural to shift time twice a year are not also invoking a steady diet of natural, AKA standard time. Apparently they don’t want to be bothered with changing time but enjoy the extra hour of daylight at the end of the day rather than the beginning. The other thing I don’t understand is that 19 states have legislature pending to adopt year round daylight savings time and one to adopt standard time as the, um, well, standard time. That, by my rudimentary grasp of mathematics equals 20, and 20 from 50 equals 30 states who don’t care. Thirty is greater than twenty so invoking the age old democratic dictum that majority rules, let’s just leave it all alone. (Of course, exceptions to old dicta are made for former Presidents who can’t count.)
Have you ever tried to grow a tree from an avocado pit? Let me rephrase that, have you never tried to grow a tree from an avocado pit? I think that’s required in “Things to do in your first adult kitchen 101.” I tried and sort of even succeeded. Sort of. For a while I had an actual tree. It stood about 5 feet tall but was only as big around as a school pencil. Unfortunately, not quite as sturdy. My latest experiment was “let’s grow a pineapple plant from the crown of one.” (The things we did while locked in.) A year later I have not just one, but two. I wonder if this is how Dole got started.
Are there any grandfather clock aficionado out there? I have a contemporary long case that has travelled with me now through three homes and resided in multiple places at each. The years have been kinder to the case than the movement. It is still in great shape, shapewise, but it runs late. Not slow. Late. It keeps a 60 minute hour today as good as the day it was uncrated but little by little it has developed its unique peculiarity of chiming the hour late. We’re now up to 5 minutes late. It’s not unusual for a guest when hearing the chime to comment, “Oh it’s x o’clock, no wait, I have 5 after. Your clock is slow,” and I respond, “No, it’s not slow, it’s late.” It has taken 20 years for the chime to be out of sync by 5 minutes. (Out of synch?) An optimist would note that in another 220 years, it will work its way around and be right on time.
I thought of all this last week when my daughter asked me if I’d like a stand to hold my herb pots in the kitchen, she found one on the curb. My first thought was “damn I’m glad that apple didn’t fall far from its tree.” My second thought was to run right over there and get it.
Speaking of summer. Sunday was the first day of summer but not the first full day. That’s today. Summer in the eastern time zone in the US began at 11:31pm, Sunday June 20. That has to be q great job. Figure out when summer start. How much do you think that pays. Anyway, because summer did not start until after 11 last night, when it was 96 degrees outside my car, technically it was still spring! I’m sorry but that is just too hot for spring. Somebody find a lawyer and get the courts working to revoke that temperature.
Receipts continue to be out of control. Just earlier this year I wrote about the nearly 
Since I brought up the high finance world, have to you noticed the ads for that company who will protect your personal information, information that impacts your credit reports and affects your credit score, from the “dark web.” They probably know something about it because wasn’t that the same company whose data bases that hold all your personal information, credit reports, and credit score were breached a couple years ago, maybe even by someone on the “dark web.”
Have you seen the new Internet food fad, donut chips? The last time I was at the store I purposely sought out day old donuts to try them. What you’re supposed to do is split your leftover donut in half so you have two skinny disks. Then you coat these in sugar and cinnamon and press them in a panini press. Don’t waste your time. Or your donuts. Unless you like flat, scorched, stale donuts.
The Real Reality Show Blog 