Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: January 2012

• Our Town As Seen in an Ice Cream Dish

  Posted at 2:42 am by kayewer, on January 29, 2012

  The town municipal calendar arrived today.  Inside were pieces of nostalgia from the good old days, including some images from an old ice cream parlor which has long been out of business.  A restaurant and bar has put on its facade and made a few cosmetic changes, but I have never set foot inside.  I wouldn’t like what they had done to the place.

  Back when it was the hangout for everybody between eight and 80, the owners made everything on site.  They had real ice cream, served in abundance in glass dishes, topped with real whipped cream and a huge cherry on top.  There was a basket of pretzel sticks at every table, and a jukebox from which many kids were first exposed to popular music or even the hits of their parents’ generation.

  They delivered their own milk to local households, and you could actually have food put on your doorstep without worry back then.

  Today ice cream contains strangely named concoctions and comes in cardboard containers from massive processing plants.  The good old parlor is going away like drive-in movies and even one-screen movie theatres.

  Sure I still eat ice cream and have a particular fancy for Blue Bunny, now that Baskin-Robbins is not to be found anywhere nearby (they have the best chocolate chip).  Nothing will replace that old joint that is nothing more now than a nostalgia photo in a town calendar.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

• The US Tower of Babel

  Posted at 12:52 am by kayewer, on January 22, 2012

  There is something to be said for the idea of requiring passable skills in a language by persons from outside its native spoken country who choose to live there.  Sure it’s not a bad thing for people who speak a language other than the local tongue to congregate and share their stories comfortably without pausing to translate, and our nation grew with “Little This Country” or enclaves of that dialect.  Heck, in London–if you believe Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady–the language changes from one block to the next.  I’ve never been able to figure out who in the Philadelphia area tends to call a crowd of other people “youse” and who uses the term “yis” (as in “all ‘a yis”), but on any public street today there is such a mixture of languages, it’s amazing anybody can understand anything.

  The other day a piece of mail came to our office, addressed to somebody with an oriental-sounding name.  The recipient in question isn’t oriental, nor is married to one, but the writer was obviously not aware of Anglican surnames.  Some mistakes that result in shoring up the language barrier are forgivable, but others are costly and cannot be ignored.

  The impression in the media is that non-native speakers tend to be more wary of authorities than the very criminals the police and investigators are trying to root out for the public’s safety.  Maybe the criminals speak their language, while the cops do not.

  What is most disturbing is the occasional television interview in which a speaker with residency in this country for some time utilises a translator to talk to the reporter.  Let’s say a car was coming their way and was doomed to run them down:  would the subject of the interview respond to the words, “Look out!” in time to save their own lives?  In the time it would take for the translator to put the warning into the proper words, they’d be goners.

  It seems logical that nobody can speak every language there is in the world, but most people can obtain enough ability in a second language with proper attention and study.  Children are particularly open to learning additional languages, and they are often employed to translate in the home for the older adults who lack aptitude.  For those who refuse to adapt, it is a sad and isolating trend that ultimately causes that language barrier to become an unbreakable block to true freedom.  It isn’t discriminatory to establish and require one language, but it is dangerous for people to have voices that nobody can understand.

  Language is power.

   

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

• What Da Cup?

  Posted at 2:38 am by kayewer, on January 15, 2012

  I guess I lead a more sheltered life than I thought, because I just got freaked out by a new video by Toby Keith which pays homage to a particular variety of plastic drinking vessel.  The last time I was impressed by a video, I forgot its title and who sang it a week later.

  Not being much of a country music fan, it took a moment for it to sink in that what I was watching wasn’t my usual cup of tea (excuse the pun), but I didn’t realize how popular Solo cups were until today.  Sure those ubitquitous cups are inexpensive, disposable and fun, and even I have tried my hand at cup stacking (and I don’t recommend trying it with cups with comfort grip sides, because it slows you down), but who would think that one could write a whole song about them?  Who knew that they apparently decompose in 14 years?  Who would go to all the trouble to find out?  Toby Keith did.  Thank you.

  What part freaked me out?  A partygoer urinating into a cup and passing it on to somebody else when beer was also making the rounds.  Ew.  There is something strange about the fact that beer and urine look so much alike.  Somebody up there has a sense of humor. I hope the Solo company does, too.

  So now I’ll spend the rest of my day singing about red Solo cups, which I’ll lift up and party.  Ask me again in a week if I still remember that Toby Keith did it, and you’ll know if you have a winner.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged red solo cup video, toby keith

• Introducing the 40-Hour Workweek

  Posted at 12:55 am by kayewer, on January 9, 2012

  With a new year one often receives new responsibilities.  Our office decided to institute a forty-hour week.  We used to work 2 1/2 hours fewer, not counting times when lunch was cut short or the managers asked for overtime; then it was easy to do 40 hours a week or more if desired.

  Once the change was approved, the question became how to add the extra time on to everybody’s already packed schedule without affecting the other two thirds of their lives.  It’s amazing to look over the new schedules and see how adding 30 minutes a day to the work week can change people’s lifestyle dynamics.  For one thing, bad weather can affect travel time, so parents of school-age children had to consider whether it would be prudent to move around their mornings or evenings.

  Ultimately some folks asked for an earlier start, while others chose the “caboose.”  Somebody (I was one such somebody) had to read a sheet which contained the original proposed schedules and the changes made to meet the needs of the staff involved.  It took awhile to translate it, calculate it and enter it.  In the end, however, nobody seems to have complained about the new protocol, only that the new hours now meant less overtime.

  Some of us, unfortunately, had lunches reduced from 45 to 30 minutes.  With only 30 minutes, it’s a challenge to eat lunch, especially when the cafeteria needs time to prepare your food.  Add the actual consumption of the food, bathroom time and fielding cellphone calls which had to go unanswered on company time, and those 30 minutes disappear faster than a panicked cat.

  Some stomachs were growling the first week, but not loudly.

  The great thing about work is, when you work, you get paid.  The more time you work, the more you get paid.  The money goes into that cafeteria lunch, and if you don’t eat it all, you can take it home a half hour later than usual.

   

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

• The Rest of the World: The Year in Review

  Posted at 2:26 am by kayewer, on January 1, 2012

  2011 was a year that had its standout moments.  Some of the most noteworthy events in 2011 involved people dying, like Kim Jong Il or Elizabeth Taylor.  Whether people are considered good or bad, the media takes time to reflect on who they were and why their lives mattered.  Of course all lives matter, but it’s only after death that one can be measured by what attention their passing receives.

  While despots and icons of the golden age of movies passed on, countries suffered economic crisis, war, and natural disaster.  It happens every year.  In 2012 we will likely see more of the same.  We survived blizzards, floods, extreme heat and nuclear power plant meltdowns.  We can survive more of the same, as long as we remember that history goes on, from one crisis to another, and we are just witnesses that pass on what we see before we, too, stand up to the tape measure of why our lives mattered.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

• Feedback

  	Eden on Getting the Message
  	Eden on The Unasked Questions
  	Eden on And Her Shoes Were #9
  	Eden on The Poison Field
  	Eden on Final Tally