Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: September 2018

• We Interrupt This Life

  Posted at 1:35 am by kayewer, on September 30, 2018

  The major networks devoted nearly the entire day on September 27 to live coverage of a political scandal which interrupted the nomination of a possible Supreme Court nominee. We have seen this before, when Clarence Thomas was added to the mix, so we know how such procedures play out. The real drama, though, may have been broadcast from the rest of the country’s point of view.

  Watching, or trying to avoid, such stressful events is hard on many people, including victims of such crimes who may not want to have their emotional balance triggered by a reminder. Then there are the Democrats and Republicans and the common people sworn to uphold their respective values, who find the broadcast a forum for their venting of spleens over what goes right or wrong with the process. Workplaces such as mine, which broadcast CNN just to keep abreast of events going out outside our cubicle-in-cement world, get to see it all day and then hear it with our lunch, as the cafeteria is the spot that broadcasts sound.

  Men and women who wish crime victims would not speak out get angry at broadcasts which seem to counter their agenda. Women who feel victims should speak out stand watch for any indication that the witness’ testimony adds or detracts from her credibility. Those who don’t believe in such crimes scoff at the whole affair. Those paranoid about the increase in crime add locks to their doors.

  The children in school are either left out of the loop or are too precocious to ignore. High school students may either be upset by, or get a kick out of, watching something about which they have limited knowledge. College students, particularly law students, will dissect every moment. Psychologists have a field day. Special victims officials watch facial and body language, as do amateurs.

  It’s a circus with a most unusual performer, and all of us are observers  who can never have the full measure of the story or how two persons–a perpetrator and victim–can change our world from one era to another. We have right now, with a hindsight view of the past, and a lot of words to measure and decide upon. But nobody is so perfect they are immune to scandal, and nobody is so beyond redemption that they cannot function in society, but our televisions are biased spyglasses into how we perceive life.

  That is why it is not a good idea to make such events a television network performance.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

• Soft Art

  Posted at 1:44 am by kayewer, on September 23, 2018

  I recently completed my 16th crocheted throw; slightly smaller than an afghan, it can be used as a warm upper body covering or to decorate your living room couch.  This is added to my dozen or so hats, scarves and baby blankets over the years.

  They’re fun to make and a pleasure to give, except that I have only seen two of them again after I’ve given them away. Nine of them I gave to a co-worker who was supposedly taking them to a charity event, but that was the last I saw or heard about them. Since the person was known for being a unique sort, I was better off not even trying to ask about what became of them.

  My mother has a granny square afghan I made for her more than 20 years ago, back when Clover was still a popular (and existing) store; I know because that was where I bought the yarn, remembering the color scheme to match the living room couch without a swatch. Each square was made while riding the train to and from work, and for some of my lunch time. Then I packaged the squares for Christmas, and she decided how to join them. It was one of my favorite projects.

  The most recent one I gave to a neighbor for her birthday, and now I’m working on #17, after taking a break to crochet a hat. Crochet is a great way to relax, and it keeps the hands busy and the mind focused. The hat took about 2-3 hours to complete, a few minutes at a time during one week.

  According to the Craft Yarn Council, crocheters made up 48 percent of respondents to a survey of yarn craft people (and 20 percent say they crochet and knit, but I’m not one of them). The best thing about crochet is how forgiving it is; mess up a knit stitch, you may not be able to recover it, but one can rip out a row or more of crochet and fix a problem. The word crochet means “hook” in French (after the implement used to form the yarn), and is one of the roots of the popular tape Velcro® (the “Vel” part being short for velour, or the soft side of the hook and loop tape).

  Scores of people crochet for charity every year, making hats and scarves for folks in need. There is even a crochet pattern for the breast cancer survivor prosthetic charity known as Knitted Knockers. I have the pattern on my list of projects to try.

  The local craft shop has walls of yarn in every conceivable size, color, texture and price range, so I don’t think I will ever be at a loss for yarn. Like a kid in Five Below®, I’ll always love finding the next thing to hook the heck out of, no matter what happens to them in the future; it’s the pleasure of making that is the best reward.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

• Abundance on File

  Posted at 1:59 am by kayewer, on September 16, 2018

  Simply put, office food is a curse. Ask any person who has been placed in charge of food for a workplace, and you will get that answer. It doesn’t matter the circumstances; when you buy food for an office, you are guaranteed to make at least one person unhappy.

  I have worked a few jobs involving 24-hour operations, and they all revolve around what there is to eat. The pantries on every floor are crammed with machines holding snacks and soda, and our cafeteria wisely switched to an all-night convenience mart-style DIY model which should have food on demand anytime. There are times, however, when food has to be ordered from elsewhere for a big function, and that is where the Pizza Problem comes into play. I call it that after an old cartoon episode of Garfield and Friends in which the fat cat distracts a crowd by posing the question of what to have on a pizza. Nobody agreed on the toppings. In fact, it became quite a polarizing argument. People like free food, as long as nobody is averse to what is being offered. Recently I solved the problem of multi-serve coffee boxes getting cold or unused by offering up K-cups; somebody complained we had no decaf.

  Food preference wars are just part of the issue. When it comes to ordering a large catering event, the first real obstacle to overcome is an accurate head count. We need to know how many people will actually show up in the building at a particular time, minus who may work from home or call out sick. This can vary by six to twenty people at any one time. Then the order must be fresh and hot, so we divide it by shifts, making two head counts and deliveries. We also have to consider serving two or more departments. You see where this is going, and math was never my strong suit.

  No matter how many times we order from the local pizza place/caterer, there is always a glitch, usually involving how one is supposed to eat the food without sufficient forks, or they may supply twenty plates for sixty people. Counting is nobody’s strong suit.

  Being one who likes to solve problems in advance, I bought a package of 300 plates, anticipating about 160 or so people. It was voted insufficient because, as the second shift staff pointed out, folks would use two plates; one to hold and one to cover. Should I bring plastic wrap? No, then they would stock up plates full of food to take home.

  That’s another thing about office food: people launch themselves on free food like flies on poo. I don’t need to wait for a Black Friday store opening to see chaos: I can just unwrap a table filled with catered food and stand back for the horde to descend. Fortunately I have not seen anybody stuff ziti in their undies yet, but within minutes, a smorgasbord can be reduced to a toothpick and a twist tie, unless you want to lick spilled sauce from the counter.

  So with a storm brewing, we mobilized for the weekend, and I ordered food and prayed that the last to arrive wouldn’t have to fight over the last bread stick. By Monday we will know how it went, but I’m sure there won’t be a single paper plate to be found.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

• A Ten Shun

  Posted at 2:32 am by kayewer, on September 9, 2018

  Ten years ago, a new Barnes & Noble bookstore opened near me. Books are still relevant, because you just can’t hold an e-book the same way you can a real one. When the store opened, I also started a writer’s group. We’re both still going strong after ten years.

  The problem with a monthly group or organization is that people have trouble committing to the schedule. Of course, all of life is based around scheduling, and the problem is not just with groups getting enough people together to meet. Even television schedules change at the last minute, although it’s usually when a big star has died and a network wants to devote time to a marathon run of a program in which they starred. Lately programs have been cancelled at the last minute because a star was caught being human (or, on occasion, sub-human). Music stars get sick and cancel tour dates, and some things like those mini workshops at your local craft store die before the first class meets. But I digress.

  I wonder if a study has ever been done on the question of how frequently people give up on a scheduled event after the first one? I’m sure gyms have piles of memberships which started January 1st and fell by the wayside before February 1st. College course drops, church attendance (I have seen two churches go under just this year) also go on this list.

  Maybe people really are not inclined to commit to anything. It would explain divorce, blown diets and such. What does it really take to commit?

  For one, it takes a mature and stubborn sense of duty. That blown diet  or gym membership came from a premature sense of self-defeat. If the act of eating a donut is really more important than long-term weight loss, you don’t feel that sense of duty. If that popular program on TV beats out standing up at a piece of gym equipment, you feel no sense of duty.

  For my writer’s group, I have a circle of people who are committed to the craft, but not able to attend monthly meetings. At least I do know they are out there working on their projects, in addition to being employees and spouses and dutiful children to aging parents and whatever else fills their days.

  But it does get lonely sitting in the Barnes & Noble without a bunch of us together, in one place, talking about what we do.

  We’re a scattered generation, going this way and that, rarely congregating to actually talk, because what we feel we need to say is put into an electronic message. Even when we are in a room together, the phones and computers are at eye level and we don’t engage. So we’re committed to them. I’m equally as guilty, with a presence on social media to which I commit time once a week to add this blog.

  It would still be great to sit together and meet eye to eye and just commit to being engaged. That’s what I hope the next ten years brings us.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

• Doctor(ate of) Strange

  Posted at 1:54 am by kayewer, on September 2, 2018

  As Americans, we don’t stop to think about how strange some of things we do appear to other countries. That’s okay, though, because somebody else inevitably will do it for us. Author Alex Daniel provided a recent guide to some feedback about our quirks which puzzle foreigners (a link appears later). What we think of as “normal” strikes people from other places as quizzical.

  For example, our flag-crazy culture has us displaying the red, white and blue in every conceivable corner of our homes, businesses and street light fixtures. That is apparently reserved for holidays or special events elsewhere.

  We also have pharmacies which resemble convenience stores, whereas in places like Great Britain, one goes to the pharmacy (called chemists there, as Monty Python fans well know) and buys just pharmaceuticals and health-related supplies. In the average CVS, Rite-Aid or Walgreen, you can pick up frozen dinners, exercise gear and a candy bar or two, in ridiculous sizes. I saw a king-sized dark chocolate Kit-Kat® bar which almost made me go off my diet. My willpower prevailed, but my stomach protested.

  In restaurants, our plates are over-packed with food the size of one meal and at least one more to fit in a doggy bag (something other countries don’t do), and we tend to walk around holding beverages. Not over there, folks. We also get free beverage refills, which is fine because we have no issues using public restrooms which have no true privacy barriers. Think about how easy it really is to see people engaged in number two through the gaps all around our restroom stalls, and note that other countries have actual closed stalls with walls and doors and no space around or underneath. And with no free drink refills, I suppose they pee more quickly with less full bladders to contend with. And the obesity rate is not the same as here.

  Nobody said anything about whether their women’s queues for stalls are as long as here.

  Other countries find our paper money boring and our coins confusing. All our bills are a strange shade of green, but in other places you have a few colors and sized to denote what you are carrying around (no problems for the visually impaired, which is a plus). A five-cent coin is called a nickel here, but that name comes from its historic metallurgy rather than its value, making other people scratch their heads. They pay one price for shopping: no figuring out and adding tax, which varies by a matter of miles, depending on where you are shopping.

  We don’t take our vacation time, and we accumulate a lot (ask me and my office manager who is in first place for hoarding time), while overseas they take a week or more off for long extended holidays. However, for people with late shift jobs, they can find a 24-hour restaurant here in America, which is not the case anyplace else on average. Eateries close up and force people to go home and cook if they want to nosh at three in the morning.

  When one goes to a restaurant overseas, the waiter brings your food and you don’t see him until you ask for the check, which could be an hour or two, or more, because people dine leisurely there. Here, waiters check on you frequently and will bring the check yesterday, which visitors apparently find as grating as having to tip, as service staff are paid much more and don’t rely on gratuities back home. We crank out diners so quickly, it boggles their minds.

  Finally (for our purposes, as this is not the end of the list), we tend to advertise too much on television. Not only do lawyers beg us to be their clients for thirty seconds, but we are the only country outside of New Zealand that carries prescription drug commercials. Yup, fans of Cyndi Lauper outside the U.S. don’t get to see her psoriasis ad for Cosentyx®

  Some of what makes us unique may be confusing to visitors, but then we haven’t figured out the concept of some foreign food, or driving on the left. It all works out: just try to bone up before you cross the border and you’ll be just fine.

  https://bestlifeonline.com/30-things-americans-do-that-foreigners-think-are-super-weird/

   

  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