Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Author Archives: kayewer

• Cleaning Up

  Posted at 2:25 am by kayewer, on June 24, 2012

  We’re a dirty bunch, aren’t we?

  Every day at work, I sit at the same table, and every day it is covered with crumbs and unnamed spills from a previous user’s meal.  Fortunately I bring along some portable bleach wipes, and I’m not above cleaning a table before I eat there.  Besides, the office managers come to eat there, too, and they deserve a clean table.

  We have cleaning staff, but their hands are full with policing horrid bathrooms that can resemble third world prison cesspools on occasion.  Cleaning staff in offices don’t get paid enough to do what they must to restore office bathrooms, pantries and cafeterias to normal.

  The problem is that the cause is people with whom I share a genetic connection, but obviously not the same morals or standards.

  It makes me feel strange to look at a dirty toilet seat or filthy table and think that somebody in my vicinity did it.  Maybe they feel that cleaning their own mess is somebody else’s responsibility, but I am sometimes that somebody else.  Everybody is that somebody else at one time or another.  I suspect that when some people are the somebody else, they just dirty up a different toilet or table.  Shirking responsibility has a domino effect that way, and the job always gets done not by the perpetrator, but by an innocent bystander.

  Taking ownership of one’s own human messes starts when one stops drooling on their bibs and ditches the diaper.  No excuses.

  And don’t get me started on what I call the “useful to trash effect,” in which a food or beverage container, upon emptying, becomes an abhorrent thing which must leave the hands in milliseconds, even if no trash receptacle is around.  You can see it anyplace that has more than ten feet between trash cans.  Finish the soda, drop the cup or bottle or can if a better alternative is just a trifle too far away for you to actually carry the thing there.  What is so uncool about having an empty cup or soda can?  Has anybody ever suffered public flogging because they had an empty plate in their hands?

  Geez we’re a strange bunch of creatures.

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• Be Dazzled by Bejewelled

  Posted at 2:59 am by kayewer, on June 17, 2012

  I need a twelve step program to overcome game addiction.  Games like “Angry Birds” and “Bejewelled” could well mean sleepless nights and the fall of mankind, but they are so darned fun to play.

  “Bejewelled” involves moving one colorful gem at a time to make a row or column of three of a kind and eliminate them from the board.  If you are lucky, you can match four or five jewels and gain special board clearing skills.  It’s simple and easy to lose track of when you’re on a  train and miss your stop.

  Games like these are fast-paced and don’t involve violence (unless you feel sorry for egg-stealing pigs, in which case you would pass on those teed-off avian cuties, whom you launch at pigs to explode them in revenge).

  The fun offered by “Bejewelled” is intoxicating for me because I like to dabble with jewels that don’t run the risk of theft or falling out of a ring setting.  They may not come in a Tiffany box, but there are rows and rows of them, and as you clear sets of gems, more appear.  If you gain a five-gem group, you can eliminate one set altogether from your board; a “power jewel” enables you to produce a lightning bolt that seeks and destroys in ways even the Emperor in Star Wars couldn’t do.

  Yes sir, you can see I’m hooked.

  “Angry Birds,” on the other hand, requires some aim and ability to launch a slingshot by touch.  I have no aim.  I can’t even throw like a girl.  The birds are rather cute as they arc through the air to smash lumber and bricks to break up the swine defensive front, so even if I don’t win the game, it’s fun to play.

  With these games, they can go on forever for old folks like me.  Kids can probably whiz right through each level with ease.  Besides, they wouldn’t want to know that adults like the games, too.  It’s just our little secret.

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• Writing Web of Mystery

  Posted at 2:40 am by kayewer, on June 10, 2012

  Dear Writer Magazine:  Unfortunately I cannot take advantage of your kind offer of a special price on my subscription.  I wanted to renew online, as that is the cool thing to do (save a stamp, save a tree).  Since the deadline for the special price was approaching, I figured this would be the easiest way to send you my money.  Unfortunately, you don’t seem to know me.

  I have more than one web address, but neither one worked.  Apparently I have also neglected to record the proper password to access your site.  This means that I can’t even have you send an email to reset my password, because neither email address is recognized by your website.

  At least I know you will contact me again soon, before my subscription actually expires.  If the post office still exists, I’ll mail you a check.

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• The Bullying Story Continues

  Posted at 2:02 am by kayewer, on June 3, 2012

  Joel Morales, 12 years old from Harlem.  He hanged himself in his apartment.  I read his story in work during lunch and, as so many other bully assisted suicides have done over the years, it broke my heart.  As an adult in the workplace, I steeled myself not to cry and to regain my composure.  Some people might not take kindly to such sympathy and empathy in a business environment.

  Then a bizarre thought came to me:  Joel’s fellow students might prefer that I jump up and down with glee on the table and celebrate, because somebody they decided didn’t belong on this planet was gone, and why should anybody be sad?

  Nowhere in the articles I’ve read does it say that the school grieves for him.  Maybe some students can admit that, even when adults pressured him to tell them that he was being picked on, he didn’t snitch.  He found it hard to talk about.  It is hard to confide in somebody that, even though you are not a terrorist, murderer, child molester or ruling despot, little things can make ordinary people hate you.

  So what was wrong with Joel Morales that he was bullied to death?  He was short, and he was smart.

  I guess that means the kids in the two Harlem schools he attended should only exist if they are tall and dumb?  Not in this world.

  Setting aside my opinions (that maybe those immature classmates should not be promoted to the next grade, or that the teachers should be fired, or the obvious bandage solutions like laws, counseling and more parental responsibility), as my heart protests in my ribcage and my blood pressure inches up and my brain cries out in frustration over bullying cases like this, I wonder what his classmates really have to say?  One did tell authorities that a comment about Joel’s father, who had also died in a suicide, sent the young man over the edge.

  One of the reasons why I didn’t go to see the Bully movie, was that reviews indicated that nobody interviewed actual bullies for the story, but concentrated instead on the victims.

  Recently an anonymous caller to a feedback forum in the Camden, NJ Courier-Post newspaper confessed to being a bully and wanted to apologize for the damage done to past victims.  Reading that, too, made me want to cry.  I ache for the various aspects of the human condition, because I am also human. We all stray from our humanity on occasion, which is why there is bullying and a chance to repent.  The solution to the bullying problem must really come from the perpetrators.  I think it would really be interesting to hear from bullies about why they do what they do. And if being smart is a bad thing, I would even tolerate poor grammar and sentence structure to get the full story.

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• The Home Candy Store

  Posted at 1:39 am by kayewer, on May 27, 2012

  There have been a few articles recently about a new laundry concept known as pods.  The small, sealed packets contain a combination of cleaners and stain boosters which eliminate measuring and hefting large bottles and boxes around.  The idea may have come after reports of products like Tide being sold as currency for drug addicts.  Who would have figured that laundry detergent would be so valuable?  The pods are proportioned in a colorful swirl of colors and come in fish bowl-like containers.

  It now seems that children are mistaking the colorful pods for candy.  Emergency rooms have seen cases of pod ingestion–as many as 250 cases, reported by news sources–and fortunately no deaths have been reported.

  What interests me is that children don’t seem to know that parents don’t keep candy around the laundry area.  Didn’t they wonder why the candy was so hard to open?  Didn’t it taste rather strange?

  Of course there was the case of the woman with the extreme addiction to laundry detergent, who was featured on a recent reality show, so maybe there is something to be said for the taste of Tide.  I don’t think she ate pods.

  When we were kids, school paste was the naughty non-food of choice.  I also chewed tissues in my youth (clean ones).  I also remember that cotton candy came in two types:  the type that disintegrated in your mouth, and the kind that turned into a funky kind of chewing gum.  Both tasted good and didn’t send me to the ER.

  Tide (and other pod producers, I’m sure) are redesigning their containers to make them more child-proof.  I think what needs to be done starts at the parenting level and instructing children that there is no food in the laundry room.  I don’t even drink beverages in the laundry room, let alone stow candy. Who needs a sugar rush while folding towels, anyway?

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• The Lemon Tree Saga Part 3

  Posted at 2:53 am by kayewer, on May 20, 2012

  This is what the lemon tree looks like now, except it has a larger pot and now weighs more than my poor back can handle.

  I finally got hold of a pot which would be suitable for my beloved root-crowded tree (bought at Target).  The problem was, once I got the pot to the tree, I needed more soil than was available.  So the re-potting had to wait until I picked up another bag of that wonderful special soil.  This tree has gone through a few bags of potting soil, with no sign of letting up.  If it gets any bigger, I’ll have to wheel it on Dr. Phil’s show and have him stage an intervention.

  Taking the pot to my desk during my break was easy enough, but taking it back was an Olympic event.  I’m glad to have good health and a strong skeletal system, because the pot was hard to hold and the dead weight didn’t help.  While I was away a co-worker promised to tend the plant.  We’re hoping to see it straighten up a bit, as it was listing to one side for a while.  Nobody expects to see a lemon.

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• Taking A Week Off

  Posted at 1:45 am by kayewer, on May 13, 2012

  I’m taking a week off; see you on May 19.

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• Torn Between Two

  Posted at 1:38 am by kayewer, on May 6, 2012

  I wonder how many folks will celebrate both Cinco de Mayo and the Kentucky Derby at once?  It isn’t often that two events clash like this, but I suppose for party hardy people it’s two excuses to drink and have fun.  In Kentucky the drink of choice will be mint juleps, while on a day when apparently everybody has a license to claim Mexican heritage, it will be gallons of tequila down the hatch.

  Naturally both celebrate victory; for the race, it’s money for the owners and jockey and breeding rights for the horse, and the partiers remember how a battle was won when the enemy outnumbered the victors two to one.  It must be tough fighting a battle when you know you have to contribute at least two wins against bad guys by killing them, just as it is a challenge to pick one’s horse’s way through a charging hoard of other striving stallions to get in front and cross the line first.

  Folks gamble on horse races and drink too much on festival days, and spend way too much money doing both.  I enjoy guessing which horse will win each Triple Crown race, but I have no doubt about how many grumpy hung-over people I’ll see tomorrow morning.

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• The Lemon Tree Saga Continues

  Posted at 2:30 am by kayewer, on April 29, 2012

  Last time, if you remember (and those of you who remember watching “Rocky & Bullwinkle” are now smiling), I have a lemon tree growing in the office.  I started it from a sprouted seedling, and it has gotten quite large.  This week it took to leaning in its pot.  A kindly co-worker used the stick from one of the miniature American flags surrounding the pot to prop it up when I was out of the office.  It needs a new pot.

  The quest to nurture this plant means having to upgrade its pot, just like parents change kids’ shoes every other week during growth spurts.  Dutifully I popped into the craft and garden store for a pot, only to find that all of the larger pots had no saucers.  The salesperson claimed there were none, but I’m sure they exist because there are placement holes drilled into the bottoms of the pots.  They lost a sale.

  Being pressed for time, I went to SLR–what I have dubbed WalMart (Store of Last Resort)–and spent a frustrating ten minutes in the potting aisle with an assortment of pots which, after the week I’ve had, all look like the wrong size.  If I had been smart, I would have measured the old pot beforehand, but the past week was a mental whirlwind of activity, and my brain had no room for a pot measurement.  So I did the next best thing:  I measured the pot I liked and will check it against the current one so I can return and buy the right size later in the week.

  Meanwhile, the tree is still enjoying the sunny side of the office, though at a slightly tilted point of view.

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• What Do You Do With a Lemon Tree?

  Posted at 2:04 am by kayewer, on April 22, 2012

  One day a few years ago, I squeezed lemon juice from a wedge which had been packed in my lunch for use with a relaxing thermos of hot tea.  The lemon was so dense that a seed, which would have been removed prior to packing, escaped detection; it had also germinated and had green shoots at both ends.  Not being well versed in lemon genetics, or the possible harm from using a lemon with progeny, I kept the seed and drank the juice in my tea anyway.  It was fine, and shortly after that the seed went into a cup of water until I was able to put it into a pot.  It promptly died; I think I may have planted it backward (so much for a yellow thumb).

  A few weeks later, it happened again.  It seemed to me that some great force in the universe wanted me to plant a lemon seed, so in spite of my failure the first time, I tried again.  This seed thrived on a sunny windowsill in the office, and has since gone through four pots and six or seven soil changes.  I found a Miracle-Gro(R) soil specifically for citrus and cactus plants which gets greedily fed upon as if I were raising Audrey II from “Little Shop of Horrors.”

  That little seed project #2 has, in fact, become Audrey III, a tall leafy plant some four feet or so tall.  I don’t dare risk my back to take it from its table to set it on the floor to measure it, but it leans toward the window like a tanner tilting the beach umbrella seeking the best dose of sun.  The running joke in the office is when we’ll see a lemon on it.  It’s unlikely to happen indoors, as somebody brought up the fact that it can’t be pollinated inside.  Also, living in the Northeast, it’s not destined for life outdoors anyway.

  So what does one do with a lemon tree?

  And no, killing is not an option.

  Suggestions have been made to donate it to a nursery or greenhouse, though there is a chance that it can continue to grow indoors if it’s fertilized properly and re-potted when necessary.  For now, it’s thriving wonderfully.  It does make a nice addition to the office decor; donated flags have made it the most patriotic tree around.  There are only so many size pots, so I guess I’ll cross the bridge again when I reach it.  It would certainly earn its keep if it makes lemonade.

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