Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Category: Commentary

• Mein Hair

  Posted at 2:14 am by kayewer, on June 8, 2014

  I finally caved and had my hair cut today. My attention was elsewhere for a long time, so I let my hair just go its merry way, and finally it looked ready for a change. It was pretty long, so I took a look online to see if any organizations took long hair donations. I found that places take donations of hair at least ten inches long, as long as it is not grey or color treated. Bummer. Mine might have made a beard for a greying blonde dude with no prominent chin, but that would be about all.

  My hair stylist took the time to review my hair and how I wear it, then decided to take some off and see how it would bounce back with the natural wave some hair angel on high mercifully endowed me with after my high school poker straight hair years. I knew I had the right person for the job, as she got the length just right on the first cut, and my hair sprang up as if somebody had just taken ten pound weights off the end of each strand. A few layering cuts and a blow dry later, and I became a new woman.

  It’s amazing how a good cut can exorcise a ton of depression from the soul, renew the spirit and put a few extra uses into your shampoo bottle. The best part will be when I wash and dry my new do for the first time and enjoy the speed and ease of the process. I won’t have to blow dry with my deafening blow dryer. I won’t have to struggle with a curling iron. A little mousse and a few minutes in the extreme northeastern heat, and I’ll be ready for anything.

  One thing I haven’t done is step onto the scale yet to see if I lost any weight taking all that hair off. It already feels as if my head is lighter than before, and it is my intention to keep my hair in good shape from now on. That will go with the rest of me as I embark on exercise and some better eating habits. When you’re getting back to directing more attention to your own needs, each step in the process comes in its own time, and for this I decided to start at the top.

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• Redskin What?

  Posted at 2:31 am by kayewer, on May 25, 2014

  To me, a redskin is what I use in potato salad, but from the controversy about the name of Washington state’s football team, you would think all we Americans ever do is battle over words. It doesn’t seem as if the term has the same derogatory connotation as some we’ve encountered over the years. If the team had been called, say, the Washington Savages or the Seattle Scalp-Takers, maybe there would be cause for an uproar (or dare we say the formation of a war party?), and we would be trying to think of some vanilla name for a group of men smashing each other around for possession of funny-shaped spheres of brown bumpy inflated bladders. As it is, the Atlanta Braves or Cleveland Indians don’t get the same level of controversy (at least not before now), because “brave” is apparently okay (denotes courage), and apparently it isn’t confusing to try to distinguish native Indians from people from Mumbai, but referring to one having the distinctive red flesh of our noble indigenous tribes is not proper.

  Being from Philadelphia, we have the Eagles (a noble bird and a national emblem–the bald one, anyway–to denote positive animal role models) and the Phillies. That was a no-brainer, because we could have gone with Quakers, but the University of Pennsylvania already had that one taken, and the Philadelphia Hoagies just sounds dumb. I guess we could have been the Bells or the Independents or something, but there you have it. The baseball team is from Philly, we say it two different ways and mean it. As for football, I sing “Fly, Eagles, Fly” with the best of them, and as long as nobody gets hurt by a beak or talon, we’re okay with it.

  For generations we have shortchanged the native people of this land, and I think we should show respect when we name anything for them. The emblem for Washington is fine the way it is, too. We have bigger problems in this country than mincing words over one word. Let’s just let the Washington Redskins play football with the name they have, let the Atlanta Braves play baseball, and we can all just enjoy the sports they so nobly represent. Now kindly pass the potato salad (skins on).

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged Washington Redskins

• Reviews About Reviews

  Posted at 3:22 am by kayewer, on May 18, 2014

  I don’t let movie reviews dictate my choices, but I do like to look at the occasional review just to see what somebody else thought of something I liked or hated. There are still good television reviewers, but I’m usually at work and they are on the later parts of the morning news shows, so I never see them. YouTube(R) has a great collection of videos designed to malign, laud, inform and parody the heck out of great and lousy movies past and present.

  A friend just sent me a review of a DVD celebrating “Phantom of the Opera” in its 25th anniversary performance in Britain. The reviewer, Bobsheaux, is astute, hilarious and silly at turns, thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to provide a synopsis and pick apart aspects of the production at the same time (in its first minutes is a sample, when the man responsible for the stage from above is called out, Bobsheaux quips, “You’re only the Chief of the flies? Couldn’t quite make Lord, huh?”) and make it work in a casual setting. I got a laugh out of it.  Good reviews, even if the reviewer hates it, are worth your time.

  Once in a while I will go to IMDB (Internet Movie Database) and provide a movie synopsis for a film without one. Some of my favorites were lacking a full overview or had none at all, so it was an enjoyable challenge to see what I could do to solve that issue. So far I’ve done four synopsis from scratch and padded out a half-dozen or so (my most recent being the great Paul Newman comedy “Slap Shot”). It might interest readers to know that not everybody seems to understand what a synopsis is (a description of the plot in detail–including giving away the spoilers–to allow people to see and know about the actual film in its entirety whether they have seen it or not). I’m sure that parents want to go over what happens in a film before screening it for the little ones, or they’re not sure they saw something correctly in a film, so it is a noble job to do a good synopsis and do it right. If a synopsis exists and I am padding it out, I don’t erase another’s work unless it’s to correct the spelling or a glitch in the retelling.

  The point is not to insert one’s opinion into a synopsis, though that is expected in a review if you feel people will benefit from how you feel about a movie. I try to keep out of dissing movies, even if I don’t like them. For example, the only movie I ever walked out on was “Altered States.” It was considered a good film, and for what it was I agreed, but it just wasn’t for me, so I would not go on record as saying the movie was bad. It wasn’t.

  I think movies are going into a strange grey zone of review-worthy quality these days. So many movies are remakes that it’s hard to take a step back and say anything about them without prejudice. A bit of humor helps, along with a willingness to strike at the un-opinionated truth. I hope there are more good reviews out there, and maybe I can throw in a few of my own. Now I think I’ll sit down and see “Lord of the Flies.”

   

   

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  Posted in Commentary, Theatre/Movies/Entertainment | 0 Comments | Tagged IMDB, movie reviews

• Bullying and the Old Wounds

  Posted at 1:26 am by kayewer, on May 11, 2014

  Folks who were victims of bullies over the past few decades likely have mixed emotions about the subject being a hot topic today. Back in the old days, the excuse for bullying was that “kids are cruel,” and faculty members threw up their hands and just doled out detention to the instigators, telling victims to “suck it up.” Recent studies, however, have shown that child victims of bullying abuse become adults with psychological and sociological issues; suicide numbers among adults trying to overcome the terrors of bullying are disturbing, and subjects in a decades-long National Child Development Study for Great Britain found that anxiety, depression, under- or unemployment also plaque victims long after the caps and gowns have been put away. Study subjects often cite poor health, few friends and limited social contact. I’m providing a link for those interested in a brief detail of the actual study (other articles, published in April 2014, are available by search):

  http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1863836

  Today’s victims can be assaulted on social media, something not available to us older citizens when we endured the pains of childhood, thank God. Another recent report shows that victims are desperate enough to bring weapons to school to combat the traumas dealt them by savage underage bullying cretins. The idea behind victim retaliation is possibly to see what it is like to be the giver of pain, rather than the recipient. It certainly seems like a bully has a balance of power, as they laugh over the victim and often have the support of others. Unfortunately, weapons often cause death rather than apologies, and the dead can’t tell a victim they’re sorry. Not once in any article about bullying retaliation did it ever come out that the victim got satisfaction from the acts they commit: no resolution from those who bullied them. In fact, when the faculty, police and/or strike force teams come in, the victim often commits suicide. The bully, in a sense, commits a delayed murder by proxy. The faculty still doles out detention.

  In order to combat bullying, some think it might be helpful to learn directly from the bullies themselves, and work to create an environment of cooperation. If a bully thinks that a fellow student doesn’t wear the right clothes, let the bully finance some new ones. Some think that implying a stigma to bullying will encourage tolerance, which might be an interesting point: discrimination of any kind, even to the most minor difference in human nature, implies that there is a majority among humans, which there is not and never will be. We will never have a this state or a that state, nor can a school of kids ever have a one hundred percent perfect ideal, no matter how much anybody wants it.

  Besides, why on earth would anybody go out of their way to deliberately create a human being who will be their personal burden later in life. If you bully Billy at age twelve, and he winds up on the dole at 22, whose taxes are keeping food on his table? It’s a pointless exercise in trying to put one’s personal issues at ease at another person’s expense. The real issue is with the bully, not with somebody else. When it comes down to basics, WE ARE ALL SOMEBODY ELSE’S SOMEBODY ELSE. Put that on a shirt with my name on it, and I will feel that I have created a message that matters.

  A bully needs to look within and decide the put a stop to all the negativity that they can spread non-stop like a cancer. It takes a lot of negativity to be a bully, and it’s time wasted. Go bone up on the school subject that most troubles you, take a long walk or something. Bullying is pointless and just creates more problems than it’s worth. Studies prove it.

   

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged bully, bullying, bullying suicides, National Child Development Study for Great Britain

• Easter Family Rituals

  Posted at 2:00 am by kayewer, on April 20, 2014

  Every year at Easter, it’s time to see The Ten Commandments on ABC. It runs 217 minutes (three hours, thirty-seven minutes), but on television the running time is 4.75 with commercials. This allows plenty of time for sinful snacking and subsequent trips to the restroom.

  I’m not one to snack, and normally Saturdays are pizza/taco/Chinese take-out nights anyway, so I tend to associate Charlton Heston with fast food. Funny thing, since food in this movie looks very Paleo and everybody is skinny. No matter, since I’ll brew a hot pot of tea to go with it (nothing like antioxidants to go with the trans fats) and probably top off the meal with some sherbet or ice cream, to be consumed while the Hebrew slaves raid the temple granaries.

  There is something about epic cinema events on regular television that improve upon the whole viewing experience. First of all, they are better than most of the current season offerings, proving once again that age and experience trumps 21st century innovation. As far as I know, the technique used to part the Red Sea in Commandments is still used on the Universal Studios tour in Hollywood. When I’m 75 or so, if blogs are still relevant, I’ll come back here and let you know what 2014 programs withstood the years. And I’ll bet Commandments will still run on ABC every Easter.

   

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• A Clothes Call

  Posted at 2:01 am by kayewer, on April 13, 2014

  I found a great top; it was so great, I bought two of its friends. When people rave about your choice of clothes, any woman will scramble for more, and I sure did.

  The day after last Christmas, the drive into the office was so smooth and free of traffic that I had the chance to stop at a store on the way in and take advantage of early post-holiday sales. A graphic top practically wrapped its sleeve around me for attention from a rack of picked-over clothing left pining for the joys of being under a decorated, dead spruce. I had always wondered if I would look good in such a top, and this one seemed a good choice. I bought it and finally got a chance to wear it after some (but not all) of the stormy winter weather had let up and we were all in a better mood to bring out our fashion best. The compliments started coming right away, so the next time I was in the same store and spotted a different version of the top, I bought it, too. Then another showed up online.

  Yours truly now has three graphic tops. They wear wonderfully, but the washing directions are a bit unlike what I’m used to. I’m used to stuff you just throw in the washer and dryer, but this one has a clear tag reading, “Machine wash cold, inside out and separately, tumble dry low, gentle cycle.” I guess it’s the crystals glued on the fabric. I never threw any kind of embellishment in the washer, so to avoid disappointment, I’ve only worn the top twice (and only after I’ve showered and have no plans to eat spaghetti). This is where the high price of fashion comes into one’s life, so eventually I’ll have to take the plunge and find out if my new go-to top will shrink, fade or lose its sparkle. I’m thinking I’ll throw all three in at once with a little gentle detergent and a lot of prayer.

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• Another One for the Other Guys

  Posted at 2:38 am by kayewer, on April 6, 2014

  An Open Letter to Amy’s Baking Company:

  Back on June 9, 2013, I praised your pastries and clean restaurant in this blog, and made a humble effort to put a positive spin on your misfortune. The infamous episode of “Kitchen Nightmares” in which you and your husband became well-known just ran again on Fox, and I still feel that, though no human being is perfect, you did not get a square deal. I know there will be a follow-up episode on April 11, but until then it may be time to cool down and look at things from another viewpoint. I may have a quick tip or two along the way, if I may be so bold.

  It’s tough to live in a world where folks are itching to put you down. Learning to smile on the outside, think about what doofusses some folks can be on the inside and keeping from telling them what they can do with their opinions is stressful. Victims of bullying need more love than they often get, but believe me, the bullies do get what they deserve, even if you don’t witness it happening. Just smile at them and God will love you for it.

  Remember that an oven can be set at one temperature and still under- or over-cook food if it really isn’t calibrated right. Your pizza dough may need more time if it absorbs more juices from the toppings to prevent it crisping up. Maybe you can try a personal size pizza or rearrange the toppings to see if it works better. I have heard that chefs on their downtime practice refining their dishes so they work better. I’m just saying.

  There is always a hankering for good pastries, and judging from your display case you have a talent for various dessert goodies. However, when a human has two hands to cook with, having a full menu with regular food can be a challenge (heck, a full crew of cooks would be busy, let alone one). I could tell that you want your talent to shine in every dish, but you can only give a hundred percent attention to one or two meals at a time. It’s hard to put a full dinner on the table, and if things slow you down, even the best dessert has no chance to shine.

  Have you considered showcasing the pastries while you look over the menu and possibly determine which items can be deleted? If you trim down the menu it doesn’t mean you are less talented, but that your meal experience will highlight selected dishes designed to complement the dessert. Wouldn’t you rather concentrate on ten meals you know will be spot-on, rather than rushing around to make the other 20 try to work on your hectic schedule?

  The next time somebody tells you they don’t like the food, don’t substitute the word “food” for the word “you.” If you have ever had a bad apple, you don’t go to the tree and kick it for making a bad apple; you just throw it out and get another one. It’s not you they are picking on. You have a hand in getting the food to where it should be, but it doesn’t always work. If you spill ketchup on the floor, you get a map; if food hasn’t come out right, fix it. It’s all okay. Food, good or bad, is poop tomorrow, and the slings and arrows today should be forgotten tomorrow. Every day is a chance to reflect, repair and start over. You can do it. I hope to see it happen for you.

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  Posted in Commentary, Theatre/Movies/Entertainment | 0 Comments | Tagged amys baking company

• We Interrupt This Program

  Posted at 2:18 am by kayewer, on March 30, 2014

  When it comes to television programming, do you like 9:00 programs to start late because of basketball playoffs, or would you prefer the old the “Heidi Game” policy? Let me explain.

  On November 17, 1968, NBC broadcast a football game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets which ran longer than the expected time allotted. In those days, programming was run by the clock, so the network promptly cut off the game at 7:00 PM on the east coast to present the scheduled film, “Heidi.” According to the story, viewers were calling their affiliates as early as 6:45 wondering if the movie would be on time and, unfortunately for the football fans watching, it was. Executives at NBC were unable to reach their own people because of the phone inquiries from their viewing audiences, so nobody got the instructions to run the game to its conclusion. Oakland was losing 32-29 and managed to score two touchdowns for a spectacular comeback in the last-minute of the game, but they both happened after 7:00, so many fans didn’t see them.

  Today CBS is running college basketball games under the current policy, which was started after the irritable events of 11/17/68: games are aired until they are through, and are often padded out with additional commentary from the booth to round out any floating minutes of time. What we know by rote as “regularly scheduled programming” picks up on the hour or half-hour. Usually. I’ve never used a TiVo or other such automatic recording device, but I wonder how it works if a show starts at 10:24 PM? Does one still get the last 24 minutes of the game? Of course, the scheduled commercials always air.

  March Madness serves more than two purposes (determine the best basketball team and revive bars and betting establishments after weeks without football), because series are filmed in 22-episode blocks each year. If we didn’t let basketball and Christmas interrupt the flow, new television programming would be stale by Presidents Day. As it is, once the din of the cheering for the Final Four grows silent, we will have some reruns at their regularly scheduled time until May sweeps roll in. And maybe there will be a broadcast of “Heidi” in there somewhere, too.

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• Time for a Solution

  Posted at 1:58 am by kayewer, on March 23, 2014

  My clock radio has been a few minutes fast–and gaining–for a while now. I finally fixed that problem.

  I got a new clock radio.

  Seems like a drastic or foolish solution when a current gadget does a somewhat decent job of telling the time. However, if you have followed my blog for a while, you recall that I hadn’t replaced a clock radio in about two decades until my old unit’s LED clock face went out  (see “The Half-Dead Clock Radio,” 3/21/10) and I braved a heavy rain and power outage to find a new one. I bought a Sony, because I rely on brand reputation. Over the past three years (nearly to the day), the new clock has gained minutes steadily until, upon its recent retirement, it was ten minutes fast. I tried replacing the backup battery and unplugging it, hoping to get it to reset itself, with no results. It’s determined to be fast, though I wonder if, just because we are in one time zone, we are really all supposed to be observing the same time. If each time zone represents an hour forward or backward, wouldn’t the half-way point along the latitude or time zone lines be a half-hour? Maybe that old gadget is smarter than the rest of us.

  It doesn’t matter. I could just keep reminding myself that I have ten minutes to snooze in the morning, but my military training won’t let me. I went back to the old standby store, BestBuy, to find a new clock radio. What a culture shock. Most of the units on display were designed to dock I-Phones(R). I don’t own an I-Phone(R). The prices, however, were the same. Many of the boxes had been opened and, therefore, discounted. I decided upon a slim modern version from a company called Insignia, with a blue digital readout and priced about the same as I paid on my last trip. The cashier gushed over my purchase, saying, “You know, a few of my customers today bought this model.” That may have explained why the shelves were emptied out except for one box, mercifully unscathed by curious shoppers who don’t believe the picture on the box is what comes inside it. Also, they obviously didn’t want something that wouldn’t dock an I-Phone(R).

  The first night felt rather strange, being bathed in a blue light as if fairies were hovering in my room. Since I was on vacation from work, I didn’t have to use the new alarm yet. What surprise awaits me on Monday morning?

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged BestBuy, clock radio, Insignia clock radio, Sony

• Railroaded

  Posted at 2:55 am by kayewer, on March 16, 2014

  The PATCO High-Speedline is a rail line like others in America, but after today I wonder if its staff is trying to be a disgrace to the institution of rail travel or just being lax.

  Today I pulled into a parking space at one of the suburban stations to board a train for Philadelphia, and was dismayed to find one had just pulled up. The normal schedule didn’t seem to match the time of this train’s arrival, but recently the company responsible for the line’s daily operations tried to limit service on weekends so they could install new track on the Ben Franklin Bridge, the train’s route between New Jersey and Philadelphia (they since discontinued that idea because of complaints about service delays affecting commuters), so I sighed and figured I should have arrived sooner, certain that at that point I could not possibly run fast enough to board before it pulled off.

  Normally trains pull off immediately after everybody boards, but in the time it took me to pass through the turnstile, climb two dozen or so stairs and gain the platform, it still had not moved, nor had it signalled that it was preparing to pull off. As I reached the doors, they closed and the train pulled off. If the driver was looking, he should be cursed with socks that bunch at the ankles.

  The next train pulled in some twenty minutes later to a crowded platform filled with early St. Patrick’s Day revelers on their way to bar hop like premature Easter bunnies on a binge through the local Irish watering holes in the City of Brotherly Love and liquor. We pulled off in a timely manner, but stopped midway to the next station, accompanied by an announcement that they would be resuming the trip in a couple of minutes.  That was a relief, because the wait was going to make me late for a 2:00 show and it was 1:48 already.

  At the next stop, the announcement came that the train had a problem and had to be taken out of service. So much for being there for curtain time. So a few hundred passengers were deposited at the station to board another train brought in for the occasion on the opposing track. We were a little more than fifteen minutes late resuming the trip.

  PATCO has been having many difficulties with broken escalators, train cars well past their retirement age and lackluster use of whatever funding they do get. The experience of punctuality and quality service were lacking for my trip. I’m sure Londoners would not put up with such poor handling of even a weekend service. Next time I will be tempted to give more than an hour’s time for my trip (which normally takes about 20 minutes) or else take my car and pay way too much to park.  You know things are bad when you can’t trust the trains anymore.

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged high speedline, Patco

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