Susan's Scribblings the Blog

I have a favorite term for the meal that falls–either accidentally or on purpose–between the lunch and dinner times:  linner.  Like brunch (the time for a meal not considered totally breakfast or lunch), linner can be a meal of any size and be almost anything to get you through the afternoon.

It seems that people are increasingly falling into the habit of eating a big meal for lunch.  My company cafeteria prepares wonderful meals starting at 11:00 in the morning, including turkey breast carved from the actual bird, salmon with risotto (which I hope would not make Gordon Ramsay’s blood boil) and a variety of specialties one would not expect to sit on a hot table with a sneeze shield.

The problem is that linner can cost $5.00 and up, while preparing a meal at home can be much less expensive.  Now that some of the tax breaks we enjoyed until the new year have gone away, my food budget went down with my take-home pay.  Who can spend $25 or more a week to eat lunch?  Or linner?

Of course the food offered for lunch is comfort food (one must have stuffing and gravy with that turkey breast carved to order), and nutrition experts and exercise gurus would advise heading to the salad bar instead.  I’ve done that, too.  A few spinach on a foam plate with mushrooms, tomatoes and vinaigrette can do the trick on some occasions.  It doesn’t always fill the gut until 5:00, though.

 The struggle for a good three meal day goes on.  Do brunch and linner count as four meals or just two?

My office is planning an event which encourages coming dressed with a theme or full costume.  Being budget conscious, I figured I might be able to put something together without going full out for a rental outfit or buy one which would be passe’ if worn twice.  I had an appropriately themed shirt and hoodie which would serve well (and which made a store employee very happy when I bought them), but I knew there was more I could do and still not bust my budget.

Since my schedule had me going to Philadelphia, I checked out some options by searching online for costume shops.  The perfect answer came up instantly in the form of Baum’s, a Philadelphia staple for dance which also advertises costume ideas.  I’m familiar with Baum’s; as a little ballerina at dance school, our slippers and outfits came from Baum’s.  The air of nostalgia washed over me as I walked into their store.

It took the sales representative about ten seconds to flog nostalgia to death.

After about 35 years off pointe, I guess I don’t look like the typical ballet customer, but it would not have hurt the lady standing by a display case courting achy feet and no sales to go to some effort.  I was pleasant and enthusiastic, but in return I received lukewarm involvement from her and little hope of finding anything worthwhile.

While browsing about the store, hoping for some revival of spirit from my disinterested salesperson, I came upon a skirt which looked promising, and I had visions of how I could add a pair of tights.  All they had was black and pink, she replied.  Come on, what ever happened to dancewear in colors, for goodness sake?

Baum’s lost, but so did I.  I won’t be going to the event in costume, and they won’t have a bigger sales tally when they add up the day’s potential paycheck money.  What a shame.

Gee, where did 2012 go?  I didn’t even see the screen door slap it on its way out.  Good thing, too, because there was quite a bit of negativity going on, and more than a few of us would like 2013 to get here so we can start fresh, even if we in America do wind up taking a header off the so-called fiscal cliff.

Jobs are still hard to find, and the government still can’t figure out how to handle money.  Nature sent us Sandy, along with major drought and fires during the peak of summer.  All the good celebrities from the golden era are going to the great proscenium in the sky.  The bad guys shoot up schools and movie theatres, then kill themselves to avoid arrest.

On the other hand, people have reached out and sacrificed their money, organs, homes and valuable time to help others.  Compassion still hasn’t been killed by a storm or a mad gunman.  Volunteerism won’t bow to bureaucrats or high gas prices.

The top television shows may involve corporate greed (Madmen) or zombies (The Walking Dead), and the guilty pleasure/teen must-see film was fifth in a series of vampire movies (Breaking Dawn Part II), or moviegoers took a new look at an old favorite franchise (The Dark Knight Rises), but at least we do go to the movies.  DVD rentals have not stopped the unique experience of gathering in a theatre.

Men of status continue to make bad choices, straying from the love and support of their wives and families to enjoy pleasures of the flesh elsewhere.  Women of celebrity status can’t keep from getting arrested for stupid things.  And then there’s Honey Boo-Boo, which I can’t begin to categorize.

And there’s Gangnam Style, which should be a workout video or at least encourage people to go out and ride horses (if you look up how to do the dance, you’ll know what I mean).

Magazines like Newsweek have gone all digital.  That’s creepy.  Sure, tablets and smart phones are cool, but give me a hard, holdable stack of paper bound with staples anytime.  I’m not giving up my magazines.

Stores are closing.  Locally we are losing a SuperFresh and lost a Pathmark, because people are going to swank shopping destinations like Wal-Mart and Wegman’s.  Wal-Mart?  I still cringe when I spot a banana in the produce aisle at Target, because I don’t think I want to buy food where I buy my underwear.

Lightbulbs are going out of style, with our standard bulbs (which have worked without fail since their invention) being replaced by energy-saving versions which give light only after they take a few moments to answer the summons of the light switch.  This is progress?

Sure, we go backwards and forwards, and often not for the right things or good reasons.  The coming year won’t change that.  At least we can start with a clean agenda and, just maybe, come up with a better review next December.

The holidays catch up to us all, so I plan to be back next weekend in time for some holiday observations made from what will probably be an overweight body after too many parties.  See you then.

It must say something ominous about the economy when supermarkets shut down.  In my area, in the broader range, we have lost a Pathmark and two Genuardi’s, and now the local Superfresh just up the road is going away after years of happy commerce.  What’s up with that?

The parking lot at Superfresh was always crowded.  It was also the market with the biggest selection of three local stores (the others being Acme and Thriftway).  Nobody can understand this move by parent company A&P.  We certainly don’t want to lose the personal service of checkers we have known for a long time, nor the store’s own brands we have turned to.

Apparently customer loyalty doesn’t matter.

It may well be that the corporate bottom line requires them to shutter perfectly good store to save money to pay the pensions for everybody who has retired.  Hopefully they’re not squirreling away funds for marlin fishing in Florida*.

The market takes up the biggest space in the plaza and used to house a Clover store before the collapse of its parent company, Strawbridge & Clothier.  In fact, the plaza tore down the original Superfresh location, built a bank on that pad and moved them into the larger store, where it thrived.

The shopping center, which has evolved over the decades, has been almost fully occupied until now, with a Tuesday Morning store newly arrived.  Now it looks like the entire site will be blighted unless some new tenant takes over the space.

I’m hoping that the Acme down the road will take it over; then another market like Bottom Dollar can move into that vacated space.  Since I brought it up, it probably won’t happen.  The empty Pathmark and Genuardi’s still sit like open wounds in barren patches of parking lots.

Who knows where the shoppers have gone to fulfill their basic needs.  Maybe the Wegman’s stores have absorbed their business, as they have sprouted almost as fast as Wal-Mart.

When the grocer leaves town, the town goes hungry.

*(Marlin fishing in Florida is a symbol for rich retirement).