Shopping Gone Wild

With Thanksgiving behind us, the 2010 Christmas shopping season has officially begun. Some of you have been shopping for months now, picking up special items for loved ones throughout the year. You people are nuts and an embarrassment to those of us who wait until the last minute to find “just the right gift.” (You are organized and frugal and the secret envy of those of us who aren’t, but you didn’t hear that from me.)

I don’t normally shop “Black Friday,” the crowds and the rudeness get to me; but I ventured to the mall last Friday, and Saturday as it turns out. It really wasn’t too bad. By 9:30 am the frenzied shoppers were done and home sleeping it off. I did encounter a phenomenon with which I was unfamiliar, however. Canadians. Canadians come by the bus loads to shop Black Friday weekend. I had no idea.

After seeing dozens of cars with Ontario plates and bus after bus in the parking lots of every major retailer, I cornered one of our friends to the north and asked why the influx of foreigners. (I didn’t really phrase it that way of course.) It appears that American Black Friday discounts are a far superior deal than those of Canadian retailers. And besides, “It’s a fun weekend. We come down with friends every year to shop and enjoy the crowds,” said my Canadian friend. These people gotta get out more.

I’m not sure how deep our discounts have to be in order to make it worthwhile to pay bus fare, hotel stays and duty upon returning to Canada, but thanks for supporting the American economy Canada. Come on down!

A relatively recent shopping occurrence is Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is to the Internet as Black Friday is to the retail stores. I am young enough to know what Cyber Monday is and old enough to not trust shopping on the Internet. The great deals of the season are offered online on the Monday following Thanksgiving, and while I’m sure they are phenomenal, I just never think to shop the Internet. My kids shop online all the time. Their Christmas lists are entered on Amazon. I wonder if they know that anyone old enough to still be shopping for them won’t think to look on the computer to do so.

There is something about entering my credit card number and sending it out into the ether that just doesn’t set right with me. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve done it. I’m sure I’ll do it again. It just doesn’t feel right. I bet the Canadians don’t do it – they come to America.

One more thought and I’ll let you go. When you are out there shopping in the Season of Love for the ones you love, smile. Hum along with the carols being played. Greet passers-by with a hearty Merry Christmas. Relax and use the time standing in line to observe your fellow man. Practice random acts of kindness. It’s contagious you know. Spread a little Christmas cheer and remember the reason behind all this hustle and bustle.

Tribute to the Noble Turkey

Ah, Thanksgiving, that finest of feasts celebrating the bountiful harvest and giving thanks. Turkey most often graces the tables of families across the country. The noble turkey. They courageous turkey. The respectable turkey. The what???

Benjamin Franklin once wrote to his daughter that he thought the turkey should have been made America’s national symbol. In comparison to the eagle, an animal of low moral character in his opinion, the turkey was more respectable and courageous. “(He) would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guard who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on,” said Franklin. Ben admired the pugnacious turkey that defended their territory, much like Americans. Can you imagine the laughingstock we’d be today if he’d had his way?

In truth, the wild turkey runs from an intruder instead of defending their turf. It is said the Apache Indians wouldn’t eat turkey or use their feathers because they feared contracting the spirit of cowardice apparent in wild turkeys. A domestic tom turkey will charge a newcomer to his domain, but that’s because he’s too stupid to realize danger.

Most of us have heard the story of how a turkey (and I am talking about domestic turkeys raised for the table from here on out) will look up at the rain with his mouth open until he drowns. After extensive research (of three or four websites), I’ve learned this is not true. Turkeys can’t “look up” at the rain because they have eyes on the sides of their heads and would have to turn sideways to look up (and down). Therefore, the rain cannot drown them; their mouths aren’t facing upwards in that position.

Domesticated turkeys have been bred in captivity so long they lack survival skills, and intelligence. They’re weak and fat, and can’t run very fast or fly. When they’re panicked by say, a storm, they’ll run until they reached a fence or some other barrier and they’ll pile on top of each another until some poor sap on the bottom suffocates. I did read, however, that the fault lies with the farmer for not instructing his birds in the proper evacuation procedures.

Turkeys are not blessed with intelligence. In fact, they have been bred into profound stupidity. I’m told that some turkeys don’t know enough to eat and so brightly colored pellets are interspersed in their food, causing them to curiously peck and thereby eat. They retain a natural sense of curiosity and thus can, sometimes, find food, water and shelter.

Breast meat is the most often preferred portion of the Thanksgiving turkey. Hence, turkeys have been bred to produce large breasts; so much so that male turkeys can no longer fertilize eggs in a natural mating position. All turkey eggs are fertilized by artificial insemination these days. Poor Tom.

I live next door to cows and chickens and down the road from domestic turkeys. I was lamenting the fact that I could never eat any of these familiar animals. I prefer my meat to be of the unknown-origin-shipped-in-from-somewhere-else variety. However, I might make an exception for the stupid turkeys.

Wherever you are, whomever you’re with, remember to give thanks for the people who love you, for the bounty we enjoy in all aspects of our lives, and for the blessings you receive. Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Holidays and a Faulty Memory

Indian Summer is over. (Are we allowed to say that? Indian Summer? Should it be Native American Summer? All this politically correct stuff confuses me.) We’ve enjoyed unusually warm and sunny days of late but now reality has set in. It’s mid-November; it’s raining; it’s sleeting; it’s snowing. It’s the kick-off of the holiday season!

Was the weather different in late November when the pilgrims had their first Thanksgiving? Were they plagued with rain and snow mixes? Was Thanksgiving even IN November? I’m thinking late October would have been a better choice. The harvest would have all been in by then – time to celebrate. Canada celebrates Thanksgiving the second Monday of October. Now THAT makes sense. A Monday holiday and reasonable weather. The United States didn’t settle on the fourth Thursday of November until 1941, and then it was so designated in order to give the economy a boost by starting the Christmas shopping frenzy early. Typical.

I lovingly refer to Thanksgiving as the “Feast of Gluttony.” It’s the one meal a year I truly enjoy cooking. This year we’ll be celebrating a week early with my daughter and son-in-law from Minnesota, and because they are committed Weight Watchers members, I’ll be trying some new recipes that are lower in calories. I’m really excited about this. I would love to eat good food that isn’t packed with sugar and butter. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

A friend of mine told a story of walking up a mountainside in Vermont with his grandchildren one Thanksgiving. They were complaining they wanted to be carried because they were so small and tired but rather than carry them, he found two sticks, one for each of them to hold onto, as he pulled them along behind him. He turned to them and said, “Do you realize that the Pilgrims didn’t have roads or paths to walk like we do?” One of the little ones replied, “No wonder they all died.”

I remember Thanksgivings in the 1950s where the snow was so deep it took hours to dig out the car so we could all pile in and drive three quarters of a mile to Grandma’s house. I tried to remember one year how many people were at those Thanksgiving dinners and I came up with between 20 and 25. My grandparents had ten children, and most, if not all, of them came home for Thanksgiving, along with their spouses and children. We all sat at the same table, in the same room, with no television.

I can remember walking into the kitchen and watching all the hustle and bustle of my grandmother and her daughters cooking. No commercial size oven there. It seems it was smaller than a modern day oven, but in it was the 24 pound turkey, with sides of ham, sweet potatoes, stuffing and baked beans all piled around it, most balancing precariously along the sides of the turkey pan. A huge pot of potatoes boiled on the stove while all the pies that had been baked the day before lined the counter top.

I know we were all squished together at that table with very little elbow room, and I know there must have been squabbles now and again, but my memory has erased all the negatives. What I remember now is a Terry Redlin type scene of togetherness. God bless failing memories…

An Open Letter to Our Elected Officials

Dear Politician,

Congratulations on being elected Governor, Senator, Assembly-person, Comptroller, etc. You have won your position by running some of the dirtiest campaigns in memory. The media tells me that statistics say running negative campaigns against your opponent works. Here’s my take on the television ads, radio spots and print media I received during this race: once again I feel like I had to choose between the lesser of two evils. I ended up not liking either one of the major two-party candidates. If your ads can be believed, and I’m sure they can’t, you were both disreputable, lying cheats who would lead us down the path of destruction. Thanks for instilling this confidence in my government. (This is sarcasm. You are so inured to it, you may not have recognized it.)

Did you make any campaign promises? I don’t recall. If there were any, they were lost in the back-stabbing and name-calling you unleashed on your opponent. It’s just as well, because I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t matter what you promise or say you want to do. You won’t do it. So I guess it is a better tactic to just attack and let the other candidate tell us what you’ll do that won’t be good for us. The promises that you do make don’t make sense. How can you cut taxes, increase spending, give us more services and still make the budget work? In short you can’t. But it is political suicide to tell us you’re going to increase our taxes, take away services and make us suffer more in order to get our great-great-great grandchildren out of debt. Although I doubt you are seriously concerned about the deficit, whether it be state or national. And quite frankly, we probably aren’t either. We want jobs. We want a reasonable economy where we don’t have to mortgage our future for today’s commodities. We’ve already lost our homes and savings. We dare not risk more.

Let me think: it’s been a week and a half since the election. It’s about time to start campaigning for your next term in office, isn’t it? It really doesn’t seem to matter though. Albany is run by New York City. The State government can be ground to a halt again if they don’t like what Upstate wants. Why don’t you encourage New York City to secede from the State? They can become their own little empire, controlling our money, while the rest of the State can control whether or not New York City eats. Sounds like a fair exchange to me. Think about it.

We’re not stupid ladies and gentlemen. We’re just apathetic. We just don’t care much anymore about who wins or loses a race. In our eyes, you are all pretty much the same, just touting different slogans designed to draw in voters of one persuasion or another. And that’s a crying shame. This country was built on true leadership and a population who wanted fairness and guidance. We’ve all lost our way. But, hey, congratulations on two, three, or four more years, depending on your political office, of politicking, maneuvering and posturing. I don’t expect much from you. Do me a favor: disappoint my expectations.

A Disgruntled Constituent

I've noticed no one ever posts a comment on my blog. Why is that? Have I blocked it somehow?

Myopically Just Across the Road

The dictionary defines myopic as a vision problem resulting in not seeing distances well; or a lack of foresight or discernment; or a narrow view of something. In this instance, it is the narrow view I want to address, in a very good way.

I’ve always been drawn to the small details around me, such as one small flower growing in a field of grass, or a particular pebble in a stream; but for many years now I’ve realized that I also have the ability to pick out the greater beauty of my surroundings, disregarding the power lines, the cars and trucks, the close proximity of other buildings, as well as other distractions.

Maybe living in the city helped me develop this ability. While I sat on my deck in St. Paul, overlooking my postage-stamp-sized yard, I would comment how lovely it was with its Euonymus, or Spindle Tree in delicate bloom, and the border of lilac bushes. Sure the neighbor’s house was 10 feet away, and the utility lines cut across my yard, and the alley threw up dust every time a car drove through; but I was able to overlook all that to see the microcosm of beauty there. Where other people saw the congestion and urban ugliness, I focused my sight with near-sighted accurateness on the pleasant aspects of my surroundings.

Now, Ripley is about as non-urban as you could want, and yet there are buildings and areas that I prefer to look beyond. For instance, there is a view from the front windows of Meeder’s Restaurant that I find very tranquil and mesmerizing. If you look across the street to the southwest, if I have my directions straight, there is a cluster of trees and shrubs behind a rustic wooden fence, between two houses. There is nothing wrong with the houses that border this bit of paradise but if I block them from my mind, I can see a cornucopia of color there in the fall, inviting me to shuffle through the leaves or stand with my face toward the heavens letting the falling leaves flutter toward me in their graceful dance. In winter I can almost see the horse and cutter trotting across the clearing, bells ringing, its passengers wrapped in woolen blankets, laughing with rosy cheeks and wide smiles. Spring brings the delicate pastel tones of green to the budding branches; summer the cooling shade beckons a blanket to lie on and a tall glass of lemonade.

I break one of the 10 Commandments every time I gaze at that marvelous piece of landscape – I covet my neighbor’s property. But I am also content to sip my coffee amongst the chatter around me, exchange bits of conversation with my fellow diners, and occasionally escape with my eyes to the tranquility of a small piece of the world just across the road.

On New Year’s Day, 2009 I wrote the following in my newspaper column: At the beginning of each New Year many of us think about what’s happened in the past year and what we want to change for the upcoming year. I got to thinking about people I’ll never forget and Edna Kofoed came to mind first. She was a kindergarten teacher for generations of children and I’m sure she made a lasting impression on many of the fresh faces she taught.

I remember a lot of things about her, but my favorite memory is this: I was a little bit of a thing (so I’m told) and I sucked my thumb. Thumb sucking was discouraged, but every day at naptime, no matter how hot it might be in the classroom, I’d ask for my blanket so I could cover my head and suck my thumb, and every day she’d say, “Are you sure you want your blanket, Robyn?” Mrs. Kofoed had some nasty tasting stuff she’d paint on thumbs to keep us from sucking, but she never painted mine. I asked her once, years later, why she didn’t paint my thumb. She said, “You were such a little thing, away from your Momma, and I didn’t have the heart to do it.”

We all have memories of special people in our lives. Like pebbles on the water, everybody sends ripples out that touch other people’s lives. Edna Kofoed has made a lot of ripples, and perhaps a few waves, in her lifetime. Most of the time we’re unaware of the impact our words or actions have on others, but here today, October 30, 2010, is a testament to the power of one woman to impact the lives of others.

Mrs. Kofoed, you have been an inspiration and joy to so many people. Tomorrow you start another New Year. The good Lord has given you the opportunity to continue to spread your own special kind of love and we’re all grateful and blessed.