Too Thin

Aahh, the magic words, “Well, if you ask me, she’s way too thin!”

I’ve never heard those words. It seems from the time I was born, I’ve been on a diet. Nowadays, I just blame these hips on heredity. As if I don’t already have enough to think about (calories, carbs, good fats, bad fats), now I have to keep an eye on my cell phone.

I just watched a commercial about the latest THIN cell phone! Super thin. All but fits in your wallet. Oh, just great. Not only am I walking around with fashion-unacceptable hips, my cell phone is too fat! Now what do I do? Get it a new cover in slimming black? Or should I go for vertical stripes? Do I have to give up making calls from the mall because it will be embarrassed and feel unattractive if others are using “slim” phones?

Is there a weight-watchers program for cell phones or is it just doomed to obsolescence, only to be cast aside for the tiny little skinny model? And what if the battery has to be replaced? If it, too, is super slim and accidentally slips out of the package and lands sideways, will it become invisible? Is it safe to plop a super-slim phone on an outdoor table during a windy day?

One manufacturer has a flip phone that not only is “slim,” but includes voice, data, multimedia and Bluetooth, and is about the width of a credit card. Okay. I understand “voice” and credit card (“Yes, put that on my credit card.”), but I have no clue what the other features are. I like it that way. I don’t want to know what the other stuff is or what it does; my life is complicated enough already.

I’m keeping my fat phone (I hope I haven’t offended any phones out there.) until some company comes out with a wrist model. Then I’ll change my name to Dixie Tracy and go in pursuit of dastardly villains. If you don’t understand that last line, then you are way too young to be reading this. Until then, I’ll just forego all the snappy features of the new phones and continue to try to figure out how to retrieve voice messages on good ol’ chubby.

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Elevator Mania

If you want to have some fun, just stand back and watch people trying to get on and off crowded elevators. There is something about elevator doors opening on the ground floor that sucks those waiting directly to the entrance so that those trying to get off have to bob and weave their way through the eager beavers.

There must be some sort of electronic connection between the elevator and the human brain – doors open, brain disconnects. Normal men and women suddenly go numb to the fact that the people inside must first come OUT before they can get IN.

Have you ever seen someone actually swept backwards and imprisoned by the eager beavers in their zest to be the first on? Some of those “first ons” are only riding up one floor and then have to squeeze their way past the fifth and eleventh floor folks.

Could it be that every time an elevator reaches the ground floor and doors open, a new prize of some sort appears on the back wall and the first one in wins? It must be a great prize from the way people lunge through the doors. Or maybe the rule is first one on gets to push all the buttons for everyone else. It’s a control thing.

The weird part about this elevator mania is that the same people who go up will also later come down and have to dodge and weave their way through forward-pressing bodies to escape. Apparently that experience has no effect on their next "up" elevator ride as they leap forward to gain their favorite spot – back wall, left or right wall, right in front.

Maybe the mad dash is because no one likes to stand in the middle; there is no where to lean or a rail to grasp. “Middle” people also have to bump right or left letting the wall people out. Have you also noticed that when an elevator is comfortably filled, there’s always at least one more person who has to push and wedge their way in to create the sardine effect?

Personally, I’ll just stand back and wait for the next elevator, or the next, or take the stairs. I’m just not in that much of a hurry to rub elbows and other body parts with strangers. Some of those riders I’ve seen leaping forward to be “first in” are really strange!

The next time you go to a building with busy elevators, arrive a little early and enjoy the show. If you are an eager beaver and just miss one as you dash up to the doors, take a deep breath and slow down and remember that old saying, “What goes up …,” well, you know the rest.

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Good Feelings

Down Memory Lane

Feelings. No, not emotional feelings like angry or sad. I ‘m talking about those warm fuzzy feelings when something unexpected triggers a pleasant memory from childhood.

There is a line or two in Sue Monk Kidd’s “The Secret Life of Bees” when the heroine walks through dew dampened grass, then past a crepe myrtle tree. She has to brush away the fallen crepe myrtle flowers sticking to her feet before entering the house. The scene stuck with me and I thought, who has grown up in the South and not walked barefoot through crepe myrtle blossoms?

Then I began to think of other things that were parts of our childhood. For my Southern friends – did you ever pull honey suckle blooms and taste the nectar or pop a just-plucked wild blackberry in your mouth while trying to avoid the thorny bush entangled around your sandal-clad feet?

What about sticking your face in a pile of sun-dried linens to enjoy the clean out-door smell? No matter how they try, detergent manufacturers can never replicate that fragrance. Did you ever catch lightening bugs in a mayonnaise jar or have your mom tell you to wash off the “toe jam” before going to bed?

During childhood, a summer day outside seldom ended without the tell-tale rings of sweat-enhanced dirt around our necks or anything from twigs to Bazooka bubble gum stuck in our hair. A really good day ended with at least one of us sporting a new bruise or cut from having left part of an elbow on the street from roller skating or being the target of a green pinecone.

We cooled off with ice-cold Cokes from greenish glass bottles, then carefully placed the empties back in the wooden crates so they could be returned for the deposit or replaced with full bottles. As teens, we baked and ate brownies (ahh, that fresh-from-the-oven smell!) by the thousands and never gained a pound.

The weekly meeting of every kid under the age of 13 took place on Saturday mornings at the local movie house to watch Roy Rogers or Hopalong Cassidy triumph over the bad guys (they wore the black hats), then catch up on the latest serial of Buck Rogers.

Ah, memories. Too bad the kids of today have to miss out on the fun we had. But, who knows, perhaps in sixty years one of them will be transmitting their memories in holographic images.

Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

http://www.royrogers.com/

http://www.hopalong.com/home.asp

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Happy Birthday

This is a notable birthday week in my diary. (Okay, I don’t actually keep a diary, I just thought that would make a good opening line.)

First of all, one of my best friends and I are celebrating our birthdays. It takes a Gemini to know a Gemini and even though there are several years between us, we struck up an immediate friendship upon meeting several years ago.

Not only are our birthdays two days apart, we share the same first name. We have also been in corporate public relations and honed our writing skills while keeping our senses of humor. Through the years, we have come up with all sorts of ideas to express our creativity and my friend has now found a way to not only stretch her web design wings, but also express her patriotism and love for our beautiful United States of America.

My friend’s website, American Travel Sampler, is officially “born” on Flag Day, June 14, 2006.

Please take a minute to visit www.americantravelsampler.com/index.html
and wish them both a red, white and blue “Happy Birthday!”

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Weekends

If it weren’t for weekends, working people would go crazy. They also would not have any clean clothes and their cars would never get washed. God invented weekends so working people could catch up on real life.

God also invented retirement because after only having a real life two out of seven days for years and years, working people can then sleep in as much as they want. Retirement is the reward for spending most of your life doing what someone else wants.

Retired people pretty much do what they want, when they want, and in their pajamas if they want. Most of the retired people I know get everything done by Friday so they can spend the next two days watching the working people zip around like crazy trying to get done what we retired folks have spread out over the past five.

Hey, there, you working people, haven’t you noticed those older folks on the benches and in the food court at the malls on Saturdays and Sundays? They are the ones savoring a cup of specialty coffee or lingering over a giant pretzel. They are also not surrounded by shopping bags or small children demanding to “go potty.”

They are thoroughly enjoying the weekend, made even sweeter by watching you zing in and out of all the stores in their view. If they frequently glance at their watches, it’s a good bet (yes, it was a pun intended) they have a buck or two riding on how fast you can buy Junior a complete outfit, including shoes, in less time than the lady in the blue blouse just outfitted her princess for a day at the beach.

And here’s some insider info. Some stores give discounts to retired people who shop during the week. That’s because we can shop at two in the afternoon without having to fake illness to get off work. Uh, huh. Makes you working people jealous, doesn’t it?

Before we retired, we once worried that we wouldn’t have anything to do on the weekends. Now we wonder how we got it all done and still had time to play on the weekends. Well, it's not all fun and games. This retirement is hard work, but (sigh) someone has to do it. I don’t mind helping out whenever I can with the sleeping in, shopping in the middle of the week and catching the Friday matinee at the new multi-plex.

Oh, and for all you working people who are slaves to the alarm clock, “Have a nice week!”

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Having Fun -- Again

Sittin' on the bank (of the street) carfishin'.

There are no age restrictions on having fun. You don’t have to be over, oh, say, eleven, or under sixty. And you should never, ever turn down the opportunity to have fun, even if you have to think up fun stuff to do all by yourself.

Some people are “full of fun,” some are funny, and others are fun to be around because they are so interesting. A few really, really lucky people have all three characteristics and may be classified as “weird,” but that only adds to their funness.

Then there are those who are not only fun, but every now and then do the unexpected and make everyone around them smile or laugh out loud. Such were the antics of my retired neighbors on a recent afternoon when they decided to “catch” everyone who drove past their houses.

In the midst of a subdivision, with nary even a small body of water in sight, Bill and Milt set up their comfy lawn chairs, situated the cooler and TACKLE BOX curbside on the driveway and cast their lines – are you ready for this? – into the street! They even “caught” a few big ones: one or two Hondas, a Ford pickup, a Toyota!

They had fun. The neighbors had fun. Passers-by waved or honked and had fun. How could you not be amused by two guys street fishing for carfish. What a great sense of humor and what a great gift to give those tired working people on the way home!

Thanks, guys.

Oh, and by the way, just how do you clean and prepare one of those big ol’ carfish?

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Folk Singers

Suzz’s Serious Side

There’s something about folk music that touches our hearts with truth and purity. In the late ‘50s and early ’60, the Kingston Trio, one of the most famous of the folk singing groups, made a huge and lasting impact on popular music.

Today, while slipping into wonderful memories when hearing their music again, we are also jolted into reality as some of the words are not only reminiscent, but as true today as they were almost 50 years ago.

One of those "oldies" songs is particularly poignant.

Here are the words to The Kingston Trio’s view of the world situation – then. Not much has changed since this “minuet” was introduced except perhaps a few locations. For all the strides we've made in science and technology, how sad the nations of the world are still at war with one another.

The Merry Little Minuet

They're rioting in Africa.
They're starving in Spain.
There's hurricanes in Florida,
And Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering
With unhappy souls,
The French hate the Germans,
The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs,
South Africans hate the Dutch,
And I don't like anybody very much!

But we can be tranquil
And thankful and proud
For man's been endowed
With a mushroom shaped cloud.

And we know for certain that some lovely day,
Someone will set the spark off
And we will all be blown away!

They're rioting in Africa.
There's strife in Iran.
What nature doesn't do to us
(whatever)
Will be done by our fellow man!

Perhaps in fifty more years, with a little luck, our grandchildren will have straightened things out and live in harmony, both with each other and this beautiful planet called “Earth.”

***

P. S. Visit The Kingston Trio home page and click on the jukebox to hear some of their hits including “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” and “This Land Is Your Land.”

http://www.kingstontrio.com/html/home.htm

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Socks and Shoes

Which one do you say, “socks and shoes” or “shoes and socks?” How we describe the simple act of covering our feet must go back to childhood.

“Billy, go put on your shoes and socks right now.” Think about that; if you put on your shoes and then your socks, socks would not last very long. It would also look silly, unless of course, a pop diva wore her socks and shoes that way. On the other hand, “socks and shoes” just doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily. Here's the catch, if you grew up hearing the phrase a certain way, you probably say the same thing to your kids.

Some people put on both socks, then their shoes. Some people put on a sock and a shoe and then the other sock and shoe. Is there a right way and wrong way? Which foot do you start with? It’s a good bet that no matter how you put on your shoes and socks, you do it the same way every time.

Years ago, an “All in the Family” scene had Meathead and Archie arguing about how to put on foot covering. Archie insisted the proper way was to put on both socks and then both shoes. Meathead preferred to “take care of one foot,” then move on to the other.*

Maybe this subject should not be discussed in mixed company. Is it too personal? Since everything else is discussed on every form of media, maybe we should reserve at least one subject for private company. No, no. That wouldn’t work. Then someone would form support groups, people would take sides and the next thing you know people would march in the streets and we would have federally-funded studies on why people put on their shoes and socks like they do. We would have to “declare” or “confess” our preferences and local governments would put an additional tax on both shoes and socks because of the wear and tear on sidewalks.

Okay, forget I brought up this whole thing and just go barefoot for the rest of the day. By the way, when you refill the TP holder, do you go over the top to the front or down the back?

*The transcript of CNN Larry King Live that aired June 22, 2001, "Remembering Carroll O'Conner," includes a text version of the now famous sock and shoe routine.

*When this post was written in May 2006, an audio version of this classic scene, along with an interview with Norman Lear and Rob Reiner, was available on the Internet. As of June 2009, it can no longer be found.
© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

“THE” Big Event

Funny how our lives revolve around “THE” events.

“Mommy , don’t wanna go THE docta.”

“Momma, can I keep THE dog?”

“Mom, guess what! I have a date for THE dance!”

“Tell me you will on time for THE graduation tonight.”

“I’m so excited! I got THE job!”

“Oh, sorry, can’t make lunch, THE wedding is in just a week.”

“Can't start any new projects until after THE move.”

“Did you hear? THE baby came a week early.”

“Are you going to THE big party?”

“THE transfer came in and I have to be in Atlanta in two weeks!”

“We got THE loan and move into the new house next month!”

“I got THE promotion!”

"THE memorial service was lovely."

"I hear THE anniversary dinner is at one of the best restaurants in town!"

“Are you going to wear that to THE retirement party?”

We have THE greatest memories.

THE end.

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Morning People

Is there some kind of contest going on among people who get up early in the morning? Do they compete to see who can get up the earliest, then have bragging rights to their night people friends for the rest of the day?

Is there a cut-off time for early rising, say three-thirty? Any earlier, and it is considered the middle of the night? “Yep, got up at three-forty this morning and feel great. Why I get more done before sunrise than most folks do all day! Hohohoho.” And just what the hell is there to do before dawn, go out and kick chickens awake if you can find them? Is it also a requirement that morning people are cheerful? Is there a law against smacking morning people to shut them up?

Night people not only sleep in when they can, they don’t want to hear about a morning person’s routine. In fact, night people don’t even want to talk until late morning. A retired morning person should never call a retired night person at eight-thirty in the morning and sneer, “Oh, did I wake you? I’ve been up since quarter past six! Get up you lazy thing, you!”

I’ve discovered the reason morning people get up so early is that they not only secretly nap during the day, they go to bed in the afternoon, say around seven. Have you ever called a morning person at just after eight at night and listened to the fumbling and mumbling before they get the phone to their face? It’s great retaliation if they called you that morning. After a muffled hello, they usually ask what time it is. Feel free to play with their head and tell them it’s only seven-forty, but don’t tell them if it’s morning or night.

Morning people and night people should never get married. Morning people get up at some stupid hour, then bang and clang around in the kitchen trying to wake up their partner while filling the house with the smell of coffee. Night people get even by banging and clanging around in the kitchen late at night tearing out a wall or rearranging all the pots and pans. They fill the house with the sound of the really late show and whistle along with the commercials. Nobody gets any sleep, Both are grumpy and, well, you know the ugly results.

It’s time call a truce. You morning people, go find other morning people to tell how early you got up. Let us night people sleep in. The world will be a happier place. At least it will be in my little corner.

P.S. If you noticed what time this was posted, don’t label me a morning person. Now that Fido is settled down again, I’m going back to bed.

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

New Year’s Resolution

I just made my New Year’s resolution. Okay, okay, so it’s a little late; I’ve been busy. Here it is: I am never, ever going to forward any more emails that contain not only instructions to forward them, but the number of friends to whom they have to be forwarded. Despite threats, I will risk losing friends, true love and the lottery.

If the emails have pictures of cute fuzzy animals or gurgling babies or Maxine-type characters wiggling and jiggling, I will hit the “Delete” button immediately and put the sender’s email address on every flashing, blinking and beckoning popup or popunder that appears on my monitor. If they contain cartoons of Maxine (one of my favorites), I will copy the carton to my hard drive, then delete the email.

Further, if the sender persists in sending me emails that require forwarding to 2,896 “friends,” I will subscribe them to newsletters from every major retailer and television channel. Repeat offenses will result in enrollment for newsletters from makers or vendors of personal products.

Now immediately forward the address of this blog (do not copy and paste into yet another email) to twelve friends who have freckles, nine who have at least one cat, and twenty-six who have gone outside in the last week. If you fail to send this in the next six seconds, your toenails will fall off, your car will leak oil and your kids will take up skydiving – naked.

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Steak Knives

Now that I watch my cholesterol, as well as my budget, I don’t see much steak on the grill anymore. The good news is that I’ve discovered a dozen other uses for that eight-piece set of serrated-blade steak knives in the back of the kitchen drawer. (Or maybe that set has dwindled to only three.)

1. By carefully manipulating the tip, they are great for untangling shoelaces that have become knotted. If the knot won’t let go, just saw the laces apart.

2. Depending on the style, steak knives can be used to pry up blobs of paint from the last craft project off the concrete floor of the garage.

3. Can’t find the scissors to nip off the bottoms of the zinnias for a flower arrangement? Steak knife to the rescue. Use a cutting board to stabilize the stem, not your thumb. (Or just pre-apply several adhesive bandages to save time.)

4. Steak knives can be quite handy when tightening a cabinet knob. Some steak knives tend to snap, so discard those with broken blades. (I think that’s where number eight went.)

5. When things get stuck in things, you may be able to pry them out with a steak knife.

6. Steak knives can be used to mix things, like small amounts of concrete patch in plastic cups. Just don’t leave to answer the phone, do a load of laundry, then read the mail. Concrete patch hardens rather quickly. (Buebye number seven.)

7. When the bottom of your fry pan gets burned-on black stuff, give it a scrape with your trusty steak knife. If the black stuff won’t come off, hide the fry pan.

8. Sometimes you can poke loose yucky stuff that gets stuck in the drain. Just don’t let go of the steak knife. (Bye bye number six, hello plumber.)

9. Steak knives are great to dig around in flower pots and cut loose soft roots. Caution: don’t use a lot of pressure to loosen plants from those flimsy six-pack containers. Remember, steak knives are sharp, skin is soft, and emergency room visits are very expensive.

10. You can use the tip of the knife to slowly let the air out of some inflatable mattresses. There’s a much faster way, but you don’t want to know it – it’s not worth patching the mattress.

11. Some steak knives can be used for bookmarks. If you have a lot of books, remember where you lay the book down. (That could explain the disappearance of number five – and that mystery from the library.)

12. Slender steak knives can be used to pry apart things that are stuck together, like uncancelled stamps from envelopes, transparent tape from gift wrap and siblings in a bubble-gum blowing contest.

And, yes, be sure to remember all that safety stuff about knives in general. Geeze, we’re all adults here and know the dangers. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go change an electrical outlet. Humm, I wonder where I left my steak knife?

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Panic in the Toothpaste Aisle

While browsing through dental products in a major store the other day, I overheard a woman mutter, “What the …, all I want is a tube of toothpaste.”

I could not resist the urge to offer understanding sympathy and came out with a brilliant, “I hear you and I know what you mean,” a left-over phrase from the corporate employment days.

She looked at me like she had just run up face-to-face with the village idiot. What I should have said was, “Oh, heck, yes, I understand one-hundred per cent. There are just too many choices and all I, too, want is a tube of good old-fashioned toothpaste!”

If manufacturers were smart, they would simplify the ingredients – and cost – for people like us and label their product as “Good Old-Fashioned” toothpaste. I really don’t want “whitening,” “super whitening,” “extra superduper whitening,” “smokers’ and coffee drinkers’ whitening,” “mint flavored whitening,” or “baking soda and peroxide and mint flavored and striped and mouthwash and cavity prevention and handy standup-tube whitening.” Just plain ol’ toothpaste will do, thank you.

Thirty minutes later I had eliminated all the toothpastes with fancy ingredients while muttering, “What the …, all I want is plain old-fashioned toothpaste!” I finally grabbed the least expensive brand and turned around to pick a mouthwash.

Aaarrrrgggh! Too many choices! Should I pick a brand by price or one that color-coordinates with the bathroom color scheme!?

Maybe the solution is just to stock up on good old-fashioned baking soda and keep my mouth shut!

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Daylight Savings Time

Daylight savings time begins Sunday, April 2 at 2 a.m. It’s time for most Americans to set their clocks ahead – spring forward – one hour.

As a retiree, I’ve decided I’m not participating this year. Just too much trouble. I would just have to reverse the whole clock-setting thing again in the Fall and besides, I’m not going to bed or getting up any earlier anyway. If you want to talk to me at 10 a.m. daylight savings time, wait an hour or call in the afternoon. If you want to have lunch with me, have a mid-morning snack and I’ll meet you at noon my time.

I have never understood this whole “time saving” business anyway. There are times when I would like to go to this mysterious “time bank” and withdraw a few hours. There must be hours and hours just piled sky-high that no one has thought to use. Do you know anyone who has ever successfully made a withdrawal?

You know how busy people are always saying, “Oh, I wish I had one more hour in the day,” or “I sure could use an extra day this week.” If we could find this time bank, think how handy that extra hour or day could be. Bad thing is, in no time politicians would figure out a way to tax our time withdrawals and our tax dollars would be funding a study on why kids fall off tricycles. (Oops, hasn’t that one already been funded?)

And don’t give me that old “you get it back in the Fall” routine. Maybe one hour, sure, but where are all the summer hours? I bet it’s all those stored summer hours that are causing global warming. All those banked summer hours of 80 and 90 degrees are heating up the planet.

I think it’s time we retirees all stood up and started a campaign to end this foolishness. You go ahead and get it started and I’ll be along sometime after noon – my time!

P.S. You might enjoy later comments made Monday, October 2, 2006, when it was time to "Fall Back."

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords

Belly Buttons

Belly buttons.

We all have them. Most of us keep them hidden. Some people have them pierced. Ouch! Some celebrities flaunt them. Some are “outies.” Some are “innies.” Small children are fascinated with them – especially their own.

I once knew a kid who thought that if his belly button fell off, his guts would fall out. He knew it was true because his big brother (age six) told him. His older brother also told the kid he was adopted – and came from Mars. The kid got even, though, as he was the first to figure out the relationship between parents and St. Nick and wasted no time exploding his older brother’s firm belief.

Now the question is, which came first, the pierced and revealed belly button or low-rise jeans? Did manufacturers respond to a “need” to show off belly button jewelry or did manufacturers of belly button jewelry exploit an area of anatomy to boost sales?

Ankles were hot in the 1920s, the braless look took over the 60’s and miniskirts and hot pants showed off thighs plus in the ‘70s. By the ‘80s, women were wearing power suits with big shoulder pads. By the 1990s, we were all wearing plaid shirts, cowboy boots and hats, and line dancing the night away.

Now, along with rings, rods, and plugs, the young teen and twenty somethings are covering their bodies with symbols, pictures and words.

What’s next? It will be interesting to see what the next generation does to rebel against their parents. Will nudity become the norm or will teen angst be expressed in extreme modesty and conservatism.

I hope I’m here to see it, what ever it is. Maybe the kids will bring back rock and roll and disco so we older folks can bop and boogie again until the wee hours of 9:30. Whooo, hooo.

© Copyright 2006 Suzzwords