Retail Manipulation

Kohl’s must be apopleptic. Right in the middle of its Black Friday prequel, the power went out at the local shopping center. I can hear the collective gasp of the cash registers.

‘Retirement’ – Week 1

Early this summer when my bosses announced their retirement and intention to scale back their business, I had mixed feelings.

My chronic Bag Lady Fear about finances immediately kicked in. I have never felt secure about finances. Any time I’ve been laid off during my 40-plus year career, panic had set in.

Coloring: Everything old is new again

(I've been updating this post regularly to include new articles on the topic.)

For a long time, I had a secret: I loved to color.

A friend turned me on to adult coloring books at least 10 years ago. She gave me a book and some markers and I rediscovered the joy of choosing colors and filling in sections of designs, large and small, simple and intricate. It didn’t take long before a bought a couple of books and added a couple of packages of brilliantly hued Sharpies to my collection. In no time, I completely filled a Susanne Fincher book of mandalas. 

The Jimmy Pope Phenomenon: Swoons across cyberspace

Over the past few days, a video has been circulating that’s creating swoons across cyberspace. As in more than 8.6 million views, just since Nov. 6.

Secretly filmed by his roommate, a cute young guy dances with abandon in his black skivvies while mopping the floor after a Halloween party. The tune is Sheena Easton’s “Morning Train.” A couple of pups are in on the game.

His moves and gestures are smooth and totally in sync with the music. He doesn’t miss a swipe with the mop, even gesturing at a skeleton on the wall. Then he looks up and sees that he’s being filmed, drops the mop, and bursts into laughter. It’s all over in 35 seconds, leaving us wanting more. Much more.

The Games Stores Play

Did I mention that I hate shopping? The sales games. The card loyalty games. The coupon games. Every time I go into CVS and I’m asked, “Do you have your card?” I want to scream, but I respond in a clipped tone. “Use yours.” And the clerk duly swipes the store card. I get the discount without the yards of paper touting so-called bargains I have little use for.

However, I’ve been dealing with deferred consumer demand. My eyeglasses were 12 or 15 years old and it had been 10 years since I had an exam. I needed underwear. My favorite 400 and 600 thread count sheets were fraying and/or torn and I had resorted to mix and match; even that wasn’t working any more.

Where have all the sweaters gone?

Umm... No, not what I had in mind.

Update:I was prescient in writing this post back in 2014. An article from Dec. 21, 2023 from The Atlantic, "Read This Before You Buy That Sweater," confirms my frustration. Yes, I'm still wearing the sweaters mentioned below. Facebook memories has shared various postings from Branford Eagle holiday dinners. I still have those dressy clothes from that time -- and still wear them. 

I hate to shop. I enter a store and promptly experience sensory overload. Large department stores and malls are an anathema to me.
 
Part of it stems from the fact that I’ve never had the disposable income to consider shopping as a recreational sport. Another part is the decision-making process involved in selecting anything and the compulsion to make each and every purchase significant.

So it’s mid-winter and bitterly cold. We keep the thermostat low. Sweaters and turtlenecks are requisite attire for maintaining any kind of warmth. I have three or four warm sweaters that are suitable. One is from Bradlees and the other two are from WeatherVane. Anyone remember those stores? If you don’t, that’s an indication of the age of these of sweaters.

The last Bradlees closed in 2001 and Weathervane closed in 2004, but not before it morphed from nice women’s clothes into teen duds. So that makes these sweater a minimum of 10 years old, even 15, since I bought them well before the stores closed.

So where have all the warm wool/wool-blend sweaters gone?

Being child free is NOT new and revolutionary

Looks are deceiving! (Photo by Mary Johnson)

Cyberspace is agog about the article in Time magazine this week about child-free couples. 

Suddenly it’s news.

Not so much here.

Not having children is a decision I made 40 years ago during my time of prime fertility. It didn’t come after failed attempts to get pregnant or late marriage. I knew I could get pregnant. That happened going into my senior year of college and I knew without a doubt it was not the right time. It was a mistake I never made again.

Writing is the hardest thing I do

My trusty iMac

I don’t really know why I write. I don’t write quickly, except when I’m really pissed off or on a rant.

I’m a lousy typist. In college I was wedded to erasable typing paper, and later to the correcting tape in the IBM Selectric. I would take illegible notes; later I learned to transcribe quickly after interviews while I could still understand them. I still take illegible notes.

A Super Bowl Rant-Updated

May 2025
Why is this brutal sport allowed to continue? How many cases are undiagnosed? The hazards could not be more obvious, yet men are paid millions to destroy their brains. 
https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/cte-lawsuit-filed-by-family-of-1950s-player-results-in-140-million-verdict-against-ncaa?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us 

Deceember 2023
And so it continues. The football leagues are too concerned with the big bucks and the fans are too obsessed with violence to take CTE seriously. It's the families who experience the fall-out, all for the sake of the Heismann trophy.

From the Washington Post article: "...of the 1,035 brains of football players examined at Boston University, nearly three-fourths had CTE." 

How is this acceptable?

Super Bowl 52 (a/k/a SuperBowl 2018)
Viewership is expected to be down this year, from a peak of 114 million in 2015, 111.8 million in 2016, and 111.3 million in 2017. Blame it on audience fragmentation. Or maybe it's because Pink has the flu.

Super Bowl 50 (a/k/a Super Bowl 2016)
I couldn't find any stats on how many people are expected to watch Sunday's game (beyond Forbes' "about a billion worldwide"), but you can be sure they'll be eating a lot of guacamole. According to the Hass Avocado Board, 278 million avocados will be consumed, and according to the National Chicken Council 1.3 billion chicken wings will be eaten. Unlike half the country, I'll be doing anything but watching the body-slamming fest. And, sorry, I can't even get into the half-time show or Puppy Bowl or Kitten Bowl or whatever they do to try to suck in non-football viewers.
But here are links to only a few of the reasons I find this sport so detestable.     

Super Bowl 2015 
Bets are on that more than 113 million people will watch Sunday's salute to brutality. According to Nielsen the number last year was 111.5 million.

Super Bowl 2013
Can 100 million people be wrong? 

That’s the number of people expected to stuff their faces with junk food and watch grown men slam heads and bodies together in the name of sport.

It matters not that the chronic concussions experienced by football players may lead to early dementia and personality disorders. The NFL has graciously offered funds to research the problem.

It matters not that the administration of a powerful painkiller allows college players to play through painful, otherwise debilitating injuries. The drug, Toradol, led to a heart attack in a 20-year-old. It’s apparently in widespread use in the NCAA and professional sports.

If I ruled the world

Okay, there would be world peace, good jobs for all, a take-down of the Wall Street big-wigs and banks, a bipartisan Congress, spending limits and time constraints on the campaigning process… You get the idea.

But I’m talking about some basics here. Stuff that’s a part of everyday life and gives us major agita.