#86 - Cyber Craziness

We have been through a whirlwind of events in one week's time.  From Black Wednesday and all those partying passed out teens, to giving thanks for friends and family & stuffing our faces on turkey dinners, to shopamania on Black Friday, to my Hoos getting their butts handed to them by the Hokies, to putting up Christmas decorations on Sunday, to Cyber Monday (and for someplaces Cyber Week) and being able to get great deals online. Not sure if I missed this special day last year or if this year is a first, but a thought has crossed my mind after listening to the news yesterday about the phenomenal sales across the country on Black Friday, which was one of the reasons the stock market was up 290 points yesterday (hey, I don't make this stuff up!).  If so many people went Black Friday shopping, enough to result in one of the BEST Black Fridays EVER, then how do people have any money left to shop during Cyber Week????  Oh, never mind, how silly of me!  We will simply use credit cards.

Even though Americans spending money greatly benefits the economy, we will all sink a bit further in debt as a result, and then credit card companies will have huge profits  so they can give their CEOs exhorbitantly high bonuses and I guess the economy will gain ground as a result of all this! NOT!  Have we not learned anything from the financial crisis of the last few years???!!!!

                                                                            

#85 - Patty Play Pal Resurrected!

When I was 5 years old, I fell down the cement stairs in our apartment building in NY because I was jumping rope and trying to do my ballet routine (I was determined to be "different" in the ballet recital).  What did this stunt result in? A really bad concussion and 3 weeks in bed and my grandmother buying me a Patty Play Pal doll.  Patty Play Pal stood about 3 feet tall, had shiny straight black hair (well, my did) and was made of that hard plastic as most dolls were made of in the late 50s, early 60s.  Why am I taking a walk down memory lane once again in a pet peeve blog?  Because I think (I'm not sure, mind you) that I may have seen Patty Play Pal on Black Friday.  I can't be sure because she was in a saran wrapped stack of maybe 50 dolls in a center aisle in Walmart, surrounded by a huge hoard of people, waiting to pounce on the pile, as soon as the store employees cut the saran wrap!  Here's why - Walmart does not close on Thanksgiving apparently, so their Black Friday sales merchandise is literally wrapped in saran wrap and marked with signs that say, "do not sell until 10pm on November 23rd".  I inadvertently got swept into this aisle at around 9:55pm, to people chanting - cut that wrap, cut that wrap! And when the wrap was cut, people descended on these poor dolls.  I do not keep up on the latest fads, even in toys for my grandchildren, so I am not really sure if it was Patty Play Pal or not.  All I do know is that people can behave very badly at times.  Now if people were clamoring to see the resurrected Jesus, I could understand their behavior; but for Patty Play Pal - give me a break!

                                                                       

                                                              

                                                         

#84 - Let's make up names for days

Seems to me every time you turn around, there is a new occasion being invented.  There are the traditional ones that have been around for many years: Thanksgiving, Halloween, 4th of July, Christmas, Hanukkah, Yom Kippur, Labor Day, Memorial Day, to name a few.  Then there are ones that pop up out of nowhere.  Grandparents Day.  As if those of us who are grandparents need a day to be treated in a special way.  We walk on water in our grandchildren's eyes EVERY DAY.  Administrative Assistant Day.  First of all, what ever happened to calling people a secretary.  Did that suddenly become a bad word?  And we need a day to recognize our secretary's good work, which I believe is what he/she gets paid for?? Boss's Day.  Ditto the secretary sentiment.  Kwanzaa, which honors universal African-American heritage and culture, observed from December 26 to January 1 each year. It features activities such as lighting a candle holder with seven candles^[1] and culminates in a feast and gift giving. So, an African-American decides in 1966 that black people need to have their own celebration around the same time as Christian & Jewish people, six days more than Christmas, but one less than Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE. Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar.  And now I heard on the radio the other day, we have Black Wednesday.  Not to be confused with Black Friday, the day retailers hope their numbers go from red to black because of high volume in sales, Black Wednesday is the - are you ready for this - BIGGEST PARTY DAY OF THE YEAR FOR TEENS, who will drink alcohol excessively and then BLACK out.  So, you are now telling me the day before Thanksgiving is the BIGGEST party day of the year for teens, surpassing New Year's Eve, St. Patrick's Day, 4th of July, graduation night & prom night???!!! Puleez, you've got to be kidding me!

                                                          

#83 - Dust in the Wind - Not Just a Song by Kansas

I am a classic rocker.  I was in high school from 68-72 and lived on Bob Seger, Led Zeppelin, Ten Years After, James Taylor, Carlie Simon, to name a few. And Bob has the same taste in music, so when we got married in 1975, music was one of those things we never argued about. The first big thing we ever bought as a married couple living in Germany was not a couch or a bed, oh no, it was a stereo receiver, speakers and a turntable.  Being in the Army in Germany was great for stereo purchases!  AAFES had unbelievable prices on top of the line stereo equipment.  By the time we came home in 1978 (3 years later), we had acquired Bose & Pioneer speakers, a Pioneer turntable, a Pioneer receiver, a Teac reel to reel and a cassette player.  Bob went through a new pair of head phones every few years, as it enabled him to listen to music while the kids were asleep or watching something on TV.  Our love of music has trickled down genetically to our son, whom, when he had his house built 3 years ago, made sure it was wired for outside Bose speakers (ah, made his father proud!). Alas, as the years have passed, it seems the only time we really listen to music anymore is in the car or when we have people over the house (BBQs require speakers outside) or at birthday celebrations, or of course, at Christmas. So, before I even get out the Christmas decorations, I go to the CD player to load 5 Christmas discs.  And what to my wondering eye should appear - St. Patrick's Day Irish Pub Songs!  WTH??? Are you telling me the last time we listened to music on our stereo system was St. Patrick's Day???!!!!! 

"I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone. All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity. Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind."  Not so sure, but there may be something to this getting older crap!

                                                               

#82 - Thanksgiving Traditions

Traditions.  Those things that we do in our families that can evoke wonderful, fond memories from our childhood.  Being born on St. Patrick's Day, my birthday always began with my father singing "Rings on my fingers and bells on my toes, elephants to ride on, my pretty Irish rose, come to my birthday on next St. Patrick's Day, Mrs. Rumbo Jumbo, Jude O'Beau Shea, O'Shea!"  I am a big proponent of family traditions, even when the traditions you grew up with in your childhood need to be adjusted to accomodate a new spouse and his traditions, i.e. opening gifts on Christmas Eve after midnight mass vs. opening gifts at the crack of dawn on Christmas Day.  And then as your children grow up and are in college, going back to opening gifts on Christmas Eve because the collegiate crew are night owls and prefer nocturnal activities to sunrise ones.  That then evolves into married children and their new spouses and their traditions.  And so it is that we arrive at Thanksgiving and the dawn of a new tradition - roast chicken instead of turkey.  Now this may be because my daughter-in-law's grandmother lives on a 100 acre turkey farm in WV (or maybe it's 200 or 300, I'm not really sure; all I know is, it's a lot of land!) and my dil grew up watching cute little turkettes mature into big fat gobblers, and the thought of eating them was too traumatic.  Or that my suburban grown son lost his taste for turkey after viewing the turkey houses at grandma's farm.  But the result is there will be no turkey on their table this Thanksgiving.  At first, I felt like our traditions were flying the coop.  But when I stopped and thought about it, who really cares what's on the table for Thanksgiving,  It's what's around the table that counts! Enter in a new era in traditions.  It's all good.

                                                                          

#81- Before Black Friday

I love this time of year. We go from Halloween and all the trick or treating fun, to Thanksgiving, a day of family and food and fun and simply giving thanks to a wonderful God for all the blessings he showers upon us.  And now thanks to my daughter and my daughter-in-law, I have gotten sucked into Black Friday shopping.  A few years ago the two talked me into going Black Friday shopping at 3:00am.  Now the only thing I knew about Black Friday was from a friend who did it every year, and the one thing she said that made sense to me about the nonsence of getting up 3 hours after all the merriment and stuffing of Thanksgiving was that Black Friday enabled her to really focus on the spiritual part of Advent, as she was not thinking about Christmas gifts and what she still needed to buy. So, at first when the girls proposed that I come with them on Black Friday because it was sooooo much fun, I remembered the Advent spiriuality thing (vaguely, because as I have shared before the memory is not what it used to be), and so, agreed to join them.  And what do you know?!?! I actually did enjoy it.  Were the stores packed with other wacko women (not too many men are actually seen on this day)??? Yes. Is it ridiculous to get up and venture into the land of shopping frenzy on only 3 hours sleep??? Yes again. But there is something about the comradery that begins with Starbucks coffee at 3am and waiting in the cold with hundreds of others for a store to open its doors, that is fun.  Yes, actual fun!  So, my peevishness is not really about Black Friday but about the advertising in the days BEFORE Black Friday.  In the past, you would hear which store was opening its doors at 5am.  That wasn't good enough however, because that soon got bumped to 3am, and then midnight and now this year some stores are opening at 10pm on Thanksgiving night.  I feel badly for the employees who have to work that night! Always looking for more profits, stores have now advertised over the past week that you can find sales as good as Black Friday this weekend and in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, so why wait.  Why wait indeed?  My recommendation is that the stores just have Black Friday sales all year long, and every weekend open their doors at midnight, and consumers can shop 24/7! Pretty soon, sales leading up to Black Friday will begin on the 4th of July with a parade and fireworks display!

                                                                    

#80 - Thanksgiving Negative Hype

Holidays - that magical time of year - when old and young alike transform into delightful human beings - kind, cheerful, caring, compassionate people. So, why then does the media need to put a damper on that by reporting things like last year's gas prices were ONLY $2.88 per gallon, and it will cost a person $14.86 more to drive from Atlanta to Orlando? First of all, is everyone and their brother leaving the Dixie state to participate in the Mickey Mouse parade in Disneyworld? Secondly, in the greater scheme of things in this economy, if $14.86 is a big deal to you, then you shouldn't be making a trip to Orlando over Thanksgiving.  Stay home and spend that money on your family's Thanksgiving dinner. And the other gem of a report I heard was that it MIGHT be difficult to find a turkey this year, as they are not as plentiful as in the past.  I didn't hear a reason why, so I can only surmise that the turkeys must be on their way to Disney, too.