SueWorks

Not a Panty Obsession; It's a Packing Obsession

Please don't think I have a fetish, based on the last post.  I'm actually consumed with the idea of packing for a long trip to the northern reaches of North America.  We're going to a harsh, inhospitable land, it called the Far North!  OK, we're getting there by 747 and then by luxury ship, but still, we'll spend a few hours on a glacier or two.  And I'm from Southern California, meaning that I have thin blood that must be kept warm with layers of extra clothing and protective footwear.

Pkin travels with S&$Tloads of electrical "necessities".  There is the absolutely required, medically essential breathing machine.  This must be taken as carry on and cannot leave our possession at any moment.  Without his CPAP, Pkin could die.  He's already lost too many brain cells in his frontal cortex.  (We have pictures to prove it.)  Next is the professional grade digital camera.  It comes with so many lenses that it is not funny, thank goodness we can pack the tripod!  He also has the cleaning set and the little "cards" with tons of memory.  The camera and pals is also carry on.  Of course, with all this stuff, Pkin just needs his laptop because he might want to watch Lilo & Stitch for the umpteenth time.  (As Pkin will remind all: I have enjoyed watching Pride & Prejudice, for the gazillionth time, while sitting for hours and hours at the airport during the London gel bomb scare.  My laptop was work related, I must add.)  In light of all the other plug in stuff coming with us, do we really need the laptop!?!

We haven't packed one toothbrush and have three bags already curbside.  Now we move to dress clothes which Pkin would be more than happy to leave at home or better yet not have at all.  I like getting dressed up for dinner.  We pay enough for the cruise we might as well pretend we dress for dinner like Nick and Nora Charles, or whoever it is you like from the classic movie era.  Pkin wore a tux once and he looked so cute.  He has these adorable chubby pumpkin cheeks that look so cute with his football tackler's neck.  But oh no, "I like to be a natural man."  Apparently, natural is code for Hawaiian print shirt with lower belly showing.  We are picking up new dress pants on Saturday and if he stands still long enough, and there is time before we set sail near the end of May, we're also getting measured for a rental tux.  (Do you hear little Pkin feet running the other way?  I do!)

Do you see 4.5 bags filling my trunk?  They are very clear to me.  I need my snow type jacket, his jacket, at least two pairs of jeans each, sweaters, tops, sock and, yes, old, ragged panties!  Is there a Scout saying, Leave nothing, take only the memories.  I'm leaving the old underwear, just so I have 10-14 less things to carry on the way home.  At this point I don't even want to think about souvenirs. 

What is your take on souvenirs for people at work?  I have a shot glass holding pennies (coworker gift from some state and coins for a team building exercise); a Philippine handmade blank book (former cw and total tchotchke); and my little Delft box (loved former coworker and vending machine change holder, sometimes you need trail mix at 3:00 PM and to remember that people at work can be nice.)  But I digress ...

How the heck are we going to pack all our stuff and then lug it to the airport, then the hotel, and then the boat? 

Boy, what a complainer, Sue goes on holiday and moans about it all.  Boo hoo hoo!

I'm over it now.  Let's forget about souvenirs and get a new suitcase, one of the 360-degree wheeled things.  Do you know what I mean?  In the commercial they practically pack themselves and then make their merry way to the airport.

Fresh Undies

Your mother must have told you to be sure to have clean panties, skivvies, bloomers, shorts, or undies, because of the accident you were sure to be in.  Bill Cosby said that why would you start with clean ones; after the "accident" they wouldn't be.  Why mess with the middle man, if you will?!?

My hero, George, loves to travel, loves, loves, loves it.  He's probably out gallivanting somewhere as I type.  He shared a great packing tip.  You always bring home more stuff than you leave with so you need to find things you can leave in the cities and town you visit.  It's like an exchange program of sorts.  His suggestion was to take old, ratty underwear and other garments (as possible) with you and discard them along your journey to make room for souvenirs. 

It's wasteful to my soul that my Grandmother formed with memories of great poverty and want, but it's also so damn practical.  Pkin doesn't like his delicates turned into cleaning rags which is something I grew up doing.  The whole waste not, want not mentality.  I wonder what Gramma did with the old, old rags/undershirts that were just two parallel strings of cotton held together with a bit of cuff or neck band.  We must have sold them in the yard sale that cleaned out her house when she moved on (literally and figuratively) after nearly 50 years in the same house. 

In 50 years my house will be overrun with scrapes of old towels.  Tons of them and no underwear.  Last year, Pkin's birthday gift was underwear.  He likes to complain about that.  I got diamonds, he got socks.  He got a whole entire drawer filled with brandy new, spanking clean, assorted undergarments.  I sent the decent ones to the Vets (don't tell him) and the less decent ones, after I bit my tongue, got chucked in the garbage.

Great Quote

From John E. Kramer, VP of Communication, Institute for Justice:

A person's pursuit of goodness leads to greatness, but the pursuit of greatness leads to ruin.  Pursue goodness and you will achieve great things.

I Found Out What Happens

It finally happened, the pesky, hyper perky person I alluded to recently FELL.  The crash was deep.  The person was quiet, sullen (is that redundant), and didn't make eye contact.  The lack of eye contact was the most disturbing part of the whole downfall.  When someone who has made it his or her practice to maintain deep eye contact suddenly doesn't look you in the face, it's shocking.  I checked around, and it wasn't just with me, if you were thinking that might be the case.  Lots of the hyper-type behaviors (like super bad driving, super happiness, and super sadness,) might be results of stress.  Pkin might say that super selfishness that is the primary motivation and I wouldn't contradict him outright.

It just seems that everything has to be the most, the biggest, the fastest, the smallest, the best-est.  It's all about the -EST.  Wasn't that a 70's fad? 

You need to be number 1 in everything.  The #1 @$$hole, the #1 provider of "green" building products (I read that Katie Couric's new beau aspires to that position,) or the first successor to the CEO of the company I work for.  I'm not the most perky, nor am I the most bitchy; and being the most wishy-washy isn't a great place to be.

Back to perkiness: the person (don't want to even disclose gender) seems to be back on the mend today so thumbs pointing skyward are in my future.

Healthy Eating IQ Test

Get ready to fail ...

A new Field Research Corp. poll asked Californians to identify the low calorie, low salt, high fat or high calorie menu items from a list of four choices. Of the people surveyed, 68% failed every question. Think you can do better?

1. Which of the following breakfast items that are served at Denny's do you think has the fewest calories?

A. Ham and cheddar omelet

B. Country-fried steak and eggs

C. 3 slices of French toast with syrup and margarine

D. 3 pancakes with syrup and margarine

2. Which of the following items that are served at Chili's do you think has the least salt?

A. Cajun chicken sandwich

B. Classic combo steak and chicken fajitas

C. Guiltless chicken platter

D. Smoked turkey sandwich

3. Which of the following items that are served at Romano's Macaroni Grill do you think has the most fat?

A. Traditional lasagna

B. Chicken Caesar salad

C. Pasta classico with sausage and peppers

D. BBQ chicken pizza

4. Which of the following items that are served at McDonald's do you think has the most calories?

A. 2 Big Macs

B. 2 Egg McMuffins

C. 1 large chocolate shake

D. 4 regular hamburgers

Answer Key

1. (B) Country fried steak and eggs (464 calories); 2. (A) Cajun chicken sandwich (2,220 mg sodium); 3. (B) Chicken Caesar salad (69 g fat); 4. (C) 1 large chocolate shake (1,160 calories)

Source: California Center for Public Health Advocacy

Perky People in Private

I recall, not too clearly, a movie where the female lead is incredibly perky; the kind of perkiness that causes normal people to want to drive spikes into the little, perky beating hearts of the perky person.  In this movie, she took time each day to unplug the phone and cry uncontrollably.  I wonder about perky people, people who give you the thumbs up sign to show just how enthusiastic they are.  How do these people decompress?  Between you and me, I wouldn't want to be the dog in their house.  It would be too easy to come home after a long day of over the top exuberance, with one's thumbs in near spasm from all the "upping", and kick the dog.

I remember what it was like to be enthusiastic about my job, and it did feel good and I did use expressions like "Way to go team!" and I did walk with a spring my step, but I have never given the double thumbs up to indicate my happiness or to motivate another person.  Never!

The thumbs up (one thumb) is reserved for when I'm on the phone and cannot verbally respond when a person who is in person wants to know if something is OK (one thumb up) or not (one thumb down).  Call me boring, call me aloof, call me No-Thumbs-Sue.  I don't care. 

It's not the 70's and I don't work in a disco, keep your thumbs to yourself!

Vogue Mag

Looking at picture-perfect and rail-thin models may make women feel worse about their own bodies, regardless of their size or shape.

Previous studies have shown that images of skinny models negatively affect how overweight women and those with eating disorders view their own body image.

But a new study suggests that all women are equally, and negatively, affected by looking at pictures of models in magazine ads for just three minutes.

"Surprisingly, we found that weight was not a factor. Viewing these pictures was just bad for everyone," says researcher Laurie Mintz, associate professor of educational, school, and counseling psychology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, in a news release.

"It had been thought that women who are heavier feel worse than a thinner woman after viewing pictures of the thin ideal in the mass media," Mintz says. "The study results do not support that theory."

Sears Christmas Wish Catalog

Yes, I'm dating myself.  When I was young I loved, loved the annual Sears Christmas Wish catalog.  I guess it would arrive in November and the cover was usually a picture of a very decorated tree with gazillion presents all around it.  There may have been pictures of happy, smiling, blond children (there usually are.)

I would pour through each page of the book, admiring all the lovely items that would somehow make me complete if they were under my tree.  I adored the child-sized easel and artist set; though then, as now, I can't draw a straight line to save my soul.  I knew that standing at said easel my Michelangelo talents would have sprung forward.  When I grew older I obsessed about the clothes.  My heart longed for a pointelle sweater set.  (I'm wearing a bright salmon, silk sweater set now, right this very minute.)  Had I enjoyed a pointelle set at 14 I'm sure my live would be very different today!

My love for mail order shopping is long and deep.  Today the catalogs are online galleries of dreams.  Each dress that can be seen from three angles and magnified 10x represents happiness beyond compare.  After years of returning mail order items I should have learned a lesson but nope! 

I'm still clinging to the dream even though I know a large leather purse looks spiffy in a 2 inch by 2 inch picture but looks gigantic and incredibly black in person.  The black lace dress that looks like Cinderella's ball gown online looks like funeral wear in your bedroom.  But what if it made you look like Cinderella?  It could happen.  Dreams can come true.  I have to believe that dreams are wishes your heart makes.  I just have to believe.

On the practical side, I've had less that positive experiences returning Bloomingdale's items whereas Macy's makes it very easy and there is a Macy's on every other street corner.  You can dream, practically.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Last week, a 48-year-old man accused of using a chain and pickup truck to yank a 1,500-pound ATM from the Pomona Ranch Market failed to escape police when his prosthetic leg fell off.

Gregory Daniels, 48, was arrested for burglary after he and an accomplice, who got away, drove into a dead-end street. Daniels' leg fell off as he began to run from the truck and he was found laying on the ground.

This happened in Southern California, in the outskirts of LA county, in case you're wondering.  I'm sure old Greg was a transplant from some sedate Midwestern town.

Depends, or How I Spent My Saturday Night

[After writing a fun entry on grocery store experiences, TypePad @#$%@ed out.  Here's goes Take 2!]

I do not know how to grocery shop.  Some people shop for economy, some for health, some for culinary expression and then there is me.  I shop for things that I think will make me happy.  When Pkin and I got married, neither of us had really managed a home of our own, by ourselves (me even less so.)  I have never learned the skill of meal planning.  It's so interesting to me that people plan two or more weeks of dinners at home and then actually make them and eat them, leftovers and all.  I shop for A meal.

The worst happened last week, after shopping for my small part of Easter dinner (candy and homemade cheesecake) I came home to color eggs and make dessert.  Mom was visiting too.  We started the cake, and were thinking about the eggs and decided it was lunch time.

How yummy tuna melts would be, was my thought.  I went to the cupboard and looked, no tuna.  After moving around 6-year-old soup cans, exploring the cabinets under the countertop, and even searching in the "rice" cupboard, I realized that I did not have tuna.  (The stuff that can live in your cabinets for years, not the fancy, trendy steak kind.)  I always have tuna.  Tuna is a staple of the raised-Catholic.  You just have to have tuna, especially during Lent.

After another week, I finally went to the store.  Pkin and I stopped after dinner out.  We bought three containers of milk (Pkin loves his milk,) one gallon of ice cream (it was on sale,) two cups of yogurt (I get bored quickly,) apples (my concession to good health,) and tuna.  The massive Von's computer decided that our purchased indicated a need for Depends during our next shopping trip. 

I think the major Safeway corporation thinks we're lactose intolerant or perhaps that we are 75 years old.