Say It Isn't So, Mr. Hooper...

Recently Sesame Street celebrated its 40th anniversary. I love everything about Sesame Street (oh, except for Elmo -- I really don't like Elmo at all. Doesn't it ever bother anyone that he's supposed to be teaching children and yet he refers to himself in the 3rd person?) Anyway, I love Oscar and Big Bird and Snuffleufagus. I love Bert and Ernie and the Tweedlebugs. I love Gordon, Maria, Luis, Susan, David, Linda, Olivia (Gordon's sister, of course). I loved Mr. Hooper and cried when I found out he was gone. I never did get too attached to the new guy, though. I loved learning Spanish and the Ladybug picnic song and Kermit and that guy who would bang his head on the piano when he couldn't think of simple song lyrics. I bought one of my sisters a big Sesame Street encyclopedia once and she says it is one of her favorite books. So, imagine my dismay when I read, this morning, that you can buy early years of Sesame Street on DVD now, HOWEVER, they come with a disclaimer on the outside of the packaging that says, (and I kid you not)"For nostalgia purposes only. These episodes may not meet the needs of today's pre-school child." What???? Are they joking? Apparently not. Apparently there are issues: kids on SS didn't wear bike helmets, Cookie Monster eats unhealthily, Cookie Monster once or twice smoked a pipe when doing Monsterpiece Theatre, so this would seem to advocate smoking. Gordon once gave one of the kids from SS milk and cookies in his home (shocking!) Ernie and Bert live together, etc, etc. The bottom line is that someone, somewhere, thinks that the old SS isn't good enough. Oscar is too grouchy. Big Bird hallucinates an elephant-like friend. Too much violence from the aforementioned piano playing head-banging guy. We should all just try to forget what we learned from our friends at Sesame Street and go watch some more Hannah Montana.

Send in the Clowns

I really hate to say this, but I'm feeling just a tad bit embarassed about being an American right now. I'm sure it will pass, but if you would spend just a few minutes reading the news on CNN, you might be embarassed too. Hmm, what do we have today?:

1. A crazy family pretends that their child has been lifted away in a homemade balloon, prompting local authorities and the military to spend precious time and money. In the process, they convince their children to lie to all these important people. Apparently this is done in the hopes of securing a reality television show. Hmm...

2. A "beauty queen" who makes questionable photographic and video decisions and sees nothing wrong with parading around in a very small bathing suit in public becomes a national spokesperson for family values. Hmm...

3. A 19 year boy whose only claim to fame is exercising poor judgment with the daughter of a politician also makes questionable modelling decisions and says that he may want to pursue a career acting in films. Some now consider him a minor celebrity. Hmm...

Are people losing their minds? We are trying to hold together a civilization and this is the raw material we have to work with?

When will the artisans, chefs, architects, volunteers, medical researchers, nuns, and inner-city school teachers get the recognition due to them for their contributions to society? Maybe their problem is that they are doing TOO MUCH.

I Don't Even Know What to Call This...

You may be wondering why it has taken me 3 months to post something new. (Alternatively, if you have known me for any length of time and aren't just a blog stalker who's never actually met me, you're not all that surprised.) It's actually because I've spent the last 3 months trying to remember the username and password to sign into the blog. OK - that's an exaggeration. That's just what I've been doing for the past 15 minutes. (See my very early blog on passwords.) The real truth -- nothing, and yet everything to blog about. Nothing that seemed substantial enough to pass on to you, my faithful readers (when I say readers here I am trying not to assume that anyone other than my parents are reading this.) But I have to break my silence to muse on the simple and the profound -- the noteworthy and the not-worthy. Here goes:

1. I spent the early part of Friday morning at the dentist. What a great way to begin the weekend. I loathe the dentist. I've never had any real dental problems, but I don't like the idea or the experience at all. In fact, one time I even mentioned to the dentist, in case he wasn't aware, that people generally despise going to the dentist. He actually looked kind of hurt, like he hadn't considered this at all when weighing his post-secondary options. In any case, on this particular trip to the dentist, like others before it, the hygienist mentioned, with some surprise (this is perplexing) that my gums tended to bleed a little. Imagine the shock she must have suffered -- she poked and prodded at some of the most sensitive tissue on my body, with a sharp metal hook, and lo and behold, some blood. I've often wanted to point out the irony to her, but usually think better of it. If she was a nicer person and had a better sense of humor, she wouldn't have become a dental hygienist, right? (Apologies right now to my cousin Jenna, who I'm sure is the exception when it comes to dental hygienists...) In exchange for this tiny bit of early morning sadism, I was presented with a travel sized tube of Crest and a reminder card for my NEXT dental visit.

2. H1N1. I prefer the colloquial title, "Swine Flu." In a nutshell, it's enough already. On pretty much a daily basis I receive CNN news updates, health reminders from the university Health & Safety person, notes from HR reminding us to prepare for an untimely absence from work, fliers in my newspaper announcing where to get my vaccine, additional announcements about how there's not enough vaccine so don't bother coming down. My personal favorite announcement was in this week's newspaper (I'm going to call it the Small Town Times -- small stories from a small town) - an insert reminding people that lines could be long when you come for your vaccine so bring "treats and toys for the youngsters." Really? Who uses the word youngsters? Here are a few things I know about Swine Flu, from this helpful lot of information:
a) You can't get it from eating bacon (yay!)
b) I'm not in any of the high risk groups, so really I can pretty much ignore everything I read
c) Apparently there is some confusion in my church about whether you can contract it from passing the peace (this is also known as handshaking time in all the non-liturgical churches) or taking communion. Some people are refusing to do either one. I figure if I contract Swine Flu from taking communion, then there's probably nothing I could have done to avoid getting it, if you know what I mean
d)I am more indispensible at work than I knew (or less than I thought -- I can't remember)
e) The vaccine is simultaneously dangerous, not dangerous, the most worthless thing in the world, a miracle drug, still exerimental, extensively tested, plentiful, and scarce.

3. My newest introspective revelation is that I am a self-proclaimed blog stalker. (Brace yourselves - I may have just coined a new phrase. Probably not, but maybe.) A blog stalker is someone who reads the blogs of people he or she doesn't know and then feels personally involved in these people's lives. A couple of cases in point -- some friends of ours have recently gone through an international adoption. Out of curiosity one day, I followed one of the links on their blog to another family's blog about their adoption journey. The story was heartbreaking and joyful and I found myself completely wrapped up in it. I read it from start to finish and found myself checking back with them on a regular basis to follow the process. If this family was to ever find out that a total stranger was shedding tears daily over their lives, they might be a bit frightened, disturbed, or at the very least, confused. Another one -- a friend of a friend suffered a tragedy a couple of years ago when her husband was killed in combat, leaving her alone with several young children. I didn't know this family, but I knew OF them. I found myself from time to time wondering how they were doing. I don't know if it was the military connection or having young children, or my own thinking about death, which I do on a regular basis. In any case, this wondering was re-opened for me yesterday as our church had its annual Remembrance Day (Veteran's Day) service. I was again thinking about this woman and her children. (Let me again remind you that this woman doesn't even know I exist.) So, I did what any normal curious person living in 2009 would do: I Googled her. That led me to a blog written by her and her new husband, who lost his wife of nearly 25 years to breast cancer. Imagine (if you know me at all and aren't yourself a blog stalker) the tears that I shed reading the story of how they came together in their grief and found love and formed a new, large family. Again, these people would surely think that something is wrong with me and that I have, in fact, no life. I can't decide if the blog stalking is perfectly healthy -- after all, it is a great thing to share one another's stories and burdens and it is these stories that help define our human-ness ---- or if it is unneccessarily obsessive and I should be spending more time writing and living my own story. Thoughts to ponder. If you are a blog stalker yourself, and don't actually know me personally, I don't judge you. You're welcome here!

4. This is not intended to mock, but merely to amuse. This is an actual excerpt from one of my children's vocabulary quiz (a matching exercise): Question: A church leader, Answer chosen by my child: Pneumonia . Maybe all the talk of H1N1 threw the child off their game. I really hope that's it.

Nice Try

You need to remember, as you read this blog, that I do not make any of these things up.

That being said, (Canadian friends - I'm sorry, but you may want to skip this entire blog entry...it's not personal):

1. Was travelling yesterday through Brantford, Ontario (home, ironically, of Wayne Gretzky) and noticed that Brantford is also home to the "Sports Hall of Recognition." Is this where you go if you can't make a Hall of Fame? Is this like the participation certificate of sports halls?

2. On a similar note, the CFL (Canadian Football League) has started its season again. There are a variety of reasons that I don't watch the games, but one of them is particularly relevant to the subject at hand. In the CFL, you can actually score a point for attempting a field goal, and missing. (As in "nice try" - "let's give them a point anyway!")

Completely true.

Your money's no good here

Have you ever been behind an old person at the grocery store? No, I mean a REALLY old person - the kind that still writes checks? You sigh as they fumble with the pen and write the amount out in long-hand. You roll your eyes and think, "Come on Aunt Bertha. Join the 21st century. NO ONE writes checks anymore!" Yesterday, I was Aunt Bertha. I got to the check-out and had nearly completed bagging my groceries in my eco-friendly bags when I decided to reach for my wallet. I quickly realized that I had left it in another more vacation-friendly bag. "Oh well," I thought to myself, "It's a good thing I have my checkbook." Wrong. I handed the check to my 15-year old cashier. He looked at it quizzically (I looked at this word very 'quizzically' for several minutes before consulting dictionary.com for the proper spelling) and then, with his eyes all scrunched up, told me he was still in training and would have to call his manager. Whatever. Go ahead. (said to myself while weeping for the future...) The manager comes over and also looks at the check...quizzically. "Is something wrong?" I finally asked, growing impatient with each furrow of their brows. "We don't take checks" the manager finally said. "Are you joking?" Usually I could not bring myself to be quite so outspoken in the face of retail authority -- that's why I married Ryan, so that I would never have to argue with someone about the value of tires or the quality/temperature of soup. I digress. The manager then went on to explain that they stopped taking checks 3 YEARS AGO!!! I fumbled with my explanation -- now there were a couple people behind me in line beginning to stare and I felt like that person whose child throws up in church -- people simultaneously feel both sympathy and loathing for you. Then the manager says to me, "Has it been a while?" What was he implying? That I'd been locked in the dungeon for the past 3 years and at my first opportunity to escape, I went to the supermarket? I don't usually write checks, I explained, but I hadn't realized that they were no longer considered legal tender. I guess pretty soon we'll be a cashless society where the tooth fairy just makes an online transfer to your account and you can swipe your debit card at church. Too late: At the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Dallas, people have been paying their tithe by credit card for years. Apparently, they want the points. (Does God give points? - more importantly, does He still accept checks?)

Just Another Ordinary Day

I almost didn't get logged into this blog tonight. I was struggling to remember what is supposed to be a unique username and password combination. I find it both amusing and frustrating that in order to be considered a good, wise citizen we are supposed to a)choose a username and/or password that is such a unique combination of letters, numbers, and symbols, that no one will ever be able to hack into our most sensitive information (ie. Facebook account, Audiblebooks.com, savethechildren.org, etc) and at the same time b)never use the same username/password combination that you're currently using for another account. I've concluded that this is utterly impossible. Once I find my "unique combination", I'm using it for everything. Oh, because I forgot about rule c)never, ever write the username/password down anywhere. I don't know about you, but I have only so much room in my brain for that kind of thing. Like I said, once I've cleverly devised my system - that's the system I'm using. If anyone does ever figure it out, we're clearly toast. Our bank accounts, IRS files, DNA samples, Blue Jays Kids Club account information -- it will all be public record. Let's just hope that never happens. I know that this runs contrary to every film that they ever showed us about the End Times in Baptist church growing up but I for one am eagerly anticipating the day when they will just implant microchips under our skin. No more passwords. Just a simple scan. Seriously - I will gladly give up my privacy if it means never having to remember a password again. I recognize that this may be considered by some to basically be the Mark of the Beast, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

My husband has just informed me from the kitchen that I might not be doing my full part for the environment as I keep forgetting to bring my used sandwich bags home from work. Note to self: must work harder on this.

A short tale about one of the events of my day: A gentleman of a certain age, let's call him, "Methusalah" or maybe just "M" for short, came into my office to sign up for a fall semester class. This is all well and good. This is what I get paid to do. When I think about it even now, I still can't quite put my finger on where the conversation started. But this man had a WEALTH of stories and somehow they were all interconnected. I was treated to tales of gang bosses working down on the pier, unsolved mysteries, Elvis impersonators, cases of mistaken identity, a burning house, several sailing accidents, the state of Canada's emergency rooms, the Grand Canyon, drunk driving, unrequited love, walking through a plate glass window at the local Chevy dealership, Cadillacs, ministry by dogsled in the Northwest Territories, the Residential Schools scandal, Geronimo, flash flooding, summer camp, and the exorbitant salaries of longshoremen. This was accomplished without taking a single breath. At one point I wasn't sure what I should do -- it was clear that he could have gone on for hours, with each story leading (naturally of course) into the next. Once I was sure that I had more than taken care of the issue for which he first came into the office, I stood next to my desk with my coffee cup in hand. Surely this would be a signal to any person. But "M" was undeterred. Finally I managed to extricate us both from my tiny office into the outer office, wherein lay the door to the outer world. We began to say our good-byes and then - "Can you tell me when that class is?" Escape had been within my grasp, but I watched it slip away, like a longshoreman through a plate glass window. We went back into my office and my response to his simple query prompted a new line of storytelling. I refused to sit this time, and perhaps it was my walking out of my office that led him to follow me and ultimately tip his proverbial hat on the way out the door into the hallway. The rest of my colleagues looked at me with eyes as big as saucers and a look on their faces of part admiration / part utter shock. The conversation in my office had kept them spellbound for 30 minutes and the morning's productivity was effectively in the toilet. "M" will be returning as a student. I'm not sure if I should mention it to the professor.

Nothing to Say

So if you truly have nothing even remotely worth writing about, should that be some kind of signal that you shouldn't be writing? I refuse to believe that. I think I'll just share with you all the musings in my head. Together, they must surely add up to something.

Ryan and I watched "When Harry Met Sally" the other night. It was about the billionth time I've seen it, but we hadn't watched it in a while (it was even Ryan's idea!) Anyway, there is a line in the beginning, when Harry and Sally are driving to New York where he asks her to tell him the story of her life and she says, "The story of my life won't even get us out of Chicago. Nothing's happened to me yet. That's why I'm going to New York." Harry: "So something can happen to you?" Sally: "I'm going to journalism school to become a writer." Harry: "So you can write about things that happen to other people?" This is how I feel sometimes. For instance - I have made a little habit of clicking on links to blogs on friends' blog sites. Most of the time, these secondary blogs are those of people I don't know. But I find them fascinating. One day I was in tears reading the story of the life of someone I don't even know. I've read about travels, adoptions, deaths, children, cooking, you name it. Is this strange? Is it like being addicted to soap operas? But I'm convinced that the reason I like it is because it seems like so much is happening to all these other people! That might be a stretch of a tie-in to Harry & Sally, but there it is.

Loosely related to this are my current musings about reality television. Now, I don't actually watch any - not even "American Idol" if you can believe that. I've only seen part of one episode and that's because I was at my mom's and it was the night of the David Cook/David Archuletta Idol finale. (As an aside, my mother said, after this episode, that she thought the entire show was set up and she would never watch it again. Right.) But I digress. (and does "What Not to Wear" count as reality TV or serious documentary-style television?) Once, when home alone, sick, and with not a lot of motivation to do anything else, I flipped on "Jon & Kate plus 8." I didn't find it that entertaining -- really just one of those times when you find that your mouth is hanging open because you're watching someone with 8 small children fix lunches for all of them. Anyway, there's so much hoopla surrounding them right now. One wonders if they've done their children any favors by having them in front of a TV camera for the majority of their lives. I don't consider this "real" reality television, however. What's real about a family of 10 going to an amusement park. Could any REAL family of 10 afford to do that more than once in their lifetime? And is a million-dollar home REAL? If some TV producers want to come to my house, they can get an extra dose of "REAL reality." Here's Amy looking for something to wear. Here's Amy sorting through all the things that can't be worn because they're not ironed. Here's Amy throwing something wrinkled into the dryer with a damp towel, hoping that they'll come out looking freshly ironed. Here are kids fighting about nothing. Here is a cat, knocking a small terrarium (containing mud and one giant black ant) down out of the window, scattering mud (and one giant black ant, maybe) all over the floor and then staring at you like nothing happened. Here are a couple of kids saying that their "project" is due today. Here's a conversation that starts out, "What project?" Do you see what I mean? That is as real as it gets. Only no one would want to watch it because it would probably remind them too much of what they see every day anyway. :)

Wow - I'm re-reading this and realizing that out of nothing came something. Some semblance of a theme for this blog entry. (Had to look up semblance just now to make sure it was an actual word.)

Oh, and let me know if something interesting is happening in the life of someone you know. I may want to read their blog.