lately it has been a challenge to not get crazy every time i see myself in a mirror… senior discounts are good but watching your torso go from hourglass to barrel can be mind blowing… because no matter what you do, it’s going to happen… with a birthday coming up it has become a thought provoking sight… do i really want to spend the rest of my life hating what i see in the mirror?
hell no…
so am backing this black friday walkout of walmart… why? cause it is about the only thing left that i can do that’s real… politics is a total joke and it really doesn’t matter what i think anyway…
still hung up on the insane cost of food… here is the thing. i don’t buy packaged food (unless it’s amys rice macaroni & cheese or applegate farms gluten free chicken nuggets! yum!) because it is loaded with salt and fat and a lot of stuff i can’t pronounce… SO… it would make sense that the boxed stuff would cost more but no… by jacking up the prices on basic ingredients, our local store absolutely guarantees that it is cheaper to by junk than the real thing… NOW… this country has a huge problem with obesity so why in the hell do they push and shove and “price right” the stuff that makes us fat and unhealthy? how can we buy local if it is priced for the upper echelon?
wait… are people too lazy to cook their own food? all this buy local stuff reminds me of fast food commercials… you know, macdonald’s, burger king, etc. print and visual ads that show amazing looking hamburgers and fries but when you actually purchase one the burger is grey, the bun is hard with a suspiciously soft doughy middle like they thawed them under the heat lamps, the lettuce looks like the weeds you find on the side of the road after they spray weedkiller, the tomato is kind of orangish yellow and tough… usually the pickle is pretty good, must be the dill and vinegar, but the droplets of ketchup and mustard or “special sauce” make up for nothing… and the fries are greasy and limp as a… well you know…
so what does all that have to do with life? not a damn thing… just me rambling… cause i am old and i can.
have to go back to work…
so many times i have sat down to write about some weirdness or injustice or just plain stupidness (which isn’t a word but should be) but then i think what the hell good would it do? example: my local market carries more premade, premixed, fat and calorie laden stuff than ever before. there are approximately 60 different cereals, enough ice cream to keep a fair sized city happy and did you know that in an entire aisle of freezers there is 1 gluten free pizza and 2 frozen entrees that don’t have pasta? they have stopped carrying something as basic as hotdog relish! ok yeah you can mix mustard and relish but it lacks the secret ingredient. for 3 bags (plastic because i am into reuse and repurpose and you can’t do anything with a paper bag once you walk home in the rain) of basic stuff it was $85! that’s crazy when i can get a whole carload of stuff at fred meyer and oceana food co-op for $150. but yet they want us to buy local and not at the “big box” stores. so why don’t they support the locals? there is a whole new business category in personal shoppers who can drive to the bigger stores, shop and charge a percentage and we STILL save average 30% over the local market.
so maybe you will see me more often… cause i am getting older and more grumpy everyday. i hate being taken advantage of and i hate being guilted (another non-word that should be) and manipulated into doing things that just aren’t right.
till next time
is it my imagination or is everything costing more and getting smaller? bought a dozen eggs the other day, extra large. took them home along with with a few other things… $80 for 2 sacks of groceries. anyway, cooking breakfast i cracked 1 egg from the previous carton of local eggs marked medium and one from the “mainline” carton marked extra large. do you know that the extra large was the EXACT same size as the medium? what is wrong with this picture? are the local hens bigger? do they starve the production hens to lay more but smaller eggs? or is this just another way to lull us into complacency. odwalla repackaged their pomagrand so i am now spending about the same for a smaller bottle. kind of reminds me of gas companies jacking the prices up to almost $5 a gallon then making a big deal when it drops down to $4. does anybody remember 2 years ago when it was about $2.65 a gallon? they make cars that get over 50 mpg but can’t sell them here because it might hurt the economy if people weren’t buying as much gas. does it ever occur to anyone that if the gas prices were lower and cars went further, people would go farther and spend more? does any of this make sense? probably not…
bottom line… i am tired of being manipulated and taken advantage of like i am an idiot and don’t know what’s really going on…
there… off the soapbox now…
being a teacher is about inspiring someone to take the information you give them and let them run with it… let them fly to places you never thought of… let them be better then you… it isn’t about petty backstabbing and smashing the hopes of someone who doesn’t think like you… have recently learned of a teacher who does just that, no matter the talent standing in front of her cringing at the hurtful words. that isn’t teaching, that is someone in a position of authority abusing their power. how can you demonstrate and talk about the abuses of power in the government, the state, the country, the right and left, any and all when you are continuing that same abuse in your own life? its wrong… it always has been…
you are entitled to an opinion, you are not entitled to use said opinion to hurt someone. .. do unto others as you would have them do unto you and judge not lest you be judged… words to live by…
have you ever wondered why we work so hard to get nowhere? do you spend your weekdays constantly moving, creating, thinking and the weekends trying to be someone you’re not? yeah me too… and I am very tired… so I have decided to be just a bit selfish, to stop and think before I say yes and to not take anything personal. I know… sounds like the four agreements…
depression is an interesting animal… it demands that you crawl in a hole in order to be at peace… yet the very act of following this demand, creates isolation that deepens the depression… mine wears a scowly face (and glasses) and every once in awhile I mentally tickle it under the chin so it will giggle… which puts me in a good mood… which then makes the depression cranky and the fight is on… so then the 5 stages…. isolation, anger, bargaining, back to depression and then acceptance… and this can all be done in a night or two so that you can enjoy the rest of the week… the trick is to acknowledge it without giving it power… to coldly and clinically walk it, and you, through the 5 stages… only then can you “de-isolate” (new word) and get on with smiling and giggling and enjoying life as it is… namaste
woke up this morning with the words and melody of a song running through my head… trouble was it wasn’t something I recognized… so after going through it a couple times it turns out that I created it… so now I am trying to remember all the words so I can sing them out loud. I need to keep a notebook by my bed… this has been happening a lot lately… songs, poems, stories and all of it like I am there… does this mean I am crazy? hearing voices? thank goodness it only happens at night… well, and in the shower too… but that’s it!
j
Eclectic Haze 