Okay last Tuesday I let slip one of my dirty blogging secrets – I prewrite and schedule posts. Today I’ll explain and air out another little thing you might have picked up on if you’ve been paying attention to my posts. (more…)
Category: Monday Marginalia
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Tuesday Thoughts – Dirty Blog Secrets Revealed
House Wife with carpet beater, no known copyright restrictions, Used via The Commons on Flickr From the Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands. -
Memoir Monday – A Usual Thanksgiving
Thanksgivings for me have changed over the years as I’ve matured. Sure there are some foods that are tradition – turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberries (real whole not that can shaped jelly), rolls, and such. But things evolve as the years went on. (more…)
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Throwback Thursday – Thanksgiving Me
This is me at my maternal grandparent’s house in Laurens, South Carolina. I would guess this to be about 1969. It is a tradition in my family to make a picture of the table laden with the feast. So here I am not having done any of the work but going to do my best share of the eating. Enjoy!
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Monday Memoir – What’s Home? Where are you from?
This was inspired by the question “Where is home?” in An Old Friend From Far Away by Natalie Goldburg. Actually the question I get asked a lot but never quite know how to answer is “Where are you from?” Now I know people who knew me in school would shout Tennessee but honestly I’ve lived out of Tennessee longer than I lived in it. Honestly if you count the years in one place Kenosha, Wisconsin is where I’ve lived the longest in my life.
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Memoir Monday – Family Grams
Nicole Tow graciously allowed me to use her scan of a familygram she send her husband. Be sure to check out her site and any copyrights to the image are hers. This was prompted by a question from The Book of Myself by Carl and David Marshall. It was to write about my experience with the military as an adult. Wow, for me that would being a Navy wife. That experience take a few books. However the first thing that popped into my mind was familygrams. They take some explaining because they were only for the submarine force and aren’t used now. So read on for an explanation and tales of grams both mine an others. (more…)
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Memoir Monday Introduction
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique I’ve started doing scheduled postings and it has helped me get back to blogging regularly. I was pondering what could I do to add a regular day to my Anything Goes Tuesdays and Throwback Thursdays. I came up with Memoir Mondays where I tell a little memory of mine. It seems people think I’ve had an interesting life. I don’t think it’s anything beyond the mundane but I’ve been told it is. Maybe like many Southerners I have a great
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Banned Book Week
This week is Banned Book Week. I have to admit I’ve never met a book I thought should be banned. I’ve read many books that were banned at one point or another and always came away disappointed. You see when my folks would get me a ‘banned’ book I thought there HAD to be something exciting and salacious about it to earn such a dubious honor. Then I read Grapes of Wrath, Catcher In The Rye, The Great Gatsby, 1984, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Clockwork Orange, and so on… I came away with great stories but nothing so salacious that I saw any reason to ban it. At first being a skeptical high schooler I thought maybe parents got together and banned it to make teenagers want to read good literature. Then I thought maybe it was banned as a marketing gimmick. Finally I came to the sad realization that no these books were banned because there are people out there who want to control our thoughts. They want to decide what’s okay to write and thus think about and what’s not. They are under the delusion if you don’t look at stuff you don’t like it’ll go away. (more…)
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Some People Are Just Obnoxious
Image from US National Archives as a member of The Commons on Flickr. No known copyright restrictions. This isn’t the post I planned for today but it’s the post I encountered. I ran to the local grocery to pick up a few things for the next few dinners (burritos tonight – gazpacho & pasta salad tomorrow). My list took me all over the store getting an item here and there. While waiting at the deli for their tortellini (for the pasta salad) I encounter a woman grilling a deli work on the contents of some pre-made salad. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s bad for a customer to ask questions. However, it’s who you ask and how you ask that can go from customer seeking service to obnoxious person. This deli worker had the lamented recipe card and was attempting to answer the queries. Honestly I was impressed they made the stuff there on site and the person dishing was involved in the making. Cudos store! However, said woman wouldn’t wait for the answer but instead barked another question and looked as if she thought the worker was trying to lie to her. I moved on having been served by another worker and gave a sympathetic smile to the man in the white hat holding the lamenated card doing his best at being drilled over salad.
Later I was in the meat department. I made my selections I hear a scathing voice say “So are these the ones you normally gouge us $6.00 a pound for?” I glance over my shoulder and yes, you guessed it! It’s her. Oh had she has 3 pounds of potato salad in her cart so I guess deli guy passed inspection. The butcher stands at attention with hands folded behind his back, I kid you not. As the woman leans over packaged custom made gourmet burgers from the meat department on sale. “M’am we usually charge $6.50 per pound for those as they have bacon and cheese in them. The $6.00 per pound are the seasoned beef ones. However both are on sale today for $5.00 per pound.” She squints at him. “Why? Are they going bad from the holiday weekend?” I make my selection and start moving on but as I push my cart I hear… “No m’am we make them fresh this morning. This stamp tells you the date…” I catch a woman’s eye as I move on she rolls her eyes at the poor butcher standing at attention, I smile and shrug. Whatcha gonna do when in the retail industry but deal with customers.
I enjoyed my time in the dry goods and dairy without any grating voices or being spectator to any interrogations of staff. However I did have to get some crusty bread at the bakery for dinner tomorrow. As I go ponder just what kind of bread I want and how much (I’m still getting used to shopping for two not two with a teenage boy)… I hear “BUT the ad shows chocolate ones! Get the head baker I want to speak to him NOW!” Yep there she is! The stocker dutifully runs off to fetch the baker and is thrilled to leave the snarling customer I am sure. The baker,who is a woman not a him, arrives just as I head to the checkout lane.
As I am finishing up my transaction there’s a cart banging on the conveyer belt before the register. I look up and it’s her. She’s banging her cart against the frame “BOY, oh bag boy come unload my cart. I can’t because I can’t bend over.” I wanted to say “You seemed to bend just fine looking for a chocolate one in the bakery.” (one what I’ve not a clue but oh well). The young man at the register turns to her. “He’s finishing up with this lady’s order then he’ll be right with you.” He turns to me and smiles as he waits on the receipt to finish printing out coupons generated.
“Tell him I want plastic bags in paper ones and pack lightly!” She says despite the bagger is just 10 feet away. He looks up at me and I say it’d fine don’t bag the soda’s they are easier to carry in the six packs. He smiles gratefully.
As I claim my cart I hear the woman ask. “I forgot my coupons for these can I get the coupon price and bring them to you later.” The cashier turns to look at me with a ‘please kill me now’ look on his face, I chuckle sympathetically and smile. “Good luck!”
On the drive home I thought about it. Really it’s fine she wanted to know what’s in her potato salad, if the burgers were ground chuck or sirloin, if the product was available in chocolate… all legit questions if you have them. However there’s a right way and wrong way to ask a question and get an answer. First off, remember people working retail aren’t your servants just because it is their job to serve you. Second kindness to those who help you costs nothing but yields so much. Third you can ask people available and not demand their supervisor, if they don’t know the ask them to please find out. I was taken aback that she expected to get a special price on something without her coupons. Gods forbid the deli worker, butcher or baker make an error and ask her to make accommodations. However if she makes one the store should take extra special actions for her.
Bottom line in this for me is two fold – treat those you encounter in service industry as humans like you because they are. Treat them as you would want to be treated should you be in that job. Second – the customer isn’t always right and sometimes every other customer in the store knows which one is in the wrong.
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Squirrels Are Getting Out of Hand
Image From Page 282 from Internet Archive Book Images as a member of The Commons on Flickr. No known copyright restrictions. This is the first year of gardening without having a dog. What do the two have to do with one another? Well, read on and learn how a dog lazing in the yard helped the garden’s yield.
It all started this spring when Mike was ranting that the rabbits were eating the peas down to the dirt. (Yes my husband does a great Mr. McGregor of Peter Rabbit fame impression.) However one day when I was going to the garage I spotted the real culprits – not rabbits but baby squirrels.
Cut to earlier this week. I was sitting here at my desk working. My office window was wide open as it was a warm day. Outside I hear messy eating sounds, slurping, smacking… I look and on the end of our fence near my window sat a large squirrel holding one of our good big red tomatoes just eating away. He’d hit a seed pocket and SLURP it up then look up with seeds on his cheeks and a pink tongue darting about to clean his whiskers.
Then yesterday again heading to the garage I scared a passel (yes you fellow Southerners know how many I mean, the rest of you it’s kinda like bunch) of squirrels from the garden. Some chomping roma tomatoes, others nibbling peppers – heck one had the guts to take a whole big bell with him while his compatriot ran off with a green beefsteak tomato!
It’s bad enough that they are raiding us blind of veggies and our rabbit fence does nothing to stop this climbing buggers – but now they are waking me at three am with their arguments, drunken singing or whatever in the hell it is that possesses squirrels to scream and chitter amongest themselves at that hour! I kid you not! I can set my clock by it. There’s barking like calls, then chirping, then screams followed by barking again. Mike says Mr. Squirrel comes home drunk and Mrs. Squirrel is giving him what for. It reminds me of the BBC ad where the ground squirrel keeps barking “Allen, Allen” then he says “That’s not Allen that’s Jack! Jack, Jack, Jack…”
We’ve had issues before with them. One year when our apple tree had hard knotting apples due to the drought, they threw the apples at us. No, really I’m serious. They would sit on the awning over the back door and when we opened the door drop the apple that would roll down and hit us in the head or shoulders. We learned that season to just wait a moment for the apple to fall before proceeding out the door.
Now back to the dog and the garden, you see when we had a dog the squirrel raids were limited to the apple tree. The doggie scent about the yard kept them from dining upon the produce. Now dear Belle is long gone and this is the first summer without Rappy… and the squirrels are taking over.
As I’m typing this I see one run the phone line with a small pepper in his mouth. I hope it’s a ghost pepper and it burns his mouth and gives him heart burn all night long – as long as he doesn’t shout about it at midnight to wake me twice tonight…
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Pulling Focus On My Own Life
Journalist Lucy Morgan With Video Camera and Phone from Florida Memory State Library and Archives of Florida as a member of The Commons on Flickr. No known copyright restrictions. Let’s start with defining what pulling focus is:
Pulling Focus
The process where the camera operator adjusts the lens to compensate for the movement of the main object of the shot to maintain focus on the subject.
Now hang with me because using this metaphor is how I see life at times. A big blockbuster with lots of plots and subplots and a camera following each one pulling focus on that aspect’s center image. Work = writing, Hobbies = Beading, Parent = Aaron, Wife = Mike, Pets = Furry boys and so on. I’m the producer and director of this mega blockbuster. I determine who takes the lead in the story right now and how to cut together all the aspects so it’s the story I want my life to tell. When an area loses focus – well time for me as the director to step in, evaluate what I’m shooting and straighten it out. Life is always in motion and goals are too, if focus isn’t pulled then the subjects own movement and the movement of the objects around it will cause the shot to become unfocused. It takes work and concentration to pull focus on the main subject of the shot so that they are always sharp.
That’s what I think of when I periodically evaluate how I’m doing (I don’t go around asking people like Koch did, I just think about it). Recently I did that in the shower where I do my best thinking. Something about water on the head helps I think. Any way I saw my work life was losing the focus I wanted. For me in my life right now I want to pull focus on my writing. I want to be a writer, a free lance writer. That’s where the focus of work life should hold as I move through life. Some how it got off and was out of focus. I’d over committed myself in other areas so that the shot was too wide, too general and not sharp. I had to make some changes, just tweaks really to pull focus to what I wanted to be the star of that camera’s shot – my writing.
So I realized a few things – one I want to and love blogging regularly. Doing the five times a week was the most creative time for me recently. Blog posts warmed me up for a day of work on the novel I pitched at the writer’s convention. I actually finished it and pitched it and am still waiting to hear from some agents. Then I lost focus… So I’ve done some changes – cut back in some areas so they didn’t intrude into the work shot. I took action to set up a great on-line beta group to give me chapter by chapter feed back as I work on polishing that novel. I’ve got an alpha reader for my first draft novel in process and as you can see I’m coming back here more frequently.
The shot is improving. All the changes go into effect in September and I hope as the focus sharpens I’ll be back here more often and eventually on a regular basis. Also hope that I sell a novel in the next year and get the second out on chapter beta rotation as I work on a third. Yes revealing plot to plan shots – all the while pulling focus on writing in the work life camera. Life is hard and directing your own life is even harder but well worth the effort to make a great life for yourself.
Mr. DeMille my worklife is ready for it’s close-up…. at the end of September
Mary Louise Eklund 