Mango Madness

I was eating dinner last night when my telephone rang. It was a recorded voice and I almost hung up until I heard the name Stop and Shop. It was my local supermarket calling me. I listened to the recording as it warned me of a mango recall. It stated that Danielle mangoes from Mexico with the UPC code 4959 had a salmonella recall. The voice said to bring back the mango or throw away any remaining part of the fruit if you had peeled it. I went to my refrigerator and removed a mango with that exact code on it. For a moment I was caught off guard as to how the store knew that I had bought a mango. I then realized that my shopper's card was linked to my order and to my identity. I was being tracked. I was glad that I was saved from a potentially poisonous fruit, but felt uneasy that my grocery orders were public knowledge.

Different Air

I just walked Shelby in my backyard and the air felt different. It felt like autumn air. Yesterday it felt like summer air. It seems like overnight it went from summertime to school time. Even though summer is not officially over for another month, my backyard is telling me it is coming to a close. This weekend marks the end of summertime leisure and the beginning of school time preparations. This will be the last week of traffic free roads. Next week the buses and the teachers will clog the roadways. In a way I am happy. As much as I love the warm weather, I also love the upcoming holiday seasons. I feel a change in the air and it feels good.

Body Language

Are people so busy talking that they have no clue that no one is listening? A few times this week I have seen someone perform a soliloquy to a bunch of people that had no interest in the conversation. The person droned on and on and never stopped to read the body language of those who she was talking at. That's right, talking at, not talking to.  Most conversations are just two independent monologues. I have learned that when I see someone's eyes roll back in their head and drool runs down their chin that the conversation needs to come to an end.

The Long Way Home

I have 3 young receptionists that work the evening shift. My morning receptionist took the day off so she replaced herself with one of the evening girls. This girl was on vacation last week and should have returned home Saturday. When it got to be 9:30 am and she had not shown up I became concerned. It was not like her. I called her cell phone and she immediately answered. I asked where she was and if everything was OK. She said she was in Dubai. Her flight had been delayed for a day and she was hoping to board a plane within the hour. Now I needed a contingency plan. I called the next girl and she was working at her second job. I had one more girl to call. This one said that she would come in right away. Great! It was 9:30 am and she lives 12 miles away, so I was figuring that she would arrive in 1/2 hour. I was wrong. Four hours later when she walked in, I asked what happened. She said her car was in the shop so she took a bus to the train station, took the southern railroad line into the city, backtracked on the northern railroad line to the town we work in and took a taxi to the office. I looked at her like she was crazy. I asked her why she just didn't take a taxi the whole way as it would have taken 15 minutes and cost the same. She said she never thought of that. This is the future of America.

What About Me

It is happening again. The teachers are complaining. As I sat at the town pool yesterday, as the summer is winding down, the teachers started to discuss going back to school. The conversation went like this, "I am so depressed", I don't want to go back, It is going to be a long year", etc. I stared blankly at all of them. What about me? I do not get 10 weeks off in the summer. I do not get off Christmas vacation, President's week vacation or Easter vacation. I work 50 weeks a year and most of the holidays that the teachers do not work. While they are out shopping on Columbus Day or Election Day or Veterans Day, I am at my desk. I do not have to complain about "going back" because I never leave.

Only 40 Miles

Last evening I drove 40 miles away from my house and felt like I was on vacation. We went to a town named Port Jefferson. I had not been there in over 20 years. It is a port town on the Northern point of Long Island. Many people come here to take the ferry across the Sound to Connecticut. Even though it was crowded. it was not the type of crowd that was annoying. We ate at an outdoor seafood restaurant and had the freshest tasting fish. We walked around the town and browsed in a few art galleries. Then we saw it .... the old fashioned sweet shop. It had gelato, ice cream, ices, fudge, hand dipped chocolates, cotton candy and every other kind of confection you could think of. I was in sugar heaven. When we got in the car to go home, it felt like we should have been going back to a hotel. That's how much this evening felt like a vacation.

Exams

Once a year most of us go to our primary care doctor for a health exam. He reviews height, weight, blood pressure, ears,eyes, nose and throat. He asks us questions about our daily well being. Prescriptions are written and we are good to go for at least another year. How come people do not have a lifestyle self examination each year. Review your job happiness, your relationships, your eating habits, your stress levels. Weed out the things in life that no longer add to your well being and replace them with things that will. This exam doesn't even have a copay, so why not have one.

What Price Is Happiness

How much is happiness worth? We all have situations in our lives that could have more than one solution. Each one has its pros and cons. There are two people that I know, that are living this dilemma. Each one is asking me for advice. For one of them the answer is easy. Go with happiness and the rest will follow. For the other person the decision is harder. Her happiness might have a backlash. If she chooses happiness, her reputation in her field could be affected. That is a tough call. I have offered to intervene and speak to her superiors and try to come to a meeting of the minds. I hope it will help.

Beshert

The word Beshert means inevitable or preordained. What is supposed to be will be. I have always been a true believer in this. It is different than superstition because in superstition there is avoidance. To be beshert means that when you let life guide you, you will wind up in the right place. In the past few weeks I have been telling this to a few people whose lives have been unsettled. Go with the flow, just let it be and things will turn out right.

Hair Raising Experience

I have been getting my hair cut by the same woman for 30 years.She started off as a worker in the salon and a few years later she bought the shop. She cut hair for 20 more years. At the age of about 40, she met a nice man, a Navy officer, and got married for the first time. As any good Navy wife would do, she uprooted herself and sold the shop to move around the country with him. She has lived in New Orleans, Virginia and Pennsylvania. She is so devoted to her clientele, that one week a month, no matter where she is living, she flies home and cust her client's hair. This month due to a surgery, she could not come in. She will be in again next month. In the interim, she set up appointments for us with her coworkers. She was specific about who would be assigned to which stylist. Yesterday I went for my haircut. The hairdresser asked me a lot of questions about how I wear my hair, how I style my hair, how I condition my hair and so on. She said that she was going to cut my hair the way she thinks it would fall best. She did the most wonderful job and I am so pleased. Here is my problem. Next month when my regular stylist is back I will have to go to her. I would never insult her by changing to the new woman after she has traveledl the country for ten years to cut my hair. For the next 29 days I will enjoy this cut as my hair will probably never look this good again.

Odd Man Out

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am not a big fan of Facebook. As each day passes, Facebook seems to be infiltrating into our everyday lives. The other day I read an article online and I wanted to make a comment on it. When I clicked into the comment screen, it prompted me to sign in using Facebook. Since I do not have a Facebook account I could not make a comment. As I was watching television last night I saw a contest that I wanted to enter. Again, it said to enter the contest on their Facebook page. Since I do not have an account I cannot enter the contest. I am beginning to feel like the odd man out. It is almost like not having a telephone or television. Slowly but surely our means of communication is being tied into a controlled network where we are being tracked by people we know and people we do not know. I do not want to be a part of this. I will keep holding out as long as I can.

Download

My father is one of the smartest people I know. He is going on 89 years old and knows more information on a wide range of subjects than the average person. He can go back in family history and tell us stories about our lineage. He can converse on current events and have all of the facts. He can add a list of numbers in his head faster than I can on a calculator. He still amazes me. He is the life of every party with his jokes and stories. Today he continued to surprise me. I was able to go online and get a copy of the 1940 census. I found my father's childhood home listed on it. He was 16 when the survey was taken. On the printout it listed all of the people that lived on his block with their ages and occupations. He was so excited that I found this document.  He then began to run down the list of neighbors, their address, ages, family members and occupations. He was correct on every one. I made a copy and mailed it to him. I wish I could download his brain into mine. The data that is in there is priceless.

Bad Karma

I heard a story the other day and it has been bothering me since. My friend took her elderly parents out for dinner at a local restaurant. I usually do not name places in this blog but I am so incensed that I will break the rule. The restaurant is Mama Linos in Plainview, NY. During the meal my friend's mother, who is 82 years old, heard a ringing in her ear and took out her hearing aid and placed it on the table. After dinner they left the restaurant and went home. As soon as they arrived home, her mother realized that the hearing aid was not in her ear. It was a very expensive device that cost over a thousand dollars. My friend immediately called the restaurant. No more than 15 minutes had passed. She spoke to a man, explained what happened and asked him to look on the table or in the trash to find the aid. It was definitely in the restaurant and even if it was thrown away, not that much trash could have been thrown on top of it. The man said, " This is my busy time of the day and I don't really give a sh*t about your mother's hearing aid!" He then slammed down the phone. My friend's mother was in tears. To replace the hearing aid would cost over a thousand dollars. After 15 minutes my friend called Mama Lino's again. She asked for the owner and explained the story again. The owner said that HE was the one who hung up on her and she was lucky to have gotten even five minutes of his time. He said he was too busy to hear her "go on and on about a f*cking hearing aid" and slammed down the phone again. I truly believe that bad deeds will come back to haunt you. This man should be ashamed of himself. Maybe if he lost his business and had no money he could understand that $1000 is a lot of money for an elderly woman to lose.

Bragging or Sharing

There is a difference between bragging and sharing. Bragging is meant to impress. Sharing is meant to inform people that are interested. At the town pool yesterday, I saw a classic example of both. I was sitting with a group of friends discussing what was new. One of the friend's daughters had just become a doctor. We have known this girl since she was 10 years old so everyone was so happy to see the graduation pictures and hear about her new position. This was a typical example of sharing. An hour later, a man we know as an acquaintance walked over to the group of us and said, "My daughter is having Chinese food for dinner". We all nodded as we had no idea why he was saying this. Again he said, "My daughter is having Chinese food for dinner". We all stared at him blankly. Then he said the "punchline". "She is having Chinese food, because she is in Beijing, China!" We all looked at him and said, "Nice", and nothing else. What was there to say. He then walked away. This was a typical example of bragging. As one woman in the group said, "Anyone can buy a ticket to China. Not everyone can become a doctor".

Poetic License

In the art and entertainment world there is the concept of poetic license and artistic control. In the real world we just call it twisting the truth. That happened to me in work the other day. My director called and asked me about a situation that involved me and my bookkeeper. It was nothing big, but the point was that it never happened. For some reason one of the doctors felt like he had a conversation with each of us regarding a new patient. The odd thing was that neither of us remember ever having any conversation about anyone. We were baffled. I could understand if I forgot or if she forgot but for both of us to have forgotten was weird. After talking to the director, she agreed that the conversation never happened and the doctor totally misconstrued the issue. Good thing my friend and I are both sane. Otherwise we would have though we were going crazy.

Rain, Rain Go Away

The weather has been so erratic lately. I called my sister as I was leaving work yesterday afternoon to say that it was like a monsoon where I was. She thought I was joking because she was getting into her bathing suit to go to the pool. I thought she was joking. We were 12 miles away. How could the weather be in such extremes? The past few months have seen Mother Nature's wrath. Roads flooded, trees down and basements flooded. This morning it is gorgeous outside. The kind of morning that makes you want to spend the day doing something wonderful. Oh well, off to work I go.

Stand Your Ground

Every August we hire new interns. They are fourth year students that need a year of practical experience in order to become a doctor. I have seen good ones and bad ones but never lazy ones, until yesterday. The office I work in is a very nice one even though the director demands extra work duties from you . We are a research based practice so keeping up with new information is very important. Even though it was not listed in their job description, there are some additional duties that the interns are responsible for. A senior doctor met with the new interns and detailed the new responsibilities. She was shocked when the interns said "no". This was not a yes or no meeting. This was a do what you are told meeting. They said that they were not hired to do anything more than see patients and they would have to speak to a higher up about this. The doctor was stunned. When you are new in a job you do not say no. What these interns do not realize is that they are in a practice that is very close knit and to shirk responsibilities becomes everyone's business. Today there will be a group discussion about who will set these new interns straight. Today they will learn that no is not an option.

Sounds Of Silence

I love silence. When I get up in the morning, I do not turn on a radio or a TV set. I go about my routine in total silence. Just me and my thoughts. When I arrive at work, I do not put on the radio. I start my day in silence. Quiet and peaceful. My family and coworkers are the total opposite. As soon as anyone in my family wakes up, the television sets go on. In every room! This is followed by the radio. When my coworkers arrive, the radio goes on and speakers are turned up. I do not know why they need so much outside noise. Can't they just enjoy life without noise?

Who's Watching?

There have been many newspaper articles each summer about a child that has drowned in a pool. Each one is heartbreaking. Accidents happen and most of the time they are no one's fault. Sometimes they happen due to carelessness. Yesterday at my town pool my friends watched an incident and they were nice enough to get involved. They were watching a beautiful 3 year old girl asking her mother to take her into the baby pool. The mother was too busy talking to her friend to care about her baby. After a few minutes of being ignored, the baby walked into the adult pool and walked down the steps. The mother then walked to the baby pool and stood there talking to her friend oblivious to the fact that her baby was not in that pool. My friends surrounded the baby in the adult pool and asked her how old she was. She said three. They asked her where her mother was and she said her mother was at the baby pool. As my friends were watching the little girl, one of them walked to the baby pool and went up to the mother and informed her that her three year old was alone in the adult pool. The mother seemed annoyed that she was being told this. It took about 5 minutes until she walked over to the big pool to watch her own child. When she got there she seemed irritated that we had interfered. How sad for this child.

Making a Difference

I was shopping with my daughter-in-law at The Home Depot last night and she thought that she recognized a worker as being the father of one of her students. She teaches disabled adults life skills in an attempt to have them lead a somewhat normal functioning life. Most of them never will, but nevertheless she gives it her all. When she approached the man and said who she was his face lit up. He began to tell her that she is such an important part of his daughter's life. He said that his daughter cannot wait to go to "work" every day because my daughter-in-law makes it so much fun. He continued to say that his daughter has no friends or social life away from "work" and that seeing her so happy Monday through Friday delights his family. He told her that his daughter speaks of her every day and loves her. When the conversation ended the man said he was going to call his daughter and tell her who he just met. He was as excited as a child, knowing that he was going to make someone else so happy. I watched this encounter and was so proud. Unfortunately, my daughter-in-law is actively looking for another job and as soon as she is offered one, she will leave. The supervisors at her job do not respect their workers and make it an upsetting environment to work in. She can no longer work in a place that treats their workers so poorly. That is the shameful part of this story. The people that will suffer will be the disabled. They will lose a teacher that loves them and would have stayed there forever, even making a salary far below what she deserves, because the company is run by incompetent, cruel people.

Mistaken Identity

I had a good laugh yesterday. I called my parents in the late afternoon to say hello. After a few minutes, my mother said that they were on their way out to meet friends but if I held on for a minute she would lock the door and get into the car and continue the conversation. I waited and she got into the car, put on her seat belt and was ready to talk. We spoke for a few minutes and the phone went dead. "Hello, hello, can you hear me"? No one was there. I called the cell again and it rang and rang. I guessed that they were in a dead zone. I continued preparing dinner. About 15 minutes later my mother called back. She said they were having trouble with the phone. Here is the funny part. I called their home landline originally, and when she walked out of the house to continue our conversation, she took the house portable phone with her. She thought she was on the cell. That's why the line went dead. When she realized that she had the wrong phone, they turned around, went back home and exchanged it for the cell. We have so many modern convienences that we take them for granted. I still remember the days when all of our telephones were attached to the wall. We couldn't have walked three feet away.

Smart vs Bright

I know a lot of smart people. I know a lot of bright people. I know smart people that are not bright. I know bright people that are not smart. I know people that possess both qualities. There is a difference. If I had to choose between the two, I would choose to be bright. In case this sounds confusing, let me clear it up. Smart people have knowledge from what they have learned from books or schooling. Bright people have knowledge from good instincts and keen insight. Let me give you an example. I know a very smart woman who cannot turn off an alarm system properly. As much as I tell her that her nails are too long and that is why the buttons do not engage correctly, she still insists that the key pad is faulty. I know a straight A calculus student who has backed up on an interstate when she missed an exit. It never dawned on her to go to the next exit and backtrack. I know a lawyer that answers phony emails because she believes that she has won something. In those cases being smart did them no good. On the other hand, if they were bright, they would be more aware of how to solve basic problems. Education does not mean you know it all.

In The Nick Of Time

A few months ago I sent $75 to a woman I casually knew to reserve a spot in a craft fair. I had worked at one of her fairs before and she was not the easiest person to work with but I did not plan on having anything to do with her except for setting up a table at a park. On the day of the fair, I arrived to find that there was no fair. I called "Terry" and she said she cancelled it due to a poor vendor response. I asked for my money back and she said she would mail it that day. One week later I did not have it. I called her and she got a bit nasty and did not know why I wanted my "paltry" $75 back. She said she would send it. Four weeks later it still was not sent. She kept promising and then began to lie about it saying it was lost in the mail. I would have gone to small claims court but I only had her PO Box number and the court needs a street address. I thought and I thought. How could I get my money back. Then a light bulb went off in my head. POSTAL FRAUD. Accepting money through the mail and not providing the service is illegal. I called the post office mail fraud department and they sent me a form to fill out. They would then investigate and send "Terry" a letter demanding she return the money or she would be in trouble with the federal government. Just because I am a nice person, I emailed Terry and gave her one last chance to make good on sending me the check. I never mentioned what I would be doing otherwise. I had the form all filled out and ready to mail. I gave myself a deadline of July 28th. If I did not get my check, I was sending out the form. After 6 weeks, many emails and many lies, guess what arrived in the mail on the 28th? A money order for $75. "Terry" never knew how close she came to a federal investigation. It was her lucky day.

Vow of Friendship

For better or for worse. That is a line from a traditional wedding vow. It is also a guideline for friendship. Nowhere in that sentence does it say for normal times. It is easy to be a friend in normal times. My young doctor colleague learned a lesson this week about who is really her friend and who is concerned about her well being. She became a PhD at 28 years old, but the knowledge that she learned about friendship could never have come from a book. It had to come the hard way, from life. People need to learn some things for themselves or the lesson will not be a lasting one. Two people that she thought truly cared about her, showed no concern in her time of sorrow. It is easy to buy a birthday card or cupcake. It is hard to listen to a story when it has been repeated for hours. I knew who would be there for her in my office because I know who is there for me. The lesson she learned was that you only give your heart to those who truly care. To all others you only need to give respect.

A Friend's Pain

One of my friends is hurting. The kind of hurt that just swallows you up and takes over. She is a young girl. One of my new doctors. Working in my office can be overwhelming if you do not know how to play the game. I thought she knew the rules. I never realized that she is so sensitive. On top of her work load, she just broke up with her boyfriend, possibly due to the work stress and how it has affected her. I am watching this smart, strong, beautiful girl crumble before my eyes and I have to figure out a way to stop it. In my eyes she is still a child, crying in pain. I feel so bad because I feel so helpless. She lives too far away to just run over and console her. Her mother passed away a few years ago and sometimes the only one that can truly help you is your mother. A mother's hug can be better than most medicines.

The String

A few weeks ago, out of nowhere, a string appeared. It is suspended in mid air and I have no idea where it came from. It hangs from the trees across the street, cuts across my house and continues through the trees onto the next block. It is thin and green and I cannot fathom how it got there. Each weekend we say that we will climb on a ladder and see exactly what it is. I do not think it is electrical as it is too thin. Each weekend we are too lazy to get the ladder out. If we cut it, it will fall and hang in the middle of the street and that would be a bigger problem so we just let it hang in mid air over our house. Someone said that it might be a kite string but I do not see a kite suspended from anywhere. Maybe next weekend we will get out the ladder and see what it is.

Flashback

I opened up a bag of herbs the other day and had a flashback. As soon as the scent hit my nostrils I was transported to Brooklyn, to my grandmother's garden. I never knew what herbs gave it that special scent but that day I learned that it came from fresh mint. I saw the garden in my mind and remembered everything about it. It was if I was standing in the middle of it, as I had done when I was 5 years old. As I write this blog, I can envision it as if it was reality. Our subconscious mind holds memories in place and releases them at the strangest times.

Day-cation

Today my family is going on a day-cation. It is a one day getaway where you go to a fun place but do not sleep over. We are headed to Seaside Heights, New Jersey, the location of the Jersey Shore television show. We started to visit Seaside Heights about 20 years ago, long before MTV made it popular. We came across it quite by chance. We were headed to Colonial Williamsburg and I felt sick, so we pulled off the road at the Seaside Heights exit, not knowing anything about it. It turned out to be the best family vacation we ever had. We returned there 2 more times over the years. This year we are taking my daughter-in-law for the first time. We will have a picnic lunch and then go to the small water park. After that we will walk on the boardwalk, play games and eat all kinds of high cholesterol foods. We can't wait.

Three Things

There are three things that I cannot do well, no matter how hard I try. The first one is to type without looking at the keyboard. I type with two fingers and must look at the letters as I go. I have taken 2 typing courses and have done miserably. I guess typing is not my forte. The second thing I cannot do well is make meatballs. I have tried various "foul proof" recipes and after I get done, they are now "foul". The last thing I cannot do well is correctly use apostrophes. My sister is a teacher and usually proofreads this blog every day. Last night we had dinner together and were talking about grammar. She kept repeating that, "there are three rules for apostrophes". She went over them five times and even though I listened intently I cannot remember what they are. I know the first kind is used as possession, "Susan's hat". The second one is used as a contraction, "Susan's going to cook". The third one is anyone's guess. I think my mind blanked out after I heard the first two. (Notice that I correctly used an apostrophe in the previous sentence for the word anyone's). Maybe I do not learn the third rule because I like the feeling that someone is checking my work.

One Moment

The great Nat King Cole sang a beautiful song titled "That Sunday, That Summer". I have it saved onto my computer and sometimes listen to it over and over. One line of the song says, "If I had to choose one moment to live within my heart". I play that song when I want to sit and daydream. We all have special moments that live within our hearts. Wonderful memories that never fade. Memories that still bring a smile to our faces no matter how long ago they happened. I have countless special memories and I cherish each and every one of them. I am listening to that song as I write this blog. I am sitting here thinking, ....If I had to choose one moment, what would it be?

TV Guide

Since the 1960's my family always had the TV Guide delivered to our house. It was the most awaited piece of literature we read. Those were the days before magazines like People and Us. We received our Hollywood news in a weekly installment. The Guide had the listings of the week's shows and one or two articles about the actors. I remember the feeling of being the first one to read it because the pages were still adhered to each other. A few years ago my local newspaper started to print a weekly television guide, so we stopped the TV Guide subscription. It was hard to "break up" with the TV Guide, but why pay for something that was now free. When we switched our television service to cable we found a TV guide channel that allows you to scroll through a log and find out what is playing. We no longer removed the newspaper guide, as scrolling was so much easier. Each week as the new guide arrived we would replace it with the old guide. When we decided to no longer use the paper version, no one replaced it. The old one just remained there. We were all too lazy to remove it from the end table and throw it out. So there it is, since October 22, 2011. It had now become an accessory in the den. After 10 months we are so used to it that I do not think it will ever be tossed out.