Morning After

It is the morning after Super Bowl. I cannot tell you which number super bowl it was or which teams played. I still have no idea who won. Does that make me a bad American? In today's garbage there will be millions of chicken bones, lots of beer cans and tossed away Dorito bags. Most people at a Superbowl party were really there for the food and friends. The game was just the vehicle to bring them together. I knew of a few people that actually had to look up the team names so they would not be embarrassed. I just told people to yell "go Mets" when they felt it was appropriate.

Front Hall Closet

This morning I needed to find a cloth shopping bag that I thought I had stored in my front hall closet. When I opened the closet door, I realized that the closet had turned into a mess. I pride myself on being a neat, orderly person, but we all have a place that items are hidden. For some reason, I have a hard time parting with plastic grocery bags. Each time I shop, I add at least 5 to the collection. Multiply that by a few days in the week and you can figure out why there is an overload. When they get too many for the normal storage area, I place the overage in the front hall closet. This morning I decided to part with all of the extras. I gathered up a large shopping bags of bags. I even found a long lost pair of boots along the way. I vowed to never let them add up again, but I know they will.

What's The Prize?

After collecting loose change in a pink piggy bank, I decided to bring it into the real bank and cash it in for dollars. I went to a TD Bank near my house. They have a Penny Arcade there and you can dump the change into the slot and the machine will calculate the total. As you start the process, the machine asks you if you would like to play the "guessing game" and possibly win a prize. I chose to play. I had to guess the amount that I put in and if I was in $1.99 of the total, I win a prize. I guessed $22.15, a purely random number. I threw my change into the slot and after hearing it being tossed around for a few minutes, the ticket came out displaying the amount. I had $20.41 in change. I was within $1.99 of my guess. I won! I took the ticket to the teller and asked what the prize was. She said she needed to go in the back to see. After a few minutes she returned to the window with a sad look on her face. It seems that they never reordered prizes, but she did find some things to give me. She then put her "offerings" on the counter. There was one pencil, 2 bandaids and a folder. She asked if that was OK. I laughed at the poor looking items and told her that they were fine, as I never expected to leave the bank with anything but my dollar bills.

The Journal

I will be teaching a course and lecturing starting next week. A lot of preparation has gone into these classes. I never take any task lightly. As part of the course, I will be asking the students to keep a journal. They can buy a blank notebook in a dollar store. I like the kind that looks like a bound book, because a journal is meant to be kept forever. I was explaining the journal to someone the other day and they asked why it needed to be in book form and not typed on the computer. Writing something by hand has a totally different sentiment than typing something on the computer. Handwritten pages are personal. I am sure that no one would want to receive a greeting card from a loved one and see their name typed at the bottom. We like to see it handwritten. A personal journal deserves nothing less. When you read back the entries, you know they came from the heart.

Blowing Winds

I have been up since 3am listening to the wind. I have never had a fear of wind until Hurricane Sandy. Now, it is not really a fear of wind, but a fear of trees falling. Specifically the tree in my backyard. I have a large maple tree in the center of my yard, about 20 feet away from my bedroom window. It survived Sandy with only one large branch falling. If I do the math calculation and the tree falls in a northern wind, it will be in my bedroom. The winds last night were so strong, that for the first time in my 31 years living here, I was actually concerned. When the storm died down, I looked out of my window and saw that everything was still status quo.

Bargain Time

This is the best time of year to go clothes shopping. Clearance time. If you are a good shopper, you can find great buys in January. One of my friends came to work in a $160 cashmere sweater that she just purchased in Macy's, for $16. It is a sweater that will never go out of style, but the store just needed to empty its racks. My son is one of the best bargain hunters. He always has been. Last weekend he bought a wool peacoat that had originally been priced at $80, for $9. He decided to bring it to the dry cleaner to press it and when he asked how much it would cost, he was told $17. It made no sense to pay double of what it cost. He took it home and found another store that would clean it for $2. Another good deal.

Young at Heart

I have a colleague who is 76 years old and still practicing medicine. She is very active for her age. She goes to Aspen in the winter, to ski. She goes skydiving. This week she announced that she is engaged. Her fiance is 83 years old. They will have a commuter marriage since they reside in different states. I am very happy for her, but I cannot understand why she has the need to be married at this point in her life. (I hope she isn't pregnant :)