What’s On Your Mind?

lizkat

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On my mind lately, ya know when people suggest that you just do this, that and the other "and Bob's yer uncle" -- in trying to convince you that getting something done is simple or easy?

Well what keeps running through my mind now, whenever someone says that, is a completely unrelated but perfect line from the movie Syriana: "... rumors of Bob, but never Bob..."
 
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I love it when jaywalkers get angry because I don’t stop for them. It’s like, you’re breaking the law you piece of shit, I’m under no obligation to let you cross. 😠
 

DT

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I love it when jaywalkers get angry because I don’t stop for them. It’s like, you’re breaking the law you piece of shit, I’m under no obligation to let you cross. 😠

Hahaha, I love when someone thinks their "coolness defense shield" will save them from my 4000 lb vehicle, as they shuffle slowly across the street in front me. The laws of physics vehemently disagree :LOL:
 

Apple fanboy

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Hahaha, I love when someone thinks their "coolness defense shield" will save them from my 4000 lb vehicle, as they shuffle slowly across the street in front me. The laws of physics vehemently disagree :LOL:
I find a good blast on the horn and windscreen washers does the trick.
 

lizkat

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I was cured forever of jaywalking one night in NYC, and not because of a moving vehicle.

While facing the last bit of walking towards winter winds off the Hudson River, I started at the avenue's crosswalk but then angled across so I'd sooner get the building I lived in between me and that bitter blast of wind.

Unfortunately that put me at just about between two illegally parked cars in front of my building. Instead of going alongside them back to the corner, and then using the sidewalk to the building entrance, I found it convenient to step between the two cars, so I did that.

The heat of my takeout Chinese food set off the alarm on one of the cars.

It was one of those very fancy car alarms that had about six different tones and blasts all meant to try to get through typical New Yorkers' blasé attitude towards street noise in general.

Doormen and porters of four buildings (two each on either side of the avenue) came rushing out, with two of the porters brandishing baseball bats and all four of them screaming threats. Jesus Christ! I thought I was going to die in a hail of bullets or else get beaten to death.

Anyway I have never jaywalked since then, even on a traffic-free block with no parked cars in sight.
 

Huntn

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I love it when jaywalkers get angry because I don’t stop for them. It’s like, you’re breaking the law you piece of shit, I’m under no obligation to let you cross. 😠
Accept if you hit them, all bets are off. Peds usually have the advantage when hit by a car. :oops:
 

lizkat

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On my mind today (in the first-world problem category): the weird and apparently spotty shortage of saltine crackers in some USA supermarket chains. Some say it's because of the overhang of the strike last year at Mondelez Foods (but still??) others say a flour shortage, still others say just a typical supply chain glitch.

no saltine crackers.jpg

Today where my Instacart shopper was, they didn't even have substitutes like Ritz Crackers or Town House. She texted a photo of the empty shelves next to some sorry alternatives to soup crackers.... I said no thanks to those, and so it's back to using croutons. At least there was no shortage of decent bread to toast up for that purpose, so I got an extra loaf of that.
 

Citysnaps

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Hunter Biden and where that might go. And the potential consequences.
 

Hrafn

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On my mind today (in the first-world problem category): the weird and apparently spotty shortage of saltine crackers in some USA supermarket chains. Some say it's because of the overhang of the strike last year at Mondelez Foods (but still??) others say a flour shortage, still others say just a typical supply chain glitch.

View attachment 12793

Today where my Instacart shopper was, they didn't even have substitutes like Ritz Crackers or Town House. She texted a photo of the empty shelves next to some sorry alternatives to soup crackers.... I said no thanks to those, and so it's back to using croutons. At least there was no shortage of decent bread to toast up for that purpose, so I got an extra loaf of that.
I was in a grocery store today. It's odd how things will be available or not. I don't think I have seen a real pattern anywhere. A few months ago, our grocery had no staples: rice, beans etc in bags, but multiples in cans and pouches. Today the asian section was pretty sparse (I was looking for low sodium Tamari sauce), but it's been full in weeks past.
 

yaxomoxay

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people, it’s Time to buy MRE’s. It seems that every 3 months we have an international crisis that caused food shortage.
 
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lizkat

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people, it’s Time to buy MRE’s. It seems that every 3 months we have an international crisis that caused food shortage.

Late last year it was ordinary brands of whole coffee beans that seemed in short supply, but that may have been related to people reading about a freeze in Brazil that had threatened future harvests.

Other shortages now in grocery stores may be more about the economic angles. Supermarket profit margins are notoriously thin and the retailers sometimes delay payments past what suppliers will put up with. The megacorporate food distributors are notorious for trying to hike prices, so negotiations can end up at a stalemate for awhile. Everyone's labor costs have also gone up, and it takes awhile for bigger wages to end up as consumer $$ being spent locally, etc.

All that can add up to wrangles between suppliers and retailers, and so to gaps on the store shelves. Throw in the shortage of truck drivers, the delays at seaports of containership processing, the little-known-about hassles for truckers like 10-ton weight limits on some county roads during late winter and early spring... and then there are the burned-out clerks trying to keep a higher-wage job when the store has fired a couple clerks just to keep payroll costs even. It's a wonder more shelves aren't empty more often!

Yesterday the shelves at my market were also out of 5-lb bags of white rice and the Instacart shopper had just suggested the 25-pound one instead (!! no way!!) when some harried-looking clerk turned up with a whole raft of 5-pound ones to stock back on the shelves. I was happy to see the smaller ones show up in timely fashion. Even 5 lbs of white rice lasts me a long time as I prefer to buy 2-lb bags of brown rice but have to keep those in the freezer.

I have a feeling that people may tend to double up when they have encountered shortages, and then finally connect with what they were looking for. I have to resist that impulse myself. I know I'm going to be tempted to get 2 boxes of saltines whenever they finally show up again locally.
 

Scepticalscribe

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My aunt.

Today, - April 1st - I received word that the very last relative of my parents' generation - my formidable, 97 year old (almost 98, and still sharp as a tack) aunt - my father's older sister, who adored him, the person who was the matriarch of a vast family, - had died late last night, (just before midnight, March, 31) more or less lucid until the end.

She had continued to work (as a postmistress in the more than 200 year old house where she - and, for that matter, my father - had been born), until she retired at the grand old age of, yes, 83, and then, only with considerable reluctance.

So, life and death - among other things - are on my mind.

Tonight, my brother, (referred to as Decent Brother on a number of fora), remarked that he had always loved visiting that house, - savouring the sense of many lives lived, and the fact that he was able to feel a connection with his own roots, (I will freely admit to similar thoughts) the house my aunt left for the last time last week, when, laid low by a bout of pneumonia, she was admitted to hospital, something she would have hated, for she detested hospitals.

She adored my father (her baby brother) who loved her in turn; a relationship not unlike mine with Decent Brother. Indeed, she loved Decent Brother, for I think that he reminded her of my father.

She was a fully qualified music teacher (and gifted musician, some of my father's family - including my father - had music in the soul) who ended up succeeding her own mother, my grandmother, as postmistress, in a house where members of my extended family have lived for more than a century.

And, with her own salary to call upon, she was able to finance foreign holidays (disliked and intensely disapproved of, by her conservative husband, who never travelled, but hugely encouraged by both of my parents, who cheered her on), where she would head off (by herself, or in company with a congenial group, but never accompanied by her husband) to places such as Vienna (she loved Salzburg and Mozart) and Paris, and Italy, for opera, on short breaks - rarely more than a week, usually less, but undertaken regularly - for music and culture, which thrilled and delighted her, and which she regarded as sanity saving and soul preserving.

And would then return to her 200 year old plus house, her job as a postmistress in a village, (now a dormitory village for the nearby city) and her intelligent, conservative, somewhat suffocating, handsome, but uncomprehending and traditional husband - "Spartan", my brother remarked this evening, "but, I loved it."

My parents were horrified by the house, for they loved the conveniences of the modern world, - they had both known what it was like to grow up in and live in a spacious old house (my mother used to mock my adoration of sash windows) without electricity, warmth unless a fire had been set hours earlier, or the joys of modern plumbing, and both hated it - and this lovely, but ancient, house was tardy in discovering the advantages that the modern world might offer to older houses; "sell it," my father urged.

The location is amazing, and the house directly across the road has a lintel with the date 1799 inscribed. My aunt used to reply, "I was born here, and I'll die here." And she very nearly did.

Less than a year after my father's death in 2005 there was a robbery (armed robbery) at the post office (not the first).

My uncle, then still alive, well into his eighties, polite, still handsome, dignified and dressed in an impeccable (tailored) three piece suit, pressed shirt, knotted tie, calmly and clearly - articulate and eloquent - described in impeccable detail the raid - in what was his home (he had married into my aunt's family) to the police to their stunned amazement.

Apparently, he had rushed into the post office - from the adjoining living room - this is a house where the walls are about three feet thick - so, the internal door from the living room to the post office was almost like a small hallway - to try to defend his wife. They (the police) were expecting to speak with a gibbering wreck, for this was a man, an elderly man, who was suffering from the cancer that claimed him a year later.

Meanwhile, my aunt, then aged 82, rose for work the next day, before 7 am in the morning, ready to open the post office for business as usual, - people in the village needed these services, especially the elderly not all of whom were computer literate, or had children who lived online; the smashed glass of the broken sash windows swept away, the post office opened the day following the armed robbery - precisely on time, - I remember the loud sound of the "tock tock" of the second hand on the large, clear, extremely legible, ancient (but very accurate), classic clock in the post office - as was insisted on by my formidable aunt.

The young police officer that the police had detailed to stay with my aunt and uncle overnight (lest they were traumatised) was stupefied. He phoned my cousin (my favourite cousin, whose daughter is autistic, @Apple fanboy, will know of him; he is their youngest child and youngest son) to express concern, wondering whether this determined detachment was an expression of, or a case of, delayed shock.

My cousin laughed: Nah, this is normal. Don't worry. The day she doesn't want to get up - classical music on the radio in the background - is the day we need to worry.

And, last night, that came to pass. Decent Brother had said to me (when he phoned earlier in the week to let me know that she was in hospital, and wasn't expected to "come home") - "you know, when she realises that she can't return to the house she loved, she will just say, "I've had enough, time to move on"".

And that, I believe, is what she has done.
 

Apple fanboy

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My aunt.

Today, - April 1st - I received word that the very last relative of my parents' generation - my formidable, 97 year old (almost 98, and still sharp as a tack) aunt - my father's older sister, who adored him, the person who was the matriarch of a vast family, - had died late last night, (just before midnight, March, 31) more or less lucid until the end.

She had continued to work (as a postmistress in the more than 200 year old house where she - and, for that matter, my father - had been born), until she retired at the grand old age of, yes, 83, and then, only with considerable reluctance.

So, life and death - among other things - are on my mind.

Tonight, my brother, (referred to as Decent Brother on a number of fora), remarked that he had always loved visiting that house, - savouring the sense of many lives lived, and the fact that he was able to feel a connection with his own roots, (I will freely admit to similar thoughts) the house my aunt left for the last time last week, when, laid low by a bout of pneumonia, she was admitted to hospital, something she would have hated, for she detested hospitals.

She adored my father (her baby brother) who loved her in turn; a relationship not unlike mine with Decent Brother. Indeed, she loved Decent Brother, for I think that he reminded her of my father.

She was a fully qualified music teacher (and gifted musician, some of my father's family - including my father - had music in the soul) who ended up succeeding her own mother, my grandmother, as postmistress, in a house where members of my extended family have lived for more than a century.

And, with her own salary to call upon, she was able to finance foreign holidays (disliked and intensely disapproved of, by her conservative husband, who never travelled, but hugely encouraged by both of my parents, who cheered her on), where she would head off (by herself, or in company with a congenial group, but never accompanied by her husband) to places such as Vienna (she loved Salzburg and Mozart) and Paris, and Italy, for opera, on short breaks - rarely more than a week, usually less, but undertaken regularly - for music and culture, which thrilled and delighted her, and which she regarded as sanity saving and soul preserving.

And would then return to her 200 year old plus house, her job as a postmistress in a village, (now a dormitory village for the nearby city) and her intelligent, conservative, somewhat suffocating, handsome, but uncomprehending and traditional husband - "Spartan", my brother remarked this evening, "but, I loved it."

My parents were horrified by the house, for they loved the conveniences of the modern world, - they had both known what it was like to grow up in and live in a spacious old house (my mother used to mock my adoration of sash windows) without electricity, warmth unless a fire had been set hours earlier, or the joys of modern plumbing, and both hated it - and this lovely, but ancient, house was tardy in discovering the advantages that the modern world might offer to older houses; "sell it," my father urged.

The location is amazing, and the house directly across the road has a lintel with the date 1799 inscribed. My aunt used to reply, "I was born here, and I'll die here." And she very nearly did.

Less than a year after my father's death in 2005 there was a robbery (armed robbery) at the post office (not the first).

My uncle, then still alive, well into his eighties, polite, still handsome, dignified and dressed in an impeccable (tailored) three piece suit, pressed shirt, knotted tie, calmly and clearly - articulate and eloquent - described in impeccable detail the raid - in what was his home (he had married into my aunt's family) to the police to their stunned amazement.

Apparently, he had rushed into the post office - from the adjoining living room - this is a house where the walls are about three feet thick - so, the internal door from the living room to the post office was almost like a small hallway - to try to defend his wife. They (the police) were expecting to speak with a gibbering wreck, for this was a man, an elderly man, who was suffering from the cancer that claimed him a year later.

Meanwhile, my aunt, then aged 82, rose for work the next day, before 7 am in the morning, ready to open the post office for business as usual, - people in the village needed these services, especially the elderly not all of whom were computer literate, or had children who lived online; the smashed glass of the broken sash windows swept away, the post office opened the day following the armed robbery - precisely on time, - I remember the loud sound of the "tock tock" of the second hand on the large, clear, extremely legible, ancient (but very accurate), classic clock in the post office - as was insisted on by my formidable aunt.

The young police officer that the police had detailed to stay with my aunt and uncle overnight (lest they were traumatised) was stupefied. He phoned my cousin (my favourite cousin, whose daughter is autistic, @Apple fanboy, will know of him; he is their youngest child and youngest son) to express concern, wondering whether this determined detachment was an expression of, or a case of, delayed shock.

My cousin laughed: Nah, this is normal. Don't worry. The day she doesn't want to get up - classical music on the radio in the background - is the day we need to worry.

And, last night, that came to pass. Decent Brother had said to me (when he phoned earlier in the week to let me know that she was in hospital, and wasn't expected to "come home") - "you know, when she realises that she can't return to the house she loved, she will just say, "I've had enough, time to move on"".

And that, I believe, is what she has done.
My condolences. Your Aunt sounds like she was a wonderful women. Not just from this story, but from others you have shared over the years.
I’m sorry she wasn’t able to pass in her own family home.
 

Scepticalscribe

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My condolences. Your Aunt sounds like she was a wonderful women. Not just from this story, but from others you have shared over the years.
I’m sorry she wasn’t able to pass in her own family home.
Apparently, her children plan to bring her home for a private "wake", and she will spend a final day and night under her own roof, - a day before the funeral - which I think very fitting.
 

Clix Pix

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SS, I am so sorry to hear of your aunt's passing. From the way you've described her over the years she sounds as though she was indomitable, determined, feisty, and fun! I'll bet she was really interesting to sit with and have an afternoon's tea and chat..... She lived to a good age -- sadly, that amazing generation is leaving us and the world is all the poorer for it.

The private wake and a final day and night under her own roof sounds very much like something she would greatly appreciate.
 

Edd

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I’m having lunch at a restaurant sitting at the bar. A couple with a kid like 15 years old just sat at the bar. They told the bartender they’re all gluten free and the father ordered a water with no ice. They seem really fun and cool.
 
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