Day: July 11, 2019

MJ’s Musings: Three Things I Hate About Summer

Summer is my favorite season. I love being warm. I love not having to bundle up to go outdoors. Flipflops. Loose, casual clothing. Baseball. Lightning bugs.

However, there are three things I hate:

  1. Fireworks being set off in the neighborhood as soon as it gets dark.  It was bad enough when fireworks were illegal in my state. Now there are pop-up kiosks everywhere, and they’re doing kick-butt business. As soon as Memorial Day weekend hits, the noise is annoying  and disruptive. All night, every weekend until Labor Day. No, I don’t have pets who are traumatized by the noise. I don’t suffer from PTSD. I’m a woman who values peace and quiet. Setting off firecrackers at midnight, even on the weekend , is rude.
  2. Air conditioning set at Sub Zero Temps: TV Stevie and I went out to dinner the other night, and I was too cold to enjoy my meal.  If the restaurant kept the temp that low in January, they’d go out of business. Why does 80 degrees mean to keep the indoors at 60? You are not a meat locker. Stop pretending to be one.
  3. Too much to do: I am lucky. I have friends who want to do things. I have a husband who wants to do things. Summer in central New York is too short, so we cram a lot of living into a few short months. Sometimes I look at our calendar and weep. I want to spend more time kicking back on my patio and chilling. I work hard all week at Day Job so I could afford my home. I’d like to enjoy it more. Summer is too short.

MJ’s Musings: Another Pet Peeve

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I use my own shopping bags. Have for years. I keep them in the trunk of my car so I always have them with me.

Every time I grocery shop, I tell the cashier, “Please don’t make the bags too heavy.” And every time, the cashier loads as much as s/he can into each bag.  It’s not as if I am costing the store money by using too many bags. I use my own. I’m saving them money.  I say please. I’m nice about it.

When you’re short and already can’t deal with the too-tall shopping carts, lifting a too heavy bag is painful.  We’re supposed to lift from our knees, not our backs. Not in my supermarket’s parking lot.

Even worse is when the cashier in his/her zeal to cram as much into each bag as humanly possible starts crushing my popcorn and chips to make the packages fit. I had to tell one last week, “Stop crushing my chips!”

So yes, this is a pet peeve of mine.

 

 

MJ Monday: MJ’s Movies-The Little Shop of Horrors

Many years ago, when I was working in local TV, my general manager called me into his office and said, “I have a kitchen set for you. I’ve hired a host. Here’s your budget. Make me a TV show where guests hosts come on and cook while watching movies.”

I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Bad movies. Bad horror movies. The black-and-white motion pictures I grew up loving. I don’t like what passes for horror movies these. I prefer the absurd. 

One of my favorite movies of all time is The Little Shop of Horrors. No, not the campy musical version with Steve Martin, but the original Roger Corman film from 1960.  It’s a terrifically funny movie, which is probably why Frank Oz remade it as a musical in the 1980s.

The original contains a  dreadful, blaring jazzy sound track. Jack Nicholson appears in one of his earliest motion picture performances.  The film is the source of one of my favorite quotes: “Feed me. I’m hungry.” And when it came time to create the opening graphics for the show, I insisted this line be included. What better for a cooking show?

I never realized the movie is now considered a cult classic until recently. It’s been redefined as a black comedy. That’s fair. I never knew Roger Corman had a following until I was much older, and even then, I didn’t realize Little Shop was one of his.

Apparently I have very good instincts.

 

MJ Monday: MJ’s Movies-Lars & The Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl is one of those quirky movies a person either loves or hates.  I loved it; one of my critique partners loathed it and found it disturbing. But we frequently disagree on movies.

Ryan Gosling stars as a young man in a northern Minnesota town who is searching for true love. He’s also battling his way out of depression. He orders a blow-up sex doll on line and introduces her around town as his girlfriend, Bianca, a wheelchair-bound missionary.

As I said: quirky.

But not kinky. There’s no sex involved. Lars is deeply religious and Bianca is a missionary. Lars’s depression isolates him from human interaction. Once his brother and sister-in-law get on board with treating Bianca as “real”, the rest of the town follows suit . How the townspeople react to and accept Bianca helps Lars connect to others and heal.

I found it very sweet.

Perhaps I liked the story because the town in which I grew up looked after a family of intellectually disabled people.  Maybe outsiders didn’t understand why Henry/Hank  (depending on which side of town you lived) was allowed to wear out the grass under the big tree on the corner outside the Presbyterian church, but he sat there for years, being social. Some folks called him the mayor.  And Eddie was a particular favorite of the children who visited his grandfather’s front porch to purchase penny candy.

If you like offbeat and sweet, try Lars & the Real Girl.

 

 

But He Has a Wife/Secretary

I used to read time management books. I also read a couple of “how to increase your creativity” books. Every one of them had a fatal flaw: they were written for men who had wives/secretaries/administrative assistants. Even books written by women seem to assume there is…staff. Someone else to deal with the stuff you’re too important to do.

What about when you are the wife, the admin, the bottom of the hill the crap rolls down?  No one has ever written a book for us.

Gloria Steinem once said:  “I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.” More recently, author Colleen Walsh stated her version of this quote.