minicards

My keychain is full of little plastic tags that double as minicards for various merchants: Best Buy, Borders, Comfort One Shoes, CVS, DC Library, Giant, Utrecht's Art Smart card. This list doesn't include all the cards that I've signed up for but that have fallen off when the thin area of card around the hole breaks. And it doesn't include the ones that I carry around in my billfold and do not string up with my keys: BooksAMillion, Blockbuster.

I'm coming to the conclusion that there's really only one of these cards that is worth the annoyance of lugging it around: Safeway's. Not only do I get a discount on house brand specials every time I swipe my Safeway card, but also after so many visits, depending on how much I've spent, I get a free GAS CARD, worth about $6 at a BP gas station. The store specials are worth a lot of $ day to day on items that I actually buy there. Unlike store coupons, which are mostly good for stuff I never buy (Oreos, hot dog buns, Cap'n Crunch), Safeway gives its card-carrying customers deals on things like fruit, vegetables, chicken, steak, frozen peas, toilet paper, dish soap, mouthwash....you get the idea. It saves real money on real food and basic needs.

Other cards give me a foot or two of receipt tape with specials for things I never buy: cosmetics and shampoo come to mind. It's not that I don't wash my hair. My hair is so fine and thin, using plain old Ivory soap kind of bulks it up.

One card, which shall be nameless, is totally annoying. You never get any discounts when you use it. If you want any price breaks, you have to read the receipt and then go to their website and print off coupons, which you then have to haul back to the store. Hello, merchant, baby....it costs me money to print those coupons. Put them on the receipt!! Or better yet, just give me a little discount every time I buy something, no matter what, at the store.

The library thingy is handy, although there's no money changing hands. I can't remember that long, complicated library card number every time I check out a book.

You must be from North Dakota if...

Well, the Wisconsin post proved so controversial/popular, that I decided to look up similar items for other Midwestern states. I'm starting with North Dakota. The mother lode of these ND kernels of wisdom is Plainsfolk.com. Check it out....there's LOTS more than the following:

You might be from North Dakota if....

People borrow things to you.
You have as many Canadian coins as American ones in your pocket.
You refer to the blessed union of an ELCA Lutheran and a Missouri Synod Lutheran as a "mixed marriage.
Your favorite hors d'ourve is little cocktail wienies in BBQ sauce served in a crockpot.
The idea of snow in June doesn't surprise you.
Your husband thinks sexy lingerie is a flannel nightgown with only eight buttons.
Your Easter bonnet has ear flaps.
You say "headbolt heater" and even a two-year-old knows what you're talking about.
You go to Miami on vacation in July and take along a jacket, just in case...
You don't think it's cold unless your nose hairs stick together when you breathe.
You realize that lefse and tortillas look alike but all similarity stops there.
Your transplanted uncle in Oregon asks you to bring a bottle of Everclear when you visit.
You need raisins for a recipe and there is NOT ONE RAISIN IN TOWN, so you pick them out of the Raisin Bran.
You refer to hair as "hairs" ("I can't do a thing with 'em!")
Your address is 67th St SW, and you live on a farm two miles south of Carson.
You can leave your purse wide open on the bar when you go to the ladies room.
You call the Capitol and the Governor answers.
If last year's New Year Baby in your town was born in June.
If you knew how to drive a tractor before you could read.
You don't think of the Bible when somebody talks about the Great Flood.
You can get fresh fish delivered right to your door in Fargo every spring in the original water.

TGIF!

Here's a good laugh to pass around at happy hour....(thanx and a tip of the papal mitre to Darlene)

An old country preacher had a teenage son, and it was getting time the boy should give some thought to choosing a profession. Like many young men his age, the boy didn't really know what he wanted to do, and he didn't seem too concerned about it. One day, while the boy was away at school, his father decided to try an experiment. He went into the boy's room and placed on his study table four objects.

1. A Bible.
2. A silver dollar.
3. A bottle of whisky.
4. And a Playboy magazine.

"I'll just hide behind the door," the old preacher said to himself. "When he comes home from school today, I'll see which object he picks up.

"If it's the Bible, he's going to be a preacher like me, and what a blessing that would be!
"If he picks up the dollar, he's going to be a business man, and that would be okay, too.

"But if he picks up the bottle, he's going to be a no-good drunken bum, and Lord, what a shame that would be.
"And worst of all if he picks up that magazine he's going to be a skirt-chasing womanizer."

The old man waited anxiously, and soon heard his son's foot-steps as he entered the house whistling and headed for his room. The boy tossed his books on the bed, and as he turned to leave the room he spotted the objects on the table.

With curiosity in his eye, he walked over to inspect them. Finally, he picked up the Bible and placed it under his arm. He picked up the silver dollar and dropped into his pocket. He uncorked the bottle and took a big drink, while he admired this month's centerfold.

"Lord have mercy," the old preacher disgustedly whispered. "He's gonna run for Congress."

If you grew up in rural Wisconsin....

If You Grew Up In Rural Wisconsin:

* You know how to polka, but never tried it sober.

* You know what knee-high by the Fourth of July means.

* You know it is traditional for the bride and groom to go bar hopping between the reception and wedding dance.

* You know the difference between 'Green' and 'Red' farm machinery, and would fight with your friends on the playground over which was better!

* You buy Christmas presents at Fleet Farm or Farm and Fleet

* You spent more on beer & liquor than you did on food at your wedding.

* You hear someone use the word 'uff-da' and you don't break into uncontrollable laughter..

* You or someone you know was a 'Dairy Princess' at the county fair.

* You know that 'combine' is a noun.

* You let your older siblings talk you into putting your tongue on a
steel post in the middle of winter.

* You think Lutheran and Catholic are THE major religions.

* You know that 'creek' rhymes with 'pick'. [Note to snobs from the East Coast]

* Football schedules, hunting season and harvest are all taken into
consideration before wedding dates are set.

* A Friday night date is getting a six-pack and taking your girlfriend shining for deer.

* Saturday you go to your local bowling alley.

* There was at least one, if not several, in your class who had to help milk cows in the morning. And/or smelled like it.

* You have driven your car on the lake.

* You can make sense of 'upnort' and 'baatree'.

* Every wedding dance you have ever been to has the hokey pokey and the chicken dance.

* Your definition of a small town is one that only has one bar.

* The local gas station sells live bait.

* At least twice a year some part of your home doubles as a meat
processing plant.

* You think that the start of deer season is a national holiday.

Hello....

So the NYTimes has a mini debate today in its editorial pages about "Legalizing Marijuana." I think LEGALIZING is the wrong focus. Of course it should be legal. What we should be focusing on in these days of recession/depression is TAXING THE SALE OF marijuana. This might save a good chunk of California's bacon all by itself. Instead of closing its beautiful parks and laying off teachers, Calliforneeya (that's how youknowwho says it) could be closing down prisons and converting the sentences of former pot-related criminals by putting them to work picking up roadside trash in the parks and cleaning the beaches.

A guy I know last week said he thought it was good that marijuana was not legalized. He said "Too many people would be high." Sweet jebus...they're high already....but mostly on likker, which is legal and taxed and regulated. You can get a nice buzz on with beer, for example, but you can't drive when you're buzzed or be drunk in public, etc. There are rules, and they work pretty well, too.

Prohibition didn't work. So let's quit fooling around with pot and make that legal, regulated, and TAXABLE. No reason to make all the crooks rich.

Bailey the Unknown Reindeer

Real Age, my favorite health site on FaceBook, had this dandy post this week. Wotta dog! The video was taken in Bailey's owner's yard after a heavy (!) snowfall in Ward, Colorado. The first time I played this, I didn't have my processor hooked up so I couldn't hear the song. I like it almost as well without.


Source: www.youtube.com

"It shouldn't be this expensive for Americans to get health care...."

Truthout today reprints a wonderful article by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship.

They quote a number of very rich insurance executives, who are predictably up in arms against any change in the status quo on health insurance, but also Dr. Regina Benjamin, whom President Obama has just nominated for Surgeon General.

"It should not be this hard for doctors and other health care providers to care for their patients," Dr. Regina Benjamin said when she was nominated this week. "It shouldn't be this expensive for Americans to get health care in this country."

Friday Miscellany

From Darlene:
FASCINATING!!!! JUST FASCINATING! Enjoy - BEFORE WATCHING VIDEO:
Read below for background information.

In a Chinese modern dance competition on TV one very unique couple won
one of the top prizes. The lady, in her 30's, was a dancer who had
trained since she was a little girl... Later in life, she lost her entire
left arm in an accident and fell into a state of depression for a few years.

Someone then asked her to coach a Children's dancing group. From that
point on, she realized that she could not forget dancing. She still
loved to dance and wanted to dance again. So, she started to do some of
her old routines, but, having lost her arm, she had also lost her balance.
It took a while before she could even make simple turns and spins
without falling. Then she heard of a man in his 20s who had lost a leg
in an accident. He had also fallen into the usual denial, depression
and anger type of emotional roller coaster. But, she was determined to
find him and persuade him to dance with her.. He had never danced, and to
dance with one leg....are you joking with me? ??"No way!"

But, she didn't give up, and he reluctantly agreed thinking, "I have
nothing else to do anyway." She started to teach him dancing. The two
broke up a few times because he had no concept of using muscle, how to
control his body, and knew none of the basic things about dancing. When
she became frustrated and lost patience with him, he would walk out.

Eventually, they came back together and started training seriously.
They hired a choreographer to design routines for them. She would fly
high (held by him) with both arms (a sleeve for an arm) flying in the air.
He could bend horizontally supported by one leg with her leaning on
him, etc. In the competition, as you will see, they dance beautifully and
they legitimately won the competition." When I watched this I didn't even
realize that she was missing an arm because I was focusing on the guy with
only one leg.

Really quite amazing!

"Look! The United States!!"

There's a certain spot on the Jersey Turnpike going toward NYC when the road rises and you can see the NYC skyline like a distant City of Oz. When Sam was 5 and saw it for the first time, he said, "Look! The United States!"

This photo does not capture that moment, but it's the NYC skyline as we saw it on July 5, coming in from Glen Ridge to take Annie to orientation for her summer class and pick up Laura, who was flying in from the UK.

On July 4, there was a parade in Montclair:





MORE TO COME

Happy Canada Day!!

Many (well, at least TWO) of XE's most faithful readers live in Canada, and since today is their grand national holiday, here's wishing both of them a very happy Canada Day!!

Canada is a fascinating place.
It has the highest quality of life of any nation in the world!!

I love Canada. I don't know what they include in the quality of life measure, but it's always seemed to me to be a VERY CIVILIZED PLACE!!