Need to be Thankful

We know by now some of my best ideas come to me in the middle of a dark cold night. It is 4:40AM and I have lit the fireplace because our house heat is not able to keep up with the cold outside. Brian is in bed sleeping and Princess is laying by the fire and all I have to do today is make cranberries and brussel sprouts and show up at my sisters this afternoon. I will watch the Macy's Day parade with the same excitement that an avid football viewer watches the commercials during the Super Bowl. I love to watch before hand the Broadway actors performances and of course the bands. Just a small local plug, Tarpon High School's band made the big trip to NYC this year. Congrats to them. This is one of the days they will always remember.

Last night on my last break before Thanksgiving I was in the break room because it was too cold to go outside and walk a couple laps around the parking garage. So I sat down and on the tv as usual was HGTV. Here is another episode of people looking to purchase a new home and the journey through the process. Yeah right. I do not know anyone who would qualify to be on the show. Tonight's episode brings us to Suburban somewhere in the US and the husband is a computer engineer and the wife is a radiologist. Does that even happen in real life. I thought the husband works retail and the wife works in a call center. Oh that must be a different show.

So this not so normal couple and their 2.5 kids that each need their own bedroom and we need a Master Suite are looking for their new home with a budget of $800,000. This must be a dream because our little household will take about 10 years to earn that amount of money. So off we go now remember I am only on a 15 minute break.

The first house is a colonial over 5,000 square feet. For those of you that are normal and have no idea how large that is, when I worked for Eckerd the average store was 10,000 square feet. So you now can understand how they need that kind of space for their family of almost 6. Back to show. As they walk in they notice the beautiful grand entryway and staircase. In my house this is the called the front door and front step. In the old days the stoop. We are noticing the woodwork and as we head into the formal dining room again the fine workmanship and large room would be perfect for seating a State Dinner. Now it is almost time for me to get up and bam they walk into a kitchen that is bigger than my living room and it is gorgeous. Beautiful cabinets, appliances enough counter space for 10 cooks and an island that could be used for a stage in a Broadway production and the first thing out of the woman's mouth is I do not like these counter tops. We need granite. Now I am done. I watch and I realize tv is unrealistic even this so called reality tv. But here is what got me she said she "NEEDED GRANITE COUNTER TOPS".  Let me say it again so it can sink in she NEEDED GRANITE COUNTER TOPS. Well I look over at the lady that is there on most of my breaks and I said she may NEED rice to eat but she does not NEED granite counter tops. This lady on tv has no idea what she actually needs. Now back to the phones.

So just so you know I am not crazy a customer tonight's modem would not power on. No power, no internet that simple. We have very few but we did have a tech available on Thanksgiving for the emergency but it is not until 4-6 pm. I set the appointment because I knew as this lady yelled at me about how she could not possibly be expected to spend Thanksgiving day without internet I knew that time slot could disappear before reality set in and she realized the only other option was waiting until Friday afternoon. I listened and tried to be sympathetic to her needs but in the end she wanted a supervisor because I could not help her.

I continue to think about the show and this customer the same way I do every time I watch that stuff on tv. How shallow have we as a people become?  I understand that watching a show like this on tv is like going to the movies and seeing some block buster movie that cost millions of dollars to make so that the actor can have a new trailer and fresh water from particular ravine in some tropical rain forest to drink and only bananas from the rarest of trees to snack on but come on people. Do we have no sense of reality anymore.

Just 60 years ago you would have on Thanksgiving gotten up in your humble abode and maybe lit a fire in the fireplace and gathered all the family together in one house and made a dinner fit for a king. Your mom in her pearls and apron would have slaved over a hot stove and not gotten a single spot on her dress and at the end of the night prepared herself a drink and kicked off her high heels. But not every house had Barbara Billingsley cooking dinner. Again, please look it up. I loved Leave It to Beaver and if you don't know who June and Ward Cleaver are and Eddie Haskell and my favorite character Judy. The little busy body girl in the Beave's class that was in every one's business. Oh yeah. My high school PE teacher referred to me as Judy. And in the show the teacher or parent would always correct her and say Judy, Judy, Judy. I might have been her a little bit. Ok. A lot. It was the 80's and it was high school. I digress. Anyway it is worth the 30 minutes and you may even get a cavity from watching because everything is so sweet.

Now of course June Cleaver was not reality either but June did not need Granite Counter tops or a Master Suite with an on Suite for those of you that don't speak 5,000 square foot home that is a bathroom off the master bedroom for just the master of the house and his wife with of course dual sinks and glass shower and Jacuzzi tub. Here I go again. We never got to the bathroom I am not sure how unrealistic her needs were there.

But I do have a point to this. We do not need Granite counter tops or Jacuzzi tubs. We do not need dual sinks in our master bathroom. We need to put food in our belly each day so that we have the energy to get up and do our job to the best of our ability. We need a roof over our heads that keeps out the cold wind and the rain.  Most of us need some mode of transportation to get to and from work and the grocery store. And we need a job to earn the money to purchases these things "We need".

We also need to be Thankful that we live in a country that we are free to eat with whomever we choose and we do not have worry that the native people of this land will kill us on the way to grandma's because they do not understand why we are here on their land and taking their food and women without asking.We can gather together outside knowing the police will not come and make us break up our gathering. We can go to church where ever we wish and pray to whomever we choose. It is not state run. We do not have to hide our religious choices.  We can even light our menorah and have our Thanksgiving dinner at the same time. Why because we live in the United States. A place where for over the last 390 years we have been able to gather together and celebrate the harvest and our bounty the good weather of the summer has brought us. And that as two different peoples they were able to help each other survive another year and prepare for a long cold dark winter with enough food and seeds in the root cellar and smoked meat to survive again until the spring thaw and they can plan next years crop. I know everyone does not believe my version of the first Thanksgiving but I know the English would not have survived without the help of the Indians in this new land so there had to be some give and take in the relationship.

As you sit down this afternoon with whomever you are close to and eat your meal of plenty with leftovers to last until Sunday. Please remember to be Thankful for the the things that you have that are way, way, way beyond your needs.  And tonight and tomorrow when you go shopping be kind to the retail employees who are working so they can provide for the needs and wants of their families as you purchase your Christmas gifts for the ones you love and yourself. Do not fight over the last big screen tv. It is not the last loaf of bread and your family will not go hungry without it. Be kind to each other on the road and in the parking lot. The parking space closest to the door of the mall with the handicapped sign is not for you unless you are truly handicapped. You can walk off that dinner as you cross the parking lot.

I am thankful today for all that I have which is more than I need. And my family that is here and far away and those that have passed on. I am thankful for my friends who like the Pilgrims and the Indians all celebrate our bountiful harvest and prepare for long cold winter in Florida. Well you know. I am thankful I live in Florida too.

Happy Thanksgiving

Socially Speaking

So I have written about social networking before. I just re-read my post on Friends and it still makes me smile. Yes. I had a particular friend in mind when I wrote that post but today I am thinking of some other people.

Facebook to me is ironic at it's best. Sometimes an oxymoron, I like that one best because sometimes things people post are exactly what they are and other people well, not so much.

You may recall from my Friends post for the most part my friends on Facebook are really my friends. I know this is crazy but they are. Some even family. Anyway. Remember the social media thing was really a start to keep up with our nieces who really don't post stuff too often and but when they do it is nice to see they are having a good time and look damn cute doing it.

The thing that has been rattling around in my head lately is the things people will post online. Now if you review back to the very beginning I have rules that I live by.

1. Never write anything down you do not want everyone to read.

So even though I started writing this blog purely to get things out of my head at some point I knew people I know are going to read it. For that reason I do not usually use peoples names when I am speaking of them. This is not to point fingers if it sounds like you maybe it is or maybe it is not. Just gives you something to think about. Sometimes there are clues for the one written about. I have used the first letter of every paragraph of a blog to spell out the person's name. I will wait while you look back and see if it is you. It was not the Friends blog.

Since I mentioned that I had a post this week on Facebook where I used adjectives that described a person and the first letter of each word was a letter in their name. I asked Brian and he knew who it was for but did not notice that the first letter of the words spelled the person's name. Maybe if I would have written the words one on top of each other instead of side by side it would have been more obvious. Maybe I just like people to wonder. What the heck is she talking about today?

So now my fair friends it makes me wonder. What is going through people's heads when they post things. Is it just something they saw and it caused them to hit Share or Like. Why sometimes when people post bad news do people Like the comment. Is that a I am with you Like or a I feel for you Like?

Why do some people post things that are crude? I know that I do not have to look at who posted the item it is always the same person. Some people always post something positive. Some people follow the crowd. If one person did it they will to. Some wear their hearts on Facebook and others show their mind is in the gutter.

This all makes me think. When a person that lies post something like the Truth will set you Free. Do they not know they are a liar? I have seen people call out friends on Facebook and disown them. Delete them in front of everyone. Some things are so personal done on such a public venue it is like having your life on TV. This is not Jerry Springer. And as far as I know none of my friends would qualify for the show. Well maybe one. But I digress.

I think some things people post are taken out of context. The casual reader that checks out what is going on once in a while. The things they read may not make sense. They may only make sense to the person writing it and maybe one other person reading it. And if it is weeks later you may not have known what happened then or why whatever it is was posted. It may have been funny or a memory might have triggered something more serious at the time but it seems strange now. Sometimes the audience the Post is for is just one person. I don't know. These strange things I read that do not make sense to me I shrug my shoulders and move on. I try not to comment that the crude person is always crude and the liar well lies. But others it bothers. Some can not scroll idly by and ignore the thing that bothers them. They must speak out. I used to be that way in real life. If you lied or spoke an untruth or were just wrong no matter where I was  and who we were with I would tell you right there and then you were wrong. I still take pride in being right always but I also have learned when to stay quiet.

Now here is where the problem comes in. Because one person posted something another person posts something about that but not necessarily as a comment. Someone else reads the post which even for the daily follower is out of context and now we got 3 different people thinking 3 different things. One is mad, one upset and the other is just moving on.

It is getting late and I guess I need to steer this bus towards the school so I can get to bed. When you post something online consider that not only your boss may read it but so might your kids one day. If you love the person you are posting about. Just share the love. Leave the garbage for in person where it is just between the two of you and no one else is involved or gets their feelings hurt. If you post what is true in your heart you may want to make sure you walk the talk as well.

As a side note no person was intentionally hurt in the writing of this blog. If it bothers you and you think you may be the crude person or the liar don't worry about it. I am not. We are still friends aren't we.