In Trexlertown, some people are still stuffing their faces, but I don't think the economy is doing all that well.

    I have had a problem lately posting. I write every day, and the ideas always seem brilliant and funny when they are flowing from my fingertips to the keyboard. I have a rule about waiting a day to post, and nothing seems to pass muster when I come back to it. I have started wondering if maybe I am being too critical of my own work. Am I self conscious about my vision issues? Spell check doesn't always catch everything, and I hate it when I come back to a post a couple of days later and see a glaring mistake in syntax or spelling.
    Anyway, yesterday my wife and I went out to lunch, and three of the largest people I have ever seen weight wise were seated nearby. I have had my own weight issues in life, so I don't offer criticism easily. We can't really afford to eat out all the time, but we try to budget an occasional nice meal for ourselves, and this was a nice place that had reasonably priced steak.

     My question is, am I wrong to think that you shouldn't demand that a restaurant serve you another meal if you already ate the one you were given? These folks cleared off several appetizers and entrees, literally licking the plates clean. Then when the waitress asked them if their food was acceptable, they said no, and wanted it redone.
    In my opinion they had no shame, but a manager came to their table and they were eventually fed again. In contrast. my wife and I took much of our meal home to have later for dinner. There's no way we could have forced ourselves to indulge in the amount of food our neighbors at the other table consumed. To be honest, I thought they were downright gluttonous.
   
   I guess the manager felt it was better to keep them fat and happy than endure a possible scene if he had denied their demands.

   And that got me to thinking about how those gluttonous people truly represented what is wrong with a segment of American culture. There are people who just don't realize when they are indulging in too much of a good thing, and that it is really bad for them.

   Whether it is real estate speculators, Wall Street Greed whores, or Banks playing fast and lose with financial regulations, there are plain old Americans living on Main Street who don't know when enough is enough. They just gotta have more. And to keep the system going, someone enabled them and gave them what they wanted.

    One of these days the system is going to run out of fuel. In some cases it is Government printed Money. In other cases it is questionable loans made on overvalued real estate, but it all boils down to people spending money they truly don't have to have things they don't need, like too big of a house, or more food than they should rationally consume.
    Eventually the appetite of the greedy insatiable pigs at all levels is going to get introduced to the stringent diet of Macaroni and cheese that many of us regularly deal with.
    And you know what?
   They will probably demand that the Government make MORE available for them.

   We really need to start considering how to live within our means. I am fortunate that I am working, but from what I am seeing in the warehouse district, with many companies not even offering full time hours, I don't think the recovery is all it is cracked up to be. I don't think people are getting the message of what has happened in the last 3 years, and they haven't really felt the pain yet.

The Murphy's Law of Housecleaning if you own dogs

I am like most people, I have weekends off from work, and that is when I do my share of housecleaning.
  If you have dogs, you know there is a bit more effort involved.

  We had a few inches of snow Friday Morning, and that meant our two Spaniels, Lucy and Sally would get their feet wet. That's no big deal, we have a tile floor in our foyer, and it's no big deal to contain them and wipe them down when they come back in, so they don't track wet puppy paw prints all over the house.

    Unless of course, you are me.

     Sometimes I bring absentmindedness to a whole new level. Saturday Morning I put them out and started mopping all the floors in the common areas. When I finished, I used an old towel to wipe them down, giving them a nice, clean, and shiny look.

    Then I went to let the dogs back in. Silly me, I forgot to put up the dog gate keeping them in the foyer before I opened the door.
     Damned if little 14 year old Lucy didn't trot on by and proceed to inspect every foot of the hallway, kitchen, and washroom that I had mopped while I tried to dry off Sally. It would be pointless to yell at Lucy, first, because she is deaf as a board, and second, I doubt she would understand what I was saying anyway.

    So I ended up closing them in the TV room for a few minutes while I did the cleaning all over again.

    The dog gate has wide slats that allow them to watch me, much like jailed prisoners watching a trustee mop the cell block.  Their eyes were wide, and literally bled with tears for me to take pity on them and let them help. I'm not that gullible. I do the same when I wash the bedsheets. Ever try to change bed linens with a dog that wants to help by jumping on the bed? I wouldn't advise it.

      Murphy's Law says that what can go wrong will go wrong. I would like to offer an addendum to that. Having a dog doubles the chances of things going wrong, but also quadruples the odds that you will laugh about it. And that is a Law I believe most of us can live with.

Jane Lampton (The Mother of Samuel Clemens) sounds much like my Mom Sally Casey

        In my last post I wrote about receiving a copy of The Autobiography of Mark Twain for Christmas. I have read a couple of chapters each night before going to bed, and Chapter 7 of the book has Clemens recalling his relationship with his own Mother.  When my Mom died, I was told I gave a touching eulogy, but I have never found quite the words to describe my Mom, and how she related to the world around her. I found the very words I was searching for on page 33 of the Autobiography.

   "She had a slender, small body but a large heart ---a heart so large that everybody's grief and everybody's joys found welcome in it and hospitable accomodation."

    Further on Clemens writes:

     Her interest in people and other animals was warm, personal, friendly. She always found something to excuse, and as a rule to love, in the toughest of them --even if she had to put it there herself."

       Those words make me think of all the hard cases like me that Sally Casey took in as a Foster Parent and turned something good out of.  Sally Casey would have turned 94 last Wednesday, and it has been 10 years since her death in 2000.

        It took ten years, but Samuel Clemens, in describing his own Mother, Jane Lampton of Kentucky, is just as easily describing my Mom, Sally Casey, 100 years after HIS death. Thanks Mark Twain, for reaching across the century and doing it for me.

       I highly recommend The Autobiography of Mark Twain as edited by Charles Neider to all my friends out there. It is a wonderful, glimpse into an America before, during, and after the Civil War, and into the early 20th century. Clemens recounting of his childhood and an 19th century American society built on everyone knowing their proper place in social stature is a must read.

What Christmas is supposed To be

      I haven't posted for over two months. I received numerous emails asking why, and if I was okay. To  paraphrase a famous writer whose name currently escapes me, "rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."
      It has been a very tough year. Work has been hard to come by, but I kept busy, and managed to make enough to get by, taking whatever gigs happened to come up, sometimes at the most opportune of times.
    So here it is, Christmas Day, and I have to say, I feel I am incredibly blessed. I have a lot of comforts that many do not, and I appreciate them.

    But it really tweaks me how self indulgent and narrowly focused much of our society has become.

    To put it in perspective, I want to tell you about a maintenance guy named Eddie. This guy has a wife and four kids in Harrisburg, but three years ago took a job in Allentown to feed his family. He works here all week, then takes the Bieber Bus home Friday night, then back here again on Sunday. He stays in a flop house with a dozen other men during the week.

     I don't want to give too much away to expose the people who helped him, because they wanted to stay anonymous. But Eddie cleans the offices where they work, and does a pretty good job. He's not the smartest guy, but he is polite and well mannered. They asked Eddie what he would like for Christmas, and he told them that he could really use a warm coat. It was cold waiting at the bus stop, and he didn't have a decent coat to wear.

    That's all the man wanted for Christmas. A Warm Coat. They didn't know his story, but they did some investigating and found out how hard this guy worked to take care of his family. So for Christmas the folks in this office got together and purchased a few things for him, including a new pair of shoes, socks, a Christmas tree, and of course, a WARM COAT. They also threw in some other gifts for his family

    When they gave it to him this past week, he burst into tears. They delivered the Tree to his home, and witnesses say he didn't seem to know what to do with it, he thought the ornaments were supposed to be toys for his kids.

     That's Christmas

    That is what it is supposed to be about, sharing something you have with someone who may have less than you, and in many cases, a lot less. The man didn't even own a cell phone.

     I am sick of people expecting certain things at Christmas time, as if they have a God given right to be showered with a bunch of stuff they really don't need, but want because the iphone or I pad or whatever is the latest status symbol. And for a few generations now, parents have been teaching their kids to expect the "must have" toy, under the tree.

   This culture of entitlement is disgusting

    A man got a coat, and cries in gratitude, while a 14 year old somewhere cries, screams and throws a tantrum because her phone isn't the pink one she wanted.

   This is the world we have made, and we have to live in it.

    When did we lose what made it so magical? Why is the Christmas I experience in my 50th year so far removed from the one I had at age 10?

     Most people no longer give out of a sense of genuine generosity, but out of a sense of obligation.

     And to me, the spirit has been lost.

     Having written all the above, our family exchanged gifts tonight. When asked what I wanted a few weeks ago, I asked for two simple things, and I got them both. One was the Autobiography of Mark Twain. I am going to put down Ken Follett's "Fall of Giants", and read this instead.

    I am grateful for my gift, from a very thoughtful niece. There is still some spirit left to Christmas after all. I hope some of it survives to next year.

I am not a big fan of Funerals

    I attended the funeral of my wife's best friend today. They are the same age. Her friend was diagnosed with cancer in June, and died last Thursday. It was only two months after her husband died of cancer. That was only 18 months after he was diagnosed.

    Having to attend two funerals in just over 60 days for a couple that is the same age as my wife and I was difficult. They were our friends, and the idea that they were taken in such a short time is hard to rationalize. It just doesn't seem fair.

    I don't need the NFL to tell me about Cancer Awareness. I don't need to see a pink ribbon everywhere I go. All I need to do to be aware of the toll Cancer has taken is think about the two funerals I attended since August. I think about the children, grandchildren, brothers, Sisters, and even parents who were left behind, and the tears that were shed at the graveside today for a life that was cut short, and I can't forget what we have all lost.

   I am tired of attending Funerals for people my own age. I am too damn young for that.