Window Shopper

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I have no idea what most theaters that show movies look like inside now because I do not attend movies at the theater anymore. For one thing, I really do not like the seats. Most of them are too small. If that isn’t the case, they have gum on them, popcorn from the previous showing or whatever else the cleanup crew did not bother with. When people around you watch these things, they want to talk through the movie. If it isn’t that, they move their heads around so you cannot see at all. So I no longer go. I buy DVDs.

But, in my hometown, there was this awesome theater. They showed movies there but they also had live shows with celebrities coming in and entertaining people. I had the honor of being an usher in those days. We had a lot of good entertainers come to our town. For instance; Bill Cosby, The Smothers Brothers, Bobby Vinton and many more entertained us.

Now the thing I loved the most about this theater that I actually have not seen since, was the chandeliers they had. Those were awesome. They were hanging in the lobby of the theater and in the theater itself. Beautiful crystal that must have weighed hundreds of pounds each were hanging from the ceiling of the lobby. Smaller but equally beautiful chandeliers were hanging inside the theater. The only time you saw those was when there was a live act on stage. They would glisten in the spotlights. Sometimes, I wish that those days were back…if only for a little while.

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It has been a hectic month so far. I really do think that it’s a good thing February is about to go away. Recently, our area suffered a pretty devastating tornado, an EF3, which took out a large number of businesses and homes. The businesses were the lifeblood of the community. The small town of Highland, Arkansas, simply does not have that many businesses. When the storm hit, it dug a path of destruction for some time. This particular storm started in Atkins, Arkansas, and traveled 123 miles before ending it’s destructive path.

I talked with a couple of people who saw, first hand, why you want to stay out of the storm path if you are able to do so. One lady was standing in her back yard only a few hundred feet from where it continued it’s damage. She said that her ears were hurting and popping. When she looked up, she saw headlights from cars swirling around up in the air. That’s how she was able to see where the tornado was.

My husband’s brother saw the storm first hand as well. He thought the storm was still a ways away and was driving straight into it. It picked the van up into the air and tumbled it before setting it down upright with only some dents and the windows completely blown out of it. He walked away with a couple of scratches on his forehead.

Frankly, I do not know about this for sure but there were rumors that people were calling their insurance agents to get life insurance quotes before such a thing could happen again. The problem with this storm was that it was a freak. Our tornado season is not upon us as yet. This was a total freak of nature. Before that, about a few days, it had snowed. The kids were out of school for a day because of it. It was cold. Then, warm air came up and we had spring type weather. It was strange.

And now, the people in our area will not allow this to defeat them. Businesses are in temporary quarters, already back in business. Some are fixing the damage and opening up in the same locations. Others will have a slightly tougher time but will come back better and brighter than ever before. And that’s saying something for the willpower of those who live here in our community.

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It’s one thing to slam the veggies I like to eat. It’s another thing entirely to slam my fast food. Now they have a study out that says that fast food can cause liver damage. Well sure if you eat it 24/7 but who does that???? What the study said was that if you eat a burger, fries and coke and have no exercise at all, you will get liver damage if you eat that menu for thirty days. BAH!!!

For one thing, no one in their right minds actually would eat that much fast food. Or at least, I don’t think they would. Maybe I live in a dream world. When I was much younger, I would have eaten fast food most of the time so maybe they would do that. But after a while, ya gotta take a break from it. It gets really boring. At least with me, it was a variety of fast food. See, the study had people eating at the SAME fast food joint every time. Why??? Variety is the spice of life. You know, I do believe that except for people who are married. They do not need that much variety…except in eating fast foods, of course.

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For years, I traveled from state to state, working at my driving job. You would think that I would get tired of doing that day after day. I did not. It was great. I thought then that I was born to drive and I believe that I was. I love to drive. Of course, it was a pretty long trip most of the time.

I had some problems, of course. Strange drivers out there that thought I was in their way, people who would cut me off. What were they thinking???? For one thing, a truck cannot stop on a dime. For another, I might not even have seen them. That guy did not have kids in the car but I have seen ones that did doing some really dangerous stunts. It was enough for me to check and make sure I had some really great travel health insurance, I want you to know. These people were nuts!!

For instance, I was traveling north around Columbus, Ohio, one morning…in rush hour traffic. This guy comes up from behind, gives me the universal salute, gets ahead of me and slams on his brakes. It was all I could do to not run him over. For some time after that, he did the same thing over and over again. By the time he decided his little game was getting boring for him and he left, my brakes were almost red hot and soon to become useless. And there wasn’t a cop in sight. Naturally.

It was great doing the job I did because almost all goods going to stores are taken there by truck. I had a good job…except for jerks like that one was. Here’s a little thing to think about. Take the time to think about what might NOT get there by truck. The list will be extremely short. In fact, I cannot think of a single thing that does not, in some way, move by truck including those things like oil and gas. Can you think of anything? Right.

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Okay, this story is from so many years ago, many of you were not even born when this happened. ROFL! I was at a carnival in Michigan at a time when the weather was really getting bad. I was working there selling tickets for a double ferris wheel, two in fact. What that looks like is a ferris wheel on each end of a long pole, smaller wheels that turned and the whole thing turned as well. They were side by side and very impressive.

The rides were going very well during the day but in the evening the rain, which had held off all day, suddenly started to get very serious. Usually, when that happens, the owners shut down the rides until the bad weather is over, sometimes closing the midway altogether. However, this time, they did not have the time to do so. All of a sudden, I heard a cracking right overhead. Then, a rain of glass on top of my ticket booth. It was getting pretty bad. I wanted to run to get away but the glass was too intense.

Then, I heard the brakes on the ride start to seize up on both ferris wheels. The brakes were wet and when that happens, the brakes sometimes stop and sometimes do not. In this case the brakes were on both sides of the ride, one was working and one wasn’t. The ride tilted sideways, then the other one did the same. The glass was coming from the florescent bulbs that were numerous on the sides of the rides. About that time, some cables began to give away. I was so scared that the people on the rides wouldn’t be able to get down in time.

The ride jock was working as hard as he could to get the people out, many of them children. Slowly but surely, the rides were becoming empty. They had another threat that no one wanted to think about but was extremely possible. The storm was bringing in lightning and the rides are so tall that they would make excellent lightning rods. We were blessed and so were all the people. A couple of them had some glass on them but everyone got off the ride without injury thanks to the ride jocks who knew their jobs.

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Today, we found out that there might be some rain and freezing rain in our forecast for tonight. I absolutely hate that possibility. In the past, I have had some pretty hair raising events associated with ice on the roads. And a few years ago, we had the ice storm from hell. It took out our electricity overnight and kept us from staying warm. Now, I know that many would say Waaa since they have had power out for longer but regardless of how much time it’s off, it’s distressing.

Possible ice storms and freezing rain make me think of a couple of times that I was wishing I had paid more attention to the term life insurance quotes I got from my insurance agent. Why? Because one of those times, I ended up on an icy patch of road after taking my husband to work. The car started to spin out of control. When you are on ice, you don’t have a whole lot of ways to change it. I tried but nothing worked. I ended up down in a ditch behind a barbwire fence. No idea how I got that way since there did not appear to be any place I could slip under the fence.

Some very kind people came along. One offered their cel phone. One offered to help me get out of the ditch even before calling a tow truck. It worked. They drove the car out of the ditch with little problem. See, by the time these wonderful people came along, the slippery spot melted. It really did not take long. The temp went up significantly right after my spin out.

It was really scary but I have to say that it was with God’s help that I was not hurt nor was the car damaged in any way. I thank God for it all!!!

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Recently, there was a report that the FDA has decided that cloned meat and milk are okay to sell without any type of packaging information concerning the fact that it is cloned meat or milk. I have a problem with that. Frankly, I believe that the FDA needs to be in our corner, the consumer, not in the pocket of the meat and milk industry as it currently appears.

Why can’t we have the truth in labeling work for us on this too? I believe that the reason is that the consumers might not want to buy the product. I think that the meat and milk industry cannot take the chance without first putting the product out there so that people can try it to see what happens. PROBLEM!!!

Is there a problem? You bet. First, they have no idea whatsoever what effect, if any, there will be on people because they would have to have years of testing and they do not. What happens when the people who eat this stuff start having more cancer, more other devastating diseases? Oh wait! We already have that. Imagine that. Is it possible that we are already subject to the problems caused by this type of food? Maybe so.

Are you aware that you are already eating genetically modified food? That you are likely unable to get away from it? That there is absolutely no labeling for it and that the FDA does not require that? Are you aware that this modified food has not even been tested at all on humans? Are you aware that the FDA doesn’t even require the companies to notify them of such products going into the market? Oh yes! Genetically modified foods have been on the shelves for some time now. They are there in the form of grains that were modified to make the sale better.

The FDA does not require labeling for the genetically modified foods already on the shelves. Now they want to have cloned, or genetically modified, meat and milk on the shelves too. Also without labeling. Why? Because you might ask questions they do not want to answer.

So, what foods contain genetically modified foods then and how can I find them? Hold onto your hats, folks. Anything that has soy or corn in it is probably genetically altered. That’s actually about 70% of the foods on the shelves at the store right now.

The FDA is allowing companies that do NOT sell genetically modified foods to label their products as such. How big of them! So, if you do not want your family to eat genetically modified or cloned foods, you can do one of two things.

1) You can grow your own food or raise your own meat.
2) You can watch the labels and only eat those products that are labeled NOT genetically modified.

Nice. Doesn’t look too good, does it? I didn’t think so either. And the worst part is that the companies that do alter the foods are getting away with selling us that stuff without our knowledge. How much damage have they already done? How much??? Are our children safe? And people wonder why we have so much more of those nasty diseases out there and getting worse. DUH!!!! Where is the morality in this??? There is none. None at all.

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First of all, we are gearing up for the New Year as we speak. We needed to make a plan about what we were going to write off “The List” and what we could do without for a while. Not easy stuff here. The List is very important. It gives us a goal or several goals actually. And those goals need to be met by certain times. Not all things on The List are like that but most are.

What am I talking about? Well, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Then, we must get started on this things on The List which includes such things as buying a new car, a new house, laptops for us to make blogging easier to do, a tank of propane that MUST be ordered in January, a new microwave, television set. Actually, The List is larger than that but these are the most pressing things, at least some of them.

Now, as to what we will do first…that’s Phase 1 which includes the previously noted tank of propane. That has to be on top of The List because we will be running low by sometime in January. And these days, it costs a lot of money to fill such a tank. For instance, our last bill to fill it (a 250 gal. tank) was almost $300. That was when it was at about 30%. What that means is that we still had 30% of the tank full. When we buy it again, it’s going to probably cost a bunch more than that.

Phase 2 will include the taxes we have to pay, at least one of the laptops and, hopefully, a microwave. The television and several other items will be in Phase 3. The above list does not include the medical bills we still have to pay but those are not included in this plan but in the one that has me paying those bills a bit at a time each month. It also does not include the furniture we need as much as we need an assortment of other things but that will be probably in Phase 4. By the time we finish The List, if we ever do, we will have a new one to take it’s place. Isn’t life grand!!!

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For years, I have heard some pretty strange and weird phrases and words. Some are as old as I am. Others I have seen or heard in the last very few years. Sometimes people put the strangest things together or have words that I think they made up!

See, I know there are words that I have no clue about…like peptides. Not a clue. And then there is “SNAP!” Does that make any kind of sense? I think it means that something is really good. Jackalope? That one is totally strange since there is no such animal but there are rumors. How about mesothelioma lawyer? Saw that one recently. Not a clue at all. There are sayings and phrases that make no sense to me either like “I know, right?” What is that all about? Of course, there is the ever popular “Dude” and “WORD”. What do these things mean??? Since I am not totally stupid, I sort of get what they mean but really. And where on earth does it become necessary to say the word “like” as every other word in a sentence??? Like, I thought it was strange to say like in a sentence that really, like, has no point, like, to it at all. Like, you know what I mean?

Perhaps I have buried my head too far into the sand to get these things. Very little about today’s speech makes sense to me anyway. And for what it’s worth, I do not think I am that old either.

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