I am away this week so I am doing an encore presentation of a post from last year.  I hope you enjoy it.  I will be back next week.

Today is Sunday, November 27 and Christmas is only 4 weeks away. That’s right,only 28 days.  Have you finished shopping?  Have you written your cards and those God-awful annual letters? Have you started baking yet?  What are you waiting for?  Get moving!  Today we remember the birthdays of Anders Celsius, James Agee and “Buffalo “ Bob Smith.  On this day in 1885 the earliest photo of a meteor shower was made, in 1910 NY’s Penn Station opened as the world’s largest railway terminal and in 1957 the Army withdrew from Little Rock, AR after the Central HS integration.  In Burma it is National Day, in Massachusetts it is John F Kennedy Day and in the US it is National Bavarian Cream Pie Day.

I mentioned above those awful letters that people send out each year telling everyone about how wonderful their family was this past year.  “We are so proud of Bobby. He has been at the top of his Third Grade class all year and holds the record for correctly spelling the most words in his class.  Our lovely daughter Loretta has been selected to represent her school at the annual Girls With Potential Conference this year.  Our son Joe has been working hard with our dog Fitzhugh and has finally taught him to play Texas Holdem.  He even wins once in a while.  My garden won several awards this past summer and Joe, Sr was awarded the blue ribbon for his cucumber salad at the church picnic.”  UGH!!

Just once I would love to see something like this – “Well, another year has passed and, with luck, we will get to the the new year without our 11 year old Gunner killing someone. That would make two years in a row.  Our 14 year old Betsy is pregnant, again. We are hoping to meet the father, if she can remember who it is. The 16 year old, what’s-his-name, has now been thrown out of just about every school in the county.  We were so proud when we read about it in the local paper.  My rehab has been going pretty well, I am five days sober, this time.  We got news that what’s-his-name Sr may be able to be released from prison in the new year.  He thinks he can beat the assault charges that are pending against him. Our dog Spike ate the neighbor’s cat, but that’s okay.  We never liked that cat anyway and Spike didn’t get sick.”

The worst part is that people send them out to everyone thinking that we all care.  I only get one or two.  I like the one from our friends in Iowa, but you can keep the rest of them.  Unless the letter contains a check or cash, don’t even send it to me.  I open the envelope, see the letter, look for a check and if there is none, out it goes.  If the people are not blood relatives (and some of them can be tedious), don’t tell me about them.  Okay, I have vented and can now move on.

I have become rather disappointed with this whole Black Friday business.  It used to be a lot more exciting.  There was always one special item that everyone wanted and there was always a limited quantity of that item in each store, usually four or five of them.  People would rush through Thanksgiving dinner so that they could get to the store and camp outside overnight to be one of the first inside to snag that precious item.  Friday there would be news coverage of the stampedes and you could see people getting knocked down, people fighting over things and the few lucky ones carrying the vaunted special item, taunting the losers and inviting violence on themselves.

Then, a few years ago, stores started opening on Thanksgiving Day, showing complete disregard for the employees with family.  The one thing you can be sure of is that the people in charge were not in the stores.  They were sitting at home with their pants undone, watching football and falling asleep.  However, by being open, they cut down on the Friday crowd somewhat.  Also it finally occurred to manufacturers that if they had the year’s hot item, they could sell more of them, thereby making more money at the inflated prices they were charging, if they produced more of the item.  They realized that if the store had 100 of the item they would still sell all of them and need to make more.

The final death knell for the good old dangerous Black Friday excitement started this year.  A lot of places started offering Black Friday pricing back around Halloween.  This was supposed to get people out shopping sooner and not waiting until the day after Thanksgiving.  The thing is that Black Friday prices are not all that wonderful.  They take an item, push the standard price up a little and then put it on sale at the price it used to be and people swarm to the store to buy it and they are excited because they got the bargain without all the danger.

I have said this before and I will continue to sound the clarion.  WAIT to make purchases. Don’t even fall for the Cyber Monday trap.  Just wait another week or so.  That is when retailers realize that they still have a fair amount of inventory to get rid of and they start making the real price deals.  And you won’t have to fight people to get what you want because they will have already paid the higher price a couple weeks ago.

This week our fact tells us that it would take 15,840,000 rolls of wallpaper to cover the Great Wall of China.  I ask, again, why anyone felt the need to figure this out.  But just to throw in a hitch, does this assume that the wallpaper does not have a pattern that needs to be matched?  And how much wallpaper paste would be needed to put it up?

 Today is Sunday, November 19 and there are only 357 days until my birthday, for those of you who missed it this year.  Today we remember the birthdays of George Rogers Clark, Indira Gandi and Calvin Klein.  On this day in 1493 Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico, on his second voyage, in 1863 Abraham Lincoln delivered his address at Gettysburg and in 1959 Ford cancelled production of the Edsel.  In Mali it is Liberation Day, in Puerto Rico it is Discovery Day and in the US it is National Carbonated Beverage With Caffeine Day and National Play Monopoly Day.  This coming Thursday is, of course, Thanksgiving.

There is not much to say about Thanksgiving that I have not said before so I will not bore you with all that.  Instead let’s go into something else.  I am sure that many of you had the same reaction that I did when you read about it being National Carbonated Beverage With Caffeine Day – Huh?  I decided to find out more, so open up your useless holiday information file.  National Carbonated Beverage With Caffeine Day is a unique food holiday observed annually on November 19.  Some people cannot have caffeine due to medical reasons, some choose to avoid caffeine for their own reasons; however, there are the millions of people who like their caffeine very much.  The same is true with the carbonation in beverages.  Today’s celebration combines the two of them together.

In 1767, Englishman Joseph Priestly suspended a bowl of distilled water above a beer vat at a local brewery in Leeds, England which led to the discovery of a method of infusing water with carbon dioxide to make carbonated water.  Priestly’s invention of carbonated water is the major and the defining component of most soft drinks.  Caffeine acts as a central nervous system stimulant, temporarily warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness.  Ninety percent of adults in North America consume caffeine daily.   Some people notice sleep disruption after drinking beverages containing caffeine while others see no disturbance at all.

I was unable to find out when this holiday was created or who developed it, but so what.  Enjoy the day anyway.  Now let’s put the holiday folder away for this week.

I know that I said I would get out and try to have some interesting things to discuss this week, but that did not happen.  I spent the better part of the week working on a project for my grandson.  He has become a very good percussionist and his parents bought him a drum set last year.  With all the rain we have had and based on historic evidence, it was decided that he should have a platform to raise his drums up off the floor.  They have a sump pump, but they have also had flooding in the basement in the past.  It was decided that it would be wise to get the drums up out of harm’s way.

I told my son that I would be happy to build it for them.  He gave me the measurements and I started planning the project.  It is amazing how simple something seems when planning and how tough it is to actually do the work.  The first thing I had to do was buy the lumber.  Barbara and I went to the big store near the kids’ house to make our purchases.  I had made a list of what I would need and naively believed it would be simple to get the wood, load it into my car and drive it to the house.  It was simple to get the wood, because one of the people working there helped load it onto the cart.  We went to the cashier and she scanned the tags, I paid and we went outside.  That is where simple stopped.

I went and pulled my car up to where Barbara waited with the supplies.  The first sheet of plywood was kind of awkward, but we figured it out and the second went smoother.  Next we had to put one 16 foot long board and four 12 foot long boards in the car  I ended up pushing them up onto the console, leaving just enough room to be able to shift the car.  Now came the problem of tying down the tailgate.  I got a couple lengths of cord and began to try and figure how to tie these boards so that they would stay in place during the drive.  I could not really find a good tie down in the car, but we did what we thought was a job good enough to get us where we needed to be.  There was a time or two when I accelerated from a red light that we thought we were going to lose them, but we were able to hang on and pull them back in.

State law here requires that if the load you are carrying extends four feet beyond the end of your vehicle, you need to hang a red flag on the end of the load.  The store conveniently provided the red flags.  Unfortunately, they did not provide any method for attaching the flag to the wood.  So we drove on without it.  At one point, we were driving on the road to the kids’ house and a car was behind us.  The driver of the other car decided that maybe he would stay well behind us, just in case.  Maybe he saw us pulling the boards back in or he had some kind of bad experience either as a person with a load of lumber or following someone else.

In any event, we got to the house, unloaded the wood, then came home, took the appropriate medication to avoid aches and pains and then sat around moaning and groaning.  I will not go into the gory details of measuring numerous times, cutting the wood and then actually putting the whole thing together.  The most nerve wracking part was getting the carpeting measured and cut so that it would fit properly.  I managed, but there was a whole lot of math written out on the plywood before I made the first cut.  There was also a lot more moaning and groaning by me.  I am hoping that sometime later today I will finally be able to stand up straight without making any noise, but I am not confident.  Maybe in the new year.

This week our fact tells us that it in Connecticut it is illegal to pirouette while crossing the street.  I wonder why?  I think it would be entertaining to see that.  But why only a pirouette?  Is it okay to plie, releve or sauté?  Again, more information would be nice on this law.

I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you all have a day filled with good food, good family and friends and watching football with your pants unbuttoned.

 Today is Sunday, November 12 and there are only 43 days until Christmas.  Get your lists to me soon or you will be out of luck (you probably will be anyway, but you can still take your shot).  Today we remember the birthdays of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sun Yat-sen and Nadia Comaneci.  On this day in 324 BC it was the origin of the Era of Alexander, in 1910 the first movie stunt: a man jumped into the Hudson River from a burning balloon, was performed and in 1954 Ellis Island the immigration station in NY Harbor closed.  In Austria it is Republic Day, in Bermuda it is Remembrance Day and in the US it is National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day and National Chicken Soup for the Soul Day.

I don’t have a lot to discuss this week.  It has been slow and I have not been out a lot.  When I was out I saw stuff, but it is the same foolishness I have seen a number of times and I don’t want to continue to harp on the same things all the time.  You know the stuff – bad drivers, rude people in stores, people doing dumb things, people who need help dressing themselves, stupid commercials, etc.  I feel like giving all that a break.  If you really need that kind of thing, you can review previous postings.

There are a couple things I would like to briefly touch on, so let’s do that now.  When I am doing any kind of work around the house I like to have music on.  I am hooked into one of those music services on my IPad and I like the music I can get through them.  What bothers me is that every so often I notice that the music is not playing.  My immediate reaction is that there is something wrong with my pad.  I go to see if it needs a charge or something and see that the music has stopped playing and there is a message on the screen that asks if I am still listening.  Now I have to wake the pad up and then touch the prompt that says I am still listening.

My question is what difference does it make to them if I am actually listening or not?  They can continue to play the music and run the goofy commercials whether I am actively hearing them or not.  Why is it necessary for me to stop what I am doing to get them to continue offering the service they are giving anyway?  Sometimes I am in the middle of cooking and now have to stop, wash my hands and let them know I am still listening.  I wish there was a way I could signal them and ask if they are still playing music.

While watching TV the other day I heard a commercial for a store that was having a sale on outer wear.  I began to wonder why they don’t refer to clothing worn under that outer wear as inner wear.  Why do we have outer wear and underwear but not inner or over wear?  For that matter why don’t they just sell coats and jackets?  What makes outer wear different from a coat?  I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who thinks about these things.  Obviously the people writing the commercials don’t.  I know, I said I wasn’t going to get into stupid commercials, but it is kind of hard to avoid them.  Anyway, that was just something I wondered about.

One other thing that concerns me is our inability to correctly pronounce words.  I have talked about this in the past, but it came up again recently with all the talk about Vetrins Day.  The word is Veterans.  Three syllables:  vet – er – ans.  How hard is that?  I have a hard time understanding how someone can look at a word like veteran and pronounce it vetrin.  Of course I have a hard time understanding a lot of things that I see and hear.  This just happens to be my current peeve.

Yes, peeve is a word.  It means a cause of annoyance.  It is not a pet peeve because I have a number of peeves and don’t want to single one out as a pet.  That would just be showing favoritism and make the other peeves jealous.  So, as I said, in an effort to avoid repetition, I decided not to rehash many of my peeves this week.  I am sure you understand.

This week our fact tells us that 45% of people use mouthwash everyday.  I am sure we can easily identify the ones who do not.  I cannot help but wonder if this is an either/or thing – either they do or they don’t.  The fact specifies that they use it everyday.  Of the remaining 55%, are there some who don’t use it at all and some who use it every other day or every couple days or only when they have a date or special meeting with the boss?  I wish they would provide more detail with this kind of thing.

 Today is Sunday, November 5 and there are only 50 days until Christmas.  Time for the decorations to go up and the planning for the holiday to start.  Pretty soon we will be seeing the Valentine’s Day candy coming out.  Today we remember the birthdays of Eugene V Debs, Roy Rogers and Art Garfunkel.  On this day in 1492 Christopher Columbus learned about maize from the Indians of Cuba, in 1875 Susan B Anthony was arrested for attempting to vote and in 1935 Parker Brothers launched the game of Monopoly.  In El Salvador it is First Cry of Independence Day, in England it is Guy Fawkes Day and in the US it is National Doughnut Day.

First let’s talk about November.  I know it is hard to believe that it has arrived already, but it has.  November is the eleventh and penultimate month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the fourth and last month to have the length of 30 days.  November was the ninth month of the ancient Roman calendar. November retained its name (from the Latin novem meaning "nine") when January and February were added to the Roman calendar.  November's birthstones are the topaz which symbolizes friendship and the citrine.  Its birth flower is the chrysanthemum.  

November holidays include National American Heritage Month, National Blog Posting Month, National Diabetes Month, Election Day, Veterans Day (which is also my birthday in case you haven’t shopped yet), Celebrate Freedom Week (week of November 11), International Stand Up To Bullying Day (third Friday) and Thanksgiving.  There are many others, so if you need reasons to celebrate, look it up.  There are plenty.

Now let’s move on to the controversy regarding National Doughnut Day.  National Doughnut Day is observed the first Friday of every June.  Curiously, a second National Doughnut Day pops up just five months later, on November 5.  It helps to know how the June date originated: During World War I, volunteers who wanted to support troops were charged with preparing food to deliver to soldiers on the front lines in France. The Salvation Army dispatched over 250 women there, who found that battle-tested helmets were perfect for frying up to seven doughnuts at a time.  In 1938, the Salvation Army decided to honor these proclaimed “doughnut lassies” by recognizing an annual pastry holiday that could also raise awareness (and money) for their charitable efforts. National Doughnut Day was born. 

Its calendar doppelganger is harder to trace. According to food holiday historian John Bryan Hopkins, who cataloged several fringe holidays for his site Foodimentary beginning in 2006, mentions of the November Doughnut Day could be found as early as the 1930s in copies of Ladies' Home Journal. Hopkins speculated that the November 5 date is close enough to Veterans Day on November 11 that a retail outlet likely introduced the date to acknowledge their service.  The June date is the generally accepted date, but I offered up the November one in case you need an excuse.

This past week has been interesting, but boring.  I spent the better part of the week waiting for things.  Monday was spent doing laundry and catching up on household chores.  Wednesday we sat around waiting for a service adviser to come and look at our hot water heater.  Lately I have noticed that when it is finished heating the water and it turns off there is a distinctive clang.  Now I am by no means a plumbing expert, but even I know that you should not hear a clang when the heater turns off.  I knew before the guy showed up that a new hot water heater was in my future.  He confirmed that and we set the installation up for the next day.

He showed up and started disconnecting the old one.  Then we sat around waiting for his helper to show up with the new one.  He arrived, the old one was removed and installation of the new one began.  Of course, there were parts needed that he did not have and he had to go get them.  In addition one of his tools broke and he had to get a replacement.  With all that foolishness, the actual installation and the paperwork, the job ended up taking almost nine hours from the time he walked in until the time he walked out.  He was a nice guy and he did great work, but I am sure I could have found something else to do for at least four of those hours.

The following day I spent part of the day waiting for an electrician to come by to verify what I suspected was the problem.  I have a GFI electrical outlet in my kitchen that would pop whenever I plugged in my individual cup coffee maker.  At first I thought there might be something wrong with the coffee maker, but when I reset the breaker, it did not pop.  Making it more interesting was the fact that it did not always pop when I plugged in.  The thing that finally convinced me was that, with nothing plugged in, the breaker popped while we were away for a few days.  At that point I figured that either someone had come into my house and made coffee or there was a problem with the outlet.  I checked my coffee inventory to be sure.  Finding none missing, I decided it was the outlet.

When you call places like plumbers and electricians, they tell you what day they will be there and then give you a two to three hour window for when they will appear.  I have noticed that they never quite make that window.  Maybe the worker is not aware of when he or she is supposed to be there.  They always call to tell you that he is just finishing up at his previous job and will be at your house shortly.  That’s good to know, but doesn’t really help when they call you at 3:45 and the appearance window closed at 2!  Of course, I know that if I assumed that the person would be off by an hour or so and ran a couple errands, I would come home to find a note saying he was sorry he missed me, please call the office to reschedule.

This week our fact tells us that supercalifrajilisticexpealidocous is actually a word in the English dictionary.  It means fantastic or beyond wonderful.  I would think that using beyond wonderful would be easier to say and would avoid the peculiar looks you would get from people when you used the longer word.