It is Sunday, March 8 and there are only 28 days until Easter.  I hope the snow melts in time to hide the eggs in the yard.  We may have to do the hunt in the house this year.  Today is the birthday of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ivor Keys and Cheryl “Salt” James.  On this day in 1838 the US mint in New Orleans began operation, producing dimes, in 1913 the Internal Revenue Service began to levy and collect taxes and in 1983 President Reagan called the USSR an “Evil Empire.”  World-wide today is International Women’s Day and on Tuesday the 5-day Cotton Carnival starts in Memphis TN.

I would like to take some time to discuss International Women’s Day (IWD).  This is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.  In some countries like China, Russia and Vietnam it is a national holiday.

In 1908 great unrest was occurring among women.  Oppression and inequality were spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change.  That year, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

In 1910 the second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen.  A woman named Clara Zetkin proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration, on the same day, to press for the demands of women.  The first IWD was held on March 19, 1911.  More than one million women and men attended rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination.  In 1913 the official day was moved to March 8.

The new millennium has witnessed a significant change and attitude shift in society’s thoughts about women’s equality and emancipation.  The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women are not present in equal numbers in business or politics and globally women’s education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.

Improvements are being made, but more are needed.  So make a difference, think globally and act locally.  And, men, before you decide to discriminate against women or think you are superior to them, remember – without them you would not exist.

Let me take a breath here now that I have climbed down off my soap box.  And now, for something completely different, let me talk about security systems in stores.  Recently, I was sitting in the mall outside a large chain store watching the parade of people.  I saw two ladies (I assume) coming out of the store carrying bags.  As they walked through the sensors, the alarm sounded.  The women continued to walk, as if nothing had happened.  Even more interesting, no one from the store came after them to check their packages.

If that were me, I would have gone back into the store and had them check my purchase.  What if one of those large plastic theft deterrent devices was still attached?  How would you go about removing it when you got home and decided to use the item you purchased?  I would think it would become annoying if it set off alarms every time you went into or out of a store.  I have seen that happen and the person never did do anything about it other than get annoyed because it kept happening.  Is it because we don’t care about doing the right thing or are we just too lazy to go back into the store and have the issue corrected?  Who knows?  Maybe someday I will ask someone about it when it happens to them.  I’ll let you know what I find out.

The other day I was sitting in the car waiting for the lovely Elaine to come out of a store.  From my vantage point I had a good view of the front of the store and the parking lot.  I had the opportunity to watch people come out of the store.  What made this interesting was that every person that came out pushing a cart, had a hard time getting out the door.  They generally had to make two or three attempts to get out.  I saw one of the carts as the woman came by and there was nothing in it that would have gotten caught and created a problem.  I even walked over to stand by the door and watched two different people try to come out and get hung up.  I could see no reason for the difficulty.  I never did figure out why everyone was having a problem.

Once they were finally able to free themselves, they wandered around the parking lot, having no idea where their car was.  You need to understand that this was not a huge parking lot, nor was it full of cars.  They just did not seem to have any idea of where they had left their car.  I had that problem once, in a large mall parking lot that was packed with cars.  I took out the fob for my car and pressed the alarm button and was able to locate my car right away.  I don’t understand why they didn’t do this.  They just chose to wander around searching.  I mean, I do understand, but my wife says we don’t use the “r” word anymore.

On another topic, we discovered recently that we were using a couple words incorrectly and I suspect that we are not the only ones.  I always thought that when something was fantastic beyond belief, it was referred to as the penultimate.  “That gelato was amazing.  It was the penultimate gelato!”  Well, no it was not both.  It was either amazing meaning it was great or incredible or it was penultimate which actually means second to last.  So never tell someone who knows words that their food was the penultimate meal.  They may not ever invite you to dinner again.

Another word we discovered we had been using incorrectly was lugubrious.  My father always talked about having a lugubrious meal.  I always assumed that it meant the meal was good, satisfying.  I thought he meant it as a compliment.  Recently, the lovely Elaine used it and my younger grandson asked what the word meant.  She looked it up and found that it meant mournful, gloomy, sad, dour, dismal and so on.  So now the question is did my father believe, as we did, that lugubrious was complimentary or did he not enjoy my mother’s cooking?

This week our fact tells us that if you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you will have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.  Frankly, it would be quicker and easier on the throat to just use the microwave.  I still wonder why someone felt they needed to figure that out.