Some Follow-up About Talking Food

Charlie Tuna actually has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

A new commercial shows some fish-shaped crackers desperately trying to disguise themselves before they get eaten. They are unsuccessful.

The NJ SPCA is currently chastising Kraft Foods for their newest gummy snack, "RoadKill," edible depictions of flattened animals complete with tire treads. My question is this - at least the Roadkill candies depict animals that are deceased - what about all the candy bears, worms and other animals as well as the infinite variations of ALIVE animals depicted as cookies, crackers and pretzels that we cheerfully consume?

And let's not even discuss the vitamin tablets in the shape of very human superheros and cartoon characters ...

Being 50 (almost) Now Gives Me the Right to Complain About All My Pet Peeves, or, am I the only one who thinks this is strange?

As my children say, “back in the day,” there was a television commercial that always bothered me. It featured an animated fish, a tuna. to be specific; Charlie Tuna, to be exact. Charlie, for some reason, couldn’t wait to get trapped in a tuna net, chopped up in pieces and stuffed into a can to be sold and consumed by humans. His constant rejection by the tuna cannery seemed to be based on his inability to distinguish himself as a tuna who tasted good, rather than a tuna with good taste. The tagline, “Sorry Charlie” has become embedded in our cliché lexicon.

What bothered me back then was the fact that this potential menu item was a thinking, talking, wisecracking being who seemed willing to sacrifice himself. The fact that he was constantly rejected was the only way I was able to consume canned tuna for a long time. He was the first I can remember in a growing line of singing, dancing food items. My children even had toys depicting living chicken nuggets and a fast food character whose body included a huge hamburger for a head. Am I the only one who feels kind of cannibalistic in consuming these products?

Today, the commercials have taken an especially sadistic turn. I have seen chocolate candies actually bitten by fashion models, with the candy swooning and whispering “love hurts.” Most recently, a person-sized chocolate chip cookie attending a child’s birthday party suddenly finds out there is no birthday cake - you guessed it, the cookie IS the birthday cake.

Maybe I am over thinking things here. Maybe my alternate personality as a horror writer is just running away with things. Or maybe, we are just steps away from the scene from the old sci-fi flick in which it is discovered that the alien’s handbook, “To Serve People” is really a cookbook.

The Debate Goes On

If I were to give Harvard President Lawrence Summers credit for anything, it would be for showing a sometimes complacent recent generation of women that there is still a simmering cauldron of gender inequity that can easily be brought to a boil.

In her recent column, Orlando Sentinel columnist Kathleen Parker defends Summers’ recent remarks about there being a genetic math and science aptitude difference between men and women. She goes on to profess through sometimes inflammatory sexist remarks (“some women have reacted as though their corsets were too tight”), that his remarks were right about us “gals.” She refers to recent studies that show that male and female brains process information differently to conclude that this somehow means a genetic difference in aptitude – a faulty, illogical leap from “different” to “better.”

Not long ago, children who learned “differently” were considered less intelligent than their peers because of their inability to succeed in the traditional school classroom. Today, learning disabilities are widely diagnosed, and children who receive accommodations for their learning differences can go on to “learn” just as successfully as their peers. What was once thought of as an aptitude issue is, in reality, a processing difference.

So the issue that Summers should have brought out is, if men and women process information differently, what current educational techniques need to be changed to accommodate these differences? How can the educational system cope with students whose learning abilities have been affected by social and economic factors (things that will forever slant the results of “intelligence tests)? And then, perhaps, ask his audience to address the post-educational concern of whether or not certain professions may be gender-biased to begin with.

In fact, reportedly, Summers did touch on these things in his remarks, a transcript of which has yet to be made public. In fact, some who defend him, like Parker, insist that he did not say that women are genetically preprogrammed with the inability to do as well as men in math and science – that he just said that genetic difference may be a contributing factor. Without his exact remarks or a complete explanation of exactly what he meant, the debate will rage on. It is possible that without being accused of making the unsupportable jump into the inherent genetic aptitude of the sexes Summers would not have succeeded in bringing this issue into the forum of public debate. I’d like to think that he has fallen on his sword for the betterment of gender equity in education. But somehow I doubt it.

The Countdown Begins

In 43 days I will turn 50.

Godzilla vs. Rodan

So often these days I feel like I am one of the thousands of citizen extras in an old Japanese monster movie - running like crazy to avoid falling debris. The latest movie I'm in features a fight between two American monsters, the old guard AARP and the new guys on the block, USA Next. Between them they are playing tug-of-war with public sentiment over the future handling of Social Security - while many of us are just running between their feet, trying not to get squished. In fact, that is really the story of my financial life, ducking for cover and avoiding political and economic shrapnel. Do I really understand what they are fighting about? no. Should I, I guess so. After all, as I approach 50, i really should be concerned about what is happening to all my social security dollars that are just waiting for me when I reach my "golden years." The truth is, from Reaganomics to Bushonomics and all the permutations inbetween, I've yet to feel as if I'll ever have the financial security required to retire. In fact, until the Godzillas and Rodans of the world start fighting over how to make this month's income cover next month's bills and still have money to "put away" I'll just keep ducking and running.

Apparently, I am not the only one with doubts about the competency of the President of Harvard

See this: http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/02/16/harvard.summers.ap/index.html

Here's Your Chance to Not Miss A Word or Complaint

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Being 50 (almost) Now Gives Me the Right to Complain About All My Pet Peeves, or, at my age, why am I still putting up with this stuff?

Today's inaugural entry into my Pet Peeve Hall of Fame is about the banking industry. Why, I ask, in this world of electronic everything and transactions that take nanoseconds to perform - why must a bank hold a check for days and days, waiting for it to "clear?" And WHY if they insist on holding it, do weekends not count? Do computers get days off? When my credit record, along with my Permanent Record and 4th grade spelling tests results can be found instantaneously on the web, it is just RIDICULOUS that a check issued by one financial institution cannot be cleared by another financial institution. I am not asking for them to break open a Swiss bank!

Oh but its an out of state check, they tell me, and the amount is soooo large. I'm sorry, I didn't know that there were border issues, customs procedures and language barriers that would hold up a New Jersey computer from talking to a New York computer.

And as for the amount, give me a break. NASA pays more for a hammer than I just deposited.
Humor
Daily Life

Hearing (electronic) Voices

I pride myself on the fact that, at my age, I am technically savvy, knowing my computer inside and out, and being able to assemble things even when the instructions are written in pseudo-English. My house is full of electronic doo-dads that dance to my command. (Well, everything except the VCR, which defiantly keeps blinking 12:00, 12:00, 12:00. The VCR’s days are number however, as I have just acquired a DVD player.)

I feel like an electronic Dr. Doolittle, able to communicate with all these electronic minions. My coffee maker beeps three long times when the coffee is ready, so does the microwave, but at a different tone. Two chirps at still another tone tells me that someone is trying to “Direct Connect” to me on my cell phone. Each of my online “buddies” has their own sound (and you – the one with the explosion sound – cut that out!).

Despite knowing the new electronic language, I was baffled when, one night last week, a loud beeping interrupted me. Five loud shrill beeps, and then silence. I jumped up to try and locate the source of the sound, to no avail. Of course, as soon as I sat down, it went off again. Having recently installed a CO detector in my house, I realized it was perhaps the only electronic voice I didn’t recognize. When the beeping repeated itself an hour later, I followed the safety instructions, opened all the windows, and took myself and the dog outside into the cold to await the fire department.

And the police.
And the ambulance.
And the gas company.

All these professional disaster teams came to the same conclusion; there was no CO in my house. No beeping had been heard in all the time they were in my house. I swear they were looking at me with THOSE eyes (see my entry about Becoming the Crazy Old Lady.)

So, when the same thing happened a few days later, I didn’t call anyone. I stared at the CO detector, trying to catch it in the act. Then, the beep sounded again, but this time, I swear, from a different part of the house. All this time, of course, no one had heard this beeping but me. My kids were now also looking at me with THOSE eyes.

Today, it happened again. This time, my daughter was home, and it was loud enough to make her hold her ears. I ran through the signal tests with her, testing both the CO detector and the smoke alarm – neither of which had the same pitch or pattern. As we were standing in the spot where she had heard it so loudly, we heard it again, this time, faintly, as if, once again, it had moved to the other side of the house. We both looked up to the ceiling, where the attic steps are. We both wondered if there is something in the attic making this noise. Something that is obviously MOVING.

Neither one of us has gone up there yet. We are just superstitious enough to be afraid that whatever IT is, it might be something supernatural and paranormal. Who says ghosts have to rattle chains? Maybe this is a modern ghost using modern technology. Or, it could be a rabid squirrel running around with an old beeper or cell phone in its mouth.

Whichever it is, I hope the batteries run down soon.

Humor
Daily Life

Becoming The Crazy Old Lady

Every neighborhood I have ever lived in had at least one person in common, the Crazy Old Lady. In Brooklyn, it was the lady who lived at the end of the block, her property encircled by a tall, imposing cyclone fence. Her shades were always pulled down tight; there were no bicycles or baseballs in her yard, just rows and rows of riotously unkempt plants. The only way we knew that there was a Crazy Old Lady in that house was on the rare occasion we would be brave enough to try and play on “her” section of the sidewalk. We usually avoided this, but sometimes, when the storm sewer would back up, and the street in front of her house would create a huge lake, we would overcome our fears to sail paper boats and throw stones. We wouldn’t be there long before the Crazy Old Lady would emerge, resplendent in housecoat and wiry gray hair, waving a broom and screaming at us. Of course we thought she had to be a witch – what 8 year old who has watched the Wizard of Oz every year wouldn’t think so?

Our Brooklyn neighborhood was blessed with another Crazy Old Lady. This one didn’t really live on our street, but would be often seen in the alley, pushing an old fashioned baby carriage, and rooting through our garbage. Some unspoken code among the adults of the neighborhood kept anyone from confronting her, and in this way, she was scarier than the Witch on the Corner. The term “homeless person” had not yet been coined and we kids were certain that she was looking for our discarded belongings to use to cast evil spells on us. This was fueled by the rumor that she actually arrived at the end of the alley in a chauffeur-driven limousine and lived in a mansion on Park Ave. Of course, no one ever saw the limousine; we were too scared to do anything other than peek through the curtains at her.

Other places I have lived have had their share of Cat Ladies, Bird Ladies and Garbage Ladies. Our childish lack of understanding led to all kinds of wild stories about these women. From our selfish points of view, we just couldn’t understand why any woman would be living alone and not having loads of wonderfully behaved children around, (like us). I suppose, in that sense, we weren’t too different from those who burned women as witches just because they were “different.”

Now that I am older and so much wiser, although I may understand the reasons for the behavior of these women better, I’m even more convinced that every neighborhood still has to have a Crazy Old Lady — and that it is a title that can be something to aspire to.

Not long ago, after moving into my current home, which had been vacant for several years, I spied a group of unsavory characters gathering in front of my house, on “my” sidewalk. They had huge, salivating dogs with them, beer, and scantily-clad, loudmouthed female companions. I realized that this group was not only preparing to party on my lawn, but that they may have even been contemplating a dog fight. When the first beer bottle sailed into my bushes, I became a possessed whirlwind. Grabbing my broom, (yes, my broom) I stormed out of the house, screaming. Even without the housecoat and wiry gray hair, I must have looked every bit the part of the Crazy Old Lady. The young toughs that were assembled with their fierce dogs all looked as if they were seeing a ghost. The scattered like leaves in the wind, mumbling apologies and retrieving beer bottles. They jumped into their cars and left.

When I went back in the house, I found my three teenagers cowering in the living room, convinced that a drive-by shooting was sure to follow. It never did, I’ve never seen that group again.

The power of being The Crazy Old Lady is a tremendous force. And while, at that time, my portrayal of her may have been a bit premature, as I now approach 50, I realize that I will soon be able to wear the title proudly. And if it keeps those messy young people off “my” sidewalk, it will be worth it.
Humor
Daily Life

Will the World and I Even Make It to my 50th Birthday?

The news that came out today about North Korea's nuclear weapons capability, while not that surprising, is certainly scary, and brings back the cold war fears of my childhood. Back when I was a Catholic grammar school student in Brooklyn, we lived with the constant spectre of The Bomb. We were reminded that the "Reds" would not think twice about vaporizing us, a warning that hit home during the Cuban Missle crisis. The routine of duck and cover was a part of the regular school routine, with the added anxiety for us girls who were reminded that a nuclear holocaust was no reason to duck and cover in an unladylike position. Uniform skirts had to be strategically placed to avoid any impropriety in our last few minutes on earth. Going to our final reward with our dresses hiked up too high was a certain ticket directly to hell.

We were told that we would never see the "mushroom cloud" that we saw in photosand flims of nuclear bomb blasts - those of us lucky enough to live in New York would most likely be vaporized instantly. When I moved to New Jersey, the consensus was that we might have a few moments to view the growing cloud before the nuclear winds flattened us.

So imagine the terror of my family, when, while driving at night on the New Jersey Turnpike, we were suddenly bathed in the glow of a huge, red, mushrooming cloud. It towered over us in the sky, and those of us in the back seat of the station wagon were riveted to it as my father floored the car. I fully expected that at any minute the nuclear wind would catch up to us, and I was not at all happy when my father pulled over to call the local radio station to tell them The Bomb had been dropped on New York. They hung up on him.

Later, when we had made it to our house without being burnt or blasted, we found out that actually, an oil refinery in northern New Jersey had experienced a huge explosion and fire. It wasn't The Bomb after all.

My kids haven't grown up believing that we could be attacked at any minute - that is, until 9-11. As a New Jersey family this struck particularly hard, we know families who lost loved ones, we've talked face to face with survivors. The haunting spectre for them has become the possibility of suicide attackers dropping from the skies and lurking in the mall. And with today's revelation comes a new shadow over them, the old shadow of The Bomb.

Daily Life

Happy Birthday Middle Child!

Today, my middle child, a daughter, turned 21. In between her full time job and full time college class load we managed to fit in some celebratory pizza and a chocolate raspberry mousse cake. As I watched her celebrate with her brother and cousins, I couldn't help but think back to the day that she was born. It was a warmer day in February, just like today and I spent my time in the hospital watching the Sarajevo Olympics. She was a quiet baby, much more interested in sleeping than eating, a habit that continues to today. Since she is the middle child of the family, I have always (hopefully) been cognizant of trying my best to help her avoid middle-child-syndrome. And tonight, as I look at the poised young lady she has become I feel a sense of great pride.

And also a sense of solidarity, knowing that this year, with turning 21, she enters a new chapter in her life, just as I will, when I turn 50 in April.

Its a monumental year in my house.
Daily Life

Too Old for Home Ownership?

Since finding myself a single mother at age 42, I have spent the last eight years scrambling to make ends meet in order to support myself and my three teenagers. Even with regular court-ordered child support, the total income for the four of us ended up being less than half of what five of us had previously lived on.

Over the years I’ve refinanced my house so many times, I could open my own mortgage-paperwork consulting business. I know how to write the heartrending bad-credit explanation letter as well as the don’t-worry- the-children’s-father-is-an-upstanding-citizen-and-will-never-run out-on his-obligation letter. All this done to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table (most of the time) clothes on our back and gas in the car.

Now, with one daughter out on her own, and the younger two spending their last years in college, I find myself faced with an odd dilemma. This tiny house that I bought for the four of us and the place I expected to live out my “golden years” has suddenly become the albatross around my neck.

First of all, I admit to purchasing a “fixer-upper” ­— it was all I could afford at the time. Over the years I have vinyl-sided it, rebuilt the bathroom from scratch (after the floor under the tub collapsed), replaced a rotting deck, had pipes and wires run for a washer and dryer, fixed the furnace at least three times, replaced the sewer line; the list goes on and on. My kitchen suffers from no wall insulation (well, actually, no WALLS behind the cabinets) pipes that are in constant danger of freezing, cabinets that hang crooked, drawers that don’t shut, mysterious wall switches that don’t seem to operate anything and floors that participated in the same collapse that doomed my bathroom. I had hoped that by the time my children aged out of child support, the house would be in good enough shape to stop spending extra money on it, and I could comfortably live here, earning equity for my retirement.

However, after the motor in my fairly new washer and dryer combo burned out this morning because of faulty 220 wiring (and let me tell you, what a stink!) and the frame of my kitchen window disintegrated in my hands because of dry rot, I have to say, I am seriously wondering if I am too old for this home ownership thing.

Sure, with enough money I could hire someone to come fix the faulty electricity and replace the broken window. I could get my pot-holed driveway smoothed out, and even fence in my yard so my dog can run around a bit. I could bring my kitchen into the modern day, or at least, the 50s. But, currently, those things are just not part of the budget. I’m seriously thinking of putting the house up for sale. (shhh- don't tell the buyers what I just told you!)

But, where would I go? An apartment at first seems reasonable, except for the fact that I would probably be putting out the same amount of money monthly that I do now, and not having the benefit of owning the property, getting a tax deduction or building equity. And with only 15 years until Medicare looming over my head, and the scary stories about Social Security drying up, do I really want to give up this investment? I would be giving up the most valuable thing I own, leaving just about nothing for my children.

Of course, if I keep borrowing money against the equity in order to keep the house from falling down around me, will I really come out ahead? One of the realities of turning 50 is the expectation that at this point in life, debts and financial obligations are on the downswing. The 20-something loan officers considering my latest credit application have indicated that the underwriters have issues with my age, the impending end of child support, and my ability to take on a 20 year obligation.

And you know what? I’m wondering about it, too.

How Others are Viewing the Big 5-0

I've just finishing reviewing some online calls for writers, and found that, suddenly, I can answer those ads that ask for writers who are 50+. (well ok, give me a couple of months, officially). However, I just can't get over the descriptions used - "Wanted Senior Writer (50+)." While I am trying to come to terms with turning 50, being called an "older worker" by Fortune magazine and having salesclerks call me "ma'am," I am just not ready for the SENIOR label. So, I took a little trip around the net and found a few sites that offer various perspectives on turning 50. I'm not endorsing anything on these pages (well, OK, the one by Dave Barry I wholeheartedly endorse, because, he is, after all, my idol) but thought I'd pass them on for your review.

http://www.usboomers.com/birthday.htm
http://www.everydaywarriors.com/adults/jillian_50.html
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/pop/turning-50.htm
http://www.geocities.com/sjhuterer/
http://www.expage.com/page/dabombdavebarry
http://www.blessingsforlife.com/women/reachingforthestars.htm
http://www.marketresearch.com/researchindex/128431.html
(Find out how marketers are looking at the 50+ crowd)
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Golf/Norman-turning-50-and-looking-to-senior-tour/2005/01/18/1105810912444.html?oneclick=true
(At least in professional golf they HAVE a professional realm for the 50+ set!)
Humor

More 2005 Celebrants - and Commerical Suggestions

I just heard that Colgate toothpaste turns 50 this year - what a coincidence, so do a lot of my teeth! Could it be I still have them because of Colgate? Hey, Colgate ad people, how about an ad campaign showing all the 50 year old teeth you saved?

Also just found out that Bermuda turns 500 this year. Since it is doubtful they could feature a living 500 year old person in their commercials, how about a special deal for those turning 1/10 of 500 this year? I'd glady star in the commercial for the mere price of a nice Bermuda vacation. Considering how much the Taster's Choice model just got, I think that is an advertising bargain!