Weblog 35

September 24, 2006~ 7:45pm
Do your grocery stores change things around on you? Do they shuffle aisles of product from one end of the fluorescent-lit airport hangar to the other so that you have to hustle about, huffing and cursing, legs aching, arthritic knees complaining, to get a simple tube of toothpaste that used to be right next to the mouthwash only last week, and now you find it oddly displayed next to the bologna?

Yah. Mine too. They all do this. It's something they learn in mind-control class, the place where they send all their prospective managers who have an aptitude for demoralization while scoring high on selling Girl Scout cookies when they were twelve.

The basic premise is this: when you change the location of a product, you FORCE the shopper to really look at things as they are searching, thereby stimulating the robot gene in the brain that tells us to impulse buy--impulse buy- things we neither need, nor in fact, like very much- but there they are. What actually DOES happen is you tend to forget things that you automatically picked up in the past because most of us are creatures of habit and pattern.

And because of this recent shuffle at both of the local supermarkets where I shop weekly, I came home last night sans Fancy Feast Cat Treat. Oh, there was plenty of the dry food--- enough kitty litter to shore up diminishing wetlands of the Louisiana coast- but no fishy or meaty wet treats in the house, not one. Naturally my two cats began to weave around my feet as they always do when I come in the door from shopping, hoping I quickly finish the task of putting things away and serve up some of that delicious TREAT! (and of course, I had none.)

Had no tuna, had nothing at all to give them, yet they yowled and begged, and I thought I'd hit upon a great idea because Beethoven in particular loves egg nog around the holidays, so I went to the fridge and took out a can of this----




I don't recommend this in a pinch. They know, the little bastards do, that this is diet something, and pretty darn shitty to boot. If you ever do get tricked and turned around at your local supermarket which is thinking it's showing its marketing savvy by forcing you to play a kind of "Blind Man's Bluff" while shopping and you happen to forget the wet Cat Treats, do not- I repeat, do not try this. Believe me, it will get you this---





and your desire to strangle the laughing fools will be dangerously high (until, of course, you begin to see how foolish you are and then doubtless you'll be laughing together and writing up something like this.) But there are the bowls to wash afterward....shallow basins of failure, and it ain't pretty.


September 26, 2006~ 7:30am
Life is full of mysteries, and some are just more whimsical, and so they gather us to them in happy surrender such as the sound in the trees last week. And I heard it again yesterday while taking a smoke break here at work, standing out in the early autumn sunshine and being entranced, slightly ill at ease, and altogether mystified at the noises coming from an oak nearby. I even wrote a poem about it-


Case Concluded

There was something
in the trees,
jumping, running
branch to branch and scaring the crows
and it's a long way
you have
to go
to succeed at that, but I couldn't see
what it was
exactly.
I thought it a squirrel
most likely, but it made a strange little clack
sound,
and it bothered me not being able
to identify
the jumper in the leaves. It became
a nagging
sort of puzzle, then a wonder, then a worry
when I encountered
parts of my world
so everyday, that didn't
have a name, that
sounded angry, full of energy
and able
to leap like that. I thought
a monkey, but no, that couldn't
be a spider
monkey
out here
in the suburbs,
could it? Still the sounds it made,
the energy, the plain old chittery 'click-clak-clak'
but rapid as a Gatling, made me think the world is
stranger
than I know, and even now I'll bet
that long-tailed
joker
wants to steal my purse
or my hat
if I was
wearing one, and why doesn't
Animal
Control
do something about
these awful monkeys
in our
......midst?


Anyway, so there I was driving into work this morning, and what should I hear on NPR, but the very same sound! And although it is unlikely (but not impossible) I believe what I heard was nothing less than a Black Footed Ferret No kidding! The very sound. In all its mysterious glory. Has to be! It sounds --as Inspector Clouseau of Pink Panther fame would say-- "like a minkeh?" LOL! I think so! I had an endangered species visiting my day in the most unlikely of places. Oh, how I love the unexpected!



Update: September 27th.
NOPE. No ferret. 'Twas a chatty SQUIRREL I kid you not! I saw him yesterday as he was up a tree in front of me, making those weird monkey chitter-chatters, and I walked up close enough to read his little squirrel lips......"MORON," he was saying, "you humans are soooo gullible." And of course, he is right.


September 29, 2006~ 8:00pm
Just got home from seeing my daughter and son-in-law--little Mr. Bill, and the unabashedly nude wee Lady Godiva herself, who, at just past 1 year old, delights in nothing more than shucking every stitch and just letting things 'air out'. LOL!! She strolls and hops and climbs on chairs, and not a bit of piddle did we find--her carrot red topknot bouncing like Baby Pebbles, grinning to show all those teeth she worked so hard to get.

Bill proudly displayed the green construction paper hands he'd made at school from tracings of his own with a Bill-dacious picture of himself glue-sticked in the middle of it- right out there where everyone can see it- stuck with a magnet on the refrigerator door. (Every home with young children has such 'Louves'.) He was so proud...and ...he was still filled with the energy of having seen Depeche Mode (still his favorite thing in all the world...lol). My daughter took him to the theater to see a one time only showing of their concert in Milan.

Holly said he sang right along. Right there in the theater-- and his mind works in very creative ways, for instance- he told his mom while they were there, that THEY- meaning he and she- were the REAL Depeche Mode and the people up on the screen were their 'shadows'. I love that kind of thing. Love how his mind works at 3 1/2.

This has also been a fruitful week for me as well. Got the October Issue of my poetry ezine, The Blue House, online with 18 poets. Poets from plenty of these here United States, two poets from France, and a fella from the Netherlands who lives in Portugal. GLOBAL- this here's a global society, and it amazes me everytime. If you're curious, have a look. This issue is a beaut.





I don't think you'll be disappointed in the least.



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