Saturday Thoughts

Well it's Saturday afternoon and just woke up from a midday nap. Not sure what I did to my left shoulder but it has been wonky for the last couple of weeks. I really feel it when I sleep on that side. I am one of those side sleepers so this isn't good. LOL.

Listening to the late, great Jeff Healey and his band as I am typing this. What a talent this man had. Listening to originals of his like "Angel Eyes", "See The Light" and his covers of Neil Young's "Like A Hurricane" and The Beatles "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". It's like he made those songs his own.

I was up in Norwood, NC about 140 miles northeast of Greenville yesterday visiting our plant that manufactures and retreads tires for all kinds of aircraft. It was fascinating to see even though I didn't understand half of what was going on. My mind just doesn't work that way. Mechanically that is.

I must say that the people that come up with the ideas to make these machines and make these work areas better for men and women know what they are doing. These plant workers work their asses off. It was something to see the arm, shoulder and upper body muscles that a lot of the guys have from working in the different work stations and that's even with the machines and computer-aided machinery that assists in their jobs. I think if I worked there for 5-6 weeks I would be in much better shape. I would definitely be burning calories on the retread side of the building where a lot of the work takes place near ovens that bake (cure)tires. The people up there were super friendly and a real pleasure to meet up with and I am very grateful that they gave us the opportunity to visit with them.

The only downer was being stuck with chronic complainers in a vehicle for 5 hours (round trip) . At one point I just wanted the car to stop so that I could make my escape. I really don't handle naysayers and nitpickers well. It's like STFU! Your effing complaining about something is not going to make me any happier and if it does you, psych help is in your near future. Thank goodness that some among us were able to carry conversations without it all being negative.

I went to Costco this morning after dropping H off at a one day class thing he needs to take. On my way back after dropping close to $200 there it got me thinking a bit of how different my grocery order was compared to what my Mom would spend on groceries.

The steaks wouldn't be part of the grocery order that's for sure. There was no way that my stepfather's salary would have covered for steaks for anywhere between 5 to 9 of us at any one time that lived in that duplex at the corner of Notre Dame and 100th.

Half and half for coffee. LOL. You better be able to drink regular milk or better yet as Lewis Black calls it "moo moo cow fuck milk" in your coffee. There were times growing up that the only milk we had was of the powdered variety and I think that at times things were so tough that my Mom had to make it stretch so much that our powdered milk became powdered skim milk as it was so diluted just so we would have enough to last 'til my stepfather's next payday. I think to best describe our economic situation growing up is that we were lower lower middle class with the emphasis of the second lower.

Funny thing was we never thought of ourselves as missing things because we didn't really. We had food, clothing and shelter.

I had granola cereal and Frosted Flakes in my basket this morning. I grew up eating puffed rice cereal bought in these huge effing no name brand bags. Add milk and you were eating papier mache. LOL.

I had sushi in my basket this morning. I don't even know if sushi existed in Montreal 40 years ago. If it did it must come disguised as fish sticks. LOL.

I had three different snack chips in my basket this morning. I had organic tortilla chips, exotic vegetable chips as well as kettle brand krinkle cut potato chips with sea salt. I also bought to go with this organic salsa as well as spinach artichoke with parmesan dip. We were lucky to get Yum Yum Chips when we were kids.

Even the drinks that I got were different. A case of Sam Adams seasonal beer, a couple of bottles of red wine (and not Cuvee Du Depanneur) brands. Even the orange juice was 100% juice not made from concentrate in single serving sizes that cost me a nickle more per serving size had I bought in large jugs. We grew up drinking that frozen orange juice stuff and it was often the no-name that would ferment something God-awful inside of 3-4 days. None of that in this household anymore.

How things are different nowadays. Just writing these last few paragraphs puts a little more perspective on where I am in life and how fortunate I am. I have some good guilt that just came up. Time to make another donation to Harvest Hope Food Bank. I'm glad that this subject came up as I was driving.

That's it for now. Going to pick Princess up and bring her to Cleveland Park for a nice walk.