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What Cost, True Love?

11/26/2012

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The hour hand hadn't even nudged the 8 this morning, and already I'd spent $162.47 on gifts for the holidays. Yeowwwwch!

After which I headed off to the porch to fetch the Monday paper, only to learn that my wallet-emptying was soggy sweet potatoes compared to this year's cost for all 364 items on the "12-Days-of-Christmas" list.

According to the annual Christmas Price Index, those drummers drumming, swans a-swimming and the rest of the merry band will drain $107,300 from consumers' wallets this year, a hefty 6.1 percent increase over last year. From La Jolla to LaGuardia, those geese will be a-laying one fat egg in pocketbooks, especially when you consider that the government's Consumer Price Index is hovering around the 2% mark.

Though, here's some holly-jolly news—thanks to a stable minimum wage rate, the price of those eight milking maids will remain the same as last year. And the 3 French hens will also be leaving a bit of jingle in your pocket. Apparently 2012 has been a breakout year for women.

So what do you think? Is true love worth it? After all, we haven't even factored for shipping & handling or the cost of gas for the schlep to the mall or the value of hours spent iPadding in line. Not to mention the room and board for all those high-maintenance indulgences. And let's not forget the earplugs, pretty much a medical necessity with all those pipers piping. (Don't even bother to check; your insurance won't cover it.) Can anyone tell me what happened to the days when a single well-placed ring would do the trick? Has five become the new gold standard?

But here's the biggest rub: Did My True Love ever bother to ask if To Me even wanted all that stuff?

Consider as well what will happen when the holidays are over—wreaths on the burnpile, the wrappings out in the recycling bin, the partridge and its trimmings taking their revenge to the bathroom scale. Ask the residents of La Jolla, California. They surely have sniffed the befouled future, and it's definintely for the calling birds.

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Chicken Soup Day

11/19/2012

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Home today
in my fuzzy robe
and bunny slippers.
(The chicken soup is vegetarian flavored.)

Stay tuned.

The week is young
and there is oh so much
to be thankful for.

(And yes, the turkey will be vegetarian flavored as well.)

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Dope-a-Mope

11/14/2012

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I've been moping again.

And what's worse than a moper moping about moping? Makes me mope just to think about it.

An email to a friend snapped me back to Pollyanna-ville.

You know how it goes with these slapdash notes—one thing leading to another then another until suddenly you realize you're way off track but realize, too, that off-track is exactly the place you need to be.

I had been recalling a coffee shop I used to frequent, one in a re-purposed agricultural building. Patched plaster walls, creaky wood floors, a painted-over timber ceiling still studded with the hardware from cranks and pulleys—a ton of atmosphere oozing from the very bones of it.

I had a favorite table, next to a window that faced out to the street from which I'd watch the seasons as they'd steam and bluster by. One day I noticed that the table had a small drawer in it. I opened it (of course I opened it!), and--WHOA!--a little note inside! A note inviting me, the anonymous finder, to write back a note of my own. Which, of course, I did.

I conjured every romantic movie ever made and hoped for the best. Who knew where this might lead?

Well, nowhere, as it happened. As was inevitable, I suppose. I didn't connect with my note-leaver again, but the thrill never passed, and I took to leaving my own little notes. Not all the time (I'll mention that my table wasn't always available. Imagine!), but frequently enough. And when I'd check back, my little note was always gone. And a couple of times I found another. Oh the clandestine thrill of that!

So there it was, that little underground life, brimming with possibility. The zinging thrill when I pulled open the drawer. The deflation of emptiness. The elation of finding a little scrap of something.

That got me thinking about surprises. The unanticipated and when-you-least-expect-it kind. So many of my darker days have been brightened by a small bulb of unexpectedness. A silly postcard in the mail. A bag of vegetables left on my porch. The grocery clerk giving me a bunch of flowers from the bucket near the door. All these little lasers, unbeknownst, beamed directly at me!

Such a solitary enterprise, this tip toward mope. I need to make a note to myself: Open more drawers. It's possible I might find something. Or it's entirely possible that I might find something by leaving something else behind.

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Monday Morning Shell Game

11/12/2012

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Which day this week will the blog appear?

TUESDAY?

MONDAY?

WEDNESDAY?

Only Frida Kahlo the cat knows for sure!

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Surveying the Inner Viewer

11/5/2012

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Fulfilling my civic duty

Guess what? I matter!

Or at least my TV viewing does.

This week, mine was chosen as a Nielsen household. Three little booklets (diaries, in Nielsen parlance) in the mail—one for each television—and a crisp dollar bill as a thank-you for my efforts, and I was ready to represent the TV viewers in my area.

What fun! I thought. After all, I'd had a blast doing this sometime around 1968, when my parents agreed to participate, then immediately outsourced the filling-out of the diary to me, their eager 10-year-old, who was already in love with pencils and forms. I was meticulous about my entries, reading the instructions carefully, indicating on each line who was watching which show and when, painstakingly verifying that each family member was in front of the tube for the required 7-minute minimum of each 15 minute timeblock.

And I'd had a brief insider's look at the system during my college days when, hidden behind the bland alias of "Ann Clark," I spent countless evenings on the telephone, dialing up strangers from my kitchen-table office and inviting them to participate in a survey for Arbitron, the radio world's lesser-known compiler of listener data.

So I was gleeful when the diaries arrived, eager to witness my present-day cynical self bumping up against the younger, less-jaded me. I read the instructions (no questions, hooray!), filled out the required demographic information, and set one blue-and-white diary next to each television in my house. Finally—at last!—my voice would be heard.

And thus began a week of Uh-Oh. Apparently, there's nothing like taking one particular habit and tracking it for a week to get a glimpse of who you really are. For starters: obsessive-compulsive. Should I use a pencil or pen? A pencil with an eraser, or do I need a separate eraser? A pen? (Do I really have that much confidence in myself?) Which color? How fine a tip?

And then the embarrassing fact of three TVs. Three, really? And what to make of the truth that I used only two? That made one blank diary to return. I suppose I should be glad there wasn't a box labeled Excess that I was required to check.

But those are the easy things.

I have a TV in the bedroom, where I drift in and out of the morning news as I'm getting ready for my day. Trouble is, I can barely stand the station I watch; I consider the morning crew to be mean-spirited and snide. I keep threatening to switch the channel for good. The reason I don't? My internal clock is set to that station. The weather segment tells me it's time to roll out of the sack. Headlines mean the bed should be made. Entertainment reminds me that my hair had better be dry. Pet of the Day and I'm late late late. I've chosen inertia over reprogramming, and that says what it says about my moral failures. And now the station will reap the ratings rewards. Should I lie to my diary?

Which brings me to the screen in the living room during this week of extraordinary weather, Hurricane Sandy having her way with the Northeast coast. But there was also that football game, the Oregon Ducks looking to go 8-0 on the season. And I surely couldn't miss the volleyball games, the women's team ranked #2 in the nation. And in this week before the national election, there was more than the usual amount of politics streaming into the house. And so I faithfully filled my booklet: blocks of hours gone to sports, politics, weather, sports, politics, weather—all the things that made up the me of this week.

On Friday I finished up my booklets and dropped them in the mailbox. By that time I wasn't particularly feeling the glee. 40 more years are likely to pass before I get the chance to reveal myself again. What might I make of myself in the meantime?

Oh I'll think about that later. I've got some episodes of Project Runway I need to catch up on.

Oh, quit your tinkering and get back in here! Mr. Ed's about to come on!

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Nancy Carol Moody

I'm a poet and a letter-writer. Yup, that kind. The kind who uses pens and paper and actual stamps. The kind who will leave the house with nothing on the agenda but to get to the mailbox before the scheduled pick-up time. The kind who understands that technology is a wondrous thing, but nothing quite beats finding a real letter with a real stamp on it amid the credit card solicitations, pizza coupons and seminar catalogs.

What Cost, True Love?

Chicken Soup Day

Dope-a-Mope

Monday Morning Shell Game

Surveying the Inner Viewer

Nancy Carol Moody

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