SHAKES AND BUMPS

The Hand Bump Hand Shake                                                                                    07/18/13                                                         

I have never seen this particular subject written about before so I thought I would bring it up. Just now sitting here at my favorite café, Peet’s, two men came in separately and when they saw each other they both automatically reached out with their fists and did the “Fist Bump”, both in sink. Now, I have seen this particular greeting happen many times before, but when is one supposed to know when to Bump and when to Shake?  

This just happened to me the other day. I was sitting outside here at my café, when a younger man sat down and we started to talk about jobs, the weather, etc. After about a half hour, as he got up to leave, he reached out his right appendage.  I to reached out mine to shake his hand but while his hand was fisted, mine was all fingers. (I personally would like to keep my middle finger in one piece without breaking it in the process). Then we both did the same thing at the same time. We reversed polarity and changed our hands like we were playing Rock, Paper and Scissors.  After the third attempt of trying to match fist bump verses hand shake, we gave up and he walked away. I thought about writing Dear Abby, but I think she’s dead! So here I sit not knowing when to do the hand bump verses the handshake. My thoughts on this matter are a bit scrambled. I thought it was a younger generation thing, but when I tried the Bump Fist on my nephew, he just said, “Uncle, you’re so chill”. Uh?  Actually he said, “Uncle Chill.” I was not hot at the time so I just went along with him. So here I sit in my early, early 50’s wondering when I became, Chill, verses Cool. When did the hand shake go out of style and why has society greeting manners become so complicated? From now on I think I will just hug people, and that way, everyone will feel awkward and included at the same time.

CABLE THE GREAT AND POWERFUL

Cable the Great and Powerful!                                                                 3/30/13

I recently went and saw the new “OZ” movie and thought to myself how much dealing with the cable company was similar to this movie, a bunch of smoke and mirrors. About two weeks ago we here in the Santa Cruz Bay area started getting notified via Red Banner across the top of certain TV channels that in order to keep receiving these particular channels, we would have to go down to the Cable office or call an 800 number to have a new digital converter shipped to our homes. To the chagrin of many customers the 800 number then told us to go down to the local cable office anyway and to pick up the converter. When many did so the office then told them that they did not have them yet and said that they would be mailed out. BUT! Before anyone could do anything they turned the channels off. No more History, Sports or Animal Planet, Oh MY!  On Monday, my friend L’N, called me up and asked me to go with her to the Cable office, saying it would just be a few minutes of my time and then she would take me out my favorite coffee house. “Ah coffee, my week spot”. As we drove up to the office we could see that there was a line trailing outside and down the side of the parking lot of about 30 towns people, which I swear were holding pitchforks and torches. I thought I was entering the dark forest.  As we stood there we started hearing about everyone’s yellow brick road experience with the cable company. Standing next to us, one guy was holding all his TV equipment because the day before he picked up his new box and converter and it started smoking and melting when he plugged it in. One lady was in line for the third time because the last two times she had come down to the office, they had run out of converters. Another lady was in line because all her channels went out not just the digital ones. We also found out that if you die, cable will not turn off your service until you present a death certificate. What!? Uhm, so does that mean you can still watch your favorite programing from heaven, or hell? I guess this depends on what reality show you watch. Really, this lady in front of us was standing in line because her father had died and they would not turn off his service until she provided a copy of his death certificate. So there she was holding  all of her paper work, along with that huge cable box, cables and remotes spilling out of her arms. She kept dropping one of the remotes and it kept falling on the foot of the lady in front of her. Finally the third time it happened the lady in front of her said, “Would you Stop it! Don’t drop that again!” I swear she was going to hit her with her remote. I made a joke to ease the tension about having a remote control fight, like dueling light sabers, which in turn got scowling looks. As we were standing there more and more people joined the line. Seniors looking forlorn did not get any sympathy from us. No way! “First come, first serve baby! This is cable great and powerful!” Since everyone was grumbling I found myself getting all worked up into an angry frenzy and now wanted to give the customer service rep a piece of my mind!  But when we got to the front of the line, what I was expecting to find was the wicked witch of the west but instead got Glenda the good witch, well, really his name was Glen. And he was very nice and full of all the right customer service words and assurances that one needs to work in that kind of job. He offered us a six month discount and free converters per TV. Hey, how can you throw water on that one! After leaving there, I started thinking about how cable  had the power to literally bring people to their knees. In this case though there are no ruby slippers at the end of the rainbow. Just Glen giving us our converter box’s and wishing us many happy reruns in TV land, which by the way may cost us more in the future, for he advised us our rates are going up. I swear after we were done he was whisked away in a bubble.  I think I may switch over to Satellite TV except I do not want to deal with the flying monkeys.

Pasta Perfection

I have written in the past about my friend Lilly’s adventures in Elder Care Sitting and here is another story. She recently took a new gig with a senor couple who are in their 80’s. A very sweet couple, who adore her and treat her as a daughter. They just need special care in the early mornings and late evenings. They have many friends and a family in the area and seem quite loved by those around them. At night Lilly usually prepares pre made meals for them by the various family members who bring them over putting them in the freezer or fridge depending on the meal. After dinner, she then watches TV with the couple and then puts them to bed and when they are a sleep she goes home.

One evening Lilly pulls out a pre-made meal from the freezer and pops it in the oven. The cooking instructions are written on it so all she has to do is reheat it. This time it was a cheesy pasta dish which she then served with a homemade salad. As they were digging in to eat, the man looked down and exclaimed, ‘Oh this pasta looks like foreskin!” Sheila must of made it!” The old lady said, without blinking an eye, “Yup must be foreskin then!  Lilly looked closely at it, and indeed it kind of did look a bit odd  but she just assumed it was the musings of and old man and woman and did not pursue the conversation, but at this junction of the conversation completely lost her appetite  and instead just ate salad.

A few weeks later Lilly pulled out another frozen pasta dish and served it that night. When it was fully heated through she pulled off the foil cover and put a serving spoon in it and as she did so she looked down into the dish and could swear that the pasta was not your normal looking Penne pasta but in fact looked very phallic like.  She tried to ignore what she was looking at and served it anyway. As Lilly sat down the lady said, “Oh this must be another Sheila dish!” Lilly, this time asked, “What the heck is going on with these pasta dishes!” Well it turns out that Sheila is their practical joker of a granddaughter who loves to play jokes on her grandparents. Apparently she gets this pasta at a sex novelty store and was told to be aware of other food stuff in the future. Lilly decided to pass on the pasta even though the couple gobbled it up and said it was good. She then told me what happened and I said to her, “This would make a great column, so is spelled Penne or Peni?”