Tag: Satan

Everyone Please Stop With the Rush to Rush The Seasons

Anyone who enters a store in this country is usually surprised to see merchandise for sale that is applicable four months in the future. 

The other day at Costco I couldn’t believe all the Christmas stuff and it was only the beginning of September. What is the rush to sell plastic Santas when we haven’t even pigged out on Halloween candy or roasted our turkeys yet?

Is it done for financial reasons? If so why would it make any difference if people bought their synthetic Christmas tree in September or in December? It’s not going to spoil and the price isn’t going to change in a few months. 

I’m sure Halloween candy is already marked half off and we haven’t even hit October first. It seems to me it’s better to wait and get fresher candy, but obviously I’m missing something here. Besides if you buy your candy earlier you eat it all and have to rebuy it anyway. Ah, so maybe that’s their plan. 

Trick or Treat hasn’t changed its meaning since I last looked. I mean kids are still coming to the door hoping for extra-large candy bars and avoiding the houses that give out the healthy crap. 

Then why the rush to move time forward? Who the heck is so anxious to get older? I thought the goal here is to stay younger and all the plastic surgeries, procedures and health nutty things we do are supposed to accomplish that goal.

I would think in this day and age when turning on the news is far scarier than Halloween could ever hope to be, people would embrace and savor the fun and binging on sugar that holiday provides. Why hurry it along when you can enjoy every moment and every candy bar?

Who is making the decisions to speed through the holidays instead of enjoying them like a homemade chocolate chip cookie warm from the oven or a mornay sauce prepared by a Michelin Chef? What’s the hurry here and why?

So I have been thinking about this on many levels and I’ve come to a few conclusions.

Individually these holidays that come in the later part of the year have their own distinct flavor and personalities.

I’ll start with Halloween because that is one of my favorites since it involves begging for free chocolate and no one handing it to you and saying, “Aren’t you afraid you’ll gain weight?” And besides one can always disguise themselves to look like an Oompa Loompa and no one cares what you weigh. I’m just assuming someone could do that, I wouldn’t know firsthand or anything. 

But I digress, so we were talking about the differences of each holiday.

Halloween is about dressing up in funny costumes and wish fulfillment on many levels.

The desire for sugar goodies and oddly enough the desire to create a new identity for oneself.

Choosing a costume we can evolve into our favorite super hero, movie star, supernatural creature or anyone or anything we choose. Damn you could even be a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup if you want, but back to the point here. 

It’s quite fun actually to be something or someone other than us one day a year. A fantasy moment that’s safe, uplifting and hurts no one.

Halloween has always been an enigma to me. The fun is interlaced with scary and spooky. I find it quite interesting how so many supposedly normal people are so fascinated with the macabre. It must be the fun of that adrenalin rush of fear combined with the sugar rush that creates an unbeatable high. Again, I’m just guessing here.

Let’s face it, there is a serious curiosity about Satan and his friends. Who hasn’t wondered if the devil truly exists only to watch someone like Charles Manson and be horrified by the reality that yes, indeed he does.

So why are devils, ghosts, goblins and witches still such a part of Halloween and won’t they still be there in October when it’s closer to the actual holiday? Isn’t real life scary enough for everyone these days? Why rush fear?

Must we begin to explore our inner desire to be Casper the Ghost in August when October is two months away? If it’s a retail decision isn’t the same money spent in August still good in October?

I understand the whole Fall theme that evolves as soon as Labor Day comes. Summer pastels are replaced with autumn colors. Homes and stores are filled with the smells of cinnamon and spices promising cool crisp days, cider and apples and fun hayrides through the apple orchards. 

Believe me I’m not arguing that Fall is an enticing season. It’s my favorite and the mild weather and beautiful colors are alluring, so that may be why everyone is so anxious to start the journey as early as possible. I get that, but what’s with the plastic Santas before we even think about how many pounds the turkey should be?

Is this some sort of slight against turkeys? Has America’s favorite holiday fallen into disfavor or something? As far as I know Macy’s is still planning their parade, Football will be playing on every big screen TV in the country, the Detroit Lions will probably lose, and homes in America will be filled with the same smells that have whetted appetites for over two-hundred years.  

Birds will be basted, marshmallows will be melted on top of yams, stuffing will be overflowing from Turkeys covered with herbs and the pumpkin pies will sit cooling on kitchen counters. Yes, it’s the best time of year when families come together to celebrate their favorite meal and spend the day eating until they are sick, bloated and fall asleep during half time. Gotta love America.

Okay, so I see why people, especially today are in a hurry to celebrate something. 

But isn’t rushing Christmas kind of sad? I’ve noticed as I grow older the Christmas Chanukah season seems rushed. It’s as though everyone is kind of over stuffing their faces and shopping, and Christmas is the last stop before New Year’s Eve. So maybe we’re speeding through instead of luxuriating in the moment?

I know everyone is full to the brim and burned out from the Black Friday sales, but ending the year with Santa and those greasy Latkes is rather special. 

Even Hallmark has started showing the Christmas movies earlier. I love how in their winter movies there’s fake snow on the ground and summer flowers blooming right across the street. But I digress.

Perhaps that’s the problem after all. By the time we get to the holiday we’re just over it. We’ve shopped, planned, gathered and cleaned and by the time it arrives it’s almost anti climatic.

Maybe if there wasn’t so much lead time we’d enjoy everything more.

Last minute Christmas shopping used to be a thing. It kept the adrenalin going and created excitement. Stores and malls were filled with shoppers rushing about, carrying bags and checking their phones to ensure that sweater they bought for Uncle Albert is the right size.

No offense to Amazon, which by the way I couldn’t live without now either. Yet rushing through the mall, stopping to meet a friend for lunch and talking about an updated version of a favorite recipe is all part of the joy. 

I guess what I’m feeling here is that hurrying the seasons diminishes our ability to enjoy what should be the happiness of living in the moment. 

Let’s face it, in today’s world we are bombarded with not-so-great stuff, so if we can hang onto joy a bit longer why not? We probably all need a little Christmas right now.

Perhaps that’s the secret retailers have discovered. By stretching out the holidays, they are actually making all the happy last a bit longer.

I guess that’s their holiday gift to us.

Here’s my delicious recipe that combines Chanukah and Christmas in each bite.

White Chocolate Peppermint Mandelcotti

(Okay, so I made up the word)

A mandel bread/biscotti Christmas and Chanukah recipe 

1 cup canola oil

1 cup sugar

3 1/4 cups flour

3 eggs

1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon of peppermint extract

1 cup white chocolate

½ cup very finely chopped peppermint candy for inside recipe

¼ to ½ cup finely chopped peppermint for the topping

1 cup melted white chocolate for drizzling on top of cookies

Place oil and sugar in mixing bowl and mix well. Add eggs and mix until well until incorporated. Add extracts and mix.

Add baking powder and salt to flour and mix through

Add flour to wet ingredients in ¼ cups until done. Check for consistency. If dough is too wet add small amounts of flour until the dough has some body and isn’t loose.

Add white chocolate and peppermint and mix through.

Divide dough into four parts and form them into long rolls and place them on parchment paper.

Bake in 350-degree oven for approximately 20 minutes and check for doneness. Don’t overbake because you will have to toast them. 

They will probably crack and be light brown on edges when done

Lower oven to 200 degrees

Let cookies sit for five minutes and cut into slanted slices. Separate them and place on baking sheet and bake until they are toasty to the touch, the longer in the oven the crunchier they will be so it’s a matter of taste. I like them to have a bit of softness left inside.

Let cool and melt chocolate.

Drizzle over cookies and then top with crushed peppermint while chocolate is still melty.

To give it a more holiday feel you can alternate the crushed peppermint on the top and use both green and red peppermint for a more Christmassy look.

God is in the Oil of Olay

God is in the Oil of Olay

Shock and awe is a phrase often used to describe a moment when we can’t quite register what we are seeing. It’s usually reserved for those occasions that might render one speechless, like seeing an explosion in a building a few feet away or a smash and grab when you’re trying on clothes at Nordstrom.

So I’m not quite certain that what I’m about to describe would be considered shock and awe by some, but to me it was one of those moments and I have to say it was more shock than awe.

I recently attended an event where I ran into many of my friends. I was legitimately surprised at how many who I’d not seen since before the pandemic I actually didn’t even recognize.

It was as if some horrible time demon had waved his wand over everyone’s face and aged them a hundred years overnight. Oh that Satan can be tricky.

The friends I did recognize seemed so much older and their faces were sporting more lines than Costco the day before a holiday.

I was completely taken off guard since when I look in the mirror I see someone aging gracefully, and bearing an acute resemblance to the person I was twenty-five years ago. Am I being sprinkled with fairy dust at night I wondered? Everyone looked so old and yet I didn’t feel that I had aged that much.

I suddenly felt so bad for everyone and wondered if there were group rates on plastic surgery in Beverly Hills.

I mean if everyone my age looks so old, I must look that way too. So why is it when I look in that dreaded looking glass I don’t see old?

Although, and here’s the really scary part, I see my mother. I think that means something here, but I refuse to acknowledge what.

Are my eyes much worse than I know? Could it be that my brain is off and isn’t perceiving the world as it should be?

Everyone else is ancient and I don’t see myself that way. Should I grab my toothbrush and a cat and start picking out my mummy case?

Something weird is going on here and I’m determined to know what it is.

I check out a woman I know who had a total face lift years ago and her face is filled with lines; and I’m not talking about the lines in a soliloquy by the Bard. Must be the light. Is there some special light in this room that creates wrinkling on human flesh?

No way I think when I see another friend who has single handedly kept the Botox industry in business. Her eyes were sporting more wrinkles than an un-ironed 1000 thread count cotton sheet.

The men looked seriously older with tires around their waists and numerous lines around their eyes. Then there’s that thinning hair that seemed to be in a race to get to the back of their heads.

What the hell, I thought. Who are these old people and what have they done with my friends?

It was obvious looking around who had found the good plastic surgeons and availed themselves of their services, but did I look so old to everyone or was I Cleopatra in a state of denial?

I suppose it is true that you don’t see yourself as old until you look at your friends. Then suddenly reality kicks you in the butt like a goat you just stepped on and woke up from its nap. OUCH!

Ageing is painful and difficult to deal with without having it shoved down your throat…and speaking of my neck which sorry, I don’t even think I have the strength to do.

It seems no matter how much plastic surgery one endures, and I’m also talking about the pain of receiving the surgeon’s bill, Vicodin protects you from the other effects, the years are not kind to your face. No matter what, Father Time, that son of a bitch always gets the last laugh.

I know women who’ve had their neck done only to make their eyes look more wrinkled and hooded.

Then there are my jowls that make me want to go around saying… “So Buffalo Bob, who is on the show today?”

“Well, Howdy, we have a plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills with us. He’s going to fix those puppet lines on your face and give Princess Summer Fall Winter Spring a boob lift.”

I won’t even try on clothes in a store anymore. I can’t face the damn dressing room mirror. Those lights make me look like a chicken that was in the oven too damn long.

I search Google for testimonials by women who once looked a hundred and used a cream and woke up looking fifty. I can’t find a single one.

And yet there are ads all over with Oprah hyping gummy bears that allow you to lose fifty pounds in a week. So why can’t they invent a miracle gummy bear that removes wrinkles in a week?

We could kill two birds with one stone there; my craving for sugar and looking ancient.

Cleopatra killed herself with an asp to avoid being humiliated by Octavian. But did she really? Maybe she looked in the mirror and saw a wrinkle. Cleo figured  despite all those jewels around her neck the hanging would soon commence. Let’s face it the girl was a serious narcissist.  So instead of ageing she called the asp over and went to sleep. That’s one alternative to looking like an old crone. If you’ll notice there are no statues of Cleo as an old broad. Smart play, Girl.

I am certain that my friends don’t see themselves as old when they look in the mirror any more than I do. Oh sure we notice little things like those three additional chins and how our lipstick bleeds onto our nose. How can we not when we have to lift our neck to wash our chest?

But all in all, there is a certain sense of denial that comes with the years.

We actually see ourselves in two dimensions at the same time, where the young us and the old us combine, which puts us somewhere in the middle.

It’s a gift God gave women to make up for the whole Harvey Weinstein thing he knew would exist.

So there is really no way to see ourselves as we truly look because our brain inserts the youthful us into our eyes whenever we look into a mirror.

Sure, the Devil sneaks in sometimes and provides the magnifying mirror or overhead lights to cause some pain, but our brain always protects us from the harsh reality of youth’s loss.

Every woman would like to look as she did when she was thirty. Even if she was sporting her old nose and tiny boobs.

So because we can’t go back in time Benjamin Button style, we have to tell ourselves it’s okay. Thus we simply apply the make-up and creams with lots of hope and constant prayer. Isn’t it amazing how religious a woman can become when putting on her face?

My Howdy Doody Dumplings

I package of egg roll wrappers

canned salmon

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 8 oz cream cheese softened

1 cup of baby peas

¼ cup of crushed ritz crackers

¼ cup red pepper chopped finely

½ teaspoon of lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

1 egg

water

Mix half the can of soup with softened cream cheese

break up salmon into small pieces and add I cup to the soup mixture

Add salt and pepper to taste and mix well into everything is incorporated.

Mix the egg with some water

Place a large tablespoon of the mixture onto the egg roll wrapper and brush the edges with egg mix and fold it in half and seal it well.

Brush the top with egg wash and place on a sheet pan with parchment paper that has been sprayed with oil.

You can either boil the dumplings or fry them in butter. I’ve never tried them in the air fryer, but I imagine they might work in there.

Use the leftover soup with a half cup of half and half and some salt and pepper as a sauce and serve with rice or mashed potatoes.

Seriously, Does it Cost This Much to be Me?



Seriously, Does it Cost This Much to be Me?

When Aliens land they better have a lot of money if they’re planning to stay on this planet for any length of time.

I’ve noticed the cost of keeping myself going is rising exponentially to years spent here. There is so much more entailed in just getting up and getting going now I wonder that it’s worth “the getting” at all.

Perhaps that’s why so many of my age group discovered during COVID it really wasn’t so bad staying at home.

Now I find myself among those who with just the slightest provocation are content to stay in sweats or comfy jammies in front of the flat screen in lieu of preparing this tired old body so it is presentable enough to go outside.

What once was a quick dab of this or that has suddenly become a truckload of all things necessary to get ready to face the world.

Let’s face it, youthful skin glows without the extra products necessary, young hair shines, young eyes are unencumbered with bags and young bodies are firm and toned without Spanx.

The Lord in his mercy designed our close up vision to worsen as we age to avoid seeing those wrinkles and lo and behold the Devil creates the ten-times magnifying mirror. Kudos, Satan, that was truly one of your greatest accomplishments and actually, your most evil since politicians.

I spend way too much of my time shopping for face creams, hair products, vitamins, medications, comfortable shoes that won’t leave me unable to walk for days after wearing them, and all the other products and services it takes to support me in my laugh laugh golden years.

I have come to the conclusion that although it’s much easier to downsize when older it doesn’t include bathroom drawers and storage closets.

Although my wardrobe may be smaller, my supply of facemasks, creams, body lotions, and hair shiners is large enough to fill the hole left by the world trade towers.

It’s crazy how much time one must spend preparing for the day. Sure hats help to disguise a bad hair day and Lord knows I make good use of them, but even wearing a mask to avoid lipstick cannot hide the giant Hefty bags under one’s eyes and having to buy concealer by the barrel.

Sure, you say, just wear sunglasses but you can’t wear them indoors without looking like a wanna be movie star and although spandex added to jeans is a discovery that should have been awarded the Nobel Prize years ago, one still needs Spanx.

I even find myself actually watching supplement commercials and senior exercise videos on YouTube. I didn’t say I actually performed the exercises, but I have deluded myself into believing just viewing them will somehow help me maintain a hard body. Huh! There hasn’t been anything hard on my body since 1979, except for the metal knee implant.

So why do we even bother to try and recapture youth? What makes us so aggressive about seeing ourselves as we were and not as we are becoming?

Well let’s be honest, aging ain’t no fun.

Oh sure I know the mantra about how grateful we should be to be here at all. Yes, I subscribe to that idea and am grateful, but it’s hard to deny living our lives older takes preparation and lots more money.

Getting out of bed in the morning is accompanied by moans and groans, aches and pains in places I didn’t know I had places, and that first glance in the mirror, well all I can say is OY!

One must ask oneself is it harder now because we notice things we had no time to notice when young, or have our bodies truly changed so much it’s impossible to ignore the obvious?

When we’re chasing our kids around, cleaning the house, dragging our tired bodies to bed at the end of a long day who ever had time to think about how many vitamins we’d taken?

Now suddenly it’s all about us and even if one chooses to ignore what’s changing, our bodies have become the Glenn Close of our existence. Did you know they make anti crepe cream for your arms? Who the hell paid attention to that crap years ago?

I can’t believe the money I spend on all the stuff I apply, drink, swallow and rub on my joints.

And it always seems like no matter how much of everything I buy at Costco to store away, I’m always running out of stuff.

My car automatically drives itself to CVS now and instead of planning fun trips to Las Vegas to gamble I am supporting Proctor and Gamble.

Of course we should make the effort to have great joint health, fewer wrinkles, thick hair, white teeth, regular check ups and try our damnest to ignore the scary warnings on all those new miracle drugs on television. I saw one recently that claimed it could help my arthritis, but it might be at the expense of a liver. Check please I’ll keep my arthritis thank you.

Once I never noticed the TV commercials for nursing homes for Mom, now I shake and cringe each time one comes on.

I am one high maintenance and expensive broad, but not because I’m traveling first class to every exciting European capital or wearing diamonds from Cartier, but because meds cost money.

Staying alive is damn costly and of course necessary but wow, whodda thought?

So is there a solution to this constant outpouring of money to keep us alive, functioning and looking good?

Is staying home and streaming the answer? Nope. For as long as we’re living we must keep living. We really need to get up, get dressed and get out to get on with our lives. Despite how much we’d rather not that day.

What’s the use of being alive if you retreat from life?

So I guess I’ll keep creaming, supplementing and Spanxing to go out and face the world. Even if the world doesn’t appreciate I’m saving them from the scary experience of seeing me au natural, the mirrors I pass by will.

So I’ll shop till I drop even if it’s not for the fun stuff I once bought. Hey I just got a fifty-cent coupon online for Oil of Olay. Great, now I’ll have enough for that trip to Versailles.