injaynesworld it's "Blast From the Past Day..."

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... wherein we occasionally dust the cobwebs off an old post.  "Junk Mail Blues" is from August of last year when I first started injaynesworld and had all of five followers.

I’ve noticed a rather disturbing change in my junk mail as I grow older.

It started when I turned 50 and AARP sought me out to join them with enticing offers of senior discounts on Depends. Then at 60, among my birthday greetings, I found a solicitation from The Neptune Society for cremation services. That was kind of a downer. I’m almost afraid to peer into the future lest my 70th bring an invitation from what I can only imagine will be a company aptly named “Check-Out Time,” offering euthanasia services – cash only, no credit cards accepted.

I have to admit that solicitations for long-term care insurance sent by the same companies offering me short-term life insurance confuse me, and it’s more than a little creepy to find myself just automatically appearing on these types of mailing lists. I’m only buoyed by the fact that Victoria’s Secret still considers me young and nubile enough to send me their catalogs and I’ve been known to buy several unneeded black lace garter belts just to stay in their good graces.

I look forward to election times when my mail is full of expressions of desire from those vying for my affection. Clearly, I am worth more to them alive than dead and that, in itself, is worth sending them a few bucks.

I realize that there is no longer any such thing as “personal” information and that we’re precision-targeted by corporations from cradle to grave. Recently, however, I decided to fight back and took some pleasure in ordering subscriptions to Seventeen and TeenVogue magazines thinking I’d just mess with them a bit. In response, I received literature on the early-warning signs of dementia along with advice that I consult my doctor about the enclosed recommended drugs for the treatment of such.

This may be a battle I can’t win.

Comments bearing offers of remedies for age spots will be deleted...

injaynesworld we preempt our regular feature for "A Word About Valentine's Day..."

Valentine’s Day… Ah, yes.  A day to celebrate love.  A day for lovers to snuggle in that candle-lit corner booth, gaze into each other’s eyes and proclaim their undying affections.  A day retailers everywhere go out of their way to make you feel special because you are a twosome.  

Yes, today is your day.  As for me and singles everywhere?    Not so much…  Here’s what we get:

Happy No Candy For You Day

Happy You Can Forget About Flowers Too Day

Happy Don’t Even Think About A Card -- It Ain’t Gonna Happen’ Day

Happy You Get To Order From The Regular Menu Day

Happy Mercy Call From Mom Day

Happy Yes That Is Pity In Their Eyes You See Day

Happy Double-Occupancy-Only Day

Now lest you think I’m complaining about being single, let me assure you otherwise.  I could have married if I’d wanted.  I had suitors.  I’m not exactly Quasimodo.   And I have nothing against those who choose to pair up.   Mazel tov.   All I ask is that as a single I, too, get a day dedicated to recognizing, celebrating, and rewarding my awesomeness.  

According to the last census, there were 92 million of us single types here in the old U. S. of A.  

In the 1980s, the Buckeye Singles Council in Ohio started “National Singles Week” to be celebrated each September 21^st through the 27^th.   So how come I didn’t get the memo?   Huh?  Ninety-two million of us and Hallmark can’t even come out with a damn card?   Obviously, this is a vast conspiracy to keep us down and I blame the Obama administration.  

So go ahead, couples.   Have your lousy, one-day, pitiful, over-commercialized love fest.  Come September, I’m going to be flaunting my single ass with pride.  

Happy Thank You For Using Less Resources, You Get A Tax Break Week

Happy The Toilet Seat Stays In The Position Of Your Choosing Week

Happy Buy What You Want It’s Your Money Week

Happy Only Put Up With Your Own Family’s Bullshit Week

Happy Ice Cream For Dinner?  No Problem Week

Happy No Endlessly Stroking Someone Else’s Ego Week

Happy That Remote Has Your Name On It Week

Happy No Explanations To Anyone For Anything Week

Happy You Made It On Your Own Good For You Week

Oh, yeah… and I’ll be expecting gifts.

Meanwhile, feel free to celebrate my “singular sensation” with comments…

injaynesworld "Gratitude Is The Attitude..."

My dear and wise friend, CatLady Larew, got me thinking about gratitude this week. 

I live on a lovely farm, surrounded by strawberry fields, vineyards and ranches.  Today the rain has come again – the rain I whined and bitched about last week – yes, it’s back.  But this morning, something is different…

My desk sits in front of a large picture window that looks out upon lush, green fields, oak trees, and a gray sky that today feels more like a cozy blanket than a bearer of gloom.   Mason-kitty, aka “Mr. Useless As Tits On A Bull,” sits on the desk gazing out the window at birds he’ll never catch, while Dixie, the four-pound princess, snuggles and snoozes tightly zipped up inside my jacket, her tiny head pressed against my heart. 

My world is at peace… and I am grateful.

Elsewhere blizzards have made the lives of many of my friends miserable and difficult and it would appear there is no end in sight.   In Washington, the governing has come to a standstill, though one would be hard pressed to notice.  Snow days and snow jobs seem to be the order of the day in our nation’s capitol.  

Still, this country has given me freedoms and opportunities unknown to women in so many other parts of the world… and I am grateful.

Unemployment has devastated the middle class, while the rich continue to get richer.  The average time between losing and finding a job now is 30 weeks.

I will never be rich.  I will probably always be up to my ass in debt, but I have a job… and I am grateful.

I have friends whose love and generosity continuously amaze me.   I have food when I’m hungry, water when I thirst, and a warm bed where I sleep safe and free from the sounds of  war… and I am grateful.

I have my health and, at least for the time being, I have health insurance.   My friend, Kristi Stevens at Stepford Stories, wrote eloquently this week about the plight of those who don’t and I encourage you all to read it.

There will always be plenty of days and things to find fault with.  Today, however, I will bitch about nothing.    Today, I will just be grateful…

And I’m always grateful for your comments…

injaynesworld I've "Gone Visiting..."

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Today I can be found over here chatting with Lynn at Midday Escapades.   

http://www.middayescapades.com/2010/02/in-jaynes-world-meet-n-greet-monday.html

Drop by and join in the conversation.   She's got some pretty cool giveaways happening, too.

                                                                                 

injaynesworld it's the "Sunday Recap..."

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No Brakes?  No problem…

According to Edmunds.com, interest in the Prius actually increased after the recent news that the thing may not stop when you step on the brake pedal.  Reports are that at 30 mph, the vehicle could travel up to 50 feet before the brakes take hold.  Higher speeds?  You do the math.  But what’s a little inconvenience when there may be a deal to be had?   Apparently, to some hoping to get a better price on the purchase, safety is negotiable.  Don’t look at me.  I drive a Volvo. 

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Next time you’re in Dubai…

Be sure and grab yourself a tasty quarter-pound camel burger.  Touted as the newest “health” option on menus there, the camel burger is fat and cholesterol free.  For a mere $5.45 you can have yours loaded with cheese and burger sauce with a side of  fries.  

Well, why not…  Does anybody really know what goes into a Big Mac?

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This week’s “You Can’t Make This Shit Up” Award goes to this little gem...

Not to be outdone by Sarah Palin’s $110,000 speaking engagement at the Tea Party Convention, former president George W. Bush received the coveted honor of Key Note Speaker at this year’s highly anticipated…wait for it…Grocer’s Association Conference!   Sharing the bill with Bush will be musical guest, Paul Anka. 

UPDATE:   Courtesy of the Huffington Post...  Say what you will about George W., I don't recall him ever using the palm of his hand as a cheat sheet.   Sarah Palin, during a speech in which she mocked President Obama for his use of a teleprompter, reveals several notes written on her left hand. The words "Energy", "Tax" and "Lift American Spirits" are clearly visible. There's also what appears to read as "Budget cuts" with the word Budget crossed out. 

And again later, while being interviewed...

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And continuing with the gift that just keeps on giving…

The always consistent beauty queen ripped Rahm Emanuel this week for his use of the word “retard” in a closed-door meeting at the White House.  Emanuel was referring to liberal activists who want to run ads against conservative Democrats.   Or maybe it was his use of the word fucking when describing said retards.  Hard to always know with Sarah.   Anyway, demanding President Obama fire Emanuel, she called his use of the word “a slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities” and likened it to using the “N-word,” something she deemed “unacceptable” and “heartbreaking.” Emanuel later issued an apology.   

Flash forward… Rush Limbaugh took offense to people, presumably including Palin, protesting Emanuel's remark, lamenting on his radio show that “our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult's taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards.”  When asked for a response from Palin, her spokesperson said, “Governor Palin believes crude and demeaning name-calling at the expense of others is disrespectful,” adding that was meant generally and Palin was certainly not specifically referring to Limbaugh.   Apparently, Emanuel’s private statement crossed some terrible line in Palin’s pea brain, while Limbaugh’s public one… Not so much.

UPDATE:    Palin now says she doesn't fault Limbaugh because "he was just using satire."   You betcha...

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Finally, in honor of today's Super Bowl, an ad you won't be seeing... 

Go ahead.  Leave a comment.  It's free...

injaynesworld we reject "A Disposable Society..."

I’m not one to run out and buy the latest, fanciest, hippest must-have item that Madison Avenue tells me I cannot live without.   I’ve always found that if I wait a year, it’s not only half the price, but chances are I won’t even want it anymore. 

The late actor/activist, Paul Newman, once said that we live in a “disposable society.”   How true.   Everywhere we look we’re encouraged to “Use it once.  Then throw it away!”   Mother Earth is suffocating in our cast-off crap.  

I hate to throw things away and will use something up till it’s literally falling apart and held together by duct tape.  I find that “New and Improved!” is rarely either.   I remember when companies took pride in their workmanship and things were made to last.   They were actually embarrassed if their stuff broke down.  Remember the lonely Maytag guy?  

Recently, a friend was over and I was heating up some lasagna in the microwave. Apparently, the two minutes it took to complete the task was “too long.”   Yes, my microwave is nearly 20 years old, but it has served me well oh these many years and I see no reason to forsake it now.

My TV, a respectable 32” Mitsubishi purchased in 1993, had never once failed me, until just before Christmas.   Sound, but no picture.   When it first happened, I was in such denial that I actually sat there continuing to watch the blank screen for about an hour.  It cost me nearly $400 to get it fixed.  Sure, I could have bought a new flat-screen for that same money, but those things start breaking down within five years, plus I’d also have to pay the robber-baron cable company another $100 a month for an HD connection and God only knows what -- none of which I want or need.   My TV is now good to go for another decade or so and the local landfill dodged a bullet. 

Maybe I’m a little more sensitive to this whole “out with the old and in with the new” way of thinking as the years add up, but I refuse to succumb to the notion that everything is so easily replaceable.  Remember the days before “no-fault” divorce?   I’m inclined to believe people may have tried a little harder.

In 1987 I bought my first Volvo. When, in 2004 after a quarter of a million miles, it started coughing up oil, I traded it in for another pre-owned (the term “used” is so passé) Volvo, which I fully expect to have for the next 17 years or till the day I die, whichever comes first.  

To further spare the planet, upon my death I’ve signed up to be an organ donor – the ultimate in recycling.   And you know what?  I bet some of my old parts will still be kickin' ass.  

Got a comment?  Leave a new one or recycle an old…

injaynesworld it was a "Rude Awakening..."

This morning I awoke a little earlier than normal and staggered, still half-asleep, into the bathroom planning a quick relief and then 30 more minutes of blessed slumber.  Ah yes, another plan for God to laugh at….

Incoming!  Mason comes bounding into the bathroom to deposit a very-much-still-alive mouse on the floor, which then proceeds to scurry between my feet.   FUUUUUUUUUUCK!  

Can you say “drip dry?”   Oh, hell yeah… I’m awake now!

GET IT!  GET IT!  GET IT!  Wherein Mason dives behind the toilet, snatches said mouse and races from the room with me in hot pursuit… 

“Pants on the ground… lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground.”

… into the living room where the terrified mouse sits frozen in the middle of the floor, Mason calmly at his side.   Well, let me correct that.  A little dark blob sits frozen in the middle of the floor.   I do not have my contacts in.   I cannot see shit.  

Then it moves -- darts, actually -- and Mason pounces, gently corralling it and cuddling it to his chest.   Mason, I realize, does not regard the mouse as food.   Unlike some of my other cats who’d been strays and had to fend for themselves in the surrounding farmland, Mason’s only view of the world has been through my office window.   Mr. Useless-As-Tits-On-A-Bull was adopted from the shelter to be Dixie’s pet.   And now, it would seem, he’d found a pet of his own.   Swell…

Truth be told, since becoming a country girl I don’t like killing anything.  Unlike my city life where the appearance of a spider would initiate the spraying of a full can of Raid (because if it wasn’t going to die from the poison, it was damn well going to drown), now I have a plastic container and a piece of cardboard precisely for the purpose of dropping it over an intruder, slipping the cardboard gently underneath and depositing it outside.

So this was my plan with the mouse and Ms. Magoo here stumbled her way into the kitchen to retrieve the passport-to-freedom container.   With Mason momentarily distracted, the mouse took the opportunity to make its move.   It didn’t get far before Mason snatched it up and ran off toward…

NO!   NOT THE BEDROOM!!

By this time Dixie is peering over the covers, her sleep also disturbed, but clearly above joining in the fray.

The mouse has found cover behind the TV stand and is running back and forth providing endless fun for Mason.    LEAVE IT!   LEAVE IT!  LEAVE IT!   

Slowly she crept, inch by inch -- anyone remember that old “Three Stooges” bit? -- and… GOTCHA!

The mouse lives to enjoy another day and my karma is preserved.

So... how’s your day going?