Here's Looking at You, Netflix!

Long ago, long before there was an internet, and faced with the dismal prospect of choosing between watching  It's A Wonderful Life or Candlepins for Cash, I moaned that, in spite of owning a state-of-the-art Sony Betamax VCR I just wasn't able to watch what I wanted to watch when I wanted to watch it.  Avoiding the stale leftovers of broadcast TV meant going out into the real world and driving to a video store where, one could only hope, they would have a comedy that didn't revolve around bodily functions or a classic drama that I hadn't already seen.

I will know that I  am living in the future, I proclaimed, when I can point the remote at the tube and choose from a menu of just about anything ever made.  Well, Prais the Great God Mammon, the future is here, more or less, and I am happy, more or less. Binge watching has never been easier, and although not everything-everything is available always-always, I can still manage to spend my allotted viewing time scrolling through the offerings, enjoying the plenty even if I can't come to a decision.

There are a few shows I make a point of keeping up on, though, and one that made the cut was Longmire.  I love this show.  Walt Longmire is The Law, sometimes aided by his best friend, Henry Standing Bear, barkeep and tracker, and his deputy Victoria Moretti, a transplant from Philly. There are no city streets.  No hipster irony. No terrorism plots.  No bureaucracy.  No scenes in abandoned warehouses. Just a smoke-free, yet complicated,  Marlboro Man versus the equally complicated bad guys. Sometimes the chase scenes are on horseback, or feature a waist-deep slog through snowdrifts, and above it all, The Big Sky.  It's an updated version of the TV Westerns that dominated the networks back when I wasn't old enough to stay up to watch them.

A & E produced three seasons of Longmire, and then pulled the plug, in spite of the fact that it had a more than respectable audience size.  Why give it the chop?  The audience was comprised mainly of those worthless undesirables: people like me who had aged out of the advertisers' pet demographic of 18-49.  I guess that's what happens when you put on a show that is realistic, but not "reality," or  is a bit more complex than Duck Dynasty.  And, of course, everyone knows that once you are over 49 it is a quick slide into housebound dementia on a budget that can't stretch to more than cartons of Depends and cases of Ensure.

But there will be a fourth season, thanks to Netflix, which has a business model that doesn't rely entirely on the "key demo," and I'll bet there are a few oldsters who will sign on to Netflix because of Longmire, and stick around for the other offerings.  Housebound dementos are a good market for Netflix, after all, since we need all the  entertainment we can get to while away the weary hours until oblivion, and we don't wish to be cajoled into buying more stuff that won't fit into those closets full of canned cat food, video tapes, and photo albums.

Join me as I raise a can of nutrition beverage and make a toast to my favorite time waster:  Here's looking at you, Netflix!

As for you, A&E, just go fight your Storage Wars and leave us old folk alone.

Keep Away

No, not Keep Away the game we played in the street with a gang of kids and a beat up rubber ball, which you may know as Monkey in the Middle.

Rather, it's Keep Away as in "Get it out of here." The Keep in question is Keep.com, self-described (and the punctuation is all theirs) as:

                      Shopping made simple. Oh and beautiful, too.
                      Keep is your new shopping obsession. Join for free.

I would describe it as Pinterest with price tags, a socially networked time-suck with instant buying opportunities, devoted to insecurity and the impulse purchase.  I mean, would you be caught dead buying boots that didn't have more than single-digit likes? Didn't think so.

So far, the website looks like it is the shopping ground of very young women who all have the same taste in short skirts, tiny jewelry, high-heeled boots, and items imprinted with silly sayings about sex.  Not judging.  If it were populated by my demographic it would be filled with elastic-waist black trousers, I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up medallions, bunion-friendly ground grippers, and items with silly sayings about senility.  (And who says that we oldsters don't know how to spend money?)

For each item you can hit Like, Keep or Share.  If you click through on an item, you can Like, Keep, or Buy.  Alas, Keep.com is a shopper's happy place and there is no Trash option. You can also follow the person who "discovered" the item, in case you actually have to work for a living and don't have all day and night to pursue discoveries on your own. Oh, wait a minute, those intrepid discoverers are "tastemakers," and when they aren't curating, they are beautifully presenting.

Keep: Curated by tastemakers. Beautifully presented. Immediately shoppable. Totally addictive.

It's probably harmless enough, unless you have a limited budget and are prone to addiction, and I'm sure those who enjoy advertisements divorced from all that pesky content will find it worthwhile.  But it's just one more website with app that is doubtless employing dozens of bright young things in building yet more handbaskets for the Hell Express.

Like? Keep? Share? Next Stop Hell.

So join for free. Credit card melt down made simple. Oh and beautiful, too.

Oh, My Exploding Head!

A sure sign of aging:  the increasing frequency with which my head threatens to explode when I read the news.  (Another sign that I am really old is that I still read the news, sometimes in an actual paper printed on crinkly actual newsprint with smudgy actual ink.)

This morning the bearded ghost of Allen Ginsberg * stands on the breakfast table and HOWLS:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,

     starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking 

     for an angry fix,

But that last bit sounded more like:

Uber-ing themselves through the Wi-Fi 

streets at dawn looking 

   for an awesome app

I was reading about a company which has 30 employees in 4 cities and what they do is provide app-based reservation services for a whopping 90 restaurants so far.  Who pays for the reservation?  Why, you do.  $5 bucks a pop.  You might even be able to make a reservation for a special meal only available to the cool kids who make their reservations through the app.  Sucker burgers with sap sauce?

You can include a picture in your in-app profile and the restaurant staff will greet you by name. Wow! Instant celebrity when the tattooed host at the Dude Food Blood and Bones Brewpub and Grill high-fives you at the entrance. That's probably worth the $5 right there.

I am sure these clever youngsters over at Reservatronics (or whatever they call themselves) have visions of buy-out sugarplums dancing in their heads as they apply their energy, technological savvy, and desire to solving the immense problem of getting a reservation in a restaurant.

I really like my red-clad pocket pal of a phone, and I probably use as many silly apps as anyone my age, (that is, someone who remembers dial-up on-line access), but it is really appalling that so many folks are spending so much energy to solve minuscule non-problems.

I guess the enormous problems are just too enormous to be solved by a nifty little app.  The hard and messy solutions are never going to be acquired for mega-bucks either. And the beat goes on.

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
                                                Allen Ginsberg: Howl, Part 2

*Actually, it was my bearded husband, Rick Teller, who stood beside the breakfast table laughing his head off reciting the Ginsberg lines. Thanks for the inspiration.

No-No Paleo! Yes-Yes Retreo!

Yes, boys and girls, when you get old you do start to fall apart.  In my case, the digestion faltered, and I was forced to change my diet.  This led me to Dr. Google's colleague, the great nutritionist in The Cloud, and my head began to spin.  Eventually,  I settled on a classic bland diet that seemed strangely familiar.

You've heard of the trendy Paleo "caveman" lifestyle with meat, meat, meat and no processed food on the menu? I found I was living the Retreo lifestyle, where the more processed the food is, the better.

As I overcooked my green beans and plopped them on a plate of naked chicken breast, with a side of white rice, I felt like I had been sucked into a wormhole and spit out into my mother's kitchen, circa 1957.  The gang was all there:  Little Miss Sunbeam, the Blue Bonnet Lady, Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima, Snap Crackle Pop. Welcome back, daughter!  Permission granted to eat white bread, white flour, Jell-o, and mushy carrots. Permission granted to turn up your nose at broccoli, cauliflower, and kale.

I hope that slice is slathered with Blue Bonnet Margarine because
"Everything's better with Blue Bonnet on it."

For a while the diet was good transgressive fun. The devil says eat the white bread, the angel says eat the multigrain.  I got to hang with the devil.  True, cooking in was boring and eating out was a challenge since "land that time forgot" restaurants--where the rolls are squishy and the lettuce is all iceberg, all the time--are few and far between in this part of the world.


But there are two versions of Retreo--Mom's Kitchen and Galivanting Gourmet--as I found when I consulted my favorite vintage cookbooks:  The Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places, Volumes 1 and 2.  Dating from the very early 1950's, and given out as inducements to test drive a new Ford, they were designed, no doubt, to elicit a Pavlovian drool as you ran to the garage, hopped in your new Ford and drove fifty miles for a swell meal.  Reading through I realized that the most dramatic revolution I've lived through has not been technological, but culinary.

What's on the menu?  How about an appetizer of Banana Meat Rolls (all you Paleo people, hold the roll), followed by an entree of Opossum, Roasted and Stuffed (with bread stuffing, not taxidermy fluff).  Don't forget  a side of Walpole Woodchuck Relish.  Alas, the relish contains no woodchucks, only cabbage, green peppers, sour pickles, a can of pimentos and some seasonings.

If those items don't appeal you can choose between five versions of Lobster Thermidor, three Sweetbreads presentations and six bowls of Clam Chowder, but why bother when you can order Roast Vermin.

You could opt for  a salad, but fair warning, the dressing will contain either tomato soup or its cousin ketchup/catsup or canned pineapple, possibly both.  If you like your pineapple without tomato sauce, you might choose the Holiday Salad, either the Jello-O mold version or the lettuce version: canned pineapple rings colored with red and green food coloring, cinnamon flavor for the red and peppermint for the green, laid out on crisp lettuce leaves and garnished with mayonnaise.  The only fresh pineapple in the book was used as a pincushion for toothpicked tidbits of shrimp and cheese. Oh, the glamour.

What's up with all that canned pineapple?  My first cookbook, which was a kid's cooking thing, included a recipe for Flagpole Salad, which featured a vertical banana jammed on a canned pineapple ring.  Maybe the folks at Dole were especially good at product placement, and dropped off crates of rings, chunks, and crushed bits on the doorstep of every eating place in the country.

"Fat" was not often specified, so anything went: bacon drippings, lard, butter, oleo, Crisco, Wesson Oil, or axle grease. For the Ancient Barbecue Sauce you need tallow (beef or mutton fat rendered from suet) and an otherwise modern sounding recipe for Guacamole calls for mayonnaise (not enough fat in the avocados?) and green food coloring (for St. Patrick's Day?)

Dessert will be cream pie: coconut, banana, chocolate, chocolate rum, coffee, lemon, mint, lime, pineapple and three versions of unspecified flavor "cream."  There are very few chocolate desserts, but there is a Tomato Soup Cake that I remember appeared regularly at Ma's Eating Place.

I had a hard time choosing which recipe to include here, but when I came across the following vegetable dish, I though immediately of my sister Maureen.

CHEESE BEAN A LA FALLHALL

2 cans yellow wax beans

Butter

Brown sugar

White Sauce

1/2 cup grated cheese

1/2 cup aged cheese

I'm sure you can guess that it hails from Wisconsin, and I think you can guess how the ingredients get assembled and baked, but you probably didn't know how to make the aged cheese: dry cheese, grate it until very fine, and pack in glass jars.  It keeps indefinitely and has a fine tang. I'll just bet it does.

I know that I can't count on my sister to be in the same room as, let alone prepare, this tempting treat, so it won't be on the menu on the  Trouserville table this Thanksgiving.  While not traditional fare, the recipe for Upside-Down Fudge Cake in Volume Two does sound pretty good and that could make a guest appearance. So hop in the Ford and drive on up on the 27th of November to find out.

In the meantime, skip on over to read Maureen's blog post Gag Me with a Spoonful of Creamed Corn to understand her aversions to wax beans,  with a side of turnip and creamed spinach.

Book Me No Book

Stevie! Stevie! Stevie!  Yah makin' me crazee!  I wanna read yah book.  Fuh real. Only I don't, um, wanna book-book.  I wanna stuff it on my Kindle. Only, ya know, the papah-back won't fit in the USB port.

Dear Mr. King,

I don't consider myself a complete fangirl.  I haven't named my dog, Cujo. I don't have a tattoo of Christine the demonic car across my shoulders. And while I have a niece named Caroline, she never  has and never will be called Carrie.  At least by me.

I have not read even a tenth of the 112 books you have published, but I admire your story-telling abilities and writerly discipline. The Shining, without a doubt, is the scariest late-night reading ever. Red-rum. Red-rum. Maximum creep factor. (The movie version just made me laugh out loud, but I'm not sure how much you had to do with that.) You also get personal cred for being a Red Sox fan and for your charitable endeavors. 

So, Stephen,  what's up with the latest book?

Looking for a little light reading for a late-summer evening, I hopped onto Amazon to purchase one of your most recent books, Joyland. Well, knock me over with a card catalogue; it's not available as an e-book. Huh-whuh?

I know you have your reasons.  They are right there in the book description:


"I love crime, I love mysteries, and I love ghosts. That combo made Hard Case Crime the perfect venue for this book, which is one of my favorites. I also loved the paperbacks I grew up with as a kid, and for that reason, we’re going to hold off on e-publishing this one for the time being. Joyland will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book." – Stephen King

Well, okay, there is a kind of a logic to that, and I get the noirish aesthetic angle. I loved paperbacks, too.  But right now I just don't want to buy an actual book.

Here's the deal:  I'm old. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. I don't want to go piling up stuff that my relicts will have to deal with. I like books that are invisible until I plunk the magic twanger and they magically appear, glowing in the dark.

Another thing is that it is summer.  The height of the tourist season here on lovely old Cape Cod. The nearest bookstore is miles and miles away, and, like I said, I'm old. I don't want to spend a half-hour trying to turn out onto or in from our lovely old Route 6. Talk about a clogged artery.  Nor do I want to spend over an hour making the ten-mile trip back from a possible fruitless outing to the nearest metropolis.

Yes, I could order it from Amazon.  I don't worry about the carbon footprint thing. The UPS truck is coming into this neck of the woods anyway. I order little things all the time in the summer--plastic storage containers, a watering can, a crochet hook--because I don't want to drive to a store which will be filled with tourists, one of whom has probably grabbed the last C2032 battery right from under my watery eyes. Or to a store that has the goods, but not in a version I can live with. I mean, really, do I look like the kind of gal who want to be using a baby-pink watering can? If this is the last watering can I ever buy, I want to like the color. 

But I just don't want to order something I don't want. Not even if you want me to. I'd like to have my own choice of reading experience. 

Maybe I will get to read the book someday. Maybe somebody I know will buy it and pass it on. Maybe I will trip across a copy later on this year. But for now, I'm afraid it's NO SALE.

Sincerely yours,

Kathleen "The Codger" Rogers

Fallen? Can't Get Up?

Do I have the guy for you! 

Fell while rushing to answer the phone which had fallen
behind the seat cushions of his Lazy-Boy recliner.

Sorry, I can't introduce you by name, but he does have a lot to say for himself, as you can see from the following transcript of his weekly call, provided by Xfinity Voice Mail because I may be in my elder years, but do you think I am demented enough to pick up the phone when the caller is unknown and unidentified? Let alone get sucked into the slimy vortex of a monitoring contract on a no-name plastic panic button.

Voicemail from (622) 259-8471

"collin(?) I can't get a type of system you seen on TV. Looks like the system is been recommended by thousands of hospitals and medical professionals. Let's see says here that the systems already been paid for. Looks like you're getting the system because you do yourself a friend or family member or maybe even someone(?) you know who's experienced a fall in the past so again. It's already been paid for. So there's no cost to you whatsoever. Also says here that the shipping has already been paid f..."

If only my phone had super-spidey robo-rejecting powers!  But no. The phone line this call is coming in on is not living in the future, so we can't prevent these intrusions, and I am sure what is id'd as a "Phone Number" is just random garbage so why bother to complain. I wish I could forward the calls to "Kevin," the actual real-live nincompoop who calls here frequently to offer us power-washing services, promises to remove our number from the list, and calls again in a couple of weeks.  

You may have noticed that the transcript from Mr. Fallen is a bit, um, incoherent. It's not an artifact of Xfinity's voice recognition system which is pretty good, but having actually listened to this voice mail once, I can tell you that Mr. Fallen really does sound like he is a bit, um, in the bag.

Or perhaps it is he who has fallen and can't get up. I hope so.  I hope he lays there until he mummifies. Or maybe he already has.

Medieval Teenage Assassin Nuns

My high school summer reading list was never like this: in Brittany in the late1400's a young girl escapes from an arranged marriage to a violent lout and is taken in by the Convent of St. Mortain (yes, that is "mort" as in "death") where she is trained as an assassin and then, disguised as a courtesan, sent on missions to save Brittany from the French by poisoning, knifing, and otherwise dispatching villains who've been fingered by Mother Superior.  

My English teacher, Sister St. Sourpuss, would be having a conniption fit, for oh, so many reasons. 

And here's something else to send her into a tailspin: I don't have to lug the book around getting sand and soda pop all over it, I can stick it in my ear, courtesy of Audiobook Sync which pairs a modern Young Adult novel with a classic and distributes them during the summer, courtesy of the publisher's marketeers. I just finished listening to the recent selection blurbed above, Grave Mercy,(Volume 1 of the  His Fair Assassin Trilogy, by Robin LaFevers) which is paired with a full cast recording of Hamlet. 


I know that I often climb aboard my ancient flivver of doom to spew nostalgia all over the 21st century, but here's a case in which things have clearly improved.  Yes, teenage nun assassins are a bit extreme but, hey, this is actually a fairly well-researched historical novel about the court of Anne de Bretagne, and I applaud stories about young women on a high stakes heroine's journey that doesn't end with a date for the prom.  It sure beats the crap out Cherry Ames, Department Store Nurse or Donna Parker, On Her Own which were considered appropriate "free reading" back in the day.  To those gals the mystery of the missing bracelet or a bad hair day were as challenging as it got. As for the assigned summer reading which included such gems as Mrs. Mike, all I can say is who would you rather read about: a bad-ass medieval assassin girl swanning around court in fancy dress  or a Mountie's wife swatting blackflies and rabid raccoons in East Overshoe, Canada? 

Don't tell Sister St. Sourpuss, but I'm off to order the next of His Fair Assassins, Dark Triumph.

"Go To Jail, Go Directly To Jail, Do Not Pass Go,

Do Not Collect $200!"


Back in the day there were no sweeter words in the world. Your Monopoly opponent drew the dreaded Jail Card and had to sit out a turn while you gloated and scurried to advance your own agenda.







Sorry, kids, no longer will you experience that particular thrill of schadenfreude, at least while playing the updated Monopoly Empire, Own the World's Top Brands. According to Hasbro's website Mo-Emp's neatsy-keen features are:

Buy and trade the world's top brands and be first to the top!

Cool brand tokens

Fast, fun gameplay

Watch the Monopoly Empire towers rise and fall

Yes, kids, you can spend your increasingly rare free time striving for world domination through consumer products. How patriotic! And how much fun will you have watching those towers rise and fall? Lots, I'll bet, since you are probably too young to equate towers falling with the fruits of jihad. No worries, though, since we are talking fast, fun gameplay there will be no jail.  

That's right, a no-holds-barred quest for power with no pesky time-outs for bad behavior or bad luck. A dream come true.

Much as I would like remain on the soapbox about the ethical subtext of eliminating the Jail Card, I won't.  I have some sympathy for those traditional game makers who have to concern themselves with "snackability." New games, or versions of old favorites, have to be quick enough to play in the ten-minutes of downtime a child might have between etiquette lessons and vocabulary boot camp. (You can read more about this in the recent Wall St. Journal article Toys for Tight Schedules.)

Unless you owned the Monopoly set, you
 were never ever in a million billion years
going to get to use the Scottie dog or the
racing car. 

I have no nostalgia for those cute little Monopoly tokens of yesteryear, (oh, okay, maybe the iron), and even back in the day the plutocratic Monopoly Man was a bit dated.  The battle against product placement everywhere has everywhere been lost. Time-stressed multi-tasking is a way of life even for toddlers. We all live in Snack World.






But it seems a little sad that a lot of today's kids just don't have the time, even if they had the inclination, to loll about on an old blanket in someone's backyard and play Monopoly for hours. Yes, kids, there was a time when the phrase "drink the Kool-Aid" meant sugar-soaked fun, when sun tan lotion was meant to attract rays not repel them, and when "Go directly to jail," didn't sound like the tagline for yet another TV show.

Cute Vegetable Overload

Locavore or just plain loca? 

Here's how I spent high double digits on Wednesday (not including the chicken in the fridge and the scone which I scarfed down before the photo shoot and the foraged cranberry chutney which is hidden so that not just anyone can eat it right out of the jar).

Unedited, UnPotoshopped, UnInstagram'd!
Local produce from the local Farmers' Market.
Doesn't it look good enough to blog, I mean, eat?

Yup! It's summer and it's time for Veggie Pr*n ("pr*n"because of course we don't want to spell out the "p" word do we? I think I can do without comments from anyone who lusts after unseemly, albeit organic, acts with tubers, cucurbits, brassicas or deadly nightshades.)

I'm not such a curmudgeon that I want to return to the days of pallid crunchy "Cello" tomatoes or lettuce=iceberg of my childhood, but sometimes the Farmers' Market is all a bit much. I don't need my produce curated into precious little bunches, and arranged just so on the tables. I don't need the customers who monopolize the attention of the vendors with self-congratulatory questions and eventually move on, coffee in hand, without buying anything else. I really don't need them waltzing around with their vile little dogs, on leashes of course, but on leashes that are a hazard to navigation for those of us who actually want to buy something and get the hell out of there.

I have a vegetable garden and I understand there is nothing cute about the process of getting food out of the ground. Nothing cute about the heat, the humidity, the mosquitoes, the cabbage moths, the lettuce slugs. But no one wants to think about all that when they're buying a beet, and I certainly don't fault the farmers' marketing efforts. I just wish it wasn't such a tourist attraction for dog-walking idlers, and, starting this week it'll be packed with urban parents  with their binky-biters in tow explaining how K is for kale and kale is green and don't worry, I won't actually make you eat any. Bah, Potato Bug!


Bonus Vegetable Content

This didn't make it into the beauty shot, either:  a Caraflex Cabbage, a Welsh variety of the "Conehead" type. Much as I would like to claim credit for the mot, I didn't make that up.

"Tell them you're from Wikipedia."

 "Tell them you're from Wales."

Cinema Inferno

The first movie I ever saw in a theater was Alice in Wonderland (Disney not Depp).  In glorious color. It was awesome. I don't remember much about it, but my mother took me and, I think, my aunt, downtown to see it. I'm sure there was no buttered popcorn or Junior Mints in the experience because first, I would have been wearing a clean, starched, and ironed dress, and second, we lived in No-Candyland, except for the occasional Hershey bar my father would sneak in and split among us. No matter. What I didn't know about, I didn't miss. What I did know was that walking into that dark theater and seeing giant cartoons in front of me was pure magic. An American Cinema Paradiso.

Flash forward to 2013.  A new cinema has opened not far from my home.  I wish I could say that I am excited that the musty old multiplex has been renovated and that I look forward to visiting. But I can't. I fear this cranky old crone-nut is not  Showcase Superlux material. The cinema is part of the swanky new "lifestyle complex," The Street At Chestnut Hill, and, apart from my general lack of interest in lifestyle complexes, there is a reason I won't be experiencing the Superlux Experience any time soon.

Not that Superlux has absolutely zero appeal. Even if management can't guarantee that every flick features Superlux Story, Acting, or Direction, I might have been persuaded by the Superlux Seats which recline and have footrests,the Superlux Technology with state of the art bells and whistles, the Superlux Carpeting with no gum stuck to it, and the Superlux Restrooms which must boast red carpet amenities and nary a wad of sodden toilet paper to sully their Superlux Floors.

But the Superlux Experience has one big Superlux Feature that turns it into Cinema Inferno.

It's not  the admission price tag which tops out at a hellish $28, although I do admit to a bit of sticker shock since the last movie I went to cost $7.50.  And, no that wasn't in the year ought-five, it was last Friday evening.  

It's not even the circles-of-hell tiered system of admissions--Lux Lite (a mere $20) and Superlux--with their different levels of cushiness and service, like a plane. (There doesn't appear to be a Geezer Discount, which in and of itself isn't the deal breaker.)

No, It's the diabolical Superlux Food and Beverage Service. Yes, service.  Superluxians can order food and drink right without getting off their Superlux Tushes--and it will be delivered to them by black-clad waitrons at any time. Yes, any time, including during the movie.

Won't that be exciting? Watching all those servers stumbling around with trays full of $9 Margaritas and micro-brews, instead of watching the screen?  Smelling the delightful aromas of appetizers ($8-16) wafting through the auditorium? Hot dog! Every film will be "Smell-o-Vision." (If you want a chuckle, click the link to find out how that technology worked out.)  Will they suspend service at crucial moments? Or will you listen to the big reveal or the deathbed confession over the sound of  "Which one of you ordered the Thai rolls?" I have been both audience and performer in smallish theaters, and I can assure you that someone chowing down a Carnivore's Delight pizza or digging into a mound of malodorous take-out is quite the, um, Experience.  And it ain't Superlux.  Not to mention the to-ing and fro-ing which I would find mighty distracting.

If you create an atmosphere of a cocktail lounge happy hour, no matter how upmarket, how do you think the patrons will behave? Like people who are there to be absorbed in the movie? Or people who are out to par-tay? Will there be Superlux Cones of Silence to drop around them? Or do the waitrons double as bouncers?

I understand the commercial impulse behind all this. There is nothing wrong with wanting people to leave their comfy caves and spend money in your entertainment establishment.  I hope people have a rip-roaring good time and that they feel their triple-digit evening at the movies is worth it. I hope that no one has a plate of pulled pork dropped onto a silk blouse or wind up with a lapful of brewski. I hope that "Sh-h-h" doesn't escalate to "Shut the %@#* up!"

But I won't be there to find out. I recently figured out how to operate the remote controls for the superlux technology that has stood idle here in Trousertown for many a year,  I am more than happy to lounge around the den where the only Smell-O-Vision is the scent of pine trees and the ocean. Where I can loll shoeless, clutching my beverage of choice. Where I can unapologetically binge-watch "Game of Thrones" and "Breaking Bad" and "Duck Dynasty." Best of all? No Cones of Silence will ever be required.

My New Mantra

My New-woo-woo Age days are long gone.  Haven't seen those chakra crystals in years.  Hope I didn't mistake them for candy. I'm as likely to levitate as to meditate and all the weirdo books have been passed on or reincarnated. That doesn't mean I can't have a mantra.  You know, a nice, comforting little catchphrase to help negotiate the downward spiral.

Thanks to my nieces, who keep me au courant with You Tube, I now have a doozy. Not only do I have a mantra, but I share it with a totem animal:  Honey Badger.  Not Honey Boo-Boo, although I'm sure she would make a fine totem and she does generate a steady stream of mantra-worthy comments ("a dollah makes me hollah"), but Honey Badger.

Honey Badger is some kind of Asian weasel and the subject of many a nature video. I won't get sidetracked here by praising the glory of an economic system which allows this guy, Randall, to parlay one amusing YouTube video--a snarky voiceover on a low-budget nature video with over 59 million views--into some kind of media empire, complete with apps, contests, books, swag, and whatever else constitutes success these days. 

I want to concentrate on what I learned from Randall and Honey Badger. 

What I learned was this suitable-for-almost-every-occasion mantra: Honey Badger don't care; Honey Badger don't give a $#!+.

This is an excellent motto for growing older, don't you think?  It sure comes in handy for me.

Can't find the car keys?  HBDC. Repeat it long enough and the car keys will appear, or I'll lose all interest in wherever it was i was headed.

Don't feel like going to the condo's annual meeting? HBDGAS. Don't worry.  If there is something I need to know, I'll get a notice or I can gossip with the super.

Donate to this or that charity not already on my list? Answer this or that survey? Iron those pillowcases? Rate that tee shirt purchase? Fruit or ice cream for dessert? Paper or plastic? 

Thanks to Honey Badger, I don't have to devote one minute of my allotted span to worthless activities or pointless decisions. 

I just mutter that mantra and waddle on.

Accelerating Decrepitude

It's all too true what they say about time:  the older you get, the faster it passes.

Why, it seems like only a few weeks ago I was writing about the As We Change catalog, which contained items to combat thinning hair, prevent sun damage, and cover up as much flesh as possible while exercising.  I had the temerity to poke fun at its vision.

The universe scoffs, and in a matter of days, I have been cast out of the demographic of aging but active to that of borderline vegetable.

Or so it would seem from Gold Violin, Helpful Products for Independent Living.  Gold Violin? I am sure they wanted to write "Golden Harp," as in post-life sitting on a cloud and strumming, but were turned down by the marketing director.

While some of the products might be useful for anyone over the age of 30 (a rolling book cart in several kippy colors, a mini Crosley radio in several kippy colors, and a Cotton Dream blanket in several ghastly pastels), those products are few and far between.  There are three or four dubious items such as the Border Print Kaftan  on page 3 which would make eyeballs explode if you wore it, as suggested, at the shopping mall or for an evening with friends. Unless, of course, your friends were other Golden Violinists.  At least the Kaftan assumes some mobility, if not fashion sense.  

The bulk of the catalog is devoted to the "far between," a vast tundra of items which appear to be consumer versions of nursing home equipment.

Do I need to recite the litany? I will anyway, but the product descriptions need no comment. 

Ultralight Designer Travel Chair:  "Go anywhere travel chair is ideal for taking Mom shopping or helping your husband enjoy a cruise."

Gold VIolin Waterproof Shirt-Saver: "Take the worry and the stains out of mealtimes . . ."

Wipe Assist: "Even with limited mobility, you can maintain personal hygiene and keep your dignity intact."

Super Absorbent Wellness Briefs: "Based on designs used by NASA astronauts . . ."

People, we are talking strollers, bibs, diapers. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, or to stock up now. I am not immune to the fantasy that I will live to be old-old, that I will drop neatly and tidily in my tracks, and that I will maintain sufficient flexibility to wipe my own ass. But who knows what kicks in the head the universe has in store. So I'm not taking any chances.

Note to my younger family members:  I'm filing this catalog with the important papers so you'll know where to find it. I would hate for my Border Print Kaftan to become soiled with unseemly bodily excrescences, and I'm advising you now to do those upper body workouts so you will have the muscular wherewithal to push my sorry butt around Star Market in the Ultralight Designer Travel Chair.  I'm doing my part on the exercise front so we won't require the "Bariatric Travel Chair":  Supports 450 pounds.

Cardinal Dolan, Caped Crusader for Christ

Maybe he just breathed in too much incense, or overdid it on the jelly beans, but Timothy Cardinal Dolan's Easter Sunday remarks about the Catholic Church and gays ( as reported in The New York TImes) were deliciously chuckleheaded.  

“I think what we can’t tamper with what God has revealed,” he added. But, he said, “we can try to do better in the way we present them with more credibility and in a more compelling way.”

And what is this more credible, more compelling way?  He's going to tell them he loves them, god loves them, the catholic church understands their needs for "friendship," so come on down.  But, well, um, erm, just don't expect to ever have sex again, because you know that sex is only for the married, and married is “one man, one woman, forever, to bring about new life."

Well, good luck with that, Timbo.  Smilin' Frankie may be a really nice guy,  humble pope, and all that, but I don't think the combined super Spidey powers  of St. John the Baptist, Don Draper and Big Data  can help you and the lads.  Hmm-mm-mm. Have you considered asking those clever folks at Big Food how to create the "crave" for the communion wafers?  Maybe you could toss the wafers, unconsecrated of course, off a float at this year's Pride parade.  They always welcome men in dresses, and yours are fabulous, but I think you'll have to do some serious work on your hair and makeup. 

Pax vobiscum, homines. 
(Or, as we say here on earth, "Peace out, dudes.")

Nota Bene:  To those of you who think I am being too mean to the pope and the cardinals, I would like to point out two things.  First, without trying very hard at all, I could be a lot more scathing.  Second,  these people are professional cheek-turners and wannabe martyrs, so in the remote eventuality that any contumely that I might dish out here comes to their attention, it will be as catnip to cats. How do I know? "Jesus said it*, so it must be true."  And he says I can take their coats and their cloaks, too, so there.

*Right over here in Matthew 5:38-40
38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak, also.

Does This Thumb-Brace Make My Butt Look Fat?

Please.  Tell me the truth.  Does it?

Clothes-horsiness doesn't run in my family, with the exception of my late Uncle Charlie whose only legacy was a wardrobe full of natty suits and colorful shirts with French cuffs. Not to say that you can't dress us up and take us out once in a while, but since I left the business world my usual 24/7 look is yoga pants (see disclaimer below)* and a tee shirt, with the addition of a fleece jacket in winter. On social occasions requiring more formality, I try to make my late mother proud by aspiring to be “kippy” which in Lizzie's Lexicon meant “anyone over 60 who is wearing a bright orange and pink scarf with a dark wool coat.”

I have quite the collection of scarves, especially since I took up knitting again, but what I hadn't bargained on was having to make closet room for another set of accessories. The kind that come with trying to stay active while aging. These include but are not limited to: sunglasses with stretch holders to keep them on my face, Frankenstein boots with orthotics to keep my toe straight, and the ultimate in osteoarthritic chic: a drawer full of thumb braces, including this classy custom number.

Bespoke Brigham & Women's Orthopedic Design

My wardrobe of thumb braces have come from the most chic boutiques:  stretchy gray fingerless gloves (Amazon), off the shelf braces in nude and black (CVS), and a sporty neoprene number (North Shore Medical).  They all must think the thumb brace makes my butt look fat because they've spread the word of my decrepitude. 

I can't think of another reason why I received this fabulous catalog:  As We Change.

First of all, I love the charitable, if euphemistic, title: As We Change? Really, would you wish to receive a publication called As We Decay? A Gathering of Wrinkles? Fade 'n' Sag?

Secondly, this is clearly for women only. Even if the cover model is wearing a bathing suit, it is hardly the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition type, so no male in the household would tempted to take a peek.  This is good because it will spare me the trip to the ER to rule out concussion when he recoils horror at the stupefying array of embarrassing problem-solvers within, falls on the floor and bangs his head muttering "butt-boosting wrinkle smoother. "

Some of the items are less distressing than others. It's easy to get distracted by page after page of shampoos, creams, serums, tablets, and sprays to solve the problem of thinning and/or graying hair.  They must work, though, because the models all look like they are 39, there's not a gray hair in sight, and who wouldn't want to look like the Real Housewives of Never-Never Land?  Tempting as this outcome would be, some of these  products seem engineered to create as many problems as they solve.

Suppose I succumb to Viviscal: "Simply shake Viviscal hair filler fibers on your head and blend." Shake them on your head and blend?   With a whisk?  An egg beater?  One of the mini-vibrators on page 51? And what are these fibers made of? How will they stick to the pathetic remains of my hair?  What if I choose the wrong color?  Or add too much product? Will I end up looking like the Pointy Haired Boss in Dilbert?  What happens if I inhale them as they cascade around my head and shoulders?  Do I need a face mask to use them? 

No.  Can't waste my time worrying about that. Better to concentrate on products more appealing to us thumb brace users: active types who worrry about their flying flab. Great! There's a full range of work-out clothes, all of which feature some kind of slimming element, which is another way of saying they will constrict you so much that you won't be able to breathe very well if you actually try to work out in them.  

Oh, no, I just realized the thumb brace might make my butt and my arms look fat. Thank goodness, I can take advantage of the last chance offer to purchase Tres Sleek arm shapers which will slim my upper arms by 1/2" to 3."  Super! But where does the excess flesh go?  Will it ooze out onto my lower arms and make me look like Popeye?  Hard to guess because the woman modeling it resembles Olive Oyl. 

Better move on to the swimsuits. There are many swimsuits, a lot of them with skirts, along with oversized sunhats and some darling beach coverups that resemble strapless muumuus.  All right! I think I've found the key to butt-concealing, arm-hiding nirvana.  A  muumuu.  Problem is, AWC doesn't have any with sleeves.  Not a problem. I know where to get one with sleeves. Bonus! Add one of those oversized sunhat  and some bunion-friendly sandals and I will be ready to rock the boardwalk.  There is only one drawback (sorry, Lizzie):  even if I buy the fuchsia number with the dancing daisies, I am afraid I won't really look very kippy at all.

*No, not lululemon brand, which has recently issued a recall for "too sheer" yoga pants; a move that the L A TImes says has put their stock into "downward dog."

Just Say Chantenay

Can you say "Chantenay?"

Shawn-Ten-A. 

There, I knew you could.  Miss Rogers is proud of you, even if she's not wearing her cardigan.

Now, boys and girls, who can tell me what Chantenay is?

No, not a famous pop diva; that would be Beyonce.   Not a discontinued Cadillac roadster (Allante) or high-priced wine (Santenay).  It's not even one of those perfumes that make you wish you carried a gas mask when you are stuck in an elevator going to the 40th floor behind someone who seems to have pickled themselves and their clothes with it.

No, Chantenay is a carrot.

If you've dined out in a white tablecloth restaurant lately you have probably seen it listed on the menu as an accompaniment (please, we don't say “side dish” anymore) to, oh, pan-seared scallops with pureed turnips, truffles, and crispy shallots ("excellent choice"). You salivate. This is going to be something special, something novel, something you'll want to take a picture of and share with everyone you know.

You wait with growing anticipation. When your plate arrives (please be careful, it's hot), you poke around, you find the four tiny orange cubes. You taste them. Why it's just like eating a . . . well, a carrot. A Bugs Bunny, grocery store, snack-in-a-bag carrot. Of course, it is slathered with a sauce of three parts butter, one part salt that could make a slice of Styrofoam palatable, but it is still just a carrot.

I don't have any great nostalgia for the good old days when iceberg was the only lettuce, calves' liver (shudder) was regarded as a health food, and carrots sometimes came in cans as a component of the dreaded “Mixed Veg, ” but I think I am missing the point of the Chantenay carrots. Of course I'm missing any number of things these days what with getting older and losing my taste buds, my sense of smell, and my mind (if what I read in the newspaper is correct), but I can still let my fingers do the walking and found out something interesting.

To oversimplify, because I am not a botanist or a farmer and there is no impartial fact checker here in Trouserville, there are a couple types of ordinary carrots that have been used for years by processors: Danvers and Chantenay. Yes, that's Danvers as in Danvers, Massachusetts, where the variety was introduced in 1871. Chantenay came to us from France. Both of them came from the vicinity of Afghanistan via the Netherlands.

Turns out we've been eating Chantenays for years without knowing it, but now through the miracle of marketing they can garner a premium price on the menu.  I don't find these menus entertaining at all, nor do I find the over-described and obscure ingredients anything to get excited about.  Let's just dump those Chantenays in the compost bin marked excessive complexity and meaningless choice. Right down there with purple potatoes, micro-greens,  and samphire (that's glasswort to you, Bub, a plant that anyone can yank out of the marsh for free).

Chantenays do have some interesting attributes, though.  Look at their publicity photo.  Compare them to thin scrawny supermarket carrots.   Or to tiny little baby snack-bag carrots (which I am sure I don't have to tell you are just ground-down pieces of bigger carrots.)

Actual carrots are much larger, thicker, and longer than they appear in this photo.

Now, now, boys and girls, let's stop the sniggering. 

Miss Rogers says, "Remember, sometimes a carrot is just a carrot."

For extra credit, take a trip to  The Carrot Museum.




A big Trouserville Thank-You to my talented friend Mary who called my attention to the Chantenay on the menu during a recent restaurant outing.