Gray Hair Representative

Corporations do not really have room for comfort. So my comfort days are over, at least for this year.
Instead of sneakers and khakis I have to wear black pumps that kill my feet and polyester/silk blends that don't allow my skin to breathe. Instead of getting my daily walk, I am standing behind a counter helping people with spending their money like they grow it in their backyard. Instead of being behind the scenes I am working up front.

One good thing came out of this change in my job. I am learning how much people still have to learn.

A father of three kids wanted me to help him decide whether he should get a five hundred dollar winter jacket or a diamond teddy bear pendant for his daughter who is in Junior High School. I showed him different options within his budget of five hundred dollars for each of his kids and two thousand dollar budget for his wife. I thought that it was very generous of him. After he spent close to three thousand dollars and got free gift boxes he was really happy. He also got a free wreath as he had spent so much money.

My next customer started whispering things that I really did not want to hear. I did understand her point though. So I just said, "When it comes to parenting, we are all work in progress."

Happy Thanksgiving

  HAPPY THANKSGIVING  to my family, my friends, my blogger friends, my neighbours, my coworkers and my bosses. I hope everyone's wishes come true.

Drive carefully everyone and stay safe.

Elite go green - - -

We saw this tote bag in Barnes and Noble today. It looked interesting to me, so I went close and looked at it. This is made from empty juice boxes that were recycled. I was really tempted to buy it and it took a lot of strength to stop myself. I found the price to be a little steep for a tote bag. I mean, my mom always sewed tote bags, from gabardine pants that my brothers wore out in the knees. We used those to buy dry groceries. Plastic bags for carrying groceries was a foreign concept to me when we moved from India to New York State in 1974. I wanted to take those bags back to buy groceries in them, but I was told that it looks cheap. So instead, I started using them as liners for small garbage cans in our rooms. We were still buying the big hefty bags for the kitchen and for leaves. Then somewhere in the eighties, supermarkets started giving back 2 cents per bag we used over again. Still my friends told me that we get looks from the packers if we brought our own bags. So I felt ashamed. So we all went with the flow and hardly recycled anything until almost the end of last century, when we started bringing our own bags. Now why did I go with the flow? Fear of looking cheap?

Last time when my son came home from Hawaii, I told him how I am a closet environmentalist as I washed and saved plastic forks. He laughed and said that everyone is into recycling, I do not have to be ashamed any more.

Would I listen to myself ? Now why did I feel ashamed to recycle when I come from a place where recycling is the way of life? We left India to make a better life. Does it mean that we start copying the elite ? Well, who are the elite? I would not know.

The snowstorm of last month left us without power for forty hours. Then there were people without power even up to a week. So a lot of people went to hotels, but some hotels and businesses did not have a working generator. People were forced to do without refrigeration and hot coffee and even heat. They had to make use of blankets and live minimally. Then they realized how difficult it is to do without resources. Now just about everyone, especially the elite, is trying to be careful with hot water and heat and electricity. 

How often do we need storms like these?

A Gift Of Gardening Experience

 These were grown in Orange County New York.  However kids in Junior High and High School in Texas will not be able to complete their garden that started growing.  Thanks to Donors Choose program a lot of kids throughout the United States are able to work at projects or receive necessary equipment their school would not be able to provide. This year in spite of getting help, from Donors Choose Program, Texas kids are not able to enjoy the harvest of their hard work. Please help if you can. I am sure they will appreciate a lot.

Here is the link if you would like to help.

October

It was few years ago we were driving on route 9, through Beacon and Cold Spring New York, my husband asked me to write a poem on the month of October as he loves the fall foliage. By the time we got home, I had the poem ready for him. He loves it. Being a science person he does not look at poetry in a critical way. As long as I conveyed his feelings he is happy. Here it is.

October

Colorful leaves of New York Autumn

your beauty is so mellow

Orange, Red and royal Maroon,

lightest Green and Yellow

Heavenly horticulture

surrounding all the highways

you cover majestic mountains

and shine through the sun rays

Graceful, delicate and short lived,

like Tulips and the Daffodils,

you always surrender to winter land

and make room for the sleigh bells

I remember that he pointed out the word "the" before Daffodils as he too had read the famous poem. Then I realized that I should not have assumed that just because he is a science person , he would have nothing to do with fine arts. I was ashamed.

Some thing Fun

Some thing fun or spooky.?  My brother sent these to make me laugh.

Look Out

We do most of our learning by the first four years of our lives, they say. I tend to minus the first nineteen years, (up to twelve years in childhood, then the emo teenage years.) I mean besides our activities of daily life, what aspects of serious life business do we know before we are out of high school? "Plenty," says my husband, because according to him a lot depends on where we come from. He thinks that if you are sheltered you don't learn much, but if you suffer through childhood and teenage years you learn a lot. So, would we know how to recognise kids who are distressed or stressed even and are thinking of killing themselves? I mean if you are a teenager and you see a young girl in deep depression because she is watching her parents go through a divorce would you think she would OD? Or would you just think that it is one of those things emo teenagers go through? Even as an adult if you see an otherwise pleasant co-worker unusually quiet or even complaining that his wife is always putting him down would you think that he would kill himself after killing his wife and kids? How do we know how to help people preemptively? Can we learn?

If you are that one person who is always ahead of the game when it comes to arranging secret Santa or are the person who buys a birthday card and collects wishes for someones birthday, then you can be that person to suggest to the HR of your company to see if there can be a counselor who can come and lecture at your facility. If you are a parent of a kid in high school, you can ask your school board to train people to watch out for signs. I think what we need to do is look out for each other.

Two murder suicide cases on national television are more than enough to make me break till I shatter. It is time we say something to the people with clout.