What’s your favorite bird? If I had to guess, maybe some of you would say the Carolina Wren. Or the Cardinal.  Or the Gold Finch.  But dollars to donuts, I will bet none of you said the Crow.

The Crow. Cousin to the Raven.  Those black as midnight birds that lore and legend have painted as sinister omens, harbingers of ill.  Something to be feared, not loved.  Most other birds are referred to as flocks when there are more than a few together.  But Crows? Their gathering is called a Murder.

And now, having just read some revealing information about Crows, that lore and legend might not be too far off.

Delco is having a minute.  If you are wondering what a Delco is, that is short for Delaware County and is one of the 4 collar counties surrounding the city of Philadelphia.

The other three counties are Chester, Montgomery, and Bucks.

And these 4 places couldn’t be more different.

Chester County.  Think landed gentry and people dressed like English nobility hunting fox in the rolling hills and woods on their noble steeds and their pack of hounds.

Bucks County. Think Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hadid and their 7 million dollar farmhouse.  Also think Washington’s crossing, more farmhouses, and museums.  And as much a suburb of New York as Philly.

Montgomery County. Think nothing too exciting.  Mix of suburban and rural. While Bucks County has the site where Washington crossed the Delaware to raid the Hessians in Trenton, Montgomery County has Valley Forge, where the Continental Army spent that really awful winter of 1776. There’s also a nice little zoo.

But Delco? Well, Delco has an edge to it.  It’s a little hardscrabble, a little rough and tumble.  Working class and proud of it.  A lot of immigrants back in the day. Today, it is still ranked highest in racial and ethnic diversity vs the other 3 counties.  

Ah, the New Year.  That opportunity to look back and reflect on the year just passed, take stock, and look towards the upcoming one with Hope and Optimism.  Unless you are someone who voted for Harris in 2024, in which case, that Hope and Optimism is tinged with Fear and Loathing and wondering if you’ll survive until the Mid-terms, which are 302 days, 8 hours, and 20 minutes, and 10 seconds away, but who’s counting.

 The New Year is that chance to hit the reset button on anything that you feel you could improve about yourself.  That reset takes the form of …clouds part, heavenly light pours forth, and the Angelic Host sing… The New Year’s Resolution. 

 Also known as The Thing I Say I Am Going To Do, But Quickly Forget About or Outright Abandon Within Two Weeks.

It was 5:30 pm on a Wednesday night when Ernie and I walked out of our favorite children’s thrift store, having scored a nice sweater and two cute bottoms for $9 total, and the piéce de resistance, one of those standing stool things that lets your kid stand safely at the counter for $15.  They retail for $75. 

Feeling pretty good with our haul, and a little flush with cash from having sold our CD collection, about 250 CD’s for $100 bucks, earlier in the day and more than a little hungry, Ernie suggested we go out for dinner.  I readily agreed.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  As we were standing in the parking lot, Ernie looks up and said, “Hey, why don’t we eat at that Ukrainian restaurant right there?”

Me: Are you kidding me right now? Ukrainian? I don’t think they are really known for their cuisine.  Like what is it? The only thing that comes to my mind is Borscht.  And I am pretty sure I don’t want to eat Borscht.  And I say that while I am pretty sure I don’t even know what Borscht is.  What about Pasta Fazool? That’s right near here.   (Visions of eggplant parmesan danced in my head).

Ernie: No, this place is good. I ate here before.

Me: When?

Ernie: 25 years ago.

An eye roll and a few sighs later, we agreed to at least look on Yelp and see what the ratings were.

Warning.  This blog post is going to cover some of the joys of being retired. For those of you, like me, who are retired, please feel free to read on.  Those of you still in the daily grind, perhaps pause and evaluate before reading further.  I wish to cause no one any undue negative feelings that might arise.  So continue at your own risk.

I will proffer, that if you do read on and do find some small measure of yearning, jealousy or resentment arise, you can console yourselves that you have a huge joy that is hard to beat. And that is, a steady income and probably good healthcare coverage.  I say probably, because well, the state of healthcare right now is anybody’s guess.

With those disclaimers out of the way, let us proceed.

There are many joys of being retired.  No need to set an alarm, ability to take a nap whenever you want, time to travel, freedom to do whatever you want.  There really are so many joys of being retired, they are too numerous to list here.

But there’s one that absolutely tops the list. 

It’s December.  That time of year.  Nope. Not Santa nor Baby Jesus nor Reindeer nor Christmas Trees nor Presents nor Hannukah.  Though of course it is that, too.

I am talking about the year-end Spotify Wrap Up.  Forget mindfulness practice, yoga, and/or meditation.  For instant self-awareness, all you need is your Spotify Wrap Up.

That little algorithm which compiles all your listening data for the past year and then serves it up to you in fun, bite-sized nuggets that tells you everything you need to know about yourself.

What insights can be gleaned on this voyage of self-discovery?

It starts with the basics.

Forget about there must be 50 ways to leave your lover.  Instead, there must be 50 ways to cook a turkey.

As another Thanksgiving holiday is soon upon us, let us reflect upon the many ways that that centerpiece of everyone’s holiday meal, the turkey, may be prepared.

Let’s start with the base level of turkey preparation.  One I have aptly named, The Basic.

SOS? Or Brillo? IMHO, there is no contest.  It’s hands down, SOS.

I think I have a lot of data to back me up here.  Being Italian-American, the 4^th of 5 children, and being female, meant my dishwashing days began early.  I think KP duty for me began around age 10. 

For anyone unfamiliar with the rules of being Italian-American growing up in the 60’s and 70’s as I did, it meant if you were a girl, you did the dishes.  You cooked. You cleaned. You did the laundry.  Your brothers? They mowed the lawn. 

And no matter how your feminist ire was stoked by this and much as you spoke out against the injustice of it all, you were still the one doing the dishes, and pretty much all of the housework. Italian-American households back then believed in child labor, the division of that labor based on gender, and ruled like Caesar was still a thing.

Brrr!!  It was cold for like a nanosecond one day earlier this week.  Today, though? As I write this it is a balmy 66.  The sun is shining, we are shedding layers, even going so far as to put on a pair of shorts, and one might mistake it to be the month of May instead of November.  Unusual weather for this time of year to be sure.  After all Axle Rose wasn’t singing about the warm November rain.

But before we consider the effects of global warming, my weather app tells me a cold snap is approaching.  Looks to be arriving on Monday where we will see a 20 degree drop in temperature.  Someone failed to give the arctic jet stream the memo about global warming. So for you lovers of cool weather, it looks like it is coming.

Which brings us back to the cold day we had for a nanosecond one day earlier this week.

My previous blog posts on the aging process notwithstanding, I’d have said I was doing fairly well overall in the aging department.

Enter a grandchild.  There is nothing that will disabuse one of the notion that you are doing fairly well in the aging process like the arrival of a grandchild.

First, can we talk about the misnomer of the phrase Aging Process?  It really is a euphemism.  Because, when I hear the words Aging Process, I think wine.  I think cheese.  Delicious things that only get better with age.  In fact, it is the Aging Process that brings these things to the height of their perfection.

That is not what happens with we humans.  The Aging Process is the reverse of that.  It is the declining of our previous youthful state, which is as close to perfection the human body will ever get.  Really, it should be called the Decaying Process.  Or What Happened to my Mind and Body Process.  Or One Step Closer to the End of the Line Process.  But I suppose those are a bit harsh and some might find it harder to maintain a state of false reality that we are in fact, doing ok and the end is not near.

Which brings us back to the grandchild. 

Patience.  Not that I ever had much of it to begin with.  But now? I’d say that my patience is inversely proportional to my age.  The older I get, the less patience I have.

Case in point.  Shopping carts, too small aisles, and seemingly clue-less people.  That right there is the trifecta that will send me running for a crisp glass of Sauvignon Blanc to ease my stress. That or my meditation app. Breathe, 2,3,4, hold, 2,3,4, and exhale 2,3,4,5,6, 7.

I used to not have any problem shopping.  So I ask you, did the shopping aisles in any store today, get smaller? I know the carts did not get bigger, because some of them have in fact, gotten smaller.  Have some people gotten more clueless and now have zero knowledge of aisle etiquette?

I might be in trouble when sea urchins are more fashionable than me.

Have you seen this story about the sea urchins who like to wear hats?

Well, it started out that they liked to wear rocks and shells on their heads to protect them from predators and the sun.

But then some staff at an aquarium got the idea to 3D-print some hats for them and turns out the sea urchins love them.

Now these creatures are sporting hats, all kinds of hats depending on their mood and occasion.  Feeling formal?  Wear the top hat.  In a country kind of mood? Go for the cowboy hat.  Want to feel strong and mighty? A Viking hat will do the trick.  In the mood for oh je nais se quois? Un beret, bien sûr.

I like to go to places like Marshall’s and Home Goods and look at all the fancy hand soaps they sell.  Operative word there being “look”.  I do not “buy” because it seems like a lot of money to spend on some hand soap.  Yes, the container and the packaging are pretty.  Yes, it smells nice.  But do I need to spend $5 to $8 for that?  Soap is soap after all.  The brand I buy at Giant for a dollar gets the job done just fine.

After being married to Ernie for 39 years and 3 months (but who’s counting), I guess some of his thriftiness has rubbed off on me.  Because if I followed suit in the manner of my mom, for example, she wouldn’t bat an eye at buying the pretty, more expensive soap.

But, while I am willing to live large on some things with my disposable income, as I covered in last week’s blog (expensive pepperoni pizza at Maple Glen, super soft Charmin toilet paper, and Puffs Plus tissues in the square, not rectangular, box), I am not so inclined to pay extra on hand soap just for pretty packaging.

However.  That is, until now, where I have reached my limit of patience with the dang dollar brand at Giant.

What do you suppose might be some signs of a society going soft?  Might one of them be paying $1,400.00 for someone to place some pumpkins on your porch, along with a bale of hay or two?

Walking through the neighborhood the other day, I noticed a sign on a lawn that said Penn Pumpkin Concierge Pumpkin Delivery and Design.  Looking up to the porch, I saw a few pumpkins by the front door.  You know. Like if you went to a local nursery, or supermarket, or Lowe’s yourself and bought a few pumpkins and placed them by your front door.  It looked nothing out of the ordinary.  Nothing at all like some Pumpkin design guru with a degree in Pumpkinology or who apprenticed for years under a Master Pumpkinologist Designer was at work.  I mean, for $1400.00 I would expect some jaw dropping, spectacular display of pumpkins.

Intrigued, I googled the company when I got home.

I should have known we were in for an interesting night when I saw the racoon.  Inside the amphitheater.  He was a roly-poly guy.  Like he had been to one too many All You Can Eat Buffets combined with lacking that neuron in the brain that sends the message to the stomach that you are full.  He was maybe 3 feet from me as he ambled over to the trash can to help himself to that night’s dinner.

But that wasn’t even the surprising thing.  The surprising thing?  Watching the two police people who were standing right next to the trashcan not react in the least.  In fact, the racoon had to walk between the two of them to get to the trashcan.  He stood within inches of them as he helped himself to the goodies in the can. They looked down at him for like a second and just kept on talking.

Not the reaction most people would have to a wild animal that could do some serious harm to you if it was so inclined, not to mention life threatening harm, if you include the potential for transmitting rabies.

Let’s circle back, shall we, to the corporate world.  But instead of discussing offsites and trainings as we did in one of my previous blogs, let’s think outside the box, do a deep dive, and drill down on another topic: corporate jargon.

Not really sure why the corporate world felt the need to develop its own language.  Because if you ask most people who work in the corporate world, myself included before I retired from it, we will tell you we find it really annoying.  And yet, there we are, at the end of the day, we are all leveling up, hopping on a call, grabbing that low hanging fruit, and unpacking it like it’s our native tongue.

I had planned to follow up my last blog on corporate life with yet another blog on a different aspect of corporate life.

That is, however, until oh, the happiest of days happened.  A day that lifted us all out of our collective misery over all that is wrong in this world right now.  For one shining moment we could set aside all of that angst and rejoice.

For Travis Kelce proposed to Taylor Swift.  He did it in style.  Some beautiful, romantic, lush garden.  An amazing ring, the like of which none of us has seen and that Taylor is going to need to do some weightlifting to have the strength to wear it for more than a minute.

As I was walking into the supermarket the other day, I passed three women on their way out.  They were professionally dressed, carrying what I imagined was their lunch (salads to go I guessed), on their way back to work. 

This is an approximation of what I overheard:

Woman #1:  Oh wow, that was just the best training I think I’ve ever had (gushing more than the geyser at Yellowstone).

Woman #2:  It really, really was! I came away with so much more understanding (equally gushing so as not to be outdone.)

Woman #3:  Really? Oh, that is so good to hear! I am so glad.  I had hoped it would exceed everyone’s expectations. (Spoken in her ‘humble manager who really believes in her people and supports them in the best way possible’ voice).

And that’s when it happened.  The chill that ran down my spine.  It wasn’t from the sub-arctic temperature of the grocery store (summer time + grocery store = bring your parka).

No, it wasn’t that.  In a sudden flash of PTSD (is there any other kind?), my two years of retirement vanished and I was back in the corporate trenches.  One of the worst corporate mine fields? The Offsite Training. Onsite Training runs a close second.

A recent Danish study concluded that banning cell phones could lead to improved academic performance and reduced distractions.

That’s like saying, a recent study concluded that being out in the sun could cause sunburn if you don’t use sunscreen.

Not sure we needed a study to confirm that.  I think we could have safely made that assumption and I don’t think anyone would have questioned any actions arising from making that assumption.

But maybe not.  Denmark is now going to ban mobile phones in schools.  This means that almost all children between seven and seventeen will be required by law not to bring their phones into school.

I’ll take a cheeseburger, fries, and umm, how about two our Fathers, a Hail Mary, aaand why don’t you throw in a Glory Be, while you are at it.

This is what went through my mind the other day as I drove by the little Protestant church near my house.

All along the road they had multiple signs up outside the church touting Drive Thru Prayer.

This has to be a first, right?

Too busy to come into the actual church? No time for a full service? No worries! We got you.  Just swing on by the Drive Thru window and we’ll rustle up some prayers toot suite.