Foggy is as Foggy Does on Friday

My horoscope for today is a surprisingly accurate fit… for yesterday:

“…Your path is very similar to driving through a fog: all you need to count on is that the road is there, and that your headlights will illuminate the path directly in front of you…”

At one point in the afternoon, I looked up and saw the backside of a man standing on a ladder, fumbling with something on the ceiling. As usual, my mind’s focus was only on the task at hand – getting as much done as accurately and as quickly as I could.

At first, it didn’t even hit me that someone was standing on a ladder in the middle of a big office. A few seconds later, it hit me as odd and curiosity took over. I looked closer and realized that what the man was doing was replacing batteries in the smoke detectors.

“What in the world?” I thought to myself. “Why would the state hire someone specifically to go around replacing smoke detector batteries? How stupid and wasteful is that?”

A Welcomed Sight for Sore Eyes

 

It’s not a great photo. It’s not even a photo of the greatest of sunsets. But, it is a very welcomed sight nonetheless. We’ve had weeks and weeks of almost non stop rain and solid cloud cover. It’s been dreary and depressing. Well, as the cold front moved in this afternoon, it pushed those clouds away. Oh, it was so great to see blue overhead again!

I can’t ask for a better end to a long week and the beginning of the weekend. That just might make it a bit easier to deal with turning the clocks back and shorter days come Sunday.

Head to Wal-Mart For Your Casket

From the realm of the ridiculous, the largest retailer made an announcement today that is sure to add to the giant’s coffers; that is, if anyone can get beyond the issue of the bad taste left in their mouth.

The world's largest retailer wants to keep its customers even after they die.

Wal-Mart has started selling caskets on its Web site at prices that undercut most funeral homes, long the major seller of caskets.

The move follows a similar one by discount rival Costco, which also sells caskets on its site.

Wal-Mart quietly put up about 15 caskets and dozens of urns on its Web site last week.

Prices range from $999 for models like "Dad Remembered" and "Mom Remembered" steel caskets to the mid-level $1,699 "Executive Privilege." All are less than $2,000, except for the Sienna Bronze Casket, which sells for $3,199.

Caskets ship within 48 hours. Federal law requires funeral homes to accept third-party caskets.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

The caskets ship within 48 hours? Does that mean you have to buy ahead and store it…where? In your living room? Undercutting morticians? Is that wise? And, just what kind of quality are these caskets and urns? Where are they made – in China? What are they made of? Plastic?

This is just one idea I cannot wrap my mind around. Discount caskets. Just what is the world coming to?

A Place to Call Home: City or Small Town?

City or small town living? Is it an easy choice?

Imagine the first warm days of spring. Throw the curtains wide and open the windows to let in some fresh air. It’s sweet, it’s caressing, and it lifts the spirit.

A bird might chirp. Is it a robin? Is spring really here? The spirit lifts higher. Once in awhile, the sweet air carries a touch of warm earth or maybe a trace of an early blooming flower. A buzz comes into hearing range and goes out just as quickly. If there’s flowers, there’s bees. Life is alive and well with a perpetual invitation to come along.

Adventures of a Mattress

No matter what it is with a mattress, it takes two. Understatement of the century, right?

Well, when it comes to my wild hairs, I tend to forget subtle things like that. So, here’s my latest adventure, this time with a mattress.

I don’t often think about the comforts of life. Some things just aren’t that important. Like the bed I’d been sleeping on. It was over 20 years old, it started out as a soft-sided waterbed and ended up about as uncomfortable a surface to sleep on as you can get. It just didn’t matter. It was a minor irritant until I got myself jiggled around and nested in.

Lo and behold, a new outlet store opened along my route, so I stopped in yesterday, on the way home from work. It was pretty dingy inside, bare concrete floor, no aesthetics whatsoever and beds all over the place.

All Systems Down

If you've ever had a power outage at home, you know the feeling. Even if it's daylight, your mind starts running through the Plan B you once thought about - and have since forgotten. Don't use the hot water, don't open the freezer door, no way to make coffee, no TV, no radio (do they even make battery operated transistor radios anymore?), and, heaven forbid, no Internet! Whatever will you do now? And the thoughts roll around, on and on, until the power comes back on. The dilemma is over.

Sure, losing the electricity is tough to deal with. We use it constantly and take it for granted. When you flip the switch, the light comes on. That’s just the way it is.

It wasn’t the electricity that went out in the office yesterday, but it was an even greater neutering. Statewide, our whole system went down. And it stayed down, rendering our computers and phones still and useless. That meant that we were rendered still and just about powerless to do anything resembling work.

What could we do without the computer system? Open the mail. Too bad that chore was already taken care of for the day.

At first, the office was quiet. We all sat staring at our screens as if our collective will would bring the system back alive.