TV commercials

Does anybody besides me remember the one-sponsor TV Show--such as Chevrolet for the Dinah Shore Show, Texaco for Milton Berle, etc.? Nowadays, I count as many as 11 commercials between "We'll be right back," and the actual being back. I record most shows--like ER--so I can rush through the commercials. Anything on HBO is worth the price of HBO because I know I'm going to see an uninterrupted show. Even the Bill Moyers Journal on PBS has to tell me who sponsors the show, so I can go toast a bagel before the program actually starts. Someday I'm going to sit patiently through an actual present-time show and time exactly how much of the hour is programming and how much is commercials. Aw c'mon--I'm a capitalist, but this is really getting to be too much. One day I'll watch a commercial or ten and a tv program will actually start! Like going to a fight and a hockey game breaks out. Or is it soccer? Whatever. Can you tell I'm pissed?

llanguages

Yesterday as I was opening a frozen dinner, I saw that the instructions were in three languages--English, Spanish and French (I think). It got me to wondering, what's next? Farsi? Arabic? Chinese? There won't be room on the wrapper for all the languages which might be needed by the consumer. Bigger packaging, thus killing more trees?

My father-in-law, bless his soul, immigrated from Italy to here when he was 17. His name is on the Wall of Fame at Ellis Island--I put it there. He earned his citizenship in the US by serving in WWI. Never was anything but English spoken in his house. His kids were going to be Americans. It's a shame that he didn't speak Italian at home and English everywhere else, because my husband did not learn Italian--except for a colorful variety of swear words!

I can't for the life of me learn what makes it so impossible for immigrants to learn at least broken English. Spanish is supposed to be very easy to learn. Why is it so difficult to go from Spanish to English?

Wicked Muthah

I have developed a friendship with one of the maintenance guys--Clint--here, who is younger than my youngest son. He comes to work on the computer and just talk, but is here a lot. My nosy neighbor thinks there's "something going on"--how ridiculous--and every time his truck is in the driveway, she finds an excuse to come over and snoop.

So Clint and I have developed a plan that will really give her something to talk about. His co-worker, Al, will follow him over here after work, Clint will park his truck in my driveway, leave it overnight, and we'll have a tearful good-bye when Al brings him in the morning to get his truck. Meanwhile, he will be safely snoozing in his own bed, I in mine--and absolutely nothing has happened between us, as my neighbor thinks it is. Doncha think I'm wicked?

Muthah

Regional Dialogue

Every time I move, I have to learn a completely new language. In Chicago, it was waiting for an object to the preposition as in ,"Are you going with?" With whom? Nobody ever finished the sentence.

In the small town in Wisconsin, if you ordered barbecue, you got sloppy Joes. A hot dish was anything with hamburger in a casserole. A barbecue was cooking hamburgers outdoors on the grill.

Here in the UP, they know not of hot dish. Barbecue is slabs of pork ribs slowly cooked and slathered with barbecue sauce--the way it should be.

I have a friend who says, "I'll be over in a bit." Everybody seems to say "in a bit," which can be anything from 5 minutes to two hours. I told him to tell me he'd be over in a byte--a collection of bits.

In the Cincinnati area, if you said "Please?" in a telephone conversation, it substituted
for "I beg your pardon" or "What did you say?" Nobody knows "Please?" here in that context.

If you're talking to a real Yooper, his conversation will be punctuated by a "hey" after every sentence--sometimes after every other word.

Confused Muthah

trouble

There seems to be trouble on my blogspot. I keep sending stuff here that never appears.
A woman down the street was knifed in the stomach Friday night. This is the second time that woman has been attacked by a man wearing a hoodie and a mask, in the middle of the night. She's in the hospital. It seems that her son was dealing drugs out of her house and did some people really bad, so the suspect is one of them, wreaking vengeance on the mother since her son is long gone to another location. It's scary, but he attacks only her. They know who it is, but can't prove it, and by the time the sheriff gets here, he is, of course, gone. We don't need any more bad publicity, and Channel 6 seems to have it in for us. We're now really known as slums. They never show the wonderful places like where I live, but keep coming here and filming and showing all the garbage left by people who had to move because their houses were foreclosed on. The bankrupt landlords won't clean it up, and certainly the former residents won't--so there it sits, in all its glory, and Channel 6 in Marquette is very glad to come out and film it and show it to the public. The landlords bought the properties for a song ($15,000 for a duplex, for example), rented to anybody without a background or credit check, and just never maintained the properties, and thus got into foreclosure. One of the landlords owns two restaurants in Marquette, and it would seem that somehow that could be attached to pay for the cleanup. It's a real problem, and I hate being called a slum resident, because my landlords (the Ste. St. Marie Chippewa Indian Tribe) are very particular about whom they rent to, and take very good care of their properties. Channel 6 never shows that!

Muthah

Vocabulary--Theirs and Ours

I have decided that the thing that separates the generations is vocabulary. Marty and I were talking the other day, and he said that his step daughter and husband and their 13-year-old twin boys played a lot of "Catch Phrase" while they were here from New Mexico. He was astounded at what even the parents didn't know. Kids, especially, are amazed at those round black things that go round and round and make music. Now it's all IPods--and I don't know what that is.

Kids look on us mature (translate old) people as really dumb. It's hard to build communications with them because they stare blankly at us and don't understand what we're saying--and their vocabularies (if you want to call it that) change weekly. For 35 years my husband was a high school teacher, so I was pretty "hip" about what kids were talking about, wearing, and what music they were listening to. Now I've been without that source of information for 14 years, and it's really difficult. It's too bad, because we have so much to share with each other. I suggested yesterday that we do some more inter generational activities. We meet at the Salvation Army Rec Center, where kids abound in the evening. Even if all we did is watch movies together or play a few games of Uno, maybe we could build some relationships. We need them, and they don't know it, but they need us.

Muthah

Young vandals and bad parenting

We have been having some vandalism here on the base. Twelve-year-old kids who wait until their parents are asleep, and create havoc from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. They have slashed an above-ground swimming pool, a trampoline, and attacked a woman down the street twice. We have very little police protection, and after 45 minutes when the sheriff got here, of course the kids were gone, and the sheriff asked the lady if she put the slashes on her arms herself. Wow! There is nothing we can do--everybody knows who they are, but the parents don't give a damn, and they have to be caught in the act. Clint, my fav maintenance man, says he's going to spend the night here sometime and "beat the shit out of them." He will do it.

We seem to have lost good parenting skills. For parents to look the other way when their kids are doing stuff like that means that the parents just don't care. I'd have gotten quite a licking if I'd ever done anything like that! But in this case, the parents should have to answer for the destruction. They probably don't have any money anyhow. Oh, well, school starts soon.

But there are good kids here. One little boy came to the door yesterday seeking donations so he could go to the Lutheran camp. He's obviously Indian and cute as can be, with ebony shining hair. I said, "Didn't I already give you money for camp?" He said that was for the Salvation Army Bible Camp, and this is for the Lutheran Bible Camp--back-to-back camps. I wrote his step-dad a check for $10, because he didn't know what to do with a check made out to him, and he thanked me profusely. I have a sign on my front porch which says, "Neighborhood Witch" and he thought that was very funny.

Come to the Fair

I know I've been neglecting things here. I've been having Physical Therapy three times a week for the past month, and it's really helping. This is my 3d go-round with PT clinics, and the first time I've gotten help. I told my trainer today I'm going to sign up for a marathon (not) next year.

I am so much better that Marty took me to the Marquette Co. Fair yesterday. I think it's the first county fair I've been to since McHenry Co., IL, when Andy was 15 and won the talent contest. I touched a cow for the first time in years--maybe 20--and they're so sweet, and so dumb. Reminded me of when I was 9 and got up at 5 a.m. to milk three cows and get ready for the school bus. It was so neat, putting my head against those warm flanks in the winter. I hated the farm when I was growing up, but I'm glad I grew up on one. We Americans are so far from our food supply that it's pathetic. My co-secretary at the church years ago couldn't find the spinach in the grocery store. It was loose in a bin, and she said, "Spinach comes in plastic bags." Yeah, it grows that way.

I got introduced to Blue Bottom hogs. Never saw one before, but there were plenty Poland China and Landrace, which we used to raise. Pigs are the smartest animals on the farm. They don't poop where they eat or sleep, and you can potty train a pygmy one. I don't think my landlord would approve of my getting a pygmy pig, though.

The horses stuck their heads out and nibbled on my walker handlebars.

I ate half of a wonderful spit-cooked chicken and discovered elephant ears. I had my walker with a seat, but only sat down three times in three hours. I ache today, but I really worked out at the PT clinic at 9 this morning.

I see that Karl Rove is resigning. Rats, one-by-one, deserting a sinking ship. Now if Bush and Cheney would resign before we get chance to impeach them.......Won't happen, but the talk is there.

Muthah

Lonely vs. Alone

The other day at a study group, when I said since my husband died 14 years ago and I was alone, this man looked me straight in the eye and said, "It's your fault that you are alone." I wanted to ask if I should start selling sex so as not to be alone. The poor guy has not a smidgen of an idea of what it means to be alone. He has a living, healthy wife, and they belong to a lot of organizations and they are never lonely. At least, he thinks so. You can be lonely in a crowd, in a marriage, at church, which is my loneliest place, lots of places. It's probably a fact that unless they die together in an auto accident, one of them is going to be left to learn exactly what alone means. Here it is:

You attend a group sponsored event, and enjoy it. But when it's over, everybody goes home to their huts, and we who are alone go to an empty hut.
Alone is: Keeping the lights on in the house so that you can pretend somebody's there.
Alone is: Forget about the "honey do" list, because there's no honey to do lit.
Alone is: There's nobody to tell you how you look or if there's a forgotten tag somewhere.
Alone is: There's also nobody in these big woods to look you over for deer ticks or to fasten that necklace or zip up a long back zipper, so you just quit wearing those things, even though they're among you favorites.
Alone is: Even if you are fortunate enough that friends invite you for dinner--you're still a fifth wheel. It seems as if everything, including dinner tables, is meant for two-by-two. Maybe your host will realize that and invite somebody else who is alone, if only to equalize the table settings.

That's part of it, folks. I rarely get lonely, but I am alone forever.

Muthah

A blanket apology

Well, I've done it--alienated one of my kids because of my tirade against cell phones. What I want him to know is that every phone call is precious--even from a cell phone in a car.

Well I remember my mother saying, "I don't know why god lets me live so long." When you get old, you are sort of excess baggage to the kids. They have to make "duty calls" to an aging parent, and I remember well those infrequent "duty calls" to my mother and to my mother-in-law, but now that I'm in that boat, I wish the calls and visits had been more frequent.

We raised a pretty good batch of kids. They are all successfully employed and have full and productive lives. One is a teacher; one has his own business; one has her own business; and one is a successful free-lance entertainer. We raised them to be independent, and they all are, and they are all successful at what they do. I wish they knew how very interested I am in hearing from them--even from dropped cell phone calls and from being put on "caller ignore" for somebody calling who is more important than I am. I haven't heard from one of them in over 6 weeks, although he talks to his siblings regularly.

I have always told them how much hate cell phones, don't have one myself and probably won't get one. I would carry one in the car in case I need to call for help--but I certainly wouldn't talk on one there. The only place in the world is sacrosanct, and it isn't the bathrooms, where I have extension phones. It's my car. Not only is it illegal in most states to talk on a cell phone in a vehicle, but I just saw on CNN that five just graduated teenagers were killed in an auto accident because they were text messaging. I would prefer that my children keep their attention to the road rather than give me their divided attention.

So this is blanket apology to anyone who might have been offended by what I said.

Muthah

cell phone bitchin'

Over my 70+ years, I have had to adapt to new things--cordless phones, no operator on the other end because you can't dial "O" again, the computer and all its wonders. Most of this I have become acclimated to and some I even enjoy.

BUT I HATE CELL PHONES. I think they're the rudest thing we have come up with yet. It's rude, sitting in a restaurant and having to listen to some guy's conversation over "there." "There" doesn't have many boundaries, because people think they have to talk louder over a cell phone. It's rude, having lunch with a friend and a lively conversation going on, when her cell phone demands her attention, and there goes our conversation, up in smoke.

Three of my kids have cell phones only. No land lines. If I lost any of their phone numbers, I couldn't call information, because of course no cell phone is listed. I think that within 20 years phone directories will be obsolete. While I appreciate being called whenever by one of my kids, it's very annoying to me that they usually call me from the car on the way to or from somewhere, and suddenly I'm talking to no one because the call has been dropped. And the conversation must end at their destination. There's also the problem of speaker phones. I never know to whom I am actually speaking, because they all have speaker phones--so I'm very careful what I say about whom. At least they could identify who's listening in!

A thousand years from now when the Chinese dig us up, they will find skeletons with one hand close against the face where an ear should be. They'll probably think we all died of some mysterious facial virus!

Muthah

Boycott of One

Yesterday I handed back to my Schwan's guy a box of frozen "Alaskan salmon" which had a label, "Product of China," telling him to tell his superiors that he has at least one customer who won't buy, or eat, anything that is a product of China. I know my little boycott isn't going to make a shred of difference to Schwan's, but things are getting scary. Toothpaste, cat food, fish--what's next? China is going to be the next world power--after they poison us all!



Muthah

Addendum

Jerry Springer was one of the radio commentators on the concert. Shortly after that he went to Chicago and went crazy. He had been mayor of Cincy before it was learned that he paid prostitute with a credit card.

Also, Eric Kunzel, the conductor is now conducting the Boston Pops. A great loss for Cincinnati.
Muthah

Sad 4th

Muthah is very sad tonight. I just watched my 1992 VHS of the Cincinnati Pops and chorus in their 4th of July concert at River Bend. I realized that in these 15 years I have almost completely lost my patriotism. I got tears in my eyes when they played all the patriotic music, but I have lost so much in the last 15 years, that it all just made me very sad. I realized that my husband was alive to watch that concert with me--he died a year later in August. I have lost my best friend of 40 years, Jane, in that time period. Back surgery has lost me much of my mobility, and there is no way I could go to Marquette for the celebration--people are rude, and despite my walker, they bump into me. I don't really have any idea what the average Joe thinks we're celebrating--it's just another day off to drink a lot of beer and watch fireworks. Sometimes I really wish we were still a British colony, because all those freedoms in the Declaration and Constitution and by-laws are rapidly disappering, thanks to King George W. At least as a part of the British empire we just might have universal health care and we could get rid of crooked leaders with just a vote of no confidence. It's also sad not to have family nearby for a cook-out.

I did pick up one interesting thing from the concert. When Irvin Berlin wrote GOD BLESS AMERICA, he had no show to put it in, so he put it on a drawer. Kate Smith asked him to write something patriotic for her to use as a theme song, so he gave it to her. The interesting thing is that he made no money on it. When he gave it to her, he signed away all royalties to the song to the Boy Scouts. Wonder how many scouts know that???

muthah

"IT"

Muthah wonders today what ever happened to "It"--the scooter-type thing that had us guessing for months. It was supposed to revolutionize the way we get around-one had only to think where one wanted to go, and it went there. But I've never seen one, not even one. Maybe "It" thought its way out of existence. Anybody??

wrong numbers

Muthah is very angry this morning. At 1:15 a.m., RING, RING. I answered, and a bright female voice said, "Is this Bridget?" This same person has dialed me now twice in the middle of the night asking for Bridget. I didn't read her out about dialing wrong numbers in the middle of the night--but more Idiocracy.

Muthah

IDIOCRACY

At Andy's suggestion, I watched IDIOCRACY. It is very funny, but I fear also very prophetic. Two average people are propelled into 2500, and find that they are the smartest people in the world. Our language is all but gone, books are for "fags" and nobody reads or writes. I don't actually think it will be 500 years before this prophecy comes true. In fact, I know a lot of people who wouldn't "get it" because it depicts the way they talk and think right now. It probably didn't do well at the box office because there is no sex, no nudity, no car chases and no shoot-em-up's. Thanks, Andy, for the suggestion.


Muthah

Freedom

A friend sent me this today and I thought it merited sending on. It's so true!

In just a few days we will celebrate the birth of our great nation. For most Americans, our defining characteristic is freedom. We live in the land of the free. We send troops abroad to defend our freedom. To be American is to love freedom. Except that we don't really know what it means to be free, so we choose other ways to bind ourselves. Why would we do that? Why would Paul have to warn the Galatians to not submit again to the yoke of slavery? Who would want to go back to slavery? Well, almost all of us. We talk about loving freedom, but mostly we want other people to take care of us. This is why the politics of fear work so well even in this "freedom loving" country of ours. This is why most Americans don't really mind saying to our current administration that it's okay to spy on us, that it's just fine to detain people indefinitely without due process, and that we don't really care that our government tortures people, even if they might be innocent of any crime. Spying, secret detention, and torture: Are these the things for which our founding fathers set us free? We have chosen bondage to these things because they're easy and make us comfortable. But freedom is difficult. Claim your freedom as Christians in this nation. Do not submit again to the yoke of easy tyranny in the name of the "public good." After all, once you've sold your neighbor's freedom at a cut rate, yours is as good as gone, too.

Muthah

"Free Gifts"

I must be on the mailing list for many charities. I keep getting asked for $$ with "free gift inside" on the outside, and address labels on the inside. I know this is designed to make me feel guilty for accepting the free gift and send $$. But what is a "Free Gift"? I always thought all gifts were free, with no strings attached, except for the psychological impetus to do something in return.
It's redundant, this "free gifts" phrase, and they don't make me feel guilty for not responding with a check. At least I never have to buy address labels ever again! But stop this "free gift" crap already.

Muthah

Alcohol, tobacco and teenagers

First of all, I have two things to admit: I am a happily recovering alcoholic and I have been smoking for 60 years. What's bothering me most is that the government is trying to claim that the tobacco companies are luring teenagers. Where on earth are all these ads, since they killed Joe Camel?

Alcohol. When all sorts of seductive beverages have commercials on television, sometimes followed by a "drink responsibly" tag line, and most sporting events are sponsored by one beer or another, doesn't the government think that they are encouraging teenage drinking? My kids, when they were in high school, used to tell me that half the student body was drunk before noon. The parents' comment was always, "at least it's not drugs." Bull! Alcohol is a drug! A deadly drug in the hands of prom-going teens.

Smoking all these years has only meant that I am possibly hurting myself. I don't smoke in anybody's car, house, or presence. I am not subjecting anybody to mythically dangerous second-hand smoke. None of my kids even smokes.

But it's hard, especially for a former drinker, to see all these alcohol ads, taunting everybody to just taste. Does anybody think that kids don't see the "Budweiser" signs in the football and baseball stadia? Why aren't we prohibiting alcohol ads the way we did cigarette ads? More people are killed by drunk drivers year in and year out than are killed by second-hand smoke.


One of the answers is that I come from a state that produces a lot of alcoholic beverages. What? Impose a tax on the snowmobilers who drive 90 mph to get to the next bar? No way. It's really sad to me that we haven't the sense to stop this madness.

Muthah

Dumbing--Again

Well, I tried..hit the wrong key, of course. I record "The DAILY SHOW" every night and watch it in the morning. Today I learned that Michael Moore was bumped last night on the Larry King Show by Paris Hilton. Michael's new movie is trying to get improvement in our health care system, while PH just wanted to whine about how unfair it all was. Why do we care more about this spoiled rich girl than we do in learning about our health care? One only needs to watch "Crosswalk" on one of the late shows to know just how dumb we are. Most of us don't read newspapers, don't watch or listen to the news, and are woefully ignorant about this Republic of which we are so proud. Andy recommended I watch "Idiocracy", which I am going to do right now. I'm glad I'm an old lady!!

Muthah

The Dumbing Down of America

The Dumbing Down of America

Casserole from Golf Widow

I have finally figured out how to turn off the screening of comments, so Golf Widow, you can knock on my door any time with a casserole.

Muthah

JESSIE DAVIS

I wish I could generate some sympathy for Jessie Davis, who was found dead the other day with baby Chloe still in her womb. Why on earth would a woman bear a child with a known womanizer, then turn around two years later and get pregnant by him again? She had to have known that he was married and that he was spreading his sperm all over town.

We have lost our morals!!!


Muthan

GUNS

Okay, Andy warned you. I got to thinking about the Second Amendment last night, which I believe was created to form a militia against repressive government. Here's my proposal: Why don't about a million of you gun owners storm the White House and take over our corrupt government? I am sick of being lied to, of fighting a war where we have no business being there, poor people getting poorer and rich people getting richer. I watched the 1938 Ronald Coleman TALE OF TWO CITIES, where the peasants stormed the Bastille. It didn't work out so well, but I'm sure we can do better with Federal Government than what is being done.


Muthan

Mutha's Musings

This is Muthah Martello (Andy's mother for those who know him). I decided to join the blogging fun.
Write to me--I have all kinds of thoughts and opinions. Hanging above my computer is a plaque which reads "You can agree with me or you can be wrong."

Muthah