Ford Street

It is hotter than ever.

Thank you gracious Blog Queen Liz- a great Google website on the government. It’s a new one to me. (Looking for myself on it later today…)

Graduate school these days…..well, all I have to say on that is, back in the day us pre-webosaurs had to crawl through dusty library stacks. Those papers better be brilliant, woman. 

I used to work in one of those newsrooms you see in that movie, typing on a manual typewriter on four-pack carbon paper (one copy to the editor, one copy to the engineer, one to the anchor and one for...luck? As in 'Good night and good luck,' I guess - yes, that newsroom.) There were deafening teletype machines in the corner chugging away with news, and halting telex machines where you sat down and by magic typed messages  in real time back and forth with the foreign bureaus, real foreign bureaus.  And I'll tell you what - we do indeed have all these new weapons of discovery and at least five good stories serious enough to topple any administration. And sometimes it seems the only ones telling truth to power are our best and brightest political comedians.

Yes, it is hot as Hades and I hate air conditioning. (But the dog is suffering, so I'll put them in the windows later today.)

Living more lightly on the planet with cherry red toenails

The shrill sound of morning news programs feeds my latent news jones while acting as an alarm clock to get me to work in the morning, but I am surprised when I get something substantial from them - besides green envy. Why has no one written a song to find me?

In this news story, a group of families, relatives and neighbors all sat on the television studio couch modestly describing their experiment of giving up buying anything (sorry Liz, on PR grounds) except food and medicine for a full year.  A content, not to say smugly happy looking group, claiming complete success and satisfaction. They live in San Francisco where there are many  good second hand clothes and toy stores.  This circle of friends reminded me of the better known, civilly disobedient Stop Shopping folks. I like them, too.

I’m excited.  I already am a member of Zip Car, another idea from San Francisco about car sharing in the city.  After too many years of impulse buying, I knew I could get along without buying new clothes.  And I’ve always been good at finding the best discarded stuff in my overpriced neighborhood (this week a flawless bathroom shelf and chest of drawers.)  I was doing okay until…

…the same shrill, shrieking morning network news program’s Product Placement mavens (Liz, note)  hooked me with a segment on cosmetics designed for women of a certain age.  Eight and a half hours later, on my way home from work feeling every year of my certain age, I stopped to use the ATM (my first mistake) in a nearby Duane Reade (my second mistake.)  After a disastrous half hour of cruising the aisles, (keeping the count, mistake number three) I made my way up to the cashier with toilet paper, and 40 dollars of cosmetics.  Even the young woman at the cash register seemed shocked. “40 dollars? Ma’m?”   “Who do I think I am?” I replied to her.

Tomorrow my lips will be plump, my green eyes enhanced by raisin quartz liner and non-crinkle-wrinkle eye shadow and while on my toes painted with cherry bomb red nail polish, I’ll try again. Try it with me, or at least pray for me.