Fall is coming!
Yeah, yeah, school starts tomorrow. But check out the bug! There is a latticework overlay on our front window and yesterday two praying mantisses (manti?) decided it was a nice shady place to hang out. This fellow was fun. He seemed to be looking through the window to check us all out. In the early evening there was a nasty storm with lots of lightning and he kept fanning out his wings like he was going to take off, but thought better of it. Reminded me of a lady opening and closing her fan! I noticed lots of little manti in the flower beds this year, so the two hanging out on the window now are probably from this years’ youngsters. I hope they find good places to stash their egg cases and we’ll have lots of little friends next year.
I’m knitting away-nothing worth showing yet. I’ve been listening to aBook on CD called Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich. I think I could write pages on the subject matter so I’ll be short here. She’s a successful writer, often investigating the culture of work, especially on the blue collar end of things. This book, she changed her name back to her maiden name, came up with a resume and began a job search for a mid-level, $50,000 yr. , white collar job, based on the skills she’s acquired as a 40+ yr old woman. There’s lots of interesting contacts with people on this journey- job boot camp, job coaches, image analysts, even prayer groups! What she’s revealed is, that Corporate America now has no use for a give/take relationship with employees. It’s all take! Businesses now would prefer to hire people on short-term, no benefit agreements. They pay you and then you leave. As she points out, the people caught in this trap are the “good kids” with college educations, who worked long hours for the company. They never expected to be “on the brink” at this point in life. Her job search takes interesting, sometimes disheartening turns. I’ve left with more understanding of how a $100,000 real estate executive gets ejected and ultimately ends up clerking at Starbuck’s.
Last night’s films were courtesy of our local PBS station, which always shows a good print without commercials-yay! First, Father of the Bride, 1955 with Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor in the bloom of youth. Light hearted comedy. I can’t believe they “cheaped out” and shot it in black/white. A wedding film, with flowers and stuff? Boo. The other one, more suited to b/w was Twelve O’Clock High, 1949 with (be still my heart) Gregory Peck and a bunch of other men. The story of the B-17 bombers in Europe during WWII. Talk about a guy flick. No major parts for women at all! It has lots of real combat footage. I’ve seen the B-17 in flight a couple of times and it’s a magnificent plane- beautiful to watch. Okay, um, saturation bombing of Germany- War is hell. They were bad. We won…thank God.
Diet Day 5: It’s going okay. I can’t begin to think about how much I need to lose- so I’m thinking of it 10 lbs at a time. We went to McDonald’s for breakfast yesterday, where I had an EggMcMuffin (because I couldn’t get a plain muffin-dumb!) and coffee. Looking things up at www.nutritiondata.com, I’m appalled at how much sodium is in commercially prepared food. When I was pregnant and had preeclampsia, I was to have no more than 1000 mg a day. That McD’s sandwich had over 800. Even low-fat otherwise healthy food has too much salt. Other than during pregnancy, I’ve never had high blood pressure, but Mike is borderline. I’ll have to pay more attention to what’s coming in the house.
Just be careful Kids: On the website for the scifi magazine Locus, www.locusmag.com, I clicked on the banner for a social networking site Soul Geek www.soulgeek.com Hey, geeky people need love too. This is one that will definitely work to the lady’s advantage because there are far more guys willing to describe themselves as geeks. Geeky women prefer the terms unconventional, adventurous, etc. As an elderGeek, I know this 
So pagans, furries, fairies, pirates, fan girls, goth boys, mild-mannered reporters- this is your site.
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