For the Rest of Us It Will Be Rest in Peace

After dinner last evening, my husband announced he might lie in repose for a while. I guess he was tired. We had been in the car and listened to numerous reports about Sen. Ted Kennedy. Every reporter said that he was "Lying in repose" at JFK's Library. I had to check the dictionary and wikipedia about "lying in repose". I guess I can always learn something. If he had been in the Capitol in Washington or in the State House in Boston, he would have been "Lying in State". This phrase is used for politicians. Anyone else famous would have been "Lying in honor". Lying in repose indicated his position and location of the reviewal.
Poor Michael Jackson got a lot of attention from grieving fans after he died, but the crazy press coverage left you feeling sorry for this tragic figure. Was his body even in the golden casket or were they playing a shell game with him? Rumors said they had lost his prosthetic nose. That's not something easily replaced. Family disagreed about where to bury him.
For those of us less famous, the term resting in peace will be used. Some actually will be at peace. Some won't.
Years ago Jon said the words spoken at Catholic funerals, "Rest in peace and may eternal light shine upon you" didn't sound good to him. If he was to rest in peace he would occasionally like someone to turn off the lights.

Doggone It, You Can't Be Sirius

We’ve got “Blue Dogs” (fiscally conservative Democrats) weighing in on the current healthcare bill, hot dogs and coney dogs at the State Fair, and Clifford the Big Red Dog on children’s bookshelves. There is a repentant ex-con NFL quarterback who did time for dog fighting and pretty soon Randy on American Idol will return with his “dawgs”. It seems we have gone to the dogs.

Take heart. Dog days are over. My source says the term “Dog days of summer” ended August 24th. The phrase comes from the timing of the Dog Star Sirius. It commonly refers to the hottest days of the summer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Days

Dog days brings back memories of August summers when I was a kid and you couldn’t swim in area lakes due to the algae bloom. Lakes and ponds looked green and unappealing. Hot humid days wore us down. Few had air conditioning and the cooler days of fall were eagerly anticipated. If you were tired of the season, you just waited. Things would change.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our 7 trillion $$ debt would just fade away too.

Weather You Like It Or Not

We are almost officially out of our drought. August's 6 inches of rainfall caught us up. There aren't many years all the lawns look this lush and green this time of year. We had a gullywasher last night that knocked out power in part of the metro. My daughter said she was late for work when her alarm didn't ring. No electricity. At least we weren't swept off a rocky coastline by rogue waves like those poor people in Maine.
With our eyes off precipitation we can get back to thinking about our seasons. The Minnesota State Fair starts tomorrow. It ends on Labor Day and that is the unofficial end of summer. The calendar lags by a few weeks declaring summer's demise the third week of September but real Minnesotans know when the state fair starts we are on the downward slope.
For kids anticipating the beginning of school ,feelings may be mixed. Most kids are bored by now after the long hiatus. Some are anxious to see friends and get back in the routine. When I was a kid I remember enjoying organizing my new school supplies. All the new crayons had sharp points and none were broken. Pencils had no bite marks and erasers no ink marks. We wrote our names on the Big Chief nickel tablet of paper. Calculators hadn't been invented and so our parents weren't expected to shell out $120. for a TI scientific graphing calculator. We had book bags not backpacks. You might have a little change to purchase 2 cent milk at recess.
Now I am retired and news the state fair is starting just brings back the reality of snow and ice on its' way in a few months. Even though we don't have to drive anywhere.... no job anyway, we still are one of the first on our block to get it cleared. That is another blog... weather we like it or not.

Sugar in the Morning, Sugar in the Evening, Sugar at Suppertime"

If you recognize the title as lyrics to an old tune you may be my age. I watched a PBS program this weekend of oldies and the McGuire Sisters were on singing that tune.
After being vilified in recent decades, natural sugar is enjoying a resurgence in popularity. Who knew we would look at sugar as a healthier option. Medical bulletins are now suggesting some of the sugar substitutes we thought would help us control weight aren't effective. It is back to sugar. Have you noticed ads for products proclaiming they contain real sugar? Go ahead and enjoy it. Even McDonald's has been promoting sweet tea with real sugar.
I will probably get a comment from the Sugar Institute or a similar organization for mentioning sugar. Maybe they can advise me if anyone has a patent on "sugar pills". You may be familiar with placebos being called "sugar pills". My attention was grabbed by the TV add for the quit smoking drug Chantix. It states 44% who tried it were able to quit smoking at the end of the 12th week. Good for them. That is great. It is very difficult to quit smoking and anything that works is wonderful. They also state that 44% quit on Chantix vs. the 18% who took sugar pills. That is why I see a possible business selling sugar pills for smoking cessation. 18% is not bad. Sugar pills are cheap and sugar is back in style. If one could secure the rights to the song "Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, sugar at suppertime" you could use it in the ads. I don't know if that is what the songwriter had in mind when he talked about sugar, though.

We said, "Bring Back Dayton's"

For decades Minnesotans had Daytons department stores. The venerable mother store was located on the Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. There was a downtown St. Paul Dayton's store and they also anchored each of the Dales malls. From there Daytons spread to bigger outstate towns to have 19 stores.
We loved the merchandise, easy return policy (no sales slip necessary and no time limit on returns,) and looked for the delivery trucks. Delivery was free. Daytons had high end fashion setting clothes and more affordable lines. If you purchased from Daytons you got quality and value. Dayton's always had a wonderful Christmas display in the top floor auditorium.
In the 90's the Dayton-Hudson Corp. purchased Chicago's Marshall Fields stores. In 2001 they changed the name from Dayton's to Marshall-Fields to the consternation of Minnesotans. By 2005 the corporation was sold and the name changed to Macy's. That one went down hard here. Many didn't feel the same attachment. We missed the policies of the old Dayton's that had been around for a century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton
Mark Dayton is a heir and descendent of the founding George Dayton. He is also involved in politics and ran unsuccessfully for several offices. He spent his own money on the campaigns. I may not be exactly right, but I believe he spent about 14 million of his 20 million$$ fortune getting elected. He was a one term senator from Minnesota and then he decided not to run for re-election. Maybe he didn't like the ridicule he got in the press when he closed his Capitol hill offices during the anthrax by mail scare. Maybe he didn't want to spend another 14 million of his own money. Maybe there wasn't an overwhelming cry for him to run again. I don't know. I do know he has now thrown his hat in the ring to run for Governor in 2010. I don't know if he wants my advice, but I would like him to know I think it is Dayton's not Dayton that we miss.

Tiger Tale

Minnesotans were focused last week on the PGA Golf Tourney played at a metro area course. Tiger lead all week. Crowds followed him. Spectators bought Nike duds like he wore. Kids pestered him for autographs. Headlines were all about him. He lead until late in the last game and then went down. A novice to the circuit from South Korea took Number 1. Tiger , whose real name is Eldrick Woods had a bum day. He is so famous you don't need to say Woods to identify him.

The suspense of the tournament was not lost on our little fans Zoe & Roman. They visited grandma & grandpa yesterday and seemed drawn to the actioin.

Bing- Oh

They are advertising Microsoft's new search engine "Bing" as a better alternative to the popular Google. I was curious and not too familiar with finding search engines, so I "Googled" to find it. That struck me as funny. Kind of like asking your boyfriend for his roommates phone number. The only search engine I use is Google. Jon has a list of search engines on his computer but I am not sure he uses them anymore. Things have progressed. I remember when he got his first computer (laptop from work) in the early 90's. The WWW was either in it's infancy or didn't exist. To navigate to an outside site he had to go through the Gopher connection set up by the U of MN. We had a dial up connection and everything moved as slow as much computer does on a bad day. I continue to hang on to this tempermental, virus infected, beast while my birthday gift laptop sits on Jon's desk. Plans are hopefully to wean myself from this desktop to the new one soon. After a peak at Bing I am not sure I want to wean myself from Google yet.