Memo to America's food companies: We're tired of being screwed by shrinky dink packaging

Is anyone else tired of being screwed by the food industry’s “packaging size” scam?

I’m talking about the absurdity of downsizing the amount of everything from coffee and sugar to crackers and ice cream.  I used to make an ice cream cake recipe that called for a half gallon carton of ice cream.  Now I have to scrunch an oval downsized to 3 pints plus 1 pint to make it.  Bacon is now 11 ounces.  What’s next?  A small 11 pack dozen eggs?  

And don’t even mention toilet paper.  Have the ‘smaller’ rolls disappeared yet?  Because who in their right minds (okay, women who actually change the rolls) would intentionally buy them?  Who says, “Oh, it’s not a problem to replace the roll about, what?  Every day?”  

Today I discovered that a 16 ounce box of grahams has shrunk to 14 ounces.  I’m mad.  It’s stupid and it’s counterproductive to housework, storage, cooking, shopping, and using.  

Are you finding yourself having more trouble getting into this over-packaging market of goods and taking more time opening stuff than actually eating it?  Is this a ploy to shrink us, the consumers?  Well it’s not working.  It takes more space to store, more time to open, more money to buy, and we’ve had enough.

Consumers, we need to revolt.  We need to pick one perpetrator at a time and boycott their goods.  While fast foods were oversizing everything, we were getting the shaft at the grocery stores shopping the outside aisles for healthy stuff way overpriced and over packaged.  When you start buying shrink wrapped potatoes individually, you need a shrink.

Problem is, how do we revolt?  How can I give up my coffee beans now packaged in 7 and 11 and 14 ounce pricey bags?  How can I give up my ¾ carton of Kroger ice cream?  I can’t afford the 8 ounce Hagen Das, since the price of all this extra packaging is burning my budget and filling my trash can, which, by the way, is starting to be complicated over my pay grade figuring out which size bags and trash can I need.

Would it help to just deluge food companies with our dislike and mistrust and downright anger?  Let’s try!  Let’s email and Facebook and tweet and twitter to all these companies one word: Supersize!  No more shrinky dinking our groceries!  We’re fed up!   

Les Miserables, Now and Then

Two wonderful finds this summer have brought me to  Blogspot post to ponder anew: how long will God suffer us mortal fools?

As we see the newest assault on groups of innocent people by psychopaths and deranged individuals set loose on society by our "blame somebody else" attitude, I encountered Victor Hugo's masterpiece, in 3 wonderful ways: my granddaughter insisted I watch the musical "Les Miserables" with her.  It was her fifth time to watch.  I was amazed that a 17 year old felt such intensity about a film, especially one with one horrible tragedy after another that ends with everyone dead.

The second way I encountered it was reading it.  The movie was like a trailer at the theater; even with its powerful music and drama, it only touched down in pulsing places and left me eager to read between the lines.  After two months reading on Kindle I am up to 42% of the book, and impatient to pick it up every evening.

The third  way I encountered it was falling in love with one Dudu Fisher, Israeli singer whose Jean Valjean mesmerized.  His music, floating from the passionate Les Miserables to playful Fiddler on the Roof to resolute Exodus, is like Hugo's novel, timeless and transcending. 

 I found this quote from Victor Hugo that seems to explain his reason for writing Les Miserables.  It was what I needed to tell me why I have been so captivated, why my granddaughter and countless others have felt so pulled into its orbit.  It cries out with our voice about our world, our time, our need that evil should cease and good be ordered.

"I don't know whether it will be read by everyone, but it is meant for everyone. It addresses England as well as Spain, Italy as well as France, Germany as well as Ireland, the republics that harbour slaves as well as empires that have serfs. Social problems go beyond frontiers. Humankind's wounds, those huge sores that litter the world, do not stop at the blue and red lines drawn on maps. Wherever men go in ignorance or despair, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children lack a book to learn from or a warm hearth, Les Miserables knocks at the door and says: "open up, I am here for you".   ...Victor Hugo

It's Six O'clock Somewhere

May 23

It’s six o’clock somewhere.  No, doomsday didn’t come at six on May 21 like the nutcase said it would.  But boy did he stir up a hornet’s nest.  I believe he got more press on that than Pope John’s funeral!  It was one of those ‘events’ when both the loonies and the sensible folk were on the same page: this guy was not credible.

All right.  So I got really spooked on May 21 at half past six...AM!  When the hotel fire alarm suddenly woke us in a very dark room.  When I pulled the heavy blinds open, the blazing sun was like x-ray coming in there (Shekinah glory?) and I simply could not help having a glimmer of wonderment.  After all, God could have raptured the church or done whatever He wanted on May 21 regardless of what some kook said.  

But He didn’t.  An oven fire made the alarm go off.  The Shekinah glory was sunshine!  We are not delivered.  Darn.  But before we throw out this over- chewed bone and go on to other things, it bears pondering.  My sister in law had a massive stroke that morning.  In Joplin, Missouri, six o’clock came on May 22, when a killer tornado brought down wrath that must have seemed like Armageddon.  It sure looks like Armageddon there today.

Every day, in Japan, in Haiti, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in an overcrowded truck van trying to sneak into the country with a hundred desperate Mexicans stuffed in like sardines, in Libya as a bomb lands in a parking lot, in Syria as a sniper hits a protester, in Mississippi as floodwaters sweep across what minutes ago was a highway, it becomes a day of judgment.  There is only one way to be safe from the terrors of our day.  We have to trust the creator God who put us here.  

It’s not like He didn’t warn us.  It’s been there for centuries, the safety manual.  He told Moses to “write very clearly” on stones how to avoid disasters.  He said the Levites (the priests) were to recite in a loud voice how to live.  (Deuteronomy 27:14-26)  The rules are pretty much the same thing taught in the ten commandments (remember them?).  

And this time, Instead of “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not”,  He says cursed be the man who does wrong.  Then He goes on to give a litany of good stuff that happens to those who obey.  Simply put, the obedient servant gets plenty, safety, prosperity, mercy, and will come out on top.  

Then God gave them the other side of the coin.  Curses for being disobedient reads like today’s newspaper.  Confusion, sudden ruin, drought, flood, disease, want, despair, oppression, ruin, poverty.  

I hesitate to say we are reaping the harvest of all our bad choices and rebellions against God because I don’t want to have to apologize to Diane Sawyer on national television.  But I’m going out on a limb here and say it anyway.  If we would consider...just consider...for a moment that maybe this ain’t global warming; maybe God’s hand has raked across this great nation in anger without regard to persons  I certainly don’t think Joplin, Missouri is where I’d rake my hand if I had to choose the worst town.  But do your homework; when David angered the Lord by his disobedience, many died of illness before David got it right.

I don’t doubt that somewhere in America there are despicable people who deserve the wrath of God any given day for their evil deeds.  Yet God chose the Mississippi to remind us that because of our luke warm faith He will spew us out of His mouth.  Like vomit the river belched its way down the heart of this nation leaving a path of ruin that was referenced often by the television anchors as ‘biblical’.  Remember, God Himself said He was no respecter of persons.  The rain falls on the just and unjust.

I actually heard some questioning if the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan so recently was a judgment on the nation: how politically incorrect we are when it’s not US. 

So.  I’m just saying.  The “end” didn’t come as predicted on May 21 at six o’clock.  But in light of all the birth pang-like happenings on this small planet Earth, every day it’s six o’clock somewhere.

Book review: "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Review

This beautiful, tender, tragic story has exposed several paradoxes.  There are both gentle, godly Muslims and there are cruel, ungodly Muslims.  Within one heart there are levels of suffering and despair beyond imagination and there is hope that can see a thousand splendid suns in the midst of a nightmarish persecution beyond belief.

I loved this book; this is the Afghan woman’s equivalent to “The Kite Runner” that broke our hearts as well.  Khaled Hosseini has drawn with his straightforward prose a plot that is all too believable for those of us who remember the Soviet pounding of Afghanistan followed by Jihad followed by the ruthless Taliban, each situation a worse hell than the former.

What I loved most was the gentle hints of the evolving grace and maturity of these two amazing women, Mariam and Laila, as their hapless situations bring them into a sisterhood that is closer than blood relationship.

While Laila has that survivor instinct that we admire and applaud, Mariam becomes the true heroine.  I loved how her generous spirit and sacrificial act  gives Laila and the children and Tariq a chance, finally, for a peaceful life.

 One has to ponder as both the brutal Rasheed and the gentle Mariam face their mortality, how eternity might judge them.

WhatIf?: Review:"A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini

WhatIf?: Review:"A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini

Review:"A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Review

This beautiful, tender, tragic story has exposed several paradoxes.  There are both gentle, godly Muslims and there are cruel, ungodly Muslims.  Within one heart there are levels of suffering and despair beyond imagination and there is hope that can see a thousand splendid suns in the midst of a nightmarish persecution beyond belief.

I loved this book; this is the Afghan woman’s equivalent to “The Kite Runner” that broke our hearts as well.  Khaled Hosseini has drawn with his straightforward prose a plot that is all too believable for those of us who remember the Soviet pounding of Afghanistan followed by Jihad followed by the ruthless Taliban, each situation a worse hell than the former.

What I loved most was the gentle hints of the evolving grace and maturity of these two amazing women, Mariam and Laila, as their hapless situations bring them into a sisterhood that is closer than blood relationship.  

While Laila has that survivor instinct that we admire and applaud, Mariam becomes the true heroine.  I loved how her generous spirit and sacrificial act  gives Laila and the children and Tariq a chance, finally, for a peaceful life.

 One has to ponder as both the brutal Rasheed and the gentle Mariam face their mortality, how eternity might judge them.  

JAN KARON'S "IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS" IS PURE PLEASURE

Critique: Jan Karon’s “In The Company Of Others”

Jan Karon has perfected the art of making her main character all things: Father Tim is at once human and divine with his humble spirit and Godly wisdom.  He seems to be as inept and cowardly as I am yet his shepherding always bring a healing and reconciling to those involved once he is reluctantly drawn in.  And the kinds of problems he’s drawn into make me conclude people are people whether in Mitford or in Ireland.

In this novel we get the double whammy of enjoying the Kavanaugh experience-vacationing in Ireland, the ancestral home, while keeping up with Dooley and Lace back home, hearing from Emma via hilarious e-mails, plus exploring the mysteries of broken relationships that go back to the mid 1800’s via a doctor’s ancient diary and secret chamber in the cellar:new fodder for Karon, this book.  No wonder she calls it her favorite, her “Dark Haired Child”.  The effort she has put into researching and crafting this book are evident everywhere.

What has made Karon my favorite writer is her prose style that pulls me in as if I’m there experiencing it all: the sights, the sounds, the smells, the angst  in every situation.  An example: by sentence one we’re in a summer downpour, by page two we share Father Tim’s-referred to forthwith as ‘him’ or ‘his’-frustrations with all kinds of travel.  We get our first taste of Irish witticisms from the driver, “There’s nothin’ so bad it couldn’t be worse-another bend comin’ up!” And “You believe in fairies?”..”Ah, no, not a bit.  But they’re there nonth’less.”  “You’ve never seen one, then?”  “If it’s fairies ye’re after, they’re said to be very numerous in Mayo.”  Love it!

Before I let go the Irish witticisms, a couple that were delightful were Lian’s “Bolting the door with a boiled carrot” and Maureen’s “tis a lonely washin’ that hasn’t a man’s shirt in it”.  And I need to remember the Irish jokes told as Cynthia painted William; they were golden.

I love that ‘he’ has a gnawing little sin of jealousy about Cynthia’s writing and painting (page 19) observing she’d brought sketchbooks and had an email from her editor exhorting her to ‘get a book out of Ireland’.  (which she promised him she’d ignore)  After 60 years of bachelorhood, he’d discovered a terrible truth: ‘without her he was beached’.

Reading Karon is pure joy.  I can page through this book, now completed, and find nuggets on every page I want to sample again, like Whitman’s chocolates.  Little composite masterpieces of humanity that mirror my understanding of what life is about: family, honor, obedience, encouragement, forgiveness; honestly this would make a good study in human relations on its own merit.  And entertained in the bargain, as ‘he’ would say!

For instance: page 239 when he shares with Anna and counsels her by telling his own experience with Dooley.  “So please tell me reverend..(through p 239)

I thought I’d found the point of the story until I got to the complexity of Evelyn’s life!  Saw that he had more work to do; and JK knit all the intrinsics  together so we came to her conversion (Karon leaves no soul unconverted, I believe)  I don’t believe anyone but JK could pull this off without losing the reader.  But when the confessing and forgiving is done between crusty William and flinty Evelyn it’s a blast: p 380 (entire page) through 381 “sit down, you old gossoon’.  LOVED IT.

My one criticism is that the celebrating went on overly long; the rest of the book seems to be mending fences and high fiving between the characters but it’s such a joyful thing we don’t mind.  And the icing on the cake?  Getting the mystery resolved about what happened to the O’Donnell family and young Eunan.  LOVED IT.