Distraction Tactics for Today’s Culture

Distraction: A tool for diverting attention from an area of focus in order to diminish how much information is absorbed about it.

 

You might have noticed an increase in the diversionary tactic “whataboutism” lately. It’s generally used by a party on one side to divert attention from their failures. They then either focus on their own successes or redirect attention to the failures of the opposite party. If Facebook is any indication, not only is whataboutism not politically correct, there’s a movement afoot to ban it altogether. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. Herewith, some less offensive options for distraction.

 

Let’s begin with a literal distraction, based in history. Red herring. This term supposedly originated in British foxhunting circles in the 1600’s, drawing a red herring across a trail to confuse hunting dogs and prolong the hunt. Pungent fish were also used by escapees being chased by posses with bloodhounds. By dragging a fish across the trail behind him, the person being chased hoped to buy time and make a safe getaway. These days a red herring is usually a figurative diversion. Take care to be politically correct when you drag that stinky thing out.

 

Here’s a fun distraction that will be familiar to cat lovers: Bright shiny object. The most popular is the laser toy. Grab one of those and shine it in the opposite direction of the speaker or activity from which you want to divert attention. Not many can resist the lure of the laser. For those who can, there are other distraction tactics to consider.

 

Another reliable one: Smoke screen. This was more typically used as a military tactic to obscure troop movements. With a thick enough screen, a speaker has no hope of having his message break through. I’m told this was used effectively in the movie “Wag the Dog.” I never saw that one, but I don’t think it employed smoke literally.

 

Loud noise, including music, and especially repetitive sounds, can also effectively disrupt communication. Not to mention sanity. “A Clockwork Orange,” anyone? Don’t think about “Singin’ in the Rain.” Think about the electronic version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony that drove Malcolm McDowell to jump out a window. Temperature extremes, either hot or cold, can have similar effects.

 

Retail establishments have learned to use fragrance to distract shoppers and lure them to desired areas or inspire purchases. On the opposite side of the spectrum, obnoxious smells, like rotten eggs, will drive folks away from something you don’t want them to see or hear.

 

On a brighter (and less repulsive) note, animals are a tried and true method of diverting attention away from one person to another area altogether. Puppies! Kittens! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Only the truly stone cold-hearted can resist these.

 

Before I share my final tactic, I’m throwing out two words that are not exactly distraction techniques, but which describe things that aren’t what they seem. Astroturfing imitates the messaging of grass roots movements, masking the sponsors to sway people to believe something that isn’t true. It makes it seem like it originates from the true grassroots organizations, but it’s far from it. Clickbait is linked text designed to entice users to follow that link and view the online content. In this case, that content is deceptive and misleading and is typically sensationalized.

 

On to my final pièce de résistance of distraction techniques. As I often do in my essays, I’m going full circle back to where I started, which is a historical example of a distraction tactic. It falls into the general category of humor. Humor is almost always a safe way to divert attention from one area to something totally different. There are, of course, plenty of examples out there of politically incorrect humor. But you really should be able to accomplish your goals while still being PC.

 

When all else fails and you desperately need to distract attention from something, strip off all your clothes and streak naked in the opposite direction.

 

Copyright 2021 Business Theatre Unlimited

Stolen Years

 Many adults think the reckless behavior of young people is a reflection of their assumption that they will live forever. When I was young, I was guilty of a fair amount of recklessness, but I don’t remember ever thinking I was indestructible, that I’d live forever. Not even in an abstract sense, much less literal.

 

The disruption caused by COVID is robbing most of us of the social interactions that add richness to our lives. For young people, this will likely be a temporary interruption in their emotional development. Once the pandemic is behind us, life will go back to almost normal and their social growth will pick up where it left off. For older people, especially seniors, it may not be that easy.

 

After my sister’s husband died, she and I decided to take a trip together each fall to places we selected together. The first year, we went to Puglia, Italy and enjoyed it immensely. The second year, we didn’t go on a trip because my husband had knee replacement surgery. In addition to wanting to help him with his recovery, I had been counting on him to take care of our senior cats while I would be away. The third year, my sister and I went out West with a focus on visiting Sedona and several National Parks.

 

Year four was supposed to be Portugal. Instead, we got to sequester at home because of COVID. As it turned out, my husband and I developed health issues that would have complicated that trip. My sister, who is now 82, lamented that she wasn’t sure how many more years she would have for us to make these trips together. I assured her that we’d have plenty of them; there’s longevity in our family. It’s not that I thought we were indestructible and would live forever. I just felt we had a lot of years ahead of us. “There’s always next year” had been my mantra.

 

Recently I started to think about the trips my sister and I expect to make. I hope everyone is healthy enough for one by fall, but even with the COVID vaccine now a reality, I doubt we’d risk traveling this year. Perhaps in 2022.

 

I had a sudden realization that COVID was stealing years from those of us who don’t have many years left to lose. Before COVID forced me to stay at home, I was here much of the time anyway, so it didn’t feel like much of a sacrifice. I don’t feel that way any more. It has dawned on me that every year that my sister and I can’t travel together is a stolen one.

 

Our remaining years no longer spread out ahead of us like a magic carpet of travel time. We were never expecting to live forever. But we also weren’t expecting to have the years we were counting on be taken away from us without warning and through no fault of our own.

 

This may sound like a simple realization of my own mortality, but it’s something different than that. Recognizing your own mortality simply means that you know there’s an end out there somewhere. Stolen years are different. Those are years that should have been there to be lived and enjoyed in your limited, mortal future, but are no longer there.

 

Young people have time to adjust, to recover from lost time. Seniors don’t have that luxury. Once a year has been stolen from us, we can never get it back. My mantra is no longer “There’s always next year.” It’s “I hope there will BE a next year.” And not just for my sister and me, but for all of us. In the meantime, I’ve decided I will not dwell on the year or two that COVID will have stolen. I’m going to focus on reclaiming my life, one day, one week, and one month at a time. After all, days, weeks, months—that’s what years are made of.

 

Copyright 2021 Business Theatre Unlimited

Banned Words and Phrases 2021

 

This is my tenth foray into preparing my own list of words and phrases to be banned in the coming year. The fact that many of my previously banned entries are still in popular use has not dissuaded me from giving you ten new ones for 2021.

 

Every banned words list this year that has a shred of editorial gravitas should include “woke,” even though people seldom agree on what it means. If you’re woke, you supposedly pay attention to social and racial justice issues. As with anything controversial, the meanings of these aspects of justice change depending on your politics. During the 2020 election, pundits on both the far left and the far right hijacked woke for their own purposes. In 2021, wake up, folks, and stop woking!

 

I’m thrilled to toss into my lexiconic dumpster the catch phrase “tick tock,” the lazy man’s way of saying “the clock is running.” After years of popping up in TV programs, it’s wormed its way into media interviews. Newsflash. The clock is always running. Say what you mean: “We’re running out of time,” because—tick tock—time has run out for using that phrase.

 

I’m weary of people defending their prognostications and far out opinions by saying “I have a hunch.” As far as I’m concerned, you might as well just say “I have an itch.” Scratch it in private; don’t share it with us. Especially if you have no medical expertise and are publicizing your hunches about what to do during a pandemic.

 

My next three entries come courtesy of Senator Amy Klobuchar.

The question Who does that? started with Klobuchar and has been picked up by other politicians. We know “who does that,” because you just quoted their objectionable behavior.  If you mean no reasonable or sentient being would do that, say so.

 

Senator Klobuchar popularized the now banned word “receipts” to assure would-be voters she’d accomplished things she claimed to be capable of. “I have the receipts!” became the battle cry of many candidates who felt their CV wasn’t convincing enough on its own. It reached such a frenzy that I expected one of them to actually hold up a fistful of papers. As it turned out, that gesture was co-opted by a certain press secretary, brandishing a handful of affidavits to prove election fraud.

 

“I see you” is often heard from a politician trying to convince an audience that she’s “woke” when it comes to their concerns. According to the NY Times, actress Jane Alexander refused to use that phrase in the play Grand Horizons that opened in early 2020. Of course you see us if we’re in front of you. And don’t try to get around this ban by substituting “I hear you,” because I don’t feel you on this one.

 

Dog whistles employ coded language to get a target group to support a certain position while avoiding negative attention and without riling up the opposition. The whistles sound normal to most of us, but they communicate something else to the intended audience. “Defend family values” is a good example. Reverse dog whistles convey something that is not true, but evokes a knee-jerk reaction to a particular phrase or label. Used out of context, “defeat socialism” is one of these. Let’s put a plug in either type of dog whistling.

 

The phrase “circular firing squad” refers to people engaged in internal conflicts and mutual recriminations that are self-defeating. It must have been invented to describe Democratic primaries and I’d like to retire it once and for all. The only thing more self-destructive would be eating their young, which QAnon actually claims that they do.

 

Let’s stop using the truism “It is what it is.” Does anyone really think something isn’t what it is? True, something might not be as it appears. But if that’s what’s you mean, better to say so. I don’t expect total compliance on this, because well, whatever will be will be.

 

I can’t believe it has taken this long for me to jettison CNN’s famous catch phrase “Breaking News.” When all of your news is breaking and you repeat it all day long, pretty soon none of it is breaking. It’s like seeing “sale price” on a grocery shelf for months on end. CNN, if it ain’t breakin’, don’t “Break” it.

 

As a breast cancer survivor, I’ve been using the phrase “not my first rodeo” since my recent diagnosis with lung cancer. I’m determined to put this in my rear view in 2021, so I don’t plan to need the rodeo phrase much longer. Giving it up now is a small price to pay if Tom Selleck stops saying it in those reverse mortgage ads that carpet bomb the TV. A girl can dream, can’t she?

 

That’s my list for 2021. I trust I can count on all of you to comply.

 

 

Copyright 2021 Business Theatre Unlimited

Origins of My Giving

 We’re all familiar with the expression “It’s better to give than to receive,” and many folks prefer to give gifts than to get them. I love giving people things. As long back as I can remember I’ve felt this way. I recently came to realize what I believe to be the origins of my giving penchant.

 

 

Last year, as I’ve done before, I was tooling around EBay looking for Christmas ornaments in various categories. I search certain keywords like cats every year. Last year I was fixated on small vintage bells. I turned up a box of them that looked like something I gave my mother when I was about eight. They were white china with colored decals of Christmas motifs—Santas, reindeer and such.

 

The EBay item reminded me that the box I bought was the first gift I ever gave someone. I had been so excited! I came across them when I was shopping with my mom and dad. My mother was off somewhere and my father was with me. I was sure she would love the bells and be surprised, since I’d never done that before. I had found them on my own and I used my own money to buy them. It was a wonderful feeling, and it warms my heart even today when I think about it.

 

I remember another early example of my giving. I was perhaps the same age as when I found the bells, probably in 4^th grade. My class was doing a Secret Santa, pulling names from a box. I quietly approached the teacher before the drawing and asked if she could make sure that I got Ruthie’s name. Ruthie was clearly from a family of limited means. Her clothes were worn, almost ragged, not very clean. She lived in a cabin in the wooded hills nearby. I wanted her to have something nice to wear to school. Our teacher was happy to comply.

 

My mother and I bought a pink pullover sweater with a round neck and short sleeves that was half of a twin set. The added cost for the cardigan would have been above the Secret Santa amount and would have looked too much like charity. Doing it through the Santa program meant that Ruthie would not have felt singled out. I remember she looked somewhat surprised, perhaps confused, but pleased with her gift.

 

Many years later, I worked for a company that provided dolls for the employees to dress as part of a Holiday Pageant. The dressed dolls were given to orphanages and hospitals for disadvantaged children. I spent many hours designing and making doll outfits, two each year. I won prizes every time. Some colleagues wondered why I put so much effort into the clothes, and one even asked why I always dressed a Black doll. I simply wanted each little girl to get a beautiful doll that looked like her.

 

 

Looking back, I don’t remember how my mother reacted upon receiving those bells. I don’t remember ever seeing Ruthie wearing the sweater. I certainly never saw any of the little girls who received the dolls in fancy clothes that I made so painstakingly. Of course, I knew that when I was creating them.

 

I realize now that it must have been the act of giving that made me feel so wonderful. I wasn’t thinking about how the gifts would be received. This is, of course, what giving is really about. To be truly in the spirit of this season, one should not make a generous gesture in hopes of getting an expansive thank you.

 

COVID has forced seniors to spend most of our time at home. This has changed the dynamic of my holiday giving. I haven’t gone to any of my usual shopping haunts since Spring. Because I’m not a huge fan of on-line shopping, I’ll be giving the teenagers on my list checks; at their age they’ll probably be happier with that anyway. The adults haven’t been exchanging much in recent years. We’ll likely make contributions to a charity of choice in honor of our recipients. I’m not sure how I’ll be feeling about this year’s giving once the holiday is behind us, but the dynamics of 2020 are not of my making.

 

I used to be obsessively independent. As much as I enjoyed giving, I was uncomfortable being on the receiving end. As I got older, I learned to more gracefully accept gifts and help from others. I’ve recently been diagnosed with lung cancer, with medical procedures in December, possible chemotherapy and more surgery in January. My neighbors in our small community have been unfailingly generous in providing meals and rides as needed.

 

Perhaps all the giving I’ve done over the years was paying it forward for me to be on the receiving end this season. Whatever the reason, as I contemplate the origins of my own giving, I’m grateful that others get as much pleasure from theirs.

 

Copyright 2020 Business Theatre Unlimited

The End of My Shopping Addiction

 

Anyone who has admitted to having an addiction of any kind, or who knows someone who has one, probably is aware of several ways to cure these. Food addictions come quickly to mind for me. Chocolate! Ice Cream! Cheese puffs! I could go on, but I won’t.

 

Anyhow, there are two frequently used ways to deal with these. One is cold turkey. You make up your mind you’re not going to imbibe any more and you stop just like that. Sounds easy enough, but in reality, cold turkey is one of the most difficult ways to purge yourself of an unwanted behavior. You need to have a very strong will and be extremely disciplined. Although many of you may see me that way, when it comes to things I love to eat or do, my willpower is MIA.

 

The second method sometimes employed can often be effective with food. That’s the overstuff approach. In theory, you just eat so much of the food you want to avoid and in such a short period of time that you never want to look at it again, much less ingest it. I can’t imagine ever reaching that point with chocolate. When I was growing up, parents sometimes used this method to cure little kids of a sugar habit and teenagers of smoking or drinking beer. I doubt that would work anymore, especially since savvy teens would claim bad parenting and sue for emotional trauma.

 

Then there’s always the path of professional help with your problem. I’ll include support networks under this umbrella. That type of help is undoubtedly best for serious addictions that involve substance abuse. If you don’t have adequate insurance, you can probably forget having a therapist talk you out of your wayward behavior. That’s not likely to happen in just a few sessions. Hypnosis helps some folks control unwanted habits. Support groups are great for a lot of these, and they’re everywhere now. There are also meds and therapeutics, like transdermal patches to help kick smoking.

 

The addiction that prompted me to write this column was none of the above. I was a shopaholic. I worked in Manhattan for over 20 years, most of that time within 2 blocks of Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship store. I remember going to their shoe department at lunch one day and returning with five pairs of heels. That’s right… five. Two each of two styles and one of a third. I can still picture them. Mary Jane style patent leather heels in black and in red. Smooth leather heels with cross straps across the instep in yellow and also in white. I almost bought the hot pink ones, too, but then the lime green ones would have wondered what was wrong with them. The fifth pair was a classic navy t-strap.

 

My idea of entertainment was to wander the aisles in just about any interesting store, ogling and sometimes fondling the merchandise. I’d even tidy up the racks. And by interesting, I mean just about anything. My father used to get lost in the tool department in Sears. That didn’t hold any attraction for me, but some other specialized places did. In recent years, I became addicted to Home Goods. I’d look through their clearance sections first. It wouldn’t matter if I needed an item or not. It might be a good gift for someone, and I certainly didn’t have to know who would wind up with it. I still have shelves of these “finds” in our basement.

 

Well, I’m pleased to report that one of the few bright spots of this COVID pandemic is that I’m finally cured of my shopping addiction. The specialty pet store where I get cat food is in the same strip mall as a Marshalls/Home Goods store. I sometimes look up the sidewalk to their building, just to see if there’s a six-feet distancing line outside. But I’m not even remotely tempted to go in. Nothing I could find there now is worth the risk of exposing myself to COVID.

 

It probably helps that I’m at that stage of life where I should be getting rid of things in our household and not adding to it. But I’ve been at that stage for several years, and it never kept me out of Home Goods until now. No. It’s definitely the pandemic that has put an end to my shopping addiction. I guess every cloud does have a silver lining.

 

Copyright 2020 Business Theatre Unlimited

Flaneuring During the Pandemic

 Most of us seniors have had to change our lifestyles during the pandemic. We’re spending more time at home and less time (if any) socializing with friends. We seldom go out other than to the supermarket or drug store. When (if) we do, it is usually for a walk somewhere that will not have us encountering other people. It turns out there’s a name for a particular way of walking around: flaneuring.

 

I found this helpful definition from an Amazon post for the book, The Art of Flaneuring: How to Wander with Intention and Discover a Better Life: “Originally used to describe well-to-do French men who would stroll city streets in the nineteenth century, flaneur has evolved to generally mean someone who wanders with intention.”

 

One of my friends from college read the book. He has embraced flaneuring with his wife and grandkids during the shutdown. They do nature walks and report on plants, unusual trees and rocks and occasional forest denizens. His post titled: Flaneuring—Part Three includes photos of a snake he and his grandson untangled from some netting. The boy put the critter in a pond and it swam off. No report on whether the reptile had been flaneuring when it got caught in the net.

 

I’ve taken to flaneuring closer to home. Specifically, I wander around with intention within our house and along the outer perimeter. Here are some of the things I find on these walks. First there are the tissues, paper towels and napkins that my husband drops as he moves about. I usually find several of these each day. He doesn’t walk with intention; he goes around in a fog most of the time. I pick up after him with intention.

 

Then I take a spin around the first floor, looking for errant jigsaw puzzle pieces that my cat Kallie has carried off. I usually find those shortly after she’s taken them, so I can match them to the puzzle I’m working on or a recently finished one. I take photos of each completed puzzle, so there’s a void where the piece belongs. Not long ago, I found one on the dining room rug for a puzzle underway. Nearby was a totally different piece. I still haven’t figured out what puzzle it came from. If the picture below looks familiar, let me know.

 

 

Less common, but equally important to keeping the place tidy, are the throw ups that my cats have left for me. Sometimes these are hairballs. Sometimes they are little piles of dried up kibble that escaped my notice for who knows how long. It’s amazing how well those can blend in with the patterns of our Oriental rugs. I’ve found that flaneuring in stocking feet is a good way to discover them.

 

Outside the house, I wander with the intention of finding the golf balls that have been shanked from the 13^th tee into the side or back of our condo. We’re located next to the fairway and get hit at least four dozen times a year. Often I hear them hit the house with a crack so loud I’m afraid they’ve taken out a window. So far this year, they’ve just come through a screen onto the porch floor, scaring the cats that had been lounging out there.

 

If I meander outside with adequate intention, I wend my way behind the bushes below the back of our place. We’re located on the side of a steep slope and the plantings are meant to hold the soil in place. The groundskeepers trim them back less and less each year. Right now, I can barely sidle behind them to recover the errant balls that are often back there.

 

My exterior flaneuring seldom turns up items as interesting as the snake that my college friend found. I did recently discover that a petunia had taken root in front of our garage. (See photo at beginning of this post.) I didn’t plant any petunias this year. I don’t know if this seeded from last year or blew there from a neighbor’s yard. Maybe a bird dropped a seed. Last week I noticed that the pot of geraniums on our back deck has a squash plant growing at its edge. Or maybe it’s a pumpkin. The blossoms die before I can identify them.

 

Small but interesting oddities in the midst of what could otherwise be a boring walk around the perimeter of our abode. We may be sequestered here during the pandemic, but I can still find some things worth noting as I wander with intention. The truth is it doesn’t take much to entertain me as long as it breaks the monotony. I’m not yet an expert flaneur, but I’m working on it.

 

Copyright 2020 Business Theatre Unlimited

Sourdough and Pickle Cakes

The stay-at-home mandate put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic has brought us the phrase “Quarantine 15.” Much like the Freshman 15 of college days, it refers to the weight gain that results from a drastic change in someone’s lifestyle.

Spend even a short amount of time on social media these days and you’ll see that many people are in their kitchens far more often than before the pandemic. If you weren’t tempted to go there on your own, the photos of the culinary creations folks are posting will make your own kitchen hard to resist.

I’ve never been much of a cook or baker. My mother set the bar so high that I figured it wasn’t even worth trying to follow in her footsteps. But I enjoy looking at what my Facebook friends are up to these days. Several of my male high school classmates are particularly prolific. While I’d expect them to be making some hearty fare for main courses, they seem to be putting as much time and effort into their desserts.

TV commercials have also taken note of the baking trend, and one trend in particular appears in several ads. “Why is everyone making sourdough now?” wonders an AT&T agent who is discussing upgrading to 5G with a client.  Of course, it has nothing to do with 5G, but it’s a great topical comment from the ad’s creative director.

A GEICO ad has been updated with a casual reference to this trend. A mother calls her son on his cell phone. She’s working on a jigsaw puzzle; he’s fending off multiple attackers as he waits for a helicopter to rescue him from a rooftop. Inserted into this latest version is the mom’s comment: “Your father’s learning to make sourdough.” In the original call in this campaign, she tells the son his father is researching genealogy. You can count on an ad agency creative to keep on top of the latest trends.

These commercials reflect a public fascination with sourdough during the pandemic. Google searches for “bread” recently hit all-time highs. For a period of time, a craft brewery in Toronto was giving away its sourdough starter for free with local beer deliveries, claiming to have passed out over 300 starters in a two week period in April.

Maybe it’s a consequence of cabin fever and boredom. Watching loaves of bread rise ever so slowly must be at least as interesting as watching paint dry. Apparently there’s some science behind it.  “Eating carbohydrate foods like bread stimulates insulin, which raises the uptake by the brain of the essential amino acid, tryptophan,” according to a professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto. Tryptophan increases production of serotonin, which helps calm you in stressful times. Being able to eat more bread guilt-free might almost be worth being stuck at home. Just sayin’.

Another trend keeping folks tethered to their kitchens is cakes baked in unusual shapes. A New York Times article showed us cakes shaped and iced so realistically that you’d swear they are something else. The pickle cake was especially convincing, as were the onion and the cheeseburger slider. Times reporter Taylor Lorenz cited Natalie Sideserf, owner of Sideserf Cake Studio in Austin, Texas, who says many hyper-realistic cakes are made using fondant—a mix of sugar, water, gelatin and vegetable shortening, but claims she prefers to use chocolate molds.

https://images.app.goo.gl/NDXcU3AhLmVrHY7J7

According to Lorenz, social media is filled with “hyper-realistic cake slicing videos.” The popularity of these videos seems to confirm the cabin fever/boredom explanation. Folks who have no interest in baking things themselves will sit transfixed in front of their computer screens, mesmerized by someone else slicing a bar of soap or a roll of toilet paper, only to reveal a cake inside.

For my part, I’d rather eat one of these marvels—whether it’s sourdough or a pickle cake—than watch it being made or sliced. So far, I haven’t found anyone who lives close enough to us to drop off any baked creations on our doorstep. If you’ve made something you’re willing to share, email me for my address. Just don’t expect me to make a video of us slicing it.

Copyright 2020 Business Theatre Unlimited

In Praise of Pigs

Part of the collateral damage from the COVID-19 pandemic has been a shortage of meat. Many processing plants have been shut down because of outbreaks of the disease. The domino effect of this is that cattle and pig ranchers have no place to sell their animals. A recent news feature showed a pig farm where the mature stock was being “humanely euthanized” to make room for the baby piglets to grow up. You needed a heart of lead to not feel sad about all those pigs being shot. Of course, absent the pandemic, they were headed to a fate that was no happier.

My husband and I don’t eat a lot of meat, other than chicken. We prefer fish. I stopped eating veal altogether years ago. I had seen photos of young calves kept in tiny stalls so they wouldn’t develop muscles and would stay tender until they were slaughtered. Now I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to eat a pork chop again. My husband and I have often toyed with becoming vegetarians. The pig TV feature has me considering this more seriously. It also led me to think about the places that pigs appear in our cultural psyche.

It starts when we’re babies and everyone around us wants to count on our toes. “This little piggy went to market; this little piggy stayed home.” And so on. There’s also the nursery rhyme: “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig. Home again, home again, jiggety-jig. To market, to market, to buy a fat hog. Home again, home again, jiggety-jog.” I sing this to my cats on the way back from the vet, letting them know that we’re headed home. I have no idea if they understand this, but it makes me feel better.

Early on, we learned about The Three Little Pigs, with their varying home construction materials and how those fared against the huffing and puffing of the Big Bad Wolf. Not long after that, we became familiar with Looney Tunes and P-P-P-Porky Pig and his girlfriend Petunia. As our literature selections became somewhat more sophisticated, we were no doubt introduced to Winnie the Pooh and his dearest friend, Piglet. And who can forget Wilbur, the pig who was saved from slaughter in Charlotte’s Web?

The Muppet, Miss Piggy, deserves a paragraph all her own, even if it’s just two sentences. She has an entire media and promotional empire built around her. The literary creation, Olivia, could give Miss Piggy a run for her money. Olivia has her own books, translated into many languages. Her original book won a Caldecott Honor in 2000. Both of these ladies were featured on U.S. Postal Service stamps, Miss Piggy in 2005 and Olivia in 2006.

Many celebrities have (or had) pet pigs, including George Clooney, Ariana Grande (who appears to have won the custody battle with Pete Davidson), the Beckhams, Miley Cyrus and countless others.

Let’s not forget colloquial expressions that feature pigs: a pig in a poke, in a pig’s eye, when pigs fly, male chauvinist pig. OK, maybe let’s forget that last one, but the other three are permanently entrenched in our lexicon. How about going hog wild and its cousin, going whole hog? Did you have a piggy bank? Ever get carried piggyback? Wear pig tails? And one that I could never do without: As happy as a pig in ____. (You fill in the blank.) Let’s end this exercise with a phrase that’s been showing up in political discourse lately: Put lipstick on a pig. I know there are more pig/hog/sow expressions, but my list should give you a sense of porcine usefulness in language.

This essay is by no means a complete survey of pigs in our culture, but I hope it makes you think twice the next time you order roast pork in a restaurant. Maybe the shortage of chops during the pandemic will result in permanent changes to our culinary behavior. For the sake of all those little porkers, I certainly hope so.

Copyright 2020 Business Theatre Unlimited

Pandemic Beauty Regimens

A friend contacted me during the stay-at-home phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to participate in a Zoom meeting with several other women. She described it as a chance to do hair and makeup, adding LOL at the end. LOL is right, thought I.

I keep my hair very short, getting it cut at least every 6 weeks. It will be 12 weeks out from its last cut when we Zoom. As for the makeup part, in a typical year, I put on makeup maybe five or six times. That’s not per week or month. That’s per year. It pretty much depends on how many weddings we go to. I stopped putting on makeup for funerals years ago. The mourners at funerals these days have eyesight as bad as my own. They’re just glad I can still show up and share memories.

So this “do hair and makeup” for my friend’s Zoom party got me thinking. Exactly what should I do to prepare for this event? I color my own hair. It’s a few weeks past its prime, but the roots aren’t really due for a while. Will the emerging gray show up more on the computer screen? I know those cameras magnify the tiniest details.

More importantly, how do I do the “styling?” I can’t just mush it with my fingers like I can when it’s short. It’s an understatement to describe my current look as raggedy. It’s more like extreme bed head. Years ago, I cut my own hair, but I’m not that flexible anymore. I’m sure I can’t reach around to the back now. I could draft my husband to help; I cut his hair, after all. But he has challenges to his vision for which the treatments are on hold during the pandemic. It would tempt fate to let him near my head with our barber shears.

I suddenly had a great idea. I’ll wear a hairband to push the wayward locks back from my face. It was a look I wore often when I was young and I still have a basket of bands in different materials and widths. A test run showed my hair isn’t long enough yet for those to work. I have plenty of scarves I could try tying on my head, but would I look like Rosie the Riveter?

I decided to defer a decision on my hair and move on to the makeup part of my friend’s suggestion. The other women on this Zoom call are all at least five or ten years younger than I am, so they have less mileage on their complexions. As I already mentioned, I never was one for a lot of makeup. I have a bottle of base coating from decades ago and lipstick that’s almost as old. Mostly I just do my brows and lashes and dust some color on my cheeks.

As I lean in to the mirror in my bathroom, I see that there are now wrinkles all around my eyes. When did they arrive? Probably about the same time as the crinkly lines I see around my mouth. I guess I haven’t leaned in that far in a long time. I realize there will be virtually no chance of hiding any of these without a major spackling job, and I’m not about to get into that. It’s not like I’m going to someone’s wedding, after all.

The close-up does remind me that I’ll need to pluck all my chin hairs the day before the call. Ditto for shaving the fuzz on the sides of my face with that special device I found in the “As Seen On TV” section of the local drug store. I decide I should also spend some time thinking about the lighting around the area where I plan to sit when we Zoom.

I get my laptop and try out a few locations, being sure to do it at the same time of day as the get together is scheduled. We have windows on four sides of our condo, but only two sides are options that make any sense. I try out a few spots, having first removed a cat or two from the place I plan to sit.

Good grief! My neck wattle shines like a distress signal in the fog! No matter how I angle the laptop or reposition the chair, there’s no getting rid of that glow. It seems like the only solution will be a Dr. Brix-type camouflage—I have plenty of scarves, after all. Of course, that means I’ll have to coordinate my hair scarf with the one on my neck, which will take some doing. Then the perfect idea came to me: I’ll just wear my COVID-19 facemask. It hides everything.

Copyright 2020 Business Theatre Unlimited

Grocery Shopping During COVID-19

Going out to a supermarket is an act of bravery during the COVID-19 pandemic. I go about once a week with a grocery list that I’m sure is going to tide us over for at least two weeks. It never does. It’s not that we eat a lot. Certain things that we’re almost out of just aren’t on the shelf the day I go shopping.

I wear a mask and bring along my Lysol wipes, but those widely publicized precautions barely scratch the surface of the challenges that grocery shopping presents these days. I realized that as I replied to a comment someone made on Facebook.

The posting complained that Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan had just declared that stores of more than 50,000 sq. ft. could have only four customers at a time per 1000 sq. ft. He said that results in social distancing of about 15 ft. instead of the federal guideline of 6 ft. Here’s my reply (based on experience two days earlier):

I'd rather allow extra room. The only way a 6 ft. rule would work is if everyone shopped and moved along at the same pace. Else they'd be closer than 6 ft. part of the time. Even with a shopping list, I find myself backtracking and mulling over the stock, trying to decide what to pick up. Shelves are so bare that I'm often forced to substitute. Like, do I want to pay more for a national brand of chicken broth to get no-salt? Or do I want to go with lower price and have to get beef broth, with salt (or various permutations there-of). And that was one of my easier decisions this week. Would you want to be the shopper stuck 6 feet behind me?

The 15 ft. rule would be especially helpful in stores that now have made their narrow aisles one-way. Those are a nightmare for me. The overhead signs never seem to list all the categories. First I roll my cart to the end of the aisle to find a variety of canned beans for chili. As I’m ticking them off my list, I see that I also need canned tuna. More often than not that’s at the other end of the same aisle, but I didn’t notice it when I wheeled by. In a store with one-way aisles, I'd have to go one aisle over and backtrack to the beginning of the aisle with the tuna and beans.

It's not any easier in the cat food aisle, especially if you're shopping for one finicky senior and two who will eat anything. Add to that the fact that the store staff sometimes mix the Fancy Feast chicken paté in with the beef and chicken paté. Both have red labels, one slightly darker. My finicky girl eats beef and chicken, but she’s not as keen on plain chicken. They also sometimes mix flaked salmon in with the salmon paté. Paté is  a safer bet for older cats. I could go on, but I see that your eyes are glazing over.

My recent trip tried my patience. A man was blocking the door of the main egg case, trying to decide which ones to buy. His female companion, behind him on her phone, was providing no guidance. I stood 6 feet away for a few minutes and finally just took a more expensive carton from the neighboring case.

As if shopping for our normal groceries isn’t challenge enough these days, being sequestered at home has led to binge eating comfort food. I rarely bought potato chips before. Now it’s on the list every time I go shopping. Have you ever noticed how long the chips aisle is? Lays sells classic chips and originals (what’s the difference??), honey barbecue and barbecue (?? again), salt & vinegar and sour cream & onion. Supposedly there are over 160 varieties of Lays chips. It’s no wonder I get confused in that aisle. And I haven’t even touched on corn chips.

Fortunately for me, we prefer original types, like Cape Cod kettle cooked. But even that brand comes in multiple flavors. In most stores, chips are stocked by brand, but some have the larger bags are at one end and smaller ones at the other. More often than not, I temporarily abandon my cart and walk up and down trying to figure out what's on sale that's binge-worthy.

The cookie aisle isn’t much easier to navigate and the transition from cookies to crackers is not always easy to follow. More back tracking. It should come as no surprise that grocery shopping during COVID-19 is so stressful that my cart has a lot more binge-worthy products than I had on my list when I left the house. At times like these, it’s critical to have a variety of comfort food on hand to survive each day’s news.

Copyright 2020 Business Theatre Unlimited

Horror Vacui

I’ve become enamored of the phrase: “horror vacui”. It came onto my radar through an article in the NY Times about the auction of the belongings of the late decorator/collector/hoarder, Mario Buatta, aka the Prince of Chintz. Buatta, who was unknown to me until the article, was described as a maximalist. A man after my own heart. I believe that a blank space on the wall is crying out to have something hung on it. My husband, on the other hand, is a minimalist. We’re a classic example of opposites attracting.

I was thrilled to learn that my affliction has a name. One of Buatta’s colleagues said of him that he “had a horror vacui of a plain surface.” The term is generally applied to visual art, especially on walls, but it can refer to a wide range of décor, such as tables and shelves. Simply put, horror vacui leads to the filling of the entire surface of a space or an artwork with detail. It’s also known as kenophobia, the fear of empty spaces, rooms or voids, and is the opposite of claustrophobia.

There is no shame in acknowledging that you have a horror vacui. Even Aristotle believed that nature abhors a vacuum. I feel so much better now that I know I’m not simply an incorrigible hoarder. I always believed there was a psychological basis for my collecting (a term I prefer to hoarding).

I saw my behavior as compassionate anthropomorphizing. I felt that one of something was lonely and needed a friend, so I’d seek out a second. Then whenever I came across another related item, I was compelled to bring it home to introduce it to the others. As I’m writing this, it occurs to me that “compassionate anthropomorphizing”—a description I just now made up—sounds like more of an affliction than horror vacui.

Getting back to this evocative newfound term, it dawned on me that the dislike of a vacuum can apply to a lot more things in life than just visual décor. Take for instance anatomy. Certain women’s surgeries leave a void in their aftermath. I’m thinking in particular of hysterectomies. No one prepares you for the fact that removing your various reproductive organs leaves an empty space behind.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so also does the female body. Over time, things move around. Without getting too graphic, I urge you to think of what else is down in that area of the anatomy. Things shift; they change shape; they twist. Your stomach expands, so you eat more. Your intestines spread out, so your colonoscopy takes longer. Sorry. I guess I did get too graphic. It takes a period of adjustment to get used to these changes.

As I mulled this over, it occurred to me that the medical community should come up with some ideas for how to fill that vacuum so there is no horror months later. As you might expect, I have some suggestions.

How about packing that void with Styrofoam peanuts? Of course, they’ll need to be biocompatible ones, but not biodegradable. Otherwise you’d have to go in every few years to get repacked. Not a pleasant thought.

I suppose it’s too ridiculous to consider adapting that space to become a convenient dispenser for disposable personal wipes. They’d certainly be handy down there. And yes, I know these should never be flushed. Moving right along…

My favorite idea is one that could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Let’s fill that vacuum with delicately fragrant potpourri. That might require more extensive R&D than the Styrofoam peanuts, but I’m sure it would be worth it.

Copyright 2020 Business Theatre Unlimited

The Latest Weird Trends

Every now and then I like to report on the latest weird trends. Two that I’ve noticed lately seem geared toward helping folks deal with anger and stress. The first is the growth of an offbeat physical hobby—axe throwing.

My first exposure to this was small signs along the roadside when I was running errands. The signs looked temporary, like the ones that advertise local blood drives or craft shows at the middle school. They included an address nearby. At first I thought it was for a pop-up event. Then I saw signs on a different route, for a different address. Still not what looked like a permanent sign, but it had me questioning how a relatively small area of Connecticut could support more than one place for axe throwing.

This led me to wonder if you need to bring your own gear—protective equipment, weaponry, etc. Or is it more like bowling, where you show up, and the fee to use the lane includes the shoes and ball? Does one even throw an axe in a lane? I wasn’t curious enough to research this. As stressed as I am about the political scene, I’ve yet to reach the point where I’m ready to toss lethal weapons around. Of course, November is a long way off.

Then I saw an axe-throwing commercial on a local TV station. Those ads are a lot more expensive than makeshift roadside signs. A quick online search turned up several places in my area where I can partake in this anger-releasing activity. The nearest site to me—Axe-it!—encourages you to book a party. Corporate Team Building, Birthday and Bachelor/ette. One FAQ suggests wearing closed-toed shoes (surprise, surprise). And yes, shoes are available for rent. They encourage you to sign their waiver on-line to save time at check-in. And no, I didn’t read the waiver, but I can easily imagine what’s in it.

I’ll be curious to hear if any of my readers have thrown an axe—legally or otherwise. Meanwhile, I’m moving on to the second weird trend: Elderberry Syrup. This age-old elixir is an anti-inflammatory, rich in antioxidants. It’s purported to fight colds, the flu and viruses. With the Coronavirus consuming much of the media bandwidth, can anyone be surprised that elderberry is growing in popularity? It also seems inevitable that this juice will soon be in competition with CBDs to relieve stress.

Before you become too enamored of this miracle drink, let’s take a look back into movie history and revisit Cary Grant’s 1944 classic Arsenic and Old Lace. For those unfamiliar with it, here’s a recap. Grant’s two eccentric elderly aunts rent rooms to lonely old bachelors. They serve them poison-laden elderberry wine to liberate them from their “suffering.” They initially hide the bodies in their window seat, which is where their nephew finds one on a visit. Grant’s disturbed uncle Teddy thinks these corpses are yellow fever victims who got the disease while building the Panama Canal, so he buries them in the basement of his sisters’ house.

Grant assumes that the delusional Teddy is behind the window seat murder, until his aunts cheerfully explain what they’ve done. They spiked their elderberry wine with arsenic, strychnine and cyanide, and then offered it as a welcoming drink to each elderly bachelor who responds to their “Room for Rent” sign. The comedy just keeps getting sillier. I’m sure it was the inspiration for a classic episode of Fawlty Towers. Suffice it to say that Arsenic and Old Lace is an apt title for this film. But it really should have been Arsenic, Old Lace and Elderberry Wine. Rent it, buy it, download it, but however you get it, watch it, even if you’ve seen it before.

My husband brought home some elderberry syrup for us. It’s actually quite pleasant. I’m not sure how much of a virus shield it provides, but I’ll keep drinking it now and then. Axe-throwing, on the other hand, will never be a hobby I take up. I’m way too clumsy for that. Even with close-toed shoes, I’d be likely to come home missing at least one of my little piggies.

Copyright 2020 Business Theatre Unlimited