Drink up! Or not! If only, they'd told me.

  Being inside, with the heat on practically nonstop, we tend toward dehydration; at least I do.  I'm always looking for a thirst quencher, and after a while Gatorade and water get tiresome, so I happened upon individual sized bottles of Sabila Aloe drink in Pomegranate flavor, Gluten-Free to boot. I put it to chill in the refrigerator and today I decided to try it.
  The color is rose color, rather like the juice from a pink grapefruit. I've eaten pomegranates in the past,  found them quite tasty as I recall.  So I thought I was prepared for the experience. I twisted off the cap, took a swig, and Horrors!--the gag reflex was instantly triggered.  Not because of the taste, but because my mouth was full of pulp.  What looked to be a clear liquid was full of pulp---I can only hope it was from the fruit, and was supposed to be there.  Anyway, I learned that the pulp of a pomegranate presents itself very much like the membrane lining the inside of one's lower lip.

Colonie Center

   The first store-contained Mall in the entire area.  It opened in 1966, and was THE place to go. I drove there frequently, when I was single, to shop and to meet my sister, and friends, and to go to the movie theater within.  I remember it as being a huge rectangle, two levels, with anchor stores on each end, One was Macy's and the other Sears.  If memory serves, Macy's entrance was on the lower, street-side, and the mall extended up a considerable incline, with a truck-parking area along the side of the mall, to the rear entrance, Sears, which opened onto a less developed area beyond its parking lot.
   I happened to be alone, Christmas shopping one cold evening, when I lost  track of time. When I went to leave, at the Sears where I had parked in  the upper parking lot, that exit was closed---the doors locked.  So I hurried down to Macy's and out that way. Now I had to find my way, in the dark, and through piled-up snow, all the way around the building, past the empty trucks lot, to the more deserted parking lot at the other end of the mall.  Having never explored the mall from the outside, I wasn't sure where I was going and even less sure what side I was parked on  (None of those futuristic cell phones available). Not a person was in sight and I know I felt frightened, scrambling around alone in the dark, until I at last located my car. Of course, crime then was not quite like it is now. But there was Lemuel Smith...
    What brings this to mind is I was at Colonie Center yesterday, the first time in a number of years. It looks the same, yet completely different, and I understand it is aged now and struggling to be relevant. I used to spend a lot of time there, alone, and  as a family:  for the events, the shopping, the arcade, the annual visits to Santa Claus, always with Nana, and hanging out waiting during the Valenty days on a weekly or more basis.
   Aside from attending the movie theater a few times in the last decade or so, I have not been there. And I won't drive there anymore, at least not by myself. One would not have expected that so promising a structure would become aged and irrelevant in so few years, relatively speaking.  But it happens.

I can relate...

...to the Veterans who are locked away from their memories. Not those who no longer have the ability to remember or recall the events of their lives. But I'm referring to those whose memories are intact, full of happenings both monumental and mundane. They have recollections, but no one to hear them. So it seems what they remember never happened--with no one to bounce those thoughts off of.
     I had this thought today when I was clearing the icy coating off my car. The drive to Shop'N'Save had  loosened  the ice enough so that using my snow brush  I could scrape the coating from the roof and hood. I always attach a great deal of importance to doing this because of something that happened a long time ago:
       I was working in the State Education Department correcting Regents papers, on a 6-week or so assignment.  I remember I parked in Coughtry's parking lot because parking spaces were at a premium downtown near the State Ed. building. I would walk about a mile to work and then back again during the months of January through March. Though the weather was cold, and windy as always in the Plaza, I didn't mind the walk.  For one thing, it brought me past Phil's Bakery, during the Lenten season, and they ruled when it came to Hot Cross Buns.
    But it was the thought of what happened on the drive home that triggered the memory that is etched forever in my mind, though to no other audience. Surely, as the veterans and I might have supposed, potentially life-altering events should exist somewhere else than in the recesses of the mind, but such is not the case.
   For instance, I have vivid recall of driving home one of those days, having met up with my station wagon at Coughtry's, and continuing up Central Avenue. I drove a few miles and then the curtain fell.  The layers of ice on the roof of the vehicle all at once slid down over the front of the vehicle, totally obscuring the view ahead. I tried to look out the passenger side window to move as far right as possible, pulled over, and stopped. I couldn't see what was happening, but two men from Hoffman's Car Wash ran over and quick as a flash, because I was in the roadway, they cleared the layer of ice and frozen snow off the windshield and the hood of my car, and waved me off on my way home.
      I'm sure that at the time I must have told a person or two what had happened, and I'm also sure none of them really understood the danger I'd been in, and I'm even more sure that nobody today would even have a glimmer.  So I can only imagine the mindset of  veterans, who may have spent years of their lives undergoing horrendous experiences.  Someone, somewhere, must certainly know what it was like.  And so, the origin of war stories------"Listen to me.  I was there."
 

Ice, Ice, Baby

When Andrew opened the storm door yesterday, a good-sized icicle broke off

and fell into the pocket of his jacket. He treated it like a dagger until his hand got too cold.  (I'm prevailing on old Huff N Puff to replace the roof diverter their installers removed before someone is stabbed to death.)

Prescient from the Precocious One

    "I believe the book, 1984, by George Orwell, shows traits of a science fiction book but isn't quite true science fiction.
     George Orwell exaggerated into fiction by using the telescreen and peepcasters.  He also wrote about  the future, which is a common mark of science fiction.  However, I don't think he wrote about the future; he wrote for  the future.  He hid his real point under the surrealisms of 1984 and Oceania.  His real point showed that humans are conquerable, ignorant creatures.  They are even capable of duping themselves to believe their own lies, which is definitely a truth about humans.  Orwell showed how fear can suppress a world of people.  He showed how Catch 22's completely wiped out any way of retaliation.
    George Orwell's 1984 would be classified as sci-fi, but I would file it under future history.  As Orwell wrote, Ignorance is Strength, War is Peace and Freedom is Slavery."
   **Teacher comment:  "Thoughtful and thought-provoking.  One of the main functions of all types of literature is to force man to hold up  a mirror to himself."     (Use of masculine pronoun was ok back in the '90's.)

That personal touch

   Not much of that going around anymore, so to receive it from unexpected places is worth noting to my dear blog:
  I sent Dave's hearing aids to the Veterans Affairs Office in Denver, as we've done now several times.Today we received  an email response saying the hearing aids are being repaired and should be received in 2-3 weeks. There was a message sent with this notification:
      "The cardboard box you sent in caught everybody's eye---it was from Yardsley's  Soaps of London---and because the Royal Seal or Warrant was from King George VI, we estimated it was from the years 1910-1952.  Very unique!  Thank you for the surprise and for your military service.   John"
   Well, what was I supposed to do with that box? Throw it in the garbage? 

Foreshadowing? 1990's View

    "I'm gonna make this short and sweet--Men Suck!  They can't do anything right. Jason is just some stupid thug who wants to get a fleece, and Medea all of a sudden is all over him.  Jason never asks for her help but she gives it to him, and that's probably the only reason why he took her back with him.
    Now I personally would be turned off by her cutting up her brother, but Jason has got only one thing on his mind. His toga is chafing his crotch.
  So a couple of years pass and Jason and Medea have a couple of kids.  Medea meanwhile is probably performing some voodoo mind control on Jason.  However, after a while Jason wakes up and smells the coffee. Medea is one horse short of a chariot race, and Glauce is a major babe.  Jason's eye, and other body parts, wanders and Medea goes totally mental. She goes on a killing streak which included her own kids and then she took off, My professional opinion is that Medea is a psycho hose beast."
         *****Seems unlikely, but during all my children's  school years, not once was I ever notified of a referral to any type of professional service.