Giving Thanks

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, I wanted to give thanks to family, friends and good health and wish the same for all of you out there.

Also wanted to give thanks for the Internet. Without it, all of us in the TTWD world would not have been able to have found one another and share our lives and understand we are not alone, which I am sure many of us, like me, thought we were before we found there is a community of like-minded folks out there. And it has been so satifying to share these interests.

I also want to thank all of my readers, especially those of you who are so kind to leave comments and share your thoughts. I hope you will continue to return and share your insights. Also want to thank the lurkers who don't comment but still stop by.

Want to wish all of you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving. And hope we are all here a year from now so we all be here to give thanks again.

FD

Sunday Morning

How was your Sunday morning?

Mine included pulling into the Target parking lot at 735 a.m. I was five minutes late. My daughter had told me to be there at 7:30 p.m. for an 8 a.m. opening. The phone rang as I was pulling in. She wanted to make sure I was sthere.

Of course, there were only two people at the door but my daughter takes this pre-holiday shopping seriously. My mission was to get two Nintendo games for the grandkids that were on sale that morning because they are coming down for Christmas. The flyer didn't arrive until I got the Sunday paper but she had already checked it out in advance online that they were going to be on sale.

So I read my Sunday NY Times to pass the time until the "crowd'' had grown to six. I got out of the car and became the seventh person. By the time the doors opened, there were 7 or 8 people behind me including one woman showing a lot of cleavage. Well, at least I was getting sometihng out of this. LOL.

The doors opened and it seemed tacky to run but were walking at a brisk pace. A woman right behind me was obviously very pregnant -- she said she had five weeks to go but joked it looked like she was delivering tomorrow -- was joking she couldn't keep up the pace. Anyway, I headed to the electronics department, pointed to the flyer and said I wanted two of these. I told the guy where they were locked up. I had checked it out the day before on my home from tennis. There was already a woman waiting there and she was telling him which thing to unlock that had the model on sale. As he opened it, I reached in and she said I was here first and took two so I took the next two. They didn't have many which makes the sale kind of a come on. I paid and called my daughter that the mission was accomplished. Well, at least it wasn't Black Friday. She gets up really early for that. I think a guy got trampled to death at a store a year or two ago.

The kicker to this story is that she saved $30 on each one and their combined salary for her and her husband just breaks six figures. I guess I should be pleased that she tends to be frugal. But all that effort so save $60? It is not as if they are at the poverty line. Don't know if I should take the credit or the blame she's like that. But then our other daughter is worse. I joke we sent her to an Ivy League school and she fell in with the wrong crowd that wants to save the world. She lived two years living in a Third World country sleeping in mosquito netting because there was no airconditioning and loved it. And now she works for the program recruiting others.

Anyway, that was my Sunday morning. Took advantage of a sale. At least I don't plan to be out on Black Friday. Are any our readers into Black Friday?

FD

Is Marriage Obsolete?

That was the lede of an AP story about the findings of the Pew Research Center. Of course, it is not really obsolete but not as prevalent as it used to be. Here are some of the findings:

--About 29 per cent of children under 18 now live with a parent or parents who are unwed or no longer married, a fivefold increase since 1960. Of those 29 per cent, 15 per cent have parents who are divorced or separated and 14 per cent were never married.

--About 39 per cent of Americans say marriage is obsolete. In 1978, the figure was 28 per cent.

--About 44 per cent say they have lived with a partner without being married. For 30 to 49 year olds, that figure rose to 57 per cent.

--About 62 per cent say the best marriage is where the husband and wife both work and both take care of the household and children. That is up from 48 per cent in 1977. (My view is that while it may be the ideal, the wife usually winds up doing more of taking care of the household and the children).

--About 67 per cent were upbeat about the future of marriage and the family.

--About 46 per cent of unmarried adults say they want to get married (I thought that figure would be higher).

So, I thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss. What are your views on marriage? My view is that the majority of people still want to get married. The trick is finding the right person and then hanging in there during the hard times. I also think that sometimes we have expectations that are realistic for marriage. I remember a classic line from the movie "Lovers and Other Strangers" where the son is telling the father he is getting divorced because they're no longer in love and the father said, "What's love got to do with it?''

So I hope you will share your thoughts.

FD

Curvy is Sexy

I have long lamented the fashion industry's obsession with skinny models who look like they need a good meal or are suffering from an eating disorder. The problem is that it makes normal women or plus sized women feel they aren't measuring up.

Which is why I found a story by Stacy Lipson on lemondrop.com quite interesting. She said she hated her body until she read Meg Cabot's novel, "Size 12 Is Not Fat.'' She also wrote a sequel about size 14.

She then finally looked at herself without clothes in a mirror and said she was beautiful. In her vocabulary, flabby was replaced by voluptuous and muffin top (haven't heard that before) with full-figured.

She ended by saying size 12s are beautiful just the way they are. "the choice to see yourselves that way is all yours.''

I enjoyed that insight and hope you do too.

FD

Travel Tales

I had one of those trips that every frequent traveler is familiar with. A one stop flight that is cancelled after the first stop because of a computer problem on the plane. Planes are so booked now because of the cutbacks that I took virtually the whole day waiting and getting rerouted to a different city before getting to my final destination. I got home about 10 hours after I originally was scheduled to.

But the reason I am writing this is to advise you that if this ever happens to you, be sure to ask for the headquarters number and call and complain. All they gave me at the airport was a $20 voucher for food. But calling them, I got a $200 voucher for a future flight. Of course, they aren't going to volunteer this. You have to call and complain. Hope it doesn't happen to you but just wanted to let you know it is available if you call and complain. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

The most madddening part is that I only had my company computer or I could have written this chapter of Lisa that is rattling around in my head when I had so much time on my hands. LOL.

FD