WE'RE STAMPING OUT THE USPS

     
    Well, as of August, there will be no Saturday postal service, except for packages.  In case you were thinking of complaining about this injustice, remember. we were responsible for curtailing our own mail service.

     I am just as guilty as anyone, since I use the internet to pay my bills, send greeting cards, correspond with friends, etc.  I used to buy a book of stamps every couple of weeks.  Now I have almost a full book of Christmas stamps that I stamp the occasional letter with.  

    I heard on the news last night that for the Postal Service to maintain our services, they would have to charge $1.04 for a first class stamp.  You'd have to keep your stamps in your safe deposit box if that happened.  You could bequeath them to your children.

     The world it is a-changin' and, like the post office, we either have to learn to live with the changes or get the heck out of the way.  Sometimes I yearn for the good old days, but not when I'm loading the dishwasher, or watching a first-run movie without leaving the house, or diagnosing my latest ailments on Web.MD.  For everything we have given up, we have received - for good or ill - ten things in return.

      Anyway, I don't imagine having no Saturday delivery will have as much impact as it  would have only a few years ago.  


                 Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these 
                  couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

                                                  But budget problems?  Meh

WE'RE BAAAACK

     Like the proverbial bad penny, your friends from Over 40? So What! have turned up again.  Our apologies for our absence.  We have been working diligently on a new book which may or may not see the light of day within the next year.

     Our new effort is a novel and is still in the developmental stage, although a few preliminary chapters are in outline and pre-editing condition.  Writing non-fiction is immeasurably easier than writing fiction - who knew?  After all, non-fiction relies on data and research.  Easy stuff compared to delving into your imagination.

     So blah, blah, blah, this is our excuse for not posting to our blog since (gasp) September.  We have also regrettably had to give up publishing our monthly magazine, since the amount of work and time that this involved was mind-boggling.  

     Just to prove that we are sincerely sorry and will produce occasional posts, we hereby cheat by presenting one of our more popular posts from the fairly recent past.  We promise to try to do better in future.

THE AMAZING, NON-BROWNING GM APPLE

If you've ever been turned off, disgusted or appalled by a cut apple that has started to turn brown, cheer up!  Those friendly folks who brought you the bright red, tasteless tomato have worked their magic on apples.  

By inserting an extra copy of a gene that interferes with the enzymatic activity that causes browning - an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase - they have produced a fruit that can be sliced, diced, packaged in plastic and sold round the world to those purists who must have pristine apples.

This is not to be confused with those apple slices that are already available in the produce departments of your neighborhood supermarkets; these contain preservatives, such as ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and calcium chloride.   Unfortunately they only (?) have a shelf life of about three weeks.  Now wouldn't you rather have a nice genetically modified apple that would mummify before it turned brown?

You know, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.  Wouldn't it be a hoot if they found out later on that what helps keep the doctor away is the enzyme they have managed to nullify?

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ON GROWING OLDER

 

It's amazing what having another birthday can do.  I had one recently (a major one) and it started me thinking about time and how little of it we may have.  Of course, we could all get hit by a truck tomorrow, but I mean we need to learn how to appreciate each day given to us.

It's easy to just grind through a day without stopping to look at the wonderful things around us.  I have a Facebook friend who truly seems to know how to observe the little things that color our lives.  Her blog posts are full of beautiful things that many of us would not stop to see.   Do you see yourself here Theanne?

That old saying about stopping to smell the roses becomes even more relevant as we age.  I used to sit at the kitchen table in the morning with my coffee and read the paper.  Now I take my cup out onto the porch and look at everything around me.  My kitty, Sweetie Puss, enjoys these morning outings as much as I do.  While I watch the morning sun coloring the clouds, she watches the lizards climb on the plants outside the screen - knowing she could catch them if only she could get out there.

There are a pair of cardinals that visit my bird bath almost every day, and once they came with a pair of tiny replicas of themselves.  Proud parents showing the little ones how to take a morning bath.  I was afraid to move for fear of frightening them off.  Even Sweetie Puss sat still to watch.

Early morning is the best - before the lawn mowers or the school buses fracture the stillness with the busyness of life.  I do my best thinking then - uninterrupted by the telephone or the computer or the planning of the day.

Late afternoon is good too, because of the squirrel.  There is a sassy squirrel that lives in a tree at the back of my yard.  He travels each day from that side of the yard to the trees on the opposite side - then returns each afternoon to his home.  To accomplish this trip he runs across the screen enclosure over the pool, hops down onto the screen around the porch, and travels sideways to the other side.  He does this every day at about the same time and Sweetie Puss, who to my knowledge has not learned to tell time, knows when he is about to do this and goes to the door watching for him.  She likes to go out on the porch and watch his journey across the screen high above her head.  Sometimes he will stop, hanging upside down, and waggle his bushy tail at her. This usually sends her into a paroxysm of activity that I'm sure he finds quite amusing.  If squirrels could laugh, he would.

Think of what I would miss if I were in front of a computer or a TV screen!  I enjoy my life tremendously and am thankful for each day I have.