It's Trash Night

On what is most likely an uneventful weekday night, for many, is a little chore that so defines “our household routine” --- trash night. What I find though, is that from the period of November through February when we frequently have holidays, trash night is anything but capable of defining a routine.

To many, a routine is something of regularity or a measurable frequency – as in trash night is always on Wednesday night. The problem with frequent holidays is that trash night always changes. The City of Columbus, for example, defines its trash collection routes by color. I’ve no idea what color my household is, so we watch our neighbors to determine upon which night we need to set out our government issued refuse collection receptacles by the curbside.

I think among Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and other holidays of a new year, we go through a small box of crayons and an entire week’s worth of trash nights. I’m not sure if I best like a Monday trash collection day to get rid of all the weekend refuse, or a Friday collection day so I can enter the weekend with empty trash cans. Wednesdays are lousy days because they fail to adequately account for any weekend trash before or after your weekend.

I have friends in South Carolina who do not have a trash night. Instead, they have trips in their large SUV to the local trash dump. In fact, during my annual visits to their home, I’m routinely asked if I want to go to the dump. It is actually not a dump, but a refuse drop-off facility just outside the city limits near the county landfill.

I can’t be sure if routinely forgetting when trash night might be is a sign of memory loss or some other mind affliction. What I can tell you is this: trash night is about as exciting as watching paint dry, it’s a chore, and very mundane. Trash night simply needs to become a better experience, but how?

What's In A Name?

Times being what they were, what they have been generations ago – there just was nothing too fancy about naming a girl at birth: Mary, Linda, Barbara, Ann, Katie, Catherine (and Katherine), Marie, Emily, Teresa, Tina, Patricia, Debra, Susan – you get the idea. Maybe it was the era of 1960s and early 1970s, encouraged in some social circles by free love and lots of drugs, that a generation of parents seemingly began to give nontraditional names to a lot of their daughters.

Through the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and beyond, we have really no bounds for what names parents give their infant children at birth.

And so, it was with research in mind that recently I came across an online list of the “66 Women To Watch In 2012” and I was not ever certain why 66 was chosen as opposed to a Top 100 or Top 50 list. The list provided a convenient checklist for what I term as nontraditional girls names.

So what’s in a name? Here are a few of the 66 women to watch this year, according to one writer:

No. 62 – Mercedes Masohn, who plays Isabel Zambada on the Fox network show “The Finders”. I simply like the name Mercedes and the name Isabel – a potent combination for sure.

No. 53 – Elsa Pataky, an actress who appears in the film “All Things To All Men”. I loved the character Ilsa Lund in the 1942 film classic “Casablanca” and who could not adore Ingrid Bergman who portrayed the similar-sounding “Ilsa”?

No. 48 – Catrinel Menghia, a Romanian model. Of course she is and it is the first time I saw the name “Catrinel” – she’s “Cat” or “Catty” for sure.

No. 31 – Noomi Rapace, a Swedish actress. Just shoot me to the ‘Noom, I mean to the moon.

No. 24 – Azealia Banks, a rap artist. Makes me think of the Azelea flower.

No. 20 – Lais Ribeiro, a Brazilian fashion model. Indeed.

No. 19 – Elsa Hosk, a Swedish fashion model. See No. 53

Not included among the list of 66 is someone I’d like to watch in 2012 and that’s Miami Heat cheerleader Odaymis Romero – as in all day, oh-day, this way Odaymis. I just think she has a really cool name. Perhaps there are some additional names not on any list to watch this year, like a few of my own personal favorites, such as:

• Sirius Lee, a Chinese chef and restaurant owner.
• Huron Angler, a professional women’s fishing tournament champion.
• Harbor Golightly, a northeast Ohio convention and visitor bureau director.
• Material Governance, local solid waste disposal district supervisor in SW Michigan.
• Kearny Frost, economic development director in NE Indiana; and
• Faber Stone, architect from Southern California.

What’s in a name indeed! 

 

New And Improved?

I was notified recently of a “Trend Alert” to watch for this year as it pertains to certain new retail products such as household products and food items. It was published in USA Today. Part of this “alert” is the push by various product makers (i.e. Proctor & Gamble, Kimberly Clark) to get consumers to buy their products, feel good about some smart savings, then share that feeling with you on social media.

“Hey Gus,” Louise calls out.

“I just got a great deal on some bathroom tissue and I feel so good about it that I’ll be on my Facebook page for awhile, so dinner might be a little late tonight.”

The bottom line truth here, of which we are all aware, is that “everything at the store costs more” and that we seem to be getting a little less of everything in our packaging. So think about this: when you were told last fall that the cost of peanut butter was going up significantly – say 25% or more – did you also happen to notice if the size of your peanut butter jar got smaller by an ounce or two? Anyone comparison shop on coffee lately?

Yes, you’re smart about couponing at the grocery store, but did you notice that you had to buy one to get one free? Or have you noticed that while a product price did not increase, its size decreased—which by the way equals a price increase.

How smart do you feel now?   

Among some of the new products are a box of Kleenex where you can include a favorite photo. How about really easy-to-use laundry detergent? There are new simple-to-fix meal kits. There’s also new cleaning products. Fact is you still have to fix the meal, do the laundry and clean up the mess.

As 2012 evolves, expect to pay more for nearly everything you find in a grocery store. Even “Two Buck Chuck” (Charles Shaw brand wine) at Trader Joe’s is now more like “Four Buck Chuck”. Expect to also pay more for mail (beginning Jan 22), clothing (esp. denim products like jeans), coffee, air fares, gasoline, and insurance.

People don’t want fancy; they want value. Kleenex is Kleenex and a photo album is a photo album. I don’t want to sit on the crapper with a picture of the grandbaby or the dog staring at my bum. Instead, I think producers should focus on making the products we buy simply better and more affordable.

Now wouldn’t that be a trend to start?

On With The Show

If you are looking for something “cool to do” this month, consider joining the 47^th Annual Winter Hike at Hocking Hills State Park near Logan, OH. The 6-mile trek stretches from Old Man’s Cave along Ohio Route 664 to Ash Cave along Route 56. You can enjoy all or part of the Winter Hike trail. More information is online at www.heartofhocking.com.

I’ve hiked the Hocking Hills region during all seasons since the early 1960s. One gains a better appreciation for Ohio’s change of seasons and the pure beauty of the Hocking Hills when enjoying a winter visit. A record of more than 5,000 hikers participated in the 2010 Winter Hike, which occurs each year on the third Saturday of January. This month’s hike is January 21. It’s a free activity and refreshments are served (bean soup and hot cocoa) for a small donation.  A free shuttle ride takes hikers from the end of the hike at Ash Cave back to the parking lot area at Old Man’s Cave.

If hiking in Ohio’s winter outdoors is not your cup of cocoa, then consider visiting the AAA Great Vacations Expo www.aaagreatvacations.com Jan. 20-22 inside Veteran’s Memorial on W. Broad Street at the Scioto River next to downtown Columbus. This is an excellent one-stop shopping travel planning and booking trade show that is sure to offer plenty of vacation ideas. Saturday, January 21 is Family Day at the show, so go early to avoid the maximum crowds. There’s no other travel trade show quite like it in Ohio.

Won’t be in Columbus that weekend? No problem. The Cincinnati Travel, Sports and Boat Show www.hartproductions.com begins the weekend of Jan. 20-22 at the Duke Energy Center in downtown Cincy. There are two outdoors recreation shows featuring boating and fishing ongoing the same weekend in Cleveland at the IX Center, which is located adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins Airport www.clevelandboatshow.com. The Northeast Ohio Sportsman Show www.ohiosportsmanshow.com in Dalton at the Buckeye Event Center is being held Jan. 20-21.

So get away from the TV set and game console, get off the couch and go take a hike or enjoy a trade show this month because there’s lots to enjoy and plan for as the year unfolds. And if those happenings should not appeal to you, there’s always the art museum, the conservatory, the movie house and one of my old-time favorites – the bowling alley.

Watch Your Words

Wordsmiths unite.

Some of your favorite words have officially been banned from the English language in 2012 by Lake Superior State University. The annual exile list includes words and phrases deemed by the university as misused, overused and generally useless. Nominations for words and phrases to be banished came from global submissions.

Stop!

First of all, I want to know who recognizes this university located in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan as the legitimate institution to ban anything so commonplace as words and phrases associated with the English language? I mean c’mon – such a list from a city few know how to correctly pronounce.  It’s pronounced as “Soo-Saint-Marie” and more commonly referred to simply as “the Soo”. There’s a “Soo-Saint-Marie, Michigan and a “Soo-Saint-Marie”, Ontario located across the St. Mary’s River and Canadian border. Same name, two different cities.

Included on the banished list for 2012 that was released on Friday, December 30 are: baby bump, shared sacrifice, occupy, man cave, amazing and the new normal. It was the 37^th such end-of-year word and word-phrase exile list issued by Lake Superior State.

I can say that while there are some words I simply wish would go away – like “awesome” – as a lifelong wordsmith I could not and would not advocate the banishment of any words and phrases from the English language. I mean, many people already find they can be “at a loss for words” often and without warning, so why limit someone’s options and vocabulary?

A university spokesman said compiling the list at the end of each year (since 1976) simply is a tongue-in-cheek exercise, in part, to get people to think about how they express themselves. So in that spirit alone, why would anyone – let alone a little university – want to limit how a person might choose to express themselves in the use of the English language? I say of the exiled word and phrase list: “that dog doesn’t hunt”.