My thanks to everyone...

...and especially to Beth for the birthday wishes. Beth you see sent me a birthday card. It sat in my mailbox overnight because when I came home from work I neglected to check it. I checked it on my way out the next morning and discovered this card in the mail. I knew it was a birthday card but I didn't recognise the name or the address. I did know someone named Beth in New Hampshire around 1971 or '72 but then we lost track of each other. Had she married and moved and suddenly thought of me all these years later? Why? It's not like we had a romance. We were just friends that I met through a mutual friend who attended art school with her in Boston. Throughout the day the mystery popped into my brain now and again. Is this Beth from New Hampshire? I pulled into the drive way after work, this time checking my mail box. Just a bill from the gas company. Happy Holidays. Where's our money? As I entered my house there was the envelope on the little table by the door from the mysterious Beth. I picked it up and suddenly, while looking at the postal stamp, light dawned on Marblehead. It was Beth from Blogger! I had never received anything through the mail from a fellow blogger. So thanks everyone for the birthday wishes especially you Beth! That was very sweet.

These are busy days. In fact it's been a busy year. Work has been a strain. I survived a layoff last month. 700 other people weren't so lucky. It's been a hectic and convoluted 13 years since my original company was sold to the parent company of another old New England supermarket chain owned by and English Corporation named Sainsbury. My original company was a local company that had been around since 1915 and we were the Cadillac of the supermarkets around here. We had many owners since the original family sold out in 1964 to the Jewel Corporation out of Chicago. Through the next several owners, the local company was still run by the same people so at store level nothing really changed until Sainsbury, an English Corporation, bought us and stuck us on the side of their American holdings in New England. This company can trace it's origins back to the 1880's. Now they were failing. I suppose they thought adding us to them would add revenue since our 60 stores were mostly in the metropolitan Boston area where there are about 4.5 million people, not scattered throughout New England. I guess it seemed like a good idea. From the beginning we were told to lower our standards and they were right. We were THE upscale market in Eastern Ma. and a couple of other New England states with many food industry firsts to their credit including cellophane wrapped meats, plastic mesh bags for oranges, in store cooked foods plus a few others. OK it's not like curing cancer, but they were still firsts. We were the best paid with the best benefits. After 5 years I had four weeks vacation. Since 1999 it's been a confusing array of poorly thought out ideas. We were no longer being run with people who had worked their way up through the stores but by people with just business degrees. Their knowledge on how the retail food business operates on the ground floor  was sadly lacking. If you want to buy roast beef you have to pick from six different brands. All this does is confuse the customer. If they say, "Give me the one on sale." You then have to ask them which one because they will put three on sale. A simple task has become tedious. Then about eight years ago they began changing the name of all my original company stores, to the other name, then a couple of years later they started changing them back because the name had been established in the area for so long and there was "name recognition". Well pardon my French, but no shit Sherlock! It took all those degree carrying baboons about eight years to realise this. Can you get a degree in common sense? It does seem to be a common thread in a lot businesses these days.

We are presently owned by another sad sack corporation in Minnesota named SuperValu. They are neither super nor a value. Their two highest grossing locations in the whole U.S. are our two original stores located in Downtown Boston and next door Cambridge. I don't say that to brag I say that because they want to sell us. How sad that you have to sell your two best retail outlets because you helped in killing the reputation of both company names. As far I know two deals have fallen through so far. The last purposed deal involved the laying off of 700 people as part of the deal then, no deal. And yet despite all this I still have a job for which I am very grateful.

Last Sunday I went to see Lincoln. The movie that is. A great movie! Everything about it, superb. Acting all the way around was top shelf. Daniel Day-Lewis was outstanding as Abraham Lincoln. The rest of the cast was just as good. It is a wonderful film. In other local news. Last week, right near the very Cambridge store I mentioned above they were filming a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. A friend of mine who works in that store phoned me and said she saw the movie trailers on the street right behind the store and Leonardo was seen riding his bike around Porter Square. I don't know the name of the movie. Maybe I'll change the name of this blog to Entertainment This Afternoon.

My sister has just purchased a house and I of course am happy to help her move. Besides I could be living there someday. Between working odd schedules at work, keeping in touch and socialising with friends when I can, and of course seeing my lady friend (Not a big problem though Honey!),  moving boxes for my sister, it's a busy life. I am off today and I have been a total slob accomplishing nothing but this blog entry and eating and it's been a welcome relief. 

I've gone on long enough. Once again a big thank you to everyone for the happy birthday wishes especially to you Beth. Thank you! That was very sweet of you. I won't forget this!
That's it. I'm outta here.         

Some silliness on the day before Thanksgiving

This is the video I was trying to post on my last blog. As I said previously I am not making a political statement or taking sides as both parties leave a lot to be desired as far as I'm concerned. However while watching post election program they showed a couple of humorous political ads each party put out about their opponent and the Obama one was kind of lukewarm ( and by the way what makes Luke the authority on levels of heat ) but the Republican one was pretty funny except I thought it was too long. So I downloaded it and cut it down to 10 seconds. I made a silly intro about a year ago and stuck it on the beginning. It's actually about 3 times as long as the actual clip. 

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It is easily my favorite holiday. It's about nothing more than being thankful for what you have. That's it. The very first one was held about 50 or so miles from where I sit. Apart from all the possible gluttony there are no major religious ties connected to it. It simply is a day to be thankful for what you have. Getting together with family or friends. The only bad side of Thanksgiving, and this is just a personal opinion, are the major retailers who will open either on the day or as soon as the clock strikes midnight. It's not totally the retailers fault because there are people who will shop. I imagine that the only reason they aren't open on Christmas day is because we spend so much time and money in stores because of Christmas. I imagine that could too change in the future. Anyway you won't find me in any store on Thanksgiving.

So to anyone who reads this, Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your friends and family on this special day. It's really the best holiday of all.

Now I have to prepare for work. I have the late shift till 9.

I'm outta here.   



A sad/busy time.

Yeah it's the holidays which are always a busy time. Last week we had a death in the family. My mother's sister , my aunt Tina, passed. She was the last  member of my parents generation, at least in the U.S. I found myself more emotional at her passing than I did at my own parents passing. Maybe because she was the last one of that generation, at least in this country. I believe my father's sisters are still living. One is in Italy and one is in Austrailia. My sister has just purchased a house and will be moving shortly. This has taken up some of my time, not that I mind lending a hand. Besides I could end up living there in the future. Work has been tough. My company is in bad shape. They have eliminated the little pins they give us when we hit an aniversary date. Not that they were anything to write home about. Everybody got the same little pin no matter how many years of service you had. This was no big deal since they were cheap little pins. The only difference was what number the had written on the front. Before my original company was sold to the present company, the anniversary pins got better every five years. They were made of gold ( Don't ask me what kind because I know nothing about gold but I realse they weren't solid gold.) After 10 years they had a little ruby inserted. After 15 years they had a ruby and a small diamond chip and so on down the line. I'm sure these pins weren't real expensive but they were different at every milestone and just looked a lot nicer. Of course the original company is now defunct though the name still exits. I realise that this pin issue is small potatoes when you compare it to the 700 people they laid off last week. I managed to survive that. I thought I would be one of the first to go since I have over 41 years of service. Our vacation set up has been altered along with other things as well. 

November and December are always busy for me. In these two months there are 3 birthdays (My sisters and mine) and two major holidays. This may be the first year that my family will not be getting together for Thanksgiving. Last year was the first year that Thanksgiving was just my sisters, brother in law and myself. The years before my uncle Sam would spend the holidays with us instead of his own 4 daughters though one does live in England. There's a lot of drama going on between my cousins and I guess he just didn't want to deal with all the potential crap that could occur.  He was a lot of fun and the whole day was filled with laughter. He passed in 2011. He was a favorite of my sisters and me. We all miss you uncle Sam.

On the flip side, though I don't intend to get into politics per se and I am not picking sides here, but after the Presidential election, my lady friend and I were watching some post election programs and they showed a few humorous campaign comercials for both sides. The Obama ad was okay but the Republican one had a surprise ending that just cracked us up. I ended up finding it on YouTube. I downloaded it and cut it down from a minute to about 10 seconds. I stuck my own intro on it. It was something I put together last year to use at begining of any video I might come up with. The intro is twice as long as the clip but it was fun to make.

Well it appears that my little video is not uploading. So I will publish without it and try it again later. It could be my computer. It's been running slow lately. So I guess,

I'm outta here.