THE POWER OF HABIT

I recommend the new book The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg. The book examines the science of WHY we do WHAT we do. It is fascinating how companies use our habits to market items (see article).

The "experts" say that it takes 28 days to break--or adopt--a habit.

I tried diligently to break a habit, but after 28 days, I still WANT what I gave up!

I can't find any experts to tell me how to stop WANTING!

The song Breaking The Habit by Linkin Park has a marvelous line:

"I don't want to be the one
The battles always choose."



To read the article Habits: How They Form And How To Break Them CLICK HERE.

BUTTER HEAD

A wonderful friend called and asked if I could use some free lettuce. [As FREE is my favorite word, you now know why I described the friend as "wonderful"!] It seems as if a truck was stalled and the refer unit was out and could not deliver on time; the distribution center refused to take it as the refer unit had been out. The produce company said to dump the lettuce.

Fortunately, my friend was called and she was able to get 3 crates. How many in a crate, you might ask! 24 heads to a crate! My friend delivered a crate to my house! Thank goodness we have an extra refrigerator in the garage!

I immediately put the word out to family and friends--FREE lettuce! I now have 6 heads left.

When my friend called, I assumed it was iceberg lettuce, but when I looked in the refrigerator, I said, "WOW, it's Bibb, I love Bibb!" Les pointed to the label and said, "No, it's BUTTER LEAF." I said, "It sure looks like Bibb!" He said, " Your first indication that it's NOT Bibb is the label on the crate!" I said, "I've had butter leaf lettuce when I've bought bags of mixed lettuces, [Yes, I said LETTUCES!] but this looks like Bibb." He said, "Just admit that you don't know EVERYTHING in the world--it's butter leaf!"

Of course I had to check on google and guess what? "Butter leaf" and "butter head" lettuces are also known as BOSTON BIBB.

So there, Les!

PRODUCE PICKS: Butter Leaf Lettuce
By–Michael R. Marks

"For many people, digesting lettuce salads is tough, especially as they get older. So for many older diners, lettuce salad is no longer on the menu.

Whenever George Burns entered a restaurant, his first question was,“Do you have butter-leaf?” Chefs who served Burns knew that when he walked in, the butter-leaf came out of their walk-in. That's because butter-leaf is the easiest of all lettuces to digest.

Cut a head of butter-leaf lettuce in half and you will know how it got its name – from the buttery yellow color inside. It's also marketed as butter lettuce, butterhead, Bibb, Boston or limestone lettuce.

You can also find it still “alive,” hydroponically grown, which I love. The leaves are soft, and the flavor is delicate and sweet. Field-grown butter-leaf retails for about 99 cents to $1.49 a head. The hydroponic lettuce will cost about $3.99, but it lasts a long, long time. You will never have to throw lettuce away again."

LITTLE LOST PUPPIES

After reading my article titled COROT, my brother called and said, "You MUST tell the story of your condescending acquaintance and Waiting For Godot."

I had invited the condescending acquaintance (CA for the remainder of the article) as a guest to a dinner party. At the time, I knew her only slightly, but I knew that she had recently returned to the county; holds a PhD and was a professor before retiring. As we shared the same politics, I thought she might be an interesting person to have as a guest.

Everybody else at the dinner party knew each other and as the CA was a stranger to the group, I asked her to tell us about her career. She must have thought that nobody else was supposed to speak the remainder of the night as she monopolized the conversation and when I would deliberately steer the conversation to another topic she would interrupt and start telling another long-winded anecdote about herself.

Not ONCE during the evening did she ever try to engage another person in conversation or ask a question or make a comment about anything anybody else had said.

Because of her self-aggrandizement, I could see the discomfort of my other six guests. Finally, I asked, "Did you see Waiting For Godot on PBS?" The CA fairly screaked, "And she even pronounced it correctly." [I had pronounced Godot as "Gah-dough" rather than "Guh-dough]. A normal person would have said, "And you even pronounced it correctly", but she was seemingly oblivious to any sense of good manners. The CA probably did not notice the reaction of all the other guests. [I find that egotistical people are largely unaware of other people's feelings.] I saw my brother roll his eyes and one of my friends give me a "Can you believe that?" look and another lifted her napkin to shield a laugh.

As the hostess, I felt that I should not embarrass my guest, but I did say, "Oh, yes, I have all of Beckett's works in my library." I saw my brother lift his hand and waved it over his head (the universal "over her head" sign). The CA was obviously surprised and responded, "Right here in Fayette County!" One of the other guests asked, "Why does that surprise you?" The CA answered, "I wrote my thesis on Samuel Beckett; I'm just surprised someone in Fayette County knows Beckett."

Another guest asked, sarcastically, "Didn't you know that Sue knows everything?" I laughed and pointed to my brother and said, "If I don't know it, then he does." My brother said, "And if I don't know it, then my other brother does."

The CA obviously did not realize that she was being the object of ridicule as she then began droning on about her doctoral dissertation!

After the CA left, several other guests remained, and four told me they would never come again if they knew she were going to be there! Their assessments ranged from "arrogant", "narcissistic", "bad-mannered" to "egotistical". When I told them I didn't believe that she comprehended that she was being condescending, a friend asked, "How could she not know? Saying "She even pronounced it correctly!" and "Here in Fayette County." How could she NOT know?"

I never invited her to come back.

My brother said, "You must stop bringing home those little lost puppies; they are hard to train!"

SILVER STAR

"Kit" Boyd, a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action during the Korean War. I uncovered the information accidentally, and I asked, "Why didn't you ever tell me this?" and he answered, "It would have seemed like bragging and I was just doing my job when it happened." Please read the citation given with his Silver Star:

"Lieutenant Boyd was in charge of a truck platoon evacuating troops when the convoy came under heavy enemy fire from an enemy roadblock. Without regard for his own safety, Lieutenant Boyd reorganized the convoy of vehicles still operable, improvised stretchers for the wounded, loaded them on vehicles and led the convoy through the roadblock. Two hundred yards down the road the convoy again was subjected to heavy enemy fire, including accurate mortar fire. Lieutenant Boyd abandoned the wrecked vehicles and loaded the wounded onto an artillery prime mover and two half-tracks. By using the prime mover to push the stalled and burning vehicles off the road, he was able to go through the second road block. During the action, Boyd was wounded and fell from the prime mover, later making his way back to his unit station alone."

"......just doing my job." INDEED!
Here are a few closeups:

"STOP ME IF I'VE TOLD YOU THIS BEFORE"

In dealing with older people, one has to hear the same stories over and over! I don't want to turn out that way--please don't let me become a boring old coot (is "old" redundant in that usage?); nowadays, I make myself preface anecdotes with, "Stop me if I've told you this before."

My mother was defiantly NOT that way! My mother said that she hated to be around old people because all they talked about were their ailments! She was 80 at the time! Although my mother would tell us stories about "back then", it was usually at our urging.

My mother was always "au courant", keeping up on current events and pop culture. Every day she would tell me about the topic on "Oprah" and other newsworthy events.

My mother always had "crushes" on movie stars, but when they got old, she would just toss them aside for a new "hunk". We teased her about her crush on Jack Lord as "Stoney Burke" (we razzed her by saying "Stoney Puke') but when "Hawaii Five-O" came along, Jack Lord was "too old" for her interest!

Once, when we were going to a Dylan concert, Mother said, "Well, his lyrics are good, but I can't stand that a-tonal flat voice!" She should have been a critic!

Mother loved Sinatra and Perry Como but those records were put aside for newer artists. I said, "Mother, you are so disloyal!" She answered, "Oh, I still like them, but I like new stuff too." My niece came to live with us and she and my mother spent a great deal of time together and my niece would play her favorite music in the car--the Judds, Reba, Shania--and she made cassettes for mother. Mother started listening to country and western music. She became a fan of Reba McEntire. I gasped, "Reba McEntire?"

Her favorite song became "The Rose" by Bette Midler. We played it at her funeral.

COROT

Yesterday, an acquaintance asked me to come to visit her at her home as she wanted to show me some photographs.

As we sat down at her dining room table, I looked at the opposite wall and said, "I see you have the same Corot print that I do."

She asked, with surprise in her tone, "You know Corot?" Having previously experienced similar condescending remarks from her, which, regrettably, I had allowed them to pass without comment, because in those instances we were in the company of other people. This time, being just the two of us together, I decided to confront her condescension. I asked, "Why wouldn't I know Corot if YOU know Corot, and especially a famous painting like Ville d'Avray?" There was no response from her, just a sudden, sharp intake of breath. I continued, "Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot is my favorite artist." [I admit that was showing off a wee bit, but I so love people with three names like J.M.W. Turner and Corot!]

Still, there was no response from her. I stated, "You didn't answer my question and I'm very interested to know the answer." She hemmed and hawed and said, "I just never expect people from Fayette County...". As her voice trailed off, I did not allow her to continue, but interjected, "But YOU are from Fayette County, so why would you think that your fellow Fayette Countian would not know Corot?" She said, "But I haven't lived here since I went off to college."

I answered, "That's totally illogical; I knew about Corot when I was a teenager; they actually had books of French artists at the library." [I have found that one of the things people dislike the most is to be accused of being illogical.]

She did not respond to that salvo.

I said, "I'm disappointed that you cannot admit what is obvious--that you think you are intellectually superior."

She answered, "No, I don't think that, I just know we have different backgrounds."

I answered, "No, actually you do NOT know that because you have never ONCE inquired about my background, but I certainly know all about yours, but that still doesn't answer my question." Then she said, "You misunderstood what I meant." I laughed and said, "I'm a woman of great perspicacity, so I'm sure I DID understand." She did not answer. I asked, "Please tell me WHY you would think I wouldn't know Corot but you would? that's a rather simple question." Then I laughed again, which clearly upset her. [I have also found that people dislike being laughed at, along with being accused of being illogical.]


I suddenly felt embarrassed, because I was enjoying the attack too much! Shame on me. To use the cliche, I was having a battle of wits with an unarmed person. Clearly, she had not been exposed to rough-and-tumble arguments! It wasn't exactly a Socratic dialogue! Oh, yes, we do have VERY different backgrounds!

I stood up to leave and she kept making attempts to apologize, which, if she knew the slightest thing about me, she would know that was exactly the wrong thing to do. I would much rather that she had told the truth that she does feel superior rather than giving a spurious apology.

As I had my hand on the doorknob to leave, I said, "Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3."

I probably won't have another invitation.