A movie that made me think: The Descendants

  My wife and I don't get to go to the movies as much as we would like, but over the Holidays we managed to make a trip to the Carmike on Airport road. I kind of admire George Clooney, so when she suggested we see his latest, "The Descendants" I agreed.
   It had a good primary plot about a husband (Clooney) who discovers after his wife suffers a traumatic brain injury that she has been having an affair. As he follows her wishes and ends all life sustaining care, he works out life issues with his two daughters, one 17, the other 10.
   It's a nice story, and thought provoking on many levels. But there is a secondary storyline that really got my attention. Clooney's character is being pressured to sell off large tracts of land that his family has owned for over a century. The sale would put millions of dollars in the pockets of his many relatives. Most favor the sale, but some don't believing the family has an obligation to protect the land from over development.
   And it got me thinking about what's going on in my own back yard, as one old farming family seems intent on squeezing every last dollar it can out of its vast local land holdings.
      In the movie, Clooney's character decides not to sell, and vows to find a way to protect the land for future generations. In a perfect world, the local land baron would see the film, and have a change of heart about his drive to pave over every possible acre of farmland he can.
   But we don't live in a perfect world, as a matter of fact, I live in the Macungies, and out here it is all about building as many warehouses and townhomes as fast as we can everywhere we can, traffic and infrastructure issues be damned. Quality of life? Who cares?
    I wish there was a way to remind our local land baron of just what he is pandering, and making him take a look at just what he has created. No amount of charitable donation will bring back all the farmland that has been lost. The green of lush fields has been replaced by blacktop and the reflective glare from row after row of shingled roofs. Trees give us breathable fresh air. Asphalt and tar give us....asthma attacks.

      Oh well....Nature has a funny way of putting things in balance. I wonder how that will come about, and I wonder if I will live long enough to see it.

The end of time is 365 days away! But I don't believe it

If you believe anything that has been written about the Mayan civilization and their calendar, you know that it says the last day of all existence is December 21 2012. I don't know if that means all the Republicans in America will be assumed into heaven at the start of a great rapture, or that after a very contested Presidential election with numerous recounts Newt Gingrich will be declared President by the Supreme Court.
   I don't know anything about the end of the world at all. Prophets have been predicting the end of it all since time began. We even make movies with incredible special effects to put our fears out where we can mock them.(2012, anyone?)
   The point is, I expect a whole bunch of crazies and charlatans to spend the next year counting down to the perceived Doomsday and I personally don't care to play along. Que Sera, Sera, What will be, will be.
   I can't fathom going through life knowing what day it all ends, and I don't believe anybody has a clue. Lets just live life one day at a time, and see where it goes from there. As Doc Brown said in Back to the Future, "The Future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one."

   Mayans be damned

If they build it, we will come

Here in not so sleepy Trexlertown, we have the Trexlertown Mall. For as long as I have been here, we have had a Redner's, a Giant, a Kohl's and even a Bon ton. We even have a Tractor Supply Company, a Sears Hardware and an Odd Lots! That's why all the New York New Jersey transplants want to live here!

   But one day the people at Giant Food Stores decided that their store was not big enough. Not only that, they wanted a gas station, an in store cafe, and the right to sell beer! And that set in motion a crazy chain of events of having the Tractor Supply Company build a whole new store down the street, and a bunch of complicated municipal hearings and property swaps that ended up with Giant getting a liquor license.

   Giant management wanted this to happen badly. Testament to that is that the old Tractor Supply Store closed  July 10. It was Demolished by August 4. The new 76,000  square foot facility will open December 7.

   The construction people were out there from dawn until dusk 7 days a week.

   So now I have another market I can ride my bike to. It's a little closer than the old one, but still farther than Redners.  I still like living on the edge of the city, but I admit I am selfish that I wish not so many other people do too.

Burying a friend, Lucy the Cocker Spaniel

    Last week my little black Cocker Spaniel, Lucy turned 15. On Saturday morning she died in her bed.
   
    I kept a bed for her on the floor next to the side of the bed where my wife and I sleep. For as long as we have lived in Trexlertown, she has followed me in to bed at night and slept in her place. Whenever I rose frome bed, the vibration of me walking by her would wake her, and she would follow me throughout the house.
    We called her my little black shadow for that reason. She would  follow me to the garage whenever I left, and be there waiting at the kitchen door when I returned.
     On Thursday I was working in the yard, and she was in high spirits, even running along the sidewalk when I threw a tennis ball for or other dog, Sally. I was trying to weed the flower beds, and she kept nudging me with her nose, begging me to pet her. I could never resist her happy eyes, and her tail wagged like the perpetual motion machine it always was.
  
      I knew the day would come eventually but I still was not ready for it. When I looked down and realized she was not breathing or getting up to go outside, I went numb. I still had to go to work, so I picked her up in her bed and carried her to the garage. I wrapped her up to secure her body until I came home from work. Then I would have time to dig a grave out back next to where we buried Ethel less than two years ago.
     All day Saturday my thoughts went back to all the happy moments Lucy had brought me in her years with our family. Lucy had a habit of creating circular formations on the sidewalk with her crap. Creations that we referred to as "Poophenge," because of the similarity to the British landmark Stonehenge.

     She was an accomplished beggar for treats, having mastered the pitiful face that would have you believe that she was starving to death. A few years back, in response to her chubbiness, our vet had tested her for metabolism issues. The phone call to my wife with the diagnosis still makes us laugh today. "No Mrs. Casey. Lucy does not have a thyroid problem, she's just fat."    

     What I miss the most is her company. Whenever I sat down at the computer, she would lay in the bed beside my chair, and wait for my hand to drop and stroke her head and belly. She would wait patiently for those few affectionate touches, and I would be rewarded with a thankful lick or two.

      Putting her down in her grave was hard, and I cried throughout the entire process, from digging to  filling it in. I comfort myself thinking that she is running around heaven frolicking with her old friends Fred and Ethel. Her age had taken away much of her mobility, I want to believe that in God's heaven it has been restored as her reward for being such a loving and faithful creature. That's what I want to believe, and that is what gives me comfort.

A visit to the PEEPS! Emporium in National Harbor Maryland

   You can't live in the Lehigh Valley and not have at least once in your life tried those joyous sugar lumps of color called peeps. We know them and we love them. I'm sorry, but I think it is downright un-American not to enjoy peeps.
   My wife discovered while planning this trip that the only Peeps Emporium on the planet was within walking distance of our Hotel and the site of her conference. There was no doubt we would have to visit the Shrine to Sugar that the Peeps Emporium is. Like God above endearing the greatest pleasure to our taste buds, the front door of the store looks directly out onto the Potomac river and gives you a spectacular view of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

  But who cares about that?!

    This Store doesn't just sell candy, it sells an incredible collection of merchandise for the Peeps fanatic.
     Mrs C purchased many gifts for friends and family as well as herself, but was disappointed that the "Peace, Love Peeps!" shirt only came in junior miss sizes. Like adults wouldn't want one of those shirts? Hear that Just Born? You are missing the boat on that market!
     I didn't buy any souvenirs but I was unable to resist temptation as I eyed the Peanut Chew and I broke down at the register and spent $1.06 for one single packaged milk Chocolate coated Peep.
    Really, how could I leave that store without having one? Could any of you?

    I have more pictures from inside the store, but Blogger won't let me add them for some reason. I will try again later. In the meantime, Have a Peep! and literally enjoy a sweet dream.