Sunday

The full court press is on by all of the retailers to snatch their share of holiday sales. The latest example is at The Home Depot where I stopped today for a can of bug spray to de-bug my plants. Those types of products were no where to be seen, replaced by a fine selection of artificial Christmas trees and inflatable seasonal yard displays. I left for Lowes where their holiday stuff had been set up mostly in an area that has garden supplies during the Summer months.

The Sunday paper this time of year is another sign of the times. You need to sort through all of the ad inserts to find the news sections. And that's only a minor exaggeration.

My Yahoo email account has been deluged by assorted retail offers, not only from Kohl's and Gap where I have cards, but also dozens of online sites that must have bought my email address from one of the bricks-and-mortar places. I may set up a Gmail account when I get my new laptop to try to avoid the spam.

Another traditional item for sale seen in many of the grocery/home improvement/Walmart stores in the Norfolk Island pine tree. This is a very pretty tree that is sold in many sizes, and fetches a good price. I really like the tree, but I have never been able to keep one alive. While I have a lot of plants in my house, most of them are ones I have learned can survive a certain level of benign neglect.

The ceremony at The Arsenal today was very understated. Maybe the smallest crowd that I have ever seen there for Veteran's Day. No helicopter flower drop. No band. One Congressman. Since the day is actually being observed tomorrow (closed Post Office and other Federal facilities), it's possible that people were not geared to taking time off for a weekend day.

I see where Hollywood and Broadway stars have all embraced the strike by the Writer's Guild. Does this mean that the studios (or whomever are the big decision makers in this dispute) are part of the Big Business Establishment that usually gets a bad label on the talk shows? When the media talks about the Democratic/Clinton Hollywood connections, are they talking about the writers and the actors, or the studios?

How evident is it with the SF accident that ships at sea will forever hit things? And where do they put the oil that they "clean up"?

Hope everyone is getting prepared to have a great week.

BCOT