A Slow Boil and Grocery Prices

 Frogs and people.

We have much in common. Our lungs, for one. Remember dissecting them in high school? Every time I do, I cringe. Not because I'm afraid of blood or anatomy-in-the-raw. But because I just didn't want to taste any frog innards.

There we were sticking a small straw into the trachea. "Now gently blow air into the straw," the science teacher directed. So, I did. But when I stopped blowing, I neglected to take the air tube out of my pursed lips and a wreaking, formaldehyde-drenched puff of frog breath rushed back into my mouth. I couldn't not have been more grossed out and repulsed. "Ew, I breathed the same air from inside a frog's lung," my lab partners heard me scream.

Then there's the slow boil. I have never tried that experiment, but am told frogs don't jump out of hot water if it is heated in small degrees.

Much like we shoppers in the grocery store. Two years ago the price of a six-box raisin pack was 0.99. Then you notice it's 1.09. A few months go by and they're up to 1.29.  Until they are, as I just bought them up to 1.99. One hundred percent increase!

At first it was because merchants were catching up on lost profits during COVID. Then the rise was due to the price of gas. Now I don't see any rational, so I asked Aldi worker while I was waiting in line to check out in the one and only place to load your food on the belt, 

"Look I know it's not your fault, but why do groceries keep going up?  Gas is going down, COVID has long been over and all the checkers have disappeared to leave it to customers to self-scan, bag our own groceries and pay. The groceries should be going down because the stores no longer have to employ checkers! They should be paying us!" 

"I don't know," he blithely answered.

"Does any one else ask these questions?" 

"No." 

That's the other thing that's changed. Employees don't know anything about their own store.

"How long is the mulch sale on?" I asked the checker at Home Depot. "I don't know." I wanted to say. "Why don't you know what's going on in your place of employment?" But didn't. After all, now no one needs math or even the ability to read. Technology does it all. It even thinks for the employees.

I had a Walmart clerk cut some fabric for me. It was an easy 1/3 of a yard of a leather-like fabric to line the console of the car. It was 10.99 per yard. He said, 

"Wait, let me get my calculator." I said, "Well it's easy if you just get10% of $10 which is $1. then multiply by three to get 30%. Then do the same for the extra two .99's and add them together. $3.66."

"Ah," he said, "I was never good at math." 

"Neither was I, " I replied. "But a girl had to know her sales discounts. So I found shortcuts."

The help is in decline, but the prices are on the up as we become more amphibian-like. 

Come on in, the water's fine.

But the temperature's rising.

Oh, Say, Can You Sing?

 

My husband and I took in the Saturday Night Lights jumping event for the second week in a row here in Wellington--the Winter Equestrian Capital of the World.

Each week is a little different. 

Different course. 

                                                 Different purse. 

                                                                                                Different entertainment.  

Well, except for the fire-eaters and flame-twirlers. It's the same troop performing at 'half-time' every week.  Miss acrobat did the splits while holding two fans of flaming torches.  Gentleman stilt walker juggled fiery batons and blew the stuff of dragons out his mouth. 

Impressive.

Naturally, every week the National Anthem is sung as we stand with our hands on our hearts. Last week it was the local middle school choir and this week a 12-year-old whose thin frame belied her gusty belting. 

Not so impressive.

When did this sacred anthem sprout new notes, slurs and appoggiaturas? And I'm not talking about the acceptable improvisation and stylizing that a veteran voice might employ. 

I'm talking about scooping and sliding to the pitch. A clear indication of an untrained voice and violation of correct singing.  Are those sirens I hear? 

In disbelief, I listened as the choir, in perfect unison, scooped up to the high notes and dragged down to the low ones. And then this week, the little soloist slipped and slid the same exact way. 

My God, my vocal teacher would have booted me out of her office faster than you can say do-re-mi for singing so sloppily. 

You must place the pitch squarely in the middle. Imagine it in your head first, then hit the target in the bull's eye. If not, go back to the practice room until you stop swerving around every note like your driving on ice.

It was a clear sign of inferior singing. The mark of a novice; a beginner. And never could I have imagined being allowed to perform a song in such shape. 

I'm sure we could trace the trend to some current pop singer who set this vocal standard in the cellar, put this bar in the basement. And every indiscriminate influencee thinks it's fashionable and like-worthy to follow suit. Of course, the sweet budding students can't be faulted or even the conductors. Some arranger did a simplified version of John Stafford Smith's tune to accommodate developing voices and the music teacher said, yeah, they can achieve this. 

A purist, such as my piano teacher, (who had performed before the Queen and forbade me play 'Fur Elise' until I could handle the technical middle section), would never have assigned the simplified National Anthem to any choir. It would had to have been the original or else wait and work for maturation of skill. Perhaps the singing issue is due to a greater problem of a declining arts culture...

Fortunately, the horse jumping was graceful,

                                                                              skilled, 

                                                                                                and beautiful to watch. 

The years of practice and discipline loaded in every leap, turn and trot. Lithe equines responding to their master's nudge and prod; rich coats glistening as muscles rippled at every calculated and memorized move. 

Maybe next week the music will find its stride the way the horse and riders have.