Talkin' shop

The mall sucks. It brings out the very worst in people. There is no getting around this. The mall is all that's wrong with humanity. Opening it to that humanity on Thanksgiving Day is itself inhumane. Greed as motivation is a craptastic way to be. Do you hear me, retailers? Craptastic!

I am responsible for the Hanukkah part of my children's upbringing. In my world, that means 8 gifts for each child. Don't feel sad for them; they get a Christmas part, too. December is like halcyon for my children. I refer to it as the holi-daze. I am proud to tell you that I was able to score all Hanukkah presents for my children without subjecting myself to the mall. Mall-free and loving it! Almost all presents will come to my office. In a week or so, I will turn one lunch hour into a giant Wrap Fest, and I will be done. Done.

And I did not have to wake up at 4 am yesterday, or go to Wal-Mart, or reduce myself in any way to ensure this. The retailers would have you believe that you can have either convenience or conscience, but not both. This is more craptastic thinking. You can do whatever you want, and it won't cost a fortune and you can stay out of the mall and use less gas and keep your sanity and focus on the real messages of the season, which as it turns out have nothing to do with Wal-Mart.

Happy shopping.

Fall Back

Today involved a walk through the woods. What I was thinking about during that walk is that very little has changed since the Leni-Lenape occupied that land 400 years ago. On this first day of Standard Time, I've also been thinking about ways of marking time, first as darkness and light, eventually changes in the moon, seasons, years. What did the Leni-Lenape think about as they wandered the places I did today, when they weren't addressing immediate survival? Was a colorful leaf something to celebrate? Was it a gift of the gods? It's these small ideas that connect us, because almost all of our life is so different from that era. But nature lets us go back, lets us remember. That need to connect to the past is about more than just a fear of repeating it. It's primal, and we're better for having it.