We had Chicken Dijon on Friday night. It turned out to be a wonderful recipe. Some clever cook decided to brush chicken breasts with Dijon mustard before coating them with breadcrumbs seasoned with Italian seasoning, Parmesan and black pepper. They were pan fried, but I think they could have been baked, and would have been just as juicy.
At any rate….we come to what I’ve been pondering this morning. Why do grocers package three half chicken breasts to a package? Doesn’t that number seem odd to you?
We have four people who might be eating dinner, definitely three, with a possible fourth. So, when I buy chicken breasts, I have to buy two packages and then I have a whole chicken breast left over.
Yes, I COULD freeze that chicken for the next time I have to buy it, but it ticks me off that someone has decided that three is the magic number. I’m sure that there’s a marketing principal at work, and I mind that I have no choice in the matter.
Why couldn’t they package them in pairs as well as in threes? I know, I know…they’re making more money selling them that way, but it really ticks me off. I’m tempted to go to the kind of market where I can buy them individually!
Wake up, grocers of America! Pay attention here! We want more control over the number of chicken breasts per package!!
Monthly Archives: October 2004
Banned Books
I find it difficult to believe that in this day and age, books might be banned at the library. Last week, as I was traveling, I heard a discussion on the subject of banned books. Today is the last day of “Banned Book Week,” so evidently there are still people out there who fear the printed word.
I visited the American Library Association site that lists the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books and checked out the list of books which have been banned from schools, school libraries and public libraries from 1990-2000. I found the names of famous authors on this list: Sendak, L’Engle, Auel, Dahl, Morrison, Blume, Twain, Angelou, Rowling, Atwood and more.
It appears there are trends in the subject matter of the challenged books. Anything having to do with sex, in any form, is frequently challenged. “Where’s Waldo?” was challenged because in the Beach Scene, one mean little kid is about to throw a bucket of water on a sunbathing woman who has untied the top of her bikini. Books having anything to do with witchcraft or the occult have been challenged, most notably those by J.K. Rowling.
Retirement
Blue Witch wrote at length last Friday about changes in the retirement rules in the UK (“More pensions” Friday, September 24). Once again, I have great empathy with her subject matter, especially since Dear Husband and I are much closer to that point in our lives.
I had so much to say to her about it, that I felt it would be more appropriate to write it here, and link to her comments.
For the past ten years or so, we have been receiving notices from the Social Security Administration telling how much we had paid into the system, and how much we would be likely to receive a month should we retire at 62, or perhaps 65. In the past couple of years they are now telling us what we would receive should we choose to wait to retire at 70!
The government never intended Social Security to be a complete retirement package. They have always talked up 401k retirement plans, and savings, and any prudent person has investments to augment those. Unfortunately, the stock market wiped out a lot of those investment gains, and those who were in for the long haul, are running out of time when it comes to rebuilding those funds.
At the same time, the Federal Government is realizing that the Baby Boomers are nearing retirement age, and they are beginning to worry that there won’t be enough money to pay their claims. Their response: encourage them to work longer!
So….these notices show you how much MORE you would earn if you worked until you were 70. They don’t tell you that you HAVE to work that long, but the graphics showing what you would earn at 62, 65 and 70 are pretty convincing.
There are several catches to this line of thinking. First, it’s one thing to assume that I might continue to do paper work until I am 70. As long as I get my sleep, and I can see my monitor (Thank you for LARGE FONTS!!!), I could keep working. However, Dear Husband is an officer in a construction company. He is NOT going to be able to deal with the extremes of heat that Northern Illinois throws at us much longer. He might choose to take a job that pays a lot less than his present job, in order to stay inside more. So, Catch #1 is the physical ability to continue at your job.
The statistics the SSA sends us assume that we will continue to earn as much, or more, from now until we retire. It doesn’t, perhaps can’t, take into consideration changes in employment (Catch #2). And, in our experience, those our age who change jobs, tend not to move up in salary. We have friends our age who would be happy for a run of the mill job, let alone one with a golden parachute.
And….Catch #3….I seriously doubt that by the time I retire there will be one red cent left in the treasury to pay my Social Security. My Federal government sees fit to GIVE half a billion a week to five countries who are at the top of the list as recipients of our foreign aid: Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Afghanistan and Columbia. I have NO idea how much more we pay to the rest of the world. It’s a shame we are being taxed to support a world that doesn’t like us, rather than providing health care for our own poor.
So, we’re pretty uncomfortable about the idea of retiring. It will come one day, but I suspect it won’t be soon, and it might be a lot later than we’d like.
Blue Witch….good luck revising your plans. I’d really like to know SOMEONE who retired by fifty!
Fighting Sleep
Tonight, my quiilting bee meets. I’m just about ready for them. I have some of my Halloween decorations up, and candy corn to put out as treats. There are candles to be lit, and dishes to ready for dessert.
I really need to cut out some pieces for a pumpkin applique that I started the last time we met. THEY would have finished it that night….and I’m still futzing around with it a month later. I love the look of applique, I just don’t like to do it, and all but one of this group are experts at applique! Just my luck.
The only problem is, I can’t keep my head up. I was working in the office until almost one o’clock last night, and now the need to catch up on my sleep is overwhelming. If I get up and move around, I bet I can catch my second wind.
Trip Notes, Part 2
Faces in trucks with neatly trimmed white beards. A LOT of guys in the rural area have decided that beards are “in,” and it seems a lot of them happen to have white hair! There were one or two I would have liked to stop and chat with! *G*
Trip Notes
As I traveled to my sister’s in Indiana, I had a portable tape recorder with me. When something caught my eye, I made note of it. The drive was interesting.