Author: K.S. Schultz

Paris Hilton more popular than Congress

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

The U.S Congress has hit a new low with a dismal approval rating of 9%, the lowest since the New York Times began tracking it over 30 years ago.  Is it any wonder that Paris Hilton is now more popular than Congress?   Although many of us are perplexed by Ms. Hilton’s fame, even more confusing is what those people up on the hill are doing, or rather not doing for the people they purportedly represent.  Paris’ inane “that’s hot!” ratings of who-cares subjects hold more weight than the President’s, “we can do this” assurances.  I say we cancel their show.  It has gotten stale with the same old plot being reworked month after month.  There aren’t any good guys to root for nor any bad guys that ever get their comeuppance; very unsatisfying.  I am eagerly looking forward to piloting third-party candidates in the 2012 election.  I hear the man responsible for making Paris Hilton famous, Jason Moore, is available if a Libertarian or Tax Payer party candidate is looking for a campaign manager.  Or perhaps Paris should be on the ballot.  During her service as an ambassador for the USO she stated, “There is nothing more worthwhile and patriotic than supporting our troops.”  She should have been made an ambassador to the Super Committee.

A local giant says goodbye

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Frederick Meijer, the founder of “one-stop-shopping” died on Friday at age 91 after suffering a stroke earlier in the day.  Fred, as he was known in the community, was a free-thinker with common sense values who with the help of his friend Earl Holton built a small empire of Meijer retail stores.  In 1934 Fred’s father Hendrick opened a grocery store in Greenville Michigan at which Fred worked 40 hours a week while attending high school and where he met his wife Lena, who was a clerk.  In 1962 Hendrick and Fred opened the first Meijer Thrifty Acres.  Every child that grew up in Michigan after the mid-sixties remembers riding the mechanical horse at the front of every store for a penny.  I just noticed the other day that there is still a horse at the front of my local Meijer and amazingly it still costs a penny to ride.

My admiration for Fred was born when I went to work at a newly opened Meijer store in the late 90’s.  I was hired as an “everything gal” for the store and met Fred several times during those few years.  His favorite ice cream was blue moon and he would hand out pennies to children so they could ride the horse when he came in for a scoop.  He always had a pocket full of pennies.  Occasionally I was asked to deliver gallons of milk and other sundries to Fred’s friends’ homes when they were ill.  I thought it was nice that they shared this personal information with an errand girl, but it was not surprising.  I was such a believer in Fred Meijer and Earl Holton that after a year I became a Hiring and Training Manager.  Earl was President of Meijer and had started at Meijer as a bag boy.  Fred’s Dad Hendrick was not nearly as fond of Earl as Fred was because it bothered him that Earl always had a smoke when he retrieved the grocery carts from the parking lot.  Up until a few years ago every Meijer store had a smoking break room so that customers never saw employees smoking out in the lot.  Earl’s approach to customer service was inspirational.  In the early years a customer asked him for a fry pan that was locked in a storeroom.  The only set of keys were with the store manager who had left for the day, so Earl removed the door from its hinges to get that fry pan for the waiting customer.  Fred empowered his employees and trusted their judgment because he believed that he could not possibly know everything.  Thanks to his wife Lena, all of the store’s bathroom doors swing out so that you don’t have to touch them with clean hands.  I’m surprised that sensible idea hasn’t caught on.  Sam Walton said he got the idea to include groceries in Wal-Mart from Meijer, and several other chains followed suit.

Fred and Lena Meijer kept the company family owned, choosing not to take it public several times over the past 30 years.  Their philanthropy is well-known throughout our community with the Meijer Heart Center and 125-acre Meijer Garden and Sculpture Park standing as living testaments to their generosity.  I am positive that there are many individuals who remember small acts of kindness from Fred.  I will always remember him as the billionaire that did not act like one, who spoke to me as if I was his equal.  It may be cliché, but it is fitting to say that they just don’t make them like Fred anymore.

ASPCA “Tommy P. Monahan” Kid of the Year

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

In Tilden, Nebraska last year Stevie Nelson’s two black Labradors went missing two days before his fifth birthday.  Stevie was heartbroken when the Labs were not found despite the best efforts of his family who even hired a pet investigator.  The family and investigator expanded their search to three states and offered a reward, but had no success in finding Stevie’s lost dogs.  This child was understandably heartbroken after his only birthday wish was not granted.

As Stevie’s sixth birthday approached he saw the saddest ad on television.  We have all seen it, the Human Society’s plea for donations which includes picture after picture of the saddest looking animals with Sarah McLachlan’s Arms of an Angel playing in the background.  I turn the channel unless I need a good cry, but this kid was so moved by the commercial that he decided instead of toys, he would request ASPCA donations for his sixth birthday.  By his birthday on March 16 Stevie had surpassed his goal of $6,000 and continued his pledge drive which has raised $28,000 to date.  A mere five-year-old took his heartbreak and turned it into charity thereby healing himself and providing instruction to others who are hurting.  This is not the first time that I learned humanity from a child and I hope it is not the last because their perspectives are not hindered by the complexities and frequent self-absorption of adulthood.  The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals agrees and is awarding Stevie Nelson with the “Tommy P. Monahan” Kid of the Year Award at their annual awards luncheon today.  Stevie changed his painful memory of losing his beloved pets and the new Northeast Nebraska’s Animal Shelter stands in testament to his desire to heal by helping others.  Today I am grateful for Stevie Nelson.

Matthew 11:25 – At that time Jesus made answer and said, I give praise to you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have kept these things secret from the wise and the men of learning, and have made them clear to little children.

 

Dakota Fanning is deemed provocative in the U.K.

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

And ad for Dakota Fanning’s Oh Lola! perfume has been banned in the U.K. by the Advertising Standards Authority because they say it sexualizes a child.  The ASA stated that the following helped form their ruling, “We considered that the length of her dress, her leg and position of the perfume bottle drew attention to her sexuality.”  While I would not sport her ultra-girly dress at my age, feminine lace dresses on younger women are a stylish trend created by several designers for the 2011 Fall and Winter collections.  I see them in every fashion magazine I pick up, typically on young stars like Selena Gomez.  In one article I read about the Oh Lola! ad’s ban the author states that Dakota Fanning is wearing a “provocative stare”, which makes me question the author’s vision, as well as my own.  Am I so desensitized to sexy stares that I do not recognize one, or do I not equate sexiness with innocence?  Perhaps a bit of both, but what is deemed sexual is unique to an individual.  That is why people masturbate to images of feet, hands, pudding, or any other seemingly benign photo.

Although Dakota Fanning is 17 years old, they say she looks under the age of 16, which piqued my interest in British teenage style.  On the BBC’s teen fashion site Slink (a provocative title, don’t you think?) it seems on the other side of the pond sequined mini skirts are all the rage on the teen scene .  I would not have allowed my teenage daughter to wear what I term a hooker skirt, even with a grunge t-shirt, but perhaps the hookers in the U.K. wear little lace dresses and go around staring provocatively to lure in their clients.

Also deemed provocative by the ASA is the placement of the perfume bottle, which I chalk up to a natural male tendency to see phallic symbols everywhere.  A woman is more likely to note the blossoming flower atop the bottle.  While I strongly believe in protecting young women from exploitation, the written opinions of the ASA and media exploit Dakota Fanning more than Marc Jacobs with over-the-top sexual descriptions such as the Daily Mail’s “she tilts back lasciviously”.  What they have accomplished is to direct pedophiles to this ad by tying enticingly illicit  and child-like descriptions together.  The below photos of Emma Watson are from a complimentary article in the Daily Mail about her modelling career and a Burberry ad with her little brother in which I easily recognize provocative stares.

Chasing Z’s

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Sleep is an elusive and unpredictable bitch that switches up the timing of her escape between very late at night and much too early in the morning.  She requires that I court her all day long in order to gain a slim possibility of a rare eight-hour stretch that will leave me feeling like I won the lottery.  At least once a week I see or hear the sleep courtship rules that we have all memorized by now.  The advice to not drink caffeine or exercise late in the evening is like receiving instructions on how to tie my shoes at this point.  The only reason I continue to tune in is my hope for a new fix, just as I continue to read money-saving articles in hopes of something other than the advice to skip $5 lattes.  Note Starbucks’ success and the public’s tendency to follow that advice.

The number of adults that report trouble falling and staying asleep is on the rise, with approximately 17% reporting severe insomnia.  Ironically, as we become increasingly stimulated we are getting less rest.  The primary cause, however, is that the hypothalamus gland begins decreasing production of the human growth hormone associated with deep sleep in one’s early 30’s.  Peak production in the teenage years was responsible for those dreamy days of sleeping well into the afternoon (sigh).  I wonder if it is our body’s way of telling us that the older we get the less time we have to waste.I would love to wage an argument, but have learned that my body does not alter its’ course no matter how valid my debate is. A new study states that 80% of women report feeling too stressed or worried to fall asleep and 30% are now taking sleep aids.  According to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical intelligence agency, nearly double the number of women aged 40 to 59 were prescribed sleep medications than men in the same age group.  Perhaps this “intelligence agency” is somehow sabotaging our hypothalamus so that women do not take over the world…probably not, but that term makes me paranoid nonetheless.  The most prescribed sleep aid is Ambien.  I took Ambien for a year and it was very effective; knocked me out within 5 minutes.  The only side effect I experienced was sleep walking and eating snacks.  Potato chips were my sleep eating choice, but because I loved the deep Ambien slumber I ignored the chip evidence until I was busted.  During a visit my daughter and son-in-law witnessed me walk to the cabinet, grab the chips, and munch away on the couch with my eyes closed.  Of course they were laughing and asking me questions, but it seems my sleeping self was very focused on the chips.  Lucky for all of us, I had heard about the possibility of sleep walking, eating, and even driving, and always slept in pajamas.  I became afraid of what else I may be doing while asleep and night sweats began to make pajamas unbearable, so I weaned myself off Ambien with the help of Benadryl.  My doctor preferred that I try Trazadone over the Benadryl and although it is not nearly as effective as Ambien, it does make me drowsy enough to fall asleep by midnight most nights.  D.H. Lawrence expertly and lovingly described a night-long sleep:  And if tonight my soul may find her peace in sleep, and sink in good oblivion, and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.  Good night.

Essential and unsurpassed friendships

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

I will ask your forgiveness at the outset of this post for my sentimental remembrances of friendships that have been cornerstones to my uncharacteristic character and offer my advancing age as the only excuse for this mushiness.  The time to give credit where credit is due has arrived and I can no longer keep them unvoiced in my head.

She knows who she is, the friend who risked her popularity to befriend me, a clear underdog in a harsh teen landscape.  We bonded over cigarettes, painful childhood secrets which had never before been shared, and belly aching laughter that made the tears stream down our faces.  I never understood why other girls were intimidated by her, but her protection saved me more than once and bullies steered clear of me for the first time in my life.  She made loving gestures, surprising me with cards, posters, and even a birthday party.  Her love helped me grow strong, confident, and free to be silly.  She has downplayed her impact on my life when I have tried to impart how happy she made me.  Have you ever noticed how generous people do that?

She knows who she is, the tenacious friend that I could not shake during the darkest period of my life.  She did not run from my overwhelming grief over losing my infant son.  It seemed to last forever and I gave her nothing, yet she expressed her love for me every single day of those two years.  I wanted to be left alone with my pain, not even answering the phone most of the time.   She would leave simple answering machine messages saying, “You don’t have to talk to me, but I am here if you want to.  I just wanted to let you know I love you and am thinking of you today.  Please let me know if you need anything and I will be there.”  And she was there, even though I rarely let her know.  She was the friend that loved me out of it, that helped me see that good still existed and it went by her name.

She knows who she is, the friend that shared her creativity and became a safe haven for mine.  She encouraged me to write and found value in pieces that I believed were garbage.  She is better than Strunk & White and was my first editor.  Our visits are an encouraging fix for me that fill my creative well and result in positive forward motion.  It is believed that friends are mirrors of our own selves.  In her case, she is often my best self.

He knows who he is, the volunteer who recognized how overwhelmed I was and generously offered to help with whatever I allowed.  Although he dislikes the term, he IS smart and shares his intelligence with me at a rate that my brain cannot absorb.  The most valuable knowledge I have gained from his friendship is how happiness can be derived more so from life’s simple aspects such as nature, food, giving of oneself, camaraderie, and butter pecan ice cream than from temporary material goods.  I now treasure my experiences and memories more than I did before I knew him.  He is an interesting combination of stimulation and serenity.  I hope that one day I can accept myself as wholly as he accepts me (and himself).

Lastly there are my two best friends, the one that gave me life and the other that gave me new life when she was born.  Although bonded by blood and mother-daughter love, our friendship was not guaranteed, but we actually like one another.  Our similar independent natures require that we each have differing views and personalities, yet no one could tell our cores apart.  It is the personification of friends mirroring one another.  They are both fiercely loyal, opinionated, and brutally honest.  I know them like I know myself.  We are like a stout tripod that cannot be tipped.

My public gushing may very well be influenced by my bouncing hormones, but my appreciation of my friends has always been there, unexpressed until now.

The case of the disappearing 401k

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Either I am a cynic or the only one not drinking the Kool-Aid.  The bit I saved for retirement is invested in a 401k with a perfect risk ratio, according to the financial wizards, for someone who wishes to retire in 2035.  I followed the expert’s advice to not fret during the past year, which for me meant not even logging in to review the monthly online statements.  Stay the course is what they say.  The market has always had highs and lows and long-term investors always win.  Really?   I share both a blood type and a Myer-Briggs personality type with 1% of the population and my body temperature is 97 degrees, so 99 degrees IS a fever, damn it.  Based on these statistics and other life events I have learned to not depend on the word “always”.

But, I digress…likely because I just looked at my 401k balance and all I can see is 2035 turning into 2050, at which time I’ll be 82.  Judging from the European news, I could easily blame it all on Greece.  My inquisitive nature demanded that I take a closer look at what is happening there, and from what I found Greeks are not much different from us.  They work about 41 hours per week and the average age of retirement is 65.  But wait, there are differences in that they cannot count on being paid and average pay is between 600 and 800 Euros per month ($960-$1,280 per month).  What I found most interesting is that Greek citizens claim that their country’s financial crisis is due to tax evasion by the wealthy and corruption within the banking and political systems.  And then there is some nonsense about their banks being too big to fail.

While my brain tries to wrap around this global screwing of working people, it also races to figure out how I can stop the siphoning of my bitty retirement fund.  I may not be thinking clearly as I picture the richest men in the world sitting around a table planning to annually steal 5% of every retirement account in the world as if they actually need it.  I wonder if they think I am stupid, if we are all stupid.  The only course of action I can think of right now is to spend it all before they can get their greedy little hands on it.  Fortunately I have learned that when I am in a highly emotional state good decisions do not follow.  For now, we are stopping all 401k contributions.  The coffee can buried in the back yard savings plan is an option, but then there is China devaluing the dollar which has me imagining what it must have been like to have a bunch of Confederate cash in 1865.  I wish I would have continued my ignorance is bliss approach.  Where the hell is that Kool-Aid?

 

Superman is dead, but Wonder Woman still looks good

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Our childhood games involved imaginative scripts with roles as the Bionic Woman, Charlie’s Angels, Batman and Robin, Steve Austin, Wonder Woman, and scores of nefarious criminals that were always beat down by dinner time.  I think of us as the latch-key, TV generation.  While The Brady Bunch clued us in to how “normal” families behaved and how abnormal our own families were by their standards, our super heroes not only survived the mechanizations of evil, but triumphed within one hour.  It wasn’t like we could play Brady Bunch; how boring that would have been.  I faced badness and damaged people in real life and pretending to be Wonder Woman for a few hours was an escape that culminated with the fineness of justice.  And her plane was invisible so all I needed were bracelets and a rope to use as a lasso.  I hated it when the guys played the superhero role because then I got to play a victim of a bad guy, usually tied up.  But, misogynistic tendencies of young boys are a topic for another post, possibly even another blog.

We have been termed “Generation X”, the cynical generation.  My daughter says she finds my generation to be the angry generation.  Well, the rules have changed in our lifetime and TV characters in prime-time are now all flawed.  Our super hero-complex is described perfectly in Jeff Gordinier’s X Saves the World.  The line between good and evil is not only fuzzy, but moves depending on the situation.  Wonder Woman may have snapped a villain’s neck here and there, but their crimes always justified it and I was confident of her inherent goodness.  Today’s heroes quickly become anti-heroes, both in real life and on TV.  There is no shortage of villains, however.  Can the sexed-up versions of the Angels and Wonder Woman empower little girls the way they did me, or will they parody the half-wins that we call justice today?  And how boring would it be for a kid to play act beating up a crooked hedge-fund manager?

Forget about it

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Coupled with my Monet-like vision, my hit-and-miss memory makes finding my glasses a frustratingly blind scavenger hunt.  I have adjusted to allow for memory lapses because that is what we humans do.  We work with what we have.  So, I have a designated finder pair of glasses that reside on my dresser.  Sometimes I just have to wear the finder pair if I left my others in an especially well-hidden spot.  In perimenopause an addled thought process is sometimes what we have to work with as waxing and waning estrogen levels that are essential to neurotransmitter and oxygen levels in the brain fluctuate.  Some days I am sharp and can remember and carry out a multitude of detailed tasks that leave me feeling damn good about myself and rather smart.  Other days I am scattered, have to wear my finder glasses, and return to the grocery store for the detergent that I left in the cart.  Adding to my brain drain is the shame of not being on top of my game which is stress-producing for my Wonder Woman alter ego.  Stress, or the inevitable cortisol dump that accompanies it, actually shuts down learning and negatively affects the hippocampus, the memory center.

When my Grandma began showing signs of dementia a couple of years before she died I researched what we could do to make her life less frustrating.  I never thought I would soon employ some of those strategies in order to fake out Wonder Woman fans.  I also use the strategies I learned when placed under increasing pressure to do more and more at work, a common theme in today’s workplace.  I completed a Franklin Covey course titled “FOCUS, Achieving Your Highest Priorities” that seemed tailor-made for my planning/controlling nature.  There is truth to the adage that writing something down gives it POWER and planning requires writing it down.  Working in medical education I became addicted to studies.  Prove it to me; give me some stats or metrics.  Smooth Operators no longer hold sway here in the 5th decade.  So naturally I believe the hundreds of studies that show that multitasking is an inefficient illusion which makes for costly and time-consuming mistakes.  We all know someone who moves at break-neck speed and radiates anxiety, but is not very effective.  I am the friend that has no problem saying, “slow the hell down and identify what is crucial for you to accomplish today”.  The downside is that people get pissed when they are running around while I am calmly asking for identification of priorities.  My satisfaction is that I never spent an hour hunting for pencils the morning of a national inservice exam.  Wonder Woman always keeps her pencils in the same spot because it is a stupid thing to spend time on.  “A place for everything and everything in its place” may seem contradictory for a creative person, but if I spent my time hunting for tools I would have little time to create.

Here are a few other strategies that maximize my unreliable memory and help me focus:

  • Identify the most important goals for a month and work backwards in weekly, and then daily increments and make to-do lists.  Do not forget relationships on these lists.  Just don’t let your husband see that you penciled him in on Wednesday evening.
  • If something unexpected comes up (and when doesn’t it), think about what day’s list it can go on.  Someone freaking out does not necessarily mean it becomes your priority.  Sick kids trump everything, though.  Don’t sweat it.  Rework your lists and try to delegate where possible.
  • Never go to the grocery store without a list that was generated from a menu.  Poll the family while you are making the grocery list and only go off the list if it involves chocolate.
  • Pay with cash.  Not only will you spend less, but you do not have to keep track of several debits, just one withdrawal.
  • Do one thing at a time.  A person who works sequentially is 50% more productive and makes 50% fewer mistakes.  Time is a commodity!
  • Take a five-minute break once per hour to stretch, move about, or talk to someone you like.  Movement sends more oxygen to the brain and restarts the recall center.  You get a good feeling when interacting with someone you like because the brain is dumping those enjoyable hormones like serotonin and dopamine.

Interestingly, Our Bodies Ourselves, the book that granted us the power of knowing where our clitoris resides, just celebrated its 40th anniversary.  This monumental book granted women permission to discuss the taboo subjects of our sexuality by giving us the power of knowledge.  While young women today are prepared for menstruation and openly discuss sex and birth control with their mothers, we still have a long way to go on ridding ourselves of the taboo associated with mid-life female changes.  We have seen the effect of open dialogue and being able to call a vagina a vagina.  In that vein, I welcome you to share some of your strategies for adjusting or minimizing the changes before and during menopause.  If you find yourself trying to put it in what you think of as acceptable terms, just say out loud, “clitoris, vagina, penis, orgasm”.

Wildly Inappropriate

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

What does inappropriate look like?  According to a young woman travelling from New York to Dublin with her vibrator it looks like a TSA inspection ticket with “Get your freak on girl” scribbled on it.  Travelling alone, Jill Filipovic found the ticket in her luggage while she was unpacking and assumed it referred to the “personal item” in her bag.  She admittedly “died laughing” in her hotel room and was not embarrassed, as evidenced by her posting the note on Twitter and her website, Feministe.  Ms. Filipovic then emailed the Daily Mail about the incident and said she found the incident to be incredibly invasive and creepy.  In my experience searches do tend to be invasive and I assume that anything in my luggage will be perused by someone.   According to her, she could not get her freak on and had to dispose of her vibrator because she “had no idea what he did with it while it was in his possession”.  It is disappointing that a self-proclaimed feminist did not entertain the possibility that the TSA agent may have been a woman, in which case I would have thrown it out, too.  Ms. Filipovic also said the incident was “wildly inappropriate”.

It seems that appropriate and its opposite used to be more easily identified.  I grew up very familiar with what my Mother deemed inappropriate and passed on that knowledge along with my own definition to my Daughter.  But, in today’s transparent and shameless culture, inappropriate is defined by the individual who can often just turn the channel or close the browser.  A perfect example is that I do not believe the TSA agent was wildly inappropriate, but then I love a good joke.  I do think it would be appropriate recompense for the airline to give Ms. Filipovic a gift certificate to her shop of choice for the purchase of a new “personal item” so that she can return to getting her freak on, poor girl.