News cameras spotted our distinguished Mayor of Philadelphia (Nutter Dem.) as he proudly walked the hallowed littered streets of Philly feeling good about the newly passed law requiring restaurants and food establishments to post calories of food for all to see. It warms my soul as well because I’ve always wondered how many calories a Starbucks Vente Caramel Machiato with double cream contained. And thankfully I can also see right away the calories in a Boston Cream Filled Dunkin Doughnut.  No more for me!!  That did it!

This along with the new tax proposal to add 25 cents to the cost of colas for inner city kids is something we can all feel good about.   This is heart warming.  Just think of those kids now refusing to pay an extra quarter for Coca Cola and turning instead to the OJ section of  Florida’s fresh squeeze. And besides we all know that increasing taxes improves diet and health as well as creates jobs.  Right? Right. Behavior modification is just another thing our government has excelled in.

The tax on vendors using plastic bags for groceries will help to eliminate trash on the streets too.

Mayor Blumberg of NYC can also boast about mandating restaurants to stop cooking with saturated fats and too much salt.

This is what I want my government doing for me.  Who needs better roads or decrease in crime when we can have them looking out for our dietary needs.  So today I am thankful for all that my government does for me and my family!!

Apparently my membership to the “Pennsylvania Do Not Call List” recently expired.  I have been contacted in the last week by every charity known to humankind asking for my donation.  Political lawyers have also phoned to warn me of the impending doom which awaits our country (of which I’m already well aware of) asking for money so they can take our case to the Supreme Court.  I’m serious.  I received a recorded call from Dick Morris and one other dude (can’t remember his name) asking for a donation (I promised myself that I would not make this a political blog today).

So today, I’ve “re-signed” with the “Do Not Call” list and hopefully it will remedy this nuisance.  I’m not sure why we maintain the land line instead of switching entirely to cell phones.  Not a single person we know or friend calls the land line.  Of course our family and friends use the cell number.  Perhaps we feel more secure knowing that if the cell phone battery goes dead because we forgot to plug it in the night before, we still have a life line to the outside world of talk.

So now, I’m off to the store.  Ok, first lesson, never, never shop at Wegmans on Monday mornings.  Their cupboards are also bear from the ransacking they took over the weekend.  The collard greens were yellow (for you yankees, they’re supposed to be bright verdant green),  No tomato sauce, or fresh grapefruit juice either.  Enough, you get the picture.  So now I notice  there are only two categories of people in the entire store; either the very old with grey hair ( I guess I qualify now), or young mothers with kids in shopping carts which look like model airplanes.  It’s dodge cars as you’ve never seen it (remember the dodge cars at the state fairs? The ones which have the electric sparking cable attached to the ceiling?)  Well that’s what its like.  Several grandmothers were nearly ran over by moms  rushing for the blue light special in the opposite corner of the store.  Wild as usual.

But what got my attention and brought me back to the present, a very enjoyable moment of course, was the red faced toddler standing up in the shopping cart (designed to look like a model airplane) who was announcing his unhappiness to the entire produce section.  Then I watched as the mom, bend over, without effort and softly plant a  “mothers” kiss to his sweaty forehead.  It was magical and facinating to see the calming effect of …what else…LOVE.  The tears dried up, and a big smile came on his smudged face.  See what a kiss can do?   Find the one you love right now and go plant a kiss on their cheek and see what happens…..

Transcript (not verbatim) below:

Wal-mart’s Greeters Job Description,   Life after 50 by Michael Jackson,  Things I’ve done to Protect Liberty and Freedom, by Barack Obama,  How to Reach the Superbowl by Donovan McNabb, Class Act by Wanda Sykes, Voice Training Made Simple by Amy Grant, Finances and Banking  Made Simple by Barney Frank, Keeping the Place Neat by Rick Creasy, Mechanical Engineering by Rick Creasy, Sexual Purity by Madonna, The Joy of Flying by US Air, The US Constitution by Barack Obama, Love Conquers All by Jeremiah Wright, Healthcare For All,  by John Kevorkian, Keeping the Spark in my Marriage by Hillary Clinton, forward by Bill Clinton.

I’m sure you can come up with some of your own.

Thought we could use a little humor in all this turmoil we live in.