I often find myself wishing that I could go back in time. Not because I want to be younger or have fewer wrinkles or aches and pains, but things were sooooo different then. People had morals and values, people were more polite, more caring, more considerate, much more friendly and they had manners. At least this is what I remember and most of the people I talk to that are about my age remember too.
Our shop is small and located in the heart of Huntington Village. Many of our customers have been here forever and remember when our shop was owned by Margie and Lynn. Yesterday, I was visited by three of these wonderful ladies. What a pleasure. They always enter with smiles, we don’t just discuss the items that they want to purchase but we talk about family and friends, things in the news and how the world has changed. We exchange ideas and I get to find out about all the happenings in town. One such event was the Holiday Fair at The Old First Presbyterian Church. This beautiful old building has been here for over 250 years and still serves the community as a place of worship. I stopped by the fair after work and was amazed at how everyone was working so hard together for this church, young and old alike. Everyone there volunteered their time and items for sale for the common good of this historic church. Everyone was busy and laughing and just having a great time. Everyone was greeted with a smile. I didn’t stay for long, but when I left I had such a wonderful feeling. It was nice to know that there are people who care about other things besides themselves. That people can work together for a common goal and that all those old fashioned ideas still are alive and well. Maybe this is what we need more of.
I found myself thinking how lucky I am to work with flowers and in such a charming place surrounded by such lovely people.
According to BBC News, an Iranian court ordered a guy to give his wife the 124,000 roses that he promised in her dowry.
(Excerpt from the BBC site)
The woman said she was claiming the dowry because her “very stingy husband” would not even pay for a cup of coffee, according to the E’temad newspaper.
The court has seized the man’s flat until he produces all of the roses.
Under Iranian law, a woman can claim her dowry, or mahr, at any time during a marriage or when getting divorced. [snip]
According to E’temad, the woman, identified as Hengameh, decided to claim her entire dowry of 124,000 red roses after 10 years of marriage to “punish her very stingy husband”.
“Shortly after marriage, I realised that Shahin was very cheap,” she told the newspaper. “He even refused to pay for my coffee if we went to a cafe or restaurant.”
Shahin told the court he could only afford to give her five roses a day and complained that it was his wife’s “billionaire friends who had put such ideas in her head”.
But the judge rejected Shahin’s pleas and ordered his $64,000 (£33,000) flat to be confiscated until he has bought them all.
A long-stemmed rose costs about $2 (£1.09) in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
It is common in Iran to offer gold coins or property as mahr. An Iranian man can end up in jail for dowry debts.
124,000 roses!!! With the pace of 5 roses a day (~1,825 roses a year), it takes about 68 years to pay off this debt. Good luck Mr Shahin!
Good morning. Well, it was till I filled up my vehicle today. $63.00 later. OUCH!!! But it should last the week…. not. I get into work and the first thing I hear is that Exxon- Mobile posted the highest profits for 2007. 39.5 BILLION!!!! How nice. Today was the first day in 3 weeks that I filled the tank of my car… I usually put 20.00 at a time because I really can’t afford to fill up at these prices and I am careful where I go how I shop so I’m not wasting gas. Do you think the gas companies could possibly lower the price of gas and still make a profit… Absolutely. Do you think they will so the public can afford to drive or travel and maybe spend money in other areas to boost the economy ? NO. Because of the high gas prices everything has gone up in price, food, clothing, heat, everthing. It is very difficult for people to make ends meet and yet prices continually go up.
Ok. I vented and know I feel a little better. But I’m still broke!!!!
Most people listen to the radio while driving. I must tell you that I absolutely hate commercials that use car horns honking, tires screeching to a halt, the sound of a car crash and best of all police and ambulance sirens blasting. All of these things are quite disturbing and distracting as you drive. Sometimes it is hard to tell if it is part of the commercial or the real deal. I wonder how many accidents these commercials have caused?
This morning I was driving to work as usual. The road I travel is realitively busy. I noticed a group of joggers, not just 3 or 4, but 15 to 20, followed by another group of 10 or 12 and behind them is another group just as large. Not really a big deal, but these are the kids on the local high school track team. We all know that kids don’t always think of the dangers that lurk, but you would think the gym teachers would. These kids don’t jog in single file, oh no……. the are 5 across past the “protection” of the solid white line put there for bikers. The speed limit on this road is 45mph…….. and you know as well as I do , that for some people that means go 75! Now, one block over is a very nice neighborhood, quiet streets, not a ton of traffic and safer. Why can’t they jog there? Makes too much sense I guess.
As for the bicycle riders who have a lane all to themselves which they don’t use !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They ride in groups just like these joggers, only difference is that they block the whole lane, slowing traffic for miles. Plus it never fails that the favorite time of day to travel in packs is the morning and evening, when everyone is in a hurry to either get to work or get home. I don’t get it.
Another thing I don’t get is why a Mom would cross in the middle of the street with her kids in tow. Usually one child in the arm, and the other 3 all under the ages of five attached to her blouse. Now, I don’t know about your kids, but my kids at that age were quick and periodically unpredicable. I rarely, crossed a busy intersection with them let alone a major road where the average speed was 50mph. Seemed too dangerous to me.
Heres another one. Why do moms take long stroller walks with their infants on busy roads? Now, some of these streets have sidewalks. USE THE SIDEWALK. That’s what it’s there for. To walk on. But instead they walk in the street!
I don’t know it just was something I thought of going to work, figured I’d share.
Well, as you know we have new neighbors and we have a small problem already. It’s about a fence. Actually it’s not the fence it’s how the fence got there and why. Basically it’s a matter of principal.
My husband came home and we discussed the problem and the offer that the neighbor had made to “make right ” the wrong. He had said he would get a surveyor to check the property line and move the fence accordingly and put back our chain link fence. We both decided to have him do just that. It would make things clear for the future and we could start fresh. He had said to tell him as soon as he got home , so we did.Well let me tell you that this is not what this man wanted to hear. He threw a full blown hissy fit complete with a tantrum, throwing his back pack on the ground, waving his arms and stamping his feet, yelling, covering his ears, putting his hand up and talking oveer everything that we said just so he didn’t have to listen!!!!!!! He was not a happy camper. He expected that we would just say”ok” and be grateful that he tore down OUR old $20.00 chain link fence and replaced it with his brand new beautiful $10,000 dollar fence job. He thought he had gotten away with what he wanted and that would be it. NO! It’s not it. We tried to explain that he was specifically told that ,that was our fence, that was our property. And that he didn’t bother to ask us if he could tear it down, or that the fence crew would be coming or might need access to our yard. He just decided that he did not want to trim part of the brick planter box in his yard to put up the fence in a straight line on his side—-it was easier to remove our fence and make his fence straight on our side of the property. (Which he told the fence company to do, it was on the work order.) Thinking “Oh they won’t care” But we do. I must say that the look on his wife’s face when my husband said that he had told him that the fence belonged to us was priceless–she had no idea. She said to my husband “I thought you had talked this over and everything was agreed upon”. I think she was shocked to find out it wasn’t. I know that we will probably never talk to these neighbors, but it would have been nice.
I don’t think that they understand that what they have done is basically the same as stealing. When you take something from someone without asking, knowing full well that it doesn’t belong to you but belongs to that person and you take it anyway. That’s stealing. We try to teach our children these things at an early age.( I guess when you get older you conveniently forget this.)But, for every action there is a reaction or consequence. Some people just don’t care. Some people don’t get it. Some people think that they are the only ones in the world and they are intitled to everything and it doesn’t matter what the cost or who they hurt or how they get it. Dishonest, Selfish and Childish. Oh well, I guess we’ll see what happens next when I get home. Sometimes a matter of principal is a harder road to take. Doing the right thing isn’t always easy.
Anyone who has a new neighbor move in next door can probably relate to the feeling of “What will they be like?”. Well we have new neighbors and it’s not starting out so well. They seemed like nice people, but guess we were wrong. They had mentioned to us that they were going to put up a new fence. My husband told them that our fence was on the property line. He had made it clear, or so we thought. Yesterday I come home to find our fence has been torn down and there fence was in it’s place. If that isn’t bad enough, they moved onto our property by 6″ to accommodate their new fence because of the panel sizes. WHAT NERVE!!!!!!!!!!! The fence guy didn’t speak alot of english, but could see how upset I was. He showed me the work order which read tear down existing fence. So, he was following his directions. Where do people get off just deciding to take what doesn’t belong to them? We saw these new neighbors during the week, nothing was mentioned about the fence or someone needing access to our property. They just did what they wanted with out thinking of anyone but themselves, and they waited for us to be at work. Now don’t get me wrong… the fence is very nice–nicer than our old one, but it is a question of principal. How does someone do something like this. My husband came home fuming. When the neighbor came home from work ( the husband not the wife because she wouldn’t answer the door) my husband went over to talk with him. He said the previous owner told them they had about 12″ to work with on our side.BULL. I could see our old neighbor saying this though.Even so, wouldn’t you check a survey to make sure where the property lines are before putting up a fence. Anyway the new neighbor said he would have the property surved at his expence. If the fence was on our property he would move the fence or if he actually had more property on our side of the fence he would move the fence over or he could have our old chain link put back up on our side of his fence which would reduce our yard size further by another 4”. He also said he didn’t have a survey done when he bought the house. However, we did and moved the existing fence to the property line when we moved in. We did this not because we “wanted” more property but the mortgage company wanted the property lines to be clear. But before we moved it, we talked to old neighbor and let them know what was going on. We discussed it first. We didn’t just up and move the fence. I think the reason I am so angry is because they didn’t have the courtesy to let us know what they had planned and just tore down our fence and replaced it with the new one and moved it over on our property thinking this would be alright and we wouldn’t care because the new fence is nicer than what we had.WRONG. Let them survey the property, if he actually has more fine, then move the fence over—- if not –move the fence over. I really don’t care. Because of their actions we can never really feel like they are great neighbors anyway. Actions have consequences. I keep going over this in my mind and I just can’t believe it. Part of me says let it go—- but it could also cause problems for us further down the road if we go to sell our house. I wouldn’t want to get stuck with the expence of moving the fence then. Oh well. I really don’t like the position or the feelings I have about this situation at all. It is unpleasant and is uncomfortable to feel like you have been taking advantage of. They say you can’t pick family ( or neighbors ) just friends. I guess I won’t be picking these people for friends, but it would have been nice to at least be friendly. It is what it is. Thanks for letting me rant.
Can anyone please tell me when they changed the meanings of the stop lights. I am very confused, you see it has been sometime since I took a driving test or looked at the laws regulating signs. I have been noticing a huge change in there meaning and afew other rules of the road.
1. It appears that a green light now means drive as fast as you can, without the thought of possibly stopping.
2. The yellow light no longer means slow down because the light will change, but now it means speed up and go as fast as you can to make the light.
3. The red light now means the same as the green light. Go as fast as you can. So what if there is another car coming , they will have to break and let you go. Pedestrians will have to run faster or jump further to avoid being hit.
4. Oh ya, and my favorite. This is called beat the on coming traffic to make the left turn before they can hit you or to see how many feet of black skid marks are left on the concrete after their foot goes through the brake pedal and hits ground. I’m not sure when this law changed, but more and more people have read about it.
5. Another one of my favorites is the number of car lengths that are considered safe. It was 1 car length for every 10 miles per hour ( 60mph= 6 car lengths). No more! I don’t know if it’s because there is so much traffic, that it is hard to go 60 and they decided it wasn’t necessary anymore or if someone decided that it was safe to drive as close as you can, making sure that the car infront of you can not see your headlights. Thus, the headlights of your car will not distract the driver in front of you (the idea being it will be safer for the other car and you). Maybe?
6. This is another one I’m not sure about. Speeding up to go around the car in front of you, just in time to break behind the car that is stopped at the red light.
These are just afew of the changes I have noticed, I’m sure that there are many more but, I guess I will have to read the new driver review book put out by DMV to catch up on things.
The past week the weather has been just beautiful. The village of Huntington has come alive with people strolling and shopping. Kenji, the owner of the shop has started the “Name Game” once again. Much to the delight of the people who work and reside in the Village. What is the “Name Game” you might ask. Well at the beginning of the week he picks 4 names and posts them on a blackboard which is placed outside of the shop. If your name is one of names posted, you get a free bouquet of flowers.
The smiles and joy this brings to people is amazing! They can’t believe it. It’s really nice to see how a small bunch of flowers can make a person feel special and happy. Flowers really do touch people emotionally in many ways. But, I think for no special occassion and when it’s totally unexpected is the best.
Have a great day!
We hear about it all the time and most of us think it won’t happen to me. Well guess what. It happened to me, or I should say my husband. He would never have known untill a check bounced or he couldn’t get money from an ATM, but his bank called to ask about suspicious activity on his account. Turns out they stole his card number and pin number while he was making a transaction at a local ATM. The bank said they use some sort of electronic devise which can read your card and pin number when entered. Lovely Right? As it turns out he wasn’t the only one this happened to at this ATM machine, I ran into a woman at a bagel shop who had the same thing happen to her, from the same machine. These crooks then went into Manhatten and withdrew money from all the accounts they had collected, not only once but several times. I just want them to know that they are lower than low. We are very hard working people and it is hard for us to make ends meet. This other woman was a senior on a fixed income, she can’t afford her medicine this week. When you are caught I really hope they throw away the key and let you rot in jail.
Recent Comments