Sometimes people ask what my impressions are of the first of my worlds after having been away for awhile. There are many but here are a few:
People seem to value lots of choices, unending choices in fact, at least over trivia. Coffee shops added another choice since my last visit: dark, medium or light roast. Even sandwich shops- you think you ordered a number 2 and solved all the choice issues? Oh no, you are still asked what kind of bread (6 choices) what kind of cheese? (4 choices) what do you want on it? (10 items to choose from, onions, olives, pickles, tomatoes, etc) What sauces? Mustard? What kind (3 choices of mustard). But not done yet, do you want it heated? Here or to go? Yikes!
Go down the cereal aisle in the grocery store or the soft drink aisle. Guess that says a lot about people's diets, huh? (Here it would be the powdered milk aisle or the junk food aisles.) It's not just food, there are endless cable TV channels, books, movies, magazines.
Some things, however, offer few choices such as the color of cars or the color of siding on new homes. Curiously clothing also offered few choices in style or even color. Example, women's winter tops were long sleeved but way too low in the neck. What's with that? This isn't Florida! And there were only certain colors available, didn't matter what store.
Yet other things offer no choices, such as political parties. The only thing different is the rhetoric. Actions and outcomes are the same.
Television? Unbelievable. Does anybody really watch it anymore??? News-tainment about the fallen hero of the day. And scaring people about the flu. Commercials? Lots of prescription drug ads, all of which have long lists of horrendous side effects including death and suicide.
Noisy houses. Furnaces, water heaters, sump pumps, blowers, beepers, buzzers, dingers, etc. My first nights back here– as I wake up at 2 and 3 am – by contrast were pretty quiet. The house was totally quiet other than my fan and out my open window all I could hear was the Swiss neighbor's cuckoo clock, a distant dog barking, a few leaves rustling in the breeze. That's it.
Snow removal is amazing. After the Christmas storm I saw thick ice on the highways mysteriously GONE overnight! I saw snowbanks being loaded up in trucks and carted away, and other snowbanks literally shoved back from the edge of the roads.
Nothing new in the public bathroom scene. It seems that everything that could be automated already has been. I did notice that in my home state 9/10 bathroom stalls had the TP very low down making it difficult for tall people to reach. Not so in other states. Maybe the state legislature was bored last summer???
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