Barbara's Meanderings

Don't you want that little statue that would fit perfectly on the shelf in your living room? Or aren't you dying for a pair of the latest boots, but you just don't have that extra $65? Or maybe you could go out to dinner once more a month? Or maybe you could pay off one bill more? Seriously, is this all we're getting? I'm wondering how this is going to stimulate our economy. 

So my daughters and I took advantage of the sunny day and went driving around our area. We parked at one of our favorite coffee spots and sipped Starbucks nonfat mocha lattes. We watched the seagulls swoop over the small parking area and noticed as they sat on the roof how fat they looked. These gulls have been eating well over here. The Ryebrook Shopping Center is about a mile from any water, the water being in Port Chester and Rye. But somehow the seagulls have decided this is their home. Swarms of them hang around the shopping center and perch on the top of the light poles and on the roofs. It calmed me to see these birds whose only activity was to search for food and report the findings to their friends. 

The rest of our day consisted of deciding to go to the movies and then changing our minds. We decided to go to Costco instead. The choice of movies didn't work for my daughters. I was just in the mood to see a movie and going into the movie theater to find out the times didn't help. You know when you enter a movie theater the first thing you notice is the popcorn smell. For me it is all about that smell and buttered popcorn. I don't need much of it, but a movie without popcorn, although I have sat through several of them, just isn't the same! (This is totally off the subject of what I'm saying here, but try buttered popcorn with Twizzlers or even non-pareils. It's also good with M & M's and Reeses Pieces.:) ) But we had to tear ourselves away from the temptation of the aroma of freshly popped popcorn, because we couldn't find a movie to see that we agreed upon or that was showing conveniently. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, there are a lot of movies I want to see, but they all have their drawbacks. One of them is that they are almost all of them depressing. We all like to see up films and especially now with the news so bleak it's difficult to see a down movie. 

So we went to Costco and picked up yet another Wii game, Guitar Hero, which my daughter wanted. Costco at 5:30 PM on a Saturday night was filled with people. But they didn't have any of the samples they usually have, because it was so late. If you go earlier you can usually get a sample of food of almost every kind from entree to dessert.:) Did I mention we were starving?

We stowed our purchases and drove back from where we were, Danbury, CT to near where we live, White Plains, NY. We wound up eating at an Italian restaurant in the middle of the city and it was a good meal. If you're near White Plains try Zanaro's . What I liked about it was the level of service for this type of restaurant. Also, the white tablecloths and cloth napkins and we had two servers who introduced themselves to us and alternated to take our orders and keep us happy. I'll definitely go back there.

Now for the post script on Bernie Madoff. The investigators of his case have been looking into his business for the last thirteen years and found that Madoff has not ever bought any securities at all!!! If you have one of those Smash-me Bernie dolls you might want to use the hammer now.:) For those of you who want instant news here is the headline:

updated 2:35 p.m. ET, Fri., Feb. 20, 2009
NEW YORK - The trustee in charge of untangling the mess left behind by Bernard Madoff told a packed auditorium Friday there was no indication the disgraced money manager had bought securities for his clients for over a decade.

“We have no evidence to indicate securities were purchased for customer accounts” in the past 13 years, said Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee overseeing the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC...More

This is so unbelievable that I had to link you twice in case you lost track or fainted or started screaming incoherently! How can this have happened with the SEC supposedly investigating his business interests? Could there be someone helping him to keep this bogus Ponzi scheme continuing? This is beyond belief! I hope they can convict him of this heinous behavior. 

Now for the blog I am highlighting today. Usually I don't highlight a blog on the weekend, but I didn't blog for a few days and thought I'd do the highlight now. The blog I am telling you about today is The Lotus  Sutra Chronicles. Marilyn, the author of this blog is a western woman who is living in South Korea. She brings joy, peace, and beauty to her blog. That is why it is usually right up near #1 on the networked blogs each day! She brings the culture of South Korea to anyone who reads her blog. In one week she told us about kimchi and showed us pictures of the stone pots in which they used to make it, showed the surgical masks that people wear in Daegu to combat the deathly dust that comes off the agricultural lands, gave us information about children's graduation from school and showed us the paper bouquets they are given when they graduate, informed us of the art show for Korean artists, and treated us to the amazing art of the artist Karma. There is a corresponding photo with every blog post too. I have posted one of her photos here, the one of the nightclub with President Obama's picture by the artist Karma on it. Can you imagine a nightclub in Korea during the Bush administration? I imagine the graffiti art would be a little more graphic!!!

Please go and check out this outstanding blog. Marilyn will entertain and inform you and her photos are always outstanding.:) I've never thought of going to South Korea, but her descriptions of life there in Daegu where she lives is tempting me!

Another topic was on my mind for today, but it will have to wait for tomorrow. It has to do with using Facebook and also Twitter. I'm going to talk more about that either tomorrow or Monday. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with an article you will enjoy. I'd love to hear your comments and maybe we can make this more of an interactive thing with me responding to your comments too. I try to respond to all comments as soon as I can. Thank you to any new readers and I appreciate all of my readers as well.:) Maybe I'll make it to the movies again. My daughters want to see "Slumdog Millionaire" which I have already seen. Here is the article: 

Let me know what you think. Until then hope you have a great rest of the weekend.:)