Bestill-er.

I am still a child when it comes to impulse purchases, and I sometimes suffer consequences. I'm better at avoiding sugar than I used to be, so cash register candy no longer makes it into my cart. But that's not the only issue. 

Sometimes an impulse buy does lead to a fun discovery. While I was not very taken by the Vlasic Pickle Balls, for example, a more vinegar-minded member of the household found them a tasty treat. So I got a point on the scorecard for that one. 

Last week at the supermarket I saw a bin of soda cans, featuring a brand of which I had not heard, a brand with outstanding, if not bumptious, promises to the consumer. 

Real old-fashioned soda with only 30 calories? The world's most "refreshing-est" soda? Classic flavors like root beer? And from Brooklyn, the land of my infancy? Hey, why not? There was a bin full of these cans, which usually means a discounted trial product -- or a clearance. Since I'd never heard of Stiller's before, I figured it was a discounted trial. 

Well, I was wrong on several counts. 

Let's start with the "refreshing-est" claim, which I grant you is an individual judgment and difficult to quantify. I didn't find it all that refreshing. It isn't sugary, since it has just a little sugar (organic cane sugar, mind you), and sugar can be heavy, so that was good. It actually has vitamins, which is nice, but electrolytes would probably be better for refreshment in warm conditions. I'm willing to let that go. Refreshment is a personal experience, and others may disagree. 

At the checkout I discovered it cost almost $3 a can, which is less of a personal experience and more of a painful one. If I pay an inflated price for a beverage, I expect it to be served at a tropic location in a tasteful glass with a little umbrella by an esteemed mixologist. Not in a can from a supermarket bin. 

The biggest disappointment was the flavor. The root beer was perfectly average for any store-brand diet root beer. The Shirley cola, a blend of cola and Shirley Temple, was just an okay cherry cola. 

Upon reading the fine print I found out that Ben Stiller is the Stiller of Stiller's. I have no problem with that. I think he and I disagree on many things, but we're both from New York City, we both like nonalcoholic drinks, and I've enjoyed some of his movies. But this soda is pretty meh, and way overpriced for the market. 

I promise that personalities did not enter into my review; I drank the root beer before I knew who made it. If it were great, especially if it was such a treat as to be worth $3 a can, I would have said so. 

Looking online, I find Stiller's is mainly sold in Target. That makes me think that it's targeted to viewers of The View, moms with moolah who will drop dough on pricey products they believe have superior quality. I fit none of those categories. But even to them I would caution that this product is not worth the money, and that stevia is a lousy sweetener -- on that last note I will nail my colors to the mast. Yecch. Products that contain stevia always taste like they passed their expiration date some time ago.

So those are my opinions of Stiller's. Had it cost a buck a can I would have had the same review, but I would have been less peevish about it. 

Stay tuned for our next entry, when another celebrity product gets the once over. Whose is it? What is it? WHY is it? Did I buy it on impulse or under duress? Find out soon!  

Real estate time zones.

As I write this, many Americans are encouraging the president and his administration to get rid of Daylight Savings Time. I'm in favor of that idea, but I've lived with it all my life and can get through with it to the end if I must. 

For work purposes, the various time zones in our great nation have caused me issues more frequently than DST, but there's nothing that can be done about that. If I'm hired to work with a company on the West Coast, I have to plan scheduling and deadlines on Pacific Time. We're not going to be like China and force our giant nation to all observe Washington time -- nor should we. 

But real estate time zones are causing me the main trouble right now. 

What I mean by that is this: When you sell a house in New York state with a financed purchase, it can take three months from the signing of the purchase agreement to when you get the money and can move. But then the New Yorker, trying to buy a house elsewhere, finds that he may be on the hook for the new place within 30 days -- two months before he has the cash in hand -- because other states don't fart around like we do here. 

This is our situation now. We have a contract to sell our place, but we don't dare make an offer on a house where we want to go until we're further along. People can get stuck this way, not being able to follow through on an offer and losing their entire deposit. 

I'm not blaming anyone. The system is what it is. The danger of falling between chairs is there; we just have to be careful and not jump at buying until our selling is assured. 

Meanwhile, if I want to distract myself from this tense situation, I should probably start trying on every piece of clothing I own. Now is the time to stop saying "When I lose weight I will fit into this" or "Holes or not, this shirt still has some wears in it" and start saying "Trash or giveaway?" Because there is nothing to be gained by paying to move a bunch of stuff hundreds of miles and then throw it all away. 

But trying all those clothes would ruin my day too, so maybe I'll just take a nap. That sounds nice. I think we can all agree on that. 

Fervent fireplugs for the Fourth.

One of the most charming outpourings of civic and national pride at the 1976 United States Bicentennial was ... fire hydrants. 

I don't think anyone is certain where the practice began, but in the leadup to July 1976, people in many communities across the fruited plains started giving the local fireplugs a makeover. 

My favorites were the ones done up like Minutemen -- such as this old soldier. 

I had kind of hoped that we might see this sort of thing return for the big 250, despite the fact that about vocal minority of the country seems to hate America beyond reason. I don't think anyone's hatred of the country or the president or whatever matters here, though. After all, how many people does it take to paint a fire hydrant?

Granted, there's something less impressive about 50-year celebrations. 100? YAY! 150? Yay. 200? YAY! 250? Yay. It just doesn't have enough zeroes to put it over the top. 

Also, there is an issue with painting fireplugs that may not have been a problem in 1976: color coding. Franklin, Tennessee, provides an explanation of the significance of different colors of its fireplugs:

The same code is not used throughout the United States; for one thing, most areas don't have yellow-barreled hydrants. But I have noted the difference among bonnets here in New York, and the difference between regular hydrants and those only used to flush the system. You see, though, why this would preempt celebratory hydrant painting. You wouldn't want the firemen to ignore the working hydrant just because it had been made to look like George Washington with a black bonnet in place of his trusty tricornered hat. 

Well, it's understandable, but it's a shame. I would have loved a patriotic excuse to give this hydrant a refresh:

Hmm -- does that orange top mean it spews up to 999 gallons a minute? And will the department know that when the paint flakes down to the iron? 

Let's hope they don't need to use it, anyway. We live here! 

Just ask my dog.

Cheeri-oys.

I hate affirmations.

I mean, it's one thing if someone close to you says, "You're pretty cool." Or your boss tells you, "Nice work on the Schnorbuss account." These are people who know you and have some experience of your characteristics and actions, and can tell you something good about yourself that you have reason to believe. But mindless affirmations ("You're the best you that you can be!") mean nothing coming from a fortune cookie or some repeated meme.

Then we have this.

From the back of a box of Cheerios.

These are actually even more useless than affirmations; they are chants to make yourself feel puffed up. They're worse than someone who doesn't know you saying you are great; they're slogans to delude yourself into thinking you are terrific, based on nothing. (They also seem to think that 33% of Americans speak Spanish as their first language, or at least 33% of Cheerios eaters. What the hell, maybe that's accurate.)

Anyway, I don't buy it. They don't know me, and I know from long history that telling myself I'm awesome doesn't work; worse, it always seems to invite circumstances (like, say, a letter from the IRS or complaint from a client) to remind me that awesomeness is far out of my reach. 

So, for me anyway, General Mills' attempt to make me feel better about myself has wound up making me feel worse. Thanks, cereal dudes; I've just lost my appetite. 

Saints preserve us.

 

The nose has it.

All our dogs have had different ways of going for a walk. I think it's because they had or have different values. Some dogs are really into running, and thank heaven none of our have been, because the humans in this house were never fleet of foot and are not likely to become so soon. But there are other differences to note. For example: 

1) Large Guard Dog (Tralfaz): The late Tralfaz was by breed a farm dog, meant to tow small carts and protect the herd--making him a guard dog, not a watch dog. His walking habits reflected this: straight line, watch everything, be suspicious of deer and squirrels and any other critter but not immediately aggressive. Walks with him were usually brisk, of varying length.

2) Medium Retriever (Nipper): Nipper was a fuzzy, fun-loving chap, the kind who would love to go on a hunt and retrieve things. Not having been trained as a hunting dog, though, he would probably freak out at the gun and grab the dead duck and eat it. Walks were very brisk, but with long stops to smell what there was to smell, and could be quite long. 

3) Medium Retriever Redux (Izzy): Izzy is a sweet mush for the most part, with protective instincts but a scientific interest in smelling every blade of grass along the sidewalk. Walks are slow and include many stops. 

The fact is, Izzy's walks are not great exercise because he stops constantly. Ants outpace us. Every walk is a snurffin' sniffari. I mean, it's better than nothing for me (who leads the majority of his walks), but it's not taking excess weight off either of us. 

But it doesn't much matter to me about the exercise. Since I work at home, any day that isn't tempting by its pleasantness would probably be a day I stayed in and gathered dust. Having a canine companion guarantees I am going to be outside however lousy the weather is, and I think on the whole that has done me a lot of good. Not that it always felt good, mind you. 

So thanks, fuzzy friends, for keeping me moving, not letting me become a potted ficus. But seriously, can we move someplace warmer?  

Funny how that works.