humor - Surviving and Thriving

Beat the heat with “Tundra.”

June 28, 2013 by Donna Freedman

It’s high summer. The heat and humidity are racing each other to the century mark. Your shirt is sticking to your back like a sweaty decal. The air is so thick you could drink it.

Here’s one solution: Look at a cartoon that involves polar bears, snowmen or dog mushers. You’ll get a vicarious chill and the laughter-induced endorphins will distract you from the fact that you’ve got a few more months of this kind of weather.

Yep, it’s another “Tundra” giveaway. This will be the third time I’ve featured a collection of Chad Carpenter’s comics, and the reaction is always tremendous. Why? Because he’s freakin’ funny, that’s why.

Carpenter’s strip is syndicated all over the U.S. and also in other countries. If you’d like to know more, read this post from last year, which contains a link to a profile of the artist.

Or just take my word for it: Chad is a sick and twisted man, which makes for awesome (and occasionally wince-inducing) cartooning.

Caution: Hideous neologisms ahead.

March 26, 2013 by Donna Freedman

If you’re looking for misuse of the English language but don’t want to hang around with politicians, doctors or civil servants, consider reading press releases. My inbox is full of the things and they frequently cause rude, rude noises to come out of my mouth.

“Guestspert”? Are you (bleeping) kidding me?

Whaaat? When did “e-tailers” become a word?

“Turntabalist”? Your parents must be so proud.

Sometimes, though, neologisms have their revenge: They become so ubiquitous that I find myself using them, either in print or aloud.

When I say things like “repurposed,” I want to smack myself. On purpose.

Or how about “I know, right?” and “going forward”? How did these get to be such earwigs?

In which I cop to some odd habits.

March 22, 2013March 22, 2013 by Donna Freedman

Just read a lovely, raw, real piece called “Sometimes” written by a woman named Arnebya at a site called What Now And Why.

It’s lovely because it’s honest: Sometimes, I am jealous of my children. They have so much time and opportunity and I feel like I’ve wasted so much time and opportunity.

It’s raw because it’s, well, really honest: Sometimes, when I pull up to my house, I don’t want to stop; I want to keep driving.

And it’s real because she exposes herself fearlessly: Sometimes I want a drink so badly I consider leaving work early to sit in a bar alone, read my book, and catch a virus from the peanuts being eaten by many unsanitized hands.

10 personal finance lessons from the Iditarod.

October 5, 2015March 14, 2013 by Donna Freedman

Every year in early March the city of Anchorage puts snow on downtown streets, so the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race can have its ceremonial start. For the next nine or 10 days Alaskans talk about wheel dogs, snub lines, mandatory 24s and towns with names like Ophir, Shageluk, Shaktoolik, Unalakleet, Koyuk, Kaltag and – my personal favorite – Safety.

“Safety.” Just what I’d be thinking about if I were standing on sled runners in the middle of the night, on zero sleep, with wind chills well below zero.

This year’s race was won by 53-year-old Mitch Seavey in 9 days, 7 hours, 39 minutes and 56 seconds. He’s the oldest person ever to win – and this year, he beat his own son, Dallas, who finished in fourth place.

Like they say: Youth and vigor can often be overcome by age and treachery.

5 financial lessons from “Parsifal.”

May 9, 2019March 2, 2013 by Donna Freedman

Yesterday we went to the Metropolitan Opera’s live movie theater broadcast of Richard Wagner’s “Parsifal.” It was a semi-frugal experience: The discounted movie tickets that I bought through MyPoints reduced the $22-per-head cost, and I used my giant $3-per-refill cup.

In another year DF will be old enough for a senior discount, which will shave another $2 off his ticket. But what’s an extra $2 when you get more than five hours of scorched-earth opera?

By that I don’t mean that the music takes no prisoners, but rather that the set is a post-apocalyptic expanse of cracked clay – except for Act II, in which the principals spend most of their time standing in 1,200 gallons of blood. You learn the most interesting things during the intermission interviews.

The Molly Pitcher workout.

December 21, 2012December 20, 2012 by Donna Freedman

When I was in elementary school we heard the story of a brave Revolutionary War-era woman who carried water to the troops during the Battle of Monmouth. “Molly, Molly, bring us your pitcher,” the men would call on that hot July day. That’s how she became known as “Molly Pitcher,” we were told.

Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley did follow her husband, a barber who enlisted in the Revolutionary Army, and apparently helped him load cannons. But “Molly Pitcher” seems to have been just a generic nickname for women who carried water to the colonial troops.

The truth is so limiting. I like the legend better, especially after what happened to me yesterday.

Tweets from Talkeetna: The sequel.

May 14, 2013December 3, 2012 by Donna Freedman

The 2012 Talkeetna Bachelor Auction was the most profitable ever, and possibly the most raucous: a four-hour howlfest that had at least one woman literally swinging from the rafters.

I am not making that up. This was a late-30s/early-40s woman sitting in my row in the upper level of the Sheldon Community Arts Hangar. Several times she got so carried away that she grabbed hold of an overhead beam and swung from it.

When I say “carried away,” I mean “under the influence of alcohol.” But she was not alone. Let’s just say that a whole lot of red Solo cups got filled up — and emptied — that night.

6 things to do while you’re on hold next weekend.

November 13, 2012November 12, 2012 by Donna Freedman

Planning to shop online between Black Friday – which is increasingly more of a Post-Turkey Thursday – and Cyber Monday? A company called STELLAService has determined that the merchants with the shortest phone-support hold times are Nordstrom.com (18 seconds), Overstock.com (44 seconds), LLBean.com (46 seconds), Zappos.com (1 minute, 9 seconds) and Target.com (1 minute, 18 seconds).

That information is based on the 2011 shopping season. I bet it’ll be just as good this year, since retailers are scrambling to stand out among the din of the busiest shopping weekend of the year.

And if you’re buying from a place that leaves you languishing on hold for lonnnnng minutes? Here are six things to do while you wait:

You might be in New York if….

August 7, 2012 by Donna Freedman

Bagels – Baked and Ready to Eat © by Syrenmuse

Let me say up front that it’s not as though I’ve never been to a big city before. I’ve lived in or visited quite a few.

But there’s nowhere like New York — especially for someone who’s spent eight years in a city where Scandinavian reticence mingles with progressive politics and hipster irony.

Allow me to share a few gawking-tourist observations, then. You’re likely in New York if….

You can walk out the door, cross the street and buy hot-from-the-oven bagels.

You pay $3.99 for cream cheese at the corner store. (Which is actually 50 cents cheaper than the bagel store was charging.)

The Sunday paper costs $5, and it has only one coupon insert and no color comics.