Data

When a great big bag of money falls from the sky and drops in my lap I’m going to go to Wildflour Café every day to have a shot of wheatgrass juice, a cup of my favorite IRIE english breakfast tea {probably a baked good} and then get a green smoothie to go. I’ve got to learn the art of the green smoothie, because while healthful, mine look and smell like sludge. The one’s at Wildflour or that my friend and smoothie-mentor J makes are so fresh and delicious. It’s my overzealousness, I figure if I’ve got the blender out, just throw in as much as possible and more, evidently isn’t always better, I just can't seem to stop myself.

This is the first unscheduled weekend I’ve had since last October. My store is closed for the season, so I don’t have to work on Saturday’s until reopening and the boys are at their dad’s for the long weekend, having left yesterday at noon. I had such a peaceful day yesterday, lingered at Wildflour with a friend which is why it’s on my mind, came home and got some work done at a nice leisurely clip, got to return email and make a phone call or two, such a luxury. Then I went to see Iron Man because it was the perfect moment for some good, mindless, entertainment and I’m giving it 4.75 stars out of five which is a very good score, an excellent score. It lost points because I wanted the last line of the movie to have one word exchanged for another, and it’s a big swap, so I can’t let it go, but am not offering spoilers because I don’t want to get yelled at. I love a spoiler, but I’ve not ever, ever, met anyone else that does, so I'm zipping it. This is the perfect date movie to go to with your kids if you have them, unfortunately, my little dude didn’t want to see it “sorry mom, just not my thing.” I’m seeing Star Trek tomorrow with the tall one, so I went to Iron Man on my own, figure he’ll want to see it with friends. Iron Man, has top notch explosions and sound effects, plenty of pithy Tony Stark moments, and does what it’s supposed to do, lives within it’s genre quite well. Quality, mindless entertainment is fairly elusive, so I really enjoy it when I see it, The Avengers made me want to cry... too loud, too frenetic, didn’t make sense, poor writing, I just hated it, hated it. I’d go see Iron Man again, and yeah, I’ll say it, Robert Downey Jr. is just adorable, I’d like one of those to go, please. Every time I go to the movies, I feel like the old lady who carries on about how a loaf of bread used to be a nickel. Movies were well under $5 for so long, I never got over the trauma and outrage of them breaking the five dollar mark and now the price goes up every ten minutes. $12 for a movie used to be what a big stadium concert cost, but as they’re now hundreds of dollars I guess it’s proportional, except then why hasn’t the minimum wage quadrupled as well? It really is hard to keep up, something’s gotta give, something’s gonna give, just not sure what or when.

Today I’m moving slowly, not running around like a lunatic, breathing, breathing, I need this weekend, I’m grateful for it. In other topical news, my nails are looking good, but my hair is going afro and I’m not comfortable with that... it needs to start thinking vertical growth, not horizontal or spherical, this curly hair business is just foreign to me. I should be doing my taxes right now... yep, still haven’t done my taxes. That’s misleading, I don’t even do them, it’s too complicated when you’re self-employed, I just have to prepare my stuff for the accountant and I’m way overdue, but as you can see, they're not getting done.

Instead, I'm pondering of the genius of my local utility as I've been doing all week. No one I’ve talked to, the neighbors I've accosted, are as impressed by this as I am. The utility company is sending out graphs and numbers telling you how much energy your household is using compared to 100 of your neighbors with similar sized homes that also use natural gas for heat. Although come to think of it, I’m assuming they’re also including electrical usage in that number as it’s the same utility. Anyway, I’m #36 out of 100 in usage which isn’t really that good, when you consider that only three people live here and I’m competitive, a lot of people are competitive, so they’re finally appealing to our basic instincts to get us to conserve, making us want to win. And damn it, it’s working for me, I want to improve my number. I am well aware of conservation and trying to use less energy, but when I see that number in black and white, it makes me want to do better. It’s a fine, brilliant, simple strategy that I would think would be a wakeup call to anyone near the bottom of the list. I would feel awful if compared to 100 neighbors I was #100, using the most energy. At the same time, I'm relieved, because my house isn't insulated and I always worry I'm using an outrageous amount of energy to keep warm, and I was genuinely surprised to not be inhabiting the bottom of the list. You know, I don’t really see a lot of truly smart advertising or public awareness campaigns, this one really surprised me with it’s brilliant simplicity, awesome use of data, I love data.

Wouldn't it be great to get all sorts of data mailed to you like this? Compared to 100 similar families, how do I rank parentally? Care and feeding? Nurturing? Request further categories. As a friend, how do I rank in terms of consideration, supportive, fun to be with? I'd get killed on the remembers birthdays category, but I'd do well with spontaneous gift giving and last minute planning. Draining and burdensome? How about a partner rating or first date rating, so you could know how you're doing, feel proud of your accomplishments or know what to work on. Oh, I'd feel so much better to know I was in say the top 50% of the care and feeding category, but I think the feeding of the tall one might do me in, statistically speaking anyway. Data, yes, life would be simpler with defined parameters and useful data. Oh wait a minute... I guess that would only be fun if we got to define the parameters, oh mercy, what if the tea party was setting the yardstick, o.k., maybe this isn't such a good idea after all, although I'm still giving three cheers to National Grid.