IT'S A SIGN!

"Be aware of your surroundings," my hubby always advises, so Sammy Girl and I decided to heed his words and pay more attention to detail during our morning walk. And dang if we didn't spot a few signs around the neighborhood that otherwise went unnoticed the 2582 or so times we previously passed them, including:

"Private Property. No Trespassing. Do Not Look in my Windows." This home-made sign was plopped on the front lawn of a nearby twin home that's set back from the sidewalk. I don't want to judge too harshly, but this isn't exactly a community where people are dying to peer into House and Garden domiciles for home-decorating tips. If I'm strolling around Rittenhouse Square, yeah, I'll admit it, I glance inside a historic home if the curtains are open and the building is close enough that I can't officially be incarcerated for Peeping Tom-ish behavior. Who doesn't want to see how the other (i.e., richer) half lives? But in my hood, I think a "don't look in my windows" sign is laughably unnecessary. Ain't nobody peeping in to admire your Ikea couch and painted Salvation Army coffee table, neighbor, so settle down.

"Center for the Empowerment of Women." Although there's nothing I support more than the empowerment of women, there is something inherently depressing when the sign for the Center for the Empowerment of Women is cockeyed, fading and perched in front of a tiny apartment building with a tattered chain-link fence, patches of brown grass and torn blinds that have all seen better decades. Why doesn't somebody empower some paint and a rake to spruce the place up a little? Don't women - especially those who need to be empowered - deserve it?

"No Littering. Violators will be Fined." We noticed this ironic sign on several telephone poles. If this law was actually enacted throughout Philadelphia, the city's budget and school system deficits would be wiped clean in a week. Seriously, has anybody ever heard of a trash can, for God's sake? News reports claim that Philly is currently striving to become "America's Greenest City" through a series of 150 "sustainability initiatives." But how can we be "green" when brown litter is so much a part of our landscape? Whenever I visit another major city, I always take note of their litter situation and it's never as monumental as ours. These cities typically have numerous strategically-placed trash cans, which leads to the conclusion that more receptacles = less litter. Fairly easy equation, but in my Philadelphia hood last year, they actually REMOVED many trash cans and added just a sprinkling of the super-duper solar-powered versions. Folks, can ya guess what happened? That's right - there is more trash piling up than ever because people won't walk more than two feet to dispose of their Rite Aid receipt, Metro newspaper or losing lottery ticket.

Sign of the times? I certainly hope not, but Sammy and I will keep our eyes peeled, promise...

ODE TO A WEIRD JANUARY

Is it the absence of snow this year that has me just a bit off-kilter?

Lotsa things seem to annoy me this month, including:

- Answering my office telephone and hearing the following: "This is NOT a sales call. Do NOT hang up." If that ain't an invitation to click off the line, I don't know what is...

- Reading that Wal-Mart has reassigned their overnight greeters at thousands of its supercenters across the country. So now, if you run to Wal-Mart at midnight for a 12-pack of beer or some toilet paper, there won't be an 80-year-old man to provide you with a warm and hearty welcome you as you enter the store. Damn shame. Never gonna get that kind of wholesome friendliness from the Wal-Mart checkout clerk, that's for sure.

- At a Madrid festival, a bull whose head had been affixed with large balls of flaming wax fatally gored a man as it was let loose to rampage through the town's streets. While it's a shame that someone was killed, when large balls of flaming wax are tied to a bull's head, one can hardly expect the festivities to end on a gleeful note, can one?

- My favorite mega-idiots from that "church" down South said they'd be picketing at Joe Paterno's funeral. The connection? Boys and girls, we've discussed these people before - there is no connection, just a bunch of dimwits with too much time on their hands, not enough gray matter in their heads and nothing stirring in their souls. 

- And speaking of souls, there was a large advertisement in the paper last week proclaiming that a revelation had been sent from above about the imminent arrival of Jesus Christ. To get the skinny on exactly when he's coming to earth, the ad said that readers could purchase details at a cost of anywhere from three dollars to an even ten bucks. I'm just speculating, but if the Lord is coming and the end of the world is near, shouldn't this information be shared for free? I mean, what are they going to do with the money they make - take it to heaven with them? It just doesn't make sense, I tell ya...

- And finally, here's how to tell that we are a country of lazy louts: My fellow anti-litter neighbor bought me a magnificently handy little device called a Rubbish Clamp. It's a metal rod with a "pincher" at the end that enables you to pick up trash without touching someone else's discarded cigarette butt, soiled diaper, Snickers wrapper, etc. What caught my attention was the tag on the Rubbish Clamp: "No need to bend your waist, do picking when walking, confident and clean." The implement was made in China, so I have to hand it to the Chinese advertising copywriters for perfectly describing how I feel when I walk down my street and spot yet another pile of litter on my sidewalk - confident and clean, with, God Forbid, no waist bending to be had...Clamp that, suckers! February, here I come!

OH, CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN...

I think the funniest line I heard all week was "I tripped and fell into the rescue boat."

That's right up there with one of my other favorite quotes uttered by a man defending himself after being accused of stabbing a woman: "I didn't kill her, she fell into the knife."

Of course, both examples involved tragic deaths (as opposed, you know, to the non-tragic deaths), which are nothing to joke about.

Nevertheless, when the Italian Captain Shettino (I pronounce it with a slight variation) of the doomed cruise ship Costa Concordia invented the implausible "tripping" explanation for his cowardice, what could you do but smirk? That guy was tripping all right, but not with his feet.

Reading about this shmuck and his ship made me think of my dear old Dad.

Back in the day, he was an accountant during the week, but on summer weekends he was the proud captain of a 17-and-a-half-foot boat named The Wishbone. Dad was usually a jolly fellow, but once he stepped foot on that ocean vehicle, he was a changed man, all business and full of commands. We kids liked to have a fun day on the water, but Captain Daddy Bones knew that a boat - no matter how puny - was a precarious craft once you got out on the high seas and you had to treat it soberly and with respect. We could laugh and joke all we wanted, but he remained stern at the stern and kept a sharp eye on the water, on other boaters and on us. They called it pleasure boating, but Tom Bones wasn't about to let any tomfoolery affect his ship or his passengers.

Once when my sister and I were out on the boat with my Dad, I fell while waterskiing and hit my face on those 1970-eras skis-that-were-so-gigantic-they-could-have- been-used-as-surfboards. Blood gushed out of my cheek as I flopped around in the water. When my Dad circled the boat around to retrieve me, he looked as if he was going to pass out and frantically pulled me into the safety of the Wishbone.

I learned from Daddy Bones that a ship's captain is in unequivocally in charge and if that craft and its passengers go down, he would go down with them.

So Captain Suave Italian guy who allegedly was trying to impress a lady friend on the coast by gliding the cruise ship close to shore, all I can say to you is what Gomer Pyle used to proclaim on his television every week: "For shame, for shame, for shame." 

Shame on you for leaving people on the ship as it tilted into the sea. Shame on you for letting your crew and your entertainers and your waitstaff - people without fancy titles and dashing uniforms - save frantic passengers who were scrambling to survive.

And shame on you for thinking we'd buy that "I slipped and just happened to fall in the path of a rescue boat" crap.

Next to "honest, she just fell into my knife" that's the biggest fish story of the 21st century...

A STUDY IN FRUSTRATION

There's nothing like waking up early on a Monday morning to learn from the radio news of a possible link between breast cancer and paraben, a substance found in deodorant, make-up and other cosmetic products.

Naturally, I didn't listen to the word "possible," I just stumbled to the bathroom, grabbed my deodorant and frantically tried to read its ingredients through blinking Monday-morning eyes. The print was so agonizingly tiny it could have stated "packed with a mysterious conglomeration of extremely dangerous chemicals - for God sake, use sparingly" and I would have been unable to read a word of it.

A few cups of tea later and armed with my no-line bifocals, I could finally decipher the miniscule wording on my deodorant and was relieved to find it did not contain paraben (although a few of the other contents were disturbing - who wants to put "hydrogenated castor oil" under their arm?).

Other items, like my moisturizer, powder and foundation (hey, it takes a village...) didn't even list the elements that work so hard to make me presentable.   

Still worried, I Googled the paraben news and found that it was based on a very small study involving only 40 British women with breast cancer who had paraben in their tissue samples. Seven of the women never even used deodorant, which led the scientists to consider that the paraben must have come from something other than deodorant.

By the way, the American Cancer Society does not find a connection between deodorants and breast cancer. They say other studies found parabens in lotions, makeup and sunscreen products (uh, oh, damned if you do; damned if you don't), but that more research and much larger studies are needed to determine if it is a risk factor for breast cancer.

Digesting of all this seems like an episode of Dr. Oz, where your head bursts from trying to absorb a cornucopia of statistics, warnings and diagrams, and where you learn that - in essence - absolutely everything you eat, own or love will eventually be the death of you.

This latest research news probably sent worrywarts like me scrambling to their medicine cabinets to determine if they were doomed, worried that they would be relegated to a lifetime of looking like a hum-drum "Glamour makeover "before," forced to make their own contraband powder from crushed mango skins.

Bottom line, if you or someone you love has been affected by breast cancer - and I think that includes everyone - you know that finding the root causes of this disease is a must.

But shouldn't the medical folks make sure that they have all of the facts before making all of us petrified to look and smell our best?

Because, although I'm cutting down on chocolate (kinda) and walking more (sorta), I'm telling ya, breaking up with Estee Lauder or my old pal Lady Speed Stick may just put me over the edge...

SPLISH, SPLASH, IT WAS TAKIN' a BATH...

So the New Year started off with a bang -or more like a "plop" - as I lifted the toilet lid and my cell phone unexpectedly slipped from my pocket into the bowl. (Yes, if you must know, it was clean water, so stop saying ewwwww!)

The phone was only in the drink for literally one second, but apparently that's all it takes to fry its innards. After swiftly retrieving it, I tried all of the Urban Legend remedies (removing the battery; sucking out the moisture with a hair dryer; putting it in a bag of rice to absorb any microfibers of water; praying to St. Thomas Electrus, the patron of essential technological devices) with no success and then reluctantly trudged off to the nearest Sprint retailer (which, of course, was far, far away). 

The Sprint store gave off the vibe of a medical office, with a receptionist who briskly took my information and ordered me to take a seat. I sat silently, along with all the other idiots who somehow destroyed their cell phones, shifting nervously in cheap chairs and looking blankly at a television on the wall. As people's names were called, they were guided to a "private" nook, where a technician softly broke the news: "We did everything in our power, but I'm afraid your phone is gone, along with all your vital personal information that you have no other record of; videos of your children's birth; and text messages from your ex that you definitely needed for your next court appearance - I am so sorry."

Everyone in the waiting area pretended not to hear the prognosis and stealthily avoided eye contact. You could practically feel the solemnity in the room - it was like a run-down ER, without the pharmaceuticals.   

As I waited my turn, I contemplated whether to admit how my phone met its fate. Should I fib when the technician asked me why it suddenly stopped working ("No, doctor, I only drink sherry on snow days and national holidays") or fess up to my mishap ("Yes, nurse, I sprained my ankle because my nephew bet that I couldn't do a skateboard wheelie on a cement sidewalk")?

When I broke down and told the Sprint guy the truth, he dismantled my phone and sighed as if he were reviewing a CT scan of a nail lodged in my cerebral cortex.

Ultimately, my outcome was grim: My beloved phone was a goner and I needed to purchase another phone.

As I selected an iPhone to be just like all the cool kids, I feared that bidding adieu to my beloved Blackberry - gee, wasn't it only yesterday when I proudly took that device home? - would cause me volumes of grief. I was right. It was a struggle to master simple tasks, like how to retrieve emails or select a ringer that didn't sound like the Sistine Chapel on speed (my apologies for ruining your shavasana, fellow yoga classmates).

Ultimately, I must also learn how to shield my powerful new phone from any unfortunate human error mishaps.

I sure as hell hope there's an App for that.