Apparently the experiment failed.  I gather the public in general was no more thrilled with the new cartons than the blogging world.  According to Roberta Rosenberg (The Copywriting Maven), this failed experiment cost Tropicana $35 million. I appreciate her alerting us to the original change, and the reversal.

Interestingly, I think a year ago I would have been more appalled at the price tag.  Unfortunately, lately the news is full of huge numbers, and $35 million seems, well small.  Compared to the trillions the government is talking about.  Which leads me to another question:  What comes after trillion? According to my dictionary, my first guess was right: quadrillion.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the government to go there…

Meanwhile, back at my local grocery store…

My local stores were slow to get the new packaging, and still have the new up.  When I look at the cartons, I see a sea of white.  Somehow this sea of white seems more surreal to me than a juice aisle.  It even seems to affect the lighting in that part of the store.  Weird.  And they still remind me of canned generic vegetables.

As I noted in my previous post on this, the generic-type branding looked a lot like the new Pepsi.  Which I’m also not exactly thrilled with.

But, to each his own.

In this case, though, Pepsi also owns Tropicana.  Now the similarity makes sense.  Probably used the same agency to design both.

I wonder if Pepsi is having second thoughts, too?

I’m guessing it was probably because most cardiologists and dieticians would chastise him, saying that particular food is not heart-healthy.

In the past, I might have volunteered a comment … made a suggestion for a more nutritious choice …  or at least one the medical establishment would think is a better choice.  Today?

Nope.

No way.

Why?

Because lately I’ve been averaging making 10 meals a day.  And I find myself challenged to keep them healthy and varied. Especially since I’m dealing with a range of appetites and digestive challenges.

As a disclaimer, I admit some are reheated leftovers.  So each meal is not always from scratch.

Interestingly, I get a variety of reactions:

• Some of the meals I fix are eaten as if there hasn’t been any food seen for a week.  After eating just a few hours ago.  Yes, now I know firsthand what “wolfing your food” and “inhaling your food” really mean.
  
• While other meals are carefully sniffed as if there’s something with a bad taste or indigestion hidden under the rice. (There isn’t.)
  
• Others are eaten with a seemingly nonstop commentary bordering on, well, complaints.
  

So, if I fix about 300 meals a month, or 3650 meals a year, I’m sure not about to pick a fight about what someone outside my house eats. Inside my house, I admit that could be a different story …

So what’s my philosophy about what others eat?

In a nutshell:

Eat what you want.  If you’re an adult, eat healthy or not.  Maybe eating one unhealthy food a day will keep you from binging on others.

Whatever works for you is okay with me.  I’m not here to judge or criticize.

Just don’t expect me to cook it.

Please.

Sunset 02-09-09

… For a sunset.

“IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, …”

It reminds me of the recent economic crisis and various government officials’ responses.  Especially when I hear the ones most responsible are blaming … consumers.  Not acknowledging their own responsibility in the crisis.

The use of the Marketing of Fear seems to have exponentially increased recently.

And I don’t like it.

Some years ago a pharmaceutical rep tried to tell me I couldn’t use a particular antibiotic for pneumonia because it wasn’t licensed by the FDA for that purpose.  In contrast to her drug, of course.  She was wrong.  My choice was a better choice than hers under the circumstances, and completely legal.

Escorting her out of my office, I made sure my office staff knew I wouldn’t see her again.  In retrospect, I probably could have complained to her boss.  But that wasn’t my style.  Today I might react differently.  Probably more assertively.

Over the past few years, our government has jumped on the Marketing of Fear bandwagon big time.  First it was one administration; now it’s another.

During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt reminded Americans in his first inaugural in 1933,

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”

In most of our wars, the enemy tried to get us to fear.

Today?

It’s our government.

As Walt Kelly in the Pogo comic strip so brilliantly penned,

“We has met the enemy, and he is us!”

I still don’t like the marketing of fear.

For your reference:  Rudyard Kipling’s full poem IF and FDR’s First Inaugural Address.

Bent Closer

So high they ripped the screen door out of my hands, banging it against the house.  The screen door closers were bent, needing replaced, and a porch light was damaged but repairable.  I had papers blown from elsewhere to pick up after the winds died down.  All of which added up to only minor damage.

My neighbors’ shed didn’t fare so well.

A pile of metal sheets used to be their outdoor storage shed.  The wind knocked it off its foundation, and the shed rolled across their yard and the lot next to it. It finally stopped next to the road at near the far edge of the lot. By the next day, it was flat, a pile of scrap metal. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Undamaged Installed Closer

It reminded me of the damage I saw and heard about from Hurricane Agnes in the 1970s in Pennsylvania.  After a week of heavy rains from another storm system, Hurricane Agnes came up the Eastern Seaboard, and dumped several more days of gentle steady rain over central and eastern Pennsylvania.

The Scranton area was devastated.  A friend — even years later — couldn’t describe the scene he and his wife saw when they drove to the area from out of state.  Communications to the area were down, and I believe they were in shock at the flooding.

Many towns and cities along rivers were hit hard.  Another friend worked to help clean up some of the beautiful houses along Front Street in Harrisburg.  After mud from the Susquehanna River flooding the first floors to — or nearly to — the second, it was a mess.

After the flooding subsided, I remember traveling along the Juniata River, and seeing grown trees bent from the water.  Not broken, just bent. The flattened shed in my neighborhood is eerily reminiscent of a twisted, broken steel bridge in the middle of a small creek I remember.

And after yesterday’s airplane crash in the Hudson River, with all passengers and crew rescued, it’s time to give thanks. I’m sure they, their families, their rescuers and all involved even peripherally are.

So today, even though it’s not officially Thanksgiving Day … or a even special occasion … I’m thankful. Some things won’t wait for a once a year holiday.

I took down our Christmas tree on New Years Day.  But not before taking a picture of it.

Why is it here?

Well, I’m so happy I can add pictures to my blog now, that I couldn’t resist!

It’s not your traditional Christmas tree.  It’s an artificial one.  It’s white.  And it had an eclectic assortment of ornaments.  Some are store-bought, usually at reduced prices after Christmas.

Some of the ornaments have been lovingly made by hand.  Several are almost 15 years old.  And every year, I carefully re-wrap them.  The ones I’m talking about are cinnamon cookie-like ornaments, handmade by my sister and nephew when he was a toddler.  While they’ve lost their cinnamon fragrance,  not their brown color or appeal.  And every year we enjoy once again treasuring them.

We have a white Christmas tree.  No, it’s not traditional.  And I don’t care.  It occasionally loses a few needles, but not like the ones I remember as a child.  You know, the “real” trees.  And not having to remember and then climb under it to water it is a double blessing.  As are the lack of spiders.  We used to have to check the tree before bringing it in the house.  Even so, occasionally we’d miss, and some spider would come out in  the warm house.  Usually scaring one of us girls.

An added bonus of a nontraditional white tree is it’s easier for my mother to see the lights and ornaments than on a dark green background.  Something I frankly wish more graphic artists would pay attention to.  Sure the colors look nice, but actually reading a lot of small light type on a dark background is hard.  Sometimes impossible.

I hope you had a Merry Christmas, and 2009 is Happy and Healthy!