Hazardous grocery shopping

It is winter break here in Norway this week, and today I have been on my computer for most of the day. Not doing anything important; just surfing the net, watching this and that and reading whatever caught my attention.

While doing nothing important the TV was on, and I got to see all the unimportant stuff which I usually miss, since I am at work during daytime.

At one point I forgot about my doing nothing at all: On TV there was a program called Extreme Couponing.

Here in Norway coupons is not something you can base your finances upon, because it is not a big thing here. The closest thing I have found to anything like it s www.Rabattkuponger.no

Categories of coupons which can be found there, are the same ones we sometimes find in the newspapers:

• Barneutstyr, Leker og Barneklær            (childrens equipment, toys and childrens clothes)
• Bil og biltilbehør                                         (car and car accessories)
• Data, Utstyr og Internett                           (computer, equipment and internet)
• Diverse                                                          (sundries)
• Dyr og Tilbehør                                            (animals and accessories)
• Dating og Erotikk                                         (dating and erotics)
• Film, Musikk. Bøker og Underholdning   (film, music, books and entertainment)
• Finans og Lån                                               (finances and loans)
• Foto, Video og Utstyr                                 (photo, video and equipment)
• Hjem og Bolig                                               (home and residence)
• Hvitevarer og Småelektrisk                        (household appliances and electrical notions)
• Klær og Mote                                                (clothes and fashion)
• Kropp og Helse                                             (body and health)
• Lyd og Bilde                                                   (sound and picture)
• Mobiltelefon og Telefoni                            (mobile phones and telephony)
• Reise                                                               (travel)
• Spill og Leker                                                 (games and toys)
• Sport og Fitness                                            (sport and fitness)

A lot of stuff which you can get a great deal on, but food is not represented. Using a coupon here in Norway you can get a discount, but the amount of items is very limited and never for free. The closest thing is the deals when you i.e. buy a carton of eggs and get a bread for free to go with it.

To watch families make do, by putting down effort to get great deals on groceries, was so incredible fascinating, I watched how they organized their shopping, preparing to go to the super market, collecting coupons and paying close to nothing (in a couple of cases absolutely nothing!) for groceries sometimes worth as much as US $1000,- or even more (in most cases less, but still a considerably amount of money was saved).

Advanced skills in business economics were displayed in such an unexpected and cunning way. I was just blown away by how they took advantage of the loopholes in coupon regulations.  And by doing that they could make down payments on their house, arrange huge parties (weddings even) and fill their houses (literally) with incredible amounts of bottles, cans, boxes and bags.

I started off watching being very intrigued, but then, as the program proceeded, I found myself being really worried; the only vegetable I saw them buy was canned tomatoes. And the fruit I saw was passed by as the procession of family members, each with their own fully loaded shopping cart, hurried towards the next coupon smashing deal. They were directed, in strict order, to the items they were to buy.

To me the coupons came across as a trap to lure people into a bad diet.  Meat was represented in processed food like frozen dinners, and we all know how unhealthy they are, with all the additives and fat.

What was represented a lot was detergents, deodorants, shampoos and a very disturbing amount of sugar.

Who in their right mind needs 100 boxes of cereal, 1200 cookies, 20 cartons of soft drinks or 69 boxes of cake- or cookie mix. It is all for free (or as free as it gets), but all of it is groceries with huge warning signs: It is not good for you to eat too much of it! These things are treats and rewards on special occasions. They are not meant to comprise your daily diet.

I understand the value of having a hobby, and I understand how stretching finances is both wanted and crucial for most people, but I find it worrying that nobody sees the hazard and limit the access to free unhealthy food. It would be so much more reassuring if fresh fish, meat, fruits and vegetable were somehow included to the system.

Yes, at least they get very clean when using all the detergents, fabric softeners, razors and shampoos, but I still am very skeptical.  What should be a clever marketing strategy for food industry and stores, end up jeopardising customers and their families’ health.

 

How to be alone, by Tanya Davis

HOW TO BE ALONE by Tanya Davis

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You're not supposed to talk much anyway so it's safe there.

There's also the gym. If you're shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in (guitar stroke).

And there's public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there's prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously (electric guitar plucking) based on your avoid being alone principals.

The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they -- like you -- will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.
And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one's watching...because, they're probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you're sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.
Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there're always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might've never happened had you not been there by yourself

Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.

You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one's in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.

Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school's groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cuz if you're happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.

It's okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can't think like you, for this be releived, keeps things interesting lifes magic things in reach.

And it doesn't mean you're not connected, that communitie's not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. take silence and respect it. if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. if your family doesn't get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don't obsess about it.

you could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it
If your heart is bleeding make the best of it
There is heat in freezing, be a testament.