Sundry sentences, somewhat scattered:

*Frozen "Complete" meals: With Entree, Vegetable, and Dessert.

Why do they still do this? Really -- the dessert might ordinarily be very tasty. But broccoli tastes really weird with "Apple Caramel Crumble" mixed in. And Apple Crumble tastes funny with that drop of tomato sauce that escaped its compartment. Truly.

If they really want to entice people into buying their product by including a dessert, why not make it a frozen dessert (that could be removed before the food tray goes into the oven or microwave), and saved for after you've finished your main course? What a concept! That would also allow it to melt just slightly from rock hard to soft serve, but still cold. A couple of suggestions: rounding out a "health food" dinner with frozen blueberry and lemon yogurt (with soy yogurt for vegan meals), or a decadent "home-style favorite" with an ice cream sandwich... or even a warm brownie -- that you can warm for 10-20 seconds separately.

*One thing that's always baffled me: As a wheelchair user, when I approach a set of heavy double doors, nine times out of ten, a well-meaning Able-bodied type person will rush forward to "help" -- so far, so good [note, below] -- except they almost always jump to the middle of the doors, and try to open both at once, by standing in the middle of them, in some contorted version of a spread-eagle pose, giving me far less space to get through than I would have, otherwise, if I'd tried to open the door by myself.

The glib part of me wonders if walking has the unfortunate side effect of walking is that it interfere's with a person's ability to think logically. But then, I started to get a serious glimmer of an idea why:

People have been taught to believe two memes: 1) Helping a Disabled Person is a Virtuous Sacrifice, and 2) The more Difficult your Sacrifice, the More Virtuous your Sacrifice.

And the people who hold these memes in their heads are thinking more about how difficult it is for themselves than how helpful it is for the disabled person.

*"Procedural" Television dramas are very popular now -- they take up about 90%, by my guesstimate, of the evening TV. They're favorites of TV execs because it's easy to break them into segments where commercials can be aired. They have drama built in, and they're the same formula every week, so they can be written quickly, and you don't have to spend a lot of time on exposition. But they're either Doctor Shows or Police Shows. And after a while, they all sort of blend together and become low-res copies of their competition. Surely, there must be other professional fields that follow a regular procedure in a day's work than doctors and police, right? (I was just commenting to welfycat tonight that I'd love to see the Criminal Minds cast as marine biologists -- They'd be on a boat together. How would that not be awesome?). There could be restaurant dramas, and architect dramas. Or how about hotel staff dramas? We do have Pan-Am this year, at least, but I don't know if that counts as "procedural." I doubt it.


[note] (except haddayr points out how it's really not so good, here: On Understanding