The price of bananas

Many moons ago (and not an insignificant number of years), we lived in Galveston, Texas. We were half a block from the Gulf and could practically see the ships as they unloaded. Well, okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it wouldn't have been a problem to do it. Nonetheless, the price of bananas in the Galveston grocery stores was the same as what my mother was paying 350 miles to the north: 19 cents per pound.

This always irritated me. Why shouldn't I pay a lot less since all they were doing was, metaphorically, rolling a crate across the street and putting it on the shelves?

No one asked me and the price, no matter where we lived or visited, stayed consistent.

Then over the last few years, it rose. 25, 30, 35--3 pounds for a dollar. It had finally settled in the mid-40s when gasoline prices shot up. The first commodity victim I noticed was the price of bananas. They immediately--overnight, if not quicker!--went to 59-64 cents a pound.

It's not like you can buy and store them. Nor is it possible to grow them here. No pick-ur-own banana farms in this neck of the woods. Want bananas--pay up!

It does make me wonder what they're going for in Galveston. If I knew anyone who lived there, I'd call.

To catch up:

No sooner do I get so disgusted with the number of Viagra spams I'm receiving and decide to start counting, than the well dries up. (This is not a complaint.) Must have been a lot of rush orders at the end of May.

June 1: 28 spam emails
June 2: 0 (not a typo and probably a first)
June 3: 3

On another front:

The fourth season of Meerkat Manor begins Friday night on Animal Planet at 8 pm CDT. Now that matriarch Flower is gone, the Whiskers have divided in two, with rival sisters at the helms. It doesn't get more human than this, does it?

Thank goodness they don't eat bananas. They'd starve.

Flower: Queen of the Desert

Last night on Animal Planet there was a movie about the beginning of Flower the Meerkat's reign. Entitled Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins, it was a careful reconstruction of Flower's early life and rise to power. Since we've been fond of the series since its beginning, were shocked at Flower's demise, and it was the subject of my early blogs, I was determined to watch it.

Of course, I recorded it and should have watched it after the initial 90-minute run because the number and length of commercials was almost staggering. We finally started timing them. An eight minute segment was followed by four minutes of ads, then only five more minutes of show before another one! The DVD comes out on June 3 and, while I applaud that quick turnaround, it can't be an hour long.

At least they didn't release it commercially. I'd have really felt ripped off then. But I now understand Flower better and look forward to the series beginning again on June 6.

I'll be there and the VCR will be programmed.

Do I have what it takes?

A year ago yesterday I blogged about Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor and the fact that the second season was being elusive. The third season started a few weeks ago and we are once again attentive. But this year is harder: bad things are happening to our Whiskers family and the other meeerkat groups. It's a meerkat-kill-meerkat world in the Kalahari where survival is all we have on our minds.

So, how do the teams of researchers and film makers handle it? They set the cameras up and let them roll, let Nature and meerkat take their courses. There's even a disclaimer to that fact at the beginning of the half-hour. Meerkat Manor is not for the faint-hearted.

Our backyard is a crossroads for the feline population. Two years ago I adopted a stray kitty who was being abused monthly by the neighborhood tomcats. It took me two months of bribing her with food to get her close enough to the house to trap her. I had her spayed and inoculated. Amazingly, when I returned her to the backyard, she got over her snit and has stayed with me, finally allowing me to stroke her back and scratch behind her ears.

All was well, just she and me, until said neighborhood toms noticed where the freebie food was. Over the course of the last year, they all stop by for breakfast. They'll laze in the garden or on the furniture. They are, for tomcats, well-mannered. I do not attempt to adopt them.

There is also a female in the group, a calico we've named Duchess. I think she originated across the street because she wanders from food bowl to food bowl. She is in the family way every chance she gets. Last year, she wore herself out ferrying kittens between my house and her official home. Neither human could grab her and see that she ceased her prolific ways.

This years has been no different, although she no longer runs from me. I have hopes of nabbing her when her litter (location unknown until an hour ago) is large enough not to need her.

From my study window, I look down onto the backyard. And who should I see clutching a kitten in her mouth and disappearing under the lantana but Duchess. And who is entering the yard right behind her? A tom. He took her exact path to the bushes and stopped. I'd no doubt Duchess would defind her litter, but for how long could she hold out? He marked the bushes by spraying and then left. She emerged and took up a sentinel position.

I could stand it no longer, so I went down. She was now on the back steps. I gave her food and scurried over to check on the kittens. Last week there had been four of them when she'd given them a temporary stop in the rose bushes (the sprinkler system flushed them out on Monday morning). Today there are three. Has one died? Is she waiting for an all-clear to go get it?

Can I stand by and watch tomcats circling her litter and not interfere? Should Nature take its course? Duchess is not a first-time mama and she is bound to be savvier about the location of her 6 week old brood than I am, but do I have what it takes to be an impartial observer?

Age check!

Besides the fact that I'm excited about the new season of Meerkat Manor due August 10 (it was, after all, the subject of my first blogs), I've found that I can be out of my element in more ways than one.

This past week I attended the national conference of the Romance Writers of America. It took place in Dallas and therefore was a mere trip down the highway for me. I parked my car at son 1's house rather than pay the $18 per diem at the hotel, and promised to buy dinner for the sons and spouses Thursday/Friday night.

Thursday night I dined with son 2. There are three tapas bars in his neighborhood and since they'd tried two of them, it was deemed appropriate to try the third on my dime. This was fine with me as I'd never been to such and felt I needed a guide for the experience anyway. We ordered a pitcher of sangrias and 6 appetizer portions ranging from salad to cheese to seafood to meatballs to an omelet. Dessert was an apple tart. While I enjoyed them all, I'd take a big plate of the shrimp/crabcakes any day. Yum!

But the interesting part was the crowd. The bar was doing a brisk afterwork business consisting mainly of lovely young women in their late 20s and early 30s, with a few men thrown in. The tables were occupied by couples (no one at the bar was interested in eating) or groups of single women. I took a break from scarfing the crabcakes to have a look around. Hmmm... I was greatly outnumbered.

In fact, had it not been for the white-haired couple sitting to our left, I would have been the oldest female there! Outside of a library children's program, I don't think that had happened to me before. Eek! And not only was I second oldest, I was second oldest by a generation.

Oh my. Age check!