Don’t Rain on my Parade, err Paper!

Today, I took a giant step toward becoming an informed, responsible member of the adult population. Maybe that step was taken a couple of days ago but the fruits were first realized today—I received home delivery of my first newspaper! We have always received the newspaper at my parents house (and for a long time three papers: a morning paper, an evening paper, and a weekly) and I have always enjoyed waking up, drinking coffee and reading the paper (especially the comic strips).

Five days ago, while I was entering the super-market, a gentleman asks me if I would like to subscribe to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. I informed him that I read the paper on-line or at work. After hearing the low-price that he was offering for home delivery, I decided it was worth the expense and subscribed. And today it arrived for the first time—soaking wet. So my first newspaper comes late (after I left for work, which is always too late to get a morning paper) and soaked by the rain. Anyway, it’s a step toward being a well-informed (or at least moderately informed, it is the T-P after all) member of the New Orleans population.

Jambalaya!

This weekend I made some jambalaya by slow cooking a round steak and a chicken breast and then adding some rice to the mixture right before it was finished. It was great! Before I cooked the steak, I marinated it in my special mixture, seared it, and threw it in the slow cooker. It was great (or have I said that already)! Well, anyway, I think the verb tense is incorrect because I still have a couple of days of it remaining.

I wish the internet would have the ability to transmit scents (and also sense, because a lot of people need that every morning in their e-mail), because it smelled good too! You will have to settle for pictures, unless you would want me to cook some for you, just invite me over; I’ll make sure I’m in the neighborhood.

Jambalaya in the Pot

A Pretty Good Combination
(The stuff in the jar is Mr. George’s Sauce Picaunte, the off-label stuff.)
(Even the Barq’s knows that it’s good.)

An Artistic View of a Plate of Food

A Culture of Illiteracy

Illiteracy is an embarrassing problem for many adults, especially when an individual is in a public place and searching for help. Adults who cannot read are forced to depend on others their whole life and rarely attempt to solve their problem by learning to read. I have been confronted with the epidemic of illiteracy on several fronts: a gentleman my dad knew from work asked for help reading a contract regarding a purchase he was trying to make, elderly men and women who cannot read or sign their name coming into the pharmacy, and even talking with a researcher who told me that an organization was asking him to reword his paper so that it could be read on an eighth grade level.

This problem was demonstrated at work this week. As I was leaving one evening, I noticed new signage placed around the atrium area. Instead of the new signs spelling things out, they simply used a symbol. The “P” leads you to parking, the three people in a square leads you to the elevators, and the “?” leads you to the information desk. Even exits are no longer labeled “Exit”; rather, the signs now read “Way Out.”

This is crazy. Before long, we will be writing in pictures on the sides of caves, carrying clubs, and banging rocks together trying to start a fire. We are supposed to be moving further away from the days of the cavemen, not closer to them!

The Information Desk

Parking and Elevators that Way