Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

If you live in the Delaware Valley of the US of A, and you turn the TV on and see Rick Santorum as a serious presidential candidate, you are absolutely baffled. Baffled, I tell you! You want to open a window and shout, "HEY, IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY CABLE?"

Since the founding days of "The Gods Are Bored," ex-Senator Santorum has been a favorite whipping boy (tee hee), winner of more "moron par excellence" citations than any other imbicile on the planet. His presence at the top of the political scene proves that all investors, including Super PACS, want to buy at bargain basement prices.

Don't let the sweater vest fool you. Oh, wait a minute. You're reading "The Gods Are Bored!" You learned not to let sweater vests fool you at your mama's knee.

Anyway, it's time to re-acquaint non-Pennsylvanians with the antics of Santorum. Not the ones that made the public stage, like his suggestion that men would want to marry dogs. No, the antics that lost him his seat in the Senate.

Over the weekend, this moron par excellence heaped vitriol on public schools, pretty much calling for them to be abolished. He favors home schooling, because, of course, his long-suffering spouse home-schooled his brood of brats.

But wait. Read the fine print.

The Santorum brood was home-schooled at the expense of the taxpayers of Pennsylvania. Yes indeed, the Keystone State paid for the books, computers, testing ... everything except maybe the copies of Of Pandas and People that round out the liberal education of every unfortunate offspring of a wacked Christian zealot.

Here's the wrinkle:

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania paid to educate the Santorum brood while said brood was actually living in Virginia. This came to be a sore subject on the old home turf around election time. Many citizens felt they had been ill-used. They voted accordingly.

Charter school? Santorum didn't use it. Parochial school? Santorum's kids did not attend. No, folks. The bitty babes may have learned Pandas in the comfort of their suburban Virginia McMansion, but they got a fully funded public school education. Rick Santorum's outlay for this education? Whatever the heck the property taxes were on the little house he called "home" somewhere near Pittsburgh. You know the place. The one where no one bothered to mow the lawn. Why should the grass be mowed when the family was living in Virginia?

I did a little research.

What do Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan all have in common? Oh geez. They all attended public schools. Word! What a hoot!

Ladies and gentlemen, I call your attention to Rick Santorum ... suggesting that his esteemed predecessors in the Republican ranks did not get good educations. Moron. Par. Excellence.

Someone fix my cable box. Please. I can't watch this guy run for president.

Last weeks have been snowing here a lot and I have had good time to be inside and made craftings and shopping.

Welcome, as always, to "The Gods Are Bored," coming to you from an undisclosed location in the Middle Atlantic states of the US of A! A bored god-sanctioned web site since 2005.

Don't know about you, but I don't like getting angry and popping off at people. I'd rather sit and stew. Or better yet, go out in the woods and bitch to an indifferent tree.

Technology has made it so much simpler to avoid people you don't want to talk to.

When I was a kid, you didn't know who was on the other end of the line when the phone rang. It could be your best friend wanting to go for a swim in the Antietam Creek, or it could be your nasty aunt, pissed at your mom ... again. You had to take the call. It was like gambling, sort of.

Then came a wonderful tool called the Answering Machine. Suddenly you could screen your calls. No more crazy Mom, ruining your weekend on a Saturday morning. Then again, you still had to listen to the message: (cue Mom, with menacing tone: "Call your MOTHER.")

These days the sweet little cell phone, which also doesn't even ring if you don't want it to, can tell you exactly who is dialing you up. Just look at the screen and make a decision. To talk, or not to talk: That is the question.

We at "The Gods Are Bored" say, damn all tradition, this new phone era is simply magickal! The only human variable in this is your personal self-control. Keep steady, and a great deal of aggravation is funneled into the Message Center, where you can delete without even listening!

There's a generation just older than mine that doesn't know how to text. This is the biggest blessing of all.

Part of the problem with many religions is that they don't bend with the arc of science and technology. Even though Jesus had nothing to say about abortion, people infer what the rule is on that, based on flimsy evidence from an ancient scroll. The bored gods favor evolutionary religions that rely less on hidebound traditions and more on the big, broad, flexible outlook. Bored gods are willing to change -- it's way better than extinction.

Therefore, when I see phone numbers blink up of people who I would just chew out if I spoke to them, I praise all the bored gods for cell phones. And I don't pick up.

The one downside is that I won't be able to identify the Republican pollsters, who I enjoy keeping on the line for 45 minutes, just to keep them from calling someone else (and also running up their phone bills). Oh well. A small price to pay for avoiding the people who will make me shout at trees.

Do you look for omens, or do you consider them superstitious rot?

If the latter, you might not feel too at home here at "The Gods Are Bored." Go play with your chemistry set.

Farmers are very prone to looking for omens. Heck, they have an Almanac full of them, published every year!

On Saturday I set out looking for an omen.

I live about 50 miles inland from the Atlantic. Even after 20 years, this is still a phenomenon to me. When I was in my formative years, a trip to the beach was an all-day affair that involved the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and a long trudge across the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It took five hours to drive to the shore from where I lived.

Now I can get there in an hour, if I drive due east (which puts me amongst the casinos in AC).

On Saturday, very early, I set out to collect sea glass with a colleague of mine from the Vo-Tech. We had arranged to meet at a diner halfway between my house and the seacoast. From there she was going to take me to her secret beaches in Atlantic City where she finds scads of sea glass.

Driving toward the diner, I asked for an omen as to how I could bond with the beach.

In the past I have never liked the seashore much. Growing up with a bipolar mom who wanted to vacation there, a mom who didn't believe in seasickness or a fear of those rough Atlantic waves, I have always had a slight inner aversion to the coastline. But that is the destination around here. Wanna have fun, yo, go to da shore.

The bored gods lost no time in giving me Their sign.

Arriving at the diner, I discovered that I was expected to ride in the back seat of my colleague's red SUV. On the agenda: sea glass AND five estate sales.

It was a stunning day at the beach, sunny and about 50 degrees. But the sea glass expert quickly (and accurately) diagnosed her choice areas as not being very good on this day. Still we climbed over pilings and over rocks to get to the jetties... not an easy task for a trio of middle-aged school teachers. As I jumped down next to a piling, I got pinioned on it and tore my favorite pair of jeans. I was lucky I didn't get a four-inch splinter in my thigh.

That's all the omen I needed, right there.

The bored gods thought otherwise. They sent that red SUV the length and breadth of Atlantic City and Ocean City, mile after mile of disastrously over-built shoreline, into the homes of people who had died, whose accumulation of stuff was up for sale. Then on into the Pine Barrens, for another pair of homes under similar dire straits.

I went looking for sea glass and came home with three pairs of scissors and a glass salad bowl. And some sea glass -- not much. And an ugly gash in a pair of jeans I have had for a decade.

The bored gods have spoken. I can listen to Quadrophenia as often as I like, but the beach is not the place for me. The omens are clear. Clear as the water running through Terrapin Run.

Steer clear of "The Gods Are Bored" if you are sick and tired of the long litany of laments. Today's is the biggest, most mind-boggling of all. It shakes me to the very core of my being.

Every year I rent a buzzard costume from a theatrical outfit in Ohio. Every year the price of shipping goes up. Granted, it's a big, bulky box. But it weighs about 20 pounds, including the box. How can that possibly cost $130 to ship regular rate via UPS?

And so, it was with deep regret that I suggested to the steering committee of the East Coast Vulture Festival that we forgo "Buzzy" this year. Even after I was willing to spend fifty bucks of my wages on the costume, it would be barely a drop in the old bucket.

The costume costs $225. For one day's rent.

Now, those of you with deep pockets -- don't reach out and feed my Buzzard Worship habit! It's a matter of conscience here. I could pay the whole thing from the ill-gotten gains I'll receive from the sale of the farm. I just think it's too much. And the festival is held every year. What costs $225 this year will cost $250 the next.

Gotta draw the line, even in Buzzard Worship.

The news gets worse.

This has been a very mild winter here in the Mid-Atlantic states. It was cold in December, but since Christmas we've been almost spring-like.

This has affected the roosting behavior of the buzzards. They are no longer flocking to Wenonah. They're bunking elsewhere.

Excuse me while I rend my garments!

Heir and I went to Wenonah in December, and the flock was there. Maybe a little smaller than previous years, but definitely a presence. With this warm spell, they've drifted away. Literally.

I've always been concerned that the winter roost in Wenonah would not be a permanent thing. Vultures do like to roam about a bit. They're probably looking for new adventures. After all, they're bored deities under the precise definition offered up here at this handy web site. But ... oh ... oh ... my precious Golden Purifiers! My sweet scavengers! The birds I love and live for! Gone, dispersed, blown away ... perhaps forever.

I'm not much of a drinker, but I hear a bottle of gin calling my name. Go ahead, publishing house -- shove my poor old novel into the storm drain! But the loss of the Winter Flock? TRAGEDY.

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Good luck!