Monthly Archives: July 2007

Save My Money or My Soul


I have never been a fan, or even a more than occasional patron, of Walmart. I find their products to be of questionable to crappy quality, and their loyal customers, for the most part, to be trailer trash or just too cheap for words. Harsh? Uh-huh, extremely harsh, but the kind of low prices and discounting that have been the foundation of the Walmart building empire can only really come from underpaying employees and cornering markets in an effort to stamp out retail options for local residents. A lot has been said, and will be said again, about Walmart’s generous and competitive wages, opportunities for employee advancement and their benefits packages. Little is said about the fact that most employees are not full-time anyway, the rather sexist way employees are promoted, or not, and that the benefits it provides, health insurance for example, are so meager that in the state of Iowa for example the largest working group that makes use of state funded health care programs is Walmart employees and their families. Will used to joke that a person couldn’t go into a Walmart, day or night, and not find at least one customer with visibly missing teeth. He wasn’t really joking though because the two  or three times we ever went into a Walmart during our entire marriage, sure enough, we encountered toothless patrons. I know people will scoff and call me an elitist. I don’t really care. Walmart does not deserve my patronage or my money ,and I am ashamed to say that since moving to Canada, I have had to shop multiple times at their store as it is just about the only thing going in this town. Not the only thing, Rob’s younger daughter would argue and she is right, but for width and breadth of goods, pretty dang close.

I have read more than one article about the “evil ways” of Walmart. While I don’t dispute them, it is only fair to point out that all retailers take advantage of their employees to one extent or another, but every time I think I have heard it all where Walmart is concerned I manage to be shocked and deeply ashamed of ever having crossed the Walmart threshold all over again. This evening the “cover story” gracing MSNBC was the revelation that Walmart’s Mexican grocery stores are employing fourteen to sixteen year olds as baggers for tips only. Though it is apparently a deeply regretted custom that has managed to survive the unenlightened days of yore. How “yore” is my question, and if it is regretted why does the Mexican government allow it to continue? Regardless, it is clearly wrong to profit off of what is basically the exploitation of children. Not that Walmart is too concerned about that since they were last fined for breaking U.S. child labor laws as recently as 2005 according to this same article for “24 child-labor violations. Some of the accusations involved minors who operated forklifts, chain saws and other potentially dangerous equipment.”

In the face of this most recent article, I can’t be as nonchalant about my occasionally lapses anymore. Walmart is not somewhere a person can shop in good conscious. They don’t treat their workers with respect and dignity due all persons when they hire themselves out as labor. They look out for the bottom line, and the personal fortunes of Sam Walton’s heirs. But isn’t that what all businesses do? Sure and when I read about their flagrant abuses, I will reassess my patronage of them too. For today though, I have more than enough information to safely cross this retailer off my shopping list.

Running Again


When I met my late husband I was running somewhere between 8 and 10 miles nearly every day. I was weight-lifting once or twice a week. I had joined a local Tae Kwon Do school because even though I had given up my training after earning my first degree black belt, for reasons that only make sense to me, I missed training. The school offered a kick-boxing fitness class that I hit about 3 times a week. I had also discovered deep water running, which I hope to start again soon here. Was I a fitness freak? Maybe some would see it that way. Some women like shoes. Some clothes or jewelry. Others find that changing their looks by altering hair color and style makes them most happy. I like being lean and strong. Will always told me that I didn’t have to be thin for him, but it wasn’t about him just as it isn’t about my husband, Rob, now. It is, and always has been, about me.

I started running in college. The university had this absurd idea that forcing its Liberal Arts undergrads to take P.E. classes would round us out as people and start us on the road to lifelong healthy habits. Then, as now, the idea that physical education does anything more than reinforce self-esteem issues is ridiculous. I didn’t mind the requirement. I had never disliked “gym class” really. Probably because I have always been a rather natural athlete.  I was never left standing unpicked and humiliated on the sidelines. I may not have had an overwhelming enthusiasm for every game I was required to participate in (dodge ball comes to mind), but I played and usually did quite well.

The jogging class, as it was called, was a quarter semester class like all the others. We would met on the green in front of the student union, and the instructor would give us his spiel of the day and then assign the laps and miles for the hour. I actually listened to most of what he had to say. I had tried running before but various problems from shin splints to sore feet to never being able to build up mileage had always dampened and then doomed my attempts. I learned quite a bit about shoes, stride, and training, but mostly I was just forced to run. Daily and far. After the class ended, I continued to run. It was difficult to do really. No one I knew ran. Truthfully, no one I knew exercised at all. All of my friends were of the genetically gifted class of short, thin and pretty. Although I lost weight when I went off to college, and continued to do so for most of my time there without much effort; I was tall, sturdy and plain. I admit that some of my motivation in the beginning was to be thin like everyone else I knew. As time went on though, I just grew to like it. The time spent in solitary pursuit of the next mile. Breeze blowing by. Tunes in my ear. Lost in my thoughts, daydreams mostly, but sometimes very good ideas or solutions to problems were worked through to a finished product. The best thing about running by far however was the freedom.

Most people regard aerobic exercise as punishment, and jogging or running certainly tops many a list of least favorites when it comes to getting in shape. Personally, I would rather grow to my sofa than participate in the types of alternatives that many of my peers prefer. Exercise classes of sheople dressed in Flashdance attire are akin to being put in a cage to me. Give me the open road, my walkman (now iPod), and a pleasant evening, and I was the happiest of women. The thing about running is that the motivation has to come from within. There is no one with a headset, plastic painted on smile and Stepford wife voice to shame you on. You have to push yourself. No one likes to push themselves, even when it has to be done, and most people reason that when it comes to exertion there is no such thing as “has to”.

After my daughter was born, I tried to get back into running. I missed me. I was okay with the weight I put on and would retain as a necessary part of pregnancy and nursing, but I missed the time with my thoughts and my music when no one could interrupt or impose. Those runs where more than “exercise”, they were a time to recharge and detoxify myself. I am not a loner, nor would I make a good hermit, but the time I spent with people, and the kinds of people I interacted with, wore on me. I needed to be free of my confining existence and when you can’t do that physically, the mind takes flight. Running gave my mind and soul their escape route.

I have been running again for maybe a month. I can run a mile and a half non-stop on a good asthma day. I try to run at least two miles all together and walk a few more. I know I will never run ten miles again and that’s okay. I have selfish desire to save my knees for my old age. I would like to run outdoors again though. Four miles maybe. Along a bike path on a sunny day. I wish I could put into words the true release and renewal that running for miles on end can be. It’s like breaking free of skin and bone and flying in certain respects. Running is soul food. And maybe that is an acquired taste.

At the Movies


Last night was date night. I highly recommend dating your husband by the way. There is nothing better than cuddling and engaging in all the sweet things that should never get lost in the day to day of life. We seem to have found a sitter with staying power and we are making the most of it. I have watched more movies in the past couple of months than I have seen in the last five years. Which is sad because I used to love to go to the movies. Off beat and subtitled even. There is an old time theater in Des Moines called The Varsity that shunned Hollywood fare for the most part and offered a steady stream of foreign and independent films. I like these types of movies but I really loved going to that theater. It has one of those big screens that make you feel as though you are truly experiencing something as opposed to watching television in your living room. Newer multiplexes are nice. It is wonderful to have movable armrests, be able to see over people’s heads, and I will never complain about the abundance of cup holders. I miss that feeling of wonder however when the curtain rises and the house lights dim. Sinking back into the upholstered foam of seats that rock a bit too much and are a bit too easy to annoy your neighbor with. I miss staring up at the screen and the feeling that I am entering whatever world is up there as opposed to simply staring across a room at it. The theater last night reminded me of days gone by when the old Orpheum, a converted vaudeville theater back in my hometown, would shoehorn as many kids as possible in for the Saturday matinee of the latest Disney flick. There would be so many of us that sometimes it was necessary to sit on the steps in the box seats off the balcony.

Last night’s film was You Kill Me with Ben Kingsley and Tea Leoni, who Rob says I remind him of though I don’t see it really, and was about a hitman with an alcohol problem and his journey to sobriety. It also featured death. Funny but many of the movies we have seen lately have had their “dead” moments or more. In last night’s film Kingsley’s character works in a funeral home. The Matador, which we saw on video, was about a man whose young son has died and he gets involved with a hitman. The Wedding Crashers (a supremely bad movie that just proves that vulgarity and meanness continue to pass as funny for too many people) had scenes near the end describing how Will Ferrell’s character was crashing funerals to find horny widows. Children of Men is awash in grief images and references. The 300 is a deathfest.  I asked Rob if he thought that the movies had always been like this and we just didn’t notice, and he thought that was the case. I guess he is probably right. Even the kid’s movies we have taken Katy to like Shrek the Third and Ratatouille  managed to slip such images (tasteless ones in the case of Shrek) into the storyline.

Film is no different from any other aspect of life. I cannot read the paper without finding articles about people’s loss. Books and magazines are often the same. Death is the only inevitable in life as one’s birth is not always assured, and it is the one thing we all have in common regardless of circumstances.