Some garbage can thoughts

For those of you not living in Lakewood, here every house gets a big trash bin with wheels on it from the township which you fill up all week. On trash day you roll it out to the curb and the garbage truck, which says in bold letters "GIVE your trash a second chance" comes and a robotic arm comes down picks up the whole thing and tips it into the truck.
SO anyway, if one is not enough, you need to order more of those bins, and you have to put down a deposit of $40.00 which you get back if you return the bin. I have one bin, but it is jam packed come garbage day, and if g-d forbid we forget to put it out, we are in big trouble cuz the thing will roast in the hot sun for another week till they come get it and we have nowhere to put our new garbage so it kind of piles up in my hallway. Yuck. Or if it is yom tov or another special occasion that produces more trash we kind of run out of space and I am forced to peek in my neighbors trash cans to see if they have extra space. This I do at night so no one sees.
SOme of the larger families on my block have THREE bins - I mean very large families -10 kids and up. And that's plenty. But I was doing some power walking in the evenings and there's a one family house I pass by that has FIVE trash bins out front !!! I know they dont have tenants cuz in that neighborhood none of them do. And I dont think they have a huge family. SO what are they possibly doing that is generating THAT much garbage?
And dont go telling me I am a yenta and it's none of my business, because if you tell me you are not curious about what goes on by other people you are not being completely honest.

If your kid came home from camp this week healthy and in one piece dont forget to thank the one above!

On the lighter side, I have always been fascinated with names.
Why did someone choose a particular name for their child? who are they named after? what does the name mean? how do some of these ugly names get started? what about celebrities who feel the need to name their kids "Apple" or "Moon Unit"? I can understand the desire to name a kid with a sort of unique name,(there are so many Moishies and Rivkies) but it shouldnt be strange. Like Savannah, which is a little different, but its pretty.
There was a story in the news last week about a chinese couple that wanted to name their kid @. The govt didnt allow. and a New Zealand couple wanted to name their son 4real, but the govt didnt let. They named him officially Superman, (that they let!) but they call him 4real anyway.
Should the govt have a say?
The strangest name I know is a girl named Esther Gedillah. And of course they call her, not Esti, but Esther Gedillah.
How about in laws and parents that fight with new parents over naming a baby? I can think of so many fights and disagreements that have come about over this issue.
I believe that young couples should definitely keep in mind family names, and what their parents may desire, but ultimately it should be their choice. After all, if I am going to carry the baby, give birth, wake up every two hours to feed it, and pay tuition for the next 20 years, shouldnt I at least get to choose the kid's NAME?
what is the strangest name you've heard? How do you choose names? Have you ever fought over a name?
what about last names? History and stuff are in names. Share!

After reading the comments for the previous post, chana leah, karma dude and berel all agree on an interesting point. All this talk of AT RISK kids is giving kids ammunition to either a-get what they want cuz they now hold the power in the relationship. - they know their parents' weak spot and can take advantage of it. to quote chana leah " you wont buy me an ipod- I'm throwing off my yarmulka"
b- they know there are others like them, and there is strength in numbers. according to some accounts I read of doin's upstate, crowds of kids gathering to do bad stuff, and a few cops and rebbeim couldnt stop them. this gave them power -they know nobody can stop them.
we are feeding them excuses so they can parrot it back to their parents, blame everyone else for their actions.

Maybe we shouldnt try to be so soft with the kids all the time. Once in a while tell them like it is - HELL is HOT. They need to make choices, and knowing the full story may help them make the right ones.

I read in the Yeshiva world blog about the bad stuff happening up in the country, with frum kids drinking, drugging, hanging out and worse. I find it extremely disturbing, of course there have always been some kids misbehaving, but not on this scale, and not with quite as bad deeds. How horrible that kids are messing up their lives like that. Anyway, I dont want to discuss how sad it is, but I was looking through the comments (there were about 135) and it seems as though there are several differing opinions on this, and it breaks down to the following:
a- mothers not at home with the kids, kids out at babysitters, etc. from a very young age. (always blame the mothers)
b- parents not showing kids LOVE
c- yeshivas and bais yaakovs teaching what you're not allowed to do, and not stressing the beauty and warmth of yiddishkeit-and not answering kid's questions
d- lack of supervision on the part of the parents.
e- too much pressure on the kids to be perfect.
is that it? what do you think?

A couple of years ago I was kashering the stove for pesach, and the wall near the stove got burned. There has been a large brown burn mark there ever since, reminding me of Pesach cleaning every time I look at it. Do I need to think about Pesach cleaning every day?
I think not.

SO I decided to take my newfound skill, installing tile, (see previous posts) and pulled down the damaged piece of formica, and put in a brand new tile backsplash. Woohoo! it was fun. and not hard at all. All you do is spread the adhesive onto the wall with a cool smearing tool, then scrape it with the zig zag side of the tool. Then you place the tiles down. That's it! It took about a half hour, not counting another trip to the store for more tiles.
Tomorrow I have to grout it, which means you spread the grout over the whole thing, and with a sponge-y kind of thing, smooth it down so it gets between all the tiles. Then you use a wet sponge to wipe off the excess grout.
Next time you need tile installed and they want to charge you an arm and a leg, fuggedaboutit! do it yourself!

CROC alert:
this just happened to me. I was starving from all my shabbos prep, so I took a big bowl of macaroni. then I put a huge dollop of cottage cheese and a squirt of ketchup on it. Then the doorbell rang. I yelled who's there and no one answered, they obviously couldnt hear me so I turned around to walk toward the door. there was a drop of water on the floor and my son's croc, which i was trying on and are surprisingly comfortable so I was wearing it, slipped and i slid and fell on my hands and knees and the bowl of macaroni went flying out of my hands SO fast I didnt even realize it happened. so now there is macaroni spread out all over the floor which i already washed, and a big dollop of cottage cheese and ketchup sliding down the wall, landing on the floor and the doorbell rings again. and I answer who's there? in a calm voice (pat on the back for not taking out my frustration on an innocent bystander)
"I'm collecting for Chai lifeline."
so all i am trying to say is, crocs could be slippery when wet. L'toeles harabim. This public service message is Le'iluy nishmas ...

SO who thinks this is obnoxious? Sarah was in the shoe store buying her little daughter shoes, and lo and behold she met Esther, a woman she was associated with when she was in high school.(whom she never really liked and was not happy to see) Hi! How are you? What are you doing these days? Where do you live? Oh, the same apartment? You havent outgrown it yet? Remember my daughter, Leah? Yeah, she just bought a townhouse. So what I am trying to say is, I dont think Esther is a malicious person, but she is definitely guilty of NOT THINKING!! In one short conversation she managed: to be a pushy nosey yenta, two gezunta potentially hurtful statements. "You havent outgrown it yet" like that could really be hurtful to some people, implying that they only have two kids, whatever. "MY daughter just bought a townhouse" I know she may be proud of her daughter but there is no need to rub it in someone's face who is still living in an apartment and a sensitive thinking person might presume that they are unable to afford a house. Years ago a guy walked into my house and said, "hey how come you guys are married X years, and only have two kids?" Some people might find that very hurtful. Anyway, people should think a little bit before they mouth off. that's all.