I’m not sure how many of you have watched the new television show called The New Normal but it is an interesting look at our changing times. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s about a gay, male couple who want to adopt a baby, they find a surrogate, who has a daughter already, the two of whom then become a part of what is to be an extended family with the gay couple.
This is not the column I'd prepared for today. That one was written, proofed, readied, and even had a visual prepared to illustrate a point - and then I abandoned it. It was not easy; it's tough giving up on something you thought about for a number of days, researched and worked on with earnest. Letting go of it feels like a waste. But to be honest, mostly with myself, it needed to be left unpublished…
Remember: Cool = different.
"Our fancies are always tickled by the unexpected or serendipitous -- in-store photo booths, really unique ad campaigns, $200 interior build-outs (that look amazing) -- things that make a store stand out from all the others."
In the news this week was a story of extraordinary customer service that netted immeasurable goodwill among customers and people like me, who’d never heard of the place.
Supermarkets like Whole Foods go to great lengths to give the appearance of freshness. The picturesque crates stacked throughout the store (as though cracked open with a crowbar just that morning), the hand-written messages on chalkboards as though pricing is being calculated spontaneously based what came in that day, and the ice, all that ice, ice everywhere you turn.
