http://www.cocomment.com/comments/cpikas Copyright 2007 coComment.com 2009-11-26T00:57:26.458+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/images/logo4rss.gif http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=cpikas&conv=675551&comment_id=13266580 Christina Pikas I have two very different comments: 1) I am a searcher -- I enjoy searching for things and it extends to shopping. When I was alone in Florida in the Navy and was seriously battling depression, I found shopping very comforting. If I called family they worried about me and I did read an awful lot (to the point of having to call the Jax public library from the Caribbean on deployment to renew books). I didn't actually buy anything but the walking and looking for patterns and understanding the layout of the stores... I guess I'm weird that way... and I *love* grocery shopping! 2) I'm very troubled about how the social services that are supposed to be provided by local government have been taken over by stores. Like bookstores doing storytime (and some mothers not even knowing that libraries do this for free!) and like hardware stores doing what we used to have an Extension office for (they laid off a ton of staff and stopped offering many services at our local extension office -- but HD has all these ads on tv that they can tell you what's wrong with your plants and your soil)-- sigh. Sorry for the long comment, your post obviously sparked something in me, too. 2007-05-03T17:00:43.727+02:00 2007-05-03T17:00:43.727+02:00