Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: June 2023

• Like They Used To

  Posted at 4:39 pm by kayewer, on June 24, 2023

  Back in the “good old days,” manufacturing was a complex chore. The televisions in the early days held wires, fuses and boards of welded circuitry, encased in wood and molded metal, and they weighed as much as an adult. The repairman (I’m not being sexist here; women didn’t commonly take on such jobs, though many did do such tasks while men were serving in WWII) would dismantle the device in your home, lay out the parts on a tarp, diagnose the problem and replace the worn out pieces.

  Today, televisions are flat, light and contain microchips which can’t be replaced, so we throw them away.

  Why does modern technology have such a wasteful price tag?

  This came to mind because the Titan submersible, which was destined to tour the wreckage of its namesake, the doomed Titanic (which has lain on the ocean floor disintegrating since it sank on its maiden voyage in 1912), seems much more tragic due to its apparent cause of failure. The vessel did not withstand the pressure of the ocean and suffered a “catastrophic” implosion which claimed five lives, including a father and son.

  We are supposedly building better things, not cheaper. If a vessel needs metal hulls of a certain weight and thickness, so be it. If making televisions with replaceable parts which will keep many out of landfills, isn’t that a better way to do things? Some of us still have grandparents with console televisions in their homes. Those products lasted decades compared to the year or two of service we manage today.

  The volume of junk we are discarding due to item failure, our boredom or a lack of recycling alternatives is catching up to us. We need to call attention to the elephant in the room, which is the amount of stuff being dumped into our oceans to “make it go away.” In those old days, things lasted for a long time, and waste was considerably less. The American average tonnage of municipal waste in 1960 was 88 million tons, compared to 292 million in 2018 (last figures available). Today, Americans discard an average of five pounds of trash per day.

  When the ultimate cost of bad production or cutting corners is human lives, we need to re-think how modernization may be failing us.

  My heart breaks for the families of those lost in this latest tragedy that didn’t need to happen.

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• Summer 2023 Random Thoughts

  Posted at 4:34 pm by kayewer, on June 17, 2023

  The summer has officially begun. Yesterday in my region, all the schools ended with graduations galore, which meant that today was a heavy traffic day, as countless families left home for their choice of vacation spots. This has been the first summer since 2020 that feels like normal again, so there is sure to be some craziness going around. Here are some observations from somebody who has experienced these madcap summers for a few decades.

  Everybody needs to relieve themselves, so when you’re in a new place and experiencing new things, this becomes an issue for you as the tourist and the people who live full-time where you’re vacationing. When you’re at the shore with Fido on a walk and come across homes with nicely manicured lawns, keep a poo retrieval device with you and don’t let your poopsie poop on that nice lawn; try the curb instead.

  Also, when you go to the beach, don’t pee in the ocean. Go before you leave your temporary lodging.

  Don’t feed the birds: it encourages them to be pests. Let seagulls eat what seagulls eat in the wild, not boardwalk food.

  The containers and other items used to hold or transport your food are your responsibility from the moment you purchase the food item until it is placed in a proper disposal area. This is an unspoken term and condition of buying food on the go, and nobody is going to make fun of you if you carry an empty paper plate for a hundred yards before finding a trash container. Believe me: I’ve never seen anybody get trash shamed. Don’t drop stuff on the ground; it encourages seagulls.

  Use sunscreen. Skin cancer is not something you want to endure. Leave being brown- or red-skinned to those whose heritage gives them the beauty of that privilege. Be your pale, wonderful self, but protected with SPF 30 or better.

  Cleaning up the beach or campground is indeed somebody else’s job, and that somebody else is you. If you’ve established good habits of cleaning up after yourselves at home, this shouldn’t be an issue elsewhere.

  If you raise an eyebrow when you see yourself in the mirror, the thoughts of other people around you if you go out that way will be much more embarrassing. Fix it before you tip out the door.

  I have never understood the social rules which say that the only acceptable hair on humans is on the head or eyebrows, and all other bodily hair is repulsive. Although it’s true that some folks out there–men in particular–may be wildly hirsute, unless you truly look as if the Michelin tire man was genetically crossed with a Yeti, and the result is decidedly inhuman, who among us can truly judge?

  Remember the sun damage rule of thumb and stay away from the risk of skin cancer by being extra cautious between 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM, when the sun does the most damage.

  Be careful drinking milk in hot weather, and don’t lock your knees when standing. This is a lesson I learned during military training. This helps you avoid passing out.

  Officials at the parks and beaches, such as lifeguards and rangers, have a ton of good advice for visitors. Stop and learn something from them and obey their instructions.

  Ice cream is tougher to eat slowly in humid weather. Avoid disaster and order a small.

  If somebody produces a way to avoid pizza drooping, you’ll save the world a lot of damaged clothing. Even John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever had to deal with a bit of floppy double-stacked goodness (I’m sure he ate them backwards to avoid the problem).

  Tipping at vacation resorts is always welcome, and often helps short-funded people stay healthy and well-fed in the off-season. Teenagers also get college fund money for sundries this way.

  If you check your car before leaving on vacation, you’ll save a ton of grief. A quick inspection at your dealership or car care center such as at AAA branches, can make sure your SUV won’t become SOL.

  Always pack one more pair of underwear than the length of your stay, and one less pair of shoes. Slip some adhesive bandages and diarrhea medication in with your makeup or toiletries.

  Remember those post-visit sheets from your physician? If you can, take a photo of the medication list and store it on your cell for emergencies. In the absence of that, if you use a mail-order pharmacy, try getting a list from there, or have your local one print your med list up for you.

  I could go on, but this is a good stopping point. I hope everybody has a safe and happy summer. It only lasts so long (around ninety days, as most radio stations and marathon-running networks will remind you), so make it last in your memory for all good reasons.

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• Sleepin’

  Posted at 5:17 pm by kayewer, on June 10, 2023

  When it was time to replace the old bedding at home, I decided to make some changes and selected a twin mattress for one bedroom, and a queen for the other. Naturally the new beds also came with complications I didn’t see coming.

  First, I had a choice of height for the twin mattress, so I picked a slightly higher one, which meant that the sheets I owned would not fit. I needed to shop for new ones, and this became more difficult than I would have imagined. The department stores available carried only a few select sheet sets in twin, and none seemed to have deeper sides on the fitted sheet to allow for tucking in. It took some looking before finding the perfect set, and it required ordering online.

  Fitted sheets are in themselves a problem. In the old days, the gathering was limited to the corners, so the sides could be tucked in flat under the mattress. Today, most fitted sheets seem destined to look and fold like rectangular shower caps, with elastic all around. Strangely, they don’t fit snug, and turning in one’s sleep produces bunching and wrinkling. So much for improving on a classic. Obtaining a good fit from a fitted sheet now requires a device such as sheet suspenders which can tighten the fabric from underneath.

  The queen bed was my best decision, as most stores carry queen sheets, and there was no need to pick a mattress height (at least it wasn’t offered to me).

  What I didn’t know was that there are many more mattress sizes than I imagined. Besides twin and full sizes and their XL versions (adding five inches to the length), queen mattresses come in varieties such as RV queen (for those who want most of their motorhome taken up with their sleeping quarters), and Olympic queen.

  Then we enter the realm of king-sized, with California king, Texas king, Wyoming king and Alaska King at 108 inches on each side. I assume that is the type of bed one would find at an old oil baron’s estate, and if sheets aren’t available at the stores in town, one could ask the seamstress to whip up a set on demand.

  I have gathered up all the old sheets and surrendered them to the animal shelter for use in potential adopted dogs’ and cats’ temporary lodging. I’m sure the linens will hold up for a long time, as they did for me. Time will tell if the new sheets for my new beds will pay for themselves.

  Or maybe the beds will give out first.

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• Restrictions Apply

  Posted at 5:04 pm by kayewer, on June 3, 2023

  Our town will be hosting a pride festival, so the other day I picked up a special tee shirt I had ordered, and a lawn sign to display in my yard. A few of the signs already on display in town have fallen to what has been attributed to teen pranks, but the neighborhood I live in may be quiet enough to not deal with such vandalism.

  It’s a wonderful thing for our country to finally admit, after almost two and half centuries (I believe we turn 247 this coming July 4), that not every human being is the same when it comes to lifestyle preferences. In ancient times, men portrayed women on the stage because women themselves were forbidden to act. Women wore pants in the Wild West without being considered too manly, and a man in a kilt in Scotland was not at all thought to be effeminate. Nobody can know for certain how any of our co-workers, or the person on the street, started their morning. Some grab a donut and coffee. Some grab a joint and a bottle. Others punch another crack in their spouse’s jawbone, and still others put in a little quick pleasure (man with woman, woman with woman, man with man) and then dress and go to work, possibly having showered afterward or without touching a bar of soap.

  In any particular household, the scenario at the breakfast table may be so different, a standard would not exist. One kitchen table may have mommy and daddy, or mommy and grandma, or dad and uncle. The child still boards the same bus as the other kids.

  We have been living in a stew pot of variety since the dawn of society, and not acknowledging it has not made it non-existent, so it’s about time we call everything out into the open and realize that giving voice to those who are not clones of a perceived norm is acceptable. Those in the LGBTQ community (and their add-ons) are still valuable citizens and important enough to live their lives in a lawful way, in privacy and without harassment.

  The pride fest will feature a variety of events to allow folks an opportunity to enjoy themselves, and I support that, which is why I purchased the swag.

  However, I won’t be joining them, and not for the reasons you might think.

  There is a commercial for a popular laundry detergent brand, featuring a woman named Alice. She likes how her detergent has a pleasant scent, and the voiceover indicates her wishes to have the same scent for her fabric softener and dryer beads. The next shot is of one of the stocker in the grocery aisle, holding up the product she has been dreaming of, and the voice says, “Say hello to your fairy godmother, Alice.” The fellow (definitely not a godmother) is a sallow and slightly overweight type one would normally see staring at a computer screen in a basement gamer environment, and he is dressed in an ill-fitting shirt and apron with a too-short necktie. The kind of person whom everybody glances at but nobody truly notices. One whom we would assume would spend eternity living with the parents. The bit is played for lighthearted fun, but in real life it’s not funny. I cringe every time the spot airs.

  Some people like the stocker have experienced “the look,” in which a person offers a cursory glance and then erases you from sight as if you are not permitted to exist. People who deal with “the look” regularly are steps away from the level of people who have no home or hope and are never looked at at all.

  I have known others on social media and off, who have similar issues. Of my closest circle of friends, only one is in a successful marriage, and the rest who may still be seeking a relationship seem doomed to only receive attention from men seeking citizenship or a substitute mother. None of the people in the excluded group I’m speaking of are anything but simple, vanilla, hetero individuals seeking the most basic rewards in life, which happen to involve sharing with another human being. The denial of this leads to isolation, depression, substance abuse and worse.

  Unfortunately there is no classification for the unknown invisibles, and they don’t seem to belong with the rainbow culture which has finally been given a voice. It means staying put at home, paying bills like a good citizen and not causing a fuss. It certainly doesn’t mean joining a pride festival, because in spite of whatever credentials one has in life, if you are still getting “the look,” you don’t belong.

  Just proves that inclusion has a way to go yet.

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