Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: August 2026

• Storm’s A’comin’

  Posted at 3:22 pm by kayewer, on August 29, 2026

  On a classic episode of The Golden Girls (but really, which episodes are not classics on that show), preparations were underway for a hurricane a’comin’. They noted that it’s a given for a major storm to be designated as “a’comin’,” and in fact is the only time you hear the phrase.

  I saw a nasty frontal system approaching one evening this past week while on my commute home. Sometimes the major activity naturally draws your attention, and though we have been getting our share of them this year, this one stood out. The clouds in this approaching menace were gigantic, low-slung and ominous, and we had already experienced a deluge of a downpour earlier in the day, punctuated by sheets of heavy rain. Our office building even had a power fluctuation which rattled our nerves. By the time I had left, I was walking on amazingly dry streets and sidewalks. The heat had cooked the entirety of the rainwater away.

  Flash flooding from the coming storm was a near certainty with such a powerful meteorological battlefront on the march. All of the weather experts were pinging cellphones like a symphony all afternoon. I had hoped to stop for fuel and to pick up something from the pharmacy, but decided to head straight home.

  The area became preternaturally dark shortly after I got inside and locked the doors. Fortunately the downpour was not too intense, and a few other spots received the brunt of the activity. Some college freshmen who had just moved into their dorms found floodwaters creeping into their spaces, and a town’s vehicles in low areas ended up under a few feet of water. We were unscathed.

  The accuracy of weather predictions these days is amazing, but it can’t account for the movements nature randomly sends our way. This is why it’s better to not take a risk when unpredictable weather comes and to stay put when its arrival is imminent. Or seek higher ground as appropriate.

  As to why I brought up this subject, shortly after this storm passed I saw video of the mudslides and flash flooding in Nepal which has claimed structures and lives (at last count, about 670, with thousands of locals and visitors missing). There was no time in this instance to plan ahead, as glacial calving (immense melted ice pieces separating from the main structure) are to blame, happened in an instant and with no warning. Climate change may play a role, as it can with many of our abnormal weather patterns.

  When I was heading home, I was driving seemingly toward what I should have been trying to escape. The horizon was boiling with clouds seeming to emerge from midnight itself (at six in the evening), with sunlight nowhere in sight. A force of nature not to be messed with.

  Winter is approaching, and with a predicted super El Nino this year, we will need to be vigilant when weather forecasts appear. It doesn’t appear to be getting any easier, and extreme weather will become part of our lives more and more. As we stand in its path, all we can do is prepare for what’s a’comin’ and hope for the best.

  Next weekend is a holiday with three days off. I hope to have a great story to tell that’s not about the weather.

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• Disclaiming Ownership

  Posted at 3:33 pm by kayewer, on August 22, 2026

  Women have a rough time simply by not being men. Men seem to generally disregard traits among their companions that we would notice (and likely judge) immediately. Beer bellies are shrugged off on a dude, but a woman who is slightly thick in the midsection is slovenly. This is a subject that has been written about for ages, and I’m certainly not the one to settle it in a small blog post, so I’m not going to try. I will, however, delve into another subject women are most familiar with.

  Men seem to want to claim us. We are, to some men, like a car or baseball memorabilia collection, only with a need for food and shelter and some attention at least once a day (if we’re lucky). Our modern society is still tiptoeing around topics such as spousal mistreatment and separation entitlements. Sometimes marriage between a woman and a man seems more like a mall bargain than a commitment to another human being.

  What brought this to mind was a shocking revelation which came across my social media feed this past week. Among the topics such as a woman who interprets the oriental characters on people’s tattoos to determine if they mean something or are simply gibberish, and a man who tours dead or dying malls, a nostalgia piece appeared to remind viewers of an empowering moment in a late night talk show from 54 years ago.

  Dick Cavett was hosting his Friday talk show on March 31, 1972. The special guests were Lily Tomlin and Chad Everett. Ms. Tomlin had won a Grammy for a comedy album, becoming the first solo woman to do so in that category. Her continued fame on the variety show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In solidified her as a celebrity of note, and she was using her moment in the spotlight to defend women’s rights. Chad Everett was still (comfortably) a major star and heartthrob on the show Medical Center.

  The conversation had turned to Everett’s narration of a piece about animals, leading to a remark about his life off-set, and he noted that he had a menagerie at home which included three horses, three dogs, and a wife. The audience’s laughter became nervous at that remark, so Cavett, trying to redirect the topic, asked if he wanted to change the “billing order” of the remark, and he shrugged it off by replying that his wife was the “most beautiful animal I own.”

  To coin a phrase, Lily Tomlin’s flabbers were totally gasted at this, and she replied, “You own?” She stood immediately, adding simply, “I have to leave,” and she promptly walked off the stage, to some applause. The conversation, having turned awkward, then went back and forth between Cavett and Everett as to whether she would return. She did not. Everett even made a jabbing remark about Tomlin’s own interpersonal preferences during the segment, as if to call her out for her own marital status.

  The two celebrities never met or spoke again.

  Chad Everett died in 2012 at age 75. He was still married to his wife Shelby Grant for over four decades when she predeceased him in 2011. Medical Center went off the air in 1976.

  Lily Tomlin is still touring with her comedy shows, and occasionally she does publicity related to her hit movie role in 9 to 5 with her good friends Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton. She continues to advocate for women and putting an end to workplace harassment (a big topic of that film). She has a wife whom she married in 2013. She has a cat and past animal friends, but never a husband.

  The terms “joined” and “unite” when referring to matrimony are there for a reason. Don’t make your spouse a possession. They are your partner. For life. When the horses and dogs are gone, they will be there for you. And that is beautiful.

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• In the Most August Dread

  Posted at 3:09 pm by kayewer, on August 15, 2026

  This month has proven so far to be one of chaos. Everybody I know has had some sort of upheaval or obstacle in the way of their everyday lives, and I include myself in this grouping. For a month without any official holidays, August sure has made us wish we could conjure up at least one to get a break from the onslaught of negativity.

  I lost somebody I know to lung disease, and I know of a second who is also dealing with respiratory issues (they lost parts of their lungs) whom I have not heard from for a while. A relative of a friend of mine was severely injured in a tractor trailer collision and is in the hospital. After nearly two weeks of uncertainty about my own health, I went to my primary doctor (having been subjected to near nothing in terms of answers at urgent care) and now need to modify my lifestyle and get some tests done to find out what my body is trying to get away with. It’s one of the perils of aging, I suppose. Meanwhile, another friend has family dealing with a beloved pet who is not feeling well, and the said relative had sent their own pet across the Rainbow Bridge just before the accident. It’s seems to be National Lousy Health Month. Now there is a holiday nobody wants.

  After some finagling and drama, another friend finally has good answers about downsizing their home. They will be relocating temporarily while seeking a new place. I don’t look forward to the prospect of shrinking my world, and with today’s prices I’m worried that I would ultimately pay more expenses living any place else, which is part of the reason I stay put. Of course, the property tax bill finally arrived (late as usual every August), and as karma does sometimes, that expense took away every cent I deposited not days earlier.

  The issue with keeping daylight saving or switching to permanent standard time (I am pro the latter) is still a hot topic, because the Senate doesn’t reconvene until September 14 and they did not vote on the issue before they adjourned. Meanwhile, the sun is rising and setting as it normally does, except that the clocks say it’s an hour later than it is in reality. Just look at the time and take back one hour, and you can see what nature does on its own without us lying to ourselves by adjusting our watches or phones.

  The news has also been filled with negativity, from various people of all ages being taken away from this world in horrible ways to prison executions of convicted felons who may have taken out their victims decades ago. There were as many as three prisoners put to lethal injection in one day this past week.

  What more can this month throw at us? There are sixteen days left to find out, but I recommend taking a step back and breathing before tackling anything, at least until we get past Labor Day. September may have the most letters in it of any month in the calendar year, but it only has 30 days in which to stir up more trouble. Let’s hope things improve by then.

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• Moving the Sun

  Posted at 3:36 pm by kayewer, on August 8, 2026

  As a regular magazine reader (I blame the Boomer in me), I recall an anecdote from a long time ago about a couple on vacation who were having their photo taken aboard a romantic boat ride. The couple took a look at the sunset in the distance and asked the boat operator if it could be moved closer for a more dramatic effect.

  Now that social media cranks out massive quantities of stories, the number of short-sighted and downright ridiculous vacation stories has multiplied. What amazes me is that people are so uneducated about the world around them.

  For example, the “great outdoors” is the planet’s largest open-access place for mammals, birds, fish and insects. Some people, however, think that anyplace outside their homestead is curated like a zoo. A woman sitting on an outdoor patio to dine al fresco asked a server to “put the birds away” as their presence disturbed her meal.

  A recent story about entitled vacationers mentioned a place where monkeys roamed the area at will. A complaint left on a review site admonished the staff at an attraction for failing to notify the primates of proper behavior around the tourists.

  I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve read containing complaints about the weather, especially when a destination meant to be a sunny place occasionally experiences rain. How can any human being, with enough brain cells to perform basic functions, not have a grasp of how the natural forces on Earth work? With today’s radar technology, it’s easy to see that precipitation forms and travels naturally, and nobody can curtail or control it.

  Going back to the concept of permanent daylight saving time, this enactment would mean that one entire hour would not exist in America, all for the convenience of pleasure-seekers who want to extend summer golf tee times and hold back sunset.

  Again, the sun seems to be at the center of quite a few of these crazy ideas.

  Unfortunately, the big sphere which provides our light and keeps us warm rises and sets on a schedule, as should we. It can’t be moved, and its orbit can’t be changed. We cannot and should not try to change it either. And we shouldn’t complain about it, but be grateful that it is, for without it, we wouldn’t exist.

  Some people just can’t find pleasure in the basics of life. Imagine complaining about a galaxy of visible stars at night being too boring? Or the surf near a resort being too loud all night (as if it could be turned off)?

  And to wrap things up before this becomes a strain on the nerves, it seems that travelers don’t understand that in foreign countries, they may not hear their native language. Americans can be particularly sensitive to not hearing English spoken in other destinations. If you’re in Spain, everybody will likely speak Spanish.

  Vacations make us all outsiders in some way. The best way to have a good time is to simply enjoy the change in environment. If you take the time to look and listen, you will discover some new things, or you may find that ordinary life, like exchanges in local shops or in restaurants, is not so different from what one finds at home.

  And the sun operates just the same everywhere.

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• I Like to Move It

  Posted at 3:36 pm by kayewer, on August 1, 2026

  To start, let’s make it clear that cheating is not, ever, the way to reach a goal. Depriving yourself of the entire experience of acquiring knowledge or ability also decreases that thing’s relevance as you have taken the cowardly way out of improving yourself and sharing your improved self with others.

  A college professor found out the extent of passive cheating when he presented the midterm exam to a class. Dr. Jason Gibson, the history professor at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi, was able to use a failsafe of his own design to catch 32 out of 35 students using AI to prepare their papers.

  He used white text on the white background most commonly used in word processing, so it would not be seen by the students. The simple sentence instructed any possible AI program to include the term Madagascar in the finished product, even if it made no logical sense. This meant that students who input the entire document into an AI program unknowingly instructed the bot to include the word Madagascar. Worse, none of them bothered to read through the final paper before turning it in.

  A fourth student (not one of the three in the class who actually did the work and did not receive a failing grade) had opted to use dark mode/black background with white text to do papers, so they saw the white text and, possibly believing it was a worth a bonus point, prepared their own sentence using Madagascar, and so was not penalized as their entry was original.

  So these are the future of our world; students stepping out of their caps and gowns without having actually received the gift of knowledge for which their parents paid hefty tuitions (not to mention which the job markets desperately need to continue to function).

  Now that the “Madagascar Trick” is out in the open, other methods of finding cheaters are still practiced, including identifying file creation and modification timelines. A file which took twenty minutes to prepare is suspect when a paper should take several hours of research and entry. Other programs can indicate how many keystrokes a student logged, providing physical proof of work done.

  That we must account for every dishonesty in our academic world is a sad fact of life. Nobody wants to spend the time pursuing the goal in a social atmosphere which promises instant gratification. Nobody waits for anything anymore. People trample each other with events offering open stadium seating and no assigned seats. People who have no handicapped placard or signs of pregnancy or offspring with them pull their vehicles into designated parking with impunity. It starts with cutting in line in elementary school and ends in the self-checkout with items smuggled out of the store unpaid for.

  Even the subject of daylight standard time contains an element of cheating (see my post from earlier this month). An entire hour out of the 24-hour clock which defines our days on Earth would simply disappear if saving time were made permanent, meaning we cheat ourselves out of how a true day and season should function. We can’t change basics of life to suit ourselves. This includes how time works and how academia is experienced.

  But then I could go into a tangent about how youngsters now “graduate” from preschool, Kindergarten, elementary and middle school. The completion of twelve years of education is one goal met, and college graduation is a bonus to be cherished and honorably earned. The process has been in place for ages, and within a few years it has become a lesser achievement because the students have gone through two or three faux milestones already. Why should they care about how they get to the next step if it isn’t as important?

  My biggest college final exam earned me a B, but I feel proud of it because I originated it, researched it, created it and worried over it. The best part of that experience was going to a museum to do the research for the paper and seeing ancient artwork and manuscripts. That opportunity never came around again, so I’m grateful for the challenge and the growth it brought to my life.

  I didn’t even need to go to Madagascar.

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  	Eden on A Good Rabbit Hole
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  	Eden on The Unasked Questions
  	Eden on And Her Shoes Were #9