Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Author Archives: kayewer

• To Present Friends

  Posted at 7:55 pm by kayewer, on November 11, 2023

  Earlier today I participated in a “friendsgiving” meal with some people I don’t often get to see anymore. We’re clocking decades, and those years are no longer kind to our bodies, particularly our engines and joints, so it’s a challenge to get all of us together in one place. There is also the issue of relocation; some of our friends are not even on the same coast anymore.

  We did manage seven for dinner, and we had a wonderful time.

  Everybody brought something, so it was a good old-fashioned “potluck” with turkey, ham, and every side dish imaginable. I volunteered the mashed potatoes, which traveled well for an hour’s journey through the wilds of the back country and mysterious wooded neighborhoods off the usual highways and tree-barren developments. I could not imagine trying to drive a three-tier wedding cake to anyplace this easily. I kept it simple. And yes, I brought a bottle.

  I was warned beforehand that finding the host’s house may be difficult for GPS. You know the experience of having your directions place you in downtown Podunk when you were headed to Upper Dopunk. My first big adventure came when I pulled over on the interstate to program the driving directions into my car’s network; as I was finishing the request, a police vehicle pulled up behind me, lights flashing. Immediately I reached into my handy purse for my driver’s license and proof of insurance, certain that I was about to be singled out for speeding. The officer informed me that he was on a call to somebody near the same mile marker who experienced a flat tire. Fortunately, that was not me, and he sent me on my way.

  My route turned out to be more triangular than it needed to be, and I was driving long stretches on unfamiliar smaller routes dotted by roadside farmstands and the occasional diner or quickie mart. When driving for such lengthy periods to an unfamiliar place, the cloud of doubt descends and tries to compel you to turn back. Not me: I had two batches of fresh mashed potatoes to deliver, and by golly I was going to get there if I had to pull over and ask directions of anybody on whom I could pull up and harass.

  As I began the final leg of the journey, a favorite song came over the radio, and I took it as a sign that either Jesus was taking the wheel, or my GPS system knew where we were going. In minutes I pulled up to the host’s homestead, where a few extra parked cars offered a glimmer of hope that I was actually at the right address and not Jason Voorhees’ creepy cousin.

  I was welcomed with open arms and something to drink. I discovered a few new dishes, and we enjoyed a turkey sent to us by our illustrious coordinator, who unfortunately was unable to make the trip because of a sudden emergency. We did an in-person phone conference instead. Our plan is to try and pull off one more of these in the summer when conditions may be better.

  Meanwhile, we reminisced about those who departed this earth–one whom we thought dead, wasn’t–and others who decided their goodbye from our company was truly the last one because of a conscious decision to disown the past. We embraced having known each other for forty years or longer, and with our good remaining years up to chance, we sat around the dining room table and simply spoke our minds, enjoyed good company and tasty food. We talked about the changes in pop culture, how our bodies are holding up to the later years, and how to take care of ourselves, our loved ones, and our homes. It was a stimulating time with wonderful people who were welcoming and forthcoming about life as it is right now. We enjoyed the chance to relax and just be ourselves for a while.

  When I left to make my way home by reversing my GPS directions, I felt relaxed and fulfilled in spirit, having spent time with familiar faces. It’s something that is often missing from life today unless we use the holidays around November and December to attempt something big like this event.

  I hope we get to do it again. And I know the way now.

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• Felicia’s Story

  Posted at 4:50 pm by kayewer, on November 4, 2023

  Today I’m going to tell you a story about an amazing 11-year-old girl named Felicia LoAlbo-Melendez. During the 2022-2023 school year at F.W. Holbein Elementary School in Mount Holly, NJ, she was in the sixth grade, and had shown enough proficiency to have skipped a grade. She pursued activities such as chorus, drama, and clubs dedicated to supporting sexual diversity as well as the Random Acts of Kindness Club. She had put forth suggestions about starting a support group for victims of bullying; her idea was to form what she called a “trauma club.”

  When it came to trauma, she had first-hand experience; she was being systematically bullied over a period of two school years because of her LatinX background, perceived flaws in her physical person and others’ opinions about her own sexual identity.

  The incidents were documented in reports. A student placed a puddle of water on her seat to wet her lower clothing when she sat down. A teacher was present when the student drew attention to Felicia, and the class laughed. The teacher did nothing. Felicia was pushed down the stairs. Felicia was subjected to racial slurs, along with the usual bully tactical words such as “ugly.” A student put gum in Felicia’s hair, and cut a clump out. And this being the age of social media, Felicia was cyberbullied at all hours. Students also told her to “unlive herself.”

  Her father ultimately lost a battle with cancer in January. Two weeks later, on February 6th–a Monday–Felicia was found at school unresponsive. She was ultimately pronounced dead two days later, cradled in the arms of her mother. Her death was ruled a suicide, with no suspicion of foul play.

  The (remaining) family is filing a lawsuit against the school district, its superintendent Robert Mungo, as well as the principal and faculty who knew about the systematic destruction of Felicia’s life and failed to offer any assistance. In fact, in the two weeks between her father’s death and her own, a supposed plan to adjust Felicia’s schedule to steer her away from potential assaults by her bullies when she was likely at her most vulnerable, failed to materialize.

  So life at the school is continuing as normal. In fact, the school’s homepage still bears an icon designating it as a “No Place for Hate” school by an arm of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

  They certainly don’t hate bullies at F. W. Holbein Elementary School. And the bullies are now in the seventh grade.

  (Sources: Burney, Melanie, “Family of 11-year-old who died by suicide say she was bullied”: Philadelphia Inquirer, November 3, 2023, page B1. Also F.W. Holbein website: https://holbein.mtholly.k12.nj.us/)

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• Make Your Word(s) Count

  Posted at 5:10 pm by kayewer, on October 28, 2023

  November marks the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a challenge in which participants attempt to write a 50,000 word story in 30 days. This is my attempt at completing it for the third consecutive year. I’ve kept with the tradition of the past two years by purchasing my official tee shirt saying I won, which will serve as an incentive while I work toward a daily word count of 1,667 (rounding up to avoid an evil number).

  Fortunately, in the past I have gone over my count on some days, while others prove more challenging, with appointments and events scattered through the month to interfere with typing time (not the least of which is Thanksgiving). As part of my self-care daily routine, I normally solve a variety of daily online puzzles. My landscaping requires sporadic watering until the first year is over (or in cases of rain or snow), and the leaves have waited until the end of October to demand my attention. I have also committed to a gettogether with some old friends on one weekend, and a second annual trip across state on another. This means I will be writing at some odd hours, at least for me. Some folks are staying up on Halloween until midnight to get an official jumpstart to the challenge, but that won’t be me.

  Meanwhile, my mind has been swimming with ideas waiting to be typed out, but I want those words to be part of my daily count, so instead of writing on my “when I think it, I write it” schedule, I’m suffering from an overstuffed brain until November 1.

  I could liken the feeling of unrequited word counts to a full clothes dryer lint trap stuffed with fire-hazard fluff which also prevents a thorough dryer heating experience. However, I clean mine after every load without fail. When a repair person had to come out to replace a drum belt on the dryer, he even commented on how clean my lint trap was.

  I can go to the great beyond knowing I had the cleanest and safest lint trap in the county.

  Instead I should compare the excess brain stuff to the clutter that I dealt with for a week before trash collection. If you recall, I missed trash day the previous week, so everything I planned to put out had to wait to be discarded a week later. My weekly trash is usually one bucket, one box and one bag, but this week it was no bucket, three boxes and two bags. What will the neighbors think?

  So I have been going through my days while living with the ideas for the start of my NaNoWriMo word count plucking at my brain; trying to mollify a complaining customer on my workplace computer while my protagonist has found a perfect reply to a secondary character’s question, and measuring cookie ingredients while the antagonist puts the heroine on the defensive. It’s a precarious load to balance.

  You may say that the solution is to handwrite it down somewhere. My problem as a writer is that my brain breaks the sound barrier on the Autobahn, while my hands write at the pace of a crippled snail. I would like to journal, but the end result would be like the Rosetta Stone; it would take ages to decipher. Even I can’t read some of what I’ve attempted to write down without intense concentration. My dreams will forever be lost to unreadable scribble.

  Once November rolls around, though, there will be no stopping me. My intention is to write enough to have the groundwork for three of my four stories drafted (book one is in the editing phase now).

  I can then spend December recovering. And doing more laundry.

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• Road Interrupted

  Posted at 4:40 pm by kayewer, on October 21, 2023

  Crews were laying pipes on our side street all week (the gas company is replacing old cast iron with more durable materials), and the disruption it has caused was more than just a minor inconvenience on occasion. The usual Monday through Friday routine would be affected by the necessary closures.

  My street had the privilege of getting a traffic signal a few years ago, so when the side street was closed off while the crews jackhammered their way through the fairly newer asphalt to dig up the pipes, one would simply head for the light and wait to make a turn.

  In an ideal world, that is.

  Several of the homes on the block house tenants on the second floor, adding to the usual parking woes on streets which were designed to hold one vehicle per house. The tenants usually obtain parking permits to be allowed to stay on the street overnight, but then the block becomes a one-way only thin strip of available navigation space.

  The other day, one of the bus company’s senior and handicapped vans was pulled over to allow a resident to board with their walker. The driver parked on an angle to allow space between the curb or driveway and the first step on the van, but in doing so, she made passing impossible. Queue a driver heading toward the traffic light, who became impatient at having to wait and did not want to do a k-turn (also known locally as a “U-ie”) and head the other way, so she began yelling at the driver and poor disabled person, who were working together to get in and get going.

  What alerted me to this chaos (since I was in my home office on the clock doing my job) was the sudden cacophony of raised voices coming from the street. I went to the door to check out what was happening, along with my neighbors next door, and I realized I was encountering my first Karen. She didn’t want a manager, however; she just wanted everybody to hop to it and get out of her way.

  I then saw my neighbor using the walker, with whom I’ve had little actual social contact, wave his hand at the instigator, flip the middle finger and start chanting “get lost” in so many words (I don’t think I need to spell it out). The scene was so deliciously bizarre; nobody of Boomer age would have considered thinking of that particular term, let alone using it aloud, in one’s prime. But here he was, letting her have it in classic dismissive style, arms waving while the walker remained on standby at the curb. The van driver then walked over to the lady’s window and started giving her a lecture about consideration for the elderly and infirm who depend on the transportation for therapy and some quality time in the company of others. I did not see the outcome, because my next door neighbor pulled us aside and discouraged us from being gawkers. He had a point, but had a fist flew at that car window, despite my total lack of experience in such things, I would’ve been over there in a flash. That did not appear to be necessary; in minutes the block was clear again.

  All this chaos because a side street was blocked.

  Normally, I set my trash out the morning of pickup, but this was the first week ever that it didn’t work for me: the waste management crew, who had apparently been alerted to the situation, came early, before I had even gotten dressed, and my trash didn’t make it to the curb in time.

  To add insult to injury, Mister Softee decided to take advantage of the nice weather to show up for an ice cream run. Fifteen minutes before dinner. I lay the blame upon the construction slowing down their route. So I missed trash collection, and I missed my ice cream. And I saw my first live Karen showdown.

  Those new pipes better work well until I leave this earth; I don’t want to go through all this again.

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• Recognition Versus Prevention

  Posted at 5:26 pm by kayewer, on October 14, 2023

  I saw something new in my social media pages; a shirt which has a message like this on the back:

  To the person behind me.
  Your life matters.
  Sincerely, the person in front of you.

  There are others as well, including one which says it’s okay to just do nothing in a day, suggesting that as long as you got through it, you’re okay and can pick up again tomorrow.

  All of this is designed to help with mental health or depression awareness, and lessen the staggering numbers of people who leave this world by their own hands.

  I don’t know if this works as it is supposed to.

  The person in front of you is allegedly a stranger, so they don’t know who you are. A depressed individual is more in need of validation from somebody familiar to them, from whom the sentiment matters. “You matter” from somebody you don’t know may have the same effect as, “That will be $10.98.”

  Our awareness and actions pertaining to depression and death by one’s own design don’t seem to be helping to lessen the numbers. In 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention noted a 2.6 percent increase in self-inflicted deaths, and in 2021 there was a five percent increase. Nearly 49,050 people left this earth in that manner last year.

  On the good news side of those statistics, young people ages 10 to 24 did not show up in the counts as much as before, and indigenous Indian deaths dropped by over six percent.

  There is a number, 988, staffed 24 hours a day for those in crisis, but do people who are that deeply depressed going to respond to a stranger’s reassurances? Once that phone call ends, the person is back where they started from; alone with demons determined to hold them hostage and ruin their lives.

  And no validation from somebody who matters to them.

  The cruelest thing we do to each other is ignore. We have trained ourselves via social media and the entertainment industry to embrace the perfection behind a ton of makeup and surgery, laugh at the foibles of the “plain” folks and avert our eyes at everything else. This goes for ugly things as well, such as our growing trash problem; if we don’t look at it, maybe it will go away, we think.

  Unfortunately, the things in life which are not our idealistic vision of perfection still exist, and they need tending to. The trash displacing our oceans will bring the tides up into our coastal residences, and the person we ignore just because they aren’t our ideal may end up departing this earth by themselves, or they may cause mayhem and hope the police will do it for them. People in pain need people to help alleviate that pain. This means taking the time to turn around and look at the person behind you and managing to say hello to them. That one word can make their lives matter much more than the throw-away saying on a shirt.

  It came from a human voice.

  It came from the heart.

  And both can walk away beating a little lighter because of it.

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• It’s Curtains

  Posted at 6:03 pm by kayewer, on October 7, 2023

  My sun porch is one step closer to modernization. The window installers swapped out the last of the original drafty wooden versions, which opened and closed via an inset chain, for the updated energy efficient versions which work with ease.

  The new windows naturally bring with them some other responsibilities, such as swapping out the old window treatments for newer ones. No woman on the planet allows a new set of windows to go without a makeover for the interior dressings. It simply isn’t in our code of womanly ethics.

  Fortunately I had the perfect ones for the job. A major purchase my mother made at a now-defunct department store became lost during some housekeeping, and were forgotten. I managed to find them as I was cleaning late last summer; they had fallen behind a cabinet and disappeared into a corner behind the draperies (which could also use an upgrade, since they operate on a pulley system). I waited for the entire window installation to be completed before the new treatments were put in.

  I can confidently say that the last time I had to use an iron and ironing board was during our last Republican administration. Nobody seems to need irons anymore. I needed one because these curtains were from the early 90s and had creases at least that old which had set in. Fortunately I had those and a can of sizing (which is apparently different from spray starch, the use of which has nearly completely passed into history). I spent over an hour pressing out those creases, then another half hour putting them onto the rods and installing them.

  It was worth the effort; the new treatments are sunnier and brighter.

  The next step is getting new window shades, which need new hardware installed, because somebody in their marketing wisdom decided to make the original design obsolete.

  After that, repainting (possibly), followed by shifting furniture around and turning the area into office space for me to assume my secret identity of blogger and hopeful novelist (when I don’t have my work computer set up during the weekday hours).

  When I’m finished, I should have something which will resemble a Zoom meeting background. Except my features won’t pixelate and there is no marvelous vista behind me; just a huge tree. I look forward to seeing the finished product and actually living inside it. It’s a small goal, but one which will be a joy to accomplish. At least I have curtains.

  Now, about those drapes. . . .

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• A Collection of Random Thoughts

  Posted at 5:12 pm by kayewer, on September 30, 2023

  I have offered some random thought blog posts in the past. Here is a list of some of the latest. See what you think about them.

  -For the fourth time in about ten years, I’ve gotten metal embedded in my tire. Our streets used to be free of such nuisances, but it seems that metal objects are on the loose out there. To my way of thinking, this could happen in only a few different ways: one is that construction vehicles and job sites, and the people working at them, inadvertently bring loose metal away with them, either rolling and sliding about their pickups’ beds or left by accident on any flat surface, and they’re forgotten. Workers may have nails in their pockets which can fall out. This is something which should be checked before leaving the work site. It might also be helpful if our municipal vehicles contained some type of magnetic device which could be used to pick up loose metal from the streets. I know that some construction jobs utilize a roller magnet to pick up debris, such as after installing roofing or siding. A thinner version could be mounted on the front of a truck or van much like a snow plow and simply be kept close enough to the ground to do the work. I’ll leave the invention of such an item to the pros.

  -It’s a general consensus that something which is created should also have a method of being destroyed. Normally this duty falls to the creator of the thing. So why aren’t we holding the plastics industry responsible for coming up with ways to eliminate the growing mountain of waste which will soon overwhelm us all, including their own future generations? Politicians are not scientists, after all. The inventors of plastic may go down in history as blameless nihilists who ruined Earth if they don’t take up the task and start doing something. The next time I throw out a container, I want to know it will be part of a wall for a temporary shelter when storm damage levels entire villages. I want to see laundry detergent bottles being refilled at the grocer via large tanks provided by the manufacturers; a QR or barcode would determine the amount of liquid to fill the bottle, and multiple refills, at reduced cost, are possible. A second Earth is not possible.

  -I’m waiting to see which side will win the water wars: the “I’ll put water in an insulated bottle” people or the “I’ll buy a case and bring a bottle with me.” I don’t know how people survived without constantly carrying water with them all these years. And now you need to add flavor because water tastes like. . .well, water. Oh yeah, that’s right: we had water fountains, often in public parks with plaques of dedication on them, and offices had water coolers and cone-shaped paper cups. We didn’t gulp 32 ounces, and we were still a healthy generation. When did that change?

  -America is ranked last in many aspects of education. This means we’re cranking out young citizens who actually know nothing. They can’t make change, read an analog clock or understand package directions. They don’t know who fought in the Civil War (the North/Union and South/Confederacy); even Black Americans aren’t learning this, which is flummoxing. Our teachers don’t make enough money to support their own children. Parents are fighting the system and actually advocating for just pushing those kids who fall behind through the system for the sake of vanity. Our school system should be year-round (with breaks in winter and summer and holidays, of course), should not simply mass promote anybody, and include remediation and alternative paths to learning, so that every child has learned the most they can from twelve years to find productive futures in society.

  -I haven’t gone to Target in a while, because over the summer a store near me fired an employee who tried to get some bike-riding kids out of the store and was assaulted. If a good deed is punished, and bad deed-doers are not, I can’t support a place that practices such backward philosophy.

  -I ordered a house number from the “sells everything website.” You know the one. I thought I was buying a single number, because the other numbers I had bought at deep discount were cleared out at the local hardware store and I was just missing the fourth. Heck, some numbers are more common and go out of stock faster, meaning the availability and price goes up, right? The quantity said just one, but had I clicked on the “More” carat, I would have seen that it was one set of five. Anybody want some numbers?

  -It was announced on social media that meatloaf will be going out of favor and probably won’t be seen at restaurants in the future, along with ambrosia salad and baked Alaska. Meatloaf is one of those polarizing foods which you either enjoy because you like the way it’s prepared, or loathed because you prefer your ground meats in buns with fries. My mother made a great meatloaf using onions, eggs, bread crumbs, and tomato sauce on top. That loaf went into Sunday dinner, then leftovers and at least one sandwich between two slices of bread with horseradish. I never had either of the desserts, but I will make meatloaf until I can no longer cook.

  -The weather is changing, and with it, the pajama wars are on. This week it may be heavy long sleeves, and next week it’s shorts and tank tops. So do we call this Indian Summer or early Autumn? Whatever it is, it’s hard to get good sleep when you sweat one night and freeze the next. The prepared sleeper carries two types of bedding and changes them as the need arises. I did find a nice cooling blanket that really works, and the warm quilts are on standby. Mother Nature, let me know when you break out your parka.

  I’ll show myself out and take the soapbox with me.

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• Sock It to Me, Socrates

  Posted at 5:42 pm by kayewer, on September 23, 2023

  Emotions have been extremely fragile these past few years, mostly due to our endurance of endless isolation, adaptation to new norms and having to deal with the bombardment of misinformation and mental noise from the media. If we could go back to the days of the great philosophers, we might experience some true common sense.

  The world seems to have become one big junior high school locker room experience. Everybody seems to enjoy throwing insults at the “other guys,” with a variety of creative negative monikers thrown in among the half-truths and hearsay. When the second party doesn’t fight back, they’re called cowards. That’s one of the problems with hurtful language, when you’re judged not by whether the accusations mean anything or are remotely true, but by whether you have a better comeback.

  I wasn’t much for comebacks when I was hurt or insulted in high school, which was a lot. I had acne, which was treated like bubonic plague. I also preferred to smile, which many took as a challenge to beat me into subdued misery. I was despised for knowing the answer, ridiculed for being on top of the day’s events, and dismissed because I managed to find a comfort zone of dress style which walked a line between fashionable and respectable. Sometimes, decades after school ended, I can still see clearly in my memory the images of some of my tormentors as they came up with the top insults which live on a chart, like a Top 40 of hurtful phrases, rent free in my head, probably for life.

  One of my social media friends has been in and out of the “broken rules penitentiary” several times for being naughty with many posts, but a recent entry he posted actually did me a world of good, and I managed to shrug off the burden of those long-ago insults.

  It was a brief post about Socrates.

  The famous Western philosopher and teacher (circa 470-399 BC) did not write anything down himself, but his followers recorded much of his teachings. His ideas are relevant now, and we could learn a thing or two from him. He didn’t teach in schools or wear the latest fashions: the people then wore togas. They did, however, write about simple ideas in life, and some of it has made its way to social media.

  In this particular entry, somebody in Athens was insulting Socrates, who merely smiled and did not engage the person. An aristocrat asked him why he tolerated such insults, and Socrates lead him to a warehouse where he located a ragged cloak, offered it and told the aristocrat that it suited him. The man was confused and wondered if the great philosopher was mad to offer such a filthy garment. Socrates told the aristocrat that just as he would not wear the cloak, so he himself would not wear the insults because they did not suit him. He posed the question, “When someone gives you something you don’t want, and you don’t accept it, who owns the rejected gift? Being sad and angry at the insults of others is like agreeing to wear the rags they throw away.”

  Is anybody worthy of insults, such as the store clerk being berated by a Karen who unloads their negativity onto others to bear? Is anybody more or less human than somebody else? Do insults matter?

  When you examine what this world truly is, you realize that we are all “somebody else.” We all matter.

  Also, as Socrates said, our greatest gift is the knowledge that we actually know nothing. Somebody who insults us knows nothing about whom they are insulting. It does not suit the recipient, then, to be affected in any way by it. When we master our emotions, we don’t project anything onto others in a negative way. Our calm can project calm, in turn, in a positive way. We can smile and walk away, and the insult means nothing. It belongs to nobody.

  After reading this worthy post from a (I hope) reformed social media acquaintance, I managed to take a cleansing breath and shake away decades of insults living on my consciousness like cobwebs. They don’t suit me. The persons who said them knew nothing.

  I do know that this simple way of looking at life is worth our attention, especially today. If we go beyond the noise of the media, the banter of politicians and the permissiveness of misinformation, we can get back to the basics of life. We could all be like Socrates.

  Just without the togas.

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• Final Tally

  Posted at 4:57 pm by kayewer, on September 16, 2023

  I have accumulated over 150 days without television. One morning as I prepared for my commute from the living room to my work computer yards away, I decided not to subject myself to another repeat of the select episodes the cable network deemed fit to rerun (which seems to be about fifty out of over a dozen seasons), with the same half dozen commercials from their highest-paying sponsors (the ad for constipation relief repeats in my brain rent-free as it is). With the exception of the occasional favorite movie franchise marathon and one or two beloved shows still in continuous renewal, after a lifetime of television, the flat screen has been silent.

  This often means I don’t select anything on television as background, not even music stations. It also means hours of blissful quiet in which I do my daily job and enjoy my own thoughts. Despite not watching the evening news, I’ve still managed to stay ahead of the daily events with two local newspapers and an extra on the weekends. The weekend edition features a Saturday quiz which I can score nearly all correctly. The papers enable me to read the comics (which is light humor), “Dear Abby” (which is good solid modern-day advice) and possibly catch a recipe which does not require ten gadgets and ingredients which only come from specialty shops.

  Television used to be a source of joyful entertainment, except for the evening news when a correspondent would report a story from a battle’s front lines. When “reality” television began, the novelty lasted for a while, but soon it degraded into a contest to find a more shocking piece of recording to top the last one.

  The talk shows have lost their best hosts, as evidenced by how many people attempt to launch one and fail spectacularly within months. I remember Phil Donahue, Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore; those were talk show hosts who set the bar on quality.

  It seems cooking shows have apparently lost their grounding. I just watched a clip on social media in which a Filipino watched Rachael Ray in shock as she went outside the norms of his homeland’s cuisine and prepared a dish that contained elements not part of any family table. Her preparation of rice for the dish alone brought stunned indignation. If cooks can’t make a genuine dish on television, what else can’t we believe?

  Of course I have watched some Food Network, and remember when they had basic shows with such cute titles as “How to Boil Water.” Now it’s the Chef’s Battle Network interspersed with elimination competitive shows featuring a yard sale table population of unique individuals who either feel they can Beat Bobby Flay or burn down their own kitchen (Worst Cooks in America).

  Meanwhile the networks are now picking up shows from cable networks, such as CBS obtaining the Paramount hit Yellowstone. The striking writers are causing all the networks to scramble to find replacement programming, as they and the studios are engaged in their own version of Dr. Seuss’ “Butter Battle Book” standoff; each side faces the other and refuses to budge, and the world waits.

  Well, not me. Since the television has been mostly off, I have been enjoying the peace and silence. My life still causes stress, but I don’t have to go anyplace to collect my thoughts. And my aged television, which is still under warranty and received a transplanted motherboard, may last me until the networks bring me something worth watching.

  There is an actual website presenting the challenge to not watch television for a week (the next is scheduled for May 2024). That’s 168 hours. I’m over 3600 hours in.

  And I know how to cook rice.

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• Holding On

  Posted at 4:56 pm by kayewer, on September 9, 2023

  I have gone through a good half dozen cell phones in my lifetime; my first came in 2000 and was about as useful as a fridge in the Arctic tundra. Over the years my phone has gotten better and smarter. As in smarter than its owner. Which is rather scary.

  Phones used to come with a complete, detailed instruction manual, charging hardware and a year’s supply of headache remedy. Back then, one would become acclimated to the basics of the phone and go to the manual when something difficult came up, as in how to make the darned thing ring louder, how to tell all the junk notifications to go jump in the lake, or how to make the battery last more than twenty minutes.

  More on that later.

  My old reliable phone, which turned six this year, finally became not only outdated, but incapable of supporting software I needed for work. I received sympathetic support from the IT team, but the truth was that I needed a new phone just to get updated software. Being familiar with computers going obsolete from the past, I sighed and began searching for my new ball and chain.

  The website pointed me to an authorized retailer some forty minutes from home, which was odd because I have at least four of them within a quarter hour from me. Further drilling down the rabbit hole of “availability near you” produced a hit at one of my favorite locations, so I jumped into the car and went there brimming with hope.

  When I arrived, I spoke to a pleasant team member who proceeded to tell me that the model phone I wanted actually was not in stock there. Naturally my next question was where else it might be in stock, and this is where the issues plaguing today’s life became real: for security purposes, the employees were forbidden to tell customers whether an item was in stock. This is an effort to discourage declaring open season for potential malcontents and Karens who might pay a visit to the store to wreak havoc. I was informed, however, that the store to which he was sending me was their definition of a full-service location, so they would be most likely to have something for me.

  Suddenly I had visions of the small and larger K-Mart stores dancing in my memory; the smaller places might lack certain perks like an auto shop, while the larger ones were easier to get lost in. I made a turn down an aisle once and found the entrance to the auto shop; I had been looking for the garden center.

  But I digress.

  Off to the second location–which was closer to home by miles–I drove. Yes, the new pleasant team member said, he can get that model from the back. Off he went, and came back later with what I can best describe as a Tiffany style presentation of my new phone, which came in a large, roomy box about twice its actual size, and with a case and screen protection brought over to seal the bargain.

  Everything seemed ready to go until we got to the plan I was on. My plan was eligible for the phone, but not the phones they had in the store. This is where I became the subject of the “locked phone blues.” A locked device is apparently limited to certain plans. The team member then directed me to go across the street to the shopping center and buy an unlocked version of the phone from the big blue and yellow retail guys, then bring the purchase to them to have the phones switched over.

  Going to the familiar retailer, I received my new unlocked phone, in a generic tight fitting white box. Proof again that the price of freedom from restriction can sometimes be drained of joy as well. Little matter; as long as it was a new device and did what I needed, that was more important.

  I took the old and new devices back to the cellular retailer, and my third pleasant team member spent nearly half an hour–part of the time hampered by French tips which make touch screens and tiny access port holes unnavigable–transferring the data from Old Reliable to the newbie device. When it was finished, I also received advice on how to wipe the old phone and dispose of it (not there). I packed everything into my handy expandable tote (plastic bags are banned in my region, so it’s bring your own) and went home.

  That was when I found out that my device comes with a charging cable, but no adaptor and only a quick start-up guide. No manual. And no headache remedies.

  Fortunately I found that my tablet enables me to charge the phone with the cable, so I spent the evening engaged in social media with an extra cord winding its way from the output port to my new phone, while I ordered an adaptor from the big blue and yellow retail guys to pick up on a second trip.

  In all it took me five stops, two days and a few hundred dollars to put things right. The end result is that my new phone updated the work related software, and it has a charge that has lasted longer than before.

  This phone better last me another six years.

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