Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Computer equipment irks me. The various gizmos I need to work every day are becoming too numerous. When I was in the office, my laptop was tethered to a docking station beneath a dual monitor arm holding two screens, and my keyboard and mouse were hooked up to the dock instead of the USB ports on the laptop. It was a perfect setup.

Once I packed up to work from home back in March, I took the laptop and power cord with me, because I already had a wireless keyboard and mouse to go with them (I use them for meetings away from the office), and I figured that, for a couple of months, I could make do with one monitor screen.

So much for that idea. We are now if our eighth month of home office Hades, and the management felt it was time to set me and my other crew mates up for remote phone access. Since the laptop has only two USB ports, and one of them will be for the headphones, that causes a problem.

Today I traveled to the office, for only the second time since March, to pick up my docking station. I’m not an IT person, but I figured there had to be a logic to taking down and assembling a workstation, so I was determined to figure it out.

There is nothing more daunting than looking at a mess of power cords, especially when they’re out of reach, and these were delicately woven into the arm of the dual monitor stand in such a way as to make them obscured from view for aesthetics and, therefore, impossible to disassemble without prior knowledge of the equipment or the owners manual. I ended up unplugging everything and then checking out the layout on another station that I could actually look at (with a flashlight, because the department lights were out).

I never knew I could still contort myself at my age.

After figuring out what plugged into where, I packed up the docking station. I then had to also pack up a pile of catalogs which had come in the mail. I had ordered one or two things to ship to the office, and that mistake caused every catalog in the country to catch onto where I was. Those will be examined for address labels and then discarded for recycling, plus I’ll have to contact them to say I’m not there right now. You’d think they could have figured that out.

Lastly, I checked out the boss’ tree. It was a sad and drooping thing, because it doesn’t get the benefits of interior lighting and the maintenance crew was apparently over-watering it. I drained its pot, and part of the liquid landed on my trouser leg.

I drove home with a smelly pant leg reeking of brackish old plant water, a bag with my docking station and a bunch of old catalogs, and the feeling that I’ll be doing more contortions putting my expanded workstation together in the days to come than I could ever want.

By the end of this, I may have a degree in IT.

The year ends in 61 days. Election Day is also upon us, so this year has a curtain of doom over it like no other year past. Many people await the end of one or more ill-received things by December 31, such as 2020 or the current presidential administration or the pestilence. There has certainly been a thing or two to not like about this year, and the depression has grown month to month like a creeping terror threatening to devour us all. The Blob that is 2020 creeps along, unstoppable except by time. And unlike the one Steve McQueen battled, we have not come up with a secret weapon.

December 31 will arrive whether we notice or not. Also, January 20 will arrive whether we’re happy about it or not. Whomever’s hand is on that Bible on inauguration day, 2021 will plod along, and we’re in for the ride.

I was glad to see Halloween come. I put out pre-packaged bags of treats (with and without chocolate for diet diverse kids), and they disappeared promptly. I didn’t hover to watch who took what, but I hope that everybody was honest and took one bag each. It seems people have not been so honest lately, probably because we have seen so much dishonesty from places where we expect to see integrity and decency. However, we know better than to follow bad examples, but some folks choose to take the bad way.

The disease which is devouring the population of the world will come to an eventual end, whether it’s because our scientists finally find a vaccine or it simply runs its natural course and finds nobody else to infect. Meanwhile, we are exposed to everyday people having public meltdowns over being asked to cover their mouths and noses with a mask. If you watch these wildly gesticulating numbskulls in action, it’s obvious they’re afraid beyond reason, making them desperate to be right about there not being a medical emergency at all. I’m sure psychologists are having a field day about this.

If Heaven has a bar, I’m sure God sidles up and belts down a few at least once a day, and the angels sing tons of inspiring shanties to try to cheer Him up. It can’t be joyous up there watching us all going through what we have down here.

And it is our doing, after all.

We picked who is in the big seat in the big building in our nation’s capital. And we became lax about keeping our planet cleaned up. We’re paying for it now; the high and the low, black and white, guilty and innocent.

Whatever caused this disease, it will see an end. Whomever we vote into office, we must deal with the future their way.

When 2021 comes, whatever happens, we’re all going to be part of it.

Defining a blanket is harder these days, because somebody came out with a weighted blanket, so that changes things. In the realm of bedding we have comforters, coverlets, bedspreads, quilts, throws and blankets. All of them are designed to go on top of you when you’re sleeping, and try to decorate the bed neatly when you’re away, just in case a lifestyle magazine photographer stops by.

I originally bought the weighted blanket for my mother, but it wasn’t the right fit for her. After keeping it stored away for a while, I finally took it out and put it on my new bed, which just arrived after over a month of waiting (you may remember I ordered it on Labor Day weekend).

The new bed is an adventure, because it’s much higher than my old mattress set. It seems the manufacturers decided to make beds the height of a small hill, and for the average human it requires climbing into. My feet don’t touch the floor anymore! The old sheets are too shallow to fit, so my collection of nice bedding is obsolete. But I have handled these issues, with new sheets, and a foot stool on order from Amazon. So getting into and out of bed will become akin to mounting and dismounting from the examining table in the doctor’s office.

This new innovative blanket is weighted with glass beads which add (in my case) fifteen pounds to it, but some weigh less or slightly more; the idea is that a blanket which weighs about ten percent of your body weight provides comfortable pressure which aids in sleep. Studies seem to indicate that feeling the heft of the blanket can reduce anxiety and help produce natural chemical reactions which speed getting to sleep.

The first night I put it on, I felt its pressure on me and wasn’t sure if it would be comfortable, but I did fall asleep and stay asleep for hours. That’s a good point in its favor.

The bad point is that it slides. All my sheets seem to slide now. And I know it isn’t an overuse of moisturizer because no matter how much I put on, my skin slurps it up. There is a unique sound when a weighted blanket plummets to the floor, rather like a small thud. Though not so loud as if I fell out of bed. Which I may do at least once on this new bed, because it’s so darned high. The house might shake with that thud.

The blanket is really dead weight, too. Sort of like a dog when they don’t want to go to the vet, and they get so rigid they seem to gain ten pounds, or that they seem to be glued to the ground.

Picking up a weighted blanket is a different experience, too. Any other bed cover is just fluff and bulk; this thing oozes out of your arms and doesn’t take well to containment. I’m reluctant to try laundering it yet, because I think my washer will not like it. My washer is ancient, but sturdy, and hearkens back to the days of shallow beds and sheets. I suppose I should throw it in and stand by in case I experience the uneven load dance my washer may do if things don’t go well.

So I’ve upgraded and adapted with a new bed and new accessories, and my sleep seems to have benefited from it. Small price to pay for staying healthy. If I don’t plummet to the ground.

My TV is eight years old, but it’s been reliable through staying at home in a quiet house on a quiet block while working every day. Recently I had the warranty folks come by and look at it because it had an issue, and they replaced the motherboard. This means I’ll have the TV for another few years at least. By the time I replace it, two hundred models will have become obsolete.

Lately, however, I’ve only watched a half dozen networks out of the hundreds on my cable. Sure I get the standard channels, but somehow they have even managed to resume sports broadcasting on at least ten of them. Sorry, I don’t watch college football, and by avoiding pro sports I hope to give our home teams a shot at winning a few games (or at least they might lose by fewer points).

Some networks just don’t suit me. I wouldn’t watch true crime, and I can’t process spreadsheets and learn to cook at the same time (my Food Network viewing is nights only). Hallmark has a few networks, but I can’t do an emotional workout and type at the same time.

In the afternoons, once the music networks become a bit much, I try to tune in animal shows, so then my favorite networks are Animal Planet and Nat Geo Wild. The wildlife and vet shows don’t command my attention while I’m working. In the afternoons I listen, more than watch, The Incredible Dr. Pol, and the show’s narrator, Ari Rubin, manages to make the programs seem like I’m listening to radio. Of course it’s unlikely that anybody could obtain a veterinarian’s license just by watching multiple seasons of a vet show, but in these past several months of isolation I have seen Dr. Jan Pol do some amazing things with animals of all kinds, and on occasion I find I can accurately “diagnose” the problem.

Naturally the layout of the show is such that a regular viewer would likely predict a type of case within a minute or two anyway, but it’s interesting to play an occasional round of “Guess the Ailment.” Cows in particular are a fun challenge. Apparently their anatomy can do strange things like one of their stomachs twisting itself over, necessitating a procedure called a “flip and stitch.” It is what it sounds like: the vet and a few strong hands lay the cow down, turn them over to un-kink the stomach, then put a needle through the hide into the stomach so it’s anchored to the skin and won’t overturn a second time.

And don’t get me started on prolapses or using a weird device to ratchet a calf out of a mother cow having labor issues, not to mention pet emergencies in the aftermath of fights or tangles with porcupines, and occasional abscesses. My after-work evening fare has included Dr. Pimple Popper on TLC, so if a horse has a lump filled with pus, it’s just like Dr. Sandra Lee working on a human with a skin disorder. Bring on the gross footage! I’ve got a few hours until dinner.

Some people may wonder why these shows are so popular. Probably due to the aspects of life we don’t get to see. Sure it’s edited and carefully packaged for television viewers, but we don’t have what our grandparents had: documentary short films in the cinema such as “The March of Time,” or looks into everyday suburban life imparting life lessons. That was then: now we have vets on camera.

I’ve also listened in on Game Show Network, enjoyed the narration of Mike Rowe as he performs another Dirty Job and tried to not raise my blood pressure with the news. The sounds coming from my television help mark the hours and half hours, and I learn things while getting my work done.

I’m glad my reliable old TV will teach me about pets and livestock. Not that I’m planning to put on a glove and explore the inside of a cow after dinner.

Amazon’s rich: I’m broke. In fact, I have so many merchants who are happy to see my online presence, this year has turned into the year of supplies. It’s not toilet paper, since I bought a multi-pack back in February and am still little more than halfway through it. It’s not food, because I’ve managed to shop every week during the “special” early morning hours (or, as they put it, the elderly and immune compromised). As I’ve been sorting, cleaning and removing clutter, I’ve found some things that had long outgrown their usefulness, so I had to restock.

Today I think I finally finished, having gone to the “all mart” and gotten a new hand-held vacuum. When I entered the living room this afternoon, I found my carpet filled with tiny natural hitchhikers from outdoors: twigs, dead grass, seeds which came unstuck from the bottom of my shoes. Breaking out the big canister, with the long hose and unbalanced stick attachment, was low on the exciting list for me, somewhere between cleaning the fish tank and the toilet. Actually, with beta fish, the fish tank is also the toilet. But I digress.

Now I have what I will call (to avoid trademark trouble with “White and Docker”) the crumb collector. It looks like it has everything from a brush attachment to a crevice tool, and it beats having to stand in front of a wall of Hoovers, Sharks and Dysons and try to figure it out on the fly. If I want to go that route, I’ll consult the monthly product testing magazine first. That’s smart shopping, better than picking a model from a display wall.

Actually, the crumb collector was on a display wall: I went with the name and reputation.

Some things one just can’t buy in a store anymore, such as landline phone cords (believe me, I need to keep that until either it or I go obsolete). That’s where Amazon comes in. I did indulge in a Prime membership, so I have reasons to spend more money there. On the plus side, they have darned near everything and ship fast.

They should: I pay a monthly fee for that.

A commercial for financial services features a woman saying she needs to put less in the cart and more into savings. That is what the rest of the year will be for me, since I’ve already shopped about three holidays ahead.

Except the food, which goes into a real cart.

I can’t get a mattress! The day before Labor Day, I took advantage of a mattress sale at one of the major specialty chains. It was great to get out of the house, even if it’s still necessary to mask up and be alert for body language outside of normal facial expressions. My sales associate was helpful, but didn’t hover, as I tried out some reasonably priced displays. When I finally settled on the one that felt the best, my hope was that I would soon alleviate my back pain on a nice, comfy new bed.

Unfortunately, not only do we have trouble sleeping these days, but it’s hard to find something to have trouble sleeping on.

It seems the manufacturers have fallen behind in supplying the demand for new bedding, and truckloads of mattresses and box springs cannot meet the back orders or special orders such as mine. For the third time in a row, my associate called to tell me that my order didn’t arrive. A truck finally did come this past week, but mine wasn’t on it.

Maybe my mattress took the right turn at Albuquerque, and Bugs Bunny has it now.

It’s not as if the things are made of harvested grass, straw or feathers as in the olden days, but what is holding up production is a combination of shut-down factories, from the basic components to the assembly lines, and reduced staff to release inventory already in stock.

The recommendation is to replace a mattress every five to seven years, so mine is definitely overdue. In ten years, a mattress can gain dead skin, traces of sweat or body oils, as well as dust mites (and possibly their droppings), and succumb to our daily (or nightly) abuse as we toss and turn on them and other, to put it politely, activities. Hope may spring eternal, but mattress springs don’t last forever.

So I’ve already paid the bill, and am making do with my old standby mattress, but my associate, feeling rather unhappy about the situation, says he will call me again mid-week about what to do going forward. This delay is certainly not his fault, so I don’t feel inclined to cancel the order. It’s a matter of waiting it out.

The dust mites’ days are still numbered.

I started the weekend by baking bread. Sure I have done banana bread, but that is a different type, requiring no time or effort for the actual creation. After seeing an article by a food editor who took her first shot at bread, and reading about how many 2020 shut-ins emptied the grocery shelves of bread-making staples, it was a necessary project.

Like Charlton Heston as Moses, I was compelled to do it.

At least I had some of the essentials, such as all-purpose or AP flour, salt, running water and nearly all the cooking hardware. The grocery store provided yeast, and the store I always call the “Three Bs” (Bed, Bath & Beyond) yielded a big dutch oven and a scale. Now that I have a dutch oven I can put inside another oven and heat to 450 degrees to bake bread, I figure I can also make chili for a family of ten (or bag nine servings for leftovers). It’s an investment I can will to charity when I die.

First thing I did was review a video of a no-knead recipe. Taking out the most complicated part of bread dough seemed a good idea for my first try, because under- or over- handling can result in disaster. It was then I found out a scale wasn’t necessary because the recipe is known to be very forgiving. Still, it’s good to have once I venture into more complex recipes in which measuring to the gram is a must, like for cloud bread (seems easy, but I blew three attempts).

I then timed out my adventure. Since I had to let the dough rise for twelve hours or more, I started the night before, measuring flour, salt, yeast and water, then plunging my ultra-clean hands into the handy bowl and swishing the combination around. Turns out I needed more water, which I parceled out in little splashes until I had a concoction somewhere between glue and wet cement. Into the bowl it went, with a covering of plastic wrap.

Amazingly, I slept well overnight.

Next day I approached the bowl, and there was a beautiful round mass of risen perfection. It clung to the bowl, drooping sideways while tendrils hung on for dear life. I encouraged it onto a floured counter and folded it onto itself before letting it sit again.

Finally I placed my humongous dutch oven in. . . .what I guess is my American oven, and heated it to 450 degrees. When it was ready and I opened the door, the heat was intense. Quickly I fetched the bowl and attempted again to turn out the dough. It stuck to my hand like mud on a Sunday dress, but I asserted my authority and plopped it into the center of the dutch oven. As I suspected, my new cooking device was larger than called for, but it was a choice between going one size smaller or one size bigger, and believe me I know better than to go down a size.

Thirty minutes later, as I opened the oven door and took the cover off, I had a brown and round loaf of bread looking up at me. Now came a problem: it looked ready, but the recipe called for another 15 minutes uncovered. I went for ten, took it out and was glad I did. The top was deep brown, just short of black. So onto the burner it went, and the bread finally went to the cooling rack, with not a hint of a singe.

Anxiously I took a cooling slice and spread butter on it, then split the remainder in half and bagged them for later. The flavor was simple, warm and inviting. Plans for sandwiches or chili swam in my head.

I had done it. I had baked bread.

Next time it’ll be wheat, or kneaded. It’s something I’m compelled to do.

Two bags of shredded paper; that’s what I have after clearing through some paperwork from awhile back. I hadn’t realized the papers were there until I picked up a box and looked inside. It was hiding among forgotten clothing donations. Some of it was nine years old, so I knew it had to go.

But wait! These days you can’t just throw stuff out. As it is, one has to recycle plastics (I’ve figured out how to remember which numbers in the little triangles are okay to put out for rebirth as new stuff: just remember using the bathroom, and “number one” and “number two” go in the bucket, while everything else is trash), so papers of any kind have to undergo some scrutiny as well.

Anything with a name and address on it gets shredded, as does anything with an account number, a reference to private matters or involving money. That’s a lot of stuff to sort, but I still managed to fill an extra bag of non-shredded paper for trash pickup, and there may be one or two more before the week is over.

The shredder has, thankfully, been cooperative. During the sorting process I managed to find some remnants of the past, such as three sheets of address labels I can still use, a few photos I had written off as missing, and pages of my novel manuscript which I had transcribed from a critique session.

In the trash are cellophane windows from envelopes, staples, a few desiccated rubber bands (have you noticed that they don’t hold up for long these days?) and miscellany not suited to anyplace else.

The experience left me feeling content in having rid myself of unnecessary clutter, as well as nostalgic while going over some old times.

Now I have new projects, like putting the found photos in an album and figuring out where to store the manuscript pages. It’s a constant adventure, which is why they call it recycling.

My scale at home hasn’t changed whenever I step on it, but yesterday I saw the doctor, and her scale put on seven more pounds! The nurse said that it might be off, but maybe she was just trying to make me feel better. If it’s off, is my scale correct? If it’s right, my scale might be broken. Either way, I didn’t like the number I saw. It puts me in a different clothing size.

Just when you fill your closet with beautiful stuff just the way you like it, you need to start all over again.

No, I won’t go to that extreme. I have to check my scale first. This means getting something with a known weight, stepping on and then subtracting what I weigh from what the total weight is with the new object, or something like that. Maybe the thing, being a good 25 years old or so, needs to be re-calibrated or tossed. This takes some scientific processing to figure out, and which I didn’t have time to do today. I did walking today, and some housework taking me up and down stairs with heavy objects like my super-sucking vacuum.

I do exercise; my scale just doesn’t care. It tells me that my calorie counting and efforts to balance my work like in a chair with physical activity amounts to nothing.

Nothing, however, might be good. At least I wouldn’t see my weight go up, even if it doesn’t go down. But that scale in the doctor’s office suggests I could feed a family of four starving zombies, or one great white shark for a week. That’s fattened-for-slaughter predator fodder. How depressing.

At least, I say to comfort myself, I have not gone too far as many people have done. Sugar content and fat are my watch points, with sodium coming in a close third. After having the same breakfast and lunch every day for this entire home restriction, moving my deserts all week to after lunch so I don’t sit around on extra calories at night when I’m tired, and avoiding sodas and snacking, have produced no positive, but also no negative, results, unless you look at the scale in that office.

So somebody is lying, but at least I haven’t lied to myself.

If things stay even, I’m happy. So many people gain as they age, and many are gaining because food is the only comfort in confinement. So I’m proud of what I have managed to do.

And if my scale is broken, do I really have to buy a new one?

The movies are coming back. They’re the first part of normalcy to take place in a large multi-seat auditorium (Broadway and other events are still either closed or playing without live audiences), so folks do seem nervous about returning and enjoying the entertainment. The news media covered local re-openings, and there were no lines outside the box office. It didn’t matter to me. I’m going. I have my mask, my anti-bacterial gel and a clean bill of health, so better to go now and enjoy while the place is still relatively germ-free (and before they possibly shut down again–heaven forbid–when the crowds start to gather in time for the Friday feature).

I have been anxiously awaiting the trailer for Dune, which is scheduled to open in December in time for the holidays, so when I heard that it would probably be running with whatever was being shown in early September, I grabbed the opportunity to do dinner and a movie. I picked the latest big budget movie called Tenet for my first venture into a post-shutdown film. Got two movie tickets.

Unfortunately it will turn out to be a solo date for me, myself, and I. And the process of refunding one ticket.

My movie friend finally got back to work, and she sadly noted that she will be leaving work for the evening just when the movie is starting. My other friend, a neighbor, picked up a throat infection and is having too much trouble concentrating on eating, drinking and trying to sleep without discomfort for sharing any enthusiasm about a movie. Her whole holiday weekend is likely shot.

That’s happened before when Mulan was canceled. I had the tickets and we were ready to go, when everything shut down. It’s deja view at the movies. I can’t seem to get a chance to go with somebody to anything lately.

I had the chance to reserve my luxury recliner chair at the theater, so I picked our favorite seat location. The seating around me (which would’ve been us) appears to be empty, so I may well find myself sitting in a nearly barren auditorium, or with the next patron seated in the nosebleed section too far away to matter. It will probably seem like watching a DVD at home, except more expensive and with a lingering smell of popcorn in the air.

Once I sat with my movie friend for an opera broadcast of Carmen, and we were alone in the house because of a soaking thunderstorm. Not to mention a seeming lack of joy for such performance art on a big screen on a weekday evening. We had a ball anyway.

The restaurants opened up to a quarter capacity for indoor dining, too, so it will be dinner and a movie for one. Indoors at a table. Imagine that. No outdoor tables with umbrellas, heat and insects. Actually sitting at a restaurant and being served a meal. And by myself. No party of two for me.

But I am anticipating this one will be a ball anyway, because it’s closer to normal. Soon it will be that way for all of us. And I’ll tip well.