Here again

It is only through stubbornness that I force myself to write this.  It is hard to overcome the habit of NOT posting here which has become my default position.  I have excuses, of course.  A lot of legal hocus pocus has been going on; strictly speaking, it is not my personal business, so I won't expand on it.  Then the computer broke down--a good excuse and one I have taken maximum advantage of.

I had the computer set up perfectly; my laptop was jury rigged to connect to my gigantic monitor, speakers, and a mouse.  I haven't reassembled the monster yet; just using the laptop as, of all things, a laptop.  Anyway, there was Thanksgiving.  Then the plumber was   needed.  My right foot developed a sore spot.  Then I turned my left ankle.  My iPhone stopped working.  Something got stuck in the sink disposal unit, requiring another visit from the plumber.  Then the cable television stopped working.  Then I had to take Mr Charm for cataract surgery.  Then I dropped the cordless phone   for the land line and destroyed it. Next, a flat tire.  None of these is a tragedy, they all happen to everyone, but not all at once.

Oliver Sachs says he cannot recognize faces, even of people he has known a long time.  He also gets lost.  I am so glad to learn  that someone else shares these weaknesses with me.  I lived in New Jersey for 28 years and never really found my way around.  Fortunately, I now have a GPS.  I recognize people, sort of, but can't remember who they are, exactly.  After an ahah moment, I recall who they are.  But I am hell on recognizing cars.

I remember my car, in general.  That is, I know it is white, four-door, has a sun roof and a spoiler and a rubber antenna.  I just don't know what it looks like.  So the other day I walked up to a car that looked pretty much like mine, clicked the unlock button, and it didn't light up.  I got in anyway and noted with pleasure that it was cleaner than I had remembered.  Then I looked at the dashboard and discovered that it was a Toyota.  I had gotten into the wrong car!  I quickly exited.  Why does everyone have white cars anyway?  What's up with that?

Midnight snack

When I was a little girl and my father was still living with us, he and I used to enjoy a certain snack together. Here's what it was: a sandwich consisting of a sliced fresh tomato with sugar on it between two slices of buttered white bread. It was delicious! I've been thinking a lot of my dad lately. He died in April. I thought about things we had done together. There weren't that many of them. I remembered how he had taught me to swim and to fish. I remember that he brought me home a typewriter when I was in second grade and found it hard to write cursive. Ad I remembered the midnight snack we used to share. So I got some nice white bread, buttered it, sliced a tomato and put sugar on it, and made a sandwich. It was pretty good. But not as good as it had been when I was a little girl and my father was still living with us.

News flash

From my inbox: it's not too later to sign up for the Delaware DEmentia Conference! THank God!

COmputer trouble

Either the computer or my brain is broken. Still trying to figure it out. All my bright ideas occur when the computer isn't working, and I can no longer remember what they are. One nice thing did happen, though-I sold a painting! My faithful réaders will her more from me anon, when I get Used to this iPad. If ever.

Pitcher and wallpaper

Snow scene

A modest proposal

The State of Delaware is subsidizing a fuel cell plant in a novel way:  customers of  Delmarva Power will pay an additional sum on their monthly bills--perhaps $1.00 a month--for 21 years.

Perhaps the citizens of Delaware might come up with more worthwhile projects that need to be subsidized. Wait--one taxpayer has a suggestion, from a letter to the editor of the local paper:

My terra cotta sewer line just died after 50-plus years of service. This is going to cost a large amount of money that I don't have laying around. So I came up with a solution -- a 5 cent tax on all New Castle county sewer users added to their bills. This could be a one-time tax. Then I can get back to using my sewer line and keep the economy flowing so to speak. Delmarva Power does it. Banks get bail outs. Why would anybody have a problem with this?

Perhaps, when they have finished with that, they might like to upgrade my kitchen?

Occupying the weather

My prediction:  the Occupy (name of Northern city) movement will last until the first, or maybe the second, really rotten stormy day.  When the leaves have all fallen and are being blown around by fierce winds and driving rain, all these people will go home.  Anybody want to occupy Cleveland when the wind comes roaring down from Canada?  Remember the sunshine patriot and the summer soldier.

The ones in Florida, California, and Texas will stay put for a while.

Thief

A few years ago, my elderly uncle, who lived alone and was in poor health, needed an aide to help him with daily tasks.  The family was lucky enough to get Lisa, a graduate student.  She was a wonderful caretaker, caring and compassionate; we all said that she saved Ed's life.

Ed then moved into assisted living, and when he wrote a check, the bank returned it.  He had insufficient funds.  Lisa had emptied his bank account.

But she was such a warm, caring person!

The scenario repeated itself on Long Island, where the husband of a friend of mine found that his home health aide, like Lisa a wonderful, caring person, had stolen the pain pills he relied on for relief of the pain of cancer.

Something similar happened to me.  An aide I hired to help Mr Charm, whom he liked a lot,  was competent and took good care of him.  I wonder how she cared for the gold jewelry and pain pills she stole from me.

It really hurts when someone you like and trust betrays your trust. 

Collecting

I started collecting just after I moved to Delaware. I had a shortage of drinking glasses, so I went to a nearby Good Will store and bought a dozen. I saw a couple of soup bowls I could use, and bought them too. Soon I started collecting things that were of no earthly use to me because I liked the look of them. I now have collections of teacups, pink depression glass, Carnival glass, small figurines, souvenir plates, and music boxes. Objects to appear in my paintings. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention books, which I actually read. Sometimes. Every shelf in the house is full.

Just as there seemed to be no reason to start collecting things, there seems to be no reason to stop, except lack of space, but that's a compelling one. Some of my stuff has taken up residence in the garage, including my grandmother's samovar.

I finally got the brilliant idea of photographing potential subjects for my art work instead of buying them and bringing them home. The pitcher above is something I resisted buying.

So I am the eccentric woman furtively photographing objects on the shelves at a Good Will store near you. Now you know.

Inventions useful and useless

I have been assigned the task of picking out a hearing aid for Mr Charm, courtesy of his doctor.  I've been researching these gizmos, asking people with hearing aids what kind they like best, and nobody has a good word for any of them.  My late father owned several of them and left them all in the drawer.  Apparently the technology is unsatisfactory and they are disliked by users and non-users alike.  Only cable providers are more unpopular.

So I got to thinking about gadgets--which are satisfactory, and which need more work?

Here's my list.  You might have one of your own.

Great inventions:  Flat screen tvs, dishwashers, air conditioning. microwaves, eyeglasses, and above all iPhones all do what they are expected to do and then some. 

Need more work:  garbage disposals, digital thermostats, electric cooktops, hearing aids, Bluetooth devices, and above all, pantyhose.

Fallling off?

I started wondering why I was not getting as many comments as I used to. Maybe I was a better writer a few years ago? So I went through my early work (up to a point) and can report that I haven't gotten any worse--or any better--over the past 5-6 years. My material may have gotten worse, since I ran out of amusing family anecdotes quite a while ago. Will try to think up some more, or maybe I can make some up. I usually write what I feel like writing. I try to check the grammar and spelling, but I am not going to polish my work. Dr Johnson said a man who does not write for money is a fool. I don't mind being a fool, again up to a point, but I refuse to be--what's the inoffensive way to say idiotic?

My daughter's pre-school class

 

She was second from right in the first row.

My grandson likes to draw planes

 

Cars that last

One of the cars cited in this article was the Geo Prizm. However, I know of at least one of these that no longer exists. I was driving it at the time it became extinct. I was preceding across an intersection at about seven miles per hour when I was struck on the driver's side of the hood by a Lexus which was not going very fast but was way bigger than my car. There was a hideous noise and I was spun 180 degrees, to the other side of the street while smoke poured out of the hood, then busily disintegrating and falling in pieces all over the road. I was magically unhurt, but the car! Its mechanical parts had to be swept up with a broom and into a giant dustpan. It was thus I learned that, yes, a car can be too small to be safe to drive. If that car had hit the door on the driver's side, just a few inches from the spot it did hit, I would never have needed another car. Now I drive a four-door Nissan Sentra, thank you for inquiring.

Spending other people's money

Nothing is easier than spending other people's money. My first demonstration of the wisdom of this old saw occurred in 1976. You may recall that this was the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence--or was it the Constitution--anyway, one of those things. This important event had happened 200 years previously (or according to Ezra Klein, it was 100 years ago. But let's not quibble. It was a long time ago, and none of us were old enough to remember it). Anyway, the library I was managing then was encouraged to apply for funds from the Florida Bicentennial Committee, which we were to raise money to match. We did it, I forget how--maybe it was a bake sale, now illegal in several states because of the trans-fat issue. We raised our share and got the matching funds. Good so far. Then, as 1976 was winding to a close, we were informed that we had two weeks to spend the money, as someone in Washington or Tallahassee wanted to close the books on the Bicentennial. The board members, the mayor and I met in an emergency meeting because we had no idea what to do with the money. We finally came up with a plan. We would furnish a Bicentennial Room in the new library which was to be built shortly. In a lightning swift second meeting, we selected the furnishings of the room down to the color of the drapes and the frame on the picture of George Washington to be put on the wall. It was a piddling sum, but spending it was effortless; none of the group had to look at our personal finances to come up with the money. We could have spend 10 times that, 100 times that, if necessary. My next fun experience was in New Jersey. A bunch of us librarians were drafted to approve proposals for county arts projects. There was a finite sum, and we were to divide it among the candidates. We gave some money to several singing groups and to a group who wanted to paint a mural on a former but now derelict bowling alley in West Milford, NJ. It was fun, and I got an inkling of how much God must have enjoyed making the world and all the people and animals in it.

Depending on the government

I started to question the longtime stability of the Medicare system when I received my Medicare card. The Social Security system, in its wisdom, issued a card printed on cheap cardboard that looked like it might last 6 months. Why couldn't they at least laminate it? The card has begun to fray significantly around the edges, especially because I have to pull it out of my wallet from time to time. Is this a reflection of how long I would have to use it? Would I expire before the card fell apart? My father lived to be 99--did his Medicare card last?

Obama's virtues

Fraters Libertas: Faint Praise

I tried to link to Peggy Noonan's actual column, but it's behind a paywall. She enumerates Obama's virtues: he has a nice family, isn't mean, etc.

Other virtues of our president: He doesn't spit on the floor, eats with a knife and fork, is kind to puppies.

Talk about low expectations!

I'm going crazy

Too much is going on. Yes, folks, I am truly losing it. First Google turned on me, and I finally wrestled it to the ground. The new interface isn't too hot, but I think I've got it down. For now. Wells Fargo continues to puzzle me. I put my mortgage on automatic pay then paid it manually. Twice. Aside from having made three mortgage payments--and two car payments--I went to have fasting blood work and forgot the prescription. Now I have to do it again. I hate leaving my house with no coffee! But what's really bugging me is the medical establishment. First, I have seen three foot specialists and none of them has helped me. The fact that I have pain when walking doesn't seem to concern them at all. But I'm working my way up to the worst of it all. I brought Mr Charm to a surgeon to discuss his having a procedure I read about on the Internet. It is a relatively new procedure, but has been successfully performed for a couple of years. There are learned articles about it in medical journals. If successfully performed, it would improve Mr Charm's quality of life and allow him to live at home, with me, instead of in a nursing home. The doctor's response was like a barbed arrow tinged with a slow-acting poison. He acted as though I were asking him to perform something illegal, although I don't know what modern surgery would consider out of bounds, considering that doctors routinely perform sex-change surgery. The more I thought about it, the more upset I became. He treated me like a criminal. This is still festering in my mind.

Minnesota writers

I just finished reading "North of Hope" by Jon Hassler. Wonderful! I'm going to read and re-read all of his books. What is it about Minnesota that makes fiction writers so good? Another of my favorites is "Morte d'Urban" by J F Powers. A friend of mine believes that people who live in nice climates--Florida, California--spend too much of their time outdoors and don't develop their brains. Maybe. But I spent eight years living in Upstate New York and didn't develop my brain worth a damn.