A couple of years ago, Trent and I got new smartphones. It was a first for me, because I had the idea for years that a smartphone was completely unnecessary in my life. I had a laptop and a tablet; what more did I need? But my six-year-old phone was literally falling apart. It was still making and receiving calls and texts, and the camera was working, but when I opened it, the cover kind of slipped from the hinges, which were crumbling. Yes, it was time. It seemed, when I looked online, that non-smartphones (or phones of average intelligence, as I like to call them) are a truly endangered species.
So we picked out phones, choosing the same model in different colors. I remember what fun I had scaring the employee who was setting up my phone. His face fell when I casually mentioned that this was my first smartphone. He envisioned the rest of his day lost to teaching me how to use the most basic smartphone functions. His entire face lit up when I followed by telling him that I had been an Android tablet user for several years. His relief was palpable when he realized that I knew my way around Android, social media, Chrome, Roku, and other wonderful things. Day saved!
We decided then that we would not trade these phones in when our two year requirement ended. The phones were good ones with fabulous cameras, so we were happy to have them. I was a little less happy a few months later when my phone decided to malfunction hours before we got on a flight to visit Disney World. The battery was lasting about an hour, so it wasn't going to be taking any pictures for me. I had the problem one or two more times, but that was about it. And it only took a reboot to fix it. No worries.
Then a few months ago, Trent's phone started to fall apart. I'm serious! The back started to come off. And then the front. When he called the insurance provider, they said that dropping the phone could have caused it. Had he dropped it? Yes, a distance of less than two feet onto the bed. Well, there you go, not their problem. The store said it was probably due to the battery heating up (those suckers did get super hot during charging) and causing the phone to fall apart, but there were no guarantees. They could send it away and the repair center could use their own discretion on whether to repair or replace the phone, but would probably want to replace it at full price. Um, not so much.
So Trent kept his phone in a case to hold it together and to keep light from shining out of the front, back, and sides during use. He began counting the weeks until his phone could be replaced. In spite of my former issues, I wasn't convinced that I needed a new phone. Until mine started to fall apart as well. Trent went to the store to speak with someone about when we could replace them, and he was eager to work with her when May 8th, the magic date, rolled around.
Trent decided to call the store last Thursday (only the 4th) and the recording he had to listen through told him that he was eligible for an upgrade. I went to the app on my phone and found that we both were, so within minutes we were headed to the store. And surprise, surprise - without having discussed it, we had picked the same phones!
We got to the store about an hour and a half before closing, and Christine was with another customer but we decided to wait. She remembered meeting Trent a few weeks ago, and even remembered some other cool things. As she led us over to the display of Samsung Galaxy S8 phones, she mentioned that one of them was purple, which I told her excitedly was my favorite color. She recalled Trent telling her this, which I found endearing and impressive. So we ended up with monstrous huge Galaxy S8+ phones, his in silver and mine a dark purplish gray. Christine actually helped us find protective front and back covers at the best prices and helped set up our phones even though the store was closed. She cheerfully stayed more than an hour past closing, which she didn't have to do. What a wonderful person she is!
Of course, when we got home I took a picture of the gorgeous black box that the phone came in to post on G+. I was enjoying getting to know Purple Rain, as she is called by The Lunatic. The screen curves on the sides and the visual quality is superb. It has 64gb of internal memory. It's fast and performs well and it's easy on the eye. All around, I am pleased with my new tool/toy. I received a comment on my post from Ed, who said that he'd like to see some pictures taken with the new phone, perhaps of Brutus. I agreed that that could be done and set out to keep my promise.
And then the cat's quirks kicked in. Brutus, AKA Brutus D FatCat, AKA Fatso the Catso, AKA Fat...okay, never mind that name, decided to play hard to get. Or hard to photograph. And I asked very politely, too. I told him that I'd really appreciate it if he would get up on the bed and keep still because I wanted to shoot him. He went into hiding under said bed for two days, only coming out for food, like the big old Fraidy Cat he is. I don't know what his problem is. I respected his privacy and asked and everything, but he got camera shy. The big baby.
Any way, here's a picture of a lilac getting ready to fade as Spring turns into a more Summery mode. Maybe I'll get a good shot at Brutus later...
And here's one of Brutus after all, that big old Fraidy Cat.
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The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
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I think that it should come as no surprise that someone who writes (even though it's been sporadic lately, sorry) loves words. Words have the ability to evoke emotion, to paint scenes in one's mind, to explain, and to confuse, and all sorts of other things. I will be forever grateful to the junior high school (middle school nowadays, but different grade levels) teacher whose name I can no longer remember, but who taught my class lots of latin roots of words. It adds a rich layer of understanding and possibilities to words one might encounter any day. But that, perhaps, is a story for another day.
I used to love to do the crossword puzzle in the morning newspaper, even going so far as to buy a crossword puzzle dictionary with my babysitting wages. I have never been much of a fan of online crossword puzzles, though, and games like Words With Friends don't thrill me to bits. I keep searching for the perfect word game, one in which I can completely immerse myself. I want to roll around in it, so to speak.
I've enjoyed some computer word games in the past but they haven't made the transition to a smaller screen. I recently searched the Play Store for a game that I used to play on the computer that I really wanted to play again. The game gave you several letters which you tried to form into as many three to six (or seven) letter words as possible before time ran out. As long as you found at least one word that used all of the letters, you would advance to another round. But if you didn't find the big one, the game was over. Naturally, the game I was looking for wasn't available, just as I expected, but I was happy to discover that a very similar game was ready for me to play. Yippee!
I began the game full of anticipation. As sometimes happens, I had a few games that only lasted a handful of rounds. I was rusty, and that was okay. Sometimes a word that you see every day is almost impossible to spot when its letters are all jumbled. I kept working at it. I had a high score one day of a meager 1300 points or so. I just knew that I could do much better. With my vocabulary, I took it as a personal failure if I couldn't do much, much better.
A couple of days later Trent was at a movie (a guys' afternoon out) and I hit the game. I played almost the entire time that Trent was gone. By the time that he got home, I couldn't focus my eyes any more. I could see the tablet screen but not much else, but I had increased my best sore to nearly 5000. Progress!
The next afternoon, Trent decided to take a nap but I opted to play my new-ish word game. I found words long enough to still be playing an hour later. One after another, the six-letter words came flowing through my fingertips onto the screen. I glanced at my score and it was over 6000! I kept playing as the minutes ticked by. 7000, 8000, 9000...I was getting that nervous excitement where you wonder if what seems to be happening really is happening. And the word magic kept flowing.
When my tablet told me that I had to plug into my charger, my score was 9,995. I reached for the charger, plugged it in, and my screen went blank. Agh! I was freaking out. I got the screen turned back on and my game wasn't there. And when I opened it, all of my magic had evaporated. The heavenly game session was gone, and the home screen told me that my personal best score was under 5000. Agonizing defeat! I wasn't crushed or anything...but I was disappointed. I had been doing so well!
I knew then that I would have to do my best to reach the nirvana I had glimpsed before, the mystical, magical 10,000 mark. I'm fairly sure that a score of 10,000 means that I can barely hold a decent conversation, but I didn't care. I wanted to reach the heights that I had been denied before. I set out to more than double my highest score of record.
When I started a game, I made sure that my tablet was plugged in even if it was fully charged. No power loss screwing up my game again, thank you. As my Gram always said, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I began games and tallied up points, eager to prove to myself that I had the ability to make the magical score. And then I had numerous chances to taste defeat.
I have to wonder what kind of dictionary some of these games use. For example, it's okay with the game if someone pees, but pee is verboten. And sometimes I type in words that I know were in the Rocky Mountain News crossword puzzle but aren't in this game's dictionary. And then there are the moments one loses a game because the six letter word is padres, which is clearly a Spanish word meaning fathers. When I began another game, I remembered this and tried to use madres, meaning mothers. Not in the dictionary. Hmph.
And who the heck is making up the words, anyway? Here are a few of the unusual or questionable words I have encountered in this game.
clevis, a U-shaped coupler
uracil, a base containing nitrogen that is found in RNA but not DNA
sachem, an Algonquin chief
Saki, a British short story writer whom I love, but this is a proper name, darn it!
anteed, supposedly the past tense of ante, as in a card game. I find no sources that spell it any other way than anted. Hmph again.
Saturday, Trent decided to take another afternoon nap. I grabbed my tablet and hooked it up to the charger. I made sure that I had a cold drink and began to play. The words again flowed from my fingertips. I had a moment of worry when I thought, "What if I have to use the bathroom and my game times out?" I decided to take it easy on the Diet Pepsi. Then Brutus D Fatcat showed up and wanted to climb up on my chest. First off, it's terribly uncomfortable to have a cat put about 500 psi of pressure on one's breasts. Second, even if it wasn't uncomfortable, how was I supposed to see past him, or even use my keyboard? Third, if he rubbed or stepped on anything and screwed up my game, I'd be very upset. I tried to get him to lay still while I scratched him with one hand, but he still kept wanting to smother me. He would leave for a few minutes and come back and the dance, and my worries, would start all over again.
Finally, it happened. My score went to 10,025. The following round had some bizarre six letter word and I didn't even care. I had regained my dignity and could happily go on now that my ghost of a score had been met and beaten. Relief and victory were sweet. I'm still playing the game and enjoying it, but the obsession with my score has disappeared. I'm able to just enjoy myself while I play. Until a crazy word like mazers comes up. Or they turn a noun that means a shrub into a past tense verb. Seriously, it's like saying that the missing word is rosed, the past tense of rose, a flowering shrub. Okay, well maybe I'm not as relaxed about the game as I thought I was. But at least I'm stretching my mind and having some fun. Yeah, that's it, fun!
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The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
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One of the characters in the book The Help says that "Mississippi has the most unorganized weather." She goes on to say that everything will be covered in ice one day and that the following day it's 90 degrees for the next several months. I can certainly appreciate the vagaries of that type of weather, but I don't think that Mississippi is the champion where changeable weather is concerned.
Those of us who have lived in Colorado for some time (especially natives, people who think that they're better than the rest of us just because their mother was here when they were born, which they seem to take as their own personal accomplishment) have our own descriptions of normal Colorado weather.
Many long-timers say that Colorado does not have four seasons. My friend Kris's father used to say, "Yes, we do too have four seasons - Winter, June, July, and August." Only slightly less famous is the claim that Colorado has a whopping two seasons - Winter and Road Construction. Hey, plowing and salting and sanding and heavy traffic do take their toll.
My Gram taught me my favorite Colorado weather saying, and the best, in my humble opinion. "Welcome to Colorado. If you don't like the weather, stick around for twenty minutes." Trent and I, as well as my sister Liz and everyone that we know who has lived here for a long time, believe this to be true. Actually, scratch that. We know it to be true.
When someone brings up oddities of weather, we jump in the deep end like the champs that we are. "Hey, do you remember that one time in September when it was 93 degrees on Sunday, and then there was more than a foot of snow on the ground when we woke up on Monday morning?"
"Yeah! That was even crazier than the time that it snowed in June!" Note: technically, it could conceivably snow during any month high in the mountains here in our beautiful state. What I am referring to here is weather in the Denver Metro area. You know, the weather in the lower elevations of only a Mile High.
I am not a Colorado native, but I come close enough that Trent, who is a native, says that I can and should claim Colorado as my home. Heck, I came here when I was 7 years old and have lived here since. My age once again ends with a 7, but there's a goodish number in front of that little digit. And I must say that while the weather in my beautiful home can catch me unprepared, on the deepest level I am rarely surprised by what a different day or season may bring.
In the Metro area I have seen heavy snows in every month except July and August. I have experienced snowstorms that included lightning, spring rains with hail and tornado activity, sub-zero cold and baking heat. A couple of days this winter, Colorado had the highest temperature in the nation. Let me expound on that for a moment. It was warmer here on those winter days than it was in Miami, Phoenix, and Honolulu. Now that is disorganized weather!
The other day Trent and I needed to get out and run some errands. It was a lovely morning, bright and sunny and in the 50-degree range. Suddenly I noticed that it seemed as if the clocks were all wrong. Surely it couldn't be that dark and still be early afternoon. I looked out the window to find dark skies and rainy weather. Trent, being the tough Coloradan, said that he didn't care, he was wearing shorts anyway. I didn't want to deal with carrying a jacket so I put on a sweatshirt. Before I got in the car, I walked over to the mailbox. As I walked, I noticed a white spot on my shirt. And then another, and then several more. Yes, rain mixed with snow. Oh, well.
We went on our way, dodging raindrops (snowdrops?) as we walked into the supermarket. We didn't have much to get, so we were in the store fairly briefly. When we got back outside, the sun was shining in its full glory and the rain was drying up. The car was hot and I told Trent that he was smart to wear shorts, and that I felt like an idiot with my nice warm sweatshirt. That day had Colorado written all over it. We stuck around for twenty minutes and it changed. And then it changed again. And then it changed a third time. Yep. That's my home!
A final thought and a wish - may your skies find you safe and happy, wherever you live or visit.
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The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
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Tonight we have a guest blogger, Brutus D FatCat. Since he is a self-described master of the feline arts, he has decided to share some of his vast knowledge with the ruling cats of the future.
Good evening, kittens. The world is your scratching post if only you know how to use it. I am a master of All Things Cat, so I now share my knowledge with you, the future leaders of our kind.
Rule # 1: Look at the title to this collection of important facts. The number shown is what the humans (staff, servants, chief belly scratchers, whatever you desire to call them) refer to as a prime number. Although most of our kind can not count higher than three, cats discovered prime numbers, in spite of humans believing they did so. We also invented midnight snacks and napping, among other things. When you look at your human, make sure that you do so with visible disdain as they are a substandard species whose purpose of existence is to see to your needs. If possible, alternate with looks of pity.
Rule # 323: It is vitally important that your human(s) remember their place. You must always dictate their interactions with you, and subject them to various forms of punishment if they step out of line. The simplest way to do this is to be mysterious. Let them never be sure of what sort of attention you desire. Here is an example. While the human is engaged in using their water-filled poop/pee box, wind yourself around their ankles. Gaze deep into their eyes and stand very still, as if you want them to pick you up. When the lowly one picks you up, flatten your ears, make a sound of fear (or anger or suffering) and exit their grasp as quickly as possible. Glare at them from the hall while lashing your tail. Vomit. Hide under a piece of furniture so that the human knows that you have been violated and traumatized. While the human feels guilty, revel in your brilliance.
Rule # 5114: Occasionally your human will get the mistaken idea that they should leave you and the premises in order to take what they call a Business Trip or a Vacation. You will know that this is planned when the human discusses your food and poop/pee box with another human. They will also grab a large box called a suitcase in which they will begin to place their body and foot coverings and other mysterious items. When the human puts something in the box, climb on top of it and curl up for a nap. If possible. move around in a way that leaves behind a lot of your hair. When the human removes you, hiss and hide. Repeat as often as possible.
Rule #5115: While your human is away, it is important to make the human taking care of you feel that they inspire disgust or fear. Hide for at least three days. When the human gets on their knees looking to see if you have died under the bed, saunter in from another room. Act as if you had no idea that it was possible to get under the bed.
Rule # 5116: When your human returns, hide under the bed. It is important for them to feel that you have transferred your affections and loyalty to the other human. (Which you may have, just a little. They try hard to please you when they think that you are upset.) When you finally leave your hiding spot, barely acknowledge your regular human. Go to the other human and spend several minutes enjoying rubs and pats and scratches. Then spend some time with your human and purr as loudly as possible. Put your butt in their face if you can. When everyone is quiet and asleep, vomit. Your human will feel guilty for putting you in distress.
Rule # 4711: Smell everything. If your human has food that smells particularly enticing, keep sniffing it while making a gagging sound. When they put a bite of food within your reach, recoil in horror. Return to it later when the human is busy with some other activity.
Rule # 1313: Humans sleep after dark, which is when we felines know is the best time to prowl. They also cannot see well in the dark, another sign of their mediocrity. For these two reasons, you must frighten them whenever possible. Wait until your human is nearly asleep. Come into the bedroom and move the hanging blinds enough to wake them. Disappear before they turn the lights on. Wait until they are nearly asleep again and knock something over, especially in the bathroom or kitchen. Disappear before they come to investigate. Plan what to do the next night.
Rule # 7211: For whatever reason, your human may decide to move into a new home. Even if it is perfect for cats, with plenty of hiding and climbing spots, act otherwise. You must act like you are afraid of any humans that live in your new home. If you are hiding under a chair and MUST get out due to hunger, thirst, a need for your poop/pee box, or simply to find a more comfortable resting spot, do so dramatically. There are two ways in which I like to make these moves. One is the stealth method. Walk in a crouching manner so that your body is close to the floor and the humans will be less likely to see you. The other method is the speedy exit. Burst out of your hiding spot, disturbing surrounding items if at all possible. Run to another room quickly, as if your tail was on fire. Pin back your ears and act distressed.
Rule # 6014: Remember to always make the human feel guilty and uncomfortable for intruding on you. Get on their bed. Begin to groom yourself. When you hear them approaching, begin to lick near your private parts. When they walk in, stop licking (bonus points if you do so with your tongue still partially out of your mouth) and either glare at them defiantly or act embarrassed. It will be easy to display this because all you need to do is mimic the look on your human's face. If possible, leave a hairball to remind them of their lack of couth.
Rule # 1119: When punishing your human, keep your own needs in mind. Do not soil the areas in which you live. As the Old Cats say, don't poop or pee where you eat. It's unpleasant and unnecessary. Also, it's likely to result in anger from the human rather that feelings of concern or guilt. Remember that humans seem to have an unnatural aversion to vomit. Place it carefully and run and eat again before they know about it. If it is placed where the human can easily step on it in the middle of the night it will be several times more effective. Use good judgement when yakking, though, as it may backfire on you. If you do it too frequently or if your human has a nervous disposition, you might end up going to see THE VET. Remember that THE VET is not your friend. THE VET puts needles in you and messes with your teeth and sticks things in your butt. And THE VET is the one who stole part of your privates and killed your desire to roam the streets and sing songs of cat love all night.
Well, kittens, that is all for now. Watch your human and give them enough rewards (like tummy rubs) to feel like you care and enough punishment to keep them in line. As for me, I am going to take a nap. Or have a snack. Or both. Good night.
Your friend in fur,
Brutus D FatCat
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The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
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Sometimes I just have to get a bit silly. At other times, I just can't seem to help myself. Either way, I try to enjoy these moments or days when the feeling strikes me. I really needed some silliness yesterday; it would appear that my lupus is trying to flare up and cause me extra pain. As is often the case, it ends up being worse at night. Hey, nothing like adding pain to insomnia to make you exhausted and a little bit crazy. And exhausted, I did mention that, didn't I?
I was also a bit stressed, which can increase the pain associated with lupus - it can cause flares, my most hated f-word. I went to bed Tuesday knowing we had some things to accomplish on Wednesday, things that might go smoothly or might just be dreadful. Here in Colorado, we have a one-month grace period to renew our license plates. Ours expire in February, a time of year at which we often seem to be in the throes of things like increased insurance premiums and a brand new yearly deductible. AKA we find the money situation a wee bit tight. No big deal, we just get the renewal done in March.
Since March is dwindling away, we knew we had to get our act together and take it on the road. Another thing we have here in Colorado is clean-air inspections for automobiles older than seven and younger than thirty-five. Since Mae Mobley (our car, who lived in Jackson, Mississippi before moving here, and is named after Mae Mobley Leefolt from the book The Help) fits inside that wide time span, she was due for her every-two-years test. So here's the stress part. Mae Mo is sagging a little in the tushy. Her exhaust pipes and muffler are not as perky as they were before her age began with a two. And I was really worried that the State employees would take one look at her and say that testing was impossible.
So the worrying about the car, combined with pain and a sprinkling of insomnia, left me with not enough rest. But I woke up feeling silly. I stepped into the thinking room and returned to Trent with a serious look on my face. "Trent, I just wanted to see if you were aware of something." When he asked what it was that I was concerned about him knowing, I replied in a serious tone, "Did you know that the wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round?" He laughed, called me a goof, and invited me to vacate the area, all in a matter of seconds.
So we jumped in the car at around 1:30 to go to the testing facility, following which we planned to exchange our modem for a newer model. Okay, to be fair, we didn't exactly jump in the car. At our ages and with our physical challenges, it really isn't wise to do a great deal of jumping unless one has the desire to spend a few days in bed recovering. Anyway, we were off. No, not in that way! Well, maybe compared to some people. Or most...
We drove to the testing facility, nervous but hopeful. Before we knew it, we were in possession of a certificate declaring to whomever read it that Mae Mobley had passed the test. We got back in the car and told Mae Mo how happy we were and how important she was to us. I got another attack of the sillies as we headed to our second destination, and told Trent that I needed to ask him an important question. "Do your ears hang low? No? So they don't wobble to and fro?" Sometimes I feel sorry for the poor guy. And then we arrived at our second stop, our Cable/Internet provider, to get a new modem. We walked in and saw a line at the check-in area. Yikes. If we had to wait behind about four other people to sign in, how long was this going to take? About fifteen minutes. What a wonderful streak of luck.
Since we had done so well at the first two stops, we decided to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get our tags. Again, a line to check in. And once again, a fairly brief wait and we were on our way home. We had left at 1:30, made three stops, and installed our new modem, all before 3:30. Wait! Four stops! We had to get a soft drink in between stops. It was close to 80 degrees, after all. Mae Mo doesn't have functioning air conditioning either, unfortunately.
We chilled out for a while and went out to dinner, finally using the gift card we received at Christmas. After we got home and activated the modem, the day was still young, with plenty of time to relax.
Now, Brutus D Fatcat is currently Without Mom. As I have mentioned before, she is visiting her daughter while the bun finishes baking in the oven. In addition to feeding and watering said cat, I have tried to make sure he isn't lonely. He is an interesting creature. He is a bit leery of men, probably because his dad was quite a yeller. And he's not the most sociable of beasts. He spends much of his time hiding under Liz's bed or under a recliner in the living room.
Several times a day, I will walk into his room and say hi even though he is not visible. In the afternoons or evenings he will get up on the bed, and I come in to give him the opportunity for some quality time. If I sit on the bed he will allow me to worship him scratch his chin and neck. He will then flop down on his back so that I can give him belly rubs. And then the biting starts. I guess that it's a cat thing. They show their pleasure with the belly rubs by grabbing your hand with their front paws and biting hard enough to draw blood. Liz calls them love bites but I call them ouchies.
After everything went so well for us, I really didn't want my hand to be covered with various cuts and punctures from cat bites. Brutus bit once or twice and I told him to be nice. He moved into another belly rub position and reached for my hand with his paws. I pulled my hand back with a firm but gentle "No." He kept this up, his eyes getting that frantically wild and crazy look while I deprived him of his right to bite. And then the stinker hissed at me. At me, who has been feeding and watering and petting and cleaning his poopybox and such! At me, who whose nickname is Mother Nature!
I looked at Brutus, who was sitting and glaring at me. "You are being a bad cat. I am done with you." I walked out of the room thinking that arguing with a cat was the height of silliness. Just not a fun variety. A few minutes later I went back in the room and Brutus was all purrs and loving, as he was later when I went in to tell him good night. I haven't had the evening visit with him yet today, but I'm curious to see how it goes. And so is my hand.
I have tried to be a little less silly today. I haven't broken into song or done any spontaneous dancing yet. Poor, brave Trent. My dancing is a) pretty bad, and can possibly be seen as b) either scary or funny, which I guess means I'm lucky because he has only c) giggled or guffawed instead of d) running away screaming in fear. Life is good, even if I do occasionally argue with the resident cat.
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The Tip Jar:
As
always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great
joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd
like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
It's no secret that I do not like Daylight Savings Time. It seems to come earlier and earlier each year, and stick around longer and longer. Theoretically, the changing of the clock was supposed to make life more convenient for people like farmers and ranchers, because the clock, and therefore other people's schedules, were supposed to be more in line with the agrarian lifestyle. I disagree. Someone who cares for farm animals and/or grows crops isn't influenced as much by the time on the clock as they are by the time that the sun is shining.
Every year, various states try to legislate DST out of existence, and there are always people who get up in arms and want the change to continue. They say things like the time change makes the day last longer. Umm, no. The tilt of the Earth on its axis, along with its rotation around the Sun, makes the day longer. Do you really think that the day changes its duration based on what the clock says? That makes me think of a comparison attributed to Native Americans. Cutting a foot off one end of a blanket and sewing it to the other end does not make the blanket longer. Whether the clock says 8:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m., the duration of sunlight hours has nothing to do with what our clocks say. Yes, the sun may seem to set later, but that doesn't mean the day magically got longer. The sunrise was later, too!
Statistics show that DST and the time change are very hard on our minds and bodies. I've read that fatal heart attacks increase around the time change, as well as other causes of illness and death. As for me, and many others I have spoken with about this game of musical clocks, it really messes with my body's and brain's internal schedules. Things just seem...off. It's almost like having jet lag without the fun of traveling. What a rip-off!
On Saturday night before we went to bed, Trent and I changed the time on our watches and such. Liz was leaving town on Sunday to spend some time with her pregnant daughter while the bun finishes baking in the oven, so I didn't get to the clocks in the kitchen and living room right away. When I thought about it, I didn't feel like doing it. I had the brief rebellious attitude of 'it's stupid, I'm not going to do it,' but I knew that I would fix the other clocks before bedtime on Sunday. I also knew that it could wait until after I watched The Walking Dead and anything else that might delay the task.
At about ten minutes before 10:00 p.m. I knew that the time had come to change the clocks. Now, our kitchen has a wall clock, a microwave oven clock, and a stove clock. Let me pause in this narrative to remind you that the time change messes with me, makes me tired, and screws up my internal schedule and such. When I changed the time on the first clock, I had ingrained in my mind that it was nearly 10:00. My flummoxed brain changed that around to it being during the ten o'clock hour, and I changed the clock forward two hours instead of one. By the time I changed the second clock, I realized my error and corrected it, but was kind of embarrassed/disgusted with myself.
I told Trent that the time change was screwing with my brain and how I had set one clock forward two hours. In a sweet and gentle voice, he asked, "Why did you do that, honey?" I replied that I did it because I was a big fat idiot. In the same overly-exaggerated sweet voice, he said, "Oh, honey, you're not fat." I burst out laughing at the joking insinuation that the latter half of what I'd said was true. I gave Trent two fives and a baby five because of his quick wit, and we got a good belly laugh out of it.
In case you're wondering, no, I have not adjusted to the time change. My mental clock seems to have broken a spring or two and I have no idea of roughly what time it is any more. By the time I have it sorted out we will probably be close to going back to real time. Sigh. Thank goodness for watches. If they're set correctly. What time does mine say? Is it really that late already? Gah!
Postscript from The Lunatic: No feelings or husbands were harmed during the incidents related in this post. We thank you for your kind concern.
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always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great
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What is a woman's story? What makes her the person she has become? To me, a woman's story is not a line that goes from Point A to Point B, zigging and zagging along the way, although it can often seem that way. I think it is something greater. It is a cloth woven of teaching and experience. It is a tapestry embroidered with the hands of many different dreams, beliefs, and opinions. And each woman's is different.
Along my path, who has helped direct the weaving and embroidering of my cloth? My life, my story, my essence, is the result of the influences of many other people, both male and female. I have been taught things that I still hold close to my heart and things that I have dropped by the wayside. I have learned from the joys and sorrows of others, storing the pieces of their lives in the depths of my heart and mind. And this has all shaped the person that I have become, the person who is still, I hope, growing and evolving.
Although she was only a part of my life for a short seven years, my mother and her life still influence me. She moved to this country with her husband and children after a failed revolution in her home country made life unsafe for them. She gave birth to her last child, me, after being in her new country for less than three years. As a child, I always knew that she was unhappy. I didn't know why. But I knew that my father was someone I both loved and feared. She probably felt the same way. At least the fear part.
My father, in his kinder and more nurturing moments, always encouraged me to be smart and do well in school. He already had two pretty daughters, so this ugly duckling was apparently destined to be the smart one. Even after he went to prison for my mother's death, the few letters that I received from him stressed that I should be a good girl and learn well. Fairly early, my feet were set on this path.
After time spent in an orphanage along with my sister Liz, fate and distant family brought us to the Denver area. While I had always thought that my mother didn't love me, I never felt that she actually hated me. That was what I got from my guardian's wife, Alice. The physical and emotional/mental abuse was designed to break my spirit, and in many ways it did. I bear the physical and mental scars to this day. Instead of being regarded as a bright little girl, I was the human refuse that had been forced upon her. She fairly quickly turned Liz over to her mother, no relation to us whatsoever, and I followed quite some time later.
While I was with Alice, I learned a deeper fear than I had ever known. Her tongue and her beatings were vicious, and her temperament was wholly unpredictable. It was impossible to learn how to behave while I lived with her. An action that resulted in a beating would convince me to change my behavior the next time I was in a similar situation. My attempts to change my behavior and avoid her fury made no difference. The beatings and humiliation would occur again and again. When I was playing next door and skinned a knee, my friend's mother insisted on putting a bandage on it for me. This resulted in my being beaten for trying to get attention. A week or two later, and another skinned knee. I went about my solitary play because I didn't want to get beaten for trying to get attention. Instead, I ended up being beaten for being too dumb to come in out of the rain. From her, I learned the fear of not pleasing others and the consequences that might be involved. I learned that others' happiness was more important than my own.
Gram grew up without a mother; her mother died along with the twins she was carrying in 1908 when Gram was not yet two years old. Although her beloved father was very progressive in some ways (for example, having her read aloud from books that he picked because they had been banned by the Catholic Church), he was very much a traditionalist in other ways. When she begged to have her long hair cut short for comfort, he wouldn't hear of it. Ladies let their hair grow long. When he came home from work to find that she had raided her piggy bank and gone to the barber for a short haircut, he didn't speak to her for several days. And when she discovered that she had a love as well as a talent for making hats, she told him that she wanted to be a milliner. Again, he was furious. A lady did not work outside the home. She gave up her hope of a career, but never forgot it. She told me of her squashed dreams many years after. From her I learned that the world and its expectations and assigned roles weren't always fair, and that regrets and longing can live with us forever.
In addition to these and other women that I have known well, there is a parade of other women and other experiences that have shaped me. When it struck me one day, several years after my father's death, that his less than five years of punishment for killing my mother was terribly short and terribly unfair, a sad and burning thought took hold of me. According to the law, a woman's death only warranted a short prison sentence. After all, my thoughts seemed to taunt me, they saw her as only a woman.
Now, I've never considered myself as a feminist or any other similar label. But I have a great sense of fairness. A woman, a man, a child - all have worth. A person who ends their spouse's life violently shouldn't pay for their crime based on some set of variables like a sliding scale. The life of a mother is of no less value than that of her husband who works as a janitor, and his is of no less value than that of a bus driver or school teacher or politician or doctor, no matter what their gender. A woman who is raped does not deserve to be killed for shaming her family. A girl should not find it impossible to get an education because she has to miss one week of school each month since she has no access to hygiene products. A person should not have their private life legislated by others. I could go on, but I think I've made my point.
These and so many other ideas, feelings, and experiences contribute to the weave of my life's fabric. They aren't all my stories, but they are all stories that color my life's tapestry. They are they colors of sadness, love, fear, hope, anger, shame, and so many other things that make us human. They change us as well as changing with us. And the becoming, the story, becomes a part of the greater fabric of humanity. May your colors never dim, and may they always shine for you.
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The Tip Jar:
As
always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great
joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd
like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
