Tag Archives: rant

Seven Reasons I Hate The Bloggess

books, etc., family, funny things, health, humor, mental health, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

jennymeFirst, let me say that I read The Bloggess’s (Jenny Lawson’s) blog all the time. I have her books and I read them all the time too. But secretly I hate her, and here’s why.

1. She had a weirder childhood than I did. She lived in a small Texas town full of farm critters and wild animals, and weird characters, including her father the taxidermist, and has interesting poverty stories, like the one about the bread-sack shoes. I lived in a nondescript middle-class suburb with a stay-at-home mom and a dad that went to work every day smelling of Vitalis and Aqua Velva, rather than deer blood.

(This was also the problem I had trying to write country songs. You can’t get very far with “I was born an industrial engineering technician’s daughter/in the Central Baptist Hospital of Lexington, KY.” But I digress.)

2. She had more interesting pets, with more interesting names than I did. She had a raccoon named Rambo that wore Jams and a delinquent turkey named Jenkins. Later she had a dog named Barnaby Jones Pickles and now has one named Dorothy Barker. Her cats are named Ferris Mewler and Hunter S. Thomcat. We had dogs named Blackie and Bootsie and rabbits named Christina and Mittens. Our recent dogs have been Karma and Bridget, and the only eccentric cat names we’ve bestowed have been Django and Dushenka.

(Ordinarily, I don’t like cat names like Baryshnikat and F. Cat Fitzgerald. I think cat names should be something you wouldn’t be embarrassed to yell out the door if one of them wanders off, like Louise or Garcia. I suppose the Bloggess’s neighbors are by now used to anything. But I digress again.)

3. She has more interesting disorders than I do. I have bad knees and bipolar disorder type 2 (and a blog about it, www.bipolarme.blog). The Bloggess has generalized anxiety disorder, anti-phospholipid syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, and, apparently, an obsession with chupacabras and vaginas. This gives her much more to write about. Although I do have two blogs. Two! In your face, Bloggess!

4. She’s less inhibited than I am. The Bloggess would have ended that last paragraph, “In your face, motherfucker!” I didn’t learn to cuss till I was in my 20s and no one I meet ever believes I swear until I do. Then they’re shocked. Also, I swear all the time, except in my blogs, where I’m afraid I’ll offend readers, all of whom I assume have tender sensibilities. The Bloggess knows her readers better than that.

5. She has way more readers than I do. And she’s published books and has another coming out. I have some followers, but I think most of them want to sell me books on how to publicize my blog. I should probably study a book like that, but I’d rather read ones about emerging viruses, cloud cities on Venus, and mostly true memoirs. On the other hand, I have the distinction of being the only writer ever to have articles in both Catechist and Black Belt magazines. So take that, moth . . . Bloggess!

6. She and her husband have more interesting arguments than my husband and I do. We never even talk quietly about whether Jesus was a zombie.

7. She has a stronger voice than I do. I mean her writing voice. I had no idea what her speaking voice was like until I saw a video clip of her on the web, talking about vaginas. But when I’m going to write in my blogs, I have to lay off reading her for a day or two, because her voice takes over my weak, tiny mind and it wants to sound like her. I wish I could write like that. Or at least as well as that.

But, like the Bloggess, I am a strangeling. And that’s a start.

The Future of Sex and Cleaning

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Forget about all the robot assembly and manufacturing machines that are out to steal our jobs. As far as I can see, the only occupations  chores activities that are likely to be overrun by robotic thieves are sex and cleaning.

Let’s start with everyone’s favorite – cleaning. (I mean favorite in terms of one thing we’d like to have taken off our to-do lists  hands plates – including cleaning the plates.)

Of course everyone knows by now about the Roomba and its cousins, those vacuuming wizards and automatic cat transports. And although they’re not the Jetsons’ Rosie the Robot Maid, they’re fine. As far as they go. Which supposedly is around corners and table legs, over shag carpets and pet stains, and through any detritus (other than Legos, which have overcome every attempt to remove them from floors so that they don’t attack unwary feet. But I digress.).

But do you have any idea what other household chores have been usurped by mechanical minions?

A quick tour around the Internet reveals the possibilities. As of this writing, there are, in addition to mechanized, self-propelled vacuums, robotic:

window-washers

barbecue grill-cleaners

gutter-cleaners

pool-cleaners

dustpans (I can’t make this stuff up)

baby-rockers

plant- and lawn-waterers

and lawnmowers. (At $2100 per, a bit pricey compared to the kid down the street or your own reluctant teenagers. But I digress again.)

It would be nice if there were one robot that would satisfy all our needs  do all that, but unfortunately, every chore needs its own robot. So we humans still have to multitask, even though our machines don’t.

But, speaking of multi-tasking, there is the RealDoll (Abyss Creations), apparently the be-all and end-all  epitome (for now) of sex dolls. They’re easy, but  not cheap. And they’re marketed to men. (Do I need to say that? The sexbots-for-women industry is tiny  minuscule  nearly invisible  not yet growing  unimpressive.) Starting at about what you’d pay for a robotic lawnmower, but rising rapidly  at increasing price points or more, you can have a “plastic pal who’s fun to be with.” (Apologies to Douglas Adams. Couldn’t resist.)

Make no mistake, for that price you’re getting more than your standard blow-up doll. Or blow-up sheep (which I’ve actually seen). More than “just silicone orifices,” according to one writer, the sexbots are jointed, with synthetic skin, and customizations tailored to the customer’s preferences  desires specifications as far as hair color, skin tone, eyes, clothing, booty jiggliness, and genitalia go.

(That customizable genitalia feature has me perplexed. According to the specs, that can mean “removable, exchangeable, flaccid, or hard.” I don’t quite get why someone would want a sexbot with flaccid genitalia. And if you know, don’t tell me. Removable kind of gives me the creeps too. But I digress yet again.)

For those of you not in touch with  an aficionado of  deeply into conversant with the world of artificial intelligence, any number of quandaries are brought into being by the creation of sexbots. You (well, not you) pay for them, so are they prostitutes? What happens when a company decides to make a robo-sex-sheep (and you know they will)? Will a sexbot that can fulfill antisocial desires make it more or less likely that users will act out criminal lusts IRL (as the saying goes)?

Sexbot visionaries have lots of plans for the future: camera eyes for facial recognition, multiple downloadable personalities, etc. The goal is to have either a sexbot that can pass the Turing Test (being indistinguishable from a human being in conversation, the gold standard of AI) or one that you can fall in love with.

Long before then, however, we’re going to need a sexbot-cleaning cleaning robot. ‘Cause otherwise, ew.

How I Faced My Fear … And Failed

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This is my idea of hell:

A semitruck rolled early Friday, spilling a load of honeybees on the Interstate 5 median at the Interstate 405 interchange near Lynnwood….As temperatures warmed and the bees became more agitated, firefighters sprayed a mixture of foam and water on the hives to slow down or kill some of the bees. Television reporters swatted at swarms of the insects surrounding their cameras and clumps of bee carcasses littered the roadway.

Yes, I am an apiphobe, also known as a melissophobe. (No, I don’t fear apes. That would be pithecophobia. No, not fear of people named Melissa, either. Seriously? Apis mellifera is the scientific name of the bee. But I digress.)

In actuality, I’ve only been stung by a bee once. I was in my early teens and given to going barefoot whenever possible. While walking through someone’s yard, I happened to step sideways and the outside of my baby toe brushed up against the backside of a bee.

I know the bee had no intention of stinging me. It was an accidental encounter on both our parts. A little baking soda and a bandaid and I was fine. Physically. My lack of reaction to the sting proved that I was not allergic – except in my own mind. Although I hadn’t panicked during the actual stinging, now panic is my instant reaction to the approach of any bees, wasps, or other stinging insect. (Ticks, too. Anything that impinges on my bodily boundaries. It’s a wonder I’m able to have sex at all. But I digress. Again.)

I tried to overcome this fear. I really did.

During my college years, I had a relationship (Mistake!) with a man who intended to keep bees. Somehow I thought that if I studied beekeeping, it might be beneficial to the relationship. (Mistake!) As it happened, the college I was attending had on its faculty Roger Morse, one of the world’s most noted authorities on bees. He did mostly research, but also taught two courses, Anatomy of the Honeybee (which was highly technical) and Beekeeping 101.

I signed up for the beekeeping course – this despite the fact that I was an English Major in the College of Arts and Sciences and the courses on bees were in the College of Agriculture. The university insisted we broaden our minds by enrolling in several classes unrelated to our majors. The beekeeping class consisted of lectures and a lab component. Lectures were sort of nice, and quite interesting. We passed around samples of honeycomb and honey made from the pollen of various flowers and plants – buckwheat honey, orange blossom, and the like. Since then I’ve also had lavender honey, which has to be my favorite.

Lab was something else again. I was OK when we were dissecting honey bees. (When I got to the bee’s wee intestine, I learned that bee poop is bright orange-yellow, which makes sense, because pollen. Everyone poops, and that’s how bees do. But I digress, yet again.) But when we got to tending beehives and interacting with live bees, my old fears came to the fore.

At first, we were given netted helmets, heavy gloves, and smokers, which were supposed to calm the bees. (I still don’t get why spraying smoke into their homes would calm them. It would panic almost any other animal. Although capnophobia, fear of smoke, seems to mean only cigarette smoke. But I digress. As if you haven’t noticed.) The rest of the class gradually got away from using these crutches, but I clung to them the entire time, along with a dose of Valium before lab. I would even eat almond cookies before lab, because I had heard that bees don’t like the scent of almonds. (Which presents the question: Why do they like the scent of almond flowers, but not the nuts? But I digress some more.)

I managed to pass the course, but failed at the relationship and at conquering my fear. To this day, when a stinging insect appears anywhere in my vicinity, even if it is paying no attention whatsoever to me, I freeze, try my best not to scream, and wait in terror for someone braver to shoo the thing away. My husband always tries to convince me that it was not a bee, but a dragonfly or a hummingbird. This does not fool me for a second, but I suppose he’s trying to be helpful.

And now, National Geographic tells us that bee enthusiasts and scientists are trying to create artisanal bees (artisanal honey, okay. But artisanal bees?), in what they call “The Quest for a Superbee.”

Great. Now I get to be a superapiphobe.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Find out What It Means to Everyone

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“Hello, Marvin,” I said, as I stepped to the front of the line at the polling place.

“Hello,” he said, looking puzzled. “Let’s see if I can remember your name.” He thought a minute.

“Janet,” I said. No light went on in his eyes. “Coburn,” I added.

“I know I must have seen you around somewhere.”

“Actually, no. I just read your name off your name tag and wanted to be friendly.”

“I forgot I was even wearing it,” he said.

* * *

My husband was working in the electronics department of the store. He saw a customer looking at the merchandise. She was apparently transexual or in transition.

“Hello,” Dan said, with a friendly expression on his face. “Is there something I can help you with?”

The woman seemed taken aback.

* * *

Dan also sees many customers from Arabic-speaking countries. He greets them the same way, then helps them as best he can, holding up items and doing his best at understanding heavily accented English.

Those customers always come back. Sometimes, late at night, they talk to Dan, compliment him on his full, lush beard, and introduce him to their friends.

* * *

I was walking through the university’s Student Union building, leaning on my cane. Tired, I tried to take a seat on a convenient chair, but missed my landing and fell to the floor.

Instantly, a group of young women appeared at my side, expertly hoisted me into the chair, and offered to get me juice or a hot, comforting beverage. (I was a bit shaky after my tumble.)

When I assured them I was fine, they returned to the juice bar or went off to class, with no fuss or fussing. It was a big deal to me, but seemed just another event to them.

* * *

Not so long ago, there was a vogue for “random acts of kindness” – helping unknown recipients by putting a coin in an expiring parking meter or paying for the next person in line at the toll booth. And these were indeed nice things to do. They did add a little kindness to the world. Largely, they were anonymous.

What I would like to see in the world, however, are random acts of respect – using a person’s name, waiting on all customers with an attentive expression and welcoming word, helping a fallen stranger.

In fact, these shouldn’t be random acts of respect. Ideally, they should be everyday occurrences, practiced by everyone. We know that’s not going to happen, or at least not anytime soon.

So for now, let’s concentrate on “random.” Just try it whenever you think about it, or once a day. Use a person’s name – even if it annoys you when a server tells you hers, don’t summon her by saying, “Hey, waitress!” Say “Thank you” to the baggage attendant that just lifted your 50-lb. suitcase, even if you’re furious that you had to pay extra for it. Smile and nod at the worker who cleans your hotel room as you pass her in the hall. Shake hands when you’re introduced to the young person with blue hair and sleeve tats.

Do it because it will surprise someone. Do it because it will make someone feel good. Do it because you’re a good person. Do it because your mother told you to be polite. Do it because it’s the only lift a person may get all day. Do it because the people you meet every day deserve respect and too often don’t get it. Do it because we’re all human beings, sharing the planet.

And say “thanks” or nod and smile when someone shows respect to you. You deserve it too. Then keep the chain going.

Practice won’t make perfect. But it will make better. Help. Greet. Smile. Thank. Look at someone when you talk to them. To quote a well-known song, “Little things mean a lot.”

Romancing the Body

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Romance novels have changed since I used to read them. (Yes, I am here publically admitting that I did once read what I called “tempestuous” novels because the cover blurbs always started, “The tempestuous saga of an innocent young woman and the pirate she couldn’t live without.” Hey, I was 16. But I digress.)

The covers of the novels, which were also called “bodice-rippers” back then, usually featured a picture of a man and a woman, with him ripping open her bodice (duh). The man always looked like the king of book covers, Fabio (a famous cover model) or a fair imitation, with lovely flowing locks, a square chin, an intent gaze, and an irresistible (apparently) sneer. The woman was slim, beautiful, and wearing a dress with a bodice (again, duh). She could be soft and yielding or, more often, fiery and tempestuous. If you knew about such things, you could sometimes guess the era in which the tempest played out by the details of the clothing, but usually not. An open, puffy-sleeved shirt and a ripped bodice don’t really convey that much information.

The point is, the cover art generally featured two figures, a man and a woman, with some indication of conflict and/or passion between them.

Not anymore.

I’ve noticed that these days, romance novels tend to have cover art that features a man only.

And not just any sort of man. He will have the physique of a bodybuilder, a hairless chest, no shirt (or one that exposes the entire torso), tight jeans, and not much else. He could be a bodybuilder or a cowboy or a firefighter or a musician or (I suppose) a beach bum, or even, since Fifty Shades, a business tycoon on his day off.

But he has no face.

Where a face should be, there is a shadow or a hat. Or the picture is simply cropped so that the cover doesn’t involve even a hint of a face.

What does this say about women and the men they are attracted to?

In sexual politics, there is a thing called “the male gaze.” It refers to how television and movies and advertising and just about everything else present females that will be pleasing to a man who is looking at them. How women react to the images doesn’t matter. (This can also be called “heteronormative,” but you didn’t come here for a sociology lesson.) The “male gaze” reinforces the idea that stereotypical males value women only for what’s between their neck and their navel, as the saying goes. (Or their neck and their knees, to be more accurate.)

Now, on the covers of romance novels, we have images that are meant to appeal to the female gaze. And what do they show? Besides torsos, I mean?

They show that publishers – or at least their marketing departments – are trying to appeal to the “female gaze.” And they think that gaze rests on the same areas as men’s gazes – neck to knees. To appeal to the romance reader, they think, men should be manscaped and body-sculpted, physical as all get-out. And anonymous.

It may be true that some women do long for anonymous sex these days and that romance novels increasingly sell sex. And it may be that the female gaze is as superficial and body-conscious as the male gaze. Maybe that’s the way it is for women who read romance novels. Maybe the publishers know their audience.

As for me, the things I look for in a man are all above the neck – bright, witty, creative men with facial hair. (In fact, three of those qualities are not just above the neck, but above the eyebrows. And I’ll disregard a guy’s lack of facial hair if the other three qualities are strong. But I digress again.)

That’s what’s romantic as far as I’m concerned. And sexy. But I suppose it doesn’t sell books.

The Sport of Cooking

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Food has become a sport. Personally, I blame Guy Fieri.

There are plenty of cooking competitions these days – and eating competitions, too, which make me feel queasy just watching them, so I don’t.

But recently, sporting events for chefs seem to have taken over the streaming channels. And they come with all the unwelcome accouterments of regular sports competitions.

There are some, such as Chopped, that avoid the worst of sports talk, other than the inspirational “I want to teach my children that they can go for their dreams” and “If you try your best, you haven’t really lost” and “Either you win or you learn something,” which, now that I think of it, are more common in parents watching or coaching kids’ sports than in adult sports.

What Guy Fieri has done, though, is to infuse cooking competitions with the worst aspects of sports. I suppose it could have been done by the powers that be at The Food Network, but the examples all seem to have his personal stamp on them.

The most sports-like is Tournament of Champions, which has just completed its fourth season and is already gearing up for a fifth.

Just from the title, you can tell it’s based on sports. Then there’s the format. The competition is based on brackets like a basketball tournament, with seed rankings like a tennis tournament (or Robot Wars, which does not feature cooking robots but does have the format of a cage match. But I digress.) (Beat Bobby Flay also somewhat resembles a cage match, but that’s not emphasized. I keep digressing.)

As a host, Guy Fieri projects a pro wrestling vibe. He bellows the names of the contestants as they enter from opposite sides of the arena, and he has nicknames for everyone – The Jetster for Jet Tila, Bee-Dub for Brooke Williamson, and Superchef for Darnell Ferguson (about whom more in a moment). There are even commentators, who also have nicknames – Justin Warner (Wolfman (or Wild Card)) and Simon Majumdar (Scoop). Guy’s son Hunter interviews the contestants after the match is over. It’s clear that Hunter is the heir apparent to Guy’s Food Network empire.

It’s also clear that Guy is grooming Darnell “Superchef” Ferguson for Fieri-style success. Ferguson was a frequent contestant (and frequent winner) on Guy’s Grocery Games and now has his own show, Superchef Grudge Match. It’s structured as a boxing match, only without the nicknames for competitors. It’s kind of a junior Tournament of Champions. The contestants compete for prize money and bragging rights, but the winner also gets the loser’s favorite chef’s knife. (There is lots of trash talk and sometimes even side bets involving social media accolades, monogrammed aprons, and, in one memorable case, a tattoo of the winner’s name. But I digress yet again.)

For myself, I don’t do competitive cooking – or eating. (Once, when I was a kid, I had dinner at a friend’s house. Hers was a large family, and when the food was served, everyone competed to get their food, serving spoons and forks flying. I was stunned. In our house, dining was much calmer. But with so many people trying to get a fair share, it was normal for them. But I digress even more.) Sometimes, it’s all I can do to put together something edible. Trying to do it with a time constraint and an audience is simply beyond me.

I’ve got to admit, though, that I love watching someone else doing it. It’s appalling and fascinating at the same time. With actual sports, other than the Olympics, I just don’t get the fascination. Maybe if they had to prepare a dinner to celebrate their wins or console themselves for their losses, with medals for the best dishes…now that, I’d watch!

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Reading With Abandon

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I’m an unrepentant bibliophile. I started reading at the age of four and never stopped. I prided myself on the number of books I read, even after I grew too old for the library’s summer reading program. However, increasingly, there are books that I just can’t read. (And not because my eyesight is bad. My e-reader makes up for that with its bump-up-the-type-size feature.)

No, the books I can’t – or won’t – read anymore are ones that manage to annoy me. I start reading them and can’t go on anymore. I don’t actually throw them across the room, but I am tempted to. (Except that, as noted, I read on a Nook or an iPad and don’t want to throw those across the room.)

So, what kinds of books annoy me enough to be figuratively tossed across the room?

I buy a lot of bargain e-books. I get multiple emails daily offering books that are not in their first flush of youth or frequently are self-published. Sometimes I even buy them, if the title is interesting or I recognize the author. I do try to check them out a bit before I hit “submit order,” but occasionally a clunker gets by me.

There was one, for instance, that was supposed to be about how stupid decisions affected history. It sounded interesting and only cost two bucks. However, when I started reading, I discovered that every example the author gave involved a stupid decision regarding a military campaign. I was disappointed. I was hoping for stupid decisions in politics, science, medicine, and other fields as well as war. I’m not a big fan of military history – with a few notable exceptions – and I lost interest so rapidly that I abandoned the book after a few chapters, when it became clear there would be nothing else.

I also abandon books with wretched writing. I recently bought a book by a well-known writer that was a sequel to a book I remember from a couple of dozen years ago. I made it about halfway through. I like foreshadowing and setting up a later revelation if it’s done skillfully, but this novel used the “had I but known” gambit that gives away the “surprise” twist. It also used the narrator to give backstories for every character and describe their inner motivations instead of letting the reader discover them through the characters’ words and actions. And these nuggets broke up what should have been a dramatic and suspenseful story.

Another book got on my wrong side because of its descriptions. It was a mystery with a literary setting, which I ordinarily like. But the author engaged in serious fat-shaming, describing an overweight character in not just unflattering but demeaning terms. It was gratuitous, too – had nothing to do with the plot or the character’s character (as it were). It was clearly meant to make the reader dislike the character for her appearance only.

Speaking of mysteries, I have been annoyed by ones that are too easy to figure out. One, for example, gave away the killer in the introduction. I noticed that the author avoided using personal pronouns (which makes the writing very stilted and artificial), and I knew that the brutal killer must be a woman because why else would they leave out “he” or “she”? Then when a female character gave another person a false alibi – thus alibi-ing herself as well – I knew whodunnit and spent the rest of the book trying to interest myself in another character. I actually finished that one, just to see myself proved right.

And I avoid altogether buying books that are the beginnings of series. Oh, I’ve enjoyed – even adored – series in the past, but anymore I want to read a stand-alone book. Maybe it’s because I can’t commit, but I no longer want to be sucked into thousands of pages of text or endless cliffhangers. If a book wants commitment from me, I want resolution. Fortunately, most series now announce themselves proudly as “Book 1 of the XYZ Series,” so I don’t fall into them by accident. At least I don’t have this problem when it comes to nonfiction.

Despite my newfound ability to discard books and refrain from ordering ones that violate my “rules,” I feel a sense of not just disappointment but a bit of self-criticism when I’m not able to stick with a book. I know this is ridiculous – I still have a TBR list that’s long enough to keep me engaged for the next hundred-plus years. Some of them may prove less than captivating, it’s true. But though I may have given up on certain books, I will never abandon my quest for better ones – or my love of reading.

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Meijer Is My Frenemy

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I love Meijer. I hate Meijer. Call me conflicted. I’m so conflicted, in fact, I’ll probably give my brain whiplash.

On the one hand, Meijer is great. I particularly like this terrific thing called Flash Food. (I imagine other stores have it, too, but I learned about it through Meijer.) It’s grocery shopping for useless people. There’s an app that lets me survey the food that’s near, but not past, its expiration date. (There are always lots of baked goods available, so I have muffins for breakfast nearly every morning.) I think last year I saved nearly $1000 in food costs, plus the food didn’t go to waste.

(I used to work for a company that occasionally gave cocktail parties at business conventions, and there were always assorted hors d’oeuvres. They were never all eaten, and I worried some about the food waste. I learned, however, that if you signed a release form, the leftovers would be donated to a local shelter. I always liked to think of the homeless people being treated to mini-quiches and tiny beef Wellington amuse-bouches. But I digress.)

Meijer is also located within a mile and a half of our house, which is super-convenient, especially since my husband works there and doesn’t have a long commute. (His is still longer than mine, which consists of commuting from the bedroom upstairs to my study downstairs. It’s a quick trek, and I’ve never needed snow tires. But I digress again.)

I also love that Meijer gives him a regular paycheck, which is necessary to maintain our essential supply of cat food. It’s also handy that he works there, since he can do all the shopping and pick up the Flash Food and I don’t have to ha ha ha ha ha!

On the other hand, Meijer pisses me off. First, I object on principle to stores where you can buy both milk and lawn furniture. It’s simply wrong. The store is too large as well, and they keep rearranging it. I’m afraid that I’ll wander for hours through the freezer section and die of exposure. When Dan and I shop together, we need to use our cell phones to keep track of each other. “I’m in the pet section. Where are you?” “Cheap meat.”

(I do like the cheap meat section. Once when we were shopping, I ran into a mutual friend. I towed him over to where Dan was mulling over the varieties of pudding available. “Look what I found in cheap meat!” I said. But I digress yet again.)

I don’t love Dan’s schedule. He has Sundays and Mondays off, which is okay. He can join me on bank-and-post-office-type errands that have to be done on a weekday. But he has to be at work several days a week at 6:00 a.m. Until my sleep habits went wonky this winter, I couldn’t get up to have tea with Dan in the mornings. But wonky waking means that now I get up at the same (way too early) time Dan does, and I can have my muffins and tea while he eats his hard-boiled eggs and toaster waffles.

All in all, though, I can’t stay mad at Meijer. What we thought would be a short chapter in our lives has turned into a ten-year narrative. What might to some seem like a lowly job as a greeter has meant for Dan an ideal antidote to burnout and a position where he gets to smile and chat with people all day.

And what it means for me is whiplash. I’ll ask Dan to bring me home an icebag. And lemon muffins, while he’s at it.

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Dan’s Upgrade

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My husband has at last entered the 21st century! After literally decades of resistance, he has moved up from the flip-phone to the smartphone.

Of course, when we first got cell phones, all of them were flip-phones. And we thought we might be the last people on earth to get even those. A few misunderstandings that led to shouting and accusations of discourtesy meant that we needed to enter the digital age. After one particularly loud and angry … discussion, we decided to take the plunge. Dan in particular was reluctant to get a mobile device, since he didn’t want to be “tied to his phone” and perpetually available. But he had to admit that cell phones had their uses.

His compromise with his own Luddite leanings was never to figure out how to use the thing. While he eventually figured out how to record a voicemail message and even to leave a message on my phone, he never learned how to retrieve voicemail left for him. Instead, he let it pile up until the phone always reported that his voicemail was full, making it useless. (I recently deleted his voicemail and the messages there were all from January of a year ago, and most of them were from his mother. But I digress.)

Once smartphones became available, I opted for one when my flip-phone crapped out. Dan kept replacing his with another flip-phone when it was out of order or he lost it so thoroughly that it was likely in a different state, or maybe another country. I thought it might be because he wanted a phone that was most like a Star Trek communicator.

But when I got a smartphone (not that I was among the first to do so either), he looked askance at it. “I don’t want a phone that’s smarter than I am,” he said, which I suppose was meant as a joke, though I really couldn’t tell. I tried to convince him that the added features – the easy availability of news and weather and GPS, for example – made it worthwhile, but still he resisted. He said he didn’t want to be one of “those people” who had their eyes perpetually glued to a screen. (He once asked me what people did before they could stare at their cellphones. “Read books,” I said. “Not while they’re walking,” he replied. I had to tell him that when I was in high school I did indeed read books while walking from one class to the next. But I digress again.)

Then I started getting apps on my phone that I knew Dan or I would want or need. The prize among them was PictureThis, an app that let you take pictures of plants, then would identify them and provide other useful and interesting information about them, such as whether your plant looked sick or whether that species had been mentioned in a poem. It even provided the poem for you. This led to Dan dashing into the house, shouting, “Give me your phone,” and bringing it back with dirty smudges on it. When Dan got a tablet, I downloaded this app for him so he wouldn’t have to borrow my phone. I also downloaded some music and video apps onto the tablet when he was going to be visiting his mother. He hates her taste in TV.

Dan’s entry into the modern era was a consequence of a different app, though. Where he works, people clocked in and out using their smartphones. Dan couldn’t, and that meant he had to walk farther to do so. In a sense, it was laziness that turned the tide.

Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that. The way his coworkers scanned in was using a QR code. Dan didn’t know what those were. So I had to download him a QR reader and show him how to use it. I don’t think he’s actually used it yet, but at least now he has the option when he’s too tired to make the long trudge.

I know he still mourns the death of his flip-phone, but even he had to admit that our phone provider didn’t really support them anymore. And the first night he had the smartphone I caught him with his nose pointed at the screen, watching YouTube videos.

He doesn’t love it yet, but I figure it’s just a matter of time. He’s no longer comparing its intelligence to his.

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What Does Friday Even Mean?

Christmas, etc., funny things, holidays, humor, , , , , ,

Today is Sunday, but in a way, it’s still Friday. The whole month has been nothing but Fridays, in fact.

We used to have Black Friday. It was the day after Thanksgiving, when the turkey-bloated got their exercise by standing in checkout lines in stores, trying to get a jump on their Christmas shopping. To lure in the many still suffering from postprandial torpor, many stores began offering special sales and deals on that day.

(Okay, I’m showing off. “Postprandial torpor” is the technical name for “food coma.” But I digress.)

Tech geeks got their shop on on Cyber Monday, when computers and other paraphernalia were offered at Low, Low, Bargain Prices!

Those were the days when Friday and Monday actually meant something.

Now, we have Black Friday for the whole month of November. And I don’t mean just four Fridays, either. Thirty days of Friday. And the Cyber Monday people have given up on Mondays altogether. They’ve succumbed to Black Friday fever as well; they just toss in the towel and lower their prices all month long.

Of course, I have a tendency to ignore sales. I know that there are people who haunt the sales. They refuse to buy anything that isn’t at least 10% off. I’m more inclined to whimsical shopping, buying things whenever whimsy strikes me. Fortunately, that means anything I buy in November has a good chance of being on sale anyway.

Maybe subconsciously I’m observing Black November (that doesn’t sound right), because I’ve already done all my Christmas shopping. In fact, everything I’ve ordered has already been delivered and is sheltering in place in my study closet, safe from marauding cats and an inquisitive husband.

Every day is Cyber Monday to me, since I do all my shopping online. For that matter, I do my banking and bill-paying online, too. I feel like a supervillain, coordinating all my plans from my keyboard. Of course, I can’t wrap presents online (and I refuse to pay extra to have my purchases wrapped by the assorted vendor-elves). So, I really hope my husband finds ripping open Tyvek bags to be suitably festive.

(I do have one tiny gift bag decorated with butterflies that was included with a pair of earrings I ordered for myself. I suppose I could put the SD card I bought for hubby’s camera in it, although butterflies aren’t really Christmas-y in this part of the world. The camera itself will be in a plain brown box. But I digress again.)

It’s pointless for me to complain, though. After all, the Fourth of July only occurs on the Fourth anymore when it falls on a Saturday. Hardly any holidays stay put. Thanksgiving is reserved for Thursdays, but it can be anything from the 22nd to the 28th. Easter bobs and weaves, refusing to settle on a single date. You know it’s a Sunday, but you have to be a mathematician or a priest to figure out which one. (Or look it up online like I do.)

Christmas is always December 25th, but it can fall on any day of the week. So the day after Christmas doesn’t get a spiffy name like “Exchange Your Presents Tuesday” or “Discount Candy Cane Wednesday.”

The next thing we need to do is make sure that “Giving Tuesday” isn’t relegated to a single day when all the selling gets whole weeks and months. Maybe some useless – I mean, generous – billionaire could match donations to charitable organizations. I can think of a few who could use a little good karma. So, if there are any billionaires reading this, step right up! Giving November can use you – I mean, will appreciate your philanthropy!