The Blue Lady

There's a lady who lives in my neighborhood. She walks every day, and she always, always, without fail, wears something blue. I know it must be her favorite color, but just once, I'd love to see her in a different color. I don't know why, I just would. She wears blue of various shades, but it's always blue. Sometimes a shirt has some white or red stripes in it, too, but the basic color is blue. She doesn't seem blue, or depressed. In fact, she seems friendly, and always says hello. But, maybe she is a little depressed, because her husband died about a year ago. She lives alone, but she keeps busy walking the neighborhood. I've lived here about 10 years, and she has walked every day that I know of, and she always wears blue. So, a few years ago, I started to call her The Blue Lady. What kind of a neighbor am I? I don't even know her name.

Aunt Harriet

Here are some thoughts on a wonderful Aunt. Not everyone is close to an aunt. I grew up with Harriet, visiting her on summer vacations at her home in Iowa. Occasionally she and her family would visit us, too. My life has been filled with times with Harriet and her family. My mother would often call me Harriet, and she would call Harriet my name. For some reason, in her mind, we were the same. But, I was really nothing like Harriet. She was easy-going, soft spoken, patient, and I am more difficult, higher maintenance, with a more temperamental disposition.
Anyway, Harriet died a week ago today. I just got home from her funeral. I'll never be inside her house again. I'm very sad, and in future days, I'll write more about her. One thing that stands out in my mind now is her wonderful voice, and musical laugh. I'll miss that alot.

Kidney stones

Life works in mysterious ways. My daughter decides not to go back to college. She would have returned over the weekend. I go into serious depression about it. I feel sorry for myself, thinking of all the things I did to help her get into college, all the work getting her there and settled in, the help I gave her for the time she was in school. I even called a counselor to give me some advice about how to deal with it and how to get over the funk I was in. Then, on the day she would have returned to school, she started complaining of severe abdominal pain. Two trips to the E.R. in two days finally gave us a diagnosis of a kidney stone. Had she gone back to school, who knows what would have happened. She was in alot of pain, but luckily, it's not a bad diagnosis. Anyway, it all worked out for the best. She is better today, looking for a place to live with friends, doing job hunting, etc. And she says she plans to go back to school next fall. We'll see. Now, though, I'm just glad she's here. Sometimes we just need a little kidney stone to get us back on track with each other!

It gets worse

Now one of my daughter's friends is also dropping out of college -- a great arts school in New York City --also, like my daughter, to be near her friends. These friends have never gone to school, they party all the time, smoke about a pack a day (a habit picked up after high school graduation), and they just generally have no clue. My daugher and her friend were off on a real college adventure, which they were just beginning to be happy with -- until winter break happened. Then, lots of time was spent with these friends,who surely must have talked them into staying. There was a ski accident, and an acquaintance of theirs was killed, and this is the reason given for staying -- to be near friends who know what they are going through. Oh, the drama! How could I be so non-understanding of what they're going through. How about what I am going through? My husband and I put out lots of money for this, not to mention time spent to help her with the move and the adjustment. We saw her on her way to growing up a little, learn about life, and instead -- a backslide to the good old high school days. Of course, she knows she has to find a job, a place to live, and all that goes with growing up. We shall see how things are in a month. Her room, which for the last few months was liveable, is now back to being so loaded with STUFF that I can't even walk in there. I need a trip to the Caribbean! It's so damn cold here.

Letting teenagers make mistakes

It's a good thing I started listening to Love and Logic tapes. My daughter announced today that she wants to drop out of college -- after just one semester. She's been home almost a month, and she has decided not to go back. She wants to work, make money, and be near her dear friends (who she's known about 2 years). I've let her know that I think it's a mistake, but I love her and hope that she will be happy with her decision. I've been having this conflict with her ever since she left for college -- a really good college, by the way, that I feel she was very fortunate to get into. But, she needs to learn on her own. If she has regrets, then that will help her to grow. To her, college is a punishment, not a privilege. Learning is hard, and she doesn't value it. Guess she needs to see what the working world is like, and I wonder how long she'll be so enamored with these friends from high school. We shall see.

Consider packaging. I remember buying products and not needing serrated knives and scissors to get the product out of the package. I bought an electric shaver for my brother who is in the nursing home, and it took 15 minutes to just pry it out of the see-through atom-bomb-proof plastic wrap. It seems to me that we should be making things easier for ourselves, but somehow companies hire bright new young minds, who feel it is their obligation to make changes, and so they do. But, the changes aren't always an improvement. Yes, it's nice to see how a product looks, and yes, there are bad people out there who steal stuff, but how about the honest shopper, who just wants to get the product out of the package without risk of cutting a major artery?

Consider automobiles. Now, when I buy a new car, I need to spend hours with the owner's manual just to figure out the dashboard. I liked the old way of setting the odometer. Just press a button, and it would zero out. I still haven't figured out how to do it on my 2004 Chevrolet Trail Blazer. To figure out mileage for a trip involves study. Too time consuming for me. I wonder who invented the computer-generated dashboard.

People have a misconception about nursing homes. So, I decided to try to dispel the myth that they are depressing places to avoid at all costs. They actually can be fascinating as well as a learning experience. Folks in their final years and the people who care for them are pretty interesting. More later. . .

Today's thought

We have not made our lives simpler over the past 50 years, even with all of the new technology. Sure, cell phones and computers have helped alot, but let's just consider public rest rooms. It's my pet peeve of the week! The automatic soap, water, paper towels, and flushing toilets are actually plots created by our enemies to drive us mad. They rarely work, and we look like idiots trying to make them work! The toilet paper is all nice and safe, out of sight, but absolutely unreachable. You have to stand on your head to locate the beginning point. Then, when you do, it's either too tight, and you're lucky to break off a square, or it's about empty. I miss the days of good old rolls of toilet paper, toilets that flush by hand, soap, water and paper towels which require a human touch to obtain. Who invented all this automatic stuff? It doesn't save water! The toilets are flushing constantly, whether they need to or not!

Of course, I need to briefly mention the phone system. Years ago, we didn't have these menus, which often take forever to reach an actual person. And I'm tired of the old line -- "Please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed." Everyone is apparently always changing their menu options, and I must ask why. Are they really changing that often, or is this just the standard opening statement?

I'm pretty sure that every day I can come up with another case in point to prove that we are slowly making our lives harder. Shouldn't new technology be doing the reverse of what it actually is doing?