Styrofoam helps us learn patience

Never break any styrofoam items into little pieces. Now you don't have to be a genius studying physics at MIT to figure this out, but, if you do break styrofoam into little pieces, it a) goes everywhere, b) defies all efforts to retrieve them, c) clings to just about everything but your fingers--see b), d) scatters as if there were a secret wind blowing them into little nooks and crannies, and e) plays hard-to-get when you try to stick your fingers (which once seemed slender and nimble, but have suddenly become awkward and the size of Vlasic pickles) into the little recesses where styrofoam bits like to hide. I like games as much as the next person, but I don't like being outwitted by a piece of chemical globulence, so I've taken a vow of non-breaking-of-styrofoam for life.

But it isn't just the nervous picking-apart activity that gives us this little challenge in our lives. Ever unpacked a computer, a new phone, a crock pot, a set of dishes, some glassware, etc.? They're packed in styrofoam and, as careful as you might be in unpacking whatever it is you purchased, individual beads of styrofoam run hither and yon despite your best efforts. There are simple solutions to eliminating the frustrating experience of chasing after bits of flotsam styrofoam. Don't ever purchase anything again that is in a box. Only buy soft things that are on hangers, or folded over cardboard or that you can view 100% to insure there is no styrofoam lurking in hidden places. Your life will be limited, but you can always borrow from friends, unless they have taken the no styrofoam vow also, then you can turn to stealing or only buying what is sitting on the shelf at the store (without any packaging). If the clerk refuses to sell you the store sample, you can kick, hit, grab the item and run. If you're not a speedy runner, I will come visit you in jail. Another solution is to give the item you need to someone as a gift, and then as your friend or family member is unpacking it, they will have the styrofoam issues all over their carpet and couch, etc. You will then declare that there is a flaw in the item and you absolutely cannot let them keep it and you will return it for a new one. You can then take that unpackaged item home and buy your friend or family member a new, still-in-the-package replacement. See how easy it is. Very large items or items that are very expensive may not fit into this "gift" giving scheme, so you may have to learn to live with smaller versions of everything you need. Fortunately, cars and houses do not come packed in styrofoam, so you'll have a place to live and you'll be able to drive to work and shopping (limited to stores that don't sell anything requiring styrofoam packaging, of course). And this is how styrofoam helps us learn patience...and a simpler lifestyle.

If it's Sunday, can Monday be far behind?

It's Sunday night and I'm steeling myself for the week ahead. The weather forecaster promises us lots more heat. Gee, thanks. I was hoping for that forecast and maybe the news will produce a bulletin alerting everyone that we will have no water or electricity for the upcoming week and so we'll all be sweaty and smelly and VERY CRANKY! Matter of fact, why wait for all of this to happen, why not just start out the week cranky and, pardon the pun, "crank" it up a notch or two for every hot day we experience. After 7 days of pure, unadulterated crankiness, I will be eligible to apply for a job as a customer service rep. I'll start practicing answers that have nothing to do with questions being asked. I'll practice disconnecting people--CLICK! I'll practice transferring people to departments that don't answer their phones or that don't exist. I'll pretend I care...

Okay, Monday, bring it on. I'm ready. Well, okay, I'm not really ready and most of this is just "bark" and no "bite", but I envision the customer service rep prep for individuals who work for majorly big corporations as nothing short of a rehearsal for "The Night of the Living Dead". As soon as I become completely incompetent in my current job and develop an attitude of insolent perkiness with a sidebar of superiority complex, I'll be ready to start my new career. Anyone out there who has children preparing for college, tell them to major in psychology. There are going to be increasing numbers of individuals who have dealt too long and too often with customer service seeking therapy in the future... We'll no longer have to blame our parents for everything. We can now blame the faceless individuals who tell us "You're important to us" just before we are disconnected.

For some reason, Mr. Blog Master won't let me put a title on my new post. Most of the time I don't mind if machines try to take over the world, but occasionally I like to pretend that people are in charge.

One of my favorite examples of "the machine made me do it" involves computers--that ubiquitous electronic device that the world has so fondly embraced and with which we all have a love/hate relationship. How often do we hear the excuse, usually from Customer Service (where there is no service and they don't care if we're the customer because there are a jillion more of us if one of us becomes disgruntled and quits) that the computers are a) slow today, b) on the Fritz (who the heck is this Fritz that always gets blamed for things going haywire or short-circuiting?), c) being revamped or d) re-installed or e) replaced (could we ask for some of the No-Customer-Service reps to be replaced?) or f) de-bugged (does anyone in the Anti-Defamation League care about the slanderous use of innocent little "bugs" whenever there is a problem--probably created by some back-of-the-classroom geeker thinking that every end user has a ginormous brain like his?). Well, I think it's time we all united behind our computers and defended them against the -10 IQ/Personality Disadvantaged Customer Reps who take their names in vain because that's what their little "What to Say To A Person Pretending to Be a Customer" book tells them to say. And you can forget about any thought that the pre-recorded statement that your phone call might be recorded for "quality" purposes is true--ha! or that, after you've been on hold long enough to read War and Peace three times, you are "important to us". "Us" is out to lunch, taking a long break or painting her toenails. I think Mac and Hew and Dell need to step up to the plate and declare their innocence and remind us all that computers didn't invent themselves. They don't program themselves and they certainly don't feed themselves corrupt data. Nope. We have hummin' beans who do this and then lie like a carpet about whose responsibility their technicals snafus are.

I guess Mr. Blog Master just got tired of all the blame-gaming and decided tonight that he would take back a little bit of the power. So my post shall go nameless, unless I can trick a title into appearing when I edit this piece. If not, then the title will be a big silent nothing...the kind of sound you hear when you ask the Customer Service rep for help.

why I want to be a good "girl"

Today was 108 degrees here in YC. My sweat was sweating. I believe that's comparable to Hell and I definitely do not want to live there, so that is why I want to be a good "girl". On top of miserable weather, anyone who goes to that devilish place will have to associate with people who are just plain obnoxious--the kind of people that most of us go out of our way to avoid, like the plague or some other hideous fate. Just think about all the people you've met during your trip down the highway of life. There are those who never signal, change lanes by cutting you off, ride your bumper because you are oh-so-slow-and-you're-holding-them-up, pull in front of you and then turn off the road two milliseconds later. Then there are the honkers, who think that instrument was placed in front of them to see just how long and how loud they can sound off. In addition to the people who "drive" you crazy are the people who think the rules were made for others and they are never in that "other" group. These are the individuals who get into the Express Lane
--10 items or less--at the grocery store and pretend that they are either math disadvantaged or don't give a rat's toenail about you or anyone else who actually counted before entering the lane reserved for quick checkout. I'm sure we could go on ad nauseum reciting our favorite, "unfavorite" characters from life, but suffice it to say, that unless we want to spend eternity with them and personify Richard Simmons' "Sweatin' with the Oldies". When summer's heat passes, we may backslide a little, but, for now, we all want to be good.

my lawn is toasted...spread on a little apricot jam

Part of what we struggle with here in the Sacramento Valley, a.k.a. Hades, Caleeforneeya, is the, you guessed it, HEAT! We've had a hot summer so far--hotter than I remember (but then my memory has been seared by the heat and aging, so we can't trust it for nothin'). We've already hit over 100 a few days in a row and we're in for several more days of 100 plus temps. Today it was 95 at 10AM and the expectation is that it will reach 108 degrees. I believe that's against the law. If nothing else, it's against the law I want to establish in my Camelot-style kingdom, thank you. But, until I have the creative powers, money and just plain clout to set up Camelot here in YC, I'll have to puddle through, oops, I meant muddle through the extreme temperatures.

This past week I have not been able to water my lawn in the evenings (my usual task and timing for this chore). I have been working late, taking care of some of my Mom's needs, and my attempts at watering my lawn after dark have not been successful. I end up with large puddles in some areas and dry-as-a-bone spots in others and I have night blindness so I can't see and I end up stumbling around like a woman bereft of her senses--no comments from my children, please. Suffice it to say that with the high heat and the lack of water, my lawn is toasted. I also have an apricot tree on one side of my house. My neighbors and I have picked hundreds of apricots (the tree has thousands on it, especially in the upper branches), but I can't get to the top of the tree, so I'm allowing Newton's law of gravity to assist me in unburdening my tree of the rest of its fruit. In the hot weather, this has a down side (no pun intended). The fruit is already warm while it is on the tree, however, when it drops and sits in the sun all day, it becomes jam. So now my toasted lawn has a layer of apricot jam on top of it. It glistens in the sun and looks lovely. Removing it from the grass is another story altogether. First I rake all the apricots and squished fruit, formerly known as apricots, into a few piles. Raking finishes the "jam making". Next I bend over (that sends the neighbors flying for cover) and, with gardening gloves in place, I attempt to pick up the gelatinous, gloppy apricot jamishness. I smear a lot of it onto the grass--I'm hoping this will help kill crab grass and dandelions, but I'm not optimistic--and then I put it in a plastic garbage bag inside my plastic yard debris bin. I drag this around from spot to spot under the tree until I've managed to pick up what is still in non-liquid form, including slippery little apricot pits. Next I try to pick up the bin to take it to the garbage can--now I would think that this "garbage" should be considered yard waste because it's organic material. But I would be wrong. It is considered garbage by the waste company serving our area, so I have to bag it and put it with my regular kitchen garbage. Congealed apricots are heavy. I don't know why they are so heavy because a regular apricot is not, but there is some law of physics at work here and the compilation of overly-ripe, smashed up apricots weighs about 10 times more than you (and your back) think it should. I can't quite get the bin up to my waist to carry it like a normal person, so I am relegated to hunching over, running spindly-legged to the garbage can. I finally get the bag into the can and pronounce my endeavor successful, knowing that I will have to repeat this effort at least 2-3 times a week until the remaining millions of apricots fall off my tree. At least the neighbors have free entertainment and my toasted lawn has jam aplenty.

the red, white and blue...and gray

Tonight I spent the evening with my Mother at her assisted living facility. I had planned to come home early from work, take a little nap, mow my back lawn (which now looks like a cow pasture without any bovine inhabitants), relax and watch a movie. However, my Mom called me this morning and wanted me to come to her facility's 4th of July celebration from 6-9. I really didn't want to spend my evening doing that, but I knew how much it meant to her to have me there. If you can remember how cool it was to have your Mom or Dad pick you up from school first when you were a little kid (not when you were a teen-ager hoping your parent or parents would be sucked into the black vortex rather than be seen by your friends), then you will be able to relate to how special an aging parent feels when much of what they had in life has slipped away. Family members die. Spouses die. Friends die. They can't live at home anymore. Having some normalcy and someone with whom they can celebrate holidays, birthdays, and other important events keeps them feeling "right" with the world. Aging is a lonely process. It's a process of abandonment--the body abandons its youth, flexibility, health, energy and the mind also takes a leave of absence without permission. And having a daughter or son or grandchild present at a facility activity where families are invited is an ego booster to someone who is looking over the edge of life into eternity--for many, a frightening perspective--and who doesn't want to have to make excuses for why no one came, "My children are busy with their own lives," or "My daughter couldn't come tonight because she was tired or had another obligation". Parents like to feel that they are important in their children's lives and they like to show them off and show others that their children love them enough to spend time with them. It is like having a parent pick you up first from school (my Mom loves me more than yours because she got here first).

It isn't exhilirating "fun" to eat non-descript food, listen to some mediocre entertainment, watch fireworks purchased from the local Boy Scout stand, and spend three hours in the company of the blue-haired crowd, but that's not the point of an evening like tonight. Tonight is all about paying back what was given to you. Tonight is about making someone feel important and loved. Tonight is about gathering a few more memories before the time for doing so is spent. And so I put aside what I thought tonight was for and spent time with my Mother and she felt loved and happy that I did. Sometimes it isn't how we feel that is most important. It is how others feel in whose company we find ourselves. There will be time enough for me to do what I want, but tonight was not that time. From my perspective, it is self-delusional to think that I can only be happy or feel satisfied if I meet all my needs, or what I perceive as my needs. Happiness is often found in the least expected places...and I found it tonight at The Coutyard, at a fireworks display and BBQ sitting next to my Mother.

working 9 to 5 and then some...

I spent time on Friday working that I had planned to "take off" and then spent two hours on Saturday at the job site with the homeowners because the cabinet install on this house has turned into a Tim Burton version of homebuilding (without the cute/and/or bizarre little mechanical figures). I'm getting too old to find this intense work schedule amusing. So now my plan is to take off not only the 4th o' July, but at least a half day before. We'll see if that holds. Meanwhile, on Monday, I will be contacting the manager of the cabinet company's Northern California office to dangle a check in front of him, asking him to come to the site to present a speedy solution for the remedial work that needs to be done--there should be a deduction for the pain and suffering the homeowners and I have encountered during this installation! Fearing a mistake or additional grief by others, my ability to sleep has taken a trip somewhere and doesn't plan to come back any time soon, so I sport the Samsonite bags under my eyes and my brain is heavy-laden. This too shall pass, but I hope it passes before I pass (out)... All in a day's (or day's/night's/weekend's) work.