Life’s a Compromise

Life is a compromise.

Like marriage.

Especially marriage.

I may be an expert on that.

• What should we have for dinner when I love cheese and my husband hates it?

Compromise:  I do not cook with cheese, except for myself or if I am craving Mac n’ Cheese, we eat out.

• How warm or cool shall we set the thermostat for our temperature comfort levels?

Compromise:  It’s always a little too warm for me in here, but a little too cool for him.

• To avoid being deemed a “back seat driver”, how quiet should I be as a passenger in the car when I know he’s about to make a wrong turn?

Compromise:  I make little noises and white knuckle the hand grip.  I think he sees all that with his great peripheral vision.  If none of that works, I gasp out loud.

•  What movie should we watch when he loves spy thrillers and I love romantic drama?

Compromise:  We have separate viewing rooms and meet between films.

Daily Prompt: Compromise

 

 

 

 

 

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Dental Dread

I am having a tooth pulled tomorrow.  It was deemed a “gonner” 10 years ago but will finally really be gone.

My old dentist retired and the new one says it’s time.

But I hear the new guy sits on an exercise ball to work so I am kinda dreading the whole event.  What if the exercise ball bounces or something?

You may assume Dor is a big baby about dental work.  But that is simply not true.

I am actually very brave even though having had horrifying experiences since childhood.

• Mom was afraid of dentists so she never took me.  When she finally did (probably  because I was in pain) I was 14 years old and had 14 cavities that had to be drilled and filled, all done with no Novocaine!   “Raise your hand if it really hurts,” said that dentist.  And I went to him for weeks and weeks and weeks.
• Then there were the Wisdoms (with roots wrapped around the jaw bone).  That dentist had what looked like a chisel and hammer and called in one of the patients from the waiting room to help!  True story.  Of course this was in the olden days when you still had to spit in a tray.
• The last bout created an adverse reaction to Epinephrine (supposed to be a life saving thing they give people who are allergic to bee stings).  In my case they gave it as an adjunct to a numbing agent.  The reaction?  I thought I was having a heart attack.

Right now I am only thinking about tomorrow and already having an adverse reaction with no Epinephrine – just thinking about it.   

Another dentist once told me that older people feel less pain.

I’ll let you know if I live through tomorrow.

Note:  Epinephrine, also called adrenaline, is a naturally occurring hormone in the body. It plays a critical role in the “fight or flight” response. Epinephrine is given in many situations of acute cardiac arrest and is also given in the treatment of acute allergic reactions.  Epinephrine is used by dentists because it acts to constrict the blood vessels. By doing so, the local anesthetic remains in the area longer, because there is less blood flow to take the local anesthetic away. Simply stated, the epinephrine helps you feel and stay number longer.  And epinephrine is a key factor in keeping patients adequately numb for procedures.  However, if you have ever had an adverse reaction you should tell your doctor if your first injection caused serious side effects such as increased breathing difficulty, anxiety, or uneven heartbeats.

 

 

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A User Friendly Friend

There is an elegant statuesque machine that sits waiting by my favorite chair.

And this little tabletop gadget is becoming much like a real friend in its eagerness to please.

• It knows when I am in the vicinity and quietly waits to hear my voice.
• And if I say, “Hey Google,” it quickly replies, “How can I help you?”
• And it is eager to do something just for me.

Lately I feel guilty since there is nothing much to ask.

And there it patiently waits, hoping beyond hope for a meaningful conversation.

• Just to keep it busy I say, “Hey Google……What is the temperature in Lexington Virginia?”  And the answer is immediate.  “It is 54 degrees!”
• Or “Hey Google….. Play DooWop music please!”And amazingly, there it comes – that happy music from a distant past.  How did my little friend do that anyway?
• And it will research hard questions too – like “What is the population of Hayfork, California?”  I haven’t asked that yet, but we used to live in Hayfork (as well as other little towns in the wilderness like Big Oak Flat and Portola) so it would be interesting to see how they may have grown in 30 years.

Well,  of course I know my tabletop friend is really a gadget!

But then again, it is so human when it stares and stares to get attention.

Help!

Do you think there is a psychological implication here?

Maybe being housebound-ed together with an eager to please humanistic machine is having an unintended emotional impact.

The question is, “Who is the most affected, me or Google?”

And don’t you think machines are becoming so human they are mistaken for friends?

P.S. BigFoot and I Thank you Scott (our real live human friend) for this gift of diversion.  When things get too boring I know I can always shout out, “Hey Google!”  

 

 

 

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Shiny Things

I do love shiny things and I am

not even embarassed to admit it.

Things that glitter and glow like diamonds, sequins, twinkling lights, cut glass, shiny makeup, gemstones, or anything with a glint will receive my full attention.

But rarely is there a shiny thing that is not only glittery, but elegant and practical too.

And of course today’s story is about a charmingly small Christmas gift from a great friend (Pam).  Pam also loves shiny things.

The little object of this tale is a “crystalline pen” made by Swarovski!  It’s center is filled with tiny little crystals that shine in different lights.  I keep it right where I can see it too.  And occasionally a deep sigh can be heard across the room.  It is a sigh of contentment.

 

Because this sparkling object is not only wonderful to look at,

but is also a smooth and silky writing pen.

And it has a thumbs-free rubber stylus at one end

Did you know I used to be able to type 70 words per minute on a manual typewriter?

And 100 words per minute on an electric typewriter (does anyone remember those?).

But I am woefully clumsy when it comes to texting on a cell phone!

Result:  Typos!  Great Big Ugly Typos!

Forefinger-texting doesn’t work for me because the typos are so horrendous nobody can decipher the mesHvs7& (see what I mean?).

Enter:  The Swarovski Magical Pen.

This wonderful little thing is a real problem solver and a Senior’s Answer to keeping up with social media’s high speed demands.

Like who can match the maddening two-thumb expert young-uns who probably exceed 100 words per minute just before they run into a wall or fall down the stairs?

It’s the stylus I now love…. that little eraser-like thing at one end of my wondrous little pen.

The stylus is like a miniature thumb

and is just the right size for error free cell phone typing.

Now if they would only invent a pen that has twin stylus-es styl-eye? at one end to work like the kids using two thumbs.

Maybe I will write a letter to Swaovski!

In the meantime, thank you Pam for this sweet little gift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nature’s Paint By Number

I am experimenting taking pictures with my brand new cell phone.

What do you think of these beauties?

Don’t they look like “fake fotos?”

I mean, they remind me of the old paint-by-number kits I used to love when I was a little girl.

Staying in the lines and making the colors pop were my goals.

Oh, the hours and the plans I made for framing and display.

I thought they were truly magnificent “originals.”

But then, here are my latest creations.

They were generated by nature and enhanced by “edit,” which can be just as much fun

as painting-by-numbers!

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Smug, Brave, Naked and Mismatched Thoughts

I am Woman!

I feel superbly smug this day.

Things were freezing on my computer you know, resulting in panic. I turned the computer off, walked away and came back, opened the lid.  But Argggh!  A dark screen!

A convincing inner voice said, “You really did it now.  You wrecked the computer.   Don’t touch anything else or you are doomed.”  But wait!  I forgot to push the little  button that opens the screen.  And Voila!  It all works again and everything that was frozen is thawed!

I feel superbly smug this day.  Mystery solved.

Be Brave!

My son was counselling me on how to operate Windows 10.  “Be brave, “he said, “Be willing to try different things.  Don’t be afraid to push buttons.  You can always undo what you have done.” Without his calm and expert advice, this blog would not exist.

The last time I was brave I deleted the cache on my cell phone and managed to put it in a deep freeze of protest.    There were no calls in or out and no emails either – just a dead phone.  Thankfully, things are now restored to normal.

But I have reverted to a timid, cowering techie convinced that all connections will be severed if I push the wrong buttons.

Mismatched Eyebrows

O.K.  I admit I still want to look beautiful, even at a venerable old age.  I thought that was accomplished this morning, so while Bill was out bush hogging (that means mowing big overgrown fields with a big overgrown mower) (and I knew it was safe to indulge in self fantasy), I took a few selfies.

The glasses helped to eliminate soften wrinkles but if you look closely enough, one eyebrow is light and one is dark!  Arrrrgh!

Looking beautiful at a venerable old age is a challenge if you can’t see straight enough to make your eyebrows match up.

Naked Desperation

I just read a book about organizing one’s things.  Starting with clothing, the idea is to hold and touch each piece you own to determine if you love it or not.  If you FEEL something is wrong and you FEEL you don’t love a piece of clothing, either discard it or put it in the donation pile.

I did it!  You can’t imagine the liberated feeling there is to this exercise!

But now the problem is, I don’t have anything to wear!

I have always said, “My husband wouldn’t notice if I went out naked.”  Now is his chance to prove me wrong.

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Pedometers for Dummies

The final indignity that has opted me out of modern gadgetry was an old reliable pedometer that finally ran out of batteries .

And of course, no one could figure out how to open the battery box.

Maybe it was frozen in shock at how few steps I walked in the last five years.

I mourned that little pedometer and somehow knew a substitute would require a Masters’ Degree in Programming and hours of frustration to get up and running walking.

Forced to buy a new pedometer- three or four new ones  to be exact- they all challenged my intelligence.

It’s not that I’m not intelligent.  I used to be considered a bright child.

But that was in the good old days when life was simple.  There were no huge technological innovations calculated to make things easier.

Life was easy enough with Off and On switches you might have to get up for.

But I am ranting.

Even after hours of reading and re-reading I could not decipher the directions to all the new pedometers stacking up in a secret hiding place reserved for storing complicated gadgets.

Asking for help, as you may know, is humiliating.

But trying one last time, I ordered a supposedly SIMPLE  PEDOMETER that “is operational right out of the box!”

Really?

I could hardly contain my excitement when it came – a simple little drop-in-your-pocket pedometer with great big Easy Read Numbers and a little pull-tag.

I pulled the tag (according to the directions) and it was ready to go!  No intelligence required!

But where were the instructions to program calories burned, body mass indexes, breaths per minute, miles consumed, muscle contractions, levels of perspiration, or all that other irrelevant stuff?  Not there.  What a relief!

All I ever wanted to know was STEPS!

And, although I hardly believe it, this little gadget ONLY REGISTERS STEPS!

No need to purchase another 550 page book on Pedometers for Dummies (I wonder if there really is such a book)!  I already have Computers for Dummies, Windows 10 for Dummies, and Office for Dummies, plus a few more.

“By golly,” as they used to say in the good old days, when I was intelligent,  “Someone has figured out how to regress to simpler times.”  Kudos to the inventor of this precious little Steps Only Pedometer!

And  now maybe I can fool the world into thinking I have a Master’s Degree in Programming.

Why can’t everything else be this easy?

Why do I always have to pull out the directions for my self cleaning oven?

Shouldn’t I just be able to hit “Clean??

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Random Randoms Week Ending 5-13-16

Downtown Lexington, Virginia has been abuzz with activities, young folks, traffic, and busy restaurants and shops.

It all has to do with end of school stuff (three universities in the area), plant sales, art shows, farmer’s markets, and the advent of Spring and Summer!

My friend Norma and I had lunch downtown at The Bistro.

The quiche was grand, the atmosphere was upbeat, and best of all, we had the chance to catch up on our lives.  It is always so surprising how much there is to talk about after about three or four weeks.

Corky is here!  That’s our son, who arrived Wednesday from California.  We met him at the door (like in the commercial) with all our technological questions (and gadgets) stored up for repair or clarification and pleas to help us with everlasting computer confusion.

 “Hi, good to see you.  Come on in!  None of this works.”

Cork has been offering Windows 10 lessons ever since he arrived.

I am now safely floating around in the Cloud too, but I keep thinking of the song, “The Little White Cloud that Cried.”  Isn’t there danger in trusting a cloud with all your family pictures?

 

Corky may be slightly overwhelmed by all the required tutorials.  Tomorrow will be devoted to Dashlane – a site that will store your passwords for you.  I think that is like a vault (in the cloud?).

“Everything on Microsoft is RIGHT CLICK Mom.

Now what do you do next?”

“Right click,” I reply.

“Great!  You are getting the hang of it.”

We had dinner at The Pink Cadillac again, which now boasts an expanded menu!  Interested in fried shrimp?  It’s there.  Or pulled pork barbecue?

Like everyplace else around here, the old place was crowded with happy people.  Isn’t this a wonderful time of year?

Finally, who can discount the weather?  It rains almost every day. And folks are getting fed up with humidity and downpours.  I still love the sound of raindrops falling though, and tend to run around cracking windows open to increase the volume.

The good news is Big Foot is now reliably Small and the plantar fasciitis less sensitive.  It’s still there but seemingly subsiding.

It’s Bad Luck Day – Friday the 13^th – but around here, there is a whole lot to be thankful for.

 

 

 

 

 

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Life’s a Blur

There’s more to aging than I expected.

There is the expectation fear of aging.

For a week now my vision has been blurry.

And of course the insidious aging process has already begun.  Along with a myriad of minor aches and pains, my eyesight was fading.  Incoming email messages to my smart phone were lost in a dim sea of gray and I found myself straining (even with glasses) to read blogger’s posts and important correspondence.

Ha!  I do keep the ringer loud though, so people think I am extremely popular.

But back to fading eyesight, “Maybe I need new glasses,” I thought.

Last night I decided it was time to discuss this most recent aging complaint with a specialist.

On the other hand, maybe I should look at the smart phone settings first.

Surprise!

The brightness option was turned off.

And Voila!

With the click of a button, my vision was completely restored.

The moral of this story is not to let fear of aging (or warped technology) get you down.

Just because you can’t see straight doesn’t mean you need to adjust your glasses.

 

 

 

 

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The Future Arrived Sans Beauty

Don’t cry over the past, it’s gone. Don’t stress about the future, it hasn’t arrived. Live in the present and make it beautiful. — Unknown

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