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  My blog was filled up. I'm too lazy to clean it out. So I started a new one. |
| As I sit here at my cranky, old desktop, I hear the TV in the next room advertising My Pillow. I have already checked this out on-line. The price is prohibitive. If it does what it promises and lasts the ten years, it's a good investment. But too many "snake oil" claims have been made. I'm too poor to gamble. I really want it for my father, who has trouble sleeping lying down because of back pain. I've tried to convince him to buy a bed that can elevate his feet or head to reach something that works. But sine he finally retired at age 87, he's afraid to spend money. If I could afford it, I would just do it for him. The pillows are too expensive. I would like to try one of the pans that are impossible to ruin. I've thrown a couple away this summer. Dad burnt a tea bag in a small saucepan so badly, I could scrub it clean. The other one I burned while surfing the net. Again, pans and knives have been offered for decades or half a century that would be the best one and the last one you'd ever have to buy. I finally threw away the pieces that were left of the Vegamatic. We donated the hot dog cooker to charity. Then there was the electric hot dog cooker someone gave as a gift. I guess these inventions make someone rich while we all find out that we don't need them or they're just duds. |
| I sort of took a break. I've been working on a project which turned into a much bigger thing than I thought, and finally got through it. Give it 100! is a good project for writers here at WDC. It has no start or stop date, except the one you choose. Then you feel the commitment. I thought mine was simple, just write for 15 minutes solid each day on the same topic or area. I chose the history of the American West as opposed to the way it has been portrayed in movies and television. But I wasn't critical of those media, just pointing out the truth. They are themselves a different phase of history. However, the topic required a lot of research that can't be done in a few minutes. I chose to make a separate entry for each day, as in book form, so I had to complete an entry each day. I couldn't add onto to same entry on the next day. So my actual writing took 15 minutes to an hour, depending on how much prep I did the day before. The research took hours each day. Even if I watched a movie or took notes on an old TV rerun, I still looked up the actors, directors, real geography or customs. Sometimes the shows were right. Times weren't as primitive as I thought. Other times I was right, the show used music that hadn't been written or devices that weren't invented. I find I've been steeped in American history. I think about Indians, buffalo, or old school houses all the time now. My conclusion is that the Wild West still exists in the heart of man. The race is still greedy, untamed, and frequently vile. Yet the ideals still exist: justice, law and order, peace, mercy. Yet hot heads still prevail. We may not have advanced so much after all. Back to the writing. If anyone wants to try it, I suggest you don't pick anything non-fiction that will require research. 100 days in a row, even with an allowance for illness or other duress, is a pretty tall order. Or if you do want to do research or write in a scholarly manner, don't do separate daily entries. Just keep track of your page length or time or word count. My 100 days are done, but I feel like I've accomplished something. So now I want to edit it and enhance it. I recommend you try it to feel that accomplishment. |
| There is nothing quite as refreshing in the summer as ice and something sugary. Whoever dreamed up shaved ice was a wonderful humanitarian! Cover that with something like Kool-Aid or cola and WOW! What a winner. I had a cherry slushee yesterday--one you buy at the grocer, freeze, then squish and suck. 180 useless calories. Not for the diabetic. I've always wondered why 7-11 or other convenience stores haven't made diet soda one of the regular offerings for their shaved ice drinks. I had one made of apple cider at the local orchard--out of this world, as the sun beat down on us. I would think iced tea would work, too. I keep saying I'm going to make one at home, but haven't gotten my Magic Bullet (mini super blender) out yet. I hardly ever use it, so I pack it away. I remember years ago I took a forestry class one spring. I thought it would be easy. It was just something to do. I already had a degree. But it was a science class with three hours of note-taking twice a week. And the field trips were strenuous, no picnic. My project involved studying a sect of land after years of drought, a forest fire, and recording all our findings. One team mate wimped out. It was just me and the marine with the machete. He at least knew how to use a compass and kept us from getting lost. I recorder everything, but he knew how to do it all. We came out of the woods parched and dry from the pollen and dust. We had been digging dirt and stirring up leaves. We needed a cold drink. I told him we needed a root beer, sweet and cold. So that's what we got. He agreed. Sugar and extreme cold ended our misery and brought us back to life. (Got an A by the way. We were the only two in the class.) I don't know how the world got by before ice was commercialized. |
| I finally saw this movie from 1942 by Orson Welles. It was black and white. He narrated a lot of it. Between scenes, the screen was totally black making it feel more like a play with scene changes. It starred Joseph Cotton, Agnes Morehead (as the second female), and Tim Holt. Holt was a B western actor, who had first appeared as a child actor in a silent film with his father, Jack Holt. He preferred westerns. Welles took a chance on him, and it paid off. He and Morehead were both nominated for Oscars (but lost). He was nothing like his western parts. He also appeared in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston in 1948. Holt was the good looking young one, the good guy.He also played a major role with Henry Fonda in My Darling Clementine. Despite being successful in these films, he always returned to his B westerns. He never achieved major stardom, it seems, by choice. The Welles film was artsy, sophisticated, and dark. Nobody found happiness. It was set in America, but had that feel of an English play or story about manners, appearances. You might say Karma won in the end, but nobody felt good about it. |
| We have come to this sad state where a parent's pride and her spoiled children's tender feelings are more important than teaching them respect and safety. I witnessed a woman get upset and complain to a manager because an employee asked her children to stop riding skateboards in the building with pregnant women and young children around. They kept going, only altering their direction. When she repeated herself in a stern voice, the mother became outraged at the "meaness" of the employee. A store is privately owned, even if it is a board of directors or a group of trustees. The employees are their representatives. You wouldn't let your child, hopefully, go into someone's hope and do as they please and ignore the homeowner or the maid. Why would you let your child create havoc in a store? Why wouldn't you think about your child's safety and the safety of others yourself before an employee does? Now what lessons are these children learning? Do anything you want 'cause Mama's got your back? Ignore all adult authority? Be careless and don't worry about hurting or inconveniencing someone else? It's okay to get someone in trouble or cost them a job just because your pride in your precious ones was injured? Everyone else has to follow rules except you? And what about overprotecting your child? People are going to say and do things all their adult lives that they don't like. Why shouldn't they learn to live with it? Why don't parents reinforce the rules and let their kids know that they can't always do as they please all the time? They may not like being told to stop, or the way that they're told. But they'll have to learn to live with it. |
| You never know when you're going to end up in a big emotional mess. Today I had to process some returns and cancel a layaway for a woman whose child was stillborn. She had finished the nursery, but didn't need the things now. She was trying not to cry unsuccessfully. I tried to suck it up and be tough. It probably looked like I didn't care, but I was trying to keep from losing it in public. Crying is contagious. It turns out the child was not hers. I thought maybe she'd be the grandmother and the sad child at home was her daughter. The sad child was an adopted daughter, the half-sister of the stillborn child. The mother was an unrelated drug addict. The adopted child was a slow learner, about two years behind as is typical of a drug or alcohol dependent baby. This child was grieving for the baby sister who "went to live with Jesus" before she got to meet her. She wanted her baby sister at home. The crying woman I was dealing with had two kids of her own in college. She doesn't want to encourage this drug user to keep getting pregnant, but social services called and asked if she would take the child when it was born. She and her husband said yes. Now they are heart broken. It seems so unfair, that horrible people keep having children. People who really want them and love them and would be good parents get turned down. Some times it seems there is a correlation between stupidity and shallow character with fertility. Responsible, loving, intelligent people struggle trying to have a child or adopt one. These encounters with other people's troubles make you appreciate life a little more. You want to hold on close to the people that matter. Their sorrow impacts us and drains us. The hope is that somehow we are more compassionate, that maybe we are more appreciative of those who have opened their hearts and their homes to needy children. What a burden they bear. How big their hearts are! |
| Our air conditioner isn't broken. It's just too small for our house. Oh my, I'm dying in this heat. I come in, even from the air conditioned car, and I've got to have a tall glass of ice with almost anything in it. Only a few more days, and it's supposed to pass. Maybe it would be more tolerable if it felt like a normal summer. The deer ate the garden, so we aren't getting any homegrown vegetables. We have had several water balloon fights in the evening for the children. I did go to one barbecue, but had to leave early to go to work. Maybe if I could go on vacation, but no, that won't happen this year. My new grill, or hardly used grill, won't start, so I can't cook out when the family comes to visit. And I can't take Dad anywhere that he has to walk on gravel. I want to take him to a movie. They are usually so loud that he won't have trouble hearing. But getting him there is a problem. Then again, maybe I'm just getting old. I can't take the heat like I did when I was young. I didn't go on vacation then either. I worked when I wasn't in school, and later couldn't afford anything. My ex-husband ruined the beach for me. Too many bad memories to go back there. So I guess I'll just day dream about shoveling snow. |
| I saw the movie for the first time this weekend. My Cousin Rachel was released in 1952 in black and white. It was the first Hollywood endeavor for Richard Burton, who had only done British films until then. Olivia De Haviland played Rachel. What a great story. It was a little slow at first. It was about cousins, whom I thought were father and son at first. Rachel was not a blood cousin, but the wife of one. The houses were grand and eloquent. There were lots of servants. Wealth was all around and is the center of the story. There is plenty of money for spending, redecorating, sailing, and giving away. There are poisonous seeds falling from a tree over the fence which might poison the livestock. They make a big scene of showing the large seeds. The young man's mind is poisoned against his cousin, despite the fact that he is desperately in love with her. Medicine is dispensed to at least two people, so there is question as to whether that is poison. When Rachel serves a special tea to Phillip, he refuses to drink it, she refuses also, and she pours it out. So we never know if it is poisoned or not. There are so many unanswered questions. Rachel's death leaves them all unsettled. Phillip will never be free of the haunting questions or the fear that he may have contributed to her death by failing to warn her of the weakened condition of the foot bridge. There is always an eerie and dark atmosphere throughout the film. It was interesting to see the young, slim Richard. I had to keep staring to be sure it was really him. His lines were not overly dramatic. His role was intense. Not just anyone would have been able to carry it off the way he did. It's easy to see why America fell in love with him. |
| Wouldn't it be great to have no responsibilities for a week and be surrounded by lots of books? I know it's just a fantasy. Unless you're rich and have someone to clean your surroundings and prepare dinner. But I could live on cereal or peanut butter for a while. I can live with dust! But few of us live just for ourselves. We have jobs and people who need us to do our share of the work. I keep a book and reading glasses on my exercise bike. I kill two birds with one stone. Yeah, I probably do each a little sluggishly until I remember to rev it up. I have an upstairs book and a downstairs book. And magazines are everywhere. I hate to give books away. I know people who pass on books once they read them. I have a hard time doing that unless I didn't like the book. With books, a vacation is only a few minutes away. Worlds from another time are at your fingertips. I once had a woman tell me rhR I knew an awful lot. Just how did I know about so many things? I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic. I don't think I was being a know-it-all. I wanted to tell her to pick up a book once in a while, and she'd know some things, too. But I refrained. Buying new books is so easy online. For 99 cents you can get an e-book. There are so many to choose from. I have to refrain from looking at the ads and the daily new lists. Some women are suckers for new shoes. Some of us just pine for books. |
| The extended warranty can be a good thing. On bicycles, electronics, car seats, and so forth, they can be an excellent protection. They usually offer complete replacement or refund for a stated period of time. You need to consider the manufacturer's warranty, the seller's policy, and how you have to recover any loss or damage. You also need to consider who is going to be using the product you are buying and how it will be used. If you have to pay for shipment back to the factory, you may lose the value. If they offer service to your home or reimbursement for shipping, it may be worthwhile. If you can't keep up with paperwork and phone numbers, it may not be for you just because you're too disorganized. Most sellers have a 90 day warranty, with less for electronics, anywhere from 15 to 30 days. If you are the only one who will ever use the product and are not accident prone, you probably don't need the warranty. On the other hand, if you know you can knock over noise machines or radios on occasion, you might want to be able to replace it two years from now. Around children you probably want a warranty. Certain toys you know are going to be broken within a few months, so you don't want to pay an extra $10 for coverage. On the other hand, a bicycle rusts, the seat wears out, you probably could benefit from the warranty. They don't usually cover flat tires or dead batteries (as in a child's motor car). Sleeping bags and theme blankets do not need warranties. I-pads, toddler computers and learning devices, probably should be warranted. Home printers, especially if other family members will be using it, need coverage. A home office that will use a printer every day will need a warranty, as long as every day wear and tear is included. Swim pools and swing sets could benefit. Power tools and lawn equipment are another example. So how does the company that sells these policies make a profit? They bank on people forgetting that they have the warranty. Or that they don't want to go to all that trouble two years from now. Or the item is truly of excellent quality and has no mishaps. To get the most out of the warranty once purchased, the buyer should register the item online or over the phone. That becomes your backup if you lose the receipt and pamphlet. Keep a notebook or file of such things with the date purchased. Review that folder or notebook quarterly at least. When you see the deadline is almost there, examine the product. Is the paint faded? Is it still working correctly? Is it sluggish or torn? Make your claim before the deadline and get a replacement product. Your kids have outgrown it? Get it replaced anyway and give as a gift to someone else. Understand these warranties are not upheld by the company that sells it, except car dealers. It's a third party. So you need to keep those phone numbers or websites.Keep your receipt at least as long as the retailer's return policy is good. Once you're past the 15 or 30 or 90 days, even a receipt won't help. But they make returns a lot easier up to that deadline. That's your responsibility as a consumer. |
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. Isn't it funny how we take things like electricity and plumbing for granted... until we don't have them. Happy for you!
