Don't Mention It

 

 

Really -- there is no need to mention it . . . 

• An online dating site for the Single Silver Senior crowd: You must be 18 to join. No, your braces don't count as 'Silver'. 

 

• New scholarship from the Smithsonian points to a paradox of historic scope: Our writing system was devised by people who couldn't read.  Honestly, that one comes to us from Smithsonianmag.com. Could be the same people who uncovered evidence that Edison invented the light bulb by candle light.
  
  
• Did anybody ever wonder if Superman ever used a phone booth to make a call? And when did he make the time to go around to pick up all of his clothes? How did he conceal the cape under his Clark Kent duds? And the inquiry that inquiring minds inquire the most: did he ever take off the Superman spandex and cape to wash them?
  
  
• Warning label on my bottle of sleeping pills: Caution, may cause drowsiness.
  
  
• How is it that car manufacturers can sell cars made next year? Are they going by a different calendar, or do they have a time machine that sends back  next years' cars that don't sell because they are already selling the next years' model? Will they ever catch up ... or slow down to let the cars catch up?  Maybe they could do an ad campaign of dealerships selling cars that don't exist yet.
  
  

They may have been right after all....

Anybody remember writing Differential Aptitude Tests (DAT) in high school? 

I remember writing a DAT test when I was in the ninth grade. Basically, it's a tool for career planning. I had already decided that I wanted to be a teacher. Or a librarian. And a rock star. In grade nine I reasoned that I could teach during the school year, and spend the summer holidays touring with my band.

The results from my DAT test (I know that the T stands for test, so it is a bit redundant to call it a differential aptitude test test but that's what they called it. I don't make the rules.), anyways, they suggested that I could be a doctor or something in the medical field. I said, "ha" to that suggestion because "lol" hadn't been invented yet.

I didn't think I could possibly be a doctor or anything else in the medical field.  So I got my B ed, but I only taught for seven years, and then I had to quit that because of my health.

I got to thinking a while back, and made the connection, of my health problems and the career counselling way back in the ninth grade: I did have a career in the medical field! I am a full time, professional patient. It doesn't pay much, but the hours are pretty good. I can work from home or anywhere in the world, really.  So the DAT testing works after all. Huh.

 
  

Sometimes Late at Night ...

... I sleep-write!  (and then I somehow get it posted online! Oops!)

Thank you, Lord for enabling me to laugh at my own foibles. I will never run out of things to laugh about.

I am referring to my habit of staying up until way, way past mere nodding off at the computer. Case in point, the blog I apparently posted last night.  I found it this morning, as did some of you. Nobody commented on it, oddly enough. I don't even remember what the title was supposed to be. Only the vague blurry memory of not being able to type the word 'wasn't'. Easy word to type now, sure, on the Friday side of midnight.

Normally, I would delete such babel, so fewer of you would have knowledge that I sleep-write sometimes. I decided to leave it up because that is the real me. Some of you have had messages and comments from me that look like this: ???????????????The fewer the people who see the evidence of my social medium mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm somnambulism    kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkthe bettter...............................................................Yeah, like that.

I recently read on some medical site that employs writers who actually have the creds to know what they are writing about, (unlike yours truly, who can only relate my experiences) that people with Parkinson's are at a greater risk of dementia than normal people. That explains a lot.

Stream of Consciousness Writing Confession: I  just now remember what I was going to write about last night! I will make tomorrow's blog about that topic.

Now to get to bed before I fall asleep tonight. I have actually had two or three experiences of falling off my chair at around four am. One such occasion resulted in the demise of my new laptop. I had it for less than a week, but I didn't think it would be covered by insurace. There just isn't a category for damages due to somnambulism.  I would categorize it as a form of temporary insanity. "Honest, officer, I have no recollection of the events leading up to the damage -- I was asleep at the time  ..."

Well, dear readers, it is now the Saturday side of midnight. You can read this tomorrow, when yesterday's tomorrow is today.

Procrastination

The sooner you get behind, the more time you will have to catch up. Words that I have lived by. Procrastinator should have been my middle name. My middle name is Lucille. I remember my cousins saying my name was Lucille Ball, because I was always bawling. I don't remember if I cried about that, but I may have.

I remember my dad saying that he wanted to name me after a country music singer named Lucille Star. Nobody that I asked had ever heard of her. I wondered if maybe I was wrong about that memory, and my dad died before I got around to asking him. I procrastinate. 

I did get around to googling the name, and found out that it was true. There really was a country singer named Lucille Starr, and apparently she lived in St. Boniface in the 60's. We lived in St. Boniface in the 60's. Coincidence? Maybe my parents went to a concert, or maybe they knew her. She could have been our neighbour. 

Technically, this blog was not finished on the third day of daily stream of consciousness blogs, because it's 1:05 am on Tuesday morning. I procrastinate. My time is up. 

My Latest Thinks

My friends have been asking what I've been doing during this time of self isolation. I would love to say that I have been writing my next novel. Nope. I have a draft, a really rough draft, of a bit of memoirs, that I started at least 10 years ago. Every time I  open the file, I delete a little bit more of the manuscript. I've also got another novel in my brain that just isn't writing itself down. 

Even my blogs have become just a place where abandoned and unpublished drafts go to die.  It's been about 3 years since I last wrote anything and posted it. 

So today, I set a timer for 20 minutes and then I will publish  whatever I've got on my Random Thinks blog. No more sitting in front of a blank screen for hours trying to squeeze words out of my brain and transfer them onto a suitable platform to share. Even if I end up with a couple hundred words before I decide what I am writing about. Like a stream of consciousness session. No pressure. 

Who am I kidding: the pressure is still on. Dang. I am thinking about what I can say about my life. 

And that's my time today. Wow, 20 minutes goes by fast. I will stick with my plan, though, and give you readers (if there is anyone actually reading this, a bit more content.

Light Bulb Moment

This morning I had the perfect example of a Light Bulb Moment. It started when I left the kitchen to get something from the linen closet.

Then I spent at least two minutes staring at the contents of my linen closet, trying to remember what it was that I was there to get.

That was when I had my Light Bulb Moment -- I was here to get a new light bulb for the kitchen.

Muddling through the Murky Middles

You know you are middle aged when . . .

     . . . you realize that you have not become your mother after all. Somehow, you skipped right into becoming your grandmother!

     . . . you and your friends have stopped one-upping each other's horror stories from labour pains and the delivery room, and have been  comparing notes on your collection of ailments and  syndromes.

         . . .  you still buy the sexy nightie, but now you wonder how it will look with your incontinence brief underneath.


        . . . . Your back and your knees plead with you to stay home, but your bank account says you have to go to work.  

Here's to all of us muddling  through the murky middles. Soon enough we will be joining the grey hair crowd, but for now, what happens at the hair salon is still magic.

People in the Middle Ages

You know that you are hitting the Middle Ages . . .

 . . .when you start laughing at jokes like this, instead of rolling your eyes.

 If you clicked on this post because you thought it would be about  medieval fairs, 
I am sorry, but you are in the wrong blog.
Kindly move along. You don't want to know this stuff yet.
(Your time is coming soon enough.)

Middle age kinda sneaks up on you, doesn't it?
Like when you realize that people your age are becoming grandparents.
Grandparents used to be old;
But now they are middle aged, just like you!

If your middle starts to muddle,
 And you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror when you get out of the shower.
 and what you see frightens you so much
that you run the hot water until the mirror gets fogged up properly.
You may be hitting middle age.

You know that you are hitting middle age
When you do the math and realize that your age times two equals more than 100.
If you had to use a calculator to do that math, you are probably not middle aged.
You are either a millennial, or a 5-year-old prodigy at reading but not math.

If you had to use a calculator to figure out how old you are, 
you might be hitting middle age.

You know you are hitting middle age
When you realize that you went from being:
 a wanna beto a has been,Without ever just

... being....

If you suspect that you might be Middle Aged,

And have not yet been what you wanted to be; 

You might still have time! 

I always wanted a career in a medical field, 

And now I am a full time patient!

(It's not the most lucrative medical field, But hey -- life is about more than money, right?)

(plus that's just a joke. I wanted to be a teacher, and I got to be one, just not for as long as I had planned) 

(And by the way, if you can read this, then maybe you are not middle aged yet after all!)

Really?

On those TV ads for seniors' dating sites; the whole point of the site is find someone your own age. At the end of the commercial there is a voice over: "Must be 18+ to apply".
Really?
Outta my way! I'm going to the computer room to find me a young'un! Anybody know how to work those computers? How do ya get that young'un outta the computer? I need a nice young man to scrape my bunions!






Warning label from the pharmacist on a bottle of sleeping pills: "MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS. Use caution when driving or using dangerous equipment.
Really?
Who are these people who take sleeping pills, and then drive to work on a construction site? 






The labels on those non-dairy coffee whiteners say they contain "edible oil" products.
Really?
If the company that makes them feels the need to tell me that their product is edible . . .I am just glad that I take my coffee black. 

My Back Hurts

I've been having a lot of back pain lately. Added to everything that already hurts from Parkinson's, fibromyalgia, and arthritis, having a muscle spasm in my back is just like the last nail in the coffin some days.

My back wasn't too bad this morning, but then I decided to shower. I've  been so tired lately that I get exhausted just running the water. 

 I want to get back into the habit of doing my physiotherapy exercises in the shower, so after I rinsed off  I put the plug the in tub and let the tub fill while I did my standing exercises, and then I did my sitting exercises in warm water. I wasn't going anywhere this morning, so I had time to turn on the jets for a tubby time. 

While I was just sitting in the tub, I decided to clean the shampoo caddy. My daughter does most of my cleaning, but I said I would clean my bathroom. My tub is so big that you pretty much have to get in it to clean so it just makes sense for me to do it since I am in there anyway.

So while I was at it, I thought I might as well clean all of the shampoo ledges, and while I had the baking soda out, I might as well clean all of the tub surround, and then I thought of doing the tub jet cleaner system, which needs to go in warm water. I hadn't used conditioner in my hair yet, and that would make the water foam too much, so I got out of my tub, poured the jet cleaner stuff in, and turned on the jets for a half hour. In the meantime I went to the shower in the other bathroom to put my conditioner in, and while I was there I cleaned my tub mat. Then I went back to my bathroom to wipe the cleaner residue down and refill the tub with cold water to rinse. 

Then I got dressed, and now my back hurts again. Getting showered and dressed is sure a lot of work.

Is it Just Me . . .?

Is it just me, or:

• Is the floor getting farther away every year? It's getting to be harder to pick stuff up. I don't know what kind of phenomena this is, but my feet are farther away too.
  
  
• Are they making the small print smaller? This has got to be a conspiracy of  enormous proportions, because small print is getting smaller on everything: pill bottles, directions on labels, all of the buttons on my phone, and the dashboard of the car. The conspiracy is getting so widespread that my computer is affected. I used to use a 10 or 12 point size from most fonts, but now that they have changed size I can't even see the 10 point, never mind read it! I have to use a 12 or 14.
  

• Have they put a  sensor on computers that prompts the unit to go to sleep as soon as the user comes back from a break? I don't know how often, but too much to be just a coincidence, the screen fades to black as soon as I sit down.

So is it just me, or are other people noticing conspiracies and coincidences going on around them?

Friday Fun Facts

Five Fun Facts for Friday:
     (If you are reading this on any day that isn't Friday, read it anyway, these five facts will still be factual and fun).


1. If you are reading this, it means that you are literate.

2. If your parents had no children, it is a verifiable biological fact that you will not have any children either. I shared this fact with a friend who was having trouble getting pregnant and she made a connection right away, because her parents also couldn't have children. It was, however the wrong conclusion. She and her brother were adopted.

3. A watched pot will never boil until you turn on the correct element of the stove.

4. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.

5. We are already living in the future: Today is yesterday's tomorrow, and that is true if today is Friday or not.

Just Some Random Thinks I Thunk Up

Ever notice that when someone asks you a question, and your answer is prefaced with something like: "Well, I'm not sure, but I think maybe ...", your questioner will invariably ask, "Are you sure about that?"


I used to say that I had a photographic memory, but it was perpetually out of film. Then, I found the film, but in the meantime everyone else had gone digital.


When I am looking for something, it is almost always in the first place that I look. I just couldn't see it the first two or three or seven times that I looked there.


Speaking of looking for things, ever notice that Mom can always find stuff that the rest of the family can't see? At our house, we called that magical power "Mommy Eyes".


My husband has a magical power too. Whenever we can't get something mechanical or technical to function, we have to wait until Dad comes home. He is like the Appliance Whisperer. He can just push the same buttons that we've been trying all day, and the blasted thing does exactly what it is supposed to do.


Technological stuff is getting so much more multi-functional as the workings get smaller and smaller. Watches, for example. My daughter has one of those fit bit watches. It can track the number of steps she takes in a day, how many stairs she climbs, how many calories she works off. It takes her pulse and monitors her fitness. If she were to have a heart attack one day, she will probably have a watch that with a defibrillator built in, it just won't be able to call 911.


Ever notice that kids put their shoes on the wrong foot almost every time? You would think that according to the laws of probability they would get it right 50% of the time, but they don't learn probability laws in school until at least the ninth grade.


It's amazing how fast we lose our mathematical skills as soon as we turn in that cap and gown. I got almost all straight A's in math, but now I spend an embarrassing amount of time staring at the prices in the cereal aisle trying to figure out if the sale price on the small package is a better deal than the regular price of the value size.


And speaking of grocery shopping, we were at the grocery store the other day, and Hubby asked me if we were out of tuna. I said I wasn't sure, but I think that maybe we were down to the last one or two cans. So he asked me, "Are you sure about that?"

Can Hair Dye Make You Mad as a Hatter?

My hairdresser Laurie is a magician. Once every eight weeks, she makes my grey roots go away and makes me look young again. I don't question the magic ingredients, I just pay her to make the magic happen.

I have read and/or heard snippets over the years about the chemicals in the hair dye: lead acetate, mercury compounds, and other nasty sounding toxic stuff. The lists of ailments allegedly brought on by long term use of the magic reads like the last five seconds of narrative blitzed through on American prescription drug commercials. They start with irritability, fatigue, and headaches and always end with death.

Does this information concern me? Kinda, but not enough to cancel my next appointment with Laurie. I am already mad as a hatter, a few more chemicals can't make it much worse. This world is full of toxic stuff and we are all going to die at the end. I really don't want to be caught dead with grey roots.

Logic and reasoning in the cloud that I inhabit questions why, if these chemicals are in my hair dye and are being absorbed from my hair into my brain, why then are the roots of my hair grey? It makes more sense to me that the grey roots are a sign that as my hair grows out it is taking grey matter from my brain and allowing it to leak out. Hmm? Now that would explain everything!

Another Episode of A Day in the Life of Karen's Feet

This may be one of the grossest videos I have posted, and believe you me, I know Gross. In fact, I married him almost 30 years ago.

It is not the grossest video I have ever taken, but for the sake of my more delicate and discerning friends, I have restrained myself from posting them. You're welcome. You may also want thank Megan for not letting me post footage of a cat giving birth. Now who wouldn't want to see that? You can put your hands down now, I can't see you.

So then, with no further ado (or we will be here until you are eating dinner when you finally get to see the video), let's see if yours truly can get the video from phone to blog. This could take awhile, excuse me, talk amongst yourselves.

And: there you have it. Once again I have successfully managed to upload a video from my phone. I won't tell you how long it took, but I should not have concerned myself  about the delicate constitutions of my friends and anyone who may have accidentally wandered onto my blog. It was several hours past lunch by the time I got it posted!

Top Five List of Stuff That Should Never Be Invented, Ever.

I have written lots of articles about stuff that has been invented, like What's an Eight Track?

And then there is this one about stuff that Hollywood prop makers thought up decades before they were invented for real:Science Fiction to Science Fact

But how about an article about things that would best be left on the imagination, like:

1. A TV commercial that follows you to every channel that you click to . . . you can’t escape . . . somebody paid good money to put that commercial on TV and you are going to watch the whole damn thing and you will like it, and as soon as your show is over, you are going to the mall to buy whatever it is I am selling! (Unless you can buy it online, in which case you can order it  during the next commercial).

2.  A credit card reader that calls your spouse instead of the credit card company if you try to buy anything over $100.00.

3.   Along the same lines as #2 – remember the old days when the cashier had to call your credit card company? If your card was declined, the cashier was instructed to take out a pair of scissors and destroy your card in your presence. 
Well, the new card readers - I guess they are not really ‘new’ anymore, but when they were new, I had this thought that if a card was declined, instead of having the cashier dramatically cut the card with scissors, maybe the card reader thingy would just suck the card in and keep it. Then, in a voice like Seinfeld’s ‘Soup Nazi’ it could say "No shopping for you today!"  Or it could use a very soothing female voice,and say: “I’m sorry. Your card has been declined. Go home and pay your bills, Sweetie!”

4.  A fridge (or pantry) that makes you weigh in first, and then only allows access to what you are allowed, like the fruit and veggie drawer, or maybe a two-bite brownie if you have lost a pound or more.

5.  A word processor program for writers that will not allow you to open Facebook until you have written at least 500 words of original text.

Remember: this list was for stuff that we don’t want invented. Ever.