Curmudgeon

 

I’m a curmudgeon, but not like you think. Most agree to define a curmudgeon as a cranky old miser who doesn’t get along with anyone or anything just raising flak about everything.

Let me refrain that definition.

I’m not cranky. I am old. A miser probability fits my monetary usage, but I think I get along with people and I work hard not to complain about anything (there is enough of that out there).

The reason that I’m a curmudgeon is that I just don’t fit in with the culture. I don’t go to movies (or rent or stream). I don’t read books. I don’t go out to restaurants. I don’t drive. I don’t play games. I don’t shop. I don’t follow fashion. I don’t cook. I don’t play with children or have pets. I don’t garden. I don’t like (most) current music. I don’t dance (anymore). I don’t have romance. I vote but pay no attention to politics. I don’t watch TV.

You get the trend? I’m a curmudgeon.

Now I am aware of the world around me and can converse on a somewhat intellectual level with someone else until they bore me. When inspired, can be investigative or creative to the point of recording musical musings or writing dystrophic thoughts from theatrical dreams that no one else sees. I still have some skill of putting pen to paper to draw a line and create an image of a word or an idea or just letters jumbled together to fill in the puzzle.

As an isolationist, I do try to avoid other’s drama. The drama that is the interest of the daily news or the gossip of cocktail parties or church socials but never appears on the obituary pages. I also don’t share whatever drama I remember unless someone else probes.

The digital technology has allowed us to stay apart and still stay in communication without breathing in each other’s face. We do stay healthier when we stay apart (especially with those munchkins who are scurrying germ machines).

I still like puppies and kittens (as long as they don’t sleep in my bed) and try to be polite to the common folk I interact during the day, but being a hermit doesn’t mean I’m a curmudgeon.

Being of an age and time when the end is near, one measures the time spent with others. Senseless bladder may fill the space but what looks like boredom is interesting. No need to wear a watch when your entertainment is your neighbors enjoying your buffet singing for their dinner.

So if I appear a curmudgeon with my ratty sweats and over-worn shoes with silver locks, I’m smiling under the face bush and appreciation your interaction.

The check is in the mail…

 

Have you gotten your check yet? Facebook (meta) sez you need to subscribe to identify yourself.

It seems with all the ‘terms and conditions’ the profile of any user can be stolen by some evildoer to present post that you had no intention of meaning.

So the solution to this thievery is to pay a fee of $12 a month to verify your identity with a ‘check’.

There was a time when being pulled over you presented your driver’s license as identity. There were passwords or fingerprints or DNA or face recognition or barcode tattoo.

Every so often I’ll get some message or comment that doesn’t sound like the person who sent it. I will avoid it and send a note to the REAL person I know that they may have been ‘hacked’.

I’ve been hacked. Change a password and I’m back in business.

I don’t search the Internet with my name to see how many more ME’s are out there. I don’t put personal information on social media and certainly no monetary information.

So why should I start to subscribe for the use of a platform that I’ve agreed to their ‘terms and conditions’ for FREE since 2008?

Subscriptions seem to be the latest trend of increasing revenue? The local newspaper has always had a subscription to have it delivered to your doorstep but with digital and dropping circulation it has attempted pay walls and restrictions to read local news that is also reported (journalistically constructed or just gossip) from blogs or pod cast or just neighbor community sights. The subscription wants to keep you coming back.

Maybe Facebook (meta) will start charging for posting photos or storing videos or just uploading memes? These costly restrictions may change the use of the Internet from Free Speech to review before approval.

So I won’t be getting a check. If you don’t think it is ME, send me a note and I’ll double check. If you don’t like what I’m posting, you can de-friend me and not see it. If you really don’t want to be bothered, block me and I’ll never be seen again.

Of I could die?

Speculation

 

I personally have stopped watching television. The media is not a bad method of distribution information but it turned into entertainment. I found that what I wanted as news and facts was beyond newspapers with yesterday’s news and television with explosive talking heads that were not trustworthy. 

Whatever the reason for avoiding that electronic media I turned to the alternative. Radio.

The ancient speaker box provided voices that were calm and articulate to provide the latest up-to-date information that I required to make my bias and options of the day. I didn’t search the network but settled into the NPR with trust and security.

My choice didn’t seem to be too over the top or influenced by political nonsense. I could easily switch between News to Music and always be rewarded by something interesting and mind provoking.

Now noticing that the ‘interviews’ are probing, the responses are ‘speculative’.

Perhaps this is how the answers were always and never noticed and taken as gospel truth only to find out it was off a script written by someone else.

So poise ‘News’ programs ask the questions but the answers are ‘speculation’.

The person the journalist decided to interview may be a name that no one knows with a title that is a arm length with maybe some academic title or perhaps well read on the subject and perhaps written reports or books on their personal reflections as a final word. In most cases the answer is refuted as possibility truth or another version that can be sponded upon at a later date.

When one reaches back and listens to the ‘experts’ as the inquirer tries to find some substance in their answers they are only speculations. Guesses, as anyone would have on the future.

If an employer hires you they are ‘speculating’ that you can perform the job requested. If you request another to be your bed-mate, they may be ‘speculating’ that your promises will come true.

If you purchase a new appliance or mechanical device you may be ‘speculating’ it will accomplish what was wished due to the guarantee.

If you speculate that there is life after death, what does the basis of assuming upon readings from words written in fantasy?

So tomorrow, make up your mind.

There are no answers.

Send a Valentine to your Ex

 

After watching the replays of the Super Bowl commercials (not impressed) and the half-time show (not impressed) and the highlights of big guys running into each other (looks like the Chefs came cooking) and a ride to the Tummy Temple watching the lads who can’t figure out a selection of flowers or a package of sweets along with a bottle of alcohol to result in getting lucky tonight, I ponder the holiday called ‘Valentine’s Day’.

As we praise and pamper the one we are with at the time, do we not forget those who have become before? Everyone has a history and you are just the present part of it.

Suppose you send a Valentine card to your ex? You former love interest that somehow slipped away. It would be a remembrance of a time when what it was but is now gone. That person who was the most important connection to emotion until somehow it disappeared should be remembered.

While celebrating chocolates and roses with your present love of your life, there are certain memories that last in your mind. You may throw away their letters and cards and photos and tattoos but they are embedded in your heart.

Why not acknowledges that person was someone special at a time in your life and you appreciate the time together.

Whatever the reason for dissolving the relationship can be forgotten with time. If the person was the partner who presented you with a crop of children or a drain on your finances, at the time they were the love of your life.

If they were the one who shared spit at the high school prom or  that special night trying to find your virginity or the first marriage that didn’t work out, at some point they were the ‘one’.

Why not acknowledge them with that special point in time? Some have been lost in time. Some avoid your attention. Some don’t exist any more.

So on this Valentine’s Day, appreciate the ones who share the chocolates and laughter and remember those who did before.

Waiting To Be Rescued

 

Listening to all the news about when the earth moves under your feet and all fall down and if you’re not squashed like a grape, you are stuck in space, waiting to be rescued.

You got time to think while waiting for someone else to rescue you. The same if you are alone on an island in the middle of the ocean or floating out in space with your ride home losing air pressure.

Early in life, when you are enable to take care of yourself, one of the taller older people tell you when to wake, what to wear, how to eat and poop until you are pushed out in the world.

Do you look for a partner to rescue you? Do you hope another authorities figure, like a preacher or doctor or a police officer, can save you? Do you read volumes of articles hoping for an answer? Do you actively seek out groups to advise you with no real answer?

As long as we are dependent on another to rescue you, it may be a long wait. If you seek the solution in substances, may not be but a short-term disappointment and now you need to be rescued from going down the rabbit hole.

Or you may rescue someone else?

It is good there are those people who will dig through rubble stinking of death searching for someone to rescue. It is good there are people who you can call in an emergency who will come with a blanket and a warm cup and a helping hand. It is good that there are people who will open their wallets for strangers. When you go into that sports bar during the big game, will a stranger rescue you?

Were you rescued? Did you find your way out? What happened next?

Perhaps that isolated island is fine to be independent with no one else needed to help?

When someone comes by to rescue you, just say, “No thanks.”

What’s That?

 

You certainly would not want to hear that on the operating table. Go back to the textbook or Google it?

We presume that someone who is licensed as a doctor or a lawyer or an Indian chief would have studied stuff to know their business that you pay for their expertise.

If one pronounces their intellect by avid reading or getting accolades or titles, it may be questionable? For as smart as you may proclaim, there is something new and different that changes what is acknowledged today.

Today, we rely on AI (artificial intelligence) to answer our questions without digging into the resources or fact checking.

We didn’t question our teachers for spouting textbooks written decades ago for the teacher was assumed to know the lesson plan. We didn’t question the doctor diagnosis for they had all the degrees on the wall, sharp tools and access to pills and potions. We didn’t question the lawyer for they had the reference material to make a simple process complicated and expensive. We didn’t question the police officer for they had the badge and carried a gun. We didn’t question the mechanic for they had a shop with fluids and tools to care for your expensive transportation. We didn’t question the preacher for they had The Book.

Artificial (made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural) Intelligence (the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills) is now seeking information from you and we are more than willing to answer all the questions of our own bias and opinions. AI is only as smart as it’s data.

 There is lots of information out there that we don’t know. We have only scratched the surface. Some have defined a specialty and focused in on details few will understand.

So as we shoot balloons out of the sky while our politicians’ feud over everything and our entertainment is violence, check your phone and see what spam you got between the body counts.

We don’t know chit.

Bumper Carts

 

When I go to the Tummy Temple there is a fleet of bumper carts recharging in the indoor garage. Sometimes there is a person sitting there. Sometimes they are broken. Sometimes I watch as someone stumbles in the doorway with a cane or crutches or a walker or with the help of someone else and head for the motorized basket cart’s padded seat.

Once on the floor, they fill the aisle zooming at a speedy two mph. The driver (don’t know if they have licenses?) can only see up to the second shelf and while the basket is oversized, if there is need for the 24-roll toilet paper, this might require two trips.

On Friday, which is old folks day now, the area is full of these silent bumper carts trying to make the turns without knocking over displays of wine or run headlong into someone else.

These electrical motorized mobile machines have not always been there. So what happened to all the folks who ride around today before these carriages arrived?

Older folks who had difficulty with manual transportation would have to send someone else to the Tummy Temple to retrieve sustenance. Before that, the local grocer would have to be informed of a shopping list and assemble the goods to be delivered to the neighbor. Even the usual push-shopping cart has only been available since the 50’s. You had to bring your own bag for there were no paper bags or bag boys.

So now there are electric shopping bumper carts to glide around the pharmacy, canned goods and sugar drinks area. Some have drivers so large one wonders why the wheels don’t pop. Others have some seemingly well kids who just are along for the ride in the fair.

While the Tummy Temple’s deacons are stocking shelves, mopping the spills, giving wrong directions; there are no traffic cops. What happens if one of these carts looses a charge? Who gets a spare to transfer the shopper and all their products then push the cart back to be plugged in? Like the other carts, someone has to go into the parking lot to retrieve them from the designated disable area being blocked by the immobile bumper cart. What if a disabled person walks into the Temple to find all the bumper carts are in use? What happens if there is a wreck?

I don’t see anyone doing doughnuts or wheelies but these things can be dangerous. Luckily they have a beeper when they go in reverse, but for the most part I try to avoid them (just like the big ones in the parking lot). This also frees me from the sad eyes of drivers who can’t reach up to the top shelf cereal box.

I’m not totally heartless for I avoid those who are studying the ingredients on a bottle of cooking oil or even the deer-in-the-headlights guys trying to choice their IPAs. That might mean two or three trips around the perimeter but that is just exercise and I have time to spend.

My daily trip to the Tummy Temple is more than just filling my zip cart with silver bullets but to also intermingle with society. Watch the couples interaction, the screaming kids riding backwards, the vendors wheeling in pallets of product off the truck, the gals in custom cooking from bakery to yesterday’s fried chicken that were easy to bypass and the occasional cutie pie who makes the trip worth the effort.

I’m not draping over the cart and moving slow (yet) or climbing into the seat of the bumper cart for a drive down the grocery highway but I will watch the technology changes as I age. At least they have handlebars (like my bike) and only one speed (slow). Still it would be exciting to have races.