Sleeping in your gloves

 

Just beginning of the cold days. My usual ride to the Temple for substances and conversation and upon arriving home decided indoors was a bit cooler than it should be.

My usual check is the thermostat and if the display is not showing the AA batteries have run dry. 2- replacements and the furnace roars back to action under my feet.

Not today.

I go back outside to my little heater, after tinkering with the thermostat numbers. As a usual progressionist, I will wait until morning before calling the HVAC guys. How bad can it be?

I climb under my one thin blanket and curl up in a ball as the temperature keeps dropping. My hands are cold and I can’t seem to warm them up.

After a long night of tossing and turning, I call for help once the sun comes up. The blue truck arrives around 3PM and Philip finds there is a wheel on the blower locked up. He will have to order the part, so it will be another night of cold.

I like gloves. I have a drawer full of riding gloves (some with fingers, some without) and find a nice knit pair that will suffice. Thin enough to type on the keyboard.

I also open the ancient cedar truck for the $100 hand woven white blanket stored for such an emergency.

Long johns, socks, gloves and wool blanket and I’m set for sleeping in the refrigerator. No skull cap, but I’ve been here before.

Early morning call and the part is available and will be schedule to installation today. Quick ride to refresh bones and breath, when the phone chimes Philip is back with the replacement part.

Clip out the old one, plug in the new one and the heat arises.

I guess that is my Christmas present to myself? No, I did not leave a tip.

It’s All Too Much

 

Starting out to the season and not looking forward to it. Hid from Halloween and avoided being fed by everyone for Thanksgiving. Turkey sandwich was fine and enough.

The weather is getting cold enough for another layer and the sky is lacking light. The roadways are slick with wet leaves. The joggers are now wearing puffy coats. The metal mobile machines are being plugged in. The construction is done for the year. Neighbors seem to be retiring inside for seasonal movies and gluttony.

The excitement of daily news has now turned into a rut of talking heads announcing the latest breaking event but it is unverified and not sure of the source being vetted. This is just gossip.

The Tummy Temple is settling down. The blue shirts that were hired to make the shelves higher than anyone can reach have thinned out and now there are new faces learning how to cut open cardboard boxes and placing the goods on the shelves to be scanned by a manager with a handheld to enter into a database so the automatic check-out machines can recognize the price without knowing who you are (welcome regular customer who comes here every day and buys the same stuff). Katy says there will be a ‘grand’ opening in December. That statement could not be verified.

The goal now is to retire inside and do something musical. The outside chores are somewhat done but now it will be cold and rainy and cloudy and yucky.

There will still be the daily ride to replenish hydration and actually speak verbally to another human. Best to keep the limited exercise and communication skills going as long as possible.

Without television the avoidance of annoying commercials (especially political) is refreshing. Online news sites are still flooding the eyes with nonsense of candidates banter even before they are chosen by their party and voted upon by the mass public. Will you choose a (D) or an ®?

As age creeps up, it is all too much.

Should kids have phones in the classroom? Should there be security at the grocery store? How much will the tickets cost to see 80-year-olds strut the stage? What do you tell your grand about what their new love is looking for? Should you visit the doctor to get a timeline on your funeral? Which flavor of religion is worth dying for? Electric or fossil fueled? Paper or plastic?

Tomorrow is Monday. Trash Day!

These are the highlights of geezer hood. When will the big truck roll down the alley to empty my waste and take it somewhere else where I cannot smell it or see it piled up, allowing me the pleasure to spend another week refilling the rubber flip top containers with I could not completely consume or remove with a flush.

The thrill of the day is hearing the monster truck roaring down the block, stopping every couple of feet so two guys (still guys?) in Day-Glo vest roll the official allotted containers, flip up the top, pull a crank and the process of dumping is all automated.

There was a time when this process of picking up someone’s trash out of a cylinder of aluminum and lifting it into the back of a container compression truck was manual. The contents were in paper bags leaking of all sorts of smelly stuff that had to be physically handled by strong men in overalls and railroad gloves. No mask. No water-proof aprons. Rain or shine.

In days of old, these rituals of waste removal, security protection, firefighting and dozens of other manual jobs with little pay or respect were expected but seldom appreciated unless they did not appear. Before that the piles of trash were burnt and everyone was responsible for self-preservation. They didn’t know your battery could run out on your phone.

I’ve filled my containers with cut timbers in hopes that they will be emptied tomorrow for another filling. I’ll watch from the window when I hear them come by and say, “thank you” though they cannot hear me.

Immediate Gratification

 

With all the speed of technology, a click-of-a-button and we expect immediate gratification. When this doesn’t happen, we get frustrated.

No comparison to the days when one would have to get dressed in presentable public attire and travel to a brick-and-mortar building, find a parking spot, search through shelves of options, fill your cart and push it to a line and wait until your turn to have each item scanned, present coupons, have the items bagged and write a check before you can leave, pack your trunk and return to the starting point. Imagine dragging an uninterested spouse or a hyper child or two to make the venture more special.

Once home, you find you have forgotten an item or the size or color doesn’t look the same as it did in the store. Rinse and repeat.

No, we have grown use to immediate gratification. Scroll through endless selections, add to cart, give a credit card number and verify your purchase. We expect a cardboard box will appear on our front porch the next day.

I, like you, have become familiar with ordering online and expect prime customer service, including the constant emails tracking the delivery of your request and asking for a review of the service. The delivery truck normally comes through in the afternoon so I check my email to see the photo sent to me when delivered.

Looking back at my history I’ve ordered everything from underwear to tools to books and music. I’ve not returned anything, but I do my research before I click ‘OK’.

Everything seemed to working fine, until…

My recent birthday/Christmas items were ordered in October and seemed to arrive within a few days (as advertised), except for one. None of these items were urgent necessities, but I do appreciate an on-time delivery. It is like Christmas every day to find a package on your porch to open. Even though you know what is inside, it is always a happy process to cut open the box and put the cardboard in the recycling.

More expensive items I want to touch-test before I buy and check the delivery for quality before the truck leaves. I only use a credit card and then pay off the bill before placing another order.

What was wrong with this order? No truck drivers? Supply log jam? Ordering snafu? I can imagine robots and folks in orange jumpsuits with wi-fi radios and handheld scanners rushing about a massive warehouse somewhere in rural Virginia looking for order # 113-6675561-1044241.

 

The message now, when tracking the delivery, is ‘running late’? No ‘regrets for the delay’ or ‘offer any discounts’ have been made. Looking at my neighbors recycling bins, the delivery truck has been through with plenty of cardboard boxes.

We (I included) spend way too much time scrolling screens for something to entertain us. Shopping is a form of entertainment and gives our dopamine a rush.

The other day at the Tummy Temple there was panic at the check-out. Managers were scrambling to offer customer service to waiting lines. Since I’m never in a hurry, I can watch the circus knowing full well I’ll leave with my cart full and probably some hidden discounts due to the confusion. ‘Not enough people’ is the excuse for the blockage, but this is the time for reconstruction of the cathedral, so wait your turn.

What about Tinder or eHarmony or MatchY or the never-ending sites that promise ‘love’ with a click-of-a-mouse. Do you ‘add to cart’ and click ‘OK’ to deliver to your front porch? I don’t know because I don’t use them, but I have been shopping (in a department store or a bar). Both of these establishments expect us to pay some money and possibly leave happy. If this was pizza it would be cold by now.

If I take out a date to dinner and dancing and then late-night drinks under the moonlight, do I expect immediate gratification? As a teenage at the drive-in movie in the backseat with syruping drinks and sticky popcorn, do we want to watch the movie or get immediate gratification? It doesn’t always work out that way.

So, I wait.

 

 

And then finally

I checked the tracking and lo and behold, it said it was delivered yesterday. So, I checked the email and there were no announcements from Amazon with their little photo to show the package on my porch. I left a customer service message that if the package that was delivered, I was not notified. Then some detective work. Walk out front and view the yard for a misplaced bag or box. Maybe a neighbor got it? Maybe a porch pirate brazens enough to climb the fence and avoid the critter crewe that even makes the postman run by, confiscated the package?

I go out to rake leaves into the street before the rain to annoy my neighbors from parking in front of my house unless they have a monster truck and notice..

The mailbox. The lid was askew.

Sure enough, case solved. It was delivered by mail on a Sunday.

I’ll back off from ordering until after the holidays, due to traffic on the roads and anything that would annoy me.

Instead, I wait for my yearly venture to the Tummy Temple on Thanksgiving Day. Not for the shopping, but for the entertainment.

LXXV

 

75 trips around the sun. 27,375 days, 657,000 hours, 39,420,000 minutes, 2,365,200,000 seconds, but who's counting? Who would have thought it? Certainly not me.

All the adventures and experiences survived. The sites seen and those that passed before the screens. The people we’ve known and most have gone.

Age is not an accomplishment but a platitude of time. The graves are marked by the number of years you existed, but it doesn’t tell your story. Everyone has a story.

Gandhi was assassinated. Hell's Angels were founded in California, World Health Organization is established by the United Nations, Israeli declaration of independence, the Berlin blockade begins, the Republic of South Korea was established, Truman defeats Dewey.

The war was over and the troops came home and bought houses and cars and refrigerators and raised children. Highways were being built and strip malls were formed. Construction began to use aluminum and suburbia was established. Television took over the entertainment from radio. Movies reinforced the popular culture of Christian religion and successful winners of the war. Schools were still segregated.

Conformity was the rule of the day, especially from a conservative state that still talked of the south rising again. The revolution of ideas in the 60s hit in my formative teen years. Lacking haircuts made boys into hobos and peasant dresses and beads made girls into wenches. Psychedelics opened our minds. The pill gave us free love. The birth of rock and roll gave us a soundtrack.

Wars continued, but they were over-there. The country could continue making cars and refrigerators and high-rise offices and manual labor abound. Confederate statues still stood high to remind everyone which side they were on. Department stores provided knockoff French toiletries to the latest fashion displayed on a runway. Newspapers and milk were delivered to your door and the doctor made house calls.

After a questionable education to learn reading, riting, and rithmetic and avoid the draft, I walked into a job where former workers were on strike to avoid technology and stayed for almost 40 years, until they were tired of paying me.

Was lucky enough to be at the birth of the digital age and experiment with the new tools as they were constructed, test and redesigned. Work was fun. Management was not.

No alarm to wake up to. Just open the eyes to greet another day. Creep out of bed with a back telling that yard work the other day was a bit overdone for a geezer. The ole folk shuffle gets some instant coffee, dressed and outside to loosen flexibility on two-wheels.

Made it this far. Is the next hurdle 80?

No Returns

 

Back in the before times, if you needed a new shirt, you had to make it. Clothing, like food, furniture, shelter had to be self-made. There were no big box stores with racks of clothing shipped in from overseas and sewn together by underpaid seamstresses.

You’d have to take the old shirt apart to measure, then cut the new material, then construct it with whatever thread, string, cord or buttons that were available. If it didn’t fit, you adjusted to it or restarted.

There were no returns.

If you bought an item from a store, there were no returns. Be careful in your selection before you put down your cash. There are no takebacks in poker either.

With the innovation of delivery, an item could be delivered to your doorstep with the possibility of the milk being fresh and the newspaper dry. If what was in the box arrived broken, hours of phone calls and attempts to have the box retrieved and repaired or a replacement delivered. As products became cheaper and the quality of the construction dropped, it was easier to trash it and buy another one.

Unfortunately, today we shop online and without a close inspection of the product, we order several sizes and colors to use our bedroom as the trial dressing room only to re-box the items that did not fit or just wasn’t what you wanted and with a simple phone call a truck will pick it up and deliver it back to the warehouse.

The semi-used wearable can be repackaged and resold at discount or shipped back overseas with your stretching and sweat as bargain basement items.

You can figure out the billing later.

What would happen if relationships had No Returns?

No break-ups. No divorces. No Redoes. No Take backs.

It would certainly make ‘dating’ and ‘marriage’ more adventurous. When you make a vow, you can’t go back and say, “I was just kidding”. Though we are fickle creatures with wandering eyes, when we make an emotional promise to another, should we stick with it? Try signing for a loan and not paying for it. Pledge a commitment before trying to renege on the deal.

Mostly we blurt out words without thinking and then must face the reactions. Copulation may seem pleasant at the time, but the consequences have no returns.

This could eliminate Yard Sales and Pawn Shops. You buy it, you keep it. (Or repackage it for Christmas?)

Without Borders

 

You’ve heard this: Doctors without borders. We provide independent, impartial medical humanitarian assistance to the people who need it most. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) cares for people affected by conflict, disease outbreaks, natural and human-made disasters, and exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries.

A doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease, injury, and other physical and mental impairments

 Doctors are Audiologist, Dentist, Optometrist, Physician, Surgeon and Veterinary physician.

There are other doctors. Doctor of the Church, a title given to those with great contribution to Christian theology or doctrine, Doctor of Sacred Theology (Courtesy church title), Doctor of Divinity (Courtesy church title), Doctor of Nursing Practice, Doctor of Pharmacy, Doctor of Philosophy.

In the ole days, the ‘doctor’ was the barber. He (it was a male occupation) had the sharp tools. He’d give a shave with a straight razor, pull a tooth with a shot of whiskey or hand you a stick to bite on while he dug out a bullet.

Then these doctors started getting together and comparing notes and forming procedures that were acceptable and had positive results. Schools were built to teach new techniques to men and women who spent years practicing trying to heal, even under tutelage of ‘real’ doctors as interns until they get a piece of paper to frame on the wall. They still ‘practice’ medicine.

Back to the point, these remarkable people go where the trouble is to mend and heal. They are not French doctors or Swiss doctors or Chinese doctors, but just doctors. Doctors without borders.

Which gets us to the other half of this description.

‘Without borders’

A border is a real or artificial line that separates geographic areas. Borders are political boundaries. They separate countries, states, provinces, counties, cities, and towns. A border outlines the area that a particular governing body controls.

When I moved into this neighborhood, all the yards were enter connected. There are invisible lines that neighbors would mow, then bushes were planted and then came the fences. Now each address is separated by tall walls of wood keeping others out or families in.

When you are injured, you don’t ask the doctor if they are Jewish. You don’t ask if they are from Italy or which side of the border, they received their accreditation.  You just hope they can relieve the pain without passing you on to the undertaker.

We seemed to have produced borders to separate people due to religion or ethical backgrounds or family units. We would battle over expanding our borders to increase our labor force and steal the resources.

The Doctors without borders seem to just be concerned about repairing the ill instead of being allowed to follow their Hippocratic Oath.

I’ve crossed counties but could not see the borders. There are signs that mark a border, but without a fence? I’ve flown over mountains and deserts and see the highways but never see those lined borders that show up on maps.

Maybe there are no borders?

What if there were Accountants without borders offering their services. Mechanics without borders? Plumbers without borders? Mothers without borders?

Maybe, just maybe we could become earthlings instead of Germans vs English or Caucasians vs Hispanic or Catholics vs Islam?