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Laboring in 2024

Michael 5 Comments

Happy Labor Day all my fellow Americans. In honor of all the hard-working Americans, we get today off. Sort of. Over the years, I and about 27 billion other people have posted the origin of Labor Day, to honor the labor unions’ strength and importance to American society. And there was that big parade in 1892 when 10,000 people took part in that seemed like a good thing to do every year. In 1894 President Grover Cleveland agreed and made it a national holiday. Also over the years, I’ve posted a list of all the people who don’t get Labor Day off. 

Of the obvious ones who will be at work regardless of the color of the date on the calendar are police, fire, and emergency medical professionals. These are followed by the ones who get the “oh yeah” response, like military personal and hospital workers.

And there are those who few people think about like the people on live radio and television, the folks at the gas station you stop at on the way home from the beach, the people who work at the movie theater when you need something to do because the day at the beach got rained out, mostly everyone at the airport and train station although there are fewer jobs than there used to be (anyone remember “Red Caps”) and the pilots and engineers who get travelers to those places, the toll collectors on the roads and bridges that haven’t switched to EZPass or similar people-free-tolling systems, and the desk, maintenance and housekeeping personnel at the resort (oh, and don’t forget the lifeguards) you were at this weekend, unless you are one of the 10 million people working in the retail sector. Then you never get a holiday off.

Little by little, fewer and fewer hard-working Americans get time off from their work to celebrate our national holidays. In fact, about the only time a hard-working American is recognized is when a politician makes an empty promise to stand with the hard-working American.

Fortunately, we have us, and the blogosphere will be packed with sentiments wishing everyone a Happy Labor Day today, and some might even offer tips on making a memorable holiday picnic with only refrigerator and pantry staples. If you happen to notice you are missing an ingredient, that’s okay. You can always run to the store to get it. They will be somebody working hard there today.

And as long as you’re going, don’t forget to check out all the Labor Day sales!

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Life comes at us every day and no, you’re not going to like every minute of it. Enjoy what you do like about it. Learn from what you don’t. Find your enthusiasm. Encourage a friend. Love yourself. Grow from it all. And read all about in the latest Uplift post, Find Your Enthusiasm.

A Labor of Love

Michael 5 Comments

Hello dear blogging friends. Labor Day USA is less than a handful of days away and we know that, regardless of what the calendar and the weather nerds say, is the real end of summer. We also know that means sales! An American holiday isn’t an American holiday without a sale! I think that was a law passed sometime in 1970-something, just as I was entering my working years and never got to enjoy a holiday because I was, you know, working. After what seemed like centuries but was really only decades (and decades) of work, my friend and I were completely un-excited about one more day of labor. So we decided to labor together, a labor of love, to try to re-energize others who had lost their enthusiasm for just being, and together we founded ROAMcare.

We thought with it being Labor Day, we’d celebrate our labor of love with a Labor Day Sale! Except we don’t have anything to sell, nothing to pay for, no fees of any kind. So, there’s nothing for you to save on. But we can save your finger the extra work of clicking on a link and give you our most recent blog post right here right now!

The ROAMcare mission is to refresh your enthusiasm for life by dealing with challenges, confirming your choices, or just finding that extra motivation you need to push through the day! In our latest blog post we encourage you to Find Your Enthusiasm. Read it and see if you don’t feel like hopping over to ROAMcare.org just as soon as you’re done and join us over there too!

Find your enthusiasm

4 minute read
Posted August 28, 2024.
© Copyright 2024 ROAMcare Organization

We’ve written over two hundred blog posts and many fall to this type: “Be happy with where you are” or “Be happy with your choices,” or “Be good with how it worked out.” And there is a lot of love being talked about. Loving our lives, loving those in our lives, loving ourselves. It is all part of making, finding, or keeping your enthusiasm for life.

Life, unlike our blog posts, happens every day. It comes at us each day, each hour, each minute. There will be times when you aren’t going to be happy where you are, or with one of your choices, or how it worked out. Then what? One of our Moments of Motivation exhorted, “Don’t complain when things go wrong. Live with what you can. Learn from what you can’t. Grow from it all.” That then leads to regaining your positivity.

As we pointed out in One Job, “There is little impetus to improve something – a product, a task, a procedure – if that something is already working as well as it can.” We can add to the list of things seeking improvement to include a life.

What brought on this reminder to accept things that go wrong as opportunities to improve? Because lately things have gone wrong. The specifics and the details are not important. That we’ve found ourselves questioning our own counsel to keep up our enthusiasm for life is the telling point of the tale. After all, we also were the ones who said, “Sometimes “no” can be the most positive thing to say.” Are we going to be relegated to the “Do what I say, not what I do” crowd of orators. Actually, no. The complete quote is, “Know your limits. Sometimes “no” can be the most positive thing to say.” Know your limits. That becomes your starting point to improve, to live with what you can and learn from what you can’t. That is where you learn to extend your limits.

Extending your limits takes not much more than knowing where you are and where you want to be, then harnessing the enthusiasm to get you over the hurdle and encouraging yourself to greatness – or the next step to it. Having a friend who recognizes the hurdles makes the journey to improvement easier, and sometimes even fun.

That reminds us of a favorite story of encouragement that we shared in one of our earliest posts. The tale of Bill and Phil.

Bill and Phil shared a room in a nursing home and so much more. Both, quite infirmed, had no family and no visitors. Their only distractions were themselves. Bill was in the bed nearer the door. Not able to move from a laying position, he had been on his back for as long as anyone remembered. Phil, next to the window, was allowed to sit up in bed for one hour each day.

One afternoon as Phil was raised to his sitting position, his roommate Bill, anxious for a view of anything but the ceiling above, asked him what he saw, and thus began a tradition that was to continue throughout their acquaintance.

For one hour each day, Phil described scenes of the outside world – the blossoms in the spring, the bright colors of summer, the falling leaves in autumn, the crisp snow in winter. He spoke of children playing, animals scurrying, young lovers holding hands, and old friends taking in all around them. Whatever the season, whatever the weather, there was always something special to tell, and it was for those moments that Bill struggled to build his strength working toward the day when he would be strong enough to lift himself and join his friend looking out on the world.

One morning the aide came to wake the gentlemen and discovered Phil had passed away during the night. She expressed her sympathies to Bill on the loss of his friend. After a while Bill asked if he can be moved to be by the window. The nursing staff made the necessary arrangements and moved him. There, still in pain yet as carefully as possible, he struggled to lift himself little by little, until finally he got a glimpse of the scene outside the window. And there he saw the blank, brick wall of the building next door.

Dejected he asked the nurse why his friend had deceived him all these years, telling him of such a beautiful outside when there was nothing but a brick wall.

The nurse, confused about this replied, “He couldn’t have seen anything. You know Phil was blind.”

Then Bill’s eyes were opened! He realized he asked his friend what he saw, not what was outside the window. What Phil saw was the beauty of the world, and each day he described the scene he saw in his mind.

Some days later a new patient was assigned to the room. Bill’s new roommate was placed by the door in the position Bill himself so long had been. His new roommate says, “Hi, I hope you don’t mind a talker for a roommate. I have no family and nobody else is going to visit me. All I can do is lie here and look at the ceiling. Hey, since you are by the window, would you mind telling me what you see?”

“Absolutely!” said Bill. “I’d love to. It’s a really beautiful world.”

We can learn two things from Phil and Bill. Always know that just because you can’t see it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And never underestimate the power of encouragement. The blind roommate Phil was able to create a world of beauty knowing somewhere out there was the world he saw, just maybe not the one right in front of him. Bill, his bed bound roommate, found a reason to work to improve himself through Phil’s world of words, and Phil knew his words were the encouragement Bill needed to work hard enough to affect that change.

Life comes at us every day and no, you’re not going to like every minute of it. Enjoy what you do like about it. Learn from what you don’t. Find your enthusiasm. Encourage a friend. Love yourself. Grow from it all.

We hope you enjoyed that and will join our community and enjoy having Uplift and our Monday Moments of Motivation every week. (And we don’t sell or use your email address for anything except for our own subscriptions.)

And Happy Labor Day!

Uplift 2024

Proper Attire Required

Michael 11 Comments

I think I’ve reached fuddy duddy stage. I know I’ve gotten to fuddy duddy age yet I don’t feel I’ve overly dudded any fuddies. I believe I qualify for the standard because I know I look spectacular in a tuxedo yet have nowhere to wear one.

It became clear to me and confirmed for me that what is wrong with modern America (besides aging former reality stars insisting we’re part of the Me Generation), while watching Mr. Lucky (the fabulous movie, not the over-acted TV offering although it has a pretty nifty theme song) is we don’t dress for dinner anymore. Of course, the 1940s film industry wasn’t known for putting out documentaries of real-life America, but even the humble middle-class family was having more fun and doing it better dressed than most of us.

Consider this. In nearly every 1940s vintage film offering from romance to comedy to drama to noir, someone is going out to dinner where there will be dancing, at least one torch song singer singing at least one torch song, someone falls in love, the bad guy always pays and the good guys always end up with the lady. And all those people dancing at dinner? Formal attire required. Casino hopping? Tuxedos and gowns. Murder in the penthouse? The corpse is wearing no less than a smoking jacket and if the responding detective happened to be at dinner when the call came in – yep, even he shows up in a tux. Once I remember even white tie and tails.

Perhaps those at is not the norm but it’s not a stretch to say that the average 1940s family sat to dinner with jacket and tie, and dress and pearls. Possibly paste knock offs but something was hanging around mom’s and eldest daughter’s necks. After dinner together they repaired to the drawing room where apparently they drew stuff.

But back to Mr. Lucky with Cary Grant and Laraine Day. He wants to swindle her war relief group. She gives blood. He gives blood. They get together for a late night drive. They fall in love. He transforms his gambling boat into a medical supplies transport. It sinks. Neither is ever out of at least semi-formal attire until the last scene when he shows up in sailing garb. They live happily ever after. I cried.

How could you not get emotional when Cary Grant as Joe Adams as Joe Bascopolous (it’s complicated) tells Laraine Day as Dorothy Bryant, “I don’t know what to make of a dame like you,” and Dorothy answers, “Neither do I,” as they both look out into the countryside with the fire crackling in the fireplace after they drive all the way from New York to Maryland (apparently without stopping since she changed and tied his tie while they were on the road) to prove to her father she would marry him if she had to? (Yes, that was a question. Go back and read it slower.) I get choked up just thinking about it – and thinking how they both look still impeccably put together after a 5 or 6 hour drive in an open convertible. It’s uncanny.

Every movie from the 1940s that I’ve seen, which is close to every movie (worth seeing) from the 1940s, has that formula. Dinner, dancing, singing, at least one murder, accidental death or sufficient injury slash illness to render one character hors de combat, fall in love, question decision to fall in love, bad guy gets what he deserves, fall in love again, live happily ever after, all in formal attire.

I want to go to a casino in my tux and not be given the side-eye, or pop into Olive Garden in a white dinner jacket and bow tie (it is before 6!), or go dancing and end up with the snooty dame who nobody likes (whom nobody likes?) but is really a misunderstood sweetheart who only needs to see me in my formal wear to realize that yes happiness is right around the corner and I’ll be there waiting for her!

Ah sweet dream. Does that sound fuddy duddy to you? Of course it doesn’t!

I wonder where my cuff links are.

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Not me but darn close!

It is said, “It is not  the destination, it is the journey.” With our apologies to Emerson, it is neither.  The experience of any journey, the joy of any destination, is found in the people it is shared with. We explain our thinking in the latest Uplift post, The Road Most Travelled.

Launder at your own risk

Michael 15 Comments

“Oh, come here. You have to see this.” This was a care instructions tag on a kitchen towel. The speaker was my daughter.

The tag in questions read, in part, “tumble dry low, remove promptly and fold.”

“They’re getting demanding. I’ve never been threatened by linens.”

She had a point. Most tags stop at “remove promptly.” We know. We went through all the kitchen towels in the kitchen towel garage. I stopped to freshen my lemonade and the daughter disappeared. “Nope, no aggressive towels in here!” I heard from the bathroom. So maybe they aren’t getting demanding. It is a rogue towel getting demanding on its own.

The idea of care instruction tags has always confused me. All those little pictures on them. It’s like one day someone decided “we have more to say and only one line of type left, let’s invent new hieroglyphics.” You can get a guide if you’d like. I saw one guide with 52 symbols. That’s more than all the symbols that flash in my car’s dash when I start it up. There’s even a symbol for Do Not Wash. You would think if they don’t want it washed it wouldn’t even need a tag. Or perhaps just a tag with nothing on it. But then how would you tell it from a tag attached to a towel that’s been repeatedly washed, and then dried at dryer’s the hottest heat setting where it then sat for 4 or 5 hours.

Remove promptly and fold. Hmm. What if I want to use it right then. Do I have to remove it promptly, fold, then unfold for use. Of course, it doesn’t say anything about unfolding before use. Maybe its intent is to be used folded. It wouldn’t have its total surface area to work with, but in its folded state it would provide more towel depth to soak up the water deeper into itself for no drips or spills. Of course, that’s what paper towels are for, and they pick up quicker. Just ask the lumberjack who sells them

(Follow this link for a Readers Digest version of the 32 most common laundry symbols)

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Stress eating is not the correct term. Considering all the good things that to happen to a person while feasting, we call it de-stress eating in our latest Uplift blog by ROAMcare, Eat Your Stress Away.

 

Get your extra savings!

Michael 16 Comments

Last Thursday I went to go to the grocery store. Technically I went to the supermarket. I don’t think there are any just grocery stores left. Wherever I went I thought I’d take a look at the weekly sales circular to see if what I needed was on sale. As I was taking the look I indeed noticed a few items and even a mention to “check the app for extra savings with a digital coupon!”

I used to use coupons. I really did. I wasn’t like those guys on television who shopped with all their coupons in a three-ring binder and a small, personal computer to calculate what combination of coupon, product, and luck would allow them to shop for a family of 12 for a week on $1.78. I was like if I needed something, and I had a coupon for it [ding! ding! ding!], I saved a quarter, fifty cents if it was double coupon day.

Another thing about those coupons, they made sense. They made cents, but yes, they made sense too. When I went to look for the digital coupon for my extra savings I happened to notice 4 different coupons for dishwasher soap tablets. The same dishwasher soap tablets. Too confusing. Not like the old days. One coupon. One product. One saving. Except for pizzas.

I’m talking about paper coupons, so you know whatever just jogged my money wasn’t of something that happened last week. No, this is a little older. Nine years older. Almost ten. It was that long ago that I wrote a post about…are you ready?…pizza shop coupons! Really. And last week’s mini-excursion into the world of digital coupons reminded me of it. Let me remember some if it for you.

From: It’s a Pizza Revolution, err, Resolution, January 5, 2015. (When you see those prices, remember, this was 2015.)

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While cleaning out the old coupon keeper and unpinning overflow restaurant coupons from the coupon board, a myriad of pizza coupons bit the dust – expiration date speaking. Besides the fact that it is remarkably easy to make your own pizza, it is remarkably hard to figure out pizza coupons. Even the big national chains are getting into the “let’s make this so confusing that nobody will ever want to redeem our coupon or take advantage of our special” craze. And that’s just plain crazy.

Let’s start with those national chains. Two pizzas at $5.99 each. What a deal. Oh wait, only Monday through Thursday. Still a deal. And it comes with two toppings. On two pizzas. Now hang on. Just to whom are they marketing this great special of theirs? How often does a family of one want two pizzas? How often does a family of four want two pizzas? While we’re hanging out with that family, have you ever tried to get four people to agree on two pizza toppings? Sometimes you can’t get one person to agree on two toppings! So let’s cross the street to the other chain. Any large pizza for $7.99. But we’re back to two toppings. Unless you want bacon. Then it’s $12.99 for one topping. Don’t confuse that with the “Any Pizza for $11.00” deal. That all depends on do you want carry-out or order online. While we’re at it, do you drive to work or carry your lunch? Sheesh.

Since those guys are no help let’s visit a local shop. I have a coupon from one for a large pizza with one topping, a twelve inch hoagie, an order of breadsticks and a bottle of cola. Too much for your family of seventeen? Another shop has one large pizza with one topping for only $10. If it’s Thursday you can get two toppings on that large pizza for the same $10. And if you like that you can super-duper size it to five large pizzas with one topping for only $45. You can use the savings for your co-pay at the cardiologist.

An interesting thing about these specials is that all of the coupons specify no substitutions and to mention the coupon when ordering.  Why? It’s not like these are secret savings to special card carrying members of the “I Like Your Pizza Parlor” club. These come every week in every newspaper, hard copy mailings, e-mail blasts, on the Internet, on their Facebook pages, and taped to the top of the box when you actually do order something. Substitutions? Who understands the offer to begin with!

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Thanks for walking down Memory Lane with me. That was fun. That’s why I still make my own pizza however I want it. Thursday through Wednesday only. (Bonus: Follow the link to the original post for my pizza dough recipe. No coupon required.) 

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The words you pick and how you say them can drive you toward the positive or leave you with negative memories. One is more fun. Your mindset matters. That’s what we say, and we said it in the most recent UpLift. Read it here. Read it now!

 

Why I hate Twitter and other things that annoyed me this week

Michael 16 Comments

Greetings fellow blog warriors. Worriers? Whichever. I had not planned a brain dump so close to the last one, but the pool is rising, and I must open the valves.

I am certain that I’ve mentioned this before, but I might have merely thought I had because it is a thought I think often and to be honest about it, as a thought it is pretty petty. And isn’t it something than pretty and petty by themselves conjure up such different emotions yet the only difference between the two is a lower case “r” and even that is one of the least interesting letters we have. English has so many words in it and they all come from different language sources, except for the ones that some social nitwits couldn’t find the right emotion to convey with 170,000 and some words we already have so they invent more like “talmbout” which according to dictionary.com is a shorthand version of “to talk about” and their example is “There’s a bear outside? What you talmbout?” (Personally, my favorite new word is “tifo” as “fevered impassioned support” of something, drawn from the Italian word for typhus. Yes, it started with soccer fans. How’d you guess?) Now where the aich ee double toothpicks was I? Oh right, uninteresting letters. With all those words from all those root languages, where are all the diacritical marks. [Sigh] Anyway, I was about to bring up something pretty petty.

I’m sure many of you know that I’ve had my lifetime of medical and physical challenges. One remaining idiot-synchronicity is a tendency to fall over at inopportune times, not that there are many opportune times to fall over. As a result, I always walk with a cane although I don’t always really need it. If I was able to tell when, then they wouldn’t be inopportune. Anyway, I also have a handicap placard that I sometimes take advantage of when I’ve been out for a particularly long time, or when I may be particularly tired and at a greater risk of imbalance and plopping. (Now there’s a good word I pulled out of the seldom used but perfectly acceptable section of the dictionary. You didn’t see me make up a new word for inopportune falling.)

The other day was one of those days and I had one more stop to make before I headed home. I pulled into the parking lot of approximately 24,000 spaces, about a couple of dozen or so signed pregnant women and new mothers (I never understood why not one for new fathers shopping with children, not that it matters to me because when I was a new father, there were no such spaces for either parent), two for veterans, and all of 6 handicap spots.  Technically I am entitled to a veteran space also, but I always feel I should leave those to the older veteran who now has to fend for himself or herself, and quite often forget that I am that older veteran fending for myself. But still, I stay out of them.

That day all 6 of the handicap spaces were taken, which is fine because we all need to accept what life hands out, right? But of those 6, two were occupied by vehicles (not cars, but my favorite rant-able vehicle (pronounced vee-hick-ul) that requires a step stool to climb into. That in itself irks me. If you can climb into a lifted Hummeresque veehickul, you aren’t handicapped. Least not physically. But these two were occupied by two youngish sorts, the types who don’t make up new words because they already know the basic top ten (I’ll have a beer. Where’s the freaking john? Yo babe!), idling their monster trucks, with handicap placards vibrating on the dashboards. Why were they there? They drove Grammy to the store and used her card to “park” in the designated spot while the dear old lady goes in and does all her own shopping. I know. I’ve asked. (Yes, I can exhibit a frightening lack of judgement when I get tired and cranky.)

Anyway, I find it irksome when people are parked in a handicap spot that aren’t parked. Drop Meemaw off at the door, and go park in front of the beer distributor. Or better still, park in her spot and go in with her and help her, you useless twit! (Another perfectly good word you just don’t hear any more)

Moving on to number two of this week’s annoyances is one that actually wasn’t annoying at all. In fact, it was funny as all get out. (No? Yes! Oh, get out of here! No, you get out of here!) Just yesterday my daughter and I were brunching together and complaining about our watches, specifically our Apple Watches, and specifically specifically the fitness app thereon. Our conversation centered around the seeming haphazard accounting of calories and active time. “I can go up and down two flights of steps carrying laundry both ways and got nothing. But sit on the floor with my head in the oven, cleaning of course, and it racks up the calories burned like I was running a marathon, which, by the way, when I did this year, I swear it counted only the first 4 miles.” Clearly that was my daughter’s contribution to the rant because I haven’t attempted any distance running for about 30 years. And to be fair, all fitness watches and bracelets and rings have their foibles (another underused word), but Apple turned it into a game with their darned fitness rings. Gotta close those rings every day. As my daughter put it, we’re the human equivalent of a Tamagotchi doll. And darned if she wasn’t right!

And what was the other. Oh yeah, Twitter. Elon sucks.

I’m sure now by next Monday I’ll be able to put together a proper post for you all. Have a good week!

When a child’s first toy is a kid-size tablet, we shouldn’t be surprised some basic life skills will be a struggle. But as we said in the most recent Uplift, if we keep our minds sharp, we can still allow computers to do the heavy mental lifting of the everyday without losing our grip on the basic. Read about it in “If you give a teen a penny.”

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The Interview

Michael 17 Comments

HR Rep: Good morning. Thank you for coming in. Please have a seat.

Candidate: [grunt]

HR Rep: Tell me a little about yourself.

Candidate: I’m amazing. People say I’m amazing. Everybody is less amazing than me.

HR Rep: Okay, umm. Why do you think you are right for this job.

Candidate: Everyone else who is applying is dangerous. They are responsible for the destruction and downfall of every company they’ve ever worked for. They are so bad. They are Dimwit Doorfillers

HR Rep: Dimwit Doorfillers. That’s a pretty derisive sobriquet.

Candidate: Croquet is a beautiful game. Beautiful game. Nobody plays croquet like I do. It’s where we separate the men from the girls.

HR Rep: No, not croquet, sobriquet. Umm, ah, a nickname or alias.

Candidate: Criminals! Only criminals have aliaseses. I am not a crook!

HR Rep: That’s too many Ses.

Candidate: You can never have too many eseses. It’s a beautiful letter. Great curves in eses. Love a great curve. Hehehe

HR Rep: We seem to be getting off the track. Let’s talk about your qualifications for this job.

Candidate: The people love me.

HR Rep: That may be, but why are you interested in this job?

Candidate: Because everyone else you can pick from is a bad choice, the worst choice, a choice so bad. So bad. They are bent on ruining your company. I am loved. No one else is.

HR Rep: Maybe I’m asking questions that are too general. Let’s talk specifics. If you are selected for this job, you will be responsible for managing the department budget. What is your experience in finances?

Candidate: I am the greatest money handler in all of time. Going back to the time before there was money I was handling it. Nobody else knows how to. Only me. I am so good.

HR Rep: Would you like to expand on that?

Candidate: That guy you have in there now, he’s a joke. He’s running this company into the ground. Motley Manager and his crew are ruining this beautiful company. He is weaponizing the adding machine.

HR Rep: Alrighty then. How about personnel? Have you any experience handling staff.

Candidate: That’s a lie! I never handled a staff and they are only saying that to distract form the fact that Motley Manager and his crew have spent this company bankrupt.

HR Rep: Umm, but we aren’t bankrupt, and…

Candidate: You will be if you let things continue the way they’re going, spending billions like they are.

HR Rep: Can we get back to personnel. I think you misunderstood me when I said handle. What is your experience managing groups of workers?

Candidate: Workers, yes workers. Beautiful people. Love working with workers. They love me. All of them. Beautiful, beautiful.

HR Rep: I see we’re running short on time. Just a few more questions. How would you protect the safety of your department’s software and technical components?

Candidate: Build a wall around them! A moat if we have to. Anyone in there that doesn’t belong we will put them out.

HR Rep: No, again, maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I meant how would you defend against cybercrime like phishing schemes.

Candidate: Fishing, fishing is a beautiful sport. Nobody fishes like I do. Beautiful just beautiful. You know that’s where we separate the men from the girls.

HR Rep: Again, thank you for coming in. We’ll get back to you.

Candidate: You will regret if you don’t hire me! I could be the last person you ever hire!! If you do not hire me I know all those beautiful people, beautiful people, they are with me and they will not be hired and they will not be pleased. I am the only logical choice!! Me!! Pick me I said, Me!!!

HR Rep into phone: Security, please report to Personnel. Now!

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We dare you to be disliked. Why? Because you can’t please all the people all of the time. We say if you dare to be unliked often enough and you will be liked more often. Maybe often enough to please most of the people most of the time. Read why we feel like that in the latest Uplift, the blog on ROAMcare.org.

A Shocking Tale

Michael 10 Comments

Did you ever have an extended period of time where all things of the same ilk were happening. Little fiddlies that by themselves would be handled, maybe with aplomb or maybe with a little impatience, but they were handled. Put together, a handful of fiddlies go from, “oh, look at that,” to hmm, again?” then to, “oh come on now already!” For me, this has not been a good electronics week for me.

It started with the little car. How can a car, that was olde, much older than a really good Scotch, start a week of electronic discombobulation? How could a sweet little roadster kick off a week of a shockwave slinger’s version of hell. Three little words. Electronic fuel pump. These little babies can do their impression of the Energizer bunny for 100,000. The little car (Rosemary by name because she’s red but has more zip than any ordinary rose) has not covered even a third of that distance, but it is about to turn 26 years old and that’s old enough to have gone through two pumps by now and we’re still working with the original. Or we were. Replacement is pretty simple if you have the tools and the knowhow. I have tools and I have knowhow. Unfortunately, neither of them is the right type, and that’s why we have mechanics. Cost measured in hours and dollars. Just a couple hours. Lots of dollars.

A few days later, a classic summer thunderstorm rolled through. Very loud, very windy, very wet! One of those storms when a really lot of rain doesn’t fall but it all comes at once. According to the National Weather service, a little over a half inch fell in 12-15 minutes. Then it settled into a nice steady rain. All those rain drops made for an interesting weather report, but the wind was the real story. Wind not quite enough to cause widespread downed trees and power fallers, but enough to cross wires and cause intermittent outages. Living a lifetime with severe storms had trained me to regularly turn off power strips and unplug sensitive computer equipment. But, like the house servants in the Jazz Age (and every other age before and since), we all have workers we count on every day we never pay notice, like garage door openers.

I have a garage door opener that operates one huge double wide and double heavy door.  It is operated with the usual wired wall controller and 2 wireless controllers, one for each car, and an outside wireless keypad. They all work superbly, unless the electricity goes out. Then for no good reason I ever came up with, every time there’s a blackout, the head unit forgets it has wireless connections. Remember that storm from a paragraph earlier? Yep, it went out and the controllers turned into knickknacks. Not a problem. It’s happened before. I just teach it a new thing or two, hop in the car, and drive on out. Except this time, I was out when it happened and got home during those 12-15 minutes when the rain clouds were doing their imitation of Niagara Falls. Cost, no dollars, just a few minutes, a lot of fresh towels.

I took advantage of Prime Days and bought a sound bar for the bedroom TV. It isn’t used much but on those few occasions I watch television in that room I find myself struggling to hear with my aging ears. A sound bar on the living room television made all the difference and when I found a smaller model of the same brand for a significant savings, I thought it would make a nice upgrade. I anxiously awaited the delivery man. Okay okay, that was a little dramatic. I put the order in and a couple days later it showed up in the doorstep. As I emptied the contents of the packaging, I set aside the HDMI ARC cable knowing I couldn’t use that as my set has the old-fashion HDMI just like the living room television where I used the alternate optical connector. I knew I’d be able to do that because the two televisions are the same brand only one a little smaller and a year or two older. After wrestling the piece around so I could access all the little connection sockets, I discovered that a year or two made a difference. No optical connection back there! Ugh. Just a couple old fashioned HDMI doodads. Reading the instructions, the online forums, Reddit (which is vastly underrated for its comic relief) I confirmed, “gotta have” the HDMI ARC. And then I thought, but wait, how about Bluetooth? Confirmed…television. Bluetooth enabled. Yay! Sound bar? No Bluetooth. Sigh. Cost in time- longer than it took to change an electronic fuel pump. In dollars- net $0.

I was so disappointed I thought I’d spend a little time at the electric keyboard I have in the Swiss Army Room. (Yes, I finally gave it a name.) Actually, I wasn’t that disappointed, but just had some time and nothing pressing, and it’s always been a pleasant pastime. The Casio has been with me for years. More than a basic hobby electric, it’s a 61 key (fully weighted) MIDI keyboard with a piano tone so clear it sounds as close to a piano as you can imagine. I couldn’t believe my eyes way back when I spotted it on a shelf in a thrift store, this amazing instrument that when new cost as much as an electronic fuel pump. I’ve enjoyed playing the Casio for almost as long as I’ve been playing with Rosemary (you remember her, the little car). I toggled the switch and waited for the display window to come to life. And waited. And waited. Hmmm. I tentatively fingered a key hoping only the display went the way of many 20 year old electronic gadgets and life stilled hummed through its keys. Nothing. And I thought. No, I didn’t unplug it the last time I played it, two days ago, the day before the power failure, and maybe power surge. Costs in dollars- untold. In time- immeasurable.

This has not been a good week with electronics for me.

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Children aren’t just adults in training. We look at how they can be models for adults who would do well to look at the world through a child’s eye rather than looking at the world as their playground in Growing Up, Older, in the latest Uplift.

All that’s write with the world

Michael 13 Comments

Yesterday I had my weekly meal with my daughter. We’ve been eating meals together for 30 some years, the most recent few years every Sunday, sometimes breakfast, sometimes brunch, sometimes lunch, occasionally dinner, alternating houses and hosting duties but with only a quarter mile between the two homes, it’s rarely the only time we see each other over the course of a week.

Yesterday was my turn at my house and I prepared a combination of our favorites. Cinnamon roll French toast bacon sliders. They were yummy! (Actually, yummy with about 27 exclamation marks.) Of all the meals I make, and I do all of the big three, breakfasts are my favorite, and I try to make our Sunday breakfasts when I’m making a Sunday breakfast something different. I like breakfast and said someday I should write a cookbook with just breakfasts. My daughter’s answer, “Why not?”

Easy for her to say. She actually makes a living at writing. Creative writing. I mentioned that to her and reminded her that I made my fortune (hahahaha!) as a hospital pharmacist, not as one of America’s literary giants. But then she reminded me I wield a quill as deftly as a pestle. (See. Creative.) And that made me think how much this “scientist” has put down on paper,  or pixelated the screen.

Last week I was re-reading most of the almost 200 ROAMcare Uplift blog posts as we decide which of them will work best in a compilation into book form. (If you’re interested, a couple of my favorites are Listening for Love, and Friend is Another Word for Love. Yes, there is a theme there.) Most of those posts are around 500 words and some of them have been recycled but we figure that’s abut 90,000 words written, and although a collaborative effort, I do the bulk of the writing.

Then there is this thing, the quote unquote personal blog, that I’ve been hammering at for 12 years, 8 months, and 4 days. Untold number of words, some intelligent. (One of my many favorites here is Good Things, Small Spaces, a real oldie and still goodie.)

I’ve written about a dozen articles for professional journals, a. short lived newspaper column on, yep, drug stuff (weekly for about 2 years), one novel currently getting more air miles back and forth to publishers than I’ll ever get on a real airline, one short story and a “self-help” book (I hate that descriptor) that I keep revising mostly because in all honestly, they aren’t that good, and one of what I hope will be my legacy.

That donation to society is trip through my life tentatively titled Long Shots and Miracles, based on a presentation I do that describes me battling 3 potentially life-ending conditions in the span of 20 years with the power of prayer (I let the doctors battle with medical know-how, I battled with prayer). To give you a flavor of that, this is usually how I close. ‘The doctors have their theories, I’ll stick with mine. But you tell me, what do you think. Am I just luckier than most or am I a living miracle, proof that prayers are answered. You have a 50/50 chance of getting it right. I’m sticking with the Miracle Worker. That seems to be the sure thing.’ Popular among church organizations and just breaking into “survivor” groups.

I also speak on other topics but before I do I write them out completely, as if they would be read. (I found it’s how I best edit myself.) Oh, and once I wrote a letter to the editor.

Is there a point to all this? No, not really. If you are reading this, you are a writer. If there must be one, I’d say the point is that everyone can be whatever they want to be, no matter when they decided to be it, nor what they started out to be. I think as humans, an area we lag the rest of nature is that of adaptability.  We spend much too much time and energy doing things that don’t make us happy or add to our contentment (yes, they are different things), and we justify it too often with “that’s what I’ve always done,” or “oh I could never do that.” The only things you can never do are the things you won’t ever do. (Oh, that would make a dandy sampler!)

So there’s my point. If I can do it, anybody can. Even if I’m not all that good at it. You might be better at whatever you decide you want to be after all this time.

Or then again, I could just be pointless. And that’s okay too.

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Learning all we can for as long as we can prepares us for whatever the day may bring. And keeps us happy and healthy! Read why we say “we’re learning, to be happy” in the latest Uplift.

 

Lather, rinse, stop!

Michael 14 Comments

I started out in my mind to do an old fashioned brain dump. It’s been a while since I went through the cobwebs up there and I have things that need to be said. Like, I didn’t think I’d ever say a remote control for a ceiling fan is necessary. Get up and pull the chain or wire it into a rheostat switch on the wall. But the fan I got has one and I’m not going to use the fan just because it has a piece of hardware of questionable use. But I gotta tell you this. I love it. And the best part about it…it has an indicator to indicate (what else) the fan speed. No more looking at the fan and carrying on this conversation with yourself. “Is it off? Hmm, Maybe? One more pull? Yeah, I think one more pull. Oh no! Not back to high! Ugh!”

And then there’s that little mini-rant that’s been waiting to blossom into a full post but just doesn’t have have the legs to pull it off. That is, the TSA has been setting records for passengers screened since Memorial Day.  Who are all these people? Surely, they aren’t the same ones who are complaining that produce prices are just too high! “Screw inflation! We’re going to Disney!”

But actually, the one that could get me going for a full post is sort of related to that. It’s this new thing I’m reading about, upflation. Yep. Upflation. It’s the art of getting you to buy more of something you already buy so you have to buy more of it. The example most often cited is All Over Body Deodorant. Basically, the same stuff as in that stick or spray or roll-on you already have in your medicine cabinet, perhaps a little watered down or unscented, for all the places you don’t see when you raise your arms unless you happen to be naked.

The story goes that people finally figured out that 52 ounces isn’t a half-gallon. Even though they took those pesky ounces from your juice container an ounce at a time, eventually someone got around to ask, where did the other 12 ounces go and why am I still paying for them. “Shrinkflation isn’t working any more, we corporate management people need to come up with some other way of fleecing Americans. I got, let’s just convince them they need more of what we already have out there.” Thus, upflation.

It’s not just remarketing older products for new uses. Pepsi, the parent of Frito-Lay actively searches sites like TicToc for trends like uses Cheetos dust for chicken seasoning. People are already crushing perfectly good Cheetos into dust. Will that be on the shelf next? They have to do something with all the broken Cheetos that don’t make it to the bag. You say, it couldn’t happen? You know General Mills sells “Cinnadust” Cinnamon Toast Crunch (my personal favorite cereal) in the spice section. Can’t find it there? You can always order it online. And don’ tell me you haven’t thought about picking up some graham cracker crumbs at pie baking time  

Personally, I don’t know why I’m making a big deal out of this now that it has a name. They’ve always been working to get you to use more of what’s already out there. Does anybody not lather, rinse, repeat?

Thank you. That felt good to get that off my chest. Now, if only there was a special razor to get all this hair off my chest.

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The Fourth of July is over, but feeling good about America should be an all year thing. America works because our differences are what makes us unique as a country. Check out the latest Uplift and see why we say America is at its best when we play together. (Go on, take a look. It’s even free!