Writer widow: Way More To It

Writer widow: Way More To It: It's common all over the world to see protesters. They are usually those who have just stepped out of youth into young adulthood and are...

Way More To It

It's common all over the world to see protesters. They are usually those who have just stepped out of youth into young adulthood and are often well educated and knowledgeable about the topic they are dealing with. I have had friends over the years who brag about their younger days when they were part of  demonstrations and carried signs and felt togetherness with their fellow protesters. What I always want to ask them is what they actually did about their issues rather than merely carry signs and shout slogans. The reason I wonder, is that with a lot more experience under my belt, I know that most demonstrations are a benefit to Media because the Media is the "message" and is also, the reality. The major part of any demonstration today, is to be seen and heard and what better method to spread it far and wide  is to enlist The Media. Of course everyone knows it, especially the professional Demonstration Mavens. Still and all, those who carry a sign, are not all wanting to see themselves in the news, but are doing so because they believe in what they are doing to the point of making a personal sacrifice to demonstrate their sincerity. I admire this small segment. To those committed folks, it isn't merely the thrill of marching about with a sign, elbow to elbow with those of common ideas and afterwards, sit to around and gab about what a wonderful day it was. No. If you believe strongly in something, it's much more. Today I saw media coverage of those who were protesting homelessness. They were very young people holding signs and shouting. None of them, obviously, by the clothing they wore and their haircuts and nice healthy bodies, knew what it was like to live in the ways they were protesting against. Sure, they may have spoken to those people or listened to their helpers, but the sign carriers didn't match their cause. They  live in homes and have families who pay for their upkeep and education, and take care of them when they need it. After  they go home from the demonstration and celebration with their pals, to sleep in clean beds in warm places. Do they think to make a true commitment and invite the people they speak for with their signs and shouts, to share their lives? What do they actually do to solve the problems they point out to others in personal real terms? To do that is the hard part. There's way more to it than demonstrating with signs and noise in the streets. There's way more to it than their excitement of seeing police enter the scene. The police are there putting their bodies on the line to protect everyone at the location. Demonstrating is no temporary thrill for them. When emotions flare up, they have a job to do and they must do it even though phone cameras are catching often unfairly, of the action in a situation. Sometimes what is photographed by onlookers show the down side viewpoint and send it on for their personal online "fame". Hits glory. Amateurs are only that and can do what they please with their pictures; professional media cannot. Apart from the emotional kicks that some demonstrators get, there remains at the crux of it, those of the cause who often receive no benefit. The way more to it means that you have to do way more than carry a sign and yell to be true to your cause. Causes are personal and up close. What is your way more?

Writer widow: Serving Robbie Robot

Writer widow: Serving Robbie Robot: When I got my robot vacuum, I believed the ads that promised I could twiddle my thumbs while Robbie the Robot Vacuum did the floors. Being a...

Serving Robbie Robot

When I got my robot vacuum, I believed the ads that promised I could twiddle my thumbs while Robbie the Robot Vacuum did the floors. Being a keen sci-fi  fan, I felt that my step into the latest technology in housework would free me from tasks I really don't find very interesting or creative. Vacuuming is one of these, and dusting is the other. "Real" cleaning when I see things that are dirty in the true sense of the word, are what I would rather do. Mopping up spilled food spots, wiping down door frames and light switches, washing the windows or scrubbing bathroom fixtures are jobs where you can see what you've accomplished. Dust is almost invisible and thus more elusive. Robbie, my robo vacuum usually hides under a chair quietly biding his time in the dock he feeds on when he's not working. Today was his time to get at it.  I poked the "clean" button and obediently he began making his effort noises. He couldn't seem to back out of his resting place. I had to help him leave. Apparently, he was not pleased and went right back in. He proceeded to give his own little spot under the chair a repeated circular and thorough tidying up. When I found he was overdoing his own housework, I had to encourage him to get busy on my floors. I have to admit that before I allowed Robbie to start work, I went around and made a trail for him such as folding back rugs and picking up little items that he might become tangled in. The door stop is very small but for some reason, Robbie finds it a great toy and loves to play with it until I am forced to intervene.  It's something like a dog and his bone. Next, I  had to follow Robbie around because he finds certain areas that he enjoys and if I don't give him a little push away from dancing endlessly around certain pieces of furniture or little bumps in the floor, I fear he might wear the pattern right out off the engineered hardwood. When Robbie is at his business of keeping my floors clean with his little brushes out the side and his powerful motor that can be heard two floors away, he likes to bash things. He bashes into my small end tables with such gusto that they skew from their sites to others he favours. When he's done, my room looks like a crazy show. And Robbie is a bit naughty about being under things where I cannot see. He lingers in them like under beds, couches and tables for undue amounts of time. Eventually, however, he exits looking quite innocent and tootles on to other venues with me following close behind. He plays the odd trick on me, too.  If I don't watch it, he will go into a bathroom and somehow close the door staying there pretending to clean it, but I think he runs around in circles hoping his "dock me" light will come on and he can get back to lolling under his chair. What I do is spy on him. When he gets near the bathrooms, I stand guard to make sure the doors stay open so that he can't get behind them and shut them. As I said, he is quite strong. If I forget to take away the little step ladder tucked behind a certain door, I will hear a loud crash. Robbie likes to hit its metal legs to make it topple. One of my jobs to help Robbie, is to put anything up that he might knock over. I know he can't smile but when I follow along behind him often guiding him into or out of a room, I have a feeling that if he could, he would. Once when I was in the process of directing him out of one of his obsessive circles and into another room, I caught my foot on his edge and over I went. This doesn't happen with my other light robot floor mop but Robbie is a big boy and doesn't direct easily. The neighbours say they hear banging sometimes on the walls. My usual protective answer is "Really? How odd." Finally, at this moment,  Robbie is back in his port with his charging light on, happily resting after a morning's work, but I am exhausted. 

Writer widow: Commenting On News

Writer widow: Commenting On News:  Online news reports invite comments and while most of them make sense and in themselves, present a different viewpoint on an issue, some ar...

Commenting On News

 Online news reports invite comments and while most of them make sense and in themselves, present a different viewpoint on an issue, some are corny or mean or blatantly party political. I take my news on line because I can actually read a fairly full report with photographs and unfortunately annoying ads sometimes, but the writer of the article gives a name and background. I find this an open and honest way to learn what's going on in the world after the "breaking news" and a chance for the scribing reporter to gain some feedback. I respond here and there, almost every day mainly because I feel that if I were the article maker, I would find the comments a chance to hone my work. Not all of the comments are kind and sometimes that's well deserved. The article writer is writing an article and in so doing, is perfectly within its rights to add a personal slant. What the comment makers write is controlled to an extent, by guidelines. The rules are plain, but some of the hacks who read the pieces, call on their trite old grudges that are plainly not comments that make sense, but are mere sign carrier mottos groaning against their same old same old gripes. How they are permitted is a mystery to me because there is nothing more behind that kind of blast than what we have to listen to in "demonstrations". A lot of noise of only one or two words over and over again.  It's enough to make one stay home. A few of the commentators' texts are comprised of their hackneyed cat call words that most readers and writers ignore at once. But they, too, should have  an opportunity to do what they do. It's called freedom of speech. I am very fond of reading the articles and the comments and I frequently add my own. What is amusing in this activity, is how some of the responders are responded to. They are often giggle inspiring in their clever simplicity and humour. Before making comments, you must register with the media group that owns the site and when you comment, you are tossed into the "loop" to receive in your own email invitations to see any further comments on the subject. It is all very well organized. If you make a comment that the censors (I presume) judge as improper, and there must be many, the comment is not posted. In fact, you could be denied access to do so for some time. Once I was blocked and wrote to the media company saying that my comment, I cited, did not break the rules and, in fact, was much tamer than many others. I gave examples. I received a very pleasant e mail back and afterward was able to continue commenting. To me, being able to make comments on news reporting is a democratic form of participating in the global community. It gives the citizen a chance to feel that its thoughts can be added in support or denial and that kind of openness is what makes a democracy. While comments won't change things that have happened, it does colour what the average person inflicted with the daily news, thinks on the issues presented. If I were an article writer, I'd be pleased to receive even the silly or nasty comments because it makes up a spectrum of the audience opinion you are addressing. I enjoy the thoughtful comments, the ones that say something and offer insight, rather than the ones that are merely blatting out rude slams. Try it and feel that you count.

Writer widow: The Gens: A to Z

Writer widow: The Gens: A to Z: There is much word about Gens. Gen X is the current one apparently. In conversation the other day with one of the latter, I was spoken to in...

The Gens: A to Z

There is much word about Gens. Gen X is the current one apparently. In conversation the other day with one of the latter, I was spoken to in this way repeatedly and with a rather patronizing smile: "In your day...". I hear this often being on the plus side of the eighth decade of life which designates me evidently as someone to be cooed upon.  My "day" as it is described by those of this very same "day" is about those days and not the ones. you and  I live in now. "Those days" are no more for me or you or them or us or anyone. Those days are over and done with and we have all moved on to this day. Today. The only people who refer to days as belonging to the people who had them, are the people who didn't. Hey guys, I am here. I am in this day. When I was in my forties and worked in the career I had been doing for a long time, my age group was spoken about often as "tapped out", "jaded" or "dated" if not plain "old fashioned". Nope, folks. We were not any of those. I learned that what worked for me, worked and what worked for the newcomers worked for them, and that we should both have spent more time lauding our successes and working together to achieve the main goals of our profession. There is no "in your day". Today is today. Every living individual is in this day, not days long ago. We eat the same foods, sleep the same nights, shop the same things, deal with the same daily issues and ply the same streets and neighbourhoods. We vote, we participate and we pay our taxes.  Being born in a different year or decade or series of them, doesn't have you in the past somewhere. Whether you can touch your toes, drink a dozen beer or build a rocket, you are here and now and should be addressed as equals in society and by it, not as some broken down hasbeen. Well, maybe a bit broken, but most of us have something a bit broken to work at.  Of course, there are some aging people who do get stuck in their pasts and can't seem to move out of it. That is too bad because they happen to be living now and times have changed and it takes all of us to improve society. Sure, it's more comfortable for anyone, including the young, the middle aged and the ancient, to live amongst their kind and exchange tales of the challenges they meet with their peers. Nevertheless, they live now and life is what we have and what we all share. We all work toward making life better for ourselves and others. We all try to be responsible citizens and help our fellows who and whatever they are. We are people of the planet earth and we are all important and have a purpose however seemingly small and insignificant. Whether we are small babies or teens or youth or Gen x, whatever that really is, or very old, we are here and now and what we do and think matters. We are not a Gen, we are a human race.

Sweat The Small Stuff

When my nephew was dying of cancer before he got to forty but having lived a life of some variety, was told by his nurse in the hospice ward when his morphined fingers couldn't open an ice cream cup, "Don't sweat the small stuff". He laughed. And that works for someone who has the huge matter of dying at hand. I say, Sweat The Small Stuff. The Small Stuff is usually the origins of the big issues. What is the Small Stuff? It's small, seemingly insignificant things that don't cost coinage or ask for far away places. When you watch a spider building a web, you're seeing the "small stuff" that is so gigantically important that no one notices. If all spiders stopped making webs what would the ripple down effect be? If there were no spiders, what might happen? All natural things are only part of something much larger and essential to all of the other ones. Man appears to think he has control of all of it, but we are learning that Man doesn't. Even though Man has a good grip on trying to. Natural forces disprove his dominance over Earth. A virus, for example, can take control of the entire globe. Natural "disasters" that are disasters to Man but normal in the natural world send Man into paroxysms of media yellings. Movements of a changing earth send Man into spending its resources from its over use of and destructive management of, some parts of the planet into building fortresses against others. It acts, thus, against itself.  But it's not all bad news. There are those who care about what happens, but aren't the kind who rant and shout, carrying signs and screaming at other Man. The ones I speak of are people who do Sweat The Small Stuff. They take time, and lots of it, to walk in parks, not to admire the arranged gardens with their weed killers and bug deterrents, but to look at the tiny insects that live there, the small animals on the ground and in the air that few notice.  Who stop and look and listen and feel without a gizmo stuck in their ear  having to know what their friends are doing every second of their lives and experiencing nothing but canned life. There are  people of the earth who care, truly, what happens on earth in a "cellular" way. They don't have to diet or gym or read  or watch or earn or learn or create. They know what to do and what not to do naturally, and they choose to live as close to the natural and small truths of life on this beautiful resourceful planet responsibly without making great commercial hype or media attention in the doing of it. They are people with no particular amount, if any, of money. The don't need to dress up in the latest  costume or run the fastest car or go to the best resorts or get their hair done. They can sit in their backyards, on their decks or window ledges in the middle of a large and busy city and still see and hear and feel the small things that matter: the cloud formations, the moon, the birds, the greenery, the sun, the rain, the wind.  They are the ones who, no matter where they are, stop to see an ant and its fellows carrying eggs from one safe place to another and through it, the small stuff, feel the movement of the universe. They are the ones who listen to song birds and their callings or watch the waves coming over the sand or hear
the rain fall or the wind in the trees. They sit for hours, just sitting and waiting for something small to happen and almost always find it and its importance. They see the moon still round and white and silent "moving westerly" in the morning sky where it seems to have lingered too long in its night. They see a bee doing its work on the blossom of a bean plant. They watch the baby breathe and see its eyes move and wonder what the dream is. All these and billions more treasures await those who are willing to  Sweat The Small Stuff.

Too Many "Authors"

Thinking I would stray from the usual habit of reading tried and true fiction, thought I would take up one of the free kind offered by my book supplier who likes to help out the newer writers just entering the market. Big mistake. The newies who have not bothered the expense of hiring an editor, but have  bashed off their works straight into the on-line publishing machine ready to make their millions overnight, are rampant in supply. They are fresh out of their degrees from the U and off they go into the world to offer their genius. Their books are cheap to be frank, and also to be frank, they are mostly dreadful. Why? Listen in. In the book I found on line, the ad with the plot idea sounded great. On the reading membership, it was free, after all. I opened it on my reading device and hoped for the best. Rarely did that happen with free or cheap books. I began to read. The famous or infamous as it were, "hook" was there to draw me in. But on the very first page I found three avoidable juvenile grammatical errors that while I tried to tolerate them, found I had to give up the book by the third page. I am sorry but I cannot abide bad writing, and bad grammar makes for bad writing. There is no way around it. You can't an author make of a person who merely wants to write. You can write your fingers off but that doesn't make you an author. You may find hoards of "writers" but few "authors". What's the difference you demand? The difference is writing well which is what authors do, and that includes doing good solid justice to the literary muse. Cute language doesn't work nor does the ability to write reams of verbiage or dream up complex plots. You have to write. And do it well.  The book I was trying to read had misplaced the modifiers in so many places, hopefully inadvertently, but I suspect habitually, out of ignorance as to what the rules are, grammatically that it was painful. Split infinitives cause me to groan aloud. Things such as "I was quickly skipping" should read "I was skipping quickly" . The hard and fast rule is to keep the subject and verb together. Right together. Next door to each other. The descriptives shouldn't be jumping into the middle. They go on either side or where you please, but they should never, never be stuck between the subject and verb. The  mistake in the  first "skipping" example given, tells that the writer was in a hurry to get skipping while the second, the corrected one, means the writer was performing the action of skipping quickly. There is a difference. When we speak, we don't always pay attention to these rules but they have to be in place when we write. If they are not, we are not writing well. Clarity is important to meaning. What most new writers assume is that their brilliant stories don't need editing. They've corrected all of the spelling mistakes and added some darling coined little words of their own darling invention and that is all they need for their tale. Oh no! Spelling and punctuation are the easy ones to fix. We have programs that clean up that mechanical mess rather well, not always, but most of the time. The words you choose matter. When you toss into your writing little words you created for yourself when a perfectly good ordinary one will do, you are in danger of messing up your story. It is like a perfect lemon pie meringue that someone thinks would be better if froot loops were tossed into it. Thanks, but no thanks. If you don't want to mess up your story, if it is worth listening to at all, keep it straight. Don't try to cute it up with little quips and pips along the way. Night school writing instructors tell you to do that. Don't. All that does is annoy the reader who has to stop and worship your little additions and doesn't want to.  Tell the story. If it is good enough as a story, it can stand alone. That's Lesson One dear writers.

Old People And Their Babies

 I know at least two old couples over the age of retirement, whatever that means, and they are daily taking care of their grandchildren. They love their grandchildren and evidently like doing the job of babysitting most every day. It bothers me more than them. I love my retirement after thirty years of working with kids. My grandchildren are grown up and once had their own babysitters hired by their parents. I suspect when I see one of the elderly women in my building, taking a baby under one year out every day for a stroller walk she must be tired. The baby is dropped off early in the morning and I assume goes home when the parents pick him up in the late afternoon or evening. During the day she and her husband do the bathing, feeding, changing and supervising that parents are responsible for. The couple lives in an adult condo building that has bylaws against persons residing who are under the age of nineteen. Some of the other residents are becoming concerned about this child and others now, who are being babysat by their older grandparents. The baby age of one and grandsitter's of seventy don't seem to describe the regular grandparent span. Another younger couple owns a very fine home a short distance off and their kids are , babysat every day after school and other days including many when they sleep here. The building is not made for children having no playground or playrooms, therefore the children run about the floor making thumping noises for neighbours below to hear. And while the grandparents dearly love their families, the matter poses an interesting question. When both parents work, why are they not hiring a private babysitter instead of burdening their parents and those who live in the adult building? When they are taking advantage of the affection of their parents is it fair to expect elders to be caring for children so that their grown children can meet mortgages and other payments for their expensive tastes? Grandparents their love families and say they want to do it, but what toll does it take on the elderly? It is different if there is a needy situation but neither of this particular set of individuals meets this designation. And what about the other people who bought into an "adult" building because they do not want children around all the time? It isn't that they didn't love their own families and also love all children as well, it's that they have done that job and need to find other things to do in their so-called leisure life now. When you are over sixty no matter how "spry" you are, children are tiring and no, they don't "keep you young", they tire you out. One of the couples after a day of looking after, cooking for and cleaning up after and entertaining their two grandchildren have to go to bed very early when the kids go home. They do nothing else all year. They are up very early the next morning to take the children to school, back and forth. The floor thumping runnings  of little feet are like drums on the ceilings of other residents in their building. These grandparents  must either constantly warning the children not to run or be trying to keep them occupied constantly. Babies make noises that are natural and often loud. They need space to run and play. This is not the place. My proposal is that there should be consistent government institutions such as schools are, for all day and additional evening care if needed by parents so that grandparents and parents don't have to take on small children again in their lives. Visiting with grandkids is fun and productive and valuable but babysitting is not grandparenting. It's work. If parents must work, it would allow for proper child supervision that parents can't or won't do themselves. Schools are not babysitters even though parents incorrectly consider them so. Grandparents should not have to be babysitters when they have already reared their children and now deserve leisure in their old age before they pass on. They will deny it out of love, but their children are not listening to what is really happening.