Coded Out

 I , perhaps as you, am fed up with constant so-called security measures when on-line shopping. Yes, there are criminals who commit thieveing crimes on-line, but those of us who have been dealing with the same companies for many years faithfully and honesty are now being treated like potential criminals, and I object. I trust these companies but evidently they don't trust me because when I try to enter my account and access the shopping site, I have to go through a time-consuming and annoying back and forth in the business of receiving and sending codes to my email or phone, and then I have to retrieve it very quickly to enter it before they cut me off and make me go through the whole process again. Grrr. A very well known on-line site did this to me today while, this afternoon, using the same site I used in the morning. I  got on with no trouble. A few hours later all this. In trying to get the code it takes time because my email also asked to send me a code to access my email! WHAT? Of course, I couldn't get back to enter the first code and therefore, the site blocked me from my account. I have to say, that my temper is sorely tested at this point. I am not dishonest and have done multi amounts of business with this site;  why am I being treated so poorly. The end result was that I had to contact the consumer relations department thus leaving the order in limbo. The agent  who answered had to listen to my complaint against his company. I tried to hold my ire in check but he could hear the emotion, and he had such wonderful patience that it settle me down. I explained how dreadful it is to order from their company now when, once, I used to enjoy shopping with them. Strangely, this gentleman was able to fix the problem immediately, so that I am able to access easily and quickly. He gave me specific instructions on how to accomplish my business with them and the problem was solved. I hope.  Now I can return to the enjoyment of on-line shopping. Site after site is doing this ridiculous manoeuvering and one grocery site that I use and have done so for many years, has completely blocked me so that I have to call their main office for help every time I shop there. The criminals don't stop doing what they do regardless of all this, but now we all have to suffer for their crimes. On-line shopping is no longer "convenient" and is certainly not enjoyable any more. 

Living Fantasy

 I am a dreamer realist and I make my ninety year old, well travelled and reasonably well educated former professional life, fun. Being this old, is quite lovely and I quite adore it. Why? Mostly, because I am forgiven almost everything, except when, as we all do, I feel a bit cranky. What keeps  me from being cranky all the time, is that I live alone. There is nothing more satisfying than being so, although all the nice do-gooders who think they know what old people need, worry about it. They say lose weight, excercise to a sweat, go out and socialize because you're lonely ( I never am) and, bottom line, go to something called loosely, a "home" and finally, get a thing to put around your neck, dog-like, that beeps if you fall down. All these lovely hints by those in their forties perhaps, I try, desperately, to avoid. No one knows the elderly, like the bona fide elderly. No kind of degree in elder matters or social worker courses or medical counsel should give advice to the persons actually in the situation. Well, they can and do, but all we elders want is to say, "buzz off". Back to fantasy. I am not bragging when I say I have been all over the world, at least as far as I could, and some of it I loved so much I wanted to stay there. In my condo place, it's like a small geographical museum. Africa, of which I have seen not enough of, is  my bedroom where a stuffed giraffe, Raffy, and I share the space along with our tiger striped pillows and jungle fake greenery. I use a lot of fake greenery and quite adore it. My living room is in leather and steel, modern black and white but has corners of  aborigine art, cedar tree tables, carved wood and obsidian figures and cracked family antiques that are revered. The inuit collection is there, too,  but now high on shelves since the hand carved arctic bird persisted in losing its balance falling over knocking down the two soap stone hunters lugging their dead seals home with a bone ivory husky leading the way. The spot where I sit solo, in my nice black pod chair and footstool amongst the leather and black iron legged tables and marble counters rests in a forest of greenery dripping off the ends of what and wherever with forest ferns peeking out from under the white grand that is seldom played but oft, I hear. My fantasy of living in the forest of memories lives on. It doesn't breath as I do living on in my perfect dream. 

Loyalty/Love - Not Equal

When one is in love, there is always loyalty. But watching a nouveau kind of show about "mansphere", I learned that the two aren't synonymous. They are alike but not the same and they don't have to be. In the show, a couple of cybericon  males (or as they see themselves, alpha be-maned lions)  compared notes, during the interview by an older, clearly traditional man,  on marriage and love/loyalty. In their eyes, the two don't meld. But then, what would they know since their entire lives are based on someone telling them how wonderful or terrible they are, while they rake in the proceeds of their ad sponsors and live like billionaires. (Part of what our future young streaming citizens appear to enjoy.) As silly as it was, "silly" since those folks don't last a long time on the box, big or small, it did bring some thoughts to mind. Does love require loyalty or vice verse, and is loyalty needed to love? There are huge numbers of married folks that I have encountered in life and reading/viewing, who live in loyalty while the love part has receded far into the background. It's natural. To be "in love" forever and a day, is rare and almost impossible. Love is not a static matter. Love is like a ballroom sparkle ball of mirrors that reflects all that it sees and love can change in what it "sees". And that is normal and okay, as long as loyalty is present. What causes problems is not the love, but the loyalty aspect. Love, once the true kind comes along, doesn't die. It just doesn't. It can't be killed because even if it's knocked down, it rises again.  Loyalty, however, is a different and delicate matter. At work, you can love it or hate it, but work needs a certain loyalty to do. I know a doctor who hates his life in the profession but he is in love with it. He stays with it not out of loyalty but of love. Love is more than skin deep, it can take over and become one's very breath. An object of love can betray or die or disappear, but love is without the power of reasoning; it stays stubbornly on and on like a scar that never disappears completely. Loyalty on the other hand, can change and never again be seen. It's merely a moon, and not, as love, a sun.                             

Bedtime Et Al

 We spend more time in bed than we do walking around on two legs. This is not to say, sleeping in bed. I love the moment I slip between cool sheets and put my head down on the two feather pillows and pull up the goose down. That first moment feels like I have, at last, arrived in a perfect, peaceful place. From then on it can be a pillow boxing match, a sheet war, a body spin exercise not on a bike or perhaps even the odd steady deep sleep. I don't think I am alone on this score. What happens is that thoughts of the day, come flooding in because during the day, there are too many real things going on to be able to put it all together and in bed, there is nothing else but opportunity for it. Well, unless  the upper floor folk aren't clomping about getting their pjs on, too. Bed is one thing, sleep is another. The helpful hints by psychologists, both professional and amateur, don't always work. First, I have to say, I am not tired, it's just that it is sleep time and here I am wanting to do it out of obedience. I try reading my Kindle, silently singing those idiot songs, reciting  poetry, counting breaths in and out and even after consuming milk with its melatonin sleep avoids  me. Sometimes, I just give up and get up. I don't work a job. Maybe that's the problem but not worth the solution to sleep. I am retired from that. Part of the situation is about the linens. I am not a fan of flannel (ick) or satin sheets but use cotton ones. I don't have a load of shaped pillows that are supposed to do miracles for my neck or back and I don't have to sleep with someone else and that hassle.  All I want to do it sleep. Please. Sometimes during the night, I wake up surprised: "hey, I slept!" but other times, it's a problem getting back to sleep. My usual nights are full of pounding or flipping pillows to the cool side, puffing up the quilt to settle in just the right places, accommodating feet that don't want to be inside or finding the perfect position for the limbs and all the rest to find their perfect angles for sleep. To those who sleepllikealog, this might sound silly, but for those of us who are grateful when morning finally comes and we can give up the bed battles, it's a daily grind. 

Drink Your Veg

 I am, like you, just an ordinary person and I don't want to pay fifteen dollars to eat restaurant or bagged lettuce leaves even if nuts and pretty flowers are tossed in. First of all, I am never sure about the dressing even if it's called "house dressing". Too many additives. All that means is  it could be bought by the "house". Also, at home, I am kind of tired of stir fry and cooked vegetables since the former uses fat, and the latter, kills fresh. Raw is best, but I am not a rabbit. Veg sticks don't hack it with me. What to do? Spend around fifty to one hundred, depending how rich you are, if at all, and not, as in my case. I bought a juicer for fifty bucks that is the size and shape of two cups of medium coffee and I love the thing. Its initials are EG if you shop Amazon, and I guarantee that you will come to adore it. Today I had some hairy carrots rescued from inside the deck barbecue where I keep them in winter, an old beet in the fridge, spinach that I bought far too much of, some almost over celery, some nice colourful peppers that I buy too many of. After a wash and cutting up into spikes (the best way to load them into the tube of the little juicer), I juiced them and now have one quart of veg juice that is not only delicious but with a straw in it, handy to sip any time I want a burst of energy. And you will get that: energy immediately! Carrot juice is my fave. The little juicer is wuick and ingenious. I have used it for more than two years and no breakage. Unless you are accident prone. The unit has a top tube with a pusher, inside is the hard plastic grinder and the chute has a wee rubber door that opens aside for cleaning. Everything washes off instantly under hot water. It works by putting your fibre bowl under one spout and the juide receiver under the other. Switch on the little thing at the bottom, feed it veges and away we go. I use what comes out as "waste" to add to meat loaves or make carrot cake or muffins. Best of all, it can go as compost into your plant pots or the garden beds. Drink your vegetables to feel fresh and eco guilt free. Your body will respect you even more.

Who Owns Time

 Time change to a permanent one rather than an hour here or there, is the topic of the day other than dronesville. Both are odd in my view. As to warring drones, I think those of us who enjoy a bit of scifi have always known the world's last gasp will be at the mercy of machines fighting it out in space somewhere while we watch from our planet hoping the effects will be a "the end", but not ours. As to Time, that's another thing; but it's rather close to scifi. Time, as we know it, from our mantel and wall clocks, our wrist timepieces strapped on, or dangling from a chain around our necks, is a human invention. Time cannot be changed unless only by humans according to their timepieces.  We humans love order. It calms our need for self-confidence if we can point to an inanimate object to blame or laud, so to keep ourselves away from possible consequences. Time ticks on no matter how we change our watches, and to me, when a scientist warns of the dangers of not changing our watches but letting them tick on,  I have to wonder. We are creatures of the planet just like the fauna that roams its surface or swims in its waters or flies in its skies. None of them wear watches unless some scientist has chained equipment on them for "scientific reasons".  These creature of earth are fine if it gets darker at certain periods and lighter at others. They live in the real world every day of their lives. They are perfectly normal and have been so in their genetic heritage for millions of years. They don't fuss about, but accept Daylight Time and Standard Time as okay. It's just those humans again. Neither do we need to fuss about it in order to be "healthy". Another day of spin for media.  I recommend you read a rather massive but fun book from cover to cover by Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything. From it, you will learn that Scientific Man, doesn't always get it right. And mistakes are known to be fact not  by invention but as natural time progresses. Those who present that it is dangerous if we don't switch our watches back and forth, must actually mean that it's  inconvenient, truly not "dangerous"?  One hour is sixty minutes in Man time. The colour of the sky doesn't matter.  Why mind if it is dark or light. We can go about what we must and want to do, be it sunny or rainy, dark or light, and if it's too much, we make the changes. Our watches have nothing to do with it. 

Everything About The Kitchen Sink

If you're like me, you've had to, at one time, call in a plumber because the drain is blocked. The plumber who came (at great expense, but worth it) not only snaked away my problem, but also gave me advice. Most of it,  you know, but do you abide by it? Lesson One, is never put any kind of grease or oil down the drain. Never. I keep cut up newspapers under the sink and when the fry pan calls for it out comes the paper to soak up the fat. Or better still, if the grease is in liquid form, it pours into the grease container also under the sink. Nice place to hide things that really matter? Lesson Two, keep your sink happy, and replace the stopper with a leave-in  fine  mesh cup. Nothing but water should go down into the dark place. Mine is used constantly. I am tapping that little screened stopper device constantly against the trash bin edge. No more plumbers thank you. I like my black stone farmer sink clean. I don't know who thought of the divided sink, but it wasn't a person who spends a lot of time there. What works for all purposes is a deep, wide, unencumbered farm sink.  In it, I can put onto the stone, a stock pot, a tray, a blazing fry pan and not fret  about burns or scratches. I love that sink; we spend a lot of time together. The sink is where a kitchen cook spends most of its time; not at the stove. I keep in the corner of the big sink, a small open stainless steel bowl with a short brush containing detergent. One sqeeze and it's ready to go. Instead of a disgusting dish rag, that always looks dirty or a flat sponge that loves germs,  I use a true natural type sponge. Okay, it's fake but it looks real. A sponge is easy to rinse out, does not damage, isn't sloppy and it's kind to surfaces.  Did you know that a real sponge is a living thing? My dish sponge goes into an ornate Italian black lace metal dish beside the black swan tap. To clean, I dip the sponge into the little steel soapy water pan and away we go. When done, I squeeze out the soapy water and pop it back in to the pretty dish. Oh, and Lesson Three, don't forget to fill your sink every week with a couple of inches of water to release and flush out that drain below the sink level. Now you know all the sink secrets.

Sneaky MSG

 MSG is my enemy. I'm one of those who do not like "umami" or  flavour enhancer that makes one want to go back for more. Many exotic restaurant dishes contain it openly as one of their main ingredients. I dare not eat there. If I do, I stick to the wonderful green tea or a salad with no dressing or sauce. I'm one of the low percentage of humans who have a "violent reaction" to MSG or similar. MSG is, indeed, a natural product just like peanuts, milk, gluten and so on, that some others cannot consume safely. Having to read labels and question restaurants, is difficult. When I eat out, I tell the server about my reaction and almost all of them  inform the kitchen. Thank you. MSG, that used to be called commonly, Accent, is in most Soy Sauces, that make you normally, want more of it. I feel no shame in asking, and good restaurants, no matter how small, will check for you. There have been suings. Most meat dishes and pre-prepared food products contain it. Just look. MSG, hydrolysed or autolysed vegetable protein and now, I just learned, whey yeast extract are guilty. It begins with a feeling of overall weakness. My shoulders feel droopy. Then come the abdominal cramps, nausea and overall and oddly, a fear of dying. Next, the urgent others ensue. I learned the hard way, to stop eating out or in other places without questioning the food ingredients. Some  were offended but the best ones, weren't. I make sure I read all food labels. It can happen at home, too. Today I made a recipe using a bottled Alfredo sauce. There was no warning about MSG on the label. I felt safe.  Right after I had the delicious recipe for dinner, oops, the symptoms came on. I took an antihistimine immediately. It worked in part. I had read the label.  Later I went on line to ask about the specific item and learned that protein yeast extract in it, is  a form of MSG as is any byproduct with hydrolysed vegetable protein plus others. They all cause the reaction. Once, I felt ill after eating out, until later when I finally found out what was causing the problems. Some scoff, but it's because they don't have the reaction as badly. Pure MSG is even listed as an ingredient in some cook books. Perhaps you have this situation happening and wonder why you feel so unpleasant eating out. Please check, because you can still enjoy food out. Just ask without worry.  It's for  your own health.

Forgotten Singles

 When we think of singles, we imagine small quirky apartments with new age furnishings, bits of bright art, small angular rugs, open shelves filled with the latest novels, hand blown glass, chunky ceramics and with nothing much in the kitchenette to do with actual cooking. Usually, there is a coat rack near the door filled with the latest Northernish sports wear and down on the floor that seldom sees leather shoes,  is an assortment of expensive jog sneakers tossed in a casual heap. We don't see a familiar old recliner, maybe a couple of doilies, lots of family photos, a wee kitchen with an ever present jar of cookies, cute salt and pepper shakers and everything shiny, gleaming and clean. There is no pile of shoes or anything but slipppers that are worn due to the kindness their wearer to neighbours below. Who are the latter apartment dwellers? They are the elder widows who once nursed, taught, clerked and secretaried, house and garden owned women who mothered and babysat for her own kids and then became widow or divorcee. She didn't go back to marriage but dreams softly  of her wedding that happened once. She was young. Once. We don't see the little book with lines denoting her every dollar sign, even though she has "that" program on her computer. She likes, rather, her own slow pencil that she can trust and that doesn't need an outlet or a battery. She has learned to trust only herself first, no matter her loved ones, because she knows that "they have a life of their own". Society forgets her because she lives alone, not lonely, quietly and carefully, dutifully and morally. Where are the old guys her age, she'd love to date or be a companion with? Ha! They are married to their new young wives who coo over them and wear their Mrs credit cards. Would be nice, the elder bachelorette thinks, if I had two pensions going on in my life but no one wants old ladies. Their wrinkles aren't "interesting" like those of the other sex who have converted into those jazzy old guys and their gals in sports cars. But never mind, she thinks, I can do what I want, when I want, with whom I want, and how I want. But still, it would be nice to have a warm, cosy time sitting on my couch with a nice, old chap to laugh over a black and whiter on TV this evening.