When Someone Posts As You

What a surprise to see that someone has been posting on this site under my name. I tried to find out how to fight it since It caused me to be  locked out of my own blogging. Previously. It's almost impossible to find someone or something or some way to inform the right people of the right things when you are unfairly or illegally blocked out. To whom do you turn? As always, oneself. I love doing this blog because I enjoy expressing an opinion while trying to be fair,  honest and ethical. When I saw that someone else was writing under my blog name, I was disgusted not only by the bad writing, but also by the bad taste in their subject.  I hate no one while I may shun their actions. I saw instantly that It, and It shall be called "It" from now on,  used terms I would  avoid. If It is listening or reading, I would advise It to take courses in usage and proper expression, those that state what is worth to an audience what it wants to read. Belly-aching and whining are seldom popular.  I decided, even though challenged by this It,  to NOT stop doing my own form of blogging: having to do with aging and its qualities rather than, as my cheating It,  berating Its personal employment siuations and other individual nags that aren't in my mind.  Obviously It is scarred and tarnished by time and needs to rant using  a blog. Mine. Don't; it's my blog. I think my usual secret readers can tell which is the me and which, It. I didn't find it at all difficult to see clearly the differences. Just compare. It, with Its unique problems should really see a therapist as quickly as possible. Fraud is illegal in case It doesn't realize the dangers. It doesn't seem to understand, in Its failings or I ought to say in Its many failings, that it's not difficult, when reported by victims, to find out exactly who frauding Its, like you,  are. Beware It, you are reported. My readers know who I am and who It is by seeing Its nasty verbals. Watch out It!  How about being honest and getting your own blog to mess with, and using your own name. No true writer writes under the name of someone else. You can't kid yourself. Be a writer if that's your deal. Get out there and be brave with  your own issues under your own name.  That makes for the best kind of writing and it gets you a lot further than secret robbery under the name of someone else who knows or cares  nothing about your personal problems. That's for you to do, It. It's your life and  your task.  Blogging can be theraputic.  You need it, try it, It. 

Unwelcome

Doing Nothing Is Something

 Too often I hear people say, "You old people sit around and do nothing all day so why can't you..." Besides it being something they wouldn't dare mouth to someone  younger and/or  that it is just plain rude, it isn't true. "Old People" are really geriatric geniuses. Why? We, once professionals and workers, have to put up with such idiotic, unproven charges such as this. I will use myself, an "old people" as an example of why no old people I know sit around all day doing nothing. Sick people maybe do, no matter what age, because they are forced to, or they simply want to, which is no one else's business open for comment. The utter conceit of younger humans berating older humans doesn't make sense since it is really a comment on themselves to come. Not to waste time here, which I assume is the issue, I will tell you what we "old people" do all day while we are sitting around doing nothing. I arise daily around seven in the morning. I usually have pre-planned my day. I live alone in my own dwelling place that I bought, furnished, maintain and live in daily. It doesn't take care of itself. There are utility bills to pay, financial features that every home owner has, things to be fixed and maintained so that everything runs properly and well. I have neighbours who respect my space and I, theirs, but we attempt to continue as good neighbours. I have relatives that I don't bother constantly nor they me. We respect each other and are grateful for the family ties and events. There are events socially and while some individuals need constant and continuous socializing activities, I am one of the likely over fifty percent who don't suffer from loneliness (as charged) and are fully enjoying our solitary choice. I like to attend some social events and not others.  To these, I may go, stay until I want to leave, and usually find my own way there and back unless someone offers. I ask for help rarely, but when I need help I have no shame in asking. I don't appreciate pity or cooing at me as though I am an ancient artifact, a mindless creature beyond fixing. Age intelligence, all intelligence, is normal unless a person is ill. And if they are ill, perhaps with Alzheimers, I hope that the world doesn't forget them with its superior memory. Alzheimers persons have rights to be how they are because they ARE. My "doing nothing all day" has, even though I seldom go out because I do not especially like going out, never have, I have meal making, house cleaning, laundry, computer work and games: all the same things that every home owner has in the day. My entertainment is streaming movies, keeping up with news stories and series, writing, journaling, emailing, ordering needs online and making phone calls and doing business. At the end of the day, I like to sit down and read and watch my large screen and simply kick back  just like everyone else doing "nothing". Age is not a factor. I am not an "old people", I am just another one of you.

Arm Chair Cruising

Business folk who sit behind their computers know how to travel artistically and efficiently in rolling desk chairs. They know how to maneuver with speed and grace between desk and the water cooler. A certain office sitcom I watched taught me how useful they must be. With my trick knee or maybe hip, who knows, because they all hurt despite the daily exercise grind that is supposed to do joint wonders. It doesn't, and up until a short time ago, I tried a walker in the house, which is a very awkward creature with its seat sticking out in front and the wheels, three, of their habit of scraping at my nice antiques. I gave that plan up, and decided to settle for a cane of which I have accumulated quite a collection. My favorite cane is a leopard patterned umbrella wrapped smoothly in a fabric that matches an outfit. I have many brollies in all colours according to my mood. Not any umbrella will do as a cane, if you want to avoid accidents. You can, at a rather steep cost, find strong ones online, meant to do the true cane job or if you are a Fleet Street person, they are right but come only in basic black with no Homberg included. I found that umbrellas tap on the floor or sidewalk and need to be quieted. I bought a bag of pink pencil eraser ends that will jam onto umbrella tips perfectly.  Currently no one has noticed they are erasers.  Anyway, accordingly, if they do and  think I am bonkers, I have learned at my age, to simply shrug my shoulders and grin: "old age!" And pink erasers et al, I am still free of being shipped off to a funny farm. Thinking about my office pals, and their dexterity at rolling office chairs, I purchased a rolling stool that gets around beautifully and quietly and is also comfortable. It adjusts up and down. The latter is a boon if I am stuffing olives in the kitchen at counter height, and then suddenly have to scoot  down the hallway to check the dryer load. That requires a lower sitting level. A lift at the side of my cart goes upsy downsy. My stool has a leather likfe padded seat and a little back rest, but no arms. They'd get in the way. A word of caution. There is  a learning curve so, go easy at first, because these things aren't perfect even though you are.  You need to find your balance. It's a long way down to the floor and that's not a good trip. So far, my rolling chair and I get along perfectly but those bright little rugs I used to have here and there on my fake hardwood floor,  are now all sulking at the back of the closet. You can't roll freely with rugs about. My housekeeper isn't sulking though, because now she doesn't have to yank rug corners out of the vacuum cleaner constantly. Beep, look out, here I come!

Passing It On - To Us

Today I was going to write a blog about buying, rather than cheaper appearing meats, whole portions at bigger costs but having better flavour and actually getting more for your money. Instead, after reading the daily "national", actually east Canada, news, I find that grocers are going to pass on their increased costs to us, the consumers. Yet again. Pass It On used to be a great game when we were kids. The funny part was that what someone whispered in your ear turned out to be, at the end of the line of little ears being whispered into, something completely different. This matter of the grocery businesses simply passing on their increases, whatever they are, to the consumer without taking part of the hit themselves, isn't funny at all. Increases to business should be part of their operations and they should be prepared not to hand it on, outright, to their customers, but absorb some of it themselves. It's the cost of business because business takes all of the profit from consumers therefore, it seems only right they ought to take on some of the down side, such as added costs. It's their business choice while we, the consumers, have no choice. The only way it can be avoided by the consumer, is to cut back on purchases or look for the business that operates in a more balanced way. And that, these days, is exactly what we have to do. Recently, I became so frustrated with my present online grocery delivery store that is a major Canadian corporation, over their online access being impossible to carry out, due to their problem of putting in such dire security, that even we, honest, long term customers can't get online to purchase our groceries. I gave up, and changed to a different store known for its low prices. Wow! I got a huge surprise at the lower prices, similar,  if not better access with photos and info on the product I was buying. And the plus is, not only the convenience of to-my-door-delivery, but also, the wonderful addition of being able to add to my grocery list right up until the day of delivery. Now that's service! Also, I can order from them, groceries that will be delivered the next day. The only set back, is that my order must be forty dollars worth. No problem these days! Back again to costs. I also learned lately about actual shopping itself. A favorite cooking show was very helpful with this advice. He advised fervently, that it's wiser to, for example, buy a whole chicken and cut it up  yourself. He's right. Go figure. It is a money saver. I tried buying a whole pot roast the other day. I am single, therefore, it seemed expensive but I cut it carefully into four parts and put them in the freezer. Now, I can enjoy my little roasts surrounded by roasted veggies with gravy. Yum. There are ways to save. It just takes imagination and careful budgeting. We consumers have a  choice.  

AI Teachers Thinkable

 We need to open our minds to the true meaning of education. I worked in it for over thirty years full-time and I know, and see that it needs to be changed.  Majorly. Much of it is a system based not on inspiring curiosity using a background of past knowledge in a more immediate way via AI, but on having students read and listen to and watch and then parrot it for marks in school years on end. We miss hearing the experiences of the truly creative geniuses who have improved life on this planet. Do some research and you will learn that those who changed our lives, were not the best students with the highest marks in the old system, but the ones who departed from it to pursue their true hunger for the knowledge they yearned to gain and use. Some of my former students when put in front of a computer did much better because there, sitting with a computer in a carrel, was no interference such as the peer jazz that goes on in a classroom, let's face it, or teacher personality clashes or life background "noise". One boy in particular who was antisocial, depressed and emotionally ill to the point of weeping constantly, when his father put him in a school largely using computer screens,  excelled. His learning life was saved. Sure, that may have been in the past but sorry, we humans might change the dialect but we can't change much else about ourselves. We mustn't think that human teachers can do it all no matter their own knowledge or training and work at child at psychology. Now that students can find out via AI what they are curious about  in seconds, not months of reading out-of-date text books, listening to long lectures or doing tests and quizzes to earn marks, we must change. We need to feed the curiosities of  young people with an immediacy rather than what we know are long, planned out"courses" that could, in fact, be "learned" in a couple of days or weeks. Technical help is here.  Strange as it sounds. Think about it. If  you ask senior high students, and get the truth, they might tell you that they, too, want faster results rather than high schools that dabble in such as the nonsense of "school spirit" for example. Let's treat our kids as we do ourselves and get down to it. Kids want to and need to learn. The teachers who know this, need our help, too.