Category Archives: Musings

This stuff doesn’t happen in real life

Musings, , , , , , , , ,

On a television program I watched recently, a cop, a veteran of many years, made a few mistakes.  Luckily, he survived them all.

First, he went in to unknown but potentially dangerous situation without his partner or backup

Second, he holstered his weapon when the resident–the bad guy’s girl friend–told him the baddie wasn’t there   The cop believed her because why would the murderer’s girl friend lie to the police?

Third, when the murderer came out of the bedroom (and I kind of wonder about that too because, after all, the cop had believed his sweetie so why didn’t the criminal stay hidden?  But that’s the stupidity of the criminal not the cop) the two men engaged in a fearsome gun fight.   The cop hid in the dining room with only a double layer of wallboard between him and the automatic weapon the bad guy had.  NONE OF THE BULLETS PIERCED THE WALL TO KILL THE COP!  None.  I’ve  read sad stories in which young children are killed because guns have been discharged outside their homes and the bullets have pierced brick walls.  However, in this program, they did not penetrate wall board.

Finally, after a sustained period of shooting at each other so many times that I would think that dining room wall would have been blown to tiny bits, the cop kills the bad guy with his service revolver.  Thank goodness the bad guy is always a terrible shot.

I’m picky.  I know that.  I’ve also mentioned it before because it’s a constant in my reading.   Although I don’t see problems in my own writing, errors in the novels of other or in movies or on television really jar me.  If it’s a really well-done presentation, I can forgive a lot.  But if it’s well written, why hasn’t the writer taken the time to do basic research?  And if it isn’t well written, I’ll probably never watch the show or read that author again.

Is there anything of television, in movies or that you’ve read that bothers you?  I’d love to know I’m not the only picky person around.

Things I do not understand

A question, Happening Now, Musings, Stuff, Technology, , ,

imagesMy blog was down for a few days until Cheryl Rae, who does such a great job taking care of technical stuff I can’t figure out, got me back on.   This morning, when I sat down to write this blog, I couldn’t get on again.   So I restarted.  When the screen came back up, there was my WordPress login box and here I am.  I guess I’m going to have to restart every time I want to blog which seems unhandy, to say the least.  I don’t understand this at all.

However, because I logged on this morning with absolutely no idea what to blog about, I’m thankful for that glitch.  

I have an iMac which I like although there are some oddity which still confuse me.  That’s why I’m getting another training session this week.  As I type this, a large white arrow pointing to the top of the screen flashes on and off with some key strokes.  I don’t understand that either.  [Wow!  I figured it out.  That means my cap lock is on!  Now I understand something!]  There’s also a symbol like a cloverleaf ramp on an interstate that comes on and makes everything go crazy (I know that’s not exact but I can’t explain it any better) and I cannot type.  Yet one more thing I do not comprehend.images1

And my bank.  I left our automatic bill pay in the system George set up.  Now I need to change some of those.  One is  $56.89 payment which is deducted every month.  The next month I get a check for this exact amount which I deposit.  I’ve called the company and they have no record of either receiving the money or sending me the check.   Seems like sloppy bookkeeping but I can’t do anything about that.  What I CAN do is take that item off the bill pay.  But I can’t.  Although George is no longer on any accounts, this one keeps running along, paying bills and not letting anyone into it.   I’ve used his codes and get an “account closed” message.   I’ve spent hours on the phone with the national tech people for the bank.   The only suggestion they have was that I set up an account of my own and enter the bills to be paid.  This means, of course, that everyone except the $56.89 guy will be paid twice.    They offered to make the changes for me but, you know, I think I should be able to get into my account.    I don’t understand why a bank cannot delete that but they can’t so I’m going to have to withdraw my funds and go to another bank.

This is why I think it would be easier to dig a hole in the yard and bury all the money there.  However, the apartment managers have told me not to do that anymore.

What don’t you understand?  I always feel better to know I’m not alone.    And if you know what the cloverleaf symbol means, please let me know.

I am the grammar cop, judge and jury

Confession, Musings, Writing, , ,

Keep calmStep away from the keyboard now!  Put down the mouse.  You are guilty of bad grammar and your computer privileges have been suspended   until you learn how to use apostrophes.   I have the power to pass this sentence on you because I am not only part of the grammar police, I am a grammar judge.

Oh, I wish I could punished people for bad grammar but it doesn’t work.  Over and over people misuse adverbs, have no idea the difference between the objective and the subjective pronouns, and have to be told over and over to set  off  a noun of direct address with commas.    And they use hopefully  when they really mean I hope. 

I hate to admit it but when I was a teacher, I roamed the hallways with a huge marker and correct the signs students made  about football games and meetings and whatever.  I did this because I could not stand to walk by the same poster over and over that misused commas.

But reality has balanced out that addiction to correct bad grammar. sort of, but it still bothers me.    I have learned to ignore, “My mother made a blanket for my daughter and I.”   Oh, inside I scream, “She didn’t make the blanket for I!  She made it for ME!  For my daughter and ME.”   But, outside, I’m serene and accepting.    I hate it when someone states, “You need to speaker louder.”  No!  An adverb modifies a verb.  How do you need to speak?  More loudly!  More loudly!  More loudly .”   Excuse me while I breathe deepLY and calm down.

Don’t get me started on “hopefully”.   As an adverb, it modifies a verb (as mentioned before) noun and means “with hope” as inhopefully“The dog gazed hopefully at the treat in my hand.”   WITH HOPE that he’d get the snack.    “Hopefully, we will all sleep late.”   No, we do NOT sleep hopefully!   Correct:  We hope we’ll sleep late.”

For my peace of mind, I’ve had to give up.  Language changes.  I remember back when I was in seventh grade and taught “I shall” was correct.

Yes, I have to accept, but I don’t like it and I’m going to keep my marker handy.  Watch out and speak correctly!

 

Pondering

Musings, ,

woman reading newspaperI spent all morning putting together odds and ends:  rolling over a retirement account, setting up new healthcare coverage at a lower price, and, of course, petting Maggie who believes one of our times is “all morning.”  But the oddest part was attempting to change my newspaper subscription.  

A few months ago, the apartment maintenance man noticed the newspaper at my front door and commented, “You’re the only person in the complex that takes the paper.”  I said, “I believe in supporting my local paper.”  And I do.   But I don’t read that huge Sunday paper because I go to church and don’t have the time that morning.  What I hated was putting it in the recycle bin, unopened, on Sunday evening and I was paying for the paper I wasn’t reading.   Then it hit me:  I’ll cancel the Sunday morning paper and just get it the six morning I read it.   But I couldn’t.  I called customer service and discovered the Sunday morning edition MUST be part of the package.  I could order Wednesday and Sunday or Sunday only, but not NOT Sunday (if you know what I mean).    For that reason, I canceled the entire subscription.  I hated that because I really need the sports schedule and the carrier is so good.  I always give him a present for Christmas.  Sorry, Alberto.

Oh, I understand that  the Austin American-Statesman probably makes their money on the Sunday ads and needs me to subscribe to increase the numbers so they can sell the ads for more.  Yes, I understand that.  But when the decision is to have a subscriber six days a week or NO days a week, isn’t that a fairly obvious choice?   

(For those of you who may suggest this, I did get an e-version for $10 less a month and no recycling needed.)

What’s in your drawers?

A question, Confession, Musings, ,

 I can never find batteries.  I buy them, I bring them home and I never see them again.  I have a number of batteriestheories on that.  First, the Energizer  bunny sweeps through the apartment at night and gathers them up, for what reason I don’t know.    Second, I’ve used them all and just don’t realize it.  But my main theory is this:  I put them away in many different places, each time thinking, “I’ll remember where they are when I need them,” but I never do.   I also believe  one day I’ll open a drawer and find thousands of them huddled together..

What do you keep buying  because you can’t find where you put them the last time you made that purchase?  I’d love to know.  It always makes me feel better when you confess and I know I’m not alone.

Who cares how the game ends?

Family, Musings, , , , ,

escape

As I watched the end of the NFL game last night–Houston won on a field goal as time ran out–I saw something that made me laugh.  As soon as the ball went through the goal posts, a San Diego fan   grabbed the hand of a child and ran up the stairs toward the exit.  I know exactly what the man was thinking.  “We have to get out ahead of the crowd.”   I know that because that’s what my father would have said.  Actually, my father and I wouldn’t have been there that late in the game.  We would have left sometime in the middle of the fourth quarter,  to beat the traffic.

Dad was a very busy doctor.  He practiced in the fifties and actually made housecalls.   He was not a patient man.  I’ve inherited that trait from him but he had a better reason to be impatient.   He had gazillions of patients and the idea of sitting in a traffic jam when he should be at the hospital or on the phone (no cells back then) bothered him greatly.

So, we never saw the end of any athletic event.  I remember once sitting in Roys and Rays, a Kansas City hamburger place, listening to the A’s coming from behind and winning in the bottom of the ninth. 

We did see the end of plays or musicals but as soon as the plot was all tied up and with only a few notes of the final song being reprised, we were on our feet, long gone by the time the curtain fell and the curtain calls began.   imagesCAI0E38T

But the important part is that he was there.  The family went together to football in Lawrence, KS.  He took me to Kansas City Blues baseball games before Kansas City had a major league team and to basketball at KU.   So what if we left early?  We were there, together.  Thanks, Dad! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you think?

A question, Musings,

This is a story I read someplace years ago.   Because I remember it twenty or thirty years later, it obviously made a great impression on me.

“I was in a grocery store” a woman wrote.  “Pushing the cart around when a lady approached me and said, ‘Cheer up!  You look so sad.  Nothing can be that bad.’   I watched her bustle away as tears rolled down my cheeks.   My son had died four days earlier.  This was the first time I’d gone shopping and not bought  his favorite foods.”

Another story.  The writer had been diagnosed with a serious but not immediately fatal disease.  The first time she attended a support group for people with this diagnosis, she listened for a few minutes, then stood and said, “You’re all so depressed and depressing.  I’m not going to allow this to ruin my life.   You have to learn to  get over this.”  I didn’t read any more of the book.

What do you think about these stories?  I’m going to give you a few minutes to think.  Then, as usual, I’m going to give my opinion.

GO!

Okay, here are my thoughts.   There are people who believe we should be smiling all the time.  These people may have a mental condition or they may just be thoughtless and insensitive.   Normal people grieve.  Normal people don’t smile all the time.  Normal people are often in a blanced mood, neither up or down.  Normal people don’t tell others how they should feel without knowing their histories–or, even if they do know their backgrounds.  It’s not a bit hlepful.

With the second story, I truly believe the writer thought she’d sent a good and optimistic message to that group.  She hadn’t.   Any time we’re diagnosed with an illness, it’s unsettling.  Joining a support group is a healthy  step.  I have the same disease this writer had and learned a great deal in the support group I attended.   I wonder if the seriousness of this problem ever hit this woman or if she’s lived in constant denial.

My ultimate thought is that we love and support others.  We don’t judge others because we do not know what others are experiencing.  One of my favorite quotes is about:  Be kind because everyone you meet is facing a hard battle.

Paperclips and Panic

Confession, Musings, , ,

I  think of myself as open, flexible, quick to accept change.   The realization that I’m not always shocks me.  I’ve blogged on this before but it keeps happening.

The most recent example:   I had to fill out an insurance claim which consisted of several pages of information, a few documents to prove the claim,  and a dozen forms.      The instrucitons stated:  Do not use highlighter, staples or paperclips.”  Until that moment, I didn’t realize I was addicted to paperclips.   Oh, when I was teaching, I used clips to hold papers together and, as a writer, I clip chapters together but I hadn’t realized I couldn’t NOT clip  documents together, that not doing so left me anxious.   I couldn’t breathe.  My hands shook.  I’m also compulsive about following directions so it made me even more anxious to ignore the instructions and clip the papers together.  What to do?

After great agony and long consideration, I came up with a plan.  I organized the pages in the order listed on the instructions, wrote on the top exactly what the form was because  most of the forms were identified only as CLAIM FORM.  Then I numbered them all.  On the documents with more than one page, I labeled them with  A, B, C.   All this means that I had one section entitled, “Cancellation  5A.”

And I feel so much better.  I didn’t use staples or paperclips (okay, I DID highlight one thing), and followed directions.  Victory!

 

What makes you anxious that you know is silly?

 

 

Mispeling

Confession, Musings, , ,

Please excuse and understand any misspellings.  Like Jay Leno, I’m dyslexic.   He often states he’s a terrible speller.  I am, too.  Plus, I don’t recognize my mistakes.  I can proofread something ten times and either don’t see errors or, when I correct them, I make them worse.   I’ve had friends proofread which doesn’t help because, again I’m likely to add more errors.

And now the speller on the blog site doesn’t work.  Every time I run it, the messages comes back No misspellings.  I know that’s not right because I never write a paragraph without problems.

I try.  I really try to write cleanly.    I even wrote a section in the book The Overcomers about my struggles.

So now I’m going to run the spell check and reread this and hope you can decipher it and forgive me.