Author: ness23456

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz

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There is a caste system when it comes to sleep. Yes. Sleep. There were four people on a television station discussing Early Risers and how they look down on non-early risers. They also discussed the truthfulness of those who say they work and enjoy each day with less than six hours sleep.

My first instinct was to change the channel after muttering a polite “Who cares?”, but I stayed and listened.

Listening is almost never a bad thing, by the way. Try it.

The show was a relatively innocuous affair, and it appeared the criticism of sleeping habits was good-natured and not seasoned with malice. What I saw and heard was people with the power to communicate to a mass audience airing a particular grievance: “I want to sleep as late as I like, get up when ever I like, and not be criticized about it.” The old saying about the early birds and worms was snickered at and not just discarded but held to ridicule as inaccurate and possibly discriminatory. Most panelists wanted a flexible work schedule, presumably to show up any time they wanted.

One nice man with an English accent, remarked that we, as humans, are genetically programmed for a certain type, term, and depth of sleep. And there are only a few (it might have been 17) genetic “types” of sleepers in this world of about 8 Billion people. The four panel participants were then informed we will all be unhappy if our real life sleep schedule does not match up with our genetic “make-up” schedule

Ah, the things rich people worry about…

Or should it be semi-rich? The panel learned there is a “sweet spot” in sleep data and the very rich often suffer from bad sleep. I didn’t get the details–again–about a sleep study showing poor people sleep the worst, but the next group to suffer “bad sleep” are the “very rich.” So if you have no money, you have trouble closing your eyes and getting the sleep you need. And if you are very rich you have trouble closing your eyes and getting the sleep you need. But if you have a Goldilocks amount of money, well, that’s just great.

There’s no problem at all with America spending money and time on finding answers to our population’s needs. But…is how well we sleep, one of them? We tend to think of American Wealth as a bottomless bucket from which we can draw flows of money anytime, and that’s partly true, but a dollar spent on Subject A is a dollar not spent on any other subject.

If you sleep much, yourself, you probably do the best you can to get to bed on time, close your eyes, and stay slumbering for as much of the night as possible. So how is it going? How much of what happens to you after you go to bed can you actually control? If a “Sleep Study” published a detailed report of how people sleep in a research setting, would it make any difference to you? Would you follow the study’s recommendations? Do you have kids? A dog?

I do not sleep the same way at age 74 as I did at 18. Is there a breakdown of age groups in the study? Did my “genetic make up” change? Am I happier now or back at age 18? Ha.

Ah, crap. I’m doing the very thing this essay is about: wasting time. And money.

When I have trouble sleeping, one of the things I do is thank God for my bed, my air-conditioning, the wonderful color tv, the end of cancer in my world, and…you get the point. There are news reports about homeless people. How well do they sleep? Other reports show people sleeping 15 to one room in poor countries, even sleeping on the floor, the dirt floor.

Sometimes knowing people live that way keeps me up at night, mainly worrying it might be me someday.

There is no bottom in the bucket of serious problems in this world, but there are very few humans willing to tackle those problems.

Maybe if everyone just got a good night’s sleep…

BTW: it isn’t hypocritical to waste time writing about wasting time, is it? What about you reading it?*

*The shows panelists learned it’s okay to read on your phone while going to bed as long as you do it standing up.

OCD, Memorex*, or Old Age?

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When leaving my apartment I stop, clear my head, and watch myself lock the door. If any other thought but locking the door enters my mind, the unlocked the door is all I’ll think of when miles from home.  Imagine, if you will**, my feelings when finding the door locked upon my return. Every, $^&%$%ing time.

The same thing happens at my favorite walking trail: If I don’t pay attention when exiting the car, when I am the farthest away from the car on my walk the unlocked car door will torment me until I get back…and find the car door locked. Woe, is me.

During the walk there is a $200 google Pixel tracking watch on my wrist, but I find myself counting steps. Out loud. The count gets to about 80 before I notice and stop it by focusing on something like politics or music. Shortly after, I’m counting, again, and the process repeats.

The brain is a funny thing. Am I getting some form of early onset Alzheimer’s? Or is there a mind-power struggle going on?

If you remember past essays, I am made up of TB, IV, OV and BB***. IV, the Inner Voice, is always the one pestering me about the locks and the steps and other minute items/steps often overlooked by BB, the Big Brain, the overall conductor of everything. BB likes to ignore minor IV warnings since TB, The Body, actually seems to run on its own, without unnecessary instruction. Warning BB to watch TM lock the door after 60 years was not needed, as TB understood to do it after short, historical BB training ending somewhere around 1965. There is specific incontrovertible evidence TB is doing all of its assigned work, including its locking job.

Logic, says then, TB is not the cause of the locking problem, right? BB and OV, the Outer Voice, should be ignoring IV’s false alarm warnings of unlocked doors that are actually locked. TB did its job, so why is IV starting gossip about it? And why is BB listening?

As for the counting of steps, it appears OV is doing the same thing IV did but out loud. BB knows the google watch is counting the steps, so BB should ignore OV, as well as IV. Do they not trust each other and work together, anymore?

Sounds like a simple fix. Communicate correctly or get fired. There’s plenty of IVs, OVs, and TBs looking for work, these days.

So why does the needless crap keep happening? And why is BB troubled about it all? Pull the trigger and clean house.

No idea, but after this careful analysis, it’s safe to say I am not cognitively impaired, possibly OCD, or suffering from any affliction but the unnecessary affirmation of needless warnings from IV and OV. Maybe crossed wires and/or organizational communication.

And if that result is a conclusion from a thoughtful BB, why do IV and OV warnings still set off cognitive warning signals?

And…who is writing this essay?

Maybe we need a little more time to sort this out.

*Hope you’re old enough to remember. But why am I still remembering these ads? Ai says the ads started in 1972 and ended completely in the early 1980s. Is there a large junk file somewhere inside me?

**Another memory issue: this phrase associated with The Twilight Zone, was never used by Rod Serling. Ever. So, “You are about to enter a Fifth Dimension: The Twilight Zone.” Is really the pertinent quote from Rod.

***No idea of what you are made of. You have any idea?

The United States of America, Inc.

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Money, money, money.

Ben Franklin, when asked what type of government he and his wigged friends had created responded:  “A Republic. If you can keep it.” Ai says Old Ben was “emphasizing that while they had created a republican form of government, its survival and success would depend on the vigilance and active participation of the citizens over time.”*

It’s safe to say these days it’s a republic if we can afford it. Not only are all politicians for sale, but it’s hard for normal people, everyday people, to live in it.

And what the hell are the people in advertisements smiling about? Bladder leakage, bulging eyes, HIV PrEP, Diabetes…if they aren’t beaming brightly at the beginning of the ad then they  are bursting into song at the end. And dancing.

Thank God for the psoriasis ads, the ones that are SOOO “Done”. It’s kind of nice to see actual people feeling upset about getting a disease. It is strange to read the small print, and even stranger when it’s read to us. I was 72 years on this earth before I knew what the perineum was and how it can become infected. I wonder if there is another, locker word for That Area.

It is also brought to our attention only rich, successful, well-dressed people buy certain cars.  Next time you watch Cadillac, Lexus, and Genesis commercials try to wonder how much the actors got paid, and what they REALLY do for a living wage.

Anyone reading this start out making $1.75 an hour many years ago? Years. One hours work in 1972 won’t get you anything in 2026 except a lottery ticket and a dream. Guess which one you can eat. This is not a complaint about inflation but how long it takes to adjust to the fact a fast-food burger meal costs as much as full 1972 days’ work. Try to budget for your end of life with those thoughts. Adapt, man, adapt.

By the way, men use one razor. An ad for female “hair maintenance” had one actress asking another “You shave down there with your leg razor?” A man can only deduce women may need many different razors. Finally, a good gift idea for when you get a female for Secret Santa.

Internationally, FIFA, look it up, is trying to “monetize” the World Cup of Football.** FIFA wants to offer “shares” in The World Cup so everyone can share in the money grab. A different article in the news feed says the gap in wealth gap between homeowners and home renters is the largest it’s ever been. Wonder which group will be buying World Cup Shares.

It is no secret our Capitalist Republic runs on money, but the sheer, naked greed and selfishness of the Modern Capitalist is driving our republic off the monopoly board and into a “Let’s Outdo The Jones (Musks?)” no-limit, rigged poker game. Imagine there being $100 to support 4 people. One of them uses his wits and legally takes the entire $100 for himself/herself/themselves. It’s like “herd immunity” in pandemics, but in reverse in economics. If a small portion of the population grabs all the $100, it prevents the rest of the population from getting what they need, and The Poor Pandemic starts. “Cost plus” profit margins go by the wayside and a $1 item is sold for as much as The Rich People will pay for it, even if it costs the poorest among us $20.

What happens to religion in all this? Our government is based on God and his commandments, right?

I wonder…google or Ai “The Prosperity Gospel”.

It was never taught in my church school.

*I copied this Google Ai quote from Emma and when it was completed, CoPilot, my Microsoft Ai, said “the paragraph needed to be rewritten in a better form.” Let the games begin.

**Yes, the Original Football. Not our modern, specialized, monetized, Roman Spectacle.

Three Sentences…Again

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Old age effects memory in odd ways and it is affecting* me. It’s impossible to multitask anymore as attention needs to be paid to each and every action. There are ways to help yourself remember but who can remember them?**

And is memory loss just plain “loss”*** or caused by poor memory retention and/or poor memory recovery?  Imagine an office**** with someone misfiling paper records. Who is to blame when a file can’t be found? And, more importantly, who cares if it’s a one-person office?

A current war’s stated purpose is the denial of atomic weapons to a certain country. There has never been actual proof that certain country has nuclear weapons so we bombed that certain country until we almost ran out of bombs, anyway. We won’t stop, however, because we’ll never run out of money for more bombs.

A recent news story about the United States Immunization Court***** revealed there is still some nuance available when dealing with a “good” that helps most people but is “bad” for  some others. Hundreds of millions of people get vaccinated and several thousand have a reaction to the vaccine. It’s impossible to say if the many millions were saved or helped by the vaccine but it is possible, now, to see how many were hurt, so…?

It reminds one of “Don’t Throw the baby out with the bathwater.” In our polarized country decisions about policy have become binary: yes or no, good or bad. Know anyone who “throws out” bathwater?

That reminds me, idiotic statements are hard to ignore. Who, for example, is The Media? Is it me for writing essays? When a Republican/Conservative criticizes The Media, is he/she/they criticizing the same media a Democrat/Liberal does?

And “Yeah, I mean” needs to be added to the dictionary as one word: YeahImean. Even supposedly educated politicians and professionals are beginning answers to questions with this new word. YeahImean can replace “um”, “uh”, and hopefully “That’s a very good question”****** as a time staller (sic).

Everyone should be forced to watch some version of “The History Channel”, either on TV, or streaming or by audio and other media delivery systems. Not only will we learn how insignificant our lives really are, but also how much we—as a civilization—learn and then forget. With our combined history of three steps forward and two and half steps back, it’s a wonder civilization has made any progress. Fourth sentence needed: Have we made progress?

Okay, what am I forgetting? Oh, ending. Note that it’s getting harder to write just three sentences.

Regarding the last paragraph: I almost typed “harder and harder”, but caught it just in time and made the sentence more simple. How simpler (sic) is that?

Apologies for another three sentences, but Ai says “simpler” means “more easy”, “less hard”, and “less busy”. Really. Sadly.

Enjoy the foot note error. Its more simple for me to leave it. Less worky (sic) for me,

*Can’t remember the rule for affect and effect, so used both rather than spend time asking Ai.

**A Dana Carvey movie about Goldfield’s Syndrome deals with memory issues by having him write notes and tape them all over his home. One of the notes had to be a reminder to write notes.

****An Old School Office with a fax and file cabinets, like the show.

***Vision: A brain with a small hole leaking words and pictures.

*****Google or Ai the court.

******Our current president speaks his mind about “stupid” questions, but who purposefully asks such a question and is our president a good judge of it?

Fun With Quotes and Such

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There are lots of people’s opinions floating around this world in the form of “quotes”. Especially from dead people. Some have become bromides, axioms, truisms, or some other form of important saying. These quotes have become “shorthand” for making a point about life in general without using too many words, and some people spout them at odd times in discussions. Let’s examine four of my favorites.*

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates. Is Socrates talking about physical or mental examination? He couldn’t have envisioned full body scans or PSA tests, so he must have been talking about the mental questioning of life. But can animals examine their existence? Trees?  Are babies given a pass on examining their life until a certain age? And how is “worth” measured? Happiness? Dollars? How long your quote is? I understand and appreciate the brevity, but If Socrates had added a few more words we might make better use of it. In fact, he added lots of words as this came from testimony at his trial. Time took some of the words after he drank the hemlock…look it up, yourself.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”” TS Eliot. Who wants to know how “far” they can go? And how is this one measured? Miles or time? What about the disabled population? And is going a long distance the only reason to risk going anywhere? Kierkegaard’s unusual ideas about “going far” seem to be the opposite of the quote. He found his Moral Imperative ideas walking his city’s streets. And who ever begins a trip trying to find out how “far” they can go?  The quote must have something to  do with Flat Earth Conspiracies. Think about it. But not too hard.

“A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.” Rod Stewart? No one knows where this one came from but since it appeared on a Rod Stewart album it’s never left my mind. First, how do we know the horse cares about either signal? Maybe the horse was Mr. Ed.** And who would nod or wink or wave or otherwise signal a blind horse? unless it was to test the accuracy of the quote? And who would care? I have a vision of men sitting around watching a blind horse and laughing at people nodding and winking. Ever do either, yourself? PS Further prodding of Ai “suggests” the quote means “don’t make a larger effort when a smaller effort will work.” If you understand what Emma means, comment please.

“It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”  Per Ai: “This famous sentiment comes from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1850 poem, ‘In Memoriam A.H.H.’ It suggests the profound beauty of human connection outweighs the agony of grief. While the pain of loss is real, love leaves an indelible, enriching mark on our lives.” Not much needs to be said about this one since every reader will have their own opinion, depending on the stage of the current “love”, especially if they have loved and lost many times.  Or love rooting for the New York Yankees. Lost must be the key word. Would you rather be in love or be lost? And what about a person’s love of God? Can it ever be lost? And if it can be, would it be “better” for the individual involved? Of course, we have to consider our plant and animal friends, again. If you adopt a rescue dog, for example, has it felt love and loss and then love, or are dogs only capable of adoration? Have you ever entered into a “love affair” thinking about how it will feel when it’s “lost’? Honey, I’ll love you until February 3 of next year and then it’s over, okay?*** Or is the quote about actually mislocating love, like car keys?

Enough frivolity. Get back to living a good, sensible life.

A sad PS: in my last essay I pontificated on living life to the best of our abilities, forgetting to point out some people never even get the chance.

*Basically, ones stuck in my head. Enjoy the ambiguity.

**The Talking Horse from early television. There might have been a film about a verbose donkey, too. Really. Not making it up. Google it. Ai is long-winded about something so trivial.

***Not a bad idea for both parties to guard against unplanned abandonment, but you would need some variation of a pre-nuptial in case one party doesn’t want their love to be lost.

Existence: Is It Overrated?

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Ai says “overrated” means: “something is considered to be better or more important than it actually deserves to be.”

Ai, Emma, also says “existence is generally described as the state or fact of having objective reality. It encompasses everything that has substance, whether physical like objects and living things, or abstract like ideas and relationships.”

Hmph. The grunt kind. Not a word about how long or how far or how deep or how high existence is. Certain sub-sub-atomic (sic) particles last, well, they don’t last they blip and go. A Great Basin Bristlecone Pine tree named Methuselah, in California, is said to have “existed” for over 4,800 years, so far. It is still growing.

Life expectancy for my age cohorts was 65.8 years, while someone born in 2026 can expect 78 years. for the sake of this essay, let’s say the “abstract ideas and relationships” associated with a single life-form’s existence ends with death.

So sub-sub-atomic particles have very small ideas and short relationships, if they have any at all. And Bristlecone Pines might still have ideas and relationships* that began thousands of years before Jesus Christ, if they have any at all.

Hmph, again.

Mankind, humankind, to be precise, has a major problem with context and understanding. On one hand, observing the sub-sub things, we should be grateful for whatever time we get to “exist with ideas and relationships.” On the other hand, should we envy the pine tree?

 Existence came to mind when watching a World War 1 documentary about brave American pilots who fought for France in the early stages of The War to End All Wars**. When the Americans eventually were killed defending France, there were parades and monuments and stories and movies and lions and tigers and bears. The entire country and most of the world extolled the bravery and “existence” of these men, and the speeches proclaimed: “we will never forget”.

But they were forgotten. And the people who would never forget, they died and they were forgotten. With the power of modern communications, we can watch them proclaim the worth of their existence, and the longevity of their memory, 114 years after the fact. And probably 50 or so years after 99 per cent of the world forgot everything about The Lafayette Escadrille.

And every year the 99 percent who remember dwindles, and soon will be forgotten, entirely, much like the famous French noblemen whose actions over 250 years ago, helped make America a place for men and women to become pilots and heroes.

Applying the proper context, most of us live our lives and then fade away. Not everyone can be a Lafayette, or even a Jesus Christ, and have even one person remember you in 100 years. Our existence will be important once, but not forever.

We may see our ideas and our relationships as “great”, but only for that short specific time, and then we will be one of the estimated 100 billion*** humans who perished on this planet.

So why write about this? If this essay made you sad, stop it. Existence is not like a TV show. When the The End comes for thee, it comes, and there won’t be a sequel or “Second Season”, no matter the clamor of others who may want it.

Live your life as if you are a pine tree but remember you might actually be a sub-sub-atomic particle. Make the most of whatever you get and do not let sadness, despair, regret, envy, or stupidity ruin one second. If you can help it.

Or as the song goes, “Don’t Worry. Be happy.”

It’s hard, but just Do It.

*Please do not suppose you know if a pine tree has ideas and relationships. Unless you know fir (sic) sure, you tree hugger.

**Which it wasn’t. How fecking sad.

***The Population Reference Bureau. They “guess” over 117 billion have been born over the last 192,000 years, so subtract the living as of this day, and voila.

It Can’t Be Stopped

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The state of the Large World (LW) is unlike any this writer has ever lived in. Notice, no judgement. Just fact. There are memories, for example, of older people shouting at me in the 1960s that the LW was “going to hell” and might “end” soon. The lesson learned from those nearly 60-year-old encounters is opinions* are insignificant, except by coincidence. Imagine if the world had ended…but this wouldn’t be written, so, let’s not.

If my local and Small World (SW), my own bubble, was in better shape things would be okay. You probably remember the theory of existence saying we live in bubbles of reality, and nothing outside the bubble exists until it enters our bubble? It is a variation of life being a computer program and…sorry, not now. This essay isn’t about conspiracies.

My SW, my bubble, the area I live in, is adding to the confusion of an already hard-to-manage old age in small, minute, but important ways. New York State is a Liberal state with large, geographic pockets of Conservative citizens. In normal SW times this division would lead to prolonged but friendly and seldom heated discussions about how much the LW should affect the SW. For my entire socially aware life this dual identity insulated the SW from the vigorous political whims and swings of the LW. This insulation made it possible for us in the SW to enjoy the gentle back and forth of a rocking chair while those in the LW were flying back and forth, high in the air on a swing being pushed by the whatever LW political party was learning to use its power.

The new LW effect on SW is caused by the usual budget cuts and policiy changes but it is change on steroids, now. I lost an SW volunteer medicare counseling gig because LW cuts forced the closing of the office where I was going to work. For free. WTF. Free food programs? What are those, these days. Thank God, for churches.

The SW has lost its “insulation” and the LW is “forcing” itself into the SW. Imagine a family of two children, two parents, and no, it does NOT matter if the parents are same sex, bisex, or even alien, the true type from another planet. What if the Leader of this representative family decides to make all family decisions. What if he/she/them** tries to control everything? And gets away with it?

Conservatives understand better than anyone how the control The Leader has over the LW needs to watched and limited. At least they used to. Conservatives have traditionally fought against central government (LW) interference in SW lives.

We currently have a central government based on the whim of The Leader and conservatives are okay with it. This government is intent on meddling in anything that irritates or tickles The Leader, while real issues fester and die on the vine. Whether it involves the LW or the SW does not matter. Budgets are cut or “rescinded”*** for SW issues with the money going to LW issues of questionable value and legality. SW projects and research studies that could be a big help to both the LW and the SW have been stopped in their tracks, with past research and money wasted. Scientists, students, citizens don’t know what to do, where to go, or how to proceed. Should they continue the search for a cure for cancer on their own?

It doesn’t help when all LW decisions are made by obscenely rich people who will not be affected, at least in a negative way. Wink, wink. My 10% tax cut made me $88. Wonder how much a billionaire’s tax cut was…

America cuts budgets for medical research and rescinds money already congressionally approved for the CDC, the NIH, the CFPB, NPR, and others.

But we find more money when we need bombs and drones to drop on foreign countries. Wonder if they will ever be used this country…

Changing the name of The Department of Defense to The Department of War explains…something.

Happy Birthday, America.

*And yet more and more people share them, including you know who.

**Even in a “normal” heterosexual nuclear family who is really, “The Leader”? Might it depend on who you ask?

***It used to be an innocuous word but now is abhorrent to even say out loud.

Some Things But Do Not Believe All Of It

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My news feed sends many news articles, including these two attributed to “Ai”:

1. Historic theory proven: A 20-year-old prediction on autonomous distributed entanglement has been confirmed by Austrian researchers using a quantum bath of correlated photons.*

2. Historic quantum milestone: Aalto University (Finland) has demonstrated the first cyclic superconducting quantum heat engine, merging classical thermodynamics with quantum mechanics.**

Both “articles” refer to one of my favorite essay subjects but are the articles factual? I could ask Emma, my own Ai…

Less serious note, President Trump has been “accused” of attaching “gilt” to fixtures in his offices. “The incident came after DJ Judd, a White House producer for CNN, spotted a stick of Krazy Glue on President Donald Trump’s Resolute Desk during a Monday evening Oval Office appearance,” reports The Daily Beast.”

If it is factual, do you care? What does the existence of this story say about the President, CNN, and The American News Consumer? And how will it affect the Elmer’s Products, Inc, profitability?

I’m helping out at local free-food programs. The attendees are a small sample size in a small city over only two sessions and are not just the homeless, but the needy, too. The first impression is how upbeat, and conversational they are. The presence of free food may be the cause but one thought is universally true: “Don’t touch my stuff.” They carry their entire life with them at all times. In idle and not fact-checked conversations, a medical crisis usually causes the need for free food. Worse, most are unable or unwilling to enter the health care system, even with a free ride to the doctor. Do you think our politicians could do anything about this?***

Sobering thought: how much longer do you have to live? “Sobering” might not be a good word. Emma says “A sobering thought is something that causes you to be thoughtful, serious,, or realistic, often because it reminds you of a harsh reality.” Okay, maybe it is a good word. How often are you sober and what do you think about when you are?

Of  note: Emma was stumped silent with one question: “What was Ted Williams’ monthly batting averages in 1941?” She tried mightily but eventually went into a long pause. I shut her for her own good. Meanwhile, a “normal” google search said Ted’s average NEVER went below .390 in any month of that year. He was batting .39955 on the last day of the season–which gave him the statistical .400 batting average–and he was advised to not play the last two games. It was a double-header. He played them both, got 6 hits in 8 at bats, and raised his average to .406. No one has batted .400 since. 85 years. Ted also led the league in home runs, walks, runs scored, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. These are facts and they are interesting since in Major League Baseballs; recent All-Star game, one league of All Stars struck out 15 times. In one game. Batting average, probably 0.000. Strike-out Average: .555

The good old days sometimes really were The Good Old Days. Unless you’re a fan of futility…

Now there’s a sobering thought, damn Yankees.

*If the article is factual, I may give “Beam me up, Scotty” travel instruction before I expire. And who among us might like a bath of correlated photons?

**I’m in the beginning stages of all the Quantum possibilities, but unlimited heating, cooling, computing, propulsion, and climate control appear possible, as well as a destructive force so powerful…let’s forget that one.

***There are hungry and homeless people in countries with National Health Services. Are they healthier? Are there fewer sufferers—per capita—than the US? More later.

Give Blood. Now.

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But not right this minute. Find a blood drive near you and let a trained professional do it. Unless, of course, you have some kinky Dracula vibe going on.

Any of you looking to do something good, and easy, giving The Red Cross your red and white blood cells is your answer. Oh, and your platelets. Find a drive near you, make an appointment, go there, take a quick mini-health test, look away from the needle, sit back, hold the gauze firmly until they put the band aid on, and then go have a free snack and fruit juice. You might even get a free towel, or gift certificate, or pint of ice cream*. Blood drives often have free stuff, a bonus on top of how good you’ll feel.

A nice thing about giving blood these days is the Red Cross “Blood Donor APP” you can download on your iphone or andoid. Use it to locate, make, cancel, or rearrange your donation dates. Use it at home to fill out the 1 million question health form necessary to donate. Kidding, the form is only about 30 yes or no questions about health activities in the last 48 hours. There will be a few people who will not be able to answer “No” to every question, but not you, right? Right?

The completed questionnaire gives you a “Rapid Pass” certificate that speeds up your on-site donation time. If you forgot or didn’t have time at home, you can go to the donation site and answer the questions there, too, it only takes about 15 minutes. Note to future donators: the Rapid Pass is only good for the day of your donation, and you need a new one every time you donate, which you can do in another 56 days. Unless you’re a Super Red or Platelet donor. What are those? Get the APP and find out.

The APP will also supply you with a Donor Card with a Donor ID you can use at any blood drive to save time registering.

Finally, after your blood has been collected the APP will show you the “journey” your blood takes from collection to…drum roll….saving a life! The APP actually tells you that, and sometimes it is more than one life! After my first donation, I followed each of my blood steps from Donation to Processing to Testing to Storage and finally to Completion. The App then said this exactly: “You have saved more than one life.” Would reading that make your day just a little bit better? It also tells you where the life is that you saved. Most donations stay local, but my last “packet of blood” went from Upstate Central New York to Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, Connecticut. Ivy League Yale must have wanted some intelligent blood, so they asked for mine.  

Kidding, but maybe not?

Donating blood is not for everyone. Some may currently have—or have had in the past—medical situations preventing blood donation. The best way to find out if you can or you can’t donate is ask your medical professionals. If you aren’t seeing one soon, you can make a donation appointment, use the APP to see any potential problems, and during the mini-checkup The Red Cross Blood Collectors (NOT Vampires) will help determine if you can or can’t donate.  Most times when someone can’t, they will be able to later, so find out.

I volunteer for The Red Cross and it is the most rewarding thing in my senior life. If you are retired, or even young and still working, look into volunteering. The Red Cross is not just blood, it is Disaster Relief and Preparedness, too. And in every disaster The Red Cross supports, it is primarily depending on volunteers. Like you and me. Check it out. We need you.

You may be reading this in a country or region where there is no “Red Cross”. Doesn’t matter. There is some organization like The Red Cross where you live. Find it and volunteer.

Yes, you can that NOW. Go.

*My first donation gave me coupon for a free pint of Stewarts Ice Cream. I am now addicted to Stewarts’ Black Cherry Ice Cream. Do NOT schedule an intervention.

Things I Remember Blaming on Aging

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I invented a new curse word for a driver who turned left without a turn signal, but had to use the same word when my own blinker wasn’t on.

One thing gets done at one time. No multi-tasking—or any multi-anything—for a senior. I made a perfect grilled cheese sandwich and marveled at its crispy, brown coating while I  put the cheese away in the silverware drawer. So…when I went to make another sandwich it took me two and one half days to find the cheese, and it only happened while putting away the cleaned utensils from the first sandwich. If you lost your cheese, would you look for it in the silverware drawer? Sorry for the personal question. And yes, the cheese was moldy.

It’s the same with scissors. I bought a second pair and try* to treat them both like newborn babies.** If I didn’t, scissors would be left on the top shelf of the closet where the shelf lining was cut and not be found for some other task until more shelf lining was needed. A second pair has saved time, since it (almost) guarantees one pair will be in the drawer they are supposed to be in.

Prescription drugs are impossible without a chart of some kind, and a writing instrument (of some kind) to mark the chart. And mnemonic helpers. During the months of surgeries and treatment for The Calamities there, were pages of drugs to take with numbers, times, and descriptions. Thank God. Now, I take just two and a plastic marked tray keeps everything in order.  One has to be taken one hour before a meal and the other one two hours after a meal. I labeled them 1B, for one Before, and 2A, for 1 After. I think that’s-be right back.

We’re good. Checked the scissors and cheese while I was gone, too.

It isn’t that the brain is getting smaller, is it? Isn’t it just that there is so much happening, and we all only have so much computing power?

Whether that’s true or not, even suspecting anything is amiss fulfills its own whatever. I went out one time without my keys. One time in 74 years.*** Now, before the apartment door is opened, there is a moment of reflection to make sure my keys are in my hand. Other needs are checked, too, the wallet, phone****, and the thing for whatever errand I’m running…it’s hard to return unneeded shelf-lining to Walmart if you leave the lining in your apartment and remember it halfway to…where was I going?

So, “possible” memory loss is a tough issue. For one thing, what if we forget the “baseline” memory of youth? How would we identify and analyze memory loss in Old Age? And who among us trusts a complete (?) stranger who comes up to us and asks: “Don’t you remember me?”

One thing I know for sure is memory “retrievability” has slowed. It took me about 2 hours to remember Roger Federer, my tennis hero, the other day. If we just be patient and don’t waste computing time/brain time wondering why Roger Federer is not on the tip of our tongue, we will eventually see the memory is there, it’s the “indexing” that might have vanished.

But…wait…isn’t that memory loss?

*Try. The most used word, these days. Try to do this, try to do that, and try to remember to remember to try.

**As a 74-year-old Great Grandfather I have NEVER misplaced a baby. That I know of. Or was told about.

***I was a driving prodigy from a young age.

****A sharp-eyed reader may remember an essay about The Man Bag, the perfect tool for remembering everything. And who carried a phone in the 1970’s? A Wallet? We stuck a $20 bill in the pocket of our denim jeans and went out the door. At least that’s what I remember…