So-o-o-o Crunched

It started with what is a fairly routine request in this household: "Will you call my phone?" One or the other of us will occasionally have left their cell phone in a non-obvious place. Since they are black, and easily hide, and since we frequently have mobility issues, when one can't be found, its ringing will point us at least to the right room for the search. Once there, we can hone in quickly on its location.

That's how it usually goes. Today when I called Steve's phone, it went straight to voicemail. Not helpful. A few questions produced ambiguous clues. Was it off while sitting on the charger? Unknown. Had it run out of battery and not been charged? Where was it last used and what had happened since then? All of these are the usual questions and of course the usual starting questions that already had led nowhere, but we're either optimistic or pessimistic enough to hope going through them now might produce results.

Nada.

He'd had one of his late nights with little sleep, so his lift chair was the obvious place to start the search together. Not between the cushion and arms or back, as far as we could reach. It often ends up there when Steve wears something without a belt. The very secure case for his phone is then substituted for pockets, which we've found on numerous occasions do not adequately secure a phone. Hey, women's pockets are even worse! I've often gotten up from sitting and the phone hasn't joined me.

After hunting from the top, we hunted from the bottom of his chair. Nothing on the floor, nothing showing hanging lower than we could reach from the top. It really helps to tilt the chair forward for a good inspection, since everything is black, shadowed, and otherwise unreachable. While it was thus tilted, we used the electric control to move the chair in case something might fall out.  Still nothing.

We set the chair back in its usable position for a round of head scratching. And because it had worked so well before, we again tilted the chair forward and searched under it a second time. The chair had moved relative to its location on the rug, and suddenly there was a black cell-phone shape on the rug.

Ahah!

Uhhh, not so fast with the celebration, folks. It turned out to be just the plastic backing of the phone. At least we now knew where to concentrate our hunt. Still seeing nothing, however, despite poking and prodding in hopes of moving the rest of the phone into a visible position, we decided a rest was in order. The chair was set up again, and Steve, now both frustrated and worn out, stretched it back into recliner position. As it moved, I listened for any odd sounds that might indicate it dropping the phone from its hiding spot.

What I heard instead was the crackling of breaking glass. It repeated as the chair rose to sitting position.

We'd already come to expect it was broken when we'd found the phone's back. It wasn't just that it had been removed from the phone, but its condition as well. Now I still make a point of bragging that my cheap little flip phone had gotten crunched in that chair, with dents to show for it, but still worked perfectly. I tried to cheer Steve up with that possibility for his phone. Neither of us actually believed it in this case. But Steve had hopes we could retrieve the phone in good enough condition that he could remove the SIM card, place it in the spare phone in his room, and again have a working phone with his data in it.

When we were ready to work some more, over we tilted it and continued looking and feeling around the bottom/side of the chair. It's possible that in crunching the front of the phone, it had also been shifted slightly. Steve found it almost immediately. Unfortunately it had become wedged between two steel bars which normally have no distance between them. They were therefore gripping this thing so tightly we couldn't budge it.

I went for a pliers. Woefully inadequate. Steve fetched a hammer and flat blade screwdriver. A little pounding made for about 1/16inch of motion. We had to try to push it upwards in terms of the chair's usual position, both because it had fallen down into that spot, and below that those two bars was the bolt which held them together. About 8 whacks finally produced movement, and another 5 minutes of work finally freed the (remains of) the phone.

Whatever glass they use to make those screens, as much abuse as this one had endured, no splinters came loose. Our fingers were safe. So, once Steve worked on his phone, was its SIM card intact. The rest was trashed, and the spare phone placed on the charger for the first time in nearly a year. While waiting for it to show signs of life, there was much cleanup to do.

It was a good thing that we hadn't decided to sit around first. I saw a funny looking black thing on the floor, hiding in the area right where the chair leg reached the floor. Picking it up, I held a plastic coated thin rectangle, once flat but now both highly bent and of uneven thickness. My suspicion was verified by the words "lithium battery" among a host of other small white letters. Since I was already holding it, I could feel there were no hot spots. Still, enough of them have made the news that I immediately took it outside and dropped it in the garbage can, both metal and underground. If something had to burn, it wouldn't be the house.

Latest status is the spare phone is charged, the SIM card in place, and the screen informs Steve he has to call his phone company tomorrow to switch his service over to it.

Not the worst outcome.

Why I Really Left The Republican Party #MeToo

Count me too. Count me among those who have buried memories surfacing now among the bombardment of news and debate surrounding the Kavanaugh nomination. A few days ago I found it intellectually possible for that kind of memory to be recalled years later. I thought it possible to have gaps in those memories without negating their veracity. It was what I would label an intellectual exercise, somewhere along the lines of open-mindedness. Them. Not me.

Then Ford made one comment. Memory returned.

It's in bits and pieces. Some are missing. Date? I can narrow  it down to two years, those being while I attended Hamline University. Event? A political convention, aimed at Young Republicans.  Location? Some local high class motel, a place where individual topics and networking happened in scattered rooms. The people? Not sure I ever knew. I sure don't now, 60 years later. Except for a passing desire to kick a few sets of nuts, I don't care.

I grew up Republican. It was Ike's party, and our family was proud of my dad's service in WWII, in the European theater, under his leadership. Back then, this was all we needed to know. We were loyal Republicans. It was all one.

I'd never been politically active. As voting age hadn't changed yet, until the uproar over Viet Nam pushed lowering it from 21 to 18 ("We can get drafted and killed but we can't vote!"), I still couldn't even vote. Whatever was going on, it was somebody else's problem. Going to a political convention wasn't on my radar. I was simply a student, doing student things, just getting away from home for longer than a week-long summer church camp for the first time. In today's terms, I wasn't yet woke.

When I got invited to the convention, my first reaction was to reject the idea. After all, what could I contribute? How did I qualify? I didn't even have the justification of being attracted to the young man pushing me to go. But after his insistence that my presence there was appropriate, I let myself finally be persuaded by his assurance that I could learn stuff and "It'll be fun."

Politically, my memories were of being bored, uninformed, watching a lot of glad-handing, and still feeling out of place. I wasn't one of these people, but just observing from some outer ring. Big social gatherings have never been my idea of a good time. My hopes of interesting policy discussions did not seem to be on anybody else's agenda, despite the alleged point of the whole event. So, not fun after all.

From my perspective, the one good point was the availability of snacks pretty much everywhere.  Those who know me will not be surprised.

There was also alcohol.

Having grown up in an essentially teetotaling family, I'd had perhaps a single sip of beer before leaving home. Mom used it in making batter for deep-frying fish and onion rings. There was always about an ounce left in the can, usually going to Daddy. I was allowed to try it once. I hadn't been impressed. Still aren't. Now away from home, I was discovering things never offered  by my parents. Things like new ideas, mushrooms not in a Campbells soup can, seafood, beef not cooked to death, meals that didn't include boiled potatoes for every supper. And alcohol.

Someone, somewhere had introduced me to the concept that there were other, better flavored varieties of the stuff. I was gingerly experimenting. Most of it was still crap, as far as I was concerned, but I was still optimistic enough to try a sip or two of this or that. Not liking the flavor, I can confidently assure you I wasn't drunk, or even barely to the point of tipsy. But I probably had a few swallows.

They were offered to my by a guy, of course. In one of those rooms -where else? - which had quickly cleared out except for the two of us after whatever excuse for an event had finished. I was still way too naive to figure out what might have meant to the guy. Just not on my radar. Did I mention I was naive?

Suddenly I was lying on the bed, my companion on top of me, doing something that years later I came to understand was dry humping. It had just barely started, leaving me no time to push the bastard off me, before he was interrupted by a couple of his cohorts reentering the room, taking in his activity in a glance, and laughingly congratulating him on his supposed "scoring".

He didn't say anything to disabuse them of their notions with voicing any facts, just basked in their praise. So far as I was concerned, nothing remotely close to sex had occurred, and I was offended by his letting them think it had. It was just rude. I left the room, and the convention, immediately. If this was what young Republicans were, I wasn't nor ever would be one of them. I can only presume they joined the hordes of males now running the party. (I interject: does this mean their party platform has a mattress on it?)

By now you may be wondering why this memory resurfaced as a result of listening to the Kavanaugh hearings. What exactly triggered it? My details aren't her details, after all.

It was hearing Dr. Ford describing the indelible memory of the boys laughing together while assualting her, having a good time at her expense.

I too heard that laughter.

The President's* Call

Oh, no,  not that!

OK, they clarified: Not that. Not exactly...

Steve's phone got the message. I was sitting right next to him at the time.

It appears to be what they claim it is. All those paranoid conspiracy theorists out there will likely put some other spin on it, particularly considering its association with this President*. Add to that the "warning" that you can't turn it off or in some  manner disable some part of your phone to keep your phone from receiving whatever gets sent. What an invitation to paranoia!

Of course, your phone's location can already be tracked. It is generally assumed that the phone's location is also the owner's location. So thanks to GPS, THEY already know where you are. It tends to be helpful when you place a 911 call. Think of it as a trade, safety for privacy.

Don't want to be seen? You can always put a little piece of opaque tape across that teeny lens that faces you to keep your face from appearing to somebody you chat with when just texting isn't enough, because who knows what secret agency is really turning that on to track you and spy on your actions. (Tape works on laptops too.)

Your phone can be cloned, tapped, or hacked, so all your information can already be out there for the plucking. Security cameras in stores can show who bought supposedly untraceable phones as well. So much for any secrecy.

Depending on which TV shows you watch, and how it affects their plot's needs, you see that they may or may not be able to forcibly turn your phone back on after you've turned it off. Which side do you believe?

If paranoia is your thing, whatever it's about, it's already being done through your phone if somebody really wants to do it to you. So if you think about it, the only thing upping the ante on this call is that it's referred to as the President's* call. It doesn't take paranoia to imagine the myriad of ways Cheetolini can misuse a national communication system. Look what he's done to Twitter. At least there you have to actively participate in the process to view his latest spewings.

Funny thing with yesterday's call is, I didn't get it. As I said at the beginning, I was sitting right next to Steve when he did, so it wasn't my location. Maybe it's my phone company. The news reports stated many of the people who were missed by the call had T-Mobile. That's who I have, and with various takeovers and mergers, who I've had for over 20 years now. It's served me well, and if it was a company failure, I don't find that a detraction.

Maybe it's my stubborn refusal to "update" away from my old flip phone, which has survived all kinds of use and abuse including getting scrunched in the mechanism of Steve's lift chair (ask to see the dents some time) and replace it with a "smart" phone.

But sh-h-h-h-h! Don't let it get around. Somebody might find out that it's actually effective in blocking those President's* calls and either fix something on their end or do something to force me to upgrade. I don't want a phone that is smarter than I am, butt-dials everybody, and won't fit in my pocket.

Not to mention the price!

Raising Stupidity To A "Fine" Art

I have an opinion about what is being claimed to have happened. You have an opinion as well. What we don't have, and aren't being allowed to have unless something swiftly and radically changes, is evidence.

Yes, of course I'm talking about the Kavanaugh hearing and the charges of the women coming forward to accuse him of sexual improprieties from years ago. Even the term "sexual improprieties" is prejudicial. It's all just a prank, is how it comes across. Boys will be idiots. No real harm done. It's not like it's being investigated as rape, violence, drugging, repeat offenses. Maybe it was just a harmless lifting of a skirt in passing, eh? A leer and a crude comment? (Let's discuss how "harmless" those are another time.)

There are things that tilt our opinions one way or another. Politics seem to be the top one. Beyond that, the number of accusers tilt the scales for some of us, though even the 60 accusers of Bill Cosby still haven't convinced some that he did anything wrong. Maybe Kavanaugh didn't write "rape party" in his school calendar, so that means nothing ever happened, right, because, hey, wouldn't he have been honest in everything he wrote down?

Seriously, who really believes somebody would self-report the worst parts of their behavior in writing, and failure to do so is proof of anything other than a smidgin of self protection?  Well, maybe except for those idiots who post pics of themselves throwing up in the party punch bowl and otherwise being completely stupid where the whole world including current or prospective employers can review them. They might believe it. Even once they sober up.

Then there are the lists of folks who "attest" to Kavanaugh's good character. He was never obnoxious to me. He never raped me, or spiked my drink. Therefore he never did and doesn't/didn't make a practice of doing so. Try that one on in court: "Your Honor, here's a list of 65 people I never robbed, so I'm innocent." Jeffery Dahmer didn't eat everybody he came across, right? The 9/11 bombers didn't destroy the whole country, did they? And all the neighbors scratch their heads and avow their local mass murderer was such a nice, polite, quiet person.

He says, she says. Whom do you believe? How about looking where the evidence leads? Oh wait, what evidence? Rather than follow the usual procedure in cases like these, bringing the FBI in to finish their background investigation in light of new information/allegations, and reporting back with their findings, something which typically takes a very few days and could be done by now, they've actually been forbidden to investigate and make a report.

Although I'm personally highly sceptical, I doubt their report would exonerate Kavanaugh.  However, there is a slight chance it would. Absent such a report, should Kavanaugh be placed on the Supreme Court by Mitch McConnnel's runaway train, there would always be an asterisk next to his name. Any time he would be the 5th and deciding vote on any case before the court, that case would be suspect, that decision argued over. Unsettled law.

Is that what we want to do to our country?

Inconsiderate, Incompetent Buffoon

That's the nice way I'd put it. This time I'm not even speaking of Trump*. But it just goes to show there isn't just one of those in the government. This time, however, it's local.

Understand that I know to expect our property tax bill down here to have to be paid in October and March. So far the amount hasn't been a major problem, since I budget ahead for it. It's how they send it out that I find egregious. It arrived in the mail today. That's September 26th.

It's payable October 1st.

If you're calendar impaired, since the mail arrives late in the afternoon, that gives us four days in which to pay it. It would be five, but one of those is a Sunday. And just in case some homeowner hadn't planned ahead for the proper amount, since this is our first notice of the exact amount, you might also notice than not one of those four days is one where any kind of paycheck is expected. As retirees, we rely on the calendar of Social Security, which for neither of us falls within that deadline.

I called the state treasurer's office to offer a piece of my mind, having a few left to share. I was informed that the state guarantees that all property tax bills will be posted by the 26th. So some folks will have to wait a couple more days for the post office to deliver their bills, allowing them even a smaller window of reaction time. I should consider myself lucky?

I like to pay those important bills on time. These days, I like to pay all of them on time, and do my best to maintain a balance accordingly, as well as regularly check my finances online, going in both directions. Having the funds will not be an issue for me.

Not everybody is so fortunate as to be able to plan ahead enough to cope with a four day billing period. Granted, there is a small grace period before interest and penalties kick in, small enough it seems like a guaranteed moneymaker for the state. That's likely to fall even more unfairly on the less than wealthy.

Oh, the ongoing joys of having the Republicons run the government.

Inconsiderate.

Incompetent.

Buffoons, or worse.

Rocks In His Head!

At last, we have definitive proof. A Doctor even says so: Steve has rocks in his head!

As you will all recall, Steve has been trying to get his dizziness diagnosed and cured for close to a year now. Doctor after doctor has put their two cents - plus $30.00 co-pay - in, with no improvement. His ear infection was cured and massive amounts of ear wax removed. The Epley maneuver was performed. That was just the first doctor visit. This, that, and the other was investigated and/or performed. It wasn't a tumor. It wasn't Menhirs disease. It wasn't... well, the list grew.

Small consolation, as there was still no change. Appointments were set up with new doctors for after we returned from summer vacation and his insurance kicked in again, since it covers only emergencies during vacation traveling.

Meanwhile, the dizzy spells were relentless. He might go a few days without a major one, then have several in a row. His continuing experience with them allowed him to get better at dealing with them, or just letting him know that bed was the only answer. But whenever one struck even there, he was clinging on for dear life just to prevent falling out of a perfectly flat, still surface. Occasionally I was still needed to hold onto him and guide him down the hall. Due to their lack of any forewarning, driving was forbidden, of course. He got a pill so he wouldn't throw up when the world went crazy, but lack of driving was the worst part to him.

His relatives knew of somebody or another who had the same problem after a minor spinal injury. We could track the start of this problem to shortly after Steve's breaking his tailbone last fall. Since the folks "everybody knew" this had happened to had none of them recovered from their dizziness for the remainder of their lives, this was a bit of a worry. We resolved to add a spinal specialist to the list of possibilities, without much optimism.

Today was another one of those appointments, this time with an ENT specialist. He agreed with Steve's assessment that this might be related to the fall which broke Steve's tailbone. He had a slightly better explanation, however: rocks in his head! The fall had knocked them loose and they had never gone back where they belonged.

Sounded to me exactly like the explanation for vertigo, only my doc referred to mine as "floaters". OK, so vertigo on steroids, then. The good news was that he ran Steve through a series of moves which, as Steve described them, sounded like Epley's on steroids. When Steve finally sat up afterwards, no dizziness.

Best news of all: in two days, so long as he's careful in moving his head slowly and the dizziness doesn't come back, Steve can drive again!!!

And I get to tell  him he has rocks in his head!

Ready To Scream!

Face it, relocating twice a year has its downs. (Sure, ups too or why bother?) With everything possible shut down in Arizona to save money on utility bills, there's a transition phase that is often a royal pain. Sometimes it's a smooth process but simply having to dig out all those numbers and making those contact calls just adds to the general hassle.

Easiest is turning the water back on. We literally rotate a valve a quarter turn. Of course, this is the one where we pay a minimum bill every month whether or not a single drop flows. The company still comes out to read the meter year around. For us, it's two seconds when we leave, then two seconds on arrival followed by turning on faucets and flushing toilets to remove air.

Next one we do for ourselves is the electricity. Nearly everything gets turned off. Midway through the first summer after solar was installed, we were informed, contrary to what I wrote down word for word with drawings during the install, that we couldn't just flip the main breaker. Each house breaker got turned off individually, leaving the main and solar breakers on. OK, no real biggie, and we gave the verbal OK for their employee to enter our back yard and set it right. The hardest part is the spring-loaded lever on the bottom of the cover. That spring seems to have grown stronger than our hands with each use. It's easy enough to use a tool to force it to the side, but however it's done, the technique also has to control it far enough out on its tip so that while it's  moved the lid can also drop down. Both of us together manage on about the fifth try to accomplish both simultaneously. I could claim our language wilts the flora within a 20 foot radius, but secretly I bet that's the result of summer in the desert.

We might not fight so hard with it, tired as we are from our last day driving, but it's the only way to restart the AC for a house easily above 100 degrees.

The phone calls start either just before or on the way down. Gas should be the first, since we have to make an appointment for somebody to come out to the house, and the closer to the time the snowbirds return en masse, the more booked ahead they are. During this call we have to promise an adult will be on the premises during a 4-hour window while they do the job, so we need to allow for possible vehicle problems delaying us. In addition to turning on the gas, of course, they check out every item where it is used, making sure nothing leaks. We pay for that service, but it's cheaper than a monthly minimum while we're gone, as well as much safer than just leaving it on for months in an empty house.

The things which should be the simplest are always the most frustration: wi-fi and TV satellite service. A simple phone call and somebody switches them off at their office, usually at 12:01 AM the day we leave, leaving us no access to news or weather as we start off. But our costs drop to insignificant levels and the DVR doesn't fill up with an overwhelming load to sort through upon our return.

Ahhh, but if only it were that simple!

We started by checking the TV. There were things we wanted to set new timers for, a couple very time sensitive. Everything was supposed to be started up the day before our arrival. First phone call after determining that we had a glitch resulted in multiple trips between Steve's chair and the DVR control box, pushing buttons either on the remote or at the box. Second call, as well as third call, finally achieved getting the guide up and running... mostly. Let's take a minute to remind you how frustrating it can be when the person on the other end of the line has a nearly impenetrable accent and no understanding of American idioms. The guide finally started its setup, and Steve had instructions to give the system a couple hours to finish replacing all the "no information" entries with, well, information. That ended up requiring call #4, now requiring a full shutdown of the system for twenty minutes. At last it was fixed, and we were glad to have arrived early enough in the day to actually watch/record the desired evening programs. We also set to putting timers on shows which weren't on last year.

Now the real fun began. We had wi-fi the first night. Not the next morning. This one is also Steve's purview, so he got to exercise his level of patience, somewhat better than mine under these circumstances. Since this again was where I heard one side of the conversation, my role was to write down codes as he repeated them back to me so we'd both have a record and could accurately set up our laptops. Other than the usual clarifications between b, p, d, t, and everything else that rhymed, that part was fairly simple. We managed to make it work.

It wasn't until the next day we found out our Kindles weren't connected. No explanation of how that could happen when they were perfectly connected last spring. Not only that, they recognized 9 wi-fi signals within receiving range, none of them ours. I tried setting my Kindle up, having kept the data.  I kept getting an error message informing me I needed to be on wi-fi in order to complete the task of getting on wi-fi.

Huh?

Nothing worked, and with our old Kindles, any instructions we could find via laptop referred to a model called the Kindle White. Apparently it has buttons across the top. I promise you, ours don't.

Next phone call....  The "helper"on the other end of the line was incapable of listening to anything that varied from her script.  Frequent comments gave instructions we had no idea how to follow, not having taken our classes in jargon for a while. When asked how to do whatever she had just told us to do, the instruction was simply repeated. "Go to ____" is meaningless when one has no idea how to get there, if we can even translate what is being talked about. She finally gave up and connected us to a video showing the process. Again, wrong kind of Kindle. Also, too fast, information missing, and completely useless.

I had already figured out how to go through settings to find out what was what in available wi-fi signals. I'd even found the place for adding a new one. I'd tried about 8 different versions of how it might be entered. Did the company name go with the number or not? If it did, what might be capitalized? Any spaces between company and account code? I'd tried every variation I could think of with no results, other than getting screen freeze, requiring complete shutdown and reboot, then finding my way back into the wi-fi settings page, via any of the three ways I'd located so far. I JUST WANTED TO KNOW HOW TO ENTER THE INFO!

Steve was also reaching the very end of his considerable patience. He heard two bizarre things. I mean beyond the usual crap I've already described. First, we somehow had two accounts with this company. No explanation. I'm also waiting to find out if they think we owe them on two bills. The second was that they only hooked up our laptops, and if we wanted to add our Kindles to the account it would cost us another $10/month! Each!

Bullshit!

We declined  their generous offer, of course.

After hanging up and both of us calming down somewhat, we discussed the issue and decided to head to the local library. First, they were very hands-on helpful. Steve had used them last year to access library books. We figured after hooking up to their system, a weekly visit to upload our newest books and send read books to our archives, all for free, was the way to go. The person who helped Steve the most worked Fridays, so we'd wait till the end of the week. There was still unpacking, grocery shopping, and all that stuff to do in the meantime.

Next morning two things happened. Our Kindles were hooked up on wi-fi, no action needed on our part. An unrelated search through old archived email showed the account number (different) and password (same) for how it had been set up last year. Since whatever was done by whomever works for us, we've calmed back down for now. We're still waiting to see the upcoming bill.

The last bit of finalizing our return, the trip to the post office, was relatively effortless. Something had to be.