People Who Live in Glass Houses Don't Own Cats

At the beginning of the year I purchased an iPhone 6 Plus. Big is the way to go for me because I am old and mostly blind. Blind for me actually came before the old, but people relate better to the concept of losing vision as they age so that is why I put it that way. Unfortunately I did it in reverse.

Going from an iPhone 4 to a 6 Plus was like finally moving in with your favorite relative while she was baking cookies! Absolute heaven!

And with every phone, my must haves are insurance, a screen protector, and a case. I paid more for this phone than I did my first car. You want to protect that kind of investment.

Insurance – check. Case – check. Screen protector – dang. So I went to my trusty Amazon Prime account. I looked over the many impact resistant tempered glass offerings and made my choice. 4 stars – it has to be good. Two days later it arrived on my doorstep.

I don’t get home until well after 6 pm from work so it was late the day it arrived and my husband swayed me to not affix it to my phone immediately by saying – “Dinner’s Ready”! After dinner came showers, and foot rubs, and favorite TV shows. Needless to say it did not get done.

It did not get done for many nights after that.

Thinking I was smart, I kept it in a very visual place in my kitchen as a sort of subtle reminder to take care of this project. It was positioned behind my monk decanter that holds my incense. Every time a human walks from the kitchen into the living room you see it. A constant reminder you are being slothful.

But then it disappeared. I was confused. But only for a moment because almost immediately something else came up (lunch was ready?) and I forgot about it. Then it reappeared. My husband said he found it in the shoe basket. So I put it back in its rightful spot behind my monk.

I swore I would put.it.on.my.phone the upcoming weekend! I did not.

I kept swearing I would take care of this and kept ignoring that swearing until last weekend. I had a 3 day weekend and I would be home! Plenty of time to finally do the deed; and believe it or not I actually opened the package to do it – AND – the screen protector was BROKEN.

Yep, the shoe basket had apparently taken its toll.

In my mind a mere few weeks had flown by since I had ordered it, so I thought of returning it. You have 30 days after all. When I looked up the order I found that I had actually ordered the protector in early FEBRUARY!! It was now late MAY. Waaaay past the 30 days. I was stunned!

Had I actually had that thing for 3 months and not bothered to protect my precious phone?! I just shook my head at myself.

Nothing I could do about it now so I went right to my computer and my wonderful Amazon Prime account and ordered a new one. They even listed better, thinner ones! Three months is a long time in the world of technology after all! So I upgraded to a newer, better brand. 4.5 stars! HAZAH!

It came yesterday. Determined NOT to be as languid as I had been with the first one, I opened it right up. Got my phone out, cleaned it with the cleaning implements provided and placed that baby on my beloved phone.

And there they were – a hair, a dust ball, and a fingerprint. The fingerprint right in the middle of the screen was definitely not mine and it was kind of creepy.

The hair – cat.

The dust ball –  from a cat.

Maybe the fingerprint was actually a paw print!

Then it dawned on me. I had taken off the sticky side’s protective cover and taken 2 steps to turn on a light before trying to protect my phone. Those two steps – in a home full of furry creatures – is the death knell to anything that must remain perfectly clean.

I took it off and threw it away. I give up. My phone is going to have to fend for itself – screen wise.

Note to self: If you live in a house with 4 cats (and a dog), don’t even waste your time trying to place glass on glass and expect it to turn out properly.

But if you own pets – you knew already that…

You Have Been Warned

I may offend a few readers in this post, but I have always been of the mind that everyone needs to agree to disagree if there is some point they cannot come to an understanding about before something becomes contentious. I have said for decades that ‘opinions are like belly buttons – everyone has one.’ With the exception of the answer to one of my favorite riddles:

An archeologist finds 2 perfectly preserved bodies. He shouts, “I HAVE FOUND ADAM & EVE!” How did he know? Because they did not have bellybuttons!!

Adam & Eve are myths you say – that joke is irrelevant because they did not exist. Ok, I disagree, but feel free to believe what you want. That is just the way I am. But personally, in the end (i.e. Death), I am not willing to take the chance that their maker does not exist.

Anyway, back to opinions.

When my sister & I were young we played with Jarts with shiny-metal-pointy ends, Creepy Crawlers with a ‘cooker’ that got as hot as an oven it seemed, an Easy Bake Oven that cooked cookies and cakes via a 60 watt lightbulb in an dual open ended oven you could just about stick your tiny hand completely in, cap guns, fireworks, we ran with scissors, threatened each other with REAL knives (well, maybe that was just me), played with rockets that really flew at a rapid speed up into the air, you name it, the toys were out there. No warning with the exception of ‘have fun’ from the manufacturer – because people took responsibility for their own stupidity.

We had REAL toys that did REAL things that could REALLY hurt you – if you were stupid enough to do something dumb – twice. You usually learned the first time never to do that thing again – without being forewarned by big brother.

Now EVERYTHING is about safety. ‘Mustn’t hurt the baby’ is the mantra for today’s parent. Nothing too hot, nothing too cold, nothing electrical, nothing sharp, nothing except electronic toys that are ‘educational’ but do not teach the child about the real world. We are raising a generation of kids that will be geniuses in IQ, but idiots in real life.

This leads me to ‘warnings.’ I think companies have gone bonkers with their warnings – but only because people have gone crazy suing the pants off them if they do something stupid and hurt themselves with the product and then the jury awards them a gosh awful sum of money for doing that stupid thing because each jurist wants to have it in writing in the event that they do the exact same stupid thing and get hurt and they want to make darn sure that there is a precedence set already so that they will get a butt load of cash too. Not sure how much a ‘butt load’ of cash is – but in my case – using my butt as a guide – it is a lot.

Case in point:

For Mother’s Day my wonderful children got me a ‘magic curling machine’. I saw a commercial while I was out sick and just had to have one.

This morning I was using my ‘magic curling machine’ and in the mirror I noticed the warning dangling from the cord. One of many warnings. I had to look again at the one in the reflection to make sure I wasn’t seeing things – “CAUTION – THIS PRODUCT CAN BURN EYES.”

What the heck? I have become almost immune to the one that warns you not to use some electrical item in your bathtub – as if – but this warning was altogether something new.

It can burn your eyes?  Upon closer inspection I noticed that it had a picture of a regular curling iron on the warning picture – so in that respect I guess it kind of makes sense – although I have never I my life thought of using my curling iron to curl my eyelashes or my eye (can you curl an eye?) – but the warning label means that some idiot out there has tried……

This is becoming scary to you rational people now isn’t it?!

But let us take a closer look at the item attached to this warning:

You.Have.Got.To.Be.Kidding.Me.

What kind of moron would try to use this big of a hot machine so close to their eye that it could burn it? This machine is big enough to take up half your face! To top it off, the heating element is inside the big housing! How the hell would you even get the heat close to your eye?

But that warning label means that some idiot out there has burned their eye….and actually alerted the company to their stupidity (as in the purchasers stupidity, not the company’s) – and possibly even sued them.

OH WAIT, I am being too rational. I just figured it out. Some consumer out there purchased this product, was using it and their arm got soooo tired that while curling a section of their hair they rested the behemoth on their face. BAM! Burned eye.

Forgive me, I get it now. Sorry, for this post. It was right in front of me the whole time and I didn’t see it. I just didn’t understand - maybe there should have been a warning sign posted…

Squishing Please But No Probing

I must be getting old – or senile. I succumbed to the pleading from my doctor and had a mammogram today. As my doctor said, “Better 17 years late than never!” I wanted it to be never.

For the life of me I cannot figure out why I actually did it! I hate doctors because I worked for them for years and got to see the ‘medical underbelly’ of the Hippocratic Oath group and it is not pretty.

I only go to a doctor if I am mostly dead. Even then, I usually only go to tell them what I have and what prescriptions I want. Procedures that include ‘undress’ and ‘place your breastal tissue on this plate while I squeeze the life out of it’ do not fall in the category of ‘mostly dead.’ They should be lumped in the category of ‘Are you kidding me? Just how degrading can someone’s life get’. At least in my mind.

Oh, I know these tests for us ‘older’ folk have saved many a life. But – and this is a big BUT – no one in my family has died of anything more than old age or a car accident. Seriously. We are medical marvels. We probably should be scientifically studied.

Thus my belief in the uselessness of any ‘procedures’ other than say maybe a tummy tuck. Where is a plastic surgeon and $10,000 when I really need them?!

But today I let my anti-procedure guard down. All I can figure is that to me there seems to be so much useless death going on in the world today that it is messing with my mind and making me think that I might be the first casualty in our family of useless death because I did not get the stinking test done. So I relented to my minds argument and did it.

But all in all it really was not that bad. The radiologist was very nice. She used gloves so it didn't seem to be quite the violation of my personal space that I had expected. Of course I had to ask her in mid squeeze if this is what she planned to do with her life when she was young. Take x-rays of woman’s breasts? I told her I had wanted to be a teacher, had she always wanted to squish boobs? She was a good sport about the question and then actually told me her radiological history since 1975. After her exhaustive work history monologue (which I enjoyed), I began to suspect that the boob squishing gig was a bit of a demotion as she nears retirement, but to my surprise she seemed happily resigned to her fate.

It was over in a matter of minutes. She told me that they would either call me or send me a letter and then said I could get dressed.

I thanked her and then told her how nice she had been and how I wished we had met under circumstances that would have been a bit more fun and a little less 'fleshy.' I wanted to say 'nipply', but I thought that was too crass, after all, I had just met the woman.

In the end, they won’t find anything. They never do. My family's medical history considered and all. I know I have wasted my money. But, if it ever comes up again at a mostly dead doctor appointment about my age and how I need a mammogram at least I can say – already done – and the doctor can quietly put away her tablet, give me my Valium and walk away.

She knows better that to ask me about a colonoscopy. My mind is not that far gone yet and she knows that the answer to that will forever be – NOT ON YOUR LIFE!!

Squishing is one thing – probing is another thing entirely. Only aliens get to do that to me…

How Many TImes Can I Write The Word Guilt In One Post - Oh, and Happy Mother's Day!

Mother’s Day is a few days away. I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I am a great grandmother. I am too young in my mind (and in reality) to be a great grandmother, but I am not the condom police, so my control over NOT becoming the great part of the grandmother equation failed miserably. However, I like to think that I am good at all my mommy job titles.

My sister is a mother and a newly minted grandmother. Well, it has been a year, but it still seems fresh to me. She is awesome at all her mothering jobs.

Our mother is also a mother (like I even had to tell you that), a grandmother and a great grandmother. But she didn’t make the upgrade to great until she was 20 years older than me. I win! Maybe…

Unfortunately, the word great does not apply in the same context to mothering and grand mothering for my mom as it does to me, my sister, or the rest of the world.

I feel guilty just saying that.

My sister feels guilty about how she feels too – you can read this if you would like to: (http://gracefulgrandma.blogspot.com/) . It is a pretty good commentary on the situation.

My sister and I have guilt by association because we are part of a gang – a family gang. So maybe it should be guilt by RELATION. We both feel guilty about feeling guilty, but we don’t know how to 'take care of the situation' (gang speak) and we have been in this gang too many years to part ways now.

There is no winning in this guilty gang war. There is no getting out of this gang of guilt. There is no escape from corrupt parenting.

But sometimes you can't change the way you actually feel and sometimes it is ok to feel that way - sometimes you are even justified to feel as you do - but it is so hard to feel that way about someone that brought you into existence. It makes you feel GUILTY. Like there is something wrong with YOU - not HER.

So the story this year is that my sister feels guilty about not wanting to go see our mother for Mother’s Day. I feel guilty about not wanting to go see our mother for Mother’s Day. There is enough guilt between us to feed a third world country if guilt was food.

Mom is getting up there in age and what if she doesn't make it to the next Mother's Day (you guiltily tell yourself)! But, I have said that so many years and made the trek to see her, only to be in the same situation the next year, that I have lost count.

No guilt visit this year, but I did send a gift. I am sure my sister did too. I am sure they will be ‘overwhelming’ to our mother and she will feel guilty because we spent over $20 and the gifts are something new – not stuff of yard sale or rummage sale lore. It doesn’t really matter; she will take it back anyway (I even enclosed the receipt for her - to save time). I don’t care though; you have to pick your battles…

I hope my sister and I never put our children in the family gang of guilt. Guilt is an ugly thing to pass on to your children.

I don’t know what my sister is going to do for her Mother’s Day. I hope her 4 children shower her with gifts and love galore. I hope somehow she manages to be guilt free for the entire day!

Me? I am going camping in my new (used – but new to us) motorhome! And as soon as I get in the passenger seat of that RV and drive out of my driveway, I am going to leave that guilt at the house. Happy Mother’s Day to me!!

Also, Happy Mother’s Day all you mothers out there! I would have felt guilty if I had forgotten to wish everyone HMD...