Mastering Those Boxes and Boxes of Photos

Let me begin by declaring that I’m as sentimental as they come. Be that as it may, I recently realized that the number of photos that I’ve taken or acquired has reached unmanageable proportions, and leaves me with no choice but to thin the population. Just the number of boxes has me in an anxious state of mind. A plan - what to save and how to save it - is what I need.

 

We save photographs because they provide us with fond memories of events and people; they’re the perfect - and instant - trigger. There are, of course, secondary reasons for collecting or saving photos, but my hope here is to curate a kick-ass family photo collection. I no longer want to approach any given box of photos with dread or even resignation. It should be a pleasurable experience to pull out a box or album and meander down memory lane. It would be especially helpful if all those photos were organized. 

 

Today’s the day that I implement my new approach and share my “wisdom” with all of you!

Observations:

 

1.  So many otherwise beautiful photographs are ruined by the presence of utility lines or cars or both.

2.  Ten million photos of one trip may be meaningful or precious, but only to the person who took that trip. Is more necessarily better?

3.  Ten million baby pictures of your first-born may be meaningful or precious, but only to you. . . and probably your first-born. Regardless of your first-born’s opinion on the matter, this is a case where “less is more”. Just like they do with Christmas presents, children - especially those further down the ladder - keep careful track of the numbers.

4.  Ten million pictures of your only child could be reduced by 95% and no one would notice a substantial difference.

5.  I sometimes will save a photo that has several family members just because it has several family members in it, not because it’s a good picture. (I wonder if I’m trying to prove that we “get together” on a regular basis. It may also be that I unconsciously place higher value on photos of large groups than those with only one or two people.)

6.  There are just some people in your family that will always ruin the group picture, either naturally or by design.

7.  There are also some family members that, try as they might, they can’t seem to look normal in any picture.

Recommendations:

 

1.  With all photos that you intend to keep or scan, identify - if known - who, where, and when on the back. Do it now! (You’ll never get to it later because it becomes a real hassle when you have dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds or thousands, that need it.)

2.  Give or throw away duplicates.

3.  Throw away photos that have uncomfortable memories. (If the uncomfortable memory is one you shouldn’t or don’t want to revisit, that’s just masochism, and some memories are so uncomfortable that you won’t need the physical reminder - you’ll remember the moment anyway.)

4.  Like with #3, throw away photos of people whose presence in your life have made it less joyous.

5.  Scan photos that will have enduring meaning. (Hopefully, you’ll understand which ones fall into that category.)

6.  If you inherit someone else’s trip photos, decide on only one or two to save (if any). Remember, the trip was their memory, not yours.

7.  If you acquire photos of ancestors, scan them, even if you don’t know the subjects at that moment. If you know which family they belonged to, send them on their way in that direction. Historical societies are great repositories for old photos with known connections.

8.  Save individual photos that stand apart for their artistic quality; frame them and create or add to a gallery. Don’t leave that for some vague future point in time.

9.  Make a separate pile for the photos that you think would be more appreciated by others. (At the end of your re-organization, you can mail those with personalized notes or cards.)

10.  Save one embarrassing photo of each member of your family and let them know of its existence. (You may need it down the road; get what I’m saying?)

When you find it hard to part with a photo, consider:

 

1.  If the feet &/or top of the head are cut off, toss it (even if you find yourself saying, “Aw, but that’s Tom dancing with his niece Lindsey; they look so cute!”)

2.  Is the photo flattering to the featured subjects? (Closed eyes are not flattering to anyone, by the way.)

3.  Is it blurry? (You should know what to do with it.)

4.  Is it featuring the back of someone’s head? (Even if you know that that’s the only photo you have of your great-uncle Stuart, it’s not really of any value.)

5.  Is there no hope of identifying the subject(s)? (Why are you saving it?) 

6.  Would this picture be more meaningful to someone else? (If so, give it to him/her.)

7.  If the picture is essentially only a record of what everyone brought to a gathering, it is of low value. (I’m amazed at how many photos I had of buffet settings.) Often, the array of food distracts enough to ruin an otherwise decent picture.

8.  Was the picture taken in the late 60's? (Yuh, you'll generally just want to remove any physical reminders of that brief era.)

 

Even if only a few of these ideas speak to you, you should be in a better place with your family photo collection. Hopefully, you’ve been inspired by my data-driven and very sciency observations and proven strategies tested across a broad swath of industry participants.

 

Good luck with your own photo collection project!

Not proud; I'll do better

 Once again I forgot to feed the cat.  I am not at all proud of that fact. I don’t own the cat, though.  No one does.  She - or he - is a feral creature, and as much as I’d like to believe that she has enough skills to adapt in the face of my irresponsibility, it’s time I give my notice and ask that the shelter find a replacement, one who doesn’t forget once every six weeks or so.  The best answer, one might alternatively think, is to re-commit, and write it on the damn calendar.  Yet I’ve never resorted to that sensible tactic; how hard is it to remember to feed the cat every Tuesday, I think.  Well, apparently, I’ve allowed my life to become just a bit too unstructured (and alarmingly noncommital; therein lies the problem.)  So, I continue to forget every six weeks or so.

And it’s not as if I don’t like the cat.  I’ve had this conversation more than once with my oldest brother Kevin, who fervently believes I’m completely nuts for feeding a feral anything, but especially a cat (and when he says the word “cat”, his voice becomes its most raspy; the word comes out in a vehement burst, and brings to mind the jarring sound of a wood chipper.)  I admire feral cats, I tell him; they’ve decided that they will live an uncompromising life.  Humans, to them, aren’t worth the trouble that just naturally tends to swirl around them.  I imagine that they’ve weighed the options on their two front paws - on the one paw, live a life of reliance on your human(s) (and, with that, no assurances that they will clean your litter box to your satisfaction or feed you your preferred food) in exchange for a risk-free experience, or, on the other paw, test your own abilities in the wild in exchange for independence, but with that independence, uncertainty.  

And speaking of independence, studies in which domesticated dogs and cats have been compared, it comes as no surprise that cats show a decided advantage, exhibiting more competence when suddenly or unexpectedly cast into the wild.  (I don’t know under what types of circumstances these creatures would have been so situated for the benefit of science; that in itself bears investigation.)

After making the case that cats are - or can be - independent, that they don’t really need humans, are you now beginning to challenge the essential wisdom of a feral-feeding program?  After all, the world doesn’t need more feral cats. . . or dogs.  And, can’t we just leave the outcome to Nature?  The feral feeding program to which I belong is a very structured one, and is only one component in a larger program, the goal of which is to control the cat population and make healthier the feral cats that they are able to trap-neuter-release (TNR).  It should be called trap-neuter-vaccinate-release, for this nonprofit organization does just that.

Cats, it should be pointed out,  have not been our companions - whether loyal or begrudging - nearly as long as dogs.  For 40,000 years we humans have relied on dogs to - literally - hunt with us.  The control of small pests became more of an issue during the agricultural age (12,000 years ago), and that was when our species made formal appeal to the feline species for help.  It remains to be seen whether cats will ever debase themselves quite to the degree that dogs customarily do in order to win our approval; it would be unwise to hold one’s breath in anticipation.

So, I think I’ll not tender my resignation just yet.  I’m going to give the calendar a shot.  Kevin’s viewpoint notwithstanding, I’m hopeful.  No, I’m resolved.  I’ll not let down Feral Filomena again!

The Haphazard Horticulturist

Ever since I was little, gardens - especially of the vegetable sort - have been familiar settings.  My earliest recollections are of pattering around, running barefoot up and down the lined spaces between rows of beans or corn or tomatoes, or jumping over the mounded plants when they were still young, just to see if my leaps were broad enough to carry me “cross-row”.  And while I was still young, the occasional snapped vine or branch or smooshed squash under my inexperienced feet in no way diminished my enjoyment of “gardening”.  The warmth and even the smell of the dirt between and around the plants always charmed my senses.  As I grew, attendance in the garden transformed into a noxious, enforced labor experience; I imagine all of my siblings recall the recurring summer edict to “spend 30 minutes weeding in the garden.”  The only, I mean only, benefit was the freedom to graze while out there.  Perhaps, however, the quiet solitude was its greatest value.  Nevertheless, I was probably my most truculent self whenever I heard “the edict” that naturally implied I couldn’t spend every moment of summer engaged in pursuits of my own design and choosing.  

 The vegetables we grew at 415 Titicut were the most incomparably tasty I’ve ever had.  The smart reader out there is already either refuting that statement or amending it.  It’s true that, like with all our other senses, our sense of taste falters as we age.  (For women, it typically happens in our fifties, while men can luxuriate in sweet, sour, bitter, savory, and salty into their sixties).  Did you know that our taste buds (which resemble garlic bulbs) are assigned different roles, and according to their assignment, are located in different parts of the mouth?  Next time you bite into something sour, see if you notice the left and right sides of your tongue responding.  Bite into something bitter, and you’ll notice it when it reaches the back of your tongue.  Something sweet?  You’ll perceive that the instant it touches the tip of your tongue.  And, finally, salt-detecting buds located between the sweet and sour ones will have you scrunching your face when you chomp on just about any entrée served at Cheesecake Factory.

 

Where it concerns the hobby of gardening I can’t boast deep understanding.  My general knowledge springs from personal experience, and this is the trick that invariably worked on Titicut Hill:  get the prison to deliver an extra wagonload of cow manure in late March or early April while they’re spreading it all over the fields that surround your house lot .  Offer a carton of cigarettes to get them to also plough, thus saving you the impossible task of turning blue clay soil with laughably inadequate farm tools.  (Would that be a tiller?  A shovel?  Were it to be a shovel, the tenant farmers of Titicut Hill would still be hopping up and down on their shovel steps today.)  Next, create neat, ridged rows; then tamp in liberal quantities of seeds.  Unless you’re “fastidious”, there’s no real need to mark where things are; when they start to grow, it’s exciting to guess what the plants are.  At any rate, when they start producing, you should have a fair idea of what they are.  Weeds are the easiest to detect, but the most obdurate in terms of removal and flogging into submission.  They represent the rule-breakers as well as spirit-crushers of the garden. . . and lawn, of course.  And they have one single value:  if you take one hearty blade of grass and hold it tightly pressed between the thumbs of your two cupped hands, you can get it to sing.  Ok, so maybe not “sing”, so much as screech.  (That will only make sense if you’ve ever done it; otherwise, ignore grass’s one true value.)

 

None of this suggests that I understand gardening, just that I spent a substantial amount of time in gardens in the formative years.  For several years after George and I first moved to Salisbury, “we” had a large, flourishing garden.  And for the first few years, George deferred to me on most garden matters.  He can - and should - be forgiven for believing that I knew how to garden; after all, I was a girl from rural America, and before we were married, he had taken great pleasure in oodles of meals prepared with vegetables from my family’s garden, meals that typically involved no fuss and minimal seasoning, but were delicious nevertheless.

 

Then one day, after having stretched my luck too far, the jig was up.  I had either suggested that garlic and onions are perfectly compatible with beans, or - more scandalous - that all good vegetables can become great vegetables if you apply a generous covering of raw manure to your garden.  Be reasonable here; one can easily see how my personally-developed farming manual would include such wisdom under the chapter “Best Soil Enrichment Practices”.  Of all the ways that a wife can disappoint a husband, I never anticipated the degree of shame that I would feel the day when George looked at me with skepticism and dismay, saying simply, “You really don’t know anything about gardening, do you?”  Well, yes, I thought I did.  Gardening was simple: manure, ploughing, tossing in seeds, and getting someone to weed “as needed”.  

 

Going forward, whether it was composting techniques, proper hilling of potatoes, dedicating sufficient space for pumpkins, planting winter rye, making the move toward 100% organic gardening, even camouflaging cannabis; George kept his own counsel.  He was a very good farmer.  As the “farmer’s wife” (as Big George used to call me), I harvested our bounty and prepared meals, carved pumpkins with our two daughters, and - on occasion - smoked weed.  

 

Lately, I’ve been overcome with a desire to give Mother Earth another chance.  This time, though, I’m thinking flowers.  My inspiration boards are filling up with ideas with similar themes:  “informal rock gardens”, “wildflower gardens”, “cottage garden ideas”, “low maintenance flowers and shrubs”, “maintenance-free backyards”, “easy alternatives to a grassy lawn”, “transform your backyard in 5 easy steps”.  I’m excited about the prospects of a lush, backyard oasis, one in which I can sit admiring my creation, perhaps occasionally dead-heading, and freely dispensing sage horticultural advice to passers-by on the rail trail behind my house who are overcome with the sheer loveliness of my wildflower garden.  My gratification will know no bounds if my garden then induces bees, butterflies and birds to pay me visits when they’re likewise in the neighborhood.  Spring really is the season of hopefulness.  Time to put my inspiration boards to work.

Medicare and Me

I've recently noticed that my brain-mouth duo has been liberated. For sure, I'm no Polyanna, but I'll maintain that that's a good thing, the liberated brain-mouth, that is, not the Polyanna reference. In reality, invoking "Pollyanna" raises alarms these days, at least in psychotherapy circles where they talk in terms of syndromes; the Polyanna Syndrome refers to an unwillingness or inability to accept that sometimes, yes, life sucks and you need to embrace the misery that accompanies tragedy; let your grief carry you. . . naturally. Those who suffer from "polyannaism" - if each of us thinks real hard we can identify at least one person in our lives who exhibits signs of it - have the tendency to re-cast negative events in a positive, but unrealistic light. It's interesting to note that, for Polyanna types, memory of a past event is more likely to be skewed if it was a negative experience; memory is much more accurate when it involves a positive experience. This is how you can tell whether a person is just generally an optimist, coping with life in a healthy way, or someone who truly is a Polyanna, incapable of confronting adversity, thus short-circuiting the body's (and mind's) ability to heal. One final note: a condition such as this can affect not just one's ability to be consoled, but one's ability to console.

Returning to my liberated brain, my entrenched habits of censoring my thoughts have been shattered, and now a steady stream of musings and opinions are tumbling forth. At this particular moment I blame it on Medicare, and why not? They're in my cross-hairs. After contributing for decades, if not generously, at least with a minimum of (pointless) protest; I have signed up. If my age (something that I'm fairly good at remembering) weren't a signal that I needed to take care of the paperwork involved, my impossibly overburdened mailbox served as a considerate reminder by daily vomiting flyers from AARP, Tufts, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, etc.

The first thing I notice is that I'm paying more for health insurance. I won't get into the government's characteristically polite, even affectionate, and cleverly worded letter as to why this is so, other than to say that it included fun acronyms like "MAGI"* and "IRMAA"**, and assurances that if my subsequent levels of income should go into free fall, I was free to ask them (not even sure I know who "them" is) to re-assess my ability to pay additional premiums. The short of it is, I'm on a fixed income and I don't like surprises of this sort. I never saw myself as the type who would rail against this kind of injustice; no, I would join the ranks of retirees with grace, composure, and bonhomie; you'd love having me in your midst. 

I don't think I'm especially daft when it comes to educating myself about matters that involve health or fixed costs or both of those ideas together. My good friends Linda and Ann, over the course of several dinner dates, tried to simplify Medicare for me. Finally, they just pulled their cards from their wallets and tapping each one as illustration, said, you need Parts A & B (this card right here), and Prescription coverage (this card right here). Or maybe they said, you need Parts A & D, or Parts A & C, or just Part D but only if you were born on Friday the 13^th, or maybe they just said sign up for everything that arrives via U.S.P.S. or email; that way you’ll be covered.  And my cousin Beth cautioned: make sure you do that at precisely 0000 hours exactly 3 months before you turn 65.  The promised penalties if you don’t comply are considerable; the Social Security Administration is quite clear about that.  For those who play fast and loose with the SSA’s rules, you’ll know that they mean business when they send out a U.S. marshal armed with a rifle with bayonet attached.

 

So, it’s been fun turning 65.  I’m looking forward to thumbing through my wallet, lifting my shiny new Medicare card and slamming it down on the counter the next time I find myself in a doctor’s office or at the Registry of Motor Vehicles or upon arrival at the National Zoo.  I mean, I paid enough for that membership - I should get something good out of it.

 

      *          *          *          *            *            *            *            *

*Here's an important lesson for anyone who draws a paycheck legally in this country. One of the greatest betrayals for the novice wage earner is a mythical figure called "gross income". It represents what you innocently think you'll be earning. My best advice to a person upon receiving their very first paycheck is to sit down before taking a look at it, preferably in front of a computer with internet connection; it's a shocking experience that will make you lightheaded, and one that persuades you to do a google search of "lowest income tax countries". (I've done the work for you; oil-rich Qatar or the tourist-pleasing Bahamas might be options). No one asked you if you wanted to set aside a certain percentage for the more challenging days of retirement. . . which keeps moving further away in the future. No one asked you, either, if you wanted to share some of your earnings with your state - to do with as they deem necessary - and with the federal government - to do with as they, too, deem necessary. 

 

While there’s no profit in protesting the unattainable nature of gross income, as April 15 approaches, we warm to the idea of “adjusted gross income”.  Reassured by the promise that it can never surpass gross income, the objective is to make AGI as different from gross income as possible.  The real evil-doer is “modified adjusted gross income”; the diabolical MAGI takes your adjusted gross income and ADDS BACK IN the deductions you could claim.  The first question you should ask here is, why is there such a thing?  MAGI is used in order to limit participation in the Government’s “benefit” programs or to prevent you from contributing to a Roth IRA, as well as deducting for contributions that you made to your IRA.  

 

**The final indignity is IRMAA.  Simplified, “Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount” is the Government’s way of saying, Hey, Joyce, we know that you and your husband saved, saved, saved throughout your working years, eschewing all manner of vacations and splurges, instead investing wisely; we now want to reward you by charging you more for your Medicare coverage. (Right about now I have a rather impolite response to that; I have faith that I don’t need to say it out loud.)

 

The bottom line is, the Government is always going to get its money; it’s too impatient to wait around till YOU say you’re ready to pay taxes.  Moreover, once they’ve wrested those dollars from you, that fist closes tight around them.  So, I’m wondering about what lifestyle changes I’d have to make in Qatar?  It might be nice not to have to adorn my front step with a shovel and a bucket of ice melt 8 months of the year.  But, what about the Bahamas?  Are hurricanes a chronic threat?  The island life does sound appealing.   Hmmmm….. so much to think about.

Bark-Bark-Bark

 Signing up for a Master Class on writing is a great idea.  That is, until your dogs start galloping around the house because they heard a tiny something irregular outside.  Maybe it was one of my neighbors driving up our private street.  Maybe it was a dog barking three miles away.  I didn’t hear it.  It was that faint.  But the natural response – if you’re a dog – is to go ballistic and bark-bark-bark your way from the family room, through the kitchen, on to the living room, reverse, through the kitchen, on to the family room, to the kitchen, back to the family room, back to the kitchen.  Bark-bark-bark.  So, Neil Gaiman’s thoughtful words about “subvert the familiar” don’t reach me the first time through; I see his mouth moving, his splayed hands reaching forward to add meaningful punctuation to something he was imparting.  I’m forced to replay that particular recommendation.  Bark-bark-bark.

How did I end up signing up for a Master Class on writing?  It began yesterday morning when I decided I wanted to enroll in a masters degree program on writing.  I googled “best online degree programs writing”.  I navigated over to bestdegreeprograms.org, because everyone knows that .org is the stamp of legitimacy.  I didn’t recognize the first in a list of 30-best, so I clicked on the second one, Southern New Hampshire University, because I did.  Of course I was fully aware that for the next who knows how long, I would be seeing sidebar ads for anything to do with academia.  In short order, I had “requested information”; no sooner had I clicked that button, and my phone rang.  Literally, it was “no sooner”, which I found vexing because my eyes had just begun to read what I could/should be doing in preparation for my call from an admissions person.  

“Hi, this is Tam.  How are you today?  Have you had a chance to think of questions for us?”  

“Well, Tam, no, as I just clicked the ‘request information’ button 7 seconds ago.”  

“Ha-ha-ha.  So, do you?  Have questions?”   

I had questions. . . plenty, not the least of which was, “Can I transfer credits for some classes I took a few years ago when I was first contemplating a writing program?” 

 “Well, how long ago?  

“1989”.  

“Oooooohh, we usually only accept up to five years.” 

“Is that because our brains decline and we don’t remember anything beyond five years?”  

“Ha-ha-ha.  It’s. . .uh. . . just our policy, but you can make your case for it if you feel strongly.”  (Of course I feel strongly. . . now. . . 32 years later.)

Before I hung up, I had promises of “We’ll send you the program description and the application link. We’ll send you the instructions to set up your student portal, also a link to our newsletter. And, oh(!) an authentic ‘Petey the Penman’ quill and inkstand, also an autographed glossy of Petey.” 

“Wait, what?”  This last rejoinder was you, and I inserted it just to see if you were still with me.  (But, honestly, their mascot is a strapping, colonial dude with muscular thighs and shoulders, powdered wig, dancing eyes and impossibly straight, white teeth.  (That last part needs to be read twice for dramatic historical anachronism.)

Tam then delivered as promised.  She sent about 200 email messages with all relevant information and links.  She sure was efficient.  But, here’s where up became down, and down up. Tam wasn’t Tam.  Tam was Tim, and not – obviously – a middle-aged woman whose smoking habit had imparted her with a deep, sultry voice.  So, I sat perfectly still for about five minutes, while my brain ratcheted up its synaptic function in a panicked effort at recall; I had a desperate need to reconstruct the conversation.  How did I not know that Tam was a man?  And, did I have a different kind of conversation because I thought I was talking with a middle-aged woman?  Would I have said things differently?  Would my off-hand comments have been more geared towards a young man?  Would I have even resorted to my usual quips about age and spent brain cells and, gosh, timessurehavechanged?  (It did seem as if my jokiness was not landing as deftly as I am accustomed to, although I may be casting it all in a different light given my “new knowledge”.)   It was a very revealing moment for me, for I realized how much we must tailor our speech depending on the presumed gender and age of the other person, even if the objective remains constant on both sides.  

So, I’ve naturally concluded that SNHU is not the school for me.  I couldn’t bear the thought of running into Tim.  

But, before I struck SNHU from my one-item list, I texted my niece, Michaela.  She is my reliable go-to when I want an enthusiastic yes, do it!  Michaela said, Yes, do it!

For comparison’s sake, I investigated University of Iowa’s program, too.  I’d like to say that when I added up all the dollars for the total number of credits, that that was the reason for abandoning the idea of another master’s program.  It’s much more likely that I considered how big a commitment it would be, and, as my closest family members and friends know, I am averse to commitment.  Even making weekend plans or - worse - deciding what to thaw for dinner causes me to squirm.  And I always have to have an exit or escape strategy.  For this reason, I’m called “Bolt” by my most observant siblings, because that’s often what I end up doing.  They’re very funny people.

The logical conclusion to this story is that I signed up for a Master Class.  I’m thoroughly enjoying Neil Gaiman’s – when I can hear his words between the bark-bark-bark of my dogs.

 

The Things I'm Wondering About

When I try to make sense of the world around me, I maybe sometimes overthink the situation.  Other times I’m just trying to do the right thing (or trying to get away with minimal – but acceptable – effort), absent a thorough working knowledge of the context in question.  And sometimes, my imagination hijacks me and there’s no leaping from that train once it’s left the station.  In that case, I invite you along for the ride.  Here’s a brief study in how my brain processes information. 

 

1.    Do the cellophane windows on the spaghetti and tissue boxes that I sometimes am too lazy to remove, mess up the recyclers at the sorting center; will they have to halt their sorting in order to peel them off?  Or, does it merely interrupt their flow as their brains wrangle with, “is it cardboard or is it plastic?”  And, how picky must I be about how clean the cat food cans should be?

2.    Do those different strains of coronavirus have smart brains that allow them to understand what we’re doing to try to eradicate them.  That they mutate so quickly has me worried.  It brings to mind the mosquito, which I detest (almost as much as the tick).  Scientists these days can’t possibly be getting any quality sleep, since every time they have a sure-fire recipe to wipe out the population, the community mosquito leaders are already a step ahead.  Those liver-spotted, august capos of the disease-carrying, flying insect world have, hidden from human view, two or three uniquely qualified member-representatives that are safely bunkered somewhere in Middle Earth.  These mosquito designees, the finest specimens of strength and vitality, pass their days, alternatively working out, playing cards, and making fun of each other, all the while awaiting “The Call” from their FEMA-like headquarters.  It goes something like this: “It’s happening. . . (gasp). . . They’ve begun. . . (gasp). . . the Extermination.  (Gasp). Prepare to. . . (gasp). . . enter. . . (gasp). . . the battlefield. . . (unintelligible). . . samples. . . (choke). . . analyze.  (Final burst of animation) BEGIN ANEW!  MAKE MOSQUITOS GREAT AGAIN!”

3.    If it were based entirely on advertising, what will future generations conclude about us, say, in 100 years?  Will they think us quaint for dressing our dogs in cute jackets, ones that match our own?  Will they shake their heads with impatience over our absorption with clothing labels?  When I browse newspapers from one hundred years ago, I’m amazed at how much advertising space is taken up with promises to cure all the mundane as well as embarrassing ailments.  This one invites comment: “People Constipated and Don’t Know it”.  The ad for Dr. True’s Elixir explains for the simple-minded target audience that your bowels get full of waste matter, and then expel only about the same amount that goes into it in the form of food.”  Ok, so my comment would be redundant here, don’t you think?  The wildly successful inventor, Lydia Pinkham, had “proven” cures for women’s ailments, as if everything that happened uniquely – and naturally – to women were considered a disorder; for example, to treat “hysteria”, her vegetable-based elixir brought about a sense of calm.  But, isn’t it just possible that Pinkham had over-tweaked the percentage of alcohol in her formula?

 

Surely, you all have similar thought trajectories, yes?

Learning things naturally

Some of the things I “understood” about the world when I was little:

·      The Bible was written by God

·      Heaven is reserved for perfect people, or people who die immediately after exiting the confessional

·      Whenever you said Jesus, you had to dip your head. . . or you would go to Hell.

·      There was an unusually high number of seagulls who had only one leg

·      Bringing volumes of Japanese Beetles and Gypsy moths into the house for scientific research made Mom especially angry

·      One can never catch up with weeding a garden enriched by cow manure

·      The best food in the world came from that garden

·      Some families served green beans from a can

·      Nana May and Papa Joe were real people; Nana Morrissey and Gamma were stern or unhappy, or both.

·      Having read “Odyssey of an Otter” is not in the same league as reading “The Odyssey”.  (Sorry, Mrs. Panza, for the misunderstanding in 3^rd grade.)

·      Being quiet and compliant in a classroom did not guarantee that the teacher would let you clap the chalk erasers.

·      In the absence of a road map, dead reckoning is a great substitute, and it doesn’t necessarily result in someone’s death.*

·      Lincoln Logs don’t stand a chance in a house where a dog lives.

 

*I had a paralyzing fear of becoming lost when I was little; I still become overly anxious if I don’t know where I am.  Whenever Mom and I were away from the house, if I sensed that she was lost I would begin to cry and beg her to tell me that she knew where she was going.  On one occasion, I demanded proof; she simply said, “dead reckoning, honey,” which to me meant somehow someone was going to die.  She appeared calm, and for the rest of the journey maintained an inscrutable smile.  I was worried.

Just stop!

Do you ever notice how there are just some days you can’t help but be overly annoyed by everything?  Behaviors and tendencies that on most days are tolerated reasonably well make your teeth clench and your face scrunch up unattractively and your eyes squint menacingly?  You can convince yourself on those days that there really oughta be a law against so many of society’s practices that are both common and accepted,but that – notwithstanding – enough of us can agree should just be stopped.  At the very least, public shaming should be encouraged.  Herewith I spill my own list:

1.    Pants with faux pockets.  Don’t ever buy them; the sheer disingenuity of them should be enough of a reason.  And insanely shallow pockets are nearly as bad – you will constantly worry that whatever you put in them will shimmy itself out.  Maybe you’re supposed to treat them like faux pockets anyway, and not use them. . . so don’t put them on the pants in the first place.  It seems an even greater betrayal when brands that have inspired your loyalty suddenly and without explanation or disclaimer produce the same style in all ways EXCEPT that now there are shallow pockets to replace the earlier reassuringly deep ones.  

2.    Webpage layout shifting.  You know how when you arrive on some webpage and your eyes start to feed your brain with the information, and then the information jumps, so that you have to reorient yourself.  This is especially maddening when the shift happens at precisely the moment when you click on a link, but because the content has jumped, you are clicking on an entirely different link.  It is not reassuring in the least to know the cause, which is that as asynchronous Ajax partials are loading, these little buggers are upsetting the initial render.  Equally unhelpful to know is that you can fix this source of irritation via some clever CSS’ing.  Don’t taunt me with words like “easy fix” if they’re in company with a word such as “CSS”.  My feeble adaptive strategy is that I now leave any site on which I am thus ambushed twice in the first minute.

3.    Personal fireworks late at night.  When people set them off after 11:00pm, I automatically suppose the revelers to be well “into their cups”.  If it’s close to my house there’s the added late summer stressor of, if one lands on the roof will my house go up in flames?  I am further aggrieved when my dogs then commence barking way too excitedly. . . and proceed to invite me to take them out for potty.  I wonder, too, when I hold my breath the next day as I drive over the duds with my lawn tractor, should I instead be stopping before each one of them, dismounting, and collecting them; i.e., will I blow myself up if I don’t?

4.    Saying irregardless.  Don’t.  No matter that its nonstandard overuse has resulted in it becoming an acceptable variant of the word.

5.    Scratchy labels on clothing.  Typically these are made of course, sharp-edged “fabric” and are permanently fastened to the article of clothing with plastic thread (of all the stupidest innovations, and I say “innovation” scornfully.)  The odds are better than even that you will cut into a sweater’s carotid if you try to surgically remove one.  Ironically, seams can come completely undone, but a label “ain’t goin nowhere.”  I may be imagining a kinder, friendlier time, but it seems to me that couture clothing companies once upon a time attached their labels with easily removable stitches.  Snip, snip, and done.  And long before there was mass production (or fashion houses), and people made their own clothing, this wasn’t an issue.  The clothing, too, was meant to last, I mean really last.  In fact, during colonial times when people wrote out their wills, along with their dwelling house, commonage interests, and iron tools; they cared deeply about the fate of their “wearing apparill”.   Imagine seeing Caleb Pike 3^rd, sauntering around the Village attired in the late Walker Buswell’s great coat and best leather breeches.  While it probably provoked a few tears of remembrance among some and a few raised eyebrows among others, and then again, maybe not; I doubt anyone was overly concerned about how to most expertly excise a brand label.

6.    Shaken-up seltzer bottles.  They look harmless enough, sitting silently at attention on the store shelf, blending in with their innocent neighbors.  Your first thought, though, is: I hope this isn’t one of “them”.  Appearances will tell you nothing, however; you won’t really know if it is one of “them” until it detonates in your kitchen.  It doesn’t stop you from studying the bottle from all. . . well, not angles per se, but by rotating it as if one hopes to find some small portent of what is to come.   If only we had a way to signal when a bottle has previously been dropped on the floor.  Perhaps the bottle would change color, or the offender – following the honor system – could flip a switch right on the bottle that indicates that it has become one of “them”.  My suggestion here is that we hand off the problem to an M.I.T. student.  But aren’t Coke and ginger ale bottles the absolute worst when it comes to the deadly carbonation ambush?

There’s a sense of futility inherent in an exercise such as this, for once you’ve begun a list of grievances, you quickly become aware that there will be no end. . . at least if it’s one of those days when everything grates on your nerves.  Imagine if I had chosen to include other people’s annoying driving habits or grocery store tendencies or cell-phone usage.  To be sure, I am not without my own annoying foibles; just ask Megan about my talking while chewing. . . or asking over and over while watching a movie, “what did he (or she) just say?”.  Now that I think about it, the list of my irritating behaviors might be pretty long, too.