A Billion Tiny Flowers

I have been technology challenged for about ten years.  Before that I felt I could hold my own. Now, age, concussion and recently, ambivalence have led me to the shoals, the place where many older adults find themselves, muttering and cursing and occasionally exclaiming “YuReeek Ha!” as some colourful object washes onto our shoal and makes us happy.

I spent an entire weekend, possibly the nicest weekend of the summer trying to sort out why I could not longer watch television (Star Trek) or googly or putz on the various devices in my home! I must say here, if you are patient with the poor techies they are appreciative. I may not be able to defuse racist Nazis but my Zen practice has taught me to be attentive and patient while on hold.

Mostly I want to have Star Trek, any version, playing while I do my sewing. I could put on the radio but sometimes (gottalovem) CBC radio is just dumb and my stitches get tight while my mind boggles. (Star Trek is often dumb but it is Sci-fi, come on!)

Last night while falling asleep I realized my dreams were of a billion tiny flowers, each providing a context for perpetually opening complexity, which viewed as a whole was breathtaking. From my perspective they were the flowers of a quilt that I painstakingly was appliqueing one at a time, made of billions of threads of cotton, manufactured and dyed, all by human hands from plants grown in sunlight and with water and tended by more human hands on a beautiful planet spinning within spinning galaxies.

So as glitchy as these entertainments are from my point of view, some things, important and awesome, never change. 🙂

 

The Things I`ve Seen Standing on the Corner!

Okay, the laughs are hard to come by these days but last week I watched a young woman with headphones on and her hood up (it was cold and had snowed the night before) walk along at a leisurely pace as a sidewalk snow plow continuously honked the horn at her, FOR AN ENTIRE BLOCK trying to get by her.

FYI: I now help texting people across the street as I count them as visually impaired. I have a great idea for improving the smart phone:  Put left and right turning signals on the side so other people can tell which way they are going to go!

Perpetually hooked up people are sensory disadvantaged!

My Cell Phone is Sick.

I had to take it to the service provider who’s name cannot be spoken.  Saturday I was all set to run out to the mall (killing two errands with one bus ticket) and S. called.

She is my Scottish friend who is of Chinese decent, she has the weirdest accent you can imagine, plus she seems to have adopted the stereotypical traits of both cultures, she tends to be blunt, likes to save money and shop for a deal (she is a one woman resource for where to find things in town) and she has a rather perfunctory approach to friendship. She calls me and tries to drag me out to go swimming at 6:30am on a weekly basis, “because it is good for you and everyone needs to talk to five people a day to stay happy”.

I disagree with this on so many levels. (I could write an entire post about it and it would be funny. “Oh Rio, you make me laugh!” is her response to my opinion.)

We compromise with going for coffee and complaining about our aged mothers. She is a caregiver too. So she offered to drive me to the mall.

Apparently they need a R.C.M.P. dossier on you before you can get them to do anything. My passport is out of date and I don’t drive. The little girl, and this is not meant to as a derogatory expression, (she was tiny and maybe eighteen years old, this was her first job and her last day), well, the wee pet, I’ll call her Janet, was willing to take my phone and send it for repairs but she would not be working there when I came back and without proper documentation/I.D., they would not give me the phone. Argghhhhhh. This is not an Ipod, it’s not even a phone they make anymore but it has a slide out keyboard arranged in the same layout as a standard keyboard and I can use it without my glasses. I REALLY LIKE IT. IT WORKS FOR ME. I AM WILLING TO PAY TO FIX IT… I don’t think it would be worth it for a stranger to pay for the repairs to steal it. I was proud of the fact that I didn’t get upset.

I said, “I am so glad you got another job, I hope it is better than this one!”
“Oh it is!” Janet smiled.

Meanwhile, S. is waiting and waiting. She decided to wander off and do some of her own errands.

They had no courtesy phones left to lend me, never a good sign, but I suggested that she introduce me to someone who WOULD BE THERE ON MONDAY and she could give me her name and number and I would do the same (it would be on all the forms I had to sign) and we could keep in touch as to when I could get a courtesy phone and all the details of the repair, cost, time etc.

I introduced myself to another young lady, A. She questioned whether I had gotten the phone wet and Janet defended me. I really congratulate Janet on finding a job where her customer loyalty might be rewarded.

S. had returned after completing several shopping miracles. “THIS IS WHY I’M NEVER GETTING A CELL PHONE! TOO MUCH HASSEL…”, she announced to the store in general. We went for coffee a quick coffee after that. It was getting late and my mother would be back from her church bizaar…

I have call Voldemort this afternoon, just to keep the relationship between “A” and I fresh…