It's Alive!

 I haven't posted any ramblings for a couple of weeks now, largely because my technology failed me.  There I was, minding my own business, when I arbitrarily decided to reboot my computer.  It was moving too slowly to suit me, and we all know that rebooting is the silver bullet that scares the demons away.  I shut it down, but when I tried to start it back up again, I got an error message.  So I did it all again, and again got the error message.  I'm so proud of myself that I didn't panic.  The ONLY reason that I didn't was that I had my Kindle Fire and my cell phone that I could use as temporary communicators.

I immediately texted my first line of defense with computer problems: my daughter who lives in Washington State--a half-continent away from where I live in Indiana.  She is always my Level I tech support.  She's good at figuring things out.  Her husband is Level II.  (He is a Senior Program Engineer for Microsoft.)  For two days, we traded Google how-to's to try to break into the computer's BIOS page.  It was only on the second day that I actually got that achieved.  Thereafter, Level II was advising me by telephone, remotely.  He was patient.  I was patient.  In spite of that, both Levels declared that my friendly laptop had breathed its last.  It is likely fixable, if one has the money for shipping or an expensive geek squad, but we all agreed that those levels of funds would be better spent on a new computer, since the Lenovo was already seven years old.  (That's a long time in Computer Years!)

Knowing my reticence to make decisions about a new computer, Level I took the reins.  She asked me for a budget amount and my computer needs.  I gave her my budget amount but said I have no clue what my computing needs are.  Basically, I need it to work when I turn it on.  Is that specific enough?  Level II recommended one within my budget, and in the span of one mouse click, my new computer was on the way from Costco.  It was estimated for delivery on Wednesday, then changed to Tuesday before 7:00 PM.  

All day on Tuesday, I watched out the window and/or checked the front stoop for the delivery.  I've never had a Porch Pirate theft (yet), but I sure didn't want the first one to be my new computer!  Finally, it arrived--at 7:19 PM--so I could relax for the rest of the day.

Level I stood by most of the next day, waiting for me to get the computer out of the shipping box and set up, etc...but there were other things to do.  Behind the Lenovo, the computer desk was filthy.  I had to clean out all of those dust bunnies..  It took at least 15 minutes to break the computer out of the shipping box,  Then I had to study the diagram of the new HP in order to know what port does what, and to determine what port requires the dongle for the mouse and wireless keyboard.  I did my best not to allow myself to get frustrated with the whole set-up thing.  Then I had to stand on my head to unplug the old and plug in the new.  Puff, puff.  Finally, I pressed the START button, and the computer lit up.  It's alive!!

Level I stuck with me while I got through the whole Microsoft setup thing, even though she and Level II were planning to be gone over the weekend.  THIS weekend.  My insecurities had already convinced me that I would need a lot of hand-holding to get things that I needed on my computer:  AOL, Blogger, my banking site, billing sources, etc...  My old computer had icon shortcuts to take me to those places, and I was convinced that I couldn't do that by myself.  And then Level I said, "Those are just websites."  (Translate:  "Listen, dummy, you can already do websites on the new computer.  You don't need the shortcuts to get you there in a pinch.")  My totally innocent response was, "Oh...."

There is still a bunch of tweaking that needs to be done for which I will continue to need assistance.  I get by with a little help from my friends.

 I'm going to name the new 'puter either Lazarus or Phoenix.  Or maybe the Last Leaf because it will likely be the last computer I will ever own....        

  

PSA: The Freezer Post Is Back!

 In reference to a previous blog post explaining that the Google Blogger Admin(s) had "unpublished" my post about my dad's food freezer as spam, I am happily here to report that the post has been re-instated...and I hadn't even been able to request a review.  I simply got an email saying the admins had re-evaluated the post and republished it.  There was no other explanation; however, that's okay with me.  

Far from indignant, which I was at first, I'm more relieved that I didn't even have to defend myself for what was obviously an error to be corrected.  Sometimes, the systems DO work! 

Waste Not, Want Not?

 For a number of years, I have belonged to a grocery shopping service called Shipt.  It never was really important to me until the pandemic hit, and then it became crucial to keeping me out of stores.  Now, I use it almost exclusively, largely because the local Shipt service shops at my favorite store, Meijer.  

In the beginning, Shipt had a membership fee of $99 per year which renewed itself in my bank account unless I told it not to.  During the pandemic, I didn't see any renewals show up, but they still shop for me.  And this is how it goes:

1.  Log in to their site.  2.  Search for and click on the items that are requested.  3.  List substitutions for items that might be out of stock (and there have been many).  4.  Select a delivery time window.  5.  Stay by the phone in case the shopper--whoever it is--calls to ask questions.  6.  Wait for delivery.

Because it is sometimes exhausting for me just to bring the bags in the house, I usually try to catch my shopper.  Instead of their leaving the bags on my front stoop, I hold the door and ask him/her to bring them just inside the door and put them in front of my fake fireplace.  (It might be ten feet.)  They are always kind enough to do that.

(Here, I should insert that Shipt is not a cheap option.  Aside from the yearly membership fee (that I think has been waived),  the order placed has to be a minimum of $35 to avoid a $7.99 delivery fee, plus the Shipt prices are a tad higher than if I went to the store and shopped for myself.  Then, of course, I believe in tipping the shopper through the website.  The end result is that I am paying dearly for the privilege of not having to do it all myself, which really helps me.)  One nice thing:  I can select preferred shoppers.  Over time, they come to know me, which helps!

This is NOT an ad for Shipt!  I know there are other grocery services that the pandemic created.  This is just one that I had before the pandemic. 

Back to the real topic of this post.  Once the groceries are in the house, I go through the bags to take out the frozen foods and/or foods that need to be refrigerated immediately.  The rest--cans, boxes, etc.--stay in the bags until I take them out, a few at a time.  (I'm the only one who lives here, and I rarely have company, so who cares if I have to walk around a couple of bags for a few days?)  Most of the time, my shoppers bag refrigerated food and frozen foods together so that I don't have to dig too much to find them.  Within a few days, the groceries have all been put away, and no one is the wiser.

Every once in a while, however, I miss some perishables in the bags.  So far, I have caught them just in time.  Until last week.  Somehow, my shopper hadn't packed all of the cold things together.  Two days after I got the groceries, I found a pound of hamburger that I hadn't accounted for, still unrefrigerated.  Darn!  I immediately put it into the freezer.   And two days after that, my housekeeper found a pack of Kraft Singles (cheese) unrefrigerated at the bottom of a bag as she put the rest of the bag contents away.  She inquired if she should throw them away.  I said she should just put them in the refrigerator until I made up my mind.  And so it was.

I came from a farming family.  My parents grew up during the Great Depression.  They didn't have money, but they had food, and food was not to be wasted.  My daughter laughs at me because I will take wrinkled old potatoes with small sprouts, knock off the sprouts, and cook the potatoes to eat.  Every time I went to visit, she would Grandma-proof her refrigerator and pantry to remove foods that she thought I would be tempted to use past the expiration date or flawed appearance.  (I never, ever, offered my family or guests food that could have been tainted.  I just knew what still could be used, with help.)

So...that hamburger and those cheese slices were risky.  They weighed on my brain.  They were likely still okay.  (My mother would likely have used them.)  To keep or not to keep?  To use or not to use?  Since I have no sense of smell, I wouldn't be able to tell by sniffing if they had gone bad or not.  (The sniff test isn't always accurate, anyway.)  We're talking about $12 worth of groceries.  There wasn't anyone to ask because no one in their right mind would recommend eating food that was outside of normal health guidelines, as these were.  

I considered the options:  Use and everything is fine, OR use and be sick as a dog for days with food poisoning.  OR, throw away and be out $12, with no hamburger or sliced cheese to replace it.  

The verdict?  I bit on the bullet and threw it away, then bought new with my next grocery order.  I reasoned that the risks outweighed the money.  It's not as though I can do that often.  Money IS an object, but so is my health.  

It's not often that I have these hard decisions to make, thank God.  My readers may think it's funny to worry about things that might seem that easy, but we are all driven by our raising.  I think my daughter is proud of me!  <wink>       

Am I a Spammer?

 After 20+ years of writing in this weblog, I hit a snag last week.  Someone, somehow, flagged my latest entry called "The Freezer" as spam.  Google, who is the blog supplier, unpublished the entry and sent me an email about it.  The post was about how my father kept a huge freezer full of food long after my mother and grandparents had passed.  Why?  He was doing it for his kids.  Every time we departed from a visit, he would say, "Take what you want from the freezer."  The conclusion that I made was that I do the same thing, even though my family is rarely here.  Like father; like daughter.  

It's obvious to me that no one at Google Blogger actually read the post.  There was no profanity.  No hate speech.  No politics.  No selling anything.  No fraud.  Nothing that could in the least bit be considered spam.  Yet here we are...

All things considered, it wasn't a significant post.  I was just reminiscing and trying to explain why I am the way I am, in case anybody was interested to read it.  It's certainly not worth a fight OR my blood pressure, but I do think if something is going to be censored, there needs to be an explanation that, at the very least, the admins actually read the post before they "unpublished" it.  My efforts to ask for a review have been met with broken links without much recourse.  It's the principle of the thing.

We'll see how things go.  Wish me luck!  

The Freezer

 My grandparents had a huge chest-type freezer in their garage.  It was enormous, holding everything from meat to frozen veggies from their farm garden.  When my grandmother died and my parents retired to the farm in order to take care of my grandfather, they brought with them an upright freezer, also put in the garage.  One was to the right of the house door; the other was to the left.  Both were always full.

Mom was pretty good about keeping foods rotated so that not so that stuff got used up before it got unusable.  After Mom passed, Dad would continue to fill up the larder, usually just so there would be good foods for us to serve when the rest of the family was there.  When we departed, he would always say, "Take what you want out of the freezer."  He meant it, and we did.  Never mind that we had to literally stand on our heads to reach the bottom of the chest freezer!  One time, I realized that the stuff at the bottom had been there for YEARS, unreached.  I dug out a ton of food but hardly made a dent in what was there.  

My dad grew up hungry.  He was the last living kid of ten that were raised with him.  There wasn't enough food to help him feel full.  He never really talked about it, but all the signs were there.  For one thing, he and Mom never wasted food.  For another, Dad had a vegetable garden virtually everywhere we lived, with few exceptions.  The garden at the farm was HUGE.  Thus, two freezers in his old age.  He was supplying his family with food LONG after he had retired.  

I think I picked up some of this from Dad.  My daughter and family have been 2,000 miles away for many years, but I still find myself buying/saving foods just in case they show up here.  (For the record, only my grandchildren have been here to visit since they all moved to Seattle quite a few years ago...and then only because I keep bedrooms for them, and it puts them closer to their father and paternal grandparents.  It's crazy.  I guess I'm still in denial that my daughter will ever come home to see me.  I have to go there, but the pandemic and their circumstances have prevented that for over two years now.  It stings a lot.  At least I have been able to see the grandkids.  I adore them both!

So...what is a freezer?  It's a way to preserve things past their usefulness.  "Frozen in time" isn't a joke.  My own freezer is quite full.  A single woman, living alone, shouldn't have so much food around, but I am my father's daughter.  I'm not a food hoarder, but the pandemic has taught me to strike while the iron is hot.  If everything were to shut down, I have enough food to keep me for quite some time.  (Unless the power fails.  Then I'm in trouble!)  

I need to pare down in my food expectations.  I keep ingredients for my favored dishes, but when I make my favored dishes, they are huge enough that I have to eat them for days.  Or maybe freeze the leftovers?  Making smaller portions is out of the question.  I love food too much.  Maybe just get a bigger freezer? 

 

The Poverty-Go-Round

I've written about my young former student Bruce before.  (Bruce isn't his real name but will suffice.)      Bruce is on the Autism Spectrum, and has been all his life.  He's very smart and talented but has always lived under (and been somewhat protected by) his disability.  He's in his late 20s now and living independently for the first time in his life for almost a year now.  

In spite of fits and starts with college schooling and an occasional job here and there which never panned out for long because he has no driver's license or means of transportation except by the generosity of others, and a couple of physical limitations beyond his Spectrum things, he hasn't gained much traction in the world.  Know what he has gained?  Weight!  The poor guy huffs and puffs as bad as I do--and that isn't good.  I worry about him, scold him, recommend things to him....etc.....but he is in that swirling whirlpool of poverty that sucks in good people as well as bad.  Sometimes, the whirlpool makes bad people out of those who were once good; sometimes, it drives good people to stop trying.  Unlike what the Republicans seem to believe, that one only needs to pick him/herself up by the boot straps to change things, I was in the financial dumps enough to know that the resulting thinking is:  "Why should I try?  No matter how hard I work, nothing changes."

This is how I have felt for Bruce.  Although he is a 29-year-old man now, he's still one of "my" kids.  I hurt every time things don't go easily.  In the end, he/we succeed but not without complications.  Honestly, I just don't think things have to be this hard. 

Here are some examples of frustrating things, prefaced by the fact that Bruce lives in governmental housing in Mooresville, Indiana, while I live in Plainfield, IN--a distance of, perhaps, ten miles.  It takes me 15-20 minutes in good traffic to get to his apartment complex.

The Driver's Permit:

I decided that one of things I needed to help Ben with was procuring a driver's license, which begins by getting a learner's permit.  The closest Bureau of Motor Vehicles office is in Plainfield, so I picked him up, brought him back to Plainfield to the BMV, paid his fee, and waited for him to pass the test, which he did on the first try!  Thereafter, we ran other errands before I took him home.  

I put out a bid on Facebook asking for recommendations for driver's training.  I had a benefactor who volunteered that he'd like to pay for Bruce to get professional lessons.  An answer to unspoken prayer! However, that boat was slow to leave the dock, but before it did, the pandemic hit.  Virtually everything shut down except "essentials", but even the essentials were iffy.  

I think I figured that Bruce's family would then take over to teach him to drive.  That didn't happen due to (I think) vehicle insurance reasons.  Thus, we waited out the pandemic, and when things began to open up again, we discovered that his learner's permit had expired.  It was also his main means of ID.  He did a little research via phone calls, only to be told that he needed to take the test again.  Okay...

I picked him up and brought him back to the BMV a couple of years later to retake the test and renew his permit.  Somehow, he failed the test.  So...where did this leave us now?  I started nagging him to study for the test (again), but he was dragging his feet.  (I don't blame him!)  Then, he found out through other means that he had been wrongly informed.  All he needed to do was pay a fee to renew his permit rather than start over from scratch.  That was a relief!

So, once again, I picked him up and took him to the BMV.  I handed him cash for the fees and sent him in.  He came out far too quickly.  It seems that, since his address had changed since his original permit was issued, he needed to supply a piece of mail with his new address on it.  (He had NOT been told that when he inquired about what documentation was required.)  I hesitated for a moment or two before deciding that I would take him back to his apartment to pick up a piece of mail with his address on it and go back to the BMV.  

Once again, he came out too soon.  He hadn't been made to understand that the piece of mail with his address on it also had to have his name on it.  What he had picked up was a piece of "Occupant" mail; so, once again, we were thwarted.  I wasn't willing to burn another trip to Mooresville and back.  Fortunately, Bruce has an "associate" with social services who was willing and able to take him back to the BMV the next day.  Mission accomplished!  Has he found driver's training yet?  No.  Does he have a driver's license yet?  No.  Will this happen in my lifetime?  Who knows!

Paying Bills:

One time, Bruce owed some money to the apartment complex in which he lives.  I took him, cash in hand, to the office to pay the bill.  He came out very shortly to say that they wouldn't accept cash.  He needed a personal check or money order.  Although he had a bank account, he didn't have checks.  

I took him to his bank to order checks.  Most banks will give temporary checks to be used until real ones come in--but not his.  Although I had given him cash to pay for it, his bank informed him that check order fees have to come out of his account.  He wasn't working at the time and didn't have the $20 or so in his account.  Mission thwarted.  He was advised that money orders are cheaper, but money orders require transportation to go to the places where they are issued. 

Jump forward many months.  He's working now--part time--like 12 hours a week, so he has a little money in his bank account.  I took him, once again, to order checks--this time, successfully.  Now he's a big boy!  But what a red tape runaround it has been!

Establishing Benefits: 

In the fall, Bruce was trying to get help with utility payments.  He wasn't working then.  He did have rent assistance through his government housing; he did have food stamps and Medicaid; but he had no income with which to pay his gas and electric bills.  He was seeking assistance with utilities through the state for the winter, and somehow, he needed to provide his Social Security card.  (Not merely his number.)  He didn't have it, and his mother couldn't find it, so he was launched into a process to replace his lost card before anything else could be accomplished.  He needed ID (hence, the need for the driver's permit), birth certificate, and other forms of ID in order to get his SS card replaced.  It took weeks.  Only then could he apply for energy assistance.  It only goes through winter, so we'll see how thing pan out during warmer temps.

Clothing:

Bruce is a big boy and growing.  Finding him clothing that will fit has become more and more difficult.  He gets food stamps from the government which buy less and less as prices go higher and higher.  He tends to buy what he likes rather than what is healthy.  He's had meetings with nutritionists, but what they advise falls on deaf ears.  Bruce eats a lot of comfort foods, without apology, and if one takes him out to eat, he prefers buffets.  Pizza is his drug of choice.

Finding clothing that will fit Bruce has become a problem.  He's into 5-6X men's sizes, and they get expensive and hard to find.  Since his income from his part time employment is limited, he is reluctant to spend what he has on clothing (unless it has a NASCAR theme).

Bottom line:  

We go round and round on the poverty carousel with Bruce.  Me, as a person who cares.  His mother as an invested person without much ability to help.  His cousin whose help is spotty but welcome.  The county's social services that can only help so far...  If there is someone in your life who is in the poverty loop through no fault of their own, may Heaven bless you for any effort you make to help.  There, but for the grace of God, go we all.

           

    

Procrastination is My Middle Name!

 I've been wrestling with the devil for days.

I was so proud of my autistic friend Bruce for biting the bullet and spending some of his hard earned money on some new pants--specifically, three pairs of jeans. They arrived unhemmed, so I volunteered to hem them for him. After all, I've done lots of sewing in my day...blah, blah.

I picked up the pants from him on Saturday, knowing that he had to have at least one pair done for work on Tuesday. Had the whoooole weekend to work on them. Took the rest of the day off.

On Sunday, I attended online church, then watched some TV--all the while knowing that I just needed to get started on those pants. But...they were heavy denim, which would be hard on my hands...and I knew they would take longer than usual...and I knew I wasn't going to be satisfied with the "by hand" results. But I haven't used my sewing machine in forever and had somewhat messed it up the last time I did. Needless to say, I didn't even get started on Sunday. This is where the devil-bargaining began.

Monday, I had to have at least one hemmed pair to take to Bruce for work on Tuesday. (He didn't have other pants to rely on. One had a rip, and one had lost a button. Neither fit.) I had the whole day to hem one pair of heavy denim jeans in order to get them to him by dark. (I don't drive after dark.)

I dragged my feet. I watched TV. I made some food. I kept telling myself that I needed to get started--get out my sewing box...find the best light to do the job...etc. An hour passed. Another hour passed. I was beginning to panic due to my own inaction.

Okay, so maybe I can do the measuring and pinning, and my friend Judy maybe has her sewing machine already set up and can do the stitching. I'll just do one pair on Monday. That will give me two days to do the others before Bruce needs them. Or, he could wear the finished pair twice in one week, which would give me a few more days to do the other two. OR, he could just wear old, ripped pants that don't fit until my brain can gear up. I was trying to make things easier on me. Panic set in. I didn't even call Judy...

All the while, the devil was screaming in my ear, "No! You volunteered! You procrastinated! Someone was counting on you, but you have failed! You have let Bruce down! Now you must suffer the consequences of your behavior! You must face shame and embarrassment!

And then...and then...a dove of peace descended over my head--along with a light bulb idea.

I got on my computer and Googled local clothing alteration shops. In two phone calls, I found a professional seamstress close by who was willing to hem all three pairs of jeans on short notice and have them ready by 5:30. (It was already after 2:00 PM.) The Heavens opened and a choir of angels sang The Hallelujah Chorus. I felt such relief! Yes, I had to pay her $12.50 for each pair of jeans hemmed, but it was worth every penny. Wish I had just done all of this on Saturday when I picked up the pants from Bruce. It would have saved me a whole weekend of anxiety.

Get thee behind me, Satan! I win this time!