Differences I Think You Need to Know

Hootenanny And Hoedown.  Wikipedia bears me out on some of this, as you know, only the parts I agree with on Wikipedia are correct.  A chili cook off and hoedown was announced at church.  I got all excited because I love country dancing and square dancing, chili I can take or leave.  I even wore me Scottishs plaid shirt.  Imagine my chagrin when the hoedown turned out to be a hootenanny.

What's the difference you say?  Well, let me enlighten you.  You dance at a hoedown and sing at a hootenanny.  You may sing at a hoedown but the primary activity is dancing.  Everybody can dance or not, it's up to you.  Singing may accompany instruments or not.  You don't dance at a hootenanny.  You listen to others sing songs everybody knows or you sing as well.  Either way I was dressed for the part.   Wiki attributes both the the Scotts and Appalachia. 

Who won the chili cook off?  I have no idea.  If I remember correctly it was the same person who won last year. 

Shut Up And Eat It, Glop, and Catch As Catch Can.  If you're hungry this may kill you appetite.  Shut up and eat it comes from my friend, Shirley's, mom.  Shirley says this is what her mom told Shirley and her sister when they complained about having to eat leftovers.

Glop was named by me.  Basically glop is the sound casserole makes when it hits the plate.  So glop is a synonym for casserole.  If you make glop from leftovers it could become shut up and eat it very quickly.  Leftover shut up and eat it becomes a tasty treat for the dog.  Don't have a dog, get one.  You've got to guard against the day you are faced with reheated leftover shut up and eat it glop.

You'll be glad to know you have control over catch as catch can.  Catch as catch can is whatever you make for yourself because no one else is going to cook.  You can simply make yourself a sandwich, cook something tasty, or eat chips and peanut butter, it's up to you.  So if you find yourself eating glop or shut up and eat it for catch as catch can, it's your own fault.

Blind and Legally Blind.  I copied this from http://lighthouse.org/about-low-vision-blindness/definition-legal-blindness/ to make sure I got the angle right.

legal blindness continues to be defined as best corrected visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye; or a visual field limitation such that the widest diameter of the visual field, in the better eye, subtends an angle no greater than 20 degrees, as measured with a Goldmann III4e or equivalent size stimulus.

Usually blind refers to someone who can't see at all.  Legally blind covers all kinds of low vision.  My daughter is legally blind without her glasses.  She is just fine with them.  My best eye is around 20/400 with glasses and my worse eye is about 20/638 with glasses.  People with narrow angles of view may be able to see 20/20 through the view they do have.  

Modem And CPU.  Only a very few of you need this one so I'll keep it short and sweet.  Your modem connects you to the internet or home network.  Usually your modem is inside your CPU.  The CPU is the box with all those cords and cables coming out of it.  You put CDs and DVDs into your CPU.  Your CPU houses gizmos like your mother board, heat sink, and heaven only knows what else.  Most important things on the CPU are the power button and those front USB ports. 

Out of the Mouths of......Everybody

You've heard the phrase, "Out of the mouths of babes".  Babes and small children have nothing on some of the thing's I've overheard or been told over the years.  Most are funny, others aren't socially or politically correct.  Enjoy.

My Youngest Daughter

"Daddy, I want yellow catchup on my hotdog."

"What are those great big things?  They're like CDs but huge!"  I told her they were records.  I went on to explain, "If it's a small record with a large hole it's a 45 and if it's large with a small hole then it's a 33.  Unwittingly, I had opened another flurry of questions.  What's a 45?  What's a 33?  Why did they play at different speeds?  You mean there's only one song on either side of a 45?  But it's bigger than a CD.

The Thanksgiving Andrea was three of four we had the Mormon missionaries over for dinner.  One of them managed to spill his glass of water.  I heard my little daughter sing out, "Oooooo, you spilled,  Mommy's gonna whup your butt." 

My Oldest Daughter

"You mean to tell me there's a thing that pops out when the turkey is done?
Me, "yes."  Like I couldn't believe the question, even from a non-cook.
"Do they put it in later or is the turkey born with it?"
I tell this because she posted it on Facebook when we got off the pone.  "I just found out there's a thingy that pops out of a turkey when it's done."

Her Driving

"I turned the corner and the bag of doughnuts I had on the passenger seat just flew off the seat and hit the floor.  I wasn't going that fast either."

"Why is that car still coming?  Doesn't he see me trying to back out?"  

Me.  "Why did you park in the no parking zone?"
Her.  "I had to go to the bathroom really bad.  I didn't think I'd be there long enough to get a ticket."

Her.  "I'm not paying this ticket.  I'm going to court.  That was a speed trap."
Friend. "But weren't you speeding"?
Her.  "Yes."  She talked about how the officer had stopped thirteen or fourteen cars coming down that hill in a short amount of time.  "That's a speed trap, I'm going to court".
Friend.  Told my daughter to pay the ticket because she was guilty and court would be a waste of time.
My daughter went to court.  The officer didn't show so my daughter didn't have to pay.  Hmmm.

"Railroad Tracks."  That means hold on because she isn't going to slow down. 

Man at Sheltered Workshop in Salt Lake City

This one isn't funny.  I cried and cried after he said this.  Unfortunately, he was only a little bit wrong.  He said I wasn't going to get a job anywhere other than a sheltered workshop.  No one was going to hire me because of my eyesight.  I used to look forward to having a wonderful job, seeing this man, and showing him how wrong he had been.  Instead, I realize for the most part he was being brutally honest.  Here's an exerpt from a post a did a few years ago on Wanda's World and Wanda Logic.

"What do you do for work?" people used to ask me.  "Look,"  became my standard reply.  That was true, I looked for work.  The only exception was while I lived in Utah.  There I worked my way up from fast food restaurants to the high end Mulboones.   

I started looking after I graduated from high school.  I didn't get hired so I went to college.  I didn't get hired so I got Married.  I got divorced and did the fast food thing.  While working fast food I looked for better work.  After we moved back to Pine Bluff I looked for work some more.  I even got an expert certification in Microsoft Office to prove to an employer  that I could use a computer.   In 2007 I gave up looking.  I had been looking since 1979.  The trigger point happened when two people whom I had known for ten years asked, "Can you see to do that?"  I was floored, astonished, astounded, and even gobsmacked.  People whom I had known for ten years were asking me if I could see to do a copy editor's job.  That did it.  Some, maybe many, would disagree, but I was through.  No more taking the bus to places to fill out applications or interview, no more explaining what I could and couldn't see, no more explaining to a prospective employer that I can work in a fast paced, cluttered, demanding, etc, environment without hurting myself.  If people I had know for a long time didn't realize I could do a job, how in the world could I convince someone I just met?

Civic Pride

My youngest daughter an I were scouting out neighborhoods in Metro Atlanta before we move there.  While waiting at the bus stop in a part of Atlanta which will remain nameless; I questioned a fellow passenger.  I wanted to know what it was like to live around there.  "It's alright," he answered.

I expected an answer like that, but I was surprised by what he went on to say, "If you call the police they come, and it doesn't take them too long."

Unthinkable

I am chocolate brown.  My girls looked white when they were babies.  So I'm out with the baby and someone says, "Oh!  You're babysitting."  I'd correct them, "No, she's mine."  So the person made the next logical leap, "Oh, you adopted her!"  They just couldn't fathom this dark woman giving birth to a baby that white.  One woman went as far as to contradict me, "She had to get something from the mother."  FYI, Tom and Edwin are white.

Beazle

"I'm calling you for a quicky."  Then she'll ask her short question.  What is So And So's phone number?  Do you have any nutmeg"  Do you want to go to the store with me?

Man at Truck Stop

While massaging his scalp this man told Edwin and me to massage our scalps regularly.  You have to keep it loose.  If your scalp attaches to your head, it will kill you.   To this day I find myself checking my scalp for looseness.  I think it's beginning to attach a bit.  I wonder if I should massage more. 

Teenager At Church

When my youngest was a baby a teenager was playing with her at church.  "She's beautiful," gushed the teen, "She must take after her father."

Car Pooling

While riding home from church with another family, a girl turned to her brother and said, "Nobody likes you but God, and he has too".

 

  Person Offering Assistance

I declined the assistance because, "I'm not as blind as I look."
The would be helper's reply was, "Thank God!"

When

When I grow up, When I graduate from high school, When I graduate from college, When I get my first real job, When I start pulling in the big bucks,When I get married, When I have children, When, When, When.

Those Whens have come through, except for the big bucks.  I still find myself thinking When, but remember these Whens will not happen.  When my eyesight gets better, When my foot stops hurting, When I'll have significant funds left after the bills are paid, When I have the energy I used to have, When I have a house full of visitors.

I have these When thoughts because of books and television.  These characters are renewed each time we read a book again or watch a rerun.  When I watch Titanic, I think to myself, maybe the boat won't sink this time.  If the boat does sink maybe more people will be saved.  Maybe Jack won't die this time.  All the time knowing these things aren't going to happen.  The show will unwind as it always has.  I've watched The Waltons grow older and become young again many times.  Too bad in real life we get only one trip through.  

This must happen to everyone but it's hard to accept.  Maybe I could turn the house full of visitors into a reality but I don't know.  On one hand I enjoy people in small doses but on the other hand, I'd make a good hermit.   I do just fine on online forums but things go badly on social network sites and in person.  Too much cutesy crap on Facebook and few posts of any substance.  In person meetings tend to be someone wanting to borrow money, someone talking religion, or we both racking our brains for something to say.  Even on  occasions when I'd expect people to come they don't.  We were supposed to meet a my house after Dad's funeral.  Very few people showed up; most went to my aunt's house instead.  My sister stirred the hornet's nest by posting about it on Facebook.  My immediate family is scattered over the country so it's hard to meet up because of different days off and travel time.

I can see how and why older people become isolated.  I stay home more than I would like.  Walking long distances causes my feet to hurt.  It's a .61 mile walk to the bus stop.  Usually there's a parking lot to cross before getting to the main entrance to where I'm going.  Then I've got to retrace my steps to go home.  Para-transit is too expensive here to use on a regular basis.  The para-transit van costs four dollars each way.  On top of that para-transit has a half hour window on either side of your pick up time to show up.  And yes, I've waited an hour for the van to show.  Once aboard you may still ride around while they pick up and/or drop off other passengers.

I can still travel alone if I'm going some place I've been before.  Days of reading signs are over.  When I go somewhere new I take my daughter with me or take para-transit there and the bus back.

My list of Whens has changed.  When Andrea gets her driver's license, When I get 3000-5000 photos and video clips online,  When I get Kalani's Kandles up and running again, When I lose fifty pounds,  When I become a grandmother, When, When, When, some things never change.

   

Nineteen Eighty-four

My daughter is reading Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell, in literature class.  Because I got around to reading this book about a year ago we could have a discussion about the book.  It felt good to take a more active part in one of her courses.  My daughter is enrolled in the Georgia Cyber Academy.  It is a hybrid between traditional public school and home schooling.  I'll leave it at that for now.  Once I get started on home schooling versus public schooling I could go on and on. 

We talked about how technology has brought our society closer and closer to the world portrayed in Nineteen Eighty-four.  Here are a few examples we came up with; you may be able to think of more.

Language was being condensed to a few words in Nineteen Eighty-four.  The New Speak dictionary was being revised constantly.  Today language has been condensed to a few letters in text messages.  Written language has devolved into pictogram.  Open a word document and you'll see what I mean.  Icons for save, open, new, print, etc.  Space saving you may say, well a bathroom door has all kinds of space.  Many public restrooms simply display a plaque with an drawing of a man or woman. 

The poor man in Nineteen Eighty-four mentioned eating dry bread and drinking foul beer.  His food was rationed by the government.  Thank goodness we can buy and choose our food but that food is getting worse.  On December 29th of last year I bought my daughter a birthday cake.  Her birthday is on the 30th.  I wanted the cake to be fresh; I could have picked up her cake almost anytime.  The cake had an expiration date of some day in March.  Have you noticed some stores put their name brand cheese and orange juice substitute in the refrigerated section while others pile it up in the isle?  Have you checked the expiration date on this so called cheese or orange juice?  It lasts half of forever.  Am I the only one who noticed how chicken breasts are pumped full of hormones?  They've got to be twice the size they were a few years ago.  Hormone pumped chicken breasts is a double edged sword.  Prices for boneless, skinless chicken breasts have been the same for the last twenty-five plus years.  Only difference, back then the chicken came frozen in five pound hunks and now it's sold fresh.  If I ever do a Hall Of Shame post I'll talk about how several restaurants have lowered the quality of their food.  Cooking from scratch has morphed into take a convenience food and add to it.  Call me behind the times but I don't trust a machine to mix, knead, and bake my bread all by itself.  I'm not a foodie.  I'm not a health food junkie.  Okay, those who know me get off the floor and stop laughing.  I can discern the quality of the food I eat and it has gone down.  Here I'm comparing conditions in Nineteen Eighty-four with today.
 
You've heard the phrase, "Lies, damn lies, and statistics".  The example that stuck with me in the book was the government cut the chocolate ration by twenty percent.  A very short time later the government announced good news; the chocolate ration will be raised twenty percent.  A ploy to make the government look good and the people feel good.  If you don't think about it you'll say, the people are back to the original amount of chocolate.  Actually they still have less.  Twenty percent of one hundred is eighty, and twenty percent added to eighty is ninety-six.  Recently a Congresswoman got her numbers out of whack when talking about budget cuts.  

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) had a dire prediction for America about sequestration, claiming that 170 million jobs would be lost as a result of the across-the-board cuts. But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are only about 140 million jobs in the whole country.http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/28/Rep-Maxine-Waters-Inflates-Sequester-to-170-Million-Jobs-Lost

In Nineteen Eighty-four all information came from the government.  Decenters were ridiculed or imprisoned. Periodic and frequent "Hates" were  compulsorily held.  Today we still have media with one or the other leaning.  We can choose liberal or conservative but there is little to no balanced reporting. Put a liberal on a conservative program and the host will make that liberal sound ridiculous.  Put a conservative on a liberal program and you get the same result, this time the conservative will look like an idiot.  It's all about ratings.   Conservatives have talk radio sewed up while liberals have television.  

The telescreen in Nineteen Eighty-four is still with us.  Like then, we are being watched everywhere we go.  Our governments haven't installed surveillance cameras and listening devices in each and every house but we are watched when we go out.  Not only do banks and stores have cameras but so do every Tom, Dick, and Harry.  A YouTube video of an argument and fight on a bus comes to mind.  If you're around people there's a chance your picture may end up on the Internet.  People post anything and everything to Facebook and YouTube.  The government may or may not be watching you but billions have the ability to watch if they are so inclined.  Think you can speed when no police are in sight, remember photo-cop?  Swat you misbehaving brat on the butt in public and some do-gooder is liable to track you down and report you to Child Protective Services.  Last year there was lots of talk about government listening in on suspected terrorists' phone conversations.  Now tell me again how these people got to be suspected in the first place.  I remember a radio broadcast taking about this.  The guest was explaining how they listen for certain words.  If they hear these words they continue to listen.  If they don't hear these words, they stop listening.  So how long and to whom do they listen?

You can run but it better be for exercise.  You will find it hard scrabble to run and hide these days.  First, you will need an unlimited supply of cold hard cash.  Nothing electronic and I mean nothing.  On top of that you'd better be careful with the amounts of cash you spend and the places you spend it.  Say you've gotta get out of Dodge.  Tell no one, if you can't keep it secret why should anybody else.  Don't go any place you've talked about or searched your computer about.  You can't hop a plane because the cameras at the airport will see you.  Plus, you can't buy your ticket with cash because that is how terrorists bought their tickets.  So you disguise yourself and take a bus.  You get to the back of beyond, where will you live?  Hot bed and flea bag motels take cash, no questions asked.  You'll leave a paper trail at a rental agency or with a landlord.  You can't buy a house because the IRS will eventually want to know where all that money to purchase that house came from.  You can buy another cell phone but who are you going to call?  You left your old cell phone in Dodge because of the GPS.  All your numbers were stored in that phone and you can't remember anything except the area code.  You need to stay inside as much as possible so you don't end up on Facebook.  Now Facebook has the technology to know who you are because people insist on posting and tagging every picture they take.  The days of changing your name and moving out west are over.

I am going somewhere with the above paragraph.  We all know we can be tracked with the GPS in our cell phones.  We know our credit card use can be tracked as well.  I learned that our Breeze Card activity is also recorded.  FYI, a Breeze Card is basically a stored value card used on the Atlanta public transportation system, MARTA.  My youngest daughter lost her Breeze card on the train.  We immediately went to one of MARTA's ride stores and explained what happened.  Because I had registered our cards we are entitled to fare replacements if the card is lost.  The agent said she could see where and when my daughter's card was used.  The agent was able to quickly transfer my daughters fares to another card and deactivate the lost one.  We're talking about less than an hour from when my daughter used the card and the agent seeing when and where it was used.  I don't think MARTA gave this perk to register our Breeze cards so they can track our movements; but the capability is out there.  If they need it, they've got it.  I thought the agent would say something like you had so much value on the lost card so I'll replace it with an equal amount.  It was naive of me not to make the leap, if she can tell how much value the old card has she can also know where it's been. 

Remember, Big Brother is Watching.

No CPR

Who would have thought my first post would be newsworthy?  At least it's current today, probably forgotten by the time this comes out.  Today the announcers are talking about a nurse in California, (Doesn't these things usually happen in California,) refusing to give CPR to an elderly lady in a nursing home.  The elderly lady died before the ambulance could get to her.  The call lasted seven minutes.  The 911 operator was trying to get the nurse to either perform CPR or get someone, anyone, who would.  The 911 operator asked, "Is there anyone there who can perform CPR?".  The nurse replied, "Not at this time."   The nursing home stood by their employee saying it is their policy to call 911 and not perform CPR.

On the surface this incident seems callus, horrific, and simply unbelievable.  How could a nurse just stand there while a person dies in front of her?  What is the world coming to?  I'm not saying this isn't a terrible and inexcusable thing, I'm not saying the nurse did right either.  I am saying at this point we don't have all the facts.  It makes a good news story as it stands and that is the reason it went national.

We don't know if the lady who died had a do not resuscitate (DNR) order.  We don't know if the nursing home only takes people who have do not resuscitate orders. There is much we don't know about this case or the conditions agreed upon before residents chose this particular nursing home.

I've told my family I don't want heroics performed to save my life if the quality of my life would be compromised.  I also have an Advance Directive spelling these things out, unfortunately it was drawn up in a different state than where I now live.  But until I get it re-done, my family knows my wishes.  I know for a fact if I were in a nursing home no matter what my age I wouldn't want to be resuscitated.