Putting things back

The book by Judith Flanders called “A Place for Everything” and “The Address Book” by Deirdre Mask are both about inventing systems of location, such as where to put materials in a library and how to give useful addresses to buildings in a large city.  Sometimes, new materials such as slide/tapes are invented and somebody has to figure a plan for storage and retrieval.  

It is nice when we can find something we are looking for but after we finish using it, it has to be put back.  When I open the dishwasher to a batch of now-all-clean dishes, glasses, bowls and silverware, they each have to be put back where they “belong” for finding again when next needed

Updates

Parents of a newborn baby expect many changes in the new child.  That baby will get bigger.  When she reaches a certain age, she will marry and maybe work with a partner to make another new born.  We humans live with steady updates and changes.  But those are not the updates that flummox me.  It is when the buttons that do this and that on a computer or other device are in different places.  And where is that button that used to do that thing?  I can’t find it at all.

Mis-heard

Two friends on the phone together.  One explains what her granddaughter is up to.  The other hears that the young lady is going to run a nail salon.  She expresses surprise.  The speaker explains that is not what she said.  She said that she was going to run a marathon. As we age, accurate hearing can be more difficult.

Old age with Google

I looked up which Apple product brought the company the most income and got an answer that it has been the iPhone.  I have an iPhone but I don’t use it much. I also have an Apple watch but I don’t use it at all.  I am a poor typist, often striking the wrong key or two keys.  But I do use an iPad to check questions and ideas with the internet and with my memory getting more and more fallible and stalled, I am grateful to have access to the Google “search engine” and its results. 

What miracles we are!

When reading on a Kindle or the Kindle app on an iPad, it is easy and quick to mark statements of interest, “highlights”.  The Kindle technology makes saving or sending a file of the highlights I make from a book convenient.  When our book group discussed D. Eagleman’s “Incognito”, I looked over my highlights for it.  As I asked myself what I had taken away from that book, it seemed my basic reaction is what miracles we are.  

We don’t understand our bodies or minds.  Not completely.  Only a few centuries back, some Europeans were accusing others of being in league with the devil.  To see what we are up to today, take a look at “Replaceable You” by Mary Roach.

Events from a divorce

My parents divorced when I was in the 4th grade.  I was too young then to question or praise them as I would now.  I am grateful for the education and experiences they gave me but I never really told either of them that, especially not the way I could now. 

I don’t feel I know much about how they met each other, what got them paired.  I have one sibling and she might have knowledge or insight into them.  I think the divorce was prompted much by the low income they had.  My mother sought boarders to supplement her income and one of them eventually became my stepdad.  He was a very different sort of person from my father and I benefitted from his stepdadding.

Influences

I just participated in a discussion of the book by David Eagleman entitled “Incognito”.  It basically mentions parts of us that are unconscious but important in our lives.  Americans like to emphasize that we have minds of our own and can make up those minds about issues, questions and decisions that come up.  To a large extent, that seems to be true: we can believe and do what we want.  But and it is a big but, parents, siblings, neighbors, officials, teachers, partners, and others have important influences on us.  That doesn’t mention that we change, from birth to child to adolescent to young adult to older adult to old adult.  It is a wonder we manage to do as well as we do!

Is the 23rd Psalm ok?

I have said the 23rd psalm many times.  The 2nd line says “I shall not want”.  In modern language, that translates into “I will definitely not want”.  But, you know that we moderns depend on want.  Not want in the old sense of needing things I don’t have, but in the modern merchandise sense of desire for a new improved product that vastly outshines the older dusty version of yesterminute.

Understanding a phone message

Voice mail messages are recordings of someone speaking.  The voice may be a high one, the words may be spoken quickly.  Too high, too quick and I cannot understand what was said.  Luckily, my wife is willing to listen to the recording and tell me in a way I understand what the message is.

Columbus and Indigenous Peoples Days

Today is officially both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day.  I am grateful for my life in the US but I am sorry for gunpowder, diseases and other burdens that came to people already living in the hemisphere with the Italian explorer backed by the Spanish royal government