Why have a landline?

I have been experimenting with something recently. I never answer our landline. I then use the *69 feature to see who was calling. Often it is blocked but just as often it is a phishing call or a robocall. I cannot believe how many of these there are. Who actually talks to them? Who actually gives their financial information to them? They must be mildly successful since there are so many of them.

Why have a landline? It is tied up with our internet connection but we can get around that, I think. I have trained most of my family and friends to only use my cell phone. There is a message on the landline to call my mobile to get ahold of me. I also include it at the end of every email you get from me.

I wonder if anyone else has the same experience with the robocalling phishing scammers? Does anyone see a problem with not having a landline? My cell may break, but would that be the worst thing in the world to be detached from a phone for a few days?

When we had the early Halloween snow storm this year, we were without electricity for over 2 days. Our landline died before our cell phones, and we could go somewhere to recharge them, so I think in an emergency the cells might be more effective.

SO help me out here, please! Do you have the same experience with calls? Have you considered dropping your landline? Am I crazy to be contemplating it?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

New hot water bottle on it's way

I cannot remember which wise person I learned this from. It might have been a member of my womens group or another group I belong to.

On these nights during the cold winter months, about 15 minutes before bed time I fill a hot water bottle, and put it under the covers of my side of the bed. When I arrive, my bed is warm, and my feet don't freeze.

Last winter, at the end of the winter, the hot water bottle sprung a leak. It was a small leak, but nevertheless, a leak. Our second hot water bottle also had a small leak so I pitched that as well. I did my research and read the reviews and last night ordered a new one online. Why did I not visit our local pharmacy you ask? I looked and they are not the same quality. Even some of the reviews about the one I purchased, mentioned that often ones bought at CVS or Walgreens are inferior.

This is such a small purchase, and one I am so excited to receive. This routine of warming the bed has happened for many years. Before central heating there were in fact bed warmers.

As the temperature was 12 degrees when I left for yoga this morning, the USPS shipment cannot come soon enough! - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Christmas present

Sunday afternoon I spent a relaxed two hours listening to a reading of "A Christmas Carol" in front of a fire in our church's Parker Hall. This is an annual tradition.

Dan Fenn, a member of our congregation, reads the story, the fire roars, and cookies and cider are consumed part way through the two hours. Time stood still, or crawled very slowly, as I listened to Dicken's story. I imagined what Christmas was like for the characters in the story.

I must admit that my mind occasionally wandered during the two hours and to-dos entered my mind but just like in yoga or meditation, I kept bringing my attention back to the story. There were some there, who were hearing Dan read it for the first time, and there were others, two of his offspring were there, who have heard it every Christmas Eve of their lives either read by Dan, Dan's father, or Dan's grandfather.

I cherish the traditions that my family has like this and I cherish the opportunity to spend 2 hours listening to an old story and sliding peacefully into this season of lights and miracles and traditions and family.

It is a challenge to live in the present in this season of high expectations for a perfect holiday created by Walmart or Kohl's advertising. For those two hours, for the most part, I was present with the story. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Christmas "Card" 2011

Friends and Family,

We missed our letter last year so here is a whirlwind travel through our two years.  When we last wrote our letter we were headed to Thailand to visit Bethany who was in the middle of a Comparative Religion and Culture Junior year abroad program.  Our ten days with her were wonderful.  Fortunately the three of us will never tire of visiting temples since we went to many of them in Chang Mai, Thailand and Siem Reap, Cambodia. Rodney still can't quite get over the whole Angkor Wat World Heritage site.

In January of 2010, Rodney joined our church choir, Sally followed him a few months later and they have been regular tenor and alto ever since.  In February we had two great adventures in Vermont.  We skated across a beautiful frozen lake for two miles to Knight Island and back as part of the Great Ice.  We were joined on this spectacular day, by George and Judy, who moved to Burlington Vt, December 2009, and our Lexington friends, the Svenson/Jas clan.  We also hosted the Coniston Winter Olympics complete with cross country skiing down our mound and a fox and geese game in the snow.

In April, we travelled to Vero Beach for a weekend visit with Mom and Charlie.  Mom and I discovered during this trip that we can carry on several conversations at once and know which one, the other one is in.  The men in our family, who cannot, were so patient with us that weekend and always, as we jumped from subject to subject, sometimes mid-sentence.

May took us to Bermuda on a cruise to celebrate 25 years of knowing each other.  We visited the Robin Hood Pub where we first met, and went to several beautiful beaches, all on the excellent bus/ferry system of Bermuda.  We really relaxed during our days at sea and did our laps of the deck for exercise, to work off some of the calories we were taking in at meals.

On our way to a wedding in California of some Star Island friends Bethany and I stopped off in Denver to visit a Theology school Bethany is considering applying to and we were able to get to know the city a little before we moved on to join Sally for a few days in San Francisco.

September brought us one of the happiest events of the last two years when Chris and Meg were married in a wonderful ceremony held in a large tent on our property in Vermont. The weather was perfect and the whole event was even better. All of Sally's family was able to attend including all of Chris's cousins which was amazing considering they are almost all away at college. Six of his English family were able to attend and it was the first time they had ever met some of his American relatives. A large group of Meg's Moore family with Sally's large Russell clan on top of a Lowe and Swartzbaugh contingent added up to a very good time had by all.

The most significant event in our lives for the whole two years was probably Sally's retirement in December 2010.  It was a hard decision to leave a great place to work, but a year later I am glad I made this decision. You can always find out what I am up to, including what I am up to in retirement by going to my blog, sally-alwaysaskingwhy.blogspot.com.

Another very significant event our lives was the graduation of Bethany from Global College in May this year and her return from Brooklyn saw the arrival of Shakes the wonder cat who she adopted because she though his neurological problems would hinder his adoption by anyone else. However he endears himself to everyone with his inability to behave like a cat physically while at the same time has the same 'world revolves around me' attitude of all cats

This year we took a trip to visit with Rod's English family, especially Olive and Winter our young grandnieces who we had yet to meet in person. It was a delight visiting them and the rest of the family many of whom hadn't been able to make it over for Chris and Meg's wedding. We also took the opportunity while on the way to the Northeast to take a couple of side-trips to visit American friends Andy, Miriam and Jake who had moved to Islington so we were introduced to a part of London we would not normally have seen. And we also we very happy to reconnect with friends Anne and David in Aylesbury who we are ashamed to say we had not seen in 15 years or more.

After a sad trip to Sally's Uncle Chuck's memorial service in Nebraska in June we agreed on the spot to return later in the year to catch up with as many of the Colorado cousins as we could. We kept that promise by returning in September and spent most of our time being hosted by Sally's cousin Nancy, who she had grown up with in Yampa, and husband Rex. We basically shadowed these beef ranchers as they did their daily work and we agreed that our lifestyles are about as far apart as it is possible to get. We were also really pleased to get to know Patrick, Sally's nephew a little better. His parents do the beef ranching and he does the crop farming. Having spent time with the military in Iraq he came back with all sorts of ideas about how to prevent turning his land into the same dustbowl he saw in the Middle East. Sally and I were captivated as we learned about how 'no-till' farming can improve the organic content of his soils and improve its moisture content. The trip was enhanced by a wonderful canoe  trip down the Niobrara River paddling alongside a swimming beaver, barely missing being trampled by a scared 4 point buck and taking an unexpected bath (Nancy and Rod’s canoe) after a disagreement with a downed tree.

We end the year in a very happy place and as always continue to count our blessings. One kid happily married and now living in Coniston, our Vermont home where we can still visit and stay in the loft whenever we want. Another kid launched with a nice job working as a legal assistant, while she applies to Theology schools, and living fairly close by so we see her regularly. Sally is happily retired and fills each day with friends, health and hobbies. Rodney is happy in his work and has found his artistic medium in charcoal and pastels.

Our Christmas wishes for a Happy New Year extend to you and your family, the economy and our government, and an ever present hope for world peace encouraged by the Arab Spring tempered by a power shift in North Korea. 

Where to find Holiday Spirit?

I don't have a long list of errands to run for the holiday season but I have a few so I ventured out today to knock off a few.  I ventured to the local LL Bean store and their shared parking lot was a "parking lot" in traffic commentator lingo.

I was not in a hurry so I spotted someone getting into their car, and pulled into that aisle with my correct blinker on waiting for his spot.  In the meantime another car pulled into the aisle and was going to pull into a spot opposite the one I was signaling for, which was about to be vacant. 

Boston drivers will not understand some of this post and I apologize in advance for that.

It would have made more sense for her to take the spot I had my eye on and for me to take hers, but I figured I had already committed and since I am not in a hurry I could wait for the gentleman to adjust his mirrors, put on his seat belt, count the money in his wallet, phone his wife and then turn the car on.  I was being patient though, honest I was.

The other driver stopped, and in hand signals asked me if I was pulling into the other spot.  Through a series of hand signals and I do not mean middle finger gestures, I assured her that I was waiting for the other spot and she pulled into the one that was vacant.   I jumped out and thanked her for checking with me to see if I wanted to pull into the vacant spot.

This whole experience surprised me, since my experience is that Boston drivers would cut you off for the parking spot, and never would they stop and check to see if you wanted the one they were about to pull into.  They might pull in and then ask you, but the point is moot then.

That was the first place I found Holiday spirit today.

The second place was Trader Joe's.  I was going to go to Market Basket where the prices are cheaper, but I had an errand at Trader Joe's so I bought my groceries there today.  ALL of the clerks were genuinely in a good mood and happy, unless they hire a lot of actors.  The aisles are wide and the place is clean and organized.  The check out person, when I presented my canvas bag and asked to try to fit it all in, helped me in my effort to put it all in so I did not have to take a paper or plastic bag.  He understood that by bringing my own bag I am doing what I can for the environment and we had a real conversation about that.  My experience at Market Basket and Stop and Shop is that they fight me and try to give me plastic bags when I bring my own.  "Are you sure you don't want this is a separate bag?" they ask me at Market Basket.  So the second gift I got today, was a 15 minute shopping adventure at Trader Joe's and genuinely happy workers.

These are silly and simple gifts, but they are gifts, and they are where I found the Holiday spirit today.

Holiday Workshop 2011 - an antidote

Our Church has an event early in December called the Holiday Workshop.  I documented it for other churches to use and it has it's own blog. Here is the history of it and some of the craft projects that have now been made for decades at this event.

This is by far my favorite inter-generational event at First Parish.  For three hours, I let go of the need to "buy" a perfect Christmas.  Over the years my need to buy has diminished to almost nothing, however, I know those advertising execs are really smart, and subliminally the commercialization is creeping into my mind.  The holiday workshop is an antidote to the Walmart and Kohls advertisements. 

Last Saturday, there was a new project making stained glass windows out of tissue paper.  I spent 2 hours there, making mine and then helping others make theirs.

It is so simple to put on a holiday workshop, little financial investment and the joy it brings to almost all participants is amazing.  The fire place has a warm fire, stories are read by the fire, cider and cookies are consumed and home made presents are assembled.  It is not about the gift but rather the time we spent helping each other, talking to each other, being with each other is warm community.

We talked last Saturday about having an event like this Quarterly, rather than once a year.  That is how much it means to participants.  They want more of this kind of activity.  It is absolutely the perfect way to enter the holiday season, contrary to what the designers of Black Friday advertising want me to believe.

I won't be defeated by technology

I refuse to be defeated by technology.  For a few weeks now, my iphone and ipad calendars have had something funky going on.  Funky is a technical term BTW.  Yesterday, I started getting alerts on my iphone and ipad which I had not been getting before.  New feature I thought.  Actually it turns out that another calendar account on the ipad and iphone were associated with another family member's calendar, and that calendar has alerts set up.  My calendar was not the default.  HMMMMM?  I had deleted and re-added my email account three weeks ago to try to fix the problem, and during that process the default calendar changed.

It was not really bothering me a lot, however, I knew that at some point I would have to resolve it.  Why today?  I had a few minutes and I was mildly frustrated with having to look at both iphone and ipad for calendar entries.  I was cruising along, comparing my desktop yahoo calendar with ipad and iphone and then . . .
BIG MISTAKE:  I deleted my account on the iphone with any calendar events which I had input there.  At first I was pretty peeved with myself, but being the quintessential Pollyanna, I knew I could recover from that.  I would have to find out what recent events I had input into just the iphone, e.g. hair dressing appointment in January.  I will have to "Think like Sally" to recover all of those.  (If I blow you off in the next few weeks, here is my apology in advance.)  Sorry.

I searched some Apple forums, and other people have had the same problem (sync between Yahoo calendar and Iphone) recently and it is not clear whether it is an Apple or Yahoo problem.  I don't care, I just want my ipad, iphone and desktop to reflect the same calendar, and for now they do.

On to the next problems of duplicated contacts on my iphone, which meekishly I tell you has gone on for months.  Better duplicated than deleted and gone forever.
Bottom line is I am willing to put up with inaccuracies for a bit, but sooner or later, I want that technical challenge and I jump in.  This explains why a prior career of mine was as a computer programmer.  I love finding bugs, and am convinced that I will always find it, or them. 
Today, Technology did not defeat me, and only briefly did I think it might.