Read All About It

 I know that print is soon to be dead, and the newspaper industry is struggling. I have subscribed to both local newspapers seven days a week for many years. But lately, I've been throwing stacks of newspapers into the recyclable bin, without even having opened their pages. I feel a lttle guilty doing so, but I spend much of my time on the computer where  all the news that was formerly fit to print appears, in a more user-friendly format, as far as eyesight and rotator cuff extensions are concerned. And I do the daily puzzles online, limiting myself to wordle, Connections and Spelling Bee, which can eat up a considerable amount  of time. So the main reasons for my newspaper subscriptions, Cryptoquote and Cryptoquip, have largely been replaced by online offerings.

  My Times Union subscription expired the end of August, and shortly before, I had received a call from the Times Union offering subscription renewal. (I realize that this is a service authorized by the owners of the publication, and is separate from the T.U.)   I told the caller I was not interested in subscribing at that point in time. (The rates had increased and I've only been opening the Sunday issue which carries the NYT weekly Crossword. I didn't discuss that reasoning though.)  Both papers have been being delivered daily, but sometimes the carrier will deliver extra papers if he has them, especially since my subscription to the Troy Record is still in effect. I gave the subject no further thought.

 Until today, when I received  a call about subscribing to the Times Union. I picked up, even though the call was noted as potential spam. The caller said she was offering a special rate if I renewed online and that I had a present balance of $116. I said I was not ruling out future subscribing. I added that I could not have a balance because I had not renewed my subscription. Her chummy demeanor rapidly changed as she told me that then I would be receiving a bill in the mail. She hung up.  

 

 

No Time for Small Talk

 Of course it's now true that most people are communicating with their phones rather than in person. But  the absence of in-person conversation  is even more apparent for those of advanced age, i.e. the elderly as we are known. Since my childhood and youth, and then early years of maturity, I would often be invited by older community members to "sit and chat," with them, whether in the village library, the neighborhood store, or on  their front porches. And that was easy enough and the polite thing to do, and almost all of those requests for a chat were occasions for those senior citizens to recount the events remembered from their past. Many of those conversations became familiar to me because the narrator tended to repeat the  familiar significant treasured memories from their youth.

 That was then and, in the now, everything has changed. As is inevitable. Think Leonard Cohen's words in song, "All my friends are gone and my hair is gray..." When your friends and contemporaries are indeed gone from your life, it is a surety that there will not be a young, or younger, set of ears willing to listen to you recount your past triumphs or woes. Move on, is the message, as in being told you're repeating yourself, or being reminded of irrelevancies. 

But connections to the past and present are inevitable, and who knows, maybe a link to preserving mental acuity. 

  Personal  case in point:  yesterday was a day of a procedural action, September 17, 2025.  I remember that we, my sister and I, started college on September 17, so many years ago, but the memory lives on. As I recall, there was little or no communication between the time when we received our acceptance letters and the date we were told to report to campus. At the mandated Compulsory Convocation, the entire class was required to attend and hear the Dean advise us that we were the largest class ever admitted, over 300 students, and that the class size would be reduced by semester's end, by one-third. "Look to your right', he said, and "Look to your left. One of you will not be here by January."  I looked and saw Dorothy on my right and Ruth on my left. A shiver went through me. We had all passed the rigorous entrance tests but I knew my sister was more proficient at studying and my friend was more ambitious and adaptable, so I figured I'd be the one leaving.  But there is no place in my world for this type of memory, even though it arises unbidden, (except for you, Dear Blog.)  As is true of so many other memories or views best left unspoken. We'll see about unwritten. 

 I have seen, many times over, in different capacities, it seems the come-on hook, "Always carry a bread-clip in your wallet."  I deliberately ignored reading why scores of times, but in a moment of weakness one day, opened the site for the wisdom. Now I know why I should carry that bread clip, but no one wants to hear, or talk about it. 

Even adding this to my own blog could be  a Jimmy Kimmel transgression.I suppose.

 

  

Another Dream Resucitation

 I need to write down the dream as I recall it, or else wisps of what's remembered keep intruding on my thoughts. It's been a long time since  a dream has had a nightmare quality, so here it is----Begone!

I had to drive to a  place to get a paper of some sort signed. I was familiar with the location, had driven there many times before, assuming this drive would be as easy and comfortable as before. But the traffic was horrendous, one woman in a white car cutting me off by being in the wrong lane and almost colliding with my car. I felt a sense of dread, mixed with terror, thinking I could not get through the traffic safely. 

I arrived at my destination and entered the building, or rather a complex, searching to find my way to the right office. I saw Dave sitting at one of the public computer stations. He had arrived there separately,  was wearing a yellow shirt, and looked a lot like Danny. He directed me to where I wanted to go. I tried to present my paper to the woman in charge, who was sitting against the wall at a  table outside the office. But she needed some more information or something. Dave arrived, still in that yellow shirt, and tried to help. It struck me that in his interaction with the woman there were absolutely no words exchanged between them, not a single syllable. But it seemed to have gotten the desired effect. 

 I was ready to go home, paper problem resolved, but I had trouble finding the way out of the winding routes of the complex. I spotted the exit area and felt a great sense of relief. There was an interior door leading to the exterior exit door. As I approached the door, a man was apparently ready to exit but he held the door for me and motioned me to leave. It troubled me though that he wanted me to go out the door before he did. The man was ordinary looking at first sight, though everything about him was a shade of gray. His hair, even his beard in the current scruffy style, was gray and the  well-coiffed hair on his head a silvery gray, though he appeared to be a youngish to middle-aged man, dressed in a well-tailored gray business suit. 

  His mannerisms and body language that insisted that I leave just ahead of him concerned me so I stepped back and went looking for Dave to help me. The man followed me to where Dave was still sitting. Maybe I expected Dave to say something, but instead he drew out a huge sharp knife and flourished it at the man, who retreated but not without shouting out his anger and threats of revenge. 

As I was trying to steel myself to leave and drive home, I came upon the man, this time walking with , and supporting, a crying woman. He was still angry, and threatening. I was filled with terror, but before I even got to leave the building, I heard a loud "Clunk" and I woke up in my own bed.

Cantankerous

 Might be age related or maybe it's the drugs, but I don't get angry any more, have not had a verbal dispute or argument in years, don't even flip off tailgaters, not even when I'm driving the speed limit and the yahoos insist the legal rate is 10 miles over the posted speed limit. 

  I know privacy is important and appreciate attempts by companies to preserve mine. But enough is enough. Today I got a call from Walgreen's. I usually don't answer, because all they can tell me is that my prescriptions are ready, or will be next week. But today I picked up their incoming call, and a human voice asked if I were the person being called. I said yes. She asked me for my DOB, which I admit to numerous times for almost every interaction. I asked her why she was calling, and she said she couldn't tell me until I gave her my DOB.  Would that be my privacy that's being protected or theirs?  I said no thanks, I'll go to the store in person.

"Remembrance of Things Past"

     It must be because summer is ending and fall is in the air. Every time  I walk past the pot of geraniums on the deck, the smell takes me back to my grandmother, and the distinctive odor of the geraniums in the little flower garden outside her kitchen window, where she always sat in her chair by the kitchen table. Of course, the geraniums were only seasonal, but it must have been my first association with them and now every time I see them, I think of Nanny in her house on the hill.  

  Another memory from the past:  Yesterday I did some laundry and as I was folding my  well-worn and dingy

dish towels, I had a vivid memory of my shopping days with Joanne C.  She and her husband had frequent weekend or longer house guests. She loved her house and housekeeping, and it seemed every time we went shopping, often at Boscov's, and she was expecting company, she would delight in picking  out new sets of tea towels, as she called them. 

Ah, memories, what are they good for...