December Bliss

This morning as I drove to work, the car themometer said, "10 degrees f."

As I entered Salt Lake valley the trees were covered with fresh, white snow and it was a beautiful sight from within my cozy warm car (which I have set to maintain an internal temperature of 82 degrees f.).

The quality of my life is highly influenced by the temperature. I wear two pairs of socks, sweat shirt and pants, and often a blanket in my house. Yes, the house is heated. In my office, I have taped half of the air duct in the ceiling. Cool air comes whishing in, year round. I don't get the mechanics of that. I have a portable heater which was manufactured sometime in the 70's that was donated to my heating cause my a kind co-worker. It is turned on daily. Men come up to my doorway and bellow as they react to the heat!! No women complain.

Now there is a serious problem about shopping. There has been a decision in the state of Utah to design and build outdoor malls. This is a crazy idea - if you ask me. I was riding in a van pool the other day and another woman brought it up to me. This was gratifying as I realized I wasn't alone in my notions about the connection between "enjoyment, shopping, and physical comfort". She said that since Cottonwood Mall was now going to be like the Gateway Mall she didn't know what she was going to do about her shopping pleasure. I agreed with her - we're losing pleasure fast around here!! Who can stand to loiter around, have fun, spend money, and freeze?

I know plenty of people complain constantly about the heat. You have no idea how many people complain. I make no snide comments back. I try to understand their discomfort, their pain, their feelings of persecution due to the heat - and I say nothing.

November

Ideally November is a great month.

There are still some beautiful colored leaves hanging on to trees. I haven't had to shovel any snow so to speak. My boots are still in the back of my closet and my heaviest long coat remains on the hanger so far. This all means that November is going along pretty good.

I have only a few misgivings.

One thing that has caused shivers to run down my spine has been the gale force winds that push my hair and face backward everytime I step outside to buy gas or run anywhere between my car and a building. I have tried running backward, but then my face crumples forward - along with my hair.

Another thing is that every November, reporters go out to the malls and ask people if they are going to buy more or less this year than last on Christmas presents. Sure enough they've started asking people once again! And once again, people are giving the same answers, "same", or "less". What is that supposed to do for us? What kind of a news story is that year after year? I'm protesting. I say that's LAZY JOURNALISM, and a conspiracy against Christmas shopping, so there is JOURNALISM BIAS after all! Watch out for it!!!

Finally, I have had a rough time getting my car washed. I bought a car wash with a code number ten days ago. It will expire within 30 days. It's been wet on the streets since November started. I hope there is a remedy to this little issue. I certainly don't want to pay for a car wash and not be able to use it during these stressful economic times. I'm hyper-alerted to any specks of blue in the sky.

I know you want to see me at work. Well, here I am. Ha Ha

Mike G. and I were presenting on "Peer Consultation". We did great.

To Blog Or Not To Blog

To think that one must "blog" to be part of civilization. It's a travesty - unfair to say the least. In days of yore, elders were respected. They were thought to be wise. Now, elders are expected to jog along - did I say "jog" - that was a slip of the tongue. I should say race, pant, sweat, leap, run, anything, but not fall behind their children in this technological era. If we do, we are suspect of having dementia or WORSE.

Somehow I had gotten through college on a typewriter.

Then, I so nobley thought of grandeur and dove right in, acquiring an Apple computer and a cell phone. For the next three years, I learned how to use the computer like a typewriter and occasionally would turn on my cell phone. I was accomplished! What a momentarily heady feeling that was.

Then I started watching TV again. Unfortunately, between Joan Rivers on the red carpet commenting on all the beautiful people, TV ads with ever burgeoning numbers of advertisments describing various dysfunctions of the over 50s crowd, and my childrens' constant technological gadgetry updates, I experienced a swift gravitational pull back to reality which was punishing.

I ask you - How does one keep up with the latest 2009 computer, blackberry, palm pilot, ipod, iphone, wii, pinkberry (oh, yes, that's a yogurt), Razor, GPS system, outlook/outpost, microsoft 2007 (currently this week) AND not appear STUPID??

So back to the blog...I'm going to blog - a frontier I have yet to explore. Now why a blog - it's practically old fashion.

I have opened a youtube account but don't have a video camera except on my phone which I don't know for sure how to download on to the computer(I obviously just need a 7th grader sitting by me here and they could do it for me). I have opened a facebook account, but somehow it didn't work right and the "administrators" haven't gotten back to me yet.

So this is it - I'm no over 50 slug. I can hardly wait for the next advancement in technology. I'll be all over it!