Month: August 2023

I can’t remember a week that I’ve learned so much so fast.  Last week after writing my blog about getting a new phone – a “fancy phone,” I sent an e-mail to friends and relatives asking for help with my need to buy an up-to-date phone.  An iPhone.  I just didn’t have any experience with these flat phones.  Flip phones are my favorite.  However, as I said last week, I think it is time for me to join the twenty-first century.  But knowing and understanding those flat phones was not in my history.  So, I asked.

When I pull out my flip phone to make a call, my good friend, Lois, rolls her eyes.  SHE has a wrist watch phone!  Shades of Dick Tracy!!  Then, I watched the former Governor Cuomo say that his daughters really wanted him to get a “fancy phone” (his term, at that time, not mine).  He pulled out his phone from his pocket.  A flip phone!  And, on an episode of the television show, “Star Talk,” hosted by Neil de Grasse Tyson, both of his guests pulled out their flip phones saying, “This is my phone.  If I want a computer I use this other phone (a fancy phone).”  I thought Tyson was going to fall off of his chair.  I’ve known for some time that I will need to succumb to the fancy phone craze.  I’ve resisted.  Boy, have I resisted!

We all get calendars.  Every year, we get calendars.  From charities.  From foundations.  Sometimes, and these are the ones we keep, calendars with photographs of our children.  I am no different.  I get calendars.  One of my favorite “throw-away” calendars had two-to-four word sayings on them.  I don’t know who writes these statements.  Or, where they came from.  Maybe, somebody’s mom or dad said it at some time, and the calendar creator remembered the saying and decided to put it onto a calendar.  So, I cut the sayings off of the calendar and thought I’d use them here.  Most offer very sage advice, if we take them to heart.

 Watching “Sunday Morning,” the Sunday morning television show is one of the things I do on a regular basis.  A few weeks ago, Mo Rocca interviewed a poet who has lived into her nineties.   Ninety-four, to be exact.  During the interview, Mo Rocca commented on how busy and engaged this female poet seemed to be.  He asked her if she was aware that so many people in their late eighties and early nineties did not make new friends.

Dear Readers:

I know we’ve all heard this before, many times.  But, when it actually happens to you – me – it makes all of the warnings worth while.  Below, I’ve placed a copy of an e-mail that I received, this week.  I’ve redacted portions of it for privacy; basically, it is a copy.  And, I have added some comments of my own in caps.