Where is my typewriter????

     I was Skyping my sister in law Joan in Wisconsin today, when we got a second Skype call from Julia in Switzerland.
     I grabbed my laptop and called Julia while Jackie continued talking to Joan.  After a few minutes, we switched and I talked to Joan while Jackie talked to Julia.
     Pretty boring, huh?
     Joan and I were marveling about our ability to Skype.  Now I am 60 plus.... or 9 in dog years.... and if you are under 55 you can't imagine how life has changed for people in my age group.
     In 1987 Commodore computers were selling for $1,495.  They sold over 1 million in 1991.  They were the leaders in the almost new PC market.  In 2004, over 173 million computers were sold in the world.  Then in 1995 Windows 95 was introduced and the home PC market shot off like a rocket.
    What are we doing with those computers?  We are using them to reconnect with old friends on Facebook, creating new friends, commenting on every topic under the sun, looking up information, finding dates, following our favorite sports teams, viewing porn, and all sorts of other activities that are pretty easy and common to do on computers.
     We are communicating.  Skype has been around for just a few years, and considering the world wide web became available in 1990, and AOL went live in 1993, is just a baby in the communications field.
    When I was a kid, we had those old rotary dialed phones.  And there were party lines.  Your phone had a particular ring and when you heard it you answered it.  If someone else was on the line, you could not use the phone but you could surreptitiously listen in on their conversations.
   Our entertainment consisted of the Saturday afternoon matinee at the Music Box or Rivera or even the Uptown or North Center theater, all in the neighborhood in Chicago.  We could watch three channels on our black and white tv and I was ecstatic when a fourth channel.... public television... was introduced.  My teen years featured Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel, Bonanza and Lawrence Welk. (I think Lawrence Welk explains the strange fascination for theater parts featuring dresses.)
    Two nights ago I rented a video from Red Box.  I have watched on demand movies from Comcast.  People have Netflix, Apple TV, and other ways to watch movies, tv shows, or whatever.  We can watch the Rover on the surface of Mars ..... an inconceivable experience when I was a slim kid  and looking up at he stars.
    And boy do we have cell phones.   Computers and Kindles with Skype.  Navigation systems with sexy voices (at least I think they are sexy) telling us that we missed a turn and they are reprogramming.
     Reprogramming.
    The world is becoming smaller.  Communications are instant.  Important news stories reach us almost as they happen and fade from our minds just as quickly.
   It's an exciting, scary, fun time to be alive.
   And my typewriter?  Well, I finally broke down and got rid of it last week.  Took it to an electronics recycling center where the wires will be stripped and recycled, possibly into the next amazing electronic device that we all will accept as normal and not pause to marvel at its genius.

Organic yogurt, burglars, and memory loss

     I know you are asking, "How are these related?"

     I'll explain.

     Jackie and I went shopping Thursday.....Woodman's in Rockford... and I bought some Stonyfield Farm Organic Yogurt.  Now this is a little more expensive than Yoplait.  It was 89 cents for one cup.  But we had a coupon for $1 off a purchase of three.  So I bought three cups and put them in the cart.

     Went though the checkout lane, used the coupon, went home, unpacked the groceries and put the Stonybrook Farm in the fridge, top shelf, right.  I remember doing that as well as I remember putting on  on pants that Thursday.

    Fast forward to Sunday morning.  I get up, open the fridge and there is one.....(1) .... uno..... une...a solitary, lonely, all by itself Stonyfield Farm Organic Yogurt black cherry on the shelf.  

    Knowing I did not eat any, I checked the fridge.  Then I checked the pantry.  (Ever since I stored the Exit 99 checkbook in a shoe for safe keeping and then spent several days looking for the checkbook because I forgot I put it in the shoe, I discovered  I have maybe been guilty of putting things in the wrong place.)  However, there was no yogurt in the pantry, freezer, cupboard or refrigerator, which I checked a second time.

    Asked Jackie.  Nope, she hadn't eaten any.  Checked the car to make sure they did not roll out of the bag.  Nada.  Nothing.

    That's when I realized someone was coming in the house during the night and eating my yogurt!  Seriously!!  How else can it be explained?

     Someone was dubious, but she had no explanation either.  

     Then I wondered, what else was missing?  So I sifted through the recycle bin for the slightly damp receipt and scanned down.  Cheese:  check.  Broccoli: check.  Cool Whip:  check. 1 (0ne) Stonyfield Farm yogurt:  check.  One.  Only one.

     The coupon was accepted, but the product was not purchased.  I know I put three in the cart.  I know I put three in the fridge.  So either I didn't do what I was positive about or someone is eating my yogurt at night when I am asleep or being strangled in addition to finding my store receipts and altering them.

   (Side note:  I had a nightmare that I was being strangled in my sleep Saturday night.  I fought off the person, who shall remain nameless, and managed to live through the night.  When I woke up Sunday a thread ... and I mean a huge one, at least two feet long.... from the blanket was wrapped around my arm.   Come to think of it, the person in my nightmare was using a thread to try to strangle me.....hmmmmm)

     So Sunday after church I had to buy more yogurt.  It's not Stonyfield.  But it'll do.

     And tonight I will double lock the doors and check the windows.  Just in case.

Cornering a market......

    Industrialists corner a market when it will economically benefit them.  If aluminum producers sense a rise in aluminum prices, they will buy up as much as they can to ensure they have a workable, economical supply to meet their demand.
     I too have cornered a market or two:  Scraps of paper that don't seem to have any value except for scribbling notes near the telephone.   Notebooks, partially used but still containing paper.  File folders.
Dividers.
     I swear, I am borderline hoarder!!  I have a 4 inch stack of spiral notebooks with paper in them....some have a lot of paper, some have a little.  At the start of the school year I bought notebooks because they were on sale....these are not included in the pile.  Pne of the pads is a legal pad with numbered lines.....made in 1995!!  Cripes, it can vote if it was human!!
     And folders....some in good repair, some used once or twice.  A stroll down life's lane:  house ideas; life list; bucket list; home ideas; places to go before I die from being buried under unwanted/unused stacks of paper.
     I have folders for: VCCT, Exit 99, BRAT, St. Paul's, park district, evaluations....and one that has some notes in French from when Emily was in high school.
     I should just toss them......or more accurately, recyle them.  But I can't.
    They still have life.  They still have a use.  They still have a contribution to make to society.  I am talking notebooks, right?
     Which is more than I can say for for the scraps of paper.  Note cards.  Recipe cards.  Envelopes of various sizes.  Some yellowed with age, some reflecting a time and society which sent notes though the postal service, not through space.  Those went into the recycling bucket.  Except for the ones on pads....they went by the telephone for making notes.
     I  know someday I will die.  Not to be morbid, but that seems to be the one constant in life. Along with government taxes, Chicago Cubs futility on the diamond, and corruption in Illinois government.
I have visions of my funeral....complete with music.  I'll just say it will be Amazing, Grace.
     I don't want to leave Jackie a pile of stuff she will have to deal with.
    And I sure don't want the kids to open a box and say, "WTF" (That does mean, Wow, that's funny...for those with sick minds.  Doesn't it?)
     So I'm going to make a list of things to sell on e-bay.  I am putting Jackie in charge of monitoring sales and income.
     I think I can find a notebook or two for that.