Tag Archives: lifestyle

Sound Bites – Make it Happen

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Or: STAND UP and FIGHT for BRAVE REPORTING, AUTHORS with HEART, and HUMANITARIANISM!

For every hateful rant that comes out of the mouth of, ohhhh let’s say …that ignorance is bliss person Representative MTG. (you know who I’m talking about) regarding public television, let’s ask news reporters who are repeating her comments follow-up with fact-checked rebuttals. Let the truth shine through with new sound bites. Let the follow-up become positive and exuberant statements from all supporters who understand the incredible benefits of public television. Tell unbiased news reporters about the heroic lifelines small broadcasting stations have in each of their little towns. Remind them how sometimes public television is the only station that gives news to those in distress after disasters. Tell the world the benefits of positive and encouraging reporting on PBS and NPR that we all want to listen to instead of heartbreaking and ugly reporting on that biased station our illustrious leader loves.

For every idiotic comment on social media that comes out of that guy in office and his Best Buddy (you know who I’m talking about), about important agencies that really matter to us, let’s all start slamming back rebuttals and remind him how wrong he is. Let’s all make positive comebacks to his ridiculous tirade about the benefits of all the things that they dislike… like ohhhh let’s say… the Department of Education, USAid, Social Security and Medicaid,  FAA, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, FEMA, IRS, Dept. of Treasury, National Institute of Health, NOAA, and the Treasury Department, to name a few.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/elon-musks-government-dismantling-fight-stop/story?id=118576033

Let’s remind that Amazon mega billionaire that we support him because we love the convenience of buying and selling online with him. Let’s remind him that he should give some of his money to all of these worthy causes like his ex-wife does. Let’s remind him that he should give of himself freely with no strings attached. Let’s remind him what a massive boycott could do to him like what is happening to the Best Buddy. If we all stand together as a people, we can make positive change.

And give! Give, give, and give a tiny portion of your income, no matter how little you have, to those in need, those representatives and senators who are fighting against this oppression, and those in the media who want to stand up and speak the truth. Create your own movement for generating action for a sane and loving world!

I decided to pick one cause a month and give some of the money back in my part-time job to those in need. This is the money I am making after I have retired. I started in March and so far, I have donated to World Central Kitchen and Rocky Mountain PBS. I plan on doing much more in the days to come. We can all do the same if we don’t eat out at every lunch or have that extra cup of coffee at our favorite drive thru. Every little bit counts right now to keep the momentum to combat what is going on.

And now, I am re-vamping a tradition that I had in the past, to give to others in a way that can create a better community of knowledge and understanding. I used to be the person who gave books as presents every Christmas to my friends and co-workers. I had a large group of associates and friends and I loved the old Chinook Bookstore in Colorado Springs (alas it is no more). It was a place of friendship and warmth. I spent a lot of time there browsing and buying books. I took them home and devoured them, relishing the pure enjoyment of learning something new or reading the next in a series of fantastic fiction. My research took me places that I’ve never been and I hoped to visit someday.

Today, I am aiming to start that back. I recently ordered and gave the book How to Raise a Citizen to a friend who is helping young people learn to survive in the world. He and his high school friend started an after-school program, going back to their neighborhood to help them. They have been given an opportunity to engage the youth in positive ways. They carved out a place for them through the help of the City where they lived. These kids can now have a place where they feel safe, play basketball, have a snack, do homework, and read. These young entrepreneurs are helping create opportunities for the teenagers. They have contacted local businesses and industry to partner with them that will help these kids in the future. They have had backpack and food drives, and will be holding events for education as well as job fairs. It’s programs like these that I want to support. He is on Instagram and it is called Generational Opportunities. We should work to let this happen all over in those little neighborhoods that need the most help. We can all make this happen in our communities.

So when you find a book that moves your heart and soul, give it to someone and encourage them to read it and pass it on. Although I haven’t found the perfect bookstore like the Chinook, I visit the ones in the small towns everywhere I go in my travels. I order a lot of books online, but I want to continue buying and reading interesting books and support these small bookstores. I want to pass them on to co-workers and friends. I encourage you to start your own movement like this. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be able to return to intelligent conversation and kind acts on a daily basis!

******

And to the person who hit my car and drove off today, shame on you! I would have left a note and paid for the damage if I had done this to your car. Karma will catch up with you in the end. I am sad that you are the person that you are. There are too many selfish people like you in the world! Your life circumstances should not be the excuse to do mean and terrible things to others. I will try to forgive you, but it’s hard.

For the rest of you, I love you all and happy reading tonight.

Generational Workplaces

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Workplaces today, have a multitude of age groups, from Boomers to Gen Alpha. Managers and coworkers must figure out how they handle the different generations and create reasonable expectations. Everyone contributes equally if they are treated with respect. Managers have to understand that every generation is different in how they approach work. They don’t always fit into a preconceived box that the past rulers deemed appropriate. Older thought processes of management must be displaced with new and innovative ideas to create viable work situations.

It seems to be a hard process for government job managers to understand this transition. Just because “It’s always been done that way,” doesn’t mean that the process can’t change. Obviously, most of these jobs are limited with their software, sometimes being older than the private sector technology. These workers have to learn systems that they have never worked with before so there is always a time lag for learning.

Managers also have to understand that most government positions pay less than the average private sector job in the real world. People come to these jobs to learn new skills and have different perspectives on how to respond to public demands. It is up to a manager to give guidance on how to conduct themselves as representatives of that governmental entity. Their peers need to educate them in a code of conduct, but not preach their views. Us old folks grew up in a different time where dress codes were different. We taught our children that they should be comfortable in their skins and express themselves. So sometimes, the younger people are more sensitive to criticism. I always think that a manager should just count to five before speaking. They should also try not to put a younger person in a box that will never fit them.

Many years ago, I remember traveling to Long Beach, California to work with the police. The D.C folks arrived in dark suits and ties. We westerners arrived in suits, bolo ties and dress shoes (men), suit coats and skirts, or shirt dresses, scarves, and heels (women) to greet them at their building at exactly 8:00 a.m. The Long Beach folks arrived around 9:00 am, in shorts or jeans, and Hawaiian shirts. They had long hair, beards, and huarache sandals. It took us a minute to get used to their way of life, but in the end, we relaxed a little and got the work done. And maybe a few of us took the suits off at last when we got home (me), preferring black jeans and button-down shirts (and black tennis shoes instead of heels) as our newly invented selves.

All I am saying is we can all work together if we don’t worry about clothing styles or 8 to 5 schedules. If managers just value the work, it doesn’t matter how we work or dress (within reason). If the jobs get done in a timely manner, it’s okay to have different lifestyles or schedules. Young workers have been raised differently, and are not a slave to their work. We hope parents raised them to be responsible, and do their due diligence, when they take on a job. And we hope as parents that the younger ones entering the market are embracing adulthood. Managers can benefit from figuring out a welcoming work environment where everyone can thrive. Everyone brings something to the table, past experiences, and new experiences and the old can learn from the young and vice versa. We can be a force of nature and do amazing things if a system is created for harmony, not discord. So, let’s just all try to get along!

I am learning something new everyday and send my love out to all of you each night!

Lifespan

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Or: They don’t Make them like they used to!
We had to buy a new dryer today. It was almost exactly the same as the old one, but somehow smaller. For our old dryer, we bought a 3-year warranty and didn’t renew it because it was still working. It lasted 5 years. Therefore, when we purchased the new one, we bought the 5-year warranty for it. We tried to get a repair guy to fix the last one but it would have cost more to fix it than replace it. And he charged us $134.00 just to look at it! Sad, but true. They have to make a living, too. I realize that there are more electronics in these new appliances than before and there is less metal and more plastic with cheaper materials inside. You would still think that they would last a little longer than 5 years! I read this interesting article on why modern appliances don’t last as long as their predecessors. There is less competition and also less quality control so the new product is not like the old ones. The article encourages paying a monthly warranty, but holy cow, they are expensive! And the reality is, no insurer wants to fix the old appliance because it costs the insurer more money. They just give you a replacement. And, unfortunately, these warranties only give you the price of the original machine, so you have to pay the current price. (This happened on our dishwasher earlier this year!) So, my question is: Are appliance warranties worth it when know there is a fixed lifespan of these devices?
https://www.everythingbreaks.com/a-closer-look-at-why-modern-appliances-dont-last-as-long/
But you know that’s not the only reason I’m writing about tonight. This idea also relates to the human lifespan.

When we were kids, we had no fear of the universe. We were practically on our own, even if our mothers were home. We had the run of the neighborhood, rode our bikes for miles at a time, and swam in the old swimming hole or pool if we were townies. We didn’t have cellphones or computers, so we didn’t constantly keep in contact with our parents or each other and play games incessantly. We were outside in the world. Who wanted to stay home? We created stories and acted them out on a whim. We read great books out under the trees. We ate apples and peaches off the trees. No one worried about getting hurt, or about stalkers or abductors (although we probably should have way back then). Our mothers fretted only if we hadn’t come home before sundown. We thought that we’d live forever with not a care about the rest of the world.

And then we reached our teen years and everything changed. We worried more about how we looked and what to wear, and what others thought of us. And woe to those (like me) who were the outliers. Our peers created a cast system that didn’t include us. We started wondering why we were put on this earth. We still didn’t believe we were going to cease to exist anytime soon, and felt like our lives were drawn out into a future unknown that we could influence. We’d show those bullies! There was still hope for what was to come. However, there were downsides to our teen years. Women were supposed to get married and men were supposed to work or join the military. Those thoughts were very limiting to our psyches. And woe to those who broke those barriers (and yet today I praise all that did so!)

And then we reached our twenties. We graduated and went off to work or to college, or to war. We still thought we’d live forever, but the weight of the world was starting to fill our heads. We still partied (Party Like It’s 1999 – or Give Me That Old Time Rock and Roll for my generation!) and dreamed. Our bodies were resilient. We knew we would change the world.

And then we got older. We entered into full-blown adulthood: jobs, mortgages, car payments, kids, and the weight of the world became clearer in our thoughts and actions. Although some of our kids were similar to us in that they became the latchkey kids. And yet they didn’t have as much freedom as we did. News made us more fearful as parents, and the children felt it. Phones and computers started taking precedence in our daily lives and we felt like we were in the know. Fear of the future became a little more in our thoughts and our children’s thoughts. We were beginning to feel our age physically and emotionally. We started to think about what would happen to someone if we suddenly weren’t there. Finally, we became more isolated from each other.

And now we are seniors of varying ages, from our 60s to our 80s and older. Sometimes it seems that the weight of the world is upon our shoulders. Lifespan is a thing that we think about every day that we live. We all strive for longevity, but aging is hard. We aren’t able to do all of the things we loved to do in the past due to illness, or just body parts breaking down. And some of us have memory issues so our thought process doesn’t come as fast as they used to when we were in our 20s and 30s. And some of us have given up. Even though our lifespan is longer than our parents, we don’t think we can keep up, mentally and physically, and media sometimes reinforces this negative thought. Health issues have become the forefront of our conversations. We don’t have expectations that we all will live for a century, but we also don’t want to face those conversations. We still want to believe that we are immortal. In 1950, the average life expectancy was 44.5 years for men, and 48.4 for women. In 2024, the average life expectancy is 77 years for men, and 82 for women. So we have made some strides since the 1950s due to the wonders of medicine, eating healthier, and exercising. But, we aren’t carefree and happy.
https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
Unfortunately, there are still physiologically upper limits at this point.

In an article from the Harvard School of Public Health, the author stated that “…While the average life expectancy has gone up, maximum lifespan has not changed. Moreover, the pace of increase in average life expectancy has slowed of late….The paper concludes that during that period, medical and public health advances have not slowed human aging and have not done anything to radically prolong lifespan….No strategies have been implemented in that time with that goal in mind….What we have been doing remarkably successfully is reducing deaths earlier in life and allowing more of us than ever before to reach old age.”
For further information, go to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s article on life expectancy or:https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00702-3

I believe that scientists will create new studies that look into human expiration dates to determine if it there is some type of genetic coding, or enzymes, or whatever our physical makeup contains, that currently gives us that upper limit. Right now, scientists believe that our bodies have not evolved this longevity capacity so we are limited in time. We are like the appliances that have a life expectancy date due to our manufacturing, And we have no warranties. Can we change this? Something to think about.

And, to further this metaphor of appliance replacement, we replace ourselves generationally with our children and our children’s children (or more recent models) in hopes for a future that is better than before. We strive to make them better than ourselves. We have nurtured them and hope that they have excellent takeaways from our lives. We tell them they are amazing and they can do anything if they put their minds to it. We should also continue to do that to ourselves as we age. Our stress levels should be geared to making a better world for future generations. We have made our mark in the world and hope that they will do the same.

Tonight my plea to everyone is to take advantage of the time we have on earth and become a better person and do great things (or even little wonderful things) for as long as we live! Continue to nurture your relationships. Continue to spread love and guidance to those who are younger than we are. I love you all and hope you think about how to make your own mark in this world!

Keeping the Conversation Going with Us Vintage People

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Yes, I mean Vintage not Village People: People today talk a lot about vintage or limited edition (a story for another time). But what does it mean to have a vintage item? What does it mean to be a vintage person?

What Is Vintage? Vintage items are much younger than antiques. These pieces are typically defined as being at least 20 years old but less than 100 years old. The term true vintage is a sub-category for items that are at least 50 years old. The true vintage item has developed a cultural or nostalgic significance. It reflects the styles and trends of a period from which it originated. You may also hear someone calling a vibe or item Retro. Sometimes this means it isn’t necessarily a vintage item but is vintage inspired.

Antique items are usually older than 100 years, so it may refer to the Victorian era, for example. Vintage items also reflect past eras, but they only highlight the fashion, design, and cultural trends of more recent decades.

I am writing about this because it came up in a conversation the other day and of course I decided to explore it. I started thinking about what my era was during my primary and teenage years. While I was born in the 1950’s, I didn’t identify with the clothing, cultural significance of finding a man and getting married, and especially the music. I identified with a lot of the 1960’s movement, culture, music, and even clothing. But then in the 1970’s, I charged ahead and re-created myself once again, mainly because I went off to college and was re-designing myself into who I thought I should be. I still loved all the music, including disco and dancing, and the clothing (definitely more comfortable) and the joy of what we thought was freedom. However, in the 1980’s I became part of the man and changed my image once again. I wasn’t vintage in my thoughts or actions. I wanted to be a part of that community, which was very conservative, and women had to prove themselves in that world. I embraced the new computer age, the big shoulder pads and suit dresses, big hair, smart heels, a briefcase, and flew off with my colleagues to Washington, D.C. with the best of them. I wanted to fit into that era. I wanted to be a part of change. However, when I was off duty, I danced in discos and heavy metal bars and tried to keep my identity. I wasn’t totally designed to be the person in that particular box. I was the outlier trying to make change in a world that wasn’t moving forward as fast as I thought it should. The 1990’s and 2000’s brought contrasting times, work ethics that were changing, new friends and a new family, so I morphed once again into that era. I had to begin re-thinking who I was becoming and continue to grow. So, yes, I’m vintage now, and hope to become antique in the future. But, only in body, not in mind!

Today, these new generations are trying to reconcile the past and present in themselves. I get the conversations started and get them to talk about where they think they’ll be in the future, especially when they become vintage to the newer generations. I hope that I have made a small impact on their lives as they have definitely made an impact on mine. I encourage them to read about the past so they can be a part of a better future. When you read history, civics, and science fiction, you get an understanding of what we are trying to become, and what we want to leave for our civilization (an intact one, of course, but also a better world).

So, when you finally decide to reconcile your past with your present, and become content, decide what you can do next. First ask yourself these questions: What is your era? How are you designed? Can you become more tolerant and patient with others who aren’t like you? Am I vintage or am I an antique? I want to be considered vintage and am continuing to look for new ways to express that attitude and design.

For more information on vintage versus antique (items, not necessarily people) go to Martha Stewart’s website and read this article. Fun read!
https://www.marthastewart.com/7618577/difference-between-antique-vintage-explained

Today I am asking you to celebrate all things (and people) vintage. Recognize the fact that we are not antiques yet! Create that village where all the people live together in harmony. And ask yourself one more question: What village are you from? (No, just kidding….Or am I?)

I love you all and hope the new year brings goodness and hope!

Grocery Store Madness and Impatient People

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Okay folks, I know it’s the holidays, and I chose to embark into the dark waters of grocery store shopping on a Friday night (hey, I couldn’t help it – 4X fuel points and gas is expensive). It was sooooo incredibly crazy out there today. There were two lanes open in the regular checkout, so it was bad, bad, bad. Holy Moly! I want to tell you one thing – old folks pushing old folks, invading my old folk space, to try and get out faster, that just does not work for me (and yes, I am one of the old folks who got pushed). I can’t move any faster to give you more time. You are just invading my personal space. And yes, I still have to check out in front of the credit card reader, just like everyone else.

And I am not going to go into how the drivers in the parking lot are trying to run over people in a walker, for goodness sakes! A whole lot of angst is going on right now! Really, it’s not the Zombie apocalypse so slow down folks! We will all get to where we need to go in time. These were definitely David Sedaris or Amy Sedaris moments. (Look them up. They are very funny.)

Quick facts:
Grocery shopping can induce anxiety because of overstimulation. Grocery stores are often busy, with bright lights, loud noises, and many people. This sensory overload can be overwhelming. Most researchers believe that it is caused by a mismatch or conflict between the various parts of the brain’s balance system, similar to motion sickness. Others believe that it happens when a vestibular problem causes the brain to rely too much on visual signals for balance (visual dependency).

I might have all that! I know my vision isn’t the best and the lights are harsh in a grocery store. And, I may be a little slower because I have what’s called Supermarket Syndrome. It’s the real thing! Sometimes I just have to sort through my list and coupons. I try to get out of the way of others. But sometimes there’s just no getting out of the way when it’s crowded. I also get a little dizzy and have to go slow and that’s apparently a thing, too! See the article listed below:
https://vestibular.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Visually-Induced-Dizziness-Supermarket-Syndrome_112.pdf

So all I gotta say to everyone. Behave! That’s not what your mamas taught you. I will do my part to be kind and helpful and try and get out of the way as fast as possible, but you gotta do your part, too!

I still send you good vibes and love, but I just want to say to everyone: Slow Down and PAY ATTENTION! Pay attention to your surroundings and your corresponding old person who is standing right there, in front of you, not moving for a reason, yet trying to move! Be patient and love the time you have at that very moment in your life. Hugs!