Mame's Digression Thread

cool!! We have finches, house sparrows, magpies, flickers and robins. But I love hummingbirds...used to have them in Vancouver.

I grew up in the urban environment of East Boston. We had pigeons, sparrows
and seagulls. That was it. When I first saw a hummingbird, I thought it was a
very big bug. The goldfinches blew my mind. They were SO YELLOW.

They're so adorable. When we had our house renovated in West Vancouver, we wound up having 30' of south-facing window. After finding a couple of dead birds (thankfully, not humming birds), I painted streamers on the inside so birds would know not to fly into it. They never did again. They are such charming birds.

Charming? I met one while backpacking in the San Juans. It got in front of me and flew backwards for a couple of hundred feet - always with that needle like pointed right at my right eye. Charming, my foot.

You're just jealous you couldn't move that way

Now, just why would I want to fly backwards?

Can they fly backwards or just hover? And why are you awake at this hour, you old man??? Cooking some porridge?

Yes, backwards.

This hour? It's 8:14 pm - MDT.

What the heck is porridge? I always thing of oatmeal, but kind of doubt that.

nah, it's oatmeal. same thing, with or without berries or brown sugar. oh, so you're in the same time zone as moi??? Cuz it's 8:19 p.m now

Time spent in prison.

Thanks. I appreciate the difference in this language of ours.

Google Norman Stanley Fletcher.

My husband's nephew came by last night for drinks and snacks. Lovely guy - same age as my son. I really like James. His marriage of about 8 years ended when he told her he wanted a polygamous lifestyle. So he told us last evening that he had two relationships going, both women completely okay with this. I just watched a video on BBC about a couple who are married, live together and have kids together, who are in a 'non-monogamous' relationship. Their term, not mine.

This world is changing too quickly for this old lady. Some of what's going on right now just seems 'trendy' or ... I don't know what, exactly. Nothing wrong with change at all but sometimes it's just happening too fast to keep up. And often without much explanation.

Even in the library where I worked, so many changes (going digital, i.e.) prevented a lot of people from using our resources. Either they didn't have the computers/phones/tablets or weren't comfortable using them, or didn't understand how to access things. Many elderly come in to sign up for our digital classes and when you explain what Powerpoint is to a 75 year old man who wanted to 'keep uptodate', you realize there's a disconnect. He just wanted to search the internet, but he came into sign up for 6 classes, thinking that would answer his quest.

Canada announced that any travellers returning to Canada would have to download and use the ArriveCan app. Well, what if you don't have a phone or it's so old it can't download anything or you don't know how to navigate that website? Are you stuck at the border indefinitely? It really annoys me that these systems don't work side-by-side until everyone is onboard and uptodate.

When I was helping my 84-year old mother who is actually quite tech-savvy (she has a blog, for example, lol), she had to call Telus because her large monitor wasn't turning on. She called and when the recording asked her what the problem was, she said, "My monitor won't turn on." I said, "No, mom, you have to say 'Tech Support'." When the recording asked her again, she repeated the monitor issue. The recording then said, "Oh, I think you want Tech Support."

I really wish we could slow things down a bit so the 'elder' world could keep or catch up.

Never mind... I debunked the thing.

I could go into a rant about a lot of what you lay out here but this is something that I've noticed as well:

Corporations and the state just assume that we'll invest in expensive consumer goods only to find out in a few years that they are "no longer supported" – goods which are marketed as facilitating communication but were designed primarily as aids to administration.

A elderly woman came into the library a few years ago with a new MacBook. Mine is from 2015 and still has USB ports. My last one had a cd/dvd slot. This one doesn't which irritates the **** out of me because that's how I watched movies. Their reasoning - streaming is available. Buy an external device. More $$$. Try telling that to an 80 year old. Anyway, they didn't tell her she'd need an adaptor for her USB printer and USB backup machine to match the tiny hole they now had instead of a USB port. They also didn't advise her to accept all updates - she was a few iterations out of date.

It's all very well if you're under a certain age, but for a generation that has seen so many changes, some of these are too much and too fast. I think I was in my mid-30s when we got the Internet - these people would have been in their ~50s.

Everything, including libraries, is geared to the youth or people who 'get it'. We used to offer classes at the library on how to download books onto various tablets, 'tech' sessions with volunteers to help people (not always the elderly but certainly uninformed) where you can bring your device and get assistance, or even get help writing a resume or applying for a job. That's all ended but people still need help.

My late 90-something father-in-law couldn't even operate the buttons on his tv remote. He and his wife had cell phones but even after many sessions explaining how to use them, they were clueless. They only had them so when they went grocery shopping they could find what aisle each was in but since they didn't use them... well, they couldn't hear each other anyway even if they both had their phones on.

I hope the younger generation is more helpful than mine is.

And hightor - help yourself if you want to rant on what I've said. I do love a good debate.

I have to use a simple flip phone because I can't master the cheapest flat phone.

Point made. I get it. I loved my first flip phone I felt like I was part of Star Trek, ha ha ha

And you never had a cracked screen!

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/dining/james-corden-asian-food.html

Do you think people are going a little too far and just jumping on the Cancel bandwagon without due thought? I think it's a phase, a trend... like the Oleanna movement in the 90s (and several others).

It may be an unpopular position but that's what I think.

I say: Calm down. You don't have to make everything about you and your culture. Sometimes it's just innocent or unintentional. Everyone feels entitled to get offended by any and every thing. I feel like saying, "Grow the bloody up!" That's not what was meant!

In that article, Corden even dissed some of his own country's food (haggis.... and a fish&chip smoothie). And what countries eat caterpillar or roaches? Some, but they weren't mentioned. And some of the items offered weren't cultural at all - hot sauce on a worm or eyeball, for example. And so what?

I was offered a fish head to suck on in Greece and politely declined. It's not something I want to do, thank you very much. My host just laughed and joyfully, gleefully sucked all the stuff out. I was grossed out just watching him. But he's used to it and I'm not. It's not like I won't or don't eat any other Greek food, just not that and not that way.

A recent Chinese immigrant neighbour refused a cheese sandwich offered by her neighbour. Guess what? The neighbour didn't know that some (most) Chinese don't eat cheese. Innocent mistake. But they didn't take it personally and 'cancel' the Chinese neighbour or vice versa.

Why are we going to such extremes to judge and 'cancel' each other out? What is wrong with us that we can't just shrug and say, "You do as you do and I do as I do" and just let it go?

I know I'm going to get vilified, judged, etc., by some, but I feel this has to be said.

And that's an honest question I'd love an answer to. And if you want to be polite about it, I'd appreciate it.

The pace of advancement, if that's what we call it, is dizzying. My dad, had he lived, would be in his 90's now, and to think he helped deliver milk by horse and buggy on the streets of Ottawa when he was a boy. Like you, I'm not slamming the gains we've made at all, but it can leave my head spinning at the seeming speed of it all.