I recently discovered Google Hangouts. This delightfully little bit of technology escaped my perview, until recently, when a friend suggested using it. We had a weekly meet-up with his daughter who needed a social-distancing lesson. Tweeking and twisting our four miles apart cameras over ten minutes, the virtual hook-up went nearly blip free save a few gaggles and glitches. I must say, “pleased” is a word infrequently used in a sentence when conjoined with recent technology, but in this case, I was.

None of us raised with cardboard clickers in our bicycle spokes, or overnight sleepovers with flashlights hovering over scary stories, could ever have imagined ourselves living with such technology. A digital age where single digits are so much more important than ever before.

I’m a pianist. Have always been. Maybe my fascination with fingers is over-hyped because of my chosen hobby/profession. I haven’t taken real good care of my filangy-friends, however. Racquetball injuries – and more than my share of goofs – have set my hands with a permanently dislocated thumb, scars, bruises and hurties time will never kiss away. I’m surprisingly ok with all of that. My younger self wouldn’t have accepted it. He kinda had his thumb up his a**. We all did …

…But, we found ways to entertain our thumbs by engaging them in dirt filled holes, doll houses, and play-dough. We used them non-sparingly to flick a little metal bell on our bikes – alerting the little worms on the road of our approach. Occasionally, dad’s laziness would call our other fingers into service, assisting the thumb in the evening’s changing of the TV broadcast ritual … from one of three black and white channels to another. A pretty simple life for thumbs.

In the 70’s, a thumb could get you across the country from New York to Seattle. Granted, not so soon after you changed the channel for your dad, but possibly a few years after graduating. Knowledge wasn’t always absorbed thumbing through a Funk & Wagnall’s encyclopedia. The cab of a CB-ing trucker named Billy-Dee was the classroom of clarity for many a hitchhiking wondering-wanderer. Roadside ideas ruminated by professors of pavement prognostication were the time stamps on that era.

Not like today when thumbs are so vital in communicating information. I’m writing … using my Samsung phone, alternating letters when needed, using opposite thumbs. Could I be sitting in my desk chair, tapping in letters with other fingers, staring at my PC monitor? Sure. I, simply, don’t want to. It’s too inconvenient. This recliner is comfortable, I have my snack table here, a TV handy if needed, and plenty of blankets.

It isn’t just texting, blogging, and other hand-held forms of writing where we’ve exceeded all youthful imaginations. We’d thumb our collective bell-bottom pant noses at the thought of sharing our joy stick with anyone. The gaming industry’s use of thumbs has well exceeded the pong-era ping fancies we entertained. Slow bee-bloops … back and forth at the end of big, thick wires attached to heavy TV’s at one end and gaming consoles at the other – with thumbs glued hours to the minute.

Today it’s hi-tech, interactive gaming. Thumbs at the ready. Local colleges have team logo matched shirts. (Back when, as Gramps would say, we matched because all of us had orange cheetoh-snack dust drizzled down the front of our shirts.) They probably have regimented thumb push-up drills, finger-fun day, and aerobics for palms. It’s just that serious.

All this to say, I’m trying new technology as needed … and my thumbs are getting a workout for sure. Not so much with Google Hangouts, though. That’s more like a talk-y kind of experience once all tech stuff is out of the way.

Seeing another human live on screen, and also myself in an even smaller insert at the same time, is …. well … a bit more than my younger self would have imagined. I know I was asked many times early on, “So, Doug. Where do you see yourself, say, in the year 2020 (or, some such year)?”.

Pretty sure my answer wasn’t: “Well, most likely, if my plan works out, I’ll be under a forced quarantine from a once every 100 years virus, blogging about a virtual video site from a hand-held computer device connected to the whole world. We have a reality show president, my life is run by robots pretty much everywhere I go, and my thumbs are more important than ever before. Oh, and the Pirates suck.”

Ask me where I think I’ll be in two months. Hopefully right here on the recliner. It’s comfy. It’s home. I have my thumbs and they’re my connection to something normal for now.

Lemons. I never ask for them in my iced tea. Sanitarily speaking, many fingers have touched that yellow bubble-skinned fruit from tree to glass edge, so I don’t feel the need to contaminate my caffeine. Ok, you can argue some waitresses place them in a side bowl. Great. One step shy of my glass, but many strides, still, from a dangling dirt appendagary. One other reason that may be primary: they’re bitter and I simply don’t like them. Maybe should have led with that.🤷🏻‍♂️

Also, bitter rhymes with glitter which is the main theme in this post today. Hey, don’t judge me. I have my motivations. They may not be yours, but if and until the blog police decide what goes, I’m goin’ with it…

Earlier last evening, I imagined the following:

“I want to be in outer space right now. No oxygen, yes, but complete silence and the occasional meteorite that may knock me unconscious before the lack of oxygen does. The eight-minutes late sun on my face. No news. No COVID-19. Just me, my earth under feet for the few seconds I have to exist, and the whole universe uninterrupted before me. The silence in the stars – a beauty for all of us.”

Any occasional or regular reader knows I like my Imagineer’s Workshop. The place where ideas can be lived out without the pressures of expectations. Fantasies and whimsies of illustrious magnificence are born from magical imaginations and experienced in my mind before ever seeing letters into words. Some logical, most crazical and fun-flopable. I like them that way. My mom taught me to see inside what had to be learned outside … make sense out of the world through a humor filter inside.

Cope with humor-hope. It’ll all be ok.

I’ve met a lot of people with the same outlook. “Crazies” as most normals would categorize us. We are a subculture of real-life comic book heroes saving the day-by-day doldrumers from their mono-continuo-laborio-adinfinito-itis. Our relentless puns, dad jokes, memes, and casual odd facial expressions unconsciously thwarting robberies of self-meaning and purpose. All under the cloak of self-sacrificial court jestering. You are quite welcome.

One such person I met a little bitty ago. She’s equally weird. In a good way, of course. A fellow-ette superhero who conquers the world of the day quite-ly nicely …. thank you very much. As is the case in my blog universe – and with all superheroes – her identity must remain a mystery.

We met in the most fortunate of circumstances. I, the illustrious instructor of keys, and her, the mother of four, requested my services. I obliged. From there, we became friends.

As such, she follows my blog and I, occasionally, reach out to her via text to gain knowledge and wisdom on subjects heretofore unknown to me. We are kinda-kindred souls on the who-can-be-a-one-upper game as well. For the record, I’m winning.😉

Most recently, our weaving-word exchange (d)evolved into an imagineer’s arena. My purple monkeys and party balloons found their way into an octagon grudge match with said superhero-ette. Her space is glitter-ati filled dreams on top of unicorns drizzled with ice cream sprinkles. We wrestled our way into a corner of infinitives and exclamatory phrases, when at once across my screen came:

“Just don’t mess with my glitter, dawg-man!!!!”

Now, for the sake of comparison and my ego, look over that …. and then re-read my elegant, sweet, reflective, honest, non-combative, pleasant tome above. Who’s the superhero you’d trust? C’mon now. Be honest. She can handle the truth.🤣

I may – MAY – have instigated the friendly jabber-jousting betweeen us. I admit no fault beyond the genesis, however. Unicorns aren’t real. All I needed to do – in order to confirm her status in our Elite Hall of Heroes – was to verify her knowledge of such. She did. A little snarky, but she did. 🙄

There will be a day – soon – when I will be held accountable for this writing. Not by the blog police, I’m most positive. Anyone of normal or above average intelligence could figure it out … even my unicorn friend – my fellow “Crazy”. Oh, the sweet irony in that sentence.

Hey, if I didn’t assume the risk, no sense I’m wearing the cape, right?

Overall point? Find your glitter, purple monkey, unicorn, or whatever imaginary place makes you happy … and live there any time you need to. Be a superhero.

Just try not to drink iced tea with lemon while you’re there… or be bitter about anything. Life’s too short to be unhappy.

Since we’re having joy and merriment with viruses, bacteria, and other fun, fuzzy little subjects:

June 9, 2017 By Melanie Waddell, Director of Marketing, PDI Healthcare

“In an age of constant connectivity, healthcare professionals are rarely without touchscreen devices. From tablets in hallway kiosks to x-ray screens to doctors’ and nurses’ own smartphones, such surfaces abound in healthcare settings.

Proliferation of this technology inadvertently increases the risk of exposure to harmful bacteria and spread of infection. Our fingertips are home to a plethora of bacteria, and constant contact with touchscreens leaves phones, tablets, and other devices coated with thriving bacteria cultures that put all of us at risk if not cleaned properly.

But while touchscreens are present in healthcare facilities now more than ever, protocols for properly addressing the risks they invite haven’t quite caught up.

On any given day, about one in 25 hospital patients has at least one healthcare-associated infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If not cleaned properly, some bacteria can survive for months on the surface of a dry touchscreen device, according to a 2016 Environmental Health Review study.

And the risk of contamination is amplified by the fact that 86 percent of clinicians and 76 percent of nurses use smartphones while at work, according to Mobile Trends Report and a study published in JMIR Publications, respectively.

Harmful strains, such as MRSA, Staphyloccus and Streptococcus spp can linger on devices and put patients at risk of infection. Such hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) also cost hospitals billions of dollars in reduced reimbursements and preventable expenditures every year, according to the CDC.

The prevalence of these devices emphasizes the importance of proper cleaning, which is one of the most effective means, aside from hand hygiene, of minimizing or eliminating risks.”

A loyal reader, J.S., sent me a wonderful suggestion which tweaked my fanciful, yet bacteria-on my…, virus minded brain. Hard to remember a day when I wasn’t thinking outside a virtual petri dish of microscopic what-ifs being fed by a test tube of streaking headlines every half minute, but I digress.

Yesterday wasn’t a day of rest from the lab-orious, but always laughable, lather of lexicon, however, I did have a moment to check my messages. J.S. squeezed quite an interesting droplet into the little glass of ideas I had sitting around on my formerly germ-free table of literary schemes. She suggested I ponder the possibilities of the the dreaded touchscreen sign-in station at your local medical facility. “Sign-in station” defined, by me, as the non-human, flat formed, roughly two-dimensional, know-it-all-but-must-ask-it-all, bacteria screen circus all of us must face blurry-eyed at 7:05 in the morning after a 24 hour fast …. and use the steadiest finger of our non-shakiest hand while the other comatose, juice deprived patients wait their ever-lovin’ turn behind us.

The last time I used one of these was around a year ago at the medical center just up the street. It wasn’t pretty. Well, it kinda was, I guess. Presentation: a clear 10! .. Execution? Yes … by firing squad, please. I did everything S.O.P.. Name, DOB, procedure (blood work), the date, Dr. Name, my favorite pizza topping, extra mayo … all the standard questions. Uh, oh …. “We don’t have you currently in our system …”. “WHAAA?”, I proclaimed loudly under my breath just enough to get the attention of the receptionist over at the – get this – sign in desk.

She was a very nice lady. I could tell as I stomped gingerly over to her after thumbing my obstinant nose up at the digital excuse of a touchscreen. I explained my purpose for being there and she listened intently. Kudos to her. Also, props to her for telling me I, apparently, wasn’t standing in front of her … as there seemed to be no record of my existence. Damn. No wonder I couldn’t get waited on faster at Walmart.

OH, wait! What she meant was …. nobody sent over the order for my blood work, so my flat-faced, dirty-MRSA friend over at the other end of the lobby didn’t know what to do with me. “What do I do now?”, I kindly asked. “Well, we can’t do anything without an order from your doctor.”.

Stop frame…

One thing you DON’T want to do at this point is the following:

“Hmm. Can I just go over to the screen, again, and order my blood work, a small order of fries, a Pepsi… and maybe some nuggets? Super size, or not … wadda ya think?”

I don’t care how hungry you THINK you are, that is not a good idea. Clever? Yes, most definitely. Smart? Absolutely not. You will get an icy stare – enough to ensure your Pepsi will stay fresh-ly cold for the day. Also, more than enough to guarantee you may never return with both legs operating normal … that is if you can see through two black eyes.

It took three visits back to the center until I finally got my blood work done. What had to be completed, was. Now, just to be fair, I don’t believe the lady at the sign-in desk had anything to do with the delays. It was the inefficiency of the whole system between three different buildings, two doctors, and one two-bit little touchscreen. Oh, and karma.

The bigger picture is the touchscreen sign-in process. Since then, I have used them frequently – as I’m sure you have. The thought of how dirty they must be has crossed my mind, thus the article above. (What’s written by Melanie Waddell is more general and extends to all hand-held devices. Touchscreens – pardon the pun – are not immune.) Not only the unsanitary nature of the screen, but also the frequency of errors I’ve encountered.

It could be me. I have a weird relationship with Karma. We dance the dance so much I wear out my own soul by the synchronicity in the steps of our soles. I walk up to a touchscreeen and can almost expect certain malaise. Not always, but mostly … because I taunt them and they feel my tauntness. ATMs, convenience store kiosks, … any large flat surface requiring my digital attention. They will freeze up, deny my passwords, accept my passwords, but tell me stupid information I didn’t want to know, or just stare at me with a blank screen: “out of order, come back later”

I spent my adolescent and young adult years working in the fast food industry. The big one. No self-serve ordering kiosks. Just now old-fashioned registers where guys like me took your order, ran around to get it all together, collected a few bucks and sent you on your way. Simple.

Today, there are more kiosks than help. I don’t like it. I don’t care for it at the medical centers either. It’s not really because they’re dirty like the above article states, although that’s enough of a reason for most. Humans aren’t machines … and machines can’t ever be human. We need people to be with people. Us with us.

Yeah, I know smarty-mouth guys like me who are a bit testy with nice ladies at 7 a.m. can be challenging, but isn’t that still a better option than flatty-face?

Well J.S., see what you did? Take it in stride, my friend. Thanks for the idea. I will forever be grateful when there is an uprising of the touchscreens against me. Karma can be a nasty thing. I’ll make sure they have your number.

So many choices at a salad bar. Not as many, it seems, as local drive up cracky speaker, self-serve (any more) fast food joints, though. I have to mindfully decide to up-size my heaping spring salad mix instead of that decision being forced upon me by well-intentioned, high margin cholesterol pushers. No fizzy sodas. No grease smells wafting around my clothes that gleefully linger throughout the day. Just me, the lettuce options, and …. so much more.

I’ve done this salad bar thing before – inside a local grocery store, where fifty-year old guys contemplate their internal organ conditions and consider a healthy lunch option every so often. Shouldn’t speak for other guys, however, ’cause I never nudge elbows or share baby corn tongs. I’m always alone. Me and #4471, the code for weighing the multi-colored , sometimes dry concrete heavy monstrosity I end up with at the end. Some say, “Eat salads! They’re light ..” … Yeah, right.

If I don’t somehow manage to drop 16 other containers on the floor trying to unglue one off the top, the process usually begins post haste. Four lettuce types – only one of which I really like: CHUNKS !!. Love the chunks. Iceberg chunks. If spinach and spring mix came in heaping chunks and cores of deliciousness, I believe the earth could stop spinning right now. Could’t find too many of these within the icy bins holding all the necessary base-salad leafy greens, so an assortment of boringly flat, wimpy, “please take me” scratch had to do.

Sliding down the bar of no-fat/no joy, I encountered the next option: smaller vegetables. Carrots shaved down to one size larger than the human hair, onion circles attached to one another somewhere rendering one without six others almost impossible, and cherry tomatoes sized to not match the end of the very tongs assigned to them … all standard utility every time I visit. Accompanying these were the peas soaking in water (no thanks), small dry broccoli and cauliflower florets, olives, and bell pepper slivers. Necessary pile-ons. To pass over these would’ve been sacro-salad-sanc. How embarrassing it would have been to the scratch spinach .. naked to the world, uncovered, bare, exposed – if only for a minute as I focused my attention on the next, most sexy-named group: Les Legumes.

“Ah, my sweet Legumes”, rolls off the tongue as easily as, “I love you, my lovely sweet plume.”. As an aside, say it with a deep French accent – not aloud in the grocery store, but very much alone as you read this …. Anyhow…chickpeas, black beans, white beans, or pinto beans – the third choice group down the slide. My pleasure in this group is watching the little tan chicks roll around, finding their way through the cracks and hopefully disappearing into the darkness. THIS is why chunks are so important! They give topography to the salad. Depth. Meaning. Never would I ever pass by my little chick-a-dee-peas.

Around the corner to the tough neighborhood. Feeling the weight upon my shoulders and #4471 friend, we enter the dark alley of the macaroni boys. Their gatekeeper, at the end, was a group who shake down all who dare to turn: bacon bit and crouton tumblers who will mix it up with you if you dare. I chose not to, walking wide around the alley of despair, hoping to face the macaroni boys head on – feeling quite confident as I previously avoided these two without incident.

The macaroni boys are bold and arrogant. They hold special favor in the salad bar neighborhood due to their heft. They throw around their multi-syllabic mac-a-ro-ni weight knowing a few ladle-fulls in a plastic bin of unawareness can tip the scales in the favor of profitability. Next to the hard boiled egg clan living next door, who could provide an admiral food fight, the M.B’s hold a tight reign of terror over salad bar city. I plucked a few spiral cousins, gently, from the clan before the bosses recognized me, and quickly shuffled out of there before trench coat Willie spotted me and put out a pasta hit on my ^ss.

Last up the line were the incidentals. The unintendeds. Colory little hickeymadoos the grocery store so graciously allows us to see. A few drop down meats of fish pieces, turkey chunks, ham, chicken, and protein options strewn about usually find their way into my one-or-two chunk pile salads. Cheeses shredded down, and nuts of all naturally nuttiness, nutrious goodness get a spoonful or two of my attention. … Puddings, salsas, and creams (I think) don’t, but are there for another fifty-year old(ish) guy wanting some. Possibly crackers in packages and dressings in bottles to use are there and packs of same to buy separately at a ridiculously high per ounce price.

Certainly other salad bars – and this one as well – have other, different, items available for the more discerning shopper. I am a focused – know what I want at the end of a salad bar tong – guy. That said, the check-out always surprises me. Always. I blame BABY CORN ON THE COBS!. The damn things must weigh 3 pounds each. Ordinarily, #4471 should be reasonably priced, right?

I’m not going to rant on and on … know why? Because I’m not going to change. I’m not going to ever make a salad at a salad bar without them in order to find out the difference in price. They’re just that good.

Feeling proud of my decision to eat healthy, I finished my salad while in the process of writing this short salad saga. My friend, #4471, and I can close out the the entry proud we did it together.

I snapped shut an empty plastic container about an hour ago and will be placing it into the recycle bin shortly. Thankful, as always, to share this time with you … and, in a way, to have my clothes not smell like grease.

I mark my life safe from the macaroni boys as well for another day.

Finding today fascinating, I sit with a cold iced tea to my left and the never too far away cell phone resting near the computer mouse to my right. Down in the wee corner of the screen ahead, tucked away in almost obscurity, are little organized numbers and dashes. Directly above these I see 1:07 PM, indicating I have exactly one hour, twenty-two minutes to organize my thoughts before time expires. At that time, out into the cold I will go … attempting to sew the minds of the youth with the wisdom of the ages.

To what do I refer? 2/20/2020. Certainly not the press 02/02/2020 received as the palindrome princess eighteen days ago! I find today, in comparison, to be cleaner. It has a simple message forward: One number (2), followed by two numbers (20), followed by four (2020). Moreover, that one number doubled equals two, then two doubled equals four. Two (2), of course, being the multiplier and the only number, other than zero, to appear in the date AND there are only (2) dashes within the whole display. Totaling up all the numbers including the zeros? 7. Days in the week? 7. Coincidence? Ok, well maybe the last example one isn’t the exclamation point I was hoping for, but ….

..but what? I like this date today. I also may be the only one who does. A true visionary in the field of date recognitionary sciences, perhaps? Ah, I doubt it. Numbers, dashes, and any other visible nouns – are caught by these eyes …

… and held hostage longer than they should – at my insistence. Daily. It’s a problem: this internal requirement demanding everything I see go through a mental grinding mill. In goes information boulders some may find passively entertaining. Out comes blather opinion dust blowing everywhere, with no specific direction, subject to the freaks of natural selection. Processing the sentiment inside? A machine with cogs and pistons of reasons, spirits, feelings, to-do lists, wants, needs, huhs, don’t-get-its, whys, and hurts.

I don’t believe I am alone. All of us have this complex, weird brain process. We must grind through the day accumulating a mountain-load of rocks in order to keep the waters of life’s dam at bay. Information everywhere asking our cerebral matter to takes matters into its own hands … then friendly forced to state our views, meekly or assertively, written or aloud. Too much I say, for an over-punchy, look-at-that now kind of person. Way too much.

My mom was a look-at-that inspirational figure. Her enthusiasm for life urged her to do it. I do believe this was an escape from what was real – not living a life she really wanted for herself. Everything outside was magically keeping the perilous waters at bay. Her eyes caught everything including the beauty inside everyone and everything; although, she missed the beauty in herself represented in the you are special dust that blew from her into the hearts of all who knew her. Thus, the complex grinding mill of one wonderful mother, no longer alive, who is very much responsible for the genetic fuel in my mind motor.

Still, today is, has been, and will continue to be fascinating. Maybe only to me? 2/20/2020 really looks sexy. All those 2’s… Oh, and it is almost 7:00 pm. I was busy soaking in a ton of information since 1:07 as my mind processed a ton of rocks labeled music, chinese food, traffic, poker, emails, and texts. Deadline of 2:30? Didn’t happen. Obviously. I’m sure as I attempt to rest tonight, I’ll be Wile E Coyote’d again. Always happens. Too much information to process.

Tomorrow is 2/21/2020. Good thing. I don’t see that as being nearly as sexy.

A camera-to-camera selfie in the mirror is infinite. To put this image into simpler, easier to understand language:

• 

It’s infinitely more difficult to take a cell-fie than I thought. The little bubble eye-patchure thing is positioned in the upper 7th section of the phone just about where impossibility meets impatience. Granted, I don’t own the greatest and latest, but c’mon now! This should have been an easier task. Point, click, and shoot. Not to mention, although I will, last Thanksgiving a relative set the count-down-from-ten clock … an added ten seconds to my life I can’t get rid of in my phone. My “take this pic, and shove the backward ten numbers I can’t figure out how to disengage up your, well … ” Samsung, hip-hugging, pocket-inserting device which is the subject of a woe today.

More like a “whoa!” … said I, when settling into a familiar red booth, patting one of two empty pockets where said phone should have been.

It began as a morning of hope after a relatively good 7 hours sleep without neighborhood sirens, bodily interruptions, twisty-tie sheets jammed in my face, or pillows acting as suffocating murderers. Yesterday’s long blog in the hopper – thankfully so, as it was a day long project ending five hours later than projected. A bit surprised at the 9-degree temperature, though, due to the unseasonably warm February weather lately. With no expectation of an unordinary day, my hopeful self opened the familiar glass doors to a cafe of warm tea and friendships.

One friend was already quite comfortable looking sitting behind the steam of her second mug of coffee. Two others, under warmer circumstances, would have already been seated and served. With this, I had the rare, coveted choice of “inside or outside” booth-butt placement with the added bonus of being able to change my mind at any time. Having made a choice, I readied my posture … bent knees, tilted torso, momentum forward …

…then, “Whoa!!” I realized I left my cell phone at home. 🤦🏻‍♂️🙄

Of all the infinite problems an individual universe could visit upon someone, leaving a cell phone 4 miles away – in a familiar safe place – isn’t one of the unsolvables. It’s simply one of the classic “d’uhs” normal human-people stub their day on every once in a while. I didn’t recognize it as such until later. The moment I felt pockets as empty as wordy words without w’s, I knew my morning booth breakfast time was setting up to be more than one bacon strip short of a two-thousand calorie good time.

My leg twitched constantly. Righthand-smacking, a consequence of boredom, developed a red mark on the outside of a right thigh that didn’t deserve the abuse. Constant tapping, of what I believe to have been a Chopin Nocturne, on the table in front of my two friends (one new arrival adding to the mix) contributing to the vacancy of sanity in my head at the time. Head bobbing, not in agreement to anything, but in sync with the already metronomic twitching going on under the table … all of which, together, provide a symphony of laughs for the other patrons enjoying their breakfast fare.

At no time did I pay more than a few minutes attention to any conversation during the hour-and-a-half visit with my two friends … and this is a sad commentary on my life.

My phone was safe. I, clearly, was not.

Ok. Maybe that is overstating the problem a bit. It was a small wake-up. I was shocked how much not having my cell phone by my side changed how I thought – almost immediately. Granted, above assumed some literary license and I had fun writing, but it’s not too far from how I felt.

Mostly, the “what if” feelings crept in. What if someone important is calling me? What if I am missing an important text? What if there is a comment to a FaceBook post I wrote earlier? What if … this and that.

What if ….I missed important conversations with two really good friends because I was too worried about a cell phone missing, but safe at home? A question that never entered my mind until later.

It began as morning of limited hope. I can end the day with infinite hope having learned my lesson. Find your friends and a cafe. Not sayin’ to forget your cell phones at home, just maybe keep them in your pocket. This prevents a whole lot of twitching, patting, tapping, and metronomic nodding in public places and possibly saves an opportunity with friends that may never present itself again.

I invented a new word. “Idowatotab’it“.

Six vowels and an equal number of consonants alternate quite nicely, one after another, when glossed over the tongue. I encourage you to give it a go if you haven’t already. See … how fun, right?

Why this word … Ido-wato-tab’it?

As with all things, necessity breeds all things necessary in a life open to what is, necessarily, needed for all things to make sense; Therefore, I had to come up with a catch-all word to cover all the non-sense things happening in order to make sense out of all of the things I didn’t understand. Einstein struggled with his Theory of Everything. I have Idowatotabit. We’re pretty much the same I’m-man-concept except he had over-sexed hair and an accelerated IQ – accompanied with space-time fussiness – while I struggle with why bugs don’t walk in straight lines. I’m still working on that.

Too many times I’ve walked away – like last night, for example – without a feeling of “I had that”, or “Wow, I figured all that out”. Consider the problem of math. Simple math. Theoretically, simple math. The following problem appeared on my split Facebook screen:

“Find three consecutive numbers such that when twice the first is subtracted from the third and the difference increased by 8, the result is the same as the first number, increased by 4.“

I had slight interest in the answer to this problem at first. I DID care about the pocket 9-J of spades I was nursing in a hand of free texas holdem over on the left side of my split screen. The math involved figuring out pot and implied odds, after a Jack, Deuce, and Two hit the table on the flop with two aggressive players yet to act after me, was infinitely more fascinating. However, after a few subsequent peeks, my math geek third eye couldn’t help but consider < x+(1+x)+(2+x) such that when (2+x)-2x = y + 8 = x + 4 … > This was quite satisfying knowing I had, necessarily, come up with “3” as x … the correct answer in a relatively Einsteinly, non-theoretical short amount of time.

What should have more obvious to me is the Queen jumping off the table that was turned over as the 4th card, joining the Jack, Deuce, and Nine. This was a quite hazardous card for player A (me) staring down at 9-J. While I was over playing right-screen footsie with x and y, players B & C were actually paying full attention. Oh, I was clicking in chips because of my two-pair … no worries there … but the math I should have been executing there was otherwise detained.

Final card. Ding! … an Eight!…. Uh Oh. I had 9-J. Still had 9-J. On the board: Jack-Deuce-Nine-Queen-Eight.

Give me a bit of leeway to historize this particular game on this particular day. I was in a position to make the final table of nine players. The cards hit the table with over 350 players and had less than 10% remaining, including this guy who sometimes worries about quarters not lining up in neat, organized piles (that’s for you, John). Faced with possible elimination after dominating the chip stacks for forty-five minutes prior, I lost the math early in the hand and failed to make the correct bet sizes early (lingo for “I slopped the bucket”).

Player B … big bet after I checked knowing I was probably no good with only two pair. Player C folded. Ok. So it’s up to me. He, She, a dog or llama (online … didn’t know who it was – just an icon) has me all-in if I made the call. I knew what I was up against. A “10” I knew I was up against a straight. I knew, as sure as I knew the answer was “3”, that I was beat. So what did I do?

Yep … made the call. And lost all my chips. Why? Because bugs don’t walk in straight lines.

WHY? Because I had to know I was right! and …

WHY? What other way possible is there to come up with a catch-all word to cover all the non-sense things that happen in order to make sense out of all of the things I don’t understand? …Walking away, head down … not sad, but frustrated. Solving a sixth grade math problem (did I mention quickly?) while creating an adult problem for myself seems to be the split screen in life. The solving one, but creating another paradigm all of us face. I suspect, when considering the ever popular Stress–energy–momentum pseudotensor. Einstein himself found no solace at times between this idiomatic rock and hard place. The 9-J of his time.

Not dejected, but thwarted, I began my trek away from the very computer where
“I had that”, but didn’t. I started talking to inanimate objects, kicking my emotional self for third-eye wanderings, woefully cursing the curse of understanding quadratic equations, and then I stopped. Halted by a wondrously, wonderful, overwhelmingly syrupy word!

IDOWATOTAB’IT

My escape key from the emotional straight jacket paradigm. And, may I suggest it for your use as well?

Say it slowly with a forward hand gesture and a rich, deep Italian accent … With all the fervor and angst you can muster … Got it?

I don’t know what a Stress–energy–momentum pseudotensor does. I hope, for all bugs everywhere, there isn’t one walking around tomorrow, minding its own business, walking in an arc of distress seeing as it will not end well for either of us. For me, bug parts attached under my shoe I’ll need to clean and, well, spattered bug parts under my shoe for it. The solving one, but creating another paradigm all of us face. Even bugs.

Eewe, Ido-wato-tab’it anymore.

.

Approximately 9 p.m. last evening, I owned today’s writing. My formerly sharp brain and I, by extension, held captive an idea … written on the walls of imagination. There, among dreams of lottery winnings, high functioning mental health, youthful skin, and non-clicky knees, this most wonderful, uplifting theme for today took its place. Largely noticed within bumbling fantastical whimsy, it sat as I went about other matters knowing this morning would come quickly. “Alas, I have stumbled upon the golden theme for tomorrow’s posting!”, as paraphrased and foretold to a friend in a text last evening, thus setting a terrific tome for today…

…yes, a particular, predetermined post never to appear in front of your expectant, hopeful eyes. Unfortunately.

Sometime during the night, whispered Samsung gods stole my phone and, in the process, took hostage my sanity. All attempts to pull lucidness back into my 6 a.m. start blogging world came to a panicky halt … and with that, a delightfully original idea went into a disposable digital file stamped, “I may remember for later … but won’t. Even if I do, the brilliance I believed in my heart will have been sacrificed to the what would-have-been idols.” … (and, yes I do have tabs wide enough for such a label).

Let’s get this over with. I sleep rogue. With certain back issues and irregular patterns of wanting to be my own boss, the sofa is king. Charging station, multiple remotes for stuff I don’t even think are around anymore, trays for snacks and glasses, reclining possibilities … all comforts giving me at least a promise of 4 hours quality sleep. This is the healthiest option I have short of snuggling into a heaping pile of large bills on a swanky, velvety hotel bed somewhere in Nevada.

Mr. Samsung is never far away – within an arm’s length resting comfortably atop the largest cushion, overseeing my dream state. He is in a holding pattern at the ready, fully charged should I rise inspired. Until he’s not.

Welcome to my February 7th, 2020.

There was no reason for me to believe in ghosts until reaching for my phone early this morning and all I felt was a sliverly white charge cord. Familiar? Yes. Expected? What do you think? Not only did this feel narly in my already suprised hand, it also had its little “watcha gonna do ’bout it?” jack face staring right back. Picking up the little bastard, in my best grimbly, stubble-faced voice, I demanded, “Where’s my damn phone?! …. I need answers and I need ’em NOW!’. Silence.

Ok. Talking to inanimate objects wasn’t going to work. Corrective action needed. I knew my phone was within 3 feet. It HAD to be near because I plugged it in only hours before. In behind, down in back, across the front, up the sides did my not quite awake body-eyes scan. My every knee-worn move was mocked by the Jack King from its sofatic throne above with those quiet spits of righteous venom from …. hold on … I’m overheating through reflection.

So, anyway…. no phone. Off to the house phone to do the reverse-call-cell-number-gag-trick. You know, right? Problem being ….. what? Yes. My cell volume was …. off. No worries, though. Middle of the early morning with no noise meant I should have been able to hear the vibrating no-call default. Home phone up to one ear, the other free, I began my best impression of Tonto listening for cattle hooves. Slowly, up and across the sofa cushions, then down on the floor, I relentlessly ear-scanned with excellence. Puncing, poping, and prodding my lobe in places I never thought possible with rug burn as a reward…no vibration -save the ever increasing, irregular frustrating beat of my heart … still no phone…and jack staring me down.

Next. The dreaded “thrust hands in mysterious, dark cracks” method of retrieval. Jeepers. At this point, I sat back and contemplated. Is my phone really worth it? If ghosts took it, so be it, right? I like my phone guys. I can always write using my desktop, upgrade to an IPhone, … the options are aplenty. Stick my piano hands into where? Shit, no!

I was into this project, easily, 20 minutes and wrote off any hopes of following through with the original blog. This was developing into a Doug does a thing anyway, so I had to push forward into uncomfortable.

Squinty eyes aren’t my thing unless I have bad gas or eye sight too poor to pick people out of a crowd. This was an unfamiliar time to squint. In went my hands as two eyes, not used to partial closure in response to distress, closed completely from the horror of it all. Swiping around in darkness amidst textures I’ve never assumed real, my hands were assaulted by things. I have no other words. Grubly things. Stofly things. Glurkley things. Enough things to warrant my immediate withdrawal of hands without concern for any phone I may, or may not, ever see again.

Off to the kitchen. Two reasons. I needed to return the house phone. Second, in the everything drawer was a flashlight. Last resort. You may be wondering why I didn’t use a flashlight before – when looking in and around the sofa. Well, I’m a guy. We don’t do the obvious things first. Also, as an aside, if you’re ever frustrated, don’t look into the shiny end of a flashlight at 6 a.m. before turning it on …. and then. Maybe this life skill was covered in 2nd grade? I may have been absent that day.

Back to the front lines I marched with flashlight in hand and two very bright white spots in my eyes. On my knees once again, battle weary with a chafed ear and traumatized hands, I mined the underbelly of the fabriced beast whereupon I once rested. Memories of those moments gone … simultaneous stares from jack above, dripping sarcasm every time I failed. The rails and metal parts scuffed and scraped until at last I saw a small little gem – an AHA moment heard silently around the living room. A sliver of silver so perfectly perfect was the volume control on the side of my phone!

Take THAT, Jack!! .. I found my phone. Step one. Here’s the new problem. This is a sectional sofa with an iron and metal configuration challenging the Eiffel Tower. My phone was jammed upright in between two rails making extrication almost impossible. Now, I knew the phone made its way down there from the pain-in-the-ass jack, right? Gravity works only one way. I had no solution. My hands were too large to fit in between and taking apart the sofa then, at 6:45 in the morning, wasn’t a fix. I considered sucking in deeply, thus reducing the hulkiness of my hands. Maybe the general laws of body mass would step aside? Yardsticks, yarn, another household item beginning with “y”, or another letter, wasn’t the answer. A quagmire🤔.

Out of ideas was I. The ring so close … yet so far. A bridesmaid, not a bride. Almost a full hour. All I wanted to do was wake up, blog about Chinese food, push “publish”, and go about my day. As it stood, I was being taunted by a skinny wire and beaten down through a series of sensorial slaps to my soul. All for what? To be left looking at my phone two feet away, pining for release …. a salvation I could not provide.

And then a cellular MIRACLE, my friends!!

….As if those very idols, of a blog never to be seen, released their powers upon me with alacrity never before seen. The force strong enough to force my little Jack “buddy” off his little perch and to dislodge my phone from its perilous position, falling gently to the floor where I scooped it up. Simply said, in a less dramatic way, I kinda banged the f*ck out of the sofa cushion above – out of frustration – which dislodged my phone.

I doubt today was the day you wanted to hear about Chinese food, anyway. Good thing ghosts decided to move my phone and for me to miss a few Friday happenin’s in order to write. It’s always good for me share as I hope it is for you to read.

With that, I will plug my phone in for another night’s charging. Honestly, if I wake tomorrow and find my phone missing again in the early morning, there will be a quite different fantastical whimsy dancing around in my head …..

A line of exiting shoppers extending from the front door, easily ten yards ahead, to the same distance behind where I sit watching a cute young couple devour two hot dogs, one large hamburger, and two sodas. An all too familiar scene inside our local Sam’s Club as I wait, patiently and uncomfortably, on a red and white little elementary school-sized table not designed with me in mind.

Physically, I have a bony frame – specific to a certain part of my body in contact with a small, hard seat I currently occupy – that no amount of exercise will ever remedy. Emotionally, I’m not happy seeing unhappy people sloodged over their slow moving, thin-metal cages holding prisoner impulse bulk items they were unconsciously forced to buy. Spiritually, I focus on correct word choices I now type into my Samsung, praying for enlightenment as members jam extra shots of soda into their already full cups of overflowing carbonated poison at the fountain nearby. So yes, uncomfortable is the correct word choice for now.

Question: What would make me secure in my feelings right now? Well, maybe that isn’t the right question to ask. Rewind. What could I be doing right now – other than sitting on a toddler playground set in Sam’s Club, blogging about my first world problems, while anxiously slugging my knees upwards against the underside of a cheap plastic table? This the proper question! …

Answer: Absolutely NOTHING. This is where life placed me right now. For better … for worse, I am here.

A few minutes ago I was shuffling through the bread aisle sampling pizza off a small vendor cart. Before then, staring mindlessly into a self-serve kiosk that asked me, in a sexy, Angelina Jolie-ish robotic voice, if I wanted $2 off a bottle of dish detergent. I did stand there for an extra minute just to hear her ask me again … and, maybe again… before leaving without extricating a coupon from her welcoming aperture. In between, before and after pizza samples and, err… coupon moments, I wandered to and fro, in and among people-folk of all big-tall and smallness. They, as well, found themselves here – in Sam’s Club on Superbowl Sunday – pushing a cart full of expectations.

Twenty minutes ago, my good buddy Jim greeted me at the door with his usual smile and welcoming, “Hey, Doug … Nice to see you” demeanor. I pass through the doors of this gray brick building many, many times during the seasonal months of my business … February not being one of them… so, for Jim to address me in such a way wasn’t a surprise. Because we share a common interest in collecting small pieces of cardboard with athletes pictures on them (as wives understand them to be), the bond is natural and genuine. One of the few un-contractual benefits of “The Club”, I guess.

As I reflect, the faces in the never-ending line have changed. This doesn’t mean much except everyone around me looks different as well, which must mean I’m done in this place for now. My butt has the feeling of an anesthetized loaf of bread, the young couple’s food has been reduced to soggy napkins in the waste can, and I’m pretty sure there’s no more diet coke remaining in the soda machine. For now, time will not wait, but my thoughts will …

….I didn’t have any high hopes as I walked into Sam’s hours ago. My wish today was to fill time while Superbowl snacky odds and ends were being gathered. Writing wasn’t even on my mind. If any pangs of hunger poked a peek at all, I would have entertained a snack instead of observing. Eating is far better a diversion and time waster than staring at strangers while growing increasingly, posteriorly numb. Alas, I was driven to ogle. That is where life placed me and I was determined to make something out of it.

If there is a lesson, that’s it. Where we are at any moment – grocery, school, or park – is a place full of emotion, spirituality, and physical senses, etc … IF we see it that way. Observing our surroundings is filling up our lives with color that otherwise would be missed.

I was reminded of that today.

Now, when I get the chance … and soon … I must go back. I hear there’s a coupon for $2 off dish detergent.