Because people have these new devices, it’s become impossible even to ask them what time it is.
Friday, November 21 is World Hello Day. “Anyone can participate… simply by greeting ten people. This demonstrates the importance of personal communication for preserving peace.”
This, historically, would be an action that was right up my alley. Unfortunately, I find it increasingly difficult to say hello to people.
Most of the folks I see each day are on the bus. Invariably, they have devices stuck in their ears and/or in front of their faces. Even people I know in passing don’t know I’m speaking with them.
The change is fairly recent. I’ve been riding the bus to Corporate (frickin’) Woods for nine years, and this simply was not a problem then. I was involved with any number of conversations with people who were not particularly known to me, though you start developing “bus relationships.”
These days, the bus is full, yet I feel alone. I use my own devices, not just because I really need to use them, but almost in self-defense.
Because people have these new devices, it’s become impossible even to ask them what time it is. Not so long ago, the universal symbol for requesting the time is to point to your wrist, where your watch might have been. But because the watch is passe, the symbolism it represented is likewise diminished.
Still, I’ll make the effort to say hello, if only because the need is greater than ever.
I was thrilled that the drug store CVS stopped selling cigarettes and other tobacco products at its more than 7,600 retail stores as of October 1, a decision announced back in January.
On a regular basis, the US Surgeon General offers reports on smoking and tobacco use. 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of that first report in January 1964 that linked smoking with lung cancer.
This year’s report links smoking to: Coronary heart disease and stroke Lung diseases such as COPD, which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis Cancer of the – •Bladder •Bone marrow and blood •Cervix •Esophagus •Kidneys and ureters •Larynx (voice box) •Lungs •Mouth, nose, and throat •Pancreas •Stomach •Trachea Infertility for both men and women For babies: ◦Preterm (early) delivery ◦Stillbirth (death of the baby before birth) ◦Low birth weight ◦Sudden infant death syndrome (known as SIDS or crib death) Lower bone density (weaker bones) than women who never smoked and are at greater risk for broken bones. Health of teeth and gums and can cause tooth loss.1 Cataracts (clouding of the eye’s lens that makes it hard for you to see).1 *Diabetes is harder to control.
I was thrilled that the drug store CVS stopped selling cigarettes and other tobacco products at its more than 7,600 retail stores as of October 1, a decision, the LA Times noted when it reported this back in January:
that would make it the first national pharmacy company to cease tobacco sales. The move… comes after years of pressure from public health advocates and medical providers, who have urged retailers to make tobacco products and advertising less available, particularly to children and teenagers.
It also marks a major turn for one of the country’s biggest healthcare companies. CVS Caremark is the second-largest drugstore chain behind Walgreen Co. and has been steadily increasing its business, providing medical care through its pharmacists and through a growing number of urgent care clinics at its retail locations.
There is help for quitting. An ex-smoker friend of mine suggested Quitnet, but whatever works will make your life longer. And better.
I’m still a digital immigrant – heck, just off the boat – when it comes to texting.
My old cellphone died recently, a flip phone that totally broke in half, and would no longer charge. I’d had it only about five years, or maybe seven. I KNEW there was texting capacity on it but even though I READ THE MANUAL, I couldn’t figure out how to type words on a telephone keypad. I played with the # and * keys and got different, inconsistent results.
Anyway, I read RTM for the new phone; same thing: no information, assuming I’m SUPPOSED to know. But I don’t. But I Facebook IMed my old friend (and by old, I’ve known her since kindergarten) Carol (not to be confused with my wife Carol, who wasn’t born when I went to kindergarten.) I let her know that I could RECEIVE a text, but that I didn’t know how to SEND one.
The Phone Keyboard uses the phone in the same standard way. Pressing the desired number keys [1] through [9] and a [0] still produces the numbers 1 – 9 and 0. Pressing the left asterisk [*] key once exits the standard number mode and enters a 2 key Alphabet Mode. Letters are produced in the Alphabet Mode by pressing the desired letter on a number key [1] through [9], followed by one of three position keys: the “left” asterisk [*] key for the left letter, the “middle” zero [0] key for the middle letter or the “right” pound [#] key for the right letter…
Pressing the left asterisk [*] key 2 times exits the standard number mode and enters a Shiftable Alphabet Mode. Letters are produced in the Shiftable Alphabet Mode by pressing the desired letter on a number key [1] through [9], followed by one of three position keys: the “left” asterisk [*] key for the left letter, the “middle” zero [0] key for the middle letter or the “right” pound [#] key for the right letter…
Pressing the left asterisk [*] key 3 times exits the standard number mode and enters a Multi-Tap Mode. Letters are produced in the Multi-Tap Mode by pressing the desired letter on a number key [1] through [9] once, twice or three times….
This explains everything, including how I kept shifting from mode to mode without intending to do so. Now I text. Not a lot, mind you, to friend Carol and my sisters. And I showed The Wife how to do so on her phone that’s about the same vintage as my old one.
BTW, I have a plan that costs $20 per three months, but I get charged more if I exceed the allotted number of minutes/units/whatever. I have been SO not reaching the threshold that, after I got the new phone ($12 off the balance), I still had $170 left. Texting will probably eat into that, but not sure how much.
And I’m still a digital immigrant – heck, just off the boat – when it comes to texting. Now that I know HOW to do it, can’t imagine spending hours on it. Then again, a decade ago, I couldn’t have imagined blogging every day. So what do I know?
Also, I DON’T have a smartphone yet. It’s not the cost of the phone that bugs me, it’s the cost of the monthly service. I considered doing so when I got this new phone, but then they started talking about “picking a plan,” and I bailed.
I must be cheap; I see this TV ad for a smartphone for ONLY $150 per month for four people, and that’s supposedly a good deal; not on OUR budget, it’s not! Well, maybe when the Daughter’s a little older… (Sound of blogger kicking and screaming.)
http://wronghands1.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/important-texts/ used under CC license: by-nc-nd/
Ever walk into a room, stop halfway in, and wonder why you were there..in that room?
Sure you have.
Or forgotten a word for a few minutes? Even a whole phrase?!
These times are laughingly called “seniors moments” or “brain farts” and they happen to most older people. They are, however, damned annoying and embarrassing when they happen…
You begin to worry about dementia.. how long do you have left before one of your loving relatives calls your doctor and tries to have you committed to a “old folks home” or the funny farm? How long before you can’t remember what your name is?
The bottom line is that we of a “certain age” know so much, generally, more than younger people, “simply by virtue of having been around longer,” an older brain has to go through more stuff – suddenly, Black is Black by Los Bravos pops into my head from a K-Tel Records ad! – to retrieve information. Factor that in and “the aging ‘deficits’ largely disappeared.”
One of the truisms of my birth family dynamic was that, as the youngest, “baby” sister Marcia was the only one to move to Charlotte, NC when my parents did in 1974. Leslie and I were both in college in upstate New York, me in New Paltz, Leslie in the hometown of Binghamton. And while both of us stayed in Charlotte briefly, me for four months in 1977, Leslie for a few months c. 1980 later, neither of us ever became Charlotteans.
Whereas Marcia stayed in Charlotte for most of her life, save for a few months here and there. I remember more than one conversation with Marcia suggesting that she needed to get out of town, or at least out of the parents’ house when she was in her early twenties. For a lot of reasons, it didn’t happen.
When my father died in 2000, it then became practical for Mom, and Marcia, and her then-preteen daughter Alex to continue to live together. This was actually a sweetheart deal for Leslie, by then in San Diego, and me, in Albany. The three of them were all caring for each other. Leslie and/or I could visit periodically, but the day-to-day concerns of our mom were not our problem, because she was being taken care of.
So, it was not until shortly before my mother died in February 2011 that I realized how difficult my mother had become. Mom was a genuinely sweet person – seriously, ask anyone who knew her – but she would hit and occasionally yell, not at people who were strangers, but towards her family, Marcia and Alex. Mom would hide the mail, which became such a problem Marcia had to get a post office box.
Every six months, Mom would receive some cognition test. Her results in June or July of 2010 were within the normal range, but the outcome for six months later was far less favorable. Again, I wasn’t aware of this.
In the end, Mom was clearly suffering some sort of dementia. Whether it was Alzheimer’s or something else I don’t know, and never will. And I suppose it doesn’t matter.
What DOES matter is that it was unfortunate that the bulk of the care for her fell on one person. I wish I had known sooner how difficult it had become.
Friday, November 21 is World Hello Day. “Anyone can participate… simply by greeting ten people. This demonstrates the importance of personal communication for preserving peace.”
