Lydia Archives - Page 9 of 48 - Ramblin' with Roger

A matter of good timing

The bike and the bus

On October 12, things worked out for me splendidly. It was a matter of good timing.

I had four or five suits or at least the jackets when I retired from work in June 2019. My wife, I know, was evaluating whether I needed all of them since I scarcely wore them all, maybe thrice a year.

Early in October, I went into the closet to discover I had only two jackets. One was a little small. the other, unfortunately, had moth holes. And I needed something to wear to the Literary Legends gala.

This might have meant going to a store to buy a new suit, but by then, it was the Tuesday before the Saturday event. Tuesdays in October meant Bible Guys at 9 a.m. and then introducing the speaker for the FFAPL Book Talk from noon until 1:30.

By the time I ate lunch, emptied and refilled the dishwasher, and took a shower, it was close to 3 pm. I wanted to get home before my daughter did, around 4:45 after a yearbook meeting.

The journey begins

3:17 Leave the house, go to the shed, get the bike, ride it to the CVS 3 blocks away. Pick up a package from Amazon that was delivered there. It’s curious that another box from Amazon, with much the same item, was delivered to my house on the same day.

Rode my bike back one block to West Lawrence and Western to be in a position to catch either the #114 going down Madison Avenue or the #10, heading down Western. As it turned out, both arrived on time, at 3:35 and I took the latter to Lark St, rode the bike to the tuxedo place a couple of blocks away.

Got measured for the suit, which I would pick up on Friday via bus. Ride the bike three blocks to Washington and Henry Johnson, where I just catch the #10 bus that got me to a block from my house.

I park my bike in the shed and I was in the house at 4:21, in plenty of time to beat my daughter home. Except for the fact that she came home early, c. 4 because she wasn’t feeling well. But it was the effort that counted.

Couch Guy: why people are watching

shame as a tool

As is often the case, my daughter says to me something that just doesn’t register. A few days ago, she asked “Have you heard about Couch Guy?” It is her apparent obligation to keep me up to date on cultural trends. I had no idea what/who she was talking about.

If you go on Yahoo, you can type in Couch Guy Tiktok and find the video; it’s less than a minute. It is ostensibly about a young woman surprising her long-distance boyfriend. What it became is what NBC News suggested how internet sleuthing can be toxic.

“The video, posted Sept. 21 by Lauren Zarras, shows her boyfriend, Robbie…surrounded by friends and sitting on a couch next to three other women.

“Many of the people who have commented on the video.. suggested that Robbie was, in fact, not happy to see Zarras. Some went so far as to accuse him of being unfaithful to her. Not long after it went viral, TikTokers began meticulously combing through the video…”

My first position was to be the grumpy old man and think, “Why should anyone care about this?” But as someone who recognizes that how people communicate matters, I found myself utterly fascinated. Not by Robbie, the couch guy, for whom I feel bad that people find the need to so scrutinize ten seconds of his life.

Now some folks – I found several examples that won’t bother linking to – who ‘analyzed” the video out the sense that it was hot copy, even though they thought it was a lame narrative.

However, this phenomenon – I have to say obsession – provides some odd validation for these online sleuths. Indeed, for those who have rooted out racism and violence, e.g., that is an accomplishment.

Conversely

The NBC piece discussed Morgan Forte, 23, who has “experienced what happens when it feels as though the internet has collectively decided to pick apart your life based on a seconds-long clip.

“Forte, of Jacksonville, Florida, said she posted a short video of her parents dancing a few years ago. Some claimed that Forte’s mother was acting grumpy in the clip.

“When the video blew up, getting about 15 million views across accounts that had shared it, some commenters began saying Forte’s father should leave her mother because of her demeanor in the video.” As they say, OMG.

Experienced

Producer and activist Monica Lewinsky – yes, that Monica Lewinsky – is an anti-bullying advocate. She has produced a movie called 15 Minutes of Shame which she discussed recently on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.

As Rolling Stone quoted her, “’One of the factors in the film is around the idea of how shame has been used since the beginning of time as a social tool.’ With the onset of the internet and tabloid culture — the problem worsened.”

John Della Volpe reported on new polling:

1) Nearly 2/3 of Americans who use platforms believe life was better without them.
2) 42% of #GenZ addicted, can’t stop if they tried.

It’s useless to rant, “You kids, don’t you have better things to do?” For many of them, the answer is no.

Lydster: looking at colleges

spreadsheet

By the end of her junior year in high school, I wondered if my daughter was even interested in looking at colleges. And, I might add, it would have been OK if she weren’t.

Within 48 hours of the conclusion of the semester, she hauled out a bunch of catalogs, pamphlets, and other materials from the past six months or more. She had KEPT those? Her mother and I had thought that she had tossed them out. But what do WE know? We’re just parents.

She created a spreadsheet and soon had prioritized the colleges and universities into four categories. Some of the criteria were based on her understanding of the vitality of their art program. But diversity and other factors I don’t quite understand also played into it.

Having looked at the literature she received, I got a glimpse of what impressed her. For instance, one had a piece of glossy paper with her name; it’s a mail merge, but I’ll admit it was cool. A student from my wife’s alma mater wrote her a personal letter, noting my daughter’s interest in art; that was nice. But neither school was in her upper tier.

She also gets a TON of emails. Or more correctly, I got them and then forwarded them to her. Early on, she was understandably coy about putting her email out into the world. So most things came to MY email, and I’d forward it to her. Some were generally helpful in talking about financial aid, while others touted their institutions.

Only one school did she put on her do not forward list, and it was a school that tried to guilt her. It read like some political mail I’ve received. “Aren’t you interested…” and blah, blah, blah…

Roll up for the virtual tour

Several schools offered visits, some in person, others remotely.

Her first in-person visit, with her parents, was to a college within driving distance of Albany. I had conferred with an alum, an old friend of mine, who was less than enthused by his experience of a couple of decades ago. But the school seems to be a much different place now.

Actually, I was impressed. First, the head of admissions talked with us, a total of eight students and their parents, on a Saturday morning. Then two students lead two groups on a tour. Our student, in her final year, was personable, and specifically appreciated that I laughed at most of her jokes. But she didn’t get it when I told her my bill would be in the mail, though a nearby parent did.

My daughter also visited my alma mater with a friend of hers. She had originally pop-pooed that choice, probably because I went there. But her best friend Kay is interested, so they went together with Kay’s older brother.

I went on a virtual tour at a school with my daughter 1200 miles away. It was as fine as another ZOOM meeting can be.

Only one of her top-tier school choices concerns me, and it’s primarily because it’s one of those states with the most dramatic rise in COVID cases. So she’d be more than 1000 miles away if she were to get sick, although she’s fully vaccinated.

If this process is exhausting for ME, I imagine it’s laborious for her. I need some Tom Lehrer.

Lydster: Boggling Boggle play

competitive

On our recent vacation in the Berkshires, we brought along the word game Boggle. I described it four years ago here.

We played twice in three days. The first time my wife won. She ALWAYS wins. It’s not that she knows more words as much as she can SEE more combinations. I’ve told her for years that, if luck allowed, she’d kill me on the TV game show Wheel of Fortune.

As I noted, a few years ago, we used to give our daughter an advantage. The parents wouldn’t count any of the three-letter words we found, only the longer ones. We have revoked that accommodation.

And still, she’d regularly beat me, coming in second to her mother. After coming second last time, she started studying the letters. I don’t know how this would help her, since the dice land randomly.

Yet, in the next game, she started with more than a 10-point lead, finding words that were obvious in retrospect, but which her parents just didn’t see. And ultimately, she won the game.

She’s Got Game

I’ve always tried to play games with her competitively at the point when she had a fair chance of beating me. Whether it be Connect Four or another game, she plays to win.

When we play the board/card game Sorry, her strategy hanging around the starting point, hoping for a back 4, and or two 10s that she could use as back 1s, has occasionally been adopted by her parents.

No hearts

But I’ve not yet gotten her to regularly play any of the card games I know. Sure, hearts, spades, pinochle, and the like require more than two players. But I still haven’t shown her the joy of cribbage.

I may try to teach her backgammon this summer. Since I’ve retired, I’ve become rusty, and playing on the tablet is not an adequate substitute.

It’s also true that if/when she goes off to college, this might put her in good stead. Do college kids still play board games and cards? How about Yahtzee online?

Museum of Natural History

day trip to NYC

Natural history Museum My daughter wanted to visit the Museum of Natural History before she started her summer job. So we, including my wife, did.

I’m not crazy about day trips to New York City, which is too much a compression of time. But what tipped the scales for me to go is that my daughter’s beau, Tee, had never been on a train. In fact, he’d never been to The Big Apple, only 150 miles away.

I tied ordering the tickets online. But the Amtrak site, which I’ve successfully navigated several times before was cranky. So I ordered by phone, which involved leaving my phone number until I got an automated call 90 minutes later. I was able to finish the transaction EXCEPT that they were to call me back in “15 minutes” to get my email. They needed to send me not just the tickets but information about COVID protocols, such as wearing a mask in the station and on the train.

OK. This trip meant getting up at 5 a.m. That’s five in the morning, not my natural habitat. Check my blood pressure, then feed the cats earlier than they were expecting; felines, it’d better last you for a while. Pick up Tee, go to the train station, which is not in Albany, but in Rensselaer, just across the river.

The train station is decent, WAY better than the hovel that existed on the site little over a decade ago. As for the trip between Rensselaer and NYC, this article, which I happened to get in my email after the trip. “Winding its way along the pretty Hudson Valley, you’ll appreciate why so many people choose to commute to Manhattan rather than live in the city.” It is a lovely trip, the only civilized way to go to Manhattan.

Oh, the OTHER station

We arrived at Penn Station. Apparently, the brand-new Moynihan Train Hall was across the street, but we never saw it on this trip. For sure next time.

Walking up to Times Square, some vendor guy, unsolicited, put a bracelet on my daughter’s wrist, then wanted her to give him $5 for it. This was a good lesson in negotiating the fact that she did NOT have to buy something just because a stranger foisted on her. A few minutes later, she and Tee were talking at the location where we believe the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

We take the B train to the Museum of Natural History, west of Central Park. I’m quite good at the subway, even though I use it infrequently. My wife had made a reservation for a noon entry, and we got there at 11:30. It was already a long line when many of us were directed to an alternate entrance because that line was “full.”

We’re in line for nearly an hour, wearing masks. Those zigzag lines give one the false impression that you’re closer than you are. Here’s the really weird thing, though: even people with both a reservation and paid-for tickets STILL had to stand in this interminable line to get a physical ticket.

There were lots of cool displays, though some required an additional fee. We did see the North American mammals, dinosaur fossils, and the forests. The Teddy Roosevelt display is recontextualizing the role the 26th President played in the environment and the culture.

The large whale had a band-aid, maybe a reflection of the COVID vaccine campaign taking place while we were there.

Le deluge

The others in my party decided to return to Times Square. But I headed directly to 34th Street to get back to Penn Station. I’m only two avenue blocks away when I got caught in the pouring rain. The umbrella I had kept in my backpack was of little use. Then the lightning started.

Fortunately, at 34th and 7th, I could go into the entrance for the LIRR, Long Island Railroad. The walk is just as long, but it’s drier. Eventually, I meet up with the others, and we returned home.

The trip back took longer because Amtrak has to share tracks with Metro-North (train from Poughkeepsie to NYC, among other routes) as well as freight lines. Having finished my reading, I pulled out my laptop and checked my massive amount of email. The Wifi was occasionally spotty but generally usable.

After dropping off Tee, we went home after a very long day. I’m glad we went, but I hope not to take another day trip again for a while. And even more happy that we left when we did, for the subway system flooded later that afternoon.