Call the help line …

I’ve been meaning to tell you about this for a while, but for some reason, I just haven’t gotten around to it. No, actually, I do know the reason. It’s called “a steep learning curve”. You see, I have finally purchased a new mobile phone.

Isn’t it beautiful? It’s so shiny and sparkly! It’s not-too-big and not-too-small! It does all kinds of wondrous things! It slides open! It beeps pleasingly! Its buttons feel good and are easy to press! It has a frickin’ camera and an FM radio!

What it does not have is someone competent to use it correctly.

That must be very disappointing to a lovely mobile phone such as this.

It must sigh when it takes me twenty minutes to figure out how to work the alarm, finally program it, then I promptly switch the phone off, immediately forgetting that I have just rendered myself alarmless.

It must groan inwardly when it beeps its melodious chime to inform me that someone has texted me and my response is an incredulous “What the fuck was THAT?”

It must grumble to its friends that I can’t seem to manage to take a single photo on purpose, although I have inadvertently taken several totally by accident. Of the floor in my house. Of the floor in my car. Of the sidewalk.

It must roll its eyes when I’m not looking because I absolutely cannot figure out how to use the radio or even to open up the minuscule slot where I’m supposed to plug in the earbuds.

It surely cries itself to sleep every night that I have refused to pay for internet access on it because I’m adamant that I don’t need the Intarnets or email everywhere I go, dammit.

My poor phone.

Even with constant referral to the manual, I appear to be an idiot with this phone. It must be so ashamed of me!

Of course, this now begs the question: which will come first, the phone becomes obsolete or I learn how to use it correctly? Care to place a bet?

Old school

I’m participating in a “staff social event” tonight. The social committee has arranged an evening of bowling. The lure is that the bowling venue is attached to a pub. I’m assuming that drinking and bowling is acceptable.

I used to be on the social committee. In fact, this is the first time in many years that I have not been on this committee. There were years where this committee was only me and maybe one other person. We didn’t organize a lot, but we did organize the Triad of Important Events: the beginning-of-the-year party, the Christmas party, and the end-of-the-year party.

This year’s new committee has six or seven members. This is already the second outing that they have organized. They actually have regular meetings. They decide things. They get ideas and run with them. I am feeling distinctly outclassed.

I couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted to attend this bowling night. I mean, I quite like bowling, and I played in a league for many years as a teenager. I used to be pretty good. I understand the game. I come from a long line of bowlers. It’s a lifetime sport, as they say.

But when I looked at the list of staff members who signed up to go bowling, I quickly realized who they were. Everybody under 35. Everybody who has come to work at my school within the past two or three years. Everybody who sits at the same two tables in the staffroom at lunchtime, laughing loudly and sharing jokes about topics that I don’t comprehend. They use slangy expressions that I’ve only ever heard DD use ironically – and I still don’t understand what exactly they mean. They’re all babies, for heaven’s sake!

Don’t get me wrong: they are all perfectly nice people. Most of them are superb teachers. Many have a wonderful sense of humour and a well-developed sense of the absurd – two absolute necessities in the world of teaching, let me assure you. I get along quite well with every single one of them. Some of them I work quite closely with, and some of them have told me how much they appreciate that I share my expertise and – uh – experience. They seem to like me.

It’s just that they’re so damn young!

How can I go out with these people and have a good time? How can I laugh about today’s shitty rap music, for example – when they all love it? I can’t joke about the stupid fashions that the kids these days are wearing, that I wore twenty-five years ago – when they’re still wearing them. For the first time. They don’t get my references to record players, or Walkmans, or life before Facebook. They don’t even know that once upon a time it was possible to go out of the house without a cellphone! How can I break it to them gently that Starbucks didn’t exist when I was a teenager? Or that my family didn’t have a PVR, not because we were poor, but because the suckers hadn’t yet been invented???

I’m not exactly ancient and decrepit. (Well, DD might dispute that, but why listen to her? She’s only 22!) I do look young for my age, I have an inquisitive mind, I love to have a rollicking good time, I can giggle and tell dirty jokes with the best of ‘em. But ’tis true. I am not 35. I am (shudder) middle-aged. Over 50. Just. I have some wrinkles, cellulite, grey hair – all carefully camouflaged, of course. I dress appropriately for my age – sort of. Maybe. At times. But I never look tacky! (I think. I could be wrong.) My hair and make-up are classic, not trendy, as is most of my jewellery. I’m still presentable, not especially embarrassing (Again, don’t listen to DD. She’s biased. Besides, daughters are pretty much paid to be embarrassed by their mothers, aren’t they?).

So I’ll go out with the young’uns from work. After all, drinking and bowling haven’t changed that much over the years. And damn, it’s nice when someone else organizes something for a change!

Windy

It’s windy as all hell outside right now. It has been for several days and nights already.

That’s because it’s November. Every November it gets extremely windy in this part of the world. It’s not especially cold, and it is usually accompanied by rain (though not always), but that wind is horrific.

I’m afraid of the wind. It’s so noisy and, well, windy. My bedroom is on the second floor, at the southwest corner of my house. The wind generally comes from the southeast. It flies with gusto around the corner of the house, past my flimsy window, rattling all kinds of things. It makes car alarms go off. It makes anything in the yard thump aggressively against the fence. It makes strange bumping noises on the roof – and there’s no way I even want to speculate what that might be.

I also have three tall cedar trees along the fence in my postage-stamp-sized back yard. Now I understand that such trees are built to withstand wind and rain and heavy snow, but it still worries me to see those trees being buffeting around so strongly. What if one got ripped right out by the roots? Would it crash into the house – or more specifically, into my bedroom window? Yes, the middle one is secured by a sturdy yellow cord attached to a couple of thick posts driven into the dirt, but when I peek out the window to see what’s happening, the tree still seems to be tilting alarmingly to the side. If it fell onto its neighbour, would that tree also crash to the ground? Would I have to pay for the clean-up?!

So far, my power has not gone out, but that depends on where you live. I’ve been lucky. I know people who live scant blocks away from me whose electricity has been cut in this wind. I think it’s just a matter of time here. I don’t have a battery back-up for my clock radio, either.

Sigh. It’s going to be a long night …

Swedish for “line-up”

I went to Ikea the other day. I know, I know – but I actually enjoy going to Ikea. Every summer I wait for the yearly catalogue with unbridled enthusiasm, and when it arrives, I am transfixed by its offerings. When I get to the store, I am in my glory and can wander joyfully for hours. I may not buy anything, but I get lots of ideas for home decorating projects that I’ll get around to someday.

Well, this was someday. I decided that I absolutely had to purchase a plain navy blue carpet for one of the rooms in my house. I had seen such a carpet the last time I visited Ikea last summer, when I picked up a few items for DD. I didn’t buy it at that time, because I wanted to think about it, to turn it over and over in my mind to make sure that I really wanted it. (I do this. It’s kind of the antithesis of impulse buying. The problem is that sometimes I ruminate for so long that the item I wish to buy is no longer available, but at least I’m usually spared the ordeal of returning something that I bought in haste.)

It was very nice to drive out to the store in the middle of the week, rather than on a weekend. Much less traffic. The parking lot had plenty of available spots. I was able to wander through the store at will, without bumping into fellow wanderers and their strollers/ shopping carts/ oversized shopping bags.

I quickly found the carpet I was looking for, and picked it up. It wasn’t too heavy or bulky, fortunately, so off I trotted towards the checkout.

I passed the candles on the way. I also grabbed a couple of packages of tealights, since I was completely out of those and I do like my candles. I was feeling pretty good about things, particularly about my efficiency and how single-minded I was being. No aimless meandering for me that day, I was on a mission. And my mission was very nearly accomplished. The checkouts were in sight.

Except that only four of the twelve checkouts were open. And each had a line-up snaking waaaaaay back, at least ten people plus their strollers/ shopping carts/ oversized shopping bags. It was going to be a loooooong wait.

My question is this: on a weekday, with the parking lot and the store itself half empty, where the hell did all those people at the checkouts come from???

Getting shot

So what’s the real story with the H1N1 flu anyway?

I’ve been trying to make an informed decision as to whether or not I should get the vaccination against it, but the stories are all so conflicting. I just don’t know what to believe.

I have heard that if you are born before 1957, you only have a very small chance of catching H1N1, so to me, that says that the shot would not necessarily be worth it. But I wasn’t born before 1957 anyway, so this argument doesn’t apply to me.

I have also heard that it’s far more severe in young adults 18 – 30, an age group where most of the deaths are occurring. Well, that’s not me either.

BUT … older people (presumably those of us past 30 but born after 1957) are apparently having very severe symptoms should they become ill. A larger proportion of this group is ending up in hospital and dying. I guess that’s where I come in.

There is a priority system in place right now. The risks have been evaluated by the powers that be (according to which information, though?), and only certain groups of people can get their vaccinations at the moment. I am not in any of those risk groups. I am not a child aged between 6 months and 5 years, someone with a chronic illness (particularly asthma), pregnant, a health care professional, or someone who lives with or works with any of the listed groups. So I would have to wait, in any case.

I do have a number of friends and acquaintances who do fit into one of those risk groups and who have had their H1N1 shot. Every single one of them reports that their arm hurt like hell. Some of them had huge welts, some didn’t, but all said their arm ached really badly for up to a week. Some couldn’t lift their arm for several days, some couldn’t even bear to have their arm touched. A couple of people actually had noticeable flu symptoms for a few days and “felt like shit”, to quote one friend. Everyone who normally has the seasonal flu shot claimed that this shot was much, much worse.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it?

Now, I have never had a flu shot, despite them being available for free for anybody working in the public education system here. And I have only had the flu twice in the past 23 years. I am certain of this because I know I had it when I was pregnant with DD, who is now 22, and I was unable to take any meds. (Fortunately, I really only had one day where I was flat in bed.) The other time was in February 2002, when I missed a whole week of work. I am certain of this one as well because once I could crawl out of bed, I lay on the couch in front of the television watching the Winter Olympics from Salt Lake City, USA. Vancouver is almost the same time zone as Salt Lake City, so I watched it all live. (Do I remember much of it? Just the Canadian men’s and women’s hockey teams winning the gold medals. Not much else – I was sick, dammit!)

Well, based on information I have gleaned thus far, I think I’m leaning towards not having the vaccination.

But the Winter Olympics are coming to Vancouver in February 2010, so maybe I should. Seems as good a reason as any.