AGINGBOOMERCHICK.COM

The Farmer’s Market

agingboomerchick — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:28:23 GMT

Well, dear readers, I am absolutely dumbfounded. How, in all this time that I have been sharing my radical amazement and total grouchiness with you, have I neglected to discuss the Farmers Market?!

The Farmers Market, on Sundays in my neighborhood in the city, is the highlight of the week! Streets are closed and a bank parking lot is transformed. The white tents of the vendors can be seen from blocks away, like a mirage in the desert. You can hear the sounds of the musicians as you approach. Music is interspersed with the calls of the homeless men selling their newspaper and the barking of the dogs, as they scamper around playing with each other on the grassy rise at the edge of the market. Coffee- drinking owners chat with each other while they keep one patient and forbearing eye on their pets. The market is alive with people, pets, and produce!

I wander up and down the rows of vendors admiring the fruits, vegetables, yogurt, meat, eggs, mushrooms, soaps, yarn, and seafood until my nose leads me to the huge bakery. Oh! Yum! How beautiful the pastries are; how luscious the breads look; how overwhelming, the pies. I use all my internal powers to tear away from the magnetized oatmeal and chocolate cookies, and I am rewarded. Rewarded by even more happiness…because here live the flowers! Beautiful yellows and pinks and purples and orange! I always add a stalk or two of fresh mint to my flowers. Breathe in the minty sweetness!

I talk to the newspaper vendor while I buy one. He proudly shows me the article he wrote about his fellow patrons of the homeless shelter. He’s had it tough, but he is talented, interested and interesting.

I watch the people. Couples holding hands; parents pushing strollers; students planning their day and their dinner; old friends meeting and leaving for coffee somewhere. Everyone admiring the beautiful produce, the savory empanadas, the silky tofu dessert.

It’s funny. How can you be in the middle of so much hustle and such an avalanche of sights, sounds and smells, and end up feeling total peace and happiness?

What Goes Around, Comes Around

agingboomerchick — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:34:51 GMT

Abby’s been thinking about ”what goes around, comes around”. Now you know, if you read my blogs on Totally DeTestable Technology, that I am a Know-Nothing about Technology, just as I am about art and music and much, much more. And you also know that this lack of knowledge does not stop me from writing about a subject and expressing my know-nothing, but strong, opinion. So it shall be today with the Cloud.

“Gobbledygook” is one of my favorite words. It is such a good example of one-word onomatopoeia. Someone wants to sound fancy and learned and they end up gobbling nonsense like a turkey. Gobbledygook is especially omnipresent when vendors are trying to sell their “cloud-ware.” “Virtualizing your desktop environment with VMware allows you to accelerate your agency's mission by delivering desktops accessible across devices and locations - built on the world's most trusted cloud platform - as a secure, managed service.” I guess, if Abby may try to translate that to English, they mean that using their secure software, you can reach your documents and data from anywhere you have internet access. I doubt this will accelerate your agency’s mission, though. Your mission is your mission. Maybe they intend to suggest that it will speed up realizing the mission, by allowing people to work from anywhere, anytime, even more easily than they can now. Uh oh, is this Cloud the next step in the Elimination of Any Personal Life Whatsoever?

Now when Abby was a young graduate school student, nobody, of course, had their own computers, neither desktop nor laptop nor tablet nor smartphone. One’s work was not stored on one’s own hard drive, or on the company’s hard drive, because such hard drives did not exist. No, back then there was a room and this room housed a huge machine and this machine was miraculous because it did computer magic for you. So it seems to Abby that what is happening now is that this room with the huge machine has been levitated into the sky, where it is now called the Cloud. And because we have the Cloud, we no longer need our own hard drives to store a lot of stuff….just like back in good old 1973!

The Miracle of the Newspaper

agingboomerchick — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:50:43 GMT

Loyal FOAs (Friends of Abby): I have been preoccupied thinking about violence and computers. Two separate subjects….although there are many times when I threaten to throw my computer out the window. So watch for blogs on those subjects. However, today I want to share my enthusiasm for something as miraculous as zippers, trashcans, and cauliflower! Today I want to discuss the miracle of the newspaper.

Abby loves the newspaper. No, not reading online. Holding the paper while sitting in a big easy chair or reading at the kitchen table during breakfast – those are the ways to go! My Sunday paper is $2.00, and of course the weekday paper is much less. What a bargain! For much less than the cost of a latte (see Abby’s blog on the detestable Starbucks), you can soak up knowledge about a myriad of subjects; you can get your hackles up; you can laugh out loud! Just in today’s paper alone I learned:

• The Scots are talking about independence from Great Britain. Surprisingly…. Tartan pride aside, something about who owns oil is underlying this discussion.

• Weather Underground is a website that provides weather forecasts by zip code. How times change. I thought it was going to be an article about the 1969 birth of the leftist youth movement.

• Wealthier older people (Abby does not like the epithet, “seniors.”) pay more for Medicare than lower-income people. They do not get a free ride. As Abby gets to be rich-and-famous (a noble goal), she will be glad to pay more.

• I have to admit, I love the crocs even more than pig. (Pearls Before Swine)

• There are fruits you can get in Florida that Abby never heard of: chocolate pudding fruit, carambola, mamey, sapodilla, and jackfruit to name a few. Yum! Maybe.

The only complaint I have about the newspaper is that I never have enough time to luxuriate wantonly amongst its treasures.

Another Little Blog about Art

agingboomerchick — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:46:46 GMT

As you know Abby loves Kandinsky. Happy symbols chasing each other across the canvas…

But my true confession is this: I adore Luncheon of the Boating Party by Renoir. I could stare at it for hours. It looks like such a perfect afternoon – beautiful scenery, delicious food and drink, great conversation with friends. And such a lot of flirting going on!

On the technical side, I am amazed at how Renoir managed to convey all that reflected light, but most of all…I want to be at that party!

Do you know the movie, Midnight in Paris? I would insist on being transported right into that painting. A lovely Sunday afternoon with friends…and I think there is some wine left in the bottles for me to join right in.

Road Rager vs Granny

agingboomerchick — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:43:08 GMT

Abby is really a patient, understanding soul. But behind the wheel something happens. I turn into a furious, impatient maniac. Well, not really a maniac. I don’t drive crazy, but I do get unreasonably mad at people going too slowly or too fast or whatever they are doing to annoy me. I yell and curse (all with my windows up so nobody can hear.) “The gas pedal is the one on the right, granny!” I will yell. Or “You have a turn signal don’t you, Idiot?!” And stuff like that. I researched road rage (well, I got as far as Wikipedia) and I learned that it is an official mental disorder called “intermittent explosive disorder”. So now being a jerk is a disorder. I am surprised I have not yet seen commercials for a drug for this…”Do you suffer from IED?” (See my blog on acronyms.) Anyway, the truth is that Abby is not a jerk, but is an unfortunate victim of IED, so her screaming at other drivers cannot be helped.

But poor Abby does have really bad eyesight, and driving at night is a challenge. I tend to drive slowly and sometimes brake when I shouldn’t and sometimes use my brights when I shouldn’t. People pass me and it really appears that they may be yelling. Do you remember Pogo, that old comic strip character, who said “We have met the enemy and he is us?” Well, I have found the granny driver that I yell at by day, and she is me, by night! Who would have guessed that the mirror image of the furious road rager is the squinting old granny hunched over the steering wheel, inching along? “Get a move on, Granny, or get off the road!” Ooops, I mean “Pass me if you want to, Road Rager, and let me drive the way I want to.” Wow, I can give myself whiplash just by driving day into night….

Is Tolstoy Right About Families?

agingboomerchick — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:28:48 GMT

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This is how Anna Karenina begins. I have been reading Anna Karenina all year, [Have you ever taken a full year to read a book? I think I am absolutely disgraceful!], and I am still not finished, so I have yet to judge how Tolstoy will prove this to be true. However, this declaration strikes me as false. Since every family, and every person, is touched by happiness, sadness, worry, sickness, pride, satisfaction, anger, delight, and, in short, every human emotion, the extent of happiness, I think, is how we make peace with the negatives and are able to focus on the positives. Some have more trouble making this peace than others, due to illnesses - mental and physical - and extreme hardship, but nonetheless the extent that one can do that goes far to determine one’s level of happiness. I would say happy families put up with, with good nature, the foibles of their relatives and do not bear grudges, and are helpful to one another. Unhappy families are stuck in a negativity of the past. So maybe now that I am thinking out loud, I am beginning to believe that perhaps Tolstoy is right. Happy families all have short memories; unhappy families dwell on their particular “slings and arrows” of the past.

Words are Beautiful!

agingboomerchick — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:14:12 GMT

Loyal Readers: Abby has been kind and thoughtful as 2011 ended and 2012 began. Enough of that! It is cranky time again.

Words are Beautiful!

Why can’t we use them?! Abby does not like acronyms! Things seem to be getting worse and worse in this domain. You will see on TV that you cannot have a descriptive disease anymore. You must have something that is described by three frightening letters. Abby has AAI* syndrome. There is no help.

Would you believe….my kitchen trashcan is proudly marked in big letters: FPR! FPR? What the heck is that? A warning? Fear Produce in my Refrigerator? A call to political action? Face Proudly the Reactionaries? No. It means Finger Print Resistant. Well, there’s a vital product. I spend a lot of time putting my hands all over the lid of my trashcan, and now I can proudly proclaim myself so very FPR!**

*Annoyance At Idiocy
** Frequently Peckish and Ridiculing

Abby’s Random Thoughts as We Begin 2012

agingboomerchick — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:49:22 GMT

I think there is a force in the universe that wants us to be happy, at least some of the time. Why else would there be rainbows, fluffy clouds of all shapes, sweet-faced dogs, music that makes us dance, toddlers learning to walk, geraniums clambering all over, and sun-showers?
________________

Astronomers have recently discovered two gigantic black holes in far-away galaxies. Each black hole is 10 billion times the size of our sun. Other astronomers have discovered an earth-like planet circling another star, and this planet would appear to have a temperature of 72 degrees. In other news, it is estimated that the number of stars in the universe is greater than the number of grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. Upon reading all this, do you feel as small and insignificant as an ant?
__________________

I know, I know, I have dissed ants. I understand that ants have a complex and highly evolved culture and I should be more respectful of them. Many different types of scientists have studied ants, from social biologists to computer scientists, and have gained important knowledge from these petite and industrious creatures. Abby vows, as we begin the new year, to be more careful to acknowledge the contributions of all beings.

Happy New Year, FOAs!

agingboomerchick — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:46:39 GMT

Yes, against my better judgment, Abby has used an acronym. (More on those cursed acronyms in a blog coming up.) FOA – Friends of Abby. My hopes for my FOAs in 2012 are a base of good health and great happiness. Add to that, lots of smiles and some huge belly laughs. Next I wish to add a dose of great satisfaction at work well done. And finally, I hope that we are all struck often by ideas to commit random acts of kindness.

Abby has two new year’s resolutions. The first I announce every year: I resolve to drink more red wine. The second is new: I resolve to post my blogs more regularly.

Cheers, FOAs!

Abby Loves Maimonides!

agingboomerchick — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:28:51 GMT

To commemorate this holiday season and the coming new year, I want to bring to your attention the thoughts of the 12th century Jewish philosopher, Maimonides. At this time of gift-giving and charitable donating, you might find these thoughts interesting and useful. Maimonides puts forth eight levels of giving, from the least to the highest:

8. Giving grudgingly.

7. Giving less than one could or should, but willingly.

6. Giving directly to the poor upon being asked.

5. Giving directly to the poor without being asked.

4. Giving when the recipient knows who you are, but you don’t know the identity of the recipient.

3. Giving when you know the recipient's identity, but the recipient is unaware who donated.

2. Giving when the donor and recipient are unknown to each other (through a third party).

1. Preventing people from becoming impoverished or lifting them out of poverty by providing a loan, or helping them establish a business, or find employment. This is similar to the ancient Chinese adage: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Abby wishes everyone the very best 2012 – good health and great happiness!

Old Fogey Musings on Occupy

agingboomerchick — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:04:09 GMT

Abby has spent some time with the Occupy people.

I think the whole thing is fabulous. People say, “What do these kids want? It’s all over the board!” I say, “Hooray for the spirit of the young." They are passionate, caring, sincere, and very well organized. They are the hope for our democracy.

They want a more just and fair society. They know the income divide has grown enormously, and that the greed of the already-wealthy Wall Street crowd was a cause of our current deep financial woes. And yes, they support a broad array of causes from education parity to global warming, and that is because there is a broad array of problems! The sum is that they want a better life for the majority of the people. There’s a good cause if I ever heard one.

Not specific enough? Well, if the solution to these problems was easy to define and implement, maybe it would have been done already. What do the scoffers want? Do they want our American youth to be sitting passively in front of the TV laughing at nonsense? If I had to choose between a 20-something Occupier and a 20-something TV watcher as the future of the country, there would be no contest. Viva the Occupiers!

Who will join Abby on the (arm-chair) barricades?!

Abby’s Thanksgiving Weekend Blog

agingboomerchick — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 02:51:48 GMT

Hi everyone. I hope you are enjoying this holiday! Thanksgiving is one of my favorites because it is cozy and low key. What could be better than a holiday set aside for eating with friends and family, and maybe remembering to be thankful? Here is some of what Abby is thankful for: the smell of lemons, the variety of clouds in the sky, the sight of toddlers just learning to walk, Charles Dickens, songs I can belt out loudly and off-key while on the treadmill, summer, laughter, and of course….trashcans.

Maybe I Should Take Them Up on It and Pole Dance

agingboomerchick — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:06:14 GMT

Abby’s written a couple of pleasant blogs since she returned from her Italian adventure….so now it is certainly time for a grouchy one! And I have a very grouchy gripe. In fact, it is a great, grouchy, grousing, growling gripe about a grueling gambit.

I am wondering if they reproduce sexually or asexually like bacteria. I would guess the latter….like a dangerous brain-eating bacteria. I am talking about “great deals”. Once, in a moment of millennial generation envy, I bought a half-priced meal at a local restaurant. All went well, and I even ate there and used my coupon. Never in my wildest dreams, did I imagine what would happen next. My “great deal” emails went from one a day to two a day, from one company’s deals to three company’s deals, to deals from ten companies every hour, to deals stuffing my inbox every minute of every day! I am invited to pole dance, to drink margaritas ‘til the cows come home, to take a quick excursion to who-knows-where. If I saved all the money they offer me daily, I would surely end my days in debtors’ prison. Their gambit is to get me to spend money I had no intention of spending. My gambit is to delete before I read. I would unsubscribe but that would be a full day’s work.

Can someone tell me about an organic, environmentally friendly pesticide that will get rid of asexually multiplying deals?

Abby is a Know-Nothing; Can She Be an Art Critic Anyway?

agingboomerchick — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 21:00:34 GMT

I love Kandinsky’s Succession. I love this abstract masterpiece because it makes me happy. It looks like the brightly colored forms are dancing across the canvas. It makes me want to dance too. It makes me want to sing the notes of the painting. Maybe it is telling us how the world progresses. It’s got to be a happy ending if the succession of the forms is so happy. We need happiness and optimism desperately these days, and well, here’s some, right in this painting.

At least that’s what know-nothing Abby thinks. Am I allowed to express my know-nothing opinion, or will some real art critic tell me to shut up? A little intimidated, I did some almighty Google research. I learned bits and pieces like: Kandinsky considered his colors to be like notes of music. The forms he used are called “biomorphic” when they aren’t geometric. He painted his “inner necessity”. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing….it seems I may have heard that a time or two. Anyway, is it our job as viewers to understand what the artist was trying to say, or to just to react to it emotionally and personally? Both, I’m sure. But as far as this painting is concerned, I do not know what Kandinsky is saying, but I do know that the painting makes me happy…and that’s a good thing. So sayeth Abby the Art Critic.

Another Thing Abby Loves in addition to Trashcans, Zippers, and Lettuce Spinners

agingboomerchick — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:09:42 GMT

There is nothing like an old-fashioned screen door framed in wood that doesn’t always close tightly and goes clop, clop, clop in the summer breeze.

Maybe such a door is found only in the country. I imagine sitting on the front steps of a country store with the old screen door clopping in back of me from time to time. The movement of cool air every so often serves as a fine fan as I sit there looking around, with the screen door as the percussion section of my imaginary symphony. The store carries everything anyone could need – a combined grocery, ice cream parlor, hardware store, newsstand. Every so often someone goes in; every so often someone exits – all adding to the symphonic clopping of a summer day.

Abby Has Been Hiding in Italy!

agingboomerchick — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:19:36 GMT

They’ll never catch me here, Abby thought, as she wandered through the vineyards of Tuscany, ducking into a castello here and there, hiding among the cypress trees now and again. The grape vines were opulent; the vineyards guarded by trees of plump olives and trees of pomegranates. As she sat among the vines, she could not help but stare at the tall hill in the distance where she could clearly see the outlines of the castle of her childhood dreams. She smiled, stood up and decided to walk the other way, toward the grove of umbrella pines where she could spend the night.

Abby awoke to a brilliant Tuscan sunshine, but she noticed a shadow nearby. As she sat up, a stranger approached her. “Buon Giorno! Andiamo!” Abby was led to a nearby village and fed a breakfast of cappuccino and pane. Abby’s broken Italian perfectly matched the villager’s broken English, so they spent the morning trading stories of their lives. The villager was not frightened by Abby’s problem, and Abby was charmed by life in the Tuscan village. A deal was struck. Abby was to tend the vineyards for a small sum of Euros daily, as well as as much Brunello as she could drink. Abby was delighted and toiled for days in the vineyards fueled by the sunshine, the beauty of the countryside, and the Brunello.

Finally, Abby thanked the villager for the kindness, and was thanked in turn for a job well done. Abby had accumulated the Euros she needed, and determined to return home and face justice. The plane ride back to the States was tedious, but softened by the Italian spoken by the flight attendants and perhaps a nostalgic glass or two of Rosso.

The day arrived and Abby walked up the steps of the imposing government building. After much sparring with bureaucracy, Abby successfully paid her speeding ticket and left the building a free woman; a woman no longer on the lam; a woman who could make her own way to a new life!

The Higgs Boson

agingboomerchick — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 03:21:38 GMT

Abby has spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the heck a Higgs Boson is. Last month, scientists thought they had found it. Then just last week, they decided that maybe it doesn’t exist after all. This is supposedly the particle that gave mass and energy to matter right after the big bang. What does that mean?? Wasn’t the big bang in itself a huge burst of energy and mass? And what did the big bang come from? And if the big bang began the universe, and the universe is a discernable entity, albeit an expanding one, what is outside the universe? And how do we know there was only one big bang? And why couldn’t there be multiple universes? There is a fun video on the Fermilab site about the Higgs Boson. A scientist is talking about a fish in water. Huh? Since Abby is not a physicist, she is spectacularly clueless. Are there physicists out there who can speak simple English and really explain this? And is there a psychologist out there who can explain why Abby is getting her socks in a stew about this instead of watching tv like a normal person??

Space

agingboomerchick — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 17:00:00 GMT

I heard on the radio the most amazing ad. A company was promising to take my payload into space very safely, for a reasonable fee. What?! Space is now being commercialized! Wow! I don’t know what private companies want to send up there, but I guess communications or scientific experiments or something. And I’m sure you have heard that there are companies promising to take ordinary people up in space flights. Well not really ordinary…I bet you have to be in pretty good shape, and I know you have to have huge amounts of disposable income. But still, these are not government trained astronauts. So it seems that we are on the cusp of suborbital space flight eventually becoming like airplane travel. Wow! Yikes! Cool! Abby can’t wait to be beamed up!

Kill the Clichés!

agingboomerchick — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:08:44 GMT

At the end of the day, we should all think out of the box. If fact, don’t just think out of it, leap out of it…to your untimely demise. Abby is really cranky today! Let’s look at this through the lens of crankiness. Why do we all have to spout the same clichés and think we are original? I simply cannot get my head around that. Let’s get granular and figure it out. Did you drink the Kool-Aid on this one? The ball is in your court. What clichés drive you crazy?

I Love Big Sunglasses

agingboomerchick — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:47:07 GMT

I love big sunglasses not for fashion’s sake, but because my nose is very, very big. Yes, I am extremely nosey and I like to stare. Behind my sunglasses, nobody can tell how rude I am! As I walk down the city streets, I can really look at people. Humanity is the ultimate motley crew – all shapes and sizes, of course, but all levels of intensity and mood as well. From business-like seriousness to touristy confusion. And the snippets of cell phone conversation – so many relationship issues!

Here comes an older guy, must be in his 70’s, in a business suit just walking as fast as his legs will take him. Wow! He needs to get somewhere for important business….or maybe he needs a bathroom.

Oh, honey, you don’t really want to be walking around in that outfit, do you? Let me get you a mirror.

Of course, many people are telling their friends on their cell phones that they can’t believe what she said to him. Other people did a great job on a project, but their bosses never appreciate anything.

Now here is a couple who know who needs to do what to whom for the next election.

Hey, what’s this? Some lady in big sunglasses is coming over to me. What?? She has a big mirror. Oh my! Well, Abby was in a hurry getting out of the house and just threw on….yes, I do know a charity that I can donate clothes to. Humph! The nerve of some people – so nosey, so judgmental!