“The Dog” Journal
Welcome to the Dog Journal, a blog where I periodically share my best finds for taming those puppies that gnaw at your planner.
Could be a quick time management tip, a smell-the-flowers moment, a comment overheard on the elevator. Whatever the inspiration, I hope you’ll blog right along with me by commenting and sharing your tips and stories for taming an overbooked life.
Power’s Out !!!
I was counting the hours till power was restored last week, but there was something charming about sitting in the sun and reading a book in natural light. Also, there was nothing more “productive” to do than read. It was beautiful outside, a powerful contrast from the night before, when 80 MPH winds tore across the yard.
The storm had left its mark. The Internet was knocked out, iPhone messaging was unreliable and email hadn’t worked since the last blast of torrential wind and rain. Alexa, my usual alarm clock and bearer of moment-to-moment weather reports, was quickly silent. I suddenly realized that critical as I’d become of AI data centers, I had become increasingly dependent on them.
Who did my mother used to call when she wondered how long dill pickles last in a power outage? Blueberry jam? Certainly not her sister Cora, who relied on astrology for most answers. Someone must have told her, “When in doubt, throw it out” because that jingle still played in my head.
So instead of throwing anything out, I left the fridge and freezer doors closed and moved a lightweight folding chair around the backyard in search of a spot that was sunny enough to read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s latest, “Unfinished Love Story” but not so sunny as to be sweltering hot.
I pored through the pages describing blood and billy clubs at the Democratic National Convention I attended in 1968 and imagine my worried parents back home, glued to the TV, while I had the adventure of my life.
Later, when power was restored and the cell phone was charged, I confessed to my daughter that I sure put her grandparents through a lot – only for her to remind me that it wasn’t really my job to put them at ease in the first place.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, apologetic at the lesson, and tried to wrap my head around three generations of parenting all in one day.
Online Glasses Not EZ
Nothing can throw life out of balance like finding a $63.80 store credit on Zenni, that online site where you can buy fashionable glasses for cheap. The good news is that the “progressive” lenses I returned actually made their way back. But now I have to order a replacement.
Everyone wearing artsy frames seems to have bought them online at someplace like Zenni. I compliment them, and they hasten to respond: “For only $20.” But when I go Zenni-shopping, nada.
The online frame-shopping experience is a big ask: picking out frames, fitting them via online camera, imagining how they’ll look in person, and finally entering the prescription – all things the optometrist used to do but at a cost: $400+ instead of $20. By the time they arrive (standard shipping), I don’t even remember what I chose, but I’m sure it was more fashionable than what I got.
Last time, I tried picking out something my jazzy friends would have liked: a checkerboard of primary colors. After measuring and entering all the numbers, I got a warning. “Your PD (aka pupillary distance) is smaller than minimum PD of the frame, but we can process with an extra charge.” $10 more, it turned out, for some unspecified equipment adjustment. Not much, I thought, and I went along with it, only to discover when the glasses arrived, that my nose felt the heft of two pairs, not one.
I did not send them back, though, which would have only added to my credit, so I keep them in my purse reserved for short trips to large box stores where I have to read small print across the room. I hope some admiring soul will say, “Wow! Those glasses.”
And I will say: “Only $30!”
Lifelong Planning Counts
The account was dizzying. My dinner guest, now 90, was not sure that she had the energy to use all the airline points she’d accumulated for a free trip to Germany and back.
Travel can be exhausting, she explained, and related her most recent trip abroad – at 80 – when she’d figured out a way to see an opera in Missouri on the way to skiing in Colorado, and then pack in a few days’ European vacation while her car was enjoying free parking at a hotel near the slopes. She flew back to the car, then drove home.
It was the most efficient vacation-planning I’d ever heard of. Inspiring! And far more impressive than my latest personal best – having the dinner table set and flowers arranged ahead so I would not be rushed, returning from a downtown meeting that afternoon.
Yay for the 90-year-old planners! They give me hope. A lifetime of practice fitting in one more thing will certainly pay off. (And I’m sure she’ll figure out a way to use those points.)
Blackout Worked – At Least On Me
Refraining from purchasing on February 28 should not have been that hard. And I’m not sure that the Economic Blackout had as big an effect as its creators, People’s Union USA, had hoped.
But the effect on me was huge. I suddenly realized that purchasing “stuff” was ingrained in my everyday life.
Whether searching the Internet for the perfect gift or running into the store for a box of crackers, I’m hooked. And I like to think of myself as a “minimizer.” In fact, it’s part of my professional life. I run Unpacking Your Stories workshops where I encourage people to “rightsize,” go through their stuff and find the stories in it rather than hanging on to the stuff.
Still…my friend’s comment that she was running to the store on February 27 to “stock up” put me in inventory mode. Did I have eggs? Milk? Bread? Was my tank full of gas?
I live in the city and am in touch with stores every day. I pick up a few things at Target or Kroger on the way back to the gym. I buy a few things at a time, so I’m not wasting. I often meet a friend for lunch or dinner.
None of this is wrong. But it sure does loop me into a dependency cycle, where corporate America is my new best friend and retail therapy is only a step away.
I’m not sure what news reports will say about the Blackout and maybe I should not trust them since, as my daughter points out, they are also part of corporate America. But I can say this. The one-day Blackout was meaningful for me. And I’m totally in on the 40-day boycott of Target starting March 5 since it’s backed away from DEI initiatives. I don’t know if Target will notice. But I sure will.
