THEY DIDN'T EVEN WAIT UNTIL I DIED....

OLD PEOPLE--READY TO DIE

For the past three or four years when I have received my latest General Conference CD's in the mail, I have also received either an accompanying email or phone call from Church Distribution.  (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).  They want to know if I am AWARE that there are other options to listen to General Conference without having to use a CD player.  YES, I am!  But I am now a septuagenarian and am in my car an inordinate amount of time as I drive to Denver International Airport and back for my job as a flight attendant with United Airlines.  It is soooo much easier to just slip a CD into my car's entertainment system while I am driving so I can hear the latest  messages from the prophets --or even former messages since I have all the General conference CD's in a box in my car all the way from 2003.  So, please, please continue to produce these important CD's.  I don't want to have to download anything or mess with technology I know is out there but which I'm not savvy about.  Then I always end the communication with this statement:  "I know you are just waiting for people like me to die."  Sometimes they chuckle....

I use the same statement when I am at work and there is MORE new technology we have to master just to do our jobs--a meal app, an unaccompanied minor app, a reimbursement account, even yearly requalification.  Please just let the world go on the way it was until I check out.

At United there is usually some kindly YOUNGER person who pooh-poohs my observation by telling me I am SO much better than a lot of senior people they've flown with who are still using the announcement book (because they have the whole demo memorized) instead of our hand held version.  It's a dead give-away  even to me because those "standard" announcements leave out all the new stuff that has been added over the past few years.  And, they continue, those people don't even have a clue how to access anything!

Still, I knew there was going to come a day that things changed.  And I was right.

When my April General Conference CD's came in the mail the other day, there was also a notice in the packet that said the General Conference CD's and DVD's will be discontinued after 2020.  Wah!  That means I have only one more Conference that I can listen to in my car by slipping a CD into the car player.  And then, I will have to belly up to the modern technology bar and find out how to use an MP3 or download the broadcast to WHEREVER or WHATEVER format I'll need to be "hip". 

Can do, I guess.  I got this far.  I remember when Schuyler used to tell me "Good job, Momma!" when I learned how to run the check acceptance machine at King Soopers' check out stand.  That was years ago when he was just a little kid.

Frankly, I don't think I'm ready for all this jazz.  And there must be more people like me out there because  I am amazed at all the "old" stuff I can get on YouTube.  Somebody remembers how life used to be before it got complicated.  Looking back, it's astonishing I was even able to move into the world of CD's to begin with after growing up first with 78 speed breakable records, then 45's, then vinyl 33 lp's.

Bottom line...the world is moving forward.

And they didn't even wait until I died!

SCHOOL'S OUT !

SCHOOL'S OUT !

School is over for another year in my small town.  There weren't any of the subtle--or not so subtle--signs that have appeared in other years to announce the last day of school for 2020.  The end finally came after weeks of online Zoom classes and lots of new ways to get used to "going to school" at home. 

Now that I don't have kids in school anymore and am not privy to the local school schedule, I depended on other signals to help me keep track with the end of the school year.  One was to note the cessation of school buses which typically arrived at the bus stop three different times in the mornings and afternoons every day.  The gaggle of parents visiting with each other at the neighborhood pool parking area while they awaited the departure or arrival of their children would suddenly be absent.  And of course, the kids themselves were no longer parading down the front sidewalk or neighborhood walkway with quick steps in the morning to catch the bus and a more leisurely pace in the afternoon once the school day was over.

THOSE subtle signs disappeared with the COVID-19 dictum that schools were to be closed until the end of the year.  Two plus months early. 

Once it got to be past the middle of May, I figured it was about time for the school year to be over, just didn't know what day.  Until Friday when we began to hear horns honking.  And they continued to honk for quite some time.  First far away, then closer and closer. 

I told Louis it reminded me of Saturdays in my hometown when I was growing up.  Saturday was wedding day at the Catholic Church, and after the Hisipanic couples got married they drove in a caravan of cars with their friends through Rawlins, all the while honking their horns in celebration of the morning's nuptials.  Some Saturdays the mobile festivities lasted until early afternoon, if there happened to be more than one couple getting married.  I thought it was a cool  tradition to advertise a wonderful event.

So, when the first cars appeared on our street lst Friday all decked out with signs and placards each announcing the name of a 12th grader, I realized it was a celebration for all the graduating seniors who had been denied a commencement ceremony because of the Coronavirus which has disrupted the normality of our lives for the last several months.

The parade had begun at the elementary school, drove past the middle and senior high schools, and then slowly drove past the administration building where each senior was handed his/her diploma before driving through each of the neighborhoods where the kids live. 

I'm pretty sure the same kind of thing happened all over the country, each with its own flavor to fete those who were graduating.

In the years to come when we are hopefully once again celebrating in traditional ways with those who finish their schooling, the students who graduated in 2020 will have a unique memory of speechless convocations and well-wishes with no personal contact.  (Maybe that ain't such a bad thing, after all!)

What a great memory....

Happy commencement to the Class of 2020 !

STAYCATION...

One of the positively plus rules that came out of the eventual flight attendant merge of United and Continental workers in October 2018 was the inclusion of the old Continental option that a flight attendant could "sell" her vacation back to the company.  That way she would receive recompense for scheduled days off, AND if she wanted, she could let the Crew Desk know she would like to "fly through" those days, as well.  In short, get the vacation money and fly some extra hours during that "time off".  A win-win!

I had planned to have my red SUV paid for in a year after I purchased it in 2017.  But since I had never sold my Mitsubishi Eclipse after I got the new car, there was no big hunk of money to put toward the principle.  That's when I began giving plasma to earn more money to start paying down my car loan.

I still had about $3,000 left to pay when it was time to bid for vacation last November.  I had been too chicken to give up my vacation time--even for money--the year before.  Then I remembered  how much easier it is now to arrange schedules for time off (once I learned how to do that).  I sold all but six days back to the company, and then bid those six days to have a vacation near our anniversary on May 12th.

Everything worked out perfectly!  I got the vacation money when it paid out the end of February.  It was enough, and to spare, to kill the loan.  Plus, I got my first vacation choice which I parlayed into 12 days off by choosing a schedule that had days off both before and after the six vacation days.  Whew!  That was a coup!

Now....where to go?  I know Louis would LOVE to go on another ocean cruise.  Not for me.  In fact, we do much better on shorter trips.  Not the whole 12 days, but  a few days where we could go and have a good time.  Someplace we haven't been before.  Someplace with a temple, lots of scenery, and quirky little shops and antique stores that always optimize my vacation time. ( Some of my most cherished Nativity pieces were procured during those mini vacations.)  And a place not to difficult to travel to, either.

Nova Scotia!  United has flights out of Newark.  We could get to Newark, change planes for Halifax, rent a car and be on our way until the following week.  We even bought the plane tickets because I didn't want the nerve-wracking hassle of stand-by travel.  All doable and something/someplace we haven't done before.  I started looking forward to it, and had a brand new passport in my possession so I didn't even have to worry about any expiration dates.

Then Coronavirus reared its ugly head.  The borders to Canada closed for all but flight crews and Canadians.  There went our little get-away.  We got our money back for the tickets, and put the rest of the plans on hold....for how long?  Who knows.  And our lovely vacation-to-be got repurposed into a "staycation".

So, when I turned the calendar over to May, there were 12 perfect days with nothing scheduled.  Too bad there is no place to go.

This STAYCATION hasn't been fun at all.  We did drive out to Fort Morgan one day.   Just because it was a different direction than we usually go. Another day we drove up to Estes Park.  And on the last day of my staycation, we drove down to Deseret Book by the Denver Temple.  That is one of the few  Distribution Centers in the US outside of Utah and Idaho that had just opened again in the first phase after COVID-19 lock down. (Louis needed new garments and called the store to see if they were open before he made an online order.) 

Grocery stores are open.  We can still pick up food in the drive-through or at the curb if we want to eat out for a treat. But for the rest of the 12 days, it has been nowhere to go, nothing to do when we got there, and nothing new to see.  Once thing for sure, it will be a staycation we remember for a long time to come because it was so....

B O R I N G!  

      
PS Already making plans for a real vacation next year....hope it works out!    I'll send you a postcard, if it does.