Mental gristle

Not a pretty picture, that subject line. Yet, that is what I feel I can offer to you today: Some thick, tough matters to chew on in your mind.

In a surprisingly helpful, public-minded move, Google's home page today is featuring a link to a voter registration URL. Are you currently registered? Are you certain? The deadline is coming up in the next week or two. If you've moved recently and have not yet updated your driver's license, then you are not registered in your new location—thus rendering you unable to cast a vote. Now, if you'd moved here illegally from across the border? That probably wouldn't be a problem...

On Saturday, I took my son to get his hair cut. He sat very still and looked so cute afterward that I treated him to a bagel at Panera. We sat at a table, inhaling the wonderful aromas, enjoying our buttery, bread-y delight, and we couldn't help noticing the older gentleman next to us. His posture was amazingly upright. When we we leaving, we stopped to tell him that we'd been admiring his posture. The fellow explained that he'd spent time in the military, and good posture had been ingrained in him then. The kind, obviously blind fellow then informed me that he admired my beauty. (No, I'm not kidding.) I burst out laughing, and reminded the poor guy that there were many more beautiful sights all around him; the restaurant was practically crawling with lovely young things. We walked out the door, and I experienced a revelation: Every charming old, white-haired man you see was potentially a girl-crazy, inappropriate pervert. I'll never know what those elegant elders were like when they were young, unrestrained upstarts.

It gives you pause, doesn't it?

We made yet another purchase from craigslist recently—a loft bed for my son's tiny bedroom. (I keep trying to make space in my life where there truly is none.) But my one-ness with craigslist and all things scrounged and secondhand often makes me think that my epitaph should read, "She knew how to make do." Perhaps it will. I could put that in my will.

Which, by the way, needs to be updated. One of the witnesses to our will died a few years ago, and although my lawyer friend says it will hold water anyway, I feel funny about it. Plus, it needs to be notarized to be really tight; we didn't do that because in Pennsylvania, technically the notarization isn't necessary. But.

Even if we don't touch the will, my husband and I both need to appoint each other as Power of Attorney. Did you know that isn't an automatic thing? This is important stuff, people. Do you have your affairs in order? I won't even go into the whole living will, although that's strongly recommended as well.

Better to address these things, right now, than to risk the fraught-with-disaster alternative—someone else addressing them when you're either gone from this earth or not able to do so for yourself.

See what I mean? Mental gristle. I wasn't kidding.

NOTE: I just noticed this is post #400. Wow! Hurray for me!

The wi-fi facade

Hello, folks. Yes, I've been MIA once again. Sickness has descended on our humble home and has made its miserable way through each and every family member. Yet, we have not entirely succumbed, work has continued, life has continued, school tomorrow will continue, and life goes on. Cough, cough, snot, snot, HONK. (That last honk was me blowing my nose.)

So, I know I'm really old when the whole "wi-fi" train has left me behind at the station. Wi-fi in your house? Yes, that makes some sense. You can check various fronts from the comfort of your couch, or from the handy-dandy kitchen office that really swank, huge homes feature (which we lack here). You can be working online while your kids are playing games with kids in other countries. It's all good.

But wi-fi at coffee shops? At bagel stores? Why? I am flummoxed. I know it's cool. I know it's hip. I know that people shouldn't feel confined to office spaces anymore. How limiting. How very 90s. Still, I fear that performing online work tasks at Panera is doing to work what talking on cell phones at all hours in all places has done to the quality of telephone communications. (Hint: REDUCING QUALITY SIGNIFICANTLY.)

Work is work. It takes space most of the time. It takes quiet sometimes. It takes thought-space, ponder room, concentration. It takes a place where you can have a conversation with a person and not be concerned about the undisciplined brat sitting at the next table, throwing a fit over butter instead of jelly. It takes a "professional" atmosphere (do those still exist?!), as it should.

Yes, I visited Panera Bread recently. And yes, I wondered once again how much meaningful work could honestly be performed in such a setting. There are workers taking calls, typing on their laptops, spreading various papers all around them, looking terribly important. Come on, you couldn't do this in your hotel room, if you're traveling? In your own bedroom, if you are self-employed? How much work can honestly be accomplished in such a public, noisy, unregulated environment?

So, yes, I'm old. Yes, I don't take my laptop to a coffee shop to do work. I don't even have a laptop. So call me names. Laugh at me. You know what? When I have real work to do, I get it done. Fast. Efficiently. In a purposeful and focused manner. And no one on a work-related call with me ever has to wonder who is screaming in the background, or why my office features an out-of-control milk steamer.

Thoughts? I know I'm a dinosaur... I can take it.