This poem is for Martha S. and anyone else who loves the elderly.
Old Folks Laugh
They have spent their content of simpering, holding their lips this and that way, winding the lines between their brows. Old folks allow their bellies to jiggle like slow tambourines. The hollers rise up and spill over any way they want. When old folks laugh, they free the world. They turn slowly, slyly knowing the best and the worst of remembering. Saliva glistens in the corners of their mouths, their heads wobble on brittle necks, but their laps are filled with memories. When old folks laugh, they consider the promise of dear painless death, and generously forgive life for happening to them.
The latest craze is Pokemon Go. Just as I didn't give in to Flappy Bird, Yik Yak, or any of those dating apps, I don't plan to download Pokemon Go. Anyway, I can understand the game vicariously through my friends. Other people can feel free to play the game (power to them), but I'm going to choose to let this phase pass me by (or I'll jump on it a few months down the road like I did with SnapChat and Instagram).
Here are my reasons for not downloading the app at this moment:
(just to be clear, I did enjoy playing the Gameboy Pokemon games as a child. I still am intrigued by the world known as Pokemon.)
1. I don't know how people have time to be on the app. It seems that you'd have to invest time into this. Everyone is different about how they choose to spend their time, but I have other ways I'd rather spend my free time.
2. I love taking walks, but I don't like to be on my phone when I'm walking. I want to enjoy the world around me and the people with me.
3. It seems kind of dangerous. Walking and being on your phone is dangerous period, but this is extended amounts of time walking and staring at a screen. It could be very easy to walk into the road or a stationary object. Also, trainers, be sure to walk with a buddy and pay attention to your surroundings. There have already been stories of people getting lured into dangerous situations because someone is taking advantage of an innocent game.
4. It dominates conversation, even when it's not being played. "Have you caught a Pikachu?" "Which team did you choose?" "Where did you find that Jigglypuff?"
5. It would drain my phone battery.
6. I'm kind of anti-phones anyway. Granted I use it quite a bit on a daily basis, but I'd rather not add another reason to use it.
7. It creates a new reality. "There's a Squirtle over there!" Umm, no, that's a tree. I do love fiction and imagination, but I need a line between fiction and reality. This app pushes the line just a bit too much for me.
8. There are some security concerns. Do a quick search about security concerns with Pokemon Go and you'll find concerns about Google access, tracking, and hostile attacks. It's a little early in the game's release to know how accurate they are, but I'd rather not take the risk until they definitely clear those up.
9. It's going to cause problems with trespassing. People be smart about where you're going to catch Pokemon. Remember the person whose yard you're walking through may not see the Pokemon that show up on your screen.
10. It seems that right now the demand is so high that it just keeps freezing on people. I don't need that kind of frustration in my life.
None of this is to say that others shouldn't play the game. I'm sure it's enjoyable once you start, and I'll probably talk with you about it if you're playing. I just don't plan to download one more app that could cause one more addition. I already have plenty of technology addictions.
Maybe the bottom line is that I'm just a bit of a Granny.
Cheers!
The quality isn't great, but here's a protest song that I found on YouTube.
I've been dogsitting this week, and it's always an adventure and a test of patience. My family didn't have a dog after my Kindergarten year. Before that, the dog was my brother's dog. Even though its name was Happy, I didn't like to get near it because it was bigger than me and barked. I have a distinct memory of waking up late on a Saturday morning and finding no one in my house. I went outside and the dog was out of its pen because someone was mowing the pen. I was not a happy child that morning.
Anyway, back to the present. The dogs I'm sitting for are nowhere near as big as Happy was (he died sometime while I was in middle school at my grandma's house in North Carolina). Also I've conquered my fear of dogs for the most part.
Peanut is a poodle. He gets really excited when I head toward the couch.
He's a bit older so he sleeps quite a bit. A little old man without the snores.
This is Riley's favorite spot. Even though he doesn't live in this house on a regular basis, this is his favorite spot.
I brought some laundry over to wash. He claimed this blanket as his own.
For the most part, they are good dogs. They do like to bark at cats incessantly in the yard, and they beg for my food like they haven't eaten for days. I enjoy their cuddles and kisses though.
We had another exciting adventure this weekend, and we didn't even have to leave home. The TwentySomethings have entered into the world of business, yard sale business that is. We combined our extra stuff and set up shop at Martha S.'s house. Some of us are quite the yard sale shoppers, so we had a few ideas of things we definitely wanted to be sure happened.
1. Everything needed a price clearly labeled.
2. Keep the prices low, low, low...
3. Items needed to be organized and displayed.
4. Improve the atmosphere with good music and friendly conversation.
We started with a bunch of boxes in the basement.
Now I know every yard sale shopper has seen yard sales where this would have been how things were put out on the driveway. That was not the case for the TwentySomethings. After a highly nutritious dinner of pizza and a salad, we set to work organizing and labeling all of our items. Thankfully the weather was cooperating so that we could put items outside the night before the sale. A couple of hours later, we ended up with some fairly organized shelves and tables. Our reward? S'mores rice krispies and strawberry cake, of course!
Turns out we had more stuff than we thought we would. It's amazing to me that five twenty somethings have already accumulated so much stuff in our few short years of life.
For me, it was a lesson of trust. Since I had to work on Friday and couldn't be at the sale, I couldn't decide every time a customer wanted to ask a lower price for one of my items. I had to trust my fellow TwentySomethings to use good judgement on which items to lower the prices I had set and how low to go. It's not that I don't trust my friends; it's more that I like to be in control. They did a fine job by the way.
I tried so hard to sell this sombrero on Saturday. I'm sad to say that no one bought it. It came from Goodwill and returned to Goodwill.
While we didn't sell everything and Saturday was terribly slow, we did have good laughs and enjoyed one another's company. The total came close to $400.
I don't think we'll do one next week or anything, but there might be another Five Friends yard sale in the (long-term) future.
Marvel adequately displays how we all felt after the end of the two days.
So, I sort of slacked off with the photo challenge last month, (wow, is it really June 1st!?), so I decided to make a general life update instead of catching up. Perhaps it will sort of incorporate the last two days I missed and make up for some of the other days I may have skipped over.
Now that I think about it, yesterday really fit in with, "Mama, Can I keep it?"
I rode with my parent's into "town" to go to Willisburg General Store (The Amish store). On the way back Dad say a puppy on the side of the road, heading for the woods when it saw our vehicle pass by. So we turned around and I went into the woods, and I carried out a sweet, scared, starved, several month old puppy. It was sad how it had been neglected. We took it to the pound, but I wanted to keep her and nurse her back to health. I think she will be adopted, since she is very young.
I have also been going crazy with plants..I'll be bringing several back to my apartment with me. I now have an herb jar that I'm very excited about with Marjoram, Parsley, Chives, and Pineapple Sage in it. Now I just need to figure out how to use all of them in my cooking. My plant will be covered with numerous plant pots and I'm hoping I'll be able to plant some basil in the yard. We'll see if it thrives..the lemon balm sure has!
I can't think of any more exciting news from recent days. I will be heading back to my apartment tomorrow, going to yard sales on Friday, helping host Granny Eyre's birthday tea on Saturday and taking photos for someone on Sunday. It should be a fun-filled weekend!
