Going, going gone from under mother’s wing

Well, the curtain is about to come down on my act of some 20 years as a single parent with two children living under my roof. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say living “under my wing”, as the act of single-momming has always lent itself to mother-henning.

Although I previously wrote about not feeling as affected as I thought I would be by my 23-year-old son’s looming departure, that’s been changing as his childhood home exit date nears. Not that I’m counting, but per my calendar, his wedding is just three days away. He’s poised to walk down the aisle of the church and then fly away on new wings to a fully adult life with his new wife.

My son and I have been unable to avoid counting down our remaining days together. It’s emotionally inescapable. I recently heard him call and tell his fiancé, who for security reasons is already occupying the home they purchased in December, “I can’t come visit you tonight because I want to spend this time with my mom. I’ve only got a couple of weeks left at home.”

I’m glad my home remains home to my son, as he’s been sleeping on a couch in the parlor since he started moving things out of his bedroom. He says it’s unsettling; his lifelong room no longer looks or feels like his room. He texted the other day to warn he’d moved out most of his remaining stuff. He didn’t want me to be startled when going in there. I did and almost lost it. His permanent change of residence suddenly became seriously real.

Bottom line is I’m seriously happy for the couple. It’s me I’m worried about. While I mastered being single and childless during the first three decades of my life, that was part of what I’d term a “building phase”, when I was productively investing my life in education, training and career opportunities, while excitedly planning for marriage and children. Now I’m divesting, which is markedly different.

If you look up synonyms for divesting (which I just did), they include: stripping, ridding, denying, depriving, robbing, dissociating and separating. None of those words exactly scream comfort, let alone joy, but they do remind me of the words of wisdom imparted by my friend Walt Rutledge when he lost his wife and was losing his health in his 80s: “It can’t be your time forever.”

The task at hand is to become proficient at letting go – not my usual kind of goal, but a necessary one. So far, I’ve addressed it through establishing new goals for myself and not dwelling on the inevitable.

Realistically, I didn’t expect my son to live with me forever, and had even considered giving him the boot on a few well-deserved occasions, but resisted the urge. I’ve seen parents do that and sometimes wonder if they did it because abruptly kicking out someone is emotionally easier than slowly letting them go.

I’ll never know. It would be counter-productive to kick out my son a couple days before his wedding just to relieve the tension and spare myself the tears that come with seeing things through. And what would be the point? I’m not one to introduce unnecessary drama into the equation. Plus, I can always wait until he’s officially gone, play my “Fidder on the Roof” DVD and turn up the volume extra loud during the song “Sunrise Sunset” (which I denied myself playing on piano as part of the couple’s pre-wedding music).

Nevertheless, the sense of loss surrounding my son leaving home looms large, especially on the heels of several other substantial losses I’ve endured with my children this decade. We’ve held each other together through a lot, while I’ve had to respond to everything logically and logistically for everyone’s sake. It’s been exhausting.

So please indulge me this wave of nostalgia that’s had me making my son’s favorite dinners, cooking him breakfast and packing his lunches in recent weeks, while my mind entertains goofy thoughts ranging from, “Aw, this is my last mending of his underwear” to “I’ll kill him if I find another dirty plate on the parlor floor.” This mother hen is transitioning on a wing and a prayer from active duty.

Braving subscription TV’s fierce battleground

Well, I finally did it. I made the call with trembling hands. The momentous day occurred just before the recent eclipse, which I believe my brave action eclipsed: I picked up my overpriced cell phone (with over-priced basic plan) and dialed my satellite TV provider to renegotiate my plan/bill.

Although I’d been fed up with my satellite television subscription service price doubling in recent years, I felt physically unequipped to do the necessary fierce verbal battling required to renegotiate my contract until a rare day arrived when I’d gotten a full night’s sleep and was not unintelligibly hoarse due to respiratory illness and medication side effects.

Subscription TV providers have become increasingly slimy since I started engaging with them four decades ago, back when I was able to enter into a simple, non-binding month-to-month contract with a cable television company without fear of losing big bucks or my sanity, not necessarily in that order. But the times they are a changing and the budgetary financial stakes go far beyond loose change.

The technology that makes highly convenient services like satellite television available has been saddled by providers and used against us. Under the auspices of saving the trees killed to send out paper billing statements, and saving everyone postage, providers strong-arm customers into the “convenience” process of regular monthly billing to our bank or credit union accounts.

And we tolerate it, as resistance is futile. Some providers require auto payment as a condition of service, while others offer attractive incentives for granting them access to our financial accounts. Still other providers have begun tacking on inconvenience fees to the monthly bills of people who do not grant them access to their bank accounts. That practice ticks me off to no end. Not only is the customer never right, but we’ve become captive targets.

All seems well when you sign on, but things typically head south once you decide to exercise what they initially promoted as your right to make changes or to end your relationship with them. Ask around – nearly everyone has a horror story about getting slapped with service termination fees that are the equivalent of digital alimony. Battle on! Instead of helpful, customer service is oppressive.

Trying to stop an auto deduction payment from your bank account can get really ugly. Experience has taught me to avoid signing up for bank account auto deductions in the first place. When forced to the wall without other options for a service I cannot get otherwise, I use a credit card to block. Any forced recurrent billings for a service that cannot be paid via traditional monthly billing gets billed to the credit card, which I pay off monthly. And my credit card company has helped intervene with nonsense.

Billing games are not the only technology used against the customer. The tracking histories of household TV viewing habits allow customer service representatives to have the upper hand when customers get fed up and attempt to negotiate a change in plans, services or price.

Stemming from these and other negative factors, billshark.com shared a 2018 telecommunications report by the American Customer Service Index that showed customer satisfaction with subscription television services was then at an 11-year low. It feels to me it’s only gotten worse as video streaming services have become increasingly popular. I’ve personally experienced subscription television prices being raised indiscriminately, with new and sometimes hidden fees tacked onto bills.

The blog at billshark.com accurately summarizes, “It’s no surprise that customers are frustrated; calling your service provider often feels like going into battle. In addition to poor call center satisfaction, customers are frustrated by the backward policies of TV subscription companies. While airlines and retail companies are rewarding loyalty, subscription TV providers are focused primarily on acquisition. That means new customers get better deals than loyal customers.”

I tenaciously pled my satellite TV subscription case for an hour with the questionable English-speaking, ground-level customer service representative before being transferred to a supervisor who eventually granted me new customer pricing on a more basic package (including maintenance) for about one-third of my previous rate, which I’ll believe when I see my next bill. Good for only 12 months. Oh, goody! Future battle.

Does do-gooder dislike make me a bad person?

Sometimes I read the articles that appear when I first open a web browser such as Firefox. Other times, I breeze by in pursuit of my actual business. But when I do have the time to do stray reading, I’ve noticed those articles can be fairly entertaining, especially the ones involving behavioral research.

One that recently got my attention was a Pocket worthy piece for the BBC by London-based author and science writer Dave Robson. It was titled, “Why Overly Kind and Moral People Can Rub You up the Wrong Way”. Just try to NOT read something that begins with that heading. But best disregard the “rub you up” wording. That’s British speak. Americans would simply say “rub you the wrong way”, which sounds less perverse.

Fortunately, I spotted that article when I had the extra reading time available. My first thoughts were that I’ve met overly kind and moral people like that, don’t want to be one of them, and hopefully haven’t been.

Although I regularly try to err on the side of doing the kind and moral thing, I’m not compulsive about it. When I fall short, I may give myself a mental “talking to”, but stop short of ­­­­­­continuing to feel guilty and beating myself up over not being nice enough. I simply apologize and try to do better the next time, without belaboring my point to the point I start to be an A—hole, just differently, due to persistent over-apologizing.

Sometimes there’s not really anyone to apologize to, so I must replay in my mind how I think I failed and what I need to do differently the next time. The real question remains: am I truly sorry?

“Have you ever come across someone who is incredibly kind and morally upright – and yet also deeply insufferable?” asks Robson, “They might try to do anything they can to help you or engage in a host of important, useful activities benefiting friends and the wider community. Yet they seem a little bit too pleased with their good deeds and, without any good reason to think so, you suspect that there’s something calculated about their altruism.”

Copping an uncharitable attitude toward those who are technically displaying charitable behavior leaves me wondering if I have reached a new low within myself. But still, there are times when I can’t shake the cynicism once it’s registered within me. Behavioral scientists have a name for that kind of regard toward suspicious charitable behavior: do-gooder derogation.

According to Wikipedia’s description of the phenomena, “research has shown a combination of moral and dominance personality traits in a person have been linked to an increased level of moral self-righteousness and dislike by perceivers.”

Ah, so when our self-righteous detectors go off, our cynicism flips on. After citing research where subjects were observed playing an income and investment game that offered the opportunity to punish other participants for insincere motivations and willingness to capitalize on the efforts of others, Robson reports, “An apparent act of generosity that seems to be driven by self-interest can make others who aren’t doing the same deed bristle.”  

Resentments were floating everywhere in the air. For as much as I’d like to believe that the altruistic behavior of others, as well as my own, is motivated by human kindness and a highly-evolved sense of morality, the opposite is often the case. Over several centuries, humans have gained the understanding that effectively enacted altruism is a survival skill that helps one to gain a more favorable social position, which over time positions one for other opportunities, including relational and economic.

It happens all the time among others and within ourselves. In addition to doing nice things just to be nice, we sometimes do nice things to appear nicer to other people. Pro-bono work benefits not just the people we do it for, but may attract the attention of other prospective clients, making them think we are the kind of nice person they’d like to do business with. Other times, nice behavior results in a sizeable income tax deduction.

In other words, your mother was right when she said you should to be nice to that person you didn’t really like, because someday you might need them for something. You will.

Relishing the ongoing debate: dill vs. sweet

I spent time within Lent this year wondering where I could get a good fish sandwich that’s enhanced with good tartar sauce. I meant to ask around, but whenever I was with someone who would likely volunteer his/her opinion, I’d forget to pose the question. Some political pollster I’d make.

Lent would have been the perfect time to investigate the fish and fish sandwich scene, as restaurants frequently run specials on them during the season known for meatless traditions among some groups. On a brighter note, I did dine at one Catholic organization’s fish fry.

Growing up Catholic, I resigned myself that if it were a Friday night during Lent, I would be eating either fish sandwich or fish sticks. It would always be some kind of minced fish bits, reconstituted into a more palatable geometric shape – the nutritional equivalent of pressboard.

When times were better for our family, we traded up to battered fish fillets that came in triangular shapes with slightly rounded corners. I much preferred them, but understood the how and the why of family economic star alignment in order for them to show up in our freezer.  Therefore, I didn’t hold it against my mom for not serving them more regularly. Those fish fillets hailing from colorful yellow boxes seemed much more sophisticated than Mrs. Paul’s plain old fish sticks.

I did hold it against my dad for not being Catholic and therefore not having to play the fish shell game with the rest of our household. But he’d sit there and watch the rest of the family munching on minced fish while he’d opt for some meat-based leftovers. Grrr. What the heck?!

However, in that pre-Fry Daddy era, my Dad always eagerly helped himself (to loud protests led by me) to the fries on the baking sheet that also held whatever form of fish. The way I figured it, if you wanted the “chips”, you should have to eat the fish along with it.

I wondered who might lend some authority to this topic. I decided upon American culinary expert James Beard, who legitimized American and English cooking during the 40s-60s, and whose cookbooks I have collected. Beard’s recipe for tartar sauce can be found at http://www.jamesbeard.org/recipes/tartar-sauce:

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup finely chopped dill pickle
• 1/3 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped capers
• 1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard, or to taste
• Dash of lemon juice or tarragon vinegar

That’s pretty much aligned with how I fix tartar sauce, but by way of disclaimer, I will state I have NEVER added capers, which has always seemed like overkill. Additionally, if you’re short enough on money that you’re eating pressboard fish, odds are good you probably don’t have an optional ingredient like capers just sitting around. Let me also admit I like to used dried minced onions in place of fresh ones when I’m in a hurry or don’t have any onions diced ahead in the fridge (my immediate family is comprised of onion lovers).

Probably the most controversial aspect of the above tartar sauce recipe is that it contains chopped dill pickles, versus sweet pickles. The pickle or relish type serve as a tartar sauce dividing line. Chef Gordon Ramsay favors dill, while Chef Emeril Lagasse prefers a sweeter taste with his sauce. People generally feel strongly about their preference.

From my childhood, I can vouch for the imminent importance of tartar sauce and its almighty taste-covering-up properties when you’re dining on pressboard fish. Many evils were disguised before the phrase “kitchen confidential” was ever uttered.

Armed with that knowledge, I went about happily making Miracle Whip and sweet relish tartar sauce under the tutelage of my mother – until I experienced the modern miracle of mayonnaise and dill relish tartar sauce at a friend’s house.

I can recall coming home and pleading with my mother to let me make the non-sweet tartar sauce for our family. You’d have thought I’d proposed throwing in a walnut-sized measure of Drano as the secret ingredient. Not on your life, sister!

I’ve since discovered, after graduating to a higher grade of fish, it’s easier to avoid tartar sauce all together, which allows skipping the aftertaste of its memories.  

   

Bracing for the effects of a partially empty nest

This past year or so has been a time of trying on new sociological labels. When my mom died at the age of 89 last February, I officially became a “midlife orphan.” It’s not necessarily my preferred self-description, but the shoe certainly fits, so I might as well wear it. As a long-time, self-described “shoe person”, I recognize there’s no such thing as having too many of them.

Uh, oh. I wonder if I should read into that. But just as I was toying with the temptation of re-pondering my midlife orphan status, a friend reminded me that due to my son’s upcoming marriage within the next 30 days, I will soon inherit another sociological moniker: “empty-nester.”

Oh, goody! But I quickly pointed out I will be only a partial empty-nester, as his younger sister has not yet flown the coop. Even though I rarely see her on account of her school, work, friends and boyfriend, she still officially resides with me. That’s seems much more peri-momopausal than full, head-on momopause, and will allow for more gradual immersion into my new role as mother of at least one independent adult.  

At verywellfamily.com, empty-nesters are defined as suffering from empty nest syndrome, a collection of symptoms that includes, but is not limited to a loss of purpose, frustration over lack of control, emotional distress, marital distress and anxiety about your children when they’re not around.

Hmm. Where do I stand on those counts? Maybe not as poorly as initially feared. In addition to still having one offspring at home after my son leaves, I don’t have to worry about his leaving causing distress to my non-existent marriage or between me and my non-entity significant other. I guess empty-nesting will have to wait until I get into another relationship to gum up things in that regard.

I also feel I pre-emptively stole the “loss of purpose” symptom from empty-nesting before it could steal it from me, through leaving my long-time job last fall. Nobody can rob me of the self-esteem and pride in my career accomplishments that somewhat automatically get surrendered upon one’s resignation. Take that, empty nesting! I already gave at the office. That’s just how it works and worked in advance of my son getting ready to jump nest.

Wait, perhaps what the verywellfamily people are referencing is the loss of purpose feelings they assume women encounter as mothers. But I’ve been too busy working at potty-training, leash-breaking and boundary-setting with my new puppy to mourn the lunches I won’t be making, the wounds I won’t be tending, and the socks I won’t be mending. The net amount of time freed up from giving up my “Second-Shift” (as in the Arlie Hochschild book of that name) family duties should render me more productive and purposeful in areas I find less mundane.

Verywellfamily also warns of frustration over lack of control; however, I mentally re-word that symptom to read “no longer my responsibility or problem.” Sure, I can empathize with the full-blown adult issues my nest-leaving son encounters, but it’s no longer up to me to solve or to pay for resolution of them. I’m enjoying graduating to being a sounding board versus having to hold the bottom line, which usually involves money.  

I’ve never experienced much anxiety when my kids are out of my sight. Conversely, it’s given me much-needed breaks from caregiving. I never wasted our time apart worrying they’d drown, crash a car, get pregnant or arrested; I never stayed up late waiting for their arrival home. I needed my sleep worse, to deal by daylight with life’s unimagined problems.

That reduces my empty-nesting behavior to emotional distress, to which I plead guilty. I am truly going to miss having my son around daily and our deep discussions over coffee in the morning and tea in the evening. He’s well-read, insightful, caring and funny. We enjoy comparing notes before making decisions. He also a good leftover-eater.

If this midlife orphan has done her second-shift job purposefully, said son will not become a stranger. It looks promising, as he recently proposed beginning an after-church Sunday dinner tradition. May our meals be as much about love as snagging the leftovers.

Taking the puppy polar bear plunge once again

Once again this winter I’ve watched video, seen pictures of and read and heard about people who dared to take the polar bear plunge. It’s a mystery why anyone would unnecessarily undertake such an action. I didn’t have a choice but to spontaneously polar bear plunge years ago when my former dogs, Chappy and Sousa, fell through the ice on a lake channel. However, even the threat of them drowning didn’t diminish the icy water immersion shock to my system. I couldn’t get warm or stop coughing for hours.

Outside of needing to make emergency rescues, anyone with common sense should instead don their warmest clothes and park themselves in front of a hot fire, with their hands cupped around a warm beverage – which is about the closest we northbound humans can get to hibernation.

So why do people insist on foolishly polar bear plunging, some annually, when they know exactly what they’re going to be putting themselves through? Are they driven by bragging rights, cabin fever or a combination of stupidity and insanity (doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results)? Good question. I’m not sure I can answer it, myself.

“So I did a thing . . .” is how it was described in the Facebook post of a friend who about a month ago got a newly-minted German Shepherd puppy to join the dog she’s had for a few years. My first thought was that no matter how cute the puppy, my friend must be a glutton for punishment, as it’s no secret puppies are an immediate shock to your lifestyle – just like the polar bear plunge.

There’s also a lot of work and training involved, plus the element of destructiveness. I should know. My kids and I just spent the past 14 months house-breaking and rule-teaching their two puppies, which resulted in considerable brokenness and ended up being an education for all involved. While things have settled into more calm of a rhythm where the now adolescent pooches are concerned, there remain occasional lapses in judgment on both their parts and our parts that take us back to square one faster than you can say “who chewed the corner of the piano bench?”

So you can imagine my surprise when, just two weeks after my friend got a puppy, I found myself signing up for the same. Not a puppy from the same litter or from the same breed, but from a much more mixed breed from a situation where the parents had been allowed to indiscriminately mate. Great. I contacted the couple that had stepped in to care for the puppies after I saw their social media post about the litter.

Truth told, I’d been looking to get another dog for our household, as my son will be taking his dog, Fennec, with him when he gets married and moves into his own house next month. There, Fennec gets to romp with my son’s wife’s dog, Winnie. That leaves Fennec’s sister, Copper (my daughter’s dog), home alone to play with the cats, which isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time. In Fennec’s absence, Copper mopes and watches out the window for her return.

Neither dog realizes new puppy “Gus” is being groomed to be Copper’s replacement daily companion. After the initial standoffishness, both Copper and Fennec have warmed to him and consciously softened their rough-housing for his sake. Gus follows the older dogs everywhere, nipping at them, which sometimes irritates.

My son took some hysterical video of the dogs’ mouth-to-mouth combat and three-way wrestling matches on our family room couch. But it’s not all fun and games: Copper and Fennec frequently vie for the puppy’s allegiance. They also squabble over one another’s food, toys and attention from us. In other words, Gus is being socialized to fit right in with our family culture.

Simultaneously, I’m being re-socialized. Yesterday I dealt with Gus shredding the mat in front of the kitchen sink and carrying off my shoes. When he was quiet for too long, I found him stripping the decorative piping off a recliner. Brrrrr! It’s hard to thaw from this polar bear plunge so close on the heels of the last one!

Optimize borrowing of ideas from other arenas

Everywhere you turn, people and businesses are trying to “optimize” something. Optimize and its longer form, “optimization”, is one of those buzz words that drives me crazy. It’s overused to the point it has lost its meaning over time. I hate that. People running around, running their mouths without making much sense. We all run into that kind of thing.

So I went back to the source of explanation and re-read the definition, courtesy of Merriam-Webster: “an act, process, or methodology of making something (such as a design, system, or decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible” or more specifically “the mathematical procedures (such as finding the maximum of a function) involved in this.”

Please, nobody respond to that definition by saying “perfect” – another ridiculously over-used word. Let’s also gingerly step over the math implications of the concept, and instead focus on the more generalized idea of achieving maximum effectiveness with something.

While I recognize the extreme nerdy implications surrounding what I’m about to confess, there’s little I enjoy more than learning how other schools of thought approach problem-solving. The more I read about or talk to people from other disciplines, the more I come to appreciate where they are coming from and, more importantly, how I can apply that to my own work and personal life.

Many diverse areas of commerce are focused on process optimization: to the point they follow similar process steps that lead to maximum effectiveness. That’s noteworthy to me, and might be useful to you, too. For instance, who couldn’t benefit from applying to professional or personal purchases the seven steps, “How to Optimize Your Procurement Process”, as blogged by Julia Lopez (Nov. 30, 2023) at pipefy.com?:

1. Review alignment with business (or personal) goals; 2. Map your current procurement (or personal purchasing) process; 3. Scrutinize each handoff; 4. Identify your improvement opportunities; 5. Create a list of automation opportunities; 6. Create a new map for the improved process; 7. Implement, test and deploy.

That’s a reasonable set of steps to follow. Just reading them, I can think of several ways my personal system (or lack of system) for purchasing things could be improved. I can see my well-reasoned vision for major purchases gets scrapped when it comes to making trivial purchases.

How often do we all fail to identify our long-term goals before simply taking action? I’m guilty of not being conscious when it doesn’t seem to matter. Conversely, I sometimes unquestioningly and thoughtlessly follow procedures that were created by someone else and long been in place. Researching how a professional in another area would approach my situation is a great way to spark a more thorough questioning process within myself.

Borrowing ideas from other disciplines can result in not just higher productivity, but greater creativity. In my 20’s, I discovered a book by budding creativity specialist Roger von Oech, who went on to found the California-based consulting firm, Creative Think.

His 1983 book, A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative, firmly established von Oech as a creativity expert. It also led to his designing an accompanying illustrated deck of cards called“Creative Whack Pack” that featured the main 64 concepts/strategies outlined in the book. Those materials introduced readers to the many angles and importance of creative thinking.

In follow-up books, including, A Kick in the Seat of the Pants: Using Your Explorer, Artist, Judge and Warrior to Be More Creative (1986) and Expect the Unexpected or You Won’t Find It: A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus (2001), von Oech further explored the nature and benefits of creativity, as well as how to harness it to improve performance with work and personal pursuits.

Interestingly, the creativity ideas touted by von Oech transcend disciplines and have enabled him to enjoy a four-decade career improving the creativity of anyone who has tuned in, from individuals to major organizations and corporations. The very creativity von Oech is committed to developing in others has helped him to construct a whole industry devoted to the realization of creative potential. The moral to this story? It’s never too late to optimize ideas borrowed from other arenas.

Public conversations convey private information

Most days I feel I do a fair amount of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. But in my defense, it’s not something I set out to do, but an unfortunate, unavoidable result from people having what should be private conversations in public places. Faced with being an unwilling witness to what’s being discussed, I at first rightly and politely protested when I found myself unwittingly caught in TMI conversational crossfire.

Inside of an urgent care waiting room, a mother and teenage daughter sitting in chairs sections apart verbally volleyed personal medical information for all to hear. It was stuff I didn’t need or want to hear and I could tell the other medical appointment hostages in the room also didn’t need or want to hear it. It was bad enough we were already ill or injured. No one should have to put up with bad family drama on top of that.

On behalf of all of us, I turned to the mother and discreetly asked, “Are you sure you want everyone in the waiting room to hear your personal information?”

At a time in the not-so-distant past, my question would have hit home immediately and likely triggered social embarrassment in the mother. Operating on principles such as the now-archaic Golden Rule or perhaps just out of common decency (anyone remember that?!), she would have murmured a quiet apology to me and given her daughter “the look” that would have reeled her in and shut her up all via one killer glance. Like most of our moms used to do when we publicly crossed the line.

But as we’re no longer in Kansas, Toto, the mother instead informed me in an offended tone that she had the right to say whatever she liked wherever she was because this was America, and that I should keep my nose out of her bleepity-bleep business.

Nice. But not entirely unexpected. She did tone it down a bit, however, mainly because she switched to mumbling under her breath about me. And her daughter moved beside her to take the seat I had occupied after I moved to a far-corner open seat created when another waiting room hostage got called in to see the doctor.

Another time I unsuccessfully intervened in public sharing of private information was when a man was talking obnoxiously on his cell phone as I waited in a long checkout line at the grocery store just before Thanksgiving. From what I gathered from hearing both sides of the conversation (he had his female significant other on speaker phone), someone they had invited for Thanksgiving dinner was bringing along an unwanted guest.

Now, despite this conversation being highly interesting, and despite the fact I have been formally trained in mediation, I resisted the urge to comment on the content of the loudly public phone conversation and instead focused on the etiquette angle in defense of the adjacent harried holiday shoppers.

“Excuse me, but could you please switch off speaker mode so the rest of us don’t hear your conversation?” I asked in a neutral tone, adding, “If I were on the other end of the phone, I wouldn’t want strangers hearing what I was saying.”

The man stopped talking and stared incredulously at me for a moment, as if I were stupid. Recovering his composure, he reported to the woman he had on the phone, “Get this – this woman ahead of me in line is listening to our phone conversation and trying to tell me what to do. What nerve!” To which the woman responded, “There’s always somebody like that. Just ignore her.”

What the heck?! Did he read my mind? Never mind. I’m the one who was the victim here, being subjected to unnecessary personal information sharing I didn’t sign up for as part of my trip to the store. I’d just stopped by for groceries and ended up with a couple of extra turkeys! What nerve, indeed.

The world and the behavior of the people in it get crazier every day. The lines between personal and private territory have become so unrecognizably blurred, there’s no point in politely pointing out what you shouldn’t have to overhear to those who can’t hear.

Life’s story problems makes math motivational

I couldn’t help but overhear part of the conversation between my daughter and her boyfriend. I hear their reading room verbal exchanges regularly. It’s pretty much unavoidable, as they’re just around the corner from my dining room table seat, working on writing projects at my laptop.

It’s not that I’m nosy. The conversations between my daughter and her beau are anything but titillating because they’re about . . . math. If ever I wanted to eavesdrop on something, it’s not math. Don’t care now and never cared that much when I was the one taking the class(es), other than to develop a vague feeling of empathy for my fellow intermediate-level math sufferers.

My son and his fiancée’s conversations these days involve simpler math, mainly budgeting. I find them far more interesting (and entertaining), probably because I can understand and relate to what they’re talking about. It’s a topic which clearly has everyday meaning in all of our lives, hence the heightened interest.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying there’s no value to higher level math. Quite the opposite. I realize intermediate and advanced math principles are at work all the time in life, whether or not I grasp them; however, they’re not something I’m personally responsible for, good at, or likely to put to use on the job, so it’s difficult to feel the love. Instead, I’m disinterested and disenfranchised.

My daughter and her boyfriend attend different colleges, but both have a statistics class this semester. It’s imperative they pass their respective math courses so they can continue moving up the educational ladder. Statistics is the last class my daughter needs to complete two associate degrees. So instead of going out to the movies or watching something on TV, the couple spends “together time” working on math problems. Do the math: their futures depend on it.

An interesting online post about the importance of math relatability can be found at https://illustrativemathematics.blog/2020/10/27/making-sense-of-story-problems/, where second grade teacher Deborah Peart blogs about her learning to effectively teach math after two decades as a literacy (phonics, word study and reading comprehension) instructional aficionado and the process of making math feel more relevant beginning in the earliest grades.

“The mission of Illustrative Mathematics is to create a world where learners know, use, and enjoy mathematics,” says Peart. “By using stories to help students see math in the world around them and recognize the ways in which using math is a part of their daily lives, word problems can become an enjoyable part of math learning. This starts with calling word problems ‘story problems’ in the early grades.”

Sometimes the homework assigned to my daughter and her boyfriend by their respective instructors involves story problems, which I recall I enjoyed more over the years than trying to solve just plain math problems. As a writer, I like to know something about the context in which the problem occurs because it increases my investment in the process. Pathetic, perhaps, but that’s how I’m wired. I also get a kick out of watching someone who is suddenly faced with a real life story problem.

Such was the case with my son the day of the recent presidential primary. He asked me to remind him to vote after work. He received my text message at 4:00 PM while driving home, having already passed local gas stations with the “low fuel” light registering on his dashboard and limited funds in his pocket. He’d planned to get gas later, on the way to a discussion group somewhere else he wanted to attend at 6:30 pm. But he didn’t have enough gas to drive to our very rural township polling site, then to the gas station in the opposite direction. He also hadn’t yet studied for the group.

Sound familiar? Real life story problem complete with context and variables. I suggested riding to vote with his sister, but she wasn’t home yet. After multiple calculations, he eventually colored outside of the lines and added a gallon of emergency gas to his vehicle, which got him to both the polling place and then to an actual gas station. Crisis averted.

Lesson learned? I doubt it. Except that contextualizing math sure makes it motivational.

How lonely a diet that consists just of life hacks

Seeking to get myself out of the same old-same old TV watching patterns the other day, I did some channel surfing in areas where I hadn’t explored in a while. As a result, I found a new, very informative Christian program and a channel that’s devoted exclusively to life hacks.

If you don’t have young adult kids like I do, who came of age in the life hack era and take great pride in showing off the latest time-, energy- and money-saving tricks they’ve seen demonstrated on social media, you may not be up on what constitutes a life hack. According to Wikipedia, a life hack is “any trick, shortcut, skill or novelty method that increases productivity and efficiency, in all walks of life.”

The life hacks television channel which I stumbled upon was First Media’s “Blossom” – which “empowers people to do everyday life better through creativity, productivity and fun.” It’s an extension of the American YouTube Blossom channel that focuses on tutorials, DIYs, hacks and crafts. Set to mostly wordless, peppy music, the channel moves at an amazingly quick pace. I’d no more than start to wrap my head around one project, then they’d start off on another one. I frequently had to use the TV remote to rewind and watch things again.

Within 10 minutes, I’d learned, among other things, how to remove a stubborn screw using a box end wrench to leverage my hexagon screwdriver. That’s valuable information. I didn’t get as excited over the demonstration of how to make a bed headboard (I’m happy with the one I’ve got) or how to turn just about anything into a candle. Hailing from a state where returnable bottles are worth 10 cents apiece, I was taken aback and moderately offended at the number of soda bottles that were hacked apart in the name of life hacks.

My first exposure to DIY repurposing of household items came from watching Grandma Smith come home from (MSU) Extension meetings where that kind of thing was demonstrated in the name of home economics. While I wasn’t allowed to attend those secret society meetings over a half-century ago, they certainly put a smile on my grandmother’s face and a bounce in her step as she set about collecting items as diverse as too-damaged-to-wear-again pantyhose and knee-highs and empty toilet paper tubes, which were foundational to her growing DIY arsenal.

So you can imagine my amusement when someone else’s grandma made the cake for a wedding that was held at the elegant banquet hall in Kalamazoo where I waitressed Saturday nights for several years to pay for graduate school. As we began cutting the cake for the wedding guests, I discovered the supporting pillars between layers weren’t the plastic Wilton ones I was accustomed to seeing, but rather of the Charmin variety!

Yes, the bride’s grandmother had used toilet paper rolls in the cake – with “used” being the operative word. She’d liberated them from someone’s bathroom! Mmm. I’m surprised I didn’t also find a pair of nylons somewhere in the cake, perhaps to anchor fondant around the base. But seriously, she was clearly proud of her ingenuity, as most life hackers are, right up to the point they’re ostracized.

I’ve noticed life hacks can lead to loneliness. Why? Well, once you start watching life hacks (as I discovered firsthand, tuning into the “Blossom” TV channel) it becomes empoweringly addictive. It’s difficult to pull yourself away. Had our TV remote’s batteries not chosen that time to lose their charge, I would probably still be lapping up “Blossom” TV the exclusion of socializing with family and friends – although I did manage to lure in at least one of my children to watch along with me for a few minutes.

Also, having been around people who compulsively watch “Blossom” and other DIY shows, I have observed they later drive others away by compulsively sharing every hack they’ve learned in an over-the-top, know-it-all way: in a tone similar to that of the postal carrier character, Cliff Clavin, from television’s sitcom “Cheers”.

If you’ve ever been around someone like that, you know of what I speak: a maddening display of DIY TMI! Don’t be that guy!