Technology is biting me!

Remember back in the old days (like the 1960's and 1970's) when you drove into a gas station, and a nice attendant asked "fill er' up" and you said "please" and then he handled the pump, washed the windows, checked the oil, and took your card to complete the sale?  Then in the 1980's the do-it-yourself pumps appeared and if you used them, you got a discount on gas, but still large stations had attendants. Now, it's all self-service (and gasoline costs several times as much as the days when a gas station was a service station!) Since hubby's third stroke which put me in the driver's seat of our car, I've been trying to learn how to pump gas. And despite trying to do it several times, I'm STILL having a rough time.  The directions are not clear - nothing is clear.  Finally in utter frustration, I went into the store part and was going to pay that way but now, you have to "prepay" (estimate how much gas you will use) and the excess is SUPPOSED to go back to your debit card. 

So I had the lady come out and stand next to me.... but it not only asks you for your PIN but also for your zip code - we have a PO box but I guessed the bank which sends me everything electronically had our house zip and it kept rejecting the card when finally I got the idea to put in our PO box zip... Took me a half hour of utter frustration to complete the transaction... ** sigh **

After my frustrating adventure at the pump, I decided to type the multi-step process into my tablet computer, (which I dropped 3 times... thank heavens I have a strong protective cover on it) and then email it to myself so it's in my phone also (iPhone).

Then there is the food store - the so called Super Market wasn't that big when I first got married and it was relatively easy to go shopping, easy to find things etc - now they have EVERYTHING including a fully stocked drug store and probably all the merchandise which you used to go to Woolworth's to get (remember Woolworth's?) and several isles of frozen dinners etc.  We older arthritic folks (I'm 70) have to use the scooters because it seems one walks MILES in the food store.  Luckily we can do most of our shopping on the web and have it delivered but today, after the gas station "adventure", we had to go to a large market to get some stuff not available on the web.  And that was another "adventure".





And after all of this, the "fraud protection" at our bank called and sent emails to insist we confirm transactions on our debit card (luckily can do this in email).  ** sigh **


I guess young folks don't mind all of this but wow, for those of us elderly - it's rough... can anyone relate?

Suicide watch in Junior High school?

My mother, Mary Schweitzer Baker who ended her life at the age of 68, by swallowing the business end of her gun. She was intelligent and articulate and talented but also was bipolar

In sorting through some old papers (of which we have a lot of since we've lived in this house for almost 40 years), I came across a poster I saw in a Junior High School - the school our son attended in the 1980's.  Even then, apparently suicide in young folks was a rising cause of death in our youth - today in 2014, more young folks die in suicide than in auto accidents (auto crashes were the most prevalent cause of death of youth in the 1960's when I graduated High School).  I will share the bullets on the poster as follows:

Suicide - think...

• Your mother loves you
• Your friends will miss you
• People DO care
• Counselors can help
• Teachers will listen
• You're not alone
• Suicide is a cop out
• Think of those who need you...

Before you act...

As I typed this out, I began to see problems with it...  the young person who is contemplating suicide, thinks his/her parents don't love him/her and that people don't care and that they won't be missed. They don't care if they are contemplating a "cop-out" (although actually that reason may be a stronger deterrent than some of the others as young folks are very sensitive about what others think of them).

With many families having both parents very involved in their jobs, kids are often lonely and depressed. And in fact, it's quite easy to become lonely in our busy society of today especially if one is a kid or at the other end of the spectrum, aging.  Having experienced some clinical depression myself, I know that when a person is depressed, they almost think they are doing the world a favor in exiting it.

We have had more than a few suicides in our family (much too many - my mother - my grandmother - etc).

Bottom line, is the greatest deterrent to suicide for me, is my Catholic faith - I know that if God feels I should be living, my committing suicide is a direct affront to God and I don't want to go there.

But life gets hard at times... especially when one is aging...

"Still, there were those moments so seemingly hopeless that I would cry out to God in anguish. Having journaled many of those desperate cries, I realize in retrospect how hope had sustained me through my knowing there was purpose in suffering..."

from EMBRACING DEMENTIA- A CALL TO LOVE by Ellen Marie Edmonds