Ponderings and Musings

Years ago my husband and I attended a lecture hosted by our local (at the time) NPR station. The speaker was Diane Rehm, journalist and talk show host. This appearance was about 10 years before her final broadcast of “The Diane Rehm Show”.

One of the topics Ms. Rehm focused on was the importance of listening. Even back in the mid ‘00s, people were getting in the habit of talking a lot but not really listening. Twenty years later, things are worse than ever, but the incessant talking has been replaced by incessant shouting. There’s a lot of shouting these days.

I don’t find it enjoyable.

I will admit that I am a terrible listener. My husband often attributes this trait to the fact that I don’t like “dead air”. As a former radio broadcaster, dead air is deadly, and I can think of less than three occasions where I had dead air during one of my air shifts. He thinks I need to fill the dead air and that’s why I talk when I should be listening.

The truth is, I talk when I listen because it’s my way of understanding the context of what’s being told to me. My memory, which I can confidently say is “above average”, works best when I relate something being told to me to something personal. This usually ends up with me recounting my own personal experience in what I perceive to be a similar situation. It’s my way of saying, “I understand”, but to those who don’t understand the way I process information, it sounds like I’m making the given situation all about me. I am, but for my own purposes, not to one-up or outshine the person speaking to me.

I’m trying hard to find quieter ways of understanding this information.

With all the chaos going on in the U.S. Government these days, and lately it seems to be a lot more than normal even in these elevated times, I can’t help but think we’d all be the better for it if our elected officials just stopped hollering and trying to grab the spotlight by being the most outrageous and just started listening to one another.

If I can try to be a better listener, I certainly expect our elected officials to try to be better listeners as well.

But we know that’s not going to happen.

So when election time comes, I’m going to look for the person that demonstrates they can listen. Because listening can often lead to a civil discussion.

Unless the record has ended before you’ve had the next chance to start the next song on your air shift.

I am a fan of the podcasts from RelayFM. Since 2019 they have been raising money for St. Jude, and every September they have a fund raising drive.

Please take a moment to contribute to this important cause at https://stjude.org/relay. There’s still time to become part of this month’s drive.

Chris made some Mexican Street Corn soup for supper the other night. It was a great appetizer for the main dish. I’m always impressed with my family’s eye on presentation as well as taste.

Last night I made Cincinnati Chili for supper. Well, actually my husband and I made it together, because I’m never trusted by anyone to go solo in the kitchen. The chili turned out very good though I neglected to take a photo for the blog.

We served the chili over spaghetti and topped it with cheese and onions. I didn’t provide oyster crackers though, I’ll need to do that on a future serving.

I went flying this past weekend with an instructor to finish my checkout for the flight club in the Cessna 182. It was a great flight. I had to do a few landings under various simulated conditions and that was fun. I like expanding my aviation skills through these things.

I didn’t know there had been another fire on Mt. Lemmon so we had to get back and forth through Redington Pass before 08:00 or else we would have had to come back to Tucson Airport the long way around the mountains. Apparently the fire was extinguished quickly.

I’m all checked out in the Cessna 182 and now my husband and I can go up together and get around the skies a little bit faster and with someone in the backseat if we want.

My journaling app (Day One) has an “On this day…” feature that I really enjoy. It allows me to look back to see how much progress I’ve made on my personal goals and how much I have (or haven’t) changed over the years. It presents little snippets I wrote on this date across the 15 years I’ve maintained this personal journal and most of the time sparks pleasant memories.

Today a few entries from 2019 popped up relating to interactions on Social Media, mainly some things there were bothering me about recent Facebook posts. In these old entries I vaguely mentioned some Facebook Messenger messages I had received. Not remembering the interaction, I decided to spin through my Facebook Messenger feed from 2019, which of course was quite easy to do because Facebook never deletes anything.

It was all about the latest scandal farting out of the Trump presidency at the time and the Facebook friends piling on relatives that supported Trump. I had decided to remove the discourse altogether, as there were aunts and cousins having fits about those I call friends and I just didn’t want to be part of that. I severed relations with some of the folks over that day and had Day One not reminded me about it, I probably wouldn’t have remembered the specific events. I have an iron clad memory and often remember things I won’t ever need or don’t think I even remember, but if I purposely forget something, it’s gone.

With the U.S. Government in general continuing to be a colossal disappointment and the media trying to whip the country up in a frenzy over an election that is over 14 months away, I’m not looking forward to our choices in November 2024. I burned way too much emotional capital over the Trump years. Quite frankly, I’m tired. I am so. friggin. tired.

To be honest, I’m tired of social media in general. I’ve been dabbling in Twitter a little bit for some aviation interaction. I’m on Mastodon but the vibe there is often how to do Mastodon correctly without triggering everyone over a photo of a plate of spaghetti or something. I don’t really know what Blue Sky is trying to be and quite frankly I’ve lost track of Threads.

I guess I just don’t care to interact with people that way at the moment. And that’s fine.

When I hear things like “you have to vote like your life depends on it, so we can save the world”, I’m at the point of thinking, “meh, if I’m lucky I have around 30 years left. I can ride out 30 years”.

Ah, “but what about the children?”, folks ask.

I ask, “why are folks having children?”. Do we really need more people on this overtaxed planet? Does the future look bright and rosy for Gen Z and whatever is suppose to come after them?

Wow, this blog entry turned dark. I don’t think that was the intent of my “On this day…” function in Day One.

Let’s see what I wrote in this blog back on this day in 2019. I wrote about the LED streetlights in Chicago.

Four years ago tomorrow I wrote a little bit about the election.

I guess the times ain’t changing that much.

I am content with my current lineup of Apple products, including my iPhone 13 Pro. However, I’ve been toying with the idea of redecorating my home office in “Apple Store colors”, and I wanted to go to one of the stores here in Arizona to get a better idea of the color palette. We decided to drive to Scottsdale to the Apple Store at Scottsdale Fashion Square, a lively mall with renovations in progress and several upper crust brand names populating the store fronts.

The line to get into the Apple Store was over 30 minutes long if one was looking for a new iPhone. A lot of future iPhone owners were queued up in front of the beautiful space.

We were able to go right into the store to browse, where we immediately engaged in our tradition of taking a photo on one of the demo machines. We decided to use a MacBook Pro for our typical adventure,.

I was able to get a better sense of the colors needed for my office renovation project; Earl doesn’t like the idea of “toasted almond” as a color choice, but it’s the best way I can describe it and I know I’ll enjoy the change of pace.

The particular store reminds me a bit of the flagship store on Michigan Ave in Chicago in that it has two levels, lots of glass, and a super open feel.

There’s a few other Apple Stores I want visit in the Phoenix area in the near future. Our store here in Tucson is quite enjoyable but not particular noteworthy. At least everyone there is friendly, in typical Apple fashion.

Truman has a small rash on his back so he was off to the vet on Monday. It’s a small case of ringworm; he needs a few drops of medicine each day for two weeks. Earl did the honors of escorting him to the vet; he was well behaved but for a few moments he was planning his escape. Chris modified this photo to depict the trigonometry that was going on when he was trying to figure out how to work the vet’s door handle.

I’m taking a few moments to sit in our back lawn during a lunch break. I’ve been focused on trying to be more focused at work this week and spending a few moments outside during a break helps me maintain an even keel.

I posted this photo on Instagram. I don’t know why I did; I was just in the mood to take a selfie, a snapshot of a moment, a reminder in 10 years of what I looked like today.