Tripping down memory lane

As part of my digital decluttering, I looked at the photos on my phone - most are screenshots of things I want to remember to do, places I want to go, books I want to read, etc..  One of those was an announcement for the Christmas special for As Time Goes By (which has been on my mind a lot, given the attention paid to the shipping forecast 🔐).  Another of my favorite shows has been Last Tango in Halifax. 

What do they have in common?  Besides great acting, etc.?  The theme: two people, in love (or deeply in like), who reconnect later in life and love (re)blooms.  It's a great fantasy.  Life, on the other hand...

I know someone who had a high school girlfriend.  They were in a special program together, so spent a lot of time in the same classes, not to mention sharing similar interests.  Even in college, he kept wondering "what if...", even as he met another woman he wanted to marry.  50-ish years later, they reconnected.  He admired the life she'd led since high school: overcoming physical and emotional difficulties, seemingly happy in her current life.  But the time apart meant they'd really diverged in terms of interests, hobbies and, to some extent, values.  Even worse?  This first love, one he'd still - all these years later - thought the occasional "what if..." about?  She clearly hadn't thought about him in decades.  Things they'd done in high school were not even vague memories to her. 

It goes without saying, he was depressed after their one, and probably only, meeting.

I know someone else who had a crush on a guy in high school.  And middle school.  30+ years later, she found his work address and wrote him.  Take a guess as to how quickly he responded.  

While I love the fantasy of those two tv shows, and get the warm fuzzies when I hear about people reconnecting years later... I know that tripping down memory lane can lead to a sprain, or worse.

Another mistaken identity

 Faithful readers may remember the Vincent Incident. 

Well, here's a problem that's been cropping up for the past year and a bit: there's a woman in Canada who shares my first initial and last name.  And who apparently thinks we share an email account on gmail (which... no.  I've had that email acount since you had to get someone to invite you to create an account waaaay back in 2004, nearly 20 years ago).

I've done everything I can: I found her street address (thanks to tickets she purchased for a trip) and mailed her.  I've sent all the emails I get from banks and others to spam.  I've emailed friends she's wired monety to via Western Union (yes, that's still a thing).  Nothing seems to be working. 

At least once a day I get something for her, mostly spam but sometimes an emailed receipt for an online purchase.  I have no idea what she's giving these vendors and I'm not energized enough to contact them and tell them to stop emailing me because that actually won't stop it.  It's not like she'll purchase something, give them my email address and their systems will say "whoops!  sorry - you're bugging poor Lazygal in the US - try again".

I'm just me, your average Lazygal, trying to live her lazy life.  And now she's intruding.  Bah!

But also - doesn't she notice she's not getting these emails and do something about it???  How stupid is she?????

Monthly Update

 

Currently watching: Lockwood & Co. while waiting for the first Grand Prix of the season and several other shows to return in March

Currently reading: Vera Wongs Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

Currently loving: That we actually have winter, here, at the start of March

Currently eating (or drinking): Comfort food - rice pudding.  And a new-to-me tea, Grand Earl Grey.

Currently organizing: Slowly making my way through this list.  Hoping to make real progress in March (Spring Break)

What made me smile this month: A tie: getting a bouquet of unsold roses from the Field Hockey Team and  student I've known for seven years telling me he loved me (even if it was a joke)

What is my quote for the month: "Bone saws are expensive.  And he's small"

Who rasied these people?

Late Friday night/early Saturday morning (as in, 11:45pm) I was woken from a relatively sound sleep by the sound of music.  Not the movie, just the bass line from someone playing their music Way Too Loudly.

Because I'm old, waking up at night is a good time to go to the bathroom so I did... where I heard even louder music.  

Pulling on my bathrobe, I ventured out to knock on/yell at my next door neighbor but that apartment was quiet.  The music was either from the apartment below or above me and I was guessing above.  So I called the night doorman and asked him to complain to them on my behalf.  

A few minutes later, it got quiet.

This morning, at 7:06, as I was trying to sleep in, the sound of the vacuum started upstairs.  It went on for 25 minutes.  

These are the same people who never got the "don't wear heels or heavy shoes in your apartment unless you have a thick carpet so you don't disturb your neighbors" memo.

I learned all those lessons when I was just out of college, as I suspect these people are.  But no one seems to be teaching these young'uns that there are things you simply don't do if you live in an apartment building, or if you are having a party outside at night.  It's simple courtesy!

In other words, to quote Axelle Red, j'aime pas mes voisins:

Digital Detritis

 A writing edition

• I've always loved Cornell Notes and why - why?! - can't I find a good A5 notebook with this ruling??
• As I reevaluate my life and my priorities, keeping a commonplace book feels right. And those work notebooks, filled with meeting notes and ideas and To Dos?  Not keeping them.
• Ok, this handwritten blog is just fun.  Maybe I'll try it.
• I may -- or may not, depending on who you talk to -- have too many fountain pens.  But the gift of longhand?  Priceless and unquantifiable.
• Do you set aside money for your paper, pen, ink, organizing supply purchases?  Maybe you should before looking at these 30 stores. (I need some of these sticky notes)
  

Notable Quotes

After all, when the behavior of another person leaves you with no choice but to kill them, their murder is simply involuntary suicide.

Murder Your Employer, Rupert Holmes

Not quite a Luddite but...

I'm not going to go around smashing factory looms but there is something about the old that appeals.  Maybe it's the comfort of revisiting something I learned or did or experienced years ago.  Maybe it's the control, knowing that "I've got this".  Who knows?

Back in November, Philosophy Mom's Friday Five was about Livin' it Old School. Of the five questions, only one couldn't be answered with something I'd done or purchased in the past month - the DVD one.  I do have a DVD player, and DVDs.  But it's been easier to stream than press play.  

I started driving on a Volvo 144, and my first two adult cars were manuals.  Thing One just couldn't get the hang of driving one, so in went the manual and out came an automatic... he can drive it (real question: does 1 mile/week count as "driving"?).  And living in a big city, manuals can be (to put it politely) annoying.  Still, I miss mine.  And if there were no manuals, something would be lost.

As new technologies come about, it's important to ask us these 41 Questions (or, perhaps, just the few highlighted here)

Monthly Update

 

Currently watching: The new season of Vera

Currently reading: The London Seance Society by Sarah Penner

Currently loving:That this is a four-day weekend, so I've got some time off to relax and bingewatch tv.

Currently eating (or drinking): Probably far too much cocoa mint tea and cheese'n'crackers.

Currently organizing: We've had quite a few days off this year, and I've been enjoying bingewatching while going through my efiles - what needs to be kept (not the medical records for cats no longer with us, nor paperwork for my former homes or cars) and what needs to be relabelled (mostly photos).

What made me smile this month: Thing One makes me laugh - pee in your pants, fall out of bed laughing.  There's been a lot of that this month.

What is my quote for the month:  "Silence is the concept of listening for everything" (Message at Quaker Meeting a couple of weeks ago)

Notable Quotes

Everyone she worked alongside in France had been insatiable letter-writers and resolute diary-keepers, but Gwendolyn had felt no urge to chronicle, no desire for an aide-memoire.  Life was for absorbing, not recording.  And in the end, it was all just paper that someone would have to dispose of after you're gone. Perhaps after all, one's purpose in this world was to be forgotten, not remembered.

Shrines of Gaiety, Kate Atkinson

Do I care? Not really

In digging through old "blog about this" links, I found one to an article from 2021 from a man who would like to know who [his] parents were. In it, he speaks about the old laws sealing adoption records and says

The little information I do have is from a social worker’s notes. My original father knew nothing of my conception. My potential father refused to parent another man’s child. Terrified and alone, my mother gave me away in exchange for the respectability and security of marriage. She was ashamed, of her situation and of me. Erasing me was a way to deal with that. There was no one at my birth to argue otherwise. There is no one in my home state capitol to argue otherwise now.

As I've written elsewhere, I was told I was adopted very early in my life (at five days, on my way home from the hospital).  Yes, when I was younger, the medical information would have been interesting but since my doctors knew, we were careful to test for things early.  And some diseases aren't preventable no matter what (a friend has Huntington's, probably inherited from her father, and nothing could have prevented it).  At my advanced age, again, we're testing for that which we can test and just keeping our eyes open for the rest.

My sister wanted to find her biological family, which is fine.  I have friends who have found biological family and been disappointed, hurt or otherwise sorry they did "the search" (Thing One has a full-blooded sister whom he's met, and well... he'll keep the six siblings in his adoptive family). I could, if I wanted, find my records and I have no interest.

That's not to say that this gentleman's desires to find his history is wrong.  But maybe his birth mother is still alive and doesn't want the memory.  Or there are half-siblings who will be upset about this.  It's not just about him, is it?  And possibly, the others affected will be happy to have him show up.  But just as possibly, they won't.  That's a reality some adoptees don't want to face.

I'm just as happy not to know.  Not to meet anyone.  I have a family already.