WHERE DID ALL THESE ADS COME FROM???

As my few "readers" know, it has been some time since I've posted any blogs.  Now, today, when I finally did post BEWARE OF FREE SAMPLES, I also found FREE ADS.  When did they start putting all kinds of mostly ugly, definitely not with my consent, advertisements right on my my blogs???

So now I'm competing with Weight-Loss, and Valentine Candy boxes (next to each other seems counter productive)?

NUTS!

Cimadb

BEWARE OF FREE SAMPLES

                                   

You know how when you spend a hundred or so dollars in the cosmetic department, the salesperson throws in a handful of free samples?  I used to really like going home and looking at all the small packets and reading about all the awful stuff they were supposed to cure - "clogged pores, undernourished skin, tired skin, aging skin, moisture imbalance, low collagen matrix, and, of course, 'wrinkles'."

Until today.

In yet another one of my sporadic, frantic efforts to bring order out of chaos, I looked at a bunch of these packets which lie around in bathroom drawers, waiting patiently for me to seek help for all of the above.  I tore one open and started to smear it over my "tired, aging", etc. skin.  This one promised to "exfoliate, detoxify, and retexurize" (all in one fell swoop?).

Usually there is only a tiny dab or two to get rid of, but this one seemed to have enough to exfoliate a horse.  Not only that, but it was especially gooey, and once before I had left an also generous packet half full in a drawer, only to later find it had oozed out and covered everything in its path.

So I was determined to use up every last drop this time.  Bad decision.  I smeared and smeared, trying to heed the sinister warning:  "Avoid Eye Area"  And smeared - what are the boundaries of "Eye Area"?

By then my hair was beginning to droop and stick to the cream, in serious danger of also being exfoliated, so I worked my way down to my neck, and there was still gobs of the damned stuff.  At that point I gave up, tossed the rest in the wastebasket, carefully stuffing it into an empty toilet roll - and started to "Wash Immediately."

After about fifteen minutes of vigorous scrubbing, drenched to the waist, I realized the only way I was ever going to get this stuff off was to jump into the shower, but how could I with my eyes clamped shut"

I think it best to kind of stick in the house for the next few days.  Until the signs of the "Retexurizing" wear off a little bit.

Anyone want a few "Camomile Bamboo Gentle Facial Scrubs"?  Or a small sample of "Age-Defying Restoritive Night Cream"?

Scarface, AKA Cimadb

TINTIN AND I

Serendipity Strikes Again! In one previously abandoned pile I just found a Blog with the above title, which I had started in 2009. As I recall, once I realized Tintin was practically unknown here, I tossed it onto one of several bottomless piles I accumulate with great ease.

Now that it has surfaced, and thanks to Stephen Spielberg Tintin has at last been discovered in the US, I can reboot this abandoned Blog.

Voila:

As it turns out, both Tintin and I turned 80 this year. However, his “birthday” is in January, and I didn’t appear until October, which gave him a head start, and I’ve been trying to catch up ever since. But nevertheless, at this important at this milestone I thought it would be interesting to make some comparisons on how we both have fared during all these years.

Tintin looks in remarkably good shape for someone celebrating his 80^th year.

I’ll take a pass on that.

He has been widely published, sold millions worldwide, and I’ll pass on that too.

As for his travels, however, I/we have more or less kept up with him, except for, perhaps his adventures in the Amazon and the mountains of Tibet. One of his thought bubbles might read: “I wonder how long it will take us to get through this jungle to look for that rare specimen?” While we would have been wondering how this tiny propeller plane flying just over the treetops will ever get us to the film festival in Mamaia, (Romania).

He has had many different companions through the years, and we can certainly match the number and certainly the quality of friends we’ve accumulated, since his are so often really after whatever he is after.

Solving mysteries? Looking for buried treasure in some remote sunken island in the South China Sea is a piece of cake compared to trying to get any official Spanish permit or document authorized, sealed, stamped, both the kind you lick or paste, as well as rubber stamped, signed (although no one can possibly read the official name), and notarized.

Then, when you finally think you’ve got it all together, and find the right window in the right building, not easy mysteries to solve, one of several stone faced clerks tells you you’re missing yet another stamp, which can only be obtained in some office in a non-existent building. Days later, only if you’ve been really clever, you return again with the last stamp in place, and stand in a very long line, only to be told by a new clerk that the other clerk forgot that you also need another signature.

By that time Tintin will have found the lost island, dived for the treasure in his personal submarine, and is now probably counting all his Pieces of 8, with the bubble over his head reading “Well, Snowy that wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

Or let him try to find his way in and out of the Khan Al-Khalili in Cairo, or the Spice Market in Istanbul. Or figure out the menu in Sofia.

Daring-do? I’ll match anything he does, just by crossing the street in Cairo, taking a taxi in Turkey, or a Tuk Tuk in New Delhi.

Regarding Snowy, his very helpful dog, we had a dog briefly, in Barcelona, who was a stray foisted on us by a well meaning friend. But he was so unhappy spending his days with me couped up in an apartment that when I finally took him out for a walk he snarled and tried to bite anyone passing by, and we soon relinquished ownership. So Tintin gets a pass on that.

So now that I consider it, all in all, I think Tintin and I have kept pace with one another, more or less, in each of our 80 years.

However, I, at least, have had the courage to change my hairstyle.

Cima DB PS: The correct Belgian pronunciation of Tintin is Tantan. My preferred pronunciation of Cima is Sima. Oh, well.

TO TWEET OR NOT TO TWEET

I’m constantly appalled at seeing and hearing presumably intelligent, thinking adults telling us to read their Tweets, and Tweet them back. BIRDS tweet, which leads me to wonder, are we becoming a society of Bird Brains?

That isn’t to say that twittering birds aren’t probably communicating things of interest to other birds. They might even be issuing important warnings. “Look out guys! Eagle at 2 o’clock!

But people? Is it true this is meant to keep –how many? everyone? informed, albeit it in short Tweets* (or is it “Twitters”) of one’s every move every moment of every day? Who has time to do this? Who has time to “Follow your Twitter?” Who would be insane enough to encourage even one’s dearest friend’s constant intrusions?

No, I really just can’t take “Tweeting” people seriously. Please, just phone, e-mail, or better yet, send a letter and keep the post office running.

*I even resent the capital letters

GETTING SERIUS VERSION 2

GETTING SERIUS

Sometime in February:

Sister and brother-in-law, Renee and Dave, want to know if I think Bob would like to have Serius as their “ Birthday Gift.” “Serius”? Is that the Howard Stern thing and what Dr. Laura just deserted all her loyal listeners (me, not Bob) and left us for? Answer: “Yes, but with all kinds of other things: Our kind of music, Frank Sinatra, all the old radio comedies, sports (Bob, not me), and some other, you know, interesting stuff. And we want to surprise him, so keep it secret.”

Rest of month:

I try to think of a way I can cleverly probe to find out if Bob would like to have it (I would, Dr. Laura), but get caught up on the part where, yes, Dave and Renee would give him the actual, gift-wrapped box of whatever it is, “small-no-bigger-than-a-cigarette package” (to go with his “no-bigger-than-a-packet-of-matches pacemaker”?). And as I gather, this is a rather expensive gift, however, we would then be responsible for the yearly “rental” of “somewhere around $125”, which must be paid in advance.

This last part stops me in my tracks. Converted to monthly, would Bob be happy to pay, my math is always a little shaky, $10 a month for Dr. Laura, (definitely not), Frank Sinatra, maybe, but Fibber Magee and Molly? I quickly decide to change that last to Jack Benny, where I think I might have a better chance.

Early March:

I give up trying to probe without divulging the surprise factor, but preface the conversation making Bob promise not to divulge the fact that I divulged the surprise. And the “the somewhere around $125” turned out to be closer to $200 a year, which translates into – his math is much better than mine - $17 something” a month, and that, as I suspected it would, became the Deal Breaker.

Middle March:

But by this time something drastic has happened. The Republicans have threatened to cancel all funding for Public Radio, which is all we listen to in the car (we’ve gone through all the Learning Tapes Trev has given us: History of Opera, History of Jazz, History of the Bible, and we’ve taken out the CD’s because Valet Parking had already “removed” several).

In addition, just about any news on any station, means listening to mostly seriously terrible stuff: what both the US and State legislatures are doing to “lower the deficit”, such as taking away heating for the poor, children’s school lunches, and decent education in general, while increasing the tax deductions for the super rich and oil and gas companies. This is upsetting as is, then add in the terrible, terrible tragedies in Japan; major earthquake, their nuclear reactors going haywire…… and I got so depressed I just gave up on radio news, still hoping, of course, PBS would continue to be funded, and would survive without me.

Next, for some reason we simply couldn’t find any classical music station, and even The Wave no longer plays decent jazz.

Thus it was, I made the decision for both of us, Serius it was to be.

March 25^th

Dave has done his best, but somehow couldn’t give Bob the gift-wrapped Serius at his birthday dinner. Instead he gave him a large photocopied “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOB, WE OWE YOU…..(SEE NEXT PAGE), LOVE, RENEE & DAVE.”

Next page had a photocopy of the monitor of the Serius –small-as-a-cigarette pack- with the dog logo, (kind of a stylized cartoon version of the old “My Master’s Voice” -did they really want to reincarnate that?). Next two pages were photocopy listings of all the programs, Old Radio Shows, Sports, Music (Rock, Classical, 40’s, and of course, Sinatra gets his own channel).

Bob did act, not surprised, but grateful, which worked out fine, since I really gushed grateful, both to gloss over the absent surprise factor, and because I really did want to turn on the radio in the car again.

March 30

Dave informed us he was having trouble getting the version he wanted for us. Apparently, as in almost every electronic device there is always several different types from which to chose, and the older you are the less likely you are to understand the nuances of whatever explanations are available, that is if you can find a salesperson, or a web site, and you are conversant in Digital Speak.

That lets us out entirely, and Dave is fully aware of that. However, I don’t think, when he first thought of this gift for Bob (and me, as it turns out), I doubt very seriously if he anticipated being on call for so many hours for so many days, once our Serius was delivered to us, on:

April 10

We did manage to open the box, but from then on it was phone calls to Dave on the hour, sometimes on the quarter hour, depending on how long it took us to do whatever he told us was the next step, and find that even that was a problem.

Such as: once you have the Serius, you have to have it installed. Dave actually anticipated this, since he had the same problem with his Serius, and although he lives up north, he located several Installers near us, but told Bob he’d have to find the best deal, because the installation charges are not standard. He remembered that he had paid somewhere around $125. So after each interview with each installer Bob had to phone Dave to compare negotiations

April 12

The Serious is now installed. At $175. Another call to Dave, to announce the latest development.

April 13

Eager to find something really interesting on our installed Serius. Nothing works.

I phone Dave on my cell phone. Me: “Were we supposed to push this button or turn that knob?” Dave: (silence) “When did you phone to activate the Serius?”

“Activate”?

April 15

It had been a busy two days, and this was the first chance Bob had to phone to, yes “Activate” our Serius. I heard him go from menu to menu, transfer to transfer, until he actually talked to someone who said , yes he could activate it for us. However, after more conversation, it turns out we have to be in the car. So Bob told him we would phone back in 15 minutes. We phoned from the garage…..no, you have to be in the car outside.

We were already late to yet another doctor’s appointment, so Bob drove off, leaving me to carry on with the Activation Guy, as we’re zooming onto the 405. Not only am I in my Front Seat-Backseat Driver mode, keeping one eye on the five-lane morning traffic, but the other eye cannot possibly see any of the tiny buttons, let alone read the smaller than you know what monitor, which is mounted way over right next to the steering wheel. Bob is driving, not too well, as he’s also keeping one eye –barely – on the road, and the other on what I’m trying to do, and my frantic seems to be catching. Not only Bob, now more erratic than ever, but the poor Activating Guy is beginning to sound a bit rattled, so I rightfully abort the mission, advising the Activating Guy, now definitely as frustrated as we, that we’ll try later.

Of course, we phoned Dave.

April 18

It has taken us this long to gather courage – and the good sense, to stop the car outside in a parking lot, out of the sun, but with enough light to see the tiny buttons and read the monitor. Then we phone Serius Activate once again, and not easily, but eventually, get activated. We phone Dave and he congratulates us.

April 19

We’re back on the 405, traffic is very heavy, and as usual we’re in a bit of a hurry, however, that doesn’t stop us from trying to find something good on Serius. I’m pushing those tiny buttons, which I still can’t really see, and Bob tells me whatever I’m doing is not what I should be doing. I have the manual in one hand, and the list of programs in the other, but all we keep getting is Heavy Metal.

I soon realize that this is not a good time to initiate Serius programming. We stop screaming at each other, manage to find the power button, also teeny, and black like everything else on the box, and turn it off. We wait until we get home to phone Dave.

April 21

I take the plastic off the remote, because Dave says this is what we should be using, At least I can see the power buttons and the channel numbers. Wrong. The remote doesn’t work, no matter what I push. We get to Dave on the golf course. I don’t want to take the blame for his lousy score that day, but he may have another opinion.

April 23

I make Bob promise not to play with Serius while he’s driving. I stay home and worry that he will.

April 24

A few more calls to Dave, but we’re still yelling at each other, Bob and I, not Dave who is either remarkably patient, or is carrying a flask in his pocket these days. By now I’m tempted to turn PBS back on and channel my frustration on to reports of latest House votes on budget cuts knowing there is nothing I can do about it.

April 25

Dave once again coaches us on how to pre-set our favorite programs, even though we still can’t even get any decent music, and haven’t any idea what our favorite programs are.

April 28

Last night I once again picked up the manual, in which by the way, the first 63 pages are instructions on how to install Serius in one’s car, which, of course, we chose not to do, and paid the $175 to have it done by someone else. Only pages 64 –65 contain a brief explanation of the Controls, and pages 67-68, equally brief, cover the Remote. This homework does not at all make me Remote conversant, when today we again park the car, and attempt to program what we hope will be favorite channels. We both try to be polite, and although unspoken, cooperate to push and hold whatever we’re supposed to push and hold, and push and release whatever we’re supposed to push and release, and do therefore, somehow, order the remote to understand that “1” means we want to hear Frank Sinatra, and “2” we’re in the mood for Old Radio Shows, and that was about as far as we got. Dave is very proud of us.

April 30

Emboldened by our success, we now manage to have the ten allotted programs set on Channel A, and five on Channel B. However, we can’t find out how to go from Channel A to Channel B.

We don’t phone Dave. We really feel by now we should be on our own, and if I re-read the manual, surely we’ll be able to figure that out. Meanwhile, we have enjoyed several episodes of “The Green Hornet”, and part of a great Philip Marlow detective story, but we arrived to where we were going before it ended, and now I’ve got to figure out how to find the replay mode. I do know how to change the size of the font on the monitor, although that isn’t really useful because we’re perfectly happy the way it is.

And I’m still trying to find Dr. Laura on one channel or another.

To Be Continued.

It is now June 27^th, and I feel compelled to finish this, wishing with all my heart that I could report to Dave that we are happily enjoying our car time with Serius. However, what has happened in the interim is that just when we more or less had some pre-set programming, they, the Serius owners, or managers, or probably some well paid CEO, unilaterally decided to change all the channel numbers. Later we found out they often do this – for what reason we do not yet know.

To conclude, we did finally get a photocopy of the new program numbers, but have not yet been able to re-set them into the A, B, C “banks.” And in trying to do so, we lost whatever we had originally. We still can’t seem to get the remote to work, but will keep consulting the manual, and with Dave’s help…

Be patient, Dr. Laura, I’ll get to you eventually. Hopefully before our year’s subscription expires.

By the way, is the news any better these days?

Cimadb PS: Just wondering if Dave has thought of what he’d like to give Bob for his next birthday.

A POEM

Tall, erect, slender, lithe, firm, tanned,

Wearing a brief swim suit, matching pareo, tied sarong-like, low over her waist,

The young woman strolled past me and smiled.

Seated on a small sofa in the lobby of an expensive hotel,

Just a boardwalk away from the vast stretch of Santa Monica beach sand,

I thought of many summers past when I stood as slim and straight as this young woman.

I lay on Mediterranean beaches, carefully, cautiously, slowly building a suntan,

So it wouldn’t peel too soon and lose its flattering color on my skin.

I wondered if this confidant looking woman on this beautiful day,

Wondered what life had planned for her.

I don’t think I did then on those Mediterranean beaches.

But in that brief moment in the lobby of that expensive hotel

Right next to the sand,

I was overwhelmingly overjoyed - and strangely relieved -

For my many years have been filled with love, adventure,

And opportunities to contribute whatever I had to offer, to others.

I no longer had to wonder.

So I sat up as tall as I could, pulled up the turtle neck blouse covering my turtle neck,

And warmly smiled back.

Cimadb
May 9, 2007

THIS SLOVENLY SUMMER

It’s true that I haven’t been well this summer, but looking around my kitchen this morning I realized what a good excuse this has been to be, there’s no other word for it, slovenly. However, I also believe it has something to do with age. Though I hate to admit it, in days of yore, meaning younger, even if suffering with a severe migraine, compulsive that I am, if the silver needed polishing, you can bet they would be polished. (Ours is now in the late stages of extreme tarnish)

However, in my defense, thinking about it carefully, does anyone realize how much time and effort it takes just to keep the toilet rolls and Kleenex replenished (Note: French TP comes in pretty small rolls and they don’t have Family Size Kleenex) – light bulbs replaced, the wastebaskets emptied, the trash in and out – bottles and papers recycled – clothes laundered – left-over vegetables turned into stew of some sort – and all this not even considering actually cleaning?

Fortunately, Bob has morphed into a rather good cook, so we haven’t been suffering from mal-nutrition. In fact he has produced some memorable meals.

Now more than ever I admire those Victorian and Edwardian ladies who went round with smelling salts hanging from pretty ribbons around their necks or waists, and at the slightest sign of anything requiring effort, reached for the nearest chaise and waved the scented salts under their noses.

I really am not in any pain anymore, and am certainly grateful, but I still have far too many blood tests - I keep asking, “Is there any left?” and the last ultra sound verdict was “Slow but favorable evolution under anti-coagulant treatment.”

All this I consider another good excuse to accept yet another generous invitation to dine at a friend’s home, with only a bare tinge of guilt that somehow doesn’t translate into specific plans to reciprocate. Only we, so far this summer, have crossed our doorstep.

All I am saying is what so many of the Self-Help books advocate: Think Positive.

CDB