I awoke around 4:30. I heard a racket outside. It sounded like a crowd on the street, chanting, “Black Lives Matter!” I live in a quiet residential area. Why would a big crowd be walking these streets at that hour? When I was sufficiently awake, I realized it was my neighbor’s roosters crowing their heads off. Something must have spooked them for them to be making that much noise.
I got up at six and headed out for my walk. I ran into one woman I have seen occasionally. She commented that she had missed seeing me for a few days, and she and another woman were concerned. We exchanged names and the location of our homes. She reminded me that she had mistaken me for someone else several months ago whose name was Valerie. So far, I know of two others with that name who live in the neighborhood. We commented that it was an unusual name to occur so frequently. Her Valerie had lived on Kaiminani and had recently moved to Arizona after selling her house. People come and go. The only way I go will be feet first.
Dorothy called. She reported feeling somewhat better. She tried to vary her activities instead of doing one thing for four hours straight. I did a little better yesterday, too. I made a point of getting on my vibrating platform at intervals and lifting the weights I had on top of the chest of drawers. They’re the three lb. ones. They give my arms a bit of resistance, and I get a full range of movement in my arms.
I tracked down the customer service department for my 2-gallon garden sprayer. I had left it standing with vinegar in it for quite a while. I had put water in to clean the system out. I use the water in the spray bottle to clean my 8 x 4-foot screens on the lanai. They are too hard to remove to clean. It worked for a while, and then the water geysered up through the handle. I figured I had done something wrong, but what? I emptied the container, cleared the pump, and started again. Again, I got the fountain effect. I gave up.
The customer service for the sprayer was fantastic. She told me to unscrew the pump and check the O-ring. That was fine. Then she told me to look at the bottom of the pump. Did I see that little orange button? Yes. Was it smooth or puckered? It was puckered. That happened because I had left the vinegar in the container for too long, destroying the material. The customer service rep took my name and address and made arrangements to send me several replacements. I like using straight vinegar and Clorox occasionally for weeding. I will be puckering more of those plugs. Hopefully, I’ll remember not to leave the liquid in the sealed container forever.
I discovered more books in the Very Short Introduction series. I found duplicates and made arrangements to sell the extras on Amazon.
I also called Hawaiian Solar. I had two questions. First, what was the wattage, if that’s the term, of my household electricity? I thought it might be 220, but no household electricity is 110, except for the dryer outlet. That has to be specially installed. Hm! Have I discovered the problem with my new electric car? Is the problem that I didn’t charge it long enough? I should have a dedicated outlet or charge it anytime I’m home between 10 and 4 pm when I can count on free electricity as it draws on my solar panels.
I replaced the water filter in my refrigerator as instructed, but no water came out. I tried to remove the filter. I was afraid to pull too hard. I didn’t know what I was dealing with and didn’t want to make it worse. I would have to call Sears for a service call. It would take a while for them to get to me. So I called Brian, the Sears repairman we had, over to our house repeatedly.
Mike used to pack the refrigerator and freezer. Refrigerators need breathing room; without it, they get sick. Ours got sick a lot. Brian, the Sears repairman, was almost a member of the family. I had his cell number in my address book. So I called him, hoping he could give me some directions over the phone.
When I reached him, he told me he had just quit Sears. Yesterday was his last day. He had already started his new job. He said he could come over. Within the hour, he showed up with his 3-year-old son, JJ. He reached in, applied force, and pulled out the filter. I hadn’t installed it correctly. I knew I wasn’t prepared to apply pressure when I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t make it worse. Brian told me he was starting a repair service on his own, too, and he was planning to set up a remote tutoring program that would be free for students. I told him I was interested.
After he left, I drove down to drop off the loaner and pick up my Niro. They told me that they had charged it. They stopped the charge when it was time to go home for the weekend. When they came in on Monday, it had held the charge. There were 19 miles on it. That would get me around and home again.
Then, I went to Target to return the vacuum storage bags. I finally found travel compression bags on Amazon that didn’t require vacuuming or pumping. You can squeeze the air out of these. I haven’t had a lot of luck with the other ones.
I planned to go to the Kia salesroom for a tutorial on all the special features. I was too tired. I was tired when I left to get the car, but I wanted to get home, plug in the car to charge it completely, and nap.
I left it in from 3 to 5, after which the sun wasn’t strong enough to power the solar panels. Today was a busy day for those panels: three loads of laundry, car charging, and running the dryer for 15 minutes.
When I walked Elsa, I ran into Darby, someone in the neighborhood with whom I became friends. She had joined us on a walk once or twice, and we had exchanged numbers. Then, one day, out of the blue, she called to ask if I could come over and be with her while her husband went out. I didn’t ask what it was about. It was clear there was a problem, and I went. She was recovering from a stroke and didn’t want to be alone.
After that, I stopped by every day with Elsa to visit. I figured her life was limited now, and she needed some stimulation. She told me today that she didn’t even tell many people that she had a stroke. She didn’t want people telling her what to do to recover. She was in physical therapy, had a great one, and did, indeed, take advice from me. Tonight, she expressed her gratitude for what I had done for her. I saw her every day for several weeks, and when she started working again, we returned to normal. Now, we run into each other every once in a while and enjoy each other’s company.
Yvette came up before I had my dinner. She went through an old album I found with pictures of her and her family. If she takes them, they’ll be safe. When I’m old and drooling, she can bring them back up for me to look at.
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Musings:
I know some believe that terrible things happen to people of color at the hands of the police because of their behavior.
Two questions:
1. Does anyone believe there are no white people who commit similar crimes? Selling illegal cigarettes, passing a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill?
2. If the police treat whites the same way they do people of color, where are the videos to prove it? Many blacks are killed because they resist arrest. People justify the police action, pointing out that they fear for their lives. Can those people understand that black people fear for their lives when confronted by the police?
Someone spoke on the radio about his experience: he was sitting in his car for a minute when the police came by, ordered him out of his car, pointed a gun at his head, and said, “Make a move, and you’re a dead man.” The man was an adult and a lawyer. It took everything he had not to run. He wondered how a young man in the same situation would find the strength to stay calm, which is essential if you want to survive.
There had been robberies in that neighborhood. People came out and told the policeman to ask what he had done with their possessions. The man kept saying, I live in that apartment building. Look at my driver’s license. The policeman refused to do that.
We need videos where police officers approach white people the same way. I heard a story on the radio of a young man who was confronted because he was warmly dressed on a hot day. He wasn’t feeling well. Someone called him in as being suspicious. He had committed no crime. No one reported a crime in the area. He was just warmly dressed. The police wanted to arrest him for the way he was dressed. He resisted arrest. They killed him. Show me situations where white people were treated that way. I don’t mean treated the same when they resist arrest; I mean treated the same from the very beginning of the encounter. I am sure there are some cases out there. Real cases, not faked ones. If they existed, they would already be out there. What an easy way to refute bias.
