My Senior Moment: Succumbing to Verizon

Just a few moments ago the phone rang. It was the 800 Service for Verizon. They have called me relentlessly for the last week or so, ringing up several times a day. Their mission is to collect $73.31. 

You see, I cancelled my Verizon service on January 21st, and contrary to the information I was given at that time, I will not receive a refund for the balance of the payment period. Quite the opposite, I must pay for the entire billing cycle in which I cancelled. Upon investigation it appears that I had six days of service in which I used about 4 minutes of cell phone time. Yet their "fine print," and that is a quote from their 800 service representative, says I have to pay the entire month. 

I'll skip the fascinating details on how there is nothing they can do, policies, and no one higher up that I can talk to. They finally gave me an address which I could write to (that tells you how serious they are about resolving any dispute I might have. Snail mail. HA!). I'll include here for you:

Executive Relations Department

Verizon Wireless

3601 Converse Drive

Wilmington, NC 28403

I had to act like a real jerk to get that information and I fully intended to write them every day this last week. Life intervened. I think the Corporation knows this will happen and they probably make millions and millions of dollars every year on just such cases as mine. It probably costs them next to nothing to call me relentlessly on my home phone requesting this money they NEVER billed me for. I'm certain after a set number of calls it will go to a collection agency and damage my credit report.  They wouldn't hear of my offer to pay them for the six days I had service. 

Of course not.

So this was my senior moment. I was sitting on the step into my garage dutifully sorting my recycling when the call came. It had something to do with my sense of duty, my recycling bags, my lowered thermostat, the low flush toilet, my high gas mileage automobile. It all kind of boiled up on me and at  that moment, I gave up. I realized if I bothered to write the letter it would lay in limbo till the collection agency started calling and then I would wish I had paid the $73.31. I simply didn't have the energy to fight a losing battle. 

I wrote the check and let the anger sit in my belly for a few minutes before thinking about the variety of senior moments I experience daily. Too tired to fight a losing battle; dizzy and imbalanced, not from drinking, because who could tolerate that anymore, I'd end up flat on the ground; overwhelmed by the fool's maze called Health care; crushed by inflation; outwitted by investment professionals and their multi billionaire firms; too slow to keep up with my grand children's technological expertise; completely stumped by the prospect of living on my savings and retirement; and heartbroken to finally understand, deeply, how it feels to be overlooked because of my age.

Let me make something clear here. I'm not even very old yet. Almost sixty-four, I have started worrying about people more senior than I. My friends in their seventies and eighties who live alone are terribly frightened. Even so, I know we are a resourceful and accomplished generation. 

Baby Boomers. 

Once we were the tip of sword. We forged all kinds of political, social, sexual, and gender norms. We were something to behold. We were the focus of everything. Now, people are calling us a burden. Since 10,000 of us retire everyday, I'm thinking they will start developing even more sophisticated methods of exterminating us. That is a very dark thought, indeed.

All my evil twenty something jokes about "snowbirds" have come back to haunt me. I haven't migrated but I'm carrying the snow just under the last golden brown rinse I put on my hair and I am haunted.

Haunted by these moments.

Flawed Fruit: The Not-So-Rosy Reality of Industrial Tomato Farming in America - Sustainable Farming - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

Flawed Fruit: The Not-So-Rosy Reality of Industrial Tomato Farming in America - Sustainable Farming - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

I'm a home gardener and tomato grower. Just last night I had the pleasure of slicing one of my end of the season tomatoes to savor with supper. It was unbelievably sweet, juicy, brilliant red, and I am certain, full of nutrition. I had to harvest the last of the green tomatoes clinging to my almost dead vines in mid-October, pack them in tissue paper, and store them in a basket I keep in the garage. I go out every few days, cull the ones that are turning bad, and pluck out the perfectly ripened and firm fruits that are ready. They are, for the most part, small, individually shaped, and flawed in some way, but they are all delicious. I wonder what marvelous process of natural ripening keeps them fresh and appealing? Since I grew them organically, it cannot be anything but nature's gift to me and my palate.

I'm going to purchase the above noted book based on the excerpt I just read and I suggest you at least look at the link I have provided. I hope you will agree that we must demand, not only quality, but equality, from the industrial food organization. Right now my dietary choices have already removed me from many places that would put such tomatoes, as the ones described in Barry Estabrook's book, on my plate. But in a month or so, I'll be dreaming of that perfect slice of tomato on my sandwich, and go looking at the market.

Since I already know the shocking disappointment of slicing into a store-bought tomato, now I understand the reality of why those tomatoes are so awful. I definitely won't be buying anything that I suspect was produced in Florida. God save us from the frightening reality of supporting a slave based economy that is blatantly poisoning our food. And don't forget, as you read, that our federal tax dollars are supporting these farming practices approved and regulated by the Department of Agriculture.

I'm sure you won't be surprised that this tomato farming is going on in the same state that gave the Presidential election to George Bush when Al Gore was the clear winner. Well, keep this in mind and vote with your pocketbook. Don't buy industrial tomatoes from Florida, write your congressmen and women and ask them to withhold federal subsidies from this part of the industry, and please, ask your local restaurants and markets to join you in a boycott of Florida tomatoes.

July

The temperatures range between 90 and 100 degrees with heat indices of 114. 

The squash have curled up and died refusing to yield a single blossom or fruit. The pumpkin just laughs at me when I look at it's hundred shriveled blooms. The brown curling remnants of tomato leaves are all that support the green bulbous fruit, and weeds threaten to take over everything.

I am obsessed with pulling the grass from around the raised beds.  My sand walkways are choked, my rows and furrows have disappeared.  I can no longer see the potato vines. 

When I pull weeds and gather vegetables the mosquitoes feed on my arms and legs. The horses worry the 150 gallon water trough and my Great Pyrannes rolls in the dust like a mad giant. Horse flies are pestering everything that moves. I cannot suck the thick air into my lungs. The trees hum with crickets and inch thick green worms are dropping from the trees replete with the leaves they have stripped to the veins.

To say it is a ruin would be untrue. Though I feel tortured and worn thin, I hold out hope for a quenching rain and water by bits the things that have survived. I have just gathered three gallons of green beans, a 14" cucumber, and a fistfull of red and green onions. There are still delicate bunches of new lettuce leaves, crisp thin skinned peppers, and a few reluctantly red tomatoes. The pots of basil are glorious.

I am writing and walking in circles around the room, gulping water, and dragging in the humidity. My hair is growing fatter and dryer with every obligatory dive into the chlorinated pool. The features of my face have lost all distinction turning to an even brown the color of lips and freckles.

Hair, lips, eyebrows, ears, fingers and toes are all the bland color of overexposure to the sun. My clothes are chosen from the worst at the bottom of the pile of torn tank tops and sweat pants with the waist rolled over and the legs cut off.

I'm considering drinking only fruit because chewing seems like too much effort.  The refrigerator is bare except for bags of vegetables that overflow the crisper and shelves.  Farm eggs, green beans, cauliflower and cucumbers are companions to cocktail sauce and salad dressing.  It is too hot to cook, too hot to shop, too hot to eat.

I'm going to lay on the couch for awhile and think about why I hated winter so much.

Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July!

It's a glorious day here in Missouri and I've really enjoyed a day of learning new things.  I can't say why but I just feel kind of spongy and ready to grow. I was online learning about my blog (that I haven't blogged on very much....I set up three of them so far and I still don't know exactly how they work).

Then, I linked to a blog by Emily Hanlon, http://fictionwritersjourney.blogspot.com/. I listened to her teleclass which turned out to be just a recording of  her talking about POV. It was really great to listen to while I organized my photos and figured out how to download 500 photos off my new Samsung Fascinate (smartphone). I really loved hearing her thoughts on practicing a strict point of view.  "We never want the character to be us....we want to become the character." Then she spoke well about falling in love with your character, moving out of self and into the character, and the character's energy waiting for us, as writers, to come to them.  Well, check it out yourself!

Then, because my mind was firing a mile a minute, I remembered what Kimberly Frost, http://www.frostfiction.com/, said at last month's Writers Retreat Workshop, http://writersretreatworkshop.com/: write down the beginning and the end of your book and the plot points to get started. "....leave the bits in between open for the muse's magic to happen."


I have already written half of my current novel without a ending in sight. Though I've written about one of the closing scenes I had not yet figured out exactly where to take the story. So, I started with my last chapter....called it chapter 36 (this is because I promised my friend, Cecile a.k.a. Tanne, to give her 60 pages a month for six months and we would have a book by Christmas....so chapter 36.) 


Anyone remember the very old saying, "Kawabunga?" I think it was surfer speak for WOW! I was able to plot backwards to chapter 31 and it was sooooooo easy! I love it.  Now, I have my first five chapters at the top of my bulletin board and my last six at the bottom.....just waiting on the Muse to fill in or at least spread a little pixie dust on the chapters I've already written.

The novel in progress, working title, The Ozark Belles' Wicked Feud.

So for all of your grand parties I hope you have a blast. I feel like I had the best Independence day ever. We grilled out hotdogs yesterday because we couldn't wait another day for the yearly trip into nitrate-land.  It was bliss!  Hot dogs with mustard and relish, baked beans, potato chips and iced tea.  Later strawberry ice cream.  Yum, the land of forbidden foods is most seductive in the summer. 

Having satisfied my fetish for pre-formed pig snout, I figured it was time to jump back on the wagon and eat right today. I started cooking around lunch time and made a 100% out of my garden salad (which you will read about in my poem, "Humility Salad," when I get it finished) and it was divine.....divine!!!! Then I made a nice pasta sauce with tons of fresh basil from my three enormous plants, and finally I reworked the potroast leftovers into a beautiful stew that looked way too hearty for July.  My cooking is done for a couple of days.

However,out in the garden, my tomatoes aren't looking very beautiful even though the other veggies are really doing well.  When it rains a lot the tomatoes suffer. I hope they come in anyway.  I should have tomatoes, green beans, and potatoes by my birthday on the 26th when my sister comes to visit.

OK, last thing.  Thank you for writing.  I love your comments and emails. Next time I will tell you about the wierd watermelon salad my sister makes....basil, watermelon, feta, olive oil....very, very different. xxxxoooo and KA_BOOM to you all! Teresa