Patience is a Virtue Seldom Found

and certainly not by me

The poison ivy saga continues, and I have done more laundry this week than when I used to work at the laundromat in Laguna Beach way back in the day. I’ve even banished my favorite stuffies to the basement in case they are harboring the dreaded oil. Good thing I no longer have any live animals. Obviously, I am improving on a daily basis, although occasionally new spots arise. I find the gel type of lotion such as Caladryl Clear (both registered trademarks) or Caldyphen Lotion (which says to compare it to the previous one) the most soothing. And I still have plenty of the pink stuff as backup. So in the grand scheme of things, life goes on. Oh, I finally ventured out to cut the back half of the grass, but I took everyone’s advice and wore long pants with socks up over the cuffs, a long sleeve shirt, and medical rubber gloves. Hardly the fun event it usually is but at least the embankment is even. I don’t run the mower on Sunday in deference to my more religious neighbors, but Monday morning I hope to accomplish the rest of the yard in my same protective outfit. My hedge man came Saturday to give the tall privet hedge in the front its annual trim and I warned him to beware. Hopefully he emerged unscathed.

Now on to something else that bothered me a bit this week. I subscribe to the weekly delivery of The New Yorker actual magazine in my mailbox, and I was enjoying the May 27th issue as I rested up from fighting the poison ivy. I finished all the introductory Goings On and Talk of the Town, then settled in and read the first article by Anthony Lane. The category heading is Onward and Upward with Technology and the article itself is entitled “Abridged Too Far” and it begins on page 14. Now I love to read, and especially the excellent writing presented in this magazine, so I absorbed this article with great pleasure. The part that ended up bothering me was that as I went on with some other chores and the rest of my day, I began to wonder whether the whole subject of the article was actually a satire on our modern world and lack of attention. I honestly couldn’t believe that an application such as Blinkist would have been invented, let alone used for anything short of a dire emergency search for factual knowledge. To deprive me of the pleasure of savoring the written word and the immensely satisfying ability to enjoy a favorite author’s particular take on the world in favor of a pre-packaged quickie seemed preposterous. But lo and behold, I find out that it really is “a thing” (which I will avoid at all costs if possible). [And I thought Reader’s Digest Condensed Books were bad enough (sorry, I’m a purist).] Anyway, I’m glad that the author brought up Monty Python in the article because I sense he has the same opinion of this abbreviating tool which has been available since 2013. Slowing down and savoring a story is still sublime.

Had to pause my typing just now because of a totally unexpected but very welcome visitor—just checking in. It does take a village.

I have one last comment on technology, however, and this one is more grudgingly appreciative. I very much enjoy listening to stuff while I’m knitting, but I have only wanted human voices, and I was sure I could tell the difference. Well, just in the few months I have been paying attention to AI, the quality has improved incredibly and I was quite content to listen to an article from the New York Times which specifically said it was read by an artificial voice. They’ve managed to incorporate much more inflection and human characteristics into the reading. So even more knitting willl be done by me. I’ve shared some of my creations with other Stackers, and I’ve thought about calling them Dishrags for Democracy or my more ambitious projects, Scarves for Sanity. TTFN.