DON'T BUG ME

My husband and I lived in Atlanta, Georgia when my son, Josh was in second grade. His creative teacher gave the class a homework assignment: “Collect all of the different kinds of insects that you can find in your own backyard, and bring them to class.”

Since Josh enjoyed any scientific challenge, he eagerly ran into the backyard armed with a glass jar and a kitchen sieve, that I had sacrificed for his project—-never to be used near food again. It took him five minutes to come back into the house with a jar full of all kinds of unpleasant dead bugs. He said, “Can I sort them out on the kitchen table?” “Absolutely not!” I replied looking at the assortment of flies, beetle's, a grasshopper a cicada and other icky dead insects thrown into the mix.  I said, “How did you collect so many bugs in such a short time?” Proudly, he replied, “I took out the pool filter basket.”  Homework done!

Atlanta had its share of creepy crawlers, but even though Tucson, Arizona doesn’t have chiggers, it has its share of entomological delights. My first encounter with a critter was a warning from a scorpion, who had made his home in one of my gardening gloves. A little sting on the tip of my finger let me know not to poke him when he was sleeping. It felt very much like a bee sting. I hired a gardener.

It is fascinating to watch little leaf cutter ants slowly denude an Ocotillo Cactus one leaf at a time, and the monsoon rainy season flushes out all sorts of pests such as mosquitos and teeny-weeny little varmints that fly together in a cloud, and enjoy flying up your nose, and into your eyes.

One morning, after a heavy rain, I opened my front door to run out and get the newspaper, and there, right on my doorstep, was a big, black, nasty sewer roach. I could have put a saddle on him, but instead I slammed the door shut, grabbed a broom, and went outside through the garage. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, that roach would not be moved. Finally, I dropped a big rock on him. After the third time, I was hoping he was dead, but NO! Once again he headed for the front door. Finally, I swept him into a dust pan and threw him into the street. I have read that roaches can survive a nuclear bomb, but figured that maybe this one would not survive being run over by my neighbor who likes to drive up on my curb.

Tarantulas are large hairy members of the spider family. Their appearance is worse than their bite which is not poisonous. Sometimes jewelers keep them in their store cases at night to discourage robbers, because they look so scary. Other than needing a shave, tarantulas are fascinating creatures, but very fragile, and like glass, they are breakable. Also, when they want to, they can run quite fast.  So, when I encountered one in my garage, I gently tried to nudge  it outside with my shoe. However, it did not want to leave, so I let it hang out until I returned and gently swept it into my neighbor’s bushes.

Knowing the importance of bees, I keep scooping live ones out of the swimming pool, but  they keep falling in again. The bee brain doesn’t seem to let them know that swimming pools are not for pollinating.

Some people are worm lovers. They like them so much that they eat them. Even deep fried, they still look like worms to me. The only way I would ever eat a worm is after it has been digested by a chicken.

By the way, for those of you who enjoy going to Florida, they have given the American Cockroach a fancy nickname. Floridians call them Palmetto Bugs. Only in Florida would they name a bug after a tree. These insects can fly, and believe me when you turn on a light, and the roach comes flying at you, it’s time to grab your pet mosquito and fly back to Minnesota.

Esther Blumenfeld

SCOOT OVER

Last week, city officials in Tucson, Arizona, the place I call home, announced that electric scooters are coming to town. The plan is that initially 1,500 of them will hit streets (as well as several pedestrians) relatively soon.  One estimate is that the companies, Razor and Bird will pay the city as much as $300,000.00 a year. However, they did not estimate the cost of lawsuits that will follow.

Users will rent the scooters on an hourly basis using a mobile app. Whew! that leaves me out. I don’t have a smart phone.  My little flip phone works just fine.  As a matter of fact, today, a woman offered to buy it from me. I may be starting a new retro fad.

But back to e-scooters. They go 15 mph, and the electric charge lasts for about 15 miles, without a charge. I guess there is something magic about that number 15.  Anyway, at the end of the day companies will pick them up to be charged, unless a “juicer” takes a scooter home, and charges it overnight.  He can make from $3.00 to $20.00 per hour depending on location. To collect the money, the “juicer” must return the scooter to the e-scooter dock fully charged.
One little glitch is that chargers have been stolen to power other devices.  

In San Francisco over 200 scooters were stolen in the first month of usage, which led to cable locks. Tucson’s proximity to Mexico may set a new record.

First: Let’s look at the advantages of e-scooters.

 They provide transit where otherwise people rely on public transportation such as vehicles with 4-wheels, and a metal enclosure to protect their bodies.
 E-scooters are fun! (unless you aren’t wearing a helmet.)

That’s about it.  What are the disadvantages other than the personal liability when hitting a pedestrian, damaging property, or causing a car accident? Well, there is a huge gap in insurance coverage for e-scooters. Auto insurance doesn’t cover them. Nor will your homeowner’s insurance.  However, I did discover that VOOM, an Israeli company carries, “On- Demand Insurance” for drone operators in the U.S., and plans to roll out per-ride insurance for e-scooters.

I don’t know how much homework city officials did before considering this pilot e-scooter program, but here is what I dug up.  

Arizona State University in Phoenix, AZ no longer allows e-scooters, because they overran the campus. The powers-to-be at AU stated that “e-scooters are a nuisance and potential danger being driven by people without proper training,” and I might have added, a few intoxicated students. After all, it is a campus.  The University of Arizona in Tucson has already banned scooters from campus, and they haven’t even gotten to town yet.

So what is the experience elsewhere?

In 2018, in Detroit, it cost $1.00 to unlock, and 33 cents (my computer does not have a cents sign) a minute to ride an e-scooter. A resident of that city said, “Working in Detroit, the most dangerous thing about the city is a chance of getting run over by someone on a scooter.”

The first year in Los Angeles there were 249 reported e-scooter injuries. Protesters have burned them or thrown them into the ocean.  St. Louis, and New York City banned them. In Nashville, TN, the home of country music, numerous accidents were recorded as well as 8 e-scooter deaths in the last 2 years.  There must be a country song in there somewhere,—“When my scooter went on and left me.” Reaction in Santa Monica was, “The streets are littered and pedestrians are upset.” E-scooters are popular in Washington, DC. Millions of people have taken rides around the White House. I guess they are a good fit just scooting around and around and around and not really getting anywhere.

Uber is launching e-scooters in Europe. Madrid gave an electric scooter company 72 hours to remove scooters from the Spanish capital.

Soon we shall see if e-scooters are a good fit for Tucson when the Monsoon rains arrive.
Do those things float?

Esther Blumenfeld

THE NOT SO GOOD FIGHT

At first, I thought, “What’s the matter with my television set?” Then, I thought, “Am I going totally nuts?” CBS was gaslighting me with a disembodied voice, but the voice wasn’t on every program on that network, nor was it on any other channel. The voice was just speaking on one program—the newly introduced—THE GOOD FIGHT,  Episode One. The voice was not on, THE GOOD FIGHT,  Episode Two, which immediately followed Episode One.

It went something like this: “The lawyer enters the office. His secretary smiles and tells him he has a phone call. He rushes to his office, and finds someone sitting at his desk. It isn’t him!”

“Okay," I thought, “Some know-it-all must think that everything that is happening has to be explained, but this is really annoying!”

Then, I remembered that a few days ago, the same thing happened when I was watching a cooking contest on the FOX Network. “Phoebe, brings her dish to the judges table. One judge grimaces. The second judge throws Phoebe’s dish into the bushes. Another judge utters a profanity.” But at the time, I thought this was pretty normal for Fox, and I also thought “Phoebe is toast.”

I know about closed captioning on TV for people with hearing disabilities, but those written captions are on every channel, on every station and even on every commercial. This was something else—a selective, anonymous voice that turned up—at will—only occasionally.

So, to check my sanity, I asked Mr. Google “How do I get rid of a voice-over on CBS?” With great relief, I saw that the question had been asked by many other irritated viewers, but both the cause and the solution were nebulous.  Next, I called my semi-trustworthy Comcast provider.

The first technician I reached was one of the few people left in Honduras. We had trouble communicating, so I hung up and tried again. The second technician was the only other person left in Honduras. He had never heard of this problem, but said that I might be picking up on someone else’s signal, so he booted up my system (on my TV—not me!)  After the booting, the problem was gone.

A few days later, I once more turned my television station to CBS to watch THE GOOD FIGHT, and again, a voice said, “The lawyer enters the room with an annoyed expression on his face.” NOT AS ANNOYED AS MINE!

Yes, I called Comcast again. This time I reached a young woman in the Philippines. She told me that she did not know why this was happening on only one program, but instructed me on the intricacies of turning off all disembodied voices on my television set. So far, it has worked.

I can just imagine if this had happened to someone watching a football game: “He’s got the ball. He’s  running with the ball. The crowd is cheering. He fumbles the ball. The crowd groans. A man in the stands is shouting. His face turns red. The Quarterback looks offended.”

Or, what about a news show where the voice explains: “The President promises this. The President promises that. Congress promises that and this. The President vetoes that but will go with this.”

The voice chokes up. Your TV blows up and it’s time to read a good book.

Esther Blumenfeld

IT'S NOT THE TAJ MAHAL

As soon as I heard that there was a super-duper senior residence being built across the street, from where I now live, I was one of the first future residents to sign up for an apartment in June of 2017.  Everyday since, I have been watching this, one-hundred-and-ten-million-dollar, (glad this is a story and not a check) structure being built, with over 250 workers on site, finally, there seems to be a move-in date somewhere in the offing—depending on government inspections.

In the ensuing two years, rumors have been flying from prospective resident to prospective resident about the move-in date. First it was expected in January, then March, April (for sure!) May, June, July (really for sure). Now maybe September..(for maybe sure). I feel as if I’m back in high school, waiting to be asked to the prom, when people say, “Do you have a date yet?” Dejected, I hang my head and whisper,”Not yet, but I am hopeful.”

With five restaurants, some prospective residents are worried that, “So many people will come here to eat from the outside that there won’t be room for people who live here.” Not true!  It’s just another false rumor. The only outsiders  who can eat in the restaurants will be guests of the residents. Of course, that means that we have to be extremely careful of outsiders who suddenly want to be our best friends at dinner time.

I understand that the apartments are so well built that you can shout obscenities in your apartment, and the people in the adjoining apartment can’t hear you. I really like that, because I often yell  obscenities at my television set.

When my husband was a graduate student, we moved into married student housing. The first night, in our apartment, my husband said, “Come look at the beautiful moon.”  Then he said, “Oh, My God!  There are two of them.  Hit the floor!”  It was then that we discovered that the married student apartments were in the landing pattern of the airport.  Also, we were treated to the university marching band practicing under our window early every morning. I didn’t care.  It was our home—until we moved.  

During the first night in our next apartment, I gave my husband a poke and said, “You are snoring.”  He replied, “It isn’t me. I thought it was you.” Turns out it was the man next door. I never did find out if there was a wall under that wall paper.

Our next apartment had a clogger overhead.  Every night, after work, she’d move the  furniture across the floor, turn up the music and stomp to her heart’s content. Then we moved to an apartment owned by the mafia. No noise! No problems! No cutting of the grass.  One afternoon, our neighbor lost her toddler in the un-cut lawn and we all had to look for her.

Our dear friends, Janet and George moved to an apartment that had been a dental office.  Their kitchen looked a bit like a dental lab. One day, they came home from class and found a man sitting in their living room reading a portion of Janet’s thesis. He said, “Is the dentist in?”
Janet said, “This is no longer a dental office. Couldn’t you tell the difference?” As he left he said, “I think you could have provided better reading material.”

Then there was the bizarre: Gail and Joe moved into a place where all the doorknobs were covered with little crochet caps.  The first night in their bedroom, they discovered that the Chinese themed wallpaper glowed in the dark.  All night they had visions of little Chinese men dancing across the walls.

And finally,  Lawrence and Carolyn got a really good deal when they purchased a mansion. His law firm had handled the sensational  case of the owner’s bloody  murder while he had taken a vacation somewhere in the Caribbean. Turns out that he had been quite an oddball with very strange friends, and the publicity about his life killed any chance of selling that house. Eventually, Lawrence and Carolyn transformed that house into a beautiful home where they raised their children.

It’s been a long time since I have lived in an apartment. Right now, it’s just a place. A place does not make a home. People make a home.  I can do that—-if they ever let me move in.

Esther Blumenfeld