SOLTuesday: What do you do to avoid writing?

 

What do you do to avoid writing? Is it something otherwise constructive, like cleaning the oven or mopping all of the floors? Or is it totally wasteful, like spending an hour playing Bejeweled on your phone, like I did today? I had intended to work on the final edit for one of my job memoir pieces, but instead, I took out my phone and started playing the totally addictive Bejeweled. Moving the differently colored shapes into groups of three to make them disappear and new arrangements to show up—why is that so addictive for me? Is it satisfying the visual part of my brain? Is it merely giving me something to feel good about as the groups of three, or sometimes four or even five, jewels disappear and new patterns emerge—and the points on the scoreboard mount? I began to wonder how the game algorithm worked. As I scored more points, was the game programmed to keep me playing, was it harder to leave when new patterns kept appearing? When I reached 1,389,950, I stopped. The writing part of my brain woke up and pulled me away to write this slice of life. 

 

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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.

SOLTuesday: My Life in 50 Objects, #12

            Some years ago, I posted the first of what I intended to be a series. At the beginning of the pandemic I posted several more, then stopped. As you can see, I'm good at starting projects, but not so good at continuing and completing them. Let's see whether I can finish this one.

            I don’t know yet whether there will be as many as 50 objects or more than 50. We’ll how it develops. What I am aiming for is to describe the objects in my apartment and why I have kept them, what they mean to me, so that after I’m gone (which I don’t expect to be any time soon) my younger relatives won’t be saying,“Why did she keep this old thing?” My mother said she would do that for her jewelry, but she never did.

 

My mother was a craftswoman. She sewed, she knitted (while reading a book or watching TV, no less), she embroidered. Along the way she picked up needlepoint. This project started from a UNICEF greeting card I sent her. She liked the image so much she had it imprinted on a 30”x25” piece of canvas and copied it in yarn. At the bottom, she  stitiched her name and I think she meant to add the year, but the only numbers there are 197 (1970 something). After she died, she left many framed embroideries. I posted photos online so relatives could have their pick, but I didn’t post this one. I wanted it for myself.

 

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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.

 

SOLTuesday: My First Encounter with an Internet Scammer

Back in February, I began receiving e-mails from someone I do not know. What follows are his e-mails (punctuation and spelling exactly copied) and my two replies. I wonder where he really is. Have you ever gotten e-mails like these?

 

Feb. 16

1. HIM: How are you doing, I am Dr Patrick, A widower and looking for love , can we have a chat?

 

2. ME: All I want to know is how you got my e-mail address.

 

3. HIM: Nice to hear from you Sonia,

Well, I was looking on google and saw your name and email, I hope you are fine and family is doing well, I want you to understand that distance is not a barrier okay, I am from the Miami ,beach, in Florida and presently at work here in Syria, I hope you don't mind,I am a general surgeon under the UN medical team, I have traveled to Afghanistan on medical duty and have made up my mind to locate someone like you to settle down and a hospital clinic and orphanage home with production company after I return .

 I am 56 yrs old and have no children. My wife passed away.
I lost my parents during the 9/11 bomb attack, and since then I am alone, I am the only child, my duty will end here in Syria soon and I will return back home and come over to meet you, I hope I am welcome to your homeland to be a good friend for a long term family relationship.

Life is a journey and I hope meeting you will take us to a better way to meet each other face to face and be glad about it, I am one man for one woman.
I am a good Christian and you? Hope you tell me a little about yourself and send me a photo of you.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Bless you.
Dr. Patrick.

 

Feb. 18

4.Waiting to hear from you dear Sonia, All the best.

 

Feb. 19

5. Hello I guess you are not interested in the partnership with me, tell me please you are not the only beautiful woman on earth.

 

Feb. 22

6. Madam Robbins , Good evening and how are you, I hope you are fine. Sending prayers

 

April 24

7. I am alive ,I survived terrorist attack, I was so surprised to have not heard from you  ,I need your assistance to receive and secure my funds while I return soon and come over to meet you please.

 

I will give you 20% of the funds for your kind assistance.

Let me know what you think.

Best always

 

[I replied to this one: I am 100% sure you are a scammer. Do not respond. Goodbye.]

 

April 25

8. You are not correct Sonia,I am not a scammer,I am a medical doctor working here in Syria , I guess you have been scammed before that makes you think I am the same.

Well ,we have an organisation who is specially on the mission of tracking those scammers dawn .

If you can tell me about them who scam you before and provide there details.

All the best.

 

April 25

9. Sonia who scam you 100% that you are sure of? Answer my question

 

[How long will he persist, do you think?]

 

 

 

 

SOL Tuesday: Painfully Downsizing Books

     Until recently, all my bookcases had two rows of books on every shelf. Three years ago, one of those shelves collapsed, in the middle of the night, scaring the heck out of me. In daylight, I knew I had to pare down. Half the books in that bookcase (American history) had to go. It took a few weeks, but I did it. During Covid, I thought I’d better tackle the Fiction bookcase before its shelves started collapsing, and that task was done.

     Last week, it was time to take on the European/world history bookcase. First, I removed all the books and piled them in categories (Europe, Russia and Russian Revolution, Middle East, Africa, etc.). Then I had to go through each category: what to keep, what to give away, which books so decrepit or so marked up I have to toss them (that’s painful). 

     Today I sorted through the Holocaust section. I read “Schindler’s List” as soon as it came out, and for the first time I was conscious that there were people who survived the Nazis’ effort to kill every Jew they could find. All I had known up until that moment, at age 40, was that six million Jews were murdered, and if my grandparents hadn’t come to the United States at the beginning of the century, Iwould have been among them (whoever I would have been in that case, a more metaphysical issue). Who wanted to know any more? But survivors? This I needed to know more about. I’d read Keneally’s book in November 1982, and over the next six months I found and read 29 more — survivors’ accounts, histories, biographies, even fiction, and more. Ten of those books I still have, and have since acquired even more, most of which I’ve not read. The books to keep are mostly chosen, but there’s one dilemma I’m facing. I have two histories — Lucy Dawidowicz’s “The War Against The Jews 1933-1945” (a small paperback) and Martin Gilbert’s “The Holocaust: A history of the Jews of Europe duirng the Second World War” (a large hardcover). Maybe for now I’ll keep both and see whether there’s room for them on the shelves. 

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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.