Things that go bump and Crash in the night

Things that go bump and Crash in the night
   Musings from Life by Rosemary Kahn

It was well after midnight. I know, because that is when I turned off my bedside light. Reading in bed is such a pleasure, especially in winter!

I must have been asleep for about an hour, when a loud crash woke me. I lay quietly listening in the dark for any other noises. There was a rasping and scraping sound and then silence. I did a mental check - all the downstairs doors were locked on the inside; the security gates were locked; my car was locked and in its garage. I crept out of bed. It is always quite light in my bedroom, inspite of the curtains being closed. The apartment block to the right of my building has had very bright spot lights installed and my neighbour had left his garden spotlight on as well. This lit up my own garden and I was able to see down to the gate, which was locked. There was no movement anywhere. I stood and watched for several minutes. 

Should I risk going downstairs, or should I go back to bed? Where exactly had the crash come from anyway? It had sounded very close by. Perhaps it was just a ferral cat, of which there are a number in the vicinity, on the prowl. It might have knocked over a pot plant on one of our patios. With a sigh, I decided to go back to bed. I felt safe enough upstairs and all was quite again and I refuse to live in fear. After all, we have electrically operated security gates and seven rows of electrically wired fencing all round the property. We also have a security guard cycle patrol on duty 24/7. I climbed into bed and my last conscious thought was,  

"What a way to live!"

People Watching

As a writer, one of my favourite pass times is "people watching". So during the recent school hoildays, I took myself off to the local Mall, notebook in hand, and found a vacant bench on the ground floor, fairly near the lifts and escalators. What I saw was indeed a complete eye-opener! From babies in prams, completely covered by blankets, so that no one could see that baby and the baby could not look out; to mothers hurrying along, with children trailing behind, often in a crowd. I saw crying children; rude and cross children, whining and begging children and very few who looked as though they were actually enjoying themselves or the outing. Often the teenagers had sort of disowned their parents, which is probably to be expected! The whole scene reminded me of  a project I did with my class years ago.

Of course, during the 25 years of my teaching experience, shopping, as such and shopping projects changed with the times and no longer did we set up quaint little grocery stores in a corner of the classroom. Instead, we had real cake or cookie sales; or used real stationery, pencils, erasers, etc, or hand made crafts, or even the children's own paintings to be sold, to teach the concept of buying and selling and the value of coins.

One day, during a class discussion, a child said, "Mrs Kahn, do you know that I HATE going shopping? It is NOT a treat."

When I asked her to explain in more detail, she said this, and I have never forgotten it.

"Just think of us for a moment. We are shorter than adults, sometimes much smaller. We get bashed by other people's parcels and handbags and all we can see are legs!"

Rosemary  - July 2011.

All we will have left are memories and hopefully they cannot be changed.

9 Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime

Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come. 

1.  The Post Office

Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills. 

2.  The Cheque

Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with cheque by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process cheques. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the cheque. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3.  The Newspaper 

The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services. 

4.  The Book 

You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone 

Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes

6.  Music 

This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalogue items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies." 

7. Television 

Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix. 

8. The "Things" That You Own 

Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert. 

9.  Privacy 

If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and theGoogle Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.

What do you think or feel of the list above? Please share your comment on the blog below. We'd love to hear from you.