LOST AND FOUND CELL PHONE

I Lost My Cell Phone

I emptied my pockets when I got home. Randy Broman and I had had lunch on the bench across the street in Dolores Park. No cell phone. I moaned and searched my hoodie, rifled my trousers, looked on the floor and stairs, no phone.

I searched the flat thinkingI had not taken the phone with me. Then I remembered I had received a call from my dentist while I was waiting for Randy. I dismissed the call when Randy appeared and put the phone in my pocket.

I got on the stair lift taking the keys to the house and hobbled across the street to look around and under the park bench where we had eaten our sandwiches. (A salmon cream cheese spread on whole wheat bread and smoked salmon.) No cell phone. I figured someone had picked it up and removed it. I was mad at myself for being so careless with the phone. While I chatted Randy It must have slipped out of the wide pocket of my red hoodie.

Back upstairs I tried to nap and dozed off. Ann came home from her swim with Sue. I grabbed her cell phone and punched in my cell phone number. The lost phone rang and rang. I redialed and a man picked up. I told him I was the owner of the phone he was using. He said, “Yeah, I found it in Dolores Park.”

He said he would meet me at the bench at 6:00 PM that evening. I was there and waited for twenty minutes. I was about to go home when a teen sitting on the bench asked me if I wanted to use her phone to contact anyone. That sure was a generous and trusting gesture. She dialled my cell phone number at my instruction, handed me her phone and turned to join her friends. The man answered and said he couldn’t make the date as an  emergency had come up. (That was a lie if I ever heard one.)  He took our address and said he would bring the phone to me at 3839 20th Street on Wednesday. I told him I had some money for him. I hope that helped motivate him.

A scruffy young man showed up at 10 AM on Wednesday morning and gave me the phone and I gave him $100 for his effort and returning the phone. He thanked me for money and said he really could use it. We left each other happy and grateful.

STAY HEALTHY

HEALTH

I have had five major surgeries. Thyroidectomy (1/2) and upper bowel re-connection. Replacements of my left hip, right and left knee. I had pneumonia, a stroke and have Atrial Fibrillation.

I have seldom been frightened by these bouts of surgery and illness.

I think of each procedure and illness as an adventure. I want to see what happens in an escapee  into the unknown. I am thankful that I do not have real fear, heart palpitations or anxiety. Of course I worry that I am in denial or inured to my feelings. Maybe so.

I am curious about the result and not the process. My doctor the late Sanford Lazar asked me if I would like to a see a video of the surgery on one of my knees. I assured him that I was such a sissie that I’d pass out and be nauseated watching a knife cutting open the flesh around the knee. I certainly wanted to be reassured that I could walk again without pain. The results have been very good. But I skipped the video.

I am happy to called myself bionic man because I have a lot of hardware in my body to heal me and keep me functioning. I am grateful that there is the technology available to diagnose, treat do surgery for my ills and the pains of so many others. How lucky we are that so many people who become doctors learn the skills to treat and cure so many sicknesses that befall us.

I do resent that doctors and insurance companies make such huge profits from human pain. I believe all people should have access to full medical and surgical care. Only government can assure that. I am happy to label it socialism so long as all people have adequate medical care. 

Comparing what medical professionals earn to what teachers, nurses and social workers make shows this absurd discrepancy. It is a major reason that medical care is so expensive and not available to so many Americans. 

I am also grateful to the hand-son caregivers, like nurses who keep patients comfortable. Then there are  janitors and maintenance people who make medical offices and hospital clean and sanitary.

I do worry about pain. After the orthopaedic surgeries there is considerable pain and discomfort. I note that the pain eases off thanks to drugs and time. So many people I have known have had chronic and lingering pain. Their suffering is awful and I fear having such myself. I am all for a careful process of euthanasia for people with unbearable pain who have no hope for any cure. People need to have the right to die.

People also must take responsibility for their own health. Newspaper and magazines are full of articles about eating healthy foods, cutting down on salt and fat, keeping one’s weight down and taking on exercise. The information is available to most people. The food industry must take responsibility for peddling sugar sodas and salt and fat laden chips which, contribute to much bad health in many people’s lives. Exercise, movement and walking help keep us healthy.

Being healthy is a  serious life long quest. It is a vocation worthy of us all.

MORE ON POLICE

On the Police

Most members of the police are respectful peace officers. They offer help to the sick and dying and quietly settle citizens disputes and their presence deter crime.

Some members of the police force are racist, overuse violent force, shoot people wantonly and trample on the civil rights of citizens.

Police unions often defend officers who are alleged guilty and prevent such officers from reaching trial.

Police officers run in ethnic groups like The Irish Cop and the black patrolmen’s union. Police officers run in families with generations of family members  having joined the police force.

Men and women in these groups have little connection to other races, classes of peopled, sexual and ethnic groups.

I think police officers should have four years of college. They will learn critical thinking. They will wrestle with ambiguity and that everything is not black and white. They will see how races and skin colors came to be. Prospective officers will mix with people of different races, classes, sexual and ethnic groups. Officers will be gentler, more thoughtful, compassionate and have a larger view of human behaviour.

New Police officers should not:

1. Have had allegations or convictions of violence.

2, Have had allegations or convictions of domestic violence.

3. Have had been in the military where they have been trained to kill.

This is a time when radical changes must be made to make police officers members of our larger and more mixed society.

SHOP DURING QUARENTINE

Shopping

Ann went to Mollie Stones’s for grocery shopping this morning. She has done it for the last six weeks since the quarantine. She and I prepare a lengthy list of what we need for food-vegetables, fruit, cereals, fish, meat, coffee, milk, eggs, butter, canned and frozen foods. Some times we need wine and booze.

Before the lockdown, I did the food shopping. I went almost every day as it gave me something easy and simple to do every day. I liked the people in the stores, customers and employees. In the huge Safeway there was a  good mix of people, white, black, brown, Asian, elderly and street people. That store carries almost everything we need. Even sushi. Parking is ample but it is harder to find shopping carts.

Sometimes I went to Whole Foods. I like that place because it is smaller, neater and less crowded. Customers and employees are mostly young, white and financially well off. The employees are very polite and helpful. The vegetables, fruit, meat, fowl and sea food seem fresher and healthy. The parking is easy and carts easily available.

Mollie Stones is much like Whole Foods. It looks like more LGBT people shop there as it is in the middle of he Castro.

Sometimes I went to Rainbow for cereal, granola and muesli. I like the store but the parking is. limited.  Sometimes I park next door at Office Max that has a bigger parking lot. The population goes for vegetarian products and cheeses. Ageing hippies and earnest health food aficionados and jeans and flannels people are in shopping attendance.

In all the stores, I liked looking at the food, piled in neat stacks and pyramids. The displays of fishing meat appealed to my eyes and made my mouth water. I often said the stores were like museums with the colourful and interesting displays. The people varied from attractive women to worn street people. Young men in athletic gear and older ones like me hobbling, pushing carts and hesitant. I love variety and novelty.

 

I hate to see people stocking up on unhealthy food and drinks like sodas, cookies and candy. I look at what people buy when I stand in line awaiting to check out. Often overweight people do that.

I do not go to luxury stores for clothes, shoes or leather goods.  Lavish spending on stuff like that seem such a waste with so much poverty in the world. I know stores like that hire people and give them work. People have jobs making those expensive items. Of course people have the right to buy whatever they can afford.

In all stores there is so much suff available to buy. Row after row of different kinds of cereal, soda and drinks seem unnecessary. I suppose it is good marketing and people buy more and profits go up.

Much as I enjoy all that food, I do think of all the people who are hungry and starving in the world. We know that much food is wasted and plowed back under or destroyed because selling the stuff at low prices undercuts profits.

After all I do find shopping for food fun and gives me a regular activity as I age and can do far less than I used to do. I like seeing people, getting what I need, being part of the economy and community.