Pockets

One of my big problems is pockets.

Most of my pants don't have them.  This is having a negative impact on my life.

This afternoon, I was meeting my friend Ruth for lunch at a new restaurant downtown.  Well, actually, I don't know how new it is.  In fact I thought the old restaurant was still in the spot where I was meeting her today. I have no idea how long ago that restaurant closed.

Ruth is never late.  In fact, she's usually early.   And when I said I would "try to find the restaurant" (not difficult, since it's off in a small mall and there are only two restaurants there!) she told me that she would be waiting out in front.

We were to meet at 11:30 and I got there at 11:29, and she wasn't there.  How strange.

But I sat down to wait for her and while waiting, I decided to check e-mail on my cell phone. which I almost didn't bring.  When I opened the phone I discovered I had two missed calls, both from Ruth.  I called her back and she told me she had a conflict and would not be able to meet me for lunch.  We rescheduled for next week.

If I had pockets, I wouldn't have had to drive all the way downtown for nothing.  (Though I did see this new sculpture, which was kinda cool)

(notice that it's made entirely of shovels!)

I've had a cell phone for a very long time now and I still haven't figured out how to work it.  Not "work it" in the sense of how to make the buttons do what I want them to do, but how to carry it.  When Ruth (who is fairly new to technology and doesn't realize that if I don't answer my cell phone she should try my land line, which used to be the only way she contacted me in the past) called me, my cell phone was in my purse. It's usually in my purse and my purse is usually at the other end of the house from where I am.  Even if my purse were right next to me, when we go to the theater, I turn off the ringer so at least half, if not more, of the time, the ringer is off because I forgot to turn it back on and I can't hear it anyway.

Occasionally, after I have finished recharging the phone, I try to be conscientious and take it with me wherever I go, but that's a pain because I have to hold it in my hand, or find a place to lay it down and if I put it down, chances are very good I will forget to pick it up again, so that means that not only can I not hear it ring (because I probably forgot to turn the ringer on again), but now it's lost in the piles of detritis around here.

A part of the problem is that I get maybe 3 calls a week, if that, so it's kind of a pain to try to remember to always have the phone with me.  If I got a lot of calls, I would be better about it, I suppose.

I admire people with pockets.  But even when I am wearing a pair of slacks with pockets in them, I am not comfortable because I'm convinced that the phone is going to fall out.

I tried one of those around the neck pouches, but that just looked stupid.  And I also tried a belt clip, but first of all, I don't own a belt and secondly, I'm so clumsy that I either couldn't get to the phone in time or I dropped it or accidentally turned it off trying to answer the damn call.

I can make calls.  I can put callers on speaker phone.  I can play Words with Friends and a couple of other games and look things up on Google, but I can't seem to find a consistent way to make my phone available to answer calls in a timely manner and so I miss most of the very few calls that I actually do get.

I just need to buy a whole new wardrobe and only buy things that have pockets in them, I guess.  Deep pockets.

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Well, this was a first for me.....

 
I'd never had a potato explode on me before...that's my dinner you're looking at (I let Walt have the intact potato).  Yes, yes, I know that I should have pierced the potatoes first, or wrapped them in foil or oiled them or something else, but I just lost my head for a minute there and put them in the oven as is.  But in 50 years of baking potatoes, this is the first time that this has happened.  I am no longer a potato virgin.