Another Senior Moment

Usually I do not open our snail-mail Visa statement. By the time it arrives, I have already viewed it online and scheduled the payment. But yesterday I did.

The first thing I noticed was the color of the new ink that highlighted the following: Minimum due. Due date. Hmm, I thought, an attention-getting device? I suppose the red ink should have been a tip-off. Then I saw that a payment had not been received last month.

I dashed to my iMac, opened up the folder, 2012 Payment Confirmations, and the subfolder labeled Capital One. Unbelievable! I did not make the June 19th payment. But I remember entering the amount.

Then the light dawned. I did indeed enter it in iBank but failed to make the payment on Capital One’s website. Ack!

All of this left me with a queasy stomach. I just don’t do these kinds of things. Am I losing my mind? Will I need a keeper soon?

The part of me that hates spending money needlessly eyed the $84.35 in interest and fees with gritted teeth.

I decide to throw myself on the mercy of customer service. Justin could not have been nicer. The twenty-something allowed as how he forgets things and how upset he gets.

I pointed out that we use the card for everything because we receive 2 miles per dollar. He asked me if I would be traveling again soon because we have 485,522 miles accrued. I said I was headed to Ocala, Florida next week. He said, “You’re coming my way.” When I asked, he said he was in Tampa. Then we spoke briefly about how Cleveland was hotter than Ocala yesterday and the effects of climate change.

Then I asked him if he could possibly waive the interest and fees. I could tell that he was reviewing our account. “I see that you pay off your balance every month.” Then with a note of surprise, “And you pay early. I can certainly credit those fees back to you.”

After thanking him for settling my stomach and making my day, he asked if there was anything else he could do for me.

How about a phone call to remind me to pay the bill and not just enter it into the check register?

I do not want to see this again:

How Lucky Was I?

My Sweetie and I are having a good time counting the birds in our backyard for the Great Backyard Bird Count. We have always enjoyed watching them but had never stop to count them. Now we have.

As of noon on Sunday, we had three dozen house sparrows, two dozen goldfinches, two purple finches, a house finch, a half dozen juncos, a red-bellied sapsucker, a downy woodpecker, two cardinals (one male and one female), a white-breasted nuthatch, six mourning doves, and a sole robin.

We are only missing a few of the usual suspects: bluejay, hairy woodpecker, northern flicker, tufted titmouse, black-capped chickadee, red-winged blackbird, and chipping sparrow.

I was bemoaning the fact that we have had a Cooper’s hawk and a sharp-shinned hawk in the yard at various times this winter. But it didn’t appear that we would be able to add them to our lists.

Then about 1:00 on Sunday I spotted this guy sitting in front of our Christmas tree which we always put out for the birds to take cover in.
Cooper's Hawk

Oh, my! I guess we unwittingly provided a diner for the hawk. Can you see the hawk's face when the sparrow escaped? It almost looks like a cat in the branches.

There goes lunch!

This is obviously a young hawk or he has completely forgotten the bird-of-prey technique for acquiring food. There he was walking into the tree in hopes of having a house sparrow for lunch.

Now I can add Cooper's hawk to the list. Maybe the sharp-shinned will turn up tomorrow.


Click here for more information: Great Backyard Bird Count

Would a Massage Therapist Lie?

Oh, my goodness! Our Groupon coupons for massages were going to expire while we were away. I called and heard a message that she preferred communicating by email and would answer in the evening. I sent an email off. No response.

I was looking up how you handle a merchant not returning your call when I received an email from the massage therapist. She wrote “Thank you for request. Do not worry about expiration, i'll take it afterwards. Closest open appointments i have first week of February, so, please, lat (sic) me know your preferred day and time. Best Regards.”

How cool is that? Today when I thanked her in person, she said, “Why not? You paid. I paid. Makes sense.”

I asked her if she had a good response from the Groupon deal. “Very much. Lots and lots of business.”

She was massaging my back when she explained that she had discounts for professionals who bought 4 massages at a time and for clients over 65. She apologized that she could not give me one. She was taken aback when I told her that I had just celebrated my 66th birthday. In her Ukrainian-accented English, she said, “You hardly look 50.” Did I mention that I love this woman? She added that I was fit like My Sweetie so I must exercise like he does. I was sorry to disappoint her. But as usual, I pledged that I was going to do better.

She came to the US in 1995 with her now ex-husband who is an American. She seemed surprised when I told her that I admired her. Not only did she come to another country; she had to learn to live with an American husband which had to be different than living with a Ukrainian one. She looked surprised, nodded and said, “Oh, yes.”

I complimented her on her English. Surprised, she asked, “Why is my English so good?” Not only is her vocabulary extensive she uses idioms. She asked me at one point if she had used one correctly. When I repeated it, she said, “Ah.” She picked up on the different inflection I had used.

I said that I would not be as fluent in Ukrainian as she is in English. I recalled my experience as a 16-year-old exchange student in South America. Perhaps high school French was not the best preparation for living in a Spanish-speaking country but during those three months, I learned enough to carry on a conversation but only in the present tense. I can’t even imagine learning a non-Romance language.

Here she is, having arrived in the States 17 years ago and 3 years after completing a two-year program to obtain her massotherapy license, successfully operating her own business.

What a woman. And truthful, too.

Computer Humor or Why We Still Need Humans Who Can Spell

Owed to a Spell Chequer*

Eye halve a spelling chequer.
It came with my pea sea.
It plainly marques four my revue
miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a quay and type a word
and weight four it two say
weather eye am wrong oar write.
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid,
it nose bee fore two long
and eye can put the error rite.
It's rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it.
I am shore your pleased two no.
It's letter perfect awl the weigh.
My chequer tolled me sew.

Martha Snow

*Checker in American English


More and more I find mistakes in publications. Novels are especially loaded with the wrong homophones. Here is a quick lesson on homophones, homonyms, and other weirdness of the English language.

HOMOPHONES: Words pronounced the same but different in meaning, origin, and spelling. Examples: cite, sight, and site; sea and see; your and you're; bow and bough.

HOMONYMS: Words having the same sound and often the same spelling but different meanings. Examples: quail (cower) and quail (bird); fair (appearance), fair (gathering to show livestock or wares such as a county fair or a book fair), and fair (reasonable).

HOMOGRAPHS: Words spelled alike but different in origin, meaning, and sometimes pronunciation. Examples: bow of a ship, a bow and arrow, and a bow (at the end of a performance).

HETERONYMS: Words that are spelled the same but that differ in pronunciation and meaning. Examples: bass (voice) and bass (fish); polish (shine) and Polish (from Poland); tear (rip) and tear (from eye).

Now doesn't that just make your head spin.


Kudos to all who learn English as a second language. Let me know if you are stumped by anything in the poem.