What does a hiatus mean?  It sounds sort of formal.  I’m sufficiently old=fashioned to still use a paperbound dictionary:  I was right!  There are several more meanings than I mean–[see also yawn]–Including things related to passage in an organ, two vowel sounds without pause, herniating through the esophageal….

Now that I’ve lost my readership crowd, I’ll tell you all about it:  It all started with my printer not working. After a helper tried to fix it, I lost my internet connection.  (I had already lost my phone accessibility because I couldn’t figure out how to use it.)  See what I mean about planned obsolescense being evil?  A couple or so years ago I had a great phone that looked like a small flip phone, and it didn’t pretend to be anything else.  Then the battery went dead and a new battery was as expensive as a new phone. Not imagining that I couldn’t buy another soon, I let it “go out of style” as big tech crept in during the night.  I’ll give you a tip on how to get rich: Come up with a “flip top” that will only call and/or answer.  There are other oldsters all over the world I’m sure that suffer from this lack.  The most-touted phone for seniors is very difficult to use.  There are smart phones, cell phones, “dumb phones” (not dumb), and “wise phones”, the ads of the latter’s ads I’ve seen have all the ordering info but not the price.

Anyway, that’s not all  that has been happening off-blog.  My daughter visited and taught me a trick my mother never shared with me:  When your cuppa coffee or tea is too hot, make it cool faster by inserting a metal eating utensil in it to draw off the heat.  The only thing I can remember her teaching me (other than to be nice) was when at a traffic light and needing to turn left, pull out into the intersection a little bit so you can make it when the light begins to change.

And oh yes–my “helper” quit me because her schooling was getting too hard.  So, cast on my own I am succeeding by  doing one chore a day (plus cooking and/or eating goulash and taking my medicine):  one of the weekdays is for showering.  Organizing my papers is out of the question.

My daughter came up from Atlanta to testify before a hearing with lawmakers (and breakers) at the State House in Columbus.  It was about the state wanting to close all longterm care facilities for the neediest disabled individuals.  (I went with her a couple of years ago and when it came time to speak I was sitting in a stall undergoing “an intestinal upset.”)  My youngest daughter needs to continue her residence at the long term facility in Gallipolis.  Since I have no car anymore, my oldest daughter and I were able to visit her, an hours’ drive away.

You may have guessed that I live alone–and talk/write too much when I have an audience.  So, back to the blog:  I do complain, but  NO LONGER about the election,  I still fret about corporations buying elections, climate change and technology replacing workers. I just came across a quote of the richest man alive, maybe, who plans to start charging  $7.99 a month in order that users of his newly purchased Twitter can have a blue check mark by their Twitter name, to assure their authenticity.  He  is quoted by Time as saying “It creates a lord and peasants system.”

The November 21-28 issue of Time magazine features almost one hundred new innovations (and mentions a hundred more).  I may be old and sensitive, but as stated earlier I have misgivings about the mass move to high tech, especially when reading about a “Mini Nuclear Reactor,” the first of which could be running by 2029 in Idaho.  Each such reactor could power 60,000 homes.

It seems the push to offset the climate crisis is being fought more fervently by others than the giant coal and oil producers?