Collecting my thoughts for Thursday

1.  Advice for the new year:  The best way to find something that is lost among your stuff ("It's gotta be here somewhere") is to buy another one.  When you get the new one, I can almost guarantee that you'll find the old one that same day.  Maybe within minutes.

2.  Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee:  My friend Debra took this photo of my favorite falls on January 1, 2022.  Fall Creek Falls is the highest free-fall waterfall east of the Mississippi River, according to Wikipedia.  The height is 256 feet (78 m).  Thanks for the memories, Debra!

3.  Sticker shock:  To help you understand why seniors have a hard time dealing with prices these days, here's what I used to earn.  As a teenager, I made 75-cents an hour as a file clerk working in an office in downtown Chattanooga in the afternoon, after school was out.  In my first full-time job in 1959, I made $1 an hour.  That's $40 a week, which equals $2,080 a year before taxes were taken out.

4.  Now let's look at rent:  Compare that $2,080 annual salary in #3 with this statistic I found using Google:  "The average asking rent is now $1,900 — with single-family houses averaging $2,018 a month."  It blows my mind!

5.  Does this make cents?  Yes, I spelled it correctly.  When I typed #3 above, I needed the "cent" sign.  Typewriters used to have that cent-symbol "back in my day."  My laptop doesn't have any such thing!  Is that because a cent is almost worthless these days?

6.  On the other hand:  I learned to type on a typewriter like this clunky Underwood.  Although I can't focus in on it here, I'm sure this big typewriter has the symbol for cent over the 6, as in the slightly more modern keyboard in this photo below.

7.  More on the cent symbol:  I tried several ways different people said I could use to make the cent sign, but none worked.  Here's my solution:  I simply found one that somebody else had made and copied it.  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  That was easy!

8.  Nickels aren't worth much, either:  On Sunday, I considered a new occupation, until I realized that nickels aren't worth what they were back in my day, either.  So apparently, paper money is worth more than "hard" currency (unless it's collectible, like a buffalo nickel, also called an Indian Head nickel).

9.  Word of the Day:  clunk·y /ˈkləNGkē / adjective INFORMAL = awkwardly solid, heavy, and outdated.  Example:  "Even last year's laptops look clunky."  (See #6 above.)

10.  Do you have a system?  Before I leave my apartment, I count what's in my pockets (jeans with pockets are my retirement uniform):

• pen and paper
• pills and phone
• keys and comb
• clippers and Kleenex
• mask and money
• plus calendar and Kindle, if I take my cart  (too big for my pockets)

11.  The last thing I did in 2022:  I changed the calendar on the bulletin board beside the elevator on my floor.  Oh, wait!  No, I came home from changing the calendar and fed Clawdia.  She was eating as fireworks hailed a (hopefully less pandemic-y) New Year.

12.  I'm still wearing masks because of my age and being immunocompromised.  Is anyone else still masking up?

13.  I have decided I won't stop at an arbitrary number just because Colleen has done a Thursday Thirteen for years.  So I'll keep sharing until it's time to post my thoughts.

14.  Library books checked out:  I've blogged about how many books I had checked out of the library at any one time:  one, four, seven, fourteen, etc.  One (very unusual) time, I had ZERO books checked out.  The shocker, even to me, is that I now have 26 books checked out.  Yes, that number is 26.  That's proof I'm a "bookie," isn't it?

15.  I have a conundrum:  Why don't the words tough, cough, and dough rhyme?  On the other hand, these words DO rhyme:  dew, do, and due.  Why?  Can you explain it?

16.  Word of the Day (see # 15)

co·nun·drum / kəˈnəndrəm / noun = a confusing and difficult problem or question.

17.  We can now officially end sentences with prepositions if we want to.  (So I just did!)

18.  Do you "follow" any authors?  I see that I follow eight Amazon authors:

• Richard Bach
• Roberta C. Bondi — my former professor
• Lisa Genova — whose book Remember I just downloaded onto my Kindle
• Beth Kephart
• Stephen J. Patterson
• John Pavlovitz
• Jodi Picoult — whom I've meet in person
• Joan Uda, who's my best friend — so I picked up my phone and called her.  (The photo shows Joan and me when I visited her in 2019.)

19.  On New Year's Day, I read a children's book while waiting for someone:  Henry and Mudge and Annie's Perfect Pet ~ by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Suçie Stevenson, 2000, 40 pages.  I rate it 10/10.  Annie needs a pet that's soft and dry and doesn't fly — one that's quiet and careful, just like Annie.  (Spoiler:  it's a soft white rabbit, but you won't find a rabbit among the animals shown on the cover.)

20.  Study the cover carefully (as a child might do), and tell me what pets you find.