My Two Cents (While We Still Have Pennies)

An old friend messaged me the other night.

I’ve been thinking about you guys, and wondering how you are doing in retirement. Me, I’m working on something I’m excited about and I figure 5 more years, which makes sense financially. Does retirement make all the political crap any easier to take, or does it just give you more time to worry about stuff? 

I considered her question and replied.

I don't feel like retirement has had much of an impact on my response to the current political situation. I try to limit my exposure to the news and use the extra time I have to do other things.  

Even so, retirement has been a big adjustment for me. It's taken months to decompress after decades of teaching, and I'm not quite there yet. I didn't recognize what a huge change it would be, and I haven't quite found my new normal yet. I'm glad that you have work you find fulfilling, and I hope it's also manageable in terms of time and energy. If so, there's no reason to retire! 

Meta Data

 Suggested for you, read the banner, and a young, bearded man smiled beneath. I confess: I was scrolling through a social media account, even though I have better things to do. But I did not recognize the person in the photo or his name, and stranger still, we had no "friends" in common. 

Who is this guy? I thought as I tapped the name. There, I saw him showing off his Eagle Scout project, graduating from the University of Buffalo, and hiking with a young woman. It finally dawned on me that he was one of my neighbors across the way. I have spoken to him a few times, but our paths rarely cross.

I barely know him, but social media thinks I should. And hmmmm. How might it know that?

The Sound it Made

In all the wind the other evening, a tree fell in the woods, and loads of people heard it, mainly because it smashed the trash enclosure across the way and knocked the top off one of the light posts. It also blocked the road that loops around our complex, and since it was Sunday of a three-day weekend, we had little hope that it would be resolved any time soon.

But we were wrong. The landscaping company came out right away and set up emergency lights so that they could reopen the road. Then, they were back the next morning to finish the job and remove all the debris. The garbage enclosure still needs repair, but our trash removal folks set up all the bins neatly on the concrete pad, so the collection process is still functioning. 

Everything worked exactly as it was supposed to, and I wish I wasn't so surprised. I am grateful, though.

Mimesis

Every year, I look forward to seeing the Oscar-nominated short films (and most years, I write a thing or two about them, as well- check out the label at the end of this post to see the archive). At any rate, this was the weekend we went to those cinematic anthologies, and as in years past, we saw a reflection of the world's woes. But this year, the angst was rife throughout both the animated and the live-action films; they were ten short movies about worry and stress, and only a couple had clearly uplifting resolutions. The others were ambiguous at best, and I left the theaters feeling a little deflated.

I didn't think I needed a happy ending to enjoy a movie, but maybe these days? I do.

Hooo's There?

The crows in the woods woke me up at 2 am a couple nights ago. The next morning I remembered the ruckus as if it were a dream, but knowing it was real I searched the internet for reasons that might rouse an enormous murder of crows in the middle of the night. Most suggested the presence of a predator as the most likely scenario, but I couldn't picture it.

Later, I heard a piece on the radio about young birdwatchers and a guide showing some middle school kids around the woods. They were searching for owls. "Just look for a football shape in the trees," he advised, "something that looks a little different." Of course, by the end of the story, the group had spotted a barred owl.

That afternoon, while walking Lucy, I noticed how the sunlight silhouetted the trees so starkly against the blue winter sky. It was beautiful, and I remembered the radio piece from that morning. I had never seen an owl in the wild before, and I wondered if it was because I had never looked. Hundreds of trees were visible from where I stood, and I scanned their boughs eagerly. A football shape presented itself immediately on a branch not far away. Could it really be that easy? I thought, but squinting for closer inspection, I saw it was really just a fat squirrel.

The rest of the walk had the quality of beachcombing but with my neck craned up instead of down. There seemed to be just as many branches as bits of shell on a beach, and who knew what treasure was waiting to be spotted? 

I didn't see an owl, but when I got home, I did a little research and found that one telltale sign may be white spatters on the trunk below where the owl roosts. I grabbed my binoculars and stepped out on the deck to scan the trees in the woods. Wondering if it might have been an owl that disturbed the crows the night before, I hoped my chances were good. Across the parking lot, I spotted splashes of white about two-thirds of the way up a pine tree, but the foliage was too dense for me to get a good look, and my compact binoculars were frustratingly shaky.

The most sensible solution seemed to be to order a better pair of binoculars, which I did, along with a rig to help take photos with my phone. Those were delivered yesterday, and although the view through the binoculars is breathtakingly clear, I can't get them to work with my phone. And I still haven't seen an owl.

But I might! Because? Now I'm looking.

Oh Oh 1979

Regular readers may recall that, in my opinion, one of the best things about a Saturday morning road trip is listening to vintage versions of American Top 40 with Casey Kasem from the 1970s. So, my first question to my sister when she texted this morning and mentioned that she and her husband were on their way to visit my nephew at college for the day, was are you listening to AT40?

They were not, but I quickly dialed the show up on my phone to see what year was airing. "It's 1979," I coaxed, "they're playing Poco."

"What song?" she texted back. "Hold the Line?"

"That's Toto," I replied. 

She sent a crying laughing emoji and we signed off. 

Even so, I continued to listen and laughed out loud when "Hold the Line" came on three songs later.

Have You Heard?

I saw a passing reference on social media to "8D sound" and, curious, did a little research. Some sources claim that all those sound channels can expand your brain in miraculous ways, and so I had to get a listen for myself. It had been a while since I had used my AirPods, though, so first, I had to charge them. 

Then, when I fit them in my ears, I got a notification on my phone that they had been updated, and not only could I customize them to my ears, I could also take a hearing test and then use them as hearing aids if necessary. The 8D sound had to wait another five minutes while I did the screening. My results were heartening: 11 dBHL in the left and 13 in the right, which, according to the health app,  indicates little to no hearing loss. 

With that knowledge, it was on to the 8D audio! I found that there was a mixture of binaural beats, instrumental, and cover songs available, and tapping a track at random, I was immediately arrested by the sound. I actually felt surrounded by the music, and all the sounds were clear and balanced. It was remarkable.

 A little further investigation revealed that this technology isn't really all that new. The combination of equalization and panning techniques has been around in some form since the 1970s. In the last 5 years or so, though, its purported effect on people with neurodivergent brains has gotten much attention on social media, notably TikTok. That attention has encouraged artists to include more 8D production on their tracks.

As I browsed, I found playlists going several years back filled with familiar songs by artists I certainly knew, and listening to clips from those with my Air Pods, I recognized the grand production value. I guess I just never noticed before. 

I returned to my hearing test results and the accompanying chart. There, I could see that I have more trouble hearing higher sounds, which I know is common as you age. I also saw that my hearing is good, but not excellent, and that smarted a little. But what could I do? Nothing, but tap play and listen to a little more superb audio.