Archive | July, 2023

Technology Equals No Division

17 Jul

I had the most pleasant dinner with my husband and siblings in a restaurant in Montclair, NJ. The food, fish for all of us and ice cream and sorbet for dessert was delightful. We chatted and ate and visited and finally were ready to leave.

I have to admit that perhaps we asked for too much. We wanted to divide the check so that my husband and I paid half and my siblings each paid a quarter of the bill. The waitress said it was fine. And so we gave her three credit cards and waited. And waited. And waited. I should have known something was not working out.

Our bill for four people was $129.02. She came back with my credit card and a receipt for $86. She then was going to divide the $43.02 between my siblings. I was astounded that she did not even realize that this was not divided in HALF. It was two-thirds and a third, but definitely not half. $86 and $43 are NOT equal!

I went up with my receipts to speak to her while she was running the other cards. I politely said, “Wait. This is not right. $86 Is not half of $129.02.”

She was not convinced. “Are you sure? I have to get my manager,” she told me as she hustled away with a dazed look on her face.

A few minutes later the manager came. “How cam I help? ” He was pleasant.

“This is wrong. $86 is not half of $129.02. ” I told him. I was sure he would understand. But no such luck. “You asked for half on one card and the rest divided between those two!” He told me.

“Yes half. $86 is not half of $129.02. Half of $130 is $65. This is wrong.” I started doing the math, the division on a piece of paper. I showed him the math. But that was not what he needed. I offered to show him on my phone calculator. But no. He had a calculator that he pulled out.

He typed in 1292. No I said. You need a decimal. It is 129.02. He might have been anxious at this point. I noticed my siblings laughing and looking at me. I was getting exasperated. And I now was in teacher mode. I had taught at a high school. There is a definite teacher voice and look that can come over me.

In any case he correctly typed in 129.02 and divided by 2. 64.51 was the number it read. “You are right,” he admitted. “I am sorry. I will fix it. ”

I wanted to make it easy. I wanted him to credit my sister’s account and just put the rest on my card, the other $43.02. We would sort it out later. But that was too much as well. He ended up crediting my account and my sister’s. He ran a new receipt putting all the money on mine. I paid , added tip and we settled up.

My siblings laughed all the way to the car. They knew I was frustrated, they told me that the look of our mother came over me as I tried to explain the math to the manager. Mom taught fourth grade for 30 years.

“I just can’t understand how the waitress and the manager did not see that $86 was not half. $43 and $86 are not equal. Did they not understand half, divide by two,” I was still frustrated.

I was concerned that they did not believe my division that I did on paper. They would only believe a calculator. I felt like I was in a science fiction novel that I had read years ago where a boy who could do math in his head was considered a genius because everyone else HAD to use a calculator!

I am worried Technology is destroying the ability to calculate math in our brains.

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Smart Phones Are Getting Just A Little Too Spooky For Me

15 Jul

High tech keeps changing.  To me becoming more and more intrusive into our lives.  Personally, I have never had allowed an Alexa in my home.  And although we have a smart doorbell with surveillance cameras, all of our cameras are outside.  There is nothing watching inside. To me that would be an invasion of privacy.  We now know that sometimes the information that these devices listen to is saved.  YUCK.

I do know that our smart phones can track us and know where we are. That does not bother me because I turned tracking off in my phone except when using certain apps. I even have my Siri turned off. But now my opinion about smart phones is changing.  These devices know more than what we think! 

My husband purchased a new car that arrived in late December. His new all electric Chevy Bolt replaces the Chevy Volt, hybrid plug-in, he drove for 11 years.  His new car does not have a separate navigation system, instead it uses his IPhone for the guidance. To me this has become an eye-opening experience.

The first time I knew something different with the navigation is when I got into the car to go to a friend’s home.  We go there once a week because I take a yoga class my friend teaches, while our husbands visit. But it was still surprising when my husband pointed out the map on the car’s screen.  The map popped up with a route already highlighted to their home.

“Wow! Look at that,” my husband announced. “The car knows where we are going!”  I was spooked.  How would the car know! My husband edited his remarks.  Well, it is my phone that knows because we go there once a week.  He obviously has tracking turned on for his phone.

I understand the concept of continuous tracking.  But still having the route already programed on the car’s navigation made my hair rise.

“What if you don’t plan to go there today?  Then what do you do,” I asked.  “Will the car let you change your destination?  Or is the car and your phone in charge.”

We both laughed.  But I was serious. Would the car let him change the destination.  I don’t know because he did not try.

On another day, when I went with him to our weekly Weight Watchers meeting, there it was: the route to Weight Watchers was highlighted.  Again, no big deal according to my husband.  His phone knew he went there weekly.   It still sent a little shiver through me.  I do not want my phone to know where I go each day! I like having my own personal space that even my phone should not register.

However, now I am not so sure that this is even a joke or ok or even acceptable because of what happened this week.  My husband and I made a condolence call/shiva visit to the home of someone we both really liked and care about.  We had never been to his home before.  After typing in the address, the navigation gave us great directions to his home.  We paid our respects. Stayed for the service and then got back into the car to head home.

As I explained we have never been to that house before and rarely go to that side of town.  Thus what happened next was just a little too spooky for me.  

As we turned on to the main road that would take us the six miles to our home, the navigation system changed.  Instead of the directions to take us home, it was now taking us to Cold Stone Creamery, my husband’s favorite ice cream store.  The only problem was it wasn’t taking us to the Cold Stone Creamery near our home.  No!  It is directing us to a Cold Stone Creamery we had never been to before, but it was very close to where we were driving.

My husband was amazed.  “Look at that!  It wants us to go for an ice cream My phone knows I am upset and wants to cheer me up! There is a Cold Stone Creamery here!”

Wait. That is not okay.  We did not type in Cold Stone Creamery.  We did not ask Siri.  We did not mention it.  We were just heading home.  And on its own volition, my husband’s phone put in a route to an ice cream store.

JUST WOW!

“So if the phone GPS wanted you to drive into a lake, would you do it?” was the thought that came into my mind.” But I did not say it.  What I did say is, “Let’s go home. We really do not need ice cream.” (I was trying to keep to our WW plan.)

I was wrong.  The thought was now in my husband’s mind.  He needed ice cream.  It would cheer him up after a sad moment paying his respects to the widow and family.  We followed the navigation system and had a delicious treat before the car’s navigation posted the directions home.

I have been thinking about this experience for several days now, trying to understand what happened.  I think I do now.  My husband does go to Cold Stone Creamery at two other locations. I guess his phone would be aware of that.  The Cold Stone Creamery his phone directed us to is right next door to the Apple Store, a store we have visited twice in the last year.  Could that be why the phone changed the navigation?  But then wouldn’t have wanted the Apple Store? Or perhaps my husband is eating more ice cream than I am aware of? 

It doesn’t matter.  I am still stunned into disbelief that after a shiva call the car and phone directed my husband to get ice cream, the one thing that would really cheer him up after a sad moment.  Phones know us more than we are aware, and that is very spooky.  A bit too Spooky for me.

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The Mystery of Marjorie: Missed Opportunity Realized a Bit Too Late

13 Jul

Sometimes serendipity does not go the way you want it to go!

Over 20 years ago, a woman called our home and left a message.  My husband’s father had passed away, and the obituary mentioned his mother’s name as well.  She had died 20 years before at the young age of 59 from cancer.  The caller said that she had grown up with my mother-in-law in Leavenworth, Kansas, and really wanted to speak to my husband about his Mom.

My father-in- law died on September 1, 2001.  Ten days later was 9/11.  The message got deleted and forgotten for quite a while.  Life seemed so bizarre in the days and months following the terrorist attack. With most of my family in the New York City area, I was suffering with the rest of the country in a state of shock.  My father-in-law’s death faded into the background. But we were feeling the emotions of that loss as well as the loss of security we all felt in the USA.

Sometime after the initial phone call, I remembered the call.  I told my husband that someone named Marjorie had called about his Mom.  I no longer had the phone number or the message.  But I knew that somewhere in our Kansas City Jewish community this person existed.  And then it faded away again. But every once in a while, if I met an older woman named Marjorie I would ask if she grew up in Leavenworth.

A month ago a friend’s mother passed away.  Although I am friends with this woman, I did not know her mother.  I never met her. I never spoke to her.  But I wish I did because in her obituary, I found out her name was Marjorie and that she grew up in Leavenworth, Kansas.  Furthermore, she and my mother-in-law were born just six weeks apart.  It had to be the missing Marjorie who had called us so many years before.  She had lived to the amazing age of 97.  Almost 40 years longer than my mother-in-law.

I could not go to the shiva or funeral, but I emailed my friend and apology and told her the story of my mother-in-law and this woman who I now believed was her mother. She immediately wrote back that she had a box of memorabilia from her Mom and that she would look through it.  I know it gave her something to do, an escape from the funeral activities.  It was a search for answers.  Was her Mom my mother-in-law’s friend?

The answers came quickly. My friend emailed me a page from the Leavenworth High School yearbook.  They were in the same grade.  Then articles from local newspapers showing both of their names.  There was not much we could do then, as I was leaving town. 

I told her that I would take her to lunch when I came back because I could not go to shiva.  And she agreed to bring some of the papers.  What a lunch.  I saw my mother in law’s high school graduation program.  I saw the program from her confirmation at the Leavenworth synagogue.  Four girls were confirmed together.  My mother-in-law, my friend’s mother and her sister, as well as one other girl.   My friend told me that somewhere she has a photo from the confirmation.  I cannot wait to see it. She was excited as well because now she can put a name on each of the girls.

I found out that sometimes my mother-in-law used a different spelling for her name.  Sometimes it was Leona May, which is what we all believed was the spelling.  And sometimes it was Leona Mae.  Did she use that when she wanted to be a bit more fancy?  Who knows.  But I found it endearing.  Legally it was Leona May.

I found out in 1993 the class held their 50 high school reunion.  Of course, she was not there since she had died in 1984.  But her sister, Barbara, submitted a biography about what she did after high school, her family and of her death from cancer.  It was somewhat emotional to see this message from Barbara.

I so wish I had found Marjorie years ago.  I wish we could have gone through her box of memories together with her daughters and my husband.  But I am still glad I have finally found out who she was in the community.  Also that my friend and I can enjoy this link between our families.