Notes from Perry Street and a Little Zen

Every now and then I step back and take stock of, well, what’s going on. It has not been a pretty few months.

Russia has restarted bombing what are obviously civilian apartments, killing children without a thought. Why ordinary Russians have not stormed Putin’s lair is beyond me. There is another civil war in Africa. I am not aware of a time in my life when there wasn’t a war somewhere in Africa.

And then we have France. The country is in the midst of major rioting from one end to the other. By rioting I mean water cannons, batons, riot gear, shots fired, hundreds of police and rioters injured.

And why have the French taken to the trenches, er streets? The government had the audacity to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

We are not alone here in the old U.S.A. We seem to be on a shooting spree.

A child is shot because her ball bounced into her neighbor’s yard. A black teenager was killed when he knocked on the wrong door. Ask your neighbor to tone down firing off his AK-47 in the front yard? That’s a shooting that led to the execution-style killing of five family members.

Two teenagers - cheerleaders no less - were shot when they got into the wrong car. Their assailant followed them to their car and shot them. When they start shooting the cheerleaders … A former president has been indicted on more than 30 counts relating to using campaign funds to cover up an affair with a porn star. I never thought I would write a sentence like that. The former vice president just testified before an investigative panel regarding the aforementioned former president’s role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots to determine whether the former president tried to overthrow the elections.

Everyone, that being government types, is raising hell about the Chinese-owned app Tik-Tok, saying our Eastern friends are using the information gleaned to spy on Americans.

News flash to the few who don’t get it yet. Our phones are spying on us. (Everyone nod their heads please). Don’t believe me? Start talking about anything near your phone. I promise whatever you were talking about will show up in your next Internet search.

A few other things on my mind …

How to leave your phone number. One does not leave a long message and then say “my number is: 9185551212.” I got, maybe, the first two numbers. I will now have to replay your looooong message multiple times to get your number. Try this: “my number is 918 … 555 … 1212. Those … are pauses if you were wondering.

Speaking of phones, when someone tries to leave you a message and you get the nice recording saying “the mailbox is full … goodbye,” or “the mailbox has not been set up, goodbye,” yeah, people will not want to do business with you.

And speaking of business, what is up with this new trend of just not showing up for a scheduled meeting? By scheduled, I’m talking about accepting calendar invites, text reminders, etc., and then playing ghost. How do these people stay in business?

Final thoughts.

At Easter, when we are supposed to be celebrating Jesus’ resurrection, many families have lamb. Probably just as many have ham. Jesus was Jewish.

Last two: there is an animal called the East Asian Raccoon Dog and you are not using your manual can opener correctly - do the Google.