Going the Distance

           Not all of you remember getting a “long distance” phone call. It ended in the late 1990s, but as a child I recall the way my mother would announce it to the family.

          “Hurry—it’s long distance!” she would shout.  This rallied the troops and told us that someone was paying a dollar a minute to reach us from some faraway land (like the next state-- never somewhere exciting, like Ethiopia or Thailand). And a dollar then was worth almost nine dollars today. We dropped everything we were doing and rushed to the kitchen phone with the long cord.

          It could be tragic news, thrilling news, or something REALLY IMPORTANT.  But it meant you watched the clock and spoke quickly, so as not to bankrupt the caller. It also meant that you, personally, were important enough to call long distance.

          We held our breath as our hearts pounded. Quietly, we watched our mother receive the news and then relay it to us. She was the watchman on the tower, dispensing announcements. There was no speaker phone then. Nervously, we’d glance at one another to share the alarm and apprehension in our eyes.

          There was something unifying about phones then, unlike the cell phones today, which isolate and divide us. In those days, the phone worked for us. Today, the phone is in control, owns our attention, and keeps us from close relationships.

          In those days, we could pursue life, nature, hobbies, and relationships without interruption. We’d come home to an answering machine, none the worse for having missed a call.  Our life was ours, and the phone knew its place.

          Boy, I miss those days.

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A Baaaad Surprise

           We all have wallpaper on the home screens of our phones, right?

          But we can’t always see our carefully selected picture, because of all the icons we add. Some people display family moments, artwork, or their latest crush.

          I picked a painting of Jesus, coming to rescue a lost lamb: 

           I like this because we’re all that lost lamb, and also because it’s the only painting I’ve seen of Jesus actually running. Needless to say, I love it. And, even though some icons block part of it, I can tell what it is, and it lifts my spirits.

          But do you think I could keep it just as it is?  Of course not. St. Bob chose to buy an electric Tesla, which requires you to have an icon for it on your phone. Your phone is your key, by the way.

           We added the icon to the bottom of my home screen list, and
whaddayaknow… it is perfectly positioned to make my poor little lamb look like it has buck teeth. A whole row of them:

           I know, I know: Pretty baaaaad.

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DASHED DREAMS

             This is the season when we see the most butterflies, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.  I’ve always loved them and even bought a butterfly hatching kit so I could contribute to Monarch numbers. Okay, that didn't work out as no Monarchs came to lay eggs there, but I’ve also planted native milkweed, a purple Butterfly Bush, and tons of flowers butterflies love.

            So, it was no surprise when St. Bob—wait, just Bob this time—pointed to one of them as it dipped and fluttered through the yard. Up and down, as if riding on bubble of air, it would swerve one way and then another.

            “Butterflies always fly like they’re drunk,” he said.

            And I watched as it staggered through the air, exactly as if it had been drinking.

            Is this what nectar does to them?  Has anyone even checked? Maybe this is why they’re so crazy about my zinnias. Maybe there’s even a secret group called Caterpillars Against Drunk Flying.  We don’t know, do we?

            I thought about my childhood, chasing butterflies and laughing into the wind. They were probably drunk, too. I mean, they flew like it.

            I just never realized it until Bob decided to spoil my butterfly watching for the rest of my life. Now I’ll see them bobbing about and worry that they’re going to hit a tree.

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What If There Was No Zero?

          Did you know that there is no Roman numeral for zero?  Zero wasn’t even considered until it was put forward by Western mathematics.

          Well, I, for one, was aghast. How could they not have zero? What did they call it when they ran out of cookies? Or money?  Did they just stop speaking and writing?

          So, I looked it up, and I must tell you, the answer was not very satisfying. Experts say their additive system was for the business of pricing and trading goods. What—are you telling me no one ever got cheated and was down to zero? Or had zero goods left to sell?

How could you even have a decimal system, algebra, or calculus? How could scientists measure anything? How could computer science even have been invented?

          Guess when else you get zero answers? When you search “common uses of zero.”  You get a list of grammar sites that describe the Zero Article in English. These are times when we don’t use A, An, or The.  And they are super obvious, not worth having a huge explanation. (We don’t use them when we say college, winter, today, midnight, and probably hundreds of other times we omit articles.)

          So, not only was the poor little zero ignored by the Romans, but by today’s entire computer system as well.     

          And, for this, I give both of them a big, fat ZERO.

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