Marlene McKay

For all of the television commercials that I see on television about how great Verizon Wireless is, and for all of our neighbors insisting that Verizon is the company with the best cell phone reception is around here, I have to say that I’m quite disappointed in the dead zone problems that I have with my Verizon cell phone.  I cannot use my Verizon cell phone in my house at all – the entire house is a dead zone.  And whenever I drive from the house to “town” to run errands, the vast majority of the trip to “town” is a dead zone – even if I pull off the road and stand on top of my car.  So, I have to say that I am quite disappointed in the Verizon cell phone service.

How did you celebrate the new year? I wanted to stay up, and my hubby and I even broke open a bottle of champagne! We each drank two glasses (we sipped) and turned on the Dick Clark celebratory television show. I’m sorry to say that we both fell asleep (me on the sofa, him in his recliner) around eleven pm and woke up about around one am. Oh well, we missed it! But you know what, the new year is here just the same. Hopefully this is not the LAST new year our civilization watches!

I’ve been hearing and reading more cases of families giving up their hard-wired landline in their homes in favor of simply using cell phones.  I can understand the logic, the cell phones are small and they carry them with them at all times, the landline phone is usually larger and more cumbersome.  Yet I question the wisdom of this strategy.  I like having a landline phone, one that is completely hardwired, and corded.  Yes, we have cordless phones, but if and when the electricity goes out (and it DOES go out!) and the cell phones are useless because our house is a dead zone, we depend on the hardwired, corded landline to call the electric company to report the power outage!  And we use it to keep in touch with friends and family during the power outage!  In 1998 we had a huge ice storm that knocked the electricity out for nineteen days, but we had the telephone service every minute!  We could not have maintained cell phones in that case because we could not have kept them charged!

So, in OUR house, anyway, I expect the landline is here to stay.  What about you?

My sister and I started taking clogging classes a few weeks ago, and let me tell you this; it is hard work! Yes, it is a lot of fun, too, but we certainly work up a sweat! And I do NOT like to sweat! So I have to come up with a plan of action for that one. I’ve been wearing long pants to class, and I think perhaps if I change into yoga shorts and a sleeveless shirt that I should be more comfortable. I am enjoying the comraderie with my sister in the class, and we’ve been inviting one of my sister-in-laws to join the class too. I hope she does; that would be such fun!

The past couple of days we’ve been getting gift boxes in the mail from my hubby’s relatives. Seems as if they all decided to buy fruit from Harry & David this year! We love their pears, so we are glad to get the gifts. One of the boxes arrived with no message as to who the gift is from, it just said in the message part for my son to keep his hands off of the fruit! I am thinking it is from my sister-in-law, but I’m not sure of that.

Today we got another box, this time from my hubby’s aunt – it had pears and candies and nuts and smoked salmon and baklava and all kinds of great goodies in it! That box cost a bundle, I am sure! The last time I remember eating smoked salmon was right around 1999, and I really enjoyed it, so I’m sure I’ll enjoy that treat, assuming that my hubby doesn’t eat it all before I get any of it!