Not necessarily in order of the day. For instance, just now, which is 8:30 PM Monday night, I am beginning to feel like the worst doggy mom in the world again. Ollie, dear little broken guy that he is, practically perfect in every way but for the fear he gained from his early abuse, has to be tranquilized before visiting the vet. Also muzzled right before the vet comes in the exam room, but. I Have To Slip My Little Doggy Mickeys! He gets one at night, one with breakfast on appointment day, and one an hour before the appointment, along with a couple of Solliquin, which are supplements with calming homeopathic calming substances. He loves those. Not so much the tranqs because he has no idea what’s happening to him or why. Tonight, though, he’s dealing with it better than a couple of weeks ago, which was his first time. He has to go in tomorrow for a follow-up heartworm test because we switched him from one flea protection to another that also protects from various other bugs that can bite him and cause him illness. At least he’s getting to where he doesn’t mind riding in the car as much as he used to! Of course, he’ll be tranquilized, so there’s that. There’s a kinda funny King Clarence YouTube about getting slipped mickeys; they do it like one of those TV lawyer ads. Pretty comical. Have not shown that to Ollie.

Moving on; a thing I like to do is buy the raw organic nuts and cashews off the ugly produce shelf; these are excellent products that are fine, but cheap because they need to be used quickly. Frequently, I’ll split a bag with the birds and squirrels; I’ll chop and freeze some for our use, and chop the rest to scatter outside. Earlier today, I decided to chop some cashews to take outside for birds and squirrels. The chopper is one of those “armstrong” choppers (photo below); you put your stuff in the cup, put the chopper over it, and start pumping the handle, which is on a spring. I remember a spokesperson ad for the “Slap Chop”, if anyone else does; my chopper is like that, but it’s a Zyliss. Not advertising. My chopper is 20 years old, the blades are beginning to dull, but I keep thinking that as long as I do things by hand instead of electricity, things in the world will be better. Well, today I get the chopper down, and the cup for the stuff, which is also the storage base of the chopper, has the ooky sticky feel that old plastics get when the PVCs or PFCs or whatever start leaching out. sigh. It wasn’t on the inside of the cup; only the outside, so I trashed the cup, and used a solid bowl to chop after I washed the chopper to make sure. Don’t want to mess up the birds’s systems with plastic chemicals!

When things like this happen, the words “planned obsolescence” always come into my mind. These days many, including myself, might say “enshittification,” though I think it’s reasonable that a 20 year old chopper cup might be worn out enough to leach. But still. Anyway, the words “planned obsolescence” always bring Jimmy Carter to mind. Why, you might ask?

Or maybe you didn’t, but here’s why. I was not of voting age when he was elected. His speaking accent annoyed me a great deal. I liked his ideas, definitely didn’t want Ford, was relieved when Carter won and wished him well, but that accent made my teeth hurt. So, of course, when the time for his initial SOTU arrived, what did my Speech & Forensics instructor instruct us, but to listen to that SOTU, and judge it using the very guidelines judges would use on us later in tournaments. We were to pay close attention to everything, but our work was to judge the speech without factual or political consideration, only his delivery skill.

Now, my recollection is he did fine; aside from his accent, which was not a judgeable item, he spoke of “planned obsolescence” a great deal. Enough that it became a bit redundant as to the speech itself, though not to his actual points. Of course, I had to mark that. However, that term stayed with me, and I learned from that, about designing and manufacturing, sales, consumerism, etc., etc. And that term comes to me when something fails after some use, and I think of Jimmy Carter, which reminds me to be all around nicer.

Speaking of this: do you think Jimmy Carter would use the term “enshittification” these days (not in an SOTU, of course!)? Let me know in the comments. I hope you enjoyed my Monday mind’s wanderings!