Geography: The Subject That Fell Off The U.S. Curriculum

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published September 15, 2025]  ©2025

A while back, I hired an amiable local kid to help me move some boxes, explaining that my husband was in Saudi Arabia.

My teen helper’s brow puckered for a moment before he inquired, “Is that near Fresno?”

My husband and I remember geography as a regular part of our grade school education.  We had to fill in blank maps of the United States with the state names, and to be able to recite all the state capitals.  World geography figured in pretty predominantly as well, especially as part of the required social studies segment, Current Events.  It seemed pertinent to know where those Current Events were actually occurring. 

At some point, it seems that geography ceased to be taught in the U.S,  When Olof and I were relocated by his company to Stockholm for two years, I stopped by a La Jolla shipping office and queried the sweet young thing at the counter about shipping rates to Sweden.

“Is that like a country?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “it’s very much like a country.” 

American’s lack of geographical knowledge in general, and Sweden’s location in particular, became apparent to us over and over in our Scandinavian sojourn.   At a last-minute medical appointment before leaving for Stockholm, the physician’s assistant departed the room with a cheery, “Well, enjoy the Alps!”

Meanwhile, a younger friend asked me to bring her back a box of “those great chocolates.”  Even when I suggested she might be confusing Sweden with Switzerland, it was followed by a look of, “There’s a difference?” And then: “So you’ll bring the chocolates?” 

The Swedes are only too ruefully aware of this tendency of Americans to confuse Sweden with Switzerland.  In fact, when we were living there, there was an entire humorous billboard campaign with slogans translating to “Do you see the world as the world sees you?” showing Sweden on a map where Switzerland is actually located.  Other billboards facetiously showed polar bears roaming the streets of Stockholm. 

Even though geography seems to have dropped off American curricula, we were always impressed at how well-versed Europeans were on world geography.  I remember sitting with several American friends in a Stockholm café having fika (a coffee tradition beloved by the Swedes).  We were trying to remember the capital of Michigan which somehow was related to our conversation.  A Swedish guy at the next table overheard our conversation and supplied, “Lansing.” 

There must have been a least some minimal geography instruction in more recent times as my older son remembers being taught the mnemonic Not So Fast to help remember the order of Norway, Sweden and Finland on a map. Now geography seems to be Not So Much.

By pure luck, my younger son was blessed with two years of concentrated geography courtesy of a third and fourth grade teacher who began each day with a student giving a three-minute presentation, including maps, of a city, country, or region of their choosing anywhere in the world.  By his second year with this teacher, Henry, then nine, struggled to find an area that hadn’t been done before. 

“How about Abu Dhabi?” I said, since Olof had just been there.

“Mom,” said Henry with barely disguised annoyance, “Abu Dhabi has been done THREE TIMES.”

Inspired by this teacher, I had acquired a Map of the World shower curtain for the kids’ bathroom.  They might never look at a globe but they had to take a bath.

Several years later, Henry and I were watching a quiz show and the clue was “island nation in the Indian Ocean beginning with “M”.  Mom had to ponder that, but without missing a beat, Henry said, “Madagascar, Mauritius, or Maldives.”  Adding, “Malta is in the Mediterranean.” 

“You actually remember that from fourth grade?”  I said.

“Yeah,” he said, “but I mostly remember that from yesterday from the shower curtain.” 

We are now on at least the 10^th successor of that first one.  As an atlas, it tends to run at least a few years behind but the manufacturer has gradually updated it:  Bombay has morphed into Mumbai, and all the “stans” are duly indicated.  We have long embraced Geography Through Bathing.

At one point, a decorator who was doing a faux finish wall treatment of the bathroom for me grumbled that the curtain was unforgivably tacky and why had I bothered to upgrade the bathroom if I were going to keep it? 

We’re keeping it because at my British nephew’s wedding to a young lady from an American southwestern state, the groom’s exasperated uncle ditched his prepared toast for a lecture on “Where is England?” and “What is the U.K.?” to a bewildered-looking group of the bride’s guests. In his week in this country prior to the wedding, the uncle had fielded such questions, “Is England near Thailand?” (because they both end in “land.”)  And “is England different from New England?” 

But getting back to the kid who asked about Arabia’s proximity to Fresno:  

“Actually,” I said, “it’s closer to Omaha.”

This shower curtain has taught a lot of geography to my kids

This Swedish billboard campaign illustrated how confused foreigners are about Sweden's location

 

 

What Should Legally Be Allowed On A Pizza

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published September 8, 2025] 2025

I'm pondering how it is even possible that in sixteen years and 570 columns, I've never written an entire one about pizza. More specifically, what should legally be allowed on top of one.

I'm from the Northeast where people actually know how to make pizza. You'd think that given how many easterners have migrated west in search of better weather that they would have brought pizza-making skills with them. But this is not true.

It's always an issue every Christmas when the extended family, including my daughter-in-law's Connecticut parents, congregate at my younger son's home in L.A. for the holidays. In combining traditions of both families, the Christmas Eve menu is pizza, which is how my daughter-in-law's family always did it.

I am sure Los Angeles has actual pizza. But the stuff that's delivered - some eight boxes - is nothing I would recognize. My daughter-in-law's mother and I always peek into the boxes hoping in vain that this year something with red sauce and nitrates will appear. But it never does. We both shake our heads and mutter, "Surely they have real pizza in this town?"

What does show up are pizzas with white sauces and vegetables that in my view should be legally enjoined from topping a pizza. These include broccoli (especially), kale, and large portobello mushrooms. I would almost (please note I said almost ) eat a ham and pineapple pizza than these.

I've never quite understood the appeal of a ham and pineapple pizza yet there are obviously persons who eat them. I worry about these people.

Of course, one could always remove the broccoli and kale and portobello mushrooms from the top but we fear that underneath is simply a gluten-free crust. Or god forbid, cauliflower. The desecration of pizza seems to have no limits.

Now, in full disclosure, I should mention that one of my husband Olof's and my many compatibilities is our fondness for anchovy pizza. It is becoming harder and harder to find at pizzerias, likely pushed out by all those cauliflower-crusted broccoli abominations.

People will not let you have anchovies on just your side of a pizza, insisting it contaminates theirs. And in truth, they are correct. So if you want an anchovy pizza, you have to marry someone who also likes it. It's its own love language. 

Every year on our June wedding anniversary, we order an anchovy pizza to be delivered to our front yard, where we sit and enjoy the sunset and excessive sodium intake. At our age, we're not really supposed to ingest an entire years salt allotment in one sitting. But we do.

Our kids rudely refer to our love of an anchovy pie as a "bait"  pizza. But then, they're the kind of people who put kale on theirs. Both of them. I sometimes lie awake at night wondering where I went wrong. Well, other than raising them in California.

When I was growing up on the east coast, anchovies were a not-uncommon ingredient in restaurant food, especially Italian. Their popularity does not seem to have survived the crossing of the Mississippi.

When you order a Caesar salad here, the anchovies are optional. Um, excuse me, but they are NOT optional. It's what makes it a Caesar salad. When the waitress asks if you want anchovies, she is shocked if you say yes. She asks you a second time because she has already written no on her order pad.

I should also mention that when we lived in Sweden, we experienced a cultural variation of fish pizza that surprised even us. We ordered a crayfish pizza one night and got a pizza with an actual entire crayfish, beady eyes and all, on top of it. We like to think it was already dead.

It is a testament to how much pizza has evolved (some would say devolved) that a few years ago, one of the airlines that we use notified both my husband Olof and me that we would have to strengthen our passwords on our mileage accounts and select new security questions.

Olof and I hate security questions. For virtually all of our accounts financial, travel, etc. we try to have security questions that we would both know the answer to. City where we were married (La Jolla) is always a good choice, although this is actually both of our second marriages so even that one has potential for confusion. We always go for Olof s first pet. City where you were born has at least a 50% chance of being correct. We never use grandmother s maiden name since neither of us can remember our own much less the other person's.

But with this new system, the airline offered fifteen security questions of which we were required to pick five and select answers from a pull-down menu. It goes without saying that if either of us, but especially Olof, has to prove identity to this airline with the answer to any of these questions, he'd have to take the bus back from Chicago.

There was not one single question of the fifteen that we would both know the answer to. That is because the airline outsourced this project to pod people from a parallel galaxy who have not visited Earth in any recent time-space continuum.

To be accurate, there WAS one question that I knew we'd both know the answer to without a single doubt: What is your favorite pizza topping? Woo-hoo! Anchovies! But were anchovies one of the options? Nope! A Middle-Eastern spice called Za'atar was an option, as was mashed potatoes. On a pizza? Even something called "giardiniera"  which sounds like an intestinal disease you get from camping. But no anchovies.

But back to Christmas. Fortunately Christmas Eve dinner ends with another tradition from my daughter-in-law's family: sinfully chocolatey brownies oozing with homemade hot fudge and topped with peppermint ice cream. I've never taken heroin but this is how I'm guessing heroin makes people feel. Your endorphins are in overdrive. And you forget all about that nasty pizza that you have been slowly feeding to Teddy and Tizzy (the dogs). They seem to like it, but normally all they get is kibble. I rest my case.

Crayfish pizza in Stockholm

 

 

Unleashing Your Kids On The World With Basic Skills

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published September 1, 2025] ©2025

Lots of La Jolla’s recent grads will be starting college soon.  I remember this era well, and scrambling to educate my sons on some of the basic life skills that I was negligent in teaching them.  Like laundry, for example.

Fortunately, in the years since they graduated, more and more high schools have instituted courses on Basic Life Skills for seniors before they are unleashed onto the world.  If I were to compile a curriculum, here’s some topics I’d be sure to include:

(1) Basic credit card math. Absolutely top topic.  Let’s say you rack up $1,000 in charges on your 15% annual interest credit card buying In-N-Out Burgers and concert tickets before your parents confiscate the card. If you make only a minimum monthly payment of $15 until it’s paid off, how much would you end up paying back?  (Answer: about $2,200. And it would take you at least five years.)  

(2) Student loan debt. Borrowing $100,000 doesn’t mean you’re going to (only) pay back $100,000.  Depending on the interest rate and payment schedule, it may outlive you. 

(3) Apartment leases: How to read them. Important word here: read. Yes, you really need to (read it). Including the fine print. Especially the fine print. 

(4) Laundry skills 101. Your mom always did your laundry, so how hard can it be? Separating lights from darks isn’t just a plot by washing machine manufacturers to make you run more loads. Clothes have something called “labels” in them recommending washing - and drying - temperatures. If you do not wish your favorite shirt to be reduced to munchkin size, pay attention. Also, when they say “dry clean only,” they really mean it.

(5) Laundry skills 210: Dryers. If you have access to one that isn’t in a laundromat there is something called a “lint filter” that needs to be regularly cleaned. The alternative is burning down the house. Easier just to clean the lint filter.

(6) Roommate math: Basic. You and three friends decide to get an apartment together that costs $3,000 a month to get out from under the thumbs of your annoying parents. (Free-dom! Free-dom!) What is your share of the rent when (a) one of them loses his job at Burger King and can’t pay (b) another one decides it’s cheaper to live at home despite the annoying parents, and (c) they’re both, like, “Sorry, dude”?

(7) Roommate math: Advanced. Developing the skills to avoid deadbeat roommates: priceless.

(8) Survey of world religions. There are lots of different religious beliefs in the world, and a lot of sincere people practicing them. Misinformation about them leads to a lot of confusion. Also wars.

(9) Internet Education. Just because you read it on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true. In fact, there is a high likelihood it is NOT true. Apply a critical filter to everything you read. (Yes, you actually have one even if you’ve never used it.) Do NOT forward anything that says “Send this to everyone you know!”

(10) Scam avoidance. It’s not just old people who fall for these. That “free” ringtone you signed up for?  It’s now a hefty (and hidden) fee on your phone bill. On-line ads for cheap iPhones or luxury goods? Sorry kids, if it sounds too good to be true, it really is. Always.

(11) Payday Loans (a.k.a. “Selling your soul to the devil.”). Do not EVER EVER EVER set foot into these places. They are just a truly bad deal.   See “usurious.”

(12) Tax Returns. The federal EZ form is really that. You can do it. Yes, you really can! It’s one page!  It’s tempting to go to one of those places that will do it for you and even advance you your refund, but be assured that they’re going to take a hefty chunk of your refund in the process.

 (13) Automobile purchasing: Caveat Emptor. That’s Latin for “Do not believe a word they say,” (technically “buyer beware”), especially if it is a used car. No, it didn’t really belong to a little old lady who only drove it to church.

(14) Dishwashers. You should be so lucky to have one but they come pretty standard in rental apartments these days. Tempted to economize by using liquid dishwashing soap instead of the stuff made for dishwashers? Seriously bad idea. Ask my younger son.  Everybody has to do it once but be prepared to find yourself standing in your kitchen knee deep in bubbles.

(15) Survival cooking skills. It’s really expensive to eat out for every meal, even fast-food meals. It’s even more expensive to get that food delivered by the now-ubiquitous food delivery services.  When I was in graduate school, we had something called “Po’ Boy Tomato Soup.” (Recipe: pour hot tap water over the contents of six McDonald’s ketchup packets. Stir.  And yes it’s as gross as it sounds.) Learning to make five basic meals that do not involve Top Ramen noodles isn’t hard. Stay on the outside aisles of the supermarket when you shop and you’ll be fine.

And now…congratulations! Let the next chapter of your life begin!

 

 

Suffering From Protest Fatigue

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published August 18, 2025] 2025

OK, I admit it. I m suffering from protest fatigue. How is it possible that there are so many things to protest on every level these days, from local to national to international?

But let's start with local. I'm a lifelong Democrat and I voted for these idiots folks. Frankly, I expected better. I've covered my political leanings in this column before so I will just mention that I am married to a lifelong Republican, although we have both voted across party lines on many occasions. Olof still hopes that the Republican Party will return to what he refers to as its former glory. And I can never help querying, "Did it actually have any?" There s a lot of spirited debate in our household.

Ironically, Olof and I have never been more politically aligned than in recent years. One of the (many) reasons is that we're both totally fed up with the parties that we have supported all of our lives.

Locally, the Democratic leadership, in my view, seems to be making one bad decision after another. Nationally, they've completely evaporated.

The Republicans? When even my Republican husband wants to vote every last one of the Republican incumbents out of office, they should be concerned. He has always been a staunch defender of civil liberties, and is appalled on every level. As a former Air Force pilot, the idea that the military would be inflicted upon the citizenry in any but the most dire circumstances is anathema to him.

Are we turning into irascible curmudgeons? Probably. But we don't seem to be alone. Our national leadership seems to have become a culture of cruelty and hate, and the local one just plain non-sensical 

I will be the first to say that our local leadership isn't responsible for all the ills that seem to be befalling this city. But I did have expectations that they would be working hard to make sure that the citizenry didn t have to fight them. Why are we having to protest a 23-story utterly-useless building on Turquoise Street that has, in my view, not a single redeeming feature, is blatantly in violation of 1972's Proposition D 30-foot height limit, and will bankrupt all the small heavily-utilized neighborhood businesses on that street. 139 market rate apartments/hotel rooms do not provide any "affordable housing."

Ditto the Chalcifica project in Pacific Beach which will include 136 ADU s (Accessory Dwelling Units) of 450 square feet each which will be marketed at $3,000 a month each. Not affordable. Livable only by munchkins. Woefully lacking in parking. And there is nothing "accessory"  about this. It's an apartment building. How was this project ever approved? Once again, why is the citizenry having to fight this idiocy?

Now let's talk parking. I've written about this before, but I wish that every single person on the City Council and their families were required to use only public transit for an entire month. That means going to work, getting the kids to school and sport practices, making medical appointments on time etc. etc. I m a huge fan of public transit (we never had a car when we lived in Sweden) but this city isn t set up for it. Not requiring parking on new builds is ridiculous. Taking out parking to put in bike lanes that are extremely underutilized was senseless. Proposing expensive paid parking in Balboa Park removes a long-cherished free outing for local families. 

Meanwhile, the new "daylighting"  law that went into effect January 1 prohibits parking within twenty feet of an intersection with the aim of boosting visibility for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. This applies even if the curb is not marked or in the absence of No Parking signs. The tickets are a whopping $117. The law defacto removed hundreds of parking places in hard-to-park areas. Only 400 of the city's affected 16,000 intersections have had the curbs painted red. Which is how the city managed to issue 6,133 tickets and generate over $660,000 in revenue just between March 1 (when the new law became enforced) and the end of May. The city, of course, is gleefully happy at this fortuitous windfall which is a testament to how truly unclear the law is and how difficult it is on many blocks to estimate the exact twenty feet. Meanwhile some 6,133 people returned to their cars from an eight-hour work shift or a nice lunch to find themselves $117 poorer.

I recently watched the meter guy ticket all four vehicles parked closest to the intersection at the other end of my block, an area where parking is at a premium for both residents and nearby local businesses. The city made $468 in about ten minutes.

This spring, the city decided to assess 226,000 single family home owners with trash fees in a plan so convoluted it would make your head explode. Despite a serious grass roots effort to fight this, the protest mechanism was doomed to failure from the start, on multiple levels.

Now we're fighting a proposed whopping 62% water and sewer rate increase over the next four years. Another grass roots effort seems to be forming. But the protest form on the back of the flier sent to single family home owners clearly states: This form may be used to submit protests only, not objections. I don't even know what that means, other than this protest is just as doomed as the trash fees.

Just when you think the city powers-that-be can t make any worse decisions, back in 2023, the city proposed a law shifting a backlog of 37,000 sidewalk repairs (and the estimated $183 million to fix them) onto San Diego property owners. Are we seeing a pattern here? This just seems to be the city's new motto toward the citizenry (with apologies to Marie Antoinette): "Let them eat it."

Homelessness? OK, this is one I'm glad I don t have to personally solve. I get that it's a huge and complicated problem but we just seem to keep spinning our wheels on any solutions. It leads the local news almost every single night, like a repetition of the movie Groundhog Day.

I went to college in the late 1960s when Vietnam War protests were constant, and I remember it well. I went to a lot of those protests. But we were all protesting the same thing.

Lately, it seems like there s the Protest of the Day, whether it s over ill-conceived local buildings, immigration abuses, national mis-use of power, or international atrocities. I'm really glad people are stepping up, since the folks we actually elected aren't doing so. There are so many truly important issues to be standing up for right now.

I just wish that with all that is going on nationally and internationally that we didn't have to be fighting genuinely bad (in my view) decisions from our own local government, decisions that will not only not solve problems (affordable housing, homelessness) but in the case of the Turquoise Tower, start a domino effect of high rise buildings that will negatively impact the quality of life for people who live here and permanently change the character of the area. Even when the concept isn't bad (the daylighting law), implementation seems universally, profoundly abysmal.

Come on, City Council. Come on, Mayor Gloria. You know you can do better.

Form to protest the proposed 62% increase in water rates 

 

 

 

Hope For Parents Of Underachieving Kids

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published August 11, 2025] ©2025

This is for every parent who fears that their less-than-achieving elementary school child is doomed to a life of saying “Do you want fries with that?”

Some kids are just really slow starters.

This was abundantly evident when I recently went through a box of memorabilia we had inherited from my husband’s 96-year-old mother which contained all of Olof’s grade school report cards.

There is nothing in Olof’s grade school transcripts that would have predicted he would graduate from California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) – a prestigious engineering school with a current 2.5% admission rate – with a degree in reactor physics. 

Olof, in fact, was labeled an “accelerated non-achiever” in grade school, a label that puzzled his parents for years. Did this mean he was gifted but not achieving? Or gifted at non-achieving?  Regardless, he was not achieving.

Olof’s first grade report card does not seem to have survived, but the second grade report card, which graded eleven subjects on a scale from 1 (highest) to 5 (lowest), showed a lackluster student who was pretty much a solid “3” student. 

His third grade report card was totally devoid of ones and twos, heavily peppered with 3-minuses, and even had a 4 (handwriting).  The description of a “3” was “satisfactory work; usually does that which is required.”  So I suspect all those minuses meant that “usually” wasn’t all that common. 

His Work Habits in third grade were similarly uninspiring.  He received “N’s” (for Not Satisfactory) in “Thoughtfully follows instructions”, “Completes Work” and “Works Neatly” although that last could be expected from the 4 in handwriting.  But lest his parents consider abandoning their young slacker alongside the road, he received several “O’s” (Outstanding) in “Is courteous and considerate.”  I would like to note that he still rates an O in “Is courteous and considerate” in most areas of our marriage with the exception of “accepts wife’s housekeeping standards” where I would rate him a solid N. 

Fourth graders had graduated to a letter grade system and he finally achieves some A’s in reading.  But everything else is B, or C, usually minuses thereof.  In “Evaluation of effort and attitudes” there is not an A to be seen.  He especially seems to have lagged in “Thoughtfully follows directions”, “Makes good use of time,” Works neatly” (that darn handwriting thing again), and “Completes work.”  Under “Deportment”, he apparently needs work in “Accepts responsibility.” 

Fifth grade is more of the same, although he continues to excel in Reading. Given that he apparently reads a lot, it is not surprising that he is now also excelling in Spelling. But those “Evaluation of Effort and Attitudes” grades could definitely be better.

But by sixth grade, the lights seem to be finally coming on. An actual “A” in “Thoughtfully follows directions,” “Works for accuracy”, and even “Completes work.”  The Olof I have known all these years was finally starting to emerge. 

As I wrote in a column a few weeks ago, I wasn’t exactly an academic barn burner myself in my secondary school years. I was the blond sheep in a family of brunette geniuses. My family has never let me forget coming home from the public library after researching my first term paper in seventh grade and announcing sagely, “Ibid sure wrote a lot of stuff!”

One thing both Olof and I recall is that the reading groups were always color-coded and the best readers were always the blue group (in my class, “the bluebirds.”)  The middle group tended to be yellow and the bottom group could be anything because who actually cared?  You were never going to amount to anything anyway.

My voraciously-reading siblings were definitely bluebirds. (I think I may have been a puffin.)

Querying friends with grade school children, the best readers are still the blue group.  Some things never seem to change.

True to form, when my sons were in first grade, the advanced readers basked in the blue group, middle readers were relegated to the yellow group, the sucky readers sentenced to red. Suffice to say kids were clear which group was which (Brilliant/Average/Braindead), and more to the point, by day two of school, the parents were too. Much gnashing of teeth and calls to the teacher ensued with entreaties to move little Quentin to the blue reading group where he clearly belonged. Unsaid: “Do we look like people who breed yellow reading group children??? A child of Quentin’s obvious talents needed to be challenged!”  It was clearly beneath his dignity to be associated with yellow – or God forbid red  - readers who would only pull him down to their level. (They probably didn’t wash either.)

It was not like this just impacted the kid. You could already see the blue reading group parents getting chummy with each other and next thing you know they’ll have dinner parties and not invite you, and your child will be black, er, blue-listed from play dates. Day 2 of school and the wheat’s already been separated from the chaff.

For the record, my older son was in the red group, and my younger son was in the yellow. Despite concerns that failure to be in the blue reading group in first grade dooms a child’s adult options to a career in coal mining (or worse, a lesser UC) both have been completely self-supporting (and not in the coal mining industry) since graduating from college.

And by the way, there is nothing wrong with dispensing fries.  It has long been my contention, which I’ve written about before, that everyone should be required to serve at least a year in retail. I found it to be a profoundly useful life lesson. But that is (and was) another column.

Both Olof and I, despite deeply uninspiring starts, managed to up our games by high school and become serious students. I’m guessing my parents, if they were alive to ask, would have agreed with Olof’s mother who observed, with a huge sigh, one time during a visit, “If only we could have known.”

 

As The New Trash Bins Turn: The City Isn't Making This Easy

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published August 4, 2025] 2025

The new trash bin system seems destined to keep me in column material in perpetuity. Alas.

To recap, the City Council voted 6-3 in June to inflict upon 226,000 single family home owners a new trash fee system that is so convoluted and nonsensical, it will make your head explode. La Jolla's own City Councilman, Joe LaCava, who should be dispatched to a desert island where the only food source is rodents, has actually championed this debacle.

Among the idiocies of this plan: all the current black (trash) bins and blue (recycle) bins will be replaced with new bins with sensors. The disposition of the old bins - approximately one million in total -  is the best kept secret in town. They can't go into the landfill. The city vaguely claims they will be "recycled". To where? Gambia? Or how? You can t mulch plastic.

This bill of goods was sold as Measure B (short for "Bait-and-Switch") back in 2022, estimating monthly fees in the $23-$29 range. The actual costs, which will rise each year,   are at least double that.

And just to add to the confusion, the charges will appear on your property tax bill, with refunds or credits not appearing until at least your fiscal 2027 property tax bill.

FAQ of the year: No, you can't opt out and hire your own service.

By the way, don't even think of trying to put one over on these evil geniuses. To make sure that the trash folks are only picking up bins from (over)paying customers, the new sensored black/trash bins will now be gray, and the new blue/recycle ones a lighter blue. Given that the green (green/yard waste) are all relatively new, these aren't being replaced.

Every household is required to have at least one trash bin, one greenery bin, and one recycle bin whether you need/use/want them or not. More importantly, you're required to pay for them. In perpetuity. On your property tax bill.

If you don't have space for the regulation size 95-gallon bins, you can opt for a 65-gallon bin, or even a small 35-gallon bin. But except for the black-soon-to-be gray trash bins (which will cost slightly less), you still have to pay (forever) the full 95-gallon bin rate for the green and soon-to-be-lighter blue ones.

According to the ES flier: "Customers that select the 35-gal or 65-gal service level for their trash [italics mine] container will receive a credit on their Fiscal 2027 property tax bill for the difference between the rates associated with their selected service level and the 95-gal service level for the period of time between when the customers subscribed to and received the smaller containers and the end of Fiscal Year 2026." [Translation: you re going to be charged the maximum rate and wait at least a year to get this credit.]

Are you screaming yet? 

The affected home owners have until September 30 to select what size black-now-gray, blue-now-lighter-blue and green bins they would like delivered, starting October 6. A flier with instructions arrived in my mailbox on July 22 on how to set up an account on wasteportal.sandiego.gov.

My flier came with a designated 10-digit APN number for our address which turns out to stand for (not that it said this anywhere on the flier) "Assessors Parcel Number"  along with a 10-digit "Unique Code"  (combination of letters and numbers). But before you utilize any of that, you need to set up an account on wasteportal.sandiego.gov with your own password.

Is it a requirement of the City of San Diego to only hire IT people who graduated DEAD LAST in their computer science class? The site was, at least initially, a complete mess.

None of the three bundle options (combinations of sizes of bins) worked for my household, which requires two 95-gallon green bins (big yard), one 65-gallon trash bin (we're retirees), and one 35-gallon recycle bin (space limitations).

The closest was Bundle 2 which included two 95-gallon bins, and one 65-gallon bin to which I had to add on the cost of the 35-gallon bin from the chart below the Bundles Options.

At least a temporary problem is that we currently have two 35-gallon recycle bins because recycling is currently only every other week. But weekly recycling (Bait and Switch #86 from Measure B which made it a selling point) isn't scheduled to start until summer of 2027. I didn't want to be paying for two recycle bins in perpetuity when there would be a point when we would only need one. So for a while, after our new 35-gallon sensored bin is delivered, we will be throwing away a lot of what we previously recycled until weekly service starts.

But back to the wasteportal.sandiego.gov site.

On July 22, I did successfully create an account and password and then sign in with my 10-digit APN and Unique Code. But that was pretty much the last success I had. Please keep in mind that I did this on the first day that the fliers were received. This is always a bad idea. With any new software, you should allow time for the glitches to work themselves out.

I was able to select my bin sizes OK. I was given the option of inputting a mobile number so that I could get text updates. This seemed like a good idea since I want to make sure that these thieves do not confiscate our current two 35-gallon recycle bins which we personally paid for from Home Depot at a cost of $120 each after the city trucks destroyed the ones they'd issued but had stopped carrying that size. They're mine and you can't have them! 

But the site would not let me input a phone number or sign up for texts.

There was also an option to select a Secondary User (say, a spouse). Sensing that Environmental Services wants to push me into an early death, I indicated my husband Olof. I received an email from the city indicating that he had been signed up.

They also queried and may I say, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing:  "Would you like to donate an additional amount to help provide trash services for those needing financial assistance?"

Hell no! It's not like I don't have sympathy for the less fortunate but one of the promises our City Council made in June was that a fund of $3 million was being designated for precisely such persons. So why are you trying to wring it out of me?

The details about how the less fortunate are to access some financial aid on the new trash fees seems just as worrisomely vague as the recycling of a million pre-owned trash bins. As in "to be determined."As in "we have no idea how this will work and you will probably have to wait two years to get a credit on your property tax bill."

But the wasteportal people did email me a confirmation that I have elected not to make a donation. You could feel the word "miser"  oozing through the ether.

I couldn't make the input mobile number option or the opt-in for texts work at all so I finally gave up and used the "contact us"  button to inform them that there were problems with these features.

A few hours later, I logged back into my account to see how everything looked only to have it indicate that (1) I had not selected bin sizes (despite an email confirmation of my choices) and (2) I had not selected a Secondary User (even though I tried it twice and gotten not one but two confirmations that Olof was my secondary user.)

Olof, an engineer, suggested that I wait 24 hours to see if the wasteportal site would catch up.

The next morning, July 23, there was indeed one improvement: it was now indicating my bin sizes. But still no option for the mobile number, text opt-ins, and really annoyingly, it was still insisted that I hadn't opted for a Secondary User despite two confirmations the day before. So I tried signing Olof up a third time.

I also contacted them again and reported these failures.

Some hours later, Olof reported that he had received three separate emails from the city with three different 10-digit Unique Codes indicating that he was a Secondary User. We had no idea which code was the right one.

On July 24, I was happy to receive the following message from a Public Information Clerk at Environmental Services:

We have recived [sic] word from the tech department that the system is back up and running. [Was it ever either?] Please try again. If you have any issues, please give us a call at 858-694-7000. Where you will be put on hold for six hours. (OK, that last part was mine.)

I logged back into my wasteportal account again and was pleased to see that I now actually could input a mobile number! And opt-in for texts! But it was still showing that I had not selected a Secondary User. 

I replied to the Public Information Clerk reporting my success but asking her to please alert the tech folks that my account is still showing no Secondary Users despite the Secondary User in question having received three confirmations with different unique codes and by the way, which was the actual one?

I received an auto-reply saying, Due to the high volume of emails we receive [I bet!] we appreciate your patience as we work to respond. If sufficient information is provided, we will create a service request on your behalf. Please see the link below for everything you need to navigate these updates smoothly and ensure a seamless transition.

Seamless? This is a giant goat-f--k.

But ever optimistic, I logged back into my account daily but it was still showing "No Secondary Users have been selected."   I sent yet another query on this.

I will give the wasteportal.gov folks some credit: They do reply. Not for at least several days but you will get an answer. And I am certain that these poor folks were not the architects of this idiocy.

As noted, I had received three confirmations by email saying "This is a confirmation that [my husband] has been successfully added as a Secondary User"  as had Olof. So I had thought I was done. But I didn't read far enough. At the bottom of the confirmation pages, it noted: "An email will be sent to the Secondary User with further instructions."  (italics mine)

As the wasteportal folks informed me several days later in reply to my query: For a secondary user to display on a property, they need to open a portal account and use the unique code they were sent via email. Until they do, they will not appear on your portal account.

So Olof had to create his own wasteportal.sandiego.gov account including his own password, different from mine. From there, he could use the unique code (we randomly picked one of the three and it worked) to associate himself with our address and bin choices. And low and behold, he is now showing up under my password as a secondary user.

I'm exhausted.

But not to worry. If you don t do anything, you'll automatically get charged for three 95-gallon bins (one of each color), and provided with new gray (née black) and light blue (formerly darker blue) cans. (You're assumed to still have your green one.)

I'd like to revise my wishes for our City Councilman, Joe LaCava. I hope the rodents are the gray ones with long tails that carry Hanta virus.

 

 

 

 

 

Internet Fail Purchases (My Yak Sweater)

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published July 21, 2025] ©2025

Now that Olof and I are retired, our sartorial style can best be described as “early orphan.”  The vast majority of our wardrobes come from either LL Bean or Lands End. 

It helps that we know what sizes are going to fit us so we rarely have to return anything.  And for Olof, so long as it’s blue, it’s going to be fine.

Let me be clear that there is nothing inherently orphan-ish about these brands which we think produce very nice and functional clothing for the price.  It’s that we wear them until they’re practically rags.  Especially one of us, who is not me.

What I eventually have to do is spirit the latest ratty sweatshirt out of Olof’s closet and pretend it is in the wash until he finally forgets about it, and is forced to wear the second rattiest sweatshirt he owns.  “Olof,” I say, “we are not poor.  I am afraid people are going to start leaving clothing donations on our front porch in the dead of night.” 

In his defense, I have been known to over-wear certain favorite garments myself but never to the degree that he does.  We both had to wear office clothes for so many years that I think we’re reveling in not having to wear anything that has recently seen an iron. 

My older granddaughter has observed that I dress like a barista from a lesser trattoria.  Hey, black and white works! It goes with everything!

But every once in a while, I go wild and crazy and order from other sites than my usual ones.  Such was the case recently when I saw what looked like a really pretty cashmere sweater on sale at a shockingly low price.  The return instructions seemed deliberately vague.  If you needed to return it, you were to contact a specific website for “further instructions.” 

That should have warned me right there.  In my defense, it looked like an American company – OK, it had a very American-sounding name – but I was puzzled as to why it was taking forever to come.

A month later a package showed up from China with all manner of foreign stickers on it.  I had a bad feeling about it.  

Now the China part wasn’t necessarily bad.  Apparently the finest cashmere comes from the soft fiber combed from the underbelly of Mongolian goats.  Such animals are not to be found in the Continental US but reside just to the north of China.   

I’m not on social media but from time to time on the internet, people will post photos of what they think they ordered and what actually showed up. 

As soon as I opened the package, I was sure it was a mistake.  It bore no resemblance in either color or style to the pretty sweater I’d ordered.

One thing was clear: this hairy garment was not cashmere.  No Mongolian goats had ever had their bellies combed in its creation.  So what hirsute creature had contributed to this apparel? Yak?  Gnu?  Yeti? 

Personally, I’m going for yak. 

There were absolutely no tags in it indicating the company that made it and definitely no label for the care of fine faux-goat fabrics of a yak-Yeti-gnu persuasion. 

Unfortunately, it photographs far better (and less hairy) than it looks in person – which, of course, is how I got suckered into buying it.  Trust me when I say that this is one ugly, shapeless garment. One can only wonder if it started out as roadkill. 

I have to say I’ve been duped on a few other China purchases, which like this one, didn’t indicate on the website that it was coming from China. 

I ordered a digital thermometer during the pandemic since there were none in existence in any pharmacy in the Continental U.S.  But Amazon seemed to think it could provide me with one.  It finally showed up from China three months later and was Centigrade-only.  Not even a conversion chart.  The battery was also dead, probably having succumbed during the slow boat trip from Asia. 

I also got duped on some bamboo compression socks.  Now, bamboo is not grown in quantity in the U.S. so you have to assume it’s probably coming from a place where bamboo IS grown, like China.  I’m sure there are a lot of legitimate and very therapeutic bamboo compression socks out there, but these weren’t among them.  Once again, they took forever to come and came in packaging that was entirely in Chinese lettering.  Even though I had ordered according to the size chart on Amazon, I don’t think these socks could have fit a five-year-old.  If I’d read the fine print on Amazon’s site, I would have seen the notation “frequently returned item.”  Um, yeah.  Not sure why Amazon is still entertaining these folks as suppliers. 

I’ve been trying to decide what to do with my yak-Yeti-gnu sweater.  I have to say that my first reaction on opening it was “Goodwill bin!”  As I suspected, the return options were basically, “it’s yours now, sweet cheeks!”  And since it wasn’t Amazon, there wasn’t really any recourse.  The yak-gnu farm in China clearly didn’t want it back, nor the vehicle that originally ran it over. 

Meanwhile, it’s time for me to spirit Olof’s favorite sweatshirt into the trash.  Even Goodwill would be insulted. 

In person, this is one ugly, hairy, shapeless sweater - and definitely NOT cashmere

Olof will wear pretty much anything, so long as it's blue.

By the time you read this, Olof's favorite sweatshirt will be on its way to the dump.