Library Math 101: When You're Too Old To Ever Get Your Book On The Holds Queue

[“Let Inga Tell You”, La Jolla Light, published August 3, 2026] 2026

Ever since I retired, the La Jolla Public Library has become my second home. My library reserve queue is always maxed out and I generally read three books a week. The front seat of my car has library books being transported to and from the library pretty much at all times. 

Being able to read so many books is definitely a corrective emotional experience from my twelve years as a divorced working mom when I read exactly no books a year. I mean, zee-ro. I didn’t even bother with a library card since they unreasonably wouldn’t let you keep a book out for a decade. There used to be library fines and mine would have looked like the defense budget.

My engineer husband Olof reads both e-books and physical books. He likes novels on his e-reader but thinks the graphics are better in those massive 1,200-page techno-tomes he inexplicably considers pleasure reading. As for me, I just like the tactile feel of an actual book in my lap, the soothing susurrus when you turn the pages. 

I have seen first-hand that I am not the only physical book aficionado out there.  Never was this illustrated more obviously than on March 14, 2020 when the Covid epidemic hit and the library announced it would be closing the next day until further notice.  The Riford library on Draper looked like a literary Luddite Fall of Saigon. The librarians were frantically dispensing plastic grocery bags and allowing patrons to check out up to 40 books although I don’t think anyone was actually counting.  Like everyone else, I was dumping books wholesale into my bags according to two criteria: (1) it had a cover and (2) there were words inside.  

One would think that the lack of availability of physical books for so many months in 2020 would have inspired some of us to embrace technology.  But you would be wrong.   Covid generated a new DSM-5 category: People Who Will Just Not Use E-Readers No Matter What.  (There is no vaccine for this.) 

From time to time, we techno-hostile people actually prevail.  Olof and I like to sit outside on summer evenings and read, he on his iPad or e-reader, and me with a library book.  Not infrequently, Olof will have to go in early because the iPad’s low battery sensor is flashing. I try to look sympathetic but it’s all I can do to stifle a snicker.  I never have to worry about the battery on my library book getting too low. 

Now that I’m able to read so much, I’ve had to engage in Library Math.  As in, do I have the life expectancy to get some of the books I want given the number of holds versus the number of copies?  There’s some serious competition out there for the best sellers.

For every book I have on hold, I have 13 days to pick it up after my hold number comes up, then 30 days to read it.  If others are waiting for it, there are no renewals.  So I have to allow that each person in the hold queue ahead of me could take 43 days.

Now, one hopes that they will pick it up sooner and read it faster, and therefore return it faster.  But they might have been on vacation when the book became available.  Or they might not even have returned it after the 30 days.  Now that there are no more library fines there are actually evil low-life reprobates who keep them past due even knowing there are people with limited life expectancy who might be waiting. 

The other skewing factor is “transit time.”  I find that even after my queue number has come up, it can easily take two weeks for the book to actually arrive on the Holds shelf at the La Jolla Library with my name on it. I’m guessing this is a budget cuts issue. This could easily add 14 days to the potential 43 days, or 57 days per hold. 

But removing the transit time from the equation for simplicity’s sake, when I recently put a hold on a best seller I really wanted to read, there were 1211 holds ahead of me on 12 copies.  Those 1211 holds x 43 days per hold came to 52,073 hold days divided by 12 copies which came to 4339 hold days or… 11.8 years. 

This brings up two moot points, the first of which is that holds are only good for one year after which they are cancelled. (The other is that I’ll likely be dead.)

I queried one of the librarians about how rigid the one year hold time is. Will the library computer system automatically cancel a hold after that time as their site says? This person said that they usually recommend that if a person thinks they want to read a certain book, they get on the hold list early. So no definitive answer there.

The library does seem, in their defense, to buy more copies of the most popular books.

But this doesn’t always solve the problem.  Another book I wanted had 1335 holds but given its popularity, the library now had 108 copies.  But 1335 x 43 comes to 57,405 hold days (not even factoring in that pesky transit time) and even divided by 108 copies still comes to 532 days or more than the maximum one year allowable hold time.

E-books are not unlimited but do seem a little faster.  One of the books I wanted had 375 e-book holds x 43 days per holder came out to 16,125.  One of those 58 copies would come up by day 278.  If, of course, I was willing to read e-books. 

So increasingly, I’m finding myself calculating:  do I have a reasonable life expectancy to get a particular book?

If not, maybe it’s time to just buy the damn book then donate it to the library after I’ve read it, increasing the number of available copies for my fellow anti-e-book Luddite compatriots?  I’m hoping they’ll actually put it in circulation.  

On more than a few occasions lately, I’ve done just that. Not only do I get the book a lot sooner, but I consider it my contribution to the local tree-killing physical book community.  (You’re welcome.)

 

Parking Creeps (You Know Who You Are)

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published July 20, 2026] 2026

A question often arises: who, either by law or etiquette, controls the street space right in front of one's home?

Well, the law is clear: unless signage indicates otherwise, anyone can park on the street in front of your house for up to 72 hours after which the vehicle must be moved at least half a mile to avoid towing or citation.

You would think that this would largely resolve parking issues.

But you would be wrong.

As parking gets tighter and tighter in La Jolla, the etiquette part of the equation gets increasingly problematical. It's not helping that neither residential and commercial new builds are required to provide parking.

Virtually all of us who live in the "flats"  in La Jolla (i.e. not up in the Muirlands or by the university) are going to be in proximity of a beach or retail, or both. There's no beach access near me, but plenty of demand for parking next to my house by employees of local businesses, dog walkers, lunchers, Amazon, the US Postal Service, my lawn and pool services, and visitors to our home. So long as the two spaces in front of my gate have been vacated by the end of the day, I'm good.

The bigger problem, however, is when people decide to store a vehicles - cars, RVs, trailers  - for weeks on end in front of someone else s home despite the 72-hour rule. My assorted neighbors have increasingly had to deal with this issue. The houses on my block are close together and the parking right in front of each house is really limited - usually two spaces at best. I fortunately have a corner lot so there is usually ample room for people to park on the cross street. Which, alas, hasn't kept them from taking up long term residence right in front of my front gate.

There are people who know how to game the system. A homeowner can report a vehicle that has overstayed its welcome on Get It Done but this is not a quick process. The city has to come out and put a notice on the vehicle and mark its tire location on the street, then come back a few weeks later and tow it if it hasn't moved.

I've always preferred cordial human contact in parking resolution wherever possible. No anonymous notes for me. In the many conversations I've had over the years with RV, boat, and trailer owners, the two reasons they all cite as to why they are storing a vehicle in front of or alongside my house are these:

(1) They don't want to use up their own home or business parking.

(2) Their neighbors have complained that the vehicle is an eyesore.

Amazingly, they cite these reasons totally straight-faced. I usually just stand there for a minute hoping against hope for the "Aha!"  moment. "Oh, I get it! You don t want my eyesore vehicle taking up your parking either!"  In my fantasy, he (it's always a he) jumps in his RV and drives off with a jaunty wave and a "I've seen the light! It'll never happen again!"

Years back, I had a totally decrepit 30-foot-long camper take up residence in front of my house for almost a year, the owner citing both inalienable rights and also the desire not to use up his business parking. Determined to thwart the system, he moved his RV precisely every seventy-one hours and fifty-eight minutes in a circuit around my home and the nearby neighbors. (You used to only have to move it a tenth of a mile rather than the half mile now required.) Some months later, Ugly RV s clueless owner approached me and said, "Would you believe, people are vandalizing my RV!"

Since I'd long since asked him nicely to move this vehicle back to his nearby business, it was all I could do not to say "Actually, I'm just curbing my overwhelming urge to put plastique in your tailpipe. I've just been hoping that if I take the high road, you will too. And by 'high road', I m really hoping that you will take this vehicle on a road, any road, that is not in our neighborhood."

In a stroke of divine intervention, his business went under and he disappeared. God really does work in mysterious ways.

More recently, a close friend and neighbor had a high-end vehicle parked for weeks right in front of her house making parking impossible for her family members. It became obvious it was either (a) a stolen and abandoned vehicle or (b) the product of Classic Clueless Guy Syndrome. Queries to other neighbors suggested (b), that it might belong to one of four guys who were renting a house further down the block. As a long-time pro in parking resolution, I knocked on their door and in my signature shy and retiring way, inquired if any of them knew the provenance of this car. One of them acknowledged that yes it was his and yes, he was storing it there since he usually rode his motorcycle (which was parked in front). 

I explained the 72-hour rule and the risk of towing which he quickly dismissed saying that the city wouldn't tow a vehicle that was "registered to this street."   Since part of my parking resolution shtick is to offer solutions, I recommended that he move the vehicle down to my corner where the cross street tended to have a lot of free spots. But he'd still have to move it every 72 hours. I was totally nice about it. He, meanwhile, was just so annoyed. (Also, I think, really hungover because it was the day after July 4.)

But the idea that long-term storage of his vehicle in front of someone else's house was thoughtless obviously didn't register with him at all.

Sometimes you just need the read the room. Or in this case, the neighborhood. News flash: Would you like someone storing their vehicle in one of the two spots in front of your house? Especially if the vehicle is parked right in the middle of the two spots, as this guy was, so no one else can park there at all?

Hopefully he'll clue in the other roommates into (a) local laws and (b) basic etiquette.

But I'm not betting on it.

 

                This RV pretty much lived in front of my house for an entire year.

OK, So I May Actually Be A Hoarder

 ["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published July 13, 2026] 2026

I've always prided myself that I am the only one in my generation on my mother's side of the family who is not a hoarder. But given that I have made my 2026 project going through decades of file cabinet accumulations, I may have to modify that claim ever so slightly.

The good news (besides dispensing with tons of paper) is that I've gotten a number of columns out of these anthropological digs. I did a series of three columns from a folder of memos to team parents when I managed my younger son Henry's traveling soccer team. I recently quoted from a whole file of witty comments my husband Olof has made over the years. Another recent column was about my skills as a documenter of such comments.

In the interests of transparency, I will confess that my sons consider my formerly 67-now-36 albums of family photos to be hoarding. I myself think of photos as "artistic curation."

The kids had long been threatening to cremate me after my untimely death with the photo albums that I had amassed over the years. It would be a two-fer; get rid of Mom and the albums all at once.

But at least my hoard was confined to one (very large) bookcase. OK, and seven file cabinets.

So maybe there's some of that hoarder gene in me too. I may have to cop to being a file hoarder. And those 36 photo albums don't count the 2,000+ digital images on my computer.

Like me, my sibs are specialist hoarders. My (late) sister hoarded books. As in three deep on the book cases that covered every available bit of wall space. The person who bought her home after she passed away was probably thrilled to find that the home actually came with a fire place which was not at all apparent.

My engineer brother boards electronics. Lots and lot of electronics. He built many of them himself. But do not even think of staying at his four-bedroom home because three of those bedrooms are occupied by things with blinky lights.

The cousins, however, are equal opportunity hoarders. Freelancers, if you will. Their houses could probably qualify for one of those hoarder TV shows. One of my cousins says that he is paying more than $8,000 a year in off-site hoarding, er, storage since their home is at capacity.

For me, it helps that we don t have a garage (it was converted in one of the most ill-considered remodels in the history of remodels long before we bought the house). No attic or basement either, and only tiny 1947 closets back when people apparently only owned three sets of clothing. But it does keep one from over-accumulating. We have a hard-core rule that if we buy something, we give something else away.

One of my motivations for dealing with both the filing cabinets and photo albums is that on two occasions in my life, I have been tasked with cleaning out the home of a hoarder relative.

One of them was my aunt's home in Hard-To-Get-There Ohio. We filled up a 35-foot dumpster the first day. My aunt (never married, no kids) literally had magazines dating back to the late 1800s. And yes, the infinitely-hoardable National Geographics. (Why, why, why do people never throw away National Geographics???) The house had been in our family since 1860s. It's amazing how much stuff you can acquire in 150 years.

The second house was fortunately local. For the record, most of the organizations that pick up donations will only take 25 boxes at a time. It took eight months of twice weekly pickups.

So I really don't want to do this to my kids. 

A while back, the New York Times had an article about death cleaning, i.e., going through your possessions long before your demise so that your relatives are not burdened with the truly onerous task of separating the wheat from the trash. One of the subsequent Letters to the Editor really caught my eye. The writer, after noting that she wasn't planning to spend a single moment of her precious time culling her abundance of possessions, including 15 years of New Yorker magazines (the evil twin of National Geographics) rationalized it like this:

Isn't it enough, she queries, that my children will receive whatever is left? Gosh, there's some pretty good stuff in that mess. And isn't it possible that inching their way through it will prove to be an interesting and rewarding treasure hunt? And won't this exercise tell them things about me that could not be learned any other way, adding mortar to their memory, and perhaps even their regard for me?

Note to her kids: MOVE NOW AND LEAVE NO FORWARDING ADDRESS!

Let me assure you, Letter Writer, their regard for you will be in the dumpster (along with most of your stuff) by the time they're done inching through your lifetime's collection of detritus.

"Interesting"  and "rewarding" are not two adjectives I'd ever use in cleaning out the home of a hoarder. It's true that my aunt's house in Ohio produced some wonderful treasures, like stereopticons, gorgeous oil lamps, and some ornate ewers - intermixed, alas, with multiple cases of 40-year-old Jell-O, cartons of ratty underwear preserved in 1952 newspaper (she was a child of the Depression), and a huge freezer that was a veritable biohazard. (I remember showing my (hoarder) cousin a freezer container labeled "raspberries, 1968". (It was 2004.) She said, "Maybe they re still good?")

So, please. Do not do this to your poor children! For every treasure they might find after your demise, there will be 200 moments of fervent praying, "Please don't let this be hereditary."

And now a hot tip: My dear friend Eleanor maintains that she found a cure for her husband s hoarding. "I put my husband s stuff that he wouldn't get rid of in storage, then stopped paying the bill after three months."  This is brilliant in its simplicity.

But in the meantime: only three more filing cabinets to go.

 

These photos from my aunt's attic in 2004 still fill me with despair

The City Makes A Giant Mess Of It Once Again

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published July 6, 2026] 2026

I swore I wasn't going to write about trash fees again but the City just can't seem to stop making a mess of this, which as a writer, I feel compelled to point out. So here is a few feature: Ask Inga: As the trash fee debacle turns.

Dear Inga: So what finally happened with that law suit about the new trash fees?

Answer: Trash fees will be rolled back to $38.75 a month starting in July, 2027 (when they were scheduled to increase to $55) but not rolled back to the $23-$29 range the constituents had been duped into voting for in Measure B ( Bait and Switch ). Of course, if you ordered extra bins, your cost will be higher than $38.75.

Dear Inga: So we should be getting a refund of the inflated fees we were already charged on our property tax bills, right?

Answer: What a sweet question. Of course not.

Dear Inga: As part of Measure B, we were promised that recycling would become weekly instead of bi-weekly, so when we ordered our new sensored pay-in-perpetuity bins, many of us ordered a much smaller recycle bin than we had before or only one recycle bin when we used to have two. But even though the new bins have (mostly) been delivered, recycling is still bi-weekly. So when is the weekly recycling going to start?

Answer: It is one of the best kept secrets in San Diego.

Dear Inga: Surely someone knows the answer to this? Like the Environmental Services (ES) people?

Answer: Sure! Their (human) reply was:

Thank you for contacting the City of San Diego Environmental Services Department.

In the City of San Diego, recycling pickup is still on a bi‑weekly (every other week) schedule. While weekly recycling service had been planned in the past, city officials decided to defer that rollout to a later date. As a result, the every‑other‑week schedule remains in effect for now.

I know this can be inconvenient, especially for households that generate more recycling, but at this time the city has not implemented weekly pickup.

Dear Inga: But isn't this yet another bait and switch?

Answer: Sure sounds like it!

Dear Inga: But it was part of what we voted for and made bin choices on the basis of it! Surely the City Council knows when weekly recycling will start since they were the ones who made the decision to resolve the lawsuit by reducing the fees?

Answer: (Thank you for prompt response from assistant at Joe LaCava s office):

The City approved a settlement that will reduce the waste collection fee in the City to approximately $39 effective July 1st 2027, in one year. My understanding is that to reduce the City's cost of delivering waste collection, options like maintaining the bi-weekly recycling pickup are being explored.

Dear Inga: Uh-oh. Those passive voice replies from both ES and Joe LaCava's office are always suspicious. For example, active voice is: "We made mistakes."   Passive voice: "Mistakes were made."   Seems like a good grammatical ploy not to answer a question.

Answer: Yup!

Dear Inga: Does this mean that the promised curbside bulky item pickup program is going by the wayside too?

Answer (from assistant at Joe LaCava s office): Yes, my understanding is that bulky item pickup is also under consideration not to be implemented.

Dear Inga: Yowsers. That dang passive voice again. So if Joe LaCava's office and ES were to answer in the active voice, what would that sound like?

Answer: There is no way on God s green earth you will ever see weekly recycling or curbside bulky item pickup.

Dear Inga: The City has hired lid lifters at $70,000 a year to open people's trash/greenery/recycle bins to make sure they are not putting the wrong stuff in each bin. They will leave a notice, or even potentially issue a fine. But now ES customers may be forced to put a weeks worth of recyclables in their gray trash bin every week since there is still only bi-weekly recycling.

Answer: Yes, that math would be correct.

Dear Inga: So what are people supposed to do with all the recycling they can't fit into their new smaller bin?

Answer: People on Next Door suggest querying your neighbors to see if they have extra space in their also-now-too-small bin.

Dear Inga: You're kidding, right? I hate my neighbors.

Answer: Life is hard, and then you die.

Dear Inga - It sounds like weekly recycling isn't likely to ever be implemented so there will be a number of people who will need a second (or bigger) recycling bin.  How would they do that? 

Answer: both Joe LaCavas office (6/22/26) and ES say you can call ES at 858-694-7000 or go to this website.

https://wasteportal.sandiego.gov/

Dear Inga: What are the scanner tags on the new bins?

Answer: According to the ES website, these are scannable reader tags known as RFID technology which identify the bins assigned to your household. This prevents your dirtbag neighbors from stealing your bins so they don't have to pay for their own.

Dear Inga: While we're on the subject of Best Kept Secrets, what exactly is happening with the at-least 750,000 plastic bins that were replaced at a cost of $65 million with the new trash and recycle bins? Do we really want to know?

Answer: The official story is: San Diego s retired trash bins are being chipped, cleaned, and repurposed into new bins and other plastic products.

Dear Inga: Do we believe this?

Answer: Not sure. But better than being sent on a slow boat to China. Or incinerated in a distant location with less pricey zip codes and already-bad air quality.

Dear Inga: Should we believe anything the City of San Diego puts on a ballot ever again?

Answer: Inga only answers legitimate questions.

 

Words Of Wisdom From Olof

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published June 22, 2026] 2026

I may be the alleged writer in the family but many people don't know that the real talent in the family is Olof. Despite being a nuclear-physics-trained engineer and former Air Force pilot, Olof has always been a fabulous letter writer. It was, in fact, how we kept in touch for 23 years from the time we spent our senior year in high school in Brazil as exchange students (how we met) until serendipity (and both of our divorces) brought us back together decades later.

One of my regrets is that I don't have many of his letters to me during those two-plus decades. Of course, we were either writing by hand on lined paper or right off the typewriter, always unedited. Both of us liked to find the humor in mundane and often not funny at the time events that were happening in our lives that day. For example, the saga of my first husband's and my attempt to save $125 by acid washing our pool ourselves. (The burn scars are mostly healed.) Olof regularly regaled me with Air Force moments gone awry. My column is basically letters to a wider audience.

But in the decades we've been together since our divorces, I fortunately saved favorite documents of Olof s creation, including all the contracts he had for Nintendo game loans (at interest!) with my younger son, Henry. (Neither my ex nor I thought Henry was a good credit risk.) Henry, even at eight, was clear that this money would be paid back, and his allowance never had to be garnished (a term of the contract) a single time. Not surprisingly, Henry wrote his essay for MBA programs on learning business ethics from Olof.

Over the years, I've jotted down favorite Olof-isms. On being asked on Thursday mornings if he was likely to be working that weekend, he'd reply, "Probably. Thursday is Crisis Discovery Day."  After rescuing a project threatening to implode, he'd note, "I think we got the shiny side back up."   Pulling into the driveway after an excursion, he was fond of cheerily announcing, "Cheated death again!" 

On his aggregate of four years in Saudi Arabia, the ever-optimistic Olof opined: "It's only a desert if you think of it that way.  I prefer to think of it as a very large beach, with surf breaking on both sides."

When asked how he was able to successfully fix an item that had been considered irretrievably broken, he is likely to smile and reply, "just a mindless application of force."

Always asked for technical support from family and friends, he often can't help adding personal commentary. Explaining a new mouse to my sister some years ago, he wrote: "This is an optical, versus mechanical, mouse. Optical mice have no balls. Comparisons to the Democratic leadership in Congress are gratuitous."

Describing something as really inconsequential, he will reference the testicular attributes of rodents: "It's mouse nuts when you look at it."

I had twelve really lean (destitute?) years between marriages. Commenting on both my housekeeping skills and the kids'  assessment that they'd grown up poor, Olof couldn't help opining to my son Henry, "You didn't grow up in poverty. But you did grow up in squalor."

He's now adored by the five grandchildren whom he affectionately referred to in their early years alternately as "the plague carriers"  and "the destroyers of peace."  In play with our grandsons who had named themselves after various superheroes, Olof dubbed himself Hummingbird Man.

From time to time I get to see his messages in cards we send to the kids. On Henry's birthday one year, Olof noted: "Henry -   It's not hard to get older. It's getting wiser that's hard. With three kids, a busy wife and a demanding job, you've gotten lots of opportunities. Enjoy them. Love, Olof."

Responding to Bastille Day birthday wishes on his July 14 birthday, he noted: "Thanks for the good wishes.  So far my barricades have withstood the assault of time better than those of Louis XVI. But time is the great equalizer."

He was experimenting with cooking one year while I took an evening class. When I returned one night, there was a note taped on the stove hood pointing to a pan below:

"Inga - See what you think about this. Good news: If you don't like it, I can't really remember what I put in it. Bad news: If you do like it - see above."

He recently responded to one of a college roommates with his time-tested "Three-Step Retiree Program :

1. Does it appear that there is some activity upcoming?
2. Could that activity be construed as work?
3. If yes to both of the above: Pay someone else to do it.

So thanks, Olof. You are truly this household's ray of sunshine. And fortunately you don't want to write a column of your own.

 

Ordering The Kale Salad - Hold The Kale

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published June 15, 2026] 2026 

As I've said before: forget military service. Everyone should be required to work two years in retail. Especially food service. Having been a waitress during summers in my college years, I have nothing but compassion and empathy for people in the wait staff industry.

Most people I know are genuinely kind to servers. But I do have a few lunch mates who routinely test servers will to live. It's not malicious. They simply insist that wait staff are there to make you happy.

I fear those poor servers go home and drink.

Most people will remember the now-classic ordering scene in the deli in When Harry Met Sally where Harry orders a "number three"  and Sally goes into a laborious order for a chef salad (dressing on the side) and a hilariously (if you're not the server) convoluted order for apple pie a la mode.

I was recently at a group birthday lunch with a friend who has to modify every single thing she orders. When the server came to take our order, this woman requested "the kale salad without the kale."

The look on the server's face ("I have definitely been in this job too long") said it all. Did this lady just want a bowl of salad dressing?

Now, one would think that my friend might want to just order a different salad from the menu. The Caesar, for example. But no. She liked (most of) the other ingredients in the salad (carrots, Brussels sprouts, orange, cilantro, avocado, cashews) but wasn't a fan of kale. Or the soy vinaigrette dressing either. So she queried if they could make the kale salad with some other type of greens. And a different dressing. And no cashews.

The server gamely worked with her on this, finally getting my friend to agree to romaine, but noting this would have to be confirmed with the chef. There was then a discussion of alternate dressings, finally electing a vinaigrette with red wine vinegar, no soy. Cashew-adjacent nut choices were reviewed.

My lunchmate also ordered an entree (multiple substitutes there too) so when the salad arrived, she wasn't hungry for it and asked for a box to take it to go.

You almost can't tip enough.

Interestingly, you rarely (never?) see men doing this.

I was re-living my waitress days with a local waiter acquaintance who says that there is nothing he hates more than a group of 6-8 women coming in together, especially for dinner.

Why, he begs to know, can't women just order their own meal? But no, he fumes, everybody has to share a salad and an entree with someone else. And that someone is invariably at the other end of the table.

Negotiations are prolonged and interminable. His imitation is brutal:

Waiter (fifth trip over, teeth clenched in forced smile): "Have we decided yet, ladies?"

Women: "Yes, I think we're ready. Muffy and Babs are going to split an order of ravioli but Babs wants the lemon cream sauce on hers and Muffy wants the marinara. Oops, that's the other way around. They also want to split a house salad, one with balsamic vinaigrette on the side, and the other tossed with the honey mustard, if that s not too much trouble. ZsuZsu and Topper are going to split the goat cheese pizza but hold the red onion on one half, and a small house salad with no feta, and no tomatoes unless they're organic. Bitsy and I will have the Greek sampler plate but since she doesn't like falafel, could you put her falafel on my plate, and my lamb kabob on hers? If there's only one of something, just cut it in half. (Smiles.) We don't want to make this complicated."

Several minutes later: "Is it too late to change the ravioli to linguine?"

Several minutes after that: "Bitsy has just reminded us to confirm with your chef that none of your food products come from China."

The food comes. No one can remember what they ordered.

It's even worse, he says, if the restaurant serves anything even remotely ethnic.

"Whats in it?"   [Answer: the ingredients listed on the menu.]

"Is it spicy?" [Well, yeah. It s supposed to be spicy.]

"Can you make it not spicy?"   [What s your definition of 'not spicy'? And if you don't like spicy, order the ravioli!] 

And don t even get him started on the wine. It doesn't matter that every time they come in he tells them that there are approximately five glasses in a bottle. They still have to ask how many glasses in a bottle. And then first round negotiations begin: who wants red and who wants white followed by an extensive cost analysis of ordering a bottle of red plus three glasses of white versus a bottle of each. Preferences for Pinot Grigio vs. Chardonnay, Cabernet vs. Merlot are tallied. The waiter s recommendations on the wine list will be solicited, he says, but universally ignored.

But the coup de grace is the check. This, he maintains, makes everything before it look like a day at the Shores. It's when the waiter decides it's really time to go back and get his B.A. Or a gun license. The cell phone calculators come out. Who had what, or more specifically, half of what, must be ascertained before figuring in tax and tip. Two people have invariably realized they have no cash and want to either write a check for their portion or put just their part on a credit card. If guys were there, my waiter acquaintance maintains, they'd divide the check by eight. No calculators would be seen. They would never hand you eight credit cards. And then ask you to put a different amount on each. 

As far as he's concerned, a 70% tip from these women would be reasonable. But still not enough. What he really wants is a table full of guys.

Inga in her waitress uniform in Beach Haven, New Jersey

Unbelievably, This Is My 600th Column

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published June 8, 2026] 2026

Astonishingly - including and especially to me - this is my 600^th "Let Inga Tell You"  column in the La Jolla Light.

As I like to say, the first 250 were the easiest.

Even I had to leaf through four huge binders of clip sheets (also known as low-tech archiving) to see what I'd written all those columns about over the last 17 years.

When I started this column in 2009, I honestly didn't think I'd have enough material for three months since I was now retired and had, as my sons affectionately noted, "no life."

Inga actually started in 2005 as a blog that I was writing in Stockholm while we lived there on a multi-year work assignment. Hoping to embrace our Swedish experience, we dubbed ourselves Inga and Olof on our first day there. What I didn't realize at the time - but have had plenty of time to rue since - is that Inga is a common Swedish porn star name. And let me tell you, those guys from Riga don't let up. They're always so disappointed that I'm not a pole dancer with a power rack.

After a truly idyllic Swedish life during which we never owned a car, we were barely back to the U.S. when a white Mercedes slammed into us at 85 mph on I-5 putting me in the hospital. I was truly missing writing my Sweden blog which had gotten fairly popular (by my standards, anyway). Once home and recovering, I started sending out articles to newspapers and magazines hoping to freelance. The editor at the La Jolla Light at the time kept returning my submissions saying she loved the writing but that guest commentaries could be no more than 300 words. 300 words? For me that's barely warming up.

But I did finally manage to submit a 300-word guest commentary with the catchy and very descriptive title: "Vons Parking Lot: Scariest place in America."   For reasons that I have never understood about editors - and it has plagued me over and over - the Light ran the commentary but changed the title to something yawningly boring. Why, why, why do they do this? Another example: I submitted a water-rationing piece to the San Diego Union-Tribune some years back with some creative ideas about conserving water entitled "Thinking outside the hose."   They did indeed run it, but once again, with an utter snorer of a title. (Fortunately my current editor writes way better headlines than I do so I just have to indicate the topic and let him have at it.)

Despite the abysmal title of my Vons parking lot piece, so many people responded to the paper agreeing with the sentiment that the editor asked if I'd like to write a regular column for them. I loved the idea but couldn't imagine what I'd actually write about since my main focus at the time was trying to be able to chew on the right side of my mouth again. (My head and the car's side window had made an excellent illustration of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.) So I suggested we give it a trial run of three months. But I also didn't want to show my face or use my real name as I planned to write about my kids (who grew up here) and my husband who would definitely not want to be easily identified. I had already been writing under Inga for quite a while at that point, so we decided to keep the name. Meanwhile they shot a photo of me wrapped up on a hat, sunglasses and scarf that are not mine and make me look like a terrorist. 

People have often asked me what my writing training was. The answer is: letter writing. As in thousands upon thousands of letters over my life time. There didn't used to be internet or email (ja, really), and long-distance phone calls were a dollar a minute. In fact, my only formal writing training was Freshman Composition in college which was the lowest grade of my college career. The professor hated everything I wrote, adorning pretty much every assignment on the top with "Ha ha. You think you re so funny. C+."

Which leads me to the second most common question I get: Do I ever get writer s block? (I think some people have been hoping I would get writer's block.) And the answer is nope, I just always pretend I'm writing a letter to someone. It goes without saying that I would not normally be writing newsy letters to people about trash fees and parking debacles so those are frankly a lot less fun.

But back to the point of this column (you can see why a word limit of 300 would be cruel and inhuman): what have I written 600 columns about?

Well, certainly a lot of whining about technology. I'm definitely past my sell-by date where electronics are concerned. I've written about password hell, about security questions that don't apply to me, about appliances I can't work, cell phones I can't work, computers I can't work, and remotes I can't work.

I've written quite a few columns about our beloved dogs, Winston, then Lily, and how devastated we've been - and still are - about their loss.

Less adored creatures that have found themselves in my column are crows, hawks, rats (lots of rats), raccoons, possums, mallards, coyotes, and crickets. Actually, I really like the crickets.

Health has been a pretty common topic too, especially aging, Covid, colonoscopies and contending with constantly changing health advice from the "experts."  On a more personal level I've written about childhood polio, my chocolate addiction, my weight (see "chocolate addiction"), and finding clothes for a body shaped like a T-rex (really, but not a fault of the chocolate).

I've written lots about my (second) husband Olof, an engineer and former Air Force pilot, who took up both cookie baking and sour dough bread as retirement gigs both of which he attacks with spreadsheets and flow charts. When he was recovering from his 2018 heart attack and brain injury, I officially declared him the "Worst Patient on the Face of the Earth." I definitely felt I was eating those "better or worse" vows. I wrote a whole column about how he still suspects I married him for his talents with a sewer augur.

The column I wrote entitled "Why it takes four women 80 emails to set a lunch date"  has had more reprint requests - even from a paper in South Africa - than any column I've written. I guess it's a universal problem.

The city has given me vast amounts of material, including the year-plus it took me to get my street light fixed, never mind the trash fees debacle, sidewalk repair stupidity, new trash bins, SBs 9 and 10, Turquoise Tower, and endless amounts of new parking idiocy (daylighting law, Balboa Park meters). Since I don t have any confidence that our mayor and City Council (whom, by the way, I voted for) are going to start making any good decisions any time soon, I'm confident in pretty much limitless material going forward.

I mined plenty of material about being a divorced, working perennially-destitute mom for 12 years between husbands. I developed what I called the Single Woman Home Repair School which heavily utilized hair scrunchies and duct tape as go-to tools of repair.

I've covered my efforts to master such baffling foreign languages as "spoken coffee" and "modern light bulb."  I haven't been very successful at either.

I did a hugely fun series testing all manner of internet hacks and gadgets. Even I decided to pass on the re-usable toilet paper.

My neighbors kindly consented to let me use all manner of stories about both themselves and their families. One neighbor let me regale my readers with the saga of the raccoons who took up residence under her house and were ultimately evicted by Trapper Dan the Raccoon Man who lured them out with Kentucky Fried Chicken and loud Mariachi music. It is this kind of information that needs to be shared with a larger population, and I was grateful to be the one to do it. 

The kids and then grandkids have had a lot of play too. I wrote about Olof and I suffering from bladder envy when we realized the grandkids could go 12 hours without going to the bathroom at night. When the grandtots were small, there would not be a single electronic in our home still working after they left. Even my Cal Tech-educated husband couldn't get the remotes working again.

I've written about my Catholic-Protestant-Jewish family, my dual-political-party marriage, and the hoarder gene that seems to have fortunately escaped me (but none of my siblings or cousins). I've covered picky dinner guests and annoying house guests including and especially people who take phone calls at the table. (Not at my table you don't.)

And somehow, that's all added up to 600 columns. Frankly, I don't write nearly as well as I used to. All that chardonnay does catch up with you after a point. (Lots and lots of points.) But as long as the paper continues in print and they want me to fill up space, I'm all in. Writing this column has truly fed my soul, never mind given me an outlet for all manner of grief and grievances, whining and winnings.

And now, on to column number 601.

 

My Superpower

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published May 25, 2026] 2026

When you get to be my age, you have probably developed some pretty good coping skills. Or then, maybe you haven't. I know such people. I am even related to a few of them.

But my superpower has long been documentation. It has saved me more time and money than I can even estimate, never mind given me some great column material to mine during weeks when nothing else seems to inspire me.

Documenting was actually a pretty major part of the office job I held for more than 20 years. My job description should have read: "Must be able to navigate a vast incomprehensible bog of bureaucracy administered by persons whose sole role is to make sure that no problem ever gets solved."

My boss'  solution was to relegate all this bottomless bureaucracy to me. This included figuring out how to pay visiting scientists who had ignored all instructions and come with the wrong visa, or hiring summer help outside the allowable guidelines. I once hired a summer student on a purchase order as basically a side of beef. Still proud of that one.

But as I have learned even outside my job, having a solid trail of documentation is often the only way something is going to get resolved. A year ago, I wrote a four-part series about my year-plus efforts to get the streetlight in front of my house fixed. My 90-page log memorialized every single phone call and email I sent or received. But honestly, that - along with my trademark pathological persistence - is what it took to make it happen.

Given my 23-year career as a problem solver and trouble shooter, I have an almost frightening instinct for when something is going to go south. And at that point, I'm in full documentation mode. This has been especially helpful for tracking medical bills and unraveling the way-too-frequent billing errors after a major medical event. While my husband was in the OR after his heart attack, I was in the waiting room already setting up the spreadsheet.

I also keep a file on my computer desktop with everyone I've ever hired, and equally importantly, all the people I want to make sure never to hire again. When I see multiple people on Next Door recommend the same person, I add them even if I don t need that service at the moment. My great handyman, PT guy, HVAC service, and tree trimmers have all come from Next Door recommendations.

Here are my hot tips for problem resolution:

History repeats itself: As anyone who has been reading my column for a while knows, I am a world class techno moron. So every time I/we fix some glitch on our various electronics or appliances (especially our constantly-cranky cable box), I note it in my computer file. Otherwise, we were always trying to remember what we did to fix a problem the last time it occurred.

Get copies of everything medical. Preferably before you've left a doctor s office: We have had enough care by enough providers from different networks over the years that I always get a print copy of all labs, plus imaging reports, and a copy of the image itself on a disk even if I have to pay for it. This has saved us a lot of duplication of services over the years which means saving a lot of money, repeat tests, never mind pain and suffering.

If you want someone to reply or to help you, make it easy for them. Give them a concise summary of what the issue is, what might have already happened, and what you are hoping to happen. The less work they have to do to reply, the more likely it is you'll hear back. This worked especially well for our dog's plethora of health issues evaluated by multiple vets. If it's something that will need a snail mail reply, include an SASE.

Most times when a signature is required, they don't care if the actual person signed it. They just need a signature. This is especially true in bureaucratic institutions. I can t calculate how many documents I signed for my boss and both husbands, all of whom hated having to sign stuff and who were more than happy to have me sign their names for them. I remember taking 15-year-old Henry to the DMV to take his written test for his driver's permit. The DMV clerk said, "Sorry, he needs his father s signature on this too." Next available appointment was not for a month. Henry was crushed. I said, "No problem. Fortunately his dad is waiting for us in the car."  I hustled the puzzled Henry out the front door, signed his father's name to the form, and came back to hand it to the clerk. Did she know? Maybe. Did she care? Absolutely not.

When I'm dead, my heart "won't go on" as the song says, but I hope my computer files will. I have a file called Everything you ever wanted to know about this house. This, of course, assumes anyone will actually look at it.

But it's not going to be my fault if whoever ends up with my home discovers the hard way that you can't leave the washing machine unsupervised or it will go off balance and flail around like a mechanical bull with a broken speed control and potentially end up in the living room. Or that the dryer will fluff in perpetuity. I tried to save you. I really did.

 

 

Fine Tuning Relationship Advice For The Elderly

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published May 18, 2026] ©2026

Anyone who has been reading my column for a while knows that I’m a sucker for those internet articles about how to make yourself look 20 pounds thinner (Photoshop?) or what your car says about you (cheap?) 

A Valentine’s Day-inspired “listicle” in February offered “10 Steps to a closer, more loving relationship.”  I mean, who’s not going to read that?

Well, my husband for one.  Olof is disturbingly sane but there is not a sentimental bone in his body. We’ve known each other for a long, long time, having met as 17-year-old high school exchange students spending our senior year of high school in Brazil. After a 23-year hiatus during which we went to college, married other people, divorced other people, and he spent 10 years as an Air Force pilot, we reconnected again. By this time he had moved on to a career as an engineer.  Let me say that engineers are not known for being highly emoting people and I will definitely attest that this is true.

So, here’s how those 10 steps to a closer, more loving relationship would work for us now that we’re seniors:

1. Hang some photos of the two of you together. Go to Michael’s for some cute new frames. Aside from the fact that our house is already filled with pathological numbers of photos, I honestly, I think I could replace every piece of furniture in the house all at once never mind stucco the exterior, and Olof would merely look around for the briefest moment with a look of puzzlement and query, “Is there something different here?”

2. Send him lexts (love texts) such as “I love that you get me peanut M&Ms when I have PMS.” This text would find my husband racing to the nearest toilet so fast I’d be afraid he’d break a hip. 

3. In terms of relationships, positivity means those little fun, romantic gestures.  For us, “little fun romantic gestures” means going together for flu shots and annual eye exams, and finally getting grab bars installed in the bathrooms. 

4. Let your partner know the real you.  Hell no.  We’re strict advocates of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”  In 2006 we were in a devastating auto accident, hit at 85 mph by an impaired driver. Even after I recovered, I found driving very difficult and began seeing a therapist.  It’s not that Olof is against psychotherapy per se; he’s just puzzled why anyone would do it.  In his personal engineer view, if one has a problem, one mulls.  One ponders.  One might even create a flow chart.  No, one especially creates a flow chart.   One certainly doesn’t pay after-tax dollars to some charlatan with a pseudo-degree in what he refers to as the “squishy” sciences to engage in sharing of Too Much Information.

I didn’t mention my therapeutic activity to Olof although if he had asked, I certainly would have been happy to discuss it.  Which, of course, is exactly what he was trying to avoid. I know he wouldn’t have begrudged me any help that the “quacks” could inexplicably provide although I am sure that he thought if I would just get in the damn car and drive, we could cut the witch doctor out of the equation.

5. Make a relationship bucket list.  I think after as many years as we’ve known each other, that bucket is pretty much at the bottom of the well. But Olof’s future plans definitely include return visits to the Oshkosh AirVenture Air Show (nirvana for pilots).  I personally wouldn’t mind being back in Sweden.  (Sorry, kids!)

6. Don’t try to change him. OK, I don’t really expect to change him.  But I will never give up trying.  This whole thing of me turning on lights and him turning them off two seconds later has got to stop.

7. Schedule a double date night.  How about a single date night?  Actually, one of our many compatibilities is our aversion to paying restaurant prices for wine.  Our wedding anniversary every year consists of a nice bottle of champagne and a large anchovy pizza consumed as we watch the sunset from beach chairs in our front yard.  No reservation necessary. 

8. Dress up in something special just for him. French maid costume? Does it come in XL? Actually. we both pretty much became bag people when we retired but during the pandemic descended in a look best described as “homeless.”  We’ve never really upgraded again.  And we are totally happy with that.

9. Let him know you’re committed.  No problem there.  Given that we’ve both been divorced, we’ve agreed that if the relationship doesn’t work out, we’ll pace off in the street with 45s and see who’s still standing.

10. Have gratitude.  This one’s easy. From time to time I try to imagine what my existence would have been without Olof. On every level, the kids’ and my lives have been utterly, totally, vastly improved by Olof being part of them.  I don’t know what I did right to get Olof, but whatever it is, I’m sure going to try to keep doing it.    

                                                  Olof, age 17, arriving in Brazil

Inga, age 17,  in her Brazilian school uniform 

 

 

How My US Postal Service Package Traveled 3,300 miles For A 120 Mile Trip

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published May 11, 2026] 2026

Seriously, US Postal Service, you can do better. I know I have a quirky address but my house has been here for 79 years. You should be able to find it by now.

Now, I will concede that addresses in La Jolla can be problematical. They are basically permutations of the same ten Spanish words in an endless mix and match. I can see why those postal carriers confuse Vista Playa Bonita with Playa Bonita Vista.

That said, I have a file that is literally four inches thick of correspondence with the La Jolla Postal Service about their difficulties in finding my home in the decades I've lived here. Some of the post masters I have correspondence with have been dead for 25 years. (Yes, really.)

To be clear, the regular carriers who deliver five days a week have always been wonderful. The La Jolla Postmaster job, however, has a higher turnover than the swing shift at Jack in the Box.

It's the subs that deliver on that sixth day or during holidays and summer vacations that are the bane of my existence. It would really help if US Postal trucks had GPS systems in them which astonishingly -   given that they are a delivery service - they do not. I don't know what the subs do with my mail but bringing it to my house is not on the list. 

One of the USPS s admitted improvements is a feature you can sign up for called Informed Delivery. It emails you an alert of the mail (often including a photo of the envelope) that is due to be delivered to your house that day. So now, at least, I know in advance what mail I'm not getting.

The USPS problems were recently illustrated to me in a way that made me despair that they could ever stay in business. I ordered a clothing item a shirt - from a company in Los Angeles. They notified me the same day I ordered it April 23 that it was en route to San Diego (120 miles). This was great news until I noted that it was coming by the United States Postal Service (USPS).

Here is the verbatim copy of the USPS tracking of my shirt's Journey Across America over the next nine days:

Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item

LOS ANGELES, CA 90033 

April 23, 2026, 4:32 pm

Accepted at USPS Origin Facility

LOS ANGELES, CA 90033 

April 24, 2026, 7:04 pm

Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility

LOS ANGELES CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 24, 2026, 8:19 pm

Departed USPS Regional Facility

LOS ANGELES CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 25, 2026, 3:36 am

Arrived at USPS Regional Facility

SAN DIEGO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 25, 2026, 6:05 am

Arrived at USPS Facility

DALLAS, TX 75211 [Huh?]

April 27, 2026, 12:42 am

Departed USPS Facility

DALLAS, TX 75211 

April 27, 2026, 7:11 am

Arrived at USPS Regional Facility

DALLAS TX DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 27, 2026, 7:23 am 

In Transit to Next Facility

April 28, 2026

Arrived at USPS Regional Facility

FRESNO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER [Gah! No!]

April 29, 2026, 2:35 am

Departed USPS Regional Facility

FRESNO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 29, 2026, 7:49 pm

In Transit to Next Facility

April 29, 2026, 10:10 pm

Arrived at USPS Facility

HIGHLAND, CA 92346 [NEAR SAN BERNADINO - OK, right direction at least.]

April 30, 2026, 1:54 am

Departed USPS Facility

HIGHLAND, CA 92346 

April 30, 2026, 4:35 am

Arrived at USPS Regional Facility

SAN DIEGO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER

April 30, 2026, 6:43 am

Arrived at USPS Facility

SAN DIEGO, CA 92122 

April 30, 2026, 2:32 pm

Departed USPS Regional Facility

SAN DIEGO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER 

April 30, 2026, 2:32 pm

Arrived at Post Office

SAN DIEGO, CA 92122 

May 1, 2026, 12:49 am [that took 8 hours??]

Out for Delivery

LA JOLLA, CA 92037 

May 1, 2026, 6:10 am

Delivered, Front Door/Porch

LA JOLLA, CA 92037

May 1, 2026, 12:19 pm

To summarize, this shirt was mailed the afternoon of April 23 and arrived in San Diego at 6 a.m. April 25^th. I expected to see it later that day. But no! It was then routed to Dallas (why? why?) where it arrived on the 27^th, made stops in various USPS facilities there, and was sent on to Fresno where it arrived on the 29^th. After a nice visit there at their assorted facilities, it traveled on to Highland (near San Bernadino) where it arrived on April 30. It was trucked down from Highland to San Diego where it finally was delivered to my home on May 1.

This shirt has seen more of the North Central Plains area of Texas and the California Central Valley than most Americans. I wanted to ask it: did you have fun? Did you meet other nice shirts? Maybe some friendly handbags? 

But even more I wanted to ask the US Postal Service: why, when this shirt had already traveled 120 miles from LA to its destination city (San Diego) on April 25 did you truck it an extra 3,138 additional miles on a deluxe sight-seeing tour to Dallas (1,183miles) then Fresno (1,558 miles), then San Bernadino (282 miles) then back to San Diego (115)? That doesn't even count its inner city transfers to different distribution centers. Hey, gas is expensive these days. I'm sure you guys get a discount, but really. Do you think this is why you could be losing money? Because it would have been so much less expensive for you to just deliver it on April 25 when it was already in town. In nine days, even walking from L.A. would have been faster.

Sadly, this shirt didn't fit so it is now en route back to L.A. I don t even have the heart to look at the tracking. I just hope it's having a good time.