Lost In Translation

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published Oct. 5, 2017] ©2017

 

Having lived an aggregate of three years in foreign countries whose languages I did not speak when I got there, I am usually the last one to make fun of anyone’s English language skills. I can assure you that I have provided many foreigners with a great deal of entertainment while I attempted to master their tongue.

 

Years back, when Asian-made calculators first hit the American market, it was a source of some hilarity to read the instructions written by people who had obviously scored in the bottom half of their English classes.  But in today’s global market place, English proficiency is so universal that it is really rare to find forms or manuals that are incomprehensible. When Olof and I were moving to Sweden, we had to fill out a form for the belongings we were shipping to avoid paying duties and taxes on them.  The Swedes speak English better than most Americans (and interestingly, can usually name all of our state capitals). Maybe translating customs forms is the job you get in Sweden to punish you if you failed to excel in your English language studies.  The form was entitled:

 

Particulars regarding sojourn in a third country

(A) Are you a so-called immigrant (i.e. a person who has had his/her normal residence in a third country for a continuous period of at least one year? 

Or:

(B) Are you a so-called returner (i.e. a person who has residence in a third country for professional purposes for at least one year? 

(C) Did you take any breaks for visits to the Community?

 

WHAT third country????  WHAT community????  Never mind that being referred to as “so-called” made us feel so …so marginalized.  Never able to figure out whether we were hapless returners or community sojourners, we ended up ignoring the form altogether. Fortunately, all our stuff got there, and we didn’t get charged taxes and duties, although it would have taken them all of a microsecond’s glance at either of our wardrobes to ascertain that we were not smuggling Prada into Sweden.

 

More recently, Olof’s MP3 player broke and he ordered a new one on Amazon.  Fortunately he already knew how to work it, as the instruction manual read as follows:

 

Statements:

(1) Firstly, we deeply appreciate you for using our mp3 digital player in advance. The detailed specification should be based on our actual products. Information in this manual is subject to change without further notice.

 

(2) Without the prior written permission of our company, it is strictly prohibited to copy, transfer, distribute and store our company’s manual in any forms.

 

(3) During the preparation process of the manual, we have been tried our best to keep the content correctly and completely but we can not guarantee there are not other mistakes in this manual, our company will not take any responsibility for other mistakes.

 

(4) In order to follow the continuous development strategy, we reserve the rights to modify and improve the products which described in this manual without prior notice.

 

(5) In any case, we will not be liable for any loss of data or income.

 

(6) The final interpretation of the products is owned by our company.

 

This MP3 Player…supports lossless format, enthusiast listener essential artifact.

 

Button function:  Short press the button to drop out.

 

Attention:

 

This section is for users to use the player properly to ensure a good life’s habits.

 

(1) Please do not thump the product.

(2) The product needs to be kept away from the chemical benzole and diluent etc.

(3) Please keep it away from the strong magnetic field, electrical field.

(4) Please do not disassemble, fix and change it by yourself.

(5) Do not listen to the larger voice, so as to avoid adverse effects on hearing.

(6) The abandon package, battery, old electronics, please category compromised.

 

Obviously some of it is charmingly understandable. I know firsthand what trouble you can get into when you try to translate straight from a dictionary.  Or even using an on-line translator.  I tried using one to translate the directions in Swedish on a can of oven cleaner that had warning photos of flames, skulls and crossbones, serious burns and other peril.  Here’s what I got:

 

Manual:  (1) jars the tin well. Spraya on approximately 25 cms distances an even stock shady on those surfaces that will be cleaned. (2) protect painted cabinets.  N.B. no heating!  Consequence pc IDS:  Wide easy pollutant least one hour.  (3) at harder fastbränning tune the mean seem over the night and when necessary up to 24-28 hours.  (4) dries away skummet with a damp sponge or rag.  (5) when necessary repeat the treatment.   Prevents hard fast good bottom blots through regular treatment with oven Rengörare.  For “alone cleaning spirit” oven - följ respecktive factory assuming instructions. IRRITATES THE EYES AND THE SKIN!  IRRITATING EXTREMELILY BRANDFARLIGT!

 

I decided to leave the oven dirty.

 

 

The Curse Of Smart Appliances

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published September 20, 2017] ©2017

 

It’s getting harder and harder to find dumb appliances. You’d think that with tens of millions of us Boomers descending into incipient senility that appliance manufacturers would be falling all over themselves to create the Jitterbug phone version of washers, dryers, stoves, microwaves and remotes. 

 

We Boomers are definitely not the target audience for all these “smart” appliances. We all have memories of appliances that required no manuals whatsoever to operate.

 

It is too much to ask (ok, apparently it is) to get a simple but quality appliance? 

 

For example, for decades I had stoves that had two dials: one for temperature and the other that could be set for Bake, Broil, or Pre-heat.  Now, I did have to actually remember that Pre-heat takes about 15 minutes but I didn’t require that I be able to watch an electric counter on my stove’s touch screen inch up to 350 degrees.  I didn’t even require a buzzer to tell me it was ready but it was a whole new era when one did. I think I could be pretty senile and still make that stove work. 

 

If the bake igniter went out (pretty much the only thing that could go wrong with stoves in that era), the repair guy had one on his truck. One visit and I was back in business.  Now, of course, one teeny weeny malevolent little microchip flakes out on your electronic control panel and the whole effing thing has to be replaced. Last time it required a month to order and cost $590 (plus $150 labor). 

 

Come back, two-dial stove. I really miss you. 

 

Smart appliances obviously do not think highly of the intelligence of users. This is why most new appliances are afflicted with “feature creep” – new and ever-more complicated options guaranteed to make your life miserable and to require expensive repairs. When my appliances think they know best, I’m willing to hang it all up. 

 

Take, for example, this cautionary tale from an East Coast friend who bought a “smart” washing machine: 

 

At our house in Connecticut, we have an LG HE top loading machine, recommended for having less vibration than front loaders and no mildew problem. It has a feature called "load sensing" that allows the machine to tell if the load is balanced. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the machine has a very strict definition of a balanced load that would seem to require that there is an even number of items of a similar weight and bulk in a load and that they are evenly distributed in the drum. If the machine, in its infinite wisdom, decides the load is unbalanced, it will attempt to remedy the situation by refilling with water. It will do this multiple times, resulting in cycle times of up to two hours (not kidding). Keep in mind that this is an "Energy Star" rated machine. Eventually, it will give up. Then we usually unplug it and set it to “spin only” which can work. When it successfully completes a cycle it plays a cheerful little tune which infuriates me every time I hear it.

 

When I went online to see if others had the same issue with the machine, I found cyberspace to be loaded with dissatisfied customers, one of whom posted the following advice:  "Go to the top floor of your house. Open the largest window. Throw the machine out the window. Problem solved."

 

A particularly unfortunate result of this issue is that the gentle or "hand wash" cycle is virtually useless because of the unlikelihood of being able to create a "balanced load" of delicates.

 

I am so excited to be in Martha's Vineyard for the summer where my 20-year-old Maytag stackable completes the wash cycle in 20 minutes and delivers clean clothes. I highly doubt it is less "efficient" than my "smart" machine.

 

On our dryer, at least,“wrinkle control”( the thing that keeps fluffing up your clothes every 30 seconds so they won’t get wrinkled if you can’t get to them right anyway) is a feature that you must select.  But on some machines, it’s automatic.  Friends went to Europe having put clothes in the dryer before they left. It was still fluffing when they returned.

 

Maybe it’s my age that I see every appliance feature as “one more thing to break.”  Or maybe it’s my age that I’ve repaired way too many appliances that had features I never wanted in the first place.  So note to appliance manufacturers:  Our neurons aren’t getting any younger.  The first thing I’m going to forget how to use is the complicated touch screen on my stove. Please please make some appliances for the elderly.  You don’t have to call them Dementia Appliances.  In fact, it would be better if you didn’t.  But here’s a hint: if it needs a manual, you’ve failed.

 

In Pursuit Of Creativity

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published September 13, 2017] ©2017

 

Everyone has a creative strategy, a time when you can really let your mind go wherever it wants in pursuit of problem solving or the unleashing of artistic energies.  Olof’s is mulling. Mine is wombing. 

 

Olof’s prime mulling time is in bed at night before he goes to sleep. Now that he’s retired and can work on programming problems to his engineer-heart’s content, he will position himself on his back and just stare off into space.  For an hour. Sometimes two hours.  Occasionally until two in the morning.  When he’s found the solution he was looking for, a satisfied smile creases his face and he flips off the light.

 

Years ago, before we were married, Olof offered to replace a section of six-foot fence on my property that had fallen down.  I immediately suggested  hiring him an assistant.  But no, he said, there were some difficult engineering  issues to solve and an assistant would interfere with mulling.  And indeed, he would just stand out there, leaning on his post hole digger seemingly in a trance. But a few minutes later (sometimes a lot of minutes), he’d nod his head and proceed.

I know to never, ever interfere with mulling. The house would have to be on fire first.

 

Meanwhile, I have always done my best thinking by going back to the womb. You make the bathroom as dark as possible then curl up on the floor of the shower like a pretzel letting the nice warm water cascade over you. Close your eyes. Let your mind go. Regress. Remember the good old days.

 

It used to be that the only limit on the length of time you could spend in the womb was the size of your hot water heater. But that was before the drought. It became politically and environmentally (and especially financially) incorrect to waste that much water even in the cause of creative pursuit.

 

So I had to find a wombing substitute. Fortunately walking works pretty well too, especially if it is on the beach.  Even more fortunately,  I live near a beach as this would have been a less successful strategy in Omaha.

 

I’m hardly the first to appreciate the creative powers of walking.  There is a wonderful Latin expression, Solvitur ambulando, meaning “it is solved by walking.”  

 

Let me take a short detour here to mention that in high school I studied Latin for four years and still have a huge fondness for the language. Well, the first two years of Latin anyway.  Third year Latin – Julius Caesar’s description of the Gallic wars – was that a total snorer. But then I’ve never been into war stories anyway. Sadly for my high school sensibilities, chick lit was in its infancy in Caesar’s era.

 

Fourth year was Vergil’s epic poem, the Aeneid. More war stuff but at least it had a big fake horse and a hot babe (Helen). Sadly, 54 years later, I can quote all of the first three words: Arma virumque cano ..., "I sing of arms and of a man”. But that does kind of sum it up (lots of arms, and a man (Aeneas)). 

 

Already weary of the Aeneid’s ponderous dactylic hexameter a month into the school year, I was delighted to discover that Vergil was a fall birthday - October 15, 70 BCE, to be exact.  Keenly aware even at this young age that chocolate is an antidote to pretty much anything, I got permission from our Latin teacher to throw Vergil a 2,034^th birthday party during class time.  I figured everyone deserves a party even if they’ve been dead 2,000 years.  Yup, that’s the photographic evidence right there:  Inga stuffing chocolate in her face at Vergil’s bash.

 

The phrase Solvitur ambulando is said to have originated from the Greek philosopher Diogenes in 4^th century BC, and the concept of walking as a freer of the mind has been espoused by many notables including Thomas Jefferson, Nietzsche, Ernest Hemingway, and Thoreau, among others.  It allegedly helps combat the effects of aging although I’m afraid in my case that ship has sailed.

 

Still, my best writing is done in my head as I saunter slowly down the beach with the waves as white noise in the background. A paragraph that I was stuck on slowly resolves. Great lines that the La Jolla Light will never print ricochet around my brain like ping pong balls in a lottery cage. The resolution of decisions that had been plaguing me seem to suddenly become clear.

 

While the drought put a damper on wombing, now that it is officially over, can I start wombing again?  Yeah, probably, but one thing that ISN’T over is astronomical water bills. So I can womb to my heart’s content if I’m willing to pay Tier 4 water rates and turn over my Social Security check to the water folks.

 

 I think I’ll just keep walking.

 

Inga scarfing chocolate cake at Vergil’s 2,034^th birthday bash

October 15, 1964

 

 

A Sticky Situation

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published August 30, 2017] ©2017

It’s comforting to know that after I’m gone, I’ll live on through Post-it notes.

Truly, I think Uber and yellow sticky notes are the greatest innovations of modern times.  I’m not sure what I did without either.

Self-adhesive Post-it notes in assorted sizes have been around for a while now.  According to Wikipedia, the source for all things accurate, in 1968, a scientist at 3M, while attempting to develop a strong adhesive, inadvertently created a reusable pressure-sensitive glue.  It was almost another decade before they found an application for this “solution without a problem.”  A story, which sounds suspiciously apocryphal, alleges that one of the scientist’s colleagues discovered that the adhesive helped him to anchor his bookmark in his hymnal. Post-it notes are now produced in multiple sizes and colors, different strengths of adhesion for non-smooth surfaces, and even with lines on them. 

We purists, however, only use yellow.

Personally, I’m only willing to try to keep so much information in my head at once.  This is why my computer monitor is ringed with sticky notes reminding me of all manner of info such as short cuts I use during word processing, passwords I use frequently but not quite often enough to remember them, what sequence of commands to use when my computer freezes up, and how to stop print jobs when I accidentally specified 100 pages instead of 10.

Sticky notes on my bathroom mirror remind me of the day’s appointments now that I am a senior. Yellow Post-its over the washing machine exhort Olof to remember that you need to push the dial IN before you turn it, or if the load goes off balance, to stop it.  It is baffling to me that neither of my husbands, a physician and an engineer with a degree in nuclear physics, have ever been able to grasp this concept.

There is no machine in our home that is not adorned with sticky notes advising me of its operational requirements. In fact, with some of them, you have to move the sticky notes to even use the machine.

At one point, my older son Rory sent me a birthday card depicting an old person holding a remote up to her ear and waiting for a dial tone. Rory noted: “Mom - I’m sure there is a sticky note in your house that addresses this.”  

Our assorted remotes all have sticky notes on the back reminding me which of our too-many electronic gadgets it allegedly operates.

When I was editing my book, I printed it out (don’t judge), then went through multiple packages of sticky notes to mark changes. What can I say; I’m from the paper generation. We like to read actual crinkly tree-destroying newspapers and to edit with a pencil.

Post-it notes on the fridge remind me to thaw chicken or put the lasagna in the oven at 6:00. I just have a Post-it note mind. Or, as it has been suggested by mean-spirited persons in my family whom I will not personally name, a mind not sufficiently memory-capable to avoid needing Post-it notes. I will totally confess to my entire mental organization being dependent on them.

A few times my Post-it note habit has had unintended consequences.  In 2009, during a weekend visit, my prankster older son Rory appropriated my 14-digit library card number sticky-noted to my computer and ordered me up a long list of books including The Book of the Penis (it came with an 8-inch ruler along the binding); The whole lesbian sex book: a passionate guide for all of us; Coping with Your Colitis, Hemorrhoids and Related Disorders; and The Rear View: A Brief and Elegant History of Bottoms Through the Ages.  He was aided and abetted by the public library website’s then-policy of announcing “your password is the last four digits of your phone number,” a policy now changed, presumably at the behest of other mothers with creatively-minded sons. But once these titles were on the reserve shelf with my name on them, there was nothing to do but take them home and read them.  And write Rory a book report on what I had learned from each of them. 

If Post-it notes are to be my legacy, I think it would only be appropriate that when I die, the assorted assemblage should be issued with pads of sticky notes on which they could write farewell messages and stick them to my coffin. This could be in lieu of flowers. It would be especially appropriate since yellow is my favorite color.  The messages could run the gamut of, “I’m sorry I never returned your blender!” Or: “I hope those chocolates won’t melt where you’re going, ha ha!  Or even: “Inga – you really should have had that checked.”

But somewhere in the program, there should be an important announcement: Given Inga’s demise, short your 3M stock.