Handmade birthday card from my daughter.

I turned 60 last month. It’s a milestone. Actually, lots of milestones. I had a friend who turned 60 about 20 years ago. She said, “My grandmother said when you turn 60, you can say whatever you want.” That was when her grandmother’s life expectancy was probably 65-67. Now, if you start saying whatever you want when you turn 60, you most likely have a good 20-25 years to piss people off, including your kids who will be making arrangements for your care in your dotage.

No, I’m still biting my tongue. Mostly. Because I have a lot to learn still. If I want to do things like earn points from Starbucks, I have to learn how to download and use their app and figure out how to use the code I got to get a free drink. So I did that today. I also learned I can order ahead and my drink will be waiting for me. I also learned, having done that, it was quicker to park my car and run into the shop than to wait in the drive-thru line.

(On a side note, we have Dutch Brothers Coffee around here. If you don’t know they’re little kiosks taking up space in what used to be a usable parking lot. They’re manned by hyperactive teens (do employees get free coffee?) Their lines are always a block long. Nope. My days are numbered. I don’t got time to spend in too many drive-thrus anymore.)

Of course, I had to delete about 4 other apps from my phone to download the Starbucks one because my phone doesn’t have a lot of memory. Because I’m poor. One of the apps was the Square Point of Sales. I have a Square reader that can be used to collect payments for my little sewing business and maybe for selling books. Because nobody carries cash anymore.

Woodstock stamp. The now iconic music festival was not well-received by mainstream society in 1969.

Or buys stamps. I use maybe six stamps a year, not including Christmas cards. Most of the people I know don’t use stamps, even at Christmas because I don’t get cards from them anymore. But I still feel neglected and forgotten. There’s no app for that yet. Unless it’s a game you get addicted to and you forget about the real world.

Fred always had a gray suit in my world.

Advanced technology when I was a kid was color TV. We didn’t have one. There is probably more computer power in my 8 gig cell phone than there was on any Apollo space mission craft when I was a kid. Actually, I imagine a gigabyte of computer memory back then was unimaginable. I would look it up, but my time is precious.

I guess keeping up with technology is good for my brain. When I can no longer do it, I’ll have to sit back in my zero-gravity chair watching reruns of The West Wing, Breaking Bad, and Law and Order on my smart tv that is a lot dumber than the virtual reality glasses people use when they’re flying around in their driverless cars while probes inject emotional reactions from TV and movies directly into their nervous systems.

By the way, can somebody help me get this package of batteries open?