Progress or regress

Have you noticed that as our appliances, our computers, our cars become ever more complicated with more bells and whistles, they become more and more difficult to get fixed? Guys and some women used to tinker with their cars. My father always fixed his own car. Now even our local mechanic can’t do anything useful to our new Subaru. Only the dealer has mechanics who are also computer whizzes. Until maybe 15 years ago, there were still TV and radio repair shops.Shoe repair was common a decade further back, Now we have units that both heat and cool. A compressor outside the house operates a unit in each of two rooms. That is, it did. Now it’s broken. A repair-man has come three times from the business where we bought it and the people who installed it, but apparently it is too complex to fix. The repairman has long conversations [with japan?] but the directions are too complicated. it is hot, it is fucking hot and I have no airconditioning in my office. And my brain ceases to function over 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The fourth visit seems to have worked or maybe it’s just that finally the weather has cooled down. I like this new weather and hope it lasts. It’s so much easier and pleasanter to sleep at night and work during the day. I got into PCs very early. We were even members for several years of the Boston Computer Society. With my early computers, I could do everything with them. I understood the hardware and software. The operating system was something I could control. Now every computer I buy has more crap on it I never use and don’t need and even the local computer honchos can’t fix it when my MAC goes crazy. With everything we buy, when it stops working – always sooner than you expect – we simply discard it and send to the dump. More trash to bury our world. Cats I think I understand. Schwartzie is now ten weeks old and looks like a little cat instead of a fuzzball. He no longer has black fluff but longish black fur. He is as bold as ever. Willow and Mingus have totally accepted him and play with him, eat with him, sit near him. Xena is still taking his measure. He is not afraid of her but wary. He is not convinced T-Rex will not eat him. She observes him carefully. She only once raised her paw at him when he was first in the house and jumped on her huge tail. When Woody could not find him to take him to bed and was calling him all over the house, Xena found him for Woody. That is, she took Woody to him where he was hidden. He is at the stage where he is constantly trying to find out if something is edible – a piece of apple or cheese, a piece of paper, his own tail. I am working hard on my Columbus weekend class of returning poets. I am watching football for relaxation, out in the garden when it’s cool enough, seeing friends now that the summer’s frenzy is over. The Cape is still full of people but not as overcrowded. There’s traffic but not gridlock. If only the cooler weather would stay with us and if only it would rain, rain much.