Cut Ups

Another small step in the tidying.

In the cleaning of the "Receipts for Major Purchases" folder, I found terms and conditions for credit cards. That's a misfiling but it caused me to pull out the drawer where I have cards and actually look through them. Since the 5th 3rd debacle, I have canceled or let expire a whole bunch of cards that I had but didn't use. I hung onto my 5th 3rd cards until this whole mess was cleaned up, which it was at the end of May. So, I spent some delicious minutes carving those credit cards into shards over the garbage can.

But then there are these. Sears gave me my first card, back in 1977 when I was a college junior. I felt so powerful but had no idea exactly what credit was. Still, I had, and used, that white card until they began issuing standard size cards in the 1990's, I think. Marshall Fields (defunct) and Nieman Marcus also used the small card format. I used to have an NM card. I thought I saved it for nostalgia but it wasn't in the stash.

Sears and Field's issued new cards which I, obviously, never activated. I know they pre-date the banking fiasco or maybe came at the time of the fiasco and I felt, for my good, not having the credit was a good step in righting my financial ship.

Ah Disney. I got this way back in the late 1980's, when Disney stores in malls were exploding like pop rocks. I spent so much money at those stores and through their catalogues. When we took our first vacation to Walt Disney World, we got all sorts of discounts using the Disney card. I think they discontinued it or we canceled it, I don't remember.

And finally, Montgomery Ward. My ex worked for a trucking company affiliated with Wards. We got a 25% discount on goods and services purchased through the store. As mentioned in a previous post, my oven is a Montgomery Ward branded appliance. We got a fantastic deal on it. I have a blue sweater that I got at Wards for $12. I'm pretty sure it's close to the same age as Carole and one of the elbows needs some love, but it has worn like cast iron. I kind of liked Wards and was sad to seem them go bankrupt and close.

But they have arisen from those ashes and are online only now. Scanning through their offerings, they aren't all that unique in what they have for sale. I don't need much but there are a few things which would be fun. They have a compact computer desk. I'd love to replace the behemoth I have in my home office with something more compact. Wards is a distributor for the company that sells the desk. Comparing prices, they aren't cheaper. I think I'd be buying nostalgia more than anything else and I have to be leery about tossing money at something for nostalgia sake. I have a lot of that as it is.

I cut up the big Sears and Fields cards. The rest I put back in the drawer. I'm not ready to take a scissors to them just yet. The act of tidying has always been about being ready to let go, being critical about what I save. There is no use to these. They are saved purely because of warm memories attached to them. At some point the scissors will come out and they will be gone, but that's not now. I did reduce the stack by 3/4ths, however and that is a good feeling.

Beverage:  Coca-Cola

Deb

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

As I was walking to the book fair on the 9th, I saw this clock on a building at the corner of State and Jackson Streets.

 I hadn't noticed it before and I've lived in this area for almost 30 years. I'm pretty sure this is not a recent addition to the building. I can't see anyone putting up an analog clock nowadays. New clocks on buildings would have to be digital. Do young people even know how to tell time? Don't they whip out their phones and read the numbers?

There are other clocks at the other end of State Street that are quite famous. The former Marshall Field State Street flagship store has a clock on the northwest and southwest corners of the building. When I started making friends who lived in the city, it was common practice to say, "I'll meet you under the clock at State and Randolph."

 These public clocks were once very common throughout cities. Banks usually always had a clock as if banking made you the keeper of the time for the town. Even now, pretty much every bank sign gives you the time and the temperature as you drive by. We've come to expect that of our banking institutions. Don't we notice in April and October when the time changes and the bank doesn't get around to changing the time on their clock? Probably now, it's done automatically and is rarely incorrect, unlike my office computer which isn't usually right until a month after the time change.

I don't wear a watch anymore. I have several, including a very lovely one Carole gave me for Mother's Day several years go. The batteries have died in these and I don't really have an incentive to replace them. I am surrounded by the time. There are the little numbers at the lower right corner of my computer screen, the clock on the wall in the office above the microwave, which I can see from my desk and my cell phone. A watch is kind of redundant.

Yet, there is something quaint about a clock, an analog clock, mind you, on the corner of a building. It's a landmark. We will lean back in our chairs and talk of a "simpler time", when you paced your life by the clock on the corner of the bank. It wasn't really "simpler", just different. People using the above clock or the Marshall Field's clocks felt just as rushed as we do. They just didn't watch the time digitally.

I know, if you're a certain age, you've been singing that song.

As I was walking down the street one day
A man came up to me and asked me
What the time was
that was on my watch
Oh ye~~a~~h that day

Does anybody really know what time it is
Does anybody really care
If so I can't imagine why
We've all got time enough to cry

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

Not on a bet.

I would imagine you have all heard the news. It's plastered all over my Yahoo news feed today.

Sears Tower unveils 103rd floor glass balconies

The full article is here.

I just want it made perfectly clear; nope, no way, nada, nix.

But why, you ask?

Simple, says I. I'm afraid of heights.

I've always been that way.

The first time I became aware of it, my family and I went to visit my cousins who lived in Des Moines, Iowa. I don't remember what year it was but part of the visit included a trip to tour the state capital building. I remember running into the building and seeing, on the first floor, a large circle in the floor which looked down into some room with chairs and desks. There was a vague feeling of uneasiness but I passed it off as excitement.

Looking up, there was another hole in the second floor and you could look straight up to the dome. It was, if memory serves me correctly, a beautifully decorated interior with lots of marble and statues and frescos on the walls. We looked about the first floor, what was open to the public, turned and hastened up to the second floor. I remember standing on the landing between the first and second floors, looking up at what my memory thinks were WPA paintings and being totally unable to go any farther. I can remember the fear, the paralyzing fear, that gripped me. I was scared to have to look down through that hole in the floor and just the thought was enough to prevent my legs from moving.

I've always been interested in art so I pretended to be studying the walls. My mother ordered me to come up the stairs. My dad made fun of me, once he realized I was scared to move. My cousins and siblings thought me weird. I felt humiliated and totally confused about this. I'd jumped from the hay mow to the basement of the barn through the hay chute. I'd jumped from the top of the hay stacks to the floor. I'd jumped out of trees. I'd sat on the sill of my second floor bedroom window with my feet dangling on the side of the house. Why was I so scared?

My uncle Moe came back down the stairs and put a big arm around me. In a jovial tone of voice designed to help and make me feel not so awkward, he told me this was a normal feeling. "You're scared of heights. It happens. The trick is to not let it paralyze you." He told me to keep my head straight and don't look below my nose. "So, you'll have to figure out where you can stand that lets you look at that hole in the second floor but not in a way to tilt your head down." I could look up but I couldn't look down.

I still can't.

Carole and I went to Gettysburg for her graduation from high school trip. There is a metal tower some 65' in the air at the border between the battlefield and General Eisenhower's farm. The winding staircase is wide enough for four people to walk abreast. I had to walk up two or three twists and stop. Carole said I didn't have to go to the top, but I knew I had to. I had to walk in the middle of the staircase and look only at the next set of stairs. But, I did it. I climbed to the top of the tower. Coming down wasn't hard.

In the former Marshall Field's flagship store on State Street in Chicago, the east side of the store has an open atrium. You take escalators anchored at each end but open to the atrium between the levels. I hate it. As long as I can stand in the center of the escalator, I can do it. The north side of the store has open holes in the floor where you can look from floor 7 to the main floor. I'm told it's an interesting view. I've never seen it.

And I'm told the view from the top of the John Hancock Center is gorgeous, particularly at night. I'm told it's the best view of Chicago, topping the view from the Sears Tower. I've never been up there. Carole and I spent one drizzly day in March of 2001 wandering around the area near the Hancock building. I had coupons for money off the trip to the 95th floor. But every time we got into the building, I could not, could not get into the elevator to go to the floor where you purchased your tickets for the observation deck.

But I love to fly and I always get a window seat.

So, when you come to Chicago, I'll be happy to take you around, but if you want to go to the Sears observation deck, you're on your own.

Beverage: English Teatime

Deb