Thursday 30th January

Out early as usual to Kiwanis.    Our speaker was very interesting indeed and I didn't expect her to be.  She is the Director of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering  and Maths) Education at the local Technical College, and the fact that she made it so interesting pays tribute I think to her outstanding gifts as a teacher.  She had come to Oklahoma from Texas two years ago, and loves Oklahoma (of course - apart from the roads  which are superior in TX, and the fact that they don't have state taxes) Oklahoma is a better place to be.    However, I digress.   One of our members who recently retired was on the Board which appointed her and he said she had outstanding recommendations from Texas.    As this is a very American thing I won't go into STEM education except to say there are 1.6 jobs for every person with a STEM education as opposed to 4.1 unemployed people for every non STEM job, and that STEM education is going to be vital in the growth of the US economy.

I left the meeting immediately at the end of her talk, I had to make a quick getaway to take my ailing computer to its Emergency Room.   I had been having issues with it for a while, and kept hoping they wouldn't get any worse, as I dread unplugging all the cables at the back, and (more importantly) getting them all back in the right place.   It was ready for me to pick up at 5 o'clock, but he did say that if there still problems to take it back, and they will look at it again free of charge.  So far things seem to be okay but it does still seem rather slow.

I used to take it to a computer shop downtown, but suddenly they moved and reappeared in another street, still downtown, but with a different name.   When I asked why, it was explained that there was a security and surveillance part of the business as well, which had expanded so much the Director decided to separate them.   I can understand surveillance and security expanding, video cameras everywhere are a fact of life.

I didn't go to Communion and lunch, after I'd finished running round I had lunch at home with my book.   I have become a total bookworm.   I am very into the Amish genre of American fiction and the particular book I finished this afternoon also had a murder mystery in its plot.

I rang Phyllis who has roped me in to going round visiting in a nursing home with her (at the moment it is 'a' nursing home, but I suspect there are going to be more).    It's a nursing home where the residents are poor, lonely and unloved.  I asked somewhat plaintively if we couldn't go to the posh one I love, but she was a bit snarky about it, she thinks it is too posh and elitist.........thinks............I like posh and elitist.   I like bridge classes, craft rooms, spas, ice cream bistros, pubs with free glasses of wine, book clubs - none of which are in the nursing homes she's planning to take me to.   Never mind, I'm looking forward to my bake sale there on the 20th.  

I got into a difference of opinion with Phyllis and someone else at the last AARP meeting when I said I was never a fan of the simpering Diana and her 'I-want-to-be-queen-of-peoples-hearts' line, and I like Charles and Camilla.   While it's fine for Phyllis to disagree with me - she is, or was, British - but I took exception to an American condemning Charles and Camilla.   But they certainly get a lot of brain washing with all this on the supermarkets' tabloids.