Simply Norma

Have you finished your Christmas shopping already? I haven’t but I’m well on my way.

I thought I’d let you know about a product that I received for my birthday this past year. It’s called the Prepara Power Plant.

I saw it advertised on TV, looked at my husband, pointed at the TV and said “I want that for my birthday.” No guesswork for him this year. For some husbands, I think that’s the best way to handle gift giving — just tell them what you want because otherwise you might get pink fuzzy socks that you’d never wear in a lifetime.

Anyway … I used the Power Plant for 3 months and liked it. It did NOT however make the plant as large as the picture shows but that was fine with me as I used it to grow basil and liked the smaller leaf pieces. I do have to say though that I did not have much sunlight on my south window because of our treed property so that could have been a factor.

Here’s what mine looked like after a month or so …

The plant comes with its own liquid fertilizer that lasts awhile and I still have half a bottle left as it uses very little. So — no bugs, no dirt, no problem! And you can use whatever seed you’d like to grow.

Oh – one last thing … because it’s plugged in, you do hear light noise when its quiet so consider what room you might want to put it in if you decide to get one for yourself or for a friend.

Yes indeed, I’ll be growing more basil soon. Or perhaps I’ll try growing something else this time.

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It’s now been a little over a couple of months since we bought our new Ford Escape and during this time we’ve been training ourselves on all the neat features it has, especially the use of the hands free lift gate that is supposed to work by kicking your foot under the back bumper. But, it hasn’t quite worked.

At first we thought our problem was “user error” but after two months we decided we weren’t THAT slow in learning. So, off to the Ford dealer we went. I made an appointment for a Friday morning and was told that it might take a couple of days to fix so they gave me a loaner car. Late Monday morning I called to see if we could pick the car up later in the day but was told that they hadn’t even looked at it yet.

Needless to say, I was not happy with the repair shop. I asked them “Why make an appointment if you’re not going to look at the car on that day?” He didn’t really have a good answer. Later that afternoon they called to tell me that the problem was a “defective motor” and that it would be a couple days for the part to come in.

The following day I received a call letting me know it would be a week before the part would come in because it was on backorder. Hmmm … no parts for new cars?

A week later … well, you know where this is going, right? We took the car in on November 2nd and we’re still waiting. (No, we did not keep the loaner car but instead decided to get our car back until the part came in.)

Last week, I tweeted with the Ford dealer people at headquarters and received a call from a manager who told me she would escalate our getting the part and would get back to me in one week. One week? That’s an escalation?

What’s ironic about this whole thing is that here we are in the middle of the busiest shopping season and the so-called wonderful feature they have to help with putting packages in the car hands free doesn’t work. The hatch won’t open with my key fob either as the lights give a quick blink and then it does … nothing. Well, okay, on occasion it MIGHT work.

The last time I heard from the local dealership was the day after Thanksgiving when he told me that he would contact me this week as that’s when he would get the next update. Yes, you read that correctly. He would get an update not a part.

The manager at headquarters told me she was not aware of any part that was on backorder.

In addition to this problem, the car’s navigation screen and radio turn off as it performs “maintenance” on an almost daily basis — sometimes twice a day and sometimes twice an hour. We don’t know what that’s about. I called and they walked me through re-booting the master system in the car but it still turns off at least once a day. There is an error that pops up before it turns off but it goes away too quickly for us to write down what it says.

In effect, I’ll be using the navigation system and the whole thing will turn off for a couple of minutes and I’m left in limbo as to where I’m going. If nothing else, I’m learning not to depend on the navigation system.

I was told that if the master re-boot didn’t work that I needed to take it in to the local dealership for repair or call them back. I think I’ll wait for the part to come in before making another trip to the dealership though.

For now, I’m thankful the car runs and that this re-boot problem doesn’t turn the engine off also.

More updates later …

Friday mornings, with laptop in tow, I like to head out of the house and spend time catching up on my reading, and sometimes, my blogging. My “normal” place to go is Starbucks even though their hot chocolate is not the best (their white chocolate is not too bad though).

Pulling into the parking lot, I noticed lots of parked cars. Hmmm, I thought to myself, am I going to find a place to sit down inside? Grabbing my laptop carrier, I headed into the store and promptly walked out. Every table and chair was taken.

My options are unlimited at this point. I could head 1/2 a mile to Caribou Coffee, a mile and a half to Dunn Brothers or a mile to Panera’s.

My choice today was Panera mainly because I knew they would have a lot of seating and my chances of finding a quiet corner were higher.

The few times that I’ve been to this Panera I’ve had maybe a couple of people ahead of me in line — but not so today. There was a long line. I wonder why all these people are out today? Could it be that the holiday season brings out groups of people to meet in coffee houses?

After picking up my order of a hot chocolate and egg and cheese sandwich, I sat down, took out my laptop and looked up.

What an interesting phenomena, I thought. What am I talking about you ask?

Looking up I saw groups of people talking and laughing and nary a laptop computer around. I am the oddball here. When I walked into Starbucks everyone I saw had a laptop in front of them. Hmmm … I wonder why there’s such a difference. Then I noticed “it.”

The people I had seen at Starbucks were all young(er) whereas the people I’m looking at right now are all older then I am. A totally different crowd.

Could I infer from this that older people have not forgotten that face-to-face contact is necessary for survival? The older, the wiser? Human contact is not lost?

No, I guess I can’t infer that although it seems like a logical thought pattern to follow. I know plenty of young people who socialize face-to-face with other people.

The older people around me are definitely engaged with each other. No looking at smart phones or computers — nothing is distracting them except the faces of those around them. They are smiling, nodding, listening and enjoying the conversation they are having.

I like it. There is an “aliveness” to it. Perhaps, instead of a cyber Monday or black Friday, just perhaps we should have a “no technology week.” Now THAT would be very interesting.