SHARE YOUR WORLD 6-14-2022

I got up this morning and it was beautiful. Shining sun. Warm. Dry. Flowers blooming and birds singing. I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered if I remembered how to put on makeup. I used to be good at it, but that was a long time ago.

A diversion about things we used to know and over the years, forgot. We’ve been paying a really high price for FUBO, a streaming station specializing in sports, including baseball and football. At $70/month it’s not a bargain. Garry can watch baseball and football, but that’s a lot of money for a couple of retired, fixed income seniors. Last month as prices were skyrocketing, I said we were going to have to drop FUBO. We can’t afford it, baseball notwithstanding.

Remember when you could watch sports on the networks? You can still watch basketball and golf, but they are asking $30 per month to see the Red Sox and Bruins. It costs even more to see football. FUBO also carries all the networks (except, for some reason, ABC local news) plus all the network shows. Other stuff too, though I have no idea what since I don’t watch it. I bought it for Garry so he could watch the Sox.

I called FUBO and told them I needed to disconnect because we can’t afford it. They offered me a $20/month discount for six months. I said I’d love to keep it, but we are retired. On a fixed income 🎶 I’ve got the shpiel memorized.

So she cut down this month’s bill to $20 which will take us into the middle of July, but after that, bye bye FUBO. I feel bad about it, but I think that ⚾ and 🏈are destroying their own futures. Kids won’t grow up seeing sports. They won’t become fans. They are literally eliminating their future audience. I find it bizarre that they don’t understand this. Garry says the people at NESN (the Sox’s regional station) don’t care. As long as the money rolls in, that’s all that matters.

As for me, I didn’t mind losing all the sports though I’ll miss baseball, but I like getting network news and some of the network shows. We shouldn’t have to pay huge amounts of money to get television. Although we seem to have forgotten, TV is supposed to be free. They get their license from the FCC for free so they can “serve the nation and communities.” Except they don’t because you have to pay a cable service to receive them.

Except really, you don’t.

Owen bought an antenna. $90 on Amazon. Add another $15 in miscellaneous wires and connectors. Yesterday, he and a friend attached it to our roof and before the sun had set, we were getting 56 channels, crystal clear. Some of these channels, as far as I knew, usually cost money on cable or streaming, but are free via antenna.

Garry and I stared at the TV. How do you know what channel you are on? Answer: look up in the right corner. It gives the channel’s name and number. What’s on? Check online or subscribe to the online TV guide for your area. Or surf. The price of the antenna and everything needed to set it up cost less than a month and a half of FUBO. The picture and sound are perfect.

Our trees don’t matter because this isn’t coming from a satellite. It’s a broadcast channel. It’s probably this clear because it doesn’t run through some other server and then through the Roku. It comes straight from the antennas in Boston to our house in the valley.

Hot damn! Free television!

The antenna has cut our streaming channel bill by more than half. We won’t get baseball, but Garry is consoling himself with GRIT, a channel that runs old westerns all the time. He’ll catch whatever games he can on Apple, on the computer, and if we make it to the series, by network. For free. Just like TV used to be. We had forgotten it was ever free.

Also, it turned out, I remember how to apply makeup.

QUESTIONS

What is one topic you really like to talk about? Or something you really want to tell people?

The climate. And birds. How we need to do something while we can, if we can. Maybe human beings have had their time and like every other species, will disappear. Maybe that’s how it should be.

What do you normally never tell strangers about yourself?

I don’t talk about my second marriage. I never talk about Israel and politics. Talk about hot topics! It’s worse than a conversation about Trump and the hearings.

Have you ever broken anything?

What haven’t I broken! A couple of marriages, a few cars, one camera. I’ve dropped antique vases that were 500 years old. I tore all the ligaments in my right knee. I’m sure there are a lot more things to which I could plead guilty, but fortunately, my memory is very short and I can’t remember everything or actually, most things. Probably a good thing.

Is having a big ego a negative trait or positive trait?

A big ego isn’t a strong ego. A strong ego means you have confidence in your abilities and the strength of character to survive in a rough and tumble world.

A big ego? Nixon. Trump. Mussolini. Hitler. Stalin. We remember them because they become significant players in the game of “running the world.” There are many other “big egos” running around. Most of them don’t do anything big. They aren’t important but believe they ought to be important. They have nothing on which to base their big egos. They are just narcissists who believe they are the fulcrums around which the world turns, even though no one has heard of them.

I suspect they own plenty of guns.

About what aspects of your city or neighborhood are you grateful?

It’s beautiful. On a day like today, we can choose where we want to be. By the dam in town? How about River Bend? Or maybe we could go to Aldrich Stream in Slatersville, Rhode Island or the stone bridge over the canal and Blackstone River.

There’s a lake in Northbridge where the swans nest and half a dozen Audubon sites easily accessible from here. Or, if we don’t want to travel, there is our own back yard. It’s beautiful too.

On a day like today, living here is beautiful.

Categories: #BlackstoneRiver, #Photography, #SYW, Anecdote, Baseball, Blackstone Valley, Share My World, Sports, Television

Tags: #Photography, #SYW, Marilyn Armstrong, Questions and answer, Share Your World