I have learned that this is the only way to charge my phone overnight if I want to make sure that I have it with me on those crazy early Boston-bound mornings:
And because I learned this the hard way, I also learned a new term from Christy: Nomophobia, the panic that comes from realizing that you are without your phone (as in no – mobile – phobia)
On this day, I learned, from Jo Ann, that fabric-softener sheets for the dryer, specifically Bounce sheets, are effective in repelling mosquitoes. According to Jo Ann, you just tuck them strategically in your clothes, one or two per person.
You try it.
Let me know!
I learned, from Ruth, that you can sharpen your scissors by cutting through aluminum foil.
It’s really as easy as that, but if you want the long version, it’s here, with some other steps: How to Sharpen Scissors
I learned all these things about renting a truck.
You may remember that I learned last year that a U-Haul guaranteed reservation means nothing. Specifically, it means that they guarantee that they won’t raise the rate when you pick up the truck, but it in no way implies that there will be a truck to pick up! It turns out that Budget has the same system. I asked Budget “Then what’s the difference?”. “The price”, Zach the Budget Guy told me. And boy, what a difference!
So I learned:
Steve is the one who drove the whole Eastern Seaboard in 2.5 days – Steve, what did I forget?
So I used a lot of minutes this month. So what? I know what you do when you go over your minutes. You just call Verizon and say whoops I went over my minutes. Then you pay $10 and they give you a whole bunch more minutes for the rest of the month and later you just call them again and set it back to the lower rate. Easy peasy. Done this before.
Wait – what? What’s that you say, Verizon? It costs $20 to go from 700 to 1400 minutes. OK. And $10 more to go from 1400 to 2000. Cool. And now I’m over 2000. OK whatever. I just want to sign up to pay the whatever few dollars and you just give me the next step up. WHAT? The next step up is to Unlimited minute and it costs A HUNDRED DOLLARS more??
I learned that I really should have bothered to get the static-y land line in this temporary home of mine fixed rather than think that I could just easily bank on my cell phone and buy more minutes!
Oh well. Lesson learned! Now my family has unlimited minutes for the next two weeks, so feel free to give me a call on my cell!
I learned, in two lessons less than two hours apart, to question my sources and to look again when what I’m hearing makes no sense at all.
In one case it was the GPS telling me that I was 30 minutes away from my destination and then, a mile away, telling me I was 50 minutes away and that I needed to go in the opposite direction than what I thought. It turns out that it thought I was already in the southbound lane of the nearby highway, not in a parking lot nearby, which would have meant (and unfortunately DID mean) driving 10 miles south to the next exit to turn around and go 10 miles north! If I had questioned this, or tried another source (MAP anyone?) I could have saved time, driving, and stress.
Soon after this, I learned that a medical opinion that I heard second-hand, that made less sense than my GPS, was … well… a lie. I really should have questioned it and/or found another source. The truth came out eventually, in a scene somewhere between a sitcom, a bad reality TV show and a drug-induced dream, and all’s well that ends well, but next time I will ask “Really?” and then check another source.
I learned the GPS can come up with an unlikely route that makes you say “Wait, where does this road go? It looks like it ends at the water!” and then the GPS can say:
“In 300 feet turn right. Then board ferry.”
Here is the view from the ferry. Route A1A continued on the other side.
I thought this little green stick thing at Starbucks was a stirrer (and it kind of still is) until I saw someone do this with it and I learned that it is designed to fit perfectly to close the sipping hole and make this a no-spill top!
Go ahead. Tell me. Did you already know this???
I learned, from the New York Times Magazine, that the corrugated edges on your can of jellied cranberry sauce, the very ones that exist to reinforce the can but also serve decorate your can-shaped blob of sauce, have a name! They are called “beads”.
Happy Thanksgiving from JanesLessonsLearned!
A long time ago, I figured out that this LessonsLearned thing was only going to work if I am willing to share even the stupidest mistakes from which I am learning. So here we go. I have learned to put a reminder on my calendar, even a little tiny one, if I am going to have to change my routine. This time, I was minutes away from making a mistake into a really big mistake.
I have now commuted to Boston hundreds of times. And almost all of them on the bus. So at the end of the day it was a very well-paved synapse path in my brain that led me, via the T, to South Station, then up the escalators and out the center door of Gate 2 to my bus to New Hampshire. This time, as I reached for the door I said “Oh no!” (or words to that effect) as I remembered that my car was in Somerville, and that I should be taking the Red Line to Davis Square to get it, not getting on the bus at all!
It was a complicated scheme that including watching Baby Lillian the previous night, staying with Sally, and commuting in on the Red Line. The rest of the plan was to include taking the Red Line back to Davis and driving home, and eventually that is just what came to pass.
I was, however, haunted all evening by the notion of how close I came to figuring this out five minutes later than I did, on the bus and headed up I93!
Sally thinks I need the new Apple 4S so that I can say to it “remind me to go to Davis when I leave work”. But I think one or two words on my calendar around the 5PM spot (“drive”/”davis”/”get car”) would have done the trick!
Jane's Lessons Learned 