Author: crdahlberg

Analog Smartphone

For many centuries before the advent of digital smartphones with their conversation-restricting this-is-my-private-world ambiance, there was another silence-inducing pastime—the analog world of card-play, where strategy is everything, and silence is to be respected. Apparently, at this breakfast table at least, the new gives way to the very old. But at least the silence is broken by an occasional, “It’s your turn,” instead of the jangle of The Lone Ranger-themed electronic ringtone. Ahhh.

Vignette of a Companion

We met her today at the Ojai Coffee Roasting coffee shop. She’s 82, and just finished a month-long, $20,000 intensive live-in workshop (along with four other $20,000 per person attendees) with self-help guru Byron Katie. Nope, I’ve never heard of Ms. Katie before. But for that sort of money, I’m thinking I that I have a lot of self-help to give! Our coffee-drinking friend, a Brit, met her husband in South Africa. Living in England, she refused to move back to Apartheid South Africa, so after 20 years of marriage, they divorced. She departed with $1 million of his $10 million wealth. His subsequent two wives got the rest of it, upon his death. She’s still mad about that. And, nope, I never even learned our coffee-drinking friend’s name. But I will, when she attends my new self-help seminar, now on the drafting table.