I've enjoyed Paula Poundstone since I saw her on television a long time ago and love her on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! She said she didn't buy underwear often so when she went into Sears she had no idea what size to buy. I consider her thin. She got size 13 and because she rarely buys, she buys a lot at once! She doesn't want to take things back, either. Size 13 in the equivalent of 3XXX. She reached down and pulled up a BIG wad of underwear.

ALthough I don't have this particular shopping problem, I am more of a purpose driven than lounge-about shopper.

I've been cleaning while listening to Paula Poundstone. Her new book is a series of adventures looking for happiness. The first is health and exercise. Being a humorist, she explains all the terrible torture at the first and how wonderful she feels at the end of the experiment.

Her next activity was computers. She had no history at all, apparently. Ticket sales were bad in Vancouver so her agent asks her to make a video to promote her upcoming appearance. She does and mails it to her agent. The agent calls back to say it cannot be longer than 1 1/2 minutes, and the smaller one won't email.

I understood completely! The camera on the phone is awkward for me. This phone often says it is overheated. Before it dies I wanted to get the many photos transferred. The instructions said (more or less):

Open the pictures app

Open the Google app

There will be the three lines meaning a menu to choose.

I looked for the lines on the Google menu. After much frustration, I gave the phone to the granddaughter who solved the problem right away by looking on the pictures app, where the menu resided.

Poundstone wound up getting all sorts of hardware like a cell phone, two Google accounts, a Facebook account, and a daily offer from CVS to come spend money,and other things she didn't know she needed. It did not bring happiness.

One other thing I liked a lot was that her son wants to use the computers and auxiliary items for games. Poundstone tells him he may have 20 minutes of time if he does his homework, practices the oboe for 20 minutes, perhaps other tasks. She then points out that there is a vast difference in oboe vs computer for 20 minutes, one being forever, the other no time at all. I think Einstein applied this to one of his theories!

Alas, I don't know how to turn off underlining. There is no button visible to do this. It is probably on a tool bar that floats in, but I don't know how to summon it!

The next section sounds like Bill Bryson's funny discussion of being on the Appalachian Trail to see if being outdoors brings happiness. She mentions being broke, and borrows a backpack, but is lured in by the big retailers to get a backpack with all the pockets and gadgets. I'm sure her antics will be comforting for me. She was in a backpacking club in high school. Friends hike and camp out and post photos of the long snake they saw. Alas, I fear my old age is not willingly going to be of this sort. I'd much prefer oohing and aahing at an art gallery or trying new food. (I went to Epice, a Lebanese place on 12th. The food was great, the service was great, but it was more expensive that my usual investments in meals.)

I've gotten one notebook/bag almost cleared out...it's been relatively painless. And A box packed. But sorting has happened, it just doesn't seem like much on paper.

The Poundstone CDs are from the liberry. I bought a CD player and tried to figure out how to get sound from it. I checked the wiring and there were no buttons on the player. When the tv portion was turned on it evident the tv is to be the sound device. This is not evident to me. Others have always made the magic happen. I thought there was a missing remote...I'm getting quite the collection.

I didn't like the NPR Radio Driveway Moments CDs. There have been many things I have heard that have been influential. I remember decades ago being in Shelby Park with a small Sara and being so dismayed that Admundsen froze to death so close to supplies. The current CD had Joan Rivers and other comedians that were not the ones for whom I stayed in the driveway to finish hearing the segment.