Changes

May 24, 2020 — Pat Bertram

Jeff and I kept our expenses to a minimum by stocking up on things when they went on sale, and really loading up on items that had been deeply discounted. I don’t see those kinds of sales any more, which is good because I no longer like keeping a lot of things on hand. Having to get rid of cases of food and paper goods when I packed up after he died was just one more stab in the heart, especially since I couldn’t find a place to donate them. The churches didn’t even want them. I don’t remember what I ended up doing — I think an older woman found me crying and said she’d find a way to distribute the items. (She also understood my tears since she’d been widowed three times and admitted that she still cried for all of her husbands.)

The wheel of time turns, and now here I am, once again stocking up on certain items like paper towels — not because paper towels are on sale for twenty-five cents a package (the sale price Jeff and I paid), but because large packages of paper goods are the only sizes available to me right now.

I’m still not stocking up on food. I prefer to eat fresh vegetables and those don’t stay fresh for very long. I don’t use many canned goods or frozen foods. And the last time I looked for meat, I walked away without buying any because the prices were more than I wanted to pay — double what they had been a couple weeks ago. Luckily, proteins like tuna and eggs and cheese continue to be within my budget. I’m grateful I can still make it to the local grocery store once a week, and things I can’t get around here, I’ve been able to get online. I might continue shopping this way even when I feel more comfortable going to a bigger town to visit bigger stores — when shipping is free, it makes more sense to order online than to pay for gas, even when I have to stock up to get the free shipping.

I’m sure there will be other changes to my life — or maybe what I mean is I’m sure I will keep the changes I have made to accommodate these times. I will have to become sociable again, of course, at least to a small extent, but I doubt I’ll ever go back to having a full calendar. I’ve become so used to being by myself that it will take more energy than I have to get myself out of the house. (Though it will be nice seeing friends again.)

For all I know, even when the library reopens, I might keep rereading The Wheel of Time series as I did once before when there wasn’t a library available to me. It’s not that the work is so great, it’s that it is so vast. By the time I reach the end of what is essentially a 4,000,000-word novel, I’ve forgotten many of the connections and relationships that led to the final confrontation, so I need to reread the books to see what I missed. And by the end of the second read through, I’ve forgotten other connections.

And so it goes, the wheel of time. Around and around and around.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

 

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Letter to Facebook

May 22, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I’m not sure it’s worth continuing to fight Facebook over their blocking this blog from their site, but people I respect have urged me to write them a letter and send it by USPS. So, here is the letter I came up with. What do you think?

Facebook Customer Service
1 Hacker Way
Menlo Park, CA 94025

To Whom it May Concern:

On April 29, Facebook erroneously blocked my blog from the networking site. They said the blog goes against community standards for spam, but it didn’t go against any such standards when I was paying to boost various posts.

Because of the block, all links to my blog posts, included the boosted posts, have disappeared as well as the comments and discussions the posts generated. I have left messages via the onsite support center concerning this matter, but all such messages have been ignored.

Please, a thirty-second perusal of bertramsblog.com will tell you that the blog is not spam. It’s a personal blog, a diary of sorts, telling about my grief after the death of my husband and how I learned to survive the loss. These posts have helped tens of thousands of people deal with their own grief and were often shared on FB. Although I don’t talk about grief much anymore, writing instead about being a new homeowner, people still find my posts inspirational since the posts tell them that there is life and maybe even happiness after grief.

If you won’t unblock my blog, please refund the $355 I spend boosting articles that you have since removed from your site. You have also removed all mention of these ads, but I can send you documentation of these payments on Paypal.

Thank you for your consideration.

Pat Bertram
https://www.facebook.com/PatBertramAuthor/
https://www.facebook.com/patbertram
https://bertramsblog.com/

Posted in blogging, internet, life, writing. Tags: , , , . 16 Comments »

An Insular Life

May 20, 2020 — Pat Bertram

When I started with the internet, blogging first then signing up for various networking platforms, I had no patience for people who posted about the minutiae of their lives. I especially didn’t care what they ate — it didn’t seem to have any relevance in the grand scheme of a thoughtful literary life, and it certainly had nothing to do with my objective of making a name for myself as an author.

Well, here I am, a dozen or so years later, writing about my latest meal. In my defense, with the isolation, meals are basically the only thing I do of any value. And generally, if I stick to a healthy diet, my meals are boring. Salads get tiresome, as does any sort of vegetable eaten regularly for any length of time, and trying to find healthy proteins is a lost cause.

Today I decided to put some effort into making something different. (It was either this or ordering a pizza I really do not need). It might not look like much, but this spinach mushroom quiche alternative (baked eggs without a crust) turned out to be quite good.

I’m continuing to wean myself away from the computer, which leaves me with little to do but read. Since I finished my emergency stash of books, and since my email to the library with a list of books for me to pick up curbside resulted in no action, I’m in emergency-emergency mode — immersed in The Wheel of Time, a 4,000,000 word literary work that I’ve read many times before. The best thing I can say about it (besides its length — no need to look for books to read for a long time!) is that it has to be the quintessential good vs evil story. Or more accurately — sort of good some of the time vs, mostly evil all of the time.

It’s exhausting, not just the constant conflicts between the good and evil, the good and good, and evil and evil, but the sheer amount of activity. All the characters are always on the move, traveling from one part of their world to another, on foot, by horse, or by ship.

And the food they eat is even less interesting than what I generally eat — so often, they are on short rations of porridge, cheese, dried meat, and crusty rolls or bread sometimes flecked with weevils. (I must admit, though, that bread or rolls hot from the oven does sound wonderful. Minus the weevils, of course.)

I’m getting to the point where I can’t imagine a different life, though I don’t know if that is a good thing or a not-so-good thing. But it is what I have, at least for now.

And anyway, even if I couldn’t find anything more relevant in the grand scheme of things than my insular life to write about, at least I’m still writing every day.

That’s something to the good. At least, I hope it is.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Reasons For Gratitude

May 9, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I took a chance today and posted one of my blog links on my Facebook author page, hoping the ban was a mistake on their part, but nope. This blog is still banned for violating their spam standards. It upset me, though it shouldn’t have. I know what they had done, and to be upset about it yet again seems a bit foolish. Still, not being able to post the link to my daily articles so that people I know on FB can see what I write, coupled with having deleted a couple of posts that were bringing hordes of the wrong kind of people has played havoc with my readership and search engine referrals. (The more people one has viewing one’s blog, the higher one’s ranking in the search engines, and the higher one’s ranking, the more people will view the blog.) Still, the people who want to read my posts follow me, and the people who need to read my grief posts should be able to find me . . . eventually.

In an effort to change my attitude after stopping by FB, I decided to make pierogi. (For those who don’t know, they are a Polish potato dumpling served with sour cream.) The long-drawn-out process — preparing the potato and cheese filling, preparing the egg-noodle dough, filling the dough squares, boiling the dumplings and then frying them — is complicated enough when more than one person is involved in the preparations, but with one person doing it all, it takes hours. But those hours were spent not thinking about anything since mostly it’s muscle memory work, so that was all to the good.

Now I’m back to myself, taking things as they come, which is even better. And for the most part, what comes is pleasant enough. I can’t go out for walks yet, but a bit of research told me that an elliptical is a great exercise for knees, and it just so happens, I have an elliptical — a hand-me down from a brother who didn’t particularly like it. I hadn’t been using the machine because all the boxes that were stored in the old garage are now stored in my exercise room, but I moved things around so I could get to the elliptical. The exercise is not something I can do for more than a few minutes at a time since it’s a much harder workout than simply walking, but it isn’t hurting my knee any, and perhaps it’s doing some good.

One of the things aggravating my knee was the steep step up into the house through the back door. Now that I know that the step was putting too much of a strain on my knees, I use the front door, even though I end up tracking dirt into the living room. (Which is why, obviously, I was using the back door.) There are plans for a new back stoop area that eliminates the steep step, but since it will be a ramp from the back door of the house to the pedestrian door of the garage, it can’t be done until the garage is built.

The garage has been on hiatus the past ten days or so — although the local lumber yard has my garage door, they won’t be able to deliver it until next week (something to do with The Bob — maybe people out sick?) So, with a bit of luck, there will be some progress made on the garage next week.

Meantime, there are many volumes of The Wheel of Time left to be re-read.

So, despite the whole insulting spam thing, there are reasons for gratitude. I’m mostly healthy, mostly well-fed, mostly content. And if I am isolated, at least I am isolated in my own house. And for that I am especially grateful.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Flummoxed

April 30, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I’m truly flummoxed. Facebook has completely blocked my blog from their site, saying it goes against community standards because it’s spam. Huh? Spam? It’s absolutely acceptable for me to post Amazon links to my books on my Facebook page, but I can no longer post links to this blog, even though I almost never promote my books here. Well, there that short bio at then end of every blog, but that’s more for self-protection than anything else. Certain sites pirate blogs without attrition, so having that bio there at least lets people know who wrote it.

Another thing that’s confusing about this situation is that a few months ago I was boosting posts to see if I could garner interest in Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One, and they very greedily took my money. Now those posts, too have disappeared along with all the rest of my articles. If they weren’t spam then, why are they spam now? If they met community standards then, why not now?

There’s really no recourse. I’ve appealed, but they admit they don’t give any real explanation, seldom reverse their decisions, and won’t respond individually to any request for reinstatement. Which means, except for a brief message saying that my blog goes against community standards for being spam, there’s no way of knowing why. Did someone report me? If so, why? If someone I angered with one of my “Bob” posts complained, why do they say this blog is spam? And even more confusing, if one person who complains can get another one blocked without any explanation or recourse, why would I — or anyone — want to participate?

One friend who got blocked fought them for four months before finally giving up and starting a new blog, which I’m not going to do. Just because FB is now blocking all links to this blog doesn’t mean that anything has changed here. I weathered Google blocking me (that turned out to be a matter of a misplaced piece of code in one post) and I’ll weather this, too. After all, I’m not writing for FB, I write for me and those who want to read what I have to say.

Admittedly, not being able to posts links on FB will make it harder for my FB friends to find me. If you are one of those friends and are able to see this, I would suggest you follow my blog directly rather than waiting for a link on FB that might never appear. To follow, scroll down a bit and on the left-hand side you will find a section labeled, “Follow Bertram’s blog via email.” Click on the link that says “follow.”

I’ve been on Facebook for twelve years. I joined as a place to promote myself as an author and blogger, and stayed because of all the friends I have made. It seems foolish now, but I’ve always been a supporter. Even when people complained about FB, I stayed. Even when FB changed their policies and algorithms, making my posts invisible to most people, I stayed. Even when they changed the groups all out of recognition, turning them into promo sites rather than discussion boards, I stayed.

Well, no more. If they don’t reverse their ban on this blog, I’m done.

**

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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The Truth About Truth

April 19, 2020 — Pat Bertram

During the last presidential election, I lost so much respect for so many folks that I didn’t think my opinion of people could get much lower, but I am now losing even more respect for people than I did back then.

It’s not their opinions that matter — or don’t matter — to me. People can believe whatever they want, can say whatever they want, share whatever they want. I read everything. (In this way, if nothing else, I am a bit different from those who read only that which illuminates or proves what they already believe.) I agree with some of what most people say and most of what some people say, so I really have no stake in what is generally believed or disbelieved.

I have learned enough to know that contrary to what people are saying, we are not all in this together. We might all be dealing with the same global situation, but everyone is dealing with their own particular brand of the situation. Some people are terrified while others don’t seem particularly upset. Some people are going stir-crazy with the lockdowns yet for other people, it’s not much different from their pre-quarantine lives. Some people are dying of loneliness and the lack of touch, others are dying from The Bob or other diseases. Some people are grieving, others are just waiting for the restrictions to be lifted. Some people are angry at those who don’t wear masks even out walking by themselves with no one else around. Some people refuse to wear masks unless it is mandated, and sometimes not even then. Some people are losing jobs, others are losing their minds. Still others are living in dread of the aftermath of the shutdown and the long-term repercussions.

We all live with the values we take to heart and whatever truth we can face. Some people’s truth tends to be very religious. For others it’s politics. Still others look behind the headlines of the news to find deeper reasons for what is happening in the world. It’s all good. It’s all truth in its own way.

As Berrnie LaPlante (Dustin Hoffman) says to his son at the end of the movie Hero: “You remember when I said how I was gonna explain about life, buddy? Well the thing about life is, it gets weird. People are always talking ya about truth. Everybody always knows what the truth is, like it was toilet paper or somethin’, and they got a supply in the closet. But what you learn, as you get older, is there ain’t no truth. All there is is bullshit, pardon my vulgarity here. Layers of it. One layer of bullshit on top of another. And what you do in life like when you get older is, you pick the layer of bullshit that you prefer and that’s your bullshit, so to speak.”

Yep. That about covers it, though I have to admit, the toilet paper analogy is especially amusing and apropos considering the current shortage of both toilet paper and truth.

So why am I losing respect? Because other people don’t have the same laissez-faire attitude that Bernie does. Too often people resort to ridicule, belligerence, sarcasm and other tools of the weak when they are confronted with ideas contrary to their own.

What does it matter to anyone what other people believe to be the truth? That’s their level of bullshit. You have your own. Does it matter that some of your FB friends are turning to God to help them through this situation? Does it matter that some are using this situation to foster their political beliefs? Does it matter that some believe the official story? Does it matter that some people are looking for causes and explanations from experts other than the “official” experts?

No. None of that matters. We are all coping the best we can. Sneering at people for their truth is no help to anyone. Getting nasty toward people who post different sources than yours shows a lack of open-mindedness. Ridiculing people only points out the ridiculousness of your own position, not theirs.

I still go on Facebook way more than I should. Partly, it’s to reply to comments that people leave on my posts. Partly it’s to catch up with those few I do respect — the people who post thoughtful articles from a variety of sources and who never resort to ridicule or belligerence or sarcasm.

And partly, I have to admit, because I am bored. (Boredom is not something I ever like admitting, because I believe any reasonably intelligent person has the resources to stave off boredom, but these are times that try even the most resourceful.)

Luckily, FB has a snooze button so I can put the less than reasonable folks in a time-out. Even more luckily, my knee is healing, which allows me to get around more and find other things to do than play on the computer. (Part of the issue with my knee/leg, I have come to realize is that I spend way too much time sitting at my computer, so staying away is good on so many levels.)

This the truth. Or at least my truth.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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