Views Differing

If I needed reminding about the power of ideas, I got it yesterday.

I have long been irked by the lack of civil discourse between political parties on opposing sides of the policy and values fence in my current place of residence.

Unnecessarily hot – often hateful – and somewhat reminiscent of fights among teenagers in a school yard. Equally impotent except that views held by adults have more currency and shape political systems.

Yesterday I was discussing the relative merits of the Canadian and US health care systems. I was born in Canada. My values were shaped there. I benefitted my whole life from free health care when and as I needed it.

I explained my view is that we encourage social stability and suppress violence by providing for the least among us in society. Sure there will be abuses of the system.

But in a country like Canada, I believe we collectively accept it is a necessary cost. (I won’t argue the current state of health care in Canada. Or lack thereof. That is a whole other blog post.)

I decried the story I once read of a young man in his twenties who died after falling into a diabetic coma because he was parsing his insulin use due to the cost. I was appalled that anyone should lose their life for lack of health care.

My American friend has an opposite view. “People should die,” he asserted, “if they can’t afford health care. It is a business not a right.” It would be more than fair to say our views diverge sharply in this regard.

This is someone who does not appear to have had any significant financial or other upheaval from life setbacks that may have altered his point of view.

That said, I appreciated his candor. Even though the attitude astonished me. There was a lot of ensuing discussion about personal responsibility with which I agree. But I know the trap of addiction and am lucky enough to have overcome it.

Otherwise I may well have been one of those who succumbed to the vagaries of my disease due to an addiction I could not overcome.

That conversation cemented my view that capitalism is the key driver of values for many Americans. Sadly, however, there seems to be a paucity of awareness of just plain wrong-headedness about what the term “socialist” means. Which is what a lot of Americans think Canada is.

I was reminded of the term “confirmation bias” whereby people seek out and accept only those views and people who are aligned with what they already believe. I am pretty sure I do the same.

But I find value in trying to get my head around what shapes and drives alternate opinions. What is cooperation and growth but compromise based on mutual respect for each other’s opinions, even if we don’t share them ourselves.

I am unlikely to be swayed by someone arguing the merits of living off roadkill or bush meat, for example, but I get that some people in other cultures do.

I am not going to try to change anyone’s minds about what they believe. Everyone rationalizes their POV according to their own needs. Missionaries all over the world have tried that tactic for centuries with varying degrees of success and usually at a very high cost to the colonized.

And that said, while I may respect their point of view and entitlement to it, I am unlikely to accept a dinner invitation from the roadkill proponents any time soon. Okay, never.

Other Words

A poem I found that I deeply relate to.

“You should dance with the skeletons in your closet.

Learn their names,

So you can ask them to leave.

Have coffee with your demons.

Ask them important questions like,

“What keeps you here?”

Learn what doors they keep finding open,

And kick them out.”

Author Mason Sabre

Personally, I am sick to death of wrestling with the verdammtes things.

Kewpie Dolls

When I was little – maybe 5 or 6 years old – I loved rifling through my grandmother’s vanity in her bedroom.

It was one of those old-fashioned triptych set-ups with three mirrors of which two angled inwards for a full 180 degree view, a low middle shelf and a small rectangular stool to sit on while performing your “toilet.” (That was a word that profoundly confused me as a child mixing it up, as I did, with the other, more familiar, toilet function.)

Sitting there in front of those three mirrors, I felt very grown-up and special. Nanny had the usual array of products for a lady of her age and station in that era. There was a little pot of cheek rouge and a round brush to apply it. Lavender hand lotion. Yardley as I recall.

An ornate metal brush and comb set with a handle and a mirror that matched. Presumably so she could see the back of her hair in the mirror while brushing it. Various accounts back then said hair needed daily brushing of up to 100 strokes to keep it shiny and healthy. That practice likely did wonders for your biceps, too.

Nanny also had one or two bright red lipsticks I loved to try. Nanny allowed it for dressing up. But I still remember her wistfully saying: “My dear, your lips don’t need anything extra. They are red and naturally beautiful just as they are.”

Not that that observation cut any ice with a six year old. Everything grown up was exotic and desirable. I’d sport those bright red lips for as long as she would allow. Or until the next snack of freshly baked molasses cookies and milk wiped my lips clean again.

Healthy children usually enjoy a naturally fresh face, bright eyes, and lovely complexion. It is usually only when the ravages of puberty hit in adolescence that skin care concerns emerge. Hormones promote zits and are hell on skin texture.

Fast forward, sixty years or so. I was disturbed when I recently read and watched videos that were most disconcerting. North West, the issue and oldest daughter of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, is ten years old. She regularly posts videos documenting her “skin care routine.”

She beats most adults in her attentiveness to the process and product quality. Unsurprisingly, she uses her Mom Kim’s skincare line. “Why,” I ask myself, “is a beautiful child worrying about her skincare routine, much less promoting it online?”

This is so disturbing on so many levels. Sure, I am a devotee of self-care and go through the whole cleanse, tone, moisturize routine regularly. But I am an adult. I need all the help I can get in that department.

But a ten year old?? Really???

Apparently this is a huge social phenomenon these days. Ten year olds shopping for skin care products at Sephora and using high end skin products if their parents can afford them.

I can make the obvious argument that if pre-teens paid as much attention to their education as they do to their looks, they might benefit more in the long run. It sure looks like that insidious message to women about the primacy of their value being their looks and attractiveness is at work.

That little North West is promoting this behavior is even more disturbing for obvious reasons. By an accident of birth, she is a potential role model for other little girls. Other ten year olds might take her direction seriously and follow her lead. Apparently this “pre-teen skin care craze” is catching on.

It’s bad enough that females have been primarily judged on their attractiveness since time immemorial. Now it seems there is a push to get young females into the skin care game well before they are ready or there is any identifiable need.

Profoundly sad. It is hard enough for children to hold on to their innocence and enjoy the relatively carefree days of childhood in this information technology saturated world. Diabolically clever marketing push on someone’s part.

In North West’s case, very likely her famous bottomed mom and bottom line oriented family. And profoundly sad for little girls who do not have the funds to follow suit. And for the parents who have to argue with them about why that particular behavior and attendant financial outlay is premature and misdirected.

I am all for children flirting with the adult roles they will play one day. Playing dress-up and wearing their mother’s high heels for a couple of hours “to see what it’s like” is good fun.

But not this. This trend is something else all together and not a healthy one at that.

Happy Facts

I needed something light and happy today.

Hope you do, too. In any case, that’s what you’re getting.

From Reader’s Digest.

That constant companion and friend in doctor’s waiting rooms everywhere.

Well, up until COVID’s dreaded magazine-sharing buzzkill, at least.

40 Happy Facts That’ll Make Your Day a Little Better
40 Happy Facts That’ll Make Your Day a Little Better

It’s All Been Done

It amuses and befuddles me how life works. Okay. How the Universe works. And even more explicitly than that. How the Universe often comes up with messages meant just for me at the very moment I need them. What’s up with that?

Lest this sound wildly narcissistic, do not imagine I believe myself to be any different than any other human being in this respect.

I believe we all get guidance and messages from “somewhere” about how best to live our lives. I am not at all certain where that “somewhere” is actually located. It might be internal guidance from deep within us. That “still, small voice” of Biblical fame.

It might be from somewhere in the Universe “out there.” Though I admit that concept is a little flaky. Especially if you think about it. Not something you can see, touch or visit.

The concept of god is equally flaky if you think about that for too long either. Explain?

“Well, he has a long grey beard and lives in Heaven and doles out favors and punishments as he sees fit in his all-seeing and all-knowing wisdom. And he makes the call about when you die.” Ya. Well. Okay.

The peace I have made with these “messages” we receive and their attribution is that “something” (not necessarily someone) created all of what is around us. Created “us,” in fact.

And I have no more insight into how it all came about and keeps going than I do into advanced calculus. Or even basic calculus come to think of it.

So I was moved to write about this subject today thanks to my friends of a couple of years now at KN Literary Publishing Services. Today in an email, they shared three quotes.

Which quote feels like exactly what you needed to hear today?

Hi Margot!

#1: “If you let yourself tell those smaller anecdotes or stories, the overarching capital-S Story will eventually rise into view.” — Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir

#2: “You must remember that your story matters. What you write has the power to save a life, sometimes that life is your own.” ― Stalina Goodwin, Make It Write!

#3: “The writer’s life requires courage, patience, empathy, openness. It requires the ability to be alone with oneself. Gentle with oneself. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks.” — Dani Shapiro, Still Writing

I am a long-time fan of memoirist Mary Karr. Normally I would choose her quote just because she is so damn smart and most of what she writes is so totally on point.

But I chose #2. Maybe because lately my faith is ebbing a little in this blog writing exercise. Maybe because I well realize my voice is only one of millions out there.

Millions of others are cranking out musings and insights and selling their expertise and knowledge like a mid-West US land office in the late 1800s (in the “real” world and marketplace).

The last line of Stalina Goodwin’s quote served up a timely reminder for me: I write for myself. Yes, in part, to save myself.

Or maybe in the hope I will impart to nameless others how I saved myself. Like the lines on looseleaf, I write every day to capture what I need to stay within those lines.

That is the power of ritual. It is easy to fall off or away from our chosen path if we simply stop doing it. In the past, I have done exactly that. I lived for long, fallow periods in a creative desert where my most intentional act was getting up and out of bed each morning. Depression is a total creative buzzkill.

So thinking back on those “dry” days reenergizes me somewhat. I know it doesn’t mean a tinker’s dam whether I write this daily blog post or not. But here is what I do know.

I know for sure that others feel exactly the same way. Not about blog posts, perhaps, but about going to the office or factory or church or staying in their marriage or even getting up and going out of the house every day.

I know with certainty that most others occasionally question their worth, inherent value and what meaning their life has on this planet.

And just as we all must breathe air, drink water and eat regularly to survive, we need to nurture and regularly revisit what gives our lives meaning. Stop any of these actions for too long and life as we know it (as well as any hope for future creative expression) stops.

As I read further into KN Literary’s observations on the quote I chose, I learned questions of meaning is generic to spiritual writers in particular. And spiritual writers – they caution – are rarely “overnight successes.” Not that that is what I am going for.

The most resonant takeaway was that the wisdom spiritual writers share must be their own. My life has been influenced – and yes, even saved – by dozens of wise and spiritual writers whose works I stumbled across just when I needed them.

What an honor it would be to think that someone read something of mine and it gave them the insight they need to make a difficult and necessary step to move forward in their life.

The lyrics in one of the Barenaked Ladies most iconic songs, says: “It’s all been done before.” The song is largely about the cyclical nature of life and love. It suggests that everything we do and experience has happened before and will inevitably happen again. 

So I know what I write about has been explored and written about many times before. So what? It is undoubtedly true, as good ol’ King Solomon opined: “There is nothing new under the sun.” Or, as good ol’ Will Shakespeare put it, “Therein lies the rub”.

But not everything “under the sun” has been explored or written about by me. So I’ll keep at it for that reason alone, if no other presents.

With that, me and the Universe rest our case.

Work In Progress

WordPress prompt: What’s your dream job?

I‘m happy to report I’ve already had dream jobs. A couple of them.

I was a researcher and fact checker at Maclean’s newsmagazine back in the day. That was sweet. They essentially paid me to read profusely and catch errors in articles written by successful, well-known, well-established writers before the articles were published.

Wow. Prestige AND money.

I loved my colleagues in the Maclean’s research department. Each and every one of them near genius. Geniuses in that understated kind of geeky way where those kind of people know a lot but don’t flash it around. They would have made excellent Jeopardy contestants.

So if there has been a recurring theme in my favorite jobs, it has been those where I learned a ton. As part of my radio producer role with As it Happens at CBC Radio, I HAD to buy about a dozen newspapers every day and as many magazines every month. That the CBC paid for! Then I got to read them cover to cover. I felt like I was stealing.

I don’t rightly know why learning and constantly stretching my brain are so important to me. I shouldn’t dismiss it. Had I not leaned that way from early on, I would not have been able to figure out and make sense of the looniness that plagued my childhood.

Smarts allowed me to gather three degrees which did wonders for my resume. The missing link, however, was that my emotional tank wasn’t quite as full. I finally figured out that with $5 and all of my degrees, I could get a coffee at any Starbucks. Likely closer to $8 now, but you get my point.

My real life work has been emotional. I had to learn self-regulation. I had to learn to sit with my pain. I had to learn not to act out my pain or fear or anger. This was by no means a dream job. But it was a vitally important one.

In emotional healing, I had to deploy the basics of project management. I could not achieve my life goals until the foundational elements I missed out on were addressed. That was terrifying but necessary work. A successful outcome was never guaranteed.

Emotional damage cost me relationships. It cost me jobs. It took a lot of what I had been or who I thought I was and threw it out the window. It turned me into someone I am only just getting to know. This me is more stable and more cautious than emotionally overwrought me. Less impulsive than I was in my youth. That alone is saving me a lot of grief.

So growing up has been neither a dream job or a cake walk. But it has been necessary. I’ve offloaded a lot of what doesn’t serve me any more. I’ve picked up some skills and attitudes along the way that I thought would be forever out of my reach.

And I’m living a life that at one time seemed would be an unattainable dream. My learning and growing process has been erratic and full of stops/starts and highs and lows. Like most everyone, I figure

Our minds and hearts are often kinder to us in retrospect than we are to ourselves. I look back now on those dream jobs I had and give thanks that they happened at all. Even situations that went south taught me lessons I needed to learn.

We all occasionally say: “I wish I’d known then, what I know now.” But we didn’t and we couldn’t and now here we are. So, like loving parents, we must applaud and love ourselves for what we’ve learned and how far we’ve actually come in life.

As a wife in a happy marriage with a daily blog I get to write, I’d say this is about as close to a dream job as I ever wanted. A far greater purpose than I could have imagined when I was young.

At the end of the day, no matter how wonderful your work is, and how much satisfaction you get from your career, a job can’t love you back.

That was the greatest learning and takeaway from all the jobs I got to do.

And I’m good with that.

The Banality of Evil

ED. NOTE: I never talk (much) or directly about political issues. Today I was moved to for a couple of reasons. The spectacle that is unfolding “out there” of unchecked evil rising to power (again) and an age-old pattern of revictimizing sexual assault victims in courtrooms, tidily presented in one offensive person.

No one likes to talk about sexual assault. Often least of all, women who have been its victims.

This week, I’ve watched and read in anger Donald Trump’s derisive and disrespectful conduct at the defamation trial brought by his rape victim, E. Jean Carroll.

For the record, can we step back for a minute and consider that Ms. Carroll is 80 years old? She’s not trying to build her resume or gain instant fame. Quite the contrary.

For me, that is significant. Society is largely incapable of handling sexual assault cases in any semblance of what might be deemed sensitivity, compassion, or a clear and collective understanding of the power dynamic that lands women in that unfortunate position.

I like that E. Jean Carroll is 80 and fighting this renewed fight against her attacker. She already won $5 million in a civil lawsuit against Trump for raping her in a department store fitting room some decades earlier.

So many elements of that victory astonished me. It astonished me that E. Jean Carroll was able to muster enough evidence to see Trump rendered accountable. It was not a criminal trial that she won, however, but a civil one.

That Trump had raped her was established and she was awarded damages accordingly.

She is back in court now charging Trump with defamation for the hatchet job he did on her reputation after she won the civil suit. Many women’s victories in this arena of the law are shaky and short-lived. People don’t like hurt women who talk about it.

I don’t know if Carroll ever saw or will see the money she was awarded. I haven’t been able to confirm that. What I do know is that Trump’s inflammatory remarks in the courtroom about her after the award made her life a living hell. She endured death threats from the lunatic fringe that supports Donald Trump “no matter what.”

There is so much that defies logic these days. Donald Trump is perhaps the biggest logical disconnect out there. I can hardly write what I’ve read. That Donald Trump is poised to become the de facto Republican nominee for the 2024 Presidential election. Please god, make it not so. At this juncture, it seems only an act of god will derail him.

Trump’s renewed rise in the Republican ranks proved and proves two deeply unfortunate things. Fanatics attached to would-be dictators have made up their minds and won’t be dissuaded by any facts that paint him or her as less than s/he advertises.

Trump’s lifelong con of projecting superior business ability and success is all that matters to many. Even more bizarre is that anyone thinks he has the best interests of the American people in mind.

This view is deeply held in spite of the economic carnage he foisted on many unfortunates – contractors, consultants, small businesspeople – who were caught up in the wake of the Trump juggernaut.

What doesn’t make sense is his supporters who come from deeply religious backgrounds. The man is a walking affront to any and all things decent, honest, sacred and, yes – religious. And yet, here we are.

I am now deeply worried that intelligent and powerful spokespeople are expressing their deep concern over his possible reelection as President of the United States. Michelle Obama. Kamala Harris.

It is akin to the feeling of helplessness watching a loved one (or in this case, an overwhelming segment of the population of the USA) battle with an addiction that inevitably will destroy them if they don’t switch tracks.

So in a New York courtroom this week, Trump continued his revictimization of E. Jean Carroll by audibly hurling insults that she could hear to the point the judge considered evicting him from the courtroom.

“I would love that,” he crowed.

He uses every opportunity employed by responsible adults in authority to check and modify his behavior as another feather in his political cap. It is not only astonishing, but, as Michelle Obama, said very recently the prospect of Trump’s reelection is “terrifying.”

A recent issue of The Atlantic magazine was wholly devoted to an analysis by expert authors in various public sectors like defense, economy, justice to opine on the likely and devastating impact of a second Trump presidency.

While I read that issue with great interest, my heart sank at the same time. The Atlantic is preaching to the choir. It is not the well-educated, socially and politically sensitive crowd who has Trump’s back. They are programmed not to pick up a copy of such a magazine but if presented with it, are similarly primed to dismiss it and its content out of hand.

“Fake news,” you see.

I am not sure how the hand at work in this particular epoch of American and global history is going to play out. Borrowing from Eve Arden’s character in the movie All About Eve, there is only one prediction I can make with certainty about this 2024 election cycle.

“Fasten your seat belts, folks. It’s going to be a bumpy year.”

Just like E. Jean Carroll, a lot of Americans are going to be revictimized if the unthinkable but possible reelection happens – whether they know it or not. Time for folks to revisit Hannah Arendt’s book, The Banality of Evil.

[If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline: Confidential 24/7 Support: 1 – 800 – 656 – 4673]

Brinking

If I’m honest, coming up with a daily blog post has become a drag.

You will know if you read a recent post of mine that I am less than two months away from achieving my one year goal of publishing a blog post every day.

Looking back on my life, my ennui and that attitude is kind of predictable.

I tend to run out of gas and ambition on the final leg of any journey.

That was true in the case of coming up to completing my university degrees, pending motherhood (by month 9, I was ready to extract my baby with a vacuum cleaner (just kidding) – I think that “get it out of me” feeling is nature’s way to prepare you for giving birth), house buying (in one case, I actually bailed on the day the house deal was supposed to close – turns out that was very poor judgment), and many failed so-called intimate relationships.

Relationships broke down as I edged closer to true intimacy. I was a baby adult, you see. While I presented as a walking, talking, competent adult, I was – in reality – a mewling infant. If I started to get emotionally close to someone – that is, feeling vulnerable and safe – the infant side of me took over.

There is nothing particularly attractive or romantic about a twenty something year old carrying on like a five year old. Temper tantrums. Blind selfishness. Acting out by running away.

I was the living epitome of the hurt and angry child who packs up all her belongings in a handkerchief, sticks them on a pole, heads out the door (slamming it, of course), and down the road.

That works until close to nightfall when said child is faced with the looming cold and dark. It’s about that time of the day that your horrible parents don’t seem that horrible any more.

In truth, I wasn’t really much more developed than that. Arrested emotional development is real, my friends.

The value of a healthy family, I came to realize, was that it can (should) provide a safe container – a nest, if you will – where you can work out and work through childish emotions as they come up year after year. It’s called growing up. From about age 5, I grew mostly sideways.

This growing up business is, of course, far from a perfect science. Many people are simply shut down as children and forced to stew in their own emotional pain perpetually. They can grow up to be emotionally arrested, too.

The ideal of a safe family environment in which to take root and grow is just that for many – an ideal. None of us gets through childhood without scars.

So the urge to bolt at the gate just as things are starting to go right was habitual with me for a long time. Maybe I did that because otherwise I would be forced to acknowledge that I was a real grown-up adult. I wasn’t having it. I was still looking for a knight in shining armor.

The acknowledgement of total personal responsibility would have forced me to accept that I did have power over myself and my choices and my fate. Frankly, that seemed like way too much responsibility to take on.

And the other truth was, I feared failure and disappointment so creating those conditions myself gave me a lopsided sense of control. “See,” I could say to myself, “I knew this would never work out.” And son of a gun, I’d be right.

I call it brinking. Giving up just before you are going to succeed. Giving up just before an important goal is realized. Giving up shortly before I could catch the brass ring. (It wasn’t always that, in reality. I stuck with and accomplished a good number of goals. It’s just that the self-talk was discouraging and total joy killer.)

My self-talk in young adulthood was guided by self-loathing and a broad-based lack of self-confidence. Not exactly a loving and supportive voice. It has taken years to change it. To “grow out of it.” The first challenge was to see it, observe it as it was happening and call it what it was. Something like I am doing now.

The accomplishment of publishing a daily blog post every day for a year that I will celebrate won’t matter to another single living soul but me. But here’s the difference between little me and struggling adult me.

I now realize that the primary and only single living soul I have agency over and who matters to me is me. Not in a selfish sense but in a sense of total accountability for my own life. As poet William Ernest Henley famously phrased it in his poem Invictus:

“I am the master of my soul, I am the captain of my fate.”

I quite liked this summary of the poem’s meaning:

The last two lines of William Ernest Henley’s poem ‘Invictus‘ contain invaluable advice to those who blame God for their failures. It is not only about God, but the mindset that makes one surrender while faced with challenges. Challenges make one stronger but mentally submitting oneself to those impediments extinguishes the inner light that one carries inside the heart from infancy. Through these lines, Henley tried to say that it’s not about how difficult the path is, it’s about one’s attitude to keep moving forward without submitting oneself to fate’s recourse.

https://poemanalysis.com/william-ernest-henley/i-am-the-master-of-my-fate-i-am-the-captain-of-my-soul/

I finally get it, Mom and Dad.

You did what you knew and the best you could.

The rest of my story and how it unfolds is up to me.

Heigh-ho.

Deal With It

Damn!

I would give anything to be the late American poet Mary Oliver when I grow up.

It is not the first time her words have utterly upended me.

Simple and direct, her messages always seem to go straight to the core of what living is, or should be, about.

I know, you never intended to be in this world.

But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.

There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.

Bless the eyes and the listening ears.

Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.

Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.

Or not.

I am speaking from the fortunate platform

of many years,

none of which, I think, I ever wasted.

Do you need a prod?

Do you need a little darkness to get you going?

Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,

and remind you of Keats,

so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,

he had a lifetime.

~ Mary Oliver

ED.NOTE: English poet Yeats died of tuberculosis at the age of 25.

Book: Blue Horses https://amzn.to/3NgXBzk

Online Romantic Advice

Too funny not to share.

A lazy day in EC blog land.

But still, funny, funny.

The young woman who submitted the tech support message below (about her relationship with her husband) presumably did it as a joke. Then she got a reply that was way too good to keep to herself. The tech support people’s love advice was hilarious.

The query:

Dear Tech Support,

“Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slowdown in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0, and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and House cleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems but to no avail. What can I do?

Signed, Desperate

The response (that came weeks later out of the blue):

Dear Desperate,

First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System. Please enter the command: I thought you loved me.html and try to download Tears 6.2. Do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the Tears application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta version.

Whatever you do, DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Mother-In-Law 1.0 as it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources. In addition, please do not attempt to re-install the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Cooking 3.0.

Good Luck

Tech Support