I've heard the tales of others' mishaps, dropped keys, eyeglasses, sunglasses, fishing tackle, favored barware dropped from the pontoon boat serving as party barge, tools dropped while assembling and dissassembling the dock or working on a boat motor, and the very modern versions with dropped cell phones and GPS devices. So when I am out paddling in my little canoe with my treasured camera, I have a system. The camera goes into the chest pocket of my life vest in a zip lock bag. When I am taking landscape photos of the scenery and fellow paddlers, the wrist strap of the camera is snapped into the strap that holds that pocket closed. I can take most pictures with the camera safely snapped into its combined pocket strap/wrist strap tether. When I need to reach out to take a shot of a shoreline flower or the leaves of an overhanging branch, the wrist strap goes around my wrist where it belongs. Alas, the weak point in that fine chain of safety procedures is the transfer point between pocket and wrist, and it was just such a weak point that allowed my beloved camera to be stolen from me last week. I was drifting under some overhanging shoreline branches trying to shoot a little bright green plant growing in a leaf litter filled gap in a tree root that had been eroded bare along the bank, when I decided I had to put the camera away and do some serious remaneuvering to get around an offending shrub that was blocking the perfect angle. I had slipped the camera off my wrist and was moving it to the vest pocket when my boat drifted me into a tree branch that snagged the camera and some other part of me or my boat then released itself to fling the camera out into the water. At least that is what I think happened. One moment I was sliding the camera into its plastic bag lined pocket and the next, I was watching bubbles rise about a foot and an half from my boat.
I stared at the bubbles, stunned. I cussed. I tried to look down into the water to see if it was visible. I stuck my paddle straight down in to see how deep it was: about 4 feet. When you can't swim, four feet under water might as well be fifty. There was no way I could go into the water along that shore of rocky boulders to ever try to get it back, especially not when out there alone. The lake had my camera as though in a steel trap, as though buried a dozen yards underground, as though on the surface of the moon. I would not be taking any more pictures with that one or even retrieving from it all the wonderful shots I had taken so far that day. I cussed some more. I cried. I called my husband on my cell phone, daring the risk of the loss of another electronic devise. He said it was just stuff and to enjoy the rest of my paddle. I cried some more. And paddled away, after one last look at the unphotographed pretty little plant growing in the tree root. And I paddled resolutely down the middle of the channel to the lake. With no camera to photograph it, I chose to avoid the shoreline with its taunting spring wildflowers and fresh green mosses and ferns and rock shapes and sculptural tree roots. I stayed out farther in the deeper water and paddled continuously, testing my stamina and my fears of the deeper waters. I paddled one landmark past the farthest I have paddled alone and then turned around to head for home. It was about then, in that last half hour before sunset, that the light wind diminished totally, and the clear bright light of the low angled sun made the shoreline trees glow warm and brilliant. The reflections in the water were perfect, rippled slightly in a uniform pattern, much like looking at a mirror made of antique rolled glass. I could read the words of the shoreline signs in their reflections, I could see individual catkins on the reflections of the birch trees, I could count the five individual needles that identify the shoreline trees as white pines in their beautiful perfect reflections. Ah, the photographs I could have taken. But I just paddled slowly, cognizant of the limited daylight left in which to make my way back to the home dock. I stopped now and then to drift and soak in the beautiful perfect views. It occurred to me at one point that the views were so perfect that it was as if there was no surface to the water and I was suspended above a perfect upside down world. I decided not to dwell on that thought too long, lest it rouse my latent fear of heights to combine with my suppressed fear of water which might come to bad result in my heightened emotional state of loss about the camera and joy about the beauty around me. So I paddled and drifted and enjoyed the amazing reflections of the beautiful nature of the lake.
And in case you are fond of details, I ordered a replacement camera last night. It was a $215 mistake.
Showing posts with label whining. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whining. Show all posts
Monday, April 26, 2010
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
A Day With AD/HD
A friend said "I don't think of you that way, I think of you as wonderful and talented, so you shouldn't bring it up all the time." It seems obvious that she buys into the last D of the acronym, which is "disorder". But the truth is that I DO 'have' AD/HD. It is something that I deal with every day and every night, all day, all night. In a world where everyone was like this, it might not be an issue, but a world where 90 to 95%* of the people are NOT like this means that schedules and social norms are not optimal for me.
It starts most days at 4:00 a.m. when I wake up with my brain in a state where thoughts are racing. "What woke me up, was it one of the kids? Are they okay? Is it the house? Is there a fire? The plumbing? A break-in? Is something wrong? What could it be? Listen, is it TOO quiet?" If I try go to back to sleep, I am haunted by worries and concerns and every thought turns to a dozen others exploring possible worse scenarios. I have learned to just get up and put a stop to the cycle of thoughts. Sometimes it doesn't take much. Read email, look at a project, write down a couple ideas, read a bit of a book, fold a little laundry. Alone at Mineral Point, I can go down to the studio and actually work on a project, but if there are family members or visitors present, I have to sneak around so as not to disturb them. After getting the brain reset, I can usually get in a few more hours of sleep.
But when I am up to stay, options open up. It is my understanding that 'normal' people operate in sort of a routine at that point, but I do not habituate easily. Patterns of doing the exact same thing at the exact same time or in the exact same situation do not settle into my brain as easily, so I need to think what to do next. Shower or have some breakfast or do a little of something in my jammies? When I do hit the shower, I often look at the array of bottle and have to think "Which shampoo am I using these days?" The pattern of tooth brushing and shampooing and soaping and hair conditioning is not automatic. Some days, I forget the conditioner and wonder why my hair is so hard to comb, if I remember to comb it. Other days, I get the conditioner on and forget to rinse it. It is unpleasant to be out in public and discover that your hair is not drying because it is full of conditioner, and the number of times I have rinsed it in a restroom sink and tried to dry it on paper towels is embarrassing indeed. Once dressed and ready for the day, well, the good news, is that the day is open to a million possibilities. I can see before me a dozen things that all seem equally attractive and useful and necessary. The bad news is that I must decide and each decision is cluttered with an enormous amount of data that should go it the decision. Sometimes, my brain finds it easy to choose and sometimes, the monumentalness of the task of choosing is paralysing, leaving to accomplish nothing at all. So I have found that lists are good. Lists narrow down the choices to some things that I thought were important in a time of clearer thinking and if the list was prioritized in that time of clearer thinking, I can just pick the top thing on it. I have lists that go for weeks, as things are added and things crossed off and sub-things fit in between things.
If the thing that needs doing is interesting to me, I can pop my brain into hyper-focus and devote myself totally and completely to that task without stopping for hours and hours. While I am working, my thoughts are racing of course, but they are racing in a focused way about ways to make the project work, about related designs I want to try, so sometimes, I have to stop and sketch out some idea, or sometimes I can replay conversations from the past or rehearse conversations of the future or compose something that I need to write, but that might require stopping to make a note now and then too. But I can zone into hyper-focus for hours until extreme hunger or exhaustion or some muscle pain sets in and brings me back to the real world. Often I have skipped a meal or missed an appointment, and certainly I have failed to do the breakfast dishes or to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer.
Laundry is especially problematic for me, as it requires that sequence of steps so far apart from each other and sometimes laundry sits wet until it gets musty and has to be rewashed or sits in the dryer until I NEED it to wear next and well, that wrinkle-release spray has saved me from my neglect of dried laundry on many occasions. Meals are an ongoing issue. Sometimes, I am hungry on schedule with the rest of the world, but more often, if I am hyper-focused, by the time I am hungry for lunch, it is 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. so by the time I am hungry for dinner it is 8:00 or 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. and if I have failed to plan ahead by stocking food in my kitchen, there are now no restaurants open and well, such a schedule does not jive with that of a family or friends, so I skip that lunch and overeat at dinner. AD/HD can make writing easy, as the ideas just flow. My racing thoughts are always a few steps ahead of my pencil or my typing fingers and can have the next thoughts organized and ready by the time my fingers ready to put them to words, but sometimes, if things are moving too fast, there are too many options presented to me and I can see where each paragraph could lead in any number of directions and I see too many options. It is then that my writing become run-on and disjointed and flies in too many directions. If I know I have to produce a piece of writing, I will try to write an outline in what I know to be a more balanced state so that when I am in a hyper-productive mode, I can translate that outline to words and resist all the attractive and interesting tangents and subtplots that rush into my brain during the production writing.
Now, if the work I need to do is not interesting to me, that is when AD/HD is its most torturous. When I have to add up the long columns of numbers two different ways to get the numbers to match in order to do my books in order to pay my state sales tax and write checks to my artists, I am pained. It is all I can do to force myself to sit down to it and go through the steps. Since I do not habituate well, and only do it once a quarter, first I have to study it and remember the steps and why they are the way they are. Then I can begin to painfully laboriously tediously boringly ploddingly mind-numbingly crunch the monotonous repetitive wearisome dull numbers. A thousand things tempt me away. It is a constant process of attempting to resist them. So many important other more interesting things demand my attention and try to call me away from my boring task. It truly is an awful chore to stick to task at this point. Only fear of the faceless formless nameless Wisconsin tax "man" and concern for my artists keep me at it. It seems to take forever and each step is a new horrible tedious painful boring chore. It is worse than these words can describe. Cleaning, doing dishes, sorting papers or closets or laundry all approach the same level of tedium and the same taunting tempting teasing siren call of distraction to a thousand other more interesting fabulously fascinating things. A picture must be hung, a broken thing must be glued, a phone call must be made to someone, a run to the store for supplies must be undertaken, a snack must be had, a different pile in a different room suddenly seems more important than this one, or as the t-shirt says "Oh, look, a squirrel . . . " "Maybe I should go for a walk" . . . and take the camera along and get some pictures and come home and down load them and post them on Facebook and well, you can see where the cleaning or organizing project went, can't you?
Bedtime? What is that? I might be exhausted at 8:00 or I might be zooming in hyperfocus making design notes or writing a lecture or carving a block print or reading a magazine at 2:00 a.m. and still not sleepy. If left to my own scheduling, I would work feverishly for about 6 hours, take an hour nap, work for another 6 hours, take another nap, work for maybe 4 more hours, then take a big sleep for 6 hours. Add some meals and a morning shower and just a tiny chore or two to that and we are up to about a 26 or 27 hour day, which is very hard to compress into the 24 that we are given. If living alone and working on projects, I kinda tent to live on my own schedule like that, pushing my long sleep period around the clock over time. That does not work very will when I am expected to keep store hours or meet people for appointments or dine with people. So I try my best to comply to the real world with a more 'normal' schedule.
And so you can see, AD/HD keeps my days interesting and it represents a challenge, not only for the management that it requires to get the right things done, but also for the added challenge of fitting into a 'normal' time schedule and to interact with 'normal' people and comply to 'normal' priority schemes, and I must admit that I do not always do a stellar job at it. Sometimes, I forget to even try!
*Thom Hartmann says that if a population has 5-10% of a 'type' of people, it cannot be a defect manifesting itself as a disorder, but that it has to be of benefit to the overall population somehow, just like the population needs very strong people but if they were all very strong, they might have trouble keeping themselves fed. He sees it as a variant that has benefit to the society, for example, to keep the society flexible, creative, spontaneous when it needs to be. I wish society saw it that way and valued us.
It starts most days at 4:00 a.m. when I wake up with my brain in a state where thoughts are racing. "What woke me up, was it one of the kids? Are they okay? Is it the house? Is there a fire? The plumbing? A break-in? Is something wrong? What could it be? Listen, is it TOO quiet?" If I try go to back to sleep, I am haunted by worries and concerns and every thought turns to a dozen others exploring possible worse scenarios. I have learned to just get up and put a stop to the cycle of thoughts. Sometimes it doesn't take much. Read email, look at a project, write down a couple ideas, read a bit of a book, fold a little laundry. Alone at Mineral Point, I can go down to the studio and actually work on a project, but if there are family members or visitors present, I have to sneak around so as not to disturb them. After getting the brain reset, I can usually get in a few more hours of sleep.
But when I am up to stay, options open up. It is my understanding that 'normal' people operate in sort of a routine at that point, but I do not habituate easily. Patterns of doing the exact same thing at the exact same time or in the exact same situation do not settle into my brain as easily, so I need to think what to do next. Shower or have some breakfast or do a little of something in my jammies? When I do hit the shower, I often look at the array of bottle and have to think "Which shampoo am I using these days?" The pattern of tooth brushing and shampooing and soaping and hair conditioning is not automatic. Some days, I forget the conditioner and wonder why my hair is so hard to comb, if I remember to comb it. Other days, I get the conditioner on and forget to rinse it. It is unpleasant to be out in public and discover that your hair is not drying because it is full of conditioner, and the number of times I have rinsed it in a restroom sink and tried to dry it on paper towels is embarrassing indeed. Once dressed and ready for the day, well, the good news, is that the day is open to a million possibilities. I can see before me a dozen things that all seem equally attractive and useful and necessary. The bad news is that I must decide and each decision is cluttered with an enormous amount of data that should go it the decision. Sometimes, my brain finds it easy to choose and sometimes, the monumentalness of the task of choosing is paralysing, leaving to accomplish nothing at all. So I have found that lists are good. Lists narrow down the choices to some things that I thought were important in a time of clearer thinking and if the list was prioritized in that time of clearer thinking, I can just pick the top thing on it. I have lists that go for weeks, as things are added and things crossed off and sub-things fit in between things.
If the thing that needs doing is interesting to me, I can pop my brain into hyper-focus and devote myself totally and completely to that task without stopping for hours and hours. While I am working, my thoughts are racing of course, but they are racing in a focused way about ways to make the project work, about related designs I want to try, so sometimes, I have to stop and sketch out some idea, or sometimes I can replay conversations from the past or rehearse conversations of the future or compose something that I need to write, but that might require stopping to make a note now and then too. But I can zone into hyper-focus for hours until extreme hunger or exhaustion or some muscle pain sets in and brings me back to the real world. Often I have skipped a meal or missed an appointment, and certainly I have failed to do the breakfast dishes or to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer.
Laundry is especially problematic for me, as it requires that sequence of steps so far apart from each other and sometimes laundry sits wet until it gets musty and has to be rewashed or sits in the dryer until I NEED it to wear next and well, that wrinkle-release spray has saved me from my neglect of dried laundry on many occasions. Meals are an ongoing issue. Sometimes, I am hungry on schedule with the rest of the world, but more often, if I am hyper-focused, by the time I am hungry for lunch, it is 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. so by the time I am hungry for dinner it is 8:00 or 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. and if I have failed to plan ahead by stocking food in my kitchen, there are now no restaurants open and well, such a schedule does not jive with that of a family or friends, so I skip that lunch and overeat at dinner. AD/HD can make writing easy, as the ideas just flow. My racing thoughts are always a few steps ahead of my pencil or my typing fingers and can have the next thoughts organized and ready by the time my fingers ready to put them to words, but sometimes, if things are moving too fast, there are too many options presented to me and I can see where each paragraph could lead in any number of directions and I see too many options. It is then that my writing become run-on and disjointed and flies in too many directions. If I know I have to produce a piece of writing, I will try to write an outline in what I know to be a more balanced state so that when I am in a hyper-productive mode, I can translate that outline to words and resist all the attractive and interesting tangents and subtplots that rush into my brain during the production writing.
Now, if the work I need to do is not interesting to me, that is when AD/HD is its most torturous. When I have to add up the long columns of numbers two different ways to get the numbers to match in order to do my books in order to pay my state sales tax and write checks to my artists, I am pained. It is all I can do to force myself to sit down to it and go through the steps. Since I do not habituate well, and only do it once a quarter, first I have to study it and remember the steps and why they are the way they are. Then I can begin to painfully laboriously tediously boringly ploddingly mind-numbingly crunch the monotonous repetitive wearisome dull numbers. A thousand things tempt me away. It is a constant process of attempting to resist them. So many important other more interesting things demand my attention and try to call me away from my boring task. It truly is an awful chore to stick to task at this point. Only fear of the faceless formless nameless Wisconsin tax "man" and concern for my artists keep me at it. It seems to take forever and each step is a new horrible tedious painful boring chore. It is worse than these words can describe. Cleaning, doing dishes, sorting papers or closets or laundry all approach the same level of tedium and the same taunting tempting teasing siren call of distraction to a thousand other more interesting fabulously fascinating things. A picture must be hung, a broken thing must be glued, a phone call must be made to someone, a run to the store for supplies must be undertaken, a snack must be had, a different pile in a different room suddenly seems more important than this one, or as the t-shirt says "Oh, look, a squirrel . . . " "Maybe I should go for a walk" . . . and take the camera along and get some pictures and come home and down load them and post them on Facebook and well, you can see where the cleaning or organizing project went, can't you?
Bedtime? What is that? I might be exhausted at 8:00 or I might be zooming in hyperfocus making design notes or writing a lecture or carving a block print or reading a magazine at 2:00 a.m. and still not sleepy. If left to my own scheduling, I would work feverishly for about 6 hours, take an hour nap, work for another 6 hours, take another nap, work for maybe 4 more hours, then take a big sleep for 6 hours. Add some meals and a morning shower and just a tiny chore or two to that and we are up to about a 26 or 27 hour day, which is very hard to compress into the 24 that we are given. If living alone and working on projects, I kinda tent to live on my own schedule like that, pushing my long sleep period around the clock over time. That does not work very will when I am expected to keep store hours or meet people for appointments or dine with people. So I try my best to comply to the real world with a more 'normal' schedule.
And so you can see, AD/HD keeps my days interesting and it represents a challenge, not only for the management that it requires to get the right things done, but also for the added challenge of fitting into a 'normal' time schedule and to interact with 'normal' people and comply to 'normal' priority schemes, and I must admit that I do not always do a stellar job at it. Sometimes, I forget to even try!
*Thom Hartmann says that if a population has 5-10% of a 'type' of people, it cannot be a defect manifesting itself as a disorder, but that it has to be of benefit to the overall population somehow, just like the population needs very strong people but if they were all very strong, they might have trouble keeping themselves fed. He sees it as a variant that has benefit to the society, for example, to keep the society flexible, creative, spontaneous when it needs to be. I wish society saw it that way and valued us.
Friday, July 10, 2009
My Last Post Ever, Really
Stuffed up head. Sinuses clogged. Ears full. Eyes gooey. Too much for you to hear? TRY LIVING IT, WIMP! Fever. Sore throat. Losing voice. Cough. Sleepy. Can't sleep.
Had a prescription 'in case' this happened, but that only works if you can FIND the damn thing when you need it and you could get a replacement if only your doctor was not on VACATION. What was she THINKING? NOW!!! "Go to the local ER." Yeah, Get dressed, walk to the car, drive, cough and hack, wait and wait and wait, explain the symptoms to a strange doctor and lose voice again and cough. Until it looks like I am faking it to get meds? I don't think so. I hate this. I want my mommy. She would put a cool clean sheet on the sofa to keep the upholstery from scratching me and put a fresh pillowcase on my own bed pillow and bring me orange juice with a bendy straw and aspirin and chicken noodle soup with those tiny puffy crackers. Bring me a Trixie Beldon book to reread or close the curtians so I could nap. I hate being sick! I think I am going to die. Or worse. So this will probably be my last posting here. Will you miss me? Did I spell everything right?
Had a prescription 'in case' this happened, but that only works if you can FIND the damn thing when you need it and you could get a replacement if only your doctor was not on VACATION. What was she THINKING? NOW!!! "Go to the local ER." Yeah, Get dressed, walk to the car, drive, cough and hack, wait and wait and wait, explain the symptoms to a strange doctor and lose voice again and cough. Until it looks like I am faking it to get meds? I don't think so. I hate this. I want my mommy. She would put a cool clean sheet on the sofa to keep the upholstery from scratching me and put a fresh pillowcase on my own bed pillow and bring me orange juice with a bendy straw and aspirin and chicken noodle soup with those tiny puffy crackers. Bring me a Trixie Beldon book to reread or close the curtians so I could nap. I hate being sick! I think I am going to die. Or worse. So this will probably be my last posting here. Will you miss me? Did I spell everything right?
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Pick Axe
I must be using it wrong. Clay sticks to the pointy end of the pick axe so that when I swing it back up over my head to drop it again, little chunks of dirt drop off into my hair. Did I ever mention that I would much rather design a landscape than install it?
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Too Damn Hot
The 16 house guests hit the road and I settled into for a good day's work. I was gathering up the towels, upstairs and down, kitchen and bath, to start the laundry to run while I planted those shrub and trees, when the phone rang. My friend was on her way through and wanted to stop. We spent a while sitting on the deck, rocking in our chairs and talking about friends and family and events of the day. And complaining a bit how it is hot, too hot to do anything but sit, and it was nice. Made me remember taking 'lunch' to the fields on a hot July afternoon back when the farm still had some hay fields that had not yet yielded to the plow and it seemed to me there was nothing to do hotter than haying and no place on earth hotter than that hayfield. We went back home to the luxury sitting with our books in front of the humming droning fans, while the men went back to the hottest job in the hottest place. And now after an unusually cool and long spring, 'seasonable' weather is finally hot upon us and we have a new thing to gripe about, how it makes us sweat and makes the work seem twice as hard. Or, we could just sit on the deck and drink iced lemonade and plant when it cools in the evening.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Fantasy
I bought some good intention. The hose is along the house right where people will walk if going from the driveway to the back deck. These 'hose pots' are supposed to contain the hose neatly. Hah, I know this is the last time it will ever be coiled this neatly in the 'pot' but at least visitors will know I had good intentions. The road to Margaritaville is paved with good intentions, or at least the walk to Margaritadeck has a good intention adjacent to it.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Promise of Blackberries
It was a long winter for me. It seemed like the earth would never green again. It seemed like the snow would never go away. It seems like this meadow now white with blossom was just a few weeks ago still covered in snow! I know it was at least a couple months ago, but it does seem that once the long long winter ended, things greened up awfully fast! 
And now, the earth is covered with lush green and the green in many case is covered with lush color of some delicate bloom. This frothy white is the blossom of the blackberry, a bramble with thorny burgundy canes and leaflets in fives. Soon, oh, soon, if they are pollinated by wasps (can you find one in the blossoms?) and bees, these flowers will give way to luscious deep dark blue-black berries that can be picked by the handful and eaten in the field. If you are lucky enough to be there in the morning, after the sun has been fully up for an hour or so. the berries on the top will be warmed by their exposure to the sunshine, and the berries below, protected in the shade of the leaves, will be cool. You can alternate warm and cool berry and taste the delicate nuances brought out by the temperatures and know that this is the very best the earth offers to us! For now, these blossoms are hope incarnate.Sunday, June 7, 2009
Farming Sucks
The romantic myths of farming make me want to puke. Ah, the farm is so pretty, it must be great to work with the cute animals, "farmers feed the world", winters off, being outdoors all the time, no hours to keep, no office to go to. It's a job. A job like anything else has its good points and its crappy parts. Like never knowing if what you put into it will pay off at harvest time. Like being at the mercy of the weather. Like the dirt. The mud. The shit. Literally, if you raise animals. Or work outdoors where there are birds and bugs. The wind. Sunburn and dry skin and pollen that makes your head swell shut and dusty grit on your skin that turns to slimy mud when you sweat. And sore muscles from every new thing you do. It is comfortable out there about 3 days of every year and before that it is too cold and after that too hot and way too hot and even hotter and then it is okay for 3 more days but it is windy as hell and then it goes back to being too cold until next season when it starts cold again. And wet. Too wet until it is just right for that one day then too damn dry for the rest of the summer until it snows so you can't get a tractor into the fields for the goo. Pests in the form of weedy plants and insects and birds and raccoons and deer. Crops lost to drought and flood and hail and hard pounding rain and too early snow. Long long hours. Dinner for the farmer after the rest of the family is long in bed sleeping soundly. Sundays off but barely enough to catch up on rest before starting all over again at sun-up on Monday. Yeah, it's a great life. If you like hard work for questionable iffy maybe payback. If you like risking most of what you have saved again each year. If you like being uncomfortable or actually in pain. If you like working in solitude most of the time. If you like boring routine most days and work halting crisis of an expensive breakdown every now and then. No, farming sucks. It is hard hard work. For fairly good pay sometimes and an utter loss others, all at great and uncertain risk.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Damn Redbuds!
This is one of the prettiest scenes ever that I have never been able to photograph to my satisfaction. Lacking real telephoto lenses, my point and shoot gives results only as good as this. The right way to shoot it would be from a boat in the middle of the pond, which is prohibited by Arboretum rules.
Who's with me on this caper during redbud season 2010?
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Warning Labels
Some days I think I should come with warning labels like these to keep the world from hurting me. Other times, I think I should come with labels like this to warn the world away from me.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Snow Frogs
So yer whinin' about a little snow in April. So it made a mess of traffic on the way to work. So you had to scrape your windshield before you left. So nobody would go to lunch outside the building because it was to "icky" out there. 
Well, I gotta tell you this: Stop your complaining. There is someone who has it a lot worse than you do.
Let's just say for a minute that you are a frog. A cold blooded animal. That means that instead of a body temperature of a level 98 degrees like us humans have, your body temperature is whatever the temperature of the air outside is, or whatever the temperature of the water you are sitting in. So over the last few days, the weather has been warm. Trees and shrubs are swelling their buds and a few have even shown layers of tiny green leaves. Nature told you with the temperature and sunlight that it is SPRING! So you pushed yourself up off the bottom of the pond where you had been hibernating in a semi-frozen state since fall and came out to start calling for a mate. Because nature also tells you that this time of year, it is time to find a girl frog by calling her to you, and then clasping onto her waist and hanging on to her as hard as you can, so that when she lays her eggs, you can release your sperm on top of them to fertilize them. That is what nature told you it is time to do: Come out of hibernation and up into the outdoors and call for a mate. And then nature sent 4 inches of wet sloppy sticky cold SNOW! But you still call. And call and call and call. In the pond edge next to the snow-covered grasses and rushes. In the snowy landscape, you call.
Now, get back to work in your warm office and no more whinin' about the snow, okay, humans?
Well, I gotta tell you this: Stop your complaining. There is someone who has it a lot worse than you do.Let's just say for a minute that you are a frog. A cold blooded animal. That means that instead of a body temperature of a level 98 degrees like us humans have, your body temperature is whatever the temperature of the air outside is, or whatever the temperature of the water you are sitting in. So over the last few days, the weather has been warm. Trees and shrubs are swelling their buds and a few have even shown layers of tiny green leaves. Nature told you with the temperature and sunlight that it is SPRING! So you pushed yourself up off the bottom of the pond where you had been hibernating in a semi-frozen state since fall and came out to start calling for a mate. Because nature also tells you that this time of year, it is time to find a girl frog by calling her to you, and then clasping onto her waist and hanging on to her as hard as you can, so that when she lays her eggs, you can release your sperm on top of them to fertilize them. That is what nature told you it is time to do: Come out of hibernation and up into the outdoors and call for a mate. And then nature sent 4 inches of wet sloppy sticky cold SNOW! But you still call. And call and call and call. In the pond edge next to the snow-covered grasses and rushes. In the snowy landscape, you call.
Now, get back to work in your warm office and no more whinin' about the snow, okay, humans?
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Frank and Joe Introduce Me To Joe
I did not learn to love coffee until I was 47. I had gone on a 10 1/2 mile practice hike carrying a backpack fully loaded with my tent and sleeping bag and other gear. I hiked for 5 hours in the pouring rain to a forest preserve where I was supposed to meet the biking Boy Scouts for a Friday night campout. The bikers postponed until Saturday morning, so I camped in the cold rain alone. Early Saturday morning, Frank dropped off the troop gear trailer then went back to ride with the bikers. I was out on a walk to photograph wet nature, so he left me a coffee and a breakfast pastry in a bag on the picnic table by my lone tent. He did not know I was not a coffee drinker. The last coffee I remembered having was as a toddler when I would make the rounds about the coffee table, emptying the grounds from the cups of coffee left there while my parents were on the front steps seeing off the evening visitors. But that morning, I was cold and wet and had been so for about 18 hours so I drank the coffee anyway. It was warm. Steaming. Black. Aromatic. Warm. And warm. Another night of camping in the cold followed, this time at least in the company of my sons and the rest of the Boy Scout Troop. When Joe made his Sunday morning coffee in the troop's beat up tin percolator, I welcomed another cup. Joe made it strong and I drank it black and it was very very warm. I was in love. No, not with Frank or Joe, but with coffee.
Now I drink it when I am driving alone and it is cold outside and in the winter when I need a break from the chill of the snow or wet. I make it one cup at a time in a French press, of the darkest roasted beans that the local store carries. I make it about half again as strong as the directions say, and I drink it black. I enjoy the fragrance and the tactile experience of cradling the steaming mug in my hands as much as I enjoy the flavor. And more often than not, during the few minutes it takes for the coffee to steep in the press, I think fondly of my coffee mentors, Frank and Joe, and the warmth of the campfire and the camaraderie of my sons and the boys in the troop who let me join them on campouts and high adventure trips. Coffee is not just a beverage to me but the sum total of all those experiences: Coffee warms me on a cold day in such a wealth of ways.
Now I drink it when I am driving alone and it is cold outside and in the winter when I need a break from the chill of the snow or wet. I make it one cup at a time in a French press, of the darkest roasted beans that the local store carries. I make it about half again as strong as the directions say, and I drink it black. I enjoy the fragrance and the tactile experience of cradling the steaming mug in my hands as much as I enjoy the flavor. And more often than not, during the few minutes it takes for the coffee to steep in the press, I think fondly of my coffee mentors, Frank and Joe, and the warmth of the campfire and the camaraderie of my sons and the boys in the troop who let me join them on campouts and high adventure trips. Coffee is not just a beverage to me but the sum total of all those experiences: Coffee warms me on a cold day in such a wealth of ways.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
"Keep the X in Xmas"
Apologies: Since I was de-laptopped during most of December and only posting pre-scheduled things, there are some things I thought about then and feel the bloggy need to still get off my chest.
Another of those things about Christmas that bugs me is this whole idea by the overly religious that using the word "Xmas" is somehow an attempt to remove focus on Jesus as Christmastime. They don't know the history of why it was first used and they assume motives that are just not there. And they fall flat on their faces in terms of teachable moments.
The term Xmas was first used by the Christian church when printing presses were becoming available and they began to publish church bulletins and fliers about Christmas and Christmas events. It was expensive to buy ink and time consuming to set type, so one way to conserve in that process was to use abbreviations. St. for Saint and X for Christ. Historically, X was used by some sects of Christianity to name Jesus because his name was too holy to write out. So the X was a special way to represent him that drew attention to his extremely exalted holiness. It was a way of honoring Jesus. So when the churches used the term in type, they were using an historical abbreviation for reasons of economy. That's all. No conspiracy to remove Jesus from Christmas. And why has it been done since? Same reason, pretty much. Not that it is so expensive to print and type-set anymore, but that every inch of advertising space in print and in display must have impact. To write out a long 9 letter word like "Christmas" means it has to be of a certain smaller font that writing out a 4 letter word like "Xmas". It can be "Merry Xmas" or "Xmas sale" instead of "Merry Christmas" or "Christmas Sale". No disrespect at all is meant, and indeed, most often, the use occurs in marketing gifts, which are a celebration of the "wisemen" or "kings" bringing gifts to the baby Jesus, a very Christian tradition. Or in the marketing of Christmas decorations, for which Christian meaning can be attributed to every symbol.
The sad pathetic story the overly religious use to poo-poo the use of "Xmas" concerns a little boy who allegedly saw the word on a sign and asked his daddy if they had crossed Jesus out of Christmas. The damn fool opportunity-missing father chose to fill his kid with negative paranoia by saying "I guess they did, Son, I guess they did," when, if he had any sense, he would have turned it positive for the boy and said "Jesus is so special that sometimes a great big X is used for his name, and stores can write the word much bigger if they make it have fewer letters, and they like to do that because Christmas is such a special word." If anyone makes it into anything negative, it is their own fault, so can we have less whining about this next Christmas, I mean, next XMAS?
Another of those things about Christmas that bugs me is this whole idea by the overly religious that using the word "Xmas" is somehow an attempt to remove focus on Jesus as Christmastime. They don't know the history of why it was first used and they assume motives that are just not there. And they fall flat on their faces in terms of teachable moments.
The term Xmas was first used by the Christian church when printing presses were becoming available and they began to publish church bulletins and fliers about Christmas and Christmas events. It was expensive to buy ink and time consuming to set type, so one way to conserve in that process was to use abbreviations. St. for Saint and X for Christ. Historically, X was used by some sects of Christianity to name Jesus because his name was too holy to write out. So the X was a special way to represent him that drew attention to his extremely exalted holiness. It was a way of honoring Jesus. So when the churches used the term in type, they were using an historical abbreviation for reasons of economy. That's all. No conspiracy to remove Jesus from Christmas. And why has it been done since? Same reason, pretty much. Not that it is so expensive to print and type-set anymore, but that every inch of advertising space in print and in display must have impact. To write out a long 9 letter word like "Christmas" means it has to be of a certain smaller font that writing out a 4 letter word like "Xmas". It can be "Merry Xmas" or "Xmas sale" instead of "Merry Christmas" or "Christmas Sale". No disrespect at all is meant, and indeed, most often, the use occurs in marketing gifts, which are a celebration of the "wisemen" or "kings" bringing gifts to the baby Jesus, a very Christian tradition. Or in the marketing of Christmas decorations, for which Christian meaning can be attributed to every symbol.
The sad pathetic story the overly religious use to poo-poo the use of "Xmas" concerns a little boy who allegedly saw the word on a sign and asked his daddy if they had crossed Jesus out of Christmas. The damn fool opportunity-missing father chose to fill his kid with negative paranoia by saying "I guess they did, Son, I guess they did," when, if he had any sense, he would have turned it positive for the boy and said "Jesus is so special that sometimes a great big X is used for his name, and stores can write the word much bigger if they make it have fewer letters, and they like to do that because Christmas is such a special word." If anyone makes it into anything negative, it is their own fault, so can we have less whining about this next Christmas, I mean, next XMAS?
"Happy Holidays"
Since I missed real-time blogging during most of the holdiay season because the laptop was out of service, there are still some things I want to say: 
There are just certain things that people do like to go on about and the more trivial a thing is that someone makes a big deal about, the more it irks me. This whole "Happy Holidays" thing is one of them. The overly religious see some sort of giant anti-Christian controversy here and it just doesn't exist. Most people say it as a short way of saying "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year". It is better to get something said before the car door closes and friends drive off than to be iterating specific wishes they never hear, isn't it? Some people say it as a way of not offending. America was build on freedom from religion. Yes, I said that how I meant it. The people who came here were not so much seeking to be able to practice their religion, because they already did that in secret, and doing it in secret ought to mean just as much to your god, but they sought to NOT to have to practice the state religion of the place they were leaving. The reason their religion was persecuted was because the state they came from had an official religion and they did not believe in all or even just parts of it. So they still practiced theirs, but often secretly. What they wanted was freedom from participation in the required state religion. So our country does not and must not ever have an official religion. We must always be the refuge for those who don't fit the mold somewhere and who choose to opt out of the required religion of some country or region. To do that, we must strive to make no assumptions about people practicing what is our majority religion: Some form of Christianity. So out of respect for others, and respect for this founding principle of our country, we are careful. We say "Happy holidays" in case they are Jewish and are celebrating Hanuka or maybe participating in Kwanza or are Muslim and are celebrating Ramadan but certainly, it can be taken by anyone as a simple "Happy New Year's Eve and Happy New Year", can't it? It should be seen by Christians as a kindness we do each other in order that those who wish will always be able to practice their specific brand of Christianity at Christmastime in this country. It should be seen as an annual reassurance that no other specific brand of Christianity will become the official state religion and that each will always be allowed the quirks and details of theirs. No one will tell you if baby Jesus goes in the creche when it is unpacked from the wrappings and set upon the coffee table at Thanksgiving or that he gets placed in the manger only on Christmas Eve. No one will tell you your Christmas tree has to be mounted in water right side up or hung from the ceiling upside down. No one will tell you whether your feast has to be goose or beef or turkey. No one will tell you that you can sing carols all December or only starting at Christmas Eve. No one will tell you what color the candles of your Advent wreath have to be or how many weeks in advance you can start counting down. Because we say "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", we are not only reaffirming that Muslims and Jews and Wiccans and Buddhists and Hindus and atheists have a place in this country, but that Lutherans and Catholics and Baptists and Pentecostals and Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons and Nazarenes and Episcopalians and Methodists can practice their own brand of Christianity and celebrate the birth of Jesus and carry their own Christmas traditions in whatever ways, new or traditional, they see fit. Every Christian should embrace "Happy holidays" for the affirmation of religion freedom that it is.
There are just certain things that people do like to go on about and the more trivial a thing is that someone makes a big deal about, the more it irks me. This whole "Happy Holidays" thing is one of them. The overly religious see some sort of giant anti-Christian controversy here and it just doesn't exist. Most people say it as a short way of saying "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year". It is better to get something said before the car door closes and friends drive off than to be iterating specific wishes they never hear, isn't it? Some people say it as a way of not offending. America was build on freedom from religion. Yes, I said that how I meant it. The people who came here were not so much seeking to be able to practice their religion, because they already did that in secret, and doing it in secret ought to mean just as much to your god, but they sought to NOT to have to practice the state religion of the place they were leaving. The reason their religion was persecuted was because the state they came from had an official religion and they did not believe in all or even just parts of it. So they still practiced theirs, but often secretly. What they wanted was freedom from participation in the required state religion. So our country does not and must not ever have an official religion. We must always be the refuge for those who don't fit the mold somewhere and who choose to opt out of the required religion of some country or region. To do that, we must strive to make no assumptions about people practicing what is our majority religion: Some form of Christianity. So out of respect for others, and respect for this founding principle of our country, we are careful. We say "Happy holidays" in case they are Jewish and are celebrating Hanuka or maybe participating in Kwanza or are Muslim and are celebrating Ramadan but certainly, it can be taken by anyone as a simple "Happy New Year's Eve and Happy New Year", can't it? It should be seen by Christians as a kindness we do each other in order that those who wish will always be able to practice their specific brand of Christianity at Christmastime in this country. It should be seen as an annual reassurance that no other specific brand of Christianity will become the official state religion and that each will always be allowed the quirks and details of theirs. No one will tell you if baby Jesus goes in the creche when it is unpacked from the wrappings and set upon the coffee table at Thanksgiving or that he gets placed in the manger only on Christmas Eve. No one will tell you your Christmas tree has to be mounted in water right side up or hung from the ceiling upside down. No one will tell you whether your feast has to be goose or beef or turkey. No one will tell you that you can sing carols all December or only starting at Christmas Eve. No one will tell you what color the candles of your Advent wreath have to be or how many weeks in advance you can start counting down. Because we say "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", we are not only reaffirming that Muslims and Jews and Wiccans and Buddhists and Hindus and atheists have a place in this country, but that Lutherans and Catholics and Baptists and Pentecostals and Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons and Nazarenes and Episcopalians and Methodists can practice their own brand of Christianity and celebrate the birth of Jesus and carry their own Christmas traditions in whatever ways, new or traditional, they see fit. Every Christian should embrace "Happy holidays" for the affirmation of religion freedom that it is.Saturday, January 10, 2009
The Winter Angst of the Seasonal Worker
The landscape design season won't begin until March or April. The gallery is closed until May. 
Some of us are feeling rather aimless and useless this time of year and looking forward already to spring.
Some of us are feeling rather aimless and useless this time of year and looking forward already to spring.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Dancing
This post is a private message to my family, but if anyone else out there can benefit, so be it.
Here's the deal. I am just SICK of hearing you say "I don't dance." Come on, people, dancing is as integral to human life as smiling. Get on with it. You don't have to be GOOD at it, but really, what a silly concept. No one is 'good' or 'bad' at smiling. You just DO IT. People might say "You have a nice smile" or "You look pretty when you smile" but no one ever says "Jeeze, man, you just can't smile, can you?" Truly, outside of third grade, no one in real life ever gets teased for not being a good dancer. So get up, family members, and dance. Spouse, boys, I mean you. And you too, girlfriend with the pretty hair. All this not going to events labeled 'dance' is just silly. A dance is just another name for party. Who wants to miss a party? There will be nice people there. There will be food there. There will be music there and each and every one of us loves music, don't we? DON'T WE?!?! And yes, there will be something there called dancing. That is where you let your body move with the music. It isn't scary. If you want to appear exotic and zennish, you can just close your eyes and let your knees flex a little bit and sway just a little bit. Nothing flashy. I am not asking any of you to acquire a white shiny suit and point at the disco ball. Just go to the party even if it is called a dance. Just stand up every now and then and let your body move with the music a little. Watch what other people do and do just a tiny hint of it and work up to more. I mean it. I am seriously alarmed at what I see as a second generation of non-dancers out there. Get up off your feet. Turn up some music now and dance around whatever room you are in. No one will laugh. It will feel good. Just like there is that feedback mechanism in our brains that makes us feel happier just by the physical act of smiling, we also feel better just by dancing. Try it. Next time you are in a crappy mood, just make your face into the shape of a smile. It sends signals to your brain that you are happy and pretty soon you start to feel happy and think of happier things and pretty soon after that you ARE happier. So get up and dance. For me. Please.
Here's the deal. I am just SICK of hearing you say "I don't dance." Come on, people, dancing is as integral to human life as smiling. Get on with it. You don't have to be GOOD at it, but really, what a silly concept. No one is 'good' or 'bad' at smiling. You just DO IT. People might say "You have a nice smile" or "You look pretty when you smile" but no one ever says "Jeeze, man, you just can't smile, can you?" Truly, outside of third grade, no one in real life ever gets teased for not being a good dancer. So get up, family members, and dance. Spouse, boys, I mean you. And you too, girlfriend with the pretty hair. All this not going to events labeled 'dance' is just silly. A dance is just another name for party. Who wants to miss a party? There will be nice people there. There will be food there. There will be music there and each and every one of us loves music, don't we? DON'T WE?!?! And yes, there will be something there called dancing. That is where you let your body move with the music. It isn't scary. If you want to appear exotic and zennish, you can just close your eyes and let your knees flex a little bit and sway just a little bit. Nothing flashy. I am not asking any of you to acquire a white shiny suit and point at the disco ball. Just go to the party even if it is called a dance. Just stand up every now and then and let your body move with the music a little. Watch what other people do and do just a tiny hint of it and work up to more. I mean it. I am seriously alarmed at what I see as a second generation of non-dancers out there. Get up off your feet. Turn up some music now and dance around whatever room you are in. No one will laugh. It will feel good. Just like there is that feedback mechanism in our brains that makes us feel happier just by the physical act of smiling, we also feel better just by dancing. Try it. Next time you are in a crappy mood, just make your face into the shape of a smile. It sends signals to your brain that you are happy and pretty soon you start to feel happy and think of happier things and pretty soon after that you ARE happier. So get up and dance. For me. Please.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Camping - In The House
I have a flushing toilet. I have a stove. I have a refrigerator. I have a functioning furnace. I have lights in most rooms and outlets to plug task lights into in others.
I am sleeping on a camping air mattress, a Big Agnes multi-chamber to be specific. It is quite comfy except for the getting down and standing back up parts. My joints are older than I am and too old for that. I have a sound system that plays a flash memory card so I don't have to worry about sawdust ruining it. I have my laptop and internet service via a cable to the phone jack.
Here's the gripe: I don't have running water indoors. For a few days, I had a bucket and a water hose from the outdoor spigot on the front deck. I could wash my face and brush my teeth there and get water to drink. Now it is winter and the hose is frozen, so I have to leave the deck and walk in the mud around to the dark side of the house to get water. Not gonna happen after dark. Huh-uh. And winter not only means the hose is frozen, but it means it gets dark about mid afternoon now.
I bought angel hair pasta and meat flavor pasta sauce at Menard's today when I went for building supplies. Oh shut up, they have a nice little grocery section if you are willing to want what they have. I really wanted to cook in my almost-complete kitchen.
So I dumped ice from the refrigerator ice maker into a pot and heated it to a boil to make my pasta. It works. And I use Lysol wipes to wash my hands and face. Probably not that good for the skin, but better than intestinal woes from germs, I suspect. And not that much worse for the hands than the primer, the paint, the varnish, the construction glue, the tile-set mortar, and the tile sealer that have coated them at various times or simultaneously in the last couple weeks.
I can't wait for Thanksgiving so I can get away from all this for a few days and go sleep in a tent in the wilderness where we pump water through a filter out of streams and use cat holes for, well, you know.
I might need a vacation after my camping vacation from my working on the house vacation.
I am sleeping on a camping air mattress, a Big Agnes multi-chamber to be specific. It is quite comfy except for the getting down and standing back up parts. My joints are older than I am and too old for that. I have a sound system that plays a flash memory card so I don't have to worry about sawdust ruining it. I have my laptop and internet service via a cable to the phone jack.
Here's the gripe: I don't have running water indoors. For a few days, I had a bucket and a water hose from the outdoor spigot on the front deck. I could wash my face and brush my teeth there and get water to drink. Now it is winter and the hose is frozen, so I have to leave the deck and walk in the mud around to the dark side of the house to get water. Not gonna happen after dark. Huh-uh. And winter not only means the hose is frozen, but it means it gets dark about mid afternoon now.
I bought angel hair pasta and meat flavor pasta sauce at Menard's today when I went for building supplies. Oh shut up, they have a nice little grocery section if you are willing to want what they have. I really wanted to cook in my almost-complete kitchen.
So I dumped ice from the refrigerator ice maker into a pot and heated it to a boil to make my pasta. It works. And I use Lysol wipes to wash my hands and face. Probably not that good for the skin, but better than intestinal woes from germs, I suspect. And not that much worse for the hands than the primer, the paint, the varnish, the construction glue, the tile-set mortar, and the tile sealer that have coated them at various times or simultaneously in the last couple weeks.
I can't wait for Thanksgiving so I can get away from all this for a few days and go sleep in a tent in the wilderness where we pump water through a filter out of streams and use cat holes for, well, you know.
I might need a vacation after my camping vacation from my working on the house vacation.
Friday, September 19, 2008
I Say Lunch, You Say Dinner
I got caught in the great Dakota trick they play on outsiders again this trip 'back home'. My sister said she was making dinner the next day and I assumed that meant the nightime meal and that I could slink away in the morning right after my shower after sleeping in. But since she was really making lunch and it would have been rude to leave, I ended up getting talked into staying longer and missing an afternoon appointment. Once, a friend said she was going to come visit me at my mother's house after dinner, and so we ran errands all afternoon and waited for her in the evening to no avail and when I saw her later in the week, she said she got there in the early afternoon and no one was home. I have suggested to people that we meet for dinner and been told they had to work and only later realized I was asking them to lunch not supper and they probably would have been free for supper. 
I don't know where the Magic Line of Dining Time Name Change lies, but in Illinois where I reside most of the time, 'lunch' is the noon meal and 'dinner' is the evening meal. In North Dakota and South Dakota where 'the relatives' and 'the in-laws' reside, 'dinner' is the noon meal and 'supper' is the evening meal and at least on farms, 'lunch' is what the farmers stop and have as a snack mid-afternoon or what people visiting in the evening have before they part company, as in "Well, I guess we best be going," followed by "Oh, stay a bit longer and have a little lunch," which means coffee and some cookies or cake or pie. If there was a sign along Interstates 90 and 94 telling me where this Magic Line of Dining Time Name Change is, I would have an easier time remembering to reset my definitions upon heading 'back home' and back home.
I don't know where the Magic Line of Dining Time Name Change lies, but in Illinois where I reside most of the time, 'lunch' is the noon meal and 'dinner' is the evening meal. In North Dakota and South Dakota where 'the relatives' and 'the in-laws' reside, 'dinner' is the noon meal and 'supper' is the evening meal and at least on farms, 'lunch' is what the farmers stop and have as a snack mid-afternoon or what people visiting in the evening have before they part company, as in "Well, I guess we best be going," followed by "Oh, stay a bit longer and have a little lunch," which means coffee and some cookies or cake or pie. If there was a sign along Interstates 90 and 94 telling me where this Magic Line of Dining Time Name Change is, I would have an easier time remembering to reset my definitions upon heading 'back home' and back home.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Holes
Hillary and Sarah and Linda and Molly and the rest of the women from Knit Nite were talking about the first time we got anything pierced and after I told my story, they said I should blog about it. So here goes: When all my friends in high school were 'doing it', in their bathroom with a potato and ice and a needle, or with those tortuous gradual spring hoop ones that dig in deeper and deeper over days of agony, or by making an appointment at the doctor's office, I was having allergy issues and it seemed pointless. But when I was something like 44 and visiting family on summer vacation, talk was all about how my niece wanted her ears pierced and her grandma, my mother, had agreed to pay for it for her as a gift. They had, in fact, made appointments with my mother's hair salon a couple times, but my niece had gotten cold feet and cancelled. I, without much thought, volunteered that if she did it, I would go along and get mine done. Pretty soon, appointments were made and there were promises to keep that had not been all that well thought out. When the fateful day arrived and we ended up at the salon at the appointed time, she wanted to go first so she would not chicken out. Well, the salon had a new 'gun' that rapidly 'instantaneously' makes the hole in the earlobe and inserts the earring and attaches the back. The 'gun' is supposed to then slide effortlessly off the ear. Well, it got stuck on my niece's ear! So I had to sit there while the salon employee broke into a cold sweat trying to loosen the device and as the manager was called for and as they tried various maneuvers to get it off. And after that was accomplished, I had to rise from my chair and bravely walk to the salon chair to face certain death by piercing gun. The longest walk of my life. Perhaps this is why I was willing to go on the 50 mile backpacking expedition in Red River Gorge in Kentucky or the 50 miles backpacking trip this past summer to Isle Royale. Because I survived the long walk from the waiting room chair to the piercing chair and never looked back or turned to run.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
A Day's Work
The 'kit' was lumber of various lengths and species. We cut the posts to just longer than they will finally be and stacked them together. 
We cut the treads to just longer than they will be and sorted them for suitability and determined their top and face surfaces and arranged them in an aesthetically pleasing order and labeled them and stacked them it their own pile. The 'kit' still very much resembles a kit but the directions are clearer now. 
The parts are all punched out and arranged and we merely have to insert tab A into slot A and tab B into slot B and so on and we will have stairs in our house.
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