knock yourself on the head

Monday night I stayed up late to watch “The Greatest Game on Earth” – guess what the game is – golf. Unfortunately it didn’t send me straight to sleep like a regular golf game does, but was actually a bit exciting at times – true fiction!

Grace has friends over for a few days. Cato and Bailey have come to stay while Ruth is at a quilting conference. The birds have already been talking back and forth to each other in their funny parrot/people voices and are well settled in.

 

I spent much of Wednesday morning wrestling with software, or more specifically, trying to move data from one piece of software to another. I recently downloaded a new journaling app - it has a nicer interface, and a few features that I like better than the one I was using. Obviously I want to transfer the entries from my old software. Hold the boat! It isn't as simple as that. I exported from the old software in csv format, updated the file as it had lots of formatting inconsistencies, then played around with getting the date into unix timestamp format. Next, I saved it as an xml document. I used to do this sort of data manipulation a lot during my working life, and had even written a few export/import programs to make life easier for myself, but I'm a bit rusty now. It will take some manoeuvring to get the xml file formatted to match up with the new software’s input format. By the time I'm finished I would have been able to do the whole thing by hand many times over! And may still have to do so! But it is fun to try ;-)

~

This was written on Tuesday afternoon:

I could still hear the spirited discussion from the bedroom, even with the door closed. It was one of those days that I wished to be back in the 1950s, serving the men in the dining room then retreating back to the kitchen, which hopefully had a door. We had Carm's friend Eric, from past work days over, and I don't think he even made it fully in the door before the work talk started. Keep in mind that both have been retired for 4 years or more.

Phrases like 'infrastructure' and 'technology' peppered the conversation and they rehashed (again) their years working at odds against each other. It is a most unlikely friendship, as, due to department structure, they were often pitted against each other. However, they both love to discuss things (i.e. beat a dead horse), and neither seems to have a thin skin. So, like two huge elephant seals, bellowing at each other and crashing their enormous chests together, they continued their discussion through the afternoon. I'm sure you aren't surprised to learn that as soon as lunch was finished, I beetled out of there and took refuge in the bedroom, with the door closed. Which didn't bother me any – it gave me some time to work on this week’s writing assignment… I am having a hard time writing this one and need all the time I can get.

~

Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago. ~Horace Mann

WYL #28 Preferences

I tried to keep this exercise a little more light hearted than my previous ones.

~

I suppose my aversion might have started at my third birthday. The cake was shaped like a girl and was covered in coconut. A photo shows me sitting, wearing a cute blue dress and smiling up at the camera, but that would have been before I'd had a bite of it. Of course I don't remember anything at all of that day, but I suspect that bits of the shredded coconut might have gotten caught in my teeth, and maybe I thought that the chewy, fibrous, texture ruined the cake.

The cake was probably 'Golden Glow Cake', a delectable recipe that has passed from my grandmother and is my mother's speciality. I love that cake, it wakes me up at night to sliver it on its platter until nothing is left. Unless there is coconut.

Birthdays are now celebrated with tall angel food cakes covered with cloud like fluffy white icing and fresh flowers tucked around the edge. No coconut. Whether it has shiny white icing or its brown outer layer is bare, the airy cake also wakes me up at night, calling to me from the kitchen to have just one tiny piece.  Except one piece will never quite do.

Maybe I just love cake. And hate coconut.

~

Calling me back to the house my mom insisted that I change into a dress. I hated dresses and couldn't see the point of wearing something so uncomfortable and restrictive. How could I ride my bike or scale a fence or get down on my knees to pet a puppy in a flouncy dress. Jeans. That was what I wanted to wear. They wouldn't impede me in any way. I could climb a tree or ride my imaginary horse wearing jeans. The shoes that had to be worn with dresses were also impractical and uncomfortable. Even as an adult, a pair of sturdy boots , cowboy boots even, or sneakers win out over teetering, tall, strappy high heels.

~

A jumble of small objects concealed the surface of the long table. All these things had to get put into the camper but the thought of just dumping them into the drawers and cupboards unfettered made me crazy and out of breath. Grabbing the car keys I headed to the dollar store - an organizers emporium. With a tape measure in one hand, and a list of measurements in the other, I stared at the long aisle of plastic bins, my mind whirling with possibilities. Soon my cart was overflowing with plastic treasures of all shapes and sizes.

Once home the shuffle started and presto, everything was neatly arranged in colour coded plastic bins, and pleasingly tucked  into the drawers and cupboards of the camper. I smiled, my inner chaos calmed.

~

We stood shoulder to shoulder, working together to get the pile of laundry folded while it was still warm. Carm picked up a towel and started folding, looking over at me, he grinned. I choked back an admonishment and closed my eyes for a moment - when I opened them the sloppy towel teetered at the top of the pile. Unable to resist any longer, I grabbed the towel to try to show him (yet again), how to neatly fold it, and he laughed at me, knowing that I would not be able to stand imperfection.

I remember climbing out of my crib to show my dad how to properly fold my diaper, so I guess the aversion for untidy folding goes back to when I was a baby!

~

Please won’t you Please

There were a few file folders of cards, and other memorabilia in the filing cabinet that I worked on yesterday. One of the cards is the one in the photo – I saved this one as it is a perfect summary of the bombardment of begging, business plans, and pro/con lists that I have peppered Carm with over the years.

I always used to have some scheme or plan or wish that I wanted to get Carm’s buy in for. Sometimes they were practical (I can’t think of one off the top of my head), but most were hair brained and sometimes directly from a hypo-manic brain.

I found business plans for our bird breeding business. It laid (no pun intended) out which kinds of birds to get, how many chicks they’d have and the bottom line. There was a similar set of documents for the horses. There were pro/con lists with suspiciously long pro columns for buying rental properties or moving to bigger farms.

They weren’t in the file folders, but somewhere are documents laying out why we should get a standard poodle, a ridgeback, and a miniature poodle. 

Documents exist that lay out exactly why we should add each new horse to our herd. Or build the barn a little bit bigger, or add a just a tiny bit more fencing. The plan for building an indoor arena never come true. I mustn’t have worked hard enough on that document!

My documents would be carefully laid out and sometimes even colour coded. Back in those days I could have written up a pro list for planting poison ivy if I put my mind to it! Oh, how much fun I would have now with all the software available now for brain storming and charting.

 

Begging is much more difficult than it looks. Contrary to popular belief, it’s a high art form that takes years of dedicated practice to master.  ~Sol Luckman