Christmas: finally over

But first: David Bowie. Of course I had to mention him. Diehard fans will roll their eyes when I say that my fondest memories are of the Thin White Duke period, but when you consider the fact that those songs came out when I was an impressionable teenager who didn't know much pop music beyond what was on AM radio (please tell me that I don't have to explain AM radio...), I think that I can be forgiven. Obviously I discovered the vastness of his other work later. One thing I hope that people will remember is that yes, he was a showman. Yes, he shocked people, BUT THE MUSIC WAS STILL FANTASTIC. How many other showmen/shockers can even approach that?

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My two fans will know about this time of year for me, but for those new to the program I should say that every year my brother and sister-in-law act as my art supply enablers by giving me a gift card to go out and buy something new for myself. Usually it's already been spent by now since I generally try to get out early and hit the Boxing Day Week sale and get as much as I can out of it, but this year for a multitude of reasons it just didn't happen. On Sunday, though, we finally had a decent day (the day before had been bitterly cold. Go figure. It's Alberta in January) and I decided that I was in the mood for shopping.

I've mentioned this before, but I have a general philosophy about gift cards. Since a gift card has been given as I gift, I try to avoid buying practical things with them and instead go for the I kinda want that... arena. It can be hard since it goes against the grain in my normal life, but hey. It's a gift. Treat it as a gift.

I broke that philosophy a little this year since I really did need some more workable fixative, but otherwise what you see up there is what came out of my wants this time. From... whatever order I pull up the links... you'll find Koh-I-Noor Magic pencils because I'm a five-year-old; Liquitex Pools, Puddles, & Drips, which contains paints, pouring medium, string gel, and two completely useless canvas boards (yep. Someone's planning on getting messy); Staedtler watercolour crayons because I somehow didn't have any even though I have scads of watercolour pencils, and some cheap-ass acrylics because a) I'm not much of a painter and b) they were on sale. Oh, and my travel mug is in there partly to keep the fixative can from falling over and partly to remind myself that I also made a stop to buy tea.

And why tea, when I'm still working my way through my Christmas stash? Well, mostly because I wanted to check out their matcha make travel mug since I've never tried making matcha and it seemed like an easy way to get into it. Apparently I'm not the only one who's had that idea, though, since I see that the thing's sold out even online. Ah well, something to keep in mind for later. It wasn't a wasted trip in the end anyway, because I was out of two of my regular favourites so I got refills while I was there.



Of which teas? I'm afraid this post is long enough for a work day now.  I'll end with a quick look at me at work back in 1995. Yes, I've been here that long. Longer, in fact. You kids get off of my lawn.

Sometimes I forget what I know

Wait. That sounds wrong. Let's try again:

Sometimes I forget that not everyone knows what I know.



That doesn't sound much better, really. Now I just sound like I'm full of myself. What I mean is, sometimes I forget that what to me seems common knowledge isn't necessarily that known. In respect to my job, in this case.

I've been at this whole naturalist thing for so long that it's easy for me to assume that things I learned when I was first starting out are things that everybody just knows, you know? They've become so much of my base knowledge that I forget that not everyone has the same base knowledge. After all, I've known it forever so of course everyone else does too, right?

I imagine it's the same for any job or interest, though. You get so used to your own basic knowledge, assumptions, and jargon that it comes as something of a minor shock when you talk to someone outside the field and find yourself explaining things that shouldn't (or at least feel like they shouldn't) need explaining. It's not that people are stupid; it's just that you've become a little isolated in your own personal niche.

Um, as it were.

It's a little weirder for me than some, however, because a big part of my job is teaching children. Now, naturally children won't just know that "common knowledge". That's why we teach them, last I checked. I expect children to have questions about the basics, but it always seems a bit odd when I go for a walk with an adult and they have the same questions as the kids. That's when I have to remind myself that the basics for me aren't the same basics someone else may have. It's fine -- and a little exciting, to be honest -- once you get past the moment of realisation and start talking about those basics (assuming that the person that you're with wants to learn them), but there's definitely a slight Twilight Zone moment of whyyy don't you know this? before you get there.

I'm sort of in the Twilight Zone just now, and it has to do with the whole working weekends again thing. For most of the year my contact with my weekend staff is by Friday memo and monthly work schedule e-mails. In the summer, however, I switch my days off so that I can go out in the park and be Nature Girl for the visitors, and as a result I actually see my staff in person.

They always have questions.

That's good, because I often have answers.

It always hits me, though, that they don't have a chance to be here on the weekdays when what we call the core staff (not that fond of the term myself, but I'm not sure I'd have a suggestion for a replacement) is answering questions, bouncing ideas off each other, and generally gaining a knowledge base whether we realise it or not. The weekenders largely fend for themselves. They do it well, for the most part, but if they don't know something they have to do the best they can with search engines and books. When I'm here they ask me first. Makes sense -- it saves time, and I can often give a little more background than a website can.

Some of the questions honestly surprise me.

Yep, whyyy don't you know this?...



Because they haven't been doing it for twenty-two fricking years, Dee. Twenty-three in September.

sigh

Ah well. They pick it up, as I can easily see from those who have been here for a few years now. And eventually it'll become base knowledge for them, and they'll be the ones with the Twilight Zone theme in their heads.

Nah, that'll probably be just me with the earworm. Most of them probably don't know the Twilight Zone theme to begin with...



Will you kids get off of my lawn, already?

Back to work now, being a know-it-all.



Or at least a know-more-of-it-than-you.

Man, my work life has changed

I'm having one of those technologically schizophrenic days where I'm feeling both up to date in what I need to do and massively old. I had a phone call from a teacher wondering about an installation that I think is probably the City's, and I told him the easiest way to find out would be to tweet them. Since we follow the City we'd see the answer and know for ourselves as well.

Simple enough, right? Well, first consider that I've been at this job for over twenty years (sigh). Then add in the fact that it was natural for me to tell the teacher to tweet them rather than call or write a letter or even e-mail, for pity's sake. It's the kind of natural, though, that has me sitting back after the phone call's ended and thinking what the hell was that, exactly.

My work life has changed a lot over the last two decades (sigh). For example, I have a desk full of reference books and I still use them, but my number one resource these days when I'm answering questions is knowing how to use a good search engine. Incidentally, I've said this before but if people knew how often their questions were answered by a good bout of the google they'd probably stop calling us.

I sit at a desk with a large flat screen monitor and use a high speed internet connection. No biggie, right? Except when you think about the system that we had when I started here. Two computers, dot matrix printer, and dial-up internet that no one used because it was only on one computer and it was faster just to take out a book. Cut and paste for documents was literally cut and paste. You wanted colour printing? No, you printed on coloured paper.

I'm not that old. It's just that things have changed that much.

Interestingly, things at home haven't changed for me. Only if you count digital television, I suppose, but seeing as I'm running it on a fourteen-year-old analogue CRT via cable box I'm not sure it does. I have no computer. I don't even have a smart phone (yet) because I'm off-contract and I haven't decided if I want to switch carriers. Do I miss the technology? Not really. I get enough of it at work. Oh, there'll be a time when I'll have more technology, of course, but it's possible to have a life without it.

No, really. It is.

Now excuse me as I stop (electronically) blogging and go back to (electronically) tweeting.



When exactly did my life become this?

Lobes

Pointless photo? Not of lobes. Sorry, but I've got to work with what I have. And besides, I kind of like this picture, pointless as it is. I really can't wait for more actual green things to come out now so that I can really try out this lens properly.

You know, by taking shots of spiders on flowers.

Aaanyway, lobes. And what kind of lobes? Oh, let's go with earlobes, since I'm rather aware of mine at the moment.

Yes, it's another pointless blather about jewellery. Considering that I'm not exactly jewellery-obsessed, I sure talk about it a lot on this blog. And today? Earrings.

Because I don't wear necklaces in my lobes, right?

Did I say anyway already? Oh yeah, I did. Let's continue, then.

Today I'm rather aware of my lobes because I'm wearing a pair of slightly dangly earrings with french wires and rose quartz beads. Slightly dangly only, because I'm at work and it looks weird to wear over-the-top earrings with my uniform t-shirt. I've had these particular earrings since university, and I got them from a beading place that used to be in HUB Mall (sigh. Sad that the shooting still comes up so quickly in a search. And wow. I just looked up the directory and way more of the places that I used to go to than I expected are still there. Not the beading place, though). It was mostly diy there, as beading places generally are, but they had a few done-up pieces and that's what I've got on. Pretty simple: wire, silver spacer, quartz bead, silver spacer. As I said, not too dangly, and I used to wear them all the time because they didn't interfere much in my labs.

They're sort of driving me a little mad right now.

I hadn't realised how much I'm not used to having weight on my lobes anymore. I wear earrings almost every day, yes, and I do have two piercings in each lobe (story here, for those who don't know it), but these days I just wear fairly light earrings. My default is two gold studs joined by a chain, because that way I don't have to pick two pairs of earrings in the morning. Occasionally I'll theme up if I'm programming for little kids, but even then those earrings are featherweights compared to these.

It wasn't always that way, however. I was a teenager in the eighties, and like anyone else who was a teenager in the eighties I wore some weirdass stuff. Big, dangly, neon, mismatched, cuffs joined by crystal chains to studs... yeah, judging by what I still have around I was the weird earring queen, and judging by the tamer earrings I'm wearing right now weight never used to distract me.

I can't say I'm sorry about that. When I look at some of the stretched piercings I see on women who wear heavy earrings every day I'm not exactly envious. Even less so when I see people who can't wear earrings at all anymore because if they do that last bit of skin left to them after a lifetime of stretching will tear through. My earlobes still look like earlobes, and that's fine by me.

Incidentally, for those of you doing the ear tunnel thing, I'm going to sound all old fogey here but I really don't get it. I mean, I don't get extreme piercing period, but at least with narrow holes they become fairly invisible if you decide to remove your jewellery and let them contract. Tunnels, though? All that stretching means that you're stuck with it even if you change your mind later in life.

I feel the same way about neck tattoos, actually. I'm fine with tattoos in general -- I'd even have one or two myself by now if I wasn't so cheap -- but anything neck and above just strikes me as such a bad life choice. You're automatically limiting your opportunities later on with one of those things.



Anyway. For real this time. Back to work for me, and if any of my two fans who for some reason care about my jewellery choices wondered, yes, the rolling ring is still worn daily and is an absolute dream for a habitual fidgetter like me.

I'm just glad that I don't have to wear it in my earlobe.

Random iris of the day:

And why? Oh, c'mon. Three guesses and the first two don't count unless they have the word snow in them somewhere.

Yeah, more snow tonight. Nothing like what Atlantic Canada's supposed to get, but still. To quote the great M. Python, bloody weather.

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And now, digital. I have a digital question... or, rather, a question about digital. You audiophiles out there will agree, I'm sure, that digital compression more or less flattens music, right? I'm a bad one to ask since even bad recordings can be supplemented in my brain by my imagination (yeah, I can hallucinate good music. It's a talent), but I will agree that I love old vacuum-tube speakers and things like that. Not that I own them, really, but I do have an old radio of my grandmother's that sounds twice as rich as anything that you'll find now. Add that to the tinniness of modern digital recording and I can understand that someone who loves his or her old vinyl on a turntable just cringes at the thought of MP3s played on a smartphone.

But what about digital photography? Is today's pixellated, manipulated photography a loss from the days when you had to carefully frame your shots and then go through the worries of development before you could see what you got? I do mean worries, by the way, even if you weren't the one in the dark room. A friend of mine took a big trip to South America towards what I guess we'd have to call the end of the film age and came back with several rolls of film that the photo developer at the store she took them to didn't read properly. All of her slide film was developed as negatives instead. So much for those pictures. If she'd had a digital camera she'd have known exactly what photos she had and would have been able to print out whatever she wanted herself, but would the pictures (assuming that they'd been developed the right way, of course) have been of better quality with film? Would they have been richer like analogue recordings are?

Are we losing quality in our photography in return for quantity of photographs?

Do we really need so many duckface selfies in the world?





I don't have an answer for this, by the way. I mean, I love photography. I have no illusions that I'm any kind of photographer, but I have fun with my photographs. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with having fun with photographs. There's also no question that events are being captured now that never would have been seen by so many people back in the days of film and specialists. When almost everyone has a camera on them at all times in public (hey, old people like me. Remember how stupid we thought it sounded when we heard that the Japanese were putting cameras on their cell phones? Yeah. Ha ha ha), it stands to reason that we see and learn things that we never would have imagined back when news had to be shot by professionals.

But what about the artists out there? The real photographers. Have they lost something in not having to take their time? In being able to take hundreds of shots whenever they want to? In having the temptation of quick and easy photomanipulation?

Looked at another way, have modern painters lost something by not having to mix their own pigments?

I dunno. I tend to think that it's different, not worse. And not better, for that matter. Just different.



Aaand I really need to get back to work. Feel free to comment or drop me an e-mail if you have thoughts of your own. Personally, this is the most thinking I've done on this blog in weeks, and my fingers are getting tired.

Tradition

I was sort of joking about traditions on my Christmas post, but here's on that's a real thing. These little felt mitts -- homemade and supported by a hair clip -- always have to go on the tree. Always. It and a bird (which Dad didn't put on the tree this year. It's probably pretty ratty by now, though) were, according to my mother, the first decorations she and Dad had on their first tree. The mitts have gone up every year since, with the exception of one Christmas that we spent in Hawaii.

That's a tradition that's headed rapidly to its 50th year. Wow, now that I say that it really does count as a tradition, doesn't it?

And don't you dare stop to figure out how old that must make me. You kids get off of my lawn.

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I'll be headed back to my place today (and back to work tomorrow. Weekend work is what I end up with when Christmas and New Years fall so stupidly mid-week), with a stop on the way to see if the licensing office is open so that I can get my 2014 tag before my plate expires. Yes, somebody left her renewal until the last minute again. I guess I like standing in line with all the other idiots who don't take advantage of the months (literal months) in advance that they send out the notices. I haven't decided yet whether I'll stop on my way out of town or stop once I'm back in the city. The advantage of stopping on my way is that it'd be done while it's in my head, but the disadvantage is that the local office only takes cash.

That's right, cash. There are still some businesses out there in this day and age that  (gasp!) don't have debit machines. It's a real pain in the behind, and I'm not sure how they've managed it for so long. Yeah, there's a third-party cash machine in the building, but seeing as I'm too cheap to pay the charges it'll mean a trek down to my much-beloved bank if I stop there.

Um, don't get me started on how much I hate my bank. I'd like to save that topic for another day.

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And now, the return of Today's Tea!

Well, not today's, to be honest. I haven't had any tea yet today. The past two days' teas, though, have been from the David's Tea (sorry, DAVIDsTEA) Christmas collection, and I can't give you a direct link to it because it's no longer Christmas and I've noticed that they're very, very quick to remove their seasonal collections from the website. Anyway, I've tried the Gingerbread and Santa's Secret, which is a black tea with peppermint leaves. Both very nice even without sweetener, which is saying something coming from a habitual honey user. I don't think either of them needed it, though. Coming up? Well, I think I'll leave you on tenterhooks because I know you like a little suspense.

Everybody's feeling the suspense, not knowing what tea I'll be drinking next, right?





You people are no fun. Type at you later.

WAIT WAIT WAIT. One last thing, as I see by the open tab. I meant to share this link, which is one of those things that talks about how Canadian vocabulary is different from other English-speaking nations' vocabularies. I find them interesting, if a little well, duh at times. Different countries, different histories, different vocabs. Anyway, I'm posting it here because for a change I've used every single one of the words listed (yes, even the alcohol ones). Often these lists are so regional that even I'm stumped by a lot of them. This time, though... if any of my two fans that aren't from here find these words odd then you honestly might have a little trouble understanding me at times. Funny.

And hooped, by the way, is a very useful word. It needs to become universal. You know, like toque.

Going for real this time. Byyye.

The world ended yesterday

At 5:02 pm, to be precise.

What? You didn't notice? That's only because you probably weren't in the long lines at the corner grocery watching people scramble to figure out how to deal with an intermittently working debit machine. One or two people were lucky enough to have cash on them. Me, I was one of the few that the machine would work for (yes, my mastercard is just that good). Other people had to give up and leave. The cashiers, of course, were frustrated as hell.

People were nice to them, though. That's the advantage of using the corner grocery rather than going to a big aggravating box, I guess. Especially just before dinner on a Monday.

The fact of our world today is that most of us can't exist without the plastic. Go ahead -- have a look in your purse or wallet right now and see how much actual cash you have with you. I think I'm at about seven bucks, if I remember right. I buy almost everything with my credit card; partly because it's a good way to budget if you pay off your balance regularly, partly because I get cash back, and partly because I hate my bank so I use my debit card as little as possible. I carry a bit of cash (generally more than I have at the moment, yes, but not too much more) for emergencies. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who's like that.

Those of you in your twenties can't possibly realise how quickly the world's changed in that regard. Just before I went to university -- think late 80s here -- my bank sent me this thing called a debit card. It meant that you could go to a machine to get cash instead of going to the bank itself. If I remember right there were two machines on campus, and luckily the one by the bookstore was for my bank. I'd go about once a week and take out enough money to cover groceries and other incidentals. There weren't any debit machines at tills, so I was still paying for everything in cash. At least I didn't have to go to the bank every week to get it.

Speaking of tills, I was a grocery cashier in high school. No debit machines, as I said. Also, no way to deal with credit cards. Cash or cheque only, boys and girls (a cheque is a piece of paper that tells the bank to pay somebody out of your account. You know, in case you've never seen one). No scanners, either. We hand-keyed in everything. Personally, I'd like to see a cashier who can do that now.

That was about twenty-five years ago. I know that twenty-five years is literally a lifetime for some of you, but if you took the twenty-five years between, say, 1950 and 1975 (or even 1960 and 1985) you'd find that nothing much had changed in the wonderful world of payment.

Things move fast nowadays, though. In two or three years I suppose we'll all be so used to transactions via smartphone that the thought of using a physical card will seem almost as weird as the idea of carrying $200 worth of bills to get groceries does now. I haven't figured out whether that's a good thing or not, but in the end it doesn't matter if I figure it out at all. It (or whatever the next big thing ends up being) will happen whether I figure or not.

And I feel old.



Cheque please.

Paper dolls

Today's pointless photo is NOT A PAPER DOLL. It's what happens when I sort of like a photo and then decide while I'm editing it that it would look better as abstract art.

Ish.

No, it's not a paper doll, but this article got me thinking about paper dolls a bit. And for those who don't know what the heck I even mean by paper dolls, go read the article and come back. The links are there for a reason, you know.

Well, sometimes they are. Sometimes they're just there because I'm in the mood for some silly British comedy (or maybe this is just my way of saying I was sorry to hear about Mel Smith's death).

Anyway, paper dolls. I used to play with paper dolls (and before you start, shut up. I'm not that old. What are you kids doing on my lawn, anyway?). Reading that article got me thinking that maybe I should make some paper dolls.

Yes, really.

I'm thinking of making paper dolls.

Sigh. All the useful things I could be doing, and I'm thinking of making paper dolls. I know why, too. I'm tired of not drawing.

Not drawing, yes. Ever since I screwed up my wrist (and then, a few weeks later, re-screwed up my wrist. You know, just to keep things from getting boring) drawing just doesn't happen. I want it to happen, but every time in the past while that I've picked up a pen I get so frustrated by the shakiness that it just gets nowhere.

I'm like a seven year old who can't make her bicycle drawing look like a bicycle. Throw everything in the trash and pout for a while, right? Well, obviously that mindset's getting me far. So I'm having trouble drawing with a pen at the moment. I could draw with a pencil, right? Or paint (which, since I have the brush skills of a five year old anyway, the shaky wrist wouldn't affect so much). Or get out the gesso and make a hell of a mess in my mixed media journal. Or at the very least grab the modelling clay and start a little clay man war or something.

But instead I've been pouting. Very classy, Dee.

Maybe I should make paper dolls tonight. Or paper snowflakes. Or just swelter in my far-too-hot apartment, which is what I've mostly been doing instead of art lately.

Yeah, that'd be good.





I'll keep you posted on the status of the dolls...

Random jewellery moment

But first...

I follow a few of what are known as curated Twitter accounts -- accounts that are run by a rotation of different people for a period of time, generally representing a country or region. For anyone interested, ours is @PeopleofCanada.  Obviously the content of the tweets vary from person to person, but by far the most interestingly quirky (and, I think it's fair to say, the original curated account) is @sweden. This week's in particular I've been finding particularly entertaining. Where else would you find someone who gives tutorials in cooking with your coffee maker? No, I'm not kidding. And please check out the link. It's awesome.

Incidentally, my office mate Wheat will be @PeopleofCanada in a coming week. This ought to be  interesting. He doesn't have any opinions at all.

Now, the weird thing in the pointless photo. It's my hand.

No, that's not the weird part. And shut up if you thought it was.

That thing on my pinkie, all appearances to the contrary, is not a fingernail ring. It's a visitor from the 90s, and I happen to be wearing it right now.

Not on my finger; on my ear. For those too young to remember (I'm working with people this summer who were born in the 90s, fer pity's sake. You kids get off of my lawn), that's an ear cuff. It doesn't go through a piercing. It just sort of clips on to your ear. Hang on, I'll find a picture of one that's not on a pinkie finger. There you go.  Think of the one I'm holding in my picture more like the one on the right than on the left.

Ear cuffs were big when I was in high school. I had (and still have. Never threw them out, cheap junk as they were) several of them with gaudy dangly bits, including a rhinstonish one that had an earring on the end of a chain so that you could hook your cuff up with your earlobe. It's a beaut, that. I should take a picture of it sometime just for fun.

I did the ear cuffs in a big way in high school, but when I went to University at the end of the 80s I became too busy and sciency (junk jewellery and dissection labs? Not generally a good fit) to bother with much but my gold studs joined by a chain. Um, two piercings in each lobe, remember. Two studs joined by a chain is a pretty fast way to fill all of your holes without fussing. In fact, I'm wearing the same earrings today for the same exact reason.

Sometime in the early 90s I was browsing a handmade jewellery store in HUB Mall when I came across the cuff you see above. It's simple: a silver (real silver. I was a grown-up by then, after all -- I was too -- and was starting to value real over junk flash) ball surrounded by a silver wire. Simple. Understated. Easy. I bought my first ear cuff in years.

Wore it, too. For quite a long time. Then it got put away, like things do.

When I did that silly bit of cleaning out my jewellery box and taking pointless photos of the contents a while ago (just hit the it's the box label below if you really want to see that stupidity), all of the ear cuffs came out too. Most of them are godawful. The one above, though? Seemed like it might be worth a polish.

So I did.

And started wearing it again. And still do. Sometimes even instead of earrings. It's easier.

When I first started wearing it again one of our staffers noticed it with interest and asked where I got the ear cuff.

I told her the truth.



The 90s.

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Just an aside, since I seem to be in the mood to talk type jewellery. I put my wrist brace on this morning (the wrist is doing pretty well now, but I'm still wearing my lighter brace to keep from reinjuring it) and decided that I was tired of wearing wrist braces. But I need to wear the wrist brace. What to do, then?

I'm, um, currently wearing a wrist brace with a bracelet on it. Yeah, I know. And you're NOT getting a pointless photo of that smooth move, no matter how nicely you ask.

Sorry, no socks today

I mean, I'm wearing socks, obviously (or maybe not obviously. But since it's winter in Alberta, you should probably assume that I'm wearing socks), but I'm not going to borrow the work camera again to take a pointless photo of them. You'd like them, though. They're red and white stripey, like the Cat in the Hat's socks.

Oh, no, not his socks. Does he even wear socks? I meant his hat.

Anyway, no socks today, so instead it's back to Weird Things in my Apartment.

echo echo echo...

These, obviously, are SD cards. Familiar to everyone, and not especially weird. The one on the left came with my old camera (yes, boys and girls, they used to supply memory cards with cameras. Tiny, tiny memory cards). The one on the right is one I bought at Wally World as an upgrade when they had a good sale (sorry, roll back). A whole 64 meg, and I think I paid about $30 for it.

No, not in the stone age. And you kids get off of my lawn.

So what's weird in this installment of weird things?

I've kept these cards.



The one on  the left wouldn't even hold one picture from a modern camera on the largest setting, but I've held on to it. I'm not a hoarder by any standard, but I've kept these cards.





If that isn't weird, I'd like to know what exactly qualifies as weird in your universe. Me 'n my socks have to go get ready for this afternoon's planetariuming now.

The times they are a changing

The blast from the past you see in today's pointless (and rather awful. It was a quick one-off shot) photo are bottles from a trip to Hawaii my family took when I was in Grade 12 (so, sadly, over a quarter of a century ago now. And you kids get off of my lawn.). Times have changed in the sun since then, don't you think? Note the list of just about every kind of oil you can imagine on the Royal Hawaiian bottle -- and the thing's about half used, so my mother at least must have been slowly sizzling the whole time we were there. Also note the astonishing sun protection factor of 6 on the Bronztan. That would only be for the fair-skinned Irish amongst you in those days.

Those days being only 25 and some years ago, remember.

There's also a bottle of Royal Hawaiian after-sun lotion that I couldn't manage to hold at the same time for the picture. You had to soothe the lobster effect somehow, I guess.

Today? Well, even my daily make-up foundation has SPF 15. Changing times, indeed.

Oh, and don't even ask why we still have old suntan oil bottles around the house. I honestly couldn't tell you.

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I've been debating on whether to mention the other sign of changing times here since I usually like to keep things light, but I suppose that I may as well. The sad fact is that my father's place will soon become a petless household again.

I don't count the fish. Sorry ichthyophiles, but in the end you and I both know that fish are more decor than pets.

This house was always filled with pets when I was growing up, but after my brother and I left home my parents didn't replace pets as they reached the end of their lives. There was a time when this really was a petless place, and it was kind of a weird feeling. It must have eventually felt weird to my folks, too, because back in 1997 (I know the date from old vet records, in case anyone's thinking right now that I have a much more incredible memory than I really do) the house became pet happy again. First it was a dog. That'd be Rikki. Shortly after came Penny the cat, and a couple of weeks after that Max arrived to keep her company. That was 1997, though, and pet lifespans (well, all lifespans, of course), are finite.

The dog went first. Not surprising, since dogs generally don't get too much past a decade. A few months back it was Penny. Now, I'm pretty sure we won't have Max for too many more weeks, if that.

Now, keep in mind that this is a nearly 16 year old cat. I know that there are cats out there that've lived longer, but overall 16 years is a decent age. It's sad to see the end of a pet era, though, and Max? Well, Max is a pretty neat cat. He certainly has more personality that just about any other cat we've had, and we've had a few over the years.

What'll happen (petwise) when he's gone? I really don't know. My dad's talked occasionally about getting another dog, and it wouldn't surprise me too much if he did. Maybe he'll decide to take a pet break for a while to make up his mind, though. Tough call for someone like him who's had animals pretty much all his life except for the short period I mentioned above. No doubt I'll keep you posted either way, since it'll end up being blather worthy and Whomever knows that I'm usually short on blather.

Gee, this was a happy post. I need to end with something lighter, I think. Something pet related? Sure. Let's see... A parrot driving its own car? Why not. There might be a few of you out there who haven't seen that yet.

Incidentally, it's a good thing that this guy's pet wasn't an octopus. Wheat and I have a theory about the oncoming octopus world domination. They're going to take over, folks. Remind me to tell you why sometime. It'll freak you out, I promise.

I... have nothing

I've been a bit self-distracting this morning, and it's not going to lead to much of a blather. I've also been listening to a fair amount of old (we're talking 20s and 30s old here, folks) blues and jazz, and it's put me in kind of a funky mood. You know what I mean, I hope -- sort of a they don't make music like that anymore combined with you kids and your loud music these days. If you think I'm going over all music snob today you're wrong, though. I'll probably end up listening to AC/DC on the drive home, if the hard rock station on the car radio is up to its usual playlist.

Of course, I could always change the channel. I'm weird about that, and I admit it. I have a whole bunch of presets so it's not like it would be difficult to find something different to listen to, but I somehow never seem to bother.

I should say, however, that I often drive with my windows open (yes, even down the highway. I'm not a big fan of air conditioning in cars because it's so drying), so maybe I don't change stations just because I can't even hear the radio much of the time.

But, erm, that's not why you called.

Why did you, again?





See: post title. I really don't have anything today. Kind of just wrapping a few things up here so that I can hit the highway early enough to get my own place in some sort of shape before going back to work tomorrow. I don't seem to have got much done in the way of my own stuff during this week of housesitting, but that's so normal I'm not even sure why I typed it. I always come here with big plans of using the quiet to get things done, and then I end up doing silly things that have nothing to do with anything useful.

Inertia's a wonderful thing, I suppose.

Anyway, back to the grind tomorrow. I'll be leaving before Dad gets back from the airport, I expect, so here's hoping that the cat hasn't got any surprises planned in the few hours that he'll be alone. I wouldn't put it past him. He is a cat, after all.



And this is coming from someone who likes cats, remember...

Tomeless

Well, the world's officially going to end. Today's pointless photo is not only not pointless, it's editorial.

It had to happen eventually.

And what brought on this chain of events? The announcement by Encyclopaedia Britannica that it won't be producing hard copy editions any longer. Not exactly staggering or surprising news, especially given that the most recent paper edition costs some $1400 (and there's still some left, if you're dying for them and have the room on your bookshelf), but a landmark nonetheless.

For me, especially.

I loved encyclopedias so much as a child. I have to say as a child, unfortunately, since the truth is that I haven't used one since school, but they were a pretty big part of my life for a long time so of course the news makes me miss them a bit.

We never had Encyclopaedia Britannica in the house when I was growing up because it was considered pretty expensive even then (and they did, after all, have to be replaced periodically as knowledge progressed), but it was a regular recourse for me in the library as soon as I was old enough to understand most of the big words. At home we had a Collier's set (or, rather, my parents did, since I would have been approximately one year old when they got it and I'm sure that they weren't counting on having a prodigy), and then later on a World Book Encyclopedia. They were geared more to kids, the World Books, and there was a pretty good chance that if you visited our house for any length of time when I was between about... oh, let's say eight and fifteen... that you'd find me at some point sitting cross-legged on the floor with some random volume open on my lap. Sometimes it was because I specifically needed to find out something, but more often it would be because I just wanted to learn something. Anything. And since the World Book was fairly well cross-referenced, learning anything about something would usually lead me to learning something about something else that I hadn't been planning to learn about, and so on and so on and so on.

Yep. I was that much of a nerd even then.

I loved hard copy encyclopedias. I love the pages, the pictures... I even loved the feel of the weight of the things. But will I miss them?

No, of course not.

Like most everyone else these days (and as not-so-subtly hinted at in the photo. See? I said it was editorial) I find it much more convenient and quick to look for things online. I don't think that I would bother with a non-electronic encyclopedia even if I found one for five dollars in a thrift store. It would be too much of a bother to store, even if I might get some nostalgic pleasure out of flipping through the pages. The plain fact is that old-fashioned encyclopedias are just too non-portable for the way we work these days.

Amazingly enough, even in this bookish house I couldn't find an encyclopedia to take a picture of this morning. The old ones are long gone. What you're looking at in the picture is part of the dictionary from the old Collier's edition we had. It was saved, I guess, because it takes a little longer for dictionaries to be out of date (although even that's less and less true now. Doesn't stop me from loving dictionaries, though. Someday we're going to have to talk about my ridiculous dictionary collection. You heard me -- I have a collection of dictionaries. They're on different subjects, naturally, but... oh wait. I'm distracting myself, and that could so easily be another post that I'd best not waste it).

If you click on the photo, it should be obvious why I chose the page that I did. When I decide to be on point, you better believe that you poor people get beat over the head with it.



That sounds painful, actually. I'd better head back to the pointlessness. Less chance of injury.





The pointlessness, by the way, will be vanishing again for a couple of days. I don't think that I'll be near a computer tomorrow, and my Monday looks to be so busy that there won't be a point in even trying pointlessness. The rest of the week should be a little better than last week, though.

Maybe.

No promises, at this point.

Or pointless, as it were.



And now you know why I don't write encyclopedias...

Geez, is it that time already?

Yes, yes, I'll try to get out and take some new photos this afternoon...

Sorry, I'm a bit testy. Got a late start to the day, which is sort of an unusual thing for me these days, and I don't think I've quite caught up yet. I couldn't believe it when I looked at the time just now and realised that I hadn't blogged yet. Now my thought process is somewhere between blog and lunch, and lunch seems to be getting the upper hand just now.

Read that as: this'll probably be short and useless. And I was going to say "kind of like the typist" here, but to be fair I'm not entirely useless.

I am sore today, though. Actually, I've been sore all week. Nothing serious, really; the usual always-achy ankle, the complainy knee, the wrist that occasionally acts up just to remind me that it's really stupid to lose your temper and act out like a three-year-old when you're supposed to be an adult setting up tables instead... I'm sure I've mentioned that act of stupidity on the blog before since most of my acts of stupidity have been re-acted many times here out of sheer lack of subject-matter, but here's the Coles Notes version for those of my two fans who may not have heard it: it was the morning of a fairly big event at work that I was coordinating, and I had to quickly get some things set up before my volunteers arrived so that they could get on with the bigger stuff. I arrived to find that a group meeting the night before -- a group of regulars who should have known better -- had left the rooms that I needed in absolute shambles, meaning that the little time I had was going to have to go to cleaning up instead of setting up. Of course I was pissed, but that didn't mean I had to go around cussing and slamming things as I worked, and I certainly didn't have to tip up that table that I needed to fold the legs on in such a violent manner, right? Yeah, my wrist would have appreciated my remembering that last part before I wrenched it so badly, I'm sure.

Ah well. Live and learn. And occasionally ache for years afterwards.

I sometimes think that I'm too young to have all these aches and pains, and then I remember that I'm not too young to have all these aches and pains, and then I'm sad.



Oh, not really. Or not much, anyway. And speaking of anyway, I think it genuinely is time for me to go upstairs and scout out something to eat. And then scout out something to take photos of. And then... um... fold the stuff in the dryer, I guess. And then maybe draw something for IF, if something actually comes to mind.

Yes, it's a massively full life I lead. Guess I should be grateful that it's not fuller.

I don't need any more aches.

What on earth is that thing in your hand?

Still working out of the archives in regards to pointless photos,yes. I'll try to do something about that this weekend.

Oh, and if this seems slightly distracted at all, it's because I made the mistake of brushing my tongue this morning after having too hot (as in temperature, not spice) a supper last night, and now the silly thing is shedding its skin in a disturbingly reptilian fashion. TMI? Yeah, probably, but I'm the one who's dealing with tongue chunks rather than just hearing about them so I think you're probably in the better position.

----------

This morning when I got in to work I took a moment to download a new game onto my 3DS via the free wifi here, and it occurred to me that if I'd said "download a game onto my 3DS via the free wifi here" to myself what, ten? fifteen? years ago, I wouldn't have comprehended a bit of it. Game, maybe. I would have got that it had to do with a game of some sort.

When you step back and look at it, isn't that weird?

Our day-to-day world now wouldn't be at all comprehensible to our own past selves of a handful of years ago. That sort of blows me away, and I tend to think that it's one of the few times in history that it's happened. We forget, too. Because we're living in amongst the whole thing, we forget that less than ten years ago the idea that Japanese companies were putting cameras in cell phones seemed strange (and who would ever want a camera on their phone, anyway?). Our photocopier/printer at work is just barely old enough that it won't accept SD cards over 1G. Tragic, that. Hands up if you can remember when a 1G card seemed like it would last you forever, and it had better last forever because it was going to cost you an arm and a leg to get one. The first card I used in my camera? 64M, if I remember right. And I had to buy that one as a special purchase, because the one that came with it was only... oh, 16M or so.

And to think that a little while after I started working here I got brave enough to shell out the money for an electronic personal organiser (think: before Palm Pilots, even) with a staggering 64K of memory. I think I probably still have it somewhere. I should see if the museum wants it.

It all makes it sound like I'm ancient (and I'm sure that for some of my two fans, after reading this you're probably sure that I'm ancient), but I'm not. No, really. I'm not. It's just that things move so fast these days. So fast, in fact, that unless you keep staring straight ahead you lose your way in the newness. Look off to the side for a bit to enjoy a current technology, and before you know it you're three towns past your exit and the world is all using implanted wrist chips to pay for groceries, or something like that.

By the way, it totally won't surprise me if the implanted chip thing happens.




Ah well. None of this is implying judgment or anything. It just strikes me every once in a while that if I could stand outside of my own skin and be my eighteen-year-old self looking at my forty-two-year-old (yeah, I said it. Whatever. Forty's the new black, isn't it?) self now, I think I'd be fairly bewildered.

Hmm. By more than technology, no doubt, but let's leave some of the other stuff for another post. I'm still in the middle of a work day, after all. Let me just readjust the Sanctuary Hologram so that our visitors can get back to watching the animatronic birds...

'Twas the Friday before Christmas...

... and all through the nature centre...

Well, most of the staff is already on holidays, so other than a really screwed up morning which I'm not going to elaborate on (it's all kind of boring unless you're directly involved) it's kind of quiet here.

So.

Today's pointless photo? Taken two or three weeks ago, but appropriate today because it's currently 3C out there. That's PLUS three. Kind of weird for this time of year, but if anyone in charge of the weather happens to be reading this I'd just like to say that I DON'T MIND. I mean, I really don't mind, ok?

I also really don't have much to blog about. I had leftover Chinese food just now... but I can't believe that anyone wants to hear about lunch. Or leftovers. There's lots of leftovers from the Christmas lunch yesterday, though, so if you happen to be in the neighbourhood help yourself.

I could tell you what I did last night, but what I did last night was paint some walnut shells with cheap tempera paint. And why did I do that? To see what it looked like. I painted one in white gouache, too, to see what it looked like matte. If I like the way they look when I get back to my place I'll maybe paint designs on them. And why? I dunno. They were there.

And what are my holiday plans, then? I don't really have any. I'll go in to Dad's for the weekend, and then I'll be working after that.





I'm the most boring person in the universe, aren't I?

Ah well. I guess I'll leave you with the annual nod to the NORAD tracking system, which, frankly, just makes me feel old. Why, when I was your age, you kids, we tracked Santa on the RADIO, not on some highfalutin' computer-thingamabob or smartphone.

Should I say here that we usually listened to the Santa tracking in the car while on the way to the local mental hospital to look at the decorated trees on the grounds, or would you find that a little bit too weird?








I should have stopped typing while I was still the most boring person in the universe, really. Happy end of the work week, everyone.

Guess I'm that old

But first, and by request: One doofy Christmas hat.

What? You thought you were going to get to see my doofy face, too?

-----------

I've been doing my usual internet fiddling around here this morning, and again as usual it's led to me not bothering to think of a blather topic. Old familiar tune, right? Then I read about Vaclav Havel's death.

Oh, and if you're young enough to not know much about him, the CBC's write-up (Associated Press, really, but I found it on the CBC) is a pretty good summary.

I remember watching the events in Czechoslovakia unfolding. I remember being amazed that this man and his associates were able to accomplish such incredible things peacefully (and I still can't believe that he was never given the Nobel. If they give it to him posthumously I'd consider it almost a crime, especially considering some of the other people who've since been given the so-called Peace Prize). I remember the power of his words.

And then I remember that when all of this was going on, a large portion of my two fans weren't even born yet.

Selfishly, that caused almost as big a lump in my throat. I say selfishly, because I'm about to leave reflections on Vaclav Havel and his legacy to those far better qualified and start blathering about meeeeeee.

When I was in high school, one of our major units in Social Studies was an examination of the Soviet Union. Hands up if you remember the Soviet Union? Well, I didn't study it as history when I was in school. Perestroika was just getting rolling as I entered university. Words like glasnost were bandied around with mix of disbelief and confusion (seriously. We weren't exactly brought up to trust what the Russians were up to, even here in Canada). We watched people climb on top of the Berlin Wall and it was like we'd entered an entirely different world than we'd been trained for, somehow. It was as exhilarating as watching our troops go to Iraq (for what's sometimes now called the FIRST Iraq war, which it certainly wasn't) was scary.

And so many of you weren't even alive when all of this was going on.

Guess I'm that old.

That's boggling to me, because I don't feel old. I'm not old. The world just moves that fast these days, that's all.

When I was growing up, we had a next-door neighbour who was born close to the turn of the century (LAST century. Sigh.). My mother would sometimes say things like, "imagine all of the changes she's been through. The world's a completely different place now than it was when she was born." True enough, yes, but politically and technologically I think I've seen more changes in the last twenty years than she could have imagined in eighty. I won't bother to enumerate them -- you all know what I'm talking about -- but seriously. If I was able to take one of today's twenty-year-olds back to my childhood, that person would be in disbelief at how "primitive" things were.

Forty-some years ago.

Man, that's just sad.





You kids get off of my lawn, now.

----------

Now, question time. And hi, Ces. Thanks for all your comments! I look forward to seeing your work every week for IF. Let's see what I can answer...

• Shortness, right? I'm 5'2". Not tiny, really, but not tall enough to be easily mistaken for a boy. And, of course, there's that whole matter of the having-breasts thing.
• Yep, I never put a Follower gadget on this blog even though I did on the other one. No particular reason why, I suppose. Maybe just that I already had enough toys on the sidebar, or maybe that my ego couldn't handle waiting to see if anyone actually followed me. Probably more likely the latter, since this place is (as advertised) pretty pointless.
• And yes, I do have a slight problem with Micron addiction, although I've managed to limit myself to a set of sepias and a set of blacks. Only because I have a set of Prismacolor Premiers in my purse, though.

 I guess that's enough typing for now, especially since my stomach's telling me that it's lunch time already dammit. Should I mention that this whole time I've been listening to songs from Hugh Laurie's album that I probably should have asked for for Christmas since I don't seem to have gotten around to buying it yet? Want my verdict, such as it is? Good music, good band, great introduction to New Orleans blues for those who are curious... but Former Singing Teacher hopes that he learned to loosen up on his vocals a bit when he was touring with this stuff. He tends to be juuust a little tight, and that can lead to problems later. I'm sure he's figured it out by now, though. I'll be curious to hear the difference on the promised second album.

Assorted random thoughts

And random roses. Obviously not a recent photo, but 'tis the season to start getting used to that. I don't mind fall, but I sure do mind how it always seems to lead to winter.

Anyway. Random thoughts. First, Random music. Or maybe not quite so random since Wheat knows why, but it's likely pretty random to my two fans.

Random news story. Sorry to any future two fans if the link becomes defunct. It's about Paris's new Bluecar program -- basically, electric cars available to be borrowed for short trips. You pick them up from self-service battery points and drop them off at other points. I'll be curious to see if it works. I know the bike system has, but cars? Seems another animal, somehow. And I just can't imagine it working at all here in Western Canada. We're too much of a car culture, unfortunately.

Random feelings about Blogger's new Dynamic Views option. I... dunno. I tried it out when it was still in Blogger Draft, and there's a reason that I never stuck with it. Sure, it's neat to be able to play with the way the blog looks, and it's nifty that my two fans could choose a different look if they wanted to. But... somehow it just doesn't feel bloggy enough to me, you know? It loses some of the personality... some of the weirdness I choose to put on the sidebar. And as far as the other blog goes, I just don't know if the whole idea works at all for the way I like to present things. I might play with it a bit on the weekend, if anyone pops by and wonders why things look weird, but I can't imagine sticking with it.

Random... oh, screw it. I may just as well post what's really on my mind so that I can get back to work. Today marks the twentieth anniversary of my first day here at the Nature Centre. I'm saying (well, typing) this very quietly because I don't really want anyone here to remember. The fact is, I haven't quite figured out how I feel about having worked here for twenty years. Or any place for twenty years, come to it. I mean, yes this is a good place to work (even my proclivity for inertia wouldn't last through twenty years in a horrible job) and I don't really have anything to say against it, but still. I'm forty-one. Twenty years is a pretty huge part of my life, and twenty years in the same job? Even if it's a good one? Is a looong time. And a looong time is something that I'm not exactly sure that I want to celebrate.

Not saying that I wouldn't casually remind this lot next week if I somehow change my mind about just letting the milestone pass, of course, but this is how I feel at the moment.

And with that random thought...

Later, folks.

Chapter 1402: Wherein Dee realises that she hasn't blogged yet today

My two fans will remember that evening blogging never goes all that well for me (not that blogging in general has been happening anyway lately... but I digress). It's kind of like I have this mental period for blogging -- let's say two hours either side of noon -- and if that period's over then that's it until the next day.

That's right folks. I'm like the NASA launch window of the blog world. Erm... NASA does still launch things even though the shuttle program's done, right? Yeah, I was pretty sure that they did.

Anyway, as she always says when she's trying to come up with a thought (c'mon, thought. Any thought will do). I didn't blog in my usual blog window today because I was far too busy doing...

Um...

What was I doing, exactly? I think I'm going to have to take this in point form:

• Eating store-bought banana bread (it was what was on hand) for breakfast while catching up on some e-mails and other internet things that I'd missed over the past week.
• Moving on to today's internet nonsense once that was all cleared up.
• Doodling a pumpkin flower for Illustration Friday (Yes, I know that it's Monday. They give you an entire week, you know).
• Complaining to my father while waiting for each layer to dry that I don't know how to paint.
• Singing. That, erm, happens generally, but it happens even more when I'm doodling because I usually have music on while I do it.
• Making a bad scan of said flower and posting it to the other blog and IF. Which... well, see the other blog if you're at all interested. And hey! I did post already today! Just not here, was all.
• Having lunch. No banana bread that time.
• Braving the mosquitoes in the yard to take some new pointless photos, since the stash on my nerdstick was getting pretty low.
• Editing the photos.
• Editing the snot out of the poorer photos (ahem. See example above) because I found it amusing to pretend that I was a digital artist.
• Singing.
• Helping with dinner (banana breadless).
• Eating dinner.
• Digesting dinner.
• Telling my father that I should probably blog, and mentioning that my last blog post was about pear-scented underarms.

And now? Typing nonsense. And singing. And, occasionally, chair dancing -- but only if it's a really good song. Hard to type and chair dance at the same time.

Why all the singing? Because I like it, obviously. And for whatever reason, I like to have something to sing to while I'm doodling. Habit, I suppose. It's usually 60s or 70s stuff because that's what I grew up with (I'd say I'm dating myself, but dating yourself is always such a messy affair) and I know most of the words. It's harder to sing along when I don't know the words, but given this family's habit for substituting other words in songs that we do know, you can imagine that I'll fake my way through almost anything as long as no one's there to notice that I haven't got a clue what I'm on about.

Kind of like now, I guess.

Where the heck was I, again? Oh, right. Nattering about staying busy all day without actually doing anything. A true talent, I'm sure you'll agree. And regular fans will notice the glaring omission of doing the laundry. It would have been too much to add to the schedule, don't you think?

Besides, I did it last night. It's fairly humid here (for here. Those of you who live in actual humidity would probably think that this is a parched desert), and I wanted to give my hangables a fair chance to dry before taking the last bit of dampness out with the dryer tomorrow. They're hanging here in the basement, you see. There have been far too many storms lately to bother hanging them outside.

Not that I generally hang things outside in the best of weather, but it makes a good excuse. Never mind that I'm a drip-dry-in-the-spare-room sort of girl. That just sounds weird.




As does this post. Is it weird enough and long enough to be done yet? Hands up? Oh, wait. My house my rules, right? Well, then I vote that we're done.








Me 'n allllllll the voices...

Creaky

It's been a trying few days, I have to admit. My neck's not been quite right which leads to headaches (but, knock wood, so far hasn't lead to immobility so at least it's not totally out), something's shifted in my screwed-up knee and it's letting me know with the occasional shooting pain juuust in case I'm not paying attention, and my shoulder hole, which had been healing nicely (and which, you'll notice, I hadn't been giving you regular updates on. You're welcome), suddenly became inflamed yesterday. That gave me a little worry, as you can imagine. I think it's ok now, though. Looks like things just got blocked up a bit is all. It's draining again now and the redness has gone down, but I'll be keeping a pretty close eye on it nonetheless.

All this has me feeling decidedly off-warranty, as you can imagine.

It also makes it a little hard to come here and blather like an idiot. All these creaks just make me feel a little too much... with the world, I guess you could say. Don't get me wrong -- I know that there are an awful lot of people out there who have it far, far worse than I ever will and (for a change) I don't mean to turn this place into a giant whingefest. I'm just in an aw, geez. Really? sort of mindset, I guess; wondering what ache the body will come up with next.

Yeah, yeah. Welcome to your forties, Dee.

The problem is, other than the aches and pains I'm not really feeling the forties thing. I don't act like I thought someone in their forties was supposed to act. If I'd dye the grey hair I probably wouldn't look like I was in my forties. I don't think like... well, wait on that one. How the hell is someone in her forties supposed to think, anyway? I must think like I'm in my forties, because I am in my forties.

Or something.




Ok, I've figured out where this line of blather is coming from. I forgot that we're heading to the one time of year when I really do feel like I'm in my forties. Yesterday I met one of our new hires for the summer season who had come in a few weeks early to start getting to know the place (not the usual practice, but good for her).

She's young.

They're always young.

I was young when I was that age and in that job.

The thing is, they're always young. Every year they're young, but every year I'm increasingly not so. It normally only bothers me for a week or so at the beginning of May, when the seasonal staff starts and we're all still getting to know each other. Oh, and when I've just newly seen the birth dates on their paperwork, of course. You were born when? 1991? How can you have been born in 1991 and be old enough to hold a job? Oh, right. 1991 was twenty years ago.

Sigh.

1991 was also the year I convocated from university...

Feeling even creakier now, thanks a bunch.

Anyway, as I was saying before I depressed myself by thinking about dates, the whole thing normally only bothers me for that first week until we get to know each other a bit, but until I get past that first week I feel about as old as I ever feel in my life.

And I'm not supposed to be feeling that way until we actually make it to May, you know. Stupid creaky me.





Ah well, I'll get over it. Probably by doing my taxes this afternoon, which WON'T MAKE ME FEEL OLD AT ALL.

Sigh.

Again.

I'm going to hobble on over to the washing machine and change loads now, ok?





Ok then.