Bedraggled

The cob in today's pointless photo is convenient for the post title, no? Although he looks jauntily unconcerned about the state of his hair, you must admit. This corn, by the way, was local. As in out of the garden local. We're not in a real corn area here, so for Dad to have corn at all is something, even if the cobs are small.

Anyway.

The hair that the title really refers to is mine. I spent the morning outside in the rain with a bunch of kids, and when I got back my hair was wet enough that I took off my barrette and combed the hair out to give it a chance to dry.

I never wear my hair loose at work. Ever. To the point where people were doing double-takes as they passed the office because they didn't recognise me.

I don't wear my hair loose (it's tied up again now, by the way) because it would drive me nuts. I don't even wear my hair loose at home. The minute it's dry enough after a shower, it gets barretted or elasticked. I even wear it that way at night, because if I don't it gets tangled under my armpit and wakes me up because I can't move my head.

That's true, you know. Not even an exaggeration.

Let's face it; my hair's too damned long. I never meant for it to be this long. I've never had it this long. My once-a-year haircut was forgotten a couple of years ago, though, and now I have way too much hair. It's easy to have that happen when you tie your hair back every day, however. Out of sight really does equal out of mind, and all of a sudden your stupid hair is past the midway point on your back.

It needs to come off.

It needs to come off, and the funny thing is that when I get around to do anything about it I can just hear the panicked are you suuure? that I'll get from the stylist. Look, I know some people prize their hair like they were Samson or something. I know it, but it doesn't mean that I get it. It's hair. It grows. Mine grows fast. Cut it off, please.

The sad thing is, I can't even really donate it or anything. No one wants to try to make a wig out of baby fine, greying hair. Or at least no one should want to...



Back to work for me now. It's a busy rest of the week, so there may or may not be posts.

Later.

Wheat

As promised.

I think I promised, didn't I? To explain the wheat, that is.

As part of a spring training interpretive exercise, one of our staffers brought in some Red Fife wheat and explained its history as well as the steps that go into preparing wheat for market. Flailing away, as it were...

Um, anyway. At the end of his presentation he gave us each packets of Red Fife. So I planted it.

On my balcony.

Yes, that's right. On my balcony. It gave me a bit of a laugh over the summer, actually. Me, the smallest scale wheat farmer in history. As you can see, though, I got a crop. A few of the stems came up fully awned, which isn't characteristic of Red Fife, but overall it looked pretty good. This wasn't all of it -- I'd already eaten a few heads by the time I brought in everything else.

You read that right, by the way. Eaten. Raw wheat makes a surprisingly good snack while you're watching television. A bit messy if you have a fan going (I did manage to do some accidental winnowing, and I definitely need to vacuum when I get home), but otherwise kind of fun. And after all, isn't that what wheat berries are? Raw, whole wheat? It sounds less weird if you refer to it as eating wheat berries, I guess.

And what happened with the rest of the wheat? Well, I saved a couple of heads' worth to try to plant again next year... and I ate the rest.





And that's why I need to vacuum. Silly chaff.

Later, all. It may be another slow week for the blog, depending on my program schedule. I guess we'll see.

Post? Yeah, I did say something about a post. Right.

The problem with having a busy week where you haven't had much time to do personal things on the computer is that when you finally get a morning to catch up while doing laundry you end up in Internet Stupid S--- Land.

Oh, and for those new to the program, the censoring above isn't due to any delicacy on my part. Whomever knows that I'm not shy about my language. I know that people generally don't come here for the four-letter words, though, so I try to take it easier on the blog than I do in real life.

Anyway.

I've spent most of the morning looking at every stupid thing that I might have missed during the week and NOT thinking about blogging. Yep, no topic again, unless you'd like to hear about the weird (or lovely, depending on how you look at it) lighting on a few of the pointless photos I've posted lately.

It's simple, really. I got bored one night before my flowers all died and went out on the balcony to take flash pictures. Some of them turned out not too bad, actually. Almost like I'd planned it or something.

Maybe the best time to take pictures of flowers is at night? I'd never really thought about it, but you do have more control of the light that way. Maybe it's something I'll have to try next year. Oh, there's a topic: why it'll have to wait for next year.

Fall.

Fall has hit us in a big way, boys and girls, and it really kind of sucks. Normally I don't mind autumn so much, but this year for whatever stupid reason Alberta had one of the warmest Septembers on record. I say stupid (an awful lot of stupids here today...) because unseasonably warm temperatures mean that both your body and mind go what the hell? when the temperatures suddenly go from the mid twenties to the low to mid teens. And when I say suddenly, I mean within a day or two. No transition.

Gotta love Alberta sometimes. Where else can you go from summer to below zero temperatures at night without at least a hint of what's coming?

Ah well. My flowers are dead, the poplars have turned, everything else is headed that way, and I have to remember to get that rock hit fixed before the nights start getting even colder and I end up paying for a whole windshield.

New pointless photos today, if I can find something to take pictures of that doesn't depress me too much.



This was almost a post, wasn't it?

Pointless photo of the day:

Sorry folks, I've just been busy. Actual post by the weekend, probably.

In the meantime, here's a picture of my wheat.



Yes, wheat. Red Fife. I should tell you about it sometime.

Maybe on the weekend.

Just thought I'd let you know that there won't be a post today.

Ok, maybe a little one.

Anti-social

Psst... there's a spider in this photo.

Bet you never would have guessed.

----------

The other day my boss was mentioning that people had told him this place seemed somehow less cheery over the summer; people were either looking kind of glum or too head-down busy working. I was surprised by that, because I honestly hadn't noticed. I said something about it to Wheat, though, and he agreed with the statement. Funny, really. I thought we'd had a decent summer overall. No real fireworks, and to me I'd sooner have calm and functional than overly exciting. Isn't the curse may you live in interesting times, or something like that? Ah. Here we go.

I'm not sure that I'd agree that the workplace is down, really, but one thing it is is less social. I figure a couple of reasons for this: more work space, and the internet.

When I started here, back in the dark ages, there definitely wasn't enough work space for the staff. There were, if I recall, three offices. My own "desk", which was originally just a table, was in the storage room, and in summer when I was full-time I used to spend an awful lot of that time working at our sister site. It was more pleasant than working in the hole.

We used to have pretty strict (or maybe regular would be a better word) breaks back then, and I really do think that escape from our cramped work quarters had something to do with that. Mid-morning coffee break, ostensibly fifteen minutes but more like thirty by the time everyone had gathered. Lunch breaks where we actually came out to the lunch tables to eat. Mid-afternoon coffee break, much a repeat of the morning. We sat, we socialised, then we went back to the dungeons.

This place definitely doesn't qualify as any sort of dungeon anymore.

The building was expanded about thirteen years ago, and a lot of thought was put into things like natural light. I share an office with a wall full of windows. It's pleasant, it's not cramped, and...

It has internet.

When I first came here we had, I think, three computers in the building. Not networked, of course, and only one was on a dial-up internet connection. It was easier to use books (remember books, boys and girls?) to do research, and there wasn't really anything to hold us at our desks during break times. That doesn't work in today's world, of course. We all have our computers and our high-speed internet, we do most of our work that way, and on breaks it's usually easier to eat at the desk and use our time to check personal e-mail or favourite websites or, I don't know, watch cat videos or something. We don't all wander to the front to talk to each other because we have other forms of entertainment.

That's not to say we don't talk, of course. Overall this is a pretty friendly place to work. We just do it more casually now. There's not a designated time to visit.

Does that make the place glum?





I have no answer, by the way, and having spent my break time typing a blog post I really should get back to work now.

What can I say? I'm a product of my environment.

Tired or working, one or the other

Either way, not blogging.

Enjoy the photo. I can't remember what it is, but it's growing on my balcony. The flower, that is.

Not the photo.