What I found out

I found out that when two people live together and one of them goes off on a trip, that only leaves ONE person!  One person to figure what to have for meals, to shop for the goods, to cook, and to clean up.  I have many friends who live alone and I don't hear them complaining.  But I am complaining: there is suddenly too much to do!

One friend says that when you live alone, all your faults disappear.  But that is not working.  My faults have doubled.  Bring in the mail, wipe down the counters, spray the hornet nest, get more milk, and bread and bananas.  Oh, I forgot to get the mail.  Oh, there is a bill to pay so I better go write a check.  Did I wipe down the counters?  I have to deter that darned ants. I probably did.  Now, where did I put that bill? Did I take my morning vitamins today?  Don't forget to exercise.  The laundry is piling up.

The rooms have moved further apart and what I want is always somewhere else.  I am getting more walking done tracking down where I put what.  I saw this morning that Garfield spent time and energy organizing mice, spiders and Odie, the endlessly enthusiastic and energetic but thinking-challenged dog, in a conspiracy to hide Jon's everyday items, like wallet and car keys, leaving Jon to worry about aging and his brain.  Unfortunately, I don't have a cat so that is not my excuse.

What I found out is that this woman I live with gets a hell of a lot done.  I haven't had any of the grandkids over.  I haven't made any salads or casseroles for special occasions.  I seem to be slowly sinking behind.

It also seems that time moves faster, in bigger chunks when I am in the house by myself.  It is not 10 to 15 minutes at a time but 30-60 between time checks.  I think it is because there is plenty to get deep into and no one and fewer things to distract me.

Just tell us what you want

Friends were discussing the nature of a good life.  They meant a life that was not

1. torturous,

2. very short,

3. devoted to evil, or

4. wasted. 
   

We never got around to a more complete discussion but part of it touched on the connection between intelligence and leading a good life.  I think there are plenty of examples of lives of energy, devotion, motivation and contentment that are not especially noteworthy for intelligence.  I mentioned the gardener Bertrand Russell said was the happiest man he knew, living a life devoted to perpetual defeat of "them rabbits."

I find it is difficult to specify all the features and content that a good life needs.  I guess "torturous" covers physical and mental comfort pretty well.  I suspect that, as clever and quick as my friends are, they could construct examples of a life that met the specifications listed above but would still not be one I would want.  Specifications are tricky.  That is the problem in stories of magic, three wishes and the jinni willing to grant wishes.

It could be the limits of my imagination but I find that specifying all necessary variables quite difficult.  You want a million dollars?  Here you are.  Oh, sorry, you meant current dollars, not some old, outdated, defunct sort.  Ok, try these.  Oh, you didn't want them in $1 bills, several truck loads?  You know how it works in some lotteries: you get a dollar a year for a million years.  You may remember from childhood stories that in some cases, the receiver finally says, "Forget it.  This is more trouble than it is worth."

I don't doubt that a group of lawyers, bankers, and wordsmiths can create a specifications document that leaves no loopholes of any importance.  But they would merely be specifying the form and delivery of your million dollars.  That wouldn't prevent the government from giving you a bill for a million (and one more dollar, for good measure).  It wouldn't prevent you from investing the million in something that quickly collapses and wastes your money.  

And all this is just about money.  Feeling, and actually being, valuable, noting your blessings enough to enjoy them (awareness), not creating or extending evil or wrong, reasonably happy longevity – all those matters remain to be dealt with.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

I am getting an earful

​​Daniel Walker Howe is a historian who retired from both Oxford University in England and UCLA in the US.  He has several books but I chanced onto the one called "What Hath God Wrought?"  This question comes from the Old Testament (Numbers 23:23) and was the first message transmitted over telegraph.  Howe's book is available in paper, ebook and audio form.  It covers the history of the US from 1815 to 1848.  That period seemed short to me but I am learning a great deal happened.

As you might expect, questions and disapproval related to slavery were a steady and growing source of strife and disagreement.  However, the country was still a very young one and its odd union of separate states left many other questions and confusions to be worked out.  We often hear today that our politics are terribly divided and crude, that good manners and respect for the opinions and brains of people who disagree with us are lacking.  As I listen to reports of events and behavior during this period, I hear about things that I think would truly shock us if they happened today. Duels to the death between two men who felt their honor had been insulted.  Fist fights in the halls of Congress.  Open disobedience of the law by authorities who were supposed to uphold the law.

The earful I am getting is not only about strife and behavior.  It is also about wonder, true amazement at the effects of the railroad, canals and the telegraph.  News, information could travel faster than it had ever before, anywhere.  The country had not reached its present size but it was still very big, very wild and had poor and limited roads.  Getting from New Orleans to Louisville, Kentucky in 25 days set a record in 1817. Now we can do it in 3 hours and 40 minutes by plane and 11 hours and 49 minutes by car.

You may feel that history of the US in that short early period just could not be very interesting.  I would have thought so, too, over most of my life.  But someday, give it a try.  You may get a surprising earful.

Let me pour you a cup of tea

Here is another well-known Buddhist story.  The master says to the student, "Let me pour you a cup of tea" but he pours and pours, while the cup overflows.  The student asks what he is doing and the master says that the cup is like the student's mind, which cannot contain anything new if it is already full.

When I first read that story, I thought immediately of some girls I wanted to date.  But they were so virtuous and so busy doing good things and things that good girls do (bake cakes for the sorority or the troop or the church, knit mittens for the poor, etc.,they had no time in their day for trivia like a guy).   I am also reminded of the thrust in fencing.  Once the fencer thrusts all out, his single shot has been fired and he must retract himself to be able to do anything more.  If you have completely used up your mind space, given all your attention and allegiance to something, you don't have anything further to give.

 

When I wrote about this Zen story before, I included comments from two friends.  One had been reminded of Jesus's comment that we need to become "as little children", which was similar to Montaigne's advice to try to be slow-witted.  Zen often speaks of 'beginner's mind', the mind of someone who is just beginning and does not know it all already.  Montaigne recommended forgetting everything you read and just let anything you got from reading to sit in the back of your mind where you might use it sometime.

I can see that anyone might have a closed mind and not even be aware of it.  If you have concluded that anything you read in this blog is nonsense, you probably won't pick up much from it.  I heard a woman dismiss "self-help books" at a book sale and she sounded like she had made up her mind to avoid or dismiss the entire category.  She might have some good reasons and might have had some poor experiences but some books I would call self-help have been extremely helpful for me.

I know it can be tiring.  If you don't like Democrats and you feel ok with dismissing anything a Democrat says or writes, it saves time and effort.  You don't have to consider that was said, evaluate the evidence, consider if maybe the message is useful. You can just see "Democrat" and forget it.

Mark Epstein writes in "Open to Desire" of the common strategy people use to try to protect themselves from pain.  Many adults close their minds to as much of the world as they can as protection.  If I don't think anything good can happen, then when nothing good happens, maybe I won't be disappointed.  Freud and Epstein both invite people to live like little children, who find just about everything exciting and full of wonder.  Despite the fact of my being older than a little child, my car, my tv, and my body are indeed wonders and miracles. I can afford to take a moment, let down my guard and stand in awe of this life and all of its wonders.

Zen stories

Sometimes, I read that dogs always have the same answer to the question: What time is it?  "Now!"  I read a comment by Eckhart Tolle that he had lived with several Zen masters and all of them were cats.  Just as the parables of Jesus explain his ideas and principles, so do many of the Zen stories explain ideas and principles of Buddha and his followers..  Over time, reading Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Pema Chodron, Karen Maezen Miller  and other good Buddhist and Zen writers, I read enough Zen stories that I begin to know them, recognize them and have them come to mind without having to look them up.  

In our busy lives, the story of the delicious strawberry keeps coming to mind.  A man is chased by a tiger, comes to a cliff with a rope hanging over it, grabs the rope and proceeds over the edge.  Then, he looks down and sees another tiger waiting at the end of the rope.  Just then, he notices a wild strawberry right at eye level on the side of the cliff.  He picks it and pops it in his mouth and exclaims "Delicious!"  Sometimes the story is enhanced with mice gnawing the rope and/or bees stinging the man.  The point is to be so aware of life as it actually is that such dangers and discomforts do not distract one's attention so much that genuine but passing pleasures aren't fully appreciated.

This story from Pema Chodron's weekly email is another well-known one:

June 25, 2014

HEAVEN AND HELL

There's another story that you may have read that has to do with what we call heaven and hell, life and death, good and bad. It's a story about how those things don't really exist except as a creation of our own minds. It goes like this: A big burly samurai comes to the wise man and says, "Tell me the nature of heaven and hell." And the roshi looks him in the face and says: "Why should I tell a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you?" The samurai starts to get purple in the face, his hair starts to stand up, but the roshi won't stop, he keeps saying, "A miserable worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything?" Consumed by rage, the samurai draws his sword, and he's just about to cut off the head of the roshi. Then the roshi says, "That's hell." The samurai, who is in fact a sensitive person, instantly gets it, that he just created his own hell; he was deep in hell. It was black and hot, filled with hatred, self-protection, anger, and resentment, so much so that he was going to kill this man. Tears fill his eyes and he starts to cry and he puts his palms together and the roshi says, "That's heaven."

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Ann Curzan and real words

I keep urging friends to watch TED talks.  On a computer, the spoken dialogue, which is the most important part, can be read in print while the presenter is talking.  It can also be downloaded.  That is handy for people like me with hearing problems.  In a typescript, I can see the spelling of special terms and names if I want to find out more about them.

Last evening I watched several TED talks.  The most memorable one was by Prof. Ann Curzan of the department of English at the U. of Michigan.  I have listened to a Great Course by Prof. John McWhorter of Columbia and learned about the evolution through our current years of language.  The Great Courses people suggested Ann Curzan and I listened to her Great Course.  Her TED talk is about what English professors do, how they are treated and what they know about words and dictionaries.

She gets asked if current language habits are "ruining" English.  Both McWhorter and she explain that new words are introduced all the time, old words sometimes die and they often morph into something new.  Older people especially can remember when a given word was "the bee's knees" but now is not used or has changed its meaning or acceptability.

She gets asked if a given word is a "real" one.  She knows that people often use the fact that a word is in the dictionary as the deciding factor as to whether it is "real".  She explains that dictionary writers work hard to listen to people and find out what words they use and what is meant by their words.  If a word "sticks", that is, gets used, it is real.  Curzan listens to her students and has learned "hangry" and "adorkable".  She explains that when I am so hungry that I am angry, I am "hangry".  If I am somewhat dorky but cute, I am "adorkable".

If you are situated to watch her 17+ minute talk, you can find it here.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Shocking!

"The Compass of Pleasure" by David J. Linden says that the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius took a small amount of opium in his morning wine each day.  Every day?  Morning wine?  This was an emperor of the Roman empire, a man famous for his Meditations which show him to be a balanced thinker with an open mind.  What is he doing taking opium every day?

The idea of Stoic philosophy was to remain calm and accepting of life, not to get all hot and bothered about either difficulties or good fortune.  I have never tried opium but it may be that such a goal is easier to reach if you take a little opium with your day.

Linden's book makes clear that all societies use drugs for recreation and to alter moods.  Not only that, but so do animals.  When berries get naturally fermented and therefore contain alcohol, various animals consume them with gusto.  Reindeer like hallucinogenic mushrooms.  Even insects consume plants that alter their nervous systems.

What interests me is the way societies modify the context of taking a drug.  I read in an Andrew Weil book that coffee was thought to be a stimulant, which it is at certain dosage levels but as a result, Arab countries banned it at one point, Later, Germany banned it.  If you look up the words to the sung parts of Bach's "Coffee Cantata", you can read a father determined to keep his daughter from the evil liquid while she searches to find a man to marry who will not interfere with her coffee drinking.  Something can be completely evil and low at one point and then be quite commonplace and acceptable at another.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Philosopher Ruth Yang and hard choices

In her TED talk, Ruth Yang of the Rutgers University philosophy department discusses hard choices.  She defines such choices as big ones such as what career to go into, choices where the options are all attractive, all have benefits and none dominates the choice to the point where it is clearly the best.  She makes the point that agonizing and fretting over which is best is often a waste of time.  There may not be a best one.

I have seen a similar phenomenon in classes on personal reading.  I used to ask the class members to list 5 or 10 of the best books they have read.  For some people, those who have read many books with pleasure and profit, it can be difficult to assess which small set of books was THE best.  Now, I just ask for 5-10 books that come to mind without looking up any records and which are remembered as moving and engaging.  Forget which is "best".

When the peas aren't growing, a good book on Darko Dawson, the detective in the capital city of Ghana is not such a helpful choice.  When you are ready to read a good story, books on pea diseases won't satisfy.

But Yang has a deeper point: don't forget that choosing a career is done by an agent.  YOU are choosing a career or your grandchild is.  What the chooser puts into the career makes the difference.  It is often at this point that grandfatherly advice pops up.  Try hard.  What you put your hand to, give it all your might.  Be diligent. This grandfather believes that such advice is good but overdone, to the detriment of other valuable variables.

My stepfather gave me an article by the famous Bruce Barton when I was in junior high.  Barton advised Be thorough, Concentrate and Stand at the head of your English class.  Good advice which I have thought of over the years and often referred to.  But other principles and efforts matter today, not just sweat.  Pursuing a lover, a career, health, wealth are all affected by daily meditation, by staying current and reading both broadly and professionally.  In all life's activities, one's personality, ability to spot opportunities and emotional intelligence matter as much or more than simple effort.

The Gallup organization did some research a few years ago and found that many of the most successful organizations worldwide did more to find their people's strengths and then set them to work at tasks using those strengths than did less successful organizations.  The more common approach was to try to figure out what was needed by the organization and then simply assign a worker to the task, with little regard for that worker's talents and skills.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Reflection and rumination: back then and tomorrow

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) is often considered the first person to use writing his thoughts and reactions to life as a tool for his own amusement and development.  Sarah Blakewell is a British librarian and writer who wrote "How to Live", a collection of Montaigne's essays and comments on them.  Her book has just been published in Slovenia and Turkey, as well as many other countries.  This subject of being alive, being aware of life and its gifts and challenges, is fundamental all over the world.

Montaigne was a sensitive and intelligent man with his eyes open, seeing himself and others clearly.  This page of Brainy quotes captures some of his insights, such as "I have never seen a greater monster nor miracle in the world than myself."

Rather than spend too much time thinking and thinking about yourself and what you think about yourself and how you think and whether you should blah, blah, blah, you can just focus on your breathing, or what you can actually see from where you are right now.  You could try the Rinzai Zen approach and ask a friend to smack you.  The sudden physical jolt will probably jar you into seeing and thinking differently.

There are all kinds of tools and methods in this life.

--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Standing at the library door

Standing at the library door, actually or electronically: the wonder, the power, the vastness of the view

When some people stand at the library door, whether it is shelves of books on paper or the internet, they can feel the power, the vastness of knowledge, experience and imagination.  For other people, it is just a door that leads to dullness and deathly stillness, where nothing ever happens.  When I stand in a large supermarket, I know I can't eat all the food inside but the fact that I could eat a little of any of the hundreds of products is exciting.  I know I can't read all the books in the library and I have never had the desire to.  Many times, I have found a book that I thought would be fun or exciting or satisfying, only to find it wasn't at all.

If I were more modest, I might assume that foods or books that didn't appeal were my fault, a sign of a deficiency in me.  Not finding something to my taste may well be due to an uneducated mind or a primitive palate but I like to remind myself that my days are dwindling (whether they are or not), there is no time to waste on self-torture and that there are many good alternatives for me to enjoy, even if I don't know what they are, yet.  I search, I test and every so often, I find something that elevates, energizes, expands me.

Two books by David Weinberger, "Everything is Miscellaneous" and "Too Big to Know" put some of the internet possibilities and new difficulties for our minds and society into perspective.  With good search engines like Google, we can find more of what we want and find it faster and more exactly.  But like the world itself, it is too big to fully know and comprehend.  In a way, that makes it even more fun and thrilling to stand at the library door.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

My big partners

Twitter, Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft are my amateur intellectual partners: share book bits on twitter by way of iPad, Gmail and windows.

As a student, I never got in the habit of marking in books, turning down page corners or making notes in the front of the book.  In grad school, I did make notes of important parts that I wanted to quote since I couldn't quote without the author, title, publisher and date of publication.  Having a Kindle changed that.  It encouraged me to highlight really good passages since doing so put those parts into a file that could be downloaded and printed or used somewhere else.

Now, it works a little differently.  My actual Kindle Paperwhite is still an excellent device to read from.  But the Kindle app on an iPad is better, faster and more versatile.  On either device, I can read a good book, such as "The Compass of Pleasure" by David J. Linden, professor of neurobiology at Johns Hopkins med school.

I come to a summative passage I want to be able to find again.  I highlight it and tap "Share".  It offers Twitter or Facebook as sharing mechanisms.  I use Twitter.  The internet, the Apple device, the Amazon coding and computers, the Microsoft Windows computer and my Google email team up to share the passage with my Twitter followers.  The passages are also shared on Amazon's special book passage sharing computers.  I have done this sharing many times, in my living room and from the rim of the Grand Canyon.  It is a good way to keep track of valuable comments.

Profs. John McWhorter and Anne Curzan have convinced me that language changes, often a bit slowly to notice, but it changes all the time.  Eric Berne, a psychiatrist, author of Games People Play and Sex in Human Loving, says that the very famous "f" word in our cussing language stems from an Arabic word meaning to beat or pummel.  When I was young, the f word was never heard in polite company or in the media.  That has changed, sometimes to the point of being ridiculous, as this passage from Donald Westlake's novel "Watch Your Back!" emphasizes. 

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Would you be interested in our special sale?

(Looks like I never sent this out today.)

Suppose I study gait and find it tells me about your bank acct. or your sexuality.  Suppose I collect all that info?  Violation?

==============================

Many marketers dream of perfect information.  I guess Amazon is getting close enough that they expect to be able to send items to customers before people order them.  That is how well Amazon expects to be able to predict what people will order.

I saw a snip on tv quite a while ago, maybe five years, where some store or other found a strong correlation between items most people would not expect to be connected.  Still the store told its phone operators that anyone who orders items A and B, which were not themselves similar (say, birdseed and band-aids) should be explicitly offered item C, say, specially priced ringtones for cellphones.  The store computers watched and when A and B were entered for the same customers, a quick reminder for the operator told her to mention the ringtone sale.  There might be no underlying reason why these items were connected and a month from now, they might not be.  But, now they were and operators were surprised at how often A+B = C.  

These surprising connections might spring up in unrelated areas.  Suppose I study gait, or eye movement or body movement within 10 seconds of sitting down.  Maybe I find a strong correlation between crossing ankles and money problems or interest in church politics.  Maybe I find a strong correlation between the strategies people use in the computer/electronic game and their position on gay rights or support for public education.  I might be able to increase the success rate of sales or persuasive materials importantly using that discovered relation.  In many activities, I wouldn't need too much of an improvement to beat out the competition.

Boiling the flow of time

I want to try to be aware of, and in harmony with, the steady flow of time.  When are we pleasantly aware of it?  When we concentrate on time, as in waiting for a program to end or a phone call to come in, we are aware of time or we repeatedly check on its flow.  But I at least tend to be impatient and want the time to flow by faster.

I can't prove that time flows evenly at a constant rate.  I think it does.  I have listened to Prof. Sean M. Carroll's Great Course called The Mysteries of Physics: Time but I am afraid I didn't get much of an insight into time.  As I remember, he defines time as that which is measured by clocks.  Using that definition, I suppose time flows evenly, at the rate of 60 seconds to the minute.  But I have read several times of Einstein's explanation of the relativity of time.  He said that an hour in the company of your girl friend seems like a minute while a minute sitting on a too-hot radiator seems like an hour.

It is well-known that our minds' perception of time's speed of flow is affected by our circumstance, our feelings and our goals.  I was looking through my experiences to see when I seemed most in harmony with time.  Maybe it is when I am waiting for eggs to be boiled long enough.  I watch the water in the saucepan bubble a little at first and then gain momentum as the heat spreads through the water.  It is more or less continuous but unhurriend, like the times of my life, I think.

If I lived beside a flowing stream, I might try attuning myself to time by spending more moments watching the water's flow.  When we have lived on the shore of the ocean, the endless roll of the waves does not suggest a linear flow as much as back and forth oscillations, which ought to suggest the flow of time but doesn't do it for my brain.  The graphic that shows the progress of a download works, suggesting a growing line like my life's line but I don't plan on downloading very often.

I am going to boil more eggs.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Maybe that would be better

When I need to tighten a screw, I find my old screwdriver.  But if I have many screws, I might go to a hardware store for an electric screwdriver.  I might find that the MidWest Screw Co. has recently put out a new highly rated solar screwdriver.  Not only that, but it is a device that tells me stock market tips while it is being used.  I don't want to miss out on those tips but I want to investigate their recent performance and current ratings before putting out my money.  While I am doing all that, the original screw is still loose and probably getting looser.

You can see why some people develop a strong focus on what they are doing.  They have to if they are going to actually get anything done. In today's choice-filled world, there are choices inside choices inside choices.  "Do you want A,B or C?"  "I'll take B."  "Do you want B1, B2 or B3?"  "I'll take B1".  "Do you want B1 Red or Blue or Green?" The questions and choices can go on for hours.

Very few things are straightforward and we are trying to find those that still are and complicate the hell out of them.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Try it

Pascal said that all of man's troubles come from an inability to sit alone in a room.  In today's world, we have an extra large assortment of activities to divert us while sitting in a room, whether or not we are alone.  All sorts of fun and kidding are directed at the one simple very inexpensive exercise discovered by the unschooled ancients that enriches us, while indeed sitting alone in a room.  It doesn't have to be while we are alone.  We read of a meditation class that had a final exam during which a car alarm went off, just outside.  Some of the students were convinced the teacher had arranged the distraction but it had just happened by chance.

Meditation is so simple, so uncomplicated and has been shown so valuable in medicine, healing arts and sciences, mental health and therapy, the military, business and personal development that you would think it would be impossible to find people who don't do it.  Yet, that is not the case.  Most people I know are still thinking about trying it.  They think they smell a rat but there is no rat.  The actual practice is so simple that people don't believe it can be valuable.  So, there are dozens of ways the simple is made complex.  Since value is well-established, why not sell books, movies, club memberships, lessons, special clothing, pillows, etc., etc, etc?

The value will be clear and some money will be made at the same time.

Here is Dr. Germer's description of what to do and how to do it:

Let's try that now. This exercise takes only 5 minutes. You can't do it wrong. Choose a quiet place, sit comfortably, close your eyes, and notice what it feels like to be in your body. Just be with the physical sensations in your body as they come and go, without choosing to pay attention to any particular one. If it's a pleasant one, feel it and let it go. If it's an unpleasant one, also feel it and let it go. Perhaps you feel warmth in your hands, pressure on the seat, tingling in the forehead? Notice those sensations as a mother would gaze at a newborn baby, wondering what it's feeling. Just notice whatever arises, one sensation after another. Take your time.

Christopher K. Germer PhD. The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions (Kindle Locations 445-449). Kindle Edition.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Emotional speed and depth

I think it is interesting to consider a race from a neutral emotional point to one of strong emotion.  Maybe men can reach rage, really deadly, lethal rage more quickly than women.  I suspect that women are much faster at attaining or simulating other, positive emotions than men are.  It must be that nature tends to provide the female nervous system with components and sensitivities that will help a mother bring her children to maturity.  I have seen a woman tending to a little child while expressing strong negative feelings.

The woman coos and talks lovingly and gently with the child in the stroller who has just dropped her ice cream cone while turning her head and snapping at her husband over the matter they are discussing.  She switches back and forth between gentle, loving mothering and adult defense of her ideas or plans or irritations.  She never coos lovingly to the big sap (while in this little spat) and she never growls or snarls at Snookums in the stroller. 

It seems to me that men find such emotional hopping too tiring.  They can be grumpy and growly with everyone or cooing and lovey-dovey with everyone but rapid switching back and forth doesn't seem to be in their toolkit.  I guess mothers might need to be able to assist a kid emotionally and physically at any time and so develop tools to do so effectively.  Male primates are mostly about defense against other males and dangers and might not need to be sweet suddenly and abruptly. That is my speculation, anyhow.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Shoot!

Lynn is getting deeper into photography.  She has to unless she starts selling her pottery or we buy a second house.  Our refrigerator, our oven and our washing machine are crammed to the top with cups, bowls, platters, etc.  They are lovely and have the finest in complex glazes with multiple shades, gradations and lines.  But, c'mon!  Showering with pots?  Napping among plates?  We are reaching the limit.

So, more photographs.  She is taking a course in how to override the automatic settings on her camera to make adjustments for the immediate conditions.  Photos have the advantage of being more portable and far more compressible.  One little camera card can hold hundreds of images.  Besides, she has the photographer's habit of taking 10 to 20 shots for every one that gets stored.  She gets as much out of modifying the picture to crop it, lighten it, darken it, increasing or decreasing this or that sort of light as she does going about the world snapping pictures.

She showed me some samples she took.  She has examples of shots where the auto setting is superior (and quicker to arrange, of course) and others where the auto setting results in a uselessly dark or bright shot.  The amount of light is only one variable, and the shutter speed and color sensitivity are also important.  She can catch something in motion clearly but then she needs more light.  She can get a shot in low light but not of something moving fast.

There is a great deal of beauty in the world to enjoy, some of it quite transient.  Just now, I looked out our office window and saw how the sunlight at this hour, the morning sprinklers and the tree's leaves combine to produce a lovely but passing scene.  When the sprinkler moves on, the scene is much less dramatic and it will only be that lovely while the sun is in the particular position.  I grabbed my camera, waited until the sprinkler was in that same position but the shot (all settings automatic with this camera) captured none of the beauty and sparkle.  Have to get the photographer.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Get exercise while re-acquainting yourself with your stuff

Scatter your stuff around the house.  Some of that job may have already been done.

Wander aimlessly around hoping that the missing shoe will jump into your hand.

When you find it, move it to a new location and put it down without paying attention to where you do that.  You can drop it off without memorizing the new location more easily if you try to keep up a conversation with someone across the length of the house while moving about.

Keep moving and wandering.  It is good for your body and you may find some valuable stuff.  Some memorable trinkets that mean a lot to you are hiding in the recesses of your quarters.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety