Ducks in a ditch

(I just love that headline.)

I’m not exactly sure what the content of this post will turn out to be, but I couldn’t resist the headline.

I was out for a walk the other day. Trying to get some exercise, maybe lose some weight. I’ve been walking as often as I can.

I vary the route so as not to get bored. This particular day, I got the MotH* to drop me at a nearby shopping center on his way to the golf course. My plan was to look through the stores and walk home.

And I carried it out.

The route takes me down the county road, past a condominium complex where the sidewalk passes between a big retention pond and a ditch. The retention pond is an attractive feature of the complex. It’s landscaped. There are fountains spraying water high in the air, both for decorative purposes and to keep the water moving. (The latter discourages mosquitoes.)

And there are ducks.

Several species, in fact.

I don’t know what they are. Some big ones. Some small ones. Some brown and white ones; other of more uniform foliage—er, feathers.

I’ve passed by there on numerous occasions. Usually, the ducks are swimming around or sunbathing at the edge of the pond.

On this day, they were in the ditch.

On the other side of the sidewalk.

The voice in my head said, “Ducks in the ditch!” as if it were a Red Alert situation on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

I don’t know why.

The voice in my head is often inexplicable.

But there they were. Ducks in a ditch.

Now, what do you suppose possesses a duck possessed of a perfectly good retention pond to take possession of a far less—one would think—desirable ditch?

Is it a case of the water always being greener on the other side of the sidewalk? A natural illustration of the adage that one man’s algae-ridden swamp is another duck’s paradise? Did they just get tired of manicured perfection and want to take a walk on the wild side?

Your guess is as good as mine. But I’m thinking there’s a sci-fi parody in there somewhere.

* MotH = Man of the House

How many?

Do you think will show up?

I wonder.

Tomorrow is the first meeting of Round Robin Shakespeare.

For those of you who don’t remember, this is the program I am launching to read through all of Shakespeare’s plays, aloud, round robin style, one a month.

It’s going to need a core group of committed people to be successful. I’m thinking a minimum of five, preferably ten to fifteen.

The room is booked and I have acquired seven copies of the Complete Works. I’ve prepared some sign up sheets to capture the contact information of those who show up. I’ve arranged to meet the folks at the library before the meeting to get instructions on how to lock up afterwards.

I’m ready to go.

I just don’t know if anyone is going to show up.

We’ll see.

I’ve done everything I can think of, though.

There’s a notice in the library’s newsletter. I’ve got a website and a Facebook page. I’ve emailed the principals of all the local high schools and contacted all the local community theatres. I’ve put event listings on four general community calendars and one specifically devoted to theatre. I tracked down addresses for some folks who contribute to a local arts organization and sent personalized snail mail invitations.

I don’t know what else I could possibly do.

Press releases, maybe. I didn’t get to them in time. And it would be better to do one touting a successful first meeting, anyway.

I wonder if I’ll be able to do that.

I think there is a market for this activity in this area. It may be limited—or not. And it may take some time to get rolling.

It’s possible that I’ll be all by myself tomorrow night reading Henry VI, Pt 1.

It’s a risk.

On the other hand, I may be surrounded by a good number of Shakespeare enthusiasts.

What could be better?

I wonder.

Too old to die young

That’s what I’m aiming for.

Although, it sometimes seems to me that I am already there—and that’s what I’m wondering about today. How did that happen? And, more importantly, when?

By some objective measurements, of course, I’m already too old to die young. Jesus only made it to 33. Lennon to 40. I am—what?—relieved? distressed? surprised?—to report that I have passed those milestones.

On the other hand, according to the actuarial tables, I’ve got a bit more time. And I read somewhere that those of us who could make it through the next twenty years had a good chance of living well over a hundred. That must have been seven or eight years ago, now, so I’m well on my way.

But I’m sitting here with more dental bills than I like to consider and wondering why it’s so much harder to lose weight than it used to be and, most irksomely, gearing up to do the physical therapy exercises for my frozen shoulder.

The only thing about the frozen shoulder that is remotely comforting is the number of stories that turn up on Google of people much younger than I with the same condition.

It is hard, however, not to feel like I’ve crossed some invisible barrier.

Over the Mason-Dixon line into old age.

As if the mere act of moving to the Sunshine State has flipped a switch and forced me to join the geriatric set.

I went from almost always being the youngest person in the room to often being one of the oldest—without ever having recognized a time period when everybody in the room was a contemporary of mine.

I suspect some of that is due to a long involvement in theatre. Even in high school, the drama club crossed age lines. Your fellow actors were just as likely to be seniors as freshmen. I don’t attend high school reunions for that reason. Most of my friends weren’t part of my class.

When I got to New York, it was even more obvious. Nobody was using shoe polish in his hair to play the grandfather. The producer had hired an actual grandfather—or, at least, someone who could have been one.

So, I don’t think about age all that often.

Except, now I do.

The guy at the auto parts store yesterday insisted on carrying the battery out to the car, “because I wouldn’t want my mother to have to carry this.”

And people “ma’am” me. Of course, I’m in the south, so that’s less horrifying than it might otherwise be.

The shoulder is the thing that’s most troublesome.

I was doing yard work. I was painting the house, moving furniture, scrubbing floors and shelving books.

And then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t.

When did that happen?

270!

I win.

Not a presidential election, unfortunately. (Or fortunately! Who would want that job?)

I’m not talking about electoral college votes but consecutive days of blog posts. 270 consecutive days! Three-quarters of a year!

Cake!

I look back, and I wonder how I did it.

I look forward, and I wonder what comes next.

Today, however, I wonder will I make my quota?

One post in front of the other. That’s how it’s done. There are no shortcuts.

If your goal is 30 minutes of exercise a day, you can’t achieve it in 25 minutes.

It’s an interesting point. And something I will remember in future goal-setting endeavors. A goal based on churning out some regular quantity isn’t subject to streamlining. I mean, you can shave minutes off a distance goal. All you can do with a time goal is add distance to it. It still takes the same amount of time.

I foresee a review of my monster To Do List to see which projects are open to efficiency improvements and which just take the time they take. I suspect the latter would be good candidates for outsourcing. You know, if I had a staff—or the money to pay them.

I wonder how such a review would turn out. I think I’ve already gotten things down to where I’m as efficient as I can be—but maybe not. Maybe there are a few more hours for mumblety-peg.*

I also wonder if that really loud sighing noise my air compressor makes is okay, but that’s probably a whole other topic. It does seem to be working very hard on this cold, cold morning, though.

That’s one thing outsourced to technology, however.

I don’t have to cut firewood.

Instead, I can sit here in moderate warmth, plotting my 271st blog entry and wondering when the heater can take a rest.

* mumblety-peg = whatever you want to do. (It comes from Cheaper by the Dozen, by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth—a wonderful book about their family life with Frank B. Gilbreth, Sr., a pioneer of motion study. )

Someone once asked Dad: “But what do you want to save time for? What are you going to do with it?”

“For work, if you love that best,” said Dad. “For education, for beauty, for art, for pleasure.” He looked over the top of his pince-nez. “For mumblety-peg, if that’s where your heart lies.”

What would happen?

If we got some good news.

Today, I am wondering what would happen if the news at five reported only achievements and success stories. If the ritual and almost reflexive query, “How are you?” was habitually followed by “I’m great! I figured out a new way to teach my third graders multiplication, and 97% of the class aced the test” instead of the equally reflexive “Fine,” or worse, a litany of aches and pains and woes and grumbles.

Which is not to say that there are not dire happenings in the world and sometimes in our own lives. We do need to be aware of inequities and dangers. Of course, we do. We won’t ever do anything to stop them if we don’t know about them.

But just for a minute, imagine a world where the media focus was on the advocates and the protectors instead of the instigators and perpetrators.

What if the lead story on the news could be the local Habitat for Humanity group and the house they are putting up for the single mom who lost her home in a fire? What if it could be a feature on how your kid overcame his stage fright and made it through the piano recital? What if it could be breaking news of a successful heart surgery instead of Lindsay Lohan’s latest court appearance.

I just wonder.

It does seem to be true that the universe hands you more of whatever it is to which attention is paid.

What if the soup kitchen that fed a hundred people today got the same coverage as the nightclub fire that killed a hundred?

Nobody really knows what would happen, because nobody has really tried it.

I will say that when I decided to start this blog, one of the early decisions was to have Monday Miracles rather than Monday Moans. It seemed to me important to try to keep a generally positive tone. I don’t know how well I’ve succeeded, but I do think the Monday Miracles and the Thankful Thursdays and even the Silly Saturdays have altered the energy in my own life a bit

I wonder what a focus on good news could do for yours.

Do what you love?

The money may or may not follow.

But, at least, you’ll be doing something you love.

Here’s a thing I wonder:

Why, in my entire life, have I always worked harder for free than for money?

Part of it, of course, is that I am an artist and very few people ever get paid for art. So, okay, if you really love what you are doing, it makes sense that you would expend a lot of effort regardless of money.

But what about when I’m doing things I don’t love so much. Sometimes, I’ve done computer kinds of work—which is what I used to do for money (with mixed feelings of satisfaction and annoyance)—and now do, occasionally, on a volunteer basis. I’ve noticed that the stuff for which I’m volunteering—I just keep at it until I figure it out and finish it—where the stuff for which I was getting paid? I would go home at the end of the day. I would take a lunch hour. I would take a vacation.

So what is it that makes me work harder when I’m not getting paid? And resent it less?

My mother says I was frightened by a paycheck when I was young.

Which makes me laugh, but is…you know…silly.

I think it’s something complicated about responsibility and expectations and autonomy.

If you’re not paying me, I don’t really have to do it—so, maybe, I just have an underlying sense that I’m doing it because I want to and that makes it more fun?

If you’re not paying me, I’ll do my best, but I can’t be blamed if it doesn’t work out and that makes it less onerous?

If you’re not paying me, I can do it my way, because, really, what are you going to do about it and that gives me more control? (Except I’ve always tried to make the client happy even when the client has no $—so that’s probably not it—or not much of it, anyway.)

I don’t know. But I certainly wonder about it.

Is it the humidity?

Or is it the heat?

I’m not talking about that old thing that everybody says—especially in Florida—about how it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.

I’m talking about this inability I’ve encountered to find a comfortable temperature inside my house. Generally speaking, it is either too hot or too cold for much of the year.

The reason for this is the mild climate, I think. In the high noon of summer, the air conditioner runs. While there is some variation from room to room, the house generally maintains a comfortable coolness. In the day or two of actual winter, the temperature is a little less even throughout the house, but it’s not bad.

But when it’s 70 outside, it’s not hot enough for the A/C and it’s not cold enough for the heat. And what happens then is that it can be too cold inside to wear short sleeves and way too hot for long. In the space of minutes, I go from shivering to turning on fans.

I’d think I was having hot flashes, except that it truly only happens during these interim months. And it doesn’t happen when I travel to other, less humid, places.

So, I’m wondering if it’s the humidity in some way. I do know that the dampness in the air tends to make cold feel colder and heat feel hotter. I just don’t totally understand how it can make both happen within minutes.

Frankly, I’d like an explanation for that.

Well, who are we kidding? What I’d really like is a solution to it. I’m fairly certain, however, that there won’t be one—at least, not one I can afford, anyway—so I would make do with an explanation. Just so I can stop wondering if I’ve suddenly contracted malaria. In the meantime, I keep throw blankets handy for temperature control.

Scatter-shot advertising

Otherwise known as spam

This blog has, after all these months, finally come to the attention of the spammers. I’ve deleted numerous comments offering to extend my reach as a blogger as well as a lot that were just excuses to post somebody’s URL. It’s not that I mind if a legitimate comment includes some reader’s actual URL. It’s just that I don’t really think all my readers have any great interest in knock-off designer luggage touted by some poster that talks about what “rattling good content” some entry is that I’ve made with what is primarily a YouTube link and a little introductory text.

So, what I’m wondering is does this actually work? Are there really bloggers who don’t see through these posts and don’t trash them before they appear? Are there really readers who will click on one of these links—with I-don’t-know-what consequences? Are there enough of them that this spambot stuff is a lucrative proposition?

Really?

Once upon a time, I had a temp job working for a department in a very large company whose primary function seemed to be to generate and oversee mass mailings of offers of additional services to their customers. Otherwise known as “junk mail.” Back then, there was a lot of talk about response rate. A 2% response rate was considered excellent. Volume was key.

This email stuff has the advantage to the sender of not costing them postage or paper. But spam filters catch a lot of it. So, now, I guess we have this other avenue. Wacky, semi-literate comments on blogs from spambots.

As a result, there are a number of solutions evolving to distinguish the real from the fake comments and to block the spammers.

It gives me a lot of satisfaction to learn about and employ as many of them as possible.

But I still wonder—wouldn’t it be easier just to make a product that was so good people wanted to buy it? It would probably end up in the blog posts, then, not tossed out as a useless comment.

Circular Breathing

What is it?

This is a thing about which I have been wondering ever since I first read the liner notes on a CD collection called Global Celebrations. The notes in question are about a group called Angelin Tytöt (The Girls of Angeli). They call themselves Angelit, now, but I’m still wondering.

Anyway, the girls of Angeli are from Inari, a Lapp village in Finland, and they sing a form of folk music called joikhing. The notes talk about a circular breathing technique similar to Eskimo songs.

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard Eskimos singing.

So, that’s another thing to wonder about.

But, I liked this particular song called Normu Jovna, and I wondered what circular breathing is. At the time, the internet had not amassed the vast stores of information (and captioned cat pictures) that it now has, so I didn’t find out much.

Today, I can read entries and view lessons on circular breathing—although they seem to be aimed at the players of woodwind instruments, so I don’t know if it’s the same idea for singers. I still wonder about that.

For the instrumentalists, it appears to be a technique whereby you store the last little bit of breath in your lungs in your cheeks and use your check muscles to push it out while you inhale more air through your nose. (If that sounds a bit like rubbing your stomach while patting your head, it’s because it probably is.)

The idea is you get air without interrupting the flow of the music.

I can see how this could be very useful, although I haven’t been able to master it.

(Master it? I haven’t been able to sneak up on it with training wheels.)

However it is done, the joikhing has a happy sound. Since I don’t speak Finnish or Sami or Lapp or whatever it is, I have no idea what any of it means. But I like the sound of it.

This clip has a big of Normu Jovna at the start of it. And if you do happen to speak Finnish or Sami or Lapp or whatever, maybe you will understand the interview that follows. If you don’t, it has a happy sound, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lmgAGSNS0

Don’t count out the old wives

Yet.

Their tales, I mean. Because, here’s a question my sister raised, and I think it’s a good one.

As we continue to navigate what has become a really bad flu season (not for me, touch wood), I am wondering why the flu even has a season?

Doesn’t it seem really odd to you that we tend to have flu epidemics in the winter? Because we (my sister and I) have always thought that the reason hospitals are so cold is to inhibit the growth and spread of germs. So, either I am wrong about why I try to remember to bring a sweater when I have to visit someone in a hospital, or there is something about the cold that lowers our resistance and/or strengthens the flu.

Well, it turns out that scientists have been asking this very question!

Because, of course, once I start to wonder about something, I can’t just let it go.

Perhaps, that is not entirely accurate. I can let it go just fine—especially as I’m likely to forget it before any research can be done—unless I don’t have much else going on at the point the question is raised, unless it really does interest me, and unless my sister says, “Hey! It’s a thing for Wondering Wednesday.” (I do like it when other people come up with ideas for blog posts. If nothing else, it proves someone is reading!)

Since I had time and since it struck me as a good thing for a Wondering Wednesday post and since I really do wonder about it…here we are.

Turning to my trusty Google, I discovered a few possibilities:

One, the air is dryer in the winter. So, it dries out the mucous membranes of our respiratory system which, in theory, allows the little flu bugs easier access.

Two, the flu virus—the actual molecules or whatever—have a protective coating in the cold which is missing in higher temperatures and which allows them to live longer outside a host.

Neither of these theories have been proven conclusively, but it seems the scientists are on it. I have every confidence they’ll figure it out.

In the meantime, and since they haven’t yet, I think I’ll continue to wear a hat in the cold weather, because I always get sick when I don’t!

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Tag Archives: Wondering Wednesdays