Lost All Logic

Once upon a few decades ago I was an avid puzzler, except crosswords I’m hopeless at them. Occasionally I’d buy a compendium of puzzles and eagerly work my way through the searches, fits, join the dots, silhouettes etc and logic grids.  With the World Cup taking over all sanity for the next few endless weeks my eyes were drawn to a book of logic puzzles to exercise the brain and fill some time.

Only thing is, I’ve lost my logic. I even made a mess of the three grid when once upon a decades ago I could handle a five grid with ease!  Maybe my concentration span has shrunk, or atrophied like my muscles, or am I just more easily distrac…….oh look, a red arrow trailing blue smoke just flew by, wow (for real, there’s an air show today at the beach).

Okay, okay, let’s get to trying again ……… do I need a pee ….. concentrate woman ….. hmm, I could go do the dishes ….. no they will be done while you’re poaching the salmon ….. concentrate ….. okay, humbug is kept in the sock draw, Peter asked the weetabix eater if he’d seen any sugar lumps.  Hmm.

The tennis at Queens starts tomorrow :o) 

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30 Seconds or 30 Minutes, it’s timeless

Could you, dear reader, try and do something for me.  You see no matter how strong the desire, how consuming the craving, I am physically, totally, completely unable to do it, and that denial of free choice chips and nibbles at the strongest resolve and will to ‘make the best of it’.

So, on this glorious June afternoon, take a step outside, sit on your patio chair or door step, or stand barefoot in the grass; take a deep breath, observe what’s around you (don’t just see it), feel the sun, the breeze, the air on your face, listen to the natural sounds about you (don’t just hear them), and take another breath, slowly in and slowly out.  Don’t think, don’t fret, don’t stress, just be present in yourself, in that moment.

It doesn’t take much time, it can be the time it takes a kettle to boil or the microwave to ping, or child one to clump child two and start screaming, lol. But man oh man, that briefest moment of calm can do so much good to the mental health if, as busy humans, we do this regularly.

It’s truly a gorgeous day today, one I’d love to sit outside and read my book, have a (albeit one sided) conversation with a passing cat or chirping black bird, cogitate my thoughts or feel the day fresh against my exposed skin, even just to put my bare feet in the grass.  But for many that’s the stuff dreams are made of. 

I’d open the window as wide as it will go but, hmm, ‘things’ of a buzzy, bitey, stingy nature will be too tempted by my tastiness, and Signor Four-Paws might be happy to come in that way but will want out via the front door. Not to mention opening/closing the window is fast becoming a ‘can’t do that’ task. It’s not the same and being completely the same as full enveloped by outsideness. 

My limitations are feeling quite pointed today, it will pass.

I’ll attack my hard toe nail with the clippers instead…..

 

Jaggedness Destroys Average

Have you heard of the Jaggedness Principal? Essentially given a group of humans, not one will fit the average.  Celebrate, there is no such thing as ‘average’ so you cannot be ‘below average’.

Author Todd Rose wrote that “The principle holds that we cannot apply one-dimensional thinking to understand something that is complex and ‘jagged.’ What, precisely, is jaggedness? A quality is jagged if it means two criteria. First, it must consist of multiple dimensions. Second, these dimensions must be weakly related to one another. Jaggedness is not just about human size; almost every human character that we care about – including talent, intelligence, character, creativity, and so on – is jagged.”

Take your work place, or church group, or such, note down each individual’s age, shoe size, height and eye colour. Work out the average of each and then see if any one in that group fits that average. Strong likelihood is, you won’t.  The principal forced the US Airforce to come up with the adjustable cockpit seat, because no single pilot could fit in the averaged one.  Not everyone the same height, will have the same weight, not everyone the same weight will be the same dress size, not everyone who is the same dress size will have the same shoe size.  One size will never fit all, so stop trying to make us fit.

So, as we try and equalise, even-ise, level-ise, everything in our post-truth, open opportunities, global world, remember no-one is average, we are individual uniqueness, with similarities in same areas. 

While I’d never say I was average, I would say I am weird (that’s Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic country).

Maybe I should stop watching QI re-runs, lol.

 

She’s Wrong/He’s Right

Ain’t social media fun!  Recently Kirstie Allsopp was lambasted in the media, which the Twitterarty then jumped on the bandwagon and went fully armed negative, because she has replied to a question. But as ever the media and rwitterees only cherry picked the tiny bit that they objected to and bashed away madly.  In a nut shell Kirstie said she flew “Premium Economy” (that’s not first class nor business class) but her tweenie and teenage children went economy because they needed to understand that a privilege should be earned.  Okay, what wasn’t taken onboard, well, often the distance between the rows may have been about 4/6 roes, the kiddos were accompanied with adult step children, when boarding Kirstie introduces herself to the cabin crew and adults seated near children and let them know where she is, during the flight she regulars walks down to check on them.  Her children are not annoyed by the seating arrangements, infact they prefer it as Mum isn’t constantly overseeing everything they do. She’s never been called back because of unruly behaviour.

As for people’s comments, you’d have thought she’d let them play on the motorway, swigging vodka, juggling razor blades! They were truly rude, condemning and highly critical of her parenting ability, I’m sure threats to call Social Services were made.

Her tv presenter partner Pip on the other hand remarked “We leave the kids at home to look after the dogs!” … Has he been called the demon of dads? Has he been bombarded with comments of how disgusting he is? Nope.

To me, it’s yet another example of gender hypocrisy.  Mum’s are wrong, Dad’s are applauded.

It’s the ‘men sow ya oats, women be pure and virtuous’, double standard.

There never will be equality across the sexes.

 

Siri? Alexa? No, Aunty

Picture the scene……. You are sitting comfy on the sofa, feet up, the late afternoon sunshine warming your exposed toes, your mind is occupied watching Columbo run rings around William Shatner, you are contemplating when to go make your poached salmon with vegetable rice and a splash of soy sauce, when the phone rings…….

Now I never get unsolicited phone calls, BFF calls during the week during her walk home from work, Bro-In-Law and Big Sis are away for the weekend, Nephew & family would be eating their dinner, whose left to call! I scramble to mute the tv and grab the phone. 

“Hello?”

“Hello you, it’s me” (Bro-In-Law) Utoh, problems? Brain scurries every which way

“Hello you” my brain is bemused, coherence not engaged

“You by the pod” that’s code for within reach of t’internet

“Yeeaaahhhhssssssss?” My brain is reaching wtf mode

“What time does the GP start?” 

Really? No, Hey we’re having a fab time, missing us, food awesome at that pub, etc etc, just straight in with the important stuff, lol.

“6pm Channel Four”

“Ta much”

Who needs Google when you’ve a me!!!

 

Could, Should, Can’t

Well that didn’t take long ……. the vim and vigour after my holibobs staycation with the BFF has dog gone and evaporated. The lovely cuddly warmth of accomplishment after getting the website updated has fizzled. I’m back to disenthused apathy.

There are things I ‘should’ maybe do, like, send in my latest book review (oops that’s supposed to be kind of hush hush) I can only do it at the desktop because my iPad is too old to run Word. I should be finishing the latest blanket as I’d like to start the next pattern, or I should empty, tidy and sort bedside draw, put away stuff not put away. But well, meh, its Saturday, the world won’t explode if I don’t.

There are things I ‘could’ do, like, resort the photos on the computer, there’s the letter to my hospital about my five months overdue appointment, start the video rework for the website. But well, you know.

Now there are some, many even, who would love to be as unbusy as me, I’d quite like to be as busy as some. In a romanticised way I would have loved to have gotten up from my bed, enjoyed a refreshing shower, straightened the bedroom, cleaned the kitchen, and washed the dishes before taking a jaunty saunter to Subway for lunch. Then browse a shop or two to find a box to put my footwear in beneath my desk, maybe find a new top or picked up some fresh raspberries from the grocers. Come home and sit at my desk, write an email or three while listening to some tunes before making my bolognese and settling to an evenings tv entertainment. But I cannot, the only thing I will physically manage, with a double dose of struggle and concentration is throw together the bolognese. 

Is it the human’s lot to always want things different and rarely be content with how things are?

I’ve often remarked that occupation needs a necessity. Doing something without a purpose, a need, a deadline, an outside expectation just becomes a time filler and when you have nothing but time to fill there’s no drive to strive.

Eek, that turned a bit deep and melancholy!  

 

Rebellious technology

Life has a way of making you pay for time off.  I’m paying a price, in frustration!

Wednesday morning I sat and woke up my computer, it had had a holiday too. After dealing with a top priority necessity I clicked to install the update, during its restart process it got stuck, trying to locate my Bluetooth keyboard (I don’t have one). It couldn’t sense my plugged in one. Panic.  Grab the iPad and ask Google, the first two ‘try this’ options failed, one was to just turn off the Bluetooth which was incredibly unhelpful as I do have a wireless mouse. Panic rising, scan read a couple more articles and discovered that either plugging the keyboard into a USB extension or plugging a thumb drive into the USB ports on the keyboard can ‘wake things up’.  Thankfully the extension trick worked. Phew.

Most work days my BFF calls to chat during her walk home, I sat waiting for the phone to jingle into life and when it did I eagerly pressed the green button – to silence. At first I thought our phones had missed connecting, but I could hear the bedroom phone ringing, I looked at the screen and it was blank. Panic. I heard my answerphone click in and the phone screen came to life and I pressed the green button with authority to hear the dulcet tones of my BFF wondering what was going on. Phew.

My wizzy super new desk chair requires recharging from time to time. On Wednesday I dug out the charger and plugged it into the socket and plugging the chair into the charger, the indicator light looked dead (yes, I had switched it on). Hmm, maybe it goes green once its charged. After a couple of hours still no light, I’ll plug it in again Thursday to charge some more, but still the light remained dead. Panic.  Now where exactly is that ‘safe place’ you put the instructions?   Apparently the light ‘should’ be yellow while charging and green once charged.  So, is the charger not charging or has the light gone do-wacky….either way as its only been three months, I need to contact the peeps and get another charger, hope there’s enough charge in the battery. Slight panic.

At least the microwave hasn’t melted, no light bulbs have plunged me into darkness or kettle fizzled ….. although the WordPress app has crashed a few times while typing this.