34 thoughts on “Be Prepared”

    1. Good planning for our dotage, to be sure! We really must complete our plans for the Full Services Baboon Care Facility of the future. Times a wastin’.

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  3. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    I can be very good at planning. After an early life experience of running away from home without a plan at age 4, I found myself lost at the side of a road with no place to go. I lost my composure when I realized I had made a mistake, then stood there sobbing.

    For this runaway trip I packed my Howdy Doody records and my favorite book “What do Daddies Do All Day” in my red suitcase. I wore my Annie Oakley 6 shooters and my cowboy hat. None of this stuff did me any good with no place to go. A very nice older couple pulled over and said, “Aren’t you Harlan’s little girl?”

    “Yes, ” I sobbed, “He is my Daddy.”

    “We will take you to his office,” which they did.

    So now, if I am going to run somewhere, I have to have a destination in mind and to have packed to stuff I need. As long as I have that in place, I feel like I can take the next step and explore what the world has to offer.

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      1. Weirdly, I remember none from my parents, which does not mean there were none. I am sure that my very gentle dad had a talk about this with me. Within me, a repercussion. I had been running away from my mother regularly prior to that. After the lightbulb in my head went on, giving me the understanding that you must have a place to run to, I decided to stop running away, and tolerate my unhappiness in a different way!

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    2. I did that at about the same age. Except I wasn’t running away from anything, I was running toward my anticipated career as a cowboy. My friend John Miller and I packed our six guns and some underpants and headed off toward the railroad tracks, bound for Texas. We got about four blocks before my mother caught up with us and dragged us back home.

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  4. I like planning, it makes me feel like I’m in control of things. I can plan trips and quilt projects and moving and new careers. Sometimes planning is more fun than doing what I’ve planned.

    Planning is good, but life doesn’t always give you time to plan, so you also have to be able to land on your feet.

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  6. I think I’m a good planner…I’m sure I over-plan or obsessively plan ‘tho at times I can be spontaneous…guess that’s some of the bi polar in me. Supposidely my GAD is the reason I obsessively plan and with that comes anxiety….which can be the anxious of excitement but I tend to carry that into overdrive.

    When Fika is at my place I have the table set the night prior…tho we’ve had spontaneous Fika and I’ve been fine with that too….sometimes better as I have nothing to be thinking of ahead of time….no anxiety. However with what I have I often need a med to calm me down after where as I take one prior when I know i will be in s situation of ‘over excitmemt/stimulation’ I keep the ‘calmer’ meds with me…a few in the car, in my purse and at home….guess that is planning. It is planning and precaution/prevention of an anxiety or panic attack.
    (Music, meditation and my artwork/writing help a great deal.)

    I have my flight home the end of April….with my little dog Bandit. I have already been mentally packing in preparation….and anticipation. The fact that I’ve done so well physically here tells me to plan a return but that is an unknown I refuse to lock into as yet.

    I’m a list person when planning so I remember things whether it is for a trip or the grocery store.

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      1. Fika more literally is break time or time out….for coffee, tea, juice & most often accompanied with a pastries or sweets….or sandwich.
        I and two friends traditionally would have Kaffe Fika each month rotating homes…just for fun and ‘catch-up’ conversation.
        Kaffe Fika will comence when I return in April…and it will be a joyous reunion!

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  7. There are planners and then there are improvisers. Planners want a destination because not having one is spooky. Improvisers delay planning until they can assess the conditions because many plans make no sense if the conditions are hostile. The planner decides to go picnicking on the weekend, then sits on a soggy blanket while rain sluices down and lighting strikes nearby trees. The improviser waits until he gets a weather report, then finds he doesn’t have time to assemble a decent picnic, so the thing never happens. Whether you are a planner or an improviser, reality is gonna intrude and screw up your program.

    You might think that planners and improvisers are doomed to disagree, but not necessarily. My best hunting and fishing buddy was the kind of guy who wore a belt and suspenders. I was the kind of guy who might forget to bring a belt or anything else. He planned. I improvised. We drove each other crazy for two decades, then learned how to appreciate each other and work together to form plans . . . flexible plans.

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  8. I may have told this story. I found out my dad died at about 5 p.m. on a Sunday. Child was 8. I gave her a packing list (I have them on the computer) and let her pack herself while I made calls (she did a great job). Then I threw my stuff together, had her put on her pajamas and we headed off to drive to St. Louis. (about 8 p.m. at this point). After we’d driven about an hour, she said “where are we going to stay tonight?” I told her that I was going to drive until I was too tired and then we’d pull off the highway and find a place to stay. She said “No, I mean where are we going to stay tonight?” It soon became clear that even at the age of 9, she could not comprehend that we’d taken off without me having this pivotal bit planned out. She knew me well even then.

    Yes, I’m a planner. Give me a binder and some tabs and off I go!

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  9. Apparently my Ipad weather app thinks I am not even a short-range planner: They have a new kind of alert, “Precipitation Alert,” which is alerting me that it is snowing outside. Not the same as the official storm alert. I guess the precipitation alert is for the windowless, or maybe the soul-less.

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  10. I am a long range planner in some things, and very good at it when I do. But some things I ignore that I should not. One of my strengths as a teacher was making long-range plans and sharing them with students and parents.

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  12. I’ve more or less given up planning, and the reason why is because of weeks like this one. At the beginning of the week, it looked like I would be babysitting the always delightful, never crabby, charming 3-year-old twins one half day. So far I’ve done almost 2 1/2 days. And it’s only Wednesday.

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  14. I’m not very good at planning either, usually I start with a plan and never accomplish it… but I try to stick with plans these days, because I believe it is better to have a plan than not.

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