I have an enormous U-shaped desk in my office. It is far too fancy for me, but it is what they thought I needed when we moved to our new building in July.
I am a messy person who knows where any and all the documents are in the piles on my desk. Please don’t make me clean up. It ruins my organizational strategy. The larger my desk, the more and bigger the paper piles on it.
In one corner of my desk I have the collection of figures you see in the header photo. I got the Freud bobble head from my son. The red puppet I got in Bremen Schnoor district. He reminds me of Tyll Ulenspiegel. The vampire tomtens I got from my daughter. I have no idea where the Viking came from. I have no idea what people think about them, or what they think about me when they see them. I sort of wish people would ask.
What did or does your work desk look like? How did you make your desk reflect you who you are?
Ash Wednesday service at our church is typically very well attended, many folks going who only go to church a couple of times a year. In accordance with Covid protocols, there is only a live stream of the service with no attendees. What, oh what about the imposition of ashes?
Our pastors are traveling around town today at various venues applying ashes to foreheads and reminding us we are dust and to to dust we shall return. I told our pastors they were no different than Door Dash delivery persons this year. They laughed, and regretted the cold weather. A high school buddy of mine, Mary Jo, now senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Fargo, is smudging people in their cars as they drive up into the church parking lot.
Mardi Gras was a bust in New Orleans this year, but I admire those who decorated their homes to emulate parade floats. I like the idea of Mardi Gras lights instead Christmas lights. Husband says we would have a demon cat with horns, along with trees, flowers, and vegetable plants in our driveway.
How did your family acknowledge Lent? Ever been to New Orleans during Mardi Gras? How would you decorate your house as a float?
YA and I ordered take out from our favorite Chinese Restaurant over the weekend. I set the table nicely with red plates, chopstick holders and even lucky red envelopes (with chocolate coins). But our only guest this year was Nimue, who made herself at home on the table.
This completes my year of no festivities. Last year I was all ready for Pi Day when the world turned upside down. I had all the ingredients for my pies, had a to-do list of what needed to be done in what order, including baking times and temperatures. I even had little placecards done with the names of all the pies. Then on Friday, the day before, I had to cancel; the pandemic had arrived at our door.
Since Pi Day, there have been several other occasions when, during “normal times” I would have entertained: my Girlfriend High Tea in May, our neighborhood Memorial Day gathering, a new neighbor welcome party in June, my birthday bash in August, Leaf Pile in October and, of course, the Great Gift Exchange at Solstice. This list doesn’t include book club meetings or other breakfasts/lunches/dinners with individuals. I would have always said that I entertain a lot but when everything is listed out like this, I realize that it’s an enormous part of my life.
So now that we’ve celebrated Chinese New Year on our own, we’ve come full circle. Unfortunately there won’t be a gathering for Pi Day this year either, but I am hoping we can do a Pi and a Half Day in September. Fingers crossed.
What’s the most interesting party you’ve ever been to?
My sister and I were blessed with two Christmases each year. Our mother was fanatical about the one that happened in December, so our Christmas celebrations were always over the top. Our other Christmas was a day in March when our father returned from the New York Toy Fair. Each years he took a train to New York while lugging huge boxes of samples of stuffed toys his company recently developed. On the last day of the fair, all the company reps dashed around swapping their samples for the samples of other toy makers. Daddy would come home lugging three storage cases filled with whatever he had been able to grab at the fair’s end. So wild was that last day exchange that even he didn’t know what he had been able to bag.
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We were lucky in other ways. Kids growing up in the 30s and 40s didn’t get many toys because of the Depression and the War. Then the nation was rocked by the great Baby Boom. It suddenly became profitable to sell toys in America. Suddenly homes had television sets, a new way to market toys to all those kids. Boys in the 50s were likely to play with cap guns and cowboy garb, while girls were expected to play with dolls. And then there were all the new toys that might appeal to boys or girls: Etch-A-Sketch, Slinky, kaleidoscopes, board games, View Master, card games, Mr. Potato Head, the nose flute and so many more.
My Teddy
Then, as now, toys frequently broke or went missing, so I have no memories of many. And yet I have a persistent emotional attachment to a few childhood toys. I dearly loved an old teddy bear. Although many cap guns came and went, some breaking almost the first time I used them, I owned one that made me supremely proud. I’ll talk about it a bit later. My luck with some toys went the other way. Getting an Erector set proved to me that I lacked the discipline required to create the impressive structures some boys assembled. A science kit pretty much showed me I was not meant to be a scientist.
How about you? What toys did you treasure when younger? Which of them claimed a permanent place in your heart?
Well, we have had non-stop national drama for the past four years, and I am so looking forward to a respite. I was imagining the other day what political figures I would cast in plays by Shakespeare, imagining who on the national scene would make a good Lear, Lady Macbeth, or Beatrice. The possibilities are endless and amusing, so go to it, Baboons!
What roles would you cast current national or international political figures in plays, movies, musicals, or operas? Don’t limit yourself to Shakespeare. What are your favorite political dramas or comedies?
Today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. He was born on this date in 1809. (So was Charles Darwin. What a year!) We only started to celebrate Presidents’ Day in 1971, when Washington ‘s and Lincoln’s birthdays were lumped together on the third Monday of February after Congress passed a law in 1968 to encourage more three day weekends. To capitalize on Presidents’ Day on Monday, I am taking today off and am thus giving myself a four day weekend.
I have determined that the only way I am going to make it through the next three and a half years of work is to take more time off. I have a sad history of reluctance to taking vacation or sick leave. Right now I have accrued 750 hours of sick leave and 200 hours of vacation time. It shouldn’t be a problem to take the odd day off now and then. I don’t quite understand my reluctance to stay home. Lutheran guilt? I identify too closely with The Little Engine That Could? Who knows? I only know that I am a more cheerful and productive person after a day off.
I love three day weekends, although it seems like work tends to pile up when Monday is a holiday. Tuesday through Friday seem exhausting on those weeks. Husband wants Juneteenth declared a holiday. That would be great, I think.
What new Monday holidays would you like to see declared? What are your memories of Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays when you were in elementary school?
I will admit that while I was on furlough, I spent way too much time surfing on my phone (wow… talk about a phrase that would have made no sense 20 years ago!) Lots of stamping sites, Vlogbrothers and Mark Rober YouTubes, too many dance compilations to the song Uptown Funk and of course The Trail. This led to what I consider massive numbers of wasted hours as well as monies spent that could have gone to better purposes.
One of these purchases happened two weeks ago, after I knew I would be heading back into Corporate America part time. It’s a Conference Call Bingo mousepad. If you’ve spent any time on zoom or other online calls the past year, you’ll probably recognize some of the squares: “Can everyone see my screen?” “Can you repeat that?” “I have to jump on another call.” I laughed out loud when I saw it online. It arrived over the weekend and I’ve had several chances to use it already. I’ve been using paperclips as “the dauber”. No bingo yet, but I’ve come pretty close a couple of times.
My agency moved to a new building this summer. We have adjusted to the new space, and have worked on getting basic things like heating and cooling adjusted. One new feature of our building is the electronic security.
All the waiting rooms in the new building are separated from the offices by doors that can only be opened electronically by staff who have special fobs that allow entry into the labyrinth of offices beyond them. Sometimes the electronic doors work. Sometimes they don’t. They refuse to open for about 30 minutes each day. The doors that won’t open vary. It is intermittent. It happens daily. No one can figure it out. When it happens, we have to take circuitous routes through other doors so we can get to our offices.
One consistent problem is static. Because of all the locked doors and their metal openers, we employees get repetitive shocks every time we walk down the carpeted halls and touch the metal door mechanisms to open them. The shocks are painful. I suppose the low humidity in the building accounts for this, but it sure is annoying. I have to ground my body by touching the wooden door, and the then touching the metal opener. Sometimes I am in a hurry and I forget. Then I get a shock. It is tiresome.
Tell about some “interesting ” work environments you have had.
The wind chill advisory is scheduled to expire today at 11:00 am. It is still only going to be in the single digits the rest of the week, though, so no big warming trend.
I thought this would be a good day for jokes about the cold. I will start:
Two friends meet on the street “It sure was cold this morning.” “How cold was it?” I’m not sure, but I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets!”
I am ashamed to admit it. This weekend I bought a box of Grapenuts when I didn’t need it. I was hoarding. It is all the fault of a recent news story that the Post company was having a hard time keeping up with demand for Grapenuts. People are apparently snarfing them down at an increased rate due to staying home so much. There is only one manufacturing plant for the cereal. It seems to require specialized manufacturing equipment on which the the Post company has a patent. There have apparently been Grape nut shortages across the country, and people are upset.
I don’t eat much cold cereal, but Grapenuts with milk and some golden raisins or currants are a big comfort food for me. I shudder at the lurid colors of the cereals I ate as a child at the urging of commercials on Saturday morning.
What were your favorite cereals as a child? What would you hoard if you thought there might be a shortage?
