Ocean Breezes

I started this blog to practice exercises when I was taking writing classes.  I have this scene in my head, from a dream, that I want to write about, but I can't get the words right.

She stood on the pier watching the sun set over the ocean, ignoring the man who leaned against the railing a few feet from her.  Tom watched her, ignoring the ocean.  The sadness in his eyes gave him a stern, almost hard look, but the sadness was for her, not himself.

"The ocean breeze is cool tonight," he said.

"I told you to bring a jacket," she replied, continuing to stare at the ocean.

"I wasn't thinking of myself.  I thought you might be cold."

"I'm fine.  I brought a jacket."

"I thought you might be warmer with my arms around you,"  he said gently, almost too quietly for her to hear.

Tom turned toward the ocean and listened to the waves murmuring on the beach below them. 

"The ocean breeze is cool tonight," she said without taking her eyes from the now dark horizon.

Sometimes

Sometimes I look  in the mirror and I see a set of old, tired eyes staring back at me,
Trying to remember where all the years went,
Wondering when the fun left, wondering what happened to me.

Sometimes I walk down the street and I hear the creak of old bones,
Trying to remember where the paths once went,
Feeling the pain in over-used joints, feeling like an old lady joke, live on the streets.

Sometimes I wait to go to bed till after midnight, not to put off going to sleep,
Trying to put off having to wake.
Ignoring the empty space at my side, ignoring the silence in the morning noise.

And sometimes I just write really, really bad prose.

Keep smiling

I have been watching westerns again.  (Or still as you prefer.)

Right now I'm on a Laramie kick.  One of my all time favorites.  The first TV show I ever saw in color.  It was beautiful.

Even when I was a little girl I recognized Jess's charms, but I never noticed before that Slim has the most kissable looking lips.    (He was too old for me then and too young for me now.  Age is a funny thing.)

Slim and Jess almost make me wish I had lived back then.  When men were men and ladies were treated with respect - even when they were baking bread, scrubbing floors, toting water, bearing children without anesthetic, riding on buckboards without padded seats, milking cows, and fighting off the elements.  It was a hard life for women, but I think in the west (the west I know from TV and movies), women were more appreciated than they were in the east.  Their tenderness, their strengths - both were appreciated and valued.

I think I could do all the things women had to do back then and still be smiling at the end of the day especially if I had a good man at my side (said with a western accent).  But --- I couldn't do without a shower and a flush toilet.  I used to go camping a lot when I was younger so I've gone without hot showers and flush toilets for several days at a time.  But I didn't do it with a smile.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

by Dale Evans Rogers

And the complaining continues

I have a lot to complain about.  Doesn't mean I'm not grateful for my blessings.  One of my blessings is that I have a lot to complain about.

This heat is terrible.  I'm not used to daily 90 - 100 degrees heat and I don't like it.  I am truly grateful that I have central air conditioning and that I can afford to run it.   I worry about the people who don't and can't or won't. 

I'm still ill.  I have a cough and a wheeze that just won't go away.  They are getting better but about once a day a coughing spasm hits, bruising my ribs, and wearing me out.  I stayed home from work yesterday as I just didn't feel right.  My scalp hurt and I felt dauncy.

I don't think I mentioned that the stupid jerk at work is also arrogant and obnoxious.   He's also a bully.  Some of the younger staff have indicated that they find some of his emails overly-aggressive and that they make them uncomfortable and uneasy.   Management is aware of this, but claim they can't fire him and they haven't disciplined him so it continues.   Nobody should have to work in an office where they feel afraid.  I'm not smart enough to be afraid of bullies in the workplace.  Afraid I'll get so apoplectic that I'll have a stroke, but I'm not afraid of him.

There's three complaints.  Probably more than enough, but I could go on.  There's always daylight saving time.  It's already beginning to inconvenience me this summer.   There's always other co-workers.  They all irritate me.  (I irritate myself sometimes, so that's no big feat.)

Just How Dumb Can One Person Be? - Part 2

Give me another few weeks and I may just be able to answer that question.

The guy I talked about Thursday was even stupider on Friday.  This man is supposed to be a college graduate with experience in the work we do.  (He may have experience, but it's not with work - that seems quite foreign to him.)

Anyway, Friday he asked me how I validated a report in April because he had a problem with the validation for Wednesday's report.   I thought it would help him do the job if he actually tried to think of a solution himself so I asked him what analysis he attempted or considered before asking for help.  His reply was that he did the same thing he did in April (which obviously didn't work in April or I wouldn't have had to do the validation for him then.)

So I asked him "specifically what analysis did you do today?". 

His reply was that I never revealed what I did in April.   (He cc'd the manager in that email so she could see how mean I was being to him.   Two stupids in one email.)

So I forwarded the email that I had sent to him in April outlining the steps I took then, but explained that the problems might not be the same so the solution might not be the same.  I added that analysts often needed to think outside the box to find the appropriate solutions

Then I stopped what I was doing and did the validation for him (because I knew he couldn't/wouldn't do it) and sent it to him in an email.  I included 2 tables and 2 charts.  All had brief explanations indicating what they showed.   I did not specifically say "This is the validation" because I thought he should be able to draw his own conclusions.

(Let me say here that he took two 20 - 30 minutes breaks before 10 then went to lunch at 11.)

The validation report is supposed to be sent before 11 AM on the second business day after the report date, so shortly after twelve o'clock I asked if it had been sent.  His reply was convoluted, rather nonsensical, and included the phrase "thinking outside the box", but did not answer the question.

So I asked, "Does this mean Yes, the report was sent or No, the report was not sent"

I didn't get a reply to that email, but about 3 he replied to the first email explaining that he had looked at historical data but couldn't find any from July 2010.  He indicated that I probably knew where it was but was hiding it from him.  Then he reported that the report was definitely not validated.  (I have no idea what historical data from July 2010 had to do with validating the report.)

So I replied simply, "I validated it in the email I sent you at 10:30.  Send the validation report now."

In reply he sent me and the manager a snippy little email saying I had not validated anything because I used the phrase "may be related to the holiday" in the first paragraph and may is not conclusive.  He included a snippet of my email in his message to prove his point, but failed to notice the rest of the sentence (though he included it in his email): "The increase may be related to the holiday ... But I did not stop my analysis and research there".  Apparently, he also didn't notice the tables and two large charts that summarized the additional work I did. 

Also apparently, it's against the rules at the Dumass Corporation to fire people for stupidity and laziness.  I'm guessing it will only be a short time before he's promoted to management.

Just how dumb can one person be?

I'm still sick with a hacking cough.  It's not as frequent as it was and I think I've stopped startling the neighbors at all times of the night and day, but I'm sill not 100% well.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to complain about today.  I'm old. I always have some kind of ailment somewhere to complain about.  Usually more than one.  Which reminds me I still have a pain in my back and down my leg from picking up that greeting card last month.  By the way, I finally sent it today to the high school grad for whom it was bought.  I was beginning to wonder if she'd get it before she graduated college.

Anyway, just how dumb can one person be?  I work with one of the dumbest people I've ever had the displeasure of working with.  He probably has at least an average IQ.  He just doesn't bother to use any of it. 

He complained yesterday that he couldn't understand or remember how to complete one of our forms that he has been using for a month.  Last night I stayed late at the office and created a "cheat sheet" for him that explained where you could find the information requested on each line of the form. 

I wasn't expecting a nice little thank you for my hard work in creating the "cheat sheet", but he sent me an email this morning that made me want to cry.  I wanted to cry because it's against the law to smack co-workers up side the back of the head for stupidity.  No matter how stupid they are.

He asked me about the email I sent with an update to the form and wanted to know which report he was supposed to update, X or Y.

1. In the first place, how could he think "cheat sheet" was synonymous with "update"?   Please, somebody, anybody explain that to me.
2. The reports he referred to were not X or Y, but A and Z.  Actually, X and Y aren't reports but a data system (X is the same thing as Y).
3. You can get reports from X/Y but they have nothing to do with the form in question.  
4. Reports A and Z can be used to complete the form, but not update it.  Nor can you use the form to update the reports.
5. Report A is obsolete and he was told to stop using it on June 23 and use report Z.  So actually you would only use report Z to complete the form.  

Anyway, that was just the morning stupidity.  He had more as the day wore on. 

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former. ~ Albert Einstein

July 4th

I still have a cold and a hacking cough that attacks at odd and inopportune moments so I've been spending the holiday weekend doing as little as possible.  Sometimes I sat at the computer and sometimes I watched TV.  And in between times I napped. 

Saturday, I watched several episodes of the British comedy As Time Goes By.  I like this series not just because it's funny and well acted, but because I can relate to it.  It's about an older couple who met when the woman was a young nurse and the man was a young soldier.  They met, fell madly in love for the 3 months they were together, he went to the Korean war, and they didn't see each other again for 38 years.  Then they met, fell back in love, and are living happily ever after.

When I was a young nurse I met a young Brit, a student not a soldier, and we spent 3 months one summer falling in love.  Then he went home to England, I went home to Indiana, and we never had a chance to fall out of love if that was what we were falling in to.

In the TV series, Lionel wrote Jean a letter as soon as he reached Korea, but it was never delivered so she thought he had forgotten her even as his boat sailed off into the sunset.  In my life, my Brit and knew the end of summer would be the end of "us" so we promised each other that we would have a wonderful summer, we wouldn't fall in love, we'd have no expectations of forever after.   There'd be no letters to write, none to read, none to wait for.  We didn't even exchange addresses or phone numbers.  We were so modern, so hip, so mature.

My Brit was more resourceful than  Jean's.  He got my address from a mutual friend and wrote to me.  I wrote back and for ten years we corresponded from one side of the world to the other.  One year he wrote and told me he was getting married.  He signed the letter, "With all my love".   A few years later he wrote me that they had a son.  And gradually the letters stopped.  I don't remember who wrote the last letter.  I was moving from state to state and town to town around that time and maybe he wrote a letter that never arrived.  Maybe I forgot to send him a new address.  Doesn't really matter.  It was time.

Anyway, 39 years ago an American woman and an Englishman celebrated the 4th of July together.  I can't help but wonder if we'll ever meet again, if the next chapter will mirror As Time Goes By. 

Whereever you are, my forever young Brit, I just want to say one more time, Thanks for a wonderful summer.  The kind of summer every young woman should have at least once so she'll have something to remember fondly when time goes by.

Writer's Camp

July 1st was the first day of Camp NaNoWriMo .   It's not too late if you want to go to camp with me this summer.  As a matter of fact, I just arrived today.

"Camp NaNoWriMo?  What's that?" I hear you ask inquisitively.

Camp NaNoWriMo is a camp-themed version of National Novel Writing Month.

"What's National Novel Writing Month?"  I hear you whine annoyingly.

According to the NaNoWriMo web site, "National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30."   It started with only 21 writers in 1999, but last year grew to 200,500 participants from around the world.  Check out their What is NaNoWriMo page for more information.

Which brings us back to your first question: What is Camp NaNoWriMo?

Camp NaNoWriMo is a free online camp that provides "support, tracking tools, and hard deadline to help you write the rough draft of your novel in a month."  This is the first year of Camp NaNoWriMo so you could be a pathfinder if you attend this year.   (Pathfinder - that's a camp word.)

This camping experience is on-line so you don't need to worry about mosquitoes, labeling your underwear, or the quality of the 'bug juice" (another camp term).  And, yes, I said it's free.  They do ask you for donations and to participate in fundraisers, but neither are mandatory in any way.   However, you will, of course, want to buy a souvenir t-shirt. 

"Writer's Camp" "Writer's cramp"  That's a play on words.  Get it?