Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 126
December 2, 2014
Close Encounters
I've been under siege lately, at least that's the way it feels. This episode, though, was just too much.
Before Thanksgiving, my dad wanted to put the extra furnace filters up in my attic. Because I have no basement, that's where my furnace is located. He can't reach the string to pull down the stairs, though, and asked me to do it. The pull-down stairs are located in the hallway where the bedrooms and second bathroom are.
It takes a reasonable amount of force to bring the attic ladder down and I was standing almost square with it as I pulled. Something came tumbling down, narrowly missing my head.
This isn't unusual. There's insulation packed around the ladder, but that was white and what fell was dark. I stop to take a closer look and what did I see?
Scorpion!
That's right. I had a scorpion up in my attic that worked itself onto the ladder/pull-down thing and then tumbled to the carpet when I opened the hatch. The only good thing I can say is that it was already dead. That wouldn't have mattered if it had landed on my head. I'd need therapy. For years.
This was the third scorpion in just a few weeks. I'd killed one in my bathroom and another in that same hallway earlier in the month. That isn't the end of the story. After I went to bed that night, my dad said he killed a fourth one in the kitchen. Do I need to mention that the pest control company got a phone call?
I'm not sure it's a good thing that I've become so used to these things that I don't freak out any longer.
Before Thanksgiving, my dad wanted to put the extra furnace filters up in my attic. Because I have no basement, that's where my furnace is located. He can't reach the string to pull down the stairs, though, and asked me to do it. The pull-down stairs are located in the hallway where the bedrooms and second bathroom are.
It takes a reasonable amount of force to bring the attic ladder down and I was standing almost square with it as I pulled. Something came tumbling down, narrowly missing my head.
This isn't unusual. There's insulation packed around the ladder, but that was white and what fell was dark. I stop to take a closer look and what did I see?
Scorpion!
That's right. I had a scorpion up in my attic that worked itself onto the ladder/pull-down thing and then tumbled to the carpet when I opened the hatch. The only good thing I can say is that it was already dead. That wouldn't have mattered if it had landed on my head. I'd need therapy. For years.
This was the third scorpion in just a few weeks. I'd killed one in my bathroom and another in that same hallway earlier in the month. That isn't the end of the story. After I went to bed that night, my dad said he killed a fourth one in the kitchen. Do I need to mention that the pest control company got a phone call?
I'm not sure it's a good thing that I've become so used to these things that I don't freak out any longer.
November 30, 2014
November 27, 2014
Happy Thanksgiving!
For my American readers, Happy Thanksgiving Day! May you enjoy your family and may your turkey be juicy.
November 25, 2014
Song of the South
Saturday my dad and I went grocery shopping for Thanksgiving. He and my mom wanted a pumpkin pie (I don't like it) and Publix had one from their bakery on sale, so they decided that was the pie. My dad had to go make a return, so I began the shopping.
Right at the front of the store was a selection of sale pies. I looked at them, saw the ones that looked like pumpkin, and took the best looking one.
Later, while we were in the freezer section, my dad bought a second pumpkin pie.
After an hour of torture (I hate grocery shopping), we checked out and put everything in the car. My dad starts studying the receipt. Suddenly he asks, "Did we buy a sweet potato pie?"
I'm like, "No, I grabbed a pumpkin." And then I started thinking about it. What does a sweet potato pie even look like? I realized I had no clue. "Maybe," I said after a few moments, "I messed up and grabbed the wrong pie. We'll have to check."
Sure enough as we unload the bags, I see sweet potato pie.
As I looked at the pie, I realized what had happened. We don't eat sweet potato pie in Minnesota. Maybe some people do, but it's not in large enough numbers for grocery stores to sell them. So in Publix (in Georgia), I looked down, saw a pie that looked like pumpkin and just put it in the cart. It never occurred to me that it could be anything except pumpkin.
My parents decided they'd try it. The verdict? It tastes like pumpkin pie. :-)
Right at the front of the store was a selection of sale pies. I looked at them, saw the ones that looked like pumpkin, and took the best looking one.
Later, while we were in the freezer section, my dad bought a second pumpkin pie.
After an hour of torture (I hate grocery shopping), we checked out and put everything in the car. My dad starts studying the receipt. Suddenly he asks, "Did we buy a sweet potato pie?"
I'm like, "No, I grabbed a pumpkin." And then I started thinking about it. What does a sweet potato pie even look like? I realized I had no clue. "Maybe," I said after a few moments, "I messed up and grabbed the wrong pie. We'll have to check."
Sure enough as we unload the bags, I see sweet potato pie.
As I looked at the pie, I realized what had happened. We don't eat sweet potato pie in Minnesota. Maybe some people do, but it's not in large enough numbers for grocery stores to sell them. So in Publix (in Georgia), I looked down, saw a pie that looked like pumpkin and just put it in the cart. It never occurred to me that it could be anything except pumpkin.
My parents decided they'd try it. The verdict? It tastes like pumpkin pie. :-)
November 23, 2014
November 20, 2014
Craft Overload
One of things that amazes me on Pinterest is some of the craft pins other women put up. Part of my amazement is that anyone wants to do some of these things and part of it is that people are talented enough to do these things.
In the why would anyone want to do this? category is the pallet decor items. Why would anyone want to take a wooden shipping pallet and make something for their home? Someone actually has an entire board dedicated to this (and I'm sure there are other people, too, but I don't follow them). Breaking the pallet apart, painting words on it, and hanging it on the wall. Doing some other thing with the pallet to create a platform for a mattress.
Just no. None of the pins have shown an attractive result, so I don't know why anyone wants something that dirty and ugly in their home.
In the wow, people really do this category comes the tutorials I'm seeing pinned on how to make your own beads from some kind of clay thing. I guess it isn't enough to make your own jewelry, now we're supposed to make our own beads to use in the jewelry.
I'll confess that I'm not a particularly crafty person. I don't have the patience for it or the desire to do any craft until I get good enough at it that I actually would use what I made. If it's not perfect the first time, it gets jettisoned quickly. I come by my lack of craft skill honestly--my mom had no interest in them either, although she is better than I am at basics like sewing.
I'm not completely without an interest, though. I would like to make my own bracelets--but I'll buy beads, thank you. And I do enjoy scrapbooking when I get around to doing it, although my pages certainly don't end up looking as awesome as what I see posted online.
Maybe if I was better at crafts, I wouldn't be so amazed at what some people pin as potential projects. Maybe they pin and think they'll get around to it some day--kind of like me and all the organizational pictures I've pinned with the intention to read the articles later. Yeah, okay, so I'm hoping that pinning the picture will help me become organized via osmosis. ;-)
In the why would anyone want to do this? category is the pallet decor items. Why would anyone want to take a wooden shipping pallet and make something for their home? Someone actually has an entire board dedicated to this (and I'm sure there are other people, too, but I don't follow them). Breaking the pallet apart, painting words on it, and hanging it on the wall. Doing some other thing with the pallet to create a platform for a mattress.
Just no. None of the pins have shown an attractive result, so I don't know why anyone wants something that dirty and ugly in their home.
In the wow, people really do this category comes the tutorials I'm seeing pinned on how to make your own beads from some kind of clay thing. I guess it isn't enough to make your own jewelry, now we're supposed to make our own beads to use in the jewelry.
I'll confess that I'm not a particularly crafty person. I don't have the patience for it or the desire to do any craft until I get good enough at it that I actually would use what I made. If it's not perfect the first time, it gets jettisoned quickly. I come by my lack of craft skill honestly--my mom had no interest in them either, although she is better than I am at basics like sewing.
I'm not completely without an interest, though. I would like to make my own bracelets--but I'll buy beads, thank you. And I do enjoy scrapbooking when I get around to doing it, although my pages certainly don't end up looking as awesome as what I see posted online.
Maybe if I was better at crafts, I wouldn't be so amazed at what some people pin as potential projects. Maybe they pin and think they'll get around to it some day--kind of like me and all the organizational pictures I've pinned with the intention to read the articles later. Yeah, okay, so I'm hoping that pinning the picture will help me become organized via osmosis. ;-)
November 18, 2014
Required Reading
For my day job, our boss wants us to read this business book. He bought us all a copy and we're supposed to read a number of chapters every week for discussion in our staff meetings. That might be torturous enough, but if it were written like a typical, non-fiction business book, I'd probably be able to get through it. This business book, however, is presented in a fictional way with dialogue and story and all that.
Now this is a problem for me because I can't make myself stop critiquing fiction, and while this might be a fine business book, I'm having issues with the fictional aspects.
First, it's written as first person which is a tense I really strongly dislike in fiction. Back in the day, I've been known to drive back to the bookstore to return books I discovered were written in first person after I'd gotten them home. But it gets worse. It's in PRESENT tense. I can't run away fast enough from fiction written in present tense. That is a total deal breaker for me.
Second, I've only read six chapters so far and there have been so many characters introduced, I can't keep them all straight. I can see already that most of these characters are unlikely to make a reappearance at any point in the book and yet almost all of them have names.
Third, the portrayal of the protagonist's wife. OMG, she's written as selfish and shallow and very much a whiner. She's very much a two-dimensional cardboard cutout character. It angers me that this woman is presented so unsympathetically. Now granted, the story is first person (PRESENT TENSE!) from the husband's point of view, but if he's married to her, you'd think there's be some positive things to be said about her.
Fourth, the pointless descriptions. Now, I'm not a huge fan of description to begin with, but if it's important for the reader to know (like what the character looks like) or if it advances the story in some way, that's necessary. As I'm reading many of the descriptions in the beginning of the book, I'm thinking, "Why do I need to know this?" Maybe I'll be proven wrong since I have a long way to go, but I'm pretty sure they serve no point other than to make word count.
Additional annoyances are a huge overuse of exclamation marks. !!!!! Gah!!!!! And the first names of the characters are overused in dialogue to the point it reads like a soap opera script. I will concede, though, that this book was written in the 1980s and even romance books from that time frame suffered an overuse of names in dialogue.
This book has excellent ratings and I'm sure it's a wonderful business book, but as a work of fiction, it's pretty weak. If the business guy had written the book by himself, this would be more understandable, but he had a co-writer. One would assume this other guy had some experience writing fiction and there wouldn't be this annoying conglomeration of issues. One would be wrong. There is no excuse for a professional writer putting out a book that looks like this.
Unfortunately, I must slog onward. Unfortunately, it's hard to grab the business lesson I'm supposed to be learning when all I can see are the issues with the fiction. :-/ There might be more rants ahead as I slog through this thing. I'll apologize in advance.
Now this is a problem for me because I can't make myself stop critiquing fiction, and while this might be a fine business book, I'm having issues with the fictional aspects.
First, it's written as first person which is a tense I really strongly dislike in fiction. Back in the day, I've been known to drive back to the bookstore to return books I discovered were written in first person after I'd gotten them home. But it gets worse. It's in PRESENT tense. I can't run away fast enough from fiction written in present tense. That is a total deal breaker for me.
Second, I've only read six chapters so far and there have been so many characters introduced, I can't keep them all straight. I can see already that most of these characters are unlikely to make a reappearance at any point in the book and yet almost all of them have names.
Third, the portrayal of the protagonist's wife. OMG, she's written as selfish and shallow and very much a whiner. She's very much a two-dimensional cardboard cutout character. It angers me that this woman is presented so unsympathetically. Now granted, the story is first person (PRESENT TENSE!) from the husband's point of view, but if he's married to her, you'd think there's be some positive things to be said about her.
Fourth, the pointless descriptions. Now, I'm not a huge fan of description to begin with, but if it's important for the reader to know (like what the character looks like) or if it advances the story in some way, that's necessary. As I'm reading many of the descriptions in the beginning of the book, I'm thinking, "Why do I need to know this?" Maybe I'll be proven wrong since I have a long way to go, but I'm pretty sure they serve no point other than to make word count.
Additional annoyances are a huge overuse of exclamation marks. !!!!! Gah!!!!! And the first names of the characters are overused in dialogue to the point it reads like a soap opera script. I will concede, though, that this book was written in the 1980s and even romance books from that time frame suffered an overuse of names in dialogue.
This book has excellent ratings and I'm sure it's a wonderful business book, but as a work of fiction, it's pretty weak. If the business guy had written the book by himself, this would be more understandable, but he had a co-writer. One would assume this other guy had some experience writing fiction and there wouldn't be this annoying conglomeration of issues. One would be wrong. There is no excuse for a professional writer putting out a book that looks like this.
Unfortunately, I must slog onward. Unfortunately, it's hard to grab the business lesson I'm supposed to be learning when all I can see are the issues with the fiction. :-/ There might be more rants ahead as I slog through this thing. I'll apologize in advance.
November 16, 2014
November 13, 2014
One Harsh Word
I saw a poster today that said: "One Harsh Word Can Destroy a Dream."
This was on Pinterest and my first inclination was to pin it, but then I thought about it a little longer. There's a difference between dreams that are nice little fantasies and dreams that are passions. As an example, I've always dreamed of being an artist and sketching effortlessly. However this falls under the wistful fantasy category because I'm not willing to put in the effort or time it would take to improve.
On the other hand, writing is a passion. As many times as I walked away from it, I always returned and I was always willing to put in the work I needed to improve. Discouraging words? I guess rejections fall into this category. But even with rejections, I wasn't able to stop writing. I always came back to it.
So when I think about someone giving up a dream because of one discouraging word, I can't help but think that they must not have wanted that dream badly enough.
There's a really great video on YouTube called: The Last Lecture - Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it. But the man speaking (Dr. Randy Pausch) said something really profound for me. "The walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough."
So if one word can stop someone's dream, then I tend to believe it wasn't something they really wanted. That doesn't mean we should go around and stomp on someone's dreams, but it does mean that if someone says, "You'll never be a writer" that the answer should be, "Oh, yeah? Watch me." If the answer is, "he's right, I'll never be a writer" well, then that person was never meant to write because it's a tough, tough field for those who can't handle discouraging words.
This was on Pinterest and my first inclination was to pin it, but then I thought about it a little longer. There's a difference between dreams that are nice little fantasies and dreams that are passions. As an example, I've always dreamed of being an artist and sketching effortlessly. However this falls under the wistful fantasy category because I'm not willing to put in the effort or time it would take to improve.
On the other hand, writing is a passion. As many times as I walked away from it, I always returned and I was always willing to put in the work I needed to improve. Discouraging words? I guess rejections fall into this category. But even with rejections, I wasn't able to stop writing. I always came back to it.
So when I think about someone giving up a dream because of one discouraging word, I can't help but think that they must not have wanted that dream badly enough.
There's a really great video on YouTube called: The Last Lecture - Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it. But the man speaking (Dr. Randy Pausch) said something really profound for me. "The walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough."
So if one word can stop someone's dream, then I tend to believe it wasn't something they really wanted. That doesn't mean we should go around and stomp on someone's dreams, but it does mean that if someone says, "You'll never be a writer" that the answer should be, "Oh, yeah? Watch me." If the answer is, "he's right, I'll never be a writer" well, then that person was never meant to write because it's a tough, tough field for those who can't handle discouraging words.
November 11, 2014
Doing Better
My mom is out of the hospital and doing well, although naturally, she's tired and sleeping more than usual. My dad and I are exhausted. Blog posts will be sporadic and/or shorter than usual until real life settles down. I'm sorry, but I'm sucking fumes right now.
