Life of Wry

Since I used all my groovy tennis court pictures on yesterday’s picture-of-the-day blog, I’ll have to use this one, taken yesterday, for today’s picture.  Close enough.  My rules.

This is a stunning little arrangement of yellow puffy flowers, shot in the early morning, in Central Park.

No idea what they are.  They remind me of another puffy bloom we saw hiking on Mt. Rainier a couple summers ago.  I also don’t know what they are, but I called them, “Cousin It on a Stick.”

They were sweet, but there were far more colorful varieties absolutely covering the hillsides:

The wildflowers that day were so abundant it was mind blowing, the beauty was damn near uncapturable.  I’m still remembering that day as one of the most beautiful hiking days of my life.

Anyway….  enough of Summer ’09….back to Davis…

Any guesses?

Does this one help?

Ok, how about this one, then?

Peter and I played tennis today; whacked at the ball is more like it.  It was all I could do to keep from crying on the court because: 1) My game’s frustratingly rusty and I couldn’t hit a ball in the center of the strings to save my life; 2) My achilles are getting worse, not better, and running was really painful, so I just hobbled after the ball like a 97 year old. Pathetic; but, 3) I’m ecstatic to be able to hit with Peter, exchanging groundstrokes like normal tennis-playing people.  He’s rusty too, but he’s a worthy opponent and that’s unbelievably gratifying.  He even said afterward, “that was fun.”

I like this picture, too:

And just because the yard project’s moving along so nicely, thought I’d boast about today’s haul, because I’m like that:

Most of this is the aftermath of my assault on an outa control crepe myrtle, and, underneath that, a bunch of bermuda and bind weed. Very satisfying whacking with various gardening implements!  Meditative and violent at the same time, and not nearly as frustrating as the tennis.

I guess this is the equivalent of butt dialing…

…accidentally taking a picture when you mean to record a voice note… on your phone.

Donuts mean it’s tennis camp time.

When Peter was much younger, the promise of a donut was the surest way to get him out of bed and on the road in time to get to tennis by 9:00 (what, you didn’t use bribery?).

It stuck as a tradition: summer, tennis and donuts.

An 80 degree summer Sunday and no baseball game provided the perfect absence of an excuse.  Can put it off no longer.. yard work must commence.

So..

Here is my new best friend.  We’re going to be hanging out a lot this summer.

Not that this video has anything at all to do with yard work, and not that I ever really liked this song (it wasn’t one of my favorites), I’m adding this video because it came to mind as I was becoming one with my wheelbarrow this afternoon… and I haven’t tried posting a video in a long time.. let’s see if it works..

Picture taken this early morning, through the windshield (pardon the flecks), driving east on I-80.  On our way to a baseball tournament, natch.

Picture is notable because that’s a massive fog bank hovering over the Sacramento River.  Those are clouds above that, obscuring our view of the Sierra.

A bit odd for July, to say the least.

Anyway.

I’m in a funk because someone I adore (I can’t mention names) had a really, really (REALLY) bad day.  It’s not like he’s easy to adore right now either, because he’s in a world-class foul mood and is about as prickly as they come.  But it’s understandable; he’s in 13-year-old pain, which is to say completely out of touch with his emotions and actions and kind of running (no, sprinting) amok.  Yes, he’s sprinting amok.  Sulky, hyper, rude, needy, taciturn, defeated, cocky.  Acting weird.  I see he’s not dealing too well, so it’s easy to cut him a little slack.  Of course all my adult sensibilities tell me it’s all going to be fine, and in fact it’s an essential part of the experience… to fail and to come back.  How one comes back says a lot about one’s maturity and character; days like this provide perspective, critical to future successes.  I totally know all that, even if he doesn’t.  It’s easy for me to not get all worked up, but not so easy to not feel his hurt.  (I’m feeling so funky, I’m not even going to correct all those double negatives.  So there.)

One of the great (and predictable) things about teenage boys: they love In-N-Out burgers, like, all the time.  We don’t indulge this all the time, but on occasion..  They serve up a great hamburger, I must say.

What I liked about last night’s trip to In-N-Out was the full moon, barely visible in this picture.

Here’s a shot from the drive through lane, over the agapanthas.  The moon looks a little misshapen here, but I like the way the blues and greens come together.

July is District-64 tournament month.

Almost every single day, for the last two weeks or so, we’ve driven one to two towns west to attend a baseball game.   Most of the time, we’re returning around sunset.

That’s all.  A commute shot… somewhere on the road between Vacaville and Dixon.

This is my very frequent, post-walk hangout where, 3-4 times a week, a large cafe au lait and poppy seed muffin are had while cooling off and continuing conversations started while powering around the arboretum.  Today, no walk, no planned company.  I sat here for a few hours (really) and read, caught up on news, wrote, listened to some great music, and had the usual coffee/muffin.  No crowds; the students are gone and downtown Davis is relatively quiet.  I ran into a very old friend and spent about an hour with another discussing the ins and outs of nonprofit management, and then retirement, and then travel, and then the state of the world.

Feeling like there’s room.. to think, to reflect, to socialize.  Am definitely appreciating this time.

Huller om buller is a swedish phrase that means all discombobulated, or mixed up, or messy.  Or helter-skelter, topsy-turvy, pell-mell, upside-down… you get the idea.  It’s a phrase I use a lot when I’m out of sorts (and talking to myself in Swedish, which I do a lot, actually) (silently, of course).

Today.. feeling waaay out of sorts, this time in a technology way.  I find myself at the base of the learning curve with a few recently acquired gadgets , gizmos, and applications, and some existing tech staples.  This is a very unstable and uncomfortable place for me as I am so, sadly, technophobic.  It’s a funny brand of technophobia.. I’m out-of-the-gate fuh-reaked out by technology, but also eagerly drawn to the latest techno-gizmo.  Scared of it, want it, scared, want.  Always a battle.  I want, of course, the functionality, capacity, efficiency, effectiveness–whatever–but the effort it takes to get there is painful, and overcoming the initial barrier and calmly navigating the unfamiliar turf is ridiculously challenging.  Embarrassingly so.  But, of course, it’s never, NEVER as hard as I knee-jerkily imagine and once that barrier is overcome, and some facility has been established, I wonder why I didn’t just plow forward in the first place.  Naturally, I want to think of myself as an early adopter, for smart and with-it reasons, or if for no other reason than to buck gender stereotypes.  It’s why I wish I’d used my early math prowess (long since gone flaccid) to become an engineer, as if to drive home: hey, there’s a brain in here and it can kick ass!  But I didn’t.  It confounds me.. this techophobia.. I find it so limiting, stupidly timid, and humiliating.  And yet, I can’t deny the hyperventilation at the mere suggestion that I 1) research something 2) order something 3) install something 4) RTFM and/or figure out how to make something work.. it’s all enough to make me cry.  Which, nothing makes me cry and become breathlessly anxiety-ridden (you should see this) like technology.  And nobody seems to get that.  At least not my husband.  Which, I hate.  I HATE that technology has that power, the power to bring out the absolute worst in my otherwise competent gender, that technophobia is somehow imprinted in my DNA. What a rip.  I’m left to act out my prowess in other ways (athletically? wildernessly?), while technology is the mouse that has me shrieking and scrambling to the top of a stool.

Anyway.

It’s not all bad.  Here’s what’s happening on my tech front:

1. First.  A Garmin.  OMG.  I repeat: O.M.F.G.  This one’s a game changer, a life changer… the perfect blend of technology and real honest to goodness, on the ground value.  This brand new high tech gadget was surprisingly easy to get up to speed on, right out of the box (which, thankfully, I never saw, as it just magically appeared, already installed, on my dashboard) and is the neatest, most insanely useful thing I’ve ever owned.  I know, GPS has been around for decades, but this is my first and I can hardly believe what it can do.  And of course most cars have them embedded in the dashboards and have for years… I just never had one of those cars.  And well… now we have a Garmin and it’s amazing.  Just incredibly amazing.  It’s surprising how modern it makes a person feel (this person), and how it can enhance a person’s technology self-worth.  That’s me right now.. all puffed up.

2. Roku.  Not the same degree of game changing (though, in theory, it’s a significant industry game changer), and not the same level of mastery and puffery, but wow.  It is quite cool to be able to stream movies and TV shows and all manner of programming that comes right out of my computer.  Nice to say good riddance to cable and commercial TV.  But it hasn’t represented the same level of value as the Garmin because TV watching is not part of our daily lives and that is largely because we haven’t, or I haven’t, figured out how to use the various media that we currently have–satellite, broadcast, DVD–so adding Roku has just muddied the waters and made it yet more complex to Turn. On. The. Flippin. TV.  Between the dish, the broadcast antenna (you should see this thing that balances upon a stack of 18 books–to give it the proper elevation–atop our last-century TV), the DVD player and now the Roku, plus the switcher unit we now have to supposedly effortlessly go between the various sources… there are just too many boxes, cables, remote controls, settings, and well, it’s ridiculous.   In fact, it’s been a deal breaker.  I cannot bear the tediousness EACH and EVERY time I want to watch a TV show, so I just don’t watch TV.  But, if you have 30 minutes and a boat load of patience, you can actually get the desired show, largely by trial and error, to appear on the screen and that’s sometimes worthwhile, depending upon whether it’s something totally worth watching, like the Academy Awards or the World Series.  But now, for better or for worse, the Roku is in the picture, and suddenly we can watch movies from our Netflix queue, I have no idea how we do this, but I’m guessing it’s worth figuring out, and I can imagine it’s a world about to burst open with possibilities.  And when I have some time, I’m going to figure it all out and label all the cables and our switcher device and make a spread sheet that explains how to get from one thing to another, and then it will be a joy to watch movies and TV shows again.  I hear there are some good ones out there.

3. Google Plus.  Knew it would happen.  Just as the whole world–well, 700 million of them–finally got on Facebook, and every corporation and nonprofit organization updated its brand and proudly announced that they can be found on Facebook, and I no longer have to convince the naysayers that social media is here to stay and Facebook is the place to be…. Google comes along with a better mouse trap.  And I’m duly excited about this and at the same time filled with dread and resentment.  It rocks my world and I don’t want my world rocked, even if it might improve the way I communicate with my friends and family and get my news and everything.  So far, Google Plus looks sparkly and clean, but EVERYTHING’s different.  Now I don’t friend someone, I circle them, and instead of liking things, I have to +1 them.  The terminology’s new, the functionality is enhanced (we’re told), but it’s annoyingly different, and hard to adjust to, and it’s overwhelming to imagine setting up shop in a whole nuther social media neighborhood.  Hard to predict if Google+ will get traction and become the dominant social media platform, but I guess I’ll play along, keep feet in both doors, but I didn’t really need this in my life–one more thing to keep current on.  I know: such the problems.  I’ll shut up.

4. Blackberry.  Not all that new, have had it for about 9 months, but I’m still plodding along at about 10% capacity, barely scratching the surface of what a smart phone can do, breaking into a sweat if I actually have to use it to make a phone call, because that part’s not readily obvious to me and plus, it feels like I’m talking into a shoe (Maxwell Smart anyone?), it’s so non-phone like and stiff and has no mouthpiece.  I know.  Get used to it.  I am, but still.  It’s like the TV… I used to just use it. Now, not so much.

5. Macbook Pro.  Damn, this one really hurts.  I made the switch to Mac, what, a year and a half ago?  I can barely talk about this, it’s so upsetting; I have no idea how to use this thing.  Again, I’m crawling along at about 1% capacity.  I can do some basic things, but heaven help me if something goes awry, or I need to find a file, or figure out why something isn’t going fast enough, or is making the wrong kind of noise.  Need lessons in basic operations, file organization, maintenance, back ups, is what I need, just to be functional.  Never mind all the fantastic things I always heard about Macs and how intuitive they are and what fabulous tools and applications they have and how integrate-able they are with all your other Apple products, of which I have none.  I like it, I do, but am so clumsy and limited.  I feel like a fake Mac person.  About to plunk down big bucks on a Mac consultant who charges a lot for house calls.  How insane is that?  I know there are classes (somewhere), tech support resources, Apple Bars, online forums, but I don’t know what I don’t know and can’t fathom where to start (see some of the paragraphs, above).  I have a book.  Yes, I do.  I’ll read it.. sometime.  Just overwhelmed’s all.  Just add it to the big, huge tech pile of doom.

So…..     need to stop whining; it’s only tech.    But that’s what huller om buller means.  A term I thought of when I chose today’s picture–a tangle of whispy vegetation, rays of sun, algae and water–a messy mess of an image (if pretty), that reminded me of my messy, complicated tech situation, which lead to an incoherent rambly rant.  See? Huller om buller.