davidschroth | (no subject)

The plan for today was
get up,
get paper,
print postcards,
cut sheets of paper into postcard size chunks.

I handled the get up part (with its implicit get ready) all right. I just hit a slight snag before I could do the get paper part. Polonia discovered that the storms yesterday had dislodged a young bird from its nest. The bird could fly, but not very well, and not very far. It could fly about a foot off the ground, and maybe six feet horizontally. It looked like the next predator that happened along would find an easy meal - a feeling that was corroborated when Polonia caught the bird with minimal effort on her part. She'd already prepared a box to hold the bird, and took advantage of the fact that I was heading to a part of town that was close to the St. Paul campus of the University to draft me into taking the bird to the Wildlife Rehab Center. Which I did, dropping off both the bird and a $25 donation.

And then I got paper for PR-1. Things went much smoother today than they'd gone yesterday. And I took the paper, and headed off to Dreamhaven to print postcards. I'd parked in the parking lot, and gathered my stuff, when Nathan Stohlman (sp) and Betsy Lundsten drove up and parked. And I saw the license plate on their car, and just burst out laughing (they have a personalized plate - YMMV). And after I stopped laughing, I noticed the make and model of the car, and started laughing again (they drive a Toyota Prius). An auspicious start to the job of printing postcards. They introduced me to their dependent, who found all the other new smells around Dreamhaven much more interesting than another boring old human being.

SO I went in, and set up, and cut my first stencil, and started printing. After five iterations of print one - jam one I decided I needed to try something else. So I reversed the master on the plate, cut another stencil, and tried again. This time, it worked much better. I ended up with about 700 sheets of paper, that I should be able to turn into about 2800 postcards. Assuming I can hook up with Dean Gahlon and his industrial strength paper cutter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How do you feel about the Polonia task? It seems like a benign-enough couple effort, but unless you guys only have one car it would have been nice if she'd completed the entire effort herself. There was some (potential) emotional and (actual) real-world cost to you. Did it feel good to be asked to be part of it, did you volunteer?

Good work on the postcards, anyway. I suppose you could just drop by their house? If 'twere me, I'd probably go and stake out the house at some point, just to avid the latency of driving over there.

Assigning the task to me makes perfect sense - I was headed in that direction, and I've dropped animals off there before. I felt like there was a touch of her treating me like an incompetent fool, but I attribute most of that to the stress of trying to decide what to do about the situation. Ideally, we would find the nest and return the bird to the nest - the bird was very close to being old enough and strong enough to not need rescuing. But we couldn't find the nest, and it was pretty clear that the bird was unlikely to survive for long unless it was moved to a safer location than the ground.

I'm averse to just dropping by Dean and Laura's house unless I've first made arrangements to do so. I'm pretty sure they have plans today. But I got in touch with Dean, and I'll be over there tomorrow around noon. That should give me enough time to get the postcards cut and schlep them over to Larry's house in time for the mailing party.

Is this a pattern that dates back to better times in your marriage? If so, does the feeling of being treated like an incompetent fool seem always associated with it, or something that's happened more recently?

Have you talked about this feeling with Polonia?

I'm not sure if I remember if the pattern dates back to better times.

I think the feeling of being treated like an incompetent fool most often arises when she's stressed or angry (big surprise, there). My best description of it is that she has this crystal clear vision in her mind of what needs to be done, and she's unwilling to put up with anyone who doesn't share that vision.

No, I haven't discussed it with her. From this remove, it seems trivial. At the time, I know I was annoyed. The annoyance passed relatively quickly (probably about the time I realized I had taken my old, ingrained route to the Wildlife Rehab Center, rather than the new route that would have cut five to ten minutes off the drive time. The realization that I was spending so much effort on being annoyed that I was driving on auto-pilot put a quick end to the annoyance at Polonia. I converted it into annoyance at myself.)

I was going to get up and *do things* this morning. I got up, fed the cats, had a bagel, (responded to Timebinders *sigh*), and went back to bed and slept. I was just thinking about heading for Dreamhaven to look for you, so I'm glad I read this first.

Congrats on getting the postcards done, especially after the paper problems yesterday.

I, also, wonder about Polonia depending on you to do tasks. But I'm not sure I've clarified my thoughts on that yet.

See you tomorrow most likely - stamp, stamp, put int pile for mailing.

In the future, consider giving the job to Kinko's. You can hand them a master postcard, tell them to put four on a page, print 700 on cardstock, and then cut them in quarters. And then, like magic, you can pick up the finished product in an hour.

Labor specialization...it's what makes our country great.

B

I imagine it costs more, and those costs are probably significant (i.e.: money is not infinite and is better spent elsewhere).

Bob, thanks for asking the questions I think of but don't seem to manage to write.

K. [and David, there's brighter days ahead, really]

I look at it as "The more money I don't spend on publications (while still getting the job done), the more money Geri has to spend on the ConSuite."

Seems like a reasonable trade-off to me.

And doing this stuff is forcing me to stretch, and do things I've never done before. Things that, for all my whinging, I quite enjoy doing.

And I end up associating with niftier people, too.

(no subject)

no subject

no subject

good

Re: good

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject