Finals week starts Monday. So here in this gorgeous landscape I am sitting next to a pile of notebooks and texts. Erg. NOT hiking. NOT playing in the water. NOT sitting by the lake or in it. NOT, not, not, doing anything outdoorsy unless you consider sitting in a chair "outdoorsy." This is an exchange I knew I would be making at all the best times of the year for the next...well, however-many years. Higher education starts and ends during the best times of year in Texas. You get breaks during the worst times of year. I have never figured that out. Well, if you imagine the people who do the planning as anemic, pale indoor types who would rather sit in front of a computer for "fun," then I get it in under a second with no thought required. I don't believe for a second that they're all like that (whoever "they" are), but sometimes it helps.
As for finals, mine stack up like this: one Monday night and THREE on Tuesday. Then I get to enjoy my two-day summer break. I am already booked up during those two days...lawyer, dentist, doctors, laundry, paperwork, packing and unpacking, and all the spring cleaning I can cram in. Oh, and one workstation that needs to be re-brained.
Re-braining things is tedious, but I have a knack for it and this particular workstation needs it desperately. Come to think of it, so does the other one. Our little company is getting new seismic interpretation software here in a couple of weeks. Yay. One very unenthusiastic yay. They all basically do the same things in terms of the batch processing, interpretation, and computations they perform, but they do NOT do it all the same way. And usually, even though they all say they use .segy files, they still require a pretty tedious process of exporting your surveys from package one and importing them into package two. This is my job. I do find it interesting from the standpoint of it being a puzzle to solve or like some sick sort of quest game, but past that when you start adding deadlines, customer satisfaction, personal preferences, and (my personal fave) "what we WANT the software to do (but it actually never will do)" I often find myself fantasizing about throwing computers off the dressing rooms into the swimming pool after beating them with a sledge hammer. That thought alone thrills my very soul to the point where a very stupid-happy grin breaks out on my face like an 8th grader with her first crush. Of course, in my mind, somehow the computer parts are still carrying some sort of current that arcs when they hit the water like a bad sci-fi movie. Not possible, but a great mental image.
Back to the weather...we could really use some rain around here. I've been thinking it all day, but not saying much because when we talk rain, Squib gets spooky. He has a disturbing phobia of thunder. Nevertheless, the measures we're taking to keep everything watered are really starting to wear Buddy and I thin. I've had to start setting my alarm to remind me to move the sprinklers/hoses/etc. That's what happens when you plant stuff everywhere. If it's this dry already, we're in for it later in the summer. By then all will be dead, dry, and crusty including those of us trying to keep things wet. Of course, neither Buddy nor Clanpaw can be convinced to give the grass a break. They mow it to the dirt like a bad buzz cut sometimes more than once a week no matter what and wonder why it browns so easily and the ground cracks. I've given up that part of the grounds-keeping because mowing for them is a fetish and there's no stopping it. The flowers, veggies, spices, trees...those are my major concern. I'd kinda like to eat 'em!!!
On the slate for summer fun...fort-building...it's hard to tell from the pic above, but the area within this stand of trees is being cleared (I had to get help with the dang trumpet vine). Just to the left of that branch that makes the "Y" there is a little pass-through and then it opens up into a dirt-floored open space where, well, boys can be boys. There are a lot of folks around here who like flat, grassy areas versus tree-filled landscapes, so saving this stand of trees was a miracle. Fortunately, it blocks the view of the swimming pool. It also gives the kids a place to play in the "woods" that I can see from the front of the house and am able to thoroughly check out for critters. A little more work and it will be ready. Every boy needs a little hidey-hole...a place to hang their "No Girls Allowed" sign...wait, I'm a girl...
...this could get complicated.
Scat
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