Isn't it pretty? The first violet of spring. Of course, it got thoroughly drenched this week, along with everything else as the Bay Area was visited by a series of storms, but violets like to be wet somewhat. My tulips are going like crazy, although I remain worried by the yellowish stems and stunted growth of the daffodils (you can see the base of the stems in the background of the photo). I thought I'd have daffs by now, but they seem to slow to develop. Still, there are flower heads visible, so perhaps the next pair of sunny days will encourage them. I do love their cheerful yellow.
Xeney claims I made a deal with the devil. Huh. What does she know? If I made a deal with the devil, you can bet there'd be sunshine all day long in my yard, not this dismal "two to three hours but only during the summer" business. Also, I'd have some kind of anti-dog device in place which would deter Dixie from squashing my best blooms yet allow me easy access for weeding. The truth is, it's easy to be a gardener if you're only tending two or three dozen containers in a teensy cemented-over backyard. You don't have to deal with dreadfully invasive sedges or grasses, you don't have trouble with moles (although the snails are not in the least deterred by having to climb into a container), and if anything gets sickly you can bring it in to nurse it back to health. Container gardening has its charms.
So I finally got motivated to do something about learning Spanish. I went to Fry's Electronics to buy a program. If I'm going to sit like a clam in front of the computer all evening, I might as well be learning how to conjugate verbs. I carefully examined all the boxes (there must have been a dozen to choose from), and selected the only one which stated it was cross-platform compatible. It had a little Mac/Win logo and everything. I stood in line for approximately a century, slogged home in the pouring rain, and popped it in the hard drive. It was a pretty good little program. I went through two lessons before bogging down on vocabulary, at which point I got out the Spanish-English dictionary CD and unwrapped it.
It was for use with PCs only.
I don't know why there aren't Mac only language programs in the first place, but not making the dictionary cross-platform was insult to injury. Not only was my home education derailed, but I had to go back and stand in line for approximately a geological age in order to talk to a woman with negligible English who didn't understand why I was returning an unbroken product and treated me sourly. A manager had to be called over. He examined the offending CD minutely, as if I'd simply missed an important bit. "Huh!" he said, eyeing me suspiciously. Then he went off for ten minutes to find a substitute Mac compatible program, or possibly switch out the dictionary with another one I could use. He came back looking even more annoyed, then okayed my refund. You would have thought I'd been trying to pull a fast one on them. And then I still had to stand in line somewhere else to get the actual refund put through, and that took a lot of time because -- well, I'm not sure. No one told me anything, they just all scurried around looking concerned and harrassed. Eventually I got my thirty bucks back. It was such an event. Remind me to never, ever buy anything at Fry's again.
I would just like to address a comment to the people who have been posting at Pamie's forum speculating that she is breaking up with her boyfriend and getting together with Stee: even if it was true, and she has said it is not, how insensitive can you get? Were you raised in a barn? Do you think the electronic medium allows you to forget basic social skills? It's pretty clear you don't have any advanced ones. The woman is having a tough time and all you can do is beg for gossip crumbs. "But it's a forum, it's for public discussion of Pamie's diary," you say defensively. Yes, but it's not for public discussion of Pamie's private life, get it? I did my own share of speculating, I'm no angel, but I sure as heck didn't inflict it on the very person I'm purportedly concerned about.
Work is still horrendous, and my left wrist has been getting sore, but I'm icing it well and I think it's going to be fine if I go back to not writing on the weekends. No sign of a new employee, more's the pity. I have kept to my resolution to maintain a calm, relaxed approach to the various crises and alarums. I have not yelled at any of my clients, although several of them thoroughly deserved it. I have not yelled at my bosses. Well, once. But considering the amount of pressure we're all under, they ought to know better than to ask me to stop what I'm doing and take care of some non-timely busy work that could just as easily be done after the phones are turned off. At least, that's how I feel about it.
Think of me as a plate spinner. There are so many plates spinning that you, the audience, cannot imagine how I manage to keep them all whirling around on those teensy poles without lots of crashes. Frankly, some days I don't know how I do it, either. It's fun, and it's challenging, and I'm really good at juggling dozens of reservations, I mean plates. But I do know that I'm not a miracle worker, and some of those plates are beginning to fall. I catch most of them in time, and get them spinning again. But the pile of broken shards is growing, quite unnoticed, and one of these days a really big plate, a major client, shall we say, is going to crash spectacularly.
I hate the sound of breaking glass.
My Valentine's Day bouquet: stargazer lilies, iris, and roses.
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