New iPhones, New Laptops

I was just hearing a news report on the new iPhone.  Will I be buying one?  No, I will not.

But I am not a complete Luddite.  This past week-end, during Florida's back-to-school tax free week-end which included computers under $700.  My laptop has been having screen issues for several months now--it's akin to the old TVs, when the vertical hold was slipping--lots of jerking around on the screen, which makes for a dizzying experience.

I've created a fix by hooking up my laptop to the monitor of my old desktop.  I'm inordinately proud that I figured out how to do that.  But this fix does cut out a lot of the advantages of having a laptop.  And I am fairly sure that I'm living on borrowed time.

So when the tax free week-end was announced, I decided that now was the time to buy a laptop.  I decided not to spend a lot of time researching the best deal.  I wanted something similar to what I already had, and when I went online, I found one that was on sale for half the usual price.  By Friday afternoon, I had the laptop replaced.

I haven't plugged it in yet.  I have resolved that I won't wait for 3 months the way I did last time.  But I do feel like I need a space of time to get it all set up.

Let me take a moment to record what an amazing time we live in, in terms of our computing access and the low cost of it.  I got my old laptop for $579, the on sale price with some rebates.  I wanted an extra USB port, although I'm not sure that I've ever need the extra one; 2 would have been plenty.  I paid extra to get a larger hard drive, and I've filled very little of it.

This time, for $400 (same sort of sale price), I got an even bigger hard drive, a terabyte. I got a year of Microsoft Office 360 and a year of online protection.  I got a wireless mouse, even though I don't need one.

I remember my first personal computer.  Back in 1993, I bought a used Mac for $3000, and I thought I had gotten a deal.  I had.  But the deal I got on Friday is better.

Week-end Creativity Report

On Friday morning, I had a vision for a sketch for my spiritual/visual journaling, so I quickly committed it to paper:

Friday was a fairly quiet day at work--thankfully!  I had been awakened by the alarm company calling, and I wasn't in a high energy mood.  But luckily, no crises emerged that required me to be firing on more cylinders than I had.  Friday night I crashed into sleep sooner than I expected; I don't think I even made it to 6:30 a.m.

I woke up early, around 2, and put together a manuscript of the inspiration e-mail project posts that I've been creating for several years.  I saw this call for manuscripts at Pleiades Press, and I thought I might submit.  I still can't decide, but I knew the first step was to assemble what I had and then to determine if I thought it was poetry.  Stay tuned!

Sunday was the most productive day in terms of creativity.  I went to JoAnn Fabrics to pick up some autumnal lights (like Christmas lights, only in orange, yellow and brown).  I saw a wreath frame and it was relatively cheap, and then discounted 40%, so it cost less than $5.  I thought about the autumnal elements that I already have:  ribbons in 3 colors and fake gourds.

Even though I'm not going to hang the wreath on our porch until September, I wanted to assemble it while I was inspired.  And so, yesterday afternoon, I did.  I wrapped the ribbons around the form, and my spouse got two types of pliers so that we could string thread through the fake gourds to make loops so we could hang them.  Here's a close up:

And here's the longer view, with a coconut on the table:

In my sorting of the past month, I came across a broken candle holder made of pretty glass that my spouse had kept, and we promptly forgot about.  I thought it might make an interesting candle base, with reflective qualities.  I found some rocks that I had saved for some reason, and I thought they make an interesting combination:

As we've burned the candle, the wax has started melting down the inside, despite the fact that I'm using a tea light candle, so I'm not sure how this construction will look in the future.

I experimented with the variety of holiday lights I got, the autumnal ones and the ones with palm trees and the ones with Hawaiian shirts and surfboards.  The latter 2 aren't quite as versatile, but they, too, were cheap.

This morning my spouse got up early, as he's got a report due today.  So, it was another day of waking up at 2:00.  But in a way, it was fine.  I read The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison,a collection of poems by Maggie Smith, and then I wrote 2 poems, plus I have ideas for more.

So, it's been a good week-end with a variety of creative activities.  Did I get the weeding done?  No.  Have I done all my grading?  No.  But I feel ready for the week, in a way that I wouldn't have, if I hadn't fed my soul in this way.

Nuclear Distractions

On this day in 1945, the world was about to change in dramatic ways that we likely still don't fully comprehend.  On this day in 1945, the first nuclear bomb was used in war.

The effects of that bomb obliterated much of Hiroshima--and vaporized some of it.  There were reports of people fused into pavement and glass--or just vanished, with a trace remaining at the pavement.  The reports of the survivors who walked miles in search of help or water are grim.  And many of those survivors would die of the effects of radiation in the coming years.

On this day, and on August 9, in 1945, nuclear weapons were used in war, and so far, we haven't used them in war again.  We have been lucky that nuclear weapons are so complicated and pose such a health risk in terms of radiation that terrorists have stayed away from them.

Let us do all that we have in our power to do to make sure that these weapons are not used again.

We may not feel like we have much power to have any impact on nuclear treaties.  Until recently, we might not have worried about it.  Now, like many people, I find myself thinking about North Korea and wondering what road we're travelling here.  I spend too much time thinking about North Korea.

Today is a good day to think about what distractions, atomic, cosmic, personal or otherwise, take our attention away from the true work.  Today is also a good day to meditate on power and how we seek to harness it and how we use power once we have it.

Today is also a great day to celebrate the transfiguring possibility of power.  After all, not all uses of power lead to destructive explosions.  Some times, we find redemption.

On this anniversary of the Hiroshima blast, I am aware of the very temporary nature of our lives and our artifacts.  One fine morning we can be eating breakfast one minute, or walking to work, and then, in one blast, in just a few seconds, we're fused into the concrete.  It's a sobering thought, and a good one to have, to move our hearts to gratitude for a day where we're not facing a thermonuclear blast, where we don't have to deal with an electromagnetic pulse, where our loved ones are still here, on this side of the earth.

August Prep Work

I've been awake since just before 2:00.  I'm the first person the alarm company calls when the alarm goes off at school.  Just before 2, the company called.  I'm not too worried, since we've been having alarm problems, but once the phone rings me out of sleep, I'm jangled.  I couldn't fall back asleep, so by 3:00, I was up and at the computer.

In some ways, that's fine.  I got the grading done for my online class--it had been haunting me, because students have papers due tomorrow (Saturday), and the last writing workshop that needed to be graded was in many ways my last chance to give them feedback.  So, I'm glad to get that done.

I know I may be tired today, but I also know that I can make it through the day--happily, it's likely to be quiet.

It's a strange time, this month of August.  Soon, many students will be trooping back to school, but we're not there yet.  Soon, literary magazines will open their reading periods, but we're not there yet.

Yesterday as I took my short morning walk to the marina, I thought about using the month of August to return to my memoir manuscript.  I want to rewrite the introduction--I think--with an eye to my new title of Micromanaging the Miracles.  I want to submit to a press that wants a Table of Contents with a brief description of each chapter, so I'll use the month of August to complete that.

Today begins our tax free week-end, and this year, computers under $700 for home use are included.  I plan to replace my laptop, which has started having problems that remind me of vertical hold problems in old TVs.  The laptop is over 4 years old, and I've used it almost daily.  It's time to replace it, and a tax free week-end can save me some money.  I will use the month of August to get materials from the old laptop to the new one.

Some people see the new year as a time to begin again.  But the start of a new school year is a good time to begin again too.  Let me use the month of August to prepare.

Small Wins at Work

Yesterday, I got a phone call from a colleague who was promoted to my position, in charge of the General Education department, at my old school.  She said, "I know you kept a copy of sign in sheets for faculty development.  Any idea where they are?"

We talked about some possibilities.  Then I remembered that I had uploaded many files in one large file to a shared drive.  I walked her through how to get to the drive and how to find the GE file that I had left.  She found it and opened it.  At first she didn't see it, and then she said, "Wait, here it is.  Faculty Development sign in sheets.  Yes!  These are the ones I need."

I said, "Thank you past Kristin, for taking care of us!"

I was inordinately thrilled that I had saved what she needed, and even more thrilled that it was still there--it's a shared drive, after all.

I have reflected before on these kinds of job thrills--in one way, they're small, but in a different way, they're still so important to me.  One expects to be feel good about the big wins, like successful navigating of auditor/accreditor visits.  It's good to remember the small wins too.

Another small win yesterday was my successful registration for the AWP conference.  I'm going to Tampa in 2018--hurrah!  And I'll be driving--oh dear--no airline luggage weight limits to hold me back at the book fair.

And now it is time to get ready for another day at work.  I anticipate a small win of a different kind:  it's new student orientation day for our midquarter start students.  I say it's a small win, both because it's a small group, and because the sense of the larger win must go to Admissions. 

But small wins are wins--and I'm grateful for them.

The Kingdom of God is Like a Field of Sweet Corn

On Sunday, we came home to feast on sweet corn.  Our friend had gone to Ohio and was willing to share her stash of sweet corn with us.

I thought of all those teaching moments of Jesus that begin with The Kingdom of Heaven is like . . ., or the Kingdom of God is like . . .  Throughout the summer, the Program Director of Lutheridge, Pastor Mary Canniff-Kuhn has been posting modern updates with a camp theme:

"The kingdom of God is like gingerbread cookies made in KidzCamp. Delight is essential. Judgement is irrelevant."

"The kingdom of God is like snow in July. All things are possible."

The Kingdom of God is like a friend who shares her sweet corn with you who are stranded at the tip of the continent without good sweet corn to call your own.

Let me end with a different kind of quote about summer, that I got from this blog post.  RJ quotes Parker Palmer:

"Summer is the season when all the promissory notes of autumn, winter, and spring come due, and each year the debts are repaid with compound interest. In summer, it is hard to remember that we had ever doubted the natural process, had ever ceded death the last word, had ever lost faith in the powers of new life. Summer is a reminder that our faith is not nearly as strong as the things we profess to have faith in - a reminder that for this sing season, at least, we might cease our anxious machinations and give ourselves to the abiding and abundant grace of our common life."

As always, Palmer's words leave me in awe of the power of language and the power of seasons.

A Day for Directional Changes a Bit Dizzying

Yesterday was a day of realizations and changes that made me feel a bit whipsawed.  But it wasn't bad.

 

When I look back, I will likely most remember the departure of newly appointed and then newly dismissed Anthony Scaramucci, the foul-mouthed White House communications director.  Lately, each day brings something new to make me feel like a little old lady in how easily I am appalled--but "the Mooch" so far is the winner in that department.  Who talks like that to a reporter?  Who thinks that is O.K.?  What does his mother think?  Who raised these people?

 

Let me now take off my white gloves and church hat--back to the rest of the day.

 

I felt sad as we learned about the death of Sam Shepard.  I remember decades ago reading his work after hearing a grad student declare him as significant and feeling baffled, much the way I felt baffled when I read about women seeing him as a sex symbol.  Yesterday I read declarations that he was one of the most important playwrights of the 20th century.

 

Really?  He ranks right up there with Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Samuel Beckett?  I could keep listing important playwrights of the 20th century, but I also know that we could have this discussion all day/month/year, and not reach consensus.  Let me not go down that road.  Let me acknowledge that Shepard had enormous talent, and that I always feel a bit sad when one of those lights has been snuffed out.

 

I thought about the AWP and wondered why I forgot to register.  It's in Tampa, after all.  I went to the website and found out that registration had just opened on July 31 (yesterday)--hurrah!  It's not too late.  I thought about the FAPSC conference that I attended on Friday.  I didn't have to pay for that because I was a presenter, but the registration fee was not much less than the AWP--and my school was willing to pay for that.  The AWP will give me much more value for not much more money--I'll run the idea by my new boss, and then tomorrow, if he gives me the green light, I'll register.

 

All day yesterday, I kept my eye to the skies.  We had a low pressure system off of Tampa that quickly strengthened, in the course of yesterday's early morning hours, into a full blown tropical storm.

 

Happily, tropical storm Emily was a big fizzle.  We got one little squall around 11 a.m. yesterday--over in 4 minutes with driving sheets of rain, and then nothing.

 

But it was overcast, so the temp was lower, which has been nice.  Last night we went over to our neighborhood friends, and we sat outside--it was perfectly comfortable.  I thought we'd have a cozy night of rain, but if we did, I didn't hear it.

 

I'd prefer a fizzle of a storm to a storm that's supposed to be small but smacks us with more.  I am feeling grateful today and hoping that the rest of this hurricane season is a fizzle too--and every hurricane season after that.