Son of a birchtree

Monday: It's spring break now. The three male residents of my house are off for the week, but I'm working. It's a busy week, so if I don't start writing this now, then there won't be a post this week.  Too much to contemplate, I know.

I got mad at a writer today. Well that's not quite true. I got mad at a sentence.  A sentence so long and so convoluted, which took so many meandering turns and detours before finally reaching, in its own good time, a not-altogether-clear conclusion, that I had to read it five times before I finally figured out what it was trying to tell me.* And I still wasn't sure.

In a perfect world, I'll only have to read something once. But the fact that it's not a perfect world is one of the reasons that I have a job.  But still--three times is my limit. If I have to read the sentence more than three times in order to discern meaning, then I consider that the author is just having fun at my expense. And I'm not amused.

*****

Tuesday: Scene from the Greek cafe where we're picking up dinner after Confession:

Cashier (on the phone): What? I mopped last night!  I took out the trash, too. Check the camera! What? No, it wasn't my turn to do the bathrooms. Yeah. No, we're pretty slow today.

Cashier (to coworker, having hung up the phone): Yeah, he's all mad and yelling at me about the trash, and then I told him to check the camera, and he got real quiet. Hmpf.

*****

Wednesday: I'm supposed to be writing an article for our neighborhood newsletter. Instead, I'm shopping on Amazon and watching the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs (Columbus vs. Pittsburgh).

You know the scene in "Elf" when Buddy befriends the mailroom guy, who confides in Buddy that life in the mailroom isn't as glamorous and high-powered as it looks from the outside?

No? You haven't seen it? That's just ridiculous.

Forget that entire last paragraph. I'm going to just assume that my many readers are decent members  of society, who have seen "Elf." Anyway, when you watch that scene (three times a year, minimum), don't you think to yourself, "Wow. That's the oldest-looking 26-year-old I've ever seen. Sunscreen, you know? Antioxidants. Something." Well, that's what I was thinking about as I watched 29-year-old Phil Kessel and the Pittsburgh Penguins demolish the Columbus Blue Jackets. No particular reason; it just popped into my head.

*****

Thursday: It turns out that Android OS is yet another thing that's more polite than me. The Capitals are playing Toronto tonight in round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Toronto scored, a minute and 35 seconds into the first period, while I was at the grocery store shopping for Easter dinner ingredients.

Naturally, I was somewhat perturbed, and I tried to text "Son of a bitch" to my husband. You know, when you type the word "son" on an Android device, the predictive text function will suggest "of a" as next words. What do you think should come next? I can tell you what Android OS thinks should come next: "By," "but," or "boy;" but not "bitch."

I added an i, which refined my selections to "bit," "bin," and "bill." Even when I added a t, Android refused to cooperate. It offered me "bite," "bits," and "biting."

If cursing were a crime punishable by fine or imprisonment, then evidence that you typed the letters "son of a bitc," would be enough to convict you, I'm fairly sure. By adding the c, I felt certain that I had made my intentions clear and unambiguous.  So imagine my confusion when predictive text offered me one option, and one option only: Bitcoin. Son of a Bitcoin. This is the expression of dismay and anguish that Android believes is appropriate when your team gives up a goal just over a minute into the first game of the playoffs.  Ridiculous.

All's well that ends well.  The Capitals made the game rather interesting, as they tend to do, but they won in overtime and we're up 1-0 in the series.

*****

Friday:  Good Friday.

Question for Waze and Google Maps: Is "Proceed to highlighted route" meant to be helpful and instructive? I mean, if a person is even remotely capable of navigation using an actual map, would voice-directed satellite navigation apps be even necessary? Asking, as the Internet says, for a friend.

*****

Saturday: I have too much to do today.  This is why I'm sitting on the couch at 10 AM, drinking more coffee than I should and watching "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire." I like to think that I work better under pressure. There's no evidence that this is true, but I continue to procrastinate, telling myself that the adrenaline rush of panic will drive me to accomplish great things. I have no idea why I do the things that I do.  I'm a cotton-headed ninnymuggins.

*****
Later, but still Saturday. Still behind, but I've made some progress. I'm having a little bit of an indecision- and anxiety-fueled panic attack. Not a big deal. Just a little hard to breathe. I hate this time of year. T.S. Eliot was right.

(2 hours later.) That took an unexpected little turn there, didn't it? I'm back to normal now, whatever that means. I still can't decide how to cook the potatoes for tomorrow.  Maybe I'll drop them into a solution of vinegar and food coloring and pass them off as eggs.  Happy Easter.

*****

* That sentence suffered the same fate as the former Yugoslavia.  It's now a bunch of different sentences.