An incident

This was probably the 20th time that I've hosted Thanksgiving. Each year, it gets a little easier. I learn new tricks, and refine established processes, and make slight improvements. The dinner hasn't cooked itself yet, but hope springs eternal.

Everyone who mashes potatoes knows that Yukon Gold potatoes are best for mashing. Some potatoes are good for roasting, others for baking, others for frying; but Yukon Gold make the best mashed potatoes. They have a nice color, and they crumble very nicely when they're cooked, making them easy to mash and then whip.

And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Thanks to the Internet, EVERYONE knows this; which means that sometimes it's hard to find YG potatoes during Thanksgiving week. I had to go to two stores; and in the second store, I had to dig to find one of the two remaining bags of YG among the piles of Russett and Idaho. Even if you don't have 20 years of hard-earned potato-mashing experience, you can ask Google what kind of potatoes you should mash, and because Google knows everything, it will tell you that you need Yukon Gold. This is why I can never find the boy peppers when I need them. There's no such thing as insider knowledge any more. The well-kept secret is no longer a secret. The cat is out of the proverbial bag.

But the potato hunt was worthwhile, because dinner was delicious.

*****
I'm not a particularly dramatic person. I prefer not to draw a lot of attention to myself, and I seldom show emotion in public. I'm not a scene-causer. Except on rare occasions.

Like today (today being the day after Thanksgiving).

My younger son and I were at Safeway, shopping for our annual neighborhood Thanksgiving get-together (normally held on the night before Thanksgiving, but this year, on Saturday, because we had hockey tickets for Wednesday night). We were crossing the parking lot, just behind a car, which I couldn't describe to you now. The car, to my horror, began to back up, forcing me to actually grab and stop it so that it wouldn't knock us down.

I started banging on the car, and the driver, an older man, cracked the window.

"What is wrong with you?" I screamed. "You almost ran over my son!"

"You came out of nowhere," he said.

"WHAT? That's your response? You almost run over my 11-year-old child, and we came out of nowhere? You're supposed to LOOK BEHIND YOU BEFORE YOU BACK UP! IDIOT!"  I was angrier than I can remember being in I don't even know how long.

"I looked in the mirror," he protested, "but you and your son walked out right between the parked cars and I didn't see you..."

"BETWEEN THE PARKED CARS? It's a PARKING LOT! EVERYONE WALKS IN BETWEEN PARKED CARS!!! And you didn't look, or YOU WOULD HAVE SEEN US!" I smacked his car again a few times.

"Well, I certainly didn't intend to hit anyone," he said, a bit huffily.

I smacked his car a half-dozen more times (my hand actually still hurts). "APOLOGY ACCEPTED!" I screamed.

My older son would have joined the melee, and I'd have had to tell him to zip it, but my younger son just stood quietly, pretending to be an onlooker who was in no way related to the crazy car-smacking lady (really, my hand is going to be sore for several days). We walked into Safeway together, my son looking furtively around and hoping no one was looking at us; me still seething. "Idiot," I fumed. "Between the parked cars! It's a parking lot! He didn't even look!"

"By the way, Mom, I'm 13," my son pointed out.

"I know," I said. "I have no idea why I said that. I was so upset."

"I mean, I've been 13 for a while."

We walked into the store, and I turned around to grab a cart, just in time to see the man walk in. My son saw him too. "That's not him, Mom," he said.

"It's him," I said.

"Pretty sure it's not," he said nervously.

The man approached me. "I actually am very sorry," he said. "I'm a father and a grandfather, and I'd have hated to cause any harm to your child."

"I appreciate that," I said. "I know that you didn't do it on purpose, but it seemed that you were blaming us, and that combined with the adrenaline response made me react more emotionally than I normally do."

"I understand," he said. "I really do apologize."

"It's OK," I said. "No harm was done." (Not 100% true. It's Sunday morning now, and my hand still hurts a little.)

"Thank God," he said. Thank God, indeed. The rest of the errand-running proceeded without incident.

*****

So it's Sunday afternoon now, and a long weekend, marred only by the parking lot altercation, is coming to an end. Like most other things that are supposed to be fun, the holidays are a source of anxiety and panic for me. I always think that there's something that I should do better, or more of, to make the season perfect for my family. But despite last-minute misgivings, the party was a success, and my Christmas shopping is underway.  My husband and sons are setting up the brand-new 65-inch TV that they just bought at Costco. The old 42-inch TV was just fine, but every few years, a new TV calls my husband and I can't do a damn thing to stop him from responding to the call. I'll be able to see the tape on Alexander Ovechkin's hockey stick now. It's just less than a month until Christmas.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning

Depression is nothing if not predictable. Not so much in when it comes back as in that it always does seem to come back. I don't like to talk about it anymore, not to anyone, so I just write about it here, and wait for it to go away.

When I don't want to get out of bed, and I don't want to do any of the things that I need or like to do, I make myself do them anyway. It helps a little bit. It helps to go out walking on Sunday morning and find that Running Lady is out running, and that Bike Helmet Guy is out for his morning ride, and that my neighbor is out walking the World's Happiest Dog. I don't really even know most of these people, but we always say hello because we're neighbors, and we like to be outside on Sunday mornings, even when it's cold. And you can't feel completely bad after two minutes with the WHD.

Another thing that's predictable: It always feels like it will never go away, and like the fog will never lift, but it always does.

*****
My younger son is a planner. He likes to be prepared. You never know, for example, when you might need a mini survival kit packed in an Altoids tin, or a large notebook and pens in every color, or a rolled-up towel, so he usually just tries to bring everything with him, just in case. He loves to go on trips and outings, and planning and packing are his favorite part of every trip.

We have to rein him in sometimes. Deep in the weeds of gathering every possible thing that he could ever possibly need, and in figuring out the perfect system for organizing and carrying it all, he will forget that one small 13-year-old boy won't enjoy a trip to Hersheypark when he's carrying a forty-pound pack containing extra socks and gloves, a freezer pack to keep chocolate from melting, a flashlight, and a water bottle big enough to sustain an expedition through the Gobi Desert. "Put that back," we tell him. "There are no circumstances under which you'll need a scientific calculator. And your fielder's glove is too heavy to carry all day."

I haven't been to Hersheypark since I was 15 or so. My son sent me pictures (he was invited to join a friend's birthday trip), and it's nothing like what I remember. But he had fun, and he bought king-size candy for all of us: A Mr. Goodbar for my husband, Reese's Cups for my other son, and a four-piece Mounds for me. I still have three left. So things can't be all bad.

*****

And I think that's all for now.

Seasonal

As I mentioned last week, I was thinking about buying a Surface. But I didn't want to spend so much money, so I decided to just stick with writing notes by hand or on my phone. I still wanted a smaller computer, though. Then I thought, a-ha! Chromebook! Much cheaper, and it will do everything I want it to do.

I came this close to buying one, and then I remembered that I have a 7-inch tablet that I hardly ever use.  It didn't seem right to buy another piece of technology when I already have something that's only a few years old. I bought the tablet in 2014, but it already feels like a relic of the Obama years. If I pulled it out of my bag at at meeting, someone would probably tell me that 2010 called, and it wants its technology back. Seven years feels like a long time ago; and it's a generation, in terms of popular culture and technology. So maybe I'll just be the quirky person who likes antique technology, like a Polaroid camera or an IBM Selectric. 

Or maybe not. I'm typing on this little on-screen keyboard, which I have to look at, because I can't touch-type without actual keys. I looked away just long enough to watch the Capitals score against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Anyway, it's not the best solution. The tablet, I mean. The Capitals beating the Penguins is always the best solution. The on-screen keyboard, though the predictive text feature is excellent, is still way too slow for me. I type pretty fast. The technology has to keep up. 

Enough of that. I'm back on the PC now, typing fast, but thinking not quite so fast. I found a 10-inch Chromebook that's not the prettiest device, but it might be small enough to carry and large enough to actually be useful, so it's a possibility.  The Capitals beat the Penguins 4-1.

*****
It's winter-cold now, after weeks of unseasonable warmth. I dread cold the way that other people dread root canal or an income tax audit. As a matter of fact, I've had a root canal, and it's not as bad as winter. But I had to do several outdoor things today, and it wasn't as bad as I expected.  So maybe I'm getting tougher with age.

*****
After a short beta test, Twitter has officially doubled its character limit from 140 to 280. Obvious twice-as-long-Trump-tweet jokes aside, this is bad news for an entirely different reason. I'm very good at expressing an idea in 140 or fewer characters. Very good. This isn't a boast as much as an acknowledgement that I have very few real skills; this is one of them, and now it's no longer relevant. Spelling, total recall of useless facts, and snappy comebacks are all I have left.

*****
Despite the cold, I took an early-morning walk this morning, because I get so little outdoor time during the winter work week. The air was cold and still, and it smelled like snow. Now it's 3:45 on Sunday afternoon and the pale sunlight is already waning. I couldn't live in one of those Scandinavian towns that gets four hours of sunlight a day. Winter has its charms, though. The sunlight looks pretty, filtered through the almost-bare trees, and it's kind of cozy in here. I'll write my next post on the Chromebook that I just bought.

More writing and reading

FRIDAY: I have a new notebook, and I LOVE new notebooks. I don't really like to write by hand. Well, I don't like to compose by hand. This morning, I had to write a note for my son, who had been home sick from school on Thursday (the first day of school he's missed in three years of high school), and all I could think about was how agonizing it was to write a whole letter by hand, on paper, with a pen.

I'd rather clean a toilet. Not even kidding. I hate to write notes by hand, and don't get me started about checks. I'll complain for an hour if I have to write a check.

But as much as I hate to write some things by hand, I like to write things down. There's a difference.

So I love notebooks. My handwriting, as you'd expect of someone who doesn't like to write by hand, is not very good. But a new notebook is a new start, and I always make an effort, during the first few pages, to write neatly, date pages clearly, and keep my notes organized.

*****
I went to a conference today, and didn't think to bring a computer, so I took notes by hand. The notebook being new, the notes are clear and neatly organized, with headings and dates underlined in red. I'll actually be able to read them later, which is not always the case with my handwritten notes.

*****
The conference was quite good; much better than I expected, in fact (but the session that I'd looked forward to the most was the least interesting of the day).

As at any conference, the air was thick with business jargon. I used to react to corporate jargon of any kind, from touching base to reaching out to stakeholding to paradigm shifting, with utter disdain. I say "used to," but that's not to suggest that I now use business slang, or even that I approve of it, but I've grown more tolerant and less judgmental. I almost misspelled judgmental right there--I keep wanting to spell it with an "E." So who am I to judge?

See what I did there?

Anyway, the boots on the ground and the level setting aside, sometimes business jargon (or jargon in general) arises from a genuine creative impulse to express an idea better--more clearly, or more vividly. Words like "administrivia" or "generica" start out as rather clever ways to express ideas for which a single word does not exist. They only become jargon when overused or misused. 

But some corporate slang starts out silly and stays that way.  For example, if you're planning a meeting, and you need a record of everything that happens during the meeting, then what you need is a note-taker, and not a "content capture guru." I mean, really.

*****
SATURDAY: I'm thinking about buying a Microsoft Surface. I need a computer that travels, because even the best notebook can't do everything. My son has a Surface, and I'm writing this on it now, just to see if I like the keyboard. So far, so good. It's not quiet, like my keyboard. But it's accurate, and there's a satisfying clicking sound as I type. I type pretty fast, so the clicking is pretty fast. It's fun. I'll have to try it a few more times. It's fun now, but it might get annoying.

*****

Regarding David Horsey: Yes, I'm late to this party. Yes, I know that he has already taken a well-deserved collective Twitter beating. And yes, I know that he has already apologized. But I'm going to pile on anyway.

Few people dislike Donald Trump and his snotty, supercilious lying liar of a press secretary more than I do. But I'm heartily sick and tired of hearing and seeing women attacked because they're women. Clever little trick, Mr. Horsey, of contrasting Ms. Sanders' appearance with that of the leggy model types that Trump would be expected to prefer over a "chunky soccer mom" like Sarah Sanders as a way of letting us know that your mean and stupid little column was really an attack on Trump, and not on women, especially the kind of women who have the nerve to take up space and to act and dress and look like mothers. But everyone with a brain knows what you really meant.

As the Internet says, we see you. I see you. A misogynist by any other name, even that of a Trump-resisting crusading journalist supposedly calling out the President's sexism is still a misogynist. And congratulations, too, on bolstering the narrative about the biased media. When my conservative friends point out the rampant sexism and misogyny of the left, using you as an example, then I'm going to nod my head and agree with them. Because they see you too.  Jerk.

*****
SUNDAY: Chunky soccer/swim team/band moms don't have all day to hang around blogging, so I'm going to wrap it up. Some weeks I think about a million things, but this week, I thought a lot about words; about reading them and writing them and reacting to them. It's good that I have a new notebook.