Monday, January 8, 2018

Learnin

Such a great movie.
I am a teensy bit smarter about poker now.

I will be a forever fan of Aaron Sorkin.
I love his screen plays.


























Also a huge fans of movies based on true stories.

~~~~~~~~~

Saturday was a learning curve.
I spent the afternoon dealing with crap in the garage (so that I can park in it.)
I took a load of Drew and Dani's things to Salvation Army Thrift, a load of glass recyclables to Heather who offered to look after them for me, a load of cardboard got prepared to be removed and four huge bags of plastic bags (what does one do with THOSE?) got moved to a new spot until I hear from someone who make a suggestion for 1000 Safeway bags. (Quit judging me.)

Still no way I can park in there though. It's still a transition place for old furniture that is in need of a new home.

Sigh.

I have a strong opinion on the stuff we save and accumulate.
A very strong negative opinion.

Needing a mind-cleanse from grouchy thoughts, I went to church.
Holy cow.
Must've been a New Year's Resolution for a million people to 'attend church more regularly'... because it was PACKED.

Which is always lovely.

On my way home I stopped in at London Drugs to pick up an Optical Audio Cable.
My TV in the media room needed this.
(Seriously. I cannot express clearly enough how much I hate having to set up the system in that room. Since I moved into my mom's house, it's been a Thing. It took two years to remove my dad's older equipment, replace it with mine, figure out how to make the surround sound work, how to get shaw cable, how to hook up the BluRay player. I had Geek Squad, brother-in-law, and finally Clint, sort it out for me after spending WAY too much money on gadgets and devices and universal remotes. It was all working fine when I moved upstairs. I had one good year. Hahaha.

Then in November, Clint borrowed the TV from that room, Drew and Dani set up THEIR TV in there, and when they moved to their own home, I had to start all over again.

I moved back down to the basement on Dec 1. And just got tired of waiting from someone to help me.



So I had to climb over the TV stand and back my rear into the tiny space that my dad thought would be ideal for keeping electronic equipment. 



The components are sitting on shelves that are 18 inches deep, in a cubby that is 30 inches deep, so once you (I) crawl in underneath the shelves, you squat on bended feet and lift you head up to see the back of the tuner/cable box, DVD player. Your (my) shoulders are wedged in tight. And it's pitch dark in there. So I have a flashlight in my mouth and my phone in one hand taking photos to send to Clint, with the cable in the other hand. 











The reception is terrible in the middle of the basement of the house. And it's especially bad in that tiny hole in the wall in the middle of the basement of the house.































I could not get any sound at all, so I went back into the cubby to see if I'd plugged something in incorrectly. I took photos again. 






























This process took over two hours.
I finally got it all to work.

Do I feel empowered?
Smart?
Capable?

NO.
I wish someone had done that for me.
I wish I didn't have to rely on myself to clean a garage and hook up surround sound.

I am obviously not a feminist. I'm totally OK dividing labor based on gifting, interests and experience. It's not so much that there are blue jobs and pink jobs. It's just that I know what my strengths are. And moving furniture or crawling into tiny dark spaces to connect wires ARE NOT ON MY RESUME.

Sadly, none of it works with a remote.
I'm back in the '70's where I have to walk over to the equipment and manually turn knobs and press buttons if I want to change the volume, watch a DVD, watch cable, watch Netflix.


























Anne with an E sounds great in surround sound.
























~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Today:





















































I LOVE that bookstore.
















And Fairhaven is a delightful little town. 

The workshops (5 of them in 5 back-to-back hours) were good. Some were excellent. Some weren't. 
But definitely an enjoyable way to spend a rainy afternoon.

There were 30 - 40 of us at the start of the day ... (90% were women over 40)
This is not a place to look for potential husbands who are handy with cables and brooms. 


.... and about 20 by the end.


I highly recommend events in this venue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Three things I'm thankful for:

1. Writers




2. Brick bookstores. (Actually, any bookstore.)

3. Friends with ideas of Fun Things To Do on Rainy Sunday Afternoons. 


Have a good week, friends,
xo

2 comments:

Tricia said...

Fairhaven looks like a delightful town. Traveling to Canada is still at the top of my dream list, right behind getting a travel trailer...I should probably put, "Get a passport", on the list too. I'm the one in charge of setting up tv's dvd players. etc in our family. I feel so powerful :)

ramblin'andie said...

Walmart has bins at the front of the store for returning plastic bags. Many grocery stores also have a smallish bin (looks a bit like a garbage bin) for returning bags and then they recycle them. Mission Thrift store in Langley (at the bus loop on Glover) is always putting out the plea for plastic bags (they recycle them instead of buying new ones to bag their items).

We tend to put a ton in our trunk and then spread the love so we don't feel too awful overwhelming the recycling systems all at once.