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Last week I mentioned I missed doing the “100 things to slightly improve your life” list. I thought to find a new list to try my writing skills upon. Karen (the dear!) suggested I try one of those memory books given to grandparents. For thems unfamiliar with these items, grandpa or grandma is given a book of questions to write for the sake of posterity. What an excellent idea! I went online and I found heaps. I found one titled “99 Questions To Ask Your Grandparents While You Still Have Time”. Never mind the implication I am that old or don’t have much time left. The questions were good, not only to write personal replies but expand into Spo-reflections on the topic therein. So here we go – ninety-nine questions to last me about a hundred weeks. Karen: have your people contact mine for reasonable attorneys fees.
- Which of your childhood memories was most meaningful?
This is a common question a therapist or analyst asks their client in the initial encounter. It is a good open-ended inquiry to see if the patient brings up good or bad memories, something vivid that leaps in front of the line, or even no memories at all. One watches closely the affect while the tell their tale.*
I have the good luck to have had a happy childhood full of wonderful memories of family doings and trip and holidays. In my case they all want to gush out at once like a group of eager actors as an audition. What leapt ahead of the others for me were the summers I spent with my family on my grandfather’s cabin-cruiser. I recall it was 45 feet long but from my youthful perspective it felt like an ocean liner. It was located out of Grand Haven Michigan. Most of the trips were up and down the western side of Lake Michigan going in and out of the various ports. It felt like sailing the seven seas; Lake Michigan felt like the ocean and I wondered what was on the other side. China perhaps, or exotic lands like Hanalee.** Maybe the lands beyond the horizon were more like what is found in The Odyssey- cyclops and Sirens that sort of thing. I was glad they weren’t on this side of the lake but it was nice to think they were there in principle.
My favorite spot on the boat was the bow. I sat at the tip like a figurehead. I bounced on the waves towards destinations unknown (at least to me). I would sit there for hours taking in the breeze and the sunshine. To this day whenever I need a happy spot I go back on the bow of the Charmar III (for that was its name).
When I die I want my ashes spread on the shores of Lake Michigan at sunset. I will return to my happy place and become one with it. Like Ulysses my life has been a long journey wanting to go home and in the end I will, doing daily to arrive at my personal Ithaka.
Tell me a meaningful memory of your own; it need not be a good one only memorable.
*It’s an interesting question to ask a date or a stranger at a cocktail party but don’t as it sounds too much like work. The person being asked is immediately wondering what are you up to and goes on guard.
**Later I learned it was only Wisconsin. I was a disappointment.
Urs Truly has some time on his hands. Work in MESA ended at five and the the ballet starts at eight.* It is too long a drive to go home only to turn around and go right out to drive to the show. I have a few hours to kill here. I thought of going to the DBG early and strolling about the place but I’m dressed for work and it would be rawther hot. Someone suggested I stop at Panera and sit a spell. For thems unfamiliar with the place, it is a soup and sandwich shop somewhat geared to portion control and more healthy menu items. They give you free cups for water and once served there is no pressure to scram. It should be good for ninety minutes.
When eating alone I often feel like Margaret Mead among the Bantus observing primal rituals and behaviors. No one pays any attention when you eat by yourself and it’s funny how people think you cannot hear them. I am overhearing two conversations on either side of my booth: a set of men and a set of woman. Both pairs sound to be students in their 20s. The men are boring; they are talking about a business project and when they aren’t it is sports. The women sound to be discussing a recent break up and whether or not it was her fault and the other is during her darnedest to convince the jilted one it wasn’t her fault because he was a ‘narcissist’. The jilted one doesn’t sound consoled nor convinced; she hints despite he took off she ought to text him. I want to turn around and tell the ninny not to but that would be tactless.
As I gaze across the restaurant nearly all the patrons look to be students well over four week and foreign They are speaking Japanese. They all have laptops and speak over or around them as if they are all playing ‘Battleship”. There is a table of a mixed couple and another one of a single man; all three are silent and engrossed in their cellphones. When I got up to fetch a fork I noticed the two young men sitting in the next booth discussing business are wearing headphones while they are talking to each other. Could it be their conversation is being done while listening to music? I didn’t get a glance at the jilted one and her advisor but I hope they aren’t on phones during this heart to heart.
At least it’s a quiet place. The Japanese speaking group isn’t a distraction as I don’t know Japanese. Only Girlfriend is nuisance as a) I can hear here and b) she keeps repeating the problem.
I have another hour to kill so not to be a hypocrite (I am on my laptop too) I will soon turn this off and pull out a book and read som. I may order something else not that I am hungry but to justify my being here. I could do some French lessons. Today I am learning body parts, the process is making me giggles for it resembles the language lesson scene from Shakespeare’s ‘Henry V’ but the other way around viz. what is the French word for hand, the fingers, the arm, the chin etc.
Panera has a decent tuna salad sandwich. Just don’t eat and type at the same time.
*The dears are performing out of doors at The Desert Botanical Gardens. This is normally quite pleasant provided it is not too hot. It is 33C which isn’t too bad by Arizona standards. All the same the patrons sit with chilled drinks and imperial tid-bits while the dancers run around in the heat. Hopefully the costumes are not too heavy. Bare chests and tights are recommended.
Duolingo is where I learn my language lessons. I don’t play video games but I am told the app resembles the game “Candy crush” in which people are placed in leagues and advance depending on how much you play. This stratagem appeals to our human nature for status. We want to be ‘on top’ as it were and I sense many at Duolingo are more interested in advancing (and staying) on top especially in the diamond league, the top rank. I give Duolingo credit for doing this; it keeps people online. Many times I’ve noticed I am doing lessons not to learn but to advance or stay in a league. I have to remind myself I am here to learn Spanish and French and review my German – not to play games. All said I am a regular participant and I have more or less stayed in the diamond league for some time.* Last night I finished #7 in the diamond league. This promoted me into some sort of tournament. It says if I stay on top in the tournament for three weeks I get some sort of prize, which looks to be a trophy sticker added to my avatar. Since I am now swimming with the sharks, I surmise I will have to do lessons almost every time I get a break lest I am ejected from the tournament and demoted to the lower league. It reminds me of how C.S. Lewis said the whole philosophy of hell rests on the axiom my good is mine and yours is yours; to be means to be in competition.
This is madness and I am not going to try. I am going to keep up my approach of doing lessons when I have the time/desire to learn. If I drop down I don’t give a tosh. I am OK with failure.
Americans are horrified by failure. We are told to always keep going and never give up and to do so is the worst thing imaginable. Failure means you are a weak character and of no value, in short you are a LOSER. I’ve been called a loser all my life, starting in grade school when I could not kick a ball or do a chin up to save my life. I stopped trying knowing at some level I didn’t want to or couldn’t or the effort would not be worth the pay off. In hindsight if I had kept trying I would be admired for doing so even if I didn’t do it.
I quit playing the piano after a lifetime of lessons as it grew to be no fun and it took hours to practice and what did I get for it all? I could play a decent Bach invention. There is value to this but apparently not enough to keep it going. “You quit?!” people say when I tell them.
This is called ‘The Sunk Cost Fallacy’ in economics and it applies to psychology. The dark side of ‘not quitting’ I see all the time in my practice: viz. people who won’t give up a job, a relationship, or a position as to do so people will see them as losers or quitters. Yet they are miserable and they know they are trying to fill a black hole.
I think people are beginning to connect the dots about quitting not as pathetic but perhaps life-saving. We need to applaud, not shame, others when they announce they failed at something so stopped.
This week I will do my lessons and focus on learning language. If I am ejected from the tournament league I will feel a little sting from a lifetime of being an American – but not much. I will be a Loser but only in their paradigm. In mine I am a Winner.
It is OK to fail folks.
Tell me something you failed at.
*Them who do not keep up enough XPs are demoted to the obsidian league. Oh the embarrassment. On the other hand I sense thems in the lower league are there to learn language not rack up XPs.
Note: This is one of those tongue-in-cheek entries The Bosses couldn’t decide whether or not it was serious let alone funny. Pour a shot of Alberta rye, take your Hudson Bay Company shoes off and decide for yourselves. Spo
Urs Truly regularly watches “Geography by Geoff” on The Tube of Yous. Mr. Geoff (who has no last name) regularly explains why more people live in ‘A’ compared to ‘B’ with A and B next to each other on a map. Recently he compared the provinces of Alberta (A) to Saskatchewan (B). Alberta has approximately 4x the population to its neighbor and why is this? Being a Yankee and completely ignorant of The Great White North I was keen to learn*
These two exotic faraway lands look to have lots in common. Both provinces were created about the same time in the early 1900s. They are square-shaped smack-dab in the middle of things and approximately the same size although Alberta has its southwestern corner nibbled off by moose or something. Both populations are suspicious of thems to the west and thems to the east of and both seem hellbent on becoming through politics two more conservative states of The USA. Tim Hortons restaurants reside in both thank goodness. Finally, like any two places who dislike each other, both take umbrage when mistaken for the other.**
So why the 4x difference in population? Mr. Geoff (who seems well over four feet) explains this is mostly about geography and resources alluring folks to move there. Alberta has lots of lovely minerals and oil fields that drew many more immigrants who settled into more cities which became nice enough places for thems who like nightlife, culture, and something to eat other than Tim Hortons. Saskatchewan on the other hand got the short end of the carrot for mountains and such. Rather it has lots of functional flat frontier farmland. I ask you: how many farmers can you squeeze into an acre? Farmers are generally quiet sorts well over four week who to themselves and are suspicious of city slickers. Compared to Alberta the cities of Saskatchewan are smaller, fewer, and without much to to offer – like my men.
Tourism makes a difference. Banff Alberta and the like make for a splendid holiday destinations. I went online to ‘tourism in Alberta’ and got a website filled with racy words like ‘bold’, ‘adventurous’, ‘free-spirited’, and ‘endless entertainment’. It also promises ‘you can get a little wild in Alberta’. On the webpage for Saskatchewan there is a photo of a relatively empty forest grove in which stands a smiling cowboy waving at me to come.**
Alberta also has an alcoholic advantage it makes lovely rye whiskies another good reason for people go there.
It shouldn’t count but it does and that is its look. Saskatchewan is a box made by bureaucrats for the management of property. The poor province had plainness put into it from get go.
Mr. Geoff explained the geography and he didn’t pass judgment. I don’t know if Saskatchewan is working on getting in more residents and/or tourists. It should campaign its quiet lifestyle to folks in PEI or Ontario who are in great need for rest. I reckon the cost of living must be a fraction compared to living in British Columbia. Alberta could also contribute by deferring tourists who got lost there thinking they were in Montana.
Maybe the main reason to move to Alberta and not Saskatchewan is the former is easier to spell. Every time I had to write out Saskatchewan I had to recheck the spelling.
I hope Mr. G tackles the population discrepancy between Ontario and Manitoba. Can you imagine?
*Most Americans if given a map of Canada and asked to name the provinces wouldn’t be able to do it. This is not just American ego-centrism (although that is most of it) as most Americans wouldn’t be able to locate and name the states either.
**When I’m out and about and people mistake me for an Ohioian I’m as outraged as when I’m mistaken for straight.
***If he’s there I’m going.
HJ3 is officially open! The thralls have worked tirelessly day and night to unpack the pods and get everything in place. The Board of Directors Here at Spo-reflections moved in last weekend to great pomp and ceremony looking like the finale of “Das Rheingold” minus its charms. Helga “Pippi” Long stocking conducted the traditional blessing ceremony consisting of pouring newly-made mead from a silver horn onto the dining hall floor and lighting the hearth. Oops! They forgot unlike HJ2 which had a earthen floor HJ3 has real oaken floors and the newly installed fire alarm system (my suggestion) was set off showering board members and their guests in a heavy water spray resulting in pandemonium and the arrival of the Time of Legends volunteer fire brigade and also the Furies (they like fires). Overall not a good sign I suppose but mercifully there was no shooting.
The Time of Legends Home Owners Association so you can imagine.
There are many new amenities besides proper floors and indoor plumbing. Some time is needed to instruct them on how to work the thermostat and what goes in the recyclables basket and where to hang the miscreants. WIFI is available throughout the hall although the oubliettes have spotty coverage. The WIFI HJ3 site is named ‘Deathfromabove’ although no one has yet to figure out the password. * The large front doors and drawbridge have an intercom for someone to inquire “WHO RANG THAT BELL?” for gentlemen callers. My favorite addition: I have my own work office specifically placed upwind from the main offices.
In HJ2 there was a large ash tree with a sword stuck in it growing through the living room floor. In HJ3 there is track lighting rather.
The large oak Board of Directors table went missing in the moving process. This is amazing as the thing is gigantic (made by giants) and it took a small army to lift and place it into the truck so what the hell? Until a solution is made the dears have to sit in a circle with nothing between them which is ticklish as everyone and everything below the waist is visible and Vikings don’t wear no undergarments. Oh the embarrassment.
What did come out of the moving process was a large stone statue. It looks like a man whose had a very bad life or perhaps it is a depilated orc. It is well over four feet about seven actually. No one knows where it came from; it was probably buried in one of HJ2’s back rooms and had been forgotten until the move. It was placed in the foyer and is giving everyone the creeps. Some suggest if you write its name on its forehead in Magic Marker the thing might come to life and do things and others suggest not doing that for the same reason. I just hope if it comes to life it doesn’t show up at one of the banquets singing mend your ways in E-flat. I know how that goes: soon everyone is dragged down to hell in a fiery spectacle and the place burns down and HJ4 will have to be made. Let’s hope any come-to -life statues are thwarted by the mentioned fire system.
It’s never a dull moment when you work for archetypes.
*The office email is TBDHSR@timeoflegends.zzz but I wouldn’t bother they can’t be trusted to read such.
I used to be an excellent listener but not so much any more. I have to be forever vigilant about listening. Bells and whistles and shiny bright objects want to distract me day and night from active listening. At work where listening is paramount there are even more challenges. While processing with the patient I have to type and look at the screen while writing a note. It is oh too easy to just look at the screen and not at the person in front of me. A good listener doesn’t interrupt yet it is tempting to cut patients off to start asking questions or focus them back to the topic at hand. After all I have twenty minutes to do everything, including the note.*
Conversations and good listening to non-patient types is most distracted by those damnable phones. If I want to listen to someone I make it a point to put the phone away preferably out of sight. Listening to another with the phone in sight seems to imply I am waiting for something that may arise more interesting than listening to you.
We all know when someone isn’t listening to us. Even a child knows when mommy or daddy isn’t listening. Being heard is something we all starve for and feel elated when it happens. Face it we all do this: while someone is talking we are in our own heads forming what we will say the second the talker stops talking. I’ve learned to pause a few seconds before responding and reflect back what I think I heard.
We still feel anxious when someone is talking they are asking us advice or to solve their problem. This is seldom what the talker wants or needs. They want to be heard and their emotions validated. “Yes” is a pretty good response to most things. Another modern myth is listening means agreeing. It does not. Any real hope of dialoging with someone with a different view rests on the starter they have been heard.
We are getting worse at listening to each other – just when we need it most. This week I am going to be especially aware of my listening skills (and challenges). It is a quality that needs guarding like a rare treasure.
*It is a common complaint from patients ‘doctors don’t listen’ which is true under today’s pressures and set ups. Doctors are anxious about staying on time and they think if they let the patient talk this will suck up all the time. It turns out if the doctor allows the patient to talk first this actually takes only a few minutes. The patient feels listened to and the work is done. What a relief.
Note: I started writing and this is what came out. The Muses I think subscribe to Apple podcasts or Spotify. Spo
Patience above! As I write this the Overcast app on my iPhone tells me I have 43 podcast episodes to listen to. I started to count total I subscribe to but I lost count after 100 which means I have about 150 podcast subscriptions. Some of them don’t post often and a few seem inactive but a most of them post regularly if not on a daily basis. Many of them are only a few minutes long. All the same this is a large of number of podcasts and more than I can listen to. I like educational podcast about history, astronomy, etymology, and the like. Some are comedy and a few are about the news. I got a few medical podcasts as well.*
I blame my Veeger-like mind wanting to learn and know as much as possible.** Every morning after I send out my good morning meme and read the ones I receive I have a look-see what podcasts have new episodes and then decide whether to delete them or no. Most I keep. Nearly every new episode tickles my greedy brain to learn.
The daily ones no more than five minutes are good for the drive to work. There is ‘Word of the day’, then ‘Saint of the day’, followed by ‘The Puzzler (a daily word puzzle)’. ”This day in history’ and “The daily brew” finish the commute and I’m at work.
The ones posting weekly remind me what day it is. A podcast on cheese and one called “No stupid questions” appear Sunday morning while “Obscure” (Michael Black reading a novel chapter by chapter) appears on Tuesdays. These help me know what day it is.
I prefer podcasts less than 30 minutes as the ones lasting 1-2 hours mean I have to listen to them in piecemeal and often I don’t remember what was already said.
Despite my zeal it is just not humanely possible to listen to all of them. The news podcasts are often deleted as the headlines are depressing. Episodes with titles that end with a question mark (Can we reverse the decline social interactions?) are deleted as nine times out of ten the answer is we don’t really know and time will tell.
I fast forward through the commercials and some of the slow talkers (‘Stuff you should know’) are played at 1.25x speed to move things along.
I try to finish all podcasts by Sunday night, even going so far to erase the ones I didn’t get to, to start Monday morning with a clean slate but also by Sunday night I am tired of listening and learning.
I seldom ‘just listen’ but walk or iron or fold laundry while I listen. Unlike time on Facebook or YouTube I don’t end an episode feeling like I should have been doing something else. Still there is a sense my attention is being sucked dry by these suckers.
I think I may try a week sans podcasts (that means without) to listen to some music, medical lectures, or better yet – silence. My brain hurts from constant listening and learning. If I can’t do this, I can at least stop finding new podcasts. I have more than enough.
*I am not a fan of the true crime podcasts, nor the type where the host and a guest gab on and on about things without staying to the topic of the episode. Oh the pain. Podcasts with a lot of laughter are tedious, as are the ones about current celebrities most I don’t know or care to know.
**Veeger is a reference to a Star Trek movie in which The Enterprise comes up against a mammoth mystery ship connected to the Voyager satellite sent out centuries ago ‘to learn all that can be known”. Some thoughtful race took this literally and connected it to a behemoth computer/ship and sent it back for the makes of Veeger to download the contents.
The past couple of days at work have been surprisingly sparse. Normally there is a long line of people waiting to get in but on Tiwsday and Odinsday my dance cards were half empty. This gave me time to think and write, two things I enjoy doing.
I reflected on the questions “What did I have to do to make my parents happy?” and its counterpart “What did I have to do to keep my parents from becoming angry?” The answer to the first question is a) do well in school and b) don’t be mean or thoughtless to others. Keeping things tidy made Mother happy, while doing yardwork was the way to a thumb’s up from Father. I didn’t feel pressured to do well in school, possibly because I always did well. I was a well-mannered thoughtful boy so that worked out well too. I was not always tidy nor willing to mow the lawn (hated that) but these deficits didn’t evoke any condemned-to-hell consequences.
“What do I have to do to make others happy?” in the present is an interesting thought. There isn’t any more school and if things become untidy no one gives a tosh (Someone doesn’t mind). At work what to do to make patients happy it’s being on time and a good listener – and not being a jerk.* Outside of work making others happy seems straight forward as Mother was right: don’t be mean or thoughtless to others.
I’m still not good at enduring people’s anger at me although I keep working on it. I care less and less about doing things to keep people from becoming angry other than not being a jerk, returning the shopping cart, and picking up after myself. Happily there is no more lawns to mow and I pay people to tidy up the outside. I fret some on the topic ‘what do the neighbors think?” about the derelict lightning system in the front yard and the house long over due for a paint job – but not too much as even if we fixed up the front the neighbors would still not like us.
It looks like Thorsday’s schedule is also light suggesting word’s out I am a quack. In the old days a half-filled schedule got my bosses fretting I wasn’t earning my keep although I felt more angry than worry given how much extra work I do and not get paid for it. The Overlords are a different sort of bosses: distant, uninvolved, and apparently uncaring about my daily doings so not to be worrying about them either. Funny how I worried about how to please the parents and now there are no parental figures to please.
*It is NOT just give patients whatever they want to despite what some wish I am not a waiter in a restaurant.
I enjoy history not only for the stories but for its lessons. The main lesson of history is people are the same throughout time and keep doing the same things. One of our repeating follies is the tendency to react to new situations using old approaches only to have them fail spectacularly. In new and unfamiliar situations traditions trump ingenuity and plasticity. WWI went longer than anyone thought it would as the first battles were conducted on horseback with drawn swords against newly invented guns leading to an entrenched stalemate until generals connected the dots to change tactics. I was recently reminded of The Battle of Crecy in which the minority English defeated The French on their own kabd as the French noblemen wanted to fight only with the other nobles while the English employed ballades of arrows from trained minions the French nobility on horseback (easy targets) dismissed as below them to fight. The Spanish conquisitors (who were only a few against an entire population) defeated the Inca and Aztec rulers who couldn’t fathom anyone daring to touch their god-king monarch persons.*
These are battle examples of losses whose leaders wanted ‘to do it by tradition’ rather than change to what was needed. When I lived in Chicago I joined the local denomination of my hometown church. The church was in its last gasps of life. What few remained were elderly members who always sat in the back and didn’t want to change or do anything new or different in order to get new members. Some of this I was racism that they were white while the neighborhood folks were people of color. The main reason was the traditional music, service, and social events were all old folk oriented. “You know they would rather see the place close than change to save it” the pastor once confided in me. And he was right. I didn’t stay and the paces folded. My mother’s long time neighborhood club went the same way as the elders objected to young ones coming in as they wouldn’t know how to play or might bring in their ways.
Medicine is unfortunately no different. Doctors still have to be dragged kicking and screaming to give up ‘time honored treatments” even when all evidence is against them.** Last year I attended a lecture on ‘the exciting brave new world things a-coming’ in psychiatry; you could feel the stiffening of the crowd as they reacted negatively to the concept of brain scans and IV-based treatments, along with the sensation most in audience were thinking they retire before doing having to change or learn these new-fangled things.
There is a sense today’s oldsters are not elders viz. sages to whom the younger ones should to turn to for guidance. Boomers seem self-absorbed and uninterested in helping the younger generations. However I must not be too harsh on today’s oldsters as refusing to change is seen throughout history as stated.
“It is custom” is something Someone and I say to each other whenever we don’t want to do something differently or when running up against a wall in getting someone to approach a problem from a different angle. “It is custom’ is a phrase I got from a book about a young traveler to an island in the South Pacific that whenever he wanted something done different (even a little thing like please don’t salt in my food) he was told ‘it was custom’. No one budged or thought ‘hey let’s give this a try”.
I hope I remain plastic as I age to go with the flow and change ways and beliefs when necessary. Tradition they say is peer pressure from the dead and I get tired of the dead telling the live ones how things ought to be done. Then again this is probably what all young people vow: they won’t become their parents and then they do. It would be nice to discard dead old ideas in us to go towards a future free of custom and traditions that serve no more.
Can you share a belief or custom you have been able to give up or one you struggle to give up?
*In both cases The Spaniards did so and it ended badly for the so-call god-kings.
**Usually they do so passively viz. insurance companies and/or laws are passed forcing them to change thing they wouldn’t do on their own.
Note: The Board of Directors Here at Spo-reflections were a bit puzzled by this one. The subject of laundry is of little interest to them as they lack experience. When something becomes too foul even by their standards they tend to just get new garments. There is no dry cleaners in The Time of Legends. The pokes at Someone are not to be taken too seriously; he is well over four feet and no he’s not planning on leaving despite our divided opening on the use of Chlorox for colors. Spo
I remember my father the attorney once had a case involving two parties who apparently went bezerk over an argument how the laundry was to be done. It probably wasn’t the real matter to the suit but the breaking point. However if I was on the jury I would be lenient knowing opinions on how to deal with the dirty duds is an invidious subject often leading to violence and spilled bleach. There is the ‘right way’ which is usually yours and the ‘wrong way’ which is your mate’s. This could lead to domestic violence and if all goes well divorce and setting fire to public buildings.
A while back I heard a podcast in which some great laundry expert recommended with today’s washer machine technology and garments one can usually wash everything on the ‘speed’ cycle in warm water to save time and electricity and water. The amount of needed detergent is a fraction of what the good folks at Tide tell you to use. I tested these ideas and lo! a fraction of soap in a 15 minute-long washing came out fine. Someone finds this approach nonsensical if not dangerous; when he washes clothes he sets things on the regular cycle (about fifty minutes) with cold water and a full cup of detergent. What we need is a double-blind study supervised by the UN, washing half the socks my way (the right way) and their fellows his way (the wrong way). Until science proves me right I’ve taken over the laundry – which is a mixed blessing as I am doing it the right way but dammit I am doing all the laundry.*
I am Sorting Master in charge of the clean clothes going into His, Mine, and Ours piles. Someone takes an item out of the hamper, folds it, and places it accordingly and I do it the right way: dumping the pile and first sorting them into proper taxonomy of T-shirts here and sock over there and then fold them. We tend to undo each other’s means to fold T-shirts as not acceptable to the other.**
In matters of ironing, I defer to Someone who does a much better job than I. I what I call ‘good enough’ ironing, which I do every Sunday morning until my shirts are done and hanging in the closet. He tends to iron a shirt the morning he needs it and leaves the rest in the large clothes hamper which mocks me daring me to do something about it.
I suppose I should have asked a few logical questions when I met him but now it is too late. I am Laundry Master and Sorting Master and Iron Master (sometimes) which has to be until Someone learns to do things correctly.
We have some things in common: bleach for the stinky socks and funny little pleasant smelling ‘beads’ for the Spo-shirts. Jolly good fun,
*In his defense I generate three times the amount of laundry. I regularly go to the gym and take walks and I am a dirty beast at baseline. Someone doesn’t dirty anything.
** Open my clothes drawers and you will see the socks are in semi-rolls like upside Us which allows an immediate visual inspection and ability to pick a pair from the rows. The T-shirts are folded the same way. Someone puts his Ts laying on top of each other so you only see the one on top. Oh the horror.
Spo-Reflections 