Antigonish

I like anti words. The contradiction contained within is delightful, forcing us to consider both the meaning and the not-meaning. Gonish is slang for being almost gone, or about to be gone. I'm in this state almost every day. This has actually been one of my big life learnings, that I'm often gonish, and Linda is often antigonish.

We found out about it when we were in the SCA, many years ago. At the time we had a faithful hatchback Honda Accord. An amazing amount of stuff would go in it, providing it was put there in a certain order. A very certain order. Which meant all the things that went into a bigger containers had to be put into it first so it could be put in the car. Which means those things had to be found and prepared, and packed and all that good stuff.

Once all the stuff was in the car we would be off to the event. Sometimes this would be a one evening affair in town, meaning not much stuff to take. Sometimes it would be a long weekend event in BC, or Washington, or even Oregon. To me this is a straightforward exercise. Hoping to be on site for a certain time, planning back through drive time, pack time, preparation time, and all that leads to a tidy schedule, with certain things done in an optimum order leading to us being gone with everything we need and no thrashing about. One could put it into MS project, though I never did (MS Project is the work of the devil).

There are some activities that support those objectives, and activities that do not. According to me back then, time spent on anything that did not support us getting out onto the road was time wasted. It could be done after we got back. After all, the task at hand was to get onto the road. Let's get on with it! Chop chop! as my parents liked to say.

Let us just say that Linda had a different view of it, one leading to a great deal of stress on occasion. Linda took a longer view, knowing that somethings still had to be done and doing them now made better sense overall, even if it slowed down the immediate activity of packing.

Plus there was the emotional needs thing, which I struggle to understand, even though I'm pretty sure my own emotional needs drive me to do things, though I have cleverly dressed them up in logical clothes. Linda needed to leave the house neat and tidy. She needs to not feel rushed, so she can work through the task at hand without feeling rushed.

Some people struggle with being a triathlete. Not the activities, all the stuff around the activities. They struggle to bring everything they need, and boy do we need lots of stuff, some of which is not obvious to outsiders. There are people that have, or could write an entire post about body glide. This is not one of my problems in life. There is a list. Much as I dislike xl when it tries to be helpful, it does lists really well. Complete with little check boxes if you want. Follow the list, pack things, check them off. Tick tick tick. Done. Go. I don't understand why some people have difficulties.

My take on things is that it's better to be early. Once there one can relax. Sometimes that means killing a bit of time in airports, or a coffee shop before an interview. That's fine, I seldom have difficulty amusing myself at such times. If you leave yourself lots of time, you'll catch the green lights. There will be no idiot in front of you in traffic. You'll find a parking space right away, or you'll make the transit connections. As soon as you're running a bit late, life starts to happen, and you get later. As witnessed in the drive to the massage today.

Other people I know run on their own clock. They get there when they get there, and it somehow all works out. I'm not sure what it would be like living with them, but I suspect I'd find it very stressful. This isn't quite Linda's thing. She likes being on time and even a bit early. It's just that, well, I don't quite understand what happens. What I DO know, and took me years to learn, is that trying to help is bad. Very bad. Extremely bad. Bad with a capital B.

So there we are. Antigonish and gonish. Still married after all these years. Which could lead me into a riff about marital happiness, but that's a blog for another time.

Oh, and yes, Antigonish is a nice little town in Nova Scotia. I've been there. My brother in law made us stop for Tim Horton's coffee as we were driving from Cape Breton to Digby.

No swim this morning. Last minute change of plans due to 2 lanes of McLeod Trail being closed, just where I would have to drive it twice. It's tough enough to get out of Talisman, make the U turn, and head north. We bailed. I'll try Thursday though.

Massage was a pummeling again, my legs were so tight. I nearly cried. My whole left ham was a huge knot. I think she considered it a professional challenge. Maybe it was the drive there. I had two Car2Go swiped out from under me as I was walking towards them. I really must start making reservations. Then since I was late I hit every light red. Every pedestrian cross walk, and nearly watched one woman get killed. I'm pretty sure the driver didn't notice her, and was probably wondering why I was stopped. She spasmed just as the car went about 5 feet in front of her, so I don't think she noticed till then.

Yoga was nice. Our class has the most musical Oms. Triangle pose did not love me but the rest was good.