Except 2020 has been anything but orderly. Things keep changing. But such is life. I know some people are pissing and moaning and complaining about the state of the world just now, as if the pandemic was put here to personally inconvenience them. That wearing a mask and restricting their activities is an unacceptable assault on their freedom. Some have made lemonade, setting their sails to the new direction of the wind as best they can. Others are taking advantage to get closer to their families, or getting various projects around the house done than they've been meaning to do for years decades.
As I've said, our lives haven't changed much. Linda passed her 3 year retirement anniversary this week and is loving every minute of it. She likes it so much she says she should have done it decades ago, except, pension calculations. The weeks/months since we got back from New Zealand in March have zoomed by, no pun intended.
Technically, I suppose, I'm not actually retired. There are people paying me to do things for them, and most would call it pretty dull work. I don't, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. However, this has been a long week of meetings. Really long. All of my work team mates are on vacation now till Jan 4 at least, and were desperate to finish off things before departing. Lots and lots of meetings, which displaced some of my actual deliverables. Video meetings are tougher than they sound. I had to put an extra cushion on the office chair.
Then there's all the stuff in between meetings, regular life stuff like going for a walk, important stuff like getting to the library before it closed for a month, and crucial stuff like making coffee. I had to hustle to get these things done, sometimes scrambling to be ready for the next meeting.
Now that almost everyone is away I have no meetings at all on my calendar for the next two weeks, unlike the 17 hours of meetings for work last week, plus another couple hours with our financial advisor. (SG, MK says hi!) By Friday afternoon I was a complete ball of frazzled. That might well have been a record for number of hours spent in meetings in a week, ever.
I've got lots to do over the next several weeks, even if the relevant documents haven't been formally approved. They won't change that much. I hope. It's the kind of work I like, puttering with queries and databases, fixing data, planning for migrations, making sure that there are no nasty surprises and that the documentation lines up with what the data actually says, and what we actually do/did what the documents say. It's kind of fun exploring a new database, as long as you don't have someone looking over your shoulder, asking questions, with an impatient clock ticking.
The plan is to dive in, after waking up, paying attention to Celina, and making/drinking coffee. Take a break after a while, have breakfast, clean up, work a bit more. Go for a walk near mid day when it's nicest out. Work a bit more in the afternoon. Work on blog and novel writing as the mood strikes. Domesticate a new tablet and figure out how it affects my photo work flow. Get out for more photos. Only 18,000 so far this year. It should be a lovely low key ending to the year. I hope.
You know that meme, someone saying, "hold my beer", then doing something stupid? I fear that 2021 is sitting there quietly, sipping a beer, waiting for their moment. The people that study such things were not surprised by the COVID pandemic. For years they've been saying something like this was coming. I'm wondering what nobody is seeing coming.
Lately the mornings have been clear. I enjoy watching the subtle shading of colour from the western dark sky to the gradual brightening of the eastern sky. Although that one morning back in October was pretty spectacular.
This is pretty much what we're looking at these days, though this is also from October.
Of the Day
Driftwood
Celina
Though for many people this expresses what they think of 2020
Paperweight
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