Category Archives: Summer 26

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🤯

I have known one of my bowling teammates for nine years this fall. She is a professional musician and also chaperones travel for students, so I’ve not bowled with her this season due her summer commitments. She hurt her back this morning, and I asked her if she would still consider coming to league because I hadn’t seen her in two months.

She wound up bowling with a 6-pound ball. And she’s so funny and zany that we all had fun with her.

I told her that I had to tell her something that was pretty awful.

I got to the part wherein I told her that my ex said that she could hold space with me when I was in a bad mood because she trusted me enough to know that if she had anything to do with it that I’d bring it up and that I told her that if there was a chance that I could contract HPV that would definitely impact my mood.

I told her that was when my ex exploded.

She said, “I’m going to stop you for a moment. 1. You’re always have the right to ask any questions that when answered may affect your sexual health. 2. Going dark on anyone is not ok.”

I don’t know why dialing it in so specifically blew my mind. It did.

I said, “And she was my girlfriend. And an anchor partner.”

I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it had to do with you’d never do that with anyone, and the least of which would be anyone that you called a partner.

🤯

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Tech

My schedule is so, so light in June and July. Thus, my solo vacation at the end of spring and then yardwork alongside catching up other things in a house that is too big with too many pets and a mostly disgusting 20-year-old man.

I teach ONE class and it’s a very low lift.

Today, I have exchanged almost an hour’s worth of emails with a student who is applying for a national credential.

The culprit?

Flat versus completely fillable PDFs.

And this particular student is extremely detail oriented. I’m hit or miss with that feature. Sometimes I figure, “Well, this effort will have to be good enough!”

I signed and dated the form and when I sent it back because her field supervisor didn’t have a verified email address it wasn’t an electronic signature on the form. She’d typed her name. Therefore, Adobe erased her information. She had also only checked two boxes instead of the five which are required on the form from the field-based supervisor.

I can type her name with other features and can’t check the boxes because they’re now flat.

The demographic information also disappeared.

I want to hop on a Zoom with the student to determine what’s acceptable for her in her own estimation to turn into the national credentialing board.

I think that there’s this battle during this moment in time with more archaic software platforms and going fully artificially intelligence based. That means that occasionally software that had been used for years–like Adobe Reader–you have snafus that are difficult to correct.

I’m so glad that I’m not at my day job and am giving up my lunch to fight with a PDF!

And I’m secretly hoping that when I am done with the five classes that I have to take and start my own practice that a majority of my clients are the analog people who want to meet in person in the office that I can sublet!

Do you have any funny or frustrating technology stories to share?

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Coffee

It’s happening. And this woman is beyond cautious. She may give me a fake name.

It’s not like I don’t get it on some level.

Personally, I have gotten really adept at spotting romance scammers. I’ve been dating online for a year and have worked with this matchmaking service for six-months.

Now, I understand why the service said that our tapas thing last week (when a tree fell on her car) had a reservation under the concierge’s name.

She likes incognito.

Giving me her cell phone number would be a no fly zone for her, which is why she wanted to move to Google Meet with me. I think that I’m all set with any Google Meet dates regardless. They remind me of working.

The coffee is pretty late–10:00, so I won’t be having any. I try to be done at that time and during the academic year, I like to be done drinking coffee by 9:30. In fact, I am going to bike and then change. Then I’ll order something caffeine free that comes in a ceramic cup.

We find each other by what we’re wearing that day. I have to announce my outfit in the correspondence. I’ll put my purple dress and sandals with heels in my panier and bring a comb. I don’t wear a ton of makeup, so it will be fine.

Writing it out is helpful. I will leave to bike there a bit before 9–it’s not far from my house.

So, I’ll get there about 9:30. I’ll change. I want to have coffee in something not disposable. She’ll get a lot of information about me.

I’m definitely not cautious.

After I got divorced, I realized how much I love people. And I particularly love them 1-1.

Like any typical Virgo, I do have very high standards and they’re only for myself.

Ergo, I bike. I don’t like disposable cups and that seems really odd to have one when you’re consuming something in an established place.

Whatever you want to do is fine with me, because it doesn’t really affect me.

I made some grilled chicken chimichurri last night and cut up a tomato and put salt, garlic powder and some dried basil that I pinched into a fine dust on the slices. Then I arranged butter lettuce leaves on the bottom of my salad bowl, laid tomatoes on them, put sherry vinegar on it and olive oil on the lettuce. I took it over to my best friend’s house. I’d not seen her in ages. It had probably been late fall. She travels to different parts of Asia in January with her husband.

I told her the whole story about Scorpio and then about my coffee date that my date didn’t want. This date is a dinner person. Holding firm about coffee for a blind date is my statement. Let’s get to know each other in a low stakes environment. My best friend loved that dinner didn’t happen because nature intervened.

I’m getting better. Yesterday, I listened to “Downfall” too many times on repeat; however, I’m doing better for the most part.