Gotchu Boo!

The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies. - Neil Gaiman

While 'tis the season, it seems like we should talk ghost stories.

People tell me things. A lot.  A majority of the time, actually, they're asking me things because they're mistaking me for someone who knows or is willing to help them.  Which... ok. Sometimes, but not always.

But a respectable amount of times they tell me things and then look embarrassed and say, "I don't know why I told you that..." e.g., "I've always wanted a dolphin tattoo and my family would totally disown me if I did that because Reasons." Um, I'm sorry to hear that, nice grocery clerk lady, you're really nice and you should get a tattoo if you want one, without having to deal with familial repercussions like that... Some stories, I can't tell because people have asked me not to tell them because they're their stories and fair enough. 

The rest of them? WELL.  

When I was in college, I had a friend who made us run about a mile and a half through the woods because she was really insistent something was following us.  Which, suppose it's possible, we were in the woods south east of Olympia and there can occasionally be predators out there, but... generally running is the wrong response (because predator thinks 'yay! prey!')... she was *super* freaked out.  We got to the car fine.  In the car, she started telling me that aliens had kidnapped her former mother-in-law.  Great detail about weird disappearing in the woods and whatnot.  Her former mother-in-law had reappeared, and just wouldn't ever talk about what happened.  Who knows?  

Another friend told me about seeing floating lights in the woods.  I've been told about being tucked in as they were falling asleep by prior residents of houses.  Apparitions of domestic violence incidents.  And more.  I generally get one to two of this type a story each year.  

And here's the thing about these stories - these are not stories where people are pulling my leg.  I know when they're doing that.  Something happened, they don't know what it was, and our minds being human minds, map the experience to something that seems to fit the bill.  Humans really want things to *make sense*.  And things that we experience don't always make sense.  Sometimes there's things we really don't have a framework for what we experienced that helps us with our sense making.  

And most of the time people preface this with, I haven't told anyone else this because they'd never believe me.  And I'm (almost) always curious enough to find this irresistible to follow up with, "... oh yeah?"  I should really start making notes on the things people tell me a little closer to when they tell me, while the memory is fresh in my head.

Do I know what happened?  Nope!  Do I believe that they know what happened?  Not necessarily.  Do people need someone they can share these stories with who won't judge them?  Yep.  Am I always the right person?  No, probably not, but sometimes they know they can tell me and it's out before either of us catch it... but I still find their stories fascinating, most of the time (when I'm not, I can shut down the discussion pretty quickly). 

Love, Boos, and Curiosity,
--Susan

It's October! <3

You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing. - Hélène Cixous

Finally, finally, finally there's rain on the roof!  It feels like it's been forever since I've heard rain on the roof. 

This week I've been thinking quite a bit about... well, stuff that doesn't make for very interesting newsletters.  I got hit by a Microsoft Update bug (they've fixed the release since), but it wiped out nearly two days of work because it hit around 50K people and IT was swamped with people. Yesterday was useless trying to get in line.  I went straight there this morning, and was told it was a four hour wait, so you can imagine my delight to hear my name after not quite two hours!  Lots of people thought they'd come back later or something and missed hearing their names called, probably 20-30 of them, so... yay me!  And then the rest of today I spent setting up my computer again. I think everything is mostly in place at this point. 

I guess the other thing that I've been thinking about this week is the nature of change.  You can't really control it, so you just have to hang on and kind of go with it and see where it leads you. 

Noodling around as M2 has been reading the Odyssey for English, I learned something I didn't know about Medusa.  She is, of course, the mother of Pegasus and Chrysaor, born from her neck after Perseus cut her head off. Pegasus went and lived on Olympus and brought Zeus the roar and death stare from Medusa when he wanted them.  Which is to say, thunder and lightening.  Lol - and right on cue, there's some thunder and the rain pours harder... Anyway - who doesn't freeze in their tracks - at least a little bit!? - when a bolt of lightening or a roar of thunder catches them unaware?  At the moment, I'm totally enchanted by this idea that thunder and lightening are Medusa's roar and stare.  

Mmm. I keep getting lost in the sound of the rain. Rain and change and change and rain and the only thing that can be done is to identify the next small step in the right direction and just keep on moving. Which is pretty much always the case after all things are always changing and there is always only the eternal now. 

With love and rain and curiosity,
--Susan

The Cat is OK

“We turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are, and what our relationship is to life and death, what is essential, and what, despite the arbitrariness of falling beams, will not burn.”  -- Madeleine L'Engle

I spoon fed her all weekend because she just didn't want to eat.  There is a song that goes with spoon feeding a cat and apparently now I sing it absentmindedly to myself when I'm deep in concentration - I caught myself singing it to myself when I was down in the weeds of a taxonomy question today.  Monday I took her to the vet because not eating is problematic for cats, and spoon feeding a cat is problematic for me in terms of time management and interest level.  Even with a song to sing while I do it.  It's boring and sort of annoying for everyone involved.  

And so the vet checked her out, took some labs, like you do... and pronounced her fine just not eating.  We came home with a prescription for a cat anti-anxiety/depression that also works as an appetite stimulant. Before I gave her her meds, when we got home, Lissa Tortilla The Cat got the heck out of her carrying case, promptly ate a good bit of food, went and drank a bunch of water, then walked down the hall to M1's room.  I let her in to look around and reminded her that M1 was at college.  She made one last check of the room looked at me, and I could almost see her shoulders slump, and she went back to her cozy spot in the living room and went back to sulking.  It was so sad.  She misses her person. 

The meds are doing their job though and she's more back to her usual self than she's been in a while. Like pretty much since M1 started packing in earnest. And the best part is that her dosage (a ridiculous 1/8th of a tiny pill every other day), can be stuck in a fabulous extra tasty cat treat and I don't have to spoon feed it into her!  Worst case, the eighth of a pill can be mashed into a terrible tasting powder and wiped off one of her teeth or her tongue or the inside of her cheek and she can't spit it out.  Muwahahahaha.  

So that was my Monday.  Most of the rest of the week I've been trying to figure out how to explain to people the difference in how you tag for a team that produces a product and the product itself.  Conceptually the team is different from the product itself and it seems obvious but apparently it's not obvious and my job is to help them.  I *think* I have an answer to propose tomorrow, but it requires reconsidering a different part of the taxonomy that we've been discussing. I don't think it's been built out yet? But anyway.  It's the sort of thing that causes people's eyes to get wide and they slowly start backing away. 

Someone accidentally saw the corporate taxonomy today and said, "that looks like something an accountant would make. It doesn't look very user friendly" - which with over 75K terms, no, it's not, and it's not meant to be, it's meant to be system friendly, which it is.  And terms don't live in a place that mapped to his mental model (because big org mental map is wildly different and way more comprehensive than one relatively tiny area of the org).  So I said, it's pretty complex, it's supporting a lot of different things and it's architected in a very specific way based on very granular definitions, and as he was backing away, he says, "Yeah, it starts out seeming obvious but it gets heavy really quickly."  :D  Yes. That's what I love about it.  So much love for this stuff (even if sometimes helping people understand why and how to break things apart so we can put them back together in different ways...  It's... what I do.

Which is way more than I had intended to talk about the information management part of my world.  But there it is.

With love and categorically delightful curiosity,
--Susan

Settling Into a New "Normal"

I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what's comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes.  
-- Amy Tan

It's a stretch to call my little family "normal" in the best of times, but here we all are, adjusting to our new weird. :)  Going pretty well, all things considered, so far. 

This week, I've been thinking about routines and habits and what happens when they get shifted.  

I've been keeping a close eye on one of our cats, Lissa Tortilla.  She's normally super food motivated but sometimes she "goes off her food".  Sometimes we've been able to figure out why-ish, and sometimes not so much.  This time, I think she's pining after M1.  She'll eat, but only if I've been petting her and sitting with her... I've been calling it purr therapy.  I think I under-estimated how much attention and how closely bonded M1 & Lissa Tortilla are/were.  Lissa's lying over on her heated pet bed with one leg hanging out, ever so relaxed right now.  

Yes, I know cats not eating is problematic for a lot of reasons, and because she does this we have a routine with the vet (and we've been this >< close to calling the vet and then she perks up again), but this too is becoming a routine that bears paying attention to.  So watching and waiting, with plenty of chin and belly scritches and ear rubs and brushing and whatnot.   

I think animals, and probably plants and mycelia, all have way more emotional lives than we give them credit for. I get not anthropomorphizing things (not that it stops me), but bonding and pining is bonding and pining...

Same too, walking down a hall towards a bedroom that used to home a person who is now having her own adventures. Who do I watch youtube with now!? Is just not the same watching them alone! 

And some things are... slowly shifting. Maybe? Except that there's an M2 in the house who is now in high school and homework is still a thing so late nights are still a thing so that getting to bed earlier is... slower than maybe I anticipated, but then again, sneaking suspicion. I've never been a morning person... 🦉

With love and curiosity,

--Susan

Ready or Not

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our ... We are made of starstuff. - Carl Sagan

I just left my oldest at college for the first time.  Sort of Captain Obvious, part of having a baby, is that you don't really know quite what you're getting into, even though it's pretty obvious, duh, you're having a baby.  But what exactly that means isn't entirely apparent until you're deep in the thick of it.  Leaving a kid at college for the first time is the same way - you know it's coming, you're kind of excited, kind of dreading it, and you don't really realize exactly what it means until you're in the thick of it and even then when you say it out loud... it's like... well, right, we knew that...

There are things that you "know" and things that you *know.* So one of the things I've been pondering this week has been embodied knowledge.  You can know what is involved in having a baby/leaving a kid at college, but there's the embodied knowledge of coming home and seeing the detritus of not quite having the ends wrapped up, there's the tears that well involuntarily when a band she likes comes on, there's the empty room, the cats staring reproachfully about their missing chin scritches... Is all obvious and yet...

I'm sure I heard this idea from elsewhere, and I can't remember where. I think about it a lot.  Having kids is like wearing your heart on your sleeve.  And even more than wearing your heart on your sleeve, it's like setting your heart free to wander out into the world.  The embodied knowledge of what it's like to send the hearts of your heart out into the world... Oof. It's a big thing.

Walking across the campus, which was at one time also my campus, I crossed upon a bronze compass plaque.

A swirly leaf footprint next to it is mine walking along absent-mindedly, marching myself back from the furthest away parking lot to the dorms. Brain says, whuwhuwhuwhoa, there, backup!  Wherever you are, if you pause and take a breath and look around, there is always a guiding star to help orient you.  Sometimes you don't even have to pause or be paying attention, if you need it, it's right there and will catch your eye or the tiniest bit of your attention and snap your head right back to it.  

I see so many indications that we've given her the tools to find her own guiding star/s, and also indications that she must still grow into her ownership of being the one who finds her own guiding star/s.  We are each our own stars, each borne of stardust, from whence we came and to which we will return. This is how it is, time and time and time again.  So many star hearts running all over the world!  ✨💕✨

Just like there are things you 'know' and things you *know* - the same is true with being ready.  What does it mean to be ready?  I so often want a solid plan, at this point I've learned though that even the best laid plans are sometimes thrown to the wind in the face of reality. You can think you're ready and... is anyone ever really ready?  I think sometimes yes. And sometimes... with joyous wonder and curiosity, you just have to be unready in the moment and allow everything to unfold in its own time. 

With love, and joyous wonder of curiosity, and maybe just a bit of stardust in my eye (so dusty in here lately!), 

--Susan  

Love

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. -- Carl Sagan

M2 is reading parts of Edith Hamilton's Mythology, specifically tonight on the creation myths of the Greeks. This jumped out... "Love created Light with its companion, Radiant Day... With the coming of love and light it seemed natural that the earth also should appear." There. *Love* created the world. Best creation story ever.
 
I kind of just want to leave this whole newsletter with that thought. Love created the world. 

But this is the power of stories. Cosmologies and mythologies and theologies all tell stories of why and how things came to be, how things are, why they are, and give advice on how one might (and might not) successfully navigate the uncertainties oif life. The beginning of this particular cosmology is love. Granted, it's Greek mythology and things go sideways pretty quickly, but still. It starts with love.

💕

Atypically, this is a classic book on the topic I have not read yet. Not that I've read everything, far from it (#goals, y'all!), so I think my reading list just shuffled this to the top to see what other bits of loveliness and wisdom she casually drops into the midst of all the goings on...

With love and curiosity and an ever growing reading list,

--Susan

Wonder

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. -- Socrates

Back to school, going to school, fall is coming!  

So what have I been thinking about this week?  Wonder.  I was walking the other day and contemplating, as I do when I walk, and I started thinking about wonder.  Both the awe-filled state of wow! as well as that state of wondering and curiosity.

I was thinking about this in part because I was so fascinated by the picture of the back of my eye at the eye doc's, and how weird it is to adjust to new glasses (3-D is bizarre!), and really it just sort of spirals out from there because the eclipse and the universe and the world and the big things are so huge and complex and the tiny things are so tiny and complex!  There's really never any end of things that I can find to wonder about.  Curiosity and wonder go hand in hand.  

As I was flipping through my cards looking for something to send to a friend (hey, I have good intentions!), I found a card that was decorated with the quote, "Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. --Socrates."  Which then gave me occasion to wonder about that, but without that spark of wonder, that leads to curiosity, which leads you to wanting to learn more... of course, how else would you progress to wisdom?

And of course there was an eclipse.  What was most amazing to me was how bright it was with 94 or 95% of the sun obscured.  Just the tiniest sliver of the sun was visible and... still really pretty bright!  The other thing that sort of surprised me was how many people reported feeling really emotional about it.  Like the disappearing of the sun was really unsettling.  There were actual astronomers who talked about this effect as well.  And on the third hand... I shall come in again. Another other thing that surprised me was how many people left right as soon as the peak of the eclipse was over.  That's like leaving at the half time show!  People are so strange sometimes.

So, that's what I've been wondering about this week.  How 'bout you?

With love, wonder, and curiosity,
--Susan

Smoky

Every day that I cross the bridge from one side of the lake to the other, I wonder if this is what it was like to live in industrial era London, where the fog, as often as not, was mixed with horrible pollution.  At least for us, it's supposed to clear up with a weather change in a couple days.

Those who see the cosmic perspective as a depressing outlook, they really need to reassess how they think about the world. Because when I look up in the universe, I know I'm small but I'm also big. I'm big because I'm connected to the universe, and the universe is connected to me. -- Neil deGrasse Tyson

Every day that I cross the bridge from one side of the lake to the other, I wonder if this is what it was like to live in industrial era London, where the fog, as often as not, was mixed with horrible pollution.  At least for us, it's supposed to clear up with a weather change in a couple days.

A week ago I went in to see the eye doc for the first time in four years.  I know.  That's too long.  But there were complications with getting in.  For the first three years I just didn't catch the passing of time... and then the changes in my eyes got so noticeable that I started realizing oh, it's time to get back in... and I finally got there. 

They didn't dilate my eyes for the first time ever!  They asked if I wanted the new technology, that would cost $25 more and insurance wouldn't cover - they take a picture of the back of your eye bulb without dilating them.  Then they can keep the image on file and compare next time.  A picture is worth at least a thousand words!  So I took that option.  

Six total pictures, three for each eye (well, four for one and seven total because I blinked in one because bright flash of light!). I told the eye doc that I was glad I didn't have to get my eyes dilated, I think last time I accidentally kicked and/or hit the eye doc because reflexes.  She laughed and said it happens all the time.  Then I made her explain the images to me and what she was looking for and seeing.

Y'all -- it was so cool!  She looked at the blood vessels to see that blood flow was good (it was), she pointed out that all of the blood vessels flowed to the center of my eye, the optical nerve.  She pointed out the macula - the point in the eye that actually "sees". I was surprised that it was not as near the optical nerve as I thought it would be - she said the optical nerve actually is a blind spot which is why the optical illusion discussed in this article works.  I highly recommend it, mostly because it's really fascinating to see the back of your own eye bulb.  They tried to give me logic beyond that, along the lines of this one patient who got it done left the office, and came back within five minutes with a tear and they were able to see exactly what had happened, which yes, and yes it's good to see changes year over year, but really?  For me?  Just really neat images. :) With other relevant benefits. 

With love, a new glasses prescription (the better to see you with, my dears), and curiosity,
--Susan