Continued Confessions

will I ever run out?

The saying I recall from childhood is “The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley” but when I now google it, the words are slightly different. But the meaning is the same, and I have always loved the “gang aft agley” part the best. I’ll leave it to you to do further research if you want. But I have been thinking about it in conjunction with another aphorism I learned when married to a sailor as well as working in the anti-submarine warfare industry: “Proper preparation prevents piss poor performance.” And while checking to be sure that I have used the word aphorism correctly, the example given was “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” All three of these long-lasting sayings have been active in my life recently.

First of all, I was excited to have paying work which would involve traveling to a probate court which does not have open internet access. After enjoying a thoughtful holiday on Monday remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. and avoiding any commercial enterprises, I had planned to do the probate work on Tuesday morning. But previously on Saturday, I had attempted to send in another report through cyberspace and failed miserably. For some reason my regular ability to generate a form to compile my findings had disappeared. I spent a frustrating hour or more trying to figure things out, but because that work wasn’t due until Thursday, I put it off and planned my journey for Tuesday. The next glitch was waking up on Tuesday morning to the first somewhat major snow storm, and with a flexible due date for the probate work, I put that off. So back to trying to figure out the computer crap. All I can say is that I wish technology would stop updating everything almost without any input from us users. I had personally upgraded to a fancier laptop last year and spent enough time to get familiar with what I needed to continue providing the excellent service to my clients for which I am known. When it is no longer fun, I wonder why we can’t put some brakes on changing everything all the time. Some of us think we were doing just fine with pens and paper! Of course, I am not a complete luddite. I am super impressed with my Kardia mobile app with which I can track my Afib on my phone. So there’s something to be said for these modern inventions. But perhaps we’re getting too big for our britches, another aphorism, I guess.

And again in terms of proper planning, sometimes it seems I do better by just going with the flow. For instance, on Tuesday I just stayed in the house not worrying about anything beyond working on the computer. At some point later in the afternoon, I heard quite a racket outside but again didn’t think it concerned me. I found out a bit later that some kindly soul had completely plowed my driveway and shoveled my sidewalks and steps too! If the mystery is solved, I’ll update you. So with the ability to exit the house on Wednesday, and the roads being mostly clear, I set off to the probate court which was almost an hour’s drive., I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the snowy countryside and actually ran into another Title Searcher at the Town Hall so we caught up after quite a few years of isolation. And it happens that I am a member of the food coop in that particular town and was able to stock up with my anti-inflammatory dietary needs. A good day all around.

Now I am back to saving democracy by watching the highly informative discussion between Asha Rangappa and Scott Shapiro on The Freedom Academy. I am halfway through Scott’s amazing book entitled Fancy Bear Goes Phishing which I referred to in a previous post. Both Asha and Scott teach at the Yale School of Law, so I feel extremely privileged to be able to digest their online content. The book is teaching me so much about the internet and cyber security (or lack thereof) and the discussion helped solidify some of the concepts. This ties in to the idea that democracy needs saving because of the incredible amount of disinformation now available on the internet.

A final note on people who are still alive and navigating this new world. Shirley MacLaine sends me a ShirleyGram filled with mostly good news about our world, and I’m glad she is still contributing to the dialogue. Her January/February letter is filled with a great deal of information and hope. I recommend subscribing (which I’m pretty sure is free since I have been on her list for quite a while) but check it out for yourself, particularly you animal lovers. I’ll end for now with another British fave, TTFN (which is ta ta for now in case I haven’t defined it before).