The Triangle of Life

Company owner #1 e-mailed me a new landscape plan to bid on.  I took a look at it, but it doesn't have nearly as much information as I need (i.e. it had no irrigation information at all).  I typed up my questions, e-mailed them to owner #1, and asked if he could answer them or if I'd need to e-mail the landscape architect.  He told me to ask the landscape architect.  I accordingly e-mailed my questions to her.

After I e-mailed the landscape architect, owner #2 replied that the landscape architect didn't design this plan and that I should send the questions to the project developer.  I did so.

The developer replied that owner #1 and the landscape architect would be "the best source of information".

Sigh.

Face-palm.

(Instead of a triangle, you can picture this as a flow chart in which all options lead back to me, the guy with the questions in the first place.)

Cheep Jokes

As I am a luddite, I don't use Twitter.  I hear a lot about it, though.  I think of lots of questions.

Are people who use Twitter called twits?

Or, based on the company logo, are they just bird brains?

Could you say that users are twitterpated?

The Moody Blues

I've been getting through this week okay.  Last week, I had my brothers and my friend Gimpy to distract me.  This week, the house looms quiet.  (And, considering what introverts my mom & I are, saying that the house is even quieter is saying something.)

I phoned my buddy Robomarkov the other night, in the hope that some conversation about anything would distract me from my new orphanhood.  It worked fairly well, except for when he was discussing his elderly cat who seems to be in decline.  (It sounded too similar to my mom's final months.)  I phoned a cousin last night.  It helped a little.  (Her dogs, whom she yelled at, apparently are in great health.)

What gets me, and I noticed the same thing after my dad passed, is the little things.  I still get up, eat breakfast, go to work.  Routine hasn't changed, and it comforts me.  However, when I arrive home and yell out, "I'm home!" but no one answers, the house seems awfully danged quiet.

Anyway, that's kind of a deep, sobering thought, so I choose to end with a bit of levity.  I thought of it the other day, when I misread a woman's name in a book.  It recalled my mom's best friend relating, years ago, how a relative of hers was trying to choose names for her newborn daughter.  She thought "Amanda Lynne" would be nice (and it is), until you say it out loud:  "a mandolin".  The name I misread was similar.  Again, "Mary Annette" sounds nice, but would you like to be called a "marionette"?

I should take some time to ponder what other women's names sound similar to real objects.  What men's names do?  And, the biggest question of all, would being called a Muppet be a compliment or an insult?

In the Dark

I woke up this morning, did my routine, got dressed, ate breakfast, and wondered why it was so dark.  Was it cloudy?  I even peeked out the window to make sure it hadn't snowed.  The grandfather clock chimed.  Wait.  It was five o'clock, not six o'clock?

I had woken up exactly an hour early.  At least I was no longer figuratively in the dark.

Oh, dear.  I just reviewed my blog and saw that the exact same thing happened exactly a month ago.  As a college friend liked saying, "The universe is definitely beginning to lurk."

My Brother, the Comic

I pride myself on proper driving habits.  As I ran a yellow light with my brothers in the car, and then a second yellow, I apologized, "Sometimes I turn into a New Mexican and run a yellow light."

My brother, who seems to have inherited my father's sense of humor, quipped, "In New Mexico, there is no yellow, only red or green."