I am not sure why, but a number of women feel compelled to tell me how to live my life. It's vaguely annoying when it's someone a generation older who has more life experience, but it's really rude when it's someone a generation younger giving me marital advice when she has barely dated herself. I said to Richard Bonomo, "What is it about me that makes people feel like they can just boss me around?" and he said it's because I'm easy going [n.b. not while driving], and Type A people think Type B people need to be told how to get their lives in order. They don't understand that we are perfectly happy smelling the roses instead of making a million dollars. Another thing that always seems to happen to me is when I get up the nerve to say something in a meeting, someone immediately disagrees with me. Why is that? Today I was in a meeting to discuss using plain language, and I mentioned that some of our European faculty really like niceties in emails and get miffed if you don't use them, so even though plain language principals would say niceties are extra words, I have to include them. Some guy immediately contradicted me, saying how he works with international people all the time, and they don't like extra words - they like you to get to the point. Just when I was thinking, "Why do I EVER speak up at meetings??" another guy rushed to defend my honor and jumped all over the first guy, saying in this difficult time it's really RUDE to not say something like, "I hope this email finds you well." It's only okay to skip it if you know the person well. The first guy backed down and agreed with him. So what happened there? Was the first guy mansplaining to me, the Dumb Broad who obviously don't know nuthin,' but then the second guy was mansplaining to HIM? I was just happy that someone would rush to my defense like that.
Here are a couple more photos of the rainbow the other night. This one I stole shamelessly from my coworker when she shared it in the group chat. Her husband took it, and I wonder if he used a panoramic shot to get the whole arch in the frame? My readers may remember the disastrous panoramic shot I tried to take of Lake Wisconsin that ended up with a headless Travalon about to be engulfed by a tsunami.
The neighbor I walk with took this shot of Travalon and me with the rainbow.
Then the next morning as my neighbor and I took a walk, we saw another rainbow!
This is my new Tibetan prayer wheel. (I got inspired by a video from the Crane Foundation about new prayer wheels with cranes on them that they will have installed by next season.) The Dharma Shop sells a "temple-style" prayer wheel for $750, but for $15 I was able to get more of a hood ornament-style prayer wheel. Now I see Hammacher Schlemmer sells a row of five of them that are the same size as my little one for $69, which would be more cost-effective. It looks more authentic too, but on a very small scale. That's okay, mine is very cute. Too bad it squeaks when I turn it...
As you can see, it has a little loop to hang it up on a wall. Maybe I will hang it next to my icons.
Famous Hat
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