Today was an introduction to schedule changes. I had to get up extra early to get my car to Joe at Corral Auto Repair. Everyone seemed to adapt well to the upset day.
Took some time on this deliciously cool day to give Mico an extra long slow walk to Gregory Park. He enjoyed taking treats and met some very loud young girls at the fountain. He won’t offer me a sit yet but at least he’s taking treats. It’s a start.
Brand had a long day so napped in the evening. We didn’t get outside for leash work and screensaver training until nearly midnight. It was an adventure. He offered sit and gave me regular attention. We slowly made our way around St. Francis School. He was a little wild child at first. Mico seemed more interested in stretching and treats. Brand was most apprehensive of shadows. Of course, he’s an Alaskan Springtime puppy so he hasn’t really been outside when it was dark. I made the shadows fun and not scary. He seemed to process. He didn’t seem to mind the wet grass and sidewalk from the sprinklers. He was a little apprehensive about the sprinklers in the play yard. He eventually caught up to us not wanting to be left standing out at the end of his leash all alone.
Mico heard Jean & the girls leaving for their walk and didn’t want to go home. He stood under the neighbor’s tree and was reluctant to walk toward the house. He really has an issue with Jean.
Brand was a little trooper about the steps. I know one boy who is going to sleep well tonight.
Today was one of those days that beat me. It’s just too hot and I can’t even think straight. My car needs repairs (scheduled this week) so there is not option to go cruise with the AC on. Spent most of the day holed up in my room like it was a AirBnB. Watching YouTube videos, playing games on my phone, TikTok, and playing with new puppy, Brand.
This is a Timex Sinclair 1000 gifted to me by my sister-in-law Mary Ellen. In 1983-1985 I spent way too much time hand coding in games from dime store magazines into this computer. It was my first venture with coding and precision. I often spent whole days at it. One mistake and the game didn’t work. No we didn’t have the internet to look up bugs or to streamline or simplify the process. No cut/copy/paste. Just good old hand entry of code. I would frequently not eat or be late to pick up my husband at work. No cell phones either. Just a step beyond punch cards. This was a personal computer in those days.
The Kaypro was replaced by WebTV and I quickly learned to do email, lists, some social media, and build websites on WebTV and Yahoo. Oh my! This was the rabbit hole. I spent nearly all my time in front of the TV clacking away on the keyboard. After a few years of WebTV my sister-in-law obtained an iMAC. I never used it but my daughter Jean became a real iMAC jockey. I received a few more used computers. Now these were full Windows PCs and I replaced Wordstar and WordPerfect with WORD. I learned to hyperlink and quickly found my way around social media. I began updating then designing and eventually hosting and building websites. By 2004 I had some 200 websites with my name Lazytea on them. 
Asparagus was quite a treat for us growing up in Minnesota. When I was very young it became my favorite green thing to eat. While the big squares of golden butter melted over the tender stalks, my grandma would tell me the story of going way out in the country to Ogden meadows where they would visit the “china men” and buy asparagus fresh from the field. This was during WWII when she worked at the Kaiser shipyards in Portland, Oregon. Asparagus was exotic. My father was a meat and potatoes kinda guy; but, he loved asparagus and decided to try his hand at growing it.
I wanted a random challenge. Something new and different and unrelated to anything else in my life. So, I downloaded Duolingo app on my phone and began to study Chinese. I’ve studied Russian, German, & French but only knew a few basic words in Chinese. At first it was counting and simple phrases of greeting. I struggled as it became more difficult trying to memorize the Hanzi and Pinyin and reproduce the pronunciation. Then, while attending the National Qigong Association Convention in Rochester, Minnesota, I met Mark Reinhardt (ThreePureRivers.com) and a few others who told me to learn to read, write, and understand Chinese but not to worry about proper pronunciation because to native speakers of English this is next to impossible without total immersion. That made my life much easier. I focused on learning grammar and vocabulary.
In Junior High we had a monthly newspaper. I wrote news and feature stories. I think the teachers handled the layout and publishing; but, I really enjoyed writing. This is shortly before I was told that I lacked good journalistic style and should probably stick to some other kind of writing. Teachers have no idea how they can steal the joy of a student in a few words. It was also around this time that the counselor told me I wouldn’t be a good candidate to work in natural resources since I didn’t have adequate math skills. They just refused to entertain the thought. Looking back, I wish they had been more supportive. Was there no way for me to gain those math skills? I was surely motivated. I was a bt lost without any real direction to go for a career. I knew I didn’t want to be a nurse; and though my parents wished it very hard, I really did not want to be a secretary. Journalism was interesting then. Remember, this is before Watergate. Doing human interest stories was my jam.
The Journalism department soon became my family and home away from home. I spent every spare minute there; ate my lunch over a nest of t-squares, graphic tapes, paper scraps, and layout pages. The smell of rubber cement and emulsion paper followed me everywhere. The paper’s advisor soon decided I needed to learn all aspects of Journalism. I learned proper page layout, photo editing (remember no Photoshop this was all done in the darkroom), headline writing (including rubbing the transfer letters onto the layout minding the picas), and content editing. We did an issue once a month. Hours of work went into it before it was sent to the printers. We approved the proofs and then once printed we collated and folded each issue. Folding was something I usually avoided. The fresh ink or the paper made me feel ill. Our paper, The Sandpiper, was award winning and we were very proud of it. There was no doubt in my mind in 1977 that I was going to pursue a career in Journalism. I even signed up for the best Journalism school in the state, St. Cloud State University.
Lazytea Times 