Saturday, July 24, 2004
A few words on summer wardrobes
Tis the season to wear less clothing... which is fine, except that for some people the need to dress to stay cool makes them lose their minds. Here are some hints on how to keep some sanity this summer:
Ladies:
(1) Wearing lightweight, gauzy shirts and skirts will keep you FAR cooler than shorts and tank tops, and have the added benefit of keeping your cleavage, bra straps, cellulite, spider veins and fat rolls covered up.
(2) If you wear sandals, make a choice; either wear polish on your toenails and keep it up, or go without... nothing looks more trailer-trashy than ragged chunks of polish.
(3) Flip-flops are NOT a valid substitute for sandals if you're over 20 and not at the beach.
(4) The desire to keep cool does NOT justify showing up at work, or to indoor, daytime social get-togethers, in halter tops and other bare, sexy things, especially without undergarments.
(5) Capri pants make your legs look short and chunky; avoid them if you don't have a supermodel body.
(6) Bare legs are unprofessional; wear cotton tights, a full-length skirt, or lightweight pants to keep cool at work.
(7) The perfume that smells great in winter will be overpowering in summer; wear less, or switch to a lighter scent.
Guys:
(1) If you have hair on your back or shoulders, please, I'm begging you; no tank tops.
(2) If you wear sandals, do NOT wear socks with them, and DO trim your toenails... and realize that you look goofy anyways.
(3) Swim trunks are NOT a substitute for shorts.
(4) Summerwear is more casual, but that doesn't mean that holes and stains are ok.
(5) With the exception of during certain athletic endeavors, mesh shirts are a no-no.
(6) Short-sleeve business shirts are tempting, but, remember, when they put someone in a shirt like that in a movie, it's always someone who's being portrayed as a dork. Try a silk shirt instead-it's far cooler than cotton.
(7) If you use deodorant instead of antiperspirant, you'll be stinky and have big pit stains; attend to your masculine hygiene, and everyone around you will breath easier.
It's fine to want to be cool and comfy, but have some consideration for those who'll be seeing and smelling you, and make sure you're well-groomed and dressed appropriately.... unless you're a hot guy, in which case biker shorts and a bare chest are the way to go. ;-)
Ladies:
(1) Wearing lightweight, gauzy shirts and skirts will keep you FAR cooler than shorts and tank tops, and have the added benefit of keeping your cleavage, bra straps, cellulite, spider veins and fat rolls covered up.
(2) If you wear sandals, make a choice; either wear polish on your toenails and keep it up, or go without... nothing looks more trailer-trashy than ragged chunks of polish.
(3) Flip-flops are NOT a valid substitute for sandals if you're over 20 and not at the beach.
(4) The desire to keep cool does NOT justify showing up at work, or to indoor, daytime social get-togethers, in halter tops and other bare, sexy things, especially without undergarments.
(5) Capri pants make your legs look short and chunky; avoid them if you don't have a supermodel body.
(6) Bare legs are unprofessional; wear cotton tights, a full-length skirt, or lightweight pants to keep cool at work.
(7) The perfume that smells great in winter will be overpowering in summer; wear less, or switch to a lighter scent.
Guys:
(1) If you have hair on your back or shoulders, please, I'm begging you; no tank tops.
(2) If you wear sandals, do NOT wear socks with them, and DO trim your toenails... and realize that you look goofy anyways.
(3) Swim trunks are NOT a substitute for shorts.
(4) Summerwear is more casual, but that doesn't mean that holes and stains are ok.
(5) With the exception of during certain athletic endeavors, mesh shirts are a no-no.
(6) Short-sleeve business shirts are tempting, but, remember, when they put someone in a shirt like that in a movie, it's always someone who's being portrayed as a dork. Try a silk shirt instead-it's far cooler than cotton.
(7) If you use deodorant instead of antiperspirant, you'll be stinky and have big pit stains; attend to your masculine hygiene, and everyone around you will breath easier.
It's fine to want to be cool and comfy, but have some consideration for those who'll be seeing and smelling you, and make sure you're well-groomed and dressed appropriately.... unless you're a hot guy, in which case biker shorts and a bare chest are the way to go. ;-)
Friday, July 23, 2004
The natural diet of human beings
Has it ever occurred to you that the food pyramid (and virtually every other description of what we "should" be eating) bears no resemblance whatsoever to the diet that human beings evolved to eat?
So what, you ask? Every creature in existence has an instinct that leads it to automatically eat whatever foods are right for it to eat... and the early humans were no exception. Therefore, whatever the early humans ate is exactly what's best for US to eat.
Entire categories from the food pyramid are wrong: Since the early humans never had milk after they were weaned, and never had any milk products EVER (as they hadn't been invented yet, and they had no animal milk in any case, since animals hadn't yet been domesticated), they had NO dairy in their diet... so dairy is NOT part of our natural diet. Since grain as we know it didn't exist then (it took centuries of careful cultivation to turn what started out as weeds with seeds into what we recognize as grain, and cultivation hadn't started yet, plus grain needs to be processed before it's eaten, and that was also far in the future then), the entire "breads and cereals" category is NOT part of our natural diet either.
So, what WAS our diet, then? The ONLY foods that we could have eaten year-round would have been meat (which would have included fish for most peoples), roots that could be dug up even under winter snow, and, in some places, plant odds and ends like the inner bark of some trees. That's IT. (I know this will dismay the vegans, but the simple reality is that, since we didn't migrate or hibernate, we HAD to eat meat to survive the winter, and we needed those dense nutrients to evolve and maintain our size and big brains, AND we need vitamin B12 to survive, and it's only found in foods of animal origin).
What else did we eat? In the spring, we could get eggs and sprouts, and later in the year vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts would become available. When you think about it, it doesn't seem like we should be eating a bunch of fruits and vegetables every day the way we're told to, since these things would have been available for only a short time each year, and so weren't usually part of our diet.
Our current diet is nearly a complete 180 from the diet we evolved to eat.
Somehow, with little more than meat and roots, we managed to survive and develop into the dominant species on this planet... but HOW? How did we thrive on a diet so radically different than the one the experts want us to eat? Where did we get sufficient calcium to grow our bones past weaning age without dairy foods? How did we get enough vitamin C to ward off scurvy when fruit wasn't usually available? I'd really like to know that, to see research done that would lead to a clear description of what we're designed to eat; that research would be the beginning of a whole new era of nutritional science, and would allow us to eat right, not by reading labels and popping pills, but just by eating our natural diet.
So what, you ask? Every creature in existence has an instinct that leads it to automatically eat whatever foods are right for it to eat... and the early humans were no exception. Therefore, whatever the early humans ate is exactly what's best for US to eat.
Entire categories from the food pyramid are wrong: Since the early humans never had milk after they were weaned, and never had any milk products EVER (as they hadn't been invented yet, and they had no animal milk in any case, since animals hadn't yet been domesticated), they had NO dairy in their diet... so dairy is NOT part of our natural diet. Since grain as we know it didn't exist then (it took centuries of careful cultivation to turn what started out as weeds with seeds into what we recognize as grain, and cultivation hadn't started yet, plus grain needs to be processed before it's eaten, and that was also far in the future then), the entire "breads and cereals" category is NOT part of our natural diet either.
So, what WAS our diet, then? The ONLY foods that we could have eaten year-round would have been meat (which would have included fish for most peoples), roots that could be dug up even under winter snow, and, in some places, plant odds and ends like the inner bark of some trees. That's IT. (I know this will dismay the vegans, but the simple reality is that, since we didn't migrate or hibernate, we HAD to eat meat to survive the winter, and we needed those dense nutrients to evolve and maintain our size and big brains, AND we need vitamin B12 to survive, and it's only found in foods of animal origin).
What else did we eat? In the spring, we could get eggs and sprouts, and later in the year vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts would become available. When you think about it, it doesn't seem like we should be eating a bunch of fruits and vegetables every day the way we're told to, since these things would have been available for only a short time each year, and so weren't usually part of our diet.
Our current diet is nearly a complete 180 from the diet we evolved to eat.
Somehow, with little more than meat and roots, we managed to survive and develop into the dominant species on this planet... but HOW? How did we thrive on a diet so radically different than the one the experts want us to eat? Where did we get sufficient calcium to grow our bones past weaning age without dairy foods? How did we get enough vitamin C to ward off scurvy when fruit wasn't usually available? I'd really like to know that, to see research done that would lead to a clear description of what we're designed to eat; that research would be the beginning of a whole new era of nutritional science, and would allow us to eat right, not by reading labels and popping pills, but just by eating our natural diet.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
A gift from.... ?
Today I was balancing the checkbook, and I saw a scrambling of the order that checks were cashed in that didn't make sense to me, so I went and got the box with the bank statements so that I could pull out the previous month's statement and make sure there wasn't a missing check. When I got it sorted out, I put the box back, and noticed several statements sitting out that looked like they belonged in the box; upon examination, they turned out to be quarterly statements from our savings account, just sitting there instead of being in a folder or box (we've kept telling ourselves for the nearly a year that we've had the account that we're going to create a storage setup for the statements from this account, but they come so rarely that it's been off of our radar and never got done). Being somewhat compulsive about organization, I decided to create a folder for the savings account right then and there; once I'd done that, I checked through the paperwork to make sure that it was all in chronological order, and discovered that whatever we'd been given as a receipt when we opened the account was missing. MISSING?!! It didn't seem possible, but the earliest thing I had was a statement that showed the account already having earned interest and having an automatic deposit.
I started sifting methodically through every place I could think of that the receipt could have been stashed; no dice. I straightened up, sighed, and started formulating what I'd say to the bank to get the right thing from them, when I happened to glance down... and there, lying right at my feet, neatly aligned with them, was the deposit slip from the opening of the account.
Is it theoretically possible that it had been hiding in some of the papers I'd been handling, slipped out before I got to it, and ended up on the floor without my seeing it or hearing it fluttering down, perfectly positioned to be lined up an inch from my toes at the time I looked down? Yes, barely... but even my skeptical husband, when told this story, made a joke about intervention by something unseen.
I started sifting methodically through every place I could think of that the receipt could have been stashed; no dice. I straightened up, sighed, and started formulating what I'd say to the bank to get the right thing from them, when I happened to glance down... and there, lying right at my feet, neatly aligned with them, was the deposit slip from the opening of the account.
Is it theoretically possible that it had been hiding in some of the papers I'd been handling, slipped out before I got to it, and ended up on the floor without my seeing it or hearing it fluttering down, perfectly positioned to be lined up an inch from my toes at the time I looked down? Yes, barely... but even my skeptical husband, when told this story, made a joke about intervention by something unseen.
How to spot a manipulator
I think that manipulative types are attending secret meetings where they're taught to use the same techniques, the same WORDS, to push people around... well, not really, but it IS astonishing how utterly consistent they are in their methods.
This line of thought was brought on by my belatedly reading the Sunday comics from July 11; Lucy tries to get Charlie Brown to sign a petition, and when he asks what it's for, she pronounces him wishy-washy... when he points out, correctly, that it's NOT being wishy-washy to know what you're signing, she pronounces him crabby.
This illustrates 2 classic manipulator ploys:
(1) They try to get you to do something unreasonable, and, when you don't cave in and blindly go along with it, they apply an adjective to you that's calculated to infuriate you with it's non-applicability, thus messing with your ability to see what's being done to you and allowing them to take it to the next level; depending on the relationship between the 2 of you and the situation, you might get referred to as untrusting, unspontaneous, uptight, anal, inflexible, selfish, stubborn, unreasonable, a control freak, etc.
Some of these are terms that would possibly apply IF the request was reasonable and the victim was not (which is of course why manipulators use them), and some, such as selfish and control freak, actually describe the manipulator, not their intended victim... what unmitigated GALL these people have, to claim with a straight face that it's selfish to not act to your disbenefit just because they asked, or to refer, incorrectly, to insisting on the right to control your OWN life as being a control freak, right when they're trying to control you.
(2) Now that they've ticked you off by trying to make out that YOU are the one in the wrong for refusing them, as opposed to THEM being in the wrong for making an unfair demand, they'll hit you with accusations that you are; overly-sensitive, over-reacting, taking it too personally, cranky, PMS-ing, argumentative, immature, easily upset, and, their all-time favorite, defensive.
A few words about the idea that responding to an attack by defending yourself is the same thing as being defensive: This idea has been thrown out so often that people seem to be losing sight of what being defensive actually means, much to the delight of manipulators; to clear things up, we use defenSIVE to mean that someone is perceiving an attack that isn't there and so is fighting a battle that doesn't exist, and/or that someone believes themselves to be in the wrong, and is trying to argue, not just the point that was made, but the very idea that they are in the wrong... this is totally different from defenDING, which is the normal and proper response to an attack.
Manipulators will also use the following if the opportunity arises:
(3) The assertion that "we all think so, so it must be true"; seen frequently online, and familiar to anyone who was bullied as a kid, the basis of this one is the sad psychological fact that someone being attacked generally finds themselves alone against the attacker(s), as everyone else backs away to keep from being targeted (or, if any of them are themselves manipulators, they'll jump in and help with the attack), and the equally sad reality that there are manipulators everywhere, and they're eager to join forces and chant in unison even against victims that they don't know and have nothing personally against. This group attack takes the general form of; "I think so, he thinks so, she thinks so, and we can't all be wrong, so what we're saying about you is right." The manipulators may also do this indirectly by constantly quoting each other's nasty comments, as if that somehow gave all of their BS more validity, or by comparing the victim unfavorably to other people, with those people being praised, as if to say, "We don't criticize everyone, in fact we like everyone else-only YOU are awful enough to criticize."
(4) Tossing insults at whatever facet of the victim is likely to be the thing they're most proud of or sensitive about: a young mother will be told by her manipulative husband or mother that she's a bad mother, an attractive person will get jibes about gaining weight or getting older, and an intelligent person will get assertions that they're stupid, uneducated, uninformed, etc... in particular, an intelligent woman can be virtually guaranteed that a man who's attacking her will try to convince her that she doesn't know anything and can't think logically, while his unprovoked attacks are the pinnacle of intellect and rationality.
(5) Trying to end, and win, the argument by telling the victim that they shouldn't keep rebutting, and should instead allow the attacker(s) to fling a final load of abuse and just eat it, or by calling them stubborn, immature, or blind for not agreeing with the attacker(s), claiming that the VICTIM loves to argue, cause trouble, and seek attention or, if they're clever, by saying "I know you think you have to have the last word, but..."
Does any of the above sound familiar? If so, congratulations-you've been the target of manipulators... just like pretty much everyone else. These folks use manipulative ploys to attack because they WORK (and because they're rotten people, of course), and they work because they make the victim stop thinking and start responding emotionally. It's surprisingly easy to fight back against this sort of thing once you realize what's going on, though; all you have to do is respond with a calm, deadpan, "No, it's NOT being a control freak to run my own life.... it's not being stubborn to refuse to admit that 2+2=5 just because you say it is... it's not being selfish to be unwilling to not let you help yourself to all of my stuff... it doesn't matter how many people you find to agree with you that black is white, that doesn't make it so." Not only can you rebut them flawlessly this way, you'll drive them NUTS. :-)
This line of thought was brought on by my belatedly reading the Sunday comics from July 11; Lucy tries to get Charlie Brown to sign a petition, and when he asks what it's for, she pronounces him wishy-washy... when he points out, correctly, that it's NOT being wishy-washy to know what you're signing, she pronounces him crabby.
This illustrates 2 classic manipulator ploys:
(1) They try to get you to do something unreasonable, and, when you don't cave in and blindly go along with it, they apply an adjective to you that's calculated to infuriate you with it's non-applicability, thus messing with your ability to see what's being done to you and allowing them to take it to the next level; depending on the relationship between the 2 of you and the situation, you might get referred to as untrusting, unspontaneous, uptight, anal, inflexible, selfish, stubborn, unreasonable, a control freak, etc.
Some of these are terms that would possibly apply IF the request was reasonable and the victim was not (which is of course why manipulators use them), and some, such as selfish and control freak, actually describe the manipulator, not their intended victim... what unmitigated GALL these people have, to claim with a straight face that it's selfish to not act to your disbenefit just because they asked, or to refer, incorrectly, to insisting on the right to control your OWN life as being a control freak, right when they're trying to control you.
(2) Now that they've ticked you off by trying to make out that YOU are the one in the wrong for refusing them, as opposed to THEM being in the wrong for making an unfair demand, they'll hit you with accusations that you are; overly-sensitive, over-reacting, taking it too personally, cranky, PMS-ing, argumentative, immature, easily upset, and, their all-time favorite, defensive.
A few words about the idea that responding to an attack by defending yourself is the same thing as being defensive: This idea has been thrown out so often that people seem to be losing sight of what being defensive actually means, much to the delight of manipulators; to clear things up, we use defenSIVE to mean that someone is perceiving an attack that isn't there and so is fighting a battle that doesn't exist, and/or that someone believes themselves to be in the wrong, and is trying to argue, not just the point that was made, but the very idea that they are in the wrong... this is totally different from defenDING, which is the normal and proper response to an attack.
Manipulators will also use the following if the opportunity arises:
(3) The assertion that "we all think so, so it must be true"; seen frequently online, and familiar to anyone who was bullied as a kid, the basis of this one is the sad psychological fact that someone being attacked generally finds themselves alone against the attacker(s), as everyone else backs away to keep from being targeted (or, if any of them are themselves manipulators, they'll jump in and help with the attack), and the equally sad reality that there are manipulators everywhere, and they're eager to join forces and chant in unison even against victims that they don't know and have nothing personally against. This group attack takes the general form of; "I think so, he thinks so, she thinks so, and we can't all be wrong, so what we're saying about you is right." The manipulators may also do this indirectly by constantly quoting each other's nasty comments, as if that somehow gave all of their BS more validity, or by comparing the victim unfavorably to other people, with those people being praised, as if to say, "We don't criticize everyone, in fact we like everyone else-only YOU are awful enough to criticize."
(4) Tossing insults at whatever facet of the victim is likely to be the thing they're most proud of or sensitive about: a young mother will be told by her manipulative husband or mother that she's a bad mother, an attractive person will get jibes about gaining weight or getting older, and an intelligent person will get assertions that they're stupid, uneducated, uninformed, etc... in particular, an intelligent woman can be virtually guaranteed that a man who's attacking her will try to convince her that she doesn't know anything and can't think logically, while his unprovoked attacks are the pinnacle of intellect and rationality.
(5) Trying to end, and win, the argument by telling the victim that they shouldn't keep rebutting, and should instead allow the attacker(s) to fling a final load of abuse and just eat it, or by calling them stubborn, immature, or blind for not agreeing with the attacker(s), claiming that the VICTIM loves to argue, cause trouble, and seek attention or, if they're clever, by saying "I know you think you have to have the last word, but..."
Does any of the above sound familiar? If so, congratulations-you've been the target of manipulators... just like pretty much everyone else. These folks use manipulative ploys to attack because they WORK (and because they're rotten people, of course), and they work because they make the victim stop thinking and start responding emotionally. It's surprisingly easy to fight back against this sort of thing once you realize what's going on, though; all you have to do is respond with a calm, deadpan, "No, it's NOT being a control freak to run my own life.... it's not being stubborn to refuse to admit that 2+2=5 just because you say it is... it's not being selfish to be unwilling to not let you help yourself to all of my stuff... it doesn't matter how many people you find to agree with you that black is white, that doesn't make it so." Not only can you rebut them flawlessly this way, you'll drive them NUTS. :-)
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Lucky psychic incident
My husband and I were just about cleared out of our hotel room, and were making our final checks... or, rather, *I* was making the final checks, as he considers making sure you don't leave stuff behind in another state to somehow be a waste of time (it's a man thing). I was doing my usual checks around the furniture for stuff that might have fallen behind or between, and I told my husband to shake out all the bedding; I didn't know WHY I'd said it, as it wasn't part of my normal "check procedure" and was objectively a little excessive, as I'd already checked the folds of the bedspread, but when he tried to deflect the task I insisted... and his driver's license turned up. Imagine our having to try to get onto a plane in these frightened times with him with no ID, and with the hotel being FAR too far from the airport to have gone back looking for it and returned before it was time to board. Was this sudden atypical urge to do a bedding check on the one day it was necessary to do so a coincidence? Nnnnnnnnnope.
Monday, July 19, 2004
Oddities of human psychology
I recently saw another example of one of the weirdest behaviors I've ever seen; a man and a woman start out as a couple, and then break up, and the man gets a new woman, and the first woman, for reasons that have yet to become clear to me, gets the overwhelming desire to hang around with the new couple... not to try to get the man back (yes, some women DO hang around to try and get the man back, but that's not what I'm talking about), not because either the man or the 2nd woman have shown any interest whatsoever in being her friend (and in fact they tend to look a little uncomfortable, but apparently don't quite know how to blow the 1st woman off), but because... because... heck, I just don't KNOW why, but I've seen it several times now so there must be SOME reason, however warped, for this dynamic. My husband and I would like to know the reason for this one, to explain why a woman who's been divorced from a man for over 2 decades because he was cheating on her with his secretary, who he then married, would single those 2 people out of a roomful to hang out with at a gathering.
I saw one of the grimmer human behaviors demonstrated in a movie (which was based on real events) about "the Bradley," a multi-billion dollar disaster that started out to be a troop carrier and ended up taking every form imaginable over a 20 year period; the hero of the movie figured out that tests on the Bradley were being faked to move it along in the approval process, making it into a certain deathtrap for the troops who would be riding in it. As you might expect, those in charge and otherwise deeply involved in this scheme fought him tooth and nail; he outsmarted the general at the top of the pecking order by using something in the rules and regs book to allow him to get his report sent out to a couple hundred people, which led to the press getting involved, and a senate hearing being held, for which the hero was recalled from Alaska (where the general had had him sent in revenge), with the end result that the Bradley was finally subjected to real testing, failed, and was revamped before our troops got sent out in it.
Here's the kicker; wanna guess how all the folks involved with this mess were rewarded for what they did? The ones who were lying and cheating and setting our troops up for disaster got promoted and/or offered lucrative positions in the defense industry... and the hero was forced to retire from the military. Few things about human psychology tick me off like our tendency to see one person vs a group and decide, no matter how atrocious what the group is doing and how righteous what the one is doing is, to side with the group against the one... as if going against the group is so wrong that it counteracts the good that the one did, and magically turns the misbehaving group into heroes.
We're a contrary frigging species, let's face it.
I saw one of the grimmer human behaviors demonstrated in a movie (which was based on real events) about "the Bradley," a multi-billion dollar disaster that started out to be a troop carrier and ended up taking every form imaginable over a 20 year period; the hero of the movie figured out that tests on the Bradley were being faked to move it along in the approval process, making it into a certain deathtrap for the troops who would be riding in it. As you might expect, those in charge and otherwise deeply involved in this scheme fought him tooth and nail; he outsmarted the general at the top of the pecking order by using something in the rules and regs book to allow him to get his report sent out to a couple hundred people, which led to the press getting involved, and a senate hearing being held, for which the hero was recalled from Alaska (where the general had had him sent in revenge), with the end result that the Bradley was finally subjected to real testing, failed, and was revamped before our troops got sent out in it.
Here's the kicker; wanna guess how all the folks involved with this mess were rewarded for what they did? The ones who were lying and cheating and setting our troops up for disaster got promoted and/or offered lucrative positions in the defense industry... and the hero was forced to retire from the military. Few things about human psychology tick me off like our tendency to see one person vs a group and decide, no matter how atrocious what the group is doing and how righteous what the one is doing is, to side with the group against the one... as if going against the group is so wrong that it counteracts the good that the one did, and magically turns the misbehaving group into heroes.
We're a contrary frigging species, let's face it.
Sunday, July 18, 2004
It was eerie
How many different systems do you interact with on the many sites you visit each day? If you're like me, you encounter a wide variety... and nearly all of them cause some sort of problem at some point, right? There was one particular system that was thwarting me above and beyond the norm; I made the assumption that it worked like other similar systems, silly me, and, because it was giving me error messages that, as it turned out, were misleading as to what was going wrong, I'd gone an embarrassing length of time before figuring out what the real problem was... and then, worse, I couldn't see any way around it.
Then, an odd error popped up on a different, but conceptually similar, site, and, after trying everything I could think of to get around it, and waiting long enough to be sure that it wasn't going to correct itself, I asked around to see if anyone had a guess as to the nature of the problem; as usually happens, a variety of badly thought out nonsense was generated, but something someone said lead indirectly to the explanation, and, thankfully, a solution... and then an epiphany hit.
The solution to the problem on the 2nd site was based in a technicality that I hadn't been aware of, and that very technicality was the key to solving the much bigger problem on the first site. When I tried it, and suddenly what I wanted to do worked perfectly, I was stunned-it looked like magic, that something so subtle and yet so simple could have been the key to success... and it was eerie that the 2nd problem had provided me with the info I needed to solve the 1st problem.
I hadn't even stopped the "can you believe its" about my success to my husband when things got even MORE eerie; we started getting, er, a little marital on the hotel bed where we were watching a movie, and he came up with a VERY odd idea out of thin air... and a few minutes later the exact same thing showed up in the movie. He yelped in reaction the same as I did, but of course, as always, didn't see any synchronicity in what had happened... lol.
Then, an odd error popped up on a different, but conceptually similar, site, and, after trying everything I could think of to get around it, and waiting long enough to be sure that it wasn't going to correct itself, I asked around to see if anyone had a guess as to the nature of the problem; as usually happens, a variety of badly thought out nonsense was generated, but something someone said lead indirectly to the explanation, and, thankfully, a solution... and then an epiphany hit.
The solution to the problem on the 2nd site was based in a technicality that I hadn't been aware of, and that very technicality was the key to solving the much bigger problem on the first site. When I tried it, and suddenly what I wanted to do worked perfectly, I was stunned-it looked like magic, that something so subtle and yet so simple could have been the key to success... and it was eerie that the 2nd problem had provided me with the info I needed to solve the 1st problem.
I hadn't even stopped the "can you believe its" about my success to my husband when things got even MORE eerie; we started getting, er, a little marital on the hotel bed where we were watching a movie, and he came up with a VERY odd idea out of thin air... and a few minutes later the exact same thing showed up in the movie. He yelped in reaction the same as I did, but of course, as always, didn't see any synchronicity in what had happened... lol.
