Stickiness of the Mind

As Jeanne labors to prepare the pancake mix for tomorrow I take a moment to contemplate the finer points of maintaining a joyous and happy marriage of 22 years. Not that ours is that - at least not for both of us. You see, I am quite content, and happy. I fear that my happiness may not be shared.

Before you hotline us with our priest (we are Episcopalian and therefore cling to that title, priest, almost as hard as we cling to communion wine) I should say that we are not in any trouble - well, we are not both in trouble. Sadly for Jeanne, one of my recreational pass-times is being a bit of a pain. For instance, I discovered that if I posted a comment on her Facebook page it makes her smart-phone ding. If I post two, it dings more. If I post a whole heck of a lot it makes her, umm, testy. I might have posted too much.

So being the perpetual twerp that I am I invited her friends to make her phone ding also. I need to send the wag from the west coast who proclaimed that he would make it his mission to post well into the night (on into the morning here in the land of Oz) a message stating "you complete me." Well, maybe not in the way Tom Cruise did for Renee Zewilliger, but you know...

So then this devolves. I have known for a long time that the lovely Miss Jeanne is susceptible to getting a song stuck in her head. For some cruel reason this amuses me as much as making her phone ding with Facebook posts. So I sing Johnny Appleseed. And post about doing so (ding!).  At which point west-coast wag one ups me with "Put another nickle in..." (click on it if you dare).

So there you have it - I love Jeanne terribly, and the pancakes are ready. I hope tomorrows guests don't mind if they were mixed with love and a bit of tension...

Alpha Geek

Being a geek has its ups and downs. For example, if you work with geeks (I am in the Information Technology department of a large company) then the social rules are much as they are for wolves. There is an alpha geek, and beta geeks. The alpha does not take kindly to being challenged - you must submit to their authority on Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Unix, and C-# or risk being bitten hard.

At one time I may have been an alpha geek, but I no longer even pretend. Oh, sure, my kids bought me a Darth Tater (Mr. Potato Head as Darth Vader) for my office, but I am in no way ready to challenge the alpha with his complete Star Wars Action Figure collection, Super Girl poster, and LOTR chess set. When he walks by I lay on the floor and show my belly. It is easier that way. Really.

So despite not competing at work for the alpha position, I am most definitely the alpha around the B&B. Yes, the boy has designs, but like any good cub he defers when it is time to decide the next back episode of Star Trek to queue up on Netflix. As alpha it just felt RIGHT to decide we needed the latest iPad. I had no real reason, just instinct. So we bought.

And then, lo and behold, we found that we could get credit card processing on the iPad. There is a little device we plug into the headphone jack to swipe the card, we type in the amount, and then hand the iPad to the guest who can sign with their finger. We can even email them a receipt if they like.

What does all this mean to our guests? Well, not a lot, other than they are allowed to touch our iPad for a moment. But it is still kinda cool. Not LOTR chess set cool, but we do what we can.