Brainstorming With FA

Song: “Holiday Road” by Lyndsey Buckingham

Mood: 7

Nightmares: 3

Ghosts: Several

So yeah, I fell asleep while I was writing up yesterday’s post. I have no idea how I didn’t fall over or end up with a keyboard pattern pressed into my face or short the laptop out by drooling on it, but I had a nightmare (tent) and woke up at around 3AM. Despite being in the dining room with the lights on, I was completely disoriented and it took a minute or two for me to figure out what was going on and head off a wave of panic. The rest of the night wasn’t great, either. Nightmares (tent, life jackets) woke me up twice more and I woke up worrying about things (front door) at least once.

J had an appointment this morning so she headed out of the house early. I drifted back to sleep for a while; my alarm went off

[why do alarms go ‘off’?]

and I managed to clamber out of bed after only hitting snooze twice. I fed and mumbled good morning to Lloyd, got a glass of milk and my morning medications, turned on some music, and sat down on the couch in the living room to try and get some of the fuzziness out of my brain. After a while where I sat there marvelling at how I could feel stuff going on in my eyes as I brought the plants on the shelf into and out of focus.

[why is is there a word ‘into’ that means ‘in to’, but nothing like that for ‘out of’?]

I am NOT an intellectual giant at the best of times (on my good days I might approach average) but for the first couple of hours after I wake up I would best describe my analytical and cognitive skills as ‘wanting’.

Anyway, after playing with the muscles in my eyes to the point where I could feel a headache was on its way, I hauled myself off the couch and got prettied up, then ambled around the house to tidy things up before FA arrived. I took frequent quick breaks to fire off one or two of my daily texts, then got back to tidying.

FA arrived and knocked at the door, interrupting one of my staring contests with the hot water tank. Fortunately, I was able to let it go without much more thought and I answered the door before she (or the burritos she was carrying) got too cold.

As usual, the burritos were fantastic (I’ve only ever had the bean and cheese, but I’ve been told that several other kinds are very good, too) and the conversation was light and entertaining. After chatting about everything from the staff at the burrito shop to how old we were when kids who are now in high school were born, we finished our meals and then broke out the laptops and pencils.

A week or so ago, FA asked if I’d be interested in helping her out with a project that involves some programming, some electronics, and potentially some mechanical aspect. When I mentioned this to Dr C in my appointment yesterday, she asked me what it was supposed to do. I thought about it for a moment and then said, “It’s something that’s supposed to wait or look for something, then check something, and when it meets some kind of requirement, it does something.” I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea.

Today, we geeked out with our laptops and brainstormed to fill in most of those gaps. Part of my problem was that I had absolutely no clue how something like a wiki works (I was working based on my mistaken assumption that some things hadn’t changed much since 1998), but FA was very patient and gave me a crash course in the material. She is very interested and passionate about the subject and mentioned that she would be happy talking about it for days, which is great because I’m old and my brain isn’t as malleable and receptive to fancy new things as it used to be.

We worked on stuff for over four hours, and when FA looked at the time and figured she needed to get going, I think we both had a pretty good idea of what she is hoping to do.

[her laptop battery didn’t die… how did her laptop battery not die??]

It’s been a long while since I’ve looked into programming/computer-y stuff, and I enjoyed squinting at my laptop screen and batting ideas and thoughts around with FA. We have always worked well together – she brings the ideas, brains and brawn, while I bring… uh… pessimism and uncertainty. Don’t ask why it works, it just does. I had a great time and I’m very interested in figuring the stuff out and working with FA on it.

After FA left, I got some supper together and watched some Star Trek, then set up the printer and started another job that’s probably going to run overnight. J is hanging out with her mom tonight so I’m by myself but that’s fine. I’ve got the music cranked up, I started this blog post early, and I’ve got all kinds of other stuff to do. After a bit of a slow start, today has been a good day. I exercised my brain muscle a lot (and my eyeball muscles too!) and had a good time with a good friend. And a delicious bean and cheese burrito. FA is tentatively going to come over again next week so we can hang out and work on her project some more. I plan to have something at least somewhat working by then, but we’ll see!

I meant to write this yesterday but my brain gave out before I got that far, but Dr C is moving offices – I think she’s moving today. She’s just moving to a different office in the same building, so there’s no need for me to worry about it. Just some renovations. Anyway, from the very first appointment I had with her in February 2016, one of the pictures she had in her office caught my attention. I found it very calm and relaxing and would use it to focus on and calm down a bit at the end of the sessions. J and I tried for months to find it; we found some pictures that were similar, but no luck finding the right one. Well, apparently there are already some office fixtures in her new office, so she gave the picture to me. I offered to buy it and wanted to make sure she really wanted to give it away but she told me to take it and she wouldn’t accept anything for it. That was really, really nice of her – after I got home, I hung it up in the dining room and have been enjoying it a lot. It’s such a great picture:

Calm Picture of a Dock

Stay safe.

2 Thoughts on “Brainstorming With FA

  1. FA’s laptop battery is fueled by the amount of productive brain activity in the room. Yesterday it was probably charged enough for a month.

    • It was a good time. Oh, and great news – I somehow managed to retain at least some of the stuff we talked about yesterday! 🙂

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