Lessons Learned

Nothing serious here, really. Not the usual diatribe about selfish asshats or any of the deep stuff about Life During a Pandemic or my common rants about those asshats up there persecuting whatever group is being persecuted this week.

Or not much, anyway. There may be bits of these. But mostly just a bulleted list of random things learned or relearned this spring.

• That garlic in the pickled carrots? It's to flavor the olive oil and thereby the carrots. It is not for eating. It's mostly raw and it hurts going down.
• The sharp feeling of extreme relief when the Low Battery light in the car turns out to be indicating a low battery in the key fob.
• Teens and preteens still like to search for their Easter candy.
• Sometimes the old video games are the best. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on my ancient (32 years is ancient in game-console time) SNES with my ancient SNES controllers is the best!
• Trust the Libby app's book recommendations.
• I am dismayed that our Superintendent of Schools is leaving us, even though I'm excited for her. Do I think she's perfect? No, although I think she's excellent and the people of the school district on the other side of the country are lucky to get her. 
• I hope we get a decent new Superintendent because as much as I'd love to rub the (few but very noisy) entitled asshats' noses in how wrong they were about her, I don't want any of us to have to go through that to learn the lesson.
• My fingers are getting old. The SNES is great, but the controllers are... less than ergonomic.
• I was a snob regarding college. I blame the hiring manager who talked me into going to college when I was 42 (he was about half my age) because "your lack of a degree tells me you can't stick to things." (No, it told you I couldn't stick to things when I was 17. I'm a grownup now, thanks). 
• But yeah, I still bought into the "degrees make everything better" schtick, until I realized: I have a four-year degree in Intercultural Communications and I drive a school bus for a living. 
• The degree in IC does improve my side gig of 8-10 hours a week writing internal copy for a company, mostly in the Diversity and Inclusion space; it does not really affect my primary employment.
• Supply chain shortages are weird. Some days they're toilet paper, and a week later it might be chocolate coins or clam strips or Otter Pops.
• Apricot nectar is an excellent sweetener for chai.

This post reminds me of some of my early Random Posts before the world got weird. It was nice. I enjoyed it.