Olio / Hodgepodge / A Mixture

Most of my postings are a mix of things, but this one is likely to be such a mixture that nothing stands out as a possible title, hence the title.

I was concerned that my Macbook was fried this morning when I couldn't get the screen to light up. I had left it open and the larger cat of the two, Humphrey, was laying on the keyboard while I was taking care of stripping the beds for a day of laundry. Since I am typing this after the fact, you already know that it wasn't but it was definitely warm and I had to power it off before I could reboot it and see that indeed it was truly working.

The load of laundry I started, I started without detergent. (I must not do enough laundry to forget such a critical component.) I did put in the scoop of Oxy Clean and set it up for presoak. While they weren't all that soiled being primarily the sheets off of the guest bed, I am rewashing the load with detergent but this time without the Oxy Clean and presoak. What with sheets, towels, and regular laundry, I have at least two more loads to do. I don't mind the washing nearly as much as the folding. Now with the two cats, it is difficult to find a cat hair free surface to do it on. Thank goodness I haven't moved the TV out of the guest bedroom. Now that most of the trail supplies are moved out of the guest bedroom and the fact that I've also kept the cats out, gives me a surface to fold on. Plus, the TV can provide a distraction.

I'm knocking the easy things off of my long list of things I have to do before I travel across country on my motorcycle. This week I picked up a box to mail clothes, essentially to myself at my parents' address, and tried out my new straps that hopefully will keep my 85 liter backpack held upright on the backseat of the motorcycle. Now all I have to do is go camping to get it loaded and ridden rather than just strapped on.

Since I missed the April 30th Toastmaster meeting, I was not a speaker as originally scheduled at the May 7th meeting. I now do not have a speech scheduled before I'm scheduled to ride out for the trip to Alaska, but I have one prepared. (You'd think that with all my use of scheduled in the previous two sentences that my life is well planned. It's not.) I am the Toastmaster for the first time at the May 14th meeting. My theme is "And I Quote." I still need to call the other participants and confirm all of their attendance. In addition to speaking to the uses and abuses of quoting, I plan on referencing one of my favorite quote sites: http://www.brainyquote.com/ and an article in the June, 2009, issue of Reader's Digest.

My reference of Reader's Digest is not all that positive. Their featured wrongly cited misquote is wrong. They prominently use the example: "If you stop telling lies about me, I'll start telling the truth about you." Their claim, in the article titled "They Never Said That," is that the person to whom, Lincoln, it is most often attributed never said that. Now I don't know whether Lincoln never said anything similar to that or not but they have a rather significant typo in their version. It is missing a "don't." As I've heard it, it should be: "If you don't stop lying about me, I'll have to start telling the truth about you." But still, accidentally or intentionally trying to obtain credibility by a false quote is a good contribution to my theme.

There is definitely a tradeoff here. I'm of very mixed minds about getting this last point across and by doing so admitting that I read Reader's Digest. Saying I read it for the jokes reminds me of my college days of "reading" Playboy for the articles, well, come to think of it, also the jokes.

I have received my 48-page instructional brochure on "Program Planning and Proposal Writing." This is yet another thing for me to schedule. I still like the thought of developing my expertise for proposal writing and offering that expertise to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund and its sponsor the National Lymphedema Network but also to other non-profits. While whatever writing I do for the NLN will be strictly volunteer, I am not adverse to having it develop into a true job.

Speaking of jobs, I am reaching a milestone and am to officially submit my "retirement" paperwork. I need to talk with someone knowledgeable as well as find hopefully cheaper health insurance. Ideally I will be able to get unemployment after this milestone and am somewhat concerned that "retirement" paperwork may preclude unemployment. If I don't find an alternative to what is essentially Cobra health insurance, I will have to "retire" to get insurance.