A pleasant surprise

There I was in the dentist's chair, getting my teeth cleaned.

I had been scheduled for Monday but events conspired against me and I had to cancel that appointment. Fortunately for me, they had a cancellation on Wednesday and I was able to make it. Unfortunately, it was not with my regular hygenists. Fortunately, they both have the same first name.

Small world

While sitting in the chair I learned that she was going to a Pawpaw festival in Illinois this coming weekend. I asked a few questions and learned that she and her husband have a small orchard on the south side of their property. When I asked where they live, she mentioned a town near the Upper and Hill Orchard site.

A few more questions pinned it down to being within four miles of the orchards!

One of her best buddies from high school lived (and still lives) just down the road from the orchards and she knows the area like the back-of-her-hand.

The trip to the dentist morphed from being a necessary time-sink to learning about a like-minded, "country neighbor" who I didn't know I had.

Shorter days

I seem to be getting less done around the place as the number of daylight hours shrink. I need to do triage. Some things don't have to get done before snow flies. Some should be done after the weather cools and slows down the ticks. Some is going to be much easier in the warm weather than when it is colder.

Bonus video

Education in rural, Latin America

Included in this post because watching first-grade kids' zest for life is refreshing. 

I bet they are not spending $17,000 a year to education that kid.

At one point in the video you might notice that the desks were rearranged during one of the lessons. All of the girls were looking at a dry-erase board at one end of the room and the boys were being taught lessons from a board on the other end of the room. There was no-mans-land between the two groups of desks.

I suppose that is one almost-free way to reduce distractions.

Or maybe it is two different grades in the same room. 

It is worth commenting that the diets of rural people around the world have been enshittified by highly processed, prepackaged foods. I suspect the boy's papa is working in the US and sending money home.

A kid running across old sheet-metal while barefoot. Ouch!

What a person displays on their walls tells you much about their priorities. Most of the items on that wall look like diplomas.

First-world, Gen-Z problems

The perils of putting your phone into speaker mode

A new word

A new word was added to my lexicon yesterday.

I am a "natty'.

No, Mack, it doesn't mean that I am 8% alcohol by volume.

Not "natty", the bulging blood vessels are the major tell

It means that I don't take steroids and my musculature, such as it is, is natural.

Natty. (Not me, by the way)

Thank-you for your attention in this matter.