Breakfast

[susandennis]

I'm having coffee and a Danish while backing up my work laptop. I generally dump the goodies to an external hard drive every couple of days and then every few weeks do a back up to the back up. I'm all about the redundancy.

Today I have a set of 3 gynormous documents to wrap in XML code for Challenging Guy. It will take forfreakin ever and I told him that. The result will also never be used anywhere because as soon as someone with 1/2 a clue sees what he's had me do they will understand why the whole idea is one bad apple. Each of these three documents needs a half a summary page with a link to a pdf. The end. 30 mins tops. I pushed back as hard as I could - but he's firm. So... what the fuck it's all the same $ per hour to me and this just gives me more hours to get $ for.

So as soon as the backup to the backup finishes, I'm on it.

Otherwise, it's biz as usual here. It's still very strange not to have to worry about Mom's computer or Mom's TiVo or Mom's bank account or Mom. I have this little internal routine I go through about a half dozen times a day... I realize the reason why I don't need to do any of the Mom things and I'm sad and then I force myself to remember and be so grateful that she no longer has to fight for every breath. And I am.

Ooops backup is done. Time to make the donuts.

Comments

[nanne.livejournal.com]

Make donuts?

Are you looking for an assistant? :)

[susandennis]

Ha! Sorry... old cultural reference... There used to be a Dunkin Donuts commerical on TV where this cute old guy would haul his ass out of bed at oh dark 30 and grumble... time to make the donuts...

No real donut making here... just code...

[nanne.livejournal.com]

When I had just moved to the US I called those Obscure Cultural References. For instance, when my friends started debating the relative merits of various Saturday morning cartoons...

Still, now I am hungry. Time for lunch!

[susandennis]

Yep... I have friends who won't let their kids watch any TV and I tell them that their kids will suffer from the same problem... Those Obscure Cultural References will getcha every time.

(And while I do not feel strongly about any Saturday morning cartoons... UnderDog was the best - hands down.)

Lunch??? at 9:45 a.m.???? (NotSo Obscure Time Zone Reference)

[nanne.livejournal.com]

Seeing that I am currently residing in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ("Limousine Liberals are our specialty"), it is the perfect time for lunch :-)

[unzeugmatic.livejournal.com]

Yep... I have friends who won't let their kids watch any TV and I tell them that their kids will suffer from the same problem... Those Obscure Cultural References will getcha every time.

For the most part, though, kids will pick up cultural references from their surrounding culture. Back in the mid-seventies when I was taking classes in child study and doing classroom observation of pre-schoolers, it was quite clear that even kids whose families had no televisions (and who presumably were forbidden from watching elsewhere) were perfectly aware of the intricacies of playing "Six Million Dollar Man" and whatever else. It's kind of like the way children will pick up their accents from their peers rather than their parents.

It doesn't work for grownups, though. I can't make head or tell of references to gaming even though I culturally associate with many people who seem to live for such things. In fact -- and I absolutely mean this quite literally -- I have never even been able to figure out what "gaming" *is*.

American kids who live overseas for a spell in elementary school are definitely at a big cultural reference disadvantage, though. A dragged-to-Switzerland college friend of mine gave as the example her absolute bafflement at a reference to "Mothers are like that -- yeah, they are!"

[artisanal_xara]

Not necessarily. My husband amazes me still with things that he missed out on when we were kids. We'll be talking about this and that and realize that he never saw this and never even heard of that, and they are things I thought everyone from our generation knew about.

[susandennis]

Ok, now here's factoid that has clearly zipped by me... How is that your husband got culturally deprived?

[artisanal_xara]

Quite simple, actually. His parents are of the 'cultured' sort, and they don't approve of things like television and pop culture. It's really as much of a handicap for them as it is for him, because they don't 'get' a lot of things, and have no idea about anything their younger son talks about.

[susandennis]

How interesting!