Be Very Careful

I knew many women who refused to learn how to type because of fears that they would end up as secretaries. That is women around my age (66) since these days most young people male and female are pretty adept at "keyboarding". Not me, though. I liked learning how to type because it was a small muscle skill and because I always like to learn new skills. I earned money in college (back in the dark ages) typing other students' papers which turned out to be a pretty nifty way of learning new information without taking the class. I learned more than I wanted to know about how a rabbit's olfactory system works by typing a psychology paper on the topic.

Anyway, I have all manner of skills that I simply picked up along the way in my life--some from absolute necessity but most simply for the challenge. Unfortunately that includes mudding drywall. We used to own a 10,000 square foot monstrosity that was in dire need of attention. So I can hang drywall as well but the men in my life like to do that part of the job. No one wants to be the mudder. We are doing a fairly minor remodel on a bathroom to make it a double sink Jack and Jill bath. That involves moving a door from one place to another and building a wall where the original door hung. And naturally, since my house is over 100 years old, the old walls were lath and plaster and since the house was built quick and cheap back around 1910 none of the walls are terribly square. So my task is to mud in the new drywall that fills the space where the door was, but there are significant gaps caused by the uneven nature of the wall. What I really dislike about mudding is the "hurry up and wait" nature of the beast. You can't just slap mud on the wall and expect to end up with a wall that is smooth and doesn't crack. So I have finished the very first step but there will be several more before the wall is done.

Be careful what you learn. Be careful who knows what your skill set is.

The shape shifting nature of Trump Jr.'s statements over the last two days and the twists and reversals that White House spokespeople have been making are endlessly fascinating. Jr. said he isn't the only person who ever sought out dope on an opponent. Yeah, G. Gordon Liddy comes to mind.