Day Seventeen

Today's goals were simple:

1. Stay awake all day. (Check.)
2. Do not spread cold germs unnecessarily. (Check.)
3. Get through three rehearsals and one performance without sneezing or falling asleep on the piano. (Check, check, check and check.)
4. Register received postcrossing.com cards in pursuit of Item #87. (Check.)

I'll have to put "stay awake" on my to-do list every day. It's so nice to succeed at something on a daily basis!

Day Seventeen

Have you ever noticed that when you're sick, your motivation usually takes a hit too? Somehow this virus is lacking that symptom, with the unfortunate result that I'm oozing around the house like a giant sniffly amoeba, but my brain is still clicking away on all the stuff I really wanted to get accomplished today. I may have to just force myself to watch four consecutive episodes of "24" and work on a scarf for Item #33 (clothing for the homeless) to distract myself.

Sniffle, cough, glurp.

Day Sixteen

Or, How to Understand the International Date Line in 30 Easy Steps

Or, Me, ADD? Surely You Jest!

The allergies that have been hounding me for the last few days have now been joined by a full-fledged autumn cold, complete with a sinus headache and sore throat. Obviously, I will not be doing much work today on things like Item #48 (running a 10K) or Item #71 (completely remodel the basement), but I want to do something, so I decided it was time for Item #16: Comprehend the concept of the International Date Line.

I am, not to put too fine a point on it, a pretty smart cookie. I got an eyebrow-raising SAT score in high school, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa (a national honor society) from college. I think algebra is just a more interesting sort of logic puzzle, and when I go on vacation I bring along a 4-inch-thick dictionary and my ongoing list of unfamiliar words encountered in my reading, so I can look them up and write down the definitions, for fun. I love thinking and learning and stretching my brain. There is absolutely no reason that the entire concept of the International Date Line should completely elude me, but it has served as an excellent reminder over the years that I am not quite as smart as I sometimes think I am.

I understood it once, in 2006, for one brief shining moment that lasted about seven seconds. And then it was gone. How can it be Tuesday in one bit of ocean, and Wednesday in the next, in the middle of the day? Doesn't the new day just follow midnight around the world? [Insert confused wail here.] It seems like it should be so easy.

So, for your entertainment (and for my further opportunities for humility), I will chronicle my attempt to figure this darn thing out.

1. Eat Arby's cherry turnover for brain food.

2. Look up "International Date Line" on wikipedia.

3. Reluctantly admit that I should probably figure out exactly what Greenwich Mean Time is.

4. Go downstairs to get globe. Get distracted and get diet Coke instead.

5. Bring back globe, successfully this time.

6. Get distracted playing computer ball game with kids.

7. Become very confused by apparently random time zone map of Europe. No wonder we declared independence.

8. Discover that I actually already did understand GMT. Phew!

9. Procrastinate by wandering into bathroom to find lip balm.

10. Wonder why hair is so frizzy today. Become intrigued with pattern of light and shadow on hair from Venetian blinds. Take picture. Take phone call. Wish that throat was not so sore.

11. Learn where the International Date Line actually is. (For the most part, the 180° meridian, which is roughly down the middle of the Pacific Ocean.) Locate it on the globe.

12. Giggle at the name "Tuvalu", which is inexplicably amusing to me. Find Ellice Island and recall that my grandpa did work there in the Seabees during World War II. Remember that I haven't emailed Grandma in a few weeks. Catch myself before starting email to Grandma, and remind myself to do it later.

13. Decide on New Zealand as reference point - i.e., "If I am in New Zealand and you are floating in the ocean a ways east of me, what time is it?" (Answer: Time for me to go rescue you.)

14. Succumb to the dreaded wiki-clickies, and end up reading about traditional Samoan tattoo traditions. Catch self and return to New Zealand.

15. Wow - did you know that time zones are unilaterally decided by national governments for their own nations? I never knew that. I thought there was a Time Zone Board or something.

16. Post on Facebook about coining the term "wiki-clickies." I'm so easily amused.

17. Decide that it is time to take a picture of this adorable little globe. Get distracted playing with PhotoStudio.

18. Get intrigued at the Jewish solution to the dateline problem as it applies to the Sabbath (first referenced in a 12th century Talmudic commentary). For the Jew crossing the dateline on the Sabbath, for him it shall be Friday until he meets a local for whom it is Saturday, and then it shall be Saturday for him. Problem solved!

19. Wonder if the Talmud can explain the darn thing.

20. Reluctantly Google "International Date Line kids" to find explanation that doesn't assume you already understand it.

21. How can that BE? How can there always be two days at once somewhere in the world? Isn't there, like, one second where it's Friday everywhere? It doesn't even have to be five o'clock everywhere, that would be asking too much. But can't it be Friday everywhere if it's midnight in New Zealand? Or in Greenwich? Or something?

22. OK. If I am in New Zealand, and it is midnight, it just went from Sunday to Monday. No, let's pick more fun days - all right, I'm in New Zealand and it's midnight and it just went from Friday to Saturday. So for me it is 12:38 a.m. Saturday (because I saw the stars out the window and got distracted and went outside for a little bit), but for my flailing friend in the South Pacific it's ... Saturday? Friday? I don't know.

23. Think about how fun it would be to go to New Zealand and see where the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed, and maybe go on a little plane ride, and definitely go to the beach, except it's April there. Well, not really April, but spring anyway.

24. One website says, "When it is Tuesday in New Zealand, it is Monday in Hawaii." Doesn't this bother anybody?!

25. Explanation found on kids' social studies website: "Why? Because the earth is round." I guess they don't understand it either.

26. I had this fleeting thought just now, when I was leaning back in my office chair, little globe propped on my chest and my nose a few inches from Moscow: "It has to be Tuesday somewhere." It felt like a clue of some sort, tossed into my brain by my subconscious.

27. Wonder if perhaps my subconscious has understood it all along, but has been hiding it in order to keep me humble.

28. Once more, with fabric! Friday is tie-dye, Saturday is stars and galaxies.

29. Did I get this right? Is there an hour of the day where it's only Friday in one little slice of the world and for the rest of the world it's Saturday, and then when it's midnight in New Zealand it turns into Sunday and the rest of the world it's still Saturday, and the sun stays here, and midnight goes there, and it's noon there and four o'clock here but on different days? I think I did! Don't ask me to explain it again, but I think I got it.

30. Take two Tylenol and decide to visit New Zealand.

Day Fifteen, Postscript

"The Road goes ever on and on
down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
and I must follow, if I can,
pursuing it with eager feet,
until it joins some larger way
where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.”

-- J. R. R. Tolkien

Day Fifteen

So that's another one off the list! Today we accomplished Item #21 (learn to Geocache with the kids). We registered at www.geocaching.com months ago, after my daughter read a Boxcar Children book that used the hobby as a key plot point. It seemed simple enough, and it is: The website lists Geocaches in or near your zip code and the exact coordinates of the cache location, which you then use a GPS to locate. Once you've found it, you sign and date the logbook in the cache, replace it as it was, and then go home and log your visit on the website. I'd heard from friends that it's a wonderful way to get some fresh air, get the kids off the couch, and see parts of your city that you never even knew were there.

The reason it took us half a year to get started was the discovery that it cost somewhere around $200 to get a GPS system that would serve the purpose, and I forgot about it until I made this list. This weekend it just seemed like a good time to give it a try, and it turned out that a friend had one he was willing to lend us for a few weeks. The first one was less than a mile away, and we very nearly missed it. We parked by the side of the road and wandered over the uneven ground at the edge of the field, reading aloud the numbers on the GPS and triple-checking against the coordinates we'd gotten from the website. When the numbers finally matched up, I found myself nose to pole with a deer crossing sign. (Those are a lot bigger than they look from the road, oddly enough.) I said to my daughter, "Well, if this is right, I'm standing right on it."

After ten minutes of searching, it turned out I very nearly had been. It turned out to be a thin strip of paper (the cache log) sealed in a zip-lock plastic bag, rolled up and stuffed into a hole drilled in the bottom of a rock at the base of the sign. Mary found it and was absolutely ecstatic. We signed and dated the log, returned everything to the way it had been, and eagerly drove to our next location, the Joryville County Park.

We had a lovely walk on a dirt trail through the woods. Then we realized we'd gone the wrong way, and had a lovely walk back. Then we had a lovely walk up the other trail, which became somewhat less lovely the farther we had to climb. Then we had a lovely walk around the woods at the top of the hill. Then we walked through spiderwebs, brambles, and something that leaves tiny stickery burrs on socks. Then we spent forty-five minutes stumbling through a dark grove of trees, up to our knees in scratchy undergrowth, trying unsuccessfully to find a cache that (as we later found out) was a good eighty feet away from the coordinates listed on the website. Disappointed, we trudged back down the hill and drove home.

In the car on the way back, I resisted the urge to pick burrs out of my socks while driving, and thought about the way our minds pick and choose their memories on a day like this. If we had found the cache, we would have gone home triumphant, talking excitedly of the extraordinary beauty of the woods, the thrill of the hunt, the horse we heard on a nearby trail, and the warmth of the sunshine. As it was, all I could think of was how very long that hill seemed to go on, how my son's complaints grated on my ears, and how frustrating the fruitless hunt had been. It seemed like the failure made the bits of grass that had migrated into my clothes itch worse.

We had the same experience, regardless of the last five minutes of it, and as it turned out, there was really no way we could have found it with the incorrect coordinates listed on the site. Even without finding the cache, we had still seen a sunlit meadow, breathed the fresh clean air, explored the green woods, and stopped to admire the tiniest spider (living on a web so fragile as to be nearly invisible) we had ever seen. We still would have been scratched and dirty, even if we'd found it. I tried to adjust my emotions with that knowledge in mind, but I couldn't quite pull it off, even though I recognized that it would be a healthy mental habit to cultivate.

I'm not quite to the level of Zen mastery required to simply enjoy the good memories and let go of the frustration, so I'll take a page from my dad's book of engaging in outdoor activities. I will go back there, soon, with the correct coordinates in hand, and I will Conquer The Hike, even if I come home with grass down my socks and spiders in my hair. A positive mental attitude is a great life goal, but for now I think I'll just take my inherent stubbornness and run with it.

Day Fourteen

What happened to all the motivation I had this morning when I got up? Does having your hair cut and colored somehow suck all of the organizational energy out of your head? It is baffling to me. I was going to get so much done today, and now all I want to do is lie out in the back yard in the warm sun, and not do anything, because even reading a novel would take too much energy.

Sigh.

Well, if nothing else, I worked on Item #92 (grow healthy, trimmed hair to my waist), because that's not gonna happen unless I keep it trimmed, right? Six inches to go. Perhaps if I sat in the sun and absorbed some Vitamin D it would grow faster.

Grow, hair, grow!

Day Thirteen

I cannot believe I didn't put anything on that list about the toy-infested craft-swamped book-filled lair that is my family room! I spent a couple of hours on it today, and I can't even cross anything off my list. Oh well ... there are two less boxes in there, and I can find my knitting projects without having to sort through an embarrassing number of half-unwound balls of yarn, so that's good.

I also located two scarves that I made last summer as part of a project to provide warm winter clothes for homeless teenagers in my city. The group that works with them is based at a local college, so they only collect items during the school year. My sorting today reminded me that a) I needed to drop them off now that school has started and b) I needed to start something new for Item #33!

Here are the two scarves I made last year, being worn by our oak tree (which doesn't really need them, but even a tree likes to accessorize now and then). I started a red fuzzy scarf, and I'll post a picture of it when it's done.