Fun and Games

 

It was my (51st) birthday on Sunday and among other things I wanted to spend the afternoon taking funny photos. We were the only adults there without any children (of which there were plenty) but it was exactly the type of activity I enjoy doing and would do again any time. At this stage, I have given up wondering when I will be "grown up". When I was (officially, demographically) young, "50" sounded ancient and boring. Turns out it's not and I have no intention of becoming boring at 60, either.

Womansplaining

 

Everybody knows the phenomenon of mansplaining and it is every bit as annoying as its reputation, but recently I encountered several instances of  "womansplaining" that was just as bad. The female variation is particularly cringe if her special field of expertise is everything related to being a mother and/or domestic goddess. I was reminded of this phenomenon this past Friday when I attended a tofu fermentation workshop (birthday gift from the Mermaid last year that we only now got to redeem) and there was one lady, a regular workshop attendee as it turned out, who chimed in with her own experience and "wisdom" every time the owner/workshop facilitator wanted to explain something. I was on the brink of punching her and recommending she open her own workshop business since she considered herself the ultimate expert. It was so reminiscent to people on guided tours who need to make a point of telling the guide that they know way more about whatever he or she is explaining. So, so annoying and unfortunately these people mostly seem to think they are doing everyone a favour by sharing their pearls of wisdom.

Squared and Rooted

Have you heard of those people who, years after graduating from high school, still have occasional nightmares about (final) math exams? Well, yours truly is one of them. Numbers and me do not agree and I seem to be lacking the requisite synapses in my brain that help you understand the apparently simple problems that everybody else can solve easily. Excel is my enemy and I am guilty of typing just about everything that is more complicated than 2+2 into the Google search box. Insert shrugging emoji. Well, now I am attending an MBA programme where way more complicated "maths problems" are part of the deal and I keep thinking I might understand more of what the lecturers are presenting with so much passion (which is another pretty frightening thing that someone can be so enthusiastic about taxes, interest and the like...) if they were talking in Mandarin or Tagalog. I have enlisted everyone I know of who is more talented in this field than I am and might light a candle or two in St. Stephen's cathedral once the papers for Financing and Accounting have been submitted and graded...

New Normal 2.0

This past weekend I was on a girls trip in Palma di Mallorca and thanks to glorious weather and no face masks anywhere in sight it felt almost like a pre-pandemic weekend break back in the days when I was trying hard to meet the renewal threshold for my frequent traveller status (which I will be losing for good next month, by the way). It was a carefree two days and packing my trusty slim Rimowa cabin baggage trolley gave me that well-known rush of excitement. It was as if I had been abstinent from a pretty addictive drug for years and then somebody had offered me a cheap hit. Pre-Covid, I was flight-shamed by some of my friends a lot for weekend-trips like that and despite the time element (can someone remind me why I registered for this intense MBA-programme of mine, please?) I definitely wouldn't fly around as much even if I, ironically I now have tempting access to cheap tickets thanks to being the registered spouse of an airline employee. Times have changed and so have I, but I finally feel like this is what the elusive New Normal feels like when you don't constantly have the pandemic at the back of your mind.

PTST Light

I am currently in Innsbruck, enjoying some days of skiing with Highflyer and his sons. In a few days it will be a year since I fell on the slopes and injured my right knee. In the meantime, I had physio and did almost daily exercises, but since I don't know what it looks like inside, i.e. if the partially torn ligament has grown together, etc. I can just hope that everything is fine again and I was more than a little apprehensive, almost not wanting to go skiing alone in Carinthia, but then did anyway, twice. I was very cautious and tense, but wanted to overcome the mini-trauma (that pain was something else). It was easy to find excuses and I can understand how people gradually glide into not skiing at all for good. I was reminded of that saying that people who had a car accident should try and get behind the wheel as soon as possible before their anxiety gets worse and they can't overcome it.