Adieu to a shoe

My sister and I, living hundreds of miles apart, had the same apprehension before our different Lasik surgeries to improve our long-distance eye sight.  What each of us worried about -- to the point that we asked our doctors for reassurance -- was, "would our feet get cold?" 

Cold feet is a huge part of my life, due to poor circulation down among the toes, which might or might not be due to a cold wintery day in which my sisters and I were stuck outdoors in a snowstorm and got a bit of frostbite on our feet.  Who knows how it started?  I'm now a person who wears shoes even in 80+ degree weather.  The rest of my body can be steamy warm, and my feet will still be clammy cold.  (So it was a relief to each of us to know we'd be able to wear socks and shoes during the Lasik surgery).  

All that is a lead-in to why it's a big deal to me that my most-favorite-ever pair of summer shoes is nearing the end of their life.  

These shoes had it all:  

• I got them used from a so-called thrift store, an environmental and economic double-win;
• they're a color that matches much of my wardrobe; 
• they are flexible and easy to walk/run/jump in; 
• in fact, on some of my trips out of town I've used these as my running shoes, 
• they have awesome traction so that I can ride a bike in them (making them super awesome compared to most smooth-bottom dress shoes); 
• they are just dressy enough that I can wear them with dresses; 

but most of all . . . 

• they keep my feet warm in the summer.

If I could keep these shoes forever, I would.  Alas and alack, they're nearing the end of their presentable life, and nowadays I use them only as work-around-the-home shoes.  I'm thinking that 2021 might be their last summer of use at all; it's probably not worth the effort to stow them when I put away summer clothes and bring out the winter wear.

Awesome traction underneath;
but now my toes are peeking out the sides.

After months of hunting, I've found a nearly-as-nice successor pair (not quite my color, but I can deal).  

That eases the sadness of saying good-bye, a bit.  Adieu to my shoes.

If I were the Empress of Email . . .

 If I were the Empress of Email  . . . 

• Nobody would be allowed to change topics without actually starting a new thread.  If the subject line of an email reads "Questions about Timely Topic" and the writer happens to include a toss-off line about "We should also chat sometime about the Meandering Matter", then that thread is NOT the place to continue to the Meandering Matter conversation.  Start a new email conversation, with a new email subject line, people!
  
  
• It would be possible to grab an email and move it to a spot on my computer screen where it would STAY.  To heck with the fact that I turn around to grab a cup of coffee only to find three new emails have come in, and now that thing I that was going to respond to --- that thing already mired in a giant list --- has chunked down three spots on the list. If I were the E-mpress, I would  sort my emails into piles, and put the piles in different places, and they would stay where I put them.  Because I would be the Empress of Email, that's why.
  
  
• I would be able to write my own notes on the outside of the email.  I could say, "add this to Guinevere's agenda", or "read the attachments before the meeting", or "ask Makesha about precedents before responding to Tamir".  I wouldn't have to open up the danged email again and hunt through it to remember why it's still mired there in my In-box; I could just glance and see why it's still there.  That's the power of an Empress, after all. 

Here are things I do to cope, while I await Total Domination. 

• I start "reply" drafts whenever I can, with notes to self about what's still needed, to move things out of the in-box.
• I "snooze" things that I'll want to read at leisure, so they leave my in-box during the busy times of day and come back later.
• On evenings and weekends, I make judicious use of "schedule send".   If I compose a reply to someone on Friday night or Saturday, unless the matter is super urgent, the person won't get my reply until Monday morning.   That keeps them from replying back during the weekend, which gives me a little bit of email relief.  (A little bit).  That helps me to feel I'm using out-of-normal-work-hours as a catch-up time rather than as an extension of normal work days.  
• I have a few special mailbox folders with symbols to keep them up at the top:  "@ to print", "# waiting" (good for things like packages that promise to come soon, or emails to which I've responded "I can do this if you give me X, Y, Z information"), and "# appointments" (for agendas and/or info about upcoming meetings).   A new such mailbox -- now that I in a job where all sorts of stuff requires consultation and/or permission -- is "* agenda mtgs" (to hold matters I need to ask The Big Cheese about). 
• Mailbox folders that have info about past projects change to having "z-" at the beginning, to move them down where I don't have to look at them (as in "2021-spring-calculus" has now become "z-2021-spring-calculus").

Bucket list

When we were visiting my sister a few weekends ago, she mentioned that someday she'd like to milk a cow.  "That's on my bucket list," she said.   I-daughter immediately pointed out how appropriate that was ("milk a cow" and "bucket", that is), and -- to entertain ourselves on the drive home later -- I-daughter and I came up with the following Bucket List of our own.   Suggestions for additions are welcome!

Bucket List

• Milk a cow
• Make maple syrup 
• Bail out a boat
• Mix cement
• Pick peaches
• Write a limerick about Nantucket*
• Drum or busk
• Paint something large
• Chicken wings and beer
• Chill champagne
• Sing the "Dear Liza" song (very annoying)
• Put out a fire: bucket brigade

* My favorite in this vein:

There was an old man from Nantucket

Who hid all his cash and a bucket.

His daughter, named Nan,

Ran away with a man,

And as for the bucket, Nantucket.