View From the Bushes

I was expecting a relaxing Thanksgiving which revolved around the twin poles of napping and eating. Instead, the minute I showed my face at my parents' house I was put to work painting the deck. I insisted that I was horrible at painting and that it was one of the few things I really hated doing, but if anything that only emboldened my father. My next strategy was to let my natural inclination towards applying way too much paint take over, and consequently perform so poorly that my dad would be forced to dismiss me, but that didn't work either. Actually it wasn't that bad, and being ambushed probably saved me several hours of dread beforehand. Of course, it prompted me to ask myself the question of why I disliked painting so intensely.

I think it started when my mother wanted me to stain a table she was going to use as a TV stand. Well I'd never really stained anything and I put way too much on. My mother declared it to be the worst job she had ever seen. Well as you can imagine, at that point my opinion on my natural aptitude was pretty low after that. I brought this up at dinner and my mother made no attempt to refute my claims, and in fact re-affirmed that it was the worst job she'd ever seen. Only several minutes later did she finally add that maybe she could have given me more instruction...

Well I'm leaving Sunday morning for Boston to go through some intensive training for the CMS we're buying, so I probably won't be posting again until I get back.

Leaving on a jet plane
Ross