Thank you Aretha for many things, but changing the news cycle off of the usual is lovely.

One of hte primary landmarks in my rural community was a white barn. The first time I encountered it was when my mother turned onto a road next to a rickety old barn with no paint on it. "Was that the white bar?" "Yes." "It's not white." "It used to be." The last time I was there, I turned at the white barn, which had fallen down a couple of decades previously.

True, Laura. I am super sad about Aretha, but hearing remembrances about her and her music is way better than the usual news, for sure.

OH MY GOD I am literally sitting on a call with my boss, listening to silence while she dithers about what to do. Minutes and minutes of silence.

Thank you, Dana. Every day you remind me of the upside of working for myself!

That call was 15 minutes, and at least half of it was literal silence. Oy.

Wow.

There's an intersection in Halifax that for decades was called the Willow Tree because there used to be a, wait for it, willow tree there. It's now fallen out of usage, which kind of makes me sad.

Ugh. Trying to work with a vendor to make something that seems like it should be simple to work. What I want is just to see a working example but the guy I'm working with doesn't know how to do it, the engineers are too busy, and they don't have one sitting around. There doesn't seem to be any question that it can be done. So why the heck it is so hard to get a working example? Wouldn't they have made one to test it?

Sorry, just venting.

A guy I went to college with just had his first child. Born this morning. I'm over here having hot flashes at work and he is about to start sleep deprivation and diapers at 47. Lord, I need to take a nap just thinking on it. Lands no.