Little Rituals

On the fence surrounding the site of a new development at the corner of Sherbourne and Gerrard: Mural of animals startled to find themselves in the 'hood. (Artwork by Nick Sweetman for Oben Flats)

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One of the very first things I found on the Internet was a "do your own Tarot" site called Hollywood Tarot. If you've clicked through, you can tell by what's on the cards that the site is - by Internet measure - ancient beyond reckoning. But, it's still up and kept running by the two women who first built it twenty years ago because, I imagine, enough people, including me, visit to keep their traffic numbers interesting.

How often do I visit? Every day. Why on earth do I go there every day? Because it's amusing to select the one card sound bite and see what my card of the day is.

I don't use the card I draw to set my expectations or attitude for the day or anything like that. I just enjoy the randomness.

That said, I find the glosses on the meanings of the cards in Hollywood Tarot to be flip and unreliable. So, to get a more learned interpretation of the meaningless card, I go to this site, also incredibly long in the tooth as sites on the Internet go.

I've done this almost every day for at least the last fifteen years.

Seriously.

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Continued from last week....

The ruler of a small and pleasant realm had spent the best part of the past year working with other rulers in the kingdom to prepare a proposal for a great quest.

The quest was one of the most elaborate ever conceived. The ruler had, at the bidding of her Emperor, crammed more and more labours into the quest. She grew to doubt that anyone would be able to complete it.

But, as with children and low-end fixer-uppers, the more effort required the more fond one grows of a project. Though misshapen and held together by wishing, the quest became beautiful in the eyes of our friend the ruler.

When the ruler learned that the GLG - the Goose the Lays the Golden Egg - had nested in her quest, she feared the worst. The GLG had been causing havoc in the kingdom for months. It would pop up in one spot, dazzle and exhaust all who gazed upon it, disappear and then reappear somewhere else to suck the life out of some other conversation.

Our friend the ruler was scheduled on Wednesday to take her quest proposal to the Scrutiny Council, where the Greatest Ruler and all the Emperors sat at a table too big for the room and chewed things over. 

In the Great Scrutiny Chamber, the Greatest Ruler and all the Emperors squeeze past one another to fetch snacks and sandwiches from the sideboard at the same time that selected Emperors describe their quests.

It is important to the ritual that the Emperors who chew act as if they are paying no attention to the Emperor who speaks. 

When an Emperor finishes speaking, if there is no sound other than that of chewing, then the quest proposal is successful and may proceed.

The peril the GLG brought to the ruler's quest was, once the chewing Emperors detected its presence, they would spit the food out of their mouths, all start talking at once and fall spent to the ground when all the oxygen was gone. Our friend the ruler had seen this many times before.

But, through some magic unknown to the ruler, the GLG came to the table covered in green camouflage. The deception worked. The chewing Emperors' collective gaze never rose from their plates as the ruler's Emperor spoke of the quest. 

And, when that was done, there was nothing but the sound of chewing.

Wait a minute. Is that a cockroach?

Today's moral: "When you have no idea how things will turn out, don't fear the worst; just enjoy the randomness."

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Positive Wins

It is rare that I bring current events into this blog but I just have to note the coincidence between my readers' 80% preference overall for positive messages and Justin Trudeau's decisive victory (or, stated negatively, Stephen Harper's utter humiliation) in the election on Monday.

At the level of the provincial government, I have also had quite a week. These matters as always are strictly confidential, so let's take a stroll over to the realm of our friend the Queen and her Advisors.

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Illustration from Aesop's Fables by Milo Winter

The ruler of a small and pleasant realm was in her chambers, puzzled by some paperwork that she was sure she had seen before.

She called in one of her most trusted advisors.

"Is this the same document you asked me to review yesterday?" asked the Queen.

"Yes," said the advisor.

"Why am I looking at it again?"

"There's been a change."

"Where?"

"There" said the advisor, pointing to an unholy mess of edits made to one particular passage.

"Oh, good Lord," said the Queen, disappointed and afraid all at once, "this is the GLG! The Goose that Lays Golden Eggs! It's in my Quest proposal!"

Rumours had flown about the kingdom for many weeks about the GLG. There had been sightings in other realms but the GLG was magic. It appeared only to disappear and reappear again in another spot. And wherever it appeared, those who looked upon it were dazzled. The GLG caused enough talk to use up all the oxygen in the room. Then the gathered mob would collapse and crawl away until they had regained their breath, whereupon they would look upon the GLG and the whole cycle would start again.

Sorcerers in the kingdom had observed the GLG long enough that, although no one could guess where it would next appear, they could predict when it would disappear. 

"When's this thing going to leave?" asked the Queen.

"Next Wednesday," said the advisor. "When the Greatest Ruler and all the Emperors will have gathered to chew over your Quest."

The Queen had waited more than a year to bring her Quest to the attention of the Greatest Ruler and all the Emperors. It was rotten luck indeed that the GLG had appeared smack dab in its middle.

"So what do you think," the Queen asked her advisor, "will the GLG save or destroy my Quest? Will the dazzled Greatest Ruler and all the Emperors say yes to my Quest because they think the GLG is in it? Or will the GLG disappear and my Quest will be tossed aside as they look for the next place the GLG will appear?"

"Beats the heck out of me," said the advisor. "We're going to have to wait until next Wednesday." 

To be continued ....

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I've been offered the challenge of proposing a moral to these posts. Here goes.

"If you must count your golden eggs before they're laid, put the goose in a safe spot."

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

So What Was That All About?

Back in the day when this blog was a mass e-mail, I often included a photo of my dog.
I no longer have a dog, but here's a nice substitute.
This is Kona, my niece's lovely golden lab. She's lying in the shade with her ball.

My great thanks to everyone who took about fifteen minutes out of their busy lives to help me work something out.

The hypothesis I was testing with the survey questions these past ten weeks was this: People are more inclined to believe a description of a situation or fact when it is stated negatively. 

I was curious about what people think sounds truthful and authoritative. 

So, without really having any idea of what I was up to, I encouraged all my lovely readers to play along. And you did. Bless your hearts. 

There were ten questions, two in each of five different categories: Believability, Which One First, Who's Coming For Dinner, What's Your Line and True or False.

Every week, survey respondents were invited to choose between something positive and something negative in terms of whether they considered statements in the survey to be believable, something they would click first, something they would say themselves and something they thought true or false. In the most enigmatic category, respondents chose their dinner companions. 

Here are the results:

In Week One, almost 80% of respondents found it more believable that cycling would be the transportation of the future than that cyclists are entitled weenies. 

Positive wins.

In Week Two more than 70% of respondents said they would click on stories about local programs helping kids at risk before reading about auditor general findings of waste and mismanagement. 

Positive wins.

In Week Three more than 80% wanted to have dinner with the positive-sounding Doc, Happy, Bashful and Dopey. Sneezy may have been the deal-breaker in the other group, but Grumpy was the test dwarf. 

Positive wins.

Week Four saw a tighter race between the almost 65% of respondents who felt they could express some compassion for the millions of men throwing good money after bad on Ashley Madison and those who thought those men got what they deserved. 

Positive wins.

In Week Five, 76.5% wanted to first click the story about how British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan were helping Syrian refugees, leaving the balance to find out first how much this was all going to cost. 

Positive wins.

In Week Six, a full 78% of respondents believed that the Internet could very well be planting the seeds for a new global language. The balance considered the risks too high. 

Positive wins.

Week Seven showed that Spock, Scotty, Uhura and Chekov were the preferred dinner guests of 65% of respondents. Without being directly analogous to Grumpy, Sneezy and Sleepy, the Kirk, Bones and Sulu meal group was the "negative" set. 

Positive wins.

Week Eight saw a sharp downturn in respondent numbers, and the results may be invalid because of that. This was the first time more respondents - 60% - chose the negative over the positive, marvelling that two jerks should find one another, the bad driver and the punk cyclist, with the minority sticking to the higher ground of wishing we could all just get along. 

Negative wins.

To this point, my hypothesis had not weathered well. The responses displayed at least a strong preference for positive statements. For the last two questions, I went to the exact circumstances I was trying to assess. I found two statements made by real people and I asked survey respondents to say whether or not they thought the person was telling the truth. 

Week Nine's question was a quote from Terence Corcoran and his assessment of the notion of putting a price on carbon. Week Ten was a quote from David Suzuki describing positive environmental trends. Both statements used weasel words and half-facts to make their case. Neither was entirely true or false. Corcoran made his statements couched in negative terms (the Carbon Leap of Death...), Suzuki in positive (in my hometown...).

61% of respondents thought Corcoran was telling the truth.  33.33% thought Suzuki was. 

Negative wins.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Special Thanksgiving Shout Out

I'll be busy turkey-ing this morning, so I'll keep it short.

On Wednesday this past week, after a forty-five minute conference call about some horrible abomination the government has adopted as its new budget process, a colleague mentioned publicservicecats. This is a tumblr site, put together by a federal public servant, with many insights relevant to the lives of all government employees.

The jokes are based on insider knowledge that we have all sworn oaths not to disclose. But, even if you don't get them, the jokes will give you a window on my world.

The job interview ones made me laugh out loud.

Another Experiment in Behavioural Science - Part X

We are now 100% of the way to the end of this ground-breaking research in the area of You'll Still Have to Wait a Week to Find Out.

I'm happy to report that the number of responses has rebounded from the downturn of two weeks ago. Don't forget, answering these questions makes you stand out in a crowd. And you'll smell like fresh lilies with a hint of mandarin oranges. 

You'll find this week's question here. Thanks for reading!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Karen

Destructive Testing

Seems innocent enough: the Y from a different angle

I've been trying a few things, checking out how I might remain physically active while physically handicapped. Some attempts go better than others.

I mentioned in earlier posts how a nice young physiotherapy clinic director out of the tremendous kindness of his heart offered to help me for free to find a path. First up on that path, after the cane, was a YMCA membership so that I could have access to all kinds of options: stationary cycling, weight machines, free weights, aqua fit classes - the whole megillah.

He counselled trying the bike for a while. I did. Riding the stationary cycle for a half hour once every other day or so is great - and I get to watch the Food Channel on the TV mounted in the cycle room, though, sadly, due to my schedule I see more Pioneer Woman than I think I need to.

After I tried that for a couple of weeks, and it seemed to be going well, I dropped by his office and we talked about what I might try next. He suggested moving onto weight machines. Upper body exercises first and then see how it goes. He balked a bit when I said that I would use the fitness trainers at the Y to help me learn the machines, but I did not see how anything could possibly go wrong.

First up in the "go wrong" department was how the volunteer I talked to at the sales desk was sufficiently knowledgeable in her job to charge my credit card right away for a one-hour training session, but not schooled well enough to actually get me booked with a trainer. After three attempts, and the passage of almost two full weeks, I did get hooked up with a perky (I assume all trainers are perky) young woman who admitted to having her doubts - because of my arthritis - about whether I'd be able to do anything at all with the weights. She admitted at the end of the session to being impressed with how much strength I had.

Second up was the reaction, the following day, to my weight work out. I knew I wasn't going to use the leg machines regularly, but I did do one set on each of three different machines just so I knew how to use them. 

Proof of the impact of weight machines on a human body: after one session on the leg curl / leg lift contraptions, I could barely use my right leg.

But, I'm on the sunny side of that little mishap. Even arthritic limbs will recover from shocks. And now I know what machines not to use.

Another Experiment in Behavioural Science - Part IX

We are now 90% of the way to the end of this ground-breaking research in the area of You'll Have to Wait a Couple of Weeks to Find Out.

That the end is in sight appears to have made some respondents quail, or perhaps completely lose interest. Last week's number of respondents was lower than it's been since the survey began. Don't forget, answering these questions makes you immortal. And you'll smell awesome. 

You'll find this week's question here. 

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen