The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you
By Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle.
Tuesday
If wittering on about my life stuck at home were ever important to talk about, today isn’t the day to do it. See most other Tuesdays for details of that; today is a day to listen to the lived experiences of others who don’t have the benefits of being born with innate privileges inner society, and to what one can do to help reduce those societal inequalities.
Pay attention to the stories of black folks especially; racism is all over the place but it seems worst directed at those with Black heritage, especially in the USA – but definitely not exclusively. Donate to causes which help to level the playing field, and spend money with businesses owned by those people who are the worst affected by the current situation.
Hopefully the revolution will be televised.
Wednesday
Up earlier than usual; I have a meeting at 8:30 to go over the slide deck for tomorrow’s all-hands; then it’s a day full of a non-stop tour of the the usual projects strands across various parts of the business. Managed to break for lunch for an hour before heading back in for an interview with someone who, sadly, didn’t pass the bar. The rest of the day blurred together; the final session at 5:00pm was delayed by one of the key decision makers being late, which in turn had a knock-on effect on dinner, which I was meant to be cooking. In the end, even more incredulously, after a vote, no decision was made on what to do next, the result being an unsatisfying “Just do both things“. I referred them to my product owner, who’ll decide whether we can even fit our option into the work schedule, and headed out for the day.
Dinner was pan-fried pork rib-eyes with sweet potato wedges and mushrooms. The pork was incredibly tasty but I think it needed a different way of cooking; the steaks were somewhat unevenly cut and cooked at different rates, though they were very tasty.
Kids in bed, I baked a cake while J wrapped gifts. Tomorrow’s a special day.
Thursday
Blimey, was this really eight years ago? Awake fairly early, but Sleeper, Jr decided he wanted to stay in bed until 8am; I think he was enjoying that feeling of having the whole of his birthday ahead of him, the anticipation that today was going to be a magical day. We had a lovely session unwrapping presents (he seems to have been given an incredible number of Harry Potter Lego sets), then busied ourselves making a picnic.
While I was busying myself with the cake decoration, K called around with her son; the two boys go to Beavers together, and we had a nice socially-distanced chat in the front garden before returning to the task of sandwich manufacture. We set off somewhat later than planned, but got to Oaks Park at a decent time, having worked up an appetite walking along countryside paths next to fields and stables. It’s nice to be able to walk to the very edge of the city and see green open areas, even if it’s a little further than we’d go on a regular basis. The park was reasonably busy, and the cafe was doing a decent trade, but it wasn’t by any means crowded; plenty of space for everyone and the kids had fun running around in the wide open space.
On our return home, there were more cards to open and Super Mario Party to play on the Nintendo Switch. I got rather annoyed at the RNG, but everyone else had fun, and before we knew it it was time for me to go out and pick up the Fish and Chip supper from the local chip shop, which is only doing advance orders at specific time slots. It was acceptable, I guess. The mushy peas were a let down and it’d be so much better if it hadn’t been wrapped up in paper steaming itself while we waited for dinner time.
Kids packed off to bed after dinner, we collapsed in front of the sofa. It’s been a delightful day, one which wouldn’t have happened under any other circumstances. Properly quality time, something that is more valuable than anyone in the world.
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