This tiny skateboard has been left on a garden wall along my walk to and from work. At first I assumed it's for a little kid. (Hence the post title, though I suppose "hang ten" is a surfing phrase more than a skateboarding one. Oh well, I'm using it anyway.)
I put my hand on it just so you'd have a sense of scale.
The underside looks like this. Maybe it's a dog skateboard? Should my post be called "Hang Ten, Fido?"
I have been slammed at work lately. There's just too much activity whirling around me to do any blog-reading or commenting from my desk, which I used to be able to do between "customers." I won't get into why that is, but suffice to say I'm not happy about it. I used to enjoy being treated like a professional who could be trusted to get his job done and get it done well, rather than someone who requires constant monitoring.
Last night was a rarity in our household -- I made dinner! Dave was feeling tired (he has to go in to the hospital today for his regular infusion of Crohn's medication) and he wanted to order take-away. But we had a ton of odds and ends in the refrigerator from our recent dinner party and even before, and I talked him into letting me "cook." I'm using quotation marks because all I did is make egg salad sandwiches and a side salad, but still!
I discovered that somehow we'd knocked the temperature control on the fridge WAAAAY down, and all the salad greens in the veggie drawer were positively frosty. Still, we ate them. They were a bit limp but they tasted fine. I put the temperature dial on a more temperate setting.
Speaking of frosty, it's 42º F this morning (that's 5.5º C). OK, that's not actually frosty, but it's getting there. Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder. I still have one lagging dahlia that hasn't bloomed yet. It has tiny buds on stalks, and I brought it indoors last night, thinking it might appreciate the warmer house -- but I think it needs to be outside during the day to benefit from the sunlight. We're in a race against time!
Your cooking skills sound similar to mine (and I bet like me, you could cook if you had to).
ReplyDelete5.5 is cold. I remember the last time we were in London and late evening it was 4 degrees when we stepped outside the Heathrow hotel. 4 degrees in London is a whole lot colder than 4 degrees in Australia, and it wasn't due to wind chill factor.
Yeah, I can cook if need be. I just don't particularly enjoy it, and I don't have a very good memory for it. So to bake a chicken, for example, I have to look up the instructions EVERY TIME!
DeleteRiding that skateboard could greatly reduce your journey time between home and work - just as long as you don't get hit by a bus.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I could even fit on it. I think my foot is longer than the board!
DeleteThis skateboard has a character
ReplyDeleteIt's a strange little thing.
DeleteSorry your work environment has changed. I'm guessing it's the new boss at work. Maybe they'll relax their iron grip eventually.
ReplyDeleteYour guess would not be wrong, but to be fair it's not all her.
DeletePoor kid, or dog, has lost the ability to fly down the street!
ReplyDeleteI bet a dog could run faster than it could skateboard.
DeleteI'm sorry about work - I hate being micromanaged! Mike & I are going on a mini vacation to the mountains next week & I checked the weather up there and brrr! I'll have to pack for true fall!
ReplyDeleteA mini-vacation! I'm jealous! :)
DeleteSorry about your work. Every time you post a work story from your school, it makes me happy I have left that part of me behind. Wow, it is getting cool in London! The coldest temperature so far here in Virginia is one morning where the temp was 52.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I am more and more thinking retirement is on the horizon.
DeleteYour new boss has to learn that you can be trusted to get the job done on your own. Hope they settle down soon...
ReplyDeleteStay warm! ;)
Well, she hasn't SAID much about this, but this is the vibe I get.
DeleteAnd now I really wish I knew whether that skateboard was for a little child or for a dog.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry about work. I had truly hoped things would be better this year.
So did I!
DeleteI'm not sure where my mom or grandma got this from, but where others have egg salad or chicken salad, we have always had them combined so that there is chicken and egg in the same "salad" or half the time tuna replaces the chicken. I love to make those every now and then during the summer but I'm pretty much the only one in my family that eats them so I don't do it often.
ReplyDeleteThere's something kind of gross to me about eggs and chicken together. I don't know why.
DeleteYou are certainly not in the minority as most people I tell that too say something similar. I think it tastes quite delicious and find just plain egg salad or plain chicken salad kind of boring. I also spice mine up a bit by adding some chopped up spicy pickled okra that I grow and preserve. Many frown upon that as well.
DeleteThe skateboard is the tiniest I've ever seen. It does look well used so somebody enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteMicro-managing is a terrible management style and is stressful for everyone. This type of manager usually does not survive. We can only hope.
Indeed!
DeleteIt's hard for me to picture 42 degrees when it's still 110 here. However, all the weather people are saying we will have a break this weekend. I'm looking forward to it.
ReplyDeleteThat really is a tiny little skateboard.
Holy cow, I can't believe it's still that hot there!
DeleteYou have been at your desk and been through enough yearly performance reports, that anyone should know that YOU know how to do your damned job! Ugh!!
ReplyDeleteIf you are in the kitchen rattling those pots and pans ... then, Steve, you are cooking! LOL Sandwiches 🥪 and salad 🥗 ... it's food!
Hope all goes well with Dave's infusion session!
Ha! Thanks for your support, both on the job front and the cooking front! I'm glad you have such faith in me! :)
DeleteI think it IS a dog skateboard! I love the artwork on the underside. 😃
ReplyDeleteI do too!
DeleteI hate being micro managed as well. Although as I have written before, it is very rare to have a job where the employee can on company time do personal "Interneting," especially if there is other work that could be being done. If I were a manager and saw my employee reading non work related blogs, I would be finding them something work related to do. I do get that job responsibilities ebb and flow throughout a work day for sure. It is just kind of funny when I read you complaining about not having time to do non work things at work. Don't get me wrong, I love your blog and it is one of the first things that I read in the morning (before work ha).
ReplyDeleteI know, it is pretty audacious of me to make that complaint. Certainly if I had work-related things to do I wouldn't be "internetting"! My point is, once I finish everything, if I have spare time, I ought to be able to read. (Admittedly, there's an argument to be made that I should be reading books rather than blogs, but even that seems frowned upon.)
DeleteI hear what you are saying. But any job I have ever had, if I had free time after completing my work, I would be given more tasks. To put it simply and not to belabor the point, an employer has the right to expect that work is being done during paid work hours although it is their responsibility to provide you with more tasks or reduce your work hours if there isn't enough work type thing. I admit I am still gobsmacked that any employer would be okay with an employee reading blogs on work time. I think you are lucky that you got to do that for as long as you did.
DeleteI guess my model is my parents. They both worked for a university and I guarantee you no one monitored what they did in their offices. As long as their job was done, that's what mattered.
DeleteThat's frustrating to be micromanaged! In teaching, it was rare although there were a couple administrators who tried. There was one who hung around in the parking lot to monitor when teachers arrived and demanded that we be in our classrooms at a certain time. When do we run off copies? When do we use the bathroom? He got driven out of the school eventually. I love eggs so that dinner sounds like comfort food! Hope Dave's infusion goes well.
ReplyDeleteThat kind of supervision is just ridiculous. Nickel-and-diming people to death just sends the message that you don't trust your staff, and it demolishes morale.
DeleteI've been to London once, back in the 80's. We landed in an ice fog, and I've never been so cold in my life as I was that week. Long underwear every day!!! That's a darling little skate board, wonder whose it was.
ReplyDeleteLondon never gets very cold temperature-wise -- usually only into the mid-20's F for a night or two at a time, in the depths of winter -- but the dampness makes the cold feel very penetrating.
DeleteI envy your temperature. I hope the cute skateboard and its owner meet again.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's lost. I think someone is giving it away. But I could be wrong!
DeleteAs you say, we won't get frosty until early November. Most of us would love a light frost in the morning, but this warmness is not the most excellent thing to endure.
ReplyDeleteAfter a long hot summer, a person can't help but yearn for fall!
DeleteI'd like to see Penelope flying along on that skateboard with her ears flying out. She takes life so seriously. Since my beloved supervisor Bryan left, I too am monitored constantly at work and always found lacking, so I understand how fucking annoying it is.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
It really is, isn't it? And it sucks when you've worked at a place for years -- 12 years, in my case. Like, after all this time, haven't I earned more respect than this?!
DeleteYour comment about "cooking" made me laugh because that's about what my cooking is like usually. It's mainly heating something that is already cooked. Oh well, as long as it's edible, right?
ReplyDeleteEven my boiled eggs were lacking. When I first boiled them I didn't do it long enough, and I had to put them back on the heat!
DeleteI am so sorry to read how your work situation has changed. I do think that’s a dog’s skateboard.
ReplyDeleteI do too! The picture on the bottom gives it away.
DeleteIt looks like a toddler skateboard and probably the child has graduated to a larger one.
ReplyDeleteI'm tending toward the dog option. I think a toddler wouldn't be coordinated enough to skateboard, and I've seen videos of skateboarding dogs. But I could be wrong!
Delete