Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
“In the early days, things were simpler and people more adventurous. Here we see three such people perfectly captured in their natural exuberance in a picture of a screenshot on the desktop of a computer. If that doesn’t tell you everything about the virtual world, we can’t imagine what would. They were brave pioneers, indeed!”
1) Guess who I ran into yesterday?
In any event the photo above is not only of the person I ‘ran into yesterday’ but is also of a time when we were discovering the capabilities of the various outlets and media. (I believe the people pictured are: Denise, Lizzi and Michelle… from the way-back days of the Friday vidchats)
New(er) Readers, Lizzi was the founderess of this ‘hop. The very same bloghop you’re reading that continues under the care of Josie Two Shoes who accepted the very daunting task of keeping the doors open and lights on in this virtual funhouse.
Anyway, I ‘saw’ Miz Lewis yesterday over to the FTSF
2) Speaking of Hypograts*…. yesterday was FTSF and… well, many of us from the land of Y Chromia are somewhat less inclined to read instructions. Further complicating that scenario is my being a clark, (its not that our people do not believe in reading instructions, it’s just that one of the skills necessary to growing up in the world of the Outsider is to be able to infer on (the basis) of minimal information. (Think about it. As a young human you come upon a box labeled: ‘TREE FORT’ Most of the other kids are still at the ballgame (no one noticed when you wandered away from the game because you got bored and …well, no one noticed when you wandered away). In any event, you see the box and you see the lengthy instruction booklet that has an illustration of the completed TREE FORT. Your first thought is, ‘Won’t they all be impressed if you are sitting in the completed tree house when they come by when their game is over.’ Whats a clark to do?* lol))
So, where was I? oh yeah, Hypograt. Yesterday’s FTSF. I got the instructions almost right. It was a Stream of Consciousness Friday. It also had a specific theme/focus which was ‘Home’. I missed that second part.
3) Grateful for the company I keep. Not simply that no one said, ‘Hey! look! he didn’t know there was a theme!’ Hell, I’m an adult (well, I’m an older, more mature clark.) I’d live. No, the thing I’m grateful for is that I know** that the friends I have here in the ‘sphere and the people I hang out with are good people.
4) How about a ‘Lets Take Our Virtual Friends to Work!’
5) Who said, “Well, woods and lakes are fairly common. How about the ocean? We’d all love us some views of the Atlantic Ocean.”
6) Time of the Year (at least calendaristically): Lets see a ‘Before’ photo of Una’s garden. (tomorrow)
‘Una’s Garden 2018. Like top sheets wedged under the arm, the light-brown soil resists even the most ambitious stares.’
7) Una and Phyllis (Here is what I mean about Una being a role model: we’re all up, I’ve consumed my first SABD*** and Una waits patiently for breakfast.
8) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE If anyone is new ’round here and like what they read, feel like participating, but just not thinking they’re ready for a full-on TToT post, your troubles are over. Send me (in a comment) your Grat Item and I’ll totally post it in this reserved spot. Easy peasy.
9) Sunday Supplement The What the heck is this thing Contest’
‘The once, every two-or-three year watering of the cactus thing that sits quietly in the bay window, biding it’s time.’
10) SR 1.3 (from the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) which, in it’s preface states, in part, ” …[t]he application of (a) bloghop’s rules and guidelines, perforce are mandatory and required, are nevertheless: a)subjective and (therefore) shaped and manifested by the participant’s own view of the task (ref: ‘re vera sensus est‘ perception is reality… b) writers gots to write… op cit). et al, yo))
* Hypograts n. those things, people, situations and events that you so are not grateful happened/occurred/why-they-hell-did-they-have-to-go-and-do-that?!! If this were a normal, average, run-of-the-mill gratitude bloghop, y’all be avoiding hypograts like a ring salesman in a leper colony. Despite the fact that the world is not a constant barrage of crewel embroidered wall-hanging inspiring happy events, one hopes to see the balance of the good with the not-so-good as leaning towards the positive. That being said, this is not your average gratitude bloghop. Well, let me qualify that, the Wakefield Doctrine’s take on this gratitude bloghop is a little more on the distinctive side. Hence the concept of hypogratonia (i.e. the condition of really not feeling grateful that you dropped your phone just as you took it out of the box). The challenge of citing a hypograt on a Grat list is all in how it is expressed. I’ll leave it at that, as the word count of this footnote is about to exceed that of the first Six Items above.
**whoever out there is thinking, ‘but the instructions are the necessary first step’, I say, “Hello, roger!” Lets just say that besides the fact that, when the roger is done, the tree fort will look exactly like the illustration on the cover of the instructions. (Hell, for that matter, when the first visitors show up, the roger will be sure to sit or stand exactly as the instructions show the little line-drawing kid on the cover.) Not that there’s anything wrong with reading instructions. Thats why god invented rogers. And, when cruising at 35,000 ft on your vacation or riding up the elevator in the (name of really tall building here) you can thank the rogerian people for making sure that all the parts were used and none were left in the box because… “well, it looks done, right?”
*** SABD South American Breakfast Drink. I believe we owe the progenitor roger our thanks for that little acrophone.
Ok a little music to get stuck in your head this weekend.
About clarkscottroger
Hey now just you wait a minute! I swear I left a comment when I was here last night! Dammit!
So very long ago it was when I had the pleasure of meeting Lizzie and Michelle! I so enjoyed the vid chats. It is always a pleasure to put a face with a name :) I love the internet for allowing such things!
I enjoyed your video vignette TToT. Nice smattering of stuff (no, not on pain meds, although I wish I was lol)
The house, the one there at the lake. Lovely location but omg, obviously someone is going to buy it for the land.
As if Josie going on vacation at the beach isn’t enough of a tease, you have to post a vid of the ocean. But thanks :)
Una, Una, Una. What more is necessary? :D
Sorry, not going to listen to music. That song can get stuck in my head even if I don’t listen to it!!
The comment function on seemingly a lot of blogs is getting quirky. If you recall, last week Josie had trouble leaving a comment.
I don’t know if I’ve seen a fixer-upper with a lovelier view! Feel free to take your virtual friends to work anytime; I enjoy seeing houses.
That property is so a fixer upper. (actually there is a ‘fatal’ problem, the lot is only 50 feet wide and the hill it sits on is so steep, the only one could get a driveway even halfway to the house, would be to make an arrangement with the abutters, to cut across their land.
Following instructions (and directions) is always optional. #4 – Location, location, location. #5 – Ahhhh! Beauty. #6 – Sunflowers or veggies? #7 – (heart Icon)
Probably both. The tomatoes of last year died of some kind of disease, I think. The deer ate the corn and the sunflowers. They left Phyllis’ squash alone, though.
If at first you don’t succeed, try again.
Actually I think a large part of the problem is not fixable. The amount of sun the garden gets is only, maybe half the day, cause of the trees. But perhaps the earth will tilt a little extra this year and compensate.
That cactus is…um…resilient! lol. Once every TWO years it gets watered!? It must think that drought is the name of the game! lolol
I love the UNA garden! So delighted to see it last year. :) And…let’s see…nice workplace there. lol.
As for the 21 Pilots video…I have a hunch that there’s certain types of music clarks are more predisposed to like. I like the one above. Actually, I really do. Now…back to my study music. Am swamped in reading for like…the next three months. lol
The thing is very weird. It’s like at least 20 years old. Hasn’t really changed much.
The house in the words has certainly been conducive to post-writing.
I agree with the clarks and music thing. Even some movies. For instance I guarantee that every clark will think that ‘Pleasantville’ and ‘Slacker’ are excellent movies.
Maybe the new owners could turn the house (shack) into a bird blind, depending on how many different kinds of birds frequent the area and how far the building is from other homes, etc.
I agree with Kristi, that more “virtual friends to work days” would be great.
Your cactus obviously doesn’t mind waiting. :-)
So is SABD coffee or some kind of a combination of fruit and vegetables drink?
Exactly (on the SABD… coffee it is!)
I think the label called it ‘Cactus Monstrosa’ which certainly sounds about right.
lol “Well, Mr. & Mrs. Buyer these are my virtual friends, no, don’t mind the phone we’ll just go and look at this house and not give them a second thought at all.’ lol That said, I do have a couple of houses that are vacant that I inspect each week, so perhaps we will do this again.
It’s such an odd setting, the topography is so vertical. Even the people with livable houses have a set of stairs that Alfred Hitchcock would be pleased with running from the road down to the houses.
But the instructions are just there as a guideline! Nice list.
thank you, Mimi
Thanks for taking us with you to work Clark. I do appreciate the audio in that clip.
I am glad I got to put a voice to the name, with those Friday night vidchats.
Love the song you end with and that clip of the ocean, as I am dying to get there next week, to hear it up close for myself.
Kerry
Pacific? (I assume it’s closer)… that surely will be excellent. (I suspect I’ve written it before), but be sure to have the car windows down (if possible) on the last part of whatever drive you would have to get to the shore. The sound and (if the wind is favorable) the smell of the ocean as you approach is alway way cool.
Someone said that they could hear me wheezing in the audio of my video… that was me whistling! (Actually it wasn’t, if for no other reason than I hate whistling*), but the path after I said, “Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine…” was very steep. Very. As in, ‘staircase steep’….almost ladder steep, but definitely basement stairs down steep. The ground was leaf-covered and sort of gravel underneath.
It was one of those downslopes that when you step the next step down, you feel it in your butt and back of legs as you try to remain upright while the earth keeps slanting away.
The house is single level, grey with a dirty-red exterior trim around the windows.
The first thing you notice. (because you can’t see the house from the dirt road where you start your decline), is that the front of the roof has collapsed and there’s a hole in it.
The second thing, (about the house), you notice is the red front door. It’s ‘ajar’ at an angle that should make you think of old Germanic fairy tales** Not at all inviting.
The third thing you notice is the lake/pond that is the reason for this structure. It is below and beyond the house and it is everything a freshwater pond should be… blue, small-waved, forest-lined and not something you’d be inclined to take off your shoes and wade into (as opposed to the ocean, which always is) (nice comment tie-in, no?)
In any event, after you walk past the house and down to the waterfront to look at the beaver-chewed trees (which are kinda cool), you turn and look at the house above you, back up the side of the hill, maybe fifty feet.
If you didn’t think the house was all that solid when you saw the collapsed roof, you’re certain of it now.
You know that staircase we used as an illustration of the steepness? Take a hardcover book and lay it flat on one of the steps, but project half of it out over the next lower step. (Lets use a book, ‘Gulliver’s Travels’****). So the book is longways along the step with the spine inwards towards the next up-step. Pretty much all of the cover from, say ‘—ivers Travels’ is projecting out into the air.
Doesn’t work. So you take some pens or pencils and you use them to support the projecting book.
Thats kinda what you see as you look up to the house from the edge of the water. Instead of pencils someone built columns out of ‘concrete ‘cinder block” and the house is supported on four of these, way too thin columns. The whole underneath of the house is open. Doesn’t look overly stable. But, you figure, ‘hey, it’s been here up on this hill for…at least as long as I’ve been here, so it must be stable’
lol
So you climb the hill to the side of the house and around to the front door. (Now the front of your legs hurt).
The ceiling and the insulation is hanging in the doorway, so you have to duck your head. For whatever reason, there is copper/gold-colored foil insulation hanging like a witch’s Christmas decoration in the way. Once inside you see the lake through sliding glass doors that, for safety reasons have a wrought iron railing nailed across the outside surface. (You think, well, “that would only be prudent, safety first!”… and then you might laugh).
This room is rectangular and front-to-back. To the immediate left is a door way to a bedroom. The roof is open to the sky in the nearest corner, the hard wood floors are buckled from exposure to the elements. It’s like tire tracks in the snow, predictable, but you try not to step on the raised ridges of planking.
To the right of the living room, with windows looking out over the lake, is the kitchen. The kitchen’s kinda not bad, there’s a double cast-iron sink and a window right above, so that the person doing the dishes can look out over the pond (and think thoughts of escape and security… the scott who built the house, her husband, has in the last few years, been losing the balance of cruelty and caring, so essential in a relationship involving scotts)… but I digress.
Off the kitchen is the bathroom. It’s clearly an addition to the original structure and you do not want to think about what part of the outside of the house accounts for this add-on.) There is one room off the kitchen that might be a bedroom but, at the moment its mostly a bird sanctuary.
There is one last room, on the opposite side of the living from the kitchen, but it’s windows are boarded up and the floor has a certain ‘give’ to it. And if there is one quality that a floor should not have, it’s give. lol
You leave the way you came in, ’cause there’s no other doors, and start back up the hill.
How steep up? Well if you did push-ups? it would only be a triple (or maybe quadruple) push-up to be be standing vertical again.
So you run up the hill. Or rather I try to run up the hill. I don’t expect to be able to sprint up the hill but I am confronted with how bad in shape I am by the slowness of my legs to get in front of me as I try to get up the hill as fast as possible. (Don’t tell anyone. I didn’t include this part of the day in my video.)
Thats about it for the Day at Work, Inspecting A House on a Pond.
*a quirk, but I really don’t enjoy the sound of people whistling…whistles, whistling sure, people? no. (In fact I came across the need for (the sound of) whistling in Almira which I have just embarked on the second draft(age). “The noon whistle, with an oddly melodic sound…” God, this second draft thing is tough… I’m just going through each chapter looking for overly long sentences (not that that ever happens…lol) so its probably more a preliminary edit. I haven’t bought one of the tools like Grammarly or Prowriter to help on this, just ’cause I know from my recent read through that I need more shorter sentences…. I am going to try this app called AEON Timeline which is supposed to help keep time and characters in some kind of control
** don’t even get me started on old, Germanic fairy tales…I don’t have children but even if I did and it was ‘National Mess Up the Psyches of Young Children Week’*** I would not expose them to old, Germanic fairy tales
*** not a ‘real’ thing
**** well, ’cause that book actually plays a role in ‘Almira’ (nice product placement, no?….lol)