Dave Climbing Out of a Kiva at Mesa Verde

Sweat is flowing
Not just glowing
Mileage growing
Past two oh oh-ing
[In the month of June!]

“Misconceptions”, is the title of this post, but there can be no misunderstanding Anne’s determination. She has been bicycling every day in June, doubling her annual mileage total. This week, Sweat Louis found its summer furnace’s on switch and has turned hot and humid. The too much rainfall that we’ve received this spring has been good at staving off this usual hot weather. I’ve been determined too. I, like the Cardinals, am currently #1. I’ve got the most steps of anyone on my workplace On the Move team. The Cardinals currently have the best record in baseball. So, I guess that we are winners here, or at least wieners.

While still not a misconception, a meeting ice breaker was made at work, when a question was asked, “Who knows, how the phrase ‘over a barrel’ started?” Posing such a question at a meeting’s beginning is often portent of problems. This question’s poser explained that before artificial respiration, a drowned person was often laid over a barrel on their belly, to allow the water in their lungs to flow out. A position of helplessness is what this phrase now refers to.

As this meeting droned on and on, a recurring theme resurfaced. Skipping the arcana, a lot of the decisions that were being made in this meeting were all based upon precedent. Finally, one participant offered up an anecdote: In the heat of battle during WW II the British Army had many big problems, but one small problem that persisted was the army’s practice of rubbing riding saddles with camel dung. This practice had been going on for years and years, but the exigencies of war made the importing of camel dung into the British Isles difficult. A junior officer was detailed to delve into the mystery of why army procedure called for the rubbing of riding saddles with camel dung. The officer found that during WW I, in the Middle East, camels were substituted for horses in the cavalry. The camels were found to take exception to the leather saddles and harnesses. A simple, if persistent, solution was to rub the leather with camel dung, to mask the offending scent. The practice persisted well beyond its utility.

A true misconception occurred today through email. Anne thought that Dave had a dentist appointment, but as it turned out the note on the calendar only said that Dave should make an appointment. Confusion ensued. At one point, Dave said that he couldn’t make that date, because he had surgery that day. What?!? Dave had been talking about Lasik. Further explanation explained that surgery meant Dave performing chinchilla surgery, his research.