Flashback

March 9, 2010

I conceived this entry as a tribute to my old practice of noting things that made me say hmm (You can click on the labels at the left or right here to see other things that made me say hmm).  

Yesterday, something scrolled across my news feeder and really did make me say hmm out loud.  For those of you reading quickly and avoiding data when possible, this is a graph of water consumption in Edmonton for two days during the winter Olympics.  The green line is a week ago Friday.  The blue line is the next day, the Saturday of the Olympic gold medal hockey game.  The X-axis is time of day.  The Y-axis is water consumption.  What do you conclude from this data?

 

Another thing that made me say hmm was spotting a man dressed in black striding down the easement next to Finfeather the other day.  I use the verb stride purposefully, because his gait brought to mind Viggo Mortensen (who played Aragon, aka Strider, in The Lord of the Rings).  Black hat with brim, black scraggly beard, black long-sleeved shirt with black vest, black boots, and a flowing black skirt that rippled in the breeze.   Hmm. 

But the main thing that made me say hmm and have a flashback simultaneously was a visit to The Sons of Herman lodge week before last.  I was standing in for Congressman Chet Edwards again at a candidates forum.  I hadn't been to the Sons of Herman Lodge in twenty-eight and a half years.  Last time I was there, I was attending my dorm's winter formal, with a young man to whom I was engaged, but never married.  When I walked in the room a couple of weeks ago, it was like no time had passed.  The chairs--molded plastic, goldenrod, lime, and tangerine--were grimier, but otherwise exactly the same.  The tables, situated around the hall, stood arranged exactly the way they had been set in 1981.  Except for the missing disco ball and that I was wearing a sports coat rather than a mauve evening gown, I could have time traveled.  It definitely made me say hmm.