To All You Grasshoppers Out There

To All You Grasshoppers Out There

I don’t know if the story of the ant and the grasshopper have translated to the Digital Age or not. If not, here’s a synopsis: The ant is a planner and a staunch survivalist. She works throughout the heat of summer, stockpiling supplies and preparing for the harder weather that will surely come. The ant won’t relax until, secure and safe in her snug burrow, the winter wind howls past her door. In the meantime, the grasshopper pursues all the delights of summer and puts off any thought of dealing with potential winter issues. In fact, the grasshopper belittles the ant’s hard work ethic and focus on food stockpiling, and tries to get the ant to join the grasshopper in playing throughout the summer months. The ant refuses, and opines that the grasshopper will be sorry if she doesn’t straighten up and get with the survival program. If you haven’t heard this before, you can probably tell how the rest of the story goes.

Sadly, I’m more grasshopper than ant when it comes to blogging. I’ve started this July blog post probably a half-dozen times and didn’t get past more than a couple of sentences. It seems there is always some sort of summery distraction that interferes with my own work ethic, such as: I finally got a couple of hanging flower baskets for the front of the house, so now I take a break (or two) to go outside and admire them. They smell great! I obsessively pluck the dried blossoms and stand back to admire my work for a few minutes, but then I see some that I’ve missed … twenty minutes later I come back in the house and sit down at the computer again. I bring up the nascent blog draft, but then – have I really seen all the latest cat videos? After I’m current on cat videos, I get an email alert for a discounted subscription to a genealogy site. My curiosity is piqued; the family has been looking into our ancestral history and I take the opportunity look up a couple of relatives.

Three hours later … it seems like it’s about time for an iced tea. I check to see what I have on hand, since it’s far too hot to even think about going away from the house to the closest Starbucks. (It was 98 degrees here yesterday and is forecast to be 98 degrees again today; yowie.) I have a canister of loose tea from the Empress Hotel in Victoria B.C. that I haven’t opened yet, so I hunt it down and go through all the from-scratch steps that will end up with iced tea. I spend some time reading the history of the Empress Hotel. Two hours later … I’m enjoying my iced tea and sit down at the computer again. This time I swear I will force myself to sit still and pay attention long enough to write a deeply informative and entertaining blog.

Wait, I need a snack to go with the iced tea.