A Grab Bag

To Do Lists:
I have just about worked my way through my Tuesday "to do" list. Of course I wrote it Tuesday last week, not this week! I always seem to be over ambitious about what I can do in a day - and a little laid back about getting it done.
Here is a fascinating blog that consists entirely of lists:todolistblog

On Patience:
It's not that I don't like my beach photograph posted yesterday. I do - but I am envious of the fantastic series of photos my husband took on the same beach a few hours later. After I had gone in to make dinner, he stayed and took photographs in the fading light. There has been lots of discussion in the past about the reasons why it is harder for women to be artists. That "making dinner" thing is one of them. It is, or has been, easier for men to focus on one thing, while women do the cooking and cleaning around them, and carve out a little time to create, here and there. But it's not just that. He is just so much more darned patient than me in the first place. He does have a lot of different projects that he gets involved in, besides working fulltime, but he seems to have that ability to focus on just one at a time for as long as it takes. Am I naturally less patient, or is it a consequence of the distractions of bringing up children, taking care of the house etc? Would I be more patient if I had had a chance to develop it?
To get his photos, P. had to run down the beach to the right spot, take the photo and quickly run back before being swamped by an incoming wave. His battery was flat. Instead of giving up and coming in, he took the battery out of the camera and warmed it under his armpit. Then he took the next photo. Then repeated the whole process.
He also actually checks his photos on the display of the camera to see if he has what he wants, before he takes the next one. I rarely check mine until I get them onto my computer. Maybe I could learn more patience if I really wanted.

On Buses:
Warning: Rant follows!
Our newspaper recently reported on an upmarket community which is objecting to a proposal to run a bus service through their suburb. What on earth are they thinking? They say that it is a road safety issue, that there will be accidents when they and their children are walking to their posh country club. And that crime follows bus routes!
So, I assume that they all drive flash cars. There is no school - they must drive their children to their fancy private schools in their BMWs. And when the children get old enough, they will have their own cars. So each family of mum, dad and 2.2 children will have 4.2 cars. How is this safer than buses with trained drivers? And what are they doing to the environment? I must admit that I rarely get the bus myself. I certainly would if my place of work was on a bus route. And I love that my children can get the bus anywhere they need to go - high school when they were there, university, work, and other activities - and I haven't needed to drive them anywhere since they were about twelve years old.
I wish a big fat oil crisis on those complacent rich people. And carless days - a remedy adopted in the past in a previous oil crisis. We had to carry a sticker on our cars nominating a day on which we wouldn't drive it. Two or three carless days a week would knock the smugness out of them.