Diane and her Mom have been watching The Bachelor every chance they get. Normally, it’s when I’m off doing something else. This morning, however, I was busy working on a 1000 piece puzzle Diane got me. It’s on the dining room table close enough that I can hear the dialogue between all the pretty girls and the very well developed Bachelor. I admit, he’s a hunk, but I, personally, do not feel the attraction, like, you know, whatever those girls do. It’s, like, you know, a competition that’s usually won by the friskiest (in my opinion). But, you know, they all, you know, speak the same, like, language, so what’s, you know, not to, like, like, right?

I listened to those conversations until my eyes started to blink out of sync making puzzeling difficult. I then retreated to Mel’s (Diane’s Dad) little shop in the garage. It’s very quiet in there and it has a heater.

When I have conversations with kids I tend to keep track of how often they use “like” to fill the quiet spaces, and I count them by holding my hand out and extending a finger every time I hear them use that word. It doesn’t take long for them to wonder what I’m doing. When they finally ask I explain my actions, explaining that when counting the “likes” I lose track of what they are saying and the conversation devolves into a blur of words punctuated with a lot of “likes”.

When I’ve finished explaining my actions, we continue our conversation and they keep an eye on my hand, doing their absolute best to avoid filling spaces with “like”. It’s quite effective and they quickly learn that it’s much easier to engage and maintain conversational continuity by leaving the likes alone.

You know? And that’s, you know, another problem for me.

Now, let’s get back to that puzzle Diane gave me …

It’s truly brutal and a serious challenge for someone with fat fingers. It’s 1,000 pieces that fit in 12 x 16.5 inch border. I know that’s true because I measured it … see …

I know, it looks more like 16.75″ in the photo, but if you look at the dumb end of the tape you can easily see that it is at least 1/4″ away from it’s target so I extrapolated a little.

Each piece is about 1/2″ by 11/16″ and they are all the same shape. The edge pieces are an exception to that rule.

So now you know what I’m doing, you know?

Now, although it’s not truly lunch time yet, I must go prepare.

Stay safe and have a wonderful day.