Reflections - The Twelve Bungle Method

Impatiens Shadow

Bungle One

Spence flashed his are-you-crazy smile at me. For the last four years, he’d done that every time I mentioned using shadows for a calendar theme. “Shadows are black. No color.”

Disappointed but trusting his judgment, I had switched to a water theme for 2019, gardens for 2020, and holidays for 2021. But shadows still intrigued me. Pictures are light. Light makes shadows. Even if their photos only pleased me, I would make a 2022 Wells Wood Shadow Calendar.

Bungle Two

Starting in October 2020, I prayed for sunny days and toted my Nikon on walks. The camera flashed to compensate for dark areas. No problem outside. Photographing inside, however, the flash erased shadows. I turned it off. Photos came out gray and shadowless. I switched to the phone camera and positioned Spence’s work light to darken the natural shadows. Shaking hands blurred these photos. No worries. I click, click, clicked the shutter release and deleted the fuzzy photos.

Bungle Three

While searching for shadow pictures, I debated paper. We used 20 lb paper for everyday printing. Last year, I switched to bright 28 lb paper for brighter photos. But, by mid year, the photos bled through the paper spoiling the date pages. I sent Spence to Staples—the closest one is an hour away—for heavier paper. He came back with bright 32 lb paper. “This is the heaviest I could find.” Brilliant colors printed on the heavier paper. Time will tell if the photos still bleed through.

Bungle Four

Formatting came next. I opened the 2021 calendar file on our loft desktop and changed the pages to 2022 dates. Easy—until the computer died. I didn’t panic. That computer had died and resurrected itself several times during the fall. I waited a day, logged in, and, voila, the computer sprang to life. Not taking chances, I formatted the rest of the pages in one sitting, printed test copies, and saved everything to the portable hard drive.

The computer died. Again. 

This time it stayed dead.

My stomach dropped to my toes. The printers wouldn’t talk to my chrome book or the portable hard drive. “Spence, we need a new computer. Now.”

“I’m on it.” Within hours, he ordered a generic computer at a price that would have made his late mother proud. One hundred thirty-two dollars.

Bungle Five

A tiny box arrived two weeks later. Spence held it up and grinned. “Your new computer.”

The object he pulled out of the box was 5 by 5 by 1 ¾ inches. “You’re kidding. That’s not big enough to be a computer.”

“It’s a mini computer. Don’t worry. It’s more powerful than the old one.” For another week, he tinkered with the computer to partition the hard drive—part for the Windows operating system that came with the computer and part for the Ubuntu operating system that I’d been using for years. Logging into Windows took one password. Switching from the Windows to Ubuntu took eight steps. Spence made a list for me to follow. Number six read, “WAIT PATIENTLY.” He knows my tolerance for computers. 

Once in, I immediately transferred the calendar, farm journals, and recent photo files from the portable hard drive to the Ubuntu desktop. Safe. But the Ubuntu desktop would only talk to the black and white laser printer. I had to use the Windows desktop for the color Canon printer. I shut down, rebooted, plugged the portable hard drive in, and selected the file for the calendar.

Corrupted. Unreadable.

But I’d just used it on the other desktop! I ran downstairs, fetched a pen drive, and booted into Ubuntu. After copying the calendar file, I shut down the computer, booted into Windows, and opened the pen drive.

Corrupted. Do you want to fix it?

“Yes,” I screamed as if the computer could hear me. I clicked the fix button.

This could take some time.

“Okay!” I clicked the fix button again.

The computer responded immediately. No errors found.

 

Creek Road Shadows

Bungle Six

Before the new computer proclaimed more hassles, I printed the January photo. The printer spit out a dull, full page photo of snowy Creek Road striped with tree shadows. No margins. No caption. Biting my thumbnail, I printed February and March. “Spence! The computer is messing up the format.”

He clomped up the spiral stairs, peered over my shoulder, and watched me print April and May.

“Why is the computer printing dull photos without captions and borders?”

“The photo quality deteriorated with the enlargement.” He patted my shoulder. “I can’t explain the format.” He left.

Shutting the computer down, I stared at the blank screen. I couldn’t, wouldn’t give up.

Rebooting the umpteenth time, I chose the picture for January and tapped print. The printer spit out a bright photo with borders and captions. Before the computer changed its mind, I ordered it to print nineteen more. 

Later I would discover the calendar folder contained a photo folder and a picture folder. The first time, I’d selected photos, with raw photos, instead of pictures, with formatted borders and captions. The computer did what I asked rather than what I wanted—a frequent source of frustration for me with the non-mind reading machine.

Bungle Seven

Because photo ink—especially black—had smudged in the past, I spread the calendar papers on the loft floor to dry before scooting downstairs.

Overhead, paws pattered. Papers swished. I imagined Gilbert—the other cats slept in great room chairs—skating on my calendar sheets. When I climbed the stairs, Gilbert slid on the papers, bent edges, and arranged my neat rows into bunches.

I finger pressed the bent edges smooth, spread the pages into neat rows again, and grabbed Gilbert. “You’re quite the skater, Gil,” I crooned and carried him downstairs. Setting him on the knitted afghan, I pet him until kneading the squishy yarn with alternating paws mesmerized him. I could stack the dry pages after dinner.

The next morning, paws pattering and paper swishing interrupted my ablutions. I’d forgotten to stack the calendar sheets. Spitting frothy toothpaste into the sink, I dashed upstairs. Gilbert swished his tail, scattering more pages. I moved him to a bare patch of floor then stacked the papers. Rolling the folding table across the bridge—from the sewing loft to the computer loft—sent Gilbert pounding down the stairs. He didn’t trust a table that moved and made the sound of a bowling ball. I set the calendar papers on the table.

Bungle Eight

That afternoon, I printed multiple copies of the other nine calendar photos. I spread them on the table, over the floor, and atop book shelves. Each time Gilbert approached the papers, I grabbed him, said “NO” in my teacher's voice, and toted him downstairs.

He zoomed back.

I removed him again and again and again.

When I left the papers drying, I coaxed Gilbert to come with me. He did but raced upstairs when I cranked the spiralizer to turn zucchini into strands of spaghetti.

I fetched him.

He tilted his cute face at me when I set him in my hewn log chair. Then he disappeared.  

From overhead came patter-patter, swish-swish.

I growled.

“I’ll get him.” Spence carried Gilbert to the great room and set him by the food bowls. 

Gilbert nibbled a few crunchies then dashed upstairs.

“My turn.” I stomped up, grabbed the cat, tossed him into the bathroom, and slammed the door. “Time out!”

Twenty minutes later, Spence opened the bathroom door. “We still love you, Gilbert.”

Gilbert ran around Spence, pounded up the steps, and patter-swish skated.

Dry or not, I stacked the papers and left them on the table. 

To dry the date pages, I spread them on the table or atop shelves.

Gilbert didn’t skate again.

 

Gilbert and Calendar Sheets

Bungle Nine

With Gilbert and his brothers sleeping in the great room—each in his own rustic chair, I tiptoed upstairs to print the cover pages without feline help. I booted into Windows then reached for the folder containing the test calendar pages and the pen drive. Grabbing the bottom, I lifted the folder off the shelf next to the railing. 

The folder tilted.

The pen drive slipped out and flew over the railing. Tumbling, twirling, and flipping from black side to red, it plummeted. With a crack-boing-crack, it bounced across the great room floor.

Six cat ears swiveled. Three tails swatted chair cushions. Ande scampered into the bathroom. Rills ran to the guest room. Gilbert blinked and closed his eyes.

I needed that pen drive.

Clomping downstairs, I figured the pen drive would be easy to spot with the red side up or with it landing in the open space. Neither happened. The plastic missile had skittered, red side down, under something. “Ande, Rills, Gilbert! Help me find that red thingie.” 

Silence. 

Ande hid between the shower curtain and liner. Rills crouched under the guest room desk. Gilbert curled in a ball. His side gently rose and fell.

Despite objections from my bony knees, I crawled around the great room peering under the sofa, end tables, and chairs. Twice. No pen drive. Pulling the coat tree away from the wall, I spied a sliver of red on the floor behind the squirrel-observation table. I fetched a broom. With a swipe, swipe, swipe, the pen drive slid out.

Fearing Windows would declare the freefall-drive corrupted and unreadable, I plugged it into a USB slot. The computer made no comment. The cats hid or slept, Windows cooperated, and I held my breath until the last cover page shot out of the printer.

Bungle Ten

Because of Gilbert’s shenanigans, I sorted calendar pages on the rolling table rather than on the floor. Twenty piles grew steadily—December, November, October . . . Humming “I Am Woman,” I swayed my fanny coordinating the song’s rhythm with placing pages on piles until I picked up the August stack.

Gilbert’s dusty-brown paw prints marred the end of the first week.

I set the page aside. He probably only damaged one. Checking the remaining pages, I discovered more paw prints on another August page, an upside down June page, paw prints on a May page, and half a dozen bent edges that finger pressing wouldn’t smooth. At most two pages in the same month were unusable. I’d made two extra copies in case. In case had happened. I discarded the damaged pages and searched for Spence.

“Gilbert put paw prints on some calendar pages so I won’t have any extra copies this year.”

“Awe.” His face took on a reverent look. “He autographed the calendar. We could use his copy.”

Spence had a point. I hustled upstairs, fetched the discarded pages, and assembled a Gilbert autographed copy. One extra calendar.

 

Bungle Eleven

With Gilbert sleeping in the bedroom downstairs, I fetched a stapler upstairs. On the wobbly, rolling table, I slipped calendar sheets between covers and whacked the stapler. The staple bent. I eased it out with a tooth-trimmed fingernail then gently crunched the stapler. The staple bent. Experimenting with different forces didn’t help. At whatever pressure I used, some staples bent and others sank in smoothly.

After assembling the eleventh calendar, blood oozed out from under my fingernail. Folks might enjoy paw autographs. No one would appreciate bloody days. I sucked the offending finger, figured Dracula had strange tastes, and wiped the rest of the blood on my stay-at-home pants. Choosing different bit-off fingernails to dislodge bent staples when blood appeared, I managed to keep the calendars clean. My pants, however, looked like I’d taken a shortcut through a blackberry thicket.

Bungle Twelve

Last year, I mailed calendars in early December. One to New York City arrived in February and another to England arrived in April after its recipient had died. I blamed Louis DeJoy, the new postmaster general, for making the postal system “more efficient.” 

This year, I compensated for his efficiency and mailed those calendars two Mondays before Thanksgiving. An email from New York three days later surprised me. The shadow calendar had arrived. Dismissing the timing, because five weeks early beats two months late, I let the shadow theme fade from my mind and contemplated horizons.

Driving Spence home from the eye doctor’s because his eyes were still dilated from the exam, I slammed on the brakes and swerved to the berm on the bridge across Lake Wilhelm. “Sorry.” I pulled the cell phone out of my pocket. “The light behind the clouds and the reflections of the trees in the water make a great horizon photo. “Want to come?”

He shaded his eyes with his hand. “I’ll wait here.” He didn’t flash his are-you-crazy smile. 

 

Lake Wilhelm Horizon