I forgot I enrolled...

*chuckle*  I'm of a mind to believe my lady friend has decided, in that wise woman way of hers, to open a campaign and case file on me.  I'll not begrudge her efforts, she means well,  I'll not refuse what she offers.  Pretty sure her motives are both genuine and ultimately benign on my behalf.

She has a project underway, and for her project she needed some light aluminum keystock reshaped a bit, the edges and corners rounded off, the faces free of dings and burrs.  She doesn't have access to such tools, such things are a staple of my life.  Of course I volunteered, sheesh, I was the one surveyed the need and picked out the stock for her.  Yesterday the situation had advanced to where the stock would be needed soon, it was time to go to work.  Now I'd planned to take the stock out in my garage and get real with the serious tools, make quick work of it, but she asked I bring the whole affair over to her house.  Ok, sure, it will take a bit longer but still quite do-able, I gathered up the dremel and files and such like to do it onsite. What the whale, working onsite the fit could be checked on the fly.

Another thing you need to know, to appreciate her effort, is that she knows my quite negative attitude concerning all things oriental, and it was she who decided I just had to learn to eat with chopsticks.  Yes, the lass in the post a few weeks back one and the same multi-cultural lady determined to make a beginning at civilizing me I suppose. I didn't balk, I wrote it off as covert ops training since someday I might need to fake it for a traitor just long enough to get in range.

Ok, I can work the damn things, the years of doing pencil art enough practice at fine motor control it wasn't all that hard.  Never mind that you're never supposed to lift your plate off the table (that cost you supper when I was a kid) and every  posture involved contradicts what I was taught as proper manners since you're never supposed to bend your wrist and shovel it in, but no matter.  That's just culture and everyone involved in setting those attitudes is dead, they're out of range to deal any more misery on the subject (it only took me five minutes to realize where the tension headache was originating, and shut it down).

Anyway, I got to her house, got the stuff inside and picked a spot in the living room to work.  Now shaping aluminum isn't really all that intellectually demanding, and I've had a lot of practice at setting the hands to a task and letting the majority of my mind roam free.  Directly I became aware of what was on the big screen TV: a history lesson about Japan from PBS, the history of the nation in its' early dealings with the Europeans tied off against the internal politics of the Shogun and the Samurai, stuff dating from the 1500's through the 1800's.  

Sometimes you just have to keep a straight face, and only grin on the inside. I suspected, but didn't know, not until I checked the broadcast schedule for yesterday… nope, no history lessons scheduled locally, that had to have come off the internet somewhere.  Little to no possibility of coincidental exposure, and her face had been way, way to blank while I was working, blank as if she was wondering when I'd object or make comment.  What the hell,  she offered it with that love of the nurturing variety which is a big part of why I'm so fond of her, and how can a man think ill of that?  Nah, you can't.  Like I said in the title, it must have just slipped my mind that I'd enrolled in her class... oh well.  If that's the worst thing I ever forget I'll be in great shape.