Tools Not Rules

I have long used the phrase, “Wants Don’t Have Whys”. I developed it for my children, altho I had believed the underlying principle since I was a teenager, mulishly stubborn in feeling a certain way and resistant to efforts to try to convince me I didn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t or was somehow wrong for feeling that way. I don’t mean, hey, you are yawning, perhaps you need a nap, you only got a few hours sleep last night because you were up late and early after. That is a want (not enough sleep that must be remediated) that has a why (happens on the regular, and there was a supply gap). But that’s not what I mean by Wants Don’t Have Whys. That’s just a “why now”, not a “why at all”. And I don’t know that we really understand still the need for sleep. I didn’t invent it for the basic needs to sleep or eat — I invented it for things like, I am attracted to or are charmed by this person and not that person, or this pastry and not that pickle. Trying to convince someone with persuasive argument and/or logic that they don’t really love german chocolate cake is, well, just don’t do it. And even more so for who they find attractive. I have long distinguished between things that are good or well done, but which I don’t care for, and the things that I like, in an effort to meet people halfway but I probably could have skipped that and gone straight to, whatever, dude, I hate it.

Anyway. New one! Tools Not Rules. I’ve been using the idea of a “frame” to figure out which set of principles / rules / guidelines to apply in a given situation; it replaced a hierarchy with jurisdictional components which honestly didn’t work great for me. It dawned on me that instead of explaining this as different sets of principles / rules / guidelines, I could just, whatever, dude, I hate rules. I use tools. And now the things I used to call principles / rules / guidelines are explicitly, hey try this and see if it’s helpful.

Tools Not Rules.

This is almost certainly wildly unclear and there will be misunderstandings galore (possibly in the comments) and I will attempt to elucidate to anyone who conveys their confusion or vehement disapproval, until I decide it reflects poorly on your character and I don’t know you anyway and just go back to ignoring things that I view as someone very clearly being themselves and not requiring my involvement or assistance.

But I’m so happy to have another punchy tag! Tools Not Rules!

Musee D’Orsay and round 2 on the Metro is much worse

Happy Independence Day!

We got an Uber to Musee D’Orsay after breakfast. We did not have lunch. The impressionist trick works on many but not all of the paintings in 5, including Seurat (altho we didn’t make it to Gauguin). A. kinda blew up after about 40 minutes. She liked the sculpture, but there were too many people in the impressionist rooms. Oh well!

We went to Angiolo, but on the way there we stopped at Damonte & Lacarrieu a “concept store”, but whatever, R. like a lamp in the window so we went in and bought it for a lot of money and ultimately paid almost half that again to ship it to us at home. We’ll see if it shows up, and if I later find it for 20% or less the price online somewhere.

Angiolo for ice cream was amazing and had a bunch of vegan options. Really, really great.

Our efforts to reload our Navigo cards and get one for A. went cartoonishly awry, partly because we’re idiots but mostly because we kept getting distracted by a scam artist who was pretending to be helpful. At one point, he grabbed my money, but I grabbed it right back, so shades of that night in De Wallen I guess. He did snag some of the change from successfully reloading the card, but I think he got maybe 6E out of the deal and when he saw I was headed over to the person to complain he cleared out finally. In all the chaos, I’d accidentally loaded another trip onto a card that had one, and then I finally just used coins in the machine helpful guy said didn’t take coins, and it worked just fine. Then the train was crazy crowded and A. freaked out. Why we didn’t just Uber I will never know, but I’m pretty sure R. has learned from this.

We got home, and I made A. a cheese sandwich (so the cheese is now gone). Then we went to Fugue for dinner which was fantastic. Nikka Coffey Grain whisky is wonderful, and the Eau de Vie from prunes is also really yummy.

I cooked the chicken nuggets for A. and did the whole box (it was small) and she wound up eating all of it. Which is fine! And she’s eaten almost all of the carrots and lettuce and had some grapes and an apple. The apple juice was a little too tart. Win some lose some.

In the end, it was breakfast, ice cream and dinner for R. and me (no lunch today), which worked out well.

I did some laundry, but only mine, not anyone else’s. R. says he has clothes to get until he’s home. We made a bunch of reservations for the England days, and mostly planned tomorrow’s travels.