priming the pump

Ignore that list I gave you  yesterday. I'm not ready to deal with that yet.  I have been going through more files as well as my first draft manuscript and I think I'm ready to write an introduction to the next draft.  So I'll just blog a little first, that is, prime the pump.  Do people younger than you or I even know what that means?  There are so many expressions bobbing around that have no meaning to kids today - kids, that is, anyone under 40.  I remember the American anthropologist, Margaret Mead (1901-1978), said that anyone born on this planet before 1945 (the year the atomic bomb was unleashed) was an alien.  Like me.  I didn't really believe her until the metric system came into use in Canada (not the U.S,., as  you know, so Americans are even more alien).  Anything you learn by rote stays with  you but new and imposed,  not so much.  So here is what I can tell you:

Weather: I know that 20 degrees Celsius is sweater weather and below 32 degrees is the freezing point.  Other than that I have couple of  palindromes I rely on: 28 is 82; 16 is 61. ,

Distance: I can't count kilometres so I go by time.  A place is now an  hour by car, or 20 minutes, or whatever.

Weight: Since I gave up my car I have Grocery Gateway deliver my food and I am learning the metric system by default. For instance, I learned that 900 grams of green beans is about 860 more grams of green beans that I can eat. Like that. 

Liquids: I learned early on that a litre of wine is better than a bottle (was it measured in quarts?).  And I can order a litre of milk quite smoothly.  

That's enough for today.