Friday 5: Backspace

Happy Friday and St. Patrick’s Day, which is also very coincidentally National Corned Beef and Cabbage Day.

It’s the perfect day to check on my 23andMe account to see how Irish I actually am. I grew up believing I was a 50/50 Irish/Italian split. As I got older, that Irish became a quarter, split with French and German. So, 50% Italian, 25% Irish, 12.5% German, 12.5% French.

A few Christmases ago I received a 23andMe DNA test. I spit in the tube, shipped it off, and it turns out we weren’t as Italian as we were told, despite spending 47 years eating fish on Christmas Eve.

The Irish/French/German side is about what we thought it was, with a touch of what I call Viking to spice things up.

But the Italian side wasn’t the straight 50% we were told at all. More like third than a half, and on the first set of 23andMe results (it’s always recalculating) that Greek & Balkan/Broadly Southern European segment was Albanian. Which historically makes sense but still was a little bit of a shock for me to learn. And a larger shock for others to learn. 😉

All of this to say I’m 96.3% white. Sláinte!

Time for the Friday 5! This week’s theme is Backspace, a keyboard button I click often. Let’s go!

1. Which of your actions of this past week would you care to undo?
   On Wednesday I broke a tiny and very old glass bottle of WM’s that held a tiny plant. I saved the plant but the bottle had sentimental value and I still feel terrifically guilty about it.
   
2. When have you been glad about canceled plans?
   It’s always work meetings. The trope is that many meetings could just be emails but some people don’t read emails so we end up having to have meetings. That results in a lot of meetings and when one disappears I’m happy indeed. Otherwise, I enjoy going out and am bummed when social plans are cancelled.
   
3. When did you last physically erase something?
   I still keep a physical grocery list — it’s this one which is VERY useful — and I erased an entry that I found out I didn’t need this week. (Vitamin C supplements, if you’re curious)
   
4. When you’re on your way out the door but have to turn around and come back for something, what’s usually the reason?
   It’s always, always my phone. Lately I’ve been trying to live with just leaving it at home and going ‘off grid’ for small trips. It’s a little nervy, but it’s how I lived more than half of my life.
   
5. What do you do when you really want to remember to do something later today or tomorrow?
   I’ll write it in my paper planner at the start of the week and when I get to that day, just seeing the task reminds me to do it. If it’s very time-sensitive (ex: log into website for presale at 7:00am, hijack Doritos truck from Acme at 8:21pm) I’ll set a phone reminder.

Weekend plans include getting some fertilizer for my garden beds, swinging by the library, and taking Nephew A to the aquarium. Next weekend I’m traveling to Austin, TX for TNP’s Big!Annual!Conference and I should really start a packing list for that.

I just realized I didn’t have a Shamrock Shake this year. It’s a little too late to rectify that today but I’ll have to put it in my planner and set a phone reminder for next year.

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