captainsblog | A....DUCK!

Or two, even.

First, though, the events leading up to our rather remarkable travels yesterday:

not many, really. Friday was mostly a getaway day for everyone in the legal community except real estate attorneys who were pushing to get things closed on a Friday/last day of a month/last day before Labor Day and schools starting here. I don't do that anymore. So I finished one big work thing (this will be important later), left a little early, ordered some Wok & Roll for our dinner, and we just basically chilled with Deadpool 2.

Sometime that next morning, I came across a remarkable article which really resonated with the depression that I experience. It's not a profound sadness building on an overall feeling of living a horrible existence. Rather, it's the Thing, be it big or small, that's in front of you at that particular moment of weakness. The author, named Molly Backes, posted about this in a series of tweets that just went viral, in which she refers to it as The Impossible Task:

Backes began the thread, which has gone viral and received almost 15,000 likes, by discussing depression treatment commercials, which “always talk about sadness but never mention that sneaky symptom that everyone with depression knows all too well: the impossible task.”

“The impossible task could be anything: going to the bank, refilling a prescription, making your bed, checking your email, paying a bill. From the outside, its sudden impossibility makes ZERO sense,” Backes wrote, before explaining why the impossible task can be so hard for others to understand.

Because the task is “rarely actually difficult” or “something you’ve done a thousand times,” it is “hard for outsiders to have sympathy.”

This outsider viewpoint, and questions of “why don’t you just do it and get it over with?” only make it more difficult for the person suffering - who are already asking themselves the same questions.

The impossible task can also change, according to Backes, who wrote that one day it can all of a sudden be something entirely different, such as being unable to do the dishes.

As I was reading this, I'd just completed what many would think is an Impossible Task: turning a 40-page rambling state court complaint, drafted by someone else, into a much more streamlined and bankruptcy-specific claim. I did it days before it was due precisely because I KNOW how Tasks can become impossible. In fact, also as I was reading this, there was a basket full of my washed and dried laundry, which had been there, waiting for the seemingly simple task of being folded, for at least 48 hours. That's exactly the kind of thing that can seem Impossible when the stresses of the day, and perceived stresses of the days ahead, get to me.

But you know what? Two things made that task seem much more Possible: becoming self-aware of it, and knowing that I'm not the only one who suffers from it. Although I didn't need the help this time, it also gave me the comfort of being told it's okay to ASK for help when these things seem impossible:

If you currently have one or more Impossible Tasks in your life, be gentle with yourself. You’re not a screw up; depression is just an asshole. Impossible Tasks are usually so dumb that it’s embarrassing to ask for help, but the people who love you should be glad to lend a hand.

Which I will now do. Both to ask for that help when I need it, and to offer it in case you do.

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Meanwhile, depression isn't the only asshole out there you have to deal with.

Earlier this week, Eleanor reported that two bikes had been locked up outside the entrance to her store nearest to where she works (and where she parks her own when she bikes to work). They'd been there for over two days and management couldn't just leave them there forever:

That one in the back is a Peugeot- hardly your father's cheap Schwinn. I suggested we send the picture to the bike shop we'd gotten ours from, and they, in turn, suggested I also post it on a Facebook group named Buffalo Stolen Bikes.

By that day's end, the one in front had been claimed, but the Peugeot, as of last check, was still there. I've kept checking the Facebook page, and the asshattery reported there over stolen bikes is staggering- bikes with photos showing up on Craigslist within minutes of reporting, thieves brazenly calling their former owners after rewards go up to taunt them. Meanwhile, the dog park is now sporting flyers of a stolen puppy, describing the minivan which kidnapped him.

And then there were ducks.

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Our plan for yesterday was to see a friend's art show in a small village a bit over an hour east of here. It's a fascinating project:

The father:

And how one of his photos was recreated:

Miraculous stuff.

When we finished exploring, it was lunchtime, and this little village, just south of the 90 between Canandaigua and Geneva, had a lovely looking restaurant/bakery right across Main Street. We asked for a table outside in their garden, and it wasn't long before we saw these guys in their pond:

That was an amazing enough sight, but the story of how they came to be there, more so. Our server was named Jessie, a kind but no-nonsense kinda woman, who was more than happy to answer our questions. They are Indian runner ducks- biologically not much different from your basic daffus duckus domesticus-but among other traits, they do not fly. Which was a problem, when Jessie first encountered them in a pond at a nearby community horsepital. They were left in a pond there by a prior probable purchaser of pets- ohhh, how cute these ducklings are, wait they're getting so BIGGGGG!- who plopped them in a pond occupied by swans- who promptly attacked them. It wasn't long before the three of them- sadly down to these two after a Main Street road accident- were waddling over to near her restaurant. She wrangled them into their pond- she showed us a picture where they were clearly petrified at first- but they've settled down, and in, to this gorgeous landscape and are now just swimming their days away with everybody loving them, and not with wine sauce and zuchinni fries. She named them Thelma and Louise until realising they were a nesting pair. So, Thelma and Louis, it now is.

The story made the meal, and the whole day, even more special. We turned this into one of our Just Because occasions for leaving a ridiculous overtip, which Jessie promised to share with the whole staff (but not the ducks;).

And if there's a moral in this, it's this: if you can save two exotic ducks from near certain death and make them part of a beautiful landscape, there is no such thing as an Impossible Task.