Just energy transition

No one sawed anything near me and I didn't get annoyed at anyone. 

They aren't just taking down the wooden wall and putting up brick, they are digging up the earth that was behind the wall so they can put substrate there and then put up brick. A backhoe reaching down into my yard looks very dramatic. 

It is a much bigger project than we were made to believe. Yesterday they carefully dug up my hostas and placed them gently to the side. [Other than watering the roots, should I do anything to help them survive the week?] Today they moved my big stones that were forming a border for that plant bed and moved them to some newspapers I laid out. 

I helped some folks prepare for a terribly important presentation they have to give. I pretended to be the head of the initiative and at one point passionately described how, having just been in South Africa, I met a coal miner who supports his family by mining and has no other skills to get another job and a single mother with three children who feeds those children by selling food to those miners. I explained that if we transition away from coal and they don't know how they will make a living that they will fight that transition and the transition will fail. 

One of them wanted to know how I remembered all that, he couldn't see it in the notes, or did I just make it up? Of course I made it up, I'm not Mark, I wasn't just in South Africa, I didn't meet any unions, but I thought it was an emotive example. Then the other guy asked if I'd taken drama in college or high school, because yes, my example was very effective. 

So the good news is I still like giving presentations, or at least, I like practicing presentations.