February 8, 2008. Getting Along

Another reason Ken and I get along is that we think very differently.  I am a well organized plodder while Ken is a rabbit always chasing after some new idea.  If you think about it, that is a pretty good combination.  Two examples tell it all.

We were fairly newly married and a friend at church asked us for help with his trigonometry .  Now Ken and I both passed the same course, but me with a much higher grade.  We offered to help,so the student came to our apartment in Toronto over a hardware store to get our help.  We three sat down at the table and I couldn't even remember the questions, let alone figure out the answes, while Ken just figured out both the questions and the answers.  Lesson #1 to Ruth.  Ken thinks very differently than me.

Another example is my interest in figuring out how things could be done better, whether I am involved or not. Ken and I were at Lake Tahoe along with David and Suzanne and Andrew and Christina.  We were all in the ski shop getting outfitted with gear.  It was taking a long time.  Suzanne and I were finished and to get out of the way we sat up on the high platform that is used to measure so we could see the whole operation.  We reorganized the whole operation in our minds.  We cut out staff, moved locations of counter tops, and generally made for a smooth quick operation.   Finally when everyone was ready to leave, Suzanne and I offered our suggestions to them.  But they were not interested at all.  And all our family thought us slightly daft.

You can see the value in a family with these two skills.  Of course it still comes as a shock to me when I find the pantry unorganized, but I have learned to ignore things I don't control.  The part of Ken's brain that a normal person(meaning me) would sort and organize  in Ken is just not working.  But with the two of us, we are a good team.