Green jeans

The day after my great-grandfather died, my great-grandmother moved into her daughter’s home. That was long before I was born, but I spent many a summer day in that house as a young girl. It was a small 2 bedroom, 1 bath house with a clothes line in the back yard and a washing machine in the basement. My mother was a teen-aged girl, in high school. And just like that, she had a new room mate.

I remember the bedroom they had shared with its chenille coverlets on twin beds, pine floor, ruffled curtains and parchment window shades that had crocheted pulls to lower the shades when the sun became too intense. No air conditioning in those days. The thing I most remember was the containers of African violets my great-grandmother perched on the window sills, each resting in a saucer. Their soft, fuzzy leaves and delicate flowers in shades of purple and lavender.

All these years later, I find that I’m a window sill gardener too. Not of the African violet variety, but any plant that will live in a glass of water and hopefully develop roots. I find a generous amount of pleasure and satisfaction in taking a clipping from the landscape, trimming the lower foliage and lovingly placing it in a jar of water in the bright kitchen window near the back door. I check often for signs that roots may be developing and my pleasure is redoubled when that evidence becomes visible. Then I continue tending to the cutting until the roots appear to be hearty enough to sustain the plant in a new home of soil.

My mom used to tell me stories about her grandmother’s gardens, tended by her grandfather year-round. My great-grandmother loved the blossoms, kept cuttings in the house, and donated blooming seasonal arrangements to her church every week.

It must have been hard, heart-breaking, for my great-grandmother to turn her back on an independent life and leave everything behind. Bringing only a window sill garden of African violets. The social customs of the time that predicated that decision are now lost on my generation and those that have come after me.

But the simplistic beauty and joyful task of tending to plants on a small scale, on a window ledge, is a part of my daily life, a trait happily handed down through the generations in my family.

Summers of my memory

From Memorial Day to Labor Day, my brother and I seldom wore shoes. Hot pavement and thorny stickers were not a deterrent for our bare summertime feet. We rode our bikes everywhere and walked down the block to the community swimming pool every day. I played hopscotch on the driveway, taking great care to draw pretty course squares with colored chalk.

In the evenings, I would sit in the front yard and listen to the cicadas until past dark. Sometimes, on firefly nights, a thrilling game of hide-and-seek might occur.

Mommy made popsicles in metal ice cube trays and watermelon was plentiful along with beans, cucumbers and tomatoes from our garden behind the garage.

On the 4th of July, the annual parade consisted of a legion of kids riding spider bikes with red, white and blue streamers flying from the handlebars, followed by the fire engine from the community’s VFD and finally, a convertible coupe where the town mayor sat in the place of honor, waving to neighbors that lined the streets as the procession passed. The car was invariably adorned with a poster-sized sign on each door inscribed proudly with the phrase “Our Mayor” in boldly colored crayon.

Then, just before 9 o’clock, residents would walk a mile or so down the road to the community park and find a place to sit in the grass until the fireworks started. The volunteers manning the pyrotechnics lit the candles one by one, with a span of 10-15 seconds between each, giving the audience plenty of time to watch in amazement as the sparkles turn to ember and then to smoke.

And it was amazing. Pure magic for a young girl. I felt like skipping all the way home and probably did, swinging my mom’s hand the whole way.

Practical application of transitive equality

I was going to write this post for Tuesday (RTT), but it's way late. 3 days late. But whatever. Last time I checked, there were no rules on the internet.

Early last month Cristy had a birthday and I just am about the world's worst at finding the definitive gift. In most cases, I seem to find a little something that I absolutely adore and then think, "wouldn't so-and-so just LOVE this?" So then I purchase it and the gift recipient is left wondering what motivated me to buy this big chunky bracelet that I'm eagerly hoping to borrow when I should have known the recipient is unlikely to ever wear it.

I don't know why this happens. Projection. Lack of coffee. Who knows.

But maybe, just possibly, on this past birthday, I inched slightly closer to that divine place where I selected a gift meaningful to the recipient.

I ordered these two custom stepping stones from K-Dub Designs. They are adorable and made to order to resemble your own dog or cat. The artist behind K-Dub (Karen) is sweet and creative and so easy to work with.

Cristy LOVES mosaics. And she LOVES her two cute dogs. So, by applying the transitive property of equality in mathematical logic, it stands to reason that Cristy would LOVE the mosaic portraits of her two pups.

I think she might. I hope so, anyway.

Here they are.

A full collection will soon follow. After all, we have a house full of 4-legged companions along with the memories of those recently departed. More on that later.

Language of love

In ten days I will recite a vow and make a heart-felt promise to my beloved Cristy, witnessed by the members of our family and our closest friends. I will vow to travel the journey of my life with her, seeking that path and finding our way together. These words, our promises, will communicate the strong sense of love that we share and cherish.

Planning for this wedding has been an interesting project and as we get closer to the date, the activities we are involved with on a near-daily basis are steeped in minutae.

The wedding will be in our home, and we are transforming it from an already lovely residence into something even softer and sweeter. Swirling with pretty paper heart garlands and shining candle lanterns. Sprinkled with dozens of simple bouquets of flowers and greenery. In every way, the layers of detail that will form the backdrop for our wedding are an expression of who we are. These elements too, will communicate, more subtly, the gentle tenderness with which we move through our days and nights.

This combination of words and personal expression is indeed, the language of our love.

In harmony

I walked down the street today to attend a presentation: 1 block west then 1 block north. The day is lovely and I noticed blooming daylilies and plenty of chirping sparrows along the way. One of the buildings I passed has now been entirely fenced; any sort of access to the perimeter is prohibited. The building will be demolished at some date in the not too distant future as the Texas Medical Center makes way for expansion.

The process of expansion is one that seems to have no end. New roads, new buildings, new floors added to the tops of existing buildings. The vast acreage of Hermann Park lies along the northern edge of the medical center. A drive into this complex from the freeway affords commuters a picturesque view of the golf course. Recently, a broader, new road was constructed to channel traffic alongside Braes Bayou more efficiently and as a result, the older road near the edge of the golf course was abandoned and has been returned to the park as restored green space.

This is something I have not ever before observed. A road demolished and the land restored to augment nature. It makes me happy that the civil engineers and transportation planners included this as one of the goals of the construction project.

In my personal corner of the world, Cristy has taken significant strides to convert our own yard into a nature friendly habitat. There are 2 squirrel feeders, a bird feeder, hummingbird feeder, two birdhouses and a birdbath. Numerous wind chimes provide soothing musical sounds that help mask the noise of nearby lawnmowers or tools. She has made our yard a welcome place for birds and squirrels and we are rewarded daily with visitors of all varieties.

The energy inside our homes is, I think, derived in large part from its external surroundings. Windows that offer views of water, sky, foliage and our feathered neighbors give us the elements in Feng Shui that represent vital Chi energy. A balance with nature and with spirit. Harmonious.

Amid a sometimes perplexing blend of chaos, I am reminded of the harmony woven throughout the moments of my day.

Mischief

It was 6:45am Friday and I noticed several cars pulling into the parking lot of a largely abandoned shopping strip on my way to work. Then I realized they were cutting through the parking lot to zip over to the Shipley Donut shop. Thoughtful folks that they were, they were probably going to get a big box to take in for their coworkers. Or maybe not, who knows?

Regardless, it reminded me of a story that my mom likes to tell from time to time. About Shipley donuts. The best darned donuts around, if I do say so myself.

When my brother and I were young kids, my dad would buy a dozen Shipley donuts from time to time, as a Saturday morning treat. He wasn’t the type of man who would get up early on Saturday morning to drive over to the donut store to get fresh donuts. He’d buy them the night before and wrap the box in kitchen towels to try to keep them fresh. My brother and I were kids and didn’t know the difference. I guess my mom and dad just didn’t much care whether the donuts were fresh or not-so-fresh. In hindsight, this is weird, because my dad loved sweets.

Anyway, one particular Friday night, we had a box of Shipley donuts on our kitchen counter wrapped in dish towels.

The next morning, Dad awoke and made his way into the kitchen. He noticed my younger brother sitting on the floor watching cartoons. As he started making the coffee, he glanced over to the box of eagerly awaited Shipley donuts and to his surprise, only saw an empty counter. Naturally, he asked my brother where he put the donuts, thinking he had already snaked one or two from the box.

Hey, where’d you put the donuts?

What donuts?

Uh-oh.

A quick look around the house revealed an empty donut box and some kitchen towels casually tossed aside. And a family dog with an upset stomach casually sleeping it off in the laundry room. Apparently the kitty had acted as an accomplice and pushed the box to the floor for amusement.

No one else was very amused at the time, but all these years later, it is a continued source of amusement, at least for my mom, my brother and me.

Homemade

2nd vein.

I’m turning into my mom. Part of me, anyway. Not the casino-slot-machine-diva part. The homemade-buttons-and-bows part. I know I’ve written a couple of blog entries about my foray into homemade things and craft projects. It’s a far cry from the way I would have envisioned spending my time if you had asked me ten years ago. But now it just seems genuine and personal.

Cristy brought home a little pot of daisies from the store last night. It is a welcome gift from a group of colleagues for a coworker returning to work after completing a treatment protocol for breast cancer. Cristy wanted it to be sweet and special, so I offered to make a little bow for the plant and thankfully, she agreed. In five minutes I had made a little bow out of cotton fabric layered alongside a smaller bow of raffia and string with a couple of beads attached to the ends of the string. I tied the bows to a little plastic card holder and anchored it into the soil. It doesn’t look spectacular, but it does look personal. It looks like this woman’s coworkers cared enough about her to make a homemade bow for the pretty potted daisies.

I will probably turn into one of those women who troll the clearance table at JoAnn’s, picking up remnants of lace, ribbon and pretty patterned fabrics to adorn greeting cards, packages and gifts of all sorts. Just a little touch to make them personal. That’s what my mom always did.

More thriftiness

Sailing on the success of last weekend’s thrift store outing, I have continued on the quest for dinner forks and buffet plates this week. Monday’s target was a rather upscale thrift store in the heart of the Montrose. It is staffed with a hefty supply of volunteers that resemble museum docents. My journey rewarded me with a set of 7 dessert plates in a modern floral design, shades of orange, pink and yellow. Quite festive and only $10.

Then yesterday, on the way home from work, a little voice urged me to pull off and dash into Dillard’s clearance center store. I had been there 2 or 3 weeks ago and doubted that the inventory would have changed much, but I heeded the voice. And the reward was worth the extra time. Open stock china priced at 99-cents. Only three patterns available, and mostly saucers without cups, but I was fortunate enough to get an armful of pretty bone china salad plates for under $20.

However, the fork shortage still lingers in the shadows of my thoughts. So today I went to the Salvation Army family store in the Heights on a quest for dinner forks. There were a lot, just not a lot that I liked. I prefer a dining utensil that feels weighty in your hand, so the stamped metal utensils, the kind that are plentiful in thrift stores, don’t exactly do it for me. Thankfully there were a half dozen that met the minimum criteria and at 20-cents per piece, who can complain, right?

I casually glanced at a few other items, but with not much time to spare, I made my purchase and headed back to work. Future thrift store outings will continue to be part of my future as I move down the list to other items queued up in my mind’s periphery.

Best made plans

Dogs have a way of outsmarting us humans. We make plans and execute our plans carefully. Then a dog comes along, casually sniffs out the one single deficiency, and in a nanosecond, topples the fruits of your labor, all the while wagging her tail happily.

This is the way it has been with the doggy door.

Developing a plan for restricted canine access to the dog run area of the yard throughout the work day was an essential element of our initial move-in plan. We carefully planned a location for the door, selected a contractor for the installation, planned the design for the perimeter fence around the dog run, planned for the exterior pathway leading to the door and purchased all the requisite materials.

It seemed like a reasonable plan. Dogs would have the freedom to stay indoors or outdoors during the day, would not be subjected to the risk of falling into the pool, and on lawn mowing days, we would simply pop the cover over the doggy door and they would stay safely indoors.

So we executed against the plan. Mucho time consuming. No small expense.

Flaw #1 – commercially-made doggy door covers are designed to trick humans into thinking that they are actual barriers. This assumption is false. The simple pop-on doggy door cover we have can be removed by a crafty canine in a matter of moments. It is no match for a dog with an agenda.

Flaw #2 – temporary fencing is temporary, at best. During the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, we installed some deer fencing at my old house to keep the dogs inside the yard after the back fence blew down. It was very effective as a short-term solution. We decided to take this success and expand it to a larger scale, for a longer duration, by using deer fencing to cordon off the perimeter of the dog run. However, because of the variable terrain and other factors, there were weaknesses in the fence that the dogs quickly identified. Quick, as in instantaneously. Scaled the fence, no problem. Over the subsequent months, we (and when I say we, I actually mean Cristy) have conducted countless repairs to this temporary fence to remedy each breach of integrity.

These two initial, but fatal flaws in our logic resulted in a ripple effect of downstream problems, exacerbated by our attempts to outwit our clever companion dogs with creative solutions to these problems. Each activity, consequently falling into the aforementioned mucho-time-consuming and no-small-expense categories.

The remedies seem to be the most obvious. 1. stack up some heavy things in front of the doggy door blocking access to the door. 2. get a professional to build a real fence.

OK (head hanging in embarrassment), OK.

Fencing contractor completed the work yesterday. After we return the leftover lumber to Home Depot, I can start working on getting the leftover splinters out of my hands and maybe, just maybe, put the doggy-door episodes to rest.

Too optimistic? We shall see.

Scenes from the weekend

Plenty of activity punctuated by brief escapes to the yard, full of blooming plants. Projects included phase 2 of the photo gallery project (phase 1 picture at left), doggy-door barracade, candle-lantern groupings for the trees, making a birdbath, hanging a bird feeder, and adding storage hooks for the pool tools. Full agenda.

Another weekend project

I asked if I could use her cordless drill and she said yes. I had high hopes of completing a little project on my own. I wanted to convert an unadorned vestibule in our home into a photo gallery. I had found some ledges on sale at Target and had plans to use these ledges as the basis of the photo gallery look I was seeking.

The plan seemed easy enough. Theoretically. Still, I was a little apprehensive. After all, I was about to drill some holes in our walls.

I got my supplies together: eyeglasses, snowman pencil, measuring tape, level, manual screwdriver and drill. When Cristy saw the snowman pencil she knew I was serious. She decided to evacuate to a place of relative safety where she would not have to observe my palpable nervousness.

I marked, measured, drilled and successfully hung the first ledge. I replicated the process exactly and hung the second. My confidence soared. Feeling that drill move the anchor into the dry wall was incredible. It felt secure. Why had I been so nervous? I would have this project knocked out in 10 minutes, tops.

Then there was a tiny bump in the road. The fittings for the third shelf didn’t match up with the anchors I had installed. Hmmm. I had done everything exactly like the previous two. I kept hoping for a miracle, trying to get the ledge to fit, badly marring the paint in the process. I was sweating.

I stepped out onto the back porch to admit my power tool deficiencies and solicit advice for proceeding. The first thing she said was: Isn’t hanging shelves fun?

No. It isn’t. I hate the bastards who invented shelves.

Plan B – install two new anchors a half inch over from the previous two. I measured the openings on the rear of the ledge again and verified that the measurement was not identical to the first two ledges. I needed to modify the distance between the anchors.

I don’t know whether it was my escalating panic or just a case of bad luck, but Plan B failed too. On to Plan C – half inch over in the other direction. Triple measure, mark, triple measure. Success.

Five more went up quickly after the setback. The gallery is far from complete, but the visual anchor is in place and the second round of photos will probably go up next weekend.

I need some recovery time.

Earth hour

I had forgotten about Earth Hour approaching. We had been out completing an errand and when we arrived home around 7pm I made a few candle lanterns to hang outdoors in the trees. It was a simple process with a nice visual effect. We sat indoors at the kitchen table with the flickering glow beyond giving us a calming lift to our spirits. I experimented with the candlelight setting on my camera, then suddenly at 8:15, remembered Earth hour.

Cristy hurriedly prepared salads for dinner and boiled water in the kettle for tea. I gathered a dozen or so votive candle holders and tea lights and placed them in small groupings, hoping that the candle glow would give us sufficient light that we would not feel compelled to abandon the Earth hour project.

We ate our dinner and talked. Sat peacefully in the candlelight past 9:30.

I don’t remember now what roused us from the kitchen table. It was probably the requirement to tend to the needs of one of the dogs, but at shortly after 10pm, we returned to life by electric lights. Washed the dishes, washed and put away the votive holders, and washed our faces in preparation for bed.

The simplicity of sharing conversation by candlelight was lovely.

Observations from the weekend

Lately, I have developed a habit of assembling a collage of photographs taken over the weekend and making that my Monday post on the companion photo blog. But this past weekend I took my camera out only once to document the completion of a little project. No collection of images from which to build a pretty collage.

So I thought I would instead assemble a collage of words. Recollections of the weekend described in words rather than visually portrayed in photographs. Not as pretty, but perhaps an adequate reflection nonetheless.

Driving through the neighborhood on the north side of downtown where I deliver food once per month, I almost always see something unexpected. This particular Saturday morning was no different. In a vacant residential lot, I noticed a handful of ground-feeding birds, grackles and doves. And among them, a green parrot. You surely don't see that every day.

Shortly afterwards, I drove by a house with a tall fenced yard and noticed a man riding a horse in the yard. A pretty brown and white paint horse. Another rare spectacle. Then shortly after that, I dropped by the house of one of my clients to deliver their food and joined them in the backyard to play for a few minutes with four baby chickens. Now this scenario is not so rare these days. But the babies are usually only around once per year.

I would have loved to have captured those moments with a photographic image, but all the same, the images are thankfully still alive in my head.

In addition to those, I probably would have captured a few others along the way. Some rather simple images from the ordinary weekend.

Drinking cups of hot tea on Saturday to stave off the chill of the last (hopefully) coldfront of winter.

Gracyn curled up in her little dog-basket in her new favorite place, the floor of the kitchen pantry.

Browsing the aisles of Barnes & Noble.

Ringing the “excellent customer service” bell at Kroger in hopes that the very helpful cashier would forgive my absent-minded behavior.

The thing that stands out for me, from the weekend, and the thing that I would not have been able to capture in a photographic image is the sheer joy in my heart then, and even now. The joy of sharing an ordinary weekend with the person that makes my heart leap for joy. The person whose smile lights my life and whose voice is the sweetest sound I can imagine. The joy of sharing the moments of my life with her while we do chores, watch television, eat a meal, play with the dogs, hold hands, hold each other. Bliss. I am humbled with gratitude.

On home decorating

My father was a veteran of the Korean War. A recent high school graduate, he served in the Air Force in the early 1950s. It was a time of his life about which I have almost no information. But I do have some mementos.

He apparently went to Tokyo once on R&R and that young American soldier took a shopping excursion. Completely out of character for the man I later knew as my dad: the one who preferred to avoid shopping and purchases of any kind.

I took possession of some of the fruits of that shopping trip almost 18 years ago after he died. One particular garment box that has been on the shelf of my closet all this time held two kimonos. One silk and one cotton. And a silk obi. I vaguely recalled the cotton kimono (actually, a yukata) because I remember him wearing it around the house on a couple of rare occasions as I was growing up.

In my ongoing quest to rid myself of possessions that are “stored” forever in boxes in the closet, I pulled out these kimonos last week. Besides the few times he wore them, they have probably not been out of the box since 1953.

As I opened the box, I immediately saw the cotton kimono’s cheerfully crisp navy blue and white ziggy-zaggy stripe pattern. Beneath was the silk kimono, a garment unfamiliar to me. I pulled it from the box to discover it was lined in white silk. The colors of the kimono were a somber olive and sandy brown. And the pattern was also somber: Japanese soldiers on foot, carrying caskets that held their deceased comrades.

I wondered why in the world my father had selected these two kimonos. More than likely, the shops that he visited were full of gorgeous silk kimonos in brilliant colors adorned with patterns of birds and blossoms. But then I remembered that he was purchasing the kimonos for himself, this young man of 20, not some hypothetical daughter who in sixty years' time would probably prefer flowers to coffins. So I honor it for what it is. And I decided to find a way to add this kimono to my daily life, something I could touch, see and enjoy in my home surroundings. I decided to make a pillow cover from this kimono fabric.

Because I did not want to immediately cut into the fabric of the main garment, I decided to detach one of the elongated sleeves, perfectly rectangular shaped, as the basis for the pillow. All I needed to do was pull apart the seam between the sleeve and armhole. My scissors cut the first thread in the lining and I nearly gasped in amazement – the garment was hand sewn. The stitches I cut were not made by machine. I continued snipping apart the stitches, imagining the needle in the hand of the person who sewed it, carefully crafted it into the lovely garment now before me on the kitchen table.

I sewed the sleeve back together as a pillow, using a hand needle and thread. I’d like to be able to say that I selected this process in reverence of the kimono’s original integrity. But the truth is, I don’t own a sewing machine. I only sew by hand. For about 3 hours on Sunday, I busied myself with this project. My pillow insert should arrive in a few days and I will place it among the collection of pillows that adds a touch of color, life and whimsy to our surroundings. This one will add more: a shade of toil, echoes of an ancient culture.

The more time I spend thinking about and pursuing the process of decorating our home, the more I am convinced that decorating is not about copying the elements from a picture of someone else’s house. At least not for me. It’s about arranging the things I possess with love and creativity. It’s about finding ways to maximize the use and beauty of everything.

The elusive handyman

I was in a colleague’s office a few months back; there were several female homeowners present and the anxious topic of discussion focused on finding a capable, reliable, affordable handyman. None of the homeowners had husbands, but that is somewhat inconsequential since I don't happen to believe that husband and handyman are synonymous. (And don’t go thinking that I’m a misandrist, guys, it’s just that some jobs require a person with a proper set of tools and experience.)

I have been working with contractors on residential projects, large and small, for over a year now, and I am nearly certain that the handyman is on the endangered species list. There are no shortage of painters, landscaping crews, carpenters, tiling installers, electricians and fence builders. And we’re not afraid to get our hands dirty either: we both have done a remarkable amount of work that could have been outsourced to a handyman or other contractor. Last spring I used a chisel and hammer to remove hundreds of pounds of ceramic tile from the floor of my old house. Cristy built a fence for a protected dog-run in our backyard. We have changed locks, doorknobs, air filters and garage door codes. Hung book shelves, shoe shelves, curtain rods and plastic bag dispensers.

But so much of the routine maintenance of home ownership is beyond our skill and experience. As a result, we joined the pursuit to find a handyman. This is not as easy as we first believed it would be. The first hurdle is to get someone to return my call when I happen to locate an individual that appears to be in the true handyman business (rather than a sheetrock/painting contractor). And when they do return the call, it is hard to get them agree to show up.

We’ve gone through three so far. All have performed some services, but it is a long list and after crossing off a few tasks, and going home with a handful of cash in their pocket, they just seem to lose interest.

I found the website for a possible fourth contender and clicked on the “Contact Us” button to send our list of tasks to see if they might be interested. Just wanted to be very upfront – it is a random list of carpentry-type chores, not a glamorous kitchen remodeling project. But someone called me the next day to say they wanted the job. Wow, I thought that was great. He wanted to come by and look at the particulars so we could agree on a price. Even better.

I proposed Saturday.

He hesitated. Said there wasn’t anything booked, but he just wasn’t quite sure. He’d get back with me.

Right.

The clever canine

Living with a household of dogs is never dull. Their individual personalities have plenty of opportunities to claim the spotlight. Lately, my oldest mixed-breed, Jackie (14 years old), has been asking for more attention than normal. It might have something to do with his chronic aches and pains. Besides his daily medications, I give him massages and walk around through the house with him when he seems restless. We’ll position a space heater near him when he’s lying down for extra warmth. And there are plenty of quilts, throw rugs and towels on the floor for him to lie on in the rooms where the dogs like to sleep.

On a few occasions, we have noticed that his hind legs don’t appear to be working as they should. He demonstrates a fair amount of stiffness and appears to be uncomfortable. But the symptoms are transitory, because as a counterpoint, we also seem him trotting through the backyard and rolling about in the grass. And if someone knocks at the front door, stand back, because Jackie is first to lead the charge toward the door at top speed, tail held high, barking an alert for possible intruders.

Last week Cristy decided to conduct a little experiment. Since I leave for work in the morning first, she has the chore of rounding up the dogs and corralling them into their daytime designated dog play room. Sometimes they can be a little reluctant to get up from their morning naps to relocate. This particular morning, Jackie’s back legs seemed to be acting up, as they have in the past and he couldn’t quite get to a standing position. So he just lay down again to resume his nap. Perhaps he thought he might get an exemption from having to move to the play room.

As Cristy often reminds me, the dogs are clever, but we are the ones with the thumbs. So she executed a little ploy. She stepped around the corner and rapped sharply on one of the closet doors. In a flash, Jackie leapt to his feet, thinking it had been a knock at the front door. Of course the other dogs heard it too, and soon a chorus of barks sounded throughout the house.

The point however, is that as much as I hate to admit it, my sweet dog Jackie, might (just might) be a cunning manipulator, leveraging his aches and pains to try to get what he wants.

But, as they say, he had me at hello. So, I don’t mind playing along.

On a mission

One of the few times I watched Jon & Kate + 8, a topic on that broadcast, discussed somewhat incidentally, was the fact that this family had created a mission statement.

[Note to self: please refrain from indulging in judgmental thoughts about the probable level of family collaboration involved in creating the aforementioned mission statement.]

I was impressed during the broadcast at the concept of actually taking the trouble to formulate and verbalize a family mission statement and I decided to do a little research with my best friend, google. What I learned was not surprising. A number of family therapists cited in the search results recommend that couples (my research was limited to couples since I’m not a mom) not only participate in the exercise of creating a mission statement, but also define the values that guide your lives, both as individuals and as a couple.

I love methodology and in one of my previous volunteer assignments, led a few organizations through strategy building workshops similar to this. The participants begin with some trepidation, but quickly gain confidence and make rapid progress. It always sounds more difficult than it really is.

Anyway, Cristy and I took the time last year to explore our values in life areas such as faith, social pursuits, daily home-life, financial management, holiday and family celebrations, professional-career pursuits, etc. I think we defined 10 or 12 general categories. The values we verbalized were those beliefs we held about who we were as individuals in the distinct life areas and how we each felt we needed to participate as a couple in order to feel whole, validated and cherished.

Not all of our opinions were aligned, but we tried to negotiate through some ideas about behavior that would meet some important needs for us both.

It was useful. Performing that exercise together made us feel as though we had established a broad set of basic agreements for the way that we would interact in these areas of our lives. Because we had made agreements, a large degree of ambiguity about who we were as a couple evaporated. It was as if we had completed a private rehearsal of sorts. While I cannot predict the future, I feel my chances of being blindsided by something unexpected that conflicts with one of my core living values, is greatly diminished.

Nothing is guaranteed. Disasters can happen, garbage disposals can erupt, as ours did this week. We only hope that the practice of finding common ground around the values that are the most important guiding principles of our lives will help us combine our strengths in times of stress, sorrow or sickness. The practice of negotiating behaviors in advance will help us feel empowered to ask for the supportive behavior that we need from the other to offer that extra support when we’re not quite feeling whole. The practice of exploring and envisioning will open our minds to the possibilities that exist for enriching our own lives as well as the lives of others with whom we interact.

All things considered, I’d have to say that Jon & Kate, or at least the producers of Jon & Kate, set a very good example for which I am truly grateful.

Finding a metaphor in the mundane

The correct tool for the job turned out to be steel wool. Worked like a charm. Scrubbing that burned-on residue from the bottom of the soup kettle was relatively quick work once I got the steel wool engaged.

Yesterday I made corn chowder and started by boiling pearled barley with some onion and celery. Barley gives the soup texture and makes it taste chowdery. But in my poorly managed multi-tasking frame of mind, I neglected to keep watch on the barley and consequently the water boiled out too quickly leaving the starchy grain to burn. And stick to the bottom of the kettle.

After discarding the contents, I tried an old remedy that has always proved successful for me in the past – boiling soapy water in the kettle. I think I read it years ago in a newspaper column. Probably Hints from Heloise.

But it didn’t work. Usually that technique makes the job of cleaning so much easier. No scrubbing even required. Not this time.

So this morning, as I was physically scrubbing the pan with my steel wool, I found my brain casting about searching for someone, something to accept the blame for the situation I was in. I landed on Heloise. Damn that tips column. Load of baloney!

Then the scrubbing was over and I almost had to laugh. So ridiculous that I would be trying to escape responsibility for something so insignificant, a minor inconvenience. But I was. Yeah, I’m human. Give my idiot card a punch.

Coincidentally, this is precisely the topic that one of my favorite bloggers recently presented in a very humorous way. Karal, at the orange chair. Check it out.

Real life reality - the customer experience episode

There is a cost associated with providing customer service. To stay in business, companies load those costs into the price of the items they sell. To remain profitable, they have to keep operational costs as low as possible. For some companies that have slender profit margins, revving up the volume on customer service is not in the cards. Processes are streamlined and automated. So when problems occur, their customers find that they share a portion of the burden of sorting things out.

Here’s an example, from a recent episode in our own real-life reality series. (who needs television when you've got real life to keep things exciting?)

We purchased a product from an online consumer electronics outfit in early January. We had been watching the price points carefully and selected an optimally priced item, actually an exceptional value. A week or so later we received an email giving us the contact information for the retailer’s delivery services vendor so we could call and coordinate delivery with that firm directly.

Cristy called and selected a delivery date. We have both received a number of shipments to our personal residences through the years, and in our collective experience, freight companies contact the recipient with an estimated delivery window, say a 2-to-4 hour window, so the recipient will actually be at the premises when the shipment arrives. Given this experience, Cristy anticipated that the shipper would call in advance to give her an approximate time, but they did not. They just arrived at the house. Someone was (thankfully) at our house that day and received the product in our stead. It was in a large, bulky box and the delivery person did not have a dolly; they both carried it into the house. But we were dismayed when we arrived home to discover it was the wrong product. And not just a little bit wrong, but really wrong. It was way, way more expensive than the item we purchased.

Cristy called the next day to sort it out. The online retailer had no idea how this mistake might have occurred; they were shocked. Their plan to remedy the situation was to dispatch the delivery company back to our house to retrieve the product and when it had been returned, they would ship the item we ordered.

The next week, we were back on the delivery vendor’s schedule for the pickup. It was one guy, again without a dolly. He did not know what he was supposed to get or who he was supposed to invoice. He man-handled the box out to the truck by himself and drove off without securing the box inside the back of the truck. Cristy watched in complete disbelief, certain that the product would fall over and break as soon as he turned the first corner. Then as if to heighten the drama, she noticed that the strapping around the box had badly cut into our wood floors. The driver had pushed the box directly across the floor without covering it first. Nice.

She called the online retailer again, to notify them of both the damage to our property by their vendor and the incredibly high possibility that the product would be returned to them damaged because of the freight company’s failure to properly secure the cargo within their vehicle. The online retailer suggested that we initiate a discussion with the freight service company to pursue a remedy for the floor scratching.

Over the next couple of weeks, Cristy spoke to no fewer than 5 people at that freight company about the incident. None of them had any idea what to do. It was as if this was the first time in the company’s history that an incident of this sort had occurred. Completely frustrating (for us). Someone finally gave her the telephone number of an insurance company to file a claim. OK.

In the meantime, we received an invoice from the freight company since they had to make a second trip to our house to retrieve the equipment mistakenly delivered. I attempted to resolve that with an email to the online retailer’s customer service group, but it appears that “online customer service” is not actually staffed by humans. All replies appeared to be computer generated and were not oriented toward solving problems. Cristy called someone at the customer service center and received agreement that they would handle the mistaken invoice.

About the same time, our originally ordered product was approaching; we received word that we could again call the freight company to arrange delivery. Cristy called and selected a day, but the day came and went without a call to her. She called again and they said they would get to it the next day. On my way home the following day, Cristy told me that the delivery truck was en route to our house. Thankfully she had called to check, because again, they failed to contact her. They arrived shortly after I got home.

The very nice delivery man informed me that he had instructions not to enter our house, so he would leave the product either in the garage or outside on the front porch. I opted for the front porch. The product was strapped to a small pallet and he moved it from the truck to our porch by see-sawing it back and forth on the corners of the pallet. He opened the packaging to confirm that the product was intact. I signed the receipt form and he left. When Cristy arrived, we carried the item indoors and disposed of the packaging ourselves (except for the pallet – waiting for heavy trash day).

At the end of the episode, we received what we ordered and the online retailer offered us a small cash rebate. We have a badly scratched floor for which we need to buy a rug, the cost of which will not be covered by the cash rebate. And we still need to begin a conversation with the freight company’s insurance carrier to pursue a possible reimbursement for the floor repairs.

As retailers shift their business models to strictly online customer interaction, the cost of doing business also shifts to the consumers. The two companies in question? CircuitCity.com and YRC, Inc. Buyer beware.

Integrating the past with the present

Before I moved last year the gigantic task of packing my belongings loomed vaguely in the path ahead. As I started tackling that activity, the task loomed even larger; it seemed to block out the sun. I found things I had forgotten from years before stashed away in little pockets of my tiny universe. I threw things away that should have been thrown away years before. I boxed and bagged and lifted and carried. Several times – it was a multi-stage process.

Along the way I decided that the things I took with me to my new residence should have a useful place in my home and in my life. I would prefer not to stow these things away again, unseen, for another 20 years; that just doesn’t make much sense.

So far, so good. The most obvious items of furniture found a home first, that was the first layer of things settled into the house. The second layer was the contents of closets, pantries and drawers – utility items that we would need to access on a regular basis. The third layer was largely visually decorative. Books, pottery, seashells, vases, photos, a collection of items that by themselves, are not necessarily beautiful, but together, form an appealing backdrop for our rooms.

But still, some straggling things remain. Two weeks ago I opened one of the bags that I had placed temporarily at the bottom of a closet and decided to filter through these things and bring them into my daily existence. They were things that belonged to my late father. His college degree, professional engineering certificate, numerous awards, interesting artifacts, memorabilia. Three of the items were already framed, so I hung them immediately and then purchased a few more inexpensive document frames for some of the other honorary certificates.

And today, the box arrived with the sturdy new frames and their crisp white mats. My father was an humble man and did not find much reason to rejoice in his accomplishments. He rejoiced in designing an innovative solution to address the problem at hand. But now, all that remains are the artifacts that point to these successes.

So a portion of these artifacts from his life are now living anew in my home. And I continue to make my way through the stragglers little by little, calling upon imagination, love and inspiration as a guide.