Weekday ritual

About once per day at approximately 7am, five days per week, I utter a loud exclamation that contains an effing expletive. Yeah, that one.


No one else hears it since I’m in the car.


But I think I’ve been doing it for a while. I caught myself this morning and wondered why the foul language?


Truth is, maybe I’m not the best driver in the world. The freeway entrance ramp for my route brings me into a heavily traveled junction point where two exit-only lanes are departing for two separate destinations nowhere near the vicinity of my office. So I have about a half mile, in busy traffic, to enter the freeway and move two lanes to the left, dodging cars with more, shall we say, aggressive drivers.


The whole episode transpires in less than 30 seconds, but it scrapes my nerves raw in that short amount of time. And without fail, I unload the tension with some real nice profanity.

Passages

There was once a girl, the second of three children, who found herself growing up in a middle-class American family. Mom and Dad both worked to provide the opportunities they wanted to give their children and the parents did their best to nurture their three kids.

The second daughter was plagued with a variety of challenges that affected her judgment and behavior. By the time she was an adolescent girl, telling lies and acting out in a harsh, belligerent manner toward her parents started becoming more and more common. Her self esteem suffered due to chronic body weight issues that undoubtedly aggravated her behavioral difficulties. Her parents, not knowing how to respond in a caring, supportive way that demonstrated to their daughter the consequences for actions deviating from acceptable social norms, struggled not only with her, but with each other. It was a time of family crisis.

After high school, the daughter tried leaving home to attend school, but that path didn't suit her and she returned. Old behaviors resurrected. She tried finding employment, but a career choice seemed elusive and jobs were random. Lying was preferable to truth telling. Blaming was preferable to taking responsibility. Hostility was preferable to peaceful coexistence. Still, her parents tried to support their daughter in finding a pursuit where she might derive happiness.

After she turned 21 and renewed her attempt to make her way independently, her personal difficulties increased. Her debt escalated and attempts to hide the debt from plain view made the situation far worse. Her actions were criminal in nature. If she found herself unable to pay a bill, she invented an excuse, told another lie, slandered another’s reputation in the process.

Finally at the breaking point, her parents excused themselves from her life. Without wavering, they both asked her to leave their home permanently, attend to the problems looming in her life, and not return until she was capable of making amends. They were worried, almost sick. Months passed of no communication. The daughter felt betrayed and angry that her parents had turned their backs on her.

Then one day she drove over to her parent’s house and found them at home along with both her siblings. Tearfully, she took a step, and admitting she was ashamed of her cycle of bad behavior, asked for forgiveness. She wanted a chance to repair what she had damaged by demonstrating that she was trying to change the person that she was.

But there was more. She was also expecting a baby. And it was complicated. There was no upside to be found in the situation, save for the fact that she felt blessed and joyful at the prospect of being a mother.

She is going to make her own choices, guided by advice from her obstetrician, counselor, friends and family. Everyone has a particular point of view. But in the end, the only view that matters is hers.

I do not know what will happen. I hope for the best. I pray that she may find steadfast strength and the comprehension to acknowledge her life in the present tense and make choices based on where she stands in that life, humbly taking responsibility for herself and her yet unborn baby.

Rhythm

There is a rhythm to our lives. Activities, relationships, interests. These things seem to emerge and we fold them into our lives. And then, sometimes, they fade. The strength of the relationship diminishes, and acknowledging this, we allow the cycle to continue, unfolding that part of our life as needed. Other interests, previously dormant, seem to emerge. Other activities surface that need our attention. We refold again and again.

And so it is with this blog. While I have found it an outlet for an enormous amount of creative energy, the natural rhythm of writing has ceased for now. It may begin again at some time, but I prefer to follow my inspiration in the other directions where my creativity continues to blossom.

Thank you for sharing this little part of my life and for offering so much inspiration through your photos, essays, poems and stories.

Bridging the generations with shopping

When I was younger, perhaps high school age, my mom and I took a shopping trip to the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. Some of her favorite stores were still there and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Mommy loved the old fashioned stores that had lovely rugs, served tea while you shopped and had huge powder rooms with soft upholstered furniture. After that shopping trip with her, I fell in love with that style of retail shopping experience too.

I don’t keep up with economic indicators, vis-à-vis the impact of unemployment and recession to privately-owned retailers.

However, in 2008, I started noticing some changes.

One particular day, shortly after Thanksgiving, I was doing some Christmas shopping and visited a couple of well established clothing boutiques in Houston. At Kathryn Risley’s shop I noticed that the inventory appeared very sparse, particularly given the time of year. However, I was fortunate enough to find a lovely top for my mom, on a mark-down rack, so I made my purchase and counted my blessings. Earlier that day, at Etui, another favorite just down the street, I had overheard one of the staff members at the shop telling a customer that they hadn’t observed any change to their customer’s spending habits, despite all the reports of economic doom and gloom.

Etui is located in an upscale urban neighborhood, but their merchandise is very reasonably priced. Well, not priced like TJ Maxx, but you know, not like the privately owned boutiques on Chicago’s famed Oak Street either.

It sounded like their client base was loyal enough and financially secure enough to continue spending money on clothing and accessories.

I was relieved to hear this news. While I’m certainly far from an avid shopper, I love pretty clothing and accessories and love knowing that there are a few places where I am confident I can locate completely unique, quality garments in a comfortable, but stimulating atmosphere at a price point that works within my budget.

Elizabeth’s Boutique in The Woodlands falls in this category too. I had been fortunate enough to time my last couple of visits to this lovely store to take advantage of an after-season clearance. But new inventory was still plentiful. My optimism remained high. These boutiques gave me the same feeling of that shopping experience with my mom some 30 years ago.

Kathryn Risley sent an email in early spring 2009, saying that she had closed her store and was launching a new fashion venture in an online space.

Six or seven months later, I received an email from Etui indicating that they were announcing a new fashion partner that was going to share their retail space. Hmmm. It didn’t lure me in, but I was hopeful their resourcefulness would carry them through the apparent financial difficulties creeping into even these businesses with a “loyal” customer base.

About four weeks ago, I noticed a “Sale” banner at Elizabeth’s Boutique indicating they were going out of business.

Then today another email arrived from Etui. They are closing their doors after almost 30 years.

I have to admit, it bothers me. I don’t know if shopping at independent retailers has been largely replaced by shopping online. Perhaps Kathryn Risley knows. Perhaps permanent changes in human behavior have been established, driven by technology, fuel cost and basic economics.

But on the eve of Mother’s Day, this news has extinguished the possibility of participating in an experience that always made me feel like my mother’s daughter.

Only her hairstylist knows for sure

I had a hair appointment after work yesterday afternoon. The older I get, the longer it takes to keep my hair looking presentable. Well, the actual appointment time itself is about the same; that is, the magical hair transformation process hasn’t changed. My own commitment time has increased because procrastinating on getting my hair done, while formerly just a minor annoyance, now results in some really bad hair days. Not pretty. So I have to keep on top of the appointment schedule. No stretching from 6 to 7 weeks anymore.

The process is somewhat time consuming and at this particular business location, on a late afternoon, no one else is present. Just the stylist and me. So we talk for a couple of hours. About family, recipes, death, relationships, entertaining, shopping, love, hurt, faith, heritage.

We share an amazing amount of information for two people that only see each other about 8 times per year.

I was there the afternoon that she received the telephone call with the news her father had died. I remember watching the numbness steal over her as she held the phone.

She was the first person I told that my former spouse had left me. She remembered how she felt when her own marriage ended in similar circumstances and she understood. She had no judgement.

I spend 8 hours per day in close proximity to a half dozen or so people here in my office. I love my employer and I admire the competence of my colleagues. But I do not have anything approximating the feeling of confidentiality with my colleagues that I do with my hair stylist.

So what’s up with that? There is definitely substance to that old saying about hairstylists.

Life's busy season

Sometimes life has a busy season. Odd though, it’s been busy for as long as I can remember. That’s the baseline, but for the past 12 months the pace has accelerated. Almost nonstop. Leaping from one large-scale activity to the next, one holiday or social gathering to the next. A treacherously long list of items crossed off, one at a time. Cross off one, add two. Cross off two, add four.

Thankfully, we’ve lately crossed off more than we’ve added, but there is a very large-scale activity looming in the near future that will have a ripple effect on our list. These individual tasks haven’t really reached a critical junction in terms of an impending deadline quite yet. We’re planning a wedding. This June. 3 months away. That critical junction will soon be here.

On the one hand, it’s not a big affair, no significant fanfare. But on the other hand, it’s our wedding, for goodness sakes! We want it to be special and memorable and lovely. We’re doing almost everything ourselves: hand-drawn flourishes on each hand-written invitation, home-made decorations for the house, in-house catering (courtesy of the sought-after Cristy&Diane catering co), arranging our own hand-tied bouquets, even holding the happy event in our home.

From here, about 100 days away, it seems as though it won’t be a problem.

OK, perhaps not. But let’s look at it from another perspective. Factor in a handful of additional activities that will hit the calendar over the next 100 days, but are not on our current list: 6 birthdays, 2 graduations, 1 school choir performance, Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day.

Uh, well. I’m still optimistic.

I think it’s just the tempo of life. My hypothesis is that when I was younger I had less of an appreciation for the level of effort involved in keeping a balanced life moving forward smoothly. I’ve had to re-calibrate my baseline, or maybe just adjust it to compensate for this realization along with the possibility(?) that my ability to multitask has diminished through the years. Hmmm. For some reason, I seem to be OK with that.

Thank goodness I still drink coffee.

Red carpet moment

I’m going to be 49 soon. In one week. If I were to consult an actuarial table, I would be certain to learn that more than half my life has already passed.

Since I started writing this online diary and reading others’ blogs regularly, I’ve tried to keep an honest perspective about a variety of circumstances that weave through my daily existence. And then a bit earlier today, I read an essay by Katrina at Ordinary Day Journal. It made me recall a watershed moment in my life that opened my vision to see an alternate path. One that I eventually took years later.

As a youngster, and even as a young adult, I had the feeling that I somehow stood apart from the rest of the population. And not in a bad way, like I had body odor, but in a secretly special way. As though I had some unique talent, skill or intelligence that one day, the world would acknowledge. In the meantime, I worked really hard to accelerate my career. Honest to goodness hard work. But, I don’t know, in the back of my mind the thought was always there – what I was doing now was merely a resume entry for the grandeur that would surely come next.

However, one day it occurred to me that my life was exactly as it appeared to be. I was not being considered for a Nobel Prize, was not an esteemed author, a notable composer, nor an accomplished entrepreneur. The word that bounced around inside my head was mediocre.

Mediocre.

It sounds considerably harsher now than it felt at the time. But it was as though an old fashioned alarm clock had started ringing. Noisy and persistent. Pay attention—this is your life! I had a middle-class American life. Nothing to either brag about or feel ashamed of. But since I was subconsciously waiting for the proverbial red-carpet moment for my life to begin, I let my days slip past without much notice. Until that alarm clock bell.

I don’t have all of life’s answers, because I am still learning, still finding the questions along each day’s journey. Like Katrina, and so many other bloggers that keep my perspective in check, the best I can do is acknowledge the present moment steeped in as much gratitude and joy as I can locate in my heart. And thankfully, I find that it is overflowing with both. Gratitude produces joy, which produces more gratitude.

As I read in a birthday card once, the gift of this day is the day itself. So, bring on 49. I am almost humbled to tears that I have had so many days to live and breathe, walk and talk, smile and love. And my gratitude escalates with each additional day.

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.

Chick flick

I’m a chick flick sort of girl. I like movies where the central themes are about building human relationships and making peace with yourself. If the characters are somewhat fashion minded with great shoes and accessories, that’s a big plus. I like intelligent dialog, sweet sentimentality and a good, old-fashioned Hollywood happy ending (sniffle, sniffle).

After all, with the price of movies these days ($19 for two tickets before 5pm thank you very much and $5 for a small popcorn) I don’t need to add an artificial layer of stress to my current existence. I don’t want anxiety, loud bangs, aggressive personalities or dark suspense. I’d be emotionally wiped out by the time the movie is over.

So, dear filmmakers, I realize I might be among a rapidly declining demographic, but please keep making chick movies. Thank you.

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.

On forgiveness

I read an essay by Kristen over at Motherese about forgiveness and it has been occupying a space in my consciousness ever since. Her blog has a way of doing that.

"…to forgive is divine."

I am trying to come to terms with the way I process through forgiveness and take inventory of the associated judgmental feelings stored in my bank of memories. For me, forgiveness is a pivotal closure event in acknowledging a complete set of circumstances around a sorrowful event or moment in time. Forgiveness allows me to assemble that sorrow, place it in a box, close the lid and offer it to my Higher Power. In exchange, I ask for peace. The peace I receive washes away my hurt and helps me regain my sense of wholeness. The sorrowful event may have been substantial and the whole person that I am on the other side may be different than the person I was before.

That is to be expected, is it not?

But how much judgment am I carrying with me as a consequence of the experience?

About three years ago I met a woman who was a recovering alcoholic. I have known more than one alcoholic in my life and I am familiar with the whirling vortex of drama that often goes hand-in-hand with these personalities. However, I was drawn to her personality and we became friends. We socialized and assembled a small circle of friends. Her recovery was difficult and she drank from time to time. The effects of her alcoholic binges were never productive. She was ashamed and told lies to cover up the truth.

And then I had a little Christmas holiday party at my home. I invited a few friends and it was a relatively quiet gathering. Food, drink and conversation. She arrived, already inebriated and proceeded to indulge more. She became emotional, hijacked the thread of the party’s general conversation, and her behavior made me very uncomfortable.

She apologized the next day by sending a text message, or maybe an email. In my heart I forgave her and I know that I communicated this to her through email.

But my judgment about her changed. I mentally formulated a boundary regarding the kind of relationship that I was willing to participate in with her going forward, as a pure consequence of my collective range of experience with her. Our friendship cooled. Over the next year, we continued to talk from time to time and exchange email, but only saw each other once, for lunch. While she made numerous vague suggestions that we make plans to socialize further, I did not feel compelled to encourage the suggestions into anything more concrete.

It is possible that over the past twelve months she has taken some strides forward in her recovery and is a much more responsible person. My opinion, informed by my judgment, has not had an opportunity to evolve due to the far more casual way in which we currently interact. Consequently, there is a chance that my opinion is no longer valid.

But I do not know. I have not received enough information to make a revision.

C’est la vie.

I forgave her for the behavior that I considered to be inappropriate, within the construct of our friendship and I harbor no ill will toward her now. I placed the lid securely on that box. I am at peace.

But on the other side of that forgiveness, I changed.

Bonds of love

I don’t remember the last time I spent an evening out on the two teen-aged boys. Probably because I’ve never done it before. Cristy’s nephews, and really, mine too. One 18 and one 17. We drove downtown, laughed, acted silly, took dozens of photographs, mingled with the other patrons, and surprisingly, as the evening was winding down, had a rather serious adult conversation. I didn’t see it coming.

I don’t know if it matters so much, the precise words spoken. The fact that they were spoken is merely a reminder that at this juncture of their lives, on the cusp of branching out into another direction, that their loving family is there to cheer them onward. And we will be there too, if the choices in the adult world seem overwhelming and they want to talk through their options. Or even just find a place of refuge for an hour or two.

I don’t know what will unfold for either of them in the next year and I am not clear whether they, themselves, have envisioned their own futures.

We will be here to witness their accomplishments and trials and to remind them that we love them through each step of their journey.

Equal time

On the flip-side of the real-life customer service experience, it is only right to describe the good, since yesterday was all about the not-so-good. And by good, I mean, delightfully and surprisingly wonderful.

I am inspired by a woman named Carolyn who was a former colleague and friend. Unfortunately we lost touch many years ago, but I have always remembered her stories. She was an astute manager and adhered to several effective techniques for managing her staff in a productive way. One of her techniques focused on dedicating more time to communicating about good things than bad. Some members of her team had a tendency to walk into her office with complaints. While she wanted to offer an ear to true problems, she did not want to create an open-door policy for idly airing grievances. One of her policies was that the person sitting across her desk could verbalize a negative observation about the workplace only after giving two positive observations.

So here is my equal airtime, ala Carolyn’s method. I just reversed the order.

First place goes to CVS. Their automated customer service line gives me a call approximately 10 days before my prescription runs out and by pressing a few buttons on my telephone keypad, I’ve just submitted an easy-easy refill request. I am the type of person that forgets to call until I’m out of medicine, so this proactive customer service benefit is astonishingly simple, but truly appreciated! I don’t even mind that it’s an automated system calling and not a human.

Second place goes to the friendly staff members at BBVA-Compass Bank and Amegy Bank. They must have some sort of banking competition going on, because I noticed after recent visits to both (in the lobby) that a staff member of each bank made it a point to offer a personal, cheerful greeting, complete with eye contact and a genuine smile. It was such a nice feeling and I will probably make it a point to go inside the bank next time I’m there rather than the drive-through.

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.

Being mindful

A team of colleagues just down the hallway from me work with a variety of constituents and they all have a mail tray installed on the wall just adjacent to their door to receive any urgent paperwork if they happen to be out. They decorate these mail trays with pretty seasonal trinkets and it is a colorful addition to my frequent walks to the printer, elevator, etc. With the season of Lent soon upon us, the current decoration is a bright, feathery Mardi Gras flourish.

Lent is a particularly wonderful season in the Christian religion, because it is all about being mindful. [This is in the Christianity according to my own brain. I do not profess to be a scholar of religion, by any remote stretch of the imagination, so if my interpretations are incorrect, then I humbly stand corrected.] The phrase that resonates with me from a Lenten homily is “ashes to ashes,” encouraging us to be mindful of the finite nature of our existence and the enduring cycle of life.

Nature itself gives us an infinite variety of metaphors of this cycle. The ebb and flow of the tide, the dawn and dusk of the earth’s rotation, the seasonal changes of the earth’s revolution around the sun, the flowering and fruition of trees and plants. Even with the recent harsh freeze, there is evident damage to many of the tropical trees and shrubs around town. But Nature will repair what She can.

At the place where I work, acknowledging death comes with the territory. It does not make it a dreary or depressing place to work; it simply reinforces the importance of celebrating the life that we have. One of our board members passed just this past weekend and the wife of another board member passed not too long ago last year. These are people that have touched our institution and so many others with their time, love and generous gifts. Frequently the people with whom we work are suffering from the loss of a child and as part of their healing process, they will establish an endowment, or an annual fundraising event to celebrate the life of their loved one. Every loss is a loss. None of any more or less importance than another. Sobering and harsh.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with two colleagues a number of years ago. One was telling a story of working on a farm when she was a young girl and falling in love with the lambs. She did not want to eat lamb after that because of her connection with the animals for which she cared. I gently suggested that perhaps the fact that the lamb was special had not so much to do with her personal love for the lambs, but due to the fact that they were all creatures of God. God loves us all equally. Maybe it was inappropriate to say that out loud, but I felt then, and still now in my heart that it was true. Perspective about life in the larger picture.

So I set forth about this day remembering to keep gratitude and mindfulness in the front of my consciousness.

Curtains

There is some drama unfolding among family members and the ripples affect everyone. At the center is a relationship that has expired. Everyone has a bit of experience with this particular episode in the chronicle of living. And the nature of everyone else’s personal experience seems to taint the way that we view and react to what is happening now. There are equal amounts of fear, concern, anger and outrage. These feelings then trigger our tendencies to withdraw, take an offensive stance and/or place blame. I can see parts of myself all over that map.

About 7 or 8 months after my divorce I found myself out of town on business for a few days. In the evenings, I returned to my hotel room, and did some work addressing the things that I had never quite gotten around to processing about my own failed marriage. From that distance, I saw it as though all the players were outside myself. I saw the damaging behaviors, many of which were of my own creation. I even understood why I adopted that behavior. I saw the harmful effects over time and how it contributed to the erosion that finally took the life away from the relationship.

It was painful to put myself there and live it again as an objective witness. I spent most of my evenings in tears, accepting responsibility for so many mistakes, but I completed the work and gained some much needed perspective.

In the present tense, this ugly set of circumstances bears striking resemblance to my own experience. But I find myself unwilling to attribute blame to one party or the other, because the way I remember it, this ugliness, played out in the final act, was set in motion long ago through many other relationship missteps. I suspect in the current drama it is also true. But I can not know for certain, because I have not lived these lives. No one knows. Except for the two people living the experience now.

The rest of us experience it as a replay of the shadows of our memories.

Tag

Apparently there’s something going around. And to fully enjoy it, I’m going to have to trace it back and back through bloggyland, sort of like a scientist with the CDC, but without the germs.

It’s a game of tag and true confessions and my bloggy friend Paul over at Adventures of a Grocery Clerk did a little bit of ‘fessing up earlier today then decided to share the love by tagging a list, a long list, I might add, of bloggers to play along. And he graciously included me on that list. The game rules appear to be to simply share ten things you might not know about me, but might possibly find mildly interesting.

1. The fourth toes on each of my feet are bent, have been since birth.
2. The only nickname I’ve ever had in my life is Poindexter. Courtesy of Cristy.
3. I love homemade things.
4. I was a girl scout, but that doesn’t mean I find camping even remotely appealing.
5. I like to watch for satellites criss-crossing the sky on summer nights.
6. During the techno-scientific part of my career, I once had a job as a controller in mission control.
7. One of my favorite songs ever is Let it Be by Lennon & McCartney.
8. I think I might have seen a UFO once.
9. Sometimes I compose songs in my head to accompany my dreams.
10. I am afraid of antique cartoons, I find them totally creepy.

I wish I had more time to read more blogs, but am slowly increasing the number of blogs that I read. There are four that have popped into my radar very recently and I’d like to pass this game along to them, to learn more about these blog authors. Just like in a real game of tag, I’m giving a tag to bloggers at

(1) Jay at The Depp Effect
(2) Jeanne at The Raisin Chronicles
(3) Mr. Charleston at Termites of Sin
(4) Irish Gumbo

and keeping my fingers crossed that they will play along. Pretty please?

Mid-week rant

Many years ago, before I was born, the Salvation Army established a tradition with their red-kettle giving campaign each Christmas season. Donors contribute their spare change and when you add it all up, the spare change comprises a measurable portion of the Salvation Army’s budget for serving those in need. It is an anonymous donor relationship. You generally donate cash and don’t get a receipt. But you have the strength of the Salvation Army to rely on – you know that your donation will be funneled toward meeting someone’s basic human services.

Some years later, fire departments borrowed from that campaign idea and made it their own. Fill the Boot. Fire fighters around the country participate in direct solicitation by hitting the streets and collecting spare change from passing motorists. Again, it is a cash donation, but we all trust that our local fire departments are handling our contributions with the utmost integrity. Every year these boot campaigns fund generous donations to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and perhaps other worthy organizations.

OK, so what?

Getting to it.

On the drive home, I noticed a street-side fundraising effort aimed at collecting donations from passing motorists. I passed two such pairs of fundraisers within 30 minutes, at least 20 miles apart at busy intersections. Undoubtedly there was an organized city-wide solicitation effort. I could not determine what organization was asking for the funding or what the funds were intended to support. However, all of the fundraisers were dressed alike, in white suits that resembled marching band uniforms. I immediately thought of Harold Hill. Remember him? From the play The Music Man. Harold Hill was a con artist posing as a marching band leader. So naturally that tainted my impression of this overall fundraising effort.

That, and the fact that this organization lacks the basic credibility needed to successfully pull off a cash-based anonymous donor type campaign. This is an organization that is unknown to the general public. They do not have the recognition or the reputation of either the Salvation Army or our local fire departments.

Please, local band-uniform street-side solicitors, put on your thinking caps and develop a better fund raising approach. To the average passer-by, this is the equivalent of pan-handling. You are not doing your organization a service.

Please stand by

Please stand by. Your regularly scheduled winter will resume in a moment.

Yeah, I know we haven’t gotten much (ok, any) real effects of winter here in the Texas gulf coast, but you know why? Because it’s the Texas gulf coast, southern latitudes. Even in winter, the weather is relatively mild.

It has not eclipsed my awareness that some parts of the country have been enduring suffering from severe winter weather conditions and the extent of the arctic front’s reach into this portion of the map is essentially just a dip in temperature. Granted it dipped into the twenties, cold enough to damage the tropical plants that so many of us have adorning the landscape, but no precipitation, no shoveling, no sand or salt, no widespread power outages. All in all, it’s good to be in Texas right now.

Still, this is not our regularly scheduled winter.

Usually, winter gets revved up near mid-to-late January with some gloomy, rainy windy cold. After 4 weeks of Texas-style winter, the migrating robins pop up in our yards to bring glad news. And by the end of February it will all be a memory.

Overdue

True confession time. I’m a fugitive. Well, not quite yet. Truth is I have not yet been discovered for the scoundrel that I am. And if any Texas law enforcement officers should come knocking on my door after reading this tell-all confession, I will surely try to hide behind my dog, Jackie. Who is 14. And can barely stand up.

The back story: between the time that I was closing the real estate transaction on my old house and moving into this new house, I was living in a state of suspension. My belongings were packed up, but I did not have access to them. Day to day life proceeded, but I was just not grounded. Time was swishing by, almost on fast forward. By the time that we moved at the end of October, I had lived in this manner for about three months. The habits of managing some of the things in my own life had ceased, slipping unnoticed through the cracks. Things like updating the address on my automobile registration.

I was expecting a letter in the mail to renew my license plate. But of course it didn’t come. The sticker on my window says 11-09. That would be overdue. In December, I thought I might have a little spare time to drop by the appropriate government office to figure out what I needed to do about my tiny oversight. But, turned out that spare time was just a figment of my overactive imagination.

Yesterday I was studying that little sticker in my window as I drove to work. I’m hyper nervous that some eagle-eye big-brother radar instrument will spot me and I’ll be facing a fine the size of the state of Rhode Island. Which I can nary afford.

Then it dawned on me. That sticker is for my car inspection, not the license. Easy to remedy. Immediately. Tomorrow. Lunch hour, if not sooner.

Guilty as charged, of plain ordinary stupidity.