5 Years and Counting

Glancing at my blog log I noticed that I've been blogging for 5 years now. Wow, has it really been that long? On the rare rare occassion that I read back over my years of scribbling and bibbling, I've come across some gems, things I am very proud of. Other things have great potential if I took the time to edit them. And then there are things I'd rather not read. Poorly written sign posts of where I was at that time. Bad company.

Now that life is less hectic with the girls out of school and nearly finishing the major portions of remodeling the house, I'm thinking I might go back and start weeding out the garden, picking a few floral specimens for the reading public at large. Who knows, I might hit a few homers.

Mixed metaphors, anyone?

Holy Shitoly

There is this guy who works at my company and he is the VP of Engineering. Right off the bat he didn't like me. I was too aggressive and what the heck was I doing asking him this question or that question. My boss went to bat for me (baseball analogies?) saying I was doing what my position required and that I had not crossed any lines...or hit any fouls (ugh). Even still, I learned to mind my P's and Q's with him and try to stay out of his....ballpark as much as possible. (Or should I say stay off his base - enough with the baseball analogies!)

Keep in mind this is a guy who outright verbally abuses his female engineer. He is quite buddy-buddy with the engineer I work with who is a very passive male and let's his barbed little comments go by with no reaction. Considering what a dick he is, I just ignored his attitude and continued to do my job in spite of him (with recent cut backs I know he would have loved to see me cut, too).

Fast forward to last week. I needed to schedule a production launch meeting for a new product - a very critical product I may say. He was in charge of setting up production. I call him and ask when he would be available to meet this week. He said Friday. Um, I said, we will be on vacation for 4th of July that Friday. He snapped, too bad! and hung up on me. Whew, was I pissed. Later I cooled off and found out he was waaaay behind on setting up production and that is why he blew up at me. The thing though about the incident that really bothered me though was that I had always promised myself I would never let him talk to me in a degrading manner and that if he ever did, I would say, hey, that's innappropriate. So, what did I do? I cowered like a beaten dog and worst of all, my mind was blank as to what I could say to him about it. So, yeah, I cooled off but I was still a little pissed.

Ok, so today he walks into my office twice looking for my engineer. First time I said, he didn't tell me where he was going. Two minutes later Dick walks in again and asks about the engineer. I say that I honestly don't know. No answer and I hear the door shut. I say very loudly, I guess I'm talking to thin air! and then say quietly under my breath Dick! 10 seconds later he begins rumaging through my coworkers cubicle and I realize he had heard me!!! OMG, I got so scared. He could get me fired for this! However, the logical side of my brain says bring it on, dick! I'd just love to see him complain about something I said when he's been verbally abusing people for years - something I've witness first hand on many occassions. Plus, he has a habit of ignoring me when I speak, so I guess I just sort of spouted off.

I wonder what is going to happen?

Twist and Turns

Life is an amazing thing, you know? Thinking back to my single-mom days, life wasn't amazing; it was hard. It sucked. Part of my problem is that I'm just not cut out to be a single mom - I'm just not that together. It's the old looking-good-on-the-outside-while-crumbling-on-the-inside single mom thing. Who asks for help? Not us.

But life is vastly different now. Observe my Monday: van overheated in Holland around 2 p.m. and Chris comes and rescues me. He then spends the rest of the night trying to fix it (that DAMN BOLT!), but not to worry: we have a spare car. Rewind to single mom days when there was no one to rescue me, no one to fix my car and you'd see a screaming meemie on the side of the road - with no cell phone. Ugly.

Then again, observe my Tuesday: Chris bought a new refrigerator for our new house, Emily fell off the monkey bars and had to go to the ER. Chris wouldn't think of letting us go alone so we all hung out together in the ER until Emily was ok'd and we went out to dinner.

Or take any other day of the week. It amazes me - truly amazes me - who this man is and how he's transformed my life. My love for him is equal parts awe, respect, adoration, inspiration and...his eyes, his muscles, his sense of humor. Did I say his muscles? Mmmmm....

Even still, when are we going to get that darn house done!?!??!

Still a hoot!

I know, perhaps it is unfair of me to make fun of the guys even after they have left office but gosh darn it all, I just can't resist!

P.S. Notice how all I do lately is post funny cartoons and stuff....well, sorry! It's just so much easier than actually putting two brains cells together and writing something! (Plus it's quicker...)

P.P.S. I'm also using a lot of ellipses lately too. And dashes. Where have all my punctuation super powers gone?

P.P.P.S. I just did a spell check, and you guessed it! Not a single misspelling. Hmm...apparently those super powers are still in effect....

My lament....

Pass it this way, sister

The Question of Motivation

I received a great quote in my email this morning by Sir Alexander Paterson: “When a man is sufficiently motivated, discipline will take care of itself.” Wow, I thought, here is the answer to my lack-luster performance! I will finally be able to quit swearing, lose weight, keep my side of the bedroom clean, not let clutter accumulate on my dining room table, my dresser, my car and my purse. I will finally be able to motivate my children to do their homework, pursue hobbies instead of constantly FaceBooking, keep their room clean and be nice to each other. Perfect life, here I come!

That is when it dawned on me that for some people just the thought of doing the right thing is enough motivation. They reason that life is much easier, more fulfilling and less stressful if they simply do what they know they are supposed to do. But for others, like myself and my children, it seems like a headache to do all that stuff. So, we decide to procrastinate because it seems easier in spite of the often negative consequences. We reason that by putting off today what can easily be done tomorrow (or the next day or the next day or next week or next month…) we’ll be happier in the long run. Even we are not convinced by this logic and yet…our behavior speaks for itself.

Meanwhile, I am procrastinating on my work to contemplate how best to motivate slackers like myself and my children. Money is the obvious answer and yet who can afford the pay-out required to get us on track? We could target some specific behaviors, however, judging from times past, money will get tight and then the “allowance” goes out the window.

We’ve also grounded them from the computer, TV, cell phones and Wii. That has actually been pretty effective in the past but as motivation is an on-going struggle, grounding constantly seems unrealistic. Besides, I’d also have to be setting a good example, and so far I’m just as guilty as they are.

In thinking about this it occurs to me that while our environment exerts pressures to help guide our behavior, the question of motivation that outlasts the hurdles encountered when changing significantly is really one that boils down to our own internal thoughts, will and emotions. George Bernard Shaw said, “Imagination is the beginning of creation: you imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last you create what you will.” The control clearly lies within us.

Which brings me back to the dilemma of how to desire doing the right thing when most of the time I don’t. Perhaps I should just follow the advice of Mssrs. Marcus Buckingham and Curtis Coffman in their management book, “Now, Break All the Rules.” They argue that people don’t really change all that much and when we do, the way our brains work constantly nudges us back to the way we were before. The true path they say is to focus on improving your strengths and build your success from there and just forget about all those rotten old faults.

Which leads me to the conclusion that when you go searching for the hard answers in life you end up getting a lot of difficult-to-digest answers.

What kind of soup did you say that was?

So the hubby met me for lunch today in what is reported to be the best Chinese (Laosian) restaurant in town. We walked in and there sat three of my co-workers (also known as bung holes if you read my FB). We walked over and said hi and we were told to try the Coconut Curry Soup – it’s the best. I got really excited because I love curry and so got myself a very large bowl of the soup.

Boy, were they right. That soup had the delicious depth of flavor that only curry can add to food and the hot kick from ground red pepper. Even the coconut milk added a layer of flavor that made my taste buds sing. There were also veggies and chicken – oh, those potatoes! They absorbed the flavors of the curry and salt and crumbled deliciously on my tongue. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a better bowl of soup, and firmly vowed right then and there to figure out how to make that soup at home. Yum!

In spite of being rather full I knew I couldn’t leave the restaurant without another bowl of that soup. I eagerly went over to the large sunken pot of the soup and began to delightedly fill my bowl anticipating all the foody loveliness in store once I got back to my table. About the 3rd ladleful I saw something unrecognizable flash into my bowl. Surely – that could not be a shirt tag?!?!?! Oh, indeed, it was! An XXL no less!!!!

Staggering with a combination of shock, amusement and disappointment, I hurried back to the table, put my bowl down and said, “Honey, look!” He took a look and said, “Is that a shirt tag? Or is an underwear tag? I think that’s an underwear tag!” Now please understand, as wildly unlikely as it is to get a shirt tag in your soup, I just can’t buy getting an underwear tag in your soup. I’m sticking with the shirt tag.

Now my hubby tends to be quite the assertive complainer. However, the tragi-comic element of the situation had him in a uncharicteristically congenial attitude about it. He calls the waitress over and shows her the soup. She says, “What is that, a tag!? Oh, so sorry!” and she takes it away. I watch her walk over and dump my soup out, and as I’m praying she takes the soup off the buffet, it is with relief I see her walk over and lift the lid to the soup pot. She stirs it a few times, replaces the lid and walks away. Walks away!?!?!??!?!?!? I could hardly believe my eyes. Before another moment passes, a man walks up and fills a bowl and then another man walks up. All in all, after the discovery, I saw six people walk up there and get soup – including the bung hole co-workers who each had two bowls apiece.

Even still, I gotta say, that was damn good soup.

True story

Shuffling through an ex-coworkers desk, I came across the cartoon here. As you can see it is in some disrepair and had been casually tossed aside where it had once been tacked to her cubicle wall - in a place of honor, no doubt.

But here's the interesting thing: She was pregnant from the Shipping Guy out in the warehouse. One day, she just quit coming to work and the Shipping Guy called saying his doctor wouldn't let him come to work until further notice. A couple weeks later, the pregnant girl's boss is coming back from lunch and he sees her strutting down the street, still preggers. He goes back to the office and fires her (and the cause of the delay was.....?)

So fast forward a couple weeks and the warehouse gets an inventory count. Hmmmm, a number of our stainless steel and aluminum parts are missing. Like hundreds, perhaps thousands (unfortuantely, I didn't get to get in on the really juicy details). Suddenly things start to click for the upper "execs" at my company.

Apparently Amanda and Jay, the culprits described above, had been coming in on the weekends to finish up work they had gotten so far behind on. Jay would often have to use the company truck on these weekend overtime adventures (and yes, they were both paid overtime). So, Jay and Amanda weren't really working; they had thought up a get-rich-quick scheme to help keep them afloat since Jay apparently had some sort of severe addiction: they would just go scrap (perfectly good) parts at the scrap yard and pocket the money. This had been occuring for a number of months before they both disappeared. Suddenly that little cartoon there doesn't seem so innocent, huh?

Ok, so fast forward a couple more weeks after the cops investigate and come to find out, the Warehouse Manager had been also involved in the scrapping scheme. He also came up missing one day with an email that read "I am going to be out of the office for about a month." The next day his boss sent an email saying he wouldn't be coming back. Word is they are all getting prosecuted. And you know what else? The Warehouse Manager's son has taken over the managing position his father vacated.

And all because that damn beer was addicted to Jay! Poor guy.

This is purported to be true...and I believe it

Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?
A: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

Socialism, anyone?

Remember when...

From: Tmtg45a@aol.com
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 12:27:21 -0400
Subject: from Grace
To: jamielynn525@hotmail.com

Dear Ant Jamie I love being in Tulsa. Grandma Larson sits on
her chare at night and she watchs Tv. I get to sleep in the Livingroom and watch Tv. I love doing chors for Grandma.
I also like playing Jenin.We went to a Restorant. There was
a man who makes Buloons. He made mom a spongebob.
We got to play at Jenins house. We played dogs and painted
wood.Myne was a hart with two colors on the sides and on top
and on top of that it said, Iln,.Gess what it standed for.
I love Noe. He is a boy at My School.My freinds cosoune.
The best part is I got to go to a Restorant with my dads
Relativs. Thay gave us a presant. It,s raining out side so my
wood got ruended and I can,t play outside.Well I gess it,s
goodbuy can,t keep you forever say hi to grandma for me.
goodbuy.

Goodbye Rabbit

Pulitzer Prize winning author John Updike died Tuesday and chances are you've heard the sound bites already. He is the guy who wrote the “Rabbit” books. You know, “Run, Rabbit” and “Rabbit is Rich.” He is considered by many to be one of the great literary figures in American history. Here's the thing, though, the sound bites won't tell you: John Updike is a man who speaks truth. He's incredibly funny and not in that stand-up comedian kind of way. He's got this wry, ironic spin to everything he says but he never sounds supercilious or pretentious – it’s the sincerity in his humor that brings it home. His observations amuse and sting at the same time - you can't help but see yourself in his masterfully crafted observations; you laugh and think, ‘This man really gets it.’

He’s a guy who thinks deeply about things but doesn't talk over your head.

And he was human, infallibly human. John Updike, who like most of us had professional jealousies, envied Jack Kerouac so much he refused to read “On the Road” for years after it was published. Instead, Updike wrote a sort of antithesis of it with his novel “Run, Rabbit.” Updike thought that not everyone can be on the road all the time. Someone has got to be back at home doing things or nothing would get done, he said. That's what came out of his small-town Pennsylvania upbringing - an appreciation for home and not for running.

This theme is reflected in the character known as Rabbit. Rabbit was a family man, a very unhappy family man. And Rabbit ran; he hit the road like so many people in the 1960’s feeling constrained by middle class conformity adopted in the 1950’s, but inexorably Rabbit found himself going back home again. When asked about this, John Updike said, "I think a lot of us yearn for more freedom, the ultimate freedom of walking away, but then when we do it, we realize we don't know what to do now that we're free." Besides, he said bringing the theme back to Kerouac’s beatnik pretension, even though Kerouac hung around with Allen Ginsberg and that crowd, he used to run home to Mama Kerouac's cooking for months at a time, "So, so much for him." See, even Kerouac didn't want to be on the road all the time.



So, at a time when the middle class was bursting out onto the road and rebelling against the constraints of domestication, John Updike chose to write about just that; families and their real lives lived behind closed doors, the place where the rubber hits the road for all of us; the hard place, the place where there is no place left to hide, where we are who we really are, and we aren't running anymore.



Even if you never read a word he said, do yourself a favor - log onto http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99945565 and download the NPR broadcast of interview excerpts with John Updike compiled by Terry Gross on Fresh Air from WHYY. His words will inspire you and move something deep within you that needs moving, I guarantee it.

Vinnie from Chicago, Blago's role model