It was bad......downright yucky - tonight's meal, I mean - and I made it. I'll have to be careful in the composition of this posting that I do not over-use the word "yucky", because that is exactly what it was. Maybe even awful.
The meal sounded appealing on paper and in theory. I had a bunch of fresh asparagus which I knew to be delicious because the first bunch had been outstanding. Fresh asparagus must be in season somewhere near the mid-West because it was tender, flavorful and reasonably priced. Since Capt. SO and I try to eat a meatless dinner at least once a week, I reasoned that a dish I've eaten before and made successfully in the past would be a good bet for tonight's evening meal. I had corn tortillas to use and thought I would put together blanched whole asparagus spears on the corn tortillas with a little cream cheese spread on the tortillas and everything sprinkled lightly with celery salt. This sounded good. Too bad it didn't taste good.
I do not know where the meal idea went wrong. The asparagus was cooked to perfection but even the delicious nature of the asparagus was not enough to overcome the total disgusting impression on my gravely wounded palette. It seemed to be a combination of flavors I did not care for combined with the texture of the corn tortillas. I am really grasping at straws here. All I do absolutely know is that I have a clear understanding of a word used frequently in comic strips: BLECH.
I should have stopped with the second bite, which proved incontrovertibly that I did not like what I had made, but the tortillas were very small, I only made two and I had nothing else planned, so I made my parents proud and ate every last bite of both disgusting wraps. BLECH.
Only now, about fifty minutes later, are my taste buds finally getting over the insult thrust upon them an hour ago. My stomach is still rumbling and expressing its displeasure at what I placed in it and I can sense some Tums-popping is not very far into my future tonight.
Capt. SO was much more fortunate than I. He was busy in his office, working on a project, when I prepared my two asparagus wraps. I had finished eating them when he came upstairs. I announced that he did not really want to eat the same thing I had eaten for dinner and he quickly acquiesced.....because he cannot stand corn tortillas anyway. He was smart, took my advice and ate only the fresh asparagus. Besides, he had heard me express "BLECH" well over two dozen times so only unconsciousness would have enabled him to eat a corn-tortilla asparagus wrap.
I still have an oral memory of the meal.
BLECH.
Ancora imparo
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
More Math? It Is Only A Calendar!
All I wanted to do is research Leap Day and Leap Year and instead I found some mathematical formula on how to calculate Leap Years. I did not want to know that in the Gregorian calendar (more about that in another paragraph) three criteria must be met to be a Leap Year:
1. The year is evenly divisible by 4
2. If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless;
3. The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.
The above concept was lost on me when a number larger than one hundred was part of the calculation. Prior to that, I was engaged.
For sake of this posting, let us all agree that 2012 is a Lear Year.
I was aware of the existence of calendars with different names but, not knowing the details, I thought it would be enlightening to explore just what the differences are. I discovered that the Julian Calendar came first. The Julian Calendar was the accepted form of chronological dating - Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar to the "world" in 46 BC - and it continued to be the officially recognized civil calendar in some countries into the twentieth century. More than fifteen hundred years after the inception of the Julian Calendar, Pope Gregory (after whom the Gregorian Calendar was named) introduced the Gregorian Calendar to the world, by a Papal decree, on February 24, 1582. Also called the Western Calendar and the Christian Calendar, it is the internationally accepted civil calendar.
A Leap Year is a year consisting of 366 days instead of the common year's 365 days. During a Leap Year, an extra day - a Leap Day (also know as an intercalary day) is added to our Gregorian Calendar. We need a Leap Year for semi-scientific reasons. Leap Years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days - or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds (a tropical year) - to circle once around the Sun.
However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29th nearly eery 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!
Well, I don't see the problem with removing Leap Years from our Gregorian calendars. First of all, every hundred years would bring a whole new set of humans who wouldn't miss those lost 24 days anyway, and, secondly, there must be a computer software-designer somewhere who can design a program to adjust for this.
I'm headed downstairs to discuss this with Capt. SO.
Happy Leap Day.
Ancora imparo
1. The year is evenly divisible by 4
2. If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless;
3. The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.
The above concept was lost on me when a number larger than one hundred was part of the calculation. Prior to that, I was engaged.
For sake of this posting, let us all agree that 2012 is a Lear Year.
I was aware of the existence of calendars with different names but, not knowing the details, I thought it would be enlightening to explore just what the differences are. I discovered that the Julian Calendar came first. The Julian Calendar was the accepted form of chronological dating - Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar to the "world" in 46 BC - and it continued to be the officially recognized civil calendar in some countries into the twentieth century. More than fifteen hundred years after the inception of the Julian Calendar, Pope Gregory (after whom the Gregorian Calendar was named) introduced the Gregorian Calendar to the world, by a Papal decree, on February 24, 1582. Also called the Western Calendar and the Christian Calendar, it is the internationally accepted civil calendar.
A Leap Year is a year consisting of 366 days instead of the common year's 365 days. During a Leap Year, an extra day - a Leap Day (also know as an intercalary day) is added to our Gregorian Calendar. We need a Leap Year for semi-scientific reasons. Leap Years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days - or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds (a tropical year) - to circle once around the Sun.
However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29th nearly eery 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!
Well, I don't see the problem with removing Leap Years from our Gregorian calendars. First of all, every hundred years would bring a whole new set of humans who wouldn't miss those lost 24 days anyway, and, secondly, there must be a computer software-designer somewhere who can design a program to adjust for this.
I'm headed downstairs to discuss this with Capt. SO.
Happy Leap Day.
Ancora imparo
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
But Wait! There Were Four
Yesterday I wrote about practicing, habit formation and my personal-world laboratory experience where practicing did not help my math skills. Today brought even more mathematical confusion as I went to research the topic I'd selected to write about and discovered that three is really four......or is it four is really three?
I poked fun at myself over the weekend as I grew uber frustrated with all of the paperwork I was (an am continually) flooded with from a committee/team I serve on. This phenomenon of paper proliferation is problematic on lots of committees and two teams I serve on have a tendency to produce enough paper to provide wallpaper that would cover more than a dozen powder rooms monthly - or so it seems. A first there was just enough paper to be corralled by a small paper clip, which morphed to a big paper clip, which morphed to one of those giant butterfly clips, which morphed into needing a file folder, which is heading towards needing a three-ring binder.
But the problem didn't just stop there. Every week I would receive more paper and, when needing to locate a particular document or a revision of a document (We are overridden with revisions.) I would be rifling through dozens of paper pages. I got smart and starting dating my paperwork, which helped for a bit. Then I found even more intelligence regarding paper proliferation and started stapling like-themed handouts together.......until this past weekend when I declared war on paper. One committee's work is almost over and I am resigned to accepting the state in which its paperwork resides, but the other committee/team will be ongoing for some time and I desperately needed some organization.
I turned to an old, practiced habit that works for this old dog..................a thirty-year-old leather, three-ring binder, a three-hole punch, and those old-fashioned category dividers. I sat myself down on the floor, sorted all of the papers into piles, threw out well over seventy-five percent of the papers, and settled in to my organization mode. When I was finished, I marched over to Capt. SO, thrust the old but good-looking binder in his face and said, "I may not be organized but I'll appear to be. I'm just like 'Super Skier'".
Now, if you don't know who "Super Skier" is, you are missing out on one of the great folk songs of the 1960's. Written by Bob Gibson and performed by the Chad Mitchell Trio, Capt. SO's trio performed it dozens of times as a part of their repertoire when they were together as "The Sound Investment Trio" in the 1970's and 1980's. The song details a man who wants to ski, doesn't ski very well but has all of the best ski clothing money can buy. He hits the slopes and, unfortunately, hits a tree. Half of him goes one way and the other half moves in the opposite direction. But, he looked real good.
I felt like "Super Skier" on Sunday and, hopefully, will every week at my team meeting. Remembering the song, I went online this morning to research the piece and was met with a very vexing image. Every picture I could find of the Chad Mitchell Trio shows four performers with the group. Please understand that, to this feeble-minded mathematician, this concept of three being four is highly confusing.
Or is it that four is really three?
Help!
Ancora imparo
I poked fun at myself over the weekend as I grew uber frustrated with all of the paperwork I was (an am continually) flooded with from a committee/team I serve on. This phenomenon of paper proliferation is problematic on lots of committees and two teams I serve on have a tendency to produce enough paper to provide wallpaper that would cover more than a dozen powder rooms monthly - or so it seems. A first there was just enough paper to be corralled by a small paper clip, which morphed to a big paper clip, which morphed to one of those giant butterfly clips, which morphed into needing a file folder, which is heading towards needing a three-ring binder.
But the problem didn't just stop there. Every week I would receive more paper and, when needing to locate a particular document or a revision of a document (We are overridden with revisions.) I would be rifling through dozens of paper pages. I got smart and starting dating my paperwork, which helped for a bit. Then I found even more intelligence regarding paper proliferation and started stapling like-themed handouts together.......until this past weekend when I declared war on paper. One committee's work is almost over and I am resigned to accepting the state in which its paperwork resides, but the other committee/team will be ongoing for some time and I desperately needed some organization.
I turned to an old, practiced habit that works for this old dog..................a thirty-year-old leather, three-ring binder, a three-hole punch, and those old-fashioned category dividers. I sat myself down on the floor, sorted all of the papers into piles, threw out well over seventy-five percent of the papers, and settled in to my organization mode. When I was finished, I marched over to Capt. SO, thrust the old but good-looking binder in his face and said, "I may not be organized but I'll appear to be. I'm just like 'Super Skier'".
Now, if you don't know who "Super Skier" is, you are missing out on one of the great folk songs of the 1960's. Written by Bob Gibson and performed by the Chad Mitchell Trio, Capt. SO's trio performed it dozens of times as a part of their repertoire when they were together as "The Sound Investment Trio" in the 1970's and 1980's. The song details a man who wants to ski, doesn't ski very well but has all of the best ski clothing money can buy. He hits the slopes and, unfortunately, hits a tree. Half of him goes one way and the other half moves in the opposite direction. But, he looked real good.
I felt like "Super Skier" on Sunday and, hopefully, will every week at my team meeting. Remembering the song, I went online this morning to research the piece and was met with a very vexing image. Every picture I could find of the Chad Mitchell Trio shows four performers with the group. Please understand that, to this feeble-minded mathematician, this concept of three being four is highly confusing.
Or is it that four is really three?
Help!
Ancora imparo
Monday, February 27, 2012
Research Was Needed For This?
I just checked my NPR newsfeed on Google Reader. What is posted there is usually fascinating and almost always interesting. NPR seems to find the quirky news of the nation and world, whereas the other major, network newsfeeds dwell on the minutiae of the famous and infamous. I can live without listening to the regurgitation of last night's Oscar Award ceremony over and over.
As I scrolled through the NPR science feed, I came upon one that featured the science of habit formation. As a teacher, this is a topic that was drilled home to me on many occasions, either in SIP day (School-Improvement) sessions, back-to-school staff rah-rah assemblies or graduate courses. As a band director, this topic would have (and did, as I read the article) elicited a "duh".
A book, titled The Power of Habit, has been written by one Charles Duhigg (last name much to close to the word for that-which-I-cannot-remember-the-name-of - duhicky). In his book, Duhigg explores cutting-edge research into the neuroscience of habit formation.
This is not news to me, or any other music teacher - vocal or instrumental - worth his or her salt. We band directors have always known how to form a musical habit - good or bad. It is an eight-letter word that I discussed daily in my bandroom: PRACTICE. True, you can practice incorrectly and by doing so you form incorrect electrical impulse pathways from your fingers to your brain. If a person (student) is not careful with practice, the time is spent "de-proving" instead of improving. By practicing a passage (or any skill, for that matter) correctly, electrical impulse pathways are formed that will help to guarantee accuracy of performance.
PRACTICE: It is a highly underrated use of time for many students, whether they are musicians, athletes, thespians, culinarians (yes, it is a word), poets, young, old or anywhere inbetween. As far as I am concerned, about the only skill I can think of that may or may not benefit from practice is math. In my world you either get it or you don't........and I didn't. Therefore all of the time I spent working math problems in most grades, including integrated geometry as a junior in high school, was a flat-out waste of time. No amount of practicing in the world was going to help me with math. As a matter of fact, all of those math problems that I got wrong acted only as negative practice, creating negative electrical impulse pathways to my brain.
This explains a lot. Mr. Duhigg should give me a call.
Ancora imparo
As I scrolled through the NPR science feed, I came upon one that featured the science of habit formation. As a teacher, this is a topic that was drilled home to me on many occasions, either in SIP day (School-Improvement) sessions, back-to-school staff rah-rah assemblies or graduate courses. As a band director, this topic would have (and did, as I read the article) elicited a "duh".
A book, titled The Power of Habit, has been written by one Charles Duhigg (last name much to close to the word for that-which-I-cannot-remember-the-name-of - duhicky). In his book, Duhigg explores cutting-edge research into the neuroscience of habit formation.
This is not news to me, or any other music teacher - vocal or instrumental - worth his or her salt. We band directors have always known how to form a musical habit - good or bad. It is an eight-letter word that I discussed daily in my bandroom: PRACTICE. True, you can practice incorrectly and by doing so you form incorrect electrical impulse pathways from your fingers to your brain. If a person (student) is not careful with practice, the time is spent "de-proving" instead of improving. By practicing a passage (or any skill, for that matter) correctly, electrical impulse pathways are formed that will help to guarantee accuracy of performance.
PRACTICE: It is a highly underrated use of time for many students, whether they are musicians, athletes, thespians, culinarians (yes, it is a word), poets, young, old or anywhere inbetween. As far as I am concerned, about the only skill I can think of that may or may not benefit from practice is math. In my world you either get it or you don't........and I didn't. Therefore all of the time I spent working math problems in most grades, including integrated geometry as a junior in high school, was a flat-out waste of time. No amount of practicing in the world was going to help me with math. As a matter of fact, all of those math problems that I got wrong acted only as negative practice, creating negative electrical impulse pathways to my brain.
This explains a lot. Mr. Duhigg should give me a call.
Ancora imparo
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Coffee With Myself
Yesterday I enjoyed coffee with my father. Today it is just me, myself and moi. I seem to be in a singularly inner-reflective state of being. My coffee is freshly ground and brewed, even though, according to some, our coffee grinder would be a singularly inferior type as would be our antiquated and ancient coffee-brewing equipment.
Interesting is it not, how for some, having the best, latest and greatest gadget, contraption or gizmo is paramount. Not having said best, latest, and greatest gadget, contraption or gizmo is tantamount to failure and the end of the world. I must remind myself to NEVER serve my sub-par and sub-standard coffee to those whose coffee palettes are far more refined than mine. Seriously, these real-life coffee snobs should wear some identifying sign or tag that clearly marks them as people to not offer "coffee-of-the-common-folk" to. Perhaps these people should be forced to wear one of those bicycle flags that you see mounted on the rear bumper of a bicycle. You know, the kind that has a flag atop a flexible piece of metal and kind of blows in the wind. Or, these people could have to wear "coffee-beanie-hats" that have a shortened version of the bicycle flag attached to the beanie somehow. Anything to prevent them from whining, complaining and denouncing the people serving the yucky brew.
Yes, there are many places that serve bad coffee. Bad coffee is coffee so bad that even I, a coffee idiot, can identify as "not very good". Bad coffee is prevalent, though I do not sense any conspiracy efforts on the part of the bad-coffee servers. While many business waiting areas serve coffee that is bad, it is still a sign of conviviality to serve it in the first place. It is made available to the public (i.e. business guests) as a gesture of welcoming goodwill.
Hear me, coffee snobs. It is fine that you only drink the finest of brews made from the finest of beans, ground and brewed with the finest of machinery. You have your own java standards to uphold. If you find yourself out amongst we plebes who do stoop to drink sub-standard coffee, please know that you do not have to force yourself to drink it, hold a cup of it, or even waste your time loitering about with us.
Leave and go somewhere else.
Ancora imparo
Interesting is it not, how for some, having the best, latest and greatest gadget, contraption or gizmo is paramount. Not having said best, latest, and greatest gadget, contraption or gizmo is tantamount to failure and the end of the world. I must remind myself to NEVER serve my sub-par and sub-standard coffee to those whose coffee palettes are far more refined than mine. Seriously, these real-life coffee snobs should wear some identifying sign or tag that clearly marks them as people to not offer "coffee-of-the-common-folk" to. Perhaps these people should be forced to wear one of those bicycle flags that you see mounted on the rear bumper of a bicycle. You know, the kind that has a flag atop a flexible piece of metal and kind of blows in the wind. Or, these people could have to wear "coffee-beanie-hats" that have a shortened version of the bicycle flag attached to the beanie somehow. Anything to prevent them from whining, complaining and denouncing the people serving the yucky brew.
Yes, there are many places that serve bad coffee. Bad coffee is coffee so bad that even I, a coffee idiot, can identify as "not very good". Bad coffee is prevalent, though I do not sense any conspiracy efforts on the part of the bad-coffee servers. While many business waiting areas serve coffee that is bad, it is still a sign of conviviality to serve it in the first place. It is made available to the public (i.e. business guests) as a gesture of welcoming goodwill.
Hear me, coffee snobs. It is fine that you only drink the finest of brews made from the finest of beans, ground and brewed with the finest of machinery. You have your own java standards to uphold. If you find yourself out amongst we plebes who do stoop to drink sub-standard coffee, please know that you do not have to force yourself to drink it, hold a cup of it, or even waste your time loitering about with us.
Leave and go somewhere else.
Ancora imparo
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Coffee With My Dad
I had the pleasure of having coffee with my father this morning. The fact that he died some years ago mattered not. As I sat in his old Morris chair, sipping the steaming brew in my mug, basking in the sunlight much like a contented Tabby, Dad's presence surrounded me. Sure, the Morris cushions have been rebuilt and reupholstered two, maybe three times since I came to possess the chair, still Dad's aura can be felt. Oddly enough, when I think about my ties to the chair, I realize that the chair initially belonged to my maternal Grandad. It was this same chair in which I napped while Nana cared for me whilst my mother worked. There is a man-made "indentation" in the right forearm, smoothed over by years and varnish, that my right-hand, index finger would trace over and over as a small child - and still finds its way there as part of my adult hand. Funny how childhood habits remain long into adulthood.
When I first sat down to have coffee with Dad, my goal was to speed-read the newspaper, then get on with my day. Somehow, settling into the familiar leather cushions and bathed in sunlight, my focus switched from "Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead!" (A paraphrase of the famous order issued during the Civil War's 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay by Rear Admiral David Farragut.) to more of a Jamaican feel of laid-back tranquility. My total brain-wave activity morphed from lists into memories and reflections - ranging from remembering last weekend's Three Musketeers' visit (this brought warm, fuzzy thoughts) to the joy of sharing a hymnal with the eldest Musketeer, to Princess Leia running full tilt shouting, "Grandpa, Grandpa!", to little hands in mine, to our visit to the local children's Discovery Center where children far outnumbered the adults capable of keeping track of them. I still think it is a miracle that we went in with three children and came out with the same three.
Coffee with my dad lowered my pulse rate and blood pressure, as it always does. I was able to finish my prayers, enjoy the beauty of a snow-white winter's landscape, collect my ideas and garner several bits of important information from the newspaper. By then, my battery had recharged, my coffee was finished and Dad let me know it was time to get back to work.
Thanks, Dad.
Ancora imparo
When I first sat down to have coffee with Dad, my goal was to speed-read the newspaper, then get on with my day. Somehow, settling into the familiar leather cushions and bathed in sunlight, my focus switched from "Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead!" (A paraphrase of the famous order issued during the Civil War's 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay by Rear Admiral David Farragut.) to more of a Jamaican feel of laid-back tranquility. My total brain-wave activity morphed from lists into memories and reflections - ranging from remembering last weekend's Three Musketeers' visit (this brought warm, fuzzy thoughts) to the joy of sharing a hymnal with the eldest Musketeer, to Princess Leia running full tilt shouting, "Grandpa, Grandpa!", to little hands in mine, to our visit to the local children's Discovery Center where children far outnumbered the adults capable of keeping track of them. I still think it is a miracle that we went in with three children and came out with the same three.
Coffee with my dad lowered my pulse rate and blood pressure, as it always does. I was able to finish my prayers, enjoy the beauty of a snow-white winter's landscape, collect my ideas and garner several bits of important information from the newspaper. By then, my battery had recharged, my coffee was finished and Dad let me know it was time to get back to work.
Thanks, Dad.
Ancora imparo
Friday, February 24, 2012
Enough Was Enough
Seldom do television commercials get to me. As a rule, when a commercial airs, I hit the mute button if I am anywhere near the remote. Most commercial content runs from idiotic to insulting and the volume level is about three-thousand decibels too high on all of them, hence the turndown and outright ignore. Commercials just are not fun, nor funny, the majority of the time.
Even the internet uses commercials to its advantage and to the inconvenience of the user. If I am trying to watch a video on my news feed through Google Reader, I must still suffer through often the same commercial featuring the cell-phone-provider-cute-chick-in-the-pink-dress. I know, I know the internet needs to make a buck. I do not profess to know what the answer is - I am only very happy to have a mute button for my laptop. It is the one icon that will wear out the most quickly on my computers.
JCP (formerly known as J.C.Penny or Jacque Pene' as my mother referred to the department store/catalog mail order once-upon-a-time giant) is trying to reboot its image. J.C. Penny was rapidly going the way of Sears and K-Mart and headed for the eventual scrap heap until its Board of Directors cried, "Stop the carnage!" and lured away former Apple retail chief Ron Johnson to save the ailing retailer. Johnson got off to a terrible start with an abrupt announcement of a three-thousand-person layoff, a legal melee' regarding the Martha Stewart brand and her Macy's agreement, AND a series of awful commercials where screaming was the primary mode of communication. The company was flooded with complaints about the screaming commercials but.....those same commercials also received favorable comments. Apparently screaming appeals to some people.
Now, JCP has changed their marketing strategy with a new series of commercials featuring the catch phrase, "Enough Is Enough", focusing on the fed-up American consumer's disgust with high prices and constant sales. Thankfully, the screaming is over, for now.
Screaming actors are simply not appealing and I cannot believe that JCP sales rose one bit from buyers inspired to purchase from JCP because they heard screaming.
JCP got it right - enough is enough.
Ancora imparo
Even the internet uses commercials to its advantage and to the inconvenience of the user. If I am trying to watch a video on my news feed through Google Reader, I must still suffer through often the same commercial featuring the cell-phone-provider-cute-chick-in-the-pink-dress. I know, I know the internet needs to make a buck. I do not profess to know what the answer is - I am only very happy to have a mute button for my laptop. It is the one icon that will wear out the most quickly on my computers.
JCP (formerly known as J.C.Penny or Jacque Pene' as my mother referred to the department store/catalog mail order once-upon-a-time giant) is trying to reboot its image. J.C. Penny was rapidly going the way of Sears and K-Mart and headed for the eventual scrap heap until its Board of Directors cried, "Stop the carnage!" and lured away former Apple retail chief Ron Johnson to save the ailing retailer. Johnson got off to a terrible start with an abrupt announcement of a three-thousand-person layoff, a legal melee' regarding the Martha Stewart brand and her Macy's agreement, AND a series of awful commercials where screaming was the primary mode of communication. The company was flooded with complaints about the screaming commercials but.....those same commercials also received favorable comments. Apparently screaming appeals to some people.
Now, JCP has changed their marketing strategy with a new series of commercials featuring the catch phrase, "Enough Is Enough", focusing on the fed-up American consumer's disgust with high prices and constant sales. Thankfully, the screaming is over, for now.
Screaming actors are simply not appealing and I cannot believe that JCP sales rose one bit from buyers inspired to purchase from JCP because they heard screaming.
JCP got it right - enough is enough.
Ancora imparo
Thursday, February 23, 2012
No Encore Requested
Driving out of my neighborhood this morning, I was immediately struck by an impression that something about the landscape's appearance was very odd. We've been snow-less much of this winter so I knew it wasn't the absence of snow. Driving slowly due to the posted speed limit, I was able to perform a peripheral, one-eighty-degree visual scope, trying to put my finger on what was so odd-looking about everything, everywhere I looked. Every ground surface looked as if it was straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster movie about the cataclysmic end of the world. There was a brown-beige cast as far as my eye could see. Lawns, fields, median-grass.......everything had an other-worldly tinge of barrenness. The temperature held the perfect condition for a non-frosty look - not cold enough to produce the dazzling white of a hard frost brought on by warm ground temperatures connecting with the natural descendent nighttime moisture.
A typical winter-type frost leaves roofs, vehicles, walkways, trees, shrubs - even roadways at times, covered with a resplendent white sheen that serves as a perfect backdrop for the red brilliance of the Northern Cardinals and can even make sunglasses a necessity.
This was not what I was seeing.
A light dusting of snow can duplicate a winter-frost, landscape-frosting that would make it hard to spot a Polar bear sitting in plain view.
This was not what I was seeing.
Rather, I was seeing dullness, like that of a yellow cake mix topped with a caramel-colored confectionery. Tasty enough but boring as the dickens to look at. This is what I saw and at first it was quite unsettling and definitely ugly as could be. Even the unattractive month of March has nothing on the color of this morning's landscape. March usually has snow piles and snow banks that being melting, creating a chocolate-colored muddy mess that covers all surfaces and makes a clean car a pipe dream. That I am accustomed to seeing.
Not beige.
Mother Nature performed a sleight-of-hand trick that was visually unappealing. I'd really not care to see this trick again, thank you very much. No Standing "O" on this one.
Ancora imparo
A typical winter-type frost leaves roofs, vehicles, walkways, trees, shrubs - even roadways at times, covered with a resplendent white sheen that serves as a perfect backdrop for the red brilliance of the Northern Cardinals and can even make sunglasses a necessity.
This was not what I was seeing.
A light dusting of snow can duplicate a winter-frost, landscape-frosting that would make it hard to spot a Polar bear sitting in plain view.
This was not what I was seeing.
Rather, I was seeing dullness, like that of a yellow cake mix topped with a caramel-colored confectionery. Tasty enough but boring as the dickens to look at. This is what I saw and at first it was quite unsettling and definitely ugly as could be. Even the unattractive month of March has nothing on the color of this morning's landscape. March usually has snow piles and snow banks that being melting, creating a chocolate-colored muddy mess that covers all surfaces and makes a clean car a pipe dream. That I am accustomed to seeing.
Not beige.
Mother Nature performed a sleight-of-hand trick that was visually unappealing. I'd really not care to see this trick again, thank you very much. No Standing "O" on this one.
Ancora imparo
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Ready To Fire My Editor
Dear Readers,
Apparently this tool called "composition editor" is too smart and has decided to underline and change font color without authorization from moi, the writer.
This post is a test to see if I have outsmarted my "composition editor" - that I never knew existed in the first place.
Ancora imparo
Apparently this tool called "composition editor" is too smart and has decided to underline and change font color without authorization from moi, the writer.
This post is a test to see if I have outsmarted my "composition editor" - that I never knew existed in the first place.
Ancora imparo
Which Would You Choose?
Literature is full of scenes depicted by the words, "adrift on a sea of....." or "adrift on the ocean". A quick look into my favorite tome, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, reveals the following definition for adrift: 1 : without motive power and without anchor or mooring 2 : without ties, guidance, or security 3 : free from restraint or support. One can be literally adrift in a life raft on a great body of water or, metaphorically speaking, adrift in the great sea of life as in the second meaning. Perhaps a good antonym for adrift would be grounded. One who is grounded is probably not feeling adrift. It may not be uncommon for any one of us to feel adrift at some point, or points, in time.
Ancorfloata imparo
Ancorfloata imparo
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Bad Apples
My parents' generation had a saying "One bad apple spoils the whole bunch." I never gave much thought to its literal or figurative meaning. I knew about the literal meaning because my parents would buy several bushels of apples - Northern spies, yellow delicious and Macintosh are the varieties that I remember the most - each fall from our relatives on the Traverse Bay Peninsula of Michigan. Once we got them home, it was my job to take one page from a mail order catalog per apple and wrap the apple with the page. The apples were then stored in a back-bedroom closet that was not heated (Where my clothes were kept!) and we'd eat on them throughout the winter. The paper, my parents explained, served several purposes - to act as an insulator, to keep the apples from bruising each other and to prevent any spoilage from spreading apple-to-apple. It was a simplistic method of fruit storage that was very effective and truly did prevent one bad apple from spoiling the whole bunch.
The figurative meaning of "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch" has recently been driven home to me in an abstract way that I never would have expected for it is with this life lesson that I have become acutely aware of how much difference one person can make - positively and negatively. "One bad apple" can act as a grain of sand in a running shoe, creating unseen and - at first unfelt - discomfort. You may be aware that something is amiss but you just cannot put your finger on the issue........until the "bad apple" leaves, the breath of fresh air descends upon you and you think to yourself, "Wow". Later you may come to shout "yea".
The unfortunate part about a human "bad apple" is that they cannot be wrapped in paper in order to insulate them from the others. Nor can the others be protected from the "bad apple". We all must walk about on this earth together. There is no cold-storage place in which to house human "bad apples".
Ancora imparo
The figurative meaning of "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch" has recently been driven home to me in an abstract way that I never would have expected for it is with this life lesson that I have become acutely aware of how much difference one person can make - positively and negatively. "One bad apple" can act as a grain of sand in a running shoe, creating unseen and - at first unfelt - discomfort. You may be aware that something is amiss but you just cannot put your finger on the issue........until the "bad apple" leaves, the breath of fresh air descends upon you and you think to yourself, "Wow". Later you may come to shout "yea".
The unfortunate part about a human "bad apple" is that they cannot be wrapped in paper in order to insulate them from the others. Nor can the others be protected from the "bad apple". We all must walk about on this earth together. There is no cold-storage place in which to house human "bad apples".
Ancora imparo
Friday, February 17, 2012
The Squeeze Is On, The Squeeze Is O-o-o-on
I thought the cavalry had arrived a little over a year ago when I turned into a "woman of a certain age" and was able to get group health insurance once again. Yes, yes I am very grateful and am not complaining but.........yes, there is a "but".
I have recently discovered that insurance coverage is not what it used to be when I was working and had coverage through my employer. With about nine years in-between being covered by my employer, then self-insured, to now, the industry has learned to play games with the consumer. While those of us covered under group health insurance have a greater safety net and the possibility of becoming "dropped" is almost nil, the insurers have discovered a number of sneaky methods to cut down on payments to providers and benefits to the insured, thereby thrusting more of the burden for payment back on to the insured.
One of the games played by insurance companies is to state that you have all kinds of great coverage by any or most providers of your choice, but oh-by-the-way, the billing company that your provider or provider's group uses............well, that billing company is not in your network, so "too bad". Another game I just discovered today is the game of telling you that your provider is in network, the procedure or test is covered but, after the fact, you find that the x-ray was sent to an outside radiologist and he or she is not in your network so therefore, the radiologist's fees (which are not insignificant) are not covered nor do the fees apply against your deductible. Part two of this same game is that "the reading of your x-ray could have been covered had you gone to a different address (same group practice just different location).
Yes, folks, the squeeze to the American health insurance customer is on and the insurance companies have a death grip on the dollars they are willing to pay out. No matter that you have paid premiums for years with few claims. I can envision the health insurance executives sitting around a big, mahogany table, rubbing their hands with delight as backlighting gives an unearthly aura about their personages, much like Dante's Inferno.
Ancora imparo
I have recently discovered that insurance coverage is not what it used to be when I was working and had coverage through my employer. With about nine years in-between being covered by my employer, then self-insured, to now, the industry has learned to play games with the consumer. While those of us covered under group health insurance have a greater safety net and the possibility of becoming "dropped" is almost nil, the insurers have discovered a number of sneaky methods to cut down on payments to providers and benefits to the insured, thereby thrusting more of the burden for payment back on to the insured.
One of the games played by insurance companies is to state that you have all kinds of great coverage by any or most providers of your choice, but oh-by-the-way, the billing company that your provider or provider's group uses............well, that billing company is not in your network, so "too bad". Another game I just discovered today is the game of telling you that your provider is in network, the procedure or test is covered but, after the fact, you find that the x-ray was sent to an outside radiologist and he or she is not in your network so therefore, the radiologist's fees (which are not insignificant) are not covered nor do the fees apply against your deductible. Part two of this same game is that "the reading of your x-ray could have been covered had you gone to a different address (same group practice just different location).
Yes, folks, the squeeze to the American health insurance customer is on and the insurance companies have a death grip on the dollars they are willing to pay out. No matter that you have paid premiums for years with few claims. I can envision the health insurance executives sitting around a big, mahogany table, rubbing their hands with delight as backlighting gives an unearthly aura about their personages, much like Dante's Inferno.
Ancora imparo
Jesters, Truth and Phones
"Much truth is said in jest."
"Many a truth is said in jest."
Most people are familiar with these two phrases, both of which have the same meaning. The phrases may be spoken with jocularity, sarcasm, or spite - perhaps all three thrown into the same utterance. I went looking for the source of this phrase, thinking if I was going to include it in a blog posting, I should discover background regarding it. After some searching and clicking (not even needing to go to the source of all that is factual - Wikipedia) I discovered that Geoffrey Chaucer probably alluded to the gist of the idea first in a work titled The Cook's Tale (1390):
But yet I pray thee be not wroth for game, (don't be angry with my jesting)
A man my say full sooth (the truth) in game and play.
William Shakespeare would later write, in King Lear (1605):
Jesters do oft prove prophets.
It was recently pointed out to me that I was addicted to my smart phone. While I do take exception to the remark, I must admit it is - perhaps - a way-too-handy tool for a number of "things", all of which seem important at the time of phone use. My usage of Post-Its is way down. In fact, I am no longer considering buying stock in the company that makes them - 3M, I think. Instead of Post-Its, I am constantly adding to my reminder list on my phone. When a thought pops into my head I must record it somewhere due to the flitting nature of my brain. "Easy come, easy go" is the way my brain operates at times. If the thought is not captured quickly, retrieval is often impossible. Therefore, if I am riding in the car as a passenger, I am probably busy typing thoughts and ideas into my phone's reminder list, which adds to the issue of my rustifying (my word) conversation skills.
Was much truth said in jest?
Possibly.
Ancora imparo
"Many a truth is said in jest."
Most people are familiar with these two phrases, both of which have the same meaning. The phrases may be spoken with jocularity, sarcasm, or spite - perhaps all three thrown into the same utterance. I went looking for the source of this phrase, thinking if I was going to include it in a blog posting, I should discover background regarding it. After some searching and clicking (not even needing to go to the source of all that is factual - Wikipedia) I discovered that Geoffrey Chaucer probably alluded to the gist of the idea first in a work titled The Cook's Tale (1390):
But yet I pray thee be not wroth for game, (don't be angry with my jesting)
A man my say full sooth (the truth) in game and play.
William Shakespeare would later write, in King Lear (1605):
Jesters do oft prove prophets.
It was recently pointed out to me that I was addicted to my smart phone. While I do take exception to the remark, I must admit it is - perhaps - a way-too-handy tool for a number of "things", all of which seem important at the time of phone use. My usage of Post-Its is way down. In fact, I am no longer considering buying stock in the company that makes them - 3M, I think. Instead of Post-Its, I am constantly adding to my reminder list on my phone. When a thought pops into my head I must record it somewhere due to the flitting nature of my brain. "Easy come, easy go" is the way my brain operates at times. If the thought is not captured quickly, retrieval is often impossible. Therefore, if I am riding in the car as a passenger, I am probably busy typing thoughts and ideas into my phone's reminder list, which adds to the issue of my rustifying (my word) conversation skills.
Was much truth said in jest?
Possibly.
Ancora imparo
Thursday, February 16, 2012
To Beep or Be Beeped, That Is The Question
Every day brings new surprises, does it not? The ice on the driveway surprised Capt. Cook this morning. He said he slipped and slid but kept his balance and did not tumble to the ground. I drove a new route into a neighboring city this morning and discovered that it was about five minutes shorter than the route I had previously taken. Good news - even during morning drive time! Later, I had routine blood work done in preparation for a fun procedure done every ten years and the phlebotomist drawing the blood was so skilled that I never felt the needle prick my skin. After that I had my first EKG, only to find that it takes just minutes - barely over two. The need for the EKG had something to do with a shortage of an anesthetic that does not require an anesthesiologist and the possibility that an agent might have to be administered to moi that requires an anesthesiologist - hence the need for a pre-fun-procedure-that-is-done-every-ten-years EKG. All quite complicated to moi so I just followed instructions. After the instant EKG I sought a place to eat breakfast and had a great, inexpensive meal at the hospital's cafeteria. I got to enjoy steaming hot coffee, a magazine and a delicious made-just-for-moi omelet. Another pleasant surprise.
My big surprise for the day was the hospital's usage of beepers. Heretofore, my only experience with beepers was with restaurant beepers. Restaurant beepers seem to be predictable. Your beeper beeps, you find the host or hostess, give the person your beeper and you get seated. I had never heard a hospital beeper beep before. The difficult part is that hospitals are filled with things that go "beep" so it is difficult, at first, to determine if your beeper is beeping. While I was in the restroom I thought my beeper beeped and when I went past the registration desk, I asked the woman who first gave me my beeper if my beeper had, indeed, beeped. She had this plastic smile plastered on her face (see yesterday's posting), displaying a countenance of patience, looked at my beeper and informed me, quite pleasantly, that my beeper had not beeped. She gestured towards this vast waiting area, told me to take a seat and that someone would come to get me when my beeper beeped. I did as I was told, opened my magazine and settled in with my crossword puzzle and my cell phone. There were maybe twenty or so people spread out over the atrium waiting area, all of us with beepers. Suddenly my beeper went nuts except I had no idea where to go. Shortly thereafter a woman emerged from a doorway and muttered someone's name but I could not understand her. She repeated the name more loudly, I recognized it as my name and looked towards her. She motioned to me to follow her and I did. Once seated in her registration office, I asked her how she and the other registrars knew who they were looking for and she replied that they all just looked for startled people. Now that is what I call a procedure. After the registration process, I was directed to keep my beeper and move to a different waiting area within the atrium. Doing as I was told, I found a seat in the new area and settled in, once again, with my magazine and my cell phone. I had just become comfortable when my beeper went nuts. I looked around at a multi-plex of doors and saw no one. Suddenly a woman dressed in a medical-type uniform appeared in a doorway and magically motioned towards me. How she knew my beeper had beeped is beyond me. It must have been my startled look.
I now understand what prompts what is called the "startle reflex" in babies. They must have an internal beeper. I was happy to leave mine behind this morning.
Ancora imparo
My big surprise for the day was the hospital's usage of beepers. Heretofore, my only experience with beepers was with restaurant beepers. Restaurant beepers seem to be predictable. Your beeper beeps, you find the host or hostess, give the person your beeper and you get seated. I had never heard a hospital beeper beep before. The difficult part is that hospitals are filled with things that go "beep" so it is difficult, at first, to determine if your beeper is beeping. While I was in the restroom I thought my beeper beeped and when I went past the registration desk, I asked the woman who first gave me my beeper if my beeper had, indeed, beeped. She had this plastic smile plastered on her face (see yesterday's posting), displaying a countenance of patience, looked at my beeper and informed me, quite pleasantly, that my beeper had not beeped. She gestured towards this vast waiting area, told me to take a seat and that someone would come to get me when my beeper beeped. I did as I was told, opened my magazine and settled in with my crossword puzzle and my cell phone. There were maybe twenty or so people spread out over the atrium waiting area, all of us with beepers. Suddenly my beeper went nuts except I had no idea where to go. Shortly thereafter a woman emerged from a doorway and muttered someone's name but I could not understand her. She repeated the name more loudly, I recognized it as my name and looked towards her. She motioned to me to follow her and I did. Once seated in her registration office, I asked her how she and the other registrars knew who they were looking for and she replied that they all just looked for startled people. Now that is what I call a procedure. After the registration process, I was directed to keep my beeper and move to a different waiting area within the atrium. Doing as I was told, I found a seat in the new area and settled in, once again, with my magazine and my cell phone. I had just become comfortable when my beeper went nuts. I looked around at a multi-plex of doors and saw no one. Suddenly a woman dressed in a medical-type uniform appeared in a doorway and magically motioned towards me. How she knew my beeper had beeped is beyond me. It must have been my startled look.
I now understand what prompts what is called the "startle reflex" in babies. They must have an internal beeper. I was happy to leave mine behind this morning.
Ancora imparo
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Smile Recipe
Babies have it easy. They can smile without a need for purpose and adults will naturally smile back at them. The reason or cause behind a baby's smile is not important. No matter that the old wives' tale says that a baby smiles when it has gas. A baby smile is a baby smile. Now, an adult on the other hand usually has a good reason to smile........other than gas, which normally will put a pained expression on an adult's face.
Adults' reasons for smiling are pretty universal. We smile if we are enjoying ourselves, if we are on national television accepting an award, greeting a loved one, winning the big game, holding a grandchild, sighting a loved one across a crowded room, dancing cheek-to-cheek, receiving a bouquet of a dozen roses, riding the crest of a wave with the wind in our faces, laughing with a friend, or chuckling over a joke. As a rule, smiling indicates pleasure.
Of course, there is the plastic smile. I think just about everyone is acquainted with the plastic smile - the one that is plastered on the face and is removed only by penalty of death or dismemberment. The plastic smile that looks as if it would crack the face mask in a thousand tiny pieces if the smile widened by even the smallest of increments. The plastic smile indicates that the wearer of it understands that a game must be played and will expect aching cheek muscles at the end of an evening wearing a plastic smile.
Last night I had good reason to smile and the wide smile on my face was genuine. The music was loud with a great beat, the lyrics were fun yet thought-provoking, and the back beat steady. An excellent recipe for creating smiles. The participants were smiling as well, perhaps even having fun in spite of some of their reserved natures.
Music, readers. It is an oft, central ingredient in the smile-recipe category. The single ingredient of which its absence would have rendered the evening ordinary. Add music to the mixture and, voila! you have smiles, fun and joy.
Ancora imparo
Adults' reasons for smiling are pretty universal. We smile if we are enjoying ourselves, if we are on national television accepting an award, greeting a loved one, winning the big game, holding a grandchild, sighting a loved one across a crowded room, dancing cheek-to-cheek, receiving a bouquet of a dozen roses, riding the crest of a wave with the wind in our faces, laughing with a friend, or chuckling over a joke. As a rule, smiling indicates pleasure.
Of course, there is the plastic smile. I think just about everyone is acquainted with the plastic smile - the one that is plastered on the face and is removed only by penalty of death or dismemberment. The plastic smile that looks as if it would crack the face mask in a thousand tiny pieces if the smile widened by even the smallest of increments. The plastic smile indicates that the wearer of it understands that a game must be played and will expect aching cheek muscles at the end of an evening wearing a plastic smile.
Last night I had good reason to smile and the wide smile on my face was genuine. The music was loud with a great beat, the lyrics were fun yet thought-provoking, and the back beat steady. An excellent recipe for creating smiles. The participants were smiling as well, perhaps even having fun in spite of some of their reserved natures.
Music, readers. It is an oft, central ingredient in the smile-recipe category. The single ingredient of which its absence would have rendered the evening ordinary. Add music to the mixture and, voila! you have smiles, fun and joy.
Ancora imparo
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
A Losing Cause
Does it ever seem that when you need to sleep you can't and when you need to be awake, all you want to do is sleep? This is a very vexing issue - especially when trying to 1. either type out a blog 2. type an email 3. or compose a text message. I note that the keyboard on my phone is very sensitive and when my eyes shut, for even just a brief second, my fingers will accidentally touch a key and voila! there is a letter or symbol appearing on the screen.
Perhaps another cup of coffee would help, although like the "Zits" comic strip, too much caffeine can cause other deleterious effects - such as extreme hyperactivity. With my current state of near-comatosness (a word I just made up0, it is probably fortunate that I have not turned to java in order to keep my brain functioning.
Of course, it is Valentine Day, a day when chocolate reigns supreme.......and, chocolate does have caffeine in it.......which would make just another substance to help keep those of us awake that are struggling to keep our eyes open.
What I would really like to eat on Valentine Day is comfort food, which is mostly carbs, which could translate into sleepiness which (my final which) would translate into feeling as if I needed caffeine to stay awake.
I can see that this is a losing cause. Perhaps I should simply stop fighting to stay awake and succumb to the urge to go prone and close my eyes.
Which, of course, cannot happen. I have too much to do. Caffeine, here I come!
Ancora imparo
Perhaps another cup of coffee would help, although like the "Zits" comic strip, too much caffeine can cause other deleterious effects - such as extreme hyperactivity. With my current state of near-comatosness (a word I just made up0, it is probably fortunate that I have not turned to java in order to keep my brain functioning.
Of course, it is Valentine Day, a day when chocolate reigns supreme.......and, chocolate does have caffeine in it.......which would make just another substance to help keep those of us awake that are struggling to keep our eyes open.
What I would really like to eat on Valentine Day is comfort food, which is mostly carbs, which could translate into sleepiness which (my final which) would translate into feeling as if I needed caffeine to stay awake.
I can see that this is a losing cause. Perhaps I should simply stop fighting to stay awake and succumb to the urge to go prone and close my eyes.
Which, of course, cannot happen. I have too much to do. Caffeine, here I come!
Ancora imparo
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Is This Asking Too Much?
Do you have a favorite article (or articles) of clothing that signals relaxation time? For moi, it is and has been a pair of sweatpants and an over-sized, newish sweatshirt that still has the underside of undisturbed fleece. It has always been a sad day when the new sweatshirt finally reaches its point of no return on continual wear and shouts, "Wash me!" You know that the underside softness disappears from that point on.
My prescription for mental and physical relaxation relief has always been that, immediately upon my arrival home from work, I shed my work clothes, don my sweats and wash my face. Those three actions combine to make a powerful prescriptive that says "relax". I recently purchased an article of clothing that speaks volumes to me..........a new bathrobe. While it may seem odd to blog about a bathrobe, there is a relaxation connection.
There is something oddly comforting about bathrobes. Maybe the older they are the more comforting they become when worn? Bathrobes used to be primarily made of terrycloth, cotton, or quilted material. These were the practical robes, made to be worn day after day - perhaps hour after hour, depending on the circumstances. To be sure, other robe fabrics included silk, taffeta, and sheer materials for garments not meant to stay on the body for any length of time. Today's robe fabrics range from terrycloth, to silky materials, to perhaps the newest entry into the robe industry - fleece.
I tend to switch out bathrobes slowly because of 1. Familiarity 2. Style 3. Fabric. Being short of stature, it is difficult for me to find a bathrobe that is short enough and does not drag around on the floor, picking up all of the cat's shed hair and dustbunnies. Having skin highly sensitive to scratchiness, it is difficult to find a robe that meets my criteria for "softness" factor. My old robe did meet all of my rigid requirements but became so worn-looking that it looked tacky. Off I went in search of a new robe and was successful.
The new robe is constructed from a fabric that resembles fleece - and maybe that is what it is. All I know is that the robe's underside is so soft that I do not wish to take the robe off. If I could, I would wear this robe everywhere - and I do mean everywhere - as long as the weather outside is frightful. The robe conducts an instant warmth which, while just what the doctor ordered for chilly, winter days, is way too warm for any indoor temperature over 67 degrees. Nevertheless, I love my new robe and would like society to review its dress code and allow me and my lavender, fuzzy robe to not be separated and..........be accepted wherever I goeth.
Ancora imparo
My prescription for mental and physical relaxation relief has always been that, immediately upon my arrival home from work, I shed my work clothes, don my sweats and wash my face. Those three actions combine to make a powerful prescriptive that says "relax". I recently purchased an article of clothing that speaks volumes to me..........a new bathrobe. While it may seem odd to blog about a bathrobe, there is a relaxation connection.
There is something oddly comforting about bathrobes. Maybe the older they are the more comforting they become when worn? Bathrobes used to be primarily made of terrycloth, cotton, or quilted material. These were the practical robes, made to be worn day after day - perhaps hour after hour, depending on the circumstances. To be sure, other robe fabrics included silk, taffeta, and sheer materials for garments not meant to stay on the body for any length of time. Today's robe fabrics range from terrycloth, to silky materials, to perhaps the newest entry into the robe industry - fleece.
I tend to switch out bathrobes slowly because of 1. Familiarity 2. Style 3. Fabric. Being short of stature, it is difficult for me to find a bathrobe that is short enough and does not drag around on the floor, picking up all of the cat's shed hair and dustbunnies. Having skin highly sensitive to scratchiness, it is difficult to find a robe that meets my criteria for "softness" factor. My old robe did meet all of my rigid requirements but became so worn-looking that it looked tacky. Off I went in search of a new robe and was successful.
The new robe is constructed from a fabric that resembles fleece - and maybe that is what it is. All I know is that the robe's underside is so soft that I do not wish to take the robe off. If I could, I would wear this robe everywhere - and I do mean everywhere - as long as the weather outside is frightful. The robe conducts an instant warmth which, while just what the doctor ordered for chilly, winter days, is way too warm for any indoor temperature over 67 degrees. Nevertheless, I love my new robe and would like society to review its dress code and allow me and my lavender, fuzzy robe to not be separated and..........be accepted wherever I goeth.
Ancora imparo
Friday, February 10, 2012
Favorite Past-time
Just when I thought that winter might be beaten - and the meteorologists did not dispute my thought - Mother Nature got the last laugh. While it is pretty outside, with large snowflakes swirling about in the wind, the snowfall does make my mind wander to the possibilities of spring, summer and.....water. I began ironing - a wonderfully mindless activity - and daydreaming about water, wakes, and wind. I turned on my television, only to tune into an advertisement for Walgreens featuring a man having trouble backing up his boat in his driveway.
Now, if you have ever tried to back up an "anything" attached to a trailer hitch on the back of your vehicle, you will know how difficult it can be. Capt. Cook, who grew up on a farm, is an expert at backing up everything and anything attached to a trailer hitch. I, on the other hand, did not grow up driving tractors and trucks hauling wagons and other farm equipment. In the past, when I have tried to back up fishing boats, the final result has been a boat in the driveway, but in-between arrival at the house and the boat in the driveway was a laughable series of back-ups, see-saws, forwards and a few blue words thrown in for my own stress release. The inability to back up a boat has long been a favorite past-time of "good-backerupers" at public boat launches. To say that some people should not own trailerable boats is an understatement. It is possible to see backing-up attempts so mangled that your stomach hurts from so much laughter.
The commercial for Walgreens in which the boat owner backs up the boat - with the help of his wife, only to have her let him go too far and the motor prop breaks into the garage door - reminded me of a similar situation with Capt. Cook and me that took place a number of years ago. We were hauling an overall twenty-seven foot boat, which did not include the prop length when the outboards were in a tilted position. The storage building where Byrdie was stored was almost brand-new, with a length and width that was snug on all sides. So snug that Capt. Cook had taped lines applied to the floor that the tires of the boat trailer had to precisely run on or the outcome would be a ruined boat, storage wall or messed up boat trailer - none of which was an option.
It was the first time we brought Brydie back from her inaugural outing and darkness had fallen. We were working with flashlights and walkie-talkies. Capt. Cook was doing great and so was I........at least when it came to watching the sides of the rig. Capt. Cook had those boat-trailer wheels aligned perfectly on the tape. I was at the back of the storage unit, walking backward, keeping my eye on those taped lines, feeling really good about the great job we were doing and what a team we were as Brydie slowly inched her way backwards......until the props just touched the back wall, putting the slightest of indentations in the drywall. Fortunately, the walkie talkies were working well, but that didn't matter as my shouting got Capt. Cook's attention immediately.
Yelling is a highly effective form of communication when backing up boats.
Ancora imparo
Now, if you have ever tried to back up an "anything" attached to a trailer hitch on the back of your vehicle, you will know how difficult it can be. Capt. Cook, who grew up on a farm, is an expert at backing up everything and anything attached to a trailer hitch. I, on the other hand, did not grow up driving tractors and trucks hauling wagons and other farm equipment. In the past, when I have tried to back up fishing boats, the final result has been a boat in the driveway, but in-between arrival at the house and the boat in the driveway was a laughable series of back-ups, see-saws, forwards and a few blue words thrown in for my own stress release. The inability to back up a boat has long been a favorite past-time of "good-backerupers" at public boat launches. To say that some people should not own trailerable boats is an understatement. It is possible to see backing-up attempts so mangled that your stomach hurts from so much laughter.
The commercial for Walgreens in which the boat owner backs up the boat - with the help of his wife, only to have her let him go too far and the motor prop breaks into the garage door - reminded me of a similar situation with Capt. Cook and me that took place a number of years ago. We were hauling an overall twenty-seven foot boat, which did not include the prop length when the outboards were in a tilted position. The storage building where Byrdie was stored was almost brand-new, with a length and width that was snug on all sides. So snug that Capt. Cook had taped lines applied to the floor that the tires of the boat trailer had to precisely run on or the outcome would be a ruined boat, storage wall or messed up boat trailer - none of which was an option.
It was the first time we brought Brydie back from her inaugural outing and darkness had fallen. We were working with flashlights and walkie-talkies. Capt. Cook was doing great and so was I........at least when it came to watching the sides of the rig. Capt. Cook had those boat-trailer wheels aligned perfectly on the tape. I was at the back of the storage unit, walking backward, keeping my eye on those taped lines, feeling really good about the great job we were doing and what a team we were as Brydie slowly inched her way backwards......until the props just touched the back wall, putting the slightest of indentations in the drywall. Fortunately, the walkie talkies were working well, but that didn't matter as my shouting got Capt. Cook's attention immediately.
Yelling is a highly effective form of communication when backing up boats.
Ancora imparo
Brenda Leigh Gets It
STRESS......we all handle it differently. Stress comes in different forms, affects each person uniquely and its remedy is different for each situation. Studies have shown that men and women process stress differently and we know that the affects of stress vary according to age. This morning I was in a public waiting area and from somewhere in the building came the signal that a baby was highly stressed. Another woman remarked to me that "someone isn't very happy", to which I replied, "Sometimes I wish I could express myself that way and get away with it!"
Stress relievers range from quiet solitude to clubbing and dancing to wild, pulsating beats. D'ffrent strokes for d'ffrent folks, yet every human needs a release and a relief valve in order to shedd the negative effects that stress places on the body. Some people find food to be a remedy. (I fall into this category.) For food "users, it may be one kind of food or it may be "see-food". Whatever food you see becomes the food of choice to be the release valve. Logic does not enter into this kind of stress-release, nor is the relief long-lived. Guilt soon settles in, often to be relieved by......you guessed it.....more eating. Other people deal with stress by not eating. How this is possible is unfathomable to me.
This morning was a wee bit stressful, although why I cannot identify. All I know is that by the time I arrived home my inner stress level was a wee bit high and food of any kind was calling to me. (Of course, it did not help that I had not eaten breakfast.) I walked into my office and instantly knew I had found my solution - an unopened box of candy given to Capt. Cook and I. I ripped off the gift wrapping and cellophane covering the box and lifted the top. There, in front of me, were one dozen milk-chocolate turtle candies. As I reached for one, a television character came to mind - Brenda Leigh Johnson from TNT's "The Closer", perfectly played by actress Kyra Sedgwick. Brenda Leigh has a chocolate addiction and she can often be seen opening a desk drawer to reach in for a piece of chocolate of some type. Seated or standing, she'll bring it to her lips, take a savoring bite while closing her eyes, and the relief in her countenance is palpable.
That was me today. While the first bite drew the same reaction from me as Brenda Leigh, subsequent bites fortunately revealed a much-too-sweet taste. I ate one in its entirety and then promptly marched down to Capt. Cook's office and turned over the entire box to him but that first bite was so very satisfying. Like popping a balloon with a pin, my stress was relieved.
Brenda Leigh gets it.
Ancora imparo
Stress relievers range from quiet solitude to clubbing and dancing to wild, pulsating beats. D'ffrent strokes for d'ffrent folks, yet every human needs a release and a relief valve in order to shedd the negative effects that stress places on the body. Some people find food to be a remedy. (I fall into this category.) For food "users, it may be one kind of food or it may be "see-food". Whatever food you see becomes the food of choice to be the release valve. Logic does not enter into this kind of stress-release, nor is the relief long-lived. Guilt soon settles in, often to be relieved by......you guessed it.....more eating. Other people deal with stress by not eating. How this is possible is unfathomable to me.
This morning was a wee bit stressful, although why I cannot identify. All I know is that by the time I arrived home my inner stress level was a wee bit high and food of any kind was calling to me. (Of course, it did not help that I had not eaten breakfast.) I walked into my office and instantly knew I had found my solution - an unopened box of candy given to Capt. Cook and I. I ripped off the gift wrapping and cellophane covering the box and lifted the top. There, in front of me, were one dozen milk-chocolate turtle candies. As I reached for one, a television character came to mind - Brenda Leigh Johnson from TNT's "The Closer", perfectly played by actress Kyra Sedgwick. Brenda Leigh has a chocolate addiction and she can often be seen opening a desk drawer to reach in for a piece of chocolate of some type. Seated or standing, she'll bring it to her lips, take a savoring bite while closing her eyes, and the relief in her countenance is palpable.
That was me today. While the first bite drew the same reaction from me as Brenda Leigh, subsequent bites fortunately revealed a much-too-sweet taste. I ate one in its entirety and then promptly marched down to Capt. Cook's office and turned over the entire box to him but that first bite was so very satisfying. Like popping a balloon with a pin, my stress was relieved.
Brenda Leigh gets it.
Ancora imparo
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Reduction
There is a cooking term called "reduction". Simply put, it means boiling or steaming a liquid down into a concentrated form, much like orange juice concentrate is to the actual orange juice. The culinary concept of reduction is the same for other applications of "reduction". It means to minimize volume or number of.
How do you grapple with the idea of reducing a decade, a score, or a lifetime into a concentrated form? When the metal hits the road, what is left? I suppose this idea is not much different than when a loved one dies and the grieving family has to write an obituary.
The Broadway musical, "Rent", composed and written by the late Jonathan Larson, has a song "Seasons of Love", with lyrics so powerful that my mind connects with certain lines not infrequently. Over the course of the past seven days, I have had many opportunities to channel those lines, observing first-hand how quickly a period of time can be reduced and that the quality of the reduction is dependent on the quality of the time and its "contents".
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
How do you measure - measure a year?
In daylights - in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?
Larson hits the nail squarely on the head when he poses the question: "How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?" This question is heady because it causes one to ponder just what does a person want his or her legacy to be? Certainly not crumpled paper, box elder bug carcasses, cobwebs, old and faded periodicals, piles of paper haphazardly strewn about, twenty-six cents, and cardboard - pounds of cardboard. While this might describe my office at one time or another (minus the box elder bugs), this would not be what I want my life-reduction to look like. My crumpled paper, out-dated magazines and excess cardboard would dutifully be placed in the recycling bin, the cobwebs cleared as soon as they were noticed, the piles of paper at least straightened up and the twenty-six cents would go back into my wallet, most likely to be used towards the purchase of a cup of coffee somewhere. Whatever life-statement my "reduction" will render, I'd rather lean toward Larson's idea of "daylights, sunsets, midnights, cups of coffee" and loved ones.
Ancora imparo
How do you grapple with the idea of reducing a decade, a score, or a lifetime into a concentrated form? When the metal hits the road, what is left? I suppose this idea is not much different than when a loved one dies and the grieving family has to write an obituary.
The Broadway musical, "Rent", composed and written by the late Jonathan Larson, has a song "Seasons of Love", with lyrics so powerful that my mind connects with certain lines not infrequently. Over the course of the past seven days, I have had many opportunities to channel those lines, observing first-hand how quickly a period of time can be reduced and that the quality of the reduction is dependent on the quality of the time and its "contents".
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
How do you measure - measure a year?
In daylights - in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?
Larson hits the nail squarely on the head when he poses the question: "How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?" This question is heady because it causes one to ponder just what does a person want his or her legacy to be? Certainly not crumpled paper, box elder bug carcasses, cobwebs, old and faded periodicals, piles of paper haphazardly strewn about, twenty-six cents, and cardboard - pounds of cardboard. While this might describe my office at one time or another (minus the box elder bugs), this would not be what I want my life-reduction to look like. My crumpled paper, out-dated magazines and excess cardboard would dutifully be placed in the recycling bin, the cobwebs cleared as soon as they were noticed, the piles of paper at least straightened up and the twenty-six cents would go back into my wallet, most likely to be used towards the purchase of a cup of coffee somewhere. Whatever life-statement my "reduction" will render, I'd rather lean toward Larson's idea of "daylights, sunsets, midnights, cups of coffee" and loved ones.
Ancora imparo
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Happiness and Too-Smart Phones
Who could have ever imagined where technology has taken us and where technology will take the world? Over the centuries, there have been some great visionaries - notably Leonardo D'Vinci, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, Galileo, Stephen Hawking, Steven Jobs - just to name names on the tip of the iceberg. Visionaries are people who see "things" that the rest of us may never even dream about. They have 3-D vision without the aid of 3-D goggles. About the only "things" I envision are the possibilities and outcomes of music that I select for a performing group.
While I can envy the ability to see in 3-D without goggles, I can imagine that this rare gift might also be or become a curse. With greatness comes great expectations......although some of the world's great visionaries of the past were not considered "great" while they were alive. Many of them were simply considered kooks - weirdos, even charlatans of their time and it was only in death, and perhaps the passage of time, that their contributions to the world were realized and acknowledged. Being a great genius is no guarantee of happiness.
Why am I writing about this? Multiple items have recently come to my attention and are swirling aboot, much like a philosophical "perfect storm". I've known for several weeks that "Happy Day" will be observed in a few days and an email notification, of sorts, came through this morning, reminding me once again. OK, so Hallmark, American Greetings and the grumpy Shoebox lady will have a field day and will bring in some additional revenue just prior to Valentines Day, when the marketing gurus will do their best to make those people not in a relationship of some sort feel rotten, sad, depressed, and unworthy. But, hey, that is free enterprise. (Take note: We should all feel happy on National Happy Day then three days later some people can have their short-lived happiness dashed upon the rocks. But, hey, three days of happiness is better than none.)
Finally, I opened up an email from a friend who sent information on a website that does world-wide tracking of ships of all types. As I perused through the website and various links, I was mentally blown away by the sophistication of genius that it takes to develop all of the working parts that must come together to be able to sit at a computer in Walla Walla, Washington and see where your fleet of fishing boats is (boat-by-boat) in the South China Sea. My thoughts then strayed to my "smart phone", thanks to the genius of Steven Jobs, et al. Everyone of us who has a smart phone can be tracked, via internal GPS. Does the knowledge that I can be the tracker - or the tracked - bring me happiness? Do I really want Papa Government to know where I am 24-7? Do we really want to know that we can know where everything and everyone is all the time?
All these questions add up to a giant headache. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that too much knowledge is not always the best solution and that ignorance can truly be bliss.
I can't wait for my three days of happiness to begin this Saturday. Bring it on.
Ancora imparo
While I can envy the ability to see in 3-D without goggles, I can imagine that this rare gift might also be or become a curse. With greatness comes great expectations......although some of the world's great visionaries of the past were not considered "great" while they were alive. Many of them were simply considered kooks - weirdos, even charlatans of their time and it was only in death, and perhaps the passage of time, that their contributions to the world were realized and acknowledged. Being a great genius is no guarantee of happiness.
Why am I writing about this? Multiple items have recently come to my attention and are swirling aboot, much like a philosophical "perfect storm". I've known for several weeks that "Happy Day" will be observed in a few days and an email notification, of sorts, came through this morning, reminding me once again. OK, so Hallmark, American Greetings and the grumpy Shoebox lady will have a field day and will bring in some additional revenue just prior to Valentines Day, when the marketing gurus will do their best to make those people not in a relationship of some sort feel rotten, sad, depressed, and unworthy. But, hey, that is free enterprise. (Take note: We should all feel happy on National Happy Day then three days later some people can have their short-lived happiness dashed upon the rocks. But, hey, three days of happiness is better than none.)
Finally, I opened up an email from a friend who sent information on a website that does world-wide tracking of ships of all types. As I perused through the website and various links, I was mentally blown away by the sophistication of genius that it takes to develop all of the working parts that must come together to be able to sit at a computer in Walla Walla, Washington and see where your fleet of fishing boats is (boat-by-boat) in the South China Sea. My thoughts then strayed to my "smart phone", thanks to the genius of Steven Jobs, et al. Everyone of us who has a smart phone can be tracked, via internal GPS. Does the knowledge that I can be the tracker - or the tracked - bring me happiness? Do I really want Papa Government to know where I am 24-7? Do we really want to know that we can know where everything and everyone is all the time?
All these questions add up to a giant headache. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that too much knowledge is not always the best solution and that ignorance can truly be bliss.
I can't wait for my three days of happiness to begin this Saturday. Bring it on.
Ancora imparo
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Non! Non!
Mail-order catalogs showcasing spring and summer wardrobe choices are arriving daily now. Forget that it is just the beginning of February and that the cold and snow of winter are yet a stark possibility (or reality) for weeks to come - the retail industry wants the average consumer to think warm weather. The name of the game seems to be that the earliest catalogs to arrive on consumer doorsteps will reap the greatest number of orders......i.e. more revenue dollars.
My issue with many of the catalogs is that their covers have shapely twenty-somethings, clad only in the barest-of-acceptable amounts of fabric accompanied by an over-sized beach ball. Occasionally you will see a male-female duo on the catalog cover, with the male and his six-pack abs looking all bough (spelling intentional) in his Speedo-like trunks. I am simply not in the mood, nor shape, to be interested in the latest maillot de bain styles for the 2012 season.
Why is that? Well, for starters, the interior temperature of our condo is still more suited (pun intended) to sweats with their fuzzy and warm fabric-finishes next to my skin. The outside temperature is, on the whole, more suited to winter coats, the occasional hat or earmuffs, and - often - snowboots. Not bikinis, tankinis, and pool cover-ups. At this time of year, my maillot de bain style more resembles that of the suits worn by my mother and her peeps than that of today's Hollywood starlets vacationing on the Mediterranean coast.
When my beverage of choice needs to have more ice than liquid then, and only then, will I be in the mood for summer clothing styles. Until then, bring on the fleece! This is one time of year when the fleecing of Americans can be a positive thing.
Ancoldaro imparo
My issue with many of the catalogs is that their covers have shapely twenty-somethings, clad only in the barest-of-acceptable amounts of fabric accompanied by an over-sized beach ball. Occasionally you will see a male-female duo on the catalog cover, with the male and his six-pack abs looking all bough (spelling intentional) in his Speedo-like trunks. I am simply not in the mood, nor shape, to be interested in the latest maillot de bain styles for the 2012 season.
Why is that? Well, for starters, the interior temperature of our condo is still more suited (pun intended) to sweats with their fuzzy and warm fabric-finishes next to my skin. The outside temperature is, on the whole, more suited to winter coats, the occasional hat or earmuffs, and - often - snowboots. Not bikinis, tankinis, and pool cover-ups. At this time of year, my maillot de bain style more resembles that of the suits worn by my mother and her peeps than that of today's Hollywood starlets vacationing on the Mediterranean coast.
When my beverage of choice needs to have more ice than liquid then, and only then, will I be in the mood for summer clothing styles. Until then, bring on the fleece! This is one time of year when the fleecing of Americans can be a positive thing.
Ancoldaro imparo
Monday, February 6, 2012
Empty, Vapid Thoughts
Wow! As I emailed someone last night, my head is spinning and I cannot stop its motion. No, no - my head is not spinning as in drinking too much alcohol at yesterday's Super Bowl party. I took eight ounces of Riesling wine in an old Tupperware glass and when that was gone, I switched to water. Let me tell you that wine in Tupperware is an experience that everyone should have. Rather, my head is spinning with thoughts and some of those yet untamed thoughts got in the way of sleep last night.
The Super Bowl party was fun - as in too much tasty food, good conversation, lots of laughs, part-time watching of the game, full-time watching of the commercials, and our in-house announcer who, along with his friend "Bubbles", kept us all appraised on who was about to win quarterly dollars from the "pool". Of course, the commercials were a big hit, some bigger than others. My personal favorites were the commercials featuring dogs, with the dog who puts itself on a diet in order to run with a Volkswagen Beetle close to the top of my faves. It is hard to ignore commercials featuring cute pets.
At yesterday's party, I learned that some people keep a lot of emails. During the course of the party, one woman was "paging" through almost fifteen hundred emails on her phone in order to find a picture of her and her husband. Granted, it was a beautiful picture of the two of them, but fifteen hundred emails........really?
Adding another random thought to this posting.......read the following text and decide what product you think it is describing:
Smooth and simply sweet. Tantalizing aromas of brown sugar and spice kiss the nose and deepen into carmel and roasted walnut in the cup. A low acidity supports a savory aftertaste that lingers in a lightly dry finish.
If you said "coffee", you would be correct. Who knew that coffee descriptions had evolved into such word-worthy, poetry-like prose?
Lastly, blogging is free. Anyone can set up a blogging website and begin posting random thoughts on random subjects for the mere cost of zero. You, too, could share your empty, vapid thoughts.
Feeling better now,
ancora imparo
The Super Bowl party was fun - as in too much tasty food, good conversation, lots of laughs, part-time watching of the game, full-time watching of the commercials, and our in-house announcer who, along with his friend "Bubbles", kept us all appraised on who was about to win quarterly dollars from the "pool". Of course, the commercials were a big hit, some bigger than others. My personal favorites were the commercials featuring dogs, with the dog who puts itself on a diet in order to run with a Volkswagen Beetle close to the top of my faves. It is hard to ignore commercials featuring cute pets.
At yesterday's party, I learned that some people keep a lot of emails. During the course of the party, one woman was "paging" through almost fifteen hundred emails on her phone in order to find a picture of her and her husband. Granted, it was a beautiful picture of the two of them, but fifteen hundred emails........really?
Adding another random thought to this posting.......read the following text and decide what product you think it is describing:
Smooth and simply sweet. Tantalizing aromas of brown sugar and spice kiss the nose and deepen into carmel and roasted walnut in the cup. A low acidity supports a savory aftertaste that lingers in a lightly dry finish.
If you said "coffee", you would be correct. Who knew that coffee descriptions had evolved into such word-worthy, poetry-like prose?
Lastly, blogging is free. Anyone can set up a blogging website and begin posting random thoughts on random subjects for the mere cost of zero. You, too, could share your empty, vapid thoughts.
Feeling better now,
ancora imparo
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Just A Little Questionnaire
My friend said, "I'm taking a class on leadership and I have this questionnaire that I would like to interview you about." I replied, "Sure." and we set up a coffee time to meet. The questions were well-written and thought-provoking so we had a good time catching up with one another, drinking java, and kibitzing around the questions and my responses.
The concept of leadership is both fascinating and highly underrated. Although I used the word "kibitzing" to describe our time together, I did not take her questions and my responses lightly. Leadership comes in many forms, from many differing directions, can have differing agendas, and different desired outcomes. I re-learned so much about my own leadership philosophy just by the act of considering and composing answers to the questions my friend posed. Of course, there were several questions along the vein of "what you would do in this or that instance?" but one of the queries that stood out in my mind and drew an immediate response from me was "What do you think is the single-most important trait of a leader?" My instant reply was "consistency". I subsequently learned that another respondent to the same question said "integrity". I have had some time to consider both my response and that of the other respondent and hers is probably better because I could envision a leader displaying a consistent lack of integrity. It is possible to be bad, ineffective, or unskilled........consistently.
Regular readers of Ancora Imparo may remember a posting not too long ago in which I revisited time with two highly influential people in my past - both former band directors of mine. One of them was famous for pointing at a student (college) who made a mistake and say, "You are very consistent in your inconsistency." And so can it be for a leader.
Over the years as my leadership style morphed, molded, changed, modified and eventually gelled, I adopted a stye commonly called (once upon a time) "servant leadership". Capt. Cook has been one of my mentors and, from his vantage point in the corporate world, would frequently share leadership materials/books from his on-going life-training as a leader and manager. "Servant leadership" came from his cadre of methodologies as did an excellent book that I read and immersed myself in titled, No-Nonsense Communication by Donald Kirkpatrick, which basically taught me that when a problem (either situation or person) presents itself, handle it immediately......you'll sleep better that night - which has proven itself to be true dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. My other book that has dog-eared pages from being read and re-read is Leading With The Heart (Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life) by former Duke University Blue Devils Coach Mike Krzyzewski. This book was given to me by a former teaching colleague who was not only my school's boys' basketball coach but also a stellar human being.
I've been fortunate along my life's way to have some outstanding mentors to whom I listened and learned. I was reminded of these important people in my support system just because my friend called and said, "I have this little questionnaire I'd like to share with you." It is never too late to examine how and why you lead.
Ancora imparo
The concept of leadership is both fascinating and highly underrated. Although I used the word "kibitzing" to describe our time together, I did not take her questions and my responses lightly. Leadership comes in many forms, from many differing directions, can have differing agendas, and different desired outcomes. I re-learned so much about my own leadership philosophy just by the act of considering and composing answers to the questions my friend posed. Of course, there were several questions along the vein of "what you would do in this or that instance?" but one of the queries that stood out in my mind and drew an immediate response from me was "What do you think is the single-most important trait of a leader?" My instant reply was "consistency". I subsequently learned that another respondent to the same question said "integrity". I have had some time to consider both my response and that of the other respondent and hers is probably better because I could envision a leader displaying a consistent lack of integrity. It is possible to be bad, ineffective, or unskilled........consistently.
Regular readers of Ancora Imparo may remember a posting not too long ago in which I revisited time with two highly influential people in my past - both former band directors of mine. One of them was famous for pointing at a student (college) who made a mistake and say, "You are very consistent in your inconsistency." And so can it be for a leader.
Over the years as my leadership style morphed, molded, changed, modified and eventually gelled, I adopted a stye commonly called (once upon a time) "servant leadership". Capt. Cook has been one of my mentors and, from his vantage point in the corporate world, would frequently share leadership materials/books from his on-going life-training as a leader and manager. "Servant leadership" came from his cadre of methodologies as did an excellent book that I read and immersed myself in titled, No-Nonsense Communication by Donald Kirkpatrick, which basically taught me that when a problem (either situation or person) presents itself, handle it immediately......you'll sleep better that night - which has proven itself to be true dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. My other book that has dog-eared pages from being read and re-read is Leading With The Heart (Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life) by former Duke University Blue Devils Coach Mike Krzyzewski. This book was given to me by a former teaching colleague who was not only my school's boys' basketball coach but also a stellar human being.
I've been fortunate along my life's way to have some outstanding mentors to whom I listened and learned. I was reminded of these important people in my support system just because my friend called and said, "I have this little questionnaire I'd like to share with you." It is never too late to examine how and why you lead.
Ancora imparo
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Letting The Dust Settle
My mind needed mindlessness this morning. I was seated in just the right place, with just the right angle to view the combination of sunlight and dancing dust particles. Believe me, there were lots of dancing dust particles. Actually, it is rather unsettling to think of how many "dusties", I'll call them, we inhale during the course of a twenty-four hour period. I should be aware of how many dusties are aboot in my house because the evidence of their presence is everywhere. I can dust all the surfaces in the condo one day and when the next day arrives, run my finger over the black, satin finish on the piano and see the line produced by my finger "slide".
Ever notice how ironic it is that when we refer to removing dust from our furniture and other surfaces we refer to the process as "dusting"? When I think of dusting, I think of crop dusting - where an airplane buzzes a farmer's field about twenty feet off the ground and sprays the crop surfaces with some type of either fertilizer or insect preventative (insect preventative sounds so much better than insecticide) or when my mother used to dust her body with talcum powder after a bath or when CBS's CSI techs "dust" for fingerprints. "Did you dust yet?", should be the inquiry to ask if a person applied dust, not removed it.
Then there is the very old saying, "let the dust settle". I think we all know what that means. By "letting the dust settle", we are allowing a situation to calm down, an investigation to move along at its own pace, or a crisis to abate. Sometimes I need to let my own internal dust settle, much like it accidentally did this morning by simply sitting long enough in one place to watch the dust particles flit about in sunlight on invisible wisps of air. My thoughts were allowed to flit and then settle on the surfaces of my brain in a much more organized and peaceful manner.
Who knew household dust could be so therapeutic?
Ancora imparo
Ever notice how ironic it is that when we refer to removing dust from our furniture and other surfaces we refer to the process as "dusting"? When I think of dusting, I think of crop dusting - where an airplane buzzes a farmer's field about twenty feet off the ground and sprays the crop surfaces with some type of either fertilizer or insect preventative (insect preventative sounds so much better than insecticide) or when my mother used to dust her body with talcum powder after a bath or when CBS's CSI techs "dust" for fingerprints. "Did you dust yet?", should be the inquiry to ask if a person applied dust, not removed it.
Then there is the very old saying, "let the dust settle". I think we all know what that means. By "letting the dust settle", we are allowing a situation to calm down, an investigation to move along at its own pace, or a crisis to abate. Sometimes I need to let my own internal dust settle, much like it accidentally did this morning by simply sitting long enough in one place to watch the dust particles flit about in sunlight on invisible wisps of air. My thoughts were allowed to flit and then settle on the surfaces of my brain in a much more organized and peaceful manner.
Who knew household dust could be so therapeutic?
Ancora imparo
Thursday, February 2, 2012
"Madamisms"
Her name, in the French classroom, was "Madame". Madame taught both French and Latin at my high school, which at the time, offered four-year programs in both languages. I spent four years with Madame, leaving adequately proficient in French. The French words and phrases that I now remember range from the sublime to the ridiculous. While in high school, my French-class compadres and I delighted in learning words and phrases that would have made the modest Madame blush and proceed to roundly chastise us. She was a career teacher and quite probably knew that her students would not only learn what the curriculum covered but would also get creative in what their curiosity would lead them to discover. "Sacre bleu" is still one of my favorite phrases not taught in the district curriculum.
Madame left her indelible stamp on me in ways other than four years of French. She was a stickler for pronouncing English words with the highest degree of accuracy and would not hesitate to correct someone for what she called "sloppy and lazy" speech. I can remember four words that, when pronounced incorrectly, would draw an immediate response from her to "say it right". She would then proceed to say the word herself and request that the offending "speaker" say the word correctly. To this day, I am very aware of the correct pronunciation of these words and marvel at the number of people, including television personalities - both local and national - who, in Madame's classroom, would be instructed to "say it right".
Illinois. Madame would painstakingly explain that it is "ill"inois, not "elle"inois. Just listen to people, including a news anchor tonight, and you will hear it pronounced "sloppily and lazily".
Wisconsin. Madame was born and raised in Wisconsin and it rankled her mightily to have her home state mispronounced. Many people, including native Wisconsinites, will say "Wes"consin, instead of "Wis" consin. Madame would always preface her correction with "ih" not "eh".
Picture versus pitcher. Oh, how she disliked hearing a student declare that the "pitcher" of the Sorbonne was beautiful. This mistake would always draw an immediate soft but unmistakable "hmmmf" just before the corrective process began.
Lastly,the month of February. She could become almost irate when a student would say, "Febuary".
"Ru, ru, ru" she would repeat over and over, as if repetition was sure to cure the student of the serious omission of the letter "r" from the middle of the word.
And so, Madame, I leave you with this thought:
The picture of the pitcher that was featured in the "Wisconsin" magazine, is now featured in Illinois during the month of February.
Ancora imparo
Madame left her indelible stamp on me in ways other than four years of French. She was a stickler for pronouncing English words with the highest degree of accuracy and would not hesitate to correct someone for what she called "sloppy and lazy" speech. I can remember four words that, when pronounced incorrectly, would draw an immediate response from her to "say it right". She would then proceed to say the word herself and request that the offending "speaker" say the word correctly. To this day, I am very aware of the correct pronunciation of these words and marvel at the number of people, including television personalities - both local and national - who, in Madame's classroom, would be instructed to "say it right".
Illinois. Madame would painstakingly explain that it is "ill"inois, not "elle"inois. Just listen to people, including a news anchor tonight, and you will hear it pronounced "sloppily and lazily".
Wisconsin. Madame was born and raised in Wisconsin and it rankled her mightily to have her home state mispronounced. Many people, including native Wisconsinites, will say "Wes"consin, instead of "Wis" consin. Madame would always preface her correction with "ih" not "eh".
Picture versus pitcher. Oh, how she disliked hearing a student declare that the "pitcher" of the Sorbonne was beautiful. This mistake would always draw an immediate soft but unmistakable "hmmmf" just before the corrective process began.
Lastly,the month of February. She could become almost irate when a student would say, "Febuary".
"Ru, ru, ru" she would repeat over and over, as if repetition was sure to cure the student of the serious omission of the letter "r" from the middle of the word.
And so, Madame, I leave you with this thought:
The picture of the pitcher that was featured in the "Wisconsin" magazine, is now featured in Illinois during the month of February.
Ancora imparo
NA
There are some downsides to living in areas of our country that routinely receive winter snowfalls. Most of us are aware of these downsides and have learned to compensate for the slipping and sliding that can occur - either with your two feet or your four wheels. You learn to recognize slippery ice patches that can put you on your keister or spin your car around in involuntary doughnuts.
Some snow-lovers wait with great anticipation for the first snowfall and are disappointed if it is either a: late or b: light. These people - young, very young and older - can hardly contain their excitement to don their winter-wear, snow boots, gloves, and hats. They revel in the opportunity to be outside, tromping about in knee-deep snow. Why, these people may even like to shovel the white, fluffy stuff.
One of the negative aspects of snowfall is the inevitable application of road salt. State, county and local road crews keep massive amounts of it, ready at a moment's notice to spread on our streets and highways. For those of us who live in snow climates, road salt is a lifesaver - literally and figuratively. But......road salt is a killer for our vehicles and our clothes.
For most of the winter months, getting anywhere near your vehicle - with your clothes on - means white, chalky stuff on your pants, coat, boots - you name it. When liquified, salt dries on your shoes and boots to a nice, white uneven line. It does the same on your floor mats. Ever tried vacuuming up dried salt on the carpeting of your car, van or SUV? Good luck.
Road salt - the bane of our existence in snow belt areas and, yet, the lifesaver of all of us who find ourselves on snow-covered and slippery highways and bi-ways. It's no fun to live with and it living without it would be no fun, either.
Salt - NA
Ancora imparo
Some snow-lovers wait with great anticipation for the first snowfall and are disappointed if it is either a: late or b: light. These people - young, very young and older - can hardly contain their excitement to don their winter-wear, snow boots, gloves, and hats. They revel in the opportunity to be outside, tromping about in knee-deep snow. Why, these people may even like to shovel the white, fluffy stuff.
One of the negative aspects of snowfall is the inevitable application of road salt. State, county and local road crews keep massive amounts of it, ready at a moment's notice to spread on our streets and highways. For those of us who live in snow climates, road salt is a lifesaver - literally and figuratively. But......road salt is a killer for our vehicles and our clothes.
For most of the winter months, getting anywhere near your vehicle - with your clothes on - means white, chalky stuff on your pants, coat, boots - you name it. When liquified, salt dries on your shoes and boots to a nice, white uneven line. It does the same on your floor mats. Ever tried vacuuming up dried salt on the carpeting of your car, van or SUV? Good luck.
Road salt - the bane of our existence in snow belt areas and, yet, the lifesaver of all of us who find ourselves on snow-covered and slippery highways and bi-ways. It's no fun to live with and it living without it would be no fun, either.
Salt - NA
Ancora imparo
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Alice's Restaurant
Folksinger Arlo Guthrie immortalized "Alice's Restaurant" in song (1967) and the song was later incorporated into the 1969 film of the same name. Being a child of the 60's and having graduated from high school in the late 60's made me part of an era that included the beginning of Women's Lib, burning bras, Alice's brownies, Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, psychedelic everything from fabric to drugs, campus demonstrations protesting the Vietnam War and anything else a college crowd could conger up, panty raids, the raw tragedy of the Vietnam War brought vividly into homes being the first war really seen on millions of American household televisions, Biafran consciousness.......ah, the list could go on for paragraphs. It was a time in recent history that showcased the growing pains of multiple societal segments and I was there.
You didn't have to stray far from the university campus in the late sixties and early seventies to find really good food. A host of different kinds of restaurants cropped up then - maybe inspired by "Alice's Restaurant"? Perhaps a legion of "Alice's" grew into adulthood then and decided to try their hands at being restaurateurs. While living in campus married housing, I was hired to work at a then new restaurant called "The Grand Gourmet". I have no idea if it is still in existence in East Lansing, Michigan. At the time, it offered a cutting edge concept of soups, sandwiches, and entrees all made with gourmet meats, cheeses, etc. I was in charge of the dessert menu which featured high-grade, gourmet ice cream sundaes, all sports-theme named - by me - with Michigan State University-related football key-words. Unfortunately, we did not have any desserts featuring the central ingredient in Alice's famous brownies.
Today's restaurants are somewhat reflective of a movement in which creativity, both in architecture and menu, are in vogue. Yes, there are many "mom and pop" eateries and hundreds of chain establishments but there are even more independently owned and operated restaurants that offer upscale and downscale atmospheres with highly varied menu selections. You can eat insects, chemically enhanced foods, flowers, all manner of wildlife meats, seafood choices galore, gold, and, I'm certain, Alice's brownies thrown in there somewhere......just not publicized.
Why am I writing about restaurants, eating and Alice's brownies? Because I think that is one avenue of activity that just may save our sanity between now and November.
Alice B. Toklas, please come and save us!
Ancora imparo
You didn't have to stray far from the university campus in the late sixties and early seventies to find really good food. A host of different kinds of restaurants cropped up then - maybe inspired by "Alice's Restaurant"? Perhaps a legion of "Alice's" grew into adulthood then and decided to try their hands at being restaurateurs. While living in campus married housing, I was hired to work at a then new restaurant called "The Grand Gourmet". I have no idea if it is still in existence in East Lansing, Michigan. At the time, it offered a cutting edge concept of soups, sandwiches, and entrees all made with gourmet meats, cheeses, etc. I was in charge of the dessert menu which featured high-grade, gourmet ice cream sundaes, all sports-theme named - by me - with Michigan State University-related football key-words. Unfortunately, we did not have any desserts featuring the central ingredient in Alice's famous brownies.
Today's restaurants are somewhat reflective of a movement in which creativity, both in architecture and menu, are in vogue. Yes, there are many "mom and pop" eateries and hundreds of chain establishments but there are even more independently owned and operated restaurants that offer upscale and downscale atmospheres with highly varied menu selections. You can eat insects, chemically enhanced foods, flowers, all manner of wildlife meats, seafood choices galore, gold, and, I'm certain, Alice's brownies thrown in there somewhere......just not publicized.
Why am I writing about restaurants, eating and Alice's brownies? Because I think that is one avenue of activity that just may save our sanity between now and November.
Alice B. Toklas, please come and save us!
Ancora imparo
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