Carpe Diem

Best idea this month

2011-12-11T08:59:00.000-08:00

I was just thinking the other day how nice it would be to get a living Christmas tree this year, but I don't have a way to get it home or in the house. And heard a radio ad for 'rentxmastree.com'. Brilliant! I ordered the type and size of tree I wanted from their site, it was delivered on Dec 2nd. I slid it into the house - it's in a big pot with a saucer underneath. They will come and pick it up after January 1.

They're in the Santa Cruz mountains and deliver quite a way up and down the peninsula.

I am so happy that this popped into my life just as I realized I wanted it. I'm having lots of "flow" moments like that these days, and appreciating every one of them.

Tie Dye!

2011-06-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

Lovely hot day yesterday, tie-dying at Carols. Pics too big to mail, so here they are.

Courtney tending her 'vat dye' - beautiful colors, hope she takes pics

Ya really want to wear gloves

Our hostess and son, going for a snack

Sara preparing to paint a tie

Karen's skirt - great sage and avocado green (the colors don't look as nice in the pic as they did live)

So many colors! It was a wealth of choices

The halter top that I did - the 'crunch' method

Spiral dress - the back

Spiral dress - the front

Letting Go

2010-12-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

It's been a very busy and very interesting fall, this 2010. I was in the vicinity of something that sounds like urban legend but was true. Anish, a coworker who manages our east coast channel partners, dropped out of communication. It took a couple days for his closest cowrker at HQ to start asking around, as he is quite good at returning calls and emails, even with a very heavy travel schedule. She raised the alarm after 3 days, notified our HR director, who called out to the east coast and his emergency contacts, then the police. Who found him, quite dead, in his apartment. Sudden, unexpected, natural causes. He was 39. Wow. I was getting to know him, he was a great guy with a fun, dry sense of humor and was super at his job. In addition to the shock, a few of us geared up and took over his planned events. That is what had me in the northeast in early November. So, weird, part of life, and another reminder that life is not to be taken for granted.

I have been letting go of a lot of old patterns of thought that are no longer serving me. And things, too. The biggest being my car. I loved my car, but it was starting to need a lot of maintenance. I'd had it for 15 years; shipped it as a gift to my brother in Rochester when I moved out of the country. When I moved to Rochester a couple years later he gave it back to me. I went through a lot of changes with that car and while we were both in Rochester, derived comfort from it's familarity as a lot was changing in my life. When I finally moved back to California, I brought it too. But, this fall, I really struggled with deciding what to do with it - spend the money on maintenance on a 15 year old car, or get a new one? I talked it out with a couple of friends, the pros and cons of getting rid of it, and thinking about getting rid of it really upset me. I finally realized it was the only tangible, day to day evidence of my life before all the changes started. I was hanging on way past reasonableness. And, it helped me out, generous to the end, by failing to start one day. Got that fixed, and 8 weeks later it did it again. That did it, I couldn't count on it being reliable anymore. Time to get a new car.

During all this was the big fall travels, and my thoughts processing slowly. Maybe due to tirednes of the travel, or this time of year, but the car died again on Nov 22nd. Oh yeah, there was also surgery on the 19th that month - mouth work - that may have contributed to my general fuzziness (ya think?) I was loaned a vehicle - didn't even think clearly enough to ask but sent an email saying my car had died, I needed to rent a car so couldn't join my friend for breakfast, and she replied, "Ya want to borrow my truck?" My brain was flooded with the thought - that's exactly what I want! Yay! (and thank you, again, Renee!)

A week later, I bought my current car. I'd driven a bunch of cars during all my work travels, and even had test-driven some of the gorgeous Nissan Zs. Love how they drive, but they are too small to be my only car. I had driven a Mazda 3 in Phoenix, really liked it. Did a little research, including talking with Kimberly who has a Madza 3 also. As she says, "I have zoom zoom and I'm not afraid to use it!" So here are pics of Ruby:

Catching my breath

2010-11-07T15:38:00.000-08:00

Oh my, the past couple of months have been so full of travel I have not done much else. It started with an event in Toronto in September, with our biggest sales partner, to meet and recruit new resellers. I took a couple of days of personal time and took Amtrak from Toronto to Rochester, to visit. That was a first for me. The train ride was great. The food was unbelieveably bad! Like sandwich machine food. Yeech! There were several Australians on the train too, and none of us could concieve that this was all there was to eat.

Had a great visit with family in Rochester. Had gotten back to CA, and was just getting back to west coast time zone, when I was asked by the east coast sales rep to cover an event for him - in Rochester! What a great perk!! So I got to go visit in October, too.

And I have been on the road every week since. 2 weeks ago, Phoenix. Last week, flew to Newark, NJ; drove down to Eatontown, then to Shelton, CT; then back to Newark. This week, Minneapolis. Week after, back to Phoenix. Then I plan to stay close to home for a while. (Do I hear God laughing??!?)

Work is crazy busy, and getting busier. I keep hoping this is the lead-up to a quantum leap, where we organize at a higher energy level and can take a breather for a while.

Fun side project has come to fruition: I am one of the authors of the Scrappy Women's Guide to Business: Living Proof that Bending the Rules Isn't Breaking the Law

My friend Kimberly concieved of this book a couple years back. I wrote a chapter; as did 10 other women. She edited, and we got it published a couple months ago. It is so cool to see it in physical form. And it's selling on Amazon! Whoo Hoo! It's packed with great advice and wisdom from 11 Scrappy Women on our paths into, out of, and through the business world. Check it out!!

Beautiful summer day Home West

2010-07-24T18:53:00.000-07:00

This weather is spectacular. Warm days, cool nights. Yesterday evening I went to a concert in Redwood City, at Courthouse Square. I grabbed my camp chair and a bottle of wine, took Caltrain therre and met up with Kimberly and her crew. The band was great and the lead singer gave a performance to rival Tina Turner. If you get a chance to see Cafe R&B, jump at it!
http://www.caferandb.com/Cafeschedule.htm

The previous evening, I went downtown Mountain View to enjoy the street party there. 4 Thursdays in the summer they block off Castro St, host a couple of bands, a couple of vendors and an assortment of classic cars & hot rods. The band there, Finding Stella, was rockin - lead singer did justice to both Janice Joplin and AC/DC - and their original songs were great too. http://www.findingstella.com/

So good to hear live music again, especially outdoors.

Cramming, part 2

2010-07-19T06:01:00.000-07:00

Sunday of the trip, we woke and started cleaning house. Brother John and his wife Amy, her dad Keith and his wife Pat were due in. It was a beautiful day, not too humid, so we planned to be out on the deck for most of the visit.

Beth had invited me to go to a show with her that day too, so I helpd clean, then scooted off with her in the early afternoon. We saw "Girls Night Out", a musical that's making the community theater rounds. It was fun, I can recommend it. probably better to do an evening show with a drink to encourage you to sing along with 'we are family' and the other songs they showcased. (What is it about Rochester and that song? I seem to catch a performance of it every summer that I'm there.)

Got back just in time to sit down to an early dinner with the guests, then we hung out in the backyard. Amy headed back with Keith and Pat, and the rest of us went inside to watch some of John's recent TV appearences. Dad enjoyed seeing them. Greg then took Dad home, and we ended up out in the kayaks. Fun, full day!

Got up early the next morning to make a donut run. Donuts Delight is back in business, y'all!! Corner of Culver and Empire. That had been our Sunday breakfast for years - making a donut run after church. A couple years ago, the Malleys closed it down after trying to find a buyer. They finally sold it to Salvatore's Pizza, and now it's a combined pizza place and donut shop. John wanted to make the run, so I got him and Gavin up at 7 and off we went. Took the lake route there, I forget that John doesn't have such recent time in Rochester as I do. When we're all together, it seems to me like we all live there. But he was noticing recent changes. Saw more on the way back as we drove past Kodak Park, where some of the buldings John worked in for a couple summers are now gone. (Dynamited and removed to cut the property taxes!)

The donuts were as we had remembered. I tried to have only one, but had half of another. And then, yep, this is why I don't have donuts and coffee for breakfast anymore - the sugar rush followed by the crash. Ecch. Felt awful all morning! But boy, they tasted good.

Ran around the rest of Monday getting things in the mail, then zoomed over to my house to meet Andrea's brother and a friend of his - they were taking her old butcher block table and 8 chairs, then her brother returned for my couch, coffee table and dining room table - they'll serve as furniture for his daughters as they outgrow their little things. It was good to have that stuff go - but there was still the Salvation Army pile. Now what? Well, the neighbors across the street came to chat. It transpered that their neighbor's church has a rummage sale in Sept. Arrangements were made, and on Tuesday, Lutherans came with a van and took the rest of the stuff with profuse thanks on both sides. A miracle! Now the house is almost ready for the renter to move in.

Tuesday, I also visited with Dad again. Finished up the game of Risk that Gavin & Andrea and I had been playing for a day. Then headed for the airport.

Fast, fast trip. I thought I'd feel more regret at giving up the house. I really had thought, on moving there in Jan 07, that I'd make a life there. So that part didn't work. But I didn't feel too upset, I wish I could have made the improvements I had planned. And wish it had sold outright. But I'm OK with things as they are there.

Here, in California, that's another matter. I want to feel like I'm making progress with my life and I don't. This will need some thinking and reframing and goal-setting to conquer, I believe. Meanwhile, here are some more pics:

Set for a Party

Dad and Amy

John and Gavin playing ladder golf

Dessert on the deck - John & Amy, Dad and Keith

Me, John & Gavin setting out for an evening paddle

Amos boys watching John on TV

In which we cram way too much into 5 days, part 1

2010-07-14T10:02:00.001-07:00

Arrived in Rochester Thursday evening, picked up the rental car and headed towards summer vacation :-). Got to Greg's in time to have a bit of dinner and make plans for the next day. Sitting around their kitchen table, getting organized, catching up on the past couple months with them, it was like slipping into my real life. Yet weird, as I was there to finish emptying out my house and making final arrangements with the renter.

Friday the 9th, dragged myself out of sleep at 8:40 or so - 5:40 body clock. At 9, called the local pool place - I had arranged for them to come out and open the pool. "Oh", she says, "They left 5 minutes ago". Awk! Threw clothes on and scrambled. Got to the house 30 minutes before they did, caught up on email, looked at the items remaining in the house. Once the repair guys got there, I zoomed up the way to a local diner, got breakfast, made a run to Wegmans for breakfast for me for the next few days. Back as the pool guys were stopping. Turns out the pool wall was damaged by ice last winter. Have to get a specialist out to repair it. Meanwhile, the tenant wants to get into the house on the 15th. Yikes!

Around 1:30 or so, Nancy showed up! Yay! She took a break from parent duties and drove up to visit. We went out for lunch, and it started pouring. And the temp dropped 15 degrees, thankfully.

Took Nancy to Andrea's to see the pond view. We hung out for an hour or so, talking about elder care and all the things we're dealing with - clearing stuff out of houses, staying on top of meds, helping them adjust to a lower level of capability. This is a difficult phase - and a lot of the people I know are going through it in some form. Plus a bunch of us are wondering what to do, really, with our lives. I feel like I've been in transition for years. I can't see to what I'm moving, but I'm determined to stay in the process and not give up. I'm getting almost comfortable with this uncomfortable feeling. :-)

Saturday morning was processing the stuff that was still in the house, getting things out to the garage for the Salvation Army pickup that was supposed to happen that day. (They never did.) The realtor came over, so did the tenant/buyer. We went through the final things to be fixed, evolved a plan and I showed the tenant through the place, how to work things, some of the quirks. I'm sure I'll need to tell her more, too.

Here's a few pics from those days:

The house, emptying out

Gorgeous sunset on the pond, after the rains on Friday

Beautiful weekend after the rains passed through.

Happy summer!

2010-07-07T06:04:00.000-07:00

The weather Home West has been so wonderful this year for all but tomatos. My friends who garden say it's been too cool. I have been loving the cool - almost cold nights. I am headed to the land of air conditioning, though - going back Home East to visit and to clear the last of the things out of my house there - have a renter moving in. Technically, this is a 'rent to own'; from my online research it seems that most of those do not end up buying the house. I'll know more in a year. But meanwhile, the house will be occupied and cared for, which is a great worry off my mind.

I have my clothes all laid out to pack. I am rarely happy with my selections when I get to where I'm going - is this common? I try to think ahead while I'm here, and as soon as I get there, I know immediately what I should have brought instead of what I did bring. I'm working on premembering that, this time. Was going to pack this morning before work, but now I think I'll wait until I get home tonight. I also always want an evening of leisure before a big trip - just hanging out, reading; but I rarely get that either. Hmmmm. Time to adjust my attitude there.

The house here is looking good, the lower side garden got shaped up with my roomie's help. Flowers look good, and the roses are blooming again. This is the first place in CA that I've had roses. Turns out I like them.

Ta for now. I hope to write from the road.

The spill is growing

2010-05-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

And, still so cool to see my brother on TV.

John Amos, President of Sky Truth, on MSNBC, estimating the oil spill:

John on YouTube

I'm so proud!

2010-05-14T20:44:00.000-07:00

Not because of the catastrophe, but ...

My brother! On CNBC and Bloomberg!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232/?video=1481049904&play=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R_7spiraU0&feature=youtube_gdata

Life in progress

2010-04-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

I am see-sawing between personal productivity and sloth. Every time the weather goes rainy and cold I have a hard time doing anything, while thoroughly enjoying this long rainy winter/spring. But other days I am getting a lot done. Part of that is due to friends. I could not pick a new washer & dryer to save my life. Was out with Peri one Sunday, we happened to be driving by an appliance store, stopped in and preso! a great set was on sale, Peri had some knowledgeable discussion with the sales rep, and I bought them. I love them, so happy she was there to help.

Jane moved in a couple weeks ago; last weekend we did blitz gardening on the lower side patio - it looks fantastic! We bought flowers - marigolds and azelea bushes and geraniums and a couple of baskets of fuschia. I'll take and post some pics. She found a cleaning service, and we're splitting the cost. They came for the first tiem today, and that is great.

I've also ordered slatted blinds for the clerestory windows - I am hoping they keep the house cool enough this summer. They should show up in a couple days and then I call the installer and have them put in.

Last week, Thursday, I went out for lunch with a co-worker and we ended up at Evvia in Palo Alto one of my favorites!! Yay! And that evening, I planned to hang out with Renee and we ended up in Palo Alto at Patxi's - and the pizza was superb. PA twice in one day is quite a treat.

On Monday, I got to do 3 things for the first time: drove up to Millbrae and took BART to San Francisco (1); to meet a friend up there for dinner (2) and we dined at Jardiniere (3). The restaurant is beautiful. On Monday nights they do a prix fixe dinner with wine pairing each of the 3 courses. What fun! Dinner was great, it was interesting to take BART for the first time. The seats are upholstered and the cars carpeted. How unexpected.

Catching Up

2010-03-14T20:10:00.000-07:00

It has seemed like a long, dark winter. Mind you, I am fully aware of how blessed I am to live in California! Still, it's been very rainy - which we need - and cold. I would have weeks of just coming home after work, getting right into my pjs and bathrobe, and heading to bed.

Still cold today, but sunny. I have travel for work upcoming, and this week will be to a warmer place. Phoenix, here I come!

A couple weeks ago, I had 4 friends over for a brunch/swap. It was a blast! I have been clearing out, slowly. Had built up a pile in the second garage. Took the car out of the first garage, put a tarp down and piled all the stuff in there. Made a few quiches, a batch of muffins and coffee and tea. The ladies started showing up, with stuff to add to the pile. We ate & chatted then a couple of them started rearranging the stuff in the garage, so we could all see it.

Everyone thought they wouldn't take anything home but they scored big! Pam, who is a size zero/two (tall and very slim build!) said: "I didn't bring clothes because they wouldn't fit anyone, and I don't expect that anything here will fit me." I reached into the closet and fetched out an evening coat I'd been hanging on to, for years. From my Grandma Amoses second husbands daughter. I could button it, but it was tight, even at my lowest weight. Handed it to Pam, it fit her beautifully. Later in the afternoon, Pam saw the Born sandals - "What size are those?" Renee chimed in, "Size 7 - I don't know why Mom bought me those, I'm a size 9!" Of course, Pam is a 7. She scored! Carol F brought a lot of clothes - and it turns out that she and Renee are just about the same size. Renee scored big, with a new wardrobe! I dug into a box of stuff I had set aside to see on eBay in 2005 - before I moved to Germany - and came up with 4 Tonka toys. Carol said "I will be the best Mom ever, bringing these home!" Her son Marek would appreciate them. Kristen brought a few nice things that didn't fit anyone. But she left with 4 things, and was planning on taking nothing. After the frenzy of trying and looking through stuff was done, we packed all the remains in my car and I drove to Goodwill and dumped it. Yay!!

Swaps are so much fun - everyone gets to try on things that they wouldn't normally even see in the stores. And they take home stuff to see if it will work, and if it doesn't, it goes on the next Goodwill pile. Easy!

Now I have room to do the next level of purge, and will do that over the next few weeks. Time to plan the next swap!

Sitting in an airport waiting for my flight

2010-01-27T07:28:00.000-08:00

Looks like agreat day for flying, sun is peeking out over some low fog. Headed to Chicago for a set of meetings with a sales channel partner. Yes, most of you reading know what a 'channel partner' is but I've started prepending 'sales' to that around the office - just to emphasize the importance of these people to us. Am lobbying for more resources :-)

I am paying much better attention to my internal dialog these days. I have given my inner voice a new job - to encourage and support me. She's not quite exactly sure what that means, but is tentatively starting that. So when the negative pops up, I catch it and think something better for myself. At this new level of self-awareness, I marvel that I was ever able to get out of bed previously!

But I don't seem to be breathing. For years I've been resisting any of the breathing practice that goes with yoga. Have finally unstubborned enough to learn some techniques and realize how much I use my breath to express discomfort. If I perceive a negative situation, my breath is very shallow. Today, it seems like I'm just not breathing. I'll realize it's been 10 or 15 seconds since I breathed in or out. I have no idea why.

Time to grab a coffee and download my email. Have a great day, all!

Jan 16, 2010

2010-01-16T08:22:00.001-08:00

How did it get to be this date already? Seems I was just in Rochester for Christmas.

Dad is now fine, back in his apartment at Crimson Ridge. He's weaker and more frail, not walking at all if he can help it. He's accepting the aids changing him and showering him, which is a relief for all concerned. He was turning them away for a while. In mid-December, he fell 3 days in a row, then couldn't get up. We think it was a combination of being dehydrated from a new medicine and the stress of Christmas. Every time he sees the doctor, he comes away with a new pill. It's insane. He has regular checkups, and they keep giving him new meds that don't really help anything. Greg's talked with the doctor about stopping that. Andrea stopped it at the hospital while he was in there, and the reaction she got was "you're letting him go". He's 82, frail, not fighting for himself and every new med in the past year has not only not helped the symptom for which it was prescribed, it has had a bad side effect. Dude! Time to rethink care for the semi-ill elderly!

I read all the reports from his various CAT scans and other test from his week in the hospital. Nothing really stood out, he's got degenration of the disks in his lumbar spine, his bones show expected degeneration for his age (and it's time to rethink those expectations, too) and bunch of small calcifications throughout his body, whatever that means. In the early 70s, he got really ill - a perforated bowel. They thought it was a perforated ulcer, and started his surgery at his stomach. It was OK, and then they cut lower & lower. Ended up taking out a section of bowel. He was in the hospital in intensive care on IV antibiotics for a couple weeks, obviously recovered. But we now wonder if he was not absorbing calcium right ever since. And I am taking my suppliments and going to the gym to stay strong!

Except right now I have a rotten cold. Came on Thursday afternoon, I sneezed a few times. By that evening I was coughing and spluttering. Stayed home yesterday, did some work through mid afternoon and then I just crashed. Thank god for heating pads, my back ached so badly and the heat helped. I had made some food the weekend before - a big pot of meat sauce, heated some and cooked some pasta. Decided I wanted some cheese, so I started grating it - and just that got me out of breath! I do not understand how that happens with a cold. I'll be weeks getting back to my normal cardio capability at the gym, and since I dislike pushing myself that way, it's not that great to start with. Bummer.

And this is the first cold I've had with the braces on. Last night with my sinuses all full, my head was throbbing and my teeth were too. Too much stuff in my head, and the pressure was building. At the back of my mind I was flirting with a really savage bout of claustrophobia - I was thinking I might want the braces out RIGHT NOW. Fortunately, it passed without much effort. But man, the things I can do to me, in my head - I'd like to harness that power for building a business for me.

Still really like my job. It's getting ever busier as we grow. The company is changing big time - people leaving and coming in, jobs changing. I've struggled with that, which surprises me. I thought I was all down with change, having been through so much in recent years. I believe that some of my problem again is the braces - my head aches for a week after an adjustment, and every few days a new spot inside my ceeks is rubbed raw and hurts. I think that's had me a bit off balance to start. And I am working hard to flow with the changes, not take it personally. To those of you who have talked me off the ledge during this period, I send again my heartfelt thanks! And, I want a business of my own that provides profitable income - enough to retire mortgages and let me travel - and the time flexibility to do so. (Yes, that's a 2010 goal!)

I was going to go down to the Gilroy Outlets with friends today, but I'm thinking I'll be spending most of today in bed instead. The weather is cooperating by being cloudy. I have enough food - I think - and have recently discovered Hulu so I can pass some time as I recover. Tonight I might have a fire in the bedroom fireplace - haven't done that yet. I've lived here for almost a year. I still haven't finished moving in. I have a big resistance to spending more money on furniture and more time looing, so I don't have a coffeee table or the right shelves. My office is sort of set up, but not quite right. And the travel for work starts again next week, and I'm going to be traveling a lot this year too. Just keeping the place moderately clean, my clothes clean, and myself fed and worked out is all the time I want to allocate to my living place. Outside of being sick in bed, I prefer to spend the reat of my time with friends and doing things like golf and hike and bike ride.

Ugh. Everything in my head just solidified. Now I have to mouth breathe. Time to heat up some breakfast and have some coffee, hoping that will help. But the 'blink my eyes and what I wish appears' thing seems to be broken. Means I have to get out of bed. O bother!

life getting complicated, again

2009-12-19T21:29:00.000-08:00

I have been traveling so much I am quite tired of it. Last week I was in Chicago for work; calling on a couple channel partners. Great meetings, but it was 14 degrees. Ye Gods! You may know how I feel about the cold ;-)

The week before I went, on Thursday, got an email from my brother Greg, saying they had found Dad on the floor of his room in assisted living. The nurse there called an ambulance, got him to the hospital. They hydrated him, and he was being checked out for a reason for his weakness. They did a CT scan of his spine, and we were told it was severely degenerated. DUHHHHHHHH, he looks like a 'C' from the side. WHY has it degenerated/ bone, disk, both??? I talked with them that evening, and Greg said that Dad was looking much better and would probably be discharged the next day.

But on Friday, Dad couldn't walk. ! So he was put in a Therapy Care Unit. This is where people go typically after knee or hip surgery. Since he was admitted on a Friday, the weekend shift came in, no one knew who he was or why he was there. Andrea kept orienting the staff, telling them that on Thursday he was walking and now he isn't. This apparently impresses then and they start paying attention.

They started do some physical therapy and occupational therapy at the beginning of the week, to teach Dad how to safely move. He's got to transfer from the wheelchair to the toilet, or he can't go back to assisted living. On Tuesday I left California for Chicago, with extra stuff packed to go to Rochester at the end of the trip if it looks like I should.

Wednesday, I hear that all looks well, Dad's eating, walking again with a walker. And asking to get out of the hospital. Good! I continue my plans to finish the meetings and go back to California. Thursday I do just that. Get off the plane at SFO, turn on my phone and there's a message from Andrea. (that's not good) They found Dad face down in his dinner. He was asleep. Took 10 minutes to wake him. Friday he went for a sonogram of his carotid artery. They saw nothing unusual. But said he should stay there for more diagnosis. And now, again it's Friday, shift is changing, and nothing will happen until Monday. So Greg busted Dad out. Got Dad to ask to be discharged, called his doctor and said he wanted discharged and out they went.

As they found nothing to cause either this fall or his apnea episode, the insurance won't pay for his room and board at the hospital. $500 a day.

It's Saturday night, I have not heard anything today, which is good. All along, the director and nurse at Crimson Ridge, where Dad lives, have been working with Andrea and the hospital to get Dad back. They're installing another grab bar in the bathroom, changing out his bed to make it easier to get in and out, etc. They have been great. Andrea said they were all very happy to see him back there, when she dropped him off on Friday evening. All his guy pals were glad to see him back at the dinner table.

I had been planning to stay in California over the Christmas break, took a couple days off and wanted to just hang out at home and relax. But with all this happening, I'm going back to Rochester for a few days. It will be good to see everyone again, and I will help start clearing the extra stuff out of Dad's apartment. We're planning that when he can no longer stay at Crimson, he'll go to Greg and Andrea's place. We won't out him in a skilled nursing facility, that was just such a horror show when Mom was there for a couple months that we decided to skip that step.

I am hoping for warmish weather while I'm in Rochester. And perhaps I can have a lovely quiet, spiritual, fun Christmas break next year.

My house has become a wasp hospice

2009-11-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

I am not sure how they're getting in - down the chimney? But every few days, there's one crawling around the living room. Once they dry out I vacuum up their little bodies. Have not seen a nest, but the neighbor behind me reports he gets them too.

In the summer, I'd catch them in a glass and toss them outside, or smush 'em. With the cold weather, I'm more tender hearted. Weird!

It's confirmed

2009-11-19T17:24:00.000-08:00

Yup. Las Vegas is still my least favorite city to visit. Been here a couple days for work; my nose is itching and I'm sure all my clothes stink like smoke. Have to walk through the casino to get anywhere in a hotel. I prefer going to Harrisburg!

Been there recently too, for work. I am still loving the travel but wish I was going over the Atlantic. I keep seeing reminders of Munich - pictures, or mentions. I don't exactly know why I miss it so much. Did have great friends to hang out with, and the travel was amazing. Perhaps I'll get over in 2010.

Meanwhile, I am still working on the California house, finishing touches. Found some great lined, silk drapes at Home Depot, of all places! I need to get a couple more panels and the rods, and they will grace the living and dining rooms. I had help last weekend, cleaning the gutters and replacing the bathtub caulking. My bathroom looks so much better now that the caulking is neat and clean. A small thing, but what a difference!

I am flying back Home West tonight, and hear that there is supposed to be a terrific rainstorm there tomorrow. Wonder if I can work from home? Love doing that on a rainy day. I do have the best commute ever possible, so can't really justify not traveling the 1.2 miles from home to work ... but I can't show up at work in my bathrobe. A couple coworkers have gotten the dread swine flu, maybe I'll show up tomorrow and the place will be quarantined.

And I'm back on the soup, yogurt and scrambled eggs diet. I had the last of the hardware installed on Monday. So, I missed the good food in Vegas - the restaurants are quite good, I'm sorry to not have been able to enjoy that. This is not the best picture of me, but you get the idea:

O yeah - go see "Whip It"!

2009-10-07T20:40:00.001-07:00

Ellen Page can never be in an unreal movie....

Recently overheard

2009-10-07T20:36:00.000-07:00

"You had me at Bacon"

"Flat is the new Growth"

:-) I get around :-)

OMG! Who Lives Here?

2009-09-28T17:25:00.000-07:00

One hundred freakin' sixteen degrees in Palm Springs yesterday, 110 today. The trade show organizers had an arranged for lunch out by the pool. So unpleasant! I have finally given up my dream of going to Burning Man. I just can't take the heat.

Busy fall tradeshow season is upon us

2009-09-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

Oh my, 6 events in 3 weeks! Fortunately I only have to go to 4 of them. Did one last week, 2 this week and one next week.

It got a bit crazy trying to provision all of them and make sure the right materials got shipped on time to the right place. All the while doing my day jobs...

Why is it that when new execs join a company, the work load doubles? Shouldn't more people on board reduce the work? ((Hah!)

Tomorrow I'm off to Palm Springs; then on to Detroit Tuesday. No time to enjoy either place. Next week, I'll have an evening in Greenvile, SC. Our distributor is having their annual partner summit and I'm going to that. Looking forward to BBQ!

But, I had new hardware installed on Monday - bands on my back molars. The top ones are really messing with my cheeks. Been living on yougurt smoothies and soup for a few days, and am healing slowly. I miss eating. So I'm hoping I can manage some famous South Carolina pulled pork next week. last time I when there, in the spring, my inbound flight was so late I didn't get dinner, and was out the next afternoon. So this time, I have 2 days there and should manage one BBQ dinner.

Time to go tend the laundry and pack. The annoying washer is beeping ... why do we let our products make such awful noises?

STOP THE PRESSES!!

2009-08-21T08:31:00.001-07:00

Headline at Yahoo today:

"A new study finds that the average gamer is overweight, shy, and mentally depressed." .... YA THINK????

The summer is flying by

2009-08-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

I dropped out for a while due to business. Working to get back in a schedule again. I've gotten to visit Rochester once in June and July; visited my aunt & uncle in Ft Myers, wrote a chapter for a book, decided to keep the house in Rochester, went to the memorial service of a friend, had a birthday, invited a guest into the spare bedroom for a few weeks, made friends with the next door neighbor, rode my bike in several new places near Home West, walked the Stanford Dish, joined a health club and now, have braces on my teeth. Ooof! What a summer.

humbled, awed, thankful

2009-04-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

My life is extraordinary. Take today, for example. My big project was to work on unpackimg. I started after a workout, stop at the bank. And a few chores. It took hours to unpack just 8 boxes. And it's been a huge week at work so I am tired (and a night out on Thursday, up to midnight) so today the hard thing is to stay at the unpacking and finding places to put everything.

Then Dan texted, and we evolved a plan for him to drop over. I was scrambling to do a final tidy and Renee called. She and Barry were outside to reclaim her truck that I'd been borrowing. Its battery took exception to sitting unused for a week.so they came over to jump it and go.

While we were in process, Renee mentioned that she'd been helping someone pack today. I said I should have offered boxes.as I have so many. Barry lit up and said "Boxes? I'll take em!" And he did! They loaded the extra carpet - removed from the office room, she'll use it in her garage - and then the boxes. Oh my god, it was such a gift and delight! Now I have room in the second garage to get to the rest of my stuff and gradually unpack.

I had no idea how I was going to get rid of them. And friends showed up and poof! Boxes gone!

Then Dan showed up with wine. We sat out on my upstairs deck in the beautiful warm evening. Just before he left he offered me a choice from the DVDs he had. "Charlie Wilsons War" is currently playing.

I am looking around at the walls wrapped in the paint that Kristem helped me pick. While I was gone, Peri supervised the painters. Theo installed a new showerhead; he and Holly and Renee and Barry moved me out of my storage unit.

I've unpacked the quilt that Maggie made me, the rug I bought in Jordan while on tour with the Ladies International Association of Munich, the photos of family ... Love everywhere.

I have a tribe. Love you all!!!

.

OOOOO it's COLD!

2009-03-21T05:23:00.000-07:00

In Rochester, packing up. Well, pre-packing. The professional packers come on Monday; so I am doing the sorting and organizing and throwing out that I managed to not do all last year while on my intense travel schedule.

Woke up to a beautiful looking day. Turned on the TV to catch the weather report. It's 23 degrees out!!!! So I won't plan on a morning walk but run up and down the stairs with boxes instead. And I'm very much looking forward to getting back Home West later in the week where the temperatures are humane.

The best thing that humankind invented

2009-03-07T15:26:00.000-08:00

Libraries. And all they imply.

Sitting in the public library in Mt View, grateful for the connection. I moved into my place almost 2 weeks ago, have been camping there while deciding what to do about my stuff on the other side of the country, and getting some work done on the place and - oh yeah - working at a start-up that is getting more intense every week. And trade show season is upon us. Fellow marketeers will know what this means!

Tomorrow, I leave for FOSE, a big show we're doing in DC. I am the set up and tear down crew, booth captain plus I'll be working the booth too. What I've gotten done in the past 3 weeks for my day job is amazing (it's not trade shows! Not this year, thank god.) I am so tired and fried I'm surprised that my coworkers can't hear the crackle.

My plan today was to stop in at work, finish a couple things, print out my boarding passes and then get home to continue clearing out the closets as the painters come on Monday. To my dismay, nothing would print. (Yes, I cycled the power on the printers. Yes, I rebooted.) So I am at the local library, now with boarding pass in hand. Yay! And breathing in the smell of all these books. Kindle looks great and I will get one, soon. But for me, nothing beats the feeling of being in a room full of books.

My trip starts in DC, I'll get to see brother John & sis-in-law Amy over the weekend, then I go on to Harrisburg to meet with our US distributor. From there, I go to Rochester and spend a week. Meeting with a mover on the 18th, they'll estimate moving my goods and hopefully we'll schedule for the 23rd. Then back Home West.

I intend to keep the house in Rochester, now thinking of renting it out. I think this will get clear when I'm there.

And I am very much looking forward to my new place being painted, the new carpet in, and some furniture showing up so I can once again entertain.I'll post pics!

Land Speed record - from offer to close in 31 days

2009-02-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

Whoo Hoo! Closed on my new townhome on Friday the 13th, my bestest day of the year.
Made the offer on January 12th. Process seemed to take AGES. I appear to be pretty impatient once I've made up my mind.

Am now working diligently to refloat the economy. Buying: bed, sofa, car, bedding, paint, carpet, lighting, services to spread the paint and lay the carpet, install the lighting. So much fun and fear rolled up all into one big ball of exhilaration.

Thought getting furniture I loved would be difficult. I'm particular about what I like. And it has been incredibly easy!! Was out a couple weekends ago with Kristen, in Capitola and I asked if there were any one off furniture stores there, had a vague memory of a cool store, so we pulled into Modern Life. Hah! over a decade ago, I got the sofa and chair that I loved there, after shopping on & off for several years. Walked in the store, and there's my next sofa. The next weekend, out with Peri in Redwood City, we started at the Macys Home store looking at beds. All of them too big. Asked the sales guy if there were other places, for modern furniture, he directed us to Ana just up El Camino. Walked in and Bingo! there's my bed.

Early last week, stopped in a carpet store near work, was looking through the reasonably priced samples when something gleamed at me from across the store. Zap! There's my carpet! Found paint colors I like at Home Depot yesterday, will check all of these in the place tomorrow because I've now got the keys, man. It's all coming together!

Next step is to find the service people to do the electrical and painting. I had wanted to have all this work done before I moved in, but life threw a bit of a curveball and I will likely move in next weekend. And I need a car, too. Have been using the Amazing Renee's truck while rooming at her place. I am so pleased that I have lived below my means and saved/invested...

Work is going well, I'm completing a bunch of projects and moving into a very interactice phase. I expect to be travelling again, soon.

Dating. Attempting to date. Really probably only getting fodder for wry commentary. This is an actual snippet from a guy's profile: "I do not like people who are selfish or self absorbed. I work out all the time." .... To quote Date Barry: "I am not making this up."

Trying to figure out what to do with my east coast home. I want to hang on to it, but don't like it vacant. Asking the Universe to send me a great caretaker for it, and soon.

Timer just rang, so it's time to go deal with Laundry. Am currently in the apartment, soooo looking forward to doing laundry inside my new home after I move in. This going outside and feeding quarters to industrial machines is, like, so college kid!

Variable time

2009-01-25T13:06:00.000-08:00

So 10 days ago I was annoyed with myself because it seemed like I had been looking for a place FOREVER. Hah! I thought about it - started looking in December. Of 08. 6 weeks. But I had a couple trips - oh yeah, I actually started looking mid-December, cause I got back to CA on Nov 29th, then had a trip to Pennsylvania on the 7th and 8th and waited til I got back from that trip to start looking. So that makes it 4 weeks.

Aaaand, I put an offer in on a townhouse last Monday, it was accepted. A flurry of activity sped this past week by in a blur - ZIP! Spent a couple evenings this week reading through what seems like hundreds of pages of disclosures. Made a lot of notes. Most of yesterday was dedicated to the process - met with my realtor and reviewed our notes, then went to the place and went through it thoroughly. Then talked with the president of the HOA for an hour, about how they spend, their attitude, etc. I like it.

I am so excited. When I saw this place I thought it was the sexiest place I have ever seen. I still think so and cannot wait to get in and start furnishing it my way.

Here are a couple of pics, this is their furniture. Oh yeah - will be looking for furniture. My decorating theme is "Whimsically edgy". I am enlisting all of you for help - I do not like the stuff in the conventional stores. Need pointers to places for unusual furniture - I like clean lines. I like color. I like offbeat. I like natural fabrics and wood and stone. I do not like overstuffed, slipcovers, thick legs, 4 poster beds. Don't even point out anything that's a repro from any dead french kings or english queens. Bzzt!

Gorgeous gorgeous.

Looking out through the kitchen.

Master bedroom suite #1. The closets all have built ins - no need for dressers, yay!

TWO fireplaces!! One down, one in my bedroom.

The ultimate weapon

2009-01-18T08:14:00.001-08:00

Time to unleash the real power in the world! Old fat naked women for peace!

Just keep walking ...

2009-01-11T21:11:00.001-08:00

Been condo shopping. I have seen a couple that I like, and am still staggered at the prices. And they are down froma couple years ago! I mostly do want my own space, but also have very much been enjoying being Renees roomie. It's great to have someone to talk with and share chores with. Whoops, just remembered laundry in progress. better go attend that...

This seems like how I moved from Germany to Rochester, I stayed with Greg & Andrea for a few weeks before moving into my place. That worked out OK, so I am sure this will too. Time to fledge.

The weather here was insanely great this weekend. I talked with Beth HomeEast, and she was shovelling the driveway. Said it probably wouldn't get much past 20 degrees today. I am so happy to be in California. My life there is fading from memory, except every once in a while comes the jolt - holy crap! I have a house there!

So it feel like I don't know what I am doing. But I keep putting one foot in front of the other, hoping that I am making progress.

OMG January 2009

2009-01-08T22:32:00.000-08:00

Well, I wrote down my goals for 2009. Ambitious as always. But not entirely me, if recent actions would prove. Turns out white wine is a really bad idea for me. One glass the other night had me in a fugue. Over a move at work. OK, it's been 4 months since I've had a spot of my own there, a coworker essentially moved into my office and kicked me out while I was on vacation in Israel and I have ben a nomad ever since - all the while coming to the realization that I need to put 150% behind my work there (hello? 100 days in Rochester in 08, 30 days on planes, 7 weeks on the road ... plus very hard work - think I'm dedicated???)

Sales meeting to kick off 2009 was this week; was having a grand time immersing myself in the team. But Tuesday night, made the mistake of having one glass of white wine at the sales team dinner, then reading email. The email was titled "good news and bad news" and the body was how I needed to move out of the space I was currently in, by the next evening. ... and that was it. No destination, just kicked out AGAIN. My reply was "And the good news would be, exactly what?" and my mood just spiraled down from there. Ended in tears. I went out of the dinner to compose myself, was gone for 25 mins, no one noticed. (that sure didn't help!!) And I told myself a pity story about no one noticing and things just got blacker from there. Why do I do this? ... I guess I must must need sad. Plan for 09, really to believe "let everything that happens be OK".

Woke up the next morning remembering a bad patch a few months ago. Have put a note in my calendar - "white wine BAD! makes you cry". Hope to avoid this in the future. Even one glass only had a big effect on me. Oof. Remembering a white wine and Frito dinner of Feb o6. Not good.

I am so disgusted at the seesaw I put myself on. But talking with others, it seems like the human condition. How the heck do we ever get anything done?

Synchronicity

2008-12-30T10:10:00.000-08:00

Back HomeWest. Phone rang this morning, private number. Twas my lawyer calling to tell me that as of this morning I am a divorced woman.

Tomorrow, I'm embarking on a trip that's been planned for a month. At 1 p.m. I get on a plane to Vegas for New Years.

God works in mysterious ways indeed!

Moving, one suitcase at a time

2008-12-29T07:22:00.000-08:00

The past month has absolutely zoomed by. I've been condo shopping on the weekends, crazy busy at work doing the day to day plus 2009 planning. I sorta ignored Christmas this year. Turns out to have been a good year for that.

I squeezed in 5 days at "home" - maybe I need to come up with a unique designation for that - HomeEast? Anyhow, Rochester. I am so blessed - in the teeth of the nutso weather and hugely disrupted travel, I flew on Dec 24th, both flights on time - connected through Chicago, no less!! Upgraded, I *love* that! Had a very fun seatmate Chicago to Rochester, he'd grown up in the area too. The stewardess asked how long we'd known each other, he said I was his next ex-wife. Talking and laughing the whole flight is the best way to travel, as far as I'm concerned. Doesn't happen often enough.

Got to Rochester a bit early, suitcase was there (empty, and that felt weird setting out that way) and taxis were waiting. Driving past Greg's house I noticed both vehicles there, which was odd, as they were supposed to be at Andrea's brothers place for the festive family pandemonium Christmas Eveapalooza. (I was invited and declined.) Turns out, Bro and family were down with a bad stomach bug, eeech.

I missed that, yay. But it resulted in me spending a few hours in Dad's apt on Christmas day, cleaning, instead of us all having dinner at their house. And then getting my Christmas dinner from 7-11; as it was the only thing open in the area. I worked hard that day to Let Everything That Happens Be OK. I think I only thought once that I should have stayed HomeWest with friends in abundance. (K, I tried to only think that once. But I didn't have a pity party over it, I'm proud to say.)

I have packed a couple big boxes of clothes, shipped west by UPS, and started throwing out things I don't need. Most of my clothes are now HomeWest, extra magazines I will never read are gone. Love how clean and tidy HouseEast looks. Hmmm, do I only love a place as I'm moving out? I plan to work to keep HouseWest, when I have it, organized and put away.

Peri is planning that she'll come out, help me pack & drive my stuff across the country in the spring. That will be such fun! I've decided to leave most of the furniture; take kitchen and personal things and of course all the rocks. We Amoses must have our rocks! My rocks must be rather amused, some of them are quite the world travellers now. The Brazillian Amethyst will be going back to California, the tiny Florite from arizona ? back to Cal via way of Germany ...

The weather HomeEast has been absolutely delightful - warm! 50+ degrees a couple days in a row. Snow has melted, grass is green and I am scramming out of town before winter comes roaring back. I do not know when I will be here next, I currently have no planned return. Yes, that does feel a little weird.

I spent quiet time yesterday thinking about my goals for 2009. In 2008, my theme was Love. 09, it is Adventure. Hah! And this includes the possibility of things going pear-shaped in California and me ending up in a different place entirely, renting and not buying. I am open to change. All I think for sure is that I will spend even less time in Rochester in 09. Counted the days, spent 110 days HomeEast in 08; 33 days on planes; about 7 weeks around the world.

Well dear readers, time for me to turn to work for an hour or so before I get on todays plane. See most of you soon - HomeWest! Call me!

Random updates

2008-12-03T21:58:00.000-08:00

Who was I kidding? I am SO moving to CA. Talking with a realtor, mortgage broker and others. Looking at condos - soon! Great time to buy, it seems.

Was in CA Oct 30 - Nov 13. Flew to Roch on Nov 14, to DC on the 16th to work a trade show. Back to Roch on the 19th. Of November. It was 24 degrees. I am moving to a place that has more degrees.

Images from recent Halloween parties. Had so much fun at work - someone said "Well, at least you didn't go over the top." Hah! I bought the dress at Spirit in Rochester (A national chain Halloween store) and the mask I had - it was really easy to put together.

The evenings costume, well, my roomate furnished that - she'd worn it the year before. Was so fun!

The costume for work

The costume for play

Fun dancing with Dan

And, had another first - rode on the back of Theo's Harley over highway 17 to Santa Cruz. LOVED it!! Rode back in the rain - that was not so much fun until we crested the summit and saw the double rainbow in front of us. Amazing!

Gearing up

Heading out - dig the Purple DynaGlide!!

At breakfast

Across the table

surf and seagulls redux

2008-11-02T13:01:00.000-08:00

Sitting on a bench at Capitola Beach. Had been stormy yesterday, lots of rain.Today its breezy with the sun out through high clouds. Kids playing on the beach, newbie surfers playing in the waves. When I left Rochester on Thursday it was snowing a bit.

Time to work towards living most of the time out here, I am a California girl at heart.I don't know how, but what my new place will look like is starting to take shape. Been manifesting prety well, lately.

The European trip, to work woth our resellers and distys, was a great success. And hard travel. To London on the 10th, met with people in the UK until Thurs afternnon, then Friday the 17th flew to Belfast (!hic!) Sat 18th to Paris, planned to depart Sun afternoon by train but got caught in a taxi strike. Missed the train to Lyon. Biggest travel disaster in the company of an exec. I prefer to never repeat that experience. Monday train to Lyon, met with the disty.

Then flew to Munich that night for the final 3 days of the trip. Tuesday I worked the trade fair with our German disty, and met with friends for dinner.

I had called Joyce to get directions on how to meet her. "Get to Ostbahnhof and take the 54 to Lorettoplatz, get off a Tucherpark." Did thatand it slowly dawned on me that this wasn't right. Looked on the route map and - should have been on the 54 other direction. OK, I got off and retraced, got to the meeting spot about 30 mins later than planned. And had been on the same bus as Mary Lynne and didn't even see her. We started walking to the main street, and were soon in my former neighborhood. The weather was unseasonably warm, so I pursuaded them to walk a bit farther and headed down to the grocery market in the basement of Karstadt, where I snagged their last bottle of my favorite liquor - Honeywine from Andechs monastary. Then across the subway station to the pharmacist, then back above ground. Joyce suggested a place for dinner and we walked towards it, but decided it wasn't what we wanted. Turned around to head back into the subway and there, coming towards us on his bike, was THE one person I had wanted to run into in Munich - Mike, my beloved personal trainer. Amazement had both our jaws dropping. We chatted for a few minutes and he had to go off to work.

When I think about what it took to bring me to the right place at the right time to see Mike I am almost speechless - so astounded and delighted. It was one of the high points of my trip.

Road Warrior Lessons from Fri Oct 17

2008-10-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

Both a lesson, and a first time: Do NOT go on a pub crawl with your Irish reseller.We were to see the oldest pub in Belfast. Turns out there are about 15 making that claim. Thank god we only went to 5 and I was permitted (because of being a girl) to have only half pints at each pub.

Then we went to dinner. Wine with dinner - I barely wet my lips. And, when asked about after dinner drink, I said "No I cannot drink anymore." Turns out that phrase is Irish for "I'll have a large whiskey, straight up!" .holy crap!

What a life!

2008-10-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

As I sit in the setting sun to write this, the splashing sounds of kids playing in the pool below ricochet off the balcony. Seagulls cry in the background, and summertime radio is playing.

The last time I wrote, I was in Jerusalem. My trip was amazing and I am still absorbing where I've been and what I've seen. Sept 17, I arrived. Hooked up with the group of 27 ladies, most of whom I knew when I lived in Munich. So grand to see everyone!

The 18th and 19th we toured Jerusalem. The 20th we drove to see Qumram, Masada, and then had an afternoon floating in the Dead Sea. 21st was one more day in Jerusalem. On the 22nd we drove up the Med. coast, saw Caesarea, Akko, and then on to the city of Tiberius, on the Sea of Galilee. Spent the 23rd touring in that area. 24th I cried enough! and stayed in the lovely hotel, catching up with work and floating in their pool. 25th we drove to Jordan. 26th saw Jerash. 27th we spent in Petra. Then home on the 28th.

Sun poisoning. No stomach upsets. Some dehydration. Brain boggled at the sites - our guide in Israel is an archeologist. More write up later, I promise.

And my plan had been, to stay in Rochester until Oct 10th, when I get on a plane to London for a work trip to visit our VARs and distributors in that part of the world.

Hmmm, you say, pool/sun/seagulls - doeasn't sound like Rochester. (At least in October.) And you would be right!

So, on the 19th, in Jerusalem, I get a text. From my boss. "Call me as soon as you can." Rut-ro. I did. He'd quit.

Later, I think in the Jordanian desert, I discovered that a coworker had been promoted to take over marketing. Yay! I really like this guy & his management style quite a bit. Except, he said "come to CA - soonest". So, I returned from Tel Aviv on Sept 28th, Sunday, got home about 8 p.m. That Wednesday morning, I got on a plane to CA. Was going to return to Rochester overnight, on Friday. Except when I got to CA, I got persuaded to work a trade show in San Diego Mon/Tuesday.

So here I am, on the 5th floor of the Hyatt Mission Bay in San Diego, patio door open to the setting sun, overlooking the pools. Brain a little scrambled. And still going to London on Friday. Am hoping to the heavens that I have all the right clothing in Rochester for that trip - no time to shop, if I don't.

But ... what a life!!! I am having a blast.

OF COURSE I have pictures. Too many for Blogger. Look at my hundreds of pics, here:

http://www.cea-photos.smugmug.com

The Holy Land

2008-09-22T21:02:00.000-07:00

Been in Jerusalem for 4 days; yesterday departed drove up the coaset to Ceasarea, then Akko, in Tiberius on the Sea of Gallilee right now. 7 a.m., up early to do a couple work things. Yeah, yeah, bit I am here and able to a a bit of work, and that is too cool for words, for me.

Fun is being had!

That's the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the background - the gold and black domes, respectively. I was sitting on a Roman wall in the garden of the high priest Ciaphases house.

Mud fun at the Dead Sea.

A new adventure unfolding

2008-09-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

In less than 24 hours I will be standing in Jerusalem. ! I am flying out today to join a tour put together by Jackie, who was the president of LIA my last year in Munich. She & her husband repatriated to Israel over a year ago, and the ladies of the club entreated her to set up a tour. I decided that, when else would I ever go to Israel but in the company of friends? So here I go.

Of course when I booked the trip, I had not started working at my current job. And it's a very busy time at work, of course.So I am taking my laptop. Downside is that I'll be working some of the time. Upside, I should be able to post pictures.

... more later!

Celebrate A Life

2008-08-02T09:37:00.001-07:00

I zoomed back to Roch on 7/27, as on 7/28 there was a party for Dad. Crimson Ridge, where he lives, picks a resident each month to celebrate, and July was his turn. Pics, below. And a word about Crimson Ridge - it's a great place. I can highly recommend it to anyone. The staff is caring, and kind. Dad's got friends there now, which helps.

Gotta have cake!

Dad & Linda, another resident

Greg & Gavin

Andrea & her Mom, Barb

Dad and Bea and Al. Bea worked for Dad for years.

John & Bess, our neighbors at the Amos family house

Marge and Bess. Marge was our next door neighbor.

The motley crew, out to view - what else the GINKO TREE!

Fantastic!

2008-07-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

Just stepped out of the Rochester airport into the warm embrace of a summer night. I so enjoyed walking into my little house; I'd cleaned just before I left and it stayed that way. A big plus of living with me and no one else.

CA is wonderful and compelling but it cannot compete with these warm summer nights.
A bit humid, gentle breeze, feels tropical. Great night to sit out on the deck and stay awake for hours as the wind caresses me.

But first, an update. Great 2 weeks in CA. I think I've - finally - finished a big project for work. It's at the end, now depends on engineering to push to production. Should happen this week and our VAR portal will go live. About time!!

Had a great deal of fun, squeezed into a few grand evenings. Out with friends on Thursday, sequed into bar hopping and dancing on tables. My favorite thing ever. (Except for my other favorite things.)

Repeat dates with an interesting young man. Loving that.

I was staying at Nancy's place in Mountain View, which she so kindly offered as she was away herself. Ideal location - last Sunday, I walked into downtown. Stopped for coffee, phone Andrea in Rochester. Then Tanya called from Rochester. After that, I shopped the farmers market, walked back. Drove to visit Kristen, lunched and shopped, had champagne in town. Eventually drove back talking with Renee. It was such a girlfriend day I was charged up for a week!

Early in the trip, I met with Barb and the mastermind group she's put together for launching her new business. Great group of women, new to me. I am looking forward to her product very much and will share when she says I can. That day I was showing off a new dress and she took a couple good pics.

K, maybe a bit too much. But fun. And I've since found capri tights that match the purple. Don't even try to tell me the rules say no short skirts after 35.

Cute, eh? It's about time, for me, to feel that way again. I have come into my own. And am delighted. I radiate delight everywhere I go and people warm to me like never before. Shame it took so long for me to figure out. But, here I am. Delighted to be me.

Must be time to get on a plane

2008-07-15T04:14:00.000-07:00

My fingernails need filed. That can take me from Roch to Chicago. And, besides, the house is clean, I knocked a couple of items off the to-do list (got an iPod, and player; cleaned a couple closets out; got my external hard drive loaded with all my pictures) and I had lunch with Dad a couple times, the pool is now clean and beautiful. So, why stay here? Time to head back to HQ to get the next projects started.

It is much less fun to leave Rochester in the summer. This area is so pretty - and everyone gets outside and enjoys it, as the next day may rain. Very different pace of life than in Silicon Valley. And I know I will love being there, too, as soon as I get off the plane!

Best summer ever, so far

2008-07-10T20:40:00.000-07:00

Oh such fun interesting times. I have been in Rochester for over a week now. And that’s the first that has happened in over 4 months. So I feel like I have a few moments to catch you up.

I’m getting on top of the house thing in Rochester, having hired a lawn service and found some handy help. Thinking about what to do for living in CA when I’m out there. I have started looking through the classifieds to see what’s available. A condo perhaps?

I had a great time last visit to California. Went out with Renee, who took a look at what I was wearing and said “Oh no, you’ve gotta try this!”

I would have never even seen this dress in the store. But it was a good look for me. And, it was great fun. Who knew? Of course, the cosmos may have helped. All of a sudden I started feeling the cougar thing. This is getting interesting. I think I’ll let that play out . . .

A couple days after that, I visited Kristen and told her the story. She thought I should go shopping in her closet to see what look we could pull out of there. None of the dresses were any good for me, but then she pulled out this scarf. A couple of knots and it looked elegant.

I swanned around her place, having her take pics. And then we went shopping in Santa Cruz. It was really interesting to stroll around town dressed only in a scarf. Well, I had shoes too.

We ended up in one store where I fell victim to several more dresses. Most of which are now hanging in my storage space in Saratoga. It’s still got stuff in it from when I started preparing the house to rent out, in March 05, before I moved to Germany. The plan was to rent the house out furnished, and I started clearing out the bits I wouldn’t want a renter to have. A couple weeks into that, got advice from a property manager to rent the place out empty. The movers then came and packed & stored all the other stuff, about a third of which is now in my house. But all the sentimental bits stayed in California. Hmmm, do we think there’s a metaphor in that?

Leaving California the last time, I looked at all the clothing I had, and the very very small likelihood of wearing the great dresses in Rochester. Ran to WalMart and bought a free standing clothing rack which I assembled in the storage space. Glad I bought two racks, between them I got one unit put together. What is it with cheap stuff? I guess the warning is that there’s always an insert in the package that says “If there’s a problem with this product do not return it to the retailer. Call this 800 number.” They were missing pieces and the instructions only vaguely resembled what was in the box. But there were enough supports to create one finished rack – with dust cover – so my booty is safely hanging there.

My addiction for little black dresses is getting worse. I think I now have 4 in each state. And they have friends – a beautiful coral dress (in which, I’m told, I look like a princess!) and a gold trench/safari thing. They’re all insisting I take them out. I need to remedy this soon. And Kristen pointed out that I should start buying dresses that I can wear to work. Gee, ya think? Duh!! I can wear most of them to work. … Some of them.

Months ago I had planned to go to a seminar in NYC, June 28 – 30th. Since I “live” so close, it was going to be just a quick hop down & back. Of course, I ended up flying in from CA instead. It was at the Plaza. My god, it was good to be back in NYC. I think it’s been a decade since I’d been. I must plan a touristy weekend there soon.

I got back to Rochester very early July 1. Was supposed to be home 6 hours before I actually arrived, thunderstorms had the eastern seaboard shut down for a few hours. Has anyone else noticed the weather-related travel disruption this summer? Is it worse than it’s ever been?

Rochester was a good place to be, for the Fourth. Low-key evening for me, us, we ended up across the street from my brother’s house, at Jamie’s on Long Pond. They had lots of food and a bonfire set to go. As the day ended – before it was even dark - the fireworks started. There were 2 barges in the pond, 5 or 6 big displays straight across, and several to either side of us. And we could see displays going off at the shore of Lake Ontario too. The show went on for 2 hours. All put on by the local homeowners and one of the better displays I’ve ever seen – reflecting in the pond; with the fire going; several of my favorite things on this planet all in one place!

It’s been hot & humid here. The pool was slightly green. I’ve chemicaled it into submission, and had the family over a couple times. It was so good to have the pool to cool off in. This being upstate New York, the weather changed abruptly – it poured rained yesterday and the temperature dropped from 90 to 60, last night.
I’ve been working so much that I have hardly gotten out to do anything since I’ve been here.

This morning I rolled out of bed around 6:30, headed, down to the computer. Took a break at 11 to go pick up Gavin from Youth Adventure Camp (YAC, such an unfortunate acronym) as his mom had a doctor appointment this morning. We got back to his house, I pulled out my computer, plugged in my phone and fired it up. Through the VPN, into the dev servers where I’m finishing our VAR portal. Worked on that into the afternoon, got back home, continued. Stopped at 7 p.m. Flung myself onto my bike and got out for a ride. That’s been a typical day. 12 hours and still I’m up 300 emails in my inbox this week. Still love the job and the people I work with.

This project has been going on for weeks, but I think it’s finally going to be finished. I look forward to the next phase – which includes a couple weeks of vacation in September. But first, back to CA for the last couple weeks in July. In August, who knows?

all sorts of 'firsts' to report

2008-06-08T17:07:00.000-07:00

Wowie! I've spent the last 18 days in CA working working working. Hardly saw anyone. Been doing the 12 hour days 6+ days a week to get a big project done for work. Which I still love. How did this much fun and yummy validation escape me in my earlier years? Sure glad I'm tuned in, now!

So i was also cat sitting while I was there. For Mougie - a personality-ful and sadly flat faced persian. No kidding, the poor dear's face is flat. He burbles when he breathes because he's got no sinuses! I know he was bred that way, cannot figure out for the life of me why. His human, Renee, was just on the first of a series of trips to Europe to ride a BMW mororcycle through the Alps - German to Italy and all around. She had a blast and if I can find her pics I'll throw in a link. She got back home on Thursday.

Saturday she threw leathers at me & said come on, let's got for a ride. Sure, what the heck, I can be a passenger. We got dressed, pretty heavily, and I'm thinkin hmmm - and we walked out front to her Honda 600 sport bike. Lane split our way up to highway 9 and f2kin zoomed up that hill. She stormed it! I especially liked the bit where the a** in the vette tried to race us around a curve. Hah! We won hands down!

So I'm perched up on the back, on what feels like a bandaid on a piece of metal, knees level with my chest, clinging on to her like a baby monkey hangs on to its momma. We hit Skyline and then she opened it up. At one point I glimpsed the speedo - she asked me later if I did cause she could feel me see that it said 84. I was rather wishing I hadn't known that! Man, is she a superb rider. I loved it - especially the return trip, when she took it a bit easier on me.

It was load of fun rolling up to Alices & getting off the bike. Not too many 2 hetero chicks on sport bike combos up there. All in all, I will do that again. Hopefully soon! I noticed today that the insides of my legs feel like I had a serious workout at the ad/ab machine - I was really hanging on with everything I had.

So my other new thing is that I am stuck in Chicago for 24 hours due to weather related flight delays. No clothes. No one to answer too. Blogging from the Red Carpet Club in the airport, I stopped in here to get online and get a room. There are about 500 people in line outside to get a voucher. Heck with that. Gonna close up now, get to the hotel and perhaps find some trouble.

Lilacs in Rochester

2008-05-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

I got back to Rochester Friday morning. Had been in CA for a week of work. Left a 100-degree day, Thursday. Friday in Rochester, it was 55. Yuck! The compensation is that the spring blooms are lasting a long time. The Lilac Festival ran through this weekend, I got out early in Saturday sunshine and took these pics at Highland Park.

And Tanya was with me, enjoying the beautiful day.

This isn't a lilac, but what a beautiful backdrop!

The rain clouds came in. It was showering on & off all afternoon, but in a sunny moment I got out in my neighborhood to capture the current beauty. Looking out my back door:

This is across the street:

And three doors down:

And my tulips held their petals for me:

Much Silliness Ensues

2008-05-14T22:17:00.000-07:00

Give a ten year old a Fresnel lens and a Lucha Libre mask, and much silliness ensues. On my last trip to Rochester ... uh, visit home, uh... whatever it was, we gathered at Greg & Andrea's for dinner. Gavin kept us all entertained.

Lesson learned

2008-05-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

Do NOT lock your car keys inside the trunk of a new car!

I was leaving work yesterday. Was all set to go when I saw I had left a bag in the office, so I grabbed 2 sets of keys - my car keys with the building key on it; and the rental car keys. (I had my backpack & purse already in the trunk, as I was going to go to an outdoor concert next.) Ran back inside, grabbed the bag I'd forgotten, back out where I opened the car trunk, tossed in the bag, dropped the car keys in my purse, shut the trunk and oh my god - it was the rental car keys I'd tossed. in. I had my New York set in my hand.

I'm now locked out of the office, with my phone & computer in the trunk. Thankfully I had my wallet, and a co-worker was still inside. He let me back in where I first called Hertz, then AAA. An hour later, I flagged down the AAA truck as it was passing by, turns out somehow they had gotten past me on their first swing through - and since I didn't have my cell phone, it being locked in the trunk & all, they couldn't reach me. So he opened the door with a wire through the crack in the window, setting off the alarm. And, of course, disabling the electronic trunk release. Perfectly logical from an anti-theft point. So, he called a locksmith out. After he finally arrived, it took him a couple hours to get the trunk open. By then I was cold, tired, and emotionally on the edge. I was observing myself trying to go to the "oh poor pitiful me, no one to call, no one to care, I'm all alooooone" place. I would then think how wonderful it was that AAA and the locksmith were available to be called upon. And both people were great, and helpful.

So Saturday in CA started out great - worked out, did work on the computer in the hotel room, then got a pedicure, lunch, got great work done at the office. But instead of seeing the Robert Cray band perform, I hung out in a parking lot as the sun went down, watching guys working on the lock. I finished the evening with some badly needed bathrobe therapy at the hotel.

Well, I'm back

2008-05-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

Back in California again, drinking in the beauty. I am now working fulltime at IronKey, loving it even as it takes just about all of my time. Great company, great people to work with.

April was a whirlwind month. The first week, FOSE show in DC went very well:

The next week, RSA in San Francisco, went even better; IronKey won Best Mobile Security Device. As the CEO said "this definitely doesn't suck!" (Degrees of not sucking are his compliments.)

I was in Rochester for a week, then off to London for the Information Security Europe show. That one was easier - we just showed up to work it; one of our partners did all the logistics.

I was "home" for 8 days in April! Who needs a house?

It has been such a wonderful year for Spring. It started in California, in February, where spring explodes like a sneeze - everything in bloom at once. But it sweeps through in colors. First, it's white. Then yellow, then purple & blue. It was so familiar.

Then, I was in DC for peak cherry blossom season. Incredibly beautiful and subtle at the same time:

Rochester was just starting to thaw when I returned. London was at mid-spring, with lots of tulips and daffodils in bloom.

Finally, late April, back in Rochester, spring had finally arrived. It was breathtaking. I had forgotten how many blooming trees are there - cherry, crabapple, magnolias, and 2 as-yet unidentified white blooming trees. These pictures are on a walk through my neighborhood, a couple weeks ago.

This is my brother's backyard, on Cranberry Pond.

And, 3 blocks from me, Lake Ontario:

Kuan Yin, at the local Buddhist Temple. I greet her every time I drive to my house.

And this is my next door neighbor's spring show:

Catching up with Carole

2008-03-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

For a while, I have had a low-level “I”ve gotta do this someday”. I have wanted to get to Washington DC to see the famous Cherry Blossom s in spring. And, here I am! I have been incredibly focused on a big project for work, which took me to DC Saturday. And when I arrived, looking down at the landscape as we were landing, it looked like scores of trees were dead – all white looking, interleaved with green ones. In a few seconds I realized they were trees in bloom. And as the taxi got me closer to the heart of DC, I could see all kinds of trees in bloom and I realized that one of my ‘I’ve gotta dos’ was happening. How very cool!!

The big project for work is 2 massive, very important to the company, back to back trade shows: FOSE in DC this week, and RSA in SF next week. Somehow, I don’t really recall exactly how, I became logistics manager and entire team to pull these off. I have been to trade shows, and early in my career I was part of the set up & tear down team – thank goodness I was paying attention. Since then, I graduated to companies and teams where I “had people” to do this. Now, at this fast-moving start up, I have become “people”. I had been in the vicinity of one major trade show disaster – back to back shows where we shipped the booth “direct to show’ from the first to the second – and it never arrived. To avoid that, I decided that we were going to rent a second both and have graphics panels printed for both. We’d ship our own booth property to the first show, in DC, and use the rental the second week in SF.

I had been in CA early March, working on these shows and other projects. Returned to Rochester on March 8th. Was planning to stay in Roch until March 29th, fly from there to DC for the first show. But no, that was not to be – there were just too many things to be coordinated, nudged, prompted, pushed along that needed me to physically be in CA. So I returned to CA on March 15th. Because I was back there, ProExhibits, the exhibit company that was reprinting our booth graphics, set up a preview of the booth for me at their Sunnyvale location, scheduled to be on Monday the 17th at 2 p.m. Funny story about that …

Monday morning the 17th I show up to work and 3 people descended on me within 30 minutes – “Sheryl from ProExhibits called. There’s an emergency.” Oh boy. I got a hold of her and she told me they had a flood over the weekend – a water main broke and everything was under 2 feet of water. She’d let me know what was going to happen when they figured it out. The thoughts that raced across my front brain were – my first big project for IronKey, we need to ship the booth tomorrow to get the cheaper shipping rates, now they have to redo the booth somewhere, I don’t know what’s going to happen or how this will get fixed and … oh well. It will be fine. I could see myself making that decision. It will be fine. Most people at work did not even know what had happened. I slipped right into calm and decided I didn’t need drama around this. I credit all the self-awareness work I’ve been doing with my newfound grace under pressure.

The week wore on. I talked with Sheryl almost every day. They were going to reprint the panels at another location, make sure delivery happened on time.On Monday the 24th, I went to visit her at their Sunnyvale location – by this time there were at least 5 portable trailers in the parking lot, and 2 big trucks with huge hoses, one in each side of the building. The portables were their temporary offices, the trucks were dehumidifying the building. There was a special trailer in the very back, freeze drying their documents. Sheryl showed me pictures of the facility – and I really hadn’t pictured the devastation.

When I hear ‘flood’, I think ‘river rising’ – my parents both grew up on Wheeling Island, in the middle of the Ohio river – and it flooded every spring. (They moved away – and they lived on a hill, and all their kids live out of flood zones!) What happened at ProExhbits was that an 18” water main broke – and it was like a rocket launching inside the building. Ripped apart the ceiling in the 2-storey show room. Filled the premises a couple feet deep. Destroyed all their deskside computers, which of course were sitting on the floor. Sheryl said when she got to work that Monday, her files were floating out the door.

And through it all, she and Tina, my customer service rep, have been calm, polite and getting things done. IronKey’s booth shipped out on Thursday March 27th, arrived in DC on the 28th, and I arrived on the 29th and got the booth set up. (I did encounter a couple damp patches - which made me laugh, thinking of all this, and picturing Piglet floating out of his home as the rain rain rain came down down down, in rushing, rising rivulets.) I can HIGHLY recommend ProExhibits to any and all for their trade show exhibit needs. The people there are phenomenal.

I have become quite the road warrior. I took the redeye home to Roch on Tuesday the 25th, worked some on the 26th. Took a 6 a.m. flight to DC on Saturday – just yesterday – got to the hotel, dropped off my stuff and hit the convention hall to set up the booth. It went pretty fast. I now have a Blackberry – to which I’m already addicted – and a Bluetooth earpiece. I’m going to be travelling a lot, and loving it. I get to work with an amazing team; these people are smart, dedicated, moving fast and astoundingly kind and respectful of each other. I get to visit Silicon Valley often. And I get to live in my little houseeen and visit with Dad, and hang out with the rest of my family. Best of all possible worlds, right now.

Today, it’s a rather cold overcast day in DC. I intend to get out to the cherry trees tomorrow, it’s supposed to be warmer then, and the show starts on Tuesday. (I left myself plenty of time to scramble in case something wasn’t right with the booth, what we shipped, etc. Always good practice, and I’m so happy that I am not scrambling.). Sis-in-law Amy recommends the grove by the Washington Monument. So today I will write this, do some work, get the extra stuff to the convention center (we had some things shipped directly to my hotel.) And I get to ride the Metro! My hotel is 3 stops from the convention center, I took the Metro there yesterday. I realized that’s the first time I’ve ridden a great public transit system since I moved away from Munich. And it fueled my intent to find a place to make my permanent home base – one with good public transit, much better weather than Rochester, and a diverse population. Barcelona might be close, although it’s very hot in the summer. Hmmm, maybe I need two places – or three.

IronKey - the world's most secure flash drive

2008-03-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

I am now working for/at IronKey. We make the IronKey, the world's most secure flash drive. Always-on hardware encryption. Metal casing, tamper-resistant: epoxy filled, self-destruct if someone tries to brute force guess the password, water-proof. Many more features, the short story is, no one's getting your stuff off this baby! Very cool little device. And people are starting to have fun with theirs. Check it out:

Holy cow, it's March!

2008-03-06T06:25:00.000-08:00

Wow - time and I have been flying. I am currently in Redwood City, CA - and I'm working again. Whoo hoo!! More about that in a later post, I just wanted to say I'm thoroughly enjoying being so crazy busy again.

A while ago I posted a request for help from Alex, in Munich. I'm thrilled to say that Friends of Burkina Faso won their fund-raising challenge:

Hello all, I am attaching the letter I received from FBF. If you click on “parade” link you will see the final amounts and tallies. I am so relieved to be able to thank you all for that extra help. We needed every single donation we could get to qualify for that $50,000 prize.

It was a hair-raiser.

I can pass on great thanks from Lacine in Burkina. He was so incredibly moved that so many people were involved in this effort. For a teacher in the third world to know that people all over the planet care about what happens with his projects---what an incredible encouragement!

Thanks so much.

Yours,

Alex

Dear Friends of Burkina Faso (and just friends in general!),

I want to share with all of you that the Lambs For School Project in Burkina Faso, for which we sought your support in December and January, has won one of the four international $50,000 awards through America's Giving Challenge!

Yes, it is official--after all of the tallies and discounting of multiple donations/donors, we retained our 4th place spot with 1598 donations. The charity in the number 1 spot received 1650 donations so again, this competition was very, very, very stiff and the results very, very, very close. We could not have done it without you, your persistence, and your many social and professional networks of generous family members, friends and colleagues!

See the results here: Giving Challenge

With your generous support and networking, we were able to generate sufficient funds to enable close to 1200 girls (300 more than our initial goal of 900!) to enter school in northern Burkina Faso over the next four years ... girls who would not have had an opportunity to attend school otherwise.

What an exciting day this is for all of us .... and even more so for NEEED, the community-based organization in Burkina which so effectively runs this project. Their work with village leaders and parents, their provision of school materials in a timely and accountable manner, their collaboration with rural primary teachers and their encouragement of the girls and their families is truly impressive ... and their success with this model is evidenced in both the increasing number of parents asking for support for their daughters through the Lambs For School Project and in the oustanding results the girls are achieving educationally.

So to all of you who went to bat for us and our project, a very warm and sincere thank you!

And I ask you one last time to spread our message far and wide to all of your contacts who also helped us to make this all possible!

Kristie McComb, President of the Friends of Burkina Faso

and

Suzanne Plopper, Treasurer of the Friends of Burkina Faso and Project Manager of the Lambs for School project

We saw this coming ....

2008-02-07T09:15:00.000-08:00

When you give people 50 year mortgages, or interest only mortgages or any mortgage with a payment that's 3x their annual salary, whaddya thinks going to happen? Having lived through the dot com explosion and subsequent crash, it's clear to me that we make up money in our heads. And we're making up the current mood disorder. I couldn't have said the following better myself, thank you to Perry Marshall for his articulation:

This whole "recession" thing everyone's blathering about was merely fabricated by the media (you know, the people we trust to deliver the "news" to us) so they'll have more to, uh, g-r-i-p-e about while they assault us with election propaganda.

Did you know that ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN have predicted 40 out of the last 2 recessions?

Yeah, look out baby, cuz the sky is falling. We're teetering on the brink of financial disaster and you should yank all your money outta the bank and hide it under your mattress and retreat into a fallout shelter with your portable TV. We can all stand together holding hands in stark terror, as Katie Couric faithfully reports the demise of planet earth.

Whatever.

I'm not participating in the current recession and you don't have to either. Look, grow your business, buy your beer, go on vacation, live life as normal and ignore the prophets of misery. OK?

I'm dead serious about this. The recession IS a fabrication of the media, but becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Because of the talking heads and all their cheery news, the Mortgage biz is nearly in Intensive Care. Yeah, some people are being affected by this.

And some not.

So understand this: Whatever happens, whether it's a mild blip or bigger than that, there are two kinds of people:

1) Passive Victims (the 95%)

and

2) Alpha Warriors (the 5%).

Check out the whole article.

Late Rochester Winter

2008-01-22T15:28:00.000-08:00

The weather here has been so weird - the past few days it's been clear, beautifully sunny. Only a few bits of snow here & there. The grass is green. And it's been 10 degrees! SO cold.

Luckily, it was much warmer back in late December when we went skiing. I had a great time, and progressed rapidly. Did fall a lot, but nothing really bad. I'm so glad that I'm in good shape - the skiing was not too hard, but walking in the boots carrying the equipment, and repeatedly poling myself to the chair lift was exhausting. Greg & Gavin took snowboarding lessons, and Andrea tried it on her won. Nancy & I stuck with skiing. I was a rank beginner, but she kept discovering skills she'd gathered that helped out, like rollerblading and surfing.

Greg, Gavin, Andrea & Nancy.

Me and Nancy, the last day - still smiling!

It want to go again, but with no snow around here it's a bit difficult. Maybe we'll have snow in February.

Alex has asked for help

2008-01-18T08:46:00.000-08:00

So, one of the excellent women I met in Munich is Alex Koch. She is an art historian, taught in Manhattan, and leads the ladies groups in Munich on the most amazing tours of the museums and exhibits. She studies languages (in her -ahem - spare time; she's got 3 growing, lively boys and a husband who frequently travels for work); in her French class she met a man from Burkina Faso, in West Africa. A teacher. ... Much discussion ensued over time, ALex got involved, got her husband's company to get involved and her campaign raised enough money to build and fund a school for girls in Burkina Faso. How cool is that?

Just got an email from her:

Hello all you dear friends , it’s Alex here, writing from Munich.

We are up for another competition for money for our projects in Burkina Faso. This time it will mean 50, 000 dollars to fund the lambs for school project -- a little girl receives a lamb with her first years school supplies, and that means she can husband that lamb and generate the funds for her continuing education right on into high school at our Collège Moderne de L’Amitié in Ouahigouya. If we win it means 900 more girls will start school in our region.

We need 10 dollar donations from different sources, as many as possible. Global Giving has a secure web site, so don’t fear using your credit card. And it works quickly online. 10 dollars is enough, don’t feel like you have to give more. It is really the numbers of donors that is key. Better to encourage your friends to donate another 10. The more the better. Send this on to friends who will help. Explain to them that they can get in touch with me if they want more information about our work building schools and getting children educated in Burkina.

We have won these giving challenges before with your help and it means amazing resources for us. So click and give. It won’t be a hassle I promise.

Click here to donate.

Kisses and love from me and Max and the boys,

Alex

Oh, this is too funny!

2008-01-10T14:14:00.000-08:00

Go here and look at this comic:
from the fine folks at xkdc

Nerd Sniping! Indeed!

Goals, Intentions, Managing My Life

2008-01-10T13:30:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking about the above a lot, with the turning of the year. And there is a flood of advice/information/books and other products coming at me, now that I'm attuned. I am sorting my way through it all, developing a system that works for me. It includes a daily written intention, weekly time for myself to think, monthly goal setting, yearly goal setting, theme and overall intention. I am starting to differentiate 'intention' from 'goals'. An intention is for me and my lovely sis-in-law Andrea to work together in a profitable business that we run. Dunno how or when. A 'goal' is to finish filing the paperwork in my office.

So my daily intentions include having success/fun in what I've planned or scheduled to do, and I'm adding in 'unexpected delights'. Saturday, I ran into Ray J from my MasterMind group and we chatted for 30 minutes in OfficeMax. Sunday, I finally went to the emofree website, got pulled in and started using the tool. Monday, Nancy from my MasterMind group invited me to come along to a personal development seminar in Toronto.

Today's first one was cool. I had gone to the gym to work out, and some musclehead put in an Ozzie Osbourne CD. Ugh, isn't this music, like, from the '50s? I worked to overcome my dislike of such dusty quaint old music. Then the 3rd track played, Ozzie doing "Pictures of Matchstick Men" - a song I love. And I liked his version. So that was fun. The next song ground into those old power chords of Born to Be Wild. Not the best version, Ozzie sounded kinda flat. And then I hear a falsetto voice making snide comments over the music - was it? ... Yes, it was - Miss Piggy. At some point Ozzie must have been on the Muppet Show. Delightful!

Whoo Hoo! 2008!

2008-01-01T18:51:00.000-08:00

And I need to move my blog again. I thought I'd have oodles of time to get my act together and get it at my home site before the URL became outdated. Oh well, it will happen at some point. I'll link everything in when I do move it.

I've been thinking about goals, resolutions, intent for the year. Spent a quiet day home today in the company of the 3 borrowed cats, watching The Secret again and taking notes. I've evolved my theme for '08: Lavish Abundance; and my guiding principles: Be in Enlightenment, Honor myself, Love.

I just know Barb is gonna get the giggles at the seeming contradiction between my theme and principle #1. (She was very amused that I'd blogged about Being Peace and then followed that with I Love NASCAR.) But Abundance means to me
- spiritual teachers popping in to my life
- lots of time to meditate, think about what I want so I can intend it into being
- new friends (I am especially deficient in guy friends - I think they all got scrubbed off during the marrying decade and I didn't make any more)
- intellectual exercise (gotta meld Quantum Physics and Chaos Theory. (This summer a young punk of a U of R PhD Physicist sneered that they couldn't possibly meld as Chaos Theory is purely mathematical. Ummm, yeah ...)
and unexpected delights as well as increasing income. So, neener neener, they don't contradict.

I was up very late last night, Kathi's kids were wired and we were up til 2. So I'm sleep deprived and have to be at a business meeting tomorrow at 9. And it's snowing out - which means get up real early to make sure I have enough time to get where I'm going. Time to head to bed.

Veryvery pleased

2007-12-31T12:49:00.000-08:00

I have now gotten my wireless router up & running, and my office computer up and running and everything working together. Yay!

It has been a super busy month. As soon as I returned from California on Nov 28th, I did laundry, packed and headed out again on Nov 30th for another girl's weekend with Beth & Maggie. Beth is a fan of Air Tran, a local short-haul cheapo airline. She'd researched and found that we, in Roch, and Maggie, outside Boston, could get 1-way tix to Charlotte, NC for $70. Deal.

We went to Charlotte because a) it was bound to be warmer than Rochester in early December; b) Beth's been there and wanted to show us some sights; and c) Beth knew there is a huge outlet mall and she needed a party dress. Didn't matter to Maggie & me where we met, so Charlotte was just fine.

We got there Friday afternoon. Beth & I flew first to Baltimore, and amused ourselves in the airport for 90 minutes till the final flight. The new exercise machine on display in the Shaper Image store stopped us both in our tracks. It's supposed to simulate horseback riding. Imagine a lurid purple saddle-like seat rotating and grinding around. "Oh my!" said Beth. "I'm not sure they could show that in Rochester." I speculated about a thriving market for add-on attachments and wondered where they would screw in. Aaannnd girls' weekend is off to a ribald start, at 8 a.m. in the Baltimore airport.

After a quick breakfast of mini-cheeseburgers we caught the flight to Charlotte. Waited there for an hour for Maggie to join us, she had to fly to Atlanta and backtrack. The Charlotte airport offered no good amusements. Bummer.

We got the rental car, headed to the hotel, dumped our stuff and zoomed up the way. Beth wanted to take us to the race car shop. I have mentioned that her husband, Bob, works for Troyer building specialty parts for race cars. He also is the crew chief for Donny Lia, on the NASCAR circuit. I was interested to see the shop.

We pulled up in front of the shop - big building. We were to get a tour there and then head to the gift shop, Beth had to buy a couple things. So we walked into the lobby of the shop - extremely impressive. 3 real cars on display. Maggie and Beth are lurking in the background of this one, both of 'em photo-shy.

I'm wandering around, ogling the cars and starting to notice something ... familiar ... a stylized '3' everywhere. (K, you real fans are waaay ahead of me.) I asked Beth "Ummm, the '3' is that ... Dale Earnhardt?" "Yeah, he raced for Richard."

HOLY CRAP - I am Richard Childress Racing, for whom Dale Earnhardt drove. I am at ground freaking zero of NASCAR ROYALTY. I started to slightly hyperventilate. I am now so impressed I'm practically beside myself. Then, Royce came out from the back shop to take us on our tour. Nicest guy, what must he have thought about taking us three through the race car factory, but he was unfailingly polite. He did ask us if we knew about racing. Beth stepped right up and threw down all she knows, which is a whole bunch - by the end of the tour they were comparing notes about having been taught how to do lap timing by a legend.

I so wanted to take pictures in the 'shop' - the factory. The 800,000 square foot factory. With floors so gleaming nd shiny I was glad I was wearing jeans. With legions of Snap-On tool boxes, 5 or 7 cranes holding up the templates that measure that a body is stock, with several cars being worked on at various stages. Royce even took us into the 'trailers' that ferry the crews to the races. Wow - satellite dish, high-speed internet, wide screen TV, gleaming white lockers for all the tools, pluse seating area on the upper deck with even more space above. All in all, RCR looks like a great place to work. And everyone there is really really happy to be there. How cool!

Then we went across the parking lot to the 'museum', really a gift shop. I refrained from outfitting myself like a newbie fan. (It wasn't easy!) I am really looking forward to catching some of the races in 08. And visiting, a lot, when Beth & Bob move to Charlotte - it's in the plan but nothing definite yet.

Me in front of the Richard Childress Racing museum

After all this excitement we went for wine tasing at the Richard Childress vineyards. Opulent place, and they're making the best they can from the local soils. I still think, eeeeych. My palate is branded for Monster California Reds. Oh well, could be worse. I could think that east coast wines are good. ;-) We had the rudest 'pourer' I have ever encountered. We had to buy one of 3 wine tasting packages, which was a flight of 6 or 8 tastings. She allowed no time for us to really get the nose or the taste. "Nyext wine now. You teste." (She was Russian, I think) But we ended up buying 2 bottles.

Went to Speedy's BBQ for dinner. Here's the first culture clash: "Smoking or non-smoking?" the hostess asked. My reply was "My God, you still do that here? How last century! NON SMOKING." The BBQ was served within 4 minutes of ordering - hence the name. And the servings were bigger than our heads. Beth ordered a dinner, Maggie & I opted for sandwiches only. We all lunched off the leftovers the next day.

Saturday we started off at a mall that the bartender had recommended, the night before. We started in Dillards, a Macy's-ish place. Beth had in mind the style of dress she wanted. And it looked really really bad on her. At this point, we pulled everything in her size and started forcing her to try them on. "But I don't like this one." "But you've got to try it on so we can see what works and what doesn't - neckline, sleeves, fabric." "Oh, OK..." At one point Maggie & I started sounding like Stacey and Clinton. And Maggie grabbed what turned out to be the dress. Flattering, pretty, and even on sale. We snapped a picture with Beth's phone, sent it to Vicki (her fashion-conscious daughter) for approval. The comment back - "Nice dress. I love the socks." (She had left those on for the try-on) Beth started to say she was wearing the socks with it the night of the banquet.

We shopped there a bit more, forcing Beth to try on pretty jewelry that might go - you'd think this wouldn't be hard! And we stopped at Macys and forced her to try on shoes with heels - Maggie's doing again. Beth had been joking about wearing fuzzy slippers. And was more serious about ballet flats. She does have trouble with her knees and wanted to be conservative. Maggie made her buy shoes with heels - the nerve! - and relented on ballet flats as a back-up for after pictures were taken. Oh yeah, the dress was for the racing banquet, where Donny Lia's championship win was celebrated. Many cudos to Bob, the crew chief and coach.

Sat evening, we drove to downtown Charlotte to see A Tuna Christmas. If anyone else has seen this, let me know. Is it a bit racist?? A couple of points in the play had us Yankees exchanging glances - they didn't just say that, did they? The big giggle point came when one of the frumpier charcters came on stage in an outfit that included a sky-blue Christmas decorated knit vest and Beth muttered "I have that vest" in a quiet tone of outrage. Then she added "Vicki hates it." I laughed, she laughed and I kept making sotto voice snarky comments about wrapping up for Christmas until we were both in tears. Maggie, on the other side of Beth, caught a contact fit of giggles. Thought they were gonna throw us out!

Sunday we had time for a quick drive-by of the race track, and some sightseeing in the country side. We got to the airport with plenty of time, the rental return went very fast. So we sat in the airport and finished the sweet wine from our tasting purchase. Went well with the bagels and peanut butter were were having for breakfast.

And another girl's weekend successfully had. We haven't yet planned the next, although I think I volunteered to start research.

Man, I do love witing for this blog when I sit down to it. Gotta run now, to hit the stores before they close to get stuff for the party tonight. I'm going to Kathi's for a low-key friends & family thing.

Happy New Year, all!

More adventure

2007-12-20T07:15:00.000-08:00

The house is quiet, with the 3 cats settled down for the morning. All 3 doing well in their temporary home - Emma was gregarious right away. Phineaus took a day, but he's out & about and getting everywhere. I found him in the wardrobe under my blouses this morning. Note to self, keep doors closed! Alex, the most shy/unsettled by change has been walking around a bit today. He prefers the far corner under my bed, but it was good to see him out and getting something to eat.

I've been finally putting things away in the house, clearing shelves and tables - those cats are great jumpers and extremely curious. I've also been prepping for my human guests - looked around and discovered that I needed towels and more bedding. Last time I had guests it was summer. So, shopping during the Xmas frenzy. Ooof - I'm so glad I'm able to get out during the day when it's not quite so busy.

Today I head out for a ski trip. More adventure. This was planned way in advance of the reality; I've been shopping the sports stores like a crazed thing - looking for ski gear at reasonable prices. And I'm not really sure what I'll want. I tell myself that the jacket shell & fleece, and ski pants, will come in handy for cross-country skiing as well, so it's not a bad investment.

All this frenzy has given me the excuse to not have shipped Christmas cards this year. O bother. I plan to do New Year's cards, now. It's down in writing, now, it will happen.

I'll let you know how the trip goes soon. Wish me grace and elegance!

Blizzard. I has it.

2007-12-16T10:47:00.000-08:00

A very cold, snowy blustery day outside. I'm workin on my list of ToDos. It keeps getting longer the more I think about it. But I have made some progress around the house in the past week, reorganizing things. I have to - got several guests coming over. First are Alex, Fineaus and Emma - Tanya's cats are coming to stay on Tuesday. Then my brother John & sis-in-law Amy come on the 23rd or 24th. So I must curious-cat-proof, and also get the guest room rehabbed. (It is where my suitcases exploded after my recent trips.)

Some musings:
* Dust - where does it come from? I have electric baseboard heat, and the windows were closed and heat off while I was in CA, yet there was a layer of dust on everything when I got back.
* Dust - much of mine is fuschia-colored! I have a chenille throw and beautiful silk rug in that color. I think they're doing the textile equivalent of out-gassing. One day I may go downstairs to find the throw has completely dissolved.
* Time passes so much more quickly in Rochester than in CA. I think it's the relentless march of the seasons. My time in CA seems like ages ago, it was only a couple weeks. I think people age faster here than there - visible proof abounds, too.
* Christmas cookies seem to be multiplying like mice around here. Was invited to a cookie exchange last weekend, so I spent Sat baking. Went on Sunday and between meeting lots of women and eating cookies I ended up like a 2 year old on a sugar high. It took me hours to come down! Not fun. And there are still cookies here, I've started giving them away by the plateful.

And helpful advice, redux:4 things you really really will be glad you did, if your parents are still living.
1) Visit at least twice a year. Pick one room each time and help them clear it out.

2) Get power of attorney and health care proxies in place for their state. Get their wishes very very clear and detailed - much can be made of the phrase "for my comfort" for example - what exactly does that mean to your Mom or Dad? Being parked in a chair in front of Jerry Springer at high volume? Having a radio on to classical music? Get details - imagine they can't move and are being cared for by not you.

3) Move them to a location you want to visit/live in for a while. One with no snow. (Ooops, that would have been my preference. See what happens when you don't plan ahead?)

4) Get them to talk with you about money. If they resist, play on how much of a mess it might be if you need to decipher their accounts, house ownership, insurances, etc. under the stress of someone having landed unexpectedly in the hospital. Money is energy - to be used and accounted for. It's really hard to figure out someone else's; and if you have to get professional help it's very expensive.

OK, time for me to start dinner - get the oven going and warm up the downstairs!

The Yurt!

2007-12-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

My recent trip to the Left Coast was beautifully bookended - the exhilarating, inspiring, healing Quantum Leap in Vegas to start with, and a trip to the incomparable Big Sur Coast to finish. I am so fortunate to have been able to stay a couple days with Pat and Jamie in their yurt. This is, of course, the famous Feng Shiu’ed yurt.

Jamie is the ginger one!

The Yurt is about 550 square feet. Well, being a Yurt, it's of course not square. There are 12 segments that radiate from the central skylight. Pat is grooving on the small, efficient space. She quoted a friend who said that "If you have to unplug the vacuum and move the cord, your house is too big!" (My little houseen meets the criteria on each floor. Course, it does have an extra long cord. But it's nowhere near as compact as the Yurt.) The Yurt feels very spacious, and of course there's such wild beauty just outside. Pat does have a bathtub on her deck. She's not one to cavort in the famous Baths on the other side of the property, which are clothing optional but no one does. Go in clothed, that is.

I arrived at Esalen on a cool, foggy day. The area is beautiful no matter what the weather.

Molly’s Celica was perfectly messaged to fit right in.

The baths are perched right over the sea. The natural hot spring water smells slightly eggy. Sitting in the baths watching and listening to the Pacific is something I plan to do rather a lot the rest of my life. It’s heaven.

Me at the Buddha shrine.

And I find Quan Yin wherever I go.

Sadly, THIS is my current view. Brrrr!

Gratitude

2007-11-29T19:19:00.000-08:00

What an amazing trip. Pics to come. Meanwhile, I am so thankful for my wonderful friends who:

- put me up: Peri and Brian, what a gift to stay in your lovely place and learn the language of Emma & Cabo; Kristen, and daughter Suzanna in the 'spa Pasatiempo' with romping Danny, Wanda, Belle, Landau, Scarlet and Sateen; Barb, daughter Julia and handsome Bill in the lovely Santa Cruz mountains, with Reba still going strong;
Astrid and daughter Anika, in Carmel Valley with Sheba popping in & out; and Pat in the properly feng-shiu'ed yurt at Esalen, in residence with Jamie.

- let me borrow cars: Brian, thanks for letting me borrow the Mazda, and Molly for letting me borrow the Celica. I am so glad I got stubborn all those years ago and learned how to drive stick. Zooming along in the sports cars was a high point of the trip.

- met with me for meals, drinks, coffee: Dave, Tony, Mervat, Pam, Caroline, Jeff, Courtney, Nancy, Carol, Debbie, Mitchell, Sara, Arthur.

- met me in the San Jose airport as it was the only time that our Venn diagrams overlapped: Kimberly!

- met me for the first time: Dave! what a riot!

- met me to finish off old business: Logan.

The time zipped by so fast, I am still thinking of people I want to see and things I want to do - so I can't believe I'm back in Rochester already... and it's snowing here; it rained this morning and the water on the deck is frozen. And I'm glad to be back, and continuing to launch my new life. I have lots of ideas and waves of support from the left coast. And a zeal to bridge between here & there, starting with some consulting work. Soon!

I could get used to this

2007-11-20T20:32:00.000-08:00

I am living like a nomad, tossing my stuff in the (borrowed, thank you so much, Brian & Molly) car; stayed with Kristen again one night, then Barb last night. If it wasn't for the occasional time when highway 17 comes to a grinding halt, Barb's neighborhood off Summit road is ideal - feels like high CA mountain, but it's very close to both San Jose & Santa Cruz. Great open yards, beautiful starry starry nights (the light pollution from San Jose doesn't reach there.)

So far, I've managed to keep all my things with me and even added more. I've been working the storage space, rediscovering precious stuff - high school yearbooks! Glassware from both Grams! Rocks! (K, we have a problem with the accumulation of rocks in our household. Inherited that from Dad.) I have culled more books and made a big donation to the Saratoga library today and have a plan for getting all the stuff to where I'm living now. Phew, one more chore almost finished.

Whole huge chunks of memories have come galloping back into front brain as I drive around here again. Street names, how to avoid traffic, stores, favorite fall neighborhoods. The drive up Villa to Castro in Mt View was aglow today with red red liquidambar trees. Beautiful against the fall blue sky. In some places, bushes are red & yellow, the purple salvia is in bloom. Barb even had daffodils open in her garden! It's a riot of color here.

I have an early coffee meeting in Cupertino tomorrow. Must get some sleep, Barb and I stayed up way too late last night. With champagne.

Postcard from California

2007-11-14T18:21:00.000-08:00

Impossibly beautiful fall day: High clear blue sky, bright warm sunshine; trees changing colors, energy and joy and traffic all over the place! Perfect day for golf, as I write this from Pasatiempo, an Alister MacKenzie course in Santa Cruz. I'm at my kick-ass fun smart gorgeous friend Kristen's house. The laptop I'm writing on has to have the screen propped up and I'm told the original power supply was eaten by Danny, the new collie puppy. !!! That can't be good for the system.

Today, on my way to Kristens, I visited my former house, was afraid that it would be this big grief event. It wasn't. I am happy to have moved on. I love northern CA and am actually looking forward to going back to Rochester. Hunh???? I am committed to supporting family, hanging out with Dad and Greg, Andrea and Gavin. And maintaining these closer family ties. I've been telling my dear friends here what fun I've been having reconnecting with all my relatives. And CA is here for me when I want it. I will get work that pulls me here every few weeks for a while as I do love it here. And I'm happy to be straddling both worlds. Let's see if I can add a few more worlds to bop between!!! I've got room for even more great places.

Doh! Rochester! What was I thinking?

2007-11-13T16:41:00.000-08:00

As I woke up in California today, I know I am home. Not sure yet how or when I'll be back here permanently, or even if I will, but I will be back here a lot, for chunks of time. I love it here - the energy, the light, the air, the people. What a gift to be able to step away for a few years and fall in love with this place all over again!

I attended my second James Ray seminar this past weekend. So good; great experiences, processes, learnings. (K, I don't really like that word but it is a short cut to the picture.) I commit to working diligently to keep hold of this feeling. I read some great books to prep for this - The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, and Power vs. Force by David Hawkins. And that's about 1% of the suggested reading list, more to come. I reconnected with some wonderful people I met last seminar, so we'll get back in touch to encourage each other to keep with the learning. And I met some wonderful new folks. This adventure just keeps getting better!

Flew into San Jose yesterday afternoon, Peri picked me up. We stopped at East West Books, so I could see if there's interesting talks there while I'm in the area, a gorgeous new Whole Foods in Mt. View, Elephant Pharmacy - a supermarket of alternative stuff like homeopathy and herbal suppliments, great products for the home (environmentally friendly) and a regular pharmacy too. Oh, and Yoga supplies, of course! Then on to her place. She & Brian cooked a whole salmon for dinner - amazing! (We'll be having more tonight!) It's been so great to be here, and it's not even been 24 hours yet.

I was worried last week that this trip would be sad, boo hoo, the life I gave up. It's not at all. I am so happy and not even fussed about where I'm living now. I know I can be here any time I want - and I do.

We slide into Fall

2007-10-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

It was beautiful, 82 degrees Monday. Grabbed the opportunity to get outside, on the river trail that borders the U of R campus.

U of R in the background

Looking upriver to downtown Rochester

Then it rained Tuesday and the landscape changed - at least in my backyard!

3 hours worth of work

And look, more to come!

Halloween across the street

Ghostly decorations next door

Uncle Jerry and Aunt Barbara are swinging through town to visit this weekend; we'll eat here tomorrow morning and then take Dad out later. And then I may have to throw together a costume and find a Halloween party to crash!

One more notch on the 'busy' amp; it goes to 11!

2007-10-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

I am doing too much. The house is a wreck - started putting up curtain rods in the living room (the sheer was very artfully tacked up with push pins) and the rods didn't fit so I launched out to get one that did - HOURS ago. We had been having beautiful weather; Monday it was sunny and 82 so I spent the whole day outdoors. Cold front hit so it was 60 and raining all day yesterday. Today when I set out on my errand, it started clearing up and I somehow found myself at my new fav coffee shop (thanks, Eric!) sitting on a sidewalk table reading the most Amazing Book.* Then I went to see Kathi, we had dinner, then back to her house for a bit. I got home around 9, the place is still a wreck and the paper fairy has laid down today's 4" on the dining room table but I made a beeline up to the football room with a pressing need to blog.

* Amazing book - Power Vs. Force (the hidden determinants of human behavior) by David Hawkins. I have seen the kinesis muscle testing done, believe it with all my being. And this book ties in morphogenetic fields, quantum physics, chaos theory, all great spiritual teachings into simple elegant observations such as "Force always moves against something. Power, in contrast, energizes, gives forth, supplies and supports." and "The universe holds its breath as we choose, instant by instant, which pathway to follow; for the universe, the very essence of life itself, is highly conscious." Yes, everything is one energy. Our bodies are constantly responding to our thoughts - which can be weaker power attractors, or negative. Repeated patterns of thought can cause the body to align with these - and cause disease. I'm annoting this book like crazy as it ties together other things I've read/learned, and experienced. I'm expanding exponentially to take this all in and want to be moving very fast. Trying to sit with it and let it sink in instead!

- - -

Other stuff: making plans for my first trip to northern CA to visit in over 2 years and I want to see everyone, go all of my favorite places and take lots of pictures and start planning how to spend more time there! I'm slowly getting in touch with people to mooch spare rooms, get the party started (thanks, Nancy & Peri), cap it with a sublimely life-changing time and encounters on the Big Sur coast (thanks, Pat!) I've been trying to get on left coast time by staying up to 2 and sleeping to 9; it really makes the days seem shorter. But it's not too hard to do, I may have rediscovered my natural rhythm.

- - -
What's kicking off this trip is another spirituality seminar - in Vegas of all places. The books I've been reading lately have been in preparation; and as you've read the books are blowing the top off my mind. I anticipate otherworldy great vibrations and huge personal growth from this. November 07 is going to be an amazing month in my life.

- -
A love note: to Incubus - how, how, where does your poetry come from? Best love song ever is 'Dig' on the Light Grenades CD. Your work has gotten me through some low spots and smiling out the other end. Thank you so much!

LBD happier now

2007-10-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

And so am I. The Entrepreneurs Conference at RIT was fantastic for me, and it seems like all participants and attendees were happy with it. I have met a couple students who want advice re: their current projects/business plans. Hey look at me, I'm an 'elder stateswoman'! TFC!!!! And I know that of which I speak!

I also met people in 'the community' (as opposed to working at RIT) who are business owners, VCs, etc. What a great way to get plugged in. I'm still buzzing from the day.

Oh yes, LBD, she was sad . So I wore her out to an 'networking event' a couple weeks ago. Garnered rave reviews, as appropriate! Next, out to dinner.

Gettin plugged in!

2007-10-04T14:46:00.000-07:00

So excited! Tomorrow I'm on a panel about marketing new ventures at RIT! Check out the Entrepreneurs Conference

I'm on the run tonight; more this weekend after the conference.

What does it mean to "be" Peace?

2007-09-24T15:17:00.000-07:00

In the tumult that is currently my life, I have been digging deeper into me. Maybe that's stirring up some of the turbulence. Hmmm. Anyway, I have been working on meditating, and focusing on the sayings 'As within, so without' and 'Be the change you want to see in the world'.

So I have been thinking and feeling Peace. It amazes me the new level of comprehension of my self-dialog. Man, it's no wonder the world has troubles - I keep having arguments with people in my head. And about trivial stuff, too. Anyone who's had sucess in getting the brain to move out of this mode, please share. I'm making progress but all tips and advice are welcome!

Meanwhile, this is a most excellent resource: Attract World Peace

NASCAR!!!!

2007-09-19T06:47:00.000-07:00

Here’s me at a NASCAR race, in the pit at Spencer Speedway. And I liked it! The sound the modified stock cars make as they fire up, as they are all in a pack taking a flight around the corner, rumbles through every cell in my body - in a good way. Beth’s husband has been doing racing forever. He is the crew chief for a car, goes to the races to set up the car and work with it on the weekends. He was helping out a crew at Spencer, not “his” car & driver. I took some picks of the cars and the light had fade before I realized I hadn’t taken a picture of me, so Beth obliged with her camera phone.

The car, Chuck's #4

The car that Bob crews for is closing in on the final 3 races for the season, and currently is in first place in points. Beth & I are planning to go to Connecticut to see the last race in October.

A couple weeks ago, I went over to Beth’s on a Friday night with a movie. 30 minutes in, her phone rang. “Yes. OK. OK. Sure.” She turned to me and said, “We have an active fire. I have to go!” Hilton Ladies Fire Auxiliary supports the firefighters with beverages at the scene, and food afterwards as desired. So we headed out to the fire hall, where the other ladies of the Auxiliary were gathering. There was some milling around, and Beth and I headed to the store to get bottles of water and headed out to the fire. We carried the water in past the trucks and hoses and the paramedics to the scene.

As we headed back to the fire hall, I told Beth that she has been the architect of several of my firsts this year. She said “whaat?’ I replied: “Working at the Carnival, Golfing, NASCAR, working a fire, watching a Drum Corps competition, eating a 'garbage plate' …” She said “I never thought my life was so interesting!” Maybe I can make a business out of this – I’ll jump into someone’s life and show them how interesting it really is. Hmmmm….

Final day at Yellowstone; on to the wedding!

2007-09-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

July 19, our last in the park, we split up. John & Amy headed out to take a hike. Greg, Andrea, Gavin and I puttered our way through more geothermal areas and ended up at Yellowstone Lake.

Sapphire Spring

Yellowstone Lake

We picnicked, then swam for an hour. The lake is beautiful, cool and very clear. We headed out after the swim, got hot again quickly, and Gavin crashed in the way back seat. 30 minutes up the road, we saw an animal jam up ahead. Looked to the right and saw bison in the picnic area just off the road – so I quick pulled a Uturn and into the picnic area. And Gavin woke up nose to nose with a bison. He handled that pretty well.

The bison were all over the picnic area – rubbing their rumps on picnic tables, nudging down young saplings as they scratched their chins, rolling in the dust. We spent 30 minutes cruising very slowly through the area, snapping pics.

Back onto the main road and slowly cruised through the rest of the herd. Headed up to dinner at Canyon Village, which was pretty good.

Next awesome sight was the ‘grand canyon’ of Yellowstone. We spent an hour cruising through and gawking. On the way out, we saw someone else dive to the side of the road, so we followed – and saw a wolf running through the undergrowth. We think. It was gone so quickly. That night we wanted to get to the hotel before midnight, so we headed out of the park. Stopped for one major animal jam and saw an elk with full rack, and feasted our eyes on the glory of the park on the way out for the last night.

The next day was a zoom through Idaho back to Salt Lake, to get to the pre-wedding BBQ at the Alta Lodge out of Salt Lake. And we made it. It is a darn good thing that we’d been at 8000+ feet for the previous week. We hit Alta at 10,000 feet and felt woozy and weak all over again. Alta is in a beautiful spot. We enjoyed seeing more family again and the dinner was superb. There were 100+ guests staying at the lodge.

Greg & Andrea with the Alta backdrop

The next morning, all the guests scattered – the insanely fit ones like Zoe and her finance Peter, cousins Julie and Guy went for a run (and Guy lives in Australia at sea level!) We opted for a hike up to Cecret Lake. Beautiful spot, glad I went. But man, did I get out of breath!

High meadow – is there anything more beautiful?

The lake – no swimming, too bad.

I headed back to the lodge and Steve, Colette and their son Kayden did me the honor of coming up to visit. I had known them in San Jose, they moved to Salt Lake a year before I went to Germany. It was so great to see them. I was wondering how it would be, seeing parts of my previous life. It was great!

The Wedding was to start early evening. The plan was to hike up the hill – OK, mountain, across the road to a high meadow that Peter and Zoe wanted for their ceremony. Fortunately, the landowner objected (sorry, folks!) so we all went back to our rooms to put on our pretty shoes and headed to the lower patio for the ceremony. It was beautiful and with an incredible backdrop.

The wedding was great, the reception fun. We danced outdoors until the last possible moment and then humped out suitcases up to the van for our early morning departure. The flights home were fine. Gavin & I saw Shaun White (AKA the Flying Tomato) at O’Hara. He’s very cute in person – and tiny.

Got home at 5 p.m. At 8 a.m. the next day, I started a 1-month contract for work. 2 days later, my fridge died. I am so grateful that it waited until I was back, it didn’t have much food in it but it still would have been such a mess. So I slammed into work, working at a card table and folding chair, and having to put all my food in a cooler, and borrow a cooler, and replace my fridge. Thank goodness for American shopping – I bought a fridge at 8 a.m., for deliver the next day. Try that in Germany – no way. And my house got disordered all over again, and I spent time putting it together again. This seems to be a pattern! Of course, as Ilya Prigogene uncovered, a system comes to maximum disorder just before it reorganizes at a higher level. And the level it reorders at, I believe, has a lot to do with intent. Ya just can’t tell me that chaos theory and quantum physics don’t intersect!

Now we get to Yellowstone

2007-09-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

Dining in Jackson

The next day of our trip, Tuesday July 17, we had a breakfast of sourdough pancakes at Jedidiah’s in Jackson, where they say their starter is over 100 years old. Various of us tried to explain that to Gavin. We left Jackson and headed up through the Tetons and took in the grand sights along the way. Saw a moose! We encountered a sudden, cold rain storm in the Tetons.

Beautiful scenery on the Snake river.

Yellowstone lake, and fire scar from the fires a decade ago.

We rolled in to Yellowstone through the south entrance and headed towards, of course Old Faithful.

Got there 40 minutes before she was set to blow again so we headed out on the boardwalk in that geothermal area. It was now a hot day, and we were walking where the steam and hot mud come spurting out of the ground, Andrea and I sought shade!

Greg, Amy, John & Gavin on the boardwalk.

Gavin, Greg, and Amy

After the geyser blew, we meandered back to the lodge, got ice cream. Headed to the Old Faithful Inn, as John & Amy wanted to make a dinner reservation. So we took in the grand log cabin that it is, and ended up sitting on the outside deck for Old Faithful’s next performance.

Along the way, John & Amy explained the ‘animal jams’ we’d see on the road: all the cars pulled over because someone saw something. Elk, Moose, Bison, Wolves, Coyotes: ‘CMF’ they called them, Charismatic Mega Fauna. So, if you see someone pulling over, make the dive too! The driving in the park is tricky – narrow 2 lane road with animal jams spring up out of nowhere, and the drivers are all distracted trying to spot an Elk, or a Bison.

We drove out of the park and got to our motel for the next three days. Lord, it was not good. If you’re ever in West Yellowstone (a town in Idaho just outside the western border of Yellowstone park), DO NOT stay at the Yellowstone Country Inn. My room was scary bad, including goopy stains on the wall, tacky splotches on the rug, and moldy food in the corners. I didn’t stay in the room that night. Instead, stay at the lovely Moose Creek Cabins, just next door. A world of difference. Clean, pretty, and nice innkeepers.

The next day we all got up, trooped across the street to Uncle Laurie’s for breakfast. Great place; insanely good coffee. Cold brewed, said Turtle. He grinds it medium fine, and steeps it in cold water for 16 hours. Takes the resulting tincture (or is it decoction?) and puts 2 ounces in a cup, heats it up with hot water. Absolutely wonderful coffee, no acidity or bitterness. I’m sure I ate breakfast but just remember the coffee. Afterwards, we headed in to the park. Stopped at more geothermal areas on the way.

Gavin in front of Beryl Spring

From the back, John, Greg, Andrea, Amy (maybe you can see Gavin down low)

Ended up at a picnic area for lunch (which the great folks at Uncle Lauries had packed up for us.)

The boys climbed the postpile

and then we all went swimming in the Gardner river.

Bathing Beauty

This was the first river swimming I’d done since my last camping in the Sierra – it was so great, I could feel my DNA unwinding. After we dried off, which took about 45 seconds in the 97 degree 15% humidity wind, we hit Mammoth Hot Springs on the way to the Lamar valley.

Mammoth Hot Springs Geothermal area

It’s not snow!

Lawn Elk at Roosevelt lodge.

Dinner that night was at Roosevelt Tower, and the worst in the park. Very boring, white lettuce kind of food. But the hours in the Lamar Valley afterwards more than made up for it. We drove for about 40 minutes after dinner into the valley, which kept opening up and up.

There were clouds and a distant thunderstorm. We pulled over after sharp eyes (not mine!) spotted a bison herd across the river bank. As our engines cut out and silence descended, we heard wolves calling. The left side of the valley, then an answer a few seconds later from the right. Some of us tried yipping to see if they'd answer, but they were not playing along that night.

Sunset lasts for hours there. We stood by the road as night gathered, watching the unconcerned bison browsing. John, Gavin and I walked down the bank to the river to see what we could see down there. Just an amazing view.

When it was full dark, we marveled at the stars and drank in the silence and night air for a while, then headed back to West Yellowstone as the rain started. It took 2 hours to get back to the hotel. This park is BIG.

Stepping back in

2007-09-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

Wow, It’s been a busy summer! Some months back, we got invited to cousin Zoe’s wedding in Salt Lake City, July 21st. So, in light of the past few family gatherings being to say goodbye to Mom, we decided to make this trip fun. So, on July 14th me, Greg, Andrea & Gavin piled into the car veryvery early and drove to the airport. Flew from Rochester to Chicago. Had a layover in the airport, it was fun watching Gavin see O’Hare for the first time. He handled it with equanimity, and liked the coolio rainbow neon tunnel between terminals B & C. (One of my favorite parts too.) And this was the flight in which we discovered that even if you have a flight from Rochester that’s flight # 217, and the flight from Chicago to Salt Lake is also # 217, you still have to change terminals and gates!

We got to Salt Lake just after lunchtime. Piled into a rental minivan, and headed to Evanston, Wyoming to meet up with brother John & his wife Amy. We did meet up, and that night had the delightful experience of going to the Evanston Rodeo. Hotter than Hades, and the rodeo performers were going all out. It was a quintessential American scene – the sun going down over the stadium, the riders kicking up dust.

Calf roping

Bareback rider, entertaining

Bull riding

During the ‘intermission’, they had 2 events for the kids in the audience. One was a ‘bunny scramble’. 3 rabbit wranglers brought out bunnies, and the kids all lined up on the opposite side of the arena.

The kids

The rabbits were struggling and kicking in the hand of their wranglers. (And Gavin commented that they had ‘sharp pointy teeth’, making the right hand motion; we’d just seen Monty Python and The Holy Grail the week before!) A whistle blew, the kids raced forward as the goal was to grab a rabbit, the wranglers let the bunnies down – and they promptly froze in place. The kids are racing, screaming towards them and you could just see the rabbits thinking: “if I don’t move, they can’t see me!”
The kids are getting closer and louder and closer and screaming and the bunnies wouldn't move. I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. I still get a fit of giggles just thinking about it.

frozen rabbits

And the evening ended with the young girls barrel racing. It was so amazing to see a mite of a girl, maybe 8 years old, racing her horse around the barrels going hellbent for leather. They were so tiny!

The next day, we headed out to Jackson, Wyoming. Took our time getting there, stopping at Fossil Butte, a superb national park, and location where Dad’s framed fossil fish came from.

Fossil Butte

John & Andrea in front of a large slab of fossil fish

After browsing in the museum for a couple hours (what can I say, one geologist and a couple geology geeks among us) we continued on to Jackson and checked into the condo at the Snow King resort, and got to the square in time for the shootout; which sadly, they don’t do on Sundays.

Elk Antler arches at the square in Jackson

So we headed out to dinner. The next day, we got up and headed up to the resort and did the Alpine slide. Fun! We all spread out until about 3, met back at the condo to get dressed and headed out to the white water rafting trip. Whoo Hoo! Rafting on the Snake River that evening included a riverside dinner. Gavin got to ‘ride the bull’, sat up on the front of the 16-person raft for a couple of the class 1 stretches of the river. It was beautiful gliding along.

... to be continued.

I'm on a business trip!

2007-07-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Oh dear readers,
I am so excited I'm practically squeaking. I have just shopped at a Whole Foods for the first time in over 2 years. I almost teared up at the beauty of the jewel-like produce, the friendly face creams, the organic meats, the luscious deli counter all spread out for my perusal. The Universe is talking to me ...

Some weeks back I recieved an email from someone I worked with, back in California. He had been contacted by some folks who wanted him to consult with them about their product strategy. Well, he's too busy launching his own new venture so he thought I might do the job. We have talked for a bit, and yesterday I flew to the Dulles airport (DC area), rented a car, drove to the hotel and this morning started an exploratory 3 days with the good folks at Content Analyst in Reston, VA.

Wow - how stinkin cool. A business trip! A plane flight! A rental car! And I navigated it all with ease & grace.

I am so happy to be doing this again. I'm blogging to you from the Staybridge Suites in Chantilly, VA. I noticed today, leaving Content Analyst to go out to dinner with the crew (a business dinner!! Steak and Cab Sauv!!!) that my rental car is sporting California plates. The Universe is talking to me ...

Of course before I came here I Googled & Yahooed and found what's in the area. Whole Foods! What a treat. I will probably go back tomorrow and stock up on the things I can't find at Wegmans.

This area is great, LOTS of people! It looks so suburban and serene at 10 p.m. 8:30 this morning was a whole nother level. I thought 30 minutes would be plenty of time to go 7.8 miles. HAH! Took 40! But they are people in motion. There's energy here. Stores. Lots of well dressed people driving nice cars. Much different from Rochester. The Universe is talking to me ...

I am still planning on staying in Rochester for at least another year. But I think I cannot stay there full time. It's just too darn slow. So, I am working on getting up and running so I can at least spend months of the year elsewhere. I will admit, yesterday, just before leaving Roch, it was a hot day (95+) and I spent time in the pool. That was fine.

And, I am loving my little house. I have gotten the place set up again. With everything that happened late May, I didn't really get the place back in order after they replaced the floor. But Maggie was making a sweep through New York, and stayed with me on last Saturday night. So, bit by bit, I got the place rearranged and cleaned up. Saturday morning I looked around and thought, "Huh. Looks good." Here are some pics.

My little black dress is sad

2007-07-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

We need to cheer up my little black dress. I bought it in Munich, it looks great on me and I pictured taking it out to dinner, sipping wine, dancing in my wicked Italian shoes.

Sigh. Since I've been back in the States, it's only been to 2 funerals. My friend Judy's Mom died a couple weeks ago and her memorial service was last Monday.

I will set my intent to find some 'chums' as my UK friends would say, to go out to the nice restaurants here and get my dress the exposure that it deserves.

Hot summer night

2007-06-25T22:00:00.001-07:00

Finally! Summer! Almost full moon, 90 degrees. LOVE nights like this.

Great day - got lots of tasks done early, went to a foreign film downtown, 'Tony Takitani'; oh such a mood! and emotion! go see it! and before the movie, Tanya & I picked up a gorgeous doctor at the coolio coffee house up the street from the theater, dragged him to the movie with us, out for drinks after. Fun fun fun, even though he's into Tanya not me. But he was veryverypolite, so gets points. And he's from another country so even more points.

Beth, the enthusiast, has me golfing. She's in a league and needed a partner for when her regular partner was in calls in the evening. So, 2 weeks ago I golfed on a course for the first time. I SUUUUCCKED! Have taken a couple lessons and my swing is improving and am actually looking forward to playing again on Wednesday. Here's photographic proof, albeit not the best quality (and Beth apologizes for cutting off my legs.)

The pool is clear again, we had a bit of trouble as the previous dwellers in my house put the pool away dirty; may the lice of a thousand camels invade their bedclothes. But it looks great now and I look forward to splashing in it tomorrow.

Life is turning up again, I'm having fun with friends and family. Great start to summer and this week is just going to be amazing.

My life is settling down again

2007-06-19T05:39:00.000-07:00

Well dear readers, it has been a hell of a couple months. I have promised myself I will write up the experience of Mom in the nursing home, and then home to die, just because it was an amazing chapter in my life. (Hers too! A toast to transitions!) But later.

Some months ago I had registered for a seminar June 7 - 9 in Chicago, figuring whatever was happening I'd need a break by then. I'm so glad I did. We were absolutely pounded from May 29th - June 1st, putting together Mom's memorial service (it was the afternoon of the 1st). Even though her death was coming, and we could see it coming, we still were scrambling to get things together. Brother John & his wife Amy had made it in for Memorial Day weekend, so they got to see her just before she died. They stayed with me, necessitating the set up of the guest room and getting the place back together after clearing everything out of the ground floor, to get new floors on May 21 and 22. Memorial Day weekend, I slept on an air mattress in my bedroom, as I had been sleeping on the day bed, which is the guest bed (it has a trundle mattress so sleeps 2 just fine.) Well after Mom died, they zoomed home to work like crazy and get back up for the memorial service. We pulled together the service and I bought a bed (yay, Sam's Club) because sleeping on the floor? So not part of my lifestyle anymore unless I'm camping - and as the weather was getting warmer had to deal with the pool.

Side note: I must have been crazy buying a house. Ya know all that advice about not doing anything big right after a life changing transition like divorce? ... Ya should pay attention to that. At least I think I've been amusing the neighbors as I struggle my way through tasks that really need two people. Thank the Universe that they're kind and have been able to help me start the lawn mower, lend me extension cords to get the pool filter running, etc. Watching me figure out how to vacuum the pool must have been a riot!

The memorial service on June 1 went splendidly. We had anticipated having maybe 20 people, as Mom & Dad really left their old life a couple years ago when they moved to their assisted living place. So we picked the small chapel at the memorial park. Mom was cremated, so we planned some picture boards and a simple talk. The people at the memorial park moved us to the big chapel, as it was closer to her niche (for the 'inurnment'. Seriously, that's a word.) And it turned out to be good that we moved because 60 or so people showed up. There was a bus from Crimson Ridge, where Dad lives, discharging 10 people with walkers as we pulled up. 10 or so people from the library, where Mom had worked until she retired in 2000 came. Old neighbors were there, old coworkers of Dad, Mom's sister Pattie, her husband Bernie and my cousins Chris & Jeff made it in - from Florida and Ohio. Dad's brother Jerry, his wife Barbara and their eldest, cousin Julie, her husband Matt and their daughter Naomi made it in from New Hampshire. It was great to see everyone and Dad was very pleased with the event, which is all that really matters.

Monday after the service, Andrea and I started working the finances again. Whole new set of things to do. We did that for 2 days. Then I just went limp for a day. Thursday the 7th, I was sitting the the Rochester airport, waiting on my flight to Chicago. Started working up a real good pity party for me. Tears and everything. I seem to cry in that airport with every flight, lately. Anyhow, thank God I went to that seminar. Hear in your mind the sound of a needle screetching across a record - riiiipp - put an end to that wallow in self pity in a hurry. It was James Rays Harmonic Wealth weekend. Part rah rah James Ray show, mostly great information, many experiential exercises. I got lots of insights into my 'programming' and started really thinking about my mindset and thoughts. What a superb gift to myself. It was intense, too - started at 8 a.m. Friday, went til about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, picked back up at 8 a.m. Saturday, went til 12:30 a.m. Sunday.

I've been steeped in my revelations and working to redirect my life for the past of week. More on that to come, as well as pictures of my little houseen. I did have the ground floors redone on May 21 and 22nd, adding to the general chaos of my life at that time. But they are beautiful and odor-free! Now when I come downstairs in the mornings I smile at the beauty instead of wrinkling my nose at the doggy smell. I've gotten on top of lawn mowing, and can pretty reliably start up the mower when I want. The pool is starting to clear. The previous dwellers in this house didn't put it away clean - imagine that - and I've fished out 3 toys, 1 pair of swim goggles and several bushels of oak leaves so far. Hope to have it clear soon, as it's starting to feel like summer.

Well, gotta go now to my golf lesson, lovey. Do tell the manservant to have the cocktails cold by the time I get home.

the world has changed

2007-05-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

Mom died at around 5 a.m. this morning.

It has been amazing to see how strong the human body can be. She took no food since May 18th, and no water since May 19th. We honored her health care proxy and did not force anything on her - and, why? We knew she was dying of dementia/Parkinsons. She didn't. And, so she kept going on. At one point her lungs filled up (perversely, this is a reaction to dehydration) but they cleared with some medication that the hospice nurse recommended that we get. (yay Hospice - what a great help they were.) Her last couple days were gentle, she was taking shallow breaths and we think this morning they just stopped. She looked very much the same as she had when Greg checked on her this morning and found that she was no longer breathing. Calm, no pain. Again, yay Hospice.

I'm a whirlstorm of emotion. i did not have what i would consider a good relationship with this woman. she was pretty unhappy, chronically dissatisfied - i remember one week in high school that started with her bitching at me because I was not at home much, so i stayed home and the week ended with her bitching at me for being home too much. This on top of 5+ years of constant criticism and verbal abuse. And she never asked me why I moved 3,000 miles away.

So, to the giver of my life and shredder of my self esteem and giver of emotional pain - farewell. Hope you have a better life next time. Hope you learned what you needed to, this time. Hope you are finally happy and at peace.

There's gotta be a better way!

2007-05-05T07:59:00.000-07:00

Hoo boy. I am sitting at Greg & Andrea's right now, on duty as a home health aid. We brought Mom out of the nursing home here on Monday evening. It's been a very long & tiring week. Fortunately, we have gotten some excellent support from a home-care agency. Lucy, the physical therapist who has been here a couple times actually worked with Mom when she was still in dementia care, 5 months ago. Lucy spotted right away that Mom is no longer turning her head. And Lucy is a magician with a sheet and soaker pad - we have learned how best to move, position, transfer and change Mom. The problem is bending over the bed. Well, if you put your knee up on the bed, it saves your back. Doh! But it took Lucy coaching us for us to get it. It is taking me time to get used to that - because I would never have gotten on Mom's bed. And the early childhood training kicks in automatically. I made a note "Knee ON bed!" and posted it as a reminder.

I would much rather be out on a bike, it's a beautiful day. I am sandwiching in doing my things early in the morning or late at night - mowing the lawn 20 minutes at a time, shopping at Wegmans at 9 p.m. (thank everything for a great 24-hour grocery store! Now if they'd only add in a wine & spirits section I'd be all set.) I am working hard to not default to junk food in front of the TV when I get home at night. I worked out instead, yesterday evening, and am quite proud of that. And this weekend is an anomaly - Greg is sailing with one of Andrea's sisters & her husband, if he was here she & I could have time to get out.

* * *

I am now tasked with ripping out the carpet in the downstairs of my little houseen. With the warm weather, the dog smell is rising. Ugh. I can't even eat in my dining room these days. (Hmm, that helps not eating in front of the TV ... no, no, it's gotta get fixed.) I had wanted to wait until I started pulling income to replace the floors but I revised that decision as I found the smell was making me quite unhappy with the house. So last week I sailed into a flooring store, picked out some beautiful laminate by Armstrong, a superiorly environmental company, and scheduled install on May 21. In addition to pulling out the carpet, I thought I was also going to demo the tile in the kitchen and hall myself. Tried it. That is so not happening by my hands & arms. I can get the tile out, no problem. But the 'concrete board' underneath - no way. It seems quite pathetic - I have been working hard at gaining strength - I can see muscles in my arms when I'm not even "pumped". But man, I just don't have the strength for this! So, I'm paying expert strong people to do it. And they'll haul it away too.

The house is maybe 800 sq ft on the ground floor, and it currenty has 5 different flooring surfaces: carpet in the DR/LR, tile in the kitchen, different tile in the hallway and different tile in the powder room. It's all going to get unified, and I am anticipating that making the place look bigger. Plus it will get rid of those stupid trip-you-up wood strips that cover the transition from each different surface to its neighbor.

* * *
I have started using my 'all-you-can-call' telephone service to connect with friends in California. I had a great conversation with Pat. She has taken a job at Esalen, and is living on site. I plan to make a visit there - it's a beautiful spot on the planet, and now dedicated to spiritual explorations and learning. Our conversation rambled, we were talking about me getting settled in my place. I mentioned that I had bought the book 'Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life'; it's a great guide to Feng Shui. Pat says, excitedly, "Oh I love that book! I have it! I've Feng Shui'ed my yurt!" I had to stop and tell her that only she, in California, at Esalen, could have said that sentance - "I have Feng Shiu'ed my yurt" ... absolutely delightful.

* * *
Two weekends ago I went on a long overdue girl's weekend. It actually was less than 24 hours. Beth and I drove east, Maggie drove west and we met in Saratoga Springs about 3 on Friday afternoon. Beth had found us a place that offered a spa package, 3 people, one night stay and a massage each. It was great to get together, we hadn't been all together for fun since college. We all came prepared - we had 3 bottles of wine, limoncello and one bottle of champagnge between us. Oh yes, we brought apples and crackers and cheese and water too. We were planning on a great time. Started the reunion with our massages, planned to hang out afterwards, get dinner then go out. Note to self - have a massage some other day, instead of the day you plan to go out! We were all so tired, we crashed at about 11. We strolled through the town of Saratoga Springs the next morning, shopped a bit, ate lunch then got back on the road at about 2. So short that it hardly seemed like we'd done it. But it was great to get together and catch up.

* * *
I just changed Mom and then fed her breakfast. This is weird, hard, wonderful, horrifying and incredibly moving all at the same time. Words fail I.

Pastiche - Or - The Sticky Sweet Smell of ... Dog????

2007-04-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

Well, many thoughts.

I saw Nancy on Monday, in Trumansberg NY. Too wonderful! It had been 2 years since I saw her face in person, great to hang out. She took me into Ithaca, and I will go back. Fun, funky town and I had not been for some years. On the way, we stopped in Taughannock Falls - and I have this pic as proof!

She and I talked about life in California, her business (FullCalendar.com), our elderly parents. She said something that resonated with me - her parents think she's the same age and capability as them. So does my Dad! He'll say to me "Carole, I don't want you to have to walk that long hallway, so I'll meet you at the door." and I'm like, Dude! I walk 5 miles a day!!! (unfortunate lapse into ValleySpeak, but it illustrates the point.)He thinks I have the same (severely deteriorated) capabilities that he does. So Nancy's story tells me that this is an 'old parent' think, not just an old person thing. Note to Self.

...

So I'm going to move up the schedule on replacing the flooring on the ground floor of the house. I want to Greg & Andreas' over the weekend, to help with getting ready to bring Mom there (!!!) and also to borrow the carpet cleaner. I was sure that the last time my carpet was cleaned (by Greg, yay for brothers!) that he didn't rinse and I was smelling carpet shampoo. Well, they had just done a rug in their house, and the smell of the shampoo was not the same. Hmmm. Greg said, "That sticky sweet smell? That's dog pee!" EEEUW!!! I had lived with a dog, long ago, but she didn't pee in the house. So I shampooed and rinsed twice and the smell is still there. That's it, the floors are getting redone. I had wanted to wait until I had earned some income this life but I can't even eat in my dining room as the smell is rising with the warming weather.

...

Another fun thing I did this weekend was fight with Microsoft Works, Word and Excel. Andrea is the secretary for the Grandview Heights neighborhood association, and she is trying to get the newsletter out (while getting ready to move Mom into her house !!!) So I was trying to get old excel files to do a mail merge to print labels out. She's only got MS Works, and it didn't. So I ran back home, got my laptop, ran back to her place and set it up. Converted the names file into excel and finally figured out the mail merge. Had to install her printer drivers, and it brought my laptop to its knees three times. Needed a hard reset to get going again. But finally, we have labels. And I need to get a desktop machine. I want an OSX Mac. Again, was wanting to wait for income before I splashed out for the new computer. Oh well.

...

At least I have been having lots of fun pushing metal around in the gym. That, plus Yoga plus the crazy busy days have led to my new jeans purchase. My Lucky jeans, size 10, were from before I went to Germany. A bit large so I went to replace them a couple weeks ago. Lord & Taylor in Eastview Mall carries that brand and I got a replacement. Here I am, wearing my size FOUR Lucky Jeans!!! Whoo hoo!!

Still winter in Rochester

2007-04-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

But we are getting a break - there is a bit of slush in places but we have had no significant accumulation from this big storm. Good - because I am NOT shoveling snow again this year!

I am starting to find more things to do here. I have a lot of energy to get out of the house. I went to Happy Hour on Friday, and the Opera on Saturday - there's a world-class music school here, the Eastman School of Music. They put on Bellini's 'Capuleti e i Montecci', his Romeo & Juliette story. Beautifully staged, wonderfully sung. But I left at intermission. All the repetitive declaiming - She sings: O Romeo! My father will kill you! while Romeo sings: Oh Guiletta! I love you! Come with me! while her father sings: O Tybaldo! marry Guiletta and be my son! while Tybalt sings: Today I will marry Guiletta! Hah! death to Romeo! over and over and over. So when I am bored out of my mind and about to lapse into helpless giggles over the tedious earnestness of it all, it's time to leave.

I had a dinner guest on Sunday – my first non-family member. I met Bo in Munich, he’s Cita’s husband, I met her though the Ladies International Association. She was on the trip to France in the fall.

Well, the company that Bo works for in Munich has an office here in Rochester, and he was here for work, for the first time, this past week and next. We hooked up on the phone Sunday, after I was at a morning Yoga class. I said I’m drive downtown, where he was staying, to meet for dinner or he could come to my place and I’d make dinner here. He said yes, he’d come to my place. Yikes!!! it was about 1:15 p.m. I scrambled into the shower and zoomed to Wegmans to gather ingredients. I didn’t even stop to make a list. I was concentrating so fiercely on what I needed to get that I didn’t really see if there were other people in the store. I hope I wasn’t frowning! I was in & out in 30 minutes, back home by 3 to get dinner together by 5, when Bo was due. Well, as Rachel Ray says, I took a little help from the store. I made a great salad and chicken pot pie. Bought a chocolate cake. Thank goodness I had vacuumed the house the day before, and it was pretty well picked up.

Bo arrived and we had a great evening. It was so good to see him and absolutely wonderful to have a visceral reminder that yes, I did live in Munich. I had lost the sense of that recently. I am finding my center again as it’s been tossed about by all the change in my life. Not to mention proximity and almost daily contact with parents. Into my email box recently dropped this wonderful quote: “If you think you are spiritual and enlightened … go spend a week with your parents!” by Ram Dass. Ah yes. And I am getting much better and more patient with Dad. He’s mentally declining too, in part due to the Vicodin he’s taking for joint pain. Mom, she’s not even coherent anymore so it’s very easy for me to sit with her.

With the parents situation right now, I need to keep my schedule open, so no JOB. I will start looking for clients and smaller projects that I can do from home, so that I can keep driving Dad around as necessary, and helping Andrea with Mom. Oh, yes, here’s the latest plan: We're bringing Mom to Greg & Andrea's house on April 30th. It's just too much money for the care she gets - no meds, just feeding, changing, cleaning. Andrea would rather be getting paid for that than writing a $9K check each month to the nursing home. I will help out, of course. I'll relieve Andrea so she can do her life stuff, and I'll get Gavin out of the house for fun.

And I'll keep building my new life.

Small victories

2007-04-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

I had not been working on the house much, but got galvanized last week to tidy up and resume painting. I have painted the upstairs bathroom, ceiling included, and replaced the lights that were there. The previous lights were a non-delightful pitted cheap brass. So went to Home Depot, got lights, a replacement vent fan for the bathroom to replace the one that sounds like a jet engine, an outside door to replace the one that is sticking/rusting and ripping apart, a set of plastic shelving to replace the wooden ones in the garage in the way of the door replacement (so they'll have to come down) and *poof!* another $500 transferred from my care to theirs. Amazing how quickly that happens.

I have been haunting the local Freecycle, but always seem to be too late to get an item that's offered. Oh well, garage sale season will soon be upon us. I have also been scoring some great clothes at the local Goodwill, I needed jeans and they had 'em!

I did have my sister-in-laws clan over after Easter brunch. 15 people in the house - I don't know how we all fit, but we did. It was great to see. It SNOWED that morning, so we were all inside. Greg had brought over some plastic chairs; good thing or we'd have been sitting on the floor. There are a couple little nieces, and they found it great fun to run around and around with Gavin chasing and/or hiding from them. Miraculously, no one got hurt.

I have been busy and getting busier. Not sure how that's happening, but some of it is the great Yoga classes. The gym I joined started offering 5 Yoga classes a week on March 12th, and I have been to most of them. Plus I'm doing weight training. Gotta keep up the body that Mike built. I'm skimping on the cardio a bit, hoping I can get out on a bicycle soon.

Time to get to the gym and push some metal around!

Things looking up

2007-04-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

Even though winter has returned - 26 degrees overnight, with a dusting of snow plus short snow squalls today - I am starting to feel better about being here. last night, at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) I attended a lecture entitled "Life is a Gnarly Computation". Who wouldn't attend with a title like that? How cool! The speaker was Rudy Rucker, a math professor and cyberpunk author, currently teaching at San Jose State! Doh! never saw him in the Bay area. The talk was great, and I am still puzzling over the concept of deterministic yet unpredictable computations. More at Rudys blog.

I have also met a couple of chums to go out with, have been to some local clubs both with them and by myself. The trick of getting to know the bouncers/doormen is time-tested, still working. It makes me comfortable in a club if I know someone knows me and I can go chat with them if I want. Plus, it turns out that a 'hello' from one, passed on to another can get the passer of the greeting into a club for free!

As winter is back, and I've been motivated by the liklihood of my brother's in-laws coming over to see the place after easter brunch, I have been working on the house again. I'm currently in between coats of ceiling paint in the second floor bathroom.

Here are a few before pics of the house:

Kitchen into Dining Room Before

Dining Room Before

Dining Room Before

Dining room into Kitchen

Don't have a saw? Use a drill!!

The view from my "office". Only the carpet has changed. I'm ignoring the American Football theme for now.

Signing On

2007-03-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

Back in the U.S. long enough to be absolutely disgusted with the news and politics. Must turn to other things for amusement and relief. How about working on the new house? In progress. But since the initial blast to paint and get rid of the "country cheap" decor I find I'm not so interested in spending time working on the place. (I learned a lot in Munich, maybe I'm an apartment girl at heart.) So the all electrical sockets are still exposed, and I still have painting to do. The downstairs carpet now smells both of dog and the carpet shampoo, now that it's warming up a bit. I may need to rip that out and put flooring down.

And when I say "I", I mean throw down the plastic and pay strong knowledgable people to do the work. Man, am I undereducated. I was so happy to have put up a single mini-blind yesterday. Took me 45 minutes, and I was just taking out the old brackets and then putting the new ones in over the same holes. First, the wrong screwdriver in the lovely power drill that my brother gave me as a housewarming present. The heavy, hard-to-use power drill. Once I got the right attachment in, it kept flying itself right out of the screws. And thumping against the window glass in the process. So I cranked 'em out by hand. Pissed me off, so I tried again to use the power tool to screw in the new brackets. Worked for 2 out of 4 screws. By now my arms are ready to fall off. (You hold a 3 pound drill overhead for 20 minutes and see what happens!)But it was finally done, yay me.

I need a new door from the garage into the house. The current steel-covered door is rusting and sticking. I got a book from the library to read up on this process. Was exposed to a whole new vocabulary like King Studs and Jack studs and Brickwork. Studs, I know I need. Shit. I don't know how people learn this stuff but I am in awe of the skill needed to build a house. And in despair of trying to do any of this myself. I'm hella good at painting and cleaning, but the rest? Better get back to work so I can pay experts.

I have been running around like crazy, taking Dad to visit Mom and to his doc appts and getting things for his place; going to the mediator to get the legal separation agreement crafted; going to the gym; buying paint batteries power strips hoses washers for hoses roller covers small drill bits sandpaper grass seed extension cords light bulbs - Home Depot is loving me; helping with the folks finances; visiting Mom; dealing with the nursing home she's in, who seems to think we (the family) don't know Mom and that Mom really would prefer to be sat in her chair in front of a blaring TV under bright florescent lights in a huge open room with random people walking by for hours a day.

Again, thank the Universe for Andrea, who has led the charge to fight for some peace & quiet and pain relief for Mom each day. Last meeting we had with the nursing home staff, the pretzel logic they used was amazing. They tell us that they ask Mom if she's in pain and she doesn't say so. They ASK a woman in the end stages of SEVERE DEMENTIA if she's in pain. Mom will eat her napkin if you don't grab it away from her. So we say, her right knee is swollen and hot and before her stroke on New Year's Eve she was complaining of pain every day. And, when that stroke took her to the Emergency Dept, and they took a CAT scan, they were also so alarmed by the arthritis in her neck that they slapped a cervical collar on her immediatly and wouldn't move her without it. Oh, the staff says, we'll look to see if she's exhibiting any pain and will give her more pain meds if we see something. The fact that she's holding herself immobile and stiff in her chair might indicate that she's in pain, but she doesn't say she's in pain... Well after a couple go rounds here we think the staff is being more attentive. I hope that Mom isn't in pain, but we just don't know.

Dad's now on a Vicodin-like substance to combat his pain. This makes him woozy and he's not tracking things well at all any more. Being with him for lots of time is reminding me just how unattached he is to human beings. Get him talking about Gingko trees or fossils and he lights up and talks for hours. But people, not so much. It turns out it was big news to him that Mom was severly critical of me for my entire adolescence. He was shocked - shocked, he said, to hear of it. Enough of it happened at the dinner table, with him present. I think he just tuned it out. So I'm plumbing the depths of that old pain. Whee.

And the whole divorce thing/being single is really sucking too. I know it's just the change and I will be fine but right now I'm having way too many dinners that consist of wine and Fritos with a chocolate chaser. Looking for healthier coping devices. Spending 2 hours a day in the gym as it is. Hoping that the weather turning warmer will be a boost.

Well, that's cathartic. Hope I haven't bummed you out beyond words. I promise pics soon, I got a device that should help me get the pics off the Camera onto the computer.