Last Weekend of Freedom

This is it, my last 60 hours of freedom before I get sucked back into the mayhem called HR. I know, it sounds like a quiet, low key job right? NOT! I have decided though, after being off for 2 months, that my New Year's resolution is to keep it under control. I think the best way to do that is to be sure I keep track of all to dos, delegate consistently, say no when appropriate and plan ahead as far as possible. I have some great help waiting for me back at the office so I'm confident I'll be successful in this resolution and it will transition into habit by the end of the year so next year I can commit to something different. I was pretty successful in keeping my 2007 resolutions so I am confident I can do this.

So how will I spend my last few hours of freedom? Today I'm going out to lunch with my girlfriend then running some fun errands. This evening another girlfriend is coming over to review a plant fundraiser with me to plan for a beautiful yard then we're going to watch the Jane Austen Book Club together over Chinese food.

Tomorrow I have a lovely foot and leg massage with my daughters,

dinner at a great Cuban restaurant to celebrate my baby's 28th birthday now that she's back from her lengthy eastern European vacation,

and to my oldest daughter's after to complete the celebration.


Sunday I'm hoping to see baby boy at some point and I'm going to a lovely piano concert by Michael Allen Harrison at the Grotto in the evening with a girlfriend.

Then it's back to the grind...

Poker Face

I have one of those faces people read very easily, sometimes far too easily. This would obviously be a problem when playing poker but it has its advantages and disadvantages at other times too.

If I am excited about something you can read it on my face, in my body language, even in my voice. Sometimes, this level of passion can overwhelm who I'm talking to, especially if they are an senior executive, who like for their worlds to be calm, even keeled and factual. That was a lesson early on.

Because I'm such an open book, everyone I interact with knows what I like and what I don't like. Sometimes that's okay, sometimes a little more mystery would be better.

On the other hand if I am reserved, and that passion doesn't shine through, people assume I'm ill or don't care about the subject at hand.

I know that at my age the chances of me learning to approach things differently are slim at best. So, regardless of how I feel or what is going on with me, I have learned to represent issues or requests consistently, inserting passion if necessary to "sell" the concept.

And yes, I'm lousy at poker for those exact same reasons. If I'm sitting on a full house, I'm sure the entire table knows before my turn ever happens. I guess that's why I prefer the slots where facial expressions are immaterial. But no, I still rarely win.

Yes, Smoking Will Kill You

There was an author on tv this morning who wrote a book called "Ending the Tobacco Holocaust". He said that tobacco companies have increased the level of nicotine another 11% in cigarettes over the last 5 years. Basically he said they have used an ammonia compound to "free base" the nicotine, causing it to enter your bloodstream faster and result in a faster addiction. He compared it to the process that takes cocaine to crack, which is much more lethal.

I was thinking last night about my dad who used to smoke Lucky Strikes. He even wore the cardboard pack rolled up in his t-shirt sleeve, just like Fonzie. He went so far as to flick his ashes into the cuffs of his pants. And, I was sick with asthma the majority of my childhood.

Of course the doctors in the day insisted it was all psychosomatic so I spent night after night sitting on the couch trying to get my breath or when I got older, overdosing myself with asthma medicine to try to cut through the sense of drowning you get when under attack.

As they always say, the smoker has to want to quit before they will ever be successful. In my dad's case, he had smoked about 30+ years when my 13 year younger little sister finally got through to him. However, even when he was resolved to do it, he was unsuccessful until he underwent hypnotism. Knowing my skeptical dad, I am still amazed he would even try it. The fact that he did really demonstrates how desperate he was.

On the other hand, my husband's dad had smoked forever and finally had to have quadruple heart bypass. Everyone in the family smoked at that point and they all agreed over his bed in the hospital they were going to quit. Nevertheless, only one out of the five actually quit and that was my husband, that includes his dad who died within 10 years of emphysema and cancer. I'll never forget him laying there with oxygen, smoking. And his wife and youngest son still smoke. Not only that, his granddaughter just started smoking (age 27) even after watching the end of his life.

Humans have an amazing ability to deny their mortality. To me that is the definition of addiction.

Life Goes On

Isn't it interesting that no matter how significant of an event occurs here or anywhere, the rest of life simply goes on and on? When the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up, life went on. When Elvis died, life went on. When John Glenn walked on the moon, life went on. When the Vietnam war raged, life here went on. When a new, sweet baby is born, life goes on. While presidential candidates are busy painting each other in a negative light, life goes on. When some huge natural disaster occurs anywhere in the world, life goes on elsewhere and indeed it goes on at the site of the tsunami, the hurricane, the avalanche, the flood or the wildfire as well.

It all gets back to that pesky, intangible, speeding phenomenon called time. The seconds keep ticking into minutes, into hours, into days, weeks, months, years and so on. You can't capture it, you can turn it backward, you can't divert it, you can't change it and you can't stop it.

I have to say though, stories with plots that somehow overcome the essence or concept of time in some way like The Time Traveler's Wife or Timeline or The Time Machine are intriguing, even Terminator, mainly because it would open up a whole new world.

Of course that doesn't necessarily mean it would be a better world, just different. I think this is one of those cases where fiction is probably much better and safer that fact. Still, it's fun to imagine...

Fun In Your Job

I know there are people who love their jobs but how often do you actually witness it? On the cable channels, TLC and HGTV, I would say the majority of the hosts and program support staff love what they do. Right now I'm watching "Clean Sweep", and their imagination and energy clearly demonstrates how much fun they have in these episodes. It makes these shows very fun to watch.

Cesar Milan loves working with people and their dogs on "The Dog Whisperer" and his clients are very amazed and appreciative when he helps them to fix their problem pets. He has become quite the phenomenon and appeals to all generations.

John Stewart and Stephen Colbert both appear to be in their element as they blast politicians, other well known individuals and simply the status quo. I think the same thing is true with the co-hosts on The View although some of them have some pretty spirited discussions.

But job appreciation isn't relegated only to those who happen to be famous. I think each of us have encountered individuals who were genuinely happy to be doing what they're doing. And our experience is so much better when that's the case.

I guess what I'm saying is if you have the chance to do what you've always wanted to do, don't hesitate, don't make excuses, don't think you don't deserve it, just do it.

A Littile Further Down Memory Lane

I have so many great memories of my childhood, I might as well capture them here. Starting with the early stuff, here are some of my flashbacks.

Being tricked into going into the bedroom with our grandmother to change her clothes after work on Christmas Eve and just missing Santa every single darned time. Front door slamming, cool gifts standing in front of the tree, bells jingling, the whole nine yards...

Climbing the huge tree in my grandparents front yard, along with my sister and the boys next door so many times it's trunk was smooth. I can't imagine how I was able to hang from the lowest branch for a half hour at a time...

Running around my grandparent's front yard capturing beautiful butterflies in a jar then not understanding why they kept dying...

Making myself sick on Grammie's raspberries when she asked us to pick them out in her patch (I did the same thing when my mom asked me to pick peas, I was lucky if the bottom of the bowl was still covered by the time I got in the house...

Dreading gathering eggs from the excessively stinky chicken house because those hens hammered away at your hands, those are their eggs, and the rooster will chase you just because...

Playing darts with Grandad out in the woodshed...

Popping popcorn over the fireplace during our one and only hurricane...

Trying to trick Grandad into watching anything on tv but Saturday Night Wrestling all to no avail. I think our record was 20 minutes before he caught on (or pretended to catch on)...

Making superhighways in our sandbox with scads of water and rubber cars. There would be 10 kids around it at any point in time, we had created a virtual community by the time we were done...

Playing in the neighbor's 8-9 foot high cedar and laurel hedge for hundreds of hours over the years. We had great hideouts in the middle and probably eventually killed the hedge for all I know. We actually used the laurel leaves as tickets for whomever was playing police person to give to those of us riding by on our bikes, for any number of questionable reasons...

Listening to our white cat fall down the chimney one morning and then watching her walk out coal black except for her eyes, like she meant to do it all along...

Burying our parakeet, Pretty Bird, one morning before school after he was found flat on his back in his cage that morning...

Singing and dancing for countless hours while listening to our massive collection of 33 1/3 or 78 rpm yellow, red and black records in our room and subsequently in our new family room...


Learning on a BlueBird tour of the local radio station that Doris Day and Frank Sinatra did not actually stand at a microphone and sing their songs right there on Tillamook soil, very disillusioning...

Listening to all the wolf whistles of the warehouse men when we went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory to see my dad, and being excessively embarrassed...

Pretending we were horses running (galloping) around the yard with bandannas tucked into the back of our pants (I guess all we needed were tails to be real horses)...

Standing out at the very edge of the driveway to watch for the first signs of the Tillamook County Fair starting once the Ferris Wheel was erected...

And there's more where this came from. It probably sounds like a very naive and innocent time and it truly was...no computers, no video games, no Halloween scares, no worry about baking your own goodies for school, no problem with wandering around the neighborhood for hours on end, no concerns about calling a holiday a holiday, you catch my drift...

The Rest of the Holiday Story

And here are the holiday origins for most of the holidays in the second half of the year.

July 4th, Independence Day, celebrates the Declaration of Independence also called Fourth of July. This could also be called the fireworks holiday since they always provide the evening climax.

First Monday in September, Labor Day, celebrates the achievements of workers and the labor movement, and of course it marks the unofficial end of summer.

Second Monday in October, Columbus Day, honors Christopher Columbus, traditional discoverer of the Americas. Of course, this would only be the case for those who don't know the Americas were really discovered by Amerigo Vespucci previous to that. But there is no holiday set aside for him so forget it, we'll carry on the charade.

November 11, Veteran's Day, honors all veterans of the United States armed forces. A traditional observation is a moment of silence at 11 AM remembering those who fought for peace. (Commemorates the cease-fire in the 1918 armistice which was scheduled for "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.") This has certainly grown to include veterans of all wars or, in some cases, police actions (they didn't want to call Vietnam a war.

Fourth Thursday in November, Thanksgiving, traditionally celebrates the giving of thanks for the autumn harvest (supposedly started by the pilgrims - immigrants from England on the East coast). Traditionally includes the consumption of a turkey dinner. You could also say it's the traditional start of the "holiday season" with what has come to be known as "Black Friday" immediately following.

December 25, Christmas Day, celebrates the Nativity of Jesus which (traditionally) took place 25 December 1 BC. Some people consider aspects of this religious holiday, such as giving gifts and decorating a Christmas tree, to be secular rather than explicitly Christian. This would be especially true for the non-Christians who celebrate it. Even though the tree is more along pagan lines.

So, this ends the holiday expose. Live long and learn, and prosper too.

Gone But Not Forgotten

So much has changed in my lifetime, it has been amazing to watch. For instance, one of my first memories was standing in front of our new television set, probably about 1956, watching the Ed Sullivan Show, Walt Disney, etc. And even though I don't remember the radio being the primary mode of communication for the average household, that was most certainly the case immediately prior to the introduction of the television. In fact the genesis of many tv programs were the radio version of those same programs.

Another one of my early memories is standing in line to get vaccinated for polio and this photo captures the experience perfectly. There were a number of diseases we had to be vaccinated for in grade school, we didn't have the infant vaccinations then they have now. Needless to say, when I was little I knew of a number of people who suffered from these same diseases.

Then there was our rotary dial phone. It was the classic black phone, who could have guessed we had cell phones or even iPhones in our future. But the really interesting phone memory I have is my Grandma's phone in Amity. It hung on the wall and she was too short to speak into the mouthpiece so she had to shout. But before she actually talked on the phone, she had to wait for it to ring a certain way because she was on a party line so some of the calls that came through her phone were actually for her neighbor.

We never actually lived on a farm but both my grandparents and my aunt and uncle all did. We got out milk from my grandfather in a glass, gallon jar. Before we could use it, we had to skim the cream off the top. Talk about butterfat! It was really hard to get used to margarine, 2% milk or reduced fat anything when we had truly been raised with the real thing. It's amazing I didn't weigh 3 tons as a kid but I know I never stopped moving so I'm sure that helped.


The "Wish Book" or catalog played a huge part in our lives. My sister and I would sit behind my grandparents' wood stove and go through the new one page by page identifying everything we liked on our respective pages as we went. When that new catalog arrived (Montgomery Ward, Sears and/or J.C. Penny's) it was good for hours and hours of entertainment for us.

I guess that's enough of a walk down memory lane for the time being.

Everyone Loves The Zoo

We took baby boy to the zoo for the first time today since he was old enough to care. This is just a smattering of the animals we saw. Not just these, we saw hippos, rhinos, mountain goats, exotic birds in a very warm aviary, cougars and bobcats to name just a few more.


The place he enjoyed most though was the little square where there are many small concrete statues of various animals just begging for kids to ride them. He had to sit on each one then was off to the next. Though he sat in his stroller up until then, I really think he walked the majority of the park. They're probably going to have to wake him up from his nap.

Knowing we couldn't get through it all, we left after about 3 hours. The interesting thing was, at that point, the rest of Portland had decided they wanted to come to the zoo. It was so crowded, you couldn't see the end of the line of cars in either direction on the freeway. It took forever just to get through the traffic cop's direction.

Getting there right when it opens is the only way to go.

Back To The Beach

Eventually the sun came out this weekend when we were at the beach. There is no place more beautiful than the beach in the sunshine. We even saw a young girl jumping on her sliding boogie board as she pushed it across the closest shallows of the tide.


It had been about 7 months since I had been there and it felt so good to get out there walking through the dunes, breathing in that crisp sea air. But the only thing that is a constant in life is change and one of our favorite shops there, Pelican Landing, is truly going out of business. Next weekend is their last one. She's almost sold out already so she's in good shape from that perspective. But it's sad for us.


Not only that change though, there were probably 60-80 new condominiums being built right in the middle of the dunes. The community has decided to focus on increasing its tax base by increasing its residential base rather than its tourist traffic. I'm not convinced there will be 60-80 people/families interested in buying those condos but someone must be smarter than me and has some kind of reassurance I'm unaware of.

I'm wondering what other changes this increased population will cause that I haven't anticipated?

The other more sobering change was the hundreds and hundreds of trees, limbs and branches that had been blown down by the repeated colossal winds that have hit the coast this winter. I can't imagine how long it's going to take to clean it all up. There were plumes of smoke in every direction you looked where people were trying to eliminate the piles of destruction.

The one constant...

Holidays

Did you ever wonder how some of our holidays came about? Here are some explanations for the first half of the year more grounded holidays anyway.

New Year's Day is the first day of the year. On the modern Gregorian calendar, it is celebrated on January 1, as it was also in ancient Rome (though other dates were also used in Rome). In all countries using the Gregorian calendar, except for Israel, it is a public holiday, often celebrated with fireworks at the stroke of midnight as the new year starts.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a United States holiday marking the birthdate of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., observed on the third Monday of January each year, around the time of King's birthday, January 15. It is one of four United States federal holidays to commemorate an individual person.
Groundhog Day or Groundhog's Day is a holiday celebrated in United States and Canada on February 2. In weather lore, if a groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, marmot, or ground squirrel, emerges from its burrow on this day and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow, it will return into its burrow, and the winter will continue for 6 more weeks.
Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14. In North America and Europe, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
Presidents Day (or Presidents' Day), is the common name for the federal holiday officially designated as Washington's Birthday, and both variants are among the official names of a number of coinciding state holidays. It is celebrated on the third Monday of February.
In the late 1980s, with a push from advertisers, the term Presidents Day began its public appearance. The theme has expanded the focus of the holiday to honor another President born in February, Abraham Lincoln.
Saint Patrick's Day (Irish: Lá ’le Pádraig or Lá Fhéile Pádraig), colloquially St. Paddy's Day or Paddy's Day, is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (circa 385–461), one of the patron saints of Ireland. It takes place on 17 March, the date on which Patrick is held to have died.

The day is the national holiday of the Irish people. It is a bank holiday in Northern Ireland, and a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland, Montserrat, and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. In the rest of Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and New Zealand, it is widely celebrated but is not an official holiday.
April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day, though not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, enemies and neighbors, or sending them on fools' errands, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible. In some countries, April Fools' jokes (also called April Fools) are only made before noon on 1 April.
Easter, Pascha, or Resurrection Day, is the most important religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. It celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, which Christians believe occurred on the third day after his crucifixion some time in the period AD 27 to 33. Many pagan elements have become part of the celebration, and those aspects are often celebrated by many Christians and non-Christians alike. (I'm assuming Easter baskets filled with Easter eggs/candy is classified as pagan.)

Easter is termed a movable Christian holy day because it is not fixed in relation to the civil calendar. Easter falls at some point between late March and late April each year (early April to early May in Eastern Christianity), following the cycle of the moon.
Arbor Day is a holiday in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant and care for trees. Arbor Day originated in Nebraska City, Nebraska, United States but is also celebrated by several other countries. In Japan, a similarly-themed Greenery Day is celebrated. It occurs the final Friday in April (US) or various other days (other countries).
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday that is observed on the last Monday of May (observed in 2008 on May 26). It was formerly known as Decoration Day. This holiday commemorates U.S. men and women who have died in military service to their country. It began first to honor Union soldiers who died during the American Civil War. After World War I, it was expanded to include those who died in any war or military action.

You'll notice three of the first ten holidays are nationalistic. Truth be told , wouldn't we all rather spend these holidays in this place rather than at home?

Stay tuned tomorrow for July 4th and its latter year neighbors.

Indoor and Outdoor Parks

I will always remember how a day at the park always fell under the heading of a great day from my kids' perspectives. Today I went with The Waif and Baby Boy to OMSI, which equates to an indoor park. Regardless of whether you are indoors or outdoors (at a park) even with all the same stuff there each time, every experience will be different because there will always be different kids to interact with. Today was great fun and definitely wore him out.

The main attraction today was dinosaurs found in China. With maybe one exception, Velocirapter, I didn't recognize anything I saw or any of their names so I'm trying to figure out what this means. Does it mean that only this previously unidentified group of dinosaurs lived in what is now China or does it mean that these were the only ones in the show because the were exceptional? I guess I'll never know.

One thing I did find out though is that 30 million years ago, a whale's blow hole was half way down it's snout from where it is now (the fossil they had is the oldest one in existence for a whale and was found in the Puget Sound area). And, some tens of millions of years before that, whales not only had their noses and nostrils in the same location we do, but they had front and back legs and lived on land. Now that was exciting new information for me. In fact, the volunteer scientist said if you do an autopsy on a whale today you will find these appendages still exist within their bodies in the form of tiny stumps.

Picture if you will, a whale as it looks today but with a nose upfront and walking down your street. I was having some trouble with that so I went to my ever faithful Google Images and this is what I found.

Hopefully your imaginations are better than this.

Marionettes vs. Ventriloquists

Last night we had Tex Mex at a great restaurant called Esparza's that had numerous bizarre items hanging from the ceiling including a skunk, a deer butt, various antlers, signs and over 50 marionettes (and they had great food).

I'm trying to figure out why I'm creeped out by these dolls and by the dummies used by ventriloquists. Is it because they are just a little too lifelike when activated or because I saw a couple of very scary versions of The Twilight Zone with two separate storylines based on one of each years ago, and I mean really scary.


Just in case you're not familiar with The Twilight Zone, I can always tell when one of these episodes was especially effective because they continue to randomly haunt my mind, 35 years later. There was one that starred William Shatner (this is where you make the gagging noise but that's irrelevant in this case) and featured a monster outside the plane ripping up the wings at 30,000 feet. I know, I know, completely ludicrous, out of the question and silly, right? Nevertheless, this single, black & white Rod Serling episode of TZ was so scary, I still find my eyes straying out to the wings, whatever plane I'm on, mid-flight.

There was another one where the dummy took on a life of its own and murdered its ventriloquist. I can still see that dummy's face very clearly. That's good tv but it's also the exact reason I don't watch scary stuff anymore.