Who Moved My Big Cheese?

This morning I'm supposed to be in a large meeting of field-based executives who are in for a semiannual confab. I'll be on the dais myself this afternoon around 4ish doing some technical training of the group. I always look forward to that type of experience. It's like being on stage, performing again. :)

But the first session today is a group of Big Cheeses doing a panel discussion for the assembled multitude, some of which are there because they long to simply touch the hem of an executive's garment and so have careers mystically healed. Yesterday the organizers were grousing about how there will be so many "crashers" (groupies, crowd followers, etc.) that they needed to expand the room, and still think it will be SRO. So, why not yield my seat to someone who gives a ... um, I mean, to someone who is truly eager to sit at the feet of the wise and learned. Well, I am too, I guess. The trick is to find some.

I recall not two months ago, when catching Rug and Mousewoman in an unguarded moment, that I heard her complain about the mess that still needs cleaning up from her predecessor's regime. Rug reported to her predecessor at the time of that conversation and gave her a fellow insider's knowing assent. That man (whom I'll refer to as Mr. Clean) is now the CXX or some such set of initials and is one of the big cheeses presenting this morning. I've met him, the CYY and the CZZ, too. I'm pretty sure that they wear pants and underwear like most of us do.

There are exceptions to that of course. I may have seen some of those exceptions in Scotland. ;) Dang it. I should have bought one of those things for myself. Woohoo, sure felt *that* breeze!

Passed the leadership trinity on the street on Tuesday, in fact. They were walking over to a photo shoot in a big hotel, and I was going to my desk from the parking garage. If I didn't know who they were, I would have thought they were the most ordinary of men. And they may be exactly that. Mr. Clean has that reputation anyway. People shake their heads and wonder how he got promoted.

Some people get promoted to be Big Cheeses because they are truly talented, with useful skills and abilities. Some get their shot because they are really good with people - natural leaders. Some can present a consistent, unruffled confident corporate image. And yet, others get promoted despite the fact that they possess none of the above, in a big time way. But they know somebody. Or are handy.

For a while I think that held true for me. I got shots at promotions and new assignments because I had mentors, not because I was good with people, had useful skills or exuded a corporate image. Instead, I'm withdrawn & aloof, have mediocre business skills at best, and exude quirkyness while being way too transparent about what I really think. Yet, I rose up the ladder... I think it was because a Big Cheese was helping me.

Since I left Wazoo Corp. (after the corporate takeover) that has NOT been the case, and the Peter Principle has come into play. The Peter Principle, for the uninitiated, is that we are always promoted to our level of incompetence. However, if you have a highly placed mentor, the Peter Principle is automatically suspended for you in that organization. And, if you rise high enough, even if you are incompetent the organization must not admit it, because it reflects poorly on their ability to identify talent. They have to promote you again to some place where you can't hurt them.

I recall some 15 years ago, and continuing for the next 7 or 8 years until about the year 2000, watching the Big Cheeses at Wazoo Corp. I tried to understand what made them successful, but I focused on their public behaviors, not their private connections or innate abilities. I would watch them work a room, speak to a group of middle managers, greet workers at lunch, etc. I thought - I'll be doing that some day; I'd better figure out how.

Not anymore. There's some combination of jadedness, cynicism, loss of ambition, recognition of my limitations, a sense that time is fleeting, a desire for greater meaning, etc., that has said to me: "stop stop stop!" I am *not* going to be a Big Cheese. I don't aspire to it, and I'm not going to even *try* to be one. In the sport of corporate ladder climbing, some need to be down on the field of play, some need to be spectators watching and cheering for their favorites, and some - like me - need to be in the broadcast booth doing color commentary. :) I've officially retired from professional ladder climbing. I'm the former athlete (not to be referred to as washed-up or has-been, however) turned analyst.

And really, I had my day in the sun as far as that goes. My last job at Wazoo was not a Big Cheese, but a good-sized one, a Nearly Big Cheese, I'd say. But even then, I wasn't corporate. I was quirky, entertaining, self-deprecating, transparent to the point of once in a while needing to be reprimanded by a Big Cheese for being too honest. You can tolerate that in a department head, even in a senior executive, the VP of Such and So. But not in anyone higher up than that. So... it won't be me as a Big Cheese. Too much of an outlier, too much of an oddball.

Now, I suppose if they dropped it on me, I'd take it. But, I would probably wind up being an embarrassment to someone if I were going to be true to myself. I think it would be better if I were named CSS (Chief Of Something Smaller.) Like a classroom maybe. :) Then I could be quirky, transparent, entertaining, emotional, and... be liked for it. The young minds full of mush would leave my class and say: "he is kind of a funny old guy, isn't he? Eccentric, you know; odd - but sweet. I like him. And I actually sort of understand what he's trying to say. He's definitely my most interesting class this semester."

I'd take that.

The envelope, please...

The check is in the mail! Today!

Okay, so it's Veterans' Day or something and it isn't going anywhere until tomorrow, but still - it's in the mail, doggone it!

My application to Grad School is en route, with money. Evening classes start January 4. I&II Samuel (OT225) on site and Emergence of the Church (NT112) on line. I'm going! I'm finally going.

God help me. I wanna do this well. I hope I'm not just fooling myself... I mean, me - seminary! Can that work?

Squeezing again

Met with Pebo & Rug yesterday for a 30 day followup on our "get your butt back in the office!" meeting of a month ago. Pebo continues to squeeze. Everytime I'm in a meeting with him, I start to itch. Even a group lunch where nobody discussed work - I was edgy and wanted to get away. What is it with me, with him? Arghh.

While I'm checking items off the to-do list, it still feels like the evaluation criteria of what success looks like for my department keeps changing based on whatever my business partners discuss with Pebo in the hallway this week. Perceptions are so slippery... I have a hard time knowing where to grab this fish to keep it from flopping out of my hands.

And, while I'm grabbing at the fish, Pebo is pouring more water on it, keeping it slippery, and watching me struggle while offering pithy commentary ("coaching"). Grrrrrr....

A dream deferred?

I've been mulling over a couple of verses lately:

Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?

Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.



Some of you know that I've wanted for some, oh, 18 months or more now, to prepare for a change in careers as I get closer to retirement.

I know, I know, that's quite a ways off. 14+ years.

But a year and a half ago, before learning that my division was closing and my job was going away, it had seemed much closer. I had thought "5 more years until I can opt for early retirement and lock in retiree health benefits for later use when my income is low." And I thought "this will let me go back to school, get my Masters and then teach, without worrying about health coverage or a decent pension."

It seemed like such a good plan. I had struggled for so many years with supporting the profit expectations of my employers, when I really wanted to influence the generation coming up behind me to (as Micah the prophet says) "do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with their God", integrate their faith with the rest of their life, and behave ethically and compassionately in the marketplace. This was going to be my opportunity! So I enrolled in night school, excited about the dream.

But with the forced change in employment to a new company and a move to a new part of the country, away from support and away from school, that dream seemed dead. Now I will have to work until 65 at least, at a job that's demanding enough to preclude a course of study, or so it seems.

Yet, two Sundays ago, the pastor preached on the dreams in your heart, where they come from, whose they are, and how likely it is that they will come to pass. At the same time, I found an extension campus about an hour away from me which is affiliated with a great seminary in St. Paul. They offer classes Thursday nights in the exact major I was wanting to earn - an M.A. in Theological Studies.

All of a sudden, the dream maybe isn't dead anymore. Maybe... maybe...

I have a magnet on my cabinet at work, a quote from Mary Lou Retton. It says: "Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something... find it and keep it lit!"

Oh, I know what the fire is for - but can I keep it lit? For 18 months it's been out completely and I have felt its loss. I've been heartsick because of the hope that was deferred. Do I dare light the fire again?

50-something

(sigh)

I had to change the header of the blog today. I started this thing some 18 months ago or so, before the big 5-0. Now, I guess I can't say I'm "nearly-50" anymore. Awww...

"50ish" works though, I think. Then I won't have to change the header for a while. :)

And you know... if I could be 10 again, I wouldn't do it. It was not fun. 20 wasn't either (I'd just gotten fired.) And 30, 40 - no point in doing those over. I would never do child-rearing again (sorry, kids). Well, maybe if I got a government worker's pension out of the deal... nahhh! Not even that. Besides, they turned out pretty well the first time. :) If I did it over again, I might really mess them up.

These are good years to be alive and healthy. I like being this age. To me it's the best yet. I'm in decent shape, vigorous, have a trimmed back lifestyle, enough discretionary income to indulge myself now and then, enough accumulated wisdom to know when to hold back for the good of others, something to teach and share, brand new experiences all the time, and many many life goals checked off the list... these are the best years of my life. My twenties? Man, you can have 'em.

Two years ago, while preparing for a Sr. High Sunday School class, I made up this little proverb to sum up one's outlook on aging, and I think it holds true (at least everyone who's heard it says so):

You know you're grown up when you stop wanting to be older. You know you're old when you start wanting to be younger.

By that definition, I'm nowhere near old yet. I'm enjoying being this age. What is it, again? I forget... :)

Grace vs. Karma

The pastor (younger of the two) yesterday preached on having a dream, and how to know if it's one God has inpsired in you, or if it's one you sort of made up to satisfy yourself. Interesting, and it opened me up to an idea... but more on that another time.

During the sermon he referred to a song by U2 (his favorite band) called Grace. He referenced the line that says Grace "travels outside of karma". The song has a duality to it, referring not only to a girl with the name Grace but also to the idea of grace. You can see it in the lyrics that follow.

His point was that most religions (incl. Judeo/Christian) have some form of karma built in - you reap what you sow, etc., but what makes the Jewish and Christian religions unique is the concept of grace. Most religions say that we'll ultimately get what we deserve. But no others say that we ever receive *more* than we deserve. In most, even Paradise must be earned.

Mercy and grace are two sides of the same coin. Mercy is NOT getting what we rightly have coming to us (condemnation due to wrongdoing), and grace is GETTING what we have no right to at all (intimate fellowship with a Holy God.) If anyone knows of a religion like that, other than Judaism/Christianity... what is it?



Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

Grace
It's a name for a girl
It's also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything

Grace, she's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty in everything

Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things

Easing his grip

Met with Pebo today, and reviewed status on a number of things. He was pleased and very encouraging. I felt his grip loosening. Ahhhh...

And yet, I know if I let down for a second and he gets nervous, he'll start squeezing again. Maybe a dog wearing a shock collar is a good analogy. Get too close to the edge of the lawn (or in my case, too far astray from the work plan) and... zap!

(sigh)

My dog, Inferno, got used to it. Maybe I will too! :) He still gets into mischief in the house. I'll bet I still can. ;)

Ha. Right. Mischief at my age. That reminds me of a song lyric sung in the 40's by Julia Lee, a rhythm & blues singer. She sings to her aging lover man:

When you were young,
Your motor was fine.
Now your rear end's shot,
You're in low gear all the time!

You ain't got it no more.
You ain't got it no more.
Can't get yourself arrested!
You ain't got it no more.



Not me, though. Hey, baby, I still got it! Oh yeah!

Um, I think so anyway.

Hm.

Feeling Squeezed

It was a tough week this week. Since I lost Alpaca for a dotted-line boss, and picked up Pebo in his place, the intensity level has ratcheted way up. Pebo has a hands-around-the-throat management style (or at least that's how it feels to me), and when he feels pressure from Mousewoman, his boss, the approach that he seems to resort to with his staff is... squeeze tighter.

Now, for a guy like me who's highest value/need in life has historically been autonomy (you know, setting my own course, making my own choices, not following a script, being the car on the highway with no one in front of him...) this is uncomfortable. I don't mind being responsible for my own choices, and I always have done so. I DO mind having my choices being prescribed for me by others, or influenced to such an extent (by others whom I care about, or for whom I have responsibility, or to whom I owe allegiance) that I feel I really have NO choice at all, and must do X, or else the result is too harmful to those around me, even though it's not really what I want for myself. I chafe at that, and always have.

But in the past, I've had more ability to tolerate it, bite back the irritation, compromise and give in, than I do now. With all that's happened over the last 18 months, recovering from medical issues, adjusting to medications, losing my chance at early retirement & grad school & career change, losing my job and having to uproot, starting over again, leaving loved ones of all sorts behind, losing my Dad and my brother, losing resources with financial setbacks from the relocation, etc., etc.... I have less capacity to handle stress and disappointment than I've had in the past. It's like having an immune system that's compromised, so that any little illness becomes a major deal.

So when my boss, and therefore the rules/expectations at work, change mid-stream, I find it more of a blow, harder to take than usual. And it spills over into how I handle everything else. Personal (interior) life, family life, work life - it's all interrelated and running together these days, I can't compartmentalize. My tendency when faced with this is to want to get some space, hit the open road, and let everybody figure things out on their own, me included. When I feel constrained by circumstances I can't control, my instinct is to jump the fence, and behave like the wild untamed stallion, not like the gelding broken to saddle and bridle which everyone prefers.

Scotland is calling me back. :)

Reality

bites, or so I've heard it put.

Too bad vacations have to end. :)

Back to piled up emails, projects that haven't finished, concerned bosses, people needing direction, an overfull and rapidly changing calendar. And that's just at work.

(sigh)

From what I read, Heaven is not one long vacation, but it's just life (and work) in Paradise, without the work having to be by the sweat of your brow and without all the thorns and thistles that come up along with the vegetables...

I'm ready for that. Work that is not frustrating or counterproductive. What a great idea. Who came up with that, anyway? ;)

I could get angry at Adam for screwing it up for everybody... but - I am Adam.

Scotland!

is soooo different from Iceland. What contrasts!

Castles in lush countryside...

to kilts in an urban setting...

from the traditional...

to the historically innovative...

to the very modern...

grace and charm blended, in a vibrant working-class city full of the friendliest people! They really mean it here when they say Cheers!

I could stay here a while. While waiting for my bus, I was tempted to miss it completely and not come back at all! :)

Iceland!

How to describe it here?

It´s ethereal, bleak, stark, austere, rugged, active, varied.

The weather is 45 degrees, misty, breezy, overcast. Perfect! :)

Spent day one touring the city and going to the spa (see pictures).

For all the quaintness and picturesqueness of the city shown to tourists, there is also a "back of the house" that's less presentable.

Day two was spent seeing the sights of nature during the day (see pictures),

and the club scene at night (NO pictures!).

Day three (today) is spent catching up on email and blogging, organizing pictures, and shopping.

And oh yes, eating! So far... lamb soup, lamb hot dogs, skyr (a variation on yogurt), herring (ick), fish and chips, fish buffet, muesli, cold cuts for breakfast, and lots & lots of coffee.

It seems too soon to leave... but Glasgow awaits.

I am soooooo ready

to go overseas! I'm even looking forward to customs and several hours in the air. :) Anything to get that stamp in my passport. What does one even look like, anyway?

I can identify with the scene from that David Ducovny movie "Return To Me" with ... who? (brb) Minnie Driver! (I had to Google it..) where she ... NO! Wait a minute! Wrong romantic comedy. :) It was "While You Were Sleeping" with Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman. I think. Whatever. You've cried at one... you've cried at them all.

Anyway, I identify with the scene where the lead actress bemoans the fact that she's never gotten a single stamp in her passport and wants one so badly. It's silly, but - I do!

I saw an Omni movie in a local museum here in St. Paul about the Vikings, and how they settled Iceland. It looks gorgeous. I can hardly wait to see those vistas in person!

But first, some fun in old St. Paul while I wait for my departure flight. Museums, shopping, movies... mmmm. Plenty of time to sleep while I'm on the airplane.

Another week on the road almost in the books. A couple more days and... I'm free to enjoy life! Not that work isn't enjoyable, but - you know what I mean. ;)

Yet another away message

on my voicemail and email at work...

This last week was nuts, a combination of trying to catch up from being out of the office 8 days out of 10, touching all my staff in some way, keeping developing projects going, and keeping a lid on PeBo's anxiety over the Great Fire Drill To Find The Missing Money.

I really have to stop calling it that, though. One of my staff said "I'm putting all this time in for a fire drill?" No no no no no - sorry, Carol. Didn't mean it like that. THIS IS NOT A DRILL! No one's effort has been wasted! Sometimes sarcasm from the mouth of a department head is inappropriate and this time it was my turn to goof.

It's just that I can see clearly that the problem is solved, but so many other people need proof, and it is taking up soooo much time... I wish sometimes that I could let people inside my head what I see. In this case they might relax. But the problem then would be... how do I get rid of them after they're done looking? ;)

Hmmm. That would make a good plot for a sci-fi movie. A guy has the ability to allow people to see things as he sees them. Selectively at first, and only when he wants them to. But then, as the psychic connection gets deeper, they can see through his eyes whenever THEY want to (of course seeing things that he doesn't WANT them to see, like how he views them and others), and even later... they begin to alter HIS perceptions to match theirs, and he loses his identity in the process. Sort of like a Vulcan mind-meld gone bad. =:O Creepy.

So... where was I? :) Oh yes. By the end of the week, everything at work was calm, cool, collected. No one's nervous, everyone's tended to. I did my job. :)

And now, off again! Next week on business to St. Paul, and then... yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeahhhhhh! A stamp in my passport! Finally! It's only taken 50 years to get one. Jeepers Molly. That's a long time.

After the week of work, I leisurely enjoy poking around St. Paul for a couple of days, and then fly to Reykjavik (I'm finally learning how to spell it) for 3 nights. Then hop the North Sea to Glasgow for another 3 nights and then back to Mpls & Milwaukee for 2 (jet lag adjustment) before back to work on the 11th.

Right now I'm fretting over luggage. Do I have to pack my winter jacket? (Yes, dopey. It's 50 over there.) Do I need more than one pair of dress shoes? Can they be my cordovan penny loafers so that I can wear them with jeans? Do they even do that anymore? ;) Why can't I check 3 bags?!?!?!? Arghh. I may have to ship a box of dirty clothes back to New England to make room for all the souvenirs I need to bring home. Christmas gifts are from Europe this year, I guess!

The cab comes in the morning. Woo hoo!

Deja Vu a generation apart

I feel like draggin' out the ol' banjo and gettin' everybody in a whompin' big circle and gettin' all y'all to singin' "Will The Circle Be Unbroken (by and by Lord by and by)", since it seems like a circle got closed this week.

With Janey (or whatever it is I call her in this blog. Is that it, Kitten? I forget.) getting her first genuine full-time permanent salaried position (with the 401K and benefits thing, too) this week, it seemed like someone drew a circle through our two points in the universe, along with some other points we now have in common. As of last Monday, she works for the same company I do, in the same department (granted a darned big department - 13,000 people), just in a regional service office in Chicagoland. She's Field, I'm Home Office. Ha. The tension is maintained. You know, "I'm from Home Office and I'm here to help." We are so paternalistic that way toward the Field - it suits our father-daughter relationship! Hee hee.

Anyway, it's been a real kick to email back and forth about what she's learning and who she's meeting and how the work is. I have a spy now in the Field! Someone who'll tell me the unvarnished truth about how it REALLY is. I'll just never be able to quote her as a source! And in turn, she may wind up getting advance copies of memos that the Field won't necessarily see in raw form. Hmmm... This could be mutually beneficial. Just discreet.

Plus, it's been nice to see her upgrade from a Neon that was a total loss to a Passat with leather interior, and from a shared 2 bedroom on Irving Park to a one bedroom (with air and parking) in the suburbs. "We're movin' on up! Toooo the West Side!" Just watch the malls, honey. Go home for lunch, don't go to the food court. :)

So now I have an even better reason to visit Chicago (and environs) than to check on my house. Guess I needed one just about now, since my house... is SOLD!!!! Yay!

The paperwork is going smoothly. The advance of the equity may happen this week. Hope so. Next week... there'e nobody home. Not for 2+ weeks. And that check needs to hit the bank. Hmpf. Maybe it should be electronic. I can live without paper. Especially if it's faster.

SOLD!

(I hope)

I think the ordeal is over. Funny how the timing of this stuff works. The company offers to buy us out of our house at a lowball price, and suddenly we get two offers! Hmmm...

Anyway, they came in a day or so apart, and we countered, then they countered, then they... well, you know how it goes. I think we locked in on one yesterday, though I can't quite be sure. I'm currently 3 time zones away and not quite in the loop...

The really really nice thing about the relo program is this deal called an "equity advance", where the relo company buys you out and you get your equity NOW! And, let me tell you, brothers and sisters - we can surely use it! New hardwood floors, lounge furniture, vacations out of the country... um, yeah.

So hopefully it's done. I have a call in (several calls, actually) to find out for sure for sure for sure.

In the meantime the corporate jet is home away from home. It's a darn sight better than flying commercial. I can carry on my lip gloss, for one thing. ;) Second, Coreen (the flight attendant) goes out during the day and buys me stuff for the next evening. Yeah, what else does she have to do, but she's so considerate! First it was Miller lite, then last night it was a cheeseburger from In & Out Burger. SWEET! Tonight I'm thinking peanut M&Ms... Then, I'd left my Steve Tyrell CD on the plane (she had put it on the stereo system for me) and she brought it to my hotel afterwards thinking I might want to use it to fall asleep to that night. Aww... She needs to work on her gin and tonics, though. Just a little strong. =:O

Lesson learned?

Another one today. Maybe.

Ironically, I was just reading a book on the airplane which contained this quote that I'd never seen before:

"The lessons of life amount not to wisdom but to scar tissue and callus."
- Wallace Stegner

It was timely.

He's right, I think. I don't believe you get wiser via life lessons, necessarily. Maybe I'm just building up callus, you know? ...by making the same mistakes over and over. And after a while that repeated mistake will simply stop hurting as much.

You have to be either pretty stubborn or pretty desperate to repeat the same painful behaviors again and again. I mean, who wants callus, anyway? It's ugly, and in some cases - deforming.

I do know that I have scar tissue from some of life's lessons. Here, see, I'll show you: this one's from when I was in high school and a bunch of us ... woah, never again, man! And this one here - it's from college when this girl ... how could I not have seen that coming? Blind! And, oh yeah, this beauty! Ow. I can feel that one yet. It's from when I found out that, no matter how much I wanted to, I just couldn't ... but, that does NOT define me anymore! No way!

See my point? Yes, I learned some things from life experiences. As they say, I have the scars to prove it. But then there are some scars that mark an experience where I don't think I learned anything at all. The only thing I got was pain and the scar. What did I learn, for example, when they told me I ... and what did I learn when she just ... and what in the world did I learn when I suddenly lost ... I learned nothing! It just hurt.

Perhaps, as time goes along, I'll look back and see something that indeed represents a lesson learned and wisdom gained from the experiences that left those particular scars. As they say, time heals all wounds. Sure. Yeah, eventually you die and that'll take care of it...

But mostly, as Stegner says, you're left with scar tissue or you build up callus. And I don't think experiences or life lessons is where wisdom comes from, either. Wisdom comes from another Source altogether.

So I don't think I learned much today. But I do feel the callus in that particular spot getting a little thicker. It's not as tender as the last time it got poked. So, lesson learned? Maybe. And maybe not. I guess we'll see if the callus keeps growing, or if that spot grows soft again.

I'd rather it be soft... even if it hurts now and then.

Stuffy New Englanders...

not!

At our tag sale today (the local version of a garage/rummage/yard sale, depending on where you're from), the people who stopped were extraordinarily friendly. And talk! Yak, yak, yak... you know, the whole drill, welcome to the area, what brought you here, how do you like it so far, where do you work, oh my wife/husband/child works there, I'll bet the winters will be more to your liking... sheesh. Give it a rest! You broke the stereotype already!

Actually, it was very nice. :) And just like the tag sale we had in June or whenever it was. Boy, are they friendly! They even have a local restaurant chain here (sort of a cross between Denny's restaurant and a Farrell's ice cream parlor) called Friendly's. Yikes!

Not to mention they bought all kinds of broken stuff we never been able to get rid of before. ;) Good for them.

Stepping into the new life

There were a couple of positive steps this weekend toward stepping into the routine of new life here. One was resolving where we will go to church. It was a pretty thorough search, and even though the answer is "the same place we went the last time we lived here", I can embrace that answer because it's still the best fit of anything we've seen. So, past history aside, I'm ok with that and will dive in, helping out wherever there's a need. And, plug into a neighborhood group of some sort, too, to make new friends. That's hard work, and slow, but... needs to be done!

The other positive step was a successful bit of entertaining Sunday afternoon. It was supposed to be a large outdoor cookout on the deck and in the yard, but turned out to be a small dinner inside, because of the rain. 9 people around the dining room table was just right! It got us familiar with our new space vis-a-vis entertaining, and kind of broke the ice. It felt good to do. Seemed a little funny that our first guests would be people who work for me (and spouses), but... I've been here longer, so I know them somewhat. Next, it's the neighbors! Maybe in October...

Might be turning a corner here. Hm. But also talked on the phone with people back home (home is still not "here" for me - it's ... somewhere else.) And that felt nice, too. It was a good weekend.

The Fringe

Where the heck did I hear this? I can't remember now. Somewhere... maybe it started with the reaction of the Democrat leadership to Joe Lieberman, and how they are distancing themselves from him because he's not anti-war enough.

Hm.

Well, anyway, what I heard was this: what unites the fringe elements in society is what they are AGAINST. I think the logic was being applied to one end of the political spectrum, I won't bother to say which, but after further thought I think it applies to fringes of all sorts. Maybe it's even how you can recognize fringe elements...

The political right is against abortion-on-demand, same-sex marriage and so forth. The far right fringe focuses on those things to excess, and the figureheads for their vitriol are Michael Moore, George Soros, Hillary Clinton. They focus on what they're against, not on what they're for. The political left is against the war in Iraq, against an American theocracy (the Bible defining public policy.) The far left fringe focuses on those things to excess, and the figureheads for their vitriol are President Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter. They focus on what they're against, not what they're for.

Who is FOR something? Especially something positive? The political moderates, mostly, who the far right and far left criticize roundly as not having CONVICTIONS. Moderates are those who are in the middle of the bell curve, not those on the fringes, in the "tails" of the curve. Most people are in that range, leaning left or right, yes, but not drastically. Yet, the public debate is dominated by the fringes.

I'm not at all advocating that we adopt the mantra of the timid "oh, can't we all just get along?", not that. I expect people to disagree, but I'd much rather disagree in a discussion of positive ideas as to how to deal with the ills of society instead of polarizing the country by digging in our heels and screaming, whether we are leftist or rightist in our leanings. Lean away, but persuade and convince reasonably, with a positive outcome in mind!

The Nazis were focused on who they were against: the Jews, the Gypsies, the religionists. The radical Islamists are focused on the Israelis, who they are against. The communists and athiests are focused on those with religious conviction. The skinheads and feminists are focused on who they are against, and the pro-lifers, pro-choicers, bible-thumpers, Libertarians, Greenpeace folks and the PETA people are, too. ANYBODY on the fringe of any movement is energized, galvanized, by their common opposition to something. Even what they are FOR is based in large part on what they're against! Really. Any positives are really negatives in disguise. Examples: Gay rights activists are virulently against Bible-thumpers. Watch a Gay Pride parade sometime and see what they mock. Traditional values proponents are virulently against homosexuals. Watch the signs they carry sometime and who "God hates." It's hard to see love motivating either group. Love doesn't motivate the fringe. Hatred does.

Who is FOR something? I'd like to be part of a political or religious movement that binds people together, that seeks common ground we can agree on, that strives for the positive. Is there such a thing?

Stones are being rolled away...

This is really meant to be a diary of MY job search and the aftermath of it, but to some extent my daughter's job search is all wrapped up in it, too. :) The parallels at some points were frankly pretty eerie. We frequently commiserated on how slow followup after job interviews was, the feeling being invalidated or rejected when you were "passed" on, etc... and I found that while I understood the process, and knew from experience how things work, it didn't mean that it hurt any less from my vantage point of age and experience. I just knew it was coming. :) For her it was a surprise.

But, yesterday there was that glorious feeling of being "validated" as a human being and a contributor to society when she got a job offer, and accepted! It's with the same company I work for, but in a field office about 45 minutes from her apartment. Full-time, permanent, benefits, and roughly twice her current earnings. Financial independence is around the corner!

I feel good on several levels, but one of them is that I was able to help her make some connections inside the company that she wouldn't have normally made. She used me as a networking resource! Good for her! And she really got herself the job, I didn't - no arm twisting, string pulling, nothing behind the scenes except a little email followup now and then to keep things moving. She made the sale herself.

Of course it's not a job directly in her field, but then... her current job wasn't either! This one, though, gives her the opportunity to transfer into a job later on that IS in her field, and pays her decent money while she learns the ropes.

And more good news today! The company changed its relocation program and was willing to roll me into the new one, which - drum roll - includes a house buyout! Woohoo! It will be a lowball offer, 95% of the average of two appraisals, but still - it's a safety net we didn't have before. We CAN cash out if we want to. It's like that credit card commercial where the Viking horde is rampaging down the street and is about to rape and pillage, when you whip out your credit card (with no fee) and stop them in their tracks before they can ruin you financially. Take that, Vikings! See my home buyout card? Hahahahaha. Pfui on you. :)

Plus, I think we're getting very close to a church affiliation decision, which is a big deal for creating a network of friends around here. One more week, and I think we're locked in on something there.

It almost seems like 3 big stones that have been blocking the path are getting rolled away, and the way is clearing to move forward. Maybe 30 days hence, we will have 1) house sold, 2) daughter independent, and 3) a support network building.

Wouldn't that be nice? :) ahhhh...

Routine?

I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine again. Seems like every week, every month, there's something unstable or temporary. Whether it's travel or unpacking or contractors or family visits or church hunting, it's still something that keeps us from settling into a routine.

Vacillating back and forth between routine and spontaneity is a pattern for me, and when I have too much of one, I crave the other. So tomorrow night I go to the airport, pick up Deb (I hate these pseudonyms, but...), and then have about two weeks of "normalcy" before I travel again. September & October are busy travel months.

Some travel over the Holidays is "normal", so that should be OK. Maybe then after Halloween there will be some sort of routine to build and set in place for a few months. Then the spontaneity will seem so much more fun!

Not the President, the poet, but it's me, O Lord...

standing in the need of prayer.

Amen to that.

Maya Angelou and I have never gotten along. I'm pretty sure she's blissfully ignorant of it, poor thing. I don't think I've ever told her how disappointed I was when she was named Poet Laureate of these here U-nited States. But, I can see why the name-r, our former President Mr. Clinton, would have liked her work, especially this piece.

But then again... I do too - this piece anyway. I'm becoming pretty sympathetic to those that stand with John Newton, former slave trader, crying out in their own unique verse the equivalent of "Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me." From what I can read of Newton's biography, it sounds like he experienced the saving grace of God in 1748, and continued to work the slave trade for another 7 years before health issues drove him ashore and into the pulpit.

Then there's John Donne (1572-1631), profligate, sensualist (and preacher), who's "Hymne to God the Father" cuts to the heart of the sinner's despair before God, but his deep and abiding hope in grace.

So, maybe I should cut both Ms. Angelou and Mr. Clinton some slack. While I don't know her personal moral dilemmas and failings, she stands in the midst of a great tradition of poets & lyricists (of varying levels of skill and popular recognition) with a sense of their own need of mercy and, along with Mr. Clinton, stands in a great tradition of sinners publicly admitting their need for the saving grace of God.

Here's a poem of Angelou's I recently ran across. I get it.



When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin'."
I'm whispering "I was lost,
Now I'm found and forgiven."

When I say.. "I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble
and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say.. "I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
And need His strength to carry on.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
Who received God's good grace, somehow!

Flame On!

A while back my daughter sent me this quote on poetry.


"Poetry is the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry
is just the ash."
-- Leonard Cohen


I liked it, and composed a short poem in reply:


The body goes to ashes
The outer shell to dust,
The inner life to poetry
As life incendiary must.


I thought about this again today while I was cooking steak on the grill (barbequed with curry sauce... mmmm.) I like the idea of a life incendiary. A life that is burning well, leaving the clean grey ash of poetry behind.

But I don't want my life to fizzle out like a candle sputtering or like a campfire slowly dying or a cigar cooling and going out. I don't want to burn out fitfully. I like the notion of my life being like the propane tank on my grill. It's finite, limited, but capable of either great heat or a low simmer, cooking fast or slow. And, most of the time, you have no idea when it's going to suddenly go empty. You're blissfully cooking along, you hear that characteristic "pop", and all of a sudden... its done. I like that.

The propane tank is productive and useful, doing what it was designed to do, right up until the end. Sure, what you're grilling right this minute may not be done when the fuel runs out, but think of all the good meals it made before! Maybe a few things got burnt, yeah, but... mmmm, remember all the good stuff! And the smells, the entertaining, the comraderie that surrounded those flames on the grill. Yeah.

So, that's what I want. Light me up, turn the dial, let's go! And when I go "pop" - so what? I did what I was supposed to do at the last - I was cookin', baby!

Can you feel the heat?

:)

Back to the Future

On my own this week and next, just me and the dog. I can't let lethargy grip me, though, even on a lazy Sunday morning like this one. To much to do. Up and out! Lawn chores and grocery shopping yesterday, and I rewarded myself with some nice roses, steak on the grill, fresh buttered green beans (and yes, I cooked them myself), some great dip - feta blended with cream cheese and Indian eggplant spread from Trader Joe's - plus a couple of movies "Little Miss Sunshine" and "World Trade Center." I was pretty worn out by the end of the second one. Got 10 hours of sleep though! Wow. It felt great. And the noodle-headed mutt slept in, too. Good boy...

So off to church it was, after my hearty breakfast of a peanut butter, bacon, and muenster cheese sandwich. Mmmm.... This time the church was the one we had gone to when we lived here 5 years ago. I still have scars from the experience, but those were my fault - overly high expectations, mixed with a heavy dose of presumption. I needed to learn a lesson, and did. Still, who wants to go back and visit the woodshed where you got your whuppin's as a boy, even if you know now that you benefitted from it? Talked to the pastor afterwards, and we're having lunch on Wednesday. I think I'll tell him about the "schooling" God gave me the last time I was part of his church. :)

So, I walk in the door with a little trepidation, and who is standing there but the one guy I was closest to as a friend from living there before. I sat with he and his wife. Worship was peaceful and contemplative. And when they sang "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know" slowly and acapella... there wasn't a dry eye in the place, mine especially. There are a lot of people who heard that song on mama's knee like I did, or in nursery at church. It still has an impact on grown-ups.

Hmmm. Then he used this quote in his sermon:

"If you have no faith in the future, then you have no power in the present. If you have no faith in a life beyond this life, then your present life is going to be powerless. But if you believe in the future and are assured of victory, then there should be a dance in your step and a smile on your face." - Max Lucado

I think two years ago I felt like this - without much hope for the future, and therefore pretty powerless. Things have changed since then. The future looks much brighter, and I don't feel powerless, but vital and strong. The future isn't as daunting, and I have more courage.

That reminds me of another quote. Don't know who first said it, but I like it: "Loving someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved deeply by someone gives you courage." And as St. Paul said: "Love never fails."

Distance Management

So here I am sitting at Dunn Bros. Coffee in downtown St. Paul last Thursday morning having a large dark roast (with Splenda and Half&Half) along with Julie, this not-yet-30 y.o. girl whom in May I tried unsuccessfully to recruit to come work for me. We agreed to keep in touch in case the other job she took didn't work out so well. It had been a couple of months, and I was in town, so it seemed like catching up over coffee was in order.

Well, one thing led to another and before I knew it she was asking why this company has such a hard time hiring people in the field offices to do jobs related to Home Office units. "I mean", she says, "don't they know that they can manage people long-distance?"

Um, yeah, I say, that's a hard concept for some people to understand. I go on to explain that I've both done it (managed long-distance) and have been managed that way. So I say "How hard is this to understand, really?" And I ask: "Suppose you were in a long-distance romance. What would you do to make it work across the miles?"

Immediately she had an answer. Apparently she and her now-husband had dated long distance while in college. She said, "oh, it's simple. You'd email, call, write, as often as you could. You'd try to make daily contact somehow, even if it's something little, as if you were really really busy, but still together. Then, you'd plan times each week to talk at more length. You'd carve out the time in your schedules to talk. It doesn't have to be structured while you're on the call, but you commit to a time and keep it if you at all can."

She went on to say "Then, you'd try to see each other every few weeks if you can. Even if it's just a day or a night every 6 weeks or so - you want some face time. Maybe you each have to drive a ways to meet, but you do it because you love each other! And then, just as important, 2 or 3 times a year you plan a trip together, time away, just the two of you, for several days. A long weekend, or a week's vacation. You sacrifice, you make the effort, just because! You are committed to making it work out, and you know you need that time together. You just do it, no matter what. Nothing gets in your way! It's important."

I ask her: "OK, but can this kind of thing be sustained over time?" "Sure!" she says. "People do it all the time. Think of the 2 income professional couples on both coasts, or the military families who are separated for weeks, months, years. They don't give up! They are committed to making it work."

A pause. Silence. She says: "It's like that, isn't it? Without the romance, yes, but it's the same concept. You want to make the situation be the best it can be, given the circumstances, and keep the relationship good, so you put forth the extra effort. You sacrifice in terms of time and travel to make it work, for the sake of both parties. But not everybody wants to sacrifice and put themselves out like that, do they? Not everyone sees preserving something good across the miles as worth the effort - they'd prefer either doing without altogether, or prefer the immediacy of having someone lesser, but close by, to grab when they have a need."

Yes, Julie. Very good. In distance management of any kind, you make it work, because you are committed to a successful relationship with the other person, and that person is valuable to you, even if they are miles away - 100, 500, 1000, 3000. It doesn't matter whether it's a romantic or a family or a work-related relationship. You make sacrifices and work at it; you don't mind the effort because of the reward that follows. You do what you need to do - so that it's successful. Why don't we get that?

Despite my natural introversion, which prefers to shy away from contact, I get it, too. Which is why I was in St. Paul last week visiting work colleagues, and why I'm here this week visiting relatives and friends, alone. I'm trying to make it work. There's relationships that I don't want to lose from neglect. Not to mention the fact that my family circle shrank a bit this last year. I have fewer loved ones left now. So I take vacation, spend some extra money on gas and hotels, and do what's necessary to have even a LITTLE bit of face time with those I love. It's important. I don't always connect with everyone every time, as much as I want, but I hope to do at least some.

Now, I just have to remember the 3 people on my staff who work out of Baltimore. I haven't been there yet. I think I need to schedule a trip... soon.

Fire drills on the road

What a crazy week. In St. Paul for meetings and training, with a full schedule, and then pandemonium breaks out back in Home Office. Critical systems aren't working, and money is missing!

SR. MGMT: "FIND THE PROBLEM!!!"

ME (and several others like me): "I'm on it, sir! Should I cancel my other meetings, sir?"

SR. MGMT: "WHAT?!?! Of course not. Do both! Do everything! Everything is top priority!"

ME, etal: "Certainly, sir! Everything! Immediately, sir!"

ME, etal: "You, Sr. Flunkie, FIND THE PROBLEM! I have important meetings to attend. Keep me informed of your progress."

Sr. Flunkie: "Sir, yes sir! Right away, sir!"

SR. F: "Junior Flunkie! Stop surfing the internet on company time and FIND THE PROBLEM!"

JR. F: "Sir! Oh, I mean, Ma'am, sir! One moment, Ma'am! [hastily puts up 'brb' and 'away' message on AIM] I assure you I was not surfing the 'net, Ma'am, merely communicating something business-related to a co-worker on a non-standard-but-tacitly-approved application widely used in our company for communications. If you please, Ma'am, I believe the problem is THIS, Ma'am!" [explains problem in indecipherable 20-something hipster techie lingo]

SR. F (not wanting to admit lack of hipness, turns the tables): "No, I think YOU are the problem, JR. F! You must tell me why you are NOT the problem!"

JR. F (seeing bluff is called, adopts non-generation-specific approach, namely passes the buck to someone else): "Sir! Or rather Ma'am, Sir! I am not the problem because this other Jr. Flunkie over here is the problem, sir, Ma'am!"

SR. F.: "Of course! That's sensible. Very good, Jr. Flunkie. Dismissed." [Jr. flunkie immediately IM's other flunkies about the newest management fire drill in progress]

Sr. F. to me: "Sir, I have found the problem and it is not me or my flunkies, but these other flunkies over here. They, though excessive use of communications software, are causing an unexpected drain on our critical applications' bandwidth space partition, sir. I'll ask for our partition to be increased, sir."

ME: "Very well. But why wasn't I informed of this before, Sr. F.?"

SR. F.: "Because sir, as you well know, there is never a problem until you say there is one, sir."

ME: "Ah yes, of course. Very good, Sr. Flunkie. You are dismissed."

ME and many others like me simultaneously to Sr. Mgmt.: "Sirs, we have found the problem, and it is a systems error, beyond all of our collective control. It may indeed be an undetected siphoning off of our essential bandwidth, sir, by excessive internal communications applications such as Instant Messaging, which has been rumored to cause cyber-farts in the ether, sir. The systems people should have discovered this during testing, sir, don't you think?"

SR. MGMT.: "Of course, they should have. But, they don't know the business like we do - they are merely programmers. So, in this instance, no heads have to roll. It's just the nature of the world, son. If you saw the BIG PICTURE, like we do in Sr. Mgmt., you wouldn't have gotten this all blown out of proportion the way you did. Really, you can't let routine glitches like cyber-farts cause you to lose focus. It's nothing more than electronic gas, and this too shall pass. :) Go back to your duties now, and let this be a lesson to you."

ME, etal.: "Thank you sir. I deeply appreciate the chance to learn at your feet." Retreats, bowing and scraping.

Ok, so maybe it wasn't exactly like that, but it WAS a bit of a fire drill, getting all kinds of people riled up over a systems problem that SHOULD have been caught in testing. Personally, I think heads SHOULD roll.

But we have way too many unfilled openings as it is. We can't afford for heads to roll. Like the personal ads lament: "Where have all the good men (or women) gone?" What they really mean, of course, is: "where are all the men/women who see past my obvious flaws to my inherent value and desireability, and give me the respect, yea verily, even the admiration I deserve?" Which is pretty much what we want when we go to hire people. I think our company needs more slavishly worshipful grunts to do our bidding. Where have they all gone?

Bushes, bushes everywhere!

Took out the hedge trimmer this morning at 10, the 50' extention cord, a towel, 2 cans of soda and 4 advil. I was ready to trim the bushes! :) Now it's noon, I'm done, it's 84 degrees already, the towel and all articles of clothing are soaked, the soda is gone and I want 4 more advil before I step into the shower.

These things must have gone at least 4 years without trimming. Various spruces, cedars, some azaleas (almost like hedges), and holly! They all smell so good when trimming them. I think this is going to be a multi-year project to get them matched and balanced. But now I can get to the water meter, the outdoor faucets and outlets! They were REALLY overgrown.

What a busy week this week! Many, many "conversations" with nervous employees waiting to see where they'll be placed. Writing up and vetting my organizational announcement, trying to nail down the occupant of my last senior opening left to fill, keeping my bosses informed and communicating with each other, getting project inventories from all my staff, and the usual meetings meetings meetings... whew! I'm glad I'll be on the road for a while starting Tuesday. I need a break! :)

Heading for St. Paul for a few days on business, and then a few days of vacation, seeing some elusive rarely-sighted migrating family members, and maybe a friend or two, etc., after that. Back on the 10th, for two weeks alone with the dog, as Deb goes to see family and friends from the 9th until the 23rd. We actually pass each other in the airport. :) It's strange. But with no kids, it can work to function a little more independently like this. But I'll have to mow the grass! Yuk. Maybe it will be really dry and it will all turn brown and stop growing. Oh, but then I have to water it... oh well. Guess I have to do some lawn work. I suppose it will keep me off the streets...

The job-hunting saga continues for Jenny. An interview in Naperville on Tuesday with the company I work for! An entry-level claims adjuster position, which could allow a transfer in 2 years or so to the fine arts claim unit where she really wants to work. Plus, there's openings here in New England now in a regional claim office of ours, and her resume' is circulating there. Wouldn't that be strange? And, no, don't even think about it... she'd get an apartment. :)

Jonny will finally get his butt hauled into the eye doctor and the DMV while Deb is back home. Honestly, he's 19. What's so hard about calling Sears Optical, or standing in line for a license renewal? I hope he finds a wife who can manage his life for him. Sometimes he seems so helpless. Maybe that's why girls are so attracted to him. He's like a puppy they can care for and he's soooo cute!

There, I think the perspiration has finally stopped and I can go shower. Then, off for a drive in the car with the newly recharged a/c. Mmmm... cool, man!

Now THAT'S worship!

Went here on Sunday, me for the third time:

http://www.firstcathedral.org/

Wow! I could get real comfortable here. The place is enormous, but so doggone friendly. I don't know if they would have someone like us over to the house for a meal (kind of like the Bernie Mac remake of "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner"), but I sure felt welcome in the service. And the songs are so good and the enthusiasm of the congregation and worship leader and choir so contagious...

Communion is weird with the little "creamer" cups they use - a wafer sealed in plastic, sitting on top of a serving of wine, also sealed in plastic. Like those little flavored half & half cups you get at the gas station. That kind of container. Very modern but... weird. But afterwards when they sing "The Blood Shall Never Lose Its Power" with that slow swing shuffle beat... you forget about the container.

And the pastor - whooeee! You are defiinitely not bored when he preaches... If it wasn't for the prosperity theology that underpins much of the church's philosophy... oh well. And like most predominantly black churches, they are very politically wired in. Sharing the platform on Sunday were Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and the guy she was stumping for, Ned Lamont, the Democratic challenger to Joltin' Joe Lieberman's Senate bid. Not exactly conservatives. What they "preach" on the campaign circuit is not exactly what you hear from the pulpit in this church. I wonder if they allow the opposition to stump, too. At least they waited until the service was over and people could stay or go as they wished. Maybe I'll go back next week and see if Joe is there! :) Go Joe Go!

Switching gears, I had my first staff meeting last week. With real staff, yet! :) Things are finally looking up in that department. Should be able to put out an announcement next week and then... get some real work done!

Now if it would just cool off and stop raining...

Oh, and - did I mention we have a house to sell? We got another offer yesterday, anyway. Lower than the previous one we had gotten. Arghh... they're going backwards!!!

The Priesthood?

Visited another new church this week: a congregational church that left the UCC a few years ago and affiliated last year with the Evangelical Free Church, an old familiar favorite denomination. They had to ask for the liberty to NOT agree to point 11 of the EFCA doctrinal statement (regarding the pretribulational return of Christ), but hey - who doesn't disagree with that? ;)

Anyway, one of the ushers took pains to spend time talking with us before and after, and I instantly liked him. He reminded me of a dear friend where we used to live (Mark M) but 15 years older. Same outgoing, warm, engaging and caring personality - just ... old! Old but full of vitality. My kind of "old" guy... ;) Old on the outside only!

But HOT? Oh my. No A/C in this building either. It's an old building from the 1850's and there's just no way...

Ha! I asked about church planting, do they do that kind of thing, plant new churches? And he said "well sure! We ourselves were a church plant - about 150 years ago." Apparently their "mother" church was formed across the river in 1630. Guess the gestation period here is pretty long for birthing new churches, but - at least they did it once. So now this 150 year old church is birthing a new one down on the coast in a poor community with lots of opportunity for service work. Maybe their biological clock was ticking...

The sermon on this brutally hot day was from 2 Peter, on the subject of the priesthood of all believers. For once, when I read the passage, it struck me that the priestly role the church has is essentially and subtantively ministry to God, service to Him, not primarily to the rest of the world, either in evangelism or social action. Those things are commanded of us, yes, but still ancillary to our primary purpose of offering ourselves in service to God in whatever role He guides us to. It's not unlike the Old Testament priesthood, where many priests were given duties in worship/music, or temple care, or people care, or scripture care (scribes), but all were separated out for service, and some were appointed to serve constantly in the temple making offerings before God, which was the highest call to service there was. Service to people's needs or witness to the nations never superceded that - it attended it, accompanied it, but never came before it. The same in the New Testament in Acts when the deacons were called to serve the people so the Apostles could attend to prayer and the Word. Service to the world was ancillary and an extention of the primary call of service to God.

Hm. I got it, I think. Even though the pastor was on vacation and it was an elder who preached. He fell victim to the same temptation every elder does who gets to substitute for the pastor. He stuffed 10 pounds of sausage into a 5 pound casing. 40 minutes of sermon instead of 20. I was getting faint toward the end and had to go out to the car and sit in the air conditioning for 10 minutes. When I got back he was still preaching...

Guess I've done the same thing myself especially years ago when I first preached. I've learned since then to write it, time it, cut it, time it, cut it, and then read it verbatim (with great feeling, of course) to keep within people's absorbatory limits. Is that a word? Absorbatory? Hm. It is now.

Alternating Current

The sermon this morning at the Episcopal church (the last one here before the search for a church moves elsewhere) was a good one. This is the regular guy, the head dude, who they call a rector. Hm. Then there's the sexton, and the vestry... more terms of vague anglo-saxon origin. It all feels very... what? 17th century. :)

So, he's preaching from the Epistle for the day, which I gather somebody a few hundred years ago said SHOULD be the Epistle lesson on this particular Sunday. He's in Corinthians where Paul is talking about the thorn in his flesh, which God arranged for Satan to harass him with, to keep him from getting too uppity over the vision of Paradise he had 14 long years before.

Now, I've heard people say that "you should never get too happy with your situation or pleased with your life, because God will have to come along and smack you - send you tragedy - to bring you back to reality." And I usually think "that's nonsense, God doesn't do that kind of thing, doesn't send you tragedy because you're too ecstatic about your life." But boy, in the divinely inspired Word from today's lesson, which is infallible, without error in the original languages, it certainly sounds like that's what He did to Paul - spot on, in fact. "...to keep me from becoming too exalted" he puts it. Hm.

Anyway, the preacher used that illustration to describe our lives on earth as if they were AC, alternating current, where the electrical charge goes out from the power source to the end of the circuit and then returns, back and forth, back and forth, a bazillion times a second or so. Or thereabouts. Approximately. :)

Negative/positive/negative/positive/negative/positive, etc.

Except our lives alternate from failure to success, from tragedy to victory, from ecstacy to despondency, from joy to grief, from hope to despair, from plans destroyed to dreams realized, acceptance to abandonment, from frustration to ease, from encouragement to discouragement, etc., etc. His point was that God sends the times of great pleasure to help us get through the times of sadness that are inevitable in this life, AND that the difficult times are also sent from Him to keep us both humble and dependent on His grace.

It made me think, as a statistician would (good grief! during the sermon yet!) of statistical distributions. The normal curve. I suppose an engineer would think of an oscilloscope and accomplish the same thing, but I like my example better.

The normal or "bell" curve has as much of the probability on the left side as on the right - it's symmetrical. See below:



Random events (or at least events that APPEAR to be random to our eyes - but that's another discussion) fall equally on either side of the middle (the 50th percentile of probability and the mean of the distribution.) The shaded areas represent standard deviations from the mean. And in the Standard Normal curve, one standard deviation around the mean contains about 2/3 of the events that happen. 2 standard deviations (2SD) contain 95% of the things that happen.

This curve describes lots of natural phenomena, and we can see a lot of life events happening this way, too. Good stuff, bad stuff, happy times, sad times, mostly falling fairly close to the middle ground, the "happy medium". I think people differ, though in what their "medium" is. I know people whose "medium", whose normal setting, is NOT at all happy, but rather blah or even morose. And I know others whose medium is almost giddy compared to mine. Seems like those with a "medium" that's pretty positive could stand to help those whose medium is not so upbeat...

But does God "set" the mean of the distribution for people? Does He set mine different from yours, by the events He sends into my life? Does He push for "balance" and "symmetry"? The yin needs the yang, etc.? If not, then what is Paul talking about? Is his experience normative or unique?

Then I got to thinking (and I can here some of you say "and just when was this, during communion?" - noooo. During the canticle for the day which tune I didn't know. Sorry.) about another statistical principle. Kurtosis. Kurtosis, I said! Not ketosis as in the low carb diet phase when you are burning fat and your breath tastes like aluminum foil, no... Kurtosis.

Kurtosis describes how tall or flat the curve is. In other words, how close are most events to the middle? With some people, the events in their life don't vary a lot from the "middle" - they don't have wild highs and brutal lows. They just kind of go along without a lot of variation from one day to the next, one month from the next, one year to the next. They live in the same place for a long time, work for the same company for years, have the same friends, do the same things. Their curve is tall. See below:



Others have a flat, broad, curve, where the events of their lives are spread quite far from the middle. What's normal for these people? Change, I think. Big emotional swings, too, maybe. Over the last couple of years, I have felt like the kurtosis of my life has been changing, making the distribution even flatter than ever before. Big swings in emotions and in life events. I think I still have a "normal" setting, but I'm not sure what it is anymore. I suppose I cross paths with it from time to time as I'm swinging by the middle on my way to something else that's extreme...

I think I could go for a little more height in my curve, God, ok? And the middle? Could you push it a little more to the right, please? Thanks for listening. I'll just wait if you don't mind. :)

It's a scorcher out there

Wow! Is it ever hot! 90, sunny, humid... ugh. And to think some people like this stuff.

But this is New England. Why should it be like Savannah around here? Oy!

So, I stay inside today. Yesterday I built shelving for the garage wall, to get all the junk up and off the floor. Getting pretty close to fitting one car inside!

It would have been so much easier if we had sold that big living room sectional while still in the Midwest, but... a consignment place is coming later this week. Maybe they'll take it. Still have 4 dining room chairs, a stereo/TV cabinet, a computer desk, two iorental rugs. Someone! Buy our stuff!

But last night, I retreated from the heat to the existential coolness of the Lounge. Not only is it cool in the sense of hipster cool, but also very cool in the sense of air conditioning cool! :) :) :)

Reading Gods and Generals now, by Jeff Schaara, which I picked up at a bookstore at a Civil War battlefield on the way back from WIlliamsburg earlier this month. Is it ever good! He gets inside the heads of some of the men who were torn between love of homeland and duty to country. Cried a bit last night at one passage... I think I'm getting maudlin as I get older. :)

But I actually wrapped a throw around my legs because I got cold! Ahhhhh... almost like December. And the music in the Lounge - last night was Hawaii Calls from the 60's. Groovy, baby! Makes you want to light the tiki torches.

Life in the Lounge

Many of you have wondered what I was referring to when I talked in prior posts about this retro lounge thing I was putting together in the basement (excuse me, lower level.) Well, the furnishings are just about complete. Enough to show off a little. :)
It wouldn't be complete without some Chagall on the walls. These are favorites and have a lot of meaning to me. The recessed lighting is on a dimmer, too, for adjusting the mood to match the circumstances...

Some of these are a little dark, I know... but you can always cut and paste them and brighten them up in a photo editing program. Hey, it was a state-of-the art camera back in it's day! Of course the day was a while ago. :) Suffice it to say that the bar is stocked and open, and that the vintage vinyl is out and ready to both display and play...
A little Henry Mancini on the turntable, a martini (gin please), a good book... life is good in the lounge. :)

Last Road Trip For Awhile

Almost done traveling. One quick pass to see "home" again and then back to the new house in New England.

I didn't think this job was going toturn me into a road warrior, but having 2 days in the last 22 where I haven't been on the road... it has sure seemed like it.

But starting Sunday I'll be spending evenings unpacking boxes and setting up rooms and getting ready for the first garage/tag sale of the summer. No travel scheduled for, oh... 3 months?

I suppose a lot will come up as that 3 months unfolds - spur of the moment stuff. Whether it's fun travel or dull, who knows? We'll see... :)

Get out of my house!

Contractors... every time I think I'm out, they draaaaag me back in.

This time it was no hot water in the showers. It's been a cold last 3 days...

Called a plumber and it turns out the valves are bad, had to be replaced. To the tune of $2,000! Yikes! There's an outside chance that the home warranty policy will cover it. Or part of it. We'll soon find out. The claim goes in today.

Now the rest of the house looks so nice that the bathrooms just HAVE to be painted, too. :) Of course they do.

But the faux finish in the kitchen looks reaaaalllly good. The painter I hired by mistake - the wrong guy - did a fantastic job. Here's one mistake I'm glad I made. Found a table & chairs for the eating space in the kitchen that will look great with it, too. Should show up next week.

And the lounge... taking shape! All the furniture that I needed to assemble is done and in, just awaiting the orange sofa and green/orange chairs. Woohoo! I can hardly wait!

Now if I could just get cable signal into my house, and get the internet working, I'd be happy. -er. :) Sitting in an internet cafe' doing my blog is nuts. I have to type fast, think fast at 40 cents a minute...

Boxes, boxes everywhere - and not a place to sit!

Saturday night at the house it was actually pristine and quiet. All the walls freshly painted, the hardwood freshly sealed, the carpentry/plumbing/electrical work done...

then came Sunday, with moving out of the apartment. I didn't think I had much stuff, but... it was quite a pile when stacked up. I guess I really did haul a bunch of things here when I drove the car out and then every single business trip thereafter! Not to mention the house plants, household chemicals, propane tank for the grill, luggage, food, etc. that came along for the ride with the second car. But everybody arrived in one piece on Sunday afternoon, and I had some extra hands (and paws) to help haul. :)

But Monday! Oh my goodness...

5 men (driver, helper and 3 locals) hauled from 8AM until 4:30PM, with Deb directing traffic in the driveway, and me in the basement applying triage to the dollys full of boxes. They did a fantastic job of organizing the basement storage area, and am I ever glad I put in extra lighting! It's like a warehouse in there now, with aisles, and all box labels turned to face the aisles... almost indexed by department. Toys in aisle 1, books - aisle 4. Funny, but scary. We really should be held criminally liable for accumulating so many things over the years.

The retro lounge in the lower level (we no longer use the word *basement* unless referring to actual storage areas) is starting to take shape. Love the new colors, and have a couple of furniture pieces built. More each night! :)

Upstairs it's chaos, but slowly that too will get better. Slowly. But... no kids to worry about, at least. Just a dog. That makes it easier to live in what looks like a "war zone" temporarily.

If only it wasn't summer. 85 and humid all weekend, and today/tomorrow. Ugh. The A/C works, though! I have my fans set up in strategic locations, too. I'll survive. :)

I wonder if it will ever feel like home?

This here is it - roundup time!

Yep, back at the ranch, they are a-loadin' up the wagons. All our worldly possessions gettin' throwed on a truck. Big truck. Real big truck.

Plus it's off to the doctor today for Deb, to hopefully get the final signoff on her recovery from surgery. Lots of pressure on her, and it's been tough. Quite a bit of furniture got sold in the "moving sale" (helped by many girlfriends), so there will be less to sell in a "tag sale" here later this summer. Yes, they call it a "tag" sale - not "rummage", not "yard", not "garage" ... "tag". Hmpf. Local Yankee culture.

But by the end of this weekend, the work on the new house here will be done (God willing), and ready for all the contents of that big truck to be unloaded. Memorial Day! It will be a day to remember, all right.

While unpacking to set up a new life here, at the same time I'll also be remembering all that's back there, and wondering how often I'll visit... it's hard to move forward when your heart is pulled back. But, I press on! And I trust that God will be gracious, giving me many opportunities to nourish that heart in the ways He knows it needs to be fed and cared for.

Nice day

Kind of a fun day chasing around. It was super busy, non-stop, but didn't feel frazzle-y. Bought some furniture at IKEA (nearest store 50 miles away - 65 from the new house, 80 from the DMV), inspected the new carpet at the house (nice) and put new toilet paper in the bathroom for the contractors' convenience, absorbed some local culture as I fought blocked-off streets trying to find the post office due to a little local festival, beat the state bureaucracy to a bloody pulp as I walked away from the DMV with a decent DL picture for once... maybe it's the new haircut. :)

All kinds of other odds & ends, too numerous to mention, and now a glass of peppermint schnapps, a good book, and I'm off to bed. Mmmm... a good day.

There's nothing as constant as... (Updated)

you know the rest.

I've been here, oh... 4 months now. Lost a boss today. A dotted line boss anyway. Alpaca is moving up and into a different part of the company. It remains to be seen who will replace him - Mousewoman is still thinking about it. And she may bust up his duties, who knows? At least it's only a dotted line relationship.

Hopefully Rug, my solid line boss, stays in place a while. Continuity is good in a start-up unit like this one...

but I'm not nervous. Much.

I mean, my plan is to change my driver's license over this weekend to the new address... hmmm.

****************

UPDATE:

Rug called on Friday afternoon with news on who Alpaca's replacement is (at least in part) - a guy I'll call PeBo. Solid character, good fit for the job, and he will run only Management Information, and report to Mousewoman. The financial part of Alpaca's job will be filled by an accountant type. Fine with me. This should be an OK change as far as I can see. Whew! :)

You'd think this would be simple

... just a little fixing up here and there, some painting, a couple of new outlets ...

The first day that there were contractors in the house, one of the electricians is up in the attic snaking wire and proceeds to put his foot through the hallway ceiling. Tore out a 2' x 3' chunk of drywall.

The painter shows up with paint, ready to go, and I realize ... I hired the wrong guy! Naturally, the one time I bothered to get competetive bids, and I get their names confused! Oh well, you live with your mistakes.

Then, the carpenter is hauling lumber for shelving down into the basement via the outside storm door stairs, which makes sense, but he does it in a pouring rainstorm and water runs in all over the basement floor - no towels or mop in sight so it stands there in pools...

The plumber got the utility sink for the wine room unpacked, but it was cracked upon arrival and he needs to order a new one. No idea when it will show up. He doesn't return my phone calls.

I shudder to think what will happen when the people start to lay the hardwood floors down...

Oy! I need a therapist.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned

but gee whiz. Couldn't I have had the chance to shake hands with someone besides my own realtor and my own attorney?

I mean all this money is changing hands, and some people who've lived in this house for 20 years are handing over the keys to someone they've never seen, and ... they don't want to meet the buyer?

Arghhh. The sellers did not come to the closing. My realtor hung around long enough to witness some signatures, pick up her commission check and take off. My lawyer passed me page after page of documents to sign, and the sellers' attorney was going to sign later for the sellers. At least the sellers' realtor was there. But then, she picked up a check, too. Vultures...

Somehow this whole business has felt like I got all dressed up for prom, picked up my date who didn't say a word the whole way there. When we got to the dance, they only had a DJ, not a band, and he got sick after half an hour. Everyone went home early, and I didn't even get a kiss at the door, because my date left after her first glass of punch via a side entrance...

I wanted somebody to uncork some champagne today and say congratulations, welcome to the neighborhood!!!

At least I got two remotes for each garage door. That's something.

Buying a house by mail

Trying to get the final paperwork all lined up on the new house in New England, while on a 10-day business trip in the Midwest, shuttling back and forth between St. Paul and Chicago... the bank needs this notarized, the relo company needs these forms filled out, the real estate lawyer out East and the estate planning lawyer back here are trying to figure out how to title the house. Fedex and faxes. That's how you buy a house these days.

But on Monday, I actually get to sit across a table from the sellers and shake hands and say "we'll take good care of it." How very old-fashioned.

And at that moment I really will have three residences - none of which will actually be "home".

The cavalcade of contractors begins Tuesday! See them sand, watch them paint! Hear them hammer and then curse! Fun for the whole family!

And somewhere in there I may be in the office doing work. We'll see.

Back... Home?

Not sure where home is, exactly. I feel like I have several, some more desirable than others. But I have to admit that there was something comforting about being back in the New England apartment yesterday. I have a routine there, dull though it is.

Back in the Midwest I kept opening the wrong drawers for silverware, kept going into my travel bag for toiletries... home is where, again?

Is it the place that I'm buying new furniture and picking out paint colors for? The place where my life's accumulation of souvenirs and mementos are displayed/stored? The place where my favorite clothes hang in the closet and my prescriptions sit on the counter? The place where I can sit on the couch doing little or nothing and still feel loved and accepted?

I have to go back to a different understanding of what home is. I recall a poster that I had in my room as a high schooler. It was of a scarecrow with a pumpkin head and straw hat dressed in overalls and sitting on the porch of a farmhouse, with the caption "home is not where you live, but where they understand you."

For some reason that always appealed to me, I suppose especially as a teenager when you usually feel misunderstood anyway. Still holds, I guess. Home is where I not only feel accepted and understood, but at ease and relaxed, where trouble melts away. So where's that again? Refresh my memory, please.

Recovery from surgery is progressing, under first my and now her mother's watchful eye. Hopefully next week she has more strength and can manage without someone "on call" 24/7. The meals do keep rolling in. :) More than one person can eat, really. Lawn care and housecleaning are all arranged, too. All that's left to do is get better! But I can't help with that.

Recovery

Whew! She turned a corner yesterday and is on the road to a late Saturday/early Sunday release. Maybe. "We'll see" say the doctors, but a couple of key milestones were passed which allow her to have clear foods now (broths, jellos), stop antibiotics and morphine (wheeee!), and yank out a couple of tubes.

I'll extend a couple of extra days to see her settled and then her Mom will come and stay a few more. From there on, we should be good. Now just have to line up lawn care and housecleaning, and things should be fine.

I'm beginning to relax a little. Still not sleeping well, but that's mostly the dog. He's demented...

Surgery

Complete hysterectomy scheduled for tomorrow morning... the hope is that all they find is an abscess.

Thankfully, her fear has faded since I've come back. Finally I feel like I've been useful. She's calm now and being brave.

I'm neither. I need to sleep.

UPDATE:

Surgery successful (although sleep wasn't.) Nothing untoward, fairly straightforward. Now a loooong recovery, assisted by friends and family in my absence (again.) One of these years I have to stop moving across country...

Bad News Comes In Threes

Updates at bottom
----------------

Old wives' tale. Superstition. We'll see, I guess. If the bad news keeps on coming after this one, maybe there's nothing to it after all. Personally, I'd be glad if the superstition's right, and the bad news stops at only three.

Got a call late this afternoon that Deb is in the emergency room with pain, fever, nausea. They do a cat scan and find... a growth on one ovary - the size of a deck of cards! At this point they don't know what it is - an abcess that burst or a cancerous tumor or anything in between. There's something bad in there because the white blood cell count is way too high. She's on morphine to numb the pain, and tomorrow they operate. No one knows what they'll find. And here I am stuck out East with all flights sold out due to Easter weekend. I won't get back until Sunday afternoon, after it's all over.

Fortunately there are friends around her and working girl J has the weekend off and is driving up from Chicago tonight to stay at home with the crazy dog Inferno. College boy J is on a road trip in Ohio but will come up Sunday, as will the inlaws, and - finally - me.

It's a repeat of 25 years ago when the same thing happened on her other side and family plans took a whole different direction. Scary then and scary now.

And I just feel tired, weak and useless. What I need to be is brave, strong and helpful.



Saturday night update:

Surgery postponed until temperature and white blood cell count under control. Later in the week probably. At least by then I'll be back. Temperature was 104.6 today until they used a cooling blanket to drive it down. She sounded delerious on the phone and very, very frightened. Helpless took on a new meaning for me today.

Happy Passover!

Oh, I miss the Seder, and the table full of people, especially all the little victims, er, I mean eager young children who sit through three hours of lecture, I mean compellingly interesting ceremony that the adults can barely grasp. What fun! :)

Really, though. I miss it. What I miss the most is being the Rabbi. And lately also being the eldest, who answers the 4 questions. Oy Gevalt! Such responsibility I should have at my tender age! The leader and the eldest. Hm. Might as well be the Rabbi, then. If I let my beard grow out, I'd sure look the part. Grizzled old codger - um, excuse me, respected teacher of the people. ;)

I love wearing the tallit, singing the Sh'ma, chanting/reciting the prayers in Hebrew (from memory now after all these years), telling the story of the outgoing from Egypt, explaining all the ritual foods, hiding the afikomen and redeeming it with a Sacagawea dollar (which seriously underwhelms any kid over 8.) And oh! The 4 cups of wine. Very important. 4 cups. Yes indeedy.

So, tonight, I have the matzoh out, some cream cheese handy for the leftovers, a decent Ravenswood Zin (not handmade by the Rabbi so definitely not kosher, but you make do, you know?) Might just get 4 cups out of this bottle if I work at it. A couple of roasted eggs (ok, boiled), some salt, and for greens... well... how about the bell peppers and green chiles in my cheesy enchilada soup? And I think the jalapeno and chipotle peppers in the soup will have to do for the bitter herbs. No horseradish, sorry. But then, I'm not Orthodox, so I should worry?

And as far as being alone on Passover - I wonder if I can sort of do a virtual Seder? Something will work out, I know. :) If God could provide the lamb for Abraham... He can provide for me.

L'Chaim! To Life!

Contractor Day

Got the seller's agent to open up the new house Wednesday to let me bring in contractors (plumbing, electrical, flooring, painting, carpentry) for estimates. I thought I'd have a hard time getting people there, and that I'd be hanging out all day waiting for people to show up. But they're all coming at 9AM! I'll have a stampede on my hands.

"You! Carpenter! Downstairs!"

"Painter! Bedrooms!"

"Electric! Sun room!"

"Plumber! Kitchen!"

"Flooring! Living room!"

"GO!"

And after 15 minutes, I'll yell: "Everybody switch rooms!"

This should be a circus. What a way to spend a vacation day! :)

And just you watch... when I schedule them for the 3rd week of May to actually do the work - nobody will show up. ;)

Dreary...

Where is Spring?

There are signs of it, sure. The forsythias are all golden and the jonquils are standing tall. But it's so cold and rainy here today, and such a boring Saturday. Nothing to do but watch TV, vacuum, watch TV, eat, watch TV, exercise, watch a DVD, dust the sills, eat, write letters, watch TV. Arghhh! I want OUT!

I think it's partly because I'd been cooped up in a meeting room for two solid days trying to stay engaged and alert. Good meetings, useful, informative, but... made me stir crazy. I want to go dancing or something! Or watch baseball. Or get the tennis racket out. Something! Even having someone over for dinner would be nice. But, um... no.

Got this poem in a card today from my daughter, such an encourager, always writing. Even though I write people every Saturday, she's really the only one I get mail from on any kind of regular schedule. When I see friendly handwriting in my mailbox, I don't feel so isolated.

Spring

I said in my heart "I am sick
Of four walls and a ceiling.
I have need of the sky.
I have business with the grass.

I will up and get me away
Where the hawk is wheeling,
Lone and high,
And the slow clouds go by."

-Richard Hovey Dodd

Yeah. Me, too.

Chicago in March!

What a nice time in the 'city with broad shoulders.' Good seminar, good business meetings, good meals out, comfortable beds, a little time for shopping, opportunities to be with favorite people who I never seem to get enough time with... you know who you are! :)

And, 3 weekends in a row at home. Wow. While it's the last time for that, it was sure nice. So, back East again for two weeks of "normal" work, plus the start of lining up contractors to come to the house for estimates on work to do (flooring, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, painting, buried dog fence, etc...) To avoid grief on the sellers, I'd like to get them all there on one day, taking vacation to be there the whole time. Then schedule them all to come the week of 5/15 and work simultaneously, so that when the moving van arrives with the furniture on 5/25, they're all gone.

Hmmm. Wonder if I can still find time to join that company golf league in May...

The Retro Lounge

Went out to dinner with pastor and wife last night, after shopping for furniture at a local store with a modern and retro flair. What a funny conversation! :)

I'm insisting on being able to decorate one room in the new house with some real splash to it - edgy, avant-garde, etc. OK, so I was given the basement to work with. Still... it's a room!

I've settled on a 50's/60's martini lounge motif. And we looked at couches, chairs, end tables, small bar & stools, etc. Fabrics, rugs, throw pillows... I think I was the only one of the four of us that even remotely liked what we looked at. But, when has that ever slowed me down? :) I mean... those of you who know what car I drive would know that, other people's opinions notwithstanding, I like what I like! And there's no accounting for taste, especially mine.

So, I'm thinking bright orange and olive-y green and brown as the major colors, with a brown painted concrete floor, a light shaggy area rug, open modern cube shelving displaying stereo components and old vinyl albums, chagall prints on the walls in his characteristic oranges, reds, blues, blacks, yellows. Orangey-yellowy-olivey accessories (lamps, coasters). Bobby Darin or Sinatra on the stereo. Mmmmm.

Care for a drink? I have an excellent Bordeaux-style blend aged 16 months in bulk and bottled last Fall to rave reviews. Of course, as the winemaker I'm biased...