Paradigms...where shift happens!

"Listen carefully because...

...our menu options have changed." That's what I hear every bloody time I dial an 800 number for technical support or customer service. And then begins the seemingly interminable list of choices you can make offered to you by a mystery person who has the job of trying to narrow down your question to some impossibly closely defined specialty. If you are fortunate enough to hear something that sounds close to what you want they then want some identifier from you like your account number, last 4 digits of your social security number or for security purposes, your mother's maiden name. If after 53 assurances that your call is important to them you actually connect to a person, that person will usually go through all the previous account number inquiries followed by the pound sign all over again, leaving you wondering why you had to enter them in the first place.

Maybe we need some legislation prohibiting the changing of menu choices more than once a day. Maybe even better we could have the person who is inventing all those menu choices stop doing that and actually answer the damn phone.

To hear these choices in English, press 1, in Spanish press 2, and so on for as many numbers as their are on the keypad. This call is being recorded for quality control and training purposes and finally if my call is so damn important to you, then ANSWER IT!

Forwarding some info many of you may...

...already have seen but it's potentially important enough that I feel as if a forward is justified in this case:

My nurse friend sent this and encouraged me to post it and spread the word. I agree.

If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks. Seriously..

Please read:

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) .....she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.

Ingrid's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00 pm Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some don't die.... they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this...
A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally . He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE
Thank God for the sense to remember the '3' steps, STR . Read and Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke .

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:
S * Ask the individual to SMILE.
T * Ask the person to TALK and SPE AK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. It is sunny out today)
R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.
If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call 999/911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke -------- Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE: Ask the person to 'stick' out his tongue.. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other ,that is also an indication of a stroke.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

Gas Prices...hitting back

GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work

This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It's worth your consideration.

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea.

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.

BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us! By now you're probably thinking gasoline

priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the

marketplace..... not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any

gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out at this point.... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people.

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 =3D 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it.....

THREE >>>>HUNDRED MILLION >>>>PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.)

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you?

Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.

THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

Doing the right thing?

Is the term "corporate ethics" oxymoronic? A friend of mine was just laid off from a position with a NYSE traded company after years of service that went way above and beyond the call of duty. The news was delivered by telephone in the middle of a business trip while my friend was far away from any familial support system. The company had enjoyed the benefits of her considerable intellect, her total loyalty and her willingness to work hundred hour plus weeks during which she accomplished what a team of people could not do in a similar time frame. The abilities she had demonstrated over the years had led them to press her to relocate half way across the country to take on a project that no one else could manage and that was so fouled up it appeared beyond salvation. Is loyalty a one way street where the traffic is controlled only by dollars signs and decimal points?

I was reading a couple of speeches delivered by novelist Pat Conroy yesterday in which he mentioned people who did the right thing simply because it was the right thing. Conroy himself paid for Shannon Faulkner's undergraduate education after she left the Citadel. He did it, according to him, as a kind of penance for the shabby treatment she had experienced at his alma mater as the first woman to be admitted. 

Last weekend I watched a movie called "Radio" where Ed Harris played the role of a man who did the right thing simply because it was the right thing to do. When asked by his school principal why he had taken a young black man played by Cuba Gooding under his wing, he said simply that it had seemed like the right thing to do. It was a dramatization of a true story so it wasn't entirely fictional.

Are corporations losing their ability to make these kinds of ethical decisions? Does the term "best practices" now mean only "what's most expedient for the company and the decision makers"?  Maybe I don't understand enough about business and maybe I'm too naive to accept that there are tough decisions that a business must make. I've always been a bit of an idealist though and I hope I never become calloused to the point that I believe that the means justify the ends.

5 minutes

It was back on January 4th that I finished my last pack of cigarettes. Dealing with kicking the habit was easier this time than in earlier efforts, at least it seemed that way. I'm not anywhere near being out of the woods yet but I'm finding it a little easier to put off the urge to burn one for 5 minutes each time that urge strikes. They say that if you fight it off for 5 minutes the desire to smoke goes away, at least for a while; I think it's true. I just have to remember to fight the good fight for 5 minutes...5 minutes at a time...not a lifetime but just 5 stupid minutes. 

There was a pretty strong motivator involved in this effort but I'll tell you about that later...maybe.

Thank you

Thank you for my Christmas present; you have brought back the joy of Christmas. Like many guys, I suspect, my Christmas role had always been more as support staff and financier than anything else. That's a chore and not a small amount of pressure that I used to let overwhelm the spirit of this season. When I returned to singlehood 13 years ago the whole thing was mine to deal with as best I could and I freely admit that I have not done a very good job of it.

You have changed all that this year and that's a present that can't be wrapped. It's too big.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I want to be like Dooce

Greetings and hallucinations!

Yes indeed folks…he lives, he thrives (sort of ) and for that he is eternally grateful. The hair continues to abandon ship with alarming frequency, kind of like Republican legislators distancing themselves from the administration as the mid term elections approach.

I have no excuses; my muse has been on sabbatical and my web project (www.rivervoices.net) has consumed more than it’s fair share of time. Especially in the last couple of weeks as I have been informed that my hosting company www.godaddy.com has decided to stop supporting the software I have been using to build the site. In light of their nefarious plots against my sanity, I’ve been thrashing around looking for an alternative that I can afford and that can give me the look that I want. I am going to have to go back and redo everything I have done so far and my seat of the pants ‘guesstimate’ is that I have a couple of hundred hours of rebuilding on my horizon. If you google on “unhappy camper” you may well see my picture appear on your screen.

On a cheerier note, one of my favorite bloggers had a terrific feature article published about her in the Salt Lake City Tribune last week. Here is the link to it and to her blog:

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_4492586 and http://www.dooce.com/archives/daily_photo/10_25_2006.html

Heather is a remarkable and driven lady. She is surpassingly funny in both her writing and her photography. Her blog generates between 800,000 and 1,000,000 hits per month. I should live so long as to reach those numbers. Now fair warning…her language is sometimes adult in nature but it is never gratuitously so. It’s all in context. Go read her stuff but beware…don’t ingest any carbonated beverages while reading it. Your keyboard and nasal passages will not love you anymore.  Might want to forego that Oreo cookie as well. If you think carbonation is uncomfortable imagine cookie shrapnel!!!

Also this will be the last e-mail notification I send about blog postings. I have added a subscription link called “Feedblitz” which is fairly easy to set up or you can simply bookmark the site and check it when the spirit moves you. The subscription link is at the top of the leftmost column. You can also pick up the feed of the blog by going to Bloglines and signing up there.

Finally, I am aware that the banner picture has disappeared and I am on the trail of that.

Thanks for reading and tell a friend...or an enemy if you think this blog sucks...maybe your enemy has more patience than you do.

Are we there yet?

Does anyone remember Fizzies? They were a cross between a Necco wafer and an Alka-Seltzer tablet. They came in several flavors and the idea was that you dropped them into cold water and voila, instant soft drink.

I was reminded of them the one night last week when a big Ford Excavation or something like that passed me on the interstate. Glancing at the side windows,  I could see the glow of not one but two DVD screens strapped to the back of the front seat head rests, presumably the travel entertainment for a couple of head setted back seat munchkins while Mom and Dad rode in isolated silence up front, maybe even plugged in to their own individual Ipods.

Seeing that glow took me back to the mid 50's when my family moved from Virginia to Texas. As with most family moves it was summertime. We had an almost new 1955 Desoto that must have been nearly the same weight as a small naval vessel. The car was a two tone green behemoth with bench seats front and back that were large enough to seat all 5 of us comfortably. Other than where our little delinquent butts were planted, every nook and cranny was filled with the stuff a family of 5 needs to endure a 4 day car trip.

What it did not have though was air conditioning. Driving south as we were, the daytime temps were pretty miserable and as with any family of three kids stuck in the back of a car for the day, behavior was a daily issue. Since even back then cattle prods and spiked paddles were not acceptable tools for behavior modification my mother used a carrot instead of a stick. We were rewarded for being good with a treat of a Fizzie every couple of hours.  She kept a fat thermos jug of ice water on the floor of the front seat. It too was two tone in color, cream and hospital green if memory serves. This was before the days of spouts on jugs like that so she had to lift the jug into her lap and pour each cup of water out of the top.

The cups of water were handed back to us and we got to open the little envelope and drop the Fizzies in ourselves. That part of the evolution was good for about 15 seconds worth of amusement. My brother and I would hold the cups very close to our faces so we could feel the spray as they dissolved. Whichever one of us had the cup that finished first would shout out, "I won!" whereupon the loser would immediately look into the winner's cup to verify the results. 

I would tell you about the taste but memory has mercifully blotted that from my mind. I do recall though that if we were lucky enough to get one of the regular flavors it did seem like a reward. The root beer Fizzie was a different matter; we were both convinced that Mom was actually punishing us for something we had done or might soon do.

So,  I wonder as think about the kids in the back seat of that Ford Excavation. Will they share memories of a long vacation trip and yet another rerun of a Disney movie they have seen so many times they don't even need the soundtrack because they can read the lips of the animated characters? I think I prefer reminiscing about Fizzies, even the root beer.

Opposites attract

This morning as I stood by the microwave, waiting for my leftover coffee to be nuked up to drinking temperature, my as yet unfocused gaze fell on the magnets on my refrigerator door. I have a couple that are just clips that hold art work from my grandchildren, one that is a small ceramic turtle and a flat one with the names and phone numbers for all the businesses at Park & Shop directory is in print so small as to be unreadable It is useful though as it does a nice job holding up the cash register generated coupons for products I never use and which always expire before I remember to check them. 

 

I wonder where the American family would be without refrigerator magnets. No way to hang your kids' first art work...you know, the first pages from the coloring books, the ones that turn yellow about ten minutes after they are torn out of the book and proudly handed to mommy or daddy. You have to display them. If you don't you might discourage Junior's creativity, even though the lines on the picture seem to have been seen by your nascent little Picasso as mere random suggestions as to where the purple Crayola should be applied to that picture of a bull frog. There would be no place for the grocery lists or the little appointment reminder cards from your dentist. Where would we put the magnetic business cards with the smiling faces of the dozen or so hopeful realtors who want your listing even though you told them you're not even thinking about selling your home?

 

Every sole proprietor of a business, every insurance agent, even churches see the front of your refrigerator as a marketing tool. Thank God for magnetism since without it we would miss out on yet another marketing effort. Oh, no!

OK, I'll admit it...

...I'm stoked. Yesterday, the folks at the on-line presence of the local newspaper, The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star contacted me and invited me to become one of their bloggers. It took me all of 30 seconds to say yes and today I put up my first posting at fredericksburg.com. There's bad news and good news though. The bad news is that my shoulder hurts; I've nearly dislocated it, patting myself on the back. The good news is that my head should shrink back down to its normal size in a couple of days so I won't have to buy a new straw hat. That's especially good since it's not a paid gig. 

That's my story and I am by God stickin' to it....

Changes everywhere

This blog is supposed to be about coming to grips with change. Getting older is certainly a significant change and it seems to become a bigger challenge the farther we move along what I call the chronological continuum. Older people such as yours truly often measure it in decibels i.e. the increasing volume of the cracking in our joints when we turn over in bed or on the other end of the sound spectrum, the things we can no longer hear.

I discovered a new one this week. We have had 4 consecutive days of significant rain here in the Burg. In the old days, when the follicles in the center of the top of my head were healthier I could feel the rain hit my head. This week, while standing out in front of my office I discovered I can now hear it hit my head. It's a splat sound...the clearest and best example of the sound represented by the word 'splat' I can imagine. It's a better example of the sound than when a bird dumps on my car or a bug hitting a moving windshield traveling at 65 mph on Interstate 95. 

So there are really two pieces of good news here. First, I fully understand the meaning of the word "splat" now and more importantly, I can still hear the sound...come on rain...splat on!

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it....

Mysterious faces and the fruit they bear...

I am one of those people who feels quite embarrassed when I speak to or greet someone I think I know and then find out they are not someone I know. I hope for Matilda's sake she is much more level headed about that sort of thing.

At this point, I hope you are wondering who Matilda is.

I usually eat lunch alone since it's one of those times when I can just let my head rest while I read and eat. Today's lunch was no different. At my favorite Chinese buffet here in the Burg I was munching down on some General Tso's chicken as I paged through a book on business start ups on the Web.

I hear this lady's voice, very near and I see a small plate of fruit and a couple of napkins appear on my table. "Darn, they must have taken my fork!", she says.  As she walks back to get a clean one, I realize what's going on and think that this is going to be fun. She has gotten confused about where she is sitting. (Now, to tell you the truth I didn't have the "fun" thought right away. My first thought really was that this was some poor confused soul that had tripped a couple of breakers in her circuit box.)   

Clean fork in hand, she returns to my booth. She doesn't even look up until she is about half way seated. At this point she notices that I am not her husband and with an embarrassed giggle takes herself and her fruit to the booth behind me. She apologized, chattered something as she moved, (can't recall exactly what at the moment), and sat down with the correct man in the correct booth this time. He must be a very wise man because he just commented quietly about it to her and they went on with their meal.

Since I skipped the fruit, I finished before them. As I got got up to leave I handed them a card for this blog and told them that I was going to write about it on here and that they should "tune in" when they got the chance. I added that I would not introduce myself so as to not learn her name and thus avoid using it here by accident. I told her I would give her a "blog-name" though, so Matilda, when you read this, thanks for a lovely lunch time episode...we must do it again sometime...

That's my story and I am, by God stickin' to it...

Pixel Poisoning?

I won't apologize for the dearth of postings for the last week but I will explain. I've set up a new web site for and about the creative community in the Fredericksburg Va area. If you are a total masochist and enjoy looking at unfinished work, you can see it at River Voices

There is a lot left to do and I don't fully grasp all of the ins and outs of the software I am using so the process is taking more time than I had anticipated. I am very happy with the concept and hopeful about its ultimate appearance and utility.

I was going to blame my absence on "pixel poisoning" but I couldn't find a doctor or an on-line source for such a disease so that's why I had to fess up here.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.....

Here's what I've been up to.

Wow, I didn't realize how long it's been since my last post here. I've started another blog project that I want to tell you about. It's called "Fredericksblog" and it's a place for people to post thoughts about this really cool little town I live in...well, a little town with attitude and energy in spite of itself. I sometimes refer to Fredericksburg as "Mayberry On Crack" and that's really more about the energy and vitality of the town than anything else.

It's a team blog so there will be multiple contributors and hopefully growing numbers of those. I'm inviting people I know who I think might have interesting things to say. There's not much there just yet as we only went live today but if you are curious it's at Fredericksblog .

This is a change from it's first location which was on Blogger.

And for the moment, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it....

The River's Story

Summer started suddenly here in central Virginia as if someone had simply flipped a switch. After moderate daytimes and cool nights in Murrieta California I found 95 degrees and significant humidity in Washington on Monday afternoon. The jet way at Dulles Airport was stifling and my cheap self even turned on the air conditioning in the car on the way home.

Yesterday and today it’s been in the mid to upper 90’s and the humidity has peaked in the mid 80’s. That’s summer in the South.  Just upstream of the Falmouth bridge, a dozen herons gather at sunset to feed in the last rapids of the Rappahannock River, standing among the wet rocks as old men might stand by a lake in a park except they do not shuffle about. Instead they are immobile, like sculptures, immobile that is until a silver sided bit of dinner flashes in the water and brings them to life. 

Below Falmouth, The River is low and slow, the water a deep olive color.  It murmurs its story as it slowly glides between the river banks of Stafford County and Fredericksburg. This year I’m going to listen for that River Murmur and the story it tells me. There will be plenty of time to gripe about the heat and humidity in August but for now, I’m going to listen to the news from upstream.

It's like a...

...different country here is Southern California. I want to move here...all I need is a source of independent wealth, idependent of my work product, that is. I'm thinking maybe finding a way to corner the market on some essential product out here is the way to an easy California life. Maybe twine for weed whackers or some coupe de commerce that gives me a stranglehold on the world's supply of flip flops....

The lady next door has a lemon tree in her back yard with lemons on it the size of...well...big lemons I guess. (Another opprtunity for hyperbolic excess is lost...alas, I am the victim and you are the beneficiary of a totally unexpected attack of restraint.)

Had a nice Viet Namese lunch of pho noodle soup...some of the best tripe and tendon I have ever slurped down.

If you look around, you get the impression that they spend all their time washing their cars...haven't seen a dirty car yet and as for the pick up trucks, apparently no one out here is interested in "Cruisin' in memory of fill in the blank" anybody.

Met someone last night who once lived in someplace called "Rancho Cucamunga". How can anyone say that with a straight face? Or Pismo Beach either for that matter.

It's really intimidating for a reformed redneck from Virginia...

From Burger King to Einstein's

My secretary used to grab a burger for me at a local Burger King on her way back from her lunch break. This one day when I opened the burger, there it sat in the paper, open faced....no top on the bun at all. How do you do that; how do you wrap up a cheeseburger and not notice that half of the bun is missing?

I've gotten smarter in my choice of lunch spots; now I go to an Einstein's bagel place near my apartment and get something healthy like tuna and it's even on wheat bread with those little pieces of wheat shrapnel in the crust. OK, you would think that there are a limited number of ways to screw up a tuna sandwich, right? I saw a kid working at Einstein's going for the record the other day. He made so many mistakes on my lunch order, I thought I was eating at a Pentagon cafeteria.

 

The order was simple, tuna on toasted whole wheat with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and a side order of jalapeno cream cheese. The very first thing he does is reach for a whole wheat bagel instead of whole wheat bread. Being the eagle-eyed sandwich consumer I am I caught that one right away. I almost never confuse a slice of whole wheat bread with a bagel anymore…that hole in the middle is a dead giveaway.

 

As I'm standing waiting to pay he appears, all too quickly, with my untoasted sandwich. As I glance at it, I'm immediately tempted to go for a Jack Nicholson Easy Rider whole wheat toast, hold the chicken salad moment. Restraint prevailed however and I calmly point out that I had said I wanted it on toast.

 

My sandwich disappears and re-appears a few moments later toasted but without the side of jalapeno cream cheese. After gently and quietly pointing this out, the sandwich once again disappears. When it reappears there is the cream cheese as ordered.

 

Knowing that I'll have to hurry to get back to the office on time, I finally sit down with my food, only to realize that the mayo wasn't there. Back I go and finally my sandwich is complete. Maybe I'm too picky but a tuna sandwich for lunch just shouldn't be that difficult, should it?

 

All of these are small things, I'll grant. What gets my attention is that the sheer number of mistakes tells me that the one thing apparently not covered in the Einstein's training regimen is the need to actually LISTEN to the customer. It's not hard…really, it isn't...it's not rocket surgery....

Best Dog I Ever Had

It must be twenty years now since I saw the article in Reader's Digest entitled "Worst Dog I Ever Had" about an old man and a dog. This particular old man, according to his granddaughter, would seize on any mention of the dog to give it a blue streak cussin' and passed up no opportunity to tell anyone who would listen what a 'no-account, good for nothing" chow hound this dog was. It was he said, "the worst dog I ever had."

Listening to the old man, one would wonder that he hadn't dragged the dog off into the woods, tied it to a tree and put a bullet between its eyes. The true tale was told though after the dog died. As he shoveled the dirt back into the hole, the old man 's muttered, almost whispered  "Worst damn dog I ever had…" was spoken in a shaky broken voice, quiet enough that it was obvious he spoke only to himself and to the dog. 

I had a dog like that one time. His name was Charlie and he landed in our home direct from some animal rescue shelter out in King George County after a $300 stay at the vet's for heartworm treatment. We lived out in the country then and had a lot of animals already so I was somewhat less than enchanted at the prospect of another mouth to feed especially one the size he was. He was a big guy, weighing well over 100 pounds. We even ended up giving him a nickname, Bear. (Why in the world would a dog need a nick name?) Think of a smallish, almost totally black Great Dane and you'll get the picture of what I saw moving in on our critter food bill. Between the goats, rabbits, chickens, geese, cats and other dogs we were already spending more on animal food than I felt we could afford.   

Charlie turned out to be an OK dog in the brief time he was with us. Other than the time he swallowed my daughter's gerbil whole,  he never hurt anything. Ruth had decided to show Charlie her little pet, holding it out in her hands with appropriate little girl style narrative. I'm guessing she was about half way through her second sentence, holding the critter more or less nose to nose with the a huge dog head which apparently perceived it as a snack. In a flash, he somehow sucked it in and Ruth was left not only with two empty hands but a now unoccupied empty gerbil castle in her room. We were all stunned at how fast it happened and I immediately zoned out on this little unfortunate scurrying around in a very dark dog stomach, looking for the "Exit" sign.

He was fine with all the other animals in the yard and in the house. One day he was stretched out on his side taking a nap when our parrot fluttered off his perch and landed on Charlie's hip. I figured the bird was a goner, headed for where the gerbil had ended up. Charlie slowly lifted his head and kind of looked back towards his rear end. His expression was almost one of "Oh, it's just you". He resumed his nap and the bird lived to scream another day.

One more than one occasion when a stranger showed up at our gate, Charlie placed himself between the stranger and any of us including my kids. As soon as he sensed that we were OK with whoever it was he settled down and all was well.

If you're wondering how I, the pet Scrooge, accepted this dog into our home, here's what happened, exactly as it happened.  The corner was turned the first night he was there. After dinner we were sitting on the couch in the family room watching TV. Charlie walked around to where my wife was sitting and put his head in her lap. (The oldest trick in the book, right?)

She scratched him behind the ears and said, "Don't talk to me; you want to stay, you better talk to him." He immediately picked his head up out of her lap, walked around the coffee table and put his head in my lap. He didn't even look at me, just rested his head there while I scratched him behind the ears.

Folks, there are some messages that are loud and clear without a sound being heard and there are some things you  just don't mess with. Charlie was there to stay for the next seven years. I think he already knew what we would later conclude, that he had been misplaced and wandering for years until our paths finally converged. He was meant to be ours all along. Sometimes things don't quite come together just right at first.

When his kidneys finally began to fail he went downhill quickly. The day he died, when we went down to pick him up, the vet asked if we wanted him to take care of Charlie since he was so large. I managed to say that we would take care of all that. I don't know quite how but I picked up that limp 100 pound dog by myself and carried him to the back of the car.

When we sold that house in 1994, the back flower garden included the stone marker we had made for him. It read "Miss you, Bear" I still do.

No sun so far today here...

in Fredericksburg  where it's overcast, drizzly and warm. In February or March the temperature would be in the 40’s maybe but today it is 65 degrees. It’s not nasty feeling or depressing today as it would be if it were colder. The drizzle is almost welcoming as I step out on the balcony.

Back when we lived out in the country on our little 27 acre slice of Spotsylvania County I would have welcomed a day like today because it would mean that I had a good excuse for not firing up the tractor and spending hour after hour driving that noisy orange machine and being chased by a bush hog while trying to avoid annoying a nest of yellow jackets. I could just stay inside and putter around or even stay put doing absolutely nothing.  Maybe I would go in and sit down at my amateur radio station and listen for voices from places I will never see like the Antarctic or Peru

This winter of 2005-2006 was a difficult one for me; the gloomy days were gloomier and the chill more invasive. I don’t know why the weather chills my soul but when the bare trees are the only thing separating me from a leaden sky nothing feels cheerful or promising. The lonely days slice through to the core and sleep is the only escape. Today, though, is like a warm bath that unties the knots in my head. Maybe it’s the green that does it. 

Or maybe it’s because tomorrow I’m taking this lot to see “Ice Age II” and then out for pizza. It's been a tough week for them, for all of us, we deserve it.

 

Lisa of...

... That's Renarded fame has a new posting this morning that had me snorting coffee all over my keyboard. While you are there enjoying her writing, please note that she has moved her blog so you will need to set a new bookmark. It's easy to do, just get a Sharpie pen and circle the address on your screen. Then when you want to go back to it, just double click on the circle.

(Dear God, please tell that no one who reads blogs is Renarded enough to actually do that!)

Voices of the Rappahannock

The river has many voices. At her infant headwaters in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Chester Gap, she chortles just like a scurry-crawling newborn as she gambols over the rocks.

By the time she reaches the fall line and the Falmouth white water just above Fredericksburg she seems to laugh out loud, passing us here on her way through, bound for Port Royal and Portabago Bay and then to a confluence with the Chesapeake Bay.

Just below the Falmouth bridge, though, she settles into mature and soft spoken adulthood. 

Ultimately the Chesapeake Bay will subsume her flow as it did the mighty
Potomac and these matrons of old Virginia will blend all they bring with them with the Chesapeake's outflow into the Atlantic Ocean.

Perhaps she knows that in another 80 miles she will reach Saluda as an old woman, contentedly  murmuring  memories to herself, memories and wisdom she has gathered on her journey along these history filled banks, preserving her quiet tales of years past in a whispered secret shared with those who still listen to the old ones. Mostly though, she just talks to herself as The Elders often must do. At Saluda she will bequeath 184 miles of memory and a thousand years of wisdom to the bay. 

It was a double!

 

A thunderstorm just blew through here, not a violent one but definitely a storm. It started quickly as if God flipped the ‘storm switch’ and then it was over.
I wish you had been here with me to see it, partly because I like the idea of you being able to see something like that but more because it was the kind of display we should have seen together on our best day…but then they were all best days….

                                                                                     
                                                                                             

OK, I'm breaking two rules...

...of blogging here I think. The first one is that this post is too long and the other is that this is a repost of something I posted about a year and a half ago under the title "A story to be read to a child". I was thinking about this story today after talking with B about animals talking and having souls.

                                                                The Tree & The Dove

Once upon a time, a very long time ago when animals and trees could talk, there was a beautiful white dove. Although she had the whole wide sky to fly in, at night time she always flew home. Day after day she would soar up into the clouds to explore and see all that she could see. Some days she would fly through great white clouds as fluffy and soft as cotton but other days the clouds could be dark and stormy.

When the clouds were white and the warm yellow sun was shining through, flying was easy and fun. It wasn’t so easy though when the dark clouds gathered. Then the little dove had to use all the strength in her beautiful white wings to fly through them. The winds around the dark gray storm clouds were as strong as they could be. They bounced the little dove around in the air and ruffled her feathers. One day in a storm she got so tired she knew she just had to find a place to rest. No matter how hard she looked she could not find a single tree to rest in. By the time the storm was over and the gray clouds had gone away she had been blown far far away from her old home

In the days that followed she tried very hard to find her way home. Each night just before it got dark she would find a rocky corner on the side of a mountain and rest until the sun came back up in the morning. Day after day in the warmth of the morning sun she would fluff her wings and soar up into the sky, always looking for her home. Sometimes at the end of the day she felt very sad and was afraid she would have to live among the cold rocks forever. But deep down inside she had a feeling that there might be a place of rest and safety just beyond the next cloud, a shelter where she could rest and be safe from the strong winds that came from the huge gray clouds. Day after day she flew on, searching and hoping that this would be the day she would find the home she longed for.

One day as the beautiful dove was flying along she saw a mountain far off on the horizon jagged and rough looking standing out against the sky. It was near the end of the day so she flew nearer to the mountain and began to look for another place where she could stop and rest. All the mountains she had seen in her long journey had been very tall and rocky. At first this mountain looked the same but as she flew she saw it was different because on the side of this mountain there was a very scraggly looking little tree growing out on the edge of a rocky cliff.

This sad looking tree had been clinging to its rocky little spot on the mountain through storm after storm for many years there on the cliff. Because it lived on the cliff it only had a small bit of rocky soil to put its roots in. With so little good soil to get water and food from it could never grow tall and straight towards the sky like all the other trees that lived below it in the valley.

The dove was curious about this crooked little tree and so she turned toward it. Closer and closer she flew until she found herself settling down onto one of the crooked little tree's twisted branches. She rested there for a few minutes as she looked the tree up and down to see what it was like. “It’s as good a place as any to spend the night”, she thought so she fluffed her feathers up against the chilly night air, and tucked her weary head under her wing to wait for the warm morning sun.

After a bit she became aware of a faint vibration in the branch where she was resting. She didn’t know what to make of that. And then it stopped. As she tucked her head back under her wing, she felt the vibration again. And then it stopped again. Once again she put her head under her wing to wait for the morning light. Then, there it was again...a vibration.

Since the vibration started every time she nodded off to sleep, the little dove thought maybe the tree was trying to tell her something so she remained very very still and listened carefully trying to hear what message this twisted little tree might have for her. She soon realized that it was talking to her.

It wasn't long before she began to feel peaceful and safe for the first time. Puzzled at this, she cocked her delicate head to one side as if to listen more closely for something from this poor stunted tree that might explain this new feeling of calm and safety. She felt the tree telling her that it understood she needed shelter and rest and she could stay as long as she needed to. If she would perch very close to his trunk he would try to protect her so that she could rest and regain her strength for the rest of her journey.

For many, many days she stayed, gaining strength with each passing day. And as she began to think it might be time to continue her quest she became aware that perhaps this was what she had been looking for, this was what her quest was. And so she decided to stay a bit longer.

One morning, many months later, the little dove awoke and looked around her and felt the tree's vibrations again. Now, the tree had not talked to her for a long time. As she listened this time ever so carefully she realized the tree was singing. While she listened to this beautiful tree she looked closely at the tree and noticed a wonderful change in her poor little tree. It had not gotten any taller but it had grown strong and its branches seemed a little straighter. As she felt the tree's song vibrating through her now rested wings she understood what had happened.

This tree had only needed a reason beyond its own pride to grow. With the little dove there to shelter and protect, the sad little tree wasn’t sad anymore and so it had forced it roots down through the cold rocks to the soil beneath them and found the nourishment it needed to grow strong because at last it had a reason to grow. It had another soul share the days with and to care for. So the little dove decided to stay there, in the gentle sheltering arms of her crooked little tree while the tree continued to vibrate its beautiful song of life through its branches and into the life of the beautiful white dove.

Even though this happened long, long ago and even though trees and birds can no longer talk, their ancient songs continue to echo, reminding us that having someone to care for and protect is surely the greatest purpose and source of strength any of us can have.

Hitting a cat

I hit a cat with my car Friday night. Whenever I drive Piedmont Drive or any other road in this part of the country at night, I'm always 5 or 10 miles below the speed limit in hopes that will give me an edge on missing any deer that jump out. I even brake for squirrels.

 

Friday night 10 miles per hour under the limit wasn't enough. This poor little black and white bugger couldn't have been more than ten feet in front of me when he made his move from the right hand shoulder to cross the road.

 

There was an awful noise underneath the front end of my van from the impact and we were past him before I even realized what had happened. For some reason I looked in the rear view mirror right away and saw him, seemingly hot footing it back in the direction he had come from. I can't imagine how he did that but I am going to hold on to the illusion that he ran down into the weeds battered, bruised and a whole lot wiser going into his next 8 lives.

I really hate when that happens and I can still hear that awful sound...

Scoring very high on my...

list of things that suck, higher even than beets, is the part of my car's electical system that was designed to be connected to a car alarm, which I do not have and today decided, for reasons all its own, to begin to flash my lights and honk my horn. Next on the list is the local Chrysler dealership which cheerfully explained that they cannot take my car until tomorrow and advised me to handle the 'horny' problem (sorry, I had to go for that one) by pulling the fuse and to handle the lights by disconnecting the battery when the car is parked.

It's 30 bloody degrees outside, it's snowing and I'm barking my knuckles trying to remove a battery terminal. How do cars know things like that? 

Day 1 of....

...the Patch vs Phillip Morris Inc here in my little corner of the kingdom on the banks of the Rappahannock River.  An ash, stink and puff free future is the long term goal while the next ten minutes is the immediate hurdle.  There's something appealing about keeping score in $$ saved like my friend Susan . She's at $152 or something like that. For her sake, I hope I don't catch up but at about $7.00 a day I should match where she is now in about 3 weeks.

Any suggestions to aid the effort will be greatly appreciated. I can see a lot of tangerines and grapes in my snacking future.

And as a not so famous blogger used to say "That's my story and I'm sticking to it..."

Snow in "The Burg"

We had snow here last night...six soggy inches which is serious snow for us here in Central Virginia.  Inspired by Doug Thompson's excellent shots on today's Blue Ridge Muse, I went downtown and found this shot as a sort of copy cat shot for Doug's work. Check his blog for two great snow shots.

She get's it !

A few days ago I posted a piece here entitled "Presence". It was in January I believe and it was about missed opportunities. You should go and read Ellie's piece today on This is My Body

She get's it!

Birthday Parties and The Great Zucchini

Blogs are, for the most part, are where you post your own writing. Sometimes, however, I stumble across something that is so well written that it demands to be shared. From this past Sunday’s Washington Post magazine section:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801434.html

I should live so long to be able to craft a piece like this.

New reading that's really, really...

...worth your time!!

The little list of the blogs I “always read” is a short one (upper left corner of the home page) because I only include sites in it that I truly find worthwhile reading…sites that stimulate or move me or in the case of Uncle Jack’s blog, make me laugh out loud. I’ve see many good postings on various blogs but the overall quality is what will move me to add a site/author.

I have added a new one named “This Is My Body, This Is My Blood”. You should read this lady’s writing. It is moving at all times and quite funny as well. Most importantly it has the ring of truth.

Robo-Yule

I get promotional e-mails from Linens and Things. In the last one they were promoting a 7 ½ foot pre-lit remote control artificial Christmas tree with “850 lights that change from clear to color in seconds.”

Pre-lit? Remote control?  And the scariest part? When I went to their web site to see what this 7 ½ foot bauble looked like I found that it was temporarily out of stock due to the fantastic sale price of $99.99, marked down from a paltry $299.99. P.T. Barnum was right…there is one born every minute.

I’m trying to imagine kids looking back on their childhood Christmas memories and getting all misty eyed as they talk about the annual ritual of Dad simply plugging in the tree. Talk about a Hallmark moment…ummm, maybe not so much….

Wouldn’t it be cool if the tree just snapped into shape like those easy set up camping tents? Or better yet, when Easter rolls around it works like one of those "Transformer" toys and with a few deft hand motions Dad changes it into a pre-lit 7 1/2 foot Easter bunny....

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it…

Black Friday

What is it with Thanksgiving? Does anyone else feel that the last Thursday in November seems to be degenerating  into a pre-game show for “Black Friday”?

Maybe it’s just my holiday cynicism that makes Thanksgiving feel like a pre-game meal for the Shopping Super Bowl.

Just say no to...

...to telemaketers!!!

Our government loves to do things the hard way. On November 20th, cell phone numbers are due to be released to the telemarketing industry (if you care to call it an "industry"). Seems to me that the whole process would be much more compact and efficient if, instead of a 'do not call' list they used a 'please call me list' where people could sign up to get telemarketing calls. They could probably fit the whole list onto a 3 x 5 card with room left over.

In any event just a friendly reminder as follows:

JUST A REMINDER, November 20th, 2005, cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls. YOU MAY BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS!
These telemarketers will eat up your free minutes and end up costing you money in the long run. To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888/382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time.

It blocks your number for five! e (5) years.

PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.

You can register on line at: http://www.donotcall.gov

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it....

Swoosh!! Just do it

April 3, 2005

The sky was jumbled yesterday after the off and on rain that we had since sunrise. Highest were the seemingly immobile white clouds and below that were these tattered grey remnants of the day’s rain clouds crabbing off to the east, seeming to move quickly against the lightly textured white above them. The temperature had dropped and the tatters seemed like a warning that the respite from the unsettled weather would not last forever.

The view from my window is vaguely northeast and so when the sun sets whatever light there is throws itself at the power poles and signs along Route 1 and then seems to bounce up to reflect off the sides of the light tan of the National Bank building. If I look out at just the right time, when the sun is very low but not yet below the horizon, just before sunset, the effect is one of flood lights aimed at those walls. Yesterday the light came in just that way, the air so clear that the new spring grass along the highway was impossibly green. The illusion was of a photograph printed on high gloss paper.

My apartment balcony has a particularly good aspect for viewing rainbows except for all the power lines and buildings in the foreground. Yesterday, a swoosh of rainbow was all there was but it was quite wide at the base. I don’t know if an artist could do a single brush stroke with so many colors but that’s what this one reminded me of…as if God were saying, “Just do it!” If He wears Nike’s he is definitely a power forward or a center.

About two hours later Pope John Paul II died…make of it what you will.

From the deck...

...coffeebar of the Junkanoo Island Cafe on the Outer banks of North Carolina. This could be a decent place to ride out Hurricane Irene if the miserable witch hits here:



Can you tell how hot it is?

Worth Reading

In May, as I struggled with trying to string together two or three coherent thoughts for this blog, a realization bubbled up through my inert male synapses. It had to do with change and the fact that everything I had written about so far or that was festering in my head was about change. That was when I renamed the blog “Paradigms…where shift happens!”

My friend Alain had a wonderful and thought provoking post titled "Change or Die" in his blog (http://marketingbytesman.typepad.com/) today, August 8th . Ostensibly, Alain’s field is marketing, more specifically health care marketing but today’s post goes far beyond that and I think it might be worth your time to read it. If you do, be sure to click the links he has there. They will take you to a really fascinating article from “Fast Company” magazine and you don't even have to put yourself on a mailing list to access it. I won’t embed a link since the third item in the links list to the left will take you directly there.

As you read, for context, remember that the only person who likes change is a wet baby….
(It was such a temptation to use an emoticon here but I resisted...I'm so proud of me!!)