Month: February 2011

Unhinged

As you read this, I am somewhere overhead winging my way to the Great State of New Mexico. This is not so much a vacation as taking care of some personal business.

It’s a bit hard to leave seventy degree California for thirty degree New Mexico, you know? That said, as the weather works in my home state, by the end of my trip, it’s expected to be almost seventy in Las Cruces.

As a kid, I always did love that phenomenon of snow today, sixty eight and sunny tomorrow.

But right now, the day before my flight, all I can think about is…what am I going to eat?

I mean seriously, the green chile level in my blood stream is so low as to be critical.

This needs fixing the second I leap off the airplane.

I keep thinking of ALL the places and ALL the menu items I want to eat all in one big Cookie Monster-esque “ahm nom nom nom.”

If only I could unhinge my jaw the way my favorite blue monster does, then sweep in all the rellenos, enchiladas, carne adovada, and tacos al carbon I can get my arms around.

That would be great.

Of course, I’d qualify for extra baggage on my flight home.

Hoping to fit in reports from the road. Stay tuned!




Monkey Mind Needs To Dance

Having a hard time concentrating today. Lots of reasons, but it seems that writing coherent sentences is impossible.

So you know what that means. Imagination Prompt madness!

You need other people because…

I can’t be expected to make my own perfect Manhattan straight up with a maraschino cherry all by myself, now can I?

Could you stay in bed all day and think?

%^$@damn right I can! Oh, wait, you said think, not drink.

I could stay in bed all day and think, too. It’s just less of a party.

Describe a typical day in elementary school.

Crayons, recess, paste, lunch, recess, paste, crayons, and something with numbers on a mimeographed worksheet.

What keeps me going?

force x mass

What if you were never born?

You wouldn’t be reading this completely awesome blog. You’d be reading a different and less awesome blog and wonder what was missing in your life.

Why should I be honest?

Because my short term memory sucks and I can never remember which yarn I spun where. The truth is just easier to remember.

List five things you need.

A nap.

A cookie from the conference room down the hall.

The group admin to look the other way so I can steal a chocolate chip cookie from the conference room down the hall.

Tweezers (you don’t want to know why)

Another nap.

My heart sings when…

I eat a huge plate of green chile chicken enchiladas. Later, my esophagus sings too, but it’s an entirely different song.

Write a haiku about today.

Here I sit writing
One day before vacation
No more today, boss




You Do What, Now?

My very truly honestly global job certainly keeps me on my toes from one day to the next, calculating time zones with ease and panache.

The laws that govern each country are different and there are nuances in languages that keep my brain working overtime.

This is never more apparent than in the weekly catch up meetings I have with my boss, who is located in London.

My boss has a sense of humor about to the level of mine, so lately we have this ongoing riff.

It goes something like this:

Boss: “So, what is this, um, let’s see what do they call it…yes, this day of groundhog you people celebrate in the US?”

Me: “What, they don’t have this holiday in the UK?”

Boss: “I don’t think so, what is this all about?”

Me: “So, wait, you’re telling me that in the UK they don’t pull rodents out of the ground in order to determine the extent of winter?”

Boss: “Not as such, no.”

Our conversation usually revolves around some odd thing that “you people do in your country.”

To be fair, I catch the brunt of this. You never know how weird you are until you see your own culture through another’s eyes.

Things like:

Boss: “So I’m going to be in the US the week of March 14th. I understand I’ll be able to participate in what you Americans refer to as St. Patrick’s Day.”

Me: “Oh c’mon, any holiday that involves drinking a lot of beer can’t be so bad.”

Boss: “Well, true.”

Or

Boss: “Did you watch this thing you Americans call the ‘Super Bowl’ this weekend?”

Me: “Yes, I did.”

Boss: “So, did the team you were rooting for win?”

Me: “Well, I wasn’t really rooting for one of the teams, so it didn’t matter.”

Boss: “Oh…so what did you do then? Did you attend a party?

Me: “Yes, I went to a friend’s house. We did what we Americans are fond of doing, we ate a lot.”

Boss: “Your people seem to like that.” (<- my boss attended his first American Thanksgiving meal this year and was horrified by how much food was presented.) My return vollies tend to be more along the lines of his use of language. Me: "So if we can crack on, is it possible to crack off?" Boss: --silence-- "I've never really thought about that." Or Me: "So you need to know when you say 'creating an implementation scheme', that the word scheme has a bit of a negative connotation for Americans." Boss: "How do you mean?" Me: "Well, setting up a scheme usually involves something illegal or at least questionable." Boss: "Oh! My. Well we won't use that anymore will we?" Or Me: "When you told me to revert on your email, I have no idea what you mean." Boss: "You mean my question?" Me: "No, I mean...the word revert means going back to a previous version. I don't understand how I can go back to a previous version of an email you wrote. It makes no sense!" Boss: --sigh-- "You click reply and answer my question!" Me: "Oh. I get it. That's a weird use of the word revert." Or, my personal favorite... Boss: "So to let you know, the UK office will be on holiday Monday." Me: "What!? Another holiday?" Boss: "Yes, this is a Bank Holiday and all will have the day." Me: "Don’t you get like five weeks vacation, too?" Boss: "Yes." Me: "When do you people find any time to work over there! Geez!" So yeah, US and UK relations continue to involve a lot of sarcasm. Good thing I'm good at that. Though the best part is when we have to chat about our counterparts in Canada, because that's when we're on the same side. We can both usually find some good reason to pick on the Canadians. (Aw Canada, ya know I love ya! You're like that pesky yet precocious kid brother who says adorable things like "aboot".)






Photo by Scott Duhamel and found on Flickr.

Here’s Comes The Sun, doot n doot doot

Yesterday I had an appointment with the ol’ primary care doc, a follow up from my physical a month ago. Seems the kind doctor wanted to talk about my bloodwork.

Um, ok.

So she scrolls through the results of my blood work, tells me all looks pretty good except one thing.

Vitamin D.

The normal range is 30 to 100 thingamabobbers (I’m sure that’s the official medical term) and they like you to be about 50-60 thingamabobbers on a daily basis.

My score on this exam was 15 thingamabobbers. So yeah, I failed the test.

I knew that low vitamin D was a big deal, been reading about it more and more in the news, but I never figured this was a problem I’d have.

Well, doctor lady scared the crap out of me about my lack of thingamabobbers. Joint aches, insomnia, bad memory and osteoporosis are all side effects of low vitamin D.

Then the doctor lady looked at past blood work and noted that I’ve had a low thingamabobber count for two years.

This is where my 5’3″ doctor lady got mad. Real mad.

First she thought I’d been under her care and hadn’t taken her advice. She looked further and saw that I was under the care of another doctor in the same HMO when I got those other low readings.

That other doctor came along when my longtime primary care doctor retired. I never liked that new doc. I thought she was distracted and not very involved in my care. She was the doctor who told me to simply suck it up when I broke my little finger, and that was the final straw. I found a new doctor, the nice lady I have now.

“I cannot believe that other doctor didn’t do anything about this!” she ranted. There were some other under the breath mumblings and admonitions about “your bones are important!” and “you have osteoporosis in your family!”

Then she put me on a mega dose of vitamin D and ordered me to go outside more.

Me, the kid from the desert. The one who loves sunny days.

Also…the kid working twelve-hour days at work.

So you know, things change. Time to reacquaint myself with El Sol.

Hmm, it’s getting near lunchtime. Sorry boss, I need to go eat lunch outside today. Doctor’s orders!







Image found here.


Who Needs a Brush? Not Me!

Back in the kindergarten days I always thought the best activities involved using my hands. Sitting and listening to a book being read was ok, but could get boring (reading it myself was far better). Working on worksheets? Bleaack. But clay, markers, crayons. Now we’re talking!

My absolute favorite activity happened when the gelatinous finger paints came out of the supply closet and we all strapped on smocks and got down to business.

I have learned over the course of my life that I have two of my five senses that are especially heightened. First is my sense of touch. I like to touch stuff. I like to feel surfaces. It’s all endlessly fascinating to me. So that luxurious gooey paint was just the ticket!

And the other sense is sight. Now, I don’t mean vision, my eyesight is terrible. I mean the way I respond to visual cues. I learn better visually. And colors! Oh how I love to see a raucous display of color.

So those pots of paint held endless fun for me. I’d dig a finger in there for a blob of red, then a finger full of blue and….holy crap! Purple!

I think all of this is why later on in life I took up crafting. I’m a total sucker for the water based acrylic paints that I use to make my stuff. I wonder sometimes if I’m a complete weirdo, because one of my absolute favorite parts of any project is the early prep work.

I *love* laying down that first layer of white base paint. I LOVE when I can just slap it on there and mush it into the corners and get paint up and down my arms and YES!

And when there is a sale on my brand of paint at the craft store? Step back people, I’m gonna drop some cash.

When I’m working on a craft project, I find I’ll fall in love with a certain color. I’ve had torrid affairs with Tomte Red, Pumpkin Orange, and Bright Blue. And then there’s Evergreen. This is but a few of my flings, I could go on at length.

I even love the blackest black paint and lament that I can’t get it to be darker. It’s all beautiful to me!

I’ve always admired Van Gogh paintings for the fact the man used a LOT of paint on the canvas. He’d mash it and squish it and make magic. I’m no Van Gogh, but I too love to use a lot of paint. I squeeze it on there with reckless abandon and find a place to use it all.

And then when I’m done, I take bristle brushes, sponge brushes, paint palettes, and fingers to the sink and scrub, scrub, scrub. I’m always a bit sad to see the last of the pigment wash away down the drain.

But when I set all the gear to dry, I smile to myself. All those clean brushes are there waiting for me, singing out, “c’mooon, let’s paint!”





This week’s Theme Thursday is paint.

Photo by Flavio Takemoto and used royalty free from stock.xchng.