Category: gratitude

He Spoke to Me

Do you have any idea how powerful it was when I read the following poem, written by Shel Silverstein as part of his book “Where the Sidewalk Ends?”

Listen to the mustn’ts, child.
Listen to the don’ts.
Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me…
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be.

I don’t know how old I was, ten or twelve maybe? But to have an adult, especially such a surly looking adult, say something like that to me!

Whoa!

This past weekend, I pulled “Where the Sidewalk Ends” off my shelf and gave it a new read. It had been years. Maybe even decades.

And that poem, it still stopped me in my tracks.

I just finished a biography of Shel Silverstein called “A Boy Named Shel” that I found, of all places, at the Dollar Store.

I’m not going to lie to ya, the biography is not the greatest writing I’ve ever encountered. In fact, it’s pretty bad, worthy of the venue in which it was purchased. That said it did give me some (hopefully true) insight into the life of the very prolific writer, cartoonist, songwriter and playwright.

I learned from this biography that Silverstein’s mind was constantly in motion, constantly creating without restrictions.

I only know of a few creative people in my life that are *constantly* channeling The Muse. One of them might even be related to me.

I’m pretty creative and am usually chock full of ideas, but I also go through extended periods of time of writer’s or crafter’s block. Perhaps for me, these are quiet periods that are essential to my own creative process, because as frustrating is to be creatively constipated, I usually come through it stronger.

I have learned that The Muse will return if I just relax and let her go. She always comes back.

It’s funny, sometimes seeing art or meeting a creative person will touch off a creative spark inside of me, thus breaking through the blockades. Through the words of his poems, Shel Silverstein did that for me this weekend. I started a new art project and I did photography and I felt the creatives begin to whisper in my ear, which always gives me such satisfaction.

I understand that Silverstein was a mentor to many of his friends. He would push them to create more, to push the bounds of their art and to be better artists.

Silverstein died in 1999, but his words remain powerful. They speak to me as loudly today as they did when I was young.

Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.

Photo From BigHeartDesign.com

Game 1 – Game On!

It may be time for Primal Scream therapy.

As a long-suffering San Francisco Giants fan, it’s hard to wrap my tiny mind around my Giants being back in the post season.

The last time I watched my team in the post season, it was 2003 and Pudge Rodriguez (then with the Marlins) was counting coup over the body of JT Snow, laid flat across home plate, the last out of the fifth game of the first round.

It aches.

The year before that, in 2002, I watched my team go to the seventh game of the World Series…and lose.

That’s more of a soul searing pain.

So while I’m very happy my lowly Giants have made it to the postseason once more, it’s not without some trepidation on my part.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Fool me three times? Welcome to Giants fandom. Here’s your orange gear and your Costco pack of Prilosec.

This one is going to burn.

Last night was Game 1 against the Atlanta Braves, our old nemesis. The Giants history with the Braves is deep. Bobby Cox, in his retirement year, still has plenty in the tank and a good bullpen. Even plagued by injuries, the Braves are a team to be taken seriously.

At 6:37pm, The Good Man and I turned on the radio, dug into our positions on the couch, and held on for dear life while Tim Lincecum (nicknamed The Freak) blithely struck out 14 hitters and the Giants won the game 1-0.

Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!

Whew. Good. Ok. Got that pent up energy out.

Now. On to Game 2.

May this delicious agony last a very long time.


AP Photo by Ben Margot, from ESPN.com

This post is not only about fandom, it also fulfills a Theme Thursday challenge.

I’ve Lost My Marbles!

Woooo!

There they are! In my hand!

Oooh how I love marbles. I was in a Diddams party store today and I generally revert to about ten years old when I get in that store.

Sensory overload!

It was the bin of marbles that really did me in. That’s grade school, baybee! We used to have mad marble competitions on the playground.

Damnit, I sucked at sports but I was GOOD at marbles.

I remember winning a very big and very pretty shooting marble from a bully of a boy. He was SO ticked off at me.

What did I do? I giggled, dropped the marble in my pocket, and walked away.

That’s how I roll (pun TOTALLY intended!).

Ain’t nothing better than a big bin of marbles.

Unless, of course, it’s a big bin of rubber chickens!

(All photos taken with my iPhone)

A Little Bit of Kindness at the Office

Last night, before going to bed, I took some extra time to prepare a batch of my delicious chicken salad.

I took care to make it a good batch, filled with perfectly grilled chicken, not too much mayo and my secret ingredients that make it, in my opinion, the best chicken salad ever.

Then, when the batch was made, taste tested and found to be perfect, I loaded it up into a container.

I packed that container along with an already packed container of soup, a bag of my favorite chips, and a bit of cough syrup into a small shopping bag.

This little bag of goodness was meant to go to work with me Monday morning.

I’m not trying to save money, although packing my lunch meets that goal.

What I AM trying to do is take good care of myself.

How many people think they *should* take their lunch to work, then pack a dried up lunch meat sandwich, a mealy apple and a bag of pretzels?

Or, even worse, they toss a Healthy Choice frozen entrée into their work bag and think that will satisfy them for the afternoon.

No.

I approach packing my lunch with all the care a doting mother would shower upon her cherished child.

It’s like a love letter from Sunday Night Me to Monday Morning Me. A gift. A bit of home to remind me that even though I must work in a standard gray cubicle farm, I’m still an individual. I’m different.

I matter enough to have Sunday Night Me go to the effort to make something nice and not just something slapped together.

I actually look forward to my lunch today. I’m not looking for ways to get out of eating what’s in the office fridge. Nope, I can hardly wait until noon.

And I’ll eat my meal prepared with love and I will feel loved and I will know that I did a very good thing for myself.

Heck, caught up in the swell, I almost want to write myself a note to surprise me at the bottom of the lunch bag.

“Have a good day, dear. Someone at home loves you.”

Restoring Balance

Yesterday I used this blog as my confessional. I had to get that story off my chest because it had been top of my mind since it all happened Wednesday night.

Once I published that post, I had to remind myself that really, all in, my day on Wednesday was incredible (in a good way). It’s time I make sure that I don’t let the end of the evening cast a pall on rest.

So now that the yucky stuff is off my mind, let’s talk about the good part.

The event I attended on Wednesday night was one of the largest and most overwhelmingly fun corporate events I’ve ever seen.

And let me say this, I once worked for a company that rented out AT&T ballpark for the company Christmas party, ok? So I’ve seen some huge corporate sponsored events!

They got nothing on this.

The event, as mentioned, was a “customer appreciation party” and it was held out on Treasure Island.

For those not familiar with the Bay Area, Treasure Island is a man made island, created for the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939.

Treasure Island sits at about the halfway mark of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. To get to the island you take an exit off the bridge.

I was included as an extra special guest of one of the main sponsors of the event, so I got a hard to obtain ticket that got me to the island an hour before everyone else.

It was, literally, a carnival. But everything was free. Since we were among the first on the island, there were also no lines.

Imagine going to a carnival and NOT waiting for the ferris wheel! Or not standing in line for cotton candy! I walked up said “yes please” and they put a corn dog, French fries and a big bag of cotton candy in my hands.

And it was a GOOD corndog. Have you any idea how long it has been since I had a really good corndog?

Prior to the corndog (thankfully) I was coerced into riding one of those Drop Zone rides. The kind where there is a central tower and you strap in to the seats, then it takes you up to the top and drops your ass back down?

Yeah. I hated it.

I screamed a single curse word in one long note the entire journey downward.

The gentleman working the ride said, as he let me off the ride, “I like you, you say what’s in your heart.”

Vowing no more rides, I switched to playing all of the carnival games. You could play as many times as you wanted over and over.

And STILL I couldn’t manage to win anything. *sigh*

Then, after a while the good food came out. Tables of fancy and delicious treats of all kinds. We ate our fill and partook of the free flowing beverages as well.

Then, around 7:00, the music began, and by music, I mean full on concerts held at two different stages, one indoors, one outside.

We started with English Beat. Ok, I’m a child of the 80’s, I knew some of their stuff and they were pretty good.

Next up was Berlin. I’m a huge fan of Terri Nunn. She is a goddess, so I was pretty happy to see Berlin live, though I’d seen them play before. They put on a great show. Ms. Nunn knows how to work the crowd and had everyone enchanted.

Now that the music was really going, it was time to start making some choices. They had acts going on both stages and you had to pick which show to attend.

The main acts of the night were the Black Eyed Peas on the outside stage and Don Henley inside.

I talked it over with my group including my boss and several coworkers. They all wanted to see Black Eyed Peas. Look, I don’t mind the Peas…but we’re talking Don Henley here.

One other woman in the group said she wanted to see Henley too, so we walked away to choruses of “you guys are so OLD.”

No matter. I’ll cut to the chase. Don Henley put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Like…top ten concerts of my life (<--I should do a blog post on that). Let me tell you right now…Don Henley is 63 years old. I once heard Billy Joel talking about how, as he aged, he couldn’t hit the high notes anymore. Don wasn’t having that problem. Think about the song “I Can’t Tell You Why” and all the high parts. He sang ’em. Every one. Nary a crack in his voice. It wasn’t just that he sang all the songs that I knew, it was that one, his backup band was amazingly tight, and two, he had a certain way of capturing the audience every step of the way. Captivating is a good word to describe. This guy is a genius. I went in saying “yeah, I like Don Henley pretty good” and came out swearing my allegiance and praising him to the ends of the earth. A. Mazing. After that was a choice between Steve Miller Band and Montgomery Gentry. Although I would have liked to have seen Montgomery Gentry, it was midnight by that time and I had an early morning meeting. So I chose home over the last acts of the night. As mentioned, I spent the better part of an hour in line waiting for the shuttle bus, so I may as well have stayed. No matter. When I did finally get home and lay down in my bed, my ears were ringing and the refrains of “Desperado” were still singing in my head. And I gave thanks that I got to live such a good day in my life (shuttle bus incidents not withstanding).


Ms Terri Nunn onstage (on the screen) taken with my iPhone