The Feline is having none of it today.
None, I say.
And neither is her human.
The day started at 5:00am and I won’t be home until about 8:00pm.
Isn’t there some platitude about the value of hard work?
To that I say:
Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.
Feliz Dia de los Muertos! On this day may you remember your loved ones who have passed on. Today I honor all four of my grandparents, my father and my best friend from high school.
May they walk in peace and enjoy a tasty pink cookie and some tequila on their journey.
My sugar skull looks a little more cranky than I had intended.
And yes, I slapped an Instagram filter on there. I don’t care what that says about me.
Oh yes, this is one of my favorite times of the year. I love Day of the Dead and all the traditions that go with it.
I also love the art and I love making my own Day of the Dead art too. (may I never forget my New Mexico roots)
Since I haven’t really had my crafting skills on much lately (work and life and no craft space in the new apartment) I was sort of jonesing for some day of the dead art.
All it took was a few office supplies and a really long and incredibly boring conference call.
Much love and peace to all as they remember in their own way.
Happy Weekend to all!!
Photos and drawing Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Photos taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.
Yesterday was a pretty monumental day for me. So much important stuff happening on just one little ol’ Wednesday in October.
First off, it was Halloween. All Hallows Eve. The day of costumes and candy and belly aches and trick or treat. For many people, Halloween is their Christmas.
Being the old scrooge that I am, there was no costuming going on for me (or for The Good Man).
But that’s ok, I celebrated by watching “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” and eating dried cherries instead of candy since we don’t get any trick or treaters. How grown up of me to make that choice. How unlike me to make that choice! Sugar is *awesome*.
But pumpkins and goblins were but one of the big events of the day.
Yesterday was also the big huge spectacular parade down Market Street in San Francisco to celebrate the World Series winning San Francisco Giants.
Rock oooon!
I wasn’t able to attend in person, but I was able to watch it all live on TV and on the ‘net and wow, what a fun day!!
And THEN when all of that crazy happy fun celebration was done, The Good Man and I went to visit our local County Elections Office. Such a solemn follow up to a happy confetti party! But here’s the thing, when we moved this year, I changed all of my address info with the DMV and nicely asked the DMV to update my voter records.
As we got closer to the election, I noticed that I didn’t get my sample ballot in the mail and I didn’t get my vote-by-mail ballot either.
So we dropped by the busy office and got that all sorted out. Turns out they had my new address properly entered, but for some reason I wasn’t listed as “active”. So she ticked the box, clicked save and I was good.
Then we figured, hey, while we’re here, let’s go ahead and vote.
I felt sort of weirdly proud and a bit patriotic and awfully grown up to be standing there in a polling booth with The Good Man right next door as we cast our respective ballots. There were a few of the crazy California propositions that I could have gone either way on and heading into the polls, The Good Man joked about us voting exact opposite of each other to simply net-net our votes.
Ok, ok, we didn’t do that but it certainly seemed like a good solution. Voting in California is a strange, wacky and time consuming process. Anyhow, we used the electronic voting machines and made our selections and I cast my ballot.
Now that it’s done, I think from here on out I shouldn’t have to see any more political ads, be subjected to any more smarmy politician faces on the local, state or national level and I shouldn’t have to read any more politically driven internet crap.
Am I right? I think I am.
In other words: I’m out! : brush hands together :
Or in the immortal words of Doris Day, whatever will be will be.
But hey, what a day. Celebrated America’s pastime, voted in America’s big election and then danced around by the light of the almost full moon on all hallows eve.
Wait…I chose fruit over candy and I voted? What the hell is happening to me!?!?!
_____________________
Costume photo found at Sanitaryum.com.
San Francisco Giants parade photos from the SFGiants Instagram stream.
Voting sticker photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page, and taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.
Each day at work, I spent nine to ten hours in front of a computer, looking at a screen, tip tapping away on my keyboard.
I go to lunch and while noshing I pull out my iPhone and I catch up on email, Twitter, Facebook and when that’s done, I read a couple chapters of a book on the Kindle app.
When I come home from work, I have my phone with me at all times and I check in on email, Twitter, Facebook and others. Sometimes I log into my iMac and do some writing work or I edit photos or just fiddle about. Occasionally in front of the television I’ll fire up my MacBook and I’ll do the two screen thing, telly and computer.
When I go to bed at night, I set the alarm on my phone and I do a last check of email, Twitter and Facebook and maybe read another chapter of a book on my phone.
Then I sleep. When the alarm goes off, the first thing I do is check the meetings on the day’s calendar on my phone. Then I check email, Twitter and Facebook.
Recently, I had to admit to myself that this is a problem. I spend way too much time with my head in a device.
Way, way too much.
I’ve been trying to wean off but I have to be honest, it’s hard. Those “likes” on Facebook are as addictive as pellets to a lever pushing rat. Payoff! Reward! You like me you really like me!!
While out and about with a friend a few weeks back, she commented, “You are on Facebook a lot” and my internal gears seized up. Am I really? That can’t be.
Only it is.
I was doing better (for a few days) and really making progress, but then baseball’s post-season started and it got worse. I wanted to watch the games and see what everyone was saying and see updated stats online and photos from the yard! At some points during the course of the post-season I was watching TV, Twittering on my MacBook and checking Facebook on my phone all at once.
Meaning, I slipped off the wagon and bounced a few times on the dirt road.
Last night I was thinking AGAIN about my need to back away from the shiny electronic devices. They are so alluring!
While waiting in the coffee line this morning at work, I idly browsed the local county newspaper (an actual paper copy) and came across this little ol article:
Can true solitude be found in a wired world?
I used to be that girl…I loved to sit in an airport waiting for a plane and instead of my nose in a device or even a book for that matter, I would sit, quietly, and observe the world. The sights the smells the sounds. I would hear my own thoughts. I would find a place of calm.
Not anymore. Now if I fly I make sure my iPad is loaded up with content, both books and movies to distract me the whole way and I hardly make note of anyone or anything around me. Hell, I can’t even sit quietly in my own home and listen to the squirrels fighting outside. Nope, gotta Tweet about it.
What is wrong with me? When did I get sucked in and how can I back away slowly?
I had a revelation one night last year while in the midst of twelve to fourteen hour workdays and I was losing my mind. My beloved Good Man took my phone out of my hand, went into Settings and turned off my work email.
It was like he opened my eyes for the first time. That I could really do that…I could ignore email for a few hours? Magic!
Perhaps it’s now time to turn the entire device OFF the moment I come in the front door. There is no emergency in APAC that can’t wait to the next morning. My coworkers in APAC are fairly used to this.
Or perhaps I set a time…say 8:00pm and after that the phone is off. That allows a window for emergencies from the Pacific Rim but a time of peace in my home (and mind).
I have a good friend who doesn’t work on email at night simply because his company turns off access to email every evening then turns it back on in the morning. How glorious and how sane. My employer would never do this.
To be honest, when I think about having an unwired vacation (as suggested in the article), it sounds both awesome and a little scary.
Which is a sure sign I need to implement this in my life right away.
Image from The Indian Fusion.
I’ve been a San Francisco Giants baseball fan for a long time.
And in my many years, I’ve learned this: Nothing is ever easy with this team.
Nothing.
My gut was in a clinch all day as my Giants faced a Game 5, do or die, win or go home game against the Cincinnati Reds in the National League Division Series.
When Buster Posey hit a grand slam in the 5th inning against the very tough Mat Latos I jumped up and down in my office and clapped and shouted and whooped and hollered.
Then I remembered that I sit next door to the Vice President and he was on a con call being all VP-ish and important at that same moment.
I later apologized to him and he grinned. “You must have been listening to the radio because I was watching online and I heard you celebrating about five seconds ahead of seeing it online. You only get away with that for the Giants!”
Rock on.
In the nail tearing bottom of the 9th my boss was in my office drawing something Very Important on my marker board and I was trying desperately to pay attention and answer his questions while checking my phone every two seconds and…good lord how long was that at bat with Romo pitching and Bruce at the plate…? And all the while The Good Man is sending me texts and my boss is blah blah blahing because he’s a damn European and what does he care?
I reminded The Boss that I had to endure the Euro 2012 football championships while I was in the UK in June and he could bloody well deal with this today. Seeing his boss (the VP next door) running into my office shouting “THEY WON THEY WON!” certainly helped pipe him down.
This was a tough day at work because of work stuff. This was a stressful day at work because of those damn Giants and their special brand of delicious torture.
And then I saw an image online from today’s game that just perfectly summed up how it all makes me feel.
A little blown back by it all, really.
Just a leeeeetle inside for Pablo Sandoval. Photo by Michael Macor for The Chronicle
Image by Michael Macor for The Chronicle and published in SFGate.