Category: kerfuffle

What I Don’t Have

On Sunday, driving home from a late breakfast with a dear friend where we had talked at length about a lot of deep and powerful topics, I flicked on the radio in my car to find distraction. Something a little more cheery.

The last time I had been in the car was Friday night as I drove home from work, and I had listed to NPR. So when I turned on the radio on Sunday, what I found waiting for me was the unmistakable voice of Garrison Keillor and his show “A Prairie Home Companion“.

Oh lord, really? That show gives me the hives. To be honest, NPR kind of does too. I do like All Things Considered on an evening commute, though.

That said, the sonorous voice of Mr. Keillor managed to lure me in and I listened to him tell a long, drawn out story (can he tell any other kind?) the point of which is that a penny given by a poor man has more value than a dollar given by a rich man because the penny means so much more. The poor man is giving what he doesn’t have.

Which then lead to a life lesson of giving what you don’t have to the world.

A short Google search led me to discover this is all a riff on a Wayne Dyer speech, which lead me to break out in even more hives. Lots and lots of itchy hives.

So for as much as I wanted to forget this little parable, somehow I have not been able to.

This idea of digging deep and giving what you don’t have, not just in terms of money, but of yourself, has somehow found a home inside of me.

Today as I contemplated the blank page and watched the cursor blink at me, awaiting my command, I went inside my head and asked what I wanted to write about. What am I feeling? What’s on my mind?

What’s on my mind are very dark, angry thoughts. I thought of writing about these dark blotches on my psyche, spewing my venom out onto the page, which, truly, can be very uplifting and releasing.

But is that good fodder to publish to the world on a blog page?

Maybe not.

That’s when the phrase came to me again. Give what you don’t have.

What I don’t have right now is peace, joy, happiness, calm and ease within my own skin.

How possibly can I give what I really don’t have? What about the old phrase “you can’t feed someone from an empty vessel”?

Hmph. Determined to see this through, I set out to write a blog post giving cheer and optimism to the world because both are in rather short supply for me right now.

Um. Yeah.

Where to start?

Google, of course.

And so here’s what I found. I share it because it made me smile. Gave me a little hope. Brought the light back on in my eyes, if only for a moment.

Now I give that to you.

The gift of optimism:








Image from Babble.com



The Sound You Hear

Wait, what is that sound? Muted yet distinct. Gentle yet forceful. Repetitive percussion, steady like a metronome.

Oh, yes. Well then. That’s the sound of my forehead upon my work desk. The press board laminate feels so cool against my fevered face.

The rhythmic thumping hurts, only a little, just enough to help take my mind off the other pain. The other agony.

Maybe I’ll intersperse some groaning in there in syncopated time. Yes, that might be symphonic. Soothing. Calming.

This skull produced tintinnabulation* began just about five minutes ago. Yes, that was it. Just when my boss left my office.

Ah yes. The boss.

He’s acting a little wacky lately. Too long a story to type up here, but he’s very much trying to garner the favor of his own boss. He’s living in the US for six months and so I believe he’s decided that for the entirety of those six months he is going to tap dance upon my neck, which may delight the Big Boss and make him clap like a toddler child over a tambourine monkey.

“Do it again! hee hee!”

We’re one and a half months into this polka and I’m not having nearly as much fun as he is.

We got into a little spat earlier about a slide deck he wants my team to create for him to deliver to the Big Boss. My Boss started weaving this storyline of what he wants this deck to do, to say, to mean.

According to the line of reasoning of what he wants, my team is to deliver a PowerPoint deck that will cure hunger, give everyone in the room a mani-pedi, and make a sandwich.

It should be that magic.

That beautiful.

That perfect.

It will have pie charts more delectable than a whip cream festooned holiday pie made up of metrics we do not have.

It will show graphs with upward shooting trend lines representing successes we did not achieve.

It will have strong bullets saying profound things in only six words per line and six bullets per page.

Or better yet, tarted up with graphics like puzzle pieces forming an interlocking circle, or arrows that grow from small to big across the page. Oh! Be sure to add in lots of those fun little transitions like bullets flying in from the left side and spinning objects.

Yes, make me a deck that would take a professional slide deck maker a week working full time, do this while still doing all your other work and quit bitching about it.

Oh, and can you have it on my desk by December 1.

Yeah. *thump, thump, thump*







* Gotta love thesaurus.com

Image from Sara is Reading What blog



Requiem for a Little Thing

The Good Man cautioned me about posting this because it’s very squishy and quite soppy and over the top melancholy. He warned me that I am opening myself up to some teasing for being so weepy about a fish. That’s ok. It’s what was on my heart and so I wrote it. Then I decided to go ahead and post it anyway. So here goes.

***

The Good Man often says, “No one cares about the little things” when referring to pets and small animals. At first I thought he was just being overly dramatic, but over the years, I’ve come to realize he might be right.

As a child, my parents were not fans of animals as pets and the care that goes along with having a pet, and so I didn’t have a pet until I was twelve years old. I didn’t learn to own and care for a pet, and how to lose a pet, in my early years.

My first animal was a cat named Yoda and I adored that cat. She died when I was in college and I still remember driving home to my parent’s place in Carlsbad crying my eyes out the whole way. A little girl racing home in a rattletrap car with big, sobbing tears, all over a cat. Yeah, that’s me.

As I moved into my adulthood, I always lived in an apartment and most rental places don’t want you to have a pet. So I didn’t.

The Good Man, on the other hand, has never had a moment in his life where he didn’t have a pet. He’s really good at taking care of animals and reading their moods, and he also has a lot of experience dealing with the loss of beloved pets.

When this handsome man entered my life, he came with baggage in the form of not one but two cats. In the first year of our association, one of the two kittehs (who had a slight attachment to me) passed on and I was crushed with grief. Crushed, dumbfounded and heartbroken. I’d grown to love that orange cat in a very short time and it had been a long time since I’d had a little animal to love.

We still have one kitteh, the rasty Feline, and she’s 14 and cranky and I can’t imagine a day when she’s not balled up behind my knees in the bed while I sleep.

And then there is my fish.

Who can be sentimental about a fish?

Me, that’s who.

For reasons I can’t quite articulate, a few years ago I decided I wanted to have some betta fish. I’d heard they were interactive and smart. I mean, a fish? All water and gills and scales. Interactive?

Turns out it is true. Betta fish are quite interactive and dare I say they have a good sense of humor too.

The downside of owning betta fish is that they have a pretty short life span. Three years is a good run. Some people get as much as five.

Last year, we lost our little girl fish, Margaret and I was saddened. She was the kindest, sweetest, most lovely little being. We joked she was the queen of our home, as she had a regal bearing about her.

Over most of this past year, my boy fish Benito has struggled. He’s sick with some sort of ailment that has caused his kidneys to fail. His abdomen is distended and it’s only a matter of (short) time before he shuffles off this mortal coil.

I look at my little betta and I see him suffering and I’m sad.

“It’s just a fish!” a friend said, when I wanted to talk to her about my sadness.

Yes. Just a fish. But my fish. And he is loved. Watching any being suffer is tough to take.

So every day I talk to my little fish and I coax him to have a few pellets and I worry over him and I change his water a lot and I know the end is near.

I guess as I age I’ve become an old softie. The thing is, I really am sad. I wish I could hug my little fish and make him feel better but I cannot. I can only sit outside his tank and hold my finger up to the glass and he will chase my finger, even when he feels bad, because that’s how we play.

————

All of the above was written about a month ago. I just had to get my thoughts out while I watched my cherished pet suffer.

Tuesday morning in the very small hours, I was up and making breakfast when I noticed my fish struggling. He had a little seizure and then he quietly died.

I can’t believe I had to watch him die, even as I am glad I was there with him.

The Good Man and I talked. I don’t think I want to have any new pets for a while. We’re good with the one rasty cat.

In Spanish, the word benito means blessing. For a few years my little red fish was a happy little blessing in my life.

I’m happy I got to be his human.

Boy oh boy, this losing a pet just doesn’t get any easier.



My beautiful cranky faced fish.



Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone4s and the Instagram app.



Well That’s Sort Of Epic

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.




Admitting You Have a Problem Is The First Step

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.