Category: make it work

Time To Update The Rules

So you know this whole schoolyard game called roshambo, also known as rock-paper-scissors?

Yeah. I played it on the schoolyard. Years ago there was a lively night in Las Cruces where a drunk cowboy accused my best friend of cheating at rock-paper-scissors. She wasn’t cheating, he was just so drunk that his reflexes were slow, and she could see what was coming.

Plus, he kept throwing rock. Nothing else. Just rock. Sorta hard to sort out that strategy.

But that’s history. Let’s get current.

Recently in my internet wanderings, I read someone’s blog post discussing how maybe rock and paper and scissors aren’t the best choices in this game.

I wish I could recall where I read this so I could give credit. It was a quick piece, but for some reason the points stayed with me.

Ok, so basic rules, as we all know:

Rock beats scissors since rock smashes scissors. Good, ok, I’m on board.

Scissors beats paper since scissors cuts paper. Ok, yup.

Paper beats rock, because paper covers rock.

: cue the sound of squealing brakes :

What now? Paper covers rock and thus renders it ineffective?

Not so sure about that. I’m onboard with broken scissors and cut paper, but the logic doesn’t follow to paper covered rock.

I’m pretty gall damn sure that if I cover a rock with a piece of paper then huck that rock offa someone’s dome, it’s STILL going to cause damage. Paper has done *nothing* to render the rock useless or ineffective.

All I know is that in the heat of the battle I’m taking rock or scissors with me because no sissy piece of paper is going to save my hide! I need something with some heft!

This game has been flawed for YEARS!

So I propose some alternates. How about rock-scissors-machete?

Rock beats scissors since rock can smash the scissors.

Machete beats rock because a super sharp machete can either deflect the rock or maybe cut it?

Then scissors beats machete? Ok, this idea is starting to break down. Maybe scissors can cut the handle covering off machete thus leaving it very slippery?

No? Ok.

Let’s try again.

Rock-scissors-plastic explosives?

Rock smashes scissors.

Scissors cuts up plastic explosives, thus making it less powerful.

Plastic explosives blows the bejeebus out of rock.

See. That works. And it makes a lot more logical sense. We can even keep the hand gestures the same. A flat slab of plastic explosives could look kinda like paper. It really works!

Wow, I’m brilliant. A certified GENIUS! (or simply certified).





Image from Wikimedia and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.


This week’s Theme Thursday was posted a day early, so I dove in. This week’s theme is “paper.”


And Then I Get Out Of The Wayback Machine

I got a little down this past weekend. It might have been coming off one of the busiest weeks in recent memory. Twelve hour work days can bring a girl down.

It could have been the emails flying around about the upcoming memorial for my friend. It hurts my heart.

Perhaps it was simply about the dark gray skies and soaking rain that laid down like a cold, wet blanket over the Bay Area.

Yeah. It was all of that. But there’s one more.

Back in February, when I was visiting my Fair New Mexico, my best good friend told me some really good news.

“Friend, there’s a Lake Valley coming up! Joe Delk got the permits!”

Well, this made me grin so hard, the sides of my mouth met around the back of my head.

Ah Lake Valley. Now there’s a memory.

The town of Lake Valley, once a booming silver mine, is now a ghost town. Out there in the middle of gosh darn nowhere (a little to the left of I-25, a little to the right of Silver City), there are a few buildings still standing.

One of them is an old schoolhouse. For a lot of years, cowboys, ranchers, locals and college kids got together at that Lake Valley schoolhouse for a good old-fashioned country dance.

When I say a lot of years, I mean my best friend’s grandma remembers coming out to Lake Valley to dance, and she and I do too.

People came from miles around to tailgate, share beer and stories, and dance on the uneven wood boards of that rickety old schoolhouse.

The last Lake Valley dance happened back in the late eighties. The BLM has taken over the land and buildings and it’s been mighty hard to get in there ever since.

But to hear that Joe Delk, leader of local band The Delks, had somehow persuaded the BLM to go along? Well hell, I bought my ticket PDQ. I wouldn’t miss it for the world!

March 19th was when it was set to go down.

About a week before I started packing my bags, I got the news. Sadly, it was not to be. Evidently the BLM wanted a whole lot of restrictions that just wouldn’t work. So Joe cancelled the dance.

When I heard the news, I felt low.

And so…on this past rainy Saturday, I looked out my window and I texted my best friend. “This would have been Lake Valley weekend.”

“Yeah,” she replied. Then she sighed.

And I sighed.

But it was not to be.

I guess Lake Valley gets to live on only in our memories.

Maybe I should write a story about it one day. It’s a intriguing bit of New Mexico history that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Ah well. Monday rolled around and the rain came down and work was waiting and I stepped out of the wayback machine and back into my life.

But somewhere in my dreams, I scoot across the uneven floors, careful not to trip on a nail, while the band plays “Put Your Little Foot”…..and we dance.



That’s the schoolhouse. Now imagine it at night. Very dark out there…



Photo from Jimmy Emerson‘s Flickr photostream.


I Need Some Cheek Salve

Yeah, so I’ve talked a lot here on the blog about my job and working with folks around the globe. I am having a lot of fun and getting pretty gosh darn smart about the different cultures in the regions where I’m working.

But there’s one thing I’m having a LOT of trouble with.

It’s the kiss-cheek greeting thing.

The Euro folks seem to favor this method, and it’s not one cheek, but both. Shake hands, smooch one side, smooch the other side.

Suddenly, I become VERY rigid when I see these supplier reps coming in for a landing on my face. Gah!

Just this week, we had a VERY large meeting where there were, I kid you not, eight people who flew in from London for a meeting. I greeted them in the lobby and had to kiss-kiss all eight of these sumnabitches.

I don’t even know all of them. Hell, I don’t even LIKE most the ones I do know.

But they all stood in line to smooch-smooch me.

Then…when the two hour meeting was over, it was time to leave, and they all lined up to smooch-smooch me on the way out.

I felt a little…mauled…by the time the day was through.

Might I add that I was the only girl in the room of eight external people and five coworkers. There was no kissy-kissy between the guys. No, I got the brunt of the moist greetings.

Damnit! I’m an American! We like a little bit of space in our greetings! Also, I’m no good at the kiss-kiss. I never know where to land the thing. Do just sort of kiss the air? Or do I actually place it? And what if, horror of horrors, I miss and land it wrong?

I did accidentally bump noses with one of the dudes. Is that bad form?

All that aside, it just seems…wrong…to get to get that intimate with a freaking supplier. They aren’t my friends! They aren’t in my confidence! THEY ARE SUPPLIERS and therefore need to be treated at arm’s length to be sure they remember their boundaries.

Then again, maybe this is all a negotiation tactic to throw me off my game. Ooh, if I think about it that way, this kissy-kissy crap seems diabolical.

Mostly it just makes me uncomfortable.



Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star

B’gosh and B’gorrah, today is the wearin’ of the green and the luck o’ the Irish.

When Irish eyes are a’smilin’ over a four leaf clover, or something like that.

You know, for some reason this reminds me of a boyfriend I had back at NMSU. He was a lean ol’ cowboy from Capitan and he had a lot of classic sayings, many of them unreapeatable.

One of the cleaner mottos did stick with me, in fact I use it today. It went something like this:

“It’s better to be lucky than to be good.”

Now this is a theory I subscribed to for many years. I believed luck was the only way I got anything good.

But that seems to be changing with time, and here in my wiser years, I’m actually starting to disagree. I’m learning that the best of all luck is simply to have the courage of your convictions backed by hard work.

Which means you get to make your own luck.

Sure, this takes a lot more effort than leaving it to the Goddess of Fate and her bitch sisters Destiny and Time*, but it’s one hell of a lot more satisfying.

Or maybe the truth of it all is, really, it’s better to be both lucky AND good.





*For the purists out there, don’t get your knickers in a twist. This is me making stuff up, not actual Greek mythology.


This week’s Theme Thursday is luck.


Image by Andrea Kratzenberg and used royalty free from .


Theme Song

Back in the day, I used to watch that show Ally McBeal. You know, the one about the skinny neurotic lawyer? The reason I got to thinking about that show lately has to do with my job.

I’ve been in the middle of frying pan and also the fire here at work. There is a LOT going on; notably a project that fell off the rails and I’ve had to step in to clean it up. Always fun cleaning up someone else’s mess….

Anyhoo.

What I used to dig about that show were scenes that showed the John Cage character, played by Peter MacNicol, standing in his office or the restroom trying to summon up his theme song. This was usually before a big case or a meeting where he needed courage. Or a date. The theme song changed depending on the situation.

Yesterday I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom trying to summon up such courage. I’d been running late to the meeting, then the conference room my boss booked was too small, so I hoofed chairs from every other conference room so all the execs could have a place for their tushy.

Before we got started, I took a break to the ladies room to quite literally wipe the sweat off my brow, take a breath, and get my game face on. I knew I was going to be the only person from my company who would be a bit fierce with our under performing supplier. My boss told me straight up he is non-confrontational, and so in these cases, I have to do it. Which is fine by me, it just takes a certain frame of mind.

I needed a theme song to summon the courage, but seems the music half of my brain was failing me.

So this morning in a quieter frame of mind, I got to thinking…what is my own personal theme song?

For those times where I got to go in agro, usually the song I pull up is “Headstrong” by Trapt. The hard baseline helps, and shouting the lyrics aloud in the car on the way to a meeting is quite liberating.

They go something like “backoff I’ll take you on/headstrong to take on anyone/I know that you are wrong/and this is not where you belong.”

Yeah. Then I go in all “rawr!” and ready to take on the world.

On the days when I’m feeling like there is a black cloud hanging over my head (more days than I’d care to admit) my theme song tends to flow toward Stormy Monday by T-Bone Walker.

“They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad/Wednesday’s worse, and Thursday’s also sad”

God I love that song, especially the John Lee Hooker version.

Back in the day when I used to have a really, really terrible boss (about five years back) and every day was a grind just to survive his insanity, I used to sing the lyrics to Fighter by Christina Aguilera (who I don’t usually like, but that song worked for me.) It was good to turn my adversity into gratitude.

“Made me learn a little bit faster/Made my skin a little bit thicker/Makes me that much smarter/So thanks for making me a fighter”

Then of course, during those good times when I’m thinking about The Good Man, it’s all about Johnny Rodriguez.

” ‘Cause your love put a song, put a song, put a song, in my heart/Never have I heard this beautiful music before”

Just puts a smile on my face thinking about it.

But for now, no time to be squishy. I’m at work. Back to Trapt.

“Backoff, I’ll take you on!”

Do you have a go-to theme song?





Image found at deviantART.com