Category: sigh

That’s the night that the lights went out at the ‘Stick

Our poor beleaguered Candlestick Park. The windy old jewel is really starting to show her age.

Well, not starting, really. Rapidly declining is more like it.

Last night she had a show to deliver: A contending team vs a contending team and an audience on the big stage of Monday Night Football.

Then this happened:





That blue light you see off to the left is a power transformer blowing up.

In a packed stadium in a hotly contested game with rafters full of fans from the opposing team out at Candlestick point…that’s not exactly where you want to be when the lights go out.

After some waiting around, the lights did come back on and the 49ers did prevail over the Pittsburgh Steelers, so all’s well that ends well, I suppose.

But what a sad state of affairs for the ‘Stick.




Transformer blowin’ gif found here.


Tis The Season for a Re-Blog

This post first appeared on this little ol’ blog on December 11, 2007. Today it just feels right to re-blog it because the list is still true. This post remains one of my all time favorites since the Christmas season always gets me feeling a little extra homesick for New Mexico.


Top ten things I miss about Christmas in New Mexico (in no particular order):

1) An annual shopping trip to Old Town in Albuquerque. This was a longtime mom and me tradition. Every year I’d get to pick out my own ornament that would eventually be mine when I became an adult. I have every one of those ornaments stored in a Thom McAnn shoebox and they go on my tree every year. They are glitter and glass history of my life. I remember buying each of them and it gives me a beautiful sense of continuity to have them on my tree.


2) Luminarias. I always was the one to make them for the family. Someone would drive me to an empty lot and I’d dig out two buckets worth of good New Mexico dirt, then I’d go home and fold down the tops on brown lunch bags. Each would get a candle inside and then at night I’d light them. It was my holiday job and I loved every folded bag and every bulk buy candle (and every small emergency when a bag caught on fire in the wind). I miss real luminarias.


3) The Bugg House, which, sadly, is no more. My sister lived over on Prospect and we’d go for a walk in the dark on Christmas Eve to take a look at the outstanding display of holiday spirit. On the way to Christmas shop at Winrock Mall, I’d take a detour to the Bugg house to take a look. No one does lights like the Buggs did.


4) Neighbors bringing over a plate of freshly made tamales as a Christmas gift. When there are three generations of Hispanic women in a kitchen with some masa and shredded pork, magic happens. Yum! I also miss that people would bring tamales to work in a battered Igloo cooler and sell them to coworkers. I was always good for a dozen or more.


5) A ristra makes a good Christmas gift. I’ve given. I’ve received. I love ’em. They’d become a moldy mess here, and that makes me sad, cuz I’d love to have one.


6) Biscochitos. My love for these is well documented.


7) Sixty-five degrees and warm on Christmas Day. Growin’ up, I think one year there was actually snow on the ground for the 25th. But it was melted by the end of the day. Oh Fair New Mexico, how I love your weather.


8) Christmas Eve midnight Mass in Spanish with the overpowering scent of frankincense filling up the overly warm church. Pure torture for a small child, but oh how I’d belt out the carols. And when we came home after, we could pick one present and open it. Gah! The torture of choosing just one!


9) A New Mexico piñon, gappy, scrawny Christmas tree that cost $15 at the Flea Market and was cut from the top of a larger tree just that morning. Look, to my mind, it ain’t a tree unless you are using a few low hanging ornaments to fill the obvious empty spots. These overly fluffy trees just ain’t my bag. If you aren’t turning the ‘bad spot’ toward the wall, you paid too much for your tree.


10) Green chile stew for Christmas Eve dinner and posole for New Year’s, both served with homemade tortillas. My mouth waters. It’s weep worthy. I can taste the nice soft potatoes in the stew, the broth flavored just right. And posole to bring you luck with red chile flakes and soft hunks of pork. Yeah……


*sigh* Now I’m homesick.

Which is not to say I don’t have happy holidays where I live now…but sometimes I feel melancholy. And in a weird way, that’s what the holidays are for, right?



Finally, as a ode to My People, I give you this:





Image lifted from a friend’s Facebook page. It was just toooo perfect to pass up. If it’s yours, I’m happy to add an attribution or take it down, your choice.



The Laws of A State Named Denial

So. Here we are. The eighth day of the month. No big deal, right? Just like every other 8th day of any other month.

People keeping saying something about an “event” or some something or other coming up at the end of the month.

I have no idea what they are talking about.

I’m sure it’s nothing. Some fake internet celebration like that one day where everyone was supposed to leave their bank and go to a credit union.

You know, I keep trying to schedule meeting for the last two weeks of the month but everyone’s calendars are busy! I mean, all day, every day.

There must be a training session or something.

Weird.

I cannot imagine what in the heck must be going on. This is just another simple ordinary month. Nothing special going on. Just another month in the year.

Not sure why, but there is a tree that has sprung up down the hallway from my office. Must be the company plant-care team trying something out. Perhaps I’ll call them and say I think it’s in the way. Hard to walk around it.

And the mail team must have dumped off some lost packages over there, because there are all of these boxes by that dumb tree.

I mean, we’re all trying to do a job here!

The grocery stores sure are playing bouncy music lately. Lots of bells. Maybe that’s the new trend in music? Sometimes it’s horns. Or heavy electric guitar. But these days, bells.

Seriously, am I missing something? It seems like everyone is up to something but I don’t know what.

Nope. It’s just another day in just another month and nowhere NEAR the end of the year because that cannot possibly be.

It’s like April, right? Of 2003? Or maybe 1999?

Because time cannot possibly be moving this fast.

It just can’t.

It can’t it can’t it can’t!!!

Greetings from the State of Denial. Population: Me.




This non-event thusly satisfies today’s Theme Thursday word: event


A Symphony of Fail

I am the ape man. I am the walrus.

Ku-ku-kachu.

I am neither of those things. I am the fail whale.





Yes. That is me, sad tighty whiteys and all.

Fail a’ Fail-a-rino.

Today is November 30th. The last day of the festivities that are National Novel Writing Month.

This is the annual event where writers challenge themselves to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

2011 marks the sixth time I have had a go at NaNoWriMo.

My first shot was in 2004. I struggled, but made it the first time out of the gate. There have been years since then when I have skipped participation. But every one of the five years I have tried my hand at NaNoWriMo, I have succeeded in passing the finish line by the 30th of the month.

One year, I finished in 21 days. Yeah, that rocked.

This year, however. Well.

50,000 words are the goal. As of this moment, I have 14,239.

See. I didn’t just fail a little. I failed a lot.

A big round blobby smelly unctuous fail.

That’s me. Mz Failsalot.

I was going to simply try to hide this away. Pretend it didn’t happen. Not say a word. Not mention it to anybody unless they asked.

Then I decided that confession is good for the soul.

Own it! Sing it! Love it!

Yes, yes…I’m one of those perfectionist kinda gals. It makes me happy to complete what I start. Completing a project matters.

Also, I’m excessively proud of my ability to produce words. Not just any words, but halfway decent words written at a rapid clip. Paragraphs with a good foundation that some powerful editing can improve and shape into literary magic.

But this year, way too many hours at work (a project is failing and I’m paddling as fast as I can to keep it a’float), a prolonged bout of writers block (see Monday’s post), and an extraordinary amount of hubris (I had the audacity to TALK ABOUT my story idea…..that is certain death to creativity) came together in the perfect storm that smashed my tiny seafaring vessel to the rocks.

Oh, the drama! The anxiety! The shaaaaaaame.

Yep. I blew it. I firmly believe that owning it, giving my failure both light and air, and speaking of it publicly……Well, all of that takes the sting out of it. Draws out the venom.

Helps me be ok with it. And learn from it.

So today, I sing a song of failure. It starts off sad, like an Irish lament, but ends up peppy like a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.

Fffffffffffffffffffffffailure where the agony comes sweeping down The Muse!

Whew. Now I just need to do an act of contrition, and the Universe will grant me absolution.

Right?




Fail whale image is by Ed Wheeler and found on deviantart.com. Follow him on Twitter @EduardoWheeler


Caw! Caw!

Ooooh, it’s getting a bit raven-y outside my office door right now. You see, there have been recent changes in my organization. Some of our team moved to another location, and then some people left the company entirely and weren’t replaced.

The result is, for the past three months or so, we’ve had about four open hard wall offices along my row and about six open cubicles.

Now, if you’ve ever worked at any corporate entity, you know that office space is *always* a big deal. Especially hard wall offices.

For us, it’s been great, the open offices have been used as conference rooms in a pinch, and we have plenty of hotel cubes for when people are visiting. Also, when my UK Boss comes to the states for three months every quarter, he’s able to have space to work.

It was great to have a little open space around here. But I knew it wouldn’t last.

It couldn’t last.

At this very moment, there is a coven of crows Executive Admins outside my office squabbling over the space.

My Big Boss got dragged into the middle of this since technically he owns the empty space. It should be noted that Big Boss is only about 5 foot 5 inches tall on a good hair day.

Poor Big Boss, he never stood a chance. He listened patiently for a while then said, “Just let me know what you decide” and walked away (that he can pull that off is what makes him the Big Boss…just sayin’ )

He left much cawing in his wake:

“But I need two offices for my team!”

“No! I need all of the offices, I have all directors! They can’t sit in cubes!”

“What about my team? We can fit into that space which means they can all sit together!”

“But then you have to move everyone!”

“But you can have my old space!”

“Then my team doesn’t sit together!”

Lest anyone every think differently, the true power of this company lies right there in the center of that circle of post-menopausal women.

They are negotiators, leaders, deal makers and will claw your eye out for a hard wall office on the right floor in the right corner.

They own everything that happens around here and everyone in it.

Which means I’m hunkering down in my office. Except when they look in here to check out my space. Then I sit up quite tall and make my little room look VERY occupied.

I’m scared, mommy!







Photo by Justina Kochansky, and found on the Articulate Matter Flicker photostream.