you’ve got furniture!

Fridays are interesting days…they are not really the end of anything, because you still have two days to go until the week is over, the work doesn’t really stop, because you go home and there is plenty to do around the house, and they are not really the beginning of anything else, but the two days called weekend… the fun actually starts on Monday every week, anyway…fun running into that colleague that you can’t stand, fun waiting at the stop sign behind a beginner who is afraid to get to the other side, and gets you, and the rest of the line behind you, stuck behind him and terribly late…fun listening to that power-that-be talking down to you about things they don’t even know the names for…let alone what they represent, fun having to go back to the drawing board… But also, fun making little miracles happen for others around you, watching their smiles, their eyes getting bigger and bigger at the sight or news of whatever you did…fun changing the world, one room at the time!

It has been a long week, another one of its kind, and my audit went well, my fever went down, my voice came back – granted I still don’t sound like myself, but I kinda like this new sound; it’s deep and calm, and reassuring…cool! to keep counting my blessings, my presentation on remoting via ipad went well, even if the internet did not cooperate, and I didn’t remote into anything, at least the people were decent not to boo me, and they listened and participated and even gave me their contacts to send them more information; my special media project turned out great, I finished some of the paperwork, found a good number of new solutions to old problems, got the big dogs to chase the bone, and as I was locking my cabinet and doing a last minute visual check of the office, the cell rang… “you still here? you got furniture!” …. and then there was quiet. “you there?” umhm…I think so…

Oh, voluptuous, soft, deep curves! Caramel sweetness! Inviting embrace! Sublime elegance, arrogance and bliss! All mine…finally! My couch was here… with her sisters and brothers, to populate the main office, the lounge, the parent room, and my little cave…Aaaahhhh! At last!

As I ran down the stairs, the man looked at me with great curiosity…I told him to bring it all in, and take it all out, and put it all down! But, first, to take my leathery friend to the cave…where it would be well cared for, and highly appreciated! And Friday ceased to be the end of a long week, and the beginning of the weekend…it just remained a good memory, of when my wish came true when I least expected any miracle… really! who delivers furniture at 5:30 on a Friday night?! To a school?! Well, someone does, and thank you so much for your dedication, sir! Praise you!

May your weekend be filled with just as many enchanting surprises as my Friday turned out to be! And may Friday be just another fun day!

sick as a dog…

I wonder why they call it that! My dog is always nice and relaxed, nothing like what I feel now. She never bites or bares her teeth…again, unlike me today! When she is sick, she is quiet and stays in her corner, and looks at us with teary eyes, but no sign of anger…so why would they call it that…beats me! But it sure is unfair to the canine race!

This morning my head was pounding painfully, but my thoughts were quietly resigned to put up with whatever the day was going to bring…I was trying hard not to nod or tilt my head in any way, as the water in my head would rush from one ear to the other, pushing my eardrums to their most painful extremities… My coffee was hot and went burning all the germs down my throat. Ahhhh! Take that you minuscule pests!

I opened my mouth to say nice words and I heard a hoarse voice growling scary things all around! Back up! Rewind! I opened my mouth again…same thing came out. Claws came out with the growls, too! Oh, no! Definitely not sick like a dog! My dog is good! More like a bobcat! spitting and scratching and snarling… I once saw this movie with this werewolf, who was otherwise a very nice person during the day…that’s more like what happened to me! So here I am, waiting for the moon to decrease, so I can shed the teeth and the need for blood!..few more days…just a few…

There is one thing that gave my hurting chest an extra pounding and a jerk of joy…a notification that my subscriber list has grown one more! It warms the cold bones to feel appreciated! Thank all eight of you, who get my rantings whenever I post, and bear with me, and even “like” them sometimes…you give my heart a jumpstart! Hope I’ll do the same for you one day soon!

Have a fabulous week!

the world is round..

There is something magic about the mornings. I am not a morning person and the only thing that stands between me and a really bad car crash is a huge mug of coffee. And the sunrise. The colors are surreal and if you are one to blast your sound system too, that you know how I feel…

Living at the beach has its perks, that’s for sure! Yesterday I was on a conference call with Akron, Ohio…and it was raining and really cold. Brrrr! It’s almost Halloween but I love to see people around me dragging their flip-flops on the warm sand. I got sunburned last week – not that it has anything to do with my morning routine, but just saying… The ocean never seizes to amaze me…it gives me the same image in a different color range every morning…c’mon, how many shades of blue can you have in this world? Or reds and yellows… I shared my thoughts with someone…answer: not many. but the world is round.

Aha, aha?!? And? But that was it. The world is round… they must be on to something, because things kept coming back to me today, like boomerangs. Fix it, throw it, wooshh, back it comes…that’s the most plausible explanation. My arm got lots of exercising today too…so all in all, it was a productive learning experience…I think…not sure what the lesson was, or if I understood it correctly, or if the rubric really addressed what I was supposed to gather…but good.

Fall is when…

This morning there was breeze chasing the sand around the stilts…not too much humidity and the air was sweet. A good day!

The first one to greet me at work was the librarian “did you hear it’s dropping in the 40s tonight?” My eyes flew open. Ok, need more caffeine…completely missed that last part! What? “Yeah, it’s getting really cold!”.. I looked outside. Sun is shining just as bright, no trace of clouds…OK!?

I kept being greeted with the same thing as I walked to my office. So I looked it up like any good student…they were right…oh, my! But I just got sunburned on Sunday! Sunburn and heavy clothes don’t go together! Clothes and sunburn don’t go together!…but there’s a rule that says we have to dress professional at work, so I couldn’t get out of it…had to throw something on…

Later I got summoned to a meeting downtown. As I got out of the building and headed to the car, a gust of wind almost ripped my shirt. Whoa! That fast?! No spectators, thank God! But between the mane and the shirt, getting in and out of buildings proved to be quite the hassle throughout the day.

I started to pay attention to the world around me. The ocean is white with froth from the waves, the seagulls get slammed into everything, the sand is running in circles on the streets, and the smell of cocoa is everywhere… When did it happen?.. Well, about five minutes ago, apparently! I was among the last to miss the memo, but I’m sure glad I caught the brief version…otherwise I’d be chilling my bones in the morning and freak out over warm clothes….I guess Fall is when the world gets ready… not when the leafs get yellow and fall, and I guess I fell for the disguise!

the shiniest sword

There is a common misconception that one has to have a certain age, height, color, sex or political conviction to succeed. Many have embraced this ideology and project it onto their peers as it comes handy. Example: he is too young to know anything…oh, I know, isn’t he so-and-so’s son? hmmm, that’s why!…

Surely your world is a lot more pure in thought than mine, and you have never encountered such nonsense. But in my world this is the most common scenario… I got furious the first time I was smacked with it. The second time, my esophagus was so squished by all the veins that pumped up, that no noise came out of it to help me react…the third time, my eye flashed blades at the poor intelligence challenged interlocutor…didn’t kill him, but he never talked to me again. Which is great!

The med world calls this desensitizing; reacting less and less to a certain aggressor in your environment. Yeap! That’s me! I am still in the process of caring less, but it’s getting there!

I am the shiniest sword! A pretty artifact to look at, sprouting the wildest ideas and the most exciting, for them, developments. Making everyone look good in my reflection. An antique that attracted nobody at first, except for a couple of connoisseurs, who acquired me and polished the rust off my blade. Now everyone wants to hold the pretty item, have it, take possession. But just as they are ignorant of value, they are unsuspecting of the danger… for who would hold a sword by its blade?!? It takes a fighter to handle a sword, and win the war, and how many more are there left? Did you answer “a handful”? You would be correct! So what happens if a wannabe tries to use the shiny tool? At best, nothing! At its worst….there will be some deep cuts…

Lesson to learn here? None! People don’t learn to accept others for what they could do, but judge them by what they think they should do… Wrong? No. Right? No. Just life as it happens… but food for thought: don’t listen to your first impulse to hold the shiny thing, no matter how warm your heart gets at the sight of it, or how bright your eyes glisten in its reflection…some things are just what they are. Sharp. No magic there.

got toys?

Sometimes the world turns upside down and shakes itself really hard. Whomever doesn’t hold…well, they fall. In love, off the face of the earth, hard on their face, fall for it…whatever fits the bill. Though we all know that something is different, we can’t really grasp it at first. It takes crawling to get to baby steps…and little tippy toeing to get to the leaps….

I got served for the thousand time today with the comment “you got so many toys!”. Surely, the statement comes from various people, very different, from all sorts of backgrounds. They all have one thing in common. They don’t have a clue who I am, but they could bet their last $$ that they know “my kind”. Smile is what I do best in those moments, and people who do know me also know what a smile means.

I do have toys. I have big toys and tiny toys, shiny toys and green toys! I have creativity, too! And I play with my toys in front of all of them. The kiddo has a little saying: “nana the booboo, you can’t catch me!”…and, by golly, I know exactly how good it feel to say it! But as the “grown up”, I can’t say it out loud. But I can surely flaunt it!

I’m good at playing with my toys, too! They can’t stop staring at my creations! They want to have some too! And, of course, I make some for them, really nice, too! And charge them for it! And it feels good…

But I am puzzled…I got a lot of toys for one main reason. And told everyone why I need all those toys. And they all listened, and nodded. Did I miss something, or a nod means yes?! Who knows, with this changing world, non verbal communication must have changed as well… To make a long story short, I got all the toys that I needed to broadcast and trained everyone, created the habit, found the anchors, did a great job…Until. One morning I went to play with my toys and the internet was gone! Really! All gone!

I was crushed! No broadcasting today? Back to the PA? Oh, no! Progress means going ahead, not backwards! The next day, same thing. I came in the third day, blue in the face from all the yelling at all the “internet thieves” who told me there is internet, and there is not a problem. The internet had taken a vacation apparently, and was calling in when they were checkin on it! Arghh! Ok! Throwing in the towel here…

And then I turned around and stared in the face a 13 year old. She was ready to anchor for the day. And someone took the world then, turned it back up, and I fell flat on my back side. That was it! I will broadcast without internet! Eyes went wide open, mouths rounded up, and sighs came out of everyone’s chests…broadcast without internet? Who has ever heard of that?  well… me and some other people apparently…and history has happened again…

Got toys? Let’s play! We can make history together!

It’s about time…

With Fall, comes change of weather, time, spirit, but most of all, change of heart. It seems that every year around this time there’s another leap. One can’t pinpoint the direction, or say with certainty that it is the right or wrong way to go, but times change, and with them, we all do.

“People are people, and sometimes we change our mind”… I heard this so many times…and when that happens, things around us take a different turn, shape, color, or scent… I did not say stench because, though the taste can be bitter, sometimes human mess can be odorless… Things that once were dull, become bright or the opposite happens, beautiful, simple things become unglued and turn into living monsters…

We know both going through life, but we only remember the changes that hurt us the most. And sometimes it’s only the times when we act stupid…or maybe that’s just me…and feel embarrassed, and want to shove our heads under our wings…that we remember. The successful way to fast change has not yet been invented, though, so coping is still a personal matter. Some of us do better at that than others. Some of us don’t.

But sometimes there are little bits of comfort that we stumble upon…like finding those pieces of candy that we hid from ourselves, and forgot all about until opening that drawer… and those instances pick us up and fill our murky days with a little happiness. Or a lot.

I keep getting these picker-uppers, these scrumptious chocolates, these heart melting moments… just when I think I’m done for. Just as my world shrinks to a pea size. Just as all my thoughts run out. It may not happen like that to you, but it should. Until then, here. Have a piece of my cake. It seems someone up there likes my sharing. Pass it on! It will come back to you…and it’s about time…

A moment of silence

Every morning during our broadcast, after the pledges, we observe a moment of silence. It is impersonal, quiet and we go on with our lives as soon as the call comes from the boss. For the first time in forever, I feel the moment of silence deep in my heart. I stand tall, with my hand on my chest. And I am sad, and thankful, and worried, and deeply humbled… The one thought that comes back like a boomerang, after every time I throw it away, is “why so soon?” there are so many more things that could have been done…there are so many things that we have to be grateful for. There are so many things that we can give because of the many things that one man has given us!

Today, lower the flag. And bow your head. We all lost today.

Farewell Mr Jobs!

It’s a girl thing…

It really says that! Look closer! That, on top of the pink… Ahhh, life is fun! Imagine riding that thing…the breeze in your hair and the people staring at you like you are the biggest ostrich alive in a chicken coop!

It takes a special kind of person to own something that unique! Does that make them unique as well? I guess…To be able to wear that statement with pride and pink in the same sentence…it takes guts! Funny thing, though…five minutes after taking this picture, as I was leaving the parking lot, a nice gentleman came out of his truck. He was proudly wearing a pink polo with “I chose it!” on his chest… A girl thing? Nah! It’s getting to be a culture! Or maybe we are all going color blind?!

Don’t make me say it!

For the longest time I have been fighting the windmills, trying to get my program off the ground. It’s flying now. Not high yet, but we are getting the air under our wings quite fast, and there will be soaring happening soon. But now the powers-that-be are starting to see that my blabber is actually true…I told them so!!!!.. And they don’t like it…they thought I was just selling cookies…

I must really look like a pretty little butterfly to them…one that you look at and gets you all distracted and warm hearted, and takes your mind off the harsh reality. It must be how they see me. Otherwise they would not be so surprised that my words actually have a meaning, and they mean just what the dictionary states. Example: broadcasting - transmit (a program or some information) by radio or television; does that mean a transmission is implied? Yes! Does it also mean that equipment is used for it? Yes! Does it mean that someone is doing it? Once again, YES! Is it maybe that my speaking five languages impedes on them understanding my English? Could be that, too… But what I know to be true is that now that we are live, up-and-running, and visible to all, others are trying to steal the show…our show…and the powers-that-be are not against it…I am so not the loved child in this family!

Business, someone told me, it’s just business, nothing personal! Really? You sure? ‘Cause I got a better one! And they won’t see it coming! But I will not allow the bad vibes break my heart for more than five minutes! I shall not use the words they deserve to be called. I will use the words I deserve to use, like copyright and intellectual property…Ain’t life a sweetheart? That will keep them away for a while, until I re-group, and find some big bad guns to have my back…that’s what my kids like to say…and, boy, do I agree this time. Thou shall turn the other cheek. Sure. Put a little fake kiss on it please. I can take your false grin. But don’t make me say it! Or you’ll be sorry you were ever near me! I may be a David, but they might just be Goliath! And we all know how that ended!