Klowns in my Koffee

Remind Me Why I Took the Red Pill?

2011-05-22T23:32:00.058-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life in the Real World)
Mr. T and Attila the Son went to Boy Scout Camp and got a ringside seat near the path of a tornado. They ran through a hailstorm to a shelter and then headed for home during a break in the weather. They came back soggy, otherwise well and an evening early. I think T was largely happy to have avoided sleeping in the tent, a possibility that he'd been dreading since the encampment was announced.

Tornadoes don't seem quite real. When the sirens go off and my family is in the house, I herd them and two uncooperative cats into an internal hallway in the basement. If I'm the only one home, I go outside and look around. The landscape seems transformed with strange pinks, architectural black clouds and the oddest green cast over everything.

And It Wasn't Even On A Toyota Matrix

Is it the ultimate question? Would you prefer to live unknowing in a sensical but false existance or learn the tragic reality? Take the blue pill or take the red pill?

There's a possibility that reality is overrated.

The greatest truths are often really confirmations of what we already know. The Matrix Runs On WindowsXP

Still Here ... The World, I Mean.

2011-05-21T18:52:00.000-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life in mid-Rapture)
Despite the predictions of Harold Camping, the Rapture did not occur at 6 PM on May 21st. At least, no one is missing on my street. Admittedly, there could be other reasons for that.

At that exact time, I was working at my "cash-bringing" job taking phone orders. As the show of the hour featured a show biz personality who has used considerable initiative to develop a line of skin care products worthy of Dorian Gray, callers seemed more interested in a future of receiving shipments at 30-day intervals than declaring, "I'm going out with a bang and wearing the face I came in with." My neighbor was mowing his lawn for at least the third time this week. As he was doing it in the rain and with something that sounded like four jet engines while I was trying to work on the phone, I would have been OK with his sudden disappearance. I really would have.

On the Career Front
Jobs I'm Not Looking For Anymore
Replacement for Charlie Sheen on Two and A Half Men
Replacement for Aflac Duck

New/Still Open Job Postings
Replacement for Dalai Lama
Head of International Monetary Fund (no travel required)

Spoke Too Soon?
Tornado sirens going off.
In which ring of hell do the sarcastic people go?

Full Plates

2011-04-28T23:06:00.066-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life in Parking Lots)

Children require a lot of carting. They need to be taken here and there. They need things that you have to get for them. As sustainable as we are trying to become, I've yet to cultivate a plant that grows notebook paper.

"Plant it over there between the lunch box tree and the pencil bushes!"

Some music is better for the road than others. For some reason, my car favors Bruce Springstein and Jimmy Buffet and will jam the CD player otherwise. My car apparently has a lot of good vibes, positive energy, and wants to go with the working class flow without thinking too deeply. It's an American car.

I once had a German car but it would only play Wagner.

Amazing Plates Seen While Waiting for My Kids, My Husband or the Apocalypse

But it was on a RED car.

Kind of glad this van wasn't selling underwear.

Says it all!

Have you seen some evocative license plates lately? Send us a picture!

A Visit from College

2011-04-25T23:36:00.043-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Sip of Time)
My daughter from college made a quick trip home to celebrate Easter. Those of traditional college age are such a bundle of contradictions. The college won't tell you their marks and doctors won't tell you anything other than name and birth date. (Clue to you, doc. I'm was responsible for both of those.) They call when the world deals them some unfairness but remain coy on more momentous developments. They come home to look for their Easter baskets and then drive off to the rest of their busy and increasingly adult lives.

Who's New At The Zoo?

Behold the college student in its natural environment. It is largely a nocturnal species that forages for food at odd hours. It has evolved an outer armor of apparel that seems to function both day and night: Is it pajamas? Is it school clothing? Both? Neither?

This species can be found travelling with large bags called "laundry." The college student itself is a wide ranging species that can be found along almost any highway or byway; the laundry is migratory, always finding its way back home.

For My Peeps

2011-04-24T23:41:00.000-05:00

Just when you thought it was safe to take your eyes off your Easter basket.

Another Wonderful MN Chinese Dance Theater Production

2011-04-23T23:39:00.001-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Dance Fan)
A longstanding family tradition is attending the annual performances of the Minnesota Chinese Dance Theater. This group of talented local dancers has the mission of enhancing cultural understanding in Minnesota by showcasing the ethnic dance traditions of China. The performances feature colorful and richly-detailed costumes from China and are narrated in both English and Mandarin.

A Tradition Tibetan Dance

We are grateful to our friend and superb dancer, Lucy, for introducing us to the performances of this outstanding group. Even my sports-crazy son sits still through the whole program. As he is becoming more cognizant of his ethnic and racial identity, he is decidedly open in his appreciation for being in a large crowd where more people look a little like him than do not.

Young Dancers Capture the Innocence of Pandas at Play

The finale is always a highlight that includes the entire large cast in a dazzling display of costumes and skillful, energetic dancing. I regret that I had to leave before the final number in order to be at work in time.

For a joyful, educational and reasonably-priced evening of entertainment, check out the Minnesota Chinese Dance Theater and their productions at the Brady Educational Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. The neighborhood surrounding the St. Thomas camus is rich in unique eating establishments.

Graceful Sleeves Evoke Rainbows

A few weeks ago, we discovered the Blue Door Pub and its signature Juicy Blucy hamburgers. This local landmark was featured on Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Kollege Kid had seen the show where the barrel-like and trendily-coiffed Guy Fieri sampled the spam bites, an appetizer breaded and deep-fried spam, cream cheese and pickle. It sounds awful but tastes great.

How Much TV is Too Much?

2011-04-22T23:07:00.004-05:00

If you know more than half of these, that might be TOO much.

The Business Empire in My Living Room

2011-04-21T23:40:00.001-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life as Today's Top Value)
Rejoining the ranks of the marginally employed has its drawbacks. For example, working seems to require a time commitment. Back in the time of [Career - 1], it required an exceptional amount of time and almost a blood oath, so any improvement over that seems to be a step in the right direction.

Setting one's own hours grow on you after a while. So much so, in fact, that I am probably ruined for ever wanting a corporate, fixed schedule job again.

So where can you find a job outside of self-employment where you set your own hours, have a minimal commute, and maybe don't have to dress up too much? Oh, and some benefits would be nice, too.

For people who don't find magic lamps, these opportunities are rare. Through pure dumb luck, I found one — the opportunity, not the magic lamp. I am now an at-home phone agent for a large and well-known television and online retailer. I sign up for whatever hours that I want to work. I take phone calls through my little headset from people who are spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars and who have no idea that I am sitting in my living room. The genie did a good job: there is even a 401K.

Can't beat the commute.

The downside is that I feel for the customers who sound like they really shouldn't be making purchases of this size on credit. There may be a spot for me in Dante's hell, but it's somewhere in the cooler area with the people who crinkle candy wrappers in movies and send you holidays cards showing their cats wearing antlers.

During my training, I had the chance to see Suzanne Somers while she was filming in my company's local studios. She doesn't look quite like the forgiving pictures on her website, but she really doesn't look too bad. Kind of like Chrissy's mom. She's is in fantastic physical shape and has a vivacious and down-to-earth personality that positively radiates. Take that, National Enquirer. Whatever she had done to her face, it healed.

A 401K and a brush with minor celebrity. Doesn't get much better than that.

Cubic zirconia, anyone? Just call when I'm working. Which will be whenever I feel like it.

And please buy a warranty. I get a commission.

Last Week's Brew
For a cruise down memory lane, check out this scene from the George Lucas' love song to a time of innocence and heroism when good and bad were so clearly drawn. No, not Star Wars; American Graffiti.

And who was that "perfect, dazzling creature" in the white T-bird? Suzanne Somers.

The Eagle Has Landed

2011-04-20T23:12:00.001-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Gainfully Formerly Unemployed Person)
I'm baaaaack!

Life got a little busy for a while there. Mr. T, he of the giant heart and endless supply of bad luck, upgraded my computer and unleashed demons from the gates of hell. Or Erie, Pennsylvania. They both look the same to me. If you've ever used a public restroom just off the highway in Erie, you know what I mean.

While my computer was lying on the floor, six legs in the air and coughing convulsively, there was a period of rapid change in my life from which the blogosphere has been saved a detailed description.

Once upon a time, there was a day when I was offered three jobs, one full-time and two part-time. None of them paid well but they were all very flexible and didn't harm the ozone layer or cause wars. Casting the dried chicken bones of fate, I accepted one part-time job and one temporary contract for another part-time position.

Both companies have reasonable social media policies that pointedly prefer their employees to avoid publishing their internal secrets. Neither are keen about being ridiculed either. Fortunately, I don't know any of their secrets and am unlikely to stumble across them. Even better, neither company seems to have too much to ridicule in other than that joshing, punch-you-in-the-arm kind of way. For one more kick at that dead horse (Dig that double entendre!), this is in such stark contrast to Porkus that I feel that my house just fell on the witch and I've emerged in Technicolor. Listening and training and bonuses, oh my!

What do you get when you blend technology with really shiny things and apply for 24 hours per day? And why is Suzanne Somers so tan? I found out on job #1. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Technical Java
What was wrong with my computer for all those days? T knows but he won't tell me. Usually this means that he did something wrong and doesn't want that fact to resurface in five or six hundred later discussions. Perfectly understandable. Of course, I just assume that he did something wrong given the fact that it worked, then he touched it, and then it didn't -- causing him to spend several days engaged in data preservation and swearing.

Porkus Flashback Deep in the Heart of Taxes
Under the question "Do any of these apply to this W-2?", TurboTax has a checkbox for "I earned this income while an inmate in a penal institution." I stared at that Porkus W-2 for a good long time ...

Out of Pocket, Out of My Mind

2011-04-12T09:37:00.000-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Gainfully Semi-employed Person)
Mr. T started upgrading my computer several days ago. That I am unable to use it at all or to access all the backed-up photos and other work-in-process on the backup server (the server whose job it is to help me out in these situations) shall hang wafting in the wind. Not an accusation, just an extremely sore point.

Can't wait to share latest developments. I now have two new part-time jobs. Yesterday, I met Suzanne Somers -- assuming that 'met' means 'stood twenty feet away from her and gawked while she was working.'

Can't wait to catch up. As Arnold said, "I'll be baahck."

Art and Sports and Tigers, Oh, My! - Part 1

2011-04-02T23:18:00.121-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life between Stops)
Gasoline prices hit the highest level in recent local history. In the winking irony that is life, this means that we spent most of the day on the the road. Our first stop was the Walker Art Center, a contemporary museum in Minneapolis that offers free admission to families on the first Saturday of each month. From there, we zipped over to St. Paul where Kollege Kid had a lacrosse game at the University of St. Thomas. Defeated but unbowed, we took our goalie to the Blue Door Pub for a famous Juicy Blucy and then rounded out the excursion by ending the day at the Como Zoo.

Kollege Kid went on to her active social life. And I took a nap.

The two little ones complained that we never do anything fun.

I Know It When I See It; Art, I Mean
For all the years that I have lived in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, I've never been in the Walker Art Center before. We once considered having our wedding at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden which is basically the front lawn of the Walker, but had not ventured inside. The Sculpture Garden is best known to the locals as the place with the big cherry on a spoon. The iconic sculpture is really called Spoonbridge and Cherry and makes one feel a little more comfortable about contemporary art because you can look at it and know what it is. And it sprays water in the summer so it's not only art but the biggest aluminum lawn sprinkler that you can imagine.

Photo courtesy of Tim Wilson

We plunged into the sea of contemporary art. I appreciate contemporary art in the same way that I do opera singing and yodeling — two sides of the same coin in my book — because I understand that they are hard to do; I have to give props to something that requires effort and commitment.

That being said, there are some contemporary art pieces that are easier to approach than others. For example, the Sol LeWitt geometric sculptures would make the coolest playground imaginable. An Andy Warhol is more impressive than I thought it would be, perhaps because I expected so little.

Here, the kids get "into" art — literally — in the form of a climbable wooden structure. The small gentleman is Flat Stanley, a paper cutout sentenced by a school assignment to accompany us on our journeys. More about him later.

In one gallery with a suitable warning sign was a piece of recorded performance art that consisted of a film loop of a topless woman vigorously rubbing her breasts to the sound of crickets. Mr. T later admitted that he couldn't remember a single one of the other art objects in that gallery. I wanted to send him back in there to have his picture taken in front of it with Flat Stanley.

We saw a wonderful short animated film by German director Verena Fels called "Mobile.". It was so engaging that we watched it twice. Here is a 37 second promo:

Our trip to the Walker would not be complete without a photo of Attila the Son (and Flat Stanley) in front of the piece of art that he identified as his favorite of the hundreds of contemporary pieces at the Walker.

I don't have the heart to tell him it's where they keep the fire hose.

Good to the Last Drop
Every once in a while, I check my website analytics to see if people are reading and what people are reading and how they arrive at my door. One recent visitor wandered into the site from a search engine by querying "grossly incompetent boss." Oh, I think I remember that post.

Dabbling in the (Bird) Housing Market

2011-04-01T23:10:00.008-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life on the Cub Scout Bear Trail)

I believe that I was born with a pile of incomplete projects. Projects are like the mythological hydras; you slice off the head of one and two others will appear in its place.

On this last day of school vacation, I gathered the project team of Attila "Can I Play a Video Game Instead" the Son and Princess "I Wasn't Pinching Him, I Just Wanted To Know Where He Was" Potatohead. Needless to say, Spring Break has been a little tough on me. I've grown used to quiet during the day and the subtle joy that comes from being able to take a shower without people who need you right then for your referee skills.

With our project team assembled and positioned apart beyond arm's length to mitigate the aforementioned location-identification-through-pinching, we faced the project that we had been avoiding all week: Completing and installing a wren house.

Mr. T and the Son had built the house at a Cub Scout meeting last weekend. In order to get the very last achievement signed off of the 692 or so needed to complete the Bear Trail and transmute into some other kind of animal with a different colored neckerchief, we needed to get this birdhouse completed and positioned for occupancy.

If you want to build your own wren house to attract these drab but vocal little songbirds, the construction is not hard:

Step 1: Get a Cub Scout.

Step 2: If you don't have a Cub Scout handy, you can borrow mine. Really. Any time you want. If you are considering having children and are wavering, this experience will drive you clearly to one side or the other. Trust me.
Step 3: If you persist in your aim not to have a Cub Scout, here are free Cub Scout-less plans for cutting and assembling a wren house.

How do you know that this is a wren house and not built for another type of bird -- say, a bluebird or any of the Kardashians? The diameter of the hole is critical. Wrens are small and their houses feature an entrance hole 1" to 1-1/8" in diameter. The hole on a house for the slightly larger bluebird is 1-1/4" and for one of the more surgically-altered Kardashians can be up to 4" in diameter. The size of the entrance restricts a larger bird from entering and doing something antisocial like coming for dinner and eating the inhabitants. I'm personally thinking of getting a smaller front door on my house for exactly this reason. (Don't take this personally, Phil.)

The kit house as built by the little boys has the correct hole diameter but needs a few modifications to make it a perfect home for a wandering wren family. First, wrens do not need a perch below the entrance hole. Wrens don't use them but other birds appreciate the stability that the perches afford that permits a hungry guest to grab on while poking his head in for a baby wren snack.

"No wire hangers!"

Second, the metal hangers on the back are a great idea for placing the birdhouse on the siding of your house or on your expensive fence. Or even to create a pathway for infection by nailing into one of your Dutch Elms in case you have $400 in tree removal money burning a hole in your pocket. I love birds and all, but off with the stationary hanger and on with a nice padded cable to hang over a tree limb. Wrens are one of the few birds to tolerate a birdhouse that swings gently in the breeze.

Air in, liquid out

Finally, these are birds that don't have maid service. Like any dorm room, they need some air holes for ventilation and a couple of drainage holes in the floor to remove whatever liquid that may accumulate.

Martha's would have interior lighting

See the new Bear Scout.
He must stand here until Fall.

The paint is just for fun and to satisfy my inner Martha. It's the same color as my front door and the trim on my mailbox. Martha would approve.

Here is the completed birdhouse. If you don't have a Cub Scout to hang your birdhouse from, I can set you up.

I know a guy.

He's a Scoutmaster.

One project down, three hundred to go.

For Rent

Be the first in your neighborhood to see this one room rental unit. New construction and freshly painted. Close to parks, schools, and bus lines.
Good ventilation. No appliances included. Natural heating and air conditioning.
"If you lived here, you'd be home already."

Let The Sun Shine

2011-03-31T23:21:00.000-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life on Spring Break)
"Can I play a video game?"
"Are you done with your chores?"
"Almost. Can I play a video game?"
"Please finish your chores. Then we are going to run some errands."
"Can I play a video game instead?"
"No. We are going to a museum."
...
...
"Do they have video games?"

Saved by the Bell (Museum)
Attila the Son went to baseball practice, something that is just like a video game but much bigger and only slightly more realistic. On a Geeky Girls' Night Out, I loaded Princess Potatohead in the yellow bus and we struck out for the Bell Museum of Natural History located on the east bank of the Twin Cities Campus of the University of Minnesota.

I'm very fond of the U of M since I spent several years there off and on attempting to graduate, a feat that I finally achieved in my mid-thirties after having been initially enrolled in college half a lifetime before. In short, I know my way around there except for those pesky new buildings that keep blooming from holes in the ground.

The Bell is known for dioramas featuring taxidermy. If you are a badger and want to spend eternity with half a squirrel hanging out of your mouth, the Bell's the place. Sooner or later, every schoolchild is the urban area is bussed to the Bell for their share of pelts and antlers that can be touched. Here and there are live things and, when they move, it really creeps you out.

In a move away from mallards frozen forever in mid-paddle, the Bell has a current exhibit on sustainable shelter and featuring a solar house. As a special event, they were hosting a vendor fair this evening that promised to include some interesting resources on sustainable living and general green stuff.

Speaking of green stuff, here is biodome that is consuming a small child:

Note: No children or biodomes were harmed in the production of this blog.

She is actually climbing up on a stool and has her head through a hole in the bottom of the huge glass terrarium.

The solar house was designed and built by students and faculty for the 2009 Solar Decathlon Competition in Washington DC. They came in fifth overall out of twenty teams, a good showing for a first time entry.

The house is cozy and capable of generating 13 months' worth of energy in a 12 month period. Since the house is quite small and the tour was very full, I wasn't able to get a good photo that captures the essence of the rooms.

Though compact, one or two people could live comfortably in this feature-packed space as long as each was relatively neat. I had the definite sensation of being in Ikea.

We came home with a free lightbulb, some energy-saving documentation, and a business card of a store that has classes in raising chickens and other crazy earth momma things that I'm interested in. And, of course, we patted a stuffed moose.

Brace Yourself

2011-03-30T23:18:00.000-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life Limping Along)
Ever the graceful swan, I survived smacking into a few walls and landing hard on my back yesterday on roller skates only to blow out my knee skating across the carpet as I went to fetch a Slushie. This only goes to prove the Slushies are dangerous, and not only if you don't want a blue tongue. Ever notice that they are labeled as having actual flavors -- cherry and blue raspberry -- but they are only called "red" and "blue"? I've grown lots of raspberries and they have all been raspberry-colored; not a blue one in the bucket.

Tendons? Ligaments" I don't remember which is which but something that used to be attached to one side of my kneecap has relocated and is not happy about it. I suppose I can cross that major league football opportunity off my career options list. Too bad. I'm a better photographer than Brett Favre. (Don't be afraid to follow the link -- it's not to any portion of Brett Favre.)

With my knee brace, I have that stiff-legged, graceful gait that was so appealing on Chester on reruns of Gunsmoke.

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer
The blogger's equivalent of the fuzzy kitten is a group of little girls in fancy outfits dancing for their parents. The rojo number that Princess Potatohead is sporting was a gift from her sister's semester in Spain.

Embarrassed to Admit
When I see the Judds, I can't immediately figure out which one is the mother.

How to Keep a Giraffe From Robbing Your Convenience Store

Good-Bye, URL

2011-03-29T23:38:00.047-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life Between Winter and Spring)
The two youngest, Attila the Son and Princess Potatohead, are on Spring Break. They haven't broken me yet.

As a first birthday present for KiMK, I bought my domain. We are now http://www.klowns-in-my-koffee.com/ without the .blogspot, though the old URL will still forward. Forgive the analogy, but it's like being out of diapers and into Pullups. (Is that like SSDD 'same sh!t, different day'? Ouch; too close.)

Cheap Skating -- Literally
We went roller skating today. The phrase is tossed off casually, as though I often grab my elbow pads and battle my sisters in the derby. We went to the Roller Garden, a local landmark known for its huge floorspace and brontosaurus-themed decorations.

Attila the Son is a natural athlete and easily picked up the new sport while still practicing coolness times ten. Princess Potatohead clomped around the 0.1 mile oval on her little pink skates with determination. I held her hand whenever possible and was pulled down to hit the hard, shiny floor on several occasions. After one particularly vicious thwack as my back hit the floor, I decided to lie there for a few minutes near the wall thinking that my best contribution to the sport of roller skating might be as an obstacle.

I had some time to look up at the lights from my vantage point of lying near a carpeted wall and trying to breath. These global lights from a roller rink started in 1943 are exactly the same as the ones in my kitchen. Somebody needs to do some updating.

Gaining a second wind and, for once, being pleased with the ample padding with which I am endowed, I coughed up the extra three bucks to rent inline skates rather than the traditional models that I had been using. This allowed me to gain enough confidence and speed that I hit the floor less frequently but even harder. I recommend it.

I was finally able to remain stable enough to hold my daughter's hand on the floor without risking spinal injury. Fully worth the $3.

We skated for three hours for $5 each and had a wonderful time. After a couple of hours of practice, I took a victory lap at a fairly fast clip to the final song, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" -- a bittersweet success as I realized that I was the only one skating who was older than the song.

Speaking of URL

Day 365 - Scars Are Souvenirs You Never Lose

2011-03-28T23:57:00.000-05:00

Daily Kup (Celebrating One Year of Change)
I started a one-year experiment ... well, one year ago. The year has gone by quickly. My highly unenforceable non-compete contract has expired. I honored the provisions not because I thought that they were ethically or legally valid but because I am a person of honor.

Most rankling was the clause about not revealing any information that would compromise my former employer in the marketplace. It was stressed to me that this included any revelations about attempted falsification of test data for defense contracts or management purposefully shipping untested and/or defective hardware. These aberrations are disgraceful in light of the many hardworking, competent and quality-conscious employees who wanted to deliver the best products to customers and were often able to do that despite an unsupportive environment.

"Don't tell secrets about processes, pricing, supplier and customer information" -- Perfectly understandable and appropriate. "Slide over the whole thing about signing government contracts with no plan or intention for complying" -- little sticky on the whole citizenship responsibility area. Not a problem. I hear that "everybody does it."

Now that the mantle of the non-compete agreement has been removed, I'm not nearly as interested in ploughing this ground as I was a year ago. What was some bitterness has ameliorated into a kind of bemusement, the same way that you shake your head and wonder why they don't euthanize a performing wild animal when you read in the newspaper that it mauled someone in the audience.

The past is now the past. Year One was expansive and frightening and ultimately satisfying. There seems to be no need to number my days any more to remember that I lived them. The continuum of my life as it moves forward without artificial divisions will be even better.

“Living well is the best revenge”
~George Herbert

What I Learned On My Reality Vacation

Next, To Change a Latitude ...
We all say we hate a catchy, syrupy pop song with little redeeming social value. And we hum them when no one is around. As balding pop rockers go, Jimmy Buffet seems to be having a lot of fun and his devoted fans are absolutely nuts. When I found out he had a tour called "Year of Still Here," I knew it was a sign.

OK, Well, Maybe a Tiny Drop of Bitterness Left
I was researching owls with my son for a Cub Scout project. Owls don't have teeth. They swallow their prey whole. They later cough up a pellet of the indigestible portions like fur, bones and teeth. When I read this, I immediately imagined that the head of Human Resources at Porkus had a special wastebasket in her office for just this purpose.

I'm allowed one last parting shot, right?

Day 364 - Kazakhstan Part 30

2011-03-27T23:47:00.000-05:00

Occasionally, this blog will describe our life-changing trip to Kazakhstan in 2005 to adopt our two youngest children. While some of our friends and family have seen a few of the pictures, we've never put it all together in an organized format. One of the reasons is that I hesitate to subject others to a 21st century version of the endless slideshow of vacation photos harking to some relative's visit and a lost evening of my childhood. Still, the story must be told before details are lost since this is my children's unique birthright. When we get to the end of the story, I'll edit the posts together into an extended and separate blog page and then have it printed by one of the blog-to-book(let) services for my kids. For people with less interest, these posts will be easy to identify and avoid.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We were into the second hour of one of the first days of our visitation with Nurlan, a cherubic and thoroughly uncontrollable toddler. In the first hour, he had inspected and rejected the bag of toys that we had acquired for a king's ransom at the Russian toy store and then gorged himself on a huge bag of animal crackers while we sat like idiotic, grinning statues. Our attempts to extricate the cookie bag from the ravenous child resulted in a scream from the child and an opened door and a "look" from the interpreter. It was a very long hour.

The boy had limited interest in me. My most fascinating feature seemed to be my camera bag. I took a deep breath and pried the camera out of his sticky hands, weathering the violent screaming. In this picture, Nurlan sits surrounded by toys but is still clinging to the camera bag. The double door is slightly open in case we require another "intervention."

After the camera bag and searching for food, Nurlan was most interested in Terry. He'd get within arm's length, which at this early stage in our relationship was just like a hug. Terry tried to show the toddler how to color. Nurlan liked coloring. He liked watching Terry do it. He didn't seem to want to color himself, but really just wanted to watch Terry color. Terry didn't really want to be a performance artist, particularly since he had to sit on the floor and bend over or balance the book on his knee. Nurlan started to gaze with interest again at the tables of lovely, breakable artifacts.

I was trying to head him off when he nimbly rotated 180 degrees and headed straight out the door into the hallway occupied by Inna and her magazines. Our interpreter popped out of her chair and hustled him back in the room with a guttural syllable or two. Once again, this early twenty-something girl had established control where we felt we could not.

In those early visitations, we felt like samples of pond scum pressed flat on a slide under a microscope. We didn't look like anyone else and we had no idea what we were supposed to be doing. Everyone repeated instructions slowly and twice and then conversed with each other in a language that we didn't understand. I can see why people become suspicious and self-conscious in these situations. The other people may be saying to each other, "Isn't the weather lovely today?" but the outsider imagines the message to be, "Look at the jerks." Of course, I'm fairly sure that "Look at the jerks" was the actual communication at least once. Maybe on this day.

Inna firmly shut the door and we were left to ride out the storm. Terry simply resolved the issue by grabbing the boy and swinging him around so that he couldn't get loose. The combination of the variety and the centripetal force kept Nurlan occupied and out of trouble. Terry, on the other hand, was losing steam after juggling this wriggling sack of potatoes for twenty minutes. It was probably the best workout he'd had in weeks. Nudges toward the coloring book were not positively received so it was up in the air again.

I peered in the hallway where Inna sat reading. "How are we on time?" I innocently asked, hoping that the true meaning of "When can we leave?" wasn't too apparent. Some things transcend the limitations of language. Inna gathered her magazines and attracted a caregiver. Nurlan clutched the coloring book and crayons. He swaggered to the door and, once again, didn't look back.

We were exhausted, both physically and mentally. Perhaps our afternoon visitation with Anastasiya would go better.

Day 363 - Badges and Promises

2011-03-26T23:15:00.000-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life on Spring Break)

Kollege Kid is packing to return to school. Great piles of laundry go down into the basement, are dragged up the stairway two hours later, and are swallowed whole by the gaping maw of an enormous duffel bag. It's become a frightening efficient process over these last four years. Everything that has been all over the bedroom floor for a week disappears into the vortex of luggage and is zipped. It takes a startlingly short amount of time to load it into the car and then she's gone, leaving only fiery tire marks like a scene from Back to the Future.

As toddlers learn to walk, they take a further step on each opportunity, going away and coming back. Venturing and retreating. As they grow older, they learn to travel farther on each trip and to move faster. If parenting is a sport, it's not like big game hunting. It's more catch-and-release.

I don't help pack anymore. Kollege Kid has that well in hand. I'm always at a loss for something useful to do during the energetic and stylized dance that is returning to college after a vacation.

Earlier in the day, a souvenir of another time had been unearthed from the deep recesses of a dresser drawer. For the amusement of six-year-old Princess Potatohead, Kollege Kid pulled out her old Brownie and Junior Girl Scout vests. The Brownie vest was intact, if a bit wrinkled. The Junior vest came complete with an envelope of badges that I said that I would sew on many years "as soon as I have the time." Somehow, in twelve years I hadn't managed to scrape up the time.

I Scrape Up the Time

There it was -- a little pink envelope with thirteen badges left over from fourth and fifth grade. Envelopes only 'stare at you accusingly' in really bad fiction so, if not staring, this envelope was displaying a bit of attitude.

This was just one forgotten promise shut away in a drawer, well-intended but now thoroughly irrelevant. Promises don't stay ripe forever. They have a shelf life.

Promises made to children are particularly important. Children trust you until they get to be old enough to understand that adults are people. They don't know a pipedream from a plan, a musing from a mission statement. If you have a glass of plum wine with your General Tsao's Chicken and airily announce, "One day, I'm going to live by the ocean," children run to get their bathing suits and beach toys.

My own parents were masters of this type of dreamy projection. Brighter days were right around the corner and we were going to do some wonderful things. Like have a harness racing track in our backyard near the old barn. Or go to the fancy school with the children of the rich people. I'm not sure why these ideas were appealing but they sounded good as the yarn was spun. My parents not only counted chickens before they hatched but before there were eggs or even some hens and a rooster. It was their charm.

I specifically did not want to be the kind of parent who teaches children that any dream is most likely a wild and baseless musing. I never promised an elaborate tree house when we didn't have any usable trees in our yard. I never got out maps and drew over highways in red marker to places that we weren't really going to go.

But there's that envelope again. It stands for favorite clothes that did not get mended and play dates that weren't arranged. Promises that went stale.

The promises that we unwittingly break that affect the people around us are small open sores that sap our energy. Even worse but somehow more acceptable are the promises that we make to ourselves that never see the light of day. Read more books? Keep in touch with friends? Thirty minutes walk three times per week?

It's a long list. They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Or one stitch. While Kollege Kid packed, I got out the thread.

"Why are you doing that NOW?" "Because I said that I would."

Hey, it's a start. Maybe I'll surprise her by building that bookcase in her bedroom that I bought the wood for in 2001.

The Last Drop

What little unfulfilled commitments, either to yourself or others, have you been carrying around?

Day 362 - Pop Princess

2011-03-25T23:48:00.003-05:00

Meet the latest pop princess. I've heard she's had some "work done."

You be the judge.

Day 361 - Farewell to a Friend

2011-03-24T23:43:00.002-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life in the Last Half-Century)
The first day of spring break came with a snowstorm, a broken serpentine belt that idled one of our vehicles, and the sad news of death of a friend.

The latter made the first two so much less meaningful.

Ron had the knack of calling at the end of the workday. If the phone rang at 5:25, it was sure to be Ron. When parts had to ship overnight and they didn't get to the carrier in time, Ron would call to take responsibility. He'd tell a long and colorful story for which I had almost no enthusiasm since it meant that I needed to let some customer know that a promised part would not arrive as planned, a communication that would also come late since the customer had likely closed for the day by the time that I was notified. He was always apologetic and yet also unfailingly upbeat, a trait that at first annoyed me.

Only later when I understood him better did I learn that he deliberately chose his embullient attitude to overcome situations that weren't going well.

To die from an heart attack at age forty is ridiculous and wasteful and simply unfathomable. It makes me angry and it makes me sad.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.

~ Gilda Radner

For RW

Day 360 - Shaken and Stirring

2011-03-23T23:30:00.006-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life on the Distaff Side)
I wanted to finish the birdhouse. I really did. We made a pilgrimage to the wild bird store to get the hanging hardware. Attila the Son knew what color he was going to stain the cedar exterior. We were all set. And then the house behind ours caught on fire.

"This is the kind of thing that I should tweet about, if I were a tweeting kind of person," I thought as we pressed our faces against the bedroom window and watched the firetrucks.

Smoke was billowing out of the garage. We could see that a large back window from the main house as open and smoke was pouring out of that, too. A lot of fire fighters were milling around. We took this to be a good sign since their excitement might mean that something wasn't under control.

Our soggy roof didn't seem to be at risk from flying ashes but the possibility of exploding gaslines was fresh in our minds from a recent incident in the news.

It's not gawking if you are concerned that your property is in danger. Well, it was a little like gawking if we stayed there a long time looking out the window.

But at least we didn't try to hang a birdhouse in the yard next to the firetrucks.

Blonde, James Blonde
This is a little change of pace that I stumbled across. It's being shown as a public service announcement in the United Kingdom for International Women's Day.

Day 359 - Spring Arrives With A Cough

2011-03-22T23:40:00.003-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life on the First Day of Spring)
In the Upper Midwest, when the calendar says that it is Spring, by golly, it's Spring because — darn it — it's gonna be!

As much as the transition to Daylight Savings Time is disruptive, the natural light later in the day leads to happy thoughts of gardens and school vacation and baseball season. I read that sentence back and realize that the sophisticated urban detachment that I had once sought in my life is as long gone as the odds of playing beach volleyball in a Pepsi commercial.

But Spring has returned on schedule. As if on queue, the icicles have leaped off the gutters and trees are gaining collars of brown-green mud. The remaining snow looks grimy and deflated as every day it sinks lower and lower. (A good place for a Charlie Sheen or Porkus analogy -- NO, No, must resist.)

Spring is a juggernaut now. Winter, you can have one or two more measly snowstorms. You can have freezing rain. You are on the ropes, dude. Spring will crush you and usher in picnics, walks on warm evenings, and the sounds of children jabbing each other with sticks in the backyard instead of weeding the garden like they are supposed to. OK, it's not that bucolic. But it's good.

'Another Sign of Spring' News Flash: Cub Scout Builds Bird House
Can a crystal radio be far behind? I don't know why that particular youth organization bothers to hand out neckerchiefs — each new member should simply be given a birdhouse kit because you know that's what's going to happen anyway.

This bird house is meant to attract wrens, those little loud brown birds who get louder when you are trying to take a nap.

Tomorrow, we'll show you how we built it, we'll trick out the basic Cub Scout model for the exclusive use of wrens, and give you the plans so that you can make one yourself. Come on, you need a birdhouse more than a nap!

The Pessimist's Ballad of Spring

Ice dams drip and gutters fail,
Icicles poised to plunge and impale.

Cats shed fur, kids shed coats,
Low-lying backyards become moats.

Puddles rise and snowbanks melt down,
Displaying lawns a crappy brown.

Snow recedes and reveals the prize --
Broken branches, every size!

Retired travelers return tanned,
Small town rivers grow bags of sand.

We survived the last, we'll make it through --
Winter cold to springtime flu!

~A. Grumpy Guss

Day 358 - Brownie Baking Day

2011-03-21T23:14:00.002-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life in Recovery)

A houseful of people with drippy noses and worse attitudes is just about as fun as it sounds. Mr. T stayed up all night working on a new website. Typically, I wake up in the middle of the night and retrieve him from the sagging end of the couch when he is doggedly pursuing some project beyond common sense but last night's Nyquil cocktail prevented timely waking.

When he stays up all night and accomplishes little, any further brush with humanity resembles poking an addled bear with a pointy stick. Some semblance of good humor was restored after figuring out that actually reading the directions might be faster and more effective than repeatedly stating at intervals more and more loudly that one had read the directions.

This is a small portion of the fallout from my illness. The confusing thing to me is that T typically washes the dishes when I cook. For the couple of days when I was cooking little and eating less, he didn't wash the dishes at all, but merely piled them up in colorful stacks like crop circles awaiting a visit from the planet "Do-your-chore-without-being asked."

Alas, that visit never came and now dried-on oatmeal is the tie that binds us together.

I gave up and ordered a pizza.

Bless you, Papa John!

Brownie Baking Day

Our Daisy troop attended Brownie Baking Day yesterday. Despite the possible confusion over the name, this is an event where Daisies (the children, not the flowers) and Brownies (the children, not the food item or the mythical sprites) bake brownies (the food item).

The sponsoring troop also had the girls color placemats for Meals on Wheels while the brownies were baking.

Note the picture of Kollege Kid as guest helper since I wanted to avoid contaminating any more small children with my cold.

Day 357 - Feed A Cold, Starve A Family

2011-03-20T23:32:00.001-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life on the Non-Eating Plan)
The flu is Nature's way of saying, "Hey, I think you're eating too much."

Since I've been sick, I've had no appetite. My family has no understanding of this concept.

They shuffle through the kitchen like 50's movie zombies bouncing from the counter to the island and back again, mouths gaping open and eyes wide and searching. They open each cupboard door and stare. "What!" Disappointed again. There's only food in there and not an extended arm with a filled plate on it. Close the door. Walk into the living room. Stagger back to the kitchen. Open a cupboard door. "What!" Still no arm. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Somewhere my husband learned that the appropriate way to enter a room where a sick person is sleeping is to slam open the door, turn the dimmer light to full intensity and bellow, "What are we going to eat?" This is, of course, only if he is hungry. OK, that's most of the time then.

On those few other occasions, the routine is exactly the same except he says something like, "Whatcha doing?" or "When did you want me to wake you?"

That last one is particularly annoying since we all know the answer is "Not now."

As an aside, please note that the last many months of reflection and growth must have been good for me since I can now respond to these situation, if not with good humor, at least not by throwing heavy objects.

Compelling Reasons to Wake Up Sleeping People
● The house is on fire.
● The sleeping person is on fire.
● The person needs to get ready for work.
● There's an emergency involving another family member.
● Ed McMahon arrives with a giant check.

Not Compelling Reasons to Wake Up Sleeping People
● A house on TV is on fire.
● You need to get ready for work and you think that you set some socks down somewhere.
● You're lonely and want to chat.
● You promised someone a check and can't remember what today's date is.
● You want to tell the person a funny joke you heard.
● You want the sleeping person to drink some milk from a carton to see if it has turned sour or sniff some laundry because you can't remember if you wore the item or not.
● A child wants to know where babies come from and you answered last time.

Mr. T was uninspired about heating up some soup, though he eventually managed it when no arm had emerged from the cupboard despite multiple verification attempts. I took this as a personal victory because it felt like I had used telekinesis to "will" the soup from the container to bowls for consumption, straining like Uri Geller bending spoons. (The celebrity quotes on Geller's site are fun to read and for those who have not received psychic powers from a UFO from the planet Hoova, a less flighty description is found in the Skeptic's Dictionary. But I digress.)

The children each ate a small amount of soup and announced, "We're not all that hungry. We're sick."

Day 356 - International House of Contagion

2011-03-19T21:16:00.001-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life Swilling Nyquil)
Rasping coughs fill the air. Loud, sticky SNIFFs are interspersed with the mom voice: "Get a tissue!"

Yes, Princess Potatohead and Attila the Son stayed home from school today. I tried to rouse Attila early this morning to assess his condition. Since I couldn't get his little head to pop out from the sheets on the top bunk, I plunged a hand in and found a feverish melon-y head. Back to sleep, little boy, while I call the school.

Three hours later, when he woke to consciousness, he was very annoyed that he would be missing an event where they watch a movie and eat pancakes.

I'm very grateful for many of the things that the school does, but I stand by cluelessly at some of the activities. Multiplication tables are passé but pancakes are in.

I remember in Kazakhstan that kids went to school for an additional half-day on Saturday. The whole country has a ten year plan to turn their newly found oil wealth into modernization, industrial diversification, and benefits for all the citizens. They saw the Middle Eastern countries become dependent on supplying oil and developing few other industries while growing the gap between the few on top and the multitudes on the bottom. In Kazakhstan, they felt part of the solution was universal and rigorous education. I'm not sure that the answer is school uniforms and not pancakes, but that may be food for thought. Literally.

Sick Children

Day 355 - Shaking and Shamrocks

2011-03-18T23:21:00.000-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life with Sinus Drip) Princess Potatohead dragged her tired, cold-ridden little body up the stairway after a long day at school. Her persistent cough and 102 degree temperature tell me that she won't be going anywhere tomorrow. Attila the Son is slightly better — still dragging but well enough to regain a touch of combativeness.

As a tribute to St. Patrick's Day, the ache in my head has taken on the formation of Irish Soda Bread with fiery lines of pain in quadrants. How festive! The cold chills are nice, too.

While Kollege Kid went downtown to see the big parade, the rest of us celebrated in a more sedate fashion. We ate corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots washed down with some Nyquil.

Death Be Not Proud ... nor Socially Incorrect

Princess Potatohead is obsessed with my demise. She frequently drops little bon mots like, "When you die, I'm going to miss you" and "I'm going to go to your funeral." She was planning my funeral again today when she became concerned that rules of social decorum would be breached.

"Are you going to send me an invitation?" she wondered. I explained that this would probably be her party to throw and she could invite whom she chose. She thought about it for a little while and evidently was not convinced.

"When you start to go, could you quick write me an invitation?"

A Big Thank You to Mr. T ...

... Who went out to get me a Shamrock Shake for my sore throat at 11 PM.

Day 354 - Wait For No Man?

2011-03-17T22:17:00.001-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life in the Infirmary )
The kids have head colds. Every sentence is punctuated with a loud and sticky-sounding SNIFF. This is actually an improvement over the constant squeals and screams.

As each hour passed this evening, the coughs grew louder and more rasping. Sick little kids are sad but they are also affectionate and strangely compliant. They have lost the strength to argue, to tattle, and to kick furniture. A warm bath is now their idea of fun. They stay where you put them and don't sneak away to steal Girl Scout cookies. They do their homework and ask to lie down.

It's like a little vacation for parents and teachers.

For taking advantage of this, we are kind of rotten parents. Rotten parents with a little quiet time.

Now That It's Too Late
Here is nutrition information for Girl Scout Cookies. Please note that the word nutrition is used somewhat academically here. As we all guessed, each box of Thin Mints should come with a trowel for applying directly to the thighs.

Thin Mints? Hey, Marketing people! You're not fooling anyone with your tricky names! No one has forgotten that KFC is Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Actually, They Waited Quite a While ...

Day 353 - Five More Sets of "Three Little Words"

2011-03-16T22:45:00.001-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life in Transition)
Kollege Kid is home for Spring Break. The floor of her room has disappeared under laundry and large, mysterious bags. Her car rumbled into the driveway at 1:30 PM; she reported to work back at the pizza restaurant at 2. "Hi." "Bye."

Please notice little changes in the blog's format. Bigger changes and new artwork coming soon to push the blog to the next level.

Latest Job Openings
Dalai Lama (Winner of the award for the best resignation letter of all time)
Spokesduck for Aflac insurance (Gilbert Gottfried fired for tweets)

One More Reheat
Last week on Day 346, I reposted the inspiring message of Dr. Alan Zimmerman on the topic of ten three-word-phrases that are key to establishing and maintaining personal and business relationships. He presented the first five of the ten critical phrases last week. Reposted below are the remaining five.

It's a longer post but, like eating your vegetables, it's colorful and you know it's good for you.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Zimmerman's TUESDAY TIP:

Words that soak into your ears are whispered ... not yelled.

Dr. Alan Zimmerman's Personal Commentary:

A man was going door to door, soliciting donations for a local charity. When he came to the door of a preacher and asked him for money, the preacher said, "I'm sorry. I'm just a poor preacher." The solicitor replied, "I know. I heard you preach last Sunday."

In a similar sense, some people are poor communicators. They don't know how to build rapport, show respect, and gain the trust of others. They don't know how to motivate others to give their very best, and they don't know how to elicit their full and willing cooperation.

Of course, I teach all those things in my keynotes and seminars on "The Leadership Payoff: How The Best Leaders Bring Out The Best In Others ... And So Can You." You can read all about it click here. But to get you started, you need to learn and appropriately use the ten, magical, three-word phrases. I gave you five of them last week. Let's go through the other five right now.

6. I thank you.
Gratitude is exquisite. And those who express a great deal of gratitude always seem to have the most friends, the best friends, and the closest friends ... versus those who take people (and what they do) for granted. In fact, I would wager to say that the people who have the smallest, most constricted circle of friends are those who do not have an attitude of gratitude. They seldom say, "I thank you."

As I've traveled and spoken around the world, I've learned that these three words might be the most important words for me to share with others, especially if I learn to speak to them in their language. These three words have brought out smiles, started relationships, and opened doors to business opportunities that might not have come about any other way. The secret is to be genuinely thankful and genuinely humble when you say these three words.

As the famed basketball coach John Wooden taught me, "Talent is God given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be grateful. Conceit is self-given; be careful."

Not too long ago, I received these three words ... "I thank you" ... from Father Philip Chircop, a Jesuit priest from the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. He wrote, "I have been reading your 'Tuesday Tip' for many years, and your tips have often informed and reformed me as I deliver retreats. So I am taking some time to send you this short note as I hold you deep in my heart, with deep gratitude, for the gift that you are to so very many people." He went on to say: "May your day be blessed, May your words be blessed, May your dreams and desires be blessed, May your life be blessed, and May this present moment be blessed."

His words made a profound impact on my life. Go out there and tell people "I thank you." It's one of the greatest of all motivational phrases and one of the surest relationship builders.

7. Count on me.
You've heard the old saying, "A friend walks in when others walk out." It's true. Loyalty is an essential ingredient of any true friendship. It's the emotional glue that bonds people together. When troubles come, a good friend is there ... indicating you can "count on me." But it's also a key ingredient in any successful business. They have loyal customers ... because they can count on that business and the people in that business.

This magical three-word phrase is all about MATURITY, dependability, integrity, and keeping one's word.

By contrast, the IMMATURE have excuses for everything. They are the chronically tardy, the no-shows, the gutless wonders who fold in crises. Their lives are a maze of broken promises, unfinished business, and former friends and customers.

In a world with so many "immature" people, we desperately need people who say "Count on me" and mean every word of it. None of us want to be in surgery and hear the doctor say something like, "Save that. We may need it for the autopsy ... Did anyone see where I left my scalpel? ... Oh oh. I think I just removed the wrong organ ... or ... I forgot. Why did we open this guy up again?"" No, we want a doctor we can count on. Peter Marshall, the former Congressional clergyman, made it quite clear. He said, "Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned."

In other words, we want people in our lives who do more than talk, promise, and pontificate. We need people we can count on.

Now you may be saying, "I use those three magical words ... 'Count on me' ... and people can count on me. But what can I do to encourage other people to follow through so I can count on them?" ASK for what you want. ASK them to be accountable. It can work wonders.

William Grimes talked about that in a "New York Times" article entitled "In War Against No-Shows, Restaurants Get Tougher." He wrote about Gordon Sinclair, the owner of Gordon restaurant in Chicago, who had an epiphany when he began adding up the cost of no-shows and found that the grand total was $900,000 a year, a figure that got him thinking, fast. He made a change in the restaurant's procedure. He instructed his receptionists to stop saying, "Please call us if you change your plans," and start saying, "WILL you call us if you change your plans?" His no-show rate dropped from 30 percent to 10 percent!

In other words, by asking a question and eliciting a response, Sinclair created a sense of obligation. And getting that soft commitment made a huge impact on his bottom line. So if want other people to be more accountable, ask for the behavior you want them to exhibit.

8. I understand you.
It doesn't matter if it's a work team or a family group, people become closer, enjoy each other more, and get more done when they feel the other person understands them. Somehow understanding conveys a certain sense of respect and acceptance ... even though you may disagree with one another.

The famed Dale Carnegie often talked about the six ways you can make people like you. And at the very core of those six ways was his prescription. He said, "Become genuinely interested in other people ... Be a good listener ... Encourage others to talk about themselves."

The same thing could be said for great leaders. They're great listeners. They know that no one has all the answers, so they listen more than they speak. And in the process they learn so much more about a variety of topics and come to understand other people so much better.

What about you? Are you saying "I understand you" often enough? And are you doing the listening work you have to do so you truly understand the other people in your life and work?

9. I forgive you.
If you aspire to be a leader, you must learn to forgive. As leadership expert Phil Van Hooser says, "A strong argument could be made that grudges are the equivalent of cancer to leadership."

In other words, if you don't deal with your gripes and grudges, if you don't bring them out in the open, if you don't learn from them, if you don't resolve them in an expeditious manner, you'll destroy your ability to lead and motivate your followers. They'll be afraid that their mistakes from years before are still fresh in your mind and may be used against them at some point in the future.

Of course, some people think that an expression of forgiveness will weaken their authority. Actually, just the opposite is the case. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

When you say to somebody else "I forgive you," you're saying that everybody makes mistakes. You're saying you still accept the other person as a person of value. And you're saying you want the relationship to get past the problem and onto something better.

By contrast, if you refuse to forgive, you not only kill off the future of that relationship, you also hurt yourself. As Gautama Buddha taught, "Holding onto anger is like grasping onto a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the one who gets burned."

So the next time you're reluctant to forgive somebody else, ask yourself if it's really worth it. Can you afford to pay the price of holding on to your grudges?

10. I take responsibility.
In today's business world, "engagement" and "accountability" are popular words. But they're also critically important words.

After all, when "engagement" and "accountability" are the norm, an employee becomes a professional, a group becomes a team, and a business begins to make a profit. So no matter how good or bad the economy is or will be, there's always room for a person who takes responsibility.

In fact, when you study highly successful people, the most identifiable quality is their intensity of purpose. You can see them taking responsibility. When they want something, they learn what they need to learn, so they can do what they need to do, in order to achieve what they want to achieve. They do more than get good ideas. They take responsibility for turning those ideas into reality.

As Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, put it, "Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference." Could that be said of you? That you're proactive?

In "The E-Myth Revisited," author Michael E. Gerber takes it a step further. He says, "The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next. The difference between the two is the difference between living fully and just existing."

To have great relationships with your customers and coworkers, to have relationships with your friends and families that really work, take more responsibility. Stop making excuses. When people hear you say "I take responsibility," they can see that you mean it.

As German-born missionary and Nobel Laureate, Albert Schweitzer taught, "Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will -- his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals."

To conclude, learn these ten, magical three-word phrases. Live them out. Speak them out. And you'll make quick and dramatic improvements in your communication and in your relationships.

Action: Use each of these phrases at least once this week.

Make every day your payoff day!

Dr. Alan Zimmerman
Tel: 800-621-7881
E-mail: Alan@DrZimmerman.com "�2010 Dr. Alan R. Zimmerman.

Reprinted with permission from Dr. Alan Zimmerman's Internet newsletter, the 'Tuesday Tip.'

For your own personal, free subscription to the 'Tuesday Tip' as well as information on Dr. Zimmerman's keynotes and seminars, go to http://www.drzimmerman.com/ or call 800-621-7881.

Day 352 - Bad Girl Scout Cookie Recipes

2011-03-15T23:01:00.001-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life in Sugar Shock)
We've been hawking Girl Scout cookies for weeks now. Our own personal consumption has cost a (thin) mint. Every day, Mr. T takes the blue plastic milk crate of cookies to work. Every weekend, he takes Princess Potatohead in her little blue vest on a jaunt through the neighborhood with Attila the Son carrying the blue crate and occasionally running back to grab more stock.

I see Attila running up to the house as though he has broken through the enemy lines; his voice raspy with exertion, he can barely cough out, "More Samoas, more Do-Si-Dos."

Suitably restocked, he runs back to the front lines of the cookie war.

Like the armchair general that I am, I sit comfortably behind the lines and count the cash.

I have sold no cookies. Not a box. Unless you count consumption.

Mr. T and the kids have sold about 130 boxes and counting. In the hierarchy of cookie sale incentives, this nets a patch, a bandana, a little notebook and a plastic necklace. There are some nice prizes for really high sale quantities, but they are not easy to reach. For example, one of the prizes is an iPad. To receive this prize, it is necessary to sell enough cookies to put all of Southern California into a sugar-induced coma.

Due to the quantity of unsold cookies, the Council announced that the selling period would be extended one more week. On one hand, I was glad for the hyper-ambitious troops who find themselves stuck with a few hundred boxes of cookies that they will have to buy if they can't get rid of them. On the other hand, I'm getting tired of seeing the things around the house.

The kids have been very helpful in getting rid of the cookies. In fact, I didn't appreciate how helpful they really were until Mr. T came back with the crate and this: Look carefully to see where the cookies were removed and then the flap taped close. The children disavowed all knowledge despite the fact that they were caught with another empty carton.

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to stand there with a box of cookies and insist, "Mom, Dad, we didn't take any. I have no idea how this box got in my hand."

The follow-up argument was no more effective: "You NEVER believe me!" Years from now in therapy, these kids will tell the story of how their awful parents made them wear a sign pinned to their shirts for the whole day saying, "I'm a LIAR and a THIEF." Desperate times demand desperate measures.

Maybe if little Bernie Madoff had been forced to wear a sign, he'd have made different choices later in life.

Bad Girl Scout Cookie Recipes
Traditional Girl Scout cookie recipes are along the lines of grinding up the cookies and mixing them with yogurt or pudding for a refreshing parfait. I've got way too many cookies to get rid of to limit the scope to desserts in a glass. It's time to get creative here, people.

Thin Mint Brandy Alexander
Crush two thin mints into a fine powder. Dip the rim of a cocktail glass in water and then into the crushed cookies, coating the edge around the circumference. Pour a Brandy Alexander into the cocktail glass. Consume drink. Repeat until you can't tell the Thin Mints from the Tagalongs.

Chalet-Dos
This recipe requires one box each of Do-Si-Dos and Lemon Chalet Creams. Carefully twist apart each Do-Si-Do and scrape the peanut butter filling into a small container. Now twist apart the Lemon Chalet Creams. Scrape the lemon cream filling out of each Lemon Chalet Cream and place it between two halves of a Do-Si-Do. Use the peanut butter filling to fill each Lemon Chalet Cream sandwich cookie in a similar fashion.

If you are particularly bored, then reverse the process to put the cookies back to the original.

Ho-Ho-Horribles
Place two Samoas face down on a counter. Use a hair dryer to lightly melt the back of each cookie. Before they have a chance to cool, slap them together back to back. Tie a ribbon through the hole in the center and hang them on your Christmas tree.

Quick Tips
* Nothing says home cooking more than a pork chop fried in a coating of ground up Trefoils.
* Tuck a few Thank You Berry Munches into your next meatloaf before placing into the oven for a taste treat that will catch your family by surprise.
* Sprinkle chopped Dulce De Leches on your icy sidewalk to improve traction.

Day 351 - How to Help With Tsunami Relief Efforts

2011-03-14T23:54:00.001-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a World Citizen)

Mashable.com has posted an informative article on seven legitimate online ways that we can aid the relief efforts called Japan Earthquake & Tsunami: 7 Simple Ways to Help.

Day 350 - An Overdue Card

2011-03-13T23:18:00.001-05:00

Daily Kup (My Life Filled with Gratitude)
A dear lady in our extended family will be 102 on March 15. I haven't seen her very much in the last few years as she is in that part of the family related through my older daughter's father, my ex-husband.

When families realign through changing relationships and circumstances, it is sadly common that peripheral ties are stretched or dissolved. Tongue-in-cheek, families line up along "the fault line" either intentionally, or more often, through the desire to avoid creating real or potential hurt feelings.

How many times have you heard of the person who remembers of an influential teacher and tracks him or her down to express gratitude after thirty years? In some of the stories, the teacher has been waiting for years to hear a single word of appreciation. There is a heartfelt reunion and tears all around. In other stories, the statement of gratitude arrives on the day of the funeral or twenty years too late.

Less dramatic, the average person simply never gets around to doing anything but feeling a pang of guilt.

For the last several years, I've been wanting to tell this particular centenarian how much I admired her courage, her graciousness, her humanity and her common sense. She has lived a life surrounded by music, friends, and hobbies. She lost a son to an improbable and tragic childhood accident. She became a widow over 50 years ago. I'm sure that life wasn't easy for her but she has always managed to keep the ups and downs in perspective.

I kept her company one day years ago as we stood on the road next to a cemetery plot as a monolithic family tombstone was installed on a bitterly cold day. She said that the last day that she had been in a cemetery was when her husband was buried and she didn't intend to go back again until someone was burying her. We watched the installation from a distance and got back in the car.

A piano teacher and accomplished musician, she made a goal to play three Chopin concerts last in life and accomplished this feat in her early nineties.

I've thought of her frequently over the last few years but didn't take the steps to send a card or make a visit. "Oh, well. I've been busy. I'll do it next year." At advanced ages, it's easy to imagine that the next year may be too late.

I checked my file of birthday cards and found one that I had purchased in purple, her favorite color, and had neglected to send fifteen years ago. It was easy and satisfying to add a sincere note of gratitude and admiration. Princess Potatohead and I visited the retirement facility and left the card in good hands to be shared at the birthday party.

Next, there are five or six teachers ...

Day 349 - It's a Small World After All

2011-03-12T23:34:00.001-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in a Small World)
Today's highlight was having lunch with another Porkus refugee. We chose a small local restaurant off the beaten track. As we were shown to our table, we noticed that the group two tables away consisted of the current Porkus employees whom we had just been discussing. Greetings were exchanged but the whole coincidence was decidedly odd. Synchronicity, a deity with a twisted sense of humor, or evidence of alien control?

I Thought I Thaw ...
After the jovial lunch, I took the long way home with camera in hand.

Day 348 - And How May I Help You Today?

2011-03-11T23:58:00.001-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life on the [Phone] Line)
A few months ago, I came to the conclusion that the best solution to the time/money tightrope act would be to find a part-time job with flexible hours that paid really well.

Note that there are three factors to this equation. There's an old theory in manufacturing that products can be characterized by the product cost, the quality level, and the speed with which the product can be produced. Of these three, you can only optimize two at a time. This is where we get cheap, fast and lousy or slow, high quality and expensive.

Like all flawed theories, there is an inner core that rings true. The same idea certainly seems to apply to part-time employment, though I'm somewhat surprised by the number of poorly paid, inflexible part-time jobs there are. "You've crossed the line from being a person to being a resource." "I'm not a number. I'm a free man!"

Siding with Meatloaf that Two Out of Three Ain't Bad, I interviewed today for a part-time home-based call center position with a well-known national company. I'm sure it doesn't pay very well but there's level of flexibility that can't be matched in traditional employment. Compared with the last "real" interview that I had, this went swimmingly and I got passed to the next level.

Job search experts will tell you differently but I don't think all the preparation and practicing the answers to "What kind of tree...?" questions is worth it. The best interviews I've ever had were when I clicked with the interviewer and the worst were when I didn't. We'll see what happens next.

Who knows? The next friendly voice you may hear on the phone might be ... mine.

Jobs That I'm Not Applying For
Conservative Radio Host
Celebrity Apprentice
Matchmaker
Contestant on Dancing With The Stars
Lead character on Two and a Half Men

Day 347 - Origami Mommy

2011-03-10T23:20:00.001-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life Folding on the Dotted Line)
Late winter is a parade of one school or organization project after another. This isn't a complaint. We made a conscious choice to volunteer for these organizations. "We" isn't exactly truthful. "I" chose or demurred or got suckered into many of these; Mr. T is merely stuck in the sidecar and planning to bolt at the next stoplight.

The next project for which we had weeks to prepare is the school Imagination Fair. Since we have weeks to prepare, we like to make it more interesting by waiting to start the project on the night before it is due. The Imagination Fair is the evolutionary descendant of the old Science Fair. The scope has been expanded to include just about anything that a kid wishes to submit. These projects are more fun in the anticipation than in the implementation; the night before, we try to imagine the project being done.

There are trends in projects. There are always carnations with the separated stems stuck in two different vials of colored water, a potato clock, and collages about countries where grandparents conveniently visited and sent back souvenirs. The most popular projects involve giving out food samples.

At every Imagination Fair I've attended, there is a six-foot-tall roller coaster made of 5000 pieces of K'nex. The sign says that this project was made by a kindergartner. The child is nowhere to be seen but a beaming dad is always standing there, vibrating slightly from the aftereffects of staying up all night to drink coffee and snap little plastic pieces together.

From observing the projects, kindergartners are pretty clever. They submit very elaborate projects with smooth, professional lines and electrification. By fifth or sixth grade, parents have given up the dream of really early Harvard entrance. Older kids glue two rows sugar cubes to a piece of cardboard and write "Alamo" across the front in crayon.

We decided to create an origami display this year. How hard could it be? It's just paper. Easy to do in one night, right? We bought one of those foam triptychs for a painted backdrop showing the different environments of our imagined herd of origami animals. Our kit even had dotted lines on the patterned paper and a tiny sheet of non-English directions with a lot of arrows.

Princess Potatohead promptly fell asleep and was down for the count except for a brief lucid period when she made a butterfly and then dozed off.

Attila the Son and I tried mightily but the secrets of making a frog eluded us even though we watched the DVD slowly and repeatedly. Ditto the walrus, polar bear and turtle. Even the ubiquitous crane proved to be beyond our skills as we watched the lightening hands of our DVD instructor, a man who must deal blackjack in his spare time.

The dotted lines didn't help. There were extras. In some print shop in Japan, they are dancing and chanting, "Serves you right for World War II."

In the end, it was late and we used our imaginations. I grabbed a bowl that my son had glued tissue on in the first grade. It's only purpose in our house currently is to hide money from birthday cards that I take away from the kids before they've written thank you notes. We plopped a lump of Play-dough in the bottom of the bowl (after removing and re-hiding the birthday money) and taped our few simple origami animals to bamboo skewers. After arranging our impaled zoo, I observed, "I imagine that this will be good enough."

Good to the Last Drop

Dudley, want to do some good in the world? Here are three very different sites to start on the path. Next time you are questioned about your excessive computer usage, you can respond, "I am not just playing a computer game. I am getting donations of rice for those in need."

The Giraffe Heroes Project - An inspiring and information-filled site for the organization whose motto is: To foster the citizen courage and know-how that are essential to a just, ethical and compassionate world.

Free Rice - Answer multiple choice questions about English vocabulary or other topics. The World Food Programme donates 10grains of rice to the world's hungry for every right answer. Learn the names of famous painting while feeding people. A true win-win.

Create the Good - The AARP has created a site to let you find volunteer opportunities in your area by simply entering a zip code. The opportunities range from very short to longer-term commitments. Even though the site is managed by the AARP, there are no age restrictions. After all, 60 is the new 40, and 40 is the new 25, and 21 is now an embryonic stage.

Day 346 - Laissez les bon temps rouler

2011-03-09T23:31:00.001-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life at Mardi Gras)
I'm not really at Mardi Gras but sitting here in the Upper Midwest where today the temperature soared to ... freezing.

I was writing in my office — that's what I call the desk stuck between the living room and the dining room — and would hear the occasional thump and thrashing of a squirrel slipping on the icy, melting roof and catapulting, cartoon-like, off the edge. Fortunately, they fell into the waist-high piles of snow beneath and lived to skitter another day.

Mardi Gras is literally French for Fat Tuesday. While not in New Orleans, I am fat and it is Tuesday, so you work with what you have. I am wearing the beads. Don't ask.

The Mardi Gras or Carnival season is known for wild parties and the potential for overindulgence of all types. Or, as the natives call it, another day in the life of Charlie Sheen. Ah, Charlie. The only person on earth happier to be fired than I was. I'm giving up Charlie Sheen jokes for Lent.

When Anderson Cooper's making Charlie jokes on the news, the story has jumped the shark.

Reheated but Not Stale
I don't often repost, unless you count the frequent quirky embedded You Tube videos. I make an exception today because I received a posting that is what I want to say, only said better than I can do it.

I first heard Al Zimmerman speak about 20 years ago at a Toastmasters conference. You have to be pretty sure of your speaking ability to be a keynote speaker for the Toastmasters, but Al did not disappoint. He's so upbeat and Pollyanna-ish that you almost want to dismiss him as too simplistic. He's a proponent of the almost mystical value of positive attitude.

Funny thing is that the research bears him out. You are as happy as you decide to be, pretending to be positive will lead you to feel and then eventually to become more positive, and positive attitude has a direct correlation with success in life.

I've been getting his weekly email every Tuesday for years and he never fails to provide an insight that can be immediately applied.
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Dr. Zimmerman's TUESDAY TIP:

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."
Mark Twain

Dr. Alan Zimmerman's Personal Commentary:

When I was growing up, I was taught a little slogan that was supposed to stop some of the bullying on the playground. I was taught to say, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

As an adult, I realize how ridiculous that slogan is. The truth is ... words are among the most powerful forces on earth. Words can and do hurt. A few misspoken words by a corporate executive could turn off an entire company. A few misspoken words by a husband or wife could destroy a marriage. And a few misspoken words by a politician could start a war.

The GOOD news is ... words can also be the source of great good. Words can motivate employees, build up relationships, and even make us think, wonder, and laugh. For example, I listened to the artful way one comedian put his words together. Among other lines in his routine, he asked the audience, "How do you tell when you run out of invisible ink?" and "We know the speed of light. So what's the speed of dark?" He defined a few terms for us, such as "laughing stock," which is nothing more than cattle with a sense of humor. But he admitted his life wasn't perfect, "He said, I tried sniffing Coke once, but the ice cubes got stuck in my nose.'"

The GREAT news is ... there are three little words you can use to start new relationships, deepen old ones, and even restore those that have cooled off over time. And it doesn't matter if you use these three little words on your coworkers, your customers, your spouse, kids, or friends; they will enrich every one of those relationships. Perhaps the BEST news is ... there are ten of these little three-word phrases you can use. You can choose the three-word phrase that best suits your situation.

Some of them I learned from Perry Walker and Dr. Sidney Simon, and some of them I developed over the years. Here are five of them for this week's edition of the "Tuesday Tip."

1. I'll be there.
When you indicate by your words and your actions that "I'll be there" for you, you're giving one of the greatest gifts you can give someone else. You're giving him/her the gift of support, encouragement, and peace of mind. And these words work just as well in your personal life as your professional life.

If you've ever had to call a friend in the middle of the night ... because your sick child had to get to a hospital or your car had broken down miles from home ... you know how good it feels to hear the phrase "I'll be there." Your friendship is reinforced, and you are restored emotionally and spiritually. The same principle applies to your company or our country.

People are looking for leaders who say ... by their words ... "I'll be there" ... and then by their actions show ... they are indeed there for them.

As Jason Damkoehler, one of my clients at one of the world's largest insurance organizations says: "The world is looking for men and women of greatness to lead them. Companies are looking for men and women of greatness to lead them. Families are looking for men and women of greatness to lead them. Someone somewhere is counting on YOU to become a person of greatness!"

Someone somewhere is counting on you to be there for them. As Damkoehler goes on to say, many people think that a life of greatness is something that is reserved for a few select people. "After all, only one person can be president. Only a few people are kings or queens. Even in the corporate world, only a few people can make their way into higher levels of formal leadership, while most will serve careers in the first-line manager, analyst and support level roles." So what. That's not what counts. Damkoehler finishes by saying, "You may never be president, but you can be presidential. You will never be a king or queen, but you can be regal. You may never be a CEO, but you can be one who yields great influence. You may never be the most popular or a recognizable face, but you can be a person who changes the face of the world around you."

All true ... if you're a person who says, "I'll be there" and then indeed is there for other people.

2. I miss you.
Perhaps more marriages could be saved and strengthened if couples simply and sincerely said to each other "I miss you." This powerful affirmation tells partners they are wanted, needed, desired and loved. Consider how ecstatic you would feel, if you received an unexpected phone call from your spouse in the middle of the workday, just to say "I miss you." Of course, at first glance, this may sound like a phrase that is strictly personal in nature. It couldn't be used in a work setting. But don't be too hasty to judge. After all, it doesn't feel very good if you come back to work, after being gone for two weeks, and no one bothers to ask about your vacation or what you did. It doesn't feel very good if no one says they missed you. And it's even worse if one of your colleagues says, "Oh, you were gone?"

3. I respect you.
It's the number one thing employees want to get from a job ... once they get past the pay, security and benefits. They want to hear and need to feel that they are respected. The same thing goes for those close to you ... if you remember the "circle of trust" in the "Meet The Parents" movie. It was one of the secrets of John Wooden's success as one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. Coming from his humble beginnings as a farm boy in Hall, Indiana, he understood the power of respect. The enormous respect he expressed for his players motivated them to win more games than just about any other team in history. To make "respect" a reality, Wooden often told his players, "Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights."

4. I'm open to...
"I'm open to hearing your side." This is a great phrase for diffusing an argument and restoring frayed emotions. Instead of coming across as rigid and closed minded, which almost always makes the other person more rigid and closed minded as well, you come across as reasonable and flexible. In a sense, when you say "I'm open to..." to your point of view, you're exhibiting your humility. You're admitting the possibility of being wrong. And if you're open to his/her position, you dramatically increase the chances that they'll be more open to your way of thinking or your way of doing things.

5. Please forgive me.
Face it. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody makes a mess of things once in a while. And every one of us has a few faults and shortcomings. And yet, many people find it very difficult to admit their mistakes and take responsibility for the damage they've caused. They see it as a sign of weakness ... when in reality, it is a sign of strength. When you say "please forgive me," you're owning up to the fact you were in the wrong, and in the process of owning up, you're also saying "I'm wiser today than I was yesterday." So don't be afraid, ashamed, or embarrassed to use this phrase ... as this little phrase has the power to restore broken relationships.

As my friend Rob Peck says, "Forgiveness is the best form of emotional math. It adds compassion, subtracts resentment, and multiplies resilience." Don't let anybody fool you.

Words DO matter. Choose yours carefully. And you can't go wrong by using these three-word phrases. Next week I'll give you the five other magical three-word phrases.

Action: Sincerely use each of these phrases at least once this week. Make every day your payoff day!

Dr. Alan Zimmerman
Tel: 800-621-7881
E-mail: Alan@DrZimmerman.com
"©2010 Dr. Alan R. Zimmerman.
Reprinted with permission from Dr. Alan Zimmerman's Internet newsletter, the 'Tuesday Tip.'

For your own personal, free subscription to the 'Tuesday Tip' as well as information on Dr. Zimmerman's keynotes and seminars, go to http://www.drzimmerman.com/ or call 800-621-7881.

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Or, as the French would say, "Laissez les bon temps rouler." Let the good times roll.

Day 345 - Buy These Cookies or I'll Shoot this Bunny!

2011-03-08T01:00:00.010-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life Schlepping Cookies)
The Girl Scout cookie season is a long one, my friends. It starts innocently enough with selling a couple of boxes of Thin Mints to Grandma or that nice lady down the street. But it doesn't stop there.

Soon you're into the Do-Si-Does and Lemon Chalet Cremes. It seems like a social thing at first. Everyone does it. It's for charity after all. You can control it ...

...Until the day you find yourself locked in a bathroom with a box of Tagalongs. They're rich and thick and peanut buttery. Before you know it, the plastic tray is empty and the little girls on the box stare at you with their cold, heartless eyes.

"Send us to camp. We want to go to camp."

You slam your hands over your ears to shut them out. They're everywhere you look. The refrain echoes in your sugar-filled brain.

"You went to camp. Why can't we?"

You stagger out of the bathroom past your friends leaning over a tray of Dulce de Leches.

You need the heavy stuff: Samoas. Your friends are worried. They've noticed the empty boxes artfully hidden in the trash under the cat litter. The empty piggy banks. The missing change cup from the dresser.

Confronted, you snap. "I don't have a problem. YOU have a problem. I only want those poor girls to go to camp. That's just how I roll."

You know that you are lying to everyone and to yourself most of all. Those crumbs on the front of your shirt tell the story. Hot, misty tears roll down your face and into a box of Thank You Berry Munch.

********************************************************
If this is your story, it's not too late. There is help for you out there. You just have to trust in a higher power. Like the Girl Scouts. But first, please buy my last three crappy boxes of Trefoils. If I sell these, I'm done for the year -- and my daughter wants to earn the plastic necklace. And to go to camp.

A Snowball's Dance in Hell
Meet a rhythmic and talented pile of feathers called "Snowball." This video from a few years ago marked the cockatoo's film debut and he's never looked back. He's made several videos since then and even a holiday album.

As a dancer, he's not even as good as Bristol Palin, but he's got soul ...and probably a gizzard.

I admit to a weakness for Snowball's rendition of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," if only to marvel at his endurance. He does a Michael Jackson tribute, but unfortunately does not moon walk. The latest video shows him strutting his stuff to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance."

Now there's a fan who really does have a Poker Face.

In the News
Embattled public figure makes delusional statements and announces victories not evident to witnesses on the scene. Wealth and power are marshalled to forestall the crowds calling for his removal as the world watches the engrossing downward spiral.

Of course, I mean Libya's Gadhafi. Who else is dominating the news?

Breaking Story: President Obama considers no-fly zone over Charlie Sheen.

Day 344 - Extra Edition

2011-03-07T22:38:00.002-06:00

Breaking News: Kollege Kid Accepted to U of M School of Pharmacy

Talented daughter of local blogger will graduate in June from very expensive liberal arts college to attend very expensive graduate school. Film at 11.

Congratulations, honey!

(Despite the example of Charlie Sheen, there does seem to be a future in drugs.)

Day 343 - The Boys and Girls of Summer

2011-03-06T23:56:00.007-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in the Late Winter)
Sure, it's snowing and 27 degrees. And, yeah, a little snow is predicted for later this week. So what? We went to baseball practice today.

When baseball starts, Spring is not far behind.

Viral Koffee
Yes, I know that 5 million people in the world have already seen this, but in case you haven't, it will surely lighten your day. The special kick for me is that the father is tearing up job rejection letters to the delight of 8-month-old Micah.

A Charlie Moment
Charlie Sheen says that he will travel to Haiti with Sean Penn to publicize the plight of the people there. Haven't the Haitians been through enough?

Daytona Beach Anyone?
Due to an escalating level of terrorist activities and civil unrest, the US State Department is advising citizens to avoid travel to Yemen. What are we going to do for spring break NOW?

Koffee Break Blog of the Day
Give the Emperor Some Clothes, Please, an art blog with the subtitle, "Celebrating the Art of Questioning," poses an illustrated question with each post.
Profoundly simple. Simply profound.

Day 342 - Win Button

2011-03-05T21:53:00.012-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life on the Winning Team)
It was one of those mommy-bloggy days. I stayed up all night working on yesterday's stubborn blog that would not publish correctly and making a felt board out of the World Association symbol for today's Daisy meeting.

If you are ever throwing a party with all your Girl Scout and Girl Guide friends and want to impress them by displaying an assemble-it-yourself 16" x 22" World Association Pin, please let me know. I think I can fix you up.

From the Daisy meeting, we went to the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby where the car we made was not an embarrassment and actually won a design trophy. Since "not an embarrassment" was my success metric, we came away winners.

Mr. T and Princess Poatohead schlepped Girl Scout cookies around the neighborhood again. They are a successful sales team - a big one and a little one, both with sad puppy eyes. Thanks to them, we have 3 boxes left to sell to meet the goal and 6 to sell to get rid of what we physically have in possession. I'm told that the Cookie Mom has three cases that we are going to have to pay for if they don't get sold. Got a yen for Girl Scout cookies? Again, I think I can fix you up.

College Kid returned home in time to share a movie and a pizza with us to celebrate Attila the Son's birthday. As a special treat, we went to the New Hope Cinema Grill, a family-friendly and fun movie and meal place that fulfills the innate human need (?) to have a pizza and beer in a roomy chair in front of a really big screen. The chairs are comfy enough to sleep in, a fact to which I can attest since I stayed up all night making strange and odd things from felt and will now have to assume that Rapunzel lived happily ever after.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!
Attila the Son proudly displays the trophy for the Most Humorous Car. My design may not have been the fastest, but it was judged the most funny. Yeah, I can live with that.

Deep Thoughts Over Steaming Mugs
It's a short hop from whining to winning. What do the great and nearly great say about winning? Most of the quotes on this topic not surprisingly are from athletes, with military figures and politicians a distant second.

If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?
~Vince Lombardi

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning.
~Erwin Rommel

The problem with winning the rat race is you're still a rat.
~Lily Tomlin

There's always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side.
~Vaclav Havel

Never change a winning game; always change a losing one.
~Bill Tilden

Hot Kup of Charlie
Across the country, late night comedy writers are erecting shrines to Charlie Sheen for breathing new life into a job function too long treading water with Lindsay and Paris. Not since the glory days of 1992 when the Vice-President couldn't spell potato and tried to make political hay by berating a fictional character has an public figure been so willing to play Whac-A-Mole with himself in front of the media day after day after day to provide amusement and a certain creepiness for all to enjoy.

Perhaps I should declare a moratorium on Charlie jokes. Well, I will when he does. Epic!

Day 341 - A Patch of Blue

2011-03-04T22:57:00.021-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life on the Birthday Train)
It is the birthday party season again. First, it's Attila the Son's ninth birthday today. He celebrating by suddenly outgrowing all his jeans. The rest of us are celebrating tomorrow after the Daisy meeting and the Pinewood Derby.

He pouted about it but was truly too busy to enjoy his own birthday since he attended his first evening birthday party for a friend tonight. Third graders like to think that they are so grown up and cool, but two huge rooms filled with inflatable castles, slides, and bounce rooms beg to differ. They ran and bounced and ran some more. At the end, loaded with pizza, ice cream cake, and Oreos, they made their exhausted, crabby, over-sugared way home at 10 PM.

And tomorrow we start again.

It's startling to realize that we've reached the magic time where our son has been with us longer than he was in the children's home in Kazakhstan.

Local Brew
Here in the upper Midwest, blue hair means that we are COLD! Take that, Katy Perry!

Reheated
Remember back on Day 282 (http://klowns-in-my-koffee.blogspot.com/2011/01/day-282-elf-debris.html) when my DH Mr. T was entirely too enthusiastic about his Snuggie? It appears that he is not alone in the universe. They live among us.

We can thank SnuggiePubCrawls.com for this. And Jennifer for bringing it to my attention in all its Smurf-like creepiness.

And I, for one, welcome our new blue felt overlords.

Day 340 - New Cars and Old Stars

2011-03-03T22:24:00.022-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Wacky Racer)
Another item off the Bucket List: Build a Pinewood Derby car with son. Mr. T, good with computers but problematic with hand tools, has performed this task for the past two years. The cars are beautiful to look at and each won a trophy for design, but the wheels turn slowly and shoot off into the ether. T starts worrying about the project in September, starts building in January, and then consumes every moment of spare time from then until the Derby in early March in working on the car, avoiding working on the car, and buying new parts for the ones that got broken or lost in the process.

So, it was not completely out of altruism that I decided to volunteer this year. After all, how hard can it be and how long can it take?

[Buzzer sounds] The answers are: 1) Harder than you'd think and 2) Right up to the weigh-in no matter when you start.

Here's our entry for Saturday's race, number 37: "This car was a beach."

What's New in KoffeeTech: "Apple Gets Cocky about the iPad 2"
You have to wait through the commercial, but it's worth it.

We Can Rebuild Him
Have you seen the TV commercial for the Lee Majors Rechargeable Bionic Hearing Aid? Yes, the Bionic Man actor is the front man for a line of auditory support electronics pitched loudly on late night television. Bionic? Do they go da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-DA-DA?

I mean he played a guy with bionic powers, he didn't actually have them himself. (Extreme quibblers will note that it was the Bionic Woman who had the enhanced hearing.) What if other TV stars of yesteryear start believing that they have the capabilities of their famous characters?
Can these products be far behind --

Bill Cosby for the Cliff Huxtable Home Gynecology Kit
Comes complete with stirrups, a brightly-colored sweater, and a case of Jell-O. As a special added bonus, conquer those concerns about malpractice with the Claire Huxtable Home Legal Kit for only three additional payments of $19.99.

Fly like Wonder Woman in the Lynda Carter Invisible Airplane
Remember where you put the invisible keys! Call in the next 25 minutes to get a Golden Lariat for only the cost of shipping and handling. Operators are standing by.

The Henry Winkler Juke Box Training Program
Let the Fonz himself show you the secrets of how to punch a juke box in just the right place to save a quarter. Includes a video explaining to anyone under 40 what a juke box is. Juke Box not included.

Bill Bixby's Incredible Employment Service
Like to travel? This is the only employment agency that will help you find a new, menial job every week. You'll meet lots of terrific people and help them out of trouble. Includes sad music to walk away to. Don't get mad, get employed today!

Charlie Sheen's Brand Marketing
Attend a seminar with the son of American's favorite faux president where you'll learn how to take your own bad habits, transform them into a brand identity, get a job pretending to be you, and then get fired for playing you too well outside your job. Is it life? Is it performance art? Don't know where the actor stops and the character starts? Hello! Winning!

Koffee Break Site of the Day
The Daily.wav http://www.dailywav.com/index.php
Asks the question, "Have you annoyed your cubemates today?" If not, here's your chance.

Day 339 - Half Witty and Almost Famous

2011-03-02T23:47:00.015-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in the Rear View Mirror)
Once in a while, it all just comes together. If you've come here today from the link on Patch.com, then welcome. Sit down and have a cup.

This is a friendly place to be — often funny, usually upbeat, always honest.

Life wasn't always this way. I used to work 60, 70, sometimes 80 hours per week for a national technology company. Unless you've worked there, you've never heard of it. I like to call it Porkus as a nod to the management's guiding philosophy taken straight from the last line of Orwell's Animal Farm. Here' a a quick quiz to help you know if you've worked for a company like Porkus:

— The Marketing Department fabricates awards that the company has won.
— Education, higher or technical, is viewed with suspicion since management is fully capable of teaching you anything they decide you need to know.
— Conference calls are frequently muted to allow the opportunity to ridicule the customers.
— The technical salespeople wore blue vests at their last jobs.
— The most enduring upper management position is "Toady."

I stayed at Porkus for 11 years as a manager in Quality Assurance and Customer Service. These roles alternated depending on management whim and what was being shown in Vogue that season. The first management regime thought that the company might be more profitable if the products met customer requirements and were generally functional. The following regime thought that the products were fine and that profits would increase if someone could keep the whiny customers from complaining so much about the products. The final regime, building on the success of reducing customer whining through lowering the number of customers, reduced the number of employees to match. I hear that it's still a neck-and-neck race to the bottom as fleeing customers skip the middle man and simply take a furloughed employee with them as they leave.

On the day that I was jettisoned from the lumbering vehicle, I started this blog as soon as my carcass stopped rolling on the side of the road. For almost a year, I've experimented with what to do with more time and less money, more energy and less toxic environment, more honesty and less accommodation. Some friends came along for the ride and then some strangers showed up and now the party is really going.

The last 11 months have been fun. We've made a Barbie version of Lady Gaga dressed in pickle loaf and followed a statistically accurate sampling method to determine if most Chinese restaurant fortunes really do make sense with "in bed" added. We've read some good books and sought the area's best hamburger.

Which brings us to today. The generous Patch.com article declares the KiMK to be "almost famous" and who am I to quibble?

Still, the acclaim of being almost famous will not go to my head. I'll put my pants on just the way I always have — by searching through the pile next to my bed and shaking out a pair until it looks ironed.

What I Did On My Reality Vacation
To prepare for the interview, I had to do some soul-searching. (I found it in the back of the linen closet next to a bell pull that says UFFDAH! made by an ex-family member and near that rip in the galaxy's fabric where the single socks go.)

Have I learned anything other than that lentil soup is the cheapest meal on the planet?

● You can't fix your life quickly. You didn't mess it up quickly.
● You can't please everyone so you've got to please yourself. ~Rick Nelson
● People are worth the effort.
● Everyone is a Klown sometimes, but when the Klown-to-human ratio gets too high, it's time to get out of the little car.
● Do the thing you fear most first.
● Get enough sleep.
● Life goes on until it doesn't. Live consciously in the moment whenever possible.
● The things that enrich you most are those that cost the least beyond your own effort — Community/volunteer activities, self-expression, getting your hands dirty, personal contact at any level, and gratitude.
● If you want to change who you are, change what you do.
● If you don't know what you want, at least figure out what you don't want.
● Try something new every day.
● Beyond the baseline of what is required for survival, time is as valid a form of currency as financial income. By spending less, you can have the freedom to live more.
● Invest in what gives you joy. Happiness is not a volatile tech stock; it's a Christmas club. By investing regularly over time in the little moments of life like reading, listening to music, time with a partner or children, or learning about anything that strikes your fancy, this is where the dividends are.

Comments are more than appreciated. They are adored. They are pampered. They are given a seat at the grown-up's table at Thanksgiving. What truths great and small guide your life?

Day 338 - Tire(d) Joke

2011-03-01T23:44:00.005-06:00

With apologies to Cormac McCarthy. Or was that when the rubber met "The Road" ...

Day 337 - That is the Question

2011-02-28T18:01:00.014-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life on the Way to More)
KiMK has a major announcement. Through the machinations of a mirthful, winking God, we are on the waiting list for blog advertising syndicate BlogHer and hope to be added to the stable of 2500+ female bloggers (and male bloggers who write for a female audience) some time this Spring. This will lead to a minuscule flow of advertising revenue and the opportunity to attract more readers — who in turn may add a few drops to the tiny rivulet of cash flow. I'm not taking out flood insurance just yet, but it is rejuvenating to think that my feet may become slightly moist from more than the perspiration of running ahead of invoice due dates. [Extra ten points for stretching the water metaphor to titanic proportions]

Thank you to all the family, friends, and a perplexing myriad of total strangers who have waded through explorations of kidney stones, Cub Scouts, and a cornucopia of oddities to arrive at this point.

An Overdue Bill -- Shakespeare, That is
Some say that William Shakespeare was the greatest writer of the English language who ever lived. His soaring language and themes speak to us still almost 400 years after his death. By changing and modernizing just a few words, it's like he's talking directly to me.

To blog, or not to blog: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the pocketbook to suffer
The slings and arrows of unintended unemployment,
Or to type posts against a sea of troubles,
And by ad revenue end them?

To blog: to sleep not much;
and by a RIF to say we end
The heart-burn and the thousand shares of employee stock
That folks would dare to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.

To blog and then to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the pay stub;
For in that sleep of unemployment what dreams may come
When we have shuffled past this immoral toil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That has been missing in so long a job;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of timecards,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contempt,
The pangs of despised lunchmeat, the lowly pay,
The insolence of the office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his exodus make
With a bare briefcase? who would HR bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after layoff,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No employee returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those crappy jobs we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus mortgage does make cowards of us all.

Day 336 - Oh, Yeah?!

2011-02-27T23:00:00.002-06:00

Day 335 - Thinking Day

2011-02-26T23:40:00.006-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life Thinking Globally)
Princess Potatohead and I, with our Daisy troop, spent the afternoon at a local church at a World Thinking Day art fair. Thinking Day is a Scouting event celebrated in the 144 countries of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). It traditionally takes place on February 22nd, the joint birthdays of Scout Movement founders Lord Robert and Lady Olave Baden-Powell, an early twenty century British couple who never forgot each other's birthdays. Like so many of my relatives, Robert and Olave got a belated celebration since their birthday did not happen to fall on a weekend this year.

Thinking Day was created in 1926 for the purpose of reminding Scouts and Guides everywhere of their global connection to each other. In later years, WAGGGS established a theme for each year's celebration, most recently based on the UN Millennial Development Goals (MDG).

This year's theme was 'empowering girls to change the world', a monumental goal for the future of humanity but difficult to translate into action for five- and six-year-olds who much prefer balloon animals and face painting.

Thinking Day when I was a Brownie and Junior (when we stuck out feet out the bottom of the car to make it go) consisted of each troop choosing a world country and setting up a booth with a snack or art activity. Forty years later, the observance of Thinking Day consists of each troop choosing a world country and setting up a booth with a snack or art activity.

Brownies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail
When I was a Brownie Scout in about 1966, the only countries in the world that we knew about in Northern New York were in Europe. These were the only countries in our social studies books. Our history books talked about Egypt and Carthage but forgot to mention that these places were in Africa. We were told that there were spices in India but I don't think the topic would have come up except for the mythology about Columbus taking a wrong turn.

My troop leaders must have shown up late for the leader meeting after all the "good countries" (that is, the European countries that we knew something about) were already selected by other troops. We were given a little country that people where starting to hear about on the news -- South Vietnam.

In 1966, American was not the innocent place that it had been before the assassination of the President three years before, but was still a few years away from the deaths of Bobby and Martin and the protests that would change the public discourse permanently.

My troop leaders dutifully helped us to envision South Vietnam as a terrific place full of rice paddies and Girl Scouts. We could use what we knew about France, a "real" country that was in our social studies books, because we were told that there were French people in Vietnam helping out the Vietnamese. We made conical hats out of butcher paper as our costumes and called them "coolie" hats because that was not yet a derogatory term since it was in our history books in the chapter about building the American railroads. The yellow flag with three closely-spaced horizontal red stripes through the middle took shape from poster paper and tempura paints. We practiced our performance for the presentation: crouching in our pretend rice paddies wearing our hats and being jealous of the troop that got Germany with their fake lederhosen.

Cringe. Good times.

Thinking Day for Adults
Couldn't we all benefit from a true Thinking Day? One dedicated to, well, thinking? Jay Leno, not exactly an intellectual, was nonetheless spot on when he famously asked Hugh Grant, "What the hell were you thinking?"

We each have our own lists of public figures to whom that could just as well be addressed, though I'm betting that Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan appear on 80% of those lists.

In fact, it's probably just what my mother — never one to mince words — said when she saw me in my pointed hat kneeling in the fake rice paddy.

Day 334 - Orchids Make Me Blush

2011-02-25T23:14:00.014-06:00

Daily Kup (What I Did on my Reality Vacation)
The day started cold, crisp, and full of luck. For all our cost-consciousness ["Cheap, cheap," said the little chicken] and frugality, one luxury has been retained. OK, one luxury in addition to having an adequately warm place to sleep, enough food and water, the good fortune to have healthy minds and bodies, the love and support of family and friends, and the sensibility to be grateful for all the above. Once you say that, a really good haircut sounds like a pretty stupid extravagance.

Before I dipped my unpedicured toe in the pool of expensive grooming and was carried out to a cosmetic-filled sea, I patronized salons that issue coupons and let you pick a sucker out of a yellow plastic bucket if you've been "good." One family-friendly chain featured brightly-colored canvas sails hung between the stations. For years, I bellowed "Avast, me hearties" and never once did a stylist reply "Aye-aye."

My fancy salon has tea and espresso and pitchers of ice water with floating cucumber slices. Every product is Fair Trade, woven in the Amazon basin, or comes from bees who have a collective bargaining agreement.

The sparse walls are adorned with huge unframed canvases of hand-colored orchid photographs. This seemed chic and trendy and relatively unobtrusive until I noticed that the formation and orientation of all these flowers calls to mind an unholy alliance between Georgia O'Keeffe and Bob Guccione. There is no place where I can look without hearing the words, "This might be a little cold." As I sit and drink my cucumber water surrounded by giant posters that look disturbingly like genitalia, I think, "This is where Freud would come for a trim."

While I was pointedly looking at not-the-walls, I got a great haircut and thought about what I want to be when I grow up. This was not accidental musing since I was preparing to be interviewed this afternoon by a reporter from Patch.com. Being purposefully and pointedly eclectic, I wrestled with how to explain to a new acquaintance who I am and what I do. To a new acquaintance? Heck, to myself.

I left the salon with shiny, 'piecy' hair, a bottle of shampoo expensive enough to hide to keep it from being used for kids' bubble bath, and a heightened awareness of speculum art worthy of Rita Mae Brown.

When the afternoon rolled around, I enjoyed the interview immensely and appreciated the chance to speak with a talented freelance writer.

On some level, it must bug people with degrees in journalism and literature to have untrained amateurs pop out of the bushes and self-publish in this new media landscape. There's a story about a writer who grew weary and resentful of the implication that anyone could write a book if only he or she had the free time. When a doctor said to him, "I've always wanted to write a book. I'm going to do that when I retire," he responded, "And I'm going to be a doctor when I retire."

The Patch reporter was extremely engaging and patient with me and my aspirations. On Monday, we will meet for photographs of me blogging ("Is this blogging or merely an incredible simulation?") and of Attila the Son and Princess Potatohead being themselves as unruly offspring of an addled blogger mom.

Six weeks ago I made an appointment to get a great haircut today. I said the day was full of luck.

What Not To Say or Do When Asked, "Tell Me A Little Bit About Yourself"
● Don't start from conception -- yours or anyone else's.
● "Grand High Wizard is more of an honorary title ..."
● Drawings are probably not necessary.
● "I was so sad when I had to leave my parents back on Krypton."
● Do not let your ventriloquist dummy field this for you.
● "Does this look infected to you?"
● Do use the job hunting elevator speech that you have practiced. Unless it's "Third floor, please."
● Creative flair is fine as long as you are scrupulously truthful. If you express your creativity through interpretive dance or origami, hold off answering in those forms until at least the fourth question.

Can I Have Some Hummus With My Lefse?
We experienced a cordial and uplifting event last night by attending our local school's Multicultural Dinner. This new tradition, now in its second year, features a potluck of foods representing the cultural range of the school population. Literally breaking bread together engages the power of community!

Day 333 - Run, Tree, Run!

2011-02-24T23:00:00.004-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in the Shade)
People talk of a 'morning routine' as if the shock to the system that is Morning could ever become routine. Despite my growing dependence on and increased appreciation for that drug called sleep, the transition from dreamlife to 'life as a dream' comes by degrees.

Unemployed people, particularly women, find themselves taking on more and more household responsibilities until they have an even higher load of unpaid employment then they did when employed outside the home. So says the New York Times anyway, though the 2009 article is based on sociologist Scott Coltrane's 2000 data on gender division of housework so let's assume some more equality has evolved in this recession. (Oh, what a little optimist!) I'm guessing that this stems from a need to demonstrate that one is productive and useful and as a bargaining chip to counter spousal questions of "When are you going to be employed?" with "You don't have to iron your shirts anymore."

Out of fear that this would become a permanent accommodation -- and who has ever picked up an extra responsibility 'temporarily' in paid employment and been able to get rid of it without surgery? -- I've been trying to train my children to do more things for themselves. I call this 'streamlining' with the full understanding of the self-serving nature of the term. Mr. T, a generally jovial and agreeable man, is also determined to be untrainable so we hit the end of that road pretty quickly.

One benefit of the streamlining process has been that the children get up when awakened, dress themselves, somewhat pick up their room, and present themselves for breakfast without the constant hectoring that marked the 'routine employment' era.

As they walk to the bus stop, I watch their backpacks retreat down the block to the corner and sit at my desk checking my email until I see from the corner of the front window the school bus arrive and depart.

This morning, a convoy of trucks blocked the view. They pulled up the street with military precision and parked in a configuration centered on my neighbor's tall, stately tree.

"Look, Mom, a chipper on a truck and one of those big lift things!"

"Walk on this side of the street to the bus stop and watch very carefully to stay out of the way of the trucks."

As the backpacks marched, I took a closer look through the window at the tree. Due to my extensive knowledge of horticulture, I pronounced it "not a maple." I think it has yellow, fuzzy things in the Spring.

For all the world, it looked like the tree was quaking ... and not just with the wind.

"Run, yellow fuzzy tree, run!"

But it stood there, rooted in the earth.

Later, I was pleased to see that the army of arborists had only given the tree a post-storm trim and selective limb removal.

When We Should Have Run
Have you ever stayed when you should have quit? Staying the course is, well, downright American. That's what we do. We persevere.

When I look back over the episodic freight train that is my life, now growing car by car longer until the caboose is somewhere far down the tracks, it's the things that I have made myself quit that are some of my proudest moments.

Small things like hobbies that I didn't really enjoy but where an investment had been made.

Big things like a bad marriage or an ill-fitting job where an even bigger investment had been made.

The fuzzy yellow tree was rooted and couldn't run when people with saws came. We have more options.

Quit something you hate today. You'll be blooming elsewhere before you know it.

Day 327 - The Wrath of Yarn

2011-02-17T23:08:00.002-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life on the Bridge)
A special day with nothing on the calendar. Life continues in my own private Walden Pond; that's much like My Own Private Idaho without the falling down on roads. I do endeavor to retain the Shakespearean pretenses, however. When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes ...

Warp Drive or Merely Warped?
You must see this. You truly must.
Crocheted Starship Enterprise

Transport Back to Teenaged Land
Playing with my Pong game and listening to Dr. Demento on Saturday night radio. Yes, Dr. D, the man who saved Weird Al Yankovic from being just another geeky architect and who also popularized one of the best of the roughly three million Star Trek parody songs. Enjoy.

Day 326 - Death by Cubicle

2011-02-16T23:45:00.007-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in the Thaw)

The lawn chairs that I should have stored in the garage in November are starting to peak out from the snow. There's a constant drip-drip-drip from the eaves. Rivulets are forming below the gutters, flowing down the driveway into the street, and then rushing to our downhill neighbor's soggy backyard to form what we lovingly call "Lake Pickerell" in honor of the people who have done everything short of sandbags and magic crystals to prevent this from happening every year.

Princess Potatohead, in the optimistic style of one who has not seen a half-century of winters, has declared the arrival of Spring. "Mom," she says. "You can start gardening. I will look for butterflies."

Attila the Son, to whom opposition is an orientation and not a lifestyle choice, responds to any mention of going outside with, "I don't need a coat!" As the temperature is 40 degrees -- not balmy in any locations except Antarctica and Mars -- moms insist on coats, only to know that outer garments flap unzipped and later get stuffed into backpacks as soon as the corner is turned.

Will there be more snow? Of course. Mid-February is not the end of winter's grasp in the Upper Midwest. But it's that whisper of Spring as children's bulky snow boots stomp through the fragile ice shell of puddles that awakens the little part of our hearts that remembers a green leaf and a soft breeze.

Where are those seed catalogs?

At Least She Doesn't Have to Answer the Email Backlog

I don't want to die in a cubicle. Last Saturday, a security guard found a middle-aged Los Angeles county compliance auditor slumped in her cubicle. She'd been dead for a day.

Doesn't this really touch on the greatest fears of anyone who has every had a cubicle-based job? It could only be worse if co-workers had pinned notes on the body or if she had been munched on by the cafeteria mouse overnight.

Some people are probably OK with dying at work -- martyrs, gigolos, and George Mallory come to mind.

It's not hard to imagine that an artist might want to be found in front of a glorious piece of original art or that an orchestra conductor might want to draw a last breath while being churlish to a violinist. But none of these professions work in cubicles.

For a few years, my office was a cubicle on the edge of the Sales Department. Their little Sales heads would pop up and over as their tiny paws gripped the top edge of the short divider walls. The phone would ring and down they went into their tunnels.

The man sitting in the cube next to mine was so shy and detached that he would email me if he had something to say. I sat within six feet of him for three years, rarely physically saw him, and never knew if the clicking sounds all day were him clipping his nails or if he had a Geiger counter.

'I don't want to die in my cubicle' is second only to 'I don't want to die all alone and be eaten by my cats' as the mantra of our culture of separation and isolation. And yet we have never been more connected through our media.

Wouldn't it be sad and disturbing if this woman's absence was noticed more on Facebook than when she didn't go home?

Day 322 - Shades of Green

2011-02-12T23:34:00.000-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in the Community)
The 'old me' liked to sleep in on Saturdays and would gladly sleep until 2 PM. In all honesty, the 'new me' would like to do that, too, if there were some way to restrain Attila the Son and Princess Potatohead from sectarian violence and a TV orgy of iCarly and SpongeBob Squarepants. Since monitoring their mornings to ensure that they wear clothing and eat actual food will be required for the next eight or so years, we can just kiss that sleeping really late thing good-bye unless I can feign an illness bad enough to elicit pity and not so bad that a doctor's visit is needed. Cough, cough.

The upside to this downside is that there are plenty of things worth getting up and doing. We have a busy weekend of community activities planned.

This weekend's challenge: Fill Saturday and Sunday with free and fun community activities to try as many new things as possible.

Life Transition Insight: (Posted before, but a frequent whack-to-the-head epiphany) Almost every community is bristling with low-cost or free activities for those willing to try something new.

Activity #1a: Volunteer at Girl Scout Recruiting Event. With Princess Potatohead in tow, we arranged to help out at a local community center hosting activity booths for potential new Girl Scouts. I can now check 'running the bean bag toss' off my Bucket List. In addition, the Princess got to make some crafts, practice as a tiny spokesperson for her Daisy troop, and run around like a lunatic with a gang of other screaming little girls. The coordinator gave me a very nice Girl Scout lanyard with a built-in flash drive in appreciation for my time and efforts.

Activity #1b: While some of us were singing camp songs, Mr. T took Attila the Son to the local junior high school for a free kids' baseball clinic run by one of the community Little League groups. Not only did our budding sports superstar work off some of his hyperactivity, he also demonstrated enough targeted skills to complete the requirements for his Cub Scout baseball pin. We'll plan on attending the second free clinic on February 26.

Activity #2: The family regathered at home for a quick lunch and then on to an Irish dance party and lesson at our children's dance emporium of choice, Deanne's Dance Studio, for what was billed as a Sweetheart Céilí. (Céilí is a Gaelic word for a traditional social gathering usually featuring music and dancing.)

Life Transition Insight: Once you let go of the fear of making a fool of yourself, life gets to be more fun.

I defy anyone to remain cranky while listening to traditional Irish dance music. I've been told that right/left confusion is a sign of great intelligence; if so, my family must be on the verge of implementing cold fusion. Still, keeping insight #2 in mind, we had a lot of fun and we weren't the only ones going in the wrong direction.

One by one, we got confused or tired. When we all had retreated to sitting on the folding chairs to watch people to whom 'grapevine' was not merely a horticultural item, we knew it was time to go.

Activity #3: Invigorated by the dancing and uplifted by the melting snow, we piled into the yellow bus and headed for a vigorous city neighborhood near Minneapolis' beautiful string of urban lakes. KiMK's good friend and fellow blogger, Baroness Color, was displaying her unique hand-dyed apparel and household items at Handmade Arts from the Heart, a benefit for Barton Open School. Reveling in so many vendors with unique handmade items, Mr. T and I were able to pick out a shared Valentine's Day gift for our home that is unusual and will be treasured (until the kids break it).

Art glass, wall hanging or pickle tray? This intriguing item has a new home on our end table. The artist, Red Wine Design, has a line of striking ansd colorful fused glass jewelry. She says that her choice of materials has caused an odd kind of reverse vandalism in her neighborhood; someone is coming to her porch when she's out and leaving piles of empty wine bottles.

One day down and we seem to be winning the challenge for the cheap, fun and new experience. Can we keep up the pace tomorrow? We drag our dancing feet home.

A Green Tip - "The Bathtub Capacitor"

Since we accepted the challenge to reduce our energy usage by 20% or more, we've exhausted the low hanging fruit and are now exploring the easy but exotic. Long, hot showers -- one of the greatest pleasures known to humanity -- were one of our conservation downfalls. Our hot showers were heating the plumbing all the way to the street while our rooms are winter dry and quite cold due to the lowered thermostat.

One way to offset this loss is plug the drain and let the water stay in the tub and radiate heat until it achieves room temperature after an hour or two. The warm water heats the body of the tub and functions as energy storage and gradual dissipation into the atmosphere. If this were an electrical circuit, the tub would be capacitor holding charge but eventually allowing it to bleed off.

As an added benefit, the ardent shower aficionado will be reminded to cut it a little shorter by the very tangible evidence of how much water is being used. The water in the tub heats the room and increases humidity instead of taking its heat down the pipe. When the water is at room temp, simply open the drain.

For safety reasons, households with small children or pets should not try this.

Day 321 - Barbie Gaga

2011-02-11T23:33:00.004-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as the Snow Melts)

A bit of warmth refreshes the landscape. With warmer temperatures predicted for this weekend, there's hope that the icicle forming a pillar on the northeast corner of my house may fall without impaling anyone. And perhaps without taking off a section of the roof. Oh, what a dreamer.

Climbing on roofs to shovel has become a kind of competitive sport in Minnesota this winter. Every third house has grown a ladder that seems to be permanently positioned from the walkway to the lowest roof access point. With ice dams that seem Zamboni-ready, our house could use a little shoveling. Unlike the summer house painting adventure, at least the prospect of falling off into the snow sounds like a softer landing. Unless I fall under the killer icicle.

Bad Romance with Ken

Oh, like YOU haven't ever started the weekend by dressing a Barbie in pickle-pimento loaf.

The inspiration: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/13/lady-gagas-meat-dress-photos_n_714117.html#144466

Day 320 - Plastic Tears in Heaven

2011-02-10T23:49:00.000-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life on Expert Mode)
It's -10 degrees, but who's counting? I've been feeling a bit pudgy lately. I wonder if it's due to the three shirts, long underwear, heavy jeans, and a blanket that I'm wearing.

While My Plastic Guitar Gently Weeps
Let's have a moment of silence for Guitar Hero. Activision today announced the end of the division that produced the Guitar Hero franchise and its spin-offs. Sales had declined for the game series in recent years.

While scoffers chide the game genre for causing legions of wannabe rockers to spend hours practicing with controllers shaped like faux musical instruments instead of learning to play the real thing, the argument is never extended to other games where players spend hours shooting animated zombies with plastic controls when there are so many real zombies out there to dispatch.

It seems obvious that these killjoys with no rock-and-roll in their souls have never experienced their avatars hoisted into the night sky on a pillar of rock while Through the Fire and Flames wells up.

And I can play a real piano, guitar, drums and a few other instruments just as badly as I play their plastic counterparts. So there.

While this seems to be the end of the arc for rhythm-replication music games, sales for games that simulate killing people continue to show growth.

(Sigh)

Good to the Last Drop
The BBC announced that 1,000 hours of children's programming will be eliminated from Radio 4's spin-off station for children's programming, Radio 7, after it was discovered that the average age of listeners was 48.

Radio 4 cancelled its only children's series in 2009 after finding that its average audience was aged over 50. Ironically, it seems that Radio 7 was successful in its goal of attracting a younger group of listeners than its predecessor.

The BBC plans to replace the axed programs with those aimed at older children and their parents. This should pretty much guarantee a new audience of 70-year-olds.

Day 319 - Serve with a Meatball and Grape Jam

2011-02-09T23:21:00.002-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life before Fully Waking)
Another chilly day. I glance down at the temperature icon in the system tray and it says -10. I momentarily hate my system tray in acknowledgement that the phrase "Don't kill the messenger" came about because so many people want to kill the messenger.

At yesterday's writing class, the instructor talked about the importance of writing on a regular schedule whether you feel like it or not. She writes between 10 PM and midnight every day. Some writers have a word quota rather than a time limit. Hemingway wrote 350 words a day; Stephen King writes 2000. This variation is not surprising when you consider that you can read The Old Man and the Sea during a bathroom break while completing The Stand takes longer than crocheting a Buick from steel wool.

One of the instructor's suggestions is to write soon after you wake up when the brain is closer to the dream state and farther from imposing artificial brakes on the creative process. I tried this today and was able to draft a 32 page children's book in about 45 minutes. Granted, there are not a lot of words on the pages of picture books so I may not have mad e Hemingway's quota. Also, the book is supposed to be from my son's perspective and I don't know what that is since he has spent the last few days in perpetual snit. Maybe I should take advantage of that and take my laptop over to the bench in the principal's office to conduct an interview where he seems to spend so much of his free time.

With a touch of success under my belt, I will certainly try the early morning writing experiment again. The outcome only corroborates a feeling that I've always had: No good has ever come from fully waking up.

But What If You Put the Whole Thing on a Bagel?

The little recipes contained in product packaging can sometimes save time or expand the customer's appreciation of the varied uses of a product.

But sometimes they go too far. I found the instructions for this questionable concoction printed on the inside surface of THE brand of cream cheese to which all other brands aspire.

Spaghetti with cream cheese sauce?

There is a word for this.

That word is "no."

Day 318 - The Tenth of Never

2011-02-08T16:06:00.016-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in Wind Chill)
Meeting breezes face on at a wind chill of -16 degrees makes me feel like the Joker from Batman, greeting the world with a frozen, contorted grimace as my cheeks try to hide in my ears for warmth.

A few minutes before, I had felt only too warm as a police car followed me for blocks. It was a low speed chase as I formed justifications in my head for why the registration tabs were on my kitchen table and not on my license plates. I practiced an innocent look while citing the dropdead date for tab display, "It's not the tenth of the month yet, is it?" The squad car followed me into the parking lot and turned when I turned. And kept on going.

Whew! A sense of guilt is apparently independent of whether I'm actually doing something wrong or not.

Since I was driving to the building that houses the District Court, Motor Vehicle Bureau, and a Regional Library, I suppose it's not surprising that a police officer would be headed there also. It just seems to take very long to get there at 28 miles per hour.

The library was the scene of another terrific writing class sponsored in cooperation with Minnesota literary gem, The Loft. This time the topic was capturing life-changing experiences. Going in, I felt that I could stand my life-changing experiences toe-to-toe with a lot of people and at least emerge with a draw, so this seemed the class for me. Then I met a woman at the class who was thinking of chronicling her battle with multiple sclerosis as it was progressively ripping away her life, so I realized that the hubris that I expressed in the previous sentence was absolute crap. That epiphany in itself made the class time priceless.

Klowns in the News
Is there some kind of bank where they save this stuff up and release it at once so that the first items you read one morning all seem bizarre? Each of these stories is sad and pathetic and more 'funny odd' than 'funny ha-ha.'

Armed Rooster Kills California Man

A man attending an illegal cockfight (is there any other kind?) was stabbed by a rooster with a knife strapped to its leg in the confusion that arose when the cops arrived. This is justice as doled out by Rod Serling. If only chihuahuas carrying machetes could stalk Michael Vick.

Low IQ Man Banned From Having Sex

Odd. In my experience, it's usually the very bright that have difficulty in this area.

A different way to interpret this headline: Husband Does Another Stupid Thing

Facebook Founder Stalked on Facebook

I didn't know what a 'petard' was, but if there was ever a situation to be 'hoist on one's own,' this is it. Check the link to learn that the word petard has its source in the Middle French word for expelling intestinal gas. Oh, those French make everything sound better.

Catholic Church Launches Confession iPhone App

What seems particularly appealing about this $1.99 application are the games. Is heaven in the clouds or in The Cloud?

Woman Who Mailed Puppy Will Not Get It Back

This woman should also probably be banned from having sex.

Day 317 - Signs of the Times

2011-02-07T23:22:00.002-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life Until Further Notice)

My son is demoralized in this post-Packers Super Bowl world. At almost nine years old, Attila the Son has chosen a position in life that is diametrically opposed to whatever the prevailing attitude is surrounding him on any subject. He is, to steal a description once lobbed at a college colleague who was almost magically obtuse and befuddled, "skew to the universe." Only at an engineering college could the allegation of being perpendicular to any known plane be "fightin' words."

The fourth quarter had Attila storming and stomping with whatever energy he had left after sledding at Scout Camp most of the day. If he ever gets a tattoo, I suspect it will say, "I've been robbed" -- his third favorite phrase after "It's not fair" and "This is the worst family ever." The latter has been uttered often enough that I'm thinking of incorporating it in Latin on the family crest right below shield with the smoking computer:

Ego sum inimicus proprius pessimus meus

This actually means "I am my own worst enemy" but I could get away with the improper translation for years before anyone noticed.

As for me, the aftermath from the weekend of birthday party #1, birthday party #2, day camping trip, and Super Bowl party has nearly been cleaned up. Words of wisdom from the Narcissistic Fortune Cookie Company (NFCC - our motto = "So annoying you'll just want to eat the paper"): One is never so thirsty as when there is not one clean glass in the house.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

I snapped this little bit of officiousness at a local high school where I attended a meeting. Aren't they missing a phrase like, "While school is in session"?

Perhaps while everyone is quarantined, they can ponder the unnecessary capitalization and the absence of the comma.

Day 314 - Princess Potatohead Turns Six

2011-02-04T23:04:00.012-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life While I Was Sleeping)
And, you may ask, how did the experiment involving getting the recommended amount of sleep go? All the data is in and it seems that reasonable sleeping patterns are counterproductive to the generation of timely blog posts.

Also, all the newfound energy and positive feelings of self-worth that were inculcated from being rested caused me to launch a whirlwind of attending social functions and going out for drinks with old friends.

My system, not used to contact with the wider range of homo sapiens, promptly caught a monumental case of the flu that caused even more sleeping and less writing.

So that's why I disappeared for a while.

My dog(tiredness) ate my blog.

Completely contrary to the way that blogs are supposed to work, the missed days will be backfilled with all the wacky and offbeat material that was developed but not delivered during my sojourn in the rarefied ether of the healthy.

Well-restedness is Not All It's Cracked Up to Be

Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.
~Fran Lebowitz

There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.
~Homer, The Odyssey

Early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled labor.
~John Ciardi

I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?
~Ernest Hemingway

Piece of Cake (or How I Wilted with Wilton)
Princess Potatohead, last week on the cusp of age six, requested a strawberry cake in the likeness of a mermaid for her birthday. "How hard could it be to make one from scratch? " I said, all stoked on adequate sleep and flu medicine.

Clasping my 40% off coupon in one parsimonious hand, I went to the local pipe-cleaner-and-silk-foliage emporium to relieve them of one cake pan in the form of said creature. The hunt was successful and I emerged, humming that pernicious "Under the Sea" ditty, with an aluminum representation of a cartoon swimster.

With the encouragement and assistance of my wonderful mother-in-law, we were able to do things with buttercream frosting that should make any half-fish proud. The further one moved away from it, the better it looked. And tasted good up close.

OK, it's looks like the outcome of the combined genetic materials of Lucille Ball and the Thing from the Fantastic Four, Ben Grimm. With some Elephant Man.

Attila the Son has a birthday in four weeks. How do you think that a cake baked in the same mold would look decorated as ... a zombie?

No points if you thought, "Just the same as it does now."

Day 312 - Chi-Town Lowdown

2011-02-02T23:11:00.018-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life with Less Snow Than You)

Minnesota is neither colder nor has more snow than usual as most of the rest of the nation is stalled by yet another in a series of epic blizzards.

Snow News is Not Good News

KiMK's Chicago correspondent, the great, the intrepid, the downright smooth Jack Daniels sent this picture of a gentle Chicago area neighborhood as it fills up with snow.

In a completely unrelated event, this reporter was also able to catch a glimpse of the rarely seen Yeti, aka the Abominable Snowman, on the trail of his favorite prey animal, the gas-guzzling SUV.

Thanks, Jack, for this timely on-the-scene report. Now go inside and drink whatever beverage that you may have handy to keep yourself warm.

Day 307 - Rhonda's Rules of Order

2011-01-28T23:47:00.000-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in Order)
I spent the day preparing for the Annual Meeting of the local Girl Scout Council. In a moment of weakness and guilt, I volunteered to be a delegate and now face the prospect of spending the whole day at a local high school where I might get to practice the Robert's Rules of Order that I had to learn to complete the delegate training.

Rhonda's Rules of Order
Robert seems to have been a bit of a control freak. Since my upcoming meeting promises to be about 98% female, some modifications may be warranted:

"I move" ... when I damn well feel like it.
"You can take the floor" if you have mopped it. Otherwise, get those boots in the tray and grab some paper towels.
I am my own quorum.
"I call for a division of the house" is now literal and has nothing to do with asking for a vote by actual count.
Debates that were previously ended with "I move the previous question" don't end until I leave the room. And may reappear without warning.

Day 304 - Pay Close Attention

2011-01-25T23:11:00.004-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in Close Attendance)

I'm thinking that I should take down the Christmas tree, but it's currently doing two very useful things: 1) Blocking a draft from the north-facing front windows, and 2) Creating a needed, and I'm sure greatly appreciated, visual barrier between my husband dressing in the living room in the morning and my neighbors who already don't like me a lot.

Maybe I'll just leave it up until the weather is warmer and the sun comes up early enough to make the outside of the house brighter than the inside. I think it will look fine with Easter eggs hung on it.

Don't Pump Gas on Your Shoes

Don't you think that there must be a better way to say this?

The indirect association lends a certain free floating, fortune cookie nature to the whole thing. "A person?" Any person?

How about a person filling a gas can?

I suppose that Dickens, when he was composing the language on this sign, felt no need to explain the obvious reason for the request or simply knew that the sentence was much too long already.

I can concede the absence of a 'why' since the we don't insist that the "No Smoking" sign include an "unless you are planning on immolating yourself" clause.

Watch the nozzle closely while pumping gas so that it doesn't overflow.

Pay attention to what you are doing, loser.

Don't pour expensive, flammable liquid all over our driveway and the side of your car.

A person must encounter guilt processes if that were to happen.

Day 303 - Juiced?

2011-01-24T23:48:00.000-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Gainfully Unemployed Person)
Some days, there's not much going on. Since I attempt to do something new every day, the new thing that I'm doing doing is not doing anything new. Convoluted enough?

Jacked Up on Juice?
Fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne died yesterday at age 96. He was still in remarkable shape for his age. People often slip in the phrase "at his age" as a way of discounting, but photos taken well into his nineties show a mobile and vibrant person who continued to work out for two hours every day -- a true testimony to the healthy lifestyle that he advocated for eighty years.

LaLanne founded America's first health club in 1936. He rose to national attention as a result of his TV exercise show that aired from 1951 to 1985. I remember seeing him on my grandmother's huge old black-and-white console TV in the early 1960's, a time when even the top movie stars were flabby and no one thought anything about it. (For we carb lovers, this time is known as the "Golden Age.")

Later in his career, LaLanne marketed electric juicers with which he made his vitamin-laced health drinks.

So synonymous was LaLanne with these appliances that a wag, commenting on the announcement of LaLanne's death, posted: "Wonder if he'll be buried, cremated, or juiced?"

Day 301 - My Latest Vice

2011-01-22T23:57:00.000-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Gainfully Unemployed Person)

Well, here it is.

My latest vice:

What did you think I was talking about?

Day 300 - Thanks but No Thanks

2011-01-21T18:49:00.000-06:00

Daily Kup (Good Klown Hunting)
Don't you hate it when some entity tells you that they are doing something wonderful for you that is obviously meant only to benefit themselves? Usually, there is a sunny presentation in a veiled attempt to distract you, the abused consumer, from the blinding truth.

I got this lovely four color flyer with my new local newspaper that thanks me for my patronage by telling me that they will be delivering a newspaper to me on days that are not part of my contract. And charging me for it

Well, what a delightful bonus that is. Congratulations! Your 13-week Sunday subscription is now 11 weeks since we decided to deliver a paper on the Thursdays before Martin Luther King Jr. and Presidents Days. And we'll extend the same courtesy to any week when the mail doesn't come on Monday. Lucky, lucky you. That's just the kind of swell, community-focused guys we are.

I checked the Star-Tribune website and they have not, however, renamed the subscription level to "Sundays ... and Convenient Holidays for Increasing Our Sad and Lagging Sales" plan.

Since I don't have a birdcage, the only reason that I get the newspaper at all is because it costs less than the cost of printer ink to get my coupons.

The other irony is that I like getting the holiday editions of newspapers -- I simply reject the falseness of being greased by my monopolistic supplier in the transparent guise of their selfless service.

Star-Tribune, don't puke in my punch bowl and tell me it's (enhanced) vegetable soup!

Announcement at 9 PM at a Local Mall
"It is now 9 PM and the mall is closing. For your convenience and to accommodate differing sales hours at our anchor stores, we'll be securing the interior mall doors now.

How is locking the main door between me and my car "for my convenience"? Wouldn't it be refreshingly honest for mall management to say "For our convenience" or "To reduce our overhead"? Even "We think you are a little fat and could use the exercise"?

Brutal Translation: We are locking the mall doors. If you are in an anchor store, you'll be walking around, chump.

Thanks for the Intent
I heard this joke from some well-known comedian on television and I can't remember who it was. If you know, please comment so that the comic will be correctly attributed.

A guy is in a diner. The wait person appears with his order and says, "Sorry we burned your fries, but we gave you some extra to make up for it." Guy says to camera: "If it's anything I like more than bad food, it's lots of it!"

Day 299 - Sleep On It

2011-01-20T23:55:00.007-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Mattress Tester)
I'm trying an experiment for the next week or two that may delay the timely publishing of my daily posts.

Sleep. At least seven hours of it a night.

I've heard about people who actually go to bed at what they snidely call a "reasonable" hour. I've always had a reason to stay up. When I was a drone at Porkus, I usually worked online from about 11 PM until 2 or 3 AM many nights since there were always invoices to process, reports to compile, or knives to take out of my back. After Porkus ("A. P."), I read or wrote my blog or played games until roughly the same hours.

Sleep deprivation is the ugly stepchild of a harried society. Starbucks may have saved Michael Gates Gill's life but it may be slowly killing everyone else who substitutes chemical stimulation for natural rejuvenation. And what's with all these ads for Five Hour Energy? There's one ad where the guy is almost suicidal about the effort required to get up, get dressed and have breakfast. One swig from the little bottle and he's bouncing down the stairway.

I could live with the laundry list of negative effects of sleep deprivation until I read the results of the latest research. Having insufficient sleep makes you fat. Hah! That explains it!

Since I usually eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich after everyone goes to bed, I don't even need to think about increased cortisol levels to get a glimmer of why this correlation between sleep and weight may exist. At the very least, if you are sleeping, you are not eating.

I haven't had the medically recommended amount of nightly sleep since junior high school. Yes, there were junior high schools back in the Dark Ages. I taught Lincoln to do that thing with writing on the back of a shovel. And did he mention me in the Gettysburg Address? No gratitude ... but I digress.

So, if my posts are delayed during the next week or so, please know that there is a reason: I'm sleeping on it.

Day 298 - A Lump of Cole

2011-01-19T23:50:00.005-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Confused Parent)
Princess Potatohead is nearly six years old and has just had her heart broken. She was enamored of an "older man" -- a fourth grader -- named Cole. I didn't realize how doggedly serious she was until she turned down the chance to go to a Girl Scout Leader meeting with me (where the attraction is snacks) to tag along with her father to a Cub Scout pack meeting (where they do not have snacks but they do have Cole).

Snacks have heretofore been the one motivator that could be counted upon to get her attention, banish any funk, and, in general, be that magic carrot that has always worked. Ah, good times.

I've seen Cole and he's actually a pretty cute little boy as nine-year-olds go. Very Alpha male. BMOP (Big Man on Playground). Right side of the tracks and all that.

Through sobs this evening, we learned that she had inveigled the probably very perplexed Cole to commit to meet her on the playground at recess tomorrow. This in itself was a feat of negotiation worthy of a hammer-wielding ex-president since kindergartners are sequestered in the "upper playground" while the big kids rule the hallowed lower playground with the skating rink.

Using a very efficient elementary school form of Twitter, Princess Potatohead could not resist telling a few dozen of her pals about her upcoming "date."

The grapevine quickly stretched tendrils to Cole, who was apparently surprised to find that he was "dating" anyone, let alone a kindergartner.

On the dreaded schoolbus, Cole loudly pronounced Princess Potatohead to be "cuckoo" complete with the rotating hand motion around the temple. Attila the Son, ever the jovial bearer of bad news, left his assigned seat to repeat this loudly to his sister in case she hadn't heard it clearly enough.

People say 'sobbed inconsolably' with the two words stuck together tighter than Donald Trump and whatever that is on his head. Like 'veritable plethora.' You hardly ever hear of a plethora that isn't veritable. Or a sob that's successfully consolable.

Princess Potatohead sobbed for about four hours and this is not an exaggeration. She slowed down both out of exhaustion and because Mr. T. told her the story of his failed engagement. We were saving that story for high school and are now out of good material on heartbreak.

Whether you are five or fifty, you don't want to hear the only answer that seems to work: Time heals all wounds. And, if you wait long enough for the jerks to get theirs, time wounds all heels.

Day 297 - Can Starbucks Save Your Life?

2011-01-18T14:32:00.014-06:00

Daily Kup (Last Week Redux)
In a stunning homage to last week, Princess Potatohead started the morning barfing in not one, but two, wastebaskets. Keeping that "sunny side up" attitude, it's a wonderful way to remind yourself to wash out your wastebaskets thoroughly.

While cold (DUH!), it's sunny with a startlingly blue sky. Sitting in my non-office this morning and writing a book review, I could hear birds singing. I pounded the side of my head with the heal of my hand and the sound was still there, so it must be so. Right?

Now why couldn't it be so beautiful yesterday when we drove out by the lakes with the camera?

A Cup of Kindness
I read an inspiring book over the weekend, How Starbucks Saved My Life - A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else by Michael Gates Gill. It's not a perfect book but that adds to the main message that some high-falutin' lifestyle may not be the most satisfying cup of tea ... er, coffee.

As a side effect of the espresso-tinged product placement liberally dolloped throughout the book, I also have an uncontrollable desire for a mocha latte. Go figure.

I reviewed the book for Lunch.com, where you can read the review if you want to see a picture of me wearing a hen outfit. http://www.lunch.com/reviews/book/UserReview-How_Starbucks_Saved_My_Life_A_Son_of_Privilege_Learns_to_Live_Like_Everyone_Else-1561610-199519-A_Warm_Beverage_Subtle_Sweet_If_A_Bit_Frothy.html

For those with a paltry poultry interest:

A Warm Beverage -- Subtle, Sweet, If A Bit Frothy

Michael Gates Gill’s memoir might easily be subtitled "A Riches to (Cleaning) Rags Story" in which a patrician advertising executive tumbles from grace and finds himself needing a job – any job – with health insurance and a chance to be gainfully occupied. Through serendipity, he accepts a job at Starbucks and starts the long climb to regaining self-respect. With an extra shot.
Gill was the son of New Yorker writer Brendan Gill and was brought up in affluence in the New York social circle. The opulence did not quite overcome his loneliness for his absent parents and his lifelong need for their approval. He is plagued by being not quite enough by one standard or another.

Gill gets a plum corporate job with the help of an acquaintance from Skull & Bones, Yale’s secret society. From there, he rises up the hierarchy for 25 years through single-minded devotion to his career at the expense of his family and his dignity … and a little coattail riding. (Hey, could have been worse. This same career launch could make you President.)

Laid-off in his early 50’s, Gill makes a failed attempt at reemployment, destroys his marriage, uses up his savings, is diagnosed with a brain tumor, and finds himself in a Starbucks with the last of his dignity with the lint in the pocket of his Brooks Brothers suit. The young, female, African-American manager offers him a job. Having no other prospects, he accepts and is grateful to have a chance to show that he has any value at all in the world.

As a "Partner" in a green apron and lone white, older male employee, he scrubs the bathroom, stocks shelves, mops floors, and faces running the much-feared cash register. Caffeine is an eye-opener as Gill learns to let go of his past and appreciate the value of camaraderie, respect, and the dignity of engagement in his life and others’.

The pace of the book is leisurely with many side trips into the past. Gill’s family rubbed elbows with the upper crust of the day and he tells their stories matter-of-factly. After nuggets about Hemingway, James Thurber, and Jackie O, one wouldn’t be surprised to read, "While having dinner with my Dad, the Pope leaned over and said…" Still, the namedropping has a purpose in underscoring both the grandeur of his beginnings and the recognition that the past is, well, past. Gill’s much younger coworkers greet the story of meeting Frank Sinatra with blank stares, but are excited to learn that Gill’s daughter is making a movie with 50 Cent, of whom Gill knows only by name.

Some have questioned the book’s veracity or found it cloying or rambling or both. Keep in mind that a memoir has to contain the truth but it doesn’t have to be an encyclopedia of all the truth. While Gill skips over some details that would seem to be relevant (his first marriage, his failure to finish college, etc.), he is unflinchingly forthright about his weaknesses. His fears, big and small, echo true. So does his joy at finding a place where, unlikely as it seems, he discovers his true passion and learns to fit in.

What’s missing for me, much like a macchiato without milk froth, is an indication of the next step of growth. He learned the joy and satisfaction of tangible work and the importance of attitude and effort. He extols Starbucks and their positive corporate values to the point where the majority of his new life is working at the shop and then returning to his sparsely furnished attic apartment. Even if he overcame his personal snobbery to get to this conclusion, isn’t being the vassal of a coffee chain a lot like misplaced devotion to an advertising agency? Where does he truly make amends with his children, with his ex-wife, with his ex-girlfriend? When does he decide to volunteer at a soup chicken or use his second helping of fame to do some good for someone beyond his own soul or a cheery word to a Starbucks Guest? He wrote complimentary notes to his co-workers but does he sit on a bench in Central Park and enjoy the sunshine?

This is a charming book that reads quickly. Is an ad man always an ad man or can someone really change? I don't know, but the book gives one hope that one can build one's own island of happiness through insight, willingness to take a risk, and —perhaps — desperation.

Michael Gates Gill earned his redemption one latte at a time and he deserves the happiness that it has brought him. Now he needs to go one step farther. He learned that ‘up’ was not a direction that brought satisfaction; let’s hope that he takes his hard-won personal victory and moves it the nest step ‘out’ into the world.

Day 296 - Giving Back

2011-01-17T23:58:00.011-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in the Community)

With no school and a day off from work for Mr. T, we wanted to do something special and meaningful. With the recent translation of Martin Luther King Jr's birthday into a day of national service, we found many opportunities. Unfortunately, most did not suit the abilities of an 8-year-old and an almost 6-year-old.

Then we found Pastor Wes at Spirit of Christ Church in St. Louis Park. We spent half the morning scooping powdered laundry detergent into one load containers, making sandwiches, and assembling kits of basic hygiene products for adults and children in shelters.

Let me tell you, it felt great. In chatting with the other volunteers, we were surprised to find out that most of them were not parishioners of the small church but people like us who had searched the Internet.

Just for a moment, it seemed like maybe, just maybe, some of the world's problems could be addressed by groups of friends and strangers working together in church basements, schools, parks, and wherever people set aside an hour or two to take that step.

Want to spend an hour or two and accomplish something great? Your mom would be proud.

http://www.serve.gov/

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead

Day 295 - Kazakhstan Part 29

2011-01-16T23:49:00.008-06:00

Every Sunday, this blog will describe our life-changing trip to Kazakhstan in 2005 to adopt our two youngest children. While some of our friends and family have seen a few of the pictures, we've never put it all together in an organized format. One of the reasons is that I hesitate to subject others to a 21st century version of the endless slideshow of vacation photos harking to some relative's visit and a lost evening of my childhood. Still, the story must be told before details are lost since this is my children's unique birthright. When we get to the end of the story, I'll edit the posts together into an extended and separate blog page and then have it printed by one of the blog-to-book(let) services for my kids. For people with less interest, these posts will be easy to identify and avoid. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We strode into the large room with its tempting delicate displays feeling that we were fully armed this time. We had a large bag of animal crackers, some blocks, some building toys, and a coloring book and crayons. We also had the only item that had been a hit on the last visit -- a small photo book with pictures of our home and family.

We sat on the wildly patterned sofa and waited. In time, a caregiver arrived with Nurlan. Since we had last seen him, they had given him a very short crew cut. The absence of hair made his chubby face look even rounder. He wore a little white T-shirt, jeans, and little red shoes. He entered the room with no hesitation like a bustling little general.

Inna the interpreter quickly stepped in. She bent down on her long, long legs until she was eye to eye with the chubby little boy. Nurlan's eyes darted here and there with an expression that seemed to say, "I have a lot of energy and I am planning on bouncing off the walls."

Inna explained who were were and why we were visiting. If this made any impression, there was no sign. Inna shrugged and stepped aside.

Knowing very little about three-year-olds, we were quickly laid out all the wonderful things that we had brought with us. Nurlan looked from item to item and seemed thoroughly unimpressed.

The one item in which Nurlan was overwhelmingly interested was Terry, particularly his beard. Nurlan poked, prodded, approached and retreated. He had a lack of interest for me that rode the border between invisibility and disdain. He was a little more attentive to Inna, but then again, she was so young and pretty that even a toddler could be attracted.

The wooden blocks had pictures on each side. The kit included sheets of paper with the completed pictures so that you could match the blocks on top of the paper. We were anxious to show Nurlan how the little deer or the birdies would emerge, but he was much more interested in piling the blocks up and knocking them down. Not only knocking them down, but doing so in the most dramatic way possible. When the plan turned to throwing the blocks from a distance painfully close to the rickety table of dishes, we attempted to distract the toddler and put the blocks back in the bag.

Nurlan was not one to be distracted easily. On one level, his tenacity was another sign of his intelligence. His eyesight was certainly good since there seemed to be no subtle movement that he couldn't detect.

Food! Yes, let's bribe him with food. Out came the bag of animal crackers. He grabbed it and stuffed a chubby hand into the top. A fistful of crackers was shoved into his mouth. And then another. He was like a conveyor belt with teeth. Feeling that things were again going wrong, we tried to get the bag away from him before he ate the paper itself.

We were very conscious of being watched and judged by the orphanage staff. Inna had retreated from the room to set up camp with her magazine in a chair outside the door, assured that we would prevent damage to the collectibles or die trying. The door was partially open to the hallway near the administrative offices.

The crackers were disappearing with frightening speed. With frozen smiles, we attempted to establish control over the uncontrollable. No dice.

I finally snatched the bag out of his hand and he screamed like I'd removed a kidney with a can opener. The sound echoed across the expanse of wood floors and bare walls. We froze while Nurlan grasped for the bag.

Inna stuck her head in and, assessing the situation instantly, uttered something in Russian that sounded a bit threatening. Nurlan slowed in his quest. In lilting English, she addressed us: "Next time, you might bring only a small amount placed in a little bag." She closed the door and presumably went back to her magazine.

Thoroughly stuffed, Nurlan slowed down enough to take a look at the coloring book. He seemed to be unsure of what to do with the crayons, but at least he didn't try to eat them.

Terry patiently demonstrated the use of the crayons and peace ensued for a few minutes.

Day 294 - All Aboard

2011-01-15T23:14:00.001-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life at Scale Size)

We had a wonderful carefree day today. We went to Lowe's for a Cub Scout special activity on how to build the infamous Pinewood Derby car. We have two of these babies under our belts now from past years but every year is a new challenge as we think up wilder and more elaborate designs.

Later, we stopped at the library to research the date that Attila the Son was born for another Scout achievement. As though we didn't already have enough books -- and you can NEVER have enough books -- we dropped by a local church sale to browse for some more.

Informal Guide to Church Rummage Sales

I've gone to a lot of rummage sales at religious establishments and have learned that each denomination has certain characteristics that will help with your shopping. While this information is given tongue-in-cheek, there is a little grain of truth hiding inside. Test at your next rummage sale.

Catholics - most childrens' clothing, religious art, beaten up odds-n-ends; large selection of Reader's Digest Condensed books and trashy novels; usually a booth with good sloppy joes or thick soup; pricing is usually on the low end for all goods.

Lutherans - most unopened and unused gift items; holiday sweaters.

Episcopalians - High quality conservative clothing; good selection of hardcover business, educational and current books; higher prices.

Jews - Many children's items, including books and educational toys; seriously expect to haggle; delicious baked goods.

Methodists - Clothing is washed and ironed and/or freshly drycleaned; wide variety of practical goods like bicycles, furniture and kitchen goods; not much shiny or fancy.

Unitarian/Universalists - The most eclectic selection of books possible; a good source for natural materials and exotic, almost painfully sincere items.

Night Trains

The highlight of our day was a trip to the Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum in Bandana Square for the Night Trains exhibit. Every year, the Museum decorates their massive scale model train layout for Christmas. Tiny buildings display tinier wreaths on their little doors and miniature Santas dot the street corners. The Christmas Train, bright with lighted holiday patterns, takes to the rails amid the historically accurate Soo Lines and Great Northerns.

A new display of toy trains has taken over the building just to the north of the main Bandana Square. Multiple train layouts are displayed, several with button-activated devices to delight children of any age.

We ended the day at the railroad-themed Broadway Pizza, just right for the end of the line.

Day 293 - The Management Has Received Complaints

2011-01-14T23:30:00.007-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as an Electronic Sybil)

Ah, the magic of Fridays! This week was filled with activities from various charities and professional groups. Yesterday, for the Girl Scout Service Unit Leader Meeting, I whipped up a website and survey to gather input for the Annual Meeting for I volunteered, in a moment of chump-like optimism for the future of girlkind, to be a delegate.

I now have quite a number of sites and the trepidation that is starting to come from the need to develop some and maintain others. Since each site was birthed by some fractured portion of the psyche, I have to remember who I am and what my niche in the universe is at the moment.

This leads to ridiculous inner discussions like, "Should I promote this blog on my Facebook page where there is a large overlap between people who know me and readership or should Khrome face the Facebook?" (Porkus prepared me for this conundrum by giving me several simultaneous job titles and bosses to go with them.)

Several of me are going have a meeting and straighten it all out. I hope we all bring snacks.

Cat Lobby Unhappy with Air Temperature

A delegation from the Society of Cats Reacting Aggressively To Cold Households (S. C. R. A. T. C. H.) contacted Management today.

The group was apparently formed as a response to recent cost- and energy-cutting measures. They were quite fluffed up about the whole thing and threatened to launch a litter-writing campaign if conditions were not improved.

When the delegates were confronted with the Management Purview claws in their contract, they slunk away but vowed to return victoriously with tails held high ... at 3 AM.

Day 292 - An Inconvenient Utility Bill

2011-01-13T23:51:00.001-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life by Programmable Thermostat)
My home has the original furnace and it works fairly well, except for being incredibly inefficient and therefore expensive to operate. When running, it sounds like two squirrels rubbing sticks together.

The water heater is relatively new, which means the seller was forced by city safety statutes to replace the old, exploding one when I bought the house sixteen years ago.

We struggle to be green and to tread lightly on the earth. We've put a blanket around the water heater and lowered the temperature on the burner. This last move was as popular with Mr. T, king of the 45 minute shower, as the threat of back hair waxing.

Through a combination of hibernation planning for the servers, switches on vampire energy-using devices, replacing incandescent bulbs, and crazed screaming at those who leave lights and appliances on, we've reduced our electricity usage by almost 20 percent.

We use our programmable thermostat and set the nighttime temperature low enough to keep the children in bed and the cats really fluffy.

I'm thinking that Al Gore should be proud of us right now.

CenterPoint Energy, our local supplier of the natural gas used by our furnace, oven, water heater, clothes dryer, and stovetop, begs to differ. They've instituted a new program to punish the 20% of their customers whom they consider to be high energy consumers by making them pay significantly more per unit of energy. It's a tiered program where I'm paying $0.363 per therm for the initial bit of gas that's about enough to run the pilot light and then the fee eventually goes up by steps to $0.756 per therm.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune recently published this story (see link) describing the strategy and results. I'm all for conservation and even personal sacrifice for the good of society but I'm pretty much out of ways to conserve more natural gas than we are doing now unless I can start knitting a new furnace out of steel wool.

Wouldn't that be the ultimate craft project? But then what would those two squirrels do for a living?

Ways to Lower Your Heating Bills
Keep the humidity high by flooding the basement.
Three words: Calisthenics on commercials
Wear a bathrobe of live cats.
Use husband as source of methane.
Get in the refrigerator -- it's warmer!
Decree Snugglies worn at all times.
Break out the dilithium crystals.

Page 291 - Oh, Say, Can You 3D?

2011-01-12T23:51:00.000-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in 3D)
What a beautiful day! Even Princess Potatohead's vomiting at sunrise could not overcome the glorious blue sky. Crisp air, gorgeous landscape, a small girl retching into a wastebasket ... just the normal stuff in our neck of the woods.

Attila the Son is doing a book report on Albert Einstein for his "people who changed the world" project. Maybe before Kollege Kid graduates this spring, we can wrangle a chance to meet Micky (http://klowns-in-my-koffee.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-132-klaim-to-fame.html), though I hear he gets touchy if you mention his great-grandpa. That must be the "special" Theory of Relativity.

3D or not 3D, That is the Question
The American Society for Quality (ASQ) meeting that I attended last night included presentations about 3D imaging techniques. My tiny geek sensors were all aquiver and the advancing technology presented truly interesting. If you have a few hundred thousand bucks lying around, I know a couple of guys who could set you up with some nice hardware.

Sure, they talked about dimensional inspection possibilities and non-destructive testing. Quality Girl was all tech geek jazzed, but Burning Khrome was bored until they got to the following stories.

Jay Leno has one of the 3d printing systems installed in his super-garage and uses it to create 3D images from which he can print plastic molds and then fabricate metal replacement parts for vintage cars. The presenter said that Jay imaged his face as well when their team was interviewing him. Why, Jay, why?

Check out Gizmodo for more info on Jay's 3D printer: http://gizmodo.com/5311414/jay-leno-uses-3d-printer-to-replace-rare-old-car-parts

In another example of 3D imaging that rocks more than imaging samples of rocks --
English alternative rock group Radiohead created a milestone video using this technology entirely with no traditional cameras or lighting. If only this technology could make lead singer Thom Yorke enunciate ...

Day 290 - The Adventures of Quality Girl

2011-01-11T23:37:00.003-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life guarding the buffet)

One way to avoid re-taking the Quality professional certification tests that I took earlier in the year is to get additional training, take more tests, write a book, or attend a rubber chicken dinner. The latter seemed like a good bet.

"I'll take rubber chicken dinner for 0.6 recertification units, Alex."

For the unemployed and those with other dinner plans, there is a zero dollar meeting attendance option that fits the needs of those who wish to sit in the middle while everyone around them eats.

The table for the 'non-eaters' was directly in front of the buffet so that all the other attendees had to walk around us to get to the food. There was a time when that would have made me feel awkward but giving birth in a teaching hospital and two years working in a call center pretty much knocked out whatever embarrassment was residual.

The 'non-eaters' were mostly non-talkers as well, so dinner time went slowly. The sole exception was a long-haired Buddhist who bragged and name-dropped while occasionally slapping the side of his head to loosen water that he said he got into his ear because he wasn't used to washing long hair. And, again, I don't make this stuff up.

Quality people are an eccentric lot. They generally dress poorly. Many of them wear glasses. They mumble and avoid eye contact.

I felt at home.

During the lull amid the clacking of knives and forks, head slapping, and the other non-eaters playing with their phones, I had time to draw this cartoon.

Day 289 - The Garden Awaits

2011-01-10T23:02:00.007-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life in a Snow Globe)

In my makeshift office between the living room and the dining room, the glowing monitor makes a central altar bridging two sets of huge double windows facing the snowy landscape. A light dusting of snow has been falling at a constant pace all morning. The winds kicks it up, sending silver sparkles across the lawn.

My grandmother believed in heaven. It's easy to think of her perched up there turning the handle on the giant flour sifter that uniformly and continuously blankets the yard in a precisely measured dose of snow just like she used to top a cake with confectioners' sugar.

The street itself shows no sign of pavement or even tire ruts. Three whitetail deer meander down the center and, alerted by an opened door, spring across a neighbor's yard into the white swirl. Another photographic opportunity missed.

Seed Catalogs

They are out there and they are coming. Any day now, the mailbox will reveal bright photos of fat, sassy vegetables and page after page of flowers and apples trees and tomatoes.

The Jung Seed catalog usually shows up first. Look for the picture of the onion next to a softball and the horseradish root that's really shaped like a horse ... if you squint and are optimistic.

And you should because gardening is about optimism.

Every year, the garden starts anew. Maybe this year, the Swiss Chard that every book says is so easy to grow will come up. Not enough room for corn, but how about adding an asparagus patch? And raspberries! Have you seen how much they cost in the grocery store? So many catalogs and only so much plantable space.

There will be time for this in February and March. For now, let the garden rest and wait.

Day 287 - Not Fair

2011-01-08T23:55:00.001-06:00

Daily Kup
There are some days when trying to be funny or delve into the minutia of domestic life simply are not appropriate.

Not Fair
When you have small children, you hear, “That’s not fair” as a constant refrain. “It’s not fair that my brother got a larger bowl of cereal” even if the difference is one Cheerio. It’s not fair to have to go to bed at this time or have to do homework now or to have chores when a pampered friend wallows in TV and video games.

It’s not fair when good people lose their jobs to sycophants and posers or when children are warehoused in a society too poor or troubled to care for them adequately.

And it’s certainly not fair when some nutjob shoots blameless children or the elderly or public officials.

None of these things are fair and they offend us because we are all grown-up small children who have a good sense of what justice is and what it isn’t.

It’s a common response to say, “Life’s not fair, kid” and end the conversation.

I believe that we do a disservice to ourselves and to others — particularly to children — when we state a shallow version of the obvious and shrug. Yep, the outcomes are often not what we want and don’t match the inputs. Harold Kushner famously wondered Why Bad Things Happen to Good People and found comfort in knowing that we can't know.

Some bad, or good, outcomes are just probability. Wrong place, wrong time. She missed the plane and it crashed. My kids made me two minutes late and the car that sped through the red light hit someone else.

My good friend left work on August 1, 2007, and drove home over the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. A few minutes later, she heard many sirens and wondered what had happened. The bridge collapsed a few minutes after she had crossed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The cause was later determined to be a perfect storm of original design defect plus contributing factors. One part shoddy work and two parts probability.

When we shrug away the vagaries of life’s unfairness, we miss the opportunity to tell children two things: First, that the cosmic coin flips and the results, both positive and negative, are random, largely incomprehensible and beyond our control. Second and most importantly, even when the world seems unfair, WE CAN BE FAIR in our dealings with others and in the quality of work that we do. Our efforts and the way we chose to live our lives are separate from any fluke of fate. "Life" may be unfair, but that doesn’t mean that we have to aid and abet.

On one level, it’s almost comforting to know that the Tucson perpetrator was a complete whackadoodle whose dysfunction was obvious to everyone in his orbit. It’s less personally threatening than the seemingly normal people, like those who surround us and our families, who suddenly commit incomprehensible acts.

On another level, why does a guy voted by his college as Most Likely to Fire into a Crowd continue wandering around? That’s not probability; that sounds like a failure of some people in a system to do the right thing.

That’s what’s really not fair.

Day 286 - Taxes, with Help from Gandhi and Walmart

2011-01-07T23:51:00.005-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life Clinging to the Weekend)
It's ironic that for the person with — let us say — an atypical business week, that Monday no longer holds a sting but Friday still comes soft and gentle and with some giddy anticipation. Perhaps the joy that many feel as the end of a standard workweek approaches is in the air like ozone before a lightening storm. Yes, casual day!

Taxing My Resources
On January 3rd, the mail contained a thin paper book. Some of you may have received the same book. It was from our state government and contains income tax forms and instructions. We got two — one set for us and one for Kollege Kid.

I leave them on the coffee table, the pair of them. I want to carry them with tongs to some place where they can't scare the children but instead I let them stare at me accusingly while I avert my eyes.

It's a canned response, like Pavlov's dogs puking whenever they were audited. The irony is that my bookkeeping has never before been so perfect. Illustrating clearly that two negatives make a positive, I've never before had the time to devote to tracking and managing my money so completely ... and I've never had so little of it to track and manage. It's like Gandhi discovering that his pesky problems with laundry and closets were solved by extreme sartorial reduction. It's a weird relief.

But the fear still lingers. I should do the taxes by hand when the 1099's and W-2's and 1098's and all the other letters and numbers arrive at the end of the month, but I've become addicted to TurboTax. I love the big checkmark over the name and the words "Don't Panic" in large, friendly letters on the cover. (Thank you, Ford Prefect.)

The cheapest place that I've found to buy TurboTax so far this year is Walmart, since I've been too cheap to renew my Costco membership. I made my way to the Mart of Wal but unfortunately forgot to bring my nearly constant friend, Cam the camera. I was told about People of Walmart (http://www.peopleofwalmart.com) over the holidays, but I didn't believe that I would encounter the same phenomenon so close to home and in such infinite and perverse complexity. It's true. All of it.

And I thought taxes were scary!

Thanks, Larry and Tracey, for sharing this disturbing website.

Benjamin Franklin said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." I believe I encountered both at Walmart.

That's what you call one-stop shopping.

Day 285 - Social Media Haiku

2011-01-06T23:18:00.002-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Gainfully Unemployed Person)
Oh, ye local people, beware! The time of the Cookie Drive is almost upon us. Much time was spent today learning the Secrets of the Thin Mint and how to sell it to unsuspecting passersby.

Need a cookie fix? Come see me late in the month and I know a little girl who can fix you up with as many boxes as you want.

PS They freeze well. It said so in the training.

We're Off to See the Wizard. LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter, Oh, My!

When middle-aged people can find their junior high school teachers on Facebook, I think we can conclusively state that social media has touched a wide swath of the population.

My eight-year-old yearns to text. My ninety-five-year-old ex-father-in-law uses his laptop to pass on a steady flow of hypernationalistic gibberish and Internet hoaxes to his large circle of acquaintances in a well-intentioned attempt to ... well, I don't know why he does it, but he's pretty darn computer savvy and uses the technology to his advantage. With Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as Time's Person of the Year for his contribution to an application that just signed up its 550-millionth member, it's safe to say that — if this is a flash in the pan — it's a pretty big pan.

Still, social media can be a little artless and isolating for all its immediacy. It's missing a little panache, a bit of poetry. Here's my shameless attempt to remedy that:

Social media
Like reality TV.
Photoshop my face?

LinkedIn, oh Linked In,
Vessel of my connections --
Anyone want to hire?

I like your content.
Lead the charge, then re-Tweet.
Now your fame is mine.

Smiling photo face,
Friends I never need to meet.
Got many; want more.

Faintly familiar
High school friend Facebook photos.
When'd they get so old?

Day 284 - Idyllic Snow

2011-01-05T23:58:00.011-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life Applying Myself)

Each day has a sliver more of daytime than the previous and I find my mood elevating with every glimmer of sunlight. My Peter Pan side muddles in alternative employment while my Wendy evaluates brick-and-mortar opportunities to do exactly the same work I've done for almost thirty years. It's a classic battle and. like the good former defense contractor employee that I am, I am arming both sides.

The Wendy side gratefully reports that there has been an upswing in completely acceptable employment opportunities this week, a good sign for everyone grappling with the disappointing economy.

Shivering and Shutter-ing

Day 283 - Candycane Enable

2011-01-04T23:50:00.034-06:00

Daily Kup (How to Clean Up in the Holiday Business)

Two days of peace and quiet have resulted in the restoration of order to what was a cluttered post-holiday household. It is again possible to walk through most rooms without resorting to performing either the limbo or Twister-type motions to move in a straight line. If it didn't move quickly enough, I vacuumed it. Apologies to sleeping cats.

The Reindeer in Spain are Really Quite Insane

My countertops are where unfinished projects go to die. Strike that -- that was the old me. Now projects are often completed. And the leftover pieces remain as clutter on the countertops. Hey, it's an improvement. Continual improvement - that's the goal.

Among this dying clutter on my countertop were several unfinished candycane reindeer left when my kids got bored after the first couple were glued.

For those hyper-organized people out there who want to get a jump on next year's holiday crafts, this is how to make a candycane reindeer:

1. Materials:

Candycanes

Little googly eyes

Small pompoms (nose-sized), red if you want to make Rudolph

Brown chenille stems (These were called pipe cleaners when I was a kid. Now, apparently there are either no pipes or a limited need to clean them.)

White glue, slick or glitter paint, or any adhesive that will bond light materials

2. Add eyes.

Use the adhesive to affix two googly eyes about one inch from the bottom of the short end of the candycane.

Tweezers or little fingers are helpful.

3. Glue nose.

Add a bit of adhesive to one side of a pompom and attach below the eyes almost at the end of the candycane.

It's interesting to experiment with feature placement to obtain different expressions from your reindeer.

4. Cut the chenille stem in half and form antlers at the top of the candycane's curve.

Having already made a small herd of "normal" reindeer, I found some other reindeer from the bad side of the pole.

Charles Manson Reindeer

Justin Bieber Reindeer

Reindeer seeking a transfer to the Easter department

Reindeer after a bad sleigh accident

Day 282 - Elf Debris

2011-01-03T23:30:00.006-06:00

Daily Kup (What I Learned on My Reality Break)
The tribe has returned to school, to college, and to work and it is quiet. This is not the quiet of the scenic winter day but rather the silence that hangs over the site of crash landings after the ambulances have left. There are bits of wrapping paper, toys without assigned homes, the occasional ownerless sock, the flotsam and jetsam of the post-holiday scene. I wander through the wreckage like the victim of a head injury.

The tree has a few more days to go from a "Twelve Days of Christmas" perspective and I appreciate its company. It doesn't complain or ask to play video games or eat every few minutes; it simply shines and does its job.

I will be kind to myself today for this is my personal holiday, christened 'St. Buddy's Day.' In my fledgling mock-theology, St. Buddy died a painful death for the holiday cause. While wrapping gifts, he received a mighty paper cut. Searching for a band-aid, he took a wrong turn into a dark corner, lit a match to get his bearings, and was immolated in a flashfire of eggnog that was a little too seasonally spiked. It is in remembrance of him that we abandon our naked Christmas trees on the side of the road near the garbage cans like so many green, spiky winos.

I probably should lay off those New Year's Twilight Zone marathons.

Sartorial Splendor
On Day 279 http://klowns-in-my-koffee.blogspot.com/2010/12/day-279-new-years-perspective.html, I mentioned Mr. T and the Snuggie that he has been wearing that gives painful reality to the term "sad sack."

In case there is a quiz, here is a guide to differentiating between the two cylindrical objects in my house that are frequently plugged in near the TV:

_______________CROCKPOT______________________________________CRACKPOT_______________

St. Buddy would be proud.

Day 280 - Resolved

2011-01-01T23:45:00.000-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Gainfully Unemployed Person)
This new year seems as cold and snowy as the old one.

Small children and fraying tempers. Will Monday ever come? Note to self: Home schooling is never, EVER a possibility.

Bad New Year's Resolutions
Start smoking to see if quitting is as hard as everyone says.
Dedicate every waking moment to Justin Bieber.
Schedule all my business lunches at Chuck E. Cheese.
Invest heavily in newspapers and airlines.
Start a cult.
Begin each day at work by ridiculing my boss on Facebook.
Start my own television network (if I'm not Oprah).
Design a Snuggie for my house plants.
Send for that Russian bride who's always emailing me.
Retire from being a quarterback. Or maybe not.

Last Drop
I've learned many things from my very wise and wonderful mother-in-law. During our recent visit, I mentioned that my family treats the occasion of my taking a nice, warm bath as an invitation to knock on the door, wander in, ask for advice or simply come by to chat. I do not wish to chat in those circumstances. I also don't wish to talk to phone solicitors or mediate fights over whose turn it is to play on the Xbox. She said to me, "Doesn't your bathroom door have a lock? If it doesn't, it should."

Resolved: Lock the bathroom door more often and let them wait until I'm good and ready to let them in.

Day 279 - New Year's Perspective

2010-12-31T22:50:00.005-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life at the End of the Year)
In this contemplative time of year, I would like to pause to think in the quiet of the soul, to ponder the yin and the yang. Unfortunately, two children did not have a nap, the older daughter cannot find a single suitable item of clothing to wear to a wedding, and my husband has found a channel that features explosions and machine gun fire exclusively.

Any still voice in the my soul better have a megaphone.

In truth, I find New Year's Eve depressing. Though I'm not the type, I'd like to try the shiny gown New Year's Eve just once.

No one is wearing a shiny gown here at the moment.

My husband received a Snuggie, one of those fleece sacks with sleeves, for Christmas and he wears it around the house constantly. It is blue with an open back so it's like a medical gown for Smurfs. Mr. T wears a leather belt with it to keep it hiked up enough that he doesn't trip over it. He completes the ensemble with a bathrobe to correct the back closure gap. The combined effect is Obi Wan Kenobi in a retirement facility.

As a break from the gunfire channel, Obi and I are watching a marathon of House episodes.

As this year draws to a close, I think it's important to keep it all in perspective: House is way more screwed up than we are.

Happy New Year!

Day 278 - Porkus Shmorkus

2010-12-30T23:15:00.000-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Gainfully Unemployed Person)
We are enjoying a lovely visit with T's family. On our way out of town, the dreaded engine light started blinking again, causing much unclean language and anticipation of visit #3 to Jeff's Auto. On the hunch that it was merely another sensor getting crotchety about a new tank of gas, we motored on until t he blinking stopped. After the last time, I was prepared to push the car all the way to the southern part of the state. It's all downhill according to the map.

In a Porkus State of Mind
Long car rides give me time to think about "stuff." In a couple of months, my little agreement with Porkus is up and I can contact anyone or say any truthful thing I want to. OK, it's not like I've really held back. Or have I?

Either way, it gets dull beating that particularly dead horse, though the Cheryl Boobquist stories always draw many comments from former Porkans. Everyone knows someone like Cheryl. She's Cruella Deville, your ex-wife's mother, or that bat at the DMV who wouldn't let you in five minutes before the posted closing time. She's Dana Carvey's Church Lady and Scott Adams' Catbert, the evil HR director.

Sadly, I think that Porkus is just as ubiquitous. It's more than one little backwater of the civilized business world. I worked for a great company, a Fortune 100 company, that had a little Porkus in its culture. And I've worked for bad companies that had quite a bit of Porkus.

Porkus is a concept that transcends a particularly place and time. It's a state of mind. It's that type of thinking in humans that gives dolphins hope of world domination.

So, if you've never worked at 'THE' Porkus, odds are that you've worked for 'A' Porkus.

Signs That You Are Working for a "Porkus"

— The Marketing Department fabricates awards that the company has won.
— The turnover rate is highest in Human Resources, a department largely staffed by zombies led by a gargoyle.
— The CFO thinks that performance metrics are "a joke" that "most companies don't bother with."
— Education, higher or technical, is viewed with suspicion since management is fully capable of teaching you anything they decide you need to know.
— Conference calls are frequently muted to allow the opportunity to ridicule the customers.
— The technical salespeople wore blue vests at their last jobs.
—Managers are not told their department budgets or the salaries of their employees since it might cause them to try to actually manage something.
— The key strategy for avoiding sexual harassment suits is refusing to hire physically attractive employees.
— No one thinks it's questionable that the production staff all share one social security number.
— The most enduring upper management position is "Toady."

So, if you've ever gotten a review criticizing your writing from a manager who doesn't speak or read in your language, then you may have worked for a Porkus.

Day 277 - Lucky or Smart?

2010-12-29T23:23:00.001-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life on the Slopes)
I occasionally post book reviews on Lunch.com. My sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson, would be proud of me, I hope. She bothered to yell at my mother for not letting me go skiing with the other kids, so I guess she liked me. My mother felt that Mrs. Wilson should "mind her own d*mn business" and so I did not learn to ski that year.

Perhaps with a few more book reviews under my belt, I'll belatedly take to the slopes.

There are no new traumas — just old ones with new tires. Your mileage may vary.

Here is my review of Lucky or Smart?: Secrets to an Entrepreneurial Life by Bo Peabody. I've read many business books and this is one of the least egocentric first-person business memoirs I've come across. You can also read it in about an hour.

http://www.lunch.com/reviews/book/UserReview-Lucky_or_Smart_Secrets_to_an_Entrepreneurial_Life-1178001-198360-The_Shortest_Smartest_Business_Book_for_Lucky.html

Are you smart enough to be lucky or lucky enough to be smart? Can you tell the difference?

Bo Peabody, one of the first Internet wunderkinds, was smart ... or lucky ... enough to make and take the money and run before the dot.com bust. In this slim volume, he lets us see behind the curtain into the Oz inhabited by the successful entrepreneur. A media darling in the late 1990's for his photogenic looks, mountain bike and ubiquitous use of the term "dude", Peabody co-founded Tripod, a pioneering social media site later sold to Lycos for $58 million in stock. He watched the stock increase in value tenfold and then sold it at the peak of the bubble. He went on to found or co-found six more companies and nurtured them to success. His current flagship is Village Ventures, a venture capital network.

In this concise manifesto of only 58 pages, Peabody captures the straightforward secrets of his success with lucidity and some self-deprecation. He reveals the truth that it is best to be smart enough to know when you are being lucky. And how to increase the chances that you will be lucky.

His main thesis is "Lucky things happen to entrepreneurs who start fundamentally innovative, morally compelling, and philosophically positive companies." The employees who flock to this type of working environment are the keys to generating a flow of opportunities. Of those many opportunities, the ones that pan out are chalked up to luck.

With tongue-not-so-in-cheek, the world is divided into the B-students (entrepreneurs) and the A-students (managers). Peabody explains clearly how these groups differ and how they absolutely need each other's skills to succeed. It's not all mountain bikes and press conferences -- there are hundred-hour workweeks and the very real chance of making very little money for a very long time.

Some of Peabody's advice is deceptively simple: Don't believe your own press. He illustrates this point persuasively with the stories of those Intranet pioneers who seemingly believed so strongly in their own genius that they crashed with their own companies that never made a dime in profit and never evolved to the next level.

In contrast with many business books that mix a pound of statistics with a dash of fear and a pinch of negativity, Peabody serves up a bright and surprisingly uplifting salad.

Read it once, Read it twice. If you're a B-student, dream up an idea and hire some A-students to manage it. If you are an A-student, find a B-student with a great idea, an open mind, and give him or her a copy of Peabody's book.

Day 275 - Christmas Break

2010-12-27T02:42:00.003-06:00

Daily Kup (My Life as a Gainfully Unemployed Person)

Burning Khrome takes a couple of days off before writing 274 more of these. I'll be back on Wednesday.