Carol H Tucker Passionate about knowledge management and organizational development, expert in loan servicing, virtual world denizen and community facilitator, and a DISNEY fan
Contact Me Subscribe to this blog
beladona Memorial Be warned:in this very rich environment where you can immerse yourself so completely, your emotions will become engaged -- and not everyone is cognizant of that. Among the many excellent features of SL, there is no auto-return on hearts, so be wary of where your's wanders...
Our neighbors to the north are celebrating the formation of their nation in 1867 when the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario/Quebec were united into one federation.
So have a maple donut or grab some Timbits, wear red and white or plaid and/or flannel, and have a beer, Eh?
June 30th is the 181st day of the year and there are 184 days left in 2015. It is the end of month and end of quarter and many of us will have reports that we need to get done. It is also National Meteor Watching Day, Leap Second Day, and NOW day for the National Organization of Women.
While you are gazing at the skies, using your leap second and watching for meteors and/or meteorites, take a look at the dance the planets are doing....
One of my earliest memories of discussing my future with my mother has me telling her that I was "going to make a difference", that I wasn't going to be content to be a "cog in the wheel", that my life wasn't going to be ordinary like her's. She got angry and told me off. Looking back on it? That might've been the reason she refused to let me accept that full scholarship to a college away, making sure that I was firmly rooted in the mundane workaday world....
Throught the years, I have found that desire to make a difference is something that I share with many. We all want to believe that we are special, that we make a difference, that somehow we are touched by destiny, that we have been chosen in some way.
I thought I had a destiny. But I never found the wardrobe opening to Narnia, the letter from Hogwarts never came, Gandalf didn't show up before I turned 50, the Tardis hasn't landed, I haven't been beamed up by aliens. I am not a descendent of Lazarus Long. There hasn't been a time/space warp nearby that I can jump into. No one has ever pledged everlasting love to me that will burn brightly through the centuries or vowed that they will always find me.
I am a cog in the wheel. And without me and all the rest of us plain folk, the world just does not work.
And while part of my spirit wishes to soar, to be so much more, I do not know what the price would be....
The quote of the day: “Read at whim! Read at whim!” ~ Randell Jarrell
And so, instead of posting on Twitter and in Facebook, I decided to share the whims that drive me to highlight certain items and put them here. It was surprisingly difficult to withhold comments and postings as the day wore on!
First of all, I am short. Runs in the family, I am 5’3” and taller than my mother and my grandmothers were. Second of all, I am and always have been pudgy, which makes me look shorter. Third of all I am short waisted, which means that I do a lot better with two-piece outfits than I do with dresses, unless they don’t have a waistline. Now the offset is that I have long legs, dancers’ legs I have been told with a 30” inseam, and I look taller than I am… well until I stand next to a taller person, of course.
As a result, I have always been rather vain of my legs, and liked showing them off. Although not a dancer, I had well shaped calves and thighs and didn’t carry my weight there. I liked dressing up, always wearing stockings and high heels when I went out and to work. And I mean HIGH heels, at least 3” and usually 4” with the occasional foray to 5”. Frank used to love the fact that I was so comfortable in heels because he thought the look sexy. And I loved wearing heels, I felt sexy, I felt attractive, I liked the way that my legs looked.
About five years ago, my ankles started bothering me, ballooning up and aching. Slowly I stopped wearing heels, then stockings became a chore to get on and off. I switched to pants and flats for the most part. I had already started watching salt intake and drinking more water and watching my diet, but this particular issue seemed to go far beyond the usual hot weather bloat. I changed to wide shoes, went from a size 6.5 to a size 8 or 9, stopped wearing certain shoes that cut into my instep. Of course I did not go quietly – I was horrified and upset about what was happening and kept badgering the doctor, who didn’t help matters by informing me that I was getting along in years and prescribed support/compression hose. We finally did a circulation test when I wouldn’t shut up, and found that there was some blood flow issues – the valves in my lower extremities were no longer working correctly, a condition that resulted in varicose veins in some but for me it meant the blood was pooling in my ankles and feet and causing the swelling. Is there a procedure that could “fix” the problem? Possibly, but it isn’t covered by insurance nor is it recommended by my doctor because the level of risk just isn’t worth the health benefits.
Great. Just great.
So I bit the bullet and gave away all the high-heeled shoes and boots. I will admit that I fell into a bit of a depression because a physical asset that I was vain about was gone. Now my body seems to have made new capillaries and the blood flow seems to be a bit more normal these days, but if I try to wear heels, my ankles still ache and puff up, plus I get leg cramps that night, so I stick to flats. I haven’t bought any “granny” shoes ….yet…. and I wear the support hose now and then in the winter instead of regular socks or knee-his. I have even put on a couple skirts, but keep to the maxi ones rather than showing off my legs. And I try to accept that perhaps I was too proud of the way that my legs looked and it is time to learn some humility.
Oh, the trigger for this post was an article about how to prevent your feet from swelling -- of course the accompanying snapshot was of thin ankles and pretty feet. AND at this point I find I need to repeat my mantra, which oddly enough doesn’t have anything at all to do with the way that I look: “I want to see myself as [1] a vibrant, caring, intelligent woman [2] who abides by the consequences of her past choices without living in regret [3] and looks with optimism to the future.”
A flag, any flag, is a symbol – I get that. And the Confederate flag has always been a bit edgy, which is exactly why it is so popular, kind of a “in your face, up yours” attitude that was both anti-government, anti-politically correct, anti-Miss Manners and was nicely summed up by Wayon Jennings singing about The Dukes of Hazzard, who were rather Robin Hood-like icons of the late 1970’s – early 1980’s
Just'a good ol' boys Never meanin' no harm. Beats all you never saw Been in trouble with the law Since the day they was born
Staightnin' the curves Flatnin the hills Someday the mountain might get 'em But the law never will Makin' their way The only way they know how That's just a little bit more Than the law will allow.
But now instead of discussing the gun, the hate-mongering, the callousness of that shooting in the church, all I am hearing about is how the flag has to go, likening the impact that it has these days to the offense that the Nazi swastika gives. Now I’m not saying that they are wrong, if the flag is that offensive to others, then go it must. But I have to admit that I don’t see how taking down the stars and bars will change the needs for gun control, teaching tolerance and learning empathy.
Looks like Luke and Bo will just have to get the General Lee repainted….
I wanted to be a Wave. Thought my father would be happy about that – he had quit school and run away from home to join the Navy when he was 16 after all. He wasn’t. Said that all Waves were whores and forbade me to enlist.
So I ran away from home and became a mermaid. Now I sport beneath the waves, leaving him to his land-locked life. No regrets
But he was right about one thing - waves are definitely not monogamous. Any time, any breeze, any beach will do. And don’t even get me started about those white-caps!
Because the timing is based on the phases of the moon, the actual date shifts around from year to year, but the holy month of Ramadan starts this evening after sunset when the new moon can be seen, even though the calculation isn’t quite as straightforward as that. My understanding is that this is a time of purification by fasting, prayer, and giving thanks by showing charity to those less fortunate – sounds a little bit like Lent in the Roman Catholic calendar, neh? Muslims will go about their daily business during this time and Non-Muslims are welcome to join their friends in these acts of faith and reflection.
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”Free will and predestination in one sentence and both true.” ¯ Robert A.Heinlein , The Door into Summer
Somewhere along the line, I stopped being told I was "white" and was told that I was Caucasian. Had a bit of a problem with that one -- I am Welsh/Irish/German for sure, Native American by family legend [one of the vanished tribes of Maryland's Eastern shore] and probably some other stuff, but as far as I know, there isn't any Middle Eastern or Russian, but the box on the form that used to say "white" now says "Caucasian", so I check it.
Somewhere along the line I stopped being heterosexual and got told that I was straight. Now I consider myself pansexual, or maybe sapiosexual, but I'm not homosexual so I am apparently "straight" these days.
Somewhere along the line, I stopped being female and am now being told that I am cis-gendered. I had to look that one up -- what in the devil is a "CIS" anyway and why is that my gender? Turn out it s a Latin prefix meaning "on this side of" VS "trans" which is "on the other side of" so some linguistic genius decided if a man who became a woman or a woman who became a man were "transgender" then folks who stayed the gender that they were born were "cisgender", so that makes me a cis-femail. I think.
All I can say is that figuring out where I "belong" in the different categories is getting to be problematic.
800 years ago today, on a Monday that is described as “mid-summer” in England [well according to legend at least] King John of England signed a piece of parchment on the field of Runnymede. The king had absolutely no intention of abiding by the terms dictated by the surrounding lords and barons, indeed, within a year or two he had appealed to the Pope and had the entire document declared invalid and even immoral. But a decade after that, another king was forced again by his followers to re-affirm the document which came to be known as the Magna Carta.
This document wasn’t about freedom or populism -- those lords and barons were steeped in the feudal system, thought their privileges and positions were mandated by God, and would’ve been horrified at the very idea of a “democracy”. What makes it significant is that for the first time a reigning monarch was forced to admit four very basic things that circumscribed the absolute powers of a ruler . The first two impacts the English to this day as the institution of the Church of England was separated from the institution of the monarchy and the City of London was acknowledged as separate entity in the kingdom. But the last two items have reverberated down the centuries in the rule of law as clauses 39 and 40 have become the basis of what we call “habeas corpus” In other words, for the first time the idea was officially proclaimed that someone couldn’t be thrown into jail on a whim, but there had to be a reason, and there had to be a trial by jury to determine guilt or innocence
The original Magna Carta was in and of itself rather insignificant, but it created a precedent for rule by law that was expanded into what we in the Western World call a democratic form of government with checks and balances. As an artifact and as a concept, it is part of the basic foundation of our freedoms.
It was around Christmas time when Leelah was hit by a truck and that death sparked a deluge of internet outrage, an outpouring of empathy from an embattled community, and came to my wandering attention because one activist changed a tweet the mother sent:
Now without getting into the family history and the travails of the transgender community, I saved the story in my “scribbles” file because of that correction. You see, I could identify with that mother who at the time of her grief over the loss of her child, reverted back to the name she gave her son – after all, I still call my son “Tommy” at times and my daughter “baby daughter” and “Gem”, and if I was under a great deal of stress, I would definitely revert back to those names no matter how politically incorrect. I thought the article scolding them that “this isn’t about you” was cruel and cold, after all I can’t imagine many things that are worse than burying one of my children, especially if there is a question of whether or not they chose to commit suicide! I can put myself in the role of the grief-stricken mother all too easily, and I thought everyone should just give them a break
Definitely in the category of “I don’t know what I don’t know”
Courtesy of Vanity Fair’s cover of Caitlyn Jenner, there has been a lot of mainstream conversation about transgender, some of it helpful and some of it not so much when it comes to comprehension. The whole concept that I should be somehow aware of “cis-gender privilege” has me scratching my head, quite frankly – I never even heard of the term before this past week! And since most of my perceptions about gender switching was based on movies like Mrs. Doubtfire, Victor/Victoria and Jack Lemmon prancing around in drag, seasoned slightly by personal exposure to women who preferred to present themselves as male for one reason or another and by men playing women in my 2nd Life, I have to admit to ignorance. I had no idea that the community was so large, the needs were so varied and the problems so difficult. Now and then a story will float around about a kid who gets in trouble in school for wanting to be the opposite sex, but I guess I didn’t pay much attention. For the record? My rather cynical response to the Bruce-to-Caitlyn transition was that it was a good think he could afford extensive surgery and wondering if most transgenders are members of the 1% -- talk about an economic barrier! Can you imagine the medical bills? Wow.
The latest Netflix show Sense8 has a transgender woman playing a transgender woman, which apparently is a first. The mother of Nomi is totally unsympathetic to that woman, seeing her as mentally ill and stating in no uncertain terms that she was “Michael when you came out of my womb and you will be Michael until I die.” And I finally found out that the reason Leelah’s mother’s tweet about her son Jason was so offensive to the community was that it was considered “dead-naming”: “when you intentionally disrespect a trans person by using their birth name instead of their chosen name to invalidate their identity” , which certainly gives me a better explanation the amount of virulent rhetoric it unleashed. While I have little sympathy for Nomi’s mother’s total rejection of her child, I still can feel the deep grief of the mother who had to mourn not only the loss of her child in the middle of the Christmas holidays, but do it in the harshest, most judgmental light the internet could possibly throw upon them.
When all is said and done, though? I still feel sympathy for that mother who lost her son without ever knowing her daughter, for whom Christmas will always be a time of mourning, and who forever will be haunted with the hurt of wondering if she really caused the suicide. How will she ever live with such a burden?
An article about the bonds of friendship floated past me this morning. The author was musing about the nature of the relationship we enter into when we make friends, and that got me to thinking…..
A few months ago, my daughter and I were talking about “doing things”. It was an idle conversation about upcoming events, and I happened to remark that I didn’t like going to the Renaissance Festival by myself now that she was not available, so I hadn’t been for years. She immediately asked why I didn’t get together with a friend and go, and when I shot down that idea, observed that I had “forgotten how to make friends.” Zinger that it was, she actually didn’t mean it to be, she worries a bit because I am alone, feels I spend too much time online, and ascribes my lack of friends to a lack of focus on “real life”. Months later, I am still turning that over in my head.
Do I have friends? Yes, a couple and I cherish them. I have a lot more folks that I am friendly with rather than actual friends though.
Have I had friends “divorce” me? Yes, there are those that have decided I no longer fit in with their lives and have moved on whether they announced it to me or just stopped communicating.
How did I go about making friends? You know, I honestly don’t know. Kinda sorta the same process that you end up romantically involved with someone neh? You get to talking to someone and start resonating with what is being shared. I have often described myself as an emotional empath on a sub-vocal level where a connection is forged while I am listening and learning to care. Trouble is? Sometimes that connection is not a two-way street, sometimes the person at the other end of the conduit is more interested in receiving interest and support than they are in participating in a yin-yang of mutual focus – which I guess is a nice way of saying that not everyone I find interesting is interested in me.
There are reams and reams of advice written on how to meet people and where to find folks that may be congenial. While I have followers in social media, contacts in my 2nd Life, and co-workers in “real life”, I haven’t made a new friend in a very long time. Maybe I am more introverted than I appear to be, because altho I am very good at making acquaintances and appearing friendly, making that step to actual friendship is like making the commitment to start dating – I just don’t know how to make that step, so maybe Gem was right. On the other hand, like the article I just mentioned, I am assuming that friendship is a closer bond than most people desire/need/want? Maybe I should put an ad in the “personals”? Wanted: someone for friendship who likes to talk, going to craft shows and festivals, eating sushi, and doing stuff now and then. Sense of humor a must, being slightly offbeat a plus. Give me a holler at…….
Some folks just know what to say, don’t they? They can sit down and natter on about “stuff” – they call it “small talk” and I am lousy at it. I mean I can talk about the weather, I can ask questions about the person in front of me and get them to talking about themselves [probably everyone’s favorite topic, neh?], but if those two things don’t work? I’m in big trouble.
Blogging and/or writing letters is even tougher because you can’t get by with asking questions and nodding encouragingly at the right intervals. Some folks are pretty good at that and effortlessly spin off entire diatribes or reflections. I know this because I have my Newsblur reader is chock full of them. Me? I need a trigger – something that gets me started. I thought I was going to write about polyamory today because the Same Time Next Year came up in a conversation, but the thoughts got all convoluted and twisted and there wasn’t a clear beginning and no end and that didn’t work. Sometimes the trigger is a quote or an article or something that happened during the day. I could write about the 22 minutes it took me to get this month’s Medicare billing questions answered, but don’t think that is very interesting. So I decided to write about the need for a trigger and thought I would finish it up with a picture of one….
Er….. don’t think that was QUITE what I had in mind, but hey, it kinda sorta works here, doesn’t it?
Some of you may not know who the Vorlons are, especially if you have never watched Babylon 5. The Vorlons always asked one question, “Who are you?” How do you answer that question?
You can state your name, but does that actually identify who you are? Isn’t a name pretty much a label or indicator, just like a number would be, say your Social Security or Driver’s License number? Chances are it isn’t even unique, that if you google your name other people with the same name will pop up.
You can state your gender and your sexual orientation, but is that who you are? You can state your religious beliefs – Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Pagan, et al – but is that who you are? You can state your nationality or your ancestry, but if I say that I am an Irish/Welsh/Choptank/German who is a citizen of the United States, do you know who I am? You can state your race, but if I tell you I am a Caucasian, does that define me as an individual? What if you know what roles I fill, will that tell you who I am? I am a mother, step-mother, grandmother, cousin, friend, worker and I have been a lover, wife, daughter, granddaughter, manager, speaker – now do you know who I am?
I think not. What defines me as me are the choices that I have made and the way that I have dealt with the subsequent consequences of those choices. And I have to remember what those choices were and what paths I walked on my journey or I risk losing who I am. But if I am robbed my of memories by disease or accident, then who am I? How would I understand the story that I have lived? I don’t know, I would have to get to know myself all over again.
There were other questions that were asked: * What do you want? [by the Shadows] * What do you have to live for? [by Lorien] * Where are you going? [by Galen in Crusade] * Who do you serve and who do you trust? [by Galen in Crusade] But all that is a discussion for another day….
“Aging is an inevitable process. I surely wouldn't want to grow younger. The older you become, the more you know; your bank account of knowledge is much richer. ” ~ William Holden
In the Sword in the Stone by TH White, [the start of the Once and Future King triology] Merlin is a wizard because he remembers the future – he is growing old backwards and as time passes, he gets younger and younger, more reckless and less heedful of the world of risks around him as he loses the knowledge, skills and abilities that he once had.
Been thinking a lot about the fact that there are fewer years ahead of me than are behind me these days. Being active in a 2nd Life rather obscures that because my avatars are ageless, but getting forced onto Medicare even though I am working full-time was an eye-opening experience. While I am positive that my capacity for love and understanding has grown, and that I have extended the wealth of experiences I have been through, I am not sure as the years have passed that my “bank account of knowledge” has become that much richer, certainly I have more difficulty accessing it at times! Like Merlin, as we age, we tend to lose some of the mental acuity we once possessed and sometimes even the fine motor control we once had starts to fade. Worries about finances and health. Worries about becoming a burden to my kids cloud the future. And yet, I can admit that on the whole, I would keep on slogging through rather than give up.
Getting old may suck at times, but it sure beats the alternative, neh? Or as WC Fields once commented for an epitaph on his tombstone: “Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia.”
Live in the present today, which may sound kind of funny if you have to block it out on the calendar. Don't worry about that little paradox. Once you're in it, it'll make so much sense. Just keep that wild enthusiasm flowing, breathing in the inspiration of your perfect world. Whichever way you push, there's no resistance now. See how long you can make it work for you. Once you look back in amazement at how long this glorious chunk of 'now' has lasted, then that business with the calendar will start making sense.
It is an apt reminder on this day of all days. Why? Because each year on this day I have posted a picture of Frank somewhere, on a blog or in Twitter or in Facebook, because it is his birthday. Eleven years later? I will always remember, love, and miss my husband, but my first thought this morning was not that it was my departed husband’s 77th birthday, it was that my granddaughter is two today.
the 152nd day of the year (153rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 213 days remaining until the end of the year. Buddah's Birthday Global Day of Parents Heimlich Maneuver day National Go Barefoot, Leave the Office Early and Thank God It's Monday day Oscar The Grouch day Say Something Nice day Stand for Children day Day of Vesak
Everyone agrees that small businesses, as opposed to the big corporations, is what fuels the US economy. Defining what a small business actually IS doesn’t generate quite the same level of agreement. The SBA says one thing – and their definition comes pretty close to saying it depends on the industry and/or location. Lenders say another, and sometimes it depends on the size of the organization – to BOA a small business loan might be around $5M but for a small community bank, a small business loan might be closer to $50K. And sometimes regulators muddy the water with their requirements that do not scale, but that is an entirely different conversation.
The Banc Investment Daily reported an interesting statistic today, saying that Census Bureau research found “… 78% of all US businesses have no paid employees (mostly self-employed operating unincorporated businesses). For small businesses with employees, it is interesting to note the data indicates those with 1to 4 employees (61%); 5 to 9 (18%); 10 to 19 (11%); 20 to 99 (9%) and 100 to 499 (2%).” Chew on that statistic for a bit. According to the Census Bureau, out of every 100 people that are employed, 84 of them work someplace where there is less than 20 people in the business that employs them.
I found that to be a rather startling number. Now look at the huge number of articles and books [not to mention all the consultants and vendors] about knowledge management, productivity, organizational development, motivation, creativity training, new technology, etc etc and so forth. How many of these suggestions that are made, written about, touted as a great idea takes into account that what is keeping the CEO of Boeing awake at night probably has nothing to do with what is worrying the CEO of Acme Home Improvement? If small business is the backbone of the economy, don’t the writers and sellers understand that in a small shop there just aren’t the resources for certain dedicated functions, that everyone wears multiple hats? You seriously think with a sales and support staff of nineteen people, that owner is thinking about creating a Chief Happiness Officer? Or a Social Media Guru? Or a Knowledge Management department? IF small businesses are the true generator of GDP, then why isn’t there more concentration on the little guys with more accommodation to their needs and limitations?
Like the mankini, it would seem that most pitches are for a very small market segment. In business, as in fashion, one size seldom really fits all
I like things to match. Yeah I know, not in fashion sez the pundits who warn “don’t be matchy matchy”. I like having my underwear coordinated [what is it with the sellers of bras and panties that you can’t find sets these day? Seriously, bras on one page, panties on another and they don’t look at all alike. But I digress]. I like it when my shoes and pocketbook match. I like it when my jewelry coordinates with the outfit. And when things don’t match, it makes my eyes hurt – like plaids and stripes; color combos that jar; toenails that are painted a different color than the fingernails. I don’t judge what others wear/do, but I am pretty set in my ways for myself.
Now, let’s talk about bathrooms. No I am not going to get into the etiquette in public places – Gem in the Potty Talk segment of the late, lamented Bucket podcast did a great job with that. And I am not going to talk about the Squatty Potty or the need/market for Poo Pourri or lament the lack of the bidet in public bathrooms. No I am talking about the way that my bathroom LOOKS. When I moved, it was the first room in the new apartment that actually looked “finished” and became a restful place, so the appearance is rather important to me.
When I got up in the middle of the night last night, and dropped the ceramic cup in the bathroom sink, I have precipitated a crisis. The cup chipped. It is still usable, but the cup is quite definitely chipped. The ceramic trashcan and the ceramic tissue holder are already history [why in the world would you do CERAMIC for the bathroom anyway?]. The soap dispenser and now the cup are damaged. The towels are starting to fade a bit. In short, the entire bathroom set is about eight years old and beginning to look it. So why haven’t I replaced it? Good question.
You see, like I said, I like things that match. Right now? The shower curtain matches the rugs matches the toilet seat cover [alas the fashion of doing tank covers is gone] matches the rugs matches the accessories [the cup, the trashcan, the tissue holder, et al]. About a year ago, when the tissue holder broke, I decided to upgrade the look of the bathroom. And I ran smack dab into a wall. I started out with AMAZON – couldn’t find a whole “set” for the bathroom. Tried all kinds of different search criteria, nada. I could find accessories. I could find towels. I could find shower curtains. I could find rugs. But sets? NADA.
Okay, I thought. I’ll try Bed, Bath and Beyond. NADA
JC Penney’s? NADA
Sears? NADA
Walmart for heaven’s sake! NADA
This is really weird! What about eBay? NADA
Wow! okay, well it might cost more but what about Etsy? NADA
I googled, searched, rummaged, then gave up and went into a couple of stores. Not a single complete set was to be found, not even one that I could kinda, sorta piece together to my satisfaction. Am I the only person in the world who likes things to match? We’ll see if I have better luck this time.....
Today I was idly scanning the blogs that I accumulate on Newsblur [which is where I landed when Google pulled the plug on Reader] and ran across a Phys.org news article about the use of debt [specifically credit cards] by “economically vulnerable” households to maintain a lifestyle. Fascinated I read about “consumption smoothing,” which is apparently an economic theory that can be reduced to a mathematical equation.
Now unless you are a member of the fabulously wealthy 1% and have never ever had to worry about where the next meal is coming from, or how to make the rent [or house] payment, or been threatened with repossession of a car, or decided not to go to the doctor because it costs too much… *clears throat*
Let’s try that again. Unless you never have had to worry about money, you are probably familiar with the attitude one gets at times when you decide to live that middle class lifestyle because you consider yourself fairly well off. “Dagnabit!” the thought goes, “I get up and go to work every day and make decent wages and I want _____________” You fill in the blank. Maybe it is the latest tech toy. Maybe you would like to take a cruise or a trip to Disney World. Maybe you want to buy new clothes or shoes. Maybe you want to get your kids something special for their birthday/graduation/Christmas. Whatever it is, you put it on the credit card and it is more than you can pay off at the end of this month. Or the end of next month. Or by the time the next “dagnabit” moment arrives and you just want/need/crave that feeling that there is more to life than just paying bills. Or your crystal ball fails and suddenly you have a loss of income or someone gets sick or…..
Been there, done that, threw away the Tshirt. Once you are behind the proverbial 8-ball, you are just plain in trouble.
Maybe you should think about that “dagnabit” moment a bit before you go judging someone who is downright poor and maybe getting assistance and start self-righteously shaming them. Don’t they deserve a bit of feeling good about their lot in life too?
Second Life is not a game, but if it was, it would be classified as a “sandbox game” – no stated goal, no story supplied by LL to pursue. Of course, Second Life isn’t the only sandbox that relies on user-generated content to keep users coming back – Minecraft has rocketed to preeminence by doing just that, and some people have created pretty stunning works. And both of them do it “in world” as part of an immersive experience without users having to buy and learn third party programs for creation, and unsupported by the owners of the world in which they are creating.
As a matter of fact? The only thing LL does provide in SL are tools, about 95% of the existing content has been totally user-created, with the exception of certain designated Linden areas. Far from supplying support, they charge and charge heavily for the ability to create – without paying for land tier, you don’t have space for your prims, and the more that you want the higher the prices are. As a result, there are many sims that fade away – even ones that are touted on LL’s own destination guide. One of my personal favorites was the Pot Healer Adventure on Numbakulla Island, a MYST-based labor of love that took about ten hours to do correctly if you wanted to solve all the puzzles, with a stunningly complex visual environment, that faded into history when the owner could no longer justify spending $300+ every single month out of their own pockets to keep it going. And on a personal level, I have watched the dwindling of the Five Islands as folks are pinched by economic realities – just recently we lost Piper’s Point, and beladona’s beach had to downsize dramatically because of the monthly fees. But I digress….
My point is that user content is not superfluous to the enjoyment of the world, or the robustness of the marketplace in and around that world. It is, and should be in my not so humble opinion, a prime consideration for anyone who wants to build a platform that engages folks into a level of commitment where they are actually living there and becoming residents. Otherwise? It is a place to wander through, to visit, and it will not be compelling for any longer than it takes to explore what is there, live the story, and get to the end of a game.
----------------------> [User created content takes this and makes it into things like this]
May 25 is the 145th day of the year (146th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 220 days remaining until the end of the year.
Towel day -- don't panic!
Buddah day [celebrated]
Cookie Monster's Birthday
Nat'l Tap Dance day
Nerd or Geek Pride day
Prayer for Peace Memorial day
It is Memorial Day -- the unoffcial kickoff for summer, the day the fashion police tell us we can start wearing white shoes and clothing, carry straw and white bags, wear straw hats, etc.
And it is the day to remember that freedom is not and never has been free -- what we have has been and is still being paid for.....
I used to pride myself on having a “done” switch. There are times that I have flicked it purposefully, there are times when something just clicks all on its own. I don’t always know what triggers it, but I always can feel when it happens. And I can tell you that something changed yesterday – changed, shifted, altered, moved, shuffled, commutated, switched…. Hey, wait a minute! Maybe I don’t have to have a “switch” that is either on/off. Maybe I have a dial where I can choose the volume/bandwidth!
All I know is that for the first time in forever, I went to sleep with a smile.
I have been going back into memory lane quite a bit of late, courtesy of that app in Facebook. On this day, six years ago, I had my first interview with Devin. On this day last year, I had just arrived in WDW and was starting a great vacation with Cheryl and Ricky, which included Star Wars Weekend, the 24 hours celebration [we didn’t make it much past dark and it was way too hot to wear our costumes] and the Disney Dream .
Gem had an assignment when she graduated from high school to ask their parents questions -- she didn't have much to ask Chuck so I got most of them. She and Tom asked me "if I could change the past, what would I change?" They had often heard the story about how I blitzed out of my mother's house and landed with Bob that fall night in 1971 -- which being a good little Catholic girl, meant that Bob and I got married. They both thought that is what I would change, because if I hadn't married Bob then I wouldn't have married Chuck either. To their surprise I said that I wouldn't change anything. Why? Because without Bob I wouldn't have had Tom and without Chuck I wouldn't have had Gem, and there was nothing that I would change that would imperil having my kids in my life.. Yesterday, knowing that I was going to meet Kevin, I was thinking a lot about C&F, organizational change, being an active agent of that change, and how I used to find an isolated place on the rooftop and cry my eyes out over things that were happening. I told him about that, shaking my head at how het up I was, and he replied "are you telling me you have grown up?" My swift rejoinder, "Do I have too? Do I have to grow up and do I have to tell you about it:?" We both laughed.
AND I can repeat my mantra with every evidence of complete confidence: “I want to see myself as [1] a vibrant, caring, intelligent woman [2] who abides by the consequences of her past choices without living in regret [3] and looks with optimism to the future.”
There are two articles that struck me today as being pertinent to the way that we work and the way that we view work…
The first one was an article about “shadow work”, pointing out the role of tech in automating the service economy. This isn’t exactly a new development, is it? Remember how we laughed at the scene in Back to the Future when the gas station attendants swarmed the car when it pulled in? That film came out thirty years ago and we were already used to pumping our own gas, cleaning our own windows and checking our own oil. In 1988, ATMs hit the banking scene, and were called initially called “Harvey Wallbanker” to personalize them in order to convince folks to use them instead of going inside the branch. Along those lines, Equitable Bank of Maryland had a campaign where there were signs on all the branch doors:
<-- Tiny tellers this way Regular tellers this way -->
Nowadays? When was the last time you were even in a bank branch? And I’ll bet you have bagged your own groceries and maybe even gone through the self-service like where you scanned in the items and checked out yourself.
And as “shadow work” becomes more ubiquitous, there has been a proliferation of “contract” employment into the mainstream. The concept was that workers would enjoy flexible hours and still be able to make a living and the report states that dream isn’t materializing for most folks, according to this second article.
The question that I have is where is the entry point for newcomers to the job market if all the traditional service jobs have slowly faded away to shadow and contract work?
What would someone type into Google if they were searching about what I write about?
Now bear in mind that there are folks that make their living trying to figure out how to get companies and people in front of you, so just asking these questions and coming up with keywords and key phrases isn’t a magic formula by any means. But this lady got my attention with one simple statement that every would-be blogger has to figure out for themselves:
“If you want engagement (likes, comments, and subscribers), then target narrow and specific keyword phrases. If you want traffic (views and visitors), then target broad and generic keyword phrases. Don’t expect much engagement if you go for traffic, unless there isvery little competition in the space.”
And don’t forget that this blog is a public one – you aren’t going to control what is seen/read or how it is perceived – and think about what you are sharing. Discussing your work career may impact how current or future employers or fellow employees see you. Going on and on about virtual reality and alternate worlds may have some dismissing you as not founded in “real life”. Talking about M/s may identify you with that subculture.
So, why a blog? What do you have to say? And why should anyone read you?
Seems like there has been an awful lot written about the mind’s ability to impact circumstances and outcomes. I’ve been meandering about online as I work on not acquiring negative energies and I am constantly knocking up against the idea that “what you think you are, you are.” Not sure that I buy all that as I observe the folks around me and think back upon my own life, but real devotees have an answer for that because skepticism will keep the magic from happening, you know.
Hmmph.
Okay, let’s say that I am going to visualize the Carol that I want to be. I can relate somewhat to that, it is like creating an avatar for my 2nd Life, neh? Certainly I have always thought that beladona is pretty much me and even looks kinda like me [well maybe a bit idealized], although kalah and the others are not quite as well-rounded and are really only facets, so I can do this. Now where to start? Hmmmm, that isn’t as easy a question as I thought it was – I find that my thoughts go skipping around from family to followership to money and lifestyle to health and then spin off onto love and relationships and pets and careers and ….. Whoa wait a minute! Lots of things that I have no control over! Can’t change the choices that I have made in the past for one thing. Can’t change the people around me either. And unlike when I created Bela, I can’t put myself on a pose stand and give myself long thick red hair, or a complexion that will let me rock the gray look.
So this creative visualization only works with things that are in the realm of my control, and not in the sphere of my influence? That isn’t what I was getting from the descriptions – you are supposed to visualize an outcome and believe in it and the universe will make it happen, neh? So how do I want to see myself? How about relaxed and glowing, living in Florida and working for the House of the Mouse? Oh and I don’t have to worry about money and I am now a size 12. Meh, that still doesn’t seem like I’ve really got the “right” idea, although there are success stories online that say people have done just those kinds of things through meditation and/or writing down what you want 15 times a day to focus yourself on the desired end result or maybe giving themselves positive self-talk lectures.
Maybe, since this is an offshoot of my musing about how to say goodbye, what I am really asking is how I want to be remembered? No, that doesn’t sound right either because this isn’t about the legacy I will leave behind me, this is about the life that I am leading and the person that I am today. I want to see myself as [1] a vibrant, caring, intelligent woman [2] who abides by the consequences of her past choices without living in regret [3] and looks with optimism to the future.
BINGO! I can visualize that! Now to be that reality…..
Today the sad tale of Lotte drew to a close. Tears pricked my eyelids as I read the short post that stated it had come time to say goodbye to their baby.
I have been thinking a lot on the subject of farewells these days, with the accompanying tears. There are times when I go to say goodbye and am suddenly overwhelmed with the thought that this might be the last time I have a chance to say goodbye. That thought obtruded when I was hugging Bonita and JK and turned away to head for the gate of the plane, the feeling that we were blithely parting just like it was a sure thing that we would see each other again across the miles….
Sometimes you just know, neh? Two examples stand out in my mind:
I vividly remember saying goodbye a few years back to a man I had met, shared much with, and spent a lot of time with. I can tell you what I was wearing that hot and muggy July morning. I can tell you how I felt standing on the Metro platform and watching him drive away, hoping he would look back so I could wave -- he didn’t and I always thought he was on the phone already. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I wiped them away, glancing around and hoping that no one would notice, and I knew in my heart that this was a final parting of our ways.
When I went to see my mother that last time in the nursing home two years ago and I knew that visit was the last one because she had started refusing to eat . Odd, I can’t remember what I said to her, something along the lines of it was okay if she wanted to go and that I was sorry I was never the daughter that she wanted me to be but I loved her anyway. I don’t even know if she heard me. We had such a stormy, troubled relationship and I don’t know if either of us got closure that day, but I tried….
Sometimes, most of the time really, you have no idea that you have said your last words. I have often told the story of the one day I failed to go through the little ritual of farewell with Frank when he left for work; he didn’t come home and I have grieved over that omission for more than a decade.
I try to be a lot more careful these days when I take leave of those that I love, and even those that I work with. You never know when -- or if -- you will get a chance to bid them farewell again and the foot prints that they leave on your spirit never fade..
There was an incident on Friday that troubled me – I received what purported to be a Mothers’ Day card from her, with her picture that she uses in a profile. When I clicked through, it asked that I agree to let the application use my Google contacts, and yes I agreed. Then the page came up “not found”
Of course I assumed it was a problem with the website getting along with the security filters at work and tried again later at home. Only after it failed there did I email my daughter and found out it was bogus. Sometimes I have to castigate myself for not being the brightest bulb in the lot, I’ll admit.
It was a very targeted phishing ploy that used my daughter’s photo and the holiday to sail right past common sense precautions -- and it worked. But it brings up a couple of interesting questions:
Just how “secure” is the information that we keep in our Gmail contacts?
Do you need to control who puts you in a “circle” on G+? Twitter doesn’t let you control who “follows” you either, for the record. Neither does Pinterest, for that matter. Facebook has security settings, but I am informed that mine are inadequate because I let “friends of friends” see things.
And, more importantly, if you are posting or writing or blogging for the general public, are you somehow endangering not only yourself but everyone around you?
For example: My daughter and I have finally agreed to disagree about posting pictures of her family anywhere online. I obviously am very proud of my family and would love to share photos of her and her family, especially as my granddaughter grows. Both my daughter and her husband are very convinced that my doing so is an invasion of their privacy that is at best reckless and inconsiderate and at worst downright dangerous. Things came to a head a few months back when I posted a picture of my granddaughter’s shirt [a picture cropped to take out her face and the surroundings] – and I capitulated – her family, her rules for one thing. And the other thing is a concern that they might be right.
[Please note that I am hardly starved for pictures of my granddaughter. They send pictures by text now and then, and share on Facebook quite often. They give me a lovely book album every six months, share school pictures, upload to a family site in Shutterfly.]
Another example: my friend has remonstrated with me over posting such information about myself as I did last week about my employment history, stating that I was damaging my professional creditability. While I disagree with her, and it certainly is not the kind of story I would share in a professional network such as LinkedIn, her question touches on an aspect of office politics that I have never been good at – how do you manage others’ perceptions? My answer has always been that I don’t, I let ‘em make up their own minds, but I have to admit that once a perception is created, it is well nigh impossible to alter or even modify.
Am I being naïve to think that being open makes for a more interesting and engaging internet? Have the trolls and phishers and spammers already won? My heart says no, but then I see that targeted message and wonder if I am about to be taken for a fool….
Facebook has a relatively new feature called “On This Day”. The purpose of this little app is to go back and show you any posts that you made on this particular day through the years. For someone like me who has been on Facebook since 2007, and who posts lots of links of things that I find interesting amongst the occasional status update and picture, sometimes there is a lot to go through! Now and then there are posts that really catch my attention. Today was one of those posts.
Posted at 10:04AM on Friday, May 8th, 2009, it simply said: “is unemployed”. MainStreet Lender had let me go, citing an error I made with 1502 reporting that cost the company $5K back in March and a general dissatisfaction with my performance. The last thing that was said to me was I obviously was not suited for working in a smaller organization and should think about going to an organization that could provide more support. MSL gave me one month’s severance pay because I agreed to resign rather than be fired. I was blindsided and totally crushed, and terrified to be out of work at a time when the recession was deepening.
IMNSHO? The $5K error notwithstanding, they really didn’t have any idea of what it was that I was actually doing all day. Insufficient resources were allocated to the Loan Servicing function and their expectations of what could be accomplished were unreasonable. However, I also think it was my failure – I did not impart to those in charge just how much was needed, and give a clearer picture of the way that I was prioritizing the work load and why. And a couple weeks later, I learned that they actually had eliminated my position, convinced that the other woman who was working insurance coverage could easily handle all of loan servicing. It became quickly apparent she could not, but since the company was actually purchased a few months later, it made little difference. Some other folks were let go, and I have no idea what happened after that.
This marked a low point in my life. I hadn’t been fired from a job since 1972 and obsessed over my failure. I gamely started the job search, but couldn’t even get past a phone interview at first. And two weeks later, I got a letter from the Enclave telling me that my lease was up. Last, unbeknownst to me at the time, the lingering malaise that I had been dealing with health wise was a rampaging MRSA infection that was steadily getting worse despite going back and forth to the doctor. Sick, unemployed and about to lose my apartment…. I remember very clearly giving way to complete despair, literally collapsing on the floor and sobbing that I just couldn’t handle it. And then things turned around.
I was hired into my current position at Potomac Business Services, which ironically is a much smaller organization than MSL. It was a drastic cut in pay and position, but it was also an easier commute and much more reasonable working hours. I had a job – and it has turned into a very good position with people I like to work with and who at least appear to appreciate my KSA. I was able to sign a new lease, moved out of the three bedroom apartment that I had lived in with my mother, and into my current apartment. For the first time in my life, I was living in a place that was just for me! Thanks to my daughter’s intervention, with a change of doctor, the infection was finally identified and eradicated.
And here I am, six years later, looking back and feeling very very grateful to be where I am
From the Banc Investment Daily for today: "• Rate Hikes: The Fed has upgraded its phone system reportedly to have maximum flexibility when contacting the press for impromptu briefings when it begins to raise interest rates or other significant events occur."
In and amongst the financial news, the speculation of just when the Federal Reserve is going to raise rates has been rife. Notice I said WHEN the rates will go up, not IF. Borrowers are rushing to refinance and some commercial lenders are giving out fixed rate terms for long periods of time, like ten years. This is a problem.
Why? Rates have been unusually low since 12.16.2008 when PRIME hit 3.25%, and before that the PRIME rate actually was falling for a 1 ½ years [since it was 8% on 06.29.2006]. That means for the past nine years, lenders and decision makers have been accustomed to either a low or steady interest rate and have planned accordingly. The folks who remember the days back in 1980’s and 1990’s when PRIME bounced around almost every day, who lived through a rising rate environment and know how to hedge the risks that entails, are pretty much gone now. The planning and risk management committees have forgotten that once PRIME soared to 20.5% [May 1981] and no longer have safeguards in place to handle the rising rate environment. Lenders have put assets on their books that will not reprice with the changes in the market and that is going to cause problems with capital and investments. Anyone who lived through the crisis with the US Savings & Loans and Thrifts will remember what happens when you are locked into a set of low-interest assets during a high-interest period!
I remember a scene in a movie or TV show that I saw a long time ago: a little girl in the old West explained to a little boy she met that she thought each person only had an allotted number of steps they could take in their lives, so she always took great big giant steps so as not to use them up too fast. She died soon after [I don’t remember if it was an accident, an Indian raid, or illness] and the little boy stood over her grave and heartbrokenly said something to the effect that he just didn’t know she had so few steps left and he was so sorry he ever chased her….
I wonder if the same theory could hold true for the number of words one uses in their lifetime?
When things are going well, I always have tended to chatter. My mother used to fuss because I would wake up talking and go to sleep telling myself stories. In grade school, I spent a lot of time with my desk in the hall because I constantly spoke in class without permission. In later years, it was forcibly brought home to me that I also chattered at work because when I would fall silent, everyone commented on it and then would ask me if I was sick When I am interested in someone romantically? I talk, ask questions, make comments, invite inquiries because to me it is a way to strengthen the connection. The flow of words – written and spoken -- washes across the landscape of my life like the rays of the sun.
But at times the well of words dries up. There are no more questions. There is no fund of small talk. I don’t know what to say, not even to myself. And silence is very hard for me and on me; it is the place where negative energy accumulates for me and it is difficult for me to discharge it.
The thought obtrudes that perhaps I have used up my allotted number of words before my time is done and that is why the cone of silence has descended......
Ever since Ferguson, I have noticed that in social media, there is a tendency to portray cops as either goose-stepping Nazis or good ole boys, and to lambast them for insensitivity for the public they serve and a trigger-happy mentality. The situation in my beloved Baltimore has only crystallized the sense that the police are beleaguered. On Saturday a brief exchange with a very dear friend revealed to me just how much that categorization genuinely troubles me and I’m afraid that my liberal card may be revoked.
Her comment was along the lines: This is the police’s fault; that arrest was invalid and never should’ve happened
My reaction was a spurt of anger: The arrest was perfectly valid. Said perp had an extensive rap sheet/history and he ran.
-- of course he ran! You would run too if all your life you had been beat up by the police.
-- No. If you run then you have something to hide and he was a known criminal.
Silence for a moment.
We agreed to disagree.
Granted I was married to a cop for almost twenty years. Altho Frank was in the Crime Lab, not patrol, when I was with him, I have, perhaps, a better sense of the day-in-day-out conditions. A cop goes to work and immediately becomes invisible, all people see is the uniform and that is what they react to. The working conditions are usually pretty grungy and gritty. The Wire? Hill Street Blues? CSI? Forget that sugar coating. Think Barney Miller, take out the humor and add a grinding feel of not being valued by the very people you are trying to protect. When I think about being a cop, I remember what a guy once told me during the Vietnam War – he had volunteered for the Marines and he commented “you can’t trust anyone but another Marine, and you f**king hate the Marines.” Being a cop is rather like that at times.
So what happened that night in Baltimore? It was just another ordinary confrontation, no respect on either side. Freddie Gray was probably sullen, defiant, and resentful and thinking “why don’t you get away from me you #$%& and leave me alone”. The cops who faced him were probably belligerent and suspicious, but I bet they thought “don’t you run you #$%&*. If you run I’m going to have to chase you and take you down and then I have to arrest you”. He ran. They chased him, caught him, arrested him, put him in the van. Up to that point it was all just part and parcel of the deadly boring everyday routine. They weren’t out to get him. They weren’t brutalizing him. They were just doing their jobs. But Freddie Gray’s life ended in that van, and that shouldn’t have happened. And the six cops that made decisions that night have lost their jobs. they have lost a lot of other things too as they face charges, as they go back over and over the sequence of events, asking themselves what went wrong when because Freddie Gray shouldn’t have died that night, and he died on their watch in their custody. Yes, Freddy Gray matters. Yes, black lives matter. Yes ALL lives matter. But don’t forget that the police are not the villains or the oppressors, and they matter too.
My friend commented that something has to change and that I think we can all wholeheartedly agree with.
“ The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility. ”
CEOExpress
ME
----------------------> 
