Stamp Out . . Never Mind. Don't Stamp Out Anything, Please. Who Am I to Suggest What Should Be Stamped Out?

What I once needed to know about.
 I learned it well.

David's brilliant and he knew when he hired me in 2007 that he wanted to get me well-established in the office and then send me to carpet cleaning school. I was neither eager nor resistant. It was just on the to-do list. When the time came, I went to university and was immediately intrigued. I found I did know a little about the subject since I'd worked  with textiles a lot in life and I am of the era when females were required to take home economics in school. Oh, we not only made pillow cases and ruffled aprons, we learned all bout the process of milling the fabric from cotton, warp, woof, weave and more. We were well rounded girls. In my carpet course, I was the only female, so I got extra attention from the instructor: read this "tutoring/mentoring", not "arranging a date". Man, I can talk warp, woof, fourth generation nylon and the synthetics made mostly from recycled plastic bottles (hell for carpet cleaners - plastic doesn't clean as easily as natural fibers). When it came time to take the test, I was hooked - a carpet cleaning nerd - and took a notion to ace the test. David and I later laughed: when he noticed it was time for the test to begin, he thought, "She's going to try to ace it." We knew each other that well 3 months after meeting one another. I didn't ace the test. I got 96% or 97%, an achievement I held over the heads of the actual carpet technicians for years when they got cocky with me. Knowing about carpets and cleaning them was good for me. I could talk to customers so brilliantly, I'm sure their eyes glazed. I could take fine woolen rugs from walk-in customers and dazzle them with my superior grasp of the care and feeding of their valuable asset. The one time I attempted a few swipes across some carpet with "the wand", I learned what separated the men from the woman, but I still knew my stuff, intellectually. David called that one beautifully. Make certain the person on the phone knows something. My certification expired last month. I didn't renew it because that wasn't part of my life any longer.

What I need to know about now.
I'm learning at warp speed.

Generally speaking, my immediate new task is to bring one narrow finger of David's and George's successful business empire into the 21st century. Oh, this slim portion of the enterprise has been quite promising for years, but it operates on the "write in pen on copied forms kept in 3-ring binders" model. Oh, and "don't forget this - write it down somewhere". So things have been written on scraps of paper and kept in perpetuity. Important things. Things that should not be entrusted to paper scraps, perhaps. Once more, it's my role first to make this business run like a modern-day operation. No. David wants more than that. David wants this machine to run like a world-class business. After all, it's highly successful and we're looking to g-r-o-w. Quickly and exponentially. That means I need to know a little something about what it is we do. What we do here is locate collectibles and sell them to collectors/investors. The primary focus is on valuable postage stamps. There is a 75-80 year demonstrable history of this investment losing virtually no ground,

The Inverted Jenny

 ever. Oh, yeah, their value grows about as quickly as watching grass propagate on delayed-action film . But they don't lose and they do increase in worth. I knew how to spell philatelic, pronounce it and understand its meaning. That was about it. In the first week, I learned some things: the first postage stamp was a product of the British Post Office in 1840. In quick succession, the Penny Black, Penny Blue and Penny Other Colors appeared, and their cost today may startle the reader. I learned inside 5 days the difference between the Blue, the Black, the Red, the Brown, and not by looking at their color. I know some of the provenance and urban legend and the reasons these items are more valuable than the better-known Inverted Jenny with the biplane accidentally printed upside down. I still have everything in the world to learn, but here's something else I deduced in just a few days: my crash into alcoholic hell didn't wash away all my brain cells. I can still learn. And fast.

Stamp Girl - my newest, 
temporary (?) alter ego. 
Long may she stamp!

True story. Summer of 2007 when A1 Carpet Care still shared digs with David's and George's other interests. Though we'd known each other only a month or two, David already knew I was drawn to vintage, venerable things, paper ephemera, history and romantic notions. "Would you like to see something wonderful?" Sure I would! Who doesn't want to see something wonderful? He held it out in a pair of tweezers and began to speak. " . . British, 1861 . ." Well, I am a human being. I did what I am hardwired to do. Yep. Reached out my hand and took that stamp between my fingertips. Very bad form. The realization hadn't hit me yet when he began to tell me all the reasons why we didn't handle them barehanded. He never raised his voice, flinched or used colorful language. I didn't damage the stamp. I learned something. It must be noted, I also "shop" with my hands. I buy nothing I haven't touched. If my hands are soiled or if I damage the goods in some way, I'll remedy that, but I "see" with my paws. But no longer with stamps. I've now handled a few. I  have tweezers and white nylon gloves and archival paper sleeves and . . . hey, you live, you learn. Given my degree of efficiency and the speed at which I take on life, we're lucky I didn't affix that stamp to an envelope and await dictation of the recipient's address!

George, David and I met for awhile each of the 5 days of the first week. Mostly, I brought an agenda, a list, questions, suggestions. Mostly they made decisions and heard my arguments in favor of this or against that. Ultimately, they asked me to lose every shred of hesitation, to move forward fast in combat boots and to ask forgiveness later (if needed), which they would grant. Apropos of not very much, the one who knows me best brought it up. I didn't mention it and hadn't really thought of it. "She hates 'secretary'. I don't want anyone to call her 'secretary'." And I do, too. It's the word and perception mostly. I am helpful and accommodating to anyone who comes my way in business, but if one calls me anything other than "Les", I'm touchy about what appellation is chosen. George looked startled. "Why would anyone call her that? That's not what she does here." David and I began the chorus: "only female among men, pleasant to everyone, greeter, sits near the front of the business." OK. George got it. "Well, we'll get business cards and a name plate. What are we going to call her?" Ah ~ a business meeting with time spent on weighing words . . my idea of heaven. I suggested "queen". They laughed, but did not agree. We settled on "manager". I am the manager of the business. I like that one!

A quote that pleased me: "The philatelist will tell you that stamps are educational, that they are valuable, that they are beautiful. This is only part of the truth. My notation is that the collection is a hedge, a comfort, a shelter into which the sorely beset mind can withdraw. It is orderly, it grows towards completion, it is something that can't be taken away from us." - Clifton Fadiman in Any Number Can Play.

To my surprise: No one - no one - commented on the picture of me in the previous post shooting a gun in the desert, Diet Dr. Pepper at the ready, tattered bullseye targets at the table. That would be a sight calling for the quick and firm application of brakes, folks!

Something that charmed me to tears: Justin returned to work upstairs as a carpet cleaner. He'd been banished much longer than a year. Justin doesn't ask permission for hugging. Justin hears the news, comes downstairs looking for me and says (arms extended), "Hey, Girl, come here." I did. He did. "What's new, honey?" "Same old, same old, Les." "Not me, Dude. Everything is new and wonderful!" "OK, Les.  Me, too!" Good! Now, go earn money!

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

I have worked in some places where the decor of the office seemed almost more important than the mission of the enterprise. At a certain business where I was lady in waiting to a three person executive committee, there were high standards set even for the administrative assistants who sat in tiny cubicles barely large enough to contain their desks, chairs and computers. One framed 5" x 7" photo of the family or pet was allowed, a clean coffee mug may be placed on the desk if it sat on a coaster, a single flower in a bud vase (not wilted, please) was allowed, but not a green plant . . sheesh. However, should some administrative assistant decide she didn't care for the restrictions and would simply not decorate . . . oh, bad mistake. She was perceived as not being a team player. In my own office in the corporate wing, I displayed objets d' art worth a month's salary, and purchased by me personally. It was expected. That was then. This is now. I'm not corporate any more.

A couple of posts back, I wrote about David providing the best of everything we need to do our jobs exceedingly well. It's true ~ he does. So come on, board my bus and ride with me to the door of my much loved workplace. I'll give you the tour!

Here is how the technology serves me. Dual monitors show me the jobs pending and YouTube. GPS shows me where each of the home dudes is at any given time, whether his ignition is on, how fast he's going, whether he's at a stop, and how long any of that has been going on.








I could take pictures and write words about the fine equipment and machinery the homes have at hand, but I'm not sure readers of this blog would find a dissertation about solution hoses and buddy jugs and HydroForces and throttles all that exciting. Suffice it to say we are all provided with what we need to execute the job well.

And then, in the spirit of the corporate paisley palace, we have certain aesthetics we enjoy. On one small space of wall, I display framed Badger art and a plaque with a favored Lincoln quote, "Whatever you are, be a good one." There are lovely, healthy plants, as well as the bromeliad sisters. Mr. Redfish occupies one corner of my desk alongside his stuffed cat, and the parakeets enjoy a sunny spot in a window. But there, I suspect, ends any resemblance to any other business office one can think of. I think the rest of what we have going on would please Lewis Carroll and others who are freethinkers and whimsical. Traditionalists probably would not find us charming. That's OK. I'm not corporate any more.


After one scratches the surface of our high-tech environment, it turns out that we are simple people, elemental and quirky ones at that. If anyone remembers the rallying cry from the movie The Perfect Storm, "We're Gloucestermen!", we have a similar one. "We're carpet cleaners!" We know what we are - no illusions, no pretensions. We know how to use technology, but we do many things simply in ways that work. Period. No frills. So while I sit at a cherry desk suitable to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the other furniture surfaces in the room are folding tables and a bookcase so laughable it defies description. Though I sit seductively attractive under my mood lighting, when the front door opens and the sun shines in, one could get a snicker or two. I was musing on why I get so many nasties on the telephone, while virtually everyone who walks through our doors gives a large smile. Some of them stand in the entryway with their faces nearly split in half by a big old cheeser. What? Nasty people only use the phone and nice people only come in person? That's a bit hard to accept. And then it occurred to me. Maybe the in-person visitors are laughing at us! Especially the ones who ask about certain objects or get the grand tour. Come on! Join me. I'll show you around.

The white rectangular object is my portable safe. Inside it, I keep all the things a small business manager would keep inside her safe. On top of it I keep but two of my vast collection of coyote gourd maracas and a piece of dried coyote gourd vine, placed before a lovely framed print of some gourds. The X you see is a pair of large ancient, heavily rusted nails from the abandoned mines at the dunes where I spent solstice. On the paper plate are rocks I collected at the Valley of Fire and the dunes. I've met few rocks in the desert that I didn't want to bring home. A visitor to our office who was seated pretty far across the room from me thought I had a paper plate filled with pieces of meat. I wouldn't want to bite into my rocks! I don't eat meat. My safe is bolted to the middle of a six foot folding table. Any thief who thought to leg it with my safe would have a terrible time maneuvering it all through the door! The little vignette on top of the safe is art to me. I'm not corporate any more.

Behold two shelves of the Through the Looking Glass bookcase. I will describe the items displayed and the reader will draw his own conclusion. It is an explanation of the bookcase items that generally brings on the fixed smile to the visitor's face. There is my coffee mugs that says "Don't make me bring out the flying monkeys." This is warning from me to the homes. See my plaque that says "Learn From Yesterday", my bag of potpourri, four rocks collected in the desert outside of Baker and my coyote leg bone with hide and sinew clinging. The coffee mug that says "meticulosity" was selected for me by a young fan who considers me her mentor. She said the word should be tattooed upon my forehead so everyone will know from the beginning. There is a small collection of books on the upper shelf and a collection of more serious books on the lower, including a volume of Emily Dickinson and a large 1920s Spanish/English dictionary. There is a ceramic seashell holding an artificial lemon and there is a lovely decorative gourd made for me by Mother Badger featuring a strawberry design. Every single item on those shelves means something to me. Each has a story and I like sharing space with it all. I'm not corporate any more.

World class data collection and storage system: this one was difficult for me. I am not the sharpest tool in the shed about some things. Our radios go off continually, new information coming in at a quick pace. Who bought fuel, where and for how much? Credit card payments need to be recorded, and daily bank deposits. David, Troy and I can each take the radio transmission and it was impractical to have all three of us accessing the same reports and documents at the same time. How to manage all of that? Well, I'm a natural at creating the charts and spreadsheets. But we all needed to have access to all the information all the time. It was David who showed me how to insert a pushpin into the drywall, place the chart or spreadsheet on a bright plastic clipboard, and voila! No pre-existing policy or procedure, no required forms at hand from the beginning. Just figure it out and make it work. I'm not corporate any more.

Our world is replete with every imaginable kind of alert tone, announcement noise and attention grabber. Some of the tones are common to all of us and some are highly individual. A few of the homes are partial to an announcer that sounds like a toddler giggling and then farting. When the Badger drops me an e-mail, it is announced by the sound of a bicycle bell. One morning, a noise was heard that caused everyone to stop talking and look toward my desk. "What the hell, Les? What's that one?" "That's my timer, homes." For I get up from my desk every half hour and do something. I hula hoop or do wall push-ups. I use the wobble board or do stretches or use the weights or resistance bands you see pictured. My job can be deeply stressful. I need to break the tension and keep my body healthy. I do this for me. I'm not corporate any more.

I'd like to thank the reader for joining me on the bus ride and the tour today. Please come again, as there is much more to share about this little world. I like to share. I like to connect in some way with others. I'm not corporate any more.

In my ears right now: I posted a Gloria Estefan song in my last writing. Thinking about Gloria Estefan makes one think about Jon Secada and I went into a reverie. In 1992, a two-year-old thought I was the most remarkable, amazing and wonderful woman. She wanted to be just like me. She wanted blue eyes like mine, even though I think her nearly black ones are the most lovely I've ever seen. She wanted to wear clothes that looked like mine. We each had a "twirly" skirt. In our twirly skirts we danced to Jon Secada. The video is unremarkable 1990s MTV, VH1 video and the song is merely "catchy". But when Jon put his hands and arms in the air and moved his body, we put our hands and arms in the air and moved our bodies. And we twirled. And we danced.

Something that charmed me: Cesar worked for 10 years running a route for a porta-potty business. He knows every street in this valley and he knows when most of the developments were built within that 10 years. He knows every intersection and which ones have stop signs or lights. Cesar and Justin were partnered one day, Cesar at the wheel like always. Too late, already into the intersection, he realized a new stop sign had been put up at a spot that had not previously had one. One does not want to try to stop one of our war wagons on a dime so Cesar kept rolling, quickly checking his rearview and looking from side to side. The cops had him in a heartbeat and he thought, "Ticket!" as he pulled over to the curb. He rolled down the window and looked for the approaching officer in his rearview and side mirrors. No cop! What was going on? Typically, they do not hide themselves. In the meantime, Justin was fumbling at his belt for his BlackBerry holster. For, you see, I had just chirped Justin. And Justin had assigned to me the police siren alert tone.

Time to Tidy Up

I broke out the DustBuster on Sunday. Oh, it's literally true that there was some crumbly debris in the crevice between the carpet and the baseboard. I got it up and then tried to locate some coffee grounds or cat hair or anything, really, to pull up into my DustBuster. It took me a moment to notice the symptoms. For when I start obsessively vacuuming, it is metaphorical. It means I need to tidy things up. Ex used to joke that when I was "chewing on things", trying to restore some order to myself, he would run out to tell the neighbors to throw open their doors because I was on the way down the street with the vacuum cleaner.

I am not "troubled", exactly. It's more like my head is filled to maximum capacity and some of the voices are speaking too loudly. Some of it is about my writing and some about other aspects of life. I'm unsettled and dissatisfied with myself and it's time to regroup and become tidy again. I want to write and I also want to read the writing of other bloggers. I want to do something with the closet that almost contains all the crafting materials and - oh, yes - I'd really like to make something with said crafting materials. I want to make a huge crockpot of red sauce and feed people, but I can't focus to buy the thoroughly well memorized ingredients.

I have an unruly queue of posts waiting in the wings. I want to finish Chapter 2 of The Field Trip and I've still not told the best Sugarhouse story of them all, despite having written Chapters I, II, and III and about the Secret Order of the Sugarhouse Hoppy Taw Society. The holidays came and I got distracted writing about them. I need to get us out of Sugarhouse and on with the ensuing 50 years! I still have a mountain of photos to share from the last camping trip and the one before that, and there are three embryonic posts about the things I see and experience "out there".

The race weekend unsettled me as they always do if I cannot be present. One wants to be at the race, given some meaningful occupation. One wants to drive ahead, get out, wait for the peloton to appear, check out his position and form, assess his well-being, and repeat the process. One wants to hand up water at the designated place on the course, and if one fails to plant the water in his hand, she cobbles a plan to drive forward, get out where she can easily be seen and keep trying to give that water until she succeeds. Only the first race of the season has been completed. Knowing the hellish conditions he rode in, I found it particularly difficult to watch the clock, watch the radar, watch the hour-by-hour weather and hope not to receive a phone call too early for him to have finished. It's going to be a busy spring, with races near and far.

This morning, at the intersection of Desert Inn Road and Durango Drive, my (almost) four-year-old car turned 20,000 miles. At the moment the digital display flipped from 19999 to 20000, it hit me that I had an empty BlackBerry holster in my purse. I did the 360, went home, collected the device from the exact spot where I knew it would be, and made it to work on time. It is not like me to be so forgetful, and particularly about the BlackBerry that is always at my fingertips.

For Tag and for Kirk (and anyone else, of course), I saw a news article that revisits an old topic once presented on this blog. It seems the Neon Boneyard is undergoing some changes and perhaps some day soon, I won't have to contemplate jumping the fence to commune with those venerable things.

Friend Tag had something cool on his blog this morning and I'm going to snag it from him, as Kass has already done. Its theme is what happened in my birth year. I like trivia games and round robin games. I've been known to start one or two and participate in more. I'm going to process mine a little differently, however, leaving out the boilerplate stuff that applies to everyone's birth year and commenting on the things that strike me. I have a few entries of my own to add, as well.

What happened the year I was born.

In 1952, the world was a different place. There was no Google yet. Or Yahoo. I seem to remember that.

In 1952, the year of your birth, the top selling movie was This Is Cinerama. People buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazed eyes when looking at the poster. They were still showing it widely 8 years later when I was taken to see it. I remember the trip over the Grand Canyon and the virtual roller coaster ride.

Remember, that was before there were DVDs. Heck, even before there was VHS. People were indeed looking at movies in the cinema, and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the laughter, the excitement, the novelty. And mostly all of that without 3D computer effects. It was also before colored TV and transistor radios.

In the year 1952, the time when you arrived on this planet, books were still popularly read on paper, not on digital devices. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time was The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain. Oh, that's many years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it? It resided on my parents' bookcase and I have read it.

In 1952, West Germany has 8 million refugees inside its borders. I was born not so very long after World War II.

Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom at St. James's Palace, London, England. This pleases me as I am an Anglophile and I think she is a practical, likable woman who knows how to do things we might not expect of her. She did active military service in World War II and when an intruder entered her bedroom in Buckingham Palace, she talked him down while she rang for assistance. She shoots and is outdoorsy. Ex was fascinated by the pastel purse that always hangs from her forearm. He was convinced she kept a gun in there in case she had to take care of herself in a dust-up. She certainly wouldn't need to carry a wallet and ID and money. She has other people to do that for her.

The Diary of Anne Frank is published. I first read it very young. It was my first awareness of Jews and what they suffered. At the time I read it, I didn't know there were bad things one's father couldn't prevent from happening. It terrified me.

The United States Army Special Forces is created. A British passenger jet flies twice over the Atlantic Ocean in the same day. Martial law is declared in Kenya due to the Mau Mau uprising. The first successful surgical separation of Siamese twins is conducted in Mount Sinai Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio.

The Nobel prize for Literature that year went to François Mauriac. The Nobel Peace prize went to Albert Schweitzer. The Nobel prize for physics went to Felix Bloch and Edward Mills Purcell from the United States for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith.

The 1950s were indeed a special decade. The American economy is on the upswing. The cold war betwen the US and the Soviet Union is playing out throughout the whole decade. Anti-communism prevails in the United States and leads to the Red Scare and accompanying Congressional hearings. Africa begins to become decolonized. The Korean war takes place. The Vietnam War starts. The Suez Crisis war is fought on Egyptian territory. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and others overthrow authorities to create a communist government on Cuba. Funded by the US, reconstructions in Japan continue. In Japan, film maker Akira Kurosawa creates the movies Rashomon and Seven Samurai. The FIFA World Cups are won by Urugay, then West Germany, then Brazil. I think of the 1950s as cold and steely gray. No color. The cold war, men with gray hair in gray suits driving big gray Dodges, sterile scientific progress being made everywhere.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in November, 1952. For me, he epitomizes the men with no color, the men with gray hair in gray suits driving big gray Dodges. And yet . . . Stepfather was an aficionado of Norman Rockwell paintings and the art on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. He was generally Rockwell's age and he appreciated the images that reflected life in his era. I am not particularly a Rockwell fan, but when Stepfather organized a group he took to lunch and then to a Rockwell exhibit, I went along. I am not a Rockwell fan, but I was a Stepfather fan. The museum was packed with patrons ogling the magazine cover images. I roamed around, not impatiently, and landed before Rockwell's portrait of Eisenhower. Although painted mainly in white and neutral tones, this image utterly screams color. It is warm and exudes light. This must have been what the man was like in real life. Colorful and engaging. It was painted in 1952, the year of my birth.

Do you remember the movie that was all the rage when you were 15? In the Heat of the Night. I do, but Bonnie & Clyde rings my bell more clearly. My father took a girlfriend and me to see it at a drive-in. It was a grand outing until a bedroom scene showed itself and Clyde's lack of sex drive was discussed. One of the most uncomfortable moments I've ever spent in my father's presence. Today we'd just cackle about it. Then it was excruciating.

Do you still remember the songs playing on the radio when you were 15? Maybe it was Ode to Billy Joe by Bobbie Gentry. I remember. I didn't Google this, I have that thing for lyrics, remember? "It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty delta day, I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay . . . ."

Were you in love? Certainly.

Who were you in love with, do you remember? I've never forgotten for a moment.

When you were 8, there was Pollyanna. I wanted to be as adorable as Hayley Mills. I still want to be as adorable as Hayley Mills.

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... it's 1952. There's TV noise coming from the second floor. Someone turned up the volume way too high. The sun is burning from above. These were different times. The show playing on TV is Kukla, Fran and Ollie. The sun goes down. Someone switches channels. There's The Ed Sullivan Show on now. That's the world you were born in. I was introduced to my Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show at age 11 in 1964.

"Progress", year after year. Do you wonder where the world is heading? The quotation marks are my addition. I'm not sure we are making "progress". I'm a bit jaded, a little cynical. I am terrified about where the world is heading.

The technology available today would have blown your mind in 1952. Do you know what was invented in the year you were born? The Floppy Disk. Optical Fiber. The Fusion Bomb. Anything would have blown my mind in 1952. I was a newborn that August.

Christopher Reeve was born. And Dan Aykroyd. Douglas Adams, too. And you, of course. Everyone an individual. Everyone special. Everyone taking a different path through life. Angela Cartwright (Ha, Kirk!), Annie Potts, Carol Kane, Cathy Rigby, Harry Anderson, John Goodman, Juice Newton, Leslie Morgan, Marilyn Chambers, Mr. T, Patrick Swayze, Roseanne Barr. I'm in some pretty good company here!

It's 2010.
The world is a different place.
What path have you taken? I'd say that differently. I haven't "taken" it. I'm still "taking" it. I'm not complete yet. I'm still standing.

In my ears right now: The Beatles. The End. Kass wrote about love being the great equalizer and I'll take one of those to go. Because I know that in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Something that charmed me: The Badger dropped in his sincere thank you comment this afternoon. He was touched by the kindness of so many.

Ten Things I Love (I've Been Tagged)

Latebreaking: There seems to be some question whether the assignment was "Ten Things I Love" or "Ten Things That Make Me Happy". I need to state I processed it as "Ten Things I Love". If I'd done it the other way, I'd have had a list of things that impact me far less than these. If I muffed the assignment, please give me credit for earnestness, sincerity and hard work both on myself and with myself.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My original post before I wondered if I'd muffed the assignment:

I am usually up for a challenge and I'm almost always up for fun and games. I like connecting with others and learning new things ~ these are major themes in my life and my writing. So when blogging friend Kass threw down the gauntlet, I was ready to rumble. I put two blog posts that were almost ready on the back burner. I grabbed a pencil, some scratch paper and I began to scratch.

I knew immediately that I would not list my family, my lover or my job. Of course, I love all of those. It goes without saying. They occupy a level above Ten Things I Love. Within two minutes I'd made a list of seventeen things I love (I may have to do this exercise twice!). I struggled to pare it down to the requisite ten. I quickly made an association: my ten subjects include some of the labels I use most frequently on my blog. Hmmmm . . . . so I write about what I love. And then something washed over me that made me feel sad. When I look at the list of ten, I realize I am not actively engaged in some of them. I am avoiding some of them. I'm doing some of them only half-way. A revelation: find happiness by jumping deeply into the things one loves.

In no particular order (in fact I thought to list them alphabetically to eliminate any perceived order) here are ten things I love.

I love my physical well-being. I make a pilgrimage every Sunday of life to Fresh & Easy to buy good food for myself. This is more than "grocery shopping". It is a celebration of self. I fuel myself with foods that support my well-being. I walk many miles every day, regardless of conditions. Sometimes it isn't very pleasant. But I never fail to feel grateful I can do this. I hike and climb in the desert for the pure joy of it. At my desk every day, I set a timer to remind me to get up and move my body. I use weights, a wobble board, a light-flashing hula hoop and resistance bands. I indulge myself with frequent massages that help ease my body from what life has done to it. It wasn't always this way. I have 215 specific, well-identified reasons to be grateful for how well my body serves me.

I love to write. I am a person compelled to tell things. I need to tell my stories, my history and my observations of the day. I have a strong urge to share the funny things that happened, to rant about the injustices and unkindnesses I observed. I love rich, colorful, plummy words and I like to make language art with them. I want to retell conversations, and sometimes the written version is better than the actual dialogue. Writing letters and journals, essays and post-hearing briefs have all been part of my tapestry. But writing a blog has been an epiphany to me. Imagine writing and having other human beings comment about it! For me, comments don't need to be false-positives. I've let nasty comments in, too. It's more important - to me - to simply have another human being react and interact. Blogging is the best new thing I took on in 2009.

I love music. I surround myself with it nearly constantly. I'm like millions of other people who would say music is important to them. I might say I take that up a notch. When I hear a song I know, I am quickly transported to the time and place I occupied when I first learned it. Say something (anything) to me and I can often pop out some snippet of lyrics to highlight what you've said. I'm not stupid, but I regard some song lyrics as a rallying cry for life ~ it's an appreciation of the songwriter's ability to weave words into images. I am tattooed with a short version of the most profound lyrics I know. So, from Pachelbel to Pure Prairie League, the Bangles to my Beatles, Billie Holiday to Bob Dylan, R.E.M. to the Rolling Stones and the Backstreet Boys to Beethoven, I have loved it all [except rap]. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose one's hearing. Do you suppose the songs would play on in one's head?

I love my animals. I share life with two cats (Virginia Woolf and Dylan) and two birds (Bloomsbury and Benson). My father says I "over love" my animals, attributing to them qualities they do not possess. My father also says it would be a good life to live as one of Leslie's pets. It fulfills me to be the sole caretaker of another creature. I feed them and clean them and take them to the veterinarian when necessary. I brush the cats and clip their claws. I clean the spittle from the birds' mirror so they can continue to chirp while admiring themselves in its reflection. I buy good feed and palatial bird homes and the preferred type of cat litter. I provide toys and catnip that are mostly ignored and bird toys that are eagerly employed. It sounds like I have to do a lot and spend a little money, doesn't it? I talk to these beautiful fellow animals of the universe and each of the four looks at me as if I am brilliant when I speak. As if what I have to say matters. None of them has ever been cruel or done a thing to hurt me in any way. It's a dynamic that works beautifully. I provide the basic needs for their lives. They grace my presence with all their beauty and their trust in me.

I love venerable things. I call items with history "venerable things". These need not be priceless antiques. Ordinary household articles of long ago pull me more than a Renaissance painting. I like to handle venerable things and think about other human beings who may have handled them. I wonder if the venerable thing had special meaning to its owner, or was it simply "the potato masher"? I buy venerable things at estate sales and curiosity shops. I decorate my home and office with them. Sometimes I am fortunate to find some lovely vintage item I can wear as clothing or jewelry. Some of my favorite venerable things: my grandmother's 1917 high school graduation gift - a lavaliere that now belongs to me and will belong to Amber someday; my circa 1800 cut glass inkwell with tortoiseshell lid; a pair of eyeglass frames from about 1920. These frames are perfectly round and beautifully crafted. I want to wear them so badly it nearly makes me weep. I cannot find an eyeglass dispenser willing to try to put lenses in the frames. They fear what material the frames may be made from and whether it will hold up to today's methods of making glasses. I shall keep looking. I want those frames on my face. I want to think about the other human who wore them.

I love to be creative. This is one of the loves that makes me sad. For I am not doing it. OK, I'm writing. And I aimed my camera at some beautiful things. On one camp-out. But I am not using fabric in any way, even though I may own the lion's share of the world's stores of fabric. The sewing machine gathers dust and there are no pins sticking in the carpet. I haven't needle-pricked a fingertip for longer than I'd like to admit. The seashells used to fashion angel ornaments languish in closed bins among the shining ribbons and "jewels" meant to render them beautiful. The rubber stamps and archival ink containers lie idle and my embosser hasn't been plugged in for far too long. My cardstock and envelopes and embellishments are lined up neatly in their dustproof containers. Maybe forever, never to be touched again? Those I love enjoy receiving cards I've made. Why am I giving shitty store-bought cards to people I want to present with beauty and the creative part of my love?

I love to read. My mother, my daughter and I each began to read on our own, only nominally guided, at the age of 4. We are strong right-brainers who enjoy words and process information by reading. "Don't show me how to do it. Let me read the instructions!" I am surrounded by men who learn things by looking at a television. That doesn't work for me. When I look at a screen to learn something new, I take it in just like everyone else. Eyeball deep. When I read to learn something new, I absorb it into every part of me. I rabidly attack Prevention when it arrives every few weeks, completely reading it in one sitting. I have more self-help books than I can name, and I read and re-read them. I have many books that are old friends to me, some dating back to the 1960s. I try to give each of them a spin every year. I have virtually visited many places in the world I'll likely never actually see ~ by reading about them. Probably my favorite books are biographies. I'll read one about pretty much any person. This feeds the need not only to read, but it also puts me in the "connecting with others" mode that I love. the ability to read anything ever committed to writing, uncensored, is about as good as life gets. Whatever is intriguing, one can go find out about it.

I love learning new things. When I started my current job, I had a first-ever experience. It took me longer to catch on than I would have hoped or expected. I've always been a pretty quick study. I was about to turn 55 and I attributed the slight lag to my age. I am a bit kinder to myself now. I was entering a field I knew nothing about, managed by software I'd never used. I'd never held a sales position and had to learn that, too. Maybe I wasn't so slow! I was given a good, curious mind and I have many of the qualities of a terrier dog - some things may stump this chump, but I just keep digging until I find what I was going for. I'm afraid my learning process may not be pretty in its execution, rather like the making of sausages and law. It pleases me to learn new things. I wanted to know how to create a website and how html code works - I learned. I wanted to learn to blog. I've done so. I hope I never lose curiosity, even as I slow in my capacity to quickly grasp new things.

I love the desert. I will not be able to tell the reader why I love the desert. I've struggled for hours for those words that will not come. So I shall tell what I love about the desert. I love the loose sandy trails that make a hike feel torturous. I like the rocky hikes that scare me when the boulders shift beneath my feet. I like the drops so long I have to sit down and scoot myself down the rockface on my backside. I like to roast in my own juices in the sharp sun, eking out that one last camping trip in May before temperatures force the summer camping break. I like the snowflakes that fell and melted on my warm, bare skin as I struggled to help put the rainfly on the tent at 2:00 a.m. without my glasses. I love that I lay in 75 mph winds for hours, trying to sleep, weeping in fear, and surviving it. I love the way the coffee tastes differently out there. I love that I know how to pitch a tent, fuel and operate lanterns and a stove, make a safe campfire, follow a map. I like to poke around old mineshafts and find interesting treasures. I love that little creatures allow me to hold them and seem to enjoy my company. I love knowing how to identify animal tracks and desert flora. When I breathe in the presence of the petroglyphs, I feel like I'm in church. When I hike through a broad vista of cactus flowers, I know I have gone to a better place. It's an extreme environment. Harsh. One has to develop skills. I was a city girl. The desert opens its arms to anyone tough enough to survive in it. I thrive in it.

I love connecting with others. Human beings fascinate me. Almost all of them. I have felt like an alien visitor all of my life, however, because I don't feel as if I really understand other people. Therefore, I study them carefully. My friend and I laugh about something. If someone said, "Hey there's a great author from the 20th century named Hemingway", my friend would want to read Hemingway. I would want to read the biography so I'd know about the person Hemingway was. If my pink bus were an actual bus, I'd be the small woman at the back, surrounded by her bags of stuff, craning her neck to check out all the other passengers, taking notes. I study people and I try to find some place where I might make a connection with them. It excites me to find the fragile strand of commonality between me and another person. The electrical connection makes me feel alive and normal and . . . not so different from anyone else. Not alien.

CHALLENGE: I didn't think this exercise up. I was tagged. I'm officially tagging anyone who reads this to go do it for yourself. It's a good, introspective time spent with oneself. Tree, I'm specifically tagging you. Maybe you can't do it right now. But do it sometime. Do the short version. It might help you find your way. It helped me find mine.

In my ears right now: It runs long. It is worth listening to. It is like church music played on a pipe organ. She's got the pipes.

Some photo credits: J. D. Morehouse

For Kirk and For Tag ~ Excuse Me, That's Boneyard

So, 'tend friends Kirk and Tag - who don't feel so 'tend any more, but feel like actual friends - were saying they appreciated the artistry of old neon lights and I mentioned the Las Vegas Neon Museum and the Las Vegas Neon Graveyard. I commented I'd try to get a few pictures and I started Googling. Well, folks, I have lived here awhile, but I monkeyed up the name of one of those institutions. It's the Las Vegas Neon Boneyard. But a rose by any other name . . . . .

The Museum is in the Fremont Street Experience and is designed to attract visitors and tourists to a walking tour. The signs there have been completely restored any they can be observed with the neon glowing as they would have appeared in "the day".

I prefer to view the signs at the Boneyard where many are in pieces and some wits have artfully placed all or parts of certain signs in tableaux that make one think or laugh out loud. At the Boneyard, the signs have not been restored and one may not see the neon glowing. The paintwork is generally bad, with bare spots, scrapes and fading apparent. Some of the signs are not truly neon, but electric. Most of them have bulbs missing, supporting structures bent or broken. The signs are perched on hardscrabble, rocky, desert hardpack - no kid glove handling here. They bake in the summer and freeze in the winter, exposed to the elements. They look very forlorn when heaped with snow. And they are surrounded by miles of chain link fence.

One might wonder what is the attraction of piles of broken old metal and glass signs announcing places that may or may not exist any longer or that may presently be in their latest Las Vegas reincarnation. For me, it's simply a magnetic draw to old, charming, quirky, nostalgic things in a style no longer seen. A look at a 1950s-looking object causes me to envision ladies with pincurled hair, pumps with thick clunky heels, a fur stole and pearls. The "Cocktails, Steak, Chicken" sign above puts me in mind of art deco, which puts me in mind of the 20s. Las Vegas would have been very young then. That sign would surely have resided in the old area of downtown.

In the predawn of the Bicentennial Day, a young man and woman aged 22 and 23, drove into Las Vegas in their 1972 VW Beetle. They were moving to Las Vegas to live that day. They had driven through the Mojave from Los Angeles during the night as that VW had no air conditioning and it was July in the desert. They had four tiny kittens and all their worldly possessions contained in that small car. She was a bit sentimental and suggested they pull into the city with a drive along the Strip ~ their entrance into this fascinating new place. As they progressed, they/he/she/I saw many of the signs shown in this post glowing in the desert darkness. For the Algiers Motel and the Silver Slipper were booming then. The goliath Aladdin on top of The Aladdin really did hold that magic lamp in his hands.

I've already written much about how I don't care much for Las Vegas. I might as well live in Nebraska for all the Las Vegas-y things I do. But I do care, a lot, for my history and what's gone before and what's left to come. I remember that ride into the city. I was young and had my whole life ahead of me. I was a dreamer and I thought I knew how it would play out. I was mistaken. I remember the warm air coming in through the windows of that car and I remember all the sights that dazzled me. So you see, by their place in my past, the signs have become venerable things.

I allowed to Kirk as how I'd happily go up and over that chain link fence to mingle with the signs, and I'd like to convince a marvelous photographer to go with me. Oh, yes, I can and have, in recent years, managed to overcome a chain link fence barrier between me and a destination. But I would be concerned about getting camera, tripod and two adults up and over without harm or attracting attention, so it is a scheme unlikely to be played out. Still, I would like to visit the signs in privacy. Not with the infrequent tours in the company of the general public. As one would go to an actual cemetery to pay one's respects.

In my ears right now: Still REM, but I'm a little tender today, so it's "Everybody Hurts". I should probably stop playing it soon and look for something more lively.

Something that charmed me: Another job booked on another strangely named street in our city ~ Lavender Lion Street. I guess home dudes won't be gored or devoured on that job, either.

Pretty, Venerable Things

Photo credit:
J. D. Morehouse

To the right you see my very beautiful and very old (circa 1800) crystal inkwell with the tortoiseshell lid, gilt detail and the monogram "PW" in beautiful, highly stylized script. Even in a photo reduced significantly to blog size, one can see the sun sparkling off of the facets in the cut glass. When one opens the lid of the inkwell, a tiny glass receptacle waits to be filled with dark liquid for writing. Next to it lies my contemporary, but no less venerable, larger (to distinquish it from my smaller) Waterman fountain pen with the 18 kt. gold nib. These things mean much to me.

My father has been married many times. Ex and I used to say, "You're not Elizabeth Taylor (similar to him in age, anyway). You don't have to marry everyone you fall in love with." But he does, he has, he did. Londa was the one who mattered, and that cuts my mother, his first wife, and all the others off at the knees. Londa came along when he was in his 50s, I in my 30s, she in her 40s. She'd been married once, and was related to a well-known celebrity, but that story shall come later. She never had a child. The fact that I became miraculously pregnant soon gave her a gift she treasured ~ Amber.

Londa was "different". Adorable and funny and bright and deep, but childlike. No "sense". She loved cats and dogs and Dad often said, "The best life one could hope for would be as one of Londa's pets." She grew up in Hollywood where her father managed the well-known Grauman's Chinese Theater. She spent her early life walking from school to the theater each day and seeing every movie that ever came along. That gave her a taste for acting and her degree was in Theater Arts. She never pursued any employment in a related field. I think she studied that in college for the pure love of the subject.

She loved pretty things and decorated their home beautifully. They lived in Big Bear, California, where her father was the mayor. My father ran an art and framing gallery where he displayed the works of several British water colorists he represented in the U.S. Londa owned a video rental store, of course - she could sit in her shop and watch movies all day. Big Bear is packed with artsy stores, local artisans show their wares at street fairs and craft shows . . . . Dad once blushed and said to me quietly that he figured she'd spent about $25,000 on "pretties" for the house in a very short amount of time.

It came to pass that I would have my first trip to Britain. Dad and Londa flew over a couple of days before Ex and I. I was so excited to be headed there for 6 weeks, I could have flown myself there by flapping my arms - who needs TWA? When we arrived, the rental car was ready, our US currency changed to pounds, maps and atlases galore - for this was a free-form 6 weeks. We agreed we'd go anywhere any one of us wanted to go.

It was a dreamlike trip. I made my pilgrimage to Abbey Road and Liverpool. Dad took me to the village in Wales where all the "Nows" in the tiny churchyard cemetary were actually my ancestors. Ex found the best pubs and nightspots. But Londa showed me some of the loveliest things I know about: Penhaligons - purveyors of fine scents to the Royal Family since the 1700s, Harrods - self-explanatory, the theater, and the lovely antique shops that abound throughout the U.K. Walking along the Thames, Ex and I made a corny vow to return to England every year of life during April and May.

Arriving home, tired and grouchy after a 12 hour trip . . not feeling very well, and having suffered a flight that originated in Berlin and was packed with Germans who were already pretty far gone when we boarded in London, we stuffed all our luggage in the living room and went to sleep for days. I'd been home a week when I opened the bag in which the inkwell had been sneaked. "For Limes, to remember your dream trip to a place you belong. Love, Londa," said the card.

The next April, I had a 3-month-old baby which is partly why I hadn't felt so well on the trip home from Britain. Oh, yes, I got to return many times. Just not exactly the way I'd hoped it would happen.

Londa got breast cancer which was aggressively treated. She had 5 really good years, filled with travel, the theater, a year lived in England, a few years lived in Maine, much interaction with her beloved Amber who still tears up at the mention of Grandma Londa's name. When the cancer returned with a vengeance, it attacked her breasts, bones and brain. We lost her at age 54. Amber was 7. I walk The Race for the Cure frequently and my banner always says "In loving memory of Londa Now." I'm no heroine. I just go do it and spend hours thinking of her as I hoof along in a world that's a little less pretty without her. And I think of her when I look at my beautiful inkwell and all the pretty things she gave me . . . .

In my ears right now: Another song with the same title as the one I cited a few days ago - "Wonderful World" but by Satchmo, Louis Armstrong. Londa loved it and often played the soundtrack from "Good Morning, Viet Nam" because it had that and other songs she enjoyed.

Something that charmed me: My friend has heard me go on and on about that inkwell and other venerable things. Finally came an e-mail that said, "Send me a picture of the inkwell?" Said friend has been camping and should land at a motel that has wireless internet tonight. At least that was the plan. So, my friend, the inkwell awaits you.

Monday, Monday

It was a grand weekend and my thoughts flit like a dragonfly ~ dreamy. I took a life-changing step in the right direction this weekend. I started to solve a problem rather than run from it. I am tired of running. Worn out. And taking the first step rendered everything else across the weekend very sweet. I will surely blog about the new direction, but right now it is tender and new and not ready for the light of day. Two special people know about it and each said he was proud of me. I alluded to it to the home dudes this morning, because I need to have it travel out in waves to those I see on a daily basis. "Good shiott, Limes." "Right on, Limes." "Limes, you rock!"

I was very surprised and pleased to see another passenger board my magic bus Sunday. Welcome, CramCake! It is really lovely to have you among us. Hope you're here for a long ride.

To my delight, the Badger brought my new Ferrari computer and by last night, I was zooming again. Thank you, jesus. Thank you, lawrd. Thank you, Badger. I'm back in business at the speed I prefer!

For Tree: I read your beautiful words this morning and an image immediately popped into my head. This is a place we visit every time we can. I will blog about it soon. It has several different kinds of environments within close proximity so it is a good place to camp for several days. One can have many different experiences while only driving to one spot. When I read "vertebra dunes whisper, rivers of golden curves", this is what I saw in my mind.

Photo credit: J. D. Morehouse

Lastly, for this loose ramble, we went to see Public Enemies yesterday. We both liked it. I am not big on violence and I have a great deal of trouble watching a woman get beaten up by a huge man, but I still liked it. Johnny Depp is outstanding. The movie features a lot of people who look simply like people, not movie stars. There are some incredibly coarse, homely, interesting faces. The Badger said the film was beautifully filmed. Both of us reacted quite strongly to something quirky - the eyeglasses. The Badger and I each love vintage eyeglasses. Occasionally one of us will get a new pair and the other will say, "I'm jealous!" So this movie had specs to thrill. I think it deserves the Academy Award in the Peepers category.

In my ears right now: Beatles. On Sunday, from pure joy, I played Revolver all the way through. Twice. Then Rubber Soul. Twice. I danced! Despite being the John Lennon fan I am, I've always thought, "I'd rather see you dead little girl than see you with another man . . . " is a bit extreme.

Something that charmed me: An e-mail that said, among other things: "It was a good day. I enjoyed it."