Hand in Hand

A friend in the rehab counseling community sent me this link to a video on YouTube that is a must see: She without arm, he without leg - ballet - Hand in Hand

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A Wednesday

"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
Steven Paul (Steve) Jobs;
Commencement address by Steve Jobs at Stanford

There are quite a few thoughtful things in that speech. But I simply wandered into that quote from elsewhere and wasn't really thinking about inspirational things. The quote doesn't have much to do with my day or thoughts. But there are tangents it brings to the surface that I will hopefully pursue later in the evening... or not.

This has been a day; not so much difficult as it was tedious with one difficult person after another. I suspect I attract them on certain days (and after a while those are the only ones I notice so it doesn't matter which came first or if I am right about attracting them). None of them were my clients by the way- all service and care providers and family members. I should check the moon phase. ;-)

Coming home I was listening to the news, then turned on CNN when I got home. Golly gee, more crazies. NEws FOlks- truly I don't care what OJ did or if he will go on trial. Honest. I really really don't, won't ever. And a John McCain audience member's use of the "B" word? And he's raising money with the incident? Give me a break. I don't care. I'll bet Hillary Clinton doesn't care. Seriously, she wants to be president, so name calling better not bother her. I don't care about Marie Osmond's son, though I'm sorry about her father since I remember too well what that feels like. Even so, it doesn't seem like these things should be "the" news. Yet, these were the headlines on news radio and on CNN when I came home. Headlines- Those are supposed to be important stuff, right?

I care some about bomb parts being smuggled past security in the US airports. If that's truly the case and not some over-hyped story (the headline part is all I've heard and I've not fully read the story yet), it probably matters. I care about the US$3.55 per gallon I paid for gasoline yesterday. I care about the number of soldiers who died today and the number who are coming back seriously, severely, forever wounded. I care about the number of Iraqis and Afghanis who died or were injured. I care about the writer's guild strike as it will impact SoCal economy significantly, especially if it lasts very long.

Those seem like things that matter. But the news folks don't distinguish between the important and the not so any more. They seem to scream it all and give it all the same level of concern. I think it is much harder to find the important things that happened in a day. And just perhaps, the things I think are important this moment to know, aren't really either.

Yup. Pretty much almost talked myself out of another post. That's an example of the vague meandering focus I have when I get home at night. Occasionally I work myself up about something and in the end realize, nope, it doesn't really matter either.

After basic needs, love, kindness, relationships, and that tiny wispy daily poke at making a difference somewhere, I'm not sure much else matters.

Hmmmm...

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 249

1. Treadmill :: Hampster


2. Stroke :: soft


3. Exclusively :: yours


4. Lash :: eyelash


5. Red carpet :: treatment


6. Credit card:: bill


7. Points :: bonus


8. Domestic :: flights


9. 21 :: too long ago


10. Inject :: solution

Weekly word list found at Unconscious Mutterings

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Preparation and What Matters

"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think its forever."
~Carl Sagan, Ph.D

I should have some pictures of my own from various moments in the past few months. But life is just racing by and blogging is about the last thing I generally feel like doing when I arrive home each night. Eating, saying a word or two to the husband, a quick plan for the next day and sleeping are about all I can manage well... and actually, not so well. I haven't sorted through the pictures which include some from the Lake in July, from various moments around Sunland and other frozen bits. They are waiting to be reviewed and perhaps tweaked a little here and there. I haven't got the whole- work 9.75 hours, gone eleven plus, still have a larger life- down pat yet. It's a year officially in this new job, so I better be figuring it out really soon.
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The recent firestorms required my sister to evacuate. Fortunately they were prepared, very well prepared, and their house survived despite the devastation around them. The fires marched and swirled up to their property, raged all around them, moved above and onward, but did not burn their home. One of their preparations was an amazing stuff called Barricade which my brother in law personally applied before they evacuated. You can see how their preparedness and luck paid off at: Wizards Web where he posted some pictures.

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"How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most" ~Stephen R. Covey

I'm trying..

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temporary end to sliding

"Sometimes it's important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it's essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow." ~Douglas Pagels




Today I went back to work. Fortunately until I returned today, I hadn't given much thought to the fact that no one would really be working my case load unless there were a dire emergency. There were lots of not really emergencies and some almost emergencies and some not much to do after the fact emergencies. Of course. And every single one of them had someone involved who thought they ought to be taken care of first.

I feel as if I could sleep twelve hours just to recuperate from this day, if I only could find those twelve.

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 244

1. Cluster :: see the second and third definitions in this urban dictionary  for what comes to mind when I see the word cluster


2. Announcement :: major importance or at least major to do about something


3. Respect :: earned


4. Incident :: special incident report; frequent headaches on my caseload.


5. Accordion :: player


6. Drunk :: pretty much never


7. If :: -then statements


8. Dexter :: blank


9. Wedding :: gown


10. Gambling :: Las Vegas

Weekly word list can be found at Unconscious Mutterings

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seeking gold

Sometimes when I am trying to put something out of conscious mind to let it simmer to some next step or resolution, I have a habit of picking up whatever reading material is in front of me and opening it at random. I read whatever lines jump out at me and seek the destination they send my thoughts. I usually find patterns in the disconnected bits where there probably are none. But that is a thought journey I've traveled before and probably won't ever figure out with any certainty.

Anyway, picking up the book Buddha Is As Buddha Does, by Lama Surya Das , the words of Norman Vincent Peale leapt out at me:

"When you become detached mentally from yourself and concentrate on helping other people with their difficulties, you will be able to cope with your own more effectively. Somehow the act of self-giving is a personal power-releasing factor."

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Maybe Vulcan just orbited its sun more slowly?

And on Earth, Mr. Spock wouldn't have been two hundred or four hundred or whatever age he was in whatever might have been his last appearance in the Star Trek mythology line. (Wasn't he last on Romulus trying to facilitate peace?)

There are things I probably should (oooo nasty word sometimes, that "should" word) be doing and one of them involved looking for something on the Internet. When I was done and cleared the page to blank, I just couldn't resist clicking on that "Stumble!" button.

It came up with this silly site which will calculate Your Age On Other Worlds" and also has a grade school lesson on planet rotations and orbits. I am a little over 4 1/2 on Jupiter, 228 or so on Mercury and 29 and change on Mars. Funny stuff those numbers. I am still trying to get used to the feel of that Earth number rolling off my tongue.

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Stumble!

"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age." ~Lucille Ball

I don't think I'll start lying about my age now, or at least not yet. Yesterday was my 55th birthday!

Some time ago (maybe July?) in a very quick dash around to check on my favorite bloggers, Andy, at Older, but no Wiser was writing about finding some sites using the Stumble Upon toolbar. I am not generally fond of full toolbar additions to my browser, but this one looked interesting, so I bookmarked it to check out later. Yesterday I finally had the time to check it out and take it for a test run. I found some wonderful things, some quick look, read and move on, some momentary amusements, some go back later and go deeper. I couldn't stay away from it today either. All in all it is a very interesting tool. (Thank you, Andy)

One of the sites I found was this one: Even Happier: The 7 beliefs of the super happy people . The rest of that website has some promise for some quick fixes when I am feeling less than...


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Time

Playing around at Magnetic Poetry, very quickly choosing words which appealed to me in that moment, I came up with this:

would you see your velvet yesterday
wild angel
laugh sacred woman
soon time will work magic
dance to the joy of the universe
smile with the starry sky


I don't know what it means that these were the words that "spoke" to me today. I tried to just go with the flow. The last step was choosing some connecting words to group everything into some pattern that might make any sense. I'm not so sure I succeeded. I'll analyze it all later... or not.

Imagine hearing a very huge happy relaxed sigh.... that's me!
It's very nice being on vacation this week.

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