Two Hundred Fifty

Yesterday I published my two hundred fiftieth blog post.  Today is the last day of 2016.

I'm kind of proud of myself that I have kept up with this blog.  I didn't know what I was doing when I started, not that I know what I'm doing now, but I have kept at it.

When I started, I think I thought I would wake up every day with something profound to say and to write about.  That hasn't worked out so well.

I have lost and found my voice many times over the last twenty-one months.  I haven't been as funny as I wanted to be.  I've been angry more times than I wanted to be.

As I look inward to find the words to write, I find that I have grown more introverted.  I'm still pretty adept at social situations and small talk, but I find it takes more energy than it used to.

When I started this blog, I thought it would be a continuation of my work life, a blog centered around how to be a successful leader in the workplace.  After not too much time, I decided just to share my thoughts and memories, and try to encourage people to make a better world for themselves.

The world can be a very scary place sometimes.  And it can be a very difficult place.  I remembered today advice I used to give people for coping at work that is just as useful for coping at life.  Here is a little checklist.

1. Create a happy place - create a collage of pictures, or of inspirational quotes, or art.  When everything feels like too much, focus on your happy place.  Resurrect the memories of the good time the pictures or quotes or art evoke.  Bask in those memories. 
2. Create a playlist for a bad day - decide what music supports what mood.  Have a playlist for when you want to spend time experiencing sorrow fully.  Have another playlist that lifts you out of sorrow.  Have another that just makes you happy no matter what.
3. Create a folder (digital or paper) of nice things people have sent you - I have a paper folder full of cards and letters, and a digital folder full of emails that I can read through when I start feeling bad about myself.  We all need to be lifted up sometimes.  Save the uplifting messages you receive to soothe your soul when it is wounded.
4. Create a self-care ritual - whether it is taking a warm bath, or reading a good book, or practicing a craft that makes you happy, or drinking a special drink or eating a special meal; have a self-care ritual that you can perform when you need nurturing.  One of the most important and critical life skills is the ability to self-nurture.  Practice this skill so that you can use it when you need it.
5. Create a list of the people you are thankful to have in your life.  When the world seems particularly bleak, do something for one of the people on the list, and concentrate on the gift they have been in your life while you do it.   You will be amazed at how good it will make you feel.
6. Challenge yourself, and be gentle when you fail.  A life without challenge is bland.  But trying things that are hard means you will fail sometimes.  Give  yourself permission to fail and to try again.  Congratulate yourself on having the courage to try.
7. Laugh.  Every day if you can.  There is always something ridiculous in the universe.  Laughter releases hormones that are good for you in countless ways.  Save jokes and funny cartoons, and go read through them when you think nothing is funny.  One of them will save you.
8. Love abundantly.  Love is a great healer and enabler.  Love the people in your life with all you have in you.  Love isn't something that someone deserves.  Love is just a pure gift.
9. Forgive.  Forgiveness is a balm for the wound of the wounded, not a balm for the person who has hurt you.  When you forgive someone, you take away their power.  There is no need to forget, or to entertain everyone in your life.  But forgiveness is lifesaving.
10. Rest.  Everyone gets tired.  Everyone needs to stop and recharge their batteries occasionally.  Give yourself permission to rest when you need to.

There it is.  A ten step plan to make 2017 a better year for you than 2016 was.  Happy New Year!  I look forward to sharing 2017 with you.

Beginnings, Endings and Time

As another year draws to a close, I find myself thinking about the role that time and the calendar play in our lives.

As I was driving this morning, the radio talk show host was talking about New Year's and New Year's resolutions.  In the next segment, he was asking his guest to "grade" what kind of year the City of New Orleans had.  And in the upcoming segment, he was asking for listeners to call in and "grade" 2016.

I, like many others, find myself at the end of a year giving the year a grade.  Particular years stand out as very good, others, not so much.

What struck me this morning is every day is the start of a new year.  We can choose any moment in time to re-chart our course, to redirect our destiny.

Sometimes we know when a beginning is coming, like I knew that February 14, 1988 would be the first day of my life as Anne Marie St. Clair, the first day I was married to my husband.

I knew I was going to be a mommy for nine months.  But it wasn't until my daughter arrived on October 11, 1976 that I knew I would be a mommy to a daughter, and that my life would be forever better for it.

My last day as a cigarette smoker was October 27, 1987.  I just lit the last cigarette in that pack and decided it would be my last.

I didn't know until it happened that January 14, 2000 would be the last day I would share a planet with my dad.  But life changed forever that day.

My point is that there are beginnings and endings all the time that don't give a care about the calendar.

If you want to slam the door on 2016 and never look back, go for it.  However, if you are feeling like all you can do to keep on keeping on is to put one foot in front of the other and keep going, you have my permission to disregard that a calendar year is ending.

We use the calendar to standardize on the passage of time.  We mark our days by weeks, and months, and years.

And because we do that, so many people promise to start to change their life on the day that starts a week, a month or a year.

But mostly, we have no idea which day will change our life.  It can be a Tuesday, or the 14th, or mid-year.  You can choose to stay the course that you are on, or change course any day you choose.

Society can create a sense of pressure as years begin and end to "do better" in the new year.

My advice?   Just try to do good.  If you feel compelled to make changes in your life, make them when you feel strong enough to see them through.  If you feel like you are on the path you are meant to be on, stay the course.

January 1 of any year is just another day.  It may or may not be a memorable day in your life.  It is perfectly okay if you choose to make it unremarkable.

You don't have a duty to change your life because a calendar year is ending.  You don't have an obligation to stay stuck in a bad place because there is no milestone on the calendar.

One of the amazing truths of my life is that while I can look at a picture from a happy event of my past and tell you what the event is, I can't always tell you what the calendar year was when the event took place.  Because it isn't really that important.

And that's the point.

Connections

I've had a hard time writing blog posts lately.  There are a lot of reasons, but one is that sometimes I feel like I just keep saying the same things over and over again.

Today I gave myself permission to do just that.  Because the message  is too important to stop communicating.

One of the most distressing truths of current day America is how comfortable so many people are with behaving badly.  It is hard to read more than five Facebook posts without encountering someone calling someone else an ugly name.

And with comments on news articles?  One is usually enough.

I worked with a very smart man who always said just because you disagree, you don't have to be disagreeable.  I think that is a great code to live by.

I wish more people would adopt that code.

My regular readers know that I believe that we can find a connection with everyone we meet if we look for it.  I believe that if you build relationships with people, you can find common ground to build compromise on.  I also believe that without the time invested in building the relationship, the time to find common ground, it is too easy to view each other as caricatures instead of people.

And it seems that so many people are comfortable to treat anyone who doesn't agree with them as lesser, or useless, or contemptible.

Most of us are just flawed human beings trying to get by.  Calling each other hurtful names is unnecessary.

If you don't have the ability to articulate your point in polite language, it could be you don't have a point.

It seems to me that the United States is more divided now than at any time since the Vietnam War.  I was really more of a child than an adult then, but I still perceived that in spite of the riots, and the shouting in the streets, there were still adults in government who were trying to compromise to find solutions.

I don't see that now.  I see many in government as ideologues, who have more commitment to their beliefs than to a prosperous American society.  And we keep electing them.

I think it is the most important time in history to talk to people who you disagree with.  Try to find your connection to them, try to find common ground.

Once you have a relationship, ask them to articulate their beliefs and positions.  Try as hard as you can to listen with an open mind and an open heart.  Ask permission to state your belief and positions with the same courtesy you have shown listening to theirs.  If there is no common ground, at least you have had the opportunity to hear a different perspective, and to share your perspective.

We can't make progress if we keep shouting at each other instead of talking to each other.  We're in this together, whether we want to be or not.  Things will continue to get worse unless more people commit to making them better.

We can all give in to the fear, and the anger and the hate, or we can keep on promoting love, and kindness and civility.

I refuse to give up on love.  I refuse to give up on people because they see the world differently than I do.  I promise to keep trying to open people's eyes to the power of connections, the power of relationships, the power of compromise.

If enough of us are willing to throw a pebble in the pond of anger, we can create a tsunami of love.

At least it is worth trying.

Long Road

I've been sick for the past two weeks.  A cold that turned into a vicious sinus infection.  About all I've been able to do is read or watch TV.  When I tried to crochet, I ripped out as many stitches as I put in.  Writing was impossible, my head too clogged and painful to put ideas together.

I'm still not myself, but I'm definitely on the mend enough to try to write a bit.

Because I have not been myself lately, I find myself thinking about how easy it is to take for granted if you have a pretty spectacular normal.

I'm not good at being sick because I haven't had a lot of practice.  That is a fortunate position to be in.

There are so many people around all of us that struggle with illness every day.  Some of those illnesses are visible and some are invisible.

I am awed by the strength of the people who manage to soldier on and have a productive life in spite of the burden of illness.

It is so easy to take our good fortune for granted.  It is so easy to focus on the hardship.

But for most of us, there is so much good.

Every unthinking breath you take is a gift.  Because there are many struggling to breathe.

Every unthinking step you take is a gift.  Because there are many struggling to move.

Every unthinking word you speak is a gift.  Because there are many struggling to speak.

I could go on and on.

So as I struggle to get back to myself, I'm working hard on appreciating how blessed I am in my everyday life.

There is always darkness, and grief, and fear to focus on.  And the more difficult your today is, the harder it is to turn away from the darkness, grief and fear.

Try to find the good, try to find the light.

Because each time we find the good, each time we find the light, each time we reach out to someone and help them to see the good and the light, the darkness is compromised.

There are so many people who need you to light up their world today.  It could be as small as a smile, or as large as an unexpected phone call or letter.

Be the light every day you can.

While I was feeling my worst, I got a handmade thank you card in the mail from a seven year old friend.  As terrible as I was feeling that day, I still couldn't stop smiling.  My heart was full to overflowing, and that made all my physical discomfort less.  I've looked at that card dozens of times while I was sick, and every time, it made me feel better.

You too have that power to make it better for someone who is struggling.

When you are feeling good, find a way to do something good for someone.  Whatever you can do, it is all important and valuable.

And then when the inevitable feeling bad time comes, the world may surprise you with a thank you from someone you were good to on one of your good days.

The darkness doesn't win when good people turn bad, the darkness wins when good people stop doing good deeds.

Every time you can, add kindness.  Add goodness.  Send people surprises in the mail.  You are never too old to hand make a card for someone.

Your surprises of kindness aren't about art or perfection. They are about love.  And love is always beautiful

Those random memories again

While crocheting last night, another random memory came to me.  There is a long backstory to the memory, so I'll tell that story first.

My regular readers know that my mom, Harriet, was the only one of her siblings to marry.  Because of that, my Uncle Bill and my Aunt Dot always gave us kids really good Christmas presents.  In my childhood memories, Christmas was awesome!  We always got great toys from Uncle Bill and Aunt Dot.  We kids each got money to go to Harry's 5 and 10 cent store to buy presents for each other and Mommy and Daddy.  Mommy often made us girls matching Christmas nightgowns.  We got socks and underwear, candy, books and coloring books and crayons.  There were always new outfits for Christmas day, and new dress shoes.  I thought we were the luckiest kids in the world.

My best friend from first grade to sixth grade I'll call Gertrude to protect her identity.  Every year on Christmas day, she would call me to tell me what she got for Christmas. In her family, new bicycles, or Barbie Dream Homes were the kinds of presents they got.  I was always excited for her, and excited to talk about what gifts I had received.  I never felt jealous, or like her gifts overshadowed mine.

When I was in fifth grade, my mom went back to work full-time.  There was more money after Mom and Dad were both working full-time, and the Christmas that I was in sixth grade, my parents had enough money to buy us some big family presents.  They bought us a stereo, and a sewing machine.  It was super exciting, as we all loved music, and my older sister and I were loving learning to sew.

Christmas morning, as soon as we got up, my mother asked me when I was going to call Gertrude and tell her about our big presents.  I wasn't thinking about calling Gertrude at all, and I really hated to call someone to brag about Christmas presents, but Mom looked so disappointed, I made the call.

Even though I was only eleven years old, I realized my mother had felt bad every year when Gertrude called and talked about her gifts.  Harriet had carried a hurt around that she never needed to.  I never felt like I didn't get good gifts, or have great Christmases, but Harriet felt like she wasn't providing for her children as well as Gertrude's parents were.

Where am I going with this?

I never told my mom that she had nothing to feel bad about.  I realized that she felt bad, but I didn't know how to tell her that I was fine.

I feel sad that Harriet didn't realize that while I loved getting presents, what was most important to me was the whole family being together, and the love we shared.

Remembering this story reminded me of something very important.

We never know what can make another person feel less than, or feel like they are disappointing someone.  It is really important to tell people how much you appreciate them.  How special the things they do are.  How their presence in your life is the only gift you really need.

We're all carrying around our own special bag full of our sense of inadequacy. All the positive self talk in the world never seems to empty the bag.

So, in honor of Harriet, I want you all to know that all I need from the people I love is that they are present in my life.

And also in honor of Harriet, I'm going to do the very best I can to let people know that they are not a disappointment to me.  That they are exactly perfect how they are.

Because the things you can buy are never as important as the gift of your time.  And the gift of your attention.   And the best gift I can give to anyone is my assurance that they are exactly perfect in all their imperfection.

Coralee - A Parable

There was a girl named Coralee
Who was as smart as she could be

She was also brave and good
And tried to do the best she could

Coralee worked every day
She hardly ever stopped to play

She went to school
And worked real hard
She cleaned the house
And mowed the yard

Coralee did all she should
But never felt like she did good

She'd always ask
After a task

Did I do it right?
As good as I might?

The response she got
Was always curt
And Coralee's feelings
Were always hurt

But that didn't stop Coralee
From trying to be the best she could be

She listened more so she could do
The things that others wanted her to

She'd cry herself to sleep at night
Hoping tomorrow she'd get it right

But tomorrow never came
You see
They never appreciated
Coralee

One morning Coralee awoke
And decided it was all a joke

Pleasing others was an impossible mission
It was time for her life to have a redefinition

Coralee would do what she wanted to
What made her happy and feel good too

She would always be brave and kind and good
And fill her days with the things she should

She still went to school
The yard stayed mowed
The house stayed clean
And her efforts showed

Praising herself became
Coralee's way
And she went to sleep happy
Every day

Nothing had really changed you see,
Only the inside of Coralee

And that made everything better.

Be like Coralee.  Be the best you can be.  Praise yourself.  Cook what you like to eat.  Make whatever art you like to make.  Decorate your house to make yourself happy.  Sing the song you want to sing.  Dance when you want to.

You can take good care of yourself and be self-affirming without being selfish.  And when you love yourself, and treat yourself well, it increases your capacity to be good to others.

Try as hard as you can to be your own cheering section.  You are a wonderful, unique creation with gifts no one else can bring.  I spent years being an approval junkie.  I was afraid to share my gifts until someone told me they were good enough to share.  I learned to be like Coralee.  And it has made everything better.

Bouncing Thoughts

Yesterday, I planned to post a parable today. But then I went to see Dolly Parton in concert last night, and that set off a myriad of thought paths.  This morning, I read a great article in the Guardian titled "Political Correctness:  How the right created a phantom enemy", and that provoked more ideas, and then I read another great article in The Atlantic "The Case Against Reality", and that led to still more ideas.

I have to decide which direction to go, and to figure out if there is a relationship in all the idea provokers that coalesce as one blog posting.  Here is my attempt.

There was a little girl born in deep poverty.  The family lived first in a barn, then in a shack without plumbing or electricity.  The girl was one of twelve children, so the children shared clothes and sleeping space.  Clothing was often made by the children's mother, and were made of rags cast off by others.  The little girl didn't see her poverty, or the difficulties of her life.  She saw that she was raised with love, and the gift of music.  The girl imagined herself singing in front of hundreds of cheering fans.  Instead, she sings in front of tens of thousands of cheering fans, and has a net worth of over $450 million dollars.  Because she believed in a different reality than she lived in, and was fearless in pursuing the reality she knew she could have.

You all know I am a great believer in imagining the life you want, and then going after it.  Dolly Parton did that, in spite of the long odds against her success, and the improbability of her dreams.  Had she asked, and listened to advice, I'm sure she never would be who and what she is.

She didn't just dream and imagine.  She planned.  She sacrificed.  She created a persona, and she marketed that persona.

One of the things that Dolly said last night at the end of her concert really struck a chord in me.  She said that we have been predicting and waiting for the end of days since the first of days.  And what we know is we have this day.  This day to be kind to each other, to be good to each other, to appreciate each other in all our wonderful differences.

BAM!

We all live in a different reality, and all we know we have is right now.

What I have been battling, what has had me in a funk, is disillusionment.

The illusion of reality that I had been floating in I felt was disproved by the election of a man who routinely mocks and belittles others, who calls for increased torture, who calls for the expulsion of entire groups of people based on their ethnicity or religion as President of the United States.

I no longer believe that my illusion of reality was disproved.  I now understand that a man was able to use language to manipulate others' illusion of reality to believe that he is their savior.  He was able to use language to create a common reality for people who already felt left out and left behind.  People who had never imagined multiples futures for themselves so that they could then plan for how to close the gap between the reality they were experiencing and the reality they sought.

This man painted himself as able to restore an illusion of reality that they clung to.  An illusion where their supremacy was never questioned, where their employment was assured, and where they didn't have to incorporate a changing society into their illusion of reality.

My disillusionment was getting in the way of my understanding that.  I want to villainize those who were manipulated.  Don't get me wrong.  Some of them are bad people.  And I know innocent people will be hurt by the policies of the incoming administration if those of us who can fight for a better reality don't do so.  But if I view them all as other, I have no need to try to help them see a different reality, I have no bridge to present a new illusion.

So for me to have the energy to fight, I have to have hope.  Hope and disillusionment do not coexist well.

My hope was reignited.

We can create improbable stories by imagining, believing, and working towards improbable goals.

We still and always just have today to wander through our respective realities and try to make the world better, and to bring it closer to that perfect imaginary reality of our dreams.

My reality and your reality will always be uniquely our own.  But you and I can both learn to paint pictures, with words, with actions, with music, with art, that will allow others to join with us and create a common reality that is embracing of all of us.

One imagining, one dream, one kind act, one embracing of that which is other to us at a time.

I do not relinquish my power to create the reality I seek.  And neither should you.

Finding my voice again

I haven't written much in this blog lately, because, frankly, the US Presidential election caused me to lose my voice for a while.

I listen to people say that anyone having trouble accepting the outcome of this election is a sore loser.  That is not it at all.

My problem is that I am a thinker.  I see the world as a complex interconnected place where actions have consequences.  Immediate and deferred consequences, visible and invisible consequences.

The consequences of electing Donald Trump President of the United States are not yet fully known.

I tried my best to find a glimmer of hope or optimism for the past three weeks.  I'm not finding any, and I'm no longer trying to find any.

Now it is time to use my voice to speak for inclusion, and decency, and compassion.

The United States of America is a mess right now.  The underbelly of anger, prejudice and hate that had been thinly covered is on display for all to see.  Hate crimes and harassment are increasing.  Swastikas are being spray painted in public parks, on churches, and on homes.

So what do we do?

Each and every one of us has an obligation to create the world we want to live in.  We have to start with our families, then expand that world to include our friends, and then all of our acquaintances.

I try very hard to keep conflict provoking posts off of Facebook, but I realize I have to modify my position.  I don't need to post provocative things, but I need to have the courage to speak out against post that feed the anger, prejudice and hate.

Part of why bad things happen is because good people are silent.  And passive.

And that is so hard.  Because I was raised that good children are quiet and obedient.

Obedience is not called for when people's rights can be violated.

I have to find the words to be encouraging.  I have to find the words to illustrate a path of inclusion and hope and kindness.

I have to figure out concrete actions people can take that do not place them in undue peril, but increase the goodness on display in the world.

Many people think this was just another election, and that the United States of America has survived other, worser things.

But I don't think so.

I think the United States of America will survive, but it will be a long time before we are what we used to be.  I predict massive redistribution of wealth, desecration of our public school system, loss of civil liberties, and loss of social safety programs.

I am unbearably sad for the people that will be directly hurt by the changes that seem inevitable at this point in time.

My charity will be more necessary than ever before.

My next couple of posts will probably be parables.  The best way for me to work to a place of light is through analogy, and parables will allow me to do that.

In the meantime, be as good and kind as you can to everyone you meet.  Kindness is not given because it is deserved, kindness is given because you are kind.

Bystander Effect

During my career as a Safety Professional, it was not uncommon during accident investigation to learn that the action that let to the accident had happened many times before.  It was also not uncommon for peers to have witnessed the unsafe action, and made no attempt to intervene and stop the chain of cause and effect before the accident happened.

So, one of the many things I focused on in accident prevention was in getting people more comfortable to make an intervention, to stop someone when they were doing something that they could get hurt doing.

I'm sure many of you are thinking that this should have been pretty easy.  We all like to think that we would stop someone from doing something that they could hurt themselves doing.  But intervention is hard.

One of the tasks I was assigned to was to create a learning event to help people understand the barriers to intervention, and the psychological predisposition to looking the other way.

It was in the creation of that learning event that I first learned about bystander effect.  The term bystander effect was first popularized after the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese.  Genovese was stabbed to death outside her New York apartment.  There were many witnesses to the murder, but no one helped or called police.

In the years since 1964, the popularized version of the murder of Kitty Genovese has been called into question.  There are accounts that the police were called, but arrived too late.  But the lessons from the psychological studies that followed this case still have merit.

There are many underlying causes for bystander effect.  One of the most profound is the belief that other people see the problem, and one of them is more qualified to intervene.  Another cause is fear, fear for your own safety or comfort.

I've been thinking a lot about bystander effect lately.  In a country that seems torn by political discord, violence and a declining social norm for solving problems peacefully, it seems impossible that all of us will not have to make a choice at some point between intervening in a frightening public situation, or looking the other way.

I don't want anyone who is reading this to feel criticized if you know you just can not intervene.  There are huge psychological barriers to intervention.

But I would ask everyone reading this to think about what you can, and what you should do.  Can you film the event using your smart phone?  Can you call 911?   Can you just make a lot of noise and attract a crowd?  What can and what will you do?

Challenge yourself on many levels.  One of the exercises in the learning event gave groups scenarios, and asked what they would do.  It was fairly universal that someone seeing a toddler about to run into a road would grab the toddler.   Seeing a woman with small children broken down on the side of the road?  More people would stop and help, then would stop and help if it was a man broken down on the side of the road.  But most would call 911.

I know none of us want to imagine ourselves in an active shooter situation.  Or watching someone get beat up.  Or watching someone be verbally abused.  But I think it is good to imagine yourself in those situations, and make a plan for what you will do.

We most often regret what we didn't do more than what we did do.  I would hate to think that my inaction cost someone their life, but I would also hate to think my inaction cost someone their dignity.

We all have the power of our voice and our presence to be a force for good.  It is hard to be the good we can be when we are shocked into silence.  Because of that, we have to anticipate what could go wrong that could need our voice, and prepare to be that voice.

Psychologists recommend that when seeing someone being verbally abused that you do not confront the abuser, but rather approach the victim with small talk.   Lovely weather, nice dress, love your hair, whatever; and place yourself as close to the victim without invading their space.  Keep up a steady flow of inoffensive chatter, distract them from the verbal abuse, and stay with them until the abuser is gone.

Physical abuse is harder to figure out what to do.  By all means, call for help.  Then you will have to make a call based on the personal risk of the specific situation.  Often you will have limited options. Just do the best you can.

If in an active shooter situation, run if you can, hide if that is the only possibility.  If you are hiding with a group, try to help each other to barricade yourselves from the shooter.

With this past weekend seeing mass shootings in New Orleans and Kansas City, and with yesterday's attack on Ohio State's campus; it seems that the violence in society is escalating.  Checking in with the gun violence archive, they report nine mass shootings since Thanksgiving.

Be smart about where you go.  Have a plan for what you will do if violence erupts where you are.  And as much as possible, know what you will do to be one of the helpers.

Connecting with the Past

Yesterday was a very happy, productive day for me.  I spent most of the day baking.

I have always loved to bake, but during the years that I worked full-time, it fell by the wayside.

After I retired, I often thought about baking, but then wondered who would eat what I baked, and realized it would be me and my husband, and because we don't need the extra calories, I didn't bake.

But American Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and so I baked.

I used the rolling pin my grandmother gave me, and as I made and rolled pie crust, I remembered my grandmother patiently teaching me how to make pie dough, and how to roll the dough so the it had an even thickness.

I thought about for all that my dad was an amazing cook and baker, he never could master pie crust, and remembered him watching me make pie crust with a sort of wonder that I always got it to turn out well.

I made cinnamon sticks with the leftover pie dough, which is what we did in my family.  I wondered if other people used the pie dough scraps this way, so I posted a picture on Facebook, and got numerous responses and deepened my connections with my friends and family.

I made pumpkin tarts from a recipe on Pinterest, and when all the tart shells were full, I had leftover filling.  So, I added the rest of the pumpkin, and flour and baking powder, and baking soda and salt, and made pumpkin drop cookies with buttercream icing.  It felt really good to know that I know how to combine ingredients without a recipe to make baked goods.

I love the science and alchemy of baking.  I use alchemy in the second definition found in Merriam-Webster:

A power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way.

I've always felt that baking had a magic to it.  I love the way the pastry has flaky layers as the baking process transforms that solid dough into layers.  I love the way baking powder causes the cookie or cake batter to rise and have lightness.  I love the way the butter and powdered sugar combine with a little milk and vanilla into perfectly creamy icing.  I love the way the cinnamon sugar is changed by melting into the dough and then cooling.

I posted pictures of everything I baked on Facebook, and got many positive responses, provoking even more happy memories.  My godfather, my Uncle Bill, was a great baker, and my sister, my daughter and my niece all were reminded of Uncle Bill as I went on my baking spree.

One of the things I had forgotten about baking is how much it connects me with my past.  My Grandmother, Uncle Bill and my Dad were all in the kitchen with me yesterday afternoon as I went about my baking.

And because for me, scent or smell is a powerful evocator of memory, the fragrances in the kitchen brought back many happy memories of days and years gone by.  I remembered baking with my grandmother as a small child, with my mom and dad in later years, and then with my daughter when she was small.

The physical action of rolling pie dough, although something I haven't done for years, was as familiar as if I had done it yesterday.  At the end of the day, I was filled with a true sense of contentment, proud of the day's accomplishments, and happy with the products of my work.

As I sat on the couch and crocheted, I thought about my Aunt Nini, and how much she loved to crochet.  I am so very grateful that I was taught so many of the domestic arts as a child, because they connect me so tangibly to the people who taught them to me.

I realized as I was working yesterday, that no matter what is happening in the world, no matter what distress or upheaval exists, I can create an oasis of calm for myself by using the domestic arts to connect with my past.

I am once again in awe of the gifts I have been given in my life.  The family I was born into.  The lessons my family taught me.  The skills my family helped me to develop.

As I think about American Thanksgiving and what I am thankful for, the list is too long to enumerate.  And having a list too long is definitely what I am most thankful for.

Should and is

I've never been a fan of the word should.  First of all, it is not spelled the way it sounds.  But mostly, it is because "should" thinking can get in the way of "is" thinking.

The word "should" has many definitions.  But the one definition that I always hear when the word "should" is used is certainty of correctness.  As in "You should have known better"  or "It shouldn't have happened that way".

Should always strikes my ear as negative.  Should sounds judgemental to me.  As if the speaker knows some universal secret about the correctness of the universe that I missed.

I greatly prefer "is" and "could" thinking.  Not that "could" is spelled any less funny than "should" but because "could" is a word that opens up the door of endless possibilities, I forgive the clumsy spelling.

If you deal in "is" thinking, it means you try as hard as you can to see things as they really are.  You look for data (and mountains of it) that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that things are as they are.   You are as reality based as you can be, given that we each live in our own beautiful alternate reality.

"Is" thinkers are problem solvers by nature.  They observe.  They analyze.  And then they imagine a better outcome.  They think in terms of what "could" be.

The difference between "should" and "could" is enormous.  "Should" indicates that the to be state is known and that the speaker knows one correct to be state.  "Could" offers one of boundless possibilities for other "is" thinkers to analyze, evaluate and debate.

"Should" thinking leaves no room for "could" thinking.

And "could" thinking is what feeds optimism, and hope, and joy. "Should" thinking shrinks the window through which we see the world.  "Could" thinking makes the window broader than the horizon.

Every time you look back at a moment in your life and think it should have been different, it creates dissonance.  You are unfavorably comparing the "is" state to the imagined state.

Instead, of you look at a moment in your life and think it could have been different, it creates the possibility to analyze why it wasn't different, and to identify if there are future actions you could take to create outcomes that leave you happier.

I have often shared that I am a pragmatist.  I know that I am an optimistic pragmatist, in that I am very comfortable in accepting the limitations of my current "is" state, and analyzing what I can and cannot influence in my current "is" state.

"Could" thinking allows me to envision the end state I believe is best for me and those I love, and then analyze the data to see if my end state is on the list of possible and probable outcomes.

Many times my "could" end state is highly improbable.  But the time spent in dreaming of it, in analyzing what steps would have to be taken to get there, is time that is spent in the realm of hopeful possibility.

And the more time I spend imagining "could" end states that are happy for me and those I love, the more ways I think of to inch closer to those perfect "could" end states.

Life is hard and full of disappointment.  There are days when the mantle of sorrow makes it hard to lift your head. There are days when it seems too much to bear to just go on.

When you practice analyzing your "is" state, and then imagining a "could" state that is happy and fulfilling, you give yourself the opportunity to evaluate if your "could" state is possible.  And sooner or later, you will imagine an end state that is achievable, and then you can make a plan to work towards it.

Try to put "should" thinking behind you.  Evaluate what is, identify what could be, and then chart your course.

For me, this has made the journey much more hopeful, much more filled with joy, and full of the excitement of possibility.

Finding Inspiration

My goal as a retiree from corporate America was to be an inspirational blogger.  I still think it is a good goal, just harder to achieve than I expected.  It can be hard in times of discouragement, disappointment and fear to find inspiration.

A couple of things have happened over the last few days that I am going to draw on for inspiration, and I am going to try to keep my well full so that I can meet my goal to be an inspirational blogger.

On Sunday, I went to Mass.  I'll be honest, I was very nervous about going to Mass.  I was afraid I would hear rhetoric that is the antithesis of what I believe Catholicism should be.

Boy, was I surprised.  I had difficulty holding back tears when Father Pat gave his sermon.  He talked about the power of words, and how we as Christians have an obligation to not just ask ourselves "What Would Jesus Do?"  but also "What Would Jesus Say?"  The gospel reading warned that all who do good will be persecuted, and that we should not make our own defense, but rather ask Jesus to speak through us.  And Father Pat emphasized that we should be very careful that our words are not coming from a place of anger or defeat, but rather our words should be words that build up and protect.

Now, I know many of my readers aren't Catholic, and don't practice a faith tradition.  What I heard in non-Catholic terms was "Be the Good.  Protect others. Use words carefully to build up and protect.  Speak out against injustice, but do so in a way that attracts people to listen and hear, rather than provokes them to close their ears and hearts and mount a counter argument."  

This morning, I had the opportunity to spend a little over an hour on the phone with a very dear friend in China.  She is a Chinese national, and has lived in China for most of her life.  She did live in the US, in Texas for two years as part of a career development exchange program.  We use the meeting host service WebEx to share pictures and information, as many forums for information sharing are not available in China.  She shared that there are rumors that China may open up Facebook soon.  I can send her Gmail to her work account, but her private account does not accept Gmail.  She can't use Google or Facebook.  Today, we tried Pinterest, and it looks like that may be a site allowed by the Chinese government.  If so, I will set up a board on my Pinterest to share things with her.

What is the point?  The point is, that in spite of living in China, where human rights oppression is very real, my friend is a very good person who works tirelessly to improve the lives of others.  She works in Industrial Hygiene and in Safety, protecting people from harm in the workplace.  She does this in a place where there is not a regulatory framework to support her efforts.  She does this in a place where many of the workers she is trying to protect don't understand the protections she tries to put in place.

But she keeps trying.  She keeps making it better.  She keeps approaching each day with a sincere love for her fellow human beings, and an optimism that is undaunted.  If she can work in the situation she works in for the good every day with a smile, and love, and an unbending will, so can I.

The final thing that happened was that I read an account from a woman who had played Miep Gies, the woman who hid Anne Frank and other Jews from the Nazis, in a school play.  The woman had written Miep Gies, to tell her how she admired her courage in risking her own safety to save others.  She shared the letter she got from Miep Gies in response.  The letter was incredibly moving in its honestly.

Miep Gies said that she was not courageous, simply a secretary and housewife, who knew that inaction would haunt her the rest of her life, so she had to at least try.

And there you go.  I have to at least try.  I sent letters to Speaker Ryan, my senators and my congressional representative yesterday, and they will get more letters today.  I will write every day to inform them of my position on issues.

I will not be silent in the face of injustice.  I will not give up.  I will fight against all discrimination and any effort to take away necessary protections from the people of the United States.  

I accept it may happen anyway.  But I will be like my friend in China, and never give up trying to make it better, no matter how my government behaves.

It never was anyway

For the past eight years, I have listened to people on the right complain "I want my America back".  This morning, for the first time, I read a comment from the left stating "This is not my America anymore".

What I'm about to say may offend some people.  It may make some people really angry.

But I'm going to say it anyway.

It never was "your America".

It was always "our America".

And therein lies the problem.

Anything that is "ours" ; anything that belongs to the many, is going to be problematic.

It will be rent with strife and disagreement.

It will always be populated by those who feel it is working for them, and for those who feel abandoned by it.

I am by no means saying that it is illegitimate that many people are frightened by the very real, frightening, and negative consequences that the results of this election could have on their lives.

Fear is a very legitimate emotion for many right now.

What I am saying, however; is that just as all emotion is real, all fear is real.

And even when one person believes another person's emotion or fear is not legitimate, they are always wrong.

Because all emotion, and all fear is legitimate.  I don't have to understand where your fear comes from to understand you are afraid.

So the people that say they were afraid of what would happen if a different candidate won are just as legitimate in their fear as those who are now afraid.

And working from a place of fear is never good for anyone.  Because fear overrides logic, and fear overrides the ability to mount a logical argument.

So those of us who are not afraid at a visceral level about the personal impact this result could have must remain calm in the face of reality, and mount the campaign to protect those who need our protection.

And we have to calm the rhetoric as much as we can.  Because fear is paralyzing, so stoking the fear is creating more paralysis.

I believe that as long as anyone is worried about "their" America, we will never move forward.

It is our America.  And we all have to accept that sustaining democracy is a lot like making sausage, it is an ugly, messy process.  And just like the product at the end of the sausage making can be a very good product, so can the result of our ugly , messy democracy be a good product.

But we have to stay with it even when it is ugly.

One of the hardest things in the world is to accept that you will never understand someone else's motivation for the things that they do and say.

You may be fortunate to have some very self-aware people in your world that can tell you their motivation, but you can never know a person's motivation unless they tell you.

So deciding anything about the people that voted differently from you is not sound.  Unless you know them, and they are a self-aware person, and they told you their reasons for voting the way they did, you don't know why.

And we can't have the messy conversations we need to have to move this democracy forward unless we approach each other with respect.

I, like many, have struggled for the past eight years with the obstructionism in Congress and the Senate.  I sincerely believe that the lack of civility in Washington has fed a lack of civility in American society.  In order for our democracy to survive, we have to do better.

We have to raise our voices clearly to articulate what we believe in.  If we want a more inclusive, more tolerant, kinder America, we have to model more inclusive, more tolerant and kinder behavior.

We have to listen to, and accept as real the emotions and fears of everyone we talk to.  I know there will be times when I absolutely can't understand where the fear is coming from (like all the people that believed that Obama was going to take their guns away), but I still have to accept that their fear is real to them, and work to understand what can be done so that they no longer have to be afraid.

I don't want this great two hundred and forty year old experiment in representative democracy to go down in flames.  I want America to succeed for all of us, and for the planet. And I truly believe that most Americans feel the same way.

So now comes the hard work of listening to each other, of finding compromise that we can all live with, instead of what we have been seeing for the past eight years, which is both sides digging in and making the distance between us greater.

I know for many, it feels like you are always the one who has to compromise, the one who has to be the adult in the room.  As bizarre as it may sound to you, many who you most vehemently disagree with feel the same way.

So let's stop thinking in terms of "my America".  Let's start talking about a vision of "our America".  An America that is inclusive, and fair, and presents opportunity for everyone.  An America where people don't have to be bankrupted by illness or disability.  An America where a person can get the education they need to get the job they want to buy themselves a good life without a mountain of debt.  An America where we can agree to disagree, and then find a common place where we have all given up some, but none have given up all.  An America that truly believes in the promise of Liberty Island,

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

We can do it.  We have done it before.  We just have to roll up our sleeves, commit to the process, and never give up.

And for anyone reading this who is afraid, I am with you.  I have your back.  I will do everything I can to protect you. And I will continue to work for the vision of America that I know many of us share.

Numbers

Numbers fascinate me and comfort me.  I look to numbers when the world doesn't make sense.   I was attracted to accounting as a profession, because of the balance sheet.  You have to make an entry on both sides of the ledger for every transaction.  A very orderly system to make sense of a disorderly world.

I moved away from the safety of numbers to the chaos of humans when I moved from Accounting to Environment, Health and Safety.  But I returned to numbers in my profession to make sense of the things that went wrong, the things that damaged people or the environment.  I believed data could show a better, safer path forward.

When I am scared, or stressed, I turn to numbers.  Data is serene.  Data is emotionless.  Data is constant, in that it always exists.  I do crochet that involves constant counting when I need to quiet my mind.  Numbers are meditative for me.  So, because I have to remain calm and strong in a scary world, I am looking to numbers.

I did a little exercise yesterday.  I looked up the population of the United States.  The last official numbers I could find were from 2014.  The population listed for the United States in 2014 was 318.9 million people.  The number of people that voted for the president-elect was 59.6 people.  That means that 259.3 million people did not vote for him.

I know not all of the 318.9 million people are eligible voters, but they are still people.  So, basically one in five Americans voted for the president-elect.

I know a lot of you are heartsick about what is says about the United States that a man that presented himself as racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and a bully could get elected President of the United States.  Well, here is where the numbers make sense to me.

We all know one in five people will remain silent in the face of bullying, and hatred, and meanness, if they believe that it doesn't impact them, or that by remaining silent they will get something that they want.

I believe that most of us, if we do honest self-reflection, have a moment in our lives when we were silent when a wrong was committed against another human being.  And that many of us choose to never forget that moment so that we never make that mistake again.

My point?  I believe that many of the people who voted for the president-elect chose to look away from the bullying, and the racism, and the misogyny, and the xenophobia because they felt he was offering them something they need.

We are all guilty of working in our own self interest at times.

Please try as hard as you can to not make this election result a referendum on the basic decency of your neighbors.  Most people are decent.  Many people choose to look past what makes them uncomfortable if they feel like a greater good is served.

I personally think America made a huge mistake.  I think that the platform of the Republican party will be bad for our nation, and for many of our nation's citizens.  That is why I voted for the flawed Democratic candidate.  It was because the Democratic platform more closely aligned with the things I value.

But to call everyone who voted for the president-elect wrong, or racist, or bad doesn't get us anything but more anger, more hate, and less opportunity to fix what is broken.

I know that today I have a much deeper obligation to many of my friends and family to protect them.  I have a deeper obligation to not be silent about injustice.

But if I start from a position of not respecting that everyone does what they do for what they feel are valid reasons, I have no hope of finding common ground, no hope of moving to a place of more love and inclusion instead of a place of hate and fear.

I don't have to agree with you or see your perspective to still see you as an individual deserving of respect.  If your behavior informs me that you don't deserve my respect, I will withhold it.

And if i see hurtful actions towards another, I will intervene.

Remember that four out of five Americans did NOT vote for the president-elect.  There are scores of decent, loving people everywhere you look.  See them.  Unite with them.  We must take care of each other.  It is the only right answer.

For my dogs, it is just another day

I have a sense of having woken up in a bad dream.  But this is not a bad dream  This is a sad reality.  I pray that the checks and balances created by our Founding Fathers will be enough to prevent the destruction that could result from the 2016 election, but I am frightened that they will not.

I am not angry.  I don't hate the people that voted the way they voted.  They believed they had good reason.  I am trying to go about my life as if everything is normal.  But the small still voice in my heart is saying I need to be afraid.

Fear is the enemy.  Action is the answer.  The saddest thing is that personally, I have nothing to fear.  I am a cisgendered, white, heterosexual married woman with a home.  And health insurance provided by my company as part of my retirement package.

The fear I have is for all the people that I love who are Muslim, or disabled, or non-White, or immigrants, or LGBTQ,  or have serious health conditions.  I don't believe that everyone who voted for a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic charlatan is racist or bigoted.  I believe many of them simply were easy to manipulate.  Or single issue voters.  Or just angry enough to say "no more" to established politicians.

I can't be angry with people for making mistakes, because being human means making mistakes.  But not being angry doesn't mean being quiet.  And none of us can afford to be quiet now.

But my dogs are fine.   Beaux still wants to play fetch, and Scarlett wants to be pet.  The sun came out from behind the clouds.  The world is still turning.

I have been alive for fifteen presidential elections.  I really remember thirteen of those.  I have been disappointed in the election results before.  I have been ambivalent on the election results before.  Only once have I been truly delighted, and that was when Barack Obama was elected in 2008.  Only once have I been truly sickened, and that is now.  I honestly physically feel sick today.

But that doesn't help or change anything.  I have always been a thorn in the side of my senators and representative, and that won't stop now.

I need to find peace.  I need to work on my novel, because I believe that stories of faith, and hope, stories of love and redemption are going to be sorely needed in the near future.

I will probably not pay attention to the news for the next few days.  I'm going to choose to write, and crochet, and listen to music.

The world turns.  This great experiment in democracy is about to be sorely tested.  The wounds that this contentious election formed will not heal easily, and the scars will be deep.

I hope my worst fears are not realized.  I hope that 20 million Americans don't lose their health insurance.  I hope that marriage equality stays the law of the land.  I hope families are not shattered by deportation.  I hope that a woman's right to choose is preserved.  I hope that laws allowing discrimination are not passed.  I hope we don't go backwards.

And I honestly believe that many of the people who voted for the newly elected president don't think those things are going to happen.

Like Anne Frank, I still believe people are basically good at heart.

I'm just afraid that a not good at heart person just became the most powerful person in the free world.  And I've never felt that way before.

Family

Home again after a long week on the road.  There are lots of thoughts bubbling around in my head, and I will eventually share them all with you.  But the first and most important thoughts I want to share are thoughts on family.

I have shared many times how blessed I know I am to have been born into the family I was born into.  I am the third of the four children of my parents, I have an older brother, an older sister, and a younger sister.  I have twenty first cousins on my father's side, and no first cousins on my mother's side.  I have countless cousins on my father's side reaching into many times removed, as family ties are strong and unrelenting in my family.

Growing up, I thought every family was like mine.  I thought my cousin's cousins were my cousins too.  If someone was called family, I embraced them as family.

I moved away from my family's home geography at twenty-six, and never went back there to live.  My brother moved away from my family's home geography at nineteen and never went back there to live.  I am still extraordinarily close to my brother.  The lack of physical proximity has not diminished the strength of my love for him or the profound connection I have to him.

I am also extraordinarily close to my sisters, although I only talk to my younger sister at a regular frequency.  The amount of time or number of contacts with my sisters doesn't diminish my love for them or my connection with them.

I don't see my cousins very often, but when I do it is always a good time.  I love them all, and their children, and their children's spouses, and their children's children.  We have a spectrum of beliefs and occupations, we are physically diverse, but we love one another more than enough to overlook the differences.

As an adult, I know every family is not like mine.  Some families quarrel, and disown each other.  Some families are never given the opportunity to know their cousins and extended relatives.  Some families don't value and love each other.  And that makes me sad.

So where am I going with this?  Well, in spite of having a wonderful, loving and close knit extended family, I added more people.  Sisters and brothers, cousins, nieces and nephews, children, you name the relationship, and there is someone that I treasure, that I call sister or brother or child that shares no blood with me.

Because I'm greedy in that way.  I can never love too many people, or have too many people love me.

So, whatever the accident of your birth, whether born to a family that holds on tight, or into a family that easily lets go, you can still have a large extended loving family.

If it feels right, reach out to family you have lost and try to reconnect.  Recognize the people in your life that you love like family and make them your family of choice.  Love one another unrelentingly and unselfishly.

Life is just better when it is full of love.  You hold the power to have a love-filled life.  It involves a little risk of rejection, but trust me, the risk is well worth the reward.

Not a good answer

I read an article this morning about an explosion at a chemical plant in Germany that killed three people and seriously injured seventeen people.  The article said the preliminary investigation showed the cause of the accident to be human error.

That, my dear readers, is not a good answer.

To be perfectly clear, it is probably possible to blame every unintended consequence on human error.  One, we are not a particularly good species, and two, humans orchestrate millions of actions every day.  Even if the only human error was not recognizing the unintended consequence was available, that is still a human error.

As a safety professional, my position on this topic never changed.  If the consequence of error is unacceptable, you must put a safeguard in place so that the human can not make the error.  Safeguards are ranked in order of effectiveness.

The most effective safeguard is elimination.  Elimination is exactly what it sounds like, remove or eliminate the hazard.  One of the types of elimination used is substitution, where you use a less hazardous method or material.

Then there are engineering controls.  There are two types of engineering controls, passive controls and active controls.  Passive controls are controls that are just there, like impact absorbing bumpers on a car.  Active controls have to be deployed, either by human interaction, like putting on a seatbelt, or by a device, like the activator on an airbag.

The least effective hazard controls are administrative controls.  This is where rules, procedures and training are used to reduce the probability of error.  But since we're still talking about humans, very weak.

Finally there is personal protective equipment.  This is where protective clothing, respirators, hard hats, safety shoes, gloves, etc. come into play.  Sometimes, using personal protective equipment in addition to other controls is just the right answer, because personal protective equipment can reduce or remove the probability of life altering injury.

So, all of that is valuable information, no matter what you do for a living or what environment you find yourself in.

Many parents of small children use elimination on a regular basis as hazard control to keep their children safe.  Parents remove sharp objects, and generally control all items allowed in their children's environment.  They also often substitute harmful cleaning solutions with things like vinegar and baking soda.

We're all used to the passive and active engineering controls on our cars.  Most of us have circuit breakers or fuses in the electrical systems in our homes that disrupt the flow of electricity if there is an overcurrent situation.  Many of us have Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters (GFCI) protecting the electrical outlets in our homes.

And most of us also use rules, like "Don't run with scissors", "Look both ways before crossing the street", "Put your seatbelt on" to mitigate hazards that we recognize.

As I said earlier, though, none of us can see or imagine all the hazards that exist.  And when a hazard acts on anyone of us, that gives us all the opportunity to learn to guard against it.

Human error is not a cause of accidents.  It is a universal truth.  Humans will always make mistakes.  Hazards will always exist.  When terrible accidents occur, we should try to learn all that we can about what went wrong, what safeguard or system failed so that we can make the safeguards and systems better so that no future suffering has to occur.

We can take the easy way out and blame accidents on human error.  Or we can try harder to make the world safer for all of us by figuring out ways to protect humans from the inevitable errors that we make.

A parable on the American Voting populace

There was a man who needed to find a way to make money, so he decided to raise rabbits.  He knew that rabbits reproduced rapidly, and thought he could sell the meat and the fur and make some money.

Well, the rabbits did multiply, but the man found himself unable to kill the rabbits, so now instead of making him money, the rabbits were costing him money.

One day as he was cleaning up the rabbit warren (yes he had built a truly spectacular habitat for his rabbits)  he thought "If I could only find a market for rabbit poop, I could still make money off of these rabbits".  And then an idea was born.  The man decided to collect the rabbit poop, box it, and sell the poop as "Smart Pills".  After all, didn't almost everyone wish they were smarter?

The man had boxes printed up, and put ten poop pellets in each box.  He had allowed the pellets to dry out, so there was no smell.  He then sprinkled the pellets with cinnamon, so when the box was opened, the smell was cinnamon.

The man went door to door in a town away from where he lived, and soon sold out all of his "Smart Pills".  This went on for several weeks, until the man got bold and took a supply of "Smart Pills" for sale to a local farmer's market.

Sales were going very well, until late in the afternoon, when a young boy stopped and asked for a box of Smart Pills.  The farmer sold him a box, and the boy immediately opened the box and popped a pellet into his mouth.   The boy's eyes got big, and he spit out the pellet.  "That tastes like poop!"  the boy said, and the man said "See, you are getting smarter already!"

I hope you're laughing.  That was my intent.

The next part isn't funny.  The American Voting Populace has been buying poop from our politicians, the media, and their employers for so long they really think that they are smart, and all they have been doing is hypothetically eating poop for years.

One of the truest things in the world is that there will always be those that want to separate you from your wealth.  There are employers who want to steal the time and talents of employees by not paying a decent wage for the services provided.  There are unscrupulous business people who want to overcharge for their products.  There are politicians who want to raise your taxes to fund their corporate interests.  There are unaccredited colleges and universities who want to take your money and give you no marketable skill or degree in return.  The list goes on and on.

And now it is ridiculously easy.  I watch people vote against their own best interests.  I watch politician after politician flat out lie about what they can do, because they know the average voter doesn't know the difference between the roles of the Congress, the Senate, the President and the Supreme Court.

And millions of Americans have sunk even lower than mainstream media for their information, now a Facebook meme or a tweet on Twitter are their news sources.

Intellectual poop.  And the more of this intellectual poop they swallow, the smarter they think they are getting.  And the easier they are to manipulate to vote against their own self interests.

And now a modern day P.T. Barnum is playing the American voting populace for fools.  From Wikipedia:

Phineas Taylor "P. T." Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American politician, showman, and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus.^[1]Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, "I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me",^[2] and his personal aim was "to put money in his own coffers".

In my opinion, if the above quotes are correct, P. T. was better than his modern day counterpart, because he admitted and owned who he actually was.  America is still a free country, and everyone is entitled to keep eating poop and thinking they are getting smarter if they want to.

I just wish more people would think.  Would read.  Would analyze.  Would research.  Every piece of information presented to you is tainted by the viewpoint of the person presenting the information.   That includes this blog.  Only when you seek varying sources of information, and when you challenge everything you read and hear can you endeavor to find your own truth.

And truth doesn't taste like poop.  Truth tastes like hope.  And hope breeds optimism.  And optimism breeds improvement.  And improvement means you are finally like the little boy who will spit out false information because finally, you can tell it is nothing but poop.

Random stuff

This morning I read a blog post that I wrote in May 2016.  It was titled "Waking Up Happy" and it was good for me to read it this morning, because I have been in danger of waking up grumpy lately.  I lost my focus, and started paying too much attention to the negatives, and not enough attention to the positives.  I'm back on track now.

Yesterday, my husband and I went to the brunch show at BB's Stage Door Canteen, at the National WWII Museum here in New Orleans.  The show was "Pictures of Marilyn" and presented snippets of the life of Marilyn Monroe from her time in a munitions factory during World War II until the founding of Marilyn Monroe Productions in late 1954.  The show was amazing, and the actress who played Marilyn, Courtney Boe, managed to capture the complexity of Marilyn Monroe, presenting both her vulnerability and her strength.

On Saturday, after walking the dogs and ourselves, we lunched at Station 6, a new restaurant in our neighborhood.  The food was great.  We ate outside on the patio in absolutely glorious fall weather.  Then we watched the University of West Virginia play an absolutely beautiful football game, ate some leftover gumbo, and then watched back and forth as LSU played a great game against Mississippi State, and the Chicago Cubs won their way into the baseball World Series for the first time since 1945.

Friday was the first real fall day in New Orleans.   After a walk along the lakefront, I went to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for gumbo for supper.  I asked my husband if he needed anything special, and he said no.  Fast forward to later in the day, and my husband asks if I picked up more Michelob Ultra for him at the store.  I hadn't.  That was the purpose of asking if anything special was needed.

So, I went to the store for beer, and had one of those wonderful experiences.  The young man working the register at the checkout was in the sixteen to eighteen age group.  Very handsome young man.  As he started to ring up my beer, he asked how my day had been.  I think he asked every customer.  So I looked at him, and smiled, really smiled and said "Great!  The weather is wonderful, my kids are coming over for supper to eat gumbo, just a great day."  And then he smiled back at me.  A real smile.  A smile with enough wattage to light a city block.  And so a conversation started.  "Are you planning your Thanksgiving food already?" he asked.  "I know there will be turkey and macaroni and cheese," I replied, "But not sure what else."  "Not Thanksgiving without turkey and mac and cheese," was his answer, "How about pie?"  "I like to make pumpkin tarts," I said, "More whipped cream per bite that way."  "Good thinking", he answered.  We parted ways both smiling and feeling wonderful.

As my husband would ask at this point, "Is this going somewhere?"  Yes, it is.  You see, the last few days have been ordinary, in the scope of life.  Yes, I ate at a restaurant.  Yes, my daughter and son-in-law came to dinner.  Yes, I saw a stage show.  Those are great things, but not winning the lottery great, or getting a perfect job great.

And it can be easy to take those everyday great things for granted and let them take a back seat to the inevitable aggravations that are part of life.  And that is what I mean about losing focus.  I could have gone to the store aggravated that I had to make a second trip, instead of amused that after twenty-nine years together, my husband and I still miscommunicate.  Had I been aggravated instead of amused, I may have missed a truly uplifting exchange with a stranger.  And there you go.

The life you have is a compilation of the things you give your time to, and the things you give your attention to.  The more time and attention you give to noticing and appreciating the positives, the more the positives accumulate and push away the negatives.

I know I have the choice to focus on the things I want to focus on.  I know I have the choice to respond positively or negatively to the events in my life.  It is easy when the noise in society is predominantly negative to forget that you can choose to tune it out.  I was forgetting.  I remember now why keeping my focus on the positive is so important.

There are millions of great people in the world who will light up your day with their smile if you just give them the chance.  Isn't that enough incentive to throw your positive energy into the universe to see what comes back?

Trust me.  Try throwing your positive energy out there for a while.  I promise you won't be disappointed with the wealth of good experiences that come back to you.

A pot on simmer

Those of you who know me and those of you who know me through this blog know that I try really hard to be calm.  I try really hard to see the other person's point of view.  I try really hard to not put bad karma in the universe.

I'm not myself lately.  The tension in America as we lead up to the presidential election has me on edge too.  I am like a pot on simmer, and it takes very little until I hit my boiling point.

It happened earlier today.  I'd like to tell you all about it.

My husband and I had just started our walk.  When we leave our house, we have a decision to make.  We can walk up on the levee and walk through the grass to the paved path, or we can walk around the block to where the paved path crosses the levee.  We decided to walk on the sidewalk around the block to the paved path.

As we approached the corner, there was a pumper truck working on the water system, so the sidewalk was blocked, and my husband and I were walking in the street.  Here is where the ugly starts.

Walking away from the levee is an man in his sixties, carrying a small dog.  My husband and I see this man regularly.  He has a small spaniel type dog.  He always carries a bag and picks up behind his dog if the dog goes to the bathroom.  If the little dog gets tired, the man picks up the dog and carries him home.  I don't know the man's name or the dog's name, but we say "hello" in passing.  The man and the dog seem like very nice creatures who try to cause no harm.

The man starts to cross the street carrying his dog.  A black BMW stops at the stop sign, on the street parallel to the levee.  As the man is almost across the street, the BMW turns the corner, heading right behind the man, and beeps the horn.

I lose it.  I run up to the car yelling "What is wrong with you?"  The woman rolls down her window and says "What are you talking about?"  I yell (I know I should have stopped yelling)  "Where in the world do you have to be that is so important that you can't let this man and his dog cross the street without beeping your horn at him?"  She replies "There is something wrong with you.  I beeped because he was right in front of me."  Now the man says,"I was just trying to cross the street, you didn't have to beep."  I turn to him and say "I'm sorry sir that you had to experience this.  That was just rude to beep at you."

I shouldn't have yelled.  I should have calmly explained that the rule of a four way stop sign is that you wait until the path you need to take with your vehicle is free from vehicular and pedestrian traffic before you proceed.  I should have pointed out that she failed to use her blinker, and was on the wrong side of the road when she made her turn.  I should have told her that there is nothing wrong with me, unless you think there is something wrong with anyone who will stand up to a bully on behalf of another person.

Because the action of beeping your horn at someone instead of waiting your turn is bullying.  And I can't not call out people who bully.  Because someone has to.

I don't know if that woman thought she was being a bully.  I don't know why she just didn't wait until the man cleared the intersection.  I would never beep at a pedestrian unless they were about to put themselves in harm's way.

That man didn't put himself in harm's way, he was merely trying to cross the street, and could not use the sidewalk path because it was blocked by the pumper truck.

The driver of the BMW created potential harm for him by not waiting until the intersection was clear.

I wish I would have handled myself better.  But I'm not sorry I confronted her.  I forgot the principle rule though.  Never argue with a fool, because people might not be able to tell the difference.  I don't know that woman, but I feel like I tried to argue with a fool.  Or that I tried to show what reasonable people think to an unreasonable person.

I need to let it go.   I am trying to let it go.  I'll be glad when this election season is over.  Maybe then I can cool down and be more like myself again.

The house of noisy machines

The clothes dryer just sang to me to inform me that it had stopped.  The clothes were not dry, so I reset the dryer for more time.  As it started, the noise started again.  There are bad bearings on the dryer drum, so it makes a squeaky noise.

I walked past my husbands computer, as he is doing whatever it is he is doing, and his computer has this high pitched whine.  But you stop hearing it after a while.

Most of the noisy machines in my house only make a noise to alert me that there is something I must do, like get the food out of the microwave or oven, or get the dishes out of the dishwasher, or move the clothes from the washer to the dryer, or fold the clothes in the dryer.

But for the last few months, I have these two noisy machines keeping a symphony playing in the background of my days.

Mostly I've stopped noticing the noisy machines, but last night my daughter was visiting and asked about the dryer noise, so I'm hearing it again.  And once I started hearing the dryer noise again, the computer noise intruded.

And it made me think about how nothing and everything is normal.  I know that the dryer shouldn't make that noise, and my husband purchased the repair parts to fix it, but it hasn't been done yet.  I know the computer shouldn't make that noise.  I have no idea why it is making it, but not my computer, not mine to troubleshoot or fix. Because the noises have been with me for so long, I had stopped hearing them until they were pointed out to me.

We all get used to things the way they are.  It often takes someone else to point something out to us as unusual if it is part of our everyday landscape.  And just like the squeaks and whines of equipment and machinery can become part of our normal, so too can the sounds of meanness, and prejudice, and hate.  And that is just plain scary.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how far acceptable behavior standards have fallen.  My husband and I were in a casino two weeks ago today, and there were a couple of young men in the same area as we were.  They were dropping curses, including the "f" bomb, loudly and frequently.  My husband and I moved to another area to get away from them.  But then we discussed how not too many years ago, they would have been asked to leave by security.

When we stop hearing offensive speech as offensive, our normal has shifted to include that type of speech as normal.

And it makes me sad.  Because I don't want to live in a society where loud profanity is normal.  I accept that many people lose their composure and use profane language.  I forgive everyone that has done that in my presence.  But these guys hadn't lost their composure.  They just seemed to have a vocabulary limited to profanity and articles.

I see social media posts full of profanity.  Why?  There are so many words in the English language to choose from.  Better words.  More descriptive words.  Why fall into the lazy trap of profanity?

I try to refrain from cursing and profanity, and I fail at times.  Stubbing my toe in the middle of the night is almost guaranteed to elicit profane language from me.  I wish I could do better.

But when awake and alert, I should try harder to speak in such a way that I do not make any listener uncomfortable.  And that goes beyond the words I use to the things I talk about.

There is plenty to talk about in public, when you can be overheard, that is not going to make anyone feel uncomfortable.  That is another decline in behavior I have observed.   So many people loudly and proudly discuss things in public that used to be expected to be discussed in private.

I was raised that polite conversation did not include religion, politics or sex, and it seems like I can't go to the grocery store, or a restaurant, or to a casino, or to a museum, or to a park, or to a sporting event, or to an airport without hearing a conversation on one of those topics.

Doesn't anybody read books anymore?  Or watch TV? Or go to the theater? Or listen to music? Or have hobbies?

I want to live in a world where out of respect for one another, in public we discuss benign, uniting topics, and we save divisive topics for private conversations with people we are in good relationships with.   Because good relationships can stand the tension of disagreement as long as it is respectful disagreement.

I wonder how many people have left a public place, or gone home and cried because of what they have overheard.  That is not the normal I want.  I don't think that is a healthy normal for society.

So please, when in public, think before you speak.  When on social media, think before you post.  (Actually, I recommend always thinking before you speak, but in the privacy of your home, or a friend's home, there is more latitude for the subject matter.)  Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary?   Is the topic I'm discussing likely to cause anxiety or pain to someone listening?  If my mother overheard, would I be embarrassed?  If my boss overheard, would I be embarrassed?  If my child overheard, would I be embarrassed? If this conversation was recorded and played back in front of my church congregation, would I be embarrassed?

If most people adopted a normal that kept public places free from hurtful, hateful, exclusionary and profane speech, that would be our society's normal.  And I think that would be a very good thing.

Thinking is a good thing

Today I read a long exchange between friends on Facebook.  In the exchange, one party held the President responsible for the loss of jobs in her hometown, jobs that depend on the oil industry.  Another friend tried to point out that global demand for fossil fuels is decreasing, so that a downturn in that economic sector is inevitable.

But you could tell that the person blaming the President was not convinced.   It made me profoundly sad.  And not because I'm a fan of the President.

It made me sad because the oil industry has been cyclical ever since I can remember.  It became totally obvious in the 1970's, when OPEC created an artificial shortage to drive prices up.  The US oil industry created more refining capacity to fill the need, and OPEC flooded the market with cheap gas, causing the US refineries to lay off and mothball units.  Then OPEC cut supply again, and so on, and so on.

I know it is not always OPEC cutting supply.  We have had loss of stability in Venezuela, multiple military actions in the Middle East, strained and strange relationships with Russia all contribute to different market shortages and market gluts which have created a boom and bust cycle in the oil industry.

And whoever the President of the United States is at the time has had very little if anything to do with that boom and bust cycle.

Actually, the President of the United States has very little power to make any kind of change at all.

Change is made by the Congress, and the Senate, and the Supreme Court.  And by the will of the people.

Sure, every presidential candidate has a platform.  And every candidate has personal goals for the county.  But the power of executive orders is very limited, no matter what you heard on TV or the radio.

And Congress and the Senate make the laws.  And they also fund the laws.  An unfunded law is just words on paper.

The Supreme Court interprets the law as regards to the United States Constitution.  Interpretations of what was meant in a document written two hundred and twenty-nine years ago is an evolutionary process.  As each new court of justices is informed by the norms and politics of the times that they live in, new interpretations of the original and subsequent amendments can change.

The founding fathers deliberately set up a system of checks and balances so that no one branch of government would have too much power.

Now we have seen a corruption of power in the Congress and the Senate.  The failure to hold hearings on the vacant Supreme Court seat is an example of that corruption, as is the government shutdown in October 2013, which is estimated to have cost the US economy twenty-four billion dollars.

Unfortunately, most people blame everything on the current president, or someone else's congressman or senator.

And that is why thinking is a good thing.  As much as you can, try not to believe everything you see, hear or read.  Research.  Gather data.  Learn about how government works, and how it is supposed to work.  Analyze.  Think.  Draw your own conclusions.

Single node answers are rarely correct.  The world is always evolving, and when that evolution causes personal loss or pain it feels good to be mad at someone, to blame someone.

That doesn't solve anything.  If you are really unhappy with the government, get more involved in the political process.  Vote against your senator or your congressman if you feel they do not represent you.

Send your representative, your senator, the vice-president and the president letters and emails asking questions and making your position on issues known.

Volunteer with organizations who support your causes.

But whatever you do, try as hard as you can to not buy into the fact that one political figure or the other has created whatever hardship there is in your life.

None of them are that powerful.  We give them power when we believe and advance that our unfortunate circumstance is their fault.

It is not.  Every life has it's ups and downs.  Until each of us accepts our responsibility for our own life, and make the sometimes painful choices necessary to have the life we want, it will never get better.

No matter who the President is.

Being George's daughter, and adulting

Yesterday was my daughter's fortieth birthday.  That is a pretty big occasion, both for a person and for a parent.  I spent the day remembering her birth, and the evening celebrating with her, my husband, my son-in-law and a couple of her friends.  It was a wonderful day.

One of the memories that surfaced during the day was one that I hadn't thought about in years.  My first husband and my daughter's father was a friend of my older brother.  This meant that many of my first husband's friends were also my brother's friends.

On the night of the day that my daughter was born, a group of those friends showed up at my parent's house with a bottle of Old Grand Dad bourbon whiskey, to celebrate with my father the birth of his first grandchild.  Now, if they had stayed at my parents house and sat around the kitchen or dining room table, the story could be more bland.  That is not how it transpired.

The friends and my dad went to a local park (which had closed at dark) and sat in the deserted park drinking whiskey out of paper cups until the bottle was empty.  They had a blast.  My mother was not amused.  There was no harm done, but had they been caught, it could have been very embarrassing.  Everyone was old enough to drink, and ten guys and one bottle of whiskey is not a scary level of drinking, but while for the young men it was kind of age typical behavior, my mom thought my dad was simply to old to behave so recklessly.

And that brings me to the crux of this post.  My dad was never really good at adulting.

Don't get me wrong.  He went to work every day.  He carried more than his fair share of parenting duties, of household duties, and of lawn duties.  He volunteered in the community.  He volunteered at church.  He drove the bus for our drum and bugle corps, and chaperoned our road trips.

But he did it all with the lighthearted joy of a child.

Sure, he had bad moments and bad days, just like we all do.  But when I remember my dad, I remember him smiling and laughing.  I remember the person who everyone wanted to be around at every party, because that was where all the laughter was coming from.  I remember him dressing as a clown to take us trick or treating at Halloween, and never saying a word while in his clown costume.   I remember him doing tricks on my bicycle when he was teaching me to ride.

Looking back, I know it put more of a burden on my mom because my dad was such a kid at heart.  Mom had to be the one that enforced stopping fun and getting work done.  Because when we were playing with Daddy, he never wanted it to end just like we didn't want the fun to end.  When my daughter was small, I remember him watching Sesame Street with her and enjoying the show as much as she did.

Daddy was usually the last to leave any party, because he was having so much fun.   Over the years, he went to work on too little sleep too many times, but it just meant he fell asleep watching television really early the next night.

My dad had the rare gift of meeting all his responsibilities, and taking on responsibilities he didn't have to, all while remaining very much a child at heart.  Always able to experience the wonder of a child, always able to experience the joy.  He never lost the ability to connect with children in their world.  To participate in the imagination games, and to do so with gusto.

And that is why I am so proud to be George's daughter, and why I try so hard to be like him.  Just because you have to meet your responsibilities, just because you have to make difficult decisions and discipline yourself, it doesn't mean you have to be glum or hopeless or angry or overwhelmed.

The joy is always there.  That child is always in you.  The one who got excited by a ladybug or a butterfly.  The child who could color and be proud of staying in the lines.  The child who loved to run and spin in circles.  The child who loved to sing.  The child who was happy just because the sun was shining and they had a dog to pet.

I'm so grateful that I got to watch my dad maintain his childlike wonder and joy.  I'm so glad I got to watch him tease my mother until she remembered to see the joy too.

When I look back at the life I lived with my mom and dad growing up, I realize my mother struggled with depression and anxiety for most of her life.  And Daddy was always protecting her, and boosting her morale, and making her laugh.  Even though she had to be the one to call time on the fun, he never fussed her, he thanked her, and would tell us kids how lucky we were to have such a great mom.

So I encourage all of you to be like George.  Watch out for those who are struggling, and tell them they are doing a great job.  Meet your obligations, but don't be burdened by them.  Find the joy, and celebrate it.  Not only will your own life be greatly enriched, but you will enrich the lives of all those you meet.