Saturday’s Songs – Lisztomania by Phoenix
This song got introduced to our home this week by one of the younger generation. It’s a great dance song – awesome upbeat beat! So crank it up, do your best footwork and freestyle body wriggle, and enjoy the endorphin charge!
(Click on Play, then click on “Watch on YouTube” in the screen below.)
Caught in the web
In the February 2010 issue of Website Magazine, Editor-in-Chief Peter Prestipino states that he owns 30 domain names. In an article titled “A Day in the Life of a Google Junkie” he reveals his googling habits throughout a typical day. There’s nothing startling in the article about his web cruising habits, considering they come from a person whose primary work is in the web industry. And my focus as I read it remained less on his point – that Google has infiltrated our lives in positive ways that are at once convenient, supportive, and entertaining – and more on the idea of one person managing 30 urls. My reaction to this number of urls being in the care of one person makes me think of how people respond when I say that my mother raised twelve children.
I found myself reflecting on me and my urls and the amount of attention they require. To put my thoughts in this post in context, I didn’t have any idea how to “get” a url three and a half years ago. But at that time a life change (health related) had me reinventing the work aspect of my life. I founded a business, Syntax and Style (url #1) and built a CMS site for it – my first site ever and a baptism by fire experience from which I learned how to assist others as they put their businesses into the web.
Urls #2 and #3 came about as spinoffs of my business. Again, thinking that my clients might need assistance with blogging, I decided to write one as a learning exercise. So, using the Google tool blogger I wrote SilverLining (url #2), through the four seasons of three years, about a pond near my home. I enhanced this site with a new passion, photography, which led to a photo gallery site (url #3) that I now have sitting dormant because I don’t have the time to maintain it. (My mother couldn’t do this with her children…)
And though I was a pretty good writer, I decide I’d better practice if I were going to offer it as a skill through my business – so I wrote a book, which ultimately became Love’s Compass, which three years later is now published. It was a good writing exercise and it spawned the recently launched url #4, Love’s Compass.
This blog, sublime days, is url #5.
I intend to reactivate my photography url in time – but with a different focus (pun intended) than my photography only.
I have recently joined facebook and I have an author’s site at Amazon – where I am also running an ad campaign for my book. Incidentally, I am still puzzled by the appearance of this blog on my author’s page at Amazon. I don’t know (and perhaps none of us wants to know) how Amazon found this blog and attached it to me in the author’s site.
What am I getting to? How does Peter Prestipino manage 30 urls?! I’m sure that his magazine business occupies more of his life than my small business does of mine. And I can barely keep up with my four or five sites and the adjunct online presences they have resulted in.
Something’s gotta give in Peter’s life – and I hope it’s not his magazine because I like it!
Smart cars, smart people?
I bought a new Prius last year. When I went to the Toyota dealership to test drive a car, my heart was set on the RAV4. But I was disappointed by the drive. With no thought of buying a Prius, I asked if I could take one for a spin – just to get a sense of the feel of a hybrid. I wanted to know what happened when you pressed on the gas/battery pedal.
Sitting in the Prius, my first impression was how cool the dashboard display is. It sits feet way from the driver – out near the base of the very slanted windshield – perfectly within the eye’s vision when the driver is looking ahead at the road. Nice. Smart engineering.
When the salesman told me how to start the car – “Put your foot on the brake and press the Power button” – I think was the moment I was sold. “How cool is that? A car that starts just like my computer! No learning curve here,” I said to myself. And the ride was great. The car was responsive, in fact it had very nice pick-up. And the drive was smooth and the steering, tight. I bought it.
The day I picked up my new blue Prius, the sales rep gave me a 30 minute tutorial on the use of the controls. Some instruction was intuitive. Some was conceptually new. Like, the Power button was a no-brainer. But the Park button would take some getting used to. And the concept of where the keys had to be (my pocket, my purse), was counter-intuitive to my 30-year driving history. It sounded as if it would be easier, but what about the summer to winter purse changeover? Or the daytime to evening purse change-over? I’d have to remember to move the keys with my wallet and lipstick. I just figured I’d adapt. I’m a smart person.
Soon, however, I was to learn that my car was smarter than I. One day, within two weeks of owning it, I had a business meeting that I had to drive to. Arriving at my destination with just minutes to spare, I hurried out of my car, taking my purse and my briefcase with me. The exterior door handles of the Prius have a little black button for locking them. The car registers the proximity of the key that is on the owner’s person, and locks or unlocks the car. So I pressed the black button on the driver’s door to lock the car. Rather than hearing the confirming one “beep” that tells me the doors are locked, I heard three quick “beeps.” I tried again, and again heard three beeps. In my haste I was impatient and decided I’d figure out what was wrong when my meeting was over.
And 45 minutes later I did. What was wrong was that I had left the car running. When I got it in, that display I love so much was all lit up. My car had sat in park, running silently off the battery, for the duration of my absence.
Wow, I pondered. Perhaps I was not smart enough for this car….
My Prius had tried to tell me, with its beeping talk, that the “car is running” – beep, beep, beep.
Just as I have come to know that when my computer is acting up, it is really responding to some human error – do I have too many windows open? Have I not run the virus scans or the defrag recently, etc. – well, so too the Prius.
A few days ago, I was enjoying the hands-free phone feature, chatting while I drove along a country road. When my call was finished, rather than press the hang-up-phone icon on the steering wheel, I pressed the Park button on the dashboard. Why? I don’t know. I suspect it’s the same mind-boggle that has caused me press the Publish button, when I’ve meant to hit the Preview button when I’m working on a website. Who puts these two-syllable P-words within a half inch of each other on the screen? Don’t they know how my mind works? Actually, yes, I think they do. Because when I press the Publish button (which launches the site to its URL), I get one of my favorite messages: “Do you really want to Publish your site now?”
Fortunately, whoever designed the Prius must have known that smart people like me would, on occasion, not be so smart and might hit the Park button while driving. The engine seemed to go into something like neutral, and kept rolling along. But I had to manually put it back into Drive in order to get the gas/battery pedal working again.
I’m a little nervous about fully adapting to my smart vehicle. The main reason being, the Park button is within a couple of inches of the Power button. And after my little mishap this week, I just hope I never Power-off a Phone-call…
Saturday’s Songs – Eva Cassidy
I first heard of Eva Cassidy several years ago through her version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Her voice is sheer beauty – really, like an angel, or a host of angels. She had already died when I first heard her voice and it made me so sad to listen to such a remarkable voice and think that there is a finite amount of music gifted to us from her.
Today, I invite you to enjoy Eva’s version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Kathy’s Song” in which her guitar playing and voice ebb and tide in interplay. And if you close your eyes and focus on the sound of her voice, you just might catch a glimpse of heaven.
And then, her version of “Songbird”.
Be glad for this moment.
I Invent Things
Well, that post heading is not entirely true. I think of things to be invented. I record in a top-secret diary my inventive thoughts. I’ve done this for 25 years.
This is a genetic thing. My mother also kept notes on inventions. She claims that one of her ideas (the retractable dog leash) was stolen when she submitted the idea to a patent service. She never heard back from the service, but within a couple of years she was seeing the retractable leash everywhere – just as she had designed it.
Now, her story is what paralyzes me. I am so afraid of my absolutely awesome ideas being stolen that I keep them well hidden. My notes, including diagrams, are protected better than my money in the bank. And of course, I don’t dare even think about going for a patent. Who would I trust? No one.
Each time I see one of my inventions hit the market (like the counter-top dishwasher, and headphones for your home phone – which arrived on the scene in the 90’s, years after I had logged the thought in my invention diary), I get the diary and put a big X on the page, or I tape a picture of the invention on the page.
Opportunity after opportunity passes me by. But it’s the sharing paralysis that has me just sitting on my ideas. For example, one time at a holiday party, I was coaxed into sharing one of my inventions. So, I shared one that I wasn’t super attached to, though I really thought it was a good idea.
I talked about how discouraging it was to hear two or three news stories a year about hikers getting lost. That had led me to design a hand-held firing gun – like a flare gun – that, when triggered, sent a long wire up through the tree-line. The wire would have a helium cartridge at the end of it and when the wire went taut, a release would be activated on the cartridge that would fill a red balloon with the helium. Meanwhile, back on the ground, the lost hiker would use the built-in ground stake that would be attached to the firing gun to anchor the distress signal. Then he/she could sit tight and await being found. I even said that the item should be available at the base of every hikers’ path and for a reasonable price, like $19.95.
About three years later, one of the party attendees expressed his disappointment that a patent he and his father had submitted had been turned down because someone had already submitted something similar. Then he went on to describe my hikers’ gun! I suspect (because I prefer to think this way) that the guy thought the idea was originally his, not that he had stolen it from me. (I do believe the human mind picks up information subliminally sometimes, and that what we think is original thought can actually be a clone from thought expressed by another.)
But now, I won’t share my ideas with anyone. I even have a good friend who has a good friend who’s a patent attorney. I can’t bring myself to even sit with him and lay out my ideas!
Anyway, yesterday I used a product that I’ve used for years – something we’ve all used for years. And one thing about it that has been a constant frustration (for years, for all of us) suddenly spawned a solution invention!!! I love when this happens. It’s what I’ve come to think of as “a Ben Franklin moment!” I can’t wait to document this one…and then wait to see how long it is till someone else takes it to market.
Is there therapy for this “sharing paralysis” I’m stuck in?
Malcolm Gladwell would say I’m a maven
I went to Staples yesterday to purchase acrylic picture frames to use to display 8.5×11 and 5×7 flyers about my book. As I drove to the store, I calculated what I thought would be my cost for three of the larger frames and four of the smaller. I expected to spend about $30, for everything.
Every penny I spend on marketing my book I balance against the cost of a book. So, I figured that for about the price of a book and a half, I’d get my display frames – which I hoped, when sprinkled around local stores, might sell about 35 copies of the book (Love’s Compass). That felt just barely ok to me since the estimated $30 would actually be one-fourth of my royalty on those same 35 books.
Well I don’t know if Staples thinks acrylic is the new hot commodity, alongside gold, but the real price of the frames in Staples would have cost me three books! That translates into nearly $60 for the frames! Or, half my royalty on the estimated sales the frames would help generate!
Where did I get the impression that these acrylic frames were super cheap? Didn’t we used to buy them at CVS (which I went to and they didn’t have even one of these frames) for next to nothing? Why is $2.99 the acrylic number in my head? Even estimating inflation since I last bought this type of frame (when my now borderline adult children were babies), I thought the large frames would be about $5 and the small would be $2.50.
Now, here’s the maven personality that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in one of my all-time favorite books, The Tipping Point. I am so happy with the price I got at Michael’s, I am writing a post about it so that everyone who reads my blog can share in my savings discovery! The frames still are as cheap as I had thought they would be – at Michael’s, the craft store, where I went today in search of less costly acrylic.
Here’s a big plug for Michael’s, where creativity happens, and inflation is on target. The 8.5×11 frames are $4.99 and the 5×7 frames are $2.99.
The competitive market system works – Michael’s got my money.
I’m a fool – for Elvis…
I heard this Elvis tune on the radio today – he’s The King! The version below is a great live performance. Listen closely – he ad-libs a line, “You taught me how, to milk a cow…” and amuses himself. You’ll hear him laugh.
The Pres and me
Last night I dreamt that I was in President Obama’s inner circle of trusted friends and advisors. Because I am very limited in my knowledge of politics, the dream began as we (the Pres, his other trusted advisors, and I) exited a meeting room after a long and exhausting day of whatever it is they all do talk about.
It was understood, as we parted ways, that next on the agenda was a gala event. This I could put together in a dream far better than the daylong meeting. However, perhaps my mind was tired as it slept because the setting seemed more like a high school gym than a ballroom. But nonetheless, I spent a good deal of time chatting with Ryan O’Neal. Actually, he did all the chatting – about himself – to the point of tedium. I felt frustrated that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Plus, he mumbled as he nattered on about his movie career, which I knew, even in a dream, was passe.
Ryan did not maintain eye contact,and from the place across the room where his eyes were cast, he saw something, and then, breaking his monologue, he said more clearly and naturally, “Oh, God. It’s my father. We don’t get along.” And as his father took long, eager strides toward his son (who he resembled in the same way that Kirk Douglas and his son Michael share a look), Ryan muttered to me, “We’re in therapy…”, as if this would explain the big bear hug his father gave him. Ryan himself was awkward in the embrace.
And, here the dream ended.
I know that in real life it’s really Ryan O’Neal and his own son who have had a contentious relationship. I found the twist on that theme in my dream interesting as I reviewed it this morning. And I have no idea where Barack was throughout this portion of the dream, though I was aware that I was hobnobbing because of my association with him.
But in the end, as the silk shirted father and son hugged, I had a strong sense that Ryan was missing out on, unable to receive, true love from his father. What this dream means, I don’t know. But I awoke from it in a pensive mood, wondering why it is that we do struggle in our relationships with particular family members, and how sad that is.
The neatest thing is happening!
Years ago, maybe 15 years ago, a group of moms at my children’s school shared their talent and skills on the PTSO and on a committee to find space solutions for the overcrowded elementary schools in our community. Not so creatively, for the second committee, we referred to ourselves as “The Space Committee”, which led to all sorts of spin-off names – ending with us calling ourselves “space-cadets” – again, not so clever, but amusing to us – who were just beginning to feel the effects of our aging minds. “PFA”s (thoughts Pulled From the Air) were regular events at our meetings, so were “brain farts” – those awful moments when you completely forget what you are talking about, mid-sentence.
Still, we did wonderful work together and when our solutions for the schools were put into place and our terms on the PTSO ended, we missed each other.
In time someone came up with the brilliant idea of forming a book club. We are all bright, thoughtful, well-read women — it was a natural. Plus, we love to eat and chat. For about three years we met fairly regularly.
Then life changed for many of us. Some changes were those in the natural course of life – children off to college, our work hours increasing, our parents needing our time and care. And some changes were the sort that each of us dreads – illness, divorce, overwhelming sorrows.
While we were a serious book club at the beginning (even doing a stretch of non-fiction), after a while the book talk lasted about 20 minutes each time we met, as catching up on each others’ news became more important and lasted two to three hours. For our final gatherings, we wouldn’t even bother to read a book. We just wanted to be together. So, we’d suggest to each other books we were reading, mingled in with girl talk about our children, our mothers, and the phases and symptoms of menopause, which was on our horizon. And we’d laugh, a lot.
The span of time between our meetings stretched longer and longer, and I think it’s now been nearly two years since the group has met. But ever hopeful, I’m sure we’ve all kept our “Book Club” email group in our contact lists. And today, I pulled up my list and sent an email to them, telling them about my book, with the hope of enticing them out into the winter cold some night soon for shared company, shared food, and lots of hugs.
Since sending the email, my day has been sprinkled with delightful replies. Like springtime bulbs breaking through the soil, each of the women has popped up in my inbox with a message that matches the color of her personality. And with great excitement we are tossing out potential dates for our gab fest, er, book discussion.
It looks as if we will be meeting again, and soon. I cannot wait! Yay!
sublime days 
A fine line in the snow in Virginia
I spent the past week just north of Lynchburg, Virginia. I shortened my visit to avoid the snow storm that has now begun in that region. For six hours yesterday and another five hours today I outpaced the storm – by driving northeast (of all directions) to my home.
As I drove farther and farther north, and now as I sit at my computer in my warm house, I can’t get my mind off the living conditions of some of the people of Virginia .
I saw great poverty. I saw shacks that I would have assumed were long abandoned, but for the puffs of smoke drifting out of the chimneys. One dilapidated shack with no windows had the clothing of the inhabitants hung, frozen, on lines strung across what might once have been a porch.
Six inches of snow had fallen last weekend on these homes, another few fell on Wednesday, and now perhaps more than two feet will fall. I believe some of the snow will accumulate inside the houses I saw.
A few times this week I nearly reached for my camera to try and capture how some of our fellow Americans live, into what homes some of our children are born, and from what house an elder’s soul might pass. Each time the thought came to me, I felt it would be an invasion of privacy, perhaps even exploitation, to use the image of someone’s home as an example of just how poor the living conditions are for some people in the United States.
Since the early seventies, I’ve heard the term “viable” used when the abortion issue is discussed. “When is a life viable?” someone might ask, or “If a life is not viable, it is alright to terminate it,” another might say.
Through the years I’ve thought about human viability and I’ve come up with this. Inside or outside a womb, a human life needs exact conditions to survive. Our life outside the womb is no less tenuous than when it’s inside, as it needs oxygen, water, food, shelter, and human touch to live and thrive. Without just one of those five things, a person will die. There is no point in a human life when viability is not a concern. It’s just that most of us don’t often have occasion to think about our viability, to consider the very thin line between life and death. Most of us have what we need to live, till the very end.
Tonight I’m concerned that the lives of the people in the homes I’m talking about are at risk – that their shelter may not protect them from the elements, that they may not be able to heat their homes and survive the cold, that they might be unable to get the food they need while they are stranded by the snow. This out-of-the-ordinary storm threatens their viability.
So tonight I hope and pray that the people in those homes have enough human touch to get through the next several days. I hope and pray that someone in their family or their community cares enough to invite them into their home or to bring them the supplies they’ll need to get by. I hope and pray that the love we are each capable of sharing has extended to the adults and children in those homes and that through our loving touch they live.
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