Anybody Got a Knife?

Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 09:10PM

Over the weekend I went river tubing with some friends. It was a gorgeous day — 95 degrees and clear skies. The water level in the river was still fairly high from spring run off, so the water was moving faster than usual for the 4th of July weekend. And, even more importantly, the water was cold. Great for getting splashed and dragging your feet in, but not exactly at a temperature that invites long leisurely swims.

It’s been awhile since I floated a river, but like riding a bike, river running is something you never forget once you’ve learned how to do it. There are a few key principles to always keep at the front of your mind: point your feet downstream (so you can kick off things should you encounter them), work with the river, not against it, always point your rig toward an obstacle like a boulder or log jam when the river is carrying you towards it (that way you can pull away from it; it’s much easier to row a raft backwards than it is to pull it forwards). And don’t drink alcohol. Being sober while floating is a no-brainer.

Now based on what I witnessed last Saturday, another rule of rafting could be to carry a knife just in case you are dumb enough to get not just your raft, but four other rafts you are tied to wrapped around a bridge pillar. This is what I witnessed from the put-in point as I was getting ready to launch my tube.

A group of people including some tweens in five rafts tied together came around the upstream bend and as they got closer to the bridge, it was clear to those of us watching from the shore that they had zero control of the unit and were just bumbling along. Half of the people had their backs to the bridge; they were laughing and goofing around and before they knew what was happening, they hit the bridge pillar head on with half the rafts being pulled to the left side and the other half going to the right, leaving one flimsy yellow Sevylor with a woman in it pushed up against the pillar in the middle.

The force of the river was pushing against her raft, making it bend and buckle. I felt my adrenaline rise as I watched helplessly. This was not a good situation, and I had visions of that woman being ultimately pushed out of the raft and trapped between it and the cement, unable to surface. There were also the ropes to contend with, taut as they were around the pillar from the weight of the other rafts, a guaranteed way of choking should she get entangled in it.

“Anybody got a knife?” a man yelled, looking over at us standing on the shore.

No one did, but even if any of us had one, it would have been impossible to get it to him based on our location with relation to the bridge; we were basically parallel to it.

Consume or Produce? Take or Serve?

Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 10:01PM

When I started this blog last September, I was responding to the financial collapse of Wall Street and the subsequent chain of events that followed. I was angry and confused like so many millions of others, and the best way to channel that emotion was through words on the page.

I deliberately named my blog “Making It on Main Street” because I believe in the spirit of American innovation and enterprise and I believe that spirit is strongest not on Wall Street where perspectives are skewed, but rather on Main Street where perspectives are grounded in reality and are more aligned with the values that made this country great, namely hard work and production. More than half of the wealthiest people on the Forbes 500 list today are people who made their wealth themselves and started out either poor or middle class. Main Street is indeed alive and well when it comes to American Entrepreneurs, and for that we can be proud.

But an enterprising spirit also fostered the creation of men like Bernie Madoff, who, earlier today, was sentenced to 150 years in prison for his running one of the biggest Ponzi Schemes in the world’s hsitory. (He confessed his sins less than 8 months ago, and I must admit, I am impressed with how swiftly he was convicted. But think about it: If the judicial system worked at his trial the way it was designed to work, then a jury of his peers sat in judgment of him, so is it any wonder his sentence was so swift? All his peers lost buckets of money because of him and couldn’t wait to throw the bum in jail!) This is the inherent paradox of a capitalist system: anyone with enough smarts, guts, and will can make something of themselves and the system rewards them. The question becomes, at what price the rewards? While Madoff probably worked very hard all those years as he created his house of cards, he did not build his empire honestly but rather from theft, lies, and deception of the worst kind — the deception of self. I do not condemn him for his work ethic, but I sure do condemn him for cheating, and believe he deserves every ounce of emotional pain he now suffers.

He has even admitted to lying to himself, to avoiding having that all-too-important conversation with the man looking back at him from his bathroom mirror, the one where he confesses before it’s too late to robbing others of their life savings and destroying their dreams. But as is typical in these kinds of cases, his confession comes too late. He could have come clean sooner and put a stop to the madness he created. He knew years ago what he was doing was wrong. He could have stopped the destruction long before it turned into the mess it is now. But he didn’t. And 150 years seems like nothing when put up against people who lost their life savings because of his greed.

The sad thing is, Madoff isn’t a stupid man. Quite the contrary. He is highly intelligent, possessing many of the same qualities fine businesspeople have. Just think of all the good he could have done had he channelled that intelligence and drive into building something of lasting value instead of tearing apart people closest to him! It makes me wonder what went wrong for Bernie along the way, why he was compelled to cheat at the level he did? It’s hard to understand how one man’s ego can get so out of control as to destroy so many lives rather than build them up, but it takes all kinds, I guess. Perhaps humans need examples like him every now and then to keep things in perspective, to remind us about what’s really important.

The Madoffs of the world are not the people I refer to when I talk about the spirit of American Enterprise. Those people build empires on illusions, smoke and mirrors, fuzzy logic, not foundations of sweat and service, commitment and the never-ending desire to build something of value and substance.

The people who deserve our respect as business leaders are those who have actually gone out and built their empires legitimately with their own hands, without stealing from others, without stepping on others to get to the top of the pile, without lying to everyone around them or to themselves. Those who want to produce — to take control of their own futures — are the people in this new century who will create their own freedom and wealth. And perhaps even more importantly, those who want to servewill be the ones winning the 21st century business game. Helping others get what they want is the first rule on the game list, the one that drives all the others. No service, no game. Period. Madoff (and men like him) wasn’t about serving his clients; he was about serving himself and it cost him dearly, and unfortunately, thousands of others, too.

Indeed, the rules of the economic game have changed forever in the last ten months, and there is nothing that anyone can do to get the old rules back. People who get to play the game as this century marches on will learn the new rules and teach them to others so they can play and win too; those who don’t will continue to wonder why the coach never calls them off the bench and eventually, they will stop showing up altogether. This is one reason why countries like India and China are kicking our butts — people there show up, are willing to work, and play by the new rules.

I am certainly not the only one thinking this way. The June 22nd edition of The New Yorker featured a review of a bookcalled “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work” in which the writer waxes philosophically about the joys of, among other things, working on motorcycles. Tinkering. Building things. Things that are tangible. (You can argue that Madoff built something, yes, but the problem with it and other “constructs” of the financial arena is, unless you are using bricks of gold, an actual thing does not exist. No one could show up to Madoff’s Manhattan office to see or touch his “creation.”) Esoteric professions like stock brokering aren’t high on his list of respected endeavors. Life is about creating, substance, getting your hands dirty. This is the source of true happiness, of soul satisfaction.

A climate of greed and competition will only work for a few, and only for so long. The balance between consumption and production has to be fairly even for the economy to work long-term. Unfortunately, America has become a nation of consumers, not producers, and it’s a dangerous place to be. The scale has tipped way too far in one direction, and we must even it back out. Many of our current social problems will begin to disappear if we make this shift collectively. Obesity, heart disease, personal bankruptcy to name a few could see their numbers slide if individuals rearranged their priorities. Becoming more focused on production and serving vs. consumption and taking could bring more people a sense of pride and accomplishment which will then spill into other areas of life that may be neglected now in the race to get ahead, and get more, more, more.

We must begin to produce again as a culture, beginning at a local level and moving all the way up to the highest seats of massive corporations. There is plenty to go around if you believe as I do in Abundance; those who are ruled by fear operate from a place of Scarcity and ultimately lose the way Madoff and his cronies lost. Be a legitimate producer, serve your people from a place of integrity and honesty, and build something tangible that can last for years, this is the secret to success. Oh and of course, love what you are doing…but that’s a subject for another post.

But He Gives Such Good eMail!

Friday, June 12, 2009 at 12:19PM

The other night at Book Group, in-between glasses of wine and comments about the book only one of us had read completely, my friend Kim told us a story about a friend of hers who met a man on Match.com.

According to Sara* this guy wrote her unbelievable emails. She couldn’t wait to open her inbox at the end of the day to see what delicious word treats awaited her. These were not your ordinary run-of-the-mill hey, how you doin’? you like to fish? things…oh no.

“Henry** actually uses proper grammar,” Sara smiled.

Gotta love a guy who knows that “not hardly” is a double negative.

Anyway, like so many people who meet online, Sara and Henry corresponded for several weeks before deciding the time had come to see each other live and in person.

Pictures can capture only so much of someone, as can words. Based on what she’d seen of both so far, Sara believed she had found herself a good one. Her anticipation of meeting Henry was enormous, and she fussed and primped like a girl in her teens before their first date. She not only liked what she’d seen online, she liked even better those lengthy missives Henry had crafted just for her and she wanted to stack the odds in her favor that he’d continue sending them. Much to her delight, he was as handsome and well-spoken in person as in the images and words he’d shared with her. And best of all, he genuinely liked her, too.

She told Kim, “After our first date, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Perhaps, for the first time, I actually found someone who would work for me.”

Sara and Henry began to see each other a couple of times a week. Dating Henry was fun; Sara discovered they enjoyed similar activities and seemed to have a real connection.

“He’s a bit weathered, but in a good way,” Sara said. “You know, like he’s been out at sea a lot but with all the refinements of a ship’s captain rather than a deckhand.”

Tall, slender, physically fit, with a head still full of silver hair and a friendly face, Henry was indeed the kind of man Sara imagined spending the second half of her life with. As people in their 50’s, Sara and Henry no longer needed to worry about the daily demands of raising a family; they were truly free to explore the world in whatever capacity they desired.

But things started to change in subtle ways about 6 weeks into their dating. Henry exhibited odd tendencies, little things that didn’t quite connect here and there. The most overt, though, came on the evening he and Sara agreed to have their first sleepover at Sara’s house. Henry brought his dog along, which was fine with Sara, as she loved the dog and had already imagined it as hers, too. They’d planned to cook at home, then watch a movie together before retiring for the evening.

About halfway through the movie, Henry suddenly untangled himself from Sara, got up, and announced he was going home, claiming his dog was giving him signals that it wanted to leave. Initially, Sara thought Henry was kidding around, so she paused the movie and stood up from where the two had been snuggling on the couch to stretch her legs, maybe even bring out some dessert. But when she saw him go into the spare bedroom and come back out with his overnight bag, she realized he was serious.

With a quick kiss and rush out the door, Henry and his dog were gone, leaving Sara standing in her front hall trying to make sense of what just happened. Ultimately, she decided to shrug it off, accepting that perhaps the dog did indeed need to go home, that something about her house spooked it and Henry had picked up on that. She figured he’d explain it to her the next day and things would return to normal.

But things didn’t return to normal. Henry’s emails, while still gloriously written, became fewer and farther between after that night. Almost two weeks later, he agreed to meet Sara for a light dinner, but something was definitely different about him. Still, Sara convinced herself it was nothing major, that he must be stressed from work or something.

“The sad thing about this story,” Kim told us as we ate our dessert, “is Sara is not willing to let this go. She has convinced herself that the Henry of the emails and the first six weeks of dating is the real Henry and that this new Henry is simply a temporary imposter who will soon disappear and bring the real Henry back.

“Sara came to me a couple of other gals at the club for our advice, and after listening to her story, we unanimously encouraged her to move on, he’s not worth it, something is definitely not right with him, she deserves better, etc. We reminded her several times that she had been dating him for only six weeks. It’s not like they were married for twenty years and then all of a sudden he started acting weird. It was time to cut her losses and move forward.

“So you know what she says to us after we each put in our two cents? She says with this terribly pained look on her face, ‘Yes, I hear what you’re saying, and you are right, but… he gives such good email! Where am I ever going to find another guy I actually like who can give me such good email?'”

Kim laughed, raising her glass of wine to us. “Forget great sex, financial stability, a love of children and animals…and nevermind any weird, random, unexplained behavior that may arise over time. No, forget all that, ladies. From now on, a guy’s worth must be judged solely on his ability to give good email!”

“Here, here!” we cheered.

“To Sara and Henry!” Kim said. “For giving us a great story, anyway.”

“To Sara and Henry!” we echoed.

“And to great email,” Kim added, a sly grin curling across her lips. “May it find us all one day.”

Indeed.

*not her real name

**not his either

Notes on a Garage Sale

Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 03:04PM

The people who like to shop garage sales have a set of defining and intriguing characteristics.

First of all, they are hunters. Some of the best. They are looking for the diamond in the rough, some item that the naive seller will give away for next-to-nothing but in reality is worth next-to-everything — to them, or perhaps to someone out there, on eBay or the Antiques Road Show. I don’t think I had anything like that on my tables, but then again, who am I to say one of those necklaces I haven’t worn since college isn’t secretly some limited edition piece worth hundreds, maybe thousands?

One man drove up in a Mercedes looking specifically for watches. “I collect them,” he told me. “I enjoy taking them apart and putting them back together again.” He was nice, with a foreign accent and clean-cut appearance. I was disappointed that I didn’t have any watches to offer him.

Secondly, they are frugal. Garage sale shoppers want bargains, and lots of them. Big ticket items — basically anything over $20 — don’t move fast unless the item is something with a high demand factor built into it, like DVD players, TVs, furniture. Frankly, I have discovered it is better to sell these kinds of items on Craigslist. The postings reach a larger audience in the metro area, which gives you greater odds of getting the price you want for the posted item. The new boy’s Schwinn bicycle my son grew out of before he rode it attracted a lot of buyers, but when they learned it would set them back 50 bucks, they passed on it. (I finally did get a buyer for the bike, from, you guessed it, Craigslist!)

Finally, garage sale shoppers move on three speeds: ultra fast, snail, and drive-by. You gotta love the drive-bys, who are in a category of garage sale shopper all their own, presumably with advanced target-seeking machines they can hold out of their windows as they cruise past your driveway in search of something specific that is keyed to sound an alarm if present (the super-sophisticated ones have an app for that). They slow to almost idle, scan the scene, and if no alarm sounds, they immediately speed away, leaving a small cloud of disappointment in their wake.

Those who actually stop do one of two things. Some come in, look around once, and split. No questions, very little if any contact with the merchandise, maybe a quick hello or thank you. Others park their cars, stroll up the sidewalk, chit-chat with me for a bit, then spend 20, even 30 minutes browsing through every rack, box, pile on the tables. They pull things out, carry them around, hold on to some, put some back. Eventually they ask, “How much?” which starts the negotiating process. I learned a long time ago never to put prices on anything in a garage sale. Let people develop the desire for an item and then figure out a good deal for everyone. The point of a garage sale, after all, is not to make a fortune but to get rid of stuff and have some pocket change to show for it.

I had my kids help me with the sale since the proceeds were going toward the purchase of a Wii, something they have been begging to have for more than a year. (I think we are the last people in the city to get one.) I figured at the very least they could assist me with setting up the tables, manning the store while I went inside the house, and keeping a general eye on things. Kids are also a good magnet for attracting good buyers — families looking for kid things from clothes to toys to gadgets will be more likely to stop if they see evidence of actual children.

I also like the money lesson having a garage sale teaches kids. They learn about value, pricing, negotiation, and standing firm on certain items of greater value. They helped keep track of profits and loved counting the money as the roll of bills in my pocket grew larger as the day progressed. By the time we closed shop, we had earned enough to buy a Wii with a few dollars leftover. Not bad. Both kids were quick to point out that the extra money was needed to get a second Wii control since apparently, the Wii comes with only one. I know virtually nothing about the Wii, and so have to trust my tech-savvy children know what they are talking about.

Many organizing experts suggest that whenever you buy something new, you need to get rid of at least one something old. That way you are not generating more clutter or more stuff to manage and thus creating more stress in your world. I didn’t sell everything I put out at the garage sale, but all things considered, I think I did pretty well for six hours on a Sunday. More than half of what I put out is now gone for good, and perhaps even better than ridding my life of excess, my children will finally get their very own Wii, but not from a place of “just because everyone else has one” but rather because they helped earn it, and had to give up some things of their own to get it, which more than anything else satifies me most of all.

A Tribute to The Dress

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 02:43PM

There is just something wonderful about a dress.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like to see women in dresses. And this is coming from a bona fide jeans lover and connoisseur, a woman who owns more pairs of jeans than any other item of clothing and cannot, despite her better judgment, pass up the wonderfully discounted designer jeans display when shopping at Nordstrom Rack.

While I live most of my days in one set of jeans or another, I do like to wear dresses and look forward to warmer days when the occasion for a pretty little sundress arises more often than not. The challenge is, because I’m not in the habit of wearing dresses regularly, they aren’t what I grab when getting ready in the morning AND, perhaps more telling, the uniform of choice for most women these days is jeans (or slacks, or capris…). Call it progress, call it whatever you want, but these days, most of us women wear — and prefer — the two-legged variety of daywear.

This is why it’s so nice to see so many women gathered in one place wearing dresses the way I saw in church on Sunday for Mother’s Day. Other than weddings, Sundays at church are anyone’s best bet at multiple dress sitings. Because I happened to be wearing one, my dress radar was on full alert, and I paid extra attention to the women who were wearing dresses, too, registering shape, color, fabric, fit. (It’s a lot like the same principle behind getting a new car or being pregnant — suddenly you notice a lot more people drive your car or are pregnant, too, once you are in that group.)

There were women in bright floral prints, pure white, seersucker (really!), robin egg blue, loud crazy purple. Wrap dresses, A-line dresses, flirty ruffled dresses, basic black. Ankle-length, above the knee. Rayon, silk, cotton percale, linen. The young mother whose son was being baptized wore a cute A-line I recognized from the spring collection of a designer I just discovered last month. Tall and lean, she wore that dress beautifully with a cute pair of black patent flats. Contrast to her, but no less beautiful, was the senior woman presenting the baptized child with a gift from Missions: she wore a bright purple wrap that complimented her matronly figure and created an air of festivity as she moved about the sanctuary. Both women were lovely, both showcased their femininity perfectly with not pants, nor jeans, nor capris, but a dress.

Interestingly, I did not see one woman wearing the wrong dress the way I see too many women wearing the wrong, say, jeans (and I include myself in this category).

And for some reason, this made me very happy. To see so many women in dresses, but also the right dresses, was fantastic! I was reminded of my grandmothers, who both wore dresses A LOT, like nearly every day, and always looked incredible. Their closets were packed tight with all sorts of dresses, from the everyday house dress to the formal night-on-the-town dress to the everything in-between. Indeed, it was odd when I saw them in slacks or shorts and I don’t think either of them owned a pair of jeans. To me, their dresses were symbolic of all they represented, from never-ending love to laughter to great home-cooked meals that lasted for hours around the dining room table. I’m not sure they would have rendered the same effect on me had they sported the latest pair of 7’s.

As I said earlier, I love jeans, I live in jeans, and I own more than my fair share of jeans. But there’s just something about the perfect dress that, in so many ways, trumps even the best pair of jeans any day of the week and shows the world why it’s so great to be a woman.

Letters

Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 05:43PM

For three years, while my grandfather was in the South Pacific during World War II, he and my grandmother wrote letters to each other every day. One of my most vivid memories of the weekend of his memorial in 1993 is of me and my cousins sitting in the parlor of his home, reading those letters. For hours we sat there with the boxes open and letters sprawled out among us, reading, mostly to ourselves but every now and then out loud when someone came across one that was particularly beautiful. More than any one of us could digest in one sitting. The sheer volume of their correspondence was awe-inspiring, and a testament to their commitment to each other, their faith in the future, as well as their underlying uncertainty about whether or not that horrible war would ever end and their letters would be all that was left of the life they had promised to share with one another.

What I took away from the letters I did read was the power of the love my grandparents had for each other. Gramper was a doctor in the Army, so he didn’t see the frontline; just the aftermath. He didn’t write much about what he saw in the letters, not in any great detail. It goes without saying it was gruesome. And, in all the years I spent with him for Thanksgiving and summer visits, not once did he talk about the war. I have come to learn that this is quite common among veterans, especially WWII vets. They just didn’t talk about what they saw in common company, and certainly never in front of children.

What he wrote about most was how much he cherished my grandmother, and his children, how much he missed them, how he looked forward to the day he would come home to be a husband, father, and community doctor again. Granny wrote about daily things, how the kids were doing, and the letters weren’t always very long. Just a page or two of conversation, anchors to hold onto in an uncertain sea of political upheaval. Would Gramper come home? was a question I imagine Granny asked every single day as she busied herself with keeping the house and being a mother to my Dad and aunt, who were both under five during Gramper’s deployment. Would I ever see my wife and children again? was most certainly his.

I got to thinking about the power of letters — real letters, mind you, the kind you write on paper with pen and seal in an addressed stamped envelope and drop in a mailbox — after reconnecting with a friend from college. In our brief email exchange, I let him know how great it was to see he is doing well, with a family, living life as we all hope to live. I also told him I still had all the letters he wrote to me when I was working in Alaska during the summers between college semesters.

His reply to me was, “Funny how times change. Do you think that in another 20 years we will still be saving all of our emails and facebook stuff?”

His question gave me pause. In 20 years, I wonder, will Facebook even be around? Or will the landscape of social networking as we know it today be completely unrecognizable in 2029 to those of us who are pioneers in it today? If a master system fails somewhere, and all our data is lost, then the point of saving anything electronic is moot. Also, and call me old-school, an email or a comment on Facebook will never be in the same league as a real letter written by hand in an envelope that came in the mail with a post-marked stamp on it that someone took the time to sit down and actually write. Never ever ever.

The ease of staying instantly connected is certainly valuable in an era when we are all so busy and live everywhere on the planet. Our communications with loved ones are created and received in seconds, not days, weeks, months, or in some cases, years. We are grateful for the quick note, the “I’m thinking of you” as we move about our business. These gestures of thoughtfulness can buoy us through an otherwise cluttered life of information and time-commitment overload. I think about the sailors in the days of Magellan and Captain Cook who didn’t hear from loved ones for years, or possiby ever, and how even a brief word from a loved one back home could have saved some of them from going mad. Even as recently as 100 years ago, letters took days to reach their destinations, and to people living in that time, days seemed like a huge improvement over the past! I am sure Granny’s letters to Gramper and his to her took a week or more to arrive. By writing at least one every day, you assured your loved one would never go without, at least for very long.

But in my opinion, we have traded something irreplacable and of tremendous value for speed and convenience, something my grandparents knew and even many of us old enough to know a world before the Internet know, when writing letters was the only way to send written thoughts to people we care about. Every now and then I have been known to print an email from someone and tuck it away in a special box I use for such sentimental things. But those one-page sheets just don’t come close to what I have in that trunk in my attic. I doubt my grandchildren will be sitting around trying to retrieve old text messages from obsolete phones they find in the pile of stuff I leave behind. I mean, “NE, TLITBC. AAS. TOY. WUWHIMA. 831*” isn’t something you are going to save and read again and again, savoring not only the meaning of the words, but also the feel of the paper in your hand, the slant or curl of the handwriting, the look of the stamp, the shape of the envelope. Reading a letter is a beautiful and private sensory experience. It takes time; we naturally have to slow down our busy pace, find a comfortable place to read it so we aren’t interrupted, and possibly give ourselves extra time to read it through more than once. A text message or email just doesn’t render anything close to the overall effect reading a personal letter does.

I am as much a part of this new way of communicating as anyone else, guilty-as-charged, and don’t write real letters much anymore. I still send cards for special occasions, with quick hand-written notes inside, but the days of sitting down and composing letters in long-hand are behind me now. Even on the rare occasion when I do write letters, I type them on the computer, print them, and then send them out because I can type and correct mistakes a hell of a lot faster in MS Word than I can on monogrammed stationery. It’s part of progress, I suppose, (a need for speed?) and a natural reflection of the changing times. But a piece of my heart aches for what has been lost, and there are times when I long for the return of letter-writing the way it used to be, if only for the intimate connectedness between writer and receiver that is inherently part of such a thing.

* “Anyway, that’s life in the big city. Alive and smiling. Thinking of you. Wishing you were here in my arms. I love you.”

Hadn’t Thought about That

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at 06:08PM

A business associate of mine left this morning on a 2-week business trip. After unloading his bags from the towncar, he paid the driver and headed into the airport only to realize too late after the driver had pulled away that he had left his cell phone in the back seat.

“As you can imagine, I panicked,” he told me later. “Can you imagine being out of town on business for two weeks without your cell phone?

“And what’s even worse is, I realized as I stood in front of the check-in counter that I don’t know anyone’s phone number. I don’t know yours, I don’t know the office’s, I don’t know anyone’s…even though the women behind the desk were nice enough to let me use the airline’s phone, how I was going to call anyone without knowing any numbers?

“I finally realized my only chance of getting it back was to call my phone and see if the driver answered it. Thankfully, he did, and turned right around to bring it to me. But let me tell you, that was too close for comfort. And to think, he could have had the radio on and not heard the phone ringing. I don’t even want to think about what a nightmare that would have caused in my world…”

Nightmare is the perfect word, indeed. Welcome to the dark side of the cell phone era, an era in which we no longer write down or memorize phone numbers but instead, program them directly into our communication devices which, for so many of us, are our life-lines to the rest of the world. While we may have a backup file at home on our hard-drives or perhaps in a database on a laptop we carry with us when we travel, chances are getting greater each day that our only device for talking, messaging, emailing, internet surfing is the size of a deck of cards that fits in a neat little holster on our hip.

After our conversation, I realized the only phone numbers I know by heart anymore are my parents’ (which has been the same since I lived at home), my daughter’s, and my own. Every other number of the 200+ I have on my iPhone are ones I do not know from memory. Imagine the folks who have 500, 800, 1000+ numbers programmed into their cell phones. We just don’t collectively need to remember them like we once did thanks to these highly sophisticated little computers we carry around with us everywhere we go.

Maybe the cell phone companies should put a warning in their user manuals to have important phone numbers written down somewhere just in case a phone is left behind in a taxi, a bar, a hotel room? A friendly reminder for those of us who once memorized numbers but no longer do and for the generation that may never have memorized numbers because they don’t have to?

I’m not sure if this would promote a higher memorization rate in the general public or if it would just generate incredulous laughter in those who see no reason whatsoever to memorize anyone’s number, including their own. Will I or my friend begin memorizing phone numbers in case of emergencies like the one that happened this morning? I doubt it. It does give me pause to think, though, about how much our lives are impacted by technology every single day in ways we aren’t even aware of until something happens that makes us stop and say, “Ooh, hadn’t thought about that.”

The Nature of Nature

Sunday, April 5, 2009 at 06:47PM

Imagine this scene: you are on a rafting trip through a beautiful and remote river canyon. One of the highlights of this trip is the chance to see wildlife, including moose, bald eagles, wolves, grizzly bears. Since you live in the city, you are excited about the possibility of seeing wild animals in their natural habitat. This is one of the reasons you came on this trip, after all. The closest you get to anything wild is the gang of street kids that hangs around the city square next to your train stop each morning.

As you are floating though a peaceful stretch between rapids, your guide spots an eagle perched on a dead tree. Just as you turn to admire it, it takes off and swoops down toward the river. In one graceful move, it plunges its outstretched talons into the water, grasps a glistening salmon, and flies away, the fish still wiggling in the eagle’s magnificent clutches. There is a collective intake of breath on the raft followed by exclamations of amazement and wonder. You, like the others, are in awe of Nature’s power and raw beauty, and feel so lucky to have witnessed it at its best. You can’t wait to tell your friends about this over a microbrew when you get back to your urban domain.

When you live in a place where animals go about their business like this everyday, you may take for granted scenes like the one above because you see it all the time. The truth is, we tend to take for granted what becomes familiar, and Nature’s ferocity is not immune from this equation. For those of us city dwellers who see little more wildlife than the occasional squirrel or flock of pigeons parading around a park bench, eagles grabbing salmon or moose foraging in marshland are exotic spectacles that become part of our vacation lore.

Indeed, a sad reality for those of us living in cities is our daily connection to nature is faded at best, absent altogether at worst. Certainly many city dwellers venture into the wilderness for weekend getaways and are privy to nature’s shows by doing so; I am not talking about that here. I’m talking about how disconnected in general city folk are from the daily doings of animals. In our pursuit of high culture, finance, and technology, we have sanitized our sense of the world beyond the concrete borders of our modern habitat as to react the way some office workers did recently to an event that occurs in nature millions of times a day around the world.

I believe the reaction to the incident I am about to describe is indicative of how removed many are from nature’s relevance and importance, which I find sad, if not alarming. It raises the questions: what are the long-term consequences of being removed from the daily nuances of the natural world, when more humans than not live in areas where they cannot witness wild creatures as they are – wild? And when the natural order of things is no longer a part of everyday experience, how does that shape our values, beliefs, and influence our behaviors?

Here’s what happened.

It was late morning in an office in one of those ubiquitous industrial parks. Employees were going about their business when someone noticed a mother duck with seven fuzzy yellow ducklings in tow outside the window on a patch of grass. A group gathered at the window to admire the little brood. Mama was in the lead and the seven babies were waddling behind her in a row. The baby at the back of the line, aka duckling #7, was struggling to keep up with the rest. One of the women in the office suggested the mama duck was quacking in its direction, seemingly to tell it to catch up.

“Aren’t they adorable?” one woman quipped.

“Oh, they are just precious!” another clucked.

Then, without warning, it happened. A red-tail hawk swooped into the picture and turned what had been, until that point, a quaint pastoral scene more reminiscent of a Hallmark card than an ordinary day in nature into what several witnesses described later as “horrific,” “painful,” and “just terrible.” Within seconds, struggling duckling #7 was in the hawk’s talons, flying away forever from its siblings and mother who could do nothing but huddle together and move toward a more sheltered place.

According to my friend who had seen the mother and her babies waddling about but missed the hawk’s death-grip because she left the room to make copies of her report, the company manager had to initiate a 20-minute counseling session soon after the event to help calm down the employees who couldn’t bear the reality of a bird of prey getting itself some lunch.

“Maybe it’s because we are so close to Easter and the stores are filled right now with cute plushy ducklings and friendly cards covered with fuzzy things,” my friend surmised as she finished the tale. “I mean, these women were close to passing out from the trauma.

“What’s funny though,” she added, “is the three guys who saw what happened all thought it was totally awesome.”

“That’s because it was,” I said. “How often do we get to see something like that as we go about our day? I bet those guys are hunters,” I added.

She laughed. “Ya, I think at least one of them is! He likes to wear camo shirts.”

“Exactly,” I said.

I hung up the phone shaking my head. A 20-minute counseling session over a duckling snatching? What???

One year when I was teaching in downtown Portland, a man was shot and killed on the sidewalk across the street from campus. It happened late morning and several students happened to be at the window looking out when the assailant fired his gun. That incident caused a lot of chaos throughout the school and the director of the college decided to cancel classes for the rest of the day, arranging counseling services for anyone who felt the need to process what they’d seen. Of the 300 students and faculty in the building, only a handful of people actually saw the murder happen. Still, it was a very unsettling experience for all of us, and making psychological experts who understand trauma available to us was certainly warranted. Several people took advantage of the free services to help clear their heads of what they’d seen.

Some might argue that trauma is trauma no matter the cause, that there is no difference fundamentally between the murder of a duckling and the murder of a human. The counseling session for the duckling’s death was just as necessary as the counseling sessions for the students who watched one man kill another because death is death, the argument goes, and it’s all part of nature, right?

Perhaps on the most primitive of levels, it is, but from a larger perspective, I disagree. Nature may be cruel, but a hawk killing a duckling for its lunch isn’t even in the same category as a man killing another over a drug deal gone bad. The motives, for one, are completely different. Those women who nearly fainted after seeing the hawk take the baby duck are symbolic of my earlier point: as a culture we are collectively out-of-touch with how the animal kingdom operates. Our food is grown, slaughtered and/or harvested for the majority of us; we purchase it packaged and often already pre-cooked; we never have to hunt or forage in the wild in order to feed ourselves and our families at night.

Furthermore, turn on the local news any night of the week and at least half the stories are about murderers and their victims. Are those same women nearly passing out every time they watch the news? Do they need counseling sessions any time they hear about some wacko shooting his ex-wife? My guess is, they, like so many of us who have become desensitized to violence, murder, rape, and war, don’t even register the proliferation of humanity’s dark side paraded across our 57-inch screens night after night after night.

But a poor, innocent duckling becomes a hawk’s lunch and some people can suddenly no longer perform their work duties and need counseling in order to function? I don’t know about that. Really makes me wonder. Especially in the wake of the most recent public tragedy that happened at the immigration office in Binghampton, NY last week. Is it because public acts of violence have become almost as common as weather reports that we don’t register them for what they are? Is it the context of the incidents that shape our responses to them?

Tragedies like Binghampton, Columbine, and even murder in cold blood are not simple events with simple solutions. Random acts of violence like these are complex and on certain levels, incomprehensible. But a hawk eating a baby duck is not. I don’t see a mass exodus from city living happening any time soon, but maybe getting out of the concrete jungle into the green one more often could help a greater percentage of people appreciate nature’s cruelty — and the inherent beauty, not to mention necessity, within it.

For anyone interested, I know a great rafting trip to take.

Doubt

Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 11:52AM

I did something unusual last night while my daughter was at choir practice: I went to a movie. By myself. It’s not the first time I’ve gone to the theater alone; it’s just not something I do all the time, so it felt different and, frankly, indulgent.

The only show playing within the time frame I had available (5:15-7:15) was “Doubt.” I walked in just as the previews were starting, and saw that the theater was empty. That has happened to me only one other time, and I was with my family when it did. It’s a weird feeling to be alone in a public theater, but not in a bad way. It’s just different. So many seat choices! And, as much as I hate to admit I had these thoughts, I did consider the fact that I was a woman, alone, in a dark room. In the off chance someone else decided to join me last minute, I decided to play it safe and picked a seat one off from the aisle in the back row.

Because I watched the Academy Awards, I knew a bit about the movie’s story and that the performances I would see would be outstanding. I mean, Meryl Streep stars in this movie. Meryl is THE GODDESS of GODDESSES. THE QUEEN. Flanked by other outstanding actors including Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis, Meryl did not let me down. She was riveting (and revolting) as a bitter old nun out to get a priest at the school she oversees.

“Doubt” was originally written as a stage play, and as such, the film felt like one in many ways. Sure the scenes moved the way scenes move in movies, but each was limited by its original form and I couldn’t help picturing how each one would look in an intimate theater off-Broadway. No matter how hard writers work at adapting a stage play to the big screen, they rarely escape the segmented scenes necessary for live theater, not to mention making the dialog less theater-esque (read: stiff). There were several exchanges between characters that would have sounded much differently had the story been written originally for the big screen and not the small stage. Stage plays adapted to the screen just move and sound differently than movies that come from screenplays. The two may be the same in category, but the species are as different as a Maltese is from a Labrador. This isn’t a bad thing, by any means. But some movie-goers not used to or familiar with live theater may be turned off by the pace of movies like “Doubt” which is slower and more intense than the usual Hollywood fare.

As a former English teacher, I can’t help looking beyond the surface of any story to examine and contemplate its themes, symbols, big questions. “Doubt” did not let me down in this area and had my mind turning in all sorts of directions from beginning to end. Some of the questions it poses through the characters and their conflicts include:  Can our emotions be facts or are emotions and facts fundamentally separate? What is the role of faith when we find ourselves in doubt? Is perception enough to condemn another? Tradition vs. progress? Does love conquer all in the end?

The whole idea of doubt captured my imagination. It is not a concept I spend a lot of time contemplating, yet I certainly feel doubt regularly. Am I doing a good enough job as a mother, businesswoman, friend, citizen? Do I measure up to God’s expectations of me? Have the choices I’ve made so far in my life the right ones? In the opening scene, Father Flynn played by Phillip Seymore Hoffman is delivering a sermon about the nature of doubt, how it is as powerful a bond for us as one of love, or faith. He argues that doubt is no less important in the grand scheme of life than any other emotions, and plays an important role in our respective personal relations with each other and with God. He suggests some people cling to doubt the way a drowning man might cling to a burning piece of ship. Perhaps, he suggests, if we let go of our burning pieces of ship in our lives, surrendering our energy to a higher power, we wouldn’t drown after all, but find the peace we all seek and desire.

The author of “Doubt,” John Patrick Shanley, also directed the movie and he did a fantastic job of presenting the main characters’ conflicts without bias. As an audience member, I found myself unable to take sides with any of the characters by story’s end; each had a compelling reason, or motive, to do what he or she did; the grey area of life was beautifully rendered against a backdrop of Catholicism and its inherent limitations. I wanted to like one character over another, but couldn’t. Each one was sympathetic in his or her own right. Consequently, I left the theater feeling intellectually high, like I’d just taken a massive hit of literary dope. That is a rare and special experience, indeed, and I am grateful that Hollywood still has enough sense to produce movies like “Doubt” that fill the ever-growing void of intelligent, thought-provoking films.

So Many Choices

Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 03:35PM

When I began my search for a hosting site for my blog, I checked out the most popular (read: most well-known) ones on the web. Blogger, WordPress, TypePad…all good ones with great reviews in the areas that matter most to us Main Street bloggers: ease of use, intuitive controls, pre-made templates. If you have been following my blog for awhile, you have noticed that I have changed templates a couple of times, one because I can, and two, because honestly, I haven’t yet found exactly the right one that reflects me and what I’m writing about. Squarespace offers a nice variety of pre-made templates, each with its own flavor or twist. So many choices, each one emoting a definitive vibe.

Currently I am using the template called “Zen.” I like it because it is different than any of the others I have used so far. It is a nice mix of professional and artsy. The koi are cool, and I like having the water lily design in the background. What I have yet to figure out is how to insert my photo on the main page, along with other photos that catch my fancy and also, do I really want to do that? My photo can be found on the blog if anyone is truly interested in seeing the face behind the words. Do I need it on the front page? Am I missing a key element of the blogging world by ommitting it from this prominent place?

I follow a few blogs online and have noticed how different each one is. Two of them are hosted on Blogger, while another is on WordPress. From the variety of artwork and placement of sections, I can tell the bloggers have customized the templates they are using; there are features on these blogs I like very much and would like to incorporate in my blog but don’t know how to…yet. I have even gone so far as to sign up on competing blog hosting sites just so I can see the premade templates available. I must admit, Blogger has some neat ones that offer certain features I’d like to have on my blog.

I chose to use Squarespace for my hosting site because it is different, and not one that everyone naturally goes to when deciding to blog. So far customer service has been top-notch; every question I have had has been answered promptly and thoroughly. I know for a fact there are tons of features available for me to use to make my blog really pop; I just haven’t taken the time yet to go through the entire comprehensive and user-friendly tutorial available to me. And I am not sophisticated enough to build a blog from scratch even though the idea of doing so intrigues me very much. This typically happens after I visit the afore-mentioned blogs when I feel that pang of blog envy shoot through me and I ask myself why I haven’t done anything to advance my knowledge and understanding of blog creation so I can jazz up my blog?

Like anything else in life, it boils down to choices and priorities. I haven’t made “Blog Building 101” one of my top priorities in life which means I must settle for the work of someone else who is far more knowledgable and gifted than I in this arena. For now I will let the peace of “Zen” and my two koi circling aroung fulfill my need to be creative on my blog. But don’t be surprised to discover in the coming weeks a new look and feel as I am determined to make the most of what this site offers and make my blog one of the ones others look at and say, “Wow!”

Old Growth, New Growth

Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 04:05PM

Kayak Point sits on the eastern side of Puget Sound north of Everett, Washington, and is home to at least one bald eagle. I spent the good part of my morning there yesterday and although I saw plenty of birds including crows, seagulls, doves, and two species of water birds I couldn’t identify sans field guide, I was not lucky enough to spot an eagle.

It has been awhile since I’ve been this far north. What never ceases to strike me when I come to Puget Sound is how different the Washington shoreline is to Oregon’s. First of all, Oregon doesn’t have anything close to a Puget Sound. Secondly, every Washington beach I have been on is always littered with massive quantities of enormous old growth trees that have since become driftwood. While Oregon’s beaches see their fair share of large logs wash up onto the sand, the sheer amount pales in comparison to what I have witnessed in Washington.

It was a grey and cool morning yesterday. I had the place to myself except for the occasional fisherman launching his boat for a day on the sound. I walked north first as far as the water would allow me before turning around and heading south along the longer leg of the shoreline, which was covered with thousands of empty clam shells, their smooth purple insides shimmering in the late morning overcast light. Each step I took produced a soft crunch before leaving a deep print in the soft pebbly-sand behind me. The wind picked up the farther south I got, and I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt over my head and zipped up my jacket to the top of my neck.

Ever since I was a teenager, I have loved the solitude of a beach in winter or early spring when the weather is unfavorable enough to keep most people away. In high school, I spent many hours on the beaches of Long Island taking black and white photographs for my photography class, as well as my personal scrapbooks. Yesterday I had my iPhone with me and used its camera to chronicle some of the more interesting sites I saw on my morning journey.

While the iPhone’s camera isn’t in the same league as a Nikon D700 or Canon Eos Digital, it does take surprisingly decent pictures and is a lot more convenient to carry around for everyday use. I was able to get down on my knees for a close-up of a barnacle-encrusted crab shell that caught my eye as well as a panoramic shot of the beach and mountains in the distance. I took several self-portraits that came out half-way decent, even bordering on artistic. The colors are vibrant, the frame fairly wide, and unless I move the camera wildly while snapping a shot, the pictures come out clear even with a bit of unsteadiness from my hand.

An article I remember reading not long ago about improving brain power suggested one way of keeping memory fresh and alert is to challenge your body with a variety of physical exercises every day. Doing so in turn sharpens the mind and keeps you young. Since I do a similar circuit of workouts each week at home, I decided I wouldn’t have a better chance to stimulate brain cell growth than venturing past the soft sandy beach onto the wetter, more treacherous section filled with rocks the size of baseballs and covered in slick green seaweed. Walking on this uneven and unstable surface definitely challenged my balance, and so would climbing up the largest trunk of an old growth tree turned driftwood I have ever seen, I figured. Its bark was no longer the reddish-brown it would have been when alive in the forest, but instead, the same silvery-grey of a seagull’s wing.

The faded, carved messages declaring John’s love for Katie and letting me know “AB was here” along the smooth trunk suggested it had been there awhile and had had time to settle in. I hopped onto what was once its thin pointy top and began my ascent to its knotted, thick base. The farther up I got, the wider my walking surface became, but the steeper the incline got, too. Once at the base, I turned around to survey my view. I was at least ten or twelve feet above the beach.

Let me just say, more to remind myself than anything else, that climbing a tree, whether alive or dead, is exhilirating. Perched up high, you see the world differently and that’s a good thing. I stood up there on what had been the base of the trunk and breathed. Deep. The moist sea air was an exilir to my lungs, my brain. With the wind speed increasing, I felt more and more alive. The water was choppy and filled with white caps; not a soul in sight in either direction. None of the fishing boats I’d seen earlier were anywhere to be seen. I closed my eyes for a few moments and listened to the sound of wind, water, and bird and remembered how much I love spending time outdoors.

Change Is the Only Way Forward

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 07:53PM

It has got to be hard for the AIG guys these days. They and what they did make headline news day after day after day. Many of them have received brutal death threats as well as threats to their families and children. I don’t feel sorry for them because they don’t deserve anyone’s pity. They made their choices and lived a certain way at the expense of millions and now it’s time to pay the price for their irresponsibility and shameless avarice. But I do recognize that life as they once knew it no longer exists and that alone has got to be painful. And I do feel badly for the wives and children of these guys who were most likely not privvy to what was going on behind closed doors at the office.

There’s no doubt: change is painful. We humans may be fundamentally adaptable at the end of the day, but we sure do resist change, especially when it is forced upon us. Kicking and screaming barely describes our response to it, and we seem to consciously avoid change as much as possible. Indeed, we are really, really good at denial. Funny thing about that is, change is inevitable no matter how hard we try to pretend it isn’t. And since we do everything in our power to avoid pain of any kind, we have created a culture for ourselves that does everything in its power to make us believe we don’t have to suffer what is going to happen anyway.

Take growing old as an example. Everyone knows we all grow old, but boy, do we fight against it like there’s no tomorrow! Aging is promoted, on the one hand, as having its own brand of benefits or rewards, like wisdom, and freedom from the shackles of mortgage payments, child-rearing, college tuition. Just the other day my mom remarked that turning 50 is “freeing.” (The way she said it made me stop and reflect about a side of her I had not seen before and in turn, gain a deeper appreciation for her own life’s journey.) While for some what my mom said may be true, our cultural behavior certainly doesn’t reflect such a notion as more and more people are running en masse to plastic surgeons to do whatever we can to not look our age and pretend that the inevitable isn’t happening. How freeing can turning 50, or 60, or even 40 truly be if we rely on injections and surgery to keep us from reflecting the truth of our age from showing on our faces and bodies?

I am not against anyone doing something that makes them feel powerful, more youthful, etc. Like anything else in this country, enhancing one’s appearance through whatever means are available is a personal choice and should remain available as such. (It’s also a fantastic business model, but that’s a subject for a different post.) The point of my blog post today is centered on the paradox of freedom and change, how the two go hand in hand, and how it is impossible to have one without the other.

In order to become truly free, you have to chain yourself, for lack of a better analogy, to responsibility. To consciousness. To acceptance. Not the other way around. And you must be willing to adapt to change as it comes your way. Contrary to what many people perceive freedom to be – an absence of responsibility, being able to do whatever you want whenever you want, no matter what, etc and so forth – freedom is grounded in being present, in taking full responsibility for your actions, and for recognizing your limits.

Ah, limits. A word that can make so many cringe, including, at one point in my life, the author of this blog. (And certainly a word the fat cats on Wall Street never wanted to hear or recognize as they decimated the financial futures of their clients and beyond.) Oh how I loathed hearing that word, not to mention having what it represents imposed upon me! Just like I hated the word budget in my youth, which honestly is just another way of saying limits. Did not like that one at all, just wanted to spend when and however I pleased, and boy did I pay the price for it. Big time debt, sleepless nights, and a garage full of shit I never wanted in the first place. Ironically, I never got what I thought I would but instead, built myself a fortress that kept me from enjoying any freedoms for quite some time.

Because there is always a price for freedom. Financial freedom does not live in your house’s market value. Personal freedom does not live in being uncommitted and disconnected from others. The people who are truly free are the most responsible, the most connected, the most involved, the most able to recognize and more importantly, accept, their limitations. Because in order to get something as valuable as freedom, you have to be willing to give up something equally if not more valuable. That’s a natural law. And there are no short cuts or magic pills to take to get around it.

The future has always belonged to those who embrace and accept change, the ones who understand change is a blessing, no matter how messy or unwanted the process may be. Being open to change allows you to dig deeper into the marrow of life, to loosely paraphrase one of America’s finest change-agents, Henry David Thoreau. We must be willing to welcome change into our lives when it comes, whether we invited it or not. It’s what keeps us alert, alive, robust. It’s what keeps us honest and humble. The faster those scrambling through the muck and mire of AIG’s collapse recognize the world has changed and there’s no going back to what used to be, the better off all of us down here on Main Street will be.

I’m optimistic about where we are headed next. I believe us small time players on Main Street will come out the big winners over time. This financial fiasco, while not chosen, has certainly challenged us as a community to re-evaluate ourselves, our choices, our next move in life. When the dust clears, there very well may be a view the likes of which none of us have ever seen and we will stand in wonder together and be grateful for how it came to be.

iPhone

Monday, March 23, 2009 at 01:37AM

I love my iPhone. There was never any question in my mind that I wouldn’t love it, but like any new tool, there is a period of getting used to it. The touch-screen technology was odd at first and I wondered if the fingerprints on the screen would annoy me and would I become obsessed with keeping it clean? Turns out, neither of those things were tough to overcome, although I do get to a point with the screen when it gets really really smeered and thus, annoying.

One difference between my old phone (a Nokia N75) and my iPhone is it is harder for me to text while driving. (I realize I shouldn’t be texting while driving, but..well…) The touch-screen Qwerty keyboard doesn’t lend itself to texting while driving the same way the traditional keypad on the Nokia does. I had developed a Morse-code style of composing messages on the Nokia which I could do while keeping my eyes on the road. For example, I knew how many taps it took to compose an “r” and an “s”, a “t”, an “n”, all the vowels and the other most commonly used letters in text communications.

Can’t do that with the iPhone.

Inherent in touch-screen technology is the visual aspect — you’ve got to be looking at the screen to make it work. (On a side note, I will say that I have begun experimenting with self-portraits — with moderate success so far — using the camera feature which requires a rather challenging positioning of fingers and hands while holding the camera towards me and touching the small space in the center of the screen nine-tenths of the way down from the top of the phone and praying all the while that I hit the “button” and capture the image without blurring the image or cutting half my face off. I still have work to do, but it has been a fun challenge in a weird and artsy kind of way.) My point is, the touch screen is cool but, like any new technology, it has its limitations.

The only other gripe I have about the otherwise fabulous iPhone is that I cannot text photos to people the way I could with my Nokia. All things considered, this isn’t a deal-breaker, but it is frustrating and makes me wonder if that was a deliberate decision on behalf of the creative team at Apple or if it was overlooked due to the immense pressure Apple was under to get the iPhone on the street once it started running its teaser ad campaigns?

If anyone working for Apple happens to be reading this blog entry, may I reccommend making it possible to text photos? You can email photos to others, but many people do not have phones with email capability (i.e. my 13-year old daughter) and thus, keeps them from enjoying the instant gratification of receiving a text photo.  I mean, if I can download an app that points me to the nearest Starbucks wherever I may happen to be at the time, surely I should be able to text a photo to another phone.

All in all, the iPhone is the greatest piece of modern telecommunications equipment I have yet to own. And perhaps with time and practice I will develop a new-form of touch screen morse coding that will serve me well on all those long drives across town and back.

Skype

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 03:54PM

The summer I was 11, I traveled by van with my family to various places in Canada and the United States. We drove north from our home on Long Island through upstate New York and across the border, eventually landing in Toronto where my uncle and his family lived. While we were there, we spent a day at the Toronto Science Museum where I got my first taste of what the future in telecommincations had in store: Video Tele-Conferencing.

Now, this was 1977, so the VTC display set up at the museum was VERY primitive. But it was far-out and hi-tech enough to capture my attention and stay with me all these years later as one of those defining moments of childhood when I knew something amazing was going to happen in my lifetime. I remember climbing in the booth across from my mom. A panel separated us so we couldn’t see each other, but the cameras in both booths captured our images and sent them to the respective video monitors which were attached to phones. The picture on the screen was of the greenish-grayish variety with lines through it, and perhaps some of that snowiness that used to grace old televisions. We could see each other as we talked on the phone, and I was literally stunned from what I was experiencing. I thought this was the coolest thing I had ever seen, and imagined one day having this kind of apparatus in my home.

Well, yesterday morning my parents called to tell me they had installed a webcam on their computer and downloaded the Skype application and were wondering how to get a hold of me through this new medium? Here it is, I thought, as I went into my home office and opened Skype on my desktop. 32 years later, I am sitting in front of a screen seeing a picture of not just my mom this time, but my dad as well, talking to them as if they were in the next room. And there was no greenish tint, no hints of gray, and definitely no snow. Dad had a problem at first with setting up his microphone so I could hear him, but he figured out the problem quickly and off we went. Absolutely incredible. I here in Oregon; they there in New York.

Reminds me of that old saying, “The future is now.” Makes me wonder what early sci-fi pioneers like Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Arthur C. Clarke would say about what we are now able to do with technology. My guess is they would be loving Skype and the Internet and gadgets like the iPhone. Many of their stories had warnings laced throughout the narratives, ones designed to make readers think about the potential harmful consequences technology could bring to the human race. While some of their predictions have manifested (i.e. Big Brother IS watching and has been for quite some time), the positive developments like Skype and other VTC applications are veering on priceless. To be able to see my parents as I talk to them when we live 3000 miles apart is nothing less than miraculous. It brings us both joy, and no price can be put on that. I like to believe those gentlemen would agree.

My 11-year old self is jumping up and down with glee about this new(er) communication tool. Somehow she knew way back then that one day, it would be in her life again. And it is!

The Internet’s Main Street

Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 01:22PM

I’ve been on Facebook now for five months. I became a part of this community by accident; a friend sent me an invitation to look at her photos and the only way to do that, I discovered, was to sign up as a Facebook member. It all happened so fast. Before I realized what was going on, that Facebook sweeps through your email address book looking for addresses it recognizes of people already on Facebook and subsequently sends out friend requests to those people, alerting them to your rookie status in the community; before I realized that I had a lot of friends in this virtual world; there I was, a generic blue and white avatar, with the barest of bones of information posted about me, and already several people accepting my friend requests before I had even started.

If MySpace is the proverbial 42nd Street of the Internet, then Facebook is its Main Street. I was never drawn to MySpace for that very reason; it always struck me as sleazy, and full of self-promoting posers who either want to hook up with you or who want to sell you their half-baked product or service. I knew little about Facebook, and was not gung-ho about being on there once I arrived. I value my privacy, and my impression of online communities like MySpace and Facebook was you no longer have any once you join. (I did view my friend’s photos, though, so there was that.)

Turns out, my fear was ony partially founded. Do you give up complete online anonymity once you’ve created a real profile on an online community site (as opposed to an alias)? Yes. But because the only way anyone can view your personal details is if you accept them as a friend. While some people may accept any friend request that comes their way whether they know the requester or not, I am not like that. The only people I’m letting into my personal circle are people I know personally. After all, isn’t that the point of being on Facebook in the first place?

That said, as many people will attest, there is something special that draws you into the Facebook world. It dawned on me this morning as I was checking my recent updates what that special quality is. What makes FB so appealing to me is it allows me to experience Main Street in cyberspace. With all my friends spread across the globe, there is no way we will run into each other while out doing errands. The only way we can catch each other is online, in a place where we can write as many mundane or brilliant comments as we’d like. Should one of our comments catch the eye of a friend or two, they will write back. Just like a quick conversation we might have on the street with someone we bump into coming out of the supermarket or bakery.

And unlike email, which takes time and thought, and frankly seems old-fashioned in the face of texting and posting comments on your friends’ profiles, Facebook is truly interactive. And random. And more of a mirror of real life, that bumping into each other, sharing a couple of ideas, making an observation or asking a question, and then moving on with the day.

This revelation has given me an even greater appreciation for the technology that allowed people to create a place like Facebook. I’m sure other online communities have their own nuances, too, and if I spent time on them (i.e. Digg, Twitter, etc.) I would be able to create a street (road? boulevard?) metaphor that would fit into a greater town/city landscape I love so much.

At the end of the day, it comes down to the same thing: we just want to go to a place where everyone knows our name, and is willing to give us their time in return for ours, or their comments for ours, as the case may be. You can even send your Facebook friends a beer, if you want. It’s all just a keystroke away. And when it can’t be live, random comments and virtual cold ones are definitely the next best thing.

The Hits Just Keep on Comin’

Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 03:58PM

Everyday I awake to more news of massive layoffs. 10,000 jobs lost here, 15,000 jobs lost there. The hits just keep coming, and there seems to be no end in sight. The unemployment numbers are now bulging in the 600,000 range, the highest they have been in more than 25 years. A friend posted on her Facebook page the other day the question all of us asking: When is the bleeding going to stop?

Another friend called me yesterday to tell me her husband, a highly-specialized lawyer who has been a partner with the same firm for 20+ years, lost his job this week.

“It’s a national firm,” Susie said. “And they are downsizing in every city they have an office.”

Paul is 65. Susie is 56. They are well-to-do, live in a beautiful home, want for nothing. Susie has a home-based business like me that does well. She doesn’t know what her husband will do next, but he’s not ready to retire. She said they have agreed to put their home on the market and move to something smaller and, as she put it, more realistic for just the two of them.

Their story is becoming more familiar each day. How long, I wonder, will it take to sell their home in a market as unforgiving as the one we’re in? Even with the new stimulus package passed, real estate sales aren’t going to hum again the way they did a year ago before the bubble burst. How can they afford two mortgages without tapping into their retirement funds?

Susie is an optimist and sees every life experience, both good and bad, as providing opportunities for positive change vs. surrender.

“Every time something happens to me, I make the best of it,” she said. “This is just another chance for us to do something different, to take our lives in a new direction.”

I wish I had a better sense of how Americans in Paul and Susie’s situation are doing. The news is fraught with disaster; every story is laced with the poisonous residue of our economy’s collapse. The human spirit gets lost in all the statistics about layoffs and big companies going down. What are people doing who find themselves suddenly unemployed? I imagine a lot of people are scared, but I also believe a lot of people are shifting their priorities to ones centered on what truly matters in life. Suddenly jobless, some people discover the richness of having large blocks of time, something they may have not had in years. The fortunate ones like Susie and Paul have a cushion saved (albeit a much smaller cushion than they once believed they had a year ago) that they can tap into for daily living expenses if necessary. This time of transition can be spent getting to know each other again, seeing grown children and friends, reading, taking time to reflect.

But there are plenty of hard-working Americans who find themselves out of work today and aren’t as lucky as Susie and Paul. Tapped out in debt, no savings to draw from, and families to feed, these people aren’t luxuriating in new-found time. Rather, they are lining up with hundreds of other people to apply for one position at a local water park that pays minimum wage. They are scouring the want ads in their papers and checking online sites like Monster and CareerBuilder for jobs they might qualify for, and, if they are lucky, actually get a call for an interview. (Did anyone else notice two of the most popular ads during the Superbowl this year were for these two websites? A sign of the times!)

Times have changed all right, and they have seemingly changed overnight. Unfortunately, this econmic disaster has been predicted for years by leading economists. No one should be all that surprised that we are where we are today. The unbridled greed of hucksters like Bernie Madoff and members of the Bush Administration are certainly to blame, and were forces beyond the everyday person’s control, but the truth is, human nature is such that we tend to react rather than prevent disasters from happening, even when the imminent signs are everywhere. All of us at one level or another got caught up in the wave of seemingly endless access to credit and buying more stuff. We even created an entirely new industry during the last economic boom: storage centers where we could pay to have all our excess stuff stored! For some reason, we trick ourselves into thinking something horrible cannot happen to us, only horrible things happen to other people, or on TV.

Will this time in history teach us lessons we can carry for a lifetime and pass down to our kids and grandchildren? I like to think so. Like Susie, I’m optimistic about this disastrous chapter in our country’s financial history and see positive changes coming from it. Less focus on trivial things like what color underwear this week’s Hollywood It-Girl or Boy wears and more attention on our children, our friends, and how we can better serve the world. It would be nice to wake up to more of those kinds of stories everyday.

The Dream Is No Longer Just American

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 07:18PM

The American Dream once symbolized the possibility for the next generation to do better than the generation preceding it. It was grounded in education, opportunity, and prosperity. At what point it got hijacked and replaced with the white picket fence, golden retriever, 2.4 kids, big house in the suburbs, and a new car for both mommy and daddy, I don’t know.

What I do know is the latter model of the AD is no longer realistic, not to mention sustainable. This is not new news. The conversation has been going on for decades. It’s just that lately, what with the polar ice caps melting and more people every year fighting for a space to call their own, it’s become louder. More frequent.

The time has come to redefine the American Dream in a way that allows more people to partake in the abundance this planet offers.

This is one of the reasons I am pleased about the current state of the economy, not just in this country, but worldwide. It’s a wake up call, that’s for sure, and change will surely come from the aftermath of Wall Street’s bloated bladders exploding all over everything and leavng quite a mess for us to clean up. I feel tremendous sadness and empathy for the millions of Americans who have recently lost their jobs. Having been unemployed and worried about how to pay my bills, I know how crazy not having work can make you. But I believe that in time, we will look back at this period in our history and recognize it as a milestone and a time people made different choices on a massive scale.

When we re-evaluated our priorities. Redefined our dreams. Created a new cultural paradigm. Made the decision to do something that moved us and a new dream forward.

We can make it possible for the next generation to have it better than we do. Worldwide.

Not the End of the World

Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 07:24PM

What I like about Simon Cowell, the hard-nosed, tell-it-like-it-is Brit judge on American Idol, is he does not play games with contestants auditioning for the show. Rather, he makes it clear to the ones who have no business singing, or any hopes of ever becoming a singing star, exactly that — use your talents elsewhere. The challenge is, so many of them seem not to hear him and insist, in post-audition interviews, that the judges made a terrible mistake and if they could only see that deep down inside them the next American Idol awaits!

Please.

Is it just me or are the numbers of delusional people increasing in this country? If American Idol is a litmus test of where we are psychologically, then the answer to that question is a resounding yes!

This season has showcased two young men in particular who are clearly brilliant and belong in the halls of America’s finest colleges or universities, using what God gave them to create and discover and unveil, not on American Idol’s stage, nor any stage for that matter unless it’s the one on which they are accepting their Nobel Prizes for Physics or Genetic Engineering.

It makes me wonder who suggested to these two (not to mention thousands and thousands of others) that they should try out for American Idol? Was it a set-up by mean-spirited associates who wanted a cheap laugh by taking advantage of their lack of common sense? Or were they genuinely encouraged to do it because someone, perhaps a loving parent or sibling, believes they can actually sing?

Because neither one could sing worth a darn. Tone deaf, pitchy, tragically comic in how awful it was to listen to these guys attempt to impress the judges with their voices. Neither looked comfortable with what he was doing. Both had wide-eyed looks of uncertainty and fear spread across their faces, and they processed the judges’ comments far more slowly than the average. My heart went out to both of them for their (innocent?) bravery and consequent humiliation in front of millions of viewers like me who could see how out of place these two were. I wanted to reach through my TV screen and shake them by the collar, telling them, “Don’t you see your gifts are in your minds, not your voice boxes, and that’s okay!”

Which brings me to the question that has plagued me since the uber-intellectual episodes aired:

Has the chase to glory and stardom through a vehicle like American Idol become so ingrained in our culture today that young people like these two intellectuals and countless others like them with no singing talent whatsoever blind themselves into believing they have what it takes to be the next American Idol, convincing themselves that this is their only chance in life to do something significant, and if they don’t go to Hollywood, their life is over?

Judging from the reactions of many of the non-winners, I can only conclude that this is indeed true.

As a means of debriefing their experience, each of the auditioners who leave without a golden ticket need to be escorted to a room in which they watch that commercial put out by the NCAA, the one that says how many thousands of student athletes who play collegiate sports will go pro…in something other than sports. If the producers of American Idol came out with a similar campaign, reminding all the unlucky ones that they have strengths in other areas which they can use to contribute to society, we might actually get somewhere with all that raw talent funneling out of the stadiums in cities across this country.

Talent, that if channeled and nurtured properly, would prove to each loser that not making it on American Idol isn’t the end of the world.

Don’t Mess with Texas!

Friday, January 23, 2009 at 02:03PM

Carey was a student in one of my junior English classes from September 1996 thru June 1997. She had long hair then, long thin limbs, and an incredible zest for life. Her greatest feature, though, was — and still is — her enormous smile, the kind of smile that lights up the room as soon as she walks in.

Today, at 29, she looks remarkably like she did thirteen years ago when she sat in my class. Only better. She wears her hair now in a clean flattering bob and her style is contemporary and sophisticated, suitable for a young professional woman in sales and promotions. We reconnected on Facebook and made a date for Happy Hour on a Thursday afternoon.

After a big bear hug and the requisite hellos and so-good-to-see-yous! we sat down in a booth. I was eager to learn about where life had taken her since she left high school, but before I could even ask my first question, she pulled out from under the table the black hard-bound journal she’d kept the year she was in my class. Across the front cover was a bumper sticker I remember distingushed her book from all the other students’ journals: Don’t Mess with Texas.

“I still have all the sticky notes you wrote to me,” she said, gushing over the pages covered in big curly handwriting written with fat-tipped color markers, photos, concert ticket keepsakes, etc. “When I show this to my friends, even to this day, they can’t believe I wrote all this and let my teacher read it!”

I opened the book and leafed through the pages. “This is amazing,” I said. Page after page of her personal musings, teenage angst, dreams, fears, opinions right in front of me the way they had been all those years ago. Every so often, a set of yellow Post-It notes appeared with familiar handwriting and signature — mine — and, oh dear, a grade. And not always an A, either.

“I feel badly that I didn’t give you an A for all of this. In hindsight, this journal deserves full credit! I am a little embarrassed about it, actually.”

Her smile broadened and she shook her head. “Oh my gosh, don’t even worry about it! I didn’t care about the grade. I just cared that you cared enough about me to read my words and respond!”

I’d had a straight-forward, simple system for grading journals. For each grading period, twice a term, I set forth a certain number of pages required for earning a specific grade. The students could write freely without fear of judgment or punishment; I was grading solely on volume produced. The only issues I was required by law to report were abuse of any nature, addiction, and thoughts of suicide. Other than that, I told them, go for it. They never complained about the system; it was easy to do the math. Most students took the journal seriously, even the ones who grumbled at first. By June, they each walked away with a year’s worth of memories and, even more importantly, a work of art.

Of course there were a hanful of kids each year who waited until the last minute and then banged out a bunch of entries in order to qualify for the best grade. I knew that would happen going in. It never bothered me, though. I always called them on it, with a smile and a wink (it was so easy to tell), but I always honored my system regardless. If you wrote a lot, you got the best grade. Period. But how many of those who approached journal writing that way have their book today? And how many of them would think to mention it, let alone bring it along with them, when meeting up with their former teacher? Then again, how many of them would even want to meet up with their former teacher?

My face hurt from smiling, and we’d only just begun our evening. “I am in awe of this, of you” I said. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you. You were the only teacher I had in high school who really got me, and allowed me to be me. I know it’s hard to hear a compliment, but seriously. You need to know how rare that was.”

My face turned red and I was grateful for the low-lit ambience of the restaurant. She was right: it is hard to hear a compliment, especially when you are far more interested in finding out about them and not talking about yourself.

I closed the book. She kept it on the table. Our waiter came over. We ordered drinks, some appetizers, and for the rest of the night, the spotlight was on her, and I couldn’t have been happier.

Life’s Little Coincidences

Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 04:57PM

While at Cost Plus the other day, I picked up a bar of soap for no other reason than because it smells really, really good. I have yet to use it, but I haven’t let that stop me from smelling it several times a day, basically any time I passed it sitting on my kitchen counter.

Today it got one step closer to its final resting place (my shower) by way of my home office on the second floor of my house. As I write, the thick rectangular white bar lies next to my keyboard. It’s “French Milled,” which as far as I can tell means more expensive than say, a bar of Dial or Ivory you can pick up at the grocery store. The label also tells me it is an “Ultra Moisturing Soap” (as opposed to an “Ultra Drying-Out-Your-Skin Soap,” I suppose).

Anyway, I did something I don’t do so much these days with personal care products — I read everything on the label. First I checked out the ingredients (only four!) written in both English and French. Then I admired the shape and design of the label. Finally, because I’m on a bit of a French kick, studying and incorporating more things a la francais into my suburban Oregon life, I was curious to find out where in France this particular Ultra Moisturizing Shea Butter Soap comes from.

I couldn’t believe it! This bar of soap that looks, smells, and feels oh-so-French comes from a company from my hometown, a tiny seaside village on the north shore of Long Island! What are the chances? I mean, really. What are the chances?

10,000 Hours and Counting

Sunday, January 18, 2009 at 04:54PM

My life has become a math problem.

Upon discovering Malcolm Gladwell’s latest theory in his book Outliers, that 10,000 hours of focused, consistent practice is one of the determining factors in what separates the rockstars of this world from the rest of us mere mortals, I immediately applied its relevance to my own life. The inevitable questions arose: have I dedicated 10,000 hours to any one thing? If so, what? Is there a chance I’m a rockstar in something and don’t know it?

Turns out, I am! Sort of. By my calculations, I have been alive for 376,680 hours (43 years x 365 days x 24 hours = 376,680 hours of life). A third of those hours, roughly, I have spent sleeping, which equals 125,560 (based on an average of 8 hours a night). This is great news because, according to Gladwell’s theory, this qualifies me to be a rockstar…of sleep! Yes!

But wait. Isn’t everyone else over the age of three?

Scratch that as a bullet point for my online bio.

So. Back to the equation of whether or not I am qualified for rockstar status. In anything.

Let’s see. I’ve dedicated a lot of time to eating (31,000+ hours). I read a lot . My brain is always going, so I could include thinking. I’ve certainly logged plenty of hours in front of sporting events. And Internet surfing is creeping up on the hours logged meter as well.

Not exactly what will land me in the same class as Yo Yo Ma or Bill Gates.

But look at this. I have two kids. Being pregnant twice counts for over 12,000 hours! Add that to all the time invested in parenting and I think it qualifies me for at least achieving the category of good mom, if not a mom teetering on rockstar status.

I would also like to think that my 10,000+ hours dedicated to cooking, cleaning, shopping, putting together some pretty stylish outfits, and yes, even driving, count for something. These may not be glamorous endeavors, or land me on the talk-show circuit promoting my latest book, but they have contributed to making me the best me so far.

I haven’t finished Gladwell’s book yet, so I don’t know if he addresses this issue in subsequent chapters. That the closest most of us come to greatness comes from logging thousands of hours doing the mundane, yet still manage to lead satisfying lives even if we never are catapulted into the stratosphere of fame and remarkable achievement. I understand his overarching theme regarding success. There is an inherent fascination and curiosity humans have about what makes fellow humans excel in areas most never do. And perhaps in studying them the way Gladwell has, we can learn a secret that will unlock the doors of our respective searches for meaning and perhaps ultimately find a greater sense of peace and contentment with who we are, including accepting our limitations as an essential part of our individual greatness and rockstar status.

The Good-Tasting-Bad-for-You Cereal

Friday, January 9, 2009 at 12:05PM

In a moment of weakness and a sprinkling of nostalgia, I bought a box of Post Golden Bears cereal for my kids. I rationalized that since I liked it as a kid, they would like it, too, and since all I ever buy for them are low-sugar all-natural cereals from Trader Joe’s, it would be a treat to have something commercial and oh-so-sugary. I smiled as I imagined their faces filled with excitement when they opened the cabinet the next morning to discover Mom had bought them one of those kinds of cereal and fought over who got to try it first.

Was I in for a big surprise!

My daughter got to the box first, mostly because she’s taller and bigger than her brother.

“What’s this?” she said, studying the cartoon bear on the front.

The cartoon games on the back had captured my son’s attention instantly.

“Well,” I said, feeling self-satisfied. “Your Uncle Rob and I loved Golden Bears when we were your age, so I thought I’d get some for you guys to try. You know, as a special treat.”

“Wow, Mom, thanks!” they said in unison.

So far things were going excatly as I’d pictured.

Ginna opened the bag and reached inside. Out came a handful of the shiny gold puffs. She popped one in her mouth. Ben did the same. I watched them intently, anticipating their smiles getting bigger, their giggles getting louder.

They looked at each other as they chewed. Then they looked at me. The sparkle of excitement had left their eyes. There were no smiles or giggles. My son was wrinkling his nose.

“These taste weird, Mom,” Ginna finally said.

“Ya,” Ben agreed, his shoulders slumping as he tossed the rest of the puffs from his hand into the garbage.

In our collective moment of disappointment, no one said anything. Instead, each kid grabbed a familiar box of cereal from the cabinet, leaving the box of Golden Bears on the counter where they could look at and play the games on the back.

After pouring milk over his organic Panda Puffs, Ben said, “So was Golden Bears the good-tasting-bad-for-you cereal when you were a kid, Mom?”

“It was one of them,” I said.

“What about Cocoa Puffs? And Lucky Charms?” Ginna asked. “Did Grammy ever get those for you and Uncle Rob?”

“Oh yes, we had those too. But not very often.”

“That’s because they aren’t good for you,” Ben said.

“And they taste weird,” Ginna added. Again.

“Except for Cocoa Puffs,” Ben said. “I like Cocoa Puffs.”

I watched them work on the puzzles together as they ate their cereal. In place of what I envisioned feeling at that moment was something unexpected, something even better. In that short exchange, I realized my kids have sophisticated tastes for their ages, able to distinguish between what’s junk and what’s not. Standing my ground during all the early protests and tears over not getting the sugary cereals their friends got to eat had paid off. Given a choice, my kids would rather have the organic stuff. The cereals they prefer are actually good for them!

“Look at the bright side, Mom,” Ben said, taking his bowl to the sink.

“What’s that?”

“It wasn’t a total waste of money because at least the puzzles were fun.”

It’s the best $4.29 box of cereal I’ve ever bought.

Marley on Main Street

Saturday, December 27, 2008 at 06:11PM

If a movie can be a mascot, then “Marley & Me” is now officially the mascot for this blog. It symbolizes for me all that is wonderful about Main Street and the American Dream. Heartwarming, simple, realistic, funny, and wholesome are but a few of the words that describe this touching story of a wonderful yellow lab and the family that raises him. Maybe because the characters were based on real people, this story seemed that much more accessible and familiar and, well, American.

The experience of watching the film last night in the theater was also very Main Street-ish. First of all, the theater was almost full. It’s been a long time since I saw a movie in a theater with so many others. It was nice and reminded me of the old days before NetFlix. Second, everyone responded to the film collectively. We laughed together, ooed and ahhed together (especially at the puppy scenes), and cried together. There wasn’t a dry eye in that place when the lights came up and the credits rolled. Everyone was touched by the story, the characters, and especially Marley.

“A good dog story is hard to beat,” my Dad said as we made our way back to the car. I couldn’t agree more. How anyone could not like this movie is beyond me. The guy from the New York Times who panned it either has never owned a dog or expects all movies to leave its audience with deep and meaningful life lessons that last the rest of one’s life. Either way, he totally missed the point of this film. It’s a slice of life movie, nothing more and nothing less. It does an excellent job of being what it is: a film that touches the heart (and not just at the end). No matter. His is just one opinion and I believe audiences everywhere will prove his review is way off the mark.

This is just a terrific movie with a wholesome cast and feel-good message. In a world filled with terror and human ugliness, how refreshing to be reminded of the simple nuances of family life and the love of a pet.

Welcome to Main Street, Marley!

A Dollar a Day?

Friday, December 19, 2008 at 02:46PM

I watched a video on the Internet earlier this week in which a husband and wife discussed an experiment they conducted after learning that a good portion of people on this planet live on less than a dollar a day. They decided to try living on that amount for their food budget for one month to find out if it was even possible. They got their vitamin C from Tang and ate PB&J for lunch every day. Breakfast was always oatmeal – plain. Both lost too much weight too fast and could not afford the things that are good for them, namely fresh fruits and vegetables. At the end of the month they were glad they’d done the experiment but admitted to its severe challenges.

As I race around town in this holiday season buying too many gifts and too much food, I think about a dollar a day every time I get out my wallet to run my debit card or get some cash to pay for my purchases. A bottle of wine costs $13…that’s 13 people’s daily budget somewhere in the world. I plop down fifty bucks for Christmas tree lights…50 people. That honey-glazed spiral-cut ham? 36 people and change.

Now there’s nothing worse than feeling guilty about one’s circumstances. I can’t help that I am part of the lucky world minority that can afford to be excessive and wasteful. I don’t advocate being that way; I’m just saying I belong to this group. It’s been tricky turning off this little dollar a day voice that keeps running through my head as I spend money I earned to get things for people I love this season. As a Main Street American girl, indulging others in excess during the holidays is part of my heritage and culture, even if in this particular day we have far more awareness of economic inequality throughout the world (and even throughout this country) than ever before and thus recognize that perhaps we should pull back on the spending throttle and learn to do with less so others can have more. Part of me agrees with this, but part of me doesn’t want to give up the way Christmas has been for me and my family since I can remember. In some ways I’m miffed that I saw that story because it is coloring what would otherwise be my oblivious holiday behavior. Guilt is such a worthless emotion, really. It doesn’t do anyone any good and has a way of dampening the holiday spirit. And guilt certainly does nothing to bring us closer to achieving greater economic equality around the world.

I’m not ready to do what Christopher and Kerri did; I’m not sure I will ever be ready to do that. I admire them for their willingness to take on that dollar a day project and am grateful for the lessons they are sharing with us about it. It’s important that we who have so much remember to appreciate our lot in life. I will do my best this year to recycle all the wrapping paper and cardboard, make soup from meat bones, and keep my thermostat low. Awareness is good to a degree, and I believe it helps keep things in perspective. But sometimes it can go too far. The holidays can be bountiful without being gluttonous. I don’t have to live on a dollar a day and so I’m not going to. No, this Christmas I’m going to do what I do every year with my family and friends: roast a turkey, drink wine, eat too many cookies and enjoy every minute of it.

The Spirit of Exploration

Monday, December 15, 2008 at 12:28AM

What’s it going to take to make it on Main Street moving forward?

Nothing less than a major paradigm shift and a willingness to do what’s necessary to implement it. It is my opinion that this new paradigm should be one of exploration, the likes of which America hasn’t seen in several decades. As part of this new spirit, we need to re-think how we see ourselves being successful and earning money. This will require shedding old notions of the way things should be and creating new ways that are more attainable for a greater number of people and are centered in a spirit of giving rather than constantly consuming. It will require downsizing our footprint on the planet and learning to find meaning from doing things for others rather than taking only for ourselves.

Those who embrace the changes that are happening and accept that life as we’ve known it will never be the same are the ones who will know tremendous success and personal satisfaction for years to come.

Those who go into survival mode and hide from the changes will eventually emerge into a world they no longer recognize and will be at a tremendous disadvantage because they are so far behind the ones who moved forward. (That’s a big shout out to you in charge of GM, Chrysler, and Ford, just as a starting point. Wake up, guys. Your ride is over.)

Before I became a rafting guide in Alaska, I had been on two, perhaps three rafting trips in my life. And even though I grew up around water and understood the basic principals of boating, rafting a glacial-fed river with class 4 rapids was new to me that first summer I went to the Kenai. My teacher was an experienced river guide, and helped me understand very quickly that the secret to rafting has to do with working with the river rather than against it. “You don’t have to do nearly as much as you think you do in terms of brute strength to successfully reach your destination. Learn how to read the river, maneuver the raft accordingly, and enjoy the ride.”

Moving with the current is a whole lot easier than fighting to get upstream. The economic currents right now are fierce and bewildering and have billions worldwide worried, scared, and paralyzed. While I am not minimizing the severity of the current economic situation, I am suggesting that learning to read the new river and work with its currents will free us from our fears and paralysis and move us in a direction of hope and promise. To let go of old paradigms and create new ones. To become explorers again.

I wrote in a previous post that middle-class America has become too soft in the last couple of decades. Credit access and home equity were too easy to get and spurred massive consumerism without immediate consequences the likes of which had never been seen.

Well, we are now paying the price of our ways on a national and global level, and change has got to come in a hurry.

Currently, the spirit of exploration on a national level doesn’t exist. Too many people want things to come easy. They don’t want to pay the price to get what they see promoted through the media. Spiritual holes are filled with stuff. Suburbs are wastelands suffocating from McMansions and Big Box stores and gas-guzzling SUVs. Communities have all but disappeared and many residents don’t know any of their neighbors. Our immediate worlds have become insular and emotionally separated from human connection which in turns feeds the need so many have to consume as a means of filling in the blanks.

It’s time to dig deep down inside ourselves and pull out that pioneering spirit again, just as our ancestors did and look at the world as one full of new possibilities rather than one of massive loss and depleted 401Ks and greedy corporate leaders whining for a share of the bailout package.

It’s time to take charge of our own lives again.

An Old Friend

Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 08:02PM

I ran into an old friend at the library yesterday afternoon. It had been years since we’d seen each other, and I couldn’t believe how little he’d changed in all that time. He looked, sounded, even smelled the same as I remembered him twenty-five years ago. His frame was solid and sturdy. His voice, clear and strong. Without missing a beat, we picked right up where we had last left off. And with as much progress the last quarter century has seen, he remains remarkably unaltered, one of those rare fixtures time just doesn’t get its hands on and make completely unrecognizable, or obsolete.

We spent a lot of time together when I was a child. I played with him more than any of my other friends, and the stories we would create! He was an incredible listener. He allowed me to indulge him endlessly with my imagination. Every story I invented he heard at least once, sometimes multiple times. When he liked what I said, he hummed. When I said things that were mean or boastful or downright rotten, he hummed. When I ran out of things to say, he allowed me my silence and patiently waited until I was ready to be present with him again.

In all the years we knew each other, he never once betrayed me. In fact, it was I who betrayed him when I went away to college on the west coast and left him behind. Oh sure, we’d see each other during the holidays, or when I came back to visit in the summer, but as with so many relationships, ours grew distant with time and the development of other interests. I made new friends out west, ones who were more sophisticated and worldly and who could do things with me that he could not. Despite all this, he remained a constant in my life, which surprisingly, even though I eventually lost track of him, became more comforting as years passed.

I never forgot him, though.

Occasionally something in my daily life would trigger a memory of him and me together in my room, or on the floor under the dining room table, one of our favorite spots. He was instrumental in my development as a writer, and saw me through more childhood frustrations than anyone, including my parents. I could vent to him like I could to no other, and not once did he judge me or try to fix my problems. And he was always there for me when I needed him, no questions asked. On good days and bad, there he was, solid, unwavering, a constant and faithful companion to a girl who thought too deeply and too often and was compelled to put those thoughts down on paper, she just couldn’t help herself, she was simply programmed that way. No matter — he accepted her and her intellect and loved her unconditionally, something every child wants just about more than anything else in the world.

My mom introduced us, and there was an instant connection for me with him, an electricity running through me the first time we made contact. He delighted me from the start, with his solid shape and crisp, precise manner. In the beginning I couldn’t get enough time with him, and my mom would have to insist that we get together another time, that dinner was ready or it was time for bed. I hated to say good-bye, but I always knew we’d see each other again the next day, or at least the day after that. I didn’t like to miss too many days without him. Summers were particularly hard since he couldn’t come to Maine with me and my family. I would save up all my stories for him, though, write them down on lined notebook paper so he would see them when I got back home. It was important to me that he know every word and sometimes more as, once I had time to think about things after I had first written them down, I often thought of something more to say. His capacity to accommodate me was unparalled, and despite the amazing similarities to the friends I’ve had over the years, and to the special one I have today, even that friend doesn’t completely measure up to what I treasured and loved so much about him.

And seeing him again yesterday after all these years tells me what I’ve probably known all along.

No one ever will.

The Morning After

Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 11:31AM

It’s hard for me to imagine how exhausted both Barack Obama and John McCain must be today, the morning after Election Day. I’m exhausted, and all I did during this election season was follow the daily newsfeed from the campaign trail! What happened yesterday was unlike anything I have experienced in my lifetime, and I imagine that sentiment is being echoed today in millions and millions of homes around this country, as well as around the world. The fact that our election results were being broadcast in more than 240 countries demonstrates in no uncertain terms that life, as we know it, is truly global. And things will be different in a good way going forward.

My ear was glued to NPR throughout the day, and once the first election results started streaming in, I turned on the television so I could see the various scenes of celebration from around the country. McCain scored early in the opening minutes of the first quarter, but he held that lead for a very short time and like Reggie Bush catching pass after pass, breaking tackles, and having open field ahead of him for the rest of the game, Obama ran past McCain and never looked back. McCain conceded the election around 8:00 o’clock Pacific time; I listened to his gracious words in my car as I waited for my daughter to be done with her solo audition. After that, we raced inside, turned on CNN, and waited to watch Obama give his victory speech in Chicago.

Watching Obama give his speech with my kids gave me goosebumps. Together we clapped and cheered and hollered. I cried, partly from what I was seeing on TV, but even more from the look on my kids’ faces. The pure untainted belief that something really good just happened sparkled back at me when our eyes met, and there isn’t a greater feeling of love a parent can experience than that. They feel the hope Obama talks about. They believe a man like him can make a difference, not just for grown-ups but for kids like them. Even though I know many of the promises Obama made to us during the campaign will never be fulfilled, for me that’s not the point. No politician ever fulfills all the promises made. The point for me is I got to share history in the making with two of the most important people in my life, my children, who are old enough to understand what happened on November 4, 2008 was very, very important, and, in many ways they have yet to understand, will affect their lives tremendously from this day forward. It will be one of those memories they carry with them into adulthood, recalling it to their kids and grandkids many years from now when we are well into the 21st century and the world is a much different place.

The closest I’ve come to what happened last night was when Richard Nixon resigned in 1974.  I was a year younger than my son is today and in Maine for the summer with my family. It was raining hard that August day, with thunderstorms blowing in from the northwest part of the lake. Because we didn’t have a TV, we went over to our neighbor’s camp so my parents could watch with the other adults the historic events unfold. The LeBlancs had a small black and white set with rabbit ear antennae, and with all the electricity in the air from the lightning, the reception was lined and snowy. Still, everyone sat glued to the screen with paper plates on our laps of Mrs. LeBlanc’s spaghetti and ice berg salad with French dressing that leaked through onto my favorite pink shorts and left a greasy orange stain. There were six kids there including me and none of us understood what was happening even though we each acted like we did when we said things like “He doesn’t deserve to be the president after what he did” and “What a crook!” I’d heard my Dad say things like that and figured if he said it, then it must be true. The mood was somber, and we stayed there well past dark because the grown-ups couldn’t stop talking about Nixon and Vietnam and how shitty the weather was. The LeBlanc’s youngest daughter Lori, who was older than me by two months, played Kings in the Corner with me and her older sister Martha until we got tired of cards and decided to go up into the sleeping loft to talk about boys. It was close to midnight when my parents finally decided they needed to get me and my brother back to our place and into bed for the night.

Life was different in American politics the morning of August 10, 1974 when the country woke up with a new president. But unlike today, the negative energy of a corrupt administration carried over into the replacement’s office and Gerald Ford was never able to live it down. While Barack Obama replaces a corrupt administration thirty four years later, he won’t have the same problems Ford had. We may be at war, we may have issues with energy, we may have challenges with the economy, but Barack Obama as our next president offers us something Ford could never do: Barack Obama offers us hope, the manifestation of American ideals at their roots, and the power to heal a country desperately in need of healing. That alone gives us all reason to celebrate.

Election Day

Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at 11:42AM

I can’t remember ever being as excited about a presidential election as I am for the one that officially happens today. While I am certain Barack Obama will be our next president, if by some small, weird, alien-abduction chance John McCain manages one of the greatest three and out comebacks of all time, at least we will no longer have to deal with the horror show of the Bush Administration ever again.

I voted in my first election in the fall of 1984 via absentee ballot as I was in college in Tacoma, Washington and my home state at the time was still New York. It was an unassuming experience, one I have little memory of. Walter Mondale was the democratic candidate running against Ronald Reagan who was going for his second term — and won, whole-heartedly. I vaguely recall attending a Mondale rally at the Tacoma Dome sometime that fall with my friend Angel. I remember more about how ugly the grey paint was inside the Dome than I do about what Mondale said. In fact, I remember thinking Mondale was like the grey paint on the walls inside the dome — dull, washed out, depressing. I voted for him regardless, not because he was such a dynamic choice, but rather because it was my first time, because I was raised to vote, and because, as a democrat, there was no way I would vote to have Ronald Reagan win a second term in office.

For the last several weeks, the drama of the presdidntial race has had me as captivated as the Wall Street melt-down. Aside from the glee I feel knowing the Republicans are as washed out this year as the democrats were in 1984, what has me so excited is the daily conversations I’ve enjoyed with my kids, ages 12 and 9 respectively, about the politcal process, the candidates, and the ads we see on TV for both state and local measures on the ballot. Like their mom, they have strong opinions about the candidates, and they are not afraid to voice them. In their respective classrooms at school, both kids have engaged in workshops and activities related to politics, democracy, and American government. They come home each day full of ideas, questions, but mostly comments about things they talked about in class.

One series of television ads on local ballot measures particularly gets my kids talking.

“That guy is ugly,” my son says in reference to the photo of the man who is behind a series of measures that, if passed, would decimate Oregon’s political process. Right after he says this, he busts up laughing. As a fourth-grade boy beginning to discover and develop his sense of humor, LHAOROTF is a common response to anything he claims is ugly.

“I don’t like his hair-do,” my daughter adds. “And his eyes look shifty.” With a growing sense of how important appearances are, she can be quite fierce in her assessment of other people’s grooming choices.

I must admit, I laugh with my kids when they say things like this and have to agree with their observations. Let’s just say some of the people involved with politics would do us all a big favor if they stayed way behind the scenes rather than front and center. It doesn’t matter whether someone is running for office or is the architect of a ballot measure, what they look like plays into what we think about them and thus, our voting decisions. I have had to clarify a few things about politics along the way for my kids, and model for them how to think critically about issues and candidates, but for the most part, they are savvy little people who are learning how to think for themselves, and this does me proud.

My daughter was particularly interested in watching me fill out my ballot, which I did on Sunday morning while still wearing my pajamas. I showed her how the ballot was designed, with the Federal issues first followed by the state and then the local.

“Oh!” she said. “It’s like taking a test the way you fill in the bubbles! Can I fill one in?”

I will admit, I let her help me fill in one bubble next to a measure for improving the local zoo. “Will I get arrested, Mama?” she asked after she made sure the entire bubble was perfectly filled with black ink.

“No, sweetie,” I said. “We were both holding the pen.”

Here in Oregon we vote via mail-in ballot which means we can cast our votes at our kitchen tables, in rush hour traffic, at a local bar, or in the dressing room of Macy’s if we so choose. While this form of voting allows voters more time and flexibility for voting, it also takes away one of the best parts of the voting process for me — going into a private booth, closing the curtain, and pulling the lever. David Sedaris wrote a delightful essay in last week’s New Yorker in which he reminisced about going to the voting booth with his mom when he was eleven. While my experiences as a child going to the voting booth with my mom didn’t have the same outcome as the one he describes (she never let me anywhere near the buttons or levers), the essence of his experience  echoed my own: women wearing sashes inside the voting hall who escorted us to the booth, seeing kids I went to school with who were there with their moms, the overall seriousness, secrecy, and mystery of the process. Politics was a favorite topic of discussion around my family’s dinner table growing up, and I am grateful to my parents and grandparents who showed me through their interest and involvement with the political process the value of living in a democratic society where voting is a right to be grateful for and to take seriously, even if one’s chosen candidate does not win.

I’ve had to tell my kids that our chosen candidate may not win even though all the polls leading up to today have shown him way ahead of his opponent. They don’t want to listen to me, though, stating in no uncertain terms that Americans can’t be dumb enough to elect some “old fart” who may not ever make it through his first year in office.

“I mean, Mom, really,” they say. “Nickolodeon did a poll and the kids of America have decided Barack Obama is a much better choice for president. The kids are the future! There’s no way he can’t win.”

There’s nothing I can say to that. They’re right. That’s why I vote. That’s why I talk openly with them about my political beliefs. And I do believe that even though the kids of America aren’t yet old enough to fill in the bubbles on a mail-in ballot for themselves or pull the levers in a voting booth, they have indeed spoken…and will, for the first time in a long time, be heard.

The Spirit of the Entrepreneur

Wednesday, October 29, 2008 at 12:31AM

The outcry about how screwed up the economy has become continues to be heard from Main Street. Last week I was shopping at Target when a woman talking on her cell phone wheeled her cart slowly past me on the other end of the aisle. It was impossible not to overhear her conversation: “Well, you realize we’ve already spent all we have for the kids’ sports activities for the year…I just don’t see how we’ll be able to pay for one more thing…I know she’ll be disappointed, but that’s just the way things are right now…”

How many of these conversations are happening every day now, in private as well as public places? How many parents are saying “No!” for the first time to their kids when it involves a purchase? How many dreams will be deferred…dreams of vacations? Retirement? A second home at the coast or in the mountains? A new(er) car? Paying for college?

Just this morning on NPR, a young contributor named Mia shared her experiences with downsizing her dreams. A 16-year old junior, she is thinking about college. A year ago, she had her sights set on some of America’s finest institutions of higher learning including Boston College and Columbia. Today, she is looking at state schools. Why? Cost. Her Mom recently lost her job with Citigroup. She has two sisters. A SUNY education costs a fraction of what an Ivy League education costs. And so, she has resigned herself to settling for a college that isn’t part of her dream but rather fits into the family budget.

I wrote in an earlier post how many of us in this country have way more stuff than we possibly can use, than we actually need. But when you live in a consumer culture, spending is promoted as recreational which creates the natural by-product of excess. It increases our appetites for more without increasing our appetites for working more to get more. Just the opposite seems to be at play with what used to be a never-ending flow of credit — we want more for less. “Just put it on the credit card!” was the common battle cry. We lulled ourselves into believing we would be able to make up the difference down the road.

The problem is, while our appetites for more are never satiated, somewhere along the way into this economic mess we lost our hunger for creating something greater than ourselves through a dedication of our time and energy. We no longer have the fire burning in our bellies to create. That’s the difference.

I am not suggesting that Americans are lazy. Far from it. Despite all the economic chaos, I still believe Americans are a hard-working people. However, I do believe Americans became complacent over the last several years, as well as too comfortable. When you are comfortable, motivation, or the fire in the belly, wanes. Life is Good. Why rock the boat?

Well, the boat is rocking, whether we wanted it to or not. And the people who will emerge from this mess are the ones who will either ignite their first belly fire or reignite the one that extinguished from neglect once they got comfortable.

It’s time to become a country of Entrepreneurs again. Not on a small scale, but in mass numbers. Americans working for themselves will move us forward and keep us from spiralling down into mass-stagnation and self-pity. Hell, we will all be so busy making our dreams come true we won’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves. I don’t know who said it first, but it’s an observation I have long loved:

There are three kinds of people in the world — Those who make things happen, those who watch what happens, and those who wonder what happened.

In a recent blog post Mark Cuban talks about the first kind of people on that list, extolling the virtues of sweat equity in the pursuit of creating something greater than ourselves through the spirit of entrepreneurism, a foundational pillar of American society and, in Cuban’s opinion, the only solution to getting us out of the quaqmire we find ourselves stuck in.

Cuban is a renegade with a take-no-prisoners attitude, and he’s just the kind of person we need leading the charge for more people starting businesses of their own. Whether you start one from a seed of an idea like he did or whether you lock arms with a company like I have, the point remains the same — embrace a new paradigm, get with the 21st century way of life, and start a business now.

Blogging as Part of a New Era of Corporate Leadership

Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 03:04PM

The President of the company I rep writes a blog called A Journey of Renewal. In it, he documents his experiences as he travels around the United States and the world as an ambassador for Univera. One of the many things I appreciate about Rich Razgaitis is his willingness to be totally transparent with his audience; writing candidly as he does in his blog every week allows those of us who have committed ourselves to the mission of bringing the best of nature to humankind to stay connected with one of our key leaders. Not only is this kind of “Main Street” communication valuable for those of us working in the field, it is a powerful testament to the direction technology is allowing businesses to go in terms of responsible leadership and accountability.

I predict blogging the way Rich does will become a fundamental component of corporate leadership in the 21st century. Blogging creates a culture of trust that is critical for fostering continual business growth as well as allowing leaders who, in the not so distant past were completely out of reach (and touch) with their workers, to stay connected with everyone in the company. Blogging by its nature allows for this new breed of leadership, and will continue to blur the lines between those at the top and those at the bottom of the corporate infrastructure (which this writer believes is imperative for corporate success this century). This small change will serve as a catalyst for ushering in a new paradigm of how companies function and how business gets done.

Few would argue that sound corporate leadership is in short supply these days. It is often written about in books like Good to Great by Jim Collins, but unfortunately, it is sorely lacking in today’s free-falling corporate climate. How often are headlines these days shouting the woes of CEOs embroiled in ethical disasters? Even Alan Greenspan, known fondly for years as Maestro, is licking the wounds of his poor judgment in terms of subprime lending and its disastrous effect on the current economy. The good news is, these real-life parables of the destructive nature of unbridled greed and corruption serve as guideposts for what not to do when in a leadership position, and blogging provides an excellent outlet for leaders to demonstrate sound judgment in troubled times.

For many reasons, Rich Razgaitis exemplifies the paradigm of leadership that will eventually become the norm as this century continues to unfold. His willingness to blog is just one of those reasons. I hope those of you reading this blog will take some time to read his as well. Not only will you learn more about the phenomenal company he and I are both honored to be a part of, but his intelligence, compassion, and comiitment to what he does are compelling reasons enough to spend some time there getting to know him better.

Happy reading!

On Happiness

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 12:24PM

It occurs to me this morning that happiness is not always what it seems.

I look around and see evidence everywhere pointing to the suggestion that many, many people in this country are not happy. Which is strange to me because being happy isn’t all that difficult, yet apparently for a lot of people, it’s as challenging to be happy as it is to predict what’s going to happen in the stock market today. I consider myself a 90 percenter in the category of happiness; 90 percent of the time I feel good to great. (The other 10 percent is anybody’s guess, but there has to be a balance somewhere.) Optimistic by nature, I greet each day with reverence and excitement, knowing only one thing: that something will happen at some point during the next 24 hours that will make me think differently about something, and how that one change in perspective, no matter how large or small, will in itself make me happy.

This morning an essay in the November issue of Oprah was the catalyst for getting me to think about happiness in a new light. As a culture, we seem to be obsessed with finding happiness, that somehow we lost it and need to get it back. Peruse the titles of books and covers of magazines at any local bookstore to see evidence of this chase.

“917 Ways You Can Be Happy Right Now!”

“14 Million Reasons You Should Be Happy”

“I Found the Secret to Happiness and You Can, Too”

And so on it goes.

Pharmaceutical ads are notorious for using images of happy people to hock their wares. Ever see an ad for a prescription drug that didn’t feature groups of people holding hands and frolicking through fields of wildflowers? That seems to be one of the prevailing symbols of happiness in America used by advertisers today: frolicking through fields of flowers. I don’t know who came up with this concept first, but with the commission they earned from the success of that idea, they could have purchased their very own meadow and frolic every day and never have need of drugs. I suppose more folks would be happy if they could run freely across gently rolling hills every day, but since much of our population resides in urban locales these days, they have to settle for a pill that will get rid of their social anxiety but make them incontinent as a side effect. I don’t know about anyone else, but the last time I checked, peeing uncontrollably didn’t add to my overall feelings of joy.

Dig a little deeper and I come to discover that a fair amount of people earn their livings studying happiness, and answering questions such as, Why it is so prevalent for some and so elusive for others? And, Is the proclivity for happiness hardwired into our DNA? There are people who spend years defining what happiness is, as if it can be narrowed down to a few words and then fenced into a dictionary entry among all the other words in our language. A friend of a friend has devoted the last several years of her life to writing a book about happiness. The fact that the word “project” appears in the title implies there were probably far more hours of frustration, doubt, and angst than hours of light-heartedness and joy. It makes me wonder if, just by the very fact these folks immerse themselves in defining, searching, and trying to explain happiness, that they somehow don’t ever experience any for themselves but rather have a series of vicarious experiences throughout their lives?

That notion alone makes me sad (part of the 10 percent I mentioned above), which in a linguistic sense is the opposite of happy and is necessary occasionally for the whole balance thing we also like to talk a lot about in this country (I’ll address balance in a separate entry). How could happiness elude anyone? Without books or magazines or television shows or pharmaceutical ads telling us how to be happy or why we should be happy, there are plenty of reasons to be happy all of our own accord! I can’t remember a time when I needed a reminder to be happy (although in the late 80’s when Bobby McFerran’s song was popular, I couldn’t avoid the daily onslaught of his bubbly message, and curiously, the more it played, the less happy I became about hearing it). It’s strange that in a culture of abundance such as ours, so many people are not happy and seem to need daily reminders.

How about this one: “Oh ya, I’m alive.”

While a field of wildflowers would certainly enhance this thought, I think at the end of the day, that’s it in a nutshell.

Humble Beginnings

Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 12:06PM

Warren Buffett is in the news a lot because he’s rich, but also because he has a knack for business few have. I like what I know about Warren Buffett; he’s a regular guy with his roots on Main Street who has earned a shitload of money in the business world through hard work, savvy investments, and balls. He is not puffy, nor is he flashy. He calls things as they are and commits to his decisions. He also plays the ukulele; it makes him happy and I think that’s cool.

Mr. Buffett was on the cover of Parade magazine a few weeks ago with a feature story inside titled “10 Ways to Get Rich: Warren Buffett’s Secrets that Can Work for You.” He is pictured wearing a simple navy blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. Nothing fancy; in fact, the shirt is a tad rumpled near his waistline. GQ savvy this is not, but judging by the smile on his face and the sparkle in his eyes, he couldn’t care less. The guy’s a billionaire, after all. So what if the shirt ain’t perfect?

Number two on the list of his ten principles for getting rich is “be willing to be different — don’t base your decisions upon what everyone is saying or doing.” This one resonates with my independent nature, and reassures me that going against the grain isn’t necessarily a bad thing when it comes to being successful. I’ve been going against the grain my entire life, and so far I can’t complain. I have known success in many of its guises, I have also known failure, and so far, I have no regrets for how my life has turned out at this point.  I am excited about my new ventures into business, and am relishing the experiences I’m having as I build my own little empire. Being an entrepreneur makes me pay attention to segments of society I wasn’t attuned to when I was teaching writing and literature. Individuals like Warren Buffett weren’t even on my radar screen in those days, but now they capture my attention and warrant me spending time reading their bios and studying their wealth-building skills. I’m a sucker for the self-made millionaires, the people who came from towns like the one I come from; individuals who’ve had their fortunes handed to them don’t interest me at all.

This is America, after all. It’s in our national DNA to make it on our own. No matter the size or scope of our Dream, this is the country where it can come true. Warren Buffett exemplifies that, but so do the owners of the local hair salon and the corner pub and the dry cleaners down the street. We are all in this together; we all have a stake in the Dream’s manifestation. This is why I, like millions of other Americans, have a BIG problem with what’s going on in the financial world right now. We see our Dreams slipping farther and farther away, and it’s not only scary, it’s downright insulting. We may not have amassed fortunes like Mr. Buffett’s, but we do have our hearts and souls invested into whatever venture we’re in. We believe we should be rewarded for that, for playing the game by the rules. Americans are not lazy — the 60-hour work week most in this country adhere to is proof of that. No, we are hard-working, dedicated, optimistic folks who believe it’s possible to win.

Other pieces of advice on Buffett’s list include: never suck your thumb; spell out the deal before you start; limit what you borrow; assess the risks. Let’s hope the folks in charge of fixing the current economic problems take into account these and others on Buffett’s list. They are gambling with our money now. We should have a say in what happens.

Interesting Times

Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 03:31PM

When I heard the Dow dropped this week to its lowest level in several years, I shook my head and smiled, perhaps a bit malevolently.

I am generally not a malicious person, and I am smart enough to recognize that this is not an isolated event, that I am as affected by the downturn in the economy as everyone else. However, I cannot help but feel some glee in knowing some of the people who have gloated in the past years with their falsely padded portfolios have seen their padding shrink, or even disappear.

As the rubber band of greed goes, so does the economy. The problems we are facing today are a direct result of that rubber band being stretched way too thin by too many people. Too many people pulling on the same fragile thing and it’s bound to break (remember e=mc2.) Stretch, stretch, stretch…SNAP! We are now left holding pieces of what once was a recognizable, familiar thing, wondering what to do next. Some people want to glue it back together. Others want to throw it out and get a new one out of the same bag. Still others want to go into the office supply cabinet and find something completely different, like a paper clip or a bottle of white out. (I personally favor the white out, but that’s another story for another entry.)

I’ve lived long enough to know that the natural world is cruel, and not everything works out the way we’d like it to despite our ingenious inventions and hi-tech doo-dads designed to master the universe. While there is order in nature, there is also chaos: the two sides of Mother Nature’s rubber band. It’s no coincidence that this economic crisis is often compared to natural disasters. Tsunami, hurricane, tornado, the perfect storm…we are aware of their power, we have seen what they do, we acknowledge that each has tremendous power to level cities, kill thousands, and wreak havoc long-term. Yet despite our knowledge and understanding of these forces, we insist on building homes along hurricane-prone shores, cities on beaches where tsunamis come, strip malls and towns in the path of tornadoes. It seems we are hardwired to gamble.

And what is the stock market but a town built in the middle of a flood plain? Is anyone honestly surprised we find ourselves in this economic disaster? Is anyone with any intelligence truly shocked to read the headlines about Wall Street’s collapse or to discover the value of their investment portfolio has decreased by a third of what it was worth a year ago? We’ve been at risk for what has happened for quite some time. It’s time to take this experience and do something positive with it, forge a new paradigm about what makes life worth living. The yardstick for measuring quality of life has never been nor ever will be how many digits are in our bank accounts.

We have enough, America. We have enough. It’s time to accept that and pare down our material expectations while ramping up our community expectations. It’s time to share with the rest of the world, heck, to share with people right in our own communities who are hurting. It’s time to act in ways that make a difference for many rather than to spend in ways that make a difference for only one. We have been too selfish with our big cars and big houses and big closets and big screen tvs. We have been brainwashed by images of the planet’s top 3% of earners into believing that having what they have will somehow transform us into something better. I sit here and wonder what exactly that transformation would bring? I’m not even sure anyone knows. But having been seduced by those images myself, I can say I understand the narcotic effect seeing their lifestyles can have on a person, how easy it is to be convinced that their way of life should be my ultimate way of life goal. But it’s not.

The beauty of a disaster like this one is it gives us all a reason to pause and assess where we’re at. With no money to spend, we can take a few deep breaths and connect with what we already have rather than chasing after what’s out of reach. With no investments or bank account of any size to speak of, I am working off a blank slate and can begin building toward a better life for me, my kids, and the world from the point of view that it’s not about me, not has it ever have been about me. I have to tell you, that attitude is tremendously liberating! And if we are lucky, we will discover years from now as we look back on these times with insights we have not yet gained that the real reason the rubber band snapped was to get our attention, wake us from our material slumber, and shift our focus away from instantly gratifying our greedy little selves toward creating a culture of service that actually does what it is intended to do: serve others.

Main Street Bailout?

Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 01:14PM

Members of the House and Senate will vote again tonight on the $700 Billion bailout package. Experts are predicting the bailout will pass this time. Both presidential candidates have stated they are in favor of a bailout package, and are thus voting yes on the new proposal. Main Street is at stake, the arguments suggest. The package isn’t designed to save the Wall Street Fat Cats, but to protect those of us down here on Main Street from certain financial disaster and ruin. If we don’t pass this proposal, credit markets could freeze, leaving small business owners unable to make payroll, or get expansion loans, or buy necessary equipment to keep things moving. I have friends and relatives who belong to this category of Americans, and they are definitely concerned about the river of business credit drying up.

I continue to be consumed with this drama as it unfolds day by day, hour by hour. Tonight’s vote will set in motion a new act on the world stage tomorrow, with responses from both familiar and new characters alike. I still have my own reservations about the bailout, but am more resigned to its passage today than I was two days ago when I made my first post to this blog. I’m afraid Wall Street players will walk away with meaty morsels while most of us regular folk will get soup bones, but too many people from too many strands of life are agreeing something has to be done, and soon. The world of commerce isn’t going to stop turning, certainly, but there is a lot at stake here for the average American business owner, which makes up the majority of American business activity each day. We may hear more stories about the Big Guys, but at the end of the day it’s all us Little Guys down here on Main Street who will suffer the most if we can no longer get working capital to keep our livelihoods afloat.

Update on Friday, October 3, 2008 at 06:10PM by Mary Lou

The House passed the bailout package today and President Bush signed it. How this whole thing will go down now is anyone’s guess. All I can say is if that money does go on to earn a return, I better get a dividend check!

The Park at the End of Main Street

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 at 01:23AM

I grew up in a village on Long Island that had all the elements in place for a storybook childhood: good schools, tree-lined streets, grand old homes, small churches of various denominations, parks, beaches, not one, but two parades a year in which I could ride my bike decorated any way I wanted — which was always with crepe paper streamers coming out of both handle bars and playing cards arranged in the spokes using clothes pins to secure them in place so when the wheels turned, the cards slapped against the spokes transforming what had been an ordinary bike into an extraordinary noise-making machine. The faster I rode, the louder the noise, which was always my goal but not always possible in the parade. (Thankfully, there were several big hills around town that allowed me to enjoy top speeds and big sounds.)

I wish I had a picture of me riding my parade-ready bike to show my kids how cool their Mom was “back in the day,” but despite the enormous collection of photos taken of me and my brother from birth until…actually, until a month ago, which was the last time we were with our Dad who is notorious for capturing every ordinary event known to humankind that involves his children or his grandchildren…despite all that, there isn’t one picture that shows me with my decorated bike. Not one. There is one of me in the park at the end of Main Street, though, that happens to be one of my favorite photographs from childhood. My Mom and I are on an outing with my brother in his pram. I’m standing next to the baby carriage with a sucker in my mouth. My lips are wrapped tightly around the lollipop stick and upon close examination of the picture, you will notice that my cheeks are sucked in dramatically, highlighting the urgent delight with which I always ate lollipops. I’m wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and the hood is up on my head and cinched around my face, accentuating its roundness. My cheeks are rosy from the spring wind, and my right hand is gripping the side of the baby carriage, suggesting I am a good big sister, ready to protect my brother from harm should the wheels on his pram suddenly unlock and begin to roll down the rock embankment into the harbor behind us. My Mom is kneeling on the other side of the stroller, smiling at whoever took the picture (my Dad probably but possibly my Grandma, too, who visited us regularly when my brother was small). Her hair is all askew, indicating how windy it was that day. The white caps on the water in the background illustrate it was a windy day as well, but the way my Mom’s hair is lifted off her head in sections by the wind’s invisible fingers is a far more arresting detail about the weather that day than the while caps ever could be.

I spent many a day in that park growing up. It was one of the town’s most celebrated places, the site for many gatherings both large and small, public and private. The parades each year culminated in the park, and as we kids on bikes were always near the front of the parades, once we arrived at the parade’s end, we rode our  bikes on the paved paths around the grownups who stood in clusters on the grass until the last of the paraders arrived. Then the mayor would make his way into the grandstand and address the group, thanking us for our time and congratulating us on another successful parade that did our town proud. No one was ever quick to leave after the formal speech; I have vivid memories of staring at men wearing kilts and carrying bagpipes mingling with old women dressed in vintage costumes replicated from the 1900s. The high school marching band always hung around, too, especially the drummers. They also wore uniforms, navy blue coats and slacks with gold piping down the outside of the sleeves and legs. For some reason I didn’t yet understand, these boys with drums were very popular with girls who hadn’t marched in the parade but as soon as it was over they materialized in droves to hang out with the boys. I remember seeing one girl kissing a drummer by the brick monument at the entrance to the park. He had taken his coat off and was wearing a white dress shirt open at the collar. His drum sat on the ground between them. She had her blond hair pulled back in a fat pony tail, and her arms draped over his shoulders as they kissed. At the age of ten, I thought they looked quite sophisticated and I remember wondering if I would ever have a boyfriend who played the drums and wore a costume in the parade and if we would kiss in the park when it was over.

It Was Fun While It Lasted

Sunday, September 28, 2008 at 06:49PM

In the Opinion section of today’s Oregonian, the front page article reads: “How Main Street Will Profit.” The author argues that giving Wall Street a $700 Billion bailout package will ultimately be good for us taxpayers over the years to come because doing so will allow for “future loans and economic growth.” Without the bailout, apparently, the entire financial system will implode, leaving us with…what exactly? That piece of the picture has not been adequately described for me at this point. Will everything related to money suddenly stop working, like, say our credit or debit cards? Will all the banks suddenly have no money to give any of their customers? Will I never be able to go shopping again?

There have been hints of financial Armageddon, but these have been very vague, even for hints; speed and urgency for getting this bailout package rolling trumps any other details of what might happen. The author cites projected returns of 7-8% on Treasury bonds for us taxpayers that will “justify” the mammoth financial rescue of companies that gambled…and lost. But aside from a brief reference to limited loan availability and slowing economic growth, I see no other consequences that warrant supporting this bloated rescue package.

Obviously, I am not in favor of bailing out Wall Street, believing that it is not Main Street’s responsibility to save Wall Street from its greedy run over the last several years. I am not alone in this thinking, but unfortunately stand here watching the periodic updates on Congressional progress on this decision and see the chances of it not happening dwindling with every passing hour. In the end, Henry Paulson will get close to what he wanted, and the Fat Cats he’s good buddies with will walk away from this mess with sizable severence packages and guarantees of positions in restructured versions of the same old thing once the dust has cleared and we Americans down here on Main Street are all focused on how to pay for the holidays this year.

I must admit that the drama of the last ten days has mesmerized me in a way I didn’t expect. Despite my anger and frustration over not being able to do anything to control the outcome (yes, I have emailed my Senators and Congress-people expressing my concerns and disgust), I can’t keep myself from NOT finding out what’s happening in real time. Every morning I am glued to NPR’s Morning Edition, eager to hear the latest updates out of Washington, hoping members of the House and Senate haven’t caved in to the Paulson pressure. I keep NPR on the radio in the car so I can get immediate updates as I go about my day, and I find myself checking CNN Money every time I log on to the Internet. Who are these people, anyway, I want to know, who have brought 100+ year old institutions to their knees and threaten to screw up my future and the future of my kids? I imagine the caricatures of evil rich men popular in the 1930’s and 40’s, bald, cigar-smoking, bespectacled men signing secret deals in a board room behind closed doors. Screwing the naive and unknowing out of what little they have, like the banker Mr. Potter in the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life.”

And then I see my reflection in the computer screen.

Shit.

I hate when that happens.

Now I am certainly not to blame for the mortgage failures, for the vulturistic sub-prime lending practices, for the insane belief that the economic tide of the last few years could never, ever recede…but I do have a closet full of purses I never use, and shoes I never wear. I have clothes hanging in my closet with the tags still on them, and I have a house AND a garage full of stuff that honestly has no meaning or value to me yet there it lies…in storage bins, on shelves, in piles along the walls, evidence of my own recklessness and disregard for frugality and setting spending limits. After all, there was always another credit card offer waiting for me in the mail. Spending became for me, like for so many others in this country, a recreation, like hunting or fishing, and I have plenty of trophies to prove my expertise and virility in this arena. And you know what they say when you finally get caught doing something you know you shouldn’t have been doing: it was fun while it lasted. And it was! But now it’s time to pay the price, and pay I do.

These days, what’s fun is stretching my paycheck as far as I can, not using credit cards for anything, and finding a check in the mail from one of the consignment stores I’m using to sell my clothes. I have also discovered that shopping at discount stores like Target and Nordstrom Rack makes me value what I find there than more than anything I ever bought when I was on an out-of-control roll through the high-end shops at the mall. The Wall Street to Main Street paradigm shift was not anticiapted, but honestly, I am relieved it came.

In the off chance I could have my bloated credit card balances forgiven as part of the government’s bailout package, I’d be more than happy to support Paulson’s vision for giving Wall Street a clean financial slate. But since I haven’t heard my name mentioned in any of the negotiation proceedings, I think it’s safe to assume I’m the one who will have to get myself back to financial ground zero. It was indeed fun while it lasted, boys and girls, but the time has come to pay the price — and not on the taxpayer’s dollar, but on your own.