Mother Said There Would Be Days Like This

If you live long enough, you discover some things to be true. For me, and I'm getting better at realizing it when it's happening, is that when I have a 'not very good day' - the kind of day your mother told you there would be - I know two things to be true. The first is that for me, this kind of day has little if any discipline or direction, and I feel beside myself for having wasted the day. What I also know is true, is that the next day, I will be ridiculously focused and productive, and the cycle is done. This sort of cycle used to send me to my bed.

This event doesn't happen regularly, actually, not that often. But often enough that I've had to acknowledge it, live through it, then let it go. For the most part, I can move on from it with one regretful note - on that non-productive day, I eat like there is no tomorrow.

Is she, or isn't she...

I've been dying to get home this evening to look this up. Yesterday, while talking to a co-worker, I was allowing that I have certain skill sets that enable me to get people to tell me things. I was getting ready to say that I was a 'connector' (which I think is true) but at the same time I was starting to say this, he said I was a Maven.

A Maven. I've heard of it, and when I think of it, I think of a wise, old crone. Hmmmm. But, as a label, well - might be true. Although there are MANY definitions of a Maven, here are some themes:
(1) an expert or connoisseur, often specif. a self-proclaimed one - from yourdictionary.com
(2) A person who has special knowledge or experience; an expert. American Heritage Dictionary
(3) The word comes from the Yiddish meyvn and Hebrew mevin (מבֿין), with the same meaning, which in turn derives from the Hebrew binah, meaning understanding. Wikipedia, first paragraph
(4) In network theory and sociology, a maven is someone who has a disproportionate influence on other members of the network. Wikipedia, second paragraph
(5) Malcolm Gladwell used it in his book The Tipping Point (Little Brown, 2000) to describe those who are intense gatherers of information and impressions, and so are often the first to pick up on new or nascent trends. The popularity of the work of Safire and Gladwell has made the word widely used in their particular contexts. Gladwell also suggests that mavens may act most effectively when in collaboration with connectors - i.e., those people who have wide network of casual acquaintances by whom they are trusted, often a network that crosses many social boundaries and groups. Connectors can thus easily and widely distribute the advice or insights of a maven. Widipedia, 4th paragraph (I might be both, a maven and a connector!)

I could go on - there are pages in google of definitions or impressions - I cherry-picked, obviously, the ones that I think fit. My perogative, my blog. But, I do believe he may have been on to something.

People have come to me my whole life and told me their story. I really don't know why. These days, I just ask the question, but back in high school or college that would have been to bold and brazen. They still told me. One of the references almost sounded like a witch (chrone), but I still like to think that my boss/co-worker/friend is right - I am the White Oprah.

Which explains all.

Keep Austin Weird

I am slightly jealous of my son. He lives in Austin, and the non-conformist in me would love so much to live there - let my inner-hippie out. If you stay away from I-35, you really get to see cool Austin - piercings, a lot of hemp, eat a lot of veggies and the best part - you slow down a little. My son lives in Southwest Austin and the husband and I spent Friday and Saturday morning doing 'authentic Austin' - rather the UT Austin which I'm pretty tired of.

The husband is a UT grad, and if you've ever known one... it can be insufferable. They really DO think the sun shines on them just a little bit brighter - and sometimes the combination of the range of the color orange they wear does force you to shield your eyes - but not because they have a special glow. Some ranges of orange just are not meant to be mixed - but I defy you to say that to one of them...not a pretty picture.

Anyway, I digress. We went to the Shady Grove in South Austin for lunch and sat with our fellow hippies - well, we were hippies in our head at least but most of the folks around us were real ones. Old ones too - there is something fascinating to me in being around elder hippies - I'm amazed that they had the courage and conviction to really look and live like that their whole life.

Next was the Hula Hut on Lake Austin where we enjoyed a cold one, out on the deck, in approximately 105 degrees. We needed to take a nap after that...

Dinner was at Trudies - so good, still south (only near the dreaded I-35) and so incredibly crowded. If there is a recession in Austin, and we hear there is, you could not have told by the crowd waiting to eat. Food so good - worth the wait.

Saturday morning was the quintessential Austin experience - the Sunset Valley Farmer's Market which is just on the other side of the highway from my son's house. He loves this market and has friends from college who sell gulf shrimp AND sell their ceramics. Funky stuff like this. And then truly unusual pieces like this stunning rock. These artists/botanists create all these pieces of 'live art' called waterstones. They seek out exquisite rock sources, this one happens to be shale from Arizona, and craft the stone in a way that it can house what they call 'Air Plants'. These plants have developed to a point that they take their nutrients from the air, no root system. If we take good care of this little plant that resides attached to this rock, by misting it every three days and not letting the part that is adhered to the rock rot, we can expect this little plant to bloom and re-bloom for years.

This will be the husband's job. He is excellent with plants - his parents have both been gone for over 7 years and he has kept alive plants the family received from their services. This is in preparation for our taking possession of some plants my mother is ready to pass on that she got out of may grandmothers house when she passed - in 1983.

We also bought some Feta cheese that we will eat with the homegrown tomatoes we also purchased - for this I cannot wait for dinner tonight. All and all, an awesome way to spend 24 hours.

So when was the last time the YOU sat through a drum solo - live?

I'm sure it was one of those ideas that sounded so great when it is several weeks out. My friend CZ emailed saying - 'I'm buying tickets to Bob Schneider for Friday, August 7 - you guys want to go?" I saw the group copied - who were all our buddies - and knew that pure peer pressure would be involved - nobody was going to say no, don't want to go.

Before I responded though, I needed to find out - who is Bob Schneider? My first source was my habit - itunes - and I liked the few clips I heard, based on popularity. Next, I saw a revue - 'Bob' is an Austin dude - okay, this sounds good. So, I checked calendar and emailed the husband to see if he knew if he had any plans on August 7 - which was a month away (I knew that answer, but we have agreed to check with each other before making commitments - took us about 25 years to get to that point). He responded with 'who is Bob Schneider'?

Fast forward to yesterday. Busy, busy week, staying up too late and getting up early to workout - I'm tired. Email comes in around 10:30 a.m. from CZ - change in dinner plans - meeting at new, groovy place on Henderson (approx 4 blocks from our first house) at 6:45 because 'Bob' doesn't start until 10 pm. THUD. On a Friday night that is definitely bed time - and 'Bob' will just be starting... OMG, I will need a nap.

Nap taken, party hats on, we pick up the D's down the street and head out to PARK - the new restaurant. Still early so a lot of people in our age range. Then as we are leaving around 9:30, we have seen friends of both our sons who I'm sure are surprised to see us at a trendy spot that THEY hang out at... and it's off to the Granada to see 'Bob'.

I was texting with both boys, so proud of us that we were still awake and actually having a great time! A couple in the group had seen 'Bob' in Austin with their kids and hadn't quite prepared the rest of us for some of the raunchiness of some of the songs... guess we're old enough to hear that stuff, but do we really need to? Oh well, I have to say - it was a blast and we all felt very cool.

Then at the end, 'Bob' introduced the band - and each member got to show off their skills and the last was the drum solo - it was 12:30 a.m. and I was done.

What I love though, is these are the same people we've been doing this stuff with for over twenty years - another experience - and that made it worth it.

Food Glorious Food

"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach" - I know I heard this phrase a million years ago and probably thought very little about it. Makes men sound pretty simple, and as time has gone by, I'm discovering that to be true.

My husband is tall and pretty lean - honestly, if I had to get him through food it would have been a short courtship. My fabulous cooking skills have only been honed in the last few years. The person with the biggest issue about food has always been me, not him.

I knew to keep lots of good stuff to eat around the house for the boys as they were growing up - starting at about Jr. High, and all through high school I kept cheap stuff from Sam's that they could eat in mass quantities. I think I've probably purchased my last box of frozen taquitos - and hot pockets. I knew I was a pretty special mom as long as I had good grub in the house.

While they were in college, I became so popular when I came to town because I would always take them and their friends to dinner - big breakfasts were best - less expensive and no alcohol included.

In the past several years, I learned I could wow my dad when he came to visit with good food, and really good Dreyer's ice cream - OMG - he loves it. The last time he was able to visit, on the way to my house from the airport he asked if we could go to IHOP. Once we got to my house, he asked if I had any of that great ice cream. This obsession with the next meal has become more pronounced as time has gone by. Actually, I understand it - my dad's health has been precarious for several years, he's not able to do much for himself - variety and quality of food has become a high point of his day.

So why am I talking about this? Last night we went to my old boss/buddy Steve's house for dinner. It was wonderful - we took dessert which was ice cream, berries and chocolate sauce. By 10 it was time to go home, we had forgotten to have dessert and left it there for them to have for the weekend.

Well, before we went to bed, the husband began lamenting the fact that we forgot to have dessert. This morning before he left to play golf - he mentioned it again - that he didn't get to have his favorite dessert (it's now been elevated to his favorite dessert). Then, when I was headed to the store, he asked me to buy every exact thing we had taken over to Steve's last night, that we left there, so he could FINALLY have it tonight.

I'm not sure that buying him his new favorite dessert has anything to do with getting to his heart - this time I'm using food to help him move on to a new topic!

Office Drama

Drama. I used to think it was pretty interesting, and if I ever thrived on it, I won't admit it now. I know that any time you put two human beings or more in close proximity of each other you can be sure you will get drama.

This week there was enough drama in my office to make me close my door. I try not to do that, but I also did not want to be drawn in to it - there's a little part of me that just might go there... so it's better to stay away. And staying out of it, but watching it when you have to be around the people involved, is like being the designated driver. What is interesting and intriguing when you are a part of it, looks pretty pathetic when you're not.

By Thursday, it was really wearing me out. While driving home and passing other office buildings, I began thinking about the fact that my office takes up one half of one floor in one 10 story building in one section of other office buildings in my city. In my immediate view, there are many people creating drama in their offices, at the mall and in their cars. Multiply that by all the people who interact with others everyday - and unless you are hiding in a bunker somewhere - that's just about everyone. I am amazed that the energy of all this drama hasn't sucked the air out of the planet.

An old television detective drama, the Naked City, ended each program with this line, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them.”

Proving that there is everything new - and nothing new - under the sun.

Recurrent Themes

This is kind of new. I'm having experiences or hearing stories that are lining up to the point that I recognize them as 'themes'. I've had several this week. I've heard stories on the radio, read editorials in the paper and magazines and have had several conversations that deal with all sorts of complexities and here is the current theme: unintended consequences.

My enlightenment began with a friend earlier this week on the testimony to Congress on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for recommendation to the Supreme Court. We were remarking that they (individuals of the conservative male persuasion) were certainly hellbent on nailing her with the 'wise Latina' remark that she has apparently made in speeches regarding the issue of judgement. I believe it is not only clear that the phrase was taken out of context, but it seems obvious to anyone who writes or makes speeches, that often a certain line or phrase is used to motivate or elicit a positive reaction to targeted groups. When the phrases work, you use them often. She said as much in her quote below:

"I gave a variant of my speech to a variety of different groups - most often, to groups of women lawyers, or to groups most particularly of young Latino lawyers and students. ... I was trying to inspire them to believe that their life experiences would enrich the legal system because different life experiences and backgrounds always do. I don't think that there is a quarrel with that in our society."

No doubt Judge Sotomayor did not imagine how those simple words would become the focus by an interrogation of mostly Southern white men, hammering her with that phrase again and again, regarding her nomination to the Supreme Court.

Later in the week I was telling a work friend about a story I'd hear on NPR. The fellow being interviewed lives on the Border in Texas and the conversation was about the folly of building a 'wall' on the border between Mexico and the US. One of the points of this interview I was telling my friend about was the drug aspect and the view of this man, that drugs should be legalized. His view was to define the unintended consequence of criminalizing individuals in possession of drugs - is that we now have a very bloated prison and criminal justice system. Drug sellers should be prosecuted, drug addicts should be steered towards treatment. Drug addiction brings its own natural consequences regarding the inability to work and to function daily - being incarcerated doesn't work towards resolving the individuals problem. I tend to agree; however, the complexity of the issue at hand that day, regarding the wall, made this just ONE of the issues that needs to be addressed - and all the issues are entwined in a rather large 'ball of confusion'.

These were just two of the issues in this realm of realization this week. Others included the fact that now that we're scared to death of not having jobs or losing our homes - the American people are doing what they should have been doing all along. Saving money. The unintended consequence is - we need to be spending money to help move the economy forward and help people keep their jobs.

And now I finally get this phrase - no good deed goes unpunished.