Hunker Down Reopened

Today is the eve of Hurricane season and I've reopened my weather blog for the season:

http://aksweather.blogspot.com/

Thbbt

Ah Cubs suck.

HOLY COW!

It's a weird day for baseball! Cubs were down 12-8 in the bottom of the 9th and have rallied back to tie it up and now we're going into the 10th.

Though I rarely get to see Cubs baseball (they are blacked out or not shown here most of the season) this is an awesome game to see! I love both teams but of course I wish nothing but failure for the Braves at the present moment.

Although...........................WGN is showing this as well. I've opted to watch the Braves/TBS broadcast because I know deep down inside, Chip is rooting for us ;-D

Sons of Harry

Am watching the Cubs game and Chip Caray, grandson of Harry Caray, is doing play-by-play for the Braves. He had actually filled his grandfathers enormous shoes (glasses?) after Harry passed away and took a seat next to Steve Stone. I loved Harry Caray and to virtually the same degree, loved listening to Steve Stone (voice of sobriety compared to Harry). Something happened a few years ago between the Tribune Company (owner of WGN and the cubs) and Stoner..He left WGN and retired (I think) and Chip leftfor the Braves where his Dad Skip worked for many years.

So watching today, Smoltzy and our pitcher (a Japanese pitcher) are essentially stinking up the joint and there have been countless home runs since today's beautiful day for baseball means 90 degrees and the wind blowing distinctly out. Chip Caray cited a statistic of the most home runs allowed in an inning - relevant to something. And then he said, "And it's my pleasure to say that Steve Stone holds that record."

I LOVE that they still pick at each other, even if Chip's other half is missing.

Memorial Day Weekend

Despite all the work I have to do this weekend (yesterday was completely lost to the woes of work), I have time today to get myself together at home. Because time to myself is so precious these days, I am looking at a little after 2pm and a mass of things accomplished.

Earlier this week I had to have several sprinkler heads and a leak fixed in my yard. So todayI filled the hole from the leak with soil and repotted a nice flowering shrub - which hopefully will take in its new home. Then it was off to Home Depot (Lowes irritated the hell out of me and I might be switching my boycott) where I put my car to the ultimate test. I bought a ladder, 8 bags of pine mulch (not enough..it's never, ever enough...), a flat of Blue Daze flowers, a bag of garden soil, paint thinner, window privacy film, and a big orange bucket. Then I went grocery shopping so I could make key lime pie (from scratch using real key limes!). It all fit in the car and I folded my ickle seats down and created a flat bed truck. It all fit and I had room for a lot more, truth be told.
That was all done by 10 or so this morning.

I got the mulch spread around, filled the hole (and bailed water out of it), repotted two plants, changed the porch lights (thanks to new ladder), put up the privacy film on two windows, made key lime pie (used help with pre made crust and cool whip), and now I have hawaiian chicken over hickory chips out on the grill. Do I want to pass out? Of course but it feels SO GOOD to not do anything for work for awhile.

This last week has been very intense and stressful for all of us. My team started to fall apart, stress being the primary driver. M and I fractured, badly and while I'm sure our business relationship will resume, I"m not sure that our friendship ever will. I know he's going through a very hard time right now but he pushed me too far. He's been asking my friends when I'm going to talk to him again - though I am talking to him just not about social things. He went too far this time and I doubt I'll ever trust him again.

So now I'm starting to relax with the Cubs-Braves game starting shortly. Then I need to clean the kitchen and get a few other things done before I need to spend yet more time tomorrow working.

Sigh.

Every Relationship Needs A Little Work

It's getting to be that time again where the days are long but are gone in a blink. Yesterday I was booked in back to back meetings from 7am until 8:30pm - which means I spent over 12 hours talking about work we could be doing rather than just doing it!! I'm not going to be pretend to be shocked by it, it happens all the time and happens in and outside of this organization so what can you do? The politics of this project that were coming in waves are more like Tsunamis now. I think I do an OK job of handling it but it makes it hard to manage the implementation with fighting that. One or the other I could do, not both.

Last week was absolutely terrible. I don't want to garner a pity party because it's my own damn fault but I ended up having two crying fits resulting from massive frustration. Thursday it all came to a head. Which was one of the meetings I had last night. It was supposed to be a 30 minute mtg but it jumped to almost 2 hours. I had a long, open and confidential discussion with a Sr Mgr from our consulting partner about how toxic our work relationship had become again and our arguing had begun to hurt others on the team. I've always said, when G and I agree, we could put a man on mars. When we disagree, we become cavemen. He was starting to show signs of disrespecting my authority, responsibility and such and I wasn't having it. The thing is, fundamentally, I think G and I like working together but he turns into a machine and rolls over people. Last week the weight of the company was on his shoulders and mine. Instead of working together we stabbed each other in the back. I called a time out today - one of the VPs we report to wanted to mediate but I refused and said G and I have been through this before and we would do it privately. So after a long end of day discussion, we realized our goals are alike and the arguments we have are not personal - though he had personalized it by "tattling" to the VP... He owes the VP a retraction and apology. I respect G enormously and know that he gets excited and jumps the gun. But he knows me now and knows I took the ongoing role of Implementation Mgr so he realizes how seriously I take this.

What fascinates me - intellectually and spiritually - is that I chose to invest my energy in working out my "relationship" with G, gave him benefit of the doubt and all that but I didn't do that for my personal life. I jettisoned a few guys I've been talking to on Saturday I'm just disappointed to realize I found the energy to work out another toxic situation with G but didn't give anyone else that might means something to some day a chance. Granted, a romantic relationship presents far more long term complexity than a working one...but why did I choose to address work over personal?

Only Time

Oh whatever happened to a happy go lucky blog?

Sorry I've been morose but this really has not been a very thrilling time of my life to say the least. But I think when you're overtaxed a lot of times you learn a lot about yourself.

I had an epiphany today, thanks to the Oprah show. This show might actually have started to spare some hurt feelings I've carried thanks to an immeasurable ass that was once in my life. Most of my friends know who Evil Matt is and what a burden he's has been on me in some way or another. Though I logically know what a bad person he was, how little character and morals I have always assumed it was me that brought that out in him and leashed it out onto me. Then I had wondered why he treated me like that but not other women (so I assumed).

On Oprah yesterday (watched it on Tivo this morning), they featured cheating husbands again. Though the guy looked nothing like Matt, there was something in the arrogant smug demeanor of his that reminded me of Matt. Finally as Oprah and Dr Robyn (?) picked away at hime - and asked a critical question, "Who pulled the rug out from under you? Who taught you to be this way to your wife?" he finally cracked and said, "My father." He told his dad he loved him but never respected his mother, walked all over her and didn't put his family first - he was arrogant.
The pain an adult has who sees his father hurt his mother obviously lives on.

From that I remember when me and Matt's relationship broke from the long looming thunderhead and he told me what his problem was. He told me how his father ruled the roost, didn't treat his mother as a partner and how she was serviant to the boys in the house. I got angry when he told me that, I had said, "You're blaming your parents for how you treat me?" I thought it was a cop out - slipping away from accountability. And in many ways he was because he knew what the problems were inside of him - what made him think it was OK to hurt me so openly and arrogantly. He had no interest in fixing them of course. But I give him credit for being insightful enough to have known where this disrespect for women came from. Which - at the time - led me to understand his penchant for Asian women. Asian women, though it's changing, are generally raised and thought to be suberviant. He got a live one with me.

So when I ask why I got the ugliest side of him anyone including his friends ever saw, I am starting to get my answers as I objectively review the path we took those years. First of all, all his friends would say "Matt is Prince Charming and really is a prince." After me, I don't think any of them thought that anymore. He pretty much showed his colours in Italy. So why me? What did I do to deserve it? My personality and nature undoubtedly boxed him in and challenged all his learned behaviors and expectations. He fought back the way his father would, he reduced me to nothing in the way he treated me.

Matt told me that night we got all this out in the open and years later when he attempted to fix our broken relationship (without fixing himself) that there has never been anyone in his life quite like me. His words, just a mere year and half ago were still of the connection we made so quickly and so strongly. So I know that whatever place Matt put me in his overly organized life, I kept popping out of it. And I literally was a looming threat to the way he was raised and knew a relationship between a man and a woman should be. This is why he (emotionally) punched me harder than he ever punched anyone before and apparently, since.

He's getting married soon I have heard and I pity the foolish little Asian (mais oui!!) girl he is marrying. I hope he's figured out how to fix the sadness he shared with me that night that makes him capable of what he's done in his past. I doubt it though.

Survivor Pooey

I totally lost interest after Terry left. I fast fwd'ed through everything. Neither Aras nor Danielle deserve beans. But them the breaks.

Davyyyy, get outta the bathroom!

This has been a most pleasant and productive weekend in which I have not been able to accomplish 2 straight hours of TV watching or net surfing.

Saturday I made it out to the Epcot Flower & Garden show with some friends of mine. It was a beautiful day, slightly on the hot side. It was SO NICE to just be outside and have a good time with good people. One of the highlights was seeing one of my school girl crushes live at the Flower Show - Davy Jones. The music brought back many nostalgic memories of hot summers in Illinois watching the MTV reruns of the Monkees. Though history will tell you I was primarily a Peter fan, with occasional interest in Mike, who honestly didn't love Davy?!

As MTV brought Round 2 of success for the Monkees, my sister, my friends Jenne and Shannon and I jumped right on that. We had posters, magazines, original LPs, and taped every episode. I think our favorite was always when Davy's grandfather came to take him back to England. That is until we saw the fairy tale episode where Mike donned a dress to play a princess in distress. His line of "HAROLD, you better get this carriage out of the MUD" is, frankly, one of my favorite moments in television.

So we were living in the sixties and then MTV brought us images of the Monkees "today." That was around 1987...and we were deeply in shock. The cute boys were old haggard looking men. We all got over it, frankly. Now that I'm more sensitive to the aging process, I don't think Davy looks too bad:

















I was disappointed that this picture of Davy con Maracas didn't turn out better but at least I got a couple shots of it in:
















From my past interest (teen idol heart-throbs turned grandparents) to a future one, we went on to explore the Flower & Garden show. Saw a lot of character topiaries but I was chuffed to have taken some floral pictures as well..This is because I'm succumbing to the aging process myself:



































And then today I took my grandmother and her friend Marie to Outback for Mother's Day. And I pursued my interests from yesterday and bought landscaping materials for my yard and downloaded a bunch of Monkee songs from iTunes.

And now I'm eating chocolate cake for dinner and planning to watch the Survivor finale.

Was this post worth waiting for? Prolly not.

In The Deep

This has been a big weekend getting things sorted out and organized not paying attention to it for a long time. I saw "Crash" last night and..wow. What a fantastic movie. How can a movie say so much without really ever offering an opinion? It's an oft shown clip where Matt Dillon says to a younger cop: "Wait til you've been on the job a long time. You think you know who you are? You have no idea."

or even better,

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

I suppose the movie's premise is the real truth that we have to crash into each other so we can feel something - living behind metal and glass. The premise is true when you're talking about the broad strokes of race and racism. But what about when we almost have to crash to feel something about ourselves?

Years and years ago, I was at the bottom of my life. Working in Switzerland I was throwing away my life, my love, my spirit, my money. It was at that point that I realized who I was at that moment and it led me to Florida and eventually to where I'm at now.

I left the old for a new life - one of sunshine, happiness, independence and a better job. I found a better job but once again the drain has started to leak and I'm sinking again. My family is questioning who I am, what my character is because I can't leave work (not to mention my sense of what is right) to go to my sister's wedding. Discovered what an absolute creep and liar a guy I dated recently is which throws my judgement into question. As I sit here realizing it's 7:30 am and I have to be at work in less than 12 hours... Am I about to Crash again?

My friend and former boss left the company and before she left she showed me a folder where I might find the resume of one of our new hires who is contributing to the drain on my enthusiasm for work. It's not in there but I found something serendiptious that it would land in my lap now - when I don't know if I'm frankly the biggest, coldest idiot on the planet. It's a reference sheet from when the recruiter called my references. I became overwhelmed as I read, in particular, the words of a former boss of mine. He's the CIO of a multinational company now (and was when she took the reference). In part, here is what he wrote:

Quiet but effective. Always stepped up. Was the most junior on the team but outshined the team leader.
XML coding - she jumped right into it and worked without a blueprint and no industry standards defined.
I had the cream of the crop on that project and she shined.
Worked 24 hours to meet a deadline
Has the ability to work with anyone
During all the downsizing, she survived.*
She will never be the first to speak but when she does, it is profound
I would rehire her in a minute.

*5000 employees were laid off while I was there

I suppose it's arrogant for me to put that in here but what Neil wrote about was from that Swiss project. And now when I feel almost as lost as I did there, that comes from my past to remind me that I've been through worse and kept my character. At a time when I question how well I can possible do under all this stress, I now know I will do fine.

Now I can't change what my family thinks of me. They think they know me better than anyone like I think I know them better than anyone. Truth is we know how we behave, and force each other to live in stereotypes without ever allowing that person to change. But until we crash, we don't really get each other. We don't really feel. Where my family is concerned, I've crashed but I suspect I've only crashed into myself. But that will probably be OK.

In the Deep - By Bird York (From "Crash")

Thought you had all the answers to rest your heart upon.
But something happens don't see it coming,
Now you can't stop yourself.

Now you're out there swimming in the deep.
In the deep.....

Life keeps tumbling your heart in circles till you...
Let go til you shed your pride and you climb to heaven
And you throw yourself off.

Now you're out there spinning in the deep.
In the deep....
and now you're out there spinning
and now you're out there swimming in the deep.
in the deep.....

In the silence all your secrets will raise their weary heads
Well you can't pin yourself back together
With who you thought you were

Now you're out there living
In the Deep..In the deep....

Now you're out there spinning
Now you're out there swimming
Now you're out there spinning

In the deep.