Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas 2009
Happy Holidays people!

LIFE  Today
It's Christmas Eve day and I'm home until Monday December 28th. Like everyone I have had some moments of reflection and reviewing of the past 12 months...gosh it has been a packed year! I am sitting in my office looking out the window and it is sunny - same day last year, 18 inches of snow and no Christmas in sight! Both Mike and I had procrastinated in getting gifts and the onset of the 2 week snow had just messed with us and the whole gift giving never happened...we even missed out on on our anniversary because of the weather. So the fact that I am somewhat ready is amazing AND considering a walk in the 'hood is the good news!

Work continues to be a four-letter word. I have so many other things that I would like to be doing - none which fall under the heading of 'work for $$$$'. I think about writing that novel that has eluded me for years, learning Italian, driving cross country, taking a photography class, volunteering, going to the gym every day, doing silent retreat, reading Anna Karenina and East or Eden...watching the Late Show and sleeping in late. Am positive there is other stuff...2010 will be the year to start doing some of those things.


FAMILY - we lost Mike's mom in October. Her passing has left a huge hole in our lives.
I continue to resist full frontal contact with either of my sisters. Email is the closest I can get right now...parts of me wishes that was different - I am uncertain as to changing it - feels like a lot of emotional distress and work - again, the four letter word. God I am lazy!
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Took a wee break there and left the building. We walked, for the first time in a month. My knee is really sore (surgery scheduled for next month) but I trudged on! Ibuprofen to the rescue... 

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That's all the reflecting I will do for today...more to be reviewed...I am to engrossed with the squirrel climbing up and down the cedar tree to write anything more today

MERRY HO-HO WORLD...
SNAP - T'was the night before...

Found this from 11/24/2009 draft...but will post today nonetheless

Dear Tuesday...you kinda suck!
I'm totally stealing that line from a friend's FB post from a week ago. It's true, it's Tuesday and although the sun is out, I am in and it sucks!!!! I continue moving one stack of papers and folders from one side of my desk to the other....I cruise through emails and want to scream at the mindlessness of it all....why were we all not given, at birth, the endless pile of money that would sustain us for our long lives and we could all dance and sing our way through life?

Transit blues

Now that our offices moved downtown, I ride public transit every day to work. For 2.5+ years I drove my car, sometimes begrudgingly but a necessary evil - for I refused to do the 3 transfer public option. Now I drive 3 miles to the transit parking lot closest to my home, park, way, way, way back in the lot so my car isn't dinged to within a inch of a new paint job and I hoof it to the platform. I need the exercise, so I don't mind...and I have the ability to maneuver in and out of the car, get my bag from the trunk etc. And, I pay the ridiculous amount of approx $11.00 a month for a transit pass that my employer subsides!!! It is a bargain....and while there is the 1 hour commute time and inconvenience of juggling appointments (doctors, dentists, indian chiefs) and the very real possibility that the train is delayed - this happened almost every night the first 2 weeks I was riding in September,I ride with a lighter heart, knowing my carbon footprint is smaller. Not a grand or auspicious beginning...but I do get off right at the back door to my building.

What isn't so great about public transit - is the public part. Do people not understand that talking on their cells phones is akin to being next to them in their bathrooms....people, I do not care to listen to your jibber-jabber, or your personal escapades from the night before. One young woman was loudly proclaiming to whomever she was talking to the intimate details of the night before and tersely told the gentleman net to her - who was repeating her word for word to "stop listening"....frankly my dear the whole damn car could hear you and we were all wishing you would SHUT UP! (I had to keep from bursting out in laughter at his antics, did wink conspiratorially at him and mouthed "thank you", when she got up in a huff and moved to another seat, madly texting to someone-thankfully, in silence.)

I am utterly amazed at what people say and do on the train/bus. They speak in loud voices, they pitch fights with their sig others, they steal a ride, talk on cell phones, talk in loud voices to the person(s) they are with (attention, it's "all about us" right now), hogging the seat next to them with bags or body parts and have no qualms about hitting you with their bodies or bags... and don't get me started on the people waiting to get on the train..."it is so much easier if you let people out first" I want to say - for all of us!

I LOVE to read - using transit allows me to do a lot of reading in 40 minutes twice a day. I am easily diverted so I have taken to wearing foam ear plugs...I can effectively eliminate most of the noise that is in my immediate vicinity and ignore those loudest with effort. I have absolutely no shame in wearing earplugs and will gleefully indicate that I can NOT hear a word that is being said...it may be construed as rude, but I find the loud talking rude too. Right now I am reading Keeping the Peace (Mindfulness and Public Service) and The Scarpetta Factor...the first a "real" book, the other on my Kindle...my recent birthday present to moi-the coolest techno gadget I own.

Reading is a diversion. My already over-active mind needs to have the activity...I find peace in disappearing into the pages of whatever I am reading. I find joy too, and information. I find that my world has expanded, my vocabulary increasing and my imagination is sparked. I can not envision a day when I won't have a book in my hand, one inverted on the coffee table and another waiting for me to sit down and begin to turn pages...how is it that some people are just not "into reading"? Another mystery to resolve...not now, however, for I want to read.