Two Down

I read two books this week. Only thousands more to go to finish my shelves. Progress can be slow.

The first book I read was a loaner. I bought it for A for her birthday and gave it to her with the condition that she had to loan it to me so I could read it when she was finished. (How rude was that?)

Tending Roses by Lisa Wingate was timely for me because it reminded me that money isn't everything and that things can work out at a time when I'm freaking out daily about how much I'm spending for health care. There's a quote in the second book I read that's fitting here...

Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is possibly my favorite book this year. It takes place after WWII and is written entirely in the form of letters - mostly between the protagonist, a writer named Juliet, and some people on the island of Guernsey which was occupied by the Germans during the war. It's a little old fashioned (which I love) but it doesn't sugar coat the war or the after effects.

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Today was IV day at the Fibro and Fatigue Center. I was there from 11 a.m. until after 2 p.m. because the darn things didn't want to flow. The whole process does me in for a couple days. I'm taking it as a good sign, that the things that are supposed to die off are doing so, but I wish it was a little easier. Still looking for that miracle cure, I guess.

The First (and probably only) Poetry Tuesday

I haven't made much progress in my efforts to reduce the mountain of unread books but I have been delving into favorite parts of the books on my keeper shelves. Happily, I ran across this poem by Dorothy Parker which I haven't read for years. I think it perfectly describes relationships. I hope you like it.

One Perfect Rose

A single Flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his message he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet -
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;
"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose."
Long love has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

Books Galore

My name is Alice and I’m a book buying addict.

I’m not mocking people in 12-step programs when I say this. It’s true. I have shelves and shelves of books that I bought because they looked interesting. Some of these poor things have remained unread for years. While I was dusting shelves on Thursday, I decided that I’m going to do something about my stash.

Winter is coming and I’m trying not to spend money, so I figure I’ll have plenty of time to read. Here’s the plan. I’m going to read my way through the to-be-read mountain and report on the books here. Also, because life is short, I’m going to do a page 50 evaluation. If the book is not working for me at page 50, I can move on to the next.

I won’t try to pretend that I’m not going to buy any new books but I intend to make it through five books before I get a new one.

And I thought give up coffee was hard.

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I always read bits of books while I dust the bookshelves. Today I came across this passage from Cathy Lamb’s The Last Time I was Me.

“Here’s a tidbit of info I have learned during my nervous breakdown: If you have worked your buttocks off for years and you suddenly find yourself in the position of being able to work for yourself or at home, or maybe not even working at all (by choice), it is almost unbearably impossible to put yourself back in the position of working those hideous hours again with strange, mind-boggling people you would not normally want to hang out with unless forced to by a gun. You feel like the life is going to be sucked out of you an inch at a time. Through your nose. And the sad reality is: You are right.”

That one’s for all you working stiffs. The sad reality is: She is right.

Speaking of Socialism

OK, maybe it's just me speaking of socialism (or, in this case, socialized medicine) but I read an interesting blog entry today from Miss-Thrifty called Frugality Wars: UK vs USA - Round One. There's a lot that's standard stuff - USA has lots of comparatively cheap things like gas, food, housing. The UK has the National Health Service (NHS) which provides free health care coverage.

I've heard arguments for and against NHS. The upside? It's free for everyone. The downside? Potential delays in service, limitations in care provided, etc. So you can pick your own side and argue away. Here's what floored me.

Miss-Thrifty writes that she understands that income taxes are high in the UK to help offset the cost of government provided health care. Most people pay about 20%. What???!!!

I pay over 20% of income in taxes. In addition, I typically pay over $1500 each year for out of pocket health care expenses after paying my insurance premiums. This year my out of pocket costs will be much, much higher.

I'm not saying I want to pay $8/gallon for gas like they do in the UK but can't some of my tax dollars go to making health care affordable and available to everyone?

Here's the link to the blog entry if you want to read more.
http://www.miss-thrifty.co.uk/2008/09/11/frugality-wars-uk-vs-usa-round-one/#more-111

Dad's Famous and We're All Socialists

OK, the happy stuff first. My dad was in the newspaper today. He was quoted in a story about local golf courses. Here's his picture with his buddy, Mel. (Dad is in the golf cart.)

Today's second happy thing is that my work department made a tree using wrapping paper tubes, coupons from our company's main product, and the handy man's secret helper, duct tape. It turned out pretty good in a "I can't believe I'm actually wasting time to do this at work" sort of way. One of our company's key results areas for the year is innovation. Instead of doing something really innovative and impactful, each department was charged with making something out of a bunch of coupon books. The HR tree theme was "money doesn't grow on trees but coupons do". It was fun to see what all the departments came up with but for long term company success I don't see too much added value. Still, the results were pretty cool. I didn't have a camera with me so there's no picture here but I'll try to get one on Friday. I know everyone who reads this would be thrilled to see our HR tree. By the way, there were no prizes given which disturbs me. I'm a rewards professional. I want to see rewards for achievement even if I don't necessary get them.

Now for the bad stuff. The financial markets. Since I won't ever be able to retire, I figure I can spend time at work reading about how bad things are. I've been reading commentaries about the US government bailout of financial companies - AIG being the latest. One common theme is how strange it is that as a capitalist nation, we're subsidizing failing companies. Here's a link to an MSN money commentary today which gets to the point. http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2008/09/16/the-fed-is-not-our-sugardaddy.aspx

One other article I read said that we're now a socialist country only instead of supporting the little guys, we're supporting big business. I wonder if we can mandate that the executives and boards of directors of these failing companies give back their golden parachutes to subsidize the severance of all the people who will be laid off because of their poor decision making.

It makes me angry to think that if I make bad decisions, I have to pay for them. While I recognize the pain that would be caused by letting these companies fail, I also wonder how long we'll be able to continue on this course of action.

Happy All the Time

Good news. I have happy things to report.

The first was the full moon in the morning sky. It was huge and bright and absolutely beautiful. Incredible the things that God makes for us.

The second was the headline in the Detroit Free Press - Wild Pigs Menacing Farmers and Joggers across Michigan. While it's bad that feral pigs are ruining crops across the state, destroying natural habitats and all the rest, isn't the visual of pigs chasing down joggers brilliant? I imagine a northern Michigan Running of the Hogs. Pamplona has nothing on us.

The third thing is that I realized that I haven't had sugar cravings for days. My boss brought in chocolate chip cookies to share. I didn't want one. I don't know what's up with that but it's actually pretty cool.

Finally, I have to give a shout out to C who sent me an email with brilliant "stress in the workplace" video clips. My favorite? The guy with printer issues who finally gave up and dragged his monitor to the copy machine so he could get a hard copy of his document.

So there you go. Happy stuff.

By the way, I learned two new things today - how to search Flickr and how to import images into my blog. And I got to play around with Html code too. Life doesn't get any better.

Lightening Up

The blog's been a bit of a downer lately. It's probably more accurate to say that I've been a bit of a downer lately. Maybe it's because of the rain - there's been lots. Maybe it's because T got injured - always worrying. Maybe it's because I'm not feeling well. Whatever. To counteract the gloom, I'm going to find one thing a day to write about that makes me happy. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep it going but it'll make a change.

I'm happy about a blog I found - www.thatreadingwritingthing.blogspot.com. It's written by a British writer who has excellent taste in books (excellent because she likes a lot of the same books that I do). What totally sold me on the blog was a political commentary where she made a brilliant comparison between Sarah Palin and Basil Fawlty. Brilliant because 1) the show Fawlty Towers and John Cleese's portrayal of Basil Fawlty are classic so any reference is welcome and 2) Sarah comes up short in the comparison.

Gosh. I feel a little happier already.

The Real Me, At Least Partially

I changed my profile name. I'm feeling a bit more comfortable blogging and thought that I might as well use my real first name. So, ta da. I figure that when I get over the whole bitterness and sarcasm thing, I'll be ready to use my last name too. That might take a while.

I spent a lot of time last week listening to an on-line conference for National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. I came across the conference by chance and listened to the first session because the timing worked with my schedule. It got me hooked because it's not often that there's a conference that's actually easy for someone like me. Having archived sessions made it possible to listen for a while, pause, move around for a while, listen some more, and so on. I didn't listen to everything because some sessions didn't apply but most of the speakers I heard were interesting and helpful. The sessions are archived at www.invisibleillnessconference.com.

After thinking about what I heard at the conference, I realized that I don't often admit to myself that I have a chronic illness. Which is strange considering I spend so much time, effort, energy and money dealing with my fibromyalgia. What's even stranger is that I've spent the last ten or so years dealing with the frustration of trying live like I used to before I got sick and then being resentful because I can't. I'm trying to figure out what denial is getting me and why I'm afraid of going to a place of acceptance. Sigh.

I don't think that my current treatment plan is part of the denial. I think that staying up too late some nights and drinking too much coffee some days and eating too much sugar at times and not doing yoga ever are part of the denial. There's a whiny four-year-old in me screaming "it's not fair". That's denial.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this new insight. Not dealing with it sounds really good while working through the issue sounds far too much like healthy work, acceptance, a sort of yoga for the mind. Now that it's in the open, it'll come up again. The good news is that the conference gave me some new tools to deal with it.

Dread

Dread is a good word. When I say it, I can feel heart, soul, energy, and yes, lifeblood being drained away.

Dread.

When I say I dread work this week, I am not kidding about the draining thing. Here's why in a word. Meetings. Oh, not the kind of meetings needed to follow up on projects or assign new projects or, potentially, rarely, get things done. No. I'm talking about the other kind of meetings.

The Monday morning staff meeting is being moved up an hour. Painful enough because staff meetings are a huge waste of time. But there's more. I will spend the rest of the morning with all of the people in the department in a locked room being forced to preview the company's new on-boarding web site. (OK, the room won't really be locked. It'll just feel that way. There's no escape. Guards will block the doors. OK, slight exaggeration again with the guards. It'll be guard dogs. With guns. And shoot to kill orders.)

On-boarding is hip-company speak for getting prospective and new employees to fill out forms and then give the new hires an orientation to the company. I admit the on-line capability will be great for our company - over 50% of our employees work remotely. However. I'm a compensation analyst. I don't recruit or give orientations. In fact, my job requires very little day-to-day employee contact (a happy situation that has extended my HR career for nearly 15 years). I won't be using the program or helping others use the program. Still I will be forced to spend four hours looking at the program. Ouch.

Wednesday is an all day workshop on HR legal issues. I hear the first topic of the morning will be Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and leaves of absence. 'Nuf said.

I am very, very grateful for my schedule which will allow me to spend Tuesday and Thursday in mental recovery mode. Which, I guess, makes me grateful for my fibromyalgia. Hmmm.

I need to find a new career.

What is up with that?!

So, today I was at Barnes & Noble browsing magazines when I heard a male voice say "they always want to have children and I don't".

Because I'm nosy I looked around to see the guy who was talking. It wasn't some young guy. No. The man had to be at least 60 and not a "Paul Newman when he was 60" either. I'm talking scrawny with weather beaten face, scraggly white beard and stringy white hair dressed in a faded blue work shirt.

I wanted to walk over to the table where he and his friend were sitting and say "how about dating someone your own age? Women past menopause normally don't want children. Think about it."

For Pete's sake, how can someone who looks like that find young women to date? I may never know. He left before I could check to see if he was driving a Bentley.