Golfing

"Ummm, Forest? I don't think that's a good idea!"

 

 "Fine! You'll be the one in trouble this time!"

 

 

 

  

"Hey! Here's the ball! Go back and get the club!"

                                        

 

Life is like a box of chocolates

Forrest Gump’s classic tag line:
Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.
And you don’t.

You always want to go with the best, most realistic, safest, most secure option.

Safe. Guaranteed.

Not always.

I’ve been at the same company for 24 years. Over half of my life. Of course, I’ve thought about changing jobs more than once through the years – sometimes out of boredom, sometimes out of financial justice. But I always came back to the same decision – stay. I love my job and the company, and the people I work with are great. I never once imagined that I would be given a choice: a completely different tech job at the same company or, there’s the door.

I’m not sure what my final decision will be. I’ve vacillated back and forth about a hundred times already. And I’ve been through the entire array of emotions. I keep stopping and dwelling on the “hurt”. I know it’s nothing personal against me. They’re outsourcing my job and it really is the most economical, efficient way to go. It’s a benefit to the company. It’s just that I’m a casualty. Business, not personal.

However, as I keep going through it in my mind, it comes back to feeling like a personal hit. I know I’ll get over it. I know I’ll get past it. But for me, right now, I need to spend some time there – in that pain. The more time I spend with it and realize it, the less impact it will have on me in the long run. It’s hard and it sucks. But it’s the best thing for me. I know that.

You need to spend time in the hardest feelings of life. You will be a better, rounder, more complete person by embracing the feelings – tough or easy – and moving past it. Embrace the moment. Live in the now. Carpe Diem. Sorry, but in my current state, that just pisses me off. I know logically that all of this makes sense. But it’s not an easy place to reach, nor to reside in.

 

Wish me luck!

 

Happy Birthday, Kami!

I have three younger sisters. The next youngest from me is named Kami. We’re three years apart. Have you ever heard of siblings getting along throughout their childhood? Me neither. We tolerated each other. Just barely.

Recently, I was researching something on religion and somehow stumbled upon the definition of her name as defined by an 18^th century Japanese scholar, Motoori Norinaga:

"A kami is any thing or phenomenon that produces the emotions of fear and awe, with no distinction between good and evil.”

Wow. My parents must have consulted some kind of prophet when they picked her name. It is spot on! There is no way that happened randomly. Fate. Karma. Whatever. She was the epitome of that definition when we were kids.
I was older. Granted, I was calmer than she was. More on the meek side. But I was older. That alone should have warranted some degree of respect.  Wrong. Once she began to walk and talk, it was over. If we were a pack of puppies, she would have been alpha dog.
My parents have a recording of Kami and I singing, we were probably 4 and 7, and every few moments Kami would yell at me. “Susie! You’re not singing it right!” “Hey, this is MY part!” “That’s NOT how it goes!”

“It is too!” “Sing your own song, Kami!”

We fought all the time.

Lee became part of our pack when Kami was four, which simply added to her list of subordinates. Once Lee was a little older, Kami would make us play “school”. She was ALWAYS the teacher. “No talking! Pay attention! Eyes front!” she’d holler, slapping one of our desks with a ruler. I thanked God that I never had a teacher like her in school!

When Katie was born Lee was about three and a half. One more cadet for her troop. Katie actually turned into Kami’s living doll. She’d dress her and do her hair and everything. Apparently, the larger the age difference, the less animosity.

Every once in a while I would babysit when my parents wanted to get out for coffee for an hour or so. One time Kami and I were going at it back and forth and I ran out of the house anticipating her to follow. She closed and locked the door. Nice. I went all around the house checking all the windows, looking for a way in. When I got back to the front door, she was on the other side of the small paned windows adjacent to the door, sticking her tongue out at me. I was so mad I punched at her face through the little window. Guess who got in trouble for that one?

Those of you with children who seemingly live for sibling rivalry understand that there’s nothing you can do to keep it at bay. The best you can do is sentence punishment equal to the crime and hope it’s severe enough that they think twice before offending again. To this day I love my mom’s strategy for dealing with us the best. We each sat on one end of the couch and neither could get up until the other let her. Genius, mom.

My sister Kami is still the epitome of the definition of her name. As a child, it was manifested as, well, something akin to Satan. Now, she’s older and wiser, and the sweetest, coolest, do-everything, help-everyone type of woman. Definitely AWESOME!

Happy Birthday Kami!

Dad's Day

I have the greatest, coolest, craziest, funnest, funniest, smartest, neatest, bestest dad ever! MacGyver has NOTHING on this guy. Tim Taylor could learn a thing or two from him. Ward Cleaver – oh, forget it, he can’t even compete.

Growing up, I had no idea there was such a thing as a “handyman”. Not as a profession, anyway. My dad fixed EVERYTHING. Whether it was completely remodeling the bathroom or replacing the car engine, he did it all. And the fun part was when I got to help. Granted, it was work, but looking back, it was definitely a highlight of my childhood. Painting the house, checking the brakes on the car, planting vegetables, or building, well, just about anything, I got to be involved. Dad had a way of teaching that you don’t see with people in general. He was a natural at it. Now, I never got to rebuild the carburetor – that was a tad advanced for my age and a tad critical of a part for me to play with, but he had a way of finding just the right job for me. I’m not sure if he was the cause of my obsession with organization or if it was already ingrained because of genetics, but I used to love to go through all of his little drawers of things and make doubly sure everything was in its place. He had those little plastic organizer cabinets for nuts, screws, bolts, etc. and then he’d have another with different watch parts and another with camera parts or phone pieces, or whatever else he may need at any given moment. I don’t think dad was ever a Boy Scout, but he sure was ready for anything.

So, the first time a friend of mine told me that there was a repairman fixing their dryer, I literally did a mental double-take. For me it was just a given that dad could fix anything. Sadly for my friend, that wasn’t the case in her family. I gained a newfound respect for my dad that day.

And, I know that I have three strong backers of my Great Dad statements – my sisters Kami, Lee and Katie. But we’re not biased. Really. Seriously, ask anyone who knows Steve Minami and they will tell you the same thing. He’s not just a great dad, he’s a great person!

I love you, dad! Happy Father’s Day!

Mistakes

Have you ever done anything so dumb that you just wanted to crawl into a cave and stay there?

If you trip and fall and there’s no one there to see you, that’s one thing. If you spill coffee down the front of your shirt in front of your family, that’s another. The “oops” I lived with for years was known by some friends and family but mainly by my co-workers. Making a professional faux-pas not only hurts your pride, it diminishes your credibility. At least it sure feels like it.

Many years ago, I was working on upgrading the computer of our users. I’d done this particular procedure hundreds of times. Set up and install the programs on the new computer, transfer the user’s files, etc. Well, this particular time, I missed a step and ended up deleting the user’s files. All of them. Completely. And there was no recent backup. I felt myself go pale. I heard my heart stop. This wasn’t real. This didn’t just happen. (At this point in time, the only recovery software available was ridiculously expensive and/or regulated by the government. Outside help was not an option.) I wanted to tender my resignation and slink out the back door.

I left my ego on the floor and told the user what I had done – apologizing profusely, of course. He was distraught, but handled it well. It wasn’t long before most of the company knew what I had done. And it wasn’t long before that became a running joke every time I had to work on someone’s computer. “You’re not going to delete all my files, are you?” Giggle, giggle, giggle. “Save your files! Susan’s working on our computers today!” I laughed along and always assured them that I would never make that mistake twice!

I survived that stigma because I never let anything like that happen again, and also because regardless of what mistakes a person makes, they themselves are still decent, reliable, credible people provided they learn from it. Oh, and it also helps that this was so long ago that 90% of the people in the company are different now.

Take it easy on yourself. We've all been there.

Blessed

Someone said to me this morning, “Have a blessed day!” I replied back with “Thanks! You too!” Usually we’ll hear and say, “Have a good day!” or “Have a nice weekend!” or “Have a great evening!” but to have a ‘blessed’ day gives way to much more thoughtfulness on the recipient’s part.

Most people will relate the word ‘blessed’ to a person who’s been given a certain gift or talent or one who’s been touched by holiness, sanctified. I look at it as having been given the ultimate gift – life. And to be truly blessed, we need to show our gratitude for that gift. And I don’t mean by thanking our parents (wink, wink)! We need to realize that each of us here has this gift and it’s our responsibility to nurture it both in ourselves and in everyone else as well. Tell your loved ones you love them. Spend time with your friends. Goof off with your kids. Listen to your parents’ stories of yore. These fortunate times are the essence of the life we are blessed with. The mortgage is not life. The un-vacuumed house is not life. Don’t waste time being jealous of the neighbor’s new car or the co-worker’s promotion. The successes in life that matter most are not tangible.

Sometimes it can be difficult to free ourselves from the web of tangibles that make themselves seem so important. It feels like walking through an abandoned house full of cobwebs and dust. Your vision is clouded. But once you get through the doorway, out into the daylight, you see that those things don’t matter. Cars and houses can be replaced. Jobs can be attained anew. But the blessed bond you have with these other life forces remains constant while you are here. If you nurture that gift with gratitude and thoughtfulness and tolerance and understanding you are helping to create a connected utopia within this crazy, disconnected, stressed-out world we live in.

Have a truly blessed day!

Tiger, the chauffer

Geez! I'm the designated driver, A-GAIN!

 

 

 

Oh good! At least this time they got me a mocha!