Life in a Small Business

I received a check from the Federal Treasury today.  Just a check, no letter explaining why.  In very fine print on the upper right corner there was a notation that the check was a refund for my quarterly taxes I had paid at the end of October.  Taxes I owed.  Ah a mystery.  And that’s not so bad.  Since I became a small business owner two and a half years ago, I’ve encountered mysteries and puzzles and dilemmas enough to make me think twice about this way of working.  I have on occasion browsed the job postings these past couple years allowing titles and salaries to tempt me back to traditional employment.  But I quickly snap out of it.  What adventurer would trade a Trojan check from the government for the in utero constancies of a job with The Man? 

The first thing I did was call my accountant.  We’ve become pretty chummy these last few years.  She is like a body-guard for my financial well-being, and has successfully trained me to “Step Away From the Check,” when what looks like found money may actually be a bomb, financially speaking, of course.   When I told her about the refund, her first question was, “Have you cashed it?  Don’t cash it!”  And I pleased her immeasurably when I replied, “No, as soon as I opened the envelope, I called you.”  Good girl, I could almost hear her thinking.  We agreed that she would confer with an associate who had filed my October taxes and get back to me by Monday with next steps.  In the meantime, I was to look upon that check with great scepticism.  The government doesn’t give back money they asked for in the first place–okay, G.W. Bush’s tax rebates, TARP Funds, and the Economic Stimulus Plan, notwithstanding.  In fact, my accountant said that if I cashed the check and the government erroneously refunded my taxes, then I would be obligated to repay the original amount and interest and penalties as if I’d never paid the taxes in the first place.  So you can see how running a small business is a cross between an IQ test and self-flagellation. 

If the rough waters of small business life were confined to the Bermuda Triangle of the Federal Treasury, I wouldn’t have much to report here.  Everyone’s had a moment of weirdness with Uncle Sam.  But as Susan, Inc., I additionally get to do Abbot and Costello routines with the accounts payable offices of many of my clients.  My business contracting can often look like this:

Client:  Please work with us.

Susan:  Okay, here’s what it will cost.

Client:  No problem!

Susan: (Experience tells me otherwise, but, hey, I’m an optimist)  okay.

I then do the work and invoice the client, who then tells me that they just found out they need to do things differently, and would I mind signing a professional services contract.  Fair enough, I know I should do this before I do anything else, and at those moments I find myself emitting the classic, “Doh!” of Homer Simpson, knowing that what should be a simple and neat exchange of services for money will now resemble a hairball of emails, contracts, purchase orders, invoices, and more emails over several months.  Recently, a client paid me a few weeks ago for work I did in July.  A month after I did the work–and on contract, I might add–the client decided to change my status from vendor to contract labor, so to speak, and so they presented me with a pile of forms to fill out.  Not wanting to spurn that client, one I value both personally and professionally, I gritted my teeth and completed the documents.  Unfortunately, besides the glacial pace of the processing that followed, some alert office clerk noticed my physical address on one form and substituted it for my PO box–the only place I receive mail–on all other documents.  So when nearly six months had gone by, and I again inquired about payment, another alert accounts payable clerk found my check, returned for incorrect address, sitting on someone’s desk.  Someone who was either on permanent vacation or had a sadistic streak.  Either way, I find that those who hire me rarely have any influence over the function that pays me, so yogic breathing, a good sense of humor, and a healthy savings account are necessary to my success as a small business woman. 

The benefits, though, are an avalanche to the annoyances.  For example, I set my own schedule, though it has to work for my clients, too, so I sometimes find myself zipping up and down I-5 in a single day.  Truthfully, sometimes it’s up and down and up and down.  But I can decide to take time off when I want, like today.  Although, today I have spent about three hours on my books, corresponding with clients, peering at a Federal check suspiciously, and, you guessed it, talking with my accountant.  Still, I’m in jeans while I do it.  That’s something.  Okay, I’m rethinking the avalanche metaphor; it is, perhaps, a bit hyperbolic.  Nonetheless, I love working for myself, applying my talents as I deem most effective, writing my corporate minutes each quarter (which Tom, as corporation secretary, is supposed to do, but refuses to until I give him a raise), managing a half-dozen bank accounts, and using my high school math to figure out what to pay myself on those occasions when my clients pay me.  There’s just something slightly intoxicating about having your own business, regardless if it exists primarily on paper and employs only you.  At least when I feel I’m not making enough, I can take it up with the boss who will tell me to start marketing the business more aggressively while the corporate secretary will argue for me to work less and write more.  Either way, I’m in charge.  And in the end, that’s the best part of life in a small business.

Desi and Lucy Trim the Tree

I must start by telling you that putting up a Christmas tree at our house isn’t a given.  Tom and I aren’t sentimental types in general, and our relationship with the knot of competing values –capitalism, Christianity, and a misremembered sense of the Good Ol’ Days–that buffet each other about for prominence on the stage of  “The True Meaning of Christmas” is wary at best.  (To illustrate, we have a tendency to snigger at the “Victorian Country Christmas” event that’s held annually at the Puyallup Fair grounds, wondering aloud to one another in our heaviest ironic tone whether the event features vast manor homes crawling with destitute women and children waiting on the gentry for the meagerest of wages, since that was life in the country in the age of Queen Victoria.)  But lest you begin to think so, we are not Scrooges or kill-joys or holiday poopers.  We’re just a little more philosophical than a lot of the population, and we need to think things out before we jump into the fray.  So, the tree deliberations began around Thanksgiving.

Me:  You think we should put up a tree this year?

Tom:  I dunno.  You want to?

Me:  I dunno.  We didn’t do one last year because we were in L.A., so maybe.

Tom:  Yeah, we should do one.

Me:  Okay.  A small one though. 

As you may have noticed, the discussion shimmered with ambivalence.  We were like a couple disaffected ping-pong players slapping the ball back with the hope the other would put it away decisively and end the damn game.  So, lacking any compelling argument to the contrary, we agreed to put up a tree.  As we drove to a little patch of a tree farm about a mile away, we somehow drove through a worm hole or a time warp or whatever it is that spits you out on the other side circa 1955.  Warm up your televisions, it’s the Tom and Susan hour, where silliness and jocularity rule.  Given the slapstick that would follow, we might have given Fibber McGee and Molly a run for their money.

We parked the truck at the tree farm Saturday afternoon, and before Tom could shut off the engine, I was out the door and being briefed by the proprietor: any tree, 30 bucks.  Great, I thought, reduces the variables.  With robot-like efficiency, I scanned the couple acre patch for six footers, walked a straight line to one that looked good, gave it a 360 degree evaluation, and waved at Tom to bring the saw.  As he approached, he noted that if I had a saw of my own, I could have hauled the tree back to the truck before he had even climbed out.  I took that as a compliment.  From the setting of the parking brake to its release, maybe ten minutes had passed.  Afterall, it’s only a tree, and a tree that would soon be swathed in several pounds of lights, bows, balls, and assorted sparkly things my boys made in elementary school.  The tree we took home could handle that and would be the better for it.  I subscribe to the Charlie Brown Doctrine of tree selection; it doesn’t need to be perfect.

Once home, Tom proceeded to slice a bit off the trunk of the tree, saying, “This trunk is pretty skinny, hope it fits into the stand okay.”  I took a look and noticed he had made his slice at an angle.  My scrutiny was a prod for explanation.  “I heard they take up more water when the base is cut at an angle.”  Mmmm.  With that logic, shouldn’t we just cleave the whole thing and put the open side to the back?  I kept my thoughts to myself, though.

In prep for trimming the tree Sunday morning, we lugged an easy chair upstairs, laid down a plastic bag, topped it with a board, and added the large–very large–tree stand.  Thinking about the small diameter of the tree trunk, I whirled the screws in the stand ’round and ’round to close the space among them.  Surely the tree will fit.

Tom carried in the tree and dropped its trunk into place–a rather roomy place.  “Jeez!”  I said, “is this going to work?”

“Oh yeah, said Tom confidently, turning the screws right down to their eyeballs.  “See?  It’s fine.  See if it’s straight.”  I let go of the trunk and walked a few feet away to assess the tree’s alignment.  It was pointing a bit northwest on the compass, but it wasn’t horrible.  I plunked the tree angel on top (actually, we call her the wood nymph, since we’re not so sure about the idea of angels.  We’re not so sure about wood nymphs, either, but we know the woods exist, at least for now, and we aren’t convinced about heaven). 

“Looks pretty good,” I said.

“Yeah?  It’s straight?”  asked Tom.

“Straight enough,” I said.

“You sure?” 

“Sure.  It’s a tree, it’s not that big a deal,” I said with that air prevalent among those marginally engaged in hall decking and such.

Tom stood up and appraised the tree himself.  “It’s leaning.  We can get it straighter.”

“Nah, it’s fine.  Let’s put the lights on.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said.  Tom brought in the lights and we went about uncoiling the carefully coiled coils of lights until we had a classic Christmas light snarl.  That tradition completed, we coiled them up again and began testing the strands for health and well being before we laced the tree with them.  One after another, the strands lit up happily.  I felt myself joining them, becoming merry against my better judgment. 

I wound the strands around the tree from top to bottom, adjusting the direction of bulbs and the meander of the cords so the lights would appear to emerge from the tree naturally instead of dangling on green wire.  Tom attached the extension cord and plugged them in.  Voila!  The top strand of lights were out.  How could that be?  We tested them?  We checked all of them.  Why aren’t they working now?  I began to make faces like Stan Laurel.  Being the infinitely patient and sanguine man he is, Tom unwound the top strand and began the tedious job of checking for dead bulbs.  I continued my Stan Laurel impression until he’d solved the problem, and once again we wound the lights around the top of the tree and plugged her in.  Voila!  Lights everywhere.  “Ahhhhh,” we said in unison.  But something wasn’t right.

“The tree is listing,” I said.  “It’s leaning more than it was before.”  Not to be discouraged, Tom dove for the tree stand and the two of us began a game of “How is it now?”  which is a lot like “Can you hear me now,” but Tom had to play with his face in the tree water while I moved about the room assessing just how much list we could tolerate without losing our minds.  At one point, Tom had adjusted the tree to nigh on perfect straightness, it was true.  “Stop there,” I shouted, “It’s perfect!”

“Okay,” said Tom excitedly, “I’ll just cinch it up a bit more.”

“Nooooooo,” I yelled, leaping for his legs to pull him and his screwdriver away from the tree, but I was too late.

“How’s it now?” he asked.

“It’s leaning,” I said, “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you.”  Tom stood up and his shoulders sank. 

“Awwww.  I couldn’t help myself.  I thought, one more turn of the screw.  Oh well, let’s get it back to perfect,” he said brightly.

“NO, no perfect.  Let’s just make sure it won’t fall over and decorate the stupid thing.  We won’t notice after a while anyhow,” I said with far more hope than certainty. 

“I know,” said Tom, “We’ll use some shims.  The trunk is just too small for the stand.  Shims’ll help,” and Tom the Engineer possessed my husband, ensuring that measurements would be taken and plans would be drawn, and I would be able to decorate the tree next February.  There’s an age old question that I am now prepared to answer:  size does matter.  Beware a tree with a scrawny trunk.  Girth is good.

Tom tested shims, adding and subtracting them to determine the optimal shim number and position.  In the end, we tossed the shims, and instead Tom drove the screws as deeply into that toothpick of a tree trunk as the Christmas Spirit, his indomitable nature, and the length of the screws allowed.  Then he looked up at me from beneath the boughs and asked, “Is it straight?”  And without moving an inch from the tree, I assured him it was.  But of course it wasn’t, and upon reconnoitering for himself, Tom the Engineer zipped off to the garage for his saw.  Minutes later, he was on the floor, saw in hand, and I was holding the tree, now released from its screws, in mid-air so Tom could saw a chunk off for a flat bottom.  But that turned out to be unnecessary.  Once we’d dismantled the tree, it was obvious that the slant of the bottom was irrelevant.  Again, we danced the, “Is it straight?” dance, until I threatened to cry, which was a persuasive argument for quitting the whole endeavor from Tom’s point of view.  Although, he added, “It ain’t Christmas unless someone’s unhappy,” in that ruminative way of his.

By Sunday afternoon, we had a fully festooned Christmas tree that tilted its head, just a bit, in coy acknowledgement to the beauty of imperfection, and we sat on the couch, listening to a mishmash of old Christmas music, sighing with delight at what we’d wrought.  Desi leaned over and kissed Lucy.  But he didn’t say “Merry Christmas,” because that would have been a wee bit too cheesy for us.

A Year of Susan in the Rain

 Last December, in flurry of snow and a drought of things to do, I began this blog.  In fact my inaugural post was on December 9, 2008.  It was entitled “My Inaugural Post” or something similarly dull.  But no matter, because 366 days later, I have written seventy some variably interesting posts and you–at least a contingent of you–readers have made nearly 300 comments, and shall I say pithy, witty, and, at times, trenchant, comments.  Where would you have slathered all that commentary crying for expression if it weren’t for Susanintherain?  I’m so glad I could be of service to you.

So the freshman year has come to a close–where to now?  What has been learned this last year of writing that will inform the next?  Well, let met quickly say that while I have been a writer for my lifetime, toiling away in notebooks, on typewriters, and in latter days, on computer keyboards, rarely did I share my work with others.  The amazing thing about a blog is that not only is it easy to invite friends, family, and strangers to weigh in on what I’m thinking about, but it has become downright compulsive.  Writing without readers responding is that proverbial tree falling silently in the woods.  It’s as if writing doesn’t become anything until a reader responds in some way–at least for me.  The conversation is reward, and the comments you’ve made have been the intermittent positive reinforcement to my writing behavior.  It’s all so Pavlovian.  So, the only sure thing about the next thing is that I have not grown tired of telling the story of Susan in the rain.  I can only hope the reading has been enough reward that you, too, are conditioned to this relationship and drool at the thought of a new post!  (Am I going too far with that metaphor?  Maybe so.)

Another sure thing for me is that there’s much left to be said.  Susan continues in the rain, the ice–seven degrees Farenheit today–the rain, and the sun, the four seasons of Washington State, that is.  Unless abandoned by all readers, I’ll be ranting about injustice and dog bed stuffing littering the yard, and winter birds perching in my garden trees like Christmas ornaments from a gray-brown palette, and why Sarah Palin provokes PTSD in me.  I’ll keep you updated on the Ruby and Maggie saga (Oh!  Did I tell you that Tom and I have been taking turns sleeping downstairs with the dogs because it’s too cold for them outside at night?  Even with their electric bed!  A puppy slumber party is about as sleepless as a twelve-year-old’s; all we’re missing is the make-up and fingernail polish), and I’ll also keep you posted on my novel’s progress through the nearly impossible mountain climb to publication–and, of course, so many of you have belayed me to this high point.  I have no doubt I can count on you to keep the rope tight for the next ascent. 

Thank you all for being such good company this past year, and I hope you join me in the next.  Please consider making a comment or two, especially if you’ve been lurking this past year in the wings.  Your voices will enrich this forum.  (Unless you are one of those people who comment on the Tacoma News Tribune stories–yikes!)

The Monster that Ate My Computer

Pardon me if my hands are shaking, but it’s been a week since I’ve been able to use my computer.  Peggy, a friend of mine, said I look like I’m in the throes of the DT’s–internet withdrawal, don’t you know.  When one’s business and hobbies both depend on connectivity, the last thing needed is interference, and last Monday I was cruelly interfered with.

It was a little after noon on Monday, when I was wandering around the Seattle Times website looking for news updates.  Because of a high intensity manhunt in the Seattle area, the Times was prominently featuring readers’ Twitter postings.  The public was playing reporter.  Wow, I thought, real time news, news from the street, news as it happens, and the temptation to be a witness to it drew me in.  I clicked on a Twit, whoops!  Sorry, I mean a tweet, and within seconds it transmogrified into a monster.  Recall the moment from Jurassic Park where the cute little prehistoric bird suddenly snaps the head off an admirer standing unfortunately too close?  It was like that.  In a blink, my computer was gagging for its life.  A screen popped up and asked me if I wanted to upgrade my anti-virus software.  Between the flashing red lights, blaring siren, and rapid fire sales attack (You wanna upgrade?  Hey, you wanna upgrade?  Hey, hey, you should upgrade, and fast, hurry!), I felt like I was facing off with a used car salesman who’d just mainlined a gallon of espresso.  No, you nasty pop-ups, I have anti-virus software–and where the hell is it when I need it?  I punched the miniscule “X” in the top right corner, but to no avail.  Immediately, the box popped up again, and then another popped up, claiming to be my anti-virus software–but it was lying!  My advantage in this case, though, is that when I feel pushed, harassed, hurried or bullied, I use my words.  I say NO!  and STOP!  What I most certainly don’t say, is, “Oh, all right,” or press the pulsing yes button.  So, my persistent refusal to accept the anti-virus upgrade invitation at least staved off the sure ruination of my beloved computer.  My repeated tapping of the “No, I don’t want your faux upgrade,” button forced the demon possessing my Dell to try another tack. 

In the midst of warding off the pushy sales pitch, I didn’t notice that a shield, not unlike those Microsoft update shields, appeared on my task bar in a nice soft gray accented with a swoop of a white banner.  It was a shield that was attempting to look like an English valet–it was there to meet my needs, provide a service, you know.  Be at my disposal.  I wasn’t convinced, however.  At discovering it, I clicked on to learn its true self–was it a shape shifter?  Was it a frog that would become a princess?  (Or a princess that would become a prince–I’m a tolerant, open-minded girl), what was the true nature of the shield?  Aha!  It was a tentacle of the monster.  It claimed to be my upgrade.  All I needed to do to activate its amazing skills, its power, its magic, was to click on the agreement.  With one thrust of my index finder I could unleash the power that would eradicate the forces of evil that held my computer captive, it promised.  JUST CLICK YES!  I reached toward the yes button, and with a flash of recognition, pulled my right hand safely away from the keyboard.  It was the Old woman who offered Snow White the apple–pure evil dressed as kind and generous.  My background in literature saved my computer:  APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEIVING, you know.  Damn the beast!  It had my computer, and I was powerless.

Several sobbing phone calls to my tech savvy father later, followed by five days of dropping off and picking up my computer at a local shop, as the technicians ferreted the malware out of the recesses of my registry, only to have it reappear when I got my computer home again, a $250.00 bill, and the result is I’m writing this blog entry on Tom’s computer.  Mine remains possessed.  When I open explorer, it opens twenty-seven iterations and threatens to keep doing so if I don’t shut down.  When I tried to back up my data, the computer refused to communicate with the external hard drive.  But when I take the computer back up to the shop, as we did twice yesterday, it behaves perfectly normal for the technicians.  A cyber poltergeist is inhabiting my laptop. 

So, my Dad’s suggestion, and Tom’s, and others have nodded their heads in agreement here, is to buy a new computer–my laptop is four years old–and have the damned bedeviled thing wiped clean.  Transfer the data to the new computer, then clear out everything:  operating system, apps, data, and hopefully, gremlins, spyware, ghosts, goblins, and whatever electronic fungi might have spread like a toxin throughout the circuitry of my most treasured tool.  Clean in up, clean it out, and buy something new.  Almost makes me want to rummage up some legal pads, sharpen my pencils, and call it good.  Except my blog would suffer from being updated via the U.S. Postal Service.  So hang with me, dear readers, through the thicket.  I’ll soon be churning out frequent and zippy blog posts on a super-fast new computer.

I’m Thankful for You

To anyone who’s ever read this blog:

Thank you more than I can say for being an audience to my writing.  Some people crochet, others paint, and many organize the music on their IPods.  My mode of expression, however, is writing.  It would be very sad if no one ever had anything to say in response to my various bits and pieces.  I have been adding to this blog for nearly a year now, and I have made 73 posts and you, nearly 300 comments!  I love a good conversation!

I wish you much to be thankful for during the holidays and into the new year.  I’m sure thankful for all of you.

 

Susan  

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

What a dilemma!  Thursday, now that’s easy.  Eat too much, no matter what you promised yourself, in the warm company of friends and family.  Give some thanks, too.  Now Friday, that’s another matter.  Many of you in the wake of Thursday’s excesses will think it attractive to hit the malls and other gift-purchasing emporia to whittle down your Christmas lists before December melts into the 25th as fast as I can say Pineapple Express.  And that choice is understandable.  But it’s not radical.  No, before you is another choice, a crazy, live-on-the-edge, rumble-in-Bohemia option for your Friday:  Don’t go shopping; in fact, all day long, buy nothing.  You see, Friday is International Buy Nothing Day.

What a thrill!  To ascribe my unusual reluctance to wade through the tsunami of schlock that hits the stores this time of year (or maybe I notice it more this time of year) to social activism, to doing good for the planet, to participating in an international protest, well that feels awfully good.  It puts a nice, shiny halo on what’s essentially my distaste for dusting.  You know, stuff equals clutter equals dust.  Truthfully, I also don’t get a lot of bang from spending my bucks.  It goes back to when I was a kid and I saved a long while to buy a pair of jeans I believed would transform my social life.  And they might have, except after weeks of babysitting, I plunked down a handful of green in exchange for those light blue, brushed cotton swabbie jeans with the dark blue sailor buttons instead of a zipper, and then promptly dribbled blueberry filling from a Hostess pie down the front of the right leg (Yes, I remember which leg–it’s a scar on my financial psyche).  I don’t care what you say, nothing gets blueberry filling out of light blue brushed cotton…other than bleach, which was successful, but exchanged one disappointment for another.  So you see, early on I learned not to lay up my treasure on earth, where moth and rust and blueberry filling destroy.  No, I believe in burying my scant treasure beneath the earth, more or less.  Buy land and plant plants, otherwise buy nothing, spend nothing, save, save, save.  A value system that will be the downfall of the U.S. economy if NPR pundits are to be believed. 

You see, it turns out that we are called a Nation of Consumers for a reason.  We need to be.  About seventy percent of our national economy is dependent on each of us consuming.  And it’s especially true here at home.  According to the Washington State Department of Revenue, at least fifty percent of our state’s income is from retail taxes.  The less we buy, the bigger the potholes.  Buy Nothing Day suddenly sounds unAmerican, seditious.  The fact that nearly everything available in the stores is made in China–and possibly toxic–seems to be separated from the thrum of financial news people and elected officials chanting:  buy, buy, buy in hypnotic unison.  Give me something to buy that enhances my life (won’t be a communications device), is likely to be durable (won’t be a major appliance), and won’t add to the waste stream in its manufacture or eventual disposal (we’re back to organic gardening), and I’ll spend some money.  Which makes me wonder, what if we began to make things here, in the United States?  Could we have an economy driven by production?  Oh, yeah, we tried that.  We used to make clothes and cars and planes in this country, but unions formed and muscled the wage and benefit levels so high that the price of their handiwork  eclipsed its foreign-made competition.  Americans wanted bargains, so they bought from Mexico, and Indonesia, and China, and American seamstresses and sheet metal workers began to be laid off.  Manufacturing declined and importing increased, and since products made in factories that pay workers in a year what many Americans make in a day end up pretty darn cheap even after being shipped around the globe, we Americans still bought all those bargains.  All those Big Bird cookie jars, and flashing Christmas lights necklaces, and chips and dip trays shaped like a football (we have one if you’re interested).  But the teeter-totter has dropped.  So many Americans are unemployed now that we can’t buy all the stuff we otherwise would that would keep our economy humming.  Work no longer equals economic growth; no, buying equals economic growth, and no work, no buying.  Which is also a bit new and refreshing for us Americans.

Okay, where was I?  Are you a bit dizzy?  Let me make it plain:  Buy Nothing Day challenges our addiction to buying stuff, and buying stuff is the basis of our economy.  What’s wrong with that picture?  I plan to do yoga and throw pottery on Buy Nothing Day.  If you decide to go shopping, then as a citizen of Washington, I extend my appreciation for your contribution.  I’m sure the Chinese do as well.

It’s at the Printers

After more than a year of drafting and several weeks of revising, I put the period behind the final word of my novel then hit the print button.  286 pages later, I hauled the embodiment of my life-long ambition to be a writer up to Kinkos-now-FedEx to be copied into ten bound manuscripts for the readers in my focus group.  As I passed the originals to the copy clerk, I felt a very surprising surge of emotion.  Tom asked me what I was feeling, and I couldn’t quite name it, but it was similar to how I felt when I finished my master’s degree thesis and when I crossed the finish line of my one and only marathon, that feeling of losing something as you complete it.  Yet there was another thread to the moment, because I haven’t finished, and that’s what makes this adventure unique for me.  There are a number of way stations on this journey, and arriving at each has provoked a different sense of accomplishment, awe, and internal conflict.  As weird as it may sound, I’m not relieved to be done, because to be done–to any degree–means I have to risk the next step, another stretch of unknown territory where anything can happen.  Each step forward is a new risk of failure, just as it is another increment of success. 

To cope with the uneasiness today, I am using my Procrastination List as a compass.  It’s directing me to dust the blinds and shred old receipts, even while I’m tempted to succumb to Tom’s flu instead, which would give me permission to whine and wallow, or bake pumpkin bread to fill the house with comforting scents and me with a security blanket of fat and sugar.  The point is, I need something compelling to do so I’ll forget about the bridge I’m crossing today to the next wilderness.  (And yet, what’s obvious to all of us, is that I’m at my computer writing a new entry, processing my disquietude as I do so.  Meta-writing, I think I’ll call it.)  Tom just thanked me for scrubbing the sink–another neglected task.  I wonder if anyone will ever thank me for writing.  At times it seems primarily self-serving, not nearly as generous an act as scrubbing the sink.

Two days ago I nibbled open a fortune cookie and the slip of paper within said, “Keep your eyes open on Thursday for a special opportunity.”  Since I am an ambivalent universalist, willing to believe in the magic and might of the energy of life as much as I am willing to pooh-pooh it, I’m giving the fortune a chance.  My eyes have been tired all day, but open enough to see opportunity in everything–though the word “special” has me stymied.  Being in this in-between place, no longer writing and not yet to the readers, is a special opportunity, I suppose.  I’ll buy it, I guess.  The specialness is that I’ve never before been here.  And the opportunity is to observe and experience this gap, this lacuna (to borrow a word Barbara Kingsolver is currently making popular) with the same attention I would give to the writing and the readers.  While I’ve spent a life time thinking otherwise, perhaps ambiguity is a kind of grace.  If I could just relax here, I might find out.

Note:  Mom and I are going to hear Barbara Kingsolver talk about her new novel.  Cross your fingers that I won’t embarrass myself, Mom or anyone who knows me by asking a dumb question during the presentation or knocking over weaker readers in my rush to have her sign her book for me.  May some of her brilliance land as sparks of inspiration and insight on me.

The Procrastination List

File old business documents, delete emails, recycle copies from old trainings, hem pants…and so it goes, my Procrastination List, the ever-accruing backlog of tasks that individually don’t amount to much, but in aggregate look like days of unending work.  Frame prints and pictures, wash glass in cabinets, wash glass panels in French doors, glaze pottery…a tossed salad of to-do’s, few unpleasant and most down right enjoyable, but none a priority, which keeps them on my lengthening list, unornamented with the slash that shouts, “Done!”  Some of the items on the Procrastination List are time sensitive, however:  plant bulbs, spread compost, build cold frame.  If I don’t do the fall gardening in fall, though, I’ll pick it up again in spring with slight adjustments:  plant seeds, spread compost, build cold frame.  So maybe “time sensitive” is a misnomer.  “Suggested timeframe,” is perhaps, more accurate, and “better late than never” is a good bet–though don’t rule out just plain, “never.”  Really, when I think about it, what at least partially relegates a task to the Procrastination List is that the consequences for not doing it are so, well, inconsequential.

Dust, dust more stuff, deep clean the boys’ bathroom (AKA, guest bathroom), scrub tile grout with a toothbrush…My list has themes, although it’s not written in any order.  I jot down a task when I recognize it needs to be done and I don’t feel like doing it.  The act of writing it on the list is proxy action, substitute progress.  I have accomplished something because I put that chore on the list.  If I were researching my list for the clues it held as to the inner working of my mind, I’d color-code it.  Blue highlighter for household cleaning, green for yard and gardening (rip out Euphorbia and never, ever accept a plant gift again until I’ve cleared it with the experts), pink for home organization and decor, and yellow for things I enjoy but struggle to commit time to (reading the Leaning Tower of Books by my bed, pottery, repotting house plants).    So what would be revealed by the rainbow of colorful and ignored tasks?  Nothing that would surprise anyone who knows me.  What I don’t do is the overflow of what I do do.  I have only so much time for cleaning, and gardening, and house beautiful, and pleasurable pursuits cast as obligations.  Paying work gets the sweet spot of my time, the remaining hours are divvied up among my other values.  A beer with Tom will always win out over an hour of scrubbing the lime ring out of the boy’s toilet.

In a burst of optimism, I told Tom that I plan to work through my Procrastination List during the holiday season, when I will be taking a break from writing.  My focus group will have a draft of my book, and other than posting to this blog a few times a month, the time I spend on writing–three to six hours daily–will be freed up for those lower level priorities: Get dog licenses, buy new shower curtain, organize book shelves.  I tell myself checking off the Procrastination List will be exhilarating, liberating, transforming, even.  Why else would I suddenly make what I’ve successfully put off a priority?  A part of me that won’t be fooled, though, knows that my quality of life might experience a brief bump from reducing the list to a crumpled wad, but that nothing really important will be accomplished.  Rather, it’s the fact that the list exists in the first place that reminds me I’m doing important things instead.  

 

Personal Space

It’s a wind-whipped rainy afternoon in Washington, and I’m trying really hard to stay focused on my writing instead of drifting to the couch with a book and a cookie.  I look over at the canine comedy duo of Ruby and Maggie with curiosity, realizing no one has spit a mucusy chew toy in my lap for a good ten minutes.  Whatever could they be up to?  Ah!  sleeping, something they devote 90 percent of their lives to.  But I notice the sleeping arrangements have been changing a bit lately.  We have dotingly provided two capacious green tartan Cabela dog beds to keep our darlings off the cold tile floor, and more and more, only one’s in use–to the apparent annoyance of Ruby. 

When the dogs come in the house, Ruby’s routine is to bee line to the bed by the leather easy chair.  Why that bed?  I don’t know, except it has a bit more room around it, not crowded by furniture and people, and it’s out of the traffic patterns more so than the other dog bed located near the back door.  Ruby seems to like space around herself.  She’s not a snuggler, either.  For a dog, Ruby has a pretty voluminous personal bubble.  Maggie, on the other hand has the personal space norms of a Siamese twin.  Where Ruby is a tad standoffish, Maggie is entirely standonish.  She tries to climb on my lap, even when I’m not seated.  Maggie is a toucher.  She stops to kiss my hand each morning with an echoing slurp when I let the dogs into the garage for breakfast; Ruby, on the other hand, whirrs by me like a passing comment headed to the big brown food bucket, which she pokes repeatedly with her nose to remind me why we’re all together at such a ridiculous hour.  Tom often finds adoring Maggie at his feet–correction, on his feet, as if she’s hoping for a free ride wherever he’s going.  For whatever reason, our two pups are Felix and Oscar when it comes to body boundaries.

So I’m a bit puzzled by developments on the napping front.  Tom had tried to tell me and had taken pictures to prove it, but I was skeptical.  Well, now I’m a believer.  Our dogs are sleeping together.  Okay, to be more accurate, Maggie is sleeping on top of Ruby, and Ruby is only mildly objecting.  It’s a strange thing.  Since Maggie came to join us, she has been making overtures to be more than Ruby’s play mate, to be her bed mate, too.  Up to now, Ruby would have none of it.  Each time Maggie stepped onto Ruby’s bed, Ruby would pop up like a maiden whose honor was threatened and stalk off to the other bed, recently vacated by Maggie.  But there, today, I observed with my own eyes, Maggie cuddled up close to Ruby (in fact, overlapping Ruby at the back end), and Ruby didn’t move.  Sure, her head was lifted at an awkward angle and she looked at Maggie with what amounted to hauteur.  Ruby’s expression seemed to say, “I will not deign to acknowledge you by moving, but I won’t give in to you by going back to sleep, either!”  I guess it’s the snooze-and-you-lose position for Ruby, but really, the only position Maggie was aware of was prone.

I continued tapping away on this computer for a while longer, keeping the dog drama at the corner of my eye.  After about ten minutes, Ruby finally tired of the showdown and wriggled out from under her kennel mate and then stood by the back door staring into space.  She didn’t go over to the other bed, she didn’t come to me to lodge a complaint, she just stood looking wronged.  And little does she know how much empathy I have for her.  While I really, really like my mate, I am a lot like Ruby, preferring more than an arm’s length of distance between me and most of the world.  Ruby and I find that physical contact can obscure our view of things, can be too noisy, an interference to our mind’s busy work–or so I surmise, where my dog is concerned.  A part of me wants to chase Maggie back to her own bed each time she encroaches on Ruby, but Ruby has never stepped between me and a stranger to protect my space.  Big girls have to figure out what they want on their own, and big girls can change their minds and preferences.  I’ve discovered over the years that hugs aren’t so bad after all–though I still want the right to refuse–and Ruby seems to be warming to the idea of spooning with Maggie, even if “warming” is simply giving up.

A Birthday in the Sun or Girls Gone Mild

Oh, I’m having a great deal of difficulty adjusting to the rain and cold of Washington in late October.  I suppose if I had allowed myself to sink slowly into autumn, you know, note the darkening days, start layering sweaters one by one, and monitor the growing pile of leaves in the yard–and the inversely proportionate number of leaves left on the giant maples–then I might be better prepared for this week.  But instead, when I should have been helping Tom electrify the dog castle (AKA, the Hot Dog Project), I threw myself into the time warp that is Palm Desert and hurtled back to summer last Thursday, along with my birthday-girl big sister and five other women of a certain age.  As a gift for her big 5-0, my sister’s boss gave her, and six of her most fawning fans, five days use of his (and I say this without exaggeration, honestly) chin-dropping sculpture of a home in one of the finest oases in California.  Shelley and her very, very lucky girls traded a five-day deluge in Washington for lounge chairs by the shimmering slate-edged pool.  Ahhhh…

Let me paint you a picture, as they say.  Our five days in Palm Desert went something like…get up, whenever; make an espresso or two, or just pop a beer (I’m not telling who), put on a swim suit and bake in the sun with a good book for an hour or four; then take a swim or a shower or just open another beer; have some cookies or a sandwich–is it happy hour yet?  Our afternoons, though, were bustling by comparison:  some light shopping, have our make-up done at MAC (tip:  you shoulda bought that stock last week), hike–lightly–in Joshua Tree National Park, because who doesn’t love hiking in 95 degree weather in a remarkably rocky, spiny, desert?  And each evening we liked to shake it up a bit:  Mexican Cantina for Margaritas and beer Thursday night, Grill-fest at the ol’ gleaming Hope Diamond of a ranch house and a sampling of the wine cellar for Friday fun, Saturday dressy dinner on the town ala limo, and an exhausted “Can I get Advil with that hamburger” low-low key Sunday night.  Old girls know how to live (Steph excepted; she not old, just precocious).

As with all excursions, there are a few memorable-est moments.  I particularly enjoyed watching Shelley and Pam learn how to use the GPS on the fly–and through the intersections (Sorry, Mister!), and past the police station, and, of course, right to our destination, where we discovered we didn’t have the requisite keys to get in.  No matter, not even two-foot walls were going to keep my sister out of her birthday party; she’d just make a quick cell call to her benefactor.  Oops!  funny how the geography of the Coachella Valley messes up cell phone reception.  Within seconds of arriving at Chez Boss, every woman with a cell (and no, that wasn’t every one of us, believe it or not) had powered it up and was dashing to and fro to find a spot where if she stood on her right foot and kicked out her left leg for balance could lean 45 degrees north/northwest to summon enough bars to let her honey know reception was lousy in paradise.  Praise be, some miracle combination of cell phone service providers allowed enough of a connection to guide Shelley through an entrance exam, so to speak, that got us and our baggage–real and emotional–into the house.  There was that moment when Shelley spied Albert and froze for a split second, because this was to be a no-male party–we wanted to wear our swimsuits off season.  Fortunately for Albert, he’s just an old, stuffed, dummy of a guy–but impeccably dressed, which I cannot say for the other old, stuffed, dummies I know–and Shelley assented to his company.  Luckily she did, since he became the default date of every girl at the party Saturday night.  We have pix to prove it, too.

The highlight of the short week was telling the limo driver Saturday night that his passengers for the evening were seven beautiful women, to which Joe replied, “Ah!  I’ve won the lotto!”  And he had, because we looked like a million bucks, let me tell you!  Seven hot dames cruised El Paseo Drive, then hoisted stemware to my sis’s good health and her generosity in sharing her special gift with us.  To mark the occasion, we gave Shelley a sterling silver charm bracelet sporting miniatures of some of her favorite things:  a red stiletto, a sparkling handbag, and a dumbbell, to name a few.  She’s a multifaceted woman, that sis of mine.

The indulgence and merriment were over too soon.  Kim and Steph left Sunday to get home to babies and jobs; Shelley, Sherry, Cindy, Pam and I dawdled ’til Monday, squeezing all we could out of one last morning in the sun, then parting with a couple precious hours to clean the house with the efficiency of high-octane merry maids.  (And this is why I would run away with this group of women again–not just fun and funny, but tidy!)  Thinking back over it all, I welcome the shock of the cold wet air if it’s the price of a few days of summer reprised.  Happy Birthday, Shelley!  I can’t wait for you to turn sixty–maybe your boss will spring for a cruise!

Party Girls' Limo Legs