Deviled Eggs and Water Polo

We made it!  Two posts during the month of November!  Well, they were two posts that were pretty far apart, but at least there are two posts.  I really will get up to a weekly blog post, here.  I did it in 2008 and I can do it again, even if I am ten years older, heavily medicated and no longer possessed of so many quick ideas to go off on a rant about.  By the way, speaking of time passing us by, it's now officially Cold in North Texas, except on days when it's Unseasonably Warm.  Like yesterday, for example, it got to 70.  Tonight it will be below freezing.  Which night does Grayson the Cat decide to run out the front door and gallivant through the bushes?  Yeah.  And there I am, crawling after him, without a coat, while Joan yells from the doorway, "He went that way!  No, the other that way!  You're getting colder!  Warmer!  No, not that kind of warmer..." 

Anyway, we caught him and hustled him back inside.  Now he's chasing a wad of paper across the floor, periodically picking it up with his mouth and carrying it off as prey.  They told us this guy was two years old when we picked him out, but I swear he was only a year and a few months, because he's still filling out and he's got a serious case of kittenager.  Any day now he's going to ask when he can borrow the car.

Last Saturday, I got up at about five in the morning to drag myself down to the pool, as usual.  (Well, somewhat usual.  Sometimes I sleep late and don't get there 'til seven.) I drove over to SMU's new pool, which is awe-inspiring and 18 feet deep, too, and much to my surprise, the building was locked up and nobody was there.  This wasn't because all the sane people stayed home, either.  I got on my cell phone, checked the Web site, and discovered that practice was canceled because of a water polo tournament.  A water polo tournament.  Just imagine.  I have always wanted to try water polo.  The only thing that holds me back is that I don't own any of those rare swimming horses. 

So I turned around and went back to my car, where I faced a dilemma.  As long as I was heading down to the pool and it was less than forty degrees out, I'd taken with me about twenty deviled eggs.  Yes, I frequently travel with deviled eggs.  Seriously, though, the eggs were left over from Joan's pre-Thanksgiving work potluck. My office often lets training classes use its conference rooms on Saturdays, so I'd had the idea that after practice I'd drive over to the office and drop off the deviled eggs for the lucky trainees, whomever they were.  But I didn't know what to do first; drive up to J.J. Pearce High School, which also has an early swim practice on Saturday, and drop off the eggs on the way?  Or forget about the eggs, go home like a normal person, and go back to bed?

I decided to get on Twitter and take a poll, as seen on the right of the screen here.  I actually got one response.  So I headed up to J.J. Pearce High School, planning to stop at my office and hand out free eggs.  Because why not.  But just as I pulled into the parking lot, I got this urgent text message from my boss, asking me to head over to the office and do something important.

Well, what a marvelous coincidence that I was already at the office.  I got out, eggs in tow, and went over to the main gate.  Here I ran into my second dilemma of the morning:  My code wouldn't work when I punched it in. So I texted my boss back:

Which she did.  But it didn't work any better than mine had. 

This building - Maybe I should explain about this building.  First of all, there isn't a ground floor.  Where the ground floor should be is a parking garage secured with two gates.  Outside the parking garage is a door secured with a number pad, which is supposed to open when you punch in the code.  But no matter which number code I punched in, mine or hers, the number pad just danced around and laughed at me. 

At about this point I was getting pretty annoyed.  My boss asked me if there wasn't a gate around the back of the parking lot.  Which there was, and I'd forgotten all about it.  So I headed over there to check it out.

 At this point I could just imagine what the security footage must look like.  Frame after frame of absolutely nothing and then suddenly I show up, checking doors, rattling gates, yanking on uncooperative padlocks.  Could the Richardson police be far behind?  This would be fun to explain.  "No, Officer, of course I work here.  Would I be trying to break into a law firm less than a mile from the police department if I didn't work here?  I mean, I may be crazy but I'm not stupid..."







My boss thinks of trying to open one of the front gates, which might get me inside enough to try the security codes on the back stairs door.  And if that works, I can scoot up two stories to where my desk is, print the letter and all will be grand.  However, neither one of us has the code to the padlock on the front gate.  So while I bumble around, my boss starts texting everyone in the office who might have a code to the front gate. 

And then she finds somebody.  And I dial in the code.  And...

So into the building I go.  Up a flight of stairs.  Stop to pant for breath on the landing because these are pretty steep stairs and my knee's been complaining for a couple of days.  Up another flight of stairs.  Punch in my code at the door panel at the top of the stairs and...click.  I'm in!

I get on my computer.  I find the letter, fix it, print it out, make some envelopes to mail it.  And then there's the problem of who's going to sign the letter.  Finally I decide to just turn to forgery, since burglary's not exactly working out for me. 

So I leave the deviled eggs (remember the eggs?  I bet you guys forgot all about the eggs, didn't you?)  on the receptionist's desk, where anybody who comes in will basically be forced to see them.  And I take my letter and I open the door to the back stairs.  The way this whole morning has been going, I wouldn't have been at all surprised to run right into my boss's boss, or one of the partners, for one of those moments where we both go "AAAAAIGH!!" and scare the living cr@p out of each other.  But that doesn't happen.  It's 7:15 in the morning.  Nobody's due for another hour at least. 

And then it occurs to me that my boss never once asked me what in the name of all things holy I was doing outside the office at 6:30 on a Saturday morning with a passel of deviled eggs.  I mean, that's kind of a pertinent question, don't you think?  But it never happened.  Maybe she thinks I travel the world and hand out free eggs at odd locations. 

Well, anyway, that's the story of Jen and the water polo tournament and the deviled eggs.  Y'all have a nice day, now. 

More Professional Reading

I think I made it all the way through October without a blog post.  Y'all must have thought I died or something.  Please be advised, if I do actually die my next of kin will let you know.  I'm not sure how.  Maybe an obituary post.  Or maybe just "SHOW'S OVER, SHE'S DEAD" in big letters. But I'm not planning to die anytime soon.  I just had a physical and I'm hale and healthy and guaranteed to last at least until the next physical.  Meds are working well, my mammogram was clear, I still swim three or four days a week and I've even been known to get to the gym once in a while to lift some weights.  The last thing that went through the office (I think it was some kind of bronchitis) missed me completely.  And I may be just a few months away from turning 50, but lots of people turn 50 every day and it doesn't kill them.  So there we are and here I am and I don't know where you are, but I hope it is somewhere good.  

(Incidentally, did you know that when you turn 50, you can join AARP and be part of the biggest lobbying group in the United States?  True fact.  Joan's been a member for--gosh, almost 10 years now.  So we already get the AARP Bulletin and AARP Magazine, which are both pretty good reads--and the type is pretty big, too.  Those of us with cataracts on the right appreciate big type anymore.)  

I probably didn't mention this in my last blog post, but I got a new Nook.  Barnes and Noble is selling a small 7" version of their Nook Tablet for only $49, and I don't know how long that'll last but if you're at all interested in having a tablet, check this one out.  There's also the Samsung Galaxy Tab A Nook for about $109, which is faster and has a bigger screen.  B&N naturally assumes that you will buy lots of Nook books to put on your Nook, hence they're selling this dude way below market.  And that's great for those of us who love tech but are poor a lot of the time.  There was nothing really wrong with my old one, the Samsung Galaxy Tab E Nook, but it was just a little bit too heavy and unwieldy for me.  I couldn't comfortably balance it in one hand.  So I gave it to Joan, who does not worry about balancing things with one hand and was mainly after the much bigger screen.  Happy ending for all concerned.  I bet she's in there watching prerecorded baseball games as we speak.  

So this is another post about professional reading.  As I mentioned last time, my local library -- and probably yours, too -- has lots of audiobooks that one can check out for free, load onto one's phone (or Nook) and listen to on one's way to and from work.  The books I've been checking out have been all about the workplace; how to survive it, how to make it better, and how to make lots of money while making it better.  And neuroscience, or, How The Brain Works and, more importantly, how to change some of the ways your brain works so that it works better for you.  Apart, that is, from the stuff that's hardwired into us, which I'll get to in a little while.  

The first book I read after Delivering Happiness was a book called Drive, and it was about what actually motivates people to do their best work. Surprise, it is not fear of being fired or getting patted on the head for doing good work.  It's about having autonomy over the job, being able to make the key decisions without waiting for permission from someone else, and a sense of responsibility for the outcome, whatever that is.  Plus the ability to choose one's team members and choose where and how and when to do the work.  This is so far removed from most places I've worked that I sort of wondered if the guy who wrote it was crazy.  But no. Lots of scientific studies bear this stuff out.  What's more, companies that use these techniques make more money than those that don't.  You can't argue with success, though you can kind of poke your finger at it and laugh if it makes you feel better.

Next up we had Thrive by Arianna Huffington, about why the typical workplace is killing us and the instructions for being a happy human.  Getting enough sleep, for one thing, is vastly underrated.  Ditto getting enough exercise.  Staying in touch with friends and family members.  Volunteering.  And of course not working an 80 hour week, which is ruinous for all kinds of reasons. No. Work 40, spend the rest of your awake time with your friends and family and on projects that make you happy.  Yes, this is the Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post and no, this book is not political.  I've had it up to here with politics, as probably have you, and yes, I voted, a week and a half ago on a Tuesday.  And I'm typing this with my fingers crossed.  Which is hard.   

Then we get to A Curious Mind, by Brian Grazer, a movie producer you might have heard of (Apollo 13, Backdraft, How The Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey, etc.)  This guy talked his way into a job at Warner Brothers Studios and worked his way up the proverbial ladder to become a producer and the co-head of Imagine Entertainment.  (His co-head is Ron Howard, whom you also might have heard of.)  Mr. Grazer likes stories, and he likes to have conversations with people.  Any people.  Lots of people.  People it's hard to get to meet and just ordinary people that might happen by in the course of the work day.  Part of the book is about these conversations with people and part of it is about why curiosity is so important and, unfortunately, undervalued. 

(Confidential to Kellum:  If you read this book, skip part of Chapter Two, from the moment where Brian meets Sting on the beach until about five pages past that.  Or let Suzie vet it for you.  I'm betting she'll agree with me.  Any questions, please Google "Closetland The Movie".)  

The last in the series before A Curious Mind was Brain Bugs.  Yes, that sounds like a disgusting concept but luckily we're not talking about actual insects.  We're talking about things in our brains that don't work the way we'd like them to, because we evolved to be hunter-gatherers and instead we're living in the most technologically complex society ever.  For example, it would be great for our modern lives if we could add complex numbers in our heads and calculate the statistical odds of a thing happening, or not happening.  And some people can, but most of us can't because our brains just don't work that way.  Our brains are associational and relational, not technical.  Which means we're very good at connecting things to other things, but not so good at remembering specific things, or calculating them.  We're susceptible to advertising and political propaganda, in part because we love a good story more than we love looking at statistical odds and saying, "Well, this proposal would be good for 1% of the population and pretty much ruinous for the other 99% of the population, but I'm one of the 1% so let's do it."  (Not that that doesn't happen.)  If you've ever wondered why brains do the things they do, this would be a good book to check out.  Though, unfortunately, it offered no advice whatsoever for those of us whose brains analyze a situation, run directly to the most catastrophic possible conclusion, and then yap about it incessantly for hours.  Maybe that'll be addressed in a different book.

And that's about it for this exciting episode.  I've got to go into the living room and see what that loud crash was a minute or so ago.  Generally when there's a loud crash in the house, Grayson the Cat can be found in the middle of it.  This guy is an explorer and a climber par excellance.  He gets into a lot of stuff, too.  Cheers, all!