Tag Rambling

Rockets Loud Blare

Michael 9 Comments

Sunday afternoon I was having dinner with my daughter and her dog. Nature was putting on a fireworks display that rivaled what man made for the Fourth of July. The dog didn’t seem to mind the booming thunder. He would stop, tilt his head to one side, and lift an ear but then go right back to trying to get all the frozen fruit out of his treat. According to the daughter, he was not so calm with the artificial noise makers the previous week. Those he didn’t trust quite as much as these that he must have sensed were part of the natural scheme of things. I can’t say I blame him. If I could invent a firecracker that had the beauty of the modern displays without all that blasted noise, or noisy blasts, I may not end up a millionaire, but I’d like it a lot more.

That got us to talking about fireworks and the best backyards of the ones we collectively have had to be able to see the downtown display and from there, somehow, into stories about about hospitals. No it wasn’t a natural progression but most of our conversations follow no natural progression and we are quite proud of that. Or at least we tolerate it.

It happens to be that ten years ago, the Fourth of July 2013, was the last Fourth that I was out actually somewhere with the intent to see a fireworks display. Two days later, I had the first of the many major surgeries that changed my life forever. I don’t think that’s why I haven’t been out to see fireworks since, content to watch them from the relative comfort of a backyard deck chair, but that’s the sequence of events. Proof again that just because B follows A, A does not necessarily cause B. Anyway, that’s how we got from thunder to fireworks to hospitals and hospital stays. Somehow, I managed to have a story that wraps that all together, with a nice ribbon, and a big bow in top. Of course I do.

It was New Years Eve, I don’t recall what year and I don’t recall why I was there, but some year in the not too distant past, after 2013 but before 2023, I was admitted to a just barely suburban hospital. I say just barely suburban because on a good day, you can walk from the hospitals front door to the city boundary. Anyway…on this particular day, I walked no where except to the emergency room and there just from the parking lot or maybe from my doctor’s office located in the medical office building next door to the hospital, and to make a long story short (I know…too late), I was admitted for some reason or other. I was wheeled up to the room, looked out the window and had an unobstructed view of downtown. (I should mention that the hospital sits on a hill so I was also looking down into downtown.) (Quite appropriate, don’t you think?) (And now, back to our show.)

Later that evening, just after dusk, my visitors and I were treated to a front row seat to the first set of fireworks. (Yes, first set. At the time (I don’t know if they still do) the city sponsored two New Years Eve fireworks displays, the first dubbed “the family show” just after dusk, and the second, at midnight just as the countdown reached zero.) Later that evening I stayed up to watch the midnight fireworks too and then settled in for the night.

As I said, I don’t remember why I was there but it had nothing to do with my heart. I know that because the following morning, New Years Day, a nurse came in and asked why I was there, that was the cardiac floor and I didn’t seem to have any heart problems. I agreed I didn’t, and that all the work that had been down to me up till then was in the general area below the belt. I was transferred to the general surgery unit and never again saw the downtown fireworks so clearly as that night. Nor so quietly either.

Taking charge of your emotions is a good thing to do. Taking charge in moderation might be the best way you can do it. We explain why we think so in the latest Uplift! (Reading time 3 minutes)

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Telling Tales

Michael Leave a comment

My daughter was over for lunch yesterday. After our meal we sat out on the patio enjoying the air’s in-between storms sweetness. While we discussing the differences between curly and straight leafed parsley she brought up traits children inherit that they don’t notice until they’ve put a few years on their adulthood and that reminded me that UPS avoids left turns in their delivery routes.

Well it made perfect sense to us! That’s because of the trait she got from me. Babbling (her word). Or rambling (my word). Or perhaps story telling (the polite words I should have led off with). (Maybe)

Apparently it came up last week when she was out with a couple of her girlfriends and their conversation move to the things they do they don’t realize they do that nobody but their families understand. Mostly only their families understand. Most of their families only understand. Some of their families understand. Their families might recognize but even most of them don’t necessarily understand.

It you think about it, there is probably at least one thing you do that nobody else in the world (or at least is not common behavior in your part of the world) that you can trace to you parents or an older sibling or that great aunt who came over every Sunday for chicken and spaghetti and then stayed to watch Gomer Pyle then the Ed Sullivan Show. It might be the way you tilt your head at a weird angle when contemplating answers to a particularly difficult question.  It might be how you fold a napkin under the plate at dinner’s end. Or it could be in how you ramble.

Actually, it’s not rambling as much as always providing the back story. And its back story if necessary. After all, every story has a story and a good story teller knows the story’s story as clearly as the story. It’s what makes for storied stories. In my daughter’s case, as a copywriter and content editor, being able to tell a story is essential although she often has to temper her desire to be as thorough as she’d like. But when it comes to her personal writing, no story takes a back seat to its own story. Or back story. Even.

For me, I was often reminded to get to the point more quickly at meetings or in email exchanges but just as often I was glad I kept the thoroughness in my correspondence knowing that while others were getting calls and memos asking for more detail, my projects were being presented for approval and reports stamped “OK.” Still, I have a hard time with text messages and even Twitter’s new expanded character limit is far less than appropriate for any meaningful communication.

So, you know UPS designs its routes with as few left turns as possible. Apparently it means a tremendous savings in fuel costs. That came up the last time my daughter was over and we has just finished a killer frittata for brunch.

It made perfect sense to us.