Sunday musings

So if you could be anywhere right now, where would you be...money is not an issue, nor is child care or a place to stay or how much it costs to get to the airport?

Me, I would be sitting on a rock on top of a mountain somewhere. I have so much to do, and so much is DUE, and I am behind with work and rehearsal and another audition was yesterday and what the HELL do I do with all this paper I just made and I am moving in 6 weeks, and yet, I would like to go sit on a rock. Just be alone and feel the sun on my face and the wind at my back. It has been a while since I felt that peace....

I took all of these photos, of my self in places I have really loved to be. The first is on the rim on the Canyon in Canyonlands, UT, overlooking the Green River. A few minutes later I found a desolate rock overhang, where I just sat for an hour and listened to.....NOTHING...not a sound other than insects and wind. It was breathtaking. The second photo is me near Dillon Colorado - in fact, I think that might be Lake Dillon in the back. And this last one is me at the base of the Marroon Bells, near Aspen, CO after about a 2 hour hike from where the bus drops you off. I sure love my camera that was STOLEN, that could take pictures without me holding it...I sure wish I had it back..... The last one, my aunt took of me at the Grand Canyon last summer...very nice thinking place.

and so, where would you be??

Anne Frank was wrong

"In spite of everything, I still think people are good at heart, " so says Anne in her world-reknown diary. And I have always tried to see the positive, the potential for good in people....it is really hard to get rid of me once I am in your life as I have difficulty letting go, even when I know the deep, dark, rotting core...there is STILL something good and lovable about everyone... or so I thought.

I took my camera to the fair last week and I took photos of the paper-making I was demonstrating - to share with YOU guys....As I wandered around the midway during a break, I apparently set my camera down and didn't pick it up again, cuz 3 minutes later, I realized it was gone...idiot. So I ran back to where I had been sitting, but naturally it was gone. I went to the lost and found in the main office, but NATURALLY it had not been turned in - I was at the county fair for god's sake, and you know what kinds of people go THERE...the kinds that eat FRIED dough and deep fried Moon Pies (OK, and yes, people just like me who don't eat that crap, but I was not feeling that generous at the time). I filled out a lost item report, and just accepted that the camera was gone. THEN the next morning, I got a call from the woman I had made the report with, Sherry...someone had found it! Sherry turned the camera on and verified the photos, and I was all excited. Since I was demo'ing again this week, I asked if they could keep it 'til I got out on Thursday...SURE she says. People are AWESOME, or so I proclaimed in my Face book status....

So, I showed up at the fair yesterday, all happy and smiley and renewed about humanity in general...and went to the office...where they had no FUCKING idea where the camera was! Yes, Sherry remembered talking to me, remembered having the camera and seeing the photos, remembered putting it in the bin with the other lost and found objects, but couldn't explain where it was. She checked with the other people who worked in the office, but no one even remembered seeing it, let alone giving it to anyone else.

I was relatively calm, given the situation and my normal tendencies to overreact and blow things out of proportion. My seemingly logical question was, IF no one can get in the office other than her and her co -workers, and IF no one can get behind her desk but her and her co-workers, and IF my camera WAS there and NOW it isn't, wouldn't it be safe for me to ASSUME that one of those three people either had stolen my camera or knew who did? I think that is a reasonable and logical assumption. At the VERY least, I think Sherry needs to accept responsibility for my STOLEN property! Am I wrong to think the fair should replace my camera! Lost, that is MY fault and I am an idiot and I accept that responsibilty. Found, turned in, safe, kept in a locked office and still stolen?? that is some one ELSE's responsibility. Sherry could have told me, when she called, that she couldn't accept the responsibility of keeping it til Thursday, and I would have driven the 40 miles in rush hour traffic to get it! But no, she said, fine, we will keep it for you. A Pima County sherrif was in the room, the whole time and I thought, well, he could help, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said, there wasn't anything I could do. All he did was be the authority presence I needed not to choke the living SHIT out of Sherry.

I insisted on filing a stolen property report, and I got me a fancy report number, but what else can I do! I don't even want the damn camera... just give me the memory card and the photos....I am the kind of person if I find a wallet or a piece of property, I turn it in, and HOPE whoever I turn it into will contact the owner....How can someone STEAL a camera? What if there were baby pictures or wedding pictures or something like that on? Don't people have a conscience? Shut up, I know, my expectations are unrealistic...but this is my blog and I can be as hopeful and positive about how humanity OUGHT to fucking be as I want...right now, humanity sucks and we all deserve ALL the pain and suffering we get.

Fuck

Here are some pictures from LAST year's event, when I had a camera, and when there were some actual kids who were interested in what I was doing. This year the hall was dead quiet and the only people who came by were the other people demo'ing in the hall and the people who were hiding from the heat outside.

You know how I was saying I am gonna start saying No and all that?? Well, I am not doing the Fair anymore...there, there is something else off my list...

And, here is what I do with the paper when it is all done ($3 each, 2 for $5 and I have hundreds for all occasions - free shipping for orders over $10)

I DID IT

I said NO!!! For the first time, EVER, I have turned down work! They asked me to do an additional project on the Homeland Security Conference and I said I just had tooooo much to do...Thank god K was not doing the asking, 'cuz you KNOW I would have caved in!

Woot Woots and high 5s all around.

It's All Too Much

I am back...I am thrilled to see that none of my 14 followers has deserted me! I have actually been back home an entire week, but just have not been able to find 5 minutes, (let alone the requisite 45 minutes that it takes me) to do a post....I know some folks just start writing and glorious gobs of meaningful prose spew forth, quiickly and effortlessly. Me, I just spew and the gobs are not always so appealing. I agonize over my gobs.

So HERE is a partial list of things I am currently working on.

1) I work relatively full time. Granted, I do it from home, most days in my pajamas, but it is still a very demanding job - Not only am I doing a 40 page statistical report, I am also trying to negotiate hotel contracts for 2 years in four separate cities... but membership MAY be voting to delete one of the cities, but I can't tell the city that, and the wheeling and dealing has gotten a lot more cut throat, thanks to the economy - everyone wants my business, and they are clawing at each other to get me to sign, and and dude, all I need is an upgrade to the executive floor and meeting planner points....

2) I am organizing an event for 40+ kids, their parents, siblings and friends at the Design/Build/Fly competition being held here in the Old Pueblo in 2 weeks...no, less than 2 weeks. There is no pay for this, just glory. I have been organizing this year long kids programming for 4 years and while it keeps winning national prizes, I can't seem to get ANYONE else to want to take it on!!!

3) I am in rehearsal for a play that has its first staged presentation NEXT thursday...I am directing it AND in it, since I couldn't get enough actors (even though I am paying a King's Ransom [comparatively] for this thing) I have to finish mixing the sound cues and put them on a CD...oh, and I need to find a sound engineer.... and Where is that box of props I used for this show last time...I hope I don't have to rebuild them ALL....

4) I need to get my brother's daughter's Easter gift in the mail...cute huh? and I even have a box for it - let's see if I can get to the Post Office tomorrow....it is already too late for ground fed ex. And I need to order something for my sister's kids - I am thinking Popcorn Factory?

5) I need to get tickets to MI to go see my nephew graduate...tickets have gone from $198 to just OVER $400 in the month I have been dicking around on this

6) I need to register for a conference in NYC in August before the early bird deadline passes, but first I need to line up 6 panelists to sit up there with me...and no one has bothered to email me back!

7) I need to get the license and pay the royalties on that play still...It is just a matter of printing the document, finding the check book, writing the check, finding an envelope AND a stamp and MAILING IT! Maybe when I go to do the box?

8) Son of a bitch..speaking of checks, I need to do my taxes...they are actually ABD (all but done) - I just need to see if I made a qualifying donation last year, but that means I have to dig through my BOX of bank/tax stuff to find last year's return

9) Send some money to my IRA.....seems like throwing good money after bad in a way....but I need the deduction, and I guess it is safe as anywhere in a money market, right? Don't answer that

10) Speaking of boxes, it looks like I will be moving to a friend's townhome in June and before I let people in my house to MOVE me, I need to CLEAN THIS PLACE UP and get rid of some stuff. I have started a pile by my door of stuff that is TOO good to throw away. I am hoping my apartment complex will organize a garage sale, or maybe I will sell stuff on Craig's List? What I OUGHT to do is just take it to the dumpster.....but really there is some good shit in there!!

10) Commitments THIS week, cuz I find it impossible to say no to ANYONE...Lunch with H new baby E tomorrow, coffee date with my old neighbor, conference call regarding another conference I am organizing, AND a Dinner meeting with the rocket scientists on Wed, "something" on Thursday, a walk in the canyon with Big G Friday....Here is a picture from our walk up on Mt. Lemmon last weekend - pretty amazing that THIS is 1/2 an hour away from THIS.

11) I have decided I need to challenge my brain more, as crochet and Sudoku are too easy for me. So I bought knitting needles and I am gonna teach myself how to do it....left handed.....

12) There were able 14 other things that ARE in fact on this list, but I can't remember what they are, and I am already at just over 45 minutes so they will have to wait til the next post......can I just add, that I HAVE been to the gym 4 times this week, and my average mile speed has dropped from just over 13 minutes to just under 12...

So, if you need me to do something, obviously, all you have to do is ask and I will do it. For New Years and Lent, some people vow to stay on diets or not eat chocolate, and be nice to stupid people or whatever....every year, mine is the same...I VOW not to commit myself to things, to take on more projects and NOT go to lunch or coffee and yet in the words of Ado Annie, I'm just a girl who cain't say No!!