Food for Thought

Redskin potatoes bathed in olive oil and dusted with fresh rosemary are roasting in the oven.  Salmon is marinating in the fridge.  Salad fixin's await tossing with garlic vinaigrette.  A gentle rain is falling outside, although it's  too little too late for the flowers and grass which have wilted in last month's arid heat. We have plans to go out tonight, and I'm kind of wishing we didn't.  It's getting more and more difficult for me to work up any enthusiasm for social functions, especially when the climate simply screams "Stay home!  Make popcorn!  Get the blankets out, cuddle up with puppy dogs, watch a movie!"

But our outing tonight is for a good cause, one I do want to support monetarily and with my presence.  It's a benefit concert for our city's symphony orchestra which is facing huge deficits. The musicians are being asked to take a 29% pay cut.   The orchestra management is playing particularly odious hard ball, and the musicians will most likely strike before the start of their regular season next month.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is one of the top 10 orchestras in the United States, considered World Class among the nation's symphonies.  That's kind of a big deal, when you think about all the other urban orchestras, and when you consider that Detroit is not exactly a mecca for artistic folks.   We've attracted high caliber musicians here because of our ranking and very competitive wages.   With the cuts currently on the table, that incentive will disappear, and with it the orchestra's first class ranking.  It won't take long for the really high caliber musicians to go in search of greener pastures.  I rather doubt if our illustrious new conductor, Leonard Slatkin, will renew his contract.  I would predict that within five years our symphony will be only a shadow of its former, world-class self, a shabby remnant reflective of the scores of burned out buildings and vacant lots which surround the historic Orchestra Hall where they perform.

That thought saddens me, largely because it's so symbolic of the entire city.  Detroit itself is just a shadow of the city it once was, a gritty but vibrant urban center where cars were king but culture was given it's just desserts.  As one of our local newspaper columnists put it, soon the only music Detroit children will hear is the sound of slot machines in the casino's dotting the city skyline.

There are people here in Detroit who say that's alright.  That Detroit should no longer care whether it supports a world class symphony orchestra, that there are more important priorities in this city than whether we have the top echelon of musicians on stage.

I certainly can't argue that the public schools and public safety departments deserve all the support the city can muster.  But naturally I think the arts are worth supporting.  I'm a musician.  Although I'm not an athlete, I think professional sports are worth supporting.  I wish there weren't such a disparity in the way we treat our local professional athletes and our local  professional artists.   Their performing venues are less than five miles apart, but the difference in their economic and popular standing is like the difference between here and the Milky Way.

The point is that a successful society should encompass a healthy variety of cultural, recreational, occupational, religious, and social opportunities.   We should strive for the best in every one of those endeavors, and not be willing to settle for second class because it's economically expedient.

Now I'm off to eat dinner, and then put on some nicer clothes, dig out my raincoat and umbrella, and take a drive in the rain to hear some wonderful music performed by a world class symphony orchestra which belongs to my home town.

I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to do that ~ even on a rainy Saturday night, when it would be so easy to stay home.

Winding Down

Yesterday was the first day of school here in Michigan, and the evidence of that was everywhere, including the weather.  Mother Nature cooperated nicely, giving us a little foretaste of fall with some cooler air and hefty breezes that sent dry leaves and twigs scuttering about. There was definitely something in the air yesterday - an ill wind was blowing, it seemed, for it was one of those days where everything that could go wrong, did.  Nothing catastrophic or life altering, thank goodness, but a day chock full of minor annoyances which multiplied into a killer of a headache.

It was an unfortunate day for that to happen, because it was a day I had decided to embark on a new philosophy of living.   I've been feeling a very real need to throttle back, to slow down the hectic pace of my life and relax.  It's an odd time to do that - just at the moment when  fall activities are gearing up, I'm talking about winding down. But I think it's more of an attitude adjustment than anything else.   I tend to plunge headstrong into everything, full speed ahead, bull in a china shop sort of plunging.   Just lately something has come over me, a very strong feeling like I've never felt before, urging me to breath deeply, slow down, look at things though a calmer and quieter lens.

I don't always have an easy time with stillness.  There's a restlessness in me this past decade or so that I don't recall having in my younger years.  True, my life has been busier in many ways during the recent past,  what with working, and caring for people, and musical activities, and dogs, and traveling...but even when I have the opportunity to rest and be still, I found it hard.

My friend M. was talking about her daily routine the other day.  "Usually about 3:00 I go upstairs and lie on the bed to read for a while," she said.  "Sometimes I take a nap, but usually I read for an hour or so before it's time to get dinner."

For some reason my eyes filled with tears and my heart swelled with longing when she said that.  To lie on the bed in the middle of the afternoon and "read for an hour or so." Imagine the luxury of that!  Then I remembered that I used to do that very thing nearly every day.  When my son was small, I'd often go into the bedroom and lie on the bed while he napped, reading happily until he awoke when I'd pile him into his stroller and take off for our daily jaunt to the park.

Something in me needs that now, and I'm not sure what it is, but it's a clear and strong feeling that I need to marshal my resources and live differently, to pay more attention to myself and what I need, to slow down my movements and my activities and the pace of my everyday existence.

Yesterday things were happening lickety split and  problems were cropping up all over the place. But when I came home from work I made a conscious effort to go into my little room, curl up in the chair, and read for about 20 minutes.  Just quiet reading, as they say in school.

It felt really good.

I've realized that my on-line activities have played a large part in the frantic nature of my lifestyle over the past few years.  And while I'm not intending to stop writing here or at Bookstack ( in fact, I'm hoping to write more, because writing is one of the things that helps me make sense of life in general), I need to be more mindful of the time I spend on  line and make it productive.   With Twitter and Facebook, the tendency is to communicate so often and in such bursts of thought, it's like our mind needs to be in hyper mode, vigilantly thinking in 140 character phrases, posting and reposting, engaging in the conversation.

It's too much, I think.

I seem to recall writing about this before, about being spread too thin in terms of my commitments and activities, and  I really have pared down my actual physical responsibilities.  This time the need is different - it's a slowing of the spirit that's required, a need to use  time in a more restful and mindful way.

Like lying on the bed and reading for an hour or so.

How about you?  Are you winding down or gearing up in your life right now?

One Step Forward....

...two steps back is the way that old saying goes. Perhaps not two full steps in this case, but once again life conspires to put you in your place if you get a little to cocky.

My husband (or the Expert Engineer as he is affectionately known around the home office) has had an excellent billing month.  Without oversharing, let's just say if he worked like this every month, we'd soon be living on the proverbial easy street.

Of course,  we know only too well about the fickle nature of the manufacturing business.  Why, it was only two months ago that he sat around twiddling his thumbs for three of the four weeks.  But we're flush around here right now, and I'd actually started thinking about buying some things...like new bedroom furniture and carpet, and a new floor for the bathroom.

But then, here came a stack of medical bills from the University of Michigan Hospital.  And a call from our tenant in the Money Pit (aka the rental home in Naples) about a leaky faucet and broken garbage dispoasl.  And here at home last night  a bath tub full of rust colored hot water, signaling the demise of our 20 year old water heater.   Plus the property taxes due in two weeks, and the homeowners association fees due in three.

Money, money, money.

So for the umpteenth time, I put my ideas about new things on hold and figure I'll just soldier on with the old a little while longer.

At least until we can take another more giant step forward in the financial department.

Twitter Away

My universe has been all a-Twitter lately. Literally.

You see, I'm about to become the Twitterer in Chief at my office.

My company is finally putting up a website, something that's been talked about for several years but never completed.  This summer, we hired a professional web design company and they've put together a site for us that will "go live" by mid-September.

I haven't been involved in the process until very recently, when I was asked to give my opinion on the prototype.  I noticed the designer had built in space for a live Twitter feed, and included a cute little "Follow Us" button on the toolbar. My initial reaction was negative.  What in the world would be Tweet about?  Ordered Panera for lunch three days running? Just got a new supply of bond paper from Costco?  Copy machine's down again - repair needed Stat!  Those were about the most exciting things that happen around our little office.  The really good stuff happens to our clients, but their adventures are completely protected by HIPAA laws (mores the pity).

But after conversing with some Social Media Experts at that infamous fund raising event a few weeks ago, I was persuaded to think differently.  Apparently Twitter has become quite the efficient (and free!) marketing tool, giving you the ability to publicize (for free!) your business' activities and keep in contact (for free!) with other people in your field.  It's sort of like a big cocktail party in cyber space, with all sorts of name dropping and reciprocal Tweeting and Re-Tweeting going on.

Like Mad Men, 21st century style (minus the cocktails, cigarettes, and rampant sex, which makes it the perfect kind of marketing activity for little old me).

I've been practicing with my own Twitter account (@RavenousReader if you'd like to follow along) which has been lying nearly dormant for quite some time.   I'm beginning to see how Twitter can be quite effective for people in the arts and entertainment fields, or for those with services and products to offer.   Could there be any benefit for us, a private medical case management company?

Amazingly, quite a few of the medical service providers we work with have Twitter accounts.  Simply by "following" them, our company name gets a pinprick on their radar.  Also, updating Twitter regularly somehow gives our website a bit more "street cred" in the SEO (that's search engine optimization) department.  Plus, having that cute little Twitter symbol on the website makes us appear more friendly to those individual consumers who might find us in their search for geriatric care, which is a new service we're promoting.

The powers that be at my office are eager to try this (Free!) marketing tool, hoping it will give us an extra (Free!) marketing boost, and be an easy (and Free!) way to direct some extra traffic to our web site.  Who am I to argue? At any rate, it seems like a nice break from the mundane medical records and paper shuffling I'm used to doing.

So if you're looking for me, I'm likely Twittering away.  Fly by and give me a tweet.

//

Turning the Tide

Meteorological statisticians tell us we're enduring the hottest, most humid summer in the past 94 years.  They don't need to work very hard to convince me.  I've been chafing, both literally and figuratively, at being kept inside the house with air conditioning running nonstop and all the windows bolted shut. So today was literally a breath of fresh air - overnight temperatures were down to 59 degrees, and the overcast skies lent a definite nip to the air.  My bike ride was almost chilly this morning, especially when I turned toward the north and the wind hit my face.

In spite of the long, hot summer, I really don't feel ready for fall.  There's a poignant sadness to the season which I don't feel prepared to embrace at the moment, even though I love sweaters, and fires, and curling up with hot coffee, blankets, and books.

I'd like to keep the tides of summer flowing a bit longer...just cool them down a little, please.