My New Job - CEO

Embattled bank JPMorgan Chase, the recipient of $25 billion in TARP funds, is going ahead with a $138 million plan to buy two new luxury corporate jets and build "the premiere corporate aircraft hangar on the eastern seaboard" to house them. The new aircraft hanger will include a vegetable roof garden.

Since they're not buying more planes, only fancier planes, we should think this is a good idea?

The vegetable garden will attract birds, which will conveneniently be sucked into the new luxury corporate jet engines, so the cost can be justified by all the poultry and veggie dinners the executives will now get for free.

See - I can justify the decision, so I ought to be named CEO of a bailed out company!

Signs of Spring, Travel, and A Random Thought

There are signs of Spring everywhere in Texas. The blue bonnets have started to bloom on the roadsides, the wisteria is in full bloom, and my oak trees are starting their annual yucky green pollen shed.

I'm getting that illogical urge to start buying plants for the backyard I won't see all summer (since I'll move to Minnesota end of April). The temps are in the mid-70's, and just perfect for yardwork.




I've been traveling a fair bit this month. First up, Miami, where the weather was chilly and windy, I held a snake, and spent a week staying up way too late drinking with customers. There's a whole post about it further down.


6 days home, then off to Bangkok, where the weather was HOT and humid, I bought a beautiful sapphire bracelet, and spent a week staying up way too late drinking with customers.



Here, a customer from Belarus is trying to convince me to drink vodka with him. We were in Patpong, the red light district of Bangkok, sitting at an outdoor bar. It was at least midnight, and the temps were still in the 90's. You'll notice that my hair is curly - my flat iron didn't work, and I gave in to the curl all week.



Finally, on my way home to Texas I stopped in San Francisco, where the weather was just perfect, I never left the hotel except to go to meetings (and once for supper), and slept 14 hours Saturday night trying to recover from horrible jet lag.

Monday night I flew the last leg of my journey, and I came home to a clean house (thank you Alicia). My cats were happy to see me and well taken care of (thank you Kathi).

Natasha Richardson died from hitting her head on a bunny slope. I didn't die from hitting my head on a driveway slope. Go figure. That's my random thought.

Alicia's Story

Alicia grew up in the mountains of Guatemala - poor, but then, everyone was poor. Her parents were alcoholics and abusive, so she ran away at the age of 11 to the city.

The streets of Guatemala City weren't any better. Alicia faced incredible poverty, and was raped several times while just trying to survive. While she was gone her older brother and younger sister (Beto and Paula) escaped to the promised land of the United States. Beto went to work for a successfully lawn care company in Fort Worth, and Paula started cleaning houses, eventually starting her own family and running a successful business.

Alicia wasn't so lucky. After years on the street she met a man and started a family. Her husband beat her, but was good to the children. Her family had no idea where she was, and in 2001, they hired a detective to find her. Since so much time had passed, Alicia didn't trust the woman on the phone that said she was her sister. Many questions about her childhood later, Alicia admitted she was the girl that ran away from home at 11.

After having 5 children, Alicia escaped to the United States to join her brother and sister. She didn't speak a word of English, but attended ESL (English as a Second Language) classes 3 times a week. The same kind woman that helped her brother and sister also set Alicia up with house keeping clients, including me.

Tonight, I learned that Alicia's 11 year old daughter committed suicide by ingesting rat poison. She was involved with an 18 year old boy, and had been caught at a party - typical teenage things. She bought rat poison, went to a cemetery where her mother used to take her for picnics, wrote a goodbye note, and died an incredibly painful death.

When Alicia talked to her remaining children, they told her to stay where she was and not to come back. They were able to attend school now (school is not free past the 8th grade), they all had shoes to wear, and they were even able to buy soft drinks on their way to school sometimes. All because of the money Alicia was sending back for them. How could they possibly give that up? They were all very angry at their sister.

How can I possibly imagine any of this, with my 'privileged' upbringing in a country where I was so lucky to be born?

My heart hurts tonight.

South Beach Not For the Faint of Heart

I spent the last week in Miami for a conference, and although it was a work event, there was fun to be had as well.

Our first day we had lunch at the News Cafe on South Beach, where Ferrari's whiz by and tourists look lost. There are also a few snake handlers that make their living by walking around and having the tourists pay to have their picture taken. Since I was a tourist this day, I went for it.

This is Samantha, a baby albino reticulated python, whose owner is 'socializing' her for human contact. Of course he told me the socializing part after he put her around my neck. She really was a sweetheart - soft, warm, and strong. I could feel her muscles as she moved, and knew that she could crush me easily even though she was still just a baby.

Later that week I had the chance to hold an alligator, but figured I had pushed my luck enough for one week.

And, as you can see, my black eye is gone (well, almost gone - makeup helps), and I have cleverly combed my bangs to the side to hide what is still a sizable lump from my accident a month ago.

Next week another conference in Bangkok. I wonder what adventures await there?

Happy Valentine's Day

Once upon a time, the letters “FBI” could have stood for “full-blown infatuation,” as far as Laura Hinderaker was concerned.

While growing up in the 1940s and spending summers on Lake Melissa in Becker County, Minn., she set her heart on becoming an FBI agent.

In junior high, she wrote a report about her dream job and discovered to her disappointment that the FBI didn’t hire women as agents.

Well, she concluded in her report, if she couldn’t be an FBI agent, she’d marry one.

The years passed and she moved from the Midwest to the Indio, Calif., area in hopes of making it as a professional golfer.

To pay the bills, she started a welcome wagon business. One day, she called on the bride of an FBI agent and the two women became friends. It was some time around Valentine’s Day when her new friend got an idea.

“She said there is someone I want you to meet, he was in our wedding,” said Hinderaker, recalling how she was talked into going on a blind date 55 years ago.

Hinderaker’s new friend told her a little bit about the mystery man and then arranged for them to meet at the Riverside County Fair, where Hinderaker had a part-time job as the voice of Geraldine, the talking cow.

“Laura, having a microphone, started talking about me and my Minnesota roots. After that, we went out to dinner,” said Ted Hinderaker, the other half of the blind date.

Laura remembers the dinner and her first good look at Ted this way:
“I had a drink of some kind in my hand and this audible voice spoke to me and said, ‘That’s the man you’re going to marry,’ ’’ she recalled.

“I coughed – spewed everything out – and everyone said, ‘Are you all right?’

“I couldn’t tell ’em why I had done that, but that’s the story. And I did marry him,” said Laura, adding that her newly beloved failed to bolt when she immediately disclosed the premonition to him.

“It didn’t spook me,” agreed Ted, recalling his reaction.

“The next weekend,” Laura said, “he came down, because he was stationed in L.A., and he brought me a beautiful little pair of earrings, that I still have. And maybe that’s when he said, ‘OK.’ ’’

“I was struck,” Ted said. “It became very evident to me that I was in love with her, and we very quickly concluded we were going to be married, probably quite soon.”

His hunch was right.

They got hitched six months later.

But let’s back up a bit.

It was only after they decided to spend the rest of their lives together that Laura and Ted began getting to know each other.

In those first conversations, they discovered that when Laura was spending her summers on Lake Melissa, Ted was spending his at a cottage on Pelican Lake, just a few miles down the road.

They also learned that when Ted was a student at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., he became friends with a woman named Audrey, whose family summered on Lake Melissa.

Audrey often pestered Ted that he should date a friend of hers from the lake.

Funny, Laura told Ted.

She had a friend named Audrey who felt strongly that Laura should date a boy she knew at St. Olaf.

“She (Audrey) had tried to set us up for several summers, but for whatever reason it never worked,” said Laura, adding she isn’t sure she ever learned the boy’s name.

That is until she proposed to him.

After getting married, Laura continued to play competitive golf until just before the birth of their third child.

The couple ultimately raised five kids.

A few years ago, the Hinderakers moved from California to Tucson, Ariz., to be close to two of their children.

Now they’re looking forward to August and their 55th wedding anniversary. The celebration will be in Detroit Lakes, Minn., where the nuptials took place.

“They say there are some marriages made in heaven. I don’t know. But it’s been a good life,” Laura said.

“Not perfect – nobody’s walking on the water,” she added, “but we have five wonderful children, five all-intact families. I think there was a little divine guidance there.”

All the kids have heard the story, according to Ted, who doesn’t know “if it was fate or what,” but feels he and Laura were destined to be together.

In case you’re wondering, when he wasn’t talking to cows and buying them earrings, Ted Hinderaker worked for the FBI.

Does Anybody Ever Really Look?

I've had this black eye/monster deformity for more than a week now. Every time I walk out in public I'm embarrassed, knowing I might have to explain one more time how I got my injury. Or defend myself against people who think I have an evil boyfriend that secretly hits me.

Sometimes, folks I work with that don't know what happened have seen me, made eye contact, said "hi, how are you", and spent several seconds without registering what I look like. When that happens I get real close to them, move my bangs aside and say, "how do you think I am?".

To be fair, one of the guys was someone I've known for years, and he's never looked north of my chest as long as I've known him. But two others talked to me for at least 15 seconds without even registering what was wrong!

I know I'm as guilty as the rest - we look at people without really seeing them all day every day. It made me wonder how little we also hear, or how little we feel when touched. We're all in our own little complicated world, and sometimes our reality doesn't mesh with what's in front of us.

I want to do a better job of really seeing, really hearing, really feeling what people have to say. It won't be easy - in fact I wonder if it can be done.

Just another lesson my experience has taught me.

And, don't forget to eat your vegetables!

Day of Judgement

Since I can finally open my left eye, I ventured out to the grocery store today. Since it is Super Bowl Sunday, I bought some beer (I don't plan on watching the game; only drinking the beer). A lady saw the beer in my cart and asked if it was good. I turned to answer her, and then she saw my face. Her eyes got big and she looked away quickly.

I told her that I fell on my driveway, and this is what she had to say to me.

"Honey, I'm not here to judge anybody - I accept people in all sorts of situations".

I thought about showing her my scraped up hands as proof, but all that would prove is that I FOUGHT BACK!

I think I'll just wait for the calls from the local domestic violence shelter and accept their offers of counseling.