Strange Findings

I have been going through papers for weeks now - another stack, five more boxes, a dozen bags or more of bits & pieces of documentation on how I've spent my life. Movie stubs from seven years ago, fast food receipts from Florida, scraps of paper with handwritten notes on them.

I carefully read each one, and make action items to handle it. Hmmm - Marie. Cool lady. I used to work with her 5-6 years ago, but lost track after I moved away. Left a message on her voice mail, hoping to reconnect. Wonder what she's up to?

Two left over visors for my stolen motorcycle helmet - put them up on Ebay to sell.

Taxes from 1990??? A 1992 lease from an Apartment in Texas.....including the little post-it-note stating the ferret was okay without a pet deposit. Old phone bills from 7 years ago, credit card accounts I closed years ago. All of these go into the "To Be Shredded" pile.

Two days ago I opened an envelope that I mailed to myself, containing a picture of my cat. I think I know the reason for that - the letter with it sounded like a prayer or protection spell. Then yesterday, I found one from my POB down in Florida, to myself at my house address - the contents??? A piece of cardboard with the number "26" on it. Nothing else. WTF?????

Happily one of the visors sells, but this is a holiday week so we're a little short-handed. I'm too late to drop it off at my nearest post office, so I look online for the nearest one that's open later. The postage label I printed is dated today, so have to get it out the door. As I walk in, there's Marie!! I haven't seen or talked to her in over five years and 24 hours after I find her phone# on a scrap of paper, I run into her.

Then there was the file from someone who must have been a customer......she had the same birthday as mine, and for reasons I no longer remember, actually faxed me her driver's license and social security card. Why I have been carrying this around in a box for over five years, I have no clue.

Then there was the letter from my brother who had passed away almost twenty years ago.....telling me that a lot of people cared about me, and that he was working on some issues. Three hours later, I found my letter to him that he was responding to, where I really laid him out.

Then there were two checks I found in unopened envelopes - one ironically enough from a time period when I was absolutely DESPERATE for money, and the universe sent me $250 which I ignored because I never opened it. One of those check is SEVEN YEARS OLD and never cashed.

I feel like ice floes are melting, and long-standing energy is coming to the surface. November is an energetic period in my life - both of my parents passed away in November. They always celebrated their anniversary on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving that my first love and I broke up......the same day that Freddie Mercury died. I'm due to close on a loan on the last day of the month.

What else am I going to find as I dig under the surface? I would have made a lousy time-traveller - I can hardly keep the events of my life straight one day at a time. How on earth would I manage two or three days out of sequence??

It's nearly 4am on Thanksgiving morning, and I have a lot to be thankful for this year.....new love, a new promotion, friends and family, good health, and an odd drive for organization. Considering I found Wal-Mart receipts over ten years old, it should be apparent this....organizational thing.....is an anomaly.

We'll see how long it lasts and what other strange findings await me.

--BT

Great Day, but D'oh!

In any job, in any company, there's always a lot of hoo-haa about 'the customer's experience', which is really an illusion. We cannot truly know someone else's perspective, even if we 'walk a mile' in their moccasins. But once in a while we are given a glimpse, and last night was that moment.

I woke up about 3am Friday morning, my shoulder aching with just a little bit in pain. I've had nearly a year of chiropractic work on it, but the adhesions are still there, and it still gives me issues. So a 2am wake-up call isn't that unusual. I wandered around for a bit, weighed, went to the bathroom, weighed again, had a glass of water, weighed again. I'm almost always about 155, give or take. I don't know why, but I find that give & take fascinating.

Then, to lull my mind into a daze so I could go back to sleep, I sat down at the computer. It only took a few keystrokes and a couple of swear words to realize that my Internet is down. I *JUST* had them out here on *Wednesday* to fix the cable TV, and now the Internet is broken????? NOT a happy camper, but it *is* 3am, and maybe they are doing maintenance. So I shrug, just a little bit put out that I can't check email, and head back to bed.

Around 8am - a much more civilized hour to be rolling out of bed - I start my morning routine, which consists of stumbling around in some state of nudity and clothing discord, wiping the sleep out of my eyes, saying "Not Yet" to the cats who are demanding breakfast, and checking my email. Except.....it's STILL not connecting. GRrrRRrrr When I get a minute, I'm going to read somebody the riot act. They were JUST out here! What did they mess up this time?? *heavysigh* I do NOT have time for this. I can't be staying home in four hour blocks 2-3x a week while they fix stuff.

But I was going to see the Mariners that night, and go motorcycle shopping in the afternoon. It's supposed to be a beautiful day, I think, but I'm not able to tell since I can't get to weather.com. I'm leaving work early, and hoping I have everything ready. Where's my ticket? Oh yes, I attached it to my keychain last night so I *couldn't* forget it! Uhm....now where did I put my keychain?

About halfway through the morning, my cell phone stops working. I *think* this is a good thing, as I had requested that my service be transferred from my old phone to the fancy-schmancy new one that I bought last week. Except - the guy that is taking me to look at motorcycles is out, and the only way I have to reach him is by phone.....and he can't call me back because they have actually decided to do my migration in a matter of hours instead of the 10-14 days the website threatened....er....promised. Maybe half an hour later, I can make outgoing calls on the new phone. Progress! And then what do you know - I get an email confirming everything is done, and the new toy is ready to go. Yay! Just in time.

Two o'clock, I'm ready to go, and my friend, the motorcycle expert, is out front waiting for me. Whew! He's a great guy, and knowledgeable about just about everything, which is why I wanted him along. We looked at a number of cool looking bikes, including the Ninja, the Honda Shadow Aero, and the Buell Blast (see inset - and no, that's not me! *lol* I wish!) Learned a few things, sat down, straddled, mounted, inspected, peered under, over, around and leaned on a number of fine pieces of machinery. He quizzed the minions at the bike shops, mumbling magickal spells of comprehension in a language known only by a select few. By the time I found a model I really liked, it was time to head off to the baseball game.

Win or lose, I *love* the Mariners. From the first pitch to the last out, they are a thrill to watch, whether it's banging your head against an invisible wall as you watch the pitcher play Pin The Ball On The Strike Zone, or leaping out of your seat as a ground rule double ties up the game.....again. Ichiro broke the season record for hitting in the most number of consecutive games (25). Eight pitchers, and seven runs later, it's the 7th inning, and Ritchie Sexson came up to bat. I turned to one of my friends and said "we've seen everything but a home run tonight" and Voila - the next pitch Ritchie sent sailing over the Center Field wall.

Now, I lived in Texas for eleven years, so even though the M's are my team, I do have a soft spot for some of the Ranger players......Texeira and Kenny Lofton. And when Kenny Lofton, the man who is MY AGE, leapt up in the air, bent his arm backwards over the outfield wall and snatched Beltre's 2-run home run ball out of the stands, I could hardly believe it! I knew I'd be seeing that clip on Sportscenter for years to come. Our catcher made a U-turn just passed 2nd base and started booking it back to first. THAT is something you don't see every day of the week! He didn't make it, and the 2-run home run turned into a double play, ending the inning, and essentially the game.

Twas a long game, nearly four hours, but we had a great time. By the time I made it home, it was after midnight. I really wanted to see that play again, so after watching FSN, I then came upstairs to the computer room to try again. Again - no Internet!? What?! It's been almost 24 hours. I finally broke down and called ComCast. No, I don't know the phone number here. No, I don't know the account number. It's not my account - I can verify the address & the social though, so they decided to help me.

What kind of modem do we have? NO idea, sorry, but we do have a Linksys Router, does that help? She asked me to pull the power cord on it for ten seconds, and try again. I did, and it started working almost immediately. D'oh! God, I feel like such a moron. I troubleshoot high tech electronic equipment for a living, and the most common t/s advice we give out is to power-cycle the freakin' device! I can't believe I didn't think of that earlier.

But all's well that ends well, and this has been a great day.

I Wish I Had Cancer

That's what Richard said to me one day, and he meant it.

Richard was an odd duck that I worked with back in Texas. The year was 1994. He was a few years older than me, maybe 30-35 years. He grew up in a rural area, east of Dallas, had travelled around the world, and just recently had come home to live. Or die, as the case may be.

He'd never married, but came close once. His fiancee had been killed in an auto accident a few months before their wedding. It was an event he would live to fully grieve twice in his life.

His father had been an Over The Road (OTR) driver for many years, and loved the open road. He wanted Richard to follow in his footsteps, and made him promise to try it for two years. He did, and hated every minute of it. But out of love for his family, and respect for his father, he gave it the full two years, to the day.

For a while, he was a customs agent, working along the border. Now THAT was a job he loved - there's a certain amount of power & authority that came with it that made him feel good. He described, with a bit of glee, some incidents where he got the upper hand with people who came through - he could search, confiscate and destroy property with abandon, without the legal constraints that hinder the police. No search warrant needed!

Something happened - he never said what - and a group of them were forced to 'retire', and change their names. He thought about it for a while, and chose a new identity. The day he showed up in court for the name change, he made a spur of the moment decision, and chose the Judge's last name instead for his new life.

One day he was on an airplane, sitting next to a priest. They got to chatting, and the Priest invited him to Hawaii to work in his mission - room & board provided, plus a small stipend for living expenses. Poverty to be sure, but Hawaii nonetheless! He lived there for about four years, enjoying the island life, the sunshine, the breezes and the people. It was there he met the young woman who changed his life.

She gave him AIDS.

Back then, AIDS was a death sentence. It had really only been around about ten years, and there wasn't much that was known about controlling it, living with it. His family was there for him, taking care of him, being with him through the final days, in many ways but one.

AIDS had a reputation of being 'the Gay Disease', and getting it (especially in homophobic Texas) held a certain stigma, and embarrassment that other diseases didn't have. His family was ashamed of him. He might as well have had leprosy, and been banished to a leper colony for all the support and understanding he received at home. The man who sacrificed two years of his life to live his father's dream was suddenly the family's nightmare.

At first, he told the people at work that he had cancer. My brother had died of cancer, and my mother was going through it, so I knew that was a lie. From the lesions he had, I'd already guessed the truth the day he decided to confess. We accepted him, and supported him as he went through his trials, and for a while - we were his family.

When we talked about regrets, choices in life, and the left-turns that come along, he grieved for his lost love. You can't live your life on what ifs, but sometimes you have to wonder - would he be dying today if she had lived?

"I wish I had cancer", he said. "I've lived a full life, and don't want to ask for more....but I wish I could give my family a respectable death." That really struck me - that even at this late date, he felt like his family's love was conditional. He left email for all of us the day he quit, little pieces of humor, shared stories and inside jokes.

My wish is that everyone who dies of an insidious disease - whether it be AIDS or cancer, morbid obesity or diabetes - has lived their life to the fullest, knows unconditional love, and feels sure that their death is a respectable one.

It may be too much to expect, but it's never too much to ask.

--BT