In and Out Boxes

 

Photo: I love sharing cosmic laughter, it's good for the soul.

I’m analyzing the response I got from my first Annual Opt Out Email when I told everyone on my BCC Funny Forwards Email list they could opt off.

I remember being pleased with my considerate Internet Etiquette. Resolved not to clutter the in boxes of those who didn’t look forward to the occasional laugh, didn’t share my sense of fun or didn’t have the time. If they weren’t having fun, what was the point?

When I didn’t get many responses, I rethought the process. Realized those who didn’t read or deleted or put a spam label on the emails wouldn’t have read the Opt Out one either. Hummmm.

My boys told me to keep them in the group, but send anything personal or important in a direct, not batch, email. They would read, when they had time, maybe half. I thought that was diplomatic and sensitive. What surprised me was my younger son telling me emailing forwards is considered bad manners. He gave me the impression ‘no one’ does it. Yet I get them all the time (or I wouldn’t have any to pass on). And not just from old fogies like me.

Hummm.

I sent out a good news email. Not a forward, but BCC to a bunch of friends and family. Not everyone replied, although it was the kind of news you would reply to.

Hummm.

I feel like I’m in a déjà vu Christmas List where you played chicken with the names on The List. The first years when the friendship was still fresh, cards were no problem. Then came the year no card came in the mail. Those of us sentimental or paranoid enough to keep lists (and keep track of the lists) would put certain names on the cusp. One more year of no card and off the list they went, dropping out of your life like bubble gum or braces. Of course, the year you dropped them they sent you a card, leaving you to decide whether to mail a card late or just reinstate them for next year. I kept the list in pencil to accommodate the changes in names, addresses, validity.

This is all ancient history: Communication B.C. (before computers). FB and Tweets are the social way to keep in touch, your “Friends of...” is the new Christmas list. Only they don’t have to answer. You just throw out your life to whoever wants to know and check on your friends’ lives. Make a few comments, but nothing like long chatty emails (letters).

FB is the new family Christmas letter: with photos, chatty news about what’s happening, who done/won what, et. al. and no requirement to respond.

Tweets are IM fleeting thoughts.

Hummmm.

I will move Forward with my list because I feel good sharing fun with my friends and family. No more Opt Out Options. They already do that. If I want to reach somebody I don’t hear from, I’ll invite them to FB. Or send an (old fashioned) email. Even a hard copy snail mail. I can be an anachronism. I’m old enough. Heck, I have a dozen actual Christmas cards still decorating the Venitians in my office.

There are a lot of ins and outs of communication 2010. I plan to use all the In and Out Boxes (except Tweets) there are. I like keeping in touch.

Cheers

SLI

Holy Moly!

 Photo: Floating Sisters has me floating on clouds!

That Was the Week That Was (TW3) was a satirical comedy show I loved (back a few years) in the vein of Saturday Night Live, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, the Royal Canadian Air Farce and the Rick Mercer/Stephen Colbert/Jon Stewart shows. 

I just had a TW3. HooWee! To begin with, it’s been years since I knew somebody competing in athletics. I’d forgotten the thrill of feeling a connection to the glorious champions pushing themselves toward a goal. Being the Olympics, I could thrill just watching television, producing sweet maraschino moments when the local Olympians I know were competing whether they won, lost or just showed up. Vicarious, but so satisfying.

For another, my recent attempts at diplomacy and networking...worked! I shouldn’t be surprised, but this is new for me. My little town has become a warm cocoon where I can reach out and find a whole host of helpful souls from tennis partners to how to get a wrong righted. I had a bunch helping me get officially listed for a substitute job I applied for in August. I fell through the cracks and it was an uphill slog calling to check, politely pointing out I was still waiting, diplomatically rechecking, then checking back. I am smart enough to know I have a temper and can wither with my words—something I picked up in childhood and have never—unfortunately—lost. To hold that in check and use sweet, or at the very least neutral, words is quite an accomplishment for me. I’m patting my back (it’s terrific exercise). The upshot is that for five months, I told friends, who suggested things which I tried; I found out what was behind the hold up; I tried end runs and passes; I kept my temper and this week I got called because I am on the list.

Old dogs: new tricks; you bet!

I also took my courage in my hand and sent off some photos to a competition I wasn’t sure I was qualified for, but did it anyway. This week I found out they bought one. Can you feel my grin?

Old dogs: new careers; absolutely!

It is sunny. I will walk downtown to pick up a book the library is holding for me. My mountain town has a Sunny Side and a Dark Side. I live on the Sunny Side. 

Lucky me.

Sunny days to you.

SLI

Party, Part Two

Photo: Yep, the peak is steep, sheer even. Fortunately, this is the front. I'm climbing the switchback trail on the back.











Perhaps a few details about the peak are in order. To start, it’s not impressively high, just 7,897 feet (2,407 m). I have climbed a 10,000 footer in Yosemite and been on top of 14ers, as the Coloradans call their impressive collection of mountains over 14,000 feet. (Full disclosure: “been on top of” is not the same as climbing. Some of Colorado’s giants have roads to the top.)
The trail is only 6 kilometres (or 3 miles in American) but the elevation is the trick. It’s a non-stop uphill slog that rises 2,457 feet (or 819 meters in Canadian). The guidebooks allow 1 to 3 hours to ascend.
Dogs are allowed.
They tell me it gets crowded on sunny days in the summer.
The local seniors hiker’s group with the terrific name the Meanderthals have a pic of them sitting on the top looking quite fit.
The other side has a sheer drop off rated at 5.10d (aka “sheer drop off”) and popular with real mountain climbers who want to tackle the longest pitch north of Mexico. I have fooled around with climbing, even climbed baby stuff or at a climbing gym, but nothing remotely like Ha Ling. I figure to watch them encouragingly from the top.
The area is lousy with rock climbing walls, pitches and cliffs. The Canadian Rockies are like baby teeth compared to those old timers further south. The Rocky Mountains are mighty but worn down from eons of erosion (and maybe rock climbers/hikers). Their flanks are rounded, their heights jut bluntedly into the sky. The sharp incisors of Canada’s much younger Rockies are half the height but replete with sheer drops and soaring peaks.
Ha Ling just juts into the sky, calling me to party at the peak.
Once up, I have been advised to also climb up Miner’s Peak to the east. The two are like a saddle, with Ha Ling the horn and Miner’s the back, so as long as I’m there, what the hay, eh? Rumor has it it is a 20 minute slog from one to the other. Any beer would be froth by the time I get to the top, so the refreshments will have to wait til we get back down...physically.
Emotionally, it will take a little longer.
But that’s what big birthdays are for, yes?
Training starts now. Everyone's invited.
SLI

A Party on the Peak

Photo: Even the universe is on board with Ha Ling Peak as a Place to Party on my 65th.


I have dropped into a trough of relatively few demands from a high that had me scatter-brained and spread in all directions like buckshot. I kept my head—mostly—by remembering that it would all pass and relative calm settle in.
And it has. ** sigh **
Time to focus on the big goal of 2010: my birthday climb of Ha Ling.
I like celebrating big birthdays with big events. The last one the boys, wives and I took on the Grand Canyon. What an unforgettable trek that was: the highlight of a very highlit year.
Ha Ling is a bald peak that towers over town. It’s impossible not to notice, and it occurred to me that I would love to see the view from the top as a place I've been. It is a suitable goal for my 65th. I would also like to join the large percentage of residents, older and younger, who have stood on the top. You can’t get lost, although some trails are better than others, and the real challenge is at the top where the scree is the old “two steps forward, one step back” slog. The trek down can be a bore on sore muscles.
The view, they tell me, is spectacular, and it seems a fitting place to raise your arms in pure joy of accomplishment.
I don’t know what the aboriginals called it, but Ha Ling was called The Beehive for much of the white man’s presence in the Bow Valley. It is possible it didn’t have a name because the natives considered the valley sacred and used it for ceremonies or quick passage.
For most of the years Canmore was used by the white man for travel, coal mining, gas station pit stops, Olympic training and tourism, it was The Beehive, which is absolutely resembles.
That changed in 1980. The story is that in 1896, some white men bet a local cook named Ha Ling that he couldn’t climb to the top in less than 10 hours. He left at 7 and was back for lunch. They wouldn’t pay because they couldn’t see the flag he'd planted and didn't believe him. So he led a party to the summit to show them his flag. He left a bigger one behind for those who declined to climb and collected his fifty bucks.
It became Chinaman’s Peak to honor his feat but the name didn’t become official until 1980. That only lasted 17 years, when it was renamed Ha Ling Peak.
His feat is way more impressive than mine since there is now a parking lot half way up and clear trails to the top. He was up and down in one day from the valley. I plan to be up and down in five hours, from half way.
I have seven months to train.
Good, the waistband on my pants has shrunk and my arms have lost their tone. I’d like to greet my 65th year in shape. I’ve invited anyone who wants to go with me for A Party on the Peak.
SLI

The Pity Me Blues

Photo: Everyone has bad days, just don't make them your life.

I love the blues. Given a choice of music, I’ll go blues, jazz, classical, depending on what I’m doing. Up here in the sublime mountains, I don’t get good reception (those peaks get in my way) but I just discovered Galaxy on my cable channels.

I’m in Heaven, a Lady Singing the Blues.

There’s one song I can sing too much, however: the Pity Me Blues.

I’m not saying the occasional breakdown isn’t warranted and even good for the soul—and tear ducks—but prolonged angst is a one-way trip down. That’s what I call the Pity Me Blues.

Take the older Safeway cashier the other day. I was headed to the self check-out when I saw him standing alone with no one in his lane. Thinking it would give him some company, something to do besides standing there bored, I plunked my basket on the conveyor belt and stepped up to the credit processing center with a smile as I got out my Safeway and credit cards.

Fixing me with an annoyed look, he barked, “So you want me to unload your basket for you?”

I was flummoxed. Defensive. Apologetic. I’m not good in accusatory situations anyway, my brain scrambling for why he was making me feel as if I’d done something wrong. Something that was Not. His. Job.

I covered my fluster by getting the cards ready as he picked my items out of the basket. He then said, “I guess I’ll have to put the basket back for you,” and brushed me back as he walked past to put the basket in the stack behind the conveyor belt.

There was still no one in his line. No one waiting. The whole store was pretty empty. I remarked about this and he said it was Monday and the storewide 10 percent off day was Tuesday. So besides making me feel like I’d demanded he do work that was not in his job description, he told me that I was either a forgetful idiot or a spendthrift.

Now I always use baskets. It’s my pathetic way of limiting what I buy to what I can carry and I have a sore elbow from lugging overloaded baskets around grocery stores. I have never been chastised for putting the basket on the belt. By anyone. At any store. Ever. Even when there are huge lines and not an empty store filled only with one disaffected clerk.

My rampageous imagination filled in his background: a former CFO either forced to work after being laid off (and who would want to lose an employee with his attitude, I wonder?) or retired and dissatisfied with his pension or working to pad his pension and fill his empty hours. Whatever his story, clearly he viewed the cashier job as a comedown, beneath him, and customers who didn’t act as he thought they should insulted him. He was singing the Pity Me Blues loudly and clearly. I never saw him again, but then I never looked. I didn’t go back to Safeway for a long time after that, preferring the friendlier store down the street.

My point, and I have one, is that everyone gets the blues, but only losers give them a permanent home. You can feel bad because you hit an unfair patch in life. Rage. Cry. Assign blame. Whine if you must.

Then get over it, get out and get on.

I can now let the tears fall, the frustration break out in sobs, the feeling of doom and gloom settle over my vision. I say “now” because I couldn’t always. I kept a rigid upper lip, a firm hand on the control knob. Now I know even cowgirls get the blues. Sometimes my energy and optimism are overwhelmed. I let them whelm until the storm is over and I can see the other side. Which is almost always another way to attack the issue, a new idea, a reset button to approach it or abandon it, whichever is better. Crying clears the brain. It’s pretty good at clearing dust from the eyes, too, so you can see that everybody faces the same fact: Life Ain’t Fair.

Singing the blues is great. I riff around the house all the time.

Just don’t let it slide into an endless Pity Me Blues loop. That’s not the blues, that’s just a bad attitude.

Stopping Traffic

Photo: Cowboy (r) and Miss Kitty express their opinion of my new whistling prowess.



In my not-quite-yet old age, I have learned stuff I always wanted to know how to do.
Like whistling. Really loudly. Piercingly. Enough to stop a New York taxi or a child intent on running across a street for ice cream.
The world is divided into the majority who cannot whistle worth spit, and those few who can produce concert quality tunes and/or ear splitting whistles.
I have known how, or at least been able to produce a loud whistle, several times in my life. Always after I browbeat a stranger who knew how until they gave in and taught me everything they knew. For that I am grateful to them all. It is not their fault I didn't retain the knack. Each time I gained the knowledge, I didn't follow up on it, and forgot. Pretty quickly.
Ah hah! You say, someone who isn’t willing to practice. I guess I have to agree, but it’s not like you want to use that whistle willy nilly. (Excuse me while I add willy nilly to my EW, endangered word, list.) I mean, the high screech can scare little kids and really bug some folks. That's my excuse for not preserving what at the time seemed so simple.
Some use an index finger at each side of their lower lip. Some make a circle of their index finger and thumb and insert it in their mouth. Others do other things. What I didn't take the time to learn was how I was producing the sound. I just copy catted (another dandy EW) til I produced a satisfactory blast.
Then one night I was researching an article for the net on how to play high notes on a trumpet. Experimenting with some of the mouth positions, I hissed, as directed, and whoooosh! There it was.
I felt like I had a new toy. Since I’d discovered the technique myself—and had clear memories of losing it so easily—I happily played around with how to produce it, how to make it higher or lower—and especially louder—both with and without fingers. The concept is to create a cavity in front of your lower teeth, arch your tongue and blow air through your bottom teeth. Experiment and find your sweet tweet spot. Now that I know, I can fancy it up with misdirection and fancy unnecessary finger moves.
My cats came to sit and stare at me. They retreated when I got better. They crept closer when I stopped.
Here I am, living in bear(and cougar and coyote)country, where a really shrill whistle could literally save my life.
I plan to keep practicing. I know the key so the door should open whenever I want it to.
I also know how to tie a shoelace three different ways.
You might want to know why I would want to know this.
The answer is because when I learned there was a way to tie your shoe other than the old standby granny knot, I wanted to learn it immediately. At least, that's the story I made up, and it's partly true.
Actually it was my mother who noticed. Her personal trainer tied his shoe not in the “normal” way. My mom was a pastmistress at thinking outside the box, so she asked him about it.
I wanted to learn how.
Over the years, I have failed to practice it and had to work it out again. (I do the same thing with magic tricks, if I don’t run through them regularly, I lose the trick and have to figure it out—which isn’t bad training for how not to give it away, actually).
I bought a pair of bright orange very long shoestrings. For a buck, they serve as a training drill for my knots and a play toy for Miss Kitty.
I learned the third knot from a movie where Harrison Ford is shot, suffers brain damage, renounces his evil lawyerly old self and becomes a great old guy who had to learn how to tie his shoes from his daughter (who learned it from him—a nice touch).
So now I know three knots.
And how to taxi-whistle is Coming Soon.
Kewl.

Cheers
SLI

EeeeeewMail & Internet Etiquette

photo: Feathered friends sharing IM chuckle.





Grunts, gestures and log pounding
Long distance by foot, smoke signals and carrier pigeons
Tin can talkies, Pony Express and snail mail
Notes in a bottle, billet deux , telegrams and telephones
Satellite phones, Dick Tracy cells, PDFs and 4G
Email, FB, chatting, IM
Texting and (back to the birds) twittering ...

Woke up this morning resolved to put into practice something I thought of a month ago. It is the opposite of those glurgy email forwards that say with words, adorable kittens and music that they appreciate your email forwards even if they never respond and how emails keep friendship going and how the bond you create through sharing forwarded emails is so strong...(ad nauseum or etc. depending on your opinion of them).
For some reason in December, I stepped back and looked at my email habit. Thought: why don’t I send out a mea culpa message and allow folks to opt out. While I, wonderful, discerning person that I am, screen the stuff I get and send on only the IMHO best, perhaps there might be someone—or even two—who disagree or don’t enjoy my Best Of, or are too busy to read or whose caches are already overflowing, or who (gasp) don’t share my sense of humor. Perhaps these sensitive souls don’t want to hurt my feelings.
Well, heck, I can take it. There might even be former soulmates in my peripatetic life who don’t feel the need to keep connected to someone they may never see again. People who got along without me before they met me and would like to do it again. No ill will, just a reluctance to request me to sever the connection.
I wondered if I am an Email stalker, persisting in unwanted attentions despite a lack of encouragement. Or it could be that the silent ones on my modest list are happy to receive and not give.
I can hear the shouts of “get a life” out there, thank you; I’m just explaining the thought that struck me last month, that Email groups are the new Christmas card list. Back in the days of snail mail and thank you notes, you kept a hardcopy address book of those who once shared your life but one of you moved, or moved on, or changed jobs, spouses, neighborhoods, tax brackets, schools, interests & passions or stopped going to the gym/yoga class/Starbucks/club/board meetings/volunteer job. Ad nauseum or etc. Once a year, you would mail out cards (sometimes accompanied by the dreaded Family Newsletter) to keep connected. Some would add a message, some just sign their name. Lists got adjusted by those meticulous or insecure enough to keep track and eliminate anyone who failed to mail one.
Email forwards, being instant, effortless, free and funny/interesting /syrupy/enlightening or full of facts or import, tend to accumulate longer lists than hand-written, stamp-required cards. I’d gathered all my friends—dear, related, virtual, former and others—into a group called “Funny” and hit send.
I try to send them in BCC mode to keep from exposing their addresses to who-the-heck-knows-who, and remove the layers of addresses from those who don’t (but fear the horse is long gone from that barn). Some reply LOL, ROFLOL, :o} or Thanks! Others send an email once in a blue moon. Others never.
I decided to clean up my list. Offer to remove without prejudice anyone who doesn’t enjoy the forwards. Create a clean IMHO Fun Group 2010. With unlimited electronic memory, the addresses will still be available for breaking news.
The annual Opt Out Email. My new Internet Etiquette.
After all, if they’re not having fun, what’s the point?

SLI