The Magic Eight Ball

Will I lose my job again?



The 20 standard answers on a Magic 8-Ball are:
● As I see it, yes
● It is certain
● It is decidedly so
● Most likely
● Outlook good
● Signs point to yes
● Without a doubt
● Yes
● Yes - definitely
● You may rely on it
● Reply hazy, try again
● Ask again later
● Better not tell you now
● Cannot predict now
● Concentrate and ask again
● Don't count on it
● My reply is no
● My sources say no
● Outlook not so good
● Very doubtful

The Eight Ball said...



I've already started thinking about what I would do if I lost my job.

I am in love with Colorado.

Could I live in California if we are offered relocation to Palo Alto?

Can I ever go back to NC?

I might have to take Jo Dee Messina's approach...

Baby, what do you say we just get lost?
Leave this one horse townlike two rebels without a cause.
I got people in Boston.
Ain't your daddy still in Des Moines?
We can pack up tomorrow.
Tonight, let's flip a coin

Heads, Carolina Tails, California.
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer.
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean.
Where? It don't matter, as long as we're goin'
Somewhere together. I've got a quarter.
Heads, Carolina Tails, California.

We can load what we own in the back of a U-haul van.
Couple modern day Moses', searchin for the promised land.
We can go four hundred miles before we stop for gas.
We can drive for a day, and then we'll take a look at the map.

Heads, Carolina Tails, California.
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer.
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean.
Where? It don't matter, as long as we're goin'
Somewhere together. I've got a quarter.
Heads, Carolina Tails, California.

We're gonna get outta here if we gotta ride a Greyhound bus.
Boy, we're bound to outrun the bad luck that's tailin' us

Heads, Carolina Tails, California.
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer.
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean.
Where? It don't matter, as long as we're goin'
Somewhere together. I've got a quarter.
Heads, Carolina Tails, California.

O---oh, California! Carolina! California!

DejaVoodoo

Gilead just announced that it has agreed to purchase a small cardiovascular bio-tech company in Palo Alto, CA.

We have an all-hands meeting this morning with an HR representative on site to answer questions.

Have I done this before?

I think I have.

CarniVail

DAY 2

Today was Fat Tuesday… I’m thinking it had something to do with 8 inches of fresh snow.

I felt MUCH better today. Vail air in my lungs. Blue Sky Basin under my feet. Snow-capped mountains in my eyes. Happy, happy, happy.

Powder ups the ante. Makes skiing so much more fun. Makes the crashes better. I had my own personal yard sale today. I thought that I was launching a jump – but actually ended up plunging into a snow drift. I was waist high in powder … lost my ski … I laughed so hard.

Now I Know My A, B, C’s

DAY 1

Arapahoe Basin, Colorado

As a skier from NC, I was always amazed to hear that you could ski A-Basin in June.

Syl & Karen are here in Colorado for their annual ski trip. It’s really been a treat for me to have them here. See my home. Walk the streets of Boulder with me. Meet some of my friends. See my ski house. See my newly discovered trails on the mountains. I’ve always felt like it’s better to be with a local on vacation. I am a local. That still makes me smile.

A-Basin … POWDER DAY!!!!!! Lori skied with us today. WE had SO much fun. I really liked this mountain. Supposedly you can ski A-Basin into June. I see why. It’s on top of the world. I had two major crashes today. I have big crashes now. I am trying to get better. I ski crazy. I fall.

Oh yes… and I’m sick. I am deathly ill actually. My voice is gone. Not too sick to ski the steeps at A-Basin though.

Moving On

Every time I open my blog and read that last Bird Grasping a Thin Branch post ... I get depressed. Damn. I've been some kind of sad, huh?

WELL, there's a time and place for everything. I WISH I could say that the sad phase in me is over ... but OF COURSE it isn't ALL gone. Sad sneaks up and knocks on my door ... and I still invite him in ... and there we are ... together again ... ME & Sad... hanging out ... old friends.

Moving on is a process... and I'm working on it. I hate to admit it, but I'm still reading some self-help material (Susan ... go ahead ... chuckle away). My latest purchase from my favorite bookstore in the world (Boulder Bookstore on Pearl St.) is When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron.

"Instructions on mindfulness or emptiness or working with energy all point to the same thing: being right on the spot nails us. It nails us right to the point of time and space that we are in. When we stop there, and don't act out, don't repress, don't blame it on anybody else, and also don't blame it on ourselves, then we meet with an open-ended question that has no conceptual answer. We also encounter our heart. As one student so eloquently put it 'Buddha nature, cleverly disguised as fear, kicks our ass into being receptive.'"

I have been ACTING OUT. BIG TIME. I'm still doing it. I am reacting. Not being. Reacting. To being away from home. To being away from my family. To being away from Stephanie. To being hurt. To being scared. To being free. WOW ... now there's some admission. Hopefully, that means I'm progressing. Right? I still slip - frequently ... but I am slowly getting myself together and I have moments of true happiness.

I LOVE the fact that I drive to work every morning mesmerized by the Rocky Mountains . I SMILE EVERY DAY.

I LOVE my job.

I LOVE the ski house.

I LOVE the fact that I can ski EVERY weekend.

I LOVE when friends come to visit from NC.

I LOVE my friends that I have met here ... I truly love their hearts and don't know what I'd do without them.

I LOVE meeting new people.

I LOVE the fact that I do whatever I want... whenever I want ... with whomever I want.

I LOVE Colorado.

Happy is knocking more often these days. We hang out a lot on the ski slopes :)





Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Meanwhile, I'm going to continue skiing and loving where I am and loving the people around me and allowing them to love me. Nailed to the point in time and space where I am.

A Bird Grasping A Thin Branch

“A bird grasping a thin branch” reminds me of that beautiful song:
Be like a bird, who, halting in her flight
On a limb too slight, feels it give way beneath her;
Yet sings, sings, knowing she has wings;
Yet sings, sings, knowing she has wings.

This is a lovely metaphor for a life that is full of Grace. There are difficult times, but a person who feels upheld and supported by Divine Presence need never be afraid.

This has been true a million times in my life. Most of my life the branches I have perched upon have been slim to downright twiggy. How I have made it thus far always seems like miracle after miracle to me, as those thin branches buckled and broke... every time there was a way out, a person who came to help, a solution.

Over time I have learned not to panic when I feel the branch is about to go. Singing is good, dancing too, and writing. Sometimes flight is the answer.

When I look back at my life I remind myself that in all these years I have never missed a meal, never had to go a night without a bed, or a roof over my head. When I have been in despair friends have shown up, or when they didn’t, I found other ways to cope.

My feeling at this point is that I am going to make it. All futures are uncertain because they haven’t happened yet. But as each moment unfolds I will be here at the center singing and trusting that my thin branch will hold. And should the branch fail, trusting that my wings will be sufficient to carry me skyward once again.


I stumbled across this last night and I loved it so much. I have been on thin branches many times in my life and it can be such a scary feeling. I know my friends and family have felt burdened for me ... watching me there. Time after time. Because inevitably, the branch does eventually break. I do fall. However, I have learned that my wings are strong and I always find the sky.

The Old North State

I read this on the plane yesterday returning to Colorado ... it was a Christmas Gift from Mamaw Cable :) A story about Uncle Elisha Rice ... "a real man of God". It made me smile... thought I would share.


PREFACE
If you are privileged to become acquainted with the Southern mountaineers, you will find them witty, musical, leisurely; innately religious; independent and liberty-loving to a fault; hospitable to the point of self-forgetfulness; frugal, yet "free-hearted." Like others of this world's poor, God has "appointed them rich in faith." An infidel is hardly to be found in cove or cabin. They are too courteous to smile if you call their "branch" a brook, their "laurel" rhododendron, their "ivy" laurel, their giant "poplars" tulip trees, the "ground hogs" and "ground squirrels" woodchucks and chipmunks, or their "pokes" bags. They may wonder, but will not correct you if you say the weather clears up instead of "fairs off"; or if you call a "right smart piece" a good way, or say afternoon for "evening".

The Evangel Booklet Series
Elisha Rice
Man of God
Mountaineer
The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago
1941

It was nice to be in Western North Carolina for Christmas this year.

Some things never change.

That's a good thing.