YEAR-END MUSINGS (December 29/160)

 "Don't think harder, breathe deeper. Most of us are surviving on shallow sips of air".

Sunday, bloody Sunday. Well actually there was a Thursday involved and over the course of a couple of days but there was mayhem, consternation and blood. Christmas was full of family, food, fun and a couple of accidents. What celebration doesn't? Apparently, I must shoulder the blame. Lovingly conning big sis into making her magnificent pineapple upside down cake "or the boys will be bummed" led to an urgent care visit and three stitches.

 But as she is a Sweet, she soldiered through, not allowing a little blood to keep her from her anointed task. Bandaging the pulsing wound she refused to be transported to medical care until the luscious cake was safely out of the oven. It was perfect but we all took a second look at the maraschino cherries for obvious reasons as she came into the Christmas house brandishing her heavily bandaged hand, and cake. We've all been reminded that freshly removed can lids are sharp! Excellent timing as I was dumping trash and had to stuff a razor edged can top down twice. Fortunately, her accident was fresh on my mind, so I avoided a similar fate.

Second accident was not my fault except I like garlic bread with my lasagna. Son-in-law was slicing crispy bread and decided to oil the cutting board with bodily fluids. Easily contained, the show went on. Again, leading to close examination of any and all bread. Which is why one must always wash their hands thoroughly before cooking to keep the germies in their place during any unforeseen circumstances. But it did not stop him from putting together the elaborate dolly they got for the OH. I mentioned a simple furniture mover for us old folks, but they lovingly picked one that will move a piano...with an elephant sitting on it...through a bog (some assembly required). Took him an hour so we appreciate his diligence, in addition to cooking dinner! 

"Anxiety is not intuition."

Latest on what were they thinking? OSHA is moving to eliminate rules that hold employers accountable for maintaining a safe workplace, construction illumination standards and medical exams for folks wearing respirators. Let's see-no accountability, blind workers on a construction site using power tools, and not performing medical surveillance on folks wearing restricted breathing apparatus which might incapacitate them are not issues anymore.  Why? It's the little things that just boggle the mind but if something is of use to anyone like a worker, then off with their heads. But lots of money to build a "golden fleet" with ships 100xs (?) better than any others and 250 million to redo the "Kennedy Center" in his tacky maralajoke image. How many ways does this guy need to spread his crappy taste and lousy judgment in his search for validation?

LIFE WITH JP Took the boy the first day of vacation so Grandpa could critique and coach his last bowling league appearance. He must have taken it to heart as the next day he excitedly called me to say he just bowled 210 in a pickup game with his buddy-geez. Then letdown time. The bowling shirts I ordered with their initials on them I was so excited about were basically a yawn when they opened them. Crap.

Finishing our day with JP we went out to dinner. Italian so he can get his chicken alfredo of which he will eat about half, take home the rest in a white box and ignore it until it goes bad. Good thing we are made of money and deny him nothing. Anyway, the boy who usually orders mountain dew or root beer unexpectedly ordered a coke. I said, "never saw you get a coke before". Then quick as the proverbial bunny he retorts "I never saw you get only water before". Ouch-I am known to partake in some alcohol when we are at a restaurant. A bit impertinent, but true so we had a good laugh. The older they get...

Also, on his way out, he took one look at the baby owl plank I had named Charlie and said "no, it's Billy-that's a kid's name" So, Billy it is. My muse has spoken. 

"Nothing changes if nothing changes"

Happy New Year/ Peace out/stay strong/love your neighbor...💚  💙💛

                                                                                    

                                             

CHRISTMAS... (December 22/161)

"What I don't like about Christmas parties is looking for a new job the next day (Phyllis Diller)."

Final week after a few weeks of prep which means trying to locate items I have misplaced while trying to be discreet on what was going under the tree or stockings. Never something cheap and easily replaceable. More like, company's coming I need to stash "whatever" so it is not discovered. Shitske-where did I stash? All I know is the "place" seemed logical at the time. Which means I get surprised by cool stuff and gift cards months after the fact. I make lists so at least I know what I lost. 

JP's second solo occurred last week. Our own drummer boy sang the jazzy Bob Seger version to a crowd (not exaggerating) of about 600 folks in the auditorium as part of his school choirs' Christmas concert. The boy has courage and he nailed it. Prep: looks around audience until he sees his entourage (6 strong); stand in the wings ahead of his debut looking totally focused and confident; mic adjusted for maximum impact-hand casually in pocket; set expression and go time.  Three months of choir and he's auditioning for a solo. Again, he follows in musical footsteps as his Uncle John is quite a singer. He sang at our daughter's wedding accompanying himself with his guitar. John's given JP a ukulele and drum set so I think he's pushing a certain agenda. All good. 

As it's Christmas week I won't dwell on the negative, but Mich repugs trying to remove red flag rules after such a bloody weekend shows you where their priorities lie. Meanwhile magat politicians are quietly slipping out the door, which I hope hits them on the way out. 

"An enterprising kid could make a lot of money hawking batteries door-to-door Christmas Day"

The last poddie went well as expected. He had an impactful and frank style of storytelling, which is good for a keynote, and we had a discussion of moral safety responsibility. He wandered into shaky territory when he mentioned his stint in Viet Nam explaining they would get orders to take out a village which may mean impacting civilians. I was wondering if he was going to say something more about illegal orders and was ready to abort, but he left it at that. However, it does underline what safety skates do go through trying to keep management priorities in mind and our basic imperative of protecting workers. We have all had our My Lai moments and I hope I have always taken the high road. He is also an advisor to major business, so he deplored how a highly advertised accident shakes confidence of both employees and the public-rightly or wrongly. Many of us have had to investigate our own "fatality or serious accident" at work under unimaginable circumstances that defy logic. Sometimes there is no answer.

"Christmas is a baby shower that totally got out of control"

After a butt-clenching drive from Gun Lake to Cascade Friday through the blowing snow and icy roads, we arrived in the East (no Star) to a nothing burger in regard to snow in Lansing.  No white Christmas unless you count the left-over mulit-colored mounds from the last couple of weeks. Though the birds keep cleaning out the feeder like it's the last days. Saw one of those pileated woodpeckers trying to crash land the feeder and pulling off at the last second. He went on to attack my red maple though I'm guessing the bugs are asleep or hibernating. Doves can't access the tiny platform so they eagerly await what falls. Then I saw a squirrel running off a couple of starlings. Of course, they don't challenge the bigger birds. It's all fun and games until somebody crashes the window leaving feathers and fury in their wake. There's a reason we Spring clean to remove bird body parts and kill the new sprouts under the feeder.

Meanwhile, Charlie Says:  

 Merriest of Christmas' - Hooray for Hanukkah - Pray for the New Year & Peace Out 💚💖💙💛

A LOT LIKE.... (December 15/162)

MORE LIKE CHRISTMAS From the chaos of boxes the once a year living room take-over emerges, and it's good. Although it is true that you may place any ornament you wish on the tree, understand that the OH will move it. I tried for a couple of years but gave up having any say on the orientation of said tree and I'm ok with that. The daughter, however, still thinks she can do it - ha ha.  However, she did help us move the myriad of boxes upstairs. Wonder if she's coming back to take them down again? Must be why they scheduled a trip to Fla right after Christmas. Now that's going to extremes. 

BIRTHDAY WEEK Daughter and family celebrated birthday dinner with us last week. She knew exactly what she wanted (Mom & Dad spoil our only) so no big surprise what was in the giant box which was actually under the tree. Being born two weeks before Christmas has been the bane of her existence though it does fit her Sagittarius vibes. We clearly demarked the period between her birthday and Christmas, but others would do the "oh, this is for both events". Pooh. She asked me once if we could celebrate her birthday in June. We gave her this massive NINJA coffee maker that makes hot and cold coffee, tea, cappuccinos as well as casseroles and mai-tais (I assume), etc. while whistling dixie apparently. The epitome of millennial must-haves. As she was pushing it to the door the OH reminded her of another little person getting his dream rocking pony that whinnied and pranced and spoke cowboy pushing it to the door as we debated whether it would go home with the 2-year-old or stay at Nana-Grandpa's. He decided while we were still debating. Best gift ever.  

SURPRISE! I will post a rare comment. marmie has actually done something I approve of! By calling journalists, mostly women, stupid, nasty, ugly and piggy he has made us feel sorry for the media and illustrated who are the most intelligent ones in the room. Their overwhelming calm and respectful courage asking questions we are interested in while being roundly insulted also shows who's the adult in the room. Finally, it reveals he is very afraid of intelligent women lol. Also some cracks are showing in the "r" ranks. 

PODCASTING Doing two podcasts four days apart is a challenge as I have to jump "frames of reference" between each. There is a reason I script these somewhat. Last weeks was about workplace violence where I mispronounced the dude's name, like every time I said it. I told him I'm sure people probably didn't attempt it asking for his badge number when he was a patrol officer. It is spelled that weirdly. I practiced saying it and then when we met up in ZOOM I had him say it again which was totally different than what I thought. 

Interesting topic of course but, if OSHA doesn't get dissolved, we will be seeing requirements for each workplace to have a written violence mitigation plan and training. As he charmingly pointed out, the police won't be there until shots are already fired and mayhem has ensued, so better get your people up to speed of what they're going to do. Considering there were at least two major "surprise" attacks this weekend (Brown University and an Australian beach) he's not wrong. 

He said some of it is people not realizing and/or reporting when someone says something or does something out of character which is potentially violent. Also, he's a big proponent of background checks. Off camera I mentioned one of my own experiences when I was threatened to be blown up with the building because he didn't like the rule I was laying down (which was expecting his girlfriend to come to work). Upon reporting his behavior to his supervisor, I was told I was over-reacting. Yep, I'm such a wimp, and unfortunately, he shot his girlfriend (she survived) several months later, probably because she over-reacted to his temper. Remember when we didn't used to have this happening every other day? Sickening.

Monday's poddie is with a very experienced safety expert with 500 articles and several best-selling books to his credit on culture, leadership and strategic safety planning. Plus, he claims he started the first "safety" podcast. Our whole interaction has been through his assistant. I should be so lucky. Intimidated you think? Nope, I'm just thrilled that he's been interviewed so many times, this will be a piece of very excellent cake. I just have to wind up and let him go. We're following my loose set of questions so no sweat. Peace out/stay strong/love your neighbor 💚  💙💛

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK ..... (December 8/163)

LOST IN THE WEED(S) "Whoah, it smells like the 60's" were the words I uttered as my daughter and I entered the shop where we were taking the Yule Ball decorating class. I call it a woo woo shop as it caters to us mystic types, and incense lots of incense. When we described the various herbs in our "balls" to the OH he said no cannabis? I said it smelled like it there. Daughter corrected no, incense, it was incense. Yep, we used it in the 60's to cover up the smell of the cannabis.  What goes around, etc. 

At any rate honorable daughter treated me to lunch and the afore mentioned herb ball session. We had a great time. I was intrigued by a "made to look" ancient tome purporting to contain "spells". However, it was covered in modern-day plastic wrap no doubt to keep the potency intact and to prevent an accidental pouring out of charms and curses. You can't mess with this stuff. I am a believer to a certain extent being Irish and all and there are too many things that defy explanation...like Trump for example. Talk about your bad juju. I do believe there are benevolent and evil spirits which we attract by our thoughts and behaviors. 

MORE WEEDS Which begs the question of why we justify blowing up "alleged" drug boats and kill survivors described as protecting Americans from drugs. However, a different standard is applied when pardoning convicted, by an American jury after years of investigation, the former President of Honduras who masterminded a massive, state-sponsored drug trafficking operation funneling hundreds of tons of cocaine into the U.S.? Oh right, it's not about drugs at all. Evil begats, supports and defends evil.

So many issues, so little time. The democrats better show the same "swift of foot" our nemesis displays. In the annals of what can I do now to kill Americans, Rumple is reversing rules on the use of asbestos, rolling back the need to report forever chemicals and trashing clean water standards. I spent much of my early safety career with education about, monitoring and the mitigation of asbestos. It will cause one of the nastiest types of cancer with minimal exposure to sensitive individuals. But what the hey ho, they've also stopped funding cancer research so no one will ever make the connection 😟. I do hope there's a cave somewhere keeping all these scientific truths safe until sanity rules again. And a little typhoid here and there is not a deal-breaker apparently. I think the good old conservative "Readers Digest" will have to revise their "Life in the US" articles a bit to meet the current status quo.

A STAR IS GROWING The grandson was chosen as one of the two boys who will perform a solo at the Christmas concert even after forgetting one of his lines in audition leading to additional pa rum pum pum pums. The majority of auditions were girls who he claims were better. I hate to think there was bias in play, but getting boys involved young produces male actors for the musical theater in high school. Though I still think he's not too bad-Nana bias. So, his folks have another 10 intense days of his mandatory practicing; the house ringing with little drummer boy renditions until the proverbial cows, sheep and donkeys come home. 

We have quite a few singers in the family. My mother was quite good as well as big sister and my nephews. It was said that one nephew's singing at his high school graduation baccalaureate brought tears and another was offered a music scholarship at that maizey blue school due to his talent. Though he chose the green and white college instead-good man. 

IN OTHER MEDIA Two recordings over the next week will get me through February. The topics are "Workplace Violence Mitigation" and "Collateral Damage After Safety Incidents". The first, a retired police Lieutenant who runs a background investigation operation and trains active shooter response, claims you can't prevent the violence; at best you mitigate the damage by tapping the "warrier within"- hmmm. Me, I'm under the table looking for that warrier and sending him/her out there. The second claims he produced the first ever safety podcast-hmmm. Also has some good stories/examples.

Christmas is slowly taking over the living room in its inevitable agonizing process. Since we don't host the "horde" anymore, we don't put quite as much out there but it's rather hard to tell. Hopefully this year we can retire the bear who delivers M&Ms from an unusual place as he has been broken for two years! But when one has a saver in the house discarding items is a real struggle. Peace/stay strong 💚  💛💙