Small Changes

Yesterday I talked about how my scenery got changed involuntarily when my office space was moved. Today I’m writing about how I’ve been changing my own scenery. I’ve started putting up photos in my cube, and I’ve started meeting friends in the break room. I brought a bottle of bourbon into the office, and I’m cracking jokes. Some of the jokes are even naughty.

All of these small steps mean I’m making myself at home at Fuzebox. I’ve now done 3 customer meetings and two big demos. While I have yet to sell a single license, it’s simply a matter of time. Hopefully days, not weeks. 🙂

Heck, now I’m making plans to set up a friend and our IT guy on a date. That must mean something about my level of comfort with worlds colliding.

It’s nice to make myself a bit more comfortable in my space, and it means I can start on the real work of making this company the most successful adventure I’ve had to date. Watch out, Fuzebox.

Laughter and Whiskey

I came into work on Friday of last week, and my desk had been been moved. At first I was peeved, because no one informed me. They’d moved all my crap, including my sweaty gym clothes (eww!) without my knowledge or consent. My mug – still uncleaned – and my water bottle – still empty – were sitting in a strange place in another part of the office.

The morning started out a bit like an episode of Dr Seuss…”I do not like my new desk, Sam I Am.” But as the day went on, I opened up my ears and my eyes regarding my new neighbors…and I began to rethink my response. I was now sitting next to the customer service team. The first things I noticed was that they worked differently – they were on the phone more, and they used systems. They talked between their cubes to solve issues. And most importantly, they told jokes and laughed.

And they drank whiskey. During work. Out of plastic cups. While on the phone with customers, while being professional abut also having a sense of humor.

Even thought I don’t think I have the stamina or liver enzymes to start drinking whiskey mid-afternoon, I like these guys. We have fun. And occasionally I learn a thing or two as they triage customer issues.

Maybe I do like green eggs and ham, Sam I Am.

Facing Reality

It’s one thing to intellectually come to terms with Betty dying, it’s an entirely different thing when it actually happens. When I got the call this morning, I felt bleak. I regretted leaving and not spending the additional 5 days with her before she died, and I thought about all the other things I could have said to her when I was with her. I wished I could have made her laugh one more time, because I’ve been reminded quite powerfully during this experience that laughter is the greatest blessing we can offer to one another.

When there’s nothing but pain and weakness remaining, it’s better to die and move on to the hope of a better place. She leaves behind laughter, warm memories, good stories, and moves forward to the promise of paradise.

I was thinking about Betty a lot this weekend while I was cycling. Betty was always astounded by my cycling adventures, and would often exclaim in surprise at the distances and routes we followed. Her favorite routes were at Lake Tahoe, when we would travel on the roads that she knew by heart. She never really rode a bike, and didn’t really understand my obsession…but she knew passion when she saw it, and she supported my happiness.

On Saturday, I was looking at the spring flowers and feeling the warming sun while riding the East Bay hills. I wished I could share those experiences with Betty. She would have loved the green rolling hills, the sweet scent of jasmine in the air, and the gentle breeze. I know she was excited about the promise of spring.

Betty, I wish you an eternal spring. I love you, and I’ll cherish our times together.

Spandex at 6 AM

This year, AIDS LifeCycle training seems to come fast and hard. It’s the first weekend of March, and we’re already waking up at 6 am (dawn!) to put on spandex and head out for rides. I know we have two full months and a bit more of weekends where we’ll be waking up at least this early, culminating in weekends where we’ll go 100+ plus miles and head out just at sunrise.

The riding is beautiful and fun, but the 6 am wake up call is less inspiring, especially if you want to have any social life whatsoever and you end up out late with friends. I am reminded every year that I would not want to be a professional athlete (assuming I was capable) that had a socially skewed schedule thanks to the demands of training and a heavily managed diet.

I’m also wondering if I’m up to the challenge this year. I did 51 miles and 3500 ft of climbing yesterday, and it exhausted me…on prior years it wouldn’t have phased me. I refuse to fall off the training wagon and I’ll finish the season if it kills me…but I realized yesterday that some serious intervention when it comes to weight loss and daily workouts must happen.

Sometimes it’s depressing, facing up to your limitations and realizing that you haven’t been focused. It’s true that I’ve had a lot on my mind recently, and faced a lot of change and challenges this year…but I think I just identified my next two obstacles to conquer if I’m to make it to the end of ALC intact and fit.

Kissing Frogs

I’m not sure if I’m the kisser or the kiss-ee, but I suspect there’s an equal likelihood that I’ll be one or the other during any given hour.

I’m a frog aspiring to be a prince when I go to visit customers. We have an existing product that’s a bit long in the tooth, but the new product coming out at the end of the month isn’t quite ready for prime time…as I discovered when it crashed on me several times during a customer call yesterday. It rattled me, making me even more frog-like in the view of my customer. And it certainly made the product look more than a little amphibian.

And then there are the times when I’m the frog kisser. When things don’t go exactly right either in the office or out, and when my boss pushes me for fast results which simply don’t make sense. I’m still making my peace with how things work at my new company, and sometimes it does feel a little bit like I’m kissing a frog.

I sure hope he turns into a handsome prince really quickly.

Making Life Real

The past few days have really underscored a central theme…what we do with our lives really matters. Betty just about filled up the waiting room all weekend, while several other people were in the ICU completely alone, or perhaps with only a single visitor over the past 5 days. Meanwhile, we often had about 15 people sitting vigil, and some (mild) fights broke out among family members regarding room access and time with Betty.

She had 6 kids (5 living), 10 siblings (5 living) dozens of grandkids and great grandkids, a husband, friends, extended family, a minister…and we all wanted to see her. It was actually pretty damn overwhelming. There are no test runs — this is life, and the relationships you build really matter. If you have kids, they might feel obligated to visit you in the hospital…or they might not. Based on empirical data from other ICU rooms, it doesn’t appear that visitors are mandatory. And many people who are in the 80+ year old range don’t necessarily have a ton of contemporaries around to keep them company.

So, what determines if you have company or not? How can you judge who will mourn you, or whether you have anyone who will visit you when you’re on your deathbed? What’s the measure of a will-lived life, and is number of people in the waiting room a proxy?

I don’t exactly know the answer, but I know I don’t have a husband and I’m not currently on a path to having kids. I don’t have a church or even a religious affiliation. My chief pastime outside of work is Aids LifeCycle and the ALC community. I have a small family. Would I be one of those people with few visitors?

There are no test runs. This is my life. How do I want to be remembered? Would I have a full waiting room, and do I care if I don’t? It’s time to start thinking through some of these questions more deeply, so I feel comfortable with the outcomes as my life culminates to its end.

Bellyfull of Laughs

I have a funny family. I mean that in several ways. First off, I have a strange conglomeration of family. Family is defined as the people I love, which doesn’t just include blood relatives. It includes wonderful people like Malini and Karl and Karina who I love visiting with, and who I will always view as family, even if we technically aren’t.

Family also includes people like Grandma Betty, married to my grandfather, and her crazy conglomeration of family which isn’t always strictly blood either.

I also have a funny family. This week I’ve really appreciated everyone’s sense of humor as we spent endless hours at the hospital. We all told jokes and funny stories. We teased Betty and got her to say naughty words. We flirted with the cute male nurse. We took silly pictures. And I learned an entirely new library of church-appropriate jokes.

We cried a lot too, but I was more grateful for the laughs than the tears. The happy shared moments, the catalogue of new stories and funny moments. I’ll take those with me forever.

I’m so lucky to have my funny family.

Going Gentle Into that Good Night

There has been some rage, but there have been moments of perfect beauty too. I’m witnessing the end of my most respected era — respect for the generation that weathered the Depression, and World War II, and who rose like the phoenix from flames of lives that bore complete devastation of their dreams and plans. These are the people I admire most in this world — people who had the courage to dream in the face of grief and sorrow, people who had the audacity to lead second and even third lives on top of scorched foundations.

I should have expected that the end would be no less brave or strong. There’s a dignity in fighting tooth and nail, blood and tissue, to share one more moment with the people you love. This generation has mastered the art of the fight.

This generation has also mastered the art of pragmatism, of realizing when the odds are against you and the outcomes all completely stink. As I watch my grandmother fight her final battles, I am also observing my grandfather prepare to be alone in the most brave and honest way I could imagine a man saying goodbye. He does not want to her surrender, but he hates the idea of his love being in pain more than he fears being alone. And through it all, he stands mostly on his own, comforting his family in their grief.

There are moments of beauty. The laugh of surprise as we threaten to replace her IV bag with a good beer. The happiness of applying lip balm to abused tissues. The smile when we threaten to bring her tacos.

I love this woman, and I will miss her dearly when she is gone. These words are simply incapable of expressing the depths of my sorrow, and my gratefulness for her presence in my life. If I rage at anything, it is that the end should come with such indignity and pain — her proud spirit simply deserves a better ending.

Go sweetly and gently into the beloved night, Grandma Betty.