Life as a Boss

Got a call from a woman I fired a month ago. After I fired her, she said "I've been waiting for this. Thank You." Today she said, "You were a great boss. I really liked working with you." Either she needs therapy or I'm damn good at my job. I prefer the latter.

Words for ME to live by

"A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules."--Anthony Trollope

Here we go again...

My company has now acquired another competitor making it the third in three years. My life will cease to be my own as I get swept up into the tornado of meetings, conference calls, and planning sessions necessary to bring order out of the chaos. Corporate Management will urge all of us middle managers to be proactive in developing solutions to the emerging challenges. But we all know that we're just getting ready for another ring of hell where there will be much crying and gnashing of teeth. Oh How I Can't Wait.

My Nephew Dexter

Isnt' he the most squeezable, edible, adorable, cuddable, huggable, delectable tot you ever did see?

On Poetry

I don't like poetry. I'm a prose gal. Words in prose are less slippery, less opaque. I like that. I recognize that my apathy toward poetry is a personal failing and something to be rectified. I'm open to developing the capacity to have a capacity to appreciate poetry (to use a J.P. Morelandism).

Fred Sanders (one of my favorite professors from the Apologetics program at Biola) illuminates the point of poetry and in doing so sparks a desire within me to explore this foreign language. Here are some excerpts:

"Think of the world as divided between things easily labelled and things just barely describable. Civilians work with the easily labelled things, but when something just barely describable confronts us, we call in the language marines: poets."

AND

"What if something awful is rolling toward your generation and nobody knows what to call it? What if part of our desperate situation is our inability to name ourselves and our situation? What if we can’t appropriate the goodness available to us unless we can recognize it as what it is and tell ourselves and each other about it? What if the source of our life is a mystery that can’t be definitively spoken but must be acknowledged, praised, confessed? What if the region of the ineffable isn’t out at the boundaries of our lives but right at the center?"

The question now is, where to begin? Any suggestions?

Weird Science

I can't remember how long this bowl of strawberry puree has been in the fridge. But long enough to get a carpet of mold. Some little person would thrill to have such a perfect piece of felt for their miniature house! What did I do with it you ask? I stuck it back in the fridge for further development.

Good Friday

O God in heaven, have mercy on us! Lord Jesus Christ,
intercede for your people, deliver us at the opportune time,
preserve in us the true genuine Christian faith, collect your
scattered sheep with your voice, your divine Word as Holy Writ
calls it. Help us to recognize your voice, help us not to be
allured by the madness of the world, so that we may never fall
away from you, O Lord Jesus Christ.
... Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

I'm St. Melito of Sardis!

"You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the
traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it
was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you
do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins."

Well how about that-this does sound like me. Check out which church father you are (if you're not shocked! shocked! at the patriarchical favoritism of it all.) As for me, I'm going to take it again until I recognize a name.

I AM...

...a pre-modern stuck in a post-modern world.

I THINK...

...pulchritude is the ugliest word for beauty.

I FEEL...

...like wallpaper. Expected to be there, but often overlooked and largely unnoticed.

Miscellaneous

Squats

Squatter communities are everywhere. People live on the train tracks, the grassy road medians, any place where they can put together cardboard, rice sacks, tarps or anything they can find to make four walls and a roof. These are the kids that grow up in them. The kids are so adorable it makes me ache to see their wretched living conditions.

Danica

I have to go all the way to the Philippines to find my name popular. Out of these 100 kids two were named Danica. I don't know why considering it's a Danish name not Spanish. Odd.

Delicacy

I have no stomach for balut a delicacy of boiled duck embryo. Fortunately Steve had the iron girded esophagus that could keep this baby down. He described it as slimy similar to eating oyesters. He didn't chew it just swallowed it whole with a dash of salt.

Sights and Smells

To and Fro

Intro to the Philippines

This photo gives but a hint of the general melee that is Manila traffic. I don't think they have a concept of right of way, but I could be wrong. You'll notice that as we are driving straight ahead cars are turning to the left and the right of us at the same time. To help with congestion they've removed intersections. Instead, you have to drive past your left turn and do a U-turn. Usually, it's you and three or four other cars all making the turn together into on coming traffic. I can't imagine a traffic light causing more confusion and congestion than a five abreast U-turn.

Steve's Aunt Alice has a unique approach to traffic cops. After making a left hand turn (which is illegal-see above about the u-turn business) and being waved to stop by a traffic cop (they stand in the street making a general nuisance of themselves) she said, "If you stop, then you'll spend all day on the side of road arguing with them." And with that, she sailed on by refusing to stop. Until, that is, they hopped on their scooters and cycles and chased us down forcing her to pull over. She's lived in the Philippines for 36 years and could count on one hand the number of times she's been pulled over. On a previous occasion a cop pulled her over on the baseless accusation that she had passed a car in a No Overtake zone. How could that be, she asked, when we haven't seen let alone passed a single car on this road? She argued her way out of that episode by telling him she was in his country helping his people so he should let her go. And he did. What makes traffic stops so annoying is that they take your license and force you to spend a day retrieving it after paying a large fine. Gov't bureaucracy...gotta love it. Can't blame her for ignoring the buggers.