The Six-Inch Valley

Sometimes
it's like someone took a knife,
baby,
edgy and dull,
and cut a six-inch valley
through the middle of my soul ...

Two things - well maybe more but two things is what I'm starting out with here ...

(1) New CD collection from the coffeehouse. Nice stuff. Fast, easy listen, good to hear the tunes being covered by other folks, makes it easier to listen to the artistry of the lyrics - like that one up there.

(2) Called Scott at 3pm his time to - as I so elegantly stated - "bust his nut". It's the last day of the fiscal year for him ... and it's also his last day working for that company. He was part of the 10% reduction that I wrote about mid-month. I'm not that overly concerned about how he'll manage ... it's Scott, after all. He's focused and driven and organized and has a great success rate so as long as he can get his foot in the right door, I know he'll be alright. It doesn't mean I don't worry about how he'll handle the pressure and stress but honestly, he's dealt with things in the past that I woulda thought to be too heavy of a load and he's none the worse for it. That being said, it does put me in a "remember when" frame of mind ...

• I remember meeting Scott the very first time for 2 seconds in Vegas when we were on different teams and thinking "this quiet, polite guy who is older than me but calls me 'ma'am' is NEVER gonna make it in sales".
• I remember having to write out his plan, when for a while it looked like he wouldn't make his number ... and I VIVIDLY remember happily banging out the "you're not on plan anymore" note.
• I remember rotating Scott, Andy, Torrey, and I so that at least one of us had the suite in any meeting I arranged. This was done because we would wind up hanging out together anyway, so we needed the space.
• I also remember that, since the four of us hung out all the time at any given location, I was told that apparently men and women can't do that without folks raising an eyebrow. I can't say if the others were ever questioned about our friendship, but I was. And my response was "I should be so lucky". (Actually, I know Scott fended off some not-so-great-speculation because we discussed what we'd heard. I just told him to respond with "did you know she's able to touch her forehead with her toes?" but he couldn't do it without blushing.)
• I remember dining at Tru (on July 11 in 2006) when the three of us realized we'd have to behave like adults, even 'tho Andy was cracking jokes trying to get me to snort with laughter.
• I remember buying the Paris guide to surprise him with at the Sales Awards Dinner, since I knew he had made club (something he didn't realize yet because there was a problem with the numbers) and being ... so damn proud of him when his name was shown on the screen.
• I remember hanging out with him and his kids in their hometown ... and having it dawn on me that I totally understood and respected him even more for having met his family.

I'm not saying we'll never spend time together again (because I don't think either of us will allow that to happen, especially now that he's moved to a city that's far easier for us to meet in) ... but I'm glad we created those memories. It still hurts "like a six-inch valley", 'tho.

Daffy

There's a particular Daffy Duck cartoon that just cracks me up - "Duck Amuck" . Daffy begins as starting in a musketeer-style cartoon, but the background scenery runs out almost immediately. Daffy then makes a plea "to whomever is in charge" to finish the background.

Suffice to say that he spends the entire strip adjusting as the artist draws him into stranger and funnier backgrounds. I always ... always ... crack up at 2:38. If you can, pause the cartoon at 2:41 - his expression is priceless.

Daffy's last line is "All right - enough is enough. This is the final ... th ... the very, very last straw. Who is responsible for this ... this ... ? I demand that you show yourself. Who are you, huh?"

Daffy's last line is my reaction to the news of WW2 Vet Mr. Marvin Schur's death in his home in Bay City, Michigan.

It seems that due to the bitter cold in his home town, it wasn't unusual for Mr. Schur to not go outside in Winter. It also seems that Mr. Schur had no family in the immediate vicinity to look out for him, and at 93, it's possible that Mr. Schur may have started to experience diminished mental capacity. Mr. Schur had a savings nest egg of more than $500,000 ... but Mr. Schur skipped a few payments to his local power company, in the total amount of around $1,000.

Possibly since Mr. Schur didn't go outside, any notices on his door would have gone ignored - but there's no indication that anyone even rang the doorbell. Instead of knocking on his door and finding out what the problem was, Bay City Power put a limiting device so that the money owed would be kept as low as possible. But no one walked Mr. Schur through the process of how to reset the limiting device. In fact, for now, it appears that no one even told Mr. Schur that such a device had been installed.

So Mr. Schur froze to death, under four layers of clothing, a heating pad and blankets in his own home. When Mr. Schur's body was found, icicles hung from the interior faucets home and windows throughout were frosted over ... from the inside.

I'll presume that Bay City Manager (and moral leper) Robert Belleman doesn't see the two-facedness in his comment that he was deeply saddened by Mr. Schur's death but adding too that neighbors have a responsibility to each other. So just because I've been seething for a few days, let me add in my best Daffy Duck rant - that Mr. Belleman - YOU were a neighbor of Mr. Schur. YOU managed the city in which Mr. Schur lived - and died. And you're absolutely totally 101% correct - YOU did have a responsibility to your neighbor.

And YOU, Mr. Belleman, closed the door.

Just as Daffy shouted "show yourself", there is a photograph of you, Mr. Belleman, on the Bay City website. (God bless the Internet, there's contact information there, too.) Mr. Belleman, you appear to be in your 30s or early 40s, and there is a ring on your hand that suggests you may have people in your life who care about you and whom you, presumably, care about. I wonder if you reach out to your in-laws, your parents, your siblings, your aunts and uncles each and every day. I wonder if you talk with your grocery store manager, your librarian, your gardener, your barber, your religious leaders, or even your neighbors each and every day. Or every third day. Every week? Because you know, life gets in the way sometimes, doesn't it Mr. Belleman?

And, while we're at it ... what's up with Bay City Electric Light and Power? Bay City EL&P is a business, I know. And they have a fiscal responsibility but - more than that - they have a moral responsibility because of the service they provide. I refuse to believe that an outstanding bill of $1,000 would have caused them to go bankrupt. And to think that it would have been so hard, while installing the limiting device, to knock on the door of their neighbor Mr. Schur to ask him why the bills had been unpaid (after 50+ years of being a customer) is just ... daffy.

Bay City Manager Robert V. Belleman
301 Washington Avenue
Bay City, MI 48708

Bay City Electric Light & Power
900 S. Water Street
Bay City, Michigan 48708

CBWTHOBSOBAC

There is an artist whose work I'm familiar with who signs off her letters and whatnot with "OBSOBAC" ... "officially been sat on by a cat". If you don't currently have or have never had a cat as a pet, this statement may seem odd. The rest of the cat-owning planet, however, totally gets it.

If you have a cat as a pet, the things you own have been sat on - even if you don't think they have been. That place on top of the refrigerator where you store large platters? OBSOBAC. The books on the speakers in the "spare room"? OBSOBAC. The box by the door that you'll bring out to be recycled? OBSOBAC. Your pillow on your bed that you know for a fact your cat has *never* *ever* jumped up on? Hahahaha - ohhhhh yeah - very OBSOBAC.

Ya' may remember from the first of the year that I've taken up knitting. This is mostly as a means of keeping my circulation going in my hands while various medications continue to lower my core body temperature ... and 'cause I've always wanted to know how to knit ... and I figured if I succeeded in learning how to knit and created something large enough, I could use it to wrap up with to keep warm.

Well - success!!!! I've completed my first knitting ... ermmm ... project. The goal was to just use the entire ball of yarn and see how big said-project would be. I started with 28 knots on my needle and about 18 rows in, I noticed I had 36 knots. More than mid-way through the project, 36 knots became 42 and that ended as 50. So the reason I keep referring to this as a "project" is that I cannot call it a "square". It's not even a rectangle, really. It's a ... blob with corners at one end.

What it also is, apparently, is cozy and warm on a kitties tushie because it has been OBSOBAC.

I finished it very very early on Sunday morning (or very very late on Saturday night, depending on your point of view), tied it off and set it on a dining room chair. Later that morning, I looked over and saw that what I had made, according to Minnie, was a cat butt warmer.

Hmmm ... I wonder what the market is for CBWs that have OBSOBAC?