Don’t you love graveyard photos? I certainly do. So see what a day off will do for me? 
To match or not to match, that is the question. Every day (because I’ve been a member in the past) I get email notifications that “He’s interested! Someone has winked at you! You have five new matches!”. The winks are kind of creepy-can’t they think of another term for a passing look? A nod, perhaps? A fancy? So should I sign up, people? A similar system resulted in a one-year relationship in Atlanta (Creative Loafing personals…..) but otherwise people I’ve met through Match.com as well as eHarmony have not proved to be (one or the other) interested or interesting. Or both. Or neither.
There is a financial cost involved as well as a time commitment to sort through all the various responses to one’s post. It can be a little bit fun, the early-on emails and such. But do I really want to spend time and money on this? I’ll refer you back to another dating blog from last year (February 2009).
Pros: might result in a nice relationship, giving me someone to play with (movies, art, music, walks, and the like) and share meals with. Mr. Right might just be filling out a profile even as I write this, and is just the guy for me, waiting to find me on the internet. If I don’t sign up, we might never meet!
Cons: might be a waste of time and money. Might get some lying, criminal, sociopath whose story is plausible, then who-knows-what? Plus, it’s kind of embarrassing, at my age, to have someone be wickedly critical of one’s appearance. And we all know none of us is perfect any more, if we ever were. And I can be critical of myself without anyone’s help, thankyouverymuch.
Certainly, for me, the friends-setting-you-up method has been dismal as well, I’m sad to say. You’ve heard of the one-date wonder? I still believe that’s the best way to meet people, though, when there’s a mediating party who knows both individuals. At least somebody knows something about each prospect. But I’ve been divorced for more than twenty years now, and I wonder if there aren’t some stats out there somewhere that prove the longer one is single, the more likely one is to remain so. How to look that up, I wonder?
Oh, hell, I don’t know. Guess I will table this discussion and talk to myself about it later. I have things to DO! Meanwhile, all those winks and new matches will have to go on and find someone else to pick on.
OK, just where did last week go? Work orientation starts tomorrow! What a nice little break, even if it was so very short. Have gotten my gym costs down to around $30/visit; did a yoga class today, and I think I will be more sore from that than from Zumba. I am so glad none of you were there to watch me in Zumba mode. I’m sure it was a sight to see, but at least I stayed on my feet, except for tripping over the barre twice. The music is fun, and some people were pretty inspiring, and it’s a good overall workout. There are several YMCA organizations here in Nashville, and one can choose whichever is most geographically handy. They are all crowded at the moment, but that ought to change in a month or so. There are Y’s in Bellevue, Franklin, Green Hills, downtown, and Brentwood. Anywhere and everywhere.
My family has a history of YMCA involvement– (shouldn’t that get me a discount?)–starting with us working weekends at a YMCA outdoor center in the winter. They had built a little ski hill with a rope tow, and as soon as I learned to ski, I was allowed to teach the little ones. What an honor! The kids came and stayed in the cabins that were used for summer camp, and the place was owned by the West Hartford (Connecticut) YMCA. We had family quarters separately, unless an extra “counselor” was needed, and then I would fill in. Later, my mother would work as the camp nurse while my father was assistant director, during summer camp, when I was eleven or twelve. That was great, except it was a boys’ camp, so my brother got to be a camper for the entire summer, but I was left to my own devices. The good news was that I could wander about and pretty much do what I pleased: mess around with snakes or moss or pond water in the nature center, stitch up a pair of moccasins, practice shooting arrows at targets, or make lanyards and things with this stuff called GIMP. It was flat narrow plastic stuff that came on huge spools, and it was woven, kind of like macrame, into key holders, elaborate twisty designs, long necklaces for your whistle, stiff little bracelets. I must have learned some of my love of the outdoors there, because the place was simply lovely and explore-able. Hemlock forests, bogs, beaver dam, birds, canoeing and rowboating, swimming in a beautiful lake.
And working in the big industrial kitchen with Mary Gray, the best cook ever: amazing. She let me help with cinnamon rolls, pinwheels stuffed with savory meat, all kinds of desserts, jello salads (trendy). Mary made yeast rolls every day, from scratch, for around 250 people! I loved the tall stainless tables, the giant pots, the huge baking trays, the Hobart.
Though I longed to be a camper among campers, I knew I was lucky to be a privileged interloper. Had my first kiss there, at age thirteen. Josh Cousins, where are you now?
My father, one or two summers, had a great title: Trips Director! A small gang of boys and a couple of adults would head out to the wilderness with canoes and survival gear, and be gone for a couple of weeks, unshaven, unwashed, unfettered. It was a homecoming tradition that they would stash clean clothes somewhere, find a way to wash up, and present themselves glowing, tanned, triumphant, at the evening meal in the dining hall.
Wow, I digress. Big time. Reality: get scrubs out of storage, wash and get ready to wear. Clean Rumer’s ears and give her medication (yuck). Finishing touches on “pages”, a “task” which will only make sense to some of you. Sort through desk for overlooked important business buried in the rubble. Figure out best way to send a contribution to Haiti. FYI, my brother, Jon Pace, has been going over to Haiti for several years as a missionary, building schools and the like. His organization is getting together a shipping container of food to send over, and this is their web address, should you be inclined to donate: http://lwmpb.org. 
The back page. One of twenty-two, or three. The project’s title: What Love Is.
Hi people,
I’ve started a new blog just for photos…..it’s called http://keeppace.wordpress.com/
Check it out if you like!
Les
Warner Park frosty morn
Today was the last day of my job as a clinical liaison for an infusion company, where I made some very good friends and learned some new skills, and in which I did a fair amount of floundering. My job expectations–and my higher-ups acknowledged this–were a shifting landscape during my short tenure. So there were some frustrations, but all in all, I had a good time and made some “inroads” into the market assigned to me. Oh, man, they were some new tricks for this old dog. But, I had it from a reliable source that I had “earned my stripes,” and that was high praise. I left satisfied, optimistic, well-fed with cake, and, I confess, a couple of hours early.
So I have a few days off between jobs, and I plan to have lunch with an esteemed former colleague, take poor Rumer to the vet (she has the flappy painful ear trouble again), see my hair goddess, Stephanie, go look at the Frist show, scope out some smaller galleries around town, have a pedicure, do some art work of my own, hit the gym a few times. I joined the YMCA (me and a million others bursting out of the new years resolution gates); I’m signed up for a three months’ membership. At this point, each trip to work out has cost sixty bucks. I’m trying to get it down to a more reasonable rate by GOING MORE OFTEN!!! You see a lot of nice skinny people who apparently have been going to the gym for quite a while, and I’m sure my sense of being hated is mostly paranoia, or just that I haven’t gotten my self-esteem around the shape I’m in.
It’s going to be a good week, one to enjoy, take a deep breath, regroup, and try to get used the idea of starting work at 6:30 AM. They’ll break me in gently with a week of orientation days that begin at 8. I’m looking forward to working in rehab again, as well as taking care of wounds. Some people wrinkle up their noses when they talk about wound care, as if it’s kind of weird for someone to actually LIKE doing that. Yep, I do like it, and I have good instincts for what a wound needs to get better, as well as theoretical knowledge of the science behind wound healing. So say ick if you want to, I’m more creeped out by the smell of a parking garage. And there are some medical things that I can’t handle, too.
I thought about what I would do if I didn’t like the new job, and you know, if it’s not fun, I’ll find something else. But I think it’s going to be just fine.
An interesting email popped up last evening, and in it, I found an invitation to a global peace meditation set for 01-02-2010 at 11 AM. Because I’m a believer, and I’m not the only one, I sat quietly and contemplated the proclamation and its power. I know it’s test is not big enough to read here, because for one thing, it’s copyrighted, and also because I wanted you to go to the site and read or listen to it there. A link to the website, www.peaceplanetproject.com takes off in many directions via other links, to websites dedicated to the promotion of peace on our planet. There is work by Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Thich Nhat Hanh, and other ambassadors of spirituality and peace. Here’s a quote from Marianne Williamson: ”In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it.”
So, I’m operating under the belief that every person’s attitude and work and thoughts matter in the global realm somehow. I support the campaign to create a Department of Peace in our country. What a wonderful idea, no?
So, as I sit here looking out into the woods, blue sky beyond, watching a pileated woodpecker floating from tree to tree, ready to move on with my day, I think I may have done something worthwhile by having my own peaceful meditation, taking a vow of peace, and sharing with you the notion that we all have the power to make a difference.
May 2010 bring peace to planet Earth and to all beings.
At the end of last week a nice woman called me, and she wanted to talk to me about a wound care nurse position at a rehab hospital here, and it sounded very interesting, so I went and met with her yesterday. A little negotiating and lots of questions and answers later, she offered me a job and I accepted. So today I gave notice at my present job, and fortunately I saw most all of the key players I needed and wanted to tell before the news became widely known. It almost couldn’t have gone better. I am just kind of wow-ed and grateful and excited about a job for which I will use my expertise and skills, even though I am glad I tried something altogether new and foreign to my experience. And as my friend’s boss said, “I’m not in love with the _________ business, even though I’ve been in it for forty years. I’m in love with the good people I’ve met and worked with”. So I’m thankful for the connections and friendships I’ve made, lo, these past five months, and I’m having a pang or two because of them. And also because I’ve never left a job after only a few months. It feels a little like giving up, but give me a minute and I’ll be over that. I’m not going far. Still on campus! Which reminds me, I need to ask where I’m to park. And I wonder if I’ll have to wear scrubs again, not my preference, though I can get over that, too. The huge upside, besides being back in my field of knowledge, is working three twelve hour shifts a week. Think what I’ll do with all those days off!!
When I worked in rehab years ago in Vermont, I was humbled and amazed every day by being able to contribute to the process of healing after stroke, severe injury, brain trauma. And a lot of people were wounded in the skin along with being profoundly ravaged by whatever their locus of illness was, so I became interested in how wounds heal, and how to help heal them. I became the resident novice expert on wounds, and decided to take myself to school for a certification, because it seemed such a good fit in the rehab setting. I did get certified, after a fashion, (there was no rush! just because it took me two years…..) but there was no position forthcoming! No one had promised me a thing; I did it all on my own and nurtured my own fantasy! A few years later, I officially worked in wound care, and loved it. But it wasn’t rehab. And when I moved back here to Nashville, I couldn’t find a suitable role for a CWOCN. Until now. So wish me luck, and you don’t even have to remind me the universe has given me a huge generous gift. I promise I’ll do my best to pay it forward and stay mindfully steeped in gratitude.
My new favorite: Research findings now support common sense…….
Look! It’s snowing on my blog!
