No Accidents

I attended a client lunch yesterday with a few of our senior people and a few of theirs. We were invited to hear the President of one of the most respected international development agencies talk about girl power. How investing in girls pretty much guarantees a country's economy will improve.

Just look at Canada's medal count. See how many are won by the ladies. See what I mean? Girls rock.

Anyhow. That's not the point of the story.

So, we listen to the Prez's inspiring message. We eat our delicious lunch. And then we have some casual chit chat with other people at the table. Big table. Maybe 12 of us.

Across the table, one of the guys says to me.

Franny? Franny Glass?

Yes.

It's me. Insert name of high school boyfriend here.

Oh. my. god.

Everyone at the table stops talking.

Someone who I haven't seen in maybe 25 years, is seated at the same table as me. At an event that he was invited to about 15 minutes before it started.

Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.

Inspiring thought of the day

I haven't posted in a few days. Mostly because I've been pulling a spate of 14 hour days. But this little gem from my Buddhist home boy Jack Kornfield struck me as particularly prescient.

Peace to you, this day.


Praise and blame,
Gain and loss,
Pleasure and sorrow
Come and go like the wind.
To be happy,
Rest like a great tree
In the midst of them all.

Communication Week 2010

I have been having more than my share of difficult and awkward conversations recently. The harder I try to avoid conflict or hurt feelings or adding to people's workload, the more miserably I fail.

It feels crappy.

Sure there are plenty of mitigating factors that are influencing the dialogue -- everything from the global economic meltdown to a lean, mean creative-producing machine. But it's sent my "save the world" button into hyper-speed.

I want to hold everything and everyone over my head like the Grinch's sleigh, when his heart grows a billion sizes.

It's not going to happen. And trying actually makes things worse in some cases.

So I give up. Not in a nihilistic way. Not at all. But in a "I trust you, universe" kind of way.

I can't control the pieces. Hell, I don't even understand all the pieces. But I know that my intention is good. So maybe I'll just get out of my own way and let nature take its course.

Hopefully that will make this the end of what I've jokingly referred to as, Communication Week 2010.

Favourite Thing #8 -- Sunshine

I came to a startling revelation at 4:45 p.m. yesterday. The days are getting longer.

Here I was chopping some vegetables for my roasted vegetable hoo-ha and the sun was still shining. Hello Vitamin D.

This morning I can barely see the computer screen because that big glowy orb is reflecting off my screen. I'd rather seer my retina than put down the blinds, so sun-deprived did January make me.

Happy days are here again.

Framed

I went to the iDoctor yesterday.

Quite inexplicably, my distance vision has actually improved. Doc says this often happens as we age, which might explain why I'm straining under the stove light to read the directions on the pill bottle but I can spot an ocelot at 500 metres.

So I ordered new glasses. Who knows what the new frames look like? I could barely see myself in the mirror.