Blueberries and Rain Ponchos

My niece is the nanny for Harlan and Elias – two adorable, sweet boys.  She’s been their nanny since they were babies…and she’s a good one.

To keep them busy…in the rain… she brought them to my husband’s garden to pick berries – blueberries and raspberries.  Sometimes nannies and moms have to create from what’s available, improvising and using imagination. 

Farmer Frank’s farm is a small patch in the city, and despite the summer rain, she found oversized “Disney” rain ponchos for the boys that she and her husband had used on their vacation, put up their hoods, and brought them over.

 

A couple memorable quotes while picking:

"Wow, look at that white cucumber!" Elias, checking out the summer squash.

And, "Farmer Frank makes the best raspberries I have ever had! He needs to tell Daddy how to grow a farm."

20 Seconds of Insane Courage

“Sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage

and I promise you something great will come of it.”

I didn’t see Matt Damon’s movie, I Bought a Zoo, but I saw the tagline above and latched onto it.  I think there is truth to it.

As I’ve aged, I have more fear than I did when I was young.  I have less self-confidence.  On the one hand, you’d think you’d have less fear and more self-confidence as more went right over time than wrong, but it doesn’t seem to work that way.  Perhaps we dwell on what went wrong over time or didn’t work out as we hoped or planned, so it begins to take us down a few notches, making us more fearful and less confident.

I love listening to people looking backward at the turning points in their lives and decisions made that changed the entire direction of where they were heading…. into the direction they seem so suited for.  Sometimes, it seems like one inspired thought or chance encounter, or 20 seconds of insane courage, is the pivotal point of change that guides someone in the “right” direction.  Twenty seconds of insane courage probably present to each of us many times over our lifetimes.  Do we typically step forward into the fear or stand rooted?

My husband, quite profoundly, believes music wasn’t Bono’s “path.”  He thinks the music just brought him to his real purpose – his activism.  U2’s music created the platform and the notoriety that allowed him to make deep and meaningful changes in our world.  What if he never lived in the twenty seconds of insane courage and never made the attempt to perform and play his music?  What if he went to work for the post office because it was a good, stable job at that time and a more realistic thing to do? 

In Steve Jobs’ biography, it describes the third partner who started Apple with him and Steve Wozniak.  Panicked, the third partner backed out early on and was given $2,300 for his participation.  If he had stayed, his ownership percentage would have been worth $2.6 billion in 2010!  He let his fear drive him and backed out on the risky venture.  The cost of decisions made isn’t always as clear as this. 

When I stand at the precipice, I am hopeful I will dig deep inside myself and live in that twenty seconds of insane courage.  Being conscious of it might give me the strength I need to live it, stand in that space, and jump off. 

Photo:  helicopter view of the Grand Canyon

Buddy the Elf

I have a colleague who, when she sees it’s me calling her, answers with a different phrase every time:  “Pat’s Pizza!” “Welcome to WalMart!” “Uncle Leo?”

Every time, I laugh.  It’s like our secret joke.

Unrelated, after 6 hours sitting in car dealerships one Saturday and getting a little punchy, as phones were ringing in the showroom around us, my son said, “Buddy the Elf!  What’s your favorite color???”  -- a line by Will Farrell in Elf when he was answering his Dad’s phone in his posh New York City office. 

I burst out laughing.  Remember, I was punchy after 6 hours there.  And then I knew what I had to do.

That Monday my colleague didn’t come into the office; her baby was sick.

Eagerly, I waited until Tuesday.  I had laughed ahead of my new joke all weekend by myself!  I emailed her, “Would you please ring me,” the way my boss emails me….but never for a joke.

She did and I laid it on her, “Buddy the Elf! What’s your favorite color??”

She too burst out laughing.  She’s the funny one, not me.  I caught her completely off guard and that’s when a joke is best, plus….her baby had been sick the prior day, the man she works with had slammed her the moment she had arrived that morning at 7:30 a.m. and she was not feeling very happy.  

And I changed her day!  

We laughed a full 10 minutes, moving on to other scenarios….like her buying me a velvet elf hat on Amazon and my suggesting the entire elf-girl-Herbie’s-girlfriend-in-Rudolph look with the triangle shaped velvet skirt to go with the hat and the soft shoes that curled up at the toes.  

Funny.  Silly.  Sometimes it’s the trivial that can turn an entire day around.