30 May 2012

Theme of Bad Moods?


Life is good so why am I so cranky?

The theme this week seems to involve me going into a bad mood then pulling myself back out it again.
Sometimes it’s stupid little things that bug me, like an uncalled for remark. Other times it’s bigger things like cleaning up other people’s messes as if I made them myself.

But the key to staying in a bad mood or getting out of it lies in my thinking.

I stay in the bad mood when I go down the road of thoughts such as, “Well, that isn’t fair, she should have done such and such;” or “How is this my problem?” or “I’m so tired of blah, blah, blah...” ha-ha! And the list goes on.
Everything is about control isn’t it? If things could simply be the way I think they should be, I’d be happy, wouldn’t I? Or would I? Probably not...

Life has been great after 4 years of soul crushing beat downs. I want to feel good and enjoy my great life now, while I’m in it. I know, for me, that I need to look at the stuff that I do appreciate in my life. There are always things to appreciate.

Trying to be in control will make us crazy. When I still had a television, I used to love watching ‘Hoarders’ because 1 – it always motivated me to go through my clutter and chuck it and 2 – it really made me see how crazy we can make ourselves in our need to be in control. It’s like an addiction. Actually, I think it is an addiction.
Back in April 2012 I wrote this in my journal, The “trying to change what is” addiction. April 2010 - All addictions start as a way to try to control what you can control in order to compensate for what you cannot control. But what you can control becomes out of control.
- Trying to change the system, change other people’s behaviour, change the weather. In our frustration that nothing has changed we hoard, smoke, drink and drug too much, we self-medicate in some way.
- Accept what is – accepting yourself as you are – accepting others as they are.
- The more I focus on what I don’t want the more of “don’t want” I attract.
- Don’t think of what I can’t have, create what I want
- What do I want? In this minute, for this day, for my job, for my life, for my relationships
- In silence – I can find my questions and my answers

I have a manual for myself of reminders of important thoughts I’ve had. It is filled with epiphanies like the addiction to control. It has spiritual dreams I’ve had; info on my power (totem) animals, cycles in my personal years in Numerology , personal manifestoes, and notes from readings that I’ve received. My thoughts are like a skip on a record {vinyl, of course :)}sometimes. I can get stuck in a thought instead of looking at a full experience. Stuck in the skip instead of enjoying the full song.
In the rush of life , in stress and overwhelm, it is so easy to get off track and stuck in unproductive thoughts. I’ll try anything to keep myself moving back to my center.

Julia Cameron, in Walking in This World, mentions creating a first aid kit for our moods. You know, a box that we fill with the stuff that will improve our moods, change our thinking, get us out of the funk. In my box would be pictures of my cats; recordings of songs by Pharaoh Sanders, “High Life”; Earth, Wind & Fire, “Turn it into Something Good”; Sounds of Blackness, “I’m Going all the Way”; and their full album, “The Evolution of Gospel.” And a multitude of other songs from various artists. What would you put in your box?

EY

17 May 2012

Sidebar - Chatty Cathy's


I know a few women named Cathy and none of them are all that chatty :)

A girlfriend of mine ‘King’ said to me, “sometimes when I feel too drained by other people’s needs I want to say, ‘I am not your leader!’” ha-ha!

Here are a few of the types of chatters who drain my energy:


A - The Horror Story Triplets

One will mention a horror story in the news and the other two will jump in with an endless supply of related stories and similar stories and stories from their country of birth, and stories about bad things that happened to their friends, and workplace accidents and… excuse me while I go slit my wrists now before we all die in some horrific way.


B - The “I have 3 anecdotes for your comment” person also known as the “snow plough” conversationalist.
That was the day Tony mentioned to me that he heard my cat had died and he managed to offer his condolences. Lauri walked up in the middle and said, “you’re cat died? Yeah my mother’s dog died and she was devastated. Then her cat died and she still hasn’t stopped crying and I don’t know what I’ll do when it’s time to lose my bunny. I love my bunny. He’s my little pal. He comes up on my bed and tries to nibble my toes …”
I stop her with, “well, I’ve got to get back.”

The snow plough conversationalist talks with a level of anxious, mile-a-minute frenzy that
1) doesn’t give you a chance to participate in the conversation
2) overwhelms you with information and images that makes you realize you have an emergency that you just remembered you have to deal with NOW!

The snow plough has to make sure they take the time to tell you every thing they think about well, everything!


C - The “don’t stop reading on my account” person
, who proceeds to ask you questions while you’re reading. After reading the same sentence over and over, you close your book/ turn off your e-reader and she says, “No honestly I don’t want to interrupt you.”
Well I can’t read and answer questions at the same time.


D - The “unsolicited advice” person. This person asks an innocent question then gives you unsolicited advice based on your answer. I’ve had a few people who have given me that stunned, head and body pushes back, look when I’ve come out and said, “Listen, I didn’t ask for your advice. You asked me a question and I answered it.”


E - The “I always have a problem that needs to be solved by you” person. Except they ask for you advice but have all the reasons why your advice won’t work.


F - And their cousin, “I always have the same problem that needs to be discussed repeatedly” person


G - And her brother, “I tell the same stories over and over and…” person



H - The “we’ve just met and we’re best-friends” person also known as the overly familiar person. Now some people you click with but the clicking is always both ways and you both know it. I don’t mean those people. I mean the people that you may or may not like with time but you need the time to see if you will like or not like them.


Anyone out there in the interwebs have any examples of their own? Please share, I’d love to hear them.

EY

Silence




I’ve always wanted to do a silent retreat. From the first time I ever heard it existed, I’ve wanted to do one. I have a feeling I’ll probably become addicted to them.

I’m a person who thrives in silence. Especially because my work life is so filled with constant chatter. I work with all men by day and if you think women are chatty, we’ve been sold a bill of goods. Ha-ha! My part time job is also a chat-fest. No matter what job I am at, people always want to know what I am doing in that moment and if they don’t ask about that then they have to tell me something random. I’m not always interested.

I’m not an idle chit-chat kind of person. I have no use for it. I have no patience for it. I think it’s a time filler and I could be doing better things with my time. I also believe that if you have nothing worthwhile to say then don’t say anything. It may sound cranky but not everyone’s a chitchat person. A little bit of silence never hurt anyone.

There are so many reasons why people engage in idle chit-chat. It’s a way to avoid the silence. For many people it’s uncomfortable to be with someone and not talk. Some people feel that they’re being rude if they don’t talk. Some people don’t understand that you can be connected in silence with a simple smile. Some people just love the sound of their own voices. Some people are bored and want you to be their entertainment. Some people are trying to get you to like them …

For me, the constant chatter drains me. I’m a good listener, a great listener actually, and it’s exhausting being a great listener. I empathize with what I hear, I feel it emotionally and physically. I have anxiety and worry for the person I am listening to if it’s a troubled story. I feel heavy in my shoulders if the chatter is just foolishness. It’s all energy.

I was raised to be seen and not heard. I’m of that generation. Being seen and not heard, something I perfected, meant I did a lot of listening. I knew a lot about the adults, things that I shouldn’t have known at my age, but I was so good at being quiet, they’d forget that I was there. And if they’d look over at me to see if I was listening I’d busy myself in some way or not show any facial reaction, to make it seem like I didn’t understand what I was listening to. I literally was raised to be a good listener.

It’s hard now, though, as an adult, and I almost need to shake it off, shake that energy out. It’s hard to explain. Part of it is because I’ve actually never analyzed it, I just know that it drains me.

I found myself at one point in 2003, feeling down in the dumps for an extended period of time, subsequently being diagnosed with depression and refusing to go on the meds (for a year minimum). I always go through cycles/seasons where I need more time to myself and I need to cocoon and recharge to be healthy. In 2002/2003, that season turned into an entire year. It wasn’t healthy anymore. I made the decision that it was my thinking that got me into this trouble so I’d have to use my thinking to get me back out of it.

I took a hard look at the people in my life, what they gave me, what I felt they took away from me. We can really spend an entire lifetime doing what everybody else wants in the name of maintaining relationships. I looked at how much I loved the people in my life. Was the love strong enough for me to continue the way things were? Was the love strong enough to commit to discussing with them the changes I needed for us to remain in each others lives? I became more honest about how I felt. And most importantly, I became more precious about my time.

My time. I’m not going to leave my house to sit at your house to watch TV. I can stay home and watch the shows I actually want to see. I’m not going to suffer through another dinner with friends of yours who I’m not in love with (not even in like with)if that’s the only way I can spend time with you. I’m not going to come spend time with you on your work break to have to sit through a thousand and one people coming up to talk to you because they just have to tell you something that they could have told you all day long. And you don’t bother to say, “Listen, come see me later, I’m with my friend Shelley who I never get to see.”

My time. Hah, Depression made me learn to put myself first in My Life. I’m not going to do everything your way so you feel great and I feel like an exhausted piece of shit. My life.

I’m such a firm believer that illness is an indication that change needs to happen in our lives. The gift of illness is like a decluttering. With my stomach problems when I was a teenager, my doctor a stomach specialist, told me to speak up for myself otherwise I’d be sick for the rest of my short life. Because I wouldn’t live long with those stomach problems that I had.

In 1991, My Naturopath asked me after I’d been hospitalized for 2 weeks with 3 types of rashes all over my body, “What or who is getting under your skin? What’s making your blood boil that’s turning your skin into 3 rashes?”

And in 2000, after two years of getting colds where my ears would fill with liquid and I couldn’t hear, I finally started to ask myself, “What do I not want to hear?”

Today, Idle chit chat is one of the things I don't want to hear. lol

The thing about listening to others all the time is that, at some point, I can no longer hear that voice in my head. You know that voice? She’s so quiet. She whispers and she only whispers once and her whisper is connected to my gut. Somehow her whisper yanks me in my gut , untangles the knot, and creates a subtle energy within me that makes me nod my head once and I know what I need to do in a surefooted, tunnel vision, focused way. She brushes over my mounting fear when I’ve reached my limit in a situation and burn a bridge. Sometimes the only way you can leave or change is by burning that bridge, leaving yourself with no choice. She whispers “don’t worry I’ll lead you through this. Just listen.”

When I make the space to stop listening to every chatty Cathy, I create the room within me to hear myself.

EY

John Francis, a Pisces like me, made me think about listening and silence. 17 years of not talking?


09 May 2012

Grieving a Death or a Loss


Keep a journal pertaining to the loss. (I kept a journal for an entire year after my mom passed away.)

Write about how you feel on any given day, emotions will fluctuate.
Write about how you are coping.
Set some goals, some promises
Create new rituals for milestones, anniversaries etc.

I still haven't read that journal I kept after my mom passed away. I don't know when I will but I know where it is.

EY

Before and After



I recently saw a picture of Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter who is now 5 years old. Remember Anna Nicole? She was a bit of a train wreck and yet there was something really likeable about her. I remember being really upset about her death. One, because she left a motherless baby and two, because her son had died less than 5 months before she did. No matter what the media said about her, they couldn’t dispute the fact that she loved her son as the closest person to her in her life. The whole ending of their story made me really sad.

I know the grief that you feel when you lose a loved one in the parent/ child category of deaths. That first year of grieving is a kind of brutal that is so raw and filled with emotional triggers. You have to go through everything for the first time, your first Christmas without your mom, your first birthday etc. It’s any wonder that Anna Nicole didn’t make it through that first year, or if anything were to happen, that was the time. The years after the first year are hard too but they are a different hard.

Some how when my Mom passed away, not having anyone to provide me with any concrete guidance on how to deal with the grieving process, I decided to keep a journal for that entire first year. I started the journal going back to how I was informed that my mom had died, through the week I spent in Montreal getting her affairs in order. And continued through the milestones of my first Christmas, my first birthday, her birthday and Mother’s day...
I wrote in my journal when I woke up out of nowhere at 4 o’clock in the morning to cry. I wrote letters to my mother. I wrote anything pertaining to coping. How funny friends become in your grief.

We are a society who doesn’t know how to grieve or how to handle others in their grief. I felt like some of my friends disappeared because they were scared that what I had was contagious and they would lose a parent too. Most likely, they didn’t want to think of the mortality of their own parents. Some friends couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do all the same things I’d always been available to do. I couldn’t go to movies in that first year. I couldn’t sit still in a movie seat. I needed to pace, to be in motion, my concentration was out of whack. I liked going to parties though. I liked parties because I could be around other people and not feel the pressure of one on one interactions. (One on one interactions were fraught with expectations, it seemed, and I didn’t have it to give.)

I have a friend “Bee” who used to have these all night parties where all the apartments on his floor were open. You could walk in and out of everyone’s apartments. There were musical instruments set up in one apartment, a projection screen with movies and images set up in another apartment, weed smokers in another apartment... I was a regular at those parties and would get there around 10 at night and wouldn’t leave until 8 or 9 the next morning. Between the all night jam sessions of these crazy talented musicians, the dancing and the quality of recorded music being played, the people, you could drink or not drink, smoke weed or not smoke weed. These were authentic “grown folks” parties. There were no brawls or thefts or weapons or cops breaking up anything. There was no drunken or stoned out behaviour. These were grown folks who showed up for a nice time and had one without any of the pressures or drama.

After my mom died everything in my life had the division of what happened before she died and what happened since she died. Obviously “the Before Mom’s death” Shelley was different from “the After Mom’s death” Shelley. I spent many painful mother’s days and mom’s birthdays not knowing during the build up to those days how I was going to feel. I have a girlfriend, “Vannie”, who for years, spent every St Patrick’s day with me because it was the day before my mother’s birthday. We partied like it was St Patrick’s day but we had the unspoken knowledge that it was more than that. To this day, I send her an email every St Patrick’s day to tell her I love her and I remember what she did for me.

To help someone through their grief, we don’t have to be available every single day. We can pick a day and be consistent with that day. That’s what I learned from Vannie.

It has taken me a good ten years to get out of the fog of the pain. Better yet, it’s taken me ten years before I was ready to look at my mother’s life and death from a different angle. The not knowing how I’m going to feel on her birthday, each year is a bit much. The overwhelm of not having a mother to gift on Mother’s day is, ack, it sucks!

I don’t remember where I heard it, probably an Oprah episode. Didn’t Oprah tell us mostly everything? :) Someone was talking about the values and rituals we carry forward in our lives and how we do them because they are learned and we don’t necessarily notice if they actually work for us or where they came from.

There was an anecdote about the three generations of women who when they made a roast beef they would cut off the edges before they put them in the oven. The daughter asked her mother, “why do you cut off the edges? Does it change the flavour?”
The mother answered, “I don’t know, my mother always did that so that’s what I do”
And she asked her mother and her mother asked her mother and the answer was, “I never had a casserole dish big enough to fit the entire roast so I had to cut off the edges before I roasted it”

That anecdote made me really think about changing my rituals and what I wanted my rituals to be and made me think about how I could take more control over mother’s day. I took control by adopting a mother for mothers’ day. For several years, I bought a gorgeous expensive plant with beautiful flowers for a woman who has all sons and doesn’t know what it’s like to have a daughter. The hug? The hug!

This year I’m choosing a single mother, friend of mine. Her two children aren’t teenagers yet and all of her money is used for practical purposes. She works hard and tries to give her kids as many opportunities as her salary can allow. I’m going to get her a gift card for a massage at a well known spa in Toronto. It makes me feel good to make a mother feel good in honour of my mother. I also know that my mother wouldn’t want me to be living in pain

EY

Adopt a Mother for Mother's Day


Find a mother who could use a pick me up. Who couldn’t really?
Give her a mother’s day present in honour of your deceased mother.
It’s a nice way to bring joy to yourself, to the recipient, and to the memory of your mother

“This gift is just as much for me as it is for you.” That’s what I tell the recipient of my mom’s mother’s day present.

EY

07 May 2012

Maybe This Is the Best


I’m a tweaker, I’m never really satisfied with the way things are. You know, my life would be better if I could lose about 20lbs, work out daily, be committed to my Qigong and Kundalini Yoga practice, write daily, complete my novel. Oh if only I could be neater, keep a cleaner apartment, have a fail-safe system for well, EVERYTHING! (rolls eyes)


I can drive myself crazy with all the things I didn’t do, haven’t done, could do better. My life would be so much better... but would it? There’s always one more thing to fix, one other thing that is missing.


What’s brought this up is that lately life has been pretty good for me. My really difficult work issues have been resolved, my debts are being paid down – one by one, life at home is calm, I’m no longer in physical pain. I’ve been through so many trying times emotionally and physically and now that things are good, I’m still a bit scared of any bad that may be around the corner. I want to enjoy this good but there’s still that part of me who has to brace herself for the worst case scenario. Then, on top of that, I want to enjoy this good but if I could tweak this situation a little, well...


I think it was Nora Ephron who wrote that when you’re 50 you’ll wish you still had the thighs you hated when you were 30. Isn’t that the way for all aspects of our lives? In retrospect that extra 5lbs wasn’t as bad as this extra 20. Doing daily Kundalini yoga isn’t as great as the long walks I used to regularly take with my gal-pal.


Maybe this is the best anything is going to be in my life right now. Can I learn to love my life exactly as it is? Can I learn to accept my so-called fat, my messy, my imperfect and laugh anyway, enjoy my life anyway, love anyway? Can I remind myself that in 10 or 20 years I’ll wish I had enjoyed myself more?


There’s a piece of advice I always give to people who are in between jobs and are searching frantically. I tell them to try to take a bit of time everyday to simply enjoy all this free time you have. I know that bills loom and you need groceries and all that practical stuff but when you do return to work, the only thing you’ll wish is that you did more of the things you enjoy when you had the time.


Of course we all know that the advice we give to others is usually the message we need to hear the most. This issue is so huge for me, enjoying my life right now. Go out anyway, even if I think I look fat in this outfit. Write a blog entry on my lunch break and call that daily writing, even if it’s still not novel work. Simply try to be a little more satisfied in this moment without thinking about how I’d tweak it to make it better. Because, really, when the bad times or hard times show up again, as part of the cycle, while I am trying to dig myself out of it, I’ll also be wishing that I enjoyed the good times a little stronger when they were here.



EY

05 May 2012

Liebster Blog Award

My EY Page Blog was nominated for an Award by the lovely Bonnie Vesely at Just Venture Coaching

The Liebster, from what I understand, is a way to highlight bloggers with less than 200 followers. It is a pay it forward award and the responsibilities are as follows:

1. Thank the one who nominated you by linking back.
2. Nominate five blogs with fewer than 200 followers.
3. Let your nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites.
4. Add the award image to your site.

One of my goals for 2012 was to find myself a writing community. Thanks to Robert Lee Brewer's April Platform Challenge I've become a part of an active online writing community that we call "MNINB Platform Challengers."

It's been a little overwhelming on the social media front. Because of the challenge, I now have a Twitter account and a Facebook page. I never thought I'd ever have a Twitter account, turns out I like Twitter. Who knew? I've got a whole lot of new blogs that I've subscribed to from the MNINB group and I'm working BIGTIME on time management. ha-ha! All this activity keeps my mind on the writing so what more can I ask for?

As an aside, I love that Robert's Blog is called, "My Name is Not Bob" because the EY Page stands for, "Shelley with an EY." How many people out there have pet peeves about their names? :)

As soon as I find five blogs to nominate I shall mention them here.
And Thank you Bonnie for the kind words about my writing. :)

EY


03 May 2012

Baby Massage

Absolutely Beautiful!

Woman's Work


I recently got my own office at my day job. Well, I share it with my boss’ assistant but he has so many meetings that he’s hardly ever there. Being moved to my own office has really changed my attitude. I’m a whole lot less cranky. In fact, I’m downright happy!

When I was down in the main office, I was the go to person for everything. If a contractor, security, the mailman, housekeeping, Joe Blow came into the office, they came to me first. If the phone rang, the expectation was that I would answer it despite the fact that we have two other extensions.

As is the case in every workplace, we have more and more work to do and the same amount of hours to do the work in. When there are three other guys ( I work with all men) in the office you would think that one of them could take it upon themselves to answer the ringing phone especially when I look busy. What they do instead is they look over at me as if to say, “isn’t she going to answer that?”

That’s what started to make me cranky.

I’ve never worked with so many people who receive so many personal phone calls at work in my entire working career. I can honestly count on one hand the number of times I’ve received personal calls at work . Three of them, on Sept 11th, 2011 because I didn’t have internet access, didn’t have a radio and it was important to know if the world was ending. It really did feel that way. All my friends and family know not to call me at work, if they even have my work phone number, because they’ve been told, “Don’t call me at work.”

In this day and age, you can contact me on my land-line, my cell phone, by email (I have two personal accounts), on Facebook and you know, leave a message. But call me at work? No! I’m at work to, you know, to work.
A couple of years ago I broached the subject with my co-worker that I would appreciate it if he answered the phone half the time. “It would be different ,” I said, “if all the calls were work-related but half the calls are personal and a lot of them are yours. I don’t see any reason why I should have to stop what I am doing to answer all the calls to say, it’s for you.”

He told me that he looks at the call display to see if it’s for him and if it’s not he doesn’t answer.
“Well no, that’s not entirely true because I’ve sat here and watched you not look at the phone repeatedly.”
“Fine,” he said with THAT tone of voice, “I’ll tell my wife to stop calling.”

Um, in what part of this discussion did I say that your wife calls too much?

We had a silent moment and I backed off because I didn’t want to turn it into a war especially since we get along so well. And I tried a new tactic. If I saw that a call was for him, instead of answering, I’d say, “it’s for you.” Something about that change made him realize that yes, it was true, he wasn’t looking at the phone, ever. And he improved somewhat. He started looking at the phone sometimes. Especially on the second ring when he realized I might not be answering because it was for him. Of course there was still the case of everybody else’s personal calls.

With my move to my new office, I still have an extension to the main office but now I have my own direct number. If a call comes through on the main office number that looks like it might be for me, I answer it, but 90% of the calls I no longer answer. The guys now have the responsibility of answering the phone and there is some serious grumbling about it.

It’s become like an episode of ,”The week the women left,” a show where the women of a small community are transported to a week’s vacation sans children and their husbands are left to fend for themselves taking care of all they’ve taken for granted. It’s a lovely world when everything is automatically done for you. It’s a rude awakening when you find out, through experience, that it’s darn time consuming when you have to do it yourself.
A couple of my guys have asked me, ‘Don’t you answer the phone anymore?”

“I answer it if it’s for me but it doesn’t make sense for me to answer the phone to put it on hold and yell down the stairs to tell you that it’s for you, especially when it’s a personal phone call.”

“OH!”

Don’t even get me going on what we deem “women’s” work or a “secretary’s” job…

It’s one of the stories of my life actually, that expectation that I’ll take care of everything and know my place. I do for a time, until I get tired or I take a good hard look at the unfairness of a situation and I speak up. My assertiveness always pisses off the other person, the person called on their actions or lack of actions, as the case usually is. But I have to speak up.

It reminds me of the first time I finally spoke up within my family. When I was assigned all the housework at 13 years old. My step-dad would come home and survey the house to see what I ‘d done or more appropriately, what I hadn’t done yet. And he’d tell me, “you haven’t cleaned the bathroom yet, you haven’t cleaned the kitchen yet…” He was my first micro-manager. Lol No wonder I can’t tolerate being micromanaged, but I digress.

In my meekness I suffered in silence for months but then even I couldn’t take it anymore and I spoke up. I stood in the living room while he and my mother were watching television and I waited until they noticed me.
“What do you want?” he asked with that tone of voice.

I looked at the carpet and said softly, “If you don’t pay me to do the housework, I’m not going to do it anymore.”
The volume of the television was quickly turned down and the stepfather said, “What did you just say?”
“If you don’t pay me to do the housework, I’m not going to do it anymore. You come home and all you ever notice is what I haven’t done yet.”

Then came the yelling and swearing and the accusations of being an ingrate and troublemaker and how they could never simply have a nice quiet night at home because I ruined everything. Everything!

I was sent to my room with a, “get out of my face,” and had to sit in silence listening to all the qualities that proved there was something wrong with me. As I listened though, there was a little smile mixed in with my thundering heartbeat because I’d said what I wanted to say despite how completely terrifying it was. The yelling and complaining ended with something along the lines of, “I’ll show her if she thinks she’ll get away with this.”
The next step of course is that I knew I had to actually follow through on my word. And for a week I didn’t do the dishes, the dusting, didn’t clean the bathroom or any of the other chores I’d been assigned to do. With a few more days of bad moods and worse words, they caved and started to pay me.

Now, I have to say that I understood why they had assigned me the chores but the unfairness was that I’d inadvertently found out that Step dad’s daughters, who were both younger than me, received a larger allowance and received “extra” money from my mother. That I Could Not Tolerate! So yes they paid me to be their live in maid and complained to anyone who would listen that I MADE them pay me. But it taught me a fine lesson.

At work, for the first time ever, it has been someone else who saw the unfairness in my situation and fought my battle by moving me. It was my boss’s boss (the big guy) who’d come into the main office, watched what was going on and asked, “How the hell does she ever get any work done with all those interruptions?”

Right? I told the big guy recently that I am so thrilled that every time I see him I’ll give him four kisses, one for each cheek. Ha-ha! (I got that joke from Charlie Parker who kissed Richard Nixon’s cheeks four times.)
It’s still not resolved, I’m sure. There will probably be more complaining before the guys finally realize that maybe they should receive their personal phone calls at home or suck it up and answer the phone since I’m not going to. Time will tell, and I will continue to state the facts… I wasn’t hired to take messages from your creditors, your dentist & doctor, your wife, or your friend who wants to know if you’ve gone on break yet so he can meet you on it.

EY

26May12 - Watching Ken Burns Jazz and the quote is actually from Duke Ellington. He was honoured by the then President Nixon at the White House and in accepting the honour kissed Nixon 4 times. When Nixon asked him, "Why 4 times." Duke said, "once for each cheek." :)