Feng Shui Your Ride!

Gee, Feng Shui for a car?  I just can’t see it, even though I do try to keep an open mind.  For instance, my BFF Bernice (she always says that while she appreciates being my best friend, she frankly worries what the other “F” stands for) rotated her dining room table because her interior designer said it was better feng shui for the room.  And, Lord knows, Bernice is making a lot more money than I am, and has classier dinner parties to boot, so who am I to argue?  Still……

I know someone else who got paid good money for installing a Bagua (Pa Kua) Mirror in a mutual friend’s home as a way of manipulating the negative outside energies.   Talk about negative outside energy – she would have been better off with a divorce lawyer if you ask me, but I suppose buying a mirror in a octagonal red wooden frame was cheaper.  And she can always use the mirror in her next marriage.

In my own home, I use the Yin-Yang theory in which the interacting forces of Yin (feminine) and Yang (masculine) keep us deeply interconnected.  As an example, the Yin closet is the big closet in our master bedroom.  And, not wanting to mix these universal forces, the Yang closet (for my husband’s clothes) is in the small guest bedroom down the hall.  OK, in all honesty, his clothes occupy half of that closet because I need the other half for my hats.   And in the bathroom, the Yang is exceptionally good about always putting the toilet seat down after use because he fears the Yin ch’i when certain people sit down in the middle of the night and get nothing but porcelain.   Trust me, nothing good can come from that.

Anyway, I thought I was pretty hip about this stuff until my blog-friend Diane alerted me to an article from the Ford Motor Company entitled, “Ford Offers Feng Shui Concepts to Create a Calm, Organized Vehicle All Year Long.”  Well, as you can imagine, this article answered so many questions about what’s wrong with my life (and Brad’s too).   Just look at the accompanying diagram and you’ll see the problems right away. 

First of all, according to their diagram, my poor husband (who is a creative director) has all of his creativity stuck in the rear passenger wheel well.  Bummer!  That would explain his client who keeps going round and round the copy choices he has given her without ever making a decision so they can move forward.  Hello!

Also, 75% of the wealth and relationship energy reside outside the body of the car. That doesn’t bode well for the folks riding inside.  It might go a long way toward explaining our bank account, however.

On the other hand, the knowledge ch’i appears to be right smack dab in the middle of the driver’s seat, which my husband will happily embrace since he thinks that he is ALWAYS right even when passes a perfectly good parking spot or doesn’t move into the right hand lane until it is too late and then curses the other drivers who won’t let him in. I’m just sayin….

The Ford folks want us to put a medal or an icon or a picture in the glove box to reduce stress. Right now, all I have in the glove box is my vehicle registration, insurance card, the owners manual and a stale candy bar.  Since I’m Jewish, a medal or an icon probably won’t do it.  Maybe I’ll toss a “Happy Face” sticker in there so that at least I’ll remember to“have a nice day.”

I wanted to do further research, but when I Googled “feng shui your car,” I got 2,230,000 hits, a smattering of which showed that in order to have proper “feng shuiness” (yes, it’s the word that is actually used), I need to:

• Choose the lucky color according to my individual feng shui chart (I guess my husband is SOL)
• Choose the day of purchase that is positive according to my feng shui calendar (gee, we chose the day based on when we could afford to buy it)
• Ring with hand bells inside the car to purify the energy (giving new definition to the term “Baby, ring my bell”)
• Scatter sea salt on the car floor carpets to absorb negative energy (careful – that stuff will hurt like hell when it gets into any scratches you got on the beach)
• Order license plates with only lucky numbers (our Prius says 62MPG)
• And above all, do not hang crystals or anything on the rear view mirror, since it draws away the attention of the dragon from your protection. 

I don’t know about you, but I hate it when the attention of the dragon is drawn away from my protection.   I wonder how the dragon feels about air bags?

Are we having fun yet?

Open For Business 25/8

I don’t know about you but I just love it when a client calls at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday to “run some ideas past you.” After all, freelancers don’t need no stinking “sleeping in” on a romantic, rainy Sunday. Sleeping in only results in spontaneous sex. Better to lie beside your spouse and listen to a conversation about distribution quotas while you quietly seethe. That will bring the population growth down.

I also love it when clients call in the evening, during a movie. Do you answer? Yeah, so did the guy in front of me in the multiplex last night. First he tried whispering. Then he got “stink eye” from his neighbors. When someone beaned him with a wadded up napkin, he left the theater talking all the way. You could hear the conversation. It was about a deadline that had been moved up. (Why are deadlines always moved up? Why are they never moved back to give you some breathing room? Why is that?)

I suppose he could have ignored the call but my experience tells me that if you don’t answer, they will just text you. Over and over again.

Why are we allowing ourselves to become on-call slaves? Because we live in the age of instant gratification. Early morning; late at night; weekends; holidays. BTW, what are holidays? I haven’t seen a holiday since 1972. And I live in Hawai‘i, the state that has more official holidays than any other state in the union. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, New Year’s Day, Prince Kuhio Day, King Kamehameha Day, Independence Day, Statehood Day (which is celebrated by native Hawaiians by displaying the flag of the nation of Hawai‘i upside down – the international distress signal) and all the rest. Oops, did I accidentally say “rest?” Ha, ha! That was a joke. The only people who get to rest on most holidays are state workers. For everyone else, it’s just a day in which the busses don’t run as often (for our convenience).

And it’s not just clients who are guilty of this behavior. Suppliers also call whenever the muse is upon them. Because we’ve all become accustomed to being available not just 24/7 but beyond 24/7. I once wrote about the appalling statistics of American workers in comparison to those of other developed nations. We suffer twice the rate of clinical depression as our European counterparts. And we’re literally killing ourselves – in 1980, we ranked 11th in the world in life expectancy; we now rank 42nd.

I have a plan. (You knew I would.) This is a shocker, so you may want to be seated for this – freelancers and entrepreneurs could declare their business hours and then stick to them. Out there in the real world of non-freelance (aka “paid”) work, businesses actually post their hours right on the door. They do. Then when the end of the day comes around, they lock the door and they leave.

I realize that this is a far fetched concept. But think about it:

• · When you call your bank after hours, does the President of the bank interrupt his dinner to answer your call?
• · Would you expect your hairdresser to meet you at Starbucks on Sunday morning to review some pictures of hairstyles that might look cute on you?
• · Do you wake your butcher up at 11:30 at night to tell him about your upcoming dinner party and get his “feedback” on entrée choices?

Let’s try, shall we? Let’s tell our clients right up front, in writing, the hours that we are available for meetings and phone conversations and then (gasp!) turn off the phone. Unless you are a trauma surgeon, let’s pretend that no one will actually die if we don’t take this call. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Some unexpected sex? I don’t know about you but I could live with that.

Are we having fun yet?

Using Mom’s Hairdresser as Your Focus Group

To write about my husband’s clients would be indiscreet and highly inappropriate and we certainly wouldn’t want that. So let’s just say that I know this certain guy (let’s call him “Bob”) who has a number of small business clients (let’s just call them “clients” because calling them Dumbo, although tempting, would be inappropriate).

In earlier times, “Bob” worked at a fairly major Chicago ad agency and so he understands the etiquette of how a marketing plan and its accompanying creative product are handled. He knows that there is a creative director through whom all creative product passes before going to the client. He knows that marketing is not the same as advertising, not all cost savings are a good thing, and you don’t “rebrand” your business by changing the logo.

But small business clients don’t always know this stuff and trying to get them to understand it is like trying to teach a pig to sing – it’s not only futile but it annoys the pig.

“Hey Bob, I know that you told me not to be passing your confidential marketing notes around the office because it’s just a rough draft and all, but I was so excited about the concept and so thrilled about the work I thought I should share it with just a couple of key people. Twelve people within the company (including an intern and the third-floor janitor) loved it but the lady who does my mother’s hair doesn’t like it and now I’ve decided that maybe we should rethink this whole thing.”

And:

“You know that new logo that the professional graphic designer who specializes in creating logos designed for us? The one we spent two months, seven meetings, 56 phone calls and 1,146 emails about? Well, after I dropped it off at Bubba’s Auto Emporium on Monday to have it painted on the company vans, Bubba Jr. decided to take it to his high school art class and these kids have come up with something entirely different that is kind of cute.”

And:

“Bob, you can take that professional film production money out of the budget because I met this retired welder at my cousin Blanche’s wedding last weekend. He just started a wedding video business and he’s going to shoot the whole package – the commercials and the training film – on his iPhone for a fraction of the cost. Can you have the script ready by Friday? We’re going to save even more money with the on-camera talent because Blanche offered to do it for free and she looks so nice now that she’s got most of the weight off.”

I’ll bet you think that I’m kidding. I’ll bet you think that I’m exaggerating. I will admit that these examples are a compilation of the kinds of things that several different clients have come up with over the past year. Nonetheless, this weekend “Bob” has to try to break the latest news to the art director. I’d tell you more, but that would be inappropriate.

Are we having fun yet?

Do You Use Starbucks As Your Business Office?

I recently invited 25 strangers to come into my office and set up an expresso machine so that I can try to think over the din of the bean grinder and the steam frother.

OK, no I didn’t actually do that. But it makes about as much sense to me as a fellow writer’s recent suggestion that I should go down to my local coffee house to write my blog.

“Good morning, Charlie. How are you today?” This is the guy sitting next to me at the Starbucks where I am scheduled to meet with a client. This guy has his laptop open on the table, his Bluetooth in his ear and a notebook covered in scribbles. By the look of the stale coffee, he obviously set up shop hours ago using this as his permanent office.  Right now, he's on the phone.

“Not too bad. Not too bad at all. I played 18 holes on Sunday while the wife and kids were at church. I told her I wasn’t feeling well. You know how it is.” I think we all know how that is. “Did you get a chance to look at those numbers I sent you?”

I am assuming that this obnoxious non-church-going liar has an acute hearing problem. That’s the only thing I can think of that would account for his shouting every word. Or maybe it’s a design flaw – his mouth should be located next to his ear.

I try to read the newspaper while I wait for my client but I can’t think over the, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…” going on beside me. There is a brief break in his sales pitch and it gives me an opportunity to notice the music blaring away. I realize that they are trying to sell the CDs at the counter but does it have to be so loud? Maybe that’s why the idiot next to me is shouting. Nah, he’s just a jerk. I know this because he launches into a sexist joke. The punchline is, “My name is Tonto. Tonto Goldstein.” I’ve heard this joke twenty times.

I look desperately for another table. No dice. I now understand why this was the only table open. I close my eyes and go into my yoga mantra: “Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutup…….”

It’s not working. He’s still there. The crowd is getting bigger. Three people holding their hot Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Lattes and double-shot Caffé Macchiatos are coveting his table and giving him stink eye but this is clearly not his first rodeo and he easily turns his head away from them without ever skipping a beat.

The noise levels are growing. The hard floors, bare walls and plate glass windows bounce sound like a Lakers game.

In mid-2011, Starbucks quietly began a process of systematically reducing the seating and available electrical outlets in their stores just to avoid freeloaders such as the jerk sitting next to me. And in many stores you now “buy” WiFi access in two-hour increments through your loyalty card (which is like a frequent flyer card that gives you credit for coffee and food purchases). I can’t say that I blame them but it’s interesting to note that it is 180° from Starbucks original branding, which was to recreate an Italian bistro that encouraged people to meet their friends and stay as long as they liked (thus the comfy sofas and conversation corners).

By the time my client arrives, the speakers are pumping Elvis ballads, the jerk next to us is getting desperate about closing a deal, and unseated customers are developing that mass-murder glaze. We ended up fleeing like rats from a burning restaurant with “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” echoing in our ears. We took refuge in my client’s car, balancing our coffee on the dashboard while trying to plan grant strategy. It was nuts.

Yes, I know that J.K. Rowling supposedly wrote the first Harry Potter book in an Edinburgh coffee shop with baby Jessica dozing in a pram, because her unheated flat was too cold. (They neglect to mention that the coffee shop was owned by her brother-in-law and she wrote in the back room, not out front surrounded by customers.) I’m no J.K. Rowling but I suspect that Joanne (that’s her name) couldn’t do it in a Starbucks today.

Are we having fun yet?

Clean Underwear for Everyone!

Have you ever turned your underwear inside out and worn it a second time? I mean, have you done it since college? (Or in the case of unmarried males, since you turned 50?)

Well, I’m not quite there yet, but it’s getting embarrassingly close. You’d think that being out of work would leave me a lot of free time to get caught up around the house, although those of you who have read my previous confession of procrastination ("How to Avoid Doing Anything") already know better.

The thing is, being unemployed is exhausting. For one thing, people expect you to do extra stuff that they would never otherwise ask of you. After all, “You’re not doing anything.” So chores that might usually fall to the man of the house have become my duties – things like getting the tax information together, paying the bills, taking the car in for repair, doing the yard work, snaking the bathtub drain, etc. Sure, my husband will point out that I always did those things even when I had a job. (Let’s not go there, shall we? I want to keep this marriage intact.) But nowadays, I feel extra guilty about not doing them because after all, I’m unemployed, bringing in no money and I’m not doing anything. So I’m not blaming him. Not today, anyway.

For one thing, I’ve applied for law school. While the chances for my getting in this year are slim to none, I’m optimistic about next year and I’m taking classes at the university, finishing my undergraduate degree, and studying to boost my LSAT score. So that takes a lot of time.

Then there is the community action volunteer work. As a business person, I was active in a number of organizations and I still hold office in some. Just because you are temporarily out of work, doesn’t mean you should remove yourself from your peers in the business community. Some would even advise that those contacts and visibility are more important than ever for future employment. After all, the tooth fairy isn’t going to pay for law school. And there’s my volunteer work with homeless shelters, which has been a part of my life for so many years I can’t even imagine a world without it.

And then there is social media. Social media is like heroin. The more you get “connected” the more relationships you form. And relationships, like marriage, require constant work to stay viable. My drug of choice is LinkedIn. And within LinkedIn, my “family” is Career Insider Network. But two weeks ago, I started seeing another group on the side.

It began innocently enough. Bloggers Helping Bloggers seemed like a good way to connect with other frustrated writers such as myself. But part of being involved with this group required that I read a lot of blogs. They were fascinating and I have learned a bunch of stuff. And because I find it rude to visit a blog and not contribute to the conversation even modestly, I always leave a comment as a footprint to show that I was there. Frankly, it’s gotten out of control. I have been known to wake up in the middle of the night and check my groups to see what’s going on. (Don’t tell my husband. He thinks I’ve developed a bladder problem.)

So now, the house has gone to hell in a handbasket. The laundry is piling up. I still haven’t finished my homework for tomorrow’s class. And while I’m making confessions, it’s after 4:00 and I haven’t eaten yet today. I’ve just been on the computer endlessly. Enough! It’s time to throw down my mouse and go cold turkey. I’m going to get dressed (yes, you heard that right), go downstairs and wash a load of clothes while I make myself a grilled cheese sandwich.

Free. Free at last! Clean underwear for everyone!!!.
(Are we having fun yet?)

In Sympathy

I want to thank you for the sympathy cards and letters I have been receiving. The floral wreaths were nice, too. For those of you who were worried for my well-being, I want to assure you that I am doing better now and expect to live, even though I didn’t get the job.

Sure, I was excited about it. Certainly, I thought that the interview went pretty well, although in retrospect I suppose I should not have revealed my addiction to The Bachelor and Dancing With the Stars. I knew that the job required long days and some late nights and I just wanted to reassure the boss that I could tape those shows and watch them later. I should have kept my mouth shut.

I tried to dress in a businesslike manner, but maybe I overdressed. I’m not sure. I thought the glasses would make me look smarter and more serious but…… I just don’t know. Getting lost in the parking garage didn’t help either. Bummer!

It was a great job, too. It paid so little that when they warned me how low the salary was, I told them I didn’t want to know. Seriously. I knew that it would only depress me and the truth is, the money wasn’t the most important consideration, although, I’m sure my landlord would disagree. It was just a terrific, kick-ass job and it would have kept me out of the bars.

Long hours, lots of stress, low pay. Who could resist? Besides, it only lasted as long as the legislative session and then it would end. Most of us can do anything if we know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Working right in the middle of all that legislative action. Watching the trading and the voting and the lying and the lobbying and the poor legislators trying to do the right thing for their constituents during this lousy economic meltdown. It’s like watching a 24/7 poker game where everyone is bluffing and no one ever wins. What an education!

The people who ran the office were great, too. I knew the “big honcho,” although we are not best friends or anything. I hoped that would help. Maybe I do better with people who don’t know me.

I tried not to get my hopes up. My late mother-in-law would have been proud. Her motto in life was, “Don’t get your hopes up.” She taught it to her four boys and even though she is gone now, they still cling to the concept that the glass is always half empty. Maybe completely empty.

But in the end, I didn’t get the job. Bummer! If I discover that it went to some entry-level 22-year-old I am just going to slit my wrists.

By the way, tulips and daffodils with a somber black ribbon are always appropriate for situations like this, if you’re wondering…..

Dreading the Mailbox

The mailbox is a foreboding place these days. Like a 4:00 a.m. phone call, you know it’s not going to be good news. There was a time when I might look forward to a letter from a distant friend. Now friends just email me the latest YouTube link. Is it just me, or are you beginning to wonder if Susan Boyle knows a song other than “I Dream a Dream?”

Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes could be informing me that “I may already be a winner!” But I doubt it. Ed McMahon died and my hopes of an oversized check with my name on it died with him.

Nonetheless, I reluctantly trudged out to the mailbox this morning and here’s what I found:
3 magazines (I actually subscribe to one of them)
3 catalogs
2 ads
1 Christmas Card (from my insurance agent)
15 pleas for donations from nonprofits

‘Tis the season.

So I go through the stack. I pull out the “mailing labels enclosed” because I can always use more return address labels. OK, actually I can’t use more. I already have so many that I don’t know what to do with them. But I feel guilty throwing them out. Of course, that’s exactly what the nonprofit is hoping. That I’ll feel guilty about their having made up these lovely personalized labels.

The thing is: Lots of times they don’t get the name correct. Kay Lorraine. Sometimes they decide that my name must really be Lorraine Kay. Like I wouldn’t know my own name just because I’m blonde. And how do they know that I’m blonde? Worrisome.

Furthermore, my husband’s name is Brad Bate. Mostly, I don’t use his name. I use my husband a lot but his name, not so much. So I get Lorraine Bate, Kay Bate, Mrs. Kay Bate, Mr. Kay Bate, and – my own personal favorite – Mr. Brad Lorraine.

Anyway, I have too many labels. But my packrat mind keeps them all – just in case! Even the Christmas labels which, as a practicing Jew, are probably inappropriate for me, but the gas company doesn’t know that I’m Jewish so I use them to pay bills. I think of it as “Festive.” The Christmas Cards with the snow scenes are another story. As a Jew in Hawai‘i, they just don’t say “Happy Holidays” for me. But I keep the envelopes to pay bills with.

The only labels I don’t feel bad about tossing are the Jerry Lewis MD labels. Not because of Jerry or his kids. I give money every year to Jerry. But those are hands-down the most ugly labels known to man. Year after year, they never get any better. Horsy bold typeface set too close together. Yuk! Doesn’t the MD marketing department have an art director? Or someone with some esthetic sensitivity that can look at those suckers and say, “Guys, this is just crap.” It costs the same amount of money to print a nice serif typeface with decent kerning and leading as it does to print crap. Hello! So I throw those directly into the trash with no remorse.

But then there are the groups who send you a nickel. Do you peel off the nickels? Me, too. I just do it so that the metal doesn’t screw up the shreader at the city dump. That’s the only reason – I’m not really greedy; It’s an ecology thing. Sure.

At least it’s not as bad as the Indian Reservation that sends me blankets made from toilet paper byproducts.

Who knows better than I do how desperate nonprofits are these days? Each time I pass the empty building where the Hawai‘i Women’s Business Center stood, a pain shoots through my heart. They closed the doors over a year ago. I was the Executive Director. My husband says, “You have to move on.” Of course, he’s right.

In this economy, nobody has any money. So the nonprofits are glutting the mail. Can this possibly be profitable? I now own eleven free calendars for next year, filled with lovely pictures of polar bears and homeless children and whales-worth-saving. If those nonprofits took all of the money they spend on mailing labels, calendars, Christmas cards, Tibetan peace flags, and Indian blankets and did good instead, wouldn’t we all be better off? Or does no one give money to any charity anymore unless they get something or are guilted into it? Maybe that’s what we did wrong at the Business Center. Too much free counseling – not enough mailing labels. Sure.

Everyone is scrambling for every nickel these days. Not me, of course. I’m just trying to do my part to save the shreader.

Washing the Tin Foil

I’m in London, washing tin foil. That statement doesn’t make any more sense to me than it does to you, but it’s true, nonetheless.

I’m on an extended holiday in England where I am visiting friends. The advantage to staying with locals is not only the excellent room rates (free!) but also the opportunity to learn local customs — such as the ritual washing of the tin foil. You just can’t get these kinds of experiences at the Marriott.

You see, England is deeply into recycling. But there’s no consistency from one region to another. So as I have traveled around (or travelled, as they spell it over here), I’ve had to learn the recycling rules of each new neighborhood. The rules range from rational to idiotic.

In the particular borough of Surrey where I first stayed, it was pretty much only a minor bit of sorting. Paper from metal, etc. Perfectly reasonable. When I moved on to visit friends in Suffolk, it got slightly more complicated. We were up to three wheeled bins, a green box and a compost. Paper, for instance, went into the blue bin unless you had wiped your mouth with it, which contaminated it with food product (gee, one lousy spaghetti stain) and, thus, got put into the black or grey bin. I can’t tell you how many times I got in trouble on that one.

The hands-down winner for nuttiest system I encountered, however, was Newcastle-under-Lyme with a grand total of nine (9) different colored boxes, wheelie bins, colored plastic bags, and kitchen slopbuckets (one for cooked and one for uncooked food waste).

Which is why I am washing the tin foil. Right now, I’m in London and although we only have to deal with a few various bins and boxes, there are some unique peculiarities. Used tin foil, for instance, must be folded flat and put in the green box (not the green wheelie bin – that’s something else). But it cannot have any food product on it. Ever tried to get tin foil clean after broiling dover sole on it? Trust me, it ain’t easy. First you have to soak it overnight. Then you scrub it with a toothbrush. All so that you can throw it in the trash.

Why am I doing this? Why, for the very same reason that I am watering the weeds. You see, the friend that I am staying with in London keeps her garden fairly wild. She has pots all over the place. Some of them have tomato plants or herbs. Others have been sitting around untouched for years and now sprout nothing but weeds; pots of weeds. But when you ask the lady of the house if she would like to have you clean them out, she is as shocked as if you had suggested that you throw away her furniture. So, when asked to water the garden, I dutifully water each and every potted weed with the same careful attention that I give to the flowers. Because it’s her house and her rules.

It’s a lot like the workplace. Sure, you are asked to do stupid, unnecessary work that would be much more efficient with a better system. But the boss sets the rules and your job is to follow them. No matter how obvious it is that your way would be infinitely better.

Company rules and regulations are all based in some sort of good intention. But like the nine different recycling bins, sometimes the system gets out of control. You can complain. You can cram the suggestion box with improved plans. But in the end, you have a responsibility to follow the regulations, no matter how insane they are. And at some point you find yourself washing tin foil with a toothbrush.

By the way, if you are being driven insane by the minutia, you just might be tempted to wipe the spaghetti off your mouth with a piece of toilet paper, then then flush it down the loo at the end of the meal. There’s probably some rule against that, too. Thankfully, it never occurred to anyone to tell me about it.

Clean Up Your Own Mess!

Note: Is this a business story? You bet it is. Dog poop and business practices have more in common than any of us want to admit.

Let me tell you about my dog poop story. When I was a kid I had a Cocker Spaniel named Skippy. OK, actually I had three dogs in succession – all Cocker Spaniels, all named Skippy. Perhaps it was through my various “Skippys*” that I learned that husbands are much like dogs – if one runs away or is hit by a car you can always get another. Just keep giving them the same name and move on with your life. But I digress…..

I loved those dogs. My parents were trying to teach me responsibility (they were always trying to teach me something – the key word there was “trying”). Anyway, we had a fenced-in yard and we would let Skippy-du-jour out the back door to do his business. It was my job to pick up the poop in the yard because, supposedly, Skippy was my dog. Never mind the fact that my father chose the dogs and purposely picked a duck-hunting breed as my own personal pet-of-choice. Nonetheless, my dog – my responsibility.

One year I got a bit lax about the dog poop and I learned a valuable lesson that has served as a personal parable for life. Here’s what I learned:

If you, or in this case – your dog(s), make a boo-boo in the yard, it helps to clean it up right away. You can try to ignore it but chances are somebody will step in it and track it through the house and there will be BIG TROUBLE. Or if you’re lucky (or unlucky, depending on your point of view) you will be able to continue to pretend it never happened and it will just lie there endlessly with the sun's rays pouring down, heating things up until the whole backyard smells to the high heaven. Keep ignoring it and eventually winter frost will come and the snow will cover it up. By then you will have conveniently forgotten that it ever existed in the first place. Happy, blissful snowy winter!

Alas, Spring inevitably arrives and with it, the thaw. The dog poop has, regrettably, not disappeared during the winter as you had hoped; it was just covered up. But now it reappears with the crocus and, guess what? You still have to clean it up. Only now it’s all soggy and mushy and it falls apart when you try to lift it. Now it’s twenty times harder to get rid of and more likely to leave behind residue. BTW, if you think that dog poop loses its odor by being frozen you are sadly mistaken. I am saying this from experience. You can Fabreze the crap out of it (little pun there!) but it will take a long time before the vague scent of eau du dogie leaves the air.

I have never forgotten the dog poop story of my youth. We all have messes that we have to clean up in life. Some of them are of our own making, some are accidents and some are messes that others made but become our responsibility to handle. No matter how the mess started or with whom, it’s always better to go right out and clean it up immediately. It may be an unpleasant task, but the longer it lies festering in the hot sun, the more unpleasant it will be to get rid of in the end.

Even when we are trying to do the right thing all of the time, it sometimes seems as though cleaning up our own messes is a full time job. How can someone with such good intentions unintentionally step on so many people’s toes? I am not perfect, but I try to do my best. My attitude is:

1. Recognize your mistakes and own up to them;

2. Clean up your own messes without being asked; and

3. Don’t go away mad. But do go away.

Are we having fun yet?

*Is the plural of Skippy, Skippys? Or Skippies? I struggled with this.