Happy Trails
Today is bittersweet for an odd reason – it’s the end of the Toyota Women’s Influencers Program.
I know that most people outside of blogging think of working with brands as some kind of sell-out relationship where an Evil Overlord milks you for your page views. I have to say that this gig with Toyota has been entirely the opposite – as cheesy as it may sound, I have felt like a valued partner in an enterprise that has been a win-win situation.
The gig was set up by Clever Girls Collective. I’m proud to count the Clever Girls as my friends. They work with brands and blogs in a way that is professional, fun and respectful.
I have to throw them major respect for walking the fine line between aggressive brands and sensitive bloggers with just the right balance. If you’re a blogger, I’d urge you to sign up with them. The worst thing that will happen is that you’ll get a few emails you have to delete.
Toyota has been stellar to work with. Their team performs as well as their cars do. Their corporate philosophy of kaizen – continuous improvement – permeates everything they do. They’re a class act. I feel like the people we worked with really cared about us as people, not just as a means to an end.
For me personally, I’m so thankful to have had the experiences and met the people I did through this process. From yoga at Wanderlust in Colorado to touring the Toyota museum to dining with Toyota execs to paddling a kayak, I have loved all of it.
The best part has been meeting new people and deepening friendships with some women I already knew. They include:
Cat Lincoln of @dearbadkitty
Lisa Morris Frame of A Daily Pinch
Maricris Guadagna of Zensible Mama
Terra of Terra the Bear
Amy Bradley Hole of Freaky Perfect
…and others too numerous to mention, because I have to go to bed.
I just wanted to take a minute to say thanks to Toyota and Clever Girls for this great opportunity and the great times I have had.
In case you think I’m BSing about Toyota, let me share with you my bedtime reading for the next few weeks – a book about which I am waaaay too excited:
Transforming Health Care, which is about a hospital that used the Toyota Production System to improve its quality and patient experience.
In case you don’t want to spend $37 on the book (or spend time reading it) here’s a really great, entertaining podcast that is an intro to how Virginia Mason Medical Center consulted with Toyota to make the lives of its cancer patients better.
The staff met with a Toyota Production System sensei and he took out the ball of blue yarn and a map of the hospital and told the staff to trace the path a cancer patient would take on a typical visit for chemotherapy treatment. When they were finished, it was an immensely powerful visual experience for everyone in the room. They all stared at this map with blue yarn snaking all over the place, doubling back on itself and making complicated twists and turns from one end of the building to the other. They understood for the first time that they were taking their sickest patients, for whom time was their most precious resource, and they were wasting huge amounts of it.
So this is me, signing off as a Toyota woman. But I’ll always have Kaizen in my heart.
Welcome to Suebob Air. Please remove your pants.
I love this Gawker article about the rules on the Abercrombie and Fitch CEO’s private jet. Models wearing flip-flops and popped collars. Coordinated sunglasses. Dog seating charts. AWESOME.
There’s just something so delicious about peeking behind the scenes at the craziness of the rich, isn’t there? I mean, we all have our little house rules, but somehow “put the towels on the shelf with the folded part out” just doesn’t have the same giggle-inducing power of imagining a flight staff made up of sullen models with their fourth button unbuttoned. Or is it buttoned? I can never keep track. This is why I don’t have my own private jet.
Oh, but if I did, I would have a few rules, you betcha I would. Let’s get started, shall we?
1. Flight attendants shall be off-duty firefighters. I know sometimes off-duty firefighters get called into work to save lives, and working my airline will make that impossible, but let’s keep our priorities straight about what is really important, shall we?
2. The pilots can be pilots. That works out nicely, don’t you think?
3. Flight attendants shall wear cycling jerseys. The cutest one gets the yellow Tour de France jersey. They can wear jeans on the bottom, though. They don’t have to wear cycling shorts. There’s something about coming eye-level with a fireman’s package in neon-colored spandex shorts as I sit in my cashmere-lined airplane seat that would put me off my Sumatran single-estate coffee.
4. But if they wear jeans, I wouldn’t be able to see their shaved legs. Shaved legs? On guys? Yep. It goes with the cycling jersey lust. It’s an addiction, people. I may have to rethink this jeans thing. THIS IS WHAT MAKES MY JOB RUNNING THIS AIRLINE SO DIFFICULT.
5. The flight attendants do not have to wear expensive cologne, but if they could find some of that original Speed Stick Deodorant for Men from BEFORE they screwed up the fragrance, that would take me to my Happy Place.
6. You don’t have to fold my toilet paper into points or fans or anything. Life is too damned short for people to be sitting around folding toilet paper on my behalf and besides, it squeems me out to think of people fondling the ends of my toilet rolls.
7. The dog sits where the dog wants. Period. At least that’s how it has always worked at my house, so I assume it will be that way on my airplane. (Remind me to put getting a small, neurotic dog with fussy fur on my to-do list).
8. Unlike Ambercrombie Air, anyone playing Phil Collins over the PA will be thrown out, no matter the altitude.
9. You may use the phrases “sure” or “just a minute,” but anyone saying “orientated” or “utilize” will be sent to the Naughty Chair.
10. You may not request that my seat be in the upright position before takeoff and landing. I will remove my seatbelt while taxiing. And I will stand by the restroom door any time I damned well please.
Sea Change
Oh, I feel old all right. My body feels old. Usually on foggy mornings after a night-time zumba class, I awake with my bones rattling about like dice in a cup. I stretch. I groan. I buy Aleve in the big bottle with the arthritis lid.
My attitude, though, feels pretty young to me. I feel like I can hang with the kids and be okay. I’m a COOL old person, damn it. At least that’s what I tell myself.
Until last night. I got my first taste of feeling really old. “Kids these days” old. Old as in “from a different generation.”
My friends and I went to see Adam Ant at our local concert theater. It’s a funky venue, an old movie palace, and despite its sucky sound system, it’s a decent place for a show. The last time I had seen Adam Ant was when he was still Adam and the Ants, in 1981 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. I figured it was time to catch up with him after 30 years.
Adam was still wearing the same damned pirate hat, which made me a little sad. After three decades, I figured he might be able to put it away, but nope, there it was, looking like a bad pirate costume from the Halloween rental, a little bashed and battered.
The truly odd part is that he had transmogrified from the Adam Ant MTV version of a pirate into the Jack Sparrow/Johnny Depp version, complete with Johnny Depp glasses. Oof. It made my heart squinch up a little to see. I asked CC later, “I dunno what I expected – an acoustic set on a tall wooden stool or something?” I’m glad it wasn’t, because Adam Ant Unplugged might have sent me fleeing into the street.
I was standing in the pit close to the stage when things got weird for me. People were using their phones, which I’m used to, sure, to shoot photos and video. But the girls in front of me – they were maybe 25 – were on Facebook the whole time. The whole entire concert.
They shot photos. They edited them. They tagged them. They commented on their friend’s photos. They uploaded video.
It was like they were at a show, but they weren’t at a show. They didn’t care about Adam Ant as the presenter. To them, it was THEIR show. They were the stars in their own media event. Adam Ant didn’t matter so much except as a backdrop to THEM.
This is a sea change from how my friends and I went to concerts when we were that age. We were thrilled to be in the presence of an artist we cared about. We were fans and we wanted the band to know we were there for them.
Don’t get me wrong. We wanted to prove to our friends that we were there, of course – thus the rise of the spectacularly overpriced concert tee.
But we also wanted that magic shared experience, to capture the magic in our hearts and souls, the ineffable, irreplacable feeling of being in the right spot when the magic happened. We wanted to be able to talk to people years later and say “You were there? Oh, man, I was there too. THAT was amazing.”
There’s a kind of subtle difference, I think, between “You had to be there” and “Look at how much fun I had there.” We wanted to be soaked in the experience. I wonder, if we had had cell phones or were allowed cameras, would be have been as obsessive about using them?
I only shot one photo last night. A blurry one, but I did it. Just to show those young whippersnappers that I could.
Glamping It Up With Toyota
Do you ever wake up in the morning and think “How did I get so lucky?” That happens to me pretty often, but a few weeks ago, it happened in an extra-super-special way.
I went on a great adventure, but I have to admit my brain was a little AWOL due to That Thing That Shall Not Be Mentioned happening just 5 days before, so I didn’t get around to writing about it until now.
Toyota invited me and my TWIN sisters to go camping in a glamorous style, or “Glamping” in El Capitan Canyon, up near my childhood home. Can I mention here that I hate the word “Glamping”?
While I may hate the ugliness of the word, I do not hate the activity. Glamping involves being ensconced with all the comforts of home in little cedar cabins out in the hills. No tents, no cooking over open fires (unless it is s’mores).
My cabin. Roughing it, Suebob-style.
Beats sleeping on the ground.
Every detail was planned for us. We had information packets. We had liaisons. We had drivers to take the cars out and wash them for the next day’s use. We had staff, people. I could get used to having staff.
Tent? Who NEEDS a tent?
Due to some logistical issues, I didn’t get to join the TWINsters until halfway through the adventure, and I got to El Capitan Canyon before they did.
I’ve rarely been part of a team, outside of work, so it surprised me a bit how excited I got to see my TWIN team pull up in their gleaming Toyotas. My GIRLS! And their CARS!
They’re here! They’re here!
It was the craziest trip ever. As soon as we got settled, they piled us on a big bus for a wine-tasting dinner at Sanford Winery, over in Buellton, where I had lived as a kid.
At Sanford Winery, in the vines
Team TWIN. Photo credit Kristi Bonney, Live and Love Out Loud
Then the next day, some people went to look at llamas and about 20 of us went ocean kayaking with Santa Barbara Adventure Company. I got partnered with Amy Bradley-Hole, who, I am contractually obligated to say, is the best kayak partner ever. (Though I’m not so bad, myself). She’s also pretty and hilarious, so all in all, a good pick.
That afternoon Glennia of The Silent “I” and I spent some quality time together driving a cute little Prius C up to Santa Barbara and going to the botanic gardens.
Glennia at the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens
After driving the car up there and back – about 50 miles round trip – I’m thinking I might need one. It uses hardly any gas, it’s cute, it has great cargo space, and it has a cute little space-age console that looks like something out of the USS Enterprise.
Prius C. Not the one I drove, but pretty, no?
The gardens are beautiful, but it WAS 94 degrees, so after buying the vending machine out of Dasani water, we headed back to “camp” for a barbecue dinner and the aforementioned s’mores around a fire, while we listened to Amy tell her famous pregnancy story. If you ever meet her, ask her to tell it. It’s worth listening to.
Thanks to Toyota for making my life so crazy excellent. If you want to read some posts by other women who were there –
Amanda from Parenting by Dummies
Kristi from Living Out Loud
Fadra from All Things Fadra
Linz from Linz Loves You
and an amazing, touching post from Elena at CiaoMom
Disclosure: I was selected for participation in the TWIN community through a program with Clever Girls Collective. I did not receive any compensation for writing this post, or payment in exchange for participating. The opinions expressed herein are mine, and do not reflect the views of the Toyota.
The heart of need
How do we know what we need? Not what we want or desire, not what we have a notion we might like, but what we really, truly, very much need – need so deep that our bones ache and our mind slips if we don’t get that thing?
It’s so hard to say our needs. Even when we make vision boards or lists of affirmations, they usually avoid those scary words, “want” and “need.”
Confession: I haven’t been doing that well. Since Goldie died, I’ve been doing well in short bursts. Intermittent wellness. Brave-faced wellness when I have to rise to the occasion. But in the privacy of my own brain, in the shower, or as I walk into my house and close the door to the world behind me, the wellness falls and shatters.
I collapse into tears, into blank-faced zombieness, into long periods of looking at photos and videos of my dog. Not so very well indeed. I’m glad I work at home. Often for these past few weeks, I’ve cried until five minutes before a conference call, blown my nose hard, wiped my eyes, taken the call. After an hour on the phone, I hang up and start to cry again.
I had a ray of light peeking into that darkness: October 13 on my calendar. I had that day blocked out to go to San Miguel Island, the most remote place I know that you can get to and back in the day.
Three-and-a-half hours on a boat, 3 1/2 hours on the island, 3 1/2 hours home. Ten glorious hours of nothing to do but stare at the sea and sit on two miles of beach occupied by, at most, three other people. If I could make it through the week, all I had to do was go, breathe, be.
On Friday, my sister called. My mom had told her I was going to the island, and she wanted to go with me. She loves the Channel Islands, too, and I also think she wanted to hang out with me, give me some sisterly love, comfort me with her presence.
I said, Okay, sure, great, an adventure. Let’s do it! Then I hung up and the screaming in my head started. I felt shredded by my emotions. My rational brain said that this was an opportunity to spend time with my sister, that it would be fun, wouldn’t I rather go with someone than alone?
But the shrieking would not stop. I felt like I’d lose my mind if I didn’t keep those ten hours sacred for me alone, a container of silence for my grief, the space I had carved for myself to give my pain to the wind and the ocean and the waves.
I felt like an absolute jackass, (especially since my sister had just bought a non-refundable boat ticket), but I had to acknowledge the depth of my need. My real need to spend time by myself, on my own, rather than to do the normal thing and have company on this trip.
I called my sister sobbing. Not crying. Sobbing. I had to tell her the truth, which made me feel like a freak. Thankfully she didn’t treat me how I felt. She was so understanding and so kind and…it made me cry even harder, if harder was possible.
So here’s the weird thing that happened. I said what I needed, which seemed contrary to all reason. I said what I needed, despite my worries that everyone would think I was selfish or crazy or mean. I said what I needed…and it was ok. The world did not end. No one quit speaking to me.
I went to the island and on the way I stood on the bow of the boat and remembered my dog and cried and gave my sorrows to the sea.
It was a beautiful day on San Miguel Island, a rare day, a gem. It would have been a beautiful day to share with someone, but I didn’t do that. I sat in the glory of that quiet place and I let my heart get quiet, and my soul get quiet, and I fell asleep in the sand all by myself.
I don’t know why I needed what I needed, but I did. I told the truth about it for once, and everything was ok.
As women, as humans, we are taught to hide our needs, to suck it up, to go along and get along, even when our hearts and bones are breaking inside us. We might do well to stop and ask “What do I need? What do I really, really need?” Then make that thing happen. It’s not so bad. Trust me on this one.
Goldie, the Movie
You get me started, and I just can’t stop. 5 minutes of Goldie photos and videos. Totally random.
Creative Alliance 12
I’ve been meaning to write a Creative Alliance 12 post for over a week, but I’ve been incapable of doing so.
Every time someone asks me to explain what Creative Alliance is, I’m a bit flummoxed. The best I can come up with is: It’s a small, intimate non-conference where 45 women get together and simply tell the truth about who they are and what they want. This is a rare and powerful experience.
Rather than blather on much more, here’s a video I made from photos I took there. It doesn’t really explain, either, but nothing can.
About putting your pet down
I have to write this post. You don’t have to read it – it’s something I went back and forth about, but then decided that it might be a kind of public service announcement so you can prepare if you need to.
First of all, thank you for all of your kind wishes on Goldie’s passing. I know there are a lot of dog lovers and just kind souls out there. I thank you for every thought, word and prayer. It helps to have so many people who love my dog – those who knew her in person and those who just followed her adventures on my blog.
Ok, now to the hard part. I didn’t think about this and it has been the hardest thing and I hope I can help someone else get through this if they have to do it.
Goldie did not want to die. She struggled.
I had some fantasy world idea of euthanizing my pet. I could have taken her to our regular excellent vet, but I had heard that the Ventura County Humane Society was a wonderful place full of compassionate people who love animals, and indeed it was.
I didn’t want to have Goldie’s last trip be a trip to the place she had been poked and prodded so often. She knew what the vet was and did not want to go there.
So up we went to Ojai. Here’s what I thought would happen – the person would gently inject my dog with something who would make her sleep. Goodnight dear dog.
Here’s what happened – deep breath. We put Goldie up on a tall, towel-covered table and I had to wrap my arms around her to keep her from biting the lady, especially when the Humane Society lady had to poke her again after one vein did not work. I had to hold her as she struggled hard to get out of my grasp. I didn’t get that one final peaceful moment with her.
As soon as the drugs hit, she gently slumped down and lay there until her heart stopped a couple minutes later.
The hard part only lasted a minute or two, but I have seen it 100 times in my brain. I just did not know, so I figured other people wouldn’t, either, since no one talks about it.
My dog was tough and scrappy, and even though she was in pain and skinny and decrepit and barely able to walk, she fought like hell. She wanted to survive.
I’ve had a couple nightmares where she’s hurt and bleeding and running loose and I can’t catch her. I figure that is related to that experience.
Please don’t worry about me – I have great moments, too. Happy memories, beautiful photos. We had a great life.
I don’t want to freak anyone out and make you not want to be with your pet at the end. I just want you to know, in case. Because no one told me.
10 Years, 2 Months, 25 Days
I knew this day was coming. Yesterday, Goldie fell at my mom’s house and could not get up on her own for about 5 minutes. She struggled, helpless, on the lawn with my mom unable to help her. I wasn’t there and mom is in a wheelchair. She called me, sobbing, saying she could not do it anymore.
I had been watching Goldie tiptoe around in pain, her legs collapsing underneath her, getting a little worse each day.
So today was the day I said goodbye. It took all day of going back and forth, changing my mind, thinking “Maybe one more month…” She would have some good moments and I’d think that I couldn’t, and then she got stuck coming up the 2 big steps into the house, and I knew I had to. Back and forth, all day, but I had made a 3 pm appointment at the Humane Society, and we ended up going for that one last ride.
I have on million words trapped inside me about my dog, all of them good. I’m sad, but I’m also glad she is free of pain, because she had been hurting for too long.
On the way home from the Humane Society, I realized how much of my heart has been caught up in her struggle. I have been feeling dead, lost, trapped – all at once.
And now, even though I have the great sadness of missing her, I’m also feeling as if I am crawling out from under a great weight.
When I got Goldie, the shelter told me she was middle-aged (they were wrong – she was much younger). I liked the idea that she could be my first dog, a kind of practice dog that I’d have for a few years and not get so terribly attached to.
I was so laughably wrong about all of that. 10 years, 2 months and 25 days later I don’t see how I could have been more terribly attached. We had a great, close, adventurous life together and I’ll always be thankful for every bit of it.
I think the most fitting epitaph is what I said to her every single day of her life: “What a GOOD girl.”
Goodbye, Space Shuttle. Hello, Space Shuttle!
For the past few days, I’ve been seeing so many tweets from people thrilled to see the Space Shuttle Endeavour fly by.
I’m sad to see the end of the shuttle program, but happy the Endeavour is coming to Southern California to live at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
122 million miles traveled on 25 missions. Pretty amazing. Its last 12 miles will be driving through the streets of Los Angeles. And the last little bit into the Science Center? It will be towed by a Toyota Tundra. Yes, a truck just like you can get from your local dealer. CRAZY.
Here’s a video:
That’s cool, but even cooler is that Toyota is donating $50 to the Science Center (up to half a million bucks) for every time someone tweets:
Toyota Tundra tows Space Shuttle Endeavour on 10/13. Tweet to raise $50 for @CAScienceCenter. #TundraEndeavour
That’s the kind of thing that makes it worthwhile for me to work with Toyota!
You can find more info and videos at the website.
Disclosure: I was selected for participation in the TWIN community through a program with Clever Girls Collective. I did not receive any compensation for writing this post, or payment in exchange for participating. The opinions expressed herein are mine, and do not reflect the views of the Toyota.
