Nice to be Seen

Apple founder Steve Jobs died last week. Among his many accomplishments, the most significant in my life was the fun that comes from random music. Like many of you, my iPod on shuffle is a veritable smorgasbord of musical dissonance. Want to go from Carolina Beach Music to Hip Hop? Just cue my iPod to shuffle.

I’m not the first to say that a single song is like a marker in history. It might remind me of driving to the beach house (Rock the Boat), of a high school football game (We are the Champions, how cliché!), or of the first dance at our wedding (Van Morrison’s Someone Like You). Or, thanks to my iTunes currently on shuffle on my laptop, a wacky Friday afternoon at the office when we all danced to The Knack’s My Sharona!
I’m also remembering all the playlists I’ve made for special events, or the songs I’ve heard while friends had their own iPods on shuffle that I later downloaded. Unfortunately all of my playlists were lost last time I got a new computer and moved everything over. Just another reason to create some new soundtracks for life’s events.

I recently had an assignment that connected my love of random music to my professional life. I Co-Chaired the Chapter Awards for the GA Chapter of PRSA, where we recognize professionals at all levels of their careers for their accomplishments. I was asked for suggestions on walk-up music for the award winners. It got me thinking about what I would want playing as I walked up to win an award. Hard to say, though it might depend on what pops up on shuffle that day.

Just wrapped up my weekly ritual of watching CBS Sunday Morning. Every week, Charles Osgood brings us an in-depth look at current events, celebrities & other artists, and good old random stuff. This week, for example, there were stories about the latest in prosthetics technology, a look at the Occupy Wall Street movement, profiles on Samuel J. Jackson & Ellen DeGeneres and kids playing competitive shuffle board. How random can you get? And more poignantly, there was a moving and detailed feature on how a young fallen soldier’s family was notified of his death, and how the soldier came home and was laid to rest. The “dignified transfer” they call it in the military.

In other words, in a mere 90 minutes, I laughed, I cried, and I learned a thing or two. I am, by nature, rather curious. I love learning new things. That tendency was recently validated by a numerologist. It’s not just me, it’s in my numbers. One of my numbers, a 7, corresponds to processing data. The numerologist said that a typical 7 might be an M.I.T. scientist. That, I am not, but she said it does explain my curiosity. Or, as my friend Reva would say, I like to “study up” on things.

Take some time today to study up on something new. As Yogi Berra said, “you can observe a lot by just watching.”

There’s a crew of workers up on our roof today, fixing damage wrought by a team of clever critters. Our attic was invaded by raccoons this summer. They were affectionately known as Rocky, Ricky and Three. By #3 we were so over it we stopped naming them. We live practically in the inner city, and we have raccoons? Our neighbor had a possum, inside the house, so in relative terms we got off easy. That’s Three on the right, waving goodbye.

“Oh but they’re so cute,” a friend commented about one of the pictures online. “Not $1,000 cute,” Jeff replied. There are so many more fabulous things we would have loved to buy, see or do with $1,000. A last-minute discount got us a lovely, 5-night, all-inclusive resort stay in St. Lucia for $1,000 earlier this year. We could use it to have full internet access on our Mediterranean cruise (surely it’s not THAT expensive?). We could have booked a 5-star hotel in Rome for an upcoming trip for $1,000. OK, maybe only one night, but it could have been SPECTACULAR! Actually, we probably never would have done that, but isn’t the thought nice? Nicer than a family of raccoons in the attic. Check out Rocky above/left.

In case you’re wondering, we used Urban Wildlife Control, a wildlife removal service that uses live traps and releases the animals to the wild…in the woods far, far away from our house. We highly recommend them, A.J. is a raccoon whisperer & our new best friend. Here’s baby Ricky on the right.

We’re sure that Rocky, Ricky & Three will live a joyous full life in Atlanta’s eastern suburbs & wish them Godspeed. We love animals; we were even really fond of the 5-foot black snake that was living around our yard. That is, until it was brutally murdered after he scared the City’s yard waste removal crew. We weren’t there to stop it because we were enjoying that lovely long weekend in St. Lucia when it happened.

Welcome to my blog & thanks for checking it out. I hope you will find it informative as well as amusing on occasion. Hope to see you here again soon.