When it Rains

I'm having a certain amount of empathy for the plumbing industry today (inspired by recent events at the house I own in Arizona). Out of the blue I got a text message from my tenant notifying me that water was leaking from the main source, under the driveway and out into the street. In order to prevent damage, he turned the water off and asked that I get a plumber to come out ASAP. I can't even begin to imagine not having running water in the middle of the record heat Phoenix is experiencing. While trying not to get too wrapped up in worst case scenarios (though I was absolutely envisioning the need to rip apart my driveway, water shooting up at all angles creating a lovely fountain affect and costing untold thousands of dollars) I gave Pete Phend a call.

This is where the empathy comes in. I'm in a panic, imaging worst case scenarios and to complicate matters I'm out of state. I know nothing about plumbing. To me, all leaking water constitutes a plumbing catastrophe. I also can't make any claims to being able to speak intelligently about mechanical failures of any kind. My descriptions are limited to "uh, yeah my car is making a rumble rumble, crank crank noise" or "I'm not sure what happened, it just started splashing and spinning... help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!" In the name of feminism, I try not to rely on the damsel in distress act if at all possible, but this still doesn't do much for my ignorance of technical terminology.

I can't be the only person who calls up Pete in crisis mode. I've received infinite amounts of training around crisis intervention, but I'm doubting that the coursework on plumbing includes much on that note. Between distraught/frustrated/angry potential clients and civilians who don't know a crimp tool from a basin wrench (I went to Home Depot's website to look up the names of plumbing tools for the purposes of this analogy), I can't imagine that many of Pete's professional calls are very fun.

Pete managed to tone down my anti-fantasy about the new fountain in my driveway by promising to be out to the house first thing in the morning. He asked a few more questions and said that it was probably something he would be able to fix fairly easily. He even responded to my requests to please not tear apart my driveway with an explanation of a simple workaround he could do if the driveway presented problems. Thankfully, he toned down the technical jargon and I was able to understand that help was on the way and the situation was likely not that bad. I ended the call reassured that the sky was not falling, which I think speaks volumes for Pete's people skills.

Of course, I don't yet have a run-down on what is wrong and why/how it got that way but if Pete's plumbing skills are as good as his people skills (he's fixed other plumbing problems at the house before so I have every reason to believe in him) then I am in good hands. Now if only he specialized in ways to finance unexpected plumbing problems... ;)

The Super Moon

This week we had a super moon. It was the biggest full moon of 2013 and many people captured amazing images of it. The first and third images were submitted to National Geographic but that spiffy black and white one in the middle was taken by my friend, Charlene Beil. (She is a very talented artist. I have more of her work up in my dining room... that wasn't done on an IPhone ;))





The super moon this week has me thinking about the energy for change. In my master's program on management, we talked constantly about how resistant people are to change. Psychology, self- help and fitness realms all produce massive amounts of literature about this phenomenon but today I'm wondering if I haven't accepted the idea that change is hard for so long that I have lost sight of my power to simply choose how I want to show up in any given moment.

The moon itself was not different when we observed it as a super moon. It appeared brighter to us but its actual physical makeup was the same. If I follow that idea through, then I too, do not need to be Any different before I can SHINE (ie show up as the best possible version of myself). I don't have to wait, to beat myself up for a pre-determined amount of time, or hope and pray that things magically become different. The power to change, isn't about remaking something terrible into an altogether different thing. It is about recognizing that I already possess everything I need to be great/different than I'm acting in any given moment. I simply have to choose to let go of a self image that tells me that I am not already great.

I don't think the moon has a self-esteem problem. I'm simply extrapolating a little because I believe that the chief problem in our society is that everyone, even really successful people (by any set of standards), is living under a false assumption that they aren't amazing. We are amazing beings running around consistently choosing to act as less than such out of fear and habit. We ALL have our stuff we aren't proud of, wish we had handled differently, etc but how would your/my/our world change if we operated from a space of thinking that those outcomes were the result of you Not being YOU instead of thinking that you are a mess that must be cleaned up?

Walk with Grace(land)

My dog Graceland Kiari (GK) doesn't like to run. She gets that from my side of the family. She's big, fluffy, drool-y and all around a little lazy. She's a newfoundland toughing out Chicago summer so I cut her some slack in that regard.

One of the highlights of my day (though I sometimes forget to view it as a highlight when I'm first waking up and wishing to stay snuggled in bed) is taking good ol' GK for her morning walk. When we first rescued her a few months ago, the prospect was actually a little daunting since she's 100 lbs and had very poor puppy manners before going to school. Now however, she's hip to the routine and her tail wags at the mention of the word "outside" or if I make a move towards my shoes. Our walk has become one of our bonding times and she feels good about herself for making sure I get the exercise I need.

I was not a dog person before GK. It's not that I didn't like them, I just didn't like to be slobbered or jumped on and in my experience dogs came with heaping abundance of both. I wasn't really a cat person either... just sort a petless examiner of the animal world, though I've never outgrown the girlish desire to own a horse. Anyway, GK has taught me to love and appreciate dogs for their amazing capacity for unconditional love and empathy. She knows when we're sad and sidles up to us, supporting our emotional breakdown by letting us pet her. She's no dummy. It's not that she gives with expectation - she just makes the most of what she's got.

This morning I saw, for perhaps the 2nd or 3rd time, this guy out walking his much smaller dog while reading a book. The first time I saw him I remember thinking that there was no way that I could walk GK without paying attention to her every move. If she decides to pull after a squirrel and I'm not paying attention, I might lose an arm. I attributed his ability to bury his nose in his book to the fact that my dog outweighed his by about 70 pounds and didn't give it much thought after that.

Today, however, I'm questioning what it communicates to your dog when you can't be bothered to give them your undivided attention for 15 minutes. Granted, I have no idea what this guy does or doesn't do with his dog inside his own home, so let's leave him out of the equation. I know that it isn't always convenient when GK wants to go outside. Sometimes she wants to do anything but what we're supposed to accomplish around grass and trees. It's not always a stellar morning, because we all have our days. However, if I didn't give her my full attention, I'd miss the cute way she looks up at me for approval or wags her tail, pleased as punch to be outdoors. Aside from the potential safety issues of not paying attention to your dog (they are still animals who have innate instincts to attack!) I actually get sad when I think of all the great GK & KW moments I would miss if I wasn't paying attention.

Dogs don't have that long of a lifespan compared to humans, though compared to insects I suppose they get rather old. They love us, even when we don't deserve it, through those short years. I want to make sure my beautiful Graceland knows that I love her just as much. I'm not home all the time and often working from home when I am, so those precious minutes that we're out for a walk are HERS. I think it's the least I can do in gratitude for the way she has changed my world.

I know you love your pets too. Feel free to share stories of them with me in the comments!

Light & Love,

Kieta