I was alone on the dock shivering a bit as I took the photos.  In some ways, this sight is as great as fireworks!  It’s all natural and changing by the minute.  But there was no fan fare… no crowds.. in fact I could see no other person out taking in the sight.

The Space Needle just to the southwest is also all lit up glowing an orange color as it is painted to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The link above is a great blog on time ideas.. I am going to choose my top three and go for them.

I try to pick up 3 ideas from classes, books, conversations, etc….The two that hit me right away were the “journal with one sentence a day” and the “stop watching tv in bed at night and wake up tired.”

Hmmm.. the third I’m not sure yet.. . I’ll have to re-read the posts.

I don’t know how to pop the hood! The first time I took my Jeep Cherokee into the gas station I had to hop out of the car and say, “I don’t know how to do that kind of thing!” Actually, I don’t want to know what the engine in my car looks like. I mean, really, I don’t care…. Well.. as long as it works.

But, often, it doesn’t work. Each part under there has its own lifetime… and they all don’t coincide. Some parts keep running until they need social security. Other parts… they just can’t stand the heat… if you know what I mean. Some parts are female and have PMS, I swear they get temperamental! Some are male and supposed to hook up with the female parts… but they are having relationship problems. There are belts that break and fluids that leak. Much like ourselves! Cars have their own life under the hood!

There are computers in your car. Chips that can monitor almost everything… except delete radio stations that carry rap or country. I remember watching the movie “Apollo 13. At one point the astronaut is floating around trying to figure out his trajectory to get the spaceship heading back toward the earth. He calls mission control…. “Hey, Mission Control… check my math,” he says. The next shot of mission control has all these guys pulling out pencils and slide rules to figure out the mathematical equation that will bring them home from the moon. They didn’t have a calculator! And to think that the computer power in our cars instead of figuring out how to get to the moon…. sometimes can’t get us to the grocery store….

Why is it that computers in our cars can only be “read” by the service department. They plug in a computer and can supposedly read what is wrong. Now… we pay for that, of course! Imagine if we could hook up our car to our laptop!

I look forward to the day when there is a computer readout on the dashboard that clearly states the problem with the car, how many miles you can drive it before getting the problem fixed, and how much it will actually cost you. I will probably continue to be oblivious to the workings of the car just like I am of the washing machine. I want a car that keeps going just like the batteries that won’t quit or the engine that says, “I think I can, I think I can…” And despite all obstacles, it can.

Ok… I admit it that I am one of those people that cries in that recliner even during a cleaning. But, today I had my first experience with Nitrous commonly called Laughing Gas. Why did it take so long! This product was made for me! The ugly plastic nose thing is put across my face… I am breathing deeply that crisp cool odorless gas with headphones on listening to Rescue Blues by Ryan Adam… ” Everybody wants you to be special… And everybody wants you to be high” and in no time I was high. For those of you that know me…. I avoid that kind of feeling.. two glasses of a sweet wine is my limit.

So I’m in a prone position with rose colored glasses (maybe they were and maybe they weren’t rose colored… my imagination was running wild). I was in my own little world. I started laughing… just laughing out loud… with tears in my eyes.. can the dentist really be this kind of trip? Then I was talking, of course.. and with the headphones and the gas.. I had to speak loudly… woke up all the other patients in the place.. remember when there were actual walls between patients. Now they have you face a window and let you think you are alone. Just cause I was talking doesn’t mean anyone could understand me. I had a rubber damn in my mouth. Ugh.. doesn’t that even just sound awful? And… mumble… yep.. that is what I did… mumble and gurgle.

The dentist, Jeff, who I am sure we are on first name basis now since he is only a tad older than my son, looks deep into my eyes.. with the wierdest glasses. He speaks directly to me.. as the Beatles Lyrics “Love Love Love” resound in my head. I was all his…

He drilled and scraped. That old filling was outta there. Good riddin’s to that mercury… I always knew the temperature with my own thermometer in there! Soon when I open my mouth which I do often, my teeth will all be white.

The time seemed to go by so quickly…

Tony Bennett started crooning… as Jeff started pulling out the dental floss….

“Ive got the world on a string

I’m sitting on a rainbow

Got the string around my finger

What a world, what a life – I’m in love.

Life’s a wonderful thing

As long as I hold the string

Id be a silly so-and-so

If I should ever let her go”

and then I heard the words.. “time to turn off the gas.” I wanted to cry … it was all like a dream. I didn’t remember an experience at the dentist quite like that.

Never Eat Alone … an other secrets to success one relationship at a time by Keith Ferrazzi

This book is the ultimate networking guide. Though I have the gift of gab and can honestly say that networking is the key to most of my success, this book has given me some ideas that I am using today…. like follow-up… In one of my classes I say…”what good is a piece of chocolate cake if you can’t eat it?” Follow-up makes any networking you do worthwhile. Otherwise it is a waste.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran Foer

Oscar is a nine year old inventor who’s dad died in the 9-11 attack. He finds a key in an envelope with the word “black” on it and sets out to search New York City for the matching lock. I was captivated by the story as it explores more than one tragedy in his family along with the quest of the kid to find answers about the lock and his family. Also, I had the powerful urge to “google” words and topics that intrigued me as this brilliant kid did realizing his lack of knowledge in so many areas. I couldn’t put the book down. (Yet, I couldn’t get thru the first page of his first book!)

Plan B Further Thoughts on Faith

by Anne Lamont

Vulnerble, middle aged, single mom, and spiritual are a few words to describe Anne Lamont. I was thankful to have had the opportunity to hear her read from her book in March. The book is a collection of essays sharing her thoughts on aging, her son, the death of her dog, and people that she comes across that make her think. She is tortured by the Bush administration and moved by her small church community. I want to have her over for dinner.

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I am always hesitant to answer the home line during the day. Why did it have to come to this? It seldom is a friend. Not that I don’t have friends. It is just that some telemarketer is sitting in a cubicle preying on the checkbook of those of us that stay home or work out of the house. Is usually someone asking for the “lady of the house” or MRS D. That’s a big clue there because I haven’t been MRS D for over a decade.

Ok.. so I hesitate, but grab the phone anyway. The gentleman on the other end was extremely polite. He introduced himself and stated the company he represented. “The Funeral Home?” I queried. “Are you kidding?” He said no and proceeded to start to ask me about my plans…. “Wait… wait…. MY plans? Do you know something that I don’t know yet?” I exploded with laughed until the tears rolled down my cheeks.

I explained to him that AARP (American Association of Retired People) has been encouraging me to join. The member ship is very affordable. I asked them how they could even consider asking for my membership. “Have you seen my complexion? Do I look like a prospective member? I am only a few years from the minimum age and I have only barely considered the 10% discount at Denny’s Restaurant a benefit… that equals to about 30 cents off a Grand Slam! But I haven’t joined AARP yet. How could I possibly be ready for the funeral home?

Well, back to the telemarketer. He started mentioning cremation and burial plots and the expense of a funeral. I have to admit there are other days this type of call would not at all amuse me. Days when you just return from a doctor and there are test results that you are waiting for. Can you imagine sitting by the phone, not so patiently waiting for the doctor to call and instead… the funeral home?

But, better yet.. the funeral home telemarketer started to explain that representatives would be in my neighborhood. “Egads… MY neighborhood? Are my neighbors all dying? Is there something in the water?”

I think I was too much for this fellow. He said it was his last call of the day. I was hysterical and thanked him for the hearty laughter!

Riley is born March 14, 2011