October is the month for our annual United Way campaign where I work. We reached 78% participation. How? By giving us two months of casual dress. That means that for the rest of the year, I can go to work looking just a little better than I do when I first get up in the morning! I save five or six minutes I usually spend getting all gussied up! It means nothing has to match! I’m in heaven.
I have had a relationship with United Way for many years, payroll deduction-wise. I have a collection of United Way pens in my desk drawer at work along with some United Way beer cozies, and a United Way squeeze ball.
My first introduction to the United Way campaign was in the Army. They knew how to do it right and they got 100% participation. First they marched us into a room and told us to SIT DOWN and SHUT UP! Already it was a nice break from our regular routine. Then the United Way representative stepped up and talked to us so nice and friendly. No one had talked to us like that in weeks. When he finished, we were jerked back to reality.
“EVERYBODY STAND UP!”
You had a choice. Get in this line and fill out the payroll deduction form, take the rest of the day off and have a nice weekend. Or, get in that line and get a white rag to tie to the end of your bed so they can wake you up at 4am for some knuckle-dragging kitchen duty that would last well into the evening and leave you feeling like you’ve been par boiled until you’re begging to die. You call that a choice? People pushed each other out of the way to get into the first line while rag man stood alone with his unwanted rags. That’s how to get what you want!
Whatever works is fair, I say. There’s nothing like a day off in the sunshine in your favorite crappy clothes.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
A Special Day - Sue
I came home from work this morning, watered the birds and fed the dogs. Padded hither and yon. It was a morning like most any other morning. The wind was blowing some weather in. The mountains were getting snow. The Broncos got their asses whooped yesterday by the Raiders. 59 to 14. They haven't had that many points scored against them since 1963, or something like that. And then it happened.
There was a vase of bright orange and purple flowers on the table! With a card! That's right! It's my birthday! Phyllis surprised me, though I should know by now, after having had what, nine birthdays I think, since I've known her? Since I got her on eBay? I should know by now that she would have something special there for me when I got home from work. So it isn't an ordinary day after all!
I've had quite a few birthdays. I've had enough to count on my fingers and toes almost three times over. But the thrill is always the same, when I am singled out as being someone who is cared about, and when MY birthday seems like it MUST be sacred to someone else. Because someone else wants me to know that I am thought of, in a quiet and tingley way.
It makes me feel like a little kid again. It makes me feel like I am wanted and valued. And isn't that nearly the most treasured feeling you can have? To feel valued? To feel like your place in this world is worth something to someone, and that you mean something. To feel like there is a reason for you being here. That's what a simple vase of flowers on my birthday means to me.
And there is this chat board I frequent, full of old friends whom I also got on eBay, back when we were daring and silly. We have a lot in common, like a paper cut-out of dolls holding hands, connected through the past and making connections stronger in the now. I've never met them, but they are dearer to me than people I see every day, people I work with. No one at work knew it was my birthday, because no one cared. But the people who are tied to me gave me the wonderful surprise of wishing me Happy Birthday. Such a simple gesture, but meaning so much, like a glance from someone who knows you so well that you never have to explain, and the gesture says it all.
It's a morning like most any other. I took Pete for a bike ride. We took the long way, just because we were both so alive with the fresh breeze making the air clean to take deep, long breaths, looking cold with silver clouds and leaves the color of raw egg yolks, yet warm anyway, just warm enough even though it's October 25, 2010, and I'm 58, going on 17, but only for today, my special day.
There was a vase of bright orange and purple flowers on the table! With a card! That's right! It's my birthday! Phyllis surprised me, though I should know by now, after having had what, nine birthdays I think, since I've known her? Since I got her on eBay? I should know by now that she would have something special there for me when I got home from work. So it isn't an ordinary day after all!
I've had quite a few birthdays. I've had enough to count on my fingers and toes almost three times over. But the thrill is always the same, when I am singled out as being someone who is cared about, and when MY birthday seems like it MUST be sacred to someone else. Because someone else wants me to know that I am thought of, in a quiet and tingley way.
It makes me feel like a little kid again. It makes me feel like I am wanted and valued. And isn't that nearly the most treasured feeling you can have? To feel valued? To feel like your place in this world is worth something to someone, and that you mean something. To feel like there is a reason for you being here. That's what a simple vase of flowers on my birthday means to me.
And there is this chat board I frequent, full of old friends whom I also got on eBay, back when we were daring and silly. We have a lot in common, like a paper cut-out of dolls holding hands, connected through the past and making connections stronger in the now. I've never met them, but they are dearer to me than people I see every day, people I work with. No one at work knew it was my birthday, because no one cared. But the people who are tied to me gave me the wonderful surprise of wishing me Happy Birthday. Such a simple gesture, but meaning so much, like a glance from someone who knows you so well that you never have to explain, and the gesture says it all.
It's a morning like most any other. I took Pete for a bike ride. We took the long way, just because we were both so alive with the fresh breeze making the air clean to take deep, long breaths, looking cold with silver clouds and leaves the color of raw egg yolks, yet warm anyway, just warm enough even though it's October 25, 2010, and I'm 58, going on 17, but only for today, my special day.
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