11.05.09
A surefire way to get rid of hiccups
I think I learned this trick at Girl Scout camp, but I don’t really remember. All I know is it is the only way I can ever get rid of hiccups — forget about a spoonful of sugar, being scared, or holding your breath. Have a drink of water upside down!
It’s a little tough to document this with pictures when you are the only in the house with opposable thumbs (the cats were not much help), but here is my best attempt.
First, pour yourself a glass of water.
Then, put your mouth on the rim opposite the side close to your body, so your chin is sort of in the glass and your nose is on the outside of the far rim. (I once said to someone, “Drink out of the other side” and they just turned the glass around.)
Bend over at the waist, holding the glass normally.
Once you’ve bent over, tip the bottom of the glass toward your body and pivot your head to the floor until the water level reaches your mouth. Go slowly so you don’t get any water up your nose — the first time you try this, you might just take a small sip. Take a couple of swallows of water and I promise you’ll be hiccup-free!
Shop Much?
Maybe I should clean the pantry out a little more often. When I got home on Friday night from Run Like Hell, looking like a drowned rat and having had only a banana and some soggy cookies for dinner, I thought a bowl of soup sounded like a great idea — not too heavy for a late dinner, and nice and warm. So, I checked my pantry. There were three cans of chicken noodle soup in varying sizes. My gut told me though, that I should check the expiration dates. Indeed — March 2007, November 2007 and January 2008. And this is November 2009. So, um, I did not have soup for dinner.
11.03.09
Run Like Hell? Rain Like Hell!
Friday night I timed a race after work — Run Like Hell. I think we’ve done this for five or six years the Friday night before Halloween. I’m not much for wearing costumes myself, but I always enjoy seeing what people think they can wear while running three miles. Last year, the best costume was a guy in a 17-pound jack-o-lantern. It had to smell pretty gross in there. Another of my favorites was in the group category the first or second year — imagine running three miles on a narrow path wearing a school bus (my favorite part was that the headlights actually worked!):
This year, it was sprinkling just a little bit when I left the office at five to head over to the old Washington Street Bridge in White River State Park. By the time I got there, it was drizzling steadily, so I pulled out the raincoat. After setting up for a few minutes, it was raining a bit more, so I pulled on the rain pants. (After the 2008 Chicago Half Marathon, when it rained for 42 hours straight and I was outside in more than 10 of those, I vowed never to be caught by surprise again.) I set up the 10 by 10 tent and put the small table for my computer right in the middle, thinking the wind might blow a few sprinkles but that I should be okay.
By the time the race started at 7 p.m., it was seriously raining, and it only got worse — the wind was whipping things around like crazy and some random stranger (and he WAS strange) had taken shelter under my tent and was holding the whole thing down (this despite it being anchored to Phil’s truck, a generator, and a marine battery, as well as being staked at all four legs). Eventually, I stretched the cords a bit and took refuge in the truck to finish crunching results. We canceled the awards ceremony and sent everyone home (not that anyone was still there!)
Here’s one photo Don took, and captioned, before it got really bad.
You can see more great photos by Jeff Coates at his Web site. You’ll get a good sense of how windy and wet it really was! It had to be one of the top three most miserable races I’ve timed. However, thankfully the temperatures were in the 60s or we would have been freezing as well as totally soaked!
11.02.09
The Change of Seasons
I have a gorgeous red maple in my front yard, and it never seems to hold its fall colors long enough (just like the crabapple never holds it spring blooms long enough — what’s up with that?). One day last week, I snapped a few photos, and I’m glad I did, because the rain we had Friday totally wiped out all the leaves. I spent a couple of hours on Sunday raking and blowing them all into the wooded area behind my house.
10.29.09
This I believe…
I’ve been catching up on my NPR podcasts and listening to a lot of the “This I Believe” essays. Here’s how they describe the essays on their site, thisibelieve.org: “This I Believe is an international project engaging people in writing and sharing essays describing the core values that guide their daily lives. Over 60,000 of these essays, written by people from all walks of life, are archived here on our website, heard on public radio, chronicled through our books and television programming, and featured in weekly podcasts. The project is based on the popular 1950s radio series of the same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow.”
There are lots of essays from famous people, like Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Mead, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates and Gloria Steinam. But the ones I like best are the everyday people, the people who, although they may not be rich or known around the world, have found the words to share a belief in a poetic, thought-provoking or inspiring way. Here are some of my favorites (you can read the essay, but I really recommend listening to the audio for the full effect):
Always go to the funeral: Deirdre Sullivan writes about her dad’s motto, which is about much more than just going to the funeral, and about the payoff that comes from doing meaningful things for others, even if it’s not the easiest or most convenient thing for you.
Pathways of desire: I heard this at a time when I was fighting an uphill battle with a man. He was the apple tree, and I was the horse, oblivious to the cattle guards and barbed wire he kept putting up in our relationship. This essay set off a lightbulb in my head and my heart.
Thirty things I believe: I’m telling you, this kindergarten’s depth will blow your mind.
I’m in the midst of shaping my own belief statement, and I’ll share it soon. What do you believe?
(And, if you are as moved by these essays and others on the site, consider making a tax-deductible donation to support This I Believe.)
10.09.09
Coolest. Concert. Ever
So, Wednesday night Nichole and I drove down to Louisville (it’s about two hours from Indy, a nice straight shot down I-65) for a Great Big Sea concert. First, we took some touristy snapshots on our way to the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts.
Louisville has lots of bike racks, all disguised as cool public art.
This cool Dubufett is on the plaza in front of the Kentucky Center. There's also a Calder sculpture.
I was very impressed with the theatre — there is a lot of great artwork, from some pretty big names; I saw Dubuffet and Calder outside and a Miro inside. There were a lot of other great works that may have been by famous people, but I didn’t recognize them by sight and didn’t get a chance to see the plaques.
We had fantastic seats, second row center. The theatre was set up with five round tables on the floor space in front of the first row. So, I could have paid extra to be even freaking closer, but we were really happy where we were. We sat next to a cool woman named Jennifer who drove up from East Tennessee, and we hung with her the rest of the night.
The concert was totally amazing — the boys rocked out a ton of great songs from their new and old albums, including all my most favoritest songs. At some of the theatre concerts I’ve been to, they won’t let you dance, which is really, really hard at a GBS concert. But, within the first four or five songs, we were all on our feet, clapping, and jumping up and down. Nichole was on my right and Jennifer was on my left. They’re both much shorter than I am, so it’s a minor miracle that I didn’t crack either of them on the tops of their heads with my elbow — my arms were up above my head most of the time! (And I’m feeling that in my biceps today!)
Jennifer said the guys were usually pretty friendly after the show and that we should stop by the tour bus. She did not have to work very hard to talk us into it. After the show, she and I bought T-shirts and then we went outside to wait. There were only another five or six people waiting with us, which surprised me. We only waited five or ten minutes when a guy getting off the bus told us that some of the guys had gone across the street to the Mexican pub. We were off like a shot!
When we got there, there were only the three lads, with some of the largest margaritas I have ever seen. I think the restaurant really wanted to be closed so the staff could go home, but we ended up staying until about midnight, when the guys had to get on the bus. Of those of us who went over to the bar, the other five or so left right after getting their photos taken. So, we ended up sitting and joking with the guys for a couple of hours — just the three of them and the three of us. They are loads of fun, and I can’t wait to see them in concert again! Jennifer and I are friends on Facebook now, so I’m hoping we can coordinate schedules and be groupies together!
Murray, Alan, Kris (on drums), Sean and Bob
The lads: Alan, lead vocals and guitar; Murray, bass; and Kris, drums.
10.06.09
Aversion to ampersands
I have previously mentioned my rather strong feelings about ampersands. It’s not so much a phobia or hatred of the character itself (it’s actually a lovely, curvy shape, so I identify with it). It’s not that I think it’s bad to use it in company names or as part of a graphic element. It’s when people use it in prose or body copy instead of the word “and.” I had one colleague who peppered her e-mails with the character, and it just looked lazy and sloppy. It takes three keystrokes to type “and.” It takes two keystrokes, including one that requires most people to look down at the keyboard (finding the number 8), to type an ampersand. It’s just not enough time-savings to validate using a symbol instead of a word. Now, if the word “and” had 15 characters, I could probably be convinced otherwise.
I get a lot of grief about it at the office, so I was excited to wear my newest shirt.woot purchase last Friday. Ryan was so proud of my breakthrough!
10.02.09
Celebrating another 25th birthday
My own 25th birthday was, well, a few years back, shall we say…. but I’m delighted to be a part of my company’s 25th anniversary this year. In October 1984, Myra Borshoff founded a three-person agency that has grown to more than 40 talented professionals who I am proud to work with every day. See a little bit of our month-long celebration here, and become a fan of Borshoff on Facebook or follow Borshoff on Twitter to hear more!
09.25.09
It never fails…
We have a long-standing joke around Borshoff — the way to awaken a client that has gone quiet for a while is to remove them from the workload chart. Each week, the account staff all report how many hours they think they’ll spend on each client; after many weeks or months of reporting zero hours for a client, there’s discussion of “Should we take them off the chart?” And it almost never fails — the moment you hit Ctrl-X, the phone rings or the e-mail chimes and it is that very client, calling with a statewide advertising plan, or 16 brochures, or whatever.
I had a similar experience this afternoon. A couple of days ago, with a few moments to spare, I started cleaning out my Outlook Contact list. One person I deleted was a development officer for an Indy museum. I had lunch with him probably five years ago, as he tried to persuade me that my clients’ sponsorship dollars would be well-spent supporting one of their exhibits. I let him buy me an inexpensive lunch at his museum’s cafe and then told him that my clients had no sponsorship dollars. (But I did later share his contact info and exhibit roster with all my colleagues.)
So, Tuesday or Wednesday, I came across his name and decided to delete him from my address book.
Imagine my surprise today when the elevator doors opened on my floor today and there he was, coming down from a meeting somewhere above the 4th floor!
09.09.09
Hey! Down in front!
One of my favoritest bands in the world is Great Big Sea, from the “tropical island of Newfoundland,” as they say. They don’t tour in the Midwest much or get much airtime (not that I listen to much live radio), so I have to survive on my iPod. Some of my favorites are “When I Am King,” from Something Beautiful, “Consequence Free” and “Captain Wedderburn” from Road Rage, and “Fast As I Can,” from Rant and Roar. Actually, I love pretty much everything they’ve ever done. I simply cannot sit still when their music is on.
So, I was excited in June when I found out they would be in Louisville in October. I bought tickets as soon as they were on pre-sale through the Web site.
Today I got an e-mail from the Web site telling me my seat assignment (at the time, I thought it was weird I couldn’t select a seat assignment but I figured it was festival seating and first-come, first-served). But apparently, buying pre-sale tickets straight from the band was a pretty smart move — for only $40 per ticket, my seats are Orchestra, Row B, seats 205 and 206. Frickin’ dead center, second row.
That’s close enough that I should be able to get my underwear up on stage. While I’m still in them. Someone better warn the boys.
Now I just have to hope that my friend Chelsea, who introduced me to the music in 2001 or so, is able to get away from her husband and two kids to enjoy what I hope is a performance of a lifetime.
