Entries Tagged 'Random thoughts' ↓

Hills Bros Coffee

Every day we look out at the lovely Bay Bridge but also at the orangey brick building that once housed Hills Bros Coffee. Haven’t tried the coffee myself, not sure I’d like it, but I do like the building 🙂

Thanksgiving Day 2011

Then last week got this photo from Father! They were visiting a friend who brought this tin out of the cupboard when they asked for coffee – apparently a friend of hers 40 years ago visiting San Francisco brought her back ‘some decent coffee from San Francisco’ and she’s been using the tin all these years!

hills_tin 575

TV vortex

Sometimes I find I have a few hours to myself and I always think of how productive I can be – there’s always a load of work to catch up on, a list of other non-work-related family jobs/paperwork to get done or a blog post (!) or practical Susie Homemaker stuff like baking or ironing. Then there’s all the stuff I could unexpectedly do with my time – phone call to a friend, a few hours at the shops, a walk, a movie. I’m no good just being at home not doing anything.

So I park up on the couch with my computer to work, that’s the one thing I always have to do which has got me to this place that if I don’t do it, I feel guilty. If I turn on the TV for company I always get so sucked in. I often just sit and stare at it. Doesn’t matter what’s on. Is this why so many people can spend so many hours a day watching rubbish? Or in my case watching stuff I seen before? I try to rationalize it with the reason that my brain and eyes are always taken up with work, that after months and months of constant work, a few hours in front of the TV is a huge rest. But then I feel guilty I’ve just watched TV for 2 hours and not done any work!

Moments that define you

I don’t really think of myself as a go with the flow type of person – too highly strung and definitely need to be in control, second guessing every situation so I’m not surprised. Recently I was watching a trailer at the movies when the voice-over guy said ‘there’s a moment when you know everything will change’ and that got me to thinking if I have any of those moments in my life. Moments I haven’t necessarily had control over. That bring about some kind of change. I think they’re different for everyone.

So I’m trying to think of moments I’ve had when I knew everything would change, or even moments that define me, it’s actually quite hard. I remember lots of things big and small but those that bring change and have a profound effect on who I am and what I do?

  • That moment I caught sight of my mother when I was in my early teens, crying to a family friend about how her life had turned out, I think then I realized that parents don’t necessarily have an easy time of it, that they’re human too.
  • When I was being fitted for a bra in my 20’s and the sales assistant asked me if I was still feeding. If I didn’t already have self esteem issues, I now have them for life.
  • When my cat got run over.
  • When I opened the door one March evening and Craig was standing there in a suit, holding an orange rose, I knew he was my one true love.
  • When I saw and felt my best friend take her last breath.
  • When I learned and experienced that physical sickness can be brought on by stress – in my case a boss who played me.
  • When I signed papers at the bank to take out a loan to put money in with 5 others to start Xero.
  • When the night ended on my 40th birthday – I was with the one I love in the place I loved. I felt great that day, that things would be different – that I’d grown up and didn’t need to question and prove myself and be everything to everyone any more, that I’d made it. Nothing changed.

My 12 steps to avoid Community Manager burnout

This might be a strange exercise to do in this format but after going to a Community Management workshop recently and hearing a stat that Community Managers usually burn-out after 18 months, I realized that I’ve been doing this for 3 years and either coping remarkably well or have burnt out and just don’t know it. Although I thought burning out meant you couldn’t function much any more or spent a considerable amount of time in the corner or under your desk crying or eating way too many Advils. I thought about some of the things discussed at the workshop and how some traits of the job which turn out to be common to Community Managers all over the world define us and some mechanisms for coping.

12 steps to avoid Community Manager burnout

  1. admit you are doing it all on your own, that you have been for too long, and that this might not be the best thing for your company. Dedication to your job doesn’t have to equal no sharing and unhealthy, unsociable, stressful behavior
  2. try to do one thing at a time, like dealing with emails in turn, oldest to newest, people will phone you if it’s urgent
  3. see the funnel, be the funnel … realize that it’s OK to not know all the answers to all the questions, your job is a funnel or more likely one of those Willy Wonka contraptions for collecting and getting information from one place to another and connecting people or questions with the right people or answers
  4. create a system for keeping up with who you’ve asked for more information from
  5. believe, really believe, that asking for help or an assistant is not admitting failure, and ask for it
  6. look at your book or your husband as the last thing you see before you go to sleep at night, not your iPad
  7. identify something you can do for yourself – actually doing it probably occurs in the next 12 steps! But identifying it is half the battle.
  8. walk to work or walk to get your coffee, fresh air is your friend
  9. make a connection or friends with another Community Manager
  10. call your mother
  11. accept that just because you don’t get praise very often that you’re still doing a good job, your peers just honestly can’t see all the work that goes on behind the scenes to keep a community busy and happy
  12. book at least one day’s vacation, even if that’s a weekend day.

You know you’re a real San Franciscan when

Saw this article in SF Gate recently – You know you’re a real San Franciscan when … and that made me think of a few things myself.

You know you’re real a San Franciscan when you …

  • Have a back door channel for what’s going on in the city via the Bay Bridge twitter account and are on a first name basis with him
  • Can walk up 5th Street and avoid an encounter with a homeless and/or crazy person
  • Can cross the road without being tooted at
  • Don’t walk up Powell Street unless you have to, like if that Walgreens is actually closest
  • Don’t ride on the open-sided street cars that have camera laden tourists hanging off the side of them
  • Know where the nearest Post Office is
  • Know where to buy envelopes and posting material, because you can’t get them from the Post Office
  • Don’t stare at same sex couples holding hands
  • Don’t take pictures and gasp and point when you see someone with a Twitter, Facebook or Square logo on their laptop sleeve, backpack or t-shirt
  • Ignore naked people in the street
  • Have a Clipper Card
  • Use Luxor or Uber cabs and have an app for that
  • Know what holiday ‘420’ is in celebration of
  • Go to the Ferry Building over Pier 39 or Fisherman’s Wharf
  • Know the sweet spot for avoiding long lines at the Ferry Building at various times of the year

I’m sure there are more that I’ll realize as time goes on – perhaps I’ll keep this as an open list.

Orange tulips that have stayed standing tall

I’ve never had a bunch of tulips stand up so straight for so long before! I’m beginning to wonder if they’re genetically engineered, but they’re from the organic WholeFoods so that can’t be true.

Orange tulips

There was a recommendation to cut the paper wrapping and put them in the vase of water with the paper still around for a few hours, then remove the paper. I wonder if the stems needed to fill up with water and become all strong? Anyway, I did the paper thing and they’ve been standing tall for a few days now. Good trick!

Foggy Friday

Someone with a similar vantage point to us made this cool time lapse video of the Bay Bridge emerging from the fog yesterday morning. Very cool.

Is 2012 the year of the girl?

In 2012 will the Orange Girl actually become more girly? An Orange Lady even? Thanks to not swapping Christmas gifts and all the sales on at this time of the year I’ve purchased a couple of *very* girly items with a fantastic effort on The Mister’s part cajoling and researching and ooo’ing and aaaa’ing and ecouraging! (Not a regular husband, which is why he’s so wonderful.) I vow to wear and use them although early trials are still a little uncomfy however channeling Kate Beckett I am persevering!

The items are a pair of black pumps with a *proper* heel

New shoes

A handbag that sits on the crook of your arm which leaves a very demanding flapping hand available for very-busy-and-important wrist snaps!

New bag

The handbag is somewhat obvious. It’s orange. My previous 2 orange handbags have been loved and battered to death.

The shoes on the other hand are somewhat of a revelation. I do actually need a pair of shoes to go with the couple of evening dresses I have for things like the Xero Gala Dinner each year but part of me also just wanted to own a pair of girly shoes (OMG. Am I going through The Change??!) Over email and with surreptitious photos from various shop floors around the city I also enlisted the help of Short Dark Friend (she found the whole thing hilarious!) – her and The Mister’s impossible task was to get me to like and buy a pair of shoes that would go with a dress AND jeans. God forbid I need shoes that go with just one outfit!

So I have the shoes. I’ve worn them around the house with jeans (for our New Year’s Eve dinner party) – God they are uncomfortable but have to admit they do look quite good. I definitely don’t feel that ladylike or like Beckett just yet but with confidence, that will come.

Sent Father on a mission as well, I realised the last time I actually owned a pair of black pumps was 20-something years ago when I had a pair of training-bra heels that I wore with my high school bouffy 80’s prom dress – I had him dig out the photo for you all 🙂

OG17ball

So I need to get from feeling like a high school ball misfit, to Kate Beckett!

katebeckett

My mother #keepsake

I forgot I’d written down a list of things about my mother which I unearthed when we were packing up to move. When she turned 60 and had a big party at the local hall with friends and family we drove up and some part of me wondered if I’d get over my fear of speaking in front of people enough to say a few words, tell a few funny stories. As it happened my nerves couldn’t handle it and her friends had gone to a lot of trouble to put on a locally inspired opera so there was enough to see without me stuttering and stammering.

I never told her I wrote all this down – she’ll chuckle and probably be very embarrassed to read it! Just a random collection of things she’s done, can do and some random memories.

My mum:

  • can pot – at some stage in my childhood she had a potting wheel and made lots of very good things, perfectly round and symmetrical although I seem to recall they never got fired so they dried into the most delicate of muds in the garage and Dad grumbled having to move them between a couple of houses.
  • can fly a plane
  • made lots and lots and lots of chocolate eclairs for birthdays, dinner parties, take-a-plates, school fairs, family treats and she still makes them now from time to time
  • was a wild lady from the lupins once – my sister and I (probably about 7 and 9 (probably the last time I wore togs)) were building sand castles on the firm sand at the beach and Mum was doing what she loved best at the beach which was lying basking in the sun, on this occasion fairly hidden in the sand dunes. There was hardly anyone else about. The sand castles that we’d built were perfect and we were building roads to join them together in a castle town when a couple of naughty boys who’d wandered along the beach came up to us and said “stupid girls with stupid sand castles” and stomped all over all of them with their feet laughing – I can’t recall which of us, or perhaps both, burst into tears, loud enough for Mum to hear – next minute she came tearing out of the dunes through the lupins shrieking and waving her fist at the boys “get away you horrible boys – leave those girls alone – how would you like it if we smashed things you made?”. Her hair was all over the place, she’d been asleep, she was a bit pink, she was screaming and wearing delightful swirly whirly patterned black and white togs – a sight that scared them away. But she saved us 🙂
  • has run/walked a few half marathons – all of them when she was over 50
  • is an amazing cook – I remember a lot of dinner parties at our house in Woodlands Road. For birthdays she always made our faves, and would now were we ever at their house on our birthdays – roast chicken and lemon meringue pie for me, pork chops and berry cheesecake for my sister, sausage casserole and golden steamed pudding for Dad.
  • can run a high school single-handedly
  • made me some amazing birthday cakes – ones I remember most are a piano (with while chocolate and licorice keys) and a pink fairly castle (the cake tins she used for the turrets were cans from tinned goods, peaches she told us, but I’m sure they were from  the cats jellimeat, not because of any bad taste in the cake but because Mum never had tinned peaches or other fruit, she bottled everything!)
  • would never give us luncheon and tomato sauce white bread sandwiches for our school lunches – oh no, always brown bread with left over cold roast meat and salad … usually had to find my school friend Natalie to switch for her luncheon sandwich and loved staying at her house on school nights because that’s what her Mum put in my lunch box! Kids just don’t appreciate the good ground work their parents put in – I’m sure my good teeth, nails, hair, weight and constitution are due to a decent helping of brown bread in my childhood diet!
  • was very VERY mad with me when I ran away to Joanne Brown’s house on the orange school bus. I wasn’t actually running away from home. I don’t recall being angry or upset or particularly rebellious, I think I was about 9 or 10, I just wanted to go visit. I should’ve got suspicious when I got on the bus at the lady driver asked me if my mother knew I was going on the bus (small town, small bus, she knew every kid and I was a spare) “Oh yes, I’m going to visit with Joanne” … yes Joanne was there so the explanation was plausible. Got to Joanne’s house where I was greeted with a similar question “No, but Joanne invited me to your house.” Obviously Mrs Brown phoned my mother, I stayed and played for a while, then was driven home later. A rather frosty reception from my mother who questioned me repeatedly “do you know how worried I was?” with my sister looking smugly on, usually it was her that was in trouble. I was sent to my room and told “wait until your father gets home’. Hmmmm, I recall that dark night, he was home way after I’d gone to bed and sleep but the light went on, I was hauled out of bed, given a big explanation about how worried my mother had been and to never ever go anywhere without telling her again and I think that was the last time I got the wooden spoon … when the last of the decorative fruit got whacked off 🙁 I’m still scared of buses to this day …
  • once sprayed fly spray on her hair instead of hair spray
  • loves to dance and her and dad are great dancers together and sometimes, even fairly recently, well, certainly on The Mister’s first night with the family, we danced as a family to Boney M – crazy laughing arms-out-whirling family. (He just watched. And yes he still married me.)
  • can smell berries, plums, pepper, spices and all sorts of things in wine.
  • once left the car keys in the house when we were late for school and shouted out to me as she was rushing back in to the house  “you back the car out while I go and get the keys”!
  • has been married for 38 years (at the time I originally wrote this)
  • has worked her whole life, although as home after school for us and now wants to travel the world.

Feels like a bit of an abrupt end to the list, but had I actually made it into a speech I’m sure it would’ve had a more planned out ending.

555 numbers #keepsake

It’s been a few years now since The Mister and I watched movies with great regularity – the fact that we can download TV shows means that we usually always have something to watch. We’ve kept our DVD collection growing though. For a while there I kept a notebook handy near the couch and if we were watching a movie and someone said their phone number I wrote it down – the notebook was recycled in the move but I kept the page of numbers.

Most phone numbers in movies (well American movies) start ‘555’ … here’s a few I collected, although it seems I didn’t write down who they belonged to very often! Seems 555 0199 is popular from the movies we watch.

555 4823 Back to the Future
273 9164 Sneakers
555 6429 Fast & the Furious (Dom)
555 1226 What Women Want (Nick)
555 0139 Angel Eyes
555 7219 Bring it On (choreographer)
555 4202 Hackers
555 2312 LA Story
555 9175 Terminator 1 (Tech Noir Club)
555 1439 Terminator 1 (Tiki Motel)
555 0199 Collateral Damage (the bomb)
555 7600 Godzilla
555 7606 The Net (phone Angela steals)
478 000 Speed (Harry)
555 3123 Die Hard 2 (Al’s fax number at the station)
555 0122 Slackers (Dave Goodman)
555 4240 Hackers (modem at OTV network)
674 9565 Scrooged (Frank)
555 2310 Last Action Hero (woman in video store)
555 0123 Bruce Almighty (God)
555 0134 Sum of All Fears (paged Jack Ryan)
555 9091 Speechless (tele-prompter)
456 1414 American President (White House)
555 2148 Mean Girls (Kevin Ngapoor math geek)
555 0199 Italian Job (Netcom van number)
555 0199 Miss Congeniality 2 (Miss Arizona)
555 0168 Miss Congeniality 2 (Dolly Parton impersonator)