enduring friendship

I was in Durango, Colorado for a VIP Leaders Retreat last week. Why Durango?  I have history.

In 1974, Frank (then boyfriend) and I moved from Telluride to Durango. Telluride had less than one thousand registered voters at that time so Durango seemed like a booming metropolis with abundant opportunities. Frank got a job at the Ore House - a popular-to-this-day restaurant - as a dishwasher. We were off and running...sort of.

I went back to college at Fort Lewis up on the mesa and studied music. Frank became Ore House bar manager. I began a singing waitress career at the Strater Hotel. We got married. Frank got hired as a manager at the ski area.  We bought a house.  I bought a restaurant. We had a baby. I opened another restaurant. We had another baby. Life was delicious. And then it wasn't.

The oil economy went south with the savings and loan banks. The tourist stream from Texas and Oklahoma dried up.  We sold out and moved on with two kids, a cat, and a packed Subaru.

We left our friends - a decade's worth of friends. Friends that worked with us and for us. Friends that were at our wedding and restaurant openings. Friends that skied - fast - and celebrated holidays with us.  We left them, but as I found out last week, they didn't leave us.

Last week, there were champagne and laughter-filled dinners and lunches and more dinner and lunches. We had cups of coffee sweetened with "Do you remember..." and news of passages, too young, and divorces, so sad. With it all, I enjoyed a sense of wonder that friendships can't be extinguished. They continue to glow as they started. They are fueled by shared curiosity, possibility, sadness, and love. They are never ending.

Spring...bring it on

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I don't want to be someone that complains about winter. Snow has been my friend. My passion for skiing is dependent on it. In the 70's and 80's in Colorado my income depended snow. More snow equalled more money. Unless there was too much. Then the buses from Oklahoma and Texas filled with tired skiers never made it. Croissants got stale, daily specials turned to day old employee meals and waitresses were bored. Too much of a good thing became a bad thing.

This winter was "the year of too much" for many snow burdened cities and regions. Amazing really. Brooklyn paralyzed? Snowplows stuck in the middle of intersections? Millions - probably billions - were lost due to "snow days." Unable to get to work (or wherever you needed to go) was the topic in the news for weeks this year. There is a good chance snow delays are over. I said "chance."

I attended a luncheon and workshop with Michael Tchong yesterday. He is the guy responsible for MacWeek (precursor to PC Week) in the 80's when few had home computers and fewer had Apple computers. He is a trend watcher with a message: Innovate or Perish.

Think about this list: Robots. Tracking devices in socks for seniors. Pill bottles with sensors to remind you when to take them. Laptops that look like purses. Robots. Walking lanes for window watchers in malls and on our streets so others can hurry. (Ever been run over in an airport for going too slow?). Augmented reality browsing. (Think Yelp.) Hybrid travel. (Work with vacation tagged on.) Time compression. (Never would have had a polaroid or a microwave without it.) And - Did I mention? - robots.

Back to the weather. Right now, it can't be controlled (unless there is some secret scientific manipulation that our enemies have directed at us this year) but we learned to tolerate, even adjust, to it. We get creative on snow days. Conference calls are held at home. Skype keeps us in each others' faces. Our laptops keep us connected to our desktops in the office. Working on the go...good or bad...that's a trend that has been and will continue to be perpetuated by innovation.

What about the other thing we need to keep going besides our technology? Food. (There's love and shelter, of course but I don't want to go Maslow on you here..) The guy that figures out how to get food where it needs to go on a snow day will be worth a lot of money. Remember the replicator on Star Trek? Now THAT is innovation! And I bet someone is working on it right now.

In the seventies I drank Perrier mixed with orange juice. Imagine if I saw that as part of the trend toward a healthy lifestyle. Yikes. Move over SoBe! I also used to put ice cream in my coffee before work to give me a jumpstart. That idea would have been a "move over Frappucino" idea.

Let's look around. What are people really doing? What are they saying? What do we need? I am going to find a new idea this spring by looking at trends. Do you have an idea? Great. Bring it on.

green & gold

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It's here. It's Super Sunday. Let's hear it for the PACK! Could it be that I live in the same state as a contender? Yes!

The only color that anyone has worn all week is green. The produce department displays peppers alternating green and gold at attentions. Pizzas have green pepper G's topping the cheese. I would bet that more deli trays are sold per capita in Wisconsin than any other place in the country. Every where you go people ask "Where are you watching the game?" No one would dare ask "Are you watching the game?"

So everyone...enjoy the game...oh...and please pass the cheese.

The morning after

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God bless America. God bless pundits. Here we are, the morning after, and it appears the takeaway from last night is that there were awkward responses from congress because they threw out the seating chart. Imagine that. A call to become a teacher, improve healthcare, and create clean energy jobs and all we want to talk about is the lack of rowdy applause.

Now, call me silly, but I listen - with interest and without judgment - when someone speaks with conviction and sincerity. But I don't boo or cheer a lot while he is talking. That may be tradition in congress but is it what we want? Really?

If so, we should take lessons from parliament in Great Britain. They yell. They pound. They even boo with thumbs down. It's a great show but I don't want a show. I want courtesy.

I can make up my own mind and have my own opinion without having someone screaming at me. I don't want to have to yell or throw punches to be heard either. If I did, then I probably wouldn't say anything at all. Would you?

The Inbox

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Warning. The beginning of this blog entry is the reason that people hate blogs, facebook, and twitter, but, here goes: I cleaned out my inbox yesterday and I want to tell you what I found.

I found a myriad of "things to file", photos, and receipts. There were paperclips and important things, too - like my expired rv registration waiting for a visit to the DMV and our last will and testament waiting to be notarized. Ho-hum. Just more things on the to-do list.

There was something important, however, and I am proud of myself for saving it. It is an article from January 17, 2010 written by Steven Covey titled "Seven Ways to Come Together." I quote from the introduction:

"A year ago this week, the nation watched, spellbound, as about a million revelers carpeted the Washington Mall to celebrate the inauguration of a new president.

What a difference a year makes - or not. The euphoria has worn off. In its place? Well, you know: anger, division , frustration, polarization. "

That was written last year. Sadly, it could have been written this year opening with "Two years ago..."

Please, Mr. President, inspire us tomorrow night so that we can move on. I am tired of hearing about the vitriol of government; tired of hearing phrases like "across the aisle", "partisan rhetoric", and "repeal the legislation."

Come on: Yes, we can (do better than this...)