Malindi would have liked it here

Malindi would have liked it here.

Malindi was a little bookle girl (4? Or 6?), when we watched a movie of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I even have a remembrance of watching it with my mother, Grandma Gerrie, on one of her visits to Maine. My mother, displaced from the Midwest to San Diego, was not used to New England gardens…. where everything withers and wanes and appears dead for many months of the year and then burgeons and blooms magically in the spring. It’s not a secret so much as a surprise.

This weekend I went on an explore (isn’t that what Rabbit and Pooh take Tigger on?) to downtown Grand Junction and, by accident, I followed a sign to a Secret Garden.

I walked down sunny Maine [typo or Freudian]-that should read Main Street, past the specialty shops: knitting, bikes; music; antiques….and there was a sandwich board sign (without a body in it) pointing down the alley-like break between storefronts to “A Secret Garden.” I stood there for a moment deciding if I was just going to the corner bagel shop-with-free-wi-fi that I knew about, or take this, not-really-dark alley, to somewhere new. I took the road less traveled and went down the alley.

I found a square building that looked like an old garage. The sign out front said “Augusta’s Secret Garden—Tea House and Gift Shop.”  I still hesitated, but Augusta, Maine: Augusta, Grand Junction—I knew I was meant to go in. Glen Miller’s Moonlight Serenade was playing. How many people know all the words to that?  The building had been converted from the storage unit for the Montgomery Wards that had been on the front of Main Street. It was now a vintage clothing store/tea house. Glittered pinecones and feathered bird statuary bedecked  table displays by a glowing fake fireplace. The 3 x 6 inch bricks forming the walls had been painted to look like 10 x 15 inch stone walls with painted ivy and bunnies included. An impressive tin ceiling gave ambience and decorative tutus and butterfly costumes and taffeta-studded hats hung all around.  In the back, vintage clothing by the rack was being fondled by patrons.  But me, being just interested in brunch and not pinafores, I had high tea and scones at one of the front tables. My homemade, warm blueberry scone and gingerbread came on someone’s Grandmother’s tea plates. Augusta herself waited on me. My plate came with a spring of shrubry and a dried rose.My bill came with in the shape of a teacup with my name on it.  I got a punch card for free treats if I come 5 times. The place was a dream world for a little girl’s birthday party.  In that regard, it was “a secret garden”—a surprise that I wasn’t expecting….. and Malindi would have like to be here with me.

 

A Room with a View

Ever sat through a Space Summit?  No, not the 'let's get to Pluto by 2025' kind of summit. The kind of space summit where you hear 'let's move the file room to the basement so we can move IT to 312 and then move XYZ to the 7th floor and split the extra room into 8 cubicles. But this isn't quiet enough and that doesn't have medical gases available and the other place has supporting walls and this place doesn't have supporting walls and that doesn't have windows.....THAT kind of Space Summit.


Today, I identified primo space WITH a window. 


Judd would like it here: a 4th floor room with a window overlooking trees and mountains--no privacy curtains necessary.


Judd said government employees where he used to work would, as regular as messy elections, take the newspaper on break to "the library" as my dad always called it. And sure, in a 2x3 foot stall, what else could you do but read a newspaper?  But here, wow, something very freeing about viewing the birds and the sun and a smattering of clouds and the Rockies while deciding on 3 squares or 4, on bunching or folding....

My only fear, while I'm still on this awkward  'best-interview-behavior' every day, is that someone heard or saw my camera while I took these pictures in the bathroom of the executive suite....

"Howdy Ma'am"

I left the Residence Inn this morning and a guy was coming in while I was going out.  He had jeans and a red checkered shirt and an eight, maybe, ten gallon cowboy hat on. He drawled, "Howdy, Ma'am."  I think I said good morning although I almost said, "Howdy, Pardner," back.  I wondered if he'd been out to warm up his truck or to feed oats to his horse. I looked back to see if he was wearing spurs, but he'd already gone in the building....

This after-rainy-noon, I walked the cute downtown area of Grand Junction. They have an Art on the Corner exhibit and have redone their two lane Main Street to be a winding serpent of a road with benches and outdoor seating everywhere. It looks like a pretty fun place to shop and bakery- or bar-hop. Just not by myself. Not today.  I hung out in a bagel shop and read some more of Rebecca.

Herman Miller Black

On NPR, and then on Maine Public Radio, after the news, I heard, almost every morning on the way to work, about the "Herman Miller Aeron chair, in true black" AND NOW I KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS-- I HAVE ONE!  VA Grand Junction rolled away the crusty, dumpy, sat-upon for 25 years, chair of the former chief and rolled in a brand spanking new, airy, mesh, lumbar-supported, rocking-if-I-want, adjustable chair to sit in front of my new computer with dual monitors (and Maine coffee mug!) I'm concentrating much better now.

"Product Story The Aeron chair didn't end up in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection just because it looks cool. Although it does. Its looks are only the beginning. Aeron accommodates both the sitter and the environment. It adapts naturally to virtually every body, and it's 94% recyclable. Even if it's black, it's green."  www.hermanmiller.com

And then, back at the Residence Inn, my desk is replete with Maine momentos. They make me happy. I'm sitting here crunching blueberried crackers with peanut brittle for dessert! Thank you, thank you all. Peanut brittle --arrived intact.  Pencil/pen holder--not so much.

Three books in Three days – my life in solitary confinement

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose   by Tony Hsieh

The Dam Committee   by Earl H. Smith

Boomerang: Travel in the New Third World   by Michael Lewis

Okay, granted, all three books have been started for weeks.  I just hadn’t finished any of them.  Don’t judge me. It’s like changing the channel on the TV before one show is over. I started Boomerang in late October in response to a recommendation from one of my head hunters. I admitted, I knew nothing about the world economy or how we got in this mess.  The book was readable and educational and was actually easier to finish than Delivering Happiness. I picked Delivering Happiness up after a Jon Stewart interview with Tony Hsieh, the really young CEO of Zappos. The description of his philosophy of delivering excellent customer service struck me like lightening in direct contrast to whatever was going on at work that week.

Earl Smith was my fun, witty, eloquent Dean when I was at Colby College. I went to his book signing at the China Library this winter and he was very self-conscious that there were no books available to sign at the time. It will be hard for him to sign my Kindle, but the book was light and entertaining… It might annoy people in Belgrade (where Earl lives) because it’s all about characters in “Belfry, Maine.”

Completed in between:

The Help       by Kathryn Stockett (because Oprah told us to read it)

A Hope in the Unseen   by Ron Suskind  (for Kelcy’s Freshman reading at UMASS)

And

Fifth’s Business    by Robert Davies   (for book club that hasn’t happened yet)

Now I’m in the middle of Into the Wild   by Jon Krakauer  (about a young man on an Alaskan wilderness adventure that ends badly, downloaded on Kindle when I was flying to Anchorage and was too lazy to schlepp Alaska by Michener that Omer loaned me – also too lazy to read it! It's a very heavy book.) Next are all the books people gave me for presents....

footloose in Colorado National Monument

"It should not be denied...that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led west."   Wallace Stegner, The American West as Living Space  (quoted in Into the Wild (about a book by Jon Krakauer about a guy lost in the Alaskan wilderness) which I started today.)  Today, I went west. Amy Davis, a fellow resident from Maine-Dartmouth Family Practice Residency, is a doc here and took me for a tour. We went up to Colorado National Monument--the mountains just 20minutes from my door.  When we were setting up the date, since she hasn't seen me in 20 years, she eyed me and asked, "Do you run?" I said, "Not lately. Do you quilt?"    SO, she did a trail run while I did a trail walk. I hiked up Serpent's Trail from Devil's Kitchen in my new $4.99 Goodwill Nikes.... 


 I kept right up with the 4 year old who passed me (and took my picture.)  After the walk we drove the Rim Road--every bend in the road looks across a mini-Grand Canyon. Tomorrow I'm invited to dinner where she has free range chickens and an organic farm on 7 acres on the Colorado River. 

friggatriskaidekaphobia*

Don't be scared!  Did anything bad happened to you today just because it was Friday the 13th?  Me neither. In fact, I got my first snail mail (Thanks Denise Powell!!) and I got taken out to dinner (Dutch treat, cuz it's the Federal Government, duh!) by new work colleagues. I can't stop pulling off the road to take pictures of the mountains.  In the morning, the western mountains are pinky-orange in the sunrise and on the commute home, the eastern mountains are shiny-white-pink in the sunset.

*(Frigga being the name of the Norse goddess for whom "Friday" is named and triskaidekaphobia meaning fear of the number thirteen)
wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th

The mountains turn whitish pink if I get off work in time to see them at sunset. Mountains are visible in 3 directions. I make myself leave work between 5 and 5:30 (because it's never really "done.") They have given me the most preferred parking I've ever had. Really embarrassing, but I'm starting yoga on weekends so I can learn to cope with it.

I don't have my ol' reliable whirly popper, but I have 2 electric burners and a pot with a see-through lid.... See the Orville Redenbacher's go?  I bet I'm driving the other inn residents crazy with the smell of mommy popcorn!

A complete stranger's Kindle cover. I accosted her at Starbucks where I was hanging out on Saturday. She said she knitted it, freestyle, out of three strands of yarn held together --must have been with some pretty big needles!

Commute to the VA

Sunrise on my drive to work......

I like that "007" is in my license plate...

Government Issue car  -You ask what kind. The kind that has 4 wheels on the ground plus steering--I don't know what kind!

Grand Junction is a small town (population: 58,566) (but bigger than Augusta (population:  19,136.) For example, after work today, I pulled over in the Rite Aid parking lot to program my TomTOm to "GoodWill" to buy a used sewing machine, and within 30 seconds someone stopped by to say "hi--how was the car working out"  (the nice VA lady who helped me procure the government vehicle.)  I said great and I was not lost just programing my GPS for somewhere to cut my hair... (Is it a loss of face to be going to Goodwill within 96 hours of arrival in a city?  )   And tomorrow is my "Meet and Greet the VA"social hour.... how many people have already seen what I shopped for in Goodwill or Rite Aid????

p.s. I bought a $16.00 sewing machine!!!!

dang pink kitties

So, I'm going to the morning meeting with my styrofoam, free-from-the-the-hotel coffee cup and the nice person in the hall says, "oh, here, do you want a real cup?--I hate to drink out of styrofoam."  So I let her look through the cupboard and give me a mug..... a kitty mug, a syrupy-sticky sweet, pink but not-"Hello"-kitty mug.  I'm more than slightly self-conscious that everyone else in the board room has a professional or sensible or manly coffee receptacle.  I start to edge my coffee cup closer to my chest without spilling it all over my power suit.  I start to think she did it on purpose to put me in my substitute-chief-of-staff place.  Oh, why didn't I pack that magenta MAINE cup that Judd gave me for Christmas??!!!

Try this!

February BREAK! Countdown Clock | CountingDownTo.com

Grand Junction is on the Far Side

Almost missed my Denver to Grand Junction flight--distracted by the lady next to me spelling L-H-A-S-A   A-P-S-O to the young lady next to her, explaining her intricate doggy stroller. "They were Tibetan dogs--indoor dogs."  It was only an hour flight and I fell asleep with my mouth open. A fitful sleep, worried that the coughing/sneeqing guy next to me would germ in my mouth. After dozing, I woke up suddenly and looked out the window over gigantic triangles of mountains with little triangles of  snow patches. From the aisle seat, I couldn't take a picture. 
Out west, there is very little snow.   But lots of sun in Grand Junction. While unpacking, I found lots of little notes from my kids hidden in my luggage. It made me smile.