Moo

The not-so-smart cows of North Carolina.

The story my son asked me to tell four times in a row Monday evening:

When MOBB and I were living our carefree BC (before children) days, we took a long weekend and went to a B&B in North Carolina, nestled in the Smokey Mountains west of Charlotte.

We had a fine time there, taking it easy, doing a lot of nothing.

Across the back of the property was a fenceline, and growing nearby were some apple trees. Cattle grazed the slope beyong the fence, and you could pick apples and give them to the cows, who would eat them whole of course.

Thing is, sometimes they'd drop the apples, which would go rolling down the mountain. Cows, not being intellectual giants, would take off running down the mountain after the apples. We'd try to be quick and offer them new apples, to save them all that running, but they always ran anyway.

THEBOY found that quite funny.

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BB's current therapy: "Jesus is Waiting" by Al Green.

***

Our big presentation on the book Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends went well last night. I was the first of our four presenters. I got a few laughs, elicited a few "aaws" from the largely female audience when I shared a story about my kids.

And the clincher, to me, is that several of the points we made were actually featured prominently in the prof's lecture afterwards.

I'm glad to have that over with.

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"When you follow your bliss, doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else."-- Joseph Campbell

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I have the best job I've had in years, I really do. And as much time as I've spent blogging in the past about miserable, soul-sucking jobs like Belo and TVTK (backwards...), I wish I could spend that much time talking about the proud, exciting, heart-warming or humorous moments I have in this new place. I shouldn't, but I can't help but share a little...

Sometimes it's slow, and sometimes it's wheels-off busy. We hear a lot of languages here. I cover the receptionist's lunch break on Fridays, and when I'm down there it's not uncommon for me to hear maybe five languages in an hour. Last Friday I heard Spanish, English, a southeast Asian language, an African language, and French (also spoken by an African).

At one point I was juggling phone lines, welcoming new visitors, logging all activity on the clipboard and helping the French-speaking African, who for some reason handed me the phone and wanted me to say his credit card numbers in English.

I'd tried to tell him to do it, okay, when he point at his card and asked if that was the account number.

"Yes, those 16 numbers right there," I told him.

He barked into the phone: "16 numbers right there!"

No no no...

So he handed me the phone, and whaddya know, the person on the other end also spoke primarily French. Somehow I got the message across.

***

And today as I returned from lunch, I heard the receptionist telling someone on the phone, in Spanish, that I was just returning to my office, and that'd I'd take their call in just a moment.

Okay, fine. I hustled up the stairs, trying to get the Spanish gears going.

I answered the phone... It was one of my regulars, a Bosnian client. Her English is difficult to understand and her accent is thick. I can only wonder what she thought when the receptionist on duty spoke all that Spanish to her.

***

No Krav for me this week most likely. My back just isn't up to it yet. I might have been fully healed and ready to go by now if not for the roof leak Friday night, but I'm not bitter. I'm on the verge of missing two weeks here, but as you know, that's uncommon. As soon as I can reasonably get back in there I will.

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MOBB is watching Emma, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. There's this scene in which a roomful of folks are sitting there, watching women take turns playing the pianoforte (that's a reg'lar piano to you and me). And like I told MOBB, I can't believe there was ever a time when men would willingly sit absolutely still in those uncomfortable chairs, listening to someone warble at the piano. Those guys must have been thinking, Man I can't WAIT for TV to be invented...