Sometimes when we see abuse or neglect we feel powerless.
Please remember that if we don't say it is wrong then that says it is right.
Keep an open mouth!
"None of us are free if one of us is chained."
"If you don't say it's wrong, then that says it's right."
–Solomon Burke -
None of us are Free
"Everybody's gotta fight to be free"
—Tom Petty
Refugee
Amen.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Spring on the horizon
Click on the photo to see a close up of a beautiful spring moon. Soon we will be sitting in sunshine!
Sunday, February 03, 2008
pretty sad
I feel bad.
Since my last post I have gotten a new computer (another story) and thus a new Internet browser. I actually had to Google "Coffee and a Cubicle" as I had forgotten the exact URL for my blog.
Anyway, you might ask, what, after a five-month hiatus, has inspired the Cubicle Queen to once again pick up her mouse and blog?
It is shoe wipes. Yes, shoe wipes. Sorry.
If, like me, you live in the midwest or other variable-weather region, you often arrive at your cubicle with shoes that would just not do if you were to be suddenly called upstairs. I often slop through ice-melt, slush, mud, dew, and all matter of earthly nastiness before sitting down to my computer in the morning. My shoes look, literally, like they've been dragged through the mud.
I was at Walgreen's today looking for an expectorant cough syrup (yet another story) when I passed by the shoe-care aisle. "God my shoes look nasty," I thought, so I stopped to browse the inventory.
I spied Kiwi shoe wipes. They come in a little plastic pouch with the inevitable pop-up flap that releases moist wipes. I'm standing there thinking, "these are probably just water with a dash of alcohol. I bet all the various 'wipes' scattered all through this store really have the same ingredients, whether they be for you bottom or your counter or your shoes."
But, I do have nasty shoes, so I decided to try them. I am totally surprised to tell you that they are great. They are a small cloth with a hint of oily substance mixed in with an effective cleaner. Just several strokes across my shoes and the results are, well, amazing. After trying them out, I dashed downstairs to demonstrate them to my husband. I told him he could have this packet for his desk drawer and I'd get me another.
"Just think," I told him, "you get to work and notice mud and crud all over your shoes… and all you have to do is whip out a Kiwi wipe and you are ready to start your day with confidence!"
He tossed the little packet onto the coffee table and turned back to the Super Bowl.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
knee deep in catalogs
I haven't felt much like writing this summer. I have been knee deep in editing and proofreading the undergraduate and graduate catalogs. The phone book and the schedule of classes have been hovering in the wings.
The printer who has produced our catalogs and class schedules for the past 15 years went out of business. Finding a new, reliable printer has been quite a task. Then, the new printer had exact requirements for how they received the files.
We do have a new president on campus who promises to bring change and excitement. I believe this is a good thing, and I am looking forward to a new era at Bradley!
In the fall I hope to back to blogging… and back to normalcy.
The printer who has produced our catalogs and class schedules for the past 15 years went out of business. Finding a new, reliable printer has been quite a task. Then, the new printer had exact requirements for how they received the files.
We do have a new president on campus who promises to bring change and excitement. I believe this is a good thing, and I am looking forward to a new era at Bradley!
In the fall I hope to back to blogging… and back to normalcy.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Thick as Flies
I walked home from lunch the other day in tremendous heat and humidiy. As I gained the steps, I noticed flecks on the window behind the mini-blinds. I walked in the back door, lifted the blinds, and realized these flecks were a bevy of flies.
The spectacle of 60 to 70 flies hanging on my kitchen window rapidly took away my appetite. So, I rolled up a newspaper and began swatting away. Whack, splat, whack, splat. I got out window cleaner to tidy up the carnage splayed across the glass and soon realized that ammonia-based cleaner did double duty: it suffocated flies and cleaned up their carcasses at the same time.
After work that day, I called up my mother to see if she too was overrun with flies. She had not suffered the same plague, it seemed, but she did recall her childhood when flies were a pestilance.
"They were thick," she recalled. "Sanitation was bad and flies were everywhere." She said she would help her mother cover everything in the kitchen before spraying it down with a pesticide.
"Thick clouds of flies - they would be everywhere," she said.
She also opined that my recent infestation could have been caused by eggs hatching in the windowsill. I suspect it is from the screen that the dogs broke out, however.
Whatever the cause, a thick swarm of flies in the kitchen is one of the grossest things I have encountered recently.
It rivals only the flying ants that we had in our basement cubicles a few weeks ago.
The spectacle of 60 to 70 flies hanging on my kitchen window rapidly took away my appetite. So, I rolled up a newspaper and began swatting away. Whack, splat, whack, splat. I got out window cleaner to tidy up the carnage splayed across the glass and soon realized that ammonia-based cleaner did double duty: it suffocated flies and cleaned up their carcasses at the same time.
After work that day, I called up my mother to see if she too was overrun with flies. She had not suffered the same plague, it seemed, but she did recall her childhood when flies were a pestilance.
"They were thick," she recalled. "Sanitation was bad and flies were everywhere." She said she would help her mother cover everything in the kitchen before spraying it down with a pesticide.
"Thick clouds of flies - they would be everywhere," she said.
She also opined that my recent infestation could have been caused by eggs hatching in the windowsill. I suspect it is from the screen that the dogs broke out, however.
Whatever the cause, a thick swarm of flies in the kitchen is one of the grossest things I have encountered recently.
It rivals only the flying ants that we had in our basement cubicles a few weeks ago.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
living with imperfection
I was working on the undergraduate catalog recently and noticed a typo that had appeared in last year's edition. It must have happened as a last-minute slip of the keyboard because I always run spell check (an hour-long process on a 300-page catalog) just before sending to the printer, and spell check should have caught this error. After a few moments of embarassment, I thought: it happens. Move on.
I'm not a perfectionist, having recognized long ago the unhealthiness of such a tendency, but I do like to make my work as error-free as humanly possibly. Sometimes I look at a story or a newsletter in the blueline stage and wish I could redo or rewrite the whole thing, but at such times I assure myself that I am probably a harsher critic than most other readers.
I wanted to walk back to work today after driving home for lunch. As I headed out the door, I noticed on the counter a packet of fliers that I had promised to distribute in the neighborhood. I thought I could complete part of this task on my way back to work and finish it on my way home.
In our neighborhood of old houses, we all struggle to maintain structures that have already endured over a century of living. We have tall trees dropping their limbs, we have rotting wood, we have crumbling sidewalks and crumbling foundations. We fight against the aging process. But weeds grow, paint peels, concrete chips, and cobwebs accumulate.
I want my house to look beautiful, and I often dream of winning the lottery because I know, on my own, I can't make my vision happen. But, as I walked up to all of my neighbors' porches today, I was surprised, as I got a close-up view, that they too have weeds they can't keep up with, paint that is chipping off, and shifting concrete.
I look so critically at my restoration efforts, but today I realized that everyone on my street struggles in the same way. As I walked across my neighbors' lawns towards home, humidity dripping from my scalp and raindrops pelting the pavement, I thought of a line from W. B. Yeats:
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
I'm not a perfectionist, having recognized long ago the unhealthiness of such a tendency, but I do like to make my work as error-free as humanly possibly. Sometimes I look at a story or a newsletter in the blueline stage and wish I could redo or rewrite the whole thing, but at such times I assure myself that I am probably a harsher critic than most other readers.
I wanted to walk back to work today after driving home for lunch. As I headed out the door, I noticed on the counter a packet of fliers that I had promised to distribute in the neighborhood. I thought I could complete part of this task on my way back to work and finish it on my way home.
In our neighborhood of old houses, we all struggle to maintain structures that have already endured over a century of living. We have tall trees dropping their limbs, we have rotting wood, we have crumbling sidewalks and crumbling foundations. We fight against the aging process. But weeds grow, paint peels, concrete chips, and cobwebs accumulate.
I want my house to look beautiful, and I often dream of winning the lottery because I know, on my own, I can't make my vision happen. But, as I walked up to all of my neighbors' porches today, I was surprised, as I got a close-up view, that they too have weeds they can't keep up with, paint that is chipping off, and shifting concrete.
I look so critically at my restoration efforts, but today I realized that everyone on my street struggles in the same way. As I walked across my neighbors' lawns towards home, humidity dripping from my scalp and raindrops pelting the pavement, I thought of a line from W. B. Yeats:
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
Monday, June 18, 2007
Bring on the rain
Almost every morning recently as I walk into my office in Swords Hall, I dodge the spray of water from the sprinkler hissing away in front of the building. At home, I can see the outline of old gravel paths, long since covered over and planted in grass. The roots can't grow deep over these artifacts, so a drought such as the one we are now experiencing, reveals the old walkways.
My water bill skyrockets as I turn on my own sprinklers in the evening to preserve the new perennials I have planted in my garden in the front and to encourage the growth of the wildflower seeds I planted out back.
Today it looks like rain. The sky is rumbling and turning grey. A brief storm blew in over the lunch hour, but was gone by the time I had read the paper and eaten my sandwich.
In year's past, heavy rains this time of year have flooded our basement offices in Swords, but I don't think we have to worry about that this year. We had lots of rain in early spring, but recently the precipitation has been sparse. So bring on the rain. Saturate the grass and the trees and the flowers. Bless the green growing world with water.
My water bill skyrockets as I turn on my own sprinklers in the evening to preserve the new perennials I have planted in my garden in the front and to encourage the growth of the wildflower seeds I planted out back.
Today it looks like rain. The sky is rumbling and turning grey. A brief storm blew in over the lunch hour, but was gone by the time I had read the paper and eaten my sandwich.
In year's past, heavy rains this time of year have flooded our basement offices in Swords, but I don't think we have to worry about that this year. We had lots of rain in early spring, but recently the precipitation has been sparse. So bring on the rain. Saturate the grass and the trees and the flowers. Bless the green growing world with water.
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