Key to the Kingdom

At work, I'm leading another organization, facing questions of budgets, staffing, and programs. I can handle those, but I struggle with really important stuff like how to unlock the bathroom paper towel dispenser.

I've thought about it for weeks, made half-hearted searches for the key, but today put a solid hour into this crucial problem.

The folks who hired me may want to rethink things.

The dispenser's manufacturer doesn't acknowledge ever having made the thing let alone listing a replacement key. The interwebs suggested a bent paperclip. Like that would work.

But it did.

I basked in the glory of the opened dispenser like it was the Arc of the Covenant, took a stack of C-fold towels from atop the medicine cabinet, loaded the dispenser, and monkeyed with the paperclip to lock it. Mission accomplished!

Two C-folds remained on the medicine cabinet. I pulled them down. Something metallic tinkled against the floor.

Yeah, the key.

There seemed two ways to frame this. I did both.

First, I cursed the gods and myself. I'd looked inside the cabinet but not on top. It was there all the time. Damn, damn, and damn.

Then I realized the key had presented itself. A gift. I've hung it inside the cabinet. Mission really accomplished.

Challenges at this new organization keep coming. I can be closed, centered on my anxieties, and cursing the gods. Or I can be open and see what happens. I'd like to say I'll alwasy be open, but it may be enough to intend to pass through anxiety on the way to acceptance.

It's time to wash my hands, pull a towel from the dispenser, and move onto the next challenge, hopefully still smiling about how things get done.

Consumer Choices (for good not evil)

I was a big Starbucks consumer. Beans and drinks. I wanted rewards on the app and frequented it when traveling. It seemed the best coffee ever.

Then a friend said they preferred local shops that invest in the community. They weren't arguing, just stating intent, it struck me.

I don't buy Starbucks anymore. Don't have the app. I buy Salt City Coffee and Recess Coffee here in Syracuse. Traveling, I try local shops. The coffee is usually better than Starbucks. It tastes less corporate.

My choices are helped by Starbucks' union busting and their CEO riding a corporate jet from California to Seattle weekly. I mean really.

But there's more.

Dad ran a small business serving the community. He sponsored my little league teams, banked in town, joined local service clubs, and earned people's trust as a local business owner investing in the common good.

A new Starbucks opened in that town. It employs a few locals, but most of every dollar spent there funds CEO plane rides, union busting, and who knows what else, all of it far from that small community.

I've grown suspicious of mega-corps. Their basic design frames customers as prey. Starbucks' CEO is interested in my consumption not my wellbeing. The owners of Salt City and Recess are my neighbors and, like Dad did, they care about this community and people such as me who invest in them.

Mega-corps also tend toward bad actions due to fear, greed, and subservience. Starbucks busted unions. Target abandoned DEI. Amazon's and Tesla's CEOs undermine Democracy.

Target is feeling consumer backlash. So afraid of the orange maggot, they forgot the power of offended customers.

Amazon's CEO opposes freedom of the press. There went subscriptions.

Tesla sales and stock are rightly getting killed because their CEO is a Nazi.

Full disclosure, I bought a Tesla in 2021. I wanted the best electric car and that was Tesla. I loved it so much I figured I'd be a Tesla guy for life, but I'll never buy again even if they get rid of the guy who gave the Nazi salute. When people and mega-corps show you who they are, believe them. Then make choices.

I've felt hopeless about the orange maggot and his minions. What can I do?

I can choose, that's what.

I choose local coffee. It tastes better. Stuff I bought from Target and Amazon I choose to buy elsewhere or not buy at all, saving money. I'll choose a Rivian vehicle next and feel a cleaner conscience.

I don't have to surrender. They need me much, much more than I need them and my choices matter more than I might think. Yours might too.

Home of Luck and Choice

A friend said, "you're so lucky your mortgage payment is so low!" Our three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath, single-garage home with full back and front yards, in a small city costs just over $300 a month plus property taxes of just under $5,000 a year.

I see why they think we're lucky.

But beyond our white, middle-class privilege, it was choice, not luck.

In 2001, about to have our first child, we wanted to live close to family, in the city, and chose a good house. We could afford only five percent down. It felt like a lot. We weren't sure how we would make it.

But I remembered eight years before, when our car blew a head gasket. We'd had to buy a new car in spite of the massive monthly payment.

That Toyota Tercel cost $119 per month.

We were still driving it when we bought the house. It was long paid off and, recalling those massive payments, I smiled and relaxed about buying the house.

Within months, mortgage payments were manageable. In five years, they were easy. 283 payments later, they're almost inconsequential. Time has this effect when we choose to hang onto things.

We chose to keep the Tercel until it had to be towed away. We've chosen to stay in the house, maintaining and improving it.

We sometimes wish the house were bigger, had a two-car garage, fewer steps, and a front porch, but we choose to work with what we have.

I was born lucky to good parents and a loving brother. A spectacular woman chose to marry and raise two tremendous daughters with me. I'm blessed.

But our low mortgage payment was choice more than luck. It was predictable and I predict that in ten years, someone will hear what we pay and say, "oh my god, you're so lucky!"

Maybe by then I'll be wise enough to just nod and say, "you know, we really are."

Ridiculous Project (with reasons)

There are 247 albums in my collection. Vinyl. Analog. The kind that spin on a turntable. Playing now is Vince Guaraldi's Alma-Ville, a tremendous record from a musician who should be known for more than the great music to Peanuts.

This year, I'm trying to listen to every album. I like this kind of challenge, spending time with analog things, listening and maybe writing. A ridiculous project, but I have my reasons.

Today is Inauguration Day. Feels like a funeral. Watching, listening to, or reading the news does me no good.

Great jazz on old technology is nothing but good. No corporation tracks my listening. I'm connected with something tangible, close at hand, and beautiful.

Getting through 247 albums, some double, triple, and box-sets totaling 294 records will take a while. It's already the twentieth day of 2025 and I've listened to a scant five albums. But what's life without a good project?

Especially when the world is burning down.

I'll keep listening.