Tag: New Jersey

2012? Almost

For those who are now living in Tent City due to Sandy, 2012 does seem like a doom-prophecy year i.e. INVOLUNTARY departure from their homes. Others in 20 States, mostly Red, willingly sign a petition to secede (VOLUNTARY departure from the Federade).  Essentially, they want to vote again.

Grow up.

We do have to zoom out and see where we are: globally and ecologically.

A warmer temperature means melting snow for the penguins. A butterfly in the Amazon still has that connection to Sandy, however small. (In the US, one can drive out of any house, to arrive at any person’s driveway; the power of inter-connectedness).

I was walking into a restaurant last night when the power  was suddenlyy out. For a quick moment, I knew how  people affected by Sandy must have felt.

To us, 2012 is just another calendar year.

To them, it’s dooms day.

Once again, the nation is showing its solidarity as in the days following 9/11.

Governor Chris and Cuomo, of Garden State and Empire State, were seen touring alongside the President.

A show of unity and solidarity.

People are hurting.

Groping in the dark.

Tested and bewildered

It happened before in Florida, then down in the Gulf with Isaac and Katrina.

People moved on, but those regions bore the marks of being whipped.

Bent out of shape (tourists would conveniently cherry pick the best spots in the world to spend their hard-earned dollars).

The hypocrisy of pleasure-seeking.

Since when do you hear a doctor take his/her vacation to give vaccine to an emerging nation? I only read about Melinda Gates Foundation doing this.

Meanwhile, we are in wait for another round of doomsday prophecy, often comes at year-end.

Futuristic stuff that may or may not fan out.

Yet we believe. We want an edge, to position ourselves for profit, or to hedge our bets.

Good luck with the rest of 2012. We have yet seen the end of it.

Still with a good two months to go.

I would line up my all-star team right around this time.

To charge out of the gate. To win. To seize the day, the year.

To plan that next play. Winning is easy when planning was hard.

2012 is not over until the planning for 2013 is complete.

An act of self-reinvention

The New Jersey blond lost her apartment, moved West, went to Planet Hollywood to have the crown place on her now-red-hair. Our Miss USA, from California.

Down turn happened for a reason. It forces us to take stocks, to reinvent and innovate.

A lot of people would rather move to try new places and opportunities, but most got stuck (esp. when the banks haven’t come up with court-required documentation to foreclose).

This is one of the rare times when the house does something to us (as opposed to us decorate or renovate it).

Houses used to provide shelter, status and security.

Now they are used as casino chips, trapping cages and court cases.

Might as well investing in ourselves. We need to rearrange and reconfigure to optimize ourselves.

Each of us got something unique: amiability, great memory, tactile ability etc..

Do an inventory. Emphasize the strengths (like “always show up” per Woody Allen‘s line i.e. “showing up is 90% of success”).

Those of us who have obsessive compulsive disorder can work at night as commercial janitorial supervisors (so we can leave the building spic and span in the morning).

Nothing left to chance or to waste.

We need everybody to make it work here on spaceship Earth.

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/06/19/it-s-still-the-economy-stupid.html

I received some pictures of Saigon before 1975. I noticed how clean (unpolluted) the air was back then. Cars and taxis just parked. People walked and took their time.

What’s a hurry? only a nasty war, one in a series in our long history.

So, Saigonese back then just went about their days, window-shopping or just strolling.

The boulevards and architectures were unlike anywhere else: a mixture of colonial French and non-traditional Asian.

Given my early French education, I hardly thought of myself as an Asian (the way the American would look at let’s say, Chinese coolies in Hell Kitchens – BTW, the official footwear for miss USA Pageant was ironically “Chinese Laundry”. Can’t wait for next year’s official sponsor of miss Universe’s cuisine in “Hell Kitchen”).

So we are represented now by a Jewel-like pageant, who moved West, and determined to make it. Good luck in the big league (Miss U).

It’s encouraging to see someone who is so willing to take on a new persona, walk the run-way with poise (after all she managed to leave Jersey as a line in “Born to Run“).

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. The red-hair went for a walk.

And saw her “California Dream” come true. How is that for “self-reinvention”. I want what she is having (When Harry met Sally).