Check the Weinermobile Off The Bucket List

Hey! Get out of my picture anonymous kid.

I really wanted to wrap up the thorny discussion we were having last week, but I’ve got to tell you about my close encounter with the Weiner mobile.

You’ve all seen it. That 20+ footlong hotdog that rolls through marathons, parades and Harley rallies.

You can imagine my unbridled excitement when I spotted it parked outside my local grocery chain-store. Ooooh! I tittered my fingertips together and walked faster from the parking lot. I’ve always wanted to see inside—haven’t you???  I mean, this is the Mecca of nitrate-loaded comfort food. It’s the mothership for baseball snacks, campfire fixin’s, and meals microwaved by baby-sitters.

I braced myself, for the inevitable spiel from 2 young spokespersons clad in Condiment Yellow rain gear. Maybe they’d give me a coupon to try to detour my forward progress.  That might satisfy the rest of the world, but me?   My mission was to see inside the Weinermobile.

My timing was good. No one else was around. Focused like Chuck Norris, I went straight for my objective.  “I want to see inside,” I said.

“Yeah, sure.” The young man hooked a thumb toward the open door barred by a limp strip of yellow caution tape.

It was an anti-climactic moment. No drop down grills. No conveyor belt, rotating chili, sauerkraut and onions through the seats. No canned music chanting that kiddie Oscar Meyer song. Not even a sling shot or canon to hurl hot-dogs into parade crowds. “Oh,” I said, thoroughly disappointed to have dreamed so long for so little.

Inside the grocery store I ran into Mrs. V., who was Scout’s retired kindergarten teacher. “Hey, did you see the Weinermobile?” she asked, her voice full of amusement. She was a great teacher because she liked to explore everything. “They gave me a whistle!”

DANG! I didn’t even get a whistle. So I trotted back out into the mist to try to recoup my “bucket experience.”

Here’s what I found out:

• The 2 twenty-somethings manning the Weinermobile have the job title of: Hotdoggers. (Put that on your resume!)
• Six Weinermobiles, travel town to town. Each team is gone for a year, sharing the hotdog’s magnificent presence. Their home planet is Wisconsin.
• Worst moment: According to Col. Mustard, (I’m not making this up) the male Hotdogger, the worst times are when it rains and everyone stays in the store and doesn’t visit with them.
• Best moment: According to Rachel Relish, her favorite memory was driving the Weinermobile through Times Square in New York. The crowds went wild.
• Does anyone ever deface the vehicle when it’s parked at the hotel for the night? “Oh my no. Never!” said Rachel Relish. “People love the Weinermobile.” It’s an American icon.

Now, I don’t know about you, but this made my patriotic heart thump in my chest. Juvies may graffiti school buildings and stop signs, but when it comes to the Weinermobile—it holds a space of sanctity and respect among all peoples.

And then Col. Mustard pulled a whistle from behind my ear. SCORE!!

It must have been there all along.

And best of all, I learned that every experience, even a long-imagined one, is whatever you want to make of it.

Well, This is a fine Pickle…

A situation was brought up during last week’s experiment on choices of kindess; I’m changing it a bit to give it more drama and heavier moral implications (which makes choice harder)

It’s the kind of problem that makes us scratch our heads and really ponder before taking action:

It’s the kind of problem a writer likes to throw in a story to incite readers with the same choice I’m giving you:   What would you do?

You spot a friend’s husband having dinner at a restaurant with another woman.  You know your friend is out of town.

Do you:

• mention it to the friend when she gets back?
• mind your own business?
• there’s a third option here, but I think I’d rather hear what you have to suggest. Let’s leave shotguns and tigertraps out of it.

Have fun.

Choices: Oh That I Had a Thousand Voices

We Conclude the Week’s Discussion of CHOICES:

I wrote this post, then deleted it last night.

I rewrote it because, I thought the conclusion to a week of  choices about kindness deserves simple language:

If we were perfect, we would never socialize. There would be no pull or reason because our perfect selves could supply exactly what we need.

But wisely, each of us were made with some talents, skills, or gifts and missing others.  Our kindnesses are the exchange of support, advice, and time which keep everything balanced.

Sure  there are those who choose to take too much, or not give at all. Even then, this magnificent system weaves others into the fabric to help with the healing.

If I needed any further proof, all I have to do is look at you all this week. I had a great need to know if choosing to listen to a stranger, give up time to give someone a ride, or do a favor made a difference.

You all supported me in the experiments and helped me look for answers. Thank you. Your words and works were kindnesses. Proof that when a need arises, other talents are pulled toward it.

Oh, that I had a thousand voices to tell you what a mysterious,  throbbing, truly alive network our kindnesses weave.  We have been crafted to need each other.  Like the locking of puzzle pieces, our simple gifts to each other create a whole.  I’ve been blessed to witness the pieces inexorably coming together this week.

For this I say, “Namaste” (I salute the spirit within in you)  and…

“Thanks be to God.”

Choices: The Grumpy Factor

This week we’re looking at CHOICES

“Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.” ~Samuel Johnson

This experiment in choosing  “flash-kindness” as Roxie so brilliantly labeled it, is netting unusual results (which I’ll talk about tomorrow).

But TONIGHT, I need to address a common thread running through all the comments: “the grumpy factor” as Les aptly named it.

One summer I offered to help an ailing man tend his plot in the community garden. I love the miracle of growing things and its healing abilities.

We were having a good time. I wasn’t prepared when the old guy  leased another plot and promised the caretaker he’d also take over someone’s abandoned plot.

Yikes!! He didn’t talk with me about it. I should have told him I’d only help with one garden, but he’s old. I didn’t feel I could tell him I only signed on for one plot and drive away, leaving him to hoe rows dragging his oxygen bottle. I was tilling, weeding,  and harvesting several gardens (in addition to my own).

After a hot afternoon, watering and picking his 50 (I kid you not) tomato plants (he felt it helped his cancer), I said to Scout, “Doing good deeds makes me cranky.”

“You must do a lot of good deeds,” he said.  Ahhhh…the irritability of doing everyone else’s stuff instead of my own.

So….back to our topic—CHOICE.  Sometimes our choice to help turns into more time/work/money than we expected.  Sometimes it makes us stressed.  No, I don’t think it negates the good deed we’re doing,  but it does make a perfect opportunity for US to be on the receiving end of a kindness.

What do you do when this happens to you?

Choices: I Ear You

His Master's Voice by Francis Barraud

Here’s the thing I’ve noticed about kindnesses. I’m more inspired by what you all have told me you’ve done, than my own drops in the bucket of good will.

It seems that several of you have offered your time and your attention to others while standing in post office lines, grocery lines, and fast food lines.

It also seems that you weren’t looking for a kindness to do. It just stood next to you and opened it’s mouth, which means you had to make a choice:  Radiate the attitude that says you’re as interested as a soggy newspaper about what they have to say OR smile, listen, and nod and grunt at the appropriate times.

Additionally, I have learned the universe will drop opportunities all around me. Open my eyes (okay, maybe substitute “heart” here for “eyes”.)

So it’s entirely because of you all, and your exemplary behaviors that I called back what I knew would be a a whiny, complaining phone call today. I’m on the Boards for a couple of volunteer organizations. I’ve learned that someone is always ticked about something.  But today was different.

(Because of you all) I listened for as long as the guy wanted to complain, rather than find a way to wrap up the meandering conversation. Then somewhere about the 20 minute mark, a brilliant flash of insight made my eyes goggle. The caller was using  “angry words,” but what he was really expressing was “I’m hurt. I feel left out.”

Hokey Smokey. Well this changes everything. My responses to him changed. Somewhere at the 30 minute mark, he was laughing and telling me,”Thanks for calling me back.” He repeated it several times before he was ready to hang up, so I think he was truly thankful.

ON DAY 3: I learned one of the big, big kindnesses we can share is to REALLY listen to each other. I mean REALLY listen so the other person feels they’ve been heard. And I’m pretty sure it creates a ripple in the universe. (You know how I’m always looking for empirical proof).

How’s it going for the rest of you?

Choices: If Opportunites were Snakes, I’d Be Bitten All Over

by Guerilla Futures

It was pretty cool that I didn’t even have to leave my house to look for a chance to do a random/spontaneous kindness yesterday.

So I thought I’d test the universe, and see if an opportunity fell into my lap today. I worked out at the gym in the morning. Nothing presented itself.

A friend called and wanted to meet for lunch, but I’d just eaten and was going to the nursing home at 2. Cowboy Fan and Scout wanted to meet me at the movies at 4.

Yeah, I know visiting a friend in a nursing home is a kindness, it’s just that I was testing the universe to see if it would lay a surprise choice in front of me. As the day went by, I became more desperate. Surely if an opportunity dropped in my lap yesterday, the world would spin out a chance to do an unplanned good deed today.

So like Lisa (yesterday), as the day went by, I became more desperate to find an opportunity. Nothing. This evening, the handicapped lady in the wheel chair at Albertson’s didn’t even want help getting her groceries into the trunk. And when I polled my family to see what kindnesses they could use, the answer was: “Nothing.” and “Not now, I’m doing homework.” So  it seemed the universe had conspired against me.  All chances to help had slammed shut.

Then it dawned on me. An opportunity had presented itself, and I’d turned it down. The friend who wanted to go to lunch— I’m sure she needed to talk since she’s going through a rough time in her life. It wouldn’t have taken much effort to move things around and see her.  I realize now, that I could have made it all happen. But I didn’t. We did chat on the phone, but you know that’s just not the same.

I wonder how many other opportunties I missed?

To Recap:

• Day 1: The results of a Random Act of Kindness are interesting, but not predictable
• Day 2: I will be presented with RAKs, and being open to others’ needs may help me to see them.

How’s the experiment going for others. Any difference in the Universe, yet?

Choices: The 4-H Kid and the Pizza Cynic

Wow! Thanks for your feedback everybody. Here’s why I need you.

I told my brother I was trying out random (okay, substitute the word spontaneous) acts of kindness this week to see if it made any difference in my life or anyone else’s.

He laughed so hard he could hardly speak.  His exact words were: “For one week?”

Well, okay…I guess my Mother Teresa gene hasn’t fully developed. I was thinking that I would do things for others that were spur of the moment, and maybe even things that take me out of my comfort range.

So, when a kid came to the door and wanted Cowboy Fan to buy a coupon card for Pizza Hut and I heard him say “No,” because we’re trying to lose the fudge and cheeseballs we’ve packed around our hips during Christmas, I thought this was my “spontaneous chance.”

I bounced to the door and gave her $10 bucks for her 4-H fundraiser pizza card.

“What are we going to do with that?” Cowboy Fan asked. Not only do we not need pizzas, it was coupons to buy 12  large and get 12 medium FREE!

“I don’t know.” I shrugged and tossed it on my desk where a lot of good intentions lay, waiting to be filed or activated. Throughout the day, I’d glance at it and shake my head. I don’t know what I was expecting from this “spontaneous kindness” experiment. As Lisa pointed out, I’ll probably never know what ripples it creates.

And then Scout saw the card.  With only the zeal that a young man with a bottomless stomach can muster, he exclaimed, “We are so using EVERY ONE of these. This is GREAT!”

Okay. That wasn’t the result I was expecting. But it was a result. Interesting. Now I’m curious to see what will happen the rest of the week.

Thanks for checking in everyone. This will be really interesting to see what a group of people sending random/spontaneous good deeds out into the universe will change.

Roxie, did you notice any difference in yourself or the world after you mailed your kindness? Lisa, it must have been pizza-kindness day yesterday, and yes, I think even the smallest kindness counts. We’re making an extra effort to shoot more good surprises into the world this week and see if it matters.

Do Choices Create Hope?

What are your choices?

We had a lively discussion today about choices. Cowboy Fan threw in some Zen philosophy stating: what happens in our lives is the result of the choices we’ve made.

“What about that guy who was minding his own business, walking down the sidewalk and a car jumped the curb and ran over him?” I asked.

“It was his choice to walk down that particular road at that specific moment,” Cowboy Fan replied.

Well now, I’ve been mystified by this before. When I read about someone falling asleep, running off the road and hitting someone, I often wonder how different things would have been if either one of them had started their journey a few minutes sooner or later? Would they have missed each other? Would something else have happened?

Last week I mentioned weighing choices by how important they were to our obituaries. Yet,  I’d agree with Roxie, that often the most insignificant choices—giving someone a ride, giving the guy who fills gas tanks a piece of candy, writing a note of encouragement—are the choices which lay foundations of hope for others.

So this week, I’ll experiment. You can join me if you want. Each day this week, I’ll make a choice for a random act of kindness. At the end of the day, I’ll tell you what I did. We’ll see if what happens in my life is the result of the choice. Will the ripples affect anyone else?

Please join me if you’d like, I’d really enjoy hearing what choices of kindness you’ve made this week.

Choices: The Last Breath of Our Stories

This Month we explore CHOICES:

I admit it. I look at the obits.

At first I was looking for interesting names for characters in my stories. Of course, the headliner in the paper lists formal monikers like: Willoughby or Fitzhugh, but when I mined the copy, I discovered golden nicknames like; Bezy or Jop. Those two names sound like a couple who fight about how to hang toilet paper, and give their cell phones to the needy.

Then I got hooked by the stories of people’s lives. It made me wonder:

• Did that degree from Princeton make a difference in the job they had by life’s end?
• How could a woman survive 3 husbands?
• Her pet was cremated with her?

If there’s a photo, I try to see the untold story in the lines and smiles of their faces. Written by family members, obits often unwittingly contain clues like: All her children, except Bill and his wife, were there as Mimi took her last breath.

Boy Bill, are you and the missus in trouble.

The obits remind me of choices. We fret about whether to go to college. What job to take. Who to marry—or not. How many—if any—kids to have. Travel? Learn a language?

All ponderous choices, and the end result is the same. One day we’ll find ourselves in the obits. To make decisions I used to apply the adage: Will it matter in 5 years. Now, I ask myself: How will it look in the obits? Usually the choice isn’t even important enough to be mentioned in a 300 word life summary—which kind of puts it into perspective, doesn’t it?

So go ahead—make choices like sharing your final resting place with your deceased pet, but if you’re Bill and Mrs. Bill, don’t expect the rest of the family to choose come to your funeral.

Choices: Answer the Call of the Train?

The topic for discussion this month is: CHOICES.

I picked it because I’m a slacker. I CHOSE to make NO resolutions for this new year. Perhaps the lesson here is: if I make a choice, I have to be prepared for the consequences which in this case is guilt.

This pithy, but trite epiphany came to me four days into 2010 as I punched my pillow into a softer mass, then I lay, mentally demanding sleep to overtake me. What came instead was a familiar, nostalgic sound.

Around 2am, the whistle of a faraway train rolled through valleys and fog, drifting past my darkened windows.

On previous nights, the sound has always made me pause and listen if I were still awake.  The tracks aren’t nearby,  and I don’t hear the whistle during the day. But when folks are tucked in their beds and cars parked  in driveways, then the night is free to carry the melody of the locomotive slicing through the next town.

I wondered if there were passengers. Were they traveling this late because Uncle Martin was ill and they’re trying to get to him? Was someone else awake too, kinked up in a seat too short for their legs with an unsupportive gap at their lower back?  Maybe they’re slouched at the bar, watching their beer make waves in their plastic cup.

What slipped through my thoughts next, surprised me. It was a prayer.   “Please help the people on the train carry their burdens.”

I’m not one of those sweet, soft-spoken women of faith. I tried, but I keep migrating toward the crabby, let’s-get-it-all-out-there-and-be-real-about-it believer-type. I figure that God made me and knew what He was doing, so I’m going with the flawed me.

This supplication wasn’t exactly a new development. I toss out a request when I see the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle. “Lord, please help whoever that fire truck is going to rescue.”  Then one day I saw an ambulance stop, turn around, drive a few blocks, stop, turn around again. They were lost. I figured I should add drivers and EMTs to any requests for divine  emergency assistance.

So after the night train to somewhere whistled, I decided to make it a habit to answer the  haunting call with a prayer. It made me smile, even though I couldn’t sleep.

Especially when I realized my choice just made a resolution for the new year.