On the roads.

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Over the last two days, I've done a lot of  driving to work with a client in regional Victoria.  I quite like driving on the highway.  It gives me time to think and I enjoy listening to the radio.

I was driving a lipstick pink hire car this time.  Today I was dressed in a pink shirt (I packed before I picked up the hire car).  I felt ridiculously matched.  People were looking at me in my lipstick pink car.  It was very girly and initially I didn't like it.  Then I got used to it and I quite like the colour now.

It goes back tomorrow.

When I picked it up, I waited in a line for twenty minutes.  A large group of tourists were hiring several cars.  Their English speaking skills were limited.  It took a long time.  I signed my paperwork, paid and was gone within five minutes.

While driving I was treated to a double rainbow.



Some of the things I thought about:

• I started to map out when I will take a holiday.  Working freelance means that it can be easy to forget to plan a break - especially in the first year.  I've discovered that I needed to understand the rhythms of demand and accept that.  I know that January is dead, so I've decided to schedule time and I have already started telling clients that I am unavailable during this time.
• I marvelled at the impatience and recklessness of many drivers.  I worried for one driver who looked like they may have been falling asleep.
• Why couldn't I open my ereader this morning?  I'm deeply into "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen and enjoying it immensely.  I read it over dinner as I dined on my own at the hotel restaurant last night.  I read it before I went to sleep last night.  I took it to breakfast, but could not get the book to open.  Very frustrating and one of the drawbacks of digital - this would never happen with a real book!
• I worry for the missing Melbourne woman Jill Meagher.  Listening to ABC radio (where she works) meant I heard a lot.  I hope she's all right.  I can't imagine how her loved ones must be feeling.
• I appreciated the landscape, bathed in gorgeous pink light as the sun set.  
• I cursed the sun as I drove right into its light.
• I pondered the validity of dead gangland boss Carl Williams' family launching a civil damages suit against the state for negligence (he turned police informant and was murdered while in maximum security).  I didn't reach a conclusion, but it's an interesting question.
• I spent time thinking about the changes I had seen in the group I've been working with.  One woman was so much more engaged, she was like a different person.  Another man who had been hard to convince, thawed and acknowledged to me (in front of the group) when I handed him an intellectual "diamond".  Another woman was so angry at everyone and everything, I wondered what her life is like.

And so it goes.
Even though the beds at the hotel I stayed in last night are the most comfortable beds in the world, I will be very glad to sleep in my own again tonight.
What have you been thinking about today?

Struck down and alone with my body

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I have been exactly like Prime Minister Julia Gillard this week.  I flew into another city (Brisbane) for important work the following day and spent the night vomiting.  As Jonathan Franzen described it in "Freedom", I was alone with my body.

There is nothing lonelier than being ill in a hotel room.  The bed isn't right.  The pillows aren't right.  The temperature control is off.  The noises are unfamiliar.  There are no ice cream containers to put by the bed in case of emergency.

Then there's the whole emergency planning scenario for the following day which plays on the mind.  "I have to be okay for tomorrow."  "What happens if I'm not okay tomorrow?" "I just have to be okay tomorrow."  This played out for the whole night.

I woke up at 6am with a blinding headache and a parched mouth, but could roll over without feeling queasy.  Slowly I eased myself into a sitting position.  I made a cup of weak black tea and spent the next 40 minutes sipping it.  (There is a post coming about the comedy of filling the kettle in hotel rooms).

I hauled myself into the shower and slowly, tentatively prepared myself mentally and physically for the day.  I was facilitating a leadership session and the prospect of being anywhere other than in bed was not pleasing.

I made it through the day on a completely empty stomach.  When the discussion about staff engagement came up we talked about absenteeism and how you pick what's genuine and what isn't.  I reflected on my own experience.  If I wasn't engaged in my work, I'd probably still be lying in the hotel room feeling sorry for myself, even though the worst of whatever it was was over.  I recalled one job I'd had that I wasn't very engaged in and while I was working there I found myself feeling ill more often.  When I'm doing stuff I enjoy and am engaged in, I get sick less often.  Is this true for you?

Before I was gripped with illness I had some time to enjoy the view from the 29th floor of my hotel.  The balcony was tiny and it took all my effort to step out there.

(c) divacultura 2012

(c) divacultura 2012

(c) divacultura 2012

(c) divacultura 2012

My favourite things - this week

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1. My diary for next week is my favourite thing this week.  There is NOTHING in it!

Empty
(c) divacultura 2012

 It's not often I feel happy about that, but with the recent frenetic pace, I'm quite happy to know that I can spend some time at home.  I know there's a lunch date sometime.  I have some accounts work to do.  I have some follow up from the empathy project.   These things can all be done at home.  That feels really good!

2. Getting dressed and ready for today's job.  I didn't even have to get dressed if I didn't want to.  I didn't have to shower.  Didn't do my hair and applied no makeup.  I picked up a pair of holey jeans  and a stinky t-shirt from the laundry pile.  Today I was playing a woman suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.  She is currently homeless.  It was a tough gig, but the wardrobe requirements were a dream.

3.  Flying on a plane with no audio visual distractions.  Usually I love the inflight entertainment, especially on longer flights.  Flying back from Brisbane last night there was not a screen anywhere to be seen.  I took the opportunity to put in some quality reading time.  I'm now 100 pages from the end of "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen.  I'm loving it!  I did plug my ipod in and enjoyed the soundtrack to the Almodovar film "Hable Con Ella" (Talk to her).  It's gorgeous and perfect in the background.

4.  Surprising dining experiences in regional Australia.  I've been out to Traralgon a couple of times in the last couple of weeks, pulling into the Century Inn, right on the highway.  I sighed the first time I pulled, not expecting very much, but I was soon happily surprised.  The food in the restaurant is sensational!  I enjoyed a rib fillet steak with lyonnaise potatoes, baby leeks and red wine jus and a rocket, pear and parmesan salad on the side.  Beautifully cooked and bursting with flavour.

5.  Lipstick pink hire cars.  Everyone looked at the car as I zipped along the road.  It was fun, but I don't think I'd buy that colour.  Resale would be hard, but it would be visible in the parking lot.

Lipstick pink Yaris
(c) divacultura 2012

Modern problems - filling the kettle in a hotel room

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One of my great life challenges is to successfully fill a kettle in a hotel room.  It sounds like a simple task.  If you've ever tried it, you'll know that it isn't.  In some rooms, the task is so enormous, that I have looked behind the curtains and in the light fittings for hidden cameras.  I've checked for two way mirrors that have a studio audience and a host on the other side.

In most rooms the only sink is the handbasin in the bathroom.  It is using this basin, with its taps, that the filling of the kettle will be done.

If only that were possible.  Depending on the age of the bathroom fit-out, the water spout will be so small or snug against the bottom of the basin, or won't stick out very far over the basin (overhang?) that getting anything bigger than a thimble under the water stream is impossible.  It may be possible to wet one's toothbrush.  Just.  Forget about putting your head under the tap for some water! Alternatively, the tap may have a nice high arch, but the spout lines up with the lip of the basin, leaving just enough room to wet the aforementioned toothbrush.

The height of the kettle compared to the design of the basin and its tap will be ridiculously tall.  Sometimes it is possible to manoeuvre the kettle under the tap, but the angle is such that the water flows out of the kettle as fast as it flows in.  If you notice this happening, whipping the kettle out from under the tap will result in a wet bathroom.  Gently angling the kettle to slide it BACK,  UP and DIAGONALLY, will result in the thimble full of water that had accumulated over the last agonising ten minutes being poured straight down the drain.  The emptying part usually takes less than five seconds.

A few places I've stayed in lately have a better tap design, but have provided a mini kettle.  These mini kettles are so small that they hold about a thimble full of water.  Do you know how many times you have to fill and boil the kettle to make a cup of tea when the kettle only boils a thimble-full of water at a time?  And by the time the tea cup is full, never mind a tea POT, the cup is full of cold water and the tea has gone the colour of week old dishwater.

Other places provide a plastic jug of water in the fridge.  The problem with this is that the water in the jug usually tastes like the jug itself.  It smells like the chemicals from the plastic plant where it was made.  Who knows how long the water in those jugs has been in there!  Even if the water didn't taste like plastic, I'm too frightened to use much of the water because I know that I'd never be able to refill the jug again.  I'm sure it will be written in the fine print I signed that the leaving of an empty jug will result in the charging of a ridiculously inflated water levy.  I'm just not prepared to take the chance.

Some rooms have a bath which solves the problem of the handbasin.  The problem with this is that hotels that are swanky enough to have a bath usually have a handbasin the size of a small reservoir with a correspondingly large tap which presents no logistical problems regarding the filling of the kettle.  This is just as well because in these rooms, my time will be taken up working out my lighting zones.  How many switches can one room reasonably have?  My whole apartment seems to have only one power point;  I am single-handedly supporting the double adaptor manufacturers, importers and retailers.

In the absence of a bath, the other source of water is the shower.  I have, on occasion, resorted to using the shower to fill the kettle.  This required some pre-planning.  Stripping naked to fill the kettle seems like an extreme measure, but the one time I didn't do it I regretted it.  When those labels on the suit say "dry clean only", they aren't mucking around.  It was one of those hand held showers with a hose attached.  At the slightest hint of water pressure, the hose went rigid and the shower head flailed around, spraying water all over everything.  I spent the next day making outlandish claims that the short sleeved safari suit was making a comeback for women, particularly when worn with a sense of irony.

I needed something stronger than a cup of tea after that little episode.

Most inns will claim that their rooms are equipped with complimentary tea and coffee facilities.  Of course they can afford to give it away for free - no one can use them!  (And if you do, you'll discover the teabags are filled with pencil shavings and the coffee sachets with brown powder).  To get around this, I now travel with my own thimble and can fill a kettle with enough water to make a cup of tea in just under an hour.  It's these travel hints that are priceless and I share it now for free.

What's your favourite travel tip?

What's in your heart? - doing my best with the information available

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Last week, I said something during a discussion with a group of leaders, which received a stunning response.

We had been discussing the issue of employee engagement and the subject of one person in particular had come up.  As the discussion continued, frustration at the person's behaviour and the situation that led to them being employed was evident and abundant.  The descriptions of the person in question became more hostile, more disparaging as the conversation proceeded.

Listening to the conversation, it would have been easy to conclude that the person in question was the worst kind of person, perhaps the very personification of badness.  The group decided that a conversation with her was necessary.  With this, I agreed, but I was very concerned about the purpose of the conversation and the mindset of the people approaching this other person.

I asked the group what they knew about this person.  Their responses confirmed their view of her: lazy, self-absorbed, hard to get on with, not a good fit, no one likes her.  I repeated my question, "What do you KNOW about this person?"  I received some puzzled looks and then I received the same answers.  With every answer, I threw back a challenge - "how do you KNOW that she is lazy?" and so on.  The group quietened.

I posed some more questions.

"If your view of this person is that no one likes her, what's your mindset as you talk to her and work with her?"  The silence was deafening.  The faces looked guilty.

"You view her as lazy.  Has anyone provided feedback about her work performance? Has anyone had a conversation with her about what's expected of her?"

I made a suggestion, framed as a question:  "Is it possible that this woman is just like you?  That she's doing the best she can with the information she has available?  What would happen if you had this as your mindset when you approach her?"

The group looked uneasy, then thoughtful.  Then they breathed.  When I heard that breath I knew I had made a breakthrough.

One of the most vocal dissenters in the group then surprised me by thanking me for what I had said.  He sat there with his arms folded and the same slightly arrogant look on his face and prefaced his remarks by saying he wasn't sure how what he was going to say would come across.  I braced myself.

"That's the most intelligent thing I've heard you say over the last day and a half."

I smiled and said "thank you".  He felt the need to explain some more, but I already knew what he meant.  He's another story.

It may be that the employee who was the subject of this discussion is not well suited to her work.  It may be that there are some performance issues and she won't make it.  Perhaps she doesn't fit in.  But at least now there is a chance for people to face each other honestly and with good intentions in their hearts.

I do truly believe that most people are doing their best, most of the time.  I didn't always believe that.  Sometimes I was guilty of thinking that I was doing better or more or was more pure of heart than other people.  It's been such a good thing to change this perception and bring a more constructive and generous mindset to my dealings with others.

What's in your heart when you talk to other people?  What's your mindset? Do you think the best of people?

The Adirondack Scenic Railroad

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LOVED IT.

LOVED IT!!!

I did a full review here.



Riding the train is magnificent. I love taking Amtrak to New York City. It's so relaxing, like a quiet oasis after the city's heat and noise.

Riding the ADK RR is spectacular. The views are great and the crew is greater. The husband and I are already planning another special trip just for us. I'm going to have to write a lot of articles on cleaning leather furniture, but it will be SO worth it!

Trying to Make Some Deals

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Sometimes a tourist attraction or hotel will sponsor a trip at a discount, sometimes they won't. Even though my NewYorkTraveler.net website is incredibly popular and is the only one of its kind in New York State, it seems some companies are still very wary of the Internet as a means of advertising. These places seem determined to waste their thousands of dollars on colorful, beautiful, expensive brochures that no one ever reads.

I've made some really great deals lately, and folks in Central New York seem to be a little more open to Internet word-of-mouth. But in New York City? In the Finger Lakes? Not much.

We'll see what develops. I'm working hard to promote my talents and my website right now. We've only got 3 more months of travel season up here, and when the crowds start to to thin that's when I really like to travel. I'm hoping for a number of big trips before the year is out. I'll have more on that later.

How is your summer turning out? Have you done much traveling?