Friends - "Youve got to have them"

One of my favorite artists of all time is Bette midler and one of my favorite songs she performs is called Friends.   She repeats this lyric “Well you got to have friends.”  Throughout her song for me it could not be more appropriate A few examples:

When I was in the hospital, Bob blogged about buying me therapy clothes when I first began physical therapy within days, my friend Sandra and sister, Suzie sent boxes of therapy clothes. They wanted to be certain that bobs taste in selecting therapy clothes was congruent with my taste.

When I was close to leaving the hospital, I was not eating and bob blogged about this and my love of malted milk balls.  Every time someone visited subsequent to that blog they showed up with malted milk balls.  Specifically, my friend, Mary visited from Connecticut and showed up with malted milk balls.

My sister-in-law Laura made countless home cooked meals to try to get me to eat since hospital food was not working.  Laura is a gourmet and her meals ranged from gumbo to biscuits to oups.  Yum! 

A few weeks ago I blogged about making pancakes and the difficulty of zesting a lemon with one hand.  Within 1 day, my friend Terry found a one-handed zester.

I was talking with my sister-in-law, Elizabeth about all this and she suggested I mention how much I like Tory Burch handbags or Isaac Mizrahi clothing.  I think in the future I have to be more careful because the generosity and thoughtfulness of friends is overwhelming at times for example for Valentine’s Day, Bob gave me a very beautiful, exquisite Labradorite necklace.  Fortunately for me the “friends” theme extends to my husband. Invariably, I am leaving someone out so   A heartfelt thank you to all my friends and family for their ongoing thoughtfulness.

spring in my step

2 things put a spring in my step today.  Ill list and then explain.

1.      Signed a deal for contract work and get to work again with an ex Compaq colleague and friend

2.      Made lemon/blueberry pancakes for breakfast without assistance.

Bob and I have a Sunday morning ritual where we try to  devour the New York Times with minimal interruptions.  So, it was important for me to make these pancakes solo. I didn’t think it would be a problem until I remembered I had to zest a lemon. I held the zester in my lap and tried to slide the lemon over it but quickly figured out the zester had to be upside down in order for it to work,  Then I had to figure out where the zest was going to go since all this was happening in my lap while in my wheelchair. I could not stand up and hold the zester and lemon and slide lemon at the same time. There was no way I was going to ask Bob for help because I was determined to do this on my own. I recognize my stubbornness can really be annoying.

It worked out and the cakes turned out fine.  I have not yet mastered flipping and need the right tool for this however.

The contract work is an opportunity for me to” get back in the game” and work again taking small steps . The company is based in Oregon and led by two ex-Compaq colleagues.   I will provide marketing services that includes writing copy for collateral materials and recommended messaging the he company develops hosts, maintains and supports enterprise-level software applications geared toward the retail grocery market.  There is not enough space in my log to describe how it feels to #1 be working again and #2 working  with these  colleagues again.  My goal is to parlay this into more projects.