Writings by Diane

A few months ago, I, along with everyone else, fell in love with the movie Inside Out .  I also appreciated that one of the main story points was it is  okay to feel sad, sometimes it’s an emotion that cannot be avoided. It was nice to see a movie not sugar-coat tough emotions and show that memories can be shaded with a blend of feelings. I thought the writers were so clever to materialize emotions into characters that kids could understand. Again, I was overwhelmed by their inventiveness that there are little beings living in the main character’s brain. As I watched these colorful characters on the screen, I had a nagging reminder of a comic strip I had read growing up. It was in the British  comic book called The Beano .  Not to be confused with the natural remedy .  The Beano comic book has been going strong for over 60 years in Great Britain. When I arrived home, I looked up these characters. The cast that started me doing comparisons was The Numskulls .    Come to find out, I

I have been very encouraged with the recent news stories about store Santas working with kids with autism.  The first story I heard was about an event that Autism Speaks manages called Caring Santa . They have a Santa that will provide the families an opportunity to have their children with autism has a picture with Santa without the fear of stares if their child has a fit to due over stimulation. When one boy didn’t want to sit on Santa’s lap, this kind hearted St Nick joined the boy on the floor and the boy’s parents were able to capture a memorable photo. The other story that really touched my heart was the boy who told Santa that he was afraid he was on the naughty list due to his autism. Again, the sage behind the Santa costume told him that he was in no danger of being kicked off of the nice list.  He told the boy the truth—his autism was not to be judged and that was just who he is.  Rightfully so, this encouragement has been shared over 500,000 times on Facebook. It did

In the past few weeks in the news there has been the saga of HitchBOT . It started as a social experiment to see how many people would pick up the hitchhiking portable robot and take it across the country. HitchBOT was a passenger all across Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands. The two professors and creators of HitchBOT decided to drop it off in Boston, MA and see how far it could go, its destination communicated through its screen was San Francisco, CA. Unfortunately, HitchBOT was not allowed to record the image of the Golden Gate Bridge. After two weeks, it made it to Philadelphia PA where it was torn apart and left in pieces on the street.   However, the story does not end there. A group of inventors named The Hacktory from Philadelphia saw this news story and did not want the conclusion to be that people only want to destroy things. They reached out to the Canadian inventors and offered to help repair HitchBOT.   Another item that has come about is PopeBot , built by a

Months ago, as I was driving, I happened to noticed that Canyon Hearing Aid Center was torn down to make way for more parking for the next door convenience store. For some reason, I felt sad about this new turn of events. I should have been accustomed to this type of change of landscape.  Being from Las Vegas NV, I had seen many hotel and casino buildings disappearing off the face of the earth. For instance, I remember watching on television the implosions of the Landmark and the Sands Hotels. Years ago, I had been a guest at the Landmark , which was a fanciful building, true to its name. I also visited the Sands ’ kitchen facilities  when I was attending UNLV .  It was somber to see history be turned into dust.  At least these implosions made way for construction of larger hotels, supplying jobs and eventually more tourists.   Maybe the reason I was saddened by this destruction of Canyon Hearing Aid Center was that someone lost his livelihood. This land was just being used as a

Driving home from work, I was preoccupied with my usual thoughts—how slow traffic was moving, when would the traffic light change, what was that song that was playing on the radio? Isolated in the vehicle, I am in my own little world. As I turned onto Ten Mile, pinned on a light pole was a large cardboard sign. Written on its pink background were the words “You are beautiful.” Usually in my travels, the signs are the mundane—speed limits and street names usually clutter the scenery.  Sometimes, an advertisement will break up the monotony.  After reading this sign, I noticed that I was smiling. My thoughts lightened in my mind as they drifted to how it was a sweet idea for someone to pin this simple but truthful saying.  I also noticed that there was a website underneath the encouraging statement—so it was a clever advertisement after all! Nevertheless, these kind words struck a chord with me. How many times do we hear, “You are not good enough “or “You are too fat”? Most of t

For the longest time, I thought tending for roses was an extremely difficult hobby. After all, there are competitions for cultivating the most perfect flower. It wasn’t until I grew rose bushes of my own did I find that I could handle them and really enjoy the experience. Also, to me, the caring of these lovely flowers is a metaphor for life. When we first moved into our house, our front planter section had gone many transformations.  Unfortunately, it became a bane for living flowers.  Pansies, lavenders and hyacinths shriveled up and died a few weeks after being transplanted.  Just when I thought of raising a nice batch of river rocks in the front planter, my husband suggested planting roses.   At first, I was a bit hesitant, nothing seemed to flourish there. My husband assumed me that roses are hearty flowers. Then I remembered visiting the Julia Davis Rose Garden in Downtown Boise ID  and these roses seemed to thrive in the desert heat. Also, the song by Sting “Desert Rose”

A couple of weeks ago, my father passed away. Though he was in his eighties and lived a good life, it was hurtful to receive the phone call. He was a great father and grandfather and I miss him terribly. A few days later, I was in my bedroom, waking up from my afternoon nap. Usually, I’m not an advocate of nap time, but the past couple of days I hadn't been sleeping well.  I had been grim and teary eyed. These siestas were my way of supplementing my rest. A box fan was in my open bedroom window. I looked out at the sunny afternoon sky and wondered how could it be such a nice day after what had happened.   I turned on the television, looking for something to break up the heavy silence. A small object moved outside my window and it caught my peripheral vision. I looked out the window and saw a huge, electric blue dragonfly. It was hovering by the fan, its iridescent wings beating furiously. Its globe-like eyes seemed to be staring intently at me.  I watched as it darted back a

As I was driving to work one morning, a dramatic struggle occurred right in front of me.  A mayfly was trapped in my vehicle. As it fluttered around the dashboard, it caught sight of the outside world through the windshield.  It started to fly towards the windshield, only to be met with the glass barrier. Nevertheless, it kept bouncing off of the windshield.  It was bound and determined to leave, though clearly its chosen path wasn't a way to exit. Feeling sorry for it, I rolled down my window, hoping that maybe it would feel the breeze blowing in and be drawn to the exit.  I couldn't shoo it in the direction of the open window, since I was still driving and wanted to keep both hands on the wheel. Finally, after a few unproductive minutes, the mayfly slowly made its way to the open window. In a zigzag motion, it slowly flew out of the window. How many times are we so headstrong that we keep trying the same way, ignoring the fact that we’re basically going nowhere?  Duri

A few weeks ago, as I was looking through my Twitter follows, I was saddened to find that the first famous follower had unfollowed me. I remember being so excited that a comedian I had watched on VH1  had followed me on Twitter, but now was no longer. As the pangs of disappointment began to diminish, I realized that it wasn’t all that bad.  I have changed since I first joined Twitter.  I am more conscious of sending a tweet thanking people who are new to following me.  I do this to show my genuine appreciation. I am now finding that the newer followers I have gathered have followers numbering in the thousands.  Also, many of them have a check mark next to their name, signifying they are the person and not a fan page.  I don’t take it personally when I am unfollowed. I am reminded of a quote I recently heard by Dr Seuss “Don’t cry because it’s over,smile because it happened.” 

Finding inspiration can be fun and exciting—sustaining motivation from that inspiration is when it becomes tricky. The first time I saw the movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly , I was immediately touched by the sheer determination of Jean-Dominque Bauby. The movie chronicled this man going through an awful health crisis (a stroke that leads to locked-in syndrome ) and horrendous physical therapy challenges. He was trained on a way to communicate by way of blinking his left eye.  Through this new method, he was able to write his memoir by painstakingly spelling out the words one letter at a time. This fact has always fascinated me and I have used it as one of my motivators.  Sometimes I find myself not being as productive as I should be during my writing time. I let distractions have their hold on me. I then think of the image of Monsieur Bauby  lying in the hospital bed blinking furiously to create his work.  Here I am with all of my faculties, which I should be putting to g

Ever since I can remember, whenever I’m presented with a list of tasks to accomplish, I am prone to barrel ahead to get things done. I have the list in my mind, so there was no need to write down the exact things I was completing.  My opinion was why use up time for planning and list-making when these minutes can be used to just finish the job? Then, I saw something that changed my perspective. A few years ago I was watching Kimora Lee Simmons Life in the Fab Lane .  In the episode, Ms Simmons had a late night meeting about her clothing line.  If memory serves, I recall she made the announcement that she had many things to accomplish, including have dinner. Then, she proceeded to write this to do list on the palm of her hand, including the item get something to eat! I was fascinated that she wrote out that list. If it were up to me, I would keep these steps in my head. Then, I began to think of it another way. By her writing down the things on her biological Palm Pilot that needed

Last week at my Toastmasters club meeting, we ran out of time for Table Topics. This segment of the meeting is when a club member is assigned to give the other members questions so they can give an impromptu 1-2 speech on that topic. Typically, the questions are related to the theme of the meeting.  Naturally, the theme of the meeting was Valentine’s Day. It was offered that next week these Table Topics could be used. Then it was shared that may not be a good idea, since the questions related to romance and “lovey dovey” stuff. I said “It shouldn't matter if we do this next week. Do we only have one day that we can talk about love?!” I have been thinking about this the day after Valentine’s. How much emphasis is focused on this day that it has to be super romantic? What about the people without partners? Isn't it cruel to exclude them from a basic feeling such as love? Also, as I grow older, I’m not a huge fan of all of the paraphernalia that is sold during this day. Sure,

One of my favorite snacks is popcorn, especially the microwave kind. It was so convenient to place the bag into the microwave and in 3 short minutes, have a warm, buttery treat.  Also, there are other flavors of microwave popcorn. I remember there was a co worker of mine who would cook up an afternoon snack of Jolly Time Marshmallow flavored popcorn. The sweet aroma permeated the hallways that we left our cubicles to track down that delicious scent! Sadly, all that sweetness, salt and calories are not conducive to my conscious healthy eating. I decided to abandon popcorn. Then, one day on the radio, we were listening to the John Tesh Show and he mentioned that a cup of plain air popped popcorn is 31 calories . This is opposed to the microwave varieties, ranging from 60 to 120 calories . With that knowledge, I decided that air popped was the way to go. After purchasing the appliance and setting it up, I poured the measured kernels into the cooking chamber. I covered it with the p

Lately, I have been watching many top ten lists on You Tube.  It started with viewing watchmojo.com  with my teenage son.  We shout out what we think should be number one best video game or worst villain. He has been inspired since then to create his own countdowns. I have also stumbled across Matthew Santoro’s channel  and his show has also been added as a favorite.   Back in my day, top 10 lists were relegated to the David Letterman Show .  Now, I can watch as many top 10 lists as I please.  Yea, technology!! Taking a queue from my son, below is my countdown to my top 10 reasons why I watch Top 10 Lists: 10. The facts are listed in short tidbits that you don’t feel overwhelmed and able to retain the information.   For instance, I learned that we share a considerable amount of our DNA with bananas. Therefore, I have concluded it’s not a big insult to call someone a “banana”.  9. Goodness knows I have turned on YouTube during a weekend afternoon and before I know it, it’s da

Who doesn't enjoy singing along to the radio while driving? I know I sure do!  Plus, I’m not the only one that substitutes their car interior for a sound studio. I’ll give you a couple of examples. One day, I was listening to Ke$ha’s TiK ToK in my car and humming along. Then I happened to glance at the car sitting next to me at the stop light. There were young women in the car and it appeared that they were singing. As the song blared from my speakers, I could see that the lyrics were in sync with the girls’ singing. I was thrilled. It took all my strength not to roll down the window and yell to them “Hey, I’m listening to the same song! Aren't I hip?!”  It was probably good that I didn't shout that out loud! Another time as I was driving, I stopped at a red light. I was behind a young man who was sitting behind the wheel. I noticed him furtively look to his left and to his right. I didn't really notice him until he started swiveling his head. Now I was curious to

A comedienne that has become one of my fast favorites is Kathleen Madigan .   I laugh out loud as she retells hilarious stories about her family. She also has a quick wit about her that she is able to summarize events and glean either the sheer absurdity or simple genius. One example is in her stand up routine, she relates a news story about Mike Tyson.  Apparently, he paid someone nicknamed Crocodile to be a personal motivator .  In her routine, Ms Madigan jokes she would love to have someone named “Alligator” tell her after her show she was a very funny lady. I started to think it would be nice to have a personal cheerleader, someone who would lift our spirits when we had a bad day. It also reminded me of an episode of Designing Women when someone invented a standing ovation box. Funny enough, life has imitated art, because now there actually is a box of applause .   With the New Year, resolutions and changes are customary. Wouldn't it be great if for New Year’s we all