Life is Nuts.
Let me tell you about my past two weeks.

* Went to turn on our home computer, and got a ‘blue screen of death’. After a bit of diagnosis, realized our hard drive crashed – lost all of our family pictures of our three children for the past 9 months (including Halloween, Christmas, Ski Trip where our 4 year old was skiing from the top of the mountain).

* Turned on our other home computer (for the kids), to see if we backed up our data from the above computer, and got another blue screen of death. Killed two computers in 2 hours.

* Kelsey, our daughter, had strep throat. It wasn’t getting any better, and she was in tremendous pain despite being on antibiotics. Our pediatrician kept saying ‘just wait –it’ll get better’. We waited, it didn’t, we persisted, and low and behold ended up admitting her to the hospital for a very serious infection.

* Took our Xbox to grandparents so the kids could play with it (they stayed with them for the weekend). Went to turn it on and it died. (trend here about electronics and our family!)

* Setup the DVD player for the kids at grandma and grandpa’s – they REALLY wanted to watch ‘Shark Boy and Lava Girl” (trust me… not worth watching unless you’re under 13). We couldn’t find the remote for the DVD player and they couldn’t watch the movie.

* Got up at 3:30am to get to the airport for my 5am flight. Checked before I left and it was on time. Got to the airport and it was on time. An hour after it was supposed to leave it was on time. A half our later it was cancelled. Sigh.

* Got up at 4:30am in Philadelphia to catch another early morning flight, only to find the windows in my rental car were smashed.

* Our Yard is overgrown, our house is a mess, anything electrical seems to be in distress. There’s never enough time, yet flights are delayed, it’s getting so bad my nerves are totally frayed! And now I’m talking like Dr. Suess!

Aurrgh! LIFE IS NUTS!
It was Nuts back in 1944 too…

In December 1944, Nuts took on a very different meaning. The 101st Airborne division parachuted into Belgium to fight back the German offensive. They arrived in the town of Bastonge just hours before the town was surrounded by the Germans. Terrible snowstorms blanketed the area and grounded the Allied air forces. The soldiers had no resupply lines. They were told to hold the town at all costs. Our soldiers were severely outnumbered, sometimes 5:1. From their arrival on December 18th thru the day after Christmas, the 101st Airborne stopped the German’s repeated attacks. They did this despite running out of ammunition, food, and having inadequate clothing to brave the severe winter storms. During the battle, the German commander knew the Americans were outnumbered, outgunned, and would not survive and sent a long letter to the American general Anthony C. McAuliffe asking for their surrender to spare the lives of the soldiers.

General McAuliffe’s response was a defiant “Nuts!”.

The Americans held the town despite unbelievable odds and hardships.

My father was part of Patton’s Army who, when they heard about the siege at Bastonge, turned their entire division northward and, despite unbearable conditions, harsh weather, inadequate clothing, and little food marched for 7 days straight to relieve the soldiers holding the town.

Life is Nuts??? Put’s things in a bit of perspective, huh?

I worry about today’s generation. I worry about our children. The biggest hardship many of them face is worrying if their iPod batteries run out before the end of the day, or if they’re late for their date at the mall. Does Mary like me? Will they think this shirt looks dorky? What if I drop the ball at the big game tomorrow?

I worry about today’s generation. I worry that the values our parents grew up with – hard work, perseverance, dedication, striving for something is lost in today’s society ripe with affluence and innocent naiveté’. I have been fortunate to have the ability to travel all over the world in my job. Not fortunate that I have to be away from my family, but fortunate that I have been able to see the world – the rest of the world.

I’ve seen in India stunningly beautiful and modern corporate offices, with the finest marble, artwork, and architecture built by a workforce that lives on the other side of the road in a field with 1000 ‘pup-tents’ housing the works and their families for more than a year. Their toilet is a ditch on the side of the field. Each pup-tent might hold a family of 3 or 4 with no running water or electricity or sewage. It’s good work. I bet they don’t have to worry about their iPods running out of batteries.

I’ve been to Brazil and seen the slums of Sao Paulo – where shacks of scrap wood, metal, and cardboard are stacked on top of each other sometimes a dozen high – like a house of cards. A ‘house’ as big as a typical family room might hold a family of 15 and may be appointed with a bare lightbulb, a few blankets, a table made of a wooden box , and oddly enough usually a tiny black and white television – the one ‘luxury’ that seems to be important. I bet they don’t worry if they make their date at the mall..

I’ve been to the Dominican Republic, and seen children walking the slums with no shoes, no shirt. Drinking from puddles of water in the street. Eating from garbage cans where a tourist casually threw away the crust from a sandwich. I’ve seen tourists throw a quarter off a pier, and see a dozen kids jump into the filth of the harbor try to retrieve it. I’ve seen them going into a house to steal the copper wire from a house – as the value of copper is higher than the furnishings in the house. I bet they don’t worry if their shirt looks dorky.

Life is Nuts….
Yes it is. Life is the absurdity of chaos, it’s the insanity of the world we live in. It’s the poverty, the affluence, the hardships, the joys.

I look at my last two weeks.

* Both of my computer’s crashed… Actually we have three more in the house.

* Our daughter went to the hospital…which seriously messed up all our plans for the week – and we have the best medical care in the world for a simple illness that in many other countries had a 40% chance of killing her.

* Our Xbox died when we took it to Grandma and Grandpa’s house – we have another one at our house, and they have a wonderful loving set of grandparents who like nothing more than to love and spoil their grandchildren

* My flight was delayed – I have a great job that I love

* My car was broken into – it was a rental, and no one was hurt, and nothing was stolen.

Life is Nuts…
Simple Pleasures

You know what means more than dealing with a crashed computer, cancelled flights, and broken windows?

Simple pleasures.

Clouds. Last weekend after a long day of yardwork trying to transform our yard from an overgrown amazon jungle to something presentable on an upper middle class neighborhood street, my 8 year old son and I played a quick game of soccer in his really neat and cool ‘sports arena’ he built in the back yard. We played. We laughed. He used all his ‘moves’ to scoot around me and score a goal. We laid in the grass and we watched the clouds. We saw dragons, and rabbits, and spaceships. We saw airplane contrails. We talked. We talked about nothing and we talked about everything. It seemed like hours (but in reality probably just a few minutes. Simple pleasures.

Hospitals. Wait you say – Hospitals are one of those ‘nuts’ things mentioned above. Well, while my daughter was in the hospital, I spent most of two days there with her. I had crises at work, and 1001 things on my to do list. But that day, in that time, and in that place, the only thing that mattered was my little girl, and all she was going through. We talked, we laughed, we teased each other. I pushed her down the hallway while she was riding her wheeled cart that held her IV. We ‘broke out’ of the 7-North floor to go exploring the hospital and got back before anyone really noticed. I snuck her some ‘snacks’ to provide her more ‘nutrition’ than her hospital food would provide. For those two days, there was nothing else important. There was no work, there were no chores, there was no to-do list. There was only my little girl, who really isn’t so little anymore… Simple pleasures.

The drive home from work. It takes me about 30 minutes to drive home from my client’s work site to my hotel. I usually try to call my wife Kimberly. For those 30 minutes, I’m carried away from all the stresses and challenges of the day. Kimberly asks me sometimes why I want to know about all the boring things at home. But to me, despite dealing with multi-million dollar projects, and working with teams all over the world, what excites me is to hear how pre-school went for my daughter, or if they had soccer practice, Kimberly telling me about her work, or things going on at home or the gossip of the gym. It’s 30 minutes every day where I can spend a little bit of time doing what I miss doing when I’m out of town – being at home, being a dad, being a husband. Simple pleasures.

Swingsets. Last weekend Kira asked me in that oh-so-sweet little 5 year old voice “can you push me on the swing”? I did, we talked, we laughed. She can pump, and swing by herself. But on that day, she pumped, but not quite enough. She pumped just not quite enough so that she needed me to push her. A sunny day, a girl, a dad, and a swing. Simple pleasures.

Stars. After a long day of things going nuts (there’s those nuts again)… I went out on our deck at home. The stars were beautiful. I just stood there and drank in the universe around us. The sky was so black, and the stars were so bright – makes your realize how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. Maybe all the crazy things that happen every day aren’t so significant….

The Mall… Last night, work was, well, nuts (I know, again with the nuts). I work anywhere from 500 to 5000 miles from home during the week. (How Kimberly keeps up with where I am, or how she puts up with me in general I will never know). Yesterday I just had it. I left work early (at 8). (Don’t want to hear it). I started driving – no where in particular. I stopped at the mall, for no reason in particular. Well, I guess I did… It’s one of those new fangled outdoor upscale malls. Nice landscaping. A fountain. Nice to walk around. I got out of my car and took a deep breath of fresh air. It was cool, but not too cool. The moon was out and it was full. Do you know you can even see the craters on the moon if you look hard enough? We don’t take the time to look hard enough at the craters on the moon. I started window shopping. Did I mention I got a parking space right up front? The mall is always packed, and I usually end up parking 27 miles away. But tonight, there was a parking spot right up front. Anyhow, I passed by a little shop that sold candied pecans. I guess it’s a southern thing. They are nuts coated with yummy goodness (as my son would say), hot, and right out of the oven. I bought three bags. I sat for a few minutes, closed my eyes, and just enjoyed the simple taste of sugar, and cinnamon, and caramel, and nuts.

As I left the mall, there were two elderly nuns sitting at a table collecting money for the elderly poor. I stopped by and chatted with them. I don’t really know what we talked about. We didn’t talk about the poor. We talked about how pretty their hair was. And how sweet it was that they were out doing this. They said it was a beautiful night, and they were doing what they most loved doing in the world – helping people. I took all the loose change in my pocket and gave it to them. They were grateful. I then opened my wallet and took out every bill I had and handed it to them (I don’t even know how much it was). And I thanked them for what they were doing, and for touching my life, just a little bit, right then, right there, on that day. And then I took the two extra bags I had bought at the confection store earlier, handed it to them, and as I walked away, turned, smiled, and said “Nuts!”.

Simple Pleasures….

© 2007 Albrecht T. Powell