The Gardening Angel, No Stress for Me

Posted on June 8, 2011 by mysteryshrink

Stress? Not me. I have a Gardening Angel

Peggy Don’t Care About No Stinkin’ Cartels!

Don’t I have a lovely garden of spring flowers?

What I have is the privilege of knowing a very special person. Peggy was visiting one day when I was whining about the fact that because of the drought, Central Texas had no bluebonnets this year. She called later to say I was wrong. As she’d left my house, she’d noticed a bluebonnet out by my mailbox. “Impossible,” I said, and went to look. There it was, a beautiful artificial bluebonnet at the base of the mailbox. The next morning my bluebonnet was joined by a pair of Indian paintbrushes. Then four giant daises. Then a troll and a couple of gnomes to watch over the blossoming garden. On Memorial Day i walked out into the courtyard and saluted my own American flag. The next weekend, here come the flamingos.

Somewhere in the nighttimes, my secret Gardening Angel was at work. But this entry is not about my garden. It’s about Peggy’s garden. Peggy is a true Guardian Angel for hundreds of the poorest of the poor living in the midst of daily violence. Peggy hasn’t let the drug cartel bloodbaths keep her away. She says she can’t let the desperately poor be forgotten.

Once a month, Peggy loads up her rented van with donated food from Austin businesses and heads across the border at Laredo. Yep. That border, the one with the tanks lined up at the bridge, the one
separating the most dangerous cities in the world from Texas, the border no one else is crossing these days. The last few times Peggy has crossed, she’s been accosted by teen gangs banging on the roof of the van, asking what she’s carrying, then backing off when she answers, “Food for the poor. Do you really want to steal food from the poor?”

They let Peggy pass. She crosses into Nuevo Laredo calling to be let inside the high walls of the orphanage. Little girls at Casa Hogar–with no other home and no parents–run out squealing, “Peggy! Peggy! Miss Peggy!”

Peggy’s van has items for the girls who have nothing, along with the food she’s carted across the border for the people in the colonias outside Nuevo Laredo who have less than nothing.

Usually, the girls in the orphanage help with the colonias project. When I went with Peggy the girls got up at 5:00 in the morning to convert supplies into hundreds of sandwiches and to bundle individual bags of a pound of rice, a pound of beans, an orange, rice and two baloney sandwiches. At nine or so, Peggy heads out from the safety of the orphanage to the makeshift shacks of the colonias.

Before she parks the van in the rutted dirt in the colonias, children and grandmothers, some on crutches one in a wheel chair (that Peggy found a way to provide) come running from around dozens of corners.

She stands on top of the vehicle, says “Good morning!” then calls out for everyone to line up. The line goes on as far as the eye can see.

People often ask me, “What does a person with a Defined Self look like?”

The reference in the Page on Differentiation on reads:

4. As you work on clarifying your beliefs and responsibilities you must begin acting in accordance with them. Many people say that they believe something, but if you watch them they often do not do what they say they believe in doing. This does not mean that they are lying, or lazy or even wrong. It does mean that if work on differentiation of self they will to be less successful than might otherwise be the case. To work toward differentiation of self means that one’s beliefs must be put into practice.

The most amazing part of who Peggy is can best be said this way. When those little girls come running out to her van, they’re not running out for the goodies. They are thrilled to see Peggy because is the brightest light in their world and one heck of a fun person.

Are You Having Fun Yet? Why Not?

Posted on February 5, 2011 by mysteryshrink

Are You Smiling? Cheering?

Superbowl Plans. It seems 2011 is going to be filled with victories in this struggle to be more of a self, meaning more in charge of what goes on inside my brain and my chest cavity. That said…while every smartass I’m-so-above-it-all-I-can’t-stand-Jerry-Jones…cell in my body wants to opt out on the Superbowl…

This morning I had this thought. “Oh, here you are, saying you’re going to be different and yet you can’t watch one more story on that guy’s ankle hurt in the playoff game and WILL HE PLAY SUNDAY?

So, I got a grip. I chanted the motto from the Giggling Marlin in Baja: THERE IS NO PLAN B. DIE TRYING.

Thus, I have made a small investment. I have laid twenty bucks on the “over”, which means for those of you who watch the real news instead of ESPN…The “over-under” number for the game is 44.5…If you bet under, you’re saying the combined score of the gold and black team and the team cheered on by the fans wearing the cheese blocks on their heads….will score under 44.5… I trust the “over” is self explanatory. This way I can cheer both teams.

What happened? I looked around and thought: “Hey, you’re supposed to be looking for fun and joy and here you are letting an opportunity go by. With no Plan B…I had to try.”

Who’s Grinning Now? What about Now?

Posted on September 21, 2010 by mysteryshrink

Dateline: Threadgill’s Branch Office, Austin, Texas. Jimmie Dale Gilmore sang here.

Tomorrow is a long day finishing up with a flight to Dallas. I’m going to be tired. Probably cranky. Oh, well. I suck in a heavy breath and tell myself, “After the trip to Dallas, I’ll relax.”

The problem is, cranky people are truly unattractive. Negativity turns people off. I know. It isn’t fair. But, it’s the way of the world, like gravity.

Just being pleasant for yourself doesn’t seem to work. So let’s try relationship pressure….

What “Event” Are You Waiting On? When are you going to start grinning? Butterflies flavor the fruit, you know. How can you be so boringly sure they don’t?

Setup: Jump to Italian Movie, I Am Love. Movie opens with maids and butlers and cooks preparing the birthday dinner for the patriarch of a large wealthy family. Great care goes into setting an elaborate table with every boring detail in place. Various family members are shown dressing and checking preparations. The mood is tedious. No one honestly cares for the old man or is looking forward to being with family. Dinner guests are looking forward to Papa’s naming of his successor at dinner and to staying in favor with whoever controls the family money.

The meal begins. Emma’s husband is named as successor, surprising no one and insincere congratulations are handed out. (Emma’s the one to watch here.) The stifling family meal is interrupted by the uninvited arrival of Antonio, the motorcycle racing mate of Emma Recchi’s twenty-something son. Antonio, a chef, presents Emma and her son with a cake he’s prepared especially for the occasion. Emma’s son and Antonio are thinking of opening a country restaurant to showcase Antonio’s talent. The chef invites Emma out to see his gardens and the proposed building.

Through a series of coincidences, Emma ends up in the countryside with Antonio. Yes, they end up in love and in the grass, but love is not the point. The point is the contrast between the stuffy Recchi family and Emma’s life with them and the seductive essence of Antonio. Not seductive in a sexual way, though that’s there. Antonio is irresistible because he is in love with life. Now.

He’s nothing like the tedious wealthy family members, bored and waiting for the passing of the company baton. Antonio is delighted with moments…butterflies, subtle tastes and smells, the freshness of rain, the joy of a butterfly choosing his garden. He insists butterflies know which is the best fruit. (Going from memory here, so please excuse errors.)

Antonio draws people to him because he loves being alive. He is excited to bring flavors and colors to others. He is not a shell of a person emptied from years of fitting in, of toeing the line, of looking forward to riches when he finishes school, when he wins a big case, when he falls in love, when he retires, when he hits it big, and then bigger. He’s not waiting until the next dinner, the next trip is over to relax and jump into life. Antonio’s grinning at you right now.

He’s grinning because he’s using his Thinking System… hitting him front and center with the fact that now is all he has. He’s not paying attention to his anxiety-driven Emotional System… telling him to wait…telling him he’s not good enough yet. Not thin enough, smart enough, rich enough, not loved enough, telling him to sacrifice enjoying now…because…

And the Antonio’s of the world are so attractive. Maybe each of us could catch one of the sparkles dribbling off the happy chef.

Now. And then grin. Pass it on.

If You Need to Be Right, Don’t Get Close to Strangers

Posted on September 15, 2010 by mysteryshrink

Dateline: Houston Post Oak Branch International World Headquarters. Crowded restaurant.

Setup: Currently I’m the lone wolf in jean shorts amongst a slew of dressed-for-success folks in Houston as part of training for a pyramid scheme… company… which, when you put down your “buy in”, provides you with lists of people in your area who are most likely to buy the company’s product. The product? Well, it’s not an actual product like a book or an apple. It’s an imaginary product.

Riches are being promised to those who’ve come together in Houston….those who sign up for the “small initial investment”….are told that all they will have to do is convince people to buy credit card “insurance” for each of their credit cards in case someone uses their cards. Not a lot of cash to make your buy-in? No problem. For a small ETERNAL fee on each of the credit cards of the people here at the conference who sign on…. The new sales force is encouraged to stretch their buy-in over as many months as fits their budget.

You can make a good living…I hear one table over…just by calling your family and friends, especially if you have some deadbeat friends with loads of credit cards on the verge of being awarded their own area code. The real money, though, comes with the list of people the company provides you. (Once you’ve paid your little “buy-in”) The “list” is guaranteed to be loaded with names of people likely to buy the said imaginary product.

Even more piles of money will be yours when you get others to sign on as distributors as you then get a percentage of their sales. And the thing that’s so great? “Even when a customer wants to cancel, they will usually put off completing the confusing and time-consuming cancellation process for a couple of months and, from that lag time alone, you’ll be be making more money than you ever imagined.”

Okay. Now I want to know two things. One: How did the people “likely to purchase the product” get on the list? Repeat business buying scratch offs at the Seven Eleven? Also, I’m thinking the real money has to be in promising people they will be taken off the list.

And, two…How did the people in this room get to this convention? And, here’s where the catch comes in. And why I’ll not sully the pages of Mysteryshrink with preaching and opinion. Because there I was plinking keys on my computer… all clever and superior….And, then I got to know the two enthusiastic new entrepreneurs at the next table. (Now, granted, we were off to a rough start. My involvement with the pair was initiated when one of the ladies asked the limited English-speaking waitress for the exact address of the hotel and when she didn’t understand, the lady asking landed into the waitress for being… “irresponsible and just the kind of person we don’t need in America”….

I stepped in with the address and stayed to hear their stories….I heard how they hoped to climb out of some bad life choices (medical bills, disastrous divorce) and didn’t have the education or family backing to get out quickly or in more traditional ways. Like in vampire movies when you get to know the weakness of the vampire… and you start hoping he’ll find a fresh victim…I sincerely wished the ladies success.

The lesson: If you get a chance to know someone, their “craziness” makes sense and making fun is a lot harder…. Or a fish out of water cannot understand the movements of a fish in the water. I think that’s the way it goes. And, one more from the Country Western song, “God is good, beer is great, and people are crazy.” All of us, everyone.

But…I’m still not holding the elevator for the kingpins of this pyramid scheme business opportunity.

Flight of the Immature, Part 3

Posted on March 7, 2010 by mysteryshrink

Conclusion of United Flight 6960 from Chicago to Columbia, South Carolina. Parts 1 and 2 immediately precede this tale of unusual punishment.

Whoa. Finishing up my tale of woe is going to be a bit more difficult than I’d planned. I’m now in my Hilton branch office the next day. I have the television on the History Channel…and, right there, splattered all over the big flat screen is a re-enactment of the Battle of Valley Forge. At the moment, three emaciated soldiers, their frozen bare feet wrapped in rags, their eyes blank from pain and starvation…are sitting against a tree. “Only the bravest, most loyal men stayed the winter,” the kind-voiced narrator explains. “The weaker men long ago ran away in the night. Those with wounds died horrible deaths, gangrene taking over their legs, inch by inch. The rest…too weak to break the frozen ground, can do no more than drag their comrades’ bodies a few yards into the woods to be devoured by animals in the night.”

Even the boney scavenger wolves competing over the gangrene ridden dead soldiers are starving. This makes it really hard to complain about the meal I finally secured once I reached Columbia, South Carolina. Really hard, but not impossible. I hesitate to continue….Much can be said for ignorance. …and whining is so unattractive…BUT, as I was saying…

Eventually, a guy in a blue jumpsuit delivered paperwork to United 696o on the tarmac at Chicago O’Hare Airport. Our plane is backing away from the gate–which you’d be thinking is a good thing. But aha! Leaving the gate is only a delaying ploy…sort of a decoy move to keep passengers in the delusion that something is happening. I glance over my shoulder to soak in Army Arnold’s admiration at how I’d called the situation perfectly. How the guy in the jumpsuit delivered the needed paperwork. In sort of in a long JIFF. My Army pals and I sigh with relief. It’s been fun getting to know each other…but all that was over…time to get back to our separate lives….Army Arnold and pal land cots at Ft. Jackson and I slide between cool sheets at the branch Hilton.

Army Arnold, hanging on to our relationship, punches the back of my seat asking if it is safe to fly in a blizzard such as the one outside his window? Further flaunting my extensive flying experience and all-around travelling cool, I related several air travel stories for Arnold’s amusement. He said he envied how I was so relaxed, so able to go with the flow. “Oh, I dunno,” I say, “I’ve learned to take these little changes in stride.”

Once we’re in line for take-off, Arnold remarks at the number of planes ahead of us and I throw out some random number that I claim is the number of planes O’Hare handles every day. …Now our plane initiates a slow left turn out of line. “I knew it! Something’s wrong with the plane!” says Arnold.

Denial Danny, designated flight attendant, is already digging in his bag of fabulous free treats. This is not good. Pilot Positive Pete comes on the intercom: “Well, folks, because we had to wait for the paperwork…well, enough time passed for ice to collect on the plane. (Arnold gasps and punches the back of my seat.) So, ladies and gentlemen, we’re now returning to the gate to have the wings de-iced.”

The plane goes a few yards and stops in a cross track. Positive Pete amends his promise: “Actually, we cannot head into a gate to get in the line to be de-iced….We cannot locate an open gate, so we are now in in line to get a gate, where we will get in line to be de-iced, then will return to get in line to take off.

Tick…tick. We begin hour three on the plane.

My Emotional Guidance System is going berserk, screaming: This is horrible! I can’t take this! However, since I have Army Arnold behind me saying out loud what I am thinking, I must not crack, I must continue to feign sophistication and self-control. Next to Army Arnold’s genuine terror of flying…if I were to unleash my relentless bitching over my inconvenience….Well, I’d look a bit petty.

Thus, I am repeating to myself: “While the changes in my plans… are unfortunate, uncomfortable, and inconvenient ….this is not a disaster unless I decide to make it one….While the changes in my plans are unfortunate, uncomfortable, and incon….”

Okay. We’re in a gate, in line for de-icing. Denial Danny unleashes the beverage cart. Not good. We aren’t going to be airborne in any hurry. Army Arnold is asking his buddy if it’s true that if you’re in the military you can order alcohol on planes? As Danny hands Arnold his Coke (full can, definite bad sign), Arnold asks Denial Dan if the pilot has ever flown in a snowstorm before. After beverage service is complete, Danny is back to pushing ‘free’ pretzels.

6960 is now almost four hours old. The Army boys aren’t going to make Ft. Jackson by midnight, but I should be under those comfy covers by then. Because now the craned de-icer equipment is spraying us down. The plane swaying like a baloon as the de-icer pressure spaxxrer sweeps along, ArmyArnold is starting to babble about how maybe he should have gone to college first, but he needs the Army money to go, but maybe college isn’t that important…..

“Alright!” Positive Pete exclaims as if we’d just safely swung across the Grand Canyon on a rope. “De-icing is complete. We are ON OUR WAY, ladies and gentleman.”

You’d think the words…ON OUR WAY would indicate imminent movement. But no. We sit, tray tables in upright and locked positions. Denial Danny pops into the aisle with his plastic goody bag informing us that silly old Positive Pete meant that we were now waiting for a runway assignment. As he passes my row, D. Danny warns he only has two ‘free’ granola bars left. I pretend I can’t hear him. A move I shall deeply regret. (Note eventual menu for the evening.)

Snow swirls outside. Army Arnold pushes his knee into the now familiar dent in the back of my seat. I turn around. Nothing to worry about, time-wise, I say. Because we’re already late, traffic control is probably waiting to give us a good spot, I said, because I’m so cool and know everything. Arnold squints at me. “It’s snowing,” he says. “We never had snow in California…I should have taken the bus the whole way.” He drains his Coke.

Tick…tick…tick…an hour passes since Pete’s jolly send-off. “While the changes in my plans….are unfortunate, inconvenient…” Denial Danny comes by and asks me if I need anything. From his expression I’m pretty sure that uncontrollable, self-destructive part of me that takes over when I’m pulled over for a speeding ticket…has now taken charge of my relationship with D. Danny. Now that my true self had slipped out, like the many lawmen before him, Danny isn’t going to be cutting me a break.

Tick…tick…tick… Then Petey said, “Oops! Sorry about this ladies and gentlemen, but we’ve waited so long here in line to get in line that we’ve iced up again. We’re going back to get in line for the de-icer.” He keeps making statements like the one above as if we were supposed to be thrilled. An hour later the de-icer returns. Tick…tick. “Oh happy Day!” the de-icer runs out of anti-freeze. We get de-iced. We wait to get in line for take off. We are into hour six. Six. Army Arnold is asking me stories about my childhood the way people do in movies where the players all know they are going to die.

Tick…tick. Take-offs currently suspended due to visibility. Denial Dan doesn’t come around much any more. He did take a bathroom break in the rear luxury spa, but he blew by me so fast I wasn’t able to stick my foot out in the aisle.

But, get this…this is the best part….It is now 3:15 in the morning. We take off….and here it is…wait for it….Denial Danny picks up his mike and ACTUALLY SAYS…”We at United want to take this opportunity to thank you for choosing United Airlines and PERSONALLY extend an invitation for you to join the United Frequent Flyer Program….Just fill out the brochure you can find in the seat pocket in front of you….

Oh, and the final menu on reaching my destination….to be revealed in next post. Not a picture post. No one should have to see what I stuck my plastic fork into that early morn…with dreams of granola bars in my head.

Fear, Dust, and a Longing Under the Wire

Posted on December 7, 2009 by mysteryshrink

Dateline: Nuevo Laredo, Mexico….Over the border and through the dust to many grandmothers’ cardboard and tin houses we went….

My first impression on the job with Bridging Hearts? A person should really get into this sort of project when she’s younger…a lot younger. My special person winced and agreed.

Our helping out the border economy started right off the bat. We had four huge and heavy black garbage bags full of 1000 toothbrushes and toothpastes… (Thank you Austin dentists!)…to cart over the Rio Grande Bridge into Nuevo Laredo. As soon as we cleared the gate, we hired a couple of fellows for outrageous amounts (what you send out comes back)…little did they know they could have named their price.

Two poor guys crossed the bridge that morning feeling lucky and smiling…and we were feeling lucky and, well, like this day wasn’t as hard as we’d been imagining…

Wrong. From the bridge we piled the bags in with the other goodies and went to the orphanage where the girls had been up since five putting together bags for the families in the colonias…an orange, a sandwich, a bag of beans, and a box of cereal. Pickups loaded, we headed out into the hinterlands outside of town arriving in Insurjentes, a colonia of tin an cardboard houses. The next several hours we held lines in place as people lined up as far as we could see.

Now, you have the picture, right? Two pale-faced middle-aged psychologists who failed out of the Scouts…standing proud and brave in the dust and the sun…like the saviors in the Magnificant Seven (kick in the soundtrack, or maybe a few verses of Lonely Bull) …now hold that thought.

The truth? My nose bleeding and my face cracked, feet killing me, and my arm muscles on fire…I leaned over to my special person and said, “You…me…room service…iced fume blanc…six hours.”

Somehow we climbed dizzily into Master Peggy’s giant pickup which is hiked up…as best as I can recall…four feet off the ground to take the enormous ruts and ‘so-called’ roads. From there, back to the orphanage, then crawl back in the pickup with the grocery list–10 dozen eggs, boxes and boxes of oranges. Forty bags of sugar… We smiled when Peggy said…”No, not a dozen potatoes…a dozen bags…

And, my special person tagged my trembling hand and whispered, “air-conditioning, room service, football…three hours..”

Kicked into a sort of fervent overdrive, we return to the home, cook, serve….when asked how we’re doing… we’d say, “Oh, no, really, we’re just fine…”

At least until around nine when we begged for a taxi. The time waiting at the gate with the little old nun who insisted on waiting with us until the taxi arrived…was perfect.

The taxi dropped us off on the Mexico side and special person and I stared at the long bridge. He said one word…”football,” and we launched…we dragged…we used the grab bar shamelessly.

I had an idea that readers might like to be part of Touching Hearts…in spirit, at least.

First let me say, I am opposed to the typical Christmas gift campaign reaching into your Emotional Guidance System saying a certain amount of profit will go to a charity. And, to the dismay of my publisher, promotion is not my long suit….That said, after my experience in the colonias across the border, I’ve been thinking of fun ways to contribute to the lives of the very poor and I thought it would be kind of fun to make a game of the practice.

Thus, when you buy a copy of TOO RICH and TOO THIN, Not an Autobiograpy, a gift for someone, perhaps,from whatever source, between now and Christmas, I will add $5.00 to the January pot. Now here’s the hard sell…

I will put the money in anyway. I’m asking you to send me an email (bdeshong@austin.rr.com) and let me know you bought a book. And here’s the good part…You don’t even have to tell the truth, I’m not checking. You can just tell me you bought a book and I’ll add your $5.00 to the kitty. This is not a way to collect email addresses, I’m not that promoter-sophisticated or sneaky enough for that.

I just think it will be fun. And worth it. You’ll get an update on “Weinnies Under the Wire.”

Think, then Speak, the ‘Talkative Guy in Bicycle Shorts Incident’

Posted on October 12, 2009 by mysteryshrink

How much trouble can a person get into by speaking ‘off the top of his head’ to a televsion reporter?

Doesn’t talking ’off the top of your head’ boil down to simply blithering random words as they pop into consciousness? Yes, ‘off the top of your head’ can, and often does mean, talking without using your head at all. Using the Thinking Guidance System,you recall, means taking into acount the LONG TERM effects of your actions.

Which brings us to the ’Talkative Guy in Bicycle Shorts Incident’

A few weeks ago, a husband, obviously in the grip of his Emotional Guidance System…shot and killed his wife while she was packing up to leave him. Now, the actions of the murderer guy aren’t even the actions we’re talking about, but admittedly a good example of not taking LONG TERM effects into consideration.

But, jump ahead, if you will, to the reporter for a local television station who travelled to the small town outside Austin where the murder happened to provide that ‘on the spot’ illusion for the five o’clock story.

The little town hosting the murder is a rural haven left over from when the railroad first came through that part of Texas, though a few Austinites have moved to Red Rock to fulfill dreams of pastoral peace and to ride their bike instead of burning fossil fuels like the lesser forms of humanity. But, mostly Red Rock is a ranching and agricultural enclave. Our lively television reporter arrives in Red Rock ready to take the pulse of the townspeople.

Most of the town’s residents were busy with target practice, baking pies, and herding longhorns, but our reporter did find one unoccupied Red Rock resident who happened to be one of the Austin-transplants, a spry fellow riding his bike. Somehow the reporter didn’t notice that Red Rock regular residents don’t ride ten-speeds and they certainly don’t wear flashy bicycle pants and bodysuit tops…or red and green banana helmets or earrings, or scraggly beards.

Our reporter has the camera going and needed just the one clip to go with his story of the murder. Thus, his brief interview of the guy in bicycle shorts (GIBS) would come and go in his life without causing undo harm. The guy in the bicycle shorts, I fear, was not so lucky.

Because, you see, when the reporter asked the GIBS, “Do you find it hard to believe that a murder like this could happen in such a pleasant little town?”

The grinning GIBS looks right into the camera and says, “Not really. This town is full of POT-BELLIED, KNUCKLE-DRAGGING REDNECKS.”

Did I mention he LIVED in amongst the people he just so colorfully described? Or, at least he did.

MysteryShrink

A Psychologist on the Loose

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