October 16, 2008 written midnight EST (10am Kaz)

Dear Vodka,
It’s me again.

I haven’t blogged much recently and promise to put some pictures of Ermek soon. I’ve been busy engaging in kittycats, birdies and cars mostly. I haven’t taken too many pictures these last few days…it seems like they’re just duplicates. But I will…promise!

Little E had diarrhea yesterday…and I thought a true mother doesn’t smell this stuff…I almost gagged. It squirted up his back and I relinquished the poor guy to his caregiver who swiftly ran him under the faucet and packaged up the now clean baby for me to continue on with my so called ‘motherhood’…

…flashing on the 4 days in Almaty, alone…the 27hour + trip home, with no structured nap or feeding times…can I fit the little butt under an airport sink faucet?...where do I change him on the plane?.....oh the horror!

I’m also deep in thought lately. I’m outraged on a different level. On one hand I am so glad Ermek will be able to grow up with a new rule handbook and be taught how to smell the difference between leaders who talk theory and those who get in the trenches to fight!

I’m sick of theory. I’m sick of seeing those fat bastards dictate how business is run. I’m sick of the cowards who are quitting….receding to their homes and broken families quietly waiting for the rescue boats to come grab them and tell them what to do next. I’m fed up with those who try to speak up but their convictions end in a façade of a sentence…without any thought behind them. How do you spell V.A.G.U.E.

Take our companies for instance. Unfortunately, the customers we have in one are handcuffed to the corporate bailing trend and I feel sorry for my direct contacts so close to retirement age, but they are watching their future retirement plummet. We will continue to fight along.

The other company is now fueled by educating our customers on the fact the sky isn’t falling so get out of your house and LIVE! We will continue that fight too.

Yeah, we’ll be fine…but it doesn’t negate the fact that we all now must suffer the consequences of the Deadly Sins our so called leaders have made. The Jack Welch way has already been packaged and shipped overseas…how last decade of us to think we can continue to pull 13 more theories and spinoffs from that and call ourselves “productive”. Failure is not an option.

This has been my fear since the first grade…the stakes are so much higher now, but the feeling is the same as I had when I was 27years old, a new broker in Sunny California! I remember each day vividly. In my adult life, I have never known any other feeling…of inspiration, of hope…and that pit in my stomach that reminds me everyday I’m too young to think I’m ever there, so keep moving…go, go, go…!!!

We can blame JP Morgan who some say started this all…or we can simply thank him and Roosevelt’s “New Deal” which set us up to make choices later on…we can talk about Adam & Eve…these morals are not new. That donut sure is tempting though, isn’t it? Go for it…we can staple you up later…here’s a pill to make you feel like a real man!

Opportunities are not the evil here…it’s what we do with them that needs a good hard look at.

So let’s talk about God and Politics and blame…or we can be Americans and control the shit we have control over. Failure is NOT an option.

So how do you share this with any sort of tact? What actually makes a leader?

I want to come home with our son.

I am not afraid of a shitty diaper…I am not afraid of a shitty diaper…I can do this!

There was a green engine who got to a hill…
She chugged and she chugged…
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can”
As the hill got steeper, she huffed and she puffed
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can”
As she neared the top, she let out a shrill..
“I THINK I CAN I THINK I CAN I THINK I CAN”

All of a sudden she slid down the tracks
Crash! Bam! Boom!
Into engine mash…

You may ask…what’s the moral of the story?
You can huff and you can puff, but
THINKING YOU CAN, JUST AIN’T ENOUGH!

…


…I need to get out more…this is suffocating…

lol