Mad Macedonian

Opt For Optimism Update 2020

Good evening Houston!  The Mad Houstonian, here.

In June 2015 I found a new bank, unique to Texas, unique in its history, and unique in its presentation and offering once you step in the door of any given branch...My post about Frost Bank might cause a few folks who come across it to run for a safe space, but that's their problem...

Me? I just feel bad that I have yet to do much more with my Checking and Savings accounts, 5 years later, than use them as places to stash my paychecks, tax refunds, and other funds, for a few days until needed to pay bills, buy food and take care of other needs.

A bank with a long history of involvement in the community and building relationships with customers? Optimism is a major part of all of that.

They explain it this way:

"For 150 years, we’ve built our bank on the belief that each and every customer is significant. And because of that belief, every single thing we do is aimed at making people’s lives better—from designing easy-to-use technology to inspiring optimism."

In August 2018 they set forth something they called "The 30-Day Optimism Challenge" (I will have more to say about that, below, including my own challenge to anyone coming across THIS post.).

"When people feel optimistic, they’re more likely to experience better physical, emotional and even financial well-being. Best of all, choosing optimism is not only personally transformative but also highly contagious."
Among other things, those who take the challenge will be encouraged to perform 30 acts of optimism.
Their aim is to foster generosity, build community, and change perspectives.
Frost believes optimism can change the world, and they want participants in their challenge to help them prove it.

The curious can learn more, starting here (The Project has grown & evolved since I first linked to it, including a new web url) and at The Texas Optimism Project, over at Texas Monthly, where they believe "what optimism looks like in everyday life is not a rosy outlook, but resilience."

And that brings me to Houston's own Culture Map, and the latest creation of a local artist.

 

Unfinished Business and Returning to Work

 Good evening Houston! The Mad Houstonian, here.

The past 10 days have been eventful.

I went to my doctor for exams that helped get me approved for a return to work later this week.

While my insurance covered most of my February surgery I was recently approved for a Memorial Hermann Financial Aid Program that covered the remainder, something that I am grateful to them and to God for the blessing.

As I have been getting out and about to appointments, grocery shopping, and exercise walks, I have been walking 2 to 7 miles a day.

I had planned on my quarterly bald cut for my 60th birthday, March 5, but fate had other plans, so the deed was put off until a few days ago.

 

I bought new shoes that were 3 times more expensive than I traditionally have bought, but a lot more comfortable, as well as compression socks, and I had 3 bandanas made, for use as masks, and as a way to promote this blog in public.

This afternoon I went to my work for the first time since early March to turn in paperwork, and retrieve clothes from my locker.

While there I reconnected with some of my Walmart front register co-workers, people who had not seen me since I first began using a walker after my surgery.

To say they were glad to see me would be an understatement.

 

One excited lady walked up to me for a welcome back hug, social distancing be damned! It made me smile and we laughed as others came up for elbow bumps & fist bumps.

Self Promotion in a Time of Pandemic

Good morning Houston! The Mad Houstonian, here!

As I begin to get out and about more, at last, and with a couple of weeks until I am supposed to return to work, I wondered if there was something I could do to not just satisfy the call for people to run around hiding their face, and still also promote my writing.

 

Over a year ago I had a design put on the front and back of a hoodie, at Big Frog, the same folks who helped me design some 3 Ft. Please, and Pedestrian Alert shirts.

 

100 Word Musings 8 - Alone: A Story

Happy Thursday evening, Houston! The Mad Houstonian, here...

The other day I joined a pair of Private Facebook Groups for Houston Authors and Writers.

One group had a writing prompt that invited members to use a posted image as a prompt to

write and share a story of 100 words or less in the comments.

It has been 5 years since I last wrote a 100 Word Story, and over a year since I last wrote a 200 Word Story.

My God! Really? I had to double check both my blogs to be sure.

The last time I posted a 100 Word Story on THIS blog was 2013, the last 200 Word Story was 2017.

So, this is the story I wrote and shared...

ALONE:  A 100 Word Story by Kiril Kundurazieff

In the morning I will awaken from a good nights sleep, and go into the nearby woods.
I will walk in the clinging fog surrounded by twisted trees and vines.
I will look about, not seeing another person, and
Alone with nature, I break the silence with breath and footsteps;
I enjoy the grass and the trees, the gentle breeze on my face,
Seeing what is to see, and hearing what I can not,
In the shadows of the dawn;
With hands in my coat pockets,
I smile in contentment, and head home,
Planning for the day that will be.

 

Since 2006 I have written 5 poems with the title of "Alone", the most recent, last month.

Check them, and more, out, in this archive: FLASH and MICRO-FICTION: 100 to 1499 Word Stories

 

Finding My Footing in the Aftermath of Injury

 Good evening Houston and beyond, The Mad Houstonian, here.

Last December I wrote an essay about finding one's "Footing", as part of my month-long Everwalk Nation Inspirational Word of the Day Series...

As I head down the stretch in my recovery from my February injury to my left leg, my physical therapy has allowed me to return to walking on both feet, with no walker, and to put on, and take off, my shoe and sock on the left foot.

Next week I see my doctor again, and am set to return to work in just over 2 weeks.

Yesterday was a big day...I took the huge step of buying a new pair of shoes....not just the latest of my usual, but something new and different.

As I wrote in December...

When I think of "Footing" several things come to mind: Shoes, health, and creativity.
I walk everywhere. I have done so all my life.

Right from the start, from my earliest days of standing on my own two feet and moving about to explore the world around me, shoes have been important to me.

I still have the little pair of shoes I must have been wearing when, as a toddler, a year, or 2 old, my parents took me with them on a visit to historic Chinatown, in Los Angeles...and I soon wandered off to explore the place on my own.
How, exactly, they lost me was never explained, neither was how long I went missing before they found me.
All I know about this event is that I was found sitting on the lap of some grizzled old Chinaman, all smiles and giggles.

As I grew older my feet grew, too.

Eventually I grew into size 12 shoes. Tennis shoes of the right size and comfort level were hard to find, and I moved on to sneakers of various types, good for walking.

Again, size and comfort level varied as models and brands came and went.

9 years ago I discovered New Balance shoes, and when I moved to Houston, in 2012, I discovered that I could get them in Wide 4E.

I've worn a couple of different models and found them comfortable.

The condition of my feet, and legs, have always been important to me, especially since the Summer of 2011 when I broke my right ankle investigating a black cat in a drainage ditch, and then when I stubbed my toes on both feet, a couple years ago, causing some numbness apparently associated with Plantar Faciitis.

Then my latest leg injury happened giving me one more problem down below.

Playing With My Ding A Ling: Wuhan Flu Edition

Happy Saturday, Houston! The Mad Houstonian, here.

Are we glad April is behind us, or what? Hee, hee!

As a Walmart Cashier there are a couple of times a year when we do fundraising drives, one for MD Anderson Cancer Center, and another for the Children's Miracle Network & TX Children's Hospital.

Learn more about the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals efforts here.

Learn more about Texas Children's Hospital here.

In 2016, I was inspired to write a poem about ringing the bell for the Children's Hospital Campaign.

Last year, as the campaign began, I reposted, and updated, the original post, with new pics and info.

I truly enjoyed taking my bell ringing to a new level, last year, and the support I got for doing so.

While the 2020 campaign won't get under way until the Summer the Network has an online campaign going on, to raise funds, that they call the COVID-19 Impact Fund.

So, I got to thinking about an updated version of my old poem, set in our current circumstances, especially since I will hopefully have returned to work in time for the next store campaign.

The Power, Challenge, and Talent to Write: And Developing it in my 60's

Good morning, Houston! With April behind me, what to do next?

I am the Mad Houstonian...

I like to write.

Always have, I guess, ever since I was in Elementary School (early 70's), then Junior High and High School (mid/late 70's), writing book reports, then letters to the editor of the local paper.

Writing Star Trek fan fiction for my eyes only, and letters to the editor of the local paper was followed, in college, by a fictional piece written for a criminal justice class and, as my interest in comics grew, letters to them as well, plus letters to political magazines.

Unexpectedly, an essay written in a failed attempt to get a subscription to a Trek Fanzine, led to my 1st published work (unpaid) in a popular Trek book Anthology.

For various reasons none of that ever translated into a career path.

Joining the online discussion through message boards in 1998, then becoming a blogger (2002), rekindled the urge to write.

You have the power to write...So take up your pen, open your heart, your mind, and your soul, and just let the words start flowing -- Caroline Joy Adams

I have discovered that not only was I a storyteller, and a humorist, but a poet, essayist, reviewer, journalist, photographer, and more....not only in my own voice (2 closed blogs came before this one), but those of my feline muses (The Opinionated Pussycats).

For over a decade several friends have encouraged me to continue my adventure in writing and maybe explore the possibility of publication somewhere down the road, earning some money with my ability.

I turned 60, in March...I am officially an "Old Coot".

Maybe the time is now, at last? I ain't gettin' any younger.

I read somewhere that we are always afraid to start something that we want to make very good, true and serious.

Rita Mae Brown once wrote: "Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts."

I once trusted myself to write something very special, over many chapters and many months.

Those stories were glorious, but I didn't know enough to save them for the future and regret it to this day (This was back when I had only had a computer for 3 years, before blogging was even a thought).

I have been afraid to try to re-write the series from scratch. It's been over 20 years, now.

I mean, how does one top the best writing he's ever done?

Write something that is even better, and finally get the courage to submit it somewhere, for one thing....more on that, below.