...with ketchup on my sword

A couple of days ago, while picking up a coffee at a fairly popular coffee shop not far from where Galina and Alla were staying in Pagosa, I impulsively asked the server to start one of those "get a free beverage after ten purchases" card.

My health aside, the probability of my buying another nine coffees at the shop seemed pretty remote when I asked for the card (I mean, how often do I get to Colorado?), but when I saw the server punch the card of the customer in front of me, I could not help but think of a line I had heard years ago while listening to a Zig Ziglar tape—something along the lines of how one should approach life's challenges with the attitude of a matador "who enters the ring with ketchup on his sword."

Yes, I know. There are so many things wrong with that image that I don't know where to start in describing them, but the underlying idea of the importance of maintaining a confident, positive attitude is valid. Over the past few months, I've allowed myself to sink into a funk in which I gradually came to believe that "long term" plans were beyond my bailiwick and best left unmade. Watching that card get punched in front of my eyes served to set off a kind of epiphany, so as the server was handing me my change for my coffee order, I asked her to start a card for me.

Crazy as it sounds, the trip to Pagosa made me acutely aware of said funk, from which I have (I think) now emerged. Giving up on long term plans is, I think, a form of "going gently into that good night" way in advance of the final curtain, and I want no part of it.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

So I've taped the card I got from the coffee shop to the bottom of one of my monitors as a reminder. And I plan to take it with me the next time I go visit Pagosa.

Cheers...