The Devil You Know

I had both kids for the afternoon. Anna is 13 going on 30; Dylan is 15. I’m their favorite Gramma, at least that’s what they tell me. That’s good enough for me. I’m hoping they tell their real grandmothers the same thing.

They are just the age I wanted to teach, when I thought I was going to teach. My life took a different turn and at the point where I was on the Devil’s horns of my Career Decision That Would Set The Course For My Whole Life, I went for the bucks as a legal secretary instead of teaching. 

But still. The temptation that I might set fire to young minds, especially those at the age when the watchwords are, “I’m bored!” Those words are like a red flag in front of the bull for me. A million thoughts run through my head when I hear them. Bored??? Think of the Library of Alexandria! Sorry, I didn’t mean to spit on you. But, there’s got to be something out there my darlings will find “not boring.”

“We want to watch horror movies!” was the cry from the chorus.

Good, I thought. I want to watch horror movies too. I want a good one, one that’s scary, not gory. Hack ‘em ups are nothing but kids with ketchup packets poised under their sneakers waiting for their all-too-suspecting victims, the viewers, for the chance at the Big Splash. Gore is not horror; it’s revulsion. They’re different, ok?

“OK,” I agreed, “and let’s find a good one. There are so many stupid ones and ones that are just ooky. I want something that’s scary, good and scary.”

A friend of mine had recently read an old blog entry and had said they liked what I said about things that were really scary. It wasn’t the people dressed up in silly suits. It was…

“Hey, you know what’s really scary?”

Well, that’s a question that can start a bunch of freaky stories. The kids’ eyes got big.

“OK, so you’ve seen Poltergeist, right? There’s a lot of scary stuff in there, or stuff that’s supposed to be scary. Like the ghosts from the graveyard or voices from the television. But the scariest scene in Poltergeist for me was the steak.”

Steak? Their eyes were question marks.

“Well, yeah, the steak. When the steak crawled across the counter, that moment was the scariest thing for me. What’s scary is when everything seems perfectly normal. And then something does something it isn’t supposed to do. Like a steak crawling across a kitchen counter by itself. That’s…that’s not OK. That’s not right. That’s the world taking a very weird tilt. It makes you question the entire basis of reality.”

Anna nodded, thoughtful.

“So, Dylan, don’t you have favorite monsters? People LOVE Dracula, Frankenstein, Godzilla. But, dude. That steak….”

“The Shining, The Shining!” Dylan insisted as we scrolled through Netflix offerings.

“OK,” I agreed. “Stephen King knows what’s scary. At some point, if you want a scary story, I recommend Ghost Story, a great little revenge story, or Pan’s Labyrinth, a lesson on choosing the devil you know.” I think of the Devil card in the Tarot, how it shows myriad horrors and in our modern interpretation so often means addiction and loss of freedom that we might have avoided. Think cultural context.

I planted a seed. I could tell. So we watched The Shining and as we did, we talked about the movie just a bit, then after it was over, quite a bit more.

“She’s kinda dumb,” Anna pointed out about Wendy Torrance.

“She is, isn’t she? And isn’t that one of the scariest things you could think of, especially if you were 6 year old Danny Torrance? That the person who was supposed to be always on your side, a Super Hero who can fix anything, answer any question, make everything better, your mom is nearly useless when you really need her?”

Jack Torrance is typing in the high-ceilinged lobby. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. We’ve watched him succumb to darkness slowly, and we’ve known it was coming. But suddenly, he swears at Wendy who has meekly interrupted him.

“There!” I pounce, startling the kids. “No, seriously, this is the first use of the F word you’ve heard in the movie, which is at least one reason it is rated R, right? This isn’t just cussing. This is creative use of cussing. It’s verbal violence that signals that things are rapidly going to go bad from here. This is a creative device, not just to imitate what you hear on the schoolyard from your foul-mouthed schoolmates. The use of this is meant to shock you, to focus your attention that things are not going to get better after this.”

“Huh,” they both mutter in unison. Creative cussing was not something they had thought of. The idea that the writer, the director, all the people involved in telling the story do all these things purposefully to affect the audience, them starts to creep into their awareness, a lot like a steak crawling across the counter. I can tell Anna likes the idea of control of the audience. She’s more likely to be the creative artist, affecting the crowd to her making. Dylan would do the special effects engineering.

When it’s over, I say, OK, let’s talk about the movie. Did you know that the actor Danny Lloyd thought of making his finger move when his “imaginary” friend Tony talked? That he never saw any of the scary parts during filming so he wouldn’t be really afraid? Having him have a nearly blank face was important because he should have looked more scared and didn’t. And that made the movie even scarier for us.

One of things about scary movies is that often we know what to be afraid of when the characters in the movie don’t. So we’re yelling, Danny, don’t go in room 237!! If Mr. Hallorann said not to go in there, and he knows about the Shining, don’t go in there. He does of course and he comes out scratched and drooling.

“Let’s look at the things in that movie that are the things that scare us. Stephen King is really good at honing in on what scares you. He makes the characters as real as possible to you, so that when the scary thing happens, it’s happening to you, too. So what’s scary in The Shining? Daddy turns into the monster, which maybe wasn’t much of a stretch from perhaps sleazy writer. Mommy is nearly helpless, so you don’t get rescued. You sense things other people don’t, making you feel even more alone. The Overlook is so remote and huge and increasingly your connection to the outside world gets farther and farther away by the snow, the telephone going out, the rooms being so many and so huge, people being in different rooms, the radio being disconnected and the snowcat being disabled. 

"Locked doors can’t protect you from a madman with an axe, the lady in the bathtub is the Thing Under the Bed, and the little girls, their father and Lloyd the bartender are seductive drawing you father into the Monster which is The Overlook itself. It’s dark. It’s cold. You get agoraphobia and claustrophobia in one movie! And the monster can kill strong people with Special Powers, like Mr. Hallorann who was supposed to rescue you. The window Mommy pushes you out of in the bathroom is too small for her to come through. You’re on your own against things that are too big and too awful. Any questions about what’s scary here? The blood coming out of the elevator ends up being just show, the ‘ick factor’.”

I’m in full Professor mode. At least they are still listening.

Now, think of the other kinds of scary movies. All the Alien and "Big Bug" movies are talking about fear of things that are completely different from you, xenophobia, “you aren’t from around here” and specifically things that may consider you food if they consider you at all, a theme so prevalent in H. P. Lovecraft's work. And look how monsters have changed from the 1950’s when we were all afraid of what a nuclear attack and radiation could do. From that fear we have Godzilla, supersized anything, The Fly, even heroes like SpiderMan, all born from the fear that our advances in science may have impacts we didn’t think about at the time. Drink me, Alice.

Fear of ignorance is another common theme, where people in their blind hatred become the real monsters destroying someone gentle who appears different. Fear of the dark or limited senses is a big theme. Parental monsters are a common theme, as in Snow White. How about inanimate objects becoming “alive” and hating you like Christine, the Terminator series? And there’s a whole religious horror category, the devil out to get you just because it's his job and he enjoys it.

Why do we enjoy these things? By watching them, we somehow hold dominion over them, conquer them and thereby little by little conquer our fears, shrinking them with the ray gun of our confidence, with the desensitization of familiarity. We get the thrill of adrenalin too and that thrill can be fun. Because what’s life without a little adventure?

Just don’t send in the clowns or cockroaches for me, OK? And keep an eye on that steak.

Best wishes.

Public Offering

I’m so glad I’m not a celebrity. I have an inkling every once in a while of what it’s like to be pursued by the wrong person.

In my Tarot life, I originally set up my Facebook account to the settings that make everything public. 

My background in technology has taught me that no matter how personal a conversation you thinking you’re having, if it’s electronic, it’s recorded somewhere and accessible by people other than the one you think you’re talking to. So I originally figured my Tarot life was open, out loud, ordinary, unremarkable or at least amusing.

Recently, some strange things have been showing up in my electronic world so I took advantage of the Facebook settings to limit access somewhat. It’s helped a little but there are still stories to tell.

When I was younger and svelte, I got used to catcalls from construction workers. I thought they were disgusting and stupid but also threatening, that implied threat that men stronger and faster than I am could overpower me if they dared. Oh, I would have put up a fight, no doubt. But the fear, just the fear, that made what should sound like a compliment turn into something menacing was bullying on a level that terrified me, revolted me and basically made all men seem like coarse slime. I hated that feeling. I liked men, still do, so why would they do something so mean? I realized I was an object, not a person in that instance. I didn’t want to be an object.

Then one day while I was in the public library in my unremarkable town in southern Illinois, the police swarmed in and surrounded the young man on the other side of the stacks from me. I had not noticed. The policeman and librarians told me later. He was stalking me. As I hummed happily to myself, savoring books on antique glass and china, looking up marks and dates and manufacturers, researching patterns and processes, then popping over to Agatha Christie, remembering my mother saying she could write a better mystery (she never did), I noticed the Army green jacket through the stacks and thought idly how odd it was that the guy was interested in the books on the other side of the shelves. When the police came and took him away, I was stunned, then shaken, then scared, then reassured. I’d dodged some awful situation and was grateful for others looking out for me.

Cyber-stalking can be much more subtle. Someone can have the account of someone you know or they can friend a bunch of your friends. Then they send you a friend request and you check—briefly—and think even if you don’t recognize the name, the folks in your home town or your Tarot community must be real friends with this person and you might accept their offer.

Most of the time people are just people, not stalkers or creeps. They have good days and bad. They have political opinions you agree with or don’t, take subjects too seriously or not seriously enough, have pet causes that resonate with yours—or not. Most of the time, people are OK.

Then there are people who presume to be innocuous enthusiasts who are actually advanced hackers who are looking for something valuable to them in your world. I don’t “get” why people would do this, but then again I’m too nice. I don’t get why people will threaten each other or feel threatened by someone, why people will hurt animals or feel little regard for nature or other people, why people will persist in sharing negativity and spurn any ideas on how to resolve it. I don’t “get” that. That’s me.

And some people just feed off others’ energy. My friend Fortune says there is a word in Danish, superlomsk. It’s the “creeptastic” feeling you get when being menaced by a vampire only perhaps moreso. Sometimes it’s just love. Sometimes, it’s like the Devil.

Reading in public venues opens me to a wide variety of people and their problems. I’m glad to be able to help in some small way and always emphasize to my clients in public or private readings that they have free will. They can choose their next actions. But I get surprised sometimes, of course.

Recently I had my table up at a public venue. Happily in the shade on a warm midday, I welcomed the brave souls who had never, ever had a Tarot reading before. A few of the readings were upbeat. A few were heavy and deep. As the sun rose high in the weekend sky, I stood to stretch my legs, knocked my cards off my table, laughed and bent to pick them up. I looked up to see a middle-aged man in a polo shirt and khakis walking towards the table, smiling. I quickly scooped up the rest of the fallen cards, then looked up.

He stood in front of my table smiling, looking at me with shark’s eyes, blue irises thin around suddenly wide chasms of pupils. He was an unremarkable man, clean, clean-shaven, medium everything except his close-cropped light-brown hair around his balding hairline.

“Hiiiiiiiii, Marrrrrrrciaaaaaaa.” He looked me up and down and scanned my table. He paused too long. Something wasn’t right.

“Did you want a reading?” I asked, still standing, not wanting to make myself smaller in front of a predator. I smiled too. It was self-defense. I faced him square on.

“I just have one question,” he said, shark eyes never leaving mine as he spoke. “Is there anyone here as pretty as you are?”

A thousand things filled my mind, all the alternate realities based on my response. I assessed the effectiveness and lung capacity should I determine screaming bloody murder at a Farmers Market was the right response. My matching alternate personalities appeared in my mind, only. I reviewed the possibilities:

SmartAss: Still live with your mom, huh?

BabyBoomer: That line didn’t work 30 years ago either.

CompletelySarcastic: Eeek. It’s a man.

PublicOfficial: Move along, sir. There’s nothing to see here.

And a lingering favorite, NinjaPsychic: Back up slowly or I will kill you with my mind.

I resisted all those temptations, understanding that any engagement, positive or negative, was the response he wanted. Whether he was a socially awkward sincere admirer or serial killer or anything in between, the answer was still, No. No way. What part of no…? No, thank you.

I gestured broadly with both arms wide, again increasing apparent size, some lizard-brain reaction from some non-human ancestor.

“Why, look around you! Everyone is pretty here!”

He stepped back, shark-eyes back to blue, hands in pockets and turned away.

I offer my services reading cards for a small fee. I have boundaries. And I like this work. If you want to meet me, strike up a real conversation with me. Leave the lines and the shark-eyes at home.

Best wishes.

When Presented With the Choice

Back at another company, years ago, I found I was about to get a new boss. I had liked my old boss and he had liked me. You might think of that as a plus. Ordinarily, when manager and subordinate are high-performing professionals and agree about goals and approaches and other things material to the work environment, it’s a good thing.

I thought so. I had moved to that difficult area from a job I had really liked, felt good about, and received awards many awards for.  Shortly after my old work group had done a group exercise with the official MBTI test, I found out something that did not surprise me, that I was a different Jungian personality type from the rest of my management team.

I had realized that and sought to make that difference the difference. After all, my type is called “results oriented.” To my mind, it was a good fit for a technology director focused on meeting the needs of business. I had a great team of programmers and managers who were tops at churning out projects that worked, that built on the future, that mattered in helping other technology teams meet their project goals. I liked my peers and our differences.

As it turns out, I was the only person on my management team who was comfortable with my results-oriented approach. I liked my job instead of groaning under the tremendous workload. I enjoyed the projects we worked on, enjoyed understanding them, enjoyed working with the programmers about them. I was happy. My team was, for the most part, happy.

My peers and boss in this group, however, were pretty sure I was the puzzle piece who didn’t fit. When it came time to shrink the group a bit, I was the one who was selected to move out. In the shuffle of the reorganization, a miscommunication occurred, however. My boss thought he had placed me in a “great” job in a group called “journaling” which was an accounting area. Unfortunately, the management of that group had placed someone else in that position and I was stuck momentarily without a chair. I was devastated and it was a measurable part of my performance not to show it.

Stripped of my team and without a new position, awkwardly I was asked to stay on as my VP’s special projects person, which is corporate speak for that deadly position indicating you should find another job immediately. I chugged away to create extensive documentation of my area for a quarter which impressed my non-results-oriented VP to no end and he gave me a high rating with shock and surprise, his.

An opening came up that looked good. Well, it looked like the only possibility of an opening in my company. I spent 45 minutes talking to Charlie and knew we were going to get along.

Charlie was from Texas and was about as un-San Franciscan as possible. Politics and the occasional thoughtless joke aside, he was a good, smart guy who would listen to reason and take a chance to develop employees. He sent me to an excellent technology intensive course and helped me learn the ropes. It wasn’t easy, but I latched onto it and gained the respect of people within the group.

I was starting to heal from being booted out of the department that I had helped create from scratch. I was deep into the new position, a nearly impossible job with too many customers who all thought they should be number one on my list and regularly were verbally abusive. One difference I made was not to pass this abuse along to my team, knowing that beating the horsie seldom makes her go faster when you’re using a sledge hammer.

That didn’t mean I didn’t have a standard of performance for the team. So, when one team member had an issue, which Charlie dealt with, fairly, I thought, I had respect for him. Charlie had explained what happened after it was complete without revealing too-personal details. I had agreed with his assessment and decision. We agreed, even on difficult topics. It was a good partnership.

I didn’t realize how important it was to understand how well-regarded your boss is in an organization. As it turns out, Charlie’s boss hated him, hated everything about him. I also had misjudged that she would project that hatred onto me because I worked well with him. She hated the decision he had made, assumed it was made with the wrong reasoning. She brought each person on the team into her office for interrogation about the issue. I gave my honest answer based on the facts as I knew them, allowing for the fact that I was not present at the time of the alleged incident but had spoken with both Charlie and the employee with the issue.

Honesty was not the best policy. Charlie’s boss easily spread her hatred of Charlie to me also and in an instant, although I was aware only of her displeasure at my report, my fate was sealed.

Charlie’s was sealed a lot sooner and within a month he had been fired for not getting along with his boss. And now, I was getting a new boss.

Naturally, with the upheavals I had had in the past three years, I was anxious to know more about my new boss. Following my own quipped advice that it is always best to learn from the mistakes of others, I called a friend who used to work for the new guy. She was an intelligent, outspoken woman and I thought perhaps my own experience might in some ways mirror hers.

“Now that you know him,” I asked her, “what would you do differently?”

She laughed. It was a laugh I came to understand was one of grateful escape.

“With him,” she said evenly, “you constantly must ask yourself with his every word, his every action, ‘Is he evil or stupid?’ In his case, always pick stupid.”

My spirits sunk low. It had been my experience that when presented with the choice in bosses between Evil and Stupid, always pick Evil.

I know it seems counter-intuitive. Evil can be appealed to on some level. You can accomplish great good while justifying your acts to the Evil Boss as something that will advance his position or otherwise appeal to his sense of greed. But, as I constantly warned my friends, the depths of Stupidity have never been plumbed.

I worked for the new guy for about six months. While he was geographically appealing to his boss, the one who fired Charlie, he was much more sexist, arbitrary, capricious, customer-negligent and the epitome of what business people fear in technology professionals: He wanted to spend their money to buy cool new toys, not to deliver business solutions. I did everything I could to remain professional, competent and customer-focused. He was openly skeptical of my abilities, my intelligence, my prospects and my gender.

When the next round of layoffs came, we talked the evening before. He finally loosened up talking to me, saying that he knew he had given me a hard time in the last six months and frankly he was pleased, so pleased with my performance, that the only flaw he could find with me was that I was “too nice.” He said he thought I had all the makings of a vice president, and he wanted to start work on that once all the layoff stuff was over.

I remembered what I knew of him from experience and from advice. I knew what I had read for myself. I told him that if he needed to tell me that I was laid off, please do me the favor of coming for me the very first thing in the morning. He was shocked that I thought that might happen. I smiled. We shook hands and parted.

The next morning at 7:15 am he came to my office, shame-faced and flustered. To this day, I honestly do not think he knew that the conversations he was having with his boss would result in my being let go.

In the Tarot, “stupid” might be represented by The Fool and “evil,” The Devil. If those are your choices, I urge you to draw another card! Neither one makes a good boss. Just don’t be convinced that those are the only two cards in the deck.

Best wishes.

After Clouds Sunshine

My brother had a band in high school, guitars, keyboards, drums, vocals, the whole deal. It was not a “hair band” or a “metal band”. Those concepts weren’t part of the lexicon of youth yet. These were guys who wanted to play rock music with electric guitars.

Dust Bunny Lenormand
(c) Copyright 2012 Marcia McCord

They played at our high school dances and were rivals to the other band in town. It wasn’t a rivalry like New York and Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles; it was something of a sneering truce. Since our little town in New Mexico was blessed with two dance bands, we had dances nearly every weekend.

“Noise,” Daddy said.

We laughed at him. It was our noise. Daddy had played oboe in high school, maybe a million years earlier. Although later famous groups would incorporate more than the rock band basics with stunning success, oboe was a laughable instrument when considered with guitars, drums and keyboards during our high school dance years.

I think those may have been the years when my brother hated having a little sister more than any others. After all, what could be more fascinating than slightly-older high school boys who sky-rocketed to instant stardom, locally of course, to a spirited teen-aged sister? And what could be more distracting during a band practice than a flirtatious and devoted younger fan? So, a lot of band practices happened somewhere else.

My best friend had an eye for the sometimes-drummer in the band, a slow-talking, muscular blond with an easy grin and fabulously restored 50’s sedan with leopard-print upholstery and the latest in technology, an 8-track tape. Steve would take us and half a dozen other kids to lunch in his car, usually the A&W where we would order taquitas and sodas and listen to his 8-track.

My friend was a Scorpio and was perfecting the art of being the Mystery Woman. An Aries, I was hopelessly lost in the concept of mystery and the feminine mystique. For me, yes meant yes and no meant no and if you liked someone, you said so. I was as subtle as a sledge-hammer.

I was never sure the guys liked me because of my grades. No one asked me, but if they had, I would have told them I thought it was just plain stupid to be afraid of me because of my I.Q. Well, OK, in retrospect I can see they had a point. “Don’t-hold-back-Marcia” would be a nickname I gained even after I had learned subtlety. But, hey, what would be so scary about a little witty repartee or verbal jousting or mental gymnastics? I mean, what else was flirtation, anyway? I wasn’t trying to win, for goodness’ sake; I was trying to keep up. I’m not sure many of the guys I knew got that about me. It was probably for the best though, like most things that seem like disasters in dating in high school.

I didn’t have a height requirement. At 5’ 1” I considered myself one-size-fits-all. At least I did until I was asked to dance with one tall cowboy one time when my brother’s band was playing. It was a slow dance and the guy was polite and didn’t try anything ungentlemanly. It’s just that he was probably 6’ 6” and I spent the entire song unable to hear a word he said. I was tempted to quip, “How’s the air up there?” Otherwise, I stared at the guy’s belt buckle which, since he was a cowboy, was at least a little more interesting than usual. At that point, I realized I probably did have a height requirement for a guy that was an upper limit of maybe 6’ 1”. No offense to the really tall guys, but when you have Mercury as heavily aspected in your astrology chart as I do, good grief, I want you to talk to me.



Art Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord



This led me to like two very different kinds of guys. I had a special affinity for the fast talkers, the Tarot’s Magician types. I loved to be entertained and some of my favorite guys were natural entertainers. I adored them, in spite of their weaknesses, which I would staunchly deny anyway. After all, the show must go on! Little did they know that it was actually the little slips, the betrayals of imperfections that made the performers dear to me.

The other kind of guy who caught my eye was the Cypher, the guys who said nearly nothing at all. It didn’t make sense, unless you realize that we pick our own Devil in the Tarot and life.



Art Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord



See, as my husband so kindly points out on occasion in the gentlest possible way, I made the classic “girl mistake.” I figured the quiet ones were thinking. It was a challenge to get them to open up and talk as they had never done before. After all, they would feel so much better, right?

It took me a while to really realize that my mother wasn’t just in a very bad mood all the time; she was an introvert. But I had used her example as a template and mistakenly applied it to the quiet guys. After all, my quiet mother was always thinking something even though she didn’t say much; these guys must be doing the same thing. It took me many more years after high school to realize that one of the reasons boys are quiet in high school is that they don’t always have a lot going on that would be stunning conversation with a girl they liked, or might like or even didn’t like.

So, like a muddy puppy, I would occasionally pounce on an unsuspecting quiet guy and try to get him to talk to me. Depending on exactly what bait he took, I would go away sooner or later and try to talk to some other more pliable subject. Or someone who spoke at all.

The guys in the band were just the perfect tantalizing snack for me as a mini-man-eater. They weren’t allowed to talk, not while they were performing. Lots of them hold their mouths funny when they are concentrating on guitar riffs or whathaveyou. It was like my own personal arcade, these guys in the band. I tried to get them to talk, flirt, sharpen their minds, trade bon mots, and engage in conversational duels. Most of the time, I found out, they hadn’t heard a thing I said; they were too busy looking at my chest.

Cripes, guys, get over the chest thing, I thought. The real circus is in the mind!

The naming of a band can be a tender thing. My brother’s band’s name was “After Clouds Sunshine.” It was named for a needlepoint motto from the previous century we found in Mom's antique shop and was just nearly-nonsense enough to pass for a band name. As good as any Strawberry Alarm Clock, we figured.

A long gap after school and New Mexico and high school dances were just a memory, I chanced to marry one of the guys in that band. At the time he had been something of a blend, a performer who talked in bursts, who seemed to be a leader of his friends, and who didn’t seem to mind the muddy puppy/talking thing I did. But neither of us was the person we had known when we dated in high school and it was, alas, a mistake to marry.

And yet, like my Dust Bunny Lenormand cards of the Clouds and the Sun, while happiness was not something he and I found with each other, only the memory of ourselves when we were young and full of hope and little understanding, after the clouds of our failed relationship, I did, after all, find sunshine with my adorable Hubs who is both Magician and Cypher and just the right height, a man who brings me laughter every day. And he has the most boring belt buckles.

After clouds, then, finally, there was sunshine.

Best wishes.

Devil’s Line

My friend Sandy retired after working for the same company for 38 years. She looks just a shade over 38, maybe a shade under, so people were always shocked and confused when they learned how long she had worked there. In today’s job environment, her accomplishment is nothing short of a miracle. Oh, and she's gorgeous and funny and smart, just to set the stage.

I know she has mixed feelings about leaving the place she had dedicated so many of her waking hours to from the time she was a child to now, now when she’s old enough to know better and still young enough to consider it, whatever it is.

She’s a dedicated wife, mother and grandmother. Her family has experienced a lot of ups and downs. It’s America. It’s 2012. She’s so fortunate that she has been able to complete a career and go home to spend time with her family.

I’ll miss her at work. She and I had a rule: Only one of us could cry per day. We stressed out about a lot of the same things, experienced a lot of the same disappointments, disagreements, points of view, values, likes and dislikes. We worked well together. She had the long-time business experience and I had some hard technical experience at several corporations. Sometimes people called us by the other’s name. As much as we wanted individual identities in our work, we both thought the mix-ups were fun.

When work is consistently not fun, it’s time to make a change. It wasn’t just work that wasn’t fun. Retirement seemed like the best answer for her in my opinion but it’s a delicate decision.

Leaving a company you’ve been part of for 38 years is a lot like divorce. You want to give it second chances. You want some kind of counseling, an alternative opinion, a different way of looking at things. You think of the good part, the good times, what does work about the relationship, why you originally thought it was a good idea in the first place. Sure, the relationship has changed. You’re no longer the innocent kid and, well, lots of things have changed. You can just about predict behavior, responses, “new” ideas that aren’t really new. But it’s hard to let go. It’s the devil you know, have known for years, the one that has felt like the better choice for so long.

You fall for the smallest shred of hope. You cling to compliments, the promise of a better tomorrow. But it’s still the devil you know. And when the devil you know becomes just wrong for you, maybe not wrong all over, but wrong for you, then, then finally, it is time to go.

Do I make it sound like she was worn out and past her effectiveness? Oh, not at all. I loved the fact that she had so much history at the company. I teased her that she not only knew where the “bodies were buried,” she had pictures, the witness list, the negatives, film, tape recordings, an entire documentary of the back story on how so many decisions were made, so many careers won and lost. She helped me navigate some of the corporate political swamp, pointing out the alligators and quicksand. She’s quick, bright, savvy, and articulate. She’s fantastic at presentations. She understands the short and long term effects of change on a corporate landscape. She’s a great predictor of outcomes. She knew which projects were winners and which ones were poison. Better than that, she was so, so often right. Those abilities have only grown, not faded over time.



Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

She did have a series of personal difficulties and with enough stressors after work adding to the already stressful work engine magnified every flaw, every slight, every disappointment. A more stable work environment, some sincere appreciation of her efforts, some public recognition, acknowledgement, reward, all that would have kept her going. But that didn’t happen. After 38 years, you’d think somehow you would have “arrived.”

The Devil isn’t like that though. You put in your time with him and you exercise all your best and worst, you grow in ways you never thought you would, and yet, what you get from him is…indifference.

The sad fact is that the Devil doesn’t care. Those chains? You put them there. They seemed like security at the time. With a little clarifying perspective, a shake-up to help you remember what you really love, you look down at those chains that once felt like the reins that drove the Chariot of your career and realize they are holding you back. It was fun for a while, maybe like Sandy, fun for a long while. All the fresh-start promises the Devil makes are really just another room in hell and you’re pounding rocks again. It’s keeping you away from what you love.

That’s how you know it’s time to go. You know finally what you want has changed and not changed all at once. You always loved your life, your family, your home. That’s what you were working for, right? But somehow, the work became your life and you put so much of yourself into it. If you had any passion at all for your work, when it dies, it hurts.

If you’re lucky, you come out on the other side like Sandy has, with your family, retirement, home, time and energy to enjoy all of that. You try to let go of the fact that you aren’t somehow getting a medal for all you’ve done, sweated and slaved over, endured other people’s and your own tears, fears and tantrums. You realize that, like Dorothy and everyone else in the Wizard of Oz, you already have the prize you wanted to be awarded.

It’s confusing. What were you doing for 38 years then, buying the Devil’s line? Like the Devil in tarot, you were learning a lesson. You learned what was really important to you, really. And wrenching as it is, you learned to choose it with passion and ease and grace and dignity. You learned that you are starting over every day. And, instead of that feeling like a setback, it feels good, fresh, like the air after a morning rain.

Best wishes, always.

Diablo’s Backside

Remember how I told you I wasn’t a birder? I’m not. Really. I don’t keep a list of the birds I’ve seen in my lifetime. OK, I own a bird book and I can whistle like a Mockingbird imitating a Western Meadowlark. It doesn’t really count. That whistling thing was an aberration of adolescent boredom while I was riding my bicycle. And there really wasn’t that much to do at the time in eastern New Mexico besides watching the fenders rust.

It’s like my introduction for each birding class: “Hi, I’m Marcia. I’m not really a birder. I just like hanging out with birders because they are generally quiet and don’t want me to fix anything to do with a computer.” It sounds like a joke but the truth can often be pretty funny.

Nevertheless, my friend Ronda and I like to go to birding workshops and give each other the gift of a trek outdoors looking for our little feathered friends or whatever lands in our path along the way. Birding is generally a slow moving activity because sudden movement and noises make them fly away, spoiling the effort. We thought this year we would go somewhere we hadn’t been before, Mitchell Canyon on the “back side” of Mt. Diablo.


Tea Tarot
(c) copyright 2011 Marcia McCord

We figured we would see different birds from the ones we’ve seen before in Marin, Sonoma, Solano and Yolo Counties. And the description of the class had the tempting line, “…an easy stroll.” Ronda’s back has been bothering her but she’s recently made some excellent improvement with exercise. I have a bad knee from a scooter accident in 2001. I would call it a trick knee, but that sounds like more fun than it really is. Essentially, we birdwatch at approximately the same pace.

We had no idea how hard we would have to work for this “easy stroll.”

The first obstacle in our path was the paperwork.

“Did you see the form they want us to fill out?” we pinged to each other at approximately the same time. It was a medical history form. They wanted to know our complete medical history, what prescription and over the counter drugs we took, what our preferences were for lunch and dinner, all in case the emergency medical technicians had to be called.

“Does this mean the EMT’s are bringing our lunch?” Ronda quipped hopefully. The last time we had to call an EMT to one of our events, he was very entertaining eye-candy and right handy with a band-aid for our friend’s cut thumb. We paused in the vision of a well-made fellow in a uniform with a tray of our favorite snacks.

“Should I say I like unsweetened iced tea with extra lemon?”

But in all seriousness, this form was out of line with the current HIPAA medical privacy rules. There was no mention of who would have access to the information and what would be done with the records once the class was over. And there was the interestingly implied conflict between “an easy stroll” and the need for a med-evac by helicopter. We were smart women with long experience in business and technology, we reasoned. We’re pushing back. This form was like nothing we’d ever seen. They were asking questions my doctor wasn’t interested in and my husband probably didn’t know the answer to. And it seemed like they were discouraging the less than Olympic fitness crowd from attending. How’s that fit into the “easy stroll?”

We contacted the director’s office. He was on an excursion to Antarctica, the kind of trip on which I expect you might need to tell the EMT’s your menu preference, nothing like the little walk in the woods looking at the birdies we had in mind. After much back and forth with the organization, including mention of dropping membership, citing HIPAA laws, mentioning the federal funding they no doubt receive which could be looked upon with disfavor if the Americans with Disabilities Act folks should misunderstand their benign intent, I finally distilled my position on this ill-designed form with its invasive and ill-conceived questions with the ultimate sentiment from the parking lot scene of Fried Green Tomatoes: we’re older and we have more insurance. Basically, I told them, we’re just two old broads with bad knees and good cameras who won’t be giving them our money. They changed the form.

After this victory, we felt we had to attend. Fortunately, the day proved to be beautiful for being outdoors, although not ideal for birding. It was clear and sunny and that wonderful in-between temperature that requires your light jacket in the morning. It was also windy. The two ways you find a bird is by sound and by sight of movement. On a windy day, all the trees, branches, leaves and critters are moving. But we were surrounded by a concert of beautiful birdsong. We were a big class and I feared any self-respecting bird would flee in terror from a parade of binoculared grey-hairs traipsing around with lists, scopes, cameras and a class leader who believed he was making attractive bird calls. Doubtful as we were, we saw birds. I was jazzed about the golden eagle, my first. The coolest bird however was this lovely swimming-pool blue juvenile Lazuli Bunting, a blue like I had not seen on a bird except perhaps parakeets in the pet stores. Here's a fantastic photo taken by Steve Zamek featured in WhatBird.com http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/204/_/Lazuli_Bunting.aspx. At that point in the path, that had been the high point of my day. Some bird!

I’d say it went downhill from there, but strictly speaking we were walking uphill and at a pace that Ronda and I couldn’t sustain. Of course, I like to take pictures of everything that isn’t moving too fast, so I have some yummy wildflowers currently in peak bloom in Mitchell Canyon and a rather unfortunate yet interesting dead mole on the trail, still in good enough condition for final viewing, RIP.

Our loud-birdcalling trip guide plunged forward at a breakneck pace, promising that our lunch stop was just around the next corner. About the fourth time he made this empty promise, Ronda had left “happy” back on the trail something like an hour previously and I was beginning to whine. Checking my watch, I noted quietly, so as not to start food riots or other insurrection among the birders, that we had three more hours of this trudging and the sun was rising high in the sky. “Easy stroll,” I muttered, both my bad knee and good knee singing louder than the birds. I had worked hard for this torture session but I was long past the point of caring if I saw one more bird even if it was roast chicken on a nice whole grain bread.

“OK,” the devil…I mean Dave the guide announced proudly as he dashed down the steep bank of the creek, tip-toed across a couple of unstable rocks and bounded up the steep bank on the other side. “Here’s where we’re stopping for lunch!”

Ronda and I looked with dismay at the impossible physical obstacle and the tick-infested clearing beyond. No. Way. If we got down, we knew we wouldn’t get up again and I didn’t relish walking back through the creek, including culverts, until we got to a flat spot to get back onto the trail.

Arizona has a Stupid Hiker Law which says approximately that if you wander into the wild and into a situation that you know you can’t get yourself out of, you ought to pay for your rescue. Of course this was California, but the point was well considered. Wise women that we are, we turned back. That croning ceremony wasn’t fer nuthin’. About 30 minutes back down the trail we found a log to sit on, ate some of our lunch, rested our aching joints and admired the microcosm of nature within our immediate view. We actually saw a few birds on the way back that we hadn’t seen on the way up and attributed that to our being fewer in number and quieter than the large class. I brushed a tick off Ronda and to our credit we both suppressed our bug screams. We made it back to the parking lot, the bathroom, the water fountain, the nice ladies in the visitor center and gratefully to Ronda’s SUV. A couple of ibuprofens later and by the time we were in civilization again that awful grating noise in my joints had stopped and we were treated to the best bird sighting of the day, a mommy mallard duck and her four baby ducks crossing Clayton Road in the crosswalk. All traffic had stopped for the little parade and we rejoiced as the last little straggler ducky hopped the steep curb from the road to the sidewalk.

We need something duck speed next time, I thought. “So, next time,” I suggested aloud, “maybe we pick a botany class.” After all, plants don’t move too fast.

Later that evening, while I was selling drink tickets at the church spaghetti feed, I felt a tickle on my back. A tick! Grateful that it hadn’t yet found a good spot to bite, I quickly flung the little devil on the floor of the church hall and smashed it with the metal cash box from the drink ticket sales. There. I fixed it.

Best wishes!

What’s New at the Magician’s Table

And now a word from the shameless self-promotion department (borrowed with respect from those crazy guys at Car Talk on Public Radio):

• Picture Postcard Tarot SOLD OUT
• Two more decks in progress and available now for pre-sales reservation!
• Tarot Class September 19, 2010, Benicia, CA

I am just thrilled that my Picture Postcard Tarot (self-published limited edition) has sold out. Almost all US mailings have been sent; the International mailings are being held waiting for a couple of spare King and Queen of Wands.

My first venture into self-publishing was exciting, obsessive, perhaps even mirage-like in its quality for me. Just a few of the decks suffered from a problem where the King and Queen of Wands were stuck together. When pulled apart, they left part of the images on each other, just like all the CSI shows tell you about the rules of physical evidence. And boo-hiss to that little snafu! The printer, however, has been just excellent about it and is shipping the replacement cards to me now. So if those over-heated King and Queen of Wands are stuck on your copy of the deck, never fear, cooler cards will also be yours.

Who knew Wild Bill Hickok had such a thing for that Party Girl? Get a room!

Many thanks to those who ordered one or more decks, making this experiment possible.

**Update!  Aeclectic Tarot has posted a review and images of the Picture Postcard Tarot.  Click here
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/picture-postcard/index.shtml

***

Following closely on the heels of my first tarot deck are my next two tarot decks. Like the Picture Postcard Tarot, these will be self-published numbered limited editions. However, both of these decks will be limited editions of 100 instead of 50. The cost will be $25.00 USD per deck plus postage. I intend to publish both before the end of the year and am taking pre-order reservations now. If you would like one or more of these decks, please contact me at my email address which is listed in several places in this blog for more information.

The Art Postcard Tarot is the second in my study of antique postcards from 1900-1909. It is a deck of 78 cards, plus a “Happy Squirrel” and a cover card. Again all images were taken from real antique postcards from that time; the images themselves may be older, but somewhere someone thought it would make a good visual to send their message. The artwork is generally light-hearted, even when dealing with difficult themes. There are portraits, serious art, cartoons and illustrations.

The cover card shows a “romantic harem” theme with the lovelies contemplating their own fortune. The Ace of Swords is atypical of the usual portrayal but shows that not all our new ideas are necessarily good ones. The Hermit walks the night alone. The Queen of Wands is a lively redhead bursting with energy.

The Victorian Trade Card Tarot is the third of my limited edition decks. It too is a deck of 78 cards, plus a “Happy Squirrel” and a cover card. The images on this tarot were taken from trade cards used as business cards between 1870-1890. Trade cards were an interesting phenomenon that had a short but exciting life in the history of advertising. Even during their own time, they were collected and pasted into albums as novelties. They came in all shapes and sizes and, unlike our business cards today, were not personal contacts at a company but rather advertised a business or product in general. Again, I’ve aimed for a light-hearted theme. Often the pictures on the trade cards had little to do with the product being advertised. Looking at some of the ads on television lately, I think we may have come full circle!

The cover card shows a wizened fortune teller and her young clients. Is she telling them to listen to her words or explaining that she has to eat, too? The Emperor is advertising ham even if the pig looks more like an elephant. The Devil is demon temptation, especially for the shoe-lovers among us. Who hasn’t heard that little voice over the left shoulder whisper, “But they are so YOU!” The 6 of Swords illustrates how the picture often had little to do with the product. The advertising for tea is seemingly disconnected from our well-dressed travelers, unless you consider Mom needed that extra shot of caffeine to get the boat going.

***

Finally, I’m teaching a class using tarot for creative inspiration on Sunday afternoon, 3 pm – 5 pm, September 19, 2010, at Angel Heart 4 You, 501 First Street, Benicia, California. The class is $35 per person. It is called Fire - Inspired Tarot. Collecting, Writing and Creating Tarot and will feature the work of local artists, plus a hands-on workshop for you to create your own art using the tarot as inspiration. I’ll talk just a little about creating these limited edition decks and what it takes to get them from concept to realization, a Fool’s Journey in itself! I’ll also bring some of my collection of antique and limited edition “art decks” with a little bit of information about each of them. It will be a fun class. If you have already created something inspired by the tarot, you are encouraged to bring that. Advance reservations are encouraged (you can pay when you get there). Call Angel Heart 4 You at 707-745-2024 and sign up. There’s no telling what we will come up with!

Best wishes!

Pet Cards

I recently acquired a tarot deck for my collection called Tarot Cards for Cats illustrated by Kipling West. West’s cats look like pleasant, approachable and intelligent creatures. This got me thinking about my own cats and tarot. My cats are not always the storybook kind but there is a card for each of them.

Alice, a dramatically marked Maine Coon of the “fat crayon” variety and the biggest, toughest creature in the house, is extraverted and mild mannered despite her nickname "Alice Malice". Alice came to us one Christmas season when she wandered into a friend’s house during a party; the friend was highly allergic to cats, so her humans rescued everyone involved and brought her home. Alice's favorite toys are full boxes of tissues, Tinkertoys and her siblings who aren't as happy about being prey animals as Alice thinks. She is paws-down the Alpha Cat in the house and her reign is a relatively mild and optimistic one since her purpose in life is to luxuriate at all costs. She is fond of her spa time when her humans are in the shower and can be found spread out upon the bathmat. At nearly 25 lbs, she is an enthusiastic eater. Alice loves the cocker spaniel, giving him spontaneous hugs, baths and other nervously unrequited attentions. Alice is a catnip lover, a connoisseur of blends from exotic places. She is also a bird-lover, attracted to all things musical. In her own contribution to the musical world, she is the loudest snorer in the family, even snoring while awake at times. Often others will remark on the little flute-like noises she makes. She prefers to sleep at the top of the cat tower or, basically, anywhere she likes. She adores men, especially her male human, often alighting with delight (hers) in his lap. Alice is very best friends with the only male member of the cat cast, Tony, who approaches but cannot match her weight. Alice's dream is to be a spa resort spokesmodel and to lounge by the water; she would also enjoy learning to bowl. An 8-lb ball should be about right. Alice's card is the Queen of Pentacles.

Peepers, a pale Siamese-ish 9 lb “alley point" with striking blue eyes, is a shy girl prone to snooze in linen closets. She came to her home as a beach bunny from the Seal Beach Animal Shelter after her previous owner was unable to care for her. A cat of discriminating tastes, she bit the first interested prospective caretaker before surrendering herself into purrs in her current owner’s hands during the interview. She has become quite a lap-kitty in her maturity, a pleasant change from her originally self-imposed isolationist stance, but likely one of a practical nature as most laps in the house are warm. Peeps, as she is known within the family, seeks balance in life including retribution for wrongs done to others. A few years ago, when Binket was a kitten, the kitten squalled when she got stuck at the door. Peepers flew out of hiding and promptly beat the dickens out of the dog, an innocent bystander unjustly accused of abuse. To avoid further fallout from this traumatic incident, we have never told Peeps that it was in fact her male human who had made the baby cry. Peepers’ favorite toys are those which are sparkly and crackly, lightweight and easily lost. In her heart of hearts, Peepers would rather be an only cat of a quiet, elderly, dogless couple in a home with light-blocking window treatments and plenty of linen closets. One of her principal forms of communication is through her tail, which can assume the pose of a question mark when curious, can lash like a whip at the guilty and can point at right angles to an empty food dish to alert authorities to an imbalance in the distribution of resources. Peepers' card is Justice.

Eleanor a/k/a Ellie and Elly-Belly is a sensitive 5 lb touch-me-not with a very feminine long black and white tuxedo coat with no undercoat. She hails from the Benicia-Vallejo Humane Society. She is the most vocal of the five cats. There are several deep-seated reasons for this. One, her previous owners had her declawed and so, being defenseless, she screams at just about anything. If you are familiar with the Warner Bros cartoon character Pepe LePew and his very, very reluctant girlfriend, Ellie is that girlfriend. In spite of her declawed state, Ellie is voted most likely to slip out the door to explore the back yard although she is easily captured or convinced to return to the safety of the house. Two, whether it is her own kitty-psychology or some pheromone phenomenon, Ellie is the Omega Cat. All the other cats recognize her less-than-zero status and will either chase her until she screams or in rarer event drag her around like a well-loved teddy bear. Ellie loves the cocker spaniel also. However this love is spurned by the usually generous and patient dog who will at most greet her purring and rolling with a soft low rumble of warning to stop doing that before everyone is embarrassed. Ellie also adores her male human, usually standing solidly on his torso, kneading his tummy in ecstasy with her tail closest to his face. Last, and certainly not least, Ellie has the oft-remarked-upon habit of leaving a strong-scented “perfume” reminder on objects made of soft cloth or comfortable pillows in the night. For her consistent role of self-imposed victimization, Ellie’s card is the Eight of Swords.

Binket is a hardy 7 lb short-haired calico with an in-your-face temperament and no respect for authority. Dubbed “No No Bad Cat” by her ever-patient humans, she spent much of her youth trying to catch paper going into or coming out of personal printers and running up the antique quilt (now in shreds) which used to hang on the wall just to prove her cleverness. Binket came to us from a cat rescue group in southern California complete with a roaring case of ringworm which she shared with the entire family before all were cured. Despite her physical beauty and diminutive size, she is a ferocious gladiator in her plan for world dominance. Voted least likely to become a lap cat, Binket does have a soft side, one she views with obvious discomfort. Ellie is her favorite friend, due in large part to their immediate acknowledgement of dominance and submission. Binket relies on Ellie’s superior fashion sense and grooming while Ellie fawns over Binket’s talent for cruelty and torture. Binket and Ellie can often be found companionably snoozing in a large basket in a sunny window when Binket isn’t mopping up the floor with the ever-willing Ellie. Binket has a soft spot for any small puffy thing resembling a cotton ball usually called Puff Baby in various incarnations. She fancies herself a romance-thriller writer and will play out scenes where Puff Baby is in terrible danger, lost under a door perhaps, and in need of rescue. She is perhaps working out some of the trauma of her kittenhood having been rescued from the Boeing plant in her youth. And a romantic she is, for she adores without reservation the cocker spaniel, often cooing to him, rubbing herself on him and otherwise seducing the equally smitten yet polite dog with her charms. She and the dog are the inter-species scandal of the neighborhood. Binket’s dark side is most clearly demonstrated by harboring an intense hatred of the much larger, much slower and good-natured Tony. She expends much energy attempting to kill him. Formerly the Alpha Cat, she was forced to give way to the sheer weight and superior strength of Mighty Alice, but hatches plots daily to recoup her throne. For reasons that should be obvious, Binket’s card is The Devil.

Tony is an unsuspecting dark mackerel tabby of 15 lbs. Tony came to us from the Benicia-Vallejo Humane Society when his owner made a fateful side-trip on her way to a rugby game. Tony’s big heart and affectionate manner would melt even the heart of a rugby team owner. A lookalike for B. Kliban’s Cat, Tony has a smallish head with a smallish brain to match, green eyes (one of which has a stripe), a large pendulous butter-colored abdomen, small feet and a heart of gold. Curious about his unusual shape, more turtle-like than cat-like in some ways, his humans consulted specialists to make sure of his health. The vet pronounced him normal, if “funny looking,” and speculated that his parents were probably peculiarly shaped cats also. Tony is a lover, not a fighter. He is best pals with the cocker spaniel who recognizes his sincerity and gentleness and enjoys the company of Alice when she deigns to visit the northern borders of her realm. Because of Binket’s clear intent to murder Tony, he tends to stick to the safety of the north side of the house making his home in the bedroom, bathroom and office. He is fond of sleeping in soft round places like the muffin shaped pet beds or his person’s arms. He is always first to greet his person as she steps out of the shower, eager to reminisce to the scent of freshly washed hair. Tony’s favorite toys are his Stuart Little mouse and Mike Fink the Flat Mink, late of the fashion section of the Church Mouse Thrift Shop on the Plaza in Sonoma. He started out being an infielder, playing a great game of fetch with a soft ball (as opposed to a softball) but soon tired of the annoyance of having to bring the ball back. He is very much the companion cat, often jumping into laps and onto shoulders, assisting with paperback novels as they are being read, attending in the bathroom, coming when called and even placing items of jewelry in shoes so that they will not be lost for long. He is quiet, peace loving and down to earth by nature, his midsection preventing much climbing and exploring in the aerie reaches. Tony’s ambition is to sleep, eat and snuggle with his female human as much as possible. Some less charitable within the household might call him a “Mama’s Cat.” Tony’s card is the Page of Pentacles.

The cocker spaniel asked not to be named to protect his privacy. A rescue himself from the Furry Friends Rescue, we have only recently begun to deduce that he has been placed with us as part of the Federal Witness Protection Program since he refuses to have his picture taken or published. He is a gentleman of refined manner and obvious breeding who has taken great pains to be gracious to his ill-bred but well-meaning family. Negotiations with him for an exclusive interview are pending. Once those have been completed and approved, a profile and card will be published. Until then, eager readers, we must give him his cherished anonymity.

***

Please donate to the pet rescue group of your choice and, if you can, provide a forever home for a little someone special.

Best wishes.