Lesson Two: The Truth is Out There (and it's not always what you expect)

Day Two: The Truth is Out There

Like Mulder, we want to believe.  Like Scully, we can't quite get there.

We rolled into Roswell, New Mexico, ready to try, though. Roswell is not on the direct route between Phoenix and Naples, but we took the detour to seek the truth.  We are a family of sci-fi geeks. That truth is already out there.

So early morning on Day Two took us to Martin's Country Cafe.  It was loud with chatter and the waitress was friendly, however, it took over ten minutes to get a cup of coffee and another ten to place our order.  This was not setting up a great expectation for breakfast, as we were four hungry, grumpy tourists amid a cast of cowboys and rough hewn senior citizens.  No, really.  Real cowboys. And real seniors.

Lesson Two: Managing Expectations Requires Flexibility

When breakfast arrived, all prior concerns dissipated.  My eggs were over-easy just right (not too hard!) and the carne asada was spicy and simmering.  Silence hovered over the table we immersed ourselves into hot platters of pancakes, chorizo, tortillas, hash browns and more.  The cowboy/owner - Martin?  - replete with giant belt buckle and broad brimmed hat, kept my coffee topped off and brought extra cream and napkins.

We were now ready to find the truth.

I had planned a full morning of alien hunting and research.  After all, the crash of 1947 started a frenzy of newspaper articles and speculation about life beyond earth and government cover ups.  But we wanted to get into the details, see the evidence that has so many believers staring into the starry night skies.  We wanted to see what the residents of Roswell claimed to see 65 years ago.  So we were heading to every place in town that advertised a little more information about the truth being out there.

First stop: The UFO Museum and Research Center sits on Main Street like an old style cinema.  Blazing lights on the marquee.  A few of the neighboring downtown storefronts have little green men painted on the windows and proclaim, "Aliens welcome here!"

We expected kitsch.  Really, we did.  But we also thought we would find that something more…  You know what it's like when you meet the ultimate coworker - smart, funny, great background - and then you're two days into a four day business trip and you learn he can't meet a deadline and has a Turrets-like affect whenever the client leaves the room?  This was the UFO Museum and Research center.  Only it took just fifteen minutes to fulfill our disillusionment.  We went in - healthy disbelievers but hopeful for that nugget, that little extra something that made it plausible, to so many people, that alien life was not only 'out there', but 'down here' as well.

We didn't find it.  There was no more evidence, no more research than you could find through a Google search and marathoning the X-Files.  It was a tangible let-down and left us staring at an agenda of alien-friendly destinations that no longer held any appeal.  Kitsch is fun for a few laughs, but how many photos of latex aliens does one really need?  In the case of that coworker, the jokes may be funny but you're still left doing double the work to meet client deadlines.

So we reset.  For future projects, you finagle a role for your coworker that doesn't impact your work load or better yet, keep him off your projects altogether.   In the case of alien hunting, we went to Starbucks. Having refueled on our expected caffeine-laden favorites, we changed our game plan and then made our way through three hours of Texas oil fields to face our next adventure.

Lesson One: On Any Journey, Bring Extra Napkins

Fellow Dirty Girl, Shirley Ramos, and I are forever talking about how life is a journey… we discuss the views, the weather and cautiously examine those 'less traveled' paths…

My new year journey is a real one, not just a metaphorical one.  And while it's personal, how much of our professional lives are truly isolated from our personal ones?  Especially as wives and mothers, fathers and husbands. It may be easy to keep the Tuesday afternoon dentist appointment and the Wednesday morning staff meeting distinctly compartmentalized, but that's mere scheduling.  Is the Mother-Me, the Wife-Me and the Personal-Me really so different, so distinct from the Work-Me?  I think not.  After all, whether it's my youngest son or a co-worker, talking with your mouth full of food still irks me.  You can be my 16 year old daughter or my graphic designer, and I will be equally annoyed when you interrupt me.  And say so.  In the work environment, I am still me… with every single personality quirk fully intact.  And why would we work so hard to create a separate Work-Me?  After all, we are hired for who we are and what we bring to the table.

So I am sharing some pieces of my journey in the next few blog posts, a few lessons from our very real journey and how the experience impacts the Total-Me.

Day One
I started a six day journey from Arizona to Florida.  Yes, it can be done it fewer days but I'm taking advantage of the drive to see some sights along the way - both noteworthy and notorious.  And while enjoying the physical beauty that is the southern swath of our country, I am also getting a closer glimpse into the inner workings of my traveling companions.  There are few situations that put you in such close contact with other physical beings - in this case, my children (ages 11, 15 and 16) - than cruising I-10 in a cozy 2004 Toyota Corolla through 550 miles of desert.

The first day of any long journey is the easiest - energy is up, adventure is forthcoming and, if you have a mother like mine, you've got plenty of snacks. Our cooler is apocalypse-ready: abundant with turkey sandwiches, ham sandwiches, chicken, ribs, chips, cookies, brownies, edamame and almonds, just for a start. Dad threw in the emergency kit, extra towels and had the car looked over by a mechanic. Twice.  (It doesn't matter if you're an adult over 40… your parents are still your parents).  All this prep meant that our nine hours of driving started with a punch colored sunrise and only stopped for coffee, diet coke and the loo.

Lesson One: Bring Extra Napkins for the Unexpected
Our journey took us east on I-10 to Las Cruces, NM, then we cut north on 70 to Roswell.  We didn't realize we'd be rising high enough in elevation to see snow, but we did.  And so we stopped the car to reacquaint ourselves with it… before our newly acquired Floridian genes kicked in and we jumped back into the Corolla with icy, wet fingers and glee.

I thoroughly expected someone to spill a drink in the car - I have three kids, so really, when does someone NOT spill?  I did not expect it to be me, but there I was with my Starbucks soy mocha splashed generously across the front of my white shirt only two hours into our journey.

For entertainment, we have over 30 hours of audiobooks - a novel, a stand-up comic and a collection of short stories.  Turns out, the standup comic's schtick was so uncomfortably bad that even my 11 year old squirmed and the discs were duly pitched at the next rest stop. So the kids filled the void with their own jokes.  Some of these a mother does not need to hear.  Others were surprisingly clever and my 15 year old son laughed so hard at one of his own jokes that he vomited.  Down the front of his sweatshirt.  Humor is known to help heal but apparently an overdose can also make you sick.

The mass of napkins and paper towels we tossed at the end of the day were a mess of coffee, hot chocolate, melted snow, snot, vomit, zucchini bread crumbs and a lot of optimism that we will get through the next five days still speaking to each other.

Any journey has moments that get messy.  Look at your own Work-Me: for any project, you do a certain amount of preparation. Some of us prepare like my parents, for every possible contingency.  Others, like me, grab our keys and sunglasses and believe we'll figure it out as we go.  And our cast of coworkers/traveling companions then impacts the decisions we make, the amount of time we spend planning and the way in which we execute. There will be spills, spews and other mishaps that require cleaning up or brushing aside.

Fortunately, we brought a lot of extra napkins.