Karma has been quite good to the little dog these
days.
A potential client (for my wholesale division) whom I've been chasing
for literally eight months finally signed a contract yesterday.
Now, part of the fault is mine. I could've called him more often. I could've
emailed him more often. But after four months had passed, I figured he just
wasn't interested and didn't have the balls to tell me. Or worse, he was doing
business with a competitor and kept stringing me along as a backup in case he
wanted to fire my competitor. Or my competitor fired him. But he called
me a few days ago and, on our second meeting, pulled the trigger.
This contract will be worth enough money to pay my restaurant's gas and light
bills every month. Sweet. We commence serving this client in fourteen
days, after hand-holding him through a product promotion program
and developing point-of-sale (POS) materials.
Today, for the first time in 14 days, the afternoon was mine, all mine.
Bliss. First stop was the record store. Only two discs made their way to the
checkout. An Ella Fitzgerald and The Rolling Stones'
Forty Licks.
Second the local electronics-geeks paradise (independent, not Radio
Shack) and chatted with the guys about some stuff I'd ordered and bought more goodies
than I really wanted to. The only thing I really needed was one cable
(which they'd finished making). But it's now hooked up and replaced a bunch of
spaghetti that was running from the basement of the
house, making stops along the way, all the way to my den on the fourth floor.
Once I settled into my comfy (newly-wired) den, I went online only to
discover that someone had shut off E2! So I put on the Stones and
commenced eating a snack. The song "Fool to Cry" came on.
The last time I prayed was a good three days ago. This is not good for a practicing
Buddhist.
I shut off the stereo and commenced to pray a prayer filled with gratitude.
It was not long ago I thought life was just a worthless, painful thing. But such ups and downs come
with the territory, in my case.
When I was done I played and played "Fool to Cry" over and over and started
notating some stuff (music-speak for writing out notes, tempo, rests, etc. on
paper with five lines and then a big space every inch or so). I called up one of my favorite musicians (a drummer, but he plays the
piano) and told him that I wanted to do a jazz treatment of this song. I can't sing
rock; I don't have a rock voice (blues, yes; rock, nope). I'd have to do this in
a ballad-blues kinda mode. Really slowly.
For those of you unfamiliar with the tune, in it the singer indicates that
his daughter, his wife, and even his friends have the same message for him:
cheer up and be grateful for what ya have. Well, it's a lot more than that, but
that's it in a nutshell.
I tried recently to sing "I'll be Seeing You." It was one of my father's favorite tunes; and I had it performed at his
funeral. I couldn't finish the song, and walked off the stage. God knows whether
or not I'll be able to sing the message that "Fool to Cry" hits home without
breaking up either. But I'm gonna
give it a try.