The Little Words Mean the Most

Simone steps into the Land of Giants

My opening slide for St. Mary's UMN

 

For the first time, the MA in fundraising here will teach donor comms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lyme Disease Strikes Victim; Victim Strikes Back

The true account....

 

I had to cancel my trip to see friends in Detroit this past weekend because all of a sudden I didn't feel well. I couldn't drink from a glass due to the shakes. Whitecaps on the lemonade! Those were the chills. At the very same time you had to batter through the fevers, which soaked the sheets. And the aches/pains going off like firecrackers all over the place. It lasted all weekend. Got to a doctor on Monday. Then reported in to my Detroit friends the news...

 

And we have a winner:

LYME disease.

A neuro-debilitating cousin of syphilis ... without the exotic ports of calls and the crushing realization that the most wonderful experience of your young life just daubed you with the pox.

Anyway, I'll be on antibiotics for the next 28 days. Still, the fevers and hot flashes and aches and sweats and lack of sleep and lassitude. Should be interesting: tomorrow I speak to an audience of Virginia fundraisers gathering in Richmond. Big crowd, I was told. Should be a clown rodeo up on stage.

 

------

 

Good morning, Tom.  How did the clown rodeo play out in Richmond?  

 

Marilyn

 

------

 

Well, Marilyn...

It was dreamy. REALLY dreamy. The entire Northeast was knocked out because of T-storms, thousands of flights cancelled including mine. I drove to another, bigger airport, hoping. And on a different airline found the last flight out of Dodge. Arrived in Richmond past midnight, with Lyme symptoms coming under control (the fever/chilly thing), bounced up a few hours later to deliver a 2-hour opening keynote for a 2-day conference, plus a senior leaders' workshop in the PM.

And it was maybe the best performance I've had yet. We were rowing in the same direction. The jokes found a bull's-eye. We started the revolution (again). It was all swell. After I told people I had Lyme disease, so my brain was the slow bead on the abacus, so be patient ... I had all these Lyme-survivors come up to me, with advice and what to expect. A day of great conversations and some decent problem solving. Then I got in a nice-smelling cab, hit the airport, got home late, hugged the devil out of Sim-One and fell into a deep sleep.

Thank you for asking.

 

 

tom

 

 

Sim One heads for St. Mary's U MN for latest chapter in the Fundraising Revolution Begins Here (Again)

 

 

BTW: Her B-day is July 23

 

 

 

Source: 2018 Dublin Ask Direct Fundraising Summer School, Now Going On #ADFSS18: The Movement Holds a Congress

 

 

 

 

 

r metahprs REAL life?

TOK, we d

It's pouring.

The forecast was ironclad. Thunder storms rolling through.

Two minutes ago I coasted into a drive-thru parking spot at Lowe's, with sun overhead. THEN it went dark as the inside of a Scotsman's kilt. AND rain fell. MONSOON rain, deep immediately.

In three minutes blue sky came poking through again. I stopped reading the Wall Street Journal.

This guy passes my windshield. He's got some purchase huddled in his shopping cart. The wipers swipe. His T-shirt says TRUMP. Black letters on an athletic-gray T-shirt. He's not in great shape. But I'm worse. I watch him go to his ride, a recent Mustang. He unloads. It's storming! He leaves his shopping cart beside his Mustang. He rushes inside. The wind blows harder. HIS shopping cart starts rolling. It crosses the path of one departing car. That person brakes and waits. Then his shopping cart races before the wind, across the path of another departing car. At this point TRUMP-shirt starts to see that he's not alone on the planet. And maybe it occurs to him that it's incredibly irresponsible to just let his shopping cart wend its way across acres of common parking, at the whim of the wind. So he begins tracking his cart.

That's when I lost him.

 

 

using the 2-page notebooks Sheena

 

this time of year, anticipating YOU @ our Aug. 11 summer party