What’s On Your Plate?

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi always left a little food on his plate at mealtime. His mother had warned him that “an empty plate equals a slow mongoose!”

I first read that Kipling story when I was 8 years old. To this day I am haunted by these questions: “Does a mongoose eat from a plate? Why is there a mongoose at our table? …and …Who ordered the mongoose?”

It used to be implied that an empty plate was once full. It implied that, in  your fat-and-happy, Dow-at-11,000 gluttony you hoovered it all down and then passed the plate back for another slice of roast beeste.

Today, post-Obamapocalypse, an empty plate tells the world that, well, there’s nothing on your plate.  The freelance jobs aren’t coming. Next stop: selling beer cans, stolen copper tubing or plasma (in that order.)

So now, as a public service, Nimble Mongoose Productions presents: “What’s on Your Plate?” And, of course, by “Your” I mean “My.”

Weekly Corporate Intranet Newsletter: a timeless classic.  Just keeps chugging along.  This one is all about doing the job well, hitting the deadlines, taking a load off of busy internal folks, and nurturing the relationship.  Coming up on 2 years of service, Praise Be.

SEO Article Writing: A new development, coming just at the moment I was ready to remove this unused service from my list. Suddenly I am serving two clients and three series of articles. The keys here are quality and SPEED. Speed in meeting the deadline, and in making it worth the writer’s time.

Website Content:  Currently providing web copy for 7 different sites at vastly different stages in their development, from initial discovery to “will it ever end?” The key here is ORGANIZATION. I just replaced my 12-by-15 white board calendar with a deluxe 24-by-36 model…purchased at a yard sale from an out-of-business shopkeeper. IRONY!

So that’s the plate round-up, for the most part. I wouldn’t say it’s FULL…I mean, I can still see bits of Chinet between the piles of food. But I have no complaints.  And since I am giving out “keys” like I know what I am talking about, let me say this…Faith helps. It’s not something that I trumpet in this forum, but I don’t hide it either.

My Faith informs me that there will be good times and bad times. That I should treat both as learning experiences, as opportunities to exercise trust or thankfulness…or both.   That I should do everything in my earthly power to keep the ball rolling. That I should always act conscientiously and with integrity.  That whatever slim talent I have comes not from within, but from Above.  Most of all, it informs me that I will likely never be that perfect, serene person I have described in the previous sentences…but that I am forgiven.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled sarcasm.