I met a source and friend of mine for dinner on Wednesday night and when we arrived at the restaurant I learned the owner’s dad had just passed suddenly. He said his mother was holding his father because he didn’t feel well all of a sudden and his father turned to her and said, “I love you.” And then died. My dinner date said that she had just been to a funeral on Monday, a…
I woke yesterday morning to a text from the nanny that she had gotten a ride to Phoenix instead. And I smiled, by the time I get to Phoenix she’ll be rising played through my head for the rest of the morning. We were leaving later to head to a beach house, where taking similar steps to last year, when we fled to the beach for Thanksgiving, we were fleeing a gris gris that has…
Yesterday when my nanny was trying to board the plane with the voucher ticket I had booked for her and they wouldn’t let her on because somehow though the reservation was in her name, the ticket was in my name. The United clerks were disinterested in customer service – which I reminded them was not in keeping with their new corporate mandate. Meanwhile, we tried to get her on a Southwest flight where the clerks…
Tin was born blocks away from where Michael Jackson was born, and now lives blocks away from Louis Armstrong was born. I have to say I’m fond of both musicians. Today, instead of saving the toy trumpet for a Hanukkah gift, we gave it to him and you’d have thought we handed him gold. He has not let this go all day long and he keeps saying trumpet trumpet trumpet and improvising the notes when…
I walked the dogs this morning in the drizzle but that was better than the storm that we had all night which caused the electricity to go out in the middle of the night and made our bedroom feel like we were breathing stale air. I ran across neighbors on their porch because of the electricity, they were reading the newspaper (a vestige of the past) and I asked if the Republicans also took the…
Tin and I went to see his nanny’s Day of the Dead art show this evening. He saw her from behind and ran to her but when she turned and had her face painted, he sort of got the willies and backed off, but then he was compelled to keep going back to her. It’s odd to walk into your nanny’s house and see a side of her that you don’t see in her daily…
I went and voted today and thought about this whole election process. Is it me or are you just disgusted with the amount of money that is spent on campaigning – from the most local politician to the highest rank, it is really abhorrent to think about the money that is spent. Do you know what I heard last night in passing when T turned on CNN for a few minutes? That Sarah Palin will…
We went to a fun costume party on Saturday night and we met a pediatrician who told us some very funny stories but perhaps the most memorable was about a mother who said she was starting to feel ostracized because she was still breastfeeding her eight year old daughter. I’m still giggling about that one. But seriously, being a mother is a constant reminder to summon all the patience you can find in your body…
We’re in the midst of some weather transition and it is perfectly aligned with the time change this weekend. We’re not lamenting an end to summer, but we are to this weekend, which was so breathtakingly gorgeous, it was hard to get inside and stay there. As a matter of fact, when I got back from my therapeutic yoga class on Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t force myself inside so I got my neighbor to sit…
Jonathan Alter: “Logic can convince but only emotion can motivate.” When I first became in charge of directing others’ work, I read a few books about leadership, not a lot, not Business School 101, but more like who are the good leaders and who aren’t – one tip I remembered is leaders lead by offering hope – and one thing I do know is that when you’re not hearing hope, you’re hearing the opposite.