serendipity

Fragments

I measured it with a child's straight ruler just to see how bad the situation was. I never meant to grow it this long. I never had the patience to even try. But the guy who’s been cutting my hair for almost 30 years suddenly couldn’t and I didn’t have a back up. So I did nothing, wishing for it to grow slower. Months later, here we are: my hair is 3 ½ inches long. I know, I know – such exaggeration. By any scale my hair still qualifies as short. Technically. But on me, this is long hair. Long enough to constantly hang in my face. Long enough to develop a tic that I hope is adorable but I suspect is just annoying of pushing the long hair out of my eyes. Long enough to wear a barrette but I won't because I look ridiculous in barrettes. Long enough to brush.

I haven’t used a brush in 20 years.

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I am amazed at how many of my friends don’t wash their faces before they go to bed at night. I mean, I know your mother nagged you all of your life (just like I do) to wash your face before you go to bed and for good reason: the world pummels us every day with UV and pollution and grime on top of oily sweat. And some of us (you) sleep all night in that 21^st century facial poultice. Do you wonder why your skin is rebelling on you, not looking as young/tight/glowy as it used to? Okay, I have to admit, you still look really great. But you won't forever, despite your excellent genes, because the world is a dirty place. No matter how much you drink at night (and remember I’ve had several of those cocktails with you), you must wash your face – and moisturize before you go to bed. It takes 3 minutes to wash the weight of the world off your face. 

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They all forgot my birthday. I mean, they didn’t totally forget, at least he remembered and reminded them to say "happy birthday" in the morning, but there were no cards, no presents, no cupcakes. If not for  a couple of very good girlfriends (and Mama Facebook), it might have gone completely unnoticed by the world. I suppose 48 doesn’t really deserve a parade but I’m an Aries. Growing up I used to claim the entire month of March for my own birthday purposes – reluctantly sharing it with my dad whose birthday is 2 weeks before mine. But one might expect one’s family to at least go through the motions, even for boring 48. Not this year. The Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus will all remember and exact revenge (until we forget and forgive, of course -- in that order).

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I bought my first piece of grown-up jewelry when I was 30. I had recently been promoted and was making some decent money. And while previously I'd felt comfortable spending money on shoes and clothing (you know, to maintain my work uniform), jewelry was something that came as gifts -- from a man. Don’t ask me where this 19^th century-thinking came from. While I loved Jane Austin growing up (still today), part of the message for me from that period was how ridiculous it was for women to be so completely dependent on men. I grew up believing in more than just women’s rights. I believed anything other than absolute equality was ludicrous. And yet I didn’t ever buy jewelry for myself and I never poured my own wine. Go figure that.

Today I do both. And I bought my own birthday present.

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I am stunned at how powerful a singer my girl is at age nine. And it’s more than just maternal pride, I’m more than a little jaded when it comes to talented children, even when they're mine. But people other than family members genuinely enjoy listening to her. Her little friends are jealous and want to sing like her.

She sings from her heart - from her soul. On key with good timing. That girl can sing.  She has always been a force to be reckoned with. Now she’s a force with a voice.

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My other girl is graduating from 8^th grade in less than two months. She’s taller than my mother, not  a great feat and yet it still feels significant. She's tall. She’s also beautiful and smart and witty and secretive and moody. And she has her first real boyfriend who lives 3 really big states away. She’s not ready to visit him, not that she’d be allowed to. And he can’t come here either. Texting is good. So is facetime.

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 One of these days I’ll go back to writing whole posts about a single subject. I’ll go back to 800+ words and you wishing I would be more concise.

But not today. Today you get fragments. 

 

In lieu of actually washing it

I have a tendency to not wash my car in the wintertime. Even when it hasn't rained in weeks I have this sense that it *should* rain, and since it should rain, it might rain. And since it might rain it would be silly to actually wash the car.

And so I haven't.

The only time I clean out the car trash is at the gas station or the car wash, and lately every time I've been to the gas station I've been to one that doesn't have the little thingamajigger that allows you to pump gas and walk away (I'm looking at you Arco). I have to hold the nozzle and pump. Which means I can't clean the car. Because there's no time you see - I'm in a hurry. In fact I'm late for work.

In the meantime I've been driving these children around. I'm sure you've noticed that children, despite rules and best efforts, never come without some fundamental accessories: snacks, water bottles, gum, assorted papers and pens, hats, stuffed animals and crumbs. You might have thought that children simply eat things that make crumbs but that's not true. All children come with crumbs as part of the original factory equipment. It's a feature. That explains a lot, doesn't it.

Today might be a good day to wash the car, it's gray but not rainy. Despite the holiday I have no intention of doing it. But I did decide to take a brief inventory because when I started to look around me I couldn't believe the stuff I had in the car:

• 3 half-drunk plastic water bottles that, according to the latest meme I read, will give us cancer if we drink them.
• 30-40 gum and cough drop wrappers. We like to chew gum and we recently had colds. Half of the gum wrappers contain used gum because whenever I chuck it out the window the kids berate me to death. 
• Tissues. New and in the pack, old and wadded up. Folded, balled and occasionally sticky, they are stuffed with secret surprises, none of them good. Don't touch that.
• One faux polar bear hat, complete with paws.
• Insurance paperwork. I really should take that inside the house, it looks important.
• Hand sanitizer. Little children touch everything. And then they eat with those hands. And then they feed you with those hands. Germy, disgusting and full of love. Put this on your hands. Now.
• One half eaten bagel. Really? No wonder my car is full of crumbs. And oh man, is that HAM? My god.
• Assorted peace symbol jewelry that they both claim is theirs. So now it's mine. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with peace jewelry. I mean I like jewelry and I like peace, but I haven't actually worn peace jewelry since  I was 13. Hmmm. I wonder if that is a clue as to the rightful owner?
• The largest, heaviest American history book in the world. That apparently no one needs. I say that because it's been in the car for at least two weeks and if someone needed it, they'd take it with them, right? She says, in her defense that "it's all online."
• Tangerine peel. Amazingly, this also makes crumbs.
•  A pair of purple and white striped socks. Because apparently, one day, one of them couldn't bear to keep them on her feet for a moment longer. 
• A florescent green, never-comes-off-until-you're-dead-and-maybe-even-later permanent marker. I shudder to think about where I should start looking for the graffiti. Because we both know that somewhere around here, undiscovered, is florescent green graffiti.
• Albuteral inhaler. Because all of this crumby florescent trash might just throw you into asthmatic spasms. 
• The tool I bought to crack the window in the event we should drive off a bridge and into the water - rendering the electric windows useless and mercifully saving our lives. It also measures tire pressure.
• A super duper, mechanic-grade professional chrome tire pressure gauge. Because you can never be too sure about the air presure in your tires.
• Stolen lipgloss, wrapped in special tissues and hidden in a secret compartment. Or at least she thinks it's a secret compartment. And it might still be a secret except that she hid some half-eaten food in there a while back and I had to tear the car apart looking for the source of the awful smell. Well hello there, secret compartment! 
• 49 cents worth of coins. Not the useful kind that could be used in street meters. The car holds lots of pennies and no quarters. Why do we still make pennies? It costs more than they are worth just to make them. 

This concludes today's archaeological tour. You'll note that the tour does not include a survey of the trunk. The trunk is the car equivalent of the la Brea tar pits without the valuable artifacts. Baby bottles, cooking supplies, various and sundry clothing comprise merely the tip of the iceberg. Give me enough time, I'll have dinosaurs in there. 

It's not over until I say it is. It's not over yet.

Hello, my name is Karen and I'm a Christmastreeaholic.

Hi Karen!

It's January 24th and I still have my Christmas tree inside the house. Not only is it inside the house  but it's glowing in full Christmas tree regalia - lights, decorations, action! I'm not even pretending that I'm going to take it down yet.

I know. I should be embarrassed. God knows my family is.

You, good seasonal people, have long disposed of any evidence of a Christmas tree. The angel has gone to bed, the ornaments are safely packed away, and the lights, at least the ones that still work, are all wrapped up and ready for their 11-month siesta a la Rip Van Winkle. 

We buy our tree the day after Thanksgiving (that's November for you pioneers who don't track holidays). Getting the tree is a family event, although to call it a family vote is an exaggeration. It's more like a family hostage negotiation. We each have a candidate that we protect from other shoppers while we pitch the rest of the family about why our tree is the best. It's a little like Toastmasters, each person has an angle.  After we think we have chosen a winner (and consequently 3 losers) Xav works some kind of side deal with the tree lot owner that almost always ends up sending the best - albeit completely different tree home.  If we had any real sense we'd all sleep in the day after Thanksgiving and just let him take care of it, but the event of picking and getting something different is becoming a tradition.

As my kids have grown older they have come to terms with my love for the Christmas tree. Note that I do not say "my love of Christmas," which is totally on purpose, and well documented, even though it makes my Christian friends cringe visibly. No, I did not say it just because it makes them cringe. No, I did not.

Anyway, I love a good Christmas tree. The smell of it. The height of it. The way the branches of a nice silver fir are long and strong with lots of space between them.  They allow each ornament to hang alone and catch the light. The tree musk fills the house with a forest scent and creates false memories of better days.

I am not a fan of the actual Christmas because my family, and I've said this before (maybe I say this every year) has a very nasty habit of dying around Christmastime.  Grandfather, Grandmother, Grandfather, In-laws. I wish I was exaggerating. I'm sure you'll say it's a coincidence and maybe it is. But  my people have a bad habit of disappearing into that good night during this cold season.

Icicles. Have I mentioned yet that I collect them? No, not the real ones. I'd have to have a lot more storage room in my freezer, and a smidgen more eccentricity to collect actual icicles. But icicles made of glass? Yes.

The only difference between glass icicles and real ones is price and temperature. Other than that, you can hardly tell them apart. This year I got a half dozen glass snowflakes to go with my vast icicle collection.  It was perfect. There is something about the color of the tree, the gleam of the twinkle lights and dozens of clear glass icicles reflecting the Christmas light, that makes me happy.

This year I rearranged the furniture so that the dining room table is in front of the tree. The kids hated the arrangement and complained non-stop. "It doesn't feel like Christmas now. You can hardly see the tree. I like it the old way better."

But I loved it. With the dining room table next to the tree I could put my computer on the table and sit next to the tree all evening and get my work done, under the tree. It was perfect.

Of course, now that it's January we all know there is no way the recycling people are going to collect our tree. It's much too late and, truth be told, we never seem to  follow their rules. "Put it out on the street by this date. Saw the tree into manageable bite-sized pieces. Who has a saw? Cut off the big branches so that our overpaid beavers will be able to easily chuck the whole thing into the wood chipper and we can sell the whole kit and caboodle back to the city as mulch." Do it or else.

Nope. We have a different plan that involves a midnight run, complete with loud music, a length of rope and a trailer hitch. The eager beavers from the Recology will find the tree in an easy-to-discover location and deal with it.

Just like they always do.

A Crisis of Chicken

It was a family day and to end it, he was going to teach our big girl how to cook a real meal. This was a big deal because up until now she's been the dessert queen, but never the chef. Tonight she would make dinner.

Things went wrong just as soon as I took the chicken out of the fridge. She saw the label and her eyes filled up with tears. "Foster Farms. They torture their chickens. I can't eat that."

All at once I could see, ready or not we were going to have one of life's hard moments. Just when everything was going so well.

"I know honey, it's Foster Farms and we normally don't like to eat that, but these chickens are dead now, and it would be disrespectful of us not to eat them. We can't just throw them in the garbage." I said, feeling  a little like a Nazi collaborator, making the best of a bad situation. "We have to eat them."

"I can't. I can't cook them."

And so she didn't.

I prepared the chicken, feeling pulled between my girl's tender heart and the way of the world. I plucked each thigh from the package, dried it and rubbed it in a special salt and pepper mixture "Angelo's Salt." I added a little marinade and let them rest.

Her father was gruffly sympathetic. He's too much of a pragmatist, and the two of us are too old, to get weepy over this injustice. We do what  we can. For the world and for our family. It's a balance.

After I prepared the chicken I followed her upstairs. She had Googled images of factory chickens and was weeping over them. Oh, 13. I still remember how strong one's sense of right and wrong can be at this age. Part of me regrets that this sense of righteousness fades as one gets older. Pragmatism takes over. One becomes better able to weigh the value of the "greater good."

And so it was time to explain the hard choices one makes in life. And while this was not the first time, it felt meaningful.

"My Angel." I said. "It is important that you understand a few things about the world. Do you know why Foster Farms continues to exist?" She looked at me with a baleful eye. And can I just say that this is the first time in my life when someone has looked at me thus, so that I truly understood the meaning of the phrase "baleful eye." And it didn't feel good. Which I suppose, is to be expected.

"So that they can torture chickens."

No. They do not exist because they torture chickens. Think about it. Why do they exist?

"Because people don't know the truth about what they do to the chickens before they kill them."

No, my angel. There are people who know what they do. Use your big brain and tell me. Why do they exist?

"Because they're cheap."

Yes. Now you understand. I can buy a Foster Farms chicken in the store for $5. Or I can go to Whole Foods and buy a free-range chicken for $11.  Do you think everyone can afford an $11 chicken?

"No." Baleful eye, firmly in place.  The strong sense of injustice.

It's not that people want chickens to suffer. Or that they don't care about the poor chickens.  But sadly, grain-fed, free range chickens who have been raised and killed in a humane manner are a lot more expensive than factory chickens.

I don't know why this is. It makes zero sense to me. But as a society we seem willing to accept the situation. This is one of the many aspects of society that her generation will hopefully decide to address. Because mine has failed. For all the baby-boomer, touchy-feely  spouting about equality and making the world a better place, we have let the factory farms not only take over, but completely shut us out of the process. It is literally easier to get into NASA than it is a factory meat-processing plant.

A glimmer of terrible understanding appears in her eye. My smart girl, she gets it.

My love. You have such a big heart and I love you for it. We have a lot of friends who can afford to pay more for  grain-fed animals-who-live-free-on-the-open-range-and-die-in-a-humane-manner for dinner every night. But this food does not sustain the world. Not yet. So why don't you take that big heart of yours, along with your big brain, and think about a way to solve this problem.

And I'm pretty sure she is upstairs right now, thinking it through, and figuring it out.

 

Forever 21 (Never Again)

Shopping with the girls can be difficult. They both want to buy everything they see. And even if I had all the money in the world I still wouldn't buy them everything they want, just on principle. But this makes shopping unpleasant and argumentative. So mostly I've given it up. I would say that I've given up "shopping with them" but that might give you the impression I have time to go shopping without them. And I don't.

But it's a few days after Christmas and they have gift cards. I'm not technically working (vacation=working from home) and a trip to the mall is not such a crazy idea. Heck, it's worth a try. We go to Claire's, Mecca for every American girl under the age of 11. Juju finds a polar bear hat (complete with paws) and discovers that despite the $28 price tag, it's only $7. Jackpot.

Emboldened by the vision of good sales and my kids' unusually good behavior,  I volunteer to take Cassandre to her version of Mecca: Forever 21. We approach the store and I fortify myself: bright lights and chrome, the worst cover version of a favorite Depeche Mode song blaring over the speakers, and young sales girls with painted on eyebrows and bright lipliner with no lipstick (I keep waiting for this trend to pass, it's an ugly mystery). But the girls are still being good, so I decide that I can do this.

Take a deep breath and take the plunge.

The store is huge and every direction offers things Cassandre wants. I advise her to "pick a direction and stick with it" figuring we'll navigate the whole store somehow. The prices are reasonable and the store seems perfect for Cassandre. Maybe we've finally found Her Store. Along the way we find clothes that are Juju sized and even a fun shirt for me.  Juju finds the perfect shirt, but it's on a mannequin and we are informed that no one is allowed to remove clothes from the mannequin.

Huh.

Armed with a little something for everyone, we are ready to go to the dressing room.

At the entrance they ask us how many items we have. I respond with "five" in a way that clearly communicates that we are together. The girl picks up a single placard with the number "5" to indicate the number of items we have and shows us to a dressing room.

Immediately we notice that there is no place to sit and the room is very small. No worries, we are family and the number of items is small. We'll work it out.

Knock knock knock!!

Unsure this knocking is actually for us, I answer "yes?"

Silence.

Pound, pound pound!

I open the door and come face to face with a righteous  little clerk. "You CAN'T ALL be in there together" she says. Confused I say "but these are my children, I can't leave them alone." Cassandre, embarrassed says "It's okay, Maman, I can go." I look at the woman who repeats, in a very unpleasant, I- know-what-you're-up-to voice "You Can't Be In The Dressing Room Together." Whoa.

Cassandre darts quickly to another dressing room, leaving Juju and me alone. Juju tries on her skirt. It's too big, not that I care at this point. I don't even bother to try on my shirt. It's pretty, but I am seething. Because it's suddenly become clear to me: the clerk believes we are shoplifters.

I gather all of the clothes - including the ones Cassandre really wants to buy -  and storm to the front of the dressing area. I thrust the clothes into the hands of the woman in charge of the rooms and say "If you are going to treat me like a shoplifter, you can't actually have my money." I head for the exit, fuming. The girls walk embarrassed behind me. They don't know enough to know why they are embarrassed,  but my behavior is upsetting. Which of course, makes me even more mad.  I see the offensive clerk in front of me and I approach her. Seeing me, she literally runs ahead, as if she has something very important to do. I can't catch her without running.

I make a beeline for the door, pausing only long enough to see if I can make out a manager. No manager. We walk out the door and, with nothing in our hands, the alarm sounds.

Perfect.

I step back into the store and glare at the staff with my empty hands in the air "What?" They casually wave me out of the store.

The kids are upset. Cassandre doesn't want to leave her newly perfect store.  Juliette wants to know what happened? I explain that they were rude to us because they thought we were going to steal from them. Now they are angry too. "We should go see the manager!" Then, quietly "I want to go home."

I take them back to Claire's to spend more money on stuff they don't need to allow for a cooling off period. Lip gloss & nail polish. We go to a few more stores and browse other stuff we don't buy. We are learning about browsing. That it can be fun to look at things without actually buying them. It's  a difficult concept for them, but in light of the recent attack on our family integrity, we are aligned. We don't have to buy everything. In fact we are now ready to stop spending money altogether and go home.

"We can come back another day," they say. But not to Forever 21. This place is now Forever Banned. Forever Filed under No Freakin' Way. Forever bound to our Family Integrity. Even Juju, who is only 8, understands that we can't spend money with people who accuse us of stealing.

And of course this drives home a lesson that I already knew: in retail it only takes one person to turn a potential customer into a determined adversary. Because of one woman I'm no longer ambivalent about Forever 21, I am no longer a mom looking for an easy place to take her teen. I am offended.

Forever.

Wash, Fold, Throw on Floor. Repeat

I bring her folded laundry with a pronouncement "This is for the undeserving."

"Huh?"

She is only kind of listening, which is what I get these days. "This. Your laundry. Delivered."

Oh thanks, she says, as if the valet has brought it in. Which, from a certain point of view, I suppose she has.

And then she looks up at me and tilts her head, "undeserving?"

"Yes. Because you and I both know that this laundry is the same laundry I washed the last time. The same clean laundry that you never wore. I have placed it, just like the last time, folded, on a shelf, where it will stay until you see something you want to wear. You will pull that thing out of the middle, just like a bad game of Jenga, and the other clothes will fall to the floor where they will live in random patterns until someone, probably me, either picks them up and puts them somewhere, or, more likely, washes them again. I'm convinced that there are clothes in here that have never been worn, but have been washed a dozen or more times."

And yes, for the record I really do talk like that. No, I can't believe it either. I hardly recognize myself sometimes.

She nods and says "Oh." She feels bad for about 2.5 seconds. And then she goes back to her homework/music video/chat window.

The answer of course, is to stop doing her laundry (really, their laundry, the 8-year old also gets an equally undeserving pass).  I know this.

The definition of insanity reminds me that what I'm doing is both nutty and enabling but I can't help myself. There is a finite amount of time during which I can tiptoe (trip) stumble (kick) around the clothes on the floor. Tick tock. Tick tock. Then all of a sudden, BRRRRRRRRING! and I'm off to the laundry. Sorting by color, by clothing type. Picking up wrinkled clothes, that, were they not on the floor (where the dog is) would be perfectly suitable for wearing.

I don’t know from where I inherited this 1950s cleanliness is next to godliness attitude (I'm not particularly godly, so why can't I give up the whole idea?) and it's not really working out for me. It would be one thing if the chore was somehow therapeutic and I felt better after doing it. But it's not. It's just a chore and it's on my list.

I'm not even a neat freak. I can live with messy rooms (mostly). I can live with a dog that sheds and a miniature compost bin in the kitchen. But messy children in dirty clothes presses some kind of "what will the neighbors think" button that I normally don't react to.

The rule is still this: the person who cares the most will both give in first and bear the brunt of the chore. And that person is still me.

So I don't forget the man I never knew

His father changed their name from Goldenberg to Raas. Even though they lived in New Jersey. Hitler might come -- we should not be so obviously Jewish. In fact, we shouldn't be Jewish at all. Let's be Catholic. The local priest seems very nice. Okay, maybe a little too strict. Let's be Episcopalian. Like Catholics but with sex. Even the priests can have a little. The Goldenberglocks in us said "just right."

He joined the Reserves, knowing that if we went to war, he would have to go. Pearl Harbor came and his number was up. Appointed navigator instead of pilot, a huge disappointment.  Based in England, flying to Germany over and over and over again.

Until the last time.

They both knew, somehow. He sent her an antique candelabra and letters every day - even the last one. Sent right before he was shot down over Merseburg.

Merseburg was full of oil fields. Oil was good for Germany and bad for us. We had to crush them, bomb them, make the oil go away. Not like today, when we bomb anything that gets in the way of us having oil.

His squadron was shot down and not a single man came back. Hitler's team must've been so proud. Our team was so devestated they had to send the base crew all the way back to the US. 

She collapsed suddenly at a Christmas party, not knowing why. She took to her bed for over a week, until she heard the news. Technically married for four and a half years she was now another war widow. And no body to show for it. Not for two more years. But she had their toddler son, my father.

It was my grandfather's duty. His moral obligation. We had been attacked on American soil, and it was unthinkable that he would not participate in the retaliation. And so he did something. He gave his life, and our family history, to his country.

The strange thing is that no one told me about our Jewish bloodlines until I was grown up. It was as if that part of our history was buried, swept under the mat. Were we embarrassed? I don't know. We changed teams and then acted as if we'd never been on the original team. 

What would life have been like for me as Karen Goldenberg? What would my dad be like if he had grown up with a father? 

So many questions and all I have left from my grandfather is a couple of old pictures and this story - fragments of history. And the irony is that my grandmother tried to tell me all of their stories when I was a young girl and didn't know enough to care. Now that I'm old enough to understand the value of a family history, she is too old to remember the stories.

 

My First Rodeo

The sign in the kitchen read “Your mother doesn’t work here. Except for Karen Carbonnet.”

So of course I never did the dishes.

And that’s the kind of place it was. Family oriented, everyone became friends, dated, squabbled and married. It was what I imagined life on a kibbutz was like: everyone pitching in and doing everything together. Living too close to each other. Knowing each other too well. Every now and then someone would show up who didn’t fit and couldn’t stay. You had to fit. Fit was everything.

It was my first startup.

Back then, when punk rockers roamed the earth, you could start a company and legitimately spend time trying to solve a real problem. Five years of slow progress wasn’t unheard of or even laughed at. You had time to chase money, to find a customer base. Time to completely change your business model, when it was clear, yet again, that this one wasn’t going anywhere. Back in the day when Crossing the Chasm was a real phenomenon, not yet a book from ancient history. It was a feat that couldn’t be done in six months with a viral video and some good Facebook traffic.

This was my job, my home, my family.

It started as a two week gig before I went back to college. I had a really great, full-time summer job working at a gym when suddenly I was horrified to discover that I was expected to lead an aerobics class. I don’t remember anyone saying anything about leading aerobics classes during the interview, but I was a little desperate for money at the time so it’s possible I tuned it out. Several weeks after orientation, just as they were putting the squeeze on me to pick a spot on the group fitness schedule, my high school friend Lynn called me. She was leading marketing for some kind of “Artificial Intelligence startup” and needed an assistant to fill in until her permanent hire, Peggy, could start work.  I jumped at it.

I worked for Lynn and, despite my short contract, made myself at home. They were so nice to me, after a mere two weeks the whole place fit me like a cocoon. They hated their receptionist, a cranky woman who made everyone feel uncomfortable. At the end of my contract they told me they were going to fire her, did I want the job? Yes. I would go to school and work for them. Part time for three years.

Along the way I worked for Ken, who had such a fierce temper most people were afraid of him. The first time I met him he was kicking boxes from one side of the office to the other, shouting the entire time “get these fucking boxes out of my area now!”  I was his first personal assistant and the only one who would stand up to him. My first performance review was hysterical. I argued every single point – they were all negative - and we ended up with a written debate all over the margins of my paperwork. I made him cross things out, worried about my “permanent record.” By the end of the meeting we were laughing. I wish I had a copy of that review, I would frame it. Underneath he was a total softie, of course. All bluster and drama, he was good at covering up his marshmallow center. I left him to work for Doug and it was like breaking up with boyfriend.  

The company had cliques, but not like the ones you see in high school. The cliques overlapped like Venn diagrams. You could hang with the smarty-pants PhD kids and still have lunch with QA. The lawyers were sassy. The support staff was an amazing intellectual gaggle of hippies. If only they would have worn bathing suits, or even underwear, in the spa. And yes, there was a spa. It was the 80s. You weren’t anyone if you didn’t have an office gym with a hot tub. Oh, and a rock mural that represented the crust of the earth. 

I graduated  from college and went to work full-time for Steve in Channel sales. He looked like Baby Huey and had an ego the size of Manhattan.  He could sell his ass off. Now, when I think about it, that was an especially amazing feat. What the heck was he selling? I still can’t tell you even though technically, I was selling it too. And while he might have had some charm, the work relationship deteriorated quickly. He wanted me to run away with him and he wouldn’t shut up about it. Eventually I had to file a claim for sexual harassment because nothing I said would make him stop telling me about how we should just go to a hotel together. Right now. Ew.  

It never occurred to me to leave. Even after numerous layoffs, the departure (defection) of dear friends and years of difficult transitions and reductions in pay. I was like a baby bird that wouldn't leave the nest. I needed someone to literally push me out. After 8.5 years, the longest I would work anywhere, another Steve finally put an end to it. My lay-off wasn’t a total surprise, and yet it came as a shock. I’d been looking for another job, never believing I’d actually leave. How could I? My family was there. Quite literally.

And yet it was time to fly.

Today, 20 years later, I still miss it. I miss all of them (well except for Steve²). The smarty-pants PhDs with long beards, desperately in need of haircuts. The crazy aunts and uncles from customer support.  The snotty marketing siblings. Grandpa Gene. Peter Pan Kehler. The myriad of mother figures, including my actual mother (an editor), who all nurtured me with good and bad examples of what not to do in business. This place shaped my point of view about what to expect from your company - and damn near ruined it. Nothing since then has been as fun and full of camaraderie.

Theme parties that were actually fun. Beer bashes that everyone looked forward to. Hard work, long hours, affectionate pranks and some of the strongest friendships of my life. Many of which I am still fortunate enough to have today.

I’ll never forget the day Brian and I raced Ed on dollies around the building – me standing on the dolly, Brian pushing me, impossibly fast. How we didn’t crash and crack our heads I will never know. Except that the place was a little like Neverland. Maybe we had some fairy protection.

Neverland. We never made a product that could cross the chasm. Never drove enough revenue. Never made it to the real world, with real “value.”

And yet, to this day, it was one of the most valuable experiences of my life.  I compare all of my companies to this one.

The little company that ultimately couldn’t. The little company that spawned so much.

 

Modeling 2.0 (You can't judge a person by a title)

My company had hired a new president. Again.

My fist startup, changes in management were to be expected. But to me, still wet behind the ears, every shift change was dramatic.

This time they'd hired a woman.

You'd think, since this was my first time working under a woman CEO, that she would have made an ideal role model. She wasn't. Not because she wasn't worth modeling but because I was terrified of her. I would feel lightheaded before every (rare) meeting, worried that I would fail at what I perceived to be an intellectual pop quiz. She was whip-smart, articulate and beautiful. She was blond. Around her I felt awkward and inadequate. And so I never looked up to her. I never looked up up up at her and said to myself, "that could be me." 

So, if this is a post about role modeling, who gets the title of 2.0? Who was the person who turned my head around and taught me a life-lasting lesson?

Her secretary.

Oops, excuse me. Even way back then they were called Administrative Assistants. I have a hard time keeping up with the evolution of titles. I still, from time to time, refer to flight attendants as "stewardess."

The CEO's assistant was also blond and beautiful and smart as a whip. She sat outside the CEO's office as if she owned it. And really, she did. Smarter and quicker and more powerful than many of the executives who attempted entry to her boss's office, she was the keymaster. And she had her boss's ear.

At this stage in my career I was the company graphic designer which mostly meant creating collateral and powerpoint presentations. This job taught me another of life's important lessons: never admit to anyone you know how to do powerpoint. I wish someone had actually taught me that lesson, I had to learn it the hard way - by doing hundreds of them.

As the graphic designer I had to work with the CEO on her presentations, other than that we didn't cross paths very often. To become the graphic designer I'd had to claw my way out of administration and the chip on my shoulder was still fresh and easy to jostle. I'd had the good luck to work for a man who recognized and encouraged my ambition to go into marketing, but even he couldn't convince me I would ever get past the perception of "she's just a secretary." I allowed it to haunt me.

But the Assistant? We became friends. I was amazed to learn that she had chosen to become an assistant, even though she had studied to be an architect. It took me a while to grok this, that someone with the talent, education and brains to be anything she wanted would choose to take the job that I'd spent years trying to escape. What was I missing?

Self confidence.

The big difference between her and me was that she knew she could be whatever she wanted. Her job title never defined who she was in her own mind -- and what other people thought of her simply didn't matter.

I watched her interact with the CEO with fascination. With authority, respect and humour, she got th CEO to do things she didn't want to do, meet with people who annoyed her, take over projects that needed executive attention. The CEO clearly loved her. More than that, she respected her.

Respect for oneself. To have faith in your own ability regardless of what others think of you, this is an amazing and important quality to posses. I learned it by example. From someone whose box of a title couldn't begin to contain her. It couldn't possibly describe who she was or what she was capable of. Is capable of.

Now that I'm an executive, I look at this lesson from a different perspective - from the other side of the looking glass. Titles are still meaningless, but that's mostly because I know how titles are often acquired. In lieu of money. Out of convenience. To create or maintain hierarchy. And while I am always curious to understand what people are called, or wish to be called, I know better than to make any real decisions based on that. To know someone, you have to watch them think. You have to listen. When they open their mouths long enough, you'll know.  

 

 

Modeling 1.0

A Taste, a Glass, a Bottle (and Me)

If there was an initial theme to the courtship, it was coffee. I'd heard about the company for the first time while meeting Anna for coffee. She was the genius who thought to put us together. I met the first member of the exec team at Cafe Barrone for more coffee - hipster coffee. Throughout the interview process there were more offers of coffee and at least one was accepted. But I know myself better than to drink too much of the stuff. As my more gracious friends would say, I'm "a high energy person." Which is another way of saying "she doesn't really need caffeine and you're better off not giving it to her."

Coffee may have been the opening theme but it didn't take long to move forward to everyone's true passion: wine. My first dinner with the exec team involved several delicious bottles of it. My final offer was agreed upon over a glass of San Giovese. 

How can you not love a company where part of your job is to learn about - and taste - wine? I'll tell you. You can't.

But when you add a brilliant team, a kick-ass business model and a genius product offering you get as close to nirvana as I can imagine. My job is now to persuade you and your friends on the merits of wine tasting at home. And I have a great case to make (you're going to love this).

You're in your house and the box comes. Inside the box are six perfect little bottles of wine. They're pretty. In fact they're so pretty you're tempted not to drink them. But that would be a giant mistake. Because inside each of those beauties is the perfect taste: 50ml of wine. 

You get out your glass and start from left to right. Open the bottle and pour. Look at the color in your glass. It's kind of amazing how much variety you get just from the color. Now lift up the glass and swirl it around a little - not so much that it comes flying out of the glass - just enough to open up the aroma. Don't drink yet. I know you want to but hang on for just a minute. Tip the glass and put your nose in it - go ahead, don't be shy. Inhale. Don't get caught up trying to smell the cherries and the chocolate and the blah blah blah that wine people will tell you about. That puzzle comes later - if you want it to. For now, breathe it in like the scent of a beautiful woman (or man).  Let your nose experience the wine first.

Now your mouth really wants it, so drink up. 

The bottle doesn't bring enough wine for you to have a whole glass, which is good because you have five more bottle to get through. This is tasting, not drinking. You're here to explore.

Since you're not in an actual tasting room, and you're not being paid to drink, you don't have to spit your wine out in a bucket unless you really, really want to. Go ahead and swallow what's in your mouth and then what's in the rest of your glass.  Think about what you just drank. Did you like it?

What if I promised that all of the bottles you tried were good, that there was no bad wine in your sample? That your job was to try all of them and figure out what you liked. Not, what was good, because that's been done for you already - by expert wine drinkers.  And no, I don't know who you have to kill to get the job of the expert wine drinker, but it's on my list to find out. 

That's what you get from TastingRoom.com. And if you like the wine you taste, it's easy to buy the bottle and you should, because this is how great wine cellars are built. And no, I'm not talking about the spiderwebbed temperature controlled nasa center cellars our friends have. I'm talking about the "honey, David and Sara are coming over and I'd love to open that Pinot we tried the other day" cellar. The kind we'd all like to have but most don't have yet.

As you can see, I'm a little excited about all of this. Good people, good model, good products and now me. 

I start on Monday.