Where I Was. . . or Where Was I?

I truly appreciate every one's concern. I have been away for quite a while. Life just keeps getting in the way.

Since April I have putting a lot of energy into starting a company. In my lifetime I have gone from a career in metallurgical engineering, to one in decorative painting and now on to jewelry. The painting started as a hobby when my children were young and I was fortunate enough to be able to be a stay-at-home mom. It soon developed into a business with great flexibility. The jewelry also started as a hobby (okay, an obsession, LOL) and developed into a tiny business after I had to give up the painting a couple of years ago due to rheumatoid arthritis. Last summer I became a consultant for Luxe Jewels, a jewelry company I found interesting. It was a party format (like Tupperware) only at the party I could teach people how to make jewelry. I loved jewelry and teaching so this was a great match for me - especially since Luxe encouraged consultants to also sell their own personal designs at the parties. Luxe soon discovered that not everyone wanted to make their own jewelry, so they also came out with ready-to-wear styles in the last catalog. I have been doing well with the Luxe, well enough that I want to split my personal design business away from the Luxe, so I have been trying to build both businesses, which has been time consuming. I have sponsored several consultants and am really enjoying that aspect of the business, as I have been calling upon the project management skills I learned as an engineer. I have been devoting most of my energy to Luxe because I am at a ground floor level opportunity right now and want to build that business up as much as I can, as soon as I can. Besides, I've promised my husband to make enough money so he can retire :-) I was in San Francisco for the Luxe convention the first week of August and had a great time, drooled over the new jewelry - and I even earned a vacation to Cancun, for my sales last year. I enjoyed meeting our company founder and president at convention - Jessica Herrin is a brilliant young (34) woman who also co-founded WeddingChannel.com when she was still in grad school. At any rate, I'm having fun with it :-)

I am also working on my personal business, but that is moving more slowly. I have a friend who is a graphic artist, working on my branding; she created my logo and is now working on business papers for me. Then another friend will be building my web site. I really want to build a brand, much as Luxe is doing.


In May my son came back from his first year of college. In addition to being a year "smarter" he came back a state-certified EMT. Along with his 15 college credits, he opted to take an EMT course, which was an additional 8 hours of classroom instruction per week, not including assignments and practices and Saturday sessions. I think this is his proudest accomplishment to date because it was something he did completely on his own, with zero prompting or input from mom and dad. He volunteers with his college EMS and surprised me with "EMT trivia." Can you guess what is the most common cause for EMT calls at college? No, not drunk students, but sports injuries! Okay, I have to admit I was a little surprised - and more than a little relieved! My son also applied for, and received, reciprocal EMT status in our home state and volunteers with our local FD EMS .

Soon after he came back, we flew out to St. Louis for my daughter's college graduation. Tim Russert was an excellent commencement speaker. This being our first time back in St. Louis since we dropped her off as a freshman, we took almost a week to explore the area and visit the Arch, zoo, art museum - and of course the brewery tour! I loved seeing the Clydesdales on the tour and also enjoyed the decorative work on the old parts of the brewery - delicate wrought iron work, beautiful mosaics and gorgeous decorative painting. The craftsmanship in some of the old buildings was just amazing.

June included a vacation to Florida, for which I needed a vacation when I got back. I had to put a last minute trip together when I finally got both my children's summer work schedules and the only place I could book with our timeshare was Orlando. So we did the Disney/Universal thing. Only my children are not babies anymore. There were no more stops for "nap time" or taking the afternoon off to sit by the hotel pool. Oh no! It was go go go all day long and into the night. Someone needed a nap time - and it was ME!

In July, my daughter started intensive training for Teach For America, teaching children in summer school during the morning and taking classes herself, in the afternoon - then writing up lesson plans late into the early morning hours. If she got five hours sleep a night, it was a lot. For all you teachers out there, my daughter - who was always a straight A student and who went to a top university - told me that writing lesson plans was the hardest thing she has ever had to do. Of course she also had to go apartment shopping because she needed a place to live by August 1st. It all came together for her - she got through the training, moved into her "cosy" (read: "tiny"!) apartment and we even went over to paint a couple of weeks ago. I still have the "Spicy Buttercup" paint in my hair to prove it, or so they tell me.

In July we also had some problems with my brother who has mental health issues, either compounded by, or caused by, being a drug addict for better than 30 years. It is so difficult to see someone we love make bad choices, time and time again, especially when it affects others, such as his children or my parents. There is no way to reach my brother as he plays the "victim" card and refuses to acknowledge he needs help.

Last week, we lost my dear mother-in-law. The one comment everyone made at the wake was how great she looked. The family had opted for an open coffin for family viewing, but closed for the public. Well, they decided to leave it open the whole time because she looked so good. She had been suffering for a couple of years with her illness and that took its toll. It was wonderful to see her at the end with all the pain and suffering erased from her face and to remember what she had been like before her illness. A wise priest of mine had once told me that death was the "ultimate healing" - looking at her, I could believe that. Of course, it was still very difficult for all of us, more so for my father-in-law who was so devoted to her and took care of everything the last two years.

Last week we also found out my husband's sister has breast cancer. We have been waiting to get past the funeral to deal with that and will know more after she goes for a consult at Sloan-Kettering tomorrow.

So there are my past few months, summed up in several paragraphs, some happy, some sad. But really, although my time has been at a premium, I do think there is one other reason that I have not corresponded here in a long time. As I mentioned earlier, I have a brother who is an addict. My father is also a recovering addict - not to drugs, but to gambling. He wreaked havoc on my family because of this when I was growing up, but has since been in a 12 step program for gamblers, for many years. Because of such addictive tendencies in my family, I always worry that I too may fall into it. When I start to get the tiniest bit compulsive about something I panic that I may be getting addicted. I think this was at the back of my mind with the blogging, where I was trying to comment and keep up with what everyone was writing, as well as coming up with my own blog essays. I knew it was taking up too much of my time, but I still kept up, not good with figuring out how to do things in moderation. Until I hit that "panic point" where I thought blogging could become one of those addictive things. Then I just quit, completely.

I have read your kind comments and concern over the months and I felt badly, knowing I should explain. So there you have it. I will try moderation for now, stick to a "once in a while" blog entry and comments and put blinders on for the rest and see how I do. I would love to catch up with all of your blogs, but won't permit myself to do so yet. I may not have that addictive personality that runs in my family, but I am fearful that I might.

My OTHER Blessing

Last week was my son's week. This week belongs to my daughter. She is a senior at a top-notch university, double majoring in Educational Studies and Business, with a minor in Psychology. She joined a sorority as a freshman and my husband and I were both puzzled by this. Let's just say fraternities and sororities were not in vogue at our college in the early 70s. Our view of fraternities and sororities was similar to the stereotypes found in the movie Animal House. She explained that the frats and sororities at her school accomplished much philanthropic good and so she joined, even as we questioned if this extra time commitment was such a good idea in a high pressure school.

Over the years she has been elected to officer positions and this week she will be ending her one year term as President. Her chapter has contributed much in philanthropic work under her watch, the capstone being a fundraiser (or FUNraiser, as they prefer to call them) in which they made over $6,000 to donate to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She has told us that the experience in running her sorority was invaluable and mentioned it was akin to running a small business. Along the way she has also found some lifelong "sisters" - something she never had before.

My daughter would like to continue her education with law school. She would eventually like to work in the field of Educational Policy and Child Advocacy. She interned with the Children's Defense Fund last summer and loved the experience. I believe her interest partially stems from watching the years of struggle as we tried to get support services for her brother who has learning disabilities. Her thought was that if two committed and educated upper middle-class parents had trouble negotiating "the system" to get an appropriate education for their child, what were the chances that parents mired in poverty could?

However, my daughter is taking a detour on the way to law school. Today she found out she was accepted by the Teach for America program. Teach for America is a very successful non-profit organization that trains college graduates to be teachers and places them in underprivileged neighborhood schools across the country for a two year teaching commitment. The application and screening process is very rigorous. Last year about 17,000 college graduates applied to the program and roughly 3,000 were accepted. But as my daughter explains it, the program is selective, not competitive - everyone who passes the TFA criteria is accepted. In addition to exacting admissions criteria and three rounds of interviews, the program is also successful because each TFA teacher really wants to be in the program. I can attest to that - when my daughter called today to give me the news she was so excited - she was jumping-up-and-down-shrieking excited.

Again, my husband and I had doubts about the wisdom of our daughter joining TFA. Why not head straight to law school? Why delay the rest of your life for two years? Why place yourself in a neighborhood that may be dangerous? Our daughter countered with perfect logic that neither of her parents - both trained as engineers - could refute. She was adamant in telling us that if she was going to devote her life to educational policy then she had better know what it is like to be a teacher and what teachers have to deal with on a daily basis. Can't argue with that, huh?

Of course, my husband and I are still concerned about the neighborhood she will be teaching in. Every day there are articles in the paper about random violence, gang shootings and students bringing weapons into school. But we can't think of that. We have to trust this 21 year old woman who has shown time and again that she can make good choices and knows what is best for her. We have to step back and let her begin her own life. She will be fine, I'm sure. I have a hunch even her parents will be fine.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Many thanks for your New Year's greetings and I in turn wish you all good health and much joy in 2007.

My apologies for not posting in a while. Of course there was our Christmas celebration where we had 22 family members over for a sit down dinner. Having survived that, we decided to push our luck. We hosted a small New Year's celebration - just appetizers and desserts - my favorite kind of meal!

For our final celebration of the season, I am very proud and happy to say my son will be receiving his rank of Eagle Scout at a Court of Honor ceremony this coming Friday. He has been involved in Scouting since he joined Tiger Cubs in first grade. I was one of two leaders for Den 4, meeting with the boys every week during the school year from second through fifth grade. The five Cubs in our den all stayed true to Scouting until they aged out at eighteen - four of them earned their rank of Eagle. The fifth, who marched to a slightly different drum, was not interested in attaining Eagle but has opted to "give back" to Scouting by becoming an Assistant Scoutmaster after turning 18. I am so very proud of all five of these Scouts, all of who I have watched grow up from youngsters into fine young men.

It is my job this week to make a scrapbook of my son's Scouting experiences, spanning his twelve years from Cub to Eagle Scout. We spent most of yesterday going through boxes of old photos, culling the better ones and pausing to reminisce over most; the Pinewood Derby competition, a trip to the Fire Department, camping in the mud, a visit to the local pizzeria to make a pizza lunch, making birdhouses at Home Depot, two weeks at BS camp in RI every summer, making toiletry kits for the homeless sheltered overnight at area houses of worship, cleaning up local beaches, the Philmont trek - and hundreds of other great experiences that make life interesting and worthwhile. Below are just a few of our old and treasured memories.

Our Tiger Cub marching in his first Memorial Day parade, down Main Street.

Den 4 excited to pose with the soldiers from a Civil War re-enactment.

Pinewood Derby time!

Breathe Again

Very early this morning a casual friend of mine emailed and asked me to call her. She and I are both members of the same online stenciling group. We have emailed extensively over the years and have even talked on the phone, but we've never met face-to-face. She lives near the university where my son goes to school, but in the few times I've been in the area we haven't had time to "catch up" in person.

I called her and she told me how she had just heard on the news that there was a gunman loose near the university. The South Campus, where the dorms are, was in lock-down mode. She was hoping I could call my son and tell him to stay put, wherever he was.

Do you know what happens to a mother's heart when she hears something like that? It stops. I tried calling my son's cell, no answer. I left an email message. I kept trying the cell. I finally called the university Public Safety office - they told me about the lock-down and that no students had been hurt. No students hurt. Take a deep breath. But where is he? Is he someplace safe? I called a dean's office and the secretary informed me that a suspicious man had been seen in the residential area across from South Campus at 3:30 am. The police came to investigate and the gunman shot ten rounds at them. Public Safety was notified and the South Campus went into lock-down at about 4 am. Take another breath. Chances are he was in the dorm asleep, at the time of lock-down - meaning he was still in the dorm.

I finally heard his groggy voice at about 10:30 am. Breathe again. He had not answered the phone because he had been asleep. Yes, college students can pretty much sleep through anything, even emergency phone calls from mom every ten minutes. My son's roommate had an early morning class but was soon back in the dorm room after being stopped by the lock-down - they had all gone back to sleep.

I found out that back-up was called after the gunman fired on the local police - along with a SWAT team and K-9 units. They never found the gunman. My son called later in the afternoon and told me not to worry, everything was back to normal. Maybe for him.

Several weeks ago The Rev. Dr. Kate posted a a wonderful blog entry on proverbs, quotations and maxims, called Words of Wisdom. I have just the one for today:

"Making the decision to have a child--it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." - Elizabeth Stone

Smarter Than the Average Bear

Today I read an article about animal intelligence - is Flipper REALLY as intelligent as a human, or is that big brain just due to fat cells that keep the dolphin brain warm? What with the recent posts about dogs from Velvet Sacks and Ordinary Life I started thinking about our Tasha. She was a golden/labbie mix and passed on 4 years ago at the ripe, old age of 16.

Tasha was not the brightest dog; definitely not Lassie or Rin Tin Tin material. She never learned to play fetch - she played her own version, which we called "keep away" - she would run after a ball, but would not bring it back. She wanted us to chase her to get the ball back. She never did catch on to the fact that she had to bring the ball back if she wanted us to keep playing. Tasha also liked to watch TV - she would always bark at other dogs on TV - especially the cartoon ones. She was a funny girl, stupid, but we loved her anyway.

One incident comes to mind, though, when Tasha was about 3 and my son was about 1 1/2. We had just gotten back from vacation and I had picked Tasha up from the kennel. The kennel people had given us a biscuit to give her, but since she was prone to carsickness, I waited until we got home to give it to her. I plopped my son down on the couch, gave him the biscuit and told him to "Give it to Tasha," who was sitting next to him. I then stepped into the adjoining laundry room to get a load started.

All of a sudden I heard Tasha whimpering, so I went to see what was going on. My son had put his little arm, all the way up to his elbow, down poor Tasha's throat to try and get the biscuit back! Tasha was doing her best not to bite down or in any way hurt him. I extricated my son's arm - which did not have any teeth marks or other damage on it - and he immediately started crying "Tasha bit me!" For several weeks after, he would hold up an arm and say "Tasha bit me" to try and get some sympathy from various friends - most of the time we would say "Wrong arm, kiddo! and he would immediately hold up his other arm and continue "Tasha bit me" . He was too funny.

So, Tasha was maybe not the smartest dog that ever lived but she came through when it was important - she always knew to be gentle with children, even when provoked. A lot of humans could stand to be as wise as my Tasha was.

Lesson of a Lifetime

Last year, my son went on the "trip of a lifetime" with his Boy Scout Troop. About a dozen of the older boys and leaders went to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico for two weeks and 70 miles of backpacking in the wilderness. The photos above are some of the many he took (pretty good for a 17 yo, huh?) - but I particularly want you to pay attention to the last photo.

They trekked from elevations of 6,700 ft up to 12,415 ft. All they had was what they carried on their backs - a tent, water and freeze dried rations. They had to carry all their trash out. Outdoor latrines were the norm. They had to beware of wild bears and snakes - as well as some other critters, the identities of which he thought it best not to share with me. None of this deterred him.

At one point, they were at the top of a gravelly and very steep slope, much like in the last photo. Here, I am going to cheat a little and use his words from a college essay to tell the story:

"I found out that we would be climbing down 1000 feet in only 1/8 of a mile. If this sharp decline didn’t scare me enough, the guide told us that this section of the trail caused lots of major injuries. I was so scared I thought I was going to die. I knew that with the 70 lb. pack on my back, one slip would have me rolling down the mountain like an avalanche. When we finally got to the spot where we would descend, my legs started to feel like jelly. I realized that I had two choices. I could let my fear keep me up there and hold up my crew, or I could overcome my fear and climb down the mountain. The descent really wasn’t as bad as I originally thought it would be. Sure it was steep and there were many loose rocks, but there were also many trees to grab onto in case you felt like you were going to fall. From the experience of Philmont I have learned that I could overcome my fear."

I think this was a wise lesson to learn, at 17 - or any age.

A Beautiful Day

It was a beautiful day. The sky was a deep blue, with no clouds to water down the brilliant color. The weather was somewhere between warm and crisp - past summer's heat, but not chilly enough to require a sweater. You couldn't ask for a finer day.

I had gone to work and was glazing a client's master bath, about eighteen feet up on a scaffold. I was concentrating on the decorative painting and listening to my discman. All of a sudden my cell phone rang, which was unusual. My children were in high school; my husband was at work in the city. It was my daughter screaming "Where's daddy, where's daddy?" I was confused and told her he was in the city. She kept screaming at me "I know, but WHERE in the city?" I told her he was probably at corporate, and I asked her to calm down and tell me what was going on. She told me about the WTC getting "bombed" - details were still sketchy. She calmed down a little when I told her that her father was uptown and I told her I would try to call him. I was on my hands and knees on the scaffold, shaking and not trusting myself to be able to climb down. I knew when he went in for a corporate meeting they frequently had off-site breakfasts or presentations. He could be anywhere. No luck reaching him. Then my daughter called again and told me about the Pentagon. I couldn’t begin to understand what was happening.

My client came in from her tennis lesson and told me New York City had been attacked. She turned on the TV, but I was too frantic trying to reach my husband to watch. My husband's secretary finally called - they had been able to get a call out from corporate to my husband's office and she in turn was calling families to let us know our loved ones were okay.

My first instinct was to get my children and keep them safe at home. But was home safe anymore? I decided the distraction of being in class and with their friends was better than watching the horror on TV. I went back to work, so that I wouldn’t have to think; art has that power, to absorb one’s being.

When I finally got home and turned on the TV, my brain couldn’t take it all in. The wound in this city I was born and raised in, my city - where everything between Wall Street and Ft. Tryon Park had been part of my playground growing up. I could only watch the news for short bits at a time. We went to a special church service. We came home and watched again, all the while not believing, not understanding. I can still feel the love and community of that day – also the sorrow, grief and helplessness. For months after, the NY Times printed daily pages with a small picture and bio of each of the victims. I read every single one and said a silent prayer for each of them and their families. How could I not?

In the years to follow, whenever there was an especially spectacular fall day, I could never figure out why a chill would suddenly run through me. In 2004, I finally realized it was because of the similarity to that beautiful day, 9/11/01. I thought it was just me, that I was being freakishly sensitive. But no, after speaking to many other New Yorkers, I find it is a too-common eerie feeling.

I’m not a poet or a writer. I’m just a New Yorker. I am so very proud of my city, all it has overcome, how life and living continues despite the immense shadow of those towers that no longer exist. I can’t forget the enormous evil, the murder of all those poor souls. To echo the bumper stickers I still see every day, “I will never forget.” 9/11 is never very far from my consciousness, or any New Yorker's.

Today was another beautiful and perfect fall day. But here it is, five years later, and the wound is still as raw as if it happened yesterday. We lost 2,948 people - people like you and me - on 9/11. We have lost another 2,657 service men and women in Iraq since then. When does it end?