Goodbye 2011

2/27/11
I was trying to figure out what was caught between my teeth and what I ate recently.  I finally realized it was a piece of my own cheek.  As often as I have tasted my own cheek it never occurred to me that's what humans taste like.  Kind of like chicken. 

4/22/11
“Being wealthy is not about having money, it's about having options.”

“Take advantage of the buffet that life is, try everything, and if you don't like something you don't like it because you tried it, not because you dismissed it.”

“Your life can always be new.”

-- Chris Rock, on Oprah


May 24, 2011
The film projectionists union, after extending their sympathy on the loss of my spouse, informed me that I am eligible to receive a whopping $21.40/month pension for the rest of my life.  Amazing.  The universe has seen fit to put a monetary value on marital memories such as these:

• Fulfilling my fantasy of doing it in a projection booth;
• Friendships with the managers of all the local theaters of the most popular chain in town (a colorful bunch) that let me in for free;
• Listening to a couple of old bats in the theater behind me badmouthing the projectionist as damaged movie reel crossed the screen and the audience clapped and cheered.  I was laughing so hard I could barely turn around and tell them I was the projectionist's wife and they were right, he really is drunk and all those other things you said he was.
• The many movies I saw, and the many I walked out of, and the few I was able to watch in the theaters as many times as I wanted, for about 10 years.

6/4/11 
I received a survey from my credit union, to be filled out anonymously.  I was to check from "agree" to "strongly disagree" that my credit union "offers a wide array of products that complement my lifestyle."  Am I missing something?  Are they Walmart?  

June, 2011 
I held the elevator for a woman that could barely make it in because she was so dazzled by the place.  She said, "It's so beautiful I just don't want to come inside."  I asked her if this was her first visit to the Glass Garden?  She said it was and asked me all sorts of questions, like do they have weddings and do they play music outside?  She had me laughing when we got out at the same stop.  Apparently, she was a court reporter the firm hired for the day.  Co-worker G took this of the roofs:

June 24, 2011 
In a staff meeting today we were informed that we will soon be moving from our beautiful glass garden.  I live in a beautiful garden that I will only be able to afford while I'm working.  We all have to decide how much staying in our beautiful garden is worth to us.

Thursday, Aug 4, 2011
The 10 p.m. news weather report:
THU:  NARLY
FRI:  SUPER RAD
SAT:  AWESOME
SUN:  DOPE!

SRSLY?  WTF?  What language are they speaking?  Is it gonna rain or be sunny or what?  The weather reportress was no help, with utterances such as "nar, nar" and "rad, dudes!"  Ok, my world is seriously falling apart if I can no longer even understand the daily weather report. 


Sep 25, 2011 
My cat was cranky and treating me dismissively when I said this to her and cracked myself up:  "What can I do for you?  I am at your disposable."

10/15/11 
Ann opened up an art gallery.  I never know what she'll do next (last time she had quit her job to go walk across Japan).  Here we are at the opening.

11/11/11
Outsource Day.

11/12/11 
Celebration of Outsource Day!!  I got to meet Al Stewart!  I told him I loved him since his first LP, and he said "you weren't even born yet."  Actually, it was the year I graduated high school.

12/15/11 
Holy cow.  I feel like I just discovered a groundbreaking new scientific Nobel Prize winning principle.  There is only one thing all living things have in common.  It's not equality or fairness.  It's death.  To me, death is zero.  It's the start or the end or infinite.  It could be past, present and future at the same time.  We all share that.  It's the ONLY thing we all share with plants and life forms and each other.  That's just transforming.

12/31/11
Happy New Year from Mafikeng, South Africa! See next post.

Miami (belated from September)

I'm still catching up since my Charleston trip in September.  Life has whizzed by and I haven't had a chance to post my Miami trip yet, and plans are already afoot for another Miami trip!  I spent a week in Miami right after I was in Charleston. I went there right after the wedding.  I had planned to spend two weeks in Charleston, because the bride had told me she wasn't going to go anywhere for a honeymoon (they had originally planned to visit Erica's uncle in Japan, but when the earthquake hit they decided to stay home.)  Then they were gifted a honeymoon cabin in the country, so I changed plans to spend the second week in Miami.

I arrived in Miami airport to be greeted by two spirited cousins working with clockwork precision. My cell phone rang just as I was wondering where the hell do I go NOW?  I had just taken 5 escalators, rolling walkways and a train (with no instructions as to how you get on the train, or if you even should get on it, as there were no signs informing where it goes until you actually get on it).  This confusing mess is due to endless construction at the Miami airport.  They were at my baggage claim, thank god, because I had no idea where my baggage claim was, and they guided me in.

Once we were in the car I was immediately briefed on who wanted to see me, and who was available when, including my Skype schedule with Viv. (It was amusing to watch Viv's mother chase her all over the house in a wheel chair with a broken foot).  They made me feel like I had just gotten off Air Force One, and my staff had anticipated all my needs, and all scheduling conflicts were worked out.  I was informed of which friends I couldn't see due to poor health.  Some more unconventional friends were unable to be visited, due to the fact that they were homeless on the road hundreds of miles away, in several enormous trailers, experiencing one misfortune after another, which I think if they uploaded to youtube as they lived it, it could become a big hit, and they could end up on talk shows or reality shows, making a lot of money.  I can see them on Dancing with the Stars already.

Upon arriving home I saw the refrigerator had been stocked with all my needs, such as those amazing 60 calorie ice cream sandwiches which are only available there.  I was given the best bed, already made up, and the playing cards were set up on the table with all our favorite accoutrements.  I was home.

More from Cousin P re palindromes:  12321 is a better palindrome than 12221 (I dunno, more "variety"?  I dunno).

Cousin S had all these things around the house that had belonged to her deceased mother, my Aunt Florrie (a basically awful woman that had gone unloved by her family), and asked me if I wanted any of them.  Most were unappealing tchotchkes until I found a great necklace.  It's the one and only thing I have from my Aunt Florrie, and is as good a way to honor her memory as I can think of.  I'm wearing it in this picture of us playing cards:

Patti wanted to drive me all over Jupiter, but I really wanted to do it when we had more time.  It would have involved 12 hours of driving in 2 days for her.  As much as I really want to see Jupiter, that's insane.  So, I made up a bed for her in the other guest/Viv's room, which really wowed her (I knew the feeling) and the next day we all just lit up and started playing cards, and she was hooked.  I think she commented something like she could "see the appeal." She left well-rested, with our hopes still high that one day she will get to show me Jupiter.

Here we are celebrating H's birthday:

The Document Center Incident

I had a lot of angst, for many years, regarding document centers, and this was the pinnacle. I always felt stuck, rather than having made a career choice. I'm over that now, and don't feel like venting about it.  But this is still a great story. Probably happened to everyone at some point in their lives.
~--~--~--~--~

“THE DOCUMENT CENTER INCIDENT”

The following took place 4 days, Monday through Thursday, in June 1995, when I worked in the Document Processing Center (“DPC”) at M and P. This is a letter I sent to a co-worker, Pete, who was away when these events happened. I've edited it as best I could to hopefully be understood by an average reader, and changed the real names.

Letter to Pete, July 4, 1995 

You actually missed me?? Aww. Hugh Kahn [an associate] emailed me “you really must miss Paula and Pete,” [my co-workers who were out] and I emailed him back, “Paula and Pete who?” He made a point of telling me in person how much that cracked him up. He has been added to my list of special people, ever since “The Incident.” Which I’ve been dying to tell you about.

This is what happened: Boy Wonder [a fellow co-worker who still works there today] was working on one of Joe's [partner's] documents. One of Joe's requested revisions was: “no romans, goddamit,” and Boy Wonder jokingly said, “I’m highly offended.” I emailed Joe's & Boy Wonder's comments to Lenny [another partner], who forwarded it to Joe, as well as new associate Sherry Koch, joking that the firm could be sued for discrimination against Romans. Normally Lenny cc’s me when he forwards my mail, but for some reason he failed to this time. So it came as a complete surprise when Sherry Koch came giggling into DPC to apologize for offending anyone in DPC.

Unfortunately, Hippo [DPC co-ordinator] was in there taking it all very seriously, but Sherry and I were all giggles. Sherry kept looking at her, then back at me. I told Sherry nobody was offended, but then Sherry would look at Hippo and apologize again. Hippo asked how she even knew, and she mentioned email from Lenny and like an idiot I admitted sending it to Lenny.

You are probably wondering why I’m telling you all this. You are probably wondering what this has to do with anything. I’ll tell you, everyone involved is still wondering. But the above-described was “The Incident”, and all there was to it. Wait til you hear what happens next.

To backtrack for a moment, earlier that day I had emailed Lenny, “Bored to death. Send poems.” He emailed back that I should ask Hugh for poems because he likes to write them. So I emailed Lenny, “I like your poems.” Lenny responded by sending a file of silly email he had gotten at different times from Hugh, including poems about “don’t touch that door!” and something about a $25.39 suit. So I emailed Lenny, with a cc to Hugh asking what those were about?

So, back to the story, just as Sherry was leaving DPC, an email arrived from Hugh to Lenny with a cc to me, “Why does this make me nervous?”

I emailed Hugh back:  “You have reason to be nervous after the stunt he just pulled on me!” with cc to Lenny.

Hugh: “what did the scoundrel do now?”

I didn’t have a chance to answer Hugh at this point, because I received an email from Sherry at that moment: “Boy, Hippo didn’t crack a smile,” and it took several emails back and forth with her to explain that Hippo has no sense of humor and that Sherry unfortunately blew my cover by coming in to apologize, with Sherry responding back that she was sorry for blowing my cover, but it was nice to meet all these fun people who had senses of humor, and she hoped I was having a good day. I responded it was an ok day so far - Lenny sent me poems. She sent back, “I didn’t know he wrote poems,” to which I replied, actually this time he sent Hugh’s poems. She responded, “I didn’t know there was such a thing as a talented attorney,” which I forwarded to Lenny who replied with cc’s to me and Hugh, “There is no such thing as a talented attorney, just talented people who have made career mistakes.” At one point I was emailing Sherry, Hugh and Lenny all at once and copying all of them, and somewhere during all these exchanges I wrote on one of them, “P.S. Hugh, I’m getting to you,” to which Lenny responded to Hugh, with cc’s to me and Sherry, “she’s getting to you, too, huh?” Basically, we were having a lot of fun. And it was heartwarming to get mail from Sherry saying how glad she was to have made new friends.

But the next day Sherry told me that Hippo had asked to see copies of the email she had received from me. Sherry told her she already deleted it. (Didi [another co-worker]), who witnessed this, told me that Hippo went to the extent of explaining to her how to “undelete” email but Sherry told her it was already gone from her list. Didi also told me that Hippo pressed Sherry for details, which Sherry refused to give.) Now, of course, all Hippo knew was that I had mentioned to her that I was the one that told Lenny about the comment about Romans that he forwarded to Sherry, causing Sherry to appear in DPC to apologize. So it didn’t surprise me that Hippo approached Sherry for evidence, although it did disturb me. I really wanted to talk to Joe, as it was his document and comment about the Romans, but he was out of the office that week.

At any rate, it still came as a complete surprise when I was called in to speak with Jan [human resources] and Mary [my supervisor], in which I was asked to sign a memo that I was to receive a one-day suspension for “breaching confidentiality” and “abuse of email.” I figured Mary would be concerned and speak with me, or babble in her way, and that would be the end of it, if anything happened at all. I felt like I had been thrown into the twilight zone, sitting there in front of Jan having to “explain myself.”

At lunch when I showed the memo to Paula [aforementioned absent co-worker with whom I ate lunch every day] she pointed out that it was a suspension, meaning I wasn’t to show up Tuesday (I had read it as they were going to dock me for a day).  I went back to work after lunch in a state of shock. I emailed Hugh, Sherry and Lenny, “Am truly depressed. Send cheer.” When I didn’t get any response I felt like I didn’t have a friend in the world. I didn’t know that Hugh by this time had called Lenny up to ask him if he was aware I had lost a day’s pay (which is what I had told him before I went to lunch) and that everybody was scared to death of ever using email again. I just thought nobody cared about me. I was literally sitting at my terminal crying.

I emailed Jan and Mary that I had a headache (which I did. It’s about the third stress headache I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. I rarely get headaches) and was going home. Just then Hugh called me. When I answered he inquired as to how I was doing, and I was so relieved that somebody cared I just burst into tears. I told him, “you just made me cry again.” He was totally silent for a long time.  He just let me cry, ready to listen whenever I was ready to speak. The more I felt him just being there for me the more I cried. Finally I managed to say, “why do you ask?” which just cracked him up. Well, hearing him laughing I just started laughing, which made him laugh harder and I was laughing and crying at the same time. I thanked him for being there for me when I felt I didn’t have a friend in the world, and asked him if I could come to his office.

On the way I ran into Sherry, and invited her into his office with me. Sherry couldn’t believe this was happening (welcome to M and P), apologized over and over, repeating that the one thing she was glad about was she at least made a new friend, and gave me a big hug. The three of us discussed things for a while, after which I was greatly heartened.

I called Lenny and asked if I could see him, and that wimp actually said he was worried about anyone seeing me come to his office! I told him nobody would see me. (Note: Lynette [his secretary] later told me that actually somebody DID see me go into his office and asked her if “he and I were an item,” to which she responded in her own inimitable style, “an item of what?”) [note to reader: Lenny is gay and I was married.] I went up there and told him I was especially hurt by him not responding to my email, and thought he was suddenly cold and heartless and not my friend any more, but he said he still was and I gave him a big hug and cried all over his shirt. He just said that he had been advised by another partner (he wasn’t supposed to tell me who, but he admitted it was Rick Drimmer) that he should take it easy on email for a while. Lenny said he was going to talk to Jan and tell her he thought the whole thing was a stupid misunderstanding, but he never did.

Anyway, I was really traumatized. I never had anything on my personnel record in all my employment history. I was an emotional wreck for a week.

This occurred on Friday, so I had a miserable weekend forming a response to the memo, which I had to submit by Monday if I was to get the Tuesday suspension lifted. Lenny helped me write it, via phone Sunday night. He said that I should specifically mention the words “retaliation” on Mary’s part, and “stress”, because although Jan and Mary might be too stupid to think about lawsuits, those words would definitely trigger “lawsuit” to Fred [office manager]. He was apparently right, because for the first time in my history at M and P Fred requested a meeting with me.

When I heard Fred wanted to talk to me I called Mary and told her that I didn’t want to say anything to him that I hadn’t said to her face. I had a lot of questions. For one, I wanted to know why she didn’t come to me first? Her answer surprised me. Mary and I talked for a long time. She said she did want to talk to me first, but because of all the difficulty we had communicating in the past, she went to human resources for advice on how to talk to me. I thought this was consistent with her personality - she would feel inadequate to deal with this and would go to her superiors. What was particularly surprising, however, was she told me the suspension was Fred’s idea (and Jan had already told me that she was trying to get my “sentence” reduced to a warning but Fred didn’t agree). Mary was plain exhausted, and kept answering questions I hadn’t asked. I pieced the puzzle together from the pieces she gave me as she responded to what she thought I was asking. Through it all I gleaned that Mary really wasn’t after my butt, she just wasn’t going to go out of her way to save it. She “cares” about me in some kind of Christian way, not with any personal loyalty. But I didn’t see any maliciousness on her part. She genuinely wanted to get along, and was just too stupid to predict the effect of her actions. And I could see Jan trying her best, but being ineffective.

So after talking to Mary I suddenly grocked on Fred. He wasn’t going to be sympathetic to anything I said in the memo (which was that Mary was retaliating against me and Lenny for having complained about her) - which I no longer believed anyway. I think I truly violated Mary’s sense of moral duty to the attorneys, but I don’t think it was vindictive on her part, just idiotic. I went into the meeting armed with the knowledge that Fred’s mind was already made up about the suspension, and meeting with me was all for “show.”

I didn’t want to listen to a whole bunch of bullshit first thing about how Mary and I have to learn to get along, so the first thing I said when I went into Fred’s office was that I had a long talk with Mary and cleared things up between us. If Fred was “scared” I would sue he did not let on. He explained that the reason for my suspension was because I breached confidentiality and that credibility was lost by DPC users due to my actions, because they could no longer trust DPC to keep information about their documents within DPC.

I told him I didn’t believe that, and that in my opinion the perception of management’s heartlessness toward me had far worse ramifications for the firm in loss of camaraderie and morale than any imagined loss of confidence in DPC by my actions. I told him there were attorneys afraid to email me, or even be seen with me.

Fred made a face that he either didn’t believe me or didn’t care.

And I told him that management was viewed as heartless by the firm, without mentioning names. So Jan (who was in the meeting with us) said without names, there’s no way to explain why they think that way and I told her she didn’t need any names because about 5 years ago the firm hired an outside “analyzer” who gave the same findings, which were published in a memo to the entire firm, and the result of which were mandatory sensitivity seminars that all employees had to attend. Jan’s jaw dropped and Fred dismissed that with, “every office thinks that about their management.”

I said, No they don’t! You don’t care that you are perceived as heartless?  Apparently, he didn't.  He simply asked, “Why’d you do it?”

I said because I’m not heartless and I like to make people smile, because people are really stressed out in this place and can use a break to smile, but if you are heartless, then you’ll never understand.

Jan once again brought up the fact to Fred that I had no way of knowing that Lenny would forward my email, to which I hoped I looked sincere when I looked downcast and admitted, “That’s true...”

I had brought with me the article in last Friday's memo listing points management should keep in mind, with choice parts highlighted, such as “talk to your people first before slamming them.” Fred read it (he obviously hadn’t seen it before, which shows how much interest he has in the Friday memo), and said he agreed with all those points, so I said then how come I wasn’t talked to first?

Jan said I have a point, and Fred said something about fairness. So I asked him if he thought I had been treated fairly? Jan looked perplexed and Fred said, “yes, I do.”

So I asked if there was anything more to talk about and he said only to decide on when the suspension should take place, and he asked me if I knew of any reason why it shouldn’t be tomorrow? and I said, “that’s fine with me,” knowing Hippo would also be out which would give Mary a big scheduling headache.

This whole thing drained the life blood out of me. I found out I work for a vampire. My new nickname for Fred Gold is “Fred Ghoul”.

So, I was off without pay on Wednesday, and on Thursday I walked around the office asking attorneys to write complimentary memos to my personnel file. I figured if Fred was going to insist that credibility had been lost in DPC due to my actions, I was going to fill my personnel file with memos proving him wrong. I didn’t care that it looked contrived. My point was that if what Fred said was true I wouldn’t be able to get the memos, would I?

By Friday, Joe was finally back in the office. (Remember, this was Joe's document and Joe's comments about Romans). He was sickened that Administration felt they needed to take such harsh action against me and spoke to Rob Black [another partner] about getting the whole thing removed from my personnel file. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to do that, the argument being that the Administration is the same entity as the partners, and one entity can’t go against itself. This makes sense legally, but not humanly, which Joe realized. I told him that my review is coming up, and I feared I wouldn’t get a raise. He said he was going to tell Fred that his personal feelings are that I did not violate the confidentiality of his document, nor in his opinion did I abuse email, but unfortunately, he can’t tell Fred what action to take. He said he would also write me a recommendation to give if I went job hunting, and would also write a generally complimentary memo to my file. At least Joe has the balls to tell Fred his opinion. Lenny the Wimp (Lynette was really angry at him. She went on and on about how Lenny should have come to my defense) just lamented the fact that the partners were powerless to go against Administration.

Interestingly, Paula told me that she ran into Grace Seeley [a former associate] in the plaza after she left M and P and Grace had told her that Administration treated them like second class citizens. Brad Mahler [another former associate] had voiced similar complaints to Paula. He told her that the attorneys were never consulted about what they wanted before any decisions were made. And Linda Mick [law librarian] told me her friend Luke worked at the firm where Fred came from before M and P and they all called him “the jerk” over there. So much for Fred.

P.S. Rick Barber and Mauricio [associates] (who are unaware of any of this), were delighted to write nice memos about me, and they did - both on the same day. Mary was delighted. She didn’t have a clue that I had asked for them (what else is new?) And I don’t think she would have cared if she did. Both memos mentioned how professionally the department was run, with specific mention of my name (and Rick even mentioned Hippo). Although I’m seething at Hippo (who told Mary and got me into this mess) I’ll be magnanimous enough to share the spotlight with her. I’m happy because if the department is so professional how can anyone say I ruined DPC’s reputation? Mary proudly displayed them on the bulletin board, bordered with positive evaluation slips. Those memos really made her day, and if it had not been for all my troubles, I would never have thought to ask for those memos. But, I intend to keep them coming. Every time I get a compliment I’m gonna ask for it in writing. Paula wants for us both to sue, and if it ever comes to that, I want my personnel file fat with good memos discrediting Fred’s accusation.

So everything’s changed. We don’t email like we used to. Work is super boring. After making up a slew of nicknames for Nate Wilke (which Nate totally got into the spirit of) Boy Wonder has taken to finding nicknames for all the attorneys. (I told him my nickname for him was Boy Wonder, and would you believe he loves it?! I can call him Boy Wonder to his face now. He says, “just call me Robin.”) However, Hippo nipped his little game in the bud. After Sam Jarrod made a big scene about putting slash marks in his document, Boy Wonder dubbed him “the Slasher” but Hippo intervened because it isn’t proper to give the attorneys nicknames, and it was not to be tolerated. So we have to do it in secret.

Whew. So that’s the whole gory story of my recent M and P misadventure...

Prologue August 16, 1995: The happy ending is that I got a great review and raise despite all this. I also found out that Lenny had emailed Fred to express his opinion that he didn’t think I breached confidentiality, to which Fred responded, “I think she did.” Even though he got nowhere with Fred, I was relieved to hear that Lenny had come to my defense after all!!

11/11/11

Monday: The official grand opening announcement of the new Document Services fooled nobody.  There's no convincing people that a Motel 6 is better than the 5 star hotel they are used to.  I became a magnet for heart wrenching stories.  My personal favorite is a secretary that whined to human resources, "How could you fire them just before the holidays?" and was told not to worry about others, just herself.  She whined back, "it IS me I'm worried about!"

Tuesday:  A rush TOA came in that I couldn’t get around to, and suggested sending it to the new Document Services. I peeked at it as it was being worked on, and it looked beautiful. I have been totally replaced in this world.

Wednesday:  When I got in, G had looked at that TOA that the new Document Services did, and said, yeah, it looked beautiful, but showed me a print-out of the errors throughout the document.  Ok, that made us feel better.  This was followed shortly with an email requesting: “Please do not send the document to the new doc center. Please do it in-house. Thank you.”  These poor people think they have a choice, and are going to have quite a rude awakening next week.  Some people told me they complained to management about the new document services already.

Thursday:  I had only done 3 or 4 jobs this week (I lost count, because I didn't bother to log them in), and today work stopped coming in.  I did jigsaw puzzles and games on line all day, which is pretty much what I had been doing all week.  I applied for unemployment on-line, but after filling out two screens of information they wouldn't accept a future date of unemployment.  I'll have to wait until tomorrow to file.

Friday 11/11/11:

Whoa!  Not the day I expected!  It started off with an exit interview.  I walked into the conference room expecting stiffness and formality.  As it turned out, the HR manager was on the phone with her sister, who was being taken to the hospital.  When she got off the phone she shared with me the details of her family drama that had been taking place the past month, and had to pull herself together to do the interview.  I was feeling a bit tender and raw this week myself, so it was easy for me to commiserate. It ended up being an unexpectedly lovely interview in which I signed a receipt for a copy of something inconsequential, was handed 3 checks, was told I could leave early, and given a hug.

I had hoped to run over to the convenient credit union across the street to deposit those checks, but never got the chance (dang!) and  I never got a chance to apply for unemployment, either.  I spent the day in email.  Emails came to my personal inbox, or they were forwarded by our manager to the doc center box.  There were last minute things I wanted to say to people that weren't here today (I didn't realize today was Veteran's Day until I got into the parking lot and saw so few cars).

After the exit interview I went to the mail room to make pre-addressed postage paid envelopes for me and G to return our signed severance agreements back in, where I ran into the HR manager doing the same thing.  As she hand-wrote the firm's lengthy address on the labels I couldn't help but point out that the doc center could have made those labels for her, and she weakly appreciated the irony.  Just as we got done with that, it was time for our goodbye lunch.

This is the first and only firm lunch I ever attended in my career, because whenever they had firm lunches doc center operators were always too busy to go to them.  I would run in and make a plate that I would eat at my desk.  But I just had no excuse today.  The party was in our honor.  None of us had to stay and "cover." It was great, I felt the love, even from some I didn't know before today.  One even told me that she knew we in the doc center didn't know her that well, but she was affected by the news of our closure and wanted to say good bye.

Also this morning 2 headhunters had left messages on my phone.  Seriously?  When I returned from lunch, they had both emailed me!  I wasn't going to deal with them today, but one called back again (not satisfied with his email and voicemail) and actually caught me live on the phone and I couldn't avoid him!  I haven't even decided if I want another job yet.  The thought of going back into all that stress freaks me out.  Doc centers are like ERs.  Somebody is always waiting nervously, wringing their hands, wondering if their document will live or die.  I don't know if I can do it any more.

So, today flew by.  There were two trips to my car with last minute stuff like my keyboard.  M and I walked around the other building to say goodbye and see his new office (he took another position at the firm).  All day he said goodbye and then made everyone welcome him back.  People came by to say goodbye (including two more who "just got the news").

And then I thought M and G and I would go downstairs for drinks, but I was not expecting our manager to join us, buy the drinks all around on the firm's dime, and open up to us for the first time in 10 years (although had only been our manager for the past couple of years).  At any rate, she explained that she had to keep her distance in management, and that she had a "stand-offish" personality anyway.  I think that's the word she used.  And I thought it was just me.  And G said that he thought it was just him.  So, I opened up to her too, and told her I always wanted to be friends with her, and now we are.  That was a really unexpected gift that I wasn't expecting today.  She told me I should go to South Africa, and she also thought I was in my 50s.  God bless her (she's 40 something).

And I drove home slightly drunk!  That was new for me.  

I used the equipment at the office one last time to make pictures of the following emails, and a card someone secretly stuck in my tote bag.  It's going to be a very different life for me, not having all this fancy software and equipment to play with any more.

 

Goodbye to my beloved little corner: 

Week following Oct 30, 2011

I realized why we can't live in the past.  Because you can't create in the past.  You can't create in the future, either.  Now is the only time in which you can create anything. The past can't help you squeeze every drop of joy from the present, and this moment will never come again.  I know that sounds deep, but I just wrote down the chilling truth as it presented itself to me in all its terrifying obviousness.

Q:  But aren't memories meant to be cherished?  (I asked, in my own conversation with god)  Aren't they important?

A:  Yes.  You create in the present from that which the past caused you to become.

Q:  Oh. Can that be stated more clearly?

A:  One is in continuous creation, and you have to have come from somewhere.  You came from where you just were (the past) to continually create.  You're creating even if you stop to sleep for a few decades, or you're "dead."  You still want things even if you're sleeping (or "dead"), and wanting it is pretty much creating it.

Wow.  I heard it first on my own blog.

~~*~~*~~*~~

In other news, I can't believe how much our customers loved their doc center.  I'm overwhelmed.  Due literally to popular demand (demands of which I was literally informed by the Human Resources Department, a conversation in which yes, names were mentioned), the firm is having a lunch for us on Friday, 11/11/11, for which all outsourcees will be working a day shift to attend, which is good because we were worried the evening shift guy wouldn't be there in time for us to all go to the bar downstairs together for drinks and closure.

Oh, and something funny happened.  While G was talking to me (we do a lot of that lately, as there is less and less work to do) he spontaneously bled from his nose.  It took him around 20 minutes to clean up his chair and floor of what he called the "evidence."  I told him I thought it was brilliant of him to literally leave his blood here.  We both LOLed.

Week following Oct 23, 2011

Monday, G made some amusing comment about us "singing as the Titanic goes down."

We received this email from one of our biggest fans:  "The news today comes as a surprise, and not a good one. Since you have been here for as long as, or longer than, I have been, from my perspective I am losing an institution."

This made me think about how so many things we had come to think of as "ordinary" have left our life.  We pay to check our baggage, and for headphones, meals and blankets on airplanes now.   Many items have left the shelves even if you're willing to pay the skyrocketing prices for them.  There's less choice now.  Everybody's "old life" is being taken away, not just mine.  Greece, or for that matter any country in Europe, will never be the same.

By Wednesday, we had had this same conversation several times:

User:  Who are we going to run to with these emergencies when you're gone?
Us:  You're going to have to contact Fargo, North Dakota.
All:  (Looking miserably at each other with nothing more to say).

I gave an attorney a 20 minute training session on how to number his document, after which he rapid-style lectured me (as is his wont) regarding the latest and greatest in music (going to each site on his computer as he talked), and something about his carefree innocence prompted me to ask, "Are you aware the doc center is closing?"  No, he hadn't read the email.  Guess what he asked me?  "You mean I won't be able to get help from you guys any more?"

By Thursday, I wondered where all the work was?  Oh yeah, it's going to Fargo, North Dakota.  The firm has several people already sending their work there to test it this month, which is why we got a month's notice.  Duh.  So, that's what "outsourced" means.  Somebody else is doing my work.  Oh.  Duh.  Oh.  Duh.  OH.  It keeps sinking in more and more.

So, what I want to know is how is Fargo, North Dakota handling TOAs?  Let me tell you about TOAs. I have a thing or two to say before leaving the saga of my career behind me forever.

To begin the saga about TOAs, I have to begin with RoAnn.  RoAnn was legendary.  Every office manager and every doc center in town knew RoAnn, first name only, like "Cher" or "Madonna."

I was an underwriter in training at an insurance company, where I had started out as a Sycor operator. (I just did an internet search for "Sycor" and nothing came up, so clearly that technology is so obsolete as to not even have any record in human history.  Boy, is my life a myth!!) Anyway, I had climbed my way up through rating on the second floor to underwriting on the third floor from the basement where I had started out as a Sycor operator.  Insurance was deathly boring and I wasn't making that much more money.  RoAnn is the one that told me "the secret."  I don't know how I ended up with her phone number, but God bless whoever sent that lunatic my way.  She told me to go to such-and-such temp agency and take their free Vydec course.  She said all the lawyers in town were using Vydecs and there weren't enough Vydec operators.  I learned the Vydec, and additionally RoAnn gave me a crash course showing me exactly the types of things I would be asked to do in a law firm and how to do them, including TOAs.  I took a 4 hour course, for a nominal fee, from some bimbo (imagine an "all business" Marilyn Monroe) that showed me the mechanics behind assembling the documents that were being created by people with law degrees.  The temp agency sent me to engineering corporations, while RoAnn found me my first job in my first legal document center.  It was exactly as RoAnn taught me, and I did well.  Most doc center operators had 2 or 3 jobs and we all hired each other round the clock for work on Vydec, IBM, Wang, NBI and eventually WordPerfect when pcs took over.

One day RoAnn was contracted at a firm, needed an evening coordinator, and thought of me.  Well, it was a step up, why not?  Well, for one thing because she and this firm were crazy (this was the firm where the "Document Center Incident" took place that I have yet to write about).  But I didn't know that at the time I accepted her offer, and brought my best friends with me so they could get raises working for a crazy firm, too.  This sounds idyllic, but once I was in charge my best friends would stop chatting when I came in the room, stuff like that, and it was horrible.  I had to fire my best friend when she had a bipolar episode and wigged out (instead of doing the work, she copied the requests, and returned them as completed).  Meanwhile, I was learning that RoAnn was nuts.  I think her contract had been to set up a document center and convert to NBI from System 6.  Remember those 8" floppy disks?  Well, we had to print out all those disks before they could get rid of that monstrosity, and Ro kept taking those disks home and not bringing them back.  Never explained why.  She eventually was fired, and never got the $5000 bonus for completing her contract.  I demoted myself, got all my friends back, and avoided RoAnn for the rest of my life.  Last I heard she was going to law school.

Ok, so, as I mentioned, everything I ever learned about TOAs, I learned from RoAnn as part of a 4 hour course.  TOAs are "Tables of Authorities."  What they are is an index of every legal cite found in the document, listed under separate categories of cases, rules, statutes, etc. separated into state and federal. This means you have to actually know what a legal cite is, and know how it's being used in the document, because just existing in the document doesn't necessarily mean it goes into the table.  Assuming you have found a correct cite for inclusion, you have to code it.  It's the most complex coding you can do in a document. There are endless ways you can have picked up every cite and still generate a faulty table just because you missed something in the coding.  The coding takes hours to do, and the TOAs are always a crashing rush because you can only do them on a final document, and attorneys work on their documents right up to the filing deadlines.  If those TOAs don't get done and the deadline gets missed it is always the operator's fault, never the attorney's.

To be fair to my current firm, which I have referred to as "Firm Fairyland" in previous posts, it is the first and only firm I had ever worked for that supported the doc center when there were mistakes in TOAs, and the attorneys were held responsible for the final tables.  This has been reason enough for me to feel I worked in fairyland.  Our new national document center manager had encouraged sending TOAs out of state when we needed help.  This got the job "off the books," but it would inevitably be returned to us to do it again correctly, so they were really something we could never get help with. 

Here's the thing:  The only people with the knowledge to recognize a correct cite is a lawyer.  Legal secretaries and paralegals are supposed to, but they mostly don't.  The rare ones that do just "never have time" to do the coding. Over the decades I've seen various software come and go, macros created at various firms, all sorts of tricks and programs to generate TOAs, but they all missed too many cites to be relied upon.  I have seen, even been part of, all sorts of training sessions to teach people how to code for TOAs, but they never do it after they learn it.  It's just too hard for them.  So, document centers have been the default experts on TOAs since forever.  I have never done one with confidence, and I can't tell you how happy I would be to never have to do another one.

Maybe now you understand why I'm wondering how Fargo, North Dakota is handling TOAs.

In other news, I have been in a senior meetup group that has mostly turned out to be a little old ladies club.  We had a meetup yesterday that was the best one so far.  Four other women I had not met before came, and were just the people I needed to meet.  One was a petsitter (always good to know one of those), another gets medical insurance for people like me that want an alternative to COBRA.  When I expressed concern about my housing situation, another timidly confessed that she hadn't wanted to reveal that she lives in senior housing.  She thought we would look down on her.  But once she said that we all were interested in how she did that, and what she said changed my life.  She said once you turn 62 you can sign up at any rental office of any apt. building for senior housing.  It's a HUD thing.  She signed up with all the rental offices in the marina.  She had to wait 2 years, but she has a 2 bedroom apt with an ocean view, and she pays a third of what Ted and I are paying for our apartment, and we both turned 62 this year.  Another lady in the group also found this information valuable, and was even more distraught than me and I hugged her and that turned out to be just what she needed, just a hug.  I feel really lucky to have met all of them.  I feel like I made 4 new friends, and learned so much stuff about being a senior.  It's still sinking in that I'm a "senior" too.  

Week following Oct 16, 2011

The title of today's page is an example of how we name our archive folders in the document center.  It seemed like a fitting way to count down the remaining weeks to its extinction.

So this weekend I got to catch up with my life a little bit.  I really wanted to sleep late Saturday, but cousin Phil was insisting on taking me out for my birthday (it's "Tradition!" - which song he may have even sang at me) and I had already canceled on him last weekend, so I literally rose for the occasion, we ate and celebrated, after which I stopped off at the market (a hugely valiant effort), stuffed the food in the frig and finally fell back into bed.  I would nap a couple hours, wake up depressed and fall back to sleep, or wake up refreshed and fall back in bed exhausted after only brushing my teeth or feeding the cat.

Oy, such a week I had.  My manager couldn't even smile at me.  The receptionist did smile at me, which was eerie because she never had before (not because she's unfriendly, just too frazzled to look up). A paralegal I had barely ever conversed with reduced me to tears in the lunchroom.  She inquired about each of the doc center operators and I thanked her for her interest, because she was more inquisitive than anyone else had been.  She exploded into a rampage of appreciation for me and the doc center that was so emphatic ("couldn't have done her job without us, and don't think we won't be missed") that she left me in the lunchroom a crying mess, where I thought I would have enough time to regain composure before anyone else entered, but I didn't. The hostess found me and became terribly concerned before I had a chance to run into the bathroom and clean up.  All week long I have been hearing an earful about how things will be after we're gone.  Entertainment won't send their work out (even the doc center never had access to their documents, much to their own constant annoyance).  A paralegal gave me an extremely well thought out analysis of exactly what will happen without the document center.  Two attorneys told me they would be a reference (against firm policy). The office was like a morgue.  I'm wondering if it will continue to be this glum all the way to 11/11/11?  It all made me want to run home and find my tin foil hat.

And, don't forget, this is all deja vu to me.  I'm still reeling from the big life change of David dropping dead.  I arranged my whole life around my job, so now my life is arranged around nothing.  It is easy to say that I could find another job - in fact, I have easily said it, and our old manager already emailed and regaled us with stories of horrible operators he has suffered since leaving us, and let us know what he had available at his firm which was basically nothing.  But, I can't enter that pressure cooker again.  I have an anxiety attack just thinking about it.  No, I've been rode too long and hard to do it any more. The decades of TOA tension is reason enough to run screaming from ever again getting another doc center job, but the last few years of schedule changes, no raises and refused vacations have finally caught up with me.  I've been running on fumes pretty much since David died already.  Whatever kept me pumped at work has died.  I have no mind left.  

G started taking a bag of stuff a day home, and I followed suit.  So, now I reach for pen trays that are no longer there - something is rearranged every day.  My old familiar cubicle had been like a private office because nobody could see me back here.  It is up against the proofing tables that run along the back wall, so I had a lot of space for all my personal projects (the proofer was laid off years ago).  It was heaven.  I really had a dream job.  I'm really glad I wasn't escorted from the premises by security and had time to say goodbye, apparently sometimes to people I hadn't even known were my friends.

But, it's sinking in.  I'm REALLY retired.  I really can do anything I want for the rest of my life.  I'm finally free to become the crazy lady with 100 cats that never leaves her house.  I can really do this.  I can live the creative life I have always wanted to.  I can read and draw and write and bead and cook or travel or do nothing all day.  How long have I wanted to do that?  Since high school.  Now's my time!  Yay.  I'm so blissed out.  I just wish I wasn't so depressed about it, and I wish it wasn't so hard to get through big life changes, and I wish I had a boyfriend.

Today I told all this to a guy that called me from a dating site, who is also a recluse.  I asked him what he thought the odds were of one recluse meeting another recluse on a dating site?  He didn't think the odds were that high.  We have a date next Sunday night, which he's already calling "our first date."

Announcement Day

The email announcement was long and fascinating. Clearly we can't provide this kind of 24/7/365 service:

"In partnership with the General Counsel's office, we created a solution that exceeds our internal security and client confidentiality requirements. These requirements apply to both the people at Integreon, as well as firm data. Background-checks, conflict-clearance and non-disclosure agreements are required for anyone working directly on our account. In addition, our operators will be located in a separate and secure physical space within Integreon's facility in Fargo, ND, with a number of monitoring and reporting procedures in place." 

And, clearly, those in charge prefer order to the chaos that currently exists:

"For our users, the new platform will offer immediate benefits.  Currently, our users are partially responsible for directing their work into the centers by using one of seven email addresses, three phone numbers, three fax numbers or a limited web form (or contacting their preferred document center employee directly).  At implementation, this will be streamlined into one email address, one phone number, and one fax number which can be reached by anyone with an email address." 

This is what greeted me when I walked in this morning, next to G's photograph du jour:

G is behind "The Scream" trying to explain style separators over the phone.  The caller probably doesn't realize that it is a customized application that will be gone when the Document Center closes.

Then End of the National Document Center

We found out this morning that we've been outsourced.  I was sharing a super rush (the most unstable document I have had in my entire career) with the Doral doc center when we received word that they were about to go into a meeting with our national document center manager.  On my end, the office and human resources managers interrupted my mad rush with no concern, closed the door, and sat down looking very hang dog at me and G.  Since the first thing out of the office manager's mouth was "this is not good news," I figured it wasn't going to be good news.

So, I have been forced into early retirement today!!  Life doesn't get any more exciting than this. Thirty or so national document services specialists are being outsourced by Integreon.  I had thought of applying with them but they require a college degree (my stints at every city and community college within a 50 mile radius of my metropolis resulted in only an AA degree).  My last day will be 11/11/11.  I'll have a chunk of money from severance and over 9 weeks of accrued vacation, plus I'll get unemployment and let's not leave out the whopping $30 a month pension David left me, so soon I'll be off to see the world.  First stop, South Africa, via New England to visit family there.  My blog should get exciting now!  Any more excitement and I'll really lose my mind.  I was freaking out all day today.  I couldn't believe the document I had to work on today.  I mean, my concentration was basically absent.  I had thought of seeing if anyone else was available to work on that devil document, but I figured everyone else was probably freaking out also.

Well, except for the Silicon Valley operator, who was never part of the center.  She just crashed our party.  I kept her secret.  She saved my butt a time or two.  My James Bond life is over now.  I'm going to publish the Document Center Incident soon, and then leave that life behind me forever.

They are going to announce the closing of the Doc Center to the firm tomorrow.  Oh boy, won't that be fun!?

Sunday morning

Had a wonderful conversation with my daughter on the phone today.  We both finally got brilliant at the same time and figured out that - duh - we should just turn the video off of skype and then we can actually talk, and having figured that out, we can talk every Sunday, and it won't cost us anything, which is good because we are both broke.

So, here she is starting a new life over after being thrown off Mothership and losing her business thereby, and being basically unemployed and homeless in the street with her toddler, and here I am starting my new life over after having jumped Mothership myself, and my husband dropping dead, and finding out who I really am without him.  I'm finding myself, and finding out that I'm not who I think I am, so I'm in a perpetual state of "starting over."  I dress differently than me, and like different things than me, and love way more people than I do, and who am I anyway?  There are so many things I would like to be doing, is staying here going to my job every day really it?  What is holding me Here, really?  So, this morning decisions were made.  Within 2 years either she will be here or I'll be there.  Knowing that makes getting to sleep so much easier for both of us.

Meanwhile, ok, this is why I don't really worry about her.  Along with the horror stories of life as a broke, homeless unemployed single mother with no geographically convenient support group whatsoever, also come stories like this:  she is building her own house and having trouble with the decorations.  My granddaughter doesn't relate to the princess decorations she put up, so she has to update them with Dora the Explorer.  She spent 45 days at an Act for Change event, at which she made 4 lifelong friends and her daughter had a ball, and for which she created a Facebook page for daily following and gave the volunteers a way to stay in touch for the rest of their lives, for which I asked if she got paid?  Uh, no, she didn't get paid.  She sponsored the event.  Okaaaay.  And we wonder why she's broke?  Well, as it turns out, oy, she's such a mensch.  She's organizing her money better and ... actually, she's doing what I've been doing - learning to set aside money and plan how to use it.  She was actually able to afford the dentist when she was dying of pain with a toothache.  That's big.  When I come to visit no, I won't be sharing a room with the kid or sleeping in her office, but she has an actual guest room.  I don't know how we do it.

She's such an inspiration.  She told me she reads my August blog post every day.  Huh? I forgot what I wrote.  We both LOLed.  We even said to each other on the phone as we were laughing "LOL."  I'll have to go see what I wrote and see if it gives me daily inspiration.  

Meanwhile, I can stop worrying that my granddaughter will grow up before I meet her.  Two years will be plenty of time.

And while on the subject of babies, I got to Skype with Viv while I was in Miami.  She runs around and chatters now and has beautiful long black hair. But this is the most recent picture I have from June 2011.  She's standing!

Her grandma told me this story about her: She calls fish "sh" and giraffes "ff" and ducks "ck".  You get the idea.  So, when she saw a swan, you know a duck with a long neck, it was a "ffck." "Look ma, a f*ck!"

Charleston, South Carolina

I arrived in Charleston at the end of August for Erica's wedding on Sept. 4.  Here she is being the flower girl at my wedding:

On the bride's side there was her mom, her aunt (and my cousin) Linda, Phyllis (my (step)sister and Erica's um, 2nd cousin?), her Aunt Melinda (family friend), and me (taking the picture).

On the groom's side, there were these other approximately 150 people:

I don't know who these adorable people are, but they were playing with the props by the photo booth.

Here are my photo booth pictures with the bride:

I had never been to Charleston before and looked forward to meeting the groom and his familiy, visiting with my step-family who I had not seen in ages, and seeing the sights. We went to Ft. Moultrie (Ft. Sumter's sister fort, where the Civil War started, and the bride's mother and I did the historic walking tour at Charles Town Landing (where the wedding took place), and some other museum. I learned that King Charles not only imported into the Colonies indigo, tobacco and cotton seeds, he also imported ginger seeds, along with the entire slave based economy, from Barbados.  So, if a non-slave based economy had thrived in Barbados at the time, I may not have had the opportunity of visiting Market Street where the slaves had been bought and sold, or to visit any forts because there may never have been a Civil War.  For reasons long forgotten Folly Beach had been on my bucket list since the 80s, and I finally got to go.  The bride's mom and I waded in the warm Atlantic, had what had become our traditional afternoon drinks with the bride, and generally had a folly good time. Here we are at Fort Moultrie:

Charleston is beautiful.  Virgin forest is still in everyone's back yard.  You can easily see what the first settlors saw:  abundant forest everywhere, and so easy to chop down a couple of trees and clear off enough land for a house.  Some homes were lucky enough to be bordered by swamp with lazy weeping willows on one side and forest on the other - or unlucky enough, as flooding is a huge problem in Charleston.  The city is below sea level.  Often front yards have ditches where you would see sidewalks in any other city.  Us out-of-towners marveled that the bride and groom's family and friends were mostly all married, homeowners, had children and pets, and had as much employment as they wanted, 2 or 3 jobs. If you are looking for work and a spectacular lifestyle, consider Charleston, SC. And there's more - they have soft water!  


I had the best time, but the trip was emotional and tiring, and I returned home totally pooped. I'm re-thinking the idea of becoming a traveling vagabond in my retirement.  It was emotional because many long-standing misunderstandings came up that had to be clarified (which was wonderful, actually) but I ended up apologizing yet again, hopefully for the last time, for the  Mothership faux pas of my past.  Meeting all the bride's new in-laws, which are a loud, exuberant, big-hearted bunch, was exhausting, but left me feeling like I have a gazillion friends in Charleston.


One person I met, who is simply called "Sensei" (runs the dojo near them, is like a father to the groom and officiated at the wedding), walked into the house one day when it was filled with people (as it usually was) and sat down, unnoticed.  I asked him, "are you Sensei?"  He was, and it turns out is from Hawaii and knew the bowling alley where I was a waitress in 1969.  He even knew the name of it (even said it in Hawaiian), but I never knew its name.  It was "the bowling alley on Kamehameha Highway," just as where I lived then was simply "Wong's Village." Sensei did not know Mr. Wong, but he did know the bowling alley very well, and said they had great food there.  What a small world.


And speaking of great food, Sermet's on King Street (in the stylish shopping and dining area of Charleston) has the most delicious (and healthy) food, and if you go there you could end up getting your drinks made by this lovely creature:

Applying for the marriage license:

I left it up to the wedding photographer to take pictures of the actual wedding.  But I got their first dance:

The bride got exactly the wedding she wanted, which was for everyone she loved to be there, and for them all to have a great time. She arranged it all herself (with a wedding planner who told her she was her best bride), and they both paid for it themselves (the bar was one of the wedding gifts). The weather was great, and not rained out. It was the perfect wedding.

 

Oh, and they gave me the best room in the house (the bride's office)!  Sometimes I shared it with Ichi:

If our life is a message ...

Months ago, meaning to blog about it, I found myself staring at this question on the computer screen:

"If my life is a message, what would my message be?"

I searched the internet for that exact quote, but apparently it isn't one, although the search did bring up others that have been struck by the notion that one's life is a message. Whatever my message is, I'm telegraphing it incessantly, so it is incredible that I actually don't know what it is! Maybe my message is, "I dunno, you know? I dunno." Some action I did on Mothership dealing with how my mind thinks concluded with the postulate "everything is nonsense." I could not argue that that hasn't been my life message.

"I have nothing to say and I'm saying it." - John Cage

And if that wasn't freaky enough, everything is a manifestation. My roommate said that to me the other day and it blew my mind. He was lying on the couch and casually tossed off, "everything is a manifestation." Floored me. It's like we wonder "when it will happen," we wait for "signs," totally missing the point that it ALL is a sign, it is ALL what we asked for. Everything around us informs us of exactly what we are creating at every moment, and everything can change in just one moment. Our life's message is all around us.

I look around at the manifestation that is my totally altered life, just as I'm forgetting what my life had been. I just got rid of my ancient printer, copy/fax machine and Windows computer. I hadn't used them in over a year. I also got rid of a box of electronic gadgets that had been David's that Barb had convinced me would be easy to sell on ebay, but I couldn't even remember what it was. Ted knew what it was and actually wanted it, so I gave it to him. David had also left me a box filled with pennies that is still sitting on my desk. I had it in the trunk of my car for months before I finally managed to haul that tonnage of pennies up to my room, where I put it on my desk and forgot about it. Just today I took a walk and ended up right in front of a bank I never knew was there. I've been meaning to get penny rolls for years for those stupid pennies (even before David croaked), but I don't have a bank. I finally went in and got those penny rolls. Now I'm looking at what else I can get rid of? I have two bookshelves of books that David had collected, one for Stephen Meader, and one for everything Edna St. Vincent Millay ever wrote or was written about her. I picked up Millay's biography for a momentary look and was absolutely captivated. David left me a gift. We loved characters, and what a character she was! And as I read her biography I have her entire collected works to refer to if I like.

I'm contemplating the rest of my life. I had hoped to retire early, but am scared to. A colleague worked so far past retirement age that social security ended up owing him a jackpot of money. He immediately retired and went traveling, called me out of the blue and took me to dinner. I hadn't seen him in 15 years. He told me he had been too scared to retire earlier because he didn't think he could live on social security. I'm thinking the same.

Here's a picture of us sometime in the 90s (left) with Pat (who I was talking to in "Happy Birthday Pat") who wasn't able to join us for dinner on a minute's notice, and on the right is us at the restaurant.

I'm also thinking my country is going to hell and wondering where else I could live.  Canada?  Maybe I could live in northern Maine.  Northern Maine apparently IS Canada (they get their power from Canada, as we are unable to furnish them with power!)  Brazil?  I have always thought Portuguese was the most beautiful sounding language of all.  I would love to learn Portuguese.  I have been fascinated with the Netherlands also, since high school when I learned about their education system in some article.  I hear Amsterdam is a great city.

Or, I could stay here, where I could find work til the day I die.  My two favorite ever managers now work together in the same firm, where I could probably always get work.  The job agencies that know me are still around, and still contact me when they are looking for skilled operators.  I thought this career was dying so many times, it's amazing it is still around with so many losing their jobs.  For years I looked for something else to do as document centers closed down.  Personal computers on everyone's desks rendered document centers a thing of the past, and want ads for them disappeared.  But here I am still.

There's a land between Now and The Future that is a wilderness in which I have become mired, which may explain my recent lack of blogging.  It has kind of left me with nothing to say, because nothing I can think of seems like a message momentous enough to say.

My Daddy (1918-2000)

Daddy's parents:

Daddy's father:

My paternal grandfather was a legendary disciplinarian that terrorized his family (wife and 6 children).  He was also religious, and made the family keep kosher (have 2 sets of dishes). I never met him, or my paternal grandmother.  Cousin S told me, as I blogged recently, that he was a tailor, and as you may remember, so was my maternal grandfather, who was the one and only "Zadih" I ever knew. I knew him until I was 3 years old, when he died, and it was the first time I ever saw my mother cry and I was terrified. All I remember about him was he would bring me cherries and his brother, my Uncle Kiva, carved me astoundingly intricate, beautifully made dollhouse furniture that in unfortunate childhood oblivion I did not see fit to preserve forever. To further add to the regrettability, my Great Aunt Helen (Zadih and Uncle Kiva's sister), who went sadly unappreciated by her nieces and nephews, had hand sewn all the bedclothes.

Daddy child:

Daddy tween:

Daddy teen:

My mom and dad were really romantic:

My dad always looked and sounded on the phone like he was really young. A typical family story is when my brother was born a nurse from some diaper service knocked on the door, and when my father answered she asked him if his mother was home. He told her, "I don't know. You could call her." I forget the rest of the long conversation before she figured out he was the father. My dad was SUCH a kidder. Famous for greeting my Aunt Mary at the door with, "Hello, Mary, did you bring your vagina with you?" I was around 3 and had no idea what a vagina was, but was still horrified and relieved to hear Mary's tinkling laughter resound through the house. Also famous for greeting Cousin Phil's first wife for the first time with: "Oh my, you're looking much better!"


You could never fully know my father without knowing his twin sister Ann, my Aunt Snoony. Here's a typical picture of her as I remember from my childhood:

Here she is with my dad and mom. She's on the left and my mom is on the right.

Here's more of my mom and dad:

As I write this it occurs to me for the first time in my life that I never saw a wedding photo of my mom and dad. Maybe there wasn't one. Or, is this it? That's a gorgeous dress my mom is wearing. I love the embroidery and buttons. I will have to get a better copy of this photo. Someone must have it.

I just now figured out that I don't have any baby pics of me with my parents, which is startling! I've never seen any, and neither have anyone else in my family. I grew up feeling so adored I just can't believe there aren't any. Here's my parents with my brother before I was born (1945ish):

Here's a picture of my 5th birthday party (1955). Note the carousel on the cake, and the following picture of it on my dad's head.

Here's my dad at the piano, where he could be found any time he wasn't eating, sleeping, or having to earn money.

Here's me (1955) sitting on the piano, which was a huge taboo, and greatly upset my parents. I remember my brother snapping this photo in the few seconds of opportunity he had before my parents would find me and start yelling at me to get down:

My mom and dad, 1958:

My dad at my brother's wedding, August 28, 1994:

At our first Cousins Reunion (1997?):

This is the last picture I have of him, typically laughing at I never knew what. He seemed to always have funny stories in his head, and come to think of it, that's probably why I do. Here's another old family story. Before we all followed our friends out to California, my father went first to get a job. He did, and sent for the family, then lost his job.  This was in the days of finding new ways to get out of paying “long distance” fees. My dad used his New York accent to advantage when he asked the California operator to place a person-to-person call to my mother from a Mr. J-A-R-B-L-E-S-S. While my mother hesitantly questioned the operator about a “Mr. Jarbless?” as my dad could count on her to do, he yelled out “Yes, JOBLESS. I'M JOBLESS.” So, she got the message to postpone coming out with the family. Another time when he lost his job he took the whole family out for a Chinese dinner.

I am shocked again to learn that these are the only pictures I have of me with my dad. I don't know how that could have happened. The first is 1955, the second 1958, with my mom:

June in the land of The Lady of Perpetual Petrification

Ah, June!  Dark thoughts finally dissipate and magic like this returns: The Abe tapes that had been passed down to roommate Ted by Barb, who had gotten them from David, and urged to listen to them by me (a fine example of Abe adherence when Barb first deposited me and Lulu in Ted's extra room after David died, where I collapsed, stayed stoned, and never came out), finally moved to the top of Ted's “to do” list and he just grandly announced that he received a great doctor report. This would be the first great doctor report in his entire life ever, and he’s my age. His muscle mass increased, and other signs of actual healing occurred. Ted describes his doctor, who cured himself of cancer, as “the doctor that doctors go to” because he has literally run into his other doctors in his office. After receiving his first ever great medical report he asked him how did he cure himself of cancer? His doctor told him Abe! This must be why Ted and I met. I was meant to introduce Ted to the greatest teacher in the world, and he was meant to introduce me to the doctor that I have been wanting. It's almost as if all you have to do is ask and it is given.

Good riddance to May, when the Thought Police come and imprison my inside crazy where I can't even find it. The Lady of Perpetual Petrification. When I say I lived my life on the edge, I don't mean as a daredevil, I mean life was one terror after another. As a child I once stayed awake an entire night, terrified of a button on my blanket. I was in a mental breakdown for a decade and even kept it from David, who knew me best. That was the hell he got me out of. He rescued me with his Abe CDs.

Now, most of the time, I just don't care that I'm terrified. Life seems odd if I'm not terrified. I have finally given in to my inner schizo and allowed my other personalities to deal with the fear while I live in a dreamy, misty world, the really true one. Lately, I have even been called “serene.”

There was this girl at work that was laughing and dancing alone in the kitchen and I asked her who she was talking to, and she said, “just the party in my head.” She changed my life. I stopped hiding the party in my head. I realized almost everyone feels as joyous and connected as I do, and as genuinely happy to see me as I am to see them. And almost everyone is as terrified as I am. Of the future, of each other, of ourselves. We're protesting the world over for our dignity, squarely facing bullets aimed at our hearts. How terrifying is that? The whole world is on the edge. So, I'm gonna join the party (where I can cry if I want to).

I'm out lookin' for trouble. And I want to see it coming. So I went to the eye doctor. I haven't been to the eye doctor in so long that my records were destroyed – all two (left & right) digital files of them. I was pissed and told my eye doctor that. This time he emailed them to me right after my appointment:

He also told me I had gotten so used to seeing misty that he couldn’t do an accurate exam. My brain just wouldn’t go there. Yep, the story of my life.