Cosmetics, My Dad and Me

My mom came to visit me and brought with her 3 boxes from my dad's old company. There are three things you should know. My Dad was founder and CEO of the cosmetic company, the company traded on Nasdaq and the company was named after me. Which is why mom gave me the stuff. There's so much to say. Let's start with the annual reports. The 1970 and 72 ARs I found have the pink and orange company colors. Since they already established their brand they could move away from the Monica Simone colors and do something cutting edge. And I wonder how I came to work in branding and advertising.

Rich People Need Poor People to Stay Rich

The thing about blogging is that you can be brutally honest. The rich people tell poor people that they too can be rich with the mobility of the American Dream.

More on this later.

No Longer Trust Obama

At first I didn't care - Obama or Clinton. I was going Dem. But now I'm starting to have trouble with Obama. The article about his wife in "The New Yorker" did not make me like her or him. I was impressed with him before I read it. And I'm still impressed with him. But it's a matter of trust. I no longer trust Obama to protect things I have or care about.

I once read an article about why working class Americans voted for Bush even though he would make their lives worse. Things like the Estate Tax bothered them and Bush was going to get rid of it. Abortion bothered them and he was going to only let rich people get them and allow them to ruin their daughters chances of upward mobility. HELLO - the chances of them being touched by an estate tax was tiny. Outsourcing and health care was not on their minds even though those things had a great chance of touching them.

What the article insinuated was that Americans vote for what they think is good for the country rather than what is good for them. I now have the wisdom. It's time to vote for someone who can protect the things I have or care about - not necessarily in that order.

XY and BB

I've been thinking about trends lately. What commonalities will we find with those categorized as Gen X, Gen Y and the good old Baby Boomers. And where do I net out. In a nut shell:
Gen X (30-45) are seeking spirituality. Gen Y (14-30) like Authenticity. Baby Boomers (45-65) wear their beliefs on their sleeves.

I'm a Y and BB. It's funny. If you think about it, they are sort of the same thing. They say things skip a generation. It's starting to make sense to me. Is true wisdom close by?

Are They On Drugs?

Paulo and I went to the school dinner and dance. Ballroom dancing I thought. Ha! Was I wrong. It was Israeli dancing with unbridled passion. After a few horas with "real steps" as he refered to it, he asked me if everyone here was on drugs.

Most schools make the dinner mandatory whether you go or not - you still have to pay for it. They offered first year students a free pass for the dinner. Not everyone took them up on it.

Purim was interesting this year. As my dear readers know, I'm not a fan of holidays or vacations. I sort of have to play along for Cutie. She's on this Star Wars kick with her friend N who was the only one who guessed her costume correctly as Princess Leah. OK it was a white flower girl dress with a white turtleneck, necklace and silver belt. The giveaway was her hair in loops around her ears. It was the best I could do. The battery in the camera wasn't charged.

I So Fucking Love This House

So the Supreme court has agreed to rule on broadcast indecency.

Singer Bono of U2 exulted upon winning a Golden Globe for an original song, calling it "really, really f . . . brilliant."

The use of the word in that context was not "obscene". It was appropriate for language use today. We make words mean what we want them to mean. If someone thinks that context was obscene, they are probably Clients 1-8. (Spitzer was Client 9.)

About the House.
Today we had the file cabinet delivered. It was a Yellow truck. I worked on the merger of Yellow Trucking and Roadway Trucking to make Yellow Roadway (YRC). YRC is just the holding company. I was't impressed with them 4 years ago (I left Interbrand when I was 3 months pregnant with Cutie). However, I really liked the service and driver who dropped off the package. Just goes to show you that CEOs come and go and steal all the money, but your business is really your employees. I was glad to hear that his daughter was in law school and was hoping to buy an apartment in NYC. I won't be buying their stock - it's tanked in the last few years do to higher fuel prices. But I do hope they deliver stuff to me again. I wonder if IKEA uses them. We need to build some closets.

We've been having contractors stop by to look at the house supports, bathrooms (we don't have a real shower, and roof. My favorite thing is when they like using email for communication. I'm waiting for the bids. Then I have to design and pick stuff out at the stores. Yuck.

Can You Spell...

I stop by the Kindergarten class at Cutie's school to pick up some "work" for a friend's daughter who was sick. As I'm waiting there, three children were coloring at a table. A child asked his friends "can you spell ____". Then the child said "Can you spell Shabbot?". His friend challenged him "In Hebrew or English"? The child who asked "in Hebrew or English replied, "In Hebrew it's "shin, bet, taf".

Gotta love this school.

Crochet Coral Reef

These are really beautiful.
About the Crochet Coral Reef

The Institute For Figuring is crocheting a coral reef: a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.
http://www.theiff.org/reef/index.html

What Was He Thinking?

Elliot Spitzer and prostitution! In this day and age did he think he wouldn't get caught? There are cameras everywhere.

On a good note David Paterson, I'm told is a fine man. He spoke at the Hadassah convention this year. I was told he was warm, funny, legally blind and a good man. I was happy of what transpired with Spitzer. I've been out of politics so long it wasn't until today that I read that he was African-American. I dream of a day when we won't even have to write that someone is African-American. Who cares.

Good Old Gerry

I was one of the congressional interns to Geraldine Ferraro in the early 1980's. We had a falling out over Passover. I couldn't do something because it was Passover and she ended up saying that she never wanted to see me in her office again. Our paths crossed a few times after that and I wrote an article in Newsday about the experience.

She's not a racist. But she does need some sensitivity training. Her assertion that Obama was benefiting from his status as the first African American perceived as having the chance to win the presidency is exactly the same as saying that Hilary is benefiting from her husband's presidency. What was she thinking. She shouldn't have gone there.

We Finally Moved.

Bought the new house on Monday afternoon.
Sold the old house on Friday morning.
We moved ourselves.

It turns out that the people buying our house had wanted that house for many years. They are artists and the art studio was perfect for them. They are friends with the neighbors across the shared driveway -- The barking dog neighbors. I liked the people who bought our house and would like to see what they end up doing to it.

Our new house is magnificent. OK there are no closets, missing doorknobs and is riddled with projects in progress. But the views can't be beat.

I locked myself out of the house today. I was frantic because I had to pick Cutie up from school. Our new neighbors live a distance away and no one was home. I was running down the hill to the main road when one of our distant neighbors was leaving. She lent me her phone to call Paulo and drove me back up the hill. We exchanged numbers and hope to be having lunch soon.

Looks like we are going to close.

Looks like we are going to close.

Moving Again

Today is supposed to be our closing date for our new house. We are moving 2 miles away to a slightly larger house with a greenhouse in lieu of a garage. Part of the contract was for the owners to remove the oil tank. They did. However, it leaked a little and now New York State Environmental is involved. This is a problem because according to our lawyer he had a case that cost his client $100,000 in cleanup fees.
We are hoping the owners will put some money in eschew to cover unanticipated costs so we can close today.

I WANT STOCK in Webkinz World

Unfortunately, Ganz, the owner of Webkinz is privately owned. I see the future. Webkinz the movie, theme park, tv series, have I forgot anything?

Star Wars at Three

Cutie comes home from school and tells us she wants to watch Star Wars. I run to the library and take out 3 Star Wars dvds. I have no clude. I'm hoping that Princess Leah is in one of them.

I Want It Goodly

One of Cutie's most annoying expressions is "I want it". This, I'm told is standard fare for children who CAN have everything. I responded "How badly do you want it?" She said "not badly, I want it GOODLY."