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Aug

30

Ode to Nawlins, National Guardsmen and Afghanistan

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“We are a valiant people. We will endure…there are so many more people who lost their lives…”
This from a woman named Harriet, who was being interviewed by a CNN correspondent moments ago as they overlooked the devastation, in the sun now, from Hurricane Katrina.

Twenty minutes before that, CNN broadcast a report from correspondent Jeanne Meserve. She struggled to not break down, but lost it more than a few times as she recounted story after story to someone who sounded like Aaron Brown (what’s he doing on in the morning?):

Animals still alive while tangled in and unable to free themselves from electrical wires. Children being plucked and helicoptered away from their homes. A CNN employee unseen for hours after trying to help someone else in need.

My good friend and college roommate who grew up in N.O evacuated to Nashville with her husband and daughter. She knows nothing about her home, but her mother saw her neighborhood on television and knows that it’s underwater.

For anyone who’s never been, New Orleans is an amazing place. And not just because tombs are above ground (except for the Jewish ones – they got special dispensation to be buried beneath – guess they might also be the ones most likely to float? does that mean they’re witches? too much free association here)(did you know that even with the French and Spanish history of N.O., a Jewish guy gave a ton of money early on and his name is on a huge plaque in the French Quarter right at a big entrance to the boardwalk) or because of Bourbon Street or because of the movie The Big Easy.

New Orleans is a great city because of the diversity in its history and its present. Its geographic significance. It’s religious significance. It’s sports significance. It’s universities. The home of Mardi Gras.

Hey – how about that Louisiana Civil Code for those of us who went to law school? How could you not love a place that codifies common law?

You can guess I’ve been there a few times. And each visit occupies its own place in my mind and in my history.

Visit 1. 1982 NCAA Final Four. Sophomore in college. Junior year roommate-t0-be from N.O. Close friend from Selma, AL. Bus trip from D.C. to N.O. Hours and hours and hours to get there. Most memorable image from the bus ride: Sandy DuPlantier (native N.O., and now lawyer) doing splits in the bus aisle to the song Get Down On It.

I didn’t sleep much for three days, but I cheered my voice out, partied like an O.U. student (couldn’t resist – sorry) and created other memories that will die with only me. (If you remember who made “the pass” and which team won, I’ll buy you a Hurricane. Hmm – I wonder how the reputation of that famous N.O. drink will change now. Now, if you remember the top two players on the other team, I’ll buy you that big, sits on the cement and goes up to your chin Hurricane.)

I’ll give you a hint on “the pass” – he was a sociology major (I know because I was too – only 11 of us out of, like, 1500 students).

Visit 2. Early 1990s. The Ombudsman Association had its annual conference in N.O. and I went. It was one of my first trips alone after having had a child. The House of Blues had just opened and the food was outstanding as always. Great fun. And I didn’t even call home that much.

Visit 3. October 2001. This was a trip of opposites. It was planned pre-9/11 as a 40th birthday celebration and N.O. reunion of Georgetown pals – the original group that had gone in 1982, plus one. After 9/11, none of wanted to cancel. All of us had lived abroad and traveled enough to continue traveling.

I’ll never forget how dead Hopkins was the day I left. DEAD. And absent of anyone who looked different. It seemed as though only middle-aged white males were milling in the terminals. And, really, no one was milling.

Totally eerie.

Four of us rented a condo for four days. Three of us flew in and the friend from AL drove. Once again, I talked with my friends until I lost my voice, slept little and drank a lot and made some memories I’ll never share.

However, I did not flash on Bourbon Street – even though I wasn’t yet 40, somehow, I just wasn’t into it. Which none of these friends could believe because in college, among this group, I was “the girl most likely to.” (If you haven’t read the Susan Sarandon entry, you might want to now.)

I did, however, go to a club where they had foam dancing. No one in Cleveland had ever heard of it, but a few months later, there actually was an article in the PD about foam parties at local clubs. I don’t know if they ever caught on here. I was a party-pooper that night in N.O., though, because, not only didn’t I flash, I also stayed at the downstairs bar where no foam could reach me.

Just from the national guard presence at the airport, I knew something was different on the trip back, Sunday, October 7, 2001. Those men had not been there three days ago when I arrived. And now, they were everywhere around the serpentine security line.

Earlier, I’d been told that my name came up on some search and they had to inspect my bags by hand before they went into baggage check. Then, I was told I had to be wanded. When my face registered frustration at that prospect, the couldn’t have been more than 20 year National Guardsman said something like, some ladies really like it.

Ok, pal. Bad thing to say to someone who’s almost 40, married with three kids and a lawyer and social worker.

I got wanded, picked up my bags and backtracked to the Guardsman. In my most polite, eyelash batting fashion possible, I told him that there are federal laws against harassing women and while I didn’t think he was harassing me, I told him that I thought some women passing through security might interpret such comments otherwise.

And you know what? He thanked me. Now that was unexpected. And, although I can’t quite say that he made me feel badly for saying something to him, he was very sincere in his thanks and I do believe that it never occurred to him that even one-liners like that can be offensive. And, of course, are totally unnecessary.

Anyway, anyone who keeps a political or war-oriented blog will know what was going on without me saying much more. But I didn’t get to figure it out until several hours later when I had to sit in my plane, on the tarmac, in Cleveland. We’re all cellphoning our SOs and immediately we’re buzzing: the U.S. started to bomb Afghanistan just after our plane lifted off.

So, of course, all of us on the plane figured air space was shut down, or there was a terrorist attact. Turned out there was a security breach in Hopkins.

But to be on that plane and not know, for two hours, what was going on, and for our loved ones to only be able to tell us that, well, we’d just started bombing Afghanistan…now that was a memory I hadn’t anticipated.

So, like Harriet on CNN said, “We are a valiant people. We will endure.”

Godspeed Harriet.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:14 am August 30th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

29

What scares you

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I immediately reacted with fear when I saw a full page advertisement for this conference. Why?
First off, its banner headline, LEARN HOW TO GET YOUR SHARE OF MOM’S $1.7 TRILLION ANNUAL SPENDING made me wonder, just how much money don’t I have?

Second, because I’m a mom. Even though I know moms comprise an important sector to which markets market, I despise the idea that millions of dollars will be spent by people to promote and attend a gathering that tells its attendees how to better exploit me. (I feel the same way about marketing conferences that help companies target kids. Cue fumes from my ears.)

Second, the conference is “Presented by Parenting Magazine.”

I may be killing my chances at getting published in that magazine now, but can life be more transparent?

Print operations need ad dollars in order to have more copy. How do the magazines get more ad dollars when cheaper online advertising alternatives are eating up ad budgets faster than you can say “Little Shop of Horrors”? They throw a conference touting the folks that buy their magazines as a major purchasing block.

Who needs blush when anger can make your cheeks red?

Finally, look at the title of some of the sessions:

How To Speak Mom
Word of Mom: A Marketer’s Secret Weapon
Mom’s Life Is A Shopping Life
Reaching The Multi-Minded Mom

Then, in the reality TV tradition, there’s a “Mom Squad” – “Parenting’s team of makeover professionals…all moms themselves,” – who’ll be part of a roundtable presentation moderated by Parenting’s EIC.

As a writer, perhaps I shouldn’t be so up in arms. I should want magazines to increase their ad revenue, right? Because that should mean that they can afford more pages in the magazine and therefore more articles and therefore more freelancers, and better pay for those freelancers, right?

But there’s just something so Punk’d about the whole thing. To know that these people will scheme together and zap me with my own cohort’s words from research on us.

Maybe I’m overreacting. I don’t even consider myself susceptible to ads and I don’t know many people who say that they buy things because they saw it in an ad. However, I occasionally research something I’ve seen in an ad and then decide whether or not I’m interested. So ads make me aware of items I might not otherwise have encountered (like the M2Moms conference).

FYI, I saw the ad for the conference in Fortune Small Business magazine. No surprise that it would be in there. But doesn’t its appearance there imply that the promoters of the conference believe either that

-moms who run women-owned businesses don’t get offended by such promotions,

and

-moms who run women-owned businesses don’t read this magazine

and

-although moms have nearly $2 trillion to fight for, advertising budgets for companies with an interest in moms outweighed any negative feedback from appealing so blatantly to people who want Mom’s dollars?

The conference ad leaves me with a dog eat dog feeling, like, there are moms out there in advertising, making a living, and exploiting their own.

I would like to know the name of the folks responsible for the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty which deals with all women, not just moms, or to females in the ad business who can show me the good marketing that can be done with all that great knowledge about mom’s buying habits. (Full disclosure: I’ve used Dove bar soap twice a day for about 20 years now.)

For the record, ads that highlight how to live a healthy, fun, not necessarily perfect life will always win me over before an ad that tries to help me attain perfection – even if by deception (like buying some food that cooks in 15 seconds but tastes like you slaved all day – although, you know, I might consider something like that, if it tasted good enough).

Final word on this subject: I would go to this conference just because I think it sounds fascinating in the most perverse way (and supposedly a lot of research will be discussed, which I love), but I will be presenting at SPJ’s annual conference in Vegas (on…the BUSINESS of Freelancing, how ironic). Maybe next year though…

___________________

Branding my burgers with a Hoya might scare the guests

And it’s not available yet. But this MOM’S COOKING brand – now that’s some sizzling advertising for my cookin’. (Doesn’t look like you can brand anything from Ohio yet.)

__________________

Really scary:

Got word from the secretary of a friend in Fairhope, Alabama that Hurricane Katrina hasn’t taken power or phone, is packing 50mph sustained winds, and the city’s water pump is out so no water/water pressure. She wrote that the one time she didn’t fill up the tub, it appears that they could’ve used it. Instead, they’ll be using pool water for a while.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:23 pm August 29th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

29

What scares you

Filed Under Politics | Comments Off

I immediately reacted with fear when I saw a full page advertisement for this conference. Why?
First off, its banner headline, LEARN HOW TO GET YOUR SHARE OF MOM’S $1.7 TRILLION ANNUAL SPENDING made me wonder, just how much money don’t I have?

Second, because I’m a mom. Even though I know moms comprise an important sector to which markets market, I despise the idea that millions of dollars will be spent by people to promote and attend a gathering that tells its attendees how to better exploit me. (I feel the same way about marketing conferences that help companies target kids. Cue fumes from my ears.)

Second, the conference is “Presented by Parenting Magazine.”

I may be killing my chances at getting published in that magazine now, but can life be more transparent?

Print operations need ad dollars in order to have more copy. How do the magazines get more ad dollars when cheaper online advertising alternatives are eating up ad budgets faster than you can say “Little Shop of Horrors”? They throw a conference touting the folks that buy their magazines as a major purchasing block.

Who needs blush when anger can make your cheeks red?

Finally, look at the title of some of the sessions:

How To Speak Mom
Word of Mom: A Marketer’s Secret Weapon
Mom’s Life Is A Shopping Life
Reaching The Multi-Minded Mom

Then, in the reality TV tradition, there’s a “Mom Squad” – “Parenting’s team of makeover professionals…all moms themselves,” – who’ll be part of a roundtable presentation moderated by Parenting’s EIC.

As a writer, perhaps I shouldn’t be so up in arms. I should want magazines to increase their ad revenue, right? Because that should mean that they can afford more pages in the magazine and therefore more articles and therefore more freelancers, and better pay for those freelancers, right?

But there’s just something so Punk’d about the whole thing. To know that these people will scheme together and zap me with my own cohort’s words from research on us.

Maybe I’m overreacting. I don’t even consider myself susceptible to ads and I don’t know many people who say that they buy things because they saw it in an ad. However, I occasionally research something I’ve seen in an ad and then decide whether or not I’m interested. So ads make me aware of items I might not otherwise have encountered (like the M2Moms conference).

FYI, I saw the ad for the conference in Fortune Small Business magazine. No surprise that it would be in there. But doesn’t its appearance there imply that the promoters of the conference believe either that

-moms who run women-owned businesses don’t get offended by such promotions,

and

-moms who run women-owned businesses don’t read this magazine

and

-although moms have nearly $2 trillion to fight for, advertising budgets for companies with an interest in moms outweighed any negative feedback from appealing so blatantly to people who want Mom’s dollars?

The conference ad leaves me with a dog eat dog feeling, like, there are moms out there in advertising, making a living, and exploiting their own.

I would like to know the name of the folks responsible for the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty which deals with all women, not just moms, or to females in the ad business who can show me the good marketing that can be done with all that great knowledge about mom’s buying habits. (Full disclosure: I’ve used Dove bar soap twice a day for about 20 years now.)

For the record, ads that highlight how to live a healthy, fun, not necessarily perfect life will always win me over before an ad that tries to help me attain perfection – even if by deception (like buying some food that cooks in 15 seconds but tastes like you slaved all day – although, you know, I might consider something like that, if it tasted good enough).

Final word on this subject: I would go to this conference just because I think it sounds fascinating in the most perverse way (and supposedly a lot of research will be discussed, which I love), but I will be presenting at SPJ’s annual conference in Vegas (on…the BUSINESS of Freelancing, how ironic). Maybe next year though…

___________________

Branding my burgers with a Hoya might scare the guests

And it’s not available yet. But this MOM’S COOKING brand – now that’s some sizzling advertising for my cookin’. (Doesn’t look like you can brand anything from Ohio yet.)

__________________

Really scary:

Got word from the secretary of a friend in Fairhope, Alabama that Hurricane Katrina hasn’t taken power or phone, is packing 50mph sustained winds, and the city’s water pump is out so no water/water pressure. She wrote that the one time she didn’t fill up the tub, it appears that they could’ve used it. Instead, they’ll be using pool water for a while.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:23 am August 29th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

29

What scares you

Filed Under Politics | Comments Off

I immediately reacted with fear when I saw a full page advertisement for this conference. Why?
First off, its banner headline, LEARN HOW TO GET YOUR SHARE OF MOM’S $1.7 TRILLION ANNUAL SPENDING made me wonder, just how much money don’t I have?

Second, because I’m a mom. Even though I know moms comprise an important sector to which markets market, I despise the idea that millions of dollars will be spent by people to promote and attend a gathering that tells its attendees how to better exploit me. (I feel the same way about marketing conferences that help companies target kids. Cue fumes from my ears.)

Second, the conference is “Presented by Parenting Magazine.”

I may be killing my chances at getting published in that magazine now, but can life be more transparent?

Print operations need ad dollars in order to have more copy. How do the magazines get more ad dollars when cheaper online advertising alternatives are eating up ad budgets faster than you can say “Little Shop of Horrors”? They throw a conference touting the folks that buy their magazines as a major purchasing block.

Who needs blush when anger can make your cheeks red?

Finally, look at the title of some of the sessions:

How To Speak Mom
Word of Mom: A Marketer’s Secret Weapon
Mom’s Life Is A Shopping Life
Reaching The Multi-Minded Mom

Then, in the reality TV tradition, there’s a “Mom Squad” – “Parenting’s team of makeover professionals…all moms themselves,” – who’ll be part of a roundtable presentation moderated by Parenting’s EIC.

As a writer, perhaps I shouldn’t be so up in arms. I should want magazines to increase their ad revenue, right? Because that should mean that they can afford more pages in the magazine and therefore more articles and therefore more freelancers, and better pay for those freelancers, right?

But there’s just something so Punk’d about the whole thing. To know that these people will scheme together and zap me with my own cohort’s words from research on us.

Maybe I’m overreacting. I don’t even consider myself susceptible to ads and I don’t know many people who say that they buy things because they saw it in an ad. However, I occasionally research something I’ve seen in an ad and then decide whether or not I’m interested. So ads make me aware of items I might not otherwise have encountered (like the M2Moms conference).

FYI, I saw the ad for the conference in Fortune Small Business magazine. No surprise that it would be in there. But doesn’t its appearance there imply that the promoters of the conference believe either that

-moms who run women-owned businesses don’t get offended by such promotions,

and

-moms who run women-owned businesses don’t read this magazine

and

-although moms have nearly $2 trillion to fight for, advertising budgets for companies with an interest in moms outweighed any negative feedback from appealing so blatantly to people who want Mom’s dollars?

The conference ad leaves me with a dog eat dog feeling, like, there are moms out there in advertising, making a living, and exploiting their own.

I would like to know the name of the folks responsible for the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty which deals with all women, not just moms, or to females in the ad business who can show me the good marketing that can be done with all that great knowledge about mom’s buying habits. (Full disclosure: I’ve used Dove bar soap twice a day for about 20 years now.)

For the record, ads that highlight how to live a healthy, fun, not necessarily perfect life will always win me over before an ad that tries to help me attain perfection – even if by deception (like buying some food that cooks in 15 seconds but tastes like you slaved all day – although, you know, I might consider something like that, if it tasted good enough).

Final word on this subject: I would go to this conference just because I think it sounds fascinating in the most perverse way (and supposedly a lot of research will be discussed, which I love), but I will be presenting at SPJ’s annual conference in Vegas (on…the BUSINESS of Freelancing, how ironic). Maybe next year though…

___________________

Branding my burgers with a Hoya might scare the guests

And it’s not available yet. But this MOM’S COOKING brand – now that’s some sizzling advertising for my cookin’. (Doesn’t look like you can brand anything from Ohio yet.)

__________________

Really scary:

Got word from the secretary of a friend in Fairhope, Alabama that Hurricane Katrina hasn’t taken power or phone, is packing 50mph sustained winds, and the city’s water pump is out so no water/water pressure. She wrote that the one time she didn’t fill up the tub, it appears that they could’ve used it. Instead, they’ll be using pool water for a while.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:23 am August 29th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

28

I’m no Susan Sarandon but…

Filed Under Politics | 3 Comments

I have an agreement with unnamed individuals that I won’t discuss certain types of information or incidents on this blog. However, I just received word that at least one member of the Pepper Pike four year old population wants to elevate me to Susan Sarandon status when it comes to certain body parts. He copped a feel the other day in a most hit and run fashion (as in ran right into his mother’s lap after my face registered shock for about a second before I broke into laughter). (BTW, the mother is a brilliant, fun-loving friend of mine whom I adore.)

I love Susan Sarandon. I’ve got a family history of breast cancer. Every day I get to keep these body parts is a blessed day.

But, let it be known: the next four year old to do the same thing, I’m outting you on this blog, baby.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:22 pm August 28th, 2005 in Politics | 3 Comments 

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Aug

28

The Chosen

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I felt very “in” this morning. After I slid my PD out of its plastic bag, pulled out the sections I read first and turned to the back page of PDQ, I immediately recognized the attributions for two of the bloggers quoted.

But the funny thing about the fact that I did this is that up until last week, I’d pretty much stopped reading PDQ. I read all the other sections that I pull from the Sunday PD and NYT before PDQ because the information in that section hasn’t risen to the level of interest I have for the other sections I choose (Forum (PD) and Week in Review (NYT), Sunday Arts (PD), Sunday Style (NYT), Arts (NYT), Parade, two magazines and the NYT Book Review (those four usually go up to my night table for bedtime reading) and Business (both)).

So why did I change my habit?

Because of this post and subsequent ones on George Nemeth’s Brewed Fresh Daily blog and this post on Tim Russo’s Democracy Guy blog. (Hope I got the attribution right, guys.) (That’s a joke.)

And I read those blogs because of John Ettorre (and his blog, Working with Words), who connected me to Mr. Nemeth. Since then, the Faberge Organic Shampoo effect has kicked in (“and so on and so on and so on”) when it comes to the range and quantity of blogs I’m reading.

So, PDQ and attribution was a hot topic last Sunday/Monday/Tuesday on a couple of these blogs and, for better or worse, their coverage about appropriate quoting, context and attribution made me curious enough to read this week’s PDQ before all my other sainted sections.

Of course, it’s also, well, Pretty Darn Quick to scan that PDQ backpage and see if I know any of the blogs mentioned. And in fact, I’d even READ one of the quotes, firsthand.

What does this mean?

I’m not sure. But for one thing, the blog posts about blog posts being quoted in PDQ had the effect of making me read PDQ when I hadn’t been reading it at all. And, for a section about which I’ve read a lot of not so nice comments, my deviation from habit seems to be counter to what those comments imply about the quality of the section, and yet also speaks exactly to what everyone in the media knows: it doesn’t matter if coverage is positive or negative; any coverage is going to result in a spike in interest – no matter the matter.
__________

Ingenuity Festival and another tip of the hat to blogs

I felt “in” yet again this morning when I saw that the Ingenuity Festival – which I heretofore only knew about because of references to it in my www.coolcleveland.com e-newsletter (which I only get because I read about it on a blog) – was covered in the PD’s Sunday Arts section, complete with a full page map and schedule.

Didn’t I say that I pull the PD Sunday Arts section and read it anyway? Yes, but I normally ignore big downtown festivals like this one. So, thanks to the blogs, I knew about it and Carolyn Jack’s article was the first full article I read today.

Now, about that ignoring thing – I’m opening myself up here, I know, but I have many conflicting feelings on the subject of big draw, city-centered events. Many of which are very personal and have nothing to do with the city per se.

It all stems from the fact that I don’t know where to park and that information isn’t provided in the PD article or on the festival’s website (not that I could find but I’d love to be corrected – hint hint).

And while this might seem trivial (especially because I used to work downtown, my spouse works downtown and I go downtown enough to know where I might park), it’s actually tied to several reasons for why I shy away from big events in cities.

Ever since I visited Cairo, Egypt and a year later got mugged in NYC, I’ve battled feeling comfortable in cities.

Though many people love Cairo, I hated every minute I was there. I couldn’t appreciate any of it because I was overwhelmed by the size, the inequalities, the brown, dusty, beige-ness even in the bright sun, the squallor and the fact that a city could be so incapable of caring for its own that thousands of its own lived in a cemetary, the City of the Dead.

I’ve lived my whole life at this existential level when it comes to observing how people live and take care of one another. And I say this to support my knowledge that some people might think I’m being melodramatic here.

I’m not. I really felt and, twenty years later, I still feel this way.

Then, I was mugged by five 16-19 year olds in Manhattan in 1986 near the Prince George Hotel. For those who don’t know NYC or NYC at that time, the Prince George housed welfare clients and had a bad reputation. I knew the city well but not this area. I’d gone with a bunch of friends to a restaurant called Dubrovnik for eating and dancing. Around 11pm or so, a male friend of mine and I decided to go for a walk. We were the only two non-natives in the bunch but both of us had spent a lot of time in NYC.

We walked down an avenue then turned down the street of the Prince George. My friend got “body challenged” by a few of the kids sitting on the stoops but they let us pass – too many people around. We then headed east on the next avenue and then turned again – making a square – back toward the restaurant.

Shortly after we’d turned the corner, five large guys jumped us flat to the ground. They kicked and beat up my friend and I ran. But as I ran I thought, I can’t be running – they’re kicking my friend. And when I stopped running, one of the guys caught up to me and shoved me against a building.

I was certain that I was about to be raped. Where were all the cars? There were no cars. Where were the people? There were no people.

I remember saying to myself, scream, scream, scream. So I started to scream and the guy looked flustered. He ripped a silver chain and ingot off my neck, shouted to the other guys that they need to go and they fled.

Only a year or two ago did I realize that the way I behave in and around cities is basically PTSD related to that mugging. And I won’t bother with the kookie details of how that’s manifested itself over the last 18 years.

Suffice it to say that, well, I’d really like to know where there’ll be good parking for the Ingenuity Festival. Because I’d really like to go, but, well, I need to know about that parking.

I live in the burbs. I know I can take RTA down there but I don’t know if I want to. In any case, I think that the provision of parking information to the readers of the PD who promoters want to attract to the event is vital to attracting them.

Better yet, just provide some info called “how to get there” and include in that section, parking info. Seriously. Because even this little call-out of preview information in the paper doesn’t mention how to get there.

If it’s there and I’ve missed it, well, I’ll chance it and say that I’m not the only who missed it. If it isn’t there, it needs to be – don’t you think?

I’m not being flip here, but I have to believe that the paper and the promoters want to attract people who may never have been downtown before, not just the ones who already know how to get there. And if you want to make folks who might not normally go downtown go downtown, you need to help them feel like they’ll know how to do that without getting lost or feeling lost.

I don’t know about you, but I hate getting lost and I hate not knowing where I’m going and I’m much less likely to try something new and different if I don’t know where I should park myself first.

So – just a suggestion – for anyone who reads this blog and knows wha the festival is recommending for transportation, let’s help point people to that information so that they can feel as at home and inspired and as proud as the folks who already plan to be there.

To summarize: I love cities. I grew up loving cities and wanting to be fearless. My parents let me take the train from New Haven to NYC by myself or with friends when I was teenager.

But then a few things happened on my way to being a poster child for Go Travel! and now I have kids to watch and a few teeny suppressed fears that make me more cautious than perhaps I need to be. And now I accept any “out” for going to big city events unless I’ve got a firm idea of where I’m going, who I’ll be with and where my escape routes are.

Nothing, not a thing, against Cleveland, Cleveland people, Cleveland law enforcement, Cleveland city design.

But I need a high level of comfort going into these things. And, well, yeah, parking is one of them. (That Ingenuity Festival map in the PD goes a long way to making me feel comfy, I must say. Now, just show me where the lost child booth is and the parking next to a police station, and I’ll be all set!)

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:23 pm August 28th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

28

I’m no Susan Sarandon but…

Filed Under Politics | 3 Comments

I have an agreement with unnamed individuals that I won’t discuss certain types of information or incidents on this blog. However, I just received word that at least one member of the Pepper Pike four year old population wants to elevate me to Susan Sarandon status when it comes to certain body parts. He copped a feel the other day in a most hit and run fashion (as in ran right into his mother’s lap after my face registered shock for about a second before I broke into laughter). (BTW, the mother is a brilliant, fun-loving friend of mine whom I adore.)

I love Susan Sarandon. I’ve got a family history of breast cancer. Every day I get to keep these body parts is a blessed day.

But, let it be known: the next four year old to do the same thing, I’m outting you on this blog, baby.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:22 pm August 28th, 2005 in Politics | 3 Comments 

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Aug

28

The Chosen

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I felt very “in” this morning. After I slid my PD out of its plastic bag, pulled out the sections I read first and turned to the back page of PDQ, I immediately recognized the attributions for two of the bloggers quoted.

But the funny thing about the fact that I did this is that up until last week, I’d pretty much stopped reading PDQ. I read all the other sections that I pull from the Sunday PD and NYT before PDQ because the information in that section hasn’t risen to the level of interest I have for the other sections I choose (Forum (PD) and Week in Review (NYT), Sunday Arts (PD), Sunday Style (NYT), Arts (NYT), Parade, two magazines and the NYT Book Review (those four usually go up to my night table for bedtime reading) and Business (both)).

So why did I change my habit?

Because of this post and subsequent ones on George Nemeth’s Brewed Fresh Daily blog and this post on Tim Russo’s Democracy Guy blog. (Hope I got the attribution right, guys.) (That’s a joke.)

And I read those blogs because of John Ettorre (and his blog, Working with Words), who connected me to Mr. Nemeth. Since then, the Faberge Organic Shampoo effect has kicked in (“and so on and so on and so on”) when it comes to the range and quantity of blogs I’m reading.

So, PDQ and attribution was a hot topic last Sunday/Monday/Tuesday on a couple of these blogs and, for better or worse, their coverage about appropriate quoting, context and attribution made me curious enough to read this week’s PDQ before all my other sainted sections.

Of course, it’s also, well, Pretty Darn Quick to scan that PDQ backpage and see if I know any of the blogs mentioned. And in fact, I’d even READ one of the quotes, firsthand.

What does this mean?

I’m not sure. But for one thing, the blog posts about blog posts being quoted in PDQ had the effect of making me read PDQ when I hadn’t been reading it at all. And, for a section about which I’ve read a lot of not so nice comments, my deviation from habit seems to be counter to what those comments imply about the quality of the section, and yet also speaks exactly to what everyone in the media knows: it doesn’t matter if coverage is positive or negative; any coverage is going to result in a spike in interest – no matter the matter.
__________

Ingenuity Festival and another tip of the hat to blogs

I felt “in” yet again this morning when I saw that the Ingenuity Festival – which I heretofore only knew about because of references to it in my www.coolcleveland.com e-newsletter (which I only get because I read about it on a blog) – was covered in the PD’s Sunday Arts section, complete with a full page map and schedule.

Didn’t I say that I pull the PD Sunday Arts section and read it anyway? Yes, but I normally ignore big downtown festivals like this one. So, thanks to the blogs, I knew about it and Carolyn Jack’s article was the first full article I read today.

Now, about that ignoring thing – I’m opening myself up here, I know, but I have many conflicting feelings on the subject of big draw, city-centered events. Many of which are very personal and have nothing to do with the city per se.

It all stems from the fact that I don’t know where to park and that information isn’t provided in the PD article or on the festival’s website (not that I could find but I’d love to be corrected – hint hint).

And while this might seem trivial (especially because I used to work downtown, my spouse works downtown and I go downtown enough to know where I might park), it’s actually tied to several reasons for why I shy away from big events in cities.

Ever since I visited Cairo, Egypt and a year later got mugged in NYC, I’ve battled feeling comfortable in cities.

Though many people love Cairo, I hated every minute I was there. I couldn’t appreciate any of it because I was overwhelmed by the size, the inequalities, the brown, dusty, beige-ness even in the bright sun, the squallor and the fact that a city could be so incapable of caring for its own that thousands of its own lived in a cemetary, the City of the Dead.

I’ve lived my whole life at this existential level when it comes to observing how people live and take care of one another. And I say this to support my knowledge that some people might think I’m being melodramatic here.

I’m not. I really felt and, twenty years later, I still feel this way.

Then, I was mugged by five 16-19 year olds in Manhattan in 1986 near the Prince George Hotel. For those who don’t know NYC or NYC at that time, the Prince George housed welfare clients and had a bad reputation. I knew the city well but not this area. I’d gone with a bunch of friends to a restaurant called Dubrovnik for eating and dancing. Around 11pm or so, a male friend of mine and I decided to go for a walk. We were the only two non-natives in the bunch but both of us had spent a lot of time in NYC.

We walked down an avenue then turned down the street of the Prince George. My friend got “body challenged” by a few of the kids sitting on the stoops but they let us pass – too many people around. We then headed east on the next avenue and then turned again – making a square – back toward the restaurant.

Shortly after we’d turned the corner, five large guys jumped us flat to the ground. They kicked and beat up my friend and I ran. But as I ran I thought, I can’t be running – they’re kicking my friend. And when I stopped running, one of the guys caught up to me and shoved me against a building.

I was certain that I was about to be raped. Where were all the cars? There were no cars. Where were the people? There were no people.

I remember saying to myself, scream, scream, scream. So I started to scream and the guy looked flustered. He ripped a silver chain and ingot off my neck, shouted to the other guys that they need to go and they fled.

Only a year or two ago did I realize that the way I behave in and around cities is basically PTSD related to that mugging. And I won’t bother with the kookie details of how that’s manifested itself over the last 18 years.

Suffice it to say that, well, I’d really like to know where there’ll be good parking for the Ingenuity Festival. Because I’d really like to go, but, well, I need to know about that parking.

I live in the burbs. I know I can take RTA down there but I don’t know if I want to. In any case, I think that the provision of parking information to the readers of the PD who promoters want to attract to the event is vital to attracting them.

Better yet, just provide some info called “how to get there” and include in that section, parking info. Seriously. Because even this little call-out of preview information in the paper doesn’t mention how to get there.

If it’s there and I’ve missed it, well, I’ll chance it and say that I’m not the only who missed it. If it isn’t there, it needs to be – don’t you think?

I’m not being flip here, but I have to believe that the paper and the promoters want to attract people who may never have been downtown before, not just the ones who already know how to get there. And if you want to make folks who might not normally go downtown go downtown, you need to help them feel like they’ll know how to do that without getting lost or feeling lost.

I don’t know about you, but I hate getting lost and I hate not knowing where I’m going and I’m much less likely to try something new and different if I don’t know where I should park myself first.

So – just a suggestion – for anyone who reads this blog and knows wha the festival is recommending for transportation, let’s help point people to that information so that they can feel as at home and inspired and as proud as the folks who already plan to be there.

To summarize: I love cities. I grew up loving cities and wanting to be fearless. My parents let me take the train from New Haven to NYC by myself or with friends when I was teenager.

But then a few things happened on my way to being a poster child for Go Travel! and now I have kids to watch and a few teeny suppressed fears that make me more cautious than perhaps I need to be. And now I accept any “out” for going to big city events unless I’ve got a firm idea of where I’m going, who I’ll be with and where my escape routes are.

Nothing, not a thing, against Cleveland, Cleveland people, Cleveland law enforcement, Cleveland city design.

But I need a high level of comfort going into these things. And, well, yeah, parking is one of them. (That Ingenuity Festival map in the PD goes a long way to making me feel comfy, I must say. Now, just show me where the lost child booth is and the parking next to a police station, and I’ll be all set!)

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:23 am August 28th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

28

I’m no Susan Sarandon but…

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I have an agreement with unnamed individuals that I won’t discuss certain types of information or incidents on this blog. However, I just received word that at least one member of the Pepper Pike four year old population wants to elevate me to Susan Sarandon status when it comes to certain body parts. He copped a feel the other day in a most hit and run fashion (as in ran right into his mother’s lap after my face registered shock for about a second before I broke into laughter). (BTW, the mother is a brilliant, fun-loving friend of mine whom I adore.)

I love Susan Sarandon. I’ve got a family history of breast cancer. Every day I get to keep these body parts is a blessed day.

But, let it be known: the next four year old to do the same thing, I’m outting you on this blog, baby.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:22 am August 28th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

28

The Chosen

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I felt very “in” this morning. After I slid my PD out of its plastic bag, pulled out the sections I read first and turned to the back page of PDQ, I immediately recognized the attributions for two of the bloggers quoted.

But the funny thing about the fact that I did this is that up until last week, I’d pretty much stopped reading PDQ. I read all the other sections that I pull from the Sunday PD and NYT before PDQ because the information in that section hasn’t risen to the level of interest I have for the other sections I choose (Forum (PD) and Week in Review (NYT), Sunday Arts (PD), Sunday Style (NYT), Arts (NYT), Parade, two magazines and the NYT Book Review (those four usually go up to my night table for bedtime reading) and Business (both)).

So why did I change my habit?

Because of this post and subsequent ones on George Nemeth’s Brewed Fresh Daily blog and this post on Tim Russo’s Democracy Guy blog. (Hope I got the attribution right, guys.) (That’s a joke.)

And I read those blogs because of John Ettorre (and his blog, Working with Words), who connected me to Mr. Nemeth. Since then, the Faberge Organic Shampoo effect has kicked in (“and so on and so on and so on”) when it comes to the range and quantity of blogs I’m reading.

So, PDQ and attribution was a hot topic last Sunday/Monday/Tuesday on a couple of these blogs and, for better or worse, their coverage about appropriate quoting, context and attribution made me curious enough to read this week’s PDQ before all my other sainted sections.

Of course, it’s also, well, Pretty Darn Quick to scan that PDQ backpage and see if I know any of the blogs mentioned. And in fact, I’d even READ one of the quotes, firsthand.

What does this mean?

I’m not sure. But for one thing, the blog posts about blog posts being quoted in PDQ had the effect of making me read PDQ when I hadn’t been reading it at all. And, for a section about which I’ve read a lot of not so nice comments, my deviation from habit seems to be counter to what those comments imply about the quality of the section, and yet also speaks exactly to what everyone in the media knows: it doesn’t matter if coverage is positive or negative; any coverage is going to result in a spike in interest – no matter the matter.
__________

Ingenuity Festival and another tip of the hat to blogs

I felt “in” yet again this morning when I saw that the Ingenuity Festival – which I heretofore only knew about because of references to it in my www.coolcleveland.com e-newsletter (which I only get because I read about it on a blog) – was covered in the PD’s Sunday Arts section, complete with a full page map and schedule.

Didn’t I say that I pull the PD Sunday Arts section and read it anyway? Yes, but I normally ignore big downtown festivals like this one. So, thanks to the blogs, I knew about it and Carolyn Jack’s article was the first full article I read today.

Now, about that ignoring thing – I’m opening myself up here, I know, but I have many conflicting feelings on the subject of big draw, city-centered events. Many of which are very personal and have nothing to do with the city per se.

It all stems from the fact that I don’t know where to park and that information isn’t provided in the PD article or on the festival’s website (not that I could find but I’d love to be corrected – hint hint).

And while this might seem trivial (especially because I used to work downtown, my spouse works downtown and I go downtown enough to know where I might park), it’s actually tied to several reasons for why I shy away from big events in cities.

Ever since I visited Cairo, Egypt and a year later got mugged in NYC, I’ve battled feeling comfortable in cities.

Though many people love Cairo, I hated every minute I was there. I couldn’t appreciate any of it because I was overwhelmed by the size, the inequalities, the brown, dusty, beige-ness even in the bright sun, the squallor and the fact that a city could be so incapable of caring for its own that thousands of its own lived in a cemetary, the City of the Dead.

I’ve lived my whole life at this existential level when it comes to observing how people live and take care of one another. And I say this to support my knowledge that some people might think I’m being melodramatic here.

I’m not. I really felt and, twenty years later, I still feel this way.

Then, I was mugged by five 16-19 year olds in Manhattan in 1986 near the Prince George Hotel. For those who don’t know NYC or NYC at that time, the Prince George housed welfare clients and had a bad reputation. I knew the city well but not this area. I’d gone with a bunch of friends to a restaurant called Dubrovnik for eating and dancing. Around 11pm or so, a male friend of mine and I decided to go for a walk. We were the only two non-natives in the bunch but both of us had spent a lot of time in NYC.

We walked down an avenue then turned down the street of the Prince George. My friend got “body challenged” by a few of the kids sitting on the stoops but they let us pass – too many people around. We then headed east on the next avenue and then turned again – making a square – back toward the restaurant.

Shortly after we’d turned the corner, five large guys jumped us flat to the ground. They kicked and beat up my friend and I ran. But as I ran I thought, I can’t be running – they’re kicking my friend. And when I stopped running, one of the guys caught up to me and shoved me against a building.

I was certain that I was about to be raped. Where were all the cars? There were no cars. Where were the people? There were no people.

I remember saying to myself, scream, scream, scream. So I started to scream and the guy looked flustered. He ripped a silver chain and ingot off my neck, shouted to the other guys that they need to go and they fled.

Only a year or two ago did I realize that the way I behave in and around cities is basically PTSD related to that mugging. And I won’t bother with the kookie details of how that’s manifested itself over the last 18 years.

Suffice it to say that, well, I’d really like to know where there’ll be good parking for the Ingenuity Festival. Because I’d really like to go, but, well, I need to know about that parking.

I live in the burbs. I know I can take RTA down there but I don’t know if I want to. In any case, I think that the provision of parking information to the readers of the PD who promoters want to attract to the event is vital to attracting them.

Better yet, just provide some info called “how to get there” and include in that section, parking info. Seriously. Because even this little call-out of preview information in the paper doesn’t mention how to get there.

If it’s there and I’ve missed it, well, I’ll chance it and say that I’m not the only who missed it. If it isn’t there, it needs to be – don’t you think?

I’m not being flip here, but I have to believe that the paper and the promoters want to attract people who may never have been downtown before, not just the ones who already know how to get there. And if you want to make folks who might not normally go downtown go downtown, you need to help them feel like they’ll know how to do that without getting lost or feeling lost.

I don’t know about you, but I hate getting lost and I hate not knowing where I’m going and I’m much less likely to try something new and different if I don’t know where I should park myself first.

So – just a suggestion – for anyone who reads this blog and knows wha the festival is recommending for transportation, let’s help point people to that information so that they can feel as at home and inspired and as proud as the folks who already plan to be there.

To summarize: I love cities. I grew up loving cities and wanting to be fearless. My parents let me take the train from New Haven to NYC by myself or with friends when I was teenager.

But then a few things happened on my way to being a poster child for Go Travel! and now I have kids to watch and a few teeny suppressed fears that make me more cautious than perhaps I need to be. And now I accept any “out” for going to big city events unless I’ve got a firm idea of where I’m going, who I’ll be with and where my escape routes are.

Nothing, not a thing, against Cleveland, Cleveland people, Cleveland law enforcement, Cleveland city design.

But I need a high level of comfort going into these things. And, well, yeah, parking is one of them. (That Ingenuity Festival map in the PD goes a long way to making me feel comfy, I must say. Now, just show me where the lost child booth is and the parking next to a police station, and I’ll be all set!)

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:23 am August 28th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

27

Suburban blogs

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Found one for Bay Village on the cleveland.com site but its last entry was 7/21: Have a great summer.

Googled “suburban blogs” and began to view a few. Diary of a housewife; suburban sex blog by a guy about his pregnant wife, Little Island about making life meaningful in suburbia…

So far, not what I’m looking for.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:54 pm August 27th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

27

37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public

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Results of the 37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools were released this past Tuesday (8/23/05). I haven’t had time to review it, but I urge anyone interested in public education to take a look at the press release for a summary.

The gist is similar to last year: NCLB isn’t well-liked, well-followed or well thought of when it comes to really measuring what kids are learning or helping inform what kids should be learning.

I’m so shocked I think I’ll have to stop blogging.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:48 pm August 27th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

27

Hasta luego

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That’s the effect Norton Mayor Joseph Kernan’s veto had on an English-only city council resolution, that Norton’s City Council passed 4-3. The article quotes supporters of the vetoed resolution – passed in a city in Summit County, where nearly all 11,000 residents speaks English already – as saying that the mayor will feel a backlash and be booted.

I think, and I hope, they’re wrong.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:23 pm August 27th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

27

Suburban blogs

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Found one for Bay Village on the cleveland.com site but its last entry was 7/21: Have a great summer.

Googled “suburban blogs” and began to view a few. Diary of a housewife; suburban sex blog by a guy about his pregnant wife, Little Island about making life meaningful in suburbia…

So far, not what I’m looking for.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:54 pm August 27th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

27

37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public

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Results of the 37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools were released this past Tuesday (8/23/05). I haven’t had time to review it, but I urge anyone interested in public education to take a look at the press release for a summary.

The gist is similar to last year: NCLB isn’t well-liked, well-followed or well thought of when it comes to really measuring what kids are learning or helping inform what kids should be learning.

I’m so shocked I think I’ll have to stop blogging.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:48 pm August 27th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

27

Hasta luego

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That’s the effect Norton Mayor Joseph Kernan’s veto had on an English-only city council resolution, that Norton’s City Council passed 4-3. The article quotes supporters of the vetoed resolution – passed in a city in Summit County, where nearly all 11,000 residents speaks English already – as saying that the mayor will feel a backlash and be booted.

I think, and I hope, they’re wrong.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:23 pm August 27th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

27

Suburban blogs

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Found one for Bay Village on the cleveland.com site but its last entry was 7/21: Have a great summer.

Googled “suburban blogs” and began to view a few. Diary of a housewife; suburban sex blog by a guy about his pregnant wife, Little Island about making life meaningful in suburbia…

So far, not what I’m looking for.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:54 pm August 27th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

27

37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public

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Results of the 37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools were released this past Tuesday (8/23/05). I haven’t had time to review it, but I urge anyone interested in public education to take a look at the press release for a summary.

The gist is similar to last year: NCLB isn’t well-liked, well-followed or well thought of when it comes to really measuring what kids are learning or helping inform what kids should be learning.

I’m so shocked I think I’ll have to stop blogging.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:48 pm August 27th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

27

Hasta luego

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That’s the effect Norton Mayor Joseph Kernan’s veto had on an English-only city council resolution, that Norton’s City Council passed 4-3. The article quotes supporters of the vetoed resolution – passed in a city in Summit County, where nearly all 11,000 residents speaks English already – as saying that the mayor will feel a backlash and be booted.

I think, and I hope, they’re wrong.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:23 pm August 27th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Aug

27

Getting Local, Scary Ads and When The Rec Fair Maven Messes Up

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My morning habit includes reading several blogs about Cleveland hot topics. But I haven’t found or been referred to suburb-based blogs. This one about Lakewood by Steve Fitzgerald is the only one I know of.

I don’t see any blog connections at the Sun Newspapers home page or the Chagrin Valley Times – the two papers that cover my area. The Cleveland Jewish News has this blog connected to the disengagement in Gaza, but the webpage doesn’t make clear how long the blog will exist.

What’s the scoop? Does this reflect the size or locus of a blogosphere – are they city-centric, or is that just right now? Are suburbs uninteresting to their own residents as well as those around them? Or do their residents have better things to do or ways to get their information?

Are the local print papers too small to have adjacent blogs? Do they think it’s too much bother or that no one will read or the blogs would be too unwieldy? If cleveland.com can do, can these local pubs do it too or is there a fear that it would cut too much into their print readership?

Or do I just need to consult a blog search engine to find what I’m looking for?

I expect to subscribe for the first time to my three local papers. But partly because they keep running photos of my kids.

During the summer (I missed it), the CJN ran a picture of my five year old. This picture is on the front page of this week’s Chagrin Valley Times. The picture doesn’t show on the website’s front page, but if you click on the image icon (where the image should have been), you can get to it. The description next to the picture (on the web) does not describe what’s going on or who is in the picture.

That cute, adorable, mesmerized kid in the striped shirt? He’s mine. Why the front page photo on the web won’t show, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. But I did buy a hard copy, and was handed a couple this morning when I went – late – to the rec department sign-up “fair.”

__________

Speaking of fairs, we’re definitely going to the Geauga County Fair’s demolition derby next Saturday night. Our addiction began ten years ago with the book, Smash Up Crash Up Derby which we owned because my oldest son and my mother started a car game when he was about 18 months old in which they jettisoned his cars off the arms of our couches and into a heap on the floor. It kept him busy and my mom seated for hours.

We graduated to the book’s audio and wore that out. Then, when he was six, we went to our first derby – at the Geauga Fair. I have to say, it was profanely loud, dirty and violent. I can’t say exactly why it was fun to watch beater cars get more beaten up. But we’re going back for more.

If you decide to go too, make sure you get there early enough in the day to stand on line for tickets. The derby always sells out. Really.

_________

News: As I turned my car radio on, leaving the grocery store yesterday, I heard an NPR story on a new report published in the American Journal of Public Health about the content of the foods advertised during television programs viewed by kids. IT IS SCARY. Here’s one article about the study and here’s the abstract about it in the AJPH.

________

Fair of a different kind

Ironically, or maybe not so ironically, when I turned on my car radio this morning as I headed out to my rec department’s “fair” to signup my kids for activities, I heard this story on Weekend Edition about a couple who write and sing kids’ songs about farting and other body functions.

Take a listen and then tell me, shouldn’t some topics really be discussed just in the home?

As for the fair itself, yesterday, a friend called me up to ask about my “strategy” for the fair. Yes, strategy. See, it used to be, that you’d get on line before 7am on a Saturday morning to be sure you had a low number and therefore every chance to be sure you got your kid into the rec activities of their or your choice.

I did that when I first moved to the town. But I didn’t know you needed to be there that early until after my kids’ got closed out of a couple of things because I was lollygagging at home – you know, taking care of my kids I was signing up.

Over the years, I’ve developed a plan: I go over to the place about 15 mins. before numbers are handed out. The number isn’t in the top 50 usually, but it’s high enough to get my kids into what they want. Then, I go home, drink some joe and head back an hour or so later.

This plan has worked well. I even got grilled by the aforementioned friend who wanted to implement my plan. She liked its logic and multitasking possibilities (get number, go home, shower, do chores, go back, you’re done).

But guess what? The maven herself completely BLANKED on the plan. Spouse and I were awake at 7:20 (he’s got an amazing voice and knowledge of Hebrew prayers and chanting and was asked to fill in for our cantor this morning so he needed to be up) and our kids trotted in a few minutes later, very happy and cuddly – all three – which, in the case of my 11 year old, is not an everyday thing.

We giggled, lazed, it was nice. I went downstairs to get coffee going, it’s about 8:15 by then and that’s when it happened. I saw my rec department brochure on top of one of my desk’s piles. It’s on top for a reason – to remind me about it. And it did.

I raced upstairs, threw on sweats and ran out the door. #104. Not too bad. In fact, they may even have called it by now, meaning – I should go if I don’t want to be lambasted by my kids for getting them closed out of stuff.

I’ve never wanted to be in my teens or 20s or even 30s again, but I sure would like my memory back.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:17 pm August 27th, 2005 in Politics | 4 Comments 

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