multiple choice

I woke up this morning

a) when the alarm clock went off
b) to the sound of someone blowing a shofar
c) naturally

Nice RAK, Pittsburgh

When I moved in on Sunday it was wicked rainy and tempers were high (as can be expected in a move-in in the pouring rain with a lot of things to transfer). My dad and I recruited one of the Chabad rabbi's sons to help us move things, which was helpful, until we attempted to move this huge overstuffed couch that is somehow in my possession. It wouldn't fit through the door of my apartment building, and my dad, rain-drenched and otherwise bursting, wanted me to give up and just donate the thing to Goodwill. I really liked the couch, but how does one say such to a father when can't push the thing into her apartment?

In the middle of making a decision as to what to do with the couch and midway through the door, a car stopped on the street and a man got out, strolling over to us and saying that it looked like we needed help. Clearly. He then took charge, have us move this way and that and take the feet off the couch and push it such a way up the stairs, and leading it all the way into the living room of my apartment.

My dad offered to pay him, but the man refused, bringing God and acts of goodwill up, and my dad said that God also created money so that we could thank people, and gave the man ten bucks.

Now I have a beautiful overstuffed couch in my living. It's uber comfortable, if you are interested in stopping by to try it out.

Nice Random Act of Kindness, Pittsburgh.


(If it weren't so hot here I would love you even more...)

hardwood floors and arched doorways

The new apartment in Pittsburgh is amazing. Huge, beautiful, bright, clean, with hardwood floors and an arched doorway. And a sunroom!!! mmm.

This is a view of the sunroom! from the living room. The curtain I found in Israel at the thrift store on French Hill. It is huge wonderful orange British design. Thinking of flanking it with some sheer curtains.

This is the view of the living room from the sunroom!. The door leads to my bedroom (huge) and the doorway (arched!) to the washroom, kitchen, and roommate's bedroom. Still working on the layout a bit but the couch (free...) is uber comfortable. And I am borrowing someone's unprotected wireless. :)

inspiring movie moment

in Jerry Maguire, Jerry at the sports agents convention in Miami, frustrated and fed up with the direction the business is in, sits down (well, generally) and scrawls out his Mission Statement.

it begins:

It's 1 AM and this might be the bad pizza I had earlier talking, but I believe I have something to say. Or rather, I have something to say that I believe in. My father once said, "Get the bad news over with first. You be the one to say the tough stuff." Well, here goes. There is a cruel wind blowing through our business. We all feel it, and if we don't, perhaps we've forgotten how to feel. But here is the truth. We are less ourselves than we were when we started this organization.

continues:

We are losing our battle with all that is personal and real about our business. Every day I can look at a list of phone calls only partially returned. Driving home, I think of what was not accomplished, instead of what was accomplished. The gnawing feeling continues. That families are sitting waiting for a call from us, waiting to hear the word on a contract, or a General Manager's thoughts on an upcoming season. We are pushing numbers around, doing our best, but is there any real satisfaction in success without pride? Is there any real satisfaction in a success that exists only when we push the messiness of real human contact from our lives and minds? When we learn not to care enough about the very guy we promised the world to, just to get him to sign. Or to let it bother us that a hockey player's son is worried about his dad getting that fifth concussion.

There is a good bet that I will erase all of this from my laptop, and you will never read it. But if you are reading it, and you're reading it right now, it is only because I was unable to stop. I was unable to forget the quiet questions in the hallways, when some of you, usually the younger agents, or interns, asked me on the side: "How do you keep all these lives, all these clients, separated in your mind?"

...

Somehow all this has been bubbling up inside me. A man is the sum total of his experiences. And it is now that I am interested in shaping the experiences to come. What is the future of what we do? Give me a goal, and I will achieve it. That has been my secret design for most of my life. Perhaps you are the same. We're all goal-oriented, so I hereby present a goal.

How can we do something surprising, and memorable with our lives? How can we turn this job, in small but important ways, into a better representation of ourselves? Most of us would easily say that we are our jobs. That's obvious from the late hours we all keep. So then, it is bigger than work, isn't it? It is about us.

How do we wish to define our lives? So that when we are sixty, or seventy, or eighty and we're sinking down onto that cool floor of O'Hare airport, with playoff tickets in our pockets, perhaps we too can know that we led A Happy Life? Is it important to be a Person and not just a slave to the commerce of Professional Sport? Do we want to be Remembered?

...

I have never been a writer, but I can see how this great lost art will never truly die. Putting words to paper is a sacred thing. It's more than a phone conversation, it is a document. It is something you are putting on paper. The relationship between a phone call and a letter is the difference between a magazine and a phone book. One you leave on a plane, the other you save.

ends:

Let us start a revolution. Let us start a revolution that is not just about basketball shoes, or official licensed merchandise. I am prepared to die for something. I am prepared to live for our cause. The cause is caring about each other. The secret to this job is personal relationships.

other inspiring movie moments?
mayhaps something from in the face of evil?

just on emails

(a)
how frustrating it is to have someone respond to an email I just sent them within twenty-four hours of the time I sent it, thereby demanding an equally fast response-to-response on my part that needs to be witty, engaging, and clever!
it takes time, people! I can't just bang this stuff out left and right.

ex:

me: X keeps on responding to my emails within a day

Kate: omg

me: so frustrating

(b)
only for the important ones do people wait forever to respond to (HAVAL! AVOID!)

ex:
me: no response yet from X. i sent the email almost two days ago already!!!
Kate: lameeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

define: google

Google, with apparent clairvoyance, has removed the Golan Heights from Israel and denoted it as Syrian territory in their maps.