If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
I think I’ll stay in Massachusetts. It’s such a boring answer, but with the world the way it is, I really wouldn’t want to risk any other state or country. The long cold winters are a big problem for me, but you can always jump on a plane to someplace warm.
Top 5 things about Massachusetts:
We have many beaches — from Salisbury to Westport, plus Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket
We have mountains — the Berkshires are a magical region loaded with world class cultural organizations like Tanglewood and Jacob’s Pillow
We have Boston — it ain’t NYC, but it’s a real city with an international airport and several wonderful art museums
Most of the people I love and care about live here.
Politics: we were the first state to legalize same sex marriage and pass universal healthcare. We guarantee women’s reproductive freedom and have restrictive gun laws (although loopholes still exist). Trump lost every single Massachusetts county in the 2020 election.
People call us “Massholes,” but that’s just because they don’t know how to fuckin’ drive.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?
At work last summer, I found my entire teams’ salaries (including mine) in the office printer. They were just sitting there — for hours — before I finally looked to see what they were.
I kept the paper for future reference.
Knowing that I was underpaid in relation to some less experienced colleagues made my decision to resign this week a bit easier.
I’m pretty sure this is a GenX and older problem. Nobody younger than 40 would ever print out a sheet of salaries — or really anything for that matter.
It’s not 2013 anymore. GenX (including me) needs to quit printing stuff.
What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?
Let’s face it, many women spend an inordinate of time (and often money) on their hair.
When I think about the hours and hours and hours I’ve spent blow drying, hot rollering, flat ironing, air wrapping, deep conditioning, curl ironing, highlighting, and otherwise fussing with my hair, I think I probably could’ve used them to get a Masters Degree or some other highly time consuming but useful endeavor.
COVID changed how a lot of us think about our hair. It made us question the point of all the bother. I saw many gorgeous silver foxes emerge after lockdown was over.
For me, I quit constantly blow drying, especially in the summer. It’s OK to let your hair dry naturally. It looks fine, even good, some might say. A friend turned me on to the large selection of curl creams that you can put on wet hair to shape your natural curls while your hair dries naturally. I like this one, available at CVS.
So, if possible, I skip the blow drying and, in the words of Elsa from Frozen, Let It Go
Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?
In 2016, I had lunch with Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, and his pit bull Junior.
I was getting my lunch at a food truck in Boston’s Christian Science Plaza when I noticed someone asking for a pic with the guy in front of me. I soon figured out it was Cesar Millan, as we had watched his show, Dog Whisperer, many times when we had Teddy.
We sat near each other on a bench and chatted while we ate our lunches. Junior sat at Cesar’s side. Junior is a large and terrifying looking American Pit Bull with wicked eyes, but he was wearing a service dog vest and I figured there was absolutely no way that the Dog Whisperer’s dog would bite me. Theoretically he’s the best trained dog in America. So I relaxed.
I found Cesar to be a very open and warm person. He told me he grew up on his grandfather’s farm in Mexico with lots of dogs. They were very poor. He came to the USA looking for a better life, crossing over the border illegally. He said, “I was a wetback.” Once in LA, he became a sought-after celebrity dog walker, which eventually led to a story in The Los Angeles Times. This eventually led to his wildly successful TV show, which ran on the National Geographic channel from 2004 – 2011.
In 2016, when I met him, he had fallen on somewhat hard times. A wildly expensive divorce and some unscrupulous management had cost him a lot. He was in Boston to do a live stage version of his show in a second-rate venue north of the city. He had a good attitude about it though. He seemed to believe that everything happens for a reason. He had learned to be careful who you trust.
When I got back to the office after lunch, my coworker Tracy, who had declined my invitation to go to the food trucks, was incredulous. She couldn’t believe she had missed the opportunity to meet Cesar Millan! It was pretty funny.
Cesar Millan and me in Boston in July 2016 — just a couple of GenXers hanging out 😉
Nobody disagreed with me that Suzanne should be fired, but she could not be fired immediately. There’s a process, starting with “corrective actions” and yada yada yada. Only extremely “egregious” acts can result in immediate firing. Apparently, scolding a colleague like a child for interrupting, while being berated for doing something they were told to do, isn’t egregious enough.
I had already made a decision to leave, if Suzanne were not fired, so that was that. I feel good about it. I’m too old to put up with toxic bullshit like that.
Now I’ve got two weeks to wrap-up and say goodbye to 18 years worth of relationships and memories. As my wise friend Gail said, “I know you have mostly enjoyed your job and coworkers. Hold onto that because that was just as real.❤️”
I’m not a big animal lover. I mean, I love the animal kingdom, especially the giraffes, but I don’t love having animals in the house.
I’ve had pets over the years. We grew up with a husky that we adopted when my mother’s tennis partner moved to Dallas, where it was deemed too hot for a cold weather breed. His name was Bunky. He was OK.
Then, when I was young and single, I agreed to take a really cute kitten from my sister’s cat’s litter. Kimba was beautiful, like Kimba the White Lion, but so so bad. I’ll never forget the time he jumped up on my refrigerator in my tiny studio apartment and nudged the antique toaster off of it. The toaster was plugged in and an arc of blue sparks flew through the air as the cord separated from the appliance.
Then, in 1993, I married a cat person. He had his own sweet little black cat named Sticky (Stick for short). He named her Sticky because she stuck to things, like curtains and pant legs. Sticky and Kimba learned to live together, but were never really friends.
Then, when my daughter was five and an only child, we got a dog. Teddy was a purebred Sheltie. He was nuts. The mailman was afraid of him. He ripped up our outdoor furniture. My daughter loved him, but then we had another child. I just did not trust this dog around the baby. One day, I accidentally stepped on Teddy’s tail while he was sleeping and he bit my foot — right through my canvas sneaker. That was it. I didn’t think it was safe to keep him any longer, so we gave him to a Sheltie rescue organization. That was rough.
This brings me to my last and best pet Cricket. Cricket was a moon-faced, greenish grey striped kitty that we adopted from a shelter in Lowell when the kids were both in grade school. They really loved her and so did my husband. She would sit in his lap at night and I could just see that stroking her was probably lowering his blood pressure. There were clear benefits for him.
It was tough when she needed to be put down during COVID after we’d spent a fortune on veterinary surgery to try to correct a problem with her back. I had to make the final decision to end her life because my husband loved her too much. She was a good pet. Our sweet Cricket.
A portrait of Cricket that hangs on our wall: a thoughtful gift from my daughter to my husband
Name the most expensive personal item you’ve ever purchased (not your home or car).
In 2014, I spontaneously purchased a $400 Coach bag. It was a few days before my birthday when I saw a hot pink, pebbled leather, satchel-style slouchy purse in the Coach store in Boston’s Prudential Center.
The color was totally impractical, but I liked it and wanted it. So I bought it. I considered it a birthday present to myself.
I used it a few times and that was it. The color is great, but it hardly goes with anything. And overall, the bag is just too big.
I still have it, receipt and all. I guess I should figure out how to sell things on eBay.
I’m not a big podcast listener, but I discovered “Smartless” on a long car ride a couple of years ago and have enjoyed quite a few episodes.
It’s basically three GenX guys — Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes — talking and laughing. They bring on a special guest for each episode who is a surprise to two of the three hosts.
As you might imagine, they’re very well-connected and are able to bring in some pretty amazing guests. I listened to them talk with Paul Simon recently — a true living legend — and they somehow managed to show him great respect, while eliciting some wonderful personal stories and occasionally breaking into bits of his iconic songs.
Arnett is Canadian and is the most typically male of the three. He’s got a deep voice and you get the impression he definitely knows how to change a tire. Bateman is a rare bird — a Hollywood child star who became a successful adult actor. Best known for playing Jack on Will & Grace, Hayes is gay and so very talented and funny. He’s also a concert-level pianist and Broadway star.
I’m not sure if I’d like the podcast as much without Hayes. He adds a perspective that the other two don’t have. I can’t help but think back to high school when a guy like Hayes—clearly gay—would’ve been mercilessly bullied by guys like Arnett and Bateman. They never would’ve hung out together in the 80s. It’s nice to see how straight men have evolved.
The podcast is so successful that they went on tour with a stage version of it, which is now a documentary you can watch on Max.
I always liked reading, and writing was OK too. As a senior in high school, I took a class called Humanities, which looked at different periods through literature, art, and music. It was co-taught by a team of three teachers.
The class was only for seniors and everyone had to do a final project. We did them in groups. My two best friends and I wrote and performed a play entitled “I Hate Funeral Homes.” As best I can remember, it was about three high school friends meeting up at their 15th reunion. So we were 18-year olds pretending to be 33-year olds, which seemed very old at the time. We had each taken different paths in our lives since high school—one of us was married, one divorced, and one was something else I can’t remember.
One of the themes of the play was how people don’t really listen to each other. Instead, they’re always thinking about what they’ll say next. So the lines were a series of non-sequiturs starting with “I Hate Funeral Homes.”
I don’t remember much else about the play except my costume, which was a black taffeta pantsuit. I was supposed to be the rich one. It was my first pantsuit, but not my last.
So, yeah, English was my favorite subject in school, but writing and performing a play with my best friends is my favorite memory.
The cast of “I Hate Funeral Homes” celebrating our 50th birthdays together in New Orleans
The update is that there’s really no update. I haven’t heard anything since Monday, when I told Laura that I think Suzanne should be fired.
Laura says she’s going to call me tomorrow to “check-in.”
I really just want to know that my claim of a toxic work environment is being taken seriously — like they’re really looking into it. Because it was very real to me. Suzanne has been such a royal pain in the ass for the past SIX years. I’ve endured the worst boss of my life for six whole years, in my fifties for godsakes.
I want to know that HR connected all the dots from past complaints about Suzanne to my situation. She’s had angry outbursts and run-ins with many people and I want HR to talk to them to get the whole picture of how she acts at work. And I want them to take a look at the exit interviews of Kathy’s three predecessors.
At one point, I remember the organization paid for Suzanne to attend a really expensive management training program, because so many people were having problems with her. (It didn’t work.)
I want her toxicity noted/documented over a period of time.
For my part, I’ve already quit Suzanne. I just decline all meetings she’s attending and have stopped all contact with her. I’m just doing my own work and not worrying about her.
But my ear is still ringing loudly. This is stressful.
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