Driving Celebration

Tonight as I was going to a meeting Carter texted me from basketball before practice started. “Do you need me to stop at the store on my way home?” It was a new feeling for me; a child who is offering to do the shopping.

Since Carter turned 16 on Sunday she had to wait one day to get her drivers license. This morning I picked her up from school during her free period and she went and took her test. Despite a scary test giving DMV employee she passed. After she dropped me off at home and drove herself back to school all alone for the very first time.

Around 7:45 Carter walked in the kitchen with the grocery bags and a bouquet of roses. “I got you these to thank you for taking me to get my license.” Having her offer to do the shopping was gift enough, but the flowers almost made me cry. I guess she really is grown up enough to have her license.

Now that I am not needed to drop off at school or go and wait around at basketball I am planning on having way more fun in my life. It was a good thing she passed her test today because I already have my calendar packed with fun of all kinds. Of course it helps that it is the holiday social season.

Right after Carter dropped me off at home I had to change and get ready to go to my friend Mary Eileen’s 50th birthday lunch at our friend Kathi’s house. Everything was just beautiful, especially her table and the cake I was forced to have in celebration.

After lunch it was time to rush home to prepare for my garden club’s annual Christmas auction and lunch that is being held at my house tomorrow. The decorating was done days ago, but I needed to set up the serving table, drinks station and make the food. The extra hour I gained from not having to do school pick up or stop by the grocery store was well needed.

Carter asked me if I was ever going to get up in the morning ever again, now that she was driving herself. The idea of sleeping in sounds great, but it is going to have to wait at least a week. After tomorrow’s lunch, I am hosting another on Friday and third on Monday. Three big parties in six days is going to require me to get up early everyday, but not having to drive means I can actually pull it off. Thanks Carter for passing your test, but mostly for being such a sweet daughter.

Satisfy Every Holiday Craving Pecans

I don’t know about you, but I find that when I am having a craving it is usually not just for salt or sugar, but for salt and sugar. Nuts are my favorite snack treat since just a few will make me happy and they feel like they are better than a cookie or a chip. My friend Sara brought some pecans to a get together and they had Rosemary in them which I had never thought of before. So in a nod to her I added Rosemary to this recipe that includes, sweet, salt,and spicy.

1 cup of pecans (raw, not slated and roasted ones)
1 T. Melted butter
1 T. Brown sugar
1 T. White sugar
1/2 T. course Salt
1/4 t. Cayenne pepper
1/2 t. Cinnamon
1t. Rosemary

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl pour butter and brown sugar over the pecans and mix well. Line a cookie sheet with foil and pour the pecans on and bake in oven for 5 mins.

While baking mix everything else back in the original bowl. After the pecans have cooked for five minutes take them out of the oven and pour them back in the bowl with the spice mix. Stir to coat and pour them back on the cookie sheet and place them in the oven to bake for another 8 mins.

Store in an airtight container.

Carter’s 16th Birthday Party

I’ve never actually written my blog on my phone before so please forgive any major or minor typos as I attempt this.

Russ and I are sitting on the corner of a French Restaurant trying to drag out our dinner over the course of Carter’s three hour birthday party at the same establishment. 25 of Carter’s nearest and dearest are seated in a private room and it is killing me not to be allowed to eavesdrop on her party.

Long gone are the days of snow princess birthday parties where little little girls dressed in their Disney Princess costumes twirled in our play room. Now boys and girls sit at long tables engrossed in cocktail conversation sans the alcohol. In all actuality this is the easiest birthday party I have ever thrown.

I spent the last 24 hours in Charlotte watching Carter play two incredibly tough basketball teams. This was the first team road trip. Just like this party I was relegated to being an unnecessary fly on the wall. The team took a bus down Friday afternoon and I drove alone in my car arriving at the first school to discover my friend Roberta had come because the team brought her daughter Grace up from JV to help the team since one of their Captains was away at a conference.

After watching our girls lose Carter came and gave me a hug before going off with the team. Roberta and I went to have a late dinner together in advance of retiring to the hotel where the team was also staying. I noticed the girls in the corner of the lobby having a team meeting while I checked in. I did what I was not supposed to do and went to say hello, then went to my room.

While I was snuggled in my big bed writing my blog Carter texted me that she was going to take a shower and then come say good night before turning in at the coach appointed hour of eleven o’clock. It was nice she even thought to visit me since I was not going to be seeing her again until 1:00 today when I showed up at the next school for an even tougher game. Although they were playing the past five year state champs with a six foot three inch sophomore, Carter played her best defense of the season.

My reward and purpose for driving and staying alone was to get Carter back to Durham as fast as possible so she could prepare for her party.

And here we sit. The kids all seem to be having a great time, as they report to me on their way past my table to use the facilities. Russ told me that there are old risqué french postcards on the wall of the men’s room, but so far the boys have not made a big deal about that and have remained at the tables talking to the real life girls.

Aa the mother of a sixteen year old Russ and I are relegated to being the payers. I guess this is exactly what we have been working for.

Surprised I’m Not Banned From Walmart

Today I offered a woman a dollar not to buy a donut. Before you think I have come up with a new diet scheme based on paying people not to eat let me tell you what this is all about.

Carter’s school advisory is involved with a “share your Christmas” situation that precipitated ten kids and their teacher needing to go to Walmart this morning. As room parent I volunteered with my friend Cooper to drive the gang to purchase the presents a ten year old boy wanted for Christmas. On a slow Tuesday in the middle of February I don’t want to go to Walmart, but on a Friday at the beginning to the month in December I would rather put needles in my eyes than go there. But I was just the driver, right?

In the car on the way there Carter asks me if I could buy her hair elastics since she had two big basketball games today and tomorrow and was out of hairbands. Get the needles out, I thought, but in Carter’s defense she had let me know two days ago she had run out of hairbands.

While the kids divided the gift list and went their opposite ways in the store looking for sheets, books and a tennis racquet, I went to the hair care aisle and bought the “shit load” of hairbands Carter asked for. I double checked with her friend Libby about exactly how many a “shitload” might be and she told me 30. Amazingly enough the packages come in 10 or 30 hairbands. I could have guessed that 10 was not the right number.

With my one item in hand I went to the checkout ocean. At least twenty checkouts were manned with lines of three or four people all with huge overflowing carts in them. I searched for a self checkout lane, something I usually avoid because they take longer than a checkout professional, but there were none to be found. I settled on the 20 items or less lane. Twenty seemed like a lot, why were their no 5 items or less.

I found out that no Walmart shopper can count since the woman in the front of the lane had at least 50 items and the next one had 40. For some reason a not-to-be-found-onsite-manager put all the untrained checkout people on the 20 items or less lanes. When the 40 items in her cart woman got through cramming all her stuff up on the tiny little counter, you know you don’t need a belt for the fast lane, the checkout person miss rang one item.

“Oh no,” Mrs. 40 Items, screams at the checker. “You can’t charge me $4.59 for one donut.” It was clearly a mistake, but one the checkout person could not figure out how to fix. After calling over the other trainee they had not been able to void the $4.59 dozen donuts but had added a nonexistent cantaloupe to the bill.

This is when I offered Mrs. 40 Items a dollar not to buy her donut. She told me that it didn’t matter now since they had to subtract both the dozen donuts and the fruit. I left the lane and went and stood behind someone with a giant cart full of stuff, but a real belt to put them on. Eventually I was able to buy Carter’s three dollar hairbands.

Just as I was finishing my transaction the advisory kids came up to check out. The teacher handled the Christmas stuff, but of course many of the kids had found candy they wanted to buy. Sure we might never get out of the store before the new year I convinced Carter just to buy everything all the kids wanted in one transaction. As we were leaving the store I walked past my original lane and Mrs. 40 item was still there. Moral of the story, if someone offers you a dollar not to buy a donut, take the money and run.

Durham Academy Parent of Alumni Kick Off

Years ago when Theky Papas was President of Parents Council at DA and facing her third and last daughter’s graduation from Durham Academy she said, “What am I going to do when I don’t have any children at this school?” Her reality was that she had spent more than 20 years supporting, loving, volunteering and pouring her blood sweat and tears into an institution and knew that as soon as Toni graduated she would have no official connection to the school. She and her husband Ted were just the payers of the tuition; their daughters were the Alumni, not their parents.

Theky started the idea ball rolling and this past spring when I was asked what job I wanted to do for Parents Council at DA Theky went through my mind. In two and a half years I too am going to be put out to parent pasture when my child graduates and becomes the Alum. Forget that I have spent the last twelve years building community, working on committees, being a trustee and doing my favorite job as Benefit Gala Auctioneer. Forget that the majority of my friends have come from relationships made at school.

Thank goodness Lisa Ferrari knows me well enough not to stand in my way when I ask for a job. So the Parents of Alumni Association was born. What was it supposed to do? I had no idea. I had no budget, no committee, and no role model from any other school. What I did know is that staying connected and being a community was enough of an objective and with help from other people we could figure it out.

Here is the crazy thing, the parents of the Alums still live here, but the majority of the Alums are far away at college and the ones that are close at college are busy having fun there without their parents. Parents whose kids are all off at college or finished with college have more time to have fun than they ever did when their kids were at DA.

A committee was gathered together. We initially met over lunch at my house since I wanted the theme of the group to be about keeping people connected and having fun, so food needed to be involved. That group recruited a couple of others and we were on our way.

We decided not to decide exactly what the Parents of Alumni were going to be, but instead to have a cocktail party to introduce the concept to anyone who would come. We thought if we could get 50 it would be good. E-mail invitations were sent out, people responded. We ended up getting closer to 90 people to come to the learning commons and drink a little beer, (Thanks Jay Harris) or a little wine and have a few yummy nibbles.

People who had not seen each other in years reconnected. Ideas for future gatherings were suggested. Fun was had by all. In fact it was hard to get people to go home. POA was born. It was just a small beginning, but a happy and successful one. If you are a Durham Academy Parent of Alumni keep your eye out for news from the POA. The community you invested in wants you to feel that you still belong. The best part about the POA is that it is not a fundraising arm of the school in anyway.

Thanks to Theky for throwing the idea out to begin with. I hope that it will grow into everything you ever wanted.   Thanks to Sara Pottenger for helping organize this party when you had a senior starring in a play this week. Thanks to Shelayne Sutton, Kay Peters, Martha King and Margaret Chesson for making this party happen and being willing to be part of something new. Thanks to Leslie Holdsworth for always making all my crazy ideas not seem so outlandish. Thanks to all the people who came to the party. Keep feeding us ideas for activities you want us to create. This is just the beginning.

Jeans- Easy, Work-Out Pants Impossible

Carter has been bugging me to buy new jeans since my old ones are too baggy. Despite how comfy they feel I recognize that a teenage girl knows best in the jeans department. Russ flew the red eye home this morning and since he wanted to nap after getting in I thought I could run to the mall and get jeans before the regular weekend shopping crew engulfed the place.

I shop so rarely I forgot that stores really don’t open until ten in the morning so I had a good thirty minutes of mall walking where I staked out my plan of attack. The sad part is that after strolling past every store in the mall, twice, I really only saw three that I needed to go in once they opened.

I decided that I would try and handle the jean shopping first given that it is widely reported that women hate shopping for bras, swim suits and jeans so badly that I assumed it would take me a while. Much to my surprise at the first store I went in I found three pairs I liked enough to try on and wanted them all. My hardest decision was figuring out which one not to buy.

Once that dreaded job was out of the way I thought I would go and pick up a new pair of workout pants. This task was a no brainer. It should have been easy and quick I thought. Boy, was I wrong. Although I now wear a regular size I now have thousands more choices when it comes to black workout pants. On the surface you might think that one pair of spandex is pretty much just like the other, but then you would be so wrong.

In a store dedicated to women’s workout gear there must have been 50 different styles to choose from. I had a fairly definite idea of what I wanted; nothing that resembled my actual legs with black paint painted on them, a pocket big enough to hold my I-phone and pants that went to my feet, it is winter after all.

I don’t think I was asking for much, but boy was I wrong. Workout pants have all turned into tights or Capri tights. There was a pair of pants that had pockets but they were only big enough to hold a car key that was the old-fashioned type, not the big ass fob kind we have now. With the urging of the sales clerk I tried on the tights-version and felt as if every nook and cranny of me was exposed. Even though the store called the fabric some type of compression wear it does not compress into a nice shape. I’m not sure these people understand the principle of pushing something in on one side just pushes it our on another.

Eventually I gave up my pocket requirement and settled on an inferior choice. Based on my shopping today I am going to modify what I hate shopping foe and remove jeans from the list and add workout wear instead. We all need to stay in shape, but shopping for the clothes should not be the workout or it should not disincent women from wanting to workout because the clothes make them look so bad.

Women Need to ASK For a Raise If You Are a Great Employee

I am sure that you have heard the controversy when Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke at a women’s conference yesterday saying that women should not ask for raises, but trust that they will get what they deserve which is good Karma. As CEO I’m sure life would be easier if everybody who worked for him would just accept the pay he wanted to give his employees and not make waves by asking for more money, both men and women, but to be speaking at a women’s conference and tell them to sit quietly by and wait was a big, no huge mistake. It made him sound as sexist as possible.

Yes, when you are the boss it is a pain when someone asks for a raise. If they are really good and you don’t give them raises regularly they should ask. If you are not such a good employee be careful asking for that raise, you might already be getting more than you are worth. But no one should trust karma to ensure you are getting what you deserve. You can’t spend karma.

The most important thing woman can do is make sure they get what they deserve in their very first job because if you start getting paid too low it is hard to make up the difference over the years. People tend to get paid based on what they historically made in the past. Big jumps don’t happen unless you make big career changes.

The hardest thing is to figure out if as a woman you are paid differently than a man with your same job at the same company with the same tenure. There is no excuse for inequality if you are really comparing apple to apples, but it is rare that you can find someone who is your twin except for gender. If you do ask for a raise and don’t get one over time you have a choice, accept it because you like where you work and you have other perks like flexibility or you need to be prepared to move jobs. Not always so easy. Moving may mean you lose seniority, or vacation time or stock options or something else you have come to enjoy.

Nothing is straightforward about the whole issue, but depending on Karma seems like the least good option. If I were an Executive looking for talent to hire I would consider looking to the women at Microsoft. The CEO unwittingly just opened a can of worms that karma will not take care of.

Worth the Drive

Another night, another mother job of driving Carter and a friend to a concert. My life as the driver is coming close to being over since Carter will be getting her license in a couple of months. Too bad because I have finally figured this concert thing out. Now Ai know about the drop off line and no longer have to subject myself to the loud music.

This trip to Charlotte had a big bonus that was not known when I bought these tickets five months ago, dinner with my boarding school roommate Nancy. Nancy lives in Connecticut, but she had a conference in Charlotte and since her daughter is a freshman at Davidson she came down for the weekend. You know I never could had made a more perfect plan.

As I sat across the lunch table from Carter and her friend Paloma while they shared a brownie crepe dessert it dawned on me that they are the same age as Nancy and I were when we first became friends. It seems like yesterday that Nancy and I would share a brownie sundae at Friendlys. I realized that many of Carter’s friends will be her friends for her whole life, like Nancy is mine.

I am thankful that she has such a great group. There is nothing like having friends who have known you most of your life and have seen you through the big things, both happy and sad. We can’t help who we are related to, but we can chose our friends carefully.

I am lucky that I still adore my high school friends. I hope that in forty years Carter and her friends feel the same way.

You Need a South African Friend

My favorite place to be is around the dining room table. It is not because of the food, which of course is a bonus, but because of the conversation that seems to flow most easily at meal time. Tonight we had the pleasure of spending the evening at the home of our friends Mark and Kelly Ushpol who happen to be South African. Long before I met Mark and Kelly I had been a big fan of South Africans. They tend to be warm, fun loving and hospital people and the Ushpols embody all those qualities.

After Russ and I came home from the best vacation ever to Africa, Kelly had wanted to get us over for a Braai, which is South African for a barbecue. Since we did not encounter any food in SA that we did not love and we so enjoy the company of the Ushpols we gladly accepted. Although I begged to be given an assigned dish to contribute Kelly would not hear of it.

After drinks and nibbles we went to the table set with a huge platter of Boerwors a very long sausage, mieliepap – a ground corn dish with onion and tomato sauce and a lovely salad. The flavors of South Africa aided by the conversation in the appropriate accent made me feel as happy as I was back on vacation.

Then came dessert. My rule is I eat what I am served when I am invited to dine at someone’s home. Not a hard rule to follow when Kelly brought out a something called Jennifer’s a peppermint crisp fridge tart. It was a gooey, creamy center with coconut cookies as a layer and chocolate peppermint candy ribbons running through it. If there was ever a reason to break one’s diet it was to taste this yummy dish and it was not just to be polite.

Kelly had sweetly made the grown-ups servings in these tiny little shot glasses while the kids were served from a big oblong pan. It was kind of her to know that I should not eat too much of this sinful dish. But as Mark, Russ and I each took our first bite our lively conversation slowed down to a practical silence while our brain caught up with our mouths. “What is this?” I asked. Kelly said it was not really a fine dish, but more of a joke. A more perfect joke there has never been.

That is when talk turned to dissecting the parts of the recipe and what American substitutions had to be made. If this was a second fiddle rendition I can’t imagine what the real macaw tastes like. Russ, Mark and I all asked for seconds. Kelly retrieved her I-Pad so she could show me what the right peppermint crisp candy was and Russ of course found it on Amazon.

After dessert Mark pulled out the South African Liqueur we love called Amarula. What the hell, I’ve eaten dessert, I might as well have one finger. We retired to the living room where the laughing continued. There is nothing better than the generous hospitality of being in someone’s home, unless it is being in a South African’s home.

It’s Not Too Hot to Eat

So many naturally skinny people I know say things to me like, “Don’t you love summer? It’s just too hot to eat.” Somehow I don’t think we grew up on the same planet.

I can remember back in the dark ages of my childhood, the time before ubiquitous air conditioning, when it was so hot in the summer that the Pool Moms would say things like, “It’s too hot to cook.” Now that made sense. No one liked turning on the oven to add suffering to an already insufferable room. But the lack of desire to cook did absolutely nothing to my desire to eat. When it was too hot to cook it just meant we were having gazpacho and icy pops for dinner.

I actually find the summer to be my worst eating time of the year. First there are the longer hours of sunshine that makes my brain say, “Hey it’s still light out and you last ate four hours ago. Isn’t time for another meal?” Second, there is the vacation eating where we start talking about what we are going to do for dinner at breakfast setting me up for thinking about food all day long. Third, I dream of the ice cream truck coming down the street, bells-a-ringing, and I have a silver half dollar from my Dad in my hand.

Well, yes fifty cents would not get me much these days, but back in 1966 when the Good Humor man drove down Crystal Street in New Canaan I could buy anything on the truck with that one coin. Staying away from cool treats is easier for me in winter. Somehow in summer I am right back to being five years old. I think the heat brings out the child in me.

For some people who are over concerned with how they look in a bathing suit the summer is the best thing to happen to them. Not me. Isn’t that what the cover-up was invented for? Sure I write a diet comedy blog, but that does not mean I really care what I look like. I do this for my health, and the jokes.

Maybe in the olden day the heat meant food spoiled faster and there was nothing more unappetizing than ptomaine poisoning from eating potato salad with mayonnaise in it that had been left on the kitchen counter too long. Sure, if I had been sick all night from eating something bad then I might equate hot summer time with not wanting to eat. With today’s refrigeration technology at an all time high I am yet to make myself sick with food.

So it is hot out. It was over 100 degrees multiple times today, but it has had little effect on my appetite. In fact, I think I hear some bells ringing down the street. Hold me back, I’ve got a silver dollar.

Zambia Disconnected

We arrived in Zambia for our last two nights in Africa to discover we are staying on an island in the river above Victoria falls without any internet connection. So consider this my abbreviated posting for today as we are about to be taken by boat to our cottage. I’ll make up for this shortness when we have 5 hours in the joberg airport in Two days.

Who Knew It is Dana Lange Day?

Consider this an update to today’s earlier blog. I went to my last board meeting and Haywood Holderness broke into the meeting and read this proclamation from Mayor Bill Bell in Durham declaring today Dana Lange Day. Shoot, I missed most of my day. If only I had known I could have ridden around town sitting on the back of a convertible with a sparkly sash on, waving at everyone. Instead Russ and I are celebrating at the Carolina Theatre seeing Art Garfunkel. We are the youngest people here.

Honestly, it was a very nice honor. What means even more to me is that the volunteer room at the Durham Branch was named for me. So now I have a place to go in my old age and sort sweet potatoes.

Dana Is Sick- So I Wrote a Poem

Hi readers, followers, and friends of Dana,

Dana, or my mom, is really sick and has been asleep all afternoon. I’m not exactly sure what to do on here so just bear with me here. I will apologize in advance for grammar or spelling mistakes. I thought a good topic for this post will be a poem for my mom.

Dana Henderson Carter Lange. My mom, my hero, my inspiration, my best friend.

I’ve known her all my life (well, duh).

She has pushed me, she has held my hand, she has never lost hope in me;

And I hope she never will.

She’s put all of her, and some, into me. I only wish I can be half of her.

Being only half of Dana would to be an amazing, caring, beautiful, and perfect person.

Mom, I love you. Sleep well. Please get better.

Life is boring without you.

Love,

Your Baby Bug

Funny What We Remember

My uncle Wilson, Grandad, Granettes and My father, at Pawleys Island 1972

Today while I was walking at treadmill desk folding laundry I had a flashback to a letter I received from my Grandmother when I was in boarding school.  It was not a letter about much; in fact it was about so little that I have remembered all these years later.  Granettes, as I called her wrote, “Today I vacced the curtains and ran around the dining room table fifty times for exercise.”  Oh God! I have turned into my grandmother about twenty years early.

One of my favorite sayings is, “One day I put my arm in my coat and out came my mother’s hand.”  I think that Jean Harris, the ex-headmistress of Madeira and Scarsdale Dr. killer wrote that in one of her books, but don’t quote me on that.  We just never know when traits of people we are related to are going to surface and usually they appear long before we recognize where they come from.

I think that my boarding school fifteen-year old self thought about my Grandmother vacuuming the curtains as the most mundane and boring thing and worse yet it was committed to paper in her letter to me.  Now don’t get me wrong, at boarding school I was thrilled to receive any mail at all, the proof being that I still remember that letter, but it was the late 1970’s and I certainly felt like women had progressed beyond house work.

Certainly my Grandmother had.  She taught reading to people who were deemed unteachable well before learning differences were a recognized diagnosis, but she never wrote me about doing that.  Granettes also took in people who were otherwise shut out by society, but she did not write me about that, or perhaps she did and I don’t remember.

So here I walk, writing, folding laundry and answering e-mail in a similar way to my Grandmother running around the dining room table to get exercise.  “I put my leg in my pants and out came my grandmother’s foot,” in an homage to Jean Harris.

I know that my fifteen year old cannot recognize my traits in herself yet, but they are there. Carter will have this blog to look back at and reference. I wonder how old you have to get before you can see these things?

Merry Christmas! a holiday greeting from Dana’s elves

Dana has been sick – and asleep – all day.  Too sick to write her own post , but she hopes everyone has had a very Merry Christmas.

Until tomorrow…

Carter, Russ and Shay Shay

Happy 15th Anniversary CMG Partners

When I was a kid my Dad commuted everyday from Wilton, Connecticut to New York City on the train.  Many times I went to work with my Dad having to stand in the bar car at six o’clock in the morning where he would spread his paperwork out on the unused bar and work on the trip into the city.  We rode the same bar car on the way home, now full of Mad Men of the 1960’s and 70’s drinking and smoking.

One of my Dad’s best “train” friends was Dick Beatty, an Ad guy with Ogilvy and Mather.  Train friends turned into family friends and Dick’s wife Mimi and son Rich would come for Christmas dinner and Sunday lunches after church.  Rich was a year younger than me and we grew up together until the Beatty’s moved away to Lake Forest, Illinois when Rich and I were in high school.

Our parents had remained good friends through the years and fast forward to our first years out of college and Rich and I both ended up in Washington DC.  We picked up the sibling like friendship we had started at ages five and four.  Rich married his wife Susan, who to this day says I was not so nice to her at first meeting.  I was just used to the girls Rich would bring around not lasting long enough for me to invest my time in them, but Susan was different.  They had two wonderful sons, George and Burke.

I married Russ Lange and he too became great friends with the Beatty’s.  Rich, Russ and I all worked together in London on the BT project for Carter Marketing Group.  When we finished up that job I decided to retire since I was pregnant with Carter, but Rich and Russ joined forces and started a new company, CMG Partners as a spin off from Carter Marketing Group.  That was fifteen years ago.

Russ and Rich, whose names were often confused, would jokingly be known as Ralph, just one Ralph for the two of them, started out as partners adding people and locations throughout the years as client work grew.  Their strategic marketing consulting services have expanded to cover multiple industries and they continue to be experts on the CMO Agenda.

I am proud of what they have built but mostly I am overjoyed for the friendship that has bloomed through the years.  A business partner is a second spouse with all that the relationship brings.  So I want to say thanks to both Russ and Rich for fifteen great years and I look forward to many more productive and successful years together.  Happy anniversary CMG Partners and congratulations Russ and Rich.

Being Nice Pays Off

When I first went to work my father gave me some advice; Be nice to the people who work for you, you never know when you will work for them. I thought it was a funny thing for him to tell me since no one worked for me at my first job. But not long after entering the work world there were people who were under me and I always tried to live by my Dad’s advice.

Now I need to modify his sentiment slightly; Be nice to the people who work for you, you never know when they will work for a major luxury brand and get you a huge discount. While in London Carter and I had dinner with a friend who I trained when I worked here. I recognized him as a star when he was a young 27 year old manager starting out. I was right because he has worked his way up to VP in an international company. It is a great feeling to see the fruits of your work succeed.

Learning to manage your boss is important, but I am here to testify that being good to the people that work with you at all levels always pays off. Fifteen years after we worked together, I was able to reconnect with a great colleague and get a special treat too.

Moroccan Shrimp

I made this dish because I wanted to use some of the preserved lemons I have sitting in a giant jar in my fridge.  Preserved lemons can be found in the Indian section of your market or you can just use the zest of a fresh lemon and a little juice instead.  When using preserved lemons you remove all the flesh and discard it and just use the lemon rind.

2 large yellow onions diced

5 cloves of garlic minced

1 chopped tomato

2 T. cumin

1t. Coriander

1t. Cinnamon

1 t. turmeric

Dash of red pepper flakes

2 bay leaves

2 cups of chicken stock

3 preserved lemons with the pulp discarded and the rind cut into small strips – or zest and juice of one lemon

2 pounds of large peeled raw shrimp

In a stock pot sprayed with Pam add the onions and the garlic and cook on medium high heat for about five minutes until the onion turn translucent.  Add the tomato and all the spices except the bay leaves and cook for another two minutes stirring often.

Add the chicken stock and the bay leaves and bring to a boil.  Add the lemons and the shrimp and cover.  Cook the shrimp until they are just done, should not be more than about three minutes depending on their size.

Serve immediately over rice, or couscous to be very Moroccan.

A Plea for Kindness and Gun Control

Today in light of the tragic shootings in Connecticut I am going off topic for my post so please forgive me.

I grew up in Wilton, Connecticut, which is one town over from Newtown.  It is a fairly idyllic part of the country that has now been scared forever by this horrific act.

I don’t know anything in particular about the young man who committed this unthinkable act, but based on the profiles of others who have committed such things there is often one common theme, they felt like someone or many people had been unkind to them in the past.

Feeling alone, unloved, bullied or demeaned has driven some people to do unspeakable things.  If a troubled person has just one or two friends they are more likely to have a person to turn to when they are feeling like the world is ganging up on them.

If everyone were just a little kinder to each other or reached out to someone who is alone every once in a while then so many people might not become so despondent that they want to get back at the world for all the wrongs done to them.

Secondly, it is time we came to grips with gun control in this country.  Our founding fathers never envisioned assault weapons and certainly never would have meant that the right to bear arms equates to having the power to slaughter dozens of innocent people in a blink of an eye.  It is time we stood up to the NRA.

Today I pray for all the families who lost loved ones, the people who survived inside that school who will live with the memory of today, the people of Newtown and the state of Connecticut.  Please be kind to one another, love one another and help the world be a safer more compassionate place.

Not Such a Bad Mother

Monday I went to visit my parents and brought a couple of friends to shop for my mother’s art.  Between looking at art and going to lunch we sat on the front porch of my parent’s farmhouse, and as us southerners say, visited a while.  One friend who came up was my friend Hannah who had recently started selling Doncaster, just as my mother did when I was a kid.  As she and my mother discussed the “business” my mother told us all a story I had never heard.

When I was about ten and my sister Margaret was seven and our baby sister Janet was a new born my father came home and told my mother that a great store named Talbots was going to open a branch in the town next to us and that she should get a job there.  My mother always loved clothes and this seemed like a great fit for her.

As my mother told it, she had the first interview to be the store manager and was asked to come back for a second interview.  She had that one and was told that they needed to interview her one more time because it was between her and another woman.

The day of the third interview she dropped Margaret and me off at our club for swim team and tennis and all the things we did every summer day between 7:30 in the morning and 7:30 in the evening.  After my mother got home she got a call from the girl who was going to sit for Janet that she could not make it.  With not enough time to go back to the club and get me to sit, my mother put Janet in a wicker bassinet in the back of our forest green Chevrolet Impala station wagon and went to the interview leaving Janet in the unattended car with the windows open for air of course.

My mother said that the person interviewing her told her that if she got the job she would need to sell our house because as the manager of Talbots, it would become her home.  It was only then that it dawned on her that she had three unattended children, one in the car and that there was no way she could do this job.  She got up and left right then.  The next year my mother started selling Doncaster in our home where at least the unattended children had rooms to go play in.

Things certainly are different now.  Not only do mothers go to jail for leaving babies in cars alone (actually not a bad thing) but even seven and ten year olds do not spend their days unsupervised at clubs or else where.  But perhaps mothers of today have gone too far the other way.  Our children are driven everywhere on earth, parents watch every game and cheer for kids who barely can kick the ball.

My mother was good at taking care of herself.  She was always is great shape.  She took a rest almost every afternoon when she put her feet up and we were not allowed to come up to her room and bother her.  It is a lesson I should have learned long ago, to take care of myself first.

I look back and think that all three of us Carter girls turned out to be capable of lots of different things, from each of us starting our own businesses to being able to travel the world alone and not just places like Paris, but India, Indonesia and Africa.

It will take a generation before we know if we have screwed up our kids by doing too much for them.  I can’t wait to hear the stories my daughter will tell about her childhood and what kind of mother I turned out to be.