Secret Agent Mommy

You may ask yourself, what's up with the melon wearing sunglasses? Last night, as he's headed out to grill dinner, my husband looks at me and says "wow, you're brave." I furrow my brow. Crazy, bossy, loud, beautiful, brilliant... THOSE I've heard before. "Brave?" "Sure. What happens when Grumpy finds the website?" Beat. Beat. Thudda thudda thump.... Actual ICE WATER in my veins. "You're always so careful, and prepared..." my husband says (a bit snarky? maybe.) Sure. I'm brave. I'm brave like a melon in sunglasses. Gonna have to think this one through.

Am I WHAT?!?!

For reasons that have nothing to do with my hair (ahem), Friday's meeting still went awry. I had my 30 minutes in the hot seat where Grumpy (formerly el Capitain) grilled me like a tuna. But that was expected - a needed course correction, if you will. It was after the Vendor slides that Grumpy decided the Subject Matter Experts (SME) were not moving fast enough on packaging the value of the vendor's product. We were off to the races, and how. We all called on Grumpy to conference in the SME's so they could be in the loop and contribute. But Grumpy was on a roll and there was no slowing him down. Grumpy's considerable mind was completely caught up - he had a white board and a marker and he was standing in the middle of the projected presentation MAKING NOTES like they would somehow magically transport into the laptop. (And one vendor was trying to do just that, typing and drawing arrows with a speed that would stun us lesser humans). The poor, huddled vendors kept glancing at me furtively. Like I was in charge or something. They mimed using my cell phone to call the SME group. They indicated the exit so hard, I think one guy gave himself whiplash. Hey guys, did you look at the Org Chart? Remember where Grumpy's name was in relation to mine? Uhhh, yeah? OK, then. Let's just see where this maelstrom of ideas and process takes us before we call a mutiny. And suddenly, he was done. Grumpy put down the pen, packed up his system, rolled up his patch cable, and put on his coat. "You got all that?" he demanded. We all nodded like savants. "Good. Get back to me on Monday." With a hiss of his black helmet, a twirl of his cape... he was gone. Cue Monday morning, awaiting the babysitter. She's supposed to be here between 8:30 and 9AM. I managed to crudely marry the two work packages (Grumpy + SME) over the weekend. Now was our chance as a team to do the hard work and refine it for Grumpy's astonished approval (heh). 9:15AM: Kidlet is into his second hour of PBS programming. He's eaten his Cheerio's, had a poopy, brushed his teeth, gotten dressed, and played with his Matchbox cars. In between, I've been playing "Pop! Goes the Weasel" with my DSL. Every time I run back to my office from tending to kidlet - link goes down. 9:45AM: Still no response from babysitter. Called 9 times but only left 2 messages (I don't want to look like a stalker). 10:00AM: Kidlet is now chasing the cats around my office while I try and conduct a conference call with the vendors. At some point, I am both clawed and bit (not sure who did which). Bite my lip to keep from screaming into my vendors' ears. 10:15AM: I'm leaving message number 3 for babysitter from my house phone while the office line has the con call on speaker/mute. Kidlet un-mutes the con call and asks everyone how they are. Leap with great speed from kitchen into office, reaching for the "mute" button in slow motion. Miss. Disconnect call accidentally. Since I was host, also manage to disconnect 10 vendors and 2 co-workers. 12 instant message (IM) windows pop onto my computer screen simultaneously. Before I can respond, my DSL goes down, again. 10:20AM: Banging head onto desk repeatedly. 10:25AM: Kidlet hugs me and offers me his favorite pacifier for a smile. 10:30AM: Kidlet asks me why I am so angry. 10:31AM: Defeated, call husband in desperation. 11:00AM: Picking up SuperHero Husband from his job downtown. Return home to get actual work done. Sun is once again shining, headache has receded to dull roar. 11:50AM: Babysitter calls asking when I am going to pick her up. Heh. Not so much. 2:00PM: FINALLY, Have led team to finish integrating Grumpy's (actually, quite innovative,) ideas with the stuff the SME group worked on last week. It is lean, it is clean, and it is great product. Cheer! Sing Queen's "We are the Champions!" to self as I hit "send" on the email. 2:05PM: D*&^&! Connection finally back up. Actually send email. 2:30PM: SME's and vendors and self together again on a con call, editing the final version of the presentation and spreadsheet. 2:45PM: I've used the last of my adreneline. A marathon run like a sprint with a preschooler "helping"... Leading the team by inches to the finish line on this con call. Suddenly, Grumpy IM's me: "Please call me now." I put the con call on speaker/mute and use my cell to call him. It takes about 30 seconds. He answers "Aren't I on speed dial yet?" before I can answer, he hears the con call in the background and asks, "Are you watching TV?" AM I WHAT?!?!? A jury of my peers, let me tell you, in a THOUSAND years would never... convict me.

Things you can learn from a coroner (a.k.a. Scared Straight)

My husband struggles with my need for a higher level of house order and cleanliness than he considers "good enough". Bless him, he's a guy who once had to clean his room with a shovel. It's a foregone conclusion that we wouldn't share the same dirt threshold. No judgements here. I am a recovering room-shoveler myself. When life throws curve balls, housework is still the first thing to slip. Back in college, I'd actually throw out my fossilized dishes (ew) when they started getting REALLY smelly and hit the thrift store for more. I remember wearing "mostly clean" underpants with a ski parka and an old pair of clown pants as I trucked everything else I owned to the laundromat with about $100 in quarters. Then I was scared straight. One semester, the FBI called me. Turns out my grades and profile (yeah, that freaked me out too) fit some kind of standard and they wanted to know if I'd "considered a career in law enforcement". For an hour, I sat, dumsquizzled, listening to a pitch from 2 agents (1 black, 1 female - but THAT was just representative of the usual level of diversity in the FBI, right? RIGHT?). Hey, the closest I'd ever been to a gun was a can of Silly Putty at a frat party but heaven knows it was the ONE major I hadn't tried yet. So the next semester I took a Criminal Law class. It was taught by a former District Attorney and man, was it fascinating. He went through a couple of cases from begining to end. He brought in the police, the pictures, the people who'd been through it, the public case files. We got a taste of every viewpoint. The final exam was a paper. Pick any employee of the system and give an understanding of their job and its impact on society. Yeah, I picked the coroner. I don't know why. But I spent 2 days with the guy. I saw things that gross me out to this day. The coroner's favorite case had been one that had everyone stumped. A sweet older woman was found; her house ransacked and her body practically stuffed between the sofa and the fireplace. She had bruises on her head and defensive bruising on her arm and it appeared that whatever she'd seen had caused a fatal heart attack. The police get universal reports that this woman had no enemies and nothing worth stealing. The case is on the front of the local paper: big mystery. Then her daughter flies in to make arrangements and whatnot and the police ask her to look at the home and help figure out what's missing. The daughter does a thorough walkthrough and says "nothing". But how can she be so sure, with the house such a tip and everything spilled out everywhere? "Oh, Mom was a slob. This is how it always looked." With that knowledge they were able to determine that she had the heart attack and THEN fell. Case solved. The coroner was showing me the pictures (ew) and shaking his head sadly. "Can you imagine?" he said. I looked closely at the mess behind the (ew) body and realized: "OH CRAP. That looks JUST like my place." Uh, hun. That's what I'm saying. If you don't at least meet minimum cleanliness standards you run the risk of becoming a front-page murder mystery. Also? Ending up in your own fireplace because you trip on something trying to get to the phone. Turns out cleanliness saves LIVES. Scared straight? You betcha. If only we knew a friendly coroner for my husband to hang with....

Moral to the Story of the Grumpy VP and the Magenta Hair

There was a scramble and a hope yesterday that my hair would be professionally corrected before the "big" meeting this morning but it didn't happen. My friend C warned me that HER hairdresser warned her that using even a temporary brown rinse might, like, trash what was left of my hair follicles. So I did the only thing I could think of: I washed my hair. A lot. I washed it, kidlet washed it, I washed it some more. Those "washout in a month colors" have never lasted more than a week in my hair. It was my only hope and I clung to it like a woman posessed. I gave my hair a week's worth of washing in a day. It seemed, by midnight, that my hair looked less magenta and more coppery. It could have been eyeball fatigue, but I finally decided to stop stressing and let the whole thing cross over into the land of "it is what it is". I finished the presentation at 2:30AM. You think that's nuts? How's this: the vendors were working at the hotel when I sent out my last iteration of the status document and IM'd me with edits. (Show-offs.) When we met at the Marriot for breakfast at 7:30 this morning, we all had the shakes. But the point, yes, there is a point ... is that the hair looked FINE. No one commented, no circus music played as I walked into the room, birds did not dive bomb me in the parking lot, and eyebrows were not raised. The admin's gave me a squeal of support and then all went on as usual. Which is to say that grumpy VP put me in the hot seat and treated me like a teenager after curfew with my shirt on inside out and, oh, I forgot to wear anti-persperant so I had my elbows up the entire time like a lunatic chicken and yes, the equations in my Excel spreadsheet was so wrong that 3 vendors spent a good 20 minutes trying to fix it, saying "wow, how did you come up with THAT formula? I don't even think that can actually be called math" .. but all THAT I could handle. And the moral of the story? 1) Don't spit into the wind 2) Don't tug on Superman's cape 3) Don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger and 4) Don't color your hair within the week of a big meeting Relief in my purple jammy top ... no more on-site meetings for at least a week.(06/25/2004) 

Golfer: "How do you like my game?" Caddy: "Very good ma'm, but personally, I prefer golf."

I keep going back and forth about this whole golf thing. On the one hand, golf really is a secret language in Corporate America. And it IS a sport that I can play the rest of my life - and share with my family. On the other hand, can weeble-shaped adults actually learn to play the game? 'Cuz my breasts get in the way of my swing and the rest of me gets in the way of any hope of being GOOD at it. And the money and time this hobby is going to demand just makes me cringe. But I already let the cat out of the bag saying that I'm going to try... now I'm "in the club". Tonight, as I was prepping for the big meeting tomorrow, the vendor called to say he was in town: J: I'm in the rental car, almost to the Marriot Me: Which Marriot? J: Schaumburg Me: Which one in Schaumburg? J: Oh, don't ask me that. Me: I'm sure you'll be fine. Are we getting together tonight? J: If you want. What about the driving range? Me: Are you kidding? J: No. Me: It's... like what time at night? J: We'll hit some and then go over the presentation Me: At the DRIVING RANGE? J: Aren't you working on your handicap? Me: No. I'm working on GETTING a handicap. Maybe even buying some clubs. But not tonight. J: OK, when I'm back in August. After my golf clinic in Hilton Head next month. Me: Oh, sure - that will be great... Seriously, I work with freaks. I should have mommy-tracked myself, should have taken some low-profile gig, should have never gained that 60 pounds after the kidlet was born, should have said YES! any one of the million times that almost EVERY PERSON IN MY FAMILY said "wanna play a round with us?" over the last 25 years, should have ... should have.... Oh, who am I kidding? The guys at the driving range better make room for this rubenesque woman with the rented clubs and magenta hair. Clearly, I am not giving up yet.

Lucyyyyy, I'm Home!

Last year, my neighbor opened what she hoped was an upscale salon about 5 blocks from our homes. It was a very New-York-Soho exposed brick and funky lighting kind of a place with pedicure stations and Marie-CLaire magazines and she was charging the prices to match. Unfortunately, her staff was regular Fantastic-Sam's kind of people and the whole thing put me off. I did get some fabulous highlights there; light brown/coppery lowlights that made my hair look really nice. I hated the price, loved the result. When I got a coupon from her to come back and get "Single Process" color for $25, I made an appointment for both my friend D and myself. About 2 hours into what I had been told (and had experienced before) to be a ONE HOUR process I discovered that my stylist had graduated from Beauty School 3 months ago. And when I finally saw what she had done to my hair, I could well believe it.
This? This is ugly and very very wrong. Did she think I was on my way to a rave?  All around the front of my hair were big orange/purple streaks. Despite my telling her I needed "subtle, for a corporate environment" and "lowlights." It looked like that phony stuff you paint on for Halloween, only not so much with the washing out. Pictures don't do it justice. I complained, but there was no management to listen. To add insult to injury? I was charged $70 bucks ("You had Full Folio highlights - that's 20% off, not $25") I marched over to my my neighbor's house when I got home in a full foam of pissed-off but she wasn't there. I will stalk her until I find her, be very sure... Back home, my sweet husband attempted to help fix the problem because I was in hysterics with no budget for this kind of unravelling Dantean disaster. He found a hair color called "reddish blonde" that should have blended it. Make me look a little like kidlet until it all washed out. Except. Not.
Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease  I now have magenta hair. I have magenta hair and a grumpy VP flying in for a meeting on Friday. Oh. God.

Things to do at work, besides work (A Greek Travelogue)

The precise moment I am assigned a new program, I am already late. It goes like this - imagine a crowded room. Boss stands and says, "We are going to implement US$50 Million of new organizational software next year, and Elizabeth is going to make it happen." Beat. Beat. Beat. Pandemonium. "What's the schedule?" "Where's the process?" "Are you going to use the new Change Control?" "Do I have some of that budget?" "What pool is providing resources?" "Where is the testing lab? How long is the soak?" "Will this hit the account P&L?" Hold up folks - I need about 2 weeks of zen-like information gathering, thinking, talking, organizing, and start-up process. I have worksheets I use. I have a regular team I consult. All the while, there are perfectly intelligent, educated, and well-compensated customers, co-workers, and executives hammering away via phone, IM, email, and meeting... wanting to know, in essence, "Are we there yet?" Ick. bah. stresscakes. At times like this, I do what I must. To mangle James Taylor (more than he did to himself): I go to Spetses in my mind.
Spetses, Greece (copyright: Webshots.com member Maurizio42)   Spetses is a smallish island of Greece. After landing at Athens airport, take a cab to Piraeus Seaport and then catch a slow ferry. After about 4 hours of hitting all the islands in between, you'll be deposited at Spetses. The water is warm there, and the natives are polite; well-seasoned in tourism, with the British being the main visiting population. There are shops, pubs, and disco's at night. But for those seeking peace; Spetses is an idyllic goal. Outside the 20 square blocks of the main town, most of the island is hushed and quiet and covered in pine trees. Most of the ground - even down to the blue sea -is rocky, and the roads little more than paths. There are only 2 cars on the Island, but about 200 mopeds. A salad of tomato, feta, and onion will cost you about $1. A Diet Coke? $3. I never got the "Toga" thing until Spetses. They left piles of soft, thin sheets in my room and I eventually realized that they were for wearing. The hottest part of the afternoon, dip in for a swim and then tie a sheet loosely around golden skin. My usual modesty left back somewhere cold; dozens of Spetsians have seen my breasts - back when they were something to see. Not that anyone cared. Glorious hours lazing in the shade, the world on "pause". Maybe a stroll towards the old monastary. If you get lost and end up at a fisherman's house, the family will probably teach you some Greek and show you their nets and the new hull in process. Maybe invite you for lunch. At least, they did for me.

Oh! The things I'm doing for my career!

Something NEVER.SEEN.BEFORE: Elizabeth, attempting golf. The workouts at Curves, the Crest White Strips, the manicures and highlights and the new jeans? All for me. Picking up a golf club for the first time in my memory and standing at an angle guaranteed to do me no favors and whacking at a little white ball like a lunatic with my chest in the way? All for my career. It's a sad day, let's have a moment of silence while I write a check to the nice golf instructor...  

Intervention needed: "Felicity" was my gateway drug to "Dawson's Creek"

Does anybody else find their obsessions as annoying as I find mine? Dawson's Creek, for Gawd's sake. Dawson's CREEK!!
Pacey, with Joey (Dawson's Creek).  ------------------------------------------------- Joey: It's my mom's bracelet. Pacey: I know. Joey: (surprised) How do you know? Pacey: Well, because you told me. Six months ago. You were wearing that, uh, blue sweater, with the snowflakes that you have. You were walking down the hallways at school, I was annoying you as per usual. You said, "Look, Pacey, I just found my mother's bracelet this morning, so why don't you cut me some slack?" Joey: You remember that? Pacey: (whispers in her ear) I remember everything. --------------------------------------------------- It's bad enough that I'm watching the reruns, but now (oh, help me) I've gotten to downloading (wait! I meant buy, buy.. BUYING) music from the episodes. The dealers, *ahem* producers, of the show make it easy by providing a website for all things Dawson's Creek: quotes, pictures and songlists. Oh, it's bad.. bad bad bad... It's a silly show about a love triangle between 3 teenagers: the noble girl from the wrong side of the tracks (Joey); the virtuous, insanely big foreheaded, pompous, yuppie boy who has been her best mate since childhood (Dawson); and the boy's wisecracking, vulnerable, and sweet sidekick (Pacey, yes, PACEY). The actor who plays Pacey, Joshua Jackson, does it beautifully. Even though my own adolescence sucked grapes and chewed the seeds, his acting makes me want to visit a time machine and see if I missed a Pacey of my own back then. Probably not - that's why it is a show, after all. Takes 100 people to make it look that natural. I thought this would be a flash in my TV-watching pan, but it's been 3 months now. And I'm still merrily and glibly dropping into the fluffy pool of precocious teen-agers who talk at a doctorate-level vocabulary and wear the latest from Banana Republic. I freely admit that my tastes are not always the intellectually stirring "West Wing" or "Poilically Incorrect". From Star Trek through Magnum P.I., 1900 House through Monarch of the Glen, my TV viewing has always been as varied as the other interests in my life. With no shame, I openly admit I've even known periodic sudsy dips into General Hospital - usually over the summer when everything else is in reruns and the men on GH are, for some strange reason, conducting their daily business topless. And there was, last year, the months of "Felicity". Which I now consider to be my gateway show to Dawson's Creek. Oh, if only there had been an intervention back when it was just Ben and Noel bashing each other for Felicity's affections! What hours of forehead-boy I could have avoided! But it is too late now. Oh, this thing with Dawson's Creek... it's just embarrassing. Man, I got to find a way to get this monkey off my back. --------------------------------------------------- "Let me get this straight.you tried to create some kind of snail menage a trois?"-Joey "Well,it sounds stupid when you say it a loud".-Pacey ---------------------------------------------------

El Capitain

Being comfortable with my job comes only in lulls. Most of my professional life is still about proving myself and here I go again. I've been seconded to a new VP for a new program. I call him "El Capitain". To says he is brusque and high-handed would be like a New Englander's calling a hurricane "a bit of weather." Understated to the point of disingenuous. And we're pretty sure El Capitain isn't comfortable with women in his leadership circle - because until me there weren't any. When a Vendor closes a deal with my division in a certain range, it's my job to manage that. For example: a kind of network switch is sold at a discount on the promise that my company buys and installs at least 10,000 of them in the next 18 months. I put on my superhero costume for two jobs: first, meet the terms of the contract (I get a global team for that); and second, prove the value to my company (did we get a good deal?). I'm 6 days into this new contract and getting my feet under me. I find out he's jetting out to my town next week to check and direct my progress. Joy, joy, happy joy. How did I find out? From my vendor rep, who's handholding him out at conference in Vegas. J: Let's not worry about my company getting you the right project manager today. We've bought ourselves a week. Me: How did "we" do that? J: Oh, you didn't know? El Capitain and I are flying to meet with you at your local corporate offices next week - I'm bring ing most of my team to see what we can do now to support you. Me: Support me by keeping the commitments you keep. I want a PM, now. And I'll reschedule the bigwig meeting. J: Oh, you didn't know? We already did that during our lunch break. Me: Saves me the bother. Do a better job of keeping me in the loop. Around here, it's the long run that measures success. J: OK. Sorry. I was just following El Capitain's lead. Oh. Man. It's going to be a long. damn. project.

The blueberry girl's hands from Willy Wonka

Around the time I got pregnant, my blood pressure became a little unstable. Not violently high, but after I gave birth they put me on medication. The medication does two things - one, it acts like a water pill (keeping me from retaining water that would add to internal vascular pressure) and two, some other thing, which I'm not so clear on. Problem is, these pills are not consistent on my system. Maybe it's the other way around. All I know is that every few days or weeks I turn into the blueberry girl from Willy Wonka. I swell up, my face becomes even more round (at which point, the Charlie Brown references become unavoidable) and let's be brutally honest here, my fingers turn into snausages. Not that I have lovely, thin, elegant fingers to begin with. That honor remains with my childhood friend Susan - whose hands I can visualize and envy even at this moment. No, mine start short and wide and then swell into those hot dogs that "plump when you cook 'em". This probably has something to do with salt or being perimenapausal (TMI?) or even the weather. For a day or so, they'll resemble portly chihauhaus - every one of them. Twenty years ago, young and glowing and pink and completely thick as a plank about the ways of the world - I would look at my hands and somehow imagine that over time I would find a way to turn them into something prettier, more feminine-looking with the right polish or rings or excersize. Oh, who knew? It could of happened. That, and flying cars. So this morning I have blueberry girl fingers and I was just being fed up with them. Then my sweet, sweet son comes and puts his little hands over mine; comparing, inspecting. "Let's do a craft, Mommy. I want to trace your hand," he says. "OH, let's trace your hand, instead, sweetie. Your hands are beautiful," I tell him. "No, Mommy, let's do both. See? I hold your hand and then you trace them. And we can color them together." "Both our hands together?" I ask. "Yes," my amazing son says, "together. That's my favorite." Tell me that we won't lose this. Tell me that my blueberry girl hands will always feel so good holding his perfect little hands. Tell me we'll always know we're beautiful.

Dawson's Creek and Tomato Sandwiches

The afternoon plan was this: 1) pick up kidlet and babysitter 2) Stop at Town Hall and get permission slip for garage sale on Saturday 3) arrive home 4) make self a tomato sandwich (lightly buttered toast, fresh tomato slices, salt, pepper, and maybe some herbs or cheese crumbles if handy) and sweet tea (half herbal iced tea, half lemonade) and catch 30 minutes of my current guilty pleasure - Dawson's Creek reruns. Then work myself silly for 5 hours. Instead: 1) picked up kidlet and babysitter 2) dropped them off at one of the town's water parks with $1 for an ice cream 3) raced to where I thought Town Hall was 4) looked around some more for Town Hall 5) called 411 and asked for directions for Town Hall 5) found Town Hall 6) circled Town Hall. and again. finally found parking. 6) begged for a garage sale permit, despite less than 7 days notice. Was chided. Complimented clerk on picture of baby granddaughter. Got permit. Cheered for self while driving back to water park 7) answered phone at intersection before water park And here the wagon REALLY fell off its wheels Me: J! You were supposed to call me this morning J (Who is a vendor rep): Your boss decided I needed to be in Las Vegas Me: You're in Las Vegas? J: Yes. Me: So you're probably going to miss our meeting in Chicago tomorrow J: Yes. Me: So the program manager you were going to assign to assist me - will he be making the trip? J: Actually.... Me: Not so much? J: He's left my company. It was a mutual decision. Me: I'm not feeling like I'm deep in the loop here J. What about the guy's boss, John - will John be making the trip? At least John is up to speed and can cover. J: Actually.... Me: Not so much with him either? J, Do we have a problem? (full of righteous indignation now...) This is unprofessional to say the least. And out of the corner of my eye I see that kidlet and babysitter - both wet - are approaching the van. At the same time J decides to conference in "Gerhart" - a Swedish PM he thinks might be helpful to our cause. At the very moment I hear J and Gerhart come on the line I hear... "MOMMMMMMMMY! Where's my lollipop? I don't want to go home!!! I want to stay and play!!!!! MommmY!" and then PUSH the "mute" button.. yes...toooo flipping late. J: Elizabeth? Are you there? Gerhart: I need to change phones, I'm hearing a lot of noise in the background... Sometimes, I HATE working from home.