Sorry for getting this to you so late.  It’s just been that kind of a year.  Every time I turn around, it’s later than I think and I feel like I have to quicken my pace just to keep up with where I need to be.  Thankfully, for the most part, I am able to catch up.

Age-wise, this was a milestone year for me.  It is surreal to reach an age that seems completely incongruous with how you feel about yourself.  And yet, as much as you think you might not look or act that age, you can't deny how many years you've been on this earth.  While a very rigid Zumba schedule has given me better stamina today than I had twenty years ago, reading the fine print without assistance is just no longer an option for me.  I am very grateful to my dear friends Rand & Janeel Smith of Eyesmith in Kansas City for providing me with eyeglasses that I forget I'm wearing but make reading both paperwork and the computer screen possible.

With my advancing age, I realize I have had a relationship with many of you and/or your families for nearly thirty years.  It still amazes me that this is where my life ended up.

A few years after I got married, my husband and I moved from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn (ironically around the corner from where my son lives now) to Long Beach.  It was our introduction to the suburbs.  I was working in advertising and most of the executives made their way to the Hamptons for summer weekends.  To give them a head start on traffic, we worked through lunch Monday through Thursday and the office closed at noon on Friday.  Play my cards right, I could run down the stairs from my office in the Chrysler Building to Grand Central Station.  The number 7 train only took five minutes to get to Hunter's Point Avenue.  From there I could catch the LIRR and be in Long Beach in a little over an hour.  Our house was only a few blocks from the beach.  I could run in, walk the dogs, change real quick and still catch a few hours on the beach. 

When Eric was born, things changed.  Before that, I ran down to the  beach with just a towel and dropped myself down near someone who had a radio playing.  A Coney Island baby, I liked to spend most of my time in the water playing in the waves.  With a baby, I needed to pack for the beach like I was going on vacation.  The water was off limits unless I had my husband along and he wasn't the biggest fan of the beach. 

No doubt, Long Beach was gentrifying, but it hadn't gentrified yet.  In the Brooklyn neighborhood where I grew up, kids played outside all day and mothers opened the back windows and called down when dinner was ready.  There were basketball courts in all the driveways.  In our area of Long Beach, kids rarely played in the street.  Most of the families we spoke to sent their kids to private school.   My husband and I decided we had two options.  Either we could remodel the two bedroom house we were growing out of and start investigating private schools or move to a more suitable home in an area where the schools were better. Moving seemed the better option.

After the advertising agency I was working in shut down, I collected unemployment for the first time in my life.  I didn't think they would let me collect having a five month old at home, but I was wrong.  Between what we were paying for day care and my commute, I thought I was probably better off with unemployment.   At that time, they gave you a pink sheet of  paper to write down a list of all the companies you interviewed with.  The guy ahead of me on line told me he went on all the interviews that said car required and told them he didn't have a car or where the work location was far enough away that he could refuse the job if it was offered to him.

I took his advice and interviewed for a position in Brooklyn which I knew I could refuse.  The company sold trade specific products which were shipped to installers.  They had just acquired a three location chain that stocked products installers could pick up at the store rather than wait for delivery.  This would be an experiment to see if they wanted to open more locations like these throughout the country.  The person they would hire would  be responsible for getting the new locations in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island on line, training the employees to use the computer system and running the office.  The job would run out of an office in the Brooklyn location with the person moving to headquarters in Syosset eventually.  The more I said I wasn't sure about driving all the way to Brooklyn especially with a new baby at home, the more money they offered me.  They liked that I spoke the language.  I wasn't sure if I should have been insulted.  In the end, I decided the money was too good to worry about being insulted, I took the job.

Those were fun days.  I had all of the benefits of working for a big corporation with none of the downsides.  No one was around.  I got a couple of polo shirts with the company logo and wore them to work with jeans and sneakers.  At first, the employees were very distrustful of me.  They thought I was the eyes and ears of corporate.  I fought a hard battle to get them all raises to pay for the cost of their contribution to health insurance.  They were all assured their pay would be the same.  Since they hadn't been contributing in the past, they were losing money.  Once they realized I was on their team, they worked with me to transition to the "stupid" new computer system and get all of their customers added to the database. 

All of the things I did in Brooklyn had entire departments to do them in Syosset.  I knew that once my three locations came "online" there would not be much left for me to do.  When I asked management what their long range plans were for me, I never got a consistent answer. 

Our Long Beach house was not ideal for raising children.  The main floor was just a big long room with a galley kitchen and a tiny den off it.  The staircase coming down from the second floor was dramatic, it spread at the bottom like a sweetheart staircase -- very hard to secure baby gates to.  The laundry facilities were in the basement and there was no door between the kitchen and the cement stairs going down to it.  The railing was shaky. In my mind, I was always seeing Eric tumbling down in his walker or me in a heap at the bottom still holding the laundry basket, bleeding into dirty laundry.    As Eric was getting more mobile, I was feeling the pressure to figure out what the company's plans were for me so we could figure out where to move.

Finally, after much nagging, I was told the Brooklyn office would be closing and I would be moving to Syosset. The company would be opening outlets in other parts of the country.   I would be on the expansion team.  I wasn't thrilled with having to work out of headquarters but I also felt I was in the highest position I could reach in Brooklyn.  It was time for me to figure a career path. Besides, if they kept me in Brooklyn, we had to consider Jersey. 

With the move to Syosset secured, my husband and I started to explore Long Island.  When a realtor showed us a nice big L Ranch in South Setauket Park, I couldn't have been happier.  There were kids playing at basketball hoops in the street.  The sprawling ranch had no dreaded basement steps.  The laundry room was right there on the first floor as were the bedrooms.  Eric could roll his walker from one end of the house to the other without a step in sight.  Sliding glass doors led to a backyard I could just open to let the dogs out.  No more walking two big dogs with a baby in a carrier strapped to my chest.  The tiny den where we spent all our time in  our old home would be replaced by a massive room that fit a sectional sofa all of us could spread out on.  We could eat meals in our kitchen.

While we were still waiting to close on our dream home, I sadly left the Brooklyn office and the friends I had made there.  I was given a computer and a cubicle at headquarters but very little to do.  My mantra became, "Do you have a project for me?"   I literally had nothing to do.  I probably should have kept my mouth shut and just kept getting my paychecks but that wisdom comes with age.  Eventually I was called into an office and told I was being let go -- not the best time on earth to learn you are pregnant.

Desperate for benefits, I applied for a job at Internal Revenue Service even though the pay was lousy.  I scored well enough on their test to be hired.  I attended a meeting of all the newly hired.  A woman told us what unit we'd be working in and when we would start training.  Then, she announced that if anyone had a vacation planned for January or any other reason they needed to take off that month, they should leave now.  I raised my hand, I said, "My due date is December 31st."

She said, "You can stay."  Those words changed my life.  It was my training at IRS that taught me where everything belonged on a tax return.  It was while I was training there that I realized  I could see a logic in it that didn't occur to most of the group.  I actually found the training given there a lot more useful than the academic version I  had to pay to suffer through years later when I went back to school. 

What seemed like some bad luck and wrong decisions, landed me here and I am very grateful for that.

Its not often, a mother says with pride, I have one child in the hospital and the other in jail but the world is a funny place. Eric continues to prosper at NYU Medical Center and Liz is now the Director of LGBTQ+ Initiatives  for the NYC Department of Corrections.   She often works on Riker's Island.  Here's her press release if anyone is interested.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doc/media/director-LGBTQ.page

Not much news on the office front, James and Peter are still with me. 

Appointments are booking quickly.  February is already completely booked.  If you haven't made an appointment yet and you want one, please do.  Also, a reminder that we need your paperwork at least a week before your appointment.  Repeat offenders may incur a surcharge.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!