Category — Uncategorized

I am not a manager, but I am happy to work on a team or manage projects. To me, being a manager means I have a direct report and am responsible for their hiring or firing. That has always been an idea that fills me with anxiety, though I couldn’t explain why until I read this great essay that I saw pop up in a few places weeks ago. Read it and let me know if it resonates with you, too. I’ll wait.

I love this: “Whether or not you think about the cannon, the cannon is there. Good managers are aware of the cannon. Great managers are aware of the cannon and aware that their reports are aware of the cannon.”

I think the cannon idea applies to many facets of life, most notably work because the power dynamic is clear. But there are smaller cannons in other places, too, whenever there is privilege or power. You can’t always explode someone else’s life. Still, you can explode their day or their feelings, and being mindful of the cannon is part of being an excellent human who builds trust by preparing people before a cannon goes off (or that it will not go off without ample warning). It means understanding how we have the potential to impact other people and moving carefully and clearly.

All I wanted was to read once a week next to a body of water. Preferably the ocean, but that’s over two hours away, so a river or a lake. A county park I had never been to fit the bill, at least, according to pictures on Instagram. I told Josh I had found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

“I want to get super involved in helping out with this park. I want to join the board of directors today. I want to fund-raise for this magical space. And when I die, I want a bench with my name put up so people can sit on it and remember me.”

“Do you want to… you know… see the place before you decide all of that?” Josh asked.

So we jumped immediately into the car and drove the half hour to the park. My first reaction was to burst into tears. “This is exactly how I imagined it would be. It is the most wonderful place on earth.” That was my reaction seeing a sliver of fake lake from the car window.

Wait for it.

Listen, it was nice. I mean, yes, the water was brown because this is Maryland, and all of our lakes are artificial. (Did you know that? Maryland has zero natural lakes. And it had almost no movement. Sound traveled in a bizarre way in the area, so all you could hear were people’s loud conversations or children shouting and no nature sounds. Little by little, I grew less enamored. Not fully unenamored but not cry-happy-tears-in-the-car enamored.

The following weekend, we returned in the car, armed with a list of five spots and a picnic lunch. The first place we went was… kind of perfect. It was under twenty minutes from our home. It was a swiftly running river, so you had all the nature sounds and few people around. It was a quick walk from the parking lot, and bathrooms were nearby. (Though there was a cricket in the one I used. Cue a terrified face.) We lazed about in the sun, eating potato chips, but I felt nervous about emotionally committing to the stretch of river I renamed the Brambles because I didn’t like its actual name.

After a few hours, we decided to try out the other places to confirm that we had chosen the best spot on the first try. (Well, second try. But the first try that day.) The second spot was wonderfully creepy, with trees growing out of the center of the river. You could park the car and face the water. So it was a nice second choice, but not somewhere you’d want to sit outside because it was the kind of place where you’d be lost in a book and suddenly notice a snake wrapped around your ankle. Maybe a little too rustic.

The third place was a short visit because it was once again stagnant water, but this time, there was also a flock of turkey vultures eating something that looked like it had the head of a wolf and the body of a snake. It smelled horrific, and I wouldn’t read next to a wolf-snake hybrid.

The fourth place was also stagnant water and super crowded. We struck the fifth place from the list because it had too much working against it.

We returned to the Brambles a few days later and had dinner beside the water. It was grey and moody and a little cold, but the rushing water was loud and clear, and it mostly fulfilled what I needed it to do: connect me with nature, give me a place close-by to read, and make me feel like I’d gone somewhere other than my kitchen table or living room sofa.

After giving my heart over so quickly to the first park and having it broken in under an hour, I’m being a little more cautious with the Brambles. I’m waiting to see how it holds up when more people are around in the summer or whether the river harbours a mosquito infestation. In other words, I’m waiting for the Brambles to mess up and prove my pessimistic side right. But until then, it keeps proving it wrong.

At the start of spring break, I made the Wolvog’s favourite salmon dish, and at the end of spring break, I made the ChickieNob’s favourite pasta. We sat down to eat, and Josh took the new pepper grinder, gave it a few twists over his plate, and the top flew off, showering his meal, the table, and a portion of the kitchen floor in peppercorns.

Faulty pepper mills happen. It was annoying, but I didn’t feel the need to talk about it. We cleaned the kitchen, dumped the pasta, and sent a note to the manufacturer (who shall not be named) to inform them about the defective pepper grinder. They wrote back that they would send us a coupon so we could replace the pepper. Excellent.

Three weeks later, the coupon arrived. It came with a warning that we needed to use it immediately because they would not reissue it once it expired in a few weeks. The amount on the coupon was less than the cost of a new pepper grinder. In other words, to replace our pepper grinder, we needed to pay them — not the full amount we spent the first time, but pay them for a portion of the replacement. So we got to pay them to replace our new pepper grinder with an even newer one, AND we got to eat the cost of the meal we had to toss because it was covered in a solid ounce of peppercorns.

And now it became all I could talk about, clearly, since I am telling you, too.

Four years ago, at the start of the pandemic, our big Pesach crew reduced down to the four of us around our kitchen table. Even without the pandemic, our table would be smaller because it was the first Pesach after my cousin moved to another state, taking her family of four with her. But we hadn’t expected to spend the last few years with just the four of us singing “Dayenu.” We thought things would change and shift and grow. But that isn’t what happened.

And that is life.

This year, we are a seder for two. The kids may FaceTime in for dessert, but they have their own seders with their friends this year. And, yes, we could have made different choices with the holiday, but we didn’t. We chose this, so I’m in a place of acceptance and sadness.

I am in a place where I accept that I made this choice, and I am sad that I had this completely awesome experience for the last 19 years, and now my kids are far away, so I don’t have it anymore.

My holiday experience is not something I want to fix; I just want to be able to talk about being sad with other people responding, “I’m sorry you’re sad. Hope next year is better,” instead of making suggestions we’ve already considered and rejected because we like them less than the one we chose. I think it’s just very hard for people to hear how you feel without having the impulse to say, “Have you considered this?” Humans are fixers.

But that’s where I am: cooking for a seder for two, feeling lucky that it’s not a seder for one, and sad that it’s not a seder for four or more.

The LA Times had an article about Generation Alpha a few weeks ago. I sent it to the twins because I was cackling over the dek: “They are already being called ‘feral,’ ‘illiterate,’ and ‘doomed’.”

I also laughed at the fact that the article spoke about Boomers, Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. Um… hello? What about Gen X?

But after laughing about the article with my little Gen Zs, I turned to Josh and said, “If Gen Alpha doesn’t read, we need to start hoarding books because they’re going to shut down the publishing industry like Gen Z is killing off dating apps.

“Start hoarding?” Josh asked. Yes, we own a lot of books. Maybe more books than I could finish in this lifetime. But they’re not new books. They’re not just published books. (Except for the ones that are currently just published, but they will be old by the time Gen Alpha grows up and kills books.)

I feel like it’s my job to keep the publishing world marching forward.