It’s a bad sign when you begin adding daily hygiene tasks like going to the bathroom and taking a shower to your “To Do” list … welcome, everyone, to the end of the semester.
Keeping tabs
Last night when Mike and I went out to dinner at Pasta Jay’s, I noticed he was staring off into space for a minute.
“What’re you thinking about?” I asked.
To which he responded, “Math” and went on to explain how he’d been working on a single, tremendously involved problem all day, how he’d gone down one rabbit trail searching for an unknown only to realize he should have been focusing on a different aspect of the equation.
I shook my head, amazed at how brilliant this man sitting before me is. And how patient. How anyone can have the fortitude to spend the whole day on a single analysis is beyond me.
When the bill came later on, Mike, like the Southern gentleman that he is, gave the waitress his credit card for her to run it through the machine.
She returned a few moments later with the “merchant copy” for him to sign and a pen. He looked at the numbers and hesitated. Five, 10, 15 seconds … I glanced at the $33.30 sum and said, “Six bucks and 60 cents is 20 percent.”
He smirked at me and began to add. He wrote something down, looked up at the ceiling, looked over at me, back down at the paper, up at me. He scribbled something out and rewrote something different.
“I miscalculated,” he said.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Mike is a genius … most of the time.
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Feminist rant for the day
I was just stood up for an interview because the woman I’d scheduled to meet had to take care of her son after the school called her saying he’d gotten a concussion.
I’m just wondering how often this happens to journalists when the interviewee is a male …
Just a thought to chew on.
If you disagree and want to speak your mind, I’d welcome any comments.
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Realizations that hurt
I was faced with my own non-indispensability this morning.
While walking through the parking lot on my way to the intern quarantine at the Daily Camera, I wondered what the headline would be if someone accidentally ran me over:
“Intern smooshed in parking lot”
“Devastating car accident leaves intern flattened”
Basically, I don’t think I’ve been working here long enough to earn a more refined moniker.
I need to start working harder.
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CWA Recap
So this morning’s Conference of World Affairs panel was awesome.
I’d like to think I had some role in that awesomeness … I didn’t.
The three women who spoke (the topic was, after all, “Women Saving the Environment”) were all so wise. They’d seen and done so many things.
Jayni Chase has worked to promote environmental education in schools for the past 22 years.
Andrea Moffat is the vice president of the corporate program Ceres, a national network of investors, environmental organizations and public interest groups.
And Kavita Ramdas (who is now my personal heroine) served as the president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women from 1996 through 2010.
All of them made excellent points about women’s role(s) in helping to save our planet. Here are a few of my favorite:
1. Women make roughly 80 percent of the purchases in the United States. That’s huge! Ads are directed toward us; commercials appeal to our preferences; marketing campaigns want the women to like their product. That role as society’s main consumers can have an enormous impact on the way in which companies are run. Let’s use that pull to do something great (and green)!
2. Listen to the women. In third world sectors of the world especially, it’s the women who are concerned with the health of the children, the welfare of the community; the men are too often simply looking to make a buck.
3. Consider the womb. It’s mostly water, an enclosed environment, just like Earth and its atmosphere. You can expound on the analogy (or completely refute it), but both can be considered a home.
4. God told Adam to reap and Eve to sow. Adam’s been doing a stand-up job; now it’s time for Eve to get moving too.
5. Don’t drink bottled water. For crying out loud, we’re lucky enough to live in a country that has clean water … why are we buying it in bottles that too often end up in a landfill?
6. Only a tiny number (forgive me; I forget the exact statistic) of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. It’s time we step it up, ladies.
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If you have a spare second …
Come and check out the panel I’m moderating this morning (I know, kind of last minute notice).
It’s from 9-10:20 in the Atlas Black Box … I really have no idea where that is in Atlas, but I’m sure some knowledgeable individual at the Pekoe coffee shop will.
We’ll be discussing “Women Saving the Environment.” Should be great!