Temple Emanu-El’s Neighborhood

CK graduates from university this coming weekend. She'll be back on the plantation for a month, then off to who knows where. Unsettling.

I'm off to Detroit in a few days for a business conference. Driving a van full of exhibit display pieces across the plains. It's about the same, time-wise, as trying to fly. And I can play my iPod without ear buds, and not have to listen to the caterwauling of the flight attendants. That's a 'yay' in my book.

More later.

Watching any award show except the Oscars has become tedious. Especially music award telecasts. Too much shrieking from the audience. Too many drunken or unprepared "presenters." (Tip: there are cue cards, genius. You have to be able to read 'em. Wear contacts, glasses, or binoculars. Lay off the martinis. Do your job.)

So I hardly give the Academy of Country Music awards a second thought. But I scanned the list of nominees, just to be sure George Strait made the cut. (He did, so there really is a god.)

And then I saw, way at the bottom, the following categories:

Nightclub of the Year

Casino of the Year

Excuse me? Casino of the Year? Isn't that a place that does its best to separate oxygen-bottle-toting people from their money? What does a casino have to do with advancing the art of country music? Who wrote a song called, "I Left my Chips in Your Heart?"

Strictly my opinion: nightclubs and bars are entitled to awards from the hospitality, restaurant, and loan shark industries. No whiskey mill or gambling joint deserves an award from a country music association -- at least, not an association that still refers to women musicians as "cuties" on its website.

For some people, the very thought of a "pencil" is an anachronism.

I disagree. But in the all-web, all-the-time workplace, the question you should think about is:

What's in your pencil drawer?

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Sanitized for your protection. The film canister dates me as an anachronism.

I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts On Being a Woman (Vintage)

Nora Ephron

I promised to read mostly books by women in 2009. I don't do "resolutions," but there are books I wanted to spend time with.

Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck reminded me of what Sally from "When Harry Met Sally" might sound like as a 60-year-old woman. Kvetchy. I like Nora's writing, but when my son heard a clip from the audiobook version, he said: "Why are you listening to this? It sounds like one of your aunts."

Current Read: Girls Like Us, by Sheila Weller. I spent most of the 1970s with a crush on Carly Simon. Weller's book recounts the interwoven lives of Ms. Simon, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell, and how the their fame and excesses, along with those of their lovers, exacted a painful toll on all of them.

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--and the Journey of a Generation

Sheila Weller

It's not gossipy, like People (pronounced "peep hole") magazine. On the other hand, Ms. Weller seems unable to write a paragraph without an aside, as indicated by an "em dash" (--) or parentheses. Magazine writers often do this, the result of writing or editing for bathroom reading.  Her sentences are absurdly Faulkner-esque in length.

No reader should have to work this hard.

Memo to Sheila: take a breath, use a period, or find that lost box of commas. Please.

Next up: Alice Munro, assuming I survive the avalanche of em-dashes.

Where have I been?

blue snow shovel in the snowy cold winter

• Editing the last few chapters of my novel. The storytelling's pretty much completed. It's mostly punctuation and proofreading now. Although there may be a hidden message when I see where I've written: "She turned his head."
• Quick visit to Olean, NY, where I get a re-charge from a non-fishing trip with my Sunday NY Times-reading friends. Now I need a recipe for yosenabe.
• Back to saying "no" to requests for charitable support. Especially from whiners who accuse my employer of dissing a diversity segment, when we've given more than $1 million to support that constituency over the years. "We don't find value in underwriting your online knitting festival, but we support knitters in general."

We're getting rid of the VHS tapes.

Dec. 21, '08 - VHS purge

I must have had a thing for TV series with colons in the titles.

But say farewell: most of these are destined for some recycling center -- assuming the EPA doesn't have some restriction on the PVC content of outdated magnetic tape.

My employer announced this week that they were doing away with the traditional voicemail system at the company. That's it. There's a phone at my desk, but if I'm not there to answer, it'll just keep on ringing.

Nortelphone

Our office had a laugh about this. I deal with the public more than most: ad reps, community leaders looking for corporate support, etc. I guess they'll just email me -- adding another 50 messages to the 150 I already wade through each day.

It's mostly about the cost of maintaining an archaic infrastructure, I suspect. There's probably no easy way to migrate an analog voicemail system to the less-costly VoIP (voice over Internet provider) technology that new systems run on. And let's face it, most of my inbound messages are from people who are selling stuff I'm not likely to buy.

Unlike a former manager who insisted I had to use my personal cell phone for business communications -- while he fired up a company-issued cell phone -- no one's suggesting I 'donate' my own phone contract for the company's use. Not yet, anyway.
 
But I like to believe I've built much of my professional success by building relationships with real people. Phones aren't a bad alternative to face-to-face communication, but email's a poor substitute.

And I can't help thinking this idea is right up there with the previous cost-control edict that employees had to empty their own trash. Which immediately created a fruit-fly problem in a once-pristeen corporate headquarters.

No one does this anymore. Maybe it's the lower blood-alcohol limits most states use in DUI cases.

But in the days when I toiled at an ad agency, we had a colleague named Ralph. And every Wednesday before Thanksgiving, he would come around with thimble-sized plastic cups. And a bottle of whiskey. And he'd visit every office (pre-cube farm, we had offices) and we'd have a brief toast to the holidays.

Whiskey Glass

If you watch "Mad Men," the ad agency dramedy on AMC, you'll get a pretty clear picture of the environment that promoted on-the-job libations. Sometimes, we didn't need a holiday as an excuse.

Ralph? Lost track of him years ago.

The agency? Rumrill-Hoyt, one of Rochester's most enduring shops. Acquired by Saatchi & Saatchi, renamed a half-dozen times, and it closed a year or two ago.

But, I'm not shy about maintaining a tradition -- even if it's a virtual one. Here's my wish to you for a restful, warm, safe Thanksgiving. And have a glass on me. And Ralph.

No, not that big ask.

I'm in the "ask" business. It's called "corporate contributions." People I've never met write letters to my employer, asking for donations. They thank me for taking time to speak with them when I've never spoken to them. They ask for contributions for their school raffle, silent auctions, and tricky tray activities. They ask us to donate things we don't manufacture. And, of course, some just ask for cash, usually in a four-page letter describing every imaginable tragic circumstance that might befall someone.

(Those tragic-sounding letters, in particular, sounds awfully similar. I wonder if there's a website that tells visitors how to grift cash by writing to corporations.)

And, after 18 months of reading these epistles, I've come up with a few basic tips on how NOT to ask for donations:

• If you're going to ask us to donate a digital camera, take a moment to proof-read your letter. Nearly every such request that hits my desk asks for a "digitial" camera. Spend a moment with a Target ad, or even our website. It's digital. Says so right on the box. Use your spell checker! (To be fair, this is a widespread goof; even Amazon.com sometimes botches a spelling.)
  
  

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• Don't try to sweet-talk me by referencing an earlier phone conversation we never had. I'd remember. Besides, I keep a log of who asks for what.
• Ask for something we actually make or sell. Our website gives a pretty good showcase of our digital cameras, printers, films, digital frames, and so on. We don't make LCD projectors, waffle makers, or laptop computers -- so we're unlikely to donate items we don't sell.
• Silent auctions or raffle item requests are fine. But I've made it a policy to flat-out reject requests for donations for "Chinese auctions." Buy a calendar and a thesaurus -- it's 2008, and I'm sure Asian-Americans in your town aren't thrilled with your "Chinese" auctions!
• Most big companies engaged in charitable giving have a page or so on their website that spells out what they will and won't support. If you're going to ask, stop by that website first, and figure out if there's some intersection between what you're asking for and what our company cares to support.
• Asking for cash? Fine. Show me your 501(c)(3) documentation -- or at least, mention it in your letter of request. If you don't have one, don't wait by the mailbox for a check. It's not in the mail.

Do we donate digital cameras? Sure, when the charity's purposes intersect with our business objectives. We do the right thing, most of the time, and we'd like to get a little recognition for it.

That's how it works. So, as those end-of-the-year pleas for contributions swell my in-box, keep these tips in mind. Ask for a digitial camera, and I'll send you a book. Possibly a dictionary...!