Careers, politics, reviews and the day-to-day thrills of a New Yorker with too many neuroses and not enough free time. Contains an occasional lapse into Yiddish.
I have some updating to do. I no longer have a “pretend puppy.”
Part of the reason we moved to this new apartment (which we love) was so that we could finally realize our dream of owning a dog. And after lots of back and forth, and countless emails with “how about her?” and a billion other considerations considered, we picked a dog. We knew we wanted to adopt from a shelter, and I knew I was taking some vacation time from work to help the dog acclimate – so instead of going to the wonderful North Shore Animal Shelter, we found a truly wonderful rescue group called “Bobbi and the Strays.” The amazing coordinator there helped us pick out a pup that would be happy in our apartment and match our requirements for aesthetics, temperment and activity level.
Eva was our girl. She’s a bit overweight (at 90 lbs.!) and a little older than we had planned – but that fits perfectly with living an apartment. We think she’s probably some sort of Shepherd-Akita-heeler mix. She’s no puppy, and is happy kind of lazing around, with some bursts of activity. We went to go meet her at the facility’s JFK Vetport (only a temporary shelter – they are looking for a new space) and … this was it. She was sweet and smiley and her ears were too cute. She had absolutely zero food aggression, liked playing fetch and was affectionate. She has had some run-ins with other dogs at the shelter, and while she loves people – loving other dogs may take some work.
She has been there almost a year. I can kind of understand why – she’s a big dog. And here in Queens, that’s tough (and as we are finding out, a lot more expensive to own a large dog). She’s older (people like puppies) and apparently, black dogs get adopted less than any other coloring.
So, she’s all ours.
One of my favorite cutie-pie things about her (beside her always-wagging tail and cute little white bootie-feet) is that whenever she lays down, she crosses her front legs. Such a lady!
Today is the first day she came home, and she is really adorable and clingy. She naps a lot, follows us underfood, watches intently when we eat (but doesn’t beg) and farts and snores. Also, within hours – belly rubs.
I don’t think I will be able to relax and have it really sink in until after our vet appointment on Monday – but until then? I don’t remember being this happy in a long, long time.
Love dogs? Help this great organization find more homes for cutie-pies like Eva. Please consider donating to Bobbi and the Strays.
I’ve been swamped lately, and my poor blog has been neglected. So, in lieu of me posting about myself, I am going to delegate, and let my sister tell you all about me. I’ve asked my little sister Marisa to write a bit about what it was like being my sibling (she’s three years younger) and here is her unedited tale. (P.S. This made me both want to kill her, and cry because she is such a wonderful sister. And apparently, we both use a lot of Yiddish. I linked to definitions where appropriate. )
You should only know… what I know- because I lived it with her
Being Erica’s fabled little sister, ( not one of the little cute ones, the one with the iron trap memory for post mother’s day brunch recaps) has been… eventful. yes- I choose eventful.
Erica was my protector against memories of a bellydancing step mother, my seat in my father’s 2 seater corvette, the one who walked me home from school when my babysitter quit mid-session and most importantly the one who would take the less favorable colors whenever we were offered gifts. What more could a little sister ask for- really?
Little Erica was just a smaller statured version of the girl before you. A little blonde smart mouth kid with a vocabulary that made adults uncomfortable. She wore what was laid out for her, tripped over everything, made crummies everywhere, in seats she wasn’t even sitting at…seriously, it’s a gift. As you would imagine Erica was no ordinary child, in fact the ordinary children on the block fashioned a weak booby trap for Erica to fall into… she never did fall down there, hell she never even got out there. There, was outside, in the sun, away from her books and her rice pudding.
When I was 7 and Eri was 10, I would be in the pool till I would wrinkle. My sister would be dressed under the umbrella doing a Games magazine and SPF 100 on her face. Erica was mature. She hung out with the adults, made meaningful comments in their conversations and shpatzired with the best of them.
At night after I would go to bed Erica would stay up with my mom and her friend working on their mock coffee clatch cast of Linda Richman (from SNL) style characters. In the morning my 10 year old sister, now called Sadie Chatchkawitz , would teach me new stanzas from the Kvetch Anthem , a vaudeville style showtune she and my mom worked on chronicling the life of their alter ego altakakas, “would it kill their kids to call? Thank god for Anacin at least my hands wont shake!” Erica Age 10. (ed. note: I still have all of the lyrics. Mom would make us sing this all the time. We taught it to our friends.)
Erica was super smart and all of her friend’s parents’ favorite. She won the spelling bee in 4th grade. Made killer dioramas, and wasn’t trying to sneak liquor out of their cabinets (Ed. note: Yes, I did.) Boy were we all shocked when adolescent Erica veered way off course. Though Erica didn’t always fit in (see Erica in the Dance Project’s black light recital big number in –oops!- white socks) all of the sudden my Sally Jesse-glasses wearing sister traded in her sweater dress for a cape- set up an altar in her room and frequently left home for a place in the woods called “the pit” with a guy named Slash. The cute Bayside friends were swapped for pierced kids in capes and corsets who faces were shrouded under their cloaks by their manic-panicked hair. The nights they stayed over, the house smelled of old incense, and mom let me sleep in her room- with the lights on. “Its just a phase, Its just a phase Its just a phase.”
The next 10 years or so I think she was in her room, coming out only to trade barbs with grandma, take out her contacts, try one of mom’s breadcrumb surprises or to go to her boyfriend’s house. Those were the lean years for us as sisters and though trips to the mall together were not on our agenda, Erica seemed indifferent to me sitting next to her while she watched Xena. And it was so….
My sister Erica is a quick witted pale nerd, whose throat gurgles involuntarily, who cant tell time and who should probably be dressed in bubble wrap. She is my favorite search engine with a way better algorithm for suggesting books than Amazon! Erica has become a great cook and baker, who graciously shares her trials and takes requests. Erica is awesome. She is sweet, compassionate and PATIENT and above all a good friend and a great sister.
Marisa is a cry baby.
I haven’t updated in awhile, but trust me – my neuroticism has kept me in the appropriate amount of guilt about it. It’s weird, because there is so much going on that it seems as if I would have a ton to post about, but I really couldn’t think of anything great. And if I could, there was really not that much time to do it!
The past week or so, and the week coming forward are just jam-packed. There literally hasn’t been a day in the past week, and isn’t until November 2nd-ish that doesn’t have something written down on the calendar. It’s mainly all good stuff and sometimes it’s just something like “Sara coming over to watch ‘So You Think You Can Dance’” but there is something about being so scheduled that has me stressed out. Like, something awesome may come up, and I won’t have time to fit it in – even though most of the stuff scheduled is the awesome stuff that I would want to schedule anyway. Who knew I had a fear of commitment?
Speaking of commitment, Frank and I celebrated six years together this weekend. I really can’t believe its been that long. I don’t want to write anything mushy or weird, because in truth – I don’t feel that mushy or weird. In my heart I already know we are going to be together for a good long time, so this seemed more inevitable than an accomplishment, but it’s nice to spend some time taking a step back and appreciating the awesome relationship we have. We celebrated with burgers. We are going to my cousin’s bat mitzvah next weekend and I think our plan is to pretend that our evening of dressing up and dancing is our fancy night out (sorry Aunt Anita, we’re broke and will need a break with reality after a weekend with Grandma 
)
And speaking of our relationship and commitment – we are taking it one furry step further. Despite non-stop talking about it in real life, I am somewhat loathe to talk about it on the internet (typing = jinx?) but it looks like my pretend puppy may be taking a step out of “pretend” and joining us here in the real world soon. So, that’s been taking a bunch of time and mental energy. But man oh man, she is cute.
Mental energy? I haven’t written about school for the past week or so (although I am still excited about ‘Five Minute University‘) because well — lately the classes have been kind of boring. Still interesting to me, but there is really only so many exciting ways I can spin methods of validity testing. Speaking of which, I have a mid-term on Monday and I have to remember how to study (yes, this was written Saturday night, and I haven’t started studying yet. First lesson should probably have been ‘don’t cram’.) After spending half a semester learning about how to create valid and reliable tests, I can’t wait to see what this professor puts on his own!
The other thing that’s been taking up the bulk of my brain power is my job. I don’t like to talk too much about the nitty-gritty here (because my boss and co-workers read this! Hi!!!) but I’ve been going in a bit of a different direction and working more within social media, and the best way I can describe it is immersive. I already know quite a bit, but the position requires me to become a bit more of an expert in the markets we serve and the issues each market is talking about. I am really, really enjoying it and I think it uses some of the better parts of my brain (and exercises the anxiety I have about potentially misrepresenting my company) and I know it will get easier – but now, when I come home? I am exhausted.
So, we have all that going on. Add in an increased focus on making sure Frank and I are on a budget and moving forward with our financial goals, three book clubs, cheering on the-friend-of-a-friend who is in the Top 20 of So You Think You Can Dance, focusing more on my physical health and way too much Farmville – and that’s where I’ve been.
Talk about Christmas Creep! This is the true story of adventures of an accident prone Jew who took her Columbus Day holiday to build a Christmas Village. Jesus was a Jewish carpenter, right?
One of the first things that I loved about my boyfriend Frank was how close he was to his friends. They are his tribe, his “shoulder brothers” and an awesome group of guys. One of these guys, Jerry has a wife named Chrissy. Chrissy and I have gotten especially close and we all spend lots of time together. I would be lying if I didn’t say that a certain little 5 year old named Becky has something to do with it. Becky is their daughter, who despite being totally unrelated to me, I consider my niece. I have known her since before she was born and she is just one of the best things to happen to me. She loves her Uncle Frank and Aunt Ecka (that’s me!), and I am proud to be a part of her life. So, these are the major players in this tale of Christmas.
Every year, for years (Jerry and Chrissy were high school sweethearts) they buy another piece for their Christmas Village, which they put out the day after Thanksgiving. You know, the little mini-houses and “stuff” that I thought only old ladies have (Chrissy is totally an old lady). They let me help them set-up the display table last year (yes, I invite myself over every Christmas) and I was making fun of them, blahblah. So, we started talking about how we could make it better next year. And that’s when the fun began. We drew out a work calendar, divided responsibility, watched awful VHS videos for inspiration and … well – here we are now. The general plan was to edit the amount of buildings we put up, build some decent terrain on actual foam instead of a folding table and get better and better each year. It’s like what happens when old ladies meet nerds.
First, we went to Home Depot for supplies. This was our first violation of child labor laws.
The Cranky Elf
When we got everything home (giant cart totally not needed) we decided the first order of business was to glue together the foam pieces that would be our basic “platform.” We were still a little unsure of how this was all going to work, but we had to start somewhere. Also, we learned that while Aleene’s Tacky Glue is good for everything, it’s not good for gluing styrofoam to styrofoam. A hot glue gun will melt it a bit, but man-oh-man does it hold.
Then we started laying out where some of the houses would go, how to hide wires and answered important civil engineering questions like “how do you get from the pet store to the chapel” and “does our village of five people really need a fire department and a police station?” Please note the diagrams and schematics – these were drawn up, traced and plotted out weeks ago.
Then, it was my turn to break stuff.
Clumsy Heathen
Luckily, we had a gluing station all set up. The casualties included my manhandling of a fire station, and Chrissy’s unfortunate run-in with attic stairs and a mini-gazebo.
Finally, we started some of the “terrain building” in which we kind of just started hacking into things and scratching it with a steel brush and seeing if we could give this sad little village some texture for snow and sense of depth–once we answered the critical issues of “how many brides make sense to have in front of a chapel” and “is having a lake in the middle of a village safe?” of course.
Chrissy and Jerry are saints for not freaking out when their kitchen and dining room floor looked like this (and this is after some cleaning up)
Luckily, we had a helper (who broke less than we did.)
Our second violation
But after a lot of work, we got it to a point where we are pretty happy with it, and our next steps will be making it more permanent, wire management, decoration and detail work, including tons of trees, lights and mini figures. We will probably do it closer to Thanksgiving, and I will make sure I document the process. One thing I am proud about is that we all seem to be aware of our varying levels of crafting ability, and we are challenging ourselves, but taking it in small, managable chunks.
It's getting there...
By the way, while we are doing all this (which took the better part of the afternoon, including shopping, etc.) Becky put us all to shame with her own rendition of a Christmas Village (in between yelling at us for making a mess).
Lately I have been updating my blog with summaries and thoughts about the class I am taking as part of my quest for a MA in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. I started doing it for a few reasons.
- I am running out of brilliant blogging topics
- It’s probably smart to use my network to get feedback on some of these classes/my thoughts on them
- It really helps me not only retain the info, but think about it outside of class/studying. It’s like that oft-repeated study quote of going home and re-writing your notes.
- I keep getting asked “What is I/O Psych” and I only have a decent answer half the time. I am hoping that I can educate some of my friends and family about it, and maybe – just maybe raise some awareness about the field altogether, which I think is definitely needed.
I think the posts could be a little dry, but I am getting some great feedback on them. And then I saw that Mc-Kinney Oates Cereal is writing about her MA in Marriage and Family Counseling and it was really interesting. So then I started thinking about all the stuff I want to know more about, but don’t have the time or resources to learn. Heck, there are apparently whole degrees in subjects I didn’t even know existed.
What if we did a little Blog University? Essentially, a short-attention span-lecture series! I would highlight some bloggers (and non-bloggers) in some guest posts. I am thinking either summaries of your class notes (if you are a student) or maybe some mini-lessons about the field you are in (or the field you wish you were in!).
Want to share basic tenets of graphic design, or a mini-law lesson on intellectual property? A primer on archaeology or some fundamentals of management. I want to learn a bit about a whole bunch of things! The big buzzword lately is “passion” (especially if you follow any of the myriad of endless Gen Y blogs…) so – let’s see some!
Check out Five Minute University!
The last class lecture was called “Measurement, Validity and Reliability.” Riveting stuff, I know. Essentially the conversation boiled down to discussing how to design tests, specifically selection testing. There are four critical goals – validity, legality, utility and acceptability. Because our class discussions seemingly go wildly off track – we really only got to validity last night, but it was a really interesting topic to me.
There were all sorts of charts about Inferences of Validity with predictor constructs, predictor measures, performance constructs and performance measures. It’s about the leaps we have to take in order to figure out what trait we think will make a candidate should have in order to be successful, how we measure that success and how we can measure the trait itself.
For example, maybe you think that in order to be a good sales person, you need to be extroverted (the predictor construct). So, then you have to figure out how you measure something like “extrovertedness” (the predictor measure). Then, how does being extroverted help you in your sales job (performance construct) and finally – how do you measure the performance of the result of these inferential leaps (performance measure). Is it in the sales numbers of people that performed highly on the tests you created to measure extroversion?
Essentially, it takes these really abstract ideas about what we believe, and dissects them and measures them and checks to see if our intuitive leaps actually make sense. And then if they do, they have to be measured to find out how much success they actually have, and if they are worth selecting and testing. And then it hit me – this stuff is actually science!
Sure, psychology is a social science – some cling to it, others dismiss it out of hand. And when I tell people I am studying industrial-organizational psychology, you can almost see eyes glazing over. I admit that I too have felt it to be all very theoretical and touchy-feely kind of stuff. And I am sure a lot of it is – but for the first time I realized that this actually has a basis in science and math, and I have to start actually paying attention to things like correlation coefficients. Forget ropes courses and trust falls – this stuff actually makes sense! You can test it, repeat it, have to prove validity and back up your research. I thought I would hate this stuff (and just may, in practice) but right now – I am pretty excited about it.
I couldn’t help but think back to my undergraduate archaeology studies when I realized that it’s more than just digging around and display cases. There is actual science in archaeology. Sure, there are leaps of fantasy, and a lot of creative filling-in of unknowns, but there is a lot of good, actual, practical science in it. It legitimized it for me, and made it that much more fulfilling. I think I am feeling the same way about this field as well.
The similarities don’t end there. I can already tell that a large part of an I/O practioner’s job is figuring out how to make people care–how to explain the conclusions, how to educate people so that they understand that this has real-world implications and that these tests and hours of research are worth doing. The aggregate, and not the individual. These are the same issues archaeologists have when trying to get grant money, or educate the public about not destroying sites, or asking politicians to protect land. It all comes back to marketing.
I am recovering from my “I worked on Yom Kippur and was punished with the plague” cold and am getting ready for an exciting weekend. I have some friends coming over for brunch, and I am trying to “sell” my neighborhood to one of them, so Forest Hills better put it’s Game Face on! And then in the evening it’s another friend’s engagement party (I am definitely at that age.) Then Sunday is a possible day at the theater with Grandma Flo (I promise, if it happens, the blog post may write itself) and then on Sunday, something I am really excited about – if you are in the NYC area, come down and get your Nerd on to compete in True Nerd Trivia. It’s like pub trivia for those of us picked last in gym class.
But, today’s post is about an important topic in our social media world. Tweeting to celebrities. There are a lot of celebs on Twitter (and those who wish they were celebrities – I am looking at you Hailey Glassman) and I follow … a lot of them. Like, enough for my tweetdeck to have it’s own column of Celebs. And sometimes, just sometimes – I want to respond. And it’s so, so, so embarassing.
Why? It’s weirdly sycophantic and pathetic and just … odd. And when Twitter displayed every tweet you made, it was totally out of the question to me. But now it only displays a tweet to someone if you also follow them, so in theory – you would only know I tweeted to Kevin Smith if you also followed Kevin Smith (who never responded, btw). Which makes it slightly less embarassing. Unless you went to my twitter feed or looked at the side of my blog, you wouldn’t know that I have also responded to Alyson Denisof (nee Hannigan) (about drinking water! Who AM I?). I don’t actually expect them to respond, so I have no idea why I do it – and I smirk at other people when I see them do it (because I am a total hypocrite).
But part of the whole draw of Twitter is that you may actually have access to these celebrities, in a way you wouldn’t have had otherwise. And that’s kind of cool. So, I will still use caution and a bit of embarassment to gauge on a reply to a celebrity, but I have to tell you – despite my total Kevin Smith failure, I tweeted a question to Suze Orman (I love, love, love Suze) and SHE TWEETED BACK! The advice was only kind of helpful, and she ignored the follow-up question, but … I just wanted to brag.
Do you tweet to celebrities? Ever have a meaningful conversation? Been served with a restraining order?
Today in class (Strategic Staffing), we focused a lot more on legal issues in my latest class – essentially, when and how to discriminate. Because let’s face it, every time we make a decision about who we are going to hire, or filter out – we are discriminating against someone. Sometimes, that’s okay. For example, if I am hiring people to write for my blog, I would discriminate against non-English speakers, and for someone to watch my children, I am going to select against those who have committed violent acts against kids (sure, they would presumably be other criteria, but you get the point.) We learned a little bit about the Equal Employment Opportunity law, protected classes, etc. Most of the class was focused on adverse impact.
What really struck me was not only how little I really understood about so-called “quotas” and affirmative action, and was a little disturbed that I wasn’t in the minority (haha!). We talked a bit about the recent Ricci/firefighter case and I find a lot of my perceptions changing. I think that despite my bleeding heart liberal tendencies, I believed that there was some sort of inherent “reverse racism” occurring. After really hearing and understanding what these requirements are, I am proud to go back to being a bleeding heart who not only understands why they are in place, but supports them. It has a lot to do with job relatedness and test validity.
Essentially, it’s not “if you have X of Majority, you have to have X of minority” but more along the lines of “If you hire X% of all Majority that apply, you should also be hiring X% of all Minorities that apply.” If you aren’t, that’s where a lawsuit may come in, with a shifting burden of proof. Are you intentionally discriminating? Is there an adverse reaction due to the test you chose? Is that unavoidable because of job relatedness, etc.? This isn’t a case of keeping “The White Man” down, but more taking a look into if there any real, specific reasons to why a protected class is underrepresented in a company’s demographic. If a company has a good reason for it, then it is most likely off the legal hook.
The other interesting point to me was that as long as you don’t have an adverse impact or intentionally discriminate against a protected class, you can discriminate against whomever you damn well please. Only want to hire Scorpios? Go for it! Just make sure that your Scorpios you hired don’t have any inherent discrimination biases in selection, and if they do – make sure you can prove why only hiring Scorpios has a correlation to job performance. Because this stuff can get really messy, most companies err on the side of being super cautious and don’t make these ridiculous hiring practices. But, there is no law against making dumb hiring choices. And there is certainly no federal law protecting you if you feel that you were passed over because someone didn’t like your choice in ties. Totally legal.
I think that if more people understood test creation and validity tests (something I am excited to learn a lot more about) then these national and personal conversations would be a lot more interesting and have more merit. Now, it seems like we argue what we think is going on, and while those conversations may be interesting and thought-provoking, they have very little resemblance to what’s actually being disputed in court. Ignorance or media influenece? Not sure, but probably a combination of both. I wish more people (including myself) did a lot more research before spouting out half-baked theories, and I wish the SIOP had better PR folks.
NB: This is a write-up of my thoughts after attending class. If there are HR pros who want to correct me on anything, please jump in. I may have gotten stuff wrong, etc.
What would a blog about my life and Yiddish be without a post about Rosh Hashana. Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year, and those of us who aren’t atheist/heathens go to temple/synagogue/shul. It’s one of the High Holy Days. You know how Christians have “Easter/Christmas Christians” or whatever that’s called? Jews have Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur as the equivalent. Rosh Hashana is one of my favorite Jewish holidays, because for my family – there are no prayers and the food requirements are essentially – sweet and round, if possible. This, I can handle. No fasting, no matzoh restrictions – just apples, honey and raisin-studded challah. No complaints.
The plan was to have the dinner at my mom’s house, because for some crazy reason she wanted to – but more importantly, Grandma really can’t host a meal any more – she won’t admit it, but it’s true. And it’s actually more work for all of us to do this at her house, plus she retains the right to yell at everyone even more than normal. On the invitee list: Me (of course), Frank (because he really can’t refuse), my friend Michelle (because she has a morbid fascination with my family and a really strong love of brisket), Grandma, and Grandma’s two friends. Frank’s parents were unable to attend, and my darling sister has flown to Rio de Janeiro for the weekend (no joke!) Total Jew Count? 3/7.
But – this because this is my life, nothing is that simple. I worked from home on Friday, so that I could make rugelach and go to my mom’s a little early. Everything was kind of on track – I wasn’t really accomplishing as much as I hoped on the work front, and while my new kitchen is fabulous and awesome, rugelach is one high-maintainence cookie. The phone rings at about 3 (I was planning on leaving at about 4:30), and it’s my mom. Can I leave work early and go to Grandma’s house. Apparently – she spilled chicken fat/gravy all over the floor and is danger of falling/has fallen/is freaking out/screaming. Oh, and can I bring Grandma over to her house when I come over?
Wonderful. I jumped in the shower, explained the situation to my boss who, because he is used to my life being a low-rated soap opera, believed me and wished me luck. Frank takes over rugelach-baking and I hightail it to Grandma’s. By the time I get there, she has managed to clean up the floor with every towel she ever owned and vinegar. Now she is freaking out about her lost glasses. I find the glasses and instead of rushing, she is schpatziring in a bra and slip, doing her make-up and kvetching about her roommate for my cousin’s Bat Miztvah in two months (hint – it’s Aunt Dot – that post is going to write itself.)
I get her, the 14 pound turkey, an emergency gravy boat, two extra bottles of wine (convinced her to leave the scotch) and what’s left of my sanity into the car and sit in traffic for a half hour on my way to mom’s. In the meantime, now Michelle has to come from Long Island and go pick up Frank.
Mom set a beautiful table. So pretty, it’s worth sharing.
Mom, Grandma and I finish preparing the meal, setting the table, fighting and rearranging the contents of a stove. I have never missed my little sister so much.
A turkey, suffering gross indignities at the hands of Flo
The meal itself went very well. Grandma’s friends were lovely, brought flowers, some transliterated prayers (promptly put aside, never to be read), more wine and generally kept her entertained. She regaled them of stories about how I went to Paris one year and came back with braided hair (apparently, a scandal) and they discussed her talents in art class.
Mom’s cooking was absolutely fantasic, and it goes without saying that there was way, way, way too much of it. Each guest got a little care package. In addition to snackies before the meal, there was matzoh ball soup, two briskets, the aforementioned turkey, challah, asparagus, some sort of string bean dish, bean salad, sweet potatoes with marshmallow (yay!), stuffing, potaoes and carrots in the brisket sauce, apple cake, noodle kugel and I am sure I am forgetting something else. Dessert was honey cake, ice cream, italian wedding cookies, rugelach, clementines, a fruit platter and a tiramisu cake and key lime cake that an upstairs neighbor brought down.
No one should leave hungry
We all survived and a new year was ushered in. The picture below is my favorite. Frank is of course sharing his true feelings, and I believe I captured the look on Michelle’s face when she first realized that although she was lured in by brisket, she has to stay until the end of the meal.
