E.T.'s L.J. U.R.L.

So the news of the day is that my mother is engaged...

For those who don't know that she's been seeing someone: They've known each other for about 40 years, since they were both young newlyweds (to other people), and the couples stayed friends over the years. He and his wife got divorced a few years ago. (They were both at our wedding, at separate tables.) When my mom went down to Florida for a week's vacation a couple months ago, she arranged to get together with all her Florida friends... including him. One afternoon led to another, and they wound up spending most of the week together. Somewhere along the way they realized they were interested in each other as more than just friends.

Since then they've been spending more and more time on the phone, and he's come up to visit a few times. A couple days ago he came up again with the intent of spending a few weeks alternating between here and his son's house in New York. Several long, intense conversations followed, and this morning my mom came into the store with the news that they're engaged. I think that half of Brookline was in the store shrieking with glee over the course of the day, so the word seems to be out.

No word yet on further plans, but this is still pretty recent. There's a lot to be decided - whether/when she'll move to Florida, what happens with the store, etc.... but for the moment it's just nice to see her so happy.

Deval Patrick got sworn in as Governor (and we were able to watch it, a bit fuzzily, on a Watchman we have at the store).

A customer sent me flowers (for doing something that I felt was no more than my job, but it's nice to be appreciated).

And G-d willing we may have news to share soon (if all goes well for the next couple weeks).

Next month, my mom and I will be going to a business conference. Amongst the information they're requesting is this bit for the icebreaker: If a movie were made of your life, who would you want to play your role? Well, as many of you know, I'm not what you'd call celebrity-fluent... but I know that some of you are. :-)

So... if you were choosing an actress to play me, who would it be? (A link to a picture would be helpful but isn't required.) I'd prefer someone obscure if possible but that isn't a must. No pressure, but since I haven't the slightest idea who to choose, I thought I'd see if I could get some feedback...

(Bonus points if you can suggest someone for my mom, too!)

We've been getting a lot of flattering testimonials from customers voting for us on the A-List. (If you haven't already - follow the link and vote for Unique Simchas!) :-) It's kind of validating to know that people really are happy with what we do.

What's strange about it, though, is that I browsed through the info screens of the others in our category, and of the 14 vendors listed only one other has any testimonials... and they only have 3. You can select 10 testimonials to appear in your profile at a time, and I had a hard time choosing because as of this afternoon 40 people had written them for us. (That's not how many people have voted, that's how many people felt strongly motivated to leave a comment.) Seems to me that says something in our favor... unfortunately there's no way to make that stand out, because people only see those if they look for them. Too bad.

In the meantime, the current standings will be hidden until they announce the results in a couple weeks, so there's no way to know where we rank. (We were 5th as of a few days ago.) Just have to wait and see, I suppose... (twitch)

A client came into the store today looking very upset. We asked what was wrong, and she told us that her cousin was killed by a drunk driver last week. Said cousin was 26 years old, recently married, and pregnant. She also said that the driver was in critical condition, not expected to recover, and was supposed to get married in two weeks (though she didn't care as much about him). So a young man has lost his wife and expected child, and a young woman has probably lost her fiance - not to mention the pain caused to their parents, family, friends, etc. Such a waste...

I'll never understand the allure of getting drunk. Aside from the fact that I don't like the smell of alcohol, or the taste, or the sensation - I've always been of the opinion that if you can't enjoy what you're doing without dulling your senses, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. (If it's a dull party, don't drink until it seems exciting, just leave and find something more fun to do.) And I absolutely cannot comprehend why someone would drink until they feel fuzzy, and then put themselves in control of several thousand pounds of steel. Even if they don't care about their own safety, they should be considerate of those around them.

Sometimes I really want them to bring back Prohibition... (Yes, I know it didn't work. It's the sentiment.)

And so does gerunding... We got a postcard at the store today promoting a new variant in a line of unusual greeting cards. We have carried them previously; they're very eye-catching, but they've always been blank inside. The company is promoting the fact that they're now available with pre-printed text. The headline on the postcard, in big cheerful lettering, was: "Introducing [name of product] with Versing Inside!" Versing??? Ouch! I'd ask how that got approved, but I probably don't want to know...

Up too late so I'm going to try and keep this short, but I wanted to post an update.

This afternoon ( Read more... )
Tonight ( Read more... )

I'm typing this from a hotel room in Kennebunkport. My mother and I are, as mentioned previously, at a dealers' summit hosted by one of our printers. ( Read more... )

Scheherazade is back home, and acting much more like herself. Yay! Thanks to everyone for your concern. We still need to keep an eye on her to make sure she eats; she's supposed to be on a special diet for a couple days, but doesn't seem to like it so far. (She doesn't usually eat wet food.) Hopefully the transition back to her usual food will go smoothly, and she'll be all better soon.

In non-cat news, we changed the display in the store window this afternoon. We worked in our usual tag-team fashion: My mother came up with an idea, and I worked out the details. :-) It came out really well. For those of you who are local, if you wander by, let me know what you think!

And we got the new Modern Bride today, but so far I can't find the article we wanted to see. But it seems they also have a Boston edition, so maybe it'll be in there instead... we'll have to watch for it.

We lost power for a few hours at the store today (due to a fierce rainstorm). We did what paperwork we could by candlelight, and fortunately the power came back on before it got really dark. Shortly afterwards a frequent customer came in, and we started chatting about blackouts. She said that her kids get completely freaked out when there's an outage. At first I thought that was odd, but then it occurred to me that since we're Jewish (she's not), we're accustomed to the idea of not using power on Shabbos, at least. We set lights on timers, but when one goes off, it's off... and if you get up in the middle of the night, well, it's dark. It hit me as I was talking to her that, outside of a blackout, her kids have probably never been in a situation where they can't turn a light on. That just struck me as interesting for some reason...