Vermont Diary

Just relax

2009-10-08T07:42:00.000-07:00

You have a job (almost). The weather is perfect. In this enforced break in the action, can’t you really take a break? Relax.

Easier said than done. After two years of pushing hard to figure out the financial world as it shattered and reformed itself into unrecognizable shapes, after a year of attempting not only a new business but a new way of relating to the world of commerce, I seem to be hooked on anxiety.

Last week, I went to a movie for the first time in….well, in years. I’ve been on the treadmill every other day. Two or three, sometimes four dog walks a day. Bubble baths and reading in front of the fire. A couple of days ago, my shoulders lost their accustomed tension. I could breathe. I notice that even when I play solitaire, I play more slowly, no longer driven to top red with black with red, to strive for an outcome.

Back in the era when I had regular vacations, I went to Deer Isle for three weeks for pottery camp. What a wonderful break that was! All that was on my schedule was sitting at the kickwheel, making pots, occasionally glancing up to see whales spouting out beyond the firs on a rocky shore. Other people to share projects and meals, all cooked for us, and nightly meteor showers for our delight. And still, it took me a good two weeks to unwind. The third week was restoration.

It’s been a long time since I had a real vacation. I have had adventures and expeditions sandwiched in between work trips and, more recently, shorter breaks to enjoy a day trip to Canada or New Hampshire, or just to contemplate Vermont. There is a lot to contemplate in Vermont!

So when last week I was informed that I should expect a job offer in a week or so, to be followed by a couple weeks (or so) for background checks, my brain informed me that this was a good time for a break. It is always possible that this job offer could evaporate, but if it does, I’ll only have lost a few anxious weeks of job hunting. And I will be better for the break, of that I am sure.

Now if only I can continue to slow down my brain, tune up my muscles, and open up to a new life.

Limbo spa

2009-10-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a strange turn of events. I think I have a new job, but there are hurdles. Steps to go through. It is working for the Federal government, so everything has to go to Washington for approval. I didn’t know that Washington even knew about me, much less cared, but it appears that they (whoever they are) do.

In this intervening time, I’m declaring a spa month. Lots of walks with dogs, some serious exercise every day, good food, green tea. The kids are excited, and so am I. How often do we get a chance to relax and rejuvenate while looking forward to a new life? This back-to-school time has always seemed to me like a new beginning.

It couldn’t be a more beautiful time to take a break. Foliage is peaking: great washes of color light up the horizon. All across Vermont, people are picking apples, carving pumpkins and reveling in beautiful, crisp days. Even a rainy day like yesterday appeals, as the bright colors shine through the mist.

I have some goals for this period, but one of them is to work hard at not being so goal-directed. Yesterday I drove down to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival, almost. It seemed that as I got closer to the festival, it rained harder and harder. And I was getting tired, so when only a few miles from my goal I made a wrong turn, I surrendered and came home.

Actually, I stopped at the mall, another rare experience. For the first time in many months, I was able to buy something frivolous in the fabric store and something necessary (pantyhose and a new calendar) without worry. It is nice to contemplate a regular paycheck. I’m unlikely to go too crazy, but I did consider buying spring bulbs, a luxury that I have not been able to afford for some time. I still might do that, but not until the Federal Government makes up its Washingtonian mind whether to bring me into the fold.

Meanwhile, let’s just relax! I have to go now. There seems to be a pressing need for the morning walk to the pond.

Reframing

2009-09-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

There are giant bugs pounding on my window!

No wait. Not bugs at all. They are hummingbirds, seven or eight of them.

Someone who knows birds tells me that it is migration time. Sure enough, when I look, there are songbirds of every shape and color...everywhere. They particularly like the crabapple tree outside my picture window.

Not giant bugs, tiny birds on their way to South America. How cool is that?

Bravery

2009-09-15T11:09:00.001-07:00

Denial is a lovely thing. It allows us to hide behind our perceptions of the world, our ideas of who we are and how we fit. Or think we do. But sometimes the puzzle pieces come together with blinding speed, moving so fast that we cannot even parse their trajectory. It’s as if we were there….and now we are another place altogether. Here. Reality has shifted.

People think I am brave. I am the one who packed a seventeen-foot truck and left Brooklyn to move to Vermont. No job, a rented apartment. Stepping off into the void. Brave, right? Maybe not.

I am the one who quit a job without having another job. I was hoping to build a practice as a financial advisor, because I love the work, loved the clients even more. On purpose, could I have picked a worse year to try this? Launching into a new business venture, it is important to be appropriately capitalized. But how does one capitalize for a hundred year event? One doesn’t. I didn’t.

There is a woman I know slightly who is far braver than I. She has the bad gene for breast cancer and cervical cancer, and this fall, she will undergo surgery to remove both breasts and her uterus. She approaches it as a matter-of-fact choice. She wants to live to see her children grow up and to play with her grandchildren.

In many ways I envy her clarity. I have neither chick nor child, so I didn’t know what to look forward to when I gave up my last job, still don’t. But I know when I don’t have a choice. When staying feels wrong, it is time to go, and there is no real choice. It’s not a matter of bravery, just a matter of keeping faith with whoever or whatever you hold dear. Time to move on to the next chapter.

Moral dimensions of financial crisis

2009-04-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

Last week I met a man who was enraged. Like so many of us, he had lost about forty percent of the value of his investment portfolio, and he was at a loss to figure out where to put his anger. Yet he sensed that the other side of his anger and grief, there was a different perspective. He was anxious to get there, to be free of his distress. He wanted to move on.

Most of us weren’t dealing with confessed fraudsters like Bernie Madoff. So should we be angry at our advisors? Maybe. Certainly, Bernie Madoff and his like should be put in prison, regulation should be re-written and actually enforced, and the pay structure at financial institutions should be brought in line with performance over some reasonable time frame.

But I think there is a bigger issue here. I think most of us are really angry at ourselves. At least for a short time, we believed in bubbles. We believed that real estate prices would go up and up. We believed that the inflated price our neighbor received selling last year would drive the price of our own homes next year.

We believed that credit would always be easy to get. We believed that huge financial institutions could not, would not fail. And, most dangerous of all, we believed that the crazy things that happened in some markets (sub-prime, alt-A, CDOs) would not affect us as long as we were not directly participating in those markets. We were wrong.

I think this means that if we want to get past our anger, we need to stop looking outward and start looking at our own lives. Fundamentally, this is a moral crisis. We had money, we thought, and now we have less of it. Things like this happen, as the disclosures on our brokerage accounts and retirement funds say: You can lose money. If your financial advisor told you otherwise, then your advisor may belong in jail with Bernie.

We were wrong. We lost money. And now we need to forgive ourselves for it.

If anger at our advisors represents the first layer of the onion, and anger at ourselves is the second, then the next layer of the onion is fear that we may run out of money. Thirty-somethings are a lot more likely to be able to shrug off big losses than sixty-somethings, who have less time to catch up. Those of us who are older are facing the necessity to retire later than we planned, work part-time in retirement, travel less than we had dreamed, or make other adjustments along two themes: planning and stewardship.

I’m a planner by nature, creating alternatives for a variety of contingencies, so this is second nature to me. I chose my house partly because it has a first floor bedroom and bath, although I trust I am a good thirty years from needing to live on one floor with a caretaker upstairs.

If I lose more money before the time I need to start drawing on my retirement plans, I can sell my house and live somewhere more modest. That’s a contingency plan, and it is also a nod to stewardship, by which I mean not taking more than I need.

Right now, I live on two acres, I drive a car that gets 36 miles to the gallon, and I limit my trips to my Burlington office to two per week. I compost. I garden. Could I do more? Yes. I could live in a smaller house, even shared space. I don’t want to do that because I am a very private person, and I love having large dogs. But if I had to give up privacy and dogs, I could do it.

Not everyone is as fortunate. Many people in these times have cut their use of resources, their own and those of the wider world, to the bone. So they need more from the rest of us. That means our charitable contributions, our taxes, the prices of goods and services are going up. Which brings me to the next layer of the onion: anger at other people who now need help so desperately, our anger that drives a wedge between humans.

And our anger was supposed to be about money? No, it is about unfairness, taking more than belongs to us, stewardship of our own and others’ resources, forgiveness of others who need our help more than ever, and perhaps most of all, forgiveness of ourselves. Once we get past the moral dimensions of this crisis, we can focus on rebuilding financial plans.

Living on the Far Side

2009-03-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

One day last week as I drove up the hill where I live, I looked to the left and counted thirteen in my neighbor’s front yard, then another fourteen to the right in the open fields.
A few days without snow cover, and there is grass to eat, but the deer seem to have to range far to find enough. They are out at dawn and at dusk, as we might expect, but also in broad mid-day. The deer are hungry.

Constrained to the house more than usual, my dogs watch out the windows and let me know when more deer appear. I have become vigilant, doing a complete scan all around the house before anyone goes out even for a quick pee or to run the ten yards or so to the fenced dog run. Still, a couple of times when I thought there were no deer, we stepped outside to see a whirl of white tails. Thank goodness, my dogs come when they are called, at least if I speak quickly before they are in full pursuit.

The deer seem to be getting stronger, but they don’t move away quickly even when human or car approaches. They stand and stare, as if to say, “Please, let us eat this nice grass. There is nothing for us in the woods.” It’s a little spooky, a little like living in a Far Side cartoon. It makes me feel as if I should rush from car to house and lock the door, lest I hear the sound of hooves on the front porch and see antlers framed in the front windows.

Meanwhile, the back window—one of only two on that north-facing side of the house—has broken. No trees nearby, no falling snow or ice. I have to wonder if a bird flew into it with enough force to crack the glass. And from the front windows, I just saw a flash of black and white fur. Skunks back in the barn. Nature is on the move. It must be spring.

Don't jump

2008-11-03T16:35:00.000-08:00

From a family member:

A protester's sign in front of the New York Stock Exchange: "Jump you fuckers!" with the comment "I try not to forward things, but I just had to send this. Points for creativity and brevity of message."

My response:

Zero points for forgetting that your sister worked across the street from the New York Stock Exchange for seventeen years.

It's fun to demonize someone else, isn't it? But the majority of people who work in financial services in New York are just regular folks, trying to cover their bills. Think folks like Doug and Carrie in The King of Queens--that's what most people who work in financial services are like. Then there is a layer of professionals very like me...in fact I was one of them.

The financial industry expands and contracts much more than other industries. I haven't seen the job loss numbers in a few weeks, but I seem to recall losses of over 170,000 jobs in the last survey I saw. That's not just in banks, investment banks and insurance companies--it also affects cab drivers, coffee shops, hair salons.

I can tell you from personal experience in 1998 when I was laid off the first time that it is a double hit when these waves of job reductions occur. Not only do you not have your old paycheck, but there are very few jobs to compete for. And the bills keep coming. Not surprisingly, there were a few people who jumped. One woman I knew jumped under a subway car.

I know you didn't intend to offend me, and you didn't. But I do find these flip responses annoying. There is plenty of blame to go around for this crisis, and plenty of pain as well.

Was there greed on Wall Street? Yes. But if you rounded up the people who were driven solely by greed, I believe you would be able to fit them in the average small town high school gymnasium. Add the ones who simply did not understand the complexities of the financial instruments they were selling, and then you need a much bigger venue.

But that is the nature of the financial industry. Do you think that the people who sell variable annuities with guaranteed income streams really completely understand the embedded risks? Very few do. We have to rely on regulators to bullet-proof the products that are sold, and regulation tends to focus on the general public, not on the supposedly sophisticated investors that bought mortgage backed securities. Regulators failed us in the years since mortgage requirements were relaxed. And individuals who took out mortgages that they couldn't afford deserve blame as well. Plenty of blame to go around.

Personally, I have lost about 40% of my retirement savings if you measure it today. But I have great confidence in the US financial system to rebound. I was on Wall Street (literally, in an office overlooking the New York Stock Exchange) in 1987 when the market crashed.

And I was there on 9/11/01. We really thought the world was ending then. This crisis does not feel anywhere near as bad as that--we were unsure whether the markets or the city itself would survive the attack. An attorney I worked with briefly appeared on the front page of the New York Post head down on his way out of an upper floor window of the World Trade Center. Another jumper.

From one of our recent newsletters, here are a few other downturns for your consideration:

October 1973: Arab Oil Embargo launced a financial crisis, time to market improvement was 12 months
October 1974: Franklin National bank collapse (bankruptcy), time to market improvement was 2 months
May 1984: Continental Illinois bankruptcy, time to market improvement was 2 months
May 1986: Drexel Burnham Lambert bankruptcy, time to market improvement was 2 months
October 1987: US market crash (financial crisis), time to market improvement was 2 months
February 1995: Barings Bank bankruptcy, time to market improvement was 0 months
September 2001: 9/11 attacks (political crisis) time to market improvement was 12 months

There is no guarantee, of course, that we will see a near term recovery in the markets, but my experience of past downturns gives me a lot of confidence in the future.

And I hope that nobody jumps over loss of a job or part of an IRA.

Sunshine at my back

2008-08-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

Recovery of a window in my dining room has had more impact than I ever could have expected. The light is different throughout the entire ground floor, all four rooms in this simple and traditional Vermont farmhouse.

As I sit in my new most favorite place, I can see out windows in all four directions. First, I imagine eyes in the back of my head, looking across the porch to the dawn. To my left are two majestic maple trees and a wide expanse of pasture, the old dairy barn in the foreground. Ahead, I glimpse the crabapple, which seems to bloom only one year in three, periodic victim to harsh Vermont winters. Beyond the crabapple, the forsythia, even more sensitive, and beyond that, the valley stretches down to the village. To my right, perhaps the most fraught, a single small window looks to the maple grove and the northern wind. Vermont farmers knew how to build, windows few and small to the north, many and expansive to the south.

I could sit in this spot for years, analyzing portfolios and answering correspondence. Puppies at my feet. A pot of tea at the ready. Taking breaks to run to the raspberry patch or the vegetable garden. Perhaps I’ll get a chicken or a few.

The downside of my new profession is that I must, must, must make calls to people I know little or not at all. If the payoff is sitting with the sun at my back and German Shepherds on my feet, I’ll hit that bid all day long.

German Shepherds on my feet

2008-08-18T04:53:00.000-07:00

As I spend more time working from home, my contentment in this house grows. I find myself tweaking furniture placement, finishing up construction projects, opening the curtains wider to better enjoy the views. To the east and south, the Nebraskas lie beyond wide vistas of pasture, forest and valley. Out back, old Mr. Trombley’s prized maple grove still stands. The trees are enormous and very old. Nobody taps them now, and every now and then one falls. Except for half a dozen, they stand on my neighbor’s land, and none is near enough to threaten my cozy nest. There is only one window to the back, not a very large one, the winds of winter coming from that direction, but I can see the maple grove from here.

My dining room, where I now sit and type, is all new since yesterday, the culmination of a project to remove a clumsily placed closet and put in its place my large breakfront cabinet, formerly in front of a window. There are now three windows in this room, and the entry way is more graceful. From the porch, you have a welcoming view right into the dining room, or at least it is welcoming to those already acquainted with my two German Shepherds. And from the dining room, you can see out to the porch, orange and gold nasturtiums perched all around the rail. Sunrise happens through this window, and before today I had never seen it save from the porch.

I’m working through what it means to work from home. Do I have my office-office and my home-office in the same space? Will I really allow clients into my home? Do I try to create an upstairs space that is psychically extra-personal? How do I feel about cluttering the dining room with laptop and files? All of these are good and intriguing questions. In the winter, this room with its three windows, two interior doors and one exterior door may be chilly, but right now I sit with the dawn at my back, views to the outdoors on every side, and toasty German Shepherds on my feet.

August morning

2008-08-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, my friend shook his head sadly. He travels throughout the region, and already he was seeing leaves—just a few—changing on the trees at elevation. Surely, I rejoined, it must be only stressed trees. We were only a few days into August. And we scarcely feel we have had a summer, so much rain have we had this year.

Ten inches one week. The farmers despair of their hay. Children are whining, and so are adults. We are missing the opportunity to soak our bones in intense summer sunshine, to pack away remembrance of warmth during the proverbial two weeks of Vermont summer. We specially need warmth now, as we face winter with unprecedented fuel prices.

Today as I walked to my car, I could no longer deny the signs. Not one colored leaf, but many. True, I don’t see them in the branches yet, but all over the front lawn lies confetti of red and gold. August 7. Usually, we get another week or even two before a certain chill turns the air, and we know. Winter is on the way.

Life will speed up now. There are kids to get ready for school, insulation to wrap around pipes, wood to stack, vegetables to freeze. Once we see those first leaves and feel that first chill, it’s time to get busy.

Counting blessings

2008-08-04T17:36:00.000-07:00

Much to my surprise, the evening news played “Happy Birthday.” After a moment’s surprise that my quiet celebration had national coverage, I realized that Barack Obama shares my birthday.

In accordance with long-standing tradition, I took the day off. I believe my birthday should be a holiday. After many years of more success than error, I am careful what I choose to do with the day. The most memorable birthdays are the least planned, but the most carefully engaged. My birthday is a day when I am likely to get in the car, head for the bottom of the driveway and only then decide which way to turn. Sometimes I get promises for my birthday; I still owe myself a kayaking lesson from last year. And one day I will collect.

Today we started with a good, long swim in the Little River. The dogs splashed, swam and attempted to herd several Golden Retrievers and one prim, immaculate little pit bull girl. It was raining, sure, but after rain every single day in July—ten inches last week—we couldn’t wait any longer for swimming. Last year we went swimming twice a day.

A nice lunch, a glass of wine, a nap, and a trip to the raspberry patch took up most of the afternoon. A few household chores. I may be almost to the end of the laundry backlog. A thought of cutting some grass in the afternoon, but the mower refused, and I took it as a sign. A good book. A short walk down to see Cassie’s best friend. Most of all, a staunch refusal to think about messy details of life and work. Today is not a day for worry but a day to savor all my blessings.

Dinner over, I stepped out to consider the pile of wood that still needs to be thrown into the cellar. The work is soothing, even meditative, but I am careful not to overdo. I threw a few logs down cellar, then stood still for a moment, enjoying the rainbow over Mount Elmore.

Across from my house are two spots rainbows are almost certain to occur after a bit of rain and the sidewise slant of Vermont light. Sometimes the two are connected by one gigantic bow, often double, even triple rows of color. They are stunning, gorgeous, predictable, yet wholly a gift, just perfect for a watchful birthday girl counting her blessings.

Stacking wood

2008-08-02T04:49:00.000-07:00

The decision to purchase more wood is easy. Finding a seller is easy. Then starts the hard work of getting the wood in.

Over the last two years, mostly last year as my confidence in the wood furnace improved, I burned almost two cords of wood, primarily on weekends. Circumstances have altered, and I now expect to be working locally two to three days a week, so I can burn more wood. Certainly economics would suggest more wood and less oil. So I ordered six cords.

Mind you, it took me months to get the last wood into the cellar. The delivered pile was just slightly downhill from the wood chute, requiring an intimate relationship with the wheel barrow. Load, move, drop into cellar, move, stack.

This year’s deliveries are a little closer, and the outside work is easier. Still, it’s drop, move, stack. Then do it again. And again. Great exercise—aerobics and weight lifting all in one. And the work is highly, highly meditative. Just what I need as long as I’m careful not to overstrain my fifty-ish un-athletic back and knees.

My professional changes are much the same. It’s easy to make the decision to go from a marketing role to a sales and business advisory role. It’s easy to make lists of people to call, and I have a strong enough network of past relationships that many people will do me the courtesy of seeing me. Just like it’s easy to order the wood. The challenge will be to see if I can keep doing the daily lifting.

By the time winter closes in, I should have some idea if I can stay the course. Sure hope my wood is in by then.

Let us be thankful (lest we weep)

2008-07-16T03:11:00.000-07:00

The $1200 wood bill has been trumped by heating oil at $5 a gallon and propane upwards of $4. If I burned the same amount of fuel as last year but at this year’s prices, the total cost to heat my house would be $4,000, double last year’s bill. Ouch.

Fortunately, I have the ability to burn either wood or oil in my furnace, so will switch the percentage to as much wood as I can manage. The limiting factor is that I can only burn wood when I am home to run up and down the stairs and put logs on the fire. So if I plan to burn wood four to five days a week and all evenings, I think I can cut my bill to $3,000. Still painful, but better.

As you may imagine, the “prebuy” is the hot new topic wherever Vermonters congregate. As in “Didja get your prebuy yet?” Translation: “Have you heard from the oil (or gas) company what their price will be for the coming heating season?” There’s a level of obsession with the coming winter that we don’t usually see until the first crisp turn of the air in mid-August.

The prebuys are just now out. The fuel oil companies have been having trouble coming up with plans they can live with. Mine is offering $5 a gallon if you buy now, with a couple of adjustments for good credit and paying by check. How else would you pay? Oh, maybe credit card? That would be dire.

Alternatively, you can pay $4.80 for the oil and 40 cents for a cap for a total of $5.20. Then you can pay by the month. And if the price goes down, you pay the lower price. Worth it? I’m not sure. And there is a time value of money calculation I need to do as well. From a psychological point of view, I would rather pay once and not worry further. But I am fortunate to be able to do so.

These small fuel oil companies are really hurting. They buy oil at a price and sell it at a markup, but they can get hammered if prices go against them. Even the little guys are pretty adept at hedging, but these markets are making everyone queasy. Further, as prices go up, so do the odds that they will not get paid, and you can’t really repossess oil from a home tank. Aside from the human and political angles, there is sludge at the bottom of most tanks. So they deliver smaller amounts and sometimes insist on getting paid before delivery. More, smaller deliveries mean higher costs for their trucks and drivers.

The politicians and the non-profits are ramping up for a tough winter. Unless the weather is unusually warm, they are expecting to need to open up gymnasiums and armories as temporary shelters for people who simply cannot heat their homes. Winter in Vermont is beautiful but can be deadly.

The only happy campers these days are the wood guys. Their costs have gone up to some degree, but nothing like the rise in prices. Me, I’m grateful to be able to soften the price rise by shifting to more wood. It’s a rare opportunity, not to be repeated until I retire and can stay home most days happily feeding the wood furnace. But that’s more than a decade away, and who knows what energy future we will face by then?

Note: Just so you know. I will not be accepting political or merely cynical comments on this or any of my posts. You certainly have the right to hold whatever opinions you hold. But this blog is not the place for them.

Burn, burn, burn

2008-07-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

Today I contracted for my wood. Two cords of dry at $250 a cord, four cords of green at $175. By the time I burn the two dry, the green should be ready.

The Vermonter who came to talk about cutting up fallen trees in my neighbor’s maple grove gave me lessons in wood economics. A house the size of mine could use 8-10 cords in a winter if I burned only wood, he says. I can believe it. Last year I burned 2 cords only on weekends. And this winter, I expect to be home more during the week.

He quoted me the above price, but wasn’t all that anxious to sell. He can stockpile till November then likely get $375 a cord over in Stowe where people have more money. I called someone I had heard had a better price, but they were at $225 for green with an eight-week waiting period. They aren’t even selling their dry wood yet. Not till November.

So altogether, I have now committed $1200 for wood. Tomorrow I call to find out what the prices are for fuel oil (I have an almost full tank to start, thank heaven) and for propane (I only burn a little, to knock off the chill in the living room). This year the chill may stay unknocked.

My friends and neighbors say the pre-buy programs are, well, quite unattractive. That’s the Vermont way of saying we are terrified. Usually we don’t start obsessing about fuel costs until the second or third week of August. I count myself fortunate that I have the option to burn wood as well as oil in my furnace. And that I have two dogs to pile on the covers on winter nights. Not all my neighbors are so lucky.

In a day or two, the first load of wood will appear on the side lawn. And I will proceed to shove it through a window into the cellar and stack it. Conventional wisdom is that wood warms you twice, once when you split it and again when you burn it. My Vermont neighbors reckon that this calculation comes up short; it’s more like seven times they say. Cut, split, stack, load, unload, stack, and finally burn.

The wood guy suggested that he deliver two cords at a time, a few days apart, “to give me time to get it in and stacked.” He was dead serious. He had no idea that last year it took me weeks to get two cords into the cellar.

Guess I will have to do better if I aspire to be a wood-burning Vermonter. Aerobics and weight training, all at once. Wish me luck. Better yet, come on over.

Running on instinct

2008-07-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

I’m one of those people who rise to a crisis. In the normal course of life, I am analytical to a fare-the-well, weighing costs and benefits, expected value and range of possible outcomes. But in a crisis, I act quickly and decisively. I slice through waves of emotion, mine and other people’s, and I do what needs to be done. Then I fall apart later.

It seems like a good system to me. But mental health professionals characterize this behavior as dissociation, which at the extreme results in multiple personalities or other maladaptive mechanisms. I accept that this shadow is out there, but these days, I am grateful to feel I have a channel to that inner instinct that guides my daily decisions.

The current crisis is not even mine, at least not mostly. My boss—let’s call him Jay—and my old dog were both diagnosed with cancer. At first, I joked with my boss that he had the same symptoms as Toby, but that ceased to be funny. Toby is no longer with us, and my boss is facing a grueling course of chemotherapy.

Jay has non-Hodgkins lymphoma, mantle cell type. As he says, it’s a “nasty little bugger.” He learns more about his prognosis one day next week, but he and his family and his colleagues have come to accept that the treatment is going to be a big challenge, even as we firmly believe that this big, strong, dynamic 55-year-old man will come through and regain his health. We can’t imagine any other outcome.

On the practical level, my world has changed. Outwardly, I will be doing many of the same day to day actions that I did when I was marketing Jay’s services. With him out of pocket for at least six months, we figure, it makes sense for me to change focus. I will continue networking my little heart out, but on my own behalf rather than Jay’s. I will talk to people about retirement plans, investment strategies, long term care and disability insurance. Until I can gather up some new clients, I will have an income gap to bridge—thank goodness, I am one of those conservative people who actually has several months expenses in the bank.

When Jay is healthy again, we can work out how we can work together in the future. When I joined Jay’s wealth management firm a year and a half ago, I was adamant that I wanted a role where I did not have to be involved in sales. Didn’t like selling, couldn’t do it. My outlook has changed. It turns out that the heart of wealth management for small business, individuals and families is talking to human beings about what they want to do with their lives and how their money enters into those decisions. And I do want to be on the front line of those conversations. Even if I have to recognize that I am in a sales role.

I am certainly qualified. I have over twenty years experience in financial services, and I have resources to fill in any gaps. Also, it has turned out that I am an effective and enthusiastic networker. I enjoy hearing about people’s hopes and dreams and helping figure out ways to achieve them. And I have a long list of contacts that I think I can convince to let me practice my value proposition. I had been thinking for some months about hanging out a shingle, which would allow me to work closer to home at least a couple of days a week.

But I wouldn’t have had it happen this way for anything in the world. Here’s a comfort for me: Jay sees it as a major positive that I am taking on this new role. He retains some continuity in the office, and he also genuinely believes that I will be wildly successful. How nice is that to hear?

Am I terrified? You betcha. I’m an introvert, for heaven’s sake! And I’m going into sales? Correction. I have been in a sales and marketing role for the last five years, one with Jay and four in economic development. Calling on businesses, listening to people, trying to find solutions. Still, it is different to have my income depend on whether I can find the people who need solutions and find solutions that they will embrace.

How can I go forward? I am running on instinct. I feel in my bones that this is the right road to follow as opposed to, say, going after another corporate job. There is little analysis behind this decision, beyond a quick check of my bank balance, and for me to proceed without analysis is rare. It is mysterious, even a little creepy, how strongly I feel this is the right path.

This spooky certainty has overcome my native conservative cast before. Many of my big life decisions have been made this way, and I have emerged with relatively few regrets. What would life be if we couldn’t remake ourselves from time to time?

Closing and opening

2008-07-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

We closed another chapter this week with the loss of my good friend Toby. He was twelve. He had been diagnosed with cancer and was just beginning to be in pain. It is truly a blessing that we can spare our animal friends the bitter end of life. And it is a solace to me that I was able to stay with him and calm him through the end. I was never able to do that for Max--I loved Max so much. But Toby loved me so much that I could not leave him alone. We all miss him terribly.

We also have a new chapter opening with vigor. Meet Stone. Also called Stony. He is another puppy from my friends at Stonybrook Farm www.vtfarms.org/farm.php/fid/90

Stony had several weeks with Toby, who taught him some basic manners.

I struggled for a long time naming this baby, who is a full brother (same mother, same father, different year) to 3-year-old Cassandra. Cassie is perfectly named.

When I first moved to Vermont, I was vocal about all the kinds of things that I thought I knew that people in Vermont did not. At last, someone sat me down and said, "You may be right. You probably are. But in Vermont, nobody will believe you. Here, you are Cassandra." Doomed to be always correct in her prognostications, doubly doomed never to be believed, that was Cassandra. What a perfect name for a talky, preachy German Shepherd!

It will be interesting to see how looks when he grows up. At this stage of his life, he looks exactly like she did at this age. And here's the beautiful girl now, rounding out the family photos.

I liked the idea of naming a German Shepherd for a prophet. And I like names that have layers of meaning. But in the end, Stony of Stonybrook Farm seemed like a good name. Formally, he is Stone--I can see him growing up to be a serious jazz pianist. And if we think of stones as runes, perhaps his name has a prophetic cast as well.

I am sorry I missed your comments. I failed to supply an e-mail address where I could be notifed of new comments, but I have corrected that error now. I certainly never meant to be so completely defended in my Vermont hideaway that I was unreachable.

Unfortunate

2008-03-25T17:58:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, I have had to enable comment moderation on this blog.

Some little twit of a graduate student inappropriately used comments to solicit participation in her most unwelcome survey project.

I can't imagine the lapse of taste that this woman has displayed--it's on a par with telemarketers calling in the middle of dinner and refusing to go away--but I feel I must put up the defenses in a way I have not had to do in the past. Honestly, I cannot begin to express how annoyed I am with her.

My apologies to my readers.

New Words

2008-03-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

Orographic. As in “This will be a highly orographic storm.” Meaning the storm will creep over the tops of the mountains, then whomp down on the other side with a vengeance. Meaning that you may leave Burlington on a clear, almost springlike night, only to find cars off the road halfway home. Only to slow to a crawl two-thirds of the way home on icy roads disappearing under white-out blasts, that mercifully last only seconds. Whatever you do, don’t hit the brakes!

Emesis. The act of pouring hydrogen peroxide (an emetic) down the gullets of two dogs who stole a bottle of ibuprofen. When they still won’t throw up, you take them to the vet, where they will spend a full twenty-four hours recovering from an emetic that works, getting intravenous fluids, and having blood work tested to be sure their kidneys are not affected.

For those of you who care about such things, ibuprofen is really bad for dogs. The vet tech lost a dog to ibuprofen. What makes it even more dangerous is the dogs look fine for three or four days...until their kidneys shut down. I don't know that my dogs ate any, although I do know that they licked off the sweet red coating from a few pills. Attached as I am to my dogs, I am not inclined to take the chance of waiting to see if ill effects develop. I can't even think about what the vet bill will be. Don't know, don't care.

From emesis to orographic makes for a long day.

Cold

2008-02-28T16:43:00.001-08:00

I’m stuck at home with a cold, and cabin fever has taken hold.

My dogs haven’t been out to play in days. They can barely run out for a quick pee or poop before it is clear even to them that indoors is a better deal. Temperatures scarcely exceed the zero mark, and wind chills….brrrr.

Fortunately, I have lots of wood in the basement, and I have had a good fire going all day. When the temperature dives like this, the wood heat option is the very best. It’s a dry heat that soaks through to the house’s bones, and even to mine. I happily run up and down the basement stairs, adding more logs every couple of hours.

Maybe that flu shot did me some good. I am definitely on the mend in day two, while my colleague is down for the rest of the week. I could feel myself coming back to life this morning as I actually welcomed the opportunity to get back on the treadmill and sweat some of the germs out. A few rounds of laundry and I am almost as good as new.

Cassie has been going to daycare one day a week for the last few months. It helps her run out some of her excess energy, and better yet, she takes it out on playmates other than aged Toby. He went a time or two, but although he loved the play, it took him days to recover. Now his treat is to have Cassie go, to have a day of snoozing undisturbed.

Cassie and I will both be back on the road tomorrow morning, just in time to hurry home for another snowstorm tomorrow night. This is now officially the snowiest February on record for the city of Burlington. Kind of encouraging. If I can make it through this winter commuting, then maybe it’s not so impossible to live here and work there.

We’ll see. It’s still a long way to spring.

What to write about?

2008-02-19T11:28:00.000-08:00

I seem to be singularly uninspired to write these days. The puppy is still as charming as ever, the old dog as deep a comfort. My morning and evening drives have a little more light to recommend them. I continue to be obsessed with knitting socks. It’s a quiet life, but a good life.

We’ve had a lot of snow this year, all good news for the resorts and the local economy. My wood supply has been more than adequate to back up the oil furnace, and I have enjoyed burning wood on cold days.

I’m considering painting the dining room. I’m studying to take the Series 7 exam again. And I just realized that if it is the middle of February, I really should be thinking about what seed to plant come spring.

Spring! Yesterday, we got just a whiff of it. It rained all night and all day, turning driveways into practice areas for the Olympic luge team, or so said one of our clients. My driveway is short, so I just slither down the hill. Getting up is another story, but gunning it and pointing the nose of the car into the garage works so far.

Still, it is only mid-February, and there is a lot of mud to endure before we emerge into spring.

National Day of Whining

2007-12-27T15:09:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas in England is Boxing Day, likewise in Canada. I have heard lots of explanations of the name, ranging from the traditional day the poorboxes are opened to the poor to the day that Canadians like to shop in box stores (really!).

I am proposing that in the US we should proclaim December 26 to be the National Day of Whining About Our Families--NaDaWhAF for short. Here are some real life examples I heard this Nadwhaf:

My Mom only gave my kids one gift each.
My family didn’t get my packages in the mail—I wonder if she is shopping at the after-Christmas sales.
It was the first day since my Dad died—my brother came late and left early.
My Mom only gave me $12 in scratch-off tickets as my gift.
I never get thank-you notes—I wonder if I should just strike them off the list.
My kids bickered all day.
My teenagers seem to view Christmas as a shake-down opportunity. Only one item on their list was under $200.
My daughter sent me a certified letter for Christmas, but I don’t know what it says because the post office is closed on Christmas Eve.
Everyone in my family was sick.

The great thing about Nadwhaf: It seems to last only a day, at least for most of us. By December 27, we no longer pine for Santa Claus and we have adult expectations of other adults in our lives. Mostly.

Christmas came early this year

2007-12-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

Don’t get me wrong, I love the hustle-bustle, the parties and the presents, all the sparkle and warmth of this season. I enjoy picking out just the right present for friends and family, then wrapping them while I imagine the unwrapping. This year, even the baking turned out just right as my cookie exchange was perfectly timed to supply the office Christmas party, and the stollen was ready just before I needed an extra thank-you for my plow guy. All of it is fun, and I wouldn’t miss it.

Still, there comes a time each year when the commotion steps back and silence takes center stage. That’s when Christmas comes. You feel it right down into your bones. Certainly, there have been years when Christmas seemed very far away from whatever woes I was experiencing, but I have been blessed to have a lotta lotta Christmas in my life. And I have learned that while you cannot wrestle Christmas into your life, you certainly can invite its peace and calm.

I’ve never been much for Christmas lights, and this year I have even foregone a lighted tree since we are dog-sitting. So last night I was sitting in my living room with a dozen small candles in the window…and there it was. Suddenly these tiny lights seemed incredibly bright, illuminating the darkness. Just astonishingly bright, and quieter than a (temporarily) three-dog house could be imagined to be. Christmas.

All best wishes for you—that you may know the peace and joy of Christmas.

Officially winter

2007-12-21T06:36:00.000-08:00

This is a day for great celebration, the shortest day of the year, which blessedly is followed by longer and longer days. Every little lumen is a gift to those of us who crave light. I must have been a plant in another life, or maybe I am one now.

It’s a short day at the office. Most working people have picked their heads up and shifted eyes from computer screens to gaze into the distance and wonder that the holiday season is really upon us. Do we have enough food in the house, enough wine? Heavens, yes. Are our gifts purchased and wrapped? Pretty much, yes. The baking is all done, the wrapping paper is packed away. We are ready to kick back for a few days. As we anticipate the pleasure of our loved ones, we know that the office will wait.

Here in Vermont, it is looking very Christmas-y. Snow came early this year, and in quantity. There’s a good two feet of snow on the ground at my house. The dogs love it, but they look more like porpoises than dogs as they attempt to bound through deep and drifted snow.

Forecasters opine that it is pretty certain that we will have a white Christmas, even though it may rain this weekend. More than one Vermonter has been heard to wish they were staying home this year—the skiing is reported to be excellent—especially if they are heading out west where there has been little snow so far.

Snow! It’s amazing stuff. It’s still a novelty to me, but I don’t revel in it the way Vermonters do. One friend reminisced about building forts and tunnels—she and her small buddies dreamed of creating a network of tunnels connecting all the houses in their neighborhood. And if you go to an outdoor party in the winter here, all the adults fling themselves into sledding, sliding and general mayhem along with the kids. (For a description of a Vermont sliding party see http://vtdiary.blogspot.com/2006/03/winter-ways.html)

Vermonters don’t have all the different words for snow that Eskimos do, but they do talk about different kinds of snow. This unusual early December snow is declared to be “greasy.” It is hard to plow, easy to turn to ice under tires.

Perhaps that is why I just got stuck in my driveway last night. I took a run at the garage, but wasn’t going fast enough. Couldn’t go forward, couldn’t go back without running the risk of skidding into a snowbank. Tried to angle left….bigger skid….angle right…smack into the snowbank. This in a driveway no more than fifty feet long, but with a wicked slope.

I called my plow guy, and this morning he came over and pulled me out. I am so grateful that he helps me out of these all too frequent situations, and I told him so, handing over a loaf of Christmas stollen as well. Now that I have gotten stuck—right in my own driveway like the gosh-darned flatlander that I am—it must really be winter.

Long time Vermonters tolerate us newer Vermonters remarkably well. I started the morning with Willem Lange’s story of Favor Johnson on NPR--the story of a hound names Hercules, a flatlander doctor, homemade fruitcake and the real spirit of Christmas. Honestly, they shouldn’t play these stories on the radio! I could barely steer through tears. It’s a good story and you can hear it here http://www.vpr.net/episode/42370/

Thank goodness for Christmas letters

2007-12-08T07:47:00.000-08:00

Adapted from a response to my friend Tykie's Christmas letter

I was so pleased to receive your Christmas letter and hear all your good news. Getting married! I wish you the very best.

Even better is the overall tone of your letter. You just seem happy. And I couldn’t be more delighted.

I’m doing well…though not as well as you! I’m sitting in my Vermont farmhouse looking out at snow covered fields. We had an early snowfall, which has left us with about a foot and a half of really nice snow on the ground. This doesn’t usually happen until January, but it is a boon to the ski industry and awfully Christmas-y. I’m not sure when I last communicated with you, but if you want to track my acclimatization to Vermont, take a look at my blog... Some of it is pretty good (if I do say so myself), some is just dull, but I have had a good time with it. There are pictures, too.

I spent four years doing economic development work for one of the counties here, which was in many ways very satisfying—-helped me get integrated in the community--but not particularly well paid. Finally last January, I decided that I really needed to prop up the retirement funds a bit before I needed them, so I am now working for a very small wealth management firm...I will hear no whining about commuting—-I have an hour drive each way in the summer. How long it takes in the winter is still an open question…worst so far was two and a half hours to get in one morning. Our interstate is only two lanes in each direction, so it doesn’t take much to close it down completely!

Vermont is awash in former Morganites. Hugh Kemper is attempting to redesign the cost structure of the education system, Tom White is heading up research at Dwight Investment Management, and I see Karen Reukauf Sharf from time to time when she comes up to her Vermont house.

My household has been dog-centric since 2000. My dear old Max died in January of last year. He had been failing for some time, so I got a beautiful German Shepherd girl the November before he died. She is named Cassandra and called Cassie and is a complete delight. She listened carefully to everything that Max had to teach her and learned how we do things in this household. She allows Toby, now eleven I think, to be the number one dog, and he mostly adores her as long as she does not herd him too vigorously.

Cassandra takes her name from mythology, from the prophetess who was doomed to be always correct and never believed. When I first started working in economic development in Vermont, as I was ranting about the need for universal broadband or enhanced computer skills or something similar, someone said this to me: “You are probably right. You are almost certainly right. But in Vermont, you are Cassandra. They will never believe you.” What a perfect name for a German Shepherd! They rant and bark and try to herd everyone, but if you know them well, you know it is pretty much an act. And it helps keep me humble to be reminded that people here don’t believe things that people in other worlds take for granted.

It really is a very simple life here. Neither you nor I was ever particularly conspicuous in our consumption, but my life is pared way back. In a good way.

This morning I got up and made a fire in the furnace. I burn wood on weekends for warmth and economy. A little breakfast, then out for a snowshoe and a romp with the neighbor’s dog Acer (named for the genus of maple trees, Cassie’s best friend). A little later, a guy who once had a little crush on me will bring over lots and lots of evergreen branches, and I will make eighteen kissing balls for the Rotary Christmas silent auction. I’m not in the Rotary any more now that I drive to Burlington, but I still have good friends there and they like to rope me into projects—kissing balls in the winter, duck race in the summer. The ducks live in my garage. This afternoon, I will wash my disgusting floors (all that snow tracked in brings piles of mud), then bake cookies for the cookie swap. This evening, I will get together with friends who count on my good sense and perspective (as I do on theirs), and we will finish the evening with a trial run of Acer staying with us while his family goes away for vacation. I might do a little writing for work or for fun, will almost certainly do a little knitting. I am currently obsessed with socks. It’s a good life.

How do you Washingtonians like the tree we sent you?

Thankfulness

2007-11-23T07:11:00.000-08:00

I’m a glass half full kind of girl, cultivating an attitude of thankfulness all year long, each and every day. Some days this practice is harder than others, but mostly I am thankful for all the blessings of my life, including the habit of thankfulness, which keeps the edge of everyday life from cutting so sharply.

I’m thankful for my parents, who taught me to say please and thank you and yes ma’am and no sir, but thank you for thinking of me. I’m thankful for reasonably good health and for the doctors and medications that support that state of life.

And as I discussed with my mother on the phone yesterday, we are both thankful for the crowd of people who help take care of us. Carpenters and painters, snow plowmen (for me) and dock haulers (for her), grass cutters and car repairmen, their mundane contributions are deeply appreciated. Taken together, these small tasks make a great gift—our capacity to live alone, as we choose to do. Imagine, we joked, if we had to sleep with some old man just to get our chores done.

Yesterday I had dinner with part of my support system, a couple who have become dear friends, not least because my German Shepherd puppy Cassie started her life in their home. We ate turkey, one they had grown, and fussed over Cassie’s mother, her sister Nellie—same mother, same father, but a year and a half younger, and Miss Abby, the newly-self-appointed leader of the pack. My Cassie-scented sweater was thoroughly sniffed on the way in, then sniffed again when I returned home covered in the scent of German Shepherds who were not Cassie.

There were human friends, too, and the quintessential couple of Thanksgiving strangers. Last minute invitations as they were dug out of their driveway, they came into a warm and hospitable room, and chilled it. There was history, you see. Nobody elaborated on the back story, but we could not entirely overlook past bills unpaid for services rendered and past ungrateful behavior.

In my past life, I spent many hours helping the man set up his dream business. It’s okay, I was paid for my work, and even accepted that many people feel it is their right to treat public servants badly. Still it rankled when he disappeared without a word one day, neither to me nor to the small business counselor who had also spent days on his dream. He tried to explain yesterday—he was busy. One can only imagine how she justified not paying her vet bill to a room full of the veterinarian’s staff. Justified in her mind, that is, not a word was spoken.

They left early, and the room warmed up again. There were enough German Shepherds for us each to have one to mess with. We didn’t give the ungrateful pair another thought, except to be thankful that we don’t need to know them.

We all have behavior that we aren’t proud of, and in a small town people know about it. Our history is written in invisible ink on the backs of our parkas, and although people may continue to extend courtesy, warmth is another thing altogether.