Who were you, Anne Berkowitz?

My aunt gave me a very old book she had bought from an antique store some 15 years ago. The subject matter is a spoiled cat who somehow escapes his Manhattan home for a night out with the local alley cats.

A previous owner received the book through the mail and I'm trying to locate her family members. Here it is:

My only possible hint is that she might have actually been married at this time, and that the "Miss" is a mistake. I did find an Anne Abramowitz who married a David Berkowitz, but I found nothing about her connections with the Charity Organization Society. 

I looked up the address. It doesn't exist anymore; the block has been turned into apartments that rent for about $5k a month minimum.

Maybe someone will Google the name and leave a comment.

The year of the tiger

Chinese New Year begins February 1st, and will be the Year of the Tiger. I have the embarrassing distinction of being born in the Year of the Pig, but when a friend ragged me for this, I was happy to inform her that she was born in the Year of the Rat. 

Since last posting, I have lost one job but found another. Although I really liked the job I acquired in July, the sales were too poor for them to keep everyone, so the job went. However, I acquired another one in just a few weeks (more about that later). 

It took me a couple of months to become used to apartment living. I wondered about this, until I realized that I don't think I have lived in an apartment for over 25 years. While the heat didn't work properly for the first weeks - the building went up in 1908 and still has a boiler and radiators - I have decided I like my bachelorette pad. I'm walking distance from downtown, there are plenty of coffee shops to check out, and I don't have any scary neighbors, although one large dog upstairs is a worry.

One concern is that I think Buddy the cat is bored. At my aunt's, he had much more square footage, a better view out windows, and the occasional walk outdoors. Now he's stuck in a one-bedroom flat. I don't think he wants a feline friend, as I baby-sat my first cousin's cat for a week, and they did the best to steer clear of each other.

I think I'll save the new job description for next time. 

Mel's movin' on

Last week I signed the lease on a one-bedroom flat in downtown Chattanooga. It has wood floors, a proper bathtub, and traditional radiators and window a/c units. 

There are several reasons for the move. Although my aunt has zero dementia, she sometimes thinks that I am here to baby-sit. She also dislikes having anyone under her roof who does not agree with her politically, and since she gets all of her political information from Fox News, this happens a lot.

The real tipping point came when she left me a note that said she had "never asked me to stay in the first place". This wounded me to the core, and still does, especially when I think that she requests help from me on a daily basis for everything from trash removal to putting her hair in rollers.

Secondly, I'm in a remote area and I'd like to meet some locals. My apartment is just blocks from the Riverwal, so I can take my bike out during lunch when time and weather permit. 

I also admit that Reed* had a bit to do with it. I would like to see more of him, and having my own place will make this easier. 

After not seeing Reed for almost two months, he spent last week here. He was more of a lover than anything else (I'll just say there was little role play and leave it at that). The last night was odd in several ways; here is what happened.

He was supposed to return home Friday, but his wife showed up Thursday but then left quickly, which was odd. She was going to go rafting on the Ocoee, which is not far away, but then she headed to Illinois to see her ill, hard-drinking father as he went to the hospital and then to the ICU.  So late Thursday night, I am already preparing for bed when he sends a text saying that he is alone. 

I ignore the text as I had already gotten comfy, but then I get one a half-hour later that says "I need you." So I put on jeans and head to his hotel. What I saw upon arrival was a shock.

Reed was obviously, seriously drunk. He was gnawing on chicken wings and had two large beers waiting. 

In the past, Reed had never had much to drink when visiting. He would have one drink at dinner and that was it. He had also asked me to encourage him to refrain from too much drink, as it would infringe on our quality time.

But here I am, wondering why he felt he needed me. He alluded to an unhappy conversation with the wife, but I didn't ask for details. So I eventually pointed out that his last text was why I had come to see him, but it didn't appear that I was needed. 

His response set me aback, as he declared he was in love with me. He added that he had felt this way for a while.

While I will never take drunken proclamations of love as the undisputed truth, I also think that some people lose inhibition - emotional and otherwise - when under the influence. So I didn't know how to respond. He then reached out for my arms and put them around his neck, and I said nothing but held him.

He then asked me to remove the rest of the alcohol,and I duly poured it down the drain. Then he fell asleep. I went home a few minutes later, leaving my favorite scarf.

Around 2:30, he texted me. "Did I just pass out?"  I said yes.

Friday morning he offered his sincere apologies. I responded with:

"We had an interesting conversation." 

His response: "Uh oh."

I said that we needed to talk about it, but I preferred to wait until we saw each other in person again. He didn't object.

Initially, Reed's declaration put me in a quandary, as I didn't know if it would change what was going on between us. But then I decided to see where the day - or months ahead - take me. 

* See The Usual Suspects.

Where I was on 9/11

Since it is almost 20 years since the 9/11 attacks, there appears to be some upcoming media coverage planned. I don't plan to watch any of it. In the weeks after it happened, I saw enough filmed coverage of the World Trade Center to give me nightmares for a long time, which it did.

A few years ago, I went to the 9/11 Museum when visiting Ian* in New York. I quickly discovered why there were tissue dispensers in front of every exhibit. An exhibit of a destroyed fire truck (see pic below) was particularly upsetting to me as I couldn't stop thinking of firemen running up the stairs of the towers. 

While fighting any fire is a risk, I always wondered how many considered the possibility of the building collapsing. How many realized they might be running upstairs to the deaths?

There are an increasing number of people sharing where they were the morning of 9/11, how they first heard about it, and how those around them were affected. Everybody remembers the day clearly, and so do I.

I first heard of 9/11 when my friend Rachel called me. It was about 10 minutes after the first plane hit. I was still at home, getting ready to go to work. The first thing she told me was to turn on my TV. I still had a smallish Sony TV in my bedroom back then, so I switched it on to see the footage of the first plane hitting the tower.

I still feel guilty when I remember my first impression. I thought the plane was much smaller than it was. I told Rachel that it "looked like some small Cessna with an idiot inside". She was pretty sure I was wrong.

A few minutes later, my then-husband called. Being former NSA, he had figured it out immediately. We discussed what we would do if the planes were followed by dirty bombs, and if one hit Dallas. We eventually decided to head to an underpopulated county in far North Texas where two of our friends lived.

I couldn't decide what to do, so I drove to work. My office was only about three miles away from DFW Intl Airport. I listened to the radio reports during my 30-minute commute, and by the time I arrived, I knew the full extent of it. 

Nobody was working; instead, they all watched the TV monitors that were within every department. Usually these monitors kept track of stock and other markets, but today, it was nonstop 9/11 footage. I couldn't watch more than about 20 minutes, so I walked outside. But all commercial flights had been directed to land, and since DFW was a large regional airport, one could see literally eight to 12 planes landing or in holding patterns. It was like a big conga line in the sky (pilots stuck in holding patterns on the ground call them conga lines). 

I went back inside and the first building collapsed a few minutes later. A few people screamed, several burst into tears. Most simply stared at the TV monitors, like I did.

The CEO of the company eventually came on the PA system. He kept the message short, saying that anyone who wanted to go home could do so. He did add that if anyone blamed any Middle Eastern staffer for the attacks, they would be written up or fired. By then, there were dozens of people outside, watching the endless landings at the airport.

By around 12:30, another announcement was made that sent everyone home.

Employed at last

Two years and nine months after I was laid off, I got another job. It's a good job. I really like it.

The job market heated up earlier this year, and I began to see suitable vacancies and was even headhunted a few times. Alas, after many interviews, nobody offered me a job. I assumed that it was prolly due to my age, although a couple of companies came across as so regimented/unpleasant that I doubt I would have accepted a position anyway.

During this time, I decided to attempt some networking even though I don't like it. This time I got lucky.

Someone who had worked at my previous employer was now head of Marketing at a newish lender, based in California. They were small but growing, and best of all, they didn't take themselves too seriously. After a single interview, she sent me an offer the next day, and I took it. Three days later a stack of computer equipment arrived at the front door (I'm working remotely - I have no plans to relocate), and two days after that, my job officially began. It was late July, so I've been working for over a month.

Even the job hours work for a slacker like me. Since almost everyone else is on Pacific time, I don't log in until 9:30 am, and work until 6:30 pm. The only drawback is that I can't cycle on weekdays, but I decided to set up an indoor trainer fairly soon.

While I initially entertained the thought of finding an apartment -  my aunt actually believes that President Biden symbolizes the end of the world, and watches Faux News nonstop - the prices stopped me. This neck of the woods became awfully popular after the rise of the COVID-related home office. Some apartments were charging almost as much as California landlords.

There's not much else to tell for now. A proper salary - more than what my previous employer paid - frees one to start thinking of stuff like vacations and even buying a place. So I've been doing a lot of this.