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Our kids all go to the same high school, and we meet for lunch once a week at the Gourmet Market Café. That is, those of us who can get away from work that week do so. It’s been a different group each time.

However, as we are all highly trained professionals, our conversation is always on-track as well as brilliant. 

Today’s topics, to wit:

(1) How John likes Harvard. 

(2) What it’s like volunteering in the High School Guidance Office (and) when you are supposed to call 9-1-1.

(3) How excited Hannah is to be going to Japan.

(4) Whether the middle school should even bother staying open after state testing is over in April.

(5) Whether a knitting club will EVER work at the High School. Particularly in a room that smells funny.

(6) What will happen to Gourmet Market Café’s soup menu now that their regular chef has left.

(7) Touch Therapy: Should a Nurse Seriously Study This, or Not?

(8) How many of us could move to Seattle to become potters and writers and other wild and interesting things before this city (and our families) would even notice.

(9) Whether, if you let your lawn grow so tall that your 11 y-o daughter starts to take daily “how far over the city codes you are” measurements, the neighbors will think you are going through a divorce, will call you with their very kind concerns, and then report you to the authorities.

(10) How hard it should be raining before you leave the Café patio and move to an inside table.

Wow.  I’ve always wondered where it was.

Ann at Compensation Force mentions a number of articles today that highlight the impact of rising fuel prices on employment relations, with particular focus on how much employers can do, or should do, to mitigate the effect of these costs for their employees.  The most provocative question these days seems to be, ‘What happens when gasoline reaches $7 per gallon?’

Answer:  we’ll deal with it.  Both because we can, and because we’ll have to.   Ultimately, though, we can’t just leave matters to our employers, or to the government either. 

Nor will it hurt nearly as much as we think.

Eventually, we each have to come to terms with our own appetites, or learn how to change them.  One has only to live for a while in any country but ours to see the changes that very high fuel prices have already wrought.   We were amazed at how quickly we adapted in both England and Canada – two countries very like our own, but which have been living with high fuel costs for years.

Revelations: Everyone, even old ladies, can ride bicycles!  Bicycles work with dresses, and even when it rains (fenders, plastic bags, and general good cheer are the secret)!  Buses aren’t just for poor or crazy people!  Finding a parking place can take just as long as walking to a bus stop! Life without a car payment (or insurance payments, or repair bills, or gas charges either) is quite a marvelous thing!  Walking to and from a job is a wonderful way to clear the head, think things through,  and watch the seasons change!  Commuting without also having to drive is a great time to read, catch up on work, or just people watch!

Ours is a country built for the automobile, with subdivisions to go along with our SUV’s.  We need to build more livable cities so people will choose to live in them.  More of us should try to live where we work.  It’s good to live where we shop, too.  We need to build sidewalks again. 

Public transport must be part of the solution, of course, and yes it usually requires public subsidies.  However,  many Americans don’t realize we’ve already been subsidizing private and commercial transport for years – massive amounts of public funds have built and maintained our highways rather than our buses and trains, though the latter are a much more efficient way of transporting both goods and people.  And of course we have enjoyed artificially-low gasoline costs for years as well, also thanks to heavy subsidies.  A ready supply of cheap fuel has contributed to our preference for ever-larger vehicles, a preference which has persisted thus far even in the face of rising fuel costs.  (read this!)

Sigh.  We are yet a young and stubborn people.  

Fortunately, we are also a resilient people.  We will manage higher fuel costs, and we will manage even better if each of us carries our own bit of the load. 

Creative Commons image by iirraa

The Wall Street Journal’s online Career Journal  has continued its series of articles called “90 days,” presumably based on Michael Watkins’ bestseller, The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels.  Each WSJ column addresses the most critical things to remember in the first days following a major career transition.

There’s lots of terrific cross-pollination here, so if you’re in transition, go ahead and read them all!

• 90 Days: Working Productively As a Telecommuter
• 90 Days: Relocating Overseas? Do Your Homework And Ease Your Way
• 90 Days: Acing Your First Post-College Job
• 90 Days: Working for Yourself Can Have Its Challenges
• 90 Days: Easing Back From Maternity Leave
• 90 Days: Dealing With a PR Crisis Takes Planning and Truth
• 90 Days: Joining a Nonprofit Board Is More Than a Labor of Love

~ For more WSJ “90 Days” articles ~

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Related Post:

The First 90 Days: Strategic Career Transitions

While this particular model that I own, by BonJour, seems no longer to be available,  there are dozens of other insulated French press pots now on the market.  And no wonder!   They are easy to use, easy to clean, and make to-die-for-coffee.  As a comes-from-Seattle-girl, I know.

Many coffee connoisseurs recommend press pots for the best coffee flavor, but the glass ones don’t keep coffee hot for more than a few minutes.  Problem solved with this insulated version,  which I can set right next to my computer, where it provides me with hours of refills! 

I’d buy this pot over and over again, too, except that the one we have will never wear out. We’ve used it daily for years now. 

I would like to add that not a single company or person is paying me to write about insulated French-Press Coffee Pots,  though I certainly think it is an excellent idea to send nice things to bloggers and ask them for endorsements (money is always a nice thing to send to bloggers, too.) 

After all.  If the Johnson & Johnson marketing people  learned anything from their recent Camp Baby experience, they may now realize they’d have been much better off showering their target mom bloggers with products (to keep and to use as blog give-aways) instead of paying their way to a conference where all the neuroscientists, nurses and marketing professionals who dominate the momosphere  were treated to scintillating sessions about hair-braiding.

I’m just saying.  And for the record, my contact information is right up there, at the top of this screen.

I posted yesterday about the Mother-Daughter Book Club  my daughter and I have been part of for the past four years.  Here are the books we read during the last two of them:

5th Grade

• Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech
• Worst Enemies/Best Friends (Beacon Street Girls, volume 1) by Annie Bryant
• Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
• Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
• The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Witches by Roald Dahl
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
• Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

6th Grade

• Catherine Called Birdie by Karen Cushman
• The First Horse I See by Sally Keehn
• Hatchet Gary Paulsen
• Rachel’s Journal: the Story of a Pioneer Girl by Marissa Moss
• The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread by Kate Dicamillo
• The Doll People by Ann M. M. Martin, Laura Godwin, Brian Selznick, and Ann M. Martin
• Sahara Special by Esmé Raji Codell
• Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata

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Related Posts:

Mother-Daughter Book Club List, Part 1
International Women’s Day: Toasting Pink

Smart, strong women read books.

This is the lesson I hope the daughters in our mother-daughter book club are learning.  We’ve just finished our 4th year together, and even though our daughters are growing taller than we are, we hope to continue.  We meet about once a month, and the girls take turns hosting and leading the discussion.  Moms help out by providing an activity and food. 

We’ve visited one author in her home and heard another one lecture about being a writer; we’ve marvelled over a local grandmother’s WWII rationing coupons while trying to bake without sugar; we’ve built tiny “Borrower” houses and been teased by our daughters when the books made us cry. 

These are the books we’ve read thus far.  You may recognize some old friends, but we discovered some really wonderful new ones, as well. 

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Creative Commons Photo, “Little Red”  by Flickr.com’s Aussie Patches, aka Ali J
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3rd Grade

• From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
• Felicity (American Girls Collection Books) by assorted authors
• The Gadget Wars by Betsy Duffey
• The Magic Treehouse book #16. Hour of the Olympics by Mary Pope Osborne
• Molly (American Girls Collection Books) by assorted authors
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
• Emmy by Connie Jordan Green

4th Grade

• Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson
• The other side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
• Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos
• The Borrowers by Mary Norton
• Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry

 - To see rest of list, click here -

Cool Creative Commons Photos by Weeping Willow

To quote Kermit the Frog: It’s not easy being green.

Not all of us can commute by bicycle, plant a community garden, or volunteer to wash all of our colleagues’ dishes so they’ll stop using styrofoam. But here are a few of the easier ways to make your workspace more eco-friendly, and most of them will save you money as well.

1. Always turn off your monitor and computer when not in use. Don’t forget to turn off the printer, too! Some folks believe screen savers save energy: sadly, they do not. If you are in the market for a new computer, remember that laptops are more energy-efficient than desktops (they were designed that way, in order to conserve battery life).

2. Take the Stairs. I started doing this when I was twenty pounds heavier, and at first it was hard work. Sometimes I cheated. Finally, though, I decided to pretend that none of the elevators worked, ever. The hardest part? Walking with other people and having to stop mid-conversation so I could hike up the stairs and meet them at the top. Sometimes though, I WON! (Elevators often aren’t time savers. Nor are cars, when you have to search high and low for a place to park them, then walk between car and actual destination. These have been very interesting discoveries of mine…)

3. Think of ways to reduce your business meeting travel. Besides contributing to global warming, the use of gasoline and airplane fuel isn’t getting any cheaper. Travel is a time investment, as well, and your time has monetary value too. Therefore, many businesses (and independent consultants) are using more virtual world technologies instead of physical travel. The key is to choose the right tool. Email and instant messaging are great for simple questions; videoconferencing works well for more in-depth conversations. Technology will never completely replace face-to-face human interaction, but it’s a smart way to augment it.

4. Use less paper. Print on both sides. Send more mail electronically. Save scrap paper and use it to take notes. Reuse mailers and boxes, too – you can use mailing labels to add new addresses – and extra blank ones to neatly cover the old printing, if necessary.

5. Buy used. Craigslist and Freecycle are great places to find almost anything you need. Thrift stores (Goodwill, etc.) are great places, too – several of my favorite, designer-label business clothes (not to mention my umbrella, my computer case, and all the storage baskets in my office) were thrift-store finds.

6. Carry your own shopping bags. Reuse old ones, or keep a stash of canvas shopping bags in your car.

The key to being green? You don’t have to start big, just start! And I’d love to hear your ideas, too.

Here are some more online ideas on working greener:

Nature.org: Earthday

Treehugger.com: How to Green Your Work

MoreBusiness.Com: Running your Business

CoopAmerica.org: Buying Green

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Related Post:

11 ways to be cheap in honor of Earth Day

Video Copyright Ted.com: republished here under Creative Commons Licensing

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

(If video is loading too slowly, you may link to it directly by clicking here. )

I’ve been tagged by Ann of Compensation Force  with a new blogging meme.

Les Rules:

1. Provide a list of the books you’re currently reading. 
2. Pick up the nearest book, and open it to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence, and post the next three sentences.
4. Tag 3-5 more people by posting comments on their blogs. 
5. Link back to the person who tagged you. (It’s nice to leave them a comment, too!)

Les Books:

1. One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus.
   “What if” fiction based on a true event, when a prominent Cheyenne chief asked the U.S. government for the gift of one thousand white women in order to help his doomed people assimilate.
2. Why Mars & Venus Collide by John Gray
   Which recently flew across the room, causing John Gray’s Martian head to collide with the wall.  And hey, here’s a bit of John Gray intrigue…
3. Sahara Special by Esmé Raji Codell.   
   My daughter and I just finished reading this one in our Mother-Daughter Book Club  (Esmé is a certified Readiologist.  Really.  Here is her very cute website. And here’s the quote, p. 123:

I could have cried from feeling scared, and I could have cried for being so terrible, for nearly making the meanest, most special boy in school explode.

But all I could think of was how it would be at least a week before I had a chance to snoop in his journal again.  And how Miss Pointy was right: poetry is not for punks.

Les Tags:

1. Rachel at Fog to Fire  (who uses the same wordpress theme I once did)
2. Florinda at  The 3 R’s (cause she’s cool)
3. Cyn at It’s All On the Table (cause she never reads MY blog, either)
4. Stephen at The Photoshop Journal   (won’t he be surprised)
5. Zita at the Savvy Networker (because I’m NETWORKING, of course)