October 1st, One Year Later

The first of October is probably an auspicious day for many people, for a variety of reasons. For me, October 1, 2019, is the day I was unceremoniously dumped from my Dream Job working for the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization. I worked for this organization for more than 6 years, but it was a large part of my life for more than two decades, as a downtown business member (with Borders), as a volunteer, and eventually in 1999, as a member of the Board of Directors. Downtown Santa Barbara as a location was part of my life, living/working/dining/entertainment, since I moved there in 1995. To be “unceremoniously dumped” by this organization was a huge punch in the gut. But since I clearly survived that stunning and life-changing day, I owe a debt of gratitude to so many people.

My first call after I left the office that day, Millie in tow, was to Maggie Campbell – she of the clear-headed, no-nonsense advice, and my friend and mentor. My first text, moments later, was to Hattie Husbands and Imelda Martin. They were shocked and angered – both satisfying emotions that perfectly fit the mood. The first person I saw, 15 minutes after leaving the office, was my friend Jennifer Zacharias. We’d already planned to meet for a glass of wine (or two) and to catch up. Raising our glasses in the comfy Grassini Family Vineyards tasting room, I said, “Here’s to…being suddenly unemployed.” Her beautiful smile fell from her face so fast, it was as if, well, she’d been punched in the gut. It was good to sit with her, drinking wine, processing the previous hour; she heard it all.

But it was the Ladies of the Goleta Chamber who made the biggest difference in the following few months. A couple of hours after I got home that October 1^st, they reached out, wrapped three virtual sets of arms around me, hustled me back into the world, and offered me a job. Funny…when the president of your board of directors, a person who has known you for at least 10 years, says to you, “Kate, I don’t even know what you do here,” you start to believe that about yourself a little bit. “What do I do here?!?”

The Ladies of the Goleta Chamber - Kristen Miller, Michele Schneider, Cortney Rintoul - waved off that rubbish. The job they saved me with was a job that I wasn’t sure I could do, but no matter – they knew I could do it. Thanks to them, for the first time in my life I could say with pride, “I make my living as a writer.”

From then until now, my life upheaved, changed, improved – and I’m grateful to so many other people.

Thanks to Hugo Mendez for selling my condo, and to Sarah Sinclair for having a hand in that. She wrote an amazing article, summing up life in my beloved condo so succinctly - I don't know if it helped clinch the sale, but I sure loved it. And I had wonderful neighbors! Charlie, Jennifer, Marcia, Holly and Jeremy all aided in making the condo more sell-able. Thanks to my brother John and his son Brendan for loading all my stuff into a truck and moving it to AZ; here, my AZ family unloaded/reloaded/unloaded everything into this amazing new home (shout-out to Judi, AZ Real Estate Queen!).

Huge (and continuing) thanks to Hattie and Imelda, for months’ worth of unwavering support, for throwing a rousing Farewell Party, and for feeding me those last few days in Santa Barbara. Thanks to long distance friends Christine Schaefer, Nancy Johnson, Cassidy Brewer, Jenna Raimist, and Lisa McCorkle for bolstering me once again, as has become their habit. Thanks to SB friends like Tammy Steuart, Dave Lombardi, Amy Cooper, Kristen Weidemann, Starshine Roshell, April Lee, Ronnie Shabazian, Maryann Mendoza, and so many others, for their support in various and greatly appreciated ways. Thanks to my entire family, for supporting my decision to move, as well as sending love my way after I got dumped. And to all the friends who attended my Farewell Party (shout-out to Doug Margerum for hosting at the lovely Margerum Tasting Room!) – thank you. It was hard to say good-bye, but so wonderful to see all of you.

From October 1, 2019 to October 1, 2020, I’ve survived and even thrived. (Of note: I'm grateful for my job as blogger for A Better Today Recovery Services the past three months. I met that great team only via Zoom, but that “making my living as a writer” thing happily continued.)

So I lost my Dream Job. But I can now say, proudly and without a doubt, that I know exactly what I did there to change, support, and improve the downtown district. And for the record: if I had made the decision on my own to leave (as opposed to being unceremoniously dumped), I would never have left abruptly without notice, and I absolutely would not have left two months before the Downtown SB Holiday Parade – my seventh as a DSB employee (and probably my 16th or so, as volunteer/board member).
 

All this to say that, exactly one year later, I’m starting a new job as Business Liaison for the Downtown Mesa Association. To this amazing world of downtown business districts, I’m happy to say, “I’m back!” And again, to all my friends, family, and supporters, I say, “I couldn’t have done it without you - I love you and I am so very grateful.”  

Managing Change, Once More with Feeling

Before I dive too deep into this blog post, two things: 

*  Yes, it really has been nearly 7 years since my last post. Shame on me.
*  But oddly, my last post is a nice intro to my next post…because once again, I’ve jumped into a big change.

So: Managing Change, Once More with Feeling.


I’ve moved. Packed up the condo, sold it, moved to Arizona. And that is the “in a nutshell” version. The full-on version, well, that will take a few more posts to get through the entire story.



But let’s start with that last blog post. It was indeed my “dream job,” Marketing & Communications Director of Downtown Santa Barbara. 


Working in an office I loved, I was suffused with a sense of pride, of history, and of pure joy, knowing I was working with great small businesses, non-profits, cultural venues and other members of the business improvement district.



As the daughter of a small business owner, I appreciate and support small businesses wholeheartedly.



So when I got dumped (no better word for it, I’ve tried), I was just a bit in shock, but not completely surprised. But it still hurt – how could it not? I’d like to think that it was true, I worked my butt off for that organization and its members. I went through FIVE executive directors in those 6 years, all very different people with different ways of doing things. And frankly, through thick and thin, ups and downs, fires and debris flows, parades and staff changes, I kept it all together. 


So it makes me sad that a small group of people – a VERY small group – decided to let me go. I could go on and on about how difficult 2018 was; how I was really the one person in the office keeping it all together that year, along with the much-appreciated help from an interim ED; how our signature events were just as awesome as ever, if not more so; how the staff was woefully underappreciated and unacknowledged that entire horrible, challenging year.



I could go on…but I won’t. At least not now – I signed an agreement, after all.

Suffice it to say, it was the shove I needed to finally make the move to AZ, to be close to family, to parlay the equity  in my condo into a fabulously perfect home here, with all the amenities (two-car garage! Backyard! Air conditioning! Full size washer/dryer!) I didn’t have in very expensive Santa Barbara. 

So, after 24 years in that city and 22 years in that beloved little condo, I made the leap – a leap of faith, as it turns out. (This is me at the front door of the beloved little condo, taken by Hugo, my realtor. I even bought a new welcome mat to impress potential buyers!)

But all that’s for another day and the next blog. Stay tuned!

Managing Change...Again

In my years as a Borders Manager Trainer, I trained many new or newly promoted managers in a variety of management-related segments. But my favorite segment was "Managing Change."

This topic included, as you can imagine, the importance of change in an organization (such as your Borders store), how to help your staff with change, WHY change is good, etc.

I had stories and anecdotes and real-life examples and visual aids, all to help get across my message in my 90 minute segment: Change is Good and Here's Why.

And at the beginning of every one of my "Managing Change" segments, the opening sentence out of my mouth was, without fail: "I'll admit it. I hate change. Hate it."

"But," I continued, "I get it. I understand why change is important and necessary and I know how to make it bearable, and I've accepted many changes in my life. But I hate change."

 

And now, my life is changing in one of those big Life Changing ways - I'm starting a new job. Me, the one who honestly thought she'd be at Borders for the rest of her life.

Someone told me, years ago, that a huge majority of adults will go through three different careers in his/her lifetime. THREE careers?!? Why?!? I'll be with Borders forever - just the one career, thank you very much.

So, after what I consider a few non-careers (waitress/bartender), a freelance attempt, two dozen years with Borders and four years with MTD - I'm moving on to a new adventure.

 

And what an adventure! I'm going to be the Marketing & Events Director for (my beloved) Santa Barbara Downtown Organization! People who don't live here do that "blink-blink" thing when I tell him, so I explain it this way: It's sort of like a mini-Chamber of Commerce, just for the downtown area, promoting the business, cultural and community of downtown Santa Barbara(http://www.santabarbaradowntown.com/).

 And it is, in a nutshell, the perfect job for me - just perfect. I have a huge and undying love and affinity for downtown Santa Barbara, for downtown State Street. I live in a location that is considered the "downtown" neighborhood (as opposed to "upper State" or the "Waterfront" or the "Eastside"). I have had the same zip code - the downtown Santa Barbara zip code - for my entire time here in Santa Barbara, home and work. And downtown Santa Barbara is my go-to location for just about everything, either on my own, meeting friends or when people come to visit me.

So now, my job will be to market and promote this fabulous location in this amazing and gorgeous city. I'll be working with Board members and business owners I already know and/or look forward to getting to know better. See? The Perfect Job!

As for MTD - it's been...let's call it an "interesting" four years.

 

It was David (whom I met serving with him on the Board of Directors of the Downtown Organization - full circle!) who brought me to MTD when I most needed a job, in 2009. In fact, I was one month away from - no kidding - pulling up stakes and moving away from Santa Barbara. But it was David (or "Boss David" as my Mom dubbed him) who saw potential in me, thought I'd be great at the MTD Marketing job and rightly guessed I'd be fun to work with - and what I didn't know about public transit, he'd be there to teach me. Thanks to Boss David, I spent the past four years of acquiring new skills and honing others, meeting some wonderful people and, after he passed away last October, figuring out how to stand up for myself. He was the best boss I ever had, and I miss him terribly ever day.

But I think he'd agree: it's time for me to move on and try something new. And as the past president of the Board of Directors of the Downtown Organization, I imagine Boss David is beaming with pride over my new adventure.

The Horror of Fixing a Sink

Remember the 2002 horror movie The Ring? Scary as hell, starring Naomi Watts? I watched it at about 2:00 AM one morning, all alone, scared shitless - but I could not look away.

When my bathroom sink recently became too clogged to drain quickly, I expertly pulled out the plug and unearthed this:

Well, it looked like this, or at least like this hair. Yeah...gross. Despite throwing up a little bit in my mouth, I got rid of this clump of nastiness and tried to put the plug back in its hole and move on.

But it didn't work. I twisted and turned the plug, certain something would work, something would catch, eventually. I've pulled many a plug out to clean out many a drain and I know how it works. I finally got a mini flashlight to find the little thing that connects the plug to the whatever - the thing that makes it work. But it wasn't there - nothing to fit in the hole in the plug was visible.

Damn. So I figured I could live with it for a while, then scrap together some money to pay a plumber (like a former boyfriend - a guy I actually dated and still he charges me. But that's for another day, another blog).

But "living with it" lasted a few weeks - putting the plug in, prying the plug out, putting the plug in, prying the plug out - that got pretty old, pretty quick. So I headed to a place near my office, Santa Barbara Home Improvement Center, aka:

                                             
My intention was to purchase one of those little rubber stoppers with a chain, like in an old fashioned hotel room.

I veered toward the Plumbing section, then hesitated for just a moment. From my right, a quiet voice said, "Something, Miss?" Like that. I looked over and said, "What, did my uncertainty give me away?" He smiled.  So I told him my problem, with many hand gestures and made-up words ("pluggy-uppy thing," "pully-uppy handle"). He showed me the rubber stoppers, but told me, "I know what happened, the internal part of the pivot rod rusted off, but it's easy to fix." He peered up at me and asked if I wanted to fix it myself, turning us to the wall across the aisle. "No, that's OK, I'll just use this..." His eyes closed briefly and he did that teensy headshake that people give when they're being tolerant but slightly impatient. Like: he's heard it all before.

Then he said:

"You can do this. I know you can do this."

I was aghast: "What!?! But I'm a girl!"

That usually works with guys - God love 'em. However, he ("Gene") was having none of it. He gave me that sideways smirky look that says he knows better than that and tugged down a little sink kit from peg on the rack. "It's easy, the instructions are on the back."

 

I said, "Well, umm, and so, I was just kidding about that 'being a girl' thing, you didn't believe me, right?" Suddenly, I didn't want Gene to think I was dumb or some kind of helpless woman. He smiled and said, "No." And then gave the kit a bit of a shake to bring my attention back to the task soon-to-be-at-hand.

Poor Gene actually had to explain the whole thing twice - the first time, my head was full of visions of moving stuff out from under my sink, removing that U-shaped pipe part, being on my back in the bathroom cabinet with my head wedged under the sink, getting dirty, and plumber's cracks. But by the time I dragged my attention span out of A.D.D. World, I had an actual question: Do I have to shut off my water? Answer: No. 

Next question: What kind of tool do I need? Answer: A wrench - do you have one? I asked him to show me exactly what he thought I'd need, so I could make sure I own one. He led me to the register counter and opened the Wrench Drawer (I know this because first he inadvertently opened the Screwdriver Drawer) and showed me. Yes, I have one of those.

And then, I had my Oprah-endorsed Ah-Ha Moment: the sink plunger thing I needed to fix/replace was on the outside of the sink - not in the sink itself! Suddenly, this did seem doable after all!

So I bought both the kit and the stopper, just in case. I told Gene I'd come back to let him know how I did, which made him smile again, a sort of "lacking a couple of teeth" kind of smile. As I left the store,  all inspired and full of thoughts of what to wear to avoid the plumber's crack issue, it occurred to me - how did Gene know?

How did he know that I "could do this?" What about me, in my open-toe shoes, sporting a cute pedi, Coach bag a-swinging on my shoulder, wearing my two-toned pink and blue Ray Ban sunglasses - what made him think in a million years that I could do a fix-it job such as this?

Because he was right - I could do this, and did, just now. It took me 20 minutes. More on that later.

But really - I have done repairs around my condo, and apartments before that. Replaced broken things, adjusted things, painted walls and things. I've hauled big heavy things (a large TV, a roll-top desk, an obnoxious console table) up and down stairs, I do own an impressive toolkit, I've built things right out of the box  - for example, my big, dumb desk for my Borders home office was huge and cumbersome and took three hours to assemble and I did it by myself. So yes, I'm all that AND rocking a nail apron:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But how did Gene know that?

Anyway, today was the day: cleared out my under-the-sink stuff, put down a big towel in case I had to lie on my back with my head in the cabinet to reach what I was doing (not a fun maneuver, but necessary). One last hitch of my shorts (to reduce the potential of the dreaded crack) and after checking the "instructions on the back" multiple times, cleaning more gunk and stopping once to find a flashlight...I did it.

Gene would be so proud. I can't wait to tell him he was right - when I go back to return the too-small-to-fit sink stopper he sold me.

Men. Can live with 'em, can't shop with 'em.

Celebrating Sendak & Children's Book Week

What better time to think about Maurice Sendak than Children’s Book Week (http://www.bookweekonline.com/)?  

Never met him, but he’s one of those icons, those amazing “I grew up with this book!” author/illustrators from our youth. And who hasn’t read his books to kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews? Lord knows I have.

We all remember the big hoopla surrounding In the Night Kitchen, don’t we? How shocked we were when some library somewhere banned it? It was because the small boy, falling dream-like through the sky, was sporting the full (albeit teensy) monty. How hysterical to think of that now, right? Those were more innocent times, I guess.


While I was working at Borders in Oak Brook, Sendak was developing his Where the Wild Things Are opera in Chicago.

So one day, since I had to head to Chicago from the ‘burbs anyway, I brought along a poster of Where the Wild Things Are. Just in case I could get to the rehearsal studio, meet him, and get him to sign it.

Amazingly, I did get to the studio – not so amazingly, he wasn’t there. The women behind the desk waved me in and cheerfully agreed, per my impassioned plea, to have Mr. Sendak sign the poster the next time he was in. I skipped out, with no idea how or when I’d be able to pick it up. But certain that he would autograph it. Someday.

I didn’t get back to Chicago until 3 months later, for another meeting. It was easy enough to find the studio again…not so easy to find my poster. It was a different pair of women behind the desk, and they had no idea what I was talking about. In that sort of lame “Look, I’m helping you – not” kind of way, they halfheartedly glanced around the office. I stood rooted to my spot, looking around but planning how I’d make a graceful exit if it wasn’t found.

And then, surprisingly, one of them tugged it from a pile of office-y stuff, saying, “Oh, is this it?”
Yes! It was my poster! Rolled up in a sloppy way, with – literally – coffee droplet stains in a few places, but gloriously, it was my poster. With Maurice Sendak’s signature!

It’s amazing to me still that I got there, that he’d signed it at one point, that I get back there and the poster was found again. At their (insincere) apology for the coffee splotches, I rolled my prize tightly and yes, gracefully exited the office.

After trying unsuccessfully to cover the coffee drops using White-Out, I had the poster framed. It graced my offices at Borders Oak Brook and then Borders Santa Barbara, for years. Currently, it graces my garage, in a careful stack with other framed items. But wouldn’t now be a great time to dig it out and find a spot to hang it here at home?

In honor of Maurice Sendak and all he’s done for children’s literature all this years, that would make me very happy once, happy twice, happy Chicken Soup with Rice.

Thanks for reading – K8.

Catching Readers

I love seeing people – catching people – reading. It’s so low-tech, so comfortable, so solitary. It’s heartening to drive by a person sitting on a bench with a book, or standing in a long line behind a reader.

I used to toss around the idea of a photojournalist-type project: take photos of people reading, wherever you find them. Like the guy I saw yesterday, stretched out on the short wall that separates West Beach from the running path. He was lying on a cement wall, but he looked as content and comfortable as if he’d been lounging in his backyard in a hammock, probably because he was totally absorbed in his book. Wish I’d had my camera.

So to that end, I’ll make that a goal for this month – since I already carry my camera along nearly everywhere I go, I’ll use it more often, to catch people reading. I’ll post those photos here in my blog, and maybe some on facebook.

With that goal in mind, allow me to take this opportunity to remind everyone that May is Get Caught Reading Month. “Get Caught Reading” was one of my favorite national campaigns, as a bookseller. They’re still around and still doing great work: http://www.getcaughtreading.org/. Launched in 1999, GCR reading is a nationwide campaign to remind people of all ages how much fun it is to read.

What could be more fabulous than that? Check back often, as I post my Get Caught Reading photos next month, to celebrate Get Caught Reading month.

Thanks for reading – K8.

My Bus Driver Told me to Read The Dead

To be fair, he’s more educated than the average bus driver. Daniel is seemingly a bottomless pit of smart-ness, often surprising his passengers (UCSB students, mostly) with his literary/movie/political/religion knowledge and tidbits.

So when we had a casual discussion (and how did THAT happen?!?) about books, he said, “You’ve read James Joyce’s The Dead, right?”

Well, no…I haven’t.

“How about Dubliners?”

No, sorry.

“Well, you’ve read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, then?”

Still no.

“And you call yourself a book person?!?” he blurted in frustration.

Actually, yes – yes, I do. In fact, I proudly, to this day, still call myself a book person. A bookseller, for years, a book reader, a “Book Woman,” as a favorite t-shirt declares, but most importantly, a book person.

But not because I’ve read every important, famous, well-known book under the sun – far from it. I’ve mostly found myself falling into thrillers, leaping into fiction and first novels by people you haven’t heard of and early stuff by writers I’ve LOVED, but not so much their latest works.

But a book person, nonetheless. Because although I may not have READ everything – I know (and knew, when working as a bookseller) what YOU should be reading. Or what you wanted to read, even if you didn’t know it. Or what your wife-sister-husband-brother-dad-mom-whomever should be reading.

People used to be surprised that I never read the Harry Potter books. Well, truth be told, I read about half of the first one. And that was all I needed – I got it. All those years ago at Borders, during a holiday prep meeting, I stood in front of my staff and told them, “I know people have been driving you nuts requesting this hard-to-stock Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, but I gotta say, I’d rather sell that title than any of the Goosebumps titles!” And then my staff got it, too. This Harry Potter book was going to be something special.

A couple of years  later, on our own, we had an amazing party for the third Harry Potter book in my Borders store on State Street – before we did that kind of thing corporately. I’ll say it again: it was my all-time favorite day as a bookseller. And as a book person. No, I did not read the books – but I knew what kids (and their parents, as it turned out) liked and read and wanted more of. Because I’m a book person.

I was interviewed once, on a local radio show here in Santa Barbara. It was a moment I’d waited for since we opened this amazing and eventually beloved store: the interviewer asked me about independent stores vs. chain stores.

“That doesn’t matter,” I said firmly. “What matters is the people in the stores. And I’d put my book knowledge up against anyone in this city.”

So although I have yet to read The Dead, as a bookseller I could put my hand on it, yank it from the Literature shelf and place it in your hand, probably while balancing a stack of hardcover books in my other hand, without blinking an eye.

When I was a bookseller/person, I could grab Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus off the shelf simply by seeing its white spine on the Self Help shelf. I could (and did) walk backwards toward Poetry, listening to you describe the book you heard about on NPR and snag The Liar’s Club off the shelf without a glance, handing it to you and asking, “What else?”

Want to know what I’ve read/like/recommend? I’d load your arms with The Shipping News, Catch-22, A Prayer for Owen Meany and A Thousand Acres, and tell you to come back and see me in a month or so – I’d have another armload ready to go for you.

So when someone like Daniel is cheerfully outraged at what he thinks is my appalling lack of good reads, I just smile and nod and promise to add it to my list.

And that’s why The Dead is now on, umm, loaded on my Kobo eReader. Hey – I get it, I’ll read it!

Thanks for reading - K8.