Whatever Happened to Debbie?

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Where Is Debbie Today?

At my friend's half-way-to-90 birthday party last night, she reminded me of a boy we had known in high school who was so gorgeous, such a player, so skilled at flirting, he moved even *me*. Now, he also had a beautiful sister, Debbie, but she never flirted with me.

As the birthday-girl reminisced about a magical boat-ride she once got to take with him and a guy friend, I thought of the boy's sister and wondered whatever happened to her. This morning, I was still wondering, so I googled her name and found that if any of the women listed is her, then she could be a:

• "Professional actor & voiceover artist"
  
• Co-owner of a winery
  
• Rabbi
  
• Computer graphic artist....
  

I wonder if any of these people is her. A number look to be the right age, but none has the same long, dark, straight hair and perfectly proportionate features that she had.

Better to live in the present, but still, it's fun to have a number of friends who have shared memories of high school.

The Best of Stamford

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

The Official Version vs. My Version

Earlier today, I received e-mail from a Middle Eastern restaurant in Stamford, Connecticut, asking me to vote for it as the best ethnic restaurant in Stamford for 2010. When I went to the voting site, it included a link to the winners for 2009.

Stamford is my hometown. I spent ages 0-18 there.

Here is my Best of Stamford list:

• Best rock to climb upon and eat a picnic lunch: At the Stamford Museum & Nature Center
  
• Best bikeride: High Ridge Rd. from Sunset Rd. to the Dorothy Heroy public pool
  
• Best friends from Stamford in the order I met them:
  
  • Sarah Tauber
    
  • Jimmy Gutterman
    
  • Didi (aka Nicole) Doutre
    
  • Helene Doutre
    
  • HoneyB (aka Barbara) Prins
    
  • J.J. (aka Jennifer Juliet) Rogers
    
  • Adrienne Weiss
    
  • Jennifer Gerstel
    
  • Amy Neufeld
    
  • Caryn Lesnoy (z"l)
    
  • Atalia Hochenberg
    
  • Svetlana Bekman
    
  • Leslie Karp (z"l)
    
• Best stone wall: In the woods on either side of our driveway
  
• Best place to ice-skate in my neighborhood: In the woods behind Did's and Helene's house
  
• Best Chevy Impala convertible ride with the top down: To Friendly's ice-cream shop on High Ridge Road during spring and summer, with my parents in the front and my two sisters and I, on our knees, facing backward and gripping the back-seat as the breeze whipped through our hair
  
• Best place to roller-skate alone: Hickory Road
  
• Best reminder of the heather in *My Secret Garden*: At the intersection, where you turn right to go to Scalzi Park
  
• Best sledding hill: Behind Temple Sinai
  
• Best wild raspberries and blueberries: In the woods to the side and behind our house
  
• Best pets: Didi's and Helene's dog, Fluffy; HoneyB's dog, Elizabeth; and Amy's dog, Tigger
  
• Best place to play ping-pong: the Jewish Community Center's recreation room
  
• Best pool to swim in as a guest: the Italian Center's
  
• Best ski club: Stamford High's
  
• Best salesman/ambassador/recruiter for his alma mater: Cy Carlton for the University of Michigan
  
• Best contemporary mind: Scott Kogan's
  
• Best resemblance to my 14-17-year-old self, or so all of our Stamford High teachers thought: Karol Nielsen
  
• Best dances in the '80s, where everything from "Reunited" to "Hungry Like the Wolf" played: Stamford High's.
  

Flickering Lights

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Lending Urgency to My Blogging Desire

Will we have a power failure during this first bit of 2009 snow? Will I be able to complete my blog-entry before the lights and network shut off?

Will I have enough time to write about how a friend feels that I can help him achieve immortality?

And how sisterly and overwhelming at the same time it felt to go to a Korean spa with my two sisters last weekend, being naked in front of one another for the first time ever in one case and in another, for the first time, since childhood, and also in front of a number of gorgeous strangers?

Will I be able to write about my sadness at my mother's transition to car-less-ness? Even as I know it's safer? And even as I consider what a big change it is for someone like her, who has been such a free spirit historically?

Will I manage to express the pleasure I felt, reading about Meredith Baxter in "People" magazine, including the sweet pix with her partner and children? Will I be able to explain why the pleasure is a mix of team-spirit pride and desire? Will I be able to describe how she was a vague object of childhood attraction for me, ever since "Bridget Loves Bernie?"

Will I have time to express the depth of my nostalgia for the neighbors who were my childhood friends, their parents, pets and lovely nanny? All prompted by a Facebook exchange earlier today with the friend who is my age and who also recalled our winter-time fun together?

How can I blog about all of that before the lights go out and the network goes down? Or before my appetite for dinner distracts me too much to continue...which it is now doing?

'60s Music

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

The Songs I Remember Hearing During My Earliest Years

My prior posting about hits from 1973 and 1974 inspired me to look back earlier to the '60s; I found a helpful site. Most of the songs that were familiar, were not familiar to me from that time, but from hearing them when I was older. I was born on July 13, 1965, and yet, I swear I can remember hearing the following songs, playing on the radio, even though the first few were hits before I was born:

• Blue Velvet - the way Vinton sang the two words, "Blue" and "Velvet" caught my attention and made me imitate him
  
• Go Away Little Girl - the singer sounded so sad
  
• Leader of the Pack - I enjoyed the sound of the revving engines
  
• Monday Monday - their voices were cheerful
  
• I'm a Believer - seemed like the wildest of the singing I had ever heard, e.g., "...yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...."
  
• Age of Aquarius - this was on the radio all the time and put me in a hopeful mood, but I wasn't sure why
  
• Dizzy - I could relate to this one as a little kid; I knew what it felt like to be dizzy from spinning around and around till I fell down
  
• Leaving on a Jet Plane - this was a favorite of one of the older sisters of a girl with whom we jumped on the trampoline at Stamford's Jewish Community Center on Briar Brae Road.
  

11 Minutes to Save the World

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Scheduled Blogger Outage in 11 Minutes

I'll be relatively brief then: While swimming over lunch-time today, I had a sensation I've never before felt while swimming: I felt like crying.

As the blue lane-stripe came into view during one of my free-style laps, I felt a lump in my throat. I was missing my mother.

Thank God, she is still alive, but while swimming, I was imagining her not being alive, God forbid, and was picturing being unable to call her virtually whenever I felt like it any longer.

Leaving the YHMA, I saw posters that I know she'd love, all celebrating Israel's upcoming 60th anniversary as a state.

Too Big for...

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...a Twitter Update, Too Small for One of My Typical Blog Entries

Change is good, though...but no promises that any future entries will also be this spare:

Last night, I had the weirdest experience; I was leaving my office at the IBM Learning Center after dark -- chose to work very late, since Pat had her sign language class -- and it was freezing cold out. A dead oak leaf blew across my path.

At a quick glance, I thought it was a salamander, scurrying past, like the ones that ran up the sides of our home in Bangalore, or sometimes across the kitchen floor before we turned on the light. And then I realized that it couldn't be a salamander because it was too cold out...but for a second, I was in Bangalore and Armonk at the same time!

Heraclitus Was Right

The postings on this site ares my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

"You Cannot Step in the Same River Twice"

Change is good. Change is good. Change is good. At the table in the IBM Learning Center dining room at lunch yesterday, my rational mind was doing its best to convince me of that.

"Sarah."

I looked, and it was one of my former managers, Mike.

"Last time we saw each other was in India," he said and came over to hug me.

And then everyone other than the one person at the table I didn't know got up and we hugged. Tony. Yvette. George. Irwin. It was heart-swelling.

"What are you guys here for?" I asked.

They mentioned their meeting and then we smiled at one another and I went back to sit with my director and another manager in my current organization till our table filled up with my current colleagues.

My director asked me who they were and I was chagrined at not having introduced them to my tablemates. I sat through the rest of lunch, feeling wistful, wishing I could sit with my old colleagues and friends. I kept steeling myself not to look at them. And failed a few times.

Irwin's tie was a great orange with a suave pattern. Yvette was even more lovely than usual, if that was possible. Tony's hair was cute. George was as tall and kind-looking as ever. Mike's shirt was crisp, custom-made.

They were the current iteration of the GLBT Sales team that I helped start up nearly seven years ago, but it was three times the original size (not including Albert from Europe, who wasn't there then).

Toward the end of lunch, I stole a peek and noticed that the table, as well as the one next to it, featured a tent card that read "GLBT Sales;" the second table was full of people I didn't even recognize. Finally, I think I got the message that I feel my dad, may his memory be blessed, was sending me:

Look, Sarah: Teams that you helped launch continue thriving long after you're no longer on the scene. As you embark on your new assignment, which is poised to go well, too, I'm reminding you of this.