London Calling

City Living

I seem to spend a lot of energy talking about how much I love city living. I love the energy, the restaurants, the shopping, the parks, the museums and even the public transportation. This week has been a reality check for me: city living isn’t always that great.

Saturday night, our babysitter arrived around 6:30 and we left 15-20 minutes later. Just outside our house were about a half dozen squad cars and an ambulance. I asked a police officer what had happened and he explained that two young black males just mugged a woman at gun point and beat her with the gun. He told us that crimes like this increase before the holidays and suggested that we buy mace. All I could think about was how close our babysitter was to being the victim. The streets were busy with pedestrian and car traffic. How safe were we walking early morning when the streets are pretty empty?

On Sunday morning when we were walking to Letitzia’s Natural Bakery for Asiago bagels (which I'm sure you can get at Panara -- but they don't make the yogurt mufins and my son doesn't like to dance to the music played in Panara), we saw that the car parked in front of ours on the street was broken into and the passenger window was broken. Then, last night when Barry was walking home from the gym, he saw three cat-sized rats in Wicker Park.

Now none of these events are unusual. They happen more than I’d like to admit, but they usually don’t happen all at once. And now that our house is off the market while we wait for the housing slump to end, suburbia sounds very nice.

Ms. Green

I think that America’s new interest in being green is wonderful.  Thankfully, I jumped on the green bandwagon early – in the early 80’s when my grade school enrolled me in a special program called CARE – conservation awareness and responsibility for conserving energy.  We recycled and reduced and even went to camp for a week.  We learned about nature and different types of energy sources.

For years I’d walk or take public transportation whenever I could.  I bought cloth grocery bags 15 years ago.  We recycle and even have a compost.  (I still haven’t used the compost, but it’s there.)  I’ve been researching turning our garage roof into a living roof.  I’ve been fighting to get a corporate sponsored shuttle from the Metra train station so that more people can take public transportation to work.  In fact, just last week I gave in and we bought a second car so that I could keep one in Lake Forest to take the train to work every day. 

What’s funny about this whole Lisa-is-green post is that for years my peers thought I was a little nutty.  Now it’s cool.  In fact, now I’m probably considered more wasteful than most.  I really, really hope that the movement continues.

Now what other crazy things do I do that might become cool one day?  Will really cheap jeans come back into style?  Will my old Altima become chic?  Retro maybe?  Will double-chins become a fad?  Muffin tops a sign of happiness or success? 

ANA (Association of National Advertisers) Conference: Worth a missed good-night kiss or two

When I first saw the invite, I sighed.  Another conference?  Another weekend away from home?  It was going to take a lot to get me on a plane.  I’ve been traveling every week & I am so over it. 

But, the ANA roped me in with speakers like Steve Ballmer, Al Gore – yeah, the Nobel prize winner – Roger Adams (Home Depot CMO).  They even had Jim Belushi’s band perform on Thursday night.  The ANA closed the deal when they invited spouses to attend evening events.  I couldn’t make any excuses to skip this event.

Three days of networking and learning about my peers – peers with slightly bigger budgets – inspired a few new ideas.  It was also good to see that my customers share a similar vision.  I was pleased to experience an event sponsored by Meredith that focused on their charity partner, CARE, rather than touting their already well-known publications. Very smart and very refreshing.

But now, after the conference is over and I’m sitting in the Red Carpet Club impatiently waiting for my flight home so that I can kiss my wonderful little boy a thousand times.  It was the first time that Barry and I left him for more than one night.  We called home several times a day.  Barry’s mom was kind enough to understand that we trusted her but just missed our son.  I arrived at the airport four hours early in hopes of getting home earlier.  Unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to get a seat on that flight.

Wouldn’t it be great to have the cash to travel like the Jolie-Pitt clan and bring the kids and nanny along whenever you travel?  You’d never have to miss a good-night kiss.