BrandHabit

3 Days Without My BlackBerry!

The other day the teeny tiny charger plug inside my f&*^$%en blackberry broke. It was 2PM in the afternoon, I was going to be in back-to-back meetings and a dinner until 10PM that night, I needed to call a person I was meeting to set a meeting place, I needed to access Google Maps, my battery died and now I was suck without access.

I felt like a floating planet, suspended in outer space without a line back to planet earth.

What a strange, slightly desperate feeling I was experiencing. And yet, I was able to objectively look at my feelings and recognize how ridiculous it all was.

We all know there was life before cell phones and blackberries right? Business happened, people found each other; no one was lost or misplaced.
No one floated into a galaxy far far away.

Breathe.

Luckily my next meeting was at a fantastic place I discovered on 18th and Sanchez in San Francisco called Samovar Tea Lounge. All I need to say is "tea lounge" and you can imagine that I couldn't hold on to my anxiety for long.

Once I arrived I kindly asked to borrow the phone. Then I sat and waited for my associate to arrive.

No blackberry to keep me busy while waiting. No idea if my associate heard my location clearly. No way for her to call me if she got lost.

Breathe.

Ahhh. She arrived.

After that meeting, there was no way for my next meeting to call me if she was late or visa versa.
No way for me to remind my husband that I would be home late.

I borrowed a phone again, made a few calls and "let go".

It all sounds good but I neglected to mention the level of anxiety about the company. I couldn't read and respond to email on the fly. I'd be out until 10 PM.

No contact from 2PM till 10PM?

What if?
What if WHAT?

Breathe.

Yesterday I was in the office all day.
Today I went to my service provider, AT&T to see if they could replace my broken blackberry.

No warranty on phones with physical damage. See if Blackberry can help.

Another full day of meetings. No Phone. No email.

Guess what?

Nothing happened.
The world didn't fall apart.
I was 10 minutes late to a meeting but they waited.
My daughter was picked up from school.

It's ALL OKAY.....

Inhale. Exhale.

Lick a Public Telephone?

Each morning, my daughter and I have about 20 minutes of time to chat as I drive her to school. Our morning consists of some routines which I hope I will never forget:
We listen to music for part of the way and then we turn it down for one of 2 games:
1) Questions and Answers
2) A game called “Would you rather…”

The way we each play “Would you Rather?” has two distinct styles.
If the question comes from me, it is usually centered on life preferences like:

“Would you rather marry a really ugly guy who is SUPER funny, OR a really hot guy that is totally boring?”

Or, “Would you rather be poor and blissfully happy OR rich and bored to tears?”

Or, “Would you rather be pretty and dumb OR smart and average looking?”

Usually I am totally pleased with her answers:
1) Supper Funny, Ugly Guy
2) Blissfully Happy and Poor
3) Smart and average looking
(ahh…she is a chip off the old block)

My daughter’s questions however tend to either turn my stomach or force me to choose the “lesser of 2 evils”:

"Would you rather jump into a pit of slithering snakes or rats?"
"Would you rather eat cockroaches or a tarantula?"

Here is the best:

"Would you rather lick the back of an obese guy with a really hairy back and it has pimples all over it or would you rather lick a public telephone?"

You won’t believe my answer: I picked the licking of the guy.

There is something about public telephones that totally wig me out.
Imagine some drunken bums on the street with drooling, puke breath on those phones, calling their drug dealers to get a fix! Yuck.

Hippie Trend: I LOVE it!

I am so excited to see all of the hippie, tribal looks going on this spring!

Those who know me, even in the professional world soon come to discover that, I am a hippie at heart. I am a complete product of my upbringing. Think: Marin County, 1965, hot tubs, peacock feathers, daughter of a Psychiatrist…My parents brought me to the first “Human Be In”; I spent time at the Escalen Institute in Big Sur when they were still holding “encounter groups; and yes, I was into the Grateful Dead too… in fact, jam band music is still where my heart lies and I spend summers at music festivals.

So when I see all of this ethnic, batik, tribal, patchwork and tye-dye in high fashion, I am totally in my element. The only trouble remains that in my day-to-day professional meetings, a full blast of this look won’t work. But per my usual thing, I always add a bit of funk with accessories. I have fabulous ethnic jewelry that I wear with even the simplest outfits. Great handbags or shoes with ethnic details add that bit of ethnicity when I need to look polished otherwise.

Let’s face it, the best place to fully wear this tribal look (unless you are on the runways) is at the beach. St Tropez maybe?

I am determined to find a fabulous but tailored tribal print dress that I can wear for business meetings. If you run across anything, let me know! I’ll post a picture, when I find one!