transcended.net

** As I’m sure even those of you who don’t give a crap about basketball are aware, the Miami Heat are the new champs of the NBA.  I spent most of the series thinking I was cheering for the Thunder and yet during the actual games cheering for plays made by the Heat.  It was all very confusing until Game 5 when Mike Miller rained down a barrage of three’s even though he could clearly barely walk up and down the court thanks to his old-man back.  That’s when I realized that although I preferred the Thunder stars (KD, Westbrook and Ibaka in particular, Harden needs to shave his beard and then maybe) I can’t stand a lot of their role players.  (Two words: Derek Fisher.  ‘Nuff said.)  The opposite is true of Miami, I love their role players (c’mon, Haslem, Turiaf, Battier, Chalmers, Cole, and Miller with his Gatorade commercial worthy Game 5, what’s not to love about all those guys?) and at the end of the day, I’m a gal that loves role players.  To me, they make up the heart of the team and they are always overlooked despite the fact that a role player is almost always the difference maker in winning a championship.  Stars will do their thang, it’s the role players and their gutsy, no glory performances that make the difference.  What can I say?  I’m a dirty work gal, and I prefer the dirty work players of Miami to those on the Thunder.  So even though I thought I wanted the Thunder to win, I find myself overjoyed for all the players who contributed to the Miami win.  Well done boys.  And just like when the Giants won the World Series a couple years ago, I really, really love that moment when the win sinks in and grown men turn into little boys.  It always makes me smile (unless it’s the Lakers, of course).

** Have you guys heard about those little monsters that bullied a 68-year old grandma on the school bus?  I admit, I couldn’t watch more than a few seconds of the video without wanting to burst out into tears.  Reading the descriptions of the things that were said were bad enough.  One of my friends said the dreaded phrase, “kids being kids” and I completely lost it at him.  If that is “kids being kids” then kids must be vile little creatures.  I get kids bullying other kids, but what has happened to our society that kids have the nerve to bully a senior citizen?  My first thought was, wow, I hope their parents are completely ashamed of themselves.  Of course, the sad fact is, they’re probably not.  How else could they have raised such disgusting, disrespectful, foul-mouthed little creatures?  I read in an ABC article that one of the father’s said he thinks his son has been punished enough.  Well, it’s exactly that kind of attitude that has let your son turn into an adult-size asshole right before your eyes.  If that was my kid?  First of all, I’d be asking what I did wrong, and second, I would be marching my child over to Mrs. Klein’s house and tell him he better get down on his hands and knees and beg for forgiveness.  I would also be doing everything I could to apologize (in person, none of this writing a letter and sending it through the news media bullshit) to that poor lady and her family.  And you better believe, every single video game cartridge memory card my kid owned would be deleted immediately, not to mention grounding for the entire summer (or maybe until they graduate from high school).  But again, I doubt any of that will happen to these kids because their parents are probably too busy telling them it’s not their fault.  Thank goodness the little twerps were dumb enough to film the whole thing themselves and put it up on the internet of their own accord, thinking it would be just hilarious.  At least now Mrs. Klein will have enough money to retire and never have to be within five feet of those awful “children” again. Here is the best article I’ve read so far on the whole thing.

** My friend Lian pointed out this Atlantic Magazine article to me entitled Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.  I found it fascinating, particularly in that the reasons Slaughter gave for why it is difficult for women with families to succeed in the world of international relations are directly applicable to the field I work in.  Long hours in the office?  Check.  Frequent travel?  Check.  Inflexible schedules?  Check.  And let’s face it, Wall Street is still very much an “ol’ boys club.”  I consider myself lucky that I work in a San Francisco branch office because the work-life balance here is leaps and bounds better than it would be if I were in NYC, but even in SF there is the pressure to put in facetime and never take time off unless you absolutely have to.  For example, I get four weeks of vacation each year but haven’t even come close to taking that amount of time off.  Last year I rolled over the maximum allowed ten days and right now I’m sitting on 26 days of vacation time.  I’ve recently started thinking long and hard about what direction my career will take if this pregnancy is successful and I have yet to come up with any answers.  There are only a handful of women in the office who have a role similar to mine and only ONE that has a child.  The one that does have a child is much older than I am, had her child only very recently (I have never asked but my guess is she plans to have only one, given her age) and was already extremely senior in the firm before she got pregnant.  Most of the men I work with have children, but they also almost all have stay at home (or work from home) wives.  I don’t really have anyone to look to for how to be the kind of working mother I’d like to be if I stay within my current position, and I do find that somewhat upsetting.  I think there are a lot of ways that I could easily do my job at least part of the time from home, but I don’t know if the culture of my job (not just at my firm, but across the entire street) would be open to that.  Hopefully (there’s that word again!) this will be something I actually get to try to figure out in 8 months or so.