kaleidoscoping chaos...: July 2014

Sometimes it is just time. This is one of those times. The summer solstice has come and gone. It is just about a year since I decided I would look for a job and go back to work. It is exactly one year ago today, Jonah & Vera started at their school on July 1, 2013. In just a few days, we will celebrate Independence Day 2104. It is just about time. And yes, time is sometimes everything…

Last time we spoke, I warned that winter was coming. Now, winter has passed, spring has just ended and summer is here. Time flies when you are having fun – or busy…

But there is a rhythm to time and life – a cadence of sort. It is sometimes familiar and often predictable. Sometimes erratic and unexpectedly crescendos or goes quiet and slow… but time is rhythmic, and speaks to us through the notes of the songs in our lives, the music of our soul.

What the hell is she talking about????

Ten years ago, in 2004, I was working at Debevoise & Plimpton in Washington DC and I was waiting for my next big assignment. It came in February 2004. Royal Dutch and Shell Transport and Trading Company (“Royal Dutch Shell”) began restating and recategorizing their oil reserves in a series of public announcements. It was a big deal. It was my next big case. From February 2004 until late 2007, Royal Dutch Shell was my big client. There were civil and criminal investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission[1], the Department of Justice, the UK Financial Services Authority, and the Dutch Authorities. There were private class action lawsuits by domestic investors and international investors. There were ERISA lawsuits. At the time, it was huge.

I was a single straight female midyear associate at BigLaw in need of work having just finished my previous big case. I was ready for the next adventure and I got it. I was sent off to the Hague with a small team for a few months then on to London for another few months. I worked 16 hour days, 6 days a week (I would not work on Shabbot). I was in charge of a big team. I was working head to head with the client. It was a career changing and life changing experience. Jocelyn was on my team and it was then that I became friends with her – a friendship that would become so deep and intimate that about three years later I married her in front of many of the same law firm partners that had assigned me to the Royal Dutch Shell cases initially. I made other friends on that case that I am sure will last forever. Other friendships were super intense at the time, but today they are memories – which is how it often is. Jocelyn and I often joke that our kids, Jonah & Vera are “Shell” babies because, but for that case – it is not clear that Jonah & Vera would have ever come to be. For a long time (even to this day I think), Jocelyn always went out of her way to go to the Shell gas station – it is one of the things I find so endearing about her.

And now it is a decade later… are you kidding me? Ten years ago, as our stint in London was winding down, I stopped in Portugal on the way back to the US to have a quick vacation. I met my best travel buddy there and it was the World Cup 2004. Greece was playing Portugal in the finals. Ten years ago almost to the day. We toured Lisbon and Porto and had the best time and watched the final game in the streets of Lisbon. It was memorable. Is it possible it was ten years ago?

Now I am the self-proclaimed “Mother of Dragons” and a working mom. It is the World Cup again, but I am kinda watching it – as in I took the kids to our local diner the other day after school for a dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and one of the games was on the big screen TV. I sat there explaining the soccer on TV to them. They play toddler soccer all the time – in our back yard and even after school at enrichment soccer class but they hadn’t really seen a soccer game like that. They sorta got it. Ten years ago, I thought, I was in Lisbon watching soccer on TV... Recategorizing my own reserves…

When Shell had to recategorize its reserves it shocked the oil industry. Moving or recategorizing certain reserves from one type to another was potentially “fraudulent,” possibly criminal and definitely had financial consequences. So when I say I am recategorizing my reserves, it is serious business. Not criminal or fraudulent but serious and not to be taken lightly.

We do it all the time though, don’t we? Recategorize our own reserves? Move to a new house. Take a new job. Decide to have another kid. Get married. Get divorced. Die. Join the gym. Stop going to the gym. Do a juice cleanse. All of these decisions involve a recategoriztion of sort. I am taking a hard look right now at my reserves and boy, does it look interesting.

I was so confounded as to why I was single back then. I remember in the cab on the way to airport to leave to the Netherlands my best friend in the world called me (in tears) to tell me she was pregnant for the third time. I got off the phone and shed my own tears in the taxi. All my dreams of having our kids grow up together were lost. How could our kids ever be friends? How could we ever continue to be friends? I was losing everything. Fast forward 10 years, just the other day I booked a weekend at the Jersey Shore so that we could all hang out. My kids and her kids, despite their age differences (Mine are 3 and 5, Hers are 9, 13, and 16) adore each other and my friend and I are closer than ever. I am happy to recategorize those reserves…

The past ten years have been illuminating. I completed the big case. I moved to another BigLaw firm with my group. Then the new firm merged with another BigLaw firm. I married my best froend who was one of my subordinates from the case and we were both at the new merged BigLaw firm. I then made partner at the new BigLaw firm. The financial crisis hit. I left BigLaw to work on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Then I got pregnant – after trying for a long time. I never went back to BigLaw. The US elected its first black President. We had Jonah. We moved to Chicago for six months because Jocelyn’s BigLaw job required it. After that, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and we got the call to adopt Vera within months of each other. We fought cancer and the accompanying MRSA virus while simultaneously adopting Vera. Jocelyn made partner at the BigLaw firm. We bought a house together. And then Jocelyn’s BigLaw firm blew up in a fantastic collapse. She became partner at another firm. I decided to write and wrote this blog for a year. I was a stay-at-home adventuring and kaleidoscoping mom of two kids. President Obama was reelected. We went on family vacations. Jonah had his tonsils out and split his head open. Vera had a seizure scare. We faced personal challenges, crises and triumphs. We all got older. My grandmother passed away. My best friends’ kids started having their bar and bat mitzvahs. I decided to go back to work. I got a job and started. The US came to the brink of financial doom and the federal government was furloughed the same week I began my new federal job. I took up mindfulness and I ran a triathlon. The kids started school.

Today, Iraq is breaking out into war again and Hillary Clinton is doing a book/campaign tour. Three Israeli kids were kidnapped and killed. The Supreme Court decided the Hobby Lobby case. People carry guns in target. There is a service called Uber taxi and everyone owns a smartphone. I am now recategorizing my own reserves.

My reserves. My energy. My talent. My hopes. My dreams. Swimming and stargazing. I have been doing them both lately. With Jocelyn and the kids. Just recently, it was the longest day of the year and we did both. We went swimming at the awesome public pool and then I took a moment and looked at the sky - at the stars... we are hoping to do it with the kids one of these summer nights with telescopes. It is on our list of Summer of Fun 2014 - yes we have such a list. It was Jocelyn's idea. Recategorizing my own reserves.

Since I last wrote here, we celebrated as we have done in the past: New Year’s Eve, MLK Jr day, Valentine’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, President’s Day, Ground Hog's Day, Tu B’shevat, Chinese New Year, Dr. Seuss’ Bday, Purim, Passover, Easter, L’ag Bomer, Earth Day, Shavuot and more. Jocelyn turned 40 and we went to the planetarium at Rock Creek Park. Vera turned three and she had a Unicorn and Dragon Party. Jonah just turned 5 – he had a Five Fast Things Racing Party with Flash, Dash, Rainbow Dash, Lightening McQueen and Turbo. My kids have been obsessed with Frozen!!!!!! Weave done kids races, tot shabbots, city fairs, and the folk life festival. We have eaten lots of ice cream and had lots of temper tantrums. Jonah is learning to read. Vera is learning to write her letters and numbers. We no longer buy diapers or pull-ups - we leave the stroller at home. We are about to join a synagogue. I am no longer the new kid at work and I even joined a Board for a non-profit organization. Life keeps on recategorizing itself while no one is looking.

And now it is summer. The best possible time to recategorize one’s reserves. There is light. It is bright. It just feel right.

I am still so tired there is no way to explain it in words. I am still trying to breathe as much as I can. I am embracing my working mommy life even though it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life and often feels undoable – I am doing it. If I were to categorize it all – I would say it goes in the “priceless” category. I am still grateful and thankful for everything I have. I know I am lucky. Ten years ago I was worried I would never have kids and the kids I never had would never be able to be friends with my best friend’s kids – that worry has been recategorized as “obsolete” and “wasted emotion” – that was a fun one to recategorize.

Jocelyn and I sigh with exhaustion all the time. We can barely find time to have a conversation. The hours that we spent learning about each, debating each other, laughing with each other, falling in love with each other – those hours have been recategorized and now they are appointments during the day on the phone to talk about our taxes, the weekend schedule, who is picking up dinner and who is taking the kids to karate… Sometimes we manage to watch The Game of Thrones or Orange is the New Black or House of Cards together at night. If we are really lucky we go out for dinner, to the planetarium or a weekend in Miami (all of this has happened!).

My reserves. I still have them. They keep me going. It is healthy to recategorize them every decade or so. I am good with that. Here’s to another decade… I cannot wait to see what is next... Lucky for me every time I recategorize my reserves, I don’t get sued in federal court… Although, with your indulgence I do get to make my own public announcements - like corporate quarterly reports. I like that... maybe that is my new blogging schedule goal.

Always recategorizing my own reserves...

A Decade Ago...

Colleagues out for lunch - Pancakes in Amsterdam in March 2004

Foreshadowing things to come - here we were just two co-workers on a day trip from London to Brighton Pier... who would have thought what would be 10 years later...

This was the sign over the front desk at the Great Eastern Hotel in London where we lived for 3 1/2 months!

Best Friends Watching the World Cup in June/July 2004 in Lisbon.

On returning the US in New York City in July 2004 with my then co-worker and new friend, Jocelyn.

One Year Ago - 7-1-3013!

Today - 7-1-2014!

Our Kaleidoscoping Chaos since last we spoke...

happy new year 2014! with Frosty!

Our new tradtion. Making the 1970's Frosty cake from cool whip, box cake and M&Ms for every winter holiday! I made this when I was kid... now my kids make it...