the pieces of my life

Now he’s anxious and waking up at 4 a.m.? Not while he was waiting for the response, but now that he’s actually been admitted to Sloan and we’re going to be moving to Boston. He’s very jumpy today, but excited too. He’s already withdrawn his applications from Stern and Columbia. I’m going to tell my manager today in our one-on-one before she can hear from anyone else. We had a great dinner at Canlis last night. The table was right by the window overlooking the ship canal, and I had oysters and prawns and he had crab cakes and filet mignon. Mmmmm. It’s our last meal out until he graduates from Sloan.

I’ve got to be on the ball today. Yesterday was a bit of a waste. Adam let me know about 10 a.m. yesterday that people were posting on the Business Week boards that rejections were starting to be e-mailed (“dings” they call it). How tacky is that? Isn’t that like breaking up with someone over e-mail? Harsh. Anyway, at that point I became somewhat compulsive about checking the boards. Ding, ding, ding and all to people who had better GPAs and GMATs than Adam. Adam had a meeting from 1 to 4, so he sent me his Yahoo login so I could check his e-mail. Yeah, that was condusive to getting work done! So I’m checking his boards, I’m checking his e-mail, I’m back at the boards. Then at about 1ish our time, the waitlist e-mails start. I’m tracking the board pretty closely. When the e-mail finally showed in his in-box I was a little nervous, as no one had posted an acceptance, although the waitlist e-mails seemed to have stopped. Just after reading his acceptance, I checked the board and sure enough people were starting to post that they had gotten in. I called my father, who was way more excited than Adam, I think, and I forwarded him the e-mail to make sure I had read it right. Then I called Adam (isn’t it nice that he was actually the third to know that he got in?). It hadn’t occurred to me that he would have brought his cell phone to the meeting, but sure enough, he had (if I had known, I would have called him first–Peter convinced me to try him). He was very subdued, because he was at the office, but after work, he was pretty hyper.

Now, all we’ve got to do is sell the house, find a new one, find me a job, get some real winter clothes. I hate driving in the rain! How am I ever going to drive in the snow? We may trade in my car for a Volvo. I need something safe. School starts August 19. And I will not be joining the Spouses of Sloan.

It had to happen some time. I came into the living room and said, “Did you see where I put my Diet Coke?” and Adam said, “You sound exactly like your mother!”

Dress is dropped off for alterations. I made appointments for hair and make-up. Movin’ along!

Okay, now I’m a little scared. How come there aren’t any men in this group?

We’ve got the rings–they look great and the engraving looks good, although I think Adam’s ring may be too big for his skinny little finger. It’s so hard to tell in cold weather. When it’s warm, I’m sure the ring will fit great.

He’s starting his Sloan interview right now as I type. That boy was nervous! Took him four tries to get his tie right.

Someone at work created a Unix command that shows you how many people have been at the company longer than you have. I’ve been here longer than 96.1% of the people currently working here! That’s a scary thought to me. I really am an old-timer.

Adam got a Sloan interview!!

My tulips are going to die. That warm spell had the shoots sprouting–some of them are pretty tall now. Adam covered the bases with mulch yesterday, but with all this snow, I don’t think it’s going to do any good. My poor tulips. I planted so many of them this year.

Adam got an interview at Stern. Blah, New York. I told him that if he wanted me to sacrifice and move to New York, then I expected him to make a sacrifice at well. If we move to New York… he has to root for the Yankees. That may be the sole reason he decides not to go to business school at all.

Hard to type in an entry when my hands are completely numb. I just attended one of the greatest marketing ploys–I mean patriotic events–of my time. At exactly 5:12, the Olympic torch was to pass beneath my work building. And at precisely 5:52, it showed up. But not until the Coke van came driving slowly by handing out free Cokes. And then the second one came by handing out “I Saw the Flame” flags. And the Chevrolet SUV came by to hand out the blow-up kind of noisemakers. And the vendors came by selling shirts and flags. Much of the office went down to the street to watch, only it’s cold out and none of us had planned on watching. I really wanted to see it, although I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why, which is why I went in the first place. And then I had to stay, because once you’ve stayed this long, it’s dumb to leave. I complained to Deb, “What’s their problem? I could run faster than that.” Deb said, “Watch it be some guy in a wheel chair.” Eventually, the cops came to block off the road, and the motorcade of cops passed by really slowly. A van full of other torch carriers went by, and then finally, there was a van that was barely moving and behind it was the flicker of a flame… taped to the arm of a wheelchair. The guy in the wheelchair was flanked by two younger boys, one who was on crutches. I can’t remember the last time I’ve ever seen anyone look so happy. But why not? when does anyone get to have a street blocked off for them while they’re cheered on by hoardes of onlookers (the side of the street was pretty full with folks). The carriers wear these outfits that look like Olympic space suits. Still, it was a pretty cool thing to see.

The wedding machine is taking on a life of it’s own. The quote for today is “You’re not doing anything stupid like taking phen phen are you?” but I shall be so kind as to refrain from mentioning who said it. Things accomplished: Adam got copies of the photos sent to us by his parents and my parents to display on the guest book table; the “chuppa duppa do” arrived today (but shall remain unopened, as I’m sure that will make transporting it easier); most of the bridal party gifts arrived today (the order was a little short–I’m sure the rest will appear soon); the wine glass for stamping on arrived today (we decided to splurge on a pretty blue one as we will use the shards in a mezzuah we also bought); we made a date for the tasting for the wedding meal and checked on how much it would be for me to stay in the hotel the night before; I ordered new wedding undies (since the others didn’t work out–went for the slightly pricier but way prettier ones); Adam ordered a birth certificate so he could get his passport; got stamps for the reply cards; picked up maps for the guest bags; and gathered most of our addresses for invites. Whew! And it was a full day at work!

Speaking of work, lots of fuss over the fact that we’re finally in the money. I chose not to be one of the people who went in at 5:30 a.m. for champagne and breakfast to listen to the analysts call, although I did partake in the 5:30 p.m. champagne toast. It was nice but there was a distinct lack of old-timers there, which made it somewhat bittersweet. And Bezos had to ruin it all for me by uttering those words (on a speaker phone from New York) that I thought the company had finally banished: “Remember, it’s still Day 1!” Yuck! Some of us were trying to count how many people at Amazon had been there longer than their five-year point, and we could only come up with four or so, and that includes Bezos himself (we weren’t including anyone who’s already given notice). I’m sure there are more than that, but certainly not many.