A Hawkeye View Of Gotham

Car Czar

Nice article about my boss attached here.  Front page of today's Wall Street Journal.  Good stuff!

Update

Greetings faithful readers, and Happy Friday!  In the news today is the suffering I endured at last night's running class.  I haven't done running classes in about a year now, but I am slowly working my way up to a 20-mile per week base, and doing the class once a week is a good start.  My favorite thing about the classes is that you always end up working out harder than you would have on your own.  Last night it was raining but we had a pretty decent sized group, and they led us over to the East River.  It was 3/4 of a mile there, and 3/4 of a mile back.  While at the river we did a 1 1/4 run down, paused for 3 minutes, and then the 1 1/4 run back.  This was a speed workout, so my group was going at an 8-minute mile pace, which is really fast for me.  But I suppose the idea is to get you running short distances a bit faster, eventually increasing your overall speed.  Total workout = 4 miles.

I've started my second class at NYU: Advanced Employee Recruitment, Selection and Retention on Monday and Wednesday nights from 6-9pm.  So far I am really enjoying this class, much in part to the relevance this topic has in today's grim economy.  Our professor was recently laid off after 11 years at the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers.  Many people in the class are looking for jobs.  Can I just say again how grateful I am to have my lovely little job at the Rattner Family Office?  At any rate I find myself learning things I can apply to my current job, which is the whole idea, I suppose.

My apartment is coming along really well, and now 3 of the 4 sisters have seen it and can testify to it's perfection!  I am looking forward to a visit from Mom and Margaret and all other family members who read my Blog as you are all welcome at any time.  I still need to buy rugs and get some pictures up on the wall, but overall it is pretty much done.  There are two children on my floor, both boys 2 years old.  Conrad has met Nermal and apparently talks her up to Jake at the other end of the hallway (as I found out this morning whilst riding the elevator down with Jake and his Mom).  I don't like pimping Nermal out to the kids on the floor, however, as Nermal loathes small children, and she has the claws to prove it.  She is allowed, however, to use her claws on the horrid, yippy dog across the hall named French Fry, should the need ever arise.

Today it is warm and sunny in NYC and I don't have much on my calendar this weekend besides the normal weekend chores and activities, so I am looking forward to some downtime. 

 Laura ~~

Kitty Story with Happy Ending!

I frequent the Blog of Monica Wellington, whose daughter, Lydia, is a Corps dancer at New York City Ballet.  Monica is also an author of childrens books.  Here is a recent post about her dear kitty cat, Lola!

Early this morning I woke up to the sound of my cat gagging. My cat Lola loves to eat thread, ribbon, shoe laces, string of any kind and we constantly are on the alert to keep anything like this out of her reach. But sometimes we slip up and I knew this morning right away that something serious was going on. My daughter spotted a color of thread in Lola's mouth that last night had been used for a sewing project. I strongly suspected that there was a needle attached to this thread and that it was down her throat.

Poor thing, with a struggle, I got her into her dreaded cat carrier and we went by taxi straight over to the Animal Medical Centerat 510 East 62nd St. I knew that with an emergency at 7am on a Sunday morning this was the place to go. The moment we arrived, Lola was immediately seen by the triage vet. She was whisked off for x-rays, and sure enough, there was a needle lodged in her throat. Dr. Hezel explained that she was going to sedate Lola and try to open her mouth wide to try to get the needle out that way. Otherwise the surgeon would have to operate. Less than one half hour later our fantastic vet came out smiling!  She brought me the needle on a piece of gauze. The gory details: she said that when Lola swallowed the needle she must have then gagged it part way up because it had gotten stuck in the back of her tongue. The procedure had gone well and Lola was sleeping it off. I can't tell you how relieved and grateful I felt!!

Very quickly after that we were home and here is a picture of her, feeling a little under the weather but on the road to recovery. Lydia said our other cat Zoe walked around the apartment meowing the whole time we were away. But since we have been back, all she does is hiss at Lola. I guess she still smells of the animal hospital. I am just so thankful that this has turned out well, that our beautiful purring kitty is safe and sound.

News

Number of Blackberry's currently owned: 0

Number of iPhones currently owned: 1

Grade received in Corporate Finance class: A

Number of sisters coming to visit me this weekend: 2 (Liz for the whole weekend and Alex for Dad's birthday dinner on Saturday)

Number of miles I will run in Central Park this evening: 6 (I am back to running the Loop)

Minutes before I will leave work to head up to B3's house on 5th Avenue to measure a painting and pick up the mail: 15

Bye for now!

Poor Little Thing!

A small bat that was spotted blasting off with the space shuttle Sunday and clinging to the back side of Discovery's external fuel tank apparently held on throughout the launch.

NASA hoped the bat would fly away before the spacecraft's Sunday evening liftoff, but photos from the launch now show the bat holding on for dear life throughout the fiery ride.

"He did change the direction he was pointing from time to time throughout countdown but ultimately never flew away," states a NASA memo obtained by SPACE.com. "Infrared imagery shows he was alive and not frozen like many would think ... Liftoff imagery analysis confirmed that he held on until at least the vehicle cleared [the] tower before we lost sight of him."

 

I've never been much of a bat lover, but I had hoped this little guy would have flown away before being launched into space!

Update

Greetings faithful readers!  Just a quick status update on my life.  I have a bit more free time now to post now that my class is over (corporate finance - I am still waiting for my grade but our group presentation on US Airways earned the highest grade in the class!) and the ballet is out of season until the end of April.  My next class starts in two weeks.

Books I am reading:

1. The Shining by Stephen King.  Never seen the movie but I love scary books and apparently this is one of the best.  I will read it on the bus as I hear it is not wise to read alone....*insert scary music here*...

2.  The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekateraniburg by Helen Rappaport.  True story.  Synopsis below:

On the sweltering summer night of July 16, 1918, in the Siberian city of Ekaterinburg, a group of assassins led an unsuspecting Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, his wife, the Tsarina Alexandra, the desperately ill Tsarevich, and their four beautiful daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, into a basement room where they were shot and then bayoneted to death.

This is the story of those murders, which ended three hundred years of Romanov rule and set their stamp on an era of state-orchestrated terror and brutal repression.

The Last Days of the Romanovs counts down to the last, tense hours of the family’s lives, stripping away the over-romanticized versions of previous accounts. The story focuses on the family inside the Ipatiev House, capturing the oppressive atmosphere and the dynamics of a group—the Romanovs, their servants, and guards—thrown together by extraordinary events.

Sounds good, no?!  Right up my alley and I will learn some history, too.

And what would a posting be without a photo of Nermal?  Here she is lolling on my new Cow Blanket.  Doesn't she look happy?!

Nermal Appears!

Proof that those rabbity little feet belonged to Nermal!  Here she is, rousing herself from a lovely nap and being forced to snuggle with her Mommy:

Rabbit Feet

Nermal has this interesting obsession with sleeping under the duvet on my bed.  It is very common for me to come home during the afternoon on the weekend and find her fast asleep in a little lump under the covers.  Sometimes not all of her is hidden, though.....