Anna Quindlen "Living Out Loud"

I recently attended Anna Quindlen’s lecture, "Living out loud" which was held in Milwaukee at the Marcus Center.

Anna Quindlen began by describing herself as a liberal, a feminist, and an affirmative action employee (she was referring to her employment at the NY Times). She then told the story of three girls. The first was the story of her mother, who had a talent for art and a dream to attend art school, this dream of course was inconceivable; she was expected to marry and raise a family. The second was her story, she grew up resentful as her father pushed her relentlessly as if she were a son. He taught her to break down barriers if necessary to pursue her dreams. When she graduated from high school she entered a world that did not allow women entrance to West Point, Princeton or Yale. She described how she went on to become a columnist for the NY Times Op-Ed page. This came about, according to her, because of affirmative action. She then spoke of the life of her seventeen year old daughter. Her daughter lives in a world without barriers; a world where women have achieved all of the firsts. All of the firsts that is, except for the first female president and the first female pope. She then stated that feminism has opened many doors but this has not come without problems. Today women who are stay at home mothers are considered boring at cocktail parties. If a mother decides to work outside of the home her children are thought to eat only oreos and play in the snow without shoes. Feminism has also led to problems for boys; they no longer know where they fit in. She discussed her decision to leave the NY Times to become a full time author stating that success is an individual achievement. She ended with, "My gosh, how the world has changed for women I only wish we had started a little earlier so my mother could have gone to art school".

During the question and answer period she revealed several interesting facts; she will never be a politician, her favorite authors are Charles Dickens, Jane Austin and William Faulkner, she thinks Hillary Clinton will run for President in the next election and has a good chance of winning, yes she did feel like an imposter at the NY Times, but so did everyone else, she is formulating characters for a new book and will begin a book tour in September.

I attended the lecture with a friend who had enjoyed Quindlen's lovely little book, "How Reading Changed my Life. We both enjoyed the presentation and made tentative plans to attend another "Smart Talk" lecture next year.

The Vanishing Corner Barber Shop

In its heyday, the Corner barbershop was a major gathering place where men discussed politics, sports, received the latest local gossip and yes also got their hair cut. They are slowly disappearing from our American landscape; having been replaced by salons and trendy spas located in suburban strip malls. William Marvey, the owner of the only remaining manufacturer of the red and white striped barber poles, states that a few years ago there were over 100,000 barber shops in this country but now there are only about 85,000. In the above photo, a friend's four year old is getting his haircut at a barber shop in Green Bay. Let’s celebrate shops like this while we still can.
This photo has been used with permission.

Why Anguilla?

Upon hearing that my husband and I recently returned from vacationing in Anguilla, we are usually inundated with questions. Here is a sampling:

"Why Anguilla?"
We had decided last winter that it was time to take a 2nd vacation to the Caribbean. In March of 1999, we had spent a week on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. We wanted to replicate that experience by staying on an island where the water and beaches were as beautiful as St. Kitts’s Friars Bay, the food was as suburb as the restaurant at Ottley's Plantation, The Royal Palm. We wanted an island that wasn't crowded and was off the beaten path. We also wanted to stay at a resort that was right on the beach (Ottley's, though lovely, was not). Subsequently, we happened to catch a program on the travel channel which named Anguilla’s beach, Upper East Shoal, as one of the world’s best beaches. Actually, in March 2005, Anguilla was voted as #1 in “World’s Best Beaches” by judges from Conde Nast Traveler, USA Today and Fodor’s. After further research, we discovered the following facts about Anguilla: cruise ships were limited to no more than 400 passengers, high-rise hotels, casinos and nude sunbathing were banned, and they had almost a 100% employment rate with very little crime. But most importantly Anguilla is known for food and is home to numerous four star restaurants. We had found our island.

How do you pronounce it?
Anguilla rhymes with vanilla and is pronounced Ann-gwilla.

Where is it?
It is the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Eastern Caribbean.

How big is it?
35 square miles. 16 miles long and 3 miles wide. On a side note, some say Christopher Columbus christened the little island Anguilla (Spanish for eel) after he sailed past it and saw her long slithering shape.

How do you get there? And is it a direct flight?
Okay, getting there is reminiscent of the movie, "Trains, Planes and Automobiles". And no, it is not a direct flight; Anguilla’s airport is not large enough to handle commercial airline flights.

Our journey to Anguilla went like this:
Left home Saturday, April 1st for Chicago around 3:30 p.m., spent Saturday night in Chicago at The Courtyard Marriott (we were taking advantage of one of their park and stay packages), woke up at 1:40 a.m. Sunday morning (lost an hour due to day light savings time) luckily did not fall back asleep as our 2:30 a.m. wake up call did not arrive, arrived at O’Hare around 3:45 a.m., from O’Hare flew to Atlanta arriving around 10:00 a.m., flew from Atlanta to St Maartens, arrived in St. Maartens around 1:30 p.m. eastern time, took a taxi from the airport in St. Maartens to their ferry depot in Marigot, at Marigot caught the 2:30 p.m. ferry to Anguilla, at Anguilla’s ferry depot in Blowing Point went through customs, took a cab to our resort at Rendezvous Bay, arrived around 3:30 p.m. The return trip‘s journey was identical, only reversed.

Where did you stay?
We stayed in an upper villa at the Rendezvous Bay Hotel, located right on Rendezvous Bay. Though not posh, it had an old world charm that takes you back to another era. Rendezvous Bay which is 1 1/2 miles of pearl white sand was one of our favorite beaches, extremely calm and great for swimming.




How did you get around?
We rented a car for the first five days at $35 a day, and a jeep for the last two at $40 a day. It is a must for exploring the island. The roads were in good repair and it was easy to find our way around considering that road signs were scarce. Driving is on the left-hand side of the road; we found this easy to adapt to. We did, however, find their habit of frequently stopping their vehicles in the middle of the road forcing drivers to go around them and their tendency to not dim their bright lights for approaching vehicles to be annoying.


What did you do?
We quickly fell into a routine. Each morning, upon waking we would sit on our balcony, admire the view and drink our coffee. Then we were off in our rental car to explore the island. We visited at least one of the 33+ beaches each day, spending the mornings walking and exploring a beach or two. We found all of them to be spectacular. Around noon we would stop for a leisurely lunch usually accompanied by a rum punch. The afternoons were spent back at Rendezvous Bay, walking the beach, reading a book or napping in the lounge chairs in front of our villa. We would then go to dinner at one of the islands four star restaurants. After dinner, we would return to Rendezvous Bay, stroll on the beach and gaze at the Caribbean sky. Oliver’s, one of our favorite restaurants, is pictured on the left.

How was the weather?
The weather was gorgeous; highs were in the 80's every day, lows in the high 70's. It rained Tuesday night, but the sky was clear when we woke Wednesday morning. We did encounter a light shower for about an hour Friday afternoon; fortunately we were at a restaurant eating lunch.

And lastly, did you like it and would you return?
My husband feels that we have found our island. It is everything we wanted and more; the beaches were beautiful and unspoiled, the restaurants, though expensive were fantastic, the sunsets were spectacular, the people were friendly, the island was clean and we felt safe.




Unfortunately, this may all change. There is quite a bit of development planned for Anguilla. The owners of the Rendezvous Bay Hotel have plans to raze their property and build twenty of the most fantastic villas ever seen in Anguilla. There are also plans to build a low-rise 2,083 room resort on the previously undeveloped east-end. This would be built on what was my husband's favorite beach, Savannah Bay. It is the remote, isolated beach pictured on the left. Hopefully Anguilla will remain the unspoiled, affordable island that we visited, but I have my doubts.

Get Human!

I took part in an interesting conversation this afternoon with my co-workers. My boss had decided to give a particular insurance agent, who had been pestering him for months, the opportunity to quote our business insurance this year. While attempting to reach her by phone he ended up in automated phone system purgatory. After numerous attempts, he finally reached a live operator who was able to transfer him directly to the agent’s extension.

This story led to a lively discussion about automated phone systems; everyone had had a similar experience including myself. Before our recent vacation, my husband had attempted to confirm our flight information with Delta Airlines. I could hear him on the phone talking to the automated system, he was becoming increasingly frustrated and his voice was getting increasingly louder. It went something like this: 1, English, 1, 2, no, No, NO then the phone would be slammed down and the entire process would be repeated. Eventually he gave up, and I confirmed our information via the internet.

How excited I was to relay a website I had just read about in Jim Stingl’s column, located in today's Milwaukee Journal. According to Mr. Stingl, the website http://gethuman.com/us/,was started by a Boston guy named Paul English, the site lists hundreds of places we dread calling and gives secret tips on how to bypass the recorded voice to reach a breathing human being. What a great find.

Back to the insurance agent, it turns out the problem was compounded because she had given my boss her married name and the automated phone system has her listed by her maiden name. And they say Americans are losing our business savvy.