After having a temporary brain blip where I couldnt remember any of my passwords and login names for lj, it finally came back to me. Call it a Christmas miracle, I cant be sure. Anyway, I am back.

Can't wait to hear about the amazing adventures of Melissa. Here is all quiet. We are enjoying Christmas and have been decorating and baking up a storm. I will try and send you some cookies but it might take awhile to gewt there and who knows the condition. I wouldnt expect anythgin til after the holidays anyway. Richard is qworking up a storm which is good and Grace is doing well. I think I Have had a break through emotionally in terms of coping wqith all the NAM crap spo that it good. I got an email from Martha asking me to return my laptop. They actually were realtively persistent about it so I did it. I took it to a place and got the hard drive wiped clean before I delievred it. I actually think they were scared to death about me showing up (I was scared to death of them). Had a long talk with the woman guard in the building. Than handed it off to Jess who looked pained and scared to see me. Told me that Martha wasnt there but that she'd put it in her office? OK, sure thing,great thinking! She was up there all by her lonesome. Naturally, the place was decorated to the max--kidding. Last year there was not a poinsettia in sight and no one even acknowledged there was a holiday. I am betting same gig this year ands maybe even worse. (The keyboard I am typing on gets stuck so that explains the bad spellling).

My bro in law is really sick/dying. I didnt know if you knew that or not. He has brain cancer and has been in and out of the hospital on a weekly basis for months now. He may be moved to a hospice soon. Unsure of whether he'll make it to the spring. THis is pretty rough on my sister and her nephew.

My mom is the same. Not being unemployed I try to get toi see her at least once a week in ghe city.

All of this is pretty grim but it also makes you realize how good things really are.

So here is my revelation. I had been blaming myself for a lot of this NAM stuff, why didn;t I see it coming. Why didnt I try to do something? Anyway, the lesson is the bad stuff happens and willcontinue to happen even when you dont deserve it or have done anything to bring it on yourself. So if bad s**t and bad people happen, what's a girl to do? Have as much fun as possible and be happy because if you dont at the end of the day you'll have the bad stuff anyway and you'll at least want tobe happy or have happy memories. Maybe I sound too Oprahg-ish but it is getting me through the night.


BTW, still haven't heard from that job. I am moving on because I dont think the radio silenece fromthem bodes well.
THey say that Katie Holmes is pregnant again and that Angelina is on the pill! Do you get all the gossip or do I have to fill you in on everything?

I loved reading your post. Exciting and scary but it sounds as if you are already off to a good start and have a nice support system already. I'll put together a care package for you and ship it off. (What else do I have to do?) Still umemployed but on the hunt, also on unemployment. Loving being able to spend time with Grace and also running a lot. The weather has been spectacular here. Really blue skies and the leaves are changing. I am close to one job but dont want to jinx it. It is located in CT which is about a 25 minute drive from home. Good commute and good people or so it seems. We'll see. If this doesnt pan out I'll probably be unemployed until at least Jan 2007 because nobody is really hiring at the end of the year.

Things at the end were weird but expected I suppose. Nobody was really told anything about the end date or about severance or insurance. I guess those details were not important. I suspect that Martha and Jess knew about stuff in advance because they were still there. When I mentioned that to a friend of mine, he said, "So he got rid of everyone with a brain." How accurate! There have been sime unflattering articles about it which has had some unflattering characterizations but it is hard to put a good spin on it.

Richard has been working a lot and doing a lot of flying. Next week he is going to Italy.

As I said I have been trying to take advantage of this time off by keeping busy with projects. I go to the local library and check out DVDs and videos. I have seen: Adaptation, Pollock, Lawrence of Arabia, Good Night and Good Luck, Munich, Match Point, Capote and Friends With Money. Also getting Grace started on some classics. We've watched Breaking Away and The Karate Kid. Also, an old Danny Kaye movie that I always liked called The Court Jester. On deck is The Music Man and To Kill a Mockingbird. Also, last week, Richard had to fly to Orlando so Grace and I hopped on board this awesome private jet and made our very first trip ever to Disney World! (Lisa Conrad--You just got laid off from your job, what are you going to do now? I'm going to Disney World) Anyway, we went down for the weekend and Grace missed school on Monday and we hung out at DisneyWorld. It was a blast and we all had a great time together. Grace loved it and was so happy it made me happy.

We'll try to send stuff soon. Let me know what you need.

I'm so proud of you. You are very brave and you are having the experience of a lifetime.

Well it has been about a week and a half since I left NAM and I have mized feelings. Nice to get a paycheck but I do not miss the sysfunction for one minute. I have kept fairly busy with catching up on things, visitn my mother, and conducting a job search. I have had a second interview at one place in the city that seems promising. And I go for a first interview at a place in CT and get this, the boss or top guy lives in my town. I dont think I know him and he told my recruiter that there was no negative gossip about me in town so his town background check came up clean. Could be a little too close for comfort on that one but we'll see. Another promising one rejected me because I was too expensive but they liked my resume. So things are percolating for September. As we get closer to the end of the year, the jobs will be more available. Unfortunately as we get closer to the end of the year, my anziety evel about being unemployed may also get more extreme.

I had a coffee with LB. He is so angry and po'd. He told me that primo bought a ferrari and made a big show of it to Paris the other day. Yes this was afetr his decision to shut down and put everyone on unemployment. Classy move.

Franz got a job. No idea where.

Martha and Jess are the only ones staying. Gwyn has been actively interviewing--every day in a suit. Maureen told me that primo went inot her office and closed the door the other day. Gwyn stay strong and get the hell out. do not believe the bs. Given the speed with which she commenced inetrviewing I am hopeful that she wont buy into any of this but she is the only one there with a cpa so i think if primo wants to resurrect himself afetr he finished with his leave of absence, he might think he needs her. so sick isn't it?

I explained the situation to a friend of mine who summed it up as "He's getting rid of eevryone with a brain." And that edplains why he is keeping martha and jess.

Actually, LB thinks primo is a bad guy. And I mean bad as in dishonest.

Everything else is OK. The weather has been spectacular so I have been running a lot. I am trying to stay in shape while I am on my own leave of absence. The other thing I have been doing is catching up on movies--old and new. I go to the local library and have been getting out the dvds and tapes. I finished watching "Lawrence of Arabia" and now I am onto "Good night and good luck". I'll troll the chelves more this weekend. Someone suggested "Brazil" to me which is one I have been meaning to see. Feel free to make suggestions. I will keep you posted on my progress.

Other than that, cleaning out a lot of closets and trying to help Richard out with his business. He is travelling right now on an overnight trip to Alabama and next week he goes back to Italy. This works out well with taking care of Grace. Our babysitter has been kind iof flaky and Richard suspects that she has or is trying to commit insurance fraud of some kind with her car. Way too complicated for me.

That's it for me. With lots of free time, I will be writing you in Ukraine. Hope all goes well.

So because I challenged primo, he got pissed and told me that Monday, Sept 11th was my last day and that I needed to pack up immediately and leave. So i am at home right now. I had an interview for a pretty good job yesterday. I think I need a break so it is OK if this particular opportunity takes a while. I admit I went through the whole range of emotions. First, sadness, then relief, then anger, now exhaustion. I finally got a solid night of sleep since this whole thing happened.
The minutia of how this all happened is fascinating and I probably will write it in a letter to you. Suffice it to say that primo is a small, small man and his actions demonstrated that.

I just can't believe that first, this happened and second, that it is being handled so poorly. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I have not heard from anyone at work but that is probably the best. Grace is pumped that I am so available now.

Here is a new yahoo address for me. lrconrad95@yahoo.com.

You are never going to believe this one. NAM is closing. Primo decided life was too much for him and he is taking a "leave of absence". What a joke. The guy has so much stress in his life. Get this, he announces it and then proceeds to tell us no details about last day and insurance etc. Martha is staying for the next year but none of us know what the details are. Nice huh? LB is bull shit as am I. The guy already threw himself a year long pity party and now it continues. Supposedly he is going to Asia to travel which means that I guess he is not spending the quality time with his family that he prockaims he is doing. Another lie.

Stll hopelessly bored at work. I even finished up the update to the handbook which was so out of date it referred to people who werent even here when I got here eighteen months ago.

Primo said he'd review it but that will take a while. Something fishy is up anyway. Too many meetings with Primo behind closed doors and conf calls for Primo in his office. I feel like he'd be a wreck unless he had a plan. It might involve selling the company or something. He's been meeting with Richard Simmons all morning. Richard Simmons has made his first appearance in the office since May. LB and Tito have been very distance to Primo and Tito is no longer following him around like a puppy dog. For me all systems are the same, no one talks to me and I have nothing to do. Martha refuses to delegate and everything goes through her the way it did when Satan was here. This is not an ideal business model particularly for a business which claims that it wants to grow. So either Primo really doesnt want it to grow or his judgment is seriously flawed. I think it cannot be the latter so it has to be the former. I have a friend who has said from the very beginning that she thought it sounded as if all he wanted to do was manage his own money. That very well could be the case in which case he definitely does not need me and a bunch of people. I really feel as if the writing is on the wall and it is only a matter of time.

Enough of that, I actually have something new to bitch about, Richard is travelling and we arranged for the babysitter to come in the mornings to take Grace to school. Well this morning there was a no show and no phone call. Finally I had to call her and her friend answered the phone who said that Noelle had just been admitted to see the doctor (this was at 8 30 am) and had called her at 5 am because she wasnt feeling well. Noelle is a strong healthy 25 year old. Her life just seems very complicated and frankly I dont want to have to deal with her health issues and her issues with her ex husband, blah blah blah. Anyway, so I dropped Grace off and now I have to make sure that she gets picked up at 3 15 from the busstop. Why do I have to do this? Because I have not had a call from her.

Get this. Shakira was out for the morning and poor Jess had to do everything includding setting up Chinese food, setting up a lunch for Joe in the conf room and clean up after Tito had a meeting. Did you know I actually saw her wiping off the seats in the conference room? What kind of meeting would require the seats to be wiped down?

I go for days without people talking to me.

I got rejected by that one job which looked promising. I wish they would have rejected me before I spent two hours taking their stupid IQ test.

Today is a beautiful day in NYC. Eerie bc it reminds me of what it was like here on 9/11.

Be careful going overseas, I just read this article written by a financial guy who said that Americans are more unpopular than ever because of our bellicose foreign policy and because of our overspending creating big trade deficits. The author said it was creating a lot of instability in the world and people were resenting Americans--Oh great.

Time for Chinese food. I will be leaving in about one hour to get home in time to pick up Grace. I will be online at home.

I hope I dod not scare you by being so needy on the IMs recently. I have been clinically depressed for the month of August so the chance to communicate with an ally and someone who would listen and sympathize was too much for me to resist. I'll keep this short but I did not want to re assure you that I am not mental or anything it is just that I am starved for anything to do. Work is so tedious and I am quickly running out of things to do. I took a quiz today on msn to determine whether my job was stressful. I scored a "high" of 17 out of 20. Great, I needed a test to tell me that.

Dont be frightened by my neediness. Thanks.

Once more no one is in today.

How are things with Ernesto? Isnt this your second hurrican season since you left NYC? Bummer. I guess you are home today and not able to work. Do you have to do the whole sandbag thing and buy batteries and flashlights everytime one of these storms go through. Good practice for Ukraine I guess.

I know you are probably wondering about the dilemma faced by everyone. "well what do we do, we have cake, we have fruit and she's not coming in , should we have it, should we wait?, should we save her a piece?" Well my true friends would know that I would prefer a drink more than a piece of cake. And the whole thing is ridiculous anyway.

Also for a place that is obsessed with privacy I find it obnoxious that my birthday needs to be public property.

The official count was interrupted by my vacation and I was psyched to resume it upon m return today but alas, Jess is also out.

Get this. The weirdness continues. Boh Tito and LB have been out since last Thursday. LB on vacation and Tito sick. Doesnt sound right to me. That means absolutely no one in investments is in the office except for HeMan and the Hiltons. Sumpin's up. Fortunately I met with a recruiter today and he already might have some stuff for me which would be great.

On top of that, primo actually showed up last Monday and noticed I suppose that no one is here. I think he is trying to find a friend since he emailed me more times today than over the course of the entire summer. But that's right he is back in town but still not coming into the office. What's up dog? On top of that, the lights over the trading desk are out and Primo and the Hiltons complianed about it to Jess who said that it was a short and was too expensive to fix. It is really dark in the office and to compensate she went around and turned on everybody's office light. Given the number of people out this must have taken quite a bit of energy and she probably burnt a lot of calories doing it. Then Maureen told Nancy about it and Nancy said she didnt know anything about it and would wait to talk to Jess when she returned. That is so f'd up. Why would she wait and why not just get it fixed, it is probably just a light bulb that needs changing. What is up that either we cant afford that (but let's order more expensive Chinese food or enough pizzas to feed a soccer team but ixnay to light--no wonder I am going blind!)

As I write this they are having cake for me and PH in the conference room so my friends can wish me a happy birthday. Keep waiting.....

Oh yeah and then Martha asked me if I wanted to join her in a meeting with Adrian's replacement's replacment. Yes, we have gone thorugh another Eze Castle guy. I looked at her and said "Thanks and then I started to get up from my chair, sat back down and said, "No I 'm OK, but thanks for asking!" Yeah, like I am going to CYA.

Also this and can you believe I just got back from five days on the Vineyard, I should be more mellow but I think being away gives me perspective and makes me more intolerant. Actually not angry more amused so I suppose that is good.

Psyched for you and the Ukraine. Grace is pumped to have a friend she can write to. Be prepared we'll be sending you all of our baking projects. Speaking og G, she got accepted into this very competitive tennis program in our area so she was thrilled to have some positive reinforcement. She is looking forward to a bully free year this year. As am I.