Starting a Real Pre School

Tomorrow cutie face goes to a new school. It's a real preschool with parent/teacher conferences and everything. The best part for me is that it is Jewish. They will be doing the aleph-bet, learning about our holidays and more. I'm so excited. I've been telling her that we will be going to a new school for about a week now. We call it the aleph-bet school. I will be with her and on call on during the day.

The Worst Billing Invoice System in the World

If I leave the company I'm with it is because of the horrible billing system called DT Online or Pirate. It sucks so bad and everytime I complain they blame Enron. The fact is that this system was in place prior to Enron.

After I do an estimate and have it signed I make a copy for billing. When I order something I do a PO. When I get an invoice, I sign it and if the PO is off because I didn't include tax or shipping because we don't know what that is going to be, everything gets out-of-whack. And they blame Enron for a system that was in place before enron.

Flashback to India and The Red Sari

At work I received an email from a person by the name of Per. Flashback to India.

In the early 90's I travelled to India. My mother was not happy I was travelling alone. But within one week of arriving in Bombay (it was called Bombay at that time) I managed to be invited to an Indian Jewish wedding where I met a group of westerners that I still think about from time-to-time. One was a photograher who was photographing Jewish women around the world. Another was a single, mid-30s, Jewish plastic surgeon from Vienna. Needless to say that Edvin and I got along extremely well. Unfortunately, he had both a girlfriend and a women he loved back home.

We spent the following day shopping for a red sari for the women he loved. I was trying the saris on for him. The next day I went to buy a train ticket for Jaipor and met a Scandanavian named Per. Per was going to the camel festival. Since we were going to be taking the same train that evening I invited him to join the doctor and I for dinner. I was very excited. I was going to have dinner with a tall, blond, attractive man an a SJM who was a plastic surgeon. I was in girl heaven - so I thought.

It turns out that Per used to be the marketing director at Volvo and at a pharma I never heard of - but Edvin did. That was the end of woman. The boys talked cars and drugs until we left for the train.

Edvin visited me in NYC the next year. He was there for a conference. A year later I went to Europe and stopped in Vienna to see Edvin. He wasn't with the girlfriend or the woman he loved. I asked if I could have the red sari he bought in India. He said he didn't know were it was. The next day when he went to work, I looked for the red sari in his apartment (very big - duplex apartment). I never found it. It was at that moment I realized it was time for me to go.

He never ended up with the girlfriend or the woman he loved. I never got the red sari.

We emailed a few years ago. He was married with a second child on the way. I was married with a child in my thoughts.

Blame it on Per.

The Selling Strategy

It's time to ready the apartment for sale. We've done our research. We know the market. We are going to break the mold. We will be selling our apartment FOR SALE BY OWNER. We are also asking brokers to join and we will pay the 4% commission if they bring someone to us.

This weekend we will be taking pictures and posting them to a website. We will be posting an ad on the NYT in a few weeks. We also (OK Paul) just compiled a list of every real estate broker at the major companies in NYC. We will be sending them a global email (using ACT!) when we are ready.

This should be fun.

One Ocean View

I'm so upset ABC cancelled One Ocean View. It was the only show I looked forward to this summer. It took me back to my 20 something single days on Fire Island.

We've been meeting with brokers all week. They sort of annoy me. I just want someone to sell the apartment and not make such a big deal about it. We are having a pricing strategy issue. One broker wants to price low and have it bid up. The other broker wants to price right and sell at that price. Another one wants to price high and take a lower offer. I think for this apartment it would be better to price $10,000 high and take less. People want to feel like they made a good decision.

Any thoughts?

One Ocean View

I'm so upset ABC cancelled One Ocean View. It was the only show I looked forward to this summer. It took me back to my 20 something single days on Fire Island.

We've been meeting with brokers all week. They sort of annoy me. I just want someone to sell the apartment and not make such a big deal about it. We are having a pricing strategy issue. One broker wants to price low and have it bid up. The other broker wants to price right and sell at that price. Another one wants to price high and take a lower offer. I think for this apartment it would be better to price $10,000 high and take less. People want to feel like they made a good decision.

Any thoughts?

A Lost Wallet

This past weekend we went to Fire Island with our friends. While walking on the Beach to look at the house that was used to film One Ocean View - the new ABC share house real world reality show that was just cancelled after 2 episodes - my friend found a money clip with a Drivers License, several credit cards, a ticket to leave the island and about $170 cash lying in the sand.

This is exciting stuff for married people was toddlers. We now had a mission to get the items back to Tim. We had his picture, age, and short life history. Suburban investigators here to save the day. Something we will talk about for years.

During dinner we discussed what the best way would be to find him. We ruled out the Ocean Beach Police except that we might stop by and tell them if someone asked they can call us. Since the items were found on the beach outside OBP jurisdiction and probably fell to Islip or Suffolk police, it would never find it's way home. So we called two of his credit card companies and left messages for them to contact him and let him know we had his stuff. We also left our name and phone number for him to contact us directly. That way he would have the choice to call us or not. Since we really didn't believe they would be able to contact him, the two moms decided to crash the Saturday night single house parties (he decided he was still single and having late night fun) and ask the guests if anyone knows Tim.

The first house we went to was Ira's. Ira has two houses this year and most share people know Ira. Ira wasn't at the first house and none of the guests knew Tim. All in good fun people tried to convice us they were him. (We had a photo and description.) As were were leaving we bumped into my huby, Paulo. After we left a message, the credit card company called Tim and Tim called Paulo. We forgot our cell phones at home, so Paulo had to find us because we had Tim's stuff.

We called back Tim and told him to meet us at Rachal's bakery which was going to be our last destination after the parties in Corneille and the bars in Ocean Beach. We were sort of disappointed our adventure was being cut short. Tim met us and we gave him his stuff. He wanted to do something for us but we really didn't need anything.

While we were buying stuff at the bakery, me friend realized she didn't have enough money. Tim, now being our Angel, paid for our indulgence.

Tim, thanks for making our weekend even better.

In Search of a Real Estate Agent

We just started the process of finding a broker to sell our apartment in NYC. Of all the real estate companies in NYC, Douglas Elliman has the best website. It's really Prudential Douglas Elliman. I'm not sure when Prudential bought them but they seem to know what they are doing in the NY market. The Real Estate broker we are buying our house with is also a Prudential purchased company - Prudential Rand.

We are going to start tracking PRU.

Since we are going to go with them it is now a question of which agent. We are looking for one that we like, knows the UWS, gets along with other brokers and does co-ops in our price range.

Keep you posted.

Netanyahu and the BBC -

The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) has been extremely
critical of israel, and has been accused by israeli leaders very recently as
being very biased against israel in their reporting. the e-mail i recd follows.)

I guess it can be attributed to his days studying at MIT, Harvard and the Sloan School of Management.

The interviewer asked him: "How come so many more Lebanese have been killed in
this conflict than Israelis?" (A nasty question if there ever was one!)

Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?"

Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) Why not?

Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and
Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the war was
caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to the German blitz on London,
the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German
civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima.

Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to bomb the
Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed their target and
fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83 little children . Perhaps you
have another question?"

FOR SALE - Upper West Side Apartment

It's official. We told all the other families in our building. People can get in at a non-real estate agent price. They have until we sign with a broker.

2 Bedrrom 1. 5 Bath, approx 1050 Square feet. Built in bookcase, lots of closets, stainless and granite kitchen - email for details.

Anti-Jewish incident in Seattle kills one woman

At least 50 anti-Semitic incidents have been recorded worldwide in the past two weeks, Ynet reports, including ten violent ones. On July 28, a Muslim-American opened fire in a Jewish Federation building in Seattle, killing one woman and wounding five others. Other incidents included an assault on two Israeli families in Turkey, attacks on at least two Jewish communal buildings in Sydney, Australia, vandalism against a youth and a synagogue in Oslo, and anti-Semitic vandalism in Brazil.

HOT HOT HOT

It's 100 degrees in NYC today. We had a house stager over this week and she did some amazing things. The apartment is not on the market yet. We hope to put it on soon. If you know anyone looking for a 2 bedroom on the upper west side of NYC, please let us know.