I was recently chatting with a friend about the traits that make for success.  The premise of our conversation was to be profession or vocation agnostic and try to get down to what traits cross all types of work and are the bedrock of a successful career.  

I need book recommendations.   We have a pool in our backyard. Usually, on the weekends, our kids come to enjoy the pool. Those days are filled with family tumult. Always fun but, definitely, tiring.   If we’re lucky, my husband and I would have one day over the weekend alone to enjoy the pool by ourselves and relax. My husband loves to putter around the pool. He has a hand vacuum that he loves to swim around the pool with.  

So I receive a text 4:00 p.m. last Monday afternoon that Fox 5 News seeks to interview a representative of group I am involved with for their telecast that begins just over one hour later.  The group's president, Susan Lee, who sent the text, and a former city council member and retired jurist, Kathryn Freed, who we prefer to use a spokespersons, are in transit and cannot do it.

I found an old note yesterday while leafing through my phone. It's a quote I typed in over 5 years ago. I’m not sure where it came from originally:   “Effortlessly flowing through life doing what I love to do.” Now that is a state of being worth striving for.  

My fellow Syracuse University graduate and Key West neighbor, Louis Petrone, aka "Key West Lou", achieved his 90th birthday this past Sunday.  

There’s a crystal shop in Great Barrington.

Here is the catch. You must be dead and cremated. If this can work, there are several companies that will fly your ashes to space and bring them back down to earth for about $3,500. Not too bad if you don’t have the means, while alive.

A few weeks back, Bill and I had dinner with some new friends.  We were all just getting to know each other.  When one shared about her children, my first question was – where do your children live?