Thursday, September 18, 2008

Nothing But Drama

I hate to be blogging about the financial markets again, but it seems to be all anyone is talking about in my neighborhood. The moms (and dads) at pickup. My hairdresser. The taxi driver. My kid's piano teacher. Things are fearful on the Upper East Side.

And with good reason. A good 70% of the parents in my kids' classes are related, somehow, to the financial markets. New York City is not a one-industry town by any means, especially compared to where we last lived (Los Angeles), where all anyone could talk about was movies, movies, movies. I worked in advertising back then, and I always got the distinct impression that many of my colleagues would rather work for the film industry. But still, Wall Street is HUGE here, and it impacts lots of other kinds of jobs.

Like, oh, trying to raise money for non-profits, which is what I do when I'm not writing. I'm expecting fundraising to be slim this year. That's just my opinion and I hope not, because it *directly* relates to the programs we can run for disadvantaged kids.

Also, overheard on Madison Ave: a woman haggling with a pedicab driver. "15 bucks to go 12 blocks?! Have you SEEN the stock market today?" Anyway, I noticed the Dow was up today. Let's hope it holds.

On a lighter note, my dog has an enormous wart on his face and it's growing exponentially every day. It's bigger than a marble! I'm taking him to the vet tomorrow to see if we can cut that sucker off.

So while you are worried of the potential collapse of the economy, keep poor Truman in your thoughts as well.

7 comments:

Janna Leadbetter said...

Be thinkin' of ya on all counts.

Anonymous said...

Things are definitely tough but I hope this fear susides so we can all get back to working on fixing this mess. My thoughts are with your dog. Hope he's okay!

WendyCinNYC said...

My dog's okay. The wart is gone anyway. But he has to wear one of thos ridiculous cones around his neck. Two words describe him right now:

PISSED.

OFF.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

LOL @ the cone. My family pet had one of those and pissed off says it exactly.

Fingers crossed that everything works out for your family, and the rest of NY.

Angie Ledbetter said...

I think cat lovers invented that doggie lampshade contraption! Hoping things with the stock market chill out soon. Probably just pre-election jitters. ;)

colbymarshall said...

Aw, poor pup! I'm sure they'll be able to help him out! I was a vetmed major, and I was always tickled that the technical name for the "cone" is the "Elizabethan Collar"--it always made me imagine the dogs wearing them wearing tall powdered wigs ;-)

WendyCinNYC said...

"Elizabethian Collar, " lol. I made my husband put in on, just to tell me how it felt. Ok, that's not true--I just wanted to laugh at him.

He wouldn't let me take a picture for the blog, surprisingly.