Alas, Poor Ayveq

I opened the Bay News today and found a sad eulogy to the "star walrus" of the New York Aquarium, Ayveq.

Just a few days after his offspring celebrated his first birthday weekend, Daddy Ayveq succumbed to some mysterious ailment. Here is a link to the article: http://nyaquarium.com/287230/aq_ayveq

During his years as a Docent at the New York Aquarium, Jason often mentioned Ayveq in less than flattering terms. It seems Ayveq had lustful propensities and did not bother to conceal them. Apparently, he was unconcerned about offending public sensibilities. Jason also complained of Ayveq's ungentlemanly attentions to the females in the tank. To top it all off, if Ayveq spotted a Docent in his or her dark green uniform shirt, he would swim after the Docent as far as his tank would allow him.

Jason complained of this to our friend Tony, who found it so humorous that he dubbed Ayveq "Iggy," and teased Jason about Ayveq just about every time they spoke to each other. Jason began calling Tony the "Igman" while Tony dubbed Jason the "Igster."

Jason was not the only one to notice Ayveq's habits, and "Going Coastal" did an article on Ayveq on that very subject, not long after "little" 115-lb. Akituusaq was born. Here's the link to that article, titled "Walrus Dad Still a Self-Lover."

http://goingcoastal.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/walrus-dad-still-a-self-lover/

When Baby Akituusaq was born last June, I pointed out that despite Ayveq being a lewd, crude, rude dude (at least in Jason's eyes), his quite natural behavior had paid off. Ayveq became the father of the first baby walrus born at the New York Aquarium, and one of the few baby walruses to survive in captivity.

Ayveq was a great public attraction and he seemed to know it. I'm sure if he could speak, he would have proudly proclaimed, "I am THE walrus!" In fact, that's exactly what his name meant.

Kudos to the Aquarium staffers who worked hard to try to save Ayveq in his final illness. I'm sure he would have thanked them from the bottom of his heart.

In Memory: Joyce Warshow

I'm including a link to a write up about Joyce Warshow that appeared last fall, shortly after she died. http://jwa.org/discover/weremember/warshow/, and I will be linking this webpage to their memorial page.

Joyce Warshow was my therapist from 1980 to 1983, when I was just getting out on my own as a young single woman. I went to her for a consultation because my relationships with men had fallen into an unfortunate pattern.

Although Joyce was only supposed to meet with me the one time and then refer me to another therapist in her group, she managed to get past some of my defenses and rattle me in that very first meeting. The other therapists I'd met with did not. So after a few days I called her back and firmly stated that I did not want to be referred on to someone else, I wanted to work with her. Joyce made room for me in her schedule, and so we began.

Many times we did not see eye to eye. I told her I was against the establishment, and she pointed to my corporate attire and told me I had joined the establishment. I didn't want to hear that. Another time, speaking about the difficulties I had with men, she told me that some men are like wild horses and need to be corralled. I replied that I didn't want to have to "corrall" a man. I wanted him to want to be committed to me.

But I was getting out the residual angers from my childhood, and learning to grow up and be my own person. I was ruled by myself and not so influenced by my parents any more. For a year or more I participated in group therapy also, but then I felt it became too expensive and I pulled away.

When I finally left we had an exit interview, and at the end of our last session, Joyce hugged me and I went out, ready to face life on my own terms. Yes, I had one more stupid relationship with a man whose major attraction was his anti-establishment attitude and his beard. That was my old pattern. But when that broke up I saw it for what it was, a hangover from an earlier time. And when Bruce came along, the "nice guy" I would have ignored a decade earlier, I was more than ready for him.

I called Joyce about 9 years ago, when I was grieving for a friend and yet not able to dissolve that grief into healing tears. I felt I couldn't afford her prices, but it was good to connect with her however briefly. The last thing she said to me was that I had always been resourceful.

At Fund Raising Day in New York I found out that Joyce passed away last year. This was one of those non-coincidences. At a workshop on branding, the presenter mentioned a coalition of GLBT organizations with reproductive rights organizations, working together for common goals. I was puzzled to note that HMI was not represented on the list and afterwards I went up to the presenter and asked her if she knew why HMI was not part of the coalition. For some reason she mentioned that Joyce Warshow used to be involved there, and when I said she used to be my therapist, the presenter told me that Joyce had died. It was so strange to hear that in the middle of a professional conference, by supposedly sheer accident. Only I don't believe in accidents.

I believe Joyce was sending me a last goodbye.

When she was my therapist, I had no idea she was a lesbian, a filmmaker, and deeply involved in the GLBT community. In fact, I think it was SAGE she was involved with and maybe not HMI, but that doesn't matter. Would it have mattered to me if I'd known this when she was my therapist? Back then, I might have wondered how she could teach me how to get along with men, if she was in a relationship with a woman. But now I know better. I know she was really teaching me, first and foremost, to get along with myself.

Now I'm curious to see some of the films she made, and I'm going to investigate and see whether they can be rented somewhere. In any case, cancer took her too soon, at only 70 years old. Farewell, Joyce, you have clearly touched many many lives. Mine is just one of them.

Town Hall With Anthony Weiner

On Sunday we went to a Town Hall meeting with our Congressman, Anthony Weiner. We all sat in the library at Cunningham Intermediate School, and the Congressman fielded questions from the participants (about 35-40 of us).

He led into the meeting by stating that today there is more information, less compromise, and zero leadership at the top of our government.

He wants to make sure we have an educated workforce, and that we invest in our infrastructure and put people to work. We have ignored our infrastructure for so many years that it is suprising that in the whole U.S. only one bridge has collapsed. Our best tool is education, and it is time to get rid of the antiquated idea that the federal government should not be involved in public education. As a result of this thinking only 6% of our educational monies come from the federal government. But the states are no longer competing with each other; the U.S. is competing globally.

Congressman Weiner also stated that we need leadership on global climate change. We need to leave our world, country and community better than we found it. He wants to see us move toward a green economy.

We must end the war in Iraq and address the big challenges that we have not been able to look at because we are wasting our resources in Iraq. We also need our elected officials to think in the long term even though their term of office is short. The government must incentivize people to think long term, according to Weiner, and we must invest in education over the course of a generation.

I'm proud to say that our Congressman has a perfect 100% score on conservation issues. He says that our community is now overdeveloped. The zoning laws, last changed in 1961, are outdated, and the Board of Standards and Appeals doesn't set standards and doesn't listen to appeals. We need to grow as a city but we have to be sustainable too. He has proposed a full city reassessment of the zoning regulations, so we can decide what kind of a city we want to be. We need to set rules and then stick to those rules. Legal sanctions for violating zoning regulations are strong but they are not being enforced.

Congressman Weiner also discussed accessibility for the handicapped. Another question was whether any more affordable housing complexes will be build. He said, the Fed has stopped building subsidized housing but they need to do it again. However when the Mitchell-Lama buildings were built there was land available. He says now there is some polluted land that the city would clean if developers will build affordable housing. We need to be creative about bringing in affordable housing, perhaps develop air rights over other structures if the resulting units would be affordable. We have to stop thinking this is not the federal government's job.

We have to make alternative transportation possible: there is no more room for more cars in New York City. We have to make it possible by providing bike lockers and bike borrowing as in other places.

Our current model of using fossil fuels is not sustainable. The Congressman wants to offer incentives in the market for sustainable energy that works. Ethanol, he says, is a disaster because it drives up food prices and costs more to produce than the energy we get out of it. A national energy policy is needed.

The Congressman also stated that he is not pleased with the 311 "hotline" to NYC government agencies, because it creates a whole new layer of excuses between citizens and their government.

At the end of his talk he asked us to get in touch with his office (through his website) if we have an idea for a new law. I certainly will!

Mermaid Parade 2008

It glitters. It spangles. It dazzles the eyes and ears. It's funny, it's naughty, it's socially relevant, and it's phantasmagoric. It's Halloween and the Mardi Gras in June.

It's the Mermaid Parade!

The 26th Annual Mermaid Parade stepped off on the first full day of summer, June 21st. Bruce, Jason and I were there by 12:30 and found a spot on the barricades by a few minutes after 1. We met up with Ferdinand and wriggled into the bit of space beside him.

Ferdinand felt the parade would not start until at least 2:30, but I said it would begin earlier. We made a gentleman's bet. Said Ferdinand, "You have nothing to lose but your dignity."

"No problem," I answered, "I haven't any!"

So, Ferdinand suggested we go for double or nothing. He lost the bet; the first floats and antique cars crossed in front of us at about 2:17. Close to the front of the parade, our Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz was celebrating, too. Marty is a true party animal; he never misses a parade! Now he was shouting, "Hello all you Brooklyn meshuggeners! Don't worry, the half-naked people are right behind me!"

There must have been a good thousand marchers. Some that stand out in my mind were the protestors, trying to save Coney Island from being turned into Yuppie Island, paved over with luxury condos and complete with overpriced lattes at Starbucks. The possible encroachment of Thor developers may have explained the contingent of Marie Antoinette's (male and female) and the huge fake guillotine. Let 'em eat cake!

Another protestor wore a pot for a hat and had huge golden dollar signs on her glasses. Greed personified. But as usual, most of the marchers had at least some passing resemblance to sea creatures, real and fanciful.

There were hundreds of mermaids, many of them scantily clad in bikini tops. Others went even farther and heeded the advice on the windshield of an antique convertible, "Go Topless." Women wore seashell pasties, or substituted body paint for clothing. Many of the men were topless and a few were showing off their rear cleavage as well.

I picked up on a bit of a Hawaiian theme, with many marchers in grass skirts and wielding hula hoops. There was a group dressed as Carmen Miranda, with baskets of fruit (and fish) on their headgear. We saw King Kong and the Mermaid, French Mermaids with seashells and sea stars on their black and white uniforms, plenty of sea jellies, lobsters and octopi.

The Polar Bears, those characters who jump into the ocean on January 1st each year, were there, as were some deep sea divers whose slogan is "Wetter is Better." Brooklyn for Peace was represented, as was the Cyclones, and many other groups, including the Mermaids' Civil Liberties Union!

Some of the zaniest folk from last year made a re-appearance: the Parrot Man, who wears a sequined and spangled dress, dyes his beard light green, and carries his gray parrot on his head. Then there's the bearded man who wears a bridal gown of salvaged items and called himself Miss Use of Recycled Materials 2008. Every year there's a new official King Neptune and his wife Queen Mermaid, but there were also plenty of imitators in the parade. Penis Man, the dude who dresses in a pine-colored velvet suit equipped with a phallus big enough to do the Jolly Green Giant proud, was back, too. He came up to us and whacked Ferdinand and me over the head a number of times with his absurdly oversized "member." Afterwards, Ferdinand said, "I don't know about you, but I feel violated!"

Ferdinand brought his new DSLR and we both snapped photos like mad while several men behind us yelled out suggestive and lewd remarks at every bare-breasted woman who marched by. By the end of the parade, I found that I'd taken over 1,000 photos. I had a little trouble zooming in and zooming out, and consequently had to delete quite a few photos of armpits. But with ruthless, and I do mean ruthless, cutting, I narrowed it down to 372 pictures. Now I'm thinking about trying to sell some of them.

Every year, the Mermaid Parade outdoes itself. I'm still hearing "Dancing Queen" in my mind, and seeing the whole cheerfully outrageous crew cavorting by. Let's keep Coney Island weird!

City Sights

Or should I say sightings? In the past week or so, I've seen:

A man with dreadlocks that fell past his backside and brushed his upper thighs. I'll bet he's a law abiding citizen, because if not, it would be awfully easy to grab him by the long hairs.

A man with his pet cat perched on his head. This turned out to be a panhandling ploy, because as soon as I smiled at the cat, its owner approached me for a handout.

A buxom young woman with a hideous stuffed toy nestled between her breasts. You have to wonder why.

And, yesterday, while enjoying Thai food for lunch, a man carrying a skeleton passed by the restaurant. I believe the skeleton was plastic but I'm not entirely sure.

That's what I love about New York. You never know just what to expect!

Fund Raising Day in New York

This year, like last June, I attended the Fund Raising Day in New York conference at the Marriott Marquis hotel. Like last year, I volunteered at the conference, which enabled me to attend for free. Thursday night I attended the volunteer orientation and cocktail party, and on Friday morning I arrived at the conference a few minutes after 7:30 AM.

Over a tasty continental breakfast, I chatted with a young man who'd come down from Toronto to attend the conference. He told me that he works as a consultant, writing grants and creating videos for nonprofit organizations.

I wasn't on duty until the second lecture, so I walked through the exhibit hall for a while, evoking nervous jokes from men who read my "Room Monitor" volunteer's ribbon. I assured them I would not report them to the principal! Then I was free to attend the first lecture of my choice, so I went to a panel discussion on major gifts.

After that there was some time to check out the exhibit hall, score some candy, and get literature from the exhibitors. The first workshop was so well attended that hotel employees had to come take down the air walls, so that the overflow crowd could sit in the hall. The topic was "Connecting with Your Donors," and the two speakers were Thaler Pekar of Thaler Pekar and Associates, and Barbara Becker of StoryCorps. They both spoke about the importance of finding stories that evoke vivid images in donor's minds, and touching their hearts as they view and hear from people whose lives are improved by the organization.

I counted at least 70 attendees at this workshop. It was hard to tell how many people were sitting out in the hall, but one thing was clear: this was a topic many fundraisers were anxious to hear about.

There was a short break before lunchtime, but I had a phone call from Jason. He wanted to go on a sleepover but had very little money left, so I arranged for him to meet me at the conference at 3:30 and then proceeded to lunch.

Lunch was elegant, a small salad, mozzarella slices and tomato, and tuna. There were tiny confections for dessert, iced tea, and coffee. However, this year I preferred to return to the exhibit hall and chat with the exhibitors while the hall was relatively quiet. So I missed the keynote speech.

One of the printing companies had a handwriting expert on hand to amuse the attendees, and I had a somewhat rushed session with her because I had to get back to my post for the 2 PM workshop. She was right on the money about me, telling me I am unconventional and don't much care what people think, I know I can do the job. She said I am creative also and that I put my creativity into an organization. There was also something she said that was a bit eerie, because she told me I had a negative experience at a certain age, and she was absolutely right. She said it was a "shot in the dark" but I don't believe in coincidences. She certainly brings a high level of intuition to her handwriting analysis.

The second workshop I worked at was on the topic of Branding, and it was run by a woman named Bonnie McEwan from Make Waves Not Noise. Ms. McEwan gave us a few eye-opening facts about nonprofit organizations. For instance, last year over 64,000 new organizations registered as nonprofits. They're all competing for the same donor dollars, and competition is not conducive to social change.

She also pointed out some of the specific challenges that nonprofits face in branding themselves, and suggested that one way to avoid competition is for nonprofit organizations with similar goals to form coalitions and collaborate with each other, sharing a common brand and sharing in the monies raised. She quoted John Nash, whose life was the subject of the movie, "A Beautiful Life." His paradigm was, "All players benefit if information is open to all and mixed strategies are used."

Not only do organizations that collaborate in coalition with others gain more resources, they make more progress toward their common goals.

After a half hour break, during which I met Jason and supplied him with some spending money, and went to the raffle drawing where I didn't win any prizes, I attended the last lecture of the day. This time I chose the career track and attended a panel discussion on interviewing. The panelists were a human resources manager and a high-level recruiter. They had some good suggestions on interviewing and dealing with sticky questions.

One woman told some of her "war stories" about terrible interviewers she has met, and afterwards I approached her and told her I wanted to write an article on "Interviews from Hell." She agreed to be interviewed, so I will be writing up and sending out queries for this article.

I enjoyed the day and always gain a new perspective on the fund raising profession by attending this conference. For anyone in the field or considering entering the field, I recommend it highly.

Farewell, Rosanne

I met Rosanne in July of 1991. We were airing our toddlers at a large playground in Sheepshead Bay. Jason and Louis immediately took to each other and ran off to play together. Rosanne looked at me and grinned.



"They're in cahoots!" she said. Jason and Louis continued to be in cahoots throughout their childhood and adolescence too.



Rosanne and I encountered each other in the playground a number of times. She was uncomfortable going home to her apartment on Quentin Road because there was a mouse problem. So she stayed most of the day in the park, and the family ate out almost every night because it upset her to cook where the mice played.



Not too long after we met, we began meeting by design. When the weather turned cold, we left the playground and began meeting in indoor play spaces like Burger King and MacDonald's. Back then many of the fast food restaurants had little play areas for the children, filled with plastic balls they could climb around in, slides, and other attractions. We'd buy Happy Meals for the kids and then sit and chat while they played in the ball pit.



Sometime during that first year, Rosanne and her family moved out to Canarsie to get away from the mice. I was sad, thinking that we might drift apart. Without a car, Canarsie seemed so far away. But at that time Rosanne and Allen had a big brown car and she would come pick me up to go hang out somewhere.



We always had a struggle with the car seats. That is, we had a struggle with getting Louis into his car seat. Jason would get into the car seat calmly but Louis hated them and he would put up such a fight that it would take the both of us to hold him down and snap him into the seat. That may have been one of the first times I heard Rosanne utter one of her signature lines: "Louis Henry, I'm gonna crown you, and it ain't gonna be King!"



My response always was, "But Ro! You named him for two royal houses, naturally he thinks he's in charge!"



In the early years, we celebrated New Year's Eve together. We'd visit them or they would come over to us. We'd have a feast, share some wine, and then eat delicious and sinful desserts. Then there would be a sleepover. We travelled together, too. When the boys were just under 4 years old, we rented an SUV and they drove us out to Lancaster, PA for a weekend. The boys were impossible: overtired and full of mischief, they led us on a merry chase the entire weekend. But we still managed to have fun visiting the Amish country and Hershey Park.



At one point, when the kids all entered school, we had a weekly standing date for Burger King or MacDonald's. Rosanne sometimes brought Louis, and Jason's other two friends, Steven and Morgan, often came too.



Sometime shortly after they moved to Canarsie, Rosanne was approached by some Jehovah's Witnesses who came door to door. She became interested and began going to Bible study with them. I was concerned again when I saw how her views were changing. Suddenly evolution was all wrong, even celebrating birthdays was all wrong. For a few years, she continued to allow Louis to come to Jason's birthday parties but she would send Allen with him in her stead. Then when she was baptized, she no longer allowed him to come at all.



But Rosanne held firm about one thing. She told me that when she joined the Witnesses they wanted her to give up all her "worldly" friends who would lead her astray. "You and me are friends for life," she assured me. And Jason and Louis would be friends for life, too. We joked about watching them graduate college together, about watching them be each other's best men at their weddings.



That wasn't going to happen.



I was the one who got sick first. In 1997 we discovered that I had breast cancer. Rosanne was a huge help. She took care of Jason several times when I went into the hospital for procedures. She helped out again when Bruce had his bout with cancer in 1998.

The kids grew up, and began going out places without adults along. Sometimes Rosanne and I did not see each other for a few months at a time but we always kept in touch and kept up the friendship.

Then, in January 2007, Rosanne wasn't feeling well. She had trouble breathing and tired easily. An X ray or scan showed a large mass in her chest cavity that hadn't been there 4 months earlier when she had a previous X ray. Sadly, the mass turned out to be malignant, a rare form of cancer. I believe it was called myxoid liposarcoma, a type of tumor that grows in the fat cells.

Rosanne was in and out of the hospital many times in the next year and a half. She had her surgery several months later, delaying it somewhat because she was a Witness and wanted to find a doctor who would operate without having to give her whole blood. Her husband feared that while she searched for such a doctor the cancer would spread.

Honestly, I don't think the delay in surgery affected the outcome. This tumor was huge when it was found and probably had already spread to her liver and other places. It was also extremely fast growing. In any case, Rosanne suffered several infections and other problems that delayed her chemotherapy time after time. Each time that happened the tumor had the opportunity to grow, until it overtook her.

The last time I saw her, it was about 36 hours before she died. She was miserably uncomfortable. She wasn't eating and she kept calling out and praying. I don't think she was in terrible pain but she just could not feel relaxed and comfortable. Her labored breathing was very obvious. I knew she didn't have a lot of time. As we left the hospice I prayed that she would be taken quickly and in her sleep. And that's what happened.

She leaves behind a husband of 23 years, an 18 year old son, and many, many friends. I have no doubt that Rosanne will be long remembered. I'll miss her.