Author: Dave

The Lord of The Rings opens up with the Shire preparing for the most remarkable of parties.  New wonders arrived each day for the September celebration.  There were fireworks.  There were cart loads of party decorations and favors.  And there were toys for the children, some that had been made in distant lands and were obviously magical.

Sally’s daughter, Raquel, is getting married Labor Day weekend.  Since Raqui lives in Baltimore, my office is the delivery spot for everything she has ordered for the upcoming event.  One day it is a huge box, the next it is a couple of satchels.  Today I got an envelope for her from China.  Thank G-d I’m invited.  I’m dying to see what’s in the packages.

* * *

I am totally unprepared for today.   I have had June 25^th scheduled for three weeks.  I was to be in Medina, at Fox Meadow Country Club, playing golf with one of my clients.  Rick and I have talked about playing for years.  A few weeks ago I called and invited him to play at Tanglewood or Boulder Creek.  He belongs to Fox Meadow and asked if I’d ever been there.  I hadn’t.  We had a 10:20 tee time.  Have you looked out the window?  The last I heard, the club is closed due to the heavy rains.

So I’m here.  The crush of the Open Enrollment, annual Senior Enrollment, and usual end of the year stuff is way behind me.  It is too early to start on the 2015 season.  And, I was prepared to be off.  So, I’m here.  Not working and not having a lot to do is totally foreign to me.  Blowing out of here and heading to the art museum might be advisable, but I’m not sure I can really do it.

 * * *

The client didn’t want to talk about premiums, or claims, or even policies.  No, she called today to talk about coffee cups.  Mine in particular.  Of course, how often do you see a three legged mug?  Mine was picked out for me by Claudia of the Zeber-Martell Clay Studios.  I saw the new glaze and style and asked her to send one to me.  The client wanted one for her daughter.  I bet she’ll buy a lot more than one once she visits the gallery.

Heavy summer showers and three legged mugs and boxes and bags filled with who knows what are what filled my unplanned day.

 

I got to do one of my favorite things today.

I was running errands in Legacy village when I came across four women crowding together as a fifth was backing up, attempting to focus her disposable camera.  They smiled.  She clicked.  I walked over and asked the photographer if she would like to have a picture taken with her friends.  They excitedly squished together and I snapped the shot.

I love doing that.  I have volunteered on beaches and cruise ships, in Europe and China.  It doesn’t matter where I am or whether or not the people speak English.  The looks of surprise and appreciation are always the same, regardless of the individuals’ cultures, religions, or nationalities.

You and your family are out to dinner at Applebee’s.  Riblets, salads, and burgers fill the table.  Out of the corner of your eye you notice that a young man has just entered the restaurant.  He appears to be in his early twenties, tall, blonde hair, dressed in fatigues.  Of course, what you really noticed was his holster, his ammo, and the AR 15.  He appears to either be ready for battle or trying out for the Yosemite Sam part at the local Comic Con.

Do you:

a)  Point out the young patriot to your 17 year old daughter

Or

b)  Quietly release the safety from your gun and calmly terminate the threat to your family’s safety

The answer, of course, is:

c)  Gather your family under the table, call 911, and pray the police get there quickly.

Are you in danger?  You bet.  The young man may be at the Applebee’s to exercise some awful murder / suicide (perhaps by cop) scenario.   But he may also be an ill-advised peacock, his display an array of destructive metal instead of colorful feathers.

The young guy with the rifle isn’t your only threat.

Every guy with a hero complex, every woman who knows somebody who knows somebody who was once mugged, EVERYONE IN THAT RESTAURANT CARRYING A GUN poses an immediate threat to you and your family.

Will you be caught in a crossfire between the gunman and the various armed diners?  Will this all resemble the coffee shop scene from Boogie Nights?  Can we trust the good judgment of the young man and our fellow diners?

Good judgment?   They are carrying loaded weapons into a family restaurant.  I don’t trust their judgment.  Do you?

So what can you do?  Constitutional scholar and philosopher, Samuel Wurzelbacher (Joe the Plumber), wrote an open letter to the parents of the college kids who were murdered during a recent rampage in California.  He noted that “your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights”.    If you and your family are unfortunately seated between the gunman at the door and the well-armed paranoid at table 43, your rights take a back seat to the second amendment rights of both of them.  The Constitution does not guarantee your right to dinner out.

The more guns, the more problems.  Who is a threat?  Who is standing his ground?  Every armed man is a good guy with a gun right up to the moment he opens fire.

What can you do to keep your family safe?   Less and less each day.  You can eat at restaurants that ban guns.  You can choose to patronize shops and offices that prohibit weapons.  And most importantly, if you’re an African-American, don’t wear a hoodie cause there is nothing in the Constitution that guarantees your right to comfortable clothing.

Just guns.

She has been on J-Date and Christian Mingle, eHarmony and Match.com.  She was a little hazy as to whether she had ever paid for any of this.  She said to me, “Please tell my story.  Just don’t use my name.

She was “The Babe”.  She was always The Babe.  She was born adorable and never spent a single day of her life where she wasn’t the cutest girl in the room.  Robbed of the magical transformation from the awkward and plain to the wonderful, she was allowed to focus on the same imperfections and luxuriate in her insecurities from pre-puberty till now in her early sixties.  She has spent her life second guessing everything, of never feeling truly confident.

The Babe could sing.  When she was younger she occasionally performed on stage or with local bands on the Holiday Inn, wedding, and Bar Mitzvah circuit.  Not achieving real fame or serious accolades only fed into her self-esteem issues.  A good Jewish girl, she earned her degree, got married, and had a child.   In that order.

Mother, performer, teacher, employee in her husband’s business, The Babe hardly had enough time to exercise all of her self-doubts.  But in that area she was truly an over-achiever.  And that was before the divorce.

Twenty years have passed since her divorce.  The Babe never remarried.  There have been a fiancé or two, lovers and boyfriends.  She’s been betrayed and she has been less than angelic.  She is remarkably unchanged in either appearance or temperament.   It is what has changed, what she has lost, that prompted her request.  She is mourning her loss, her loss of control.

She met him on one of those online dating services.  Recently divorced and new to dating, his daughter had to talk him into completing his online profile.  The Babe was one of his first connections.  He was thrilled.  After years of unhappiness he was suddenly in the company of a bright, vivacious woman.  They quickly fell into a committed relationship.

But a funny thing happened on the way to blissful monogamy.  His phone kept on ringing.  His email box was full.  He was still available according to the sites and he was popular.  Really popular.  Who knew this could be so much fun popular.   Girls didn’t call boys when he was in high school.  And even if they deigned to come to the phone, the girls could be cruel in their rejections.  “Saturday?  No.  I have to wash my hair.”  And now?  Now, women, desirable women, wanted to go out with him.  And he was going to miss all of this?

Needless to say, this didn’t last long.  He tried to discreetly meet with some of the women without saying anything to The Babe.  No one as insecure as The Babe would miss any of the signs of trouble.  There was time spent apart and promises made.  But in the end The Babe agreed to an Open Arrangement – he’ll date a lot and she’ll pretend that she doesn’t mind while she waits for him to “grow out” of this stage.

Was there something she could have done differently?  Should she have given him more space at the start, when he was first divorced and feeling his way?  I don’t think so.  That would just be assigning blame and feeding into her insecurities.  I don’t even think that it is an honesty issue.  He wanted a serious, permanent relationship when he met her.  It was all he knew.  The only option available.

He has his open relationship and he may never look back.  Or, he may realize a month or two from now what he had had with The Babe.  And it will be too late.  Did I mention that The Babe has been on J-Date and Christian Mingle, eHarmony and Match.com?  And this week she will sign up for Our Time.

My average morning includes sifting through a couple hundred emails. If I turn off the computer by 11 PM, I will have over two hundred emails waiting for me the following morning.   A week or so ago, I began my work day the way I usually do – I started the coffee, turned up the music, and checked my emails. One email caught my attention. The prettiest girl in Parma had sent me a message. It had only been a couple of weeks since I had revamped her health policy, so I immediately knew the purpose of this email. Yes, her account had been hacked.

Email, Facebook, Twitter, we have too much access but not enough interaction. I feel compelled to respond to every contact. I compulsively answer every question. If someone sends me an email, I respond by email. Sometimes the message is nothing more than an acknowledgement of receipt of their email. Some friends and clients correspond primarily through Facebook. OK. I respond in kind. Phone calls? More personal so less common in 2014. But the people who take for granted that I will answer their questions, listen to their concerns, or simply point them in the right direction, often feel no need to respond to me. Did I answer your question? Do we need to meet? To talk? Are you still there?

Most of the emails I receive are either spam or sales pitches. I have become surprisingly adept at eliminating them. I have to be careful that I don’t inadvertently delete a legitimate email while dumping the trash. It takes the hand – eye coordination of a .300 hitter to weed through them as quickly as I do now. But every click brings to mind how great it would be if this In Box were filled with meaningful notes from people who actually wanted to talk with me. But it isn’t. There are three emails from the guy whose food will save my life and countless opportunities to check or improve my credit score.

Facebook has, in an odd sort of way, become more enjoyable. The pictures, children, grandchildren, and the pets, lots and lots of pets, seem to be more genuine and the emotions seem more real. I’ve seen countless pictures of my friend, Mirja, with her cat. I really hope that Cleo, the cat (pictured above), loves Mirja half as much as she loves it. And my friend Ellen just posted a new studio picture of her with all of her grandchildren. We, her Facebook friends, get to watch them as they grow up and share in her joy.

A new trend has popped up on Facebook. Tired of trying for mass appeal, I have seen people start to segregate their FB friends. Some posts go to everyone. Pictures of the kids and noncontroversial posts about TV shows are there for everyone. But the good stuff, the posts that give a hint to the person behind the name and safe picture, only goes to a select few. Who knew that L.C. was so adamantly an atheist? When did S.S. become a liberal Democrat? Was J.W. always that conservative? And now, instead of risking offending some of their friends, or worse, pretending to be without beliefs or opinions, they created their own communities. New friendships, built on more information and a lot more honesty, might actually become real friends.

Will it take hold? Will these new communities just be more fodder for Facebook’s insatiable need for more info so that it can sell our data to more advertisers? I don’t know, but I enjoy the new found clarity and sense the freedom that pretenses kept hidden.

I teased the prettiest girl in Parma that even a hacked email from her is better than nothing. She agreed that we should talk more often.

 

 The master of the house breaks the middle matzah in the plate, and leaving half of it there, he puts aside the other half till after supper, for the Afikoman.  

Those of you who have ever attended a Passover Seder recognize this as Yackatz, the fourth step in the retelling of the Exodus from Egypt. There are several lessons to be learned in this particular portion of the Seder. One of the most important is that some slaves, the Children of Israel, ate a portion of their rations when it was given to them and retained the rest for later. These smarter slaves, these survivors, are our ancestors.

The Seder can not end until we eat that other half of matzah. Years ago, when my children were small, I would hide the Afikoman. The kids, mine and the children of my friends who were in attendance, would do a mad dash through the house looking for the napkin holding the matzah. I was tricky. I even planted fake Afikoman, napkins with notes that said that they needed to continue looking. Bookshelves, piano benches, behind the couch – it could be anywhere. And when it was found there were prizes for everyone.

And then the kids got too big. Their searching could have been detrimental to the bookshelves, the piano bench, etc… And so we created a new tradition. Someone would take the Afikoman when I wasn’t looking. Eventually it would be returned and there would be prizes for everyone.

Now I don’t share this story with you out of some desire to recreate the past. I don’t. I remember fondly different houses, blended families, and the children of friends that are long past childhood. And those are moments in time that I will always cherish. The last two nights have been our annual Seders, and it would be odd to not reflect upon nearly fifty years of creating and recreating traditions in the service of a bigger truth.  

My parents gladly ceded the Seder to me as soon as I asked to be in charge of it. Second grade. Not their thing. Growing up the Afikoman, and all of the Seder from Page 4 to Page 28 of the Haggadah was simply something I had to get through before everyone lost their patience. The Four Questions, the Four Sons, Spill the 10 drops of wine “DON’T MAKE A MESS”, Wash your hands a couple of times, and then it was time for dinner. Why was Passover my favorite holiday? Surely not because of the Seder. I found the story compelling.

I found it interesting that the Children of Israel had to actually do something. They were forced to choose to be part of a community.

I had limited exposure to other Seders while growing up. I’m sure we went to others, but I don’t recall any specifics. But 40 years ago, Passover 1974, I was invited to spend the first two days of Passover with a Rabbi and his family in Wooster, Ohio. Though the Seders were in his home, there would be a large cross-section of the community in attendance. Congregants, relatives, non-Jews. There were well over twenty people crammed into their home. I ate different foods. One lamb dish, in particular, blew me away. And I learned that you could smoke throughout a Seder. (The Rabbi and I weren’t the only ones who smoked, we just looked the happiest. Remember it was 1974.)

Somehow I ended up with the Afikoman and when I returned it, he asked me for my terms. There was a ransom involved. I was unprepared.  Thinking quickly, I handed him the Afikoman, and said that I would reserve my reward for a later time. Now he was as surprised as I had been moments earlier. I heard the murmur of a couple dozen people wondering what would happen next. They were shocked by the audacity of this long-haired, bearded teenager. The Rabbi thought for a moment and then said that he would agree to my request and we all shared in the last of the matzah.

A few weeks later I met privately with the Rabbi. He was in Cleveland for the Brit of his first grandson. I told him that I was ready to discuss the Afikoman. My ransom? I asked for his blessing to marry his daughter. His blessing, but not his permission. He appreciated my choice of words and the respect that they carried for him, his daughter, and for our traditions. He readily agreed.

That was a long time ago. Many traditions have been created and set aside in forty years. But Passover will always be my favorite holiday, the Seder I lead uniquely mine, and the traditions kept and the stories told have been passed on to my children and our friends to modify as they see fit.

And it all works as long as you remember to finish the Seder with the Afikoman.

Yes, I have been working ridiculous hours since October, but the time has not been spent without certain rewards.  The best, what has really made this worthwhile is the cast of characters that have passed through my gates.  Here are a couple of visitors from just the last week or so.

“My house is haunted.”  She dropped that sentence apropos of nothing.  There was neither a hint of irony nor humor.  If I had said it, anywhere, I would have met a certain amount of derision, or worse.  But a beautiful woman can earnestly say just about anything.  Without missing a beat I asked, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”  She said that it was a problem at first, but that she’s OK with it now.  When asked if she was planning to move, she said that she didn’t know…

He was the world’s least interesting man and he took what seemed to be three hours in my office to prove it.

Defiant, the woman sitting at the table had been engaged in a war that had lasted over four long years.  And she had won.  She wasn’t ready to declare victory.  She was still prepared to fight.  And that was all of the proof I needed.  She was never really a victim, just someone who had been forced to overcome crippling personal and financial setbacks that might have defeated a weaker spirit.  I needed her email password.  She told me that it was F***You62.  And I laughed.

I was visited by a queen in search of a king.  Sure, there are people who say that they believe in the fairy tale, but how many of us will truly dedicate ourselves to achieving it?  Sadly, not many.  Too much work.  Too much commitment.  That was not the case with this woman.  And no, she wasn’t in search of financial security.  She was climbing Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and was shocked to learn, again and again, that she was alone.  She wanted completeness, the whole package.  They, ex-lovers and an ex-spouse, were revealed to have only wanted the company of a pretty girl.

I learned the strength and resilience of the human spirit from these clients and others over the last few months.  I saw that nothing, not ghosts, not bad employers, not even the death of a loved one can’t be overcome in time.  And I learned to believe in fairy tales.

The cover of Time Magazine features the team that fixed HealthCare.gov, the Eighty Percenters.  I know.  I know.  Officially, HealthCare.gov has been completely fixed and everything is copasetic.  And if you ignore the crashes, the glitches that send people to Medicaid, and the general weirdness, then the only real issues are that it is a clunky, repetitive process that makes it difficult to select an insurance policy and has no way to collect the initial premium payment.  Damn near perfect.

It takes five minutes to complete the brain-dead, anyone can do it application for a non-subsidized, off-exchange policy.  I allocate an hour and a half to enroll someone on the government’s website.  An hour and a half!  And if we are lucky, it will only take one try.  We are learning to flinch.  We prepare ourselves, and our clients, for failure before we even bother to create their password.

Taking a toll on our community

A young woman returned to my office Monday evening for our shot at the exchange.  I spent over a half hour prepping for the exchange.  Not once did we discuss insurance or insurance products.  We then went into the system and zipped through it in less than an hour.  When we hit the last button, an action that has too often led to incredible frustration, and her application went through, it was so easy that I had to look closely to verify success.  I was more prepared for failure.  The client, a massage therapist at the Cleveland Clinic, was surprised by the knots in my shoulders and neck.  I could use a deep tissue massage daily. 

And I am not alone.

Meeting with my peers I have noticed elevated levels of frustration and agitation.  “Did you hear that the President moved back the enrollment deadline in 2015 to February 15^th?”  “Well yesterday the Health and Human Services issued new rules.  Looks like you may be able to keep the old policies a little longer!”  The rules change every day.  And once the feds make a change, then the states have to react. And then the insurers react.  And then we get to explain to our clients how all of this affects them.  Or not.

You can’t call it PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, because we are still in the middle of it.  The open enrollment ends March 31^st.  Somewhere in mid-April we will learn new rules of engagement for the balance of 2014.  By mid to late summer we will begin the process to recertify for the exchanges and senior products.  And sometime in late summer or early fall, we will find out if all of the old policies, the coverage most of you have, will be allowed to continue or if everyone will be forced to have PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or Obamacare) compliant policies for 2015.

Clients want answers now.  We look like idiots when we can’t answer all of their questions.  But we can’t. The agents, an afterthought in the sweeping change that is the PPACA, turned out to be very important.  The insurers are just as overwhelmed.  Some of my Home Office contacts divide their time between issuing apologies and putting out fires.  They aren’t being paid nearly enough for the abuse they are taking.

I took yesterday morning off.  Slept late.  Read the Plain Dealer with a cup of coffee.  Hell, I didn’t get to the office until 9:15.  Positively Decadent.  No, we are swamped.  Working too hard for success.  Encountering way too many failures.  Learning to flinch.

 

We spent a week last month in Punta Cana.  The daily high in the Dominican Republic was a reliable 80 – 85 degrees.  Even the evenings were warm and pleasant.  We were surprised, however, by the plane-load of Russians that were staying at the resort.  These weren’t Russians who now live in Cleveland or Russians who now live in Philadelphia.  No, these were Russian – Russians.  Muscovites!  It certainly added to our trip.  We noticed that the women were very attractive.  Some drop-dead gorgeous.  The men were big.  Huge.  And Russian T-shirts come in only one size – Almost. 

Jeff and I had lunch at Shuhei on Tuesday to celebrate our birthday.  And yes, it does seem a little strange having the same date of birth as my business partner.  Not just birthday, date of birth.  We were born a few hours apart on February 4, 1955.  It is a bit like having a twin.  There just isn’t any of that creepy “I know what you’re thinking” stuff. 

I will spare you the math.  We just turned 59.  But no one is 59.  Saying that you’re 59 is a bit too precise, like a child proclaiming that he is 4 ½.  We’re not 59.  We are almost 60. 

I used to know what 60 looked like.  It looked OLD.  Now, not so much.  Maybe just almost old.  Jeff has had a hip replacement.  I have a vacant spot on the top of my head that was once covered with hair.  So sure, we’re older, but we aren’t old. 

This is the sixth year of Barack Obama’s presidency.  The mid-terms are in November and once we are past the election we begin the 2016 campaign.  Mr. Obama’s term, for good or ill, may run till January 20, 2017, but in truth, it effectively ends with the beginning of the serious campaigning in the summer of 2015.  So this year, 2014, it is almost over.  What is really important?  What is worth one last push?  Immigration?  The Minimum Wage?  Afghanistan?  Pick one and follow through Mr. President.  You don’t have much time left. 

The Pentagon spent a lot of money to develop the Neutron Bomb, a device that was designed to kill lots of people, but to do as little damage as possible to buildings and structures.  We are now six years into a neutron recession.  The stock market is at an all-time high and so are the numbers of unemployed and underemployed Americans.  Will this be the year of our recovery?  Will we finally climb out of this economic quick sand and stand on firm ground?  

I don’t think so.  I think that this is the year of Almost.

 

I was citing my father.  I will be 59 in a week.  My dad died in 1994.  I don’t recall ever, not when he was alive and not since he’s passed, that I ever used a story about my father to motivate anyone to do anything.  Yet here I was, at the LaunchHouse Bootstrap Ball, talking to a couple of high school aged budding entrepreneurs about my father’s greatest asset, how he came alive behind the diamond counter.  And everything I said was 100% true.

Owning a business should never be confused with having a job.  The opportunity to choose what you do, how you do it, and who you do it with are the hallmarks of being the boss, of being in control.  Money?  You might make more money being self-employed or as the owner of the business.  You might not.  Money isn’t the constant.  Risk is.  And with risk comes the possibility of reward.  But reward isn’t necessarily financial.  If you really love what you do and you are able to find happiness in your accomplishments, the money is secondary.  The money is the bonus.  The joy comes from what you do and the money is simply another benefit.

My father didn’t buy into any of that.  He was risk aversive.  He always knew the plot of land or the building he should have purchased.  But Jerry Cunix could sell jewelry.  Watches and necklaces?  No problem.  But diamonds really got his attention.   I had the pleasure of watching him meet with countless couples and individuals as he sat behind the diamond counter practicing his craft.  He served as the manager of jewelry stores in Canton, Akron and Youngstown Ohio.  Never the owner.  The manager.  His stake in his store’s success was limited to being able to retain his job and a miniscule percent of the sales.  He made his employers a lot of money.

Back to the story – my dad so loved the process, the meeting with the diamond salesmen, creating designs, selling the unique and the ordinary, that he created his own signature piece, a tie tack of a hand holding a diamond.

“Mr. Jerry, I’ve never seen anything like that!  Can I buy that from you?”  My dad would hem and haw for a second as he would explain how he designed the piece and had it made up for him, and then would take it off and walk them to the register.  Once the customer left the store, my dad would open the drawer and take out another of his special tie tacks and put it on.  It was all true.  He just forgot to mention that he had a bunch of these made.  Did his employer appreciate his initiative?  Don’t be silly.  But little moments like this gave him great joy.

It is that joy that I wanted to share with these young guys.  I wear my heart on my sleeve.  Everyone knows how much I love doing what I do.  I needed a different example last night.  Not just for them, but for me, too.