Anne Lewandowski Notch
August 13, 1974 -January 14, 2009
August 13, 1974 -January 14, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Anne Lewandowski Notch
My big sister died tonight. She fought an unbeatable cancer like a champion. We will all miss her so much. She has been my hero since I was very, very small.
The Lifegaurd
I have worked a lot of jobs over the years. I’ve even been fired from a few. But I have only been fired by my own sister once. I wish every young person could have the opportunity to be fired from a job by a sibling or parent. But not everyone can be that lucky. I learned more from being fired by my sister than I ever learned by being fired by anyone else.
My sister is an organized, goal-oriented achiever. No one was surprised when she landed a job as assistant manager of Brook Lane Community Pool. The neighborhood pool is the center of the suburban social universe in the summer time. Kids go there to escape from their parents. Parents go there to escape from their kids. I went there to look at girls. But I also worked there, as a lifeguard.
Anne came to the job with excellent qualifications and a can do attitude. This was her first real management opportunity. And she intended to make the most of it. She set goals and developed action plans. She was going to do everything in her capacity as assistant manager to make Brook Lane the cleanest and safest pool in Omaha.
Her noble intentions ran into a massive road block. The road block’s name was Craig Lundy. He was the Nebraska state record holder in the 1000 yard freestyle and he was Anne’s boss. He was also sleeping with his girlfriend in the tiny pool office after hours. No one talked about it. But everyone knew about it. You just can’t have people having sex in the office of the cleanest and safest pool in the city. So the deck was stacked against Anne from the beginning.
Craig Lundy was not a bad guy. He was actually a really nice guy. He just had some different ideas about how to run the pool. And some very different ideas about the delicate balance between personal and professional life. He and Anne had a few professional conflicts.
When Anne thought about safety, he thought about fun. When Anne thought about rules, he thought about fun. When there was a piece of poop floating in the pool, he thought about fun. And there is nothing fun about poop. He let Anne handle it. Fun was the core element of Craig’s management philosophy. This was not something Anne had encountered in her management classes in college.
There are a million ways to kill yourself at a neighborhood pool. Anne was concerned about all of them. Craig’s focus remained on fun.
As her little brother, Anne expected me to have her back. Someone needed to have Anne’s back. Craig’s girlfriend, one of my fellow lifeguards, definitely had his back. Anne saw me as a potential ally. Unfortunately, I preferred Craig's focus on fun to Anne’s focus on safety. So when Anne arrived at work one day to find her little brother firing bottle rockets across the pool, having, in fact, a bottle rocket war with her boss Craig Lundy, what could she do? Who could argue with Craig Lundy? He was the state record holder in the 1000 yard freestyle.
It was the best of times and the worst of times for the lifeguard staff that summer. When Craig was the manager on duty the only rule was to have fun all the time. We listened to Snoop Doggy Dog on the PA. We enforced discipline by throwing kids into the deep end. We spent the money from the till on frozen yogurt and pizza. When Anne was the manager, we once again lived in a world with rules. Fun was no longer the only thing that mattered.
I operated under the influence of Craig’s fun philosophy most of the summer. Cleaning bathrooms wasn’t particularly fun, so I didn’t really have much interest in doing it. The same went for enforcing rules. I was not an ideal employee. But in my mind I was only following the directives of management. I was acting like my new hero Craig Lundy.
You can’t fire your boss. But you can fire your little brother. I guess I felt sort of untouchable as Anne’s little brother. I did less and less actual work on the job. I got very casual in my dress and manner of speaking at work. The incident which provoked the firing was my use of profanity around small children. I guess I dropped a few F-bombs and a few S-bombs and probably a couple of A-bombs. This is, no doubt, conduct unbecoming a lifeguard. But I was her brother. She should have had my back.
I stormed out of the pool in a dark cloud, full of fire and brimstone. What an unjust world! My own sister unable to see the extraordinary leadership I’d shown at the pool that summer. My mind swam. All the things I had done. The people I had helped. She didn’t see any of it. She couldn’t see it. She was a monster.
I decided to walk home. I would have taken the car, but she had the keys to the station wagon. And I didn’t want to go back in there and ask her for them. I made it about a half a mile when I saw my dad’s truck headed right for me. Anne had called him. I wanted to keep walking, but it was hot. So I got in the truck.
“So, you and Anne had some kind of fight at work.”
“Yeah, she fired me.”
“Wow. She fired you. What she fire you for?”
I couldn’t really explain why it was that Anne fired me to my dad. I couldn’t really say anything. Everything made perfect sense in my head. The injustice. Anne’s inflexibility and all of her cock-a-dootin rules. When I started to talk about those things they just didn’t make sense anymore. I sounded like an idiot.
Realizing that you are an idiot is one of the most important experiences a person can have. There simply is no denying it. If you are a lifeguard and you get fired by your own sister for swearing around little kids, you are an idiot. And so I was. Anne had to fire me to help me realize it.
I went home with my dad and meditated on my own stupidity for awhile. I realized that the fun way is not always the right way. And that being a great guy did not necessarily make Craig Lundy a great pool manager.
When Anne got home I begged for my job back. I told her that she was right and I was an idiot. She gave me my job back and never had to fire me again.
My sister is an organized, goal-oriented achiever. No one was surprised when she landed a job as assistant manager of Brook Lane Community Pool. The neighborhood pool is the center of the suburban social universe in the summer time. Kids go there to escape from their parents. Parents go there to escape from their kids. I went there to look at girls. But I also worked there, as a lifeguard.
Anne came to the job with excellent qualifications and a can do attitude. This was her first real management opportunity. And she intended to make the most of it. She set goals and developed action plans. She was going to do everything in her capacity as assistant manager to make Brook Lane the cleanest and safest pool in Omaha.
Her noble intentions ran into a massive road block. The road block’s name was Craig Lundy. He was the Nebraska state record holder in the 1000 yard freestyle and he was Anne’s boss. He was also sleeping with his girlfriend in the tiny pool office after hours. No one talked about it. But everyone knew about it. You just can’t have people having sex in the office of the cleanest and safest pool in the city. So the deck was stacked against Anne from the beginning.
Craig Lundy was not a bad guy. He was actually a really nice guy. He just had some different ideas about how to run the pool. And some very different ideas about the delicate balance between personal and professional life. He and Anne had a few professional conflicts.
When Anne thought about safety, he thought about fun. When Anne thought about rules, he thought about fun. When there was a piece of poop floating in the pool, he thought about fun. And there is nothing fun about poop. He let Anne handle it. Fun was the core element of Craig’s management philosophy. This was not something Anne had encountered in her management classes in college.
There are a million ways to kill yourself at a neighborhood pool. Anne was concerned about all of them. Craig’s focus remained on fun.
As her little brother, Anne expected me to have her back. Someone needed to have Anne’s back. Craig’s girlfriend, one of my fellow lifeguards, definitely had his back. Anne saw me as a potential ally. Unfortunately, I preferred Craig's focus on fun to Anne’s focus on safety. So when Anne arrived at work one day to find her little brother firing bottle rockets across the pool, having, in fact, a bottle rocket war with her boss Craig Lundy, what could she do? Who could argue with Craig Lundy? He was the state record holder in the 1000 yard freestyle.
It was the best of times and the worst of times for the lifeguard staff that summer. When Craig was the manager on duty the only rule was to have fun all the time. We listened to Snoop Doggy Dog on the PA. We enforced discipline by throwing kids into the deep end. We spent the money from the till on frozen yogurt and pizza. When Anne was the manager, we once again lived in a world with rules. Fun was no longer the only thing that mattered.
I operated under the influence of Craig’s fun philosophy most of the summer. Cleaning bathrooms wasn’t particularly fun, so I didn’t really have much interest in doing it. The same went for enforcing rules. I was not an ideal employee. But in my mind I was only following the directives of management. I was acting like my new hero Craig Lundy.
You can’t fire your boss. But you can fire your little brother. I guess I felt sort of untouchable as Anne’s little brother. I did less and less actual work on the job. I got very casual in my dress and manner of speaking at work. The incident which provoked the firing was my use of profanity around small children. I guess I dropped a few F-bombs and a few S-bombs and probably a couple of A-bombs. This is, no doubt, conduct unbecoming a lifeguard. But I was her brother. She should have had my back.
I stormed out of the pool in a dark cloud, full of fire and brimstone. What an unjust world! My own sister unable to see the extraordinary leadership I’d shown at the pool that summer. My mind swam. All the things I had done. The people I had helped. She didn’t see any of it. She couldn’t see it. She was a monster.
I decided to walk home. I would have taken the car, but she had the keys to the station wagon. And I didn’t want to go back in there and ask her for them. I made it about a half a mile when I saw my dad’s truck headed right for me. Anne had called him. I wanted to keep walking, but it was hot. So I got in the truck.
“So, you and Anne had some kind of fight at work.”
“Yeah, she fired me.”
“Wow. She fired you. What she fire you for?”
I couldn’t really explain why it was that Anne fired me to my dad. I couldn’t really say anything. Everything made perfect sense in my head. The injustice. Anne’s inflexibility and all of her cock-a-dootin rules. When I started to talk about those things they just didn’t make sense anymore. I sounded like an idiot.
Realizing that you are an idiot is one of the most important experiences a person can have. There simply is no denying it. If you are a lifeguard and you get fired by your own sister for swearing around little kids, you are an idiot. And so I was. Anne had to fire me to help me realize it.
I went home with my dad and meditated on my own stupidity for awhile. I realized that the fun way is not always the right way. And that being a great guy did not necessarily make Craig Lundy a great pool manager.
When Anne got home I begged for my job back. I told her that she was right and I was an idiot. She gave me my job back and never had to fire me again.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Awesome Hair -- Awesome Brain: Malcolm Gladwell
This guy is not a genius. But he does write interesting books. His books have made millions of people feel smarter. I recommend them. But I have come to the conclusion after reading all of his books, that a lot of what he writes about is sort of repackaged, slickly marketed common sense. Common sense fortified with science. Blink is my favorite. The Tipping Point is okay and Outliers, his newest, is sort of a dud.
Malcolm Gladwell's brain is less awesome than the brains of Kurt Vonnegut, Geddy Lee, Stephen Pinker, and Tim Burners-Lee. But his hair is undeniably awesome.
This man is Cedric Bixler-Zavala. And he is a genius. He wrote Son et Lumiere + Inertiatic esp.
Malcolm Gladwell's brain is less awesome than the brains of Kurt Vonnegut, Geddy Lee, Stephen Pinker, and Tim Burners-Lee. But his hair is undeniably awesome.
You can hire Mr. Gladwell to come and perform at your kid's birthday party or whatever. He costs about $40,000.00. No doubt the kids will learn a lot.
This man is Cedric Bixler-Zavala. And he is a genius. He wrote Son et Lumiere + Inertiatic esp.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Rainbow Man
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Books
Thank God we got the luggage back. Giant Suitcase #1 contained these books. We've got only a couple of more weeks to figure everything out. I caught Karine trying to read The Birth Partner this afternoon. I said no way José. That one is for me. The last thing I need is Karine reading a book about all of the things I am supposed to be doing.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Lost and Found
Karine and I have different philosophies when it comes to luggage. Or to stuff in general. She likes more, I like less. I would love to travel with nothing. Luggage is the single worst thing about going anywhere. Here is what we had with us when we flew out of Omaha: 1) Karine, 2) Tom, 3) Giant Suitcase #1, 4) Baby Duffel, 5) The Chicco Cortina Travel System (CCTS), 6) Karine's Purse, 7) The Black Pack.
The Baby Duffel is not a little tiny duffel bag. It is a giant duffel filled with baby gear: pacifiers, receiving blankets, onesies, a Polish Pottery piggy-bank, a swaddler, baby lotions, baby creams, baby bottles, and a bear that makes noise when you press his body parts. The Black Pack is a black Jansport backpack that I have had since high school. It contains vital documents, our laptop, and our cameras. This trip is also contained our ultrasounds and a magazine about German Shepherds.
We lost the CCTS somewhere in Minneapolis. Karine spoke with a nice woman in Omaha about checking it all the way through to Chicago. Here is where our problems start. When we got to Chicago the CCTS was AWOL. This is not good. Karine loves this thing. She researched strollers for weeks. She could be a consultant in the stroller industry. She was upset.
We spoke with John down in the luggage department at Chigaco O'Hare. I call him the luggage guy. He probably has a title of some kind, luggage associate, something like that. He was pretty busy when we talked to him. He was in the middle of a dog swap. A dog swap is when you go to pick up your dog and they give you someone else's dog and say, "Here's your dog!" Then you find out that your dog is in Norfolk, VA. John was untangling one of the those when I asked him about our stroller.
We told him what happened and he typed some stuff in the computer. He took down our number at the hotel and told us that he would send the CCTS if it came in before midnight. But he didn't didn't talk to anyone on the phone. That made me feel uneasy. You think he could just call someone at Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis and ask.
We took a bus over to Midway. We were the only people on the bus. It was a big bus. We arrived at Midway with our remaining luggage just as Rolland Burris was giving a press conference upon returning from Washington. He is a US Senator, sort of.
Burris seems like a nice guy, but he was appointed by this idiot.
We walked past the press conference and went to speak with Leatrice in the luggage department. She made us feel better about everything. She got on the phone and talked to some people. She was really nice the whole time she was helping us. But the CCTS was no where to be found. It had not been located or sent anywhere. So we went to the Holiday Inn.
Today we discovered that everything that was lost had been found. It was waiting for us in San Pedro Sula. The luggage people at Northwest and Delta Airlines found our stuff and figured out how to get it to us. They did a good job. Our stuff was sent to La Ceiba this afternoon. The CCTS is at home now. It is in great shape.
Karine is happy. Ruby is happy. And I am happy.
Our bags had all kinds of crazy tags all over them. This one is our favorite. We hope this unknown luggage person went to that party. And we hope everyone had an awesome time.
The Baby Duffel is not a little tiny duffel bag. It is a giant duffel filled with baby gear: pacifiers, receiving blankets, onesies, a Polish Pottery piggy-bank, a swaddler, baby lotions, baby creams, baby bottles, and a bear that makes noise when you press his body parts. The Black Pack is a black Jansport backpack that I have had since high school. It contains vital documents, our laptop, and our cameras. This trip is also contained our ultrasounds and a magazine about German Shepherds.
We lost the CCTS somewhere in Minneapolis. Karine spoke with a nice woman in Omaha about checking it all the way through to Chicago. Here is where our problems start. When we got to Chicago the CCTS was AWOL. This is not good. Karine loves this thing. She researched strollers for weeks. She could be a consultant in the stroller industry. She was upset.
We spoke with John down in the luggage department at Chigaco O'Hare. I call him the luggage guy. He probably has a title of some kind, luggage associate, something like that. He was pretty busy when we talked to him. He was in the middle of a dog swap. A dog swap is when you go to pick up your dog and they give you someone else's dog and say, "Here's your dog!" Then you find out that your dog is in Norfolk, VA. John was untangling one of the those when I asked him about our stroller.
We told him what happened and he typed some stuff in the computer. He took down our number at the hotel and told us that he would send the CCTS if it came in before midnight. But he didn't didn't talk to anyone on the phone. That made me feel uneasy. You think he could just call someone at Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis and ask.
We took a bus over to Midway. We were the only people on the bus. It was a big bus. We arrived at Midway with our remaining luggage just as Rolland Burris was giving a press conference upon returning from Washington. He is a US Senator, sort of.
Burris seems like a nice guy, but he was appointed by this idiot.
We walked past the press conference and went to speak with Leatrice in the luggage department. She made us feel better about everything. She got on the phone and talked to some people. She was really nice the whole time she was helping us. But the CCTS was no where to be found. It had not been located or sent anywhere. So we went to the Holiday Inn.
***Karine just informed me that she told this entire story.***
Today we discovered that everything that was lost had been found. It was waiting for us in San Pedro Sula. The luggage people at Northwest and Delta Airlines found our stuff and figured out how to get it to us. They did a good job. Our stuff was sent to La Ceiba this afternoon. The CCTS is at home now. It is in great shape.
Karine is happy. Ruby is happy. And I am happy.
Our bags had all kinds of crazy tags all over them. This one is our favorite. We hope this unknown luggage person went to that party. And we hope everyone had an awesome time.
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