Edgewater Chamber hosts Virtual Business Conference

I've posted about this before, but I'm a board member of our local Chamber of Commerce. 

With all that is going on with COVID-19, I'm happy to say that the Chamber is hosting an educational forum for local businesses on how to meet the challenges brought to the forefront by the pandemic.

RESCHEDULED!:  Due to a technical glitch in the presenting software, this has been rescheduled to Thursday May 28.  

Same bat time, Same bat place.  Different bat day! 

(A reference to the original Batman, starring Adam West?  Okay, Boomer!)

It's going to happen on Thursday May 28 from 9 am-3 pm.  And my wife Stephanie Schwab (who as many of you might know, is a super-dynamite marketer and thought leader in digital marketing) is going to be speaking at one of the forums. 

(She's also going to be teaching separately a class on how to switch your business from offline to online and go from stuck to productive in 3 short weeks)  

SWITCH: Go from stuck and overwhelmed to bringing in online revenue - in just three short weeks!)

But enough spousal promotion (for now)

At the Edgewater Essentials Virtual Forum, there will be 5 education sessions with more than 15 presenters, and topics ranging from managing your online presence to how to protect your business and its employees, to how to establish healthy routines.   I've included the schedule below.

There will also be chat and networking rooms, so that registrants can expand their professional circles, collaborate with others, and provide (and receive) personal support.

And at 12 pm, you can attend our annual business meeting, and find out about what's going on with the Chamber, about our recent merger with the Edgewater Development Corporation, and how our new 3-year plan can help our community.

Attendees will be able to diversify their skills through these presentations, facilitated discussions, workshops, networking opportunities, and other virtual activities, all from the privacy of their own home.

This event is meant to be a springboard for the community to share experiences and interact with like-minded business owners and professionals. Everyone is welcome to participate, even people who are not yet members of the Chamber.   Attendees can join for one session or stay on for the full schedule of events featured in the day-long program free of charge.

Registration is free, and all of the conferences will be recorded, so all registrants will be able to view all of the sessions, even if they can't attend all of them.

Register online for free tickets to the Edgewater Essentials Virtual Forum.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:  EDGEWATER ESSENTIALS VIRTUAL FORUM

9:00 AM Managing Your Online Presence  

• Janice Means (Marketing With JR)
• George Lowe (SparkFactor)
• John Honkala (Blueshoon)

10:00 AM Establishing A Healthy Routine

• Amanda Montgomery (Heartland Health)
• Patricia Stasjak (Andersonville Physical Therapy)
• Kelsey Mathis (KAM Meditation)
• Dave Rasmussen (Sacred Health)

11:00 AM Spinning Straw Into Gold: Email Marketing

•  Stephanie Schwab (Crackerjack Marketing)

11:30 AM Moving Forward Together: Breakout /Networking Sessions

• Stephanie Kusibab (Essentiam Strategy)

12:30 PM Edgewater Chamber Business Meeting

1:00 PM Putting Your Best Face Forward

• Kate Piatt Eckert (Steep Theatre)
• Thomas Kubik (TK Photography)
• Jenn Eicher (Hazel's Career Coaching)
• Julianne Ehre (Pivot Arts)
• Lisa Ripson (Ripson Communications)

2:00 PM Pivoting Your Business

• Shawn Ash (Farm Bar)
• Michael Caramagno (Caramagno CPA)
• Corey Bradberry (Theatre In The Dark)
• Christine Forster (Smack Dab)

2:30 PM Incubate Your Brand

• Stacey Neier Beran, PHD (Quinlan School of Business)

Mona Lisa in Braces, the Palatal Expander, and a Dental Emergency

Let me say this straight up-- I am not a dentist, nor do I play one on TV.  So a couple of nights ago, when my son suddenly cried out about 10 minutes after going to bed, "Something is in my mouth!" I was a little panicked.

THE GENETIC LOTTERY OF BRACES

Let me back up a little bit.  My son is in the laborious and painful process of having his mouth and palate expanded so that his next set of teeth can come in, and if all goes according to plan, somewhere around 2026  he will have perfect teeth and an All American smile, not a crooked British smile.  (which would be made more paradoxical by the fact that we are not British.  I apologize to Brits who read this, but let's face it-- your dental history reputation leaves much to be desired.)

Mona Lisa never had braces, if she did she'd have a
toothy smile and not be so enigmatic.

I never had braces-- my parents apparently decided that my smile was close enough to American that it would have to do.  My teeth aren't 100% straight, and I have a small overbite, but not enough for me to have endured the lasting physical and psychological pain that is braces.  And listen, smiling with your mouth closed is enigmatic, damned it!  Does the Mona Lisa show her teeth?  She does not.  It's probably because she didn't have braces either because she was afraid of the pain.  (Or they had not yet been invented.) 


The pain is probably not that bad, but I never went through it, so I don't really know.

My wife, on the other hand, did have braces, and my son's mouth apparently was inherited from that side of the family, so, the genetic lottery being what it is, he's in for braces.

If the Mona Lisa had braces.  (via Pinterest)

BOTTOM AND TOP EXPANDERS

The first step along the braces journey is to expand the space inside his mouth. He's had a bottom expander in for a while, which is a removable piece of plastic and metal that caused him great consternation for the first few days he had it, but now it causes him great delight as he plays with it, popping it on and off while doing complicated lingual gymnastics.  Every few days we were tightening it using a little plastic tool, and now we are tightening it once per week.

The top expander (otherwise known as the palate expander) is not removable.  It's glued in place, and designed to be turned every day, which means that just before bed, my son has to lie down and dislocate his jaw as   I (or my wife) shine a flashlight inside his mouth, stick a little tool into the center of the metal contraption at the roof of his mouth, and turn it a full turn (which is really a quarter turn.)  We have to do this every day!

This top expander was installed about 10 days ago, and I wasn't there when the orthodontist showed my wife exactly what to do.  I was at a funeral in Rhode Island.  The next day I came back, and my wife was at a nighttime meeting, and I was supposed to do it, so I looked it up on youtube, watched a video, and did it no problem!

Here's one of the three videos I watched before attempting the operation


"Wow!"I thought to myself.  "Maybe my superpower is dentistry!"

The next few days my wife was responsible for the turning, and then I went back out of town for a few days, and then I came home on a Sunday, and she left the next day to go to Florida to check in on her mom who had recently had surgery.  "No problem," I thought.  "I can turn this thing.  I've watched the video!"  I turned it on Monday without incident. On Tuesday, I turned it again without incident.  Well, until about 10 minutes later, when my son called out.

THE FEAR OF WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW

Trying to look inside my son's mouth.
It's dark in there!

He came out into the living room and he spits out a hard piece of something that looked like a tooth, and there were two pieces.  I freaked out.  I immediately thought-- "Oh my god-- the video was wrong.  My superpower  is not dentistry, it's cranking that little lever inside his mouth, and I must have cranked it so hard that his tooth couldn't take it."  Followed by "These are small, maybe they are baby teeth!"  I have him open up his mouth, and right under the expander, his tooth seems jagged and sharp.  There's no blood.  He's complaining of pain, and I do the only thing I can do in these circumstances.

I call my wife.

Yes, I know she's in Florida, and she can't do anything.  But I wasn't at the meeting where they installed the appliance.  I didn't hear them give the "What to do in case of orthodontic emergency" speech that she did.  And I apparently don't know the power of my fingers, since I just crushed a piece of tooth using the power of my bare hands, I needed to know if I needed to take him to the hospital right now, call the orthodontist, or just wait until morning.

One of my son's favorite anime series features a character
with dental super powers!

We face-timed so that she could try to see in his mouth, which was not very easy to do.  As I said, she was 1600 miles away, so really there was not much she could do. She said maybe it was the glue that held it on there, but I could see the glue in his mouth, which was blue, and this was tooth-colored.  She told me to go to the orthodontist in the morning, which is what I was leaning to do anyway.

I called the orthodontist after hours to see what time they were open (8 am) and emailed his teacher to say he'd be arriving to school tardy due to a dental emergency.    I then called the orthodontist on call, and got a phone number that was all in Chinese with no English explanation.  The hell with it, I thought.  He's going in tomorrow morning.

THE NEXT MORNING:  ALL CALM ON THE DENTAL FRONT

The next morning we're up early.  His breakfast is all soft foods, and so his lunch, just in case. I  Apple sauce, yogurt, pudding, etc.  He's complaining a little, but it's not that bad.

At the orthodontist, the dental assistant looks inside his mouth and smiles, and then tells me the words that as a husband I never want to hear and as a father, I was delighted to hear.

"Your Wife Was Right."

Hmmmmmm....

Dang.  Busted.

 It was the glue, that sometimes breaks free.  Apparently, some of the glue is tooth-colored, and it can get brittle and break.  It's very common.  Of course, I didn't know that.  I had the dental assistant show me how to turn the apparatus, and give me the once over twice on all the other information that I need to know as a proper parent of a Dental Cyborg. 

And he arrived at school at 9:30 am, so he didn't miss any academic subjects!

Crisis averted.  For now.

Ten Years Ago I got Married:

Today marks my ten year wedding anniversary.

The time seems to have done two things simultaneously.  It seems to have whisked by in a heartbeat (well, not quite a heartbeat, but certainly not 3652 days, give or take the odd meridians)  And at the same time, it seems forever.  Not in a bad sense, mind you.  It's just that I have a hard time remembering what it was like not to be married.

Our first dance as a married couple.  Of course, it was probably our last dance as well!

Oh, I remember that I wasn't married.  I have lots of great memories of things I did with previous girlfriends, or friends, or  with family, or solo, when I traveled on tour with one of a few circuses I traveled with, or when I toured my show internationally, or the summer I lived in Picton Ontario, or the summer I worked for the Guthrie Theater.

But it's just hard to imagine now not being married.  Being married to my wife seems very natural, like the natural order of things. (And that's not something I thought I'd be saying 10 years ago, at that beautiful antique ballroom in Yonkers, with many of my friends and family gathered around, listening to Klezmer and watching friends stand up and do little pieces of comedy for us, as the NY Times looked on.  Yes, we were in the NY Times for our marriage.  Twice.


Here's the VOWS article:  https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/fashion/weddings/13vows.html
Here's the 3 years later article: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/fashion/weddings/01UNIONS.html

And here's the NYTimes video that tells our story:



I'm not going to pretend that there aren't problems or that there haven't been problems or that there might not continue to be problems.  Problems are part of the human condition.  Those that think they don't have problems probably aren't thinking too hard about what's going on or are ignoring them hoping they will go away.  I have done both in the past and will probably continue in the future. 

But my point is that problems are normal and to be expected.  As are joys.  And are sorrows.  And all of the other emotions that humans have. 

And on balance, we've had more of the latter than the former. So our balance book is not too shabby. 

So far we've managed to work away through most of our problems, and it is my hope (and my life's work, I guess you could go so far as to say) to continue to do so.

Here's to another 10 years! (And then more, after that!)

My Wife Has Returned To Us

As you may remember from a previous post (or if you live nearby, the strange and plaintive wails that have been emanating from my house in the night-time) my wife has been away for the past 3 weeks.

Barcelona is full of amazing architecture.

She was teaching digital marketing in Barcelona, and by all accounts having a great time of it, seeing the city, soaking up the ambiance, basking (or should that be Basquing?) in the warm Spanish sun, eating jamon and olives.  Meanwhile, my son and I were shivering in the cold that makes up Chicago winter  (the winter has been relatively mild, but there were a few cold days, and I am exaggerating for dramatic effect.  I am a thespian, so sue me!)

We picked her up last night from the airport, and I have to say that  it was/is great to have her back.  In fact, so much so that my son wept when she opened the door of the car, and insisted that she sit in the back with him for the 45 minute ride home for the airport.  (Apparently I do not rate as more than a glorified Lyft driver.  And I didn't even get a tip!)

So he wept when she left, and he wept when she returned, but in between, there was very little weeping about missing mom.  We were pretty busy, and we went on some fun adventures. In the  3 weeks that she was gone, we did the following:

• saw 5 plays (Romeo and Juliet, Year I Didn't Go To School, Hamilton, The Illusionists, and Actor's Gymnasium circus show Quest)
• saw 1 movie in cinema (Lego Batman) and 4 movies at home( first 2 Indiana Jones movies, Newsies, & The Princess Bride,)
•  drove to Indiana over President's day to hang out at the farm with cousins.
• celebrated his half birthday with cousins.
•  checked out a new Ninja warrior place.
• had 5 playdates with friends.
• visited my wife's ailing Grandmother three times, once in the Hospital.

My son and I at Hamilton!
My wife missed it due to being abroad
(hmmmm... she's always a broad!)

This is in addition to all of the regular stuff we do, like go to fencing class, speed skating practice, Sunday School, and Pilates class. And homework.

In short, we kept our days filled.  And it's not like we didn't have any contact with her when she was in Barcelona. Thanks to  the wonders of modern technology, we probably face-timed once every two/three days, got taken on a tour of her apartment, and even saw the streets of Barcelona.

Even with the busyness and the facetiming, there was still plenty of room to miss my wife.

Here are a few takeaways from spending this 3 week foray into being single.

TAKEAWAYS FROM 3 WEEKS OF BEING A SINGLE PARENT

1) I'M GLAD I'M NOT A SINGLE PARENT

While my workload as the primary caregiver of my son did not change dramatically while my wife was away (I do all the cooking and cleaning and carting already) There is something to be said for having even a tiny break from the drama of raising a kid.  Being able to chill out for a couple of minutes without having to worry is a luxury, and one that I like.  I got a fair amount of chill out time with her gone, but not enough.  And I only have one kid.  If I had more, and I was single, not sure how I would stay sane.

2) I LOVE MY WIFE

I already knew this, but it was reinforced.  It's not just the man/woman time that I missed (although I did, and quite frankly I often miss that when she's here!) It's the sharing of life's adventures together.  I know that she really wishes that I was there to see some of the things she saw in Barcelona, and I really wished she'd been to the plays, or seen our son's amazing love for doing Ninja stuff.  Yes, she got to see it on Instagram, but it's not the same thing.

The bear conquers the mini-warped wall at @windy_city_ninjas

A post shared by Adam G (@kafclown) on Mar 7, 2017 at 6:45am PST

3) I AM CONTENT BEING BY MYSELF

This might sound like it contradicts point two above, but it doesn't.  I missed my wife, and I love my wife, but I also like being by myself.  Not having to squabble over what show to watch, or having a discussion about who is going to take a shower first, or even not asking me to turn down my computer when I'm watching my show in one room while she watches television in our bed was pretty glorious.  Overall though, I'd rather squabble than be alone.

4) MY WIFE USES A LOT OF RESOURCES

I always suspected that my wife has more dirty clothes, more dirty plates, and uses a disproportionate amount of toilet paper.  Her 3 weeks away show me that I was right.

We buy Charmin in bulk quantities.
Now I know why!

•  I went from doing a load of laundry 5 days a week when she is here to doing laundry twice a week.
•  I typically do the dishes once a day when she's here, I did them 3 times a week while she was gone.
• We went through 3 rolls of toilet paper in the 3 weeks she was gone, instead of 2 rolls + a week typically.

I still love you darling, but in this squabble,  like most others, I am right.