In Los Angeles, the big old vitamin shot did not cure the back pain, neither did the cupping, nor the soft music with the acupuncturist.
In Tampa, I tried again. A Chinese doctor. With a lot of notices all over her office: NO CELL PHONE USE AT ALL.
On the way to the appointment a crisis at work had occurred and a 6-way conference call began. I felt rather guilty hiding the headphone behind my hair. Just on one side so I could listen to the call in one ear and the Chinese doctor in the other. The doctor pushed long needles into my body, I could hear her explaining that the inflamed area should be avoided. In my other ear, I could hear the voice of our German CEO. As I lay under a red heat lamp one side of my body relaxed, relaxed. The other side of my body however, the one with the CEO in my ear…well ….
Two TV segments, a design talk to 300 at the yacht club (I snapped the microphone off the podium. I must have been feeling better) a dash to Target to buy Easter Eggs for our small island hunt and then to give a talk about being an entrepreneur at The Oxford Exchange.
Just as I went on, I was introduced to a journalist writing for a parenting magazine. As I talk a lot about my business being framed around the values of family and mentorship, I thought we were going to be cool with the parenting magazine. (In this photograph of our Ambassadors in Tampa there are no less than three mother-daughter teams.)
During the hour, I spoke about my own mother, who had taught me to ride and waterski, but certainly had not bothered with domestic trivialities like cooking or ironing.
And I talked a bit about my grandmother, a glamorous heiress, who once left my mother and Aunt, with a nanny and governess, in a mountain hotel, east of Budapest, as she continued on her travels. Unfortunately, my grandmother mislaid the address of the hotel and my mother and Aunt were left there for 4 months with no word of when any one was returning for them. My grandmother finally thought she had better retrace the route she had driven earlier that year and at last my mother and Aunt were rescued.
Just as I was finishing I caught the eye of the parenting journalist. Ah, that was going to make for an interesting article.