After messing up one of the most important calls of the decade, I was certain my career was over. What happened instead was a moving example of leadership that left me in a state of awe. The large company I worked for was preparing for a transformation that impacted about
My family’s obsession with creating good homemade food is ingrained into our souls. And we go to great lengths to make sure people we love aren’t deprived of their favourites. Like the time I mailed my son an apple pie when he was away at school. Or the
He was the tall blond twenty-year-old drummer, whose rock band was well known in our small city. I was the introverted self-conscious sixteen-year-old high-school student, with no particular claim to fame. We worked at the same music school, he the drumming teacher and me the evening receptionist, and he made
I was close to my father, Francesco. I followed him around to his workshop and his garden, where, much to my mother’s chagrin, my hands, shoes, and pretty little dresses ended up speckled with top soil and sawdust. She couldn’t understand why I didn’t mind getting dirty
It’s so dark in here that I all I can see is my breath. Well, if I had any. Breath, that is. I stand guard and listen and wait until the doors open and I’m allowed out, to do my duty, mark my time, and hope that, even
One of the many liberating things about being retired is the absence of annual performance reviews. Unless I count my grandchildren assessing my baking or grading my ability to draw a unicorn or some other complicated creature. I had an intense dislike of performance reviews in my work life. I
I grew up in my grandfather’s house. He was not easy. My dad’s father was a very old-fashioned Italian, authoritarian type. My grandmother was cold and quiet, but she passed when I was very young and I have few memories of her. My grandfather though, was a memorable
I used to kill hostas. I didn’t intend to murder plants, but I managed to kill even the supposed unkillable ones. I come from a line of fine gardeners but that didn’t help. My last name became “Gardner” when I married. That didn’t help, either. By the
I wasn’t allowed to have boy friends when I was little and my parents were even reluctant to allow me to go to a friend’s house, unless it was an Italian friend. They were in short supply in my neighbourhood though, and any that were the right nationality
My dad was always my biggest cheerleader. He worked as a labourer at our small town’s major employer after immigrating to Canada from Italy in the late 1940’s. While he was proud of me no matter what, he was especially proud when I landed a summer job in
“But don’t you love the colour?” This used to be a common inquiry directed my way by male salespeople when my husband and I went car shopping. They deferred to my husband, Rob, for all the decision making and they ignored me unless the topic was the all important
On a trip to Italy a number of years ago, my cousins invited me to witness a young woman defend her thesis at the University of Trieste, located on the beautiful northern Italian seaside. She was related to my cousin by marriage and while I didn’t know her, I’