Administrative Assistant Day? Really?

I understand that a lot of holidays were invented by the greeting card industry to sell more cards, but I've always been onboard with Mother's Day and Father's Day. Grandparents' Day never really resonated with me, though. It's somewhere between Arbor Day and Columbus Day (the optional holiday in business) on my personal calendar.
I was blissfully  unaware that there was such a thing as "Administrative Assistant Day" until today though. (I HAD heard of "Secretaries Day" but this appears to be a separate and discrete holiday.)
Here's the thing. I paid my way through college working office jobs. When I moved to Hawaii, I spent several months working as a secretary at the Honolulu Gas Company while I freelanced for the Downtown Honolulu Magazine. I was eventually hired by Aloha Magazine and gratefully left the business world behind. 
I learned a lot from those jobs, skills both useful and practical ranging from the best way to unjam a copy machine to the subtleties of office politics. I also learned some harsh lessons about hierarchy and protocol and the way the world works. We all want to be appreciated for who we are and the contributions we make to our companues. If we're very lucky (and I mostly was), corporate appreciation is expressed in decent paychecks and generous vacation time and good benefits and perks. Perks are nice. The last "real" job I worked as director of development for an independent producer, my boss gave everyone a month's salary as a Christmas bonus. My good friend, who held the same position at a large studio, got (no kidding) a fanny pack emblazoned with the corporate logo and filled with individual serving packages of Oreos and Fig Newtons.
Guess which company had a morale problem?
I'm not someone who wants a gold star just for showing up. I actually think that getting a good day's wage in return for a good day's work is a fine social contract.  What I'm saying is that if you do buy into "Happy Administrative Assistant Day" (which to me always sounds just a bit condescending and if you look at the cards, assumes the AA is female), buy into it in a way that's meaningful for both the employer and the employee. 
Cards are nice.  Who doesn't like cards? But if you really want to show your appreciation for your administrative assistant, the way to do it is to give the AA a paid day off (as Reynolds Aluminum used to do for employees' birthdays) or give them a cash bonus or a multi-purpose gift card. Do something that shows you really DO appreciate your assistant. Because a greeting card just doesn't doesn't really send much of a message these days.

Cherry Walnut Cake Recipe

Every year on George Washington's birthday, my mother made a fantastic cherry/walnut cake with cherry syrup. We ate it warm for dinner with the sauce and then the next day, she'd send us off to school with squares of the cold cake for dessert. If that sounds good to you, check out the recipe on my Southern Cooking site at BellaOnline.

Polycystic Kidney Disease--time for a cure

As medical conditions go, PKD is not one of the sexy ones. It doesn't have celebrity spokespeople. It doesn't have a high profile on the charity circuit. The condition is genetic. The condition is incurable, although it often can progress slowly and can be somewhat slowed by low-salt diets, a regimen of diuretics and other treatments, it doe not have a cure. Kidney transplants may not even work because the donor kidney can sometimes become cystic. A cystic kidney is an enlarged kidney and bigger is not better in this case. I'd never heard of PKD until 25 years ago when I met the woman who has become my sister-friend. Her father had just died of it and she and her two older brothers were living in the shadow of the disease. Her oldest brother's health began to fail when he was in his 40s. He was a college professor, a brilliant geneticist, a champion darts player. There were long hospitalizations and stretches of dialysis. He had to resign his job.
A few months ago, he had a massive heart attack and barely survived. Only a few weeks ago one of his feet and part of his calf were amputated. Tonight he's back in the hospital after a surgery meant to save his other foot.
So far so good, but no one knows what will happen next. Or who it will happen to. Because as it happens, David is not the only one I know who has PKD. Chances are someone in your circle of friends and family has it too because PKD affects 1 in 1000 Americans. To give you some perspective, roughly 2-4 people in 1000 have some degree of hearing loss, up to and including profound deafness.
PKD doesn't have a cure but they do have a foundation. If you'd like to learn more, check it out here.

Shameless Self Promotion

My story "Pizza Face and the Beauty Queen" is up at A Twist of Noir, along with a slew of other stories. There's something for every taste, so keep reading!

Celebrate Valentine's Day with Zero Dark Valentine

Back when I published a zine called Dark Valentine, I always worried that people would think the title was too "girlie" and that all we were going to publish were stories about virgins and unicorns. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. The website associated with the magazine may have folded, but the magazine archives is still around and you can read all the issues here.
I also never de-activated the Gooogle Alert for the phrase "dark valentine" and today it led me to a funny video in which a guy interrogates his girlfriend to find out what she wants for Valentine's Day It's called Zero Dark Valentine and it's clever.

Vive La France!

Marriage Equality is about to become the law of the land in France, the country that defined romance. Read about the parliamentary vote here.

Book Review Nobody Walks

I review Dennis Walsh's true crime book Nobody Walks over at Criminal Element  today. Read it here.  Dennis Walsh is an LA attorney whose little brother Christopher was murdered in 2003. Chris was an addict, a petty criminal, someone easily dismissed as a loser. He came to a very bad end. The book is the story of Dennis' investigation into the case, and it's a gripping story.