Are We There Yet? Week 13

Last week, there was a story in Arlington that there was a yearling black bear spotted in the parking lot of Bishop O’Connell High School dumpster diving for food.  Unfortunately for him, there was no food because the schools are closed.   Then, this past Sunday, my daughter was in our backyard when a coyote pup wandered in, scaring both of them out of their wits.  The pup was very cute and eventually left after sunset.  The following day, my daughter was out there again when a six-foot black snake slithered up onto our patio and under her chair.  We felt as if we were living in an animal sanctuary. 

Also last week, our firm moved to our new office in Fairfax last week.  Our new address is 12701 Fair Lakes Circle, Suite 220 and we greatly look forward to the time when we will be able to occupy those offices without fears of spreading germs and having to wear masks.  

As much as I greatly anticipate settling into the new office space, I’ve been reflecting on my wildlife interactions.   Sometimes, if you just stay in the present and look out the window, you find amazing and exciting things all around you.  As the Chicago Bulls legendary coach, Phil Jackson, once said, “If you give the future all of your attention, the present will pass you by.”

I hope that you all get to experience amazing and exciting things sometime soon.  Maybe just outside your window.

READING

• Embracing Each Moment by Anam Thubten. The awakened life is the essence and aim of the Buddhist teachings and this book is a guide to cultivating the awakened mind and heart that allows this wonderful kind of life to happen.
• Narrative Economics—by Robert Shiller. Stories people tell—about financial confidence or panic, housing booms, or Bitcoin—can go viral and powerfully affect economies, but such narratives have traditionally been ignored in economics and finance because they seem anecdotal and unscientific. The author explains why we ignore these stories at our peril—and how we can begin to take them seriously. 

TELEVISION

• Stranger — This is a Korean detective series where, with the help of a gutsy female detective, a prosecutor who has lost the ability to feel empathy tackles a murder case amid political corruption.

PODCASTS

• Slow Burn: David Duke – America’s most famous white supremacist came within a runoff of controlling Louisiana. How did David Duke rise to power? And what did it take to stop him?
• Oh, Hello: The Podcast - To entertain themselves in the absence of Broadway and the ability to record new Netflix specials, Nick Kroll and John Mulaney have transformed their hit show Oh, Hello into podcast form. They take on their notorious characters, Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland, aka “bad boys of broadcast,” to discuss everything you could want to talk about during quarantine.