pheresis, yes, it is a good thing. one needle for me, I’m too fidgety for two. have been donating blood for, what, over thirty years now, ever since we used to line up for three or four hours in Alumni Hall at IU trying to raise enough donations to beat Purdue.

which, of course, we did every time that I know about. NCAA championships, feh… give me something I can actually get involved in.

Thanks for sharing Mary. You’re the best at telling such interesting tales.

A person just had to laugh when you said “Don’t start up with me about preserves” (a great line, all by itself)

and then mentioned going toe to toe with the Queen of Mean herself.

And Nance, as I seem to recall, the pay was supposed to come once my pay had been negotiated. We never got to that point, however. Rick called me and told me the higher-ups suddenly discovered they didn’t have any money in the budget to hire me. This, I assumed at the time (and still assume) was code for “we don’t like your web site.”

Leona liked Tiptree strawberry preserves. She liked “Little Scarlet” to be exact, which is made from tiny strawberries. Little Scarlet, at least then, was not available in the 1.5oz jars. Portion jars were only made in raspberry, orange marmalade, and regular strawberry. Leona wanted Little Scarlet.

Her food and beverage manager called me and said he would be fired if he didn’t get tiny jars of little scarlet. I said they didn’t exist. He said Mrs. Helmsley insisted on them. I told him I would explain their unavailability myself if he wanted me to. He wanted me to. I made an appointment, and I was invited in to her office (lots of gilt furniture, lots of plastic surgery.) She told me they would no longer use me as vendor if I could not deliver Tiptree Little scarlet in portion jars. I told her there was no such item. She said her pantry manager knew of a source. I told her I would give her the next monthly order free if he could produce one jar of the stuff to show me. She called him in. He said he’d have it by the next day.

Of course he didn’t produce it, and I came back with Jim McGilloway, who was then the US broker for Tiptree. He gave her some Tiptree swag, told her I was the most reliable source of all things Tiptree, and generally schmoozed her. Her pantry guy got fired for taking kickbacks shortly after that, and I bought my house on the commisssions I made from Helmsley Hotels. Well, I had Hilton, Sheraton, Trusthouse Forte and a few others as well. Better to say jam and chocolates bought my house.

I used to wander around the hallways of the big hotels in NYC and give the housekeeping people samples of Lindor chocolates. I figured they ate at least a quarter of the ones they carried on the housekeeping carts for turndown service. Best to get them hooked on my chocolates so my orders would be sizable. It worked.

I miss that job. It was tough and fun.

To use a phrase I almost never use -

Mary, you ROCK!