A Ross Geiger Flyby
Children make you want to start life all over.
Muhammad Ali
One of the realities of being an empty-nesting parent is coming to terms with barren bedrooms and the disappearance of potato chips from the pantry. Another matter is trying to temper your enthusiasm when one of your kids returns home for a visit. Such is the case this week, as The Red Headed Kid graces his parents with a weeklong business-related flyby. How else to explain to The Pretty Blonde why, on the day he arrived, I laid waste to our diets by buying four different quarts of ice cream.
Ross Geiger is a month shy of 26 years old…TWENTY-FREAKING SIX! He’s not a kid anymore, and I’m reminded of that non-alternative fact by more than just the scratch pad of crimson stubble on his face. It starts when I ask him how his job is going at Boston-based Catalant Technologies (www.gocatalant.com), a four-year old startup formerly known as HourlyNerd. “They’re flying me to Cincinnati next week,” he says of the company that is turning the management consulting industry upside down, “and after that I’m going to Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Schenectady.” As the primary account liaison between Catalant and its largest customer, General Electric, Ross is racking up enough frequent flier miles to fly his parents gratis to Boston. Or Bali.
Speaking of Boston, if home is where the heart is, then so too is the mortgage. Ross loves Boston, so much so that last summer he decided to put his money where his heart is, in this case buying a pied-à-terre in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. It helps to be young and have fresh legs when you live in an apartment on the fifth-floor of a five-story walkup (the building is 150+-years-old, give or take a revolution), but youth is not wasted when you’re cooling your summertime heels with your buddies on your private roof deck, sipping IPA’s high above Beantown.
And while we’re on the topic of buddies and roof decks…
On a warm evening in late-September, while dressed in their best t-shirts and sweats, Ross and Miss Gal Pal, his girlfriend of two years who is pursuing a PhD at Harvard, finished their workouts and relaxed on the deck, enjoying the amazing view and a cheap bottle of wine. At one point Ross got down on one knee, pulled out a ring that he bought online (such a millennial thing to do), and proposed. Miss Gal Pal, who also goes by the name of Caroline Kelley, happily accepted her promotion to fiancé, giving proof that Ross is nothing if not an excellent salesman.
The wedding is scheduled for this summer in Providence, RI.
As for the status of Ross’ flyby visit to Moraga, we’re down to our last three quarts of ice cream.