Every day is a good day to tell people you love that you love them.
BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: Red asked Black if she had any specific thoughts about Valentine's Day, expecting her to merely refer to our February column, Red & Black … A Year-Round Valentine.
Instead, Black commented that she thought it was most appropriate that Bumble (the dating app that seeks to empower women) went public this week. She started talking about the company, and how the IPO (Initial Public Offering) made Bumble's 31-year-old founder the world's youngest self-made woman billionaire, and then said she'd try to find a general interest link as she had been reading about in business publications.
Red offered some superficial thanks for the information, but was glad that she wasn't on a Zoom call with her sister as she was rolling her eyes, realizing she never should have asked her "all-business", non-emotional sister about Valentine's Day. And how she should've just sent these Valentine's Day wishes on her own:
To everyone -- couples (whether married, in serious relationships, or just starting out), parents and children, friends, really anyone who celebrates Valentine's Day – here's wishing you a wonderful day filled with love, friendship, and happiness. And don't forget that even after you're done celebrating Valentine's Day, it's still nice to tell the people you love that you, well, love them!
Labor Day celebrates the American worker. However you may celebrate, we wish you a Happy Labor Day!
Quick! If someone says "Julius Caesar," what comes to mind?
Almost everyone has heard of Julius Caesar, but how many of us really know much about him, or at least that's what Red starts to wonder when she receives the usual flippant, but still accurate, reply from her sister, after feeling very proud that she knew that July was named after the famous Roman.
Which is what got Red to realize, much to her surprise (shock, if truth be told), that even as a straight-A student with a love of history, that when it came to Julius Caesar, a famous historical figure and possibly one of the greatest generals and statesmen of all time, she couldn't tell you dates or battles or anything "historical" associated with him.
Even as a theater major in college, she never read Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," although she knew just enough about the play to know that it was where the fortune teller warned Caesar to "Beware the Ides of March." Instead, her knowledge of Caesar came from her love of movies.
My first, and probably my most enduring, memory is of a brilliant general who not only commanded armies as he conquered lands far from home but was a great statesman who was also involved with one of the world's most beautiful women. And while he was Julius Caesar and the woman was Cleopatra, to me, they'll always be Rex Harrison and Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, a movie almost as controversial as the general himself.
And Black? Besides knowing that Caesar Salad was invented by a different Caesar, she appreciates Julius Caesar's leadership skills and way with words,
There is much we can learn about leadership from Julius Caesar, whether on the battlefield, in politics, or in business (start small, take risks, communicate well), including what ultimately led to his death (always consider worst-case scenarios, never get complacent or arrogant). Many of his quotes speak (pun intended) to his powerful way with words, and the ability to not only deliver a message but to inspire (and story tell), with my favorite being, "I came, I saw, I conquered."
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