Oh Catherine! Our Catherine! An ARVO salute to you, dawg
You think you know Catherine. You think you’ve got her all figured out, but you have no idea.
The mystery starts with her name: Catherine Nettleton. Or is it Catherine Ellinwood?
One’s her maiden name, the other her married, that much we know. But which one’s which? Ellinwood and Nettleton? Nettleton and Ellinwood? Besides sounding like competing country clubs in Chappaqua or the WASPY alternative to injury attorneys Cellino & Barnes, they’re pretty much the same exact name, you know?
Like if Malozzi changed his to John Kardasheroni.
Miss Crane (now Mrs. Marr) changed hers to Camilla Rainbows Happy Smiles and Sunshine.
And Tom Li legally (and rightfully) became Tom Free Conference Room Cookies.
Then there’s Catherine’s style: straight up J. Crew with a Burberry check chaser. And just a dash of hip-hop behind the pearls.
Need a perky Anne Hathaway type to play the main character’s preppy best friend? Call Catherine.
Shooting a Nantucket Tourism ad featuring white chicks walking Golden Retrievers down the beach? Catherine. Definitely, Catherine.
Casting a Catholic schoolgirl coming of age road trip? Catherine’s at the ready with her burgundy Saab, pleated skirts and bottle of Chivas lifted from her parent’s liquor cabinet. But just when you expect Dave Matthews and Coldplay to stink up the soundtrack, Catherine switches up her Ray Ban aviators for Roc-A-Wear wraparounds and the sorority rock for old school Tupac and Biggie. Don’t even think about flipping the dial over to Vanilla Ice, Matt Huss. Feel me, player?
Catherine’s diet’s the next head scratcher.
You look at Catherine and you think, she’s one of those make your own salad types. Chop’t…Toss’d…Sweetgreens…Whole Foods…you know, healthy joints that smell like beets where Holmfridur, P. Diddy and Sam got their rabbit pellets.
Instead she eats like a truck driver. The more diner food the better. While Beth and Doug were playing footsie at the back table of Lenny’s on Second Ave, Catherine was at the counter ordering The Big Daddy – grilled steak, avocado, melted mozzarella, grilled onions, roasted red peppers, vinegar and oil on a hoagie roll. Jim would’ve gained 20 pounds just looking at her sandwich.
Think Catherine’s a pushover, right? The account director you can dodge on deadline day?
Catherine didn’t care if it was 7pm on a summer Friday night. If she found a typo on page 184, get comfortable, because your ass wasn’t going to ARVO.
You’d think someone who specialized in acronyms – USAA, CFA, AXALTA, CECP – and traveling to exotic client destinations like Charlottesville, San Antonio and Wilmington, DE would lose her shit on the regular.
The closest you ever saw Catherine come to spiraling was when Soul Cycle canceled her morning spin class.
“I mean, like, seriously, WTF!? For realz.”
White girl with flavor. Girl next door. Girl from page 14 of the Vineyard Vines catalogue. Wannabe b-girl. Girl with the iron gut. Nice girl who took zero shit with a smile. Girl who put sucka MCs down in their place.
Everybody at FutureBrand loved Catherine. And Catherine loved everybody. Well, some days maybe Darren not so much.
Whether you grew up with Catherine, went to school with Catherine, or like us, had the pleasure of working with Catherine, you looked at her and thought, I want that life. Forecast calls for blue skies and lawn darts. Turn up the Tupac and pour a fresh pitcher of Mint Juleps. Sure looks like smooth sailing on the USS Catherine from here.
You’re hearing a lot about resilience in this new world of ours. You will need it more than toilet paper and Netflix to survive, both the minute-to-minute meltdowns and the big picture seismic shifts ahead. But it’s a learned skill. A skill you lean on because you have no other option. The best way to learn it is by emulating someone who’s gone through it before—and transformed themselves along the journey.
The best person to learn it from, hands down, is Catherine.
Yes, from a Facebook distance, Catherine appears to have it all. Great family. Great house in Westchester. Great collection of tartan scarves and Sasha Fierce dance breaks. But in the last few years, the woman has gone through—and continues to battle—a raging river of shit with her head held high and her pair of floral Tory Burch loafers paddling forward. All with class, dignity, humanity, grace and gratitude.
When I finally turned the corner on my own swim upstream, it was by following Catherine’s lead. By emulating her actions. By telling myself over and over, be more like Catherine. Calling Catherine an inspiration isn’t enough. That’s why I call her a hero.
So fellow pilgrims, let’s whoop it up quarantine style. Put on your preppiest sweater, stand up on your desks Dead Poets Society style and raise a glass to the incomparable, irrefutable, undeniable, Notorious CAT(herine).
Just double-checked. Catherine’s last name is indeed Nettleton. Or is it Nettlewood?