Let's Not Meet By Accident

Hello World,      And so here it is, the middle of October already, and at this rate, it won't be long before it's Christmas, and the whole year will be over before it's even started yet, by golly. Around here, the weather finally turned cold, at long last, and which pretty much came as a surprise to all of us. Not the least of which was all of the bugs still hanging on the outside of stuff - and I don't mind saying, if I had a special winter-time system to get the lowest fares down south, you can believe that I'd be doing a land-office business in travel arrangements right about now, that's for sure. Also going on now, the baseball playoffs are at the point of having a mere 4 teams left, 2 in the American League (Boston and Houston) and 2 in the National League (Los Angeles and Milwaukee) before they finally get down to the World Series on Tuesday. Last year's darling, the Houston Astros, are still in the thick of their series with the Red Sox, so there could be a potential repeat in the playoff picture, especially if the Dodgers beat the Brewers to advance. I guess we'll see what we see. Or as baseball legend Leo Durocher once famously observed, "If I were playing baseball and my mother were rounding third with the run that was going to beat us, I'd trip her up. Oh, I'd pick her up and brush her off, an say, 'Sorry, Mom', - but Mother doesn't make it to third."     Meanwhile in Yonkers, they always want people to know what's going on there, whether they are the longest-standing resident native, or just some schmo who's passing through on the local roads. They very helpfully hang up large and colorful banners on walls, trees, fences, poles, and whatever else is along the roads, to quickly give everyone all the poop as far as "what-when-where" for their festivals, parades, or any other gatherings going on in The City of Gracious Living, as they call it. This is how I know that they had what they referred to as their "Columbus Day Parade" on Sunday, September 30th, right through the middle of town, and I'm sure, a fine time was had by all. On the other hand, I can't help but think that this would have come as a big surprise to Mrs. Columbus, all these centuries ago, since it was almost 2 weeks earlier than his actual birth day, no matter how you slice it. For some reason, that also reminds me that it was also Yonkers on the front page of our local newspaper this week with the arresting headline: [[ Garbage Cans Removed to Reduce Litter ]] I have no reason to doubt that in Yonkers city government, the politicians may actually believe that this idea works, but for all of the rest of us out in the real world, I can promise you that it does not.     In any case, I will not complain about any place with its very own 6 nicknames. Apparently, Yonkers is variously known as:     The Central City     The City of Gracious Living     The City of Seven Hills     City With Vision     The Sixth Borough     The Terrace City Far be it from me to add the garbage cans in there anywhere.     For anyone who believed that things were going much too smoothly around here, and required a heaping helping of chaos, your wishes have been answered.  I was driving home from work last week the same as I do every weekday, in broad daylight, no sort of weather to deal with, or even bad traffic or anything, when suddenly out of the blue - BAM! - here I am, up on the curb, and wondering what went wrong. Apparently I must have nodded off when I was supposed to be driving, ran over the very low curb, up on the parking, and smack into a telephone pole that was located right there in a perfect spot for me to slam right into it. In retrospect, this was a much better scenario than falling asleep at the wheel and driving off into the middle of the road, or a busy intersection, and smashing into cars coming at me from the other direction, and without even thinking about it, I can already say, thanks so much not. Since I was already up on the curb, I stayed where I was and called Bill, who hurried over to rescue me, with something cool to drink and plenty of "cheer-you-uppo" to help me feel better while we waited for the tow truck. It was a sad day for the poor Aveo, all along the passenger side, the side-view mirror broken off, the front fender all scraped, and even the poor wheel off the axle. The airbag had deployed (and a good thing, too!) and I had dark purple bruises all along my arms and chest, that probably would have seemed funny if they didn't hurt so much. It was a pretty discouraging time all around, and we were none too popular on Webster Avenue either, I can tell you that, especially when the flat bed showed up for the car, and carted it off. We did ask the collision place to fix the damage, but they weren't falling for that, and gave it back to us a few days later in the same non-driveable condition. As for myself, I'm going to the doctor next week to hopefully get some extra-special super-duper stay-awake pills to keep me much less of a hazard on the roads, and then come up with a different vehicle to replace the poor unlucky Aveo. At this point, I wouldn't say no to a Sherman tank, thank you very much. Elle

After Schock

Hello World,     Happy October! We're finally getting into that season of the year with crisp, cool days, chilly nights, bright sunshine, and leaves changing colors. Ah, if only you could bottle this, indeed. Now is obviously the time to go pick apples, take a hayride, wander through a corn maze, decorate a pumpkin, or any of the other many and varied seasonal treats that October has to offer, before it gets too cold, and Fall will be just a fleeting memory all too soon. Another thing that happens this time of year is the annual switch-over from The Boys of Summer to the winter sports that carry us through until Spring Training once again. As far as baseball, it's obvious that with the vaunted Yankees winning 100 games this season, they should have won their division, and probably would have, except for the dastardly Red Sox winning 108 games, thanks not. But Da Bombers did squeak into the playoffs anyway, by winning the Wild Card game = unfortunately, the first team they ran into after that was the same old dastardly Red Sox, thank not, and so far, they've had their hands full with them. Oh well, this is why they make them play the games, I guess.     On the gridiron, the NFL started up with the Giants losing their first game, but the Jets won, so it was not all bad. So far, the Giants have yet to right their ship, as it were, and we might be looking at another long and losing season from Big Blue, alas. Meanwhile, Gang Green has an exciting rookie quarterback, who exploded out of college, and really surprised everyone in his first pro game. Of course, in the NFL, it doesn't take long for them to figure things out, and all of us old-timers weren't surprised when the Jets lost their next 3 in a row, in spite of their high-flying phenom. Among the other nearby Big Apple sports franchises, the NBA and NHL are just now moving from their pre-season in to the regular season, so the jury is still out on the Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders, and Devils at this point. Not resting on their laurels, so to speak, the Rangers dumped coach Alain Vigneault at the end of last season, a 34-39-9 disappointment that saw the club miss the playoffs for the first time in 8 years. Vigneault had a respectable 226-147-37 record over 5 seasons in New York, with a .592 winning percentage, only slightly behind legendary coach Emile Francis, so it's safe to say that he was no slouch. Over the summer, Rangers management decided to try David Quinn from Boston University as the new coach, hopefully a good match with the younger players they expect to stock up on for the upcoming campaign. I'm not sure we're supposed to say this, but "unofficially" the team is in a "rebuilding" phase at the moment, having already unloaded a bunch of veteran players (and their salaries) while setting themselves up with younger and cheaper players for the club, as well as fodder for potential trades with other teams around the league to help down the road.  That's the hope, anyway.     In other local sports news, the Mets' third baseman, David Wright, came back from almost 2 full years on Disability, at the very tail-end of the season, so the team could plan a big, rousing send-off for him at the stadium, as he retired after 14 seasons with the Mets. Playing his entire career with one team, unfortunately didn't give him the chance to enjoy winning a World Series, and in many ways, injuries cut short his time to shine.  It turned out to be a lovely day at the park, and everyone had a great time, so it was truly a magical event that people could enjoy, and thank him for all of his years with the franchise.  Overall, he had a career batting average almost .300 since 2004, with 949 runs and 1,777 hits = and let's face it, this on a team that hasn't won the World Series since 1986, of all things.  I know we've all seen Tom Hanks in "A League of Their Own," saying, "There's no crying in baseball," but you can believe me that say that the whole experience was totally awesome, curious, interesting, and excellent all at once.  Crying and all.     Of course, it comes as no surprise to anyone in New York that there is a mandatory annual car inspection, and since I've been driving around here for over 45 years now, I can't pretend to be unaware of it. In fact, even if I was, fortunately, we have the DMV to email us with a reminder, so we certainly can't blame them if we don't get the inspection completed when it's supposed to be. For the Chevy, this would have been in August, but that was right after I came back from vacation, and we all remember the story of the Aveo catching on fire on the highway in July, and after that whole brouhaha, the poor inspection was just an auxiliary victim. Finally there were enough notes, emails, reminders, and assorted whatnot, that even I couldn't keep ignoring it, and I went to the service station to have it taken are of. Not so fast! The very helpful Kumar quickly ascertained that he couldn't renew the inspection, because the diagnostic equipment that they use now had no power where it plugs in at the dashboard, having blown out with everything else during the vacation fire, and once again, thanks so very much not. It was either a good or bad thing that the fuse only affected the inspection equipment and nothing else, so for 2 months, nobody had any reason to see if it was working or not. Luckily it was a simple enough thing to replace the blown fuse, but now it was September, and the car had no history of being driven since the fire in July, and nowadays they can't do an inspection on a car with no history. It was lucky for me that the fuse was replaced on Wednesday, and after going back and forth to work on Thursday and Friday, the plucky little Aveo had built up enough history, so that it passed its inspection on Friday afternoon with flying colors. Honestly, it's always something.  Or as baseball icon Leo Durocher was once quoted, "If I were playing third base and my mother were rounding third with the run that was going to beat us, I'd trip her up.  Oh, I'd pick her up and brush her off, and say, 'Sorry, Mom,' but Mother don't make it to third."  Amen to that! Louisa