Flying Solo

Hello World,

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that your holiday was pilgrim-perfect in every way, from Tom Turkey (or Harry Ham, if that's your preference, or like us, Larry Lasagna) all the way to pumpkin pie with the whipped topping of your choice, and back again. Anyone who watched the venerable Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV could see that we were having a nice enough day in the local area, where it was partly sunny and cool, without being too cold or too warm for people marching, and best of all, not too windy for the balloons in the parade. There were the usual favorites, along with some new additions, and it seemed that everything came off without a hitch and a fine time was had by all. I suppose one thing that we should all remember to be thankful for, while we're taking a moment to count our many blessings, is that there is no such thing as the Giant Balloon Union that keeps the balloons from having to work on a holiday, and a good thing, too.

Since Bill and I met on Thanksgiving in 1982, we exchange presents for the occasion, and this is always my favorite way to start any day. Among other gifts of apparel and entertainment, I was surprised to get a new digital camera, the Fuji FinePix S700, which is basically the newer version of the FinePix 3800 that we have already had for many years. I felt that my 3800 was getting sluggish and worn out in its old age (Fuji probably released the model originally in 2000) and had previously been returned to Fuji for repairs once already, so we certainly got our money's worth out of it. As much as I like it, and use it all the time, it was going through batteries at a tremendous rate, and having other problems and glitches. But it had turned into a discouraging prospect looking for a different camera, since the ones I looked at were either way too expensive, or they lacked the features I had gotten used to, or the picture quality was questionable. I had pretty much given up on the idea of getting myself a new camera, but Bill found a couple of refurbished S700's at a good price, and got one for each of us, and it would have just about everything we would be looking for, as well as the added advantage that we're already familiar with the FinePix functionality. Being newer (although not the newest camera that Fuji makes) it has better specifications and many more features, such as a 10x optical zoom and 7.1 megapixels, plus it can use either SD or XD memory cards, Although it can do more things than my older camera, it's still similar enough that I could start using it right out of the box, even making an impromptu video of the cats with no trouble. So that was an unexpected treat for Thanksgiving, and I don't mind saying that I have the pictures to prove it, and not to mention, videos.

It turned out to be a good thing that we had presents to console us, because this was one holiday where it seemed that we were unwanted by everyone, and no one invited us to their Thanksgiving table to share in the festivities, which represents a new low in seasonal unpopularity, even for us. Fortunately, there's still family, and they can't turn you away, in spite of how much they may want to, I'm pretty sure there's some kind of law about that, and The Holiday Police are on the job to make sure that no one gets left out in the cold. So what we did instead was invite ourselves to enjoy Thanksgiving in two different places, on two different days, and in opposite directions, because we weren't going to let a lack of popularity stand in the way of climbing aboard that cornucopia bandwagon, just like the rest of the country, by golly. All week long at work and at church, people kept asking me if I was going to be cooking for Thanksgiving. Oh no, I assured them, Bill and I are what could be described as "professional guests," whether at various eateries, or with family and friends, because the reverse idea of us playing host, could only be considered a public health menace of the most catastrophic sort, believe me.

And so it came to pass that after presents on Thursday morning, we hit the road for Long Island, and even though it was after 11:00 AM, we were surprised that there was very little traffic all the way there. Our plan was to take my sister to the diner for lunch, and bring back some special goodies for Mom afterward. Bill and I went the non-traditional route with our menu selections, including mozzarella sticks and curly fries, but Diane took the opportunity to give a thematic nod to the holiday, and chose turkey chili and butternut squash soup. We also found the diner had added a new meal for the season, which they called the Pilgrim Wrap, and included turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce wrapped in a tortilla, along with sweet potato fries, which is sort of like a "grab and go" version of the Thanksgiving dinner all in one handy spot. We brought that home for Mom, and it was a big hit with her, without even a crumb left over to share with any Pilgrim mice that might have showed up, so it was a good thing they didn't.

Because we have no Rite Aid or Walgreens drug stores by us up here, we thought this would be a good opportunity to go looking for some things we needed there, and so we drove around to just about every Rite Aid and Walgreens in Nassau County for several hours, with what the sports broadcasters refer to nowadays as "good success." After that, we set up the television converter boxes on two TV sets, which you can do now ahead of time to make sure it's working before the digital switch-over in February (for anyone who doesn't have a cable or satellite provider) and were pleased with those results as well. So we got some things accomplished, and even though we left for home later than we wanted to, we still didn't run into any traffic on the way home either.

The next day is known far and wide as Black Friday, but not because it's such a horrible day for crazed customers getting up in the middle of the night to wait on lines at retail giants that open at 4AM, and mobs of people fighting over the latest toys and gadgets in a mad frenzy of consumerism run amok, although that would seem like a perfectly normal reason for the appellation. It's called that for the stores that have been operating at a deficit during the year, and this annual surge of holiday commerce is enough to bring their financial situation out from the red ink of deficits into the black ink of profits, so they can hopefully end the year with a more positive bottom line. What they should do is call it "Into The Black Friday" instead, so that it doesn't sound so sinister or sad, because it's really a good thing for businesses, although not perhaps so much for the beleaguered employees who have to work those crazy hours. We both had Friday off, but we were up early anyway so we could get going to our next destination, which was my other sister's log cabin in upstate New York around New Paltz. We knew that she was making pancakes and cinnamon buns for brunch, so we didn't want to be late for that, and here again, the traffic was certainly cooperating on that score, in spite of the fact that our GPS device had us driving past malls and retail outlets where we would have expected backups. We dove into our brunch options with gusto, and then went to the nearby reservoir to hike around and walk off some of that maple syrup and hot apple cider. We brought binoculars to look for the resident bald eagles, but didn't see any (we figured they were off shopping at the outlet centers, like everyone else) but did rescue two woolly caterpillars from getting stepped on along the pedestrian trail. After we got back to the cabin, Bill put on his technical help desk hat and solved some problems with my sister's computers, and while it couldn't be said that we sang for our supper, I guess you could say that we earned our keep in other ways. My sister made both lasagna and baked ziti for dinner, and followed that up with two kinds of brownies (with ice cream), pumpkin pie, chocolate turkeys and a cranberry nut cake that was tasty and unusual. By the time we left, we thought we were going to explode, and once again, we got home tired but happy and without any traffic to speak of along the way. And for two people with no invitations for the holiday, things certainly worked out better than we had any reason to expect.

This year, I did something unusual on Wednesday night, and attended the Thanksgiving Eve service at church, mainly because our Music Director is retiring at the end of the year, and I didn't want to miss a chance to be there while she's still with us. She had asked me to sing the offering anthem, since there would be no choir at the service, and I found out later, she sent out an email to all of the members that I would be singing "My Faith Looks Up To Thee" as a solo after the sermon. This turned out not to be a big selling point apparently, because people stayed away in droves, with only 7 people showing up for worship, of which half of those were the Pastor's family. In retrospect, I realized that it was just as well, because otherwise I probably would have been too nervous and uncomfortable about singing by myself in front of a crowd, even such an undemanding audience as a bunch of little old ladies from church. In fact, I was nervous anyway, even though as one of my favorite hymns, I know it by heart and have sung it countless times in my life without hesitation. The best that can be said about it is that I managed to get through it in one piece with all of the right words, and the listeners were polite in their appreciation of my efforts. But it's obvious that any fantasies of launching my solo career would be dashed on the rocky shoals of performance anxiety for me, so this would be an idea whose time has not yet come, and probably never would come, which should have the effect of making the world a quieter place, by at least one soprano anyway.

Meanwhile, and though everyone knows that I hate to be an alarmist, I should point out that the first Sunday in Advent is this weekend on November 30, so that tells you something right there. (Unless you happen to be one of the numerous KGB agents monitoring my email on behalf of the godless Communists, and heaven knows their name is legion, in which case, I should explain that there are four Sundays in Advent leading up to Christmas on December 25, and this Sunday will be the first one in the season.) And the very next day on Monday is December 1st, believe that or don't, so we won't even have November to hide behind after that, and we'll be looking December smack in the face and with both barrels besides. So for anyone like myself, who may be woefully under-prepared for the upcoming gift-giving occasions, this would be as good a time as any to start singing the blues. You're welcome to invite me over to do a solo, but it goes without saying that there couldn't be more than 7 people.

Self Portrait

Hello World,

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that it's already more than halfway past November (and I don't mind saying, with nothing to show for it) and not to be an alarmist or anything, but Thanksgiving is next week. You don't dare try to buy any Thanksgiving decorations or anything, because right this minute, the stores are so full of candy canes and holly garland, that it would make your head spin. They've been giving those poor Pilgrims the bum's rush for two weeks now, and their holiday hasn't even gotten here yet. It's a lucky thing for all of us that they were made of sterner stuff and descended from robust pioneer stock, because they wouldn't stand a chance nowadays against the ho-ho-ho onslaught of the commercial juggernaut known as Christmas, and we'd all be living in teepees and wearing buckskin, with only our casinos to keep us warm. But things turned out way differently, which may or may not be an improvement, but I suppose we'll never know. That reminds me of a song I heard recently, which goes in part, "Life is a lemon, and I want my money back," and I think that's a sentiment that we can all relate to, and the Native Americans, it goes without saying.

Things certainly haven't settled down in the gasoline business since our last update, that's for sure. In fact, Bill said there were reports of stations selling gas for under $2.00/gallon in New Jersey, even now. It would appear that the prices have not bottomed out yet, as hard as that might be to believe, after being in the $4.00 range just a few months ago. Last Friday, the Sunoco station down the block was selling regular at $2.51, which I thought was astounding at the time, and yet just in the last week, it continued to fall until it reached $2.35 yesterday. Of course, everyone knows that I'm always ready to do my civic-minded part for the wider good of the community, so this morning, I drove out of my way to the Exxon station and filled up the Escort there at $2.34 for regular, and felt like John D. Rockefeller his own self. Mind you, I did that as a favor to the rest of humanity, so the price would come down even more, which it always seems to do after I get gas. Luckily, I was expecting that to happen, so it came as no surprise when I drove past the Sunoco station on my way home and saw that the price had changed to $2.29 since yesterday. Adding insult to injury, when Bill and I drove past the very same Exxon station on our way to the diner after work, they had also reduced their price to $2.29 just since 9:00 this morning! Well, I guess that counts as my good deed of the day, and we all know that virtue is its own reward, so now everyone else can benefit from the gas prices going down even further, since I already got gas. You're welcome.

The company where Bill works was closed on Tuesday for Veteran's Day, so I took the day off also, and a lovely day it was, too. I took the opportunity to run some errands, some of which turned into those kinds of wild goose chases that you can only console yourself with the thought that you're going to look back on this and laugh someday, but not yet, no thank you so very much. On the other hand, Bill stayed at home and did his civic-minded part for the wider good of the community, by raking all of the leaves out of the front yard, and did a masterful job at it. It turned out to be a nice day for raking, and the piles of leaves at the curb were a colorful testament to all of his hard work, while I was out busy chasing down those wild geese. Then on Saturday, we had a violent storm, with heavy rains and high winds, which had the effect of blanketing our yard with leaves from every tree on our property, as well as other leaves that I've never seen before in my life and have no idea where they came from. In fact, when I went to church on Sunday, it was so thick with leaves that you couldn't even see the front steps, or tell where the grass stopped and the sidewalk began. After I got home, I figured I should at least sweep the steps and the front walk, so the mailman could see where he was going, and not tumble off the porch into oblivion, or worse. (Our rampant mutant alien poison ivy is only in hibernation in the winter, and is not to be trusted, believe me.) Since Bill had just swept the steps on Tuesday, and it had been fairly chilly since then, you can imagine my surprise when my broom pushed over a pile of wet leaves and uncovered one of those tan garden-type snakes, and a good sized one at that. These used to be a more common visitor in our yard for years, especially the smaller ones, and I would regularly turn them up when I was working in the garden. But I hadn't seen any in the last few years, and I certainly wasn't expecting to find this one on the front steps, where it had somehow climbed up and made itself at home, just since Tuesday and in the cold besides. In fact, it shared many characteristics reminiscent of our rampant mutant alien poison ivy, which I don't mind saying, is a disquieting idea that does not bear thinking about.

Speaking of wildlife of the wild and woolly variety, we get the following true life adventure from Bill, a/k/a The Great White Hunter (And Gatherer) of the Queen City, from balmier days of the recent past:

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I wanted to remember to tell you the end of the wasp story finally. Since you do it yourself, you know there's a whole procedure you have to go through for this catch-and-release thing. I have to assemble my glass (one of the clear purple plastic ones from home) and my paper plate with one edge cut off (so I have a flat surface to slide under the glass.) I keep these on the table right behind me, so that's not a big deal. Then I have to go unlock and unbolt the door and open it a little so when I go over there with one hand on the glass and one hand holding the plate under it, I don't have to grow a third hand to turn the doorknob. So I do all that. Then I have to chase the wasp. And he's all over the top windows, which I can't reach. I try standing on the foot rail of my chair (which tends to tilt and is not so hot, considering how balance-challenged I am), so he moves to the other window, where my chair isn't. Finally I break down and get out the step ladder. I pull it over to the other window, in front of the big printer and he goes back to the window over the chair. I go to the window with the chair and this time I get up on the chair and actually kneel on the seat -- which is MUCH more balance-intensive. I reach up for him with my glass and paper plate -- and he flies out the door. The rest of the time was spent putting away the ladder and re-locking the door (and not a little time was spent trying to get down off the chair safely!) So I hope he's happy with his new-found freedom. (It was pretty funny as I wobbled on the chair and watched him go!)
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Well, the wasp may have had the last laugh on that one, but I'd bet that Marlin Perkins himself couldn't have done a better job with a paper plate. Meanwhile, our local newspaper ran a story about a local farm where people could buy fresh eggs and milk, and which they claimed was famous for their "hardy" breakfast. Oh, har-dee-har-har perhaps, but it certainly doesn't sound that appetizing to me, I can tell you that. Although I wouldn't have the heart to call it "hardly" breakfast, I'd be hard-pressed to give it a hearty endorsement, and that's the hard-hearted truth of the matter. Then there was another story about these women who devised what they described as "self-filling" juice bags, and I couldn't help but say to Bill, "I hope not!" Like the rampant mutant alien garden snakes, the idea of juice filling up bags by itself is not one that I find particularly appealing. It turns out that what they meant was that you can fill the bag with the juice of your choice "yourself," making you the "self" part of that "self-filling" description, which utterly defeats the purpose of calling it a "self" anything in the first place. Of course, this has become a common misinterpretation of the term, where a "self-opening" door is one that you open yourself by pressing a button, and anyone who has one, can tell you that a self-propelled vacuum or lawnmower will basically just stand in one place until you push it yourself. Ah, for those halcyon days of yore, when something that was self-winding or self-regulating really did that all by itself, not by "yourself" instead. We should have realized what we were in for when phrases like "self-serve" and "self-addressed" started to come into vogue, with their "do it yourself" sense, instead of the accepted understanding of something that would happen by itself without human intervention. Of course, nowadays anything goes, heaven knows, and there are no standards anymore, and more's the pity, I'm sure. In fact, in a lot of ways, this could be considered a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I'm afraid you would have to do that yourself.

Pool Party

Hello World,

Well, it certainly does seem to be the case nowadays that when you look around, there's a decided paucity of good news to be had, no matter how hard you look, and there's just no denying it. But I invite anyone who's feeling down in the dumps to come on over here to our fair city now and again, and drive past the Sunoco station by our house, and I expect that would put the spring back in your step and make you realize that life is worth living again. The price of regular at this station doesn't just creep down in tiny increments when no one is watching, it goes by bunches, one day after another, so every day is a new and joyous revelation, and really gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. From the time it first went below $3/gallon for regular, it's been a virtual free-fall since then and -- dare I say it? -- no end in sight. It seems like every time I go past it, I find myself saying things like, "Look at that, it's $2.89, that's 4 cents lower than Thursday." Then it'll be, "Holy smoke, $2.71, and that's just since yesterday, when it came down to $2.75." This week alone, I watched it go from $2.59 to $2.55 to $2.51 and today it's $2.48. I tell you, there's nothing like a whole lot of $4 gasoline to make you really appreciate $2.48, and that's a plain fact. So if that's not reason enough to give us all hope for the future, I don't know what it would take, because I'm just about ready to break out the champagne and fireworks here.

Speaking of fireworks, last week I got a phone call from one of the executive secretaries at our sister institution in Mount Vernon, who I don't mind saying, is the veriest soul of patience, and often under the most difficult conditions. At this particular time, she must have been having an extremely bad day, and finally in her frustration, she found herself yelling at me, not because of anything I had done, but just because she couldn't take it anymore, and I could certainly understand why. A few days later when I needed to speak to her, I found out that she was out of the office temporarily for a dentist appointment. I spoke to her later after she got back and I said, "I called you earlier, but they said you had gone to the dentist to have your teeth filed down into points, so that when you bite someone, it really makes an impression they won't forget, not like when you used to bite them and they didn't care." She laughed.

And what may be new and exciting in the local hotel scene, you may be wondering, and well may you wonder. I'm glad you asked, because last weekend, we availed ourselves of some local lodging, along with our friends from upstate, and I am happy to report that all's well that ends well. Of course, this wasn't exactly a new and exciting hotel experience for us, because we went back to the Renaissance Hotel in West Harrison by popular demand, where we have stayed several times already. I said to Bill that one of the problems with staying in different hotels in different places, as we have been doing for a while, is that you get exposed to a wider range of amenities, decor and discounts, so that a place that you once thought was the cream of the crop, suddenly starts to suffer by comparison. The Renaissance is a lovely hotel with many fine features, but it is very expensive, and the rooms are rather ordinary. But we always have fun with our friends, so we were looking forward to getting a jump on the frivolity, bright and early on Saturday morning.

Not so fast! Our friends decided that later was better than earlier, and rather than meeting for brunch in White Plains as usual, they would meet us at the hotel at 3:00 PM when we could check in and go directly to our rooms. This left me and Bill sort of at loose ends on Saturday, since it would only take us 20 minutes to get to the hotel, and we had no other plans for the time before that. The idea of doing our regular Saturday chores, which has little enough appeal at the best of times, was beyond even considering, on what was supposed to be a sort of holiday for us. Since Daffy Duck was nowhere in evidence, I found myself saying, "Why don't we go have breakfast at IHOP, since I'm still trying to have some nice pancakes, after those horrible ones at the diner in Bristol?" So we got dressed, climbed into the car and drove to the local IHOP in Larchmont, where we were lucky to find a parking space all the way in the back of the lot, and people lined up outside with beepers, waiting for tables. We didn't want to get at the end of that line, so we headed back toward home, and decided that they would probably have pretty good pancakes at our local diner, where we eat on Friday nights. Apparently, you can't get into the place on Saturday morning, and one look at the parking lot was all it took for us to give up on that idea and keep going, and I don't mind saying, no thank you, Daffy Duck. In the end, we decided to go to the supermarket and get a package of Entenmann's Ultimate Cinnamon Buns, which you can heat up in the microwave and they come out sort of like Cinnabons, which we love, but have none near us. So that was a somewhat inauspicious start to the day, but we salvaged what we could of it, and then got packed up and ready to go.

I'm not sure if the reservation staff remembered us from last time and feared for the consequences, or if it's just their interpretation that a request for "three rooms near each other" means to them simply "on the same floor" is good enough, because it turned out that our rooms were certainly not too close for comfort, and that's putting it mildly. Of course, I realize that it's hard for a large hotel chain to organize all of the various logistics, and still somehow manage to always put us in the room right next to the elevator, ice dispenser or vending machines, no matter where we stay. After we got settled and unpacked and took pictures, it was just about time to decide about dinner. Because there were signs all over the lobby, we already knew that the hotel was playing host to a welter of bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs and a wedding, and a plan to dress up and wander from one to another for the free food was only narrowly defeated in a spirited vote. (Some of us pointed out that in addition to free food, we would most likely be given goodie bags full of party favors, which you certainly can't get at a restaurant, but even this gambit failed to turn the tide.) On a previous visit, we had eaten in the hotel's pub, which was nice enough as a novelty, but didn't have as much appeal the second time around for us. And once again, since Daffy Duck didn't show up, we set out in two cars with our trusty GPS devices at the ready, on our way to a nearby Pizzeria Uno, or know the reason why.

The city of White Plains does everything in its power to prevent people from getting to their destination, and they threw everything they could at us, but we eventually got to the restaurant in spite of all the obstacles. I will say that I had a wonderful tropical fruit smoothie and enjoyed it immensely, but Bill's drink was awful and our meal was almost ludicrously bad, which I wouldn't have expected when ordering a pizza in a chain famous for their pizzas. When we got back to the hotel, our friends invited us down the hall to their room, where they threw a surprise birthday party for Bill, which surprised me, although Bill didn't seem all that surprised. There were party hats and streamers, brownies and cookies, cocoa and coffee, even a decorative candle that played Happy Birthday! Adding a sort of surreal touch to the proceedings was the hotel plumber, who came to fix the toilet, and was there so long that we finally had no choice but to offer him some brownies and a drink, although he declined the party hat. As if this wasn't enough fun for one day, after that we made our way to the hotel pool, which is handily open until 11:00 PM, and features a variety of pool toys, including foam noodles, kick boards and inflatable balls. At that time of night, we pretty much had the place to ourselves and we splashed around to our heart's content, and then relaxed in the Jacuzzi afterward. By then, it was bed time, so we tramped back to our rooms and turned in.

Some of us were up at 7:30 and went hiking on the trail that runs behind the hotel, and a lovely brisk morning it was for that. When we finished and came back, it was still too early for breakfast, so my hiking companion said that she would keep me company while I walked around the hotel grounds taking pictures. Not wanting to seem unfriendly, I agreed to the idea, and found that no matter where I stood, or what I wanted to take a picture of, my friend was almost invariably in the way every time. Her blue plaid jacket is in so many of my pictures that you would think it was a paid promotional message from the American Wool Council. After that, we all headed to the dining area for what we remembered as the sumptuous breakfast buffet that was the highlight of former stays. But even here, we found it had been scaled back so that it was still nice enough, but not the epicurean ecstasy of revered memory. We enjoyed it anyway, and tried not to be disappointed, but it was another one of those small matters that seemed to change our impressions of the hotel compared to other places we had stayed. We decided against going in the pool again, so we had time to relax a bit after breakfast, before it became time to pack up and check out.

The ostensible purpose for the trip was to peruse the Christmas display at Fortunoff's in White Plains, so we set off for there in what has become an annual ritual to kick off the holiday season for us. The displays are not as elaborate as they once were, but the store always manages to fill the department with new and interesting seasonal merchandise of every description, and some of which, utterly defies description. There's so much to see, and so many aisles, that after a while, you can't tell where you've been or where you're going. No matter where you are standing, at least half of everything plays music, and it doesn't take long before you're so full of jingle bells, snowmen, reindeers and chestnuts roasting, that you're about to go out of your fa-la-la-la-la-la mind. I will admit to being in a merry little holly jolly stupor, but anyone who thinks I would pass up salt and pepper shakers that look like ribbon candy doesn't know me very well, and we can't count on Daffy Duck, that's for sure. Our friends also found some things to their liking, so it was another successful occasion where fun meets commerce, and everyone comes out a winner.

Because we had been there before, we knew that Whole Foods (a chain of organic supermarkets) downstairs would have a cozy seating area with tables and chairs where we could have some snacks and relax before our friends had to hit the road. The store has everything under the sun, and they also have a deli section and vast salad bar where you can buy food already prepared and ready to eat. So we picked out an assortment of drinks and goodies, and settled down to enjoy ourselves after our retail exertions. One disadvantage of eating there is that everything is natural and organic, and unless it's something that you're already familiar with, might turn out to be just so much leaves and bark as to be totally inedible. That's what happened with my drink, which as fruit drinks go, was certainly no Hawaiian Punch, and was so horrible tasting that I figured it must be so healthy for you that it should only be sold by prescription. Finally our friends had to leave for that long ride home, so we got them back in their cars and sent them off in the direction of the highway. Since we were there, and usually aren't, we took advantage of the opportunity to go back inside the store to do some shopping for groceries, and picked up some frozen dinners that we like that our local stores often don't carry. After that, it was a quick drive home, and still early enough so that we weren't going home in the dark. Someday, we're going to go away and not have to make 10 trips to unpack the car when we get back, but not this time. The cats greeted our return with the bored disdain that is their trademark, which serves the purpose of keeping us humble, heaven knows. It turned out to be a long and eventful weekend, but it's always fun to get together with our friends and stay at a nice hotel, which has many therapeutic benefits that are a tonic for world-weary souls. In fact, I can highly recommend it to anyone, and if you go, please save me a spot in the pool!

Time For A Change

Hello World,

Well, Bob Dylan wasn't just whistling Dixie when he said, "You've got a lot of nerve, to say you are my friend." No wait a minute, that can't be right. What I meant to say was from that classic protest song, "The times, they are a-changing." They are a-changing indeed, my friends, and it seems that our two choices in the matter are to like it or lump it. It certainly turned into an eventful week full of news, notoriety and nuisances, and some of them, all at once. Obviously, there were the elections on Tuesday, when all good citizens could get out there and exercise their French fries, which is a bad pun that probably hasn't been heard since high school Civics classes back in the Stone Age, and I ought to know. I thought that the presidential election was closer than I would have expected, with the popular vote at 64,651,436 to 56,910,716, while the real difference was in the electoral votes at 364 to 162. I was gratified to see that Ralph Nader, that perennial presidential hopeful, got over 667,000 votes, and deserves credit for longevity and persistence, if nothing else. The candidate I voted for was probably glad to have me, because without my vote, he would have only gotten 494,189 instead, so I'm happy to have made a positive difference in his results. Apparently, you can also go to the polls and vote for "None of These Candidates," which some 6,251 Americans did this year, making it a more popular choice than the bottom 13 of the real candidates, who all got fewer votes than that. If I'm one of these 13 candidates, I might want to rethink my campaign strategy, after coming in even below Nobody, that's gotta hurt.

The week also saw the end of the Tampa Bay Rays improbable season, as they couldn't prevent the dratted Phillies from winning their first World Series in ages, although we should all be prepared to take the moral high road and allow their beleaguered fans to enjoy their moment of glory in the spotlight after all this time. You go first. I'm sure I'll catch up later, and if not, start without me. I'm sure there's plenty to do with your spare time up there on that moral high road. You bet.

Speaking of time, unlike other people in the modern world, those of us shackled with Windows 2000NT at the workplace have been living in two time zones for the past three weeks, as the operating system was programmed to change the system time automatically to account for the switch-over back to Standard Time, when it was originally scheduled early in October, not the beginning of November. So my computer at work had already decided on its own to "fall back" several weeks ago, which was distracting at the best of times, and other times, downright confusing. I don't mind saying that I'm usually confused enough at work as it is, so this added a new and thoroughly unwelcome element into the equation that I had not bargained for. I kept waiting for Rod Serling to show up and announce, "These people don't know it ..... " and explain that we had just entered "The Hospital Zone," where time and space take on a life of their own, apart from the real world, and certainly not an improvement in any way, I can tell you that. So I would have to say that it came as a relief last weekend, when the official reckoning actually changed back over to Standard Time, and my work computer could finally catch up with the rest of humanity at long last.

It was a wonder to me that so many millions of people went out to vote, what with all the horror stories floating around everywhere. I heard from a co-worker who went to vote at 6:30 AM before dropping off her son at school, and she said the lines were so long that she had to leave, or she would be late for work. Her mother was working at the polls, and said that people had already lined up before they even opened the doors in the morning. Other early birds that I spoke to reported huge crowds of people, with long waits, and lots of problems finding the correct information for so many newly-registered first-time voters. When the registration could not be verified, they were given paper ballots instead as a backup, with the disadvantages of being even more time-consuming and unwieldy. I also heard reports of the new computerized voting machines to replace the standard lever models, which reputedly require 15 minutes per person, and are only available for handicapped voters at this time, which is probably just as well. On Wednesday, the local newspaper had front page stories and pictures of long lines and mobs in Washington DC and Boston, in spite of millions of voters who took advantage of the opportunities in states that allowed early voting. I admit that I was concerned that this voting ritual was going to turn into more of an investment in time than I would have preferred. I didn't want to go at lunch time, so I raced out of work at 4:57 PM and dashed over to the elementary school, where I found practically no cars in the parking lot, and started to worry that they had changed my polling place on me and I hadn't paid attention to the notice. But when I got inside, the greeter directed me to the auditorium as usual, and there was not a soul in the place, it was practically spooky. The nice poll workers would have been happy for me to stay and chitchat about old movies with them, but I felt like someone who had just dodged a bullet, or gotten a reprieve from the governor, and I couldn't get out of there fast enough. It may have gotten busy again later, but I really lucked out, and I don't mind saying, glad of it.

Speaking of the election, the local brouhaha was about a notice mailed to all registered voters from the Board of Elections headquarters in White Plains to explain about a new ballot marking device that would be available at the polling place for use by any "differently-abled" voters with special needs. They went to all the trouble to print this on a large piece of card stock, with English on one side and Spanish on the other, and mail them out in plenty of time before the election. Unfortunately, what they failed to do was proofread it sufficiently, so that while the English side identified Election Day correctly as November 4, on the Spanish side, here was Dr. Freud showing up with his slip, and they informed those hapless voters that Election Day would be November 9 instead. This caused an uproar of epic proportions, leading the Board of Elections to contact every voter by telephone, in order to correct the error, in both English and Spanish, just to be on the safe side. Next time, they should leave Dr. Freud in the closet, with his slip, maybe all the way in the back, tucked in behind the Nehru jackets and go-go boots, and only let him out for April Fool's Day and not Election Day.

Meanwhile on the sports front, we certainly didn't know what to expect from the New York Rangers this year, since the off-season saw them losing many of their established players, to other teams at home and abroad, and going instead with a roster of new and untested youngsters with unfamiliar names. This can be a hard sell in New York City, where the fans take their sports much more seriously than life and death, and will not hesitate to boo everyone from the parking lot attendant to the highest echelon of the team's ownership, if they feel they're not getting their money's worth. Frankly, I would not have cared much for the chances of this "new look, no-name" hockey team to score points with the home town loyalists, especially after years of disappointment, in spite of having some of the biggest stars in the sport in their line-up. However, in true "Cinderella" fashion, the squad of young nobodies got off to a torrid start, winning their first five games, for the first time in 25 years, and after a couple of setbacks, reeled off another five wins in a row, to the astonishment of practically everybody. Last week, their record of 10-2 was the best start ever in franchise history, and not only far and away the best record in the entire NHL, but also running away with their division and leading their closest rival by 10 points already. They played toe-to-toe with some of the toughest teams in the league, including New Jersey, Buffalo, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and showed real grit and determination against the top contenders, not just skating off with cheap wins against the bottom-dwellers. It's been a real revelation, and nobody knows what to expect from them, because they're such an unknown quantity, like something newly-hatched and just wobbling out from its shell. So far, the only one unhappy about the Rangers' early success is our TiVo, because we record and save the games they win, so the TiVo keeps complaining that it doesn't have enough space to record things that it likes, such as bad cooking shows and sitcoms that we don't even watch, because we've got all this hockey clogging up the works. I can't say how things are going to go from here, but as for myself, I'd be just as glad if the TiVo continued to be unhappy from now until the Stanley Cup finals in June, thank you very much.

One thing I did forget to mention in my note about Halloween at the hospital, was how many places I went to trick-or-treat, and unlike previous years, so many people took my picture along the way. It seems like everyone has a cell phone with a camera nowadays, and they were not a bit shy about taking my picture wherever they found me on my rounds. I expect that The Hula Girl is being plastered all over the Internet by now, which might only be considered an improvement by an indulgent few, of which Bill might actually be the only one. Speaking of improvements, or not, I had to empty out 40 unused goodie bags after last Friday, since I had made that many more bags than we had callers. Usually when I bring left-over Halloween candy in to work, it's very popular, because I work with bunches of vultures that will eat anything as long as it slows down long enough for them to catch it. Unfortunately this year, everyone had the same problem at home as I did, so left-over candy was a drug on the market from one end of the hospital to the other, and you couldn't unload it for love or money. At this rate, we're going to have marshmallow ghosts and pumpkin lollipops until Christmas.

Somehow, I also neglected to include my favorite story from Halloween, when a tiny elephant came to the door, in what may have been his maiden voyage in the annual junk food smorgasbord that we have at the end of October. There was no mistaking that the toddler appeared perplexed by the entire process, in spite of his mother behind him, prompting him to say "trick-or-treat," which they had obviously practiced at home beforehand. Meanwhile, he was busy fishing around in his treat bag for a fun-size candy bar and handing it to me. "Oh no," I assured him, 'You've got this whole thing backwards. You're not supposed to give me candy, I give you candy." This was apparently a new and unproven concept for him, and he regarded me with a skepticism far beyond his years, like he was not just going to fall for any old fairy tale that some adult would tell him. I handed him a goodie bag and he stared at it suspiciously, as if this was some elaborate practical joke being foisted upon his good nature. I had to laugh.

Another laughing matter, or perhaps not, was when one of our new neighbors (in fact, it was the elephant's mother) picked this time to introduce herself and her son Emmett (I said, "Emmett the Elephant!" which was not hailed as the witticism that I thought it was) and just about as soon as she told me her name, it went right out of my head. As a matter of fact, she told me her name two different times, and it went out of my head both times, which you would think would be hard to do even if you were trying. Fortunately, I always run a tape recorder on Halloween, so when I open the door and ask the youngsters what their costumes are, I can keep a list of how many people came, and all the different costumes there were. I find when there are too many callers all at the same time, I can't write them down fast enough, and it's easy to lose track, so I have the tape as a backup, and I play it back later to check against my list and fill in what's missing. So sure enough, here's the new neighbor on my tape introducing herself (twice) and her elephant son Emmett, plus me babbling incoherently in a confectionery-fueled stupor, so that my brain was incapable of paying attention to anything she said. But at least I got a third chance at her name, and thanks to the miracle of modern technology, that was all I needed, because that last time, I made a point to write it down, instead of thinking that I could remember it later, with just my poor addled brain cells to guide me. That's never worked so far, so I have no reason to expect it to work now, heaven knows. It's true that change may be afoot, and it may even be ahead, but no one ever said that it's abrain, at least not my brain, and that's not just the candy corn talking, either. Say, is that Bob Dylan I hear whistling Dixie?