Eye of the Beholder

Hello World, Greetings again from our little corner of paradise, where the weather continues to bedevil us with its contrary ways and vexing inconsistencies. Of course, it does no good to complain about winter weather in New York, heaven knows, and we've all seen worse, and plenty of it. I'm sure we've all lived through record-setting low temperatures before, as well as record-setting high accumulations of snow, and everything in between, so to say that there's nothing new under the sun is merely belaboring the obvious. So far, this winter seems to be notable for nothing in particular, except dreariness, and we've all long since grown tired of that, believe me. It's also been a very bad winter for people being sick, with half of the populace coming down with colds, and the rest, even healthy young people, showing up at the hospital with bronchitis, pneumonia or flu. In situations like that, where everyone is sick, you can be pretty sure that it's just a matter of time before the germ comes along with your name on it, and there's no escaping it, no matter how hard you try. So that was how my week went, falling victim to the same galloping crud that everybody else had around me, and no surprises there. The symptoms weren't terribly severe, as colds go, but certainly wreaked havoc on my last poor addled brain cells (who I have renamed Sleepy and Sneezy for the duration) so that much of what should have been accomplished at the time, was not, and that which was accomplished was done so ineptly as to render it completely worthless, except perhaps for its comedic value. (Well, I'm sure the dinosaurs were laughing, anyway.) I suppose under the circumstances, we should just be glad that the rest of the dwarves didn't show up as well, because it was already bad enough without Dopey and Grumpy added into the mix on top of everything else. In other local news, the month started with a red-letter day in our lives, as our 30th anniversary arrived right on schedule, marking three decades of wedded bliss - or perhaps 10,950 days of torture, depending on who's telling the tale after all. Unfortunately, our big day was another victim of the galloping cruds, as Sleepy and Sneezy were simply not equal to the task of gearing up for the monumental event, and we passed a quiet evening at home instead of tripping the light fantastic in delirious celebration. Anyone who knows us can tell you that we're not easily thwarted, and we steadfastly refuse to surrender the idea of a special anniversary observance, so we are merely postponing it for a more auspicious time - making it a surprise addition to the welter of movable feasts that have proliferated throughout the year, from Martin Luther King to Advent and back again. When the appropriate time comes, I would expect a romantic dinner and presents to be in the offing, and perhaps a movie, although we certainly can't count on Hollywood's cooperation on that score nowadays, heaven knows. So right now, the clock is still at T-minus-30 and holding, while the rest of the world may continue racing around madly in wild abandon, time is standing still for the happy couple until the band strikes up The Anniversary Waltz for us at long last, and I don't mind saying, as long as it takes. Since at least one of us was not well enough to go out for a spree on our anniversary, we had to rely on our very own mini home theater for entertainment options close at hand, that we could enjoy in the privacy of our own home - not to mention, in our pajamas, should we choose to do so. Luckily, we happened to have a Blu-Ray of "Green Hornet" in what they describe as "amazing 3-D," and we were good to go, or rather, stay put. The movie features Seth Rogen, of all people, as the somewhat anti-hero title character, and Jay Chou as his iconic sidekick Kato, with the fetching Cameron Diaz in the role of his no-nonsense assistant. I admit that I have never read the vintage comic books this is based on, so I can't say if it faithfully reflects its origins or not. But I will advise that this is not your typical superhero movie - like X-Men, Fantastic Four, or certainly The Dark Knight - as this one is pretty much played for laughs, with buffoonish villains, outlandish gadgets, and cartoon violence that borders on slapstick. But it's a fun ride throughout, and never gets bogged down in drab realism, while it still has more eye-popping special effects to throw at you. (I'd say that driving around the car that had been cut in half by the elevator is worth it all by itself.) Admittedly, it may not have been the most romantic selection for our anniversary, but hey - there is no 3-D version of "Love Story" where they drive around in half a car, after all. Speaking of laughs (NOT) the time had surely come, in fact, it was very nearly past due, when I had no choice but to renew my drivers license for another term, or face the consequences. Alert readers may recall that this particular document is still emblazoned with the unfortunate picture from 1997, that somehow manages to make me look not only like a Mafia hit man, but a dead Mafia hit man, at that. In fact, it's so awful that when I show it to people to prove the point, rather than waving it away and saying, "Oh, it's not so bad," what happens instead is that they involuntarily gasp and the color drains from their face, like Don Corleone just made them an offer they couldn't refuse, and I ought to know. In their ever-vigilant quest to protect the public, New York requires an eye test for license renewals, so off I went to my nearby eye doctor, in order to obtain his John Hancock on the requisite paperwork, and satisfy the regulations like a good and proper citizen. It may come as a (perhaps unwelcome) surprise to everyone that I could read the eye chart line at 20/40 with no trouble, which is considered adequate to operate a motor vehicle in The Empire State, and I can assure you that all of your protest signs will be of no avail in changing that decision. As long as I was there, the doctor challenged me to try reading the 20/20 line below it, in spite of it being way too small and fuzzy for my tastes, but he urged me to take a shot at it anyway. (I guess he figured as a Mafia hit man, I must be able to shoot something, or waste a lot of bullets.) I started off gamely enough, but soon realized that 2 of the letters both looked like "F," which wouldn't be duplicated in the same line, and at that point stopped short, while Sleepy and Sneezy were trying their best to puzzle this out in their poor addled way. Finally the doctor prodded me back to awareness by exclaiming: "Come on, you can do it - say anything! Guess!" Here I'm thinking, this is probably the last thing that the DMV honchos would want to hear, that potential drivers are guessing at what is printed on the eye chart rather than actually being able to tell what the real letters are. On the other hand, it does go a long way to explaining what is my all-time favorite bumper sticker: "IF YOU DON'T LIKE MY DRIVING, STAY OFF THE SIDEWALK." Elle