THE POWER PLAY

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (03-22-18)

     I got a phone call from George Latimer last week, he is the Westchester County Executive. I wasn't home so he left a lengthy, rambling message, and man, he sounded pissed! Apparently he was angry about all the blackouts, and he must have been right in the middle of making toast or something when his power went out. He was rattling on about how all the top brass at the utility company should step down, which is why you should always have your office in the basement. The next message on my machine was from the lady at NYSEG. "Did Latimer just call? If he calls again, tell him we're working on it as fast as we can."

     My first thought was somebody should get on this RIGHT AWAY. Not the power situation, but the fact that we only have ONE executive. This is a big county, and we should have two or three executives, and maybe a more specific job description. "Executive" sounds more like a pay grade than a job title.

     Our lights went out the day before we were supposed to leave for our little getaway trip to the Dominican Republic. I was praying that our generator would start, we hadn't used it in a while. I recall my neighbor Paul telling me that I should pour some kind of additive into the gas so it wouldn't go bad, but was it every year or every ten years? I was going to split the difference and add something in five years when I could be sure that I wouldn't remember.

     Was it too late to add it now? I looked around the garage for something to add to the gas, but all I found was a gallon container of a fluid that looked like an avocado margarita. I didn't want to waste that on the gas, so I just started the generator and hoped for the best.

     I felt a little guilty for those who don't have a generator. My friend Margaret texted us and said, "I guess getting a price on a generator is not exactly the same as getting a generator...." These are the unfortunate people, the ones who say, "We are doing GREAT! It's forcing us to enjoy some family time TOGETHER!" It's family time where everyone gathers together in the living room near the fireplace, sullen and silently seething that they can't log on to their computers. What if Katy Perry and Marilyn Manson showed up to the iheartradio awards wearing the same gaudy yet understated Valentino gown? How in the name of all that is holy are we going to know who wore it better? What if something very deeply private and personal happens to Kim Kardashian that she doesn't want to share with anyone, and because we have no power, she is unable to share it with everyone?

     Uh-oh, just as I was going to write something about Trump my light bulb started to dim. That means, among other things, that the generator is running out of gas. I'm a little embarrassed to say this, but I don't know how to operate the gas can. It used to be that you would unscrew the top of the can, and inside would be a spout that you would transfer to the outside and re-screw the cap, and you could get on with spilling gas all over the place. But it's not that simple anymore, due to all the innovations in the gas can industry. Now there is all this bizarre infrastructure built into the inside of the spout to prevent you from mistakenly getting the gas from the can, where it is safe, to the generator, where who knows what could happen? Somewhere buried in the text on the side of the can, written in 6-point type, are instructions on how to break into the gas can and extract the gas.

     Instead, I take a 1/2-inch spade bit and drill a hole into the spout with my power drill, after first throwing it across the garage. I re-screw it onto the can, and fill up the generator. Gas spills all over the place from my new modified gas can spout, and it seems like things are back to normal; I shouldn't have gotten so angry at an innocent gas can.

     Feeling better, I left a phone message for Latimer to get a grip on himself and try to calm down. Maybe do some breathing exercises. My Mom used to tell me to count to ten before doing anything rash, and because of that simple rule my skin has stayed relatively clear. It's something I've always lived by. Sometimes my wife asks me, "Why do you always count to three before you do something rash?"

STRANGER THAN PARADISE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (03-15-18)

     I don't want to sound like I'm gloating, but while you were wondering when your power was going to return, I was gallivanting off to the beach in the Dominican Republic. Right now I don't want to make light of a situation where people have no lights. But I heard there was a bombogenesis coming, and that Phil Collins wasn't touring with it, so I hightailed it out of there. We landed in Punta Cana and checked into a beautiful, all-inclusive island resort.

     Our first stop was the beach. I was nursing a drink, just what the doctor ordered. You can't drink the water in Punta Cana, a situation that didn't come up once at the tiki bar.
     I'm not very good with Spanish, but I do speak some rudimentary English. When I was in the fourth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Fritschler made us learn how to count from one to ten in Spanish. So even though I can't tell you what anything is in the Dominican Republic, I can tell you how many of them there are. For everything else I just added an "o" to the end of it and hoped for the best. "Food-o American-o?"

     When I couldn't figure out how to say something I launched into an impromptu game of "charades." I wanted to find out where the coffee was, so I tried to mime the act of picking the coffee beans during the harvest, getting the best price for them amid an ever-changing commodities market. The whole thing took about a half an hour, and at the end of my presentation I couldn't remember what it was I wanted.

     The buffet was great, although the food was rarely hot. Ironically, the sun, the music and the women were all hot. If they had only left the food near the sun, the music and the women I would have nothing to complain about, which is probably not true.

     I guess I didn't look at the calendar before booking the trip, and it fell smack in the middle of Spring Break. All of a sudden a bus rolled up and there were about a hundred 20 year-old girls. They had gathered at the bar to enjoy each others' company, which they did by not looking up once from their cellphones. Then they started snapping pictures of their drinks. Since the line was so long to get them, I guess they could enjoy them for a few minutes more this way. A lot of them were wearing sunsuits, and my wife and I had an argument about whether this look was flattering or not. I only saw the sunsuits at night, when the chances of the sun coming out were greatly diminished.

     In the evening they had a show at the theater. They choose four or five couples from the audience, a good cross-section: old, young, crabby, nice, skinny, round. Then they try to get you to do something embarrassing with the other couple's spouse. We used to have a name for that, it was called the '70s.

     The disco didn't even open until 11:30, but I already had my nap so I was good to go. Latin music has a lot of percussion in it, and the beat is infectious, so I brought along some antibiotics. Also, the car horn is an actual instrument, so what passes for a traffic jam at home is just a jam here. One song was playing everywhere we went, you couldn't escape it. From what I could gather, the plot involved a Ford Pinto, a senorita, a pinata and a mojito. I can't imagine that it had a happy ending. The DJ played a number called "The Roof is On Fire," and in the Caribbean, that is considered an official Fire Department notification.

     All too soon, our little getaway was over. As the plane home was taxiing toward the runway, the glow of our trip was still with me. I would always have fond memories of our trip to Punta Cana, but because alcohol was included with the package, I'm damned if I can remember what any of them were.

CALLING ALL PITCHERS AND CATCHERS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (03-08-18)

    In early February, from somewhere deep in Florida, near the principal's office, a call comes out over the PA system: "Pitchers and catchers please report as soon as possible!" And from all over the land, they drop what they're doing and head to the Sunshine State, the only people under 50 to arrive in large numbers without their grandparents first complaining that they don't visit enough. The long baseball season has begun.

    I see this annual event as a more significant weather harbinger than Groundhog Day. When I hear that pitchers and catchers have reported for spring training I feel that warm weather is truly on its way. I start to picture myself lying in the sun on the beautiful black beaches of Santorini. I'm not sure why I was lying that day, I should have simply told the truth. By the way, have you ever been on the beautiful black beaches of Santorini? The Aegean Sea looks so inviting that you kick off your sandals and stroll toward the gently lapping waves. Then you smell something burning, and you realize that it's your feet. The black volcanic stones have absorbed most of the sun's heat. With no fire extinguisher handy, you sprint the remaining 15 yards in three steps, and steam billows out of the water. As a team-building exercise this coal-walking was a failure, since the rest of my team was laughing at me from the beach chair.

    The second day of spring training the Northeast gets three feet of snow and I'm jolted back into the reality of  6 more weeks of winter. The weatherman was kind enough to say that the snow blanketed the area, which made it seem a little cozier and preserved my little fantasy.

    This year, as in every other year, they are trying to speed up the game to make it more palatable for younger viewers, who only go to a baseball game so that they can Snapchat themselves at a baseball game. Since the most interesting thing for them is the Snapchatting part, if they really wanted to be honest with themselves they would Snapchat themselves Snapchatting and make all their friends jealous.

    To make the game go faster, starting last year you only had to tell the umpire that you were intentionally walking somebody and POOF, they were on first base. If they want to save even more time, they can institute a rule proclaiming that any Yankee batter with a 3-and-0 count is automatically out. It happens every time: the pitcher throws three straight balls, and I get all excited that something is going to happen. Then the manager calls a "take" on the next pitch, which is an automatic strike. The 3-1 pitch is fouled off, and the next pitch is a called strike three. I've already predicted the whole sequence to my wife, who looks amazed, not at my prognostication skills, but that she's still married to me.

    You can put a backwards "K" on your score sheet for the strikeout. If you're scoring at home, congratulations, especially at your age. You used to get a scorecard when you bought a program, if they even still have programs. Your Dad would teach you how to write in the outcome of each at-bat for each player. Thus, you were able to miss the entire game while your Dad ate most of the Cracker Jacks.

    If you have a calculator, and you don't feel like actually watching the game, you can crunch the numbers and figure out if your players are any good or not. RBIs, ERA? No one cares about them any more. What is his OPS? That's his on-base percentage plus slugging average. What is his RISP? Runners In Scoring Position. These don't seem like "vital statistics." I can take them or leave them. Kate Upton has vital statistics. Baseball players just have a bunch of numbers that only add up to something meaningful a third of the time, and that's if he's a Hall-of-Famer. Someone asked me if I had seen Sonny Gray's WHIP. I said I hadn't seen it but he may have left it in the dungeon. Actually, it's none of my business.