AMERICAN POLITICS
Americans historically are fond of crowing about how they enjoy the finest political system in the world. We don’t even believe that ourselves. It is of course among the worst. I think about this subject once in awhile, and I have come to the conclusion that the best political system may actually be a benevolent dictatorship. When you leave things in the hands of a bunch of committees, and let people who are not especially bright vote on them, what you get is the lowest common denominator. Subtract a couple denominators from that, and what you have is American politics. This is not a political blog, this is a place to make fun of things that seem dopey to me. And what is dopier than American politics!
Anyone who knows me knows that I never pick up the phone at home, even if I am the one making the call. The only people who DON’T know this are Bill Clinton, Ed Koch and this Southern guy who talks so fast that I could hardly understand him. I decided to leave all the phone messages from political robots on my machine so I could dissect them later and find out what makes American politics tick. When I tried to find out what makes American politics tick, what I found out was that if American politics was an alarm clock, we would continue napping until we have that dream where we are falling off a cliff and wake up just before we hit the bedroom floor.
We have 15 messages on our answering machine as I write this, a day before the elections. The Democrats are poised to have a mid-term showing that ranks right below mine during my junior year of high school. But that is not deterring the robo-callers. Here is what they have been robo-talking about:
The fast-talking Southern guy cut right to the chase: “Cat-fried mice” is KILLING our economy! “Cat-fried mice” built 750 low-income housing units right in MY neighborhood! Just say NO to “cat-fried mice!” When I heard this I couldn’t believe it: I think I have had cat-fried mice at the Chinese restaurant and it was pretty damn good. On the menu it’s called “General Tso’s chicken," and I couldn’t believe that it was killing our economy so I asked my wife about it. She said, “The guy is saying ‘Tax-hike Mike,’ you dummy.” Just to be safe I will be voting against both of them tomorrow.
Then Ed Koch called and told me to vote for Nan Hayworth, since she signed a petition for New York Uprising, whatever that is. The guy is about 90 years old, and I give him credit for just finding my number, since phone books are heavy. So I listened to the whole message, and just when I thought he was going to explain what New York Uprising was, he lost his train of thought and started talking about “Dancing with the Stars.” Then it sounded like his teeth fell out and hit the microphone, and then he hung up. The petition that he is talking about, as I heard from a reliable source, has names on it like “Zorro,” “Morris the Cat,” “Ed Crotch,” so I don’t think I’ll be voting for Ed. I’m not even going to mention television political ads, I’m saving that one for when I run out of ammunition. But suffice it to say that on TV, Ed Koch is starting to look a lot like Grandpa Munster.
Sue called from the AFL-CIO. Apparently John Hall is completely anti-union, or might be totally for them- I couldn’t really tell since robo-callers rarely robo-enunciate. She went on and on for about 3 minutes, of which I understood about 2:53. She gave a website in case I needed more information, but what I really wanted was a website that would give me less. By the way she didn’t even mention Daryl Oates, so I guess they are no longer together.
Somebody called whose name I couldn’t make out, and went into great detail about something-or-other. It had to do with exposing outsourcing. And then in order to make things even clearer than that, he plays a clip from a recent Town Hall meeting (he doesn’t say which town), and through my answering machine sounds exactly like when parents talk to Charlie Brown.
Jim Bartkowski wanted to phone and tell me that he is running for Assembly. I remember that I spent most of my school years running FROM Assembly, so I’m not voting for him.
Greg Ball called to remind me of what a great guy he is. It sounded like something I always got picked last for in grade school, so I am not voting for him, although I may be thinking of dodge ball.
Greg Andrews assumed that I might like to be hooked up to a live teleconference so that I could ask questions, and so even though I wasn’t there, he hooked me up for a good four minutes. As it turns out I DO have a question: ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS???
One guy called and wanted me to “stop throwing shoes at my TV set” and show up to a “traffic jamming, pig throwing (or something like that) hoedown” at the Putnam County Courthouse and to “bring my pitchfork.” This sounds like something I made up, but it is not. At the end of the message he went, “WOOO HOOOO!”
Claire rang from the DNC. I don't think it was even a robo-call. She sounded a little lonely and I think she just wanted to shoot the shit.
Since the average American attention span is no longer than a Twitter post, the television spots are getting shorter, like this one: “Linda MacMahon’s a slut!” And many ads run right in a row, democrat following republican, and vice versa. One ad says, “Dick Blumenthal raised your taxes, so that he can upgrade his cable.” Then the next ad says, “He did NOT!” The next ad says, “Did TOO!”
They recently had a gubernatorial debate, so that we could get a load of the people who want to become our gubernor. There was Andrew Cuomo, Paladino, another guy, a woman, and a black guy who looked a lot like a walrus. Jerry Springer was the emcee, and there was a lot of name-calling and some hair-pulling, and accusing each other of cheating and having each others’ babies. The Democrats declared that they had set the bar very high, and the Republicans complained that it was making it harder for short people to get a drink.
I am so annoyed with these calls that I think I will just vote against anyone who called me, regardless of what their party affiliation might be. I’ll be really glad when the election is over so that I can delete all these messages, but I probably won’t be picking up my phone anytime soon just in case. I’m Rickster, and I approve this message.
Incidentally, The Revolutionary War ended with the signing of the Peace Treaty of 1783. It was signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay and British representative David Hartley, who used to host Good Morning America. After the signing George Washington rode a victory lap on his white horse from West Point through Westchester and into Manhattan. Now that they had won the war, his military officers wanted to install him as king, but he quashed the idea, "as every Man who regards liberty…undoubtedly must." When they went to raise the flag at Fort George (now Castle Clinton on the tip of lower Manhattan) they discovered that the British had greased the flagpole!
Monday, November 1, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
THE BIG DAY
THE BIG DAY
Everyone loves a wedding. A wedding on Long Island is an acquired taste, and it takes a long time to acquire it. It took us about an hour and a half to get to Westhampton, and another hour and a half to get to East Hampton, 20 miles away where the church was. I imagined the wedding party stuck in the same traffic, having a road rage incident and spending the night in jail. How does a funeral get through? Besides the deceased, another two or three of his friends could die of old age in that traffic. I tried putting on my lights just in case people would let me by, but they just assumed I had been on Route 27 the entire night and forgot to turn them off.
There are people who attend church religiously- attending any other way would be silly. I am not a pious person. I used to go to Sunday School when I was a little kid, which was only a thinly-veiled excuse to rid all children from the service, so that it would be quiet enough to hear my mother’s stomach growl, echoing around the cavernous room, the statue of Jesus rolling his eyes. Then at the completion of Sunday School, when I was about thirteen, I was told that I must get confirmed. I envisioned getting an inked stamp on my arm or something, but instead you had to take a test, which included reciting, in order, the books of the bible. I knew I didn’t stand a chance of passing- Genesis, Nemesis, Tetanus, Leviticus, Schlemiticus, Meticulous, Deuteronomy, Dermatology, Phlebotomy, Chronicles, Barnacles, Monacles, etc., etc., etc., so on and so forth, I think I covered most of the major ones. In the end I borrowed a cheat-sheet from my sister and kept an eye on the weather report in case lightning might strike me dead on the spot.
Anyway the ceremony was lovely, some readings, a hymn or two, the priest telling you when to stand and when to sit, like the scoreboard at a Giants game. Thank god we didn’t have to suffer through the Corinthians again- “Love is this, Love is that, Love never leaves its underwear around, Love understands how to load the Dishwasher correctly, Love never leaves the Toilet Seat up…. Incidentally, why is it the man’s job to put to put the toilet seat down, and not the woman’s job to put the toilet seat back UP?
This passage is actually Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (which is where they get that rich leather from). Paul who? Doesn’t say. Who actually opened the letter? I have no idea, it was simply addressed “Corinthians,” no zip code or anything. Nowadays Paul would just shoot off an email, and CC all of the Apostles, let them forward it to whoever they thought should get it. If my dad was a Corinthian he NEVER would have opened it; any time the phone would ring at our house our dad would yell out: “It’s not the guy from the church, is it? Tell him I’m not here.” They were always calling for fund drives.
The priest was working the crowd: if you didn’t say “And Also With You” loud enough, he made you do it again. He did most of the talking, and every once in a while the celebrants (that’s us) would chime in and say something like “Hosanna in the highest.” The celebrants all seemed to know what that means except me. Everyone was invited up to take communion, and the priest charged me for the crackers and wine- is this normal?
As usual the bride and groom mumbled through the vows. I couldn’t make out much of what they were saying, but I thought I heard the words, “veal piccata,” and “Operation Repo.” We all said some prayers and promised to keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t do any of the dumb things we’ve been doing.
As the happy couple sprang from the narthex, instead of throwing rice at them, which is bad for birds unless you cook it first, or birdseed, which runs the risk of a Hitchcock-like scene where birds flock the church and start pecking at peoples’ hair, we blew bubbles instead, at the approximate rate of one every 5 minutes or so.
At the reception things perk up after a few drinks. I won’t even go into dancing here- that really needs its own blog. Suffice it to say that I spend much of my time on the dance floor trying to get away from those over-enthusiastic acrobats who are determined to whack into my one good knee.
After dinner it’s time for the usual wedding reception traditions, like cutting the wedding cake. There is a song for this: “The bride cuts the cake, the bride cuts the cake, hi-ho the dairy-O, the bride cuts the cake.” American lyricists left with a gaping hole in their train of thought will always fill it with, “hi-ho the dairy-O.” In the modern world of texting, “hi ho” means something totally different than it used to. Sometimes the bride and groom force-feed the cake to each other. If you’re going to complain for most of the marriage about how your husband is constantly stuffing his face, why would you teach him how to do it the very first day? And when are they going to wake up and serve chocolate lava cake?
They avoided the whole garter situation, which is creepy. In what other culture do a man and woman embark on their new life together by having a stranger feel up the bride’s leg and dress her with articles of underwear? And even so he only puts one garter on, so the other stocking is flapping in the breeze. You might as well put half her bra on while you’re at it. That way the cups are half full, if you’re an optimist.
Incidentally, Many wedding traditions have stood the test of time, as long it’s graded on a curve. For instance, the custom of wearing a bridal veil dates back to a time when marriages were arranged. If the betrothed had a face that looked like the surface of the moon, hiding it for as long as possible was only common sense. Misplacing the groom’s glasses would also be a good idea. Showering the newlyweds with rice also has historical basis. Since for the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians rice was a symbol of fruitfulness, throwing it at the new couple was a wish for their future children. Conversely, throwing fruit was a sign of ricefulness. Carrying the bride across the threshold stems back to a time when brides were actually stolen from their families. The best man was enlisted to help in the theft, and possibly a forklift if the blushing bride was also a paunchy princess.
Everyone loves a wedding. A wedding on Long Island is an acquired taste, and it takes a long time to acquire it. It took us about an hour and a half to get to Westhampton, and another hour and a half to get to East Hampton, 20 miles away where the church was. I imagined the wedding party stuck in the same traffic, having a road rage incident and spending the night in jail. How does a funeral get through? Besides the deceased, another two or three of his friends could die of old age in that traffic. I tried putting on my lights just in case people would let me by, but they just assumed I had been on Route 27 the entire night and forgot to turn them off.
There are people who attend church religiously- attending any other way would be silly. I am not a pious person. I used to go to Sunday School when I was a little kid, which was only a thinly-veiled excuse to rid all children from the service, so that it would be quiet enough to hear my mother’s stomach growl, echoing around the cavernous room, the statue of Jesus rolling his eyes. Then at the completion of Sunday School, when I was about thirteen, I was told that I must get confirmed. I envisioned getting an inked stamp on my arm or something, but instead you had to take a test, which included reciting, in order, the books of the bible. I knew I didn’t stand a chance of passing- Genesis, Nemesis, Tetanus, Leviticus, Schlemiticus, Meticulous, Deuteronomy, Dermatology, Phlebotomy, Chronicles, Barnacles, Monacles, etc., etc., etc., so on and so forth, I think I covered most of the major ones. In the end I borrowed a cheat-sheet from my sister and kept an eye on the weather report in case lightning might strike me dead on the spot.
Anyway the ceremony was lovely, some readings, a hymn or two, the priest telling you when to stand and when to sit, like the scoreboard at a Giants game. Thank god we didn’t have to suffer through the Corinthians again- “Love is this, Love is that, Love never leaves its underwear around, Love understands how to load the Dishwasher correctly, Love never leaves the Toilet Seat up…. Incidentally, why is it the man’s job to put to put the toilet seat down, and not the woman’s job to put the toilet seat back UP?
This passage is actually Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (which is where they get that rich leather from). Paul who? Doesn’t say. Who actually opened the letter? I have no idea, it was simply addressed “Corinthians,” no zip code or anything. Nowadays Paul would just shoot off an email, and CC all of the Apostles, let them forward it to whoever they thought should get it. If my dad was a Corinthian he NEVER would have opened it; any time the phone would ring at our house our dad would yell out: “It’s not the guy from the church, is it? Tell him I’m not here.” They were always calling for fund drives.
The priest was working the crowd: if you didn’t say “And Also With You” loud enough, he made you do it again. He did most of the talking, and every once in a while the celebrants (that’s us) would chime in and say something like “Hosanna in the highest.” The celebrants all seemed to know what that means except me. Everyone was invited up to take communion, and the priest charged me for the crackers and wine- is this normal?
As usual the bride and groom mumbled through the vows. I couldn’t make out much of what they were saying, but I thought I heard the words, “veal piccata,” and “Operation Repo.” We all said some prayers and promised to keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t do any of the dumb things we’ve been doing.
As the happy couple sprang from the narthex, instead of throwing rice at them, which is bad for birds unless you cook it first, or birdseed, which runs the risk of a Hitchcock-like scene where birds flock the church and start pecking at peoples’ hair, we blew bubbles instead, at the approximate rate of one every 5 minutes or so.
At the reception things perk up after a few drinks. I won’t even go into dancing here- that really needs its own blog. Suffice it to say that I spend much of my time on the dance floor trying to get away from those over-enthusiastic acrobats who are determined to whack into my one good knee.
After dinner it’s time for the usual wedding reception traditions, like cutting the wedding cake. There is a song for this: “The bride cuts the cake, the bride cuts the cake, hi-ho the dairy-O, the bride cuts the cake.” American lyricists left with a gaping hole in their train of thought will always fill it with, “hi-ho the dairy-O.” In the modern world of texting, “hi ho” means something totally different than it used to. Sometimes the bride and groom force-feed the cake to each other. If you’re going to complain for most of the marriage about how your husband is constantly stuffing his face, why would you teach him how to do it the very first day? And when are they going to wake up and serve chocolate lava cake?
They avoided the whole garter situation, which is creepy. In what other culture do a man and woman embark on their new life together by having a stranger feel up the bride’s leg and dress her with articles of underwear? And even so he only puts one garter on, so the other stocking is flapping in the breeze. You might as well put half her bra on while you’re at it. That way the cups are half full, if you’re an optimist.
Incidentally, Many wedding traditions have stood the test of time, as long it’s graded on a curve. For instance, the custom of wearing a bridal veil dates back to a time when marriages were arranged. If the betrothed had a face that looked like the surface of the moon, hiding it for as long as possible was only common sense. Misplacing the groom’s glasses would also be a good idea. Showering the newlyweds with rice also has historical basis. Since for the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians rice was a symbol of fruitfulness, throwing it at the new couple was a wish for their future children. Conversely, throwing fruit was a sign of ricefulness. Carrying the bride across the threshold stems back to a time when brides were actually stolen from their families. The best man was enlisted to help in the theft, and possibly a forklift if the blushing bride was also a paunchy princess.
Friday, October 8, 2010
RAIL RAGE
RAIL RAGE
I feel I can tell you this since you are 12 of my closest friends (although one of you is the website operator and is paid to be one of my closest friends).
I had a little moment as I exited the train recently. There were some idiots standing in front of the opening door who were not de-training (this is a technical term that means “getting off the train”). They were just standing there clogging up the door, and the people in front of me who were actually trying to get off were not moving with what I perceived to be the appropriate urgency. I thought the guy in front of me was lolli-gagging (this is a technical term that means “choking on a lollipop), and I kind of pushed past him.
He took offense to that, and thought I was the idiot, which proves that HE was the idiot. He compared me to an animal, and not one very high on the food chain. This only made me hungrier. In retrospect, he handled it pretty well I guess, berating me in a very sarcastic manner- I actually had to admire it but I was still on the offensive for my offensive conduct.
There was no excuse for my behavior, although I said at the time that my dog ate it. I consider carrying a note with me that says, “Please excuse Rick, as he has a temperature,” which is technically correct.
Sometimes I am short with people, and I really can’t figure out why, although 9 times out of 10 it makes conversation less painful on my back. Other times I am cross with people, if not lengthwise. I can’t figure out why I am in such a hurry- my mother had the patience of a saint. I was always trying her patience, but I must not have liked it too much. It must come from my father’s side, the one I was a thorn in. My father seemed vaguely like Ralph Cramden, putting up with things for a short while and then bitch-slapping you into alacrity. I even rush to places where I have to sit and wait once I get there.
There are never enough hours in a day, even during leap years. So I walk very fast, eat very fast and work very fast. Even when I am fasting for religious reasons, I do it fast, and I’m done in an hour or so. I constantly multi-task. You would be surprised at the things I can do simultaneously: I do back exercises while I use the water pik. I floss as I read my book before bed. You would be amused and appalled at what I do while I brush my teeth.
I feel I must educate people on the proper decorum in everyday situations. If someone would only ask me to write a book I could transform the world into an orderly set of cogs and pulleys. For instance, if you are riding on the same subway car as me, don’t stand in front of the goddamn door until it’s your stop! I will blow past you with only the sorriest excuse for a “sorry.” And if you must use one of those ridiculous oversized golf umbrellas the size of a circus tent, it’s your responsibility to keep it from poking my eye out. Incidentally, why do some umbrellas have what looks like a little milk bottle on the top? I can’t tolerate those either, because of the lactose.
And if I come to your store and somebody calls on the phone, put them on hold until you have taken care of me! I went to all this trouble to come to your stupid store in PERSON, and then you just ignore me like that? Shame on you. Even though I was only here to find the right size so I could go buy it online for cheaper.
I would hate to become one of those people in a political ad, where the piano starts to play in a minor key, and the photographs of him depict a confused and contemptible individual, a slumlord who benefited by government bailouts and failed to provide ANY jobs. I would hate to be compared to someone who went to Washington and wanted to give people HEALTHCARE, something which we DID NOT WANT! We are SICK and TIRED of that kind of thing, although it might be symptoms of the flu- I won’t know until the new healthcare laws fully kick in.
I want to be thought of as the kind of person who is accompanied by music played in a major key, preferably something in G that I might sing along to, with lyrics like “This Land is Your Land.” Sometimes I sing this song to the neighbor when it’s time to rake the leaves.
Incidentally, The umbrella has been around for thousands of years- at least mine has. Essentially unchanged through the years, it’s one of those inventions that time seems to have forgotten, at least every time it rains. The word comes from the Latin root “umbra,” which means, “shade.” As early as 1611, English traveler Thomas Coryat wrote about “umbrellaces,” leather “canopies” with wooden hoops “for shelter against the scorching heat of the sun.” In 1852, another Englishman named Samuel Fox invented the modern version, using corset stays for the steel supports. That is why English women were much drier, but less shapely. It is bad luck to open an umbrella in the house, since that usually means that your roof is leaking.
I feel I can tell you this since you are 12 of my closest friends (although one of you is the website operator and is paid to be one of my closest friends).
I had a little moment as I exited the train recently. There were some idiots standing in front of the opening door who were not de-training (this is a technical term that means “getting off the train”). They were just standing there clogging up the door, and the people in front of me who were actually trying to get off were not moving with what I perceived to be the appropriate urgency. I thought the guy in front of me was lolli-gagging (this is a technical term that means “choking on a lollipop), and I kind of pushed past him.
He took offense to that, and thought I was the idiot, which proves that HE was the idiot. He compared me to an animal, and not one very high on the food chain. This only made me hungrier. In retrospect, he handled it pretty well I guess, berating me in a very sarcastic manner- I actually had to admire it but I was still on the offensive for my offensive conduct.
There was no excuse for my behavior, although I said at the time that my dog ate it. I consider carrying a note with me that says, “Please excuse Rick, as he has a temperature,” which is technically correct.
Sometimes I am short with people, and I really can’t figure out why, although 9 times out of 10 it makes conversation less painful on my back. Other times I am cross with people, if not lengthwise. I can’t figure out why I am in such a hurry- my mother had the patience of a saint. I was always trying her patience, but I must not have liked it too much. It must come from my father’s side, the one I was a thorn in. My father seemed vaguely like Ralph Cramden, putting up with things for a short while and then bitch-slapping you into alacrity. I even rush to places where I have to sit and wait once I get there.
There are never enough hours in a day, even during leap years. So I walk very fast, eat very fast and work very fast. Even when I am fasting for religious reasons, I do it fast, and I’m done in an hour or so. I constantly multi-task. You would be surprised at the things I can do simultaneously: I do back exercises while I use the water pik. I floss as I read my book before bed. You would be amused and appalled at what I do while I brush my teeth.
I feel I must educate people on the proper decorum in everyday situations. If someone would only ask me to write a book I could transform the world into an orderly set of cogs and pulleys. For instance, if you are riding on the same subway car as me, don’t stand in front of the goddamn door until it’s your stop! I will blow past you with only the sorriest excuse for a “sorry.” And if you must use one of those ridiculous oversized golf umbrellas the size of a circus tent, it’s your responsibility to keep it from poking my eye out. Incidentally, why do some umbrellas have what looks like a little milk bottle on the top? I can’t tolerate those either, because of the lactose.
And if I come to your store and somebody calls on the phone, put them on hold until you have taken care of me! I went to all this trouble to come to your stupid store in PERSON, and then you just ignore me like that? Shame on you. Even though I was only here to find the right size so I could go buy it online for cheaper.
I would hate to become one of those people in a political ad, where the piano starts to play in a minor key, and the photographs of him depict a confused and contemptible individual, a slumlord who benefited by government bailouts and failed to provide ANY jobs. I would hate to be compared to someone who went to Washington and wanted to give people HEALTHCARE, something which we DID NOT WANT! We are SICK and TIRED of that kind of thing, although it might be symptoms of the flu- I won’t know until the new healthcare laws fully kick in.
I want to be thought of as the kind of person who is accompanied by music played in a major key, preferably something in G that I might sing along to, with lyrics like “This Land is Your Land.” Sometimes I sing this song to the neighbor when it’s time to rake the leaves.
Incidentally, The umbrella has been around for thousands of years- at least mine has. Essentially unchanged through the years, it’s one of those inventions that time seems to have forgotten, at least every time it rains. The word comes from the Latin root “umbra,” which means, “shade.” As early as 1611, English traveler Thomas Coryat wrote about “umbrellaces,” leather “canopies” with wooden hoops “for shelter against the scorching heat of the sun.” In 1852, another Englishman named Samuel Fox invented the modern version, using corset stays for the steel supports. That is why English women were much drier, but less shapely. It is bad luck to open an umbrella in the house, since that usually means that your roof is leaking.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
OUTDOOR RECREATION
OUTDOOR RECREATION
We recently went camping with our neighbors at lovely Schroon Lake in the Adirondack Park area of upstate New York. If you really want to get away by yourself and get in touch with the outdoors, take your family camping once in awhile. What is lovelier than sitting in the shade, reading the paper as nature hustles and bustles around you? Eventually the rest of your family will find your campsite, but you might be able to get through the Sports section. There is nothing like the aroma of burning wood to greet you as you unpack your car. To be honest that burning smell turned out to be our clutch. The sounds of the wild permeate the scene: mostly other couples arguing. I thought how it would make a great reality show: “Housewives of Schroon Lake.”
It takes a little while to set things up, and I’m sure most of the couples were arguing about where to put up the tent, hanging the tarp, how to situate the kitchen facilities. But at our campsite, I am for once the king. The reason? I am the only one who knows how to tie a bowline knot. No campsite can long survive without a bowline knot holding everything up. At the campsite I answer to NO ONE, which basically means that I don’t know how to work my cell phone. As it happened there was no cell service there anyway, and we had to resort to communicating the old fashioned way: email.
We sat around that evening drinking beer by a fire, wondering if the office was supposed to be on fire. Normally we would tell ghost stories, but we didn’t know any ghost stories. Instead we recounted all the ways in which we had abused children. Paul admitted to spilling beer on a baby. He was carrying a full cup in one hand and a bulky bambino in the other. My guess is that someone asked him what time it was and that’s all she wrote. If he wore his watch on the other hand that baby would have a welt on its head the size of a golf ball. I told about the time I was at Kenny and Claudia’s party and I felt that the children were not toasting the marshmallows correctly on the fire. I tried to demonstrate the most efficient method (basically sticking it into the coals and singeing it beyond recognizability), and when I went to grab the kid’s marshmallow stick the little white cylinder went careening about 10 feet and landed on another kid’s leg, where the gooey meteorite stuck long enough to give him second degree burns. All night long, moms were pointing at me, whispering to one another and shaking their heads.
Campground restrooms are not a welcoming sight. Every visit is a new opportunity to commune with all types of bugs and other wildlife. I saw this cootie climbing up my commode that must have been four inches long. This creepy crapper crawler must have been training for this day for months, his Mount Everest moment. He was prevented from reaching the summit by the Times crossword puzzle. During that time a spider had built a web from my leg to the door. Then when you go to wash your hands, there are never paper towels in any campground. If you’re lucky they have a blower, which sounds a lot luckier than it actually is. The thing takes a half hour longer than just wiping your hands on your pants. At least there are no automatic paper towel dispensers. When did we, as a society, become too weak to remove paper towels from a holder? I put my hand under one of those and NOTHING EVER HAPPENS. Then as I am walking away I hear the noise, I turn and there is the towel. I run back over and the machine sucks the towel back up. I coax it back out, dry one hand and try to get another out to wipe my other hand, but it feels I should have gotten the job done with one. I have to go away and return disguised as someone else. On the plus side I pass by the urinal and set off the automatic flusher 3 times.
That reminds me I am thinking about putting separate men’s and women’s rooms in my house. Our bathroom requirements seem to overlap only minimally. For instance whenever I’m at someone else’s house and go to take a pee, I find that the wife has installed a fuzzy cover over the toilet seat. Guys: you know what happens next. You put the toilet seat up, and let her rip, and right in the middle the thing falls down and the startling sound causes your directional gyroscope to go haywire.
Anyway, it was time for bed. You don’t realize that your tent is pitched on an incline if you’ve been drinking; you assume it’s just YOU listing to the left. But when you wake up you are both huddled in one corner, and everything round in shape that you happened to bring along has rolled there too.
One time we heard some rustling noises outside our tent. It sounded like something large, and we speculated quietly as to what it might be. I suggested that it could be a rustler, because of the noise. My wife thought it might be a skunk or an opossum, but what if it was a coyote or a bobcat, or even a bear? Luckily we were armed, since I had one of those camp tools that has a pair of pliers and a knife that I can’t actually get my fingernail to coax out of its niche. My wife thought I had better go chase it away whatever it was, or vice versa, either way she is a winner. It turned out to be a cat, but it was pretty big and possibly wild, and there was a shape in its belly that might have been that of a six year-old boy, so I let it be and got back in the tent. I thought it was best to err on the side of caution, although I am not picky and will do it just about anywhere.
Cooking breakfast at the campground is one of life’s little pleasures. Food in general tastes so much better, maybe because you have to work so much harder for it. The last time we fired up the cookstove, there was a tiny ripped gasket and the whole thing caught on fire and almost blew up the propane canister. I knew we were almost out of gas, so I was reluctant to put out the fire before at least cooking the eggs, but hysterical screaming and yelling really inhibits my creativity in the kitchen. As a public service let me remind you always to plan an escape route before starting any fire around an open propane tank.
Incidentally, the Adirondack Park is really a system of private and public lands that according to my map spans an area approximately six inches by four inches, although much bigger in person. The State of New York sought to buy up the almost 3 million original acres because it was thought that deforestation would destroy the Erie Canal and economically cripple the state. The Iroquois Nation occupied a good portion of the land. For the most part they had sided with the British during the Revolutionary War, not realizing that there would be hardly a decent restaurant if they won. As a punishment, most were displaced to reservations in the Midwest, yet if they had left them where they were (namely our campsite) they would have been more effectively punished by the constant barking of a little white poodle-type dog that I am ashamed to say I often called a particular disgusting name in its own language.
We recently went camping with our neighbors at lovely Schroon Lake in the Adirondack Park area of upstate New York. If you really want to get away by yourself and get in touch with the outdoors, take your family camping once in awhile. What is lovelier than sitting in the shade, reading the paper as nature hustles and bustles around you? Eventually the rest of your family will find your campsite, but you might be able to get through the Sports section. There is nothing like the aroma of burning wood to greet you as you unpack your car. To be honest that burning smell turned out to be our clutch. The sounds of the wild permeate the scene: mostly other couples arguing. I thought how it would make a great reality show: “Housewives of Schroon Lake.”
It takes a little while to set things up, and I’m sure most of the couples were arguing about where to put up the tent, hanging the tarp, how to situate the kitchen facilities. But at our campsite, I am for once the king. The reason? I am the only one who knows how to tie a bowline knot. No campsite can long survive without a bowline knot holding everything up. At the campsite I answer to NO ONE, which basically means that I don’t know how to work my cell phone. As it happened there was no cell service there anyway, and we had to resort to communicating the old fashioned way: email.
We sat around that evening drinking beer by a fire, wondering if the office was supposed to be on fire. Normally we would tell ghost stories, but we didn’t know any ghost stories. Instead we recounted all the ways in which we had abused children. Paul admitted to spilling beer on a baby. He was carrying a full cup in one hand and a bulky bambino in the other. My guess is that someone asked him what time it was and that’s all she wrote. If he wore his watch on the other hand that baby would have a welt on its head the size of a golf ball. I told about the time I was at Kenny and Claudia’s party and I felt that the children were not toasting the marshmallows correctly on the fire. I tried to demonstrate the most efficient method (basically sticking it into the coals and singeing it beyond recognizability), and when I went to grab the kid’s marshmallow stick the little white cylinder went careening about 10 feet and landed on another kid’s leg, where the gooey meteorite stuck long enough to give him second degree burns. All night long, moms were pointing at me, whispering to one another and shaking their heads.
Campground restrooms are not a welcoming sight. Every visit is a new opportunity to commune with all types of bugs and other wildlife. I saw this cootie climbing up my commode that must have been four inches long. This creepy crapper crawler must have been training for this day for months, his Mount Everest moment. He was prevented from reaching the summit by the Times crossword puzzle. During that time a spider had built a web from my leg to the door. Then when you go to wash your hands, there are never paper towels in any campground. If you’re lucky they have a blower, which sounds a lot luckier than it actually is. The thing takes a half hour longer than just wiping your hands on your pants. At least there are no automatic paper towel dispensers. When did we, as a society, become too weak to remove paper towels from a holder? I put my hand under one of those and NOTHING EVER HAPPENS. Then as I am walking away I hear the noise, I turn and there is the towel. I run back over and the machine sucks the towel back up. I coax it back out, dry one hand and try to get another out to wipe my other hand, but it feels I should have gotten the job done with one. I have to go away and return disguised as someone else. On the plus side I pass by the urinal and set off the automatic flusher 3 times.
That reminds me I am thinking about putting separate men’s and women’s rooms in my house. Our bathroom requirements seem to overlap only minimally. For instance whenever I’m at someone else’s house and go to take a pee, I find that the wife has installed a fuzzy cover over the toilet seat. Guys: you know what happens next. You put the toilet seat up, and let her rip, and right in the middle the thing falls down and the startling sound causes your directional gyroscope to go haywire.
Anyway, it was time for bed. You don’t realize that your tent is pitched on an incline if you’ve been drinking; you assume it’s just YOU listing to the left. But when you wake up you are both huddled in one corner, and everything round in shape that you happened to bring along has rolled there too.
One time we heard some rustling noises outside our tent. It sounded like something large, and we speculated quietly as to what it might be. I suggested that it could be a rustler, because of the noise. My wife thought it might be a skunk or an opossum, but what if it was a coyote or a bobcat, or even a bear? Luckily we were armed, since I had one of those camp tools that has a pair of pliers and a knife that I can’t actually get my fingernail to coax out of its niche. My wife thought I had better go chase it away whatever it was, or vice versa, either way she is a winner. It turned out to be a cat, but it was pretty big and possibly wild, and there was a shape in its belly that might have been that of a six year-old boy, so I let it be and got back in the tent. I thought it was best to err on the side of caution, although I am not picky and will do it just about anywhere.
Cooking breakfast at the campground is one of life’s little pleasures. Food in general tastes so much better, maybe because you have to work so much harder for it. The last time we fired up the cookstove, there was a tiny ripped gasket and the whole thing caught on fire and almost blew up the propane canister. I knew we were almost out of gas, so I was reluctant to put out the fire before at least cooking the eggs, but hysterical screaming and yelling really inhibits my creativity in the kitchen. As a public service let me remind you always to plan an escape route before starting any fire around an open propane tank.
Incidentally, the Adirondack Park is really a system of private and public lands that according to my map spans an area approximately six inches by four inches, although much bigger in person. The State of New York sought to buy up the almost 3 million original acres because it was thought that deforestation would destroy the Erie Canal and economically cripple the state. The Iroquois Nation occupied a good portion of the land. For the most part they had sided with the British during the Revolutionary War, not realizing that there would be hardly a decent restaurant if they won. As a punishment, most were displaced to reservations in the Midwest, yet if they had left them where they were (namely our campsite) they would have been more effectively punished by the constant barking of a little white poodle-type dog that I am ashamed to say I often called a particular disgusting name in its own language.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
YOUNG LOVE
YOUNG LOVE
Through the miracle of facebook my wife re-connected with her old girlfriend from high school, who coincidentally (perhaps not) used to be my first girlfriend in high school, before I knew my wife, whom I met through the girlfriend. She was my first SERIOUS girlfriend, if you put two and two together.
We met for the very first time as I was surfacing from the Croton Reservoir. I had just jumped about 40 feet off the railroad trestle on the abandoned “Old Put” train line. It was something we used to do for fun, although in retrospect it would have been a lot more fun had I worn a cup. Chris had brought her swimming, and we hit it off immediately once I climbed ashore. She was artsy, vivacious, kind of Carole Kingy. I wasn’t that artsy, but at least I wasn’t that fartsy.
It was amazing to see what divergent paths we took after high school. She embarked on a wild ride that took her from the Northeast to the Southwest to the Northwest. It’s obvious she didn’t suffer from a lack of direction. I remained in the Northeast, although every once in awhile I drifted to the north Northeast, the south Northeast, or the east Northsouth. Usually due to holding the map upside down.
It seemed that she remembered things, details of our short relationship that my porous mind could not hold onto. I know some people that live in the past, and they remember everything from years and years ago. Some people live in the future, Captain Kirk for instance. I tend to live in the present, which means by the time I get to the end of a sentence I have forgotten what the beginning was. I don’t have the memory that she does, nor do I have the memory that she does.
Although we dated only for a year or so, back then it seemed like a long, long time. I guess if you have only existed 16 or 17 years, each of those years ages you disproportionately. I believe that the first two years of your life you age in squirrel years, which have a life expectancy of sixteen years. Then after you learn to talk but before you get married you age in box turtle years, which live a hundred and forty years. After that the time really flies, and a whole year goes by as you are cleaning out your garage.
One thing that was obvious from our talk was that if we did not have parents, we would have no one to blame our problems on. I usually tell anyone who blames me for anything that my dad was an alcoholic, and that I came from a broken home. The last part is true, since our basement always flooded after the flimsiest rainfall.
Now that I realize what a negative influence parents can be, it’s a wonder people allow them into their homes at all. It possibly started with Jesus- his father, God, is Mr. Perfect. Knows everything, sees everything, infinite wisdom, blah, blah, blah. That’s a lot to live up to, and it’s a wonder Jesus didn’t turn to drugs, drop out of school and become a total fuck-up.
Anyway, she got into Wellesley, and a few other good colleges, but her mother and stepfather couldn’t wring out the money to send her. She ended up hitchhiking across the country, sleeping in cars, the side of the road once in awhile. Dumpster-diving now and then for lack of money or inertia. She married young, divorced young, had children she wasn’t emotionally ready to throw herself into. But she did what she wanted to do, on no one else’s command or behalf.
Then she asked what we’ve been up to. We have spent the last 36 years moving slowly up the Harlem Line, with higher school taxes hot on our heels. We couldn’t think of much that compared to the excitement of her post high-school days, although we did see an episode of “The Office” recently that we hadn’t seen before. Our days are fun and eventful to us, but a side-by-side comparison reveals that life is full of choices and compromises. What I have given up to have a healthy 401K is a treasure chest full of experiences you can only collect once upon a time; there are many different ways to be rich (I missed being Rich by one letter).
Had I remained with her, I wondered what it would have been like for her, trying to concentrate on our next meal, with me saying things like, “do you think we could dumpster-dive for a toenail clipper?”, or, “It was really nice of that diner to give us this food for free, but that looks like a mushroom- do you think I can get this without?” Or would she have been satisfied traveling the world in one-week-a-year increments?
It was great to see her again for the first time after all these years. Back then you could jump right into a lake not knowing was underneath. A freefall straight down, with unfailing confidence that everything would be fine when you landed. I wouldn’t try it now…. But she seems happy, content, at peace with her past, and willing to share her feelings honestly, including the fact that when we broke up, her mom missed me more than she did….
Incidentally, the abandoned New York Central Putnam Division rail line is now the North County Trailway bicycle park. From the late 1800s to the 50s and 60s trains carried freight and passengers to New York City. Since there was only one track, I assume it left them there, and they should be back soon. One spur connected the “Old Put” to the Harlem Line, and ran through Lincolndale to a depot 3,000 feet from my house. The freight trains carried milk through now defunct NYC tracks directly underneath the Sheffield Milk processing plant on the west side of Manhattan. The railroad owned the right-of-way and the milk plant owned air rights above the tracks. The milk plant is now the CBS Broadcast Center, where I have worked for the last 30 years, and evidence of the railroad connection are still visible in the videotape archives of sub-basement floor “A.”
Through the miracle of facebook my wife re-connected with her old girlfriend from high school, who coincidentally (perhaps not) used to be my first girlfriend in high school, before I knew my wife, whom I met through the girlfriend. She was my first SERIOUS girlfriend, if you put two and two together.
We met for the very first time as I was surfacing from the Croton Reservoir. I had just jumped about 40 feet off the railroad trestle on the abandoned “Old Put” train line. It was something we used to do for fun, although in retrospect it would have been a lot more fun had I worn a cup. Chris had brought her swimming, and we hit it off immediately once I climbed ashore. She was artsy, vivacious, kind of Carole Kingy. I wasn’t that artsy, but at least I wasn’t that fartsy.
It was amazing to see what divergent paths we took after high school. She embarked on a wild ride that took her from the Northeast to the Southwest to the Northwest. It’s obvious she didn’t suffer from a lack of direction. I remained in the Northeast, although every once in awhile I drifted to the north Northeast, the south Northeast, or the east Northsouth. Usually due to holding the map upside down.
It seemed that she remembered things, details of our short relationship that my porous mind could not hold onto. I know some people that live in the past, and they remember everything from years and years ago. Some people live in the future, Captain Kirk for instance. I tend to live in the present, which means by the time I get to the end of a sentence I have forgotten what the beginning was. I don’t have the memory that she does, nor do I have the memory that she does.
Although we dated only for a year or so, back then it seemed like a long, long time. I guess if you have only existed 16 or 17 years, each of those years ages you disproportionately. I believe that the first two years of your life you age in squirrel years, which have a life expectancy of sixteen years. Then after you learn to talk but before you get married you age in box turtle years, which live a hundred and forty years. After that the time really flies, and a whole year goes by as you are cleaning out your garage.
One thing that was obvious from our talk was that if we did not have parents, we would have no one to blame our problems on. I usually tell anyone who blames me for anything that my dad was an alcoholic, and that I came from a broken home. The last part is true, since our basement always flooded after the flimsiest rainfall.
Now that I realize what a negative influence parents can be, it’s a wonder people allow them into their homes at all. It possibly started with Jesus- his father, God, is Mr. Perfect. Knows everything, sees everything, infinite wisdom, blah, blah, blah. That’s a lot to live up to, and it’s a wonder Jesus didn’t turn to drugs, drop out of school and become a total fuck-up.
Anyway, she got into Wellesley, and a few other good colleges, but her mother and stepfather couldn’t wring out the money to send her. She ended up hitchhiking across the country, sleeping in cars, the side of the road once in awhile. Dumpster-diving now and then for lack of money or inertia. She married young, divorced young, had children she wasn’t emotionally ready to throw herself into. But she did what she wanted to do, on no one else’s command or behalf.
Then she asked what we’ve been up to. We have spent the last 36 years moving slowly up the Harlem Line, with higher school taxes hot on our heels. We couldn’t think of much that compared to the excitement of her post high-school days, although we did see an episode of “The Office” recently that we hadn’t seen before. Our days are fun and eventful to us, but a side-by-side comparison reveals that life is full of choices and compromises. What I have given up to have a healthy 401K is a treasure chest full of experiences you can only collect once upon a time; there are many different ways to be rich (I missed being Rich by one letter).
Had I remained with her, I wondered what it would have been like for her, trying to concentrate on our next meal, with me saying things like, “do you think we could dumpster-dive for a toenail clipper?”, or, “It was really nice of that diner to give us this food for free, but that looks like a mushroom- do you think I can get this without?” Or would she have been satisfied traveling the world in one-week-a-year increments?
It was great to see her again for the first time after all these years. Back then you could jump right into a lake not knowing was underneath. A freefall straight down, with unfailing confidence that everything would be fine when you landed. I wouldn’t try it now…. But she seems happy, content, at peace with her past, and willing to share her feelings honestly, including the fact that when we broke up, her mom missed me more than she did….
Incidentally, the abandoned New York Central Putnam Division rail line is now the North County Trailway bicycle park. From the late 1800s to the 50s and 60s trains carried freight and passengers to New York City. Since there was only one track, I assume it left them there, and they should be back soon. One spur connected the “Old Put” to the Harlem Line, and ran through Lincolndale to a depot 3,000 feet from my house. The freight trains carried milk through now defunct NYC tracks directly underneath the Sheffield Milk processing plant on the west side of Manhattan. The railroad owned the right-of-way and the milk plant owned air rights above the tracks. The milk plant is now the CBS Broadcast Center, where I have worked for the last 30 years, and evidence of the railroad connection are still visible in the videotape archives of sub-basement floor “A.”
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
WEEKEND GETAWAYS
WEEKEND GETAWAYS
We had our annual Hamptons Getaway last weekend, where our group from high school gets together and catches up. And it was a relaxing time as usual. By relaxing I mean nonstop people yelling at each other. In between the yelling we often have time to gloat about how little we have changed, which is great for now, but before you know it we will be gloating about how few of us are dead. I don’t want to be one of those people who when they die you go, “Jesus he was even still ALIVE?”
We sit around the table outside with our drink of choice and chat. Sometimes we talk about old times, but very rarely, since now everybody brings their kids, and the only things we ever did in High School together happen to be the very things that everybody is trying to convince their kids not to do.
Sometimes we talk about current events, like whether they should build a mosque next to Ground Zero. On one hand I don’t know why in the world they would WANT to build a mosque next to Ground Zero and risk having dopey people say bad things about them, if they are trying to show how loveable they are. On the other hand I got a mosquito bite, so I went inside.
The Hamptons is a funny place. If you look around, you can find an example of everyone in the song, “You’re So Vain,” by Carly Simon. For instance, I saw a guy with a hat strategically dipped below one eye. I also saw someone with an apricot scarf. There was also a guy who was with an underworld spy, or the wife of a clothes-pin. Okay I was never that good with lyrics.
Steve made his usual fabulous filet mignon on the barbecue. All of us are very health-conscious and do not eat red meat, so we had Steve cook it until it was maroon. I would like to get one of those rotisseries for our home barbecue, but I can’t imagine cooking anything other than beef on it, because anything smaller than a cow and you risk having it look at you with its stunned face as it comes around each time on the spit. It seems so barbaric, and there’s just no way to dress it up. I find it odd when they cook a whole pig and stick an apple in its mouth, as if to say, “We caught this fucker trying to steal an apple, and that was the LAST STRAW!” Or when they take a chicken and stick an entire lemon up its ass as if to say, well never mind what they would say.
There is a lot of fawning over wines, everybody saying that this one is very rich, or that one is a little fruity. Personally I think fawning over wines is a little fruity, but that’s mainly because wine gives me asthma, not to mention a hangover that is very rich.
As we eat and drink with spirited conversation, intelligent points-of-view, an exchange of ideas, I can’t help thinking what a dynamic group we were and are. Then I eat something with a bee in it and all those good feelings go out the window.
The next morning my wife and I made crepes, which is to say that we were trying to make pancakes and forgot one of the ingredients. Since everyone is so health-conscious, we made sure to bring some fresh fruit as toppings, hoping no one would be interested in the chocolate sauce. But there was a boatload of children there, and while adults can be easily fooled, children never fall for such basic tactics.
We got to the beach in record time. Usually it takes one to two hours to pack the coolers and figure out who is going in which car. This time it took two hours and seventeen minutes, including the fact that their car was literally out of gas. I won’t mention any names, since I would find myself on my own list, but there are people who will pass by a gas station for 2.79 a gallon, thinking that they have enough gas to make it home and then, by coasting down hills with the engine off, squeak over to the 2.77 gas station. Unfortunately, a change of plans takes them instead right by the 3.11 station, clearly unacceptable, but everyone knows that the gas gauge has a built-in margin of error of a quarter-tank. Those of us willing to drive five miles out of the way to spend two cents less on gas are the same people who overpaid by $25,000 on our house without blinking an eyelash.
Anyway we get to the beach and start our Scrabble game, and all of a sudden there is a big dust-up because the Clintons walk by. It is almost impossible to tell it’s them, since they are so unassuming, strolling by slowly, hand-in-hand, followed by a bunch of guys in bathing suits with a wire coming out of one ear. One of them tackled a kid with an Uzi squirt gun just to be on the safe side.
While everyone is yakking about the Clintons and what they’re wearing (Hillary is wearing red from top to bottom, which is making her caboose look like an actual caboose), I’m looking at my Scrabble letters thinking, hey, since Hillary knows about foreign policy, she probably knows how to spell the word, “foreign.” I thought it was “i before e except after c,” but there’s no “c” in “foreign,” and spelling it “foriegn” looks foreign to me. Maybe the word “foreign” is foreign and the rules don’t apply?
But the Clintons saunter away and I’m left with no Spell-Check and Steve’s really bad Bill Clinton imitation. Everyone else is dishing about how much better Hillary looks on TV. If I was on TV I would have the make-up girl make me look worse than I usually do, so I could hear those words that the litigants say after a Judge Judy trial: “TV doesn’t do you justice!” I think about braining Steve over the head with a Kadima paddle, but I don’t want to ruin my Kadima paddle.
Incidentally, Hillary Clinton is the 67th Secretary of State. Thomas Jefferson, whom Hillary’s husband is middle-named after, was the first. Jefferson waged the Tripolitan Wars from 1801-1805 to prevent piracy of American ships off the coast of North Africa. Killed in action during a heroic maneuver in this war was one Captain Richard Somers, whom my town is named after, even though he never set foot in it. If he did, I believe he would have liked it, even though there are far too many traffic lights.
We had our annual Hamptons Getaway last weekend, where our group from high school gets together and catches up. And it was a relaxing time as usual. By relaxing I mean nonstop people yelling at each other. In between the yelling we often have time to gloat about how little we have changed, which is great for now, but before you know it we will be gloating about how few of us are dead. I don’t want to be one of those people who when they die you go, “Jesus he was even still ALIVE?”
We sit around the table outside with our drink of choice and chat. Sometimes we talk about old times, but very rarely, since now everybody brings their kids, and the only things we ever did in High School together happen to be the very things that everybody is trying to convince their kids not to do.
Sometimes we talk about current events, like whether they should build a mosque next to Ground Zero. On one hand I don’t know why in the world they would WANT to build a mosque next to Ground Zero and risk having dopey people say bad things about them, if they are trying to show how loveable they are. On the other hand I got a mosquito bite, so I went inside.
The Hamptons is a funny place. If you look around, you can find an example of everyone in the song, “You’re So Vain,” by Carly Simon. For instance, I saw a guy with a hat strategically dipped below one eye. I also saw someone with an apricot scarf. There was also a guy who was with an underworld spy, or the wife of a clothes-pin. Okay I was never that good with lyrics.
Steve made his usual fabulous filet mignon on the barbecue. All of us are very health-conscious and do not eat red meat, so we had Steve cook it until it was maroon. I would like to get one of those rotisseries for our home barbecue, but I can’t imagine cooking anything other than beef on it, because anything smaller than a cow and you risk having it look at you with its stunned face as it comes around each time on the spit. It seems so barbaric, and there’s just no way to dress it up. I find it odd when they cook a whole pig and stick an apple in its mouth, as if to say, “We caught this fucker trying to steal an apple, and that was the LAST STRAW!” Or when they take a chicken and stick an entire lemon up its ass as if to say, well never mind what they would say.
There is a lot of fawning over wines, everybody saying that this one is very rich, or that one is a little fruity. Personally I think fawning over wines is a little fruity, but that’s mainly because wine gives me asthma, not to mention a hangover that is very rich.
As we eat and drink with spirited conversation, intelligent points-of-view, an exchange of ideas, I can’t help thinking what a dynamic group we were and are. Then I eat something with a bee in it and all those good feelings go out the window.
The next morning my wife and I made crepes, which is to say that we were trying to make pancakes and forgot one of the ingredients. Since everyone is so health-conscious, we made sure to bring some fresh fruit as toppings, hoping no one would be interested in the chocolate sauce. But there was a boatload of children there, and while adults can be easily fooled, children never fall for such basic tactics.
We got to the beach in record time. Usually it takes one to two hours to pack the coolers and figure out who is going in which car. This time it took two hours and seventeen minutes, including the fact that their car was literally out of gas. I won’t mention any names, since I would find myself on my own list, but there are people who will pass by a gas station for 2.79 a gallon, thinking that they have enough gas to make it home and then, by coasting down hills with the engine off, squeak over to the 2.77 gas station. Unfortunately, a change of plans takes them instead right by the 3.11 station, clearly unacceptable, but everyone knows that the gas gauge has a built-in margin of error of a quarter-tank. Those of us willing to drive five miles out of the way to spend two cents less on gas are the same people who overpaid by $25,000 on our house without blinking an eyelash.
Anyway we get to the beach and start our Scrabble game, and all of a sudden there is a big dust-up because the Clintons walk by. It is almost impossible to tell it’s them, since they are so unassuming, strolling by slowly, hand-in-hand, followed by a bunch of guys in bathing suits with a wire coming out of one ear. One of them tackled a kid with an Uzi squirt gun just to be on the safe side.
While everyone is yakking about the Clintons and what they’re wearing (Hillary is wearing red from top to bottom, which is making her caboose look like an actual caboose), I’m looking at my Scrabble letters thinking, hey, since Hillary knows about foreign policy, she probably knows how to spell the word, “foreign.” I thought it was “i before e except after c,” but there’s no “c” in “foreign,” and spelling it “foriegn” looks foreign to me. Maybe the word “foreign” is foreign and the rules don’t apply?
But the Clintons saunter away and I’m left with no Spell-Check and Steve’s really bad Bill Clinton imitation. Everyone else is dishing about how much better Hillary looks on TV. If I was on TV I would have the make-up girl make me look worse than I usually do, so I could hear those words that the litigants say after a Judge Judy trial: “TV doesn’t do you justice!” I think about braining Steve over the head with a Kadima paddle, but I don’t want to ruin my Kadima paddle.
Incidentally, Hillary Clinton is the 67th Secretary of State. Thomas Jefferson, whom Hillary’s husband is middle-named after, was the first. Jefferson waged the Tripolitan Wars from 1801-1805 to prevent piracy of American ships off the coast of North Africa. Killed in action during a heroic maneuver in this war was one Captain Richard Somers, whom my town is named after, even though he never set foot in it. If he did, I believe he would have liked it, even though there are far too many traffic lights.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
RECREATIONAL SPORTS
RECREATIONAL SPORTS
Against my own better judgment I organized a softball game in which 40 and 50 year-old idiots were invited (harassed) to compete. The last softball game I participated in was maybe 15 or 16 years ago when I was about 35, if you’re buying that. If not, I can certainly offer you a discount, or perhaps you’d like to see something in a different size? In that game I learned that the term “softball” was clearly coined by someone who never got hit by one. “Hit by one” means that you made the mistake of trying to catch one. The ball after being hit by someone (usually fat and out of shape, the most dangerous of all softball athletes) travels with a generous amount of “English.” My glove, which took “English as a Second Language,” is always in the slightly wrong place, so it bounces off my mitt and usually hits me in the chin.
We had only a couple serious injuries, mostly humorous ones. It’s all fun and games until someone breaks a nail. I was the one who broke a nail and I JUST had them done. I know some guys who get manicures and pedicures. Well I don’t actually know them but I’ve heard of them. I would never get a pedicure and risk the girl going, “Dude you have stuff down there that actually needs to be CURED.” I picture my pedicure crossing over several fields of study… anatomy, geology, possibly botany.
Anyway we warm up and then pick teams. I can make a game out of any number of people. Even primary numbers I can split into teams. If there are 12 people we make 3 teams of 4. One team is at bat, the other two are in the field. I can make a game out of the square root of 2 on one team, an isosceles triangle on another, and a raccoon on another. The triangle pitches for both teams, and supply your own raccoon when the other team is in the field.
So I count the legs of all the people present and divide by 2 two find out how many people are there. I end up with an odd number, so I just count heads instead. I think I screwed that up too unless somebody has two heads.
We had enough to play a game leaving right field vacant, so any ball hit there was considered foul. It wouldn’t have mattered; factoring in our fielding percentage, not having anyone in right field was statistically the same as having someone in right field.
We wouldn’t have had enough for two teams at all except that Norm brought an entire half of a genealogical tree- a ton of cousins it looked like, and most of them were teenagers. They played in a carefree and loose manner, as if they were totally unconcerned about the massive weight of the budget deficit we are going to leave their generation.
One of them dusted me for a home run, I think it was the only one of the game. The kid really tagged it, and I ran it down pretty well, then seemed content to let it just fly past me. I tried to get it ruled a foul ball, but I was playing center field. Then someone else hit another one out there and I was like trying to find my inhaler and asking around if anyone brought a defibrillator.
Even more embarrassing was that nobody from my generation seemed to know which base to throw to. Someone would hit the ball and the infielders would in turn throw to each base that the runner just left. The throw to first base always assumed a 12 foot-tall first baseman. Invariably at every softball field I have ever played on, first base is right next to a patch of poison ivy. Thank god you only get one base on an overthrow, or you could itch and scratch out an inside-the-park home run every time.
I thought my team was going to get shellacked, and I even brought some paint thinner just in case, but after the first couple innings our defense settled in (meaning no one hit any towards me) and the game became pretty competitive. The last couple innings my team really started to come around. Maria lobbed a ball in between three infielders who looked like a meteorite had just landed in front of them and they couldn’t believe it. By the time they picked it up Maria had a chance to round first, pull a hamstring, apply a tourniquet and administer the Heimlich maneuver before she limped into second base. What if she needed a medevac helicopter? I wondered if the pilot would mind stopping at third base- we do have a game going on here. I got a seeing eye single and Dave doubled us in. Next inning Norm led off with a double and three hits and three outs later we tied the game. Then Norm and the family with all the cousins had to leave and the game was over.
Incidentally, the game of softball was originally invented to be played indoors, and the first game on record was thought to be between Yale and Harvard alumni tossing around a boxing glove and hitting it with a broomstick, in 1887. I’m not sure who thought of the idea that the ball should be too big to fit inside my mitt, but it was certainly diabolical. Every play I made in the outfield (another misnomer, since I recorded so few outs there) I caught on the second try, because it immediately bounced out the first time. I tried to get it scored a double-play, which was instantly met with scorn, even by my own teammates.
Against my own better judgment I organized a softball game in which 40 and 50 year-old idiots were invited (harassed) to compete. The last softball game I participated in was maybe 15 or 16 years ago when I was about 35, if you’re buying that. If not, I can certainly offer you a discount, or perhaps you’d like to see something in a different size? In that game I learned that the term “softball” was clearly coined by someone who never got hit by one. “Hit by one” means that you made the mistake of trying to catch one. The ball after being hit by someone (usually fat and out of shape, the most dangerous of all softball athletes) travels with a generous amount of “English.” My glove, which took “English as a Second Language,” is always in the slightly wrong place, so it bounces off my mitt and usually hits me in the chin.
We had only a couple serious injuries, mostly humorous ones. It’s all fun and games until someone breaks a nail. I was the one who broke a nail and I JUST had them done. I know some guys who get manicures and pedicures. Well I don’t actually know them but I’ve heard of them. I would never get a pedicure and risk the girl going, “Dude you have stuff down there that actually needs to be CURED.” I picture my pedicure crossing over several fields of study… anatomy, geology, possibly botany.
Anyway we warm up and then pick teams. I can make a game out of any number of people. Even primary numbers I can split into teams. If there are 12 people we make 3 teams of 4. One team is at bat, the other two are in the field. I can make a game out of the square root of 2 on one team, an isosceles triangle on another, and a raccoon on another. The triangle pitches for both teams, and supply your own raccoon when the other team is in the field.
So I count the legs of all the people present and divide by 2 two find out how many people are there. I end up with an odd number, so I just count heads instead. I think I screwed that up too unless somebody has two heads.
We had enough to play a game leaving right field vacant, so any ball hit there was considered foul. It wouldn’t have mattered; factoring in our fielding percentage, not having anyone in right field was statistically the same as having someone in right field.
We wouldn’t have had enough for two teams at all except that Norm brought an entire half of a genealogical tree- a ton of cousins it looked like, and most of them were teenagers. They played in a carefree and loose manner, as if they were totally unconcerned about the massive weight of the budget deficit we are going to leave their generation.
One of them dusted me for a home run, I think it was the only one of the game. The kid really tagged it, and I ran it down pretty well, then seemed content to let it just fly past me. I tried to get it ruled a foul ball, but I was playing center field. Then someone else hit another one out there and I was like trying to find my inhaler and asking around if anyone brought a defibrillator.
Even more embarrassing was that nobody from my generation seemed to know which base to throw to. Someone would hit the ball and the infielders would in turn throw to each base that the runner just left. The throw to first base always assumed a 12 foot-tall first baseman. Invariably at every softball field I have ever played on, first base is right next to a patch of poison ivy. Thank god you only get one base on an overthrow, or you could itch and scratch out an inside-the-park home run every time.
I thought my team was going to get shellacked, and I even brought some paint thinner just in case, but after the first couple innings our defense settled in (meaning no one hit any towards me) and the game became pretty competitive. The last couple innings my team really started to come around. Maria lobbed a ball in between three infielders who looked like a meteorite had just landed in front of them and they couldn’t believe it. By the time they picked it up Maria had a chance to round first, pull a hamstring, apply a tourniquet and administer the Heimlich maneuver before she limped into second base. What if she needed a medevac helicopter? I wondered if the pilot would mind stopping at third base- we do have a game going on here. I got a seeing eye single and Dave doubled us in. Next inning Norm led off with a double and three hits and three outs later we tied the game. Then Norm and the family with all the cousins had to leave and the game was over.
Incidentally, the game of softball was originally invented to be played indoors, and the first game on record was thought to be between Yale and Harvard alumni tossing around a boxing glove and hitting it with a broomstick, in 1887. I’m not sure who thought of the idea that the ball should be too big to fit inside my mitt, but it was certainly diabolical. Every play I made in the outfield (another misnomer, since I recorded so few outs there) I caught on the second try, because it immediately bounced out the first time. I tried to get it scored a double-play, which was instantly met with scorn, even by my own teammates.
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