It’s Not My Fault

I didn’t get enough sleep. I mean I did, for most people or a small moose, I did.

But it doesn’t feel like I did.

I woke up with that rubbery feeling in my brain.  The one you get from the night before when, your body is sleeping, but your brain is still stuck in overdrive.  I guess from all the airport uncertainty and manic midnight drives to Passenger Pickup and back. And I was just the picker upper person and not the pickee.

And when my rubbery brain is in overdrive… that is not a good thing. 

When my rubbery brain is in overdrive… I start thinking of things like, wouldn’t canned soup be better in a bottle?  Unscrew the lid…take out soup…close the lid, and refrigerate.  Finish the soup…recycle the bottle. 

Neat, clean and efficient...

And should the bottle be plastic or glass? Glass could break…plastic could leak. So maybe something metal, like a can is the way to go.

And isn’t it good news for all those plastic containers designated 3 thru 7, which are now eligible for recycling pick-up, previously allowed only for plastics designated 1 & 2; those, up ti'l now, insufferable snooty pieces of elitist plastic. 

Move over boys, you’ve got company, in the red container!

(I didn’t say my brain was funny, today; I just said it was in overdrive)

Sometimes—and I can’t be certain—on those nights, that precede days like this, I think my brain, while my body is sleeping, will go out and mingle with other brains; less desirable brains from questionable neighborhoods, with suspect upbringings.   

I think these bad brains will often try and fill my innocent brain with bad ideas and try to get my brain to engage in questionable activities such as joining up with a "brain gang" in order to wreak havoc on the more acceptable, yet unsuspecting, general brain population.

And when you wake up with this tired, rubbery brain feeling, which to me is like having this big hole in the middle of my gut and a scratchy wash cloth stretched over my eyes, with a swath of thick cotton wrapped tightly around the inside of my skull, you can’t shake it; it’s with you, everywhere you go… all day. You even have to buy it lunch, and sometimes dinner, because it’s notoriously cheap and will never kick in, not even for the tip.

And now my slop sink in the basement is leaking.  And I haven’t slopped in it for years. But isn’t that a great name?  Slop sink…I shudder to think where the term came from or just what was being slopped. 

The basement is filled with cool names.  The Sump pump, which is used I suppose to pump sump, which is not as widely appreciated in North America as it is in some smaller European countries.

There’s the boiler, which is pretty self-explanatory, and the furnace, which is the closely connected cousin of the boiler.  And let’s not forget the silcock, which is a very, misunderstood yet indispensible piece of plumbing, that for the most part, is largely kept concealed behind stone walls, and is largely shunned for its unsavory name.

Sorry…I told you.  It’s not my fault.

Adventures in Flying…

It was a challenging, tense night, but in the end, all’s well that ends well…

Right?

Well, I would keep that sentiment to myself for a few days, lest you run head on into a hurricane, better known as my wife, who’s spent about 5 hours waiting for her canceled and then rescheduled flight from Chicago to White Plains, last night.  So a 10 PM arrival, transforms into an after Midnight arrival...and well, you know.  

All this on top of her 3 hour delay,Thursday morning, on her way out, because of nasty storms in Chicago. 

But luckily the Westchester County airport has lots to keep you entertained and amused while you wait…

Right?

Like watching the guy who checks your baggage run back and forth to the tarmac to spin the propellers on the planes, to get them revved up for takeoff.   Or the security guards who use those scanners that look like they were borrowed from the Stop N Shop.  They not only check you for safety purposes, but can tell you exactly how many coupons you’ve accumulated since your last visit. 

And Wednesday is triple coupon day, not to mention Senior Day!

Okay…I’m just kidding. 

The Westchester County/White Plains airport is already a modern air terminal, with well-trained staff and security personnel, all of which is also due for another major renovation and upgrade.  You can make your own joke here, but it really is a far cry from the days of literally being an old WWII Quonset Hut, where the guy who checked you in, really did check your luggage, ran it out to the plane, and if need be, ran you over with a security wand, that looked more like a cattle prod. 

I know this from first-hand experience since, in the early 70’s, my friend Phil and I were singled out, in a sea of suits, mostly for being a couple of college kids, dressed in flannel shirts & jeans, on our way back to Cornell and Syracuse (he was the ivy leaguer, not me).

Apparently the crew cut, ticket taker/baggage/security guy thought we might be one of those dang hippie types who hung out with Abbie Hoffman on a regular basis. But how could he know that Abbie had stopped calling years before, after he'd found out we refused to steal his book? (and if you don’t get that, you’re either way younger or way older than me)

Weren’t the 70’s great…despite the bad TV show and the weird fat collars?

So, anyway, aside from a few (Airline who shan’t be mentioned) customer service personnel back in Chicago, who will most likely have a difficult time sitting and or standing for a few days, no one was really all the worse for wear.

And no, there is no truth to the rumor that a crazed skinny woman in an over sized "Windy City" sweatshirt was seen wrestling with another Mountain Lion in the backwoods of Greenwich. 

That was all just speculation. 

But she’s finally home and already things are pretty much back to normal.

The laundry systems working again, so I can cancel the plumber.

The coffee maker is back to normal and the wall to wall carpet has been restored. 

All before 7 AM!

And I did do the dishes, even though I saw them all back in the dishwasher.

Go figure….

LEAVE MY LAWN ALONE!

I have squirrels. Lots and lots of squirrels…

I’m sure you have squirrels too.

I mean, they don’t actually have their own room or anything, but they do seem to have the run of the place. 

One of them lives in the tree in my front yard, in a small, yet convenient knot hole that faces my office.  A much sought after squirrel condominium, I would imagine. It’s close to the park, and I think basic cable is included.

Sometimes, he or she (how can you tell?) sits outside my office window and looks in at me while I’m sitting here at the computer.  Maybe they’re annoyed that I have internet and also get HBO.

Or perhaps he or she thinks I’m sitting here looking at him (or her) and they’re telling their squirrel friends about me.

I’m not really sure what a squirrel thinks or how they interact with each other. After all, as Z reminds me, they only have a brain the size of a walnut.

But I‘ve dealt with  people, through the years, who have even less, and, they don’t dig holes in my lawn….usually.

Which brings us to the matter at hand. 

It seems these particular squirrels are somewhat pushy and aggressive.  My neighbor said he thought they were originally from Jersey. But don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Jersey, or their squirrels…even South Jersey.  In fact, I’m all in favor of sharing my humble little plot of land with these fuzzy little fellows (or gals)…as long as they don’t dig holes in

my lawn!

That’s all I ask.  Dig behind the garage or in the garden, or better yet, in my neighbor's garden, but only around the flowers. Just...

 LEAVE MY LAWN ALONE!

You can sit on my lawn, play bocce on my lawn, cool off in my bird bath, eat my bird seed (which really should be re-named squirrel seed), even borrow my power washer. Just...

LEAVE MY LAWN ALONE!

Z says, again, “what do you expect from a walnut brained squirrel…they’re only looking for food”.

I say I expect them to just…

LEAVE MY LAWN ALONE!

My friend, who I’ll call Frank (because that’s his name, and it would be ridiculous to call him Fred), tells me he can "help me out" if I’d like. That he knows how to “reason” with them and can "guarantee" that they won’t be a problem anymore.  His wife, who I’ll call Rosie (which is sort of her name, although I’m the only one who's allowed to call her that, apparently because I have great legs) rolls her eyes and smiles in her devilish way that usually gives me pause.

 “Yeah, Frank’s a regular “Squirrel Whisperer” (though I’ve never heard Frank whisper in any manner, whatsoever) he really has a way with them.”

The fact that she says this in her best vestigial Bronx, left over from her days of hustling pool on Williamsbridge Rd when she was 10 years old, sends a shiver to areas of my body best left unmentioned.

I look around at all the little holes decorating my front yard, and I must admit that I considered the offer for a second.  But then I thought of the knothole, the basic cable and the little visits to my office.  So I declined. 

I thought maybe I could persuade the squirrels with premium cable, as long as they just….

LEAVE MY LAWN ALONE!

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Killing Time in a Politically Correct World

One of the tougher things about freelancing from home is finding things to do when you’ve finished up whatever it was you were previously doing. 

Make sense? 

To another freelancer it will.  You see, even when we’re actually working on some project or another, we’re also involved in other mundane minutiae at the same time.  There could be plants being watered as we’re waiting for phone calls or e-mails to be returned.  Pencils being sharpened as you listen to a client going on and on about how they would like to see the project develop, while all the while you’ve already written it. Or even sewing your lips together while an account executive tells you to take out all the best punch lines because they’re “Politically Incorrect”.  

Political Correctness is a must for all corporate communications.  One must not risk offending any group whatsoever because…well, because it’s politically incorrect. And as far as casting a corporate video …well, again, right there, you’re talking about a whole other ball of wax; which I probably shouldn’t say, because I may be offending people with chronic ear wax disease.

I tell myself, whenever I take the time to listen, that one of these days I’m going to write a role for a CEO who’s a slightly grey haired, African American, Hispanic, woman in a wheel chair, named Betty Fujimoto who likes animals and small children and drives a Ford.  She would be the perfect corporate representative!   But I’m sure someone would tell me that the dog and Chevy people might be offended so we should probably think about changing it or, at the least, shoot it several different ways….

But again…I digress. This isn’t about doing actual work; it’s about killing time in between doing actual work. And to tell the truth, I’m like the “Schwarzenegger" of time killers. And again, the bells are ringing saying I shouldn’t say “Schwarzenegger” because obviously killing time in his particular manner is definitely incorrect, politically or not.

The point of all this is…and don’t worry I’m getting there (see what I mean about killing time)…the point is that, for the next few days, I will be sorely tested, as my wife has gone off to Chicago to visit with some of her 4,000 relatives (Irish Catholic…what can I tell you… Oops!) and left me to my own devices; some of which are still illegal in several southern states (Damn…again!). 

But I’ve managed to keep busy. So far I’ve already dug up all the impatiens and marigolds and rearranged them so that they suggest the shapes of small woodland creatures and therefore  better coordinate with the subtle nuances of light reflected by the bird bath on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. 

Damn this eye of mine!

I’ve rotated the wall to wall carpeting and in some cases turned it inside out so it’ll wear longer.  I’ve also been experimenting with the plumbing.   Who says water and gas can’t come from the stove and sink at the same time? 

Speaking of plumbing, I’m going to have to call my plumber since there seems to be something wrong with the laundry system.  I keep putting my dirty clothes in the hamper but the clean, pressed and folded clothes are not appearing in my dresser drawers’ or closet, one or two hours later, as is usually the case. 

Weird, huh?

I’ve also got a call into the electrician ‘cause my coffee maker doesn’t seem to be making the coffee in the morning…and no matter how long I wait at the table, my dinner isn’t showing up.  So something is definitely out of whack around here.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’m going to start reorganizing the linen closet.  I think the towels will look much better rolled into balls, and who says the top sheet has to match the bottom?  And don’t get me started on those pillow cases! 

Oh look….the neighbor’s cat just walked across my deck.  I wonder just how many ways there really are to….

Oh, come on…give me a break. I haven’t made even one tiny Weiner reference.

Did I offend anyone?

Where’s The Pool?

Nat King Cole sang:

Roooooooll oooooout thooooose…lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…

Those days of soda and pretzels and beer….

 

One of my all-time favorites because it always reminds me of one the best things about this time of year…Barbeques, hereafter referred to in the familiar tense as BBQs in order to save unnecessary key clicking, such as I just did in order to explain it to you.

EVERYONE loves a Barbe— BBQ, especially if they’re not the ones throwing it. 

All your friends and family are there.  Even friends of family or friends of friends of friends who have families are there, gathering out in the backyard. 

Sometimes, if you’re lucky and you have rich friends from Rye, you gather around a pool, or even in the pool.  If you don’t have rich friends you can gather around a picture of a pool. Or just talk about a pool you were once in.

Shuttlecocks shuttling, Horse Shoes ringing, everyone wondering who brought the weird guy from Yonkers double dipping the shrimp. 

BBQ’s are the best! 

I think the thing that makes the Barbe— BBQs so magical, besides the lightening bugs, the smell of OFF and the beetles dive bombing into your beer, is the memory of BBQs past. 

As a kid, I remember, we would arrive, sometime around noon, at the house of some distant relatives, who lived not distant enough to suit my mother.  The first thing I would do is jump excitedly from the car, run into a crowd of faces, some familiar, some not, and shout…”Hey, there’s no stinkin pool here!”…and immediately start to sulk and complain about the likelihood of my developing a severe case of “ prickly heat”, which may or may not have been an actual medical condition.

But sometimes a friendly face, gripping a friendly can of Rheingold or Knickerbocker or Pabst Blue ribbon (no designer brews then), would stroll past the crowd, and point out that there was indeed a “pool", located in a  shadowy corner, way back, in the farthest part of the yard.  

And my spirits, they did soar. 

Until I saw the actual “pool”, which usually consisted of a 3 foot, above ground “structure” from Korvettes, made of flimsy green blue vinyl, which was held together by clothes pins, attached to a plastic coated fence that encircled the entre wobbly thing.  And what made it even more enticing were the half dozen anesthetized kids, of all ages, shapes and sizes, sitting listlessly around the perimeter, looking as if they were at Lourdes, waiting for a cure.

But it was A POOL! And in I would jump, making sure not to disturb any of the pilgrims, only to bash my knee on a myriad of small rocks and sticks, protruding from beneath the flimsy vinyl bottom. 

Now I knew why the pilgrims looked so miserable.

But it was summer and it was a BBQ and soon somebody’s Uncle Joe would have one too many pretzels and say something naughty to someone’s Aunt Rosie, who had one too many sodas, and all the grownups would start laughing, then yelling, then laughing all over again.

And this went on, like I said, from noon until late into the night. From hot dogs & hamburgers  to fried chicken & potato salad, with a heavy helping of watermelon in between.  

Nowadays, most of the BBQ’s I attend are "in by 4 and out as quickly as we can feed you, serve desert and ask if you want milk or cream in your coffee", affairs.  In fact next week we’ve been invited to one of these friends of a friend of a friend’s, rich Uncle's in Noroton, deals.


You know Noroton...the place that looks down its nose at Greenwich.  So this is not a mere BBQ…this an “Open House”...even though it's outdoors.


And none of us are even sure what that really means…”Open House”. 

How does it differ from a regular BBQ?  Is anyone who wanders by welcome to drop in?  Strangers included? People from Port Chester?

A friend of mine told me he attended one a few years ago at Christmas time. He said, nobody knew what to do or when to come, let alone leave.

Another friend said, they thought it meant that the house was “open” from say 6 to 10 (even though, technically, we would still be outside the house), and you could arrive anytime in that time period and leave whenever you felt like it.

Sort of like a shoe store.

But, what if it's a great party?  Wouldn’t you want to stay for as long as you could.

But are you allowed to do that at the “Open House”?

Are you supposed to get in and get out, and then make room for the next wave?

It's sort of like saying, "I know you don't want to come here, and I don't really want you here, so just show up and then leave as soon as you'd like, with no hard feelings."

Kind of what I do at my in law’s parties, except I don't think those are open houses...except for me.

Pool or no a pool….

Hate The Breeze…

Just so you know, I’m not completely out of touch in my freelance cave.  I’m well aware of the dramatic change in temperature and … humidity.

It did not escape my attention that the second I hit “Post”, a stiff northerly breeze rolled into town and cleared out all the heat and…humidity. 

But I’ve never been one to let relevancy stand in the way of a perfectly good story. 

So, now, Suddenly Summer, becomes, Still Sadly Spring; at least until the next climatic upheaval, which could take place any minute now.   Oh, look…there’s a glacier forming in my neighbor’s driveway. Wait…my lawn just turned brown.

Speaking of relevancy, some of the more constant readers have complained about the lack of posts this week.  Some have even corrected my spelling.  To these well intentioned folks I say….

Well, actually nothing. I can’t afford to lose any readers. 

And by the quality of this particular post, you can understand why.

The problem with this so called “breeze” is that at times it’s more of a gale. I like to take a long walk, once or twice a day, you know, as part of the “creative process”, and given the ferocity of this “breeze” one really needs to be on the alert. There is a distinct danger of being blindsided by small flying objects such as tree branches, hats, umbrellas, newspapers, rigatoni, potted plants and the occasional small dog.  It’s very disturbing to be strolling along, lost in one’s thoughts, only to be bonked on the head by a Beagle…especially if the Beagle has a mouth full of rigatoni. And it makes it difficult to proffer the compulsory phony greeting to one’s fellow walkers if one is constantly dodging last week’s recycling. 

If you’re a walker, you know exactly what I mean by the phony greeting. The thing that acknowledges the natural, yet unspoken, camaraderie amongst walkers. The thing that says, “Hey, you don’t want to die either!”

But this camaraderie extends only as far as the trail unfolds.  Put us on line at the grocery store and we won’t even look each other in the eye; unless it’s to give one or the other “malocchio”, the evil eye, for bringing 13 items to the 12 item lane.  However, like I said, put us on a wooded path, or sunny lane and we’re smiling and waving to each other like happy fools who hadn’t seen another soul in over a year.

Of course, like most things, this walker’s acknowledgement, like walkers themselves, can take many forms.  There’s the serious walker, focused, goal oriented, arms pumping, along with synchronistic strides, who will only acknowledge you with a subtle nod of the head.  There’s the happy wanderer, quietly humming, scanning the trees and surveying the skies, who greets you with a verbal hug, a weather report and the current bunny count, out on the trail.  They’ll also correct your greeting from “good morning” to “good afternoon” because they are not fond of inaccuracy in any form. There’s the barking dog walker (The dog barks, not the walker) who not only acknowledges you with a great big sheepish smile, but also the fact that their yapping, growling, snapping dog is just a great big coward at heart…and most likely doesn’t have rabies, even if  that is more than just a flesh wound. .

And speaking of yapping, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the people “yappers” who walk in pairs and yap yap yap about their kids, their jobs, their wives, their husbands and anything else that one is prone to yap about. 

You sometimes feel as if it would be rude to interrupt the yappers, but as if on cue, at the precise appropriate distance (which is also a source of debate.  10 ft. too far...3ft. too close?) they’ll suddenly stop yapping in mid-sentence, smile and proffer a simple, yet polite“hello” then immediately pick up the yap right where they left off. And I won’t even discuss those poor, solitary, miserable individuals who in their poor, solitary, miserable way, refuse to make eye contact and walk right by as if you were trying to sell them insurance. But don’t be fooled…we know who you are, and you are on the list….

And what about the “ Return Loopers”?  You know, like when you’re walking a circuitous loop and you pass somebody going in the opposite direction.  You extend your salutation of choice, comment on the day and pretty much use up all your good greeting material.  Then about twenty minutes later…here they come again.  So now, an awkward moment ensues. There’s enough of a distance between you, as you approach, that the uncertainty morphs into panic.  Desperately, you try to recall just what form of acknowledgement you previously extended.  If it was the big hello, are you safe with just the subtle nod?  Is a weather reference in order, or did you use that already? Do you make a joke about having to stop meeting like this, and risk appearing imbecilic. Do you wave from a distance, acknowledging the kismet inherent in the situation, or casually avert your eyes until the very last second then grunt something unintelligible and quickly move away?

So you see, there’s a lot to contend with on a simple afternoon stroll and so much more that I can barely touch upon here.  There are the passing car honkers who zoom by at 50 miles an hour, expecting you to recognize their protruding elbows as they wave.  There are the iPod joggers, who sneak up from behind and startle you into the bushes. The sidewalk bikers who beseech you with expressions of sheer terror to jump off into the street, because you’ll have a better chance against a 10 ton, moving truck than you will against them.  Not to mention pot holes, cracked sidewalks, bird poop, dog poop, coyotes and did I mention coyote poop.

So you can see why, with all of that…I really hate the breeze….

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I know...too many options. Probably better to just go back to bed....

Suddenly Summer!

You might have noticed it over the weekend, but probably not. 

It arrived when you weren’t looking.

Maybe, after a stroll through the park.  Perhaps, after you had mowed the lawn, or planted your one thousandth and final flat of marigolds. 

You didn’t see it coming.  No one did; it’s sneaky that way. It doesn’t like to announce itself.  It wants you to believe it’s always been here, and always will be here.

What am I taking about? 

I’m talking about….

HUMIDITY!!!!

The scourge of summer, unofficial or not….

HUMIDITY!!!!

That invisible damp, clinging, sultry, blanket of…

HUMIDITY!!!!

The one clammy, sodden, thing… that unites us as one.

The one soggy, oppressive thing that everyone agrees on; singles out and blames.

“It’s not the heat…it’s the…

HUMIDITY!!!!

 Dripping, drooping, draining….

HUMIDITY!!!!

You noticed it the morning when you found the bed sheet wrapped around and pasted to your body, which required several minutes of peeling and unraveling.

You noticed it while you were chatting with your neighbor and suddenly realized you had changed your shirt 3 times during the conversation….

You noticed it when you walked away and found a flock of robins frolicking in the puddle you left behind….

You noticed it when the de-humidifier kicked on every time you passed by.…

And then, as if additional proof was required, the unmistakable, foreboding sounds exploding from every household on the block.  Sacroiliacs snapping…hamstrings popping …rotator cuffs unraveling, as throughout the land air conditioners and fans were dragged from attic, closet and garage, hoisted into windows, set, sealed and put to the task of delivering us from perspiration without end.

And…what’s that? 

The humidity's gone?

Suddenly summer…

We thought it would never arrive.