Everyday Things

Monday, February 04, 2008

Well. It's been a while. It's just been an interior time which I seem to go through every now and again. An old shrink of mine used to refer to it as the "fertile void" which I much prefer to "can't do anything but stare off into space."

An awful lot has happened in the wider world as well as in my own.

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, for instance. I have never been prouder to be an American than I have been watching this race -- even the Republican side of it. I'll quote Bill Clinton here: "I've been waiting all my life to vote for a woman to be president. And I've been waiting all my life to vote for a black man to be president." Then here he added, "God, you're messing with my mind again." I wouldn't go so far as that last bit. Most amazingly, I think all the leading candidates, even republicans, are principled people. That alone can bring me to my knees with gratitude. To quote that political sage Gerald Ford, "our long national nightmare is (almost) over."

But my favorite quote is from Chris Rock who said the other day, "the current administration has been so bad than no white man can get elected president."

I'm not going to make this a long post, but the other major thing that's happened is that I've made huge advances in decluttering the house. I have just the boxes in the bedroom to sort through now which I'll do with Thea in a couple of weeks. (No doubt after she leaves, I'll be another three months before I implement her changes, but hey!, we're getting somewhere.

In the "It's Always Somthing" category, I'm pretty sure I have pre-diabetes. Patti tells me that it is diabetes -- just at an early stage. I have yet to be diagnosed but am planning to have a checkup in the next couple of weeks and ask for a blood glucose test, which should do it. I wouldn't be surprised. My mother had late-onset diabetes at the end of her life. I'm hoping that I'll be able to manage it with diet and exercise. (I'm still doing Superslow and find that it has helped me immeasurably. I'm so much stronger than I was this time last year.)

And the Giants won the Superbowl! It was the best football game I have ever seen and the city is in a swoon. We're having a ticker tape parade tomorrow morning for them which should be uproarious.

19:41

Monday, December 03, 2007

Been down for the count with that cold for three days. Not terrible. Just a cold and the bed rest was delicious.

Not much to say. Am watching "The Tin Man" which is a "reimagining" of the Wizard of Oz. The lead is a little off in my opinion but it's great to look at and well done.

I ran across this picture of John McCain and his mother, Roberta. His father was an admiral but I'll betcha it is from his mom that he got his backbone.

19:52

Thursday, November 29, 2007

My heart sank. I turned on my machine at home this morning and tried to get on the web. Couldn't. Kept getting that "Cannot find server" message. Oh NO!

I work with computers, as you know. I know a lot about them. Let me rephrase that. I know a lot about some aspects of them. I know nothing about networking, routers, ip addresses, pinging, blah blah. More than that, having to deal with that stuff scares me to death. All the usual stuff. I'll never be able to make it work. I'm going to be three days on a help line. I'm going to throw the godamned thing out and go back to a PC.

I knew I didn't have time this morning so I turned everything off and went to work.

When I got home I realized how helpless I am without a working on-line computer here. I had to dig around the bookcase and find an old telephone book to get the phone number for Apple. No switchboard.com.

But in the end it worked out very well. The young Indian gent at Apple was clear and patient and walked me through testing all the connections (yes. making sure everything was plugged in and stable), checking all that incomprehensible stuff like DNS numbers and pings. We were able to ascertain that everything from the keyboard to the router (modem to me) was lashed together and working fine. The problem was with Verizon.

All the trepidation came rushing back. The dreaded phone company. However my guy, a young man from deep in the South Bronx this time (I actually had a little harder time with his accent than I did with the Indian guy), was great too. I do know a little about the innards of the Mac but I truly know NOTHING about how internet connections or the phone company works. No phone phreak I. He walked me patiently though an endless number of screens and forms and helped me ping like crazy and finally said, "ok, ma'am. Try getting on-line again."

I did and it worked! I was amazed. I asked him what we had just done and he said that the router had lost all it's connection information and we had just reset it. "Did I do something to cause that to happen?" I asked him. "No, ma'am. sometimes it just does it itself."

huh. Not comforting.

The cold weather from the MN/WI wing is moving toward us. I'm afraid I'm getting a cold. I'm going to eat a little cheese and english muffin, gargle with hot salt water, take a comtrex and go to bed.

Feeling like quite the geek, I might add.

20:06

Monday, October 22, 2007

And another thing, southern California is on fire. I got this from Gail today:

"The fires are terrible and all over the southern part of the
state...even down to the Mexican border south of San Diego and down at
Del Mar on the ocean.....Malibu is about 7 miles north of us...seeing
and smelling the smoke both at home and at work, but we're not in any
danger in Santa Monica...no big brushy canyons near me. The worst that
could happen at my place is the stupid, useless palm tree out front
catching a far flung ember. It can burn down for all I care, as long as
it doesn't drop flaming fronds on our roof. Hope the heat and winds die
down soon."

19:19

Sunday, October 21, 2007

I can't seem to get back into this. Well I'll start small with some updates.

The superslow exercising is going well. I am certainly much stronger than I was when I started in July. I don't know that I've lost any weight, but I think my shape is changing (for the better, btw).

Torre fired the troll Steinbrenner, his sons and the entire Yankee corporate structure. In a way I was thrilled that he did. But now there's going to be a big hole in my affection for the team. Donny Baseball and Joe Girardi are, I think, the two contenders for the job. I'm not sure either of them can handle the ownership the way Joe did. It will be interesting to see which players stay for next year. There's some talk of Mo, Posada and ARod taking other offers. I understand Chicago has made a big pitch for Arod. He's an old friend of Lou Pinella's, plus 30 mil more and a piece of the team. That's quite an offer. It's hard to know what to do as a fan. I might have to start taking a longer look at the Mets. (Gasp!)

I've even found myself sort of rooting for Boston for this series. Yikes!

I got some big attaboys at work for some cover designs I did. I was remarkably pleased by them because I thought the covers were good.

I still think we're going to hell in a handbasket, though. Nothing about Iraq gets better, the stock market is wobbly, the mortgage crisis keeps getting worse, climate change looks scarier and scarier and the country is locked in drought. Look at this map.

I'm a right old Cassandra these days. But the upside is that I'm going to see the Mn/Wi wing of the family for Thanksgiving so we'll have a lifegiving celebration.

19:34

Thursday, October 11, 2007

The baseball season is almost over. Well, it's over for me since both the Yankees and the Mets are out of the playoffs. Willie and the kids from Queens, after a brilliant season, had one of those inexplicable collapses that happen in baseball. They just couldn't do anything right at the tail end of the season for enough games to lose their place in the playoffs.

The Yanks, who played terrible baseball through the middle of the season, came from 14 games behind the front runner, Boston, to within 2 games - enough to get into the playoffs as a wildcard only to lose 3 out of 5 to Pittsburgh.

In the middle of those last playoffs, the Yankee owner, the mad, graceless and disgusting George Steinbrenner, said that if the team lost, he would fire Joe Torre.

Just to put this in perspective: Joe Torre has brought this team to the playoffs every year for the past 13 years. Under his leadership they were National League champions for ten of those seasons and won the world series 4 times. There's nobody in baseball who even comes close to that record. So for this creep troll Steinbrenner to say such a thing is unforgivable.

Interestingly enough, the reaction around baseball has been remarkable. Joe's current players have all leapt to his defense -- Mariano, a shoo-in hall of famer and the best closer in baseball history, has suggested that he may very well not sign again with the team next year if Torre is let go. All of his former players have stood up for him, too. Other managers, like Terry Francona of the Redsox, and rival ball players have all talked about Torre as, in their opinion, the best manager in the game. David Otiz, Big Papi of the Bosox, even gave an interview about how no one else but Torre could have brought the team into the playoffs after their disastrous first half. He observed that it is extremely difficult to keep a group of highly paid, strong willed athletes focused and on track when they are losing as consistently as the Yankees were. Usually, he said, people start blaming each other and feuds begin -- but Joe kept 'em together -- and ultimately -- brought them into the last rounds.

So we'll see. Why on earth Torre would want to work for that goon is beyond me, however, but if he goes, I want it to be on his own terms. (In truth I do know why he would work for Steinbrenner -- it's the biggest stage in baseball, he gets big, big bucks, he loves the boys he plays with and he loves the game -- although if there were even a whisper that Joe was available to another team, even at 67, there would be offers from every team in both leagues)

20:22

Friday, September 28, 2007

I've been back for a couple of weeks. It's taken a little while to get back into my routine.

The boys and their wives made the memorial for Djoni -- and for John as well. On big display boards they had arranged dozens and dozens of pictures placing the emphasis on her life before that terrible illness -- when she had been so beautiful and spirited. It couldn't have been more perfect.

There were a lot of people there including all save one of her brothers and sisters. After a pastor said a few words, a number of people stood and spoke. There was even a woman, a friend of one of the boys, who had never met Djoni but who was moved to speak because of the poignancy of the memorial.

At the end John stood and faced the room, his body bent and his face ravaged by grief. He thanked us all for coming and invited us to a lovely local restaurant to eat and drink and celebrate her life. I have never been so heartbroken for anyone as I was for him that evening.

21:16

Wednesday, September 05, 2007	I'm leaving for Minneapolis this morning. I'll be back in a week. 07:31

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Djoni Gabreski and my brother John were married for 41 years after a three year courtship. She died this morning at 1:00am after a long, grueling illness. John was with her as were their children.

John told me that one evening toward the end when she was fading in and out of consciousness she opened her eyes and smiled at him. "Can you hear them?" she said. "Who?" he asked. "The babies. They're laughing." She smiled again and drifted off.

So now we know where she is and how to find her when our times come. Just follow the sound of laughing babies.

15:29

Tuesday, August 28, 2007	glory halleluja! Blogger has created a video macro so we can upload moving pictures. How about them apples! This is without question one of my very favorites. It was taken by a mom who was out to capture her sons skateboarding and who got this as a present. If you have the sound on, you can hear her beginning to laugh. (watch for the airbag) 10:17

Sunday, August 26, 2007	And yesterday, August 25th, 4 days after the last post, it was 90 degrees here. The midwest is suffering from apocalyptic floods and the southeast is still enduring it's seemingly endless drought. Is it just that we have much more coverage or are there really more weather anomalies? 11:22

Tuesday, August 21, 2007	It's August 21st. Dead center of the Dog Days. It's 56 degrees outside. What's wrong with this picture? 20:41

Sunday, August 19, 2007

The big news this week is that the paintings are back up! My place is beginning to look the way I want it to. I'm thrilled. Giovanni, my new best friend and major domo, came over and we spent about two hours hanging them. Not only do the walls look great, the paintings are no longer taking up all that space on the floor. Then we talked about his sending in people to clean the kitchen, bath, living room and hall till they sparkle. Particularly the floor. It's wood and when it's clean and waxed gives the whole house a rosy glow. I need a little break from householding, though, so it won't be next week but the week after.

It's amazing, really. I have thrown out or organized a huge amount of stuff, and the house looks way better, but by no means sparse. The bedroom is still functioning as the attic, but that's the next big push with Thea.

At dinner with H last night, I asked him what he had seen back in May which caused him to recommend I move a big chunk of my 401(k) into cash. He said it wasn't just one thing but several. One was that a lot of the subprime debt was being bought by hedge funds. Now I'm ok so far. I know that hedge funds are mysterious things and you can't always know what's in them. But H said he agreed with the French (for the first time in living memory) that it was making securities hard to price -- which means, in turn, that you can't sell them if you don't how much they should cost. It wasn't critical back in May, but it was there -- and the markets hate that kind of uncertainty. So does H, come to that.

The next thing, he said, was that while he wasn't really a technical kind of guy, he started to see that declines were gaining on the Advance Decline Index which he proceeded to explain.

"Ah HAH!" said I. (BTW, this is a dummy chart from 2005 which was the least complicated one I would find).

He explained some other stuff but by then I had drifted off to wondering how the chef had made the very delicate lemon sauce on my sea bass. In all fairness, he drifts off in the same way when I start explaining why the pc is a better networking machine than the mac. We tend to use one another's specialities without trying to understand them. And a good thing, too.

The kids on the Yankee's are triumphant. They have changed the whole soul of the team. They are playful now, sometimes silly, and usually brilliant. It is a joy to watch them. They all have fabulous stories, but Joba Chamberlain's is the stuff of American mythology. I think he's twenty years old. Maybe 22. Yankee fans are enraptured by him -- as they are by all of the kids. When one or more of them come on the field they chant and stamp their feet and scream themselves hoarse. It's very exciting.

I have two little presents for you. The first is particularly for cat people:

And this is what I call a girl's bike:

As I type the Mn/Wi wing of the family is experiencing the remanants of tropical storm Erin and Jamaica is about to be destroyed by Hurricane Dean. I can't see how Kingston will be able to withstand 150 mph winds.

15:18

Sunday, August 12, 2007

It was some week. Besides the chaos of the transportation for the city shut down for two full days, the stock market swung up and down by 600 points ending up on Friday just about where it started the previous Monday. That kind of volatility makes the people where I work quite jumpy. The Fed and the EU central bank kicked in a couple of hundred billion to stabilize the credit crisis and I guess it paid off. We'll know better tomorrow. My 401K is down quite a bit but not nearly as much as it could have been if H hadn't told me to convert about 2/3's of it to cash about 2 or three months ago. As the markets were on their bull run then -- up until the sub-prime mortgage debacle began swamping wall street -- I wondered if he had lost his touch (blissfully, I didn't say a word) ... but then everything blew up and I think he's looking like a genius again. Bottom line: when it comes to money I do whatever H say do.

I usually wake up two or three times at night and when I do, I turn on one of the radio news stations for a few minutes until sleep catches up with me again. One night last week, Wednesday, I think it was, I turned on the radio as usual and heard that there was a substantially increased police presence in the city, particularly around the bridges and tunnels. Almost as an afterthought, the newscaster added this was due to unsubstantiated information on an Israeli website that Islamic militants had gotten hold of a so-called "dirty" bomb and were planning to blow something up in Manhattan. It is a mark of the era that I muttered, "What. Ever," hit the off button and went back to sleep. Sure enough, the next morning and for the next few days, there were a whole lot of police on the streets. Hizzoner said they had upped the force out of an abundance of caution but didn't expect they would have anything to do but be on the alert.

The Yanks are on a real roll and seriously impressive. They are playing absolutely brilliant baseball. Six weeks ago they were 12 games back of the BoSox - today it's 4. And I am of the opinion that Alex Rodriguez is the single most beautiful person on the planet. It's been a real pleasure watching him and all the rest of my boys begin to play the way they were born to do.

Brian Cashman, the GM of the team, may be pulling off one of the great baseball hat tricks of the Torre era -- he is filling up the roster with fabulous youngsters from the Yankee farm teams. It may set the Yankees up for another run of series wins in years to come with homegrown talent. The kids are such a buoyant and happy addition to the business-like regulars - thrilled to be in the bigs, thrilled to sit next to Mo and the Rocket and Alex and the Captain and the Giambino to do some serious jawing about the game... it is really fun to watch. Torre is managing them very carefully ... which is also interesting.

More later. I'm beat. Another week begins in the morning.

21:01

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

I had heard nothing on the news but when I got to the bus stop, I knew something had happened.

And indeed it had. It had rained. To be fair it was a very heavy rain in the middle of the night which it flooded all the major subway lines at one station or another. Traffic was at a standstill, literally. So New Yorkers did what they always do; they shrugged, set forth a couple of curses and began to hoof it.

Moreover, the rainstorm brought a tornado to Brooklyn. We are all amazed.

Tell me again how the global warming is an urban myth.

Nobody's been hurt, though. Quite remarkable.

20:48

Saturday, August 04, 2007

To the great relief and exultation of his team, the crowd in the stadium, fans across the country -- and himself -- ARod finally managed his 500th home run at his first at bat in this afternoon's game. It was a splendid spectacle. CUs of him back in the dugout after the achievement, show him sitting next to Jeter and repeatedly saying, "Thank God that's over. I'm so glad that's over." I would imagine a lot of heroes can be heard saying something similar after a triumph.

15:06

Thursday, August 02, 2007

This was an interstate highway bridge in Minneapolis yesterday at evening rush hour. Imagine how relieved I was to get an email from Patti saying everybody is ok. (Well, not everybody as there were casualties and injuries, obviously. But nobody in our little clan was involved.)

I'm just back from a colonoscopy. The procedure itself was a snap. The preparation was a misery. Janie came and got me and led me, tottering, home.

And I've turned 67.

The Yanks are on a roll. Work is fine. And I'm a happy camper to be in my own house, able to eat something and on the verge of a nap.

11:16

Friday, July 27, 2007

Harry Potter 7 is not a children's book. I think you need to be Harry's age, or around there, before you tackle it. I'm not reading as fast as I once did -- too much reading on the computer, probably. Good vs. evil ... and it's a very close thing.

So that's what I'm doing these days. Thea comes again tomorrow and we'll make a full-court press on the clutter challenge. I'm hopeful. more later.

07:36

Saturday, July 21, 2007	Harry Potter 7 arrives today!! I'm not moving until the doorbell rings. I'm SO EXCITED!!! 10:18

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

6:22pm

At about 6:00, I had been home for about 20 minutes, there was a enormous roar that sounded at first like an explosion and then like violent rolling thunder. But the sound didn't stop. It's now 6:30 and the roar has not diminished. It was clearly nearby. It scared the cats who have retreated to their secret places. The first report I saw came in about 6:10 and the guys in the studio were reporting that it was a manhole cover explosion.

Manhole cover explosion, my ass, I thought. The sirens began so I decided to go take a look. I went to the corner, where there was a substantial crowd gathered behind yellow police tape and looked north. Everything north of 41st Street was obscured by billowing, dense, beige smoke. I've never seen anything like it. Steve, our super, came up beside me and looked up the street. "What is it?" I asked him.

"It's a steam explosion of some kind," he said, "and a big one. Probably one of the big transformers." A man next to him piped up, "Yup, it's a steam explosion, alright. And that means there's asbestos in the air everywhere. Look, I've just walked down from 40th street and it's all over my suit"

"Ah," I said. "I think I'll go home, close my windows and turn on the air conditioning."

"An excellent plan," he said.

So here I am, riveted to the tv, flicking from channel to channel seeing who has the most recent update. Early reports say 2 were injured and that is is not a terror related event. Oh how I wish I had a police scanner.

I'll eat my hat if only two people were injured.

More later. I'm going to go look on the web to see if anybody has any info.

UPDATE #1. 6:35pm The Gothamist had this report:

BREAKING: There are reports of an explosion near Grand Central Terminal. Apparently manhole may have exploded around East 48th and Third Avenue, with many people injured. Officer workers in the area tell us they were told to stay in their offices. Train traffic into Grand Central may be impacted as well.

1010WINS says on their website: "A large transformer has exploded at 41st Street between Third and Lexington avenues, according to the FDNY."

Traffic is being shut down in the vicinity and buildings are being evacuated.

Update 6:20PM: Some reports say that a steam pipe exploded on East 41st. The area between East 41st and 47th is being cleared. Metro-North service is running normal, but the 4/5/6 service may be diverted.

It's a 4th alarm fire situation, with two injuries (one may be a young man with burns).

A reader at Lexington and East 46th tells us that people are either walking uptown very quickly or standing around to take cameraphone pictures.

Update 6:32PM: The NYPD does not believe it was a terrorist attack. The AP reports, "A large column of gray smoke poured from the vicinity of a building near Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building, and the air near the site was filled with ash."

Reader Sean writes us:

I happen to live 3 blocks south of the explosion & it's right out my window. The scene is calm now that police have arrived. But my whole building is vibrating from the rumble of the high-pressure venting. There is steam spewing out of the ground at very high velocity (almost volcano-like); it has torn a 2 lane wide hole in Lex just north of 41st.

The fire is now at 5 alarms.
Posted by Jen Chung in News: NYC

UPDATE #2 6:55pm

NBC has pictures that look like what I saw. The explosion looks like a volcanic eruption with geysers of material being gouted 20 stories into the air.

The office of emergency management is saying that people near the explosion should evacuate the area because there are possibly hazardous contaminants in the air. They have not said what they mean by "near." I have no desire to leave home.

They continue to emphasize that there is nothing sinister about this ... aside from being life-threatening, that is. But there is no report of terrorist connection.

huh. I'm looking at NBC and their cameras are right up the street.

UPDATE #3. 7:28pm.

The reports about asbestos are beginning to come in. There was a report from the federal Environmental Protection Agency saying there is no danger in the air. I immediately went to my emergency suitcase and found the face masks ... which i am wearing as I type this. After the federal fuck-ups over 9/11, it's best to err on the side of caution.

The good thing is the electricity is still on.

Reports from burn centers and hospitals are beginning to come in. (All along the East River from 15th Street up to 90th Street there is a solid line of very impressive teaching and research hospitals -- interrupted by the UN at 42nd to 44th. So far there are 11 people reported injured, three of them critically.

oop. The number has gone up to 14.

UPDATE #4: 8:00PM.

Yowza. The steam has subsided considerably and the pictures of the crater at 41 and Lex are just coming in. There's a tow truck at the bottom of it. I don't want to think about the guys who were in it. The crater is easily 30 x 30 feet.

UPDATE #5: 8:00PM.

Hizzoner Bloomberg is on the air. He is serving as information central. He has with him the heads of every department of city government who are on their cels with their various agencies. He is bringing them up to the mike one by one providing the latest news ... health services telling us what to do with possibly contaminated clothing, that the city will be conducting OUR OWN air testing and the results will be up in about an hour. Could be I can take off this mask. (I'm feeling pretty silly with it on, esp. since Hizzoner is standing at Grand Central sans mask.) Anyway, I always feel that all is well in hand when I see our Mayor has taken charge.

They are repeating over and over that this is a failure of our infrastructure, not a terrorist attack. (Which means we can all go back to grousing about how freaking inconvenient this all is. I love New Yorkers)

UPDATE #6: 9:02PM.

Well, the dust has settled. The emergency broadcasts have signed off (updates at 11:00). I'm watching the Yankees now. The first responders continue to do their amazing work. I'm going to have some supper and go to sleep.

18:22

Tuesday, July 17, 2007	This made me laugh. I also thought it was awfully clever. How did whoever did this think it up? 20:46