Pam Landry » Musings

A Shoreline Story ( or MARCIA, MARCIA, MARCIA)

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:00:12 +0000

One afternoon last week I was returning home from doing a show at The Peak in White Plains (www.1071thepeak.com) when I found 2 strangers standing in my driveway, a third stranger taking pictures of my house and a fourth standing around in the street.

I opened the driver’s side window and informed them that if they didn’t move I would be running them over.

“She used to live here!” said the fourth standing around stranger.

I pulled in and parked and jumped out of the car.

“Okay…who used to live here?” I asked.

“She did.” Fourth stranger pointed at a small older woman…one of the two people who had been standing in my driveway. “And today is her 90^th birthday!”

I looked at this small, older woman who didn’t look 90, and hugged her. I asked her name.

“Marcia. I lived here when I was a little girl.”

Introductions were made all around. With Marcia were her son and daughter-in-law who came down from Maine to celebrate Marcia’s landmark birthday and her nephew who lives in Woodbridge. Marcia lives in New Haven now and explained that she “doesn’t drive anymore” which I was happy to hear.

“Would you like to come inside?” I asked. “The house is a mess. If I’d known you were coming…”

Of course they all said they didn’t want to impose but I knew Marcia very much wanted to see the house. And, besides, it was no imposition at all; I was fascinated by the whole turn of events and wanted to hear what the house looked like when Marcia lived there.

The nephew left but Marcia, her son and daughter-in-law came inside. I asked Marcia if she had any photographs of the house from when she had lived in it. Since our house was built in 1930 as a beach house, she would have been in her early teens when she lived in it. She said she thought she had a few and her daughter-in-law said she would try to scan them and send them to me.

Marcia moved around the living room area and pointed out where there was once a window and how there used to be a partition “with that criss-cross stuff on the top.”

“Lattice work?” offered her son.

“Yes! That’s it. Lattice, “ said Marcia.

She told us how the house was two stories then (it is three now) and how the sole bathroom was on the first floor off the kitchen area. There was no back deck.

“And of course these hardwood floors weren’t here.”

“Would you like to see the second floor?” I asked her. Again she said she didn’t want to impose and I assured her this was as much of a treat for me as it was for her. I loved hearing about what my house was like before I was even born.

I led the way to the second floor that was also considerably different from when Marcia was living there. For one thing, there was no bathroom on the second floor, just three small bedrooms, one of which was a “summer porch” as Marcia put it. It is the room in the front of our house that, to this day, is not heated and so it is used for storage; a polite way to say it holds all our crap. When Marcia was a kid living there, that room was screened in and the kids liked to sleep there on warm summer nights.

Although I invited everyone to see the third floor Marcia decided it would be too much of a trip. She was happy to have seen the space that had been her home some 75 years ago.

“Your house is very cozy,” Marcia said. She wanted to know if we liked living in it.

“We love it and we are taking good care of it,” I told her.

She seemed pleased by what she had seen. We all exchanged our contact information (“M-A-R-C-I-A” she spelled out her first name for me. “I was going to ask if it was Marcia with a CIA or an SHA,” I said. “Thank you,” said Marcia.). She told us that she wants us to come and visit her.

And then they were gone.

If I had not come home at the same time that she and her family were outside my house I likely never would have met Marcia. I am certain they wouldn’t have knocked on our door. It was meant for me to meet Marcia on her 90^th birthday. It wasn’t my birthday but I sure felt like I got a gift.

Adventures In Driving

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:00:43 +0000

All this week I am driving between Milford, CT and North White Plains, NY as I happily fill in for my boss hosting the midday show (11a-3p) at 107.1 The Peak (www.1071thepeak.com).

If you spend anytime driving you know the myriad of joys it provides.

I decided to take notes. And don’t worry I wasn’t writing, texting or anything else while driving (yes imagine this: I actually drive while not doing anything else!). My notes were taken mentally. And at red lights which I actually stop for.

Monday 8:58am (not a minute after I pulled away from my house): mini-van driven by a woman is coming down a side street perpendicular to me (I had the right of way, as I was on the main road) doesn’t stop and, as a result, cuts me off. I’m sure the driver thought nothing of it; afterall there is no stop sign on the corner so that means ya don’t have to stop, right???

Driver apparently has never heard the term “right of way” let alone “common courtesy”.

Monday 9:07am: still on local roads. Mini-van driven by a man is the lead car at a red light. Green left arrow appears and driver doesn’t move. I blow my horn. Barely get through the intersection as the left arrow turns yellow and vanishes. When I pass the mini-van, driver is looking at his cell phone. He is either texting or dialing but clearly not driving.

Monday 9:17am: now on the Parkway headed south…a whole ten minutes passed without incident! Likely because the traffic is light due to the MLK Jr. holiday…but wait! A silver SUV cuts me off without signaling! Sex of the driver is unknown.

Okay so you get the idea. It’s a 55 mile drive between home and the radio station and stuff just keeps happening. The biggest repeat annoyance that I detect is the lack of directional signals. This is probably my single biggest pet peeve when it comes to driving. I actually use signals when I change lanes. Yup and I use them for a variety of reasons: because it’s the LAW, because it’s safer and I believe the majority of drivers (like me) are NOT mind readers, and because I like to respect my fellow travelers by acknowledging their existence. In other words, I do NOT believe that I am the only one on the road and that the world revolves around ME.

I also like to use my directional signals because it gives me something to do since I’m not texting or talking on a phone when I drive.

Tuesday 9:00am: silver Honda sedan runs a stop sign. Hey, I was far enough away from him/her (again sex of driver unknown) so why would the driver bother stopping for that stop sign? Better to just go full throttle through it.

Tuesday 9:09am: on the Parkway I notice a big hawk (type undetermined…perhaps a Red Tail?) perched above the road on a light pole. I imagine what that hawk must witness below every day and decide to stop taking mental notes.

Besides the lack of directional signals, my other BIG pet peeve when it comes to driving on the two-lane Parkway is drivers who insist on using the left lane for cruising. This ignorance is particularly aggravating when the “cruiser” in the left lane has a line of cars behind it and still doesn’t get the message to move over. I might attribute this to the “cruiser’s” lack of side and rear view mirrors, however those accoutrements are most often present on the cruising vehicle. Wait…maybe the “cruiser” doesn’t know what those reflecting devices are FOR? Nah…I doubt it. Me thinks the “cruiser” is just an idiot.

Another driving pet peeve is a sort of mystical one. It is the “braking for no reason” phenomenon or “BFNR”. This is the driver you are following who has no one in front of him and hits his brakes for no reason. And believe me, I am not a tailgater so the BFNR is not a message for me to back off. In fact I’ve often seen BFNR happening in an adjacent lane to the one in which I am driving. And a related pet peeve: drivers who actually drive WITH A FOOT ON THE BRAKE. Yup, their brake lights are ALWAYS ON. A mechanic’s dream.

On roads there are lines marking the lanes in which to drive. Pretty simple. Yet some drivers can’t seem to fit their vehicles between the lines. In fact, some drivers can’t fit their vehicles on the proper side of the road, driving over the double yellow line. My car fits fine. Even Hummers fit. Your car fits too, trust me. Or buy yourself a smaller vehicle that you can actually drive.

When this little diatribe hits the Shoreline Out and About sight I’ll be getting ready for my Wednesday Adventure in Driving. At least turn signals aren’t a problem when I’m on the radio.

So How Did You Spend Your New Year’s Eve?

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:56:30 +0000

I remember as a little kid pleading with my parents to let me stay up and see this ball drop thing on New Year’s Eve. I didn’t understand what it was exactly but I knew that it was a big deal and that I needed to see it. Plus I just thought it would be cool to stay up until midnight.

Now I am just as happy to be snug in my warm bed at midnight on New Year’s Eve. And, hey. If I happen to stay awake until midnight great. If not…fine.

I have never been the type of person who has to get dressed up and spend a lot of extra money just to be somewhere when the clock strikes twelve. Why is that meal that’s usually $15 suddenly $65? I don’t need a hat and noisemakers.

Don’t get me wrong…I’ve had plenty of really fun New Year’s Eves in my day.

Since my sister’s birthday is January 3 when we were younger and still liked to ski sometimes we’d go up to Massachusetts or Vermont for New Year’s Eve. One year we even got into a car accident driving to the Berkshires in a rental car. Snowstorm. Car leaves road and ends up in snow bank. No one was hurt but we had a heck of a time getting a tow and then found ourselves stuck at the Bar-Ken gas station in the middle of nowhere eating peanut and cheese crackers from a rusty vending machine while waiting for our Aunt to come and get us. Good times.

When I was in my twenties I lived in Manhattan. You could not have paid me to go to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. I did, though, go to the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting one year (I was working in Rock Center at the time). Once and only once, as the crowds were so huge that I nearly got pushed through the plate glass window of a bank. This was back when the lighting of the tree happened at 6:00 on the chosen night. There was no prime-time TV extravaganza associated with it; they just lit it pure and simple. Then someone figured out how to make money off of it.

And there was the year I spent New Year’s Eve in Salt Lake City. My ex-boyfriend from many years ago was from there and we had gone out to visit his family. Utah being a dry state was not really what I had in mind for celebrating New Year’s Eve. Ah, but how wrong was I. In Park City we paid $5 for a “club membership” at a bar and since we were now “members of a private club” we could drink to our hearts content. I recall getting drunker in Utah than I had ever gotten in New York.

The New Year’s Eve that I remember most fondly was 1999. Bob and I succumbed to the end of the 1900’s hype and decided to do something special. Since we both had full-time jobs at the time we could afford to go where we really wanted to spend New Year’s Eve should Y2K result in the world ending or, at the very least, in the power grid failing. That place was Key West, Florida.

So we booked it, Danno.

Bob and I have been to Key West about 10 times. Of course like everything else, prices were jacked up for the “special occasion”. I think paying more just makes it more special. Anyway, since we could get a better deal by booking more than a week we did and left for Key West two days after Christmas.

We saw the giant conch shell that gets lowered at midnight from Sloppy Joe’s on Duval Street although we opted not to be in the middle of the chaos when the clock struck twelve. Instead we stood drinking champagne on the balcony of our guest house on upper Duval Street (the quieter part of the infamous main drag of Key West) and were treated to the unexpected sight of fireworks going off all around the island. It was wonderful and magical and…WARM!

And the world didn’t end.

Ten years after our New Year’s Eve trip to Key West we spent it here on the shoreline as we have over the past several years with a small and wonderful group of friends at our small and wonderful favorite local restaurant that is within walking distance from our house. We ate, drank and were perhaps a little too merry (my head hurt the next day) and we were home well before midnight.

And this year we saw that mysterious ball drop from Times Square while, yes, warm in our bed. We were fine with watching Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper freeze along with a few million other people viewed from our TV screen.

Whatever you did – or didn’t do – on New Year’s Eve 2009, I hope you stayed safe and warm doing it .

Take with you my hopes for a happy and healthy 2010.

It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:00:50 +0000

The storm of the decade began along the Shoreline just after sundown on Saturday. This, of course, gave us time to tear around like lunatics buying everything that wasn’t nailed down regardless of whether we needed it or not: it was gonna snow!!! A LOT!!! So we now needed stuff we never needed before.

And snow it did; into the night and when night became cold Sunday morning it was still snowing. Unlike the majority of Connecticut snowstorms this one hit the coast the hardest, leaving only a few inches north and west and an average of a foot along the coastal areas.

Oh joy.

By eight a.m. Bob and I were out starting to clear the stuff. We live on a steep hill on a deadend without a garage. When we have to clear snow the only place to put the stuff is in the street. Without a plow in sight we got to work. Bob with the snowthrower and me, trudging through the backyard taking snow pictures. A yeadstick sunk nearly 15 inches into the untouched snow on a table on our back deck. Ooh fah. A trio of chickadees yelled at me from the red maple tree.

When I lived in Manhattan back in the eighties, a big snowstorm was a party. No need to drive or shovel….it was clean, quiet and magical. There was a January storm which dumped something like eighteen inches of snow in Central Park; a college buddy of mine and I spent the day romping in Central Park….it was like being a kid again. And might have been the last time I really LIKED a good snowstorm because once I moved to the ‘burbs….uh uh. Don’t make me drive in it.

Back to the clean-up effort. Now the neighbors are out in force and everyone is wondering where the city plow is. There had been a sighting earlier in the morning at the top of our street but the plow had left without coming down the lower part of the street where we live. A call to Public Works assured me a plow would be around soon but two hours later…at noon…still no plow.

I have an all wheel drive vehicle BUT even that would not have gotten me up the hill and out with the amount of snow we had on the road. Nice that none of us had to get to work because none of us would have.

We have a cement parking “pad” in front of our house so that we at least have off-street parking. In order to clear it of snow we need to move the vehicles into the street. In doing so we noticed that one of my back tires was looking pretty pretty flat…not all the way flat but on the way to all the way flat and in need of immediate attention. Okay great. It’s SUNDAY and there is a boatload of snow on the ground and nary a plow in sight….not promising for tire repair.

A phone call to Sears Auto Center revealed that they would be open until 5:00 and that they would repair a flat. Now we just needed a plow….

At 1:07pm a plow arrived!!!! Praise Jesus we would all be saved. He plowed he sanded and we were good to go. In the meantime Bob (also known as my knight in a parka) had decided he would take the deflating tire off my car and put on the “doughnut”…not an easy task in weather like we had on Sunday. “no problem,” he said. Done. And we were off to Sears.

We arrived at the Sears Auto Center at 1:45. A really nice guy named Scott helped us and it became clear that my tire problem was wear and tear and so I had to bite the bullet and go for four new tires. Just what someone who is only working part-time needs. Merry Christmas to me! I asked Scott how long it would take and was told “about an hour and a half”.

Off to the freezing cold “customer lounge” we went where they did have a nice flat screen TV so we could watch the Jets choke. At 3:18 my car finally appeared in the garage and was put into bay #11 and up on the lift.

And there it sat. Everytime I looked into the garage there was no one near it doing anything.

And this was the story for at least the next half hour until finally a mechanic appeared and, seemingly in slow motion, mounted, balanced and replaced my four tires.

We left Sears Auto Center three hours after we had arrived.

The snow pile at the end of our street (which is basically in front of our house) reminds me of college in Oswego. It might melt by July.

I write this on the first day of winter…the winter solstice…something to celebrate only because the days will now start getting longer.

The most wonderful time of the year, my ass.

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:00:28 +0000

My favorite thing about this time of the year is the lights. I’m not fond of those big, awkward blow-up decorations that started appearing a few years back or the mechanical stuff or anything too over-the-top….just lights thank you. A simple light-filled tree in the yard or a string of lights along a deck (especially if the deck is on the water and the lights reflect off the water) are the perfect holiday addition.

And there has to be a Christmas tree in the house.

When my parents were married in 1950, my Dad worked as a florist. After developing severe skin allergies he made the logical Dad-like move and went into the artificial flower business. First they were made of plastic and, later, silk; in some cases the silk flowers look more real than real flowers.

Buying a quality artificial Christmas tree can cost a mint. When I was a kid my Dad could have brought home the Rolls Royce of artificial Christmas trees from his place of business for free but his family (me, my sister and my Mom) INSISTED on a real Christmas tree.

“It smells so good!”

“It wouldn’t really be Christmas without a REAL tree”

“Fake trees are icky”

So every holiday season there was always a trip to the local nursery to buy a REAL Christmas tree.

Along with the real tree, my parents had a ceramic tree with tiny multi-colored lights like gemstones that stood about a foot tall. Every Christmas they would put this little ceramic tree out on a table in front of the picture window in our living room. Even though it wasn’t a REAL tree, I always loved that little ceramic tree.

About 20 years ago I came to live in Connecticut, in a house my husband was renting in Stamford. A few weeks before our first Christmas together we bought a real Christmas tree and set it up in front of our living room window. We had two cats that were just over a year old. Suffice it to say the tree spent more time tipped over on its side than standing up in its red cast iron tree stand that I had bought from LL Bean. In subsequent years we decided, since we weren’t spending the holiday at home anyway but were instead shuttling between my family in New York and Bob’s in New Jersey, we’d decorate the house minus a tree.

After a few years at that house we got tired of our crazy landlord (there was a story circulating that when he lived in the house he once was arrested for shooting a gun off from the roof while naked; as if shooting a gun off from your roof wasn’t nuts enough the “while naked” part just took it to a whole new level of crazy) and on a sunny Labor Day weekend went looking for a better place to rent. We found it in one day; an adorable little cottage a few blocks from the water with a huge stone fireplace and plenty of neat nooks and crannies and quirks (not counting the two of us). We learned our cottage had originally been a chicken coop for a farm and was later converted to human living quarters. Just a few months after we moved in to our little chicken coop cottage, the holidays rolled around and we reconsidered a Christmas tree. We still had the cats though they were now a few years older and a bit less interested in destroying things (otherwise known as “playing”). One of the little nooks in the living room was just right for a 3 foot tree; it would stand on a built-in bench about eighteen inches off the floor and out of kitty target range.

And so our Christmas tree was back and, of course, REAL.

We rented the cottage for about eight years until we got tired of THAT crazy landlady and her drunkard boyfriend and, with interest rates falling lower each day, we decided it would cost us as much to pay rent as it would to pay a mortgage.

With housing and taxes on that housing being less expensive along the shoreline in New Haven County versus Fairfield County, up the shoreline we moved. It look us a painfully long ten months to get our house but, in the end, we got the best house of all the ones we had looked at. And believe me there were A LOT of houses that we looked at and several that we went to contract on and ALL of them fell through (but that is another story). Suffice it to say that I learned a lot about buying a house.

We moved into our first house (as homeowners) the day after Thanksgiving, 2002.

Yup…the holidays were upon us! Is there a place to put a tree?

After much discussion and contemplation we decided that putting up a real Christmas tree would be more trouble than it was worth. We still were not home much over the holidays and the layout of our house would require way too much rearranging. We settled for decorating the house without getting a tree.

In 2005 my Dad got sick (Mom had passed away 5 years earlier) and ended up at an assisting living facility. When my sister and I were faced with the heartbreaking and physically and emotionally exhausting task of cleaning out our parents only home (and the home in which we had grown up) I took the little ceramic Christmas tree. At holiday time we brought it to Dad and set it up in his room; he loved it. After Christmas I brought it to my house and packed it away until I would bring it back to him again next year.

But that never happened.

Dad had to be relocated to a nursing home because his health worsened and he no longer had a place for the little ceramic tree (nor did he have much interest in it). I doubt he misses the little ceramic tree because he likely doesn’t remember it.

And so it is Christmas 2009 and the third holiday season that the little ceramic tree will sit on a table in the window of my living room on the Connecticut shoreline.

In my wise old age, the little kid who once insisted on only a REAL Christmas tree has come to understand that a real tree isn’t always the best tree. My little ceramic tree might not be real but it will always remind me of my family and that, afterall, is what matters most.

The Official Article About Official State Of Connecticut Stuff

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:00:24 +0000

In my endless quest to learn more about the State that I have called home for the past 20 years, I recently took to the internet.

My curiosity was piqued during a recent conversation with a friend about the Praying Mantis. Every Fall I spot more than a few of the little aliens in my backyard and I know that they are the Official State Insect of Connecticut. (More precisely, the European Praying Mantis is the state insect; it is not native to the US and it also explains why I’ve seen a few of them wearing berets and smoking Galois.) I also seemed to remember being told that it was illegal to kill a Praying Mantis which, it turns out, is not true (they are not an endangered species…checked it out on snopes.com) but what IS true is that they are a good insect that eats bad insects. The Praying Mantis is also fascinating to watch and, yes, they do fly.

So anyway, my recent conversation with a friend about the Praying Mantis got me to thinkin’ in my head about other “Official State of Connecticut” stuff.

The official bird for the State of Connecticut is the American Robin. Connecticut also shares its state bird with Michigan and Wisconsin. I’d like to know why we can’t have our own official state bird. Robins love worms and also produce the most beautiful little blue eggs. I am pretty sure Martha Stewart has a whole line of products named for them and if she doesn’t she should.

The official animal of Connecticut is the Sperm Whale, because Moby played an important historical role in the history of Connecticut (in the 1800′s Connecticut ranked second only to Massachusetts in the whaling industry.) And when we talk Sperm Whale we ARE talking about an endangered species. I haven’t seen any sperm whales during my many beach walks, have you?

Connecticut’s official state flower is the Mountain Laurel. The shrub is an evergreen and the flower is a small star-shaped white and pink number that is quite beautiful. I recall there were Mountain Laurel shrubs in my family’s front yard when I was a kid. We lived in New York, though, where the official state flower is the Rose. Mountain Laurel is pretty but I’d rather have a bouquet of roses if given the choice.

The official state tree of Connecticut is the Charter or White Oak. Squirrels are especially pleased with this choice.

I also discovered that Connecticut has a state fish and it is the American Shad. Throughout history, the American Shad has been an important food fish and has often been called the “poor man’s salmon”, while the eggs, or ‘roe’, are considered to be a delicacy. Good news: the outlook for the Connecticut River American Shad is very good since there have been slow, but consistent, improvements to water quality, fish passage and management practices all contributing to the return of this native of New England.

If you’ve ever seen Prudence Crandall’s Female Boarding School in Canterbury, CT (now a museum) you’d probably like to know that Ms. Crandall was designated the Official State Heroine of Connecticut in 1995. Prudence Crandall founded the first academy for African-American women in New England in 1833. Her legacy is one of courage in the face of prejudice, as she and her students endured much violence during the 18 months that the Boarding School was in operation.

And, yes, there is also an Official State Hero and he is Nathan Hale. Hale was born in Coventry and schooled at Yale. He was a captain in the Continental army and volunteered to spy on the British during the American Revolution – he was hanged in 1776 (at the age of 21) without a trial by the British. Hale’s last words: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

And now for the Official Connecticut State Motto: repeat after me: Qui transtulit sustinet

meaning:

“He who transplanted sustains”

Which explains why I have so many Echinacea plants in my garden.

Among other official state stuff is the official mineral (Garnet), folk dance (the Square dance) and shellfish (the Eastern oyster).

Official Vehicle of the State of Connecticut: any vehicle as long as it drives too slow in the left lane of the Parkway, doesn’t use directional signals and regards stop signs as optional.

Official Pastime of the State of Connecticut: driving really slow until approaching a yellow light then speeding up to leave the person behind you at the red light.

Alternative official Pastime of the State of Connecticut: tailgating.

Official Sporting Event of the State of Connecticut: finding the least expensive gas station and filling up your tank before the price increases.

Official Beer: anything cold.

Official State Treasure: Dr. Mel Goldstein

Official State Official Who Appears To Have Cloned Himself Because He Is Everywhere: Attorney General Richard Blumenthal

Official State Animal With An Apparent Death Wish: The groundhog (also known as the woodchuck); have you seen them along the side of the Parkway nonchalantly eating while vehicles zoom by within inches of their chubby little bodies?

Official Cookie of the State of Connecticut: chocolate chip (because I said so)

So now it’s YOUR turn: please chime in here with your official state “stuff” for Connecticut; undoubtedly I’ve missed a few…..

Real Mets Fans Do Not Root For The Yankees

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:05:03 +0000

I am originally from New York. When it comes to baseball, I am a New York Metropolitans fan. If the Mets are not “in it” (which of course is most of the time) I do not automatically root for the Yankees because they are the other New York team. Nope. In fact, I root AGAINST them.

Most Yankee fans that I know do not understand this. They will say “if the Yankees are not in it and the Mets are, I’ll root for the Mets”.

First of all, the likelihood of that happening is close to being struck by lightning. Twice. In the same place. While wearing the same clothing. In other words, Yankee fans rarely find themselves in a situation where the Mets are the New York team that is left in the race so, sure, they can say that without really having to worry that it might actually happen.

Okay, fine, in the 80’s the Mets were THE baseball team in New York. But for the most part, it has been about the Yankees. The Mets are the little brother, always trying to live up to big brother’s reputation and success but rarely able to come close. And many Yankee fans like to remind Mets fans of this as often as possible. The Yankees are more handsome, taller, richer and smarter than the Mets. Why can’t you be more like your big brother? Thanks but we don’t need to hear it from you…we already know. And by the way we don’t need you rooting for our team or telling us Mets fans that you “don’t hate the Mets”. Why would a Yankee fan ever hate the Mets? For the most part the Yankees have never had to live “in the shadow” of the Mets the way the Mets have had to with the Yankees. Yankee fans have not had to constantly be reminded of all those championships the Mets have won and all that great Mets history. Mets fans do not need the Yankee fan’s pity.

“How can you hate Derek Jeter?” Yankee fans will ask me. I never said I hated Derek Jeter or any of the individual players…it’s about the LAUNDRY…the UNIFORM…never about the individual players. Sure there are some players I don’t care for (A-Rod) but, then, there have also been plenty of Mets players I’ve disliked over the years (start with Bobby Bonilla). IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT THE LAUNDRY.

And then I get this one, too: “come over to the dark side…become a Yankee fan!” That is just plain stupid. Proves that the person saying it has no understanding of what a true fan is. Listen, if the Mets had been as good as the Yankees have been for so many years, the front-runners would all be Mets fans. It’s much easier to be aligned with a winning team and appears to be a lot more fun.

And now, as a Mets fan, I find my two least favorite baseball teams playing each other in the 2009 World Series: The New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies. Tough choice because I don’t want EITHER team to win the World Series.

I fully expect the powerhouse that is the Yankees to be the 2009 World Champions. But am I rooting for them because I am from New York and they are the New York team in the World Series? Hell no. Boston fans, this is where you have it much easier: there is only one baseball team in Boston. Not so in New York. Or Chicago….yeah, look at Chicago. Would a Cubbies fan root for the White Sox or visa versa? I believe you know the answer to that. And so, for me, a New York Mets fan, there is only ONE New York team and that is the New York Mets. I will be rooting for the underdog, National League team to win the 2009 World Series.

And I won’t have to stay up to watch the games. Yup I will be one well-rested Mets fan. Isn’t that much better than having your team win a World Championship?

Naptime

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:00:30 +0000

I was not born with the “napping gene”.

The rest of my family was. My Mom was the best napper I ever saw; she could lie down for 20 minutes, get up and be totally rejuvenated. Not me. If I napped – and I had to be convinced that I needed to – it was never for less than an hour and when I got up from my nap I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I was a nap resistor. The nap “hangover” for me was enough to keep me from ever taking a nap.

And besides I always felt that if I napped during the day I would miss something.

Somehow over the past year or two I have discovered, in middle-age, the delights of napping. And with this discovery, have come to understand what I’ve been missing all these years.

Especially enjoyable is the sunny afternoon nap. We have a skylight over our bed that allows the sun to stream down and it’s just so…WARM and COZY.

However, napping on a dark, rainy afternoon is also pleasurable. The rain tapping on the skylight, it’s just so WARM and COZY under those covers.

There are, in fact, many weekends where I get up in the morning and can hardly wait to take an afternoon nap.

My sudden fondness and appreciation for napping may be linked to not sleeping well at night. Though I have been known to not sleep well because of anxiety about the future, my principle reason for not sleeping well at night is a black cat named Shea. Nearly every night she visits our bed sometime between, say, two and four a.m. She wants petting. Unlike many animals, Shea is not food driven…she is LOVE driven. And if she doesn’t wake me up when she jumps on the bed she taps me on the face with her paw. Okay I’m awake now and she’s way too cute to ignore. So I pet her and try to keep her from waking up my husband (and there are plenty of times when she wakes him up and leaves me alone). Eventually she will settle on my legs. That’s her thing…to sleep on our legs…not next to us: ON us.

But maybe it’s not Shea’s fault. Perhaps I have just come to realize what I have been missing all these years by resisting the nap. I am making up for lost naptime.

My napping characteristics, however, have remained largely unchanged. I still can’t take a nap that is less than an hour. And when I wake up I am as groggy as hell and usually wonder if I should even get up at all or just keep sleeping.

The part of napping that HAS changed for me is that I no longer feel that I might miss something if I take an afternoon nap. I have come to like missing things and have found that, by taking a nap, I usually miss absolutely nothing. At least nothing good.

Very seldom will I nap during the week. Since I currently am working only part-time, I could nap often. Weekday napping makes me feel guilty and so my naps are largely confined to weekends and holidays.

If our cats (we have two) had any say in the matter, I would be napping more. In fact, if it was up to Shea I would never get out of bed. Cats are expert nappers. I observe and learn. For cats, napping is an art form.

I write this on a rainy October Saturday afternoon. You know what that means. Don’t expect to reach me for at least the next hour. I must go now and hone my craft.

Boo Humbug!

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:47:27 +0000

I don’t like Halloween.

There. I said it. Not a popular opinion, I know.

But does it make me a bad American?

I think not.

This is not to say I’ve always disliked Halloween. When I was a kid, I thought Halloween was fun. Dressing up, knocking on doors, coming home with a sack full of candy. Not a bad way to spend an autumn evening when you’re a kid.

I grew up in a middle-class suburban family; we lived in apartments until my parents bought their first – and only – house sometime in the late 60’s. That’s when I discovered that apartment trick or treating was far less exciting than begging house to house: walking down the street in the dark with scads of other kids was much more adventurous than knocking on a series of doors, one next to the other, down a single hallway. My neighborhood had so many kids in it that we’d have to wait in line to get to the front door of the next house. As for my favorite Halloween costume, it was a white sheet with eyeholes cut out of it and a big sign that read “BOO” which I carried tacked to a stick and which my big sister made for me. I liked this get-up so much that I wore it a couple of years in a row, even though holding the sign presented a bit of a problem as I had my pillow case for candy AND my little orange UNICEF box to juggle as well. But I managed.

Now I have my own house in a middle-class shoreline neighborhood and the kids who come knocking on Halloween are few and far between. Part of our drought of trick or treaters I attribute to the steep hills around my house…keeps the lazy kids away. Thinning of the herd. And part of it I attribute to Halloween parties being more common now, where kids are in a more contained, “safer” environment and what a shame that is. Takes all the fun out of trick or treating. But such is the state of things today.

I haven’t been a kid for a long time (well at least physically) and I haven’t liked Halloween for years. The last time I actually “dressed up” for a Halloween party was when I was in college and then it was due purely to peer pressure, not because I actually wanted to. Wearing a mask just made it harder to drink beer as far as I was concerned. Seeing other adults in costume is mildly amusing but really, in my world, just kids and animals should wear Halloween costumes. I just don’t get the whole adult dress-up thing.

And exactly when did Halloween become a HOLIDAY??? Halloween is NOT a holiday; banks and the post office aren’t closed so you know it’s not a holiday. Ah, but for retail it is a holiday…a big one…and retail has convinced the general population (because we do love our holidays) that damn it, Halloween is a holiday and there is a lot of stuff to be bought. For starters the candy displays are up in August. Yummy! But then, there are so many preservatives in the stuff that it probably has a half-life of 50 years. Then come the decorations…the pumpkins and the ghosts and the skeletons and the one thing that I actually like about Halloween: the black cat “stuff”. I am a black cat freak so I will go to stores just to seek out cool black cat items. Unfortunately, Halloween is a very bad time for black cats (which is another reason why I don’t like Halloween). Bad, twisted people have been known to do bad, twisted things to black cats on Halloween so most animal shelters (and hopefully pet stores) won’t adopt out/sell black cats for a couple of weeks around October 31. Nice, huh?

But back to why Halloween has become a “holiday”: retail. There is candy to buy; decorations, cards, make-up, costumes, pumpkins, wigs. Drive up and down Route 1 and count the Halloween stores that crop up about a month before Halloween. If there is a vacant storefront (and heaven knows there are a LOT of them right now) it is now a Halloween store. They reproduce like rabbits. I did a little research on the internets and depending on the “source” keep coming up with a projected Halloween sales figure for 2009 of between five and six BILLION dollars. Yup: BILLION. Now THAT’S scary.

Rumored to be some of the more popular costumes for Halloween 2009 are dead celebrities such as Michael Jackson (interesting since his face already WAS a mask), Farrah Faucett (ala the bathing suit poster I am wondering???), Ed McMahon (trick or treat hey oh!), and Billy Mays (trick or quick chop); other popular not dead famous people including President Obama, Sarah Palin, Bernie Madoff, and reality superstars Jon and Kate. And vampires will be big. One Halloween costume website listed the number one “Plus Size” costume for women as Mother Superior.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

So why do I dislike Halloween?

I believe it’s the whole death theme that I find to be a turnoff. I am not fond of monsters or ghouls and I don’t like being scared; it doesn’t make me feel good, it makes me feel bad. Graveyards are not my thing and I don’t find headless, bloody creatures enjoyable.

If you are an active Halloween supporter, have fun and be safe. I’ll be home thinking happy thoughts…..