Golden, Plaid, Black

Quincy, PJ, Buck

This is how I spent last Saturday night in Derry, NH. Our friends Patty and Jeff generously allowed us to stay at their home while they were away. Had they been there, I might not have been in my pajamas.

Quincy and Buck are good friends. They love chasing each other in open spaces, although Quincy can outrun Buck any day.

We were in the area to see the Ivy League Championships at Harvard where Mark was running the mile. He made it to the final heat but didn't have a good run in that race.

Quincy, I hope you visit us soon. And bring your parents.

A Book of Essays

I've written a book about Costa Rica, but haven't been able to get it published. It consists of essays, letters, and poems. I pitched a book about leukemia, which I know a lot about. It consists of essays, poems, and blog posts. That book is about 2/3 finished, and even though I use a lot of humor, I doubt it will ever be published.

I've written a number of short stories which I've sent nowhere, and many poems, probably enough for a book. I'm in the middle of a story now called "Django Cohen." Don't you wonder what it's about?

Several weeks ago, I had an ah-ha moment. Why don't I write a book combining highlights of my work. It all begins on Playa Gringo. You want to read this melange of stories, essay, poetry, right?

It turns out the books consisting of essays are suddenly of interest. Something about the attention span of today's reader. An essay is usually short, and when it's over, that's it. You don't have to remember characters' names, nicknames and household arrangements like you do in a novel. I've read two articles in The New York Times in the past week that analyze and speculate about this new genre. It's not really "new," of course.

The poems I sprinkle throughout the book will be like breath mints, a pause to refresh before the reader jumps into the next essay. The connection, of course, among the essays, stories, and poems is me. I just have to choose, edit and arrange suitably, and then find an agent.

Just.

A Storm, a Race and Dinner with Friends

Mark texted to say he was running the mile with a rabbit on Friday evening at the Armory track in Manhattan. A runner is the "rabbit" and his or her job is to pace the race so that a better time might result. Mark would be trying to go sub-4:00 in the mile.

A big storm was brewing in the NYC area, a "monster," "the storm of the century" according to the media which was so delighted to be able to report on something people actually wanted to listen to. No milk, no bread, no water, no gas. Yikes!

We were so scared, we jumped in the car with our dog and a day's worth of clothing and meds, water and snacks. We planned to stay with friends in Westchester if need be. The snow began to fall within the first hour of our trip. It got a little worse, but there was only light traffic due to the fleeing of all non-essential humans. A car did spin out in front of us on the Palisades Parkway and hit the guardrail, but we were able to avoid him, and he was able to back up an pull out safely

Mark's race went off with a glitch. Two runners collided and fell down during the first 100 meters so they had to stop the race and start over. Then the officials decided to run the women's 5k race before the restart, which instead of helping the milers, potentially made them lose focus.

The first 400 meters were blazing fast. The rabbit was setting a pace that would easily result in a sub-4 mile. Mark ran his fastest 400m ever, 50.9 seconds. I started to feel woozy but I know one member of the Columbia cheering squad would catch me, or at least pick me up after the race.

They were still on pace at the 800, but it was clear the race had gone out too fast. Mark fell back. The race was won in 4:06 by another Columbia runner. Mark came in 4th. As usual, Mark was philosophical about the race. My husband felt worse than he did. Sub-4 would have been a nice birthday gift for Mark, but he can wait. His birthday is today. We're going to NYC to take him to a steakhouse, a tradition we started a couple of years ago. No snow is predicted.

When we left the Armory there was about 2-3" of wet snow on the ground. It's hard to gauge snow depth in Manhattan though, so we still believed it was too treacherous to drive home. I called Connie and told her we were coming for the night. We had a delicious pasta with pesto sauce and salad, washed down with red wine. Afterwards, we enjoyed Steve's selection of old-time videos which were a hoot and a half. When I'd had enough Petula Clark, I went to bed.

In the morning we discovered that the storm wasn't too serious in NYC. Long Island was hit badly, as was CT, RI and MA. Westchester got about 8", and we arrived in Jville to find maybe 5" of snow.

I was in the Blizzard of '77 in Buffalo, NY. I went to work at 10 am with no media splash about snow. Within 4 hours, the city was buried in a freak blizzard, stranding people at work or in cars. Buses stopped running. The city shut down and had to have food and snow-removal equipment helicoptered in. The National Guard came to help those trapped (who survived), and to ferry sick people to hospitals. I was lucky. I was trapped in the house of a well-off family who was planning a bar mitzvah for their son the next day. There was no bar mitzvah, but there was lots of yummy food, and I had a bedroom to myself. I stayed for a week and watched "Roots" with the family.

Growing up on Long Island, I saw my share of blizzards and hurricanes that made us lose power and wreaked havoc around the area. Of course the weather reports predicting the storm were on TV, and people probably raided the supermarkets for supplies, but media didn't knock us over the head with dire doom and gloom warnings. There were fewer people then, but they seemed more self-reliant..

Happy Birthday to you, Mark.

The Mother of Invention

While sitting in the car yesterday on the drive from Larchmont to Jville, I decided to call my sister-in-law. You'd think that there would be no need for a hands-free device. In my case, however, I can't seem to hold anything up with my arm for more than 5 minutes. Calls to Esther last way more than 5 minutes. There had to be a way to talk on the phone without sending my muscles into spasms.

And there was! This photo was taken at home, but I was wearing the same hat. It's so comfortable, you could talk until your battery died, instead of a limb!  A hunting cap would work really well for this. You could be chatting with your wife while blowing a deer to bits.

I know there are other cool hands-free devices out there, but I don't have any. Just my winter hats, which I often wear indoors because it's only 3 degrees outside and 50-60 inside depending on the time of day. So this may become a habit.

Sartrebright

Before you think I'm going all existential on you, let me assure you I'm only getting grammatical. What's wrong with the following sentence?

Have less cavities when you brush with Sartrebright.

If you think it seems correct, please read no further.

For the last few months, I've noticed the use of "less" when "fewer" is called for, on commercial television, radio and even in my dining room. A strict grammarian, who'll go unnamed, said that his dentist took on less patients so he could give them better service. "Less patients, or less patience?", I teased. I'm not going into a grammar lesson here because I don't want to bore you even further, but I will tell you a little about Sartrebright.

Sartrebright is a toothpaste used mainly by French intellectuals which is why you've never heard of it. It comes in a distinctive black tube and the paste is gray. My college roommate and I made this up one night. We thought it was hysterical. I'm pretty sure it was a school night so there was no substance abuse going on. Just silliness.

You have fewer things to do in college than later on in life, unless you're me. Then your grammomometer
goes off at the slightest infraction.

Let's just keep that between you and I.

A Wee Dram to Robert Burns

This was Marty's idea via an article in The New York Times. I filled in the details.

Scottish poet Robert Burns celebrated his birthday last Friday, January 25. He's pretty old. Our New Hampshire friends were in for the weekend and were game. First we did a scotch tasting which included 3 single malts. We had an appetizer of lamb pies, Forfar Bridies. They were rich (lots of butter in the pastry) and lamby. For dinner, I made one of my specialties, Scottish Hot Pot, which includes stew beef, veal sausage, potatoes, apples, port wine, tomato paste and thyme. It's rich and delicious, perfect for a cold winter night. I don't know what the Scots would drink with this, but we trusted a Malbec.

We read some verses, including Auld Lang Syne, but we also read a poem about William Wallace's bloody fight to drive the English out of Scotland. Wallace is a supposed ancestor of mine. I have a tartan scarf I bought in Scotland, which I drag out on celebrations like these.

1/23

Before My Morning Joe

Although I've been celebrating since the weekend, today is my birthday. When asked what my date of birth is, to confirm my medical identity, I always say one two three and the year. The year makes it much more noticeable as a cool birthday, but I can't tell you what it is lest you try to steal my identity.

That is, if you want to steal the photo of me above and try to get a transfusion or pick up my prescriptions. What can I say? I look really bad in the morning with my bedhead. But it's funny, too. When I saw how ridiculous I looked, I had Marty take a picture. Yes, my face is really that puffy. My eyes are almost always half closed because of dryness. When I put my special lenses in, I can open them almost all the way.

On Saturday, my friends Jeffrey and David came from NYC and we had a great time cooking, drinking and eating. Dessert was a mocha dacquiose that Jeffrey made. After shrimp wonton hors d'ouevres (homemade), Caesar salad, roast duck with blueberry sauce and artichoke/spinach risotto, it was difficult to go on to dessert, but we managed. I had another slice of the cake for lunch on Sunday.

Monday night, Doug took us out for dinner at a really nice restaurant in PA. But first, we drove to his house and had cocktails. It's just not my birthday without an extra dry Beefeater martini with a twist of grapefruit. Tuesday, I repented. I more or less had a liquid diet all day until I broke down around 5 pm and had cheese and crackers. And a few slices of pepperoni. For dinner, we had roast Cornish hens with leftover blueberry sauce and risotto. I should add that I went to yoga Monday.

This morning, I slept late (8:20 is late for me), made my way toward the scent of fresh coffee, saw how ridiculous I looked and posed for the hag shot above. To treat myself, I went for a massage and then had my hair washed and blow-dried at a local salon. I now look like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, but for the puffy face.

I spoke with my son in NYC and skyped with my son in Denmark. We'll be meeting a group of friends at a Japanese steak house midway between us, about an hour or so away. Maybe I'll have a better photo to show you tomorrow.