One of my mother's favorite phrases was "God writes straight with crooked lines." Keeping in mind that I'm not religious - primarily because, if there were a God, does he/she decide to side with one opposing interest one day and another the next? after all, enemies often each claim utter devotion to him/her and it seems unlikely that he/she would choose sides and many enemies do fight in his/her name, at least so they say; please don't yell at me, this is just an opinion - nevertheless I have always been inordinately fond of this thought for it seeing good. Optimism is something I do wholeheartedly believe in and strive toward, even if I cannot always achieve it. In fact it's clear that crooked (i.e., unpleasant or difficult) situations often emerge into superb unexpected outcomes. The most recent and pleasing (to me) was a difficult situation at work which resulted in both renewed and new associations and friendships, partly revolving around passion for the New York Times crossword puzzle which was another passion of my mother's, come to think of it. Ciao, mamma!

Labels: friends, optimism

I gave in at last and went to the restaurant voted best Japanese restaurant in the area for the last several years. (My instinct is still influenced by my father's unfortunate aversion to popular things but I overcame . . . and what a good thing I did.) It's no big secret that my geographical region is the so-called Mid-Hudson Valley north of New York City, so it's not revealing much to identify the restaurant. It's called Neko and has two branches, one in New Paltz and one in Wappingers Falls. The atmosphere is very pleasant. Not rushed, not hoity-toity (which some Japanese restaurants are), not too hot and not too cold. (Goldilocks would be happy, I guess.) The waitresses were friendly and helpful. There was a big party in a back room and despite the occasional startling bursts of flames and outbursts of laughter, it was never difficult to concentrate on my own friends and food. Most important, the food was delicious. I find miso soup and salad always scrumptious but they were particularly light and flavorful. I finished with ginger ice cream instead of more sushi (which is really what I wanted!) because I was trying to test the whole spectrum, and the ice cream was perfect. I highly recommend Neko and can't wait to return.

Labels: food, places, restaurants

I've heard of Christmas in April as a fundraiser and Christmas in July as a gift-giving treat but this weekend we had summer in April. It was 95 degrees here this afternoon. Now I'm definitely sick of snow but 95 on April 26th does not bode well for July and August. Heaven help those of us who get breathless when the heat and humidity pair up too much. Hey, what is weather if not something to complain about, right?! Anyway, it was gorgeous and the flowering trees are very happy indeed!

Labels: weather

My May commuting pass arrived from Metro-North. The envelope included a flyer with all kinds of cheery talk about how to lower the actual cost because the government's stimulus package allows pre-tax withdrawal to be increased by about $75. Of course that's been true for several months - but the important minor detail they omit from their jollity (with apologies for the sarcasm) is that the MTA is hoping/planning to raise fares in June by 33%. That's not a typo. Thirty-three percent. That will bring it to over $500 for people in my area.

Interesting logic. On the one hand: hey, here's some good news - you can withhold more pre-tax to pay your commuting fare. On the other hand: you have to pay more now, in fact twice more than the more you can withhold. This kind of logic puts one in mind of that definition of "chutzpah" as what someone has who kills their parents and then begs mercy from the court because they're an orphan.

The math is interesting, too. Pre-tax put-asides are meant to say that you're saving 1/3 in actual dollars, so an additional $75 is equivalent to around $25. The proposed increase, however, is an additional $100. So the net is $75 dollar more per month, even assuming the pre-tax allowance isn't cut back. So it comes down to an additional $1200+ per year for the fare which is supposedly being offset by pre-tax savings of $300 more. Which is still a net additional cost of $900 at minimum. Nine hundred dollars!! Two years ago our fares were raised 9% and two years before that were raised 7% so in less than five years our fares have doubled.

A $100+ increase - and $500+ per month overall - is exhorbitant and outrageous. And it's not as if raises would match that increase - good raises are in the 5-8% range - but certainly not this year. This year, after all, this year many people are losing their jobs and few are getting raises at all, let alone 30%.

Why haven't State legislators worked this out, as they promised? Shouldn't they be massively encouraging people to take the train - green initiatives and all, if reasonableness fees isn't good sense enough. Couldn't they boldly lower fares so more people would take the train? Do they want people to stop working in New York City and earning good salaries and bringing cash back to mid-state counties? How are Governor Patterson and Mayor Bloomberg allowing this to happen to their constituents?

And what happened to the promised criminal charges a couple of years ago when it turned out the MTA was hiding real account books and had a huge surplus? And what happened to the billions of surplus funds?

It's not as if we get more when they increase the rent, I mean fare. ($500 is what a college friend is paying for rent this coming year, by they way.) Two years after the last hike, we still have unbelievably smelly bathrooms, grimy windows and seats, and are almost always slightly late, among other things. There's even a disclaimer on the tickets about how they don't guaranteed a seat, only that you'll arrive eventually. We also have no choice because buses and cars (i.e., driving into NYC) is prohibitively traffic-jammed, cost-wearing on cars and people, and the complete opposite of good for the environment.

We do get to see the Hudson River every day on my line, and that's wonderful, although no thanks to them, of course. Come to think of it, I wonder when they'll think of charging us a "view fee" since we pass a beautiful river instead of junkyards and manufacturing plants.

Labels: expenses, transportation

I really like today's quote from C.S. Lewis - We are what we believe we are.
Probably neither a hundred percent true nor one hundred percent possible, but good to aim for on all levels.

Labels: optimism, writing

I already have two of next year's egg surprises! One is a tiny green frog with cute legs and red markings on its face. And another is a small stamp with the first name's initial. Cheers!

Labels: celebrations, events, family

Super egg hunt yesterday! When she arrived, the hunter waited calmly while the adults greeted and chattered. Even though she could see some of the brightly colored ovoids, she just smiled and waited patiently. Once she started, at first she methodically put them, unopened, in her basket. Her plan was to collect them all and then concentrate on opening them, but curiosity got to her after a while and she started opening them as she found them. It was so much fun to see how delighted she was by glittery hair clips and egg-shaped erasers, among other things! One thing I especially like is finding all sorts of little things other than candy - although candy is definitely part of it too, being *the* tradition, after all. Shoe clip-on flowers, a tiny purple bendable magnet-man, a stack-of-crayons, stickers, pipe cleaners. . . . I saw one or two too-perfect-for-Easter things that were irresistible and too big to fit into eggs - the small boxed set of fourteen miniature Peter Rabbit books being a case in point - so this year I added a scavenger-hunt element to a few of the eggs and put written notes with directions about where to look in a few eggs. It was so much fun to watch her read a hand-printed note and then go off to follow the directions. Next year there'll be a one-year-old, too, which will add an interesting twist to the excitement.

I heard about a neat way for when children are older and maybe don't get much of a kick out of magnets and bouncy balls. The Easter Bunny hides five or ten eggs per child and the eggs have candy and/or money in them. The children scurry around to find the eggs and the person who gets the most eggs has the satisfaction of finding the most eggs, and then the money and candy are distributed equally among the kids. Inventive, don't you think.

Happy spring and Easter to all!

Labels: anniversaries, children, games

Today is the birthday of Billie Holiday and of William Wordsworth. Two poetic people who had a phenomenal way with words. Despite her and his travails, each made listeners/readers feel optimistic. What is more lovely - except the flowers themselves - than "I wandered lonely as cloud" which ends:

A host, of golden daffodils;
beside the lake, beneath the trees,
fluttering and dancing in the breeze. . . .
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
and dances with the daffodils.

And didn't anything Holiday sang sound wonderful even if the lyrics were poignant? Tell you what: you memorize or recite a Wordsworth poem and I'll hum a Holiday song . . . and/or vice versa. Deal?

Labels: anniversaries, people of note, writing

My notation on Yours Mine and Ours yesterday was picked up by a movie tagging site that displayed an ad for an upcoming Nora Roberts movie. That wouldn't necessarily have piqued my interest except that it said Tippi Hedren is in it. I've been a fan of hers most of my movie-enjoying life - especially Marnie which is one of my top-5 favorites and the Birds which are both better movies than you realize until you see them ten or fifteen times and come to see and hear tons of visual and spoken details that are just wonderful. Which is how I found Tracy Griffith, Melanie's sister, the first woman graduate of the California Sushi Academy.

Assuming her press shots are accurate (had to say that), Tracy Griffith is a gorgeous redhead with music and acting credits and more to the point a restaurant in Napa called Sushi Outlaw and an intriguing and delicious-looking cookbook called Sushi American Style. Her unique take on sushi is to use otherwise normal ingredients in "creative, delicious combinations" rather than using raw fish. It's her mission to recommend easy-to-find ingredients in unusual combinations and it sounds amazingly good. Vegetable sushi isn't all that extraordinarily any more but goat cheese and pine nuts are as are the Asian, Mexican, barbecue and tons of other suggestions and recipes she includes. There's even a dessert sushi. And I'm intrigued by her suggestion for a make-your-own sushi party for a group gathering. I bet regular food is going to seem awfully pedestrian today. . . .

Labels: food, people of note

P.S. to my post about sushi that is almost certainly as nutritious as it is delicious (see above), today is the 78th anniversary of the invention (is that the right word?) of Hostess Twinkies. The Wikipedia entry includes the ingredients which are, among others, a heckuva lot of 'ose' things, no surprise there. I was a bit surprised, however, by the idea of banana Twinkies and that they were banana-filled before they were vanilla (or whatever that creme really is) filled. Anyway, it's an amusing juxtaposition to be drooling over Tracy Griffith's sushi and reading about Twinkies all within about two minutes.

Labels: anniversaries, food

I wonder how much it would cost to buy groceries this week for a family of two adults and eighteen children including teenagers and toddlers.

While hanging shelves today (which is, yes, an underhanded aside by way of noting my afternoon's accomplishment), I had movies on in the background to distract me in case I panicked or hit my thumb or anything. Over the course of the day, several movies passed through my semi-awareness (perhaps not a fair way to "watch" or assess them but that's just the way it was.
5 Children and It is a bit sticky sweet sometimes and a bit manipulative other times but overall delightful and Eddie Izzard as the sand fairy is wonderful as are the Henson characters.
The TV Set is ghastly - I didn't make it even halfway.
The Good Woman is a bit too "period" but Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johanssen are very good. The movie is a good reminder that despite the social problems we have these days, nevertheless we have succeeded in moving beyond the ridiculous moralizing of previous eras. The dresses are great, too!
Yours Mine and Ours, which stars Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball with an enormous blended family including Tim Matheson as a snide teenager, is fun to watch because both Fonda and Ball are so relaxed - they almost stroll through it - and because it's another chance to be glad we're now and not then (children weren't allowed in the hospital for their mother's birth, of course). The final kicker was when they went to the grocery store and supposedly bought out the place. Everyone went nuts as the tally kept growing. I was curious to see what huge number would appear. I kept reminding myself that it was taking place in 1968, a mere forty years ago. But imagine my astonishment when the bill came to . . . the whopping, amazing, huge amount of . . . are you ready? . . . $126.

Labels: movies, shopping, the times, today's movie

Despite their support of him, evidently the press can be just as unable to see and report the whole story about President Obama as they were about his predecessor.

It's tiresome and such a pain that one must read seven hundred thousand press reports in order to get even a glimmer of what really happens. My personal favorite example of this is a presidential press conference. Watching one and then reading or watching reports on it is a perplexing but enlightening experience.

The attitude nonsense from Strasbourg started with something Obama said in his 'town hall' appearance. American reports have it, with surprise and some discomfort, that he criticized American arrogance toward the rest of the world. They ask why he goes abroad and disses his own country. Ah, but did he?

What Obama actually said was that BOTH sides of the Atlantic have been suffering from bad attitudes toward each other - arrogance and superiority galore - and that BOTH need to let it go and renew a vital alliance. (Full story here.) Amen. (Sometimes, should one shoot the messenger?)

Labels: people of note, press

It's no news and no different from usual but oh my goodness the stürm und drang over The Kiss That Wasn't. American and British press have reported on President Obama and Carla Bruni Sarkozy meeting and not kissing but how differently they seem to see it.

The background is that Michelle Obama and Carla (Mme Sarkozy) were meeting for the first time in Strassbourg because, according to the BritPress, Carla stayed away from the London G-20 gathering because she felt she would be overshadowed by Michelle as the latter's took to her first European stage. (Although another interpretation could be that Carla graciously held back in order to let Michelle have the style stage to heself.) So the leaders went on to Strassbourg, headquarters of the E.U., and the women met.

The two couples encountered each other outside the Palais Rohan. The French custom is to kiss (well, touch) both cheeks. The two presidents cheerily exchanged their kisses as the two wives did. Then Michelle crossed over and exchanged kisses with Nicolas while . . . uh-oh . . . Barack and Carla . . . what?! . . . shook hands. According to most European press reports, Carla backed off from the kiss (being the cold you-know-what that they like to portray her as). According to mos American report, Obama hesitated and apparently decided not to kiss her and then stuck out his hand to shake hers (being the unslick new guy on the European block that gossip columnists like to portray him as). Whatever the reason, they didn't do it. Oooh la la. (First Michelle puts her arm around Queen Elizabeth and then Barack does not kiss Mme Sarkozy. What obstreperous people this new first couple is, I mean, really.)

Surely it's eversomuch more important that Michelle's lacy black slip peeked out from under that nice black and white number she wore when the Obamas and the Browns stood for a photo op in front of 10 Downing Street a couple of nights ago? How come no one's freaking out over that?

Labels: people of note, press

I like silliness. Last year I gave one of t2cgitw a medieval castle, one of whose little wooden characters is a colorfully-dressed court jester and I've been working on convincing her that he is at least as important to the daily enjoyment of life in the castle as the prince and his cohorts. So it's not surprising that I enjoyed April Fool's Day.

April 1st is the moment just at the end of Winter and just before Spring when people are encouraged to be sly and amusing. Not hurtful, just making people smile and laugh, perhaps at themselves, perhaps at those who are fond of them. What a wonderful idea.

One of my favorite April Fool's was when I found a gizmo (for want of a more technical term) at a little Greenwich Village store. With it, you could display a small apparently random piece of thread on the front of a garment while on the inside was a bobbin that held yards of the thread. My father was a bit obsessed with things being neat and tidy so if he saw a thread, he invariably reached and picked it off. It was a bit odd when he'd do it to strangers but he simply couldn't help himself, I guess. The first year I used the thing, he dutifully reached over and plucked, only to look a bit horrified as what seemed to be the fabric of my sweater coming apart in his fingers as a result of his attempt to restore order to my appearance. I think I was about 10 and I remember collapsing in giggles. So did he once he realized it was, yes, an April Fool's joke. Amazingly, I repeatedly used the little gadget on several April 1sts after that. Either he had an oddly faulty memory - odd for a college professor who wrote several dozen books - or very nice to his silly daughter and probably as amused as I was by the whole thing. In any case, it was lots of fun so on April 1st every year I try to do at least one silly thing, and I quite palpably miss him and his very funny, silly sense of humor. Happy April Fool's Day!

Labels: anniversaries, family, humor