The Mysteries of Living With a Woman Redux or A Feuer Christmas Carol

Scene:  Christmas Eve morning in the Feuer household.  Tammy leaves for work before Richard.  She has a "hospital full of angry patients who can't be home for Christmas" to run while Richard only has one unlucky patient "who bit the wrong way into a candy cane the day before Christmas" to ameliorate.  Tammy is gone by 7 AM.  Richard finally works his way down to the kitchen at 8:30.  And there, in the semi-early morning dawn light he sees the note on his place-mat.  He already suspects it is not an "I love you, have a blessed day" missive.  Richard and Tammy have been together too long for the kinds of platitudinous crap trappings more commonly seen in 6 month old unions.  No, it is most assuredly a honey-do list on this, the most horrific, nauseatingly frantic, and insufferably annoying shopping day of the year.  So before Richard even sees the print on the sticky note he is "oh crapping", "you gotta be kidding me", and I don't freaking believe this" himself to death.  But, blessedly (Christmas miracle number one) the note is short.

Action: There are only two items on the list and they are conveniently labeled 1 and 2.  But helpful numbering system aside, the instructions are in "Tammy shorthand".  If you are unfamiliar with this time and space saving method of enumeration let me explain.  You see, even the most lengthy of instructions, lists, and commandments, can be squeezed onto a sticky note no bigger than 1" by 1" square.  If Tammy had been the set designer for Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments he could have come down from the mountain with not only the big ten, but the entire Torah on a stone tablet no bigger than your basic Etch a Sketch screen.  The key is to start randomly somewhere in the middle of the page, with really big print, and then when you start to run out of room, merely start twirling the paper around and around, writing smaller and smaller, utilizing every corner of the paper without regard to top, bottom, left or right.  And then, as with indecipherable ancient Aramaic, expect the generations that follow you to use this as a guide for their resultant behavior.  Or in my case, as merely a guide to how many, and what kind, of rolls to buy for Christmas dinner the next day.

Here then, for your interpretation, is the note:

It is obvious, if you are a student of semiotics, that the Pillsbury Crescent instruction was actually written down first.  The green beans were added as an after thought.  Thus the helpfully circled 1, 2 informational symbols inserted in the margin.  But the more significant sign of Tammy's thought process is the smaller typeface and banishment to that portion of the memo pad already taken up by the sponsor of the instructional note, the NJDOT, of the green bean commandment.  We can further assume, once we have this information, that the style of cut, size of bag, and brand of green beans will not be too crucially important to the success of the covered dish for which they are intended.  So we are good for the frozen food isle.

What is not so apparent is the number and possibly style of rolls to purchase.  In solving any Rosetta Stone style hieroglyphics one must first rewrite the words in the proper order of the translationalist's language.  So for us, commandment number two reads as follows, or so I thought:

28's =16 Pillsbury Crescent + 4 rolls.

My first thought, of course, took me back to eleventh grade chemistry class and those confounding oxidation-reduction equations where the number of electrons "in"must equal the number of electrons "out".   Could it be that we were having 28 guests and Tammy was trying to figure out if 20 rolls could feed 28 people without a loss of satiety?  I really had no idea so I knew what I had to do; recruit someone who spoke the language of honey-do lists.  So I showed the note to my dental assistant after we finished fixing the tooth of the hapless candy cane eater.  "Do you know what this means?  What are 28's?" I hopefully asked.  She, too, had no idea what the note meant.  Then, once at the supermarket I ran into a patient of mine who happens to be an engineer and a female.  I hopefully showed her the note.  She had no idea either.  But once I got to the refrigerated  section, it began to make more sense.  The crescent rolls were in packs of eight.  Oooooooohhhhhhhhh, I thought to myself.  She means two packs of eight.  But what about the + 4?  Still worried about buying an incorrect number of rolls for our carbohydrate deprived guests I asked a lady standing next to me what she thought.  After her initial shock at a strange man saying to her in the refrigerator section "can I ask you something?" (from her circumspect glare I really believe she thought I was going to proposition her) she had no insight for me.  So, assuming the note was making a distinction between crescents and regular rolls I bought a smaller pack of Pillsbury Grandes.  This was a five pack, but since there were no four packs of anything, I was satisfied with my ultimate decision.

The only thing now, standing between me and Christmas break relaxation, was the inevitable ten people deep lines at every register.  But here was Christmas miracle number two; I found a register with only one person in front of me and she was already ringing up the last item, a 12 pound, serves two,  fruitcake.  I was home 10 minutes later.  And it was only after taking the picture of Tammy's note for this post that I decrypted its full contextual meaning.  She actually wrote it utilizing a vertical columnar pattern a la Chinese characters.  Here then is the note reinterpreted:

2-eight packs equaling sixteen (as if I needed help with the addition) plus 1-four pack of Pillsbury Crescent rolls.  If you look again at the note more carefully you will see the columnar structure.  Numbers in one column and letters in the next column.  Mystery solved.  Except for the fact that I found no four packs of crescent rolls.  Here is how a man would have written the note:

1. 1 lb green beans
2. 2x8 pack and 1x4 pack Pillsbury crescent rolls.

That's how we order lumber by the way.
(ask a man what this means; 5x2"x4"x8' stud grade, and he will know).

And by the way, for Tammy's Christmas gift, I adopted mile 83.2 to 84.2 of the NJ Turnpike in her name because I believe her choice of sticky notes was a hint at what she wanted (being the cryptologist that I am) .  So don't throw anything out your car window while driving there.

The Spice Rack and Other Mysteries of Living With a Woman

Women are great executive chefs when it comes to planning holiday meals.  Able to conceive, plan, and execute a menu for a party from four to forty and enjoy doing it.   I consider myself a good prep and dependable line chef.  There is no shame in this.  Point me toward a huge pile of russet potatoes, the peeler and a sharp knife and I will make sure they are julienned just right for the chef de cuisine to turn them into gourmet papas fritas.  But task me with coming up with the menu in the first place and I will just call ahead for take out fries from the nearest burger joint.  So when my brother asked me to cut up some veggies for a crudites tray for my nephew's apres Bar Mitzvah party I was all over it.  But when he asked me if I thought we had prepared a sufficient quantity I was stymied.  "I have no idea", I lamely replied.  "Tammy usually tells me how much to make".  It is an absolute mystery to me how my wife seems to know with unflinching confidence what, and how much, to prepare for a party.  "Go to Acme and get a pound and a half of cooked shrimp for the hors d'oeurves" she steadfastly commands me as if I might mistakenly only buy one pound.  Therefore leaving each of our guests three shrimps short of what they actually desired.

Another source of great inscrutability for me is the spice rack . There are spices on display in our kitchen that were once used in 1997.  A particularly enigmatic one that comes to mind is cream of tarter.  I am not even sure that is a spice but my wife insists on it being perched on the spice rack alongside the more obvious Mediterranean oregano.  Some spices get relegated to the lazy susan in the spice cabinet but others are kept out on the hanging wall rack.  Allspice is in the cabinet but rosemary is on the rack.  Since neither have been used in anything served to me in the past twenty years I am unsure as to the logic of the organizational scheme.  But one time I did trade out the thyme leaves for the Season All (the most versatile of spices) and there was hell to pay.  Perhaps since the spice rack is visible to our guests it sends a certain message about our kitchen.  Fancy McCormick jars of rosemary, tarragon, Turkish bay leaves, and Saigon cinnamon all say Dean and DeLuca while a tub of Season All says Costco. If it were up to me we wouldn't even need a spice rack.  I would have garlic, onion, chile, and red pepper powders along side the salt and pepper shakers. And perhaps some coriander for my famous guacamole.

The puzzlement of the female character does not end in the kitchen.  My wife's sartorial vocabulary also eludes my cognitive frame of reference.  For example, please briefly describe the item of clothing seen in the photo below:

My wife, on a recent weekend away, informed me that I had left my "gold top" in the car.   "What's my gold top?" I irritatingly inquired.
"You know, for the outfit you are wearing tomorrow" she replied.
"You mean my yellow flannel shirt?  I am just going to wear it with my black jeans.   Men have shirts, not tops. "And furthermore", I firmly added, "I don't wear outfits."
Men have shirts and pants.  Women have outfits.

Then there is the matter of window treatments.  The idea that windows get treated is as foreign a concept to me as dressing a turkey.  If I were a bachelor I am quite certain the windows in my condo would have shades, blinds, or possibly, if I had a study, shudders.  If I did have the need to dress up the window frame I would take two measurements, width and height, and go buy some pre-made curtains at JC Penny which hang on a straight forward rod. In my house, however, we have swags, jabots, cornices, and lambrequins.  All custom sewn by my wife.  And in order to even fabricate a swag one needs the mathematical chops of Sir Isaac Newton. The formulas used to calculate the amount of material needed to sew a swag which will hang just so are complicated enough for an advanced algebra course. Yet Tammy can figure it out in her head while she is standing in the cutting table queue at JoAnn's while holding the bolt of calico muslin.  But for some odd reason she refuses to understand that a 15 watt CFL replaces a 60 watt incandescent.  Or even what CFL stands for. 

My final observation has been touched on before in this column (I promoted my blog).  When company comes over, even our own family, why must we hide all the evidence that we actually live in our home?  Every magazine, newspaper, glass, sock, and pen must be hidden from view as if we have newly arrived in our abode along with the guests.   I guess it's like your mother telling you to always put on a clean pair of underwear in case you are in an accident and the paramedics have to cut off your pants.  But much like the paramedics realizing many accident victims shit their pants anyway, your company surely is aware of the fact that there is usually a foot high stack of old newspapers on the coffee table so what's the difference.

Henry Higgins asked "why can't a woman be more like a man" many years ago so this topic is hardly new.  But I encourage you to send in your own anecdotes.  I even encourage "why can't a man be more like a woman" quips.

This is Rich, What's Your Bitch?

Dear Rich,

Why can't I get my sister/brother/mother/father-in-law to behave in a manner I find appropriate?  Why must they engage in behavior that exasperates me?

Signed,
The Well Behaved One.



Dear Put Out Daughter/Son/Mother/Father-in-law,

They are not going to change so you must......change. You can continue to bang your head against the wall hoping the wall gives before your head does, or you can accept things as they are.  Your choice to make, not theirs to comply.

Signed,
Rich

I have thus distilled 50 years of advice column writing.  I welcome your questions.

My Impressions of the Impressionists

So we went to the infamous Barnes Museum the other Sunday.  Oh, sorry, it's not a museum, it's a Foundation.   Founded by the extraordinarily curmudgeonly Dr. Albert Barnes.  Actually, that is a disservice to curmudgeons everywhere.  He was basically just pissed off at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  As is well known by now to even the most dilettante Philadelphian, the art establishment  rejected Dr Barnes's vision over 80 years ago.  He espoused a unique organizational scheme to display the art he had amassed, a codification system that would reveal commonalities in design of various artworks to even the most casual art enthusiast.  The biggest problem with abstruse art, you see, is that the casual observer rarely appreciates it.  Art, it seems, must be put in historical context to fully understand its profound nature.  If we look at a so called masterpiece painted in 1783, for example, we may think to ourselves "big deal, I saw Bob Ross paint a prettier picture on PBS television the other night and it only took him thirty minutes".  That may be true but he did not invent how to make clouds look like they are actually reflecting sunlight.  Some fifteenth century Dutch dude figured that out.  Or it might have been a sixteenth century Venetian.  I have no idea.  But that is exactly the point.  Barnes would hang a few pictures with, say, brightly highlighted clouds all in a single cluster.  Regardless of in what century they were actually painted. So a dilettante like me could put the art in historical context and easily visualize the common design elements in otherwise disparate pieces.  Or perhaps not. I really have no idea what the hell Barnes was thinking.  The various galleries, while awesome in the sheer amount of great art packed into a small space, reminded me of a cluttered refrigerator door in the home of a too proud mother of an artistically prolific six year old.  My niece, the art historian, tried to explain the hodgepodge to me, but really, I was way more interested in the other people enjoying the art that day than the art itself.  I am more anthropologist than aesthete.

When I say that the other patrons were enjoying the art, I really mean that they were merely studying it.  At least as far as I could tell.  You see, the really odd thing to me was that not a single person in the entire place was smiling.....except me.  Not a smirk, grimace, grin, frown , nor harrumph, and as far as I could tell, no movement at all of the labial commissures on anybody's face.  I don't believe I even heard a sigh nor murmur of disgust in front of one particularly galling Renoir.  I, of course, exhaled a loud "how the hell did that get in here", hoping to at least get a nod of assent from the cute bereted beatnik standing next to me but she merely pivoted and focused her attention on the Delacroix adjacent to the Manet.  Which only forced me to harrumph even louder hoping to get some reaction.  Nothing.  In fact the only time I could get a rise out of any one in the entire museum is when I dared to stick my nose too close to a Seurat to see if the painting really was made up of tiny dots.  Then a blue blazered, overly austere guard came running over and told me to please step back from the art.  That got a harrumph out of my bereted friend.  A show of enthusiasm, I guess, is taboo in a museum of world class art.  Doesn't the very nature of art demand that it evoke some emotion in the viewer?  As far as I could tell the only emotion being felt in this place was one of funereal resignation.

But, I hear you protest, one must be subdued, like in a library, so as not to disturb the ruminations of the other enthusiasts.  To which I reply, the guards never shushed me, they only told me to stand back.  And believe me, I was doing a lot of disruptive emoting.  I would turn the corner into a new gallery and be blasted by a wall crammed with the most sublime art in the world and I could hardly contain my enthusiasm.  But the other art lovers were literally standing there frozen in a posture one would only expect to see at a cemetery while their mother was being lowered into the ground.  Yet they weren't crying.  One would be at a loss to figure out what, if anything, they were feeling at all.  And in front of world class art!  I really don't get it.  No wonder most people just go to Disney World.  At least there you can loudly cheer when your six year old daughter completes her spin art painting at Mickey's Wonderful World of Spin Art booth.

The Devil You Know

People will still be knuckleheads whether I am a libertarian or a socialist.  Some otherwise intelligent person will make a stupid decision whether I believe in more government or less.  FEMA will still be crucial whether we have a Democratic president or Republican.  And wealthy people will still always want to make even more money whether or not they must pay higher taxes.  Just ask a Rockefeller or a DuPont, or JP Morgan.  Those Robber Barons didn't stop making money or growing their businesses just because the Federal income tax was instituted in 1913 did they?  You had no idea when the Federal income tax was first instituted, did you?  I didn't think so.

That is why I am, have always been, and always will be, a Democrat.  Our country has gone too far to ever again be a nation of yeoman farmers as the first Republican, Thomas Jefferson, envisioned over two hundred years ago.  If a knucklehead in Long Beach Island, New Jersey decides to ride out the worst storm in 100 years, even though she could have easily evacuated to her brother's house 100 miles inland, then later says it was the worst decision of her life, the people in Culver City, California are going to have to help pay for her recovery whether they like it or not.  Because what is the alternative?  Let evolution take its course and weed out the unfit?  If I understand the Republican platform correctly, then most of the people who don't believe in big government don't believe in this basic evolutionary principle anyway, so now what?  All the faith based charities in the country are not big enough or organized enough to save us from ourselves, or Nature's fury.  Hurricane Sandy, and Governor Christie have only reinforced this idea for me.

I have heard otherwise charitable people say that if an adult makes an enlightened decision to wait out a natural disaster in spite of official warnings to evacuate, then we, as a society, no longer have an obligation to help them if they get into trouble.  The first responders, after all, will now be put in harm's way.  True, but firefighters, wilderness rescuers, National Guardsmen, policemen, and our Special Forces carry out risky maneuvers everyday to save stupid people from stupid mistakes.  So where do we draw the line on whom to rescue?  And who should decide, Sarah Palin?  Should a firefighter not try to save someone from a fire caused by that person's smoking in bed?

It's true that we, as citizens, must not be sedated into a zombie state where we wander around brain dead expecting the government to bail us out every time we step over the cliff.  But surely there is a happy medium where reasonable people can agree that sometimes the Feds need to take charge.  When I reflect back on the arc our Country, and civil society, has taken, I believe it has been what most Tea Partyers and conservatives would consider a socialist agenda that has moved us forward toward becoming a more compassionate and humane society: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Park Service, civil rights laws, female suffrage, labor laws, The Wilderness and Clean Air Acts, The EPA, FEMA, The Affordable Care Act (yes I said it), and Roe v. Wade to name a few.  All measures that the "conservatives" of the time were vehemently against.  There surely is abuse and corruption of these social engineering measures. But in what universe is corruption non existent where human beings are concerned?  Certainly not in Adam Smith's unfettered capitalistic world.  Nor in Karl Marx's definitely imaginary world either.

Look, I hate it just as much as the next guy when I work hard, pay too many taxes, and buy plenty of insurance, to see some reprobate drive to the Walmart in a Cadillac only to pay with food stamps.  But I hate it even more when some Wall Street asshole sells that same ignoramus a subprime mortgage he knows will default.  If we can't trust an expert, who can we trust, right?  So, in conclusion, I'm votin' for Obama.  As my Grandma Rose use to say, "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know".

In Country

  

Cat de Chelly.  Not part of this story,
but a Navajo ambassador never the less.

 The Navajo Nation is a quasi-autonomous political entity that encompasses a large parcel of land in the northeastern corner of Arizona.  It is so big in fact, that the Automobile Association of America publishes a map called "Indian Country" which girds the entire Four Corners region of the western United States.  A very cool paper map, by the way, that could never be replaced by a smartphone app.  At least not for anyone over the age of 35.


The Navajo Reservation includes several famous geographic landmarks that would be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a John Wayne Western.  Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly (pronounced 'shea') are two of the better known regions.  If you want to get your Clint Eastwood on, you must visit these iconic locations.  Just don't insult a Navajo woman selling her wares on the rim of the canyon.  Or BYO a  bottle of red wine to the local Holiday Inn Restaurant in Chinle, AZ.  Both will earn you a berating you won't soon forget.  If a Navajo woman chided Kit Carsen in 1864 like she scolded me, the Native Americans might still own most of the southwest.  I am exaggerating for effect of course, and the circumstance of the 19th century Native Americans was no laughing matter.  But I am still wincing from the chastening I received at the hands of a proud Navajo woman along the rim of Canyon de Chelly.  Especially since I only did what I thought was expected.  Leading me to lick my wounded pride by chanting my favorite mantra, "why does this shit always happen to me"?

Single Dad, artist, and Navajo historian extraordinaire,  Antonio

You see, at every viewpoint parking area there are a handful of Navajos selling Native American sandstone paintings, pottery, and jewelry.  It is like a crafts fair of Native American wares where you get to talk with the artists and hear their stories.  And while you are listening to Antonio tell you how he is a single Dad eking out a living selling modern interpretations of the petroglyphic art of his Anasazi forebears you are thinking, "what should I really offer this dude for his $25.00 sandstone painting"?   And, "Didn't I see that at the visitor center gift shop for less"?  There is no benchmark to determine the actual value except what the gullible tourist five minutes before me paid Antonio for his  souvenir.

World travelers like to crow about how they out-haggled a subsistence villager living in some remote Himalayan Valley and bragging, "you see this hand carved yak ivory tusk on my coffee table?  I paid only $10.00 for it!  Poor nomadic schnook".
Well you know what?  He is poor!  And he needs the lucre more than you need it.  He could have done more with the $20.00 you beat him out of, by feeding his family for three solid months, than you.  You, on the other hand, will piss away the $20.00 on one meal at a TGI Fridays back in America.  On this day, however, Antonio, pictured above, was more than willing to offer me a windy day special without much effort on my part.  It seems he had only two sandstone paintings left, the weather was deteriorating, and he wanted to close out his stock and leave for the day.  Two for the price of one and I could take a photograph with him as well (this normally requires an additional tip).  Sold! and on to the next "stall" where I had my eye on a beautiful turned ceramic pot with engraved petroglyphic designs.  The Navajo woman artisan had a potter's wheel in her van and she was turning her bowls on the spot.  This made the whole experience seem rather intimate.

So emboldened by the ease with which I had bargained with Antonio, and how amenable I had found the other male artisans, I offered her $15.00 for the finely detailed $25.00 crock.  Well, oh.......my.........god!  She did not look favorably upon this fiscal insult (I don't blame her either.  I just assumed one is supposed to bargain).  She proceeded to chastise me up and down about how much work it was and how she even had to dig the clay out of the earth herself (being Native American they know their natural resources), and that carving the decorative elements alone involved over 3 hours of labor.  She also assailed me with histrionic eye rolling toward my ignorant hubris.  I knew she was not going to back down because she still had a full stock of pots on her table while most of the other vendors had sold a lot of their items judging from their depleted display tables.  Either that or she knew I was an easy mark and I really wanted the bowl.  In any case the $25.00 really was quite reasonable.

So I sheepishly handed over the cash and accepted the crock from her even as she harrumphed in taking my money.  I am not exaggerating the encounter.  In fact, Tammy and I noticed that all the male artisans were more than willing to cajole us, while all of the female ones seemed to treat us with much more assertiveness and sternness.  Exactly what one would expect in a  matriarchal society like the Navajo, where lineages are tied to the bride's family, not the groom's (matrilocal as opposed to patrilocal).  Which really isn't very insightful, interesting or revolutionary but I tell this story just so I can vent about getting a stern lecture and being made to feel bad about an interaction that plays out a million times a day across the globe in bazaars throughout the world.

Which does bring me to another point about the pleasures of domestic travel.  The Navajo People share many American sensibilities with the rest of the nation but they also have a different zeitgeist and cultural outlook.  So in the Navajo Nation one can enjoy a sort of cultural tourism without venturing too far from home.  As for the BYO kerfuffle at the Holiday Inn?  The Navajo Nation is a dry country climate-wise and libation-wise.  So don't put yourself in a position to be admonished by the waitress.  It is not fun being scolded by your mother while on vacation.

Incriminate or Exonerate

I took a hike a few weeks ago in a state park on the outskirts of Scottsdale Arizona.  It cost me forty-six dollars.  And I am not including the gas money to get there, nor the approximately dollar fifty-nine for a PB&J on flatbread and some carrot bites I ate at the summit.  Maybe not a summit.  It was more like the top of one of the giant termite hills you see on Animal Planet shows about insects.  Except instead of termites, I was simultaneously attacked by fire ants, jumping cacti needles and the occasional dung beetle mistaking my beer hangover farts for an olfactory dinner invitation.  I am, however, including the forty dollars that was stolen right out of my wallet by an evil (or not) mountain biker, who, for some unknown reason, left me with a single dollar.

The part that really stings is the fact that I had wanted to hike a different trail, clear on the other side of Scottsdale.  If you are from New Jersey you might not get the implication of my words.  Clear on the other side of Scottsdale is not like clear on the other side of Cherry Hill.  It's more like Exits 1 through 4 on the NJ Turnpike. Cherry Hill might be sprawling, and Route 70 might be one giant parking lot, but there is plenty more desert in the Greater Phoenix metropolitan area than there is abandoned farmland in NJ.  When you look at an AAA map of Arizona, one inch does not equal ten miles.  One inch equals thirty miles.  With the same traffic as Cherry Hill.  But without the Wawas.

Now, on this particular Friday everyone else in Scottsdale, AZ had decided to take the same hike as well.  I don't know how to explain this so you can visualize it, but the trail head parking situation was about as accommodating and welcoming as the beach access in Loveladies, NJ.  Unless you get there by 6 AM or own a mansion on the beach, you ain't gettin' in.  So after cruising the parking area for fifteen minutes, hoping the thirty-three other cars doing the same thing would miss someone pulling out, I decided to abort and do what I should have done in the first place, which was to drive out of town, fifty minutes, to the nearest state park.  And, as it turns out, my instincts had been correct because the only people in this park were me and that mountain biker.

Why do I say this?  Because during the seven mile drive from the unmanned entrance station to the trail head, I saw no other cars, and only one bicyclist.  And there were no cars at the trail head parking area either.  I say unmanned  entrance station because that is where my troubles began.  I am ashamed to admit this, but after driving almost an hour to this park I initially balked at the $6.00 entry fee posted on the aforementioned unmanned  entry station kiosk.  If you have ever pulled into a national park campground after hours you know what I am talking about.  The honor system.  You are expected to have exact change, to place that exact change into an envelope with your car make and model and license plate number clearly written, with the imaginary pen you hope someone left in the rental car glove box, on the outside.  And if you do find that pen, it is most likely bone dry of ink and half melted anyway from the desert heat.  And then you are to place that envelope in the little slot at the top of the cast iron pipe with the little door and Master Lock at the bottom.  So the ranger can collect your money later during his rounds.  But before you drop the envelope in the slot, you must not forget to tear the little ticket off the envelope with the corresponding ID number and place it prominently on your dashboard.  The driver's side only.  Lest the over worked ranger miss seeing it while you drive past going 15 mph over the park road speed limit.

But the first instinct, of course, is to stand there for ten minutes looking up and down the empty access highway looking for any sign of a ranger who could possibly catch you sneaking in with out paying the six dollar entry fee anyway.  And simultaneously engage in an internal debate about whether or not sneaking into a deserted state park is a victimless crime.  I, however, am not the criminal in this story.  Popular opinion aside, atheists do have a strong moral compass, so I paid the fee.  But in order to comply with all the rules I had to first find a pen and walk around to the front of my rental vehicle to copy down the license plate number.  And in so doing, I absentmindedly placed my wallet on the hood of the car while writing down the required info.  Need I spell it out any further?  It was not until I got out of the car six miles later and scratched my ass over my wallet pocket that I realized my stupid mistake.  I remembered I had seen only one other human being in the park and I hoped I could find my wallet lying in the middle of the road before either he, or a hungry rattlesnake, got to it first.

So while ironically speeding 50 mph on a 25 mph park road, I carefully scanned the highway for any unnatural looking debris as I headed back toward the entrance station.  And there, at mile marker 3, I saw my precious, lying directly on the double yellow line.  I picked it up, saw my license and credit card safely tucked inside, kissed it to God (even atheists obey tradition), and stuffed it back into my pocket without further ado.  I turned the car around and proceeded back to the trail head to at least get my hike in.  It was now three hours since I first headed out for a quick, free hike, fifteen minutes from my hotel.  Beating the afternoon heat was no longer an option.  Contrary to what you might read in a book on stress reduction, a bit of mindless physical exertion, especially in the blazing sun in the Sonoran Desert, does not necessarily make you feel better.  Especially if the only view from the high point is suburban sprawl, western style, interspersed with rocks, Sagebrush, a Starbucks, more rocks, a Red Robin, and the intermittent Saguaro cactus.  And it is 98 degrees in the shade.  But it is a dry heat.

Fast forward two hours to the Starbucks for a cup of iced coffee.  When I go to pay there is exactly one, one dollar bill in my wallet.  Now, as you may know, I suffer from a mild form of OCD and I am always fully aware of the number, order, denomination, and condition of the bills in my wallet.  Especially while traveling in foreign domestic states like Arizona.  If I have four singles in my wallet and one of them is torn, I make note of this because I will pay with that one first.  Sadly, this is not a joke.  So I was quite certain I had two Andrew Jacksons left after paying the six dollar entry fee for the above mentioned shitty hike.  My conclusion?  That lone mountain biker found my wallet, grabbed the forty bucks, leaving the dollar to allay his guilt a little, and tossed it back into the middle of the road.  So here is the question; Is he a greedy opportunist or a thoughtful samaritan?  He could have left the whole wallet and never taken anything, reasoning the owner would come back looking for it.  He could have taken the whole thing home and tried to contact the owner, hoping for a $5.00 reward.  He could have brought it to the ranger station, but he was on a bicycle and that would entail riding back 4 miles in the desert sun.  Or, worst case, he could have stolen my credit card as well.  It's lucky for me he ended up grabbing the cash and leaving the rest since I was flying home the next day, and being without any ID would have been a hassle.  But he did take my $40.00.   What would you have done?

We the People, not, We the Theocrats

In this age of PCness do they still put Bibles in hotel room drawers?  As I think about it I have not come across one in a while.  Although I haven't traveled all that much lately.  I do believe that when I was in Utah several years back there was a Book of Mormon along with a King James in the nightstand drawer.  And in a Cherry Hill, NJ hotel, I once found a Torah.  I'm kidding.  I only found a Chinese restaurant take out menu.
                                                                                    
Here is what I would like to find in my hotel room drawer: copies of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America.  What could be more PC than that?  And more comforting.  To know my rights here on Earth are inalienable is what concerns me for the moment.  It is the one thing we Americans all  have in common.  Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists (no need to capitalize), Animists, Hindus, and others.  Listed in no particular order of relevance, importance, popularity, veracity, or net global worth.    If we were indeed founded as a Judeo-Christian Nation as more and more Americans seem to believe then why bother with a Constitution at all?  If Theology and Canonical Law are the primary sources of our morality and God's Law surpasses that of Man's Law then the only logical thing to do would have been to have a western version of  Sharia Law.  Why did James Madison, John Jay, John Adams, et al, not make it perfectly clear that the New and Old Testaments trump all?  Let me think, let me think..............Oh yes, the First Amendment specifically intones against that.  I am not arguing that there may or may not be a source of ethical and moral values greater than our own rule book.  I am only refuting this idea that the Framers intended for the Bible to be our day to day rule book, which you must  believe if we were founded as a specifically Christian nation.  For the Bible is the  Christian (and Jewish) rule book.

I agree that our morality system flows from a long tradition of western religious philosophical thought, but to specifically say we are a Christian Nation is a slap to the face of reason.  The Puritans and Calvinists, after all, might have founded a colony, but they certainly did not found a Nation.  Secularists and Religious alike did that.

Awesome Takes a Back Seat to Libation

Hellooooooooo Catskill Mountains New York!  Rumpelstiltskin here, awake after a long nap.  Slapped awake by a family member who noticed an unnatural silence at the family dinner table.  A sort of eye of the hurricane calm in a family that usually operates at a tropical storm grade level 5, or maybe it's level 1.  I forget which one is worse.

This is difficult to admit but it is not easy being clever all of the time.  Especially to an audience of nine.  On a good day.  But having been inspired by another's cleverness, I am ready to snap out of my pitiful self loathing and write words that are worthy of the Anxiety section of the Opinionator column in the NY Times or maybe even Shouts and Murmurs in the New Yorker.  For what are we without unrealistic expectations?  Even my cat understands the importance of over reaching.  He sits there staring at the empty food bowl because he knows that all my will power aside, I will eventually relent and give him a snack.  Begging for attention.  The only reason to write a blog.

Herewith my topic (As inspired by another's histrionic musings on the existential importance of a mountain vista):

So Tammy and I revisited the Grand Canyon the other week to experience it in a more intimate manner.  We had been there two decades ago during our "we must visit every national park phase" but we failed to appreciate its full grandeur owing to the weather and a certain GI condition which did not allow me to fully participate in the "If you carry it in, you must carry it out" ethos.  Unless I intended to carry a back pack full of blue bags to the exclusion of all my other gear.  In any event, we basically car crawled along the Rim Drive like all the other ersatz vista enthusiasts, barely rolling down our windows, let alone actually getting out of the car, at every pull off.  The car door window frame, after all, is the best tripod for your camera.  Pull up to Grandview Point, aim your camera out the window making sure to put the horizon exactly in the middle of the frame like every other philistine point and shoot photographer, and then its off to Zuni Point.... for another picture of the same rock formation from a vantage point one tenth of one degree to the east.

Last month our trip was different.  This time we actually backpacked to the bottom and back up to the top, unassisted by the ubiquitous mule train I might add.  Well, that last pronouncement is not entirely true.  Much like Obama's sentiment  "you didn't build that", we did indeed get an assist by all the mules, helicopters, park rangers, Chinese immigrants, and toothless gold miners that preceded us.  You see, there was beer and flush toilets at the base of the Grand Canyon.  And we  did not carry them in.  But they certainly enhanced the experience.  For after walking downhill for seven miles carrying a 35 pound pack I am not thinking about my place in the universe.  I don't care how grand the canyon is.  I just want a beer, and then a place to piss it into.  And then a good nights sleep before the nine and one half mile hike uphill the next day with a 33 pound pack.  The two pound lighter load accounted for by 2 foil pouches of chunk white tuna, a box of couscous and several handfuls of granola that we inhaled in camp.

Which brings me to my main point about what one thinks about when carrying a heavy pack up intimidating mountains:  Why  did I spend $18.95 on a titanium cup weighing 0.8 ounces, $299.00 on a 15 degree 800 fill down sleeping bag weighing only 32 ounces, and leave behind my 3 ounce package of talcum powder as an unnecessary luxury item, only to be told by the ranger that we must carry 4 liters of water per adult if we are to avoid dehydrating to death on the South Kaibob Trail by mile 4.7?  Four liters of water BTW?  8.8 pounds.  I'll take my chances with the swollen tongue.  If I have to crawl the last 2.3 miles to the Yavapai Lodge and a drinking fountain, that will beat the crap out of carrying a gallon of water next to my precious three ounce, $40.00, titanium stove.  Hell, I don't even buy spring water at the supermarket because I hate lugging the jugs to my car.  That and the BPA thing of course.

And by the way, the 16.5 miles of trail we hiked to access the Grand Canyon in all its magisterial splendor?
A handicapped accessible ramp by Catskills standards. 

A view of the handiramp.

For Jews Only

Borscht; an eastern European soup made with beets, cabbage, potatoes, or other vegetables and served hot or chilled, often with sour cream.  Borscht Belt; the hotels of the predominantly Jewish resort area in the Catskill Mountains, many of them offering nightclub or cabaret entertainment, so called, facetiously, from the quantities of borscht consumed there.  Dirty Dancing; a third rate film starring Patrick Swaze and Jennifer Gray inspired by events at Grossinger's Resort in Liberty, NY.   

Every Jew from a certain generation prior to the opening of Disney World in 1971 and, according to many websites, the civil rights laws of the 1960's, has spent at least one weekend at a hotel in the Borscht Belt of the Catskill Mountains.  A region in which I have purchased a retirement home and also have referred to as my ancestral New York Jewish Homeland.  Well my cabin is actually in the northern  Catskills and the Jewish resort area was predominantly in the southern Catskills around Monticello and Ellenville.  It was accessed from New York City via Route 17 with a stop at the Red Apple Rest in Tuxedo, NY.  Concord, Kutshers, The Nevele, and of course Grossinger's.  There were actually hundreds of hotels but these were the biggies.  In its hey day Grossingers went through 26,000 eggs a week!  My parents took me and my sister and brother to a few of these resorts but not to Grossinger's and I will let my mother explain why:

As you can see, the indoor pool isn't what it used to be.  Neither is the rest of the Borscht Belt......what it used to be.  The entire industry and its associated infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decrepitude.  No longer do parents want to have time away from their kids on vacations.  No longer is sitting around playing cards amidst the mountains good enough.  There must be actors dressed in mouse costumes, roller coasters, and a hundred restaurants to choose from, to keep everyone entertained.

I recently took my parents on a brief tour of the old hotels, or what is left of them, and since words can't do justice to what we found, I will let some pictures do the talking. My father, by the way, worked as a waiter at the Fur worker's resort in South Fallsburg after World War II.  It is totally gone.  Which is just as well because the leaders of the fur workers union were not only Jewish, but they were Communist sympathizers as well. According to Stanley, it was the only resort in the Borscht Belt that gave their workers off one day a week.  And what did they do on their day off?  I will let Stanley explain:

Here then, are some pictures of what we found:

A cafe in Liberty, NY.  No, that is not Dr. Brown's Celray soda. 

The old Grossinger's gatehouse.

Grossinger's decrepit out building.

Grossinger's staff housing.

Stan and Flip remember happier times

Grossinger's facilities.

Carton of room soaps left behind.

Grossinger's indoor pool then.

Grossinger's indoor pool now.

All that's left standing at The Concord.

Now a brown fields project.

A not Jewish denizen of Monticello, NY.

Ultra Jewish denizens of Monticello NY.

An area transformed to Ultra Orthodox.

An abandoned townhouse project.  Even new money can't resurrect the old glory.

 Like my mother said, "You can't go home again."

Arsenic and Old Lace

An alarming trend in the world of wedding fashion has come to my attention.  It is not a recent revelation, but the idea to write a blog about it is..........a recent revelation.

The revelation is, ironically, about what the bridal party is revealing. Skin.  And the associated tattoos.  And I, for one, am not comfortable with the message I am receiving about the bride.  No one has ever accused me of being a prude, and I was nothing but pleased when President Obama officially dismissed the federal level stigma of same sex marriage.  So don't accuse me of being Victorian in my views of proper matrimonial attire.  But the promise of my own bride's wedding dress was the idea that I was marrying a demure virgin.  And her attendants, while all quite cute, were more "matron" than "maid".   At least that was the illusion we wished to create for our guests.  My bride to be had on so much lace, tatting. filigree, netting, and ornamentation that I would need to be Harry Houdini in the honeymoon sweet if I was ever to get her out of that dress and into my hungry arms.
 

Today's bridal parties, I must assume, don't even like to pretend they are virgins.  Their dresses might as well come with one of those "easy open" pull tabs like on an express FedEx package.   Because with all that exposed skin, the package is already screaming "Urgent, open immediately".  Here is a photo of a wedding party we saw on the beach in Atlantic City this past weekend:

The groomsmen are not thinking about getting their hands on some red velvet wedding cake.  Nor are they worrying about being paired up with a dorky cousin bridesmaid for the first dance.  They are only thinking one thing-that the bachelor party was just an appetizer.  And this has nothing to do with the fact that the wedding is in Atlantic City.  I have seen bridal parties adorned in skimpy cocktail dresses from New York to Utah.  Of course in some cultures the bride is still valued more for the number of goats she can fetch for her dowry than for how hot she can look in her dress.  Another reason, I guess, for the Taliban to hate us.  At least when a mullah gets married there is still some mystery involved.

The most cursory perusal of any bridal magazine will leave one wondering if there is any modesty left in the connubial world.  It may seem like I am being prissy but, really, should Modern Bride Magazine titillate me as much as Cosmopolitan?  I don't think so.

No, You Don't Have to Use It Just Because It Came With the Hat

That little lanyard thingy that hangs from some hats to cinch around your neck and chin?  It is called a stampede strap.  For good reason.  If you are chasing a herd of stampeding cattle and your horse is galloping along at 25 miles per hour, you are permitted to engage it.  If you are strolling along a 1 mile nature trail loop in 85 degree weather with nary a leaf rustling, you might want to tuck it up under the crown.  If you are on a bi-hull racing sailboat doing 35 miles per hour in an America's Cup qualifying run, you can use the stampede strap.  If you are cruising along in your Hyundai with the windows rolled up and the air conditioning on, it is not okay to have the stampede strap in play.

When it is picture taking time at the summit and there is no wind, lose the stampede strap.  If there are 40 mph gusts at the summit, take the hat off for the photos.  It is never okay to have the stampede strap activated during a photo shoot.  Unless it is a publicity shot for the Pony Express and you are galloping along on your mustang on the Wyoming prairie delivering letters to the homesteaders.  Rounding Cape Horn on a windjammer?  Stampede strap okay.  Rounding the 18th hole at the public links?  Not okay.

What about the brim?  Floppy brim, bad. Those Outdoor Research Goretex rain hats?  Who cares how dry your head is if you look like a dork.  If your brim is not shaped correctly with a natty curve, don't bother stopping me on the trail to ask for directions to the summit.  I will assume you are a tenderfoot and my advice will be to return to your car before you get caught in a lightening storm on the summit.  It is a well documented fact that unless it is a yarmulke, God does not appreciate lifeless headgear.  Check out your local Hasidic neighborhood on a Saturday morning if you don't believe me:

Why should our standards be any less for the trail than for the synagogue?  I don't know.  If covering ones head in the presence of a higher authority is so important why drop the pomp in the woods?  Or at the beach?  Or on the golf course?  You spend $1000.00 for a set of titanium golf clubs and then you buy a $12.00 straw hat with a bandana hatband at Target?  Not in my foursome amigo.

And the visor without a crown?  All I can say to that is, your hair may or may not grow back after they remove the melanoma from the top of your scalp.

A few more thoughts; If you must buy a hat with the strap, make sure the holes are through the headband and sides, not the brim.  Poking holes in the brim for the stampede strap is a rookie milliner mistake.   Holes in the brim of a hat are like buttons on a Goretex jacket.  The rain will get through.  Also, don't remove nor handle a good hat by the crown.  It softens it and distorts the shape.  Always handle a hat by the brim.  And if you do find yourself at the trail head with a shapeless hat and useless stampede strap there is hope as I have illustrated below:

I will leave it for you to decide who you would rather have lead your hike.

It Was Just a Joke........Not.

If the fact that Mitt Romney tortured a kid in high school doesn't totally vindicate me for my obsession with high school, then nothing will.  Regular readers of this blog will remember that I have written several screeds on bullying, high school cliques, and the fact that adult life is but a pale extension of the high school pecking order.

I am sorry to have to inform my friends across the isle, but holding down another kid and cutting off his hair while he screams for help and cries is not a high school prank taken to the edge.  The behavior puts one well off the side of the cliff.  Even judged by the more lax understanding of bullying and high jinks that marked the era in which the baby boomers grew up, the mindset that would allow one to perpetrate this "prank" demonstrates such a massive lack of empathy for the "others" that it borders on pathological narcissistic syndrome. Of course the idea of a presidential candidate being highly narcissistic is not a revolutionary concept but one needs to at least be capable of empathy.  Until I read about this latest personality quirk of Romney's, I thought the dog on top of the car incident was nothing but a humorous anecdote about a stressed out father trying to make it all work out.  Now I am not so sure.

Being a relentless "practical joker" is nothing but a form of dominance along the bullying spectrum scale.  Exactly like the autism scale.  We might say "Oh, he's just a practical joker", much like we would say "Oh, he's just a weird kid", but we all know there is trouble lurking beneath the surface.  If you think I am being overly dramatic, think about tickling someone past the point of pleasure until they are begging for mercy.  That behavior, all psychologists agree, is bullying pure and simple.  As is relentless practical joking that demeans the victim for being "different". 

The bullying incident happened almost 50 years ago, so the details are obviously questionable. But Romney did not specifically deny the circumstances.  He proffered a lame apology and his supporters chalked it up to his "jokey" nature.  Apparently the poor kid was singled out because young Mitt didn't feel any one should be walking around with that hair.  Many boys, myself included, who grew up in the 60's and 70's would have to admit to the liberal use of such barbs as fag, douchebag, gay blade, and other assorted verbal grenades that would not be considered PC in today's high school hallways.  And perhaps a wedgie, or a rat tail towel fight was perpetrated against the less athletic of us in the boys locker room.  But holding down a classmate and cutting off his hair crosses the line, in my view, to assault and battery.

Perhaps I am less likely to forgive Mitt Romney because he is a Republican who is pandering to the Tea Party.  I would have to agree with that assessment. It has always been my feeling that the Tea Party should more accurately be called the Me Party.  I can't help but feel that Libertarians and extreme Tea Partyers lack a certain sense of empathy for the "others".  Sam Harris, in his book  Free Will describes a similar sentiment toward conservatives.  They don't seem to have an understanding that not every one is capable of being like them.  Some of us are different and some of us will need help that only a compassionate society can provide.

A person's behavior may evolve and mature over time but rarely do basic personality types shift.  A bully may change his behavior from physical attacks to strong arm tactics in the boardroom, but both behaviors are bullying none the less.

"You unlock this door with the key of imagination"

In order to become a dentist I had to prove that I could look at a schematic drawing of a flattened box and then decide what it would look like if folded into its 3 dimensional shape.  Like what you see the guy at the pizza shop doing to put together the pizza boxes.  Only I had to do it in my mind and the resultant boxes could be very irregular with a different graphic on each side.  And I had to get those sides correct as well.  So I don't understand how I could be so terribly confused by the layout in those parking garages with ramps that make me feel like I am in an M.C. Escher sketch.  (Pun intended).

The other week, I accompanied Tammy to Atlantic City for a two day NJ Hospital Association Meeting.  The room was free (for me) and, I don't know if you are aware of this, but A.C. has some great outlet shopping.  Given the choice between doubling down on a $100.00 bet at the black jack table or scoring a $200.00 down parka at the Eddie Bauer outlet for that same Benjamin, I'll take the goose down every time.  Besides, the warm feeling I'll get from a new jacket will far outlast any warm vibes I get from a pert cocktail waitress serving me free drinks while I watch my money disappear.  But when I was pulling into my parking spot on level 4 red, row 8 at the Caesar's Palace Colosseum South parking garage my full attention was on remembering this data and then locating the elevator in closest proximity to the walkway bridge over Atlantic Avenue.  Because if you have ever been in one of these garages and you wish to exit at the southeast corner of 3rd and Atlantic, you invariably end up on the northwest corner of 4th and Pacific instead.  So as we were heading toward the elevator trying to avoid being killed by the Nascar idiots doing 35 mph around the parking garage ramps, Tammy prophetically called out to me, "remember we are walking downhill".  As will become clear later on, she neglected to take into account the fact that we had first walked uphill to find an elevator and then walked downhill along another ramp to finally locate the proper elevator.  And, I will swear to this on a stack of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, we entered the elevator on level 4 red.  You may be starting to get the picture at this point.  Of course, all of this was dutifully recorded on a scrap of paper-uploaded here for your close examination-which I carefully stashed in a pocket away from my wallet.  Because even if my wallet was stolen and I lost all my cash, credit cards and photo ID, at least I would remember where my car was parked.

  
So the next day, while Tammy was finishing up at her meetings, I was charged with checking out of the hotel and loading up the car with our two suit cases, laptop case, SLR camera, and my fourteen shopping bags.  I'm exaggerating of course, there were only three;  Eddie Bauer, Under Armor, and Clark's Shoes. I only mention this to satisfy your creepy voyeuristic interest in my sartorial tastes.  Lugging all this, I made my way through the entire casino floor, across the walk bridge, past the Temple North garage, into the elevator for Colosseum South  level 4 red and trudged up the ramp all along row 8.  To the very top and back down again......three times.  And even around the bend to level 5 row 1 just in case.   No car.  So I hold the remote door lock over my head and start pressing buttons straining to hear the comforting sound of my Subaru beeping to me.  Nothing.  Except the smug laughs and judgmental stares of other hotel guests because I have obviously forgotten where I parked my car.

At what point do I retreat back to the front desk and suggest to the concierge that my car has been stolen?  Will they drive me around the 15 levels and 2 garages in hopes that perhaps I just wrote down the wrong coordinates? Before I succumbed to these thoughts, however, I decided to text Tammy in her meeting and solicit suggestions for a more reasoned approach.  Because at this point I am totally freaked out.  I have that feeling you get when you wake up in a strange bed while on vacation and you are totally confused as to where you are for a few seconds.  Only this time it has been a half hour.  And I am sitting on my suit case, next to the elevator, trying to act nonchalant as the other guests walk confidently past me to their cars.  Tammy suggests walking up the first ramp past the elevator and then walking down the next ramp.  I have no idea how this will be any different from what I have done, but there in row 8, level 4 red is my blue Subaru.  Only this is a different row 8 level 4 red than from where I had looked.  And when I got back on the elevator, after packing up the car, to go meet Tammy, I was on level 3 yellow!  If I heard Rod Serling's voice coming over the elevator speaker at this point and announcing, "next floor, The Twilight Zone", I would not have even twitched an eyelash.

So if you are wondering how I could have been so confused, here is what we eventually figured out.  The ramp design at The Caesar's Palace Colosseum South parking garage in Atlantic City looks something like this:

MC Escher inspired parking garage ramp design.
With the nightmare enhanced by poor signage design.

And, I am not making this up, there are two level 4 red, row 8's in this one garage.  Because of the interlocking zigzags, each level 4 intersects in the middle as you can see.  At least I think that is what is occurring.  I still am not totally clear on it.  But I eventually did see signs on different ramps of the same garage that specified level 4 red, section 8.  And where you end up depends on how you got there.  Think about it.  I still am.