One Day, My First Born Son, All This Will Be Yours

Here's the thing; We Americans, as a nation, rejected the concept of primogeniture over 250 years ago.  We betrayed and slandered King George III and all that the monarchy stood for.  Yet I awoke at 5:45 AM EST, on my day off, to watch the royal nuptials between the now Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.  I stayed glued to the TV until the much anticipated first royal kiss which occurred at exactly 8:26 AM EST.  That is 2 1/2 hours of my precious time that I thoroughly enjoyed and am proud to embrace as a sentimental part of my heritage as a citizen of the former colonies. 

George Washington was our first elected president but our wise founding fathers were very worried he would be embraced as our first King.  He was a great leader imbued with a natural charisma that easily could have  lead to a ruling "cult of personality" in our fledgling nation.  The very real possibility of creating an American Monarchy existed during the drafting of the Constitution and avoiding this outcome was never far from their minds, thus our tripartite system of government.  Yet our fascination with, and a vague sense of fealty to the British royal family still permeates our culture.  One may liken it to our love affair with celebrities in general but I think it is different.  I for one have never felt  personally vested in the success of a celebrity marriage like Brad and Angelina.  Yet I desire for Kate and William to be happy and I wish for them to be great leaders of humanitarian efforts which is basically what the Monarchy has evolved into during modern times.

Perhaps my feelings are due to the fact that they are such a handsome couple.  The Duchess of Cambridge has a natural poise and posture that is certainly the envy of models everywhere.  And the Duke seems to radiate a certain sense of warmth and joie de vivre not often associated with his father.  I was only 21 when Charles and Diana were married and I can't remember my feelings, but I think it became obvious early on that their hearts were never fully committed to the task of a royal marriage.  And judging from the history of the British Monarchy it is clear that in a royal union, personal emotion often trumps royal protocol.  Princess  Diana was a great beauty, Prince Charles not so much, yet we all longed for their marriage to be a great success.  So I hope Kate will embrace her role as the future Princess (one must be born the Queen of England), and I wish them the best of luck. 

And as I think about the monarchy I will keep on hoping that our 250 year old experiment in self governance proceeds apace and that temporary rancor leads to enduring rapport between the tribes that we like to call States.

Double Prints Please, and Yes, I do Want Fries With That

I cannot believe that a rapidly proliferating behavior pattern that has the potential to bring an entire nation to its knees has escaped my attention here in the blogoshere.  It started  innocently enough with Dairy Barns and Fotomats.  Then McDonalds and other fast food venues picked up on the idea.  Now it has spread to banks, pharmacies and even community flu shot programs.  Yes, I am talking about drive thru windows.  I have calculated that by getting out of the car and walking into the restaurant or pharmacy one could burn off 6.5 additional super sized french fry orders every year.  That is assuming you use 20 calories to and from your car and you use a drive up 4 times per week (thrice at a fast food joint or Dunkin Donuts, and once at the bank to cash your paycheck).  And never mind the fact that you would most likely save time by getting out of the car as there is usually a long line at the bank drive thru on Fridays, an even longer one during lunchtime at McDonalds and a super sized line at Dunkin Donuts during your commute to work.
And while I am at it, open the car windows during winter and take the stairs in the parking garage. 

Yes, I Do Mean Euro Size 41. That Is Why I Asked For It.

No one who knows me would underestimate my deep understanding and love of gear.  Nor my ability to critically assess when a salesman I may be speaking to knows less about the item than me.  That is the problem with big box stores; the salesmen are never knowledgeable about the items in which I am interested.  The worst infraction made by inexperienced salesmen is when they hang around while you peruse the aisle examining your choices and they try to offer unsolicited and inaccurate advice.  This has especially happened to me at Lowes or Home Depot where you would expect the salesmen to know the difference between a cotter pin and clevis pin.  Okay that might be an exaggeration but don't tell me I need a 5/16" tight thread bolt when I need a  1/4-20 bolt or hand me a 1/2" to 3/4" female threaded  PVC adapter when I need the opposite.  And then stand there breathing down my neck while I am trying to configure my hardware solution.  To be fair, I do sometimes luck out at the big box hardware stores and get good advice, but if I really need help, there is nothing like my local Ace Hardware store where I know the owner. 

So you can imagine my dismay when the salesman at Campmor gave me lip about a purchase I had fully researched online.  If you are unfamiliar with Campmor you may follow the link to be enlightened.  Guys who say they don't like to shop have most likely never been to Campmor, or Cabela's for that matter. On this particular trip I was purchasing a pair of the new barefoot style trail running shoes for Tammy as she had become quite jealous of my new found foot freedom.  (If I have not previously mentioned it in these pages, I have not had hip or knee pain since I embraced the barefoot running craze.  If you are a runner, or would like to start running and have fun doing it, read this; "Born to Run" by Chris Mcdougall).  So I walked back to the shoe department and asked for a pair of Women's size 8 1/2 Merrell Pace Trail Runners.  "Which style were you interested in?" the young sales clerk asked in response.  Knowing that I had just specifically named the style I assumed he meant that it comes in different colors so I followed him over to the display.  "You mean what color?" I queried back.  "No what model?" he answered.  "The women's Pace, in size 8 1/2.  This one right here" I emphasized as I picked it up to show him.  I only detail all this boring dialogue to allow you, the reader, to arrive at the same conclusion as I, that he had zero familiarity with the Merrell barefoot trail running shoe line in spite of the fact that he worked in the shoe department of an outdoor gear store.  I guess I mistakenly assumed that when I initially barged into the shoe department and  told him what I wanted without browsing first, he would immediately realize that I was obviously a connoisseur of fine athletic footwear and he would have just replied "Ahh, excellent choice sir", like a good sommelier.

 So he brings them out and I notice that they are Euro size 39 and Tammy is usually a Euro size 40.  So I mention this to the salesman and he pooh poos my concern and tells me not to worry about the Euro sizes, as they don't really mean anything.  Well........I happen to be intimately familiar with Euro sizes as much of our outdoor athletic foot gear from climbing shoes to ski boots are foreign made.  And when I mentioned I had to go a half American size down to my usual Euro size on my Merrell trail runners (as did many people who wrote online reviews) did he say "very good sir, I shall go and check our stock"?  No he did not.  I'm thinking maybe I should shop exclusively at Nordstrom from now on but they don't sell what I'm buying.  But man, are they good at pretending to actually enjoy helping every shopper regardless of anything.

Anyway, it turned out the shoes fit fine and now Tammy is really going to kick my butt on the downhills.  If you have never hiked or run with Tammy in the mountains I suggest getting out of her way on the downs.  She is usually back at the car while I am still 200 yards back slowly picking my way over the talus in morbid fear of tripping and plunging, if not to my death, then into a compound tibial fracture at least.  Maybe the barefoot runners will help.  Euro size 41.

Phone Home

Sit back, relax, as we now travel back to yesteryear, to a simpler time before cell phones and the self esteem movement in child rearing.  Imagine it is 1992 and your IBM PS/2 with its 20 megabyte (yes mega, not giga) hard drive is running DOS at 486 mhertz and your 750 Kbyte (yes kilo, not mega) 3 1/2 inch diskette is still more useful at data storage than serving as a coaster for your coffee mug.  A time when people knew what the a:\ and b:\ drives were. 

It was a bright spring day, the kind of weather when your troubles don't seem to matter and your lips are whistling a happy tune in spite of the slow driver in front of you.  Tammy and I were cruising down Highway One in California, and if we had coughed up the money to rent a convertible instead of a Cavalier, the wind would have been blowing through our hair in that carefree way that only Hollywood starlets usually seem to experience.  We were young and had just been married seven years.  Nothing could touch us.  But in spite of our carefree attitude I decided I should check in at my office.  My assistant, Debbie, had been manning things while we were away.  Of course this involved stopping at a gas station for a pay phone where I could use my calling card.  When I called I got the answering machine and I left her a mumbled message to the effect of “where the hell are you as I am paying you to answer the phone” and “we are headed to Lassen Volcano National Park so I will be unavailable for two days”.

Debbie and DOS

Two hours later we pull up to the little ranger kiosk located on the entrance road, sixty miles from the nearest highway, and there, taped under the sliding window, is a sign written in black Sharpie, on typewriter paper, that reads “DR. FEUER, CALL YOUR OFFICE”.  As my jaw hung there, the little window opens and as the ranger is about to extort the $10.00 entrance fee (kidding, there were no fees back then for bush league parks) I meekly ask, “The Dr. Feuer from New Jersey?  Because that is me.”  He then proceeds to inform us that "a" Debbie tracked us down to inform Tammy that her Mom, while in San Francisco, has had a heart attack but she is stable and doing well.  Of course there is no phone at the ranger kiosk so we had to drive another five miles to the visitor center to find a pay phone.  Tammy finally reached Debbie and it turns out Debbie had been waiting by the phone all morning for my check in call.  Just when she stepped out for a few minutes to get lunch, I had called.   She received my message but all she could understand was “we are going to volcano “.  Because no traveler in those days could be reached directly, Ralph, my father in law, tried to track us down through Debbie when Kitty had her heart attack.  Debbie then called California information and told the operator (there was no web searching either) she must get in touch with her boss who is driving to “some volcano” in California.  Thank goodness the operator took her seriously and she helped Debbie to figure out that it must be the National Park in northern California.  She connected Debbie to the ranger headquarters and Debbie explained the situation.  They agreed to radio (via walkie talkie) the kiosk and have the ranger there place the sign.  And that, Virginia, is how we existed before cell phones and the internet.

 Tammy calling the hospital from Lassen Volcanoes National Park

 
But here is the human interest aspect to this tale of ancient messaging:  I made Tammy wait for an hour before we drove  to San Fran so I could at least walk a few hundred yards up the volcano to get my picture taken and thus “claim” the park for my life list.  She tearfully and reluctantly agreed, but she waited alone in the car .  True story.  I reasoned that Kitty was apparently okay and we would never come back to this remote park so this was my only chance.  Plus what were the odds that we would coincidentally be only a few hours from San Francisco?  If we had been back home in Jersey we couldn’t have seen her mom anyway.  We finally arrived in San Francisco and thankfully Kitty was her usual perky self. But while Tammy tended to her Mom in the hospital I rented a mountain bike and rode across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito.  Hey, when would I ever again have a chance to do that?  A few years later, it turns out, when we went back to San Fran.  So,  my apologies to Kitty and Tammy, and posthumously to Ralph.

Coincidentally, before our trip, when Tammy found out that her parents would be in San Francisco at the same time as us, she said to her Dad, "We can meet you for dinner in San Francisco."  Ralph replied , "I'm not flying 3,000 miles across the country to have dinner with you."

I can only speculate that if cell phones were around back then, and Ralph could have just called us directly, we would have immediately driven to San Francisco to be with Tammy’s Mom. And I still, to this day, would never have been to Lassen Volcano National Park thereby adding going to all the National Parks to my list of almost dones.  And by the way, we did offer to go to China Town for dinner with Ralph, but true to form he refused.  We ended up having dinner with him in his hotel, as he had previously planned.  I believe he understood my stubbornness in not having Kitty's medical emergency impact our itinerary.  And Debbie still works for me twenty years and ten computers later.

Road Rage Redux Redux

So this morning I was driving to work on my favorite road, of which I have related several hair raising road rage incidents.   This latest episode is not so much road rage as "I am late for day care" rage.  I was going 50 mph in the 45 mph zone when a Nissan Altima breezed by me going at least 60 mph.  I know this for a fact because I sped up just to see if I could keep up and at 60 mph she was still getting ahead of me.  I quickly aborted my pace car speed for fear of, well, fear.  Here is the funny part.  Maybe not funny, more like incongruous.  She had a "Baby on Board" sign in the back window and the actual baby in the back seat (I saw her turn around and talk to him at the red light). 

Now if someone wants to speed , and they are not trying to beat me out to the merge, it is none of my business.  But by displaying this sign she is sucking every driver around  into her world and in essence telling everyone in the vicinity of this car to be careful. While she goes at least 15 mph over the limit in a residential area.  Seriously?  I am trying to not let my posts become angry rants so I will place this one in the "I am just pointing out hypocritical behavior for comedic purposes"  category.  I feel amused incredulity.

Art Is As Art Does

Many artists are capitalists just like the rest of us.  They produce a product that they hope to sell at a gallery for as much as they are able.  They profess to creating their art strictly as social statement, in hopes of getting an emotional response from the viewer.  But there is no art without the sale; I can't name a beneficent patron since the Medicis.  By naming a piece and hanging it in a gallery, as opposed to a craft show at the county fair, I am assuming they have elevated themselves to artist status.  Yet when one does have an emotional response that doesn't agree with the artist, it may very well be inappropriate to state your feelings at the showing.  I guess it is rude to criticize a person in their own home.  But if they are truly an artist, why is it okay to provoke the public yet be offended when they provoke back?

I was at a gallery opening tonight and one of the pieces was named "image of a thought".  The piece, by itself was pleasing and technically well done.  But by giving it this title, the artist was attempting to elevate his piece above a mere painting and into a cerebral social statement about human thought.  Why should we, the art viewing public just accept this at face value?  There was absolutely nothing about the image that invoked this construct.  He seemingly made it up to enhance an illusion of profundity.  You can argue that I don't agree with his interpretation of a thought but by that reasoning I can draw a picture of an atom and call it a molecule.  I wish I had taken a photo of the piece but I can attempt to describe it.  It was basically an outlined pastel colored square with subtle shadings and a few drips running down the bottom.  That's it.  Really.  First and foremost, human thoughts are not linear like a square.  They are  dendritic and convoluted, like a tree or bolt of lightening.  Maybe the nuanced shading represented the nuance of a thought.  Even if you don't subscribe to the idea that our thoughts are bound to the physical structure of the brain and its synaptic network, it just seems imperceptive to declare a thought a symmetrical geometric figure.  That is what confounds me. Art is not art just because the creator says so.  And I don't think we should let them get away with it if they are hanging it on a wall in hopes of selling it.  If this artist would have let his piece be, and not given it a thought provoking name (pun intended), I would have complimented his sophisticated sense of design.  But he chose to step into a higher realm of philosophical abstractism and thus insert his piece into the arena of criticism.

My frustration is misdirected because I never did get a chance to discuss my thoughts with the artist.  If he were present, I certainly would have told him my opinion.  It is my view that if you are going to open the door,  I am going to barge right in.  Instead, I was forced to unleash my criticism on another artist at the gallery with whom I happened to be acquainted.  I should point out that her art can be quite provocative (a Barbie on a cross, with dead beetles sprinkled around for good measure.  I am not making this up).  So I assumed she could take a harsh critiquing.  As I held forth on my view, she slowly began to back away in obvious hopes of ending the conversation.  Tammy said it was my attitude, not my point, that dismayed her.  Perhaps.  I can be a mean drunk.  I did have a few drinks, the cabin being so conducive to a cocktail hour and all.  I don't want to have to go to an art gallery and whisper my opinions in fear of offending the artist.  It might not be art if someone isn't offended.  Art is art only if it is profound.  Otherwise it is just crafts. If you are going to sell your art as political statement, be prepared for the consequences.

This is a thought

This is a thought

This is even a thought

This is not a thought

The Fudge Chronicles

If my new nutritionist sees this I am going to get a lecture so don't post this to your Facebook page.  I am not even going to mention this lapse in my food diary.  I know, I am only cheating myself, but who wants to live without sugar?  Or alcohol for that matter.  Better yet, sugary alcoholic drinks.  Okay, full disclosure; I just ate a piece of fudge.  I feel like Hunter Thompson.  But instead of LSD, I am high on sugar.  And my ramblings are more gawky than gonzo.  Plus I am way to frangible (look it up) to ever have ridden a Harley.  Emily Dickinson then.  I only say this because I can think of many macho and robust male writers but I can't think of one fragile male writer.  I did think of Truman Capote but "In Cold Blood" affirms that one should not conflate homosexuality with a lack of machismo.

Back to the fudge.  I have not had a cookie, a Tastycake, an M&M, not even a jelly bean in four weeks.  I had one Werther's Original the other day.  But hard candies are like time release cold medication.  Designed to spread their effect over the course of an entire day.  By the way, Werther's is not butterscotch so don't ever ask me if I would like a butterscotch and then hand me a Werther's Original.  That's like ordering New York style cheesecake in South Philly and they bring you some facsimile made with ricotta cheese instead of all cream cheese.  This has actually happened to me.  Well, I just looked it up and Wikipedia says that Werther's Originals are butterscotch.  The poor man's butterscotch perhaps.  My mom always bought me Callard and Bowser Butterscotch.  Alas they are no more.  Bought out by Cadbury.  Now familiar to you only because of Altoids. 

Oh, the fudge, right.  My favorite variety store here in Phoenicia is now selling fudge personally made by the proprietor in her ice cream shop next door.  She has installed a nice display case with the fudge laid out like great slabs of marble.  There are flavors like praline, maple walnut, penuche (?), rocky road, and cookies and cream.  All traditional flavors, no doubt, that one has always found on the boardwalk in Ocean City.  But I noticed something about my escalated enthusiasm for it here in the Catskill Mountains.  While I have been visiting the shore and strolling the boards, I never felt any interest in the myriad displays of fudge.  Perhaps my increased awareness is because I have not had a confectionery treat in a month.  But I think it is more because of the setting.  Eating fudge in the summer, on the boardwalk, while wearing a bathing suit, in ninety degree heat doesn't seem like such a great plan.  Water ice makes more sense at the shore, except for the obvious melting dilemma.  Fudge is more appropriate in the mountains, in cool weather, when a down jacket prevents one from casually seeing their love handles when glancing down.

That's it.  I just wanted to figure out why I ate the fudge in Phoenicia and not in Ocean City.