Next time you leave a review, you might want to wait a bit

Susan Leger is a Georgia grandmother who, a few months ago, thought she was going to have a fun girls' getaway with her six-year-old granddaughter. So she booked three nights at the Baymont Inn & Suites in Helen, Georgia.

Now, I seem to recall staying at a Baymont (in lovely Gurnee, Illinois) many years ago, and there was nothing glam or luxe about it. It was basic. It was clean enough. It was cheap. And it was near where I wanted to go, which was my aunt's house in Lake Villa. (Plus it was near the Gurnee Mills outlet stores, where at Saks Fifth Avenue, or Off Fifth, or whatever Saks' bargain shop is called, I got a fabulous Jill Sander skirt for short money. I wore that skirt - and I cannot begin to describe how lovely the material (a very fine light wool in a very pretty shade of pale bluish-grayish green) and how great the fit - for well over a decade. And then I spilled something on it that repeated cleanings couldn't get out. So, alas, I had to part company with it.)

Jill Sanders skirt aside, I know first hand that a Baymont Inn is nothing fancy. But I'm sure it was plenty exciting for a six-year-old out for adventure with her grandma.

And quite the adventure it turned out to be. As in bad adventure, as opposed to good adventure.

Leger had booked the Baymont through Hotels.com and a night into her stay - resonding to a prompt from Hotels.com to do so - she gave it a review. She gave it a three-star review, citing the pool not being opened, their toilet not flushing all that well, and its generaly rundown appearance.

Soon thereafter, [manager Danny] Vyas was screaming at her to leave. Speaking with [Atlanta TV station] 11Alive, Leger described how frightening the experience was for her granddaughter.

"The man is screaming at me. He was saying, 'You get out now. I call the police.' My granddaughter's like clinging to my leg and crying so hard. This was scary. This was just horrifying."

Before long, the police had arrived to escort Leger and her granddaughter off the premises after Vyas called 911—a turn of events that left Leger mystified. (Source: ComicSands)

By the way, when the cops kicked Leger and her granddaughter out, they were still in their PJs. It was 8:40 p.m. Past the child's bedtime.

Anyway, Vyas initially claimed that he called the police, telling the dispatcher that Leger was refusing to leave the Inn, because she should have brought her complaints to him and his staff first. That was in September. In November, when the station was following up on the story, Vyas changed his tune and stated that she was an overcomplainer, calling the front desk 10+ times an hour to bitch about something - an assertion that Leger denied.

Bad enough that Susan Leger and her grandchild had to do a PJ perp walk, but Hotels.com refused her a refund for her aborted stay, as it's against their policy. Pressure from the station eventually got Leger the refund she was looking for, but it took a few months.

Can you imagine any of this? Especially calling in the police. Among other things, while I don't imagine that there's a ton of crime in Helen, Georgia (pop. 430), I'm guessing that Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife have better things to spend their time on. Helen is basically a tourist town, a Bavarian themed village - jawohl! - with shops, tubing, ziplining, and a nearby Cabbage Patch Kids museum. 

Just the sort of place a grandma could have a fine time with her granddaugther.

By no means a crime center, but even the odd traffic violation, tubing accident, and shoplifting incident would seem to rank higher in criminal importance over a review on Hotels.com. 

And it was a three-star review, which is really just kind of average-y. Can you imagine if Leger wasn't the nice little old grandma type who would have felt bad about leaving a one-star review, which was probably what she was thinking?

And just what was Danny Vyas thinking? 

Whatever he was thinking then, he's probably thinking something else entirely now that this story has been making its way around the globe. Or at least to the British tabloids.

I know first hand the the customer is not always right.

Still, this seems so completely over the top.

Not that she'd want to stay there, but I think that Susan Leger deserves free nights forever at the Baymont of her choice. Better yet, since Baymont is owned by Wyndham, why not award her with some free nights at one of their more upscale properties? Just make sure it's one with a working, that's well-maintained, and that has well-flushing toilets. Maybe she'll even promise not to leave a review while she's there...

Marshmallow Fluff? Disgusting? Well, yes and no.

I'm just catching up with this Thrillist article from last December, but I'm guessing that the opinions within in haven't changed all that much. After all, how likely is it that the most disgusting food in a state changes from one year to the next?

I was prepared to be completely disgusted by ambrosia salad, deemed the grossest food stuff coming out of Alabama. It's canned fruit, coconut, mini-marshmallows and something like sour cream or Cool Whip to hold it all together. Then I thought about something similar that my mother used to make on Christmas Eve. Her concoction was canned fruit cocktail and walnuts in a scratch-made ultra-sweet cream sauce. There may have been mini-marshmallows in there. If so, I'm blocking them. Anyway, we all loved this fruit salad. My sister Trish made it a few years back when we did a nostalgia thang for Christmas Eve (kidney bean, mushroom, peppers and meatball casserole, baked ziti), and, while it wasn't the hit I remembered - and a very little went a long way - it was still pretty good. (The kidney bean-meatball casserole was its usual smash. My mouth is watering as I think of it now...)

But I'll take a pass on Alaska's akutaq (seal fat and wild berries). And why pick on Colorado for shredded wheat? Shredded wheat! It's just about my favorite cold cereal. I can't imagine why anyone would find it gross...

Naturally, the New England nominees interested me the most, the thinking being these are all states I've spent plenty of time in. And I really didn't want to run through all 50 states, so I mostly stayed close to home. 

I've never had Connectcut clam pizza pie, which Thrillist thinks looks terrible but tastes okay. I think it looks just fine, and I bet I'd like it just fine, too. Even though I have to ask why anyone would waste good clams on pizza when they can have them in chowder, spaghetti with white clam sauce, or fried up (stomach must be included) and served on a roll.

Before I hit the next New England state, I had to pause at Hawaii to get my gag reflex going on SPAM musubi. I may have loved SPAM as a kid, but today's more refined tongue is burning at the very thought of it.

And since my mother hailed from Chicago, I stopped at Illinois, too, where Thrillist goes after gravy bread, which is bread sopped in gravy. While in this case gravy is beef juice, and I would prefer gravy-gravy sopped bread, this sounds pretty tasty to me.

Maine's entry is tomalley, which is the green, mushy liver and pancreas of a lobster. Not a fan, here, but when I was a waitress at Boston's Union Oyster House a million years ago, it was on the menu and people did used to order it. I'm guessing that everyone who once ordered that tomalley has passed on to the great beyond, given that they were mostly old geezers and that was 50 years ago. So there probably aren't that many folks, other than ultra foodies (the type that would find eating Lousiana nutria interesting), who'd be disappointed to learn that the FDA recommends against tomalley because of the potential for toxins in it.

As a kid, my favorite sandwich was - handsdown - the Fluffernutter: peanut butter and Massachusetts' own Marshmallow Fluff, on (what else) white bread. (Although some of my sibs swore by it, I couldn't stand jam or jelly on it.) The Fluffernutter had some close competition: PBJ (with grape jelly), tuna salad (the way my mother made it, not the way Ellen Walsh's mother made it for her 7th birthday party, with green pepper it it), and the Gus (bacon, lettuce, cheese, and dill pickle) which my brother Tom (a.k.a. Gus) and I "invented." (It's still a go-to.) But, back then, if I had to pick one, it would have been the Fluffernutter. I wouldn't care to have one now, and I can't think of any Massachusetts food that would be a candidate for our grossest. Sure, there's also no other food I can think of that turns to cement when you get to the bottom of the jar. But JUST YOU DON'T GO PICKING ON FLUFF!

And what can anyone possible have against grapenut ice cream, which was named New Hampshire's grossest. Sure, you can break a tooth on one of those bits of grapenut in there, but I love grapenuts ice cream. Then again, I'm a fan of New England ice cream flavors in general. Maple walnut. Maine black bear. I even like frozen pudding ice cream. It's quite hard for me to believe there isn't something nastier that comes out of the state of New Hampshire, especially if you head north...

Although Thrillist calls it "insanely delicious," Rhode Island's chop suey sandwich - the kind of chop suey that comes out of La Choy cans with some pork tossed in, on a hamburg bun - sounds pretty dreadful to me. Even worse, though, was a sandwich I once saw my grandmother - surely one of the worst cooks to ever walk the face of this earth - serve my Uncle Charlie: American Chop-Suey (a.k.a., hamburg and macaroni, with bacon, in tomato soup), refried in my grandmother's never-off-the-stove skillet, on white bread. I love American Chop-Suey. In fact, I made some just about a month ago. I just don't love it on white bread, after it's been swirled around in the grease in my grandmother's cast iron frying pan.

Vermont gets it for raw milk. Errrr, no thanks. That Louis Pasteur was a pretty smart guy...

No Fluff in the house, and there probably never will be, so I'm off to make a PBJ.

What's the opposite of moonlighting? Is it daylighting?

Many years ago - mabye 25, maybe more - before working from home was much of a thing, before we knew the word virtual - the lead techie at a little software company I worked at decided he was going to WFH. He would be so much more productive, we were assured, without the distractions of the office. The meetings, the interruptions, the little daily annoyances. He was tempermental. An eccentric genius. Of course it was okay for him to work from home.

And he was working from home.

Just not for our company.

As many of us came to suspect - and were proven correctomundo - he was spending most of his "work" day creating a new product for a new company that he was founding. A rival product to ours which, of course, turned out to be so much better, as he knew all our product flaws and was starting from scratch.

Anyway, once he finished his development work and secured funding, he quit. And took several of our key employees with him.

One big ugly mess.

We ended up suing and ended up with enough money to keep our shoestring operation going for a while. It didn't stop our rival's progress. They built a better product, had real funding rather than our lawsuit crumbs, and in general ate our lunch.

So this having two jobs is nothing new.

And what with working from home becoming the norm - or at least a norm - in many professions, it must be so damned tempting to moonlight. Or daylight. Or whatever we might want to call it.

I guess this was the case for a Providence school principal.

Michael Redmond took the job at E-Cubed Academy in July 2020 - peak pandemic time! - and then, for 4 months, kept on working virtually as the assistant principal at a middle school in Washington, DC.

According to a violation notice issued by the District of Columbia’s Board of Ethics and Government Accountability earlier this month, Redmond admitted to working on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. until 3:15 p.m. at Providence Public Schools while also working weekdays from 8:45 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. for D.C. Public Schools.

Redmond, who resigned from D.C. Public Schools on Nov. 30, 2020, earned approximately $41,000 in District government wages during those 17 weeks — an annual salary of $125,434 — on top of the $120,720 annual salary he was drawing as the principal of E-Cubed Academy.

...According to the notice, Redmond violated four counts of the District of Columbia’s Code of Conduct, including “receiving compensation for [outside] teaching activities during regular working hours, without using annual leave, compensatory leave, exempt time off, or leave without pay.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Nice works if you can get it.

Anyway, Redmond resigned from his Providence gig in April. No word on whether it's related to his double dipping or something else. 

It's not clear what the upshot of all this will end up being, but it could be pretty harsh:

Possible penalties for such a violation include thousands of dollars in fines or a year in prison.

...Redmond confirmed Monday that he worked the two jobs simultaneously and said he resigned from Kramer [the D.C. school] as soon as he learned that he was unable to hold both positions. He told The Washington Post that he worked around-the-clock to fulfill his responsibilities at Kramer, leading and attending professional development sessions and regularly meeting with parents and students. (Source: WaPo)

Maybe I'm just a scofflaw at heart, but I don't think this guy needs to spend a year in prison.  Especially since it sounds like he was actually quite devoted to his students and good at his job.

It just must have been so damned tempting.

Gotta imagine that, with all the working from home that's happening, Redmond's not the only one who's been juggling a couple of jobs.

Personally, I don't see how anyone does it. Not if we're talking about two full-time jobs being worked simultaneously.

One job is all-consuming enough. Who has the psychic energy for a second simultaneous job? It's like when you read about folks with multiple secret spouses, multiple secret families, multiple secret houses. How do people keep it all straight?

I could never have pulled it off. 

When I was more active in my freelance career, I was sometimes juggling as many as 10 projects with 10 different clients at the same time. And I have to say there were startup costs associated with moving from one project to the next. (If it's Tuesday morning, this must be conferencing technology. If it's Tuesday afternoon, maybe it's embedded systems.) And I never had to pretend I was working for a company. 

Still, I guess that more companies are going to have to figure it out. And if someone can actually do a good job for a couple of companies at once, why shouldn't they be rewarded for their productivity. As long as it's all above board and they get their job done. 

This, of course, raises the question of whether, if you can get your full-time job done with part-time hours, is it because you're such a paragon of productivity (rewards should accrue to you!) or because your job is underscoped (thus, you're getting away with murder).

Anyway, good luck to Michael Redmond.

As I said, I don't wish him jail and hope he can find his way out of this mess.

It must have been so damned tempting...

Take this job and shove it

It has been said more than once - by me, at least - that the two sweetest words in the English language are "I quit." 

Or, if you want to go longer, as the brilliantly named (by himself) and thoroughly disreputable and scabrous, Johnny Paycheck had it with his 1977 hit, "Take This Job and Shove It."

All jobs, of course, have their moments. 

Some of those moments are good, great even. Some of them are just miserable, but the misery tends to dissipate once you take a deep breath. And some of those moments are so god-awful that you just want to walk right out the door without a backward's look.

I never actually walked out of a job in a huff.

I did last only one shift as a waitress at Valle's Steak House, but I called in my regrets from a payphone at Brigham's during the afternoon lull.

And my roommate and I did blow out of Durgin-Park after she was fired for throwing a bowl of half-eaten strawberry shortcake at the owner - a righteous hit, if ever - but we were only going to be there a few more days anyway, before taking off on our Grand Tour of Europe. And we were laughing so hard as we exited the building, it didn't seem as if I was really saying "I quit." (Or "take this job and shove it.")

But at one point, during my actual (i.e., non-waitress) professional career, I did carry a metaphorical "I quit" card in my metaphorical backpocket for a while.

I was reporting to someone who was one of the absolute worst managers I have ever encountered. 

One evening, after a day of putting up with her petty, demeaning, and imperious bullshit, I came home and told my husband I wanted out. (Or the job, not the marriage.) We talked about it and I decided that, with his support, if I had to just walk out the door, that was fine. 

Fortunately, I didn't have to carry that metaphorical card for very long.

The investors in this small, hapless software company brought in a turnaround guy, and all of a sudden I was reporting to him, not to her. A vast improvement.

Anyway, after he'd been there a bit, he determined that we were going to have to thin the ranks, and I was one of the people he asked for advice on who to lay off.

Hmmmmm.....

I went through the list of who I thought was expendable and, honestly, although it wasn't a revenge tour, she was on it. (For reasons that had nothing to do with our personal hash. Or at least not entirely.) 

When I got to her name, Mr. Turnaround smiled a bit. 

"No one starts with her," he told me. "But everyone gets there."

Without devoting an entire post to her, I will say that she was a thoroughly malign force - and I wasn't the only one who felt that way. Mr. Turnaround also told me that he just didn't get her. "She presents herself as if she's the company sweetheart, and yet..."

So I didn't have to, but Ms. Sweetheart was the one I would have played my "I quit" card on if needs be.

I hadn't thought of her in a while, but she came to mind when I read about some folks at a Chipotle in Austin, Texas, who go so fed up, they just took a hike a few weeks back. 

A group of five Chipotle employees, including a general manager and kitchen manager, quit their jobs at the end of their shifts on November 14 after working under "impossible" conditions, they told Insider.

Peter Guerra, a Chipotle veteran of five years and general manager for six months, worked at the Scofield Farms Chipotle location in Austin, Texas.

"My store was severely understaffed, we struggled just to keep our heads above water," with less and less support from management, Guerra said. He said he was regularly scheduled to work 80 hours a week, but often had to work additional hours to cover for employees who quit and left gaps in staffing. (Source: Yahoo News)

80 hours a week which, I'm guessing, the general manager didn't get paid overtime to work. (My understanding is that one of the ways fastfood employees get screwed is to give them a manager's title and put them on salary, and then overwork them.)

Between filling digital DoorDash orders and keeping the dining room open, things just got to be too much.

"I thought, 'this is literally going to kill me if I keep it up,'" Guerra said.

The kitchen manager also quit.

But "they finished their shifts and cleaned up the store, before leaving around 1 a.m." Because, at heart, they are good, hard-working employees who want to do a good job. They just didn't want to be killed in the process. 

Several other employees also quit. The store remains open, but a few days after the mass leave-taking "the restaurant still did not appear to be accepting online orders." And maybe that's the way it's going to have to be until the labor market problems sort themselves out. Better pay? Letting in more immigrants? Automate the truly low end, thankless jobs? There is a way out of here.

Until then, we can expect to see a lot more folks saying "take this job and shove it; I ain't workin' here no more.'

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

They say it's your birthday

I suspect that most folks are at least a bit curious about who shares their birthday. I know that I am.

Not that it means anything. It's just that, well, it's kinda sorta interesting. 

So who've I got?

It used to be a good thing that Woody Allen and I were both born on December 1st. And then he turned out to be a narcissistic, unfunny creep. (Maybe his birthdate was misrecorded.)

But I'll always have Bette Midler who was, is, and will always be someone I'm proud to share a birthday with. Happy Birthday, Bette.

I ran through the list of fellow December 1st-ers, and I have to admit that there were plenty I never heard of. Annette Haven? Akala? Golden Brooks?

Others were a pleasant surprise:

Lou Rawls, Richard Pryor, Janelle Monae, Treat Williams. And Gilbert O'Sullivan. I haven't thought of him in years.  Because, truly, how often do I land on "Alone Again" as a shower song?

Then there's Mary Martin! Peter Pan, Annie Oakley, Nellie Forbush, Maria von Trapp. Fabulous!

I also, sadly, share a birthday with Matthew Shepard, the young gay man so brutally murdered in Wyoming so many years ago now. That poor boy. His poor family.

Who else is out there? Golfer Lee Trevino. Zoe Kravitz. And John Densmore of The Doors. I've never heard of John Densmore, but I was a bit of a Doors fan back in the day. 

Charlene Tilton is also a birthday-mate. Charlene Tilton, you may ask? She played Ewing granddaughter Lucy on Dallas, a glitzy evening soap of the late 1970's and 1980's. Who shot J.R.? Not Lucy!

And Gyorgy Zhukov, who helped win World War II.

There are a few (other than Woody Allen) I'd rather have been born on some other day.

Mafiosi Thomas "Three Fingers Brown" Lucchese. And the ultra-unpleasant Senator Rick Scott of Florida. Worse yet, Pablo Escobar, who shares not just my birthday but my birthyear. Yuck! 

The most peculiar name that came up as Armin Meiwes. Inspired by the tale of Hansel & Gretel, this German nutter found someone on an onlne site for those with a cannibal fetish (!) who was willing to have Meiwes kill and eat him. Meiwes found his man, and the details of their encounter are beyond gruesome. (Do not, under any circumstance, google the name Armin Meiwes.)

But let's forget about Armin Meiwes, Woody Allen, Pablo Escobar.

Think lovely thoughts, as Mary Martin instructed us in Peter Pan. 

And one of those lovely thoughts is The Beatles:

They say it's your birthday
Well, it's my birthday too, yeah
They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday

Happy birthday to you

And Happy Birthday to me. 

---------------------------------------------------------------

Update: It's Jen Psaki's birthday, too! Yay!

Things to ask the surgeon before you're under

I've had a few procedures that I've been out for, but the only operation I've ever had was when I had my wisdom teeth yanked. That was back in the day when you went into the hospital to have your wisdom teeth out. I believe the reason was that insurance covered a hospital stay (and full anesthesia in an OR), but didn't cover the dentist's office. I don't even know whether dental insurance existed back then. I was 18.

Anyway, I don't have a lot of first person experience to draw on here. Most of my surgical experience is second hand, hanging around the family waiting room, waiting to hear from whoever was operating on my husband.

Over the years, Jim underwent three major surgeries, and as far as I know not one of his surgeons abandoned the OR while my husband was under their care. That's as far as I know. Two of the three surgeons became pretty friendly with Jim, and the other guy seemed great, so I pretty much trust that they were there throughout. I did get to talk to all of them afterwards, and never had an inkling that any of them went AWOL.

But every once in a while, there's a story about a surgeon going taking off. One I remember was a drug-addicted spine surgeon who took off midway through surgery to deposit his paycheck in the bank. (This doctor, David Arndt, was just all-round bad news, and ended up losing his license and in Federal prison.)

Then there was the hoopla a few years back when it was revealed that some orthopedic surgeons at Mass General Hospital were performing multiple surgeries simultaneously, waltzing back and forth between ORs. Teaching hospitals often schedule surgeries with a slight overlap, in which Dr. Big leaves it to a resident to close a patient up while they move on to their next. But what was uncovered at MGH was surgeries scheduled to overlap for a number of hours. 

Anyay, there's now another scandal: a surgeon who left the OR at Boston Medical Center prior to performing an emergency ankle operation. Dr. Tony Tannoury grabbed something to eat, went to eat it in his parked car, and conked out, missing the procedure entirely. Fortunately, the chief resident was able to take care of things. 

But Tannoury has received a reprimand and a $5K fine for his lapse in judgement. 

In a recent ruling, the state board [Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine] concluded that Tannoury, who was the attending surgeon for orthopedic trauma emergencies that night and had escorted the patient with the resident into the operating room, had “engaged in conduct that undermines the public confidence in the integrity of the medical profession.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Tannoury will also be required "to complete five continuing education credits in “professionalism” and review regulations for supervising residents."

Fortunately, the outcome of the Tannoury-less procedure was successful. The patient was fully informed about what happened, and all charges were waived. 

I can't imagine the pressure that surgeons are under, and how exhausting their work is. But let's use a little common sense here.

If you're too tired to perform an operation, shouldn't you, like, tell someone? Surely, there are policies and procedures that address situations like this. 

I can understand wanting to grab a quick snack before operating - I sure wouldn't want my surgeon's energy drooping while I were under their knife - but if you're feeling at all groggy, for god's sake, don't go sit in your car to eat it. That's a recipe for nodding off. Eat in the hospital caf, and if your head hits the table while you're eating, there's someone around to shake your shoulder, wake you up, and get you on your way to the OR. 

Still, although I'm not sure I'd want it to happen to me, Tannoury's infraction seems forgivable. Stupid, yes. Careless, sure. But forgivable. 

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the simul-surgery brouhaha - which Tannoury, although not at MGH, was lightly caught up in - the rules have changed. 

In 2019, the state medical board tightened regulations for surgeons who leave operating rooms before operations end, including when they are managing overlapping procedures...

The revised regulations, which medical experts described as among the most-far reaching in the country, require doctors to provide more information to patients beforehand about who will be participating in an operation. They also require hospitals to document each time a lead surgeon enters and leaves the operating room.

Surgeons used to carry pagers. Not sure whether cell phones have replaced this old technology, but maybe there needs to be a checkstep in which, when the chief surgeon is gone for a bit too long for a bio break or snack attack or whatever, the second-in-charge buzzes them. Maybe all Dr. Tannoury needed was a little bit of a jolt.

Me? I'm unlikely to get out of life without having an operation of some sort. I always have questions for doctors. I'll just add a question or two for the surgeon about whether they're planning on being around for the entirety of my operation, and in whose good and steady hands they'll be leaving me if they need to check out for a bit. 

As long as they're not taking off to deposit their paycheck, I'm cool with grabbing a bite or a bio break. I just want to know what the plan is. Even if I'll be under and clueless about what's going on in the conscious world.

Welcome to Elfland

Like most kids, I was fascinated by all things miniature.

Toys are, of course, for the most part life writ small. They need to be scaled down so that kids can actually play with them. Most dolls aren't life sized. Good thing, because then they wouldn't fit it a doll house. Toy cars and trucks aren't life-sized, either. Kids play with miniature pots and pans, tiny bats and balls. They build mini-villages around their mini railroad tracks and mini trains. That stuffed hippo? Not exactly hippo sized. 

Merry Toys were popular in the 1950's and 1960's. They were miniatures within miniatures: tiny little stores selling tiny little products: supermarket, drugstore, hobby shop... I adored Merry Toys, an endless source of fascinating and delight. 

And who didn't love charms? No, not the fancy silver ones you wore on your charm bracelet. The ones you got, if you were lucky, when you put a penny in a gumball machine. That teenie-tiny mirror, that teenie-tiny drum...

Apparently some things don't change.

Which is how Elfland came about.

Elfland is the brain child of an eight-year-old boy from Somerville, Massachusetts, who spied "'a bunch of invisible things'" pottering around an abandoned lot in his neighborhood last summer. 

Those invisible things, as it turned out, were elves. 

And those elves wanted help from the local humans to build their village.

And so became Elfland:

In August, the boy and his parents started building Elfland from the ground up, giving new life to a vacant dirt lot filled with chunks of rock and overgrown

weeds. But a month later, as word of the fairytale village spread, neighbors who discovered the secret realm started quietly making additions of their own. (Source: Boston Globe)

The lot was formerly occupied a gas station and repair shop. "An eyesore", the boy's father dubbed it. And while it will no doubt be developed - they aren't making any more land in Somerville and demand for housing there is extreme - the boy's family decided to have some fun. 

They started small, with a few houses. Then added birdhouses, a hospital, a library, and a wondrous dinosaur farm. 

Then other folks started adding things. More houses. A skating rink. Solar lights. A swing set, a water town, a garden, a church.

Sure, it's not going to last forever. Land in Somerville is just too damned valuable. But how wonderful while it does. 

Wish we had an Elfland in my neighborhood!

Pizza Pizza

With 1.2 guns per capita, the U.S. has the highest gun ownership level in the world. That's 120 per hundred Americans. Roughly one-third of all Americans own a gun - many of them have more than one, which accounts for the fact that we have more guns than we have capitas. And 44% of all Americans live in a house where there's a gun.

In contrast, Massachusetts is tied with New Jersey for having the lowest percentage of folks in the United States who live in a gun house. Only 14.7% of us Massachusettians - or, as we're so affectionately known, Massholes - live in a home where there's a gun close at hand. (Of course, when I see a stat like this, I do have to ask myself why we're the assholes.)

Not surprisingly, the most gun-toting states are places like Montana and Wyoming, where roughly two-thirds of all the folks live in a household with a gun presence. Of course, these are states where people go hunting, and that's fine with me. It may not be of interest to me, but I eat meat and wear leather, so I can't exactly object to someone who wants to fill their freezer with venison. 

If people want to play at target practice or sport shoot or whatever it's called, have at it. 

And although there'll never be a gun in my bedstand, a responsible person who has a gun for "protection", a gun that they know how to handle and to keep safe from others, is free to enjoy their 2A as far as I'm concerned. Just include me out.

What I really loathe and despise, however, are the ragers, the punks, the morons, the thugs, who can't strut out of their house without being strapped. Who worship at the gun nut altar. (More on that topic coming soon.) And who revel in open carry.

I am not going down the path of child-sociopath Kyle Rittenhouse. Or even the path of Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael, and Roddie Bryan, the goons accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery for the crime of running in a white neighborhood while Black, without fancy running shoes and shorts on, and - as one of the defense attorneys pointed out - with dirty toenails.

Or down the path of the many upon many evil-doers who shoot up schools, churches, business, stores, factories, and malls. 

But I am going down the path of one Charles Doty, Jr., a 53 year old maroon from Knoxville, Tennessee - a state where gun ownership is high - who recently "held up a Little Caesars in Cedar Bluff with an AK-47 rifle after being told his pepperoni pizza order would take ten minutes."

Okay, there is certainly a non-zero chance that Charles Doty, Jr., suffers from mental illness. But there's certainly an equal chance that he's a garden-variety moronic thug who needs an AK-47 to feel like a man, and who has no problem threatening others with it. Even if it's over a slowpoking pizza. (I advise that Charles Doty, Jr., if ever in Massachusetts, stay out of Tatte. The time it takes them to make a roasted cauliflower and caper sandwich. Let me tell you, it is not for the faint of waiting heart.)

Anyway, the scene at Little Caesar's must have been something. 

Doty placed his order and was told he'd have to wait that extra long ten minutes. Some pique is understandable. Who wants to wait 10 minutes for a bad pizza? So initially, Doty made a somewhat modest demand for his trouble: free bread sticks.

Turned down, he went outside to wait. Or not.

Soon enough, he was back in the shop. His hands not

occupied with the free bread sticks he wasn't granted, Doty was now holding his rifle, which he pointed at an employee and at a woman picking up her $6 pizza pizza. She offered him hers if only he'd leave.

If only...

Remarkably, and without getting a few rounds off, he did leave.

But he didn't leave for long:

According to the report, police later tracked him down and arrested him. He is charged with aggravated assault and especially aggravated kidnapping. (Source: Raw Story)

I would assume that Doty'll do some pizza- and gun-less time, but you never know. Tennessee may have some obscure law that allows an aggravated man to point a gun at someone if his pizza takes too long. Justifiable imbecility, or something. Maybe there's even a jury of his peers that'd let him off. ("Can't blame a fellow...")

After all, 

Tennessee's Republican-controlled legislature recently enacted what is known as a "permitless carry" law, allowing people to carry handguns without any training or licensing from the state — although that law does not apply to long guns like the AK-47. Federal background check laws still apply, although these can be circumvented by buying guns through private sales without the involvement of licensed dealers; websites like Armslist.com exist to facilitate these unchecked gun sales.

Okay. So the law doesn't apply to guns like AK-47's. I'd make that a "yet." Because, why not? Why not up the ante, and let unlicensed, untrained yahoos carry a military grade fully automatic assault rifle? 

What could possibly happen?

Nothing, that's what.

Just ask the pizza pizza guy at Little Caesar. Charles Doty didn't even get away with a free order of bread sticks, let alone with murder.  

Still Thankful for Thanksgiving Day

I've always loved Thanksgiving. It's a holiday which, unless you're the one doing the heavy-lifting on the cooking (which, blessedly, I never have to do: light-lifting only!), is relatively painless. (Unless your relatives are relatively pain-inducing. We have our moments, but I'm pretty fortunate when it comes to family. Thankful, too.) There's not all that much crazy run up and commercialism associated with it - other than the spin-off into The Holiday Shopping Season. 

Ah, Thanksgiving.

It has a very New England-y feel to it, which I like. And even though things turned out terribly for the native Americans - and I am in no way discounting this - and even though there are many elements to the Thanksgiving Day backstory that are a crock, as a foundational myth there parts of it that are worth hanging on to. 

The Pilgrims may have been crazed zealots, but they were brave to get on the Mayflower and go. (I've been on the replica. That journey across the Atlantic was nasty, brutish, and long.) The Wampanoags did help the Pilgrims survive their first grim winter here. The Pilgrims and the Wampanoags did - at least at one moment in time - peacefully break bread. 

The story of how the indigenous peoples were treated by the white man has been shameful. There's no denying that. Anyone who's driven through the West knows when they're on a reservation: the land is no good for farming or ranching. 

But conquering land, to the loss and detriment of those who were already occupying it, is nothing new. (And it's not uniquely the province of white people. Most of history is made up of stories about about who conquers whom. And that's never been pretty.)

Yes, much of our history is terrible, especially when viewed through a modern lens. (Come to think of it, a lot of the present is pretty terrible, too.) And I believe that we absolutey owe the American Indian tribes plenty.

But there was never any way that the North American continent was going to sit there, with its vast riches and relatively sparse population, when all those huddled masses, all that wretched refuse of those teeming shores - originally my ancestors, now someone else's - needed a place to go. 

Me? I don't want to see all the awful things that have happened throughout our history eliminate the good that we should cherish. And part of that good is that part of the genius of this country is that it could take immigrants and, in a generation, turn them into Americans. Which still happens. And which is just plain brilliant.

I could go one. And I will at some point be writing about "what white privilege means to me." But this is just a simple little blog, and since it's Thanksgiving, we'll stick to a directly related topic. One that has recently made the local news.

If Massachusetts has a liberal/lefty-ish capital (other than Cambridge - make that Somerville), it would be Northampton. A charming small city in Western Mass. Home to Smith College. A significant LBGTQ population. 

In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden got 65.6% of the vote in Massachusetts. In Boston, he took 82.9%. Northhampton gave Biden 87.5% of their vote. 

It's a city where people are concerned about things like equity. Things like diversity and inclusion. I hate the word woke, but Northampton is woke. 

The city's arts council runs a biennial juried show at the local library.  One of the works chosen for this year was that of a 70 year-old retired librarian, Doris Madsen,

...whose work “400 Years Later, no. 4” portrays the Mayflower as it floats through a fog of spectral figures she’d previously described as Indigenous “ghosts.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Madsen's work was based on an embroidery piece of her mother's, which depicts the Mayflower. She was trying to make a point about white supremacy (her words), and was certainly not trying to denigrate American Indian peoples. 

That wasn't good enough for artist and poet Jason Montgomery, a native Californian of Chicano and Indigenous descent. He took quite a bit of offense over the inclusion of Madsen's work. It was cultural appropriation, genocidal art. It was chosen by a white jury, centering whiteness. 

Well, actually, the jury was composed of a white man, a Latina, and an Asian American woman. 

Mattered not.

“The idea that you would disregard Indigenous voices and Native voices, especially now, in favor of old white women . . . it’s reprehensible,” artist and poet Jason Montgomery told the told the Northampton Arts Council before it voted to cancel the biennial.

And, while they were canceling the biennial, they apolgized for having chosen Madsen's work - which they labeled genocidal art - to begin with.

The entire affair has blown up, sides taken, gauntlets thrown.

Montgomery, who sounds to me like a pretty sour-grapey jerk - although it had been in the past, none of his work was chosen for this year's biennial -  has dug in:

“I would face 1,000 Trump supporters rather than a roomful of progressives in Northampton,” he said. “At least I know where I stand.”

Well, you probably couldn't find 1,000 Trump supporters in Northampton, so there's that.

Madsen? She's just perplexed and saddened by the matter. As, I guess, us old white women are wont to do.

Personally, I believe that, when it comes to any of the arts, there's no such thing as cultural appropriation. Exploring cultures, themes, events, personas that are not your own is a critical part of the creative process for many artists and writers. Sure, they should be open to criticism if they don't get things right, but what they're producing is a work of the imagination. And that imagination should be able to take them anywhere.

As for Madsen's piece, it's not Chief Wahoo, the recently retired mascot of Cleveland's baseball team, with his grinning buck teeth. It's not Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring on Howdy Doody. Madsen's not trading in stereotypes. She's not belittling anyone, making fun of anyone.

Madsen's work may not be great art, it may not even be good art. But it's the work of a creative (and empathetic) mind. And it really was good enough for the Northampton biennial.

Look, we could all use a critical examination of our history. We should all know about how we got to where we are today, and that means while we're learning about the good - the things that the Founding Fathers, however flawed, got right; our long history as an immigrant nation; the inventive, the creative genius that has flourished here; our country's beauty, it's occasional goodness - alongside, we should also be learning about the bad and the ugly. The treatment of the Indigenous peoples. Slavery. Jim Crow. Know-Nothingism. Racism. Violence. Polluting the natural environment. Unequal justice. 

Denying the bad is a terrible idea. Owning up to the not so great aspects of our history will only make us stronger. (Think of how the Germans teach their Nazi past.) But denying that there's anything good about our history is complete and utter nonsense. 

There just doesn't seem to be any middleground anymore. Everything has to be over to top. (GENOCIDAL ART!) 

I love Thanksgiving. I want to keep celebrating it. And I want to do so without flogging myself for being an old white woman.

Oh, what a world we live in.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Sigh...)

A tisket, a tasket, a Warby Parker of caskets.

Every time I turn around, there's another buzzing entrepreneur just dying to disrupt some industry or other. 

Nothing new here. There've been disrupters as long as there's been an industry to disrupt.

Henry Ford disrupted the horse wagon business. Jeff Bezos disrupted book stores. Uber's Travis Kalanick disrupted taxis. Mark Zuckerberg disrupted matchmakers. Warby Parker is going after eyeglass shops. 

And now Scott Ginsberg, after two decades peddling caskets to Massachusetts funeral homes, is hoping to "upend the funeral business" by selling caskets online.

So he co-founded Titan Casket — which bills itself as “the Warby Parker of caskets” after the hip online eyewear business — selling caskets directly to consumers, cutting out funeral home middlemen, and saving people hundreds of dollars to bury their loved ones.

“Funeral homes enjoy a 200 to 400 percent markup” on casket sales, he said. “I thought to myself, ‘There is got to be really a better way than this.’ I mean, really, this industry really hasn’t changed in over 100 years. And most people don’t shop funerals.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Sorry, Scott, but there've been others at the casket disrupter game for a while. Way back in the way back, in 2009, I posted about Walmart's casket and urn offerings. And in 2006, when my mother-in-law was dying, she asked me to do some online research on ordering a DIY casket kit for her. (Don't ask.)

Personally, I don't plan on ever needing a casket - I'm strictly a cremation kind of gal - and, while I have a small urn with a small amount of my husband's ashes in it, all of my ashes will be buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery or scattered in a few spots. Which, other than hanging on to a few, is exactly what I did with Jim's.

With or without me, with or without Walmart, it looks like Titan is doing alright for themselves. 

Today, Titan claims to be the largest seller of caskets on Amazon, and sells on other online platforms, including Costco and Sam’s Club. Its own direct-to-consumer website offers everything from simple pine boxes for $800 to “the ultimate in luxury,” “fully featured,” Era stainless steel model for $2,000.

And with or without Titan, the funeral business is changing. The traditional two-day, 2-4 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. wake of my youth, followed by a funeral the next day, has already been cut back to a one evening wake 4-8 p.m.  - which my brother Rich calls "the fabulous four" - plus funeral. Sometimes it's even just a quickie morning-of wake the day of the funeral. In obituaries - and, yes, I do read them on occasion - I often see "burial will be at the convenience of the family." Which means that people are doing away with the trip from church to the cemetery. 

And then there's all the folks who've been doing their own thing for a while. (We had a memorial service for my husband a month afer his death: a wonderful secular celebration of Jim's life, held in a Unitarian church, and a party to follow.)

Covid, of course, has put a further pall on traditional funerals.

Still, although funerals ain't what they used to be, I was a bit shocked by the comments of of one Louis Tobia Jr. "whose family ran the New England Casket Company for three generations until a fire closed its East Boston factory in 2019."

“People are looking for alternative ways to have a funeral and really trying to get a bang for their buck,” Tobia said. “Cremation is much more prevalent than it was 10 years ago, so people don’t find a value in a traditional burial, casket, and a wake. I think people just want to get it done and over with for the cheapest price they can get it at this point.”

I think people just want to get it done and over with for the cheapest price.

Wow. 

I'm no traditionalist, and I didn't hold a wake for my husband (other than the get together after the memorial service and the quasi-shiva I sat in the week after Jim's death), yet - whatever you end up doing when someone you love dies - there's a reason why there are rituals associated with death. It honors the dead and, more important, it gives people something to hang on to, something to focus on, something to do, when they're going through those first days of raw and palpable grief. It gets you through. And I'm all for it.

As for Warby Parker, when it comes to glasses, I've gone for many years to a small indie eyeglass store in downtown Boston. But this fall, since my niece Caroline was helping me pick out something more hip and happening than my norm, and since she does Warby Parker, and since their store - and, yes, they do have some brick-and-mortar business - was more convenient for Caro, I shopped at

Warby Parker. 

I like the new glasses, and they did cause less than I normally pay, but they weren't "brand name", either. (By the way, they're a lot more green than they look in the picture.)

I've been getting lots of complements, but I'm not sure if I'll be back to Warby or return to my old guys.

Am pretty sure I'll never be casket shopping at Titan, or anyplace else for that matter. 

Shakedown Non-Cruise

A month or so ago, there was an article in The Boston Globe that showed a new, ocean-going cruise ship being christened. In Boston, of all the places I so don't associate with being a cruiseline hub. But unbeknownst to me - and there's really no reason why this would beknownst to me, a non-cruiser - we are the home to Vantage Deluxe World Travel, which specializes in, well, deluxe world travel. Their cruises have historically been riverine. But their newly minted Ocean Explorer is a small luxury ship (build cost: $70M) that will be taking to the seas.

Anyway, in the afterglow of the puff about their champagne-bottle-smashing christening, Vantage made it into the news for a less puffy reason: an article about a disgruntled customer who's been trying

to get a refund of a covid-canceled safari excursion that had been scheduled for August 2020. An excursion which Vantage had canceled in June of 2020. 

For TheresaStablewski (72), and her husband, sister, and brother-in-law, the safari was going to be a once in a lifetime adventure. $46K worth of adventure. Which is a lot of money. But, what the heck, what's once in a lifetime for? Especially for Theresa, who a decade ago had a near death experience: a heart attack brought on by a rare viral illness. 

When their dream trip was called off, Vantage tried to steer the couples into taking a rain check, and using the $46K worth of safari at a later date. 

Understandably the group said 'no thanks.' Who knew back in the summer of 2020 how long covid was going to be with us? When travel would get back to normal? Not to mention whether people were going to survive. Stablewski & Co. wanted their cash back. Seventeen months later, they were still lookikng for their money. And Vantage wasn't exactly treating them like first-class guests on the Love Boat. 

Three days after her cruise was canceled, Stablewski applied for a refund.

Since she first started trying to get her money back, Stablewski has amassed a thick file on her activities, inluding complaints that she and her sister filed with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. 

[Her] office has received almost 500 complaints about Vantage, mostly from customers seeking refunds for trips canceled due to the pandemic. (Source: Boston Globe)

The AG's office hasn't made a ton of leeway:

“So far, we have secured 50 refunds totaling more than $870,000,” the attorney general’s office said. “We continue to advocate on behalf of Vantage consumers awaiting their refunds.” 

No surprise, then, that a nationally-syndicated travel writer, Christopher Elliott, has cited Vantage as "one of the most complained-about companies," according to the records he keeps on his travel troubleshooting work.

Sean Murphy, The Globe's consumer columnist, to whom Stablewski finally appealed for helped, has himself received more than a dozen complaints about Vantage. 

A review of those dozen complaints shows Vantage tried to placate customers with “sincere apologies” and appeals for “continued patience and understanding during these difficult times,” but no refunds.

Ah, weasel words.

For Stablewski, the weasel words included this:

 “You are getting closer to the refund,” Vantage said in an e-mail in February. “Unfortunately, I don’t have an exact timeline but the refund was finally approved yesterday.”

That was nine months ago - eight months after "Stablewski had been led to believe the refund had been approved eight months earlier." The refund turned out to be nothing more than a Fata Morgana. (In Vantage's defense, I do understand that you can lose all track of time when you're at sea.)

But Stablewski wasn't losing track of time. She was just trying to keep up with the weasel word "any day now" communications from Vantage. This fall - especially after seeing the galling announcement of the fancy, costly new ship Vantage was launching, she threw her hands up and turned to Murphy. 

Murphy, no surprise: he is, after all, the Globe's consumer compliant go-to, got some action:

A Vantage executive replied: “Upon careful review of Theresa Stablewski’s file, we see that she was approved for a refund and this will be processed within 10-15 days.”

A week ago, the refund arrived.  

Stablewski's happy, but if she had:

"...known beforehand about the dockside gathering for the launch...she would have shown up at the press-attended event to pressure Vantage executives into finally making good on its promised refund."

Vantage has another luxury ship in the works. Better make good on all thosse othe refunds, or there could be a nasty little demonstration when they go to christen that baby.

I'm sure that covid has been terrible for Vantage's business. Not a lot of luxury African safaris set sail in the last couple of years. But presumably, Vantage had some insurance and/or some reserves to see them through a bad spell. They seemed to have had enough to go for luxury ocean cruiser #2. And I'm pretty sure that the over $4 million they secured in PPP helped tide them over when it came to payroll.

But, hey, if you can secure an interest free loan from your customers, why not go for it. Except for one thing: the Stablewski family won't be vacationing with Vantage anytime soon. Make that never. Who wants to risk another shakedown non-cruise?

No, Tannenbaum!

The people in the house next door already have their tree and lights up. In the past, they've had a green tree - I have no idea whether it was real or artificial; I'm not on their Christmas party list (as far as I can tell these super-richies only live in the magnificent house next door a few weeks a year: around Christmas and around the 4th of July - but this year their tree's an obvious fake: all-white with white lights. Political statement? Aesthetic one? I'm not a big fan, but if you're going to have a white-on-white tree, as least you should go full 1960's and have a rotating color wheel trained on it.

I remember white Christmas trees from back in the day. Alumnium ones, too. 

Not that we ever had one. Nor did anyone I know. And I didn't know anyone with an artificial balsam or Douglas fir, either. 

But I did see white trees in mags like Life and Look, where they competed for page space with the likes of poodles dyed pink or blue.

If I had ever had a white Christmas tree, I would have wanted one like this. Because blue. Only I would have gone with ultra-sophisticated turquoise decorations. Which might have helped pep this poor woman up a bit. Her blue-blue-hoo-hoo Christmas motif is a bit of a downer. 

On closer look, those blue decoratoins could be blue roses, so maybe she was a fan of The Glass Menagerie, a play that even by Tennessee Williams standards is overwrought. If you had to read it in high school - as folks of a certain age most likely did - you will recall that the "gentleman caller" called Laura "blue roses", his mishearing of "pleurosis," which Laura suffered from. 

Circling back from my Cliff Notes diversion, artificial trees are more common these days. And apparently white ones are making a comeback. None of this fake greenery. Say it loud, say it proud: THIS TREE IS NOT REAL.

But for as long as I put up a tree, mine will be.

I have already ordered this year's edition, and it will be delivered - sight unseen - and set in the stand on December 8th. Last year, I went in person to this place - Evergreen in the Seaport District - picked out my tree, and had them deliver and stand it up. This year, forget the trip over there to examine trees. They had a good selection when I stopped by, and the tree was very fresh and didn't shed much at all. (In past year's I've had trees that must have been put on the truck from Canada on May Day, and were completely denuded by the time I took themdown.) But I'm not particularly fussy about what the tree looks like. I'm not one who examines dozens of trees to find the perfect one. As long as it's not Charlie Brown sparse, I'm fine. Bare spots can be filled with large hanging ornaments and/or twirled to the back. 

Besides, for what I paid for this Christmas tree (including delivery fee, put it in the stand fee, and tip for the tree putter-upper), they should also be decorating it. 

Not that I don't like decorating my tree. I do. I'll put on my Christmas albums and sing along while stringing my lights and hanging my bulbs. (Come to think of it, I'm guessing that only half of my tree decorations are bulbs, but you get the picture. Or will when I post a picture of my tree next month.)

Anyway, I ordered my tree late last week after seeing an article on this year's tree shortage.

No Tannenbaum? Oh, no!

After record-breaking demand for Christmas trees in 2020, local growers and retailers are gearing up for what they expect to be one of their busiest and most challenging seasons yet, as a tight labor market, rising wholesale prices, and a continuing shortage of trees create seasonal uncertainty. (Source: Boston Globe)

That record-breaking demand was the result of all those families sheltering in place who wanted to deck their halls, and their living rooms, and the kids' rooms. Because there was such heightened demand in 2020, "many local Christmas tree farms opted to cut and sell trees they normally would have left in the ground." Which seemed like a good idea at the time, but which has helped produce this year's scarcity situation: fewer trees, and younger - and thus punier.

Last year's tree blowout meant that tree lot folks had to order earlier for their 2021 supplies - as early as January, or just about the time that the 2020 trees were being picked up for their final ride to the woodchipper. Some tree providers couldn't afford the pre-pay being demanded. Others just felt that selling trees was becoming too much of a pain in the mistletoe and decided that they were no longer going to be selling trees. 

While a proximate cause of the tree shortage is the pandemic and last year's over-consumption, the root cause goes back further. To the Great Recession of 2008. 

“Many farms planted less baby trees 8 years ago because the demand was soft and therefore there are less mature trees to harvest now,” John Dzen Jr., owner of Dzen Tree Farm in Connecticut, wrote in a Nov. 12 Facebook post.

Great Christmas trees from little baby trees grow, so that's why we've got fewer trees today.  

Scarcity causes wholesale prices to rise. (I can't really remember what I paid for my tree last year, but I do know that the tree cost accounts for about 1/3 of what my total cost will be.) Factor in labor shortages (especially in trucking) and gas prices, and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas trees - if you find one - will be costlier than they were last year. 

Of course, it wouldn't be a Boston Globe article if it didn't include a ration of fear-mongering tempered by a soothing it'll be all right headpat ending. Thus, we have the wisdom of Tim O'Connor, executive director of the National Christmas Tree Association unbiasedly assuring us that we will not have to resort to purchase of an artificial tree - white, green, or aluminum. 

...while localized shortages are being felt in certain parts of the country, O’Connor emphasized that there are plenty of Christmas trees for the holiday, it’s just a matter of getting them where they need to be.

“We as an industry have never run out of Christmas trees,” he said. After years of planting too many trees, the market has “righted itself” to be in line with demand.

Well, never say never, but what's an industry flack for if not giving us the feels?

Still, the article ends on a cautionary note: buy early.

I did. 

Long week, heading into a long weekend

For whatever reason, this has been a very long week. Lots of little disparate things popping up, with an overlay of many more hours than I anticipated being devoted to Christmas in the City, a Boston-area organization that brings "comfort and joy" to families in need of a little of both around the holidays. I do miscellaneous stuff throughout the year for CITC, but things are really revving up now.

We're in the throes of prepping for our Christmas-related activities, while also taking a side trip to provide Thanksgiving food assistance to hundreds of families, which we'll be distributing this weekend. 

So, wheeeee....

Which is just exhausting. 

Then there's today's haircut, followed by my escort services: checking my brother out after his colonoscopy. (Better him than me. Hope he enjoyed the non-red jello diet.)

It's getting darker, which always takes its toll.

And winter is icumen in. 

Actually, it's overdue. The fall has been pretty mild and pretty sunny. Fluke? Global warming? A combo?

I put on my winter parka the other day. I could have used gloves, too, but I guess that's what pockets are for.

All contributing to the sense that, even though I don't work anywhere near fulltime, I need a long weekend. 

Still, fall-into-winter does have its compensations. One of which is walking along the banks of the River Charles, where I snapped this soothing, melancholic scene on my late afternoon walk on Wednesday.

I'm not actually taking the day off. C.f., haircut, brother's colonoscopy. 

But I'm taking a bit of Pink Slip time off with this shorter-than-usual post.

Back on Monday. At least that's the plan.

On the road again

Last Saturday, I got behind the wheel of a car for the first time in over two years. Part covid, part I just don't have all that much need to drive anywhere. I walk. Take the T. Use other public transpo. Uber. I hitch a ride with a car-person who's going my way. 

I've only owned three cars in my entire life. (I'm un-American thatway.) And it's been 14 years since I bid farewell to what will likely be my last car ever: a bright blue New Beetle that I very much enjoyed, right down to the fake daisy in its vase. 

Anyway, on Saturday, I used a Zipcar to get out to Central Mass for lunch with some grammar school friends. Although we skipped a year for covid, three of us have gotten together regularly for the past decade. On Saturday, our little group was augmented by my friend Rosemary's younger sister (by one year) and my friend Susan's older sister (by one year). 

We laughed a lot abut buying pagan babies, about crazy nuns, about the time Gunga N carved his initials in his arm and filled it in with ink, about the time John R hayfever sneezed while the class was saying the Rosary and his long strands of runny snot draped over everyone and everything within a six foot radius. (This may have been, we decided, Ground Zero for the concept of social distancing.)

We also talked about sadder matters. When we were all quite little - the core three were seven - a little girl visiting her grandparents was climbing a tree in their backyard, slipped and impaled herself and died. The grandparents' home was next door to Rosemary's, so she and her sister had a grim front row seat. Those of us who lived a couple of blocks away - me, Susan, Sue's sister Mary Ann, my sister Kath, our friend Elaine - walked over on a Sunday afternoon, pushing our doll buggies, to gape at the tree. And shudder at the thought of a little girl our age who'd died such a gruesome death.

Mostly, though, the talk was given over to more pleasant shared memories and updates. 

It was worth the drive. 

And it was while I was heading out the Mass Pike that I realized how much I actually enjoy driving. It's cars that present the problem.

Saturday's Zipcar was pretty straightforward. Just two teeny tiny issues. 

One, I couldn't figure out how to adjust the side mirrors. Nothing obvious in that automotive user interface, that's for sure. Fortunately, the passenger side mirror was fine as is, and I just needed to tilt my head a little to make use of the driver-side mirror.

I couldn't find the gas tank release, either. This turned out not to be a big deal. You need to fill 'er up if the gas gets below 1/4 of a tank, but when I returned it it was still above half. I do prefer to be a good Zipcar zipper and generally stop to fill the car whenever I take one out. I had plenty of time and would have been happy to top the tank off. Alas, the release was nowhere in sight. Sure, I could have gone to the google to figure it out, but that's a drag.

I don't see why car interfaces aren't more universal in design.

Which led me to my second mini-epiphany. With a nod to Linus Van Pelt, I realized that I love to drive; it's cars I can't stand. 

Every time I get behind the wheel, there's always a certain frisson. Not quite up to the level of existential dread. More like casual anxiety. Still...

Why aren't all headlight controls in the same place? Windshield wipers? Defrosters? Mirror adjusters? Gas tank releases? 

Different does not necessarily equate to better. Harrumph. 

And why don't the shifts all work the same? 

The last time I had tried to use Zipcar, they upgraded me to some fancy-arse Mercedes. This was a couple of years ago. I can't remember the peculiarities, but figuring out how to put the car in reverse wasn't all the intuitive. I gave up.

The year before, in renting a car to get myself to a wedding in the Catskills, the first car Avis gave me had some goofy gear shift on a disk that you had to rotate. Shades of the push-button automatics of the early 60's - an "improvement" that never quite took hold. For the obvious reason that people were perfectly happy with four on the floor or three on the tree. Anyway, no thanks. I made them get me something more normal.

And years ago, after I resigned from membership in the car owners club, but when everyone I knew was still driving a manual, I borrowed my brother's car. He parked in front of my house, handed me the keys, and took off. I knew how to drive a manual. All three of my cars were stick sfhits. But I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to get the car into reverse, an essential gear for getting yourself out of a tight parallel-parked parking space.

Anyway, I tried to hail some passersby for help. Americans were useless: most didn't know how to operate a manual. Then I managed to ask a couple of Irish tourists. Turns out, they had the wrong-side version of the same car. The mister hopped right in and showed me how. Ah, to get into reverse you have to move the gear shift forward. Makes sense. Sure.

I know that once you get used to how your very own car operates, once you figure where everything is, it's just fine. It's being an occasional car borrower/renter/zipper that sucks. No two alike!

Mostly, before I take off, I make sure I know how to work the most important features: lights, wipers. But each new borrow/rent/zip is unique. It's own experience. I love to drive; it's cars that I can't stand.

From the fleet they have parked in the Common Garage, which is where I pick up my Zipcars, it's pretty apparent that Zipcar is moving towards EVs. Which I think is great. I just haven't summoned up the will to step up to this next challenge to my episodic car driving. 

I know I'll have to at some point.

Then, blessedly, this too will pass and we'll all be buzzing around in autonomous vehicles. 

Sure, I'll miss the fun of driving. But I also love just plain riding. And there'll be fewer worries about how it operates. At most, I'll have to voice activate things: Lights! Wipers! Defroster! Open sesame, driver's side window! Radio now!

Until then, I'll just have to learn to live with learning to live with the intricacies of all sorts of different cars. Not something I look forward to, but the price I'll have to pay to get on the road again.