?`s and ANNEswers

Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Wildlife

Posted on June 29, 2006

I’ve begun to bike along our road, which extends roughly 3.2 miles from one end to the other. In the middle, the road is bisected by Bacon School Road, but I never venture on it. It’s merely the escape route for those of us who live on the river.

And living on the river means that we see gentle wildlife from time to time.

For instance, a couple days ago I was biking on my merry way past the undeveloped stretch between the house of the man who owns the local ACE Hardware and his neighbor, a residential type, when I saw three raccoons on the side of the road. They were busy eating leaves of some sort and didn’t really notice as I pedaled by. I just caught a glimpse of them too, since I was intent on missing various potholes.

Yet, on my return past the same bit of road, I recognized the raccoons and they — seemingly recognizing me — crouched in the grass, the better to camouflage themselves. But I was no enemy. I also saw a young deer that leapt across the road, possibly searching for shelter or food or Mama. I had no intention to pursue, even if the deer didn’t know it. Instead, I made sure my feet were secure on my bicycle pedals, just in case these critters attacked me.

It’s always wonderment on the road. There are geese and herons and ducks that stop and rest; there is the occasional fox and the less occasional deer. Which is why I was thrilled to see one on my morning ride.

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Bingo Cards Are Back

Posted on June 28, 2006

One of my early blogs was about those annoying inserts in magazines, the ones that are either stapled in and have to be torn out and the ones that simply fall out on their own accord. Both are called bingo cards in the trade, and I have made a solemn vow never to purchase something or subscribe to something that is advertised on one of them. In fact, I’m considering canceling my subscription to “AARP, the Magazine” because it is filled with so many bingo cards.

This month’s bunch included Genzyme Biosurgery in West Caldwell, NJ, which wants to send me a free knee pain relief kit if I just send back its bingo card. The fine print, however, reveals that Genzyme is really pushing a prescription drug called Synvisc.

The Hartford, which appears to be an insurance company, wants to give me a free pedometer for letting the company see if it can save me three hundred dollars. But it doesn’t say three hundred dollars of what. I’m assuming it’s on my car insurance or my life insurance, but it could be on my grocery bill or my lawn care. And, no, I don’t really need a pedometer. It’s interesting that a competitor of The Hartford, namely New York Life, also has its bingo card in the same magazine. Only it’s offering a free clip-on radio if I return it. I wonder if more pedometers or radios were ordered.

Merck/Schering-Plough Pharmaceuticals is eager to provide me with information about its answer to high cholesterol, and Pfizer wants to give me a free guide to bladder control. What I’d really like is a free guide to bingo card control. It would probably reduce my annoyance factor, thereby decreasing my blood pressure, thereby minimizing the need for added insurance, and thereby allowing me to read in peace instead of pieces.

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Fifty Percent

Posted on June 27, 2006

The radio announcer said there was a thirty percent chance of rain for today and a fifty percent chance of rain for tomorrow. Now I know she was merely reading information she’d been given, but it made me wonder who is in charge of these statistics? And how exactly is the chance of rain calculated? And what makes that chance thirty percent instead of twenty-seven percent? Or fifty instead of forty-three and a half percent?

None of these statistics means that rain is imminent; in fact, it’s just as correct to say there is a seventy percent chance that it won’t rain today. So why all the math? Is it that weather announcers have to fill air time or that they want to be taken more seriously?

Rain is imminent when you actually see heavy, grey clouds on your horizon and moving in your direction. Until then, any chance of rain is hypothetical at best, even if your favorite weathercaster predicts it. We all know about that person’s accuracy.

Of course, if you’re in charge of the family’s annual picnic or an outdoor wedding reception, it’s always wise to have a Plan B in case of rain. But I don’t believe anyone waits until the day of actual event, listens to a forecaster, and then makes the plan on the spur of the moment based on some mysteriously arrived-at percentage.

I would love to know the formula for those percentages. I believe those who do predict weather for a living must have some training in reading various natural indicators of climate. They don’t just make up this stuff. Or could there be a fifty percent chance that they do?

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Good Fortune

Posted on June 26, 2006

Jeannine and I met at Good Fortune for lunch today; and I must say it was my good fortune that we did. I’d not been happy with the Chinese restaurants we’ve eaten at in St. Joseph and was about to write the community off as lacking in egg roll or chop suey cuisine.

It’s not that I eat Chinese food often, but when I do I want it to be more than what you can throw together with cans of crunchy noodles and basic ingredients from the super market. I want it to be memorable, because there’s not a lot of difference in the taste from entrйe to entrйe. They all have that distinctive Chinese gravy, rice accompanies almost every dish, and braised celery is a staple. Except today we had Egg FooYung, so bamboo shoots stood in for the celery.

But first we had egg drop soup, a thick almost gelatinous mixture that was really quite tasty. I am used to the brothy kind of egg drop soup, where the thin ribbons of egg can escape your spoon. This soup, however, made sure the egg got to your mouth.

Next came an egg roll, crunchy on the outside with veggies on the inside. And finally, the entrйe, two gigantic egg pancakes with an equally gigantic side of rice. For someone like me, who usually doesn’t eat lunch, it was a huge portion. But I determined to take whatever I couldn’t finish home and not have to cook dinner for Earl in the bargain.

The entrйe was followed by the usual fortune cookie. My fortune acknowledged that I was a person of culture, while Jeannine’s said she was ready to live life to the fullest. We both agreed with our cookie’s assessment, and maybe that was the best part of all. Laughing over food always makes it taste better.

On the way out, we asked if the restaurant delivered; evidently it does. So the next time I have a Chinese food attack I think I’ll call upon Good Fortune to rain down some of its culinary specialties on me. Thanks, Jeannine, for the experience.

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The Price of Limes

Posted on June 25, 2006

It’s probably something few of us have noticed, but the price of limes is escalating. There was a time when I could purchase five limes for a dollar and then for two dollars, but that time has disappeared the way of the Brontosaurus. Today, I bought two limes at sixty-nine cents apiece. It’s enough to make me want to drink my vodka without this tarty fruit.

It’s also enough to make me wonder if the world market on limes is indicative of the world market on other things. I mean, does the world market on limes indicate whether the DOW or the S&P or the Nasdaq is headed up or down? For the record, I’ve noticed that the stock market indices have declined as the price of limes has risen.

I haven’t done empirical research on this question, but I’m thinking I might. Of course, the price of limes could simply be tied to supply and demand; but in today’s world where economics is so much more complex, I’m thinking limes are the hallmark of the stock market’s gains or losses.

Let’s just say that on an ordinary trading day the price of limes goes up and the general indices of the stock market go down. Let’s also assume that this trend continues for more than a day, a week, a month. Would this be as good an indicator as anything else that the market is tied to the price of limes?

For the sake of discussion, let’s say it is. What would an investor do?

I’m certainly not qualified to dispense financial advice; but if I were I’d suggest that an investor consider watching the lime report and the stock market report for a correlation. Then I’d take appropriate action to make sure my investments were safe. And, perhaps I’d form an investment company; because if the price of limes is linked to gains or losses in the stock market, you and I would be the first to figure this out.

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June 24

Posted on June 24, 2006

On June 24, 1979 I married Jeff Wolf, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, etc. It wasn’t done capriciously, because at the time I thought it was a good decision. However, time proved me wrong; the good decision lay in a divorce thirteen years further down the road.

Nevertheless, when June 24 comes around, it gives me pause to reminisce. It isn’t about a attachment to what was or an anger about what wasn’t; rather it’s about understanding why one makes certain decisions and an interest in how to learn from them.

What have I learned since June 24, 1979? For one thing, I’ve learned you can’t change someone, even if you think you can. For another, I’ve learned that — in spite of a Master’s Degree and a relative amount of intelligence — I make miserable decisions when it comes to the opposite sex. I’m taken with those things that make for a great date but not necessarily commitment material. That means I go for flash instead of faithfulness.

Jeff and I had good times, but even when we were married they were always in the realm of a date; when it came to meeting the mortgage payment or showing up at a parent/teacher conference we were frequently from different planets. When it came to play vs. work, we regularly stood on opposite sides of the playing field.

It’s often said that opposites attract, and I accept this as true. But the corollary that nobody mentions is “Opposites have difficulty living together.” I think this is what I learned, most of all, from my June 24 wedding.

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Tractors

Posted on June 23, 2006

“I have to work eleven to six two nights next week,” Earl said, as we were having dinner at the Mark III last night. I knew he meant as a Sheriff’s deputy, given that these shifts were in the dead of night and nobody looks at real estate — one of Earl’s other interests — at two in the morning.

“Okay,” I said, wanting to be Miss Agreeable. “What’s the assignment?”

“I’m guarding tractors.”

Tractors. Those big green things that John Deere made a fortune with. Those farm implements that slow my progress when they take to an asphalted highway as they move from one fertile field to another. Those clunky vehicles that remind me of the year I spent living on a farm as a child in upstate New York. Ah, tractors . . .

I wasn’t sure why Earl was guarding tractors, as it seems to me it would be difficult to steal one without being noticed. They’re large, they’re usually not out at night, and they’re useless for impressing girls on a date. Nevertheless, it appears there’s going to be a big convention of tractors at the local fairgrounds — this is, after all, farming country in southwestern Michigan — and there is concern that vandalism might occur. So the Sheriff is sending his troops to guard the tractors.

Meanwhile, I take this opportunity to reminisce about the fifty-acre subsistence farm I lived on in first grade. That was over half a century ago, but it is imbedded in my mind as clearly as if it were yesterday. I remember hanging out in the barn every night with my Uncle Frank as he milked the cows and stored the milk for the next morning’s pick-up. Then we’d head into the house for supper.

I remember picking berries with my Aunt Cel, and tossing my entire basketful on the ground when a bug lit on a bulging ripe strawberry. I remember the wood burning stove, potatoes at every meal, Chinese checkers in the evening, our collie Prince, pumping water from the well, the two oak trees that held court in the front yard, the wide porch with the rocking chairs, and climbing the steep stairs to the second story to say my prayers before literally climbing into the high bed. I remember it all.

So maybe Earl needs to go guard those tractors, not because of what they are in terms of steel and rubber but what they represent as a way of life. Because I remember my year on the farm as pure enchantment.

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Happy Eighty-Eighth

Posted on June 21, 2006

My mother would have been eighty-eight today, had she lived. Instead, I’m celebrating her birthday in memorial; as this is the tenth anniversary of her death.

I honestly can’t imagine my Mother being alive today. The world’s many upheavals since her passing would have been too much for her to bear. Her beloved TWA is gone. Her beloved President Clinton had clay feet in the personal arena. Her beloved New York City had 9/11.

Mother would have had to adjust to a world that is remarkably different in these past ten years. She would have had to learn about the Internet, iPods, Blackberries, Bluetooth. She would have had to contend with two wars, and Mother was a pacifist. So our forays into Afghanistan and Iraq would have troubled her deeply. She would have been confused by online banking, Google, IMing, and the myriad ways we communicate with each other today.

It’s not that she wasn’t smart — she had a Ph.D. from a noted university — or that she wouldn’t have tried — she was tenacious too. But as I age I see how difficult grasping new technology and new ideas can be, and I believe my Mother would have seen the same. She was, in many ways, a realist.

Which is why I’m glad to be celebrating her eighty-eighth birthday with her in absentia.

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Cooking Class

Posted on June 20, 2006

Earl fixed dinner a couple nights ago; well, he fixed the entrйe while I fixed the salad. But the whole routine holds promise, and here’s why.

Earl likes to eat around four in the afternoon, while I like to eat around eight at night. It’s been a sticking point for years. And what happens is that Earl begins to snack around four in the afternoon to the point that he’s not hungry when I put dinner on the table. “Well,” you might be saying, “why don’t you just cook dinner at four?” The problem is that I am a slow meal preparer and would have to stop working at two-thirty to have something ready by four if I want to prepare a heart healthy, low fat meal. Two-thirty is just too early for me to have everything done at my job to leave and become a conscientious chef.

But over the weekend, Earl decided he wanted to cook. So he prepared Chicken Burritos, a simple, tasty dish that we both liked and would eat again. I praised him heartily and sincerely, hoping his success would take hold and that, just perhaps, he might become the chef of the household. That way I can keep working until four-thirty, not have to anguish about dinner time, and eat with Earl at a reasonable hour.

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Angelina

Posted on June 19, 2006

It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Angelina Jolie is an eccentric. An eccentric is defined as anyone or anything that “deviates from the customary,” someone who is “erratic, peculiar, or odd.”

Consider that Angelina has been married twice, but she has not — to date, anyway — wed the father of her biological daughter, Shiloh. Consider that she wore a vial of her second husband’s blood around her neck and had his name tattooed on her body, but the marriage lasted a mere three years. Consider that she claims no interest in a relationship with her famous film father, Jon Voight.

I know, I know. Maybe she’s just a child of the nineties. Well, maybe. But I prefer to think she’s eccentric.

Part of it is the media’s doing. She went to Namibia to have the baby sired by Brad Pitt, and our voyeuristic society followed. They claimed that Shiloh is the most beautiful baby on Earth. They followed every move of the famous parents. They went over the top.

The truth is I think Angelina Jolie is a beautiful woman, but that in itself doesn’t make her any kind of a role model, any kind of an example, any kind of someone worth more than a moment’s attention. Yet, here we are, groveling at this thirty-something’s life as if it were history. Has she found a cure for cancer? Has she eradicated AIDS? Has she brought about world peace? No. She’s merely had a baby, something women around the world do every single day. And I’d bet that every new mother thinks her baby is the most beautiful on Earth.

I’ve had enough. I want Angelina and her entourage to go further away than Namibia. I want her to retreat where no cameras can follow. Where we won’t be subject to learning every detail of her life. Pitcairn Island might do.

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