LAST CALL FOR WHITE SHORTS & SHOES 8-30-20
Umlauts, Never Again Ikea, Lobster Cheesecake. Almost Sancerre and Stained Plans
Dear Bi . . rather I mean TriWeekly Readers,
I promise, this will be quick.
August is nearly over, and I’m hoping that when September arrives all my unresolved mental health issues, which tend to exacerbate at the end of summer, will disappear. With that disclaimer . . .
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JHH LÖWENGARD
Today, Henry Lowengard – the one that’s my brother, not the one that’s my son or grandson – turns 64. I called to wish him Happy Birthday yesterday because it was keeping me up nights all week fretting that I would forget, even though I put it in my Google calendar with an alarm and stuck a sticky note on my mirror. So, I called him just to make sure I called him.
Did I mention unresolved mental health issues?
NEWS FROM THE CITY
Basically, you can skip this section and just read Jerry Seinfeld’s New York Times op-ed, it says it all. By the way, Jerry, here’s a one-liner for you:
You really know you’ve made it when your name is mangled in a Word document and auto-correct kicks in and gets it right.
And the photo accompanying the article says even more than 1,000 words.
HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, KID
Here are two things I learned yesterday. The Eli’s Essentials grab-and-go outpost on the corner of 87th and Lex has finally closed. For months, there’s been a FOR RENT sign on the window, leading me to spread the then-false rumor the shop was closing. I got a few annoyed calls to inform me it was still open. Yesterday, I walked by and it really was closed. Boarded up, even. So yet again, a rumor I started really did come true.
I also this week found out that there is a severe worldwide shortage of SodaStream replacement cartridges. I discovered this after going to Best Buy, then Staples and finally P.C. Richards hauling two empty SodaStream gas containers which look like some sort of explosive device (and technically speaking, are).
These have been dangerously rolling around under the driver’s side seat of my car for two months. Finally, I extracted them and tried to do the exchange thing where they give you credit against new cartridges. It was the cashier at P.C. Richards who finally broke the news to me. The other places merely shrugged and said they were sold out.
So, back under the seat they went.
EVENTS RECAPS
Meanwhile, the last three weeks have been . . . interesting.
To my best recollection, three weeks ago I did exactly just three things: one, play tennis, two, listen to Mostly Mozart which was moved from Live at Lincoln Center to Streaming at WQXR and, three, swear I would never, ever EVER return to Ikea again.
Yes, my longtime tennis partner LeeAnn made it back to the City and we managed to play Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday that week. At long last I got to wear 1/8th of my tennis skirt collection, which I am considering donating to the WTA Junior Circuit after reading the New Yorker article (thank you, Annie C.) that confirmed what I already knew, to wit, only the top 10% of players make any money at all and the rest might as well get a day job.
I did not play all that well but why should perfection get in the way of the merely almost good? Then, LeeAnn returned to Boston. But not before we squeezed in our annual Summer Shopping Spree, this year at Ikea in Paramus. Talk about a disaster. I’d suggested she tag along after we played Friday, as I had amassed a trunk load of returns I wanted to, well, return and figured that would take a few minutes and then we could breeze through the Marketplace collecting another few things I had on a list, make a pit stop at the Swedish Food Market and we’d be out of there in an hour.
As if.
When we arrived, there was a line for the Returns Department – outdoors, I note for the record, or I would have bolted then and there – snaking alongside the building. It seemed like it would be OK, we were #20 but at six feet apart it just looked longer, and the store hadn’t officially opened yet. Five minutes later, it did. We waited and waited and . . . waited. It appeared that they were only letting customers in one or two at a time. The Door Matron was no help, the only English she spoke was “I don’t speak English.” Which is what I would have said under the circumstances too.
For entertainment, I streamed Serena Williams Teaches Tennis on MasterClass which was pretty spectacular, even on my dinky phone screen. An hour and 15 minutes after we arrived, we were allowed in. I had been ready to abandon ship after 45 minutes but LeeAnn seemed to want to get even more angry at Ikea and insisted we stick it out. The actual return process took 10 minutes. Only two of the six bays were open.
Then we scurried off to the Marketplace where they had nothing I needed on my list, then on to the Self-Serve warehouse area where the line to the checkouts appeared to cross the state line into Delaware. I cheerily assured LeeAnn it would move very fast; it was just the spacing that made it seem long and left her in it while I ambled off to find a few last items on my list. Then I realized how long the line really was, dumped the six folding chairs I was lugging, and rescued LeeAnn off the queue advising we just bail.
As we were heading out we reasoned we couldn’t be so 100% unlucky as we had been in Returns, Marketplace and Self-Serve so we popped over to the Food Market where indeed we were even more unlucky – we couldn’t find a cashier to check out. We were directed to a self-serve checkout which was a screen scan thing from the era of Asteroids. We managed to scan and then pay for most of what we had grabbed though I scored a free can of Ekologisk Cider Apple that I just noticed in fact-checking the spelling of the product is 0.1% ABV. We both swore off Ikea for the rest of our lives, even though I’d already done this on my 60th birthday because I thought that by then I was adult enough to deserve Ethan Allen or even DWR. And there I was, seven years later, at the Paramus Ikea, returning items from the Elizabeth, Brooklyn and Hicksville stores all obtained in the last month.
Insult to injury, on loading the Ikea bags into the shopping card I’d left in the 1270 garage, the 0.1% cider can somehow rolled out and somehow got pierced and leaked all over my recently cleaned carpet. Leaked and stained it, in spite of my efforts to mop it up and spray it furiously with a rusty can of Kaboom. This necessitated purchasing a Bissel PetStain Eraser, which I opted for as we have a few pet-initiated stains on Alex’s carpet in Connecticut, and I figured it could do double duty. It did do the trick. And now it’s my new favorite toy. Let me know if you’d like to borrow it.
However . . .
BEACHING IT
The following week, on Beach Trip #11 with Sarah in tow, we made a later start due to something I can’t remember I had to do in the morning, and as we were heading down I-95 at 9:45 AM I recalled that on Tuesdays, which it was, Ikea has a Senior Hours hour at 10:00 AM. So much for my resolution. Sarah and I breezed in through the front door, no entry line, in fact nobody there at all except the staff. Unbelievable. I then picked up most of what I needed in the Marketplace, there was absolutely no line at the checkout and were out of there in 35 minutes. Really. And on to Sandy Hook.
A SWEDISH FIRE DRILL?
This beach visit was on a day when we failed to notice, or perhaps understand the implication of predicted winds of 16 MPH which is best characterized as “stiff.” Or perhaps “approaching gale force.” We kept getting stung by bits of sand casting themselves at our bodies, so we decided to pack it up early and, it turned out in the very nick of time, as the skies started to darken as we made the 790 step-journey (yes, I count it every time) to the pavilion and then the final quarter mile to the parking lot.
It began to pour before we had even reached the causeway and there was thunder and rain and take shelter alerts on our phones, so we were rather self-congratulatory, at least until Waze rerouted us off the main drag and through back streets that added an additional hour to the trip. We might have known better. Route 36 may have been bumper-to-bumper but unreported downed trees were far more treacherous. At least the GPS systems don’t start yelling “NO! NO!” when you fail to follow instructions these days. Eventually we rerouted ourselves, just like in the old days, using instinct, common sense and noting the side of the tree where the moss was growing.
Our trip last week was, by contrast, as perfect as a day in June. We’d left early and arrived at “our beach” – North Beach – at 8:45 AM only to discover the parking lot padlocked. We drove around a bit seeking some way to get in, finding another parking lot further up the road that seemed to be part of the Proving Grounds. Although there was a path to the beach, there were large signs warning there would be no lifeguards, and there was no pavilion and I didn’t particularly want to be part of a military training exercise as we sought out the ocean. After a near encounter with the clothing-optional beach, we returned to one of the beaches along the strip and just sucked it up and dealt with the crowds. Which weren’t too bad at all. At one point we did get up and move our Manta shelter a few feet forward – which we have totally mastered packing up, by the way, it takes us at most three tries to fold properly – not out of concern for our health but rather to get away from a loud discussion among two Jersey housewives about Bar Mitzvah logistics that I didn’t feel I needed to hear.
It was on this trip I realized that although Sarah has accompanied me to only seven of the 13 beach trips I’ve made this summer (one more and I can rightly claim I spent two weeks at the beach!), she is considerably more evenly and darkly tanned than I am. And in a very creamy, consistent way whereas while I’m dark but when you get up close you realize it’s somewhat of an optical illusion; I am really mostly freckling and the freckles are merging to appear like a tan. I will have to work on this as the summer fades away.
ONCOLOGICAL PROCRASTINATIONS
Other items of the recent past occupying my time and spiking my stress levels include an oncologist video visit where it was noted I should toddle off soonish for another CT scan. I begged off the suggested date, asking if it could wait until the end of September so I might just slide through the end of the summer pretending I’m fine, which I might be but also not.
After the call I wondered if my doc had agreed a little too readily to this, like he was indulging me in a final wish or something. I have put this thought away, and am replacing it with the happy notion that this will be my 9th diagnostic radiology encounter with the CAT equipment at MSK since I switched over in September 2017, and am wondering if somewhere there’s a punch card they’re holding in my medical records that entitles me to a treat after my 10th. And if they count PET scans, there’s two of them on the card too. Tickets to see Billy Joel’s next Madison Square Garden show, perhaps? Whenever that will be.
That week, which was last week, was a TRT/MBL Weekly Drinks Party in the Park week (though we don’t always quite make it weekly, or even biweekly, kind of like the Weekly Biweekly). We are getting fancy with the setup, check it out.
THE TRT/MBL SETUP
LOBSTERFEST 2020
Last year, on August 21st, I pulled together a surprise birthday party for my son-in-law-to-be Aaron, inviting the locally domiciled members of the betrothed’s wedding party up to apartment 3R. It ended up being nine people and a real surprise, mostly because I hadn’t told Elise about it either.
This year, the notion of having to pull of a surprise and having nine people in my apartment was up there with the Cubs and the World Series (pre-2016), so we restaged the event with just six of us: me, Sarah, Aaron, Elise, Best Man Emeritus Christian and Maid of Honor Emerita Ali. (Ah, those two years of Latin still pay off.) We set up in Central Park and feasted on lobsters handpicked in Deer Isle by lobster aficionado Katy Ramaker/Siegel/Rinehart/Clark on Thursday morning. The lobsters spent the night in Memphis, apparently, and didn’t get to Newark until much later than they were scheduled. Where oh where was Tom Hanks and his stopwatch? (Cast Away is one of my Top 10 Favorite Movies of All Time).
As an aside, to me it is one of the great mysteries of life that when one is shipping or has been shipped a FedEx package, information is taken that includes the addressee’s name, address, contact phone, email, height, weight and blood pressure, and don’t you think you might get a robocall or text informing you that the 10:30 AM guarantee was blown?
Suffice it to say it was a bit white knuckle about whether the crustaceans would arrive in time for our 6:00 PM dinner. I frittered away the afternoon wondering whether we could make a decent meal out of Zabar’s coleslaw, corn on the cob, potato sticks and these huge challah rolls I’d bought at the West 97th Street greenmarket that morning. Or should I just go to Fairway and buy substitute lobsters.
The crate arrived at 5:00 PM and we slid its contents, not including the ice packs, and more accurately, plopped the contents into the water we’d kept on a low boil for an hour just in case the shipment showed up at the last minute, since it takes half an hour to get two inches of water to boil in the lobster steamers. Sadly, one was DOA but the rest, while certainly on their way to hospice, were fine and two of them so enormous we were able to split them amongst the guests to cover for the deceased. So enormous we had to take a mallet to the claws which refused to yield to our lobster crackers.
LADY WITH A MALLET
Elise took charge of dessert and produced, on her maiden voyage with a springform pan, a lobster cheesecake. Don’t worry, it was really roasted strawberries inside giving the appearance of lobster meat. It was a lovely evening, no surprise(s), a few bugs and a good time among socially distanced friends and family.
THIS ONE TAKES THE CHEESECAKE
HI HO HI HO
There’s been a bit of work coming my way and I’m hoping more in the near future. I was asked to help the wife of an old friend reconstruct her resume, which was a two-week, highly complex and satisfying process, and reminded me that I should revive a long-dormant effort to do this on a more often, more professional basis. I have a great name for the business: Reconstruction Resumes. And a look-book four inches deep.
Then I was invited to work on a project (thank you, Susan) which would involve writing a number of case studies, but this time after another two week effort, the whole thing imploded because the firm was based in the UK and couldn’t figure out how to pay me. I would have been happy with small bills in a large suitcase, but it just was a Gordian Knot of insurmountable issues that nobody seemed willing (except me) to take a knife to. So, it slipped away, yet another example of a job that I lost before I even started it – a lifelong habit of mine, going all the way back to my first job.
That would have been the time I had secured a position, I thought, as an Admissions Associate at NYU, starting the September after I graduated. I happily flitted off to Lake George and Nantucket for the summer, only thinking to check in the Friday before Labor Day whereupon I discovered on making what used to be known as a “toll call” to the office that they had no need for me anymore.
I was seriously bummed. I packed up and got off the Island and a day or two later, then drove my father’s ragtop Cougar to Bridgeport for a wedding of a college friend, and then on into New York City that night. The day after Labor Day, I called a friend who had gone to Dalton and asked if she knew anyone in the school’s admissions department I might send a resume to.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she told me. “They’re so disorganized, just walk in.” So, I did and two hours later walked out, not with an admissions job (I couldn’t type, it disqualified me), but as the administrative assistant for the High School and Middle School Office. And the rest, as they say, is history. Which I ended up teaching starting the next semester. Which made me one of the two youngest faculty members that year. The other was . . .OK, you know.
Back in today’s world, I also received a commission, this time to write an obituary for a prominent attorney and community leader who passed away at the end of July. This too was a complex and drawn out assignment, which finally went to press in the New York Times Friday with the longer version posted on legacy.com linked above. For inspiration, I drew on the recent magnificent tribute for the playwright and critic Eric Bentley, who died at the ripe age of 103 and whose wife was a Vassar pal of ET’s, written by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt. This was a neat trick as Lehmann-Haupt himself died two years earlier. I might try writing something posthumously someday. BTW, I am always available to write obituaries for the pre-deceased, if you know anyone who’s that much of a control freak. As for me, I wouldn’t want anyone writing anything about me that I hadn’t myself previewed, in life or after.
I have some other notions for work up my sleeve(s), many half-baked ideas and it does seem like the market is opening up a bit for full-time writers which I will pursue . . . any day now.
THE KITCHEN RENO SAGA, CONTINUED
I was all geared up this past week to make a giant step towards completing the kitchen face lift that has now dragged on for five months now. I finally discovered a seemingly competent painter to prep and apply Waterlox stain to the countertops. I disassembled the kitchen on Monday evening in anticipation of his arrival Tuesday, but his project ran over, so it was Wednesday when he made his entrance. He arrived at 8:30 AM and was out by 11:00 AM, saying he’d be back early on Thursday to apply the urethane semi-gloss. The grey stain was gorgeous. But a few hours later I started to fret a bit as it didn’t seem to be drying and the instructions I’d carefully printed out for him warned IN ALL CAPS: DO NOT ALLOW EXCESS TO DRY ON THE SURFACE.
The product was supposed to be carefully and stingily poured on and buffed into the freshly sanded wood. And applied with an applicator, not a paintbrush. I fired off a few red flag texts to the painter and then took the bold step of calling Waterlox tech guru Chip (or Cliff or something) who informed me that what had been done was 100% wrong, and it would all have to be removed, resanded and restained. I was too wimpy to tell the painter myself, so I just had him call Chip (or Chuck, or whatever). I was pretty steamed not the least because I had emailed him the instructions plus several links to informative videos. And because I should have known better. To skip to the punchline, the whole thing was an epic fail and it’s back to the drawing board. I’m not sure that three days of inhaling Waterlox Truetone Color-Infused Tung Oil had a positive impact on my cancer marker but who knows. It could be a cure.
The only thing to do after such a depressing experience was . . . two things. First, I hopped over to the West Side to collaboratively create a platter of caprese amplified with string beans and accompanied by a bottle of almost-Sancerre (next town over) and crusty Zabar’s bread, whitefish (for protein) and crackers. For dessert there was Adirondack (my first taste ever) Mint Chip and Syrian Date & Walnut (that’s two flavors, not one or three) ice cream, This event was sponsored by Cousin Marilyn on her 20th floor terrace with the world’s most bedazzling views ever. I antidoted the trauma of the day’s disaster with four hours of eating, tale telling and outright gossip.
And two, return to the beach. Which I did, with my Hoboken-days (and well beyound) pal Deb 1 (yes, there is a Deb 2 out there too). We had a splendid time proving that the Proving Grounds are the world’s best secret beach. Perhaps it’s a joke, all those signs. Or a deterrent for outsiders. I had hoped to surprise Deb 1 with what I had just learned about how to keep basil fresh (put it in a vase with water and a plastic bag over the tops and do not refrigerate) but she already knew this. The only downside of the day was we talked so much I didn’t get through this week’s New Yorker, which has become an obsession to actually read (and not just peruse the cartoons), so there’s something for me to do today. Once I get everything else on my list done, that is.
QUICKIE NEWS BULLETS
As you can see, “quick” is a word that needs a modifier in my world. Here are some additional major time sucks of the last three weeks.
On the ET front, I spent most days on end working to get her enrolled for a new round of physical and occupational therapy. Why it takes this long to basically get a piece of paper moved from one office to another and signed I can’t tell you but I pursued this mission with the doggedness, first of a big friendly Golden Retriever, and then morphed into a Pit Bull by the middle of last week. It got done, eventually.
I also tussled with issues surrounding her Amazon Echo Show, which kept getting turned off requiring much cajoling, lighthearted requesting, more cajoling and then outright threatening to kill myself unless an aide is sent in the room to turn it on. At one point, Alex stood outside her window giving instruction over the phone to someone ET had recruited from outside her door, it could have been another resident for all I know. Then, finally, it was mounted which should have meant it wouldn’t be touched but this task was delegated to a knucklehead on the maintenance staff without proper instruction and for a week it faced a wall in her bedroom.
Eventually this got his straightened out, and then it was turned off AGAIN in the reinstallation process, requiring dispatching Alex with a printout diagram of the apparatus and where the on-off camera switch was located. He is not even allowed into the vestibule, but this ploy worked and my phone started dinging the Amazon tune while I was taking a long overdue shower and I, assuming it was Alex, stepped out and answered it wrapped in a towel. No, it was the Executive Director. Of course. But now it works and is really remarkable. Life changing. I just push a button and if my mother’s in her room, it’s as if I’ve just ambled in to check on her well being. And if she’s not, that’s a good thing too. She particularly enjoys my reading to her the obituaries from the various alumni magazines now forwarded from 727 to me: Loomis Chaffee, Vassar, Conn College, Penn . . .
I completed all four levels of four increasingly difficult workouts of 10 exercises each in my Swiss Ball book. I supplement the day’s workout with 60 wall squats at the end and if the weather is favorable and there’s no pressing reason not to, head outdoors for a one-mile trot around the Meer and another 8/10th of a mile cooldown circumnavigation (yes, even after a slow one-mile I need to cool down). I started on May 9 and ended on August 22.
What to do next? I wondered about this for a New York Minute. No, not take a month off, I would transform right back into a potato again. So now I have returned to the beginning, with muy macho weights and am doing the recommended reps for “strength” instead of “tone.” I really feel I am in the best shape I’ve been since I completed the killer Livestrong 12-week training program in 2017, pushing and pulling ET through it as well and it’s only a little ironic that that in turn was the best shape I’d been in since I did a 5:30 AM one-month boot camp in Central Park in July 2011. It took a hit of cancer to get me back in shape, that is. I don’t find the Swiss Ball program tedious and listen to the news and Prevident my teeth while working out which gives me the satisfaction derived from multitasking.
Kitchen adventures that involved cooking (as opposed to remodeling) continue, but this is late August and there’s really nothing better for dinner than a thick-sliced field tomato sprinkled with kosher salt, a few drops of balsamic dribbled on it and fresh basil cut in ribbons, accompanied by an ear of corn cooked in its sheath with the outer leaves removed and silky end cut off with a scissors, microwaved for four minutes. Now that’s perfection. For this, who needs a kitchen?
See you in September!
Cheers
mbl