News of the Last Few Days

Reason to Celebrate: Sorry for the delay in reporting on my jubilee bar mitzvah day last Saturday. You can exhale now—all went well, especially Ellie’s singing. As usual, she emotionally charged the congregation, even bringing one woman to tears, according to our cantor.

As mentioned a few days ago, my secular birth date is March 6, a day I usually have associated with the fall of the Alamo. But thanks to an article in today’s NY Times, I can now relate March 6 to a happier occasion, the anniversary of the first sale by the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) of an Oreo sandwich cookie in 1912. To control my blood sugar and triglycerides levels I no longer indulge in Oreo binges, but I just might buy a package to put out for the poker game I’m hosting that evening. Hopefully my friends will be kind enough to let me win for a change.


Hearing My Age: Overall, I thought the Academy Awards Sunday night was a feh, or in today’s word, meh, show. No real excitement. If the academy brain trust was trying to convince a younger audience that going to the movies was more special than watching a DVD at home or on your computer, they could have picked actors more readily identifiable with their demographic. Heck, even Adam Sandler, for all his adolescent movie persona, is 45.

As for Billy Crystal, what I could hear of his opening act was okay, but let me be honest, I couldn’t hear half of his lyrics either because he didn’t sing loud enough or the band overwhelmed him. And speaking of the band, the breakaway shots showing the band playing before commercials were really bad.


Playing Hooky: The bar mitzvah weekend was capped by a Saturday afternoon visit from our niece Julie, husband Matt and their children Maggie and Harrison. The kids were interested in playing with Finley who found it fun to be entertained by bigger folk just eight and six years his senior. Maggie, however, soon retreated to the couch and wasn’t feeling up to staying with us during dinner. She felt a little warm so Julie asked if we had a thermometer.

Under the mouth it went. By the time Dan found Finley’s Exergen Temporal Thermometer, the one you scan across the forehead, Maggie’s temperature clicked in at 101.2. The Exergen quickly recorded a temp just 0.1 degrees higher. By the next day Maggie was diagnosed with pneumonia, but she’s doing better today, glad to report.

Meanwhile, the Exergen lived up to its advertised claims as being easy to use and virtually mistake free. A far cry from a temperature-taking incident when Ellie was a little older than Finley’s two and a quarter years. We were using a rectal thermometer back then. Gilda stuck it in and during the three minutes it was supposed to reside in Ellie’s butt, my dear wife fell asleep. So did Ellie. When they awoke about two hours later, Ellie whimpered, “Mommy, the thermometer is still in my tushy.”

Yes, the Exergen Temporal Thermometer would prevent any such mishaps from occurring. But had such technology existed back in the 1980s we might well have missed such classic movies as E.T. and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, as Elliott and Ferris would not have been able to fake their illnesses to play hooky. Off they would have trooped to school.


Passing a Compliment: About 10 days ago Ellie complimented me for being “prolific.” At least I took it as a compliment. Anyway, it’s hard not to find something to write about when there’s so much going on and, with a discerning eye, so much worthy of comment or just simply noting.

Take, for example, a recent headline of an Op-Ed piece in the NY Times: “How to Halt the Butchery in Syria.” How could I not point out the irony of the author’s name: Anne-Marie Slaughter!?!

As long as we’re on the subject of Syria, the plaintive cries for help by those opposed to the Assad regime are heart-rending. But I wonder why it seems the cries are aimed at Western ears when it should be fellow Arabs that should be the first responders. It’s not as if Arab princes and potentates do not have the money or the means to provide relief.


Bottled Up: The economy is said to be improving, but the other day, for the first time in a long time, I noticed someone culling through the recycling bins on our cul de sac looking for redeemable bottles.


Back Page: Okay, after several comments from loyal readers wanting to know why I haven’t written about Jeremy Lin of the Knicks, let me remind people I am not a basketball fan. I did try a few times to see what all the hype was about, but every time I tuned into a game, Lin either was on the bench because the Knicks were way ahead or the Chinese-American sensation was in the middle of a not very productive stretch where he turned the ball over repeatedly and looked just plain overmatched. Still, there’s no denying the Knicks are playing better because of him.

P.S. I hope everyone noticed—no gratuitous Lin-puns.