Showing posts with label Playbill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Playbill. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Day 5 of National Emergency: Senior Shopping Times, Teaching Children, Impacted Jobs, Theater at Home


Stop & Shop announced exclusive new hours for senior citizens—6 am to 7:30 am—effective Thursday morning.

I’m not sure if the supermarket chain is trying to make shopping easier for seniors by making it less congregated and safer from the general public’s pushing and jostling, or if it is trying to shield younger shoppers from the most vulnerable age cohort. The company, in its press release, gave it a positive spin, saying the new policy for those 60 and older would “protect shoppers considered most vulnerable to coronavirus.”

Either way, my only real objection is having to get up so early. Perhaps some elderly are early risers but the 71-year-old who shares my bed and I sleep late. Our normal wakeup time is considerably later than the cutoff time for exclusive senior shopping. (BTW, for those who do not know, today is Gilda’s 71st birthday. I normally throw a big parade in her honor down Manhattan’s 5th Avenue, but concessions must be made during these coronavirus days.)

When I heard about Stop & Shop’s special hours for the elderly, I was a little concerned Gilda and I could be age-appropriate-challenged by the shopping police as we both are often confused for someone younger than 60. But Stop & Shop says it will not request an ID to enter, relying instead on the integrity of its customers not to abuse the privilege. 

After inquiring through a chat box whether Costco would be implementing senior hours as well, I was informed it is under consideration. My fingers are crossed …


My sister Lee, a retired elementary school teacher, and my cousin Steve, separately reposted the following on Facebook: “It seems a little ridiculous to me that people are so afraid that their children are going to miss a whole month of learning. How about using this month to teach them how to cook, check the oil in the car, do laundry, treat others with respect, sew on a button, deep clean, balance a checkbook, etc. Not all learning is done in a classroom.”

Amen.


Most of my friends, professionals in various fields, are sequestered at home. Mostly, they can connect via the Internet to clients and documents they may need to conduct business, with the understanding it is not business as usual. 

Take a moment to consider some whose occupations are not transferable to new technologies, workers such as school bus drivers and crossing guards. The average school bus driver earns $34,349, according to salary.com.

With the economy in flux (sounds nicer than free-fall), it’s not a good time to be selling a home. Real estate agents are having a tough time setting up open houses. 

Travel agents are fielding lots of calls. Unfortunately, they’re mostly from clients who are calling to cancel hotel and travel plans.

During our walk today Gilda wondered aloud if house burglars are going through a slow period as residences are occupied virtually round the clock.


Raising two sons and a daughter in the 1950s-1960s while she worked full time with our father, my mother instilled what you might call a sing-for-your-supper ethos in her children. We did not literally sing (except z’mirot—traditional Jewish songs—after Friday evening Shabbat dinners). Rather, she had us augment taking care of our household on weekends when our housekeeper was off.

We had a rotating set of chores. Dusting one week. Vacuuming the next, followed by kitchen duties—setting and clearing the dinette table, loading and unloading the dishwasher and even scouring pots and pans. I learned to use Twinkle when cleaning the copper bottoms of our Revere cookware. I never stopped being amazed at how the greenish-yellow Twinkle paste made the copper shine like new.

We also had a daily assignment to pick up fruit and vegetables at Joe’s, the neighborhood produce store, and to buy a fresh rye bread at the bakery on Ocean Avenue (our father thought bread made any meal taste better. He also castigated Joe from afar for any melon that tasted like a potato). On Saturdays we shopped at our local supermarket, Waldbaum’s, a few doors down from the bakery.

Being the youngest I benefitted from a lighter workload until both my brother and sister moved out, leaving me for several years solely responsible for all chores. 

Bravo, Bravo: Finally, for those who enjoy Broadway musicals but are experiencing some feelings of withdrawal since the Great White Way has been shuttered by the pandemic, here’s a Playbill link to 15 shows you can download for viewing. Enjoy:






Sunday, February 12, 2012

New York in 10 Objects

If you had to pick 10 objects that told the story of New York City, actual items that could fit into a museum, not pictures of them, what would they be?

This exercise is not original to me. It’s an admitted rip-off of a feature from the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC, the public radio station that is part of the National Public Radio network. In turn, the Lopate show was inspired by a BBC and British Museum series it is in the middle of broadcasting depicting the History of the World in 100 Objects.

Submissions to the Lopate Show had to be in by 5 pm Friday, February 10, so I’ve missed the deadline. Thus I’ve no need to keep my selections secret. Nor do I have to restrict my nominees to 10. To get the public started, Lopate offered three suggestions—an elevator from the Empire State Building, a bagel and a subway token.

Here are my choices for objects peculiarly New York in character with historical and/or social significance (I’ve restricted myself to items available from 1900 going forward, though some may have originated earlier). See if you agree and can cull them down to the 10 most significant. Or you can add your own iconic items. My Top 10 picks are at the bottom:

1. Slice of New York-style pizza
2. Nathan’s hot dog
3. Car from Coney Island’s Cyclone ride
4. Playbill from a Broadway show
5. Bloomingdale’s big b brown shopping bag
6. Interlocking N-Y Yankees logo on a baseball cap
7. Front page of the New York Times
8. Central Park bench
9. Checker taxi cab
10. Steel girder from the World Trade Center
11. Statue of the Wall Street bull
12. Ticker tape
13. The marquee of Harlem’s Apollo Theater
14. Art deco frieze from Radio City Music Hall
15. Sewing machine work station from the garment district
16. Manolo Blahnik shoe from Sex and the City
17. Ralph and Alice Cramden’s main room from The Honeymooners TV show
18. Ellis Island immigration stamp
19. A New Year’s Eve ball dropped at Times Square
20. TKTS theater booth
21. The detectives room from Law & Order TV show
22. Lions in front of the 42nd Street Public Library
23. Inside of a tenement apartment from the Lower East Side
24. A montage of magazine covers including Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, New York, The New Yorker, Time, Life, People, Look
25. Street sign of Madison Avenue
26. Menu from The Four Seasons or some other iconic restaurant
27. The steps in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
28. Part or whole Staten Island ferry
29. A bodega
30. Jackie Robinson’s cleats
31. Willie Mays’ baseball cap
32. Babe Ruth’s bat
33. Neon lights of Broadway
34. Fashion show runway
35. Pushcart
36. Looped showing of Woody Allen’s film “Manhattan”

My Top 10:
4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 19, 23, 24, 30,