Four years ago we needed a new refrigerator. After researching them, reading countless reviews and consulting Consumer Reports. I decided on a Samsung french door. This beautiful looking appliance (pictured here) worked well until about a year ago. It started making really loud grinding noises and the entire unit stopped keeping things cold. Sinc …
I eat a different variety Chobani yogurt every morning. Last Sunday I mentioned that I was enjoying my favorite and Joanne asked “Which one is it?”. I looked at the label and responded S’mores. The name was unusual and new to me, so I asked Joanne it’s meaning and she said “haven’t you ever had a s’more?”. When I told her no, she explained that …
We love to play Connect 4 and have several versions (including a “Captain’s Game” that replicates the old game played at sea). We’ve had our travel version the longest. It is small, very portable and travels with us everywhere. Over the years, pieces have been lost and we are getting precariously close to not having enough markers to play to the …
Some great news from Michigan, created by high school students. From msn news: A Michigan high school has decided to stop crowning homecoming queens amid bullying issues. Chelsea High School decided to stop the "outdated" tradition because of its competitive and stereotypical nature, according to a Student Council letter. The homecoming queen p …
Do you have cash in your wallet? I’m not asking how much just whether there is anything green in there. I’m pretty sure the answer is generational. I always have cash in my wallet, together with some emergency money stashed somewhere for well, an emergency. However, with the advent of Paypal and Venmo and mobile banking of all sorts, …
We had an interesting- and long-conversation over dinner last night. My stepson, who is in his third year of law school but already has a job offer from a large, prestigious New York law firm, was contemplating getting a new credit card. He was torn between three options, one that would give him hotel points, one card associated with an airline t …
A few nights ago, one might say Marisa returned the favor. She took her dad to see a show. A long time a-coming, as the lyrics go. I believe her first time was during the winter a quarter century ago. Marisa was not yet in school. Today’s birthday boy was but several months in First Grade. Only one of three shows I attended that year, all with a …
I recently learned that our infamous government agency, FEMA, had coined the term "Waffle House Index" to measure the effect of a natural disaster on an area. If a Waffle House shuts down or limits its menu after such hazards, federal officials conclude the community took a major hit. The Southern breakfast chain, which is open 24 hours a day all y …
I just said something exuberant to my wife Joanne and her response was “Sure, dream on, Fred”. My response to her was “That’s a subject for a blog.”And here we go: “Dream on” is the perfect subject for a blog, less than one week after the fourth annual Gotham Picnic softball game which was covered last Sunday by Sunday blogger and my first basema …
Flo often admonishes me to “Stop and smell the roses.” There’s a Chasidic saying, attributed to the 18th century, “Just as the hand, held before the eye, can hide the tallest mountain, so the routine of everyday life can keep us from seeing the vast radiance and the secret wonders that fill the world.” As Flo says “Stop and smell the roses.”
SURPRISE!! Its not just professional tennis. From npr: In 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell was a graduate student at Cambridge, working on a dissertation about strange objects in distant galaxies known as quasars. She and her supervisor, Antony Hewish, had built a radio telescope to observe them. Data from the telescope scrolled out from a machine — a l …
I didn’t see the whole exchange, but I have been fascinated by the story. Serena was accused of cheating and reacted, loudly and strongly. She would never cheat to win she said. She would rather lose. Serena accuses the umpire of sexism. Her opponent, Naomi Osaka, who in her own words, wasn’t supposed to win, did just that. Then she …
Last week I wrote about a wedding tradition that I was asked to be a part of. This week my mind is still on tradition. Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. For me and my family it is a day filled with tradition. When I was a child, my parents always had our family over for dinner on the evening of the first day of Rosh Hashanah. When my …
A year ago I discussed two gatherings. This time just one. It represented almost that cross-pollination effect that Fridays blogger likes to note at meetings or other things Gotham. Most times I enjoy a morning full court “game.” This week no court experience but the 4th Annual Gotham Picnic and Softball game. Keeping with tradition, we used my ca …
I wasn't in China but this is a true story...A Chinese village was left with a giant mass of soap suds when a person cleaning plastic bottles let too much soap go down a drain. This is from the Nanning City area of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Locals reported that a villager was cleaning some plastic bottle …
