My full given name is Fred C. Klein and the C. might as well stand for Chip as I am so addicted to them that I well might be made of them. Then, last week I sat next to my fellow Friar and New York Health and Aging GC Gideon Schein and right away I noticed his appreciable weight loss and, of course, always looking for a dieting SECRET, I asked him what did the trick and he said it was a low salt diet.  Hmm...

I was driving home and was cut off by an SUV driver who decided not to make the left turn she was signaling from the left-turn lane and cut back into traffic. I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting her, sending things in the car that weren’t bolted down flying. I blasted my horn – realizing as I did that it wouldn’t make a difference. A moment later and a collision would have been unavoidable.

So I thought I'd see what was "trending" on Google, so I could write a really up-to-date blog post. Here's what I found. 1. Hamilton Chicago - Tickets are going for $9000.

  Friday afternoon I was busily working away at my laptop. To be completely honest, I was multi-tasking – talking on my cell phone, sending an instant message and reading an email. Really, I am not sure how I was doing all of those things and probably wasn’t really.    

They say when something happens to your child you feel it worse than if it happened to you. I found that to be true last week.  

Pets never made a regular presence at "Grand Junction," the name (my daughter) Marisa gave our place on Four Square.  Occasionally we watched my nephew Douglas' hamsters; that seems ages ago.   One of the four-legged variety seems capable of infusing himself as if he lived here each visit:  

I am here. I am healthy. I am strong.   The first third of my life started out as a 4.5 lb baby with life threatening congenital problems that in other countries would have resulted in my demise. The second third of my life started out with my world in complete collapse due to a set of events that made me an uneducated, broke, single parent of two children who were five and two. Now I start the third part of my life.  

We have all been captive inside a mechanized telephone maze. Nothing infuriates me more than the frustration of the urgent need to get through to the party I've called, but being put in the holding pen. Invariably, the delay becomes interminable as the loop interrupts the cheesy elevator music to proclaim "your call is important to us please stay on the line". When patience is at end there is great temptation to hang up, but no!  You have gone so far and would have to start over and endure this gauntlet anew. And then, there is a disconnect or dropped call.