Cousin Itt Do you remember The Munsters TV show? It only aired for two seasons (1964 – 1966, but a hefty 70 episodes that ran successfully for years in syndication) and like its competitor series, The Addams Family, they probably left an indelible mark on our youthful memories. The Munster show was produced by the team that brought us Leave It To Beaver and was similarly written to mimic suburban life, only with a macabre…
Accepting the Loss You may recall that I recently wrote about replacing some windows in my house on the hilltop. Views being such a big part of the appeal of this property, windows are a clear priority (pun intended). You may recall that I chose the prudent path of ordering the replacement windows from the top window firm in America, Andersen. I have yet to find anyone who has anything but good things to say…
Time to De-Junk Every once in a while I get the urge to declutter my life. We have lived out here on this hilltop going on five years now and we shed a lot of junk when moving here and when moving our extra junk from Ithaca here, but I think we have only had a junk man come to take away excess junk to the dump one other time. Like most people, the urge…
Star Witness This morning we are waking up to the most explosive part of the Trump Hush Money trial in Manhattan, the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer over a decade in days gone by. At the early part of the testimony, the bulk of the pitter patter from the cable news legal/litigation pundits is about what the prosecution wants of Cohen and how the defense is likely to try to undermine…
Field Trip It’s May and its warming here on the hilltop. Yesterday we had a gathering of the Hidden Meadows Garden Club as organized by Kim and Melisa, its co-presidents. Kim carried most of the load since Melisa was recuperating from her prior day’s Emergency Room trauma. She had aspirated half of a Calcium/Magnesium/Zinc supplement and had spent seven hours at the Palomar Hospital ER (chauffeured there by yours truly) working through the dissolution of…
Woodworking When we were kids, one of the rights of passage was to spend time learning how to make things out of wood. With 3-D printing and all the varieties of plastic that prevail these days, its hard to say whether kids learn woodworking any more. Some kids had a distinct leg-up with a father who proudly owned a complete woodworking shop in his basement or garage. Thewe were the dads that helped their kids…
Intimidation Donald Trump is an expert at intimidation. Just look at the array of recent portraits of the man. He is making a habit of lowering his face and scowling at the audience from underneath his bushy eyebrows and fluffy yet wispy coif. He has perfected the snarl. He is under a rather strict gag order because his comments can energize a legion of faceless followers to reign down violence and distress on anyone that…
Man Interrupted There has been a theme in recent cinematic content about interrupted lives, first with Girl, Interrupted and then Boy Interrupted. Girl, Interrupted was a 1999 film based on an earlier book that details the life of a young middle class woman who gets put into a mental institution for attempting suicide. Boy Interrupted is a 2009 true-life version of the same thing except its about a boy who is diagnosed as bipolar-polar and…
Dog Fight Right after my normal Sunday morning bagel run, Kim called to say that we had a problem with Buddy. It seemed that he had gotten bitten by another dog at the place where he is boarding for the weekend. I needed to go and pick him up and take him to the vet to see if there was any serious damage. When I got to Colean’s house, he was brought out and while…
What We Value I pretty much ignored the “Trial of the Century” about the O.J. Simpson accusations that he killed his wife and her lover. That happened in 1995 and I was close to being at the height of my career in investment banking. I was busy running around the world and building a global investment business. It was the year that my youngest son was born. The last thing I cared about was the…