Peanuts, Popcorn & Sushi

Here in New York, the Yankees and the Mets have new stadiums. That's okay, I suppose. Here's what I don't get, though. In those new stadiums fans can eat prime rib or sushi or lobster. Lobster? At a ball game? Fans can sit in easy chairs and drink cocktails.
Really.
If a person wants to sit in a recliner, drink cocktails, and eat lobster I'm thinking that person should stay home.
Baseball games aren't about comfort or good food. They're about, well, baseball.
When we go to a game, we don't slide into home plate but we should expect to get just as dirty what with mustard dripping out of the hot dog and the guy behind us spilling his beer.
Come on! Lobster?
I know.
This isn't just a New York thing. The Dodgers and the Angels are just as guilty of selling out to our desires for comfort and fine food.
But wait a second. We're the ones willing to pay for all the comforts of home and the cuisine of a fine restaurant at the ballpark.
So what, exactly, is the national pastime?
Lobster indeed!

Family Dog Meets Space Alien

It's a rainy, blustery, thunder and lightning day here in Central New Jersey. In between down pours, the Family Dog and I took walks from which we often returned soaked.
Seasons, when they exist, can be capricious things. Today proves the point.
Over the weekend a Family Human rejoiced that Spring had arrived. It was in the air, she proclaimed and pointed out incipient and actual buds.
Yesterday sweaters and jackets got stowed. Even long sleeved shirts, here in Central New Jersey, seemed just a tad bit too warm.
Today tells a different story.
During one of our hurry before we get soaked walks, the Family Dog and I couldn't help but notice the creature approach us. Ear flaps flew around the face and threatened to become wings for the cap to which they somehow remained secured. The creature's coat was so bulky he could barely move so instead lumbered from side to side while somehow maintaining forward motion. The boots seemed so heavy and huge it was hard to believe they held only one pair of feet. Surely a yard or two had also sneaked into them.
I solved the riddle only seconds before the Family Dog figured it out.
This was no creature from outer space but instead was a man soaked to the skin dressed for the recently declared departed winter.
Also soaked to the skin, Family Dog and I clearly were dressed seasonally appropriately. Shirt sleeves and fur.
Fashion trumps comfort.

Wake Up, California

Iowa became the third state in the country and the first from the rural heartland to legalize same-sex marriage when its Supreme Court unanimously struck down the state's decade-long ban.

Gay advocacy groups hailed the decision as another example of same-sex marriage gaining traction in an increasing number of states, despite a ballot initiative in California last year that banned it there. They also said the emphatic ruling probably will sway other courts, including California's Supreme Court, which must decide by early June whether the November referendum was constitutional.

"Justices look at opinions from other states," said Jennifer C. Pizer, the national marriage project director for Lambda Legal, which brought the Iowa case. "There's a significant likelihood that [the decision] will influence other states, like California."

The above is from The Washington Post.

Clearly good news can come from the most unlikely places. Yay, Iowa.

Waiting At The Gate

While we were inside the terminal yesterday waiting for the weather across the country to clear, our Jet Blue jet sat just outside the door.
We read books, worked puzzles, stared into space, dozed, engaged in pointless conversations with people we'd never seen before and generally hoped we'd never see again, checked e mail, listened to music or books on various mp3 devices and engaged in the numerous other activities people stranded at airports or at train or bus stations do in such situations. Occasionally our pilot came into our area to assure or answer questions.
I'm imagining that the wait was just as tedious for our plane as it was for us.
After all, who wants to get all cleaned and gassed up only to be left out in the cold for hours.
I still hate to fly and still love Jet Blue.

Time To Think

The five hour flight from Burbank's Bob Hope Airport has become, this morning, at least a nine hour journey. Four of those hours will be spent in the Burbank gate. One run way, we are told, at JFK is closed. That closure combined with low visibility has backed up flights across the country.
Here at the Jet Blue gate passengers are affable enough. Of course, we're only two hours into our delay. These waiting at the gate friendships involving shared chips and magazines are likely to turn sour if the flight is delayed further.
Two boys brought along a suitcase full of toys. They must travel frequently.
Airports are surreal in routine mode. Airport delays take us into a completely different mode of being.

A Gift Fit For A Queen

I think it's great that President Obama gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod for his gift giving ritual thing.
She, apparently, was thrilled because she needed to upgrade her current iPod anyway.
Okay, so Gordon Brown wasn't so happy with his DVDs and he couldn't play them on his DVD player anyway. Big deal. Who hasn't gotten a less than great present?
I also think it's terrific that our first lady broke protocol and put her arm around the Queen.
This, now, is progress.

Mourning the Unknown

Yesterday, for no reason that I can identify, I thought of someone with whom I worked in the publishing industry in New York in the late 1970s, before I moved to San Francisco. If she was still living in New York I thought I might look her up. Thanks to the magic of the internet, I was able to "Google" her. Her name is unusual enough that she would be the only likely subject of the search.

The first thing in which I found her name was a New York Times wedding announcement in 1986. How nice! The second was also from the New York Times, a notice of her untimely death in 2005 "following an illness of several months". I gasped when I saw it.

Even though I haven't seen this person for well over thirty years, or even thought of her until yesterday, knowing that she is no more has brought a shadow to my day.

We populate the world within our own minds, and when we are not in communication with people we know, we assume that all stays the same outside our field of experience. But of course it does not, and I received a reminder of that today.