The Looming New Jersey Disaster

At some point on most weekends, Cosmo and I can be found on the trails of South Mountain Reservation behind Old Shorts Hills Park. In early November of last year, less than a week after Hurricane Sandy laid waste to many parts of The Reservation, we made our usual trek in but getting around was quite a different story . The tree you see below is just one of many that were destroyed by the storm.

Sandy was just the latest in a series of natural disasters to strike NJ in a 14 months period:

• August 23,  2011, an earthquake – nothing earth shattering but things certainly shook, rattled and rolled.
• August 28, 2011 – Hurricane Irene barrels up the eastern seaboard. Widespread damage, no power for days, lots and lots of tree damage (now hold that thought as this is really the point of this whole thing).
• October 29, 2011 – The Snowtober/Halloween White Weekend snowstorm occurs. Again, lots of damage, no electricity for several days, lots more tree damage.
• October 28, 29th, etc., 2012 – Hurricane Sandy, the mother of all northeast storms crushes the northeast and I mean crushes. Total devastation to many areas, no power for days (even weeks in some places) and catastrophic damage to the environment, including the heavily wooded areas just a few hundred yards from our home.

More recently, we have had some very serious thunderstorms and last week a tornado touched down just a few miles from here (here being Short Hills). Every time we walk in the reservation, there is still new damage taking place on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s just a small branch or two but you can sense that the ecosystem in The Reservation has been severely weakened by the battering of the past couple of years.

Getting back to Sandy, the weekend after the storm, Cosmo and I went for our usual walk in a South Mountain Reservation but this walk turned out to be anything but a casual walk in the woods. For those of you not familiar with the area, South Mountain is a 2000+ acres park and preserve in Western Essex County. This area is popular for dog walking, hiking, illegal mountain bikers and as hang-out for local teenagers who go there to get drunk and stoned. This is some of what Cosmo and I found:

Over Thanksgiving weekend, the whole family went for walk. Just to give you some perspective on what an upturned tree trunk looks like, take a look at this:

That’s actually one tree that had fallen on top of another. In some spots there was as many as 6 or 7 trees that had fallen one on top of the other, just like dominoes.

OK, so let’s try and tie some of this together. We have a suburban forest, 3 major weather events in 14 months, each one causing major damage, the last one exponentially worse than the first two combined, branches of all sizes ripped from their trees, trees themselves uprooted and now all of that timber is left for dead to dry out inside the reservation. Here’s the way thinks looked a few months ago, at beginning of April.

Inside the reservation are piles and piles and piles of debris just like the one pictured above. Branches, limbs, tree trunks and whole trees, covering and surrounded by dead leaves. A perfectly combustible pile.

I can’t help but look at all of this and think that Mother Nature is going to find some way to clean up this whole mess.  Despite all the rain we have had over the past few weeks, it was just 2 months ago when there were severe fire hazard warnings posted for much of the area. Imagine what will happen if things dry out again.

Will it be Mother Nature herself who causes the first flame or will it be the other folks who enjoy the occasional stroll in the woods.  I’m talking about the smokers who enjoy a cigarette in the woods; or maybe it’s going to be a cigar; and let’s not forgot the Narnians – those pot smoking teenagers I mentioned before. Whether by lightning or by match, every walk I take in the woods of South Mountain Reservation has me thinking that I’m staring at the next disaster to strike our area.

Traffic Light Rant

Casa de Berk (as my daughter has dubbed our house on Foursquare), is situated about 3 blocks from St. Barnabas Medical Center, so we frequently drive by that facility.  SBMC is located on Old Short Hills Road; there are 2 traffic lights right in front of the hospitals’ entrances and another a couple of hundred yards up the road.

Being that these lights are very close together, you’d think that would be in sync so that traffic would flow smoothly by when they are all green but noooooo. It amazes how many times I get stuck at all 3 lights in one pass and, over the past week, this situation seems to be the norm. Just makes me crazy and I needed to get this off my chest.

The only thing that irks me more is when I get stuck at one of these light late at night when there is no one else on the road.  Makes absolutely no sense when there is so little traffic and even less cars turn on to Old Short Hills where one of the 3 lights is situated. Why not just make them flashing lights during the overnight period? Ooh, ooh…I know why…because that would make common sense.

As we all know, common sense is in short supply these days, so I guess syncing traffic lights is not a high priority but it would be a good place to start (instead of all those stops).

Colonoscopy Daze

So, I’m about to share something very personal with you. I figure if Katie can do it, so can I. Earlier today I had a colonoscopy. At my age, it should be my 1st or 2nd but this was my 4th! Started early for 2 reasons: Genetics and…well, let’s just I had a bothersome symptom or two. I’ll leave out the gory details.

For those of you that have had a colonoscopy, you know that the procedure itself is really no big deal. Today, I arrived at the out patient center at 9 AM, was wheeled into the procedure room a little after 1o AM, knocked out a few minutes later and was back in recovery by 10:20. In total,  I was at the endoscopy center where the procedure is done for under 2 hours.

When they wake you up, the first thing they tell you is you need to pass gas. How many places are you going to in this world where someone is going to tell you that? The other interesting part of my morning was the little chuckle I got when I heard the patient in the next curtain area talking to the anesthesiologist. I hate to sound prejudice but always makes me laugh when he (or she) is Asian, in this case Chinese. He was actually a pretty funny guy.

What you have to do to get ready for the procedure is where the real fun is. Yesterday I was on a strict liquid diet, not including the yummy lime jello Linda made for me but is jello really a solid food?  In the words of Dr. Peter Venkman, “there’s always room for jello” which is never more true than when your in colon prep mode. No solid foods, no milk products, no juices with pulp or that are red in color. Lots of water, apple juice and chicken broth. Thank the heavens for the morning cup of java…black.

At 5 PM, I took the first dose from the Suprep Bowel Prep Kit, which coincidentally tastes like ass. Not that I have ever tasted ass but I’m pretty sure it would taste like this crap. Follow that up with two 16 oz glasses of water and let the fun begin.  Takes about 30 – 45 minutes for this stuff to really get moving but when it does, holy shit! Or is that holey shit cuz it certainly ain’t wholey shit.

During this lovely few hours, I continued to drink plenty of fluids to keep myself hydrated and to help with the cleansing. The good news is the first dose worked wonders and within hours my totally liquid bowels were as clear as tap water. So I did what everyone else who has been in my position does…I skipped the 2nd dose, which I was supposed to take at 11 PM, and went to sleep.

As I mentioned before, this was my 4th go round with the anal probe. Before my first one, at age 43, my doctor assured me that he wouldn’t need to see me for another 5 years.  3 polyps later, I was on the 3 year plan.  3 years and one more polyp, still on the 3 year plan.  2 scopes later and no polyps, I’m happy to report that I’ve been promoted to the 5 year plan.

Based on today’s common medical wisdom, everyone close to my age should have had their 1st colonoscopy. If you haven’t been have been told it’s time, it’s really nothing to be afraid of. You’ll be no worse for the wear and for a few days, your bowels will be smooth sailing.

Now can someone please explain to me why I have to be awake for my prostate exam?

Little Cries and Big Cries

So today is my mom’s birthday. It’s a little over 5 months since she passed away and she would have been 85. When she passed away, I never really had that gut wrenching all out moment where I cried uncontrollably.  That moment had come a week earlier when she announced that she was stopping dialysis and I spoke with her on the phone, begging her to reconsider, which she did for a few hours but quickly went back to her original plan. Stubborn to the very end.

During the days between her passing and her funeral in NY, I worked on her eulogy and there was always one passage which made me cry. Actually, I never got through those 2 or 3 sentences without crying until the day of her funeral when I got through the whole eulogy without shedding a tear.

In the 5 months since her passing, I still have never had that one big cry but I now find that I tear-up more often and that things that never made me weepy in the past, brings tears to my eyes now. Obviously, thoughts of my mom do effect me in that way. I’m also much more sensitive in general and I never know why or when those moments will strike. Again, I don’t bawl out loud but I do tear-up.

My mom was a huge fan of NCIS and Linda and I watch it religiously. Probably seen every episode, most more than once. Now when I watch NCIS, even ones I’ve seen before, and that episode tugs at your heart strings, I tear up. Jethro and his dad episodes…don’t get me started. When Vance’s wife and Ziva’s dad were killed celebrating Shabbat dinner together, so sad I just had to shed a tear or two.

With NCIS, maybe it’s my mother tugging at me that brings on these emotions. As for other times, I really can’t say. I just know that I get that feel more often than I did before. As a friend of mine told me, it’s probably just the way death has touched.

So mom, happy birthday. I’d write more but I have to go dry my eyes now.

Keyboard Therapy

KEYBOARD THERAPY

Before facebook and before twitter, I used to talk to myself a lot….well, not really. When I discovered facebook, which was followed by twitter, it gave me an arena to express my thoughts, my opinions, whatever was on my mind. But before social media, there was my keyboard and me.

My thoughts would travel from my brain, down into my fingers, into the keyboard and onto the screen. I could see my words, print them and read them out loud, even when no one was listening, which was most of the time. I wasn’t really talking to myself, I was reading to myself. I learned to use my keyboard as a form of self-therapy, a way to channel my energies (good and bad).

To gave you an idea of what I’m talking about, here’s the best example I can think of. When my son Zach was in elementary school, he started playing travel soccer. No wait, I think I need to go back a little further. When my daughter Allie was in elementary school (she’s 3 years older than Zach), she had a “best friend.” Unfortunately, another girl in her class also wanted the same girl to be her “best friend.” Even more unfortunate, the other girls mother was a bitch and many of the other moms didn’t care for her games or the fact that she was a bitch. Of course, this rivalry for best friend-ness didn’t sit well with the bitch and she viewed us, the parents, as some sort of rival.

Now, the bitch happened to have a son the same age as Zach, which brings me back to travel soccer. When Zach was playing soccer, most of his friends were playing football. Every Friday after football practice, Zach’s friends were invited to dinner at the house of the bitch….and believe me, even 10 and 11 year old boys know a bitch when they see one. Each Friday, Zach was left out as some form of vendetta against Linda and me.

This completely enraged me. So what did I do? I wrote the bitch a letter. Wrote, printed it, read it out loud to myself. When I was done, I ripped up the print out and deleted the letter from my computer. And you know what? I felt better. My keyboard was my therapist.

To make matters even better, the bitches 2 kids both ended up going to private school, rarely (if ever) to be seen or heard from again. Years later, Zach and those friends of his who played football, well they are still friends. During vacations, there is a constant stream of ex pee-wee football players in and out of my house.

As for the bitch herself, don’t know, don’t wanna know. My keyboard cured me from ever having to think about her again, except to tell you all about it.

Jury Duty Daze

So, I’m sitting here in Essex County Court, doing my civic duty as a potential juror. Not my idea of a productive day but it is what it is. Figured I should at least make some positive out of this experience, so here are today’s random observations.

You gotta feel sorry for the clerks who have to announce the name of jurors over the loud speakers. It’s not like we are in Kansas, and the names are those of the average white bread American. Y’know…Jim, Billy Bob, Bubba. I’m in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey. If ever there was a melting pot of cultures, colors, religions and the highly unusual names people have today, this is the place. I’d have to estimate that the clerks are literally spelling out 25-30% of the names because they are just impossible to pronounce. They end every roll call of names with “jurors if I’ve mis-pronounced your name, I do apologize.” I’m thinking Ira Berkowitz is going to be a piece of cake.

Luckily for me, being that I’m completely addicted to my laptop, the jury waiting area has wifi and a pretty nice computer lounge. At the present time, there is a man of the cloth seated next to me. How’d you like to be a defendant and have that guy on your jury? Not only do you have to answer to a judge and jury of your peers, you run the possibility of having to answer to a higher authority who has one of employees staring right at you. At least you gotta think the guy might turn the other cheek.

Remember when you were kid and you went on school bus trips? Didn’t it always seem that you just had to sit in the same seat on the way back to school that you took on they way to your destination? It’s the same thing here in the jury wifi room. Got up for lunch break and went to the cafeteria to get something to eat. When I got back, the wifi room was pretty empty but I instinctively went back to the same seat I had been sitting in earlier in the day….and I wasn’t the only one. I noticed several people who did the same thing, including the man of the cloth seated 2 seats to my right. Maybe it’s divine intervention that causes us to do this.

Another thing about the wifi room – it’s supposed to be a “quiet area.” Yeah, like that ever works. For the most part, it has been fairly quiet. Very library like (except for the 4th floor in Bird Library back in the old SU daze…and my fellow SU alums know exactly what I’m talking about). But ever once in a while, the phone rings and you’d thing you were standing on a subway platform by the volume folks are speaking at. I guess the inside telephone voice is not part of these folks repertoire.

Not only do we have the loud telephone voice person, we have a loud chewer (I’m invoking the “close talker” episode of Seinfeld). One particular gentleman, a few rows over from me, sounded like he was chewing on a whole pack of gum while he was eating his lunch. Did my best not to stare at him but it was so mesmerizing, that I did have to give him a couple of quick glances just to make sure they hadn’t let a herd of cows into the courthouse.

About 2 hours ago, at a little after 3 PM, I started writing a conclusion to this post stating that I had gotten thru the day without being called. So wouldn’t you know it, I got called. My time in the courtroom lasted about 15 minutes as it was a murder case that would have required about a month on jury duty (with Mondays and Fridays off). When the judge asked if this would be a financial hardship on anyone, I stood up, walked out of the courtroom, met with the clerk and was dismissed from the case. Returning back down to the jury room, I was informed that I had performed my civic duty, that my service was no longer needed and that they would see me in 3 years.

And so ends my one day on jury duty. Only thing left to do is wait for my check for my service to the State of New Jersey. A whopping $5.00, doesn’t cover my lunch but at least they paid for my parking.

Do You Really Need an Ear Vacuum?

By a show of hands, how many of you have seen the commercial for the ear vacuum?  You know, The WaxVac. This thing is so strange on so many levels I don’t know where to begin. First, the thing looks like a tiny weenie itsy bitsy little vibrating woman pleaser. Now I’m mean really small….think George Costanza running around screaming “shrinkage, shrinkage!” Small or not, completely phallic to me and not to be confused with the shake weight. For my thoughts on that baby you need to check out an old IraSez post:
http://irasez.com/2010/05/31/losing-weight-while-jerking-off/

Now let’s talk about the guy in commercial who sticks the Q-Tip in his ear and screams “Ow” so loudly and so completely over the top. I don’t see a Clio in this guys future (FYI, Clios are given out for creativity in advertising).  However, I do think his “ow” could possibly be used as the universal “ow” for all future audio needs.  Ever notice how the growling/grunting sound Arnold Schwarznegger makes in almost every movie sounds the same in almost every movie? I’m pretty sure they take it from on of the Conan the Barbarian movies and have been using the same sound bite ever since. This guy is the Arnold of “ow.”

Than there’s the whole sucking things out of your ear thing going on. Do you really want a little vibrator type thing sucking inside your ear?  Besides, vibrators and sucking things are best used on other parts of your body (sorry, couldn’t resist the fall into the gutter on that one).

Florida Weekend Tidbits

So, I spent this past weekend checking in on my dad and seeing how things are in the Jewish Virgin Islands, a.k.a. Palm Beach County Florida.  Here’s some random tidbits.

Bad Lounge Singers
The past 2 trips to the JVI, we’ve gone to Seasons 52 in Bocaaah for dinnaaah. Nice restaurant, good food, bad lounge singers. This Sunday’s featured act sounded like a bad Randy Newman (Short People, I Love LA). In October, we caught a really bad rendition of Adele’s “Rolling In The Deep.” This past weekend it was “Set Fire to the Rain.” Oh….my….gawd!  New rule – lounge singers are forbidden to sing Adele songs. Only Adele should sing Adele songs, especially when you sound like Randy Newman. And don’t get me started on his rendition of a Michael Jackson song.

The Land of Expressionless Faces
At dinner on Saturday night, there were 3 ladies sitting at the table to my back. Forget the dyed hair, forget the lifted eyes, forget the puffed lips but what I cannot forget is the fact when they chewed, talked, or did anything with their faces, their cheeks never moved. Like they were made of titanium or something.

For many years I used to go on a golf trip to Las Vegas, the land of new uber boobs. I used to tell my friends I’d like to walk around with a t-shirt that said “Those Cannot Be Real!”  I’d like to do the same thing in Florida but with so may folks having so many new parts (inside and out), I’m not sure anyone would know what I was talking about.

The Bathroom Valet
Had lunch at JBs in Deerfield on Saturday. Nice spot, enjoyed the bikini clad ladies playing beach volleyball (theirs’ looked real by the way), your typical beach side restaurant. So why in the hell do these folks feel they need a bathroom attendant? Why does anyone need a bathroom attendant. I don’t like them and I don’t like the feeling that they are staring at me, waiting for me to finish my business just so they can hand me a paper towel.  No thank you.

Proper Restaurant Behavior
I think we need to go back to a time when certain restaurants had a code of conduct for their customers.  I hate to sound a bit stuck-up but I think customers should expect a certain level of behavior at a nicer restaurant when you are paying a nice price for a nice meal.

First, no infant seats. You know what comes in an infant seat?  An infant…and you know what infants do at a restaurant when they realize no one is paying attention to them? They cry. For fifty bucks a head, no crying.

And how about a dress code?  Ladies, no hoodies…especially if you are over 30. For an hour or two you can grow up and live the hoodie to your daughter.  It’s probably hers anyway.  As for you guys, those cargo shorts and baseball hat that you think makes you look like some sort of gangsta rapper?  Dude…you’re white, you’re in Bocaaaah, and you’re 10 year old daughter thinks you look like an idiot…and she’s right!

Time To Divide the Republicans?

It’s now almost a week since the election. When I voted, if anyone had been staring at my ballot when I hit the red vote button in the voting booth, they probably would have thought I was schizophrenic or on drugs. My ballot covered a democrat, a republican (I know, you’re shocked) and 2 independents. That’s they way I roll, despite some people’s thoughts that I’m a crazy liberal, which I’m not.

Since the election, I have done a lot of reading, watching and listening as I’m very interested to hear what folks had to say. Obviously the die-hard republicans are very disappointed, have many theories as to what went wrong and even more theories an what to do next. One theory that I have found especially interesting stated that the Republicans needed to take a lesson from the Whig Party, which was very powerful during the mid 1800s. Ultimately a deep division on how to handle slavery destroyed the Whig Party and many of their members went onto join a new party in American politics…the Republican Party.

Maybe now it’s the time for the same thing to happen to the Republicans. As previously, stated I (the self-professed died in the wool moderate) did vote for a Republican in this election, as I have voted for Republicans in the past. At this point (and unfortunately for them IMHO), the Republicans have lost me. Just like the Whigs were severely divided by slavery, today’s Republican Party is severely divided by the growing extremism on the far right of the party. As much as many Americans did not want to vote for our current President, the Republican Party is losing it’s credibility, especially with independents and moderates, such as myself.

Many of us perceive that the Republicans have been taken over by the lunatic fringe (and some of those ran for the republican nomination for president) and they don’t realize the changes going on in our country. Any shot the Republicans had at gaining more of my votes this year was lost 2 years ago when Mitch McConnell, the minority leader in the Senate, publicly stated that his party’s one and only goal for the next 2 years was to make sure that President Obama wasn’t re-elected. He would see to it that not one pass of legislation that made the President look good would get through the Senate. Toss out compromise, toss out sacrifice and toss out common sense.

Another issue the Republicans have is the perception of who is leading the party. Take your pick of loons that the party needs to muzzle – Rush, Donald, Michelle, Sarah, Grover.  I don’t think the Republican Party should be giving a voice to folks who question the President’s place of birth, who make bizarre statements about “legitimate” rape, who reject the separation of church and state, and a group that make them take a “no new taxes under any circumstance” pledge.

Going to say it again and again that this country was built on sacrifice and compromise. If you are going to make our elected officials sign a pledge that they won’t raise taxes no matter (and it is no matter what), than the person making that demand and the officials who sign that pledge don’t know the first about being an American. Listen, I don’t want to pay more taxes (does anyone?) but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.

So, to the Republican Party I say this. If you want moderates and independents like me to consider your candidates in the future, you better start whistling a different tune. If you don’t, you will soon find yourself with less influence, less power and less money. The final word you will hear as you ride off into the sunset with the new American political landscape shrinking in the rearview mirror is “adios!”