Category: Uncategorized

The woman in this picture, Naomi Anderson of Binghamton, died on the 4th of July. I was actually going to go to the funeral – I was sent the obit, and was actually in town for her funeral. But the e-mailed notice didn’t mention WHICH Saturday the service was being held, and I arrived at my old church, which was locked. Not that I would have gone to Binghamton specifically for the service, but I figured that since I was there…

Won’t even talk about work.

They’re closing the Catskill Game Farm, which I went to when I was three and a number of times since, and which I figured I’d take Lydia to someday.

The thing that REALLY stressed me out most, though, involved Lydia. We had not given her any peanuts or peanut butter, but last Wednesday, she got some. It did not agree with her at all. When I got home, she was crying after throwing up. She threw up a second time, but more distressing, her left eye was far more closed than her right eye. I was afraid she was going into anaphylactic shock, or something. She has been sick before, but never was I as worried as I was that evening. Carol called our doctor, then went out to get her some Benedrill while I watched her. She threw that up, and about an hour later, threw up a fourth time after a small cup of water. Thursday, I took her to the doctor. We now carry an EpiPen.

The upsides: we have new pastors, the Leupolds, who start today; I’m serving coffee. My friend Cecily became a grandmother for the first and second times in the last two months with Henry Sinon, son of Jeff and Heather, and Katherine Lottie, daughter of Mike and Karen. And finally, Lydia seems to be OK. Of course, this means dumping Carol’s beloved peanut butter – the doctor thought it should even be in the house until Lydia sees an allergist – but this is the price one pays as a parent.

That’s Carol, my sister Leslie and my mom Trudy in Binghamton last month with the child.

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This is my daily Julie Hembeck mention.

My wife said to me one evening late last month, “Good news!” She proceeded to tell me that the $680 the state of New York thought we owed them, we didn’t owe them. They made a transcription error and attributed to us some several thousand dollars more in income than we actually made. We are relieved, of course, but it got me to thinking: if they didn’t screw it up in the first place, there would be NO news, which, as the cliche goes, IS good news.

Similarly, Scott at Scooter Chronicles noted how he ONLY spent a couple hundred bucks on his car. Since I suppose there will always be car repairs, getting off cheaply feels like good news. But let’s take a more recent example in his blog: the bad news of his son Nigel’s inability to sleep through the night. When he (actually, they – Nigel, Scott and Marcia) finally go back to sleeping through the night, it will surely seem like good news.

Someone has some sort of growth, but it turns out to be benign. Someone’s in a car accident, but he or she suffers only minor cuts and bruises. Good news, yes?

I went to the Good News Network this week, and what do I find?
On this day in History, August 8:
John McCarthy, the British journalist held hostage in Lebanon for more than five years by Islamic Jihad was freed after more than five years in captivity (1991)
A cease-fire between Iran and Iraq was announced by The United Nations (1988) Good news following five years as a hostage and eight years of war, respectively.

So here is my metaphysical question: how often, in your view, does good news depend, in some shape or form, on the cessation of bad news (an unexpected tax bill, e.g.)? I think it’s about 80% of the time. Please give me some good news, other than the a non-complicated birth of a wanted child, that is just good without being a response to a downside.
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Good news: the Christopher Porco murder trial is over. For those not from around the Albany area, think about NOT hearing about the O.J. Simpson trial. You couldn’t, no matter how you tried. And believe me, I tried. THE local media event of the year, by far.
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The parents of Julie Hembeck turned me on to Lipton Green Tea with Citrus.

One of the great problems with hot, muggy weather and old houses in the Northeast is the emergence of bats in the living quarters. A couple weeks ago, I was in Binghamton attending Day 1 of my high school reunion. Carol and Lydia had been to the event, but Carol had gone back to the house of friends Cecily and John, put Lydia to bed, and the three of them were talking. Suddenly, a bat started flying around the living room. John chased it out of the room, and eventually trapped it. He may have accidentally killed it, and felt badly about that.

A couple nights later, on an extremely muggy Monday night/Tuesday morning, I was lying down in the guest bedroom, directly under the ceiling fan, but was not sleeping. Carol came in and thought there might be a bat in our bedroom. I got Carol my spare racquetball racquet from the office. Suddenly, the flying mammal was in the hallway, circling Carol, with her using the racquet to keep it at bay, AND to close the other bedroom doors. I found a shoebox in the office, which I used to change the bat’s pattern. It flew towards the now-closed bedroom, flew back towards Carol, who (there’s no better word) batted it down, and put the racquet on top of the bat. I took the shoebox and kept the bat on the floor while removing the racquet, slipped the shoebox top under the bat, and we sealed up the box, poking some holes in it. In the morning, Carol took it to the Health Department lab, where it was verified it was not rabid.

Those of you keeping score at home will note that this is now the FIFTH live bat in our house in five summers. You’d think we’d actually do something like this. We actually did the standing outside looking for the bats to return thing one night last year after that incident, but never saw them. Maybe we’re just too impatient to wait around looking towards the roof for two or three hours for several nights at dusk or later trying to see a fast-flying creature.

We DID get our then-contractor to agree to bat-proof the attic last fall, but he never followed through (thanks a lot, guy). Carol talked to our new contractor about it. He thinks it’s all a bit silly. After all, the chances of contact are minimal, and the chances of rabies are even more remote, he correctly noted. Carol replied that the chances of an untreated contact from a rabid bat being fatal is about 100%.

Bat-proofing: this year, for sure.
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I wonder if Julie Hembeck ever had to deal with bats?

I finally got around to watching that AFI special, 100 Years, 100 Cheers, about inspirational films. For whatever reasons, a few moments really touched me, two from the films themselves and two from the commentaries.

The first commentary was Jane Fonda talking about her father Henry, and how their relationship in On Golden Pond (a film I’ve never seen, though I’ve watched stage productions of it) between their characters paralleled their real-life relationship, how he got his only Oscar for that role, how he was unable to receive it himself, so she had to receive it in his stead, how she was so pleased to present the award to him personally, and how he died five months later. I knew these facts before, yet I found it surprisingly poignant in the retelling.

The second commentary was Sidney Poitier talking about Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and how he became cognizant of channeling the relationship with his real father in playing against the man who played his cinematic dad. Talking about this made him a bit emotional.

I’ve long been a sucker for the scene in Field of Dreams when the Kevin Costner figure asks his dad to play catch. But I was surprised how moved I was of the scene in To Kill a Mockingbird when the black folks in the balcony direct Scout to stand up: “Your father’s passing.”

There were others that touched me, I imagine, such as Poitier’s frustrated Walter Lee Younger in A Raisin in the Sun. There was a production of A Raisin io the Sun when I was a kid, put on by the Binghamton Civic Theater, and my father was heavily involved in the behind-the-scenes stuff: set design, costuming, program design. Anyway, my father passed away six years ago today, and seeing those film clips were particularly resonant for me.
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It was great hanging out with Julie Hembeck and her dad and mom recently. Details soon.

A friend of mine, who reads this blog and knows the erudite sort that come here, is writing a book, and posits this:

I think we all have felt the seismic cultural shift has occurred with online dating that has created a lot of over 40 singles who have never married and many who say, “That didn’t work. Oh well. Next!” We all have noticed the phenomenal shift in how men and women treat each other . What do you think? What is happening? Why is there such an increase in never-married single people? Because they think another someone is just a click away? Is it because we all think we can live to 100 so there is no hurry to settle down? Or is it because there’s just so much fun to be had with so many? What needs to change?

You may find this site of interest. I’ll be responding myself, but not until I’ve given you all a chance.
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No Julie Hembeck news today.