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Monopoly, I love to hate it... Monopoly, the kids game from Hasbro that first introduced all of us to money anxiety, desperate bargaining, and threats, has dropped one of it’s classic token for a new one. The flat iron has now been replaced by a cat. So the new token set is an antiquated race car, a thimble, a shoe-boot without laces, a terrier, a battleship, a top hat, a wooden wheelbarrow, and now a cat. It makes me wonder how they chose the old tokens in the first place. The game came out in 1904, so the tokens were current items. I wonder why they chose to replace the flat iron. Seems like it would be more politically correct to replace the battleship. Someone told me the newest version has a debit card instead of paper money. Nah, if you play Monopoly, you gotta go old school. First, nobody knows all the rules, but everybody knows the basic ones, plus maybe one of the “in the event of” rules. For instance, I was the one who knew that if you rolled doubles three times in a row, you got out of jail. Somebody takes charge of setting up the game. If you saw that the Chance and Community Chest cards were already separated with rubber bands from the previous game, you were playing with an anally retentive person who was not going to let anybody slide on the rent. The person who wanted to be the banker was going to, at some point in the game, hit the board so that all the money tucked under the side of the board would go akimbo and in the process of straightening it up, a few of those bills were going to slide onto their lap for emergency back-up. The game is so much fun in the beginning. Trying to get matching colors of property titles. Then you start paying each other rent and that’s fun too. Things start getting a little tense when somebody owns all four railroads and now you have to pay $200 bucks if you land on one. Then the anxieties start to filter in..... “Please God, don’t let me land on Boardwalk”. If you do land on Boardwalk and can’t make the rent, you bend the rules and borrow from other players - unless the Anal Player is there and points out that borrowing to pay the rent is verboten! You might try to work out a payment plan with the Boardwalk owner, like if they give you the next rotation on the board to collect enough of your own rents to pay them by the time you get back to Boardwalk, you’ll pay $100 extra. This works too, unless, again, you have that one Anal Player who insists on playing by the rules. If you play the game by the rules, it’s all over but the crying in two hours. If you play with the soft, bendy, rules, the game goes on until the beer and chips run out, about six hours. This is more fun because of the drama. There’s crying, begging, pleading, rapture, avaricious glee, swearing, cursing, pinching and slaps...I once offered to sleep with a guy if he let off the rent from the New York block where he had built hotels. He said it didn’t count since we were married, the lousy Scrooge....he’d need more, so I had to promise a back rub and to make his favorite lasagna. I was desperate, so I agreed. Who knew Monopoly would be the thing to make a fallen woman of me....

Boating Safety and Eddy Kett Boating season will be here in a few months, lots of towns are starting their safety classes now, here’s a few additional pointers. One of the most common mistakes I see is overcrowding on the boat. If you’re bringing the family, consider towing a small dinghy and putting the kids in that. You can pull them in to feed them, let them drift out when they are too noisy, and if they really become a problem, you can threaten to cut the rope. Now, of course that’s just an threat. You’d never really cut the expensive, complaining, whining, creatures who don’t appreciate anything you do, loose, but they don’t know that..... On the water trades. When you’re boating, if you’re short of something, you’re allowed to call to boaters nearby and see what you can trade. We traded four P&J sandwiches for bait once. Another trade I remember - somebody dropped the “church key” in the water. The church key is what my family calls a bottle opener, I’m not sure why, but that’s what I’ve called them since childhood. Anyway, one of my uncles dropped the church key overboard and we sailed over to another boat to trade for an extra if they had it or borrow theirs to open all the beer at once. Lucky for us, they had an extra. I think my grandfather traded a kid’s fishing pole and a spool of line for the church key. Truth is, he’d have traded more if they asked. Pop kept the key with him the rest of the day so no one else could lose it, once was traumatic enough. Bring more sunscreen than you think you need. The salt air peels off sunscreen on a steady basis. Keep slathering it on until you wise up and just put on a shirt. Note for the Celts: Stop pretending that there’s an SPF level high enough to protect us. If you have family members who get sunburned at fireworks displays, just put everybody on the boat in tee-shirts before somebody bursts into flames. There is something about sea air that dramatically increases the effects of alcohol, so really watch the drinking. Just like on land, you should have designated drinkers and one person keep their blood alcohol level low enough to aim the boat towards land. Sea sickness. Of all the sicknesses in the world, sea sickness ranks way up there for sheer misery. Looking at the horizon never helps. I only experienced it once, the one time I was on a sailboat, if there was a gun on that boat, I would have shot myself. If you have someone suffering from sea sickness, try to get them close enough to shore that you can throw them overboard and they can swim in. They’ll jump even if they can’t swim, anything to get off that boat. If you’re out too far, put them on a raft and pull it behind the boat. Nobody wants to hear them moaning and groaning, and they’re so sick, they won’t care what you do with them. Take the time to bring the boat in right. Coil the ropes, wipe the deck, whatever is needed to make the boat right for the next trip. You’ll never do it tomorrow when you’re less tired. And there’s nothing worse than getting on a boat that has old garbage, tangled ropes, and how is it that somebody always leaves their underwear on the boat?

Shelter Island Idol American Idol is back, hurray! I love the show, especially the auditions, which range from amazingly terrific to amazingly horrible between every set of commercials. But if Shelter Island had an Idol contest, we’d be looking for very different talents... if you think you can do any of these things with skill, we might have a spot for you. 1} Pharmacy Parking. The ability to locate and get into a parking space anywhere near the pharmacy in July or August within 20 minutes of circling. 2} Parishioner Roll. The ability to catch any parishoner who has tripped coming out of Our Lady of the Isle Catholic Church, and is now rolling down the steep hill towards the parking lot across the street, before they roll into the street. 3} The Line Cut. The ability to convince everyone in the North Ferry line in the summer, that you have a good enough reason to get on the boat first (by the way, this has never been done, but if you have a roll of hundreds, you might try...). 4} The Key Toss. Trying to get someone’s attention in a full, everybody seated, school auditorium by hitting them with your keys from the back of the room. 5} Bike herding. Herding groups of cyclists off the road and making them think it was unintentional. 6} Backpack Throw. For distance and accuracy; throwing a forgotten backpack at your child as you roll through the school drop off lane. 7} The Sandwich Throw. For accuracy; throwing a sandwich into the driver’s window of a truck approaching you from the opposite direction. Said truck being driven by a man who was told four times that his lunch was on the counter, forgot it anyway, and called you anyway to throw it to him on your way to work.... 8} The Medication Toss; For distance and accuracy. Pulling into a driveway, throwing a bottle with something needed or forgotten to the recipient in the doorway. 9} Deer Hunter Hunting; For stealth. Locating a hiding hunter to deliver a thermos of coffee or tomato soup. 10} Scream Stifling; For speed in the face of a pointed rifle. The swiftness with which you can cover your mouth to stifle a scream after finding a hiding hunter, and because you wore your sage green chenille sweater, the over eager fool nearly shot you for dinner. Well, that’s a short list of some of the kinds of talents we admire around here, but the best talent is number 11. 11} Prayer Recitation: The amount of prayers you can recite as the ferry crashes into huge chunks of floating ice. Hearing them slam into the side of the boat and from the loudness of the echo, you are certain the next hit will tear the side open.

“....and a partridge in a pear tree...” It’s time to de-decorate. It’s the sad time in January when we have to take down all the pretty and cheerful decorations and take the tree out. The house always looks to bare and sad afterwards. And we always try to improve on our storage systems so that it will be easier to find all the decorations next year. Some people are big babies about taking down the holiday fair, but not me. My daughter, Chenoa, helps me a little, and we get it down. “Mom, Jimmy is coming with his truck this afternoon, we have to have this tree outside and ready to go. It’s the middle of January, the tree has to go.......yeah, well Daddy’s not here, is he? So there’s no need to keep the tree up till the Super Bowl. ......I saw that.....give me the ornament, Mom. .....I know, it’s the snowman I made from cotton balls in Second Grade...stop that - don’t cry over a cotton ball snowman! It was YOU who called ME to help take the decorations down, but you’re blocking all my efforts to help you! You are to! Okay, then how did the lit garland get wrapped around the shower rod? No, it doesn’t make a good night light. It looks like someone who has a serious problem putting away decorations.....Right, and what about the front door wreath now hanging over your bed? Oh, to remind you it needs a new ribbon? And when will you be weaving in a new ribbon? Not before next Christmas I bet.... Mom, you’re getting more sentimental, and I emphasize MENTAL about Christmas every year. You used to hate it when Daddy made you leave the tree up. Remember, June 6th? Remember the year he refused to take the stripped tree out of the house and you finally hired a workman to do it when he went on a fishing trip? It was so dry and brittle it broke into thousands of nettles and bits when he touched it? I remember that year - the fights over that tree are scorched into my memory. Remember when you hung a strand of green clover lights on it for St. Patrick’s Day? Daddy was furious that you were still nagging him about that tree. That’s why I never get a real tree - I just picture that dry tree with shamrocks and I know I can’t risk getting that ‘keep the tree’ psychosis. And here you are doing the same thing. I know, I get it. You’re old and every tree take down may be your last - don’t throw that angel at me! Here, just sit down - Sephira, go get Nana the noggie-nog from the fridgerator. Mom, stop blathering, drink your noggie-nog, I’d didn’t make it too strong. What? I don’t care if she takes a couple of sips right now.... Sephira, sit with Nana, you can both share the noggie-nog and stay out of my hair. Say bye-bye to the Christmas tree, Sephira! Tell Nana, it’s time to say bye bye to the tree.” You can make de-decorating a nice family activity like I do. I teach my daughter how pack things right and my granddaughter undoes whatever we do. But I’m glad to set a good example for them both. It one of the gifts of maturity.

New Year’s Resolutions I always think New Years resolutions are stupid. They never last more than the end of the day for me, but psychology pundits say that writing it down can help make it real. Okay, I’ll give it a shot. I resolve to pay off all credit cards this year. Wait, too ambitious. How about, I resolve not to charge anything until my balances are paid down by 50%. Nope, still too ambitious. I resolve to pay all the Minimum Due’s this year on time. That never works, they’re all due at different times. Okay, I resolve not to charge anything in January, I think I can manage that. Wait... what if there’s a really good sale. They said to shop smart, shop the sales and buy in the off season. All the Christmas stuff will be really cheap now. Okay, never mind resolving anything about the credit cards. I resolve to clear out my house this year of all it’s junk. I don’t qualify as a hoarder, but I don’t even want to be in the running, so it’s clean away the stuff. But it takes me a month to empty a single closet. When I see all the stuff inside, I always repack it and keep it. What I really want to do is reorganize my office. Yea, that’s the ticket! But then I have to make all those decisions of what to keep, not keep. Keep all tax stuff back five years, then there’s all the partially completed projects - I know I want them done, I just can’t pull it together and finish them! Okay, maybe I’ll just organize my hard drive and purge all the stuff I can jettison. That’s workable, plus I can drink hot chocolate while I do it. Okay, so I have the first resolution for the year 2013 - I will clean up my hard drive! Personal improvements.... boy I could spend pages and pages on this one. Let’s see, I don’t smoke or drink, so I can’t get credit for giving them up....there’s always weight loss, but I really need a personal chef for that, that’s what Oprah needed, me too I think. Let’s see, I could get rid of my chignon and get a cute short hairdo - no, too much maintenance. I’ll just rinse out the gray, that will be a big enough shock for people now. Okay, resolution #2, the gray goes. I will read all the books I have bought with intent to read, but have not read regardless of when purchased. Ow.... not even close. Why is it I can never give away unread books that I’ve had for years? With the advent of the internet, they are just clutter that I drag with me. Still, I love books. I love the feel and smell of them. The secure way they smash spiders. I do love books... Well, I have two resolutions now, clean out my hard drive and rinse my hair. But I think that’s ambitious enough...for the year. No sense in overdoing anything...

Were the Mayan Lyin’ ? Somewhere in the heaven’s where the ancients Mayans hang out..... “Can you believe that, Juan? They bought it! They thought the world was going to flip it’s axis and north would be west, south would go east and Australia would have just spun off on it’s on.” “I know, they must’ve had a hundred TV specials on it with all their favorite pundits weighing in. Some of them got all prepared for the end of the world. I ‘d cry if it weren’t so funny. And looks who’s coming - the man of the hour - Manual de Mathica!” “Yo, guys, I am cleaning up on this bet so much I’m embarrassed. Remember what Senior Penna said? Write in rock and they’ll read it and believe it forever. Hell, I was impressed that they even decrypted it.” “I feel kinda sorry for the people that spent all their time decrypting it though Manny.” “And you did such a kick ass job on those glyphs, Manny, works of art.” “Yea. It was just a homework assignment. Just our senior thesis on how to set up a system to measure time for all long as you wanted to. It was Diego Mathstien that came up with the idea of breaking time into specific units, instead of just; one, two, three........ Diego said, we’ll make up three calendars; one for everyday use, one for religious use and one as a science project to see how far we can go. Diego said lets just think of the next big astronomical event coming up - like all the planets lining up with the eye of God in the Milky Way - and work the math back so it fits in the timeline. They’ll think we’re genius - and they do!” “They can’t all think that. They’ll all still speculating on why our civilization ended quickly.” “They haven’t figured out it was that five year drought yet?” “Not all of them. There was scientist on National Geographic who did a great job proving with the ice cores, that we had a terrible drought while some desert in Africa got all our rain. Maybe some of them just couldn’t realize you need a lot of water for a city that big.” Our family left after the temples had donated all their water, we knew we we doomed then. We had to find water or die. So simple, but they have all kinds of theories.” “Well, after Dec 21, they’ll start reshuffling theories. They’ll say it actually means the beginning of a new era.” “I’m just hoping none of them figure out our Direct TV wormhole. There sports package is killer. Universes may come and go, but sports lasts forever, man.

Don't Give Up The Sleigh... Time to reve up and steal ourselves for Christmas. We will get some presents we wanted - thank God, some we don’t want or like, whicj we will accept with a gracious thank you. We will shoot dagger eyes at our children who open a gift in front of the giver and say, “Eww, this isn’t what I wanted!” We will take phone calld from people we must talk to once a year. I personally believe that eggnog was invented specifically for the purpose of getting through those horrible - I have no idea what to say - phone calls. My donation is my annual Christmas column. I hope you like it, revised and embellished to the limit of belief of course... I believe there are people and things and ideas that belong to the world. Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur, Louie Armstrong, all the great minds and artists, are some of the people who belong to the world. The Pyramids, the Statue of Liberty, the Dome of the Rock, the Great Wall of China, the Wailing Wall are some things that belong to the world. The Bagavad-Gita, the Upanishads, the teachings of Buddha, the Torah and Talmud, the New Testament, the Koran and all spiritually enriching ideas belong to the world. Kwanzaa with it’s focus on family, Chanukah with it’s theme of rededication to that which is holy, Christmas with it’s message of hope and peace, all belong to the world. And I believe, Santa Claus, the person and the idea, belongs to the world too. We learn about Santa early. He loves us and brings a present. We grow up a little and eventually figure out the Santa conspiracy. As teens, we denounce our all childhood beliefs, especially Santa. We become “cool” and pretty much know everything by the time we're twenty. It's beyond comprehension to us how our dumb relatives can lead such screwed up lives. We'll never repeat the mistakes of our parents. Through our twenties, we shun our families for our friends and lovers. We don't need Santa, our idiot families, or the whole holiday mishmosh. We are all-knowing, we are powerful, we are so stupid it will later astound us. We spend our thirties correcting all the mistakes we made in our twenties. Most of us are married with children and suddenly we hear our mother's words coming out of our mouths. We worry alot because there is way too much month left at the end of the money. Our forties are great, aside from the fact that body parts start heading south... Now you know you have all of what you need and much of what you want. You realize that money ebbs and flows in life. Money only increases options. Chicken tastes the same whether it's served on a paper plate or a golden one. And money doesn't insulate anyone from pain, loneliness or despair. Possessions become just “things”, and things come and go. What's really important is time. The days are longer and the years are shorter. You can never have one minute of your life back, ever. Suddenly, there's not always a "next time". You might as well do what you like while it’s still legal. Old dreams come off the shelf. You make the time to restore the car. Time to drink the good wine and eat off the fine china. You let go of grudges because while you’re holding a grudge, they’re out dancing... You finally realize that own opinion is what matters most. Is it really going to matter what someone else thought of anything you did in a hundred years? Nope. You've matured enough to know that you're not better than anyone else, but damn if you ain't just as good. You rediscover your very own still amusing, still annoying, family. My grandfather had a pair of tweezers he hung on a tiny nail in his shaving cabinet. All the girls used it to tweeze eyebrows. One Christmas Eve, he pitched one of his famous fits about the tweezers, which were missing again, and he didn’t let up all evening until we left for midnight Mass. That Christmas, we all gave him tweezers as joke. He got eight pairs of tweezers that year. Santa has made a dramatic comeback in your life by now, and he’s even grander than you remembered. He doesn't dye his hair. Married to a woman who’s the same age he is. He's fat and wears red, so you can’t miss him. You find you need Santa more as an adult than you ever did as a child. You've seen enough tragedy and not enough miracles. But Santa is an annual miracle you can depend on. Santa lets us pause and reconnect with all our Christmas' past. As soon as we hear Bing Crosby sing "White Christmas", we hear the sound of our own back door, the smell of our own pillow, echoes of our parent's voices. We’d give anything to be six years old once more and bound down the stairs on Christmas morning and see our disheveled parents in rumpled robes sitting on the couch, watching us through a flurry of flying ribbons and paper. Nothing you need now can be brought down a chimney in a sack. Still, it’s alright somehow. You know you’re all grown up when you no longer need Santa's presents, but God above, how you still need his presence...Happy Holidays to you! And God Bless us, everyone !

Choose a Tree Before I Kill You “Good morning, Ms. Flynn. You stand here in court today to defend the fact that you hit your husband in the face with a small log at a Christmas Tree farm. You have pled guilty, let’s hear your story.” “Yes, your Honor, and it helps that you’re a woman, your Honor, I think this will make sense to you. My husband, James, is one of those particular pain-in-the-ass people, everything has to be done a certain way, you can’t skip any steps. Every year we go to a tree farm to choose just the right tree. It was easy when it was just the two of us. It got a little harder when we had our daughter, but managing one child and one man at a tree farm where they can run loose has become an impossible task. I can’t keep track of a two year old, a four year old and a forty five year old, especially when the four year old has a small chain saw.” “You mean the forty five year old has the chain saw.” “No, your Honor, I mean the four year old. She’s fast and while I was wrangling her brother, she distracted her father and got the chain saw because she’s convinced she can do everything we can do.” “And that’s when you hit him in the face? For letting a four year old get ahold of a chain saw? I can understand that.” “No, that wasn’t it. He was afraid to go after her in case, she did know how to operate a chain saw, so I left the toddler with him and went after her. She runs fast and is hard to catch, but whenever I saw people running for their lives, I knew where she was. I laid under a large tree until she ran by and used a sweeping leg move to trip her. I got the chain saw, but she bolted. I found my husband by listening for loud crying and traded the chain saw for the toddler, then I slapped my hubby’s face and told him to stop crying. Apparently our son ripped out sections of his fathers beard while he was struggling to get away. I told my man to stop inspecting every goddam tree and pick one. But trying to get him to change his routine is like trying to bend a rock. He resumed inspecting every tree. Another hour went by, I saw my daughter a few times between trees. I saw my man still meandering among the greens. I was out of toddler snacks and freezing. My daughter showed up, with low blood sugar, and the whimpering that goes with it. I called to Himself and he came over to tell me he just had four more rows to check and then he could narrow it down to three or four trees.” “So you hit him with one of those little logs laying around to make him give up the search and get the car. Well, who wouldn’t under those circumstances?” “No, that wasn’t it, your Honor. I told James I was dragging the kids back to the car to get them warmed up, plus I had some cheese and M&M’s in my diaper bag for my daughter when she gets like this. He said, “Fine,” and headed off. I got to the car, fought them into their car seats, gave my son a bottle but I couldn’t find the zip lock bag with her foods. I decided to drive to him and pitch a fit until he got in the car. As I approached the driver’s side, I saw an empty zip lock bag on the ground. James had eaten her foods. And she was now past her low blood sugar grouchiness and into blood curdling screaming for her cheese. I drove the car among the trees like I was in a stock car race. I took out several small trees and sent people running. Finally, I saw him, still examining trees. I hit the gas and sent him flying into an open area. I drove to him and pushed him into the passenger seat, using a small log as a lever to get his legs in. I got back in the car and was pulling away when he said, “Don’t take the Interstate, I know it’s shorter, but I want to see the Christmas decorations on the residential streets”. And that’s when it happened. Like and out of body experience, I watched as my hand grabbed the log and hit him in the face. I watched as his unconscious head rolled back on the head rest. It was so peaceful. My son had fallen asleep, my daughter was in a coma, and he was unconscious. I knew, except for this little incident, it was going to be a good Christmas.”

Sweater Weather If you’re a guy, just turn to another page, this will not interest you at all. Okay gals, this is it, sweater weather is here! Soft, comfortable, cozy warm sweaters, old favorites and new, time to come out of the sacheted drawers and enjoy. First, check for fuzzy balls, those little pills of fuzzy fiber that roll up and look beads on the sweater. Pick them off with your fingers if you can because they make any sweater look worn and dated. I bought one of those sweater shavers advertised in magazines and it works very well. I put on the sweater and shaved my chest, and before you know it, the sweater looks new again. Now, after you’ve gotten rid of the fuzzy balls, you’ll notice something else as you regard sweatered self in the mirror. Like flocks of geese, breasts seem to think that they should head south for the winter. I recall when I was younger that Glamour magazine introduced us all to “The Pencil Test” - remember that? If you could put a pencil under your breast and if it fell to the ground, you were firm and high enough to go without a bra. Today, I couldn’t pass that test with a typewriter ....and a sweater seems to announce the status of the fallen to the world. So, just as October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, I think November should be New Bra Awareness month. We should be given a tax credit for buying new bras - good ones - with straps that have the same tensile strength as the cables on the Brooklyn Bridge. The tax credit should fit under the criteria of rebuilding America’s infrastructure. I used to call these bras my Rodeo Round-Up bras, you put them on whenever it was time to head ‘em up and move ‘em out..... I have a small booby relative who always envied big boobies, but now that we are adults and she has witnessed the down slide, I mean down side, of big boobies, she - who can still pass the Pencil Test in her forties - is now very happy with her body and I envy her. She’ll never have to have her breasts flattened between two planes of plexiglass to find a lump. She can just look down and spot a lump if it’s there. If you have pulls on your sweater, do not cut them off, the knit will unravel and create a hole that will just grow and grow as a natural blonde friend of mine discovered one time. You have to pull the loop through to the inside of the sweater with a bobby pin or small crochet hook, and leave it alone. Also, if you wash your sweaters inside out, they are less likely to gather lint and fuzzy balls. Small booby girls love sweaters because they think it makes them look bigger, big booby girls like them because there’s no blouse buttons to pull or pop open. Sweaters are comfortable and pretty and bring happiness to boobies everywhere, and I say, God bless ‘em!

Squatter’s Rights for Mice? I’ve had a little mouse now for about a month. He comes up from under the sink around 8:30PM and crosses the kitchen over to the living room and runs along the wall until he gets behind the TV. I named him Terry. He’s about the size a walnut, and except for the little crunching noises I hear, because he’s found a cherrio my granddaughter left, I never hear him at all. The expression, “quiet as a mouse” is quite accurate. I’ve been trying to think of ways to humanely excise from the premises. I don’t want to kill him. He’s just a tiny little fellow looking for warmth and a raisin or maybe a cookie crumb. How can I be cruel? Mousetraps will snap his back and there’s this blue cake thing that I can leave for him by the sink. It makes him super thirsty, and when he drinks water the blue cake will just expand in his stomach until it kills him. I’ve tried to have discussions with him. Sometimes when he crosses the living room from the TV to under the couch, he stops near a toy and looks at me. It’s clear to me he’s trying to communicate. He does squeak sometimes and I assume he’s making an appeal to live out the winter with me. I have to say, it’s appealing. It does get lonely at night and he is awfully cute, and strong. I was so surprised when he managed to drag a plastic spoon with peanut butter residue from behind the toy box to his hideout behind the TV. I didn’t know mice could drag things. Mice can also pop straight up about twelve inches when startled. I never knew that either. He was crossing the living room one evening and I dropped something, accidentally, not to scare him, and he popped straight up! I felt awful that I had scared him so bad. Poor little guy, just looking for a cheese doodle and I practically give him a heart attack. I have also learned how fast mice are! I usually am aware of Terry just as he disappears under something. Small, fast, agile, no wonder we have to set traps for them, you could never catch them. Terry’s begun to get a little bolder with time. He runs closer to me than when he first got here. I haven’t deliberately given him any food. I don’t want him to think that’s it’s totally okay with me that he’s here. He really should go live in the woods with his friends. He should realize that no matter how hard we work at it, our friendship would be very limited by virtue of being different species. No matter how cute he is, and even if he could learn to squeak once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no’, he just doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to keep up with me. I’d have to constantly pause Dancing With The Stars and explain everything to him. And how could I understand mouse life? I’ve never been able to flatten my body to half and inch and get under doors. And one pretzel does not a meal make. And there’s another issue, which has only recently come up. When Terry first got here, I told him that he couldn’t have any friends over. However, about three nights ago, I thought Terry was really active because I kept seeing him in the kitchen and a second later, I’d see him in the living room. Well, you guessed it, he invited someone over against my expressed rules. I know it’s just one more little mouse, but if I let him get away with this, where does it stop? I don’t want my house to be party central for mice. Unless they’re going to make me a dress, like they did for Cinderella, they cannot hang out here. My daughter said she’s getting mousetraps. She thinks I’ve become too emotionally involved with Terry. Well, it’s possible I suppose. I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned putting a string of Christmas lights under the TV for him.....

Paper Gods Against the Odds “If this is your second day here, Bob, that’s good in a way because we’re gonna get a lot of calls to put in claims from alleged storm damage.” “Well, storm damage is storm damage, isn’t it? A tree goes down and hits the house, Act of God, right?” “Bob, civilians define “God” differently than insurance companies. Let me show you a picture of “God” here at our company. Here, take a look.” “It’s mirror. I don’t get it.” “It’s you, Bob, the Insurance Agent is God. We sell policies that cover “...and accidents that constitute Acts of God.” But there’s no definition of God in the policy and no legal definition of God exists because no court could ever define God, so we define God on an incident to incident basis.” “Then you could deny anything.” “No, Bob, better than that, we can deny everything. Last week, a woman called claiming Hurricane Sandy caused a huge old maple tree to hit her roof and damage her kitchen. She wants a wall repaired and a new stove.” “How could you say no to that? The hurricane was big news, people are still recovering, hell, I’ve got to rebuild a section of fence at my house.” “Think, Bob.....how do we know how old that tree was? Did that old tree, that has withstood hundreds of storms in it’s life really get taken out because of this one storm? Maybe it just dropped dead of old age as the storm approached and she misinterpreted it as falling from gale force winds. Now I ask you, Bob, which is more likely?” “Frankly, the winds took it down I would think.” “But you can’t know for sure. I’m the God of her policy and I think that tree died of old age, a predictable event and therefore not an “Act of God” as defined in her policy. You see, Bob? No pay out, no, we hate to say the “S” word around here, but no Settlement. Remember, the job of the insurance company is to collect premiums, not pay....the “S” word.” “But that’s why people buy insurance! To help pay for repairs or replacements.” “No, Bob, people buy insurance to feel better, to feel confident that they are prepared for whatever comes. We sell good feelings, Bob, good feelings. People read the policies, they read everything that’s promised, they get that happy, peaceful look, it’s a beautiful thing, Bob. Makes me get misty eyed every time I think about it.” “Yeah, but they feel that way because we sold them a safety net against disasters and catastrophes.” “You say disasters, I say dividends. You say catastrophes, I say cash flow. It’s all how you look at it, Bob. We sell the policies, they buy peace of mind. They make a claim, we deny it, then we have peace of mind. It all balances itself out. One big circle of life.” “I’m God?” “That’s right, Bob, you’re God to whomever calls to make a claim.” “So, if I’m God, I can say yes or no?” “Well, a little more no than yes.” “Uh-huh, like 60% no and 40% yes?” “More like 99% no, and 30% yes, we are a company that cares, says so in all the brochures.” “You can’t have 99% no and 30% yes.” “That’s tomorrow’s lesson, Bob, insurance mathematics. It’s not the same as what you learned in school. We bend mathematical constants to fit our advertising goals.” “And we can do that because we’re Gods?” “See, Bob? It all works together.... it’s a beautiful thing.”

A Night to Remember The picture above is actually one of the Shelter Island ferries, just so you know it's real. Well, Hurricane Sandy certainly reminded us all who’s boss.... A huge tree went down by the school, one of the grand old maples that was grand when I went to school. Trees and branches flung all over the place, lots of people lost their lawn furniture, and lots of people got new lawn furniture courtesy of the storm. The tides made the ferries inaccessible, because you couldn’t even see the gate that lines you up with the ferry. Taking a ferry during the storm would not have been a leap of faith, but rather a plunge of faith... One of biggest fears here is to be stuck off-Island. Everybody gets back from the Commons and Tanger well ahead of storms, makes the last two stops at the IGA and liquor store and then home to hunker down. Many years ago, I missed the last ferry and got stuck off-Island. I had to spend the night all alone, but at least I was first in line for the 6 A.M. boat. I didn’t have the money for a motel, so I had to sleep in the car. It was late and no food places were open. It’s just six hours I told myself, who can’t survive six hours? During the first hour I read with the cabin light. But that’s a poor light to read by so I gave up after a half hour. It was autumn and I was getting cold. I had a wool wrap, so I wrapped that around my legs, turned on the car and ran the heater for awhile. During the second hour, I cleaned out my glove compartment and as much as I could reach on the floors behind me. That was productive, I thought, I needed to do that anyway. French fries can get rock hard with age. I also found McDonalds Monopoly pieces and a Happy Meal toy of Ursula, the bad witch from Little Mermaid. I put her on the dashboard, she was evil, but at least now I had someone to talk to. The third hour I worried about using up my battery to run the heater, so I drove the car around the ferry waiting circle a few times, always on the alert, even in the middle of the night, that some one might sneak into the line and get ahead of me. Silly, because so what if I’m the second car on the boat? The only real advantage to being first on the boat is that you’re placed front and center, so you get to imagine that you’re driving the boat. I realized once that my imagination was getting away from me when I began hitting my brakes to slow the boat down as we approached the dock. The 4 to 5 A.M. hour was actually about three hours long. Time slows down when you’re waiting and cold. I pulled some old beach towels out of the back seat, they were stiff and smelly, but I wrapped them around me just the same. I closed my eyes, but you really can’t sleep in those circumstances, plus there might be zombies or vampires in Greenport who cruise ferry lines. Best to be on the lookout. At 5 A.M., I knew the end was near. I found some makeup in my purse and freshened up in the rearview mirror. I’m not sure why I put on makeup at that time, I think I was thinking of the ferrymen. Bad enough to have to be at work at 6 A.M., seeing me without makeup can turn straight men gay. The morning light framed the ferry as it crossed the silver tipped waves. Finally, the end of a long night. The pleasure of leaving the mainland behind and getting back on-Island never fades.

Trick or Treat There’s a lot of nostalgia this time of year for the way things used to be. In some ways things were better and in some ways worse. When I look at the Halloween costumes kids have today, I am impressed; they light up, have parts that move or recorded sound effects, really superior to what I had as a kid. Growing up in the sixties, we had two categories of costumes; homemade and store bought. Store bought costumes were all made of the cheapest, thinnest fabric in existence, if it were any thinner, it would be spray. They were all sewn just well enough to stay together in the box, but started to shred when you put them on. All the costumes were based on cartoon or movie characters. You could gauge the popularity of a show by how many Batmans showed up at the door. After one night of trick or treat, the costumes were reduced to panels of unraveling threads. All the costumes had a tie at the back of the neck. It never tied tight and one string would reliably break on the third try. Your mother would use a big diaper pin, one with a yellow duck head on it (if you remember those diaper pins, you are officially middle-aged), to secure the costume, it would tear the fabric, but hold until the end of the night. But the real hardship in those days of yore, were the masks. They were all firm plastic. Hard enough to break if stepped on, and thin enough to cut your face. Usually, your mother had to cut the eye holes out more so the edges of the eye holes didn’t scratch. Visibility was limited to what was directly in front of you, no peripheral vision. If you were looking down to avoid stumbling over the lawn gnomes, you hit your head on the Welcome sign, and if you were looking up to steer yourself towards the porch, you tripped over the edge of the walkway. All the kids were staggering all over, looking like groups of very short drunks. These masks usually had a small hole for the mouth, but no openings for your nostrils. It had the effect of holding in moisture from your breath so that the inside of the mask was like a sauna. You had to periodically lift the mask to get oxygen and the cold air would hit your hot wet face like a cold towel. Although you needed the fresh air, you couldn’t wait to get the warm mask back on. It was a real Catch-22 situation. The masks were held on by a single elastic string with sharp metal tabs at each end that went through holes in the side of the mask. The strings popped out easily and one of the rites of passage in childhood at that time was to be able to wiggle that metal tab through that tiny hole and repair your own mask without asking your mother for help. Often, as you were putting the mask on, the elastic string would slip loose and snap you in the face. Many an eye came close to being put out by metal tabs traveling at Mach One. We all carried these big paper shopping bags with twine handles that, like the costumes they matched, were designed to last only a few short hours. First, one side would break and you’d have carry your bag with one intact loop and one loose string. Within an hour of the first loop breaking, the second loop went and we all came home trying to carry a heavy bag with two short lengths of twine. Ahhh, the good old days, well, maybe not that good.....

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign I have long been disturbed by our culture new fascination with vampires, zombies and all things that originate from the dark side, but this really is over the top. Assc Press Oct. 11: PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Drivers may have gotten a chuckle out of an electronic message board in Maine warning of zombies, but city officials were not amused. The sign at a Portland road construction site was changed by a hacker to read "Warning Zombies Ahead!" on Wednesday morning. It originally read "Night work 8 pm-6 am. Expect delays.” Arguably the hacker wasn’t completely wrong, night shift will turn anyone into a zombie if you work it long enough. Still, there’s lots of laws about changing signs. If there weren’t, you’d see signs on the Island like this: “Joe; Your Restraining Order Starts Here” “Super Slow: Fox On Your Left Has New Pups” “End Of Hunting Zone: Put The Guns Away Guys” “Is It 10PM? Are Your Children On Island? Any Chance You Know Where?” “Gulls Dropping Clams on Road; Next Mile” “Geese Landing All Over Road - Only Kill What You Can Eat” “Slow: Mr. Smith Has Dementia. Thinks He Works For NASCAR and Waves Checkered Flags” Somewhere near the IGA would be a discreet sign: “Entenmann’s Truck Delivers On Thursday Mornings. Truck is Unguarded While Driver Delivers In Store” “The Gods Do Not Subtract From A Man’s Life The Hours Spent Fishing /Chinese Proverb - Works For Us” “If You Smell Garlic , Mama Leoni Is Cooking. Pull Over and Beg” Slow: Horse Riders Ahead; Free Manure” “Deer Crossing, Then Crossing Back, Then Crossing Again” “Squirrels All Over, Just Do Your Best” “If You’re An Off-Islander; We Don’t Care How They Do It Where You’re From” “Lost? Yea, We Figured. Just Wave To Somebody.” “Yes, Both Ferries Are Located By The Water” The ferries would have signs that would be spaced every five hundred feet from the front of the line starting with: “Yes, We Know How Long You’ve Waited, Do You Want To Get On The Boat Or Not?” “You Will Be On The Next Boat. Put The Crossword Away And Have Your Money Ready” “You’re Too Close To Turn Back Now. Read Something and Chill” “If You’re Stopped Here, The Line is 45 Minutes Long. Eat Whatever You Brought With You. “Your Wait Is One Hour From Here. Smoke’em If You Got’em.” “If The Line Starts Here For You, The Ferry Wizard Says - Go Home And Come Back Tomorrow And Bring The Broomstick Of The Wicked Witch Of The West With You!”

Deer vs. Car, a.k.a. Death by Buick The Shelter Island Reporter reported two car vs. deer collisions last week. In each case the deer caused more than $1000 in damage to the car. It used to be the other way around. Cars caused about $500 in venison steaks to be donated to your freezer. I called it Death by Buick, and it was a perfectly acceptable way for nontraditional hunters to hunt on Shelter Island. My mother got a deer with her Oldsmobile on the way to work one day. The police tied it across the hood and gave her the address of a hunter to have it butchered. He kept half the meat in exchange for his services. It was a good system and mother never had to wait in the cold blowing on hot tomato soup in a thermos for hours. She kept it to one kill a season, and that was only if the deer jumped in front of her car. I think it’s nice that newer cars are designed with lighter materials to save gas and all that green stuff, but really, if a deer can take out the front of your car, how much protection do you really have? Maybe some one should design a car specifically for Island residents all up and down the northeast coast. Ford introduces, the all new, Island Hopper The Island Hopper is the newest in Ford’s line. The Hopper, designed for island life is filled with special features: The FerryFinder: Regardless of where you are on your island, turn on your FerryFinder and follow the ferry icon on your in-dashboard monitor to your ferry of choice. The DeSandy: The DeSandy is a new floor system. Your carpet is pervious and sand passes through to a grid of collection pans under the floorboards. Just activate and the car will shimmy for six minutes to shake out all the sand. The PortaDesk: A portable surface is affixed to your car’s interior roof. When you need to have a car to car or truck to truck meeting, pull your Hopper up to the drivers side of the other car, pop out your PortaDesk, it spans from your door to theirs and hooks onto their door, creating a smooth flat surface that papers, maps, and lunch, can be spread upon. You can have meetings from the seat of your Hopper. The DeerClear monitoring system. Never hit a deer again unless you want to. DeerClear sends a recording of a rifle shot towards any deer it finds on its search grid. DeerClear can also come with DeerNear, for those who opt to hunt with their Hopper. Unlike other vehicles, all Hoppers have the anti-deer front bumper. A deer could be launched into your Hopper by a jet rocket, and the new, NoF*ingWay Bumper will hold. Also, our all new, KnowByBlow is standard in all Hoppers. Next to the cigarette lighter is a police approved breathalyzer, never drive drunk again without knowing it. Turn on the BeerNear system to locate liquor stores, or turn on the PartyFinder to find parties by music volume. And the Hopper is the first Ford to offer the KidSaver seat separator. Hit a button on your dash and Plexiglas dividers pop up from the seats to isolate any disruptive occupants. You will not have to hear them and they can’t reach out and touch anyone. KidSaver includes a pepper spray option to control teens and nitrous oxide for screaming babies. The Hopper - Ford thinks of it all for You!

Think Pink Well, it’s official, autumn is here. I’ve spoken with several maple trees and tried to get them to turn colors in some kind of sequential order so that the colors last longer. I just hate it when they all seem to deliberately peak together, and for three days the Island is glorious in autumnal splendor, and then, just out of spite, they drop their leaves all at once. Then it’s rake, rake, rake, bag, bag, bag, bang, bang, bang (deer season), and suddenly, the whole Island looks naked without it’s foliage. Dear hunting season is always a little scary. It’s amazing how close the report of a rifle sounds in cool clear air. I remember I used to call my kids in when I heard shots, just in case.. I know all hunters are pretty conscientious and make the kill as fast as they can, but I still don’t like to think about it too much. What makes me feel even worse is how delicious venison is....but I’m not admitting that to anyone. Many hunters wear bright orange fatigues. How do they know that deer can’t see the color orange? Obviously it must be true because there are so few Shelter Island men who would shop for fatigues and ask, “Pardon me, do you have these in mango?” Some of them even have matching orange rifles, completes the look I think. What do deer really see? From http://www.qdma.com/study-materials/what-do-deer-see: “The results of our study confirmed that deer possess two (rather than three as in humans) types of cones allowing limited color vision. The cone that deer lack is the “red” cone, or the one sensitive ... colors such as red and orange....This does not mean that these colors are invisible to deer, but rather that they are perceived differently. Deer are essentially red-green color blind like some humans. Their color vision is limited to the short (blue) and middle (green) wavelength colors. As a result, deer likely can distinguish blue from red, but not green from red, or orange from red. “ In other, other words, deer can’t see pink either. Which begs the question, how many girl and gay hunters (I’m sure there are a few) are out there in that hideous marmalade mash when they could be in flamingo pink? It’s hard enough to look good in the woods with all the dirt and buggy things they have out there without having to try to do it in orange. Bring on the pink fatigues and there’d be more hunters I bet. Of course, the only thing wrong with adding those who hunt in pink is that whole thing about being quiet - like for hours at a time - just sitting in the dirt with bugs crawling all over, sipping hot soup, coffee, or beer and not talking, all at the same time. It’s really quite an accomplishment when I stop to think about it. Sitting silently in an orange outfit waiting for something to walk by that you can shoot. It’s like shopping I suppose, but you make the kill with bullets instead of credit card and you eat what you kill instead of spreading it on the couch to improve the decor.

Why doesn’t the world turn the way I want it to - Whose idea was it to tape political campaign messages and randomly call phone numbers and annoy people? Of all the bad ideas for campaigning this has to be the worst. If you were for the candidate, you will be against them by the third time their auto-annoy message interrupts your day. The one commodity that is more available today than at any other time in history is information. If you want to read about a candidates platform, you can read their website, watch them on boob-tube, read their face space page, or sign up to have them tweet you so you can get up the second reports on what they are doing. There is no justification for these auto-annoy calls. Unless of course, these are set up by the opposing team to drive voters away, in which case, it’s a brilliant idea. Of course the real problem with the auto-annoy calls is that, what if Washington really is calling you for help with a problem and you just erase the message without listening to it? “George, did you get ahold of Clark on Shelter Island yet about renting a ferry for the wine and clams on the half fundraiser?” “Senator, do you know how many Clarks there are on Shelter Island?” “I know, but just call any one of them and they will be able to tell you who to talk to about a ferry rental.” “I already thought of that. I’ve left sixteen messages with Clarks on the island and none of them have called back.” “When we call them, what shows up on their Caller ID, do you know?” “Just “Washington”, isn’t that enough?” “Not for them. Tell you what, we need to call from a Caller ID that will get a response.” “Good idea, Senator. How about we call from the IRS phone, that will get their attention.” “No, that will just drive them underground. What about calling from a massage parlor?” “No, sir, that will just get a husband shot somewhere. Hey - that’s it, it’s only the women that would call anyone back - Tanger Mall - we hack into their phone line and leave a message that they won a $200 gift certificate. $200 is enough to be believed and I bet we’ll get called back on that.” “Yea, but we’d better have the money if they call sir.” “We will, it’s quite justified as a campaign expenditure. $200 for a lead on a ferry rental, works for me.”

Maple Tree Tells All “Hello, Shelter Island Police, how may I help you?..........Uh-huh....uh-huh....yes, we know her, she does that Mrs. Smith. Yeah, I can tell from your description it’s her. Big lady, bright colors, walks with a cane, make-up by Crayola....yea, that’s Ms Flynn. She always talks to the trees. She has Shinnecock ancestors and she was raised that trees have feelings..... Well, she’s not on your property, right? Just talking to the maple on your property? Well I can drive out there and ask her to leave and she will, but she’ll just go bother some other tree and someone else will call me. It would be nice if you could just ignore her, she’s used to it. Uh-huh...uh-huh.... and when you spoke to her before you called, she was nice. Yea, she’s nice. Let me guess, the tree in front of your house is the first one starting to show a little color, right? Yup. She has a theory that the first tree signals the ones around it to turn colors and she just wants them to stagger their color changes so it makes the autumn last longer. .....Right, and it gives the deer cover for a little longer before hunting season starts. I know, that’s why we don’t recommend that you talk with her too long, after about half an hour, she starts to make sense. But she’s not really making sense, she’s just blurring your lines of reality and next thing you know, you can’t put a nail in a tree without wondering if you’re hurting it. No, she’s never been examined. She’s not a danger to herself or anyone else. I’m sure some trees would files complaints if they could. She’s perfectly harmless. After awhile, when she realizes she’s not getting anywhere with that tree, she’ll waddle away, just don’t put out any Entenmann’s for her, or she might find her way back. If you think she’s odd now, watch for her in the spring, down by the Whale’s Tale. There’s a patch of white violets she watches over, her and her mother. They talk to them in spring and encourage them to spread their patch and every year that patch gets bigger. I used to discourage her, but my wife likes white violets, so now I Iet her alone and pick a little bouquet up on my way home from work. You don’t have any roses leaning over any fences do you? Oh yeah? Well, if you plant a row there in the Spring, be aware, she has a real affinity for roses. She’ll talk the color right off them. She thinks aphids shake at the sound of her name. She carries around a homemade anti-aphid solution and sprays it on unsuspecting roses all summer. It’s one quart water, nicotine soaked from one cigarette and a teaspoon of dish soap. The soap breaks the surface tension on the leaf, the nicotine somehow nourishes the leaves and kills the aphids. How do I know? I told you, don’t talk to her too long or you’ll start paying attention. Now I’m wasting good cigarettes to spray my wife’s roses. Yeah, seems to work though.....Gardenias? Oh God, don’t get her started on gardenias. She can’t seem to grow them and she thinks they have a vendetta against her. Trust me, don’t bring up gardenias, or you’ll spin her into a whole new level of organic crazy. Okay, Mrs. Smith, you take care.”